It’s becoming harder and harder to separate reactionary dog whistles from general self-care or self-improvement content online. The way these narratives are normalised digitally is excessively gendered and insidious. The rhetoric targeting men and women is different, but both achieve reactionary outcomes: reminding women that their purpose is to be subservient and constantly focused on curation of the self, and encouraging ‘alpha’ masculinity, power, and dominance in men.
The thing about sexism is that it is not dying; it is changing and evolving into a more palatable form that’s weaving its way into our modern discourse and social narratives — captured by corporations, and enabled by algorithms. The new conservatism relies on a system of constant self-patrolling.
If you look at ‘alpha male’ improvement content, you’ll often find a pattern; none of them feature women explicitly, but consistently degrade women through subtle messaging. For example, Ashton Halls is a trending male influencer, whose content focuses on the typical big three for any self-proclaimed ‘alpha’ man: working out, American Psycho-esque morning routines, and God. He recently posted a morning routine video that went viral. While most people have downplayed it as a meme, the subtle degradation of women he and so many others integrate into ‘alpha male’ content is being passively consumed by millions and does have a very real risk.
Hall’s content seems to be focused on self improvement, with gym progress shots and daily vlogs that seem, if incredibly obnoxious and embarrassing, otherwise unproblematic. While his ridiculous lifestyle is not necessarily a major problem, it’s the close-up clips of him smashing his Saratoga water bottle and the camera cutting to a nameless, faceless woman’s hands as she cleans his mess up that is concerning. His completely illogical morning routine, where he wakes up at 4am and she serves him breakfast at 8am is not necessarily the problem; it’s the camera focusing only on her hands as she serves him. Perhaps that’s her preference, but it’s a subtle way to degrade her by limiting her personhood to something that only comes into frame, visually and functionally, for servitude.
The problem isn’t as simple as the idea that young boys are being indoctrinated by figures as cartoonishly misogynistic as Andrew Tate. Instead, it’s the casual but pervasively misogynistic way these men treat and tokenise women that solidifies a subconscious message: this is how women should occupy your ideal life; this is a good way to interact with women; this is what a woman is for. It’s clear from the popularity of videos like these, especially as they skyrocket in views amongst young boys, that the manosphere has evolved from a fringe, evidently sexist subculture into something more mainstream and terrifyingly subtle.
Reactionary narratives in content that is catered to women takes a very different form, but shares the same message: a woman’s purpose is to be seen and marketed to men, by men, for men. The form it takes is, arguably, even more insidious than the subtle nature of the unseen women in male self-improvement videos. For women, in recent years, excessive self-obsession with beauty and femininity is rebranded as self-care. It is there as a sexist reminder that women’s value is only in our adherence to the regime of beauty. Every single elaborate ‘self-care’ beauty trend or narrative circulating recently is ridiculously all-consuming. Brands are no longer selling products but selling lifestyles and visions: the ideal woman, the ideal morning routine, the ideal vanity setup. One has to look no further than the headache-inducing continuous scroll of short-form ‘feminine’ content on any app: the ‘Morning Shed’, where women lather on layers and layers of gel, cream, face tape, and other concoctions before bed so they can wake up, ‘shed’ it all off, and appear beautiful; ‘Face Gym’, where women contort their facial muscles in spasm-esque ‘exercises’; endless beauty, skincare, and makeup hauls; plastic surgery before-and-after videos. It never ends. Whether it’s drugstore 50-step makeup routines or luxury five-step skincare routines, it all relies on consumption and constant self-patrolling.
Explicitly harmful narratives, like the body trends and promotion of disordered eating in the 2000s, have just been repackaged in slightly softer, more subtle tones. This does not mean reactionary and damaging rhetoric no longer exists. If you type the words ‘My Ideal Self’ into the TikTok search bar you’ll be greeted with a slew of posts all focused on how you can become the best version of yourself; a self-care motto for 2025 filled with ‘Literary It Girls’ and ‘Pilates Princesses’. These new, trendy archetypes are the repackaging: a way to make these ideas more socially acceptable because they fit into a guise of self improvement, whilst disregarding the fact that these aesthetic goals are unattainable standards that need excessive wealth, time, and privilege in order to be maintained. These narratives all share the same end goal, which is to get women to worry endlessly about how they look. Beauty as an end goal will always be inherently fascist, because there is no definitive end. When women are busy worrying about how they can market themselves, they are easier to control.
Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it’s all a male fantasy: that you’re strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.
Margaret Atwood warned us of this. When you chase the attainment of ‘ideal’ woman status, through these endless beautification rituals — even when you think you’re doing it for yourself, these concepts are not birthed in a vacuum — you’re almost always buying into a reactionary narrative.
On the contrary, ‘alpha male’ content places a significant emphasis on what men can do — what they’re capable of doing physically and mentally, not just what they’re capable of looking like and buying. It is not just aesthetic, it is action. Women, however, are almost incorporeal; entirely aesthetic. The ‘Literary It Girl’ is smart, but that’s not where her value lies. It’s in the fact that she is not only smart but she’s hot too. If ‘Literary It Girl’ wasn’t attractive, she would not be a goal, no matter how intelligent she is. The idea is that intelligence in women is only valuable if you are also attractive.
These ideas are not new. We have seen them before. The idea that the dream woman, or your ideal self, is the woman that can “do it all” — be hot, be smart, be docile but interesting but also compliant — is the same neoliberal, second-wave feminist rhetoric that is used to suppress women in household labour. The girlboss supermum archetype: she works full time but she also looks after the kids, keeps the house clean, and is flawlessly put together at every P&C meeting. Look at any primary school class and the amount of children who describe their mum as a type of ‘supermum’, and the husbands that describe their wives as self-sacrificing primary caregivers. Considering most of them, in this economy, also hold down jobs, it is not a cute gesture of appreciation but rather an unrealistic expectation. Additionally, this archetype is heavily racialised; non-white mothers, often marginalised and lower income, have historically always had to parent and provide but are widely ignored in this discourse. Nevertheless, mothers should not be expected to be able to do it all. The fact that this sexist division of labour is still, to this day, not only viewed as normal but marketed as empowering and feminist, is a way to maintain inequality, denigrate the care economy, and keep taking women’s unpaid labour for granted.
The issue with online content peddling reactionary narratives exceeds just beauty and consumerism; there has also been a concerning resurgence of anti-intellectualism and infantilisation geared towards women. Content and humour based on the premise of ‘bimboism’ plagues our society by not only spreading the narrative that women are too stupid to understand complex topics, but also feeding directly into marketing ploys for companies who profit off of the alleged silliness of being a girl. The phrase “I’m just a girl!” is used to death, to the point where it can downplay women’s intelligence and pre-assume incompetence, despite the fact that Gwen Stefani’s band ‘No Doubt’ uses the song to critique a patriarchal society.
“Oh, I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite, So don’t let me have any rights.”
Rhetoric against women working is also becoming worryingly more common, echoing along the lines of “this is who you’re asking to work”, with a picture of some tiny defenceless animal. Though not commonplace yet, it is certainly occupying a larger portion of our feeds. Whether this is organic or algorithmically targeted is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things; these narratives are already eclipsing the digital world. Clothing that reads ‘too pretty for a job’ or ‘too hot to work’ being advertised, in this political climate, is just another way for companies to spin the same conservative ideals about beauty as an end goal.
It doesn’t even matter if any of these are (allegedly) ironic or individually humourous. The issue is that our current political climate is not one in which reactionary narratives about women, in any form, should be echoed. Women’s rights are being increasingly stripped away. Now is not the time for anti-intellectualism or this specific brand of anti-work rhetoric.
In America, Trump’s administration is currently working on a bill that could make it harder for married women to vote — at this point, anything which contributes to the infantilization of women further is dangerous. The narrative that we’re ‘too hot to work’ is not a fuck you to capitalism, as some may claim, but a way to encourage women to renounce financial independence. As long as late-stage capitalism exists, women should be financially independent, capable, and determined. Financial independence for women is incredibly important; it is still relatively new, and yet is already being taken for granted. It wasn’t until the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, less than 50 years ago, that women were allowed a mortgage or loan without a male guarantor. Most of our mothers were children at this time. Financial dependency is one of the leading causes that makes it harder for women to leave abusive relationships; it is another form of control, and fascism thrives on control. In Australia, one in four women have experienced domestic, family, or sexual violence; continued National Action Plans have yet to address the growing femicide crisis. In light of this, embracing rhetoric promoting helplessness is not fun nor meaningless, but rather a way to fall susceptible to financial dependency on men, and continue the cycle of gender oppression.
It’s imperative that we resist the allure of ironic sexism, even if it becomes thinly veiled in fun and sarcasm, because it is ultimately very damaging to our rights and treatment as women. It has not even been three generations of full financial independence for women, and we are already seeing the normalisation of reactionary narratives masquerading as irony which, in conjunction with the rise of the far-right worldwide, should concern all women.
By indulging in these narratives, as a woman, you play the game they want you to: separation is key for control. Fascism relies on the separation of self and state order to continue to thrive. When we operate as a digital aesthetic and shell of a real person, crafting our self-actualisation based on beauty standards and internalising marketing, we become easier to control. When we engage with infantilising content, we normalise the silent degradation of women’s intellectual capacity in a world which is already loudly implementing sexist policies and failing to stop violence against women. We lose our ability to think critically beyond the self, to reckon with the state and consider issues within our government, our media, and the world.
The normalisation of reactionary narratives relies on distraction and misdirection. Reactionary content targets men and women through a subtle self-patrolling system masquerading simply as self-care, ‘aesthetics’, consumerism, and anti-intellectualism. When you are too busy focusing on the strict fulfilment of gender norms to reach an aesthetic ‘ideal self’ you do not have the time nor energy to realise how reactionary this content and behaviour is. You are easier to control when preoccupied. We should question why these narratives have become more prominent online, and look at who stands to gain from the relentless self-obsession that plagues your participation in archetypes and aesthetics.
