Rebel Girls: The English Edition
"Essential reading." — Dr Helen Joyce, bestselling author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality.
Behind the façade of perfect selfies, the mental health of teenage girls is crumbling. They spend hours a day on social media, where rigid sex stereotypes and victimhood culture reign. Many struggle with low self-esteem, anxiety, and exposure to violent porn. Non-conforming girls — particularly lesbians — and girls with autism or ADHD are pressured to identify as boys. Girls are coerced to conform to the familial, cultural, religious and political norms and ideologies they grow up with.
But there is hope. This book tells the stories of young rebels fighting stereotypes and cultural misogyny to forge their own path. Fifty contributors from countries including The Netherlands, Spain, USA, United Kingdom, Taiwan, China, Afghanistan and Australia pose questions rarely discussed about what it means to be a girl today. Experts like psychiatrist Riittakerttu Kaltiala, whistleblower Jamie Reed and researcher Sarah Mittermaier share their concerns. Other contributors include Melinda Tankard Reist, Bev Jackson, Jennifer Bilek, and Lisa Selin Davis.
Rebel Girls includes stories and photographs of young women themselves who explain how they are navigating the complex challenges faced by girls in the 21st century.
The future for girls is crucial for the future of everyone. This uplifting collection demonstrates how the next generation is continuing the radical feminist fight to expose misogyny and find autonomy, confidence, enjoyment and independence in their lives.
We love Helen Joyce!
She is an Irish journalist, gender-critical activist and true sister. Although she is incredibly busy, Helen supported our project Gender Rebels from the very start. She put us on the trail of fanfiction, where millions of girls roam and write love stories, many of them becoming deeply confused about gender, identity and sex. This fanfiction is invisible to most parents and became a special part of our book. Joyce willingly shared her feminist contacts so we could interview them. She studied mathematics and worked in academia before becoming a journalist. After working for The Economist, she published her prize-winning book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality in 2021.
Helen Joyce even managed to put us in touch with the political scientist and Islam-critical Somali-American Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali has been warning of the dangers of radical Islam ever since the murder of Dutch director Theo van Gogh in 2004. In 2021 she published the book Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights.
Prey examines the impact of large-scale immigration from Muslim-majority countries on the rights and safety of women in Europe. Hirsi Ali links the major migration waves that began in 2015 to a rise in sexual harassment, public groping, and assaults in European cities. She argues that Western values of gender equality and sexual freedom are threatened by traditional, patriarchal norms regarding women brought by some migrants. The book criticizes Western politicians, media, and mainstream feminists for ignoring these issues out of fear of being labeled racist or Islamophobic. We are proud to say that Hirsi Ali allowed us to reprint a chapter from her book Prey in the Dutch version.