‘I call us the Sisterhood of Ill Repute’: Amanda Knox on bonding with Monica Lewinsky and Lorena Bobbitt

In this exclusive extract from her new memoir, she reveals how she joined a club of women who have also lived in the crosshairs of public shaming'

It's a new kind of prison': read an interview with Amanda Knox

Before Italy, I was only vaguely aware ofthat ancient stereotype that all women secretly hate one another, that we are incapable of true friendship. Some call it venimism"; others refer to mean girls". In 1893, the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso wrote: Due to women's latent antipathy for one another, trivial events give rise to fierce hatreds; and due to women's irascibility, these occasions lead quickly to insolence and assaults." The source of our latent antipathy? Sexual jealousy, of course. We hate one another because we are ever competing for male attention.

I always thought this misogynistic myth was obviously false. I had lots of girlfriends, from school and soccer; so did my sisters, my mom, pretty much every girl I knew. But, then again, I also thought my innocence was obvious ... And, clearly, the stereotype found its way into my courtroom, where a cross hung on the wall and my devoutly Catholic prosecutor accused me not merely of being a murderer, but of being a dirty, drug-addled, woman-hating slut.