But unruliness – in its many manifestations, small and large, in action, in representation, in language – feels more important, more necessary, than … - Anne Helen Petersen

A recommitment to and cherishing of oneself isn’t self-care, or self-centeredness, at least not in the contemporary connotations of those words. Instead, it’s a declaration of value: not because you labor, not because you consume, not because you produce, but simply because you are.

It’s no surprise that people who thrive in the office are almost always the same people who have accumulated or were raised with a lot of identity-related privilege outside it.

The more you analyze what makes these behaviors transgressive, the easier it is to see what they’re threatening: what it means to be a woman, of course, but also entrenched understandings of women’s passive role in society. While the book centers around highly visible women, it also reveals the expectations surrounding every woman’s behavior — and why talking too loudly, acting too promiscuously, or exposing too much skin is so incredibly threatening to the status quo.