The sheer rage gap (and four other stories)

Five reads to end (or start) your week.

As we enter Sunday wind-down territory, here are five reads on gender (in)equality and feminism to end (or start) your week:

1. Women are angrier than they were 10 years ago

The Gallup World Poll surveys 120,000 people in more than 150 countries every year. In 2012, men and women reported equal levels of stress and anger. This year, however, BBC analysis, of the polling found that:

“women are angrier - by a margin of six percentage points - and more stressed too. And there was a particular divergence around the time of the pandemic.”

So why are women so much angrier than men — and globally, too? A number of pieces have posited answers. I like this by Susan Dalgety in The Scotsman and this by Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian on the widening gender rage gap.

2. Feminist pioneer Dorothy Pitman Hughes dies at 84

From the AP report:

Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pioneering Black feminist, child welfare advocate and lifelong community activist who toured the country speaking with Gloria Steinem in the 1970s and appears with her in one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, has died.

And this:

“Dorothy’s style was to call out the racism she saw in the white women’s movement,” [her biographer Laura L.] Lovett said in Ms. “She frequently took to the stage to articulate the way in which white women’s privilege oppressed Black women but also offered her friendship with Gloria as proof this obstacle could be overcome.”

3. Edinburgh is trying to ban “sexual entertainment venues”

Edinburgh City Council is set to effectively ban strip clubs from April 2023. The move has ignited debate on whether outlawing “sexual entertainment venues” is a positive step against the exploitation of women, or whether it hurts sex workers and forces the industry underground. Sky News has an interesting report on how this is playing out.

4. Portrait of a French eco-feminist

The New York Times profiles Sandrine Rousseau, a member of the French Green Party, who is ruffling feathers by talking about sexual harassment and the climate crisis.

5. South Koreans have been protesting anti-feminist sentiment

Last Sunday, South Koreans rallied against gender-based violence, apparently in response to anti-feminist sentiment. Here is another piece with context on the country’s “misogyny problem”.

And a bonus: the Financial Times has this rich long read about female spies and the “historical absence of women” in MI6, which, according to the article, has been “both a serious omission and a secret weapon”.