Why did I work all the time? Because I was terrified of not getting a job. Why have I worked all the time since actually finding one? Because I’m ter… - Anne Helen Petersen

Which is precisely why I wanted to write this book: these unruly women are so magnetic, but that magnetism is countered, at every point, by ideologies that train both men and women to distance themselves from those behaviors in our own lives. Put differently, it’s one thing to admire such abrasiveness and disrespect for the status quo in someone else; it’s quite another to take that risk in one’s own life.

[Burnout] isn’t a personal problem. It’s a societal one — and it will not be cured by productivity apps, or a bullet journal, or face mask skin treatments, or overnight fucking oats.

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.