"Soft-selling authoritarianism" (and five other reads)
Six things on gender (in)equality and the backlash against feminism
Hello readers old and new. Without meaning to, recently I have been reading and watching a lot of Backlash-adjacent things: the Netflix series Adolescence (of course, more on that below); Andrea Dworkin’s recently reissued Right-Wing Women (more on that below, too); Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (an incredible film—thanks to the colleague who recommended it); the stage play of Annie Ernaux’s The Years (aka, the play where people keep fainting—thanks to the friends who invited me);
’s essay collection, Zero Point (specifically his analysis of the Gisèle Pelicot case and the enormous significance of her courageous refusal to be shamed).Then, by some magic of synchronicity, crowning off this period of varied inputs about women’s rights and feminism, last week I met with Juliet Mitchell, the second-wave feminist and psychoanalyst, now in her 80s. Ahead of our meeting, I read her New Left Review essay from 1966, “Women: The Longest Revolution”, which was the basis of her book Woman’s Estate. It’s an astonishing essay, especially given the fact that Mitchell wrote it before the women’s liberation movement was really underway in Britain. As I read, I kept noting sections with the question “Is this still the case?”, or even just multiple exclamation marks, because so much of what she wrote seems not to have changed much, or at the very least to “rhyme with the present”. Things like this:
The problem of the subordination of women and the need for their liberation was recognized by all the great socialist thinkers in the 19th century. It is part of the classical heritage of the revolutionary movement. Yet today, in the West, the problem has become a subsidiary, if not an invisible element in the preoccupations of socialists. Perhaps no other major issue has been so forgotten.
And also this:
It is the function of ideology to present these given social types as aspects of Nature itself. Both can be exalted paradoxically, as ideals. The ‘true’ woman and the ‘true’ family are images of peace and plenty: in actuality they may both be sites of violence and despair. The apparently natural condition can be made to appear more attractive than the arduous advance of human beings towards culture.
And this!
The social cult of maternity is matched by the real socio-economic powerlessness of the mother.
For now, I list these here by way of recommendation. Now I’ll stop! It’s on to the reads…
1) Adolescence?
Everyone seems to be obsessed with Adolescence, the Netflix series about a 13-year-old boy who murders a girl from his school, given its very current themes of internet radicalisation and online misogyny. Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the show’s creators to discuss the issues it raises and backed a campaign for it to be screened to schoolchildren. Netflix has now made the show free to screen in schools. Starmer even wrote an op-ed reflecting on watching the show with his teenage kids. Adolescence is a harrowing watch and also excellent television. Whether showing it to teenagers is a good strategy for addressing these problems is another matter. As most readers will be painfully aware, this question has ignited much debate (including some railing against “elite anti-Tatism”). Making teenagers watch Adolescence might get conversations going, but as policy solutions go it seems as far-reaching as the government promoting “positive” male role models.
On his newsletter,
, who has a book about the manosphere coming out this year, points out that this debate is characterised by an inability to see wood for trees. He writes:Yet the ‘backlash’ thesis only takes us so far. The rise of the manosphere should probably also be seen as a morbid symptom of the suffusion of market logic into every aspect of life. As is often the case, the clue is in the language. Masculinity gurus refer to a ‘sexual marketplace’ where to succeed men must embody certain characteristics that (coincidentally) also correspond with being the ideal neoliberal subject. Dominance, status, and crippling levels of productivity render a man ‘high value’ (people are frequently made to sound like Ebay collectibles) and audiences of impressionable men are encouraged to view life entirely through the prism of getting rich. Women on the other hand are treated either as ornamental status objects - one of the spoils for a successful performance of masculinity - or as breeding stock for patriarchs.
And also:
This is why the wisdom of putting smartphones in the hands of children is so central to the debate around the manosphere. We tend to explain radicalisation by searching for pre-existing vulnerabilities. This is often the most appropriate approach: radicalisation can feed on inner turmoil and insecurity. Yet such feelings are not always organic: the market can play its own role in their generation. Wealth in a capitalist economy is accumulated through the creation of needs as much as their satisfaction. And smartphones are the vehicle through which masculinity entrepreneurs are able to circumvent other forms of socialisation (parents, teachers, approved role models) in order to cultivate their pied piper-like appeal.
The backlash and market logic, though different things, are not necessarily separate problems, however. One enables or fuels the other. They shape each other. There is room in the dynamics of each for the expression of the other.
2) Women and girls in Gaza’s “endless death loop”
“Gaza is a killing field, and civilians are in an endless death loop,” the UN Secretary General António Guterres said yesterday. Amid continued Israeli bombardment (25 people were killed overnight on Tuesday, including 8 women and children, Palestinian medics said) “aid has dried up [and] the floodgates of horror have re-opened”, Guterres continued. UNRWA reports on one particular gendered impact of these horrors:
…Nearly 1 million women and girls have been displaced, and more than 17,000 have reportedly been killed since the war began…
“The shortage and scarcity of sanitary pads in the local market has a psychological and physical impact on women,” says Maysa, associate protection officer with UNRWA.
Women and girls are forced to resort to home-made, makeshift alternatives negatively impacting their health by putting them at risk of reproductive and urinary tract infections and protection-related risks. In addition, such methods increase their embarrassment, anxiety and insecurity, negatively impacting their psychological wellbeing.
In Gaza there are over 690,000 menstruating women and adolescent girls who require menstrual hygiene products, in addition to access to clean water, toilets and privacy. Unfortunately, UNRWA cannot meet the high demand for hygiene kits as stocks have either totally run out or are at critically low levels.
“The scarcity of this product in the markets has led to increased prices, making it difficult for displaced individuals to afford them,” says UNRWA’s Doctor, Nisreen
3) A second-wave feminist for this moment
In the latest issue of Prospect, Heather Brooke reviews three books by Andrea Dworkin which have recently been reissued by Penguin (see also The Backlash, 10th March 2025). Brooke argues that Dworkin’s is the feminist thought we need in this moment. I so enjoyed this review, which is full of admiration for Dworkin’s writing, that I felt moved to read one of the books. Luckily we had a copy of Right-Wing Women in the office. There is something exhilarating about Dworkin’s deeply thought yet at times fairly unhinged polemic. It really does feel so relevant now. As Brooke writes:
A certain kind of masculine fervour has been with humanity for a very long time. Donald Trump and Andrew Tate are only the latest embodiments. Dworkin set her forensic gaze on this “collective him”: “who he is, what he wants… why he won’t move off you; what it’s going to take to blow him loose. A different kind of blow job. Is he scared? You bet.”
And also
Dworkin comes across on the page as deeply serious but also often funny. She writes with a clear zest to change the world, one mind at a time. She certainly changed mine. Gloria Steinem described Dworkin as an Old Testament prophet raging in the hills. One might carry the Biblical metaphor further and say that, in these reissues, Dworkin has been resurrected. The writer reborn as the fierce feminist prophet we need to counter the masculine Maga madness that’s hurtling us ever-faster towards our own demise.
PS I found a post by
with links to PDFs of work by Dworkin, Simone de Beauvoir and many others.4) “Soft-selling authoritarianism”
Much has been written about the wellness to alt-right pipeline—and I can’t get enough of it. I am particularly fascinated by the phenomenon of how beauty, fashion and wellness influencers are a funnel for women to move to right-wing extremes online. Last month,
wrote a great piece about this trend, taking in Trump’s inauguration and the conservative (reportedly Peter Thiel-linked) Evie magazine. Here’s a snippet:This isn’t the first time right wing white supremacy has tried to hijack feminism. In 2017 during Trump’s first presidency, cultural theorist Flavia Dzodan identified an “alt-feminism” that purported women like Megan Kelly and Ivanka Trump were “advancing feminism” with their careers and work ethics.
But unlike alt-feminism, tradwives aren’t selling another version of Sheryl Sandberg style girlboss liberation at all. Instead, they’re selling you empowerment via your own subjugation. The new face of the Right is insidiously adorable, and seduces you to give up your civil rights with glossy listicles about clean beauty.
Evie magazine—the “conservative Cosmo”, whose coverage includes pieces about why society needs “aspirational beauty”—was profiled by the New York Times last month. This is how the magazine’s editor and co-founder explained its position on feminism:
Femininity does not mean feminism, which Mrs. Hugoboom doesn’t define as equal rights but as a self-hating movement that is anti-family and anti-male — one that shames women who “choose conventional roles.” Despite running two companies, she is particularly critical of what she calls “girlboss feminism.”
Her interpretation of that term — which went from broadly celebrated to roundly dismissed in the 2010s — is that it encourages women to “be just like men” to succeed in corporate fields. Such messaging, she says, has made women anxious, lonely and unfulfilled. Instead, she believes, faith, family and love, not “casual sex, careerism or ideological activism,” supply the greatest satisfaction.
“I think more women want a soft life, a beautiful life, than feeling all this pressure to do all these things,” Mrs. Hugoboom explained.
Ps If you were looking for an object that encapsulates a particularly American right-wing anti-feminism, Evie sells sexy “raw milkmaid” dresses.
5) IVF and the right
Also from the latest issue of Prospect,
, co-author of the newsletter, has written a fascinating feature about right-wing interest in IVF, taking Trump’s executive order on IVF as a jumping off point. The piece is about reproductive tech being a tool for eugenics, but also about how this interest is linked to women’s rights. She says:What happened to US abortion rights offers us clues as to what might happen to IVF. Abortion and IVF are two sides of the same coin, after all. When IVF goes wrong, which it does in more than one in five IVF pregnancies, the procedures and medications used to ensure it goes wrong safely are identical to those used in abortion. The erosion of rights around abortion happened slowly, and then all at once, with the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022. Most likely, says Jones, the founder of the Michigan Fertility Alliance, the same thing will happen to women’s rights around IVF. Karla Torres, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, tells me that US policymakers who are against abortion “will not stop at banning abortion or undermining IVF in their effort to control people’s reproductive choices”.
IVF, like most technology, isn’t bad in itself. But once it becomes a tool of the pronatalist agenda, IVF will cease to offer families who yearn for children that precious, private joy for its own sake. Instead, it will become a mechanism to apply pressure on women: to stay home, to nurture, to procreate.
6) The UK rejects asylum claims by Afghan women
The Taliban in Afghanistan continues its reign of terror against women, which many describe as gender apartheid. And yet, the Guardian reports, the British government is rejecting asylum claims by Afghan women, despite the very real danger they clearly face back home. The newspaper cites the case of one woman who “worked for western government-backed projects and was involved in training and mentoring women across Afghanistan” but has been refused asylum. According to the report:
The Home Office has previously generally accepted protection claims from women like Mina who could be targeted by the Taliban because of their high-profile work empowering women and who have provided evidence of their work with western government projects.
But in the most recent data for the last three months of 2024 immigration statistics show 26 Afghan women had their claims rejected. Overall 2,000 Afghan asylum seekers had their claims refused, an increase from 48 in the same quarter of 2023. The grant rate for Afghan cases has gone down from 98.5% in the last quarter of 2023 to 36% in the last quarter of 2024.
Bonus: The Daily Mail discovers femcels | Trump bullies the Smithsonian over trans people | Chappell Roan “parenthood is hell”-gate
Thank you so much for reading. See you next time.