Toxic matriarchy and narcissistic feminism
A curated look at power, control, and the shadow side of modern feminism
I began my Substack because of my experiences of woman on woman aggression.
At first, I focused on interpersonal narcissism—how it manifests in different ways depending on temperament, how it weaponises victimhood, and how it hides in plain sight in both personal and professional relationships. Since intrasexual aggression is often insecurity dressed as competition, I began exploring the roots of insecurity and how it distorts connection, regardless of gender.
My first “how to spot” articles came from personal and observed experiences of women in authority, whether officially appointed or self-appointed, who leveraged soft control, emotional reasoning, and power hoarding as tools for domination. Readers told me the patterns I described hit hard because they were instantly recognisable. They reflected universal archetypes of overt and covert narcissism that transcended gender.
It wasn’t until 2023 that I began naming what many had experienced but couldn’t speak about: female on female bullying. For many of us, it had been hiding in plain sight. We’ve underestimated the damage of unrestrained feminine aggression, especially when it’s disowned, unacknowledged, and driven by soft control tactics. It’s no surprise that so many writers have since taken up the task of exposing toxic feminine traits across individual, maternal, family, group, institutional, and societal domains. This isn’t about hating women. It’s about naming the harm so we can stop pretending it doesn’t exist, acknowledge the dirt, and finally do something about it.
Unsurprisingly, this topic gets more support from men than women. Yet speak to any woman one on one, and she’ll likely have at least one story about being mistreated by another woman. The ones who protest the loudest - those who insist they’ve only had uplifting relationships with women, or who brand themselves as tireless supporters of other women are often the ones working hard to suppress any narrative that challenges them. Some of them are likely the bullies we’re talking about.
I didn’t grow up talking politics around the dinner table. My dad was the history and politics guy, and I tuned him out. I never identified as a feminist, nor was I raised by a mother who was one. A few friends claimed the label, but that was the extent of our conversations. No one at university spoke to me about women being treated unfairly. Each of my STEM classes was nearly equally mixed. I only started noticing a greater female to male ratio in graduate school. The more skewed the discipline was toward evolutionary genetics and maths, the more men there were.
My identity shifted briefly in 2020, when I got swept into the woke vortex as a way to cope with global instability. That phase, complete with costume change and moral superiority, lasted about a year. My daughter’s eye rolls during lockdown car sermons (my pulpit of choice), escalating fights with my husband, and one spectacularly toxic collaboration eventually jolted me back to sanity. I returned to my long-held stance: I’m neither a feminist nor an anti-feminist. I don’t join cults (anymore), and I’m not interested in leading one either.
Movements, once institutionalised, stop liberating and start controlling. Eventually, they’re co-opted by the billionaires funding them. A successful movement achieves its purpose and moves on. But like any narcissist, feminism keeps rebranding itself to stay relevant and eternal - forever thirsty for attention, always returning as the Saviour of manufactured, educated female victimhood.
As a Cluster B archetype, feminism has shown its ugly, destructive side. With enough collective gray rocking and some no contact, perhaps it will slink away into irrelevance, or admit it has control issues and check itself into ideological rehab.
Until then, we need sharper tools and clearer thinking. Toxic matriarchy and narcissistic feminism1 aren’t fringe - they’re deeply embedded in how power now hides behind empathy, inclusion, and empowerment. This collection brings together a range of Substack writers whose work struck a chord, made me think, and pushed me to write more. This curation is primarily about spotlighting sharp, thoughtful thinkers offering real critiques of modern feminism and the toxic matriarchy, and ideas for how we might move beyond it.
This curation is divided into four themes:
The Afterlife of Feminism: when liberation becomes a cult
The Mechanics of Soft Control: empathy as camouflage for domination
Maternal Harm and Family Betrayal: the shadow of womanhood in private
Feminism’s Religious and Metaphysical Core: myth, madness, and moral reversal
Each section features writers whose work resonated deeply, even if I don’t agree with every point they make.
1. The Afterlife of Feminism
When a movement becomes the machine and what happens when feminism starts dominating.
Janice Fiamengo traces how feminism functions as a faith system that is irrational, punitive, and evangelical in its demands for belief.
In this piece, Steve Brule pushes beyond critique into metaphysics and explores whether feminism in its ideological form meets the criteria for evil itself.
Paula Wright charts how intersectional feminism hijacked liberal feminism, weaponised its language, and used it to infiltrate every major institution, with radical feminists unwittingly paving the way.
Tara van Dijk eviscerates the feminist obsession with patriarchy, not to defeat it, but as a fantasy object that feminism can’t let die without losing itself.
If you think wokeness is over, guess again. As a former feminist, Anuradha Pandeyexplains how it survived by infiltrating women’s minds and calling itself empowerment.
All four parts of James Mills series on Feminism as Entitlement
Anuradha Pandey shares an honest and personal exposé of her own experiences as a feminist, leaving the feminism cult, and beyond.
2. The Mechanics of Soft Control
How power hides behind empathy, and how feminism exerts influence through covert, moral, and emotional dominance.
I unpack the psychology of soft control to show how some women assert dominance while believing they’re being helpful.
Lorenzo Warby and Helen Dale on the feminization of institutions and its risk averse bureaucracies. This article specifically describes American politics and the Democratic party as the representative of feminine cruelty.
Big Sister is watching us by Tara van Dijk
Drawing on psychiatry and theology, this dialogue by Hannah Spier, MD and Carrie Gress unpack feminism as a maladaptive response to maternal neglect, emotional instability, and spiritual displacement.
This piece by Michael Woudenberg and Lisa Woudenberg dismantles the modern myth that women’s liberation means chasing the same ladder men built and asks whether freedom is really freedom if it costs you your life.
3. Maternal Harm and Family Betrayal
The dark side of mothering, generational betrayal, and the violence hidden behind a mask of virtue.
This is one on toxic matriarchy to show that not every mother is a protector, and woman to woman harm often starts at home.
Maral Salmassi delivers a raw, unapologetic account of how generational female complicity, and not just male violence, drives the psychological machinery of Islamic patriarchy at home and abroad.
Rachel Wilson discusses data about family violence, specifically child abuse by mothers. Toxic matriarchy embodied.
In this piece, Josh Slocum breaks the silence around male emotional pain, naming the asymmetries that punish men for expressing pain while rewarding women for drawing blood.
A blistering exposé by Janice Fiamengo on how feminist parenting turns boys into scapegoats for cultural guilt that mistakes emotional abuse for moral education.
4. Feminism’s Religious and Metaphysical Core
The spiritual, mythological, and esoteric dimensions of feminine agency, moral inversion, and their consequences.
Sotiris Rex flips the script on Islamic patriarchy, arguing that what looks like male domination is actually a shame-fuelled matriarchy in disguise powered by envy, enforced by men, and sanctified by feminism.
A sharp reflection by Sai Ψ and Walt Bismarck on feminine agency, emotional manipulation, and the cultural chaos that unfolds when accountability disappears.
I know I’ve missed many great articles that offer a different perspective than what’s here. Let me know what should be on the list.
Thank you for reading and for considering the many ways we can hack narcissism —here, there, and everywhere.
Which article hit you hardest? What patterns have you seen in your own life?
Toxic matriarchy refers to systems ie. familial, cultural, ideological, where feminine-coded control is exerted through emotional manipulation, social exclusion, covert aggression, and dominance.
Narcissistic feminism is feminism without a relational ethic. It demands performance over principle, allegiance over dialogue, and cloaks entitlement in the language of empowerment.
Hack narcissism and support my work
I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.
While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting, overriding and deprogramming our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.
I’m dedicated to helping people understand all the ways narcissistic traits infiltrate and taint our interpersonal, professional, organisational and political relationships, and provide strategies for narcissism hackers to fight back and find peace.
Here’s how you can help.
Order my book: The Little Book of Assertiveness: Speak up with confidence
Support my work:
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I have been reading these critiques of feminism on Substack, and it does seem a common theme is emerging here. I think Tara van Dijk is an interesting writer.
My objection would be that feminism, like socialism, is not a coherent ideology but merely a flag that anyone can wave. In objecting to it, I believe we need to be specific for that reason. Not everyone who claims to be a feminist can articulate their connection to its founding principles.
Nevertheless, the fingerprints of post-Marxist academic feminism are all over queer theory and 'sex positivity', and the consequent harms to actual women.
My concern is that the heterodox backlash to feminism obscures the fact that violence against women and girls remains real, particularly within cultures which never adopted Western liberal feminism. I try to remember that when choosing what to write about.
Appreciate the inclusion and you taking the time to put together a review.