There’s a widely circulated narrative circulating among conservatives today. The gist is this: by 2026, the United States will be failing families. Young people are tying the knot less often than in earlier generations. Births are down. A widening gender gap persists, particularly among Gen Z.
Recent polling indicated that 53 percent of Gen Z women identify with the Democratic Party, compared with 35 percent of men in the same generation. The depth of political polarization has become so pronounced that it complicates dating for young people. Even those who marry and have children face challenges: affording housing, caring for aging parents, and even covering basic expenses like gas and groceries. The United States is experiencing what many describe as a “loneliness epidemic,” with a large segment of Americans—especially a notable share of young people—reporting feelings of isolation. We appear to undervalue the work done at home, even as the need for unpaid labor to support families, the elderly, and communities grows more urgent. This narrative strikes a chord because it rings true: every ordinary American recognizes it. What’s missing is a clear explanation for why this is happening. What is driving this national malaise?
Some have pinpointed the culprit. It’s the women. Specifically, the working women.
Anti-feminism has existed parallel to feminism for decades: the two have formed a kind of yin and yang in the long-running debate over the proper role and rights of women. In its 2026 incarnation, anti-feminism can be viewed as a spectrum. At one extreme are the extremists who advocate measures few would accept—such as undoing the 19th Amendment. Moving toward the center, anti-feminism targets the “girlboss,” the high-achieving, career-driven woman who prioritizes professional success over hearth, home, family, and community.
There is a consistent argument here: America would be better off without her “girlbosses.” Is it a good one?
This latter stance has gained traction in more mainstream circles. Earlier this month, Inez Stepman, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, wrote about “The Myth of the Independent Girlboss,” arguing that “the girlboss model is incentivized to the exclusion of more traditional paths, such as relying on a husband’s single income, which are penalized by our tax code, our antidiscrimination laws, our immigration policy, and our culture’s ethos.” While acknowledging “the millions of women [who] create real value in the economy and deserve their paychecks,” Stepman laments “the wild proliferation of ‘email jobs’ and administrative compliance roles … positions disproportionately occupied by women.” In March, conservative podcaster Katie Miller asserted that “Feminism was used to push women into the labor force to undermine the foundation of the American family. Motherhood is the true biological destiny for women.” In January, author Carrie Gress argued in a new book that feminism, in all its forms, clashes with Christian morality. And back in October, writer Helen Andrews contended that the surge of women in the workforce results from a rigged system; “It is an artificial outcome of social engineering, and if we remove the bias it will collapse within a generation.” According to Andrews, businesses, academia, and similar institutions suffer because “female modes of interaction are not well suited to achieving the goals of many major institutions.”
These anti-feminist arguments are not identical, but the mainstream variants share a clear throughline: American society is harmed by many of its women in prominent roles—especially in elite HR and academic positions. (To be precise, there is a distinction between anti-feminists who would like to see far fewer women in the workforce and those who critique different strands of modern feminism—though the two groups do not always overlap.) The core claim remains: America would be better off without its “girlbosses.” Is that claim sound?
Critics sometimes label anti-feminists as hypocrites: Miller, Stepman, Gress, and Andrews all occupy high-profile roles that have benefited in part from their public opposition to feminism and “feminization.” I don’t share that critique; advocating for people whose lifestyles you don’t personally embrace is not inherently wrong.
The central problem with the anti-feminists is that they often make little effort to reckon with the real costs of what they advocate. The foremost cost is poverty. Building and maintaining a family in America today is expensive. Most mothers work because that is what is required to balance the household budget. Not long ago I spoke with a mother who stays home with many children, while her husband earns modestly. She sometimes must choose between the grocery bill and paying for gas to visit her mother. She doesn’t regret her family’s choices, but she would be the first to admit that it is incredibly difficult. (Even among the upper middle class, raising kids today is costly.) Why condemn moms who go to work to ease that burden?
Male jobs can still be subject to macroeconomic factors regardless of what the ladies are doing.
Poverty is not the sole threat to the ideal of the traditional family: fragile social safety nets also loom large. A well-off family can keep mom at home without excessive worry about what would happen to dad, provided they have solid protections—life insurance, disability coverage, and the likelihood that mom could re-enter the workforce if needed. But middle- and lower-income families often lack such backups. If dad works as an independent long-haul trucker and lacks comprehensive health or disability insurance, a serious illness could force a rapid and painful adjustment for the family. If dad falls ill and must stop working while little children are at home, adapting to the crisis becomes daunting. Preparing for retirement, illness, or old age can be a formidable task when only one parent earns. When two earners are the norm, there is more financial security, and households that rely on a breadwinner and a homemaker recognize they are taking a meaningful risk—even if they think the arrangement is worthwhile.
To give anti-feminists their due, I approach their arguments in good faith: many seem intent on protecting women in traditional family setups. Scott Yenor, who chairs the American Citizenship Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, has argued for policies that enable businesses to support traditional family life by hiring only male heads of households, or by paying a family wage. But this perspective ignores the larger economic forces shaping work for both women and men. Anti-feminists tend to focus on elite occupations—such as the rising number of female lawyers or women in prestigious academia. Yet whatever impact these developments have on high-status roles, they do not explain why many blue-collar men struggle to land well-paying jobs. Instead, men appear to be the ones losing ground as the economy shifts away from manufacturing and construction—traditionally male domains—toward health care, a field long dominated by women. Even when the workforce was predominantly male, the Great Depression happened. Male jobs remain exposed to macroeconomic forces, irrespective of what women decide to do.
In other words, even if we eliminated all gender studies departments in colleges tomorrow, that would not help a middle-aged man working at a brass plant in Ohio that recently announced it would shut down and relocate jobs to Asia. Fewer women in the C-suite will not reverse globalization, automation, or other broad economic trends that pressure male wages. It’s not feasible to rescue families wanting a breadwinner/homemaker division of labor without confronting the actual root causes of the decline in male pay. The problem isn’t the girlbosses. It’s largely China and robots.
Indeed, a major critique I have of anti-feminists is that they impede policy gains for parents at home. In my advocacy for homemakers, I’ve found it especially difficult to persuade centrist and center-left lawmakers to back proposals that help stay-at-home parents, for fear that these policies are a Trojan horse aimed at pushing women back into traditional domestic roles. There are many practical steps we could pursue to assist these families, such as encouraging corporations to hire at-home parents who want to return to work, reforming Social Security to better protect homemakers, or adjusting our 401(k) framework to better safeguard “traditional families.” Yet progress on these ideas is hampered when the debate is framed as protecting stay-at-home moms or forcing “girlbosses” into roles they don’t want. Even reasonable measures can lose steam when they get swept up in a larger culture war.
Family life necessarily involves tradeoffs and compromises.
Surely anti-feminists are right that modern American society does not sufficiently honor the work done at home. As we confront declining birth rates, the aging of the population needing support, and eroding community ties, it is clear that we will need some reckoning with the value of work that does not appear in GDP. Yet forcing this reckoning by attacking girlbosses is a dangerous move. Creating a false dichotomy that pits women in paid careers against women at home will not fix the problem.
After all, the boundary between these spheres is not clear-cut. Many women oscillate between work and home depending on family needs; a mother might take years off to care for infants, rejoin the workforce when the youngest starts kindergarten, and later step back again as grandparents require care. Similarly, many stay-at-home moms also take on paid work at night or on weekends. I recently spoke with a mother who cares for her children during the day but works as a waitress after her husband returns home. This income helps with extras and provides a personal outlet beyond caregiving. We happened to be having this conversation at the restaurant where she waited on me while I drafted an essay, with my husband putting our kids to bed after a day of homeschooling. We both agreed that even though kids are wonderful, it’s nice to have other things in life too.
Can anti-feminists truly account for women like us? Perhaps we pass their test because we shoulder a lot of childcare, but let me be candid: I do less laundry, prepare simpler meals, and keep the house in a looser state because I devote time to writing. The family still depends on me, but it comes with the cost of other tasks—like locating matching socks or finding the car’s registration papers. I persist in writing after the kids are in bed because I want to. Family life inevitably involves compromises, and a prudent mother recognizes that flexibility around everyone’s needs—including her own—is essential to keeping household labor functioning smoothly.
My sharpest critique of anti-feminists is that they’re, in fact, shaping the experiences of young conservative women in meaningful ways. Liberal-leaning young women, to be sure, are not as directly affected, but conservative young women face a more acute pressure.
Conversations with mothers whose daughters attend conservative religious high schools and colleges reveal a persistent hostility to “girlbossing” that spills over into the social climate these girls inhabit. One mother recounted how her teenage daughter at a small religious high school encounters murmurs of “repeal the 19th” from some boys—an outlook that feels dispiriting. A Hillsdale Collegian op-ed titled “Sexism isn’t based or trad.”, written by a female student who embraces Traditional Latin Mass and dress, describes campus sexism as something she has encountered less in theory than in lived experience. She notes that she has heard peers argue that women are intellectually and creatively inferior to men. It’s a vivid portrayal of anti-feminism in the wild, no longer just online but entering everyday life.
Ultimately, the problems anti-feminists identify are real, but their villain is not.
Again and again, I hear from younger women that dating in this environment is especially challenging, and that navigating their place within anti-feminist discourse is hard. In many respects, it can feel as though anti-feminists—who benefited from doors opened to prestigious, flexible careers and domestic life—are now working to close those doors to the next generation. If I were in college today, I’d likely see many anti-feminists as having achieved success in both professional and family life, and then trying to pull up the ladder behind them.
The anti-feminists’ stark, black-and-white view—women in careers are suspect and homemaking is superior—offers little guidance to the younger generation seeking a life partner: the ability to coexist. My husband and I recently celebrated 22 years since our first date. We met when I was 18 and now we are in our early forties. When disagreements surface in our marriage, it always takes two to work through them. There is no easy victory in a good marriage, no clean split of who is right. The goal is to navigate the multitude of inevitable problems with patience and humor. It is hard to teach young people this when Andrews, for instance, casts “cohesion” and “empathy” as traits uniquely feminine. Relationships demand hard work to understand the other person’s perspective and substantial compromises to function well. It isn’t inherently feminine to discuss difficulties with your partner, but too many young men are being taught otherwise.
Ultimately, the problems anti-feminists identify are real, but their villain is not. It’s unfortunate that they remain capable of making matters worse by frightening the young with a bogeyman—or, in this case, a bogeywoman.
