wordpress-seo domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/mysavvys/public_html/TheFeistyNews.Com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114bunyad domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/mysavvys/public_html/TheFeistyNews.Com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114A new book by feminist writer Ren\u00e9e Gerlich, titled Out of the Fog: On Politics, Feminism and Coming Alive, <\/em>is now available<\/a> for pre-order from Spinifex Press.<\/p>\n Gerlich\u2019s work has attracted attention in the past, for instance in 2018 \u2013 when she was involved in a Pride Parade intervention<\/a>, was banned<\/a> by postering company Phantom Billstickers, and appeared on TVNZ\u2019s Q&A <\/em>to explain<\/a> why men should not have access to female-only gyms.<\/p>\n At issue is Gerlich\u2019s position on transgenderism, an ideology that many people believe women have no right to challenge. Yet Out of the Fog <\/em>argues that since transgenderism is a quintessential expression of the postmodern, neoliberal zeitgeist, we must explore and question it \u2013 and when we do, we find that the deeper patriarchal roots of this ideology can be highly illuminating. Discovering what is at the core of the transgender trend can teach us much about the human predicament at present.<\/p>\n Out of the Fog<\/em> begins with a reflection on the confusion and contradictions that pervade today\u2019s political landscape. As stated in the book\u2019s blurb:<\/p>\n From racialised police brutality to climate change, #MeToo, \u2018trans rights\u2019, COVID-19, the prospect of nuclear war and the prevalence of trauma \u2013 we are constantly bombarded with high stakes problems that we are expected to speak out about and act on. On closer inspection, the popular solutions to each of these problems aren\u2019t easy to reconcile. Black Lives Matter activists demand prison abolition, while #MeToo feminists want rapists in jail \u2013 and while our objections to war and police brutality make us suspicious of state institutions in general, our responses to climate change and COVID-19 reinforce our dependency on them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Gerlich asserts that in order to resolve these contradictions and respond to all the problems we are facing, we need to fully understand and contend with the problem of rape<\/em>. As an act of violence carried out for gratification, rape \u2013 and its institutionalization in prostitution and pornography \u2013 fuels the cycle of human destructiveness. \u201cThis form of sexual cruelty, the seed of which lies not only in the act itself but also in our social conditioning, is where our private and collective trauma intersects,\u201d Gerlich says.<\/p>\n In the first chapter of Out of the Fog, <\/em>\u2018My Story\u2019, Gerlich places her arguments in the context of her own life. In Chapter Two, \u2018Desire and Distortion\u2019, she examines the evolution of human beings, in order to look at what human sexuality really is, why the act of rape hurts us individually and collectively so badly, and what its true consequences are on human psychology and culture.<\/p>\n Chapter Three, \u2018Rebellion and Backlash\u2019, offers a brief overview of political liberalism and the left, showing how neither of these traditions have ever consistently opposed rape, and how they ultimately produced a painfully flaky \u2018liberal left\u2019. Chapter Four, \u2018Fatal Contradictions\u2019, offers a survey of major events 2014-2019, primarily in the United States and New Zealand, allowing the reader to test Gerlich\u2019s analytical frameworks against real life events. The final chapter, \u2018Cassandra\u2019s Power\u2019, offers a way forward.<\/p>\n Renee\u2019s writing also appears on\u00a0Savage Minds<\/a>,\u00a0Uncommon Ground Media<\/a>, and Canadian website\u00a0Feminist Current.<\/a><\/p>\n She was researcher for the 2016 documentary The HeART of the Matter<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0about the development and subsequent rollback of education reforms implemented by New Zealand\u2019s first Labour government, directed and produced by Luit and Jan Bieringa.<\/p>\n\n