Dear Daughter (Part 3): The New Face of Patriarchy Wears Lip Gloss
Beware the femo/womanosphere
Don’t miss parts 1 & 2 of the Dear Daughter series:
Dear Daughter,
You’ve heard all about the manosphere—that online echo chamber where fragile masculinity cosplays as deep-man philosophy. Well, guess what? It’s coming for girls now, rebranded as the “womanosphere” or “femosphere.”1 Behind the cottagecore filters, milkmaid dresses, and blissed-out tradwives lies a darker message whispered to young women: your highest calling is to be skinny and fertile. Submit to your man—but stay secretly in control.
It might sound like a joke to your progressive ears but this is serious. We didn’t think boys would fall for it but the manosphere was persistent. And clever. They capitalized on the very real crisis of loneliness and economic instability haunting young men. And here we are with an anti-woman, pro-fascism President whose victory is widely attributed to those pushing the manosphere agenda.
The womanosphere or femosphere is no different. It is homing in on the miseries that girls and young women hear again and again from their mothers and older sisters—that this life isn’t sustainable, that childcare demands impact their ability to get ahead in careers, that their labor is at best invisible and at worst demeaned, and that their partners are threatened by their success.
It’s true. Women are buckling under the pressure of competing work and childcare demands. But instead of fighting for things like paid leave and affordable childcare, or demanding that men join the modern age and become equal partners to them, the womanosphere offers a glossy rewind to the days when women were expected to find fulfillment only as wives and mothers, taking on most of the domestic labor (with a smile) and submitting to their husbands.
It is a gender-essentialist view that says if we just accept our maternal instincts and stop trying to be like men who build stuff, we’ll be happier. That we should stop taking men’s jobs so they can earn money and spoil us. That if we make them feel like “real men,” they’ll be less likely to beat us physically and bruise us emotionally.
Our rights to our own bodies—to appreciate them regardless of what they weigh, to decide when and if we want children, to love who we love, and to express our identities freely—are framed as threats to the natural order and the cause of our pain and confusion.
If we could just stop wanting so much (read: our full identities) everything would be better.
Because I always want to know what women’s liberation is up against, I signed up to receive Evie—a magazine like Cosmo but for married wannabe cowgirls—and came across gems like: “skinny sex is the best sex” and diatribes on the perils of “mediocre motherhood”. These are all the traps that have undermined women for so long—it’s hard to believe we’re back here again.
So here are a few things you’ll need to remain conscious of as you slowly, unwittingly absorb the cultural romancing of being a “traditional woman.”
Listen closely…
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First, it’s simply not true that women were happier when their lives revolved solely around the home and children. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique exploded onto the scene for a reason: it gave voice to the deep sense of isolation, restlessness, and unfulfillment that so many women felt while tending to households alone, with no outlet for their ambitions, talents, or intellect. The book ignited second-wave feminism, sparking a groundswell of support that fueled the women’s rights movement and its push for gender equality in education, work, sexuality, and reproductive freedom.
Second, beyond the often-glorified image of the white, middle-class housewife, most women—especially women of color—never had the luxury of not working. They labored in low-paying, often exploitative jobs in addition to managing home and family. The soft, feminine lives being sold to you, have never really existed.
Third, even if you could somehow carve out a dreamy life of servitude, there are far too many pitfalls to take the chance of wholly depending on a man to meet all your material and psychological needs. Marriages end. People change. Abuse happens. Systems fail. And when we’re told that our safest bet is to trade autonomy for protection, we’re being sold a fairy tale with a dark underbelly. Ask yourself: who is it that we really need protection from anyway?
Fourth, by banning abortion, attacking birth control, and glorifying hyper-motherhood—complete with medals for having six(!) children—Trump and womanosphere mouthpieces like Brett Cooper and Candace Owens are doing their damndest to ensure women are too overwhelmed, overburdened, and outnumbered to organize against a culture built to serve men’s needs and desires at the expense of women’s.
I don’t want to scare you off dating men and off of love. Love is amazing and one of life’s greatest pleasures. Relationships are really truly what matter in the end. But it’s important to remember, not only romantic relationships matter. Your female friends and communities of women are essential to feeling whole and to having an avenue to fight for your basic human rights. Make it a priority to create community!
Listen, you may not even be interested in dating men but even if you’re not, you should know which way the wind is blowing for women in general.
Too many of the women before you have tied our self-worth to a man. But most men aren’t taught the fine art of empathy and emotion. In fact, they’re taught those are girly things to repudiate. So hanging your hat on a guy can often mean feeling like shit about yourself.
Historically, women were forced to depend on men for food and shelter, so being with any man—even one who treated you poorly—was better than no man. Somehow we’ve carried that message into the present and still bring you girls up to believe your greatest achievement would be giving up your last name.
Too many women, then, find themselves staying in relationships with partners that leave them feeling cold, old, and resentful. Even without overt abuse, there’s often a steady undercurrent of subtle mistreatment or neglect—disdain disguised as disinterest, a lack of appreciation and engagement, emotional laziness, and a self-centeredness that shows up in bed and in shared life goals.
So as you’re scrolling (or, gasp!—reading), beware of a rising tide of messages aimed at women—especially young women like you who are in the midst of figuring out who they are. These messages will sound hopeful because they seem to offer antidotes to the anxiety of these uncertain times and to women’s rage. But at their heart, these messages are deeply fatalistic, offering no vision for social progress or liberation—only survival within the system as it is.
The womanosphere tells us to stay sweet and submissive; the femosphere says it’s feminist to manipulate men for money. Different aesthetics, same old control.
Listen closely.
Many of these creators sound like feminists (and sometimes identify that way) because they name-drop patriarchy and call out misogyny—but instead of fighting for equal pay or safety from violence, they pivot to “brutal truths,” “material conditions,” and talk of women as a “sex class.”
Their bottom line? Most men are trash and will always hurt women so the only winning move is to game the system: protect yourself and extract resources.
To fight for more, they say, is to see yourself through the lens of oppression. Stop complaining. Stop playing the victim.
Well, I’m here to tell you speaking out isn’t weakness—it’s resistance. Naming what’s wrong isn’t victimhood—it’s the first step toward changing it. Refusing to settle for less isn’t self-pity—it’s self-respect.
Femcel strategies for empowerment are the same regressive garbage found in the manosphere. They include how to land a “high-value” man to bankroll your lifestyle, rules about never pursuing a man (he should chase you—preferably with gifts), and sermons on how romantic feelings are just emotional liabilities.
Others in this space don’t even pretend to be feminist. They argue that women owe everything to men—the builders, protectors, and providers—and that asking for more is both ungrateful and unnatural. Feminism is to blame for women being more anxious, lonely, and unfulfilled by having steered them away from marriage, family, and faith.
"Liberation" lies in embracing “natural” feminine behavior and deference to men. Learning to be supportive, nurturing, and submissive in a “complementary” way will be empowering and culturally restorative.
You’ll hear in many different ways that strong women don’t dwell on inequality. They leave abusive partners without looking back. And they’d never trade their child’s smile for a cubicle or a title.
The messages won’t always be obvious. They’ll often come wrapped in common sense—like the tricky piece I came across in Evie titled, “The Anti-Victim Mindset: How To Choose Grit Over Grievance.” The author makes many reasonable points. “Why should I be excluded from trials and challenges that are part of the human experience?” she asks. And “…while we can't always control what happens to us, we always have a choice about how we respond.”
She cites compelling research showing that agency, personal responsibility, and an internal locus of control are linked to better outcomes like resilience. Of course they are! The problem is she pits those strengths against “practices that focus primarily on processing past negative experiences.”
We can process negative experiences and build resilience. In fact, I’d argue one is necessary for the other. But the author instead conflates resilience with avoidance, (while insisting throughout that she’s not: “…the women embracing this approach aren't ignoring societal problems, they're simply refusing to be psychologically defined by them.”)
She is convincing—why center your identity around oppression, she asks, when you can simply “reframe” your mindset?
Here’s an example the author gives for reframing:
Victim Mindset: "My boss overlooked me for a promotion again. She clearly has favorites and doesn't appreciate my hard work. The system is rigged against people like me."
Anti-Victim Reframe: "I haven't yet secured the promotion I want. This is an opportunity to have a direct conversation with my boss about what specific skills I need to develop. I can also expand my network and explore whether this is still the right environment for my growth."
Translation: I must be the problem. If I think there’s sexism going on, look away or avoid it by leaving.
This piece…these creators…they are the handmaids of the patriarchy pitting women against each other and treating it like it’s an individual rather than a systemic problem.
This shift puts all the pressure on individual women. It tells us to scrutinize and fix ourselves, while ignoring the larger systems—gender bias, racism, ableism—that shape our lives and opportunities. It turns structural inequality into a personal failure—the oldest trick in the patriarchal book.
Don’t fall for it, dear daughter. This is your one wild, precious life, and you deserve to live it in full color, on your own terms. “Full” will look different for each of us—but it must include real freedom: the power to name what hurts, to want more, and to choose your own path. The womanosphere and femosphere mask control as self-improvement. But make no mistake—it wants to make you easier to manage.
The womanosphere and femosphere refer to the same general phenomenon but are slightly different. "Womanosphere" emphasizes more traditionalist content (e.g., tradwives, hyper-femininity, domesticity). “Femosphere" emphasizes pseudo-feminist rhetoric that actually undermines feminist goals (e.g., content that uses empowerment language to reinforce patriarchy).
This piece is brilliant! You're so concise about what's wrong with femcel and womanosphere (I didn't even realize that was a thing) and I'm just floored. Floored, I tell ya! Keep on naming the truths for our daughters :)
All of this! Thank you!