Ragecore: From Riot Women to Lily Allen – why female fury is big business

If you are a woman and were in a WhatsApp group last week, chances are it was been on fire with talk of Lily Allen’s new album, West End Girl. It’s been a week now, and I haven’t turned it off. My mum picked me and my daughter up from the station for half-term, and it was playing on repeat in her car; my teenage daughter instantly recognised it. That’s three generations of women all feeling Lily’s stories, a masterpiece of pop bangers about discovering the deceptions of the man she loved – her pain, her fury, her rage.

What a time to be alive, to see not just Lily Allen, but all women taking their anger into their own hands and feeling their power rising up.

In fact, friends have told me they’ve needed to take a moment to really process the album because listening to it brought up things from their past – from previous relationships – that they thought they’d dealt with. “I’m taking a Lily Allen duvet day from work,” one told me, “and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.” Comments sections everywhere are full of men piping up that Allen has hardly been an angel herself, and women responding: duh, we know she’s been mad and bad, but she’s our mad and bad, so shut up and stand down. This is our time now.

open image in gallery

Allen is on to something more than just the sh***y behaviour of an ex who was into open relationships and gaslighting. She has tapped into a wider social zeitgeist that is all about female rage – and its worth.

It’s no coincidence that the publishing industry is now on the hunt for new talent to harness this new trend for women’s anger. Howls of rage sell – as does “femgore”, or horror stories written by women, for women – as well as fury directed at our systems and institutions. These are the books they want, and they’re calling it female ragecore, or “femrage”, and for once it doesn’t feel like just another marketing trend. This feels real. Women are buying it because every woman I know seems to be kicking over the metaphorical tables and asking what the hell has happened to them and their lives.

Just look at the new TV drama from the brilliant Sally Wainwright, Riot Women, which follows five menopausal women – a teacher, a police officer, a pub landlady, a midwife, and a messed-up rock-star wannabe – as they enter a local talent contest by starting a punk band. It is packed with sharp zingers that land appreciatively in the laps of an audience of mostly women who have also JUST HAD ENOUGH. Finally, they feel seen in all their rageful and vengeful glory.

Or Miranda July, recently publishing the phenomenal novel All Fours, about a woman upending her marriage to find a whole new sexual way of living, and her Substack chatroom filling up with women, from a range of sexualities and nationalities, asking if they too should “set fire to” their lives. Not change their lives, or improve them – set fire to them. You understand?

Then there’s the feminist influencer The Slumflower, who comes at it from a different angle, using the male gaze to get money from men, whom she instructs women to feel no pity for. She sells out London theatres with her speaking events; Allen has left comments such as “Ok queen” on her Instagram page.

Is it any wonder this is happening now, this uprising of female fury in our storytelling? We’ve been watching the rise of toxic manfluencers like Andrew Tate with their hateful treatment of women for a while now, worrying about our sons and daughters. We have been gut-punched at the sight of our reproductive rights getting rolled back by a president who, at a White House press event, told a female journalist: “I just like to watch her talk.” Following up with, “Good job. Good job. Thank you, darling.”

Then there are the biggest female stars of OnlyFans, sleeping with a thousand men to get famous and then sounding a bit surprised afterwards that it was quite emotionally draining. You don’t say! Is this really the feminist freedom we were fighting for? We are living in a world of deep-fake pornography, AI-generated sex-robots or “AI girlfriends” that promote objectification and rape fantasy.

We still can’t trust the police to protect us from violent partners or the courts to convict violent sex offenders. Even worse, sexism in the Met isn't confined to “one bad apple”; it’s a culture steeped in harassment and objectification. Closing the gender pay gap in the UK is still over four decades away and AI recruitment algorithms are stacked against us. We can’t even trust maternity departments to deliver our babies safely – 18 per cent of maternity units are rated inadequate, and 47 per cent are rated as requiring improvement.

open image in gallery

So yes, we’re angry. We’re tired of listening to politicians whom we wanted to believe would be different, but who then go straight ahead and do exactly what they said they wouldn’t (yep, it isn’t just our lovers who are gaslighting us). We watch children bearing the brunt of wars and feel powerless to help them: why won’t any of these revolting men in power make it stop?

Once upon a time, to feel a bit better, we’d sink back into the land of naff motivational quotes and touchy-feely nonsense. Not any more. There is a new mood in town and millions of us have taken this communal moment to connect to Allen’s new album and let it all out. “Why should I let you win?” she sings. “You’ve taken everything.”

She has announced a new live tour next year, and she will surely have to add new shows – the demand is going to be, frankly, insane. Because female rage is big business now. And everyone is getting involved.