Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have, by Deborah Frances-White

The Guilty Feminist has turned her attention to the looming threat of the far right across the world and the pressing need for progressive people to get their act together, stop tearing each other down over smaller issues and unite to face the future. These conversations delve into the past, gender issues, freedom of speech and cancel culture, arguing the case for persuasion and taking people along with you, rather than confrontation and alienation. Listeners to the Guilty Feminist podcast will be familiar with much of the content, so it can be a bit of a slog treading familiar ground through the early chapters. Also, her insistence on the term stamm to replace tribe or chosen family feels forced and is wholly unsuccessful. We hear a lot in politics about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which can often translate to lower your expectations and just accept whatever little you can achieve. Frances-White does not use this phrase to promote her brand of pragmatic progressivism, but she does focus on working together to make what advances are possible, while never leaving it there or leaving anyone behind. This is a more practical and palatable form of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater when opposing the dark forces threatening to overwhelm us.