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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Lucy Mangan

America’s New Female Right review – this lazy BBC documentary fails to tackle dangerously extreme views

On patrol … Christie Hutcherson, centre, and presenter Layla Wright at the border wall between the US and Mexico.
On patrol … Christie Hutcherson, centre, and presenter Layla Wright at the border wall between the US and Mexico. Photograph: Alana Mcverry/BBC/Mindhouse Productions

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most Guardian readers who watch a BBC documentary called America’s New Female Right are unlikely to be in accord with the views espoused therein. We are not going to empathise with statements such as: “Women getting the right to vote has led to every form of degeneracy,” “Feminism was absolutely created to destabilise the family [and] western civilisation,” and: “Feminism is a thousand times more toxic than the ‘toxic masculinity’ we hear so much about.” We are unlikely to agree that “Satan’s agenda” is to destroy the nuclear family structure in order to control society.

All these statements are uttered – with certainty and apparent sincerity – by women championing rightwing causes, often in a way that seems to run counter to what we would consider their best interests.

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