Essay: The Role of a Feminist in a Time of Fascism
First published on March 26, 2025
What is the role of a feminist in the time of fascism?
I’m writing this as much for myself as for you. I need it as a reminder of why I do what I do; as much a letter to myself as a message to you. Because when I’m on the Edge of Overwhelm, there are only so many walks I can take to the park to lose myself in the sun reflecting off the pond. What can I say? What can I do? What now? A loop in my head that demands an answer.
It is rarely a popular time to be a feminist. And in times of revolution and upheaval (the fight against fascism requires both) when you would think a shit-stirring feminist would be welcome, it is often a lonely and unpopular pursuit to agitate for the destruction of patriarchy because some people think you mean the destruction of men and many men think you should shut up because now is not the time to whine about “women’s stuff” when so many “important” issues are at stake, i.e. what they think is important.
And what is the difference between agitating for the destruction of patriarchy and what some men think is important?
To best explain that, I coined the term the Trifecta of Patriarchy.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that the revolution against the fascist state is not a bespoke suit made in the measurements of white cisgender men.
Revolutions have long been about men–what they want and how they get it. Because patriarchy determines the words we use and the ways we see.
For example: The laws and lexicon of human rights do not recognize that intimate partner violence is a form of torture, because it is only what the State can do to men that it takes serious–and what men do to women is just “domestic violence”.
So often, too often, we are all called to join the revolution, to risk all for the revolution, and the revolution turns out to be a cisgender dick swinging contest.
I am not interested in dick swinging contests
When I was writing my first book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, just a couple of years after the revolutions and uprisings in my country of birth Egypt and the Middle East/Southwest Asia and North Africa, I would hear from some men that it “wasn’t the time for feminism.”
“Men aren’t free either, you know,” these men would tell me, unironically and without a whit of understanding of patriarchy’s harms to them.
And my answer would always be, “Indeed, the State oppresses us all, men and women. However, together the State, the Street, and the Home oppress women.”
And that’s where my Trifecta of Patriarchy comes in to trace the through line between the State, Street, and Home.
Remember those red-green colour-blind tests they would use to see who could see red and green and which so many of the men failed because men are more likely to have red-green colourblindness?: if you can see that throughline, then you know that your liberation isn’t dependent on your liberation just from the State. The State is not the only entity that oppresses us. Many men are happy to have more of the power that the State exercises over them and do not reflect on how they exercise a similar power over anyone who is not a man in the Street and in the Home.
And as I always say: the most difficult revolution is the one at Home because all tyrants go home.
It is a feminist’s job to remind you that fascism is to control what feminism is to liberation. So how will you fight?
After the revolution in Egypt that rose up against the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, I would talk about toppling the Mubarak in the State, the Street, and the Home. We internalize the oppressions that so often hurt us. We are often socialized into becoming mini versions of those Upper Case Tyrants.
The role of the feminist in a time of fascism is to insist that you remember: Topple the Trump in the State, the Trump on the Street, the Trump in the Home.
When the highest institutions in the land such as the Supreme Court and Congress are controlling women—cis, trans, and effectively everyone who is not a wealthy, able-bodied, conservative Christian, cisgender, heterosexual white man, it gives a blaring, glaring greenlight to men that they too can control us.
When the State effectively tells you that you are a walking incubator, the men you live with at Home, treat you as one. When the president and the men who surround him are sexual predators who faced little to no consequence for their violence against women, the men who walk our Streets expect a similar impunity for their violence towards us. When right-wing politicians–from the president to the Texas legislature–target and punish transgender people, especially trans women, that hatred is echoed, often violently, in the Street and the Home.
It is a feminist’s job to remind you that fascism is to control what feminism is to liberation. So how will you fight?
Always ask "Who is this revolution for?"
If anyone fighting fascism suggests leaving a group behind because “now is not the time for xyx…” understand that they mean that they are fighting a revolution just for their own piece of the State’s pie of power.
Donald Trump’s fascist regime wants us to leave behind transgender people, Palestinians, and migrants–three groups of marginalized people that are made especially vulnerable to fascist violence and thus chosen because the regime recognizes that the majority of people cannot see themselves in those groups.
And the regime knows that it can successfully use our differences against us when it pits one marginalized group against another and just as importantly pits them against a majority population that wants to distinguish itself from the marginalized and the vulnerable or else that majority population would recognize how easily we all become marginalized and made vulnerable.
“I’m legal.”
“I’m not trans.”
“I’m not Palestinian.”
“I have a Green Card.”
“I don’t belong to a gang.”
“I don’t have tattoos.”
“My family. has been here for generations."
“I’m white.”
The role of the feminist in a time of fascism is to tell you that the State sells you safety in exchange for obedience and I don’t want to be protected, I want to be free.
Fascism uses the very public spectacle of violence–e.g. Those abominable photographs from the Salvadoran prison for “terrorists.” that show Venezuelan men shackled, heads forcibly shaved, being rough handled by hooded and heavily armed guards.
The majority of people want to feel safe from such horrors and so sink into the stupor of “I’m a law abiding citizen,” as if “law” “abiding” and “citizen"–the words and their definitions–were not increasingly at the whim of the fascist State.
The role of the feminist in a time of fascism is to remind you that none of us are safe unless all of us are safe.
It is the role of a feminist to tell you that no one is safe unless you start connecting that throughline between the State, Street, and the Home.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that the targeting of transgender people, Palestinians, and migrants is a feminist issue. The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that no group is left behind in that fight against fascism.
Too many cisgender men, including those who are not white, are moved only by the fight for liberation from the State. “None of us are free!” they say.
If the State oppresses all of us, then the State, Street, and Home together oppress anyone who is not a cisgender man.. Cis men refuse to make those connections that make them complicit in that Trifecta of Patriarchy.
It is why anarchist Lola Iturbe declared in 1935 Spain, "All these compañeros, however radical they may be in cafes, unions, even (Anarchist) groups, seem to drop their costumes as lovers of female liberation at the doors of their homes.”
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist on the dismantling of the Trifecta of Patriarchy so that we can ensure that the revolution against fascism is for us all.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that the revolution against the fascist state is not a bespoke suit made in the measurements of white cisgender men.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that the targeting of transgender people, Palestinians, and migrants is a feminist issue.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that no group is left behind in that fight against fascism.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to insist that the revolution liberates us all.
The role of a feminist during a time of fascism is to tell fascism to fuck off.
Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck fascism.
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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. Her latest book is an anthology on menopause she edited called Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
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