Author(s): Elise Loehnen

Gender Studies

'A stunning, big and bold encyclopedia of how to live, the first post-pandemic book to take our latest measurements and provide something fresh to comfort, embolden, enlighten and enrich who we are today' LISA TADDEO

Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Pride. These so-called 'deadly sins', consecrated as an essential pillar of divinity, have been used by the patriarchy to control women in particular and keep them small throughout our history. What would happen if we stopped trying to be 'good'?

In On Our Best Behavior, Elise Loehnen looks at the ways in which women have been penned by the fake morality of the sins, and how we find ourselves complicit in denying ourselves a full existence for fear of crossing some sort of line of wanting too much, being too much, falsely equating 'self-control' with goodness. In this process of self-betrayal, she finds, we have also betrayed each other.

A bold and daring denouncement of that which has been used to condemn 'badly behaving' women, On Our Best Behavior asks- what does it mean to be 'good', particularly as a woman, in today's world? And if a sin is something that holds us separate from wholeness or experiencing our own full humanity, what should these sins look like today?