64 pages • 2-hour read
One of the Girls
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Background
Cultural Context: Treatment of Women
One of the Girls explores the challenges of navigating patriarchal gender expectations alongside the demands of modern, professional life. Despite the advances that successive feminist movements have won in gender equity, women around the world continue to perform a disproportionate share of domestic and care work, often in addition to professional demands. Women are often expected to be high achievers in the workplace, nurturing mothers, ideal romantic partners, and physically attractive, all at the same time. According to the United Nations, women perform nearly three times as much unpaid domestic and care work as men globally, yet this work—dubbed the “second shift” by feminist theorist Arlie Hochschild—often goes unacknowledged and underappreciated, seen as just part of being a woman (“Unpaid Care and Domestic Work.” ActionAid, 23 July 2024). Women also face disproportionate domestic and sexual violence; one in three women worldwide has experienced physical or sexual violence (“Violence Against Women.” World Health Organization, 25 Mar. 2024), emphasizing the pervasive reality of patriarchy.
While social acceptance of sexual orientation and gender expression as a spectrum has increased, many women still face judgment and/or danger when asserting sexual agency. Cultural pressures to conform to idealized standards, such as through body image, beauty, marriage, and motherhood, continue to restrict women’s autonomy in terms of gender and sexuality. LGBTQ+ people in the United States are eight times more likely to experience violence than the average population (“LGBT People Nine Times More Likely Than Non-LGBT People to Be Victims of Violent Hate Crimes.” Williams Institute). In addition, a staggering ninety-nine percent of lesbian women feel concerned for their safety while travelling, and suicide is a high risk for people who identify as LGBTQ+ (Heinze, JL. “Fact Sheet on Injustice in the LGBTQ Community.” National Sexual Violence Research Center, 24 June 2021). In the United States, nearly half of LGBTQ+ youth are abandoned by their families (Heinze).
Genre Context: Feminist Literature
Feminist literature examines how gender, power, and social norms shape characters’ lives and narratives, especially focusing on women’s experiences. This perspective explores systemic gender inequality, questions gender roles, and emphasizes how autonomy is achieved or taken away. In One of the Girls, women perform their adherence to restrictive gender norms for each other, as well as for men. Stories like this reveal the reality of patriarchy and associated violence, as seen through sexual assault, manipulation, and the way women often compartmentalize or deny their experiences. By focusing on female friendship and internalized misogyny, the story criticizes patriarchy while exposing the true power of female bonds.
Current literature is placing women and their stories at the forefront. Like Lucy Clarke’s One of the Girls, many feminist novels explore the emotional and physical consequences of societal expectations. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend similarly examine autonomy, violence, and friendship through a feminist lens. In Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, as in One of the Girls, domestic and sexual violence are central, and female solidarity becomes a means of resistance and survival.
Feminist literature often gives voice to women’s internal lives and the silence surrounding trauma. In One of the Girls, Clarke does this by revealing each woman’s hidden pain, from sexual assault and body shame to grief and complicated motherhood. Like Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, which explores the impact of beauty standards and racialized femininity, Clarke’s novel critiques how social pressures shape a woman’s self-worth. These stories resist one-dimensional portrayals of women and emphasize emotional truth, survival, and the complexities of womanhood. By placing women’s voices at the center, feminist literature continues to challenge patriarchal norms and expand cultural understandings of gender and power.
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