Look around and it’s hard not to see that we’re living in the midst of a backlash to women’s rights. Gone are the days of Beyoncé’s Feminist tour and when every female celebrity was force to say if she adopted the label.
Now we live in a culture dominated by bro podcasters like Joe Rogan and blatant misogynists like Andrew Tate. Young men who are struggling to find a decent job are told they’ve lost a lot with the #metoo movement and they can gain that power back. Far-right billionaires are glorifying the #tradwife ascetics to appeal to young women who aren’t eager to repeat their mothers’ mistake of doing EVERYTHING inside and outside the house.
"I think conservatives and conservative women use that as an opportunity to say, ‘Oh, well, we're the real feminists and we're feminists, too, right?’ And sort of try to water it down and co-opt it,” said Jessica Valenti, one of the nation’s fiercest feminist journalists, joins First Draft today with Lincoln Square Editor Susan J. Demas .
"They're not happy because, they tell you, you've been sold a bill of goods — and really you'd be so much happier if you would just put on a milkmaid dress and, you know, churn your own butter at home,” Demas agrees.
At the same time, we’re three years past the fall of Roe v. Wade when at least a third of American women don’t have access to abortion care. Two women have tried — and failed — in the last decade to become president. So what do we do about it?
"This is going to take a long time. There's no easy fix for this. There's no election that is going to make everything OK,” Valenti says. “We have to settle in and get comfortable and make activism and resistance and fighting back a part of our daily life and a part of our everyday habits."
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