Published in 2023
384 pages
Clementine Ford is a writer, broadcaster and feminist community builder living in Naarm/Melbourne. She is the bestselling author of the feminist manifestos Fight Like A Girl and Boys Will Be Boys, which have also been published to great acclaim in the UK and the US, and her memoir How We Love, which she adapted into a live stage performance called “Love Sermon”. In 2017, she won the Matt Richell Award for Best New Writer of the Year at the ABIAs. Her favourite colour is pink.
What is this book about?
Incendiary feminist and bestselling author Clementine Ford presents the inarguable case against marriage for the modern woman. Provocative, controversial and above all, compellingly and persuasively argued.
I want this book to end marriages. But more importantly, I want it to prevent marriages. Women are allowed to aspire to more than what we’ve been told we should want in order to be happy. Let yourself have a bigger dream than becoming the supporting role in someone else’s story.
Why, when there is so much evidence of the detrimental, suffocating impact marriage has on women’s lives, does the myth of marital bliss still prevail? If the feminist project has been so successful, why do so many women still believe that our value is intrinsically tied to being chosen by a man?
In her most incendiary and controversial book to date, Clementine Ford exposes the lies used to sell marriage to women to keep them in service to men and male power. From the roots of marriage as a form of property transaction to the wedding industrial complex, Clementine Ford explains how capitalist patriarchal structures need women to believe in marriage in order to maintain control over women’s agency, ambitions and freedom.
I Don’t presents an inarguable case against marriage for modern women. With the incisive attention to detail and razor-sharp wit that characterises her work, Ford dissects the patriarchal history of marriage; the insidious, centuries-long marketing campaign pop culture has conducted in marriage’s favour; the illusion of feminist ‘choice’ in regard to taking men’s names; and the physical and social cost that comes with motherhood.
But most importantly, Clementine Ford shows us what a different kind of world could look like for women if we were allowed to be truly free.
‘A liberating alternative perspective on the happily-ever-after take we are sold our whole lives. I often had to rest the book on my chest, close my eyes and whisper “I knew it!”‘ -Chrissie Swan
‘With her signature wit, insight and galvanising ferocity, Clementine Ford lifts the veil on marriage, revealing the history and present of misogyny, violence and oppression that festers behind the fairy tale. I Don’t is an exhilarating invitation to see marriage for what it is—a building block of patriarchy—and imagine new ways of living, loving and building family.’ -Yves Rees
‘Wow. An incredible argument smashing the archaic constructs of society. Clementine’s articulate brilliance is exactly what I needed to read as a young woman fighting against the ceilings in the public eye and in everyday life. This book made me feel less alone in my anger and will carve space for hope in our future.’ -Jaguar Jonze
‘An incredible work. Robust, funny, erudite and Clem Ford at the height of her power. This book will finish what Clem’s other books started and change the world forever.’ -Alice Robinson
