Happy half-birthday to The Backlash

Six months already?

I launched this newsletter half a year ago, not long before the lull of Christmas. I had been thinking about it for six months or so prior to that, but didn’t go through with it. I was embarrassed, partly, about being another one of the seemingly millions of people who start newsletters. What if no one would read it?

When I sent my first post I had six subscribers (all still here — thank you!) and no idea what I was going to do with this newsletter on a regular basis. Since then, it has become a cherished routine. It is a way to read about things I want to know more about, a source of ideas, and a reminder of what’s at stake for men and women everywhere. I now have subscribers in 19 countries. Most are women, but I am encouraged by the fact that some of my most loyal subscribers (hello dad!) are men.

Over the next six months, I hope to connect with more readers, to publish more interviews, and bring in more perspectives. If there is anyone you want to hear from, or any issues you want to see covered, let me know. And thank you for reading The Backlash. It means everything.

And now to the reads….

1) Boris Johnson and sexism – a case in point

The big story in UK politics over the past 24 hours is the resignation of former prime minister Boris Johnson as MP (along with his 1,000-word statement slamming a probe by a parliamentary committee over whether he knowingly misled parliament about illegal parties in Downing Street during the pandemic). His resignation statement is fairly astonishing, featuring terms like “kangaroo court” and “witch hunt”. Apparently it’s all about revenge for Brexit.

It’s astonishing, too, that Johnson was able to get away with such incompetence and bluster for so long. About a year ago, I wrote a slightly tongue-in-cheek piece about how no woman politician would be given such an easy ride:

Imagine, if you will, our current prime minister as a woman. Mrs Johnson has long nursed ambitions to be PM. Once she gets there, she blags her way through the once-in-a lifetime job, with nary a plan or programme in sight. When her underlings party away till the early hours while the country is in lockdown, she grabs a glass of wine for herself. In press conferences and at the dispatch box, her faux-authentic mea culpas and paeans to the public are peppered with a tell-tale smirk. Her public image is that of a loveable and ever-so-slightly precarious rogue. Mrs Johnson has an unspecified number of children from different relationships. Her extramarital affairs are common knowledge. Oh, and her hair is always a mess.  

We know this already, but it bears repeating: it is difficult to imagine Boris Johnson as a woman because no woman could ever get away with any of those things. He epitomises the different standards we hold for men and women, as leaders and in public life.

2) The chikan epidemic

In one of those stories that will make you despair for the future of humanity, a year-long BBC investigation has uncovered the men behind East Asian websites that make money out of videos of women being sexually assaulted on public transport:

"Chikan" is a Japanese term describing sexual assault in public, especially groping on public transport. It also describes the offenders themselves.…..Chikan has been normalised by its prominence in Japan's adult entertainment industry. One of the most popular types of pornography in the country - the Chikan genre - has spread to other Asian countries.

…

Many women…are targeted in public by sexual predators. In some cases, they face another violation - the attack is filmed and the videos are sold online. Most videos follow the same pattern - a man secretly films a woman from behind and follows her on to a train. Seconds later, he sexually abuses her. The men act discreetly, and their victims can seem totally unaware. These graphic videos are then listed on the websites for sale.

3) The Picasso and feminism show that’s making lots of noise

An exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, curated by Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby, has taken an unusual approach to Pablo Picasso, highlighting his less-than-enlightened attitudes to women — and generating a ton of hype in the process. As per the museum:

Fifty years after his death, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) remains an artistic and cultural icon. Not only is Picasso a household name, but his artwork sells for record prices, continually asserting his status as the preeminent modern artist. It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby examines the artist’s complicated legacy through a critical, contemporary, and feminist lens, even as it acknowledges his work’s transformative power and lasting influence.

The show features Picasso’s work alongside that of women artists and Gadsby’s critique. In this New York Times write-up, iconic feminist artist Judy Chicago, one of the participants, says:

“There is a level of hysteria — and hostility — in some of the writing that reminds me of the hysteria that surrounded ‘The Dinner Party,’” Chicago said, referring to her famous feminist installation from the 1970s, which resides at the Brooklyn Museum.

“There is very little space to critique the great heroes of art history, as if they’re above analysis — this very odd idea that patriarchal attitudes and misogyny do not affect either the worldview or creative production of male artists, and of course they do.”

4) Getting specific about patriarchy

Patriarchy is something people talk about without breaking down what it is. Jacobin has published this very useful excerpt from the book Everyday Utopia by Kristen R. Ghodsee that outlines what patriarchal systems are made of:

Patriarchy is partially rooted in the cultural and legal traditions of patrilineality (paternal descent) and patrilocality (where wives leave their natal kin to join a husband’s family). These twin forces still operate in the daily lives of billions of people and maintain a distinct lingering influence even in contemporary cultures that see themselves as more “enlightened” with regards to the traditional family. We can’t undermine patriarchy without dealing first with these two less familiar concepts: patrilineality and patrilocality.

On patrilineality she writes:

Patrilineality denotes a set of social customs that confer primacy on the father’s family line. The best example of patrilineality comes from Genesis 5 and 11 in the Old Testament, the “begats” from Adam to Noah and from Shem to Abram, where we learn the names of each father and his firstborn son. Patrilineality is why fathers still “give the bride away” to the bridegroom during the traditional Western wedding ceremony, and it’s why about 70 percent of American women in 2015 and 90 percent of British women in 2016 still took their husband’s name after tying the knot.

It is also why the children of heterosexual couples generally take their father’s name even though it is the mother who gestates them for nine months and labors to bring them into the world.

5) The contraceptive double standard

The contraceptive pill, a symbol of women’s liberation, has devastating side-effects for many who take it. Past trials for a male pill have been stopped when similar side-effects were identified. Writing for the i, Vicky Spratt details her own experiences of stopping the pill and her ten years of researching why so little is done to make hormonal contraception safer for women. She writes:

Ten years ago, little mainstream research had been done into the mental health side effects of hormonal contraception and even less had been reported on by journalists.

I started digging. Senior NHS doctors who specialised in women’s health told me to be careful while speaking about my experience because it “might put young women off the pill and cause teen pregnancies to spike”.

…..

Then, new research began to emerge. A study, overseen by professor Ojvind Lidegaard at the University of Copenhagen, found that women taking the pill – either the combined pill or the progestogen-only pill – were more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than those not on hormonal contraception. The difference was particularly noticeable for young women aged between 15 and 19 on the combined pill. The study found that women taking the combined oral contraceptive pill were 23 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with depression, while those using progestin-only pills were 34 per cent more likely. It also found a correlation between hormonal contraception and suicide and suicide attempts.

Bonus: In London? This LSE event on '#MeToo looks good | The Barbie movie wasn’t feminist enough for Amy Schumer | An African literature expert on Ama Ata Aidoo

Thanks for reading, see you next week.