YOU know her – she is brash, she’s brazen; she’s loud, she’s opinionated, she takes up space and will reclaim her time if you waste hers or cut her off. She is unashamed, unruly – she gives no f*cks – nor does she take any from anybody. She could even be you.
If you have ever been accused of being too much – you will have all the feels for this insightful read by former Buzzfeed culture critic, Anne Helen Petersen, who gives us a compelling look at how nonconforming female celebrities are pushing society’s boundaries in her book, 'Too fat, too slutty, too loud – The rise and reign of the unruly woman'.
Anne Helen Petersen received her PhD in media studies from the University of Texas, where she studied the history of the gossip industry. Petersen writes about culture, celebrity, feminism, and the modern workplace in her newsletter Culture Study on Substack.
Peterson’s thesis on society’s treatment of female celebrity unruliness is made up of ten chapters on the various ‘too muchness’ of anything a woman could possibly have the audacity to be. Too Strong (Serena Williams), Too Fat (Melissa McCarthy), Too Gross (Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer), Too Slutty (Nicki Minaj), Too Old (Madonna), Too Pregnant (Kim Kardashian), Too Shrill (Hillary Clinton), Too Queer (Caitlyn Jenner), Too Loud (Jennifer Weiner), and Too Naked (Lena Dunham).
This book is about stereotypes and rebellion – gender rebellion – how we view it, how we judge it, and how we as a collective respond to it. It is written in an intelligent, analytical yet accessible way, with a heavy lean towards a scholar’s sociological lens. However, you don’t feel like you’re reading an academic tome – most times. Petersen’s style is Buzzfeed – but with a PhD. There are 29 pages of notes at the back of this book should you ever want to explore her references in more detail.
The way each chapter is structured means you can dip in and out at any point and come back to it. I was ill whilst tackling this book, so there were periods it was just lying on my nightstand, but every time I dived back into it, I came out with a lot of things to ponder on, such as – why can’t women behave exactly as men do in any or most situations and not be harshly judged – or left alone – much less celebrated? Why is that?
It is not just the men who are making the harsh judgments – women do it, too – and are sometimes the most vitriolic about their own kind. Take the case of that nasty woman (Donald Trump’s sentiments, not mine), Hillary Clinton.
“It wasn’t just conservative men, after all, who thought Hillary was too shrill: there was a whole cadre of women, on both sides of the political spectrum, who found Clinton too strident, too homely, too abrasive - everything a postfeminist woman rejected.”
Hillary Clinton was arguably one of the most experienced and qualified women to ever run for the office of US President. Petersen’s essay in the Too Shrill chapter explores how the media in the 4 decades since she has been in the public eye – firstly as wife of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton up to her shock defeat for the presidency in 2016 to an openly misogynistic opponent – has always been on about her sharp, ball-busting unlikeable image.
Focus groups of the era found that pollsters did not like that she kept her maiden name upon marriage, that she continued to work whilst being the First Lady of Arkansas. They found it galling that she didn’t know her place in the wife’s wing of the White House and insisted on having her office next to the President’s. She was the first professional career woman at the White House – and a partner to Bill instead of a helpmate. Americans didn’t know what to do with that, so they hated on it.
It was only in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky affair that the media, and hence the public, first saw her as a sympathetic figure, that of a resilient wife, but it was her unrepentant ambition and grasp for actual power that (again) put so many people off.
Society has expectations on how women should behave – especially if they are in the public eye. Media can establish a narrative that influences popular opinion as much as it can start movements to sway public perception. Had Hillary been born a man, none of her jarring traits would even be up for public debate.
In Too Strong, Petersen analyses the life and times of tennis powerhouse Serena Williams. I enjoyed this chapter as I have been a tennis fan from the days of Ivan Lendl and I watched the Williams sisters strut confidently onto the international tennis scene as youngsters.
Tennis is a class-based sport – with all the racial implications that entails. It is inherently white – literally from the bleached tennis whites you put on, to the country clubs where future tennis stars are trained.
Serena and Venus Williams did not have those privileges. Their father trained them on public tennis courts with paid hecklers shouting racist abuse as they played. He trained them not just for the game, but molded their character, strengthened their mental game and helped them develop their swag because he knew that there would be some obstacles on their road to tennis supremacy.
What Serena and Venus faced in their career was not just racism and sexism. It was also classism and for Serena especially, attacks on her appearance and femininity. Comments in the media were implicit, conveyed by innuendo and insinuation. Their attorney, Keven Davis explained,
“People talk about how smart and articulate Venus is, as if it’s surprising.”
For myself, there is no other female tennis player who has the kind of courtside presence as Serena Williams. Her body is powerful, her serve is hard, and her grunts assault your eardrums and might even outrage your modesty. What woman grunts like that? She is all muscle and might. And hence, her body is up for public discussion.
So what did she do? She did a hair toss, checked her nails, and became a fashion icon by ditching the tennis whites and wearing whatever the heck she felt like.
Her famous black dominatrix-style catsuit was “a shocker for many spectators” according to the Daily Mirror. Many pearls were clutched and tennis fans uncomfortable because in her refusing to contain her formidable form in the traditional garments of feminine tennis whites, she was accentuating her strong body – all muscular thighs and arms, her solid derriere, her hair, her skin and her absolute BDE (big dick energy) as she paraded in her outfit and roundly defeated her opponent, Corina Morariu, 6-2,6-3.
Instead of allowing the press to make her a sex object – or in actual case, an anti-sex object as they continued the narrative of her masculine prowess on court by comparing her to very white, very slender and feminine opponents, she asserted herself as one. On her own terms.
In Too Gross, whilst I can’t say that I have a great deal of prior knowledge about 'Broad City' or the two personalities involved in the making of this hit New York television show, what Petersen describes in this chapter is the fundamental baseness of sexual behaviour and personal conduct, without a care or consideration of the male gaze. We all have female friends with whom we can be our pure, unadulterated, slovenly selves.
When we enter the world and the intimate friendship of Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, the creators and stars of Broad City, we recognise that space - it is a space reserved only for a selected few who are privy to our grossness, because they are fully in touch with their own.
“The grossness in the show isn’t just for grossness’s sake; rather, it’s a form of radical honesty and transparency: they simply talk about all the things that happen to women and few dare say aloud, let alone on television.”
When men fart, spend hours scratching their testicles on a couch while stoned, or sleep around indiscriminately, it’s normalised. When it’s on the screen, it has the makings for a half decent show if that is your thing. When women do it, plus bleed through their pants, Skype during sex, or have Friends with Benefits, well - it’s just crude, isn’t it?
But the critical success of this show is testament to the fact that many women relate to their antics. They relate because they behave in the same way. They prioritise female friendships over romantic pursuits. They have agency over their own bodies, they pursue their own wants and desires, and they honestly just DGAF. It takes a special kind of unruly woman to not care about her ‘reputation’. This show depicts that most wonderfully.
The other essays are insightful, but I chose my favourite ones to highlight. I do think that Too Intelligent and Too Funny were key missing chapters in this lineup and I would have been interested in seeing who Petersen would have chosen to analyse.
As a woman who may be considered too fat, too old, too loud, occasionally too shrill and more often than not too gross, I found this an enjoyable read - the examples, background stories and media interviews with each personality provided insight into what birthed that unruly woman and how she owned it to not just further her own persona, career, and life, but to influence the gender narrative and begin normalising that which is ‘other’ in what constitutes the very ideal of heteronormative femininity.
I think you will likely come out of this book feeling more enlightened about unconscious bias and modern misogyny and hopefully more expanded in what it means to be just that little bit extra than what society expects you to be. Everyone should read this book. – The Vibes, August 1, 2021
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