Inside the Paradox of the Women’s Movement Against Equality
I’m new to Medium but not new to the planet, so I was painfully aware that there are women in the U.S. who proudly label themselves as anti-feminists before I stumbled across some of their troubling think pieces on this platform. In much the same way they might accuse feminists of making “everything” about women’s rights or the patriarchy, they seem to dedicate their entire personalities to doing a disservice to the former and upholding the latter. But after recently reading some particularly ill-conceived, misinformed and arguably dangerous opinion pieces from one particular Medium contributor, I decided I had to dig into the topic further. What makes a woman advocate for behaviors, institutions and laws that only serve to further marginalize her? Here’s what I’ve pieced together:
That’s Why Their Hair is So Big. It’s Full of Secrets.
If you don’t know Phyllis Schlafly, your first thought might be that her stuffy name sounds like something out of Harry Potter. Dolores Umbridge and Phyllis Schlafly would get along swimmingly, no doubt. But unfortunately for us, Phyllis was a real person who caused real damage to the feminist movement in the 1970s and beyond. A conservative lawyer and activist who helped the Republicans capitalize on the dog whistle politics of “family values”, Schlafly launched a campaign to stop the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from being added to the U.S. constitution when it was passed by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states for ratification in 1972. She targeted conservative white women in the South with messaging about how families would suffer if women were protected equally under the constitution because it would require them to do things like go to war and put their children in government-run daycare.
Even more sinister, however, were Schlafly’s attempts to court Southern White women by arguing that the only way to keep their privileged positions in society was to strike down the ERA. Did they really want to have to go to work, and with the Black people they’d been taught to fear and revile, no less? While this messaging was particularly appealing for the middle and upper class, even some poor white women saw this as aspirational. If they’d ever have a chance of reaching the upper echelons of polite Southern society, they’d need to help maintain it. So despite the initial overwhelming support for the ERA in the early 70s (30 states quickly voted for ratification when it was first presented), Schlafly’s campaign managed to squash its momentum. Only five more states would go on to ratify it over the six years left before the ratification deadline, and some even tried to retract their original support. Today, the ERA remains unratified.
Schlafly and her supporters were able to awaken the anti-feminist movement among (white) women because feminism was positioned not as a movement for equality, but a threat to the nuclear family and the comforts it could afford. It made sense to many Southern white women to uphold traditional gender roles and the patriarchal laws that came along with them if it meant their privileged position in society would remain intact. Nevermind what happened to those women who would be left behind — namely those of color — or the fact that their fears about equality were unfounded. Just like men, they had a taste of power that they didn’t want to give up, even if holding on to it was at the expense of other women. The selfishness stings.
So You Agree? You Think Men Are Trash?
In doing my research for this piece, I was surprised to learn that it turns out I — a self-described raging feminist — actually have something in common with the anti-feminist women of the 70s and 80s that flocked to Schlafly. We both have very little faith in men. Let me elaborate:
One of the beliefs that underpinned Schlafly’s fight against the ERA was a fear that equality would lead to “masculinity run amok.” She believed that if women were are treated as equals, men would gleefully “shirk their responsibilities” and leave women to fend for themselves and their children. I’m pretty sure shitty lothario behavior happens whether or not women have equal protections under the law, but it’s arguably better that women have the option to work and support themselves in the event that their husband becomes a rogue deadbeat, no? Better yet, early passage of the ERA could have helped us more quickly usher in a change to the dominant hegemony of society — one ruled by traditional gender roles — so that women could feel more comfortable choosing to be unmarried and childfree. No husband? No problem.
As for Schlafly’s evangelical compatriots — think Beverly LaHaye, founder of Concerned Women for America —they focused more so on the idea that feminism’s call for women’s sexual liberation was promoting promiscuity that would open the door for men to rape, abuse and discard women. If women wanted to ensure that they were treated with respect and dignity, the argument goes that we would have an easier time simply conforming to the ideals of Christian virginity and purity than teaching men to treat women as more than objects and holding them accountable for their actions.
In both instances, it’s important to note that the onus is put on women to adapt to the status-quo of male power and privilege instead of to challenge it. Moreover, it fails to examine the cultural and systemic conditions that have contributed to men’s devaluation of and contempt for women. Rather than advocate for women banning together to dismantle the patriarchal nature of society that created and perpetuates this unjust and dangerous power dynamic, they seek to divide women based on misguided conceptions of female modesty and dignity.
The Limit Does Not Exist
As we move into the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we see an increase in women working outside the home and in leadership roles. This creates space for inane arguments about how racism or sexism can’t exist because people like Oprah and Obama exist. If they can do it, anyone can — the playing field is equal now. And thus begins the shift of conservatives toward the identity politics they so often decry as an unfair tactic of liberals.
Though we’re nowhere close to seeing parity in terms of pay, representation and more, conservatives often lean on the fact that the mere existence of women in certain professions is evidence of equality — ignoring the fact that real feminists understand the systemic nature of their marginalization. They tend to conflate feminism with simply meaning “women in power” (see Sarah Palin or Amy Coney Barrett) and ignore that the real problems facing women in the U.S. and beyond will not simply go away if we see more women who are executives, business owners, TV hosts or politicians. It takes an active attempt to recognize and dismantle the patriarchal institutions and cultural values that continue to exploit and challenge women in those positions and also those that result in serious issues outside the sphere of work like rape, domestic violence and abuse.
Anti-feminists the likes of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Tomi Lahren and Candace Owens have gone on to make careers out of pushing this notion of “conservative feminism” while antagonizing legitimate feminist activists in order to build a base of Christian Republican white women that take their misguided beliefs to the ballot box and start troubling new trends like the #tradwife movement. This begs the question: what makes women eager to submit to their husbands and live a life of domesticity? The answer will not surprise the astute feminist; it’s a patriarchal capitalist society with gendered expectations of labor that make it incredibly difficult to work both outside of the home and within it and devalues the emotional and unpaid labor that goes on in many heteronormative family households. Unfortunately, the conservative anti-feminist often incorrectly points to liberal policy failings or the feminization of men as the cause of their unhappiness with their everyday lives rather than the realities of living in a misogynist neoliberal capitalist regime.
What’s more is that many anti-feminist women live in environments where motherhood and the safety of the home are put on pedestal, often obscuring their ability to see their own oppression. These are the things that give their life meaning because they’ve been taught that there is little else worthy of their pursuit as women. And when they encounter things like the abortion debate, they lean heavily anti-choice because the alternative is simply too devastating to bear. American radical feminist writer, Andrea Dworkin said it best:
“Forcing women to bear unwanted babies is crucial to the social programme of [anti-feminist] women who have been forced to bear unwanted babies and who cannot bear the grief and bitterness of such a recognition.’ A woman’s self-worth, springing from her role as a mother, would be destroyed if she admitted to herself that she was forced into that role. In this way, anti-feminist worldviews become entrenched.” -Excerpt from Right Wing Women (1983)
Raise Your Hand If You’ve Ever Been Personally Victimized by Society
The rise of the anti-feminist woman can be attributed to divisive politics, conservative appeals toward traditional conceptions of family and gender roles and the alt-right messaging in cable news programming, yes — but it was not created by these conditions. Rather, anti-feminism is a result of internalized misogyny that cannot be interrogated and resolved while we live in a male-dominated, capitalist society that continues to create the conditions for women to be marginalized and brutalized. If modern feminists seek to challenge the rise of the anti-feminist movement among these women, we must be thinking about how to remedy the conditions that create economic inequality. We must explore how, in the midst of a liberal shift in thinking regarding the fluidity of gender identity and sexuality, we can make the prospect of women’s self-determination exciting rather than terrifying. And we must be willing to examine where, up until the current moment, our own movement has fallen short.
