out. “Personally, I felt it was the right
time for me to write something. I’d
come to the end of a chapter in my
life. My cousin had died, I’d come out
of an emotionally abusive relation-
ship, my dad had an affair and left
my mum for a woman the same age
as me. And then I met my now-wife,
fell in love, and we had a baby. I’d had
a happy ending. If this was a movie,
this is where it would end. But what’s
ironic is that life doesn’t actually work
like that,” she laughs. “It isn’t a neat
book that you can close and open. It’s
sprawling and messy. There’s always
difficult things to deal with. It’s a con-
stant process of negotiating yourself
in the world.”
“ONE IS NOT BORN,
BUT RATHER BECOMES,
A WOMAN” – SIMONE
DE BEAUVOIR
For Lotte, bringing a tiny human being
into the world really changed her out-
look on life. And having her daughter
helped elevate the idea for How To Be
A Gentlewoman from a “throwaway
listicle” of “nice-to-haves”, which first
appeared as an online listicle on elle.
com, to something much more fer-
vent and meaningful. Throughout the
course of writing, it became clear that
there’s more to being a gentlewoman
than crystal decanters, ironed nap-
kins and a designated ribbon drawer;
it’s about how we treat ourselves and
others. A journey, not a destination.
“Becoming a parent has thrown
absolutely everything, not out of the
window, but very near the window,”
she jokes. “It changes you in such a
profound way. It’s brilliant, but with
it comes so many challenges that
I didn’t expect. So much of what I
write about in the book is pre-kids. It’s
much easier to spend time on your
own, have self-care rituals, phone
your friends, look after your family. As
soon as you’ve got a tiny, screaming
human to keep alive, everything else
falls down the list.
“It was challenging for me,
because I had created a very nice
routine for myself. Taking myself on
dates, having nice times, spending
good-quality time with friends. And
I wasn’t physically able to do those
things anymore. So what I had to
do was get to the root of what I had
learnt in becoming a gentlewoman,
which was much more about finding
a security of self and a solid base of
myself, because that’s what I needed
most at that time. Being able to sit
and have a dinner on your own; that’s
lovely. But that’s not what becoming a
gentlewoman is really about.”NOBODY’S PERFECT
Indeed, the 38-year-old is keen to
stress that she definitely doesn’t have
it all figured out. “It’s almost like I’m
setting myself up as this guru figure
who’s got it all sorted, but I’m not.
This is ongoing. If you came to my
house today, you would probably find
wire coat hangers in the cupboard!”
she chuckles. “This is aspirational. I’m
by no means this perfect person.”
Lotte tells me she wrote the book
in part as a response to the self-help
genre, which can often come across
as aggressive and preachy. “Think
about the language of a lot of these
self-help books for women; ‘Killing it’,
‘Slaying’, ‘Smashing ceilings’, ‘Not giv-
ing a fuck’... I understand where that
anger comes from, because I think
women have a lot to be angry about.
But for me, personally, that language
of aggression wasn’t an energy that
I wanted in my life, because it felt
quite negative.”
One of the driving forces behind
How To Be A Gentlewoman was a
desire to be kind and, indeed, gentle
in its content. “I wanted to come out
with something a bit more measured
and considered. The thing about
being angry and aggressive all the
time is that actually, you’re taking it
out on yourself. It’s really exhausting
to feel that level of anger and I think
it’s depleting of your energy reserves
as a person. There are other ways
of addressing the things that make
you feel angry than not giving a fuck.
I think we should give a fuck. We
should care.”THE URGENCY OF AGENCY
Not only was it the right time in her
own life to write a book, but the right
time politically, too. “We’re at such a
disruptive, tumultuous time, and it
can feel really stressful to be living
in this world that we have no control
over,” Lotte explains. “It’s really
important to work on the things that
you can change. What I wanted to do
with this book was really focus on the
self; that’s a really important thing
to do. To nurture ourselves. Particu-larly as gay people, with homophobic
attacks on the rise in the big cities. It
can feel very destabilising and scary,
but I think that we have to find a
way to not let them destroy our own
personal worlds that we’re building
for ourselves.”
Talk turns to times in our lives
when we haven’t been very gentle-
woman-ly; to ourselves, and to others.How does Lotte cope when she finds
herself falling short of the standards
she sets for herself in the book, or
slipping back into negative thought
patterns and behaviours? Asking for
a friend... “Think about being nicer to
yourself. Be aware of it, but don’t let it
chip away at your anchor of yourself.
Feelings of being ‘less than’ or letting
yourself down, having made a mis-
take, wishing you hadn’t said that, or
regretting the fact that you snapped
at someone... These things are impor-
tant to acknowledge, but don’t do so
in a way that diminishes you. I see
so much, with my female friends, all
of these small, micro-moments; they
really knock their confidence. People
angst over things so much. It’s such a
learned behaviour for women, feeling
constantly insecure about themselves
in the world, which is a real shame,
because it’s really limiting.”
Turns out, How To Be A Gentle-
woman wasn’t quite the cheat sheet I
was hoping for and, like Lotte says,
we’re all “constantly becoming”. With
that in mind, does she have a
sequel up her sleeve, putting
into words what she’s learnt
from the process of writing
this one? Not just yet. “I’d really
love to write a work of fiction
with gay characters as the
stars. So that’s on the list. But
short term, I’m going on a big
family holiday with everybody
I mention in the book. That is
my next adventure.”How To Be A Gentlewoman
is out on 5 SeptemberThis book is aspirational.
I’m by no means this
perfect person”
63CULTURE | HOW TO BE A GENTLEWOMAN