“And women like hunting witches too, doing your dirtiest work for you,” sings Taylor Swift in “mad woman” off of her 2020 album folklore. While this lyric is speculated to be about Kim Kardashian and her role in helping her ex-husband Kanye West manufacture a 2016 scandal that made Swift look like the perpetrator when she was really the victim of West’s misogyny (it’s a long story), many people on the internet concluded that it fits so many different situations. As much as we want to celebrate and lift up all women no matter what, it is incredibly necessary to address the women who tear down others.
Beyond Swift’s song, we see far too many examples of women ultimately campaigning against their own interests. Watching Senator Marsha Blackburn press Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on abortion and discuss the sentiments of many “pro-life” American women during Jackson’s confirmation hearing, along with reading all of the news of transgender women being unfairly discriminated against by cisgender women in bathroom access and sports, have especially struck a nerve with me as of late. With the impending SCOTUS decision in the Dobbs case and conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett’s likeliness to push for a full or partial overturn of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1793 abortion rights decision, it is also hard to face the fact that a woman might play a role in restricting what I believe are some of our most fundamental rights. So why do women like them go against their own best interests?
The anti-feminist movement has always included women, such as Phyllis Schlafly, who worked to stop the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the second half of the 20th century, and the pundits Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham who carry on a similar vision today. She is not an isolated case, and I could spend an incredible amount of time chronicling anti-feminist women around the world throughout history. In an article for Everyday Feminism, Ginny Brown discusses the common misconception that feminism is supposed to bring down and disadvantage men, and the fact that it is ultimately the fault of the patriarchy for promoting attitudes that dismiss true gender equality. Dr. Angie Maxwell, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas, chronicles in the Washington Post how gender norms in the South are a large psychological factor in how women from that region vote. Other implicit biases, such as anti-trans ones, and privileges are likely a factor in the recent attacks on women’s rights as well.
In my opinion, it seems as though anti-feminist women are not fully to blame for their stances. The influence of men is often so highly valued in their circles that they do not feel as if they can question or challenge gender norms and expectations, which have been almost irreparably hammered into their heads. Of course, each woman is an individual case whose morals come from a myriad of factors, and some people are just downright evil! Yet, if each side were to carefully deconstruct our ideologies, I think we would find that feminist reasoning has a more solidly rooted notion of gender equality, based on equity and justice, rather than the anti-feminist side that seeks to level a playing field in which sand will always keep slipping through the cracks.
Therefore, what can we do to resist “witch-hunting” women? While women will never agree on anything except in a utopia, and each one is an individual case, I believe that having informed conversations will be a good first step in the right directions. In my opinion, it seems that we must find common ground in the process of unpacking all of our influences, beliefs, and biases, and then move towards further unity while recognizing that culture wars will likely never truly end. In such an angrily-charged world, the brightest glimmer of hope is a calm, productive conversation in which all parties reflect on their stances and move towards shared goals.