Events of the past month or so have been a startling reminder of the vacuity, but also the brooding malevolence, of feminism at its very worst. I’m talking, of course, about the Lindsay Clancy case, which I’ve written about multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of American women gobbled up and regurgitated insane theories about a case in which the defendant had already admitted the crime of which she was accused—killing her three young children—and all that remained to be decided was whether she actually was a murderer or lacked the responsibility, on account of mental illness and overmedication, as the defence alleges.
On display in the feminine response, on TikTok, Instagram and X, was not just a terrifying sense of entitlement—There’s no way a woman could do what Lindsay Clancy has admitted to doing!—and an emotionality and absence of logic that would make even the most ardent male chauvinist eat his slippers. There was also an overwhelming, annihilating hatred of men. It’s a hatred that bears no relation whatsoever, as far as I can see, to the objective position of women in American society today.
This may be the great paradox of feminism: that as society becomes more equal, women become less not more contented. Rather than leaving women with a growing sense of satisfaction as all barriers to equality, real and imagined, are smashed into pieces and driven into the earth by stilletoed heels, emancipation only makes women more angry, more discontented. That anger and discontent takes on an increasingly diffuse character. It becomes an attitude, and not a very nice one.
Most “liberated” women don’t know what they’re so upset about, but they do know who and what is responsible. Men. The Patriarchy. And in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the Patriarchy and all that diffuse hatred are congealed in the sad form of her husband, Patrick, the man who returned home from getting takeout food and medication to discover his wife lying paralyzed in the snow, her wrists cut, and his three beautiful children strangled to death in the basement.
He’s actually the one who killed the children, pushed his wife out of the window and convinced her she did it—because who else would? Isn’t it obvious?
The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, recognized this paradox as perhaps a general feature of leftist psychology. The “oversocialized” leftist—the leftist who has absorbed society’s cherished values just a little too much—revolts even though society is firmly devoted to the causes he champions. Maybe Ted was right. But it’s women on both sides of the aisle who are batting for Lindsay.
Vacuous and malevolent—those were two words that entered my mind again today as I read a recent opinion piece in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. “Ukraine’s fight against Putin shows what women are really capable of,” was the headline. The piece was by a woman called Zoe Strimpel, the author of the book, Good Slut: How Money, Sex and Power Set Women Free. I’ll spare you the blurb.
Full disclosure: I actually knew Zoe Strimpel at Cambridge, way back in 2012, when she was reading for an MPhil in gender studies. I’ve not kept up with her career since, but let’s just say I wasn’t surprised to rediscover her, 14 years older, still defending the indefensible.
The war, Strimpel says, is bringing much-needed change to Ukraine. It’s altering “the perception of what women are capable of” and making Ukraine a more equal society, at long last.
“Critics have, predictably, lambasted me for my ‘Pollyanna-ish’ belief in female strength and progress, but the rapid evolution of women’s status in the war effort of President Zelensky’s forces is proving me right,” Strimpel says.
“Ukraine, still a macho society, is nonetheless becoming the most extraordinary example of women bucking all the stereotypes about being too cuddly and weak for war. Not that it matters, but these aren’t big butch broads; many are beautiful, slender women who could easily coast on their looks without bothering to do combat training and learn to operate drones.”
Women are occupying combat and other frontline roles in growing numbers—21% of officers are now women, up from 4% in 2023—and they’re also leading the fight to develop new tech and weapons to beat the Russians.
Strimpel reserves her most fulsome praise for a woman by the name of Iryna Terekh, who runs the weapons startup Fire Point, which has already developed Ukraine’s first home-grown cruise missile, the pink Flamingo. Terekh is an archetypal “good slut.” She’s a “stunning brunette with high cheekbones, luscious glossy lips and chic, understated garb,” but she’s also lethal. Literally. You get the feeling that’s how Strimpel would like to see herself: a sexy bitch, blowing dudes up from very far away while wearing a nice little cocktail dress. There’s less mud and blood like that.
But it’s not all Progress. The rest of the article focuses on the ongoing discrimination and “entrenched sexism” women face in Ukraine’s armed forces. One woman, Alya, a former dancer, was told she was just “a beautiful doll” and “she can’t be smart enough” to be a battlefield surgeon. Or what about Katya, who joined an army brigade, “but instead of fighting Russia, she was forced into her own little war with rank misogyny”?
There’s an air of unreality about the whole article. Is this actually real? Are we actually being told the great benefit of the Ukraine war is that it’s creating a new nation of feminist “good sluts” like Zoe Strimpel?
Yes, we are. The “feminist transformation of Ukraine,” forged in the crucible of war, is a good thing. But Strimpel goes even further. We must follow Ukraine’s example—or else. “Now the rest of the world has to catch up,” she boldly proclaims, “before the enemy is at our gates too.”
It’s tempting to dismiss the article as barenaked propaganda, especially after that final line. The British media, including The Daily Telegraph, has been among the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for the war, presenting Putin’s ambitions as an existential threat to the whole of Europe—an egregious falsehood. Indeed, the British government has been singled out by the Russians for its unwavering support of Ukraine, which includes providing long-range missiles and drones that are now being used to strike targets deep inside Russia itself. Just a few days ago, the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, visited Kyiv and pledged his continuing support for the war. In response, a Kremlin spokesman accused Britain of “methodically and regularly [adding] fuel to the fire and methodically and regularly [hatching] schemes to prevent the slightest progress in the peaceful settlement process.”
In recent weeks, there’s been talk of “radical” mobilization changes in Ukraine as the country faces manpower shortages in key roles. Could women end up being drafted? It’s possible; although it would be controversial. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has already announced his plans to recruit an additional 300,000 soldiers after the state Duma elections next month. Many soldiers fighting on the Russian side are now coming from abroad: volunteers from Africa, and tens of thousands of North Koreans.
The opinion piece may just be a cynical attempt to grease the skids for bringing larger numbers of Ukrainian women into the war, to make it palatable for a wider European audience. That’s exactly what Katya, whom I mentioned earlier, wants to happen. She “finds Israel’s conscription of both sexes inspiring.”
“I would like to see the same in Ukraine,” she says, “because everyone needs to be protected. I think there should be mobilization of women, like there is with men. Everyone needs the same kind of training, women included.”
Propaganda or no, this is feminism all the same. Myopic, monomaniacal. Red in tooth and claw. An ideology that’s alive to the minute struggles and suffering of women, but completely dead to the brute struggles and suffering of anyone else, whether they be three murdered children, one of whom was a little girl, or hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men.
