Juliet Turner’s fascination with bugs began when she was an undergraduate. The college she went to—the University of Gloucester, in the UK—housed several colonies of leafcutter ants. The fundamental aim of most animals is to reproduce—but Juliet, now 27, told me she was interested in the fact that ants had “sterile helper castes,” who existed to serve the community, not pass on their genes. Juliet decided to pursue a PhD on ants at Oxford University—and earlier this month she successfully defended her thesis: “The Evolution of Cooperation and Division of Labor in Insects.”
Then she posted about it on X, and things got very dark, very quickly.
Almost immediately, Juliet found herself at the center of a misogynistic abuse campaign.
Ants might have aims that extend beyond passing on their genes, but the message from many men on X was that young women shouldn’t.
“Them eggs aren’t getting any younger,” said one user.
“ ‘Just look at the degree on that chick’ —no man ever,” said a manosphere influencer with more than 225,000 followers.
“You are 30 years old with no husband or kids,” said another, “a genetic dead end in an unbroken line of succession from your ancestors since the beginning of time.”
Juliet was shocked. “I never thought that a simple post about my viva would be so contentious,” she told me over email last month. (By “viva” she means the interview that PhD candidates do to prove they deserve a doctorate.)
I, unfortunately, was not shocked. In recent months, my colleagues and I have documented the rise of white supremacy on the online right, and how it’s led to a torrent of abuse against black people, gays, Jews, and other minorities. But often overlooked is the abuse that white supremacists have directed toward the objects of their supposed desire—the very white women who, in their ideology, are necessary for the “saving” of the white race.
