Feminism: A Dangerous, Crazed Cult! By Mrs Vera West

In her article, published on March 7, 2025, Janice Fiamengo:

https://fiamengofile.substack.com/p/feminism-is-a-dangerous-pseudo-religion

a retired English professor and vocal critic of feminism, contends that feminism is less a rational social movement and more akin to a pseudo-religion. She argues it prioritises belief over truth, resists reason, and displays intolerance toward dissent. Fiamengo suggests that feminism's adherents cling to sacred tenets—such as the omnipresent oppression of women by a patriarchal system—much like religious devotees uphold dogma, even when evidence contradicts these claims. She points to the movement's reliance on emotional fervour, its vilification of sceptics (often labelled misogynists), and its tendency to dismiss factual challenges as heresy.

Fiamengo highlights how feminism enforces orthodoxy through social and institutional power, punishing those who question its narratives. She likely draws on examples (common in her broader work) of feminist campaigns that exaggerate or fabricate issues—like the wage gap or campus rape statistics—to sustain a perpetual victimhood mythology. This, she argues, mirrors religious cults that thrive on fear, guilt, and an us-versus-them mentality rather than empirical scrutiny. Her core thesis is that feminism's dangerousness lies in its ability to masquerade as a moral crusade while stifling free thought and punishing non-believers.

Building on Fiamengo's foundation, I can extend the argument by examining specific traits that align feminism with the characteristics of a crazed cult—fanatical devotion, irrational rituals, charismatic leadership, and a rejection of reality in favour of ideology.

Like a cult, modern feminism often demands unwavering loyalty to its doctrines—patriarchy as an all-encompassing evil, women as perpetual victims, and men as inherent oppressors. These ideas are treated as sacred truths, not hypotheses to be tested. When studies show, for instance, that gender disparities in pay often stem from individual choices (e.g., career paths, hours worked) rather than systemic discrimination, feminist responses frequently dismiss such data as patriarchal propaganda rather than engaging with it. This mirrors cult behavior: evidence contradicting the narrative is not refuted but excommunicated.

Cults thrive on symbolic acts that reinforce group identity, often detached from practical outcomes. Feminism's public demonstrations—like "sl*t walks" or chanting slogans about "smashing the patriarchy"—can resemble these rituals. They prioritise emotional catharsis over coherent policy solutions, rallying followers into a frenzy that drowns out dissent. The fervour seen in feminist reactions to perceived slights (e.g., cancelling public figures for mild criticism) suggests a collective madness, where reason is sacrificed for the high of righteous outrage.

Every cult needs its prophets. Feminism has its own pantheon—figures like Gloria Steinem historically or modern influencers like Roxane Gay—who wield outsized influence over followers. These leaders often frame their personal experiences as universal truths, demanding loyalty not through argument but through charisma and moral authority. Critics who challenge them aren't just wrong; they're evil, a dynamic that stifles debate and elevates the leader to a near-messianic status. The cult-like adoration is evident when followers defend these figures even against clear contradictions or hypocrisy.

Cults promise salvation through a radical remaking of the world, often ignoring human nature or practical limits. Feminism's vision of a genderless, egalitarian utopia—where power dynamics are abolished and all disparities erased—requires a denial of biological and social realities. For example, the push to erase sex differences in sports or workplaces ignores measurable differences in strength or preference, branding such facts as oppressive rather than natural. This obsession with an unattainable ideal, enforced through shame and coercion, reflects a crazed detachment from the real world.

A hallmark of cults is their treatment of defectors—those who leave or question the faith. Feminism's response to women who reject its tenets (e.g., "choice feminists" or conservative women) is often vicious, labelling them traitors or "handmaidens of the patriarchy." Men who critique it fare worse, branded as toxic or silenced outright. This mirrors cult excommunication, where dissenters are not just debated but dehumanised, ensuring conformity through fear. The ferocity of these attacks suggests a movement unhinged, more interested in purity than progress.

Crazed cults grow increasingly paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere and tightening their grip on members. Feminism's expansion of "misogyny" to include everything from workplace banter to video game design reflects this paranoia. The movement's influence in academia, media, and law—pushing speech codes, Title IX overreach, or biased hiring—shows a cult-like need to control discourse and punish nonconformity. This escalation feeds a cycle of zealotry, where the enemy (patriarchy) becomes an ever-present phantom justifying more extreme measures.

Fiamengo's argument that feminism is a dangerous pseudo-religion finds deeper traction when we see it as a crazed cult. Its blend of blind faith, ritualistic outrage, idolised leaders, reality-denial, apostate-shaming, and paranoid control goes beyond mere ideology—it's a fevered obsession that sacrifices reason for power. While it cloaks itself in justice, its intolerance and irrationality reveal a movement more akin to a fanatical sect than a force for rational change. The danger lies not just in its ideas but in its cultish grip on institutions and minds, where dissent is sin and truth is expendable.

https://fiamengofile.substack.com/p/feminism-is-a-dangerous-pseudo-religion

"Feminism is a Dangerous Pseudo-Religion Some reflections, for International Women's Day, on the irrational and destructive nature of feminist belief

"I often joke with people that feminism has been like a born-again religion for me – that once I found it and let it into my life, my entire perspective shifted in such a way that suddenly, everything made sense – and that I feel compelled to spread that gospel."

The author of this passage from Everyday Feminism claims to be joking about her "born-again" faith. However, feminism is accurately understood not as a social science but as a perverse secular religion, steeped in mythology and faith-based claims, and exerting a malign influence on adherents' minds.

We see its results every day: the rage, the apocalyptic anxiety, the rankling discontent and festering bitterness. A recent American Family survey showed "liberal" (i.e. feminist) women to be markedly lonelier and less satisfied with their lives than "conservative" (less feminist) women, at least in part due, as the study's authors theorized, to liberal women's alienation from positive sources of meaning. No one should be surprised by such findings, for the so-called gospel of feminism is anything but good news.

In what ways is feminism like a religion?

The following serves as a working definition:

A religion is a belief system that explains the origin and purpose of life on earth, posits a spiritual or supernatural dimension to human existence, involves faith in what cannot be definitively known, and results in the radically changed understanding and behavior of the adherent.

All of these are true for feminism, but they lead not to gratitude and peace but to grievance and pique.

Feminism offers an origin story: the patriarchy, an unjust social system in which elite white men oppress all other groups. Some, though not all, feminist theories also posit an ancient matriarchy, a nurturing, egalitarian, and non-exploitative society that predated patriarchy, in which human beings lived in harmony with one another and with nature. This is a feminist version of the Garden of Eden, protected not by a deity but by a reigning "ethics of care." Here women held power and exercised it for the good of all. Some Indigenous cultures are of particular interest to feminists because they offer evidence of such matriarchal structures.

At some point in all feminist origin stories, humankind fell from grace because of male sin. Men invented and imposed a male-led structure of social relations that severed women from their power. Men also introduced other forms of hierarchical control based on race, sexual identity, and physical ability. Specific feminist theories have been developed to address these related forms of oppression. But all feminisms, regardless of their particular emphases and approaches, reject the notion that the male-led social order had any purpose other than exploitation.

According to the origin story, patriarchy imposed artificial gender arrangements, prohibiting women from their once respected roles as warriors, healers, and inventors. It restricted women to the domestic realm, forcing them to serve men's sexual, emotional and material needs. It limited their personal development to the nurturing of children, enforcing their economic and social inferiority.

In positing a matriarchal society from which women fell, most feminisms also imagine an idyllic condition of liberation towards which women can and should strive. (A partial redemption for men may come through strenuous renunciation of their masculinity.) Feminists' purpose is the bringing into being of a just world in which hierarchy will be vanquished and free women will (once again) love one another and the earth.

A mystical element is often part of the feminist story. Feminist theories almost always associate femininity with spiritual power. This power may take the form of a deep insight or caring, a profound empathy, or a superior capacity for peace. By virtue of being a woman—whatever that might mean to the theorists (the category of woman being hotly debated)—one brings gifts to the world that men do not possess.

Feminist theologian Mary Daly argued that women's interactions demonstrate a revolutionary, non-hierarchical "cosmic covenant"; radical feminist Andrea Dworkin claimed that only women, because of their lived experience of sexual violence, can imagine "the real practice of equality"; American psychologist Carol Gilligan argued that women develop a different, and superior, form of interpersonal morality; French feminist theorist Helene Cixous celebrated women's special creativity, which she claimed was linked to the fecund powers of the female body; avant-garde lesbian novelist Monique Wittig pictured woman-loving women as uniquely sexually powerful; and many popular notions stress women's capacity for empathy, problem-solving, non-violence, and egalitarianism. In contrast, masculine habits of thought and action are consistently linked with violence, predation, and dehumanisation, as revealed by the widespread use of the term "toxic masculinity."

While most feminists deny that feminism promotes female superiority, nonetheless many contemporary feminist campaigns and social movements make supremacist or quasi-supremacist claims. Arguments to increase the number of women in politics and in the boardroom often rest on the (explicit or implicit) assumption that women bring distinctive powers for good—caring about children, social sensitivity, cooperation—that men do not possess. Arguments to increase the number of men in certain occupations or sectors of society—for example, in primary-school teaching—almost never rest on similar assumptions about masculine goodness.

The striking contradiction between the two ideas—that femininity is a social construct and that women possess distinctive capacities for good—is an example of the magical thinking that characterises much of feminism.

Thus far, the parallels I have traced between feminism and recognised religions are superficial. A religious element might be found in many totalising worldviews that critique injustice and embrace utopianism. Feminism's affiliation with religion becomes more striking when one considers the operations of mind and heart involved in accepting feminist claims.

Most fundamentally, feminism requires a fervent faith in a central tenet or proposition for which no indisputable evidence exists.

Although feminists of all stripes cite irrefutable-seeming statistics about the wage gap, violence against women, sexual harassment, and many other examples of women's subordination, all of these not only fail to stand up to rigorous scrutiny but are effectively nullified by other statistics showing male suffering, including figures for male suicide, workplace fatalities, health outcomes and longevity, real wages and job status, criminal sentencing and incarceration, and post-secondary participation. If it were merely a matter of looking at evidence, feminism would have lost its legitimacy years ago. Yet no matter how many times feminist claims are shown to be false, they continue to be cited with respect by pundits, politicians, and decision-makers.

Here is the element of faith, the holding on to baseless or self-contradictory beliefs, often simply by repeating a mantra with fervor and conviction. A range of fantastical beliefs—about rape culture or gender bias in STEM or "trans women"—are embraced as real.

The matter of belief leads to the most salient cult-like feature of feminism: its marked effect on the believer's attitudes and behavior. Becoming a feminist is akin to a religious conversion in that there is a transformation in the believer's entire orientation to the world, a sense of "rebirth" or "awakening" that changes everything. Melissa Fabello spoke for many when she explained that

"Feminism has colored every single thought and action that passes through me in a day. Feminism has changed how I see myself and others. [It] has rebooted my entire being."

For the believer, what may once have seemed a heterogeneous collection of personal experiences is now organised by a single dazzling insight. Previously innocuous behaviours can be newly recognized as expressions of male privilege or internalized misogyny. All interactions are evaluated as negotiations of gendered power. This changed perception is not only applied to the world out there, but to the most personal dimensions of the believer's life.

In consequence, a profound sense of grievance wells up in the believer along with a fervent longing for feminism's Promised Land. All of the believer's former experiences are now re-evaluated in light of the ever-present reality of sexism. In cases where the conversion is truly radical, a sweeping hatred of feminism's other—the white heterosexual man—usually develops.

A young woman can write about her horror at discovering that she is pregnant with a male child. A feminist leader can argue in a national newspaper that boys' poor performance in school is the result of their privilege in the world. The blatant misandry passes for informed opinion. The satirical question once popularised by Milo Yiannopoulos, "Would you rather your child had cancer or feminism?" refers to an immediately recognizable reality for many parents, friends, or lovers, who have seen family members alienated irreparably because of feminist-inspired resentment.

There are parallels here to the religious believer who becomes alienated from non-believing former friends and family members. The difference, however, is that the major religions of the western tradition, including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism, stress the believer's continued responsibilities to family and community (especially in the commandment to "honor your father and mother"). The God of these religions is a loving Father who cares for His created beings whether they know Him or not. Such is not the case with feminism, whose goddess-spirit does not dwell in the masculine.

Feminism differs from most orthodox religions in making its Promised Land a place that must be built in the here and now, not in an afterlife, with the result that a deep urgency attends all efforts to renew the present social order. The effort must include the harsh punishment of feminism's enemies (think of feminist efforts to destroy those who argue with them online), for the feminist utopia cannot be created while the unregenerate pollute the land. Feminism contains no injunction to "Love your enemies" (or even your neighbor) and it demands immediate and ongoing reparations for the perceived injustices of the past.

Feminism thus encourages all the negative aspects of fervent religious beliefs—irrational passions, a worldview that refuses other perspectives, the demonization of non-believers—and none of the benevolence and self-sacrificing love that characterize true religions at their best. In its supremacism and justification of violence against non-believers (and 'dhimmi' status for male feminists), it perhaps most closely resembles Islam.

Feminism is closer to a religion than a social science, concerned less with truth than belief, often impervious to reason, and highly intolerant of competing viewpoints. It may be allowed a carefully circumscribed place in the public sphere, but it should never have been allowed, as it has been, to operate as an unofficial state religion."