Firstly, can you tell us what initially inspired you to write Collapse Feminism and what you hoped to achieve by writing this book?
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I was inspired by Susan Faludi’s best-seller Backlash, in which she investigated how anti-feminist ideologies spread in the media in the 1980s, and looked at how today’s conservatives use social media to convey their ideas.
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I noticed that internet culture and online communities were rarely considered as legitimate sources for research, despite being essential to the formation of people’s identity and opinions. As someone who is both a member and an analyst of internet communities, I wanted to shed light on how they operate and politicize users for the better and for the worst.
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You make repeated reference to just how systemic/entrenched gender imbalances are within today’s society. Can women ever be truly liberated while existing within the parameters of this ‘wider conservative ecosystem’?
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Women mostly respond to the neoliberal patriarchal society we live in by subconsciously adapting to it. In that society, women are valuable when they are devoted workers and/or selfless mothers. However, a growing number of women realise that neither of these options make them feel liberated or fulfilled. Blinded by the rise of the neoliberal girlboss and pop feminism, we have failed to offer a popular alternative to capitalist and patriarchal expectations towards women and we are now facing the return of traditional values online. We must reclaim the internet and use it as a space where we can experiment with new ways of being a woman outside capitalist structures, outside patriarchy, through friendships, political engagement, and community work.
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In light of Rishi Sunak’s speech last week where he stated, ‘We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be – they can’t. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense’, can you elaborate on the importance of intersectional feminism and the dangers of elitism within the feminist movement?
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When conservatives can’t ensure that people’s basic needs are met, they turn to polarising identity politics to cover up their incompetence and stay relevant to their supporters. The ‘common sense’ argument is too often used by those who seek to establish that intersectional feminism – which considers the many ways each woman (including transwomen) experience discrimination – is too complex, too ideological. However, intersectional feminism is, in my opinion, the best way to approach and resolve the socio-economic inequalities that women face today. A black working-class woman will not experience sexism in the same way as a white middle-class woman. A British woman won’t have the same experience of sexism as an Afghan woman.
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Intersectional feminism allows us to adequately respond to the various ways in which women are discriminated against. It is certainly more complex than, let’s say, first and second wave feminism, which were mostly led by white educated middle-class women who fought for women’s rights. But that complexity shouldn’t be something to be afraid of. It’s an opportunity to learn more about us, to challenge our pre-conceptions about the world, and grow together. Intersectional feminism seeks to break the verticality of the feminist movement, meaning the tendency to amplify certain privileged voices and silence others. Instead, it has the ambition to create what I’ve called a collective of differences, meaning an assemblage of communities that simultaneously preserve their uniqueness but also ensure a continuous intercommunal dialogue.
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In your writing, the term ‘girlboss’ is synonymous with entrapment, and the inescapable pressure on women to preform within a capitalist society. How do we get people to wake up to this need for change? And why, when they are validated by promotions and rewards, is it in their interest?
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That is a difficult task. Our current socio-economic system is structured in a way that rewards those who exploit and seek power at all costs. The ‘girlboss’ trend is a neoliberal feminism invention that coincides with 20^th feminist discourses encouraging women to be financially independent. It pushes women to adopt the codes of a work culture that was designed by and for men. It cancels any form of toxicity with sparkles and female empowerment motivational quotes.
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Some say the girlboss is dead. They say the trend is over, but that doesn’t mean neoliberal feminism is dead. It adapts to the criticism it receives; it takes new forms and continues to grow. In order to fully dismantle neoliberal feminism, we have to abolish our contemporary thirst for power. Being validated with promotions and rewards doesn’t change anything to the fact that women are still paid less than their male colleagues. To put it simply, we can’t bridge the gender pay gap with individual promotions and rewards. As long as those inequalities persist, as long as sexism in the workplace persists, women’s achievements at their workplace will remain personal achievements perpetuating a work culture that continues to discriminate them on a large scale.
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What is the future of feminism in light of the critiques and challenges that you have explored in your book?
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I believe that assessing what is wrong in our society, in my case the conservative backlash, is necessary to then imagine bold alternatives. Feminism is attacked from all sides, across the globe, but I remain optimistic. I’m inspired by the work and voices of people at the margins of society, meaning people who can’t afford to be pessimistic because their existence depends on believing that tomorrow can be better than today. We must resist the temptation to turn in on ourselves and adopt conservative modes of being. The rhetoric of loss and collapse is too often pushed by the powerful. Times of crisis are an opportunity for renewal and feminism can help us imagine what a society based on community, education and care could look like. The future of feminism will be bright because feminist values will liberate us all.
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Alice Cappelle is known for her critical video essays on YouTube that have accumulated more than ten million views. She left academia after working for two years on twentieth-century African American social movements as part of a research MA in Lille, France.

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