“All my years of reporting indicate we still haven’t reached gender equality”: Author Elizabeth Renzetti on her new book, What She Said

For two decades, journalist and author Elizabeth Renzetti wrote a column on women’s rights for the Globe and Mail. There was plenty to talk about, from the everyday indignities faced by women to the dire issues of the #MeToo movement. Renzetti stepped away from the paper in 2022, but she didn’t stop writing: she released a mystery novel, Bury the Lead, this past March, followed by a new non-fiction book drawing on her years of reporting. What She Said: Conversations About ­Equality dives into the many ways women ­continue to be plagued by bigotry. We spoke to Renzetti about the long road to equality: the progress, the pushback and why it’s crucial to keep the faith.

Your book comes out seven years after the #MeToo movement began. Why now? In 2022, I interviewed former first lady of Iceland Eliza Reid about her book on gender equality. Afterward, my editor suggested I write my own book on the subject. From there, the idea came in response to this prevailing assumption that we had reached a state of gender equality—all my years of reporting indicated that that wasn’t true. I wanted to combine my reporting with personal stories from my own life to bring that home for people.

What was diving into those stories like? It could be depressing. I wrote down everything I was thinking about as I was ­finishing the book, and it’s a litany of woes: violence, assault, loss of reproductive rights, the rise of the alt-right. I connected those topics to my experiences, like being paid less than my husband, Doug Saunders—also a columnist at the Globe—for the same job. But I believe what Martin Luther King Jr. said about the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice. I tried to find solutions. There had to be some light at the end of the tunnel.

The book is framed as a series of discussions. Do you think we’re still capable of having that kind of civil discourse IRL? If I didn’t, I’d throw myself in front of a train. The “manosphere” has shown us that, while vitriol can be easily weaponized online, it’s much harder to do in person. I’d never want to sit across the table from Andrew Tate, but it would still be a different conversation than on social media.

Related: Carol Off on her new book, At a Loss for Words

You’ve faced a fair amount of misogynist abuse in your time. Are you worried about the reaction to this book? It’s funny—I haven’t really thought about it. I have a duty to point out when things are wrong or unfair, and if that means you get called horrible names online, so be it. I have the skin of a hundred-year-old rhino at this point. Kathleen Wynne once said to me that your skin—to continue the metaphor—has to be thick but porous: if you ignore the abuse entirely, you won’t know what’s happening in the world. That’s my skin care routine these days: thick but porous.

This isn’t your first book on the topic—you published an essay collection, Shrewed, in 2018. What’s changed since then? We have a better understanding of the problems faced by marginalized people, but more things have stayed the same. In her 1991 book, Backlash, journalist Susan Faludi identified a trend: every advance in women’s rights comes with a blowback movement. In 2017, we had #MeToo, which galvanized people and changed laws. Then came the backlash: the anti-abortion tide we’re seeing in the US, anti-feminist movements around the world and the radicalization of young men online.

What’s happening to them? A lot of men feel like the world has left them behind. I don’t disagree that they’ve been hard done by, but it isn’t women who have done that to them. It’s an exploitative economic system that rewards the wealthy and screws the rest of us.

Toronto appears often in your book, including the 2023 mayoral election, where a woman won for the first time in 20 years. Do we get points for that? I have a lot of faith in Olivia Chow. She has a strong record of supporting women and children’s rights. I feel like Toronto may be turning a page, and I’m glad, because I love this place. It’s home.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.