Sexual Revolution – Laurie Penny

Where to begin? This was a book I bought with the idea of it being out of my comfort zone, that it might be too radical for me. And as much as I do not agree personally with everything Laurie Penny writes, it has become my absolute favourite non-fiction book. I could talk about it all day. The way they write about such a variety of topics: masculinity, feminism, power, resistance, persistence, etc. has marked me. I highly recommend reading this for a multitude of reasons, but especially if you want to learn about different feminist viewpoints and find solutions to the issues Laurie Penny has written.

Laurie Penny’s Sexual Revolution is not just a feminist call to arms—it’s a sharp, politically charged lens through which we can examine international risk, systemic instability, and the fractures within governance models around the world. The failure of institutions to protect women and prosecute sexual violence isn’t just a domestic issue—it’s a global one, and it erodes the legitimacy of justice systems, weakens trust in leadership, and amplifies social unrest. From Latin America’s Ni Una Menos movement to protests in India and Iran, gender-based violence is increasingly recognised not just as a human rights crisis, but as a critical national security and governance issue.

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

laure Penny – sexual revolution

Laurie Penny discusses many topics, which made choosing quotes for this article so hard! Nonetheless, I’ve managed to scale it down to a few, which hopefully will inspire you to read the book as well.

If there are many more rapists walking free than there are rapists convicted and in jail, we must come to terms with the fact that it has, until extremely recently, been considered far more heinous to accuse someone of rape than it is to commit it.

laurie Penny – sexual revolution

As mentioned in this quote, it does spark the debate as to why, often when we hear about women having been sexually assaulted, our first reaction as a society is to question what she was wearing, how much she drank, why she was walking that particular way home, why she trusted the man that did this to her, and that is if we believe he did this to her. Recently, in Belgium, a gynaecologist student got acquitted of his sentence because he has “a bright future ahead of him” and is “such a good student” even though he got sentenced of having committed the rape. Yet, no consequences apart from a fine, not even a conviction. If we do not hold the men accountable that commit sexual assault and rape, how are women supposed to feel safe?

Women speaking out against institutional rape ‘go too far’ and ‘lose control’; young people of colour protesting against police violence are simply ‘thugs’; white men, by contrast, have ‘legitimate concerns’.

laure penny -sexual revolution

For risk professionals, policy advisors, and strategic decision-makers, Penny’s work offers urgent lessons on the cascading risks of institutional neglect. When societal structures routinely invalidate victims and excuse perpetrators, often under the guise of economic potential or social status, they create the conditions for protest, radicalisation, and systemic breakdown. In high-trust societies, these cracks appear as falling conviction rates and disengagement from civic life; in lower-trust or conflict-prone regions, they can spiral into mass mobilisation, regime instability, or widespread unrest. Understanding gender inequality as both a driver and amplifier of risk is essential to any serious global risk assessment.

In the context of international business, governance, and security, Sexual Revolution challenges risk professionals to expand their threat horizons. It’s not enough to monitor geopolitical flashpoints or macroeconomic indicators that leaders must also confront the deep societal inequalities that undermine long-term stability. Penny reminds us that revolutions don’t always begin with armed groups or cyberattacks; they often start with silence, with injustice, and with people deciding they’ve had enough. In an era of ESG scrutiny and stakeholder capitalism, ignoring these dynamics isn’t just immoral, it’s strategically unsound.

Quotes That Might Make you Read the Book:

Revolution does not begin in the streets. Revolution begins in the head, and in the heart.

laurie penny – sexual revolution

Where men’s pain and suffering is taken as an explanation or excuse for harm they have caused, women’s pain is taken as proof that they are delusional and not worth listening too.

laurie penny – sexual revolution

Neoliberalism is allergic to the idea of human beings living, organising, and caring for one another collectively.

Laurie penny

Every economy on earth is founded on the invisible labour done mostly by women, mostly for free – on the reproductive, domestic, and emotional work without which every modern economy would collapse overnight.

laurie penny – sexual revolution

Most of us do not consider our loneliness or frustration a logical prelude to acts of bloody violence.

laurie penny – sexual revolution