Studying feminism requires being interested in antifeminism. One might be surprised at the persistence of this reactionary movement in 2024 but one must note, to paraphrase Michelle Perrot, that the anti-feminist movement is as old as feminism and that it is experiencing the same advancements – although diametrically opposed – than the movement it fights.
There are probably as many antifeminisms today as there are feminisms, but beyond ordinary, unconscious and poorly assumed sexism and misogyny (Quebec sociologist Francine Descarries speaks of “ordinary antifeminism”), two movements actively advocating anti-feminism polarize attention.
The first movement is often religious and conservative – and often pro-life and anti-abortion when it comes to the US. It has experienced a recent resurgence thanks to social networks, on which women embody themselves as “TradWives” (for “traditional wives”).
The second movement is often embodied by men, under the banner of masculinism.
Beyond the unconscious and collective apprehension of a feminine archetype born from the Virgin Mary and Eve the sinner, entirely devoted to motherhood and the sexual satisfaction of the male partner and inferior to the latter, the foundations of antifeminism are both societal and intimate.
From a societal point of view, antifeminists denounce the collapse of the family structure involved by feminism.
TradWives’ movement advocates the stay-at-home wife situation and the devotion to the male partner – who is often a husband – and to their children.
The TradWives choose not to work and advocate the defense of the traditional family unit by highlighting virtues that are intended to be just as traditional, such as femininity (we wondered here what femininity meant), elegance, romance, chilvary and respect for the husband’s decisions. The whole movement is often carried by a nostalgia and a retro aesthetic coming straight from the 50s and the 60s, which poorly hides unbalanced financial realities within couples.
The feminine urge to dress like a princess every day.”
@lovetobefeminine on Instagram
Should we mention that the princess refers to the image of a teenager or a very young woman, who lacks, by definition, the attributes of independence and maturity? The term “queen” is never claimed by anti-feminists, probably presuming a maturity which is hardly reconcilable with the role of a TradWife.
I am in my “I don’t watch the news and my husband tells me what to think” era.”
@superalternative.supermom on Instagram
The TradWife becomes a trophy wife, objectified, infantilized, dependent on her husband – be her decisions about her own haircut, family or financial decisions.
How an elegant wife is an asset to her husband?”
@lifewithmrsp on Instagram
British influencer Alena Kate Pettitt, champion of anti-feminism, plays on the confusion between the status of a stay-at-home mother and that of a TradWife, by explaining on her website “The Darling Academy” how to become a perfect housewife – potentially transforming the TradWife into a Stepford Wife.
It’s about submitting to and spoiling my husband like it’s 1959 – as well as supporting a return to “traditional English manners, lifestyle and values.”
Your husband must come first.”
Alena Kate Pettitt
All the terms traditionally attached to women repeatedly resurface: the TradWife must be kind, gentle and think of others before herself.
TradWives seem to think feminists blame them for staying home. This is not the case – and I have never read or heard an educated feminist protest that a woman prefers to stay at home rather than work.
But what the TradWives seem to forget is that it is precisely thanks to the feminist movements which worked for the entry of women into the professional sphere that the TradWives can make the choice to work or not.
Staying at home is, thanks to feminists, no longer an obligation.
Even better: thanks to feminist movements, the TradWives who benefit from a large audience on social networks, can monetize their Instagram page, their YouTube channel (8.79K for Alena Kate Pettitt on YouTube for example), make money from it and deposit such revenues into bank accounts which could not have been opened in their own names 60 years ago in France.
Let’s talk about France.
Thaïs d’Escufon, who considers herself neither a conservative nor a TradWife, denounces (also on YouTube, with more than 700,000 subscribers) the evils of feminism – and in her case, it is only an extension of her far-right political opinions, since she was the former spokesperson for the now disbanded French Génération Identitaire movement.
Thaïs d’Escufon calls for European patriarchy and believes that feminism must disappear.
We tried feminism, the results were not very conclusive. Ultimately, weren’t our ancestors happier thanks to the European patriarchy that we have forgotten? Their heritage is there, in our veins. It just wants to wake up”
Tweet from April 28, 2023
Feminism is a war against masculinity. For feminists, the enemy to be defeated is the masculine principle, the manhood.”
Feminism is an “egalitarian ideology that breeds resentment and jealousy.”
Feminism is waging a war on femininity.”
Feminism is waging a merciless war on beauty” (with supporting images of racialized women who do not meet the socio-cultural standards of the time – hello uninhibited racism and fatphobia)
Feminism wages war on femininity because it explains to us that to be happy when you are a woman, you have to behave like a man, especially in romantic relationships.”
YouTube video from September 18, 2022
Thaïs d’Escufon refers a lot to Jordan Peterson, a masculinist whose audience is very large on the social media and who considers himself a traditionalist and unsurprisingly, they both believe that men must be virile, strong, protective and builders.
Let’s be honest: anti-feminist discourses are extremely caricatured. No educated feminist has ever wanted a society without men, has never wanted to eradicate beauty or femininity and it is also difficult to see how an egalitarian society could engender jealousy.
Also, such movement ignores the academics and researchers who, all around this planet, study sociology, sexuality, gender studies and feminism. In reality, and this is a personal opinion, these anti-feminist discourses often demonstrate, with misinterpretations, amalgamations and approximations, a lack of culture and an intellectual incapacity for the reasoning that shines through in each speech.
The best example is that of Thaïs d’Escufon who seems to want to put aside and spare right-wing feminism by criticizing what she believes to be left-wing feminism, when in reality she is destroying theories coming from… right-wing feminism.
However, it is once again, thanks to feminist movements that Thaïs d’Escufon has the opportunity to express herself on social media and potentially monetize her audience.
From a societal point of view, now.
According to Thaïs d’Escufon, current feminism is reduced to a fight aimed at granting men “the right to undress in women’s locker rooms”.
Antifeminists believe more generally that feminism is no longer necessary today, gender inequalities having disappeared – and would even now have the harmful effect of pitting men and women against each other or even creating a matriarchy in which men would be the invisible victims.
However, the statistics are there and even if legal equality is in progress – at least in Western societies – it is undeniable that social equality can still be improved.
Women still earn significantly less than men for the same job (around 25% depending on the year and Western countries) and the part-time work experienced is mainly female (French INSEE statistics from 2021). At home, whether women have a job or not, they overwhelmingly bear the burden of domestic work and this inequality widens with the arrival of the first child. Not to mention the mental load, which is mainly borne by women.
If we come to domestic violence suffered by women, 118 women were killed by their partners or ex-partners in 2022 in France.
82% of people who died within a couple are women, and among women killed by their partners, 31% were victims of previous violence by their partner.
Furthermore, among the 23 women who killed their partner, 9 of them had already been victims of violence from their partner (French national study on violent deaths within couples. Year 2022, Interior Minister, Delegation to the victims).
There is no question here of denying the fact that men are also victims of domestic violence, but the proportion of women victims of femicide makes it a systemic problem.
If we come to sexual violence suffered by women, the vast majority of complaints recorded in France (rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexist outrage, voyeurism, pimping, child crime and pedocriminality, corruption of minors and sexual exhibition) come overwhelmingly from women – 85% – half of whom are minors. In 96% of cases, the perpetrators are men – including 28% of minors (La Vie Publique as of March 8, 2024).
Once again, there is no question here of denying the reality of violence suffered by young boys or men, but it is the order of magnitude of the percentages which elevates the violence suffered by women to the rank of a systemic problem.
From an intimate point of view, anti-feminists and masculinists regret a change in intimate dynamics within the couple. According to antifeminim, feminism allows women to play social roles previously reserved for men, induces a lack of differentiation and confusion between the sexes which masculinizes women and emasculates men.
The relationships of seduction and the virility of men would be threatened, undermining a dynamic where the dominant role of men would be diminished. The argument is not new: the “cervelines” (women who studied) at the end of the 19th century and the flappers of the 20s were considered as selfish pleasure-seekers, endangering the national pronatalist policy by delaying the age of their first pregnancy and undermining relationships of seduction between men and women by creating “sexual chaos”.
The argument is based on the differentialist theory and the theory of gender norms, according to which social functions are distributed between the sexes (the public sphere for men, the domestic sphere for women) due to their differences in nature.
Thaïs d’Escufon believes that it is necessary to take into account “biological differences, which generate behaviors, tastes, centers of interest which are specific and different between men and women” (YouTube video, September 18, 2022).
Today, these theories are rejected by a large majority of the scientific community, since it is now proven by historians and sociologists that the roles attributed to men and women are not natural and that they constitute social constructions which change according to cultures and times. Furthermore, the human being is a social animal, he/she absorbs changing social norms depending on place and time.
Masculinist anti-feminists also believe that an oppressive matriarchy exists today, of which men victims of domestic violence and divorced fathers are the invisible victims.
Regarding domestic violence, we talked about it above: it exists but it is not systemic and invisible, contrary to what Donald Dutton (researcher and professor emeritus in psychology at the University of British Columbia) would have us believe with his theory of “gender paradigm” developed on his website and publications.
In my opinion, there is no feminist conspiracy aimed at making domestic violence suffered by men invisible, except to believe that all public and private organizations and all ministries which publish statistics on the subject in different Western countries are complicit in a toxic feminist gesture.
Concerning divorced fathers who are denied parental custody, they are embodied in movements like Fathers 4 Justice in England or fathers who climb on cranes in France. These masculinists contest that custody of the child is almost systematically entrusted to the mother. But we still need to know if we are talking about exclusive custody or if the figures for joint custody are added to the figures for exclusive custody – which is not very clear in the masculinist statements.
In addition, the high feminization of family affairs judges is often taken as an argument for discrimination against them.
According to the latest French figures on the subject which date from 2021, almost three quarters of court decisions entrust children to their mother, and in 10% of cases custody of the child is entrusted to the father.
These figures can be explained firstly by the fact that few fathers request the exclusive custody of the child.
Also, the family affairs judges only examine the interests of the child and when the father must prove that he is more capable than the mother to have sole custody of the children, it often turns out that the mother has already put in place a organization that allows her to pursue her career and the education of her child at the same time. The mental burden of women is unfortunately still a current issue.
However – unless the child is under 4 years old, because judges consider that the strong emotional bond between mother and child must be preserved – a father who requests joint custody today has an 80% chance of success in France, which seems perfectly consistent with the evolution of the family unit which now knows multiple forms – from single parenthood to the blended family.
Furthermore, and contrary to the alleged discrimination to which divorced fathers are subject, they often emerge favored from divorce, whether in terms of legal or financial arrangements put in place (Edouard Leport, “Fathers endangered? Fathers attacking women’s rights”).
To conclude, and this is an absolutely personal opinion, it seems to me that people who cling to definitions, boxes, standards need them because they do not have the neural and emotional plasticity necessary to calmly understand the societal developments that surround them (or they have a political agenda, and it’s quite different). Also, it seems to me that one is always at odds when one thinks that one has something to lose – whereas when one is right and fair, one adapts and the fear disappears.
Everyone will have their own opinion. Thaïs d’Escufon believes that many men and women “have sunk into loneliness, depression, self-degradation and are above all unable to build a stable and healthy long-term relationship” (YouTube video, September 18, 2022). I rather see women who have the choice to refuse to become transitional mother figures to their husband, refuse to suffer psychological and physical violence from their male partners, who embrace a fulfilling professional career, who gain self-confidence and men who are more emotional and who act a little more subtly than before from a human point of view.
For this article, here I am with my short hair (not feminine!) in a dress and heels (feminine!), elegant, I hope (feminine, TradWife!), leaving the office where I am a lawyer (not TradWife!) but on the way home where I will do laundry, homework, meals, tidy up (TradWife!), as a good single mother that I am (not TradWife at all).
Max Mara coat – Dior dress (or coat, whe really don’t know what it’s supposed to be) – Louis Vuitton heels – Prada sunglasses – Vintage gloves – Moreau Paris purse
April 12, 2024
