Adrienne Matei’s article in The Guardian discusses the “womanosphere,” an informal network of online creators promoting normative femininity shaped by anti-queerness, white supremacy, fundamentalist Christianity, and traditional maternalism. This movement is linked to authoritarian agendas, like Project 2025, which seeks to undermine women’s rights and roles established by historical feminist victories.
Matei references historian Claudia Koonz, who highlights how women in Nazi Germany were instrumental in perpetuating state ideology, particularly through housewife-centric media. This echo of historical authoritarianism is seen in contemporary U.S. discourse, particularly among conservative evangelical circles, where women’s roles are confined to submission and motherhood.
The Trump administration’s policies, including pro-natalist incentives and the rollback of reproductive rights, align with these themes, suggesting a revival of viewing women’s bodies as state resources. Matei draws parallels to Joseph Goebbels’ 1933 speech praising women’s domestic roles, illustrating how authoritarian regimes often rely on women’s labor at home to reinforce their ideologies. The idea persists that women’s most significant contribution lies in motherhood, with modern implications for social policies and reproductive rights that particularly affect women of color.
Ultimately, the article argues that both historical and current movements treat women’s domestic roles as foundational to sustaining state power, demonstrating a cycle of leveraging jingoism, dominionism, and religious nationalism to control women’s autonomy and societal contributions.
