Rights Information

World rights available.

She’s finally done it! The „World’s Worst Housewife" has left her partner and moved with her two children
into her own apartment, or as she puts it: been gentrified away to the outskirts of Berlin. Jacinta Nandi had
always expected that as a single mom, a whole other host of problems would be awaiting her. The main
problems are financial: the truth is, it’s really hard for ordinary mothers - with ordinary incomes - to leave
their partners and set up their own lives.
Why does society make it so hard for women to leave men? Could it be that women in general, and mothers
in particular, are not expected to be free? And if they do decide to fight for their freedom, they have to pay
a high price for it.
Jacinta Nandi writes about slut-shaming and pity, the pressure to constantly justify yourself and society’s
pesky double standards. She shows us that it’s not only the violent relationships that are shitty, that being
told what a great dad your ex is isn’t always helpful and why Isaac Newton was certainly not a single parent.
She asks why married women show a lack of solidarity by baking ridiculously good cakes, and what it means
to be a single mom by choice. Why do mothers always have to be perfect while fathers are somehow always
good enough? What has to change in order for mothers to no longer feel forced to stay in relationships
that are not serving them? Leave your husband – things can only get better!

Author Biography

Jacinta Nandi was born in 1980 in London and has lived in Berlin since 2000. She
wrote the column “The Good Foreigner” for the tageszeitung, and she also publishes
regularly in feminist Missy Magazine and Jungle World. She’s a member of the Rakete
2000 reading platform. Her most recent books are »Die schlechteste Hausfrau der Welt«
(The World’s Worst Housewife, Nautilus 2020) and »WTF Berlin – Expatsplaining the
German Capital« (Satyr 2022).