The only big weapon anyone has against you is that you’re human. Fucked up? A bit… Imperfect? Yes. In this, you are like every great human has ever lived, male and female alike. If you’re slutty, well — Mary Wollstonecraft was pretty slutty. If you’re needy, my GOD - Charlotte Bronte’s needs could devour a person alive. If you’re mean or self-destructive or crazy, I assure you Bill Holiday managed to record ‘Strange Fruit’ while being spectacularly self-destructive. And Sylvia Plath wrote ‘Ariel’ while being both crazy and very, very mean. The world is still better with those works in it. Humanity is still lucky that those particular women existed and that, despite their deep flaws and abundance of raw humanity, they stood up and said what they had to say. But maybe we should give Theroigne the last word here — God knows she’s had to wait for it. “If we wish to preserve our liberty,” Theroigne said, “we must be prepared to do the most sublime things.” The first item on that list and the greatest liberty you can claim is in deciding that you — human, fuck up, mess — train wreck that you are, may well be capable of the sublime. — Sady Doyle
