When the patriarchy didn't begin (and four other stories)
Five reads on gender (in)equality and the backlash against feminism.
1) Down with the patriarchies
This week the NS published my interview with writer Angela Saini, whose new book The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule is out in March. Saini argues that there has never been one monolithic patriarchy, but many patriarchies. She traces how male rule came to dominate human civilisation, and makes the point that society hasn’t always been male-dominated:
“Patriarchy is thousands of years old in some parts of the world, but in other parts of the world, it is within living memory that it was introduced. We forget that.”
2) The long goodbye
With the resignation of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, hot on the heels of Jacinda “everyone’s favourite person” Ardern, the cohort of global female leaders has dwindled. Each had their own reasons for quitting, but certainly part of what makes politics so difficult for women is the gendered abuse they face. This report looks at disinformation campaigns in various countries targeting female politicians. Such vicious trolling arguably plays a part in women leaving politics — and in women not entering politics in the first place. Here is an op-ed summarising the findings by Lucina di Meco, co-founder of #ShePersisted, which did the research. She notes the following example from Brazil:
When Manuela d’Ávila ran for president against Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018, a photograph of her five-year-old daughter was shared on social media alongside a rape threat. Progressive, young and vocal about gender equality, d’Ávila had been a target of gendered disinformation, with multiple false stories about her posted online.
One such story claimed she went on a shopping trip to Miami to buy luxury goods while most Brazilians were suffering from deep financial distress – she never made that trip – and a Photoshopped image showed her wearing a T-shirt stating “Jesus is transgender” over a rainbow. In fact, her T-shirt read: “Rebel!”.
In May 2022, d’Ávila announced she would not run in last year’s general elections for several reasons, including the frequent attacks she and her family had suffered over the years.
And on a related note, the Inter-Parliamentary Union monitors data on the number of women in national parliaments globally. Top of the ranking is Rwanda, with women making up 61 per cent of its parliament. Yemen is last with zero. Globally 26.5 per cent of national parliament members are women.
3) Meanwhile, in Spain…
Irene Montero, Spain’s feminist Minister of Equality, has driven measures to deal with domestic abuse, protect reproductive health, and expand LGBTQ rights. This profile in TIME looks at the unintended impact of one of her key reforms on sexual violence, and asks whether (as some of her critics apparently charge) she is ideological in a way that might ultimately be unhelpful for gender equality. What’s striking is how much she has managed to do. It’s true that women shouldn’t bear all the responsibility for gender equality, but it’s amazing how much can be achieved when women are in the position to prioritise these issues. Montero told TIME that:
“Without a doubt, I believe that the function of government is to consolidate in public policy the rights that the feminist movement, that women, are winning…As a government, we have to make a decision: Are we going to dare to be part of the democratising impulse that comes from the feminist movement and from civil society, or are we going to maintain a more cowardly or conservative attitude?”
Last week, Spain got a proverbial pat on the back from a group of independent UN experts, who lauded the country’s raft of feminist legislation.
4) The kids are not all right
One of the conundrums of our strange, hybrid world is the way in which our tastes, doubts, and interests are shaped by search. Are we asking certain questions about a particular issue because we just are, or have search results edged us in a certain direction? How much do the online search results we see as we type in our queries shape our thinking? On Tik Tok, searches for the term “feminism” are apparently yielding results that recommend secondary terms like “toxic feminism”, “feminism destroyed”, “man destroys feminist argument” and “guy proves girl wrong on equality”. How much do such neat reflections of the backlash against feminism shape attitudes to the struggle for gender equality?
5) The older feminists aren’t okay, either
In the social media age, feminism can often be reduced to something photogenic and shallow, writes Phoebe Maltz Bovy, and Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women, a new book by Victoria Smith, apparently posits an alternative to a “non-confrontational, smooth-skinned, pre-menopausal feminism”. According to the publisher blurb, Smith’s book argues that “middle-aged women are treated with active disdain” in the context of the development of identity politics. I’m not sure I buy the analysis that feminists being villainised as “‘Terfs’, speaking of female biology rather than gender identity”, which Malt Bovy describes in the piece, is somehow down to their advanced age, but as a nearly 41-year-old woman, I read about this book with interest. It reminded me of something I have held onto for years, something a friend’s mother told me when I was a teenager: as a young woman, you are constantly being watched and seen, but when you pass a certain age you become invisible. She said it was freeing. For years, I both dreaded and looked forward to it.
BONUS: Last year, Spain adopted a code of ethics encouraging toy manufacturers and shops to avoid gender stereotyping in toy advertising. Who knew? And where else has something similar?