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Out of the Fog: On Politics, Feminism and Coming Alive
From racialised police brutality to climate change, #MeToo, ‘trans rights’, COVID-19, the prospect of nuclear war and the prevalence of trauma – we are constantly bombarded with high stakes problems that we are expected to speak out about and act on. On closer inspection, the popular solutions to each of these problems aren’t easy to reconcile. Black Lives Matter activists demand prison abolition, while #MeToo feminists want rapists in jail – and while our objections to war and police brutality make us suspicious of state institutions in general, our responses to climate change and COVID-19 reinforce our dependency on them.
Out of the Fog cuts through the confusion. Renée Gerlich suggests that readers move beyond feeling overwhelmed and emotionally manipulated. She draws on a radical feminist tradition that demonstrates how our despair is connected to our most pressing social problems, and offers a framework for assessing and interpreting the current political landscape.
Out of the Fog cuts through the confusion. Renée Gerlich suggests that readers move beyond feeling overwhelmed and emotionally manipulated. She draws on a radical feminist tradition that demonstrates how our despair is connected to our most pressing social problems, and offers a framework for assessing and interpreting the current political landscape.
- GenresFeminism
252 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2022
2 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 19, 2023
Ms. Gerlich has gathered together the thoughts of many great writers to create her own unique and clear picture of the human condition as it is today, and provides some very specific ways to achieve authentic power, liberation, and humanization.
July 24, 2025
I read this while mostly scowling. Some slightly interesting points included, but I felt this book was mostly just an anti-trans essay. Not for me. Would not recommend.
June 17, 2023
Along with my morning coffee, Out of the Fog soon became a morning ritual, a real go-to motivator and energizer to begin my day. I shall refer to this thoughtful compendium over and over again.
I was surprised to learn that we can actually become addicted to our own distress hormones. Gerlich explains that accumulated stress affects our nervous systems from our earliest years and can, unsuspectingly, become who we think we are. Even decades later, we can still live in low-grade depression, perhaps thinking that's all there is to life. To imagine that, in our misogynistic society, our trauma-based neuro-wiring can be reversed is wonderful.
We can do this work to dispel the fog by becoming aware of and then declining to participate in our cultural conditioning. Gerlich quotes modern radical Emma Goldman: "In the battle for freedom, it is the struggle for, not so much the attainment of liberty, that develops all that is strongest, sturdiest and finest in the human character."
So often, women navigate or dance around or cow-tow to misogynists in order to secure what is needed for themselves or others, perhaps to keep their jobs or have access to their grandchildren...but for those of us who are in a position to, there's the real marriage, the most honourable commitment, to oneself.
Gerlich quotes Harriet Lerner: "It is our job to state our thoughts clearly and to make responsible decisions that are congruent with our values and beliefs...It's not our job to make another person think and feel the way we do or the way we want them to...we can end up in relationships in which a lot of personal pain and emotional intensity are being expended, and nothing is changing."
Gerlich encourages authenticity, autonomy, and the willingness to walk through the forest alone, all alone, if necessary. No more 'negotiating with the powers that be' nonsense. Instead, connect with your own inner authority and stand by yourself."
Yet, we must be vigilant. When we read that today, in 2023, men can enter into and win in women’s sports and be lauded by the officials of our universities, when we read that men can say they are women and enter women’s safe spaces and rape them and when we read that the preponderance of femicide is a) done by men and b) involves repeated violence on the female body whereas, in contrast, murders by women are mostly acts of self-defence, how do we not internalize the universal threat to ourselves? How do we not flush fresh stress hormones into our nervous systems and still reign victorious?
Gerlich shares the stage with the authors whose wisdom has inspired her, like Susan Hawthorne's book 'Wild Politics' which shakes the root causes of cultural fogginess.
Gerlich says that it is feminist analysis that ushers us into a reality-based cultural context where we can thrive, alone or with others and that achieving a personal reality is a precious treasure.
Highly recommend this richly meaningful, encouraging and engaging read!
Eleanor Cowan, Author, A History of a Pedophile's Wife: Memoir of a Canadian Teacher and Writer
I was surprised to learn that we can actually become addicted to our own distress hormones. Gerlich explains that accumulated stress affects our nervous systems from our earliest years and can, unsuspectingly, become who we think we are. Even decades later, we can still live in low-grade depression, perhaps thinking that's all there is to life. To imagine that, in our misogynistic society, our trauma-based neuro-wiring can be reversed is wonderful.
We can do this work to dispel the fog by becoming aware of and then declining to participate in our cultural conditioning. Gerlich quotes modern radical Emma Goldman: "In the battle for freedom, it is the struggle for, not so much the attainment of liberty, that develops all that is strongest, sturdiest and finest in the human character."
So often, women navigate or dance around or cow-tow to misogynists in order to secure what is needed for themselves or others, perhaps to keep their jobs or have access to their grandchildren...but for those of us who are in a position to, there's the real marriage, the most honourable commitment, to oneself.
Gerlich quotes Harriet Lerner: "It is our job to state our thoughts clearly and to make responsible decisions that are congruent with our values and beliefs...It's not our job to make another person think and feel the way we do or the way we want them to...we can end up in relationships in which a lot of personal pain and emotional intensity are being expended, and nothing is changing."
Gerlich encourages authenticity, autonomy, and the willingness to walk through the forest alone, all alone, if necessary. No more 'negotiating with the powers that be' nonsense. Instead, connect with your own inner authority and stand by yourself."
Yet, we must be vigilant. When we read that today, in 2023, men can enter into and win in women’s sports and be lauded by the officials of our universities, when we read that men can say they are women and enter women’s safe spaces and rape them and when we read that the preponderance of femicide is a) done by men and b) involves repeated violence on the female body whereas, in contrast, murders by women are mostly acts of self-defence, how do we not internalize the universal threat to ourselves? How do we not flush fresh stress hormones into our nervous systems and still reign victorious?
Gerlich shares the stage with the authors whose wisdom has inspired her, like Susan Hawthorne's book 'Wild Politics' which shakes the root causes of cultural fogginess.
Gerlich says that it is feminist analysis that ushers us into a reality-based cultural context where we can thrive, alone or with others and that achieving a personal reality is a precious treasure.
Highly recommend this richly meaningful, encouraging and engaging read!
Eleanor Cowan, Author, A History of a Pedophile's Wife: Memoir of a Canadian Teacher and Writer
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews