Is Conservatism Going the Wrong Direction on Feminism? – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

National Review published a blog post this week titled “The Feminism Phantasm.” The post takes aim at a new wave of right-wing antifeminist rhetoric — some of which goes so far as to blame civilizational decline on women gaining the right to vote.

The author, Kayla Bartsch, says that this argument on voting has been advanced by “[c]ongressional staffers in pencil skirts.” She doesn’t cite a particular person who said this, but I believe her because I, too, have heard multiple people involved in the conservative movement suddenly declare that women should never have been granted the right to vote. Earlier this month, Erika Bachiochi, writing in the Wall Street Journal, likewise noted, “[I]t isn’t uncommon to hear [young Catholics] wondering aloud whether women should bother with a college degree or even be allowed to vote.”

This view on women’s voting rights is, of course, fringe, but it is demonstrative of a current in the conservative movement that responds to the (many) excesses of left-wing feminism with, as Bartsch puts it, “blatant enmity toward women.”

This current is real, but it mostly consists of creepy men who spend too much time online.

This category includes Tim Gordon, whom Bachiochi explained in her Wall Street Journal piece has espoused the views that “women are ‘naturally’ inferior to men, and submission to ‘their husbands’ directives in all things’ is their ‘primary charge.’” In another skin-crawling example, Bachiochi informs us that Gordon has referred to marriage as a “best friendship between unequals.” Gordon isn’t shouting into the void; he has 57,000 YouTube subscribers. Bachiochi also cites a Catholic influencer I hadn’t heard of before, Mike Pantile, who apparently said Andrew Tate, the misogynist who is accused of trafficking women and children and got rich by selling pornography, “gets 90 percent more right than even the most mild feminist.” (RELATED: It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp (Especially If You’re Andrew Tate))

I’ve occasionally run across this attitude. For example, in February, I happened upon a podcast that appeared Catholic, but, within minutes, one of the male podcast hosts began to speak derisively about women, as he referred to a woman as “some broad.”

Additionally, Alina Habba, a counselor to President Donald Trump, said of Andrew Tate (who also faces charges for rape and sexual abuse), “I’m a big fan!” Under pressure, Habba sort of recanted, but her attitude — that misogyny should be the answer to modern-day feminism — remained. Apparently, additional members of the Trump administration were also sympathetic to Andrew Tate and, according to the Financial Times, advocated to the Romanian government on his behalf. (RELATED: The Andrew Tate Moral Rot and the Future of the American Right)

(Josh Hammer, Newsweek’s senior editor-at-large, gave the best response to Andrew Tate’s unfortunate return to U.S. soil in February when he said: “No decent person, let alone a political movement downstream of the biblical, Judeo-Christian tradition as American conservatism necessarily is, should lift a finger to welcome such a wretched reprobate to our shores or shield him from justice.”)

Back to that blog post in National Review. As I mentioned, Bartsch’s post is titled “The Feminism Phantasm.” Her headline refers to the belief among some conservatives that feminism is responsible for all of society’s ills. While the Left traces all of societal dysfunction back to racism, Bartsch explains, the New Right traces it all back to feminism.

Here’s where the problem with that emerges, as Bartsch puts it. “Feminism cannot simply be equated to, say, the thought of Judith Butler…. It must be remembered that feminism — of some variety — enabled women to pursue advanced degrees, open a bank account, get published, play sports, conduct critical research, receive legal protection from abusive husbands, cast a vote, etc.” In other words, many on the right are conflating the radical feminism of Judith Butler with the earlier feminism that fought for women to be treated as possessing equal dignity.

In fact, some figures on the right have argued that the radical feminism of Judith Butler is an inevitable outgrowth of movements like women’s suffrage. For example, the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh said in 2021, “Feminism is rotten at the core. Each ‘wave’ led inexorably to the next. There is no good feminism. It’s one of the worst things to ever happen to Western civilization.”

Modern feminism, coupled with the sexual revolution that it has so successfully promoted, are in fact responsible for the mass murder of millions of unborn babies every year; the societal degradation of the institution of marriage; the decoupling of sex from the conception of children; pervasive sexual degeneracy; widespread enmity between men and women; omnipresent internet pornography; high rates of divorce and familial breakdown; oversexualization in media; a drop-off in religious adherence; extraordinary rates of depression and anxiety; an epidemic of fatherlessness; a crisis of men who are failing to launch; a dating culture that has become a hookup culture; etc.; etc. (RELATED: ‘Woke’ Polygamy is Coming Soon)

Perhaps the problem is that modern-day feminism has so co-opted the name “feminism” that even those who are simply advocating for equal dignity for women sound as though they are advancing the sexual revolution and all the ills that have followed in its wake.

Erika Bachiochi, who is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, advises readers of her Wall Street Journal op-ed to reclaim a “new feminism” — or a movement known by a different name — that is inspired by Pope John Paul II. She argues that the Catholic Church, in response to threats like Tim Gordon, “must redouble its efforts to defend the equal dignity of women.”

Bachiochi writes that, in 1995, Pope John Paul II “called on women to ‘promote a new feminism’ and thereby transform ‘culture so that it supports life.’”

Bachiochi explains that Pope John Paul II asserted that this “new feminism” would not follow “models of ‘male domination’” but rather would “overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.” The pope went on to call for “an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements.” He even, Bachiochi notes, called himself “the feminist pope.”

Bachiochi explains that Pope John Paul II affirmed a husband’s role as leader while also making clear that “subjection” is mutual.

Pope John Paul II, Bachiochi writes, expressed admiration for early feminists who fought for women’s rights. In an 1995 letter, the pope said, “I cannot fail to express my admiration for those women of good will who have devoted their lives to defending the dignity of womanhood by fighting for their basic social, economic and political rights, demonstrating courageous initiative at a time when this was considered extremely inappropriate, the sign of a lack of femininity, a manifestation of exhibitionism, and even a sin!”

Bachiochi acknowledges the conflation problem — the fact that even good feminism has become intertwined with progressive radicalism. She writes that John Paul II “might regard feminism in its current form as unredeemable.”

However, conservatives may find a foothold for reclaiming the word “feminism,” in the sense of supporting the principle of equal dignity, in that modern progressives have moved toward avoiding the word for fear that it excludes “nonbinary” and “transgender” people. That is, progressives are avoiding calling themselves feminists because they aren’t really sure what a woman is.

If the Right has some problems in the way it approaches women, the Left has a truckload. This is as good a time as any for conservatives to co-opt feminism back for themselves and use it against the leftists who seek to erase womanhood and femininity entirely — as well as the occasional too-online “conservative” men who listen to Andrew Tate and Tim Gordon.

READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes:

College Courses Stay as DEI-Obsessed as Ever

Will the White House Balk or Succeed in Yanking TikTok From China?

Gavin Goes ‘Soul-Searching’