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(Un)kind

How Kindness Culture Punishes Women

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About this listen

'Victoria Smith is a brilliant writer who every feminist should read' Sharron Davies

'This brilliant book shows how demands for compassion and generosity can be a mask for sexist ideology' Susanna Rustin

A brilliantly witty and insightful analysis of how kindness culture is used against women.

Using the #JustBeKind trend of the 2020s as a starting point, (Un)kind explores how traditional beliefs about women's 'kind' nature have been repackaged for an age that remains dependent - socially, politically, economically - on female self-sacrifice while finding the concept outdated and essentialist.

Looking at the various guises under which kindness culture is sold to women and girls - from play to self-help, social justice activism to empowerment - Victoria Smith argues that the pressure on women and girls has not decreased, but instead been incorporated into the 'work' of feminism. (Un)kind analyses the way in which this phenomenon ultimately distorts relationships, harming not just those coerced into performing 'kindness work' but the supposed recipients of their services.

Kindness culture supports the backlash against feminism while claiming to represent feminism's - and women's - true nature. It is, at heart, unkind.

'Erudite, blisteringly smart and profoundly compassionate... A must-read for anyone hungry to understand the origins and dangers of contemporary exhortations to women to #BeKind, and for everyone who wants to live a feminist life' Dr Rachel Hewitt

©2025 Victoria Smith (P)2025 Hachette Audio UK Gender Studies Social Sciences Witty Discrimination Social justice
All stars
Most relevant
Victoria has given me a framework and language for thinking and speaking about issues that have troubled me for many years.

I wish every woman could read or listen to this book and pause to think about how the cruel application of 'be kind' may have been negatively impacting them, their daughters, sisters and colleagues emotionally and practically over time. And maybe to reflect on how their own unwitting adherence to this pseudo kindness may have led them to disadvantage, silence, and (I would argue from experience) even pathologise other women and girls at times.

In a nutshell, she shows us how the pressure to conform to the expectation that women supply endless kindness (to approved recipients only) but have no right to kindness themselves, or even to self-compassion, has become embedded in every aspect of private and public life to our detriment.

As an applied psychologist I have been aware of, and distressed by, the impact of 'be kind' on everyone, not just girls and women. And also troubled by the number of my colleagues who may not always recognise that, perhaps because they have been persuaded into the movement themselves by the seductive but dishonest strapline. I have found it difficult to challenge this constructively and I am immensely grateful to Victoria for giving me the words and courage to continue to try to do so.

Insightful and beautifully expressed

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Victoria Smith succeeds in teasing out why the cult of so-called "kindness" harms women and deepens misogyny. More pernicious than the outright sexism of much of the right, the left's demand for submission is shown to be just as totalitarian and anti-women. Smith convincingly shows however, that the issue cuts much wider and deeper than a "culture war". One of the foremost contemporary thinkers on sex and gender, Smith is no fashionable obscurantist but a clear-headed parser of power.

Clarity and clear-headedness

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Like Hags, this book offers a startlingly new perspective on the position of women in modern society.

An excellent addition to Victoria Smith’s work

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The author has the knack of putting into words all the injustices I have observed during 64 years of being a woman. This is not a rant though, and I thoroughly recommend this fascinating and thought provoking work. If a few people open their eyes, then that would be brilliant.

Be kind to yourself

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A lengthy explanation on why feminism should exclude all other areas and populations it intersects with.

While I understand and agree that exorting women to be kind is counter productive to achive equality for anyone, I still disagree at such a short-sighted and narrow focused view of feminism, not for me, thank you.

Justifying an exclusionary approach to feminism

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