Laura Bates
“I’d also like to live in a world in which women can do
whatever they want, without fear of what men might do to them. But we don’t
live in that world. Our present reality demands that both men and women accept
the existence of the sexual asymmetry, even if that means curtailing our
freedoms.”
Mary Harrington
“The women of the property-owning class will always
fanatically defend the exploitation and enslavement of the working people, by
which they indirectly receive the means for their socially useless existence.”
Rosa Luxemburg
“Fucking ain’t fair, act accordingly” (Female Dating
Strategy blogpost, 2021)
The New Age of Sexism is a lucid, well-written and deeply researched
book on how right-wing and fascist forces are using Artificial Intelligence
(AI) to attack minorities and women in general.
The subject matter contained in the book is, to say the
least, disturbing. The degradation of male-female relations has reached a new
apex with the use of this latest technology. AI, virtual reality,
robotics, and the metaverse have delivered a “new age of misogyny” and,
according to Bates “, We are standing on the edge of a precipice”.
As Barbara Ellen writes, “One recurrent theme is that women
are no longer being 'merely' harassed, they are also being erased–replaced by
increasingly realistic pornographic tech-proxies. Among them is a new
generation of sex robots that can be purchased online and delivered to your
door. Some models have mechanically articulated necks to simulate orgasm.
Others give oral sex with back-and-forth head motions that Bates likens to a
“pecking chicken”. Although vocal interaction can be enabled with sex dolls,
many men don’t want it. It wrecks the fantasy – they prefer them mute.”[1]
The book is graphic in its accuracy, the rise of cyber-brothels,
in which, believe it or not, robot sex workers take care of your every sexual
need. Bates recounts in the book how a robot called Kokeshi: “A silicone shell
being offered up as a warm, willing, breathing, talking, consenting sexual
partner.” Bates comments that the robot's labia have been torn off.
“Perhaps bitten off. I feel sick.” Writes Bates. Even more disturbing is that
she finds sex dolls made to look as young as five, with child vulvas,
holding teddy bears.
Although Bates wonders why society accommodates this
parallel universe, the answer is not far away. In one chapter, she examines the
rise of the so-called Metaverse and its control by oligarchs like Mark
Zuckerberg and his global Meta empire. Zuckerberg's promotion of a
“virtual-reality social world” is a big money maker, and so lightly policed as
to be non-existent, providing a license to print money by the billions.
As Laura Bates writes in a Guardian article: “Mark
Zuckerberg has grandly promised: 'In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost
anything you can imagine.” It’s the sort of promise that might sound intensely
appealing to some men and terrifying to most women. Indeed, the deeply
immersive nature of the metaverse will make the harassment and abuse that many
of us endure daily in text-based form on social media feel 100 times more real,
and will simultaneously make moderation 100 times more challenging. The result
is a perfect storm. And I am speaking from experience, not idly speculating: I
spent days in the metaverse researching my book, The New Age of Sexism. She continues, “I visited worlds where I saw
what appeared to be young children frequently experiencing attention from adult
men they did not know. In one virtual karaoke-style club, the singers on stage
were young women in their early 20s. However, based on their voices, I would
estimate that many of the girls behind the avatars were likely around nine or
10 years old. Conversely, the voices of the men commenting on them from the
audience, shouting out to them and following them offstage were often
unmistakably those of adults.”[2]
The role of Meta and other social media websites, which are easily
accessible on the latest smartphones, in spreading and profiting from this
online abuse and illegality is well-documented. Although not documented in the
book is the role played by corporate advertising in helping perpetrate this abuse.
But as Thomas Scripps writes “The real problem is the poison spilling out of a
rotting social system—from misogynist ideologies to the glorification of
violence, wealth and selfishness—for which these technologies are a conduit,
and the conditions of social neglect which make young people emotionally
susceptible: the most vulnerable dangerously so. Conditions which also hinder
the social dialogue necessary to help children learn how to interact healthily
with new technologies and form genuine relationships.[3]
Meta is not the only one profiting from this sexual degradation
and exploitation. Companies such as Elon Musk’s (X) and Sundar Pichai's
(Google) are in charge of the algorithms, datasets, systems and
search engines that promote and deliver this disgusting filth.
If the growth of cyber brothels was not enough, Bates
tackles an equally disturbing phenomenon, and that is the massive rise of deep
fake pornography. Bates has been the target of this illegal behaviour. In the
book, she describes a panic attack after being sent deepfake pornographic
images of her. Bates’s experience is just the tip of a massive iceberg of this
kind of abuse. A report by the
Children's Commissioner for England makes the following points.
“The growth of the online world is a technological
revolution, the likes of which haven’t been witnessed in centuries. The
internet has enhanced our lives immeasurably by opening up education,
communication, and research in ways that those of us who are now well into our
adulthood might never have imagined. For children growing up in 2025, who are
among the first generations to have never known a solely analogue life, being
online is second nature.
It is an incredible asset in our daily lives, but it has
also fundamentally changed the nature of how we interact with one another, how
we stay safe, and how we maintain our privacy. For most children, if not all,
it has introduced a darker side. They are forever in their digital playgrounds.
Every day, children tell me about the violent, upsetting or
degrading things that are shown to them online by algorithms designed to
capture their attention. That’s why, as Children’s Commissioner, I have been
relentlessly focused on driving for greater safety online. It has also been
driven by what I observed in children’s changing behaviour during my years as a
teacher and headteacher, as they learned to navigate life through a digital
lens. But the subject of this report – sexually explicit ‘deepfakes’ – is not
one I was familiar with until more recently, despite having worked with
children every day of my professional life. Of all the worrying trends in
online activity children have spoken to me about – from seeing hardcore porn on
X to cosmetics and vapes being advertised to them through TikTok – the
evolution of ‘nudifying’ apps to become tools that aid in the abuse and
exploitation of children is perhaps the most mind-boggling. [4]
There is no doubt that Bates is a sincere activist and her
books are an essential part of opposing this alarming abuse of women, but her
work is only half the story. Bates, by her admission, is not comfortable
debating, and her critics are caricatured or derided as “male” or, worse,
“Right-wing”. My criticism of her is not from the right but from the left.
In my review of Lost Boys by James Bloodworth, I examined the
reactionary movement that has been somewhat lightly termed the Manosphere. The
Manosphere quaintly refers to a motley collection of websites, blogs and online
forums promoting misogyny, masculinity and opposition to feminism. It promotes
racism, antisemitism, anti-intellectualism, climate change denial, homophobia
and transphobia. This movement has become a recruitment centre and training
ground for what can only be termed trainee fascists.
There is a flip side to Manosphere, and that is the rise of
the Femosphere, which Bates has studiously avoided examining in any detail. This
movement was spawned by the growth of the right-wing #MeToo movement.[5]
The Femosphere, it must be said, is equally as reactionary as the Manosphere
movement.
Bates has so far not commented much, if at all, on this
right-wing movement, which has been written about in numerous academic papers
and been fabled and glamorised in equal measure in books such as Ottessa
Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Stephanie Lacava’s I Fear My Pain Interests You.
In her excellent article [6], Rachel Healy examines the work of Dr Jilly Kay, specifically her use of the
term "Femosphere" in a paper published in 2024. [7]
Healy writes that “Kay has been researching a reactionary turn among young
women, and how a backlash against mainstream feminism has created new spaces
online. In the femosphere, instead of “incels” – male involuntary celibates –
there are “femcels”, and instead of pickup artists there are female dating
strategists and so-called “dark feminine” influencers who encourage women to
find men to support them financially.”
It is not within the scope of this brief review to examine
everything in Kay’s excellent research paper, which is freely accessible on the
web. One of the more disturbing features of this so-called new feminist
movement has been its adoption of the same fascist ideas as its male
counterparts.
Kay quotes from an FDS podcast episode, which discussed a
Reddit post entitled “40 Years
a NEET: Reflections of a Stay-At-Home Son. One of the hosts said:
“I think men like this can’t be saved, I believe that the
only that can be done about them is to allow them to perish on their own time
[…] we shouldn’t slaughter people for being like this but, like, they’re going just
not to reproduce because again, they don’t have the drive to find a wife,
they’re not gonna have kids, and I think it’s just better if their bloodline
dies out, honestly, that’s probably just the best thing for society […] the
only men who deserve to have families and kids are men who are gonna model
ambition, drive and healthy relationship dynamics.”
The only difference between this group and their Manosphere counterparts
is that the men have more ready access to guns than their female counterparts.
It is undoubtedly only a matter of time before one of these trainee female
fascists decides to launch a murderous rampage in the name of modern feminism.
To be blunt, this type of reactionary feminism would not
look out of place in Nazi Germany. Their modern-day eugenicist ideas will be embraced
by fascists worldwide. They make the same arguments that were put forward by
the nazis. Only a cursory read of Mein Kampf would confirm that.
There is nothing progressive in this modern feminism, as
Kate Randal points out. There is more talk of gender today than at any previous
moment in history. The #MeToo campaign in the US has supposedly brought the
conditions of women to the fore like never before. The Global media and
Hollywood are animated by hardly anything else. But this is a fraud. The women receiving
nearly all the coverage belong to the upper echelons of society, the richest
five or ten per cent. Working-class women are largely absent from this
discussion, except for a few token exceptions that highlight the rule. As Rosa
Luxemburg once wrote, “The women of the property-owning class will always
fanatically defend the exploitation and enslavement of the working people, by
which they indirectly receive the means for their socially useless existence.[8]”That
is true today as it was in Luxembourg’s day.
London-based author and activist Laura Bates, 37, is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a website that collates first-hand accounts of sexism from women around the world, using those experiences to press for change. She’s also the author of bestselling nonfiction titles including Misogynation and Men Who Hate Women, as well as novels for teens that grapple with issues such as revenge porn and slut-shaming. Her new novel is Sisters of Sword and Shadow.
[1]
Sexism with a silicone face-observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/sexism-with-a-silicone-face
[2]
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/10/the-misogyny-of-the-metaverse-is-mark-zuckerbergs-dream-world-a-no-go-area-for-women
[3]
Adolescence: Gripping realism explores social pressures behind young male violence- violence-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/03/24/fbxd-m24.html
[4]
“One day this could happen to me” Children, nudification tools, and
sexually explicit deepfakes April 2025-assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2025/04/Children-nudification-tools-and-sexually-explicit-deepfakes-April-2025.pdf
[5]
See - She Said: The origin story of the #MeToo campaign, or a version of it- it-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/11/21/bcwe-n21.html
[6]
www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/29/welcome-to-the-femosphere-the-latest-dark-toxic-corner-of-the-internet-for-women
[7] The reactionary turn in popular feminism-www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2024.2393187#abstract
[8] Women's Suffrage And Class Struggle by Rosa Luxemburg (1912)
