Global frontiers of the feminist impasse (and four other stories)

Five reads on gender (in)equality and the backlash against feminism to end your week.

I am writing this week’s newsletter from a town in France somewhere between the Jura Mountains and the Alps where we are visiting my sister-in-law and her partner (and their dog) for Passover. I have heard the Passover story almost every year for my entire life and I still don’t understand half of it. I realised this week, however, as one of the adults responsible for continuing this tradition in our family, how much it means to me to do so. I like the fact that I can connect to thousands of years of Jewish history, and that my daughters can, too. So for those who are celebrating, happy Easter, happy Passover, and Ramadan mubarak. Now to the reads…

1) The global frontiers of the feminist impasse

In the US, it seems fairly accepted that there is an overlap between those fighting “gender ideology” and right-wing political agendas on issues like trans and reproductive rights.* In the UK, where the gender-critical current of feminism is particularly strong, there is less of a consensus on this overlap. Still, wherever people identify politically, it can be hard to control what they end up symbolising to others.

A case in point is the British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, otherwise known as Posie Parker. In Byline Supplement (which is here on Substack), Max Colbert writes about Keen-Minshull as the “face of the global anti-trans alt-right”. The founder of Standing for Women has been touring Australia and New Zealand with “Let Women Speak” demonstrations, where she and her supporters defend sex-based rights and the definition of a woman as an “adult human female”. Keen-Minshull says she is trying to fight the “irrational” beliefs of what some people call “gender ideology”.

Colbert cites campaign group Hope not Hate on the overlap between anti-trans and far-right rhetoric:

Anti-LGBT+ sentiment is deeply rooted in reactionary and far-right milieus, which tend to idealise traditional gender roles and family structures, obsess about societal decline, and scapegoat minoritised groups.

That doesn’t necessarily map on to all gender-critical feminists, some of whom don’t seem to see themselves as anti-trans, but it is what Keen-Minshull has come to represent. Her antipodean tour drew various counter-protests and neo-Nazis were reportedly present at one rally in Australia. New Zealand’s immigration minister described her views as “repugnant” and counter-protesters threw soup at her. Keen-Minshull and her supporters say allegations of her being in bed with the far-right are smears, and that these reactions only prove her point that misogynist progressives are not letting women like her speak. The National Review, meanwhile, a conservative US publication, ran a column titled “What we’re up against”, which described Keen-Minshull’s activities in Australia and New Zealand in heroic terms.

Keen-Minshull’s beliefs, shaped and intensified by her very online activism (check out her YouTube channel), add up to a ferocious defence against what she sees as “the global assault on women”. To me, this intense focus on trans rights looks like a reaction to the persistence of sexism and misogyny more broadly. Rather than look at the backlash against the increased rights of women, Keen-Minshull focuses on the supposed erasure of womanhood as a concept. I still can’t get my head around how feminism went down this particular cul-de-sac.

By the way, Keen-Minshull, who doesn’t describe herself as a feminist, announced last month that she is launching a political party, the Party of Women. She said it would be international and that in the UK she would personally be running against Labour leader Keir Starmer in his constituency. Starmer has been tying himself up in knots trying to work out how to deal with the impasse in UK feminism over this issue, and indeed with arguments within his party about it. Keen-Minshull clearly sees an opportunity to continue making her point. I wonder if she’ll get any votes…

Alona Ferber @paperdispatch

You heard it here first

*This by Irin Carmon in New York magazine looks at how groups that pushed for abortion bans in the US are now trying to ban trans healthcare.

2) The journalism gender gap

There is plenty of evidence regarding how sexism shapes the journalism industry and its outputs. Women’s voices are excluded from coverage itself and men dominate opinion columns and the reporting of politics and policy. This new analysis of a Pew Research Center survey from last year shows the gender imbalance across different beats, with women over-represented across topics like health, education, family, and social issues, and men over-represented on economics, government, politics and sports. Also, of the nearly 12,000 journalists surveyed, 76 per cent identified as white, which is “higher than the share of U.S. workers overall who are white”. This analysis is a reminder of the problematic homogeneity of journalists, and how men still dominate coverage of the things that are deemed to matter.

3) Not my midlife crisis myth

What are the classic characteristics of a midlife crisis? According to Leila of Psychologically Speaking (also here on Substack), in thinking about debunking what she refers to as the myth of midlife crisis, she realised that evidence on this phenomenon speaks to male experience. For instance, there is not much research on the enormous change women go through in later life. She writes:

When I came around to creating a short reel for Instagram debunking the idea of a midlife crisis. I stopped, because the evidence talks to male experiences. Studies on midlife crisis are associated with male stereotypes, yes, you’ve guessed it, fast cars, and affairs. So, the evidence that measures whether people experience midlife crisis, is rarely associated with the biggest midlife change for women, menopause.

4) A landmark hearing on El Salvador’s incredibly strict abortion laws

Last month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held a landmark hearing on the case of Beatriz, a woman denied an abortion in El Salvador, which has one of the world’s strictest abortion bans. El Salvador is “accused of alleged human rights violations and torture after Beatriz was forced to carry a non-viable fetus for nearly three months despite a risk to her health”, the AFP reported. And according to Human Rights Watch:

This is the first time the Inter-American Court will discuss the consequences of the total criminalization of abortion. Its ruling on El Salvador, which has some of the world’s strictest anti-abortion laws, would set a precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean when it comes to abortion if a women’s life is in danger or if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.

A decision is reportedly expected in about six months time.

5) On unintended consequences

This piece by Rebecca Solnit is not about gender inequality or the backlash against feminism. She writes about failed direct climate action, and how ostensible short-term failure often has longer-term impact. I am including this link here because, if she is talking about why activism matters and responses to crisis, then surely this is relevant to the continued lack of equality between the sexes. Also, Solnit is a great feminist voice. Here is a link to something she wrote a few years ago about what she has learned from younger feminists (and in which she rejects the popular notion — which I thought was true! — that she invented the term “mansplaining”).

BONUS: If you are in London on 27th April, this event on feminism in politics at the British Library sounds interesting | This oral history of the Montgomery bus boycott, featuring interviews with women who helped make it happen, is a fascinating listen.