Book Review - The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing Misogyny by Laura Bates

The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing Misogyny

by Laura Bates

Book review by Delenn Ganyo, University of North Dakota

With sci-fi cinema like Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) coming to life daily before the amazed eyes of 2026 consumers, technologies that once only occupied speculative fiction are becoming ubiquitous with contemporary Western life. However, for those in marginalized groups these developments bring with them threats to one’s autonomy and personal liberties. Laura Bates’ The New Age of Sexism (2025) spends its eight chapters breaking down the way cutting-edge inventions are being used to draw blood: damaging women’s reputations, threatening their safety, and dangerously shifting male perspectives on the female body. From sexual assault in the Metaverse to sexually explicit deepfakes of junior high girls, the ramifications of the digital age for feminism are on full display through Bates’ investigation. Curious readers should brace themselves for an unsettling and thought-provoking read when opening the pages of Bates’ book, as her writing does not refrain from sharing both the dark underbelly of modern technology and her own predictive fears for years to come.

Chapter One covers the misuse of artificial intelligence to create nonconsensual sexual images—photorealistic deepfakes of which 99% feature women. Bates reports on a case study wherein over twenty tween girls from Almendralejo, Spain had naked images generated by male classmates, pictures that were then circulated in their community. She highlights the danger this technology poses to women and girls, with almost every global citizen having a photographic digital footprint available for misuse by anyone from abusive exes or strangers to close friends. Later, Chapter Five elaborates on how these graphic images can be used to blackmail women and girls into physical harm and sexual violence through encrypted Telegram group chats with male users who pay entry fees to participate in the abuse.

Chapter Two tackles the Metaverse, an immersive virtual reality created by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, which can be accessed via a VR headset. Bates attests to her own experience with harassment that consistently accompanies the embodiment of a female avatar in this space. Alongside sexual aggression and graphic violence, Bates emphasizes a danger for children who are allowed to occupy this digital space, opening them to risk of predation by users; online grooming is at risk of evolving from a chatbox on Roblox to realistic video interaction, each with the chance of also leading to real-world abuse.

Chapters Three and Four translate these digital spaces to the physical realm with the introduction of sex robots and AI brothels, respectively. Bates attests that these technologies could come to rewire the relationship certain men have with female bodies and sexuality, granting them the ability to engage in graphic fantasies with placid silicone bodies—behaviors that could translate to a precedent of how real-world women are treated by the same men. She points out that there are already dolls and brothels that cater to rape and other non-consensual sexual interactions, both fully autonomies and voiced by living sex workers.

Chapters Six and Seven then address artificial intelligence through AI girlfriends and the biased data on which AI models are trained, imbuing them with society’s sexist precedents. Bates sets up AI girlfriends—whether those available through companion services such as Replika or general use generative AI platforms like ChatGPT—as a way of exerting psychological control over an artificial feminine being, paralleling and modeling the behaviors of domestic abuse. In this analysis, it is a simulation of a woman’s mind that is being technologically controlled, juxtaposing the physical ownership associated with the female sex-bots in the previous section. Considering the way in which AI has become engrained in society, these chapters are particularly pertinent to modern life.

Bates final chapter ends the book with a call to action for societal change before this trend becomes too cemented, though her pleas seem unlikely to fully remedy the core issues at hand. For whatever optimism and hope Bates attempts to present in this final eighth chapter, my overall reading experience was one of adrenaline, stress, and stomach-clenching anxiety. The book is a thorough, if quite pessimistic, account of how science-fiction dystopia has begun to rear its head in a multitude of ways, particularly at the expense of women and girls globally.

Byline:

Delenn Ganyo is an English doctoral student at the University of North Dakota. Their research focuses on the study of speculative fiction as a reflection of 21st century excitement and tension regarding evolving technologies.