Fake Feminists and Trust Issues

14 Jan, 2025

WARNING: this post is about sexual assault including rape, and the people who perpetuate it in progressive spaces. There will be no graphic description of said assault.

Serial rapist neil gaiman is a wealthy, famous fantasy author. The pessimist in me has to tell you that he will most likely stay both rich and renowned, even after the testimonies of his victims, some of which were published in a Vulture article¹ earlier today. Those two forms of power seem to me almost impossible to take away. When his crimes first became widely known last summer, and again now when we recieve new information about the scope and sheer horror of them, many people felt and feel deeply surprised and personally betrayed. How could an author so known and loved as a feminist and queer ally be the abuser of a still-unclear number of younger, disempowered women?

It's impossible not to find, as many did, a cruel irony in how simillar gaiman is to his character Richard Madoc - an author who sexually abused the muse Calliope for literary inspiration, and called himself a feminist while doing so. But we must confront the unfortunate fact that there's actually no irony here at all. It's my belief that gaiman was perfectly aware of this likeness and knew he would benefit from condemming actions like his own - even the hypocrisy itself, writing about and for the marginalized and posing himself as the progressive nerd's sweetheart. In short, he is a particularly offensive example of an all too common type of predator: the fake feminist.

In order to sexually abuse and get away with it, the fake feminist's mission isn't just the infiltration of a progressive and marginalized community (whether that community be based on queerness, leftism, BDSM, some or all of the above) through the signaling of allyship, and the picking-out of vulnerable members. To avoid justice for as long as possible, this predator must also pose themself as a valuable figure in this community. I am reminded of a fake feminist I met in leftist activism (one of many), the then-coordinator of an organization I'm a part of. This man called out misogyny and queerphobia at every chance he could, and made every effort to let org members know they could come to him with any problem. He once even criticised anarchist forms of organizing as being unequipped with a way to deal with in-group sexual misconduct. He lost his position when several members of an anarchist group came out as victims of his drunk sexual and physical violence at parties.

And this is where I have to mention that the actual sexual abusers aren't the only fake feminists out there - there are also the people who defend them, enable them and attempt to keep them in a postition of power. In gaiman's case there was his ex-wife, musician amanda palmer, who repeatedly introduced disempowered women to him while knowing what he has done before and what he's likely to do to them. In my org, the woman who was then in charge of "Safe Space" tried very hard to use her position to make sure the rapist kept his, even going as far as contacting a victim, and berating a (much, much younger, but unfortunatly much more responsible) member of the org. In my opinion, the reason she tried to sweep this under the rug was that she saw this man as too valuable to the org - and to her intentions with it - to lose. Luckily now he is out of the org completely and she is more or less powerless in it, but this didn't happen without a fight from the members, my friends, whom I will always be impressed with.

This incident was a major blow to my spirit last year, and a key event in my swift - and honestly inevitable - transformation since the start of israel's genocidal war on Gaza: from a motivated, hopeful and faithful activist to someone politically jaded and numb. I don't do nearly as much as I wish I would, and when I occasionally go to a protest I'm bored and I feel as useful as a mannequin. When I see the face of a guy that I know through the grapevine did something do a girl, I feel disdain but no shock. I survey the faces of the men I know - some friends, most friends-of-friends - and wonder who will be the next to do it. But I do want out of this numbness, and I know I'm not totally submerged in it, because I still have questions.

Does gaiman regard himself, to himself, as a feminist writer? Was this deception fully conscious and outwardly-aimed, or does he delude himself with the idea that he really does hold the values dispalyed in his public image and works? This question ultimately doesn't matter in his case - regardless of it there is no seperating (what may be called) feminist art from unfeminist² artist, as long as appreciating his works puts money in his pocket and fans in his orbit. However, it's something I wonder whenever somebody dedicates their life and work to a certain set of values and then turns around and betrays them.

Next week I'm doing in one of my courses a presentation on Simone de Beauvoir, a trailblazer whose influence on feminist philosophy cannot be denied, a woman whose writing is foundational to my own beliefs and still very relevant today, and another sexual predetor who abused teenage girls, two of which her students. Can I call her a fake feminist? Can I call Judith Butler, who signed a letter in defense of avital ronell (a philosopher who sexually assulted her student), a fake feminist? I honestly don't know. On one hand, I feel like if I ever wrote a feminist text as influential as The Second Sex or Gender Trouble, I could happily die the day after - and so I can't fully lose my appreciation. On the other hand, is this not the same hypocrisy and tactical abuse of a feminist position I had just described?