A provocative, intimate essay from Eimear McBride, award-winning author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing.
'Eimear McBride is that old fashioned thing, a genius' - Guardian
Here, Eimear McBride unpicks the contradictory forces of disgust and objectification that control and shame women. From playground taunts of 'only sluts do it' but 'virgins are frigid', to ladette culture, and the arrival of 'ironic' porn, via Debbie Harry, the Kardashians and the Catholic church - she looks at how this prejudicial messaging has played out in the past, and still surrounds us today.
In this subversive essay, McBride asks - are women still damned if we do, damned if we don't? How can we give our daughters (and sons) the unbounded futures we want for them? And, in this moment of global crisis, might our gift for juggling contradiction help us to find a way forward?
About the Author
Eimear McBride is the author of three novels: Strange Hotel, The Lesser Bohemians and A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. She held the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading, and is the recipient of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Goldsmiths Prize, James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award. She lives in London.
