Small-Minded Men

Hello!

I’m writing this on Tuesday morning, where in Scotland it is a beautiful spring day and we’re holding our breaths in case Trump wakes up and decides to start a nuclear war. It’s hard to carry the rage I feel at being hostage to the whims of a demented fool, at the unfathomable suffering caused, at the damage to our already damaged planet, at the unnecessary-ness of it all. As a feminist, I don’t hate all men, but I do hate men who seek war to bolster their egos. I do hate rich, powerful, in-thrall-to-the-death-cult-that-is-capitalism men. And honestly, I’m starting to hate those of us who do almost nothing to resist them, who keep drinking Starbucks and eating McDonald’s and buy, buy, buying like obedient little consumers, propping up the corporations that pull our politicians’ strings. Boycotts work. Women have the power to take Trump down. I agree with Blessing Adesiyan, writing here on what mothers understand about war; it’s not that women are good and men are bad, but that:

Women, because of how society is structured, are still more likely to be positioned closer to the realities of dependence, interdependence, caregiving, food, water, health, schooling, and family survival. And because they are closer to those realities, they often understand something war planners forget: there is no such thing as an abstract conflict. Every war is lived in bodies. Every bomb lands somewhere. Every policy of domination enters a home.

I don’t think I can call it a silver lining, but one thing that’s come out of the Epstein revelations is a lot of creativity, including Reclaiming Lolita, a project started by Rachel Reynolds to grapple with the overwhelm she felt in the face of the Epstein files and their implications for girlhood. Using blackout and erasure techniques, Rachel creates posts poems, mini-essays, voice memos: which are “a little chaotic and a lot free”:

there is a veritable sea of women ensnared in the web woven by epstein and his associates, a web they merely added to, building on the work of generations before them to dehumanize, disempower, and delegitimize women and girls.

i feel compelled to witness. i feel like drowning when i do, find myself slunk all the way sideways on the couch in the middle of the afternoon, unsure of how to move.

Also under the “response to Epstein” heading, and new in the online gallery, What Do Witch Hunts and the Epstein Files Have In Common by Carol Lee Campbell, an excerpt from her book My Bookshelf Frightens Conservatives: The Truth About Witches & Fairies In The Early Modern Era which relates the patterns of misogyny seen today to the oppressive practices of the European Witch Hunts 500 years ago:

small minded men searching for conspiracy

no difference today, no compassion or mercy

groups of women gathering round

threatens their manhood

What Do Witch Hunts and the Epstein Files Have In Common

I always love to receive music: Reclaim The Night by 3HIRTY 3ALK centres women’s lived experiences of safety, fear, and solidarity, and challenges the cultural norms that allow violence against women to continue:

Reclaim The Night

Shadows fall, poetry by Kia West, explores how men shut women down when they talk about VAWG:

numbing us to the reality of how

much you must despise us

to allow our deaths,

our murders,

to continue

at your

hands.

Shadows fall,

The Devil You Know, painting by Joy Osman, exploring patterns of coercive control:

The Devil You Know

All these and many more pieces worth your time in the online gallery! As always, I’d love to see your feminist art and writing (particularly keen to see more visual art at the moment). If you have something to share, submissions are open and all the details are here.

Onto links: a syllabus for white people. Feminism needs to centre women of colour and why we need to centre survivors not rapists. Women are enraged by men’s cultivated ignorance (I am “women”). This is a fantastic resource, created by Ciarra Ross, an online archive of organiser and poet Assata Shakur’s poems. One of my favourites:

Love is contraband in Hell,
cause love is an acid
that eats away bars.

But you, me, and tomorrow
hold hands and make vows
that struggle will multiply.

This series of paintings about the suffering caused when pregnant people are forced into illegal abortion is so affecting:

Bleeding Vessel, an embroidery piece created after the artist, Lia Pas, had surgery for endometrial cancer:

Elliot Page is bringing an all-trans and non-binary production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It to the stage this summer: someone who’s in London go and report back! I really want to read this book on teenage girls’ bedrooms. An emotionally affecting comic about medical misogyny. And on that topic, medical misogyny shouldn’t be a laughing matter but this video, and this one, make it very funny. I pretty much agree with this. A catchy tune about the horrors of 2026. Asking the important questions: is it time to bring back the public guillotine? We’ve been very wrong about Stone Age women (big surprise). There is SO MUCH good feminist music around now, I love it: exhibit A and exhibit B. Inspiration: a 77-year-old woman setting heavy lifting records. Mona Eltahawy on if Pete Hegseth was a Muslim. Raised By The Patriarchy on how coercion isn’t consent—I felt this passage deeply:

But, when you are 19 and your self worth is connected directly to your sexual attractiveness, you do stupid things.

And, more importantly, you end up in bad situations that aren’t your fault.

This world needs to see more feminist art: please share this newsletter with your friends, family and followers, and follow The Anti-Misogyny Club on Instagram, Threads or Substack Notes. And a quick housekeeping note to finish: I’m taking a week off, so next newsletter will be in three weeks, not two, on 28th Apr.

Until then,

Rachel

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