Every political movement needs a folk hero, a larger-than-life figure who accomplishes amazing deeds and inspires lesser mortals to speak up. Earlier Americans have had Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, and Thelma and Louise. Modern feminists, particularly millennials who spend most of their lives on the Internet, have Lindy West, who, for the past decade, armed with sharp wit, thick skin, and a penchant for WRITING IN ALL CAPS, has told truths and slain trolls for the Stranger, Jezebel, This American Life, and now the Guardian and GQ. In the process, she’s helped make the online world safer for women, fat people, and survivors of sexual violence.
Someday, I hope there will be a comic book version of Shrill for little girls who worry about taking up too much space or talking too loudly, starring West as a fat, loud, fearless superhero gleefully taking on prejudiced, sexist assholes. It would be instructive for them, a way of learning to be a woman in the world without having to modulate their voices or contort their bodies to please men. For the rest of us, who have worked out our own methods of survival (or made our own compromises), we can continue to read West in her natural habitat, the Internet. v
By Lindy West (Hachette) West, LaShonda Katrice Barnett, and Rebecca Traister, appear in conversation with Greta Johnsen Sat 6/11, 4 PM Printers Row Lit Fest Dearborn between Congress and Polk 312-222-3986 printersrowlitfest.org $3
