Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating

Overview

Lifelike, replica women and girls produced for men’s sexual use, sex dolls and robots represent the literal objectification of women. They are marketed as companions, the means for men to create their ‘ideal’ woman, and as the “perfect girlfriend” that can be stored away after its use. Advocates claim the development of sex dolls and robots should be actively encouraged and will have many benefits—but for who? Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating exposes the inherent misogyny in the trade in sex dolls and robots modelled on the bodies of women and girls for men’s unlimited sexual use. From doll owners enacting violence and torture on their dolls, men choosing their dolls over their wives, dolls made in the likeness of specific women and the production of child sex abuse dolls, sex dolls and robots pose a serious threat to the status of women and girls.

Reviews

"Caitlin Roper has done compendious research to show what sex dolls and robots are for, how they are developing and how men are using them. It must have been disturbing to do this work, but Roper does a great service to feminism in telling us all that we need to know about their impact on the status of women and children. She details the vicious woman hating abuse that men practise on the dolls, which provides a whole education in the way men despise women. Sex dolls and robots are better than live women, the punters say, because they can be endlessly violated and torn apart without any complaint. I did wonder who would be doing the housework! This is a crucial book for the campaign to stop the sex doll and robot industry." —Sheila Jeffreys, PhD, author of Penile Imperialism: The Male Sex Right and Women’s Subordination and Trigger Warning: My Lesbian Feminist Life

"Read Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: The Case for Resistance only if you are willing to face harsh realities about 21st century misogyny. I won’t soon forget the disturbing practices that Caitlin Roper describes, but I also will carry with me the power of her incisive analysis and passionate call for resistance. As I read this book, my heart broke page by page, and at the same time I was bolstered by Roper’s courage. I’m grateful for her willingness to study this chilling intensification of the objectification of women, which takes sexism and racism to new levels of corrosiveness. The work of Roper and Collective Shout has never been more important. —Robert Jensen, emeritus professor, University of Texas at Austin and author of The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men

Caitlin Roper’s Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating: The Case for Resistance is both brilliant and chilling. Her in-depth analysis of how sex dolls and robots are tied into the misogynist commercial sex industry brings to light the degree to which woman- and girl-hating are both monetized and normalized. Roper’s call for global resistance to the objectification of women and girls cannot be ignored after reading this tour de force of a book! —Gail Dines, PhD, Professor Emerita of Sociology, President: Culture Reframed

Author Biography

Caitlin Roper is an activist, writer, and Campaigns Manager at Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation, a grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in media, advertising in popular culture. She is a founding member of Adopt Nordic WA and a co-founder of the Feminist Academy of Technology and Ethics.