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Daily Mirror
03-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
Trad-wives are distracting you from the global shrinking of women's rights
What makes a modern woman? This debate has been doing the round since at least the 1950s. There's a myriad of ways to describe modern femininity. Having a freedom fund to escape an abusive relationship, perhaps. Or expecting the same wage for the same work as a male colleague. Safety and security issues too come to mind, not least the ability to walk alone at night without fear of harm. Each of these aspirations face outward, to society's treatment of women and call for the basic rights of living to be met: safety, security, equality. Yet a growing number of women are turning their backs on this. Instead, they are embracing conservative traditional values through TikTok's so-called "trad-wife" trend by prioritising domesticity. Cooking and cleaning are the basic components of caring for yourself and others. Pre-first wave feminism, this was what the patriarchal society envisioned for women: apron on, cooking for the family, mopping up after everybody else. All the while being demure, kind, and placid. The epitome of 'no thoughts, just vibes'. This, to my mind, is nightmare fuel and - horrifyingly - this feeling is not universal. Feminist critic Betty Friedan wrote about the particular loneliness and emptiness of the 1950s era housewife in her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. She called it 'the problem which has no name.' She wrote: 'Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries… she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - 'is this all'?' Or in other words: there has to be more to life than folding laundry and serving the man of the house's desires. And there is. But the recent trad-wife trend on social media would have you believe otherwise. It would have you salivating over the idea of making a meal totally from scratch - and no cheating with a jar of sauce! In one video by popular trad-wife influencer Nara Smith (@naraazizasmith), she makes her husband a fizzy drink from its base ingredients caramel sugar and zested lemons, limes, and oranges, when he asks for a Coca Cola. The house is spotless and she is decked out in a sequin covered gown. Nara says in the video after taking a sip: 'It tasted exactly like coke.' You may wonder then: what is the point? The point is this: it fills women's time by keeping them busy in fulfilling men's desires. Somehow, this video alone has amassed 4.7million views, while her Tiktok page has 11.7million followers. According to the Greater London Authority, that is more than the population of London. The trad-wife trend keeps women from bubbling over with rage about the erosion of our rights here in the UK and across the Atlantic in the USA. Roe vs Wade was repealed in the States in 2022, while just this year the definition of a woman in the UK was ruled by the Supreme Court to be reductive and restrictive. We are living through a shrinking of women's rights. Buy the fizzy drink from your local independent shop. Concentrate on what matters: equality and liberty. However, there are many different stripes to this trend. While Nara's trad-wife image is glittering, polished, and so very modern, there is another strand which presents a rose-tinted gaze back to the post-war period. Take Alena Kate Pettitt's website The Darling Academy for example. Pettitt's brand of tradwife celebrates 'homemaking, motherhood, and vintage inspired living.' In an article on her website, Alena writes: 'In a world that glorifies career ambition and independence from men above all else, the presence of a contented housewife can challenge the deeply ingrained belief that a woman's worth is measured by her pay check, and ability to survive on her own.' This sentiment is a world away from Friedan's. As a modern feminist, there is cause for concern here. The issue is not with the individual enacting domesticity online. Each to their own. Individual right to choose is a core tenet of feminism after all. But what does it say about our current political moment when trad-wife content gains millions of views? To be clear: the trad-wife trend operates by evoking a subdued kind of womanhood that echoes with an era when women did not have equal rights. In a recent interview with author and cultural critic Sophie Gilbert about her new book Girl on Girl, we discussed this strand of the trad-wife. Gilbert describes this looking back as 'weaponised nostalgia' that 'really work[s] hard to serve men's desires.' This 'weaponised nostalgia' is a huge threat to the modern woman. It warps the realities of the past, when women were contained, silenced, and treated as second-class citizens. In response to Friedan's 'problem that has no name', 2025 calls back that the problem is now not only named, but it is trending, with millions of views under the trad-wife hashtag.
CTV News
25-05-2025
- CTV News
Susan Brownmiller, author of the landmark book on sexual assault, ‘Against Our Will,' dies at 90
NEW YORK — Susan Brownmiller, a prominent feminist and author of the 1960s and '70s whose 'Against Our Will' was a landmark and intensely debated bestseller about sexual assault, has died. She was 90. Brownmiller, who had been ill, died Saturday at a New York hospital, according to Emily Jane Goodman, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice and practicing attorney who serves as the executor of Brownmiller's will. A journalist, anti-war protester and civil rights activist before joining the 'second wave' feminist movement in its formative years, Brownmiller was among many women who were radicalized in the '60s and '70s and part of the smaller circle that included Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Kate Millett who radicalized others. While activists of the early 20th century focused on voting rights, the second wave feminism transformed conversations about sex, marriage reproductive rights, workplace harassment and domestic violence. Brownmiller, as much as anyone, opened up the discussion of rape. 'Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,' published in 1975 and widely read and taught for decades after, documented the roots, prevalence and politics of rape — in war and in prison, against children and spouses. She denounced the glorification of rape in popular culture, contended that rape was an act of violence, not lust, and traced rape to the very foundations of human history. 'Man's structural capacity to rape and woman's corresponding structural vulnerability are as basic to the physiology of both our sexes as the primal act of sex itself,' she wrote. In her 1999 memoir 'In Our Time,' Brownmiller likened the writing of 'Against Our Will' to 'shooting an arrow into a bulls-eye in very slow motion.' Brownmiller started the book in the early 1970s after hearing stories from friends that made her shriek 'with dismay.' It was chosen as a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and considered newsworthy enough for Brownmiller to be interviewed on the 'Today' show by Barbara Walters. In 1976, Time magazine placed her picture on its cover, along with Billie Jean King, Betty Ford and nine others as 'Women of the Year.' Brownmiller's book inspired survivors to tell their stories, women to organize rape crisis centers and helped lead to the passage of marital rape laws. It was also received with fear, confusion and anger. Brownmiller remembered a newspaper reporter shouting at her, 'You have no right to disturb my mind like this!' Brownmiller was also faulted for writing that rape was an assertion of power that helped all men and was strongly criticized for a chapter titled 'A Question of Race,' in which she revisited the 1955 murder in Mississippi of Black teen Emmett Till. Brownmiller condemned his gruesome death at the hands of a white mob but also blamed Till for the alleged incident that led to his death: whistling at Bryant's wife, Carolyn Bryant. The chapter reflected ongoing tensions between feminists and civil rights leaders, with activist Angela Davis writing that Brownmiller's views were 'pervaded with racist ideas.' In 2017, New Yorker editor David Remnick would call her writing about Till's murder 'morally oblivious.' Asked by Time magazine in 2015 about the passages on Till, she replied that she stood by 'every word.' Steinem would criticize Brownmiller for comments she made during a 2015 interview with New York magazine, when Brownmiller said that one way for women to avoid being assaulted was not to get drunk, suggesting that women themselves were to blame. Brownmiller's other books included 'Femininity,' 'Seeing Vietnam' and the novel 'Waverly Place,' based on the highly publicized trial of lawyer Joel Steinberg, convicted in 1987 of manslaughter for the death of his 6-year-old daughter, Lisa. In recent years, Brownmiller taught at Pace University. 'She was an active feminist, she was not one to just agree with the popular issue of the day,' said Goodman, whose friendship with Brownmiller spanned decades. She recalled remarkable gatherings, including poker nights, at Brownmiller's longtime Greenwich Village apartment, which was the subject of her 2017 book, 'My City Highrise Garden.' Another longtime close friend, 92-year-old Alix Kates Shulman, a fellow writer and feminist, lived within walking distance. 'We were womens' liberation comrades,' she said. Brownmiller was born in New York City in 1935, and would note proudly that her birthday, Feb. 15, was the same as Susan B. Anthony's. Her father was a sales clerk, her mother a secretary and both were so devoted to Franklin Roosevelt and so knowledgeable of current events that Brownmiller 'became very intense about these things too.' She was a Cornell University scholarship student at and had a brief 'very mistaken ambition' to be a Broadway star, working as a file clerk and waitress as she hoped for roles that never materialized. The civil rights movement changed her life. She joined the Congress of Racial Equality in 1960 and four years later was among the 'Freedom Summer' volunteers who went to Mississippi to help register Blacks to vote. During the '60s, she also wrote for the Village Voice and for ABC television and was a researcher at Newsweek. In the late 1970s, Brownmiller helped found the New York chapter of 'Women Against Pornography,' with other members, including Steinem and Adrienne Rich. Organizers agreed that porn degraded and abused women, but differed over how to respond. Brownmiller wrote an influential essay, 'Let's Put Pornography Back in the Closet,' disputing arguments that pornography was protected by the First Amendment. But she opposed anti-porn leader Catherine MacKinnon's push for legislation, believing that pornography was best confronted through education and protests. In the 1980s, Brownmiller stepped back from activism and in her memoir noted her despair over the 'slow seepage, symbolic defeats and petty divisions' that were both causes and symptoms of the movement's decline. But she still remembered her earlier years as a rare and precious chapter. 'When such a coming-together takes place, when the vision is clear and the sisterhood is powerful, mountains are moved and the human landscape is changed forever,' Brownmiller wrote. 'Of course it is wildly unrealistic to speak in one voice for half the human race, yet that is what feminism always attempts to do, and must do, and that is what Women's Liberation did do, with astounding success, in our time.' Hillel Italie, The Associated Press Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen contributed to this report from Chicago.
The Independent
25-05-2025
- The Independent
Susan Brownmiller, author of the landmark book on sexual assault, ‘Against Our Will,' dies at 90
Susan Brownmiller, a prominent feminist and author of the 1960s and '70s whose "Against Our Will" was a landmark and intensely debated best-seller about sexual assault, has died. She was 90. Brownmiller, who had been ill, died Saturday at a New York hospital, according to Emily Jane Goodman, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice and practicing attorney who serves as the executor of Brownmiller's will. A journalist, anti-war protester and civil rights activist before joining the 'second wave' feminist movement in its formative years, Brownmiller was among many women who were radicalized in the '60s and '70s and part of the smaller circle that included Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Kate Millett who radicalized others. While activists of the early 20th century focused on voting rights, second wave feminism transformed conversations about sex, marriage reproductive rights, workplace harassment and domestic violence. Brownmiller, as much as anyone, opened up the discussion of rape. "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape," published in 1975 and widely read and taught for decades after, documented the roots, prevalence and politics of rape — in war and in prison, against children and spouses. She denounced the glorification of rape in popular culture, contended that rape was an act of violence, not lust, and traced rape to the very foundations of human history. "Man's structural capacity to rape and woman's corresponding structural vulnerability are as basic to the physiology of both our sexes as the primal act of sex itself," she wrote. In her 1999 memoir "In Our Time," Brownmiller likened the writing of "Against Our Will" to "shooting an arrow into a bulls-eye in very slow motion." A book that Brownmiller started in the early 1970s, after hearing stories from friends that made her shriek 'with dismay.' The title was chosen as a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and considered newsworthy enough for Brownmiller to be interviewed on the "Today" show by Barbara Walters. In 1976, Time magazine placed her picture on its cover, along with Billie Jean King, Betty Ford and nine others as "Women of the Year." Brownmiller's book inspired survivors to tell their stories, women to organize rape crisis centers and helped lead to the passage of marital rape laws. It was also received with fear, confusion and anger. Brownmiller remembered a newspaper reporter shouting at her, "You have no right to disturb my mind like this!" Brownmiller was also faulted for writing that rape was an assertion of power that helped all men and was strongly criticized for a chapter titled "A Question of Race," in which she revisited the 1955 murder in Mississippi of Black teen Emmett Till. Brownmiller condemned his gruesome death at the hands of a white mob but also blamed Till for the alleged incident that led to his death: whistling at Bryant's wife, Carolyn Bryant. The chapter reflected ongoing tensions between feminists and civil rights leaders, with activist Angela Davis writing that Brownmiller's views were "pervaded with racist ideas." In 2017, New Yorker editor David Remnick would call her writing about Till's murder 'morally oblivious.' Asked by Time magazine in 2015 about the passages on Till, she replied that she stood by 'every word.' Steinem would criticize Brownmiller for comments she made during a 2015 interview with New York magazine, when Brownmiller said that one way for women to avoid being assaulted was not to get drunk, suggesting that women themselves were to blame. Brownmiller's other books included "Femininity," "Seeing Vietnam" and the novel "Waverly Place," based on the highly publicized trial of lawyer Joel Steinberg, convicted in 1987 of manslaughter for the death of his 6-year-old daughter, Lisa. In recent years, Brownmiller taught at Pace University. 'She was an active feminist, she was not one to just agree with the popular issue of the day," said Goodman, whose friendship with Brownmiller spanned decades. She recalled remarkable gatherings, including poker nights, at Brownmiller's longtime Greenwich Village apartment, which was the subject of her 2017 book, 'My City Highrise Garden.' Another longtime close friend, 92-year-old Alix Kates Shulman, a fellow writer and feminist, lived within walking distance. 'We were womens' liberation comrades,' she said. Brownmiller was born in New York City in 1935, and would note proudly that her birthday, Feb. 15, was the same as Susan B. Anthony's. Her father was a sales clerk, her mother a secretary and both were so devoted to Franklin Roosevelt and so knowledgeable of current events that Brownmiller "became very intense about these things too." She was a Cornell University scholarship student at and had a brief "very mistaken ambition" to be a Broadway star, working as a file clerk and waitress as she hoped for roles that never materialized. The civil rights movement changed her life. She joined the Congress of Racial Equality in 1960 and four years later was among the "Freedom Summer" volunteers who went to Mississippi to help register Blacks to vote. During the '60s, she also wrote for the Village Voice and for ABC television and was a researcher at Newsweek. In the late 1970s, Brownmiller helped found the New York chapter of "Women Against Pornography," with other members, including Steinem and Adrienne Rich. Organizers agreed that porn degraded and abused women, but differed over how to respond. Brownmiller wrote an influential essay, "Let's Put Pornography Back in the Closet," disputing arguments that pornography was protected by the First Amendment. But she opposed anti-porn leader Catherine MacKinnon's push for legislation, believing that pornography was best confronted through education and protests. In the 1980s, Brownmiller stepped back from activism and in her memoir noted her despair over the "slow seepage, symbolic defeats and petty divisions" that were both causes and symptoms of the movement's decline. But she still remembered her earlier years as a rare and precious chapter. "When such a coming-together takes place, when the vision is clear and the sisterhood is powerful, mountains are moved and the human landscape is changed forever," Brownmiller wrote. "Of course it is wildly unrealistic to speak in one voice for half the human race, yet that is what feminism always attempts to do, and must do, and that is what Women's Liberation did do, with astounding success, in our time." ___
Associated Press
25-05-2025
- Associated Press
Susan Brownmiller, author of the landmark book on sexual assault, ‘Against Our Will,' dies at 90
NEW YORK (AP) — Susan Brownmiller, a prominent feminist and author of the 1960s and '70s whose 'Against Our Will' was a landmark and intensely debated best-seller about sexual assault, has died. She was 90. Brownmiller, who had been ill, died Saturday at a New York hospital, according to Emily Jane Goodman, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice and practicing attorney who serves as the executor of Brownmiller's will. A journalist, anti-war protester and civil rights activist before joining the 'second wave' feminist movement in its formative years, Brownmiller was among many women who were radicalized in the '60s and '70s and part of the smaller circle that included Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Kate Millett who radicalized others. While activists of the early 20th century focused on voting rights, second wave feminism transformed conversations about sex, marriage reproductive rights, workplace harassment and domestic violence. Brownmiller, as much as anyone, opened up the discussion of rape. 'Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,' published in 1975 and widely read and taught for decades after, documented the roots, prevalence and politics of rape — in war and in prison, against children and spouses. She denounced the glorification of rape in popular culture, contended that rape was an act of violence, not lust, and traced rape to the very foundations of human history. 'Man's structural capacity to rape and woman's corresponding structural vulnerability are as basic to the physiology of both our sexes as the primal act of sex itself,' she wrote. In her 1999 memoir 'In Our Time,' Brownmiller likened the writing of 'Against Our Will' to 'shooting an arrow into a bulls-eye in very slow motion.' A book that Brownmiller started in the early 1970s, after hearing stories from friends that made her shriek 'with dismay.' The title was chosen as a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and considered newsworthy enough for Brownmiller to be interviewed on the 'Today' show by Barbara Walters. In 1976, Time magazine placed her picture on its cover, along with Billie Jean King, Betty Ford and nine others as 'Women of the Year.' Brownmiller's book inspired survivors to tell their stories, women to organize rape crisis centers and helped lead to the passage of marital rape laws. It was also received with fear, confusion and anger. Brownmiller remembered a newspaper reporter shouting at her, 'You have no right to disturb my mind like this!' Brownmiller was also faulted for writing that rape was an assertion of power that helped all men and was strongly criticized for a chapter titled 'A Question of Race,' in which she revisited the 1955 murder in Mississippi of Black teen Emmett Till. Brownmiller condemned his gruesome death at the hands of a white mob but also blamed Till for the alleged incident that led to his death: whistling at Bryant's wife, Carolyn Bryant. The chapter reflected ongoing tensions between feminists and civil rights leaders, with activist Angela Davis writing that Brownmiller's views were 'pervaded with racist ideas.' In 2017, New Yorker editor David Remnick would call her writing about Till's murder 'morally oblivious.' Asked by Time magazine in 2015 about the passages on Till, she replied that she stood by 'every word.' Steinem would criticize Brownmiller for comments she made during a 2015 interview with New York magazine, when Brownmiller said that one way for women to avoid being assaulted was not to get drunk, suggesting that women themselves were to blame. Brownmiller's other books included 'Femininity,' 'Seeing Vietnam' and the novel 'Waverly Place,' based on the highly publicized trial of lawyer Joel Steinberg, convicted in 1987 of manslaughter for the death of his 6-year-old daughter, Lisa. In recent years, Brownmiller taught at Pace University. 'She was an active feminist, she was not one to just agree with the popular issue of the day,' said Goodman, whose friendship with Brownmiller spanned decades. She recalled remarkable gatherings, including poker nights, at Brownmiller's longtime Greenwich Village apartment, which was the subject of her 2017 book, 'My City Highrise Garden.' Another longtime close friend, 92-year-old Alix Kates Shulman, a fellow writer and feminist, lived within walking distance. 'We were womens' liberation comrades,' she said. Brownmiller was born in New York City in 1935, and would note proudly that her birthday, Feb. 15, was the same as Susan B. Anthony's. Her father was a sales clerk, her mother a secretary and both were so devoted to Franklin Roosevelt and so knowledgeable of current events that Brownmiller 'became very intense about these things too.' She was a Cornell University scholarship student at and had a brief 'very mistaken ambition' to be a Broadway star, working as a file clerk and waitress as she hoped for roles that never materialized. The civil rights movement changed her life. She joined the Congress of Racial Equality in 1960 and four years later was among the 'Freedom Summer' volunteers who went to Mississippi to help register Blacks to vote. During the '60s, she also wrote for the Village Voice and for ABC television and was a researcher at Newsweek. In the late 1970s, Brownmiller helped found the New York chapter of 'Women Against Pornography,' with other members, including Steinem and Adrienne Rich. Organizers agreed that porn degraded and abused women, but differed over how to respond. Brownmiller wrote an influential essay, 'Let's Put Pornography Back in the Closet,' disputing arguments that pornography was protected by the First Amendment. But she opposed anti-porn leader Catherine MacKinnon's push for legislation, believing that pornography was best confronted through education and protests. In the 1980s, Brownmiller stepped back from activism and in her memoir noted her despair over the 'slow seepage, symbolic defeats and petty divisions' that were both causes and symptoms of the movement's decline. But she still remembered her earlier years as a rare and precious chapter. 'When such a coming-together takes place, when the vision is clear and the sisterhood is powerful, mountains are moved and the human landscape is changed forever,' Brownmiller wrote. 'Of course it is wildly unrealistic to speak in one voice for half the human race, yet that is what feminism always attempts to do, and must do, and that is what Women's Liberation did do, with astounding success, in our time.' ___ Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen contributed to this report from Chicago.
