In 'Females,' The State Is Less A Biological Condition Than An Existential One
Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," a claim I could imagine making writer and critic Andrea Long Chu roll her eyes.
At the very least, Chu has an update: "Everyone is female," she writes in the appropriately titled Females, her first book, "and everyone hates it."
Chu has earned a reputation over the past few years as one of the sharpest new thinkers on gender and sexuality with her essays on, among other topics, transgender identity, feminism and television. (She has also picked up a rather loyal following , where she treats her mental health, PhD — part memoir, part theoretical intervention — Chu explores and defends this claim about universal femaleness, perhaps as much to herself as to anyone else.
