Are critics interested in convincing anyone? This was the question I asked myself after reading a series of supposedly feminist, reactionary tracts. These works – which had the feel of bloated, arrogant opinion pieces, ranging from naive to astonishing in their blanket rejections of an allegedly too sex-positive and insidiously anti-feminist culture – irritated me. This was not because I didn’t agree with many of their assessments; it was because I did, and was ashamed and frustrated to see them expressed in such blatantly propagandistic terms. We are in a time of unprecedented polarisation and, among many women, deep and poorly articulated discontent with societal forces that seem out of our control. If we are to see any change at all, we need a criticism that can withstand criticism.
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