Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
“To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen by others and not recognized for oneself.”6 The process of representation is from subject to object—and, nearly without exception, through the brush, hands, or eyes of men.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
Madonna also embodies the ideologies of postfeminism, with its attendant privileging of the desires, power, and pleasure of the individual woman over actual equality and rights for women in general.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
But that’s the point: the audience sees Hannah’s breasts as the world sees Hannah’s breasts: imperfect, inappropriate, unsexy. But Hannah, especially Hannah-on-coke, doesn’t see her body the way the world does: to her, the mesh shirt and her loose breasts are deliciously sexy; her look could not be more perfect; she conceives of herself as an
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
As Weiner puts it, “Any woman who ever put pen to paper, or finger to laptop, has had to deal with sexism, discrimination and double standards, has had to fight harder than a man to get published, to get noticed, to get reviewed, to get profiled. I’m not saying that we all need to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but I wish that there was some
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
Femininity cloaked power and strength, made it more palatable, less threatening.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
I was happy, ostensibly, but every move was motivated by fear.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
So here lies the publishing industry: the “accessible,” commercial book at the bottom, necessary to the bottom line but not worthy of adulation; and in the rarefied air on top, there’s the masculine, the artistic, and the reliant on cultural patronage. That’s an exaggeration and simplification—but not by much. These attitudes dictate how we ascribe
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
The problem, then, is that seeking transnormativity does very little to actually address or dissipate transphobia. By making people forget that someone is trans, it also means they don’t have to confront the anxiety, fear, or anger that arises when someone destabilizes the binary understanding of gender.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
In the end, matriarchy isn’t the fear. Rather, it’s the idea that women will define their own value, and their own futures, on their own terms instead of by terms men have laid out—put differently, that each gender, and each individual, will have the power to determine their own destiny.