Antifeminism

Antifeminism refers to opposition to feminism. It refers to a range of views that either criticize feminist ideology in general or argue that it be restrained. Some critics equate certain neoconservative intellectuals' views with antifeminism, although proponents call the label unfair.

Antifeminist claims and ideas

Many antifeminist proponents say the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men.

Others consider feminism a destructive force that endangers the family. For example, conservative political scientist Paul Gottfried describes this antifeminist position:

Serious conservative scholars like Allan Carlson and F. Carolyn Graglia have maintained that the change of women’s role, from being primarily mothers to self-defined professionals, has been a social disaster that continues to take its toll on the family. Rather than being the culminating point of Western Christian gentility, the movement of women into commerce and politics may be seen as exactly the opposite, the descent by increasingly disconnected individuals into social chaos.

Antifeminist writer James Kalb describes the stance thus:

To be antifeminist is simply to accept that men and women differ and rely on each other to be different, and to view the differences as among the things constituting human life that should be reflected where appropriate in social attitudes and institutions. By feminist standards all societies have been thoroughly sexist. It follows that to be antifeminist is only to abandon the bigotry of a present-day ideology that sees traditional relations between the sexes as simply a matter of domination and submission, and to accept the validity of the ways in which human beings have actually dealt with sex, children, family life and so on. Antifeminism is thus nothing more than the rejection of one of the narrow and destructive fantasies of an age in which such things have been responsible for destruction and murder on an unprecedented scale.

Antifeminists often decry what they view as the misandric policies of Western governments, including anti-male discrimination in the areas of reproductive rights, child custody, alimony, and property division in divorce, pointing to statistical figures. They are also referencing cases of feminist press and media censorship.

Antifeminists sometimes point to an increase in divorce and "family breakdown" and attribute as its cause the influence of feminism. They also cite that crime, teenage pregnancy, and drug abuse are higher among children of fatherless homes, considering that 66-80% (depending on the source) of divorces are initiated by women and that single parent mothers are accountable for 49% of all child abuse cases.

Furthermore, antifeminists claim that feminist organisations and researchers frequently use fake statistical data and research, pointing out a number of such cases..

Antifeminist comments periodically appear in U.S. political punditry. For example, in a 1983 syndicated column, Pat Buchanan wrote, "Rail as they will about discrimination, women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism."

Critique of Antifeminism

Critics dispute studies, and conclusions drawn from studies, of the behaviour of children from fatherless homes labelling them as misleading and alarmist and refer to counter-research to support their claims:

Research on the impact of father involvement on children provides evidence that high levels of paternal participation tends to increase children's cognitive competence, empathy, and internal locus of control. These children are also characterized by reduced sex-stereotyped beliefs. However, these positive outcomes may result because of the fact that the fathers sampled wanted to be and enjoyed being involved in childcare, not just because they were involved per se.

Australian pro-feminist sociologist Michael Flood responds that although children of two-parent families generally do better psychologically and educationally than children of single-parent families, that does not necessarily mean that correlation between these two factors implies that one is the cause of the other, and that neither divorce, nor fatherlessness in themselves are the cause of it. In his discussion paper Fatherhood and fatherlessness he uses studies to argue that it is the quality of parenting and the child's relationship with the parents that plays the main role. That children are negatively influenced by the situations in families characterized by violence, psychological problems, substance abuse, or economic insecurity and that it is the couples where such situations are frequent that are more likely to get divorced.

In an article released in the American Psychologist (June 1999) [1], feminist psychologist and researcher Louise B. Silverstein and psychologist and researcher in coding and analysis Carl F. Auerbach explained the conclusions their research brought them to:

We have found that the stability of the emotional connection and the predictability of the caretaking relationship are the significant variables that predict positive child adjustment.

They state also that, "[O]ur research with divorced, never-married, and remarried fathers has taught us that a wide variety of family structures can support positive child outcomes."

Antifeminism as a debate between feminists

Feminists such as Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, Jean Bethke Elshtain and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese have been labeled "antifeminists", or holders of anitfeminist views, by other feminists relating to their position regarding oppression and lines of thought within feminism which Christina Hoff Sommers has controversially defined as gender feminism Some argue that in this way the term "antifeminist" is used to silence academic debate about feminism, and represents "an enormous extension of women's power, allowing any sort of criticism of either women or feminist ideas to fall under the watchful eye of their ideological guardians.".

Other feminists such as media critic Jennifer Pozner claim that these women use the feminist label as a ruse. In describing what she believes is a method of so-called "rebel feminists" who use "Leftist lingo to gain rebellious credibility in a supposedly politically correct culture", she identifies what she argues is a contradiction: "Become vocally indignant at [other feminists] refusal to tolerate [their] 'dissenting feminist voice'" and then to "Go directly to the media. Do not pass up the college lecture circuit. Do not turn down close to $200K in Right Wing grants" and wait "for the money to come rolling in". She goes on to further counter claims of silencing debate or criticism: "Use your role as 'rebel feminist' to denounce every feminist concern other than women's economic advancement." and "(...) substantiate your claims by using faulty research methods and superficial interviews. Rarely contact the authors, activists and psychologists you libel." [2]

Antifeminism in Nietzschean philosophy

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche expresses his belief that women are naturally more cruel and contemptuous of truth than men, and that the emancipation of women threatens to compromise what he considers these admirable feminine qualities.

Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has grown smaller in proportion to the increase in her rights and demands, and the "Emancipation of Woman," to the extent that that is desired and demanded by women themselves (and not just by superficial men), has, as a result, produced a peculiar symptom of the growing weakening and deadening of the most feminine instincts. There is a stupidity in this development, an almost masculine stupidity, about which a successful woman—who is always an intelligent woman—would have to feel thoroughly ashamed.

He goes on to write that, "The thing in woman that arouses respect and often enough fear is her nature, which is 'more natural' than man's nature, her genuine predatory and cunning adaptability, the tiger's claws under the glove, the naiveté of her egotism, her uneducable nature, her inner wildness, the incomprehensibility, breadth, and roaming of her desires and virtues," and concludes that these superior qualities can only thrive when women are repressed or relegated to subordinate roles. He attacks the men of his time he sees as "idiotic friends of women and corrupters of women among the scholarly asses of the male sex who counsel woman to de-feminize herself in this manner and to imitate all the foolish things which make 'man' in Europe and European 'manliness' sick, people who want to bring woman down to the level of a 'common education,' perhaps even to reading the newspapers and discussing politics. Here and there they want even to make women into free spirits and literati: as if a woman without piety were not something totally repulsive and ridiculous to a profound and godless man."[3]

Nietzsche also writes that if a woman is "corrupted" by having the same freedom as men, it "make[s] her incapable of her first and last profession, giving birth to strong children." Although Oswald Spengler's own expressed views on women were generally more empathetic and less inflammatory than Nietzsche's, Spengler endorsed the Nietzschean opposition to feminism for many of the same reasons. Spengler also expressed concern that both men and women in Western countries no longer wanted to get married and raise children, claiming this would eventually result in the destruction of Western Civilization. But while Nietzsche argued for stricter societal controls on women, Spengler found it deplorable for either society or the state to force women to meet a "standardized type... in body, in clothes, in mind," which he considered a sign of cultural decline or inferiority[4].

Spengler's concept of "strong race" defined as "the eternal warlike in the type of the beast of prey man," an ethos rather than a zoological notion, was similar to Nietzsche's "Will to Power." Nietzsche considered this a masculine attribute, once writing, "The happiness of man is, 'I will.' The happiness of woman is, 'He will.'" Unlike Nietzsche's concept, Spengler believed women, specifically mothers, could have "strong race." Spengler did not share Nietzsche's rejection of Goethe's notion of an "eternal feminine" metaphysical presence, instead viewing it as engaged in a neverending war with the masculine Will to Power. In The Decline of the West, he writes, "Woman in childbed wins through to her victory." Noting that the Aztecs "honoured the woman in labour as a battling warrior," he views childbirth as an expression of a constant struggle for dominance between the sexes inherent in every healthy culture[5]. When a civilization loses its warlike instincts (between the sexes and against other peoples), he believed, it falls into decline and succumbs to "Caesarism" before eventually falling to enemies with stronger "race." Spengler continues this theme in The Hour of Decision, in which he attacks both feminism and modern misogyny as signs of Western culture in decline.[6]

Much of feminism also conflicts with the Nietzschean view of world history, continued by admirers and emulators such as Spengler, which rejects the traditional linear notion of world history headed toward a greater goal. Because feminist ideology chooses to portray history by the relations of what it identifies as victims and oppressors in a subjective way, claiming to represent the victim's perspective, which places it under the category of "slave morality". Furthermore, feminism positions itself as an ideology that revolves around what it claims to be intellectual assertions about relations between the sexes, and thus runs in opposition to the fundamental core of Nietzschean declared anti-rationalism.

Antifeminist organizations

As of 2006 the most successful antifeminist organisation in the US is STOP ERA, founded by Phyllis Schlafly in October 1972. Schlafly successfully mobilised thousands of people to block the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the USA. It was Schlafly too who forged links between STOP ERA and other conservative organizations, as well as single-issue groups against abortion, pornography, gun control, and unions. By integrating STOP ERA with the so-called New Right she was able to leverage a wider range of technological, organisational and political resources, successfully targeting pro-feminist candidates for defeat.

Further reading

Literature critical of feminism

• Alan J. Barron, The Death of Eve: Women, Liberation, Disintegration (1986) ISBN 0949667366
• Alan Carlson, The Family in America: Searching for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age (2003) ISBN 0765805367
• Alan Carlson, Family Questions: Reflections on the American Social Crisis (1991) ISBN 1560005556
• Gilbert K. Chesterton, Brave New Family (1990; essay collection) ISBN 089870314X
• Thomas Fleming, The Politics of Human Nature (1988) ISBN 1-56000-693-5
• Maggie Gallagher, The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Lasting Love (1996) ISBN 0895264641
• George Gilder, Men and Marriage (1992) ISBN 0882894447
• Steven Goldberg, Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance (1993; originally published 1971) ISBN 0812692373
• Steven Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (1977) ISBN 0812692373
• F. Carolyn Graglia, Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism (1998) ISBN 0965320863
• Mary A. Kassian, The Feminist Mistake (2005) ISBN 1581345704
• Linda Kelly, Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Abuse: How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State (2003)
• Myron Magnet, Modern Sex: Liberation and Its Discontents (2001) ISBN 1566633842
• Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture (2001) ISBN 0773522727
• Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men (2006) ISBN 0773528628
• John Piper and Wayne A. Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1991) ISBN 0891075860
• Mary Pride, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality (1985) ISBN 0891073450
• Phyllis Schlafly, The Power of the Positive Woman (1977) ISBN 0-87000-373-9
• Phyllis Schlafly, Feminist Fantasies (2003) ISBN 1890626465
• Howard Schwartz, The Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness (2003) ISBN 0765805375
• Lionel Tiger, The Decline of Males (2000) ISBN 0312263112
• Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man (1972) ISBN 0953096424

Literature about antifeminism

• Redefining the New Woman, 1920-1963 (Antifeminism in America: A Collection of Readings from the Literature of the Opponents to U.S. Feminism, 1848 to the Present), Howard-Zophy
• Un-American Womanhood: Antiradicalism, Antifeminism, and the First Red Scare, Kim E. Nielsen
• Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females (1983; ISBN 0-399-50671-3).
• Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1992; ISBN 0-385-42507-4)
• Cynthia D. Kinnard, Antifeminism in American Thought: An Annotated Bibliography (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1986, ISBN 0-8161-8122-5)
• Jane J. Mansbridge: Why We Lost the ERA, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1986
• G. Swanson, Antifeminism in America: A Historical Reader (2000) ISBN 0-8153-3437-0

See also

• Anti-suffrage
• Male chauvinism
• Masculism
• Men's Rights
• Misandry
• Misogyny
• Paleoconservatism
• Patriarchy

Individuals linked to antifeminism

• Erica Catrina D'Alessandro
• Adam Norton
• Ernest Belfort Bax
• Ann Coulter
• Caitlin Flanagan
• George Gilder
• Henry Makow
• Mary Pride
• Phyllis Schlafly
• Mary Augusta Ward
• Otto Weininger
• Philip Gordon Wylie

External links and on-line resources

• How Not to Criticize Feminist Epistemology, by Elizabeth Anderson, review of "Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology" concluding "[it is a] failure by its own evaluative standards of civility and avoiding gross error, tribalism, cynicism, and political correctness."
• The Women are at Fault - Matthias Matussek about Misandry and Women's Identity Problem, Der Spiegel, special edition 5, 1998, translated by Walter H. Schneider. Feminism critique, could be seen as antifeminist perspective on current state of affairs.
• Ladies Against Feminism