If you have been on social media lately it seems impossible to ignore the rise in videos of women boasting about their traditional lifestyles. These women typically start their videos explaining how young they are, how they are married, financially dependent on their partner, lack further education and/or a job of their own, and seem to explain it all with such glee. Such videos have been gaining more and more traction in the last few months, and it points to the new subculture developing across social media and global culture; the femosphere.
So what actually is the “Femosphere”?
We all know about the manosphere, ‘red pill’, and toxic masculinity that has taken misogyny and sexism to a whole new level, but there are even more layers to this epidemic than originally thought. Feminist Media researcher and Loughborough lecturer Dr Jilly Kay has provided further research into the female alternative, the Femosphere or the pink pill. Essentially, femosphere content will rope you in with claims all women (or I should hope all women) can fundamentally agree on: the realities of misogyny, the inequalities of gender roles, and many more feminist concerns. However, the concepts soon became warped by these so called ‘femcel’ influencers, encouraging women to disregard gender equality and use men for financial gain. By roping women in on the basis that this is a reversal of misogyny, the movement quickly becomes far too similar to the sexist roots that the manosphere has created itself. All in all, they preach the same message but use a different context. Dr Kay explained how these online communities are actually mirroring “the manosphere’s core ideas of fatalism, bio-essentialism and this very anti-political sense that the world is fundamentally unchangeable”. So, these female influencers use such ideas and concepts to convince young women to accept the unchangeable and follow traditional roles where men are the providers. They manipulate audiences by promoting these ideas as acceptable feminine rage and fighting for women, while leaving the young women they target financially dependent.
Why should we care?
The issue with the femosphere is that on the surface it appears to be a feminist movement, one which opposes red pill content and the manosphere. However, all it really does is accept the current status quo instead of fighting for reputable change. These pink pill communities accept the same biological determinism and political pessimism that the manosphere projects. They argue not to change the social conditions but instead try to teach women how to adapt to the “unchangeable” situations we are put in. Essentially, they suggest that women should be operating around this unchangeable patriarchy and misogynistic society. This is the danger in their message. In my opinion these women are not teaching others how to be independent, and they completely misconstrue the feminist movement and argument into something that pushes women’s progress back by decades. This movement then flips societal issues into something that is fundamental to humanity instead of social systems that we have the power to change for the better.
These kinds of communities, whether from the male perspective or the female, are detrimental to society. It is already difficult enough for women to not only break into the economy and enter male dominated fields, but communities of these femcel influencers now demote women who work to support themselves and do not use men for financial gain. It was only in the late 19th century that women were allowed to take on formal and professional employment outside of the home. And even then, it wasn’t until 1970 that the Equal Pay Act was passed to tackle gendered wage gaps and discrimination.
To this day, women are still fighting for these rights across the world, and it is a shame we are seeing this rise in sexist ideology within female spaces, but I implore anyone reading this not to be dismayed. Everyday women must fight for equality world-wide, and it is with our voices, our actions, and our goals that we can get one step closer to achieving this.