Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman

by Anne Helen Petersen

This book is a celebration, but it’s also a warning: right now, it’s cool to be unruly and, by extension, easy to understand both its appeal and its progressive power. But the best way to honor and accelerate the project of unruliness is to refuse to participate in its demonization, even when—especially when—the cultural tide threatens to turn against it. Because unruliness isn’t a single, easily disavowed decision, or an article of clothing one can take off and discard with the season. It’s an attitude shared by so many women of history, so many women of this book, and so many others reading it: a hope that someday, the only rules a woman will have to abide by are those she sets for herself.