If over the centuries women have acquired rights and awareness, the credit goes to some personalities – complicated, contradictory, imperfect – who have struggled with themselves, while fighting for a more just world. Pioneers of emancipation and gender battles, fundamental figures of our modernity who have often been sweetened, or even forgotten, in our current search for pleasant and reassuring heroines.
For journalist Helen Lewis, it is time to look at the history of feminism as a history of difficult women, beyond all the rhetoric. From the suffragettes who preached bonfires and attacks, to the princess who complained about unsatisfying sex, from the lesbian politics that scandalized an entire country, to the courageous campaigns for the right to abortion: Difficult Women sheds light on some of the decisive, and little-known, moments of a struggle that is still current.
A gripping, even shocking tale of all the obstacles the feminist movement has overcome. Because to win a difficult battle, equally difficult protagonists are needed.
