Feminism wasn't created in a vacuum and I'm tired of commentators who pretend it was
Feminism is, and always has been, a reaction to women being treated poorly
If you’ve paid attention to public online discourse long enough, you may have seen sentiments thrown around by a number of especially right-wingers, not always male, that feminism is the root of all evil. There’s never really an explanation provided as to how feminism is the root of all evil, we’re just to accept it like death, taxes and adult acne. Even yours truly was a victim to this, perpetuating the falsehoods that feminism is a blight upon humanity, a persistent pimple that refuses to pop. Repeat something often enough, and people will believe it’s true. But feminism, as a social movement, is in reaction to something else. All movements, regardless of their validity or relevancy to you personally, are reactionary by design. Socialism, capitalism, body positivity, anti-war protests, veganism, Alex Jones, the list goes on. Every single one is reactionary. And so, therefore, it is with feminism.
But if you were to talk with a right-wing parrot, you may get the impression that women throughout time lived luxuriously while the menfolk worked in sweaty, dirty, dangerous ways to make the ladies comfortable. Then these same ungrateful broads decided enough of this relaxing soft life, time to throw a pink wrench into the perfectly oiled machine that men painstakingly built just to watch the sparks fly. Some of these talking points are that men have always worked and women have always stayed home and raised children (which is work, by the way, but okay), men have gone off to war to fight and women just stayed home and raised children (never mind nurses or those ladies who helped keep their respective societies running, but okay); women in the fifties had it so well, these knowers of history will tell you, that all they had to do was keep up the house and look pretty.
Random but not random, according to this article from the University of Calgary (H/T to Evie Magazine), ancient women were also hunters. Probably built like CrossFit games athletes. But shhhh, leave the hunting to the men! Women should go back into the kitchen with the babies and wear sundresses.
It’s always funny to me that our modern day experts on the corrosive qualities of feminism have a historical lens that can only examine the 1950s to now. The lens seems incapable of exploring gender relations before the 1950s when both moms and dads worked outside and inside the home, and never into the institutions that barred single women from accessing resources without a man. No, no, we can’t talk about those things. Only the 1950s. Look at the dresses! Look at that perfect hair! Her husband is wearing a suit, they have perfectly perfect children with one girl and one boy, a manicured lawn with a white picket fence and so many smiles in these little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky.
The Norman Rockwall style images of the perfectly perfect family of the 1950s isn’t the full truth, and if you’re convinced it is, and that feminism ruined this idyllic period where middle-class white men lived like kings, I have some bad news for you:
One thing you’ll see me write throughout my articles on Substack is how there actually isn’t “one thing.” We live in a listicle obsessed time and nothing gets people to click more than a promise of “This is the ONE THING you need to know about PIMPLES!” But there isn’t just one thing. There’s many things. Those many things cannot be color coordinated in a Home Edit style pantry with labels and clear containers. To over simplify is just a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
I encourage everyone to find answers themselves. Is this a cop out? Kind of but not really. Because I’ve personally found that when I’m curious about something, when I’m eager to know the truth, I look into it all by myself like a big girl with her big girl skorts. It seems that those who are only interested in perpetuating online skirmishes scream things like “CITE YOUR SOURCE!” My people, Google is free. Go forth and find the sources, they are aplenty. Do not take my word for it, and don’t take the words of someone else for it, either.
But yes, I will still cite as often as possible.
Much of what I’ll discuss here and in other articles written have been either touched on or dived in deeper by people and entities for which history and research is their main job. For example, YouTuber Lauren Southern touched on issues with the 1950s, the nuclear family, and the inherent problems with the Nine to Five work week in her video here. Also, the nuclear family isn’t enough. People need greater communities than just their spouse and little ones. But that goes against the creed of the 1950s and we’re not allowed to have those discussions of more active fathers and extended families participating in raising children. No. Not allowed. Women’s work.
Let me add a spoonful of sugar, though, and ask a simple question: if the 1950s were so idyllic and perfect, for men and for women, why did it break down?
Allow me to sloppily erect a Strawman, because this is about where a red pill bro would say it was the women’s fault, that it was the feminists who screwed the pooch. And again I’d ask a simple question: if their lives were so wonderful, why would they sabotage their own lives with working in cubicles? Why would women perfectly happy making sourdough in their kitchens up and decide enough was enough with that and go back to work?
Why do feminists exist? To what is feminism reacting?
We tend to frame our history based on our life experiences and our short periods on this planet. So for most of us, when one hears “feminist” we tend to picture the blue-haired femme fatality with hairy armpits and nose-piercings complaining about the gender pay gap and how she has to pay more for pink razors she’s not even purchasing. She’s hardly a sympathetic figure, but she’s also not representative of the entire history of women’s rights, just as Joel Olsteen isn’t representative of modern protestantism, or Andrew Tate is of healthy jawlines.
I know I gave it away in the subheading, but I’ll peck it out again here: feminism is a reaction to women being treated badly, at the hands of collectively bad male behavior, be that institutionally, culturally, socially or all of the above.
Throughout most of humanity, and I’d argue even now, men have occupied most if not all levels of power and influence. There are exceptions noted throughout history, but these are often noted for their exceptionalism. But by and large, men have shaped the rules. Many of those rules were shaped to benefit men. Even much of history is written by men. You don’t have to like it for it to be true. And we don’t have to look too far back to see my assertion play out.
We are on the cusp of, or perhaps already in, the fourth wave feminism. The fourth wave is in reaction to a number of current realities that women face including but not limited to:
the red pill manosphere which has pulled the mask off of a lot of men, to reveal that many men (I’m not sure how many, what percentage, whether is is a majority or a minority) really hate women and see them only as sex objects that should one day pump out children.
incels and passport bros who, like the red pill manosphere types, broadcast their disdain for “modern women.”
alarming discourse around the usually uneven and often abusive roles in relationships and marriages, as discussed at length by wives and ex-wives alike on TikTok and Reddit especially, which have normalized phrases such as “king baby,” “weaponized incompetence,” “learned helplessness,” “mental load,” “invisible and unpaid labor,” “financial abuse,” “baby trapping,” “bangmaid,” and “a tolerable level of unhappiness” to name a few.
It should be noted here that TikTok and Reddit horror stories on marriage are reaching such popularity because of their relatability. To simply dismiss these accounts “that’s just happening online” is a dangerous approach.
Also, TikTok and Reddit, because they’re run by human beings, tend to reflect human experiences: that is, people post about their problems, not their blessings. In fact, when couples post healthy content or what is known as “green flags” about marriage and relationships, men often scream “simp!” in the comments and women commenters post of their jealousy. So there is a tendency on these platforms to inflate the negative experiences and downplay positive ones. It’s a big problem.
calls to repeal the 19th Amendment
hints of the elimination of no-fault divorce
and the ban on abortion (but I never think it’s permissible to dismember unborn babies then vacuum or tear them out of the womb, so we’re clear)
The “4B Movement” which began in South Korea, is fanning out globally. I have yet to see the 4B Movement discussed at length by mainstream outlets (I could’ve missed it), just by smaller outlets and YouTube and TikTok channels. The effects of the 4B Movement are being discussed, mainly the falling birthrates, falling marriage rates, and rising divorce rates, but few people outside of feminists want to look at what caused the 4B Movement. Hint: everything and more in my bullet point list above.
It’s funny how the stereotype is that women talk a lot, but that men can’t seem to figure out what it is we’re saying. Women are very clear on why the marriage rates are falling. Very clear. We’re screaming it. But it’s hard to hear what points are being made when those meant to receive the message have their heads in the sand or up Andrew Tate’s booty hole. My guess is the booty hole is quite loose with all he may shove up there. Allegedly.
Just as the 4B Movement is a feminist movement reacting to poor male behavior, so too are waves of earlier feminism going all the way back to the days of Mary Wollstonecraft, who, according to this blurb from Wikipedia on her book A Vindication of the Rights of Women, had the audacity to suggest women be treated as human beings:
“…(1759–1797), is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
The nerve. How dare she want to do more than make sandwiches.
This woman had to assert women were people all the way back in 1792 because women weren’t being treated the way men were treated: like people.
You can do your own research by exploring the history of psychiatry (you can also read The American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry), the history of coverture, and women’s rights in real estate. For example, single women were not allowed to finance real estate purchases until 1974. That’s like thirty minutes ago, historically speaking.
If men in the 1700s (and before, but let’s stick to the 1700s for now), behaved much the same way that many are today, especially in online spaces, it’s no wonder feminism began its first wave. Women wanted out from under the controlling and often abusive hands of men. They wanted educations. They wanted agency over their own lives. They wanted to access resources without first becoming the property of a man.
Maybe it’s the 2024 woman in me, but that seems kind of basic.
But these points are often skipped over by right-wing talking heads as they —in the same breath — call to remove the rights of women because they don’t approve of what women have done with those rights. It seems the collective reaction (at least in online spaces), to women leveraging their rights to avoid marrying men, avoid being in relationships with men, or just wanting to avoid men altogether, is not to self-reflect. Men do not seem to be asking the question: “Why don’t women want us?” They’re instead doing what men have done throughout history: double down, blame women, and treat women like shit.
And so the cycle of feminist waves repeats.
Why are comments disabled?
Seems kind of unfair, right? Sure is. This here is a cruel dictatorship, not a democracy. I plan on turning comments on for future paid subscribers when I one day make this a paid subscription. Best laid plans, so we’ll see.
Until then, let me assure anyone who has hate for what was written above, that yes I know I’m going to die alone with cats. I’m obviously torn to bits about this and I know you’d like to tell me that not only will I die alone with cats, but that I’m also a dirty whore and useless and you hope I get assaulted for daring to write thoughts you don’t like. That’s very unemotional and super logical of you, you’re such a noble leader. What an alpha. If only I knew my place, none of these bad things would happen. Carry on.