Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is scarier than George Orwell’s 1984, not that you would want to live in either. The scary thing about Brave New World is how people are subtly influenced to give up their freedoms and submit to the control of society. Whereas in 1984 the strong arm of the state - the Leviathan in Thomas Hobbes’s language - uses its superior strength to take away our freedom. Being forced to do something is one thing, whereas being gently prodded to do it is a different level of manipulation.

By a similar measure, I would not like to live in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale - even less if I were a woman - but there is something more alarming about Laura Lam’s novel Goldilocks because it’s not set in a religious theocracy, but it is set in a world where social pressures have nudged women into being second class citizens.

The novel is set in the near future and follows the exploits of five women who steal a spaceship and attempt to fly to the planet Cavendish, in a different solar system, where they will found a new human settlement. Cavendish sits in the Goldilocks zone around its star. Not too close/too hot but not too far away/cold, hence the title of the novel. The story of his daring plan is gripping, but what I found most interesting about the novel is the women’s reasons for stealing a spaceship and flying to another planet.

 Threatened by feminism

 Through flashbacks, dialogue and exposition the novel fills in the political situation on Earth. As the climate catastrophe worsens, the government seeks to turn back the clock on the rights of women. A political movement has arisen that aims to return to a mythical 1950s, where men worked and women stayed home to look after children and be dutiful wives and mothers.

 This isn’t done by force - this isn’t the Gilead of the handmaid’s tale - but through a subtle pattern of changing social norms, financial incentives and nudges. The point is to undo the work of generations of feminists in creating equality between men and women.

Writers such as Laurie Penny have pointed out that many men feel threatened by women’s equality. Now that women have access to universities, professions, cultural institutions and positions of power that were once reserved for men only, many men are feeling lost and without a delimited role for them in society.

The impact of conservative policy

Conservative politicians and pundits are keen to exploit this, telling these men that feminism is to blame for their lack of purpose and that things would be better if we went back to a time when men were the head of a household. These politicians offer a key role for lost men in the regressive social world they seek to build.

This regressive social conservatism overlooks the fact that many families cannot afford to survive in this neoliberal economy without two full-time breadwinners. It also overlooks the fact that conservative economic policy has made the lives of these lost men worse.

Neoliberal economics, pushed by the right and centre, has created a harsh world without a safety net. One where we are constantly told to compete harder, optimise ourselves and attain more, unless we fall through the cracks in society. It's exhausting and scary and many people across the political spectrum would like something else.

A simple solution

Despite conservative economic policy being responsible for creating the harsh world that these men feel lost in, social conservatives are here to tell these lost men that it’s the fault of feminism that life is a struggle for them, and that they would be better off if women went back into the homes and the world of careers was left to men.

By blaming feminism and changes to the roles available to women over the last half-century, conservatives offer a simple distraction from the problems of the world they have created.

Environmental stress

Penny has also written that some men want the world to collapse so that traditional gender norms can reassert themselves. Environmental stress is also exacerbated by conservative policy and conservative reluctance to tackle the problems of the ailing environment.

The environmentally precarious world of Goldilocks shows how socially conservative men can use the fear that environmental collapse causes to reassert traditional gender roles.

This is the political situation in our world that has birthed a movement that seeks to undo the progress of feminism. Goldilocks shows where this could end up: a world where men have power over women. So much so that some women plan to escape and start over.

Weaponised anti-feminism

There are obvious parallels between the fictional president in Goldilocks and Donald Trump. Both were elected president in a wave of political nostalgia and both are unabashed misogynists. There are other examples from our world, including South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who “weaponises anti-feminism” and has used this to win this year’s presidential election.

Katie Stallard wrote in an article for the News Statesman: “With housing costs soaring – apartment prices in Seoul have almost doubled in the past five years – and youth unemployment reaching 9 per cent in 2021, Draudt [a postdoctoral fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Korean Studies interviewed by Stallard] said the anti-feminist movement was fuelled by economic grievances and complaints that efforts to improve gender equality were unfairly disadvantaging men.”

Again, we see that neoliberal economic policy espoused by conservatives has created hardship for many men, and conservatives are using feminism as a scapegoat for this anger to achieve political success. The policies that flow from this take us one step closer to the world of Goldilocks.

More subtle than Bible-thumping

Goldilocks shows that politicians who want to take away women’s rights don’t need to thump the Bible and demand that we return to a God decreed submission of Eve to Adam. They don’t need secret police to roll back women’s rights, a-la The Handmaid’s Tale.

There are trends in society that conservative politicians are exploiting to restrict the equality that women have had for such a short period of time historically. Trends that are often created by conservative politicians.

We have seen the overturn of Roe vs Wade in America and now many states enacting anti-abortion laws. Online we are seeing cyber misogynists gathering men who feel lost and alienated in the dog-eat-dog hyper-neoliberal 21st century to their siren call of nostalgia and how things were better in the past when women knew their place.

 Saving the world for everyone

Whenever this occurs, we must all remember that it’s conservative politicians who made this harsh world. A better life can be achieved for all genders by turning away from conservatives, not being sucked in by their weaponised nostalgia.

We don’t need to escape to a new world and start over, as the women of Goldilocks feel is their only option. We can fight to save this world for the benefit of everyone.