Difficult Women: An Imperfect History of Feminism

All the history you need to understand why you're so furious, angry and still hopeful about being a woman now Caitlin MoranWell-behaved women dont make history: difficult women do.Feminisms success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women, who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Helen Lewis argues that too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. Its time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women.In this book, youll meet the working-class suffragettes who advocated bombings and arson; the princess who discovered why so many women were having bad sex; the striker in a sari who terrified Margaret Thatcher; and the lesbian politician who outraged the country. Taking the story up to the present with the twenty-first-century campaign for abortion services, Helen Lewis reveals the unvarnished and unfinished history of womens rights.Drawing on archival research and interviews, Difficult Women is a funny, fearless and sometimes shocking narrative history, which shows why the feminist movement has succeeded and what it should do next. The battle is difficult, and we must be difficult too.This is the antidote to saccharine you-go-girl fluff. Effortlessly erudite and funny Caroline Criado-Perez Compulsive, rigorous, unforgettable, hilarious and devastating Hadley Freeman**A NEW STATESMAN BOOK TO READ IN 2020 AND OBSERVER NON-FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020*