Devi Nair
1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars [ 4 of 5 stars ] 5 of 5 stars
Laura Bates’s The New Age of Sexism tears back the curtain on the glossy sheen of technological progress to reveal a landscape riddled with new forms of misogyny and age-old power imbalances. Bates delivers something heavier, more tangled, and honestly more unsettling. The book was eight straight hours of Laura Bates calmly reading out nightmare fuel: deepfake porn used as revenge, algorithms that rate women’s “hotness” without consent, and the casual way tech bros are building virtual worlds where sexual violence is just another feature. Her voice never wavers, which somehow makes the bleakness hit harder. This book is not a warning about the future. It is a report on what is already happening. Bates is strongest when unpacking the systems behind the headlines. There is no suggestion that these are random glitches. Instead, these abuses are the outcomes of tech built without marginalized voices. Her writing is direct and sometimes repetitive, driving home the need for readers to confront these problems. She’s not wrong about any of it. The data is horrifying, the examples are enraging, and the trajectory is legitimately scary, especially when you realize most of the people coding the future are men who’ve never thought “what if this hurts women?” is a design question worth asking. That said, I also came away feeling the sky isn’t falling quite as fast as the book sometimes implies. Misogyny has worn a thousand different masks before (photography, film, the internet itself) and we’re still here fighting. Yes, AI moves faster and scales scarier, but humans have shown a stubborn ability to regulate, shame, and redesign when the outrage gets loud enough. The tech landscape Bates describes is bleak. Yet, she also points to real hope. She calls for better digital education, stronger policies, and more empathy in virtual spaces. This is not the end. It is a demand for accountability and the possibility that women and children can shape a better online world. It left me feeling that naming these issues and talking about them openly means change is still possible. Maybe even likely.
Would I recommend it? Yes, especially if you care about technology, gender equality, or the ethics of AI. It is heavy, but it is also clarifying. It gives you language for things you may have sensed but not fully understood. I did not walk away hopeless. I walked away more alert.
Is the AI sexism train unstoppable or are we hitting the brakes in time? Tell me your take below.
1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars [ 4 of 5 stars ] 5 of 5 stars
Laura Bates’s The New Age of Sexism tears back the curtain on the glossy sheen of technological progress to reveal a landscape riddled with new forms of misogyny and age-old power imbalances. Bates delivers something heavier, more tangled, and honestly more unsettling. The book was eight straight hours of Laura Bates calmly reading out nightmare fuel: deepfake porn used as revenge, algorithms that rate women’s “hotness” without consent, and the casual way tech bros are building virtual worlds where sexual violence is just another feature. Her voice never wavers, which somehow makes the bleakness hit harder. This book is not a warning about the future. It is a report on what is already happening. Bates is strongest when unpacking the systems behind the headlines. There is no suggestion that these are random glitches. Instead, these abuses are the outcomes of tech built without marginalized voices. Her writing is direct and sometimes repetitive, driving home the need for readers to confront these problems. She’s not wrong about any of it. The data is horrifying, the examples are enraging, and the trajectory is legitimately scary, especially when you realize most of the people coding the future are men who’ve never thought “what if this hurts women?” is a design question worth asking. That said, I also came away feeling the sky isn’t falling quite as fast as the book sometimes implies. Misogyny has worn a thousand different masks before (photography, film, the internet itself) and we’re still here fighting. Yes, AI moves faster and scales scarier, but humans have shown a stubborn ability to regulate, shame, and redesign when the outrage gets loud enough. The tech landscape Bates describes is bleak. Yet, she also points to real hope. She calls for better digital education, stronger policies, and more empathy in virtual spaces. This is not the end. It is a demand for accountability and the possibility that women and children can shape a better online world. It left me feeling that naming these issues and talking about them openly means change is still possible. Maybe even likely.
Would I recommend it? Yes, especially if you care about technology, gender equality, or the ethics of AI. It is heavy, but it is also clarifying. It gives you language for things you may have sensed but not fully understood. I did not walk away hopeless. I walked away more alert.
Is the AI sexism train unstoppable or are we hitting the brakes in time? Tell me your take below.