Anti-suffrage poster. Credit: Plashing Vole/Flickr.
One of the ongoing problems feminists face is how to document our own history. The closure of the Women’s Library in 2012, the funding difficulties currently faced by The Feminist Library, the movement’s reliance on short-life publications and the lack of knowledge about digital archiving (how exactly are feminists going to access and study #YesAllWomen in 100 years’ time?) are just some of the difficulties facing contemporary feminist historians. The fact that women’s contribution is often excluded from traditional history books adds another layer of complexity and, as a result, many branches of feminism are overlooked or forgotten.
For fairly obvious reasons there has been little enthusiasm for that awkward side of feminist history: women’s opposition to feminism. The emergence of Women Against Feminism in 2014 demonstrated that many feminists struggle to respond to anti-feminists with anything other than exasperation or amusement. What these responses miss, however, is that there is actually a long tradition of anti-feminism, stretching back to the late-18th century. Anti-feminists do not hold an obvious place within feminist history. They are yet to achieve a coup or any significant power grab within the movement, tending to remain as external critics or outliers, but anti-feminism has remained a consistent feature of feminist life. By examining two organised groups of anti-feminists operating over 100 years apart, it becomes clear that we should be wary of under-estimating their legacy.
