'In a time when women are under constant attack, I am so grateful for Anne Helen Petersen's sharp and topical book. Petersen nails the magnetism of women who break boundaries and the punishment that often comes along with it. All women will see a bit of themselves in the "unruly"' Jessica Valenti, New York Times-bestselling author of Sex Object
You know the type: the woman who won't shut up, who flaunts it, who's too brazen, too opinionated – too much. Sometimes, she's the life of the party; others, she's the focus of gossip. She's the unruly woman, and she's one of the most provocative, powerful forms of womanhood today.
The unruly woman has been around for as long as there have been boundaries of what constitutes acceptable 'feminine' behaviour – that is, for ever – but these days she is more visible and less easily dismissed than ever before. In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, cultural critic and Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Petersen explores 'unruliness' through the lens of eleven pop culture powerhouses, including Serena Williams, Melissa McCarthy, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Kim Kardashian, Hillary Clinton, Caitlyn Jenner and Lena Dunham. Petersen examines why our culture loves to love and berate these controversial figures for being 'too' something: too queer, too strong, too naked, too old, too shrill, too much. This is an incisive, candid, conversation starting analysis of the part influential women play in redefining contemporary femininity.
'An oasis in a world of hot takes, a set of crisp essays on the provocateurs who fascinate and enrage us. With warmth and wit, Anne Helen Petersen celebrates the power of being just a little too much, seeking the rebel inside the trainwreck' Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker critic
'Raucous and smart . . . Because these criticisms are, writ large, the same ones flung daily at non-celeb women, the book is a timely and essential read' US Elle
'Anne Helen Petersen's gloriously bumptious, brash ode to nonconforming women suits the needs of this dark moment . . . Crucial reading' Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies
I was psyched when I found out Anne Helen Petersen, who does amazing writing on celebrity for Buzzfeed, was writing a book, Too Fat Too Slutty Too Loud, about women who transgress our social norms. Who among us hasn't stepped outside the lines, peeked out from inside the box and felt blowback for it? Who hasn't looked at the women who do get out there and live out there and regarded them with a curious mixture of revulsion and envy? Petersen highlights nine (well, ten, as one pair is addressed in the same essay) "unruly" women, focusing on how each in turn has challenged the expectations we place on lady people. Many of these challenges focus on the body, from Serena Williams' "too strong" frame to Madonna's refusal to cover up because she's "too old" to Caitlyn Jenner's "too queer" gender confirmation surgery. There are also women who make other choices they're not supposed to: Hilary Clinton might be smart and ambitious, but she's "too shrill", and Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer (the Broad City team) make us uncomfortable because they're "too gross".
I wanted this book to be amazing and mind-blowing and incredible. And it was good! Petersen's writing is lively and insightful and serious without being ponderous. But I think maybe it would have worked better if it had been split into two volumes, one focusing on body and one focusing on personality. The essays felt like they skimmed the surface, taking a shallow dive into concepts that deserve deeper thought and analysis that I would have loved to read Petersen's take on. In writing about how Nicki Minaj is "too slutty", for example, Petersen refers to and gives some brief background on how black female bodies are sexualized and fetishized. But there's so much there that because the book needed to be a reasonable length and there are eight other subjects, she doesn't really have space to really give it the full context it deserves. I felt the same way, perhaps even more strongly, about the chapter on Jenner and trans issues. It would have felt problematic to leave the gender binary untouched entirely, but to only briefly interact with it doesn't feel quite right either.
One essay, though, that really made me think was the piece about "too loud" Jennifer Weiner, who won't just quietly accept the judgment of her writing about women and their lives (which, to be perfectly honest, I don't personally much care for) as mere "chick lit" not to be taken seriously. I know I fall into that trap with my own reading, disdaining titles with pastel covers or shoes and shopping bags prominently displayed. There's not a good reason why I, or we, treat stories about women's lives and problems, written by women, as lesser than books written by and about men. This was just one of the instances of reflection prompted by this book, and though it does have issues, it's very worth reading if you want to take some time to interact with your conceptions of womanhood.
