Girls will be Girls

I found myself in my late-twenties - and now in my very very late-twenties at thirty-one - increasingly interested in Gender Theory. My partner, a scholar, advocate, and radical feminist, has been key in expanding my learning in the area, and when we began our co-habitation, brought with them a shelf-worth of books with arresting covers named ‘RAPE’, ‘Sexual Violence’ and of course ‘Feminism’. I asked them to recommend me one - perhaps a lighter one than these textbook tomes. They recommended Girls will be Girls - and it is spectacular.

Emer O’Toole stresses that gender expression is a performance, and tells her own story of gender experimentation. She talks about going to nightclubs dressed as a boy, about all-too-familiar ignorance in her family home, about cutting her hair short and not shaving her legs, then shaving them, and feeling the shift in her self-identification. All of these aesthetics are true, and they’re all you. All of this is backed by scientific research and evidence. At one point, she writes about the historic under-researching of the vagina, as compared to the penis, and I loved the historic context of the issue. and I found the human storytelling very charming, and the factual backing incredibly engaging, as it’s still written with O’Toole’s delightful tone - which is only magnified in the reading by actress Olivia Caffrey.

I’d recommend this book to anybody who’s interested in gender theory, certainly. But also for anybody who’s interested in aesthetic experimentation, or even anybody who’s interested in stories of women’s experiences. If you have a daughter, or a sister, or mother, or know any women at all. Read it.