Antifeminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms. According to pro-feminist sociologist Michael Kimmel the term antifeminism means opposition to women’s equality. Antifeminists oppose women’s entry into the public sphere, the re-organization of the private sphere, women’s control of their bodies, and women’s rights generally. Often this is justified by recourse to religious and cultural norms, and sometimes it is justified in the name of “saving” masculinity from pollution and invasion. Antifeminism often promotes a frightened or nostalgic retreat to traditional gender arrangements, supported ideologically by religious or pseudoscientific notions of “natural law”. Antifeminists typically accept the traditional gender division of labor as natural and inevitable, perhaps also divinely sanctioned.
Michael Flood argues that antifeminism denies at least one of three general principles of feminism:
- The social arrangements among men and women are neither natural nor divinely determined.
- The social arrangements among men and women favor men.
- There are collective actions that can and should be taken to transform these arrangements into more just and equitable arrangements.
Ulf Andersson, founder of the Swedish father’s rights group PappaRättsGruppen and member of Swiss-based antifeminist organisation Interessengemeinschaft Antifeminismus (ISAF), has attempted to clarify the definition of antifeminism on a number of occasions. He states: “A lot of people have the wrong impression about what an antifeminist really is. They believe that an antifeminist is a woman-hater. Not at all. An antifeminist is a kind of peacekeeper who wants to return things to normal. As an antifeminist, I believe in true equality between a man and a woman.”
History
In the nineteenth century, the centerpiece of antifeminism was opposition to women’s suffrage. Opponents of women’s entry into institutions of higher learning argued that education was too great a physical burden on women. In ”Sex in Education: or, a Fair Chance for the Girls (1873), Harvard professor Edward Clarke predicted that if women went to college, their brains would grow bigger and heavier, and their wombs would atrophy. He based his prediction on the observation that college-educated women had fewer children than non-college-educated women. Other antifeminists opposed women’s entry into the labor force, or their right to join unions, to sit on juries, or to obtain birth control and control of their sexuality.
Antifeminist stances
Many modern antifeminists say the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men. Glenn Sacks, a prominent antifeminist columnist, believes that western societies “have developed a moral blind spot toward disparaging males”, and that a double standard now exists to the detriment of the male population.
Some antifeminists argue that feminism has resulted in changes to society’s previous norms relating to sexuality, which they see as detrimental to traditional values or certain religious beliefs. For example, the acceptability of homosexuality, pornography, and casual sex are mentioned as negative consequences of feminism.
Others oppose women’s entry into the workforce, political office, and the voting process, as well as the lessening of male authority in families. Antifeminists argue that a change of women’s roles is a destructive force that endangers the family, or is contrary to religious morals. For example, Paul Gottfried describes his 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.
John Calvert, describing the positions of Islamists in general, has written:
They see the danger to family organization as relating, in the first instance, to the entry in many Muslim-majority countries of women into the workplace and the concomitant decline of male authority in the home… At the same time, Islamists are aggrieved at support of ostensibly Muslim governments for the “alleged” legal emancipation of women, including granting women the right to vote and hold public office, in addition to limited rights to initiate divorce.
Antifeminists often criticise perceived discriminatory policies in Western governments against males – particularly in the areas of reproductive rights, child custody, alimony, and property division in divorce – which they argue are a consequence of the feminist movement.
Furthermore, antifeminists argue that feminist organizations and researchers frequently use fake statistical data and research.
Antifeminists argue that in some cases feminist policies and regulations are detrimental to female self-esteem. For example, they argue that women sometimes receive “special treatment” in the form of gender norming, which lowers physical fitness requirements for women in some professions such as military and rescue services. Women who are hired are expected to handle less physically demanding tasks, which may reduce the effectiveness of a unit. These policies, say antifeminist critics, also make it impossible to refuse to hire women.
Rejecting the label
Feminists such as Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, Jean Bethke Elshtain and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese have been labeled “antifeminists”, or holders of antifeminist views, by other feminists because of their positions regarding oppression and lines of thought within feminism (which Sommers has controversially defined as gender feminism). Authors Patai and Koertge argue that by labeling these women “anti-feminists”, the intention is to silence them and prevent any debate on the state of feminism. It 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”.
Antifeminist organizations
As of 2008 the most successful antifeminist organization in the US is STOP ERA, now known as Eagle Forum, 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 thus-dubbed New Right she was able to leverage a wider range of technological, organizational and political resources, successfully targeting pro-feminist candidates for defeat.
In India, Save Indian Family is an antifeminist men’s rights organization which aims to create “awareness about the Legal Terrorism going on in the country under the barb and paradoxical veil of Women Empowerment through various methods like television shows on news channels, protests, road shows, press conferences, article publication, online blogging to name a few”, and to provide support to those suffering as a result of what they argue is misuse of India’s legislation relating to dowry harassment and domestic violence.
Outside the United States, organized antifeminist groups have been conspicuously less successful. In Australia, Babette Francis has led Endeavour Forum (formerly “Women Who Want to be Women”) for over twenty-five years, but has failed to halt ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), as well as the eventual introduction of medical abortion in Australia, and the successive liberalization of laws related to abortion in Australia within every state and territory . REAL Women of Canada has similarly failed to halt same sex marriage and decriminalization of abortion in Canada, while Britain has never had an organized antifeminist group of its own, and New Zealand’s “Women for Life” ceased to exist in 2004.
In 2010 the IGAF hosted what they claim to be the world’s first antifeminist forum in a secret location in Switzerland. They claim that the original location for the meeting had to be abandoned when they heard that feminists were planning to protest it.