Goodreads asked Helen Lewis:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Helen Lewis I had been talking about a feminism book for *years* because it's a subject I cover so much in my journalism. I talked about doing one based around places, or objects, but it never quite clicked.

And then I asked myself: what's the feminism book that needs to exist? My answer was: something you can read *second* - ie, there are loads of fun essay collections, or books about one specific issue, or memoirs, but I felt there was a gap for the book that tried to lace it all together, once you'd got interested in the subject. Like the "Previously On...." catch-up at the beginning of a TV show that's now in its fifth season.

Then a friend suggested the title Difficult Women, and it pinged. I could talk about how hard it is to get stuff done, and how activism is often personally painful. And how we have to live with the idea that we owe a lot to people we wouldn't like.

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