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Amy Gabrielle's avatar

Ugh, Louise Perry is terrible. She should not be allowed to call herself a feminist. It's disgusting the way she normalizes rape culture. Rather than call out toxic masculinity and "bro culture", she blames young women for the way men treat them. I've read essays by women in their 20s and 30s who tear themselves to shreds for letting men treat them so badly. It's the same old "boys will be boys" so it's the woman's responsibility to be the sexual gatekeeper. I'm 57 and it's heartbreaking to see that in the 30+ years since I began "dating" that men have gotten worse at relationships (and being decent human beings). It's incomprehensible that young women today have fewer rights and less body autonomy than I did back in the 80s and 90s.

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Tracy Clark-Flory's avatar

I know it. And I thought books like UNHOOKED and MARRY HIM were bad enough in my 20s! This is so much worse.

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Rhymes With "Brass Seagull"'s avatar

And let's not forget the book HOOKED as well, the one with the infamous junk neuroscience.

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Rhymes With "Brass Seagull"'s avatar

Indeed, Perry basically allows women JUST enough agency to be blamed and shamed, but not nearly enough agency to actually empower them. Thus, her writing is worse than useless. And truly dystopian.

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Amy Gabrielle's avatar

Agreed. I think the worst part is that she's branded her beliefs as a new an improved form of feminism that has young women shaming and blaming THEMSELVES right along with the patriarchy. It creates a self loathing that leads to further pain and abuse. No good can come of this and it's heartbreaking.

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Rhymes With "Brass Seagull"'s avatar

Very true indeed. It is a major step backwards.

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Rhymes With "Brass Seagull"'s avatar

I would also like to add. We (at least those in the Anglosphere and Anglo-adjacent countries) really need to jettison the nebulous term "hookup culture" from our collective vocabulary yesterday. Call whatever it is "sexual neoliberalism", or even "neo-Hefnerism", perhaps, which most ironically of all seems to be associated with a "sex recession" for most people in recent years. If you wanna see an actual hookup culture, see Iceland, and the other Nordic countries and perhaps Brazil as well. But the Anglosphere, especially the USA? No.

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Rhymes With "Brass Seagull"'s avatar

Wow, I was about to say that she is almost as bad as Mary Harrington, but that would now be a coin flip as to which one is worse now.

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