Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 06:1 (Spring 2024)
Article: Feminism’s Patriarchs: An Ideological Response To The Failures Of Men
Author: Emma Waters

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 52

Feminism’s Patriarchs: An Ideological Response To The Failures Of Men

Emma Waters

Emma Waters is a senior research associate in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation.

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 53

The history of feminism began where it is most likely to end: with a man.

In 1837, French philosopher and ill-reputed utopian socialist Charles Fourier coined the term “feminist” to describe his belief in the equality of men and women.1 This may seem unremarkable, especially today, but taken in the larger context of his political philosophy, the foundational errors of the feminist movement emerge. Fourier believed that the institution of marriage was inherently oppressive to women — vowing to never marry himself — instead, encouraging men and women to explore their array of sexual desires, including those for the same sex. He spent most of his time, however, articulating a proto-communist vision of society where all laborers, men and women, were organized into productive labor units and goods were shared in common.

Few philosophers respected Fourier’s work, critiquing his lack of education and jumbled prose, yet ironically, his legacy lives on as the patriarch of feminism. Fydor Dostevisky, for example, criticized Fourier multiple times throughout his novel Demons:

Dedicating my energies to the study of social organization which is in the future to replace the present condition of things, I’ve come to the conviction that all makers of social

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 54

systems from ancient times up to the present year, have been dreamers, tellers of fairy-tales, fools who contradicted themselves, who understood nothing of natural science and the strange animal called man. Plato, Rousseau, Fourier, columns of aluminum, are only fit for sparrows and not for human society.2

Fourier’s ideas, such as a loose sexual morality, a tendency toward socialism, and the devaluation of the traditional family, continue to influence the political and social themes articulated by the feminist movement today.

Feminism’s Patriarchs

It is easy to identify many of the prominent feminist women throughout history — Mary Wollstonecraft, Betty Friedan, and Judith Butler — yet it is men, beginning with Charles Fourier, who have directed many of feminism’s key developments. Indeed, what is often called “feminism” cannot be separated from ideologically driven men who saw an opportunity to take advantage of or to cultivate