According to most quantitative studies, the stereotypical image of a conspiracy theorist as an ‘unwashed, middle-aged white male’ is wrong (Uscinski, Parent 2014: 73). Most studies in psychology and political science find no evidence that gender has any impact on belief in conspiracy theories, which directly contradicts this stereotypical image. Rob Brotherton summarises the psychological research on conspiracy theories and states that neither gender nor age nor education seem to have a significant effect on a person’s belief in conspiracy theories (2015: 10).
– ‘Conspiracy theories and gender and sexuality’, in Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (2020), p. 292
Conspiracy, then, becomes a metaphor for larger structures at work. As is the case with Melley’s concept of agency panic, conspiracy becomes a scapegoat, an enemy that can be blamed for structural problems and developments which are otherwise out of the individual’s influence. The agency of the individuals – in this case the agency of women – is perceived to be threatened by societal structures. However, in order to address and discuss this issue, someone needs to be the scapegoat that can be blamed. For Friedan and Wolf, this someone is the patriarchal system itself. In fact, Melley’s concept of ‘postmodern transference’ can be fruitfully applied to their texts (2002: 63 [italics in original]). According to Melley, postmodern transference is one of the two key components of agency panic. When agency panic arises, vast organisations or systems are treated as if they were individuals, assigning to them individuality and motivation (2002: 63). Moreover, the individual’s agency is transferred to the larger organisation or system, which can now act instead of them (Melley 2000: 41). This is exactly the case in these feminist texts: They treat patriarchy as a conspiracy to articulate their anger and frustration about the situation of women in society. In this way, the patriarchal system is imagined as maliciously acting against them and intentionally robbing them of their individual agency.
Obviously, this conspiracist language cannot adequately capture the real mechanisms of oppression, since societal structures and historical developments cannot be reduced to the actions of individual people. Peter Knight calls this the ‘impossibility of naming the problem in an unproblematic way’ because ‘there is no language adequate to capture both the necessity of holding people responsible, and the knowledge that history is larger than the work of any group of individuals’ (2000: 140). The metaphor of conspiracy has to fail because a system or societal structure cannot be treated as if it were a group of individuals.
However, the metaphor allows these feminist writers to analyse a structural problem as if there was somebody to hold personally responsible. The tropes of conspiracy enable them to address ‘questions of blame, responsibility and agency, but also … link the personal and the political in one transcoding metaphor around which a women’s movement might coalesce’ (Knight 2000: 118). The rhetoric of conspiracy, then, fulfils the important function of creating a group identity for those opposing patriarchal oppression. According to the familiar logic of ‘us-versus-them’ that underlies all conspiracy theories, it posits the women as the victims of a malignant plot, and the men as the conspirators and victimisers.
One important rhetorical strategy these accounts of patriarchy share with conspiracy theories is the insistence that there are no coincidences. In fact, the ‘figuration of conspiracy articulates otherwise uncoordinated suspicions that daily life is controlled by larger, unseen forces which cannot be the result of mere coincidence’ (Knight 2000: 117]. Thus, just as conspiracy theorists point out connections unperceived or dismissed as mere coincidence by the official version to argue that events are secretly orchestrated by sinister groups, the feminists actively write against notions of coincidence and contingency and ‘read coincidence as signs of conspiracy’ (Knight 2000: 119). During her investigation of dissatisfaction in middle-class housewives, Friedan, for example, ‘wondered if it was a coincidence’ only to conclude that ‘when [she] saw this same pattern repeated over and over again in similar suburbs, [she] knew it could hardly be a coincidence’ (1966: 224, 226 [italics in original]).
Another example of the conspiracist rhetoric these texts employ is the motif of brainwashing, which featured prominently in many American conspiracy theories during the post-war period. The concept is used by Friedan in order to conjure up an image of ‘women as innocent victims of a scientific process of mind manipulation by external forces’ (Knight 2000: 120). Friedan evokes the image that women are brainwashed by professors, psychologists and the media into accepting their role as housewives rather than pursuing a career (1966: 120). The male conspirators, who all work in the media, educational institutions or as doctors, brainwash their female victims into accepting their ‘right’ place in society. Friedan uses the term ‘brainwashing’ to refer to this process, but she puts it in quotation marks. She argues that ‘the feminine mys- tique … “brainwashed” American women … for more than fifteen years’ (1966: 174). By putting the term ‘brainwashed’ in quotation marks, she achieves exactly the effect that Knight describes as treating patriarchy as a metaphorical conspiracy. She uses the terms and rhetoric conspiracy theorists would use, but she also distances herself from them at the same time through the quotation marks, implying that she is only using this language metaphorically.
More directly, Naomi Wolf claims that the ‘rituals of the beauty backlash . .. [are] literally drawing on traditional techniques of mystification and thought control, to alter women’s minds’ (2002: 88 [italics in original]). The images of ‘mystification’, ‘thought control’ and ‘mind altering’ are simply other terms for brainwashing. The beauty myth, which is her version of the feminine mystique, becomes personified. She ascribes direct agency to the beauty backlash in utilising techniques reminiscent of brainwashing in order to control and oppress the female population. She even explicitly states that this ‘comparison should be no metaphor’ (2002: 88). As a consequence, her analysis comes even closer to a conspiracy theory than Friedan’s. Even though she still shies away from directly calling the beauty myth a conspiracy, she explicitly casts the oppression of women in terms historically associated with conspiracy theorising.
Nevertheless, overall the conspiracy in Wolf and Friedan remains a metaphorical one. But, there are of course many texts that are far more explicit and direct in their accusations of conspiracy. VVe may not know for sure yet if men are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories than women, even though much qualitative research and some quantitative studies suggest as much. But scholars agree that gender and sexuality are of central importance for many accusations of conspiracy across time and space […].
– Ibid., pp. 296-7
Brotherson, R. (2015) Suspicious minds: why we believe conspiracy theories, London: Bloomsbury.
Friedan, B. (1966) The feminine mistique, New York: Dell Publishing.
Knigth, P. (2000) Conspiracy culture: from Kennedy to the X Files, London: Routledge.
Melley, T. (2000) Empire of conspiracy: the culture of paranoia in postwar America, London: Cornell UP.
Melley, T. (2002) ‘Agency panic and the culture of conspiracy,’ in P. Knight (ed.) Conspiracy nation: the politics of paranoia in post-war America, New York/London: New York UP, pp. 57-81./p>
Uscinski, J.E. and Parent, J.M. (2014) American Conspiracy Theories, New York: Oxford University Press.
Wolf, N. (2002) The beauty myth: how images of beauty are used against women, New York: HarperCollins.