“Much of women’s history leans on a trope of ‘exceptional’ women: ‘girlbosses’ who achieved incredible things against the impossibly patriarchal odds of their day. Such women did, of course, exist, and we should celebrate them. But we could easily describe all women in the past in this way. All of the women in The Waiting Game existed close to the centre of power and acted in ways that influenced the broader historical narrative. All occasionally stepped outside the boundaries that society allegedly dictated for their sex.”