The Feminist Paradox: A Thought Experiment

This isn’t a manifesto. It’s not even a fully formed argument. It’s a thought experiment—an invitation to step outside the ideological frameworks we take for granted. My goal isn’t to preach but to spark something. To loosen the mental chains that keep us locked into old paradigms and start clearing a path through all the noise.

And I want you to join me.

Of course, we haven’t had true “safe spaces” for a long time—at least not online. But that doesn’t mean we can’t reclaim them. Maybe it’s time to take these conversations offline, to sit down with neighbors, friends, or even people who challenge us, and have the kind of candid, respectful discussions that have been lost in the anonymity of the internet. Online has, indeed, become our collective road rage.

But let’s start here anyway.

The Feminist Paradox

Feminism, at its core, aims to challenge oppressive systems. But here’s the problem: it still operates within patriarchal structures—systems built on hierarchy, competition, transaction, and, when necessary, violence. Instead of dismantling these structures, feminism often fights for a higher rank within them.

Intersectional feminism attempts to address some of these issues, but I still see an underlying pattern: competition over cooperation. Better in theory than in practice.

Let’s break it down:

👉 Success is still defined by hierarchy. Instead of rethinking power, feminism often focuses on helping women climb ladders that are still built on domination. What if we built something else instead?

👉 The workforce became a reinforcement of capitalism, not a reimagining of it. When women entered the workforce en masse, we had a chance to create something different—more cooperative, more communal. Instead, we doubled down on transactional relationships.

👉 Radical dualism leaves little room for nuance. In many spaces, feminism has become polarized to the point where alternative perspectives are dismissed outright. This leaves no room for complexity, evolution, or even dialogue.

👉 Competition still reigns over cooperation. Progress is too often measured by individual achievement rather than collective well-being or systemic change. Not only that, but feminism is aligned with liberalism, which is currently doubling down on individualism. I have witnessed far too many feminist influencers encouraging women to leave their imperfect husbands because they leave their socks on the floor or because they don’t act in the way women have been conditioned to act. The conditioning is the actual problem, and it is born of the patriarchy.

We need to be moving in the direction of community, not away from it. Expand the nuclear family rather than break it down until we are just individuals depending on a centralized global government, managed by psyops and surveillance.

👉 Validation is sought from the very institutions that perpetuate inequality. Instead of creating alternative models of power and leadership, feminism continues to look to corporations, governments, and academia for approval and legitimacy.

👉 It reinforces division. In practice, feminism often frames the conversation as women vs. men, rather than recognizing that both are subject to (and sometimes complicit in) the same overarching systems of control. This prevents broader community building and allows larger, more insidious forces to maintain power.

If the framework stays the same, simply changing who holds the power doesn’t change the game.

Yes, fighting for equal personhood is critical. But real transformation won’t come from swapping out the players—it comes from dismantling the structure that keeps the game rigged in the first place. There will never be true equality in a patriarchal system for the same reason that you can’t have a house without walls.

Beyond the Spectrum of Acceptable Debate

Noam Chomsky once said:

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

What if feminism, as it currently exists, is part of that spectrum? What if we’ve been debating within a framework that ultimately reinforces the very thing we claim to resist?

I don’t want to “fight” anyone over this—I want to think through it together. Where do we go from here? How do we create something beyond the structures we’ve inherited?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.