"Twee misandry" (and four other stories)
Five reads on the backlash against feminism and gender (in)equality.
It’s dark outside, the kids are asleep, and I still haven’t had my dinner. Let’s get straight to this week’s reads….
1)The vanishing working-class woman
Britons will be going to the polls on 4th July, and until then we will be obsessively watching every available voter intention survey and looking out for political slip-ups. Oh, the schadenfreude! In the lead-up,
asks an intriguing question on : why are working-class women in Britain overlooked in political discourse and party electoral strategy? He writes:…it is easier to visualise class in occupational terms. You would assume that my dad is something like a plasterer if I simply told you he is working class — the specifics wouldn’t matter. What would you assume about my mum, if I told you her class but not her job? When it comes to the economy, working class women are hiding in plain sight.
The thing is, you could probably make some reasonably accurate guesses about my dad’s political views too. We might not adequately reward working class labour, but our political elite certainly acknowledges — or fears — working class politics. Yet our understanding of working class political agency rests on our understanding of working class economic lives. It centres men like my dad.
And also:
Part of the problem is that working class women are rarely afforded the space to articulate their perspectives in national political discourse. Their economic status and experiences are becoming more central to what it means to be working class — yet at this precise conjuncture the right have amplified, if not largely concocted, a male-centred account of working class grievance, in order to advance its own policy agenda. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has largely accepted this privileging.
2) A lad culture icon returns
Some readers of this newsletter will be old enough to remember the lad culture of 1990s/noughties Britain, where men were lads and women were tits and arse. Last month one of the bastions of this modern rendering of seaside postcard and Carry On franchise innuendo, the magazine Loaded, was relaunched (online only), with a woman at the helm. Executive editor Danni Levy has promised “to bring back all those things that 35- to 55-year-old men are being cheated out of by society,” such as “being able to ogle beautiful women like Liz Hurley, Melinda Messenger or Pamela Anderson”.
Given Loaded’s relaunch, for The Persistent, Emma Haslett traces the rebellious power of sartorial statements. She argues that, as men continue to “ogle” them, woman will continue to use their objectified bodies to send political messages. She writes:
Because if men are going to look—if they have the need to “ogle beautiful women,” as the editor of the recently-relaunched U.K. men’s magazine Loaded has put it—they should take in everything those women are saying. Politicizing fashion choices is taking those oglers and turning the gaze back on them. It’s saying, “I can’t stop you from staring at me, but I can control what you see—and I will use this as a political platform.”
3) A misogynist’s feminist
Given his recent criminal conviction and enduring presidential hopes, Donald Trump has been “taking pains to paint himself as pro-woman”, writes Ginny Hogan on the Daily Beast. And could it be working? Here’s a snippet:
Of course, nothing he’s done has turned him into anything resembling a feminist. But he also hasn’t entirely failed. He’s turned himself into a misogynist’s idea of a feminist. A recent poll found that 54 percent of men and 31 percent of women think Trump respects women “a lot” or “some.” Some of the explanations were inane; one person said that Trump was a “developer,” and because “real estate, as a whole, is predominantly women-run,” he had to respect women. I have nothing to say, it’s a perfect argument.
I’m hesitant to make much of this statistic, because I think respecting women “some” is a lot like not respecting women at all. Still, there’s indisputable disparity in how men and women view Trump’s respect for women, and there’s an indisputable change: In 2016, a poll asking a similar question found that approximately the same percentage of men and woman thought he had “fair” or “a great deal of” respect for women.
4) A minister for “men’s behaviour change”
Rates of gender-based violence in Australia have prompted protests around the country, and PM Anthony Albanese recently described levels of domestic violence as a “national crisis”. Thirty-one women were killed in Australia this year, and 64 last year. To address the violence, the government of the state of Victoria has appointed a parliamentary secretary for men’s behaviour change. According to CNN, the first man to take the role, state MP Tim Richardson, has said he will “focus on the influence the internet and social media have on male attitudes towards women, and on building respectful relationships”. Given the pandemic of male violence against women, it is heartening to see some hopefully innovative policy on this front. At the very least, the naming of a “men’s behaviour change” minister places the onus on……men and their behaviour.
5) The “twee misandry” canon
Violent revenge fantasies “marketed through stylish cartoon women on brightly coloured book covers looking mysterious and cool in their cat-eye sunglasses and a sassy red lip” are a new trend in fiction, writes Natalie Wall in Dazed:
It feels significant that we are at a point in culture where a whole spectrum of female revenge stories are so immensely popular. It’s indicative of the fraught and fractured space that feminism has become in recent years: we all have different ideas of what feminist media is and what, how, and why we want to see these narratives represented. As annoying as this all can be, it’s worth remembering that a feminism full of conflicting ideas is ultimately also a feminism that is alive and kicking.
Bonus: Dolly Parton sends Miley Cyrus adorable faxes | birth control for men | a reading room of one’s own | the Green Party did what?
Thank you so much for reading. See you next time.