The Handmaid’s Tale Of Anti-Feminism: A Literary Response To 1970s Anti-Feminist Rhetoric And The Emerging Christian Right
Date
2022-05
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University of Delaware
Abstract
I was inspired to write this thesis after learning about a current social media trend
centered around women’s endorsement of traditional gender roles. #Tradwife has become a niche but nevertheless prevalent hashtag on Instagram, garnering 38.6k posts on the app and several accounts dedicated to promoting the trend. Women who embrace the trend use the hashtag #tradwife on Instagram to share their positive experiences as housewives and stay-at-home
mothers, often while promoting Christian values and anti-feminist rhetoric in the process.
“Tradwife” refers, of course, to “traditional wife,” and women in the subculture idealize the
image of the 1950s housewife whose role in society was erased by feminist movements
throughout the 1960 and 70s. I wanted to explore these women’s mindset because it was so
perplexing to me: it is one thing to hear men disparage feminism, but a very different thing to
hear women express similar disdain for gender equality. Why do these women hate feminism? Is
it internalized oppression? The desire for male validation? A stringent belief in Christianity?
Although I was interested in all of these questions and possibilities, I soon learned the
limitations of analyzing #tradwives directly. The movement is too new and too niche to evaluate
fully, and I was limited in my ability to interview women who subscribe to such a mentality.
Instead, I chose to explore anti-feminism through a literary and historical lens. In doing so, I
hope to articulate the mentality that turns women against feminism, and to demonstrate how
literature can combat and indict this dangerous way of thinking about gender in the United States. I was especially interested in researching the role that religion plays in cultivating this
perspective, since the bulk of #tradwife posts I’ve seen on Instagram have Christian overtones.
Therefore, the fiction novels I will be analyzing all deal with themes of religious oppression and
Christian hegemony. While the history of Second Wave Feminism as a whole is more secular, my
research into the STOP ERA Movement and–obviously–the Christian right, share this religious
focus.
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Keywords
Anti-feminism, Literature, Gender, Christianity