Pink-pilled: reflections from summer camp

Can radicalisation begin with seemingly innocent content — like posts that randomly appear on our Instagram feeds? Can fitness and wellness culture act as a pipeline toward more extreme ideologies?

This was a recurring theme in our discussion of Pink-Pilled by Lois Shearing during our Summer Camp. The section on anti-fatness and wellness resonated deeply with many participants—despite initially seeming less urgent than the book's critique of anti-trans attitudes among women. What I had wrongly dismissed as trivial turned out to be a powerful, overlooked catalyst for radicalisation.

One example that came up repeatedly was the experience of knowing girls who became obsessed with diet culture — fixated on keeping their weight within socially approved limits, and ensuring that their consumed food is free of plastic and preservatives. This pursuit is often entangled with the desire to attract a 'good man,' reinforcing gendered expectations and heteronormative ideals.

The wellness and fitness industry is booming, and that's undeniable. Our discussion didn't suggest that all wellness influencers are aligned with right-wing or MAGA ideologies. But there is a significant subset who promote a 'clean living' lifestyle that veers into ideological territory — advocating for home-grown food, rejecting processed products, and even endorsing raw milk consumption.

These messages, while framed as health-conscious, often carry undercurrents of purity politics, individualism, and distrust of institutions, more specifically science — all of which can serve as gateways to more radical beliefs.

Content that shapes our daily routines — fitness tips, wellness hacks, lifestyle advice — can be a subtle vehicle for far-right ideology. By embedding its values into habitual practices, these views become normalized, almost invisible, until they feel like common sense rather than political positioning.

Take the promotion of thinness and 'health' as a moral imperative, especially for women. In far-right frameworks, women are often reduced to biological functions: bodies designed to produce healthy children and future citizens of the nation. Wellness culture, when weaponised, reinforces this narrative under the guise of self-improvement and discipline.

This kind of content isn't new. Since we were little girls flipping through 'Cosmopolitan', we've been exposed to headlines like 'How to Attract Him' or 'How to Get Clear Skin and a Great Body.' These messages have always been there — subtly shaping our sense of worth and desirability.

What's changed is the scale and speed. Now, this messaging is more mainstream, more pervasive, and more instantly accessible. We no longer need to buy a magazine to be told what's wrong with us and how to fix it. With just a tap, young girls, still forming their identities, are bombarded with content like 'How to Exude Your Delicate Feminine Energy,' often followed by diet plans and exercise routines.

It's not just about beauty anymore. It's about packaging femininity as a performance, a product, a lifestyle. And that's where the danger lies – when self-worth becomes synonymous with aesthetic discipline and ideological conformity to what the far-right wants us to become: a desirable body machine for the future greatness of their nation.

Men, too, are increasingly exposed to this kind of content – messaging that tells them how to become more 'alpha,' more desirable, more masculine. In our discussion, several men noted that their algorithms had become saturated with advice on how to enhance their attractiveness. For some, this shift began after joining the gym. For others, they were randomly targeted by the content surrounding balding – framing hair loss as a crisis of masculinity, solvable only through cosmetic procedures abroad, like those offered in Turkey.

This relentless focus on appearance and desirability isn't just superficial—it's ideological. It feeds into red pill communities that promote violence, misogyny, and dehumanising language toward women. When outer beauty becomes the currency of worth, and that beauty is defined by ever-shifting standards, the question arises: can anyone ever be enough?

For some men, the effort to 'fix' themselves – through gym routines, cosmetic procedures, or self-improvement hacks – still leaves them single, isolated, and angry. And when that transformation doesn't yield the promised reward, the blame is often redirected outward: toward women, toward feminism, toward liberation movements that challenge the very premise of this transactional model of desirability. The result? A dangerous narrative that paints feminism as the enemy – lazy, unhealthy, and responsible for male suffering. A narrative that can trigger the most violent and deadly outbursts.

On the other side of the coin are women who also subscribe to this model of thinking – those who conform to the ideal of 'soft' and 'feminine' energy. Their curated personas, often promoted through influencer culture, signal to male audiences that there are women willing to submit to these norms. It's a fantasy, one that promises comfort, control, and aesthetic harmony. And it's precisely this fantasy, this imagined utopia, that far-right and nationalist movements often invoke: a return to rigid gender roles, sanitised domesticity, and obedient femininity.
It's all part of a system designed to keep us chasing, consuming, conforming – and to punish those who dare to question it.

Another part of our discussion that deeply resonated was contraception – particularly its intersection with the wellness industry. One of the ways women are increasingly radicalised is through conversations around reproductive autonomy. This radicalisation doesn't stem from conspiracy or irrationality, but from a legitimate mistrust of medical institutions that have long neglected women's health. The passive and active perpetuation of medical misogyny — through under-researched treatments, dismissive consultations, and gendered assumptions — has left many women feeling unheard and unprotected.

Hormonal contraception emerged as a particularly charged topic. Several women shared experiences of being placed on the pill at a young age, often with little to no discussion of side effects. And the list of side effects is long—so long, in fact, that the information leaflet could practically be used as a blanket. It's no wonder that alternatives like 'Natural Cycles' or 'Hormone-Free' methods are gaining traction. At surface level, they offer relief from the physical toll of hormonal contraception. But beneath that, they reflect a deeper frustration: the medical establishment has failed to prioritise women's quality of life, and has rarely considered whether men should share the burden of contraception.

However appealing this content may seem on the surface, it bears striking similarities to conservative and nationalist rhetoric – rhetoric that places women at the mercy of their biology, tying them intimately to childbearing as destiny rather than choice. The implicit message is clear: the option to say "I do not want to be pregnant" is erased, replaced by a moral imperative to reproduce.

That appeal to this type of content has its consequences. Recently, I came across an article detailing the rising popularity of 'restorative reproductive medicine' within the White House. For decades, this field was considered fringe - even among supposed allies in the Republican Party. Trump, for instance, built part of his platform on natalist ideals, combining the prohibition of reproductive choice with promises of free in vitro services for Americans.

Proponents of restorative reproductive medicine advocate for 'natural' approaches to infertility, positioning IVF as a last resort rather than a default solution. Physicians in this field analyse patients' diets, exercise habits, and menstrual cycles, framing reproductive health as something to be 'restored' through lifestyle correction.

One of the key policy advocates behind this push is Emma Waters, a senior research associate at the Heritage Foundation. The topic gained traction among female audiences at the White House, particularly after the Senate Pro-Life Caucus and Values Action Team hosted events where women shared emotional testimonies about their struggles with infertility and the failures of modern medicine. One attendee reportedly said, "I think I have endometriosis."

Endometriosis is among the most underdiagnosed conditions globally, with an average diagnostic delay of 6.6 to 9 years. Patients are routinely dismissed, and many healthcare providers lack even basic knowledge of the condition. Like so many issues affecting women's health, it remains under-researched, underfunded, and poorly treated - even after diagnosis.

The result? The Department of Health and Human Services has committed to integrating restorative reproductive medicine into government-funded health clinics for low-income women.

Many of us left that conversation with the same sobering conclusion: women, like men, are vulnerable to radicalisation. At the heart of this is a deeper truth: there is always a 'why' behind the 'what', and that 'why' is capitalism – a system that has failed us in countless ways, and now offers us its rotten fruit. The rise of conservative and far-right ideologies is no longer confined to the algorithmic margins of social media. It has breached the gates of power, shaping policies that will constrain our futures and redefine our freedoms, and in the end made us all question what we consume online. After all it's the attention that brings the far right closer to power.

Capitalism, with its liberal feminist veneer, sold us the fantasy of 'having it all' – the myth of the girlboss who could climb the corporate ladder while juggling domestic labour and reproductive expectations. But this fantasy was never built for us. It masked the brutal realities of gendered economic inequality, medical misogyny, and the persistent refusal of men to share domestic and caregiving responsibilities.

Under this system, consumption has been mistaken for liberation. We were told that buying more, achieving more, and leaning in harder would set us free. But true liberation demands something deeper: community, care, and structural change.

And perhaps our collective failure to confront this head-on is now costing us dearly.