Facebook and Instagram removed posts advertising a bestselling book criticizing the “toxic femininity” and Marxist roots of radical feminism, claiming the posts violated the company’s “commerce policies,” the College Fix revealed Friday.
The book in question — The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity — was written by Carrie Gress, PhD, a Catholic professor at Pontifex University and mother of five. The book has sold exceptionally well, still ranked 7,948 on Amazon a year after its release, and it has received 423 reviews with an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars.
The rejection message said the ad for the book did not comply with Facebook’s commerce policies because listings “may not promote the buying, selling, or use of adult products” (emphasis added).
The ads were also banned on Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook, and the book has experienced repeated “glitches” on Amazon as well, with the removal of buttons to purchase the book.
Dr. Gress told Breitbart News Saturday that she is by no means alone in being censored by Big Tech for her conservative and Catholic ideas, but says that ultimately this progressive heavy-handedness may backfire.
“I think we will continue to see more of this and a real pattern will emerge,” she said, adding that many people have reached out to her in support and have even been moved to purchase her book based in the censorship.
“People want to do something, anything to fight this Big Tech monopoly that we all feel like we are living under, so it is a great moment for people with fresh ideas to start building,” she told Breitbart News.
Gress also said she thinks her adoption of the expression “toxic femininity” has really gotten under the skin of radical feminists, who think of toxicity as the exclusive domain of males.
“I can imagine those words in my title could be a trigger,” Gress said. “As I note in the book, women are supposed to be untouchable as long as they do what the reigning culture tells them to do.” She noted:
The group of elite women (and the men who assist them) that control so much of our messaging to women are quick to silence anyone who speaks about against their message. For over 50 years, we have been told that men are the problem, women the solution, and books like mine really challenge that narrative.
Women who disagree with the radical feminist agenda get called things like ‘dangerous’ and are sandbagged in any way possible. Most women who are pro-life and who don’t buy into the lie that men and our children are our enemy just aren’t willing to put themselves on the line to confront this bullying mob.
Gress also said that it is uncanny how many Catholic books in particular face Amazon censorship.
“Facebook eventually did get back to the book sellers and said there was a ‘glitch’ in the algorithm,” she told Breitbart News. “If it were an isolated case, I wouldn’t give it all a second thought, but there seem to be a lot of glitches in algorithms, with it affecting a lot more Catholic products than just mine.”
“My publisher has had ads refused repeatedly, one that said, ‘Become a Saint,’ another was for a new book called Motherhood Redeemed: How Radical Feminism Betrayed Maternal Love,” she said.