Are women turning against feminism? Over on The Spearhead, WF Price sets forth the proposition that “the younger generation of women [is] rejecting ‘feminism’ in stronger terms than I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”
His proof for this? A Tumblr blog called Women Against Feminism, featuring a couple dozen photos of women holding signs denouncing feminism. Or what they think feminism is, anyway.
Some of these women are fairly articulate about the source of their hostility against feminism: they’re traditionalists who don’t like being judged for their choices:
Others seem to be reacting against stereotypical notions of feminism that bear little relation to the real thing:
Still others have somewhat more, well, idiosyncratic reasons:
For whatever reason, quite a few of the women posting these pictures are from Poland.
At least here in the US, it’s not news that a lot of women reject feminism – or at least the feminist label. There are plenty of traditionalist women who reject the central tenets of feminism. And there are many others who may share some feminist beliefs but don’t want to call themselves feminists, in part because of the bad rap feminists get in the media and, these days, online. Anyone who’s been a feminist for any length of time has heard women (and some men) announce that “I’m not a feminist, but …” and then follow that statement with a sentiment that is, by any reasonable definition, feminist.
Now some of these “I’m not a feminist, but” types are posting pictures like this, using what is essentially a feminist analysis to criticize what they see as a central shortcoming of feminism:
Naturally, WF Price has a somewhat different explanation for this alleged trend.
What I think is going on here is that younger women need men more than their older, feminist counterparts did in their heyday.
And why is that? Because times are hard. And so even though men today are struggling, women are struggling even more, and so – in WF Price’s imagination, anyway — they’ve come to appreciate what men can do for them.
The less men have – and the less men there are in general – the more women need them. Without men or without men of means, there can be no surplus, no you-go-grrrrl feminism, no fancy restaurants and no nice houses. Everything just goes to crap.
Heck, Price argues, even men without jobs make better roommates for women than other women, because, you know, they can open jars and stuff:
[W]hat use could a man possibly be if he has no money to speak of? Only someone who has never lived with a woman could find that one hard to answer. A healthy young man with no money can drive, carry things, fix things, protect his mate, solve problems, save money, do chores — the list goes on. And when he gets a job, he will pay his way and do all these things, even if he makes less than his girlfriend. It’s a much, much better deal for a woman than a female roommate.
According to Price, feminism had whatever successes it did have in the past because the economy was booming.
What created this “independent woman” myth was the great prosperity of the baby boomer era, which lasted from roughly the mid 60s to the mid 2000s. Men abounded, and they were flush with cash. Businesses could afford to hire superfluous cute girls and give them nice salaries. Family courts could rob men blind and they’d still have enough left over for a reasonable lifestyle and a chance to start over. Men were harvesting the fat of the land, and there was more than enough to go around.
Huh. I lived through that baby boomer era, and I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t one giant materialistic orgy. There were, I vaguely recall, more than a couple of pretty severe recessions. And back in the heyday of second wave feminism in the seventies there was something called “stagflation.”
But let’s not get in the way of WF Price’s little fairy tale. In the baby boomer era, everyone prospered. Now, everyone is poor. Or at least the young people are:
When you’re poor, life is a lot easier if you can share with someone, and nobody shares more with girls than boys. So merely finding a man to share burdens is a considerable relief to young women. Is a feminist going to fix a car, carry a TV upstairs or take her to the hospital to give birth? Will the feminist voluntarily share any of what she earns with the young woman? Yeah, right…
Apparently in Price’s world “the feminist” is essentially a female version of Scrooge McDuck.
Male scarcity in either numbers or resources effectively prevents feminism. Surplus enables it. In a sense, one could say that feminism’s own downfall is built in to the ideology itself, because it contributes to male scarcity.
Wars between the sexes accomplish nothing in the long run, but they do highlight the complementary, interdependent nature of the sexes: when one sex “beats” the other, both lose. Today’s young women seem to understand that a lot better than their foolish mothers ever did.
In the comments, the Spearhead regulars are less forgiving of “foolish” women than Price is. Regular commenter Geographybeefinalisthimself suggests that antifeminist men should be something less than gracious in their (alleged) victory:
Even if women are in fact rejecting feminism (and I treat this with a lot of suspicion), I don’t see why men should not be vindictive since feminists were pretty damn vindictive to men (myself included, though I am well aware that I am not the only one) when male power was a myth.
Since young men got paid back for discrimination that wasn’t their fault, I don’t see why they shouldn’t turn around and do likewise to a subsequent generation of females. If feminism can come to an end now (and I am not convinced that it is dead yet), it also could have come to an end twenty years ago. I always take the attitude that if something can happen now, it could have happened many years ago as well.
Someone calling himself Lastango, meanwhile, indulges himself in some hypothetical Atlas Shrugging:
[T]he tide is going out and it’s increasingly obvious feminism has been swimming naked, keeping its head above water only because it could float on government money. Unfortunately for feminists, this is happening at the very moment men are increasingly aware of having been demonized and exploited during the past 40 years, and Atlas is starting to shrug… he’ll be staying dry, on the beach, instead of swimming out to rescue a drowning political tribe of privileged, entitled women who have been using him for their own gain.
The misogynists of the manosphere are never quite so happy as when they contemplate women being punished.
The women posting pictures to the Women Against Feminism blog might be surprised by how ungentlemanly these fellows really are.
NOTE: I cropped the pics from Women Against Feminism to save space and highlight the signs.
And as so many of us have pointed out, this is true of anti-feminist men as well. The “female privileges” they complain about tend to only apply to women who are cis/het, white and middle class, like a recent post complaining that a given woman shouldn’t be talking about “privilege” because she has a higher education. They remain conspicuously silent when asked how other types of women fit into the picture. Sometimes I think a lot of anti-feminist complaints (like “I don’t have privilege I grew up in a trailer!) are rooted in mistaking class privilege for “female privilege”.
Also, Ally, I would read the shit out of a book written by you.
“Is a feminist going to […] take her to the hospital to give birth?” Are they still talking about roommates? Otherwise the alternative is ‘get placenta on your carpet’.
PumpkinHeaded — that one struck me as weird too. They really think that if a woman is in labor, a man is going to be more helpful than a woman? Not to be completely stereotypical, but you know how when a woman goes into labor at home the husband was supposed to boil water? Do you know why? To keep him the fuck out of the way. Idk how true it is, but it seems just a bit odd to think than the female roommate of a woman in labor is gonna go “nope, get yourself to the hospital”.
Only way this could make sense is if they think women call ambulances, men drive, and the latter is massively more noble. Which, thinking about it, is about the level of dumb I’ve come to expect from MRAs.
Re: envy of SAHM — yep, most people picturing themselves being a SAHM are picturing hubby coming home for a nice dinner, being able to afford child care and choosing to stay at home instead, etc. They’re not picturing people like my (white, cis, able bodied) mother who worked from home when we were kids because even with an Italian grandmother a mile away child care was expensive (and we basically had a free babysitter, when our grandmother wasn’t herself working). And they certainly aren’t picturing women stuck staying at home cuz daycare costs more than their min. wage job pays in the first place.
(Side note, in some ways I am incredibly lucky she worked from home — I had a magical box I was never EVER to touch in the house back in the late 80s…aka “a computer”…I think I was interested in how the magic box worked before I could talk! And now, I’m back to making the magic box behind the Borg less of a coding clusterfuck.)
It’s so very Norman Rockwell.
I often think that the chief reason I enjoy being a SAHF is the twenty four years of working outside the home. My father always said that real life is what happens when you’re not at work, so getting on SSDI and staying home with our kids felt like a happy ending.* Now I don’t rush home to get dinner started after a day at the hospital, I’m already there.
*So to speak.
That’s not a bad idea, actually, especially if there’s actually a way I can make a decent amount off of it. Options like that are appealing when you’re poor and trying to save up for transition costs. I just wish I knew what to write about.
I believe the references to Poland may be in response to an ecard that reads, “‘Feminazi’ Because wanting your gender to be treated like human beings is just like invading Poland.”
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/238339005250897667/
Ally, you could write about your experience as an Islamic trans woman (I hope the space is right) or your thoughts on feminism, patriarchy, & womanism. Given your comments on this site, I’d read your book too.
Long time lurker (who will probably go back to lurking) hopping in here to say:
Ally, you should ABSOLUTELY write that book. I’d buy it in a second. The immense opportunities with e-publishing today make it feasible you could make money from it. Maybe not huge amounts (although that sometimes happens), but you already have dedicated readers here who would help spread the word if you put a book out. I second Skye’s idea for subject matter.
You can always start pulling writeathons like me, Ally! 😀
@Skye
I can’t write much about Islam since I’m no longer a Muslim, but I have plenty of other ideas, including but not limited to the following:
-the relations between disablism and white supremacy
-the role of coercive gender assignment in disablism
-a critique of nature/nurture debates (invoking Michel Foucault’s critique of humanism)
Ally, I’m sorry. I thought you were; I hope I didn’t offend you. Those are good ideas for a book also. 🙂
I know there’s already a glut of intro-level feminist books, but I think you would write a really good one, especially with the radical feminist and intersectional analyses you bring to the table.
@Ally_S
I would totally buy/read the hell out of a book by you too.
Intro-level books sound great, too. Maybe they’d be even better to write since into-level stuff is the easiest for me to write. I’d probably have a slightly difference focus, though: instead of talking about what patriarchy is, for example, I’ll criticize the assumption that men can only face gender policing if they are also oppressed on the basis of maleness.
Go, Ally, go! Maybe Argenti can magic up a forum on the borg to be a workshop space when you get far enough for that. Um, if you find workshopping your writing helpful.
Trigger warning: any emotionally fragile feminist reading the following comment may suffer P.T.S.D. from seeing her twisted little belief system getting the shit stomped out of it. OK with that out of the way:
Actually these anti-feminist women are not misunderstanding feminism in the slightest. They’re seeing what you are unable to see as perhaps you’re too close to the problem to see it accurately or maybe you just can’t bear to face an unpleasant truth. But you’re not going to convince anyone worth convincing by simply pointing to the dictionary definition of feminism then folding your arms smugly like you just proved something. The problem is that there is an enormous gulf between the THEORY of what feminism is allegedly about (the dictionary definition) and the PRACTICE of what feminism really is and does in reality.
It is quite easy to demonstrate what I mean. You see, when your movement claims that it is simply fighting for equality with men, not special privileges above and beyond what men have, no silly, just equality, then your movement needs to explain why it still exists in the western world now that women have had all the same rights as men for quite some time now in addition to some female-specific special privileges on top of that which no man will ever have. Point me towards even ONE law in the U.S. for example which discriminates against women in favor of men. I hear crickets chirping. When you have already achieved all the same rights as men yet you still keep on playing the victim card to try to milk further gender-specific concessions out of society, guess what? You’re making it pretty damned obvious to anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together that equality isn’t nearly good enough for you, that you’re a female supremacist movement unconvincingly dressed up as one that’s “fighting for equality”. (For crying out loud, even the movement’s very NAME gives away its purpose. If it was fighting for equality it would be called egalitarianism or humanitarianism or something quite a bit less narrowly gender-specific.)
If feminism TRULY was about fighting for equality rather than being a one-sided gynocentric superiority movement then ask yourselves why it constantly pooh-poohs any problems or injustices that aren’t 100% exclusively about women. Ask yourself why it makes no effort at all to redress any of the imbalances that favor women over men.
For example, where is the feminist activity on the issue of women being sentenced to 60% less prison time for the same crimes as a man? Why isn’t feminism demanding that women be held to the same standard of adult responsibility as a man who committed the same crime? Why is your movement content with such an egregious disparity in sentencing? Oh yeah, because it is a disparity that favors women over men, whereas if the situation was reversed with men getting let off with 60% less prison time than a female you bet your ass it would be a feminist priority.
Where is feminism’s activism about the issue of women getting awarded custody in about 90% of child custody cases? To the extent that the woman would have to just about be a practicing prostitute or a heroin addict in order for the man to be given custody. Funny but this doesn’t seem to make it onto feminists’ radar either, I wonder why…
Why is feminism content to see 93% of workplace fatalities being male with only 7% being female? If feminism is about equality then why isn’t feminism working to try to get more women into these dangerous jobs so perhaps we could start to equalize this extremely one-sided workplace death ratio? Oh yeah, because feminism is perfectly content letting men do the dirty, heavy-lifting, dangerous and hard jobs that keep society going and letting women get the air-conditioned office jobs… then bitching about how a secretary answering phones all day in an air-conditioned office is a “victim of discrimination” for not getting paid as much as a man 500 feet in the air dangling off a skyscraper installing window glass though of course we know they will NEVER be so specific in their criticism because it would risk revealing the vapid, dumbed-down, apples-to-oranges nature of said criticism. Far better to just make some unsubstantiated claim about your mythical “gender-based discriminatory pay gap” that magically disappears as soon as one adjusts for personal career choices, education and childbirth.
Why has feminism remained silent about the huge discrepancy in funding for male homeless shelters versus female homeless shelters? When the overwhelming majority of homeless people are men rather than women, why on earth should men’s shelters get short shrift compared to female shelters? This clearly isn’t a problem for your imaginary “patriarchial” government which routinely ignores men’s issues in favor of women’s issues so why isn’t feminism, the movement you never tire of telling us is not gynocentric but all-inclusive, fighting for equality not female supremacy, doing a damned thing to bring this to society’s attention? You can bet any amount of money if the situation was reversed with the homeless population being mostly female it would be a crisis of Biblical proportions, worthy of the government declaring a “war on homelessness” to solve it. Why is the feminist movement just as disinterested in this matter as the government?
Why is feminism content with men still having to pay alimony in 2014? Aren’t you the same ladies who constantly tell us how women are just as good as men, just as capable and just as independent? Then why the hell should a man have the responsibility of paying for the upkeep and lifestyle of his former spouse on an indefinite basis? Why did this issue only make it onto feminists’ radar (in Florida) when the infinitesimally small amount of women paying alimony to THEIR former spouses inched up a tiny bit while still remaining a mouse fart compared to men’s alimony payments? Where is feminism’s indignation that these supposedly liberated, independent women are entitled to being supported by a man that isn’t even living with them any longer? Why don’t you see this as an enormous insult and indignation? Oh yeah, because I suppose the convenience of getting a monthly check in the mail assuages your little feelings of shame and dependency, right? So long as it works in women’s favor instead of men’s it’s perfectly OK with the feminist movement.
Where is feminism’s concern with the issue of men committing suicide at rates astronomically higher than women? You know if the numbers were reversed there would be a colossal shitstorm until we got the numbers of women killing themselves back down to acceptable levels but yet with the numbers being what they are this, unsurprisingly, isn’t an issue feminists will lift a finger to work on.
And I have yet to hear a single feminist push for women having to register for the draft. Why does a man have to register at age 18 or else he isn’t entitled to any of the benefits of society, can’t vote, can’t collect Social Security when he’s old etc. yet no woman has to register for the draft in order to enjoy any of that? Why are feminists content to let women avoid adult responsibilities that men can never avoid? Oh yeah, because it isn’t a movement about equality at all but rather female supremacy, the same reason why the KKK never pushes for anything aside from matters that affect white people. As despicable as they are at least they’re honest enough to not pretend to be fighting for racial equality.
Or what about the biggest double standard on the face of the earth? By this I mean the elective abortion/mandatory child support issue. Let’s say a woman gets pregnant accidentally, neither her nor her partner intended for it to happen. If the man wants to be a daddy to that unexpected kid but the woman doesn’t want any parts of it she’s going to go to the abortion clinic and get that unborn human dismembered and sucked out of her uterus without having broken a single law in the process. That man will now be the proud daddy to a bloody little pile of severed arms and legs. But if the situation is reversed and the woman wants to keep the baby but the dad doesn’t want any parts of being a daddy? Tough tittie, he’s on the hook for 18 years of child support payments for a kid he will never see. The law simply doesn’t allow him to act like an irresponsible piece of shit at least not without facing the penalty of jail time for his irresponsibility. The law holds that man to his responsibility, forces him to act like a grown adult and take responsibility for his actions. Whereas the law makes no effort whatsoever to force the woman to act like an adult and take responsibility for HER actions, no, instead it lets her dance away from the consequences of her actions without a care in the world. When the man’s irresponsibility results in the woman not getting a monthly check in the mail and that’s illegal yet the woman’s irresponsibility results in the death of another human being (the unborn human) and yet THAT is LEGAL?? Are you effing kidding me?? This has to be the most horrific double standard the world has ever seen, yet I guarantee you that if anyone was to start pushing for ending mandatory child support payments or tying the continuance of legal abortion to the ending of mandatory child support it would be the feminitwits who would be leading the charge to make sure things remain as one-sided as they are now. When the woman is allowed to act like a magical sparkly princess with no more responsibility than a child even though her irresponsibility and immaturity results in a human being’s death and the man isn’t even allowed to skip out on child support payments for a kid he never sees, clearly this abortion/child support situation can be called nothing less than overt female supremacy. Not equality between the sexes. Not egalitarianism. Overt, in-your-face female supremacy and nothing less. Funny but I haven’t heard of a single feminist anywhere pushing for an end to elective abortion. Feminism seems perfectly content to let this terrible double standard remain in place and any comment made about ending elective abortion is immediately met with a lecture about how it would somehow be “oppressing women” to hold them to the same standard of responsibility a man is held to, how it would be “chaining them to the stove” or ensuring they are “barefoot and pregnant” or whatever other feminist propaganda bullshit they can come up with. Because this is one of the many double standards that feminists embrace, those which favor women over men. Another reason why few people aside from feminists themselves take feminists seriously.
So you want to “prove” your movement really is about equality and not female supremacy and special gender-specific privileges? Great, come out against elective abortion. Demand that it be abolished, demand that women are held to the same standard of responsibility that a man is held to, demand that women receive no preferential treatment in the court system etc. etc. Basically it comes down to a realization that not everything in life is a right or a privilege, that there are some things in adult life that are called “responsibilities”. If feminism wasn’t all about milking society for more benefits, more gender-specific set-asides, more quotas, more gynocentric advantages and actually grew the hell up enough to see that there are such things as RESPONSIBILITIES as well then maybe more people would take feminism seriously. As it stands right now only about 23% of American women identify as feminists meaning no less than 77% of women wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole the movement that is supposed to be designed around their interests. That is a spectacular failure so amazing words can’t describe it. Perhaps women are getting tired of being constantly told they’re weak, helpless little victims who can’t do anything for themselves without a movement behind them to keep them pointed in the right direction and protected from this cruel world. I suspect your average woman is quite a bit stronger than that and doesn’t appreciate being talked down to. But whatever it is, your movement is dying and I say good riddance. Let it be replaced with something that doesn’t try to drive an unnecessary wedge between working class men and working class women. Let it be replaced with something far more mature, grown up, sensible and realistic. In other words let it be replaced with something that is GENUINELY about equal rights for the sexes.
Henry, you started out strong with that knee-slapped about how you were going to atom the shit out of feminism with a single mighty blog comment, but the essence of humor is brevity, and I wasn’t able to slog through the rest of your comment for the punch line. Unless you were going for a shaggy dog joke, you might want to work on keeping your jokes a bit shorter. Thanks for the laugh, though!
Henry: Bullshit. All of it. Just bullshit.
Pretty funny you demand feminists be anti-choice to prove that feminism is about equality to the MRA.
I’m highly amused Henry seems to think we haven’t heard any of that before or something and that hearing it for the first time, we’re all gonna be quaking in our boots our something. CHECKMATE FEMINSTR, as one confused cat said.
The originality is not strong with this one.
@Henry
Theory and practice are only different when they suit you, right, Henry?
@vaiyt, also note the “in favor of men” he tacked on there. Now you can’t cite abortion restrictions or fetal personhood laws, because how are those benefiting men?
TL;DR, Henry. Did it take you the entire month to craft that masterpiece?
Wow Henry. You just totally blew up feminism. No MRA has ever made those points before and we’ve certainly never debunked those points. Congratulations. The AVFM coin is in the mail.
Did anybody read the whole thing? Are shaggy dogs funny, or was it something else?