The Anti-Feminist Culture

With social media's dominance in the years since its conception, information has become easier and easier to display and spread on a grand scale. With this immense power of the individual has come a precariously balanced sense of what it means to label one's self in today's age. It can be difficult for many to distinguish the facts from the opinions, as well as misconceptions. One of the topics to be blown into the spotlight in the past few years has been feminism, with what at first glance appears to be a dichotomy- a person is either a feminist or an anti-feminist. The battle calls into question what feminism really is, considering its diversity in regards to its followers, and the reason why the "meninist" culture has sprung. There are three
questions addressed: what is feminism, how does that align with its connotations, and which processes have led to this point?

Before the topic can be explored in any detail, two main concepts must be defined. First comes feminism. According to Merriam-Webster, it is "the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the sexes". Second, sexism, is defined by Merriam-Webster as "prejudice or discrimination based on sex" or "behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex". With that in mind, the history of feminism as a movement can be analyzed from two points of view: for it and against it.

According to Martha Rampton, a professor of history at Pacific University, there have been three main waves of feminism over time.
The first "took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries… to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage". She continues, "In its early stages, feminism was interrelated with the temperance and abolitionist movements… [and] some claimed that women were morally superior to men… so their presence in the civic sphere would improve public behavior and the political process." Advocating for the vote, allowance to attend college, and the ability to find a career in law or medicine were the cornerstones or first-wave feminism, and they were largely
successful.

The second Rampton describes, "[Beginning] in the 1960s and [continuing] into the 90s… the voice of the second wave was increasingly radical. In this phase, sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and much of the movement's energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex." This took place around the time of anti-war and civil rights sentiment, in an age when boundaries and conventions were challenged more and more so. This installment of feminism fought the idea that women belonged in the house, and it "drew in women of color and developing nations".

The third is the dominator, the current, the controversy of the past 15 years. Rampton explains, "The third wave of feminism began in the mid-90's… and in this phase many constructs were destabilized, including the notions of 'universal womanhood,' body, gender, sexuality and heteronormativity." However, she claims there is a twist in this generation- a quirk that doubled back on an aspect of former feminism: "The readoption by young feminists of the very lip-stick, high-heels, and cleavage proudly exposed by low cut necklines that the first two phases of the movement identified with male oppression. Pinkfloor expressed this new position when she said that it's possible to have a push-up bra and a brain at the same time. [They] stepped onto the stage as strong and empowered, eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy. They developed a rhetoric of mimicry, which appropriated derogatory terms like "slut" and "bitch" in order to subvert sexist culture and deprive it of verbal weapons."

Neck-in-neck with each generation of feminists was another force, driving against and doing its best to quell the outcry: anti-feminism.
This is a side of the story not often told in history textbooks or even by today's anti-feminists, and there may be a very good reason for that. Nancy Isenberg, a historian at Louisiana State University, wrote in her book titled White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, that what we believe of our country and its history is both inspiring and crippling. She states that the promise of the "American Dream" and that all are equal was a selling gimmick, and history as it is taught and presented in pop culture is written by those in power- the dark sides of the story are not told. For an anti-feminist, this is perhaps a good thing. Tom Head, a civil liberties expert with About News, gives a timeline of big moments in anti-feminist history, starting with Sex in Education: Or, a Fair Chance for Girls, in 1873. In this, Edward H. Clarke argues for sex segregation in schools, claiming that women are "incapable of grasping the same kinds of ideas that men and boys study". From there, it quickly grows from sentiment to movements of its own. Head mentions the 1917 assault on suffragists at Occoquan Workhouse, and the "Austrian League for Men's Rights, founded to '[combat] all excesses of women's emancipation'" coming onto the scene in 1926. In 1972, he says, the Eagle Forum led by Phyllis Schlafly is founded to combat feminism
and the Equal Rights Amendment.

The groundwork of the theory of anti-feminism, however, is claimed by Head to be The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege. He continues, "1977: Free Men, Inc., an organization vowing to 'free men' from… alimony and child support payments, is founded in California… [later morphing] into the more general National Coalition for Men. 1982: Under the weight of the Religious Right opposition, the Equal Rights Amendment expires without ratification. [This] functionally ends second-wave feminism as a movement…" In 1985, the Southern Baptist Convention bans women from teaching Sunday School and from the leadership hierarchy. In 1989, Marc Lépine kills 14 female students in Montreal against the "feminists who have always ruined [his] life".

When 1991 rolled around, the anti-feminist movement controlled all of the Religious Right and a majority of the Republican Party. 1992- Rush Limbaugh created "feminazi" as a derogatory term. So on and so forth: 1993 was that of The Myth of Male Power; 1994 the infamous Purdue study-now-proved-worthless that "half of all sexual assault cases are unfounded"; 1998 Southern Baptist Convention preaching that women should "graciously submit to their husbands"; 2009 Sodoni attack shooting 12 and killing 3; 2014 Rodger shooting 19 killing 6. More events occurred between times; these are simply the grandest.

Throughout anti-feminist history, the narrative has been established quite clearly. These are oppressive men quelling outcry, painting feminists as villains and misandrists with misinformation and propagation, and indoctrinating unsuspecting women with this false information in order to convince the world that feminism is a bad word. Feminism, since even before its inception as a movement, has been labeled by its opposition as "man-hating".

With the presence of social media such a large part of first-world culture, it's easier than ever to polarize people. The arguments for and against feminism are quickly accessible with the click of a mouse and are entirely unmonitored in regards to truth or rationale, so anyone who stumbles across information will be left entirely to their own devices in order to form an opinion based on the media they're shown. On the more official side of things, with more organized media outlets, sensationalism has been the best way to gain readers and viewers. Thus, according to Casey Cavanagh, a journalist for The Huffington Post, the mainstream media takes the most radical forms of feminism as the norm. The next question then has to be, what is the current norm?

Cavanagh says that "empowering women does not mean belittling or punishing men", pointing out that there are a great many gender roles that are detrimental to the lives of males and create and environment of toxic masculinity, and feminists raise up men here, as well. She continues to say, "While a primary purpose of feminism is to empower women, it does not mean feminists view all women as weak and oppressed. Feminists are not aiming to make women stronger; they already know they’re strong." So, what is the argument for feminism? Cavanagh uses the example, "In all demographics, females vote more than men do. Yet, women still hold less than 20 percent of seats in Congress, even though they make up more than half the population." She also references the 23% wage gap, in which white women make 79 cents to every dollar a white man makes (Gilroy)- which doesn't even address people of color. Victim blaming and attacker leniency in rape culture, using derogatory terms toward women to indicate weakness, and even women abusing men not being an issue, are all battles that on themselves feminists have taken. According to Flight and Scarlet's Sareeta, feminism is just as much for men's rights as women's rights.

With that, the arguments against feminism make a lot less sense. Pat Robertson, in the 1990s, said, "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." Aletheia Luna, in her article on the subject, claims, "Rather than evolving into a supportive and balanced sisterhood, feminism appears to have evolved into a dogmatic, divisive and aggressively misandrist collective of females who are actually turning women against feminism." Nowadays, there are a number of well-written, thoughtful people that are anti-feminist. In fact, a lot of the anti-feminist narrative in the past couple of years has become less about equality and more about attacking how feminists conduct themselves.

One of Luna's arguments accuses, "[Modern western feminism] criticizes women for embracing their femininity, disdains them for using their sexuality and bullies them into feeling weak and oppressed for choosing to be housewives, caretakers and full time mothers." Much of the current thought on feminism, from lengthy articles to YouTube "Triggered Feminist Cringe Compilations", is really attacking misandry. In fact, many of today's anti-feminists call themselves "egalitarians".

Merriam-Webster, again, defines egalitarianism as "a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs". This begs the question: how do feminism and egalitarianism conflict with one another? Feminism appears to simply be a subdivision of egalitarianism, focusing on equality in all areas based on gender.

To summarize the anti-feminist argument, it is the attack of feminism as a whole based on the actions of people that, based solely on definitions, cannot truly be classified as feminists. This, making the induction of the movement's ideals when there are millions of feminists, is a rhetorical fallacy, called the "unrepresentative sample". This is when a sample that does not represent the whole is used to do just that- induce characteristics of the whole based on that sample.

Something to note when considering the aspects of feminism and anti-feminism is that people are multi-faceted beings with complex brains. Someone may say something as a misandrist that is true to feminism, just as a feminist can say something misandrist. Disregarding all things on says and making split-second decisions about a person based on a title such as man, woman, or feminist, based on the aforementioned fallacies is, on its own, irrational. Just as one cannot equate "man" with "rapist", it does not make sense to do so with "feminist" and "man-hater", especially when so many diverse people label themselves in such a way. Someone who supports equality but is anti-feminist is, by definition, contradicting themselves, and doing exactly what traditional anti-feminists wanted all along- falling for the propaganda. In a study conducted by Adrienne Hancock of George Washington University, "...perception of gender may be influenced by the recipient’s stereotypes and gender identity schema…” Perception of feminism could be seen the same way, and the stereotypes people have are given to them by what they see in the media.

Thus, an answer has been reached. Feminism at its core is fighting for equality of the genders in social, economic, and political venues. Its views and ideologies are entirely dependent on the speaker, and no individual feminist's beliefs will necessarily completely align with another's, because there is no all-encompassing "feminist organization" that has criterion to become a feminist. Anti-feminist propaganda has evolved with the times, and the straw-manning of feminists as misandrists has done its job well, creating the polarization faced today.