Pretty Bitches: On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women
Lizzie Skurnick, Adaora Udoji, Afua Hirsch, Amy S. Choi, Bich Minh Nguyen, Carina Chocano, Dagmara Dominczyk, Dahlia Lithwick, Elizabeth Spiers, Emily Hopkins, Glynnis MacNicol, Irina Reyn, Jennifer Weiner, Jillian Medoff, Julianna Baggott, Katha Pollitt, Kate Harding, Laura Lippman, Lihle Z. Mtshali, Mary Pols, Meg Wolitzer, Monique Truong, Racquel D’Apice, Stephanie Burt, Tanzila Ahmed, Tova Mirvis, Winter Miller
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars
3.88
· 8 ratings · 320 pages · Published: 03 Mar 2020
Words matter. They wound, they inflate, they define, they demean. They have nuance and power. "Effortless," "Sassy," "Ambitious," "Aggressive": What subtle digs and sneaky implications are conveyed when women are described with words like these? Words are made into weapons, warnings, praise, and blame, bearing an outsized influence on women's lives -- to say nothing of our moods.
No one knows this better than Lizzie Skurnick, writer of the New York Times' column "That Should be A Word" and a veritable queen of cultural coinage. And in Pretty Bitches, Skurnick has rounded up a group of powerhouse women writers to take on the hidden meanings of these words, and how they can limit our worlds -- or liberate them.
From Laura Lipmann and Meg Wolizer to Jennifer Weiner and Rebecca Traister, each writer uses her word as a vehicle for memoir, cultural commentary, critique, or all three. Spanning the street, the bedroom, the voting booth, and the workplace, these simple words have huge stories behind them -- stories it's time to examine, re-imagine, and change.