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.
@Ally S
Last time somebody seriously brought up the “holding doors”-argument in a discussion, I laughed in his face and asked him how it feels to be an ass who would refuse a stranger a common courtesy like that. People of either gender hold doors for other people all the time in the world I live in.
If it weren’t for feminism, would they even be allowed on fiverr, getting paid to wear bikinis and hold up signs? Wouldn’t they be too busy pounding clothes on rocks down by the river?
Did you ever see the PBS series “The 1900 House”, where a modern family agreed to live in a Victorian townhouse in London? They fixed it up to replicate the living conditions of an early 20th century family – no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no central heating. After a week or so, the wife practically had a nervous breakdown because she couldn’t cope with the enormous amounts of labor required to keep the house running. Everything had to be hand-washed and hand-mended and whacked with a carpet beater, she had to get up at 5 AM to fuel the wood stove, water had to be hauled in from the well with buckets and boiled on the stove, her hands were raw, cracked and bleeding from washing floors with lye soap. Meanwhile, the husband and kids got to gallivant off to desk job and school, and come home at the end of the day to a hot meal and freshly scrubbed house.
Granted, a real middle-to-upperclass wife of the Victorian period would likely have had a maid, but the odds are that the sign-holding bikini women would have been among the house servant classes, breaking their backs and sacrificing time with their own families to ensure the comfort of their employer. Maybe the 1% think they don’t need feminism, but the rest of us sure do.
@Flying Mouse – you’re right, there’s always a “grass is greener” tug-of-war between working and staying home with the kids. I wonder if the people flaunting their life choices on signs are really that happy and secure in their decisions, if they’re trying so hard to convince the rest of the world that their way is the One True Way.
I read an interesting theory once, that one of the dynamics with bullies is envy. Bullies and mean girls feel a lot of pressure to act and perform a certain way for their audience. On some level (not always conscious) they envy the freedom of nerdy kids to do and be whatever they feel like. Not in the sense of “Gee, I wish I were that nerdy kid”, but more like “Why should that kid get away with wearing sweatpants and having greasy hair, when I have to spend hours doing my makeup and looking perfect? I must take them down a notch!” It seems like a similar dynamic with the smug anti-feminist Christian dominionist women, when they observe other women getting college degrees and having careers and influencing the world and maximizing their potential: “I suffered for my life choices, and so should you. You should want the same things I want. Otherwise, I’m going to make you feel inferior.” They want so hard to believe that women who take a different path always pay a heavy price. If they’re happy and fulfilled, well, they’re still less than “real women”, harrumph, so there!
@Mnemosyne – I can totally relate! You have so much going for you: a solid sense of what you want and who you are, and a willingness to work for your goals. That in itself is very attractive. The right person will see that. Don’t let the MRAs convince you that your only value is in your appearance, and that you’re worthless without a man. That’s what they want you to think, so you’ll be insecure and more easily controlled.
Being career-minded and not conventionally girly girl actually works to your advantage. It filters out the shallow, abusive losers, and it’s catnip to smart, emotionally developed men who are actually worth being in a relationship with.
Monkeys get paid to hold signs on fiverr?
Or if, you know, you’re poor.
>She remembers getting bills sent back to them, because they needed “Willie’s” signature as the man of the house, instead of “Shirley’s”. Or, they’d receive bills for a Mr. Willie (Lastname)”.
Oh, that still happens today, apparently. And not too infrequently either.
There’s something so hilariously pathetic about the idea that people are paying women to pretend to be anti-feminist. It makes more sense when companies do it in an attempt at marketing, but when it’s just sexist wankers? Sad, guys. Really sad.
Clothesminded
“Women against feminism ? What’s next gays against gay marriage ? Blacks for the kkk”
I heard from my grandma that there was a black police officer and he was protecting the kkk members when they were speaking. I don’t know the exact details but…gosh.
That’s our society, we are protecting the prosecutors, the abusers and evil people and we hurt and blame the victims. It’s really sad.
That woman who’s biting the corner of her sign is really creeping me out. O.o
Oh! can I please start the counting game!? 1 🙂
2
3
I’ll tell you a secret: This game was invented to help mods meet their 30% quota. Whenever they are not posting enough comments, they can just start saying numbers.
Whawhawhawhat world does this dude live in?!?! No nice houses without men? Ladies need a male roommate because he’ll be able to drive? Huuuuh? My brain hurts!
Daniela slow down! I can’t keep up with my bingo card of standard David fat-not getting laid-gay spots! Please oh please, can you mention white knight? I’m so close to shouting bingo!
OT – I was looking at the Parks and Recreation imdb page and there’s a post on the message board asking ‘Is the pro feminist, anti-male tone of this comedy too much sometimes?’
The idiocy is inescapable. =(
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
I remember a program like that but I thought it was a British family.How you describe it though I think it’s the same one and I remembered it wrong.I recall at the end when she had changed into her modern clothes how liberated she felt.Also I think it they were supposed to portray a lower middle class family who wouldn’t generally have had a maid.
@Random poster
You really live up to your name.Do you have all your comments printed out and stuck on a wall
and when you feel like posting one you just throw a dart with you eye’s closed and whichever one gets hit ,that’s the one you post.
Ally nailed it. That was such a weird sign. It made my face get all screwed up trying to figure out the logic.
Also let’s fix up RandomPoster’s random thoughts with ye olde GENDER REVERSAL*:
*Not that gender is a binary, and that some kind of simplistic gender reversal is even possible as a rule.
** Seriously, fundamentally really opportunistically likely I can string together more adverbs in a row than RP can.
At the moment I’m growing out my body hair for the simple reason of notgivingafuck. Plus my hair is light so my leg hair is all fluffy and soft like a kitty. Purr. Twice the misandry.
The 1900 House was indeed a British family 🙂
What do you think to a club hanging female dummies from their necks, wrists and hands?
http://anonymous-ibiza.blogspot.com.es/2014/06/pacha-ibiza-2014-review.html
And another post on the sexual objectification of women in modern culture….
http://anonymous-ibiza.blogspot.com.es/2014/06/the-objectification-of-women-in-modern.html
Nope but now I really want to!
And he whole “you probably wouldn’t have been one of the upper-class back then” harsh reality thing makes me think of a History 101 class I took back in Uni. The prof had everyone stand up and divide the (large) hall in half and said “everyone on the left sit down, you didn’t make it to your first birthday”. Then he said something like “everyone who is standing who has ever broken a bone put your hand up… everyone with your hand up who isn’t in the last five rows sit down you died, the people in the very last row can put your hand down, you’re probably ok, everyone else is crippled”. He went on through things we feel are common like high fevers that we got over (guys, half of you are impotent, and a third are blind) and the like until maybe an 8th of the room was standing, and only half of those were “able bodied”.
And that was just focusing on things like standard injuries and ailments, not things like being coal miners or factory workers…
Now I don’t remember (it’s been quite a while) which century this was supposed to have been in. I’d tend more towards the 1800’s than the 1900’s, but still… (also a revalation – stitching a wound before the invention of antibiotics would have pretty much been a death sentence… dress it and keep changing the dressings as needed and expect a helluva scar if you live through the process… O.o
Thanks gilshalos. I’ve found it on you tube Kate if your interested in having a look but it says I can’t view it from my country (Britain) so I’m not sure how you’ll get on.
These are just ignorant women who have absolutely no idea what “feminism” means. They think that it means that people can’t appreciate their bodies, or appreciate their femininity, or they can’t wear makeup. They don’t understand that feminism just means that they get treated the same way as men. And that everything they do should be a respected choice instead of something decided by government or society.
I never saw that, but my mom did. I thought, “This all sounds familiar. Where have I read it before? Oh yeah…Laura Ingalls Wilder!” Because the Little House books were all full of that, and while I admired the resourcefulness of the pioneers, I sure didn’t envy their hardscrabble lives.
I would love to see any neo-traditionalist who’s currently blabbing all over the Internets get teleported into such a situation and see how long they find it tolerable, never mind desirable. Like the Gilligan’s Island theme says: “No phone! No light! No motorcar! Not a single luxury! Like Robinson Crusoe, it’s primitive as can be!”
And then, when they’ve whined themselves all out about it, I’d tell them that THIS is what life was like before all those modern concepts that you find so terribly, terribly immoral. Fun, innit?
@BQS: Monkeys get paid to hold signs on fiverr?
They’re used to being paid in peanuts so, you know, win-win.
I just drained and bandaged a couple of blisters on my younger son’s hand. He washed his hands before, I used a sterile needle, and put antibiotic ointment on before the bandage. So he probably won’t die of a septic infection. Nice to be living now when things like that happen.
Regarding the OP, some people seem to think that Handmaid’s Tale was a how-to manual.
@Lea
re: the spider camp song – would it happen to be this one?
http://songs-with-music.freeservers.com/went-to-camp.html
Because if so, MISANDRY!!!