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One of the things I love best about Ahmed's writing is how she incorporates other texts, but it can sometimes make it difficult to excerpt. Just before the following passage, Ahmed introduces Rachel Cusk's novel Arlington Park and sets up a scene: a man at a dinner table has said that he intends to fire a pregnant employee if she doesn't return to work immediately after giving birth, and a woman at the table eventually builds up the nerve to say to him, "That's illegal."

"It is Juliet who is heard as sharp. Matthew responds: 'You want to be careful.' And then, 'she saw how close she was to his hatred: it was like a nerve she was within a millimetre of touching. "You want to take care. You can start to sound strident at your age."' It is because she speaks up, speaking up as not taking care, that she comes close to his hatred. That hatred was already there, in the background, like a nerve. To be a feminist killjoy is *to live in proximity to a nerve*."