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Zusammenfassung von The Witches Are Coming

Name: The Witches Are Coming
Rating: 3.4 (55 reviews)
Author: Lindy West

Lindy West

Education on gender politics

3.4 (55 Bewertungen)

23 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West explores how popular culture reflects and shapes our attitudes towards feminism, race, and politics. It challenges readers to question ingrained beliefs and work towards a more just society.

Themen

Gender- und Sexualitätsstudien

Inhaltsübersicht

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What’s in it for me? Get educated on gender politics.

The future is female and feminist! But the present is...complicated. In the wake of the #metoo movement, there was certainly a shift in gender power dynamics. But the fight against the patriarchy is far from over.

These blinks chronicle a misogynist sitting in the Oval Office, a religious right who are working overtime to repeal women’s rights, and men claiming that they’re marginalized – all because women are being “nasty” to them on Twitter.

There’s never been a more confusing – or a more hopeful – time to be a feminist. Tackling everything from politics to pop culture, these blinks lay bare the complicated gender and power dynamics that underpin our everyday lives.

Read on to find out

what Donald Trump and Joan of Arc have in common;
what Adam Sandler movies say about contemporary masculinity; and
how South Park has inflected the alt-right’s discourse.

We need a reality check on the phrase “witch hunt.”

What do Joan of Arc, the Sanderson sisters from the movie Hocus Pocus, and the 45th president of the United States of America all have in common? They’ve all – allegedly – been the victims of “witch hunts.”

Joan of Arc was tried as a witch and burned at the stake in Rouen, France in 1431. The fictional Sanderson sisters met a similar fate years later in the town of Salem, Massachusetts – the site of the most notorious witch trials in United States history. And Trump is a self-professed victim of a witch hunt. Or, make that plural: witch hunts. Since he’s taken office, Trump has tweeted the phrase “witch hunt” over 200 times. Yet despite this, Donald Trump is still alive and well – unlike the victims of real, historical witch hunts.

Before 2016, “witch hunt” generally referred to the witch trials that took place in early modern Europe and America, roughly between 1450 and 1750. These trials usually concluded with the accused being hanged, burned at the stake, or thrown into a lake to drown. The accused witches were overwhelmingly women, their accusers overwhelmingly men.

But recently, the way the phrase “witch hunt” is used has shifted somewhat. In 2006, activist Tarana Burke spearheaded the #metoo movement, calling on women to share their experiences of sexual assault. The movement gained serious traction in 2017, when powerful producer Harvey Weinstein’s many sexual assaults came to light. More and more women named their male harassers. And some men started to feel very worried.

Worried about the systemic abuse and harassment women suffered? No. They were worried that these women’s accusations amounted to a “witch hunt.” But do they?

Here’s what these so-called “witch hunts” look like. A prominent man is accused of harassment. The accusation is corroborated. The man experiences public condemnation and is punished – though generally not tried in a court – for his behavior. His punishment entails resigning from his job and fading into the background before reappearing to tape a comedy special or run for office…you know, sort of like getting burned at stake. Except not like that at all.

When men refer to themselves as victims of witch hunts, they’re implying that the tables have turned. Women hold all the cards, now. Men are oppressed. Simple as that.

But they couldn’t be more wrong, no matter what the Trumps and Weinsteins of the world would have us believe.

Women have a “patriarchy problem,” not a “likeability problem.”

What can a series of comedy movies from the 1990s teach us about gender politics? Well, if the movies in question are from the Adam Sandler ouvre…quite a lot, actually.

Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Little Nicky, and others might not be cinematic masterpieces. But they are some of our culture’s best-loved examples of male mediocrity. Take Billy Madison.

Forget civility. Sometimes we can’t all just get along.

“Why can’t we all just get along?” It’s a common refrain in today’s sometimes hyper-critical political discourse. Surely, the question implies, things would be easier if we stopped quibbling about pronouns and deleted tweets, and instead agreed to live and let live.

And yet, “Why can’t we all just get along?” hides a multitude of sins.

Wellness doesn’t benefit all women equally.

Goop, the lifestyle brand founded by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, has become notorious for the wellness products it peddles. Just google “jade yoni egg,” and you’ll soon see why. But Goop’s jade eggs and crystal-infused waters are far from New Age fads. Wellness and self-care are concepts that have firmly entered the mainstream.

These days, there’s a whole industry in selling wellness-related products to women, like bespoke juices and organic face masks. The science behind these products may be questionable. But the fads themselves are relatively harmless. Aren’t they?

Edgy humor isn’t always subversive.

For more than 20 years, the foul-mouthed elementary schoolers of a fictional Colorado town have been entertaining television viewers. When South Park, the animated series developed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, premiered in 1997, it was lauded as the last word in cool, subversive humor. Decades later, South Park still exerts a cultural influence – only, it’s not a positive one.

When portraying the antics of Cartman and company, South Park makes a point of tackling topical political issues. A trademark of South Park’s satire is its creators insistence that when it comes to politics, everyone – whether they’re on the left or the right – is fair game.

Political correctness isn’t killing comedy – male comedians are.

In the 1990s, there were few shows funnier than The Simpsons. These days, we can still appreciate the show for its sharply drawn characters and keen satire. Yet many people find it hard to watch the character of Apu without wincing at the crude South Asian stereotype. In 2018, responding to growing public outcry, The Simpsons creators acknowledged that Apu’s characterization was outdated.

Humor changes. Society progresses. And art needs to keep pace with society’s evolving standards. It needs to respond to valid critique if it wants to stay relevant.

We need to normalize abortion.

A US network once refused to air a teen drama that dealt with the topic of abortion. It sounds like something that might have happened decades ago, but this was in 2004. The show in question was an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation, and PBS pulled it from the air that year.

Now, PBS didn’t decide to pull the episode simply because the topic of abortion came up. Rather, it chose to pull the episode because the character who opted for an abortion didn’t express sufficient remorse over her decision.

Women alone can’t fix the problem that is the patriarchy.

The patriarchy poses many problems for women. Under patriarchy, women are at much higher risk of sexual violence than men. In the workplace, women are vastly underrepresented at management level. In the home, women still perform far more domestic duties than men do.

How do we fix this? There are lots of so-called solutions floating around, like:

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Worum geht es in The Witches Are Coming?

In The Witches are Coming (2019) writer and feminist activist Lindy West applies her scalpel-sharp intellect to today’s political landscape. She uncovers the ideological agendas behind everything from Adam Sandler movies to the wellness movement, abortion rights to Louis C.K.’s comeback. This is feminism for the post #metoo era.

Wer The Witches Are Coming lesen sollte

Feminists who feel frustrated by the state of contemporary gender politics
Men who want to be better allies to the women in their lives
Anyone who’s oppressed by the patriarchy

Über den Autor

Lindy West is an American writer, comedian, activist, and – above all – outspoken feminist. As a cultural commentator she’s written extensively for outlets like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Gawker. Her first book, 2016’s Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, was a New York Times bestseller and adapted for television by HBO.

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Gesellschaft & Kultur

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