Melissa Febos on the Soft Power of ‘Girlhood’

To heal from the traumas of sexual violence and the psychological marks of girlhood, Melissa Febos had to go back in time to excavate and exile the gender norms that had become part of her body and mind. This work required Febos to revisit some of the most intimate, violent, and confusing events of her past, uncovering the limits of her own agency in a patriarchal society. The result is her new memoir, Girlhood, which is out in paperback this month. When it was first published last year, it became a national bestseller; was hailed by Mary Kerr as a… Read Full Article