Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
The tendency to label Minaj “too slutty” or sexually explicit is a symptom of a much larger anxiety: how to process a woman, and a black woman in particular, who has taken control of her body, her formidable talents, and the way they are marketed, monetized, and received.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
Each woman in this book is a workaholic and a perfectionist, in part because anything less than that amount of labor and precise attention to detail could be her downfall. Unruliness can be liberating, but within our current cultural climate, it is also endlessly exhausting.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
She should be assertive but not bossy, feminine but not prissy, experienced but not condescending, fashionable but not superficial, forceful but not shrill. Put simply: she should be masculine, but not too masculine; feminine, but not too feminine. She should be everything, which means she should be nothing.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
I was happy, ostensibly, but every move was motivated by fear.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
“Shrillness” is just a word to describe what happens when a woman, with her higher-toned voice, attempts to speak loudly. A pejorative, in other words, developed specifically to shame half of the population when they attempt to command attention in the same manner as men.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
The political power of drag resides in its ability to draw attention to just how performative gender can be. By amplifying characteristics of femininity or masculinity, it highlights their absurdity, their arbitrariness, and just how easily they can be applied and abandoned.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
It’s one thing to argue that you belong—it’s another thing to actually believe it.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
When people describe Clinton’s voice as “screeching” or “shrill,” they’re not actually talking about her voice, but about what the voice of a leader should sound like—a voice that remains, to most ears, incredibly masculine.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
But that’s the point: the audience sees Hannah’s breasts as the world sees Hannah’s breasts: imperfect, inappropriate, unsexy. But Hannah, especially Hannah-on-coke, doesn’t see her body the way the world does: to her, the mesh shirt and her loose breasts are deliciously sexy; her look could not be more perfect; she conceives of herself as an immac
... See more