Research
Journal Articles
Perpetuating the patriarchy: misogyny and post-(feminist) backlash (2019)
Abstract: How are patriarchal regimes perpetuated and reproduced? Kate Manne’s recent work on misogyny aims to provide an answer to this central question. According to her, misogyny is a property of social environments where women perceived as violating patriarchal norms are ‘kept down’ through hostile reactions coming from men, other women and social structures. In this paper, I argue that Manne’s approach is problematically incomplete. I do so by examining a recent puzzling social phenomenon which I call (post-)feminist backlash: the rise of women-led movements reinstating patriarchal practices in the name of feminism. I focus on the example of ‘raunch feminist’ CAKE parties and argue that their pro-patriarchal dimension cannot be adequately explained by misogyny. I propose instead a different story that emphasizes the continued centrality of gender distinctions in our social normative life, even as gendered social meanings become increasingly contested. This triggers meaning vertigo, a distinct form of social anxiety and the reactionary impulse at the heart of (post)-feminist backlash. Meaning vertigo both complicates the answer to Manne’s main question—“why is misogyny still a thing?”—and suggests the need and opportunity for a different kind of feminist political intervention.
'Half Victim, Half Accomplice': Cat Person and Narcissism (2021)
A shorter, more accessible version of the paper was featured in the Ergo Blog.
Ergo 7(26): 701-729 (2021) . Full paper available here. Abstract: At the end of 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s short story, Cat Person, went viral. Published at the height of the #MeToo movement, it depicted a ‘toxic date’ and a disturbing sexual encounter between Margot, a college student, and Robert, an older man she meets at work. The story was widely viewed as a relatable denunciation of women’s powerlessness and routine victimization. In this paper, I push against this common reading. I propose an alternative feminist interpretation through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of narcissism: a form of alienation that consists in making oneself both the subject and the ultimate project of one’s life. Framing Margot as a narcissist casts her as engaging, not in subtly coerced, undesired sex, but rather in sex that is desired in a tragically alienated way. I argue that Beauvoir’s notion of narcissism is an important tool for feminists today – well beyond the interpretation of Cat Person. It presses us to see systematic subordination not just as something done to women, but also as something women do to themselves. This in turn highlights the neglected role of self-transformation as a key aspect of feminist political resistance. |
What Do Incels Want? Explaining Incel Violence Using Beauvoirian Otherness (2023)
A shorter, more accessible version of the paper was featured in the New Work In Philosophy newsletter. Hypatia 38(1): 134-156 (2023). Full paper available here. |
Abstract: In recent years, online ‘involuntary celibate’ or ‘incel’ communities have been linked to various deadly attacks targeting women. Why do these men react to romantic rejection with, not just disappointment, but murderous rage? Feminists have claimed this is because incels desire women as objects or, alternatively, because they feel entitled to women’s attention. I argue that both of these explanatory models are insufficient. They fail to account for incels’ distinctive ambivalence towards women — for their oscillation between obsessive desire and violent hatred. I propose instead that what incels want is a Beauvoirian “Other”. For Beauvoir, when men conceive of women as Others, they represent them as simultaneously human subjects and embodiments of the natural world. Women function then as sui generis entities through which men can experience themselves as praiseworthy heroes, regardless of the quality of their actions. I go on to give an illustrative analysis of Elliot Roger’s autobiographical manifesto, “My Twisted World”. I show how this Beauvoirian model sheds light on Rodger’s racist and classist attitudes and gives us a better understanding of his ambivalence towards women. It therefore constitutes a powerful and overlooked theoretical alternative to accounts centered on objectification and entitlement.
How to dress like a feminist: A relational ethics of non-complicity (2023)
Co-authored with Charlotte Knowles (Philosophy, University of Groningen)
Inquiry: And Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. (2023) Available here.
Abstract: Feminists have always been concerned with how the clothes women wear can reinforce and reproduce gender hierarchy. However, they have strongly disagreed about what to do in response: some have suggested that the key to feminist liberation is to stop caring about how one dresses; others have replied that the solution is to give women increased choices. In this paper, we argue that neither of these dominant approaches is satisfactory and that, ultimately, they have led to an impasse that pervades the contemporary feminist debate. The problem is that both sides of the debate understand women’s complicity in patriarchal subordination as a matter of what women wear and do. Instead, we propose a phenomenological analysis that understands complicity as based in our relations to our clothes. Starting from this phenomenological perspective, we sketch a new relational feminist ethics of dressing. This alternative ethical paradigm cannot yield a simple recipe for how to dress or tell us what garments are off-limits. But it can offer a way to make critical feminist judgements about clothes without veering into a stifling new prescriptivism.
Inquiry: And Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. (2023) Available here.
Abstract: Feminists have always been concerned with how the clothes women wear can reinforce and reproduce gender hierarchy. However, they have strongly disagreed about what to do in response: some have suggested that the key to feminist liberation is to stop caring about how one dresses; others have replied that the solution is to give women increased choices. In this paper, we argue that neither of these dominant approaches is satisfactory and that, ultimately, they have led to an impasse that pervades the contemporary feminist debate. The problem is that both sides of the debate understand women’s complicity in patriarchal subordination as a matter of what women wear and do. Instead, we propose a phenomenological analysis that understands complicity as based in our relations to our clothes. Starting from this phenomenological perspective, we sketch a new relational feminist ethics of dressing. This alternative ethical paradigm cannot yield a simple recipe for how to dress or tell us what garments are off-limits. But it can offer a way to make critical feminist judgements about clothes without veering into a stifling new prescriptivism.
Book Chapters
Criticizing Women: Simone de Beauvoir on Complicity and Bad Faith (Forthcoming)
In Analytic Existentialism , edited by Berislav Marušić and Mark Schroeder (under contract with Oxford University Press)
Available here.
Abstract: One of the key insights of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is the idea that gender-based subordination is not just something done to women, but also something women do to themselves. This raises a question about ethical responsibility: if women are complicit, or actively implicated in their own oppression, are they at fault? Recent Beauvoir scholarship remains divided on this point. Here, I argue that Beauvoir did, in fact, ethically criticize many women for their complicity, as a sign of what she called “bad faith”. I challenge recent accounts by Nancy Bauer and Manon Garcia, who both read Beauvoir as exonerating complicit women. According to this reading, women emerge as human “freedoms” within a social world where a “destiny” of inferiority is already prepared for them. Their self-subordination is then an inevitable product of acting in a patriarchal world. I argue, however, that this interpretation generates a crucial tension, leading Bauer and Garcia to call on women to stop being complicit, while also claiming they cannot avoid complicity. I propose instead a different interpretation, on which feminine complicity is often fueled by criticizable ethical attitudes that are far from inevitable. By revisiting Beauvoir’s notion of bad faith, I show that this account is compatible with recognizing the social limitations of women’s agency and that this ethical criticism is itself an important part of a collective project of social transformation.
Available here.
Abstract: One of the key insights of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is the idea that gender-based subordination is not just something done to women, but also something women do to themselves. This raises a question about ethical responsibility: if women are complicit, or actively implicated in their own oppression, are they at fault? Recent Beauvoir scholarship remains divided on this point. Here, I argue that Beauvoir did, in fact, ethically criticize many women for their complicity, as a sign of what she called “bad faith”. I challenge recent accounts by Nancy Bauer and Manon Garcia, who both read Beauvoir as exonerating complicit women. According to this reading, women emerge as human “freedoms” within a social world where a “destiny” of inferiority is already prepared for them. Their self-subordination is then an inevitable product of acting in a patriarchal world. I argue, however, that this interpretation generates a crucial tension, leading Bauer and Garcia to call on women to stop being complicit, while also claiming they cannot avoid complicity. I propose instead a different interpretation, on which feminine complicity is often fueled by criticizable ethical attitudes that are far from inevitable. By revisiting Beauvoir’s notion of bad faith, I show that this account is compatible with recognizing the social limitations of women’s agency and that this ethical criticism is itself an important part of a collective project of social transformation.
Incel Violence and Beauvoirian Otherness (2023)
in Beauvoir and Politics: A Toolkit
edited by Liesbeth Schoonheim and Karen Vintges, Routledge. (2023) Available here. Abstract: In this chapter, Filipa Melo Lopes looks at incel violence, and argues that the two most common feminist analyses of their actions—their objectification of women or their sense of entitlement to women’s attention—are insufficient. They fail to account for incels’ distinctive ambivalence towards women, namely their oscillation between obsessive desire and violent hatred. Melo Lopes proposes instead that what incels want is a Beauvoirian ‘Other’—discussed by Beauvoir in her chapter on myths in terms of the ‘Eternal Feminine’. For Beauvoir, when men conceive of women as Others, they function as sui generis entities through which men can experience themselves as praiseworthy heroes, but also risk the denial of their so-called exceptionality. Melo Lopes then goes on to give an illustrative analysis of Elliot Rodger’s autobiographical manifesto, My Twisted World, showing how Beauvoir’s analysis of the myth of woman sheds light on Rodger’s racist and classist attitudes and gives us a better understanding of his ambivalence towards women. Beauvoir, according to Melo Lopes, therefore constitutes a powerful and overlooked theoretical alternative to accounts centered on objectification and entitlement. |
Public Philosophy
Sugar babies: When 'Feminism' Looks Like Online Misogyny (2022)
The Blog of the APA
"Sugar babies are not securing their independence and they’re not doing anything to challenge gendered inequality. They’re training themselves to be the prize that some wealthy and successful men think they’re owed. And, in the process, they’re saying that this is just the way the world is—make your peace with it and take what you can." |
Simone de beauvoir on incel extremism (2024)
The Institute of Arts and Ideas
"The concept of the incel – a community of men embittered by their perception of rejection at the hands of women – has haunted the popular imagination since Elliot Rodger’s mass shooting ten years ago. The conventional view is that incels resent feminism for disempowering men – here, Filipa Melo Lopes argues that incels are instead motivated by a thwarted craving for feminine approval better understood by Simone de Beauvoir than contemporary feminist discourse." |
Mugler’s fashion makes women look like goddesses but feminist critics can’t agree if that’s a good thing (2024)
The Conversation UK
"When Mugler designed an illusion water-dripping, flesh-coloured dress for Kim Kardashian’s 2019 Met Gala appearance, the result was so extreme the internet was left wondering if ribs had been removed. But the painfully corseted latex was essential. Its strangeness changed Kardashian from a flesh and bone human into a powerful “rain drop queen”. It’s unclear that this is the kind of empowerment feminists should be after. Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir warned about this in The Second Sex: “As powerful as [a goddess] may appear, she is defined through notions created by the male consciousness.” (...) We should be wary here. Being a fantasy is a double-edged sword and contains within it the seeds of both worship and profound hatred. Mugler’s cult of woman as a transcendental goddess is dangerous because it can quickly turn into demonising women and seeing them as the embodiment of evil. In fact, it requires that turn. Eventually even the most sparkling angel becomes boring and predictable. " |
Can you love fashion and still be a feminist? (2024)
The New Feminist
" How can we enjoy the freedom, creativity and pleasure that clothes give us without suffering their oppressive side? Today’s feminist movement seems to offer two responses. Some say true liberation is about being able to wear whatever you want. Others think the best way to fight oppression and sexual objectification is to break with feminine clothes. Both approaches have a point, but they are ultimately not quite right." |