Examining gender politics since second-wave feminism, this book argues that misogyny persists because reproductive politics continue to structure sexual subordination, demanding a radical rethinking of reproduction and gender relations.
The patriarchy won’t smash itself’ – Grand upheavals in the economic terrain of the recent past have not been enough to eradicate misogyny, even in modern economies most guaranteed to benefit from gender equality. This book takes on the history of gender in the decades since second-wave feminism to find out why. After examining the contemporary context, it considers three different ‘difficult cases’ of gender politics: the rapes of Gisèle Pélicot, the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell for child sexual abuse and the effects of China's one-child policy. It argues that the politics of reproduction seriously affect gender relations but are not explored in the present debate on sexual diversity or family violence. The emerging challenge is how to cut the cord that binds reproduction to sexual subordination; to reconfigure the relation of mothers to fathers, of mothers to daughters and sons, as much as the relation of men to women.