From now on, whenever anyone asks me to explain my affection for Nicki Minaj, Hillary Clinton, or Serena Williams, Iâm going to force them to read Anne Helen Petersenâs new book, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman. While reading it, I was overcome by a near-constant urge to get the word âunrulyâ tattooed on my actual skin, because Petersen has encapsulated something so profound, so elemental, so obvious that I almost felt like Iâd known it intrinsically, but had heretofore lacked the language and theoretical context to truly articulate it.
Sheâs done this through 10 case studies of perfectionist workaholic womenâalso including Lena Dunham, Madonna, Caitlyn Jenner, and Broad Cityâs Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazerâwhose careers have been marked in some way by unruliness, and whose importance to history isnât tempered by the abjection they inspire in others. Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud more than supports its thesis that the future belongs to women who claim space as subjects in their own lives, rather than objects in the lives of men.
Petersenâs examples of this are stark and powerful: She thoughtfully deconstructs Williamsâ refusal to apologize for her body, her Blackness, or her strength; Minajâs insistence on her place in the upper echelon of hip-hop and her willingness to adopt personae that are ugly or angry, trading likeability in order to be the boss; and Clintonâs unkillable ambition in a political arena thatâs tried to destroy her time and again. After reading through them, hereâs what I can say about these women: Like the hero in Wonder Woman, the world of men kind of doesnât deserve them. But for women who have been told theyâre too opinionated, too political, too sensitive, too intimidating, or really, well, too much of anything, here, at long last, are our patron saints.
Petersenâs angle is academic, not worshipful. Though she now writes cultural criticism for Buzzfeed, sheâs an academia escapee, and so brings a pleasing critical rigor to her work. Feminist-informed nonfiction is having a moment right now, but much of it is light in its gloss of critical theory, unnuanced in its discussion of public policy, and more of a review session for those of us who grew up steeped in the stuff than anything groundbreaking. Iâm not interested in denigrating these books, but nor do I want to read them. But I really wanted to read Petersenâs book, and when I started, I couldnât stop. Here is a book whose delight in its own wonkiness is infectious, and whose deep empathy for its subjects is also matched with fair-minded critique. While our hot-take internet news cycle often doesnât foster nuance, Petersen does, in spades, whether sheâs discussing the abuse leveled at Kim Kardashian during her first pregnancy; the sexist, racist treatment of Serena Williams vis-Ă -vis someone like Roger Federer; Melissa McCarthyâs comedic fugue states; or novelist Jennifer Weinerâs âeffort to destabilize the hierarchies of the publishing worldâ as embodied by Jonathan Franzen and literatureâs longstanding boysâ club, which welcomes women as consumers but not authors.
Iâve written often about how painful Clintonâs loss was for me and many of my fellow workaholic perfectionist women friends. And itâs particularly poignant to read Petersenâs discussion of Clintonâs unruliness in 2017, to be reminded that some of the things Iâve always admired most about Clinton are considered weaknesses because she happens to be a woman. Of claims that Clinton is untrustworthy, Petersen writes, âAt the heart of all of this perceived duplicitousness, after all, is Clintonâs unrepentant ambition. Itâs Clintonâs defining character trait: her understanding of her worth is so strong that sheâs refused, at every point in her life and career, to let men define her.â What a shame that so many are so afraid of a quality we should wish for every little girl to have. If there was ever any question of how hated unruly women are, there canât be now.
But all is not lost, and throughout Petersenâs book, there is a charging, gracefully defiant sense of informed resilience underlying her discussion of the backlash we find ourselves in, a refrain that âthe misogynist rhetoric of supporters of Donald Trump and the move to curtail womenâs control over their reproductive rightsâ is an inevitable response to progressâand a surmountable one.
Importantly, writes Petersen, the backlash âdoesnât mean that Clintonâs loss is a step back. She punched the glass ceiling so hard that the task of shattering it has become far less formidable. There will certainly be backlash; it will again expose the ugliest, most enduringly misogynist aspects of our society. But such are the wages of changeâthe wreckage before the rebuilding.â
We know what the wreckage looks like, but Petersen provides a fresh glimpse at how we might imagine our nationâs rebuilding. In the margin at the end of the Clinton chapter, I wrote the name of another unruly woman: KAMALA 2020.
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
by Anne Helen Petersen
(Plume)
