Reposted by Sara McDougall
Having trouble deciding which books to buy from Amazon during Prime Days?
Try this: None, then go support an independent bookstore instead. 😌
Sara McDougall
@sarannmcd.bsky.social
4.2K followers 2K following 796 posts
Medieval gender, crime, & history prof. at John Jay College & CUNY Graduate Center, writing about a survivor in c.1470 France for PrincetonUPress, 2023-4 Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library, bylines Slate etc.
![This was a chat for Young Republicans, the future of their party. And it reflects dynamics we see across American society, and especially online and on the right, of young men being drawn to a culture of male supremacy and rape enthusiasm. As I wrote then, "In the context of sex, [male supremacy] comes down to a wholesale rejection of sex as a consensual act for the enjoyment of both parties."
As I noted here at Liberal Currents last year, rape is integral to authoritarian politics. Mussolini was a rapist. Francisco Franco imposed a hardline Catholic dictatorship in Spain in which women were expected to serve the nation by serving their husbands. Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet NKVD during World War Two, leveraged his position to engage in serial rape on a prolific scale. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat observed in her book, Strongmen, "The strongman would be nothing without bodies to control." And authoritarianism offers up these bodies to its most dedicated foot soldiers, a point on which Beria serves as a good reminder.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hafxlnw235qrcil2lpohp2ly/bafkreicap4x26innjegfavjr2fmkjm6oaivemggox3nwclltiyytcl6z5u)
