Publisher: Harper
Available in: Paperback. Also available in Hardcover, Audiobook and E-Reader
ISBN: 978-0062688903
Published: February 27, 2018
DON'T CALL ME PRINCESS
Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life
"The conclusions Orenstein draws are often unexpected, always brilliant. The confessions she extracts from her subjects are stunning."
–Chicago Tribune
“Compelling and intelligent, Orenstein’s book offers a powerful vision of the challenges of modern womanhood and of what it means to be female in 21st-century America.”
— Kirkus, starred review
A BARNES AND NOBLE PICK: "Books that Celebrate Powerful Women"
The New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter delivers her first ever collection of essays—funny, poignant, deeply personal and sharply observed pieces, drawn from three decades of writing, which trace girls’ and women’s progress (or lack thereof) in what Orenstein once called a “half-changed world.”
Named one of the “40 women who changed the media business in the last 40 years” by Columbia Journalism Review, Peggy Orenstein is one of the most prominent, unflinching feminist voices of our time. Her writing has broken ground and broken silences on topics as wide-ranging as miscarriage, motherhood, breast cancer, princess culture and the importance of girls’ sexual pleasure. Her unique blend of investigative reporting, personal revelation and unexpected humor has made her books bestselling classics.
In Don’t Call Me Princess, Orenstein’s most resonant and important essays are available for the first time in collected form, updated with both an original introduction and personal reflections on each piece. Her takes on reproductive justice, the infertility industry, tensions between working and stay-at-home moms, pink ribbon fear-mongering and the complications of girl culture are not merely timeless—they have, like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, become more urgent in our contemporary political climate.
Don’t Call Me Princess offers a crucial evaluation of where we stand today as women—in our work lives, sex lives, as mothers, as partners—illuminating both how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.
REVIEWS
"The power of [Orenstein’s] work comes from her incessant curiosity and her general unwillingness to provide a singular answer to life’s biggest questions…[her] refusal to draw conclusions breaks down barriers between the different sides of an argument and invites those with opposing viewpoints to see eye to eye.”
—Booklist, starred review
"One of Orenstein’s greatest strengths is in breaking personal and cultural silences around living in a female body. Many of the issues she writes about — cancer, miscarriage, female pleasure — are ones that were kept hush-hush for far too long”
—San Francisco Chronicle
"Boys and girls, men and women regardless of politics, will find much to think about and talk about in Don’t Call Me Princess.”
—Florida Times Union
"Known for her wide-ranging feminist writing about everything from princess culture to breast cancer, Orenstein presents a collection of her essays that are both striking and timely (like 'How to Be a Man in the Age of Trump').”
—The New York Times “Book Review”
“[Orenstein] enriches her readers’ understanding of abortion laws, breast cancer, body image, pornography, and other timely issues in specific yet open-ended and complex ways.”
—Library Journal, starred review
"After a round of surprising medical results, a member of Orenstein's medical team tells her, "I'm afraid this is a bit like peeling an onion." So, too, is Orenstein's writing.
It's layered. It stings. It may very well make you cry--and
then do something with it. "
—Shelf Awareness, starred review
SELECTED PRESS
“10 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018”
—Chatelaine
“Peggy Orenstein, Entre Nous.”
—Barb Magazine
"Peggy Orenstein on Sex, #MeToo, and the Current State of Feminism"
—The Village Voice
“What to Read This Month.”
—Vanity Fair