Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback

Journalist and screenwriter Penny (Bitch Doctrine) examines in this passionate if uneven polemic how “women and queer people are rewriting the terms of a social contract that was never supposed to include us.” Exposing the backlash to this “paradigm shift” in gender relations from “a fragile, savage minority that would rather burn the world than share it,” Penny is at their strongest when tearing apart the “sense of aggrieved entitlement” that animates the “modern far right” and discerning how some “depressed, anxious White men who rarely get laid” have nevertheless managed to “retain their human decency” and divest from “toxic masculinity.” Less successful are Penny’s stale critiques of Lean-In style feminism and their cursory attempts to weave in the perspectives of BIPOC individuals. (Though Penny does acknowledge that, “despite my best efforts,” the book is “full of moments when I have spoken of women’s experience and seen, in my own mind, only White women.”) Despite the pithy turns of phrase and sharp put-downs (on “have-it-all feminism”: “the logic of those who have confused not having had a proper night’s sleep in years with being ‘woke’ ”), Penny doesn’t break much new ground in critiquing mainstream feminists or linking misogyny to the alt-right. This well-intentioned manifesto falls behind the curve. (Apr.)