Why I'm Anti-Feminist (But Not Anti-Women)

This is something I have been asked about: why am I anti-feminist? There is a lot of stigma attached to someone being anti-feminist, and it is associated with being anti-women. This is partly why I started this sub, to show that being anti-feminist is not synonymous with being anti-women.

Feminism is not actually about gender equality. It is a political ideology that claims women are a collectively oppressed class under patriarchy. Patriarchy theory is integral to feminism, and is the theory that men do and have collectively owned power structures for thousands of years at the expense of women.

This idea is fundamentally flawed. Human societies were built around gender roles. Men hunted, women gathered. Men operated the public sector, women the private sector. Gender roles come from our biology, and these were shaped by different cultures with the fundamental idea of men and women working together to raise children and keep societies stable.

The idea of women being "oppressed" by men in their roles as wives, mothers and carers of families is absurd. This was division of labour for the sake of practicality. There is nothing "oppressive" about this set-up. Modern society has moved away from this and more women are in the workplace due to innovations like the pill, kitchen appliances, and modern medicine making people live longer.

(This isn't to say that women were never abused. Of course some women were, and so were some men. Abuse is a personal issue that is very serious, but that doesn't mean the entirety of womanhood was an oppressed class any more than men were an oppressed class, by the same internal logic.)

Second-wave feminism did push more women into the workplace, but women were already in the workplace before that. Millions of women worked during the first and second world wars. Old Hollywood saw the rise of big-name actresses. Nursing, textiles and education were very feminine-oriented industries during the Medieval era. So the theory of women having been "chained to the kitchen sink" is historically inaccurate.

This theory also ignores all of the sacrifice and duties men have had to uphold for centuries. Men, historically, have been the ones expected to die in war and at work. Feminists often talk of "male privilege", but never the responsibilities men held, like being responsible for their wives finances, having to pay their bride's dowry, and the stress and pressures that came with running society (for the wellbeing of women and children).

Being anti-feminist just means being against a misandric, historically inaccurate, unscientific view of the world. I call myself anti-feminist to show that there is no shame in being against something quite toxic and antagonistic. My anti-feminist worldview is evidence-based, secular, and from a politically centre-left angle. It is based on years of reading, research, and conversing both with feminists and non-feminists.

I identified as a liberal feminist aged 14-18, non-feminist aged 18-24, and anti-feminist aged 25-present. Anti-feminist is just a label to distance oneself from the toxic ideology of feminism. But it doesn't at all mean that one has to resort to misogyny. I have never met an anti-feminist who is a misogynist, but most feminists I have met espouse misandry.