The Unintended Consequence Of The Women's Movement

Post-War Feminism Has Diminished the Feminine Voice in Public Policy

Feminism, at least the individualist strain of feminism that has come to dominate since the 1970s, has proven to be a powerful political force capable of radically altering millennia old social norms and traditions—often for the worse.

This individualist strain of feminism claims that it has made its most positive mark by challenging traditional norms and pushing for a more inclusive society. Modern feminism claims that not only are its modern achievements significant but that this singular movement has been winning victories for women dating as far back as securing voting rights and combating workplace discrimination, but are these really the same feminism? I would argue that they are anything but.

In her book Feminism Against Progress the self-styled “reactionary feminist” Mary Harrington argues that before the 1960s and 1970s there was a dominant form of feminism that was communal in nature.

This now largely defunct communal feminism focused not on undermining institutions, structures, communities, or other groups in a sort of tit-for-tat competition, but instead focused on bettering society for women and their children. This early form of feminism is best represented in the Anglosphere by the temperance movement and its push to ban or restrict the consumption of alcohol. Before the temperance movement and the social changes prohibition brought about it was common for men to be drunk at work, in public, in the morning when they departed, and in the evening when they returned home.

Women who adopted this early form of feminism sought to strengthen their position in a way that would also strengthen and make more beneficial the interdependent bond between men and women, and they won many victories. The temperance movement and prohibition resulted in a social structure that largely eliminated public and workplace drunkenness. It also resulted in a culture change that made it acceptable for men and women to drink together both at home and in restaurants in the post-prohibition era.

Then came post-war and specifically post-1970s individualist feminism. This new wave of feminists, best represented by the likes of Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir, began to paint the women’s movement as a zero-sum struggle against men, male leadership, and even began to attack the assumption that there were or are any substantial material, physical, or psychological differences between men and women.

This post-1970s individualist feminist movement has led to an interesting and somewhat paradoxical trend: the modern feminist movement has contributed to diminishing a great number of females voices in relation to public policy and the state.

Some may find my assertion ridiculous. There are more women in Congress than ever before and more than a quarter of women who have served as the governor of an American state (12 out of 46) were elected in just 2023.

I, rather obviously, find it ridiculous to assume that just because a woman holds elected office and women as a sex appear to be pushing (or being pushed) into more public offices that it means these women are looking out for the interest of women as a whole constituency. Instead, many of these women are looking out for the interests of only the extremely small elite class of women which they find themselves a part of as elected officials, businesswomen, academics, or other high-powered individuals.

1. The Rise of Intersectionality and Fragmentation

One of the hallmarks of modern feminism is its embrace of intersectionality—the assertion that various forms of discrimination intersect and impact individuals differently. Intersectionality has resulted in academic and media class feminists taking over the movement and pushing forward ridiculous assertions such as “trans women” (men) being as female as actual, biological, women. This intersectional belief in “uniting” various minority groups struggles has resulted in groups like the Human Rights Campaign publishing guides to help feminist movements in the West and around the world to become “trans-inclusive” or, in normal parlance, forcing women’s movements and organizations to adopt, champion, and enable mentally ill men in their pretense of being women.

Intersectionality in the West has also resulted in the feminist movement becoming increasingly anti-White. Organizations like NPR busy themselves pushing books such as Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria.

In this work Zakaria attacks White women and girls for putting their cultural and political concerns first in the context of the feminist struggle in the West and beyond. The term “White Feminism” has become such a commonplace and anti-White term that there is even a Wikipedia page for it!

This unnatural mixing of female advocacy (even if I dislike the type of advocacy they are doing) with LGBTQ and non-White group interests has resulted in serious fragmentation of the feminist movement. White feminists battle against each other on the front of race and racism, lesbians demand that straight women set aside self interest in favor of LGBTQ issues, and once vanguard voices such as the aforementioned Germaine Greer now find themselves lambasted and attacked for daring to state the obvious fact that a man in a dress is not a woman and should not be treated as one.

It is here I should add that I have little serious interest in defending Germaine Greer beyond using her as an example of how feminists turn on one another regarding the “trans issue.” Greer is a nasty, vicious, anti-White advocate who has long attempted to undermine the British pioneers who settled and constructed her native Australia.

2. The Professionalization of Feminist Advocacy

As feminism has become more institutionalized, feminist advocacy has increasingly been led by professional organizations and experts. This professionalization has created a divide between the elite, well educated, and often rather wealthy and connected, feminists who run these organizations and the experience of average women in the United States and broader West.

We can see this manifested most clearly in the National Organization for Women (NOW). The leader of NOW, an African American woman by the name of Christian F. Nunes (below) is leading the organization with an ‘intersectional focus’ on race and inequality.

The NOW website’s landing page features a very large banner proclaiming their commitment to racial justice and their newsroom is replete with frantic posts about Donald Trump’s latest supposedly misogynistic tweets.

These are women with access to local, state, and federal leaders. Women who are invited to lunch with presidents and corporate executives and yet they display no care or concern for the issues which matter most to American women.

One look at the Kaiser Family Foundation polling on the issues most concerning American women shows that the cost of living, the destabilization of American politics, and immigration are the top issues for female voters.

3. Wives and Mothers Left Behind

While modern individualist feminism makes a very large stink about the gender pay gap, which politicians cannot do anything about, it has largely left behind the largest constituency of women in the West: wives and mothers.

Motherhood, insofar as it matters to modern feminism, is something best avoided. Abortion is promoted at every turn by every feminist organization while social pressure has changed in such a way that most young women now feel obligated to pursue a career and economic gains instead of becoming a wife and mother, according to Joyce Harper, a Professor of Reproductive Science at the Institute for Women’s Health, University College London.

This social pressure is so strong and has such influence that the vast bulk of women who wish to become mothers and wives put off marriage and fertility goals despite still wanting roughly three children on average.

Modern individualist feminism has nothing to say about the fact that women are now being forced to forego family formation and many policies that modern feminism pushes for are in direct contravention to the economic interests and desires of the vast bulk of American women.

4. Feminism as a Special Interest

Finally there is the reality that the feminist movement is no longer viewed as a righteous cause to balance the scales or increase the dignity of women in society, but instead is viewed with contempt and increasingly with hatred.

Millions of men, ordinary, working, young, and married men, now view feminism as something contrary to their interests. This is because modern individualist feminism is contrary to the interests of men, and of normal women who love their husbands, fathers, sons and the other men in their lives.

This change has made young men particularly hostile to feminism, and who can blame them. I am never surprised by the rise and popularity of Andrew Tate, with home 32% of men 16-29 now identify and support. Tate has risen to popularity because society has come to treat the interests of men as surplus to civilization requirements and more often than not the elite class of women who control the feminist movement treat men (and conservative women) with utter contempt which can at times verge on outright hate and vitriol.

Feminism in its modern form is pitting men against women, and normal working class women against the elite caste of women who now control what was once a movement to better the whole of society.

Conclusion

Feminism in its coherent, recognizable, and inherently feminine form is dead and has been for some decades. The women who run the movement no longer use their power and influence to advocate for mothers, wives, and (average) working women in the halls of power. Instead they spend their days and billions in donations advocating for transgender issues (for men!), for racial and ethnic minorities who hate the native populations of the West, and for economic and social changes which only benefit those at the top of the social hierarchy.

Not only are men and women very different but now women are increasingly different from each other depending on our social class and ideology.

Zelle: whitepapersinstitute@protonmail.com

Buy us a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wppi

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/wppi

Snail Mail: White Papers Policy, PO Box 192, Hancock, MD 21750