“No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” So said feminist “philosopher” Simone de Beauvoir in a 1975 interview. Today, two generations later, this spirit lives on, too — only, with a 2025 spin. The message is now, you see, that if you tout history’s default, stay-at-home motherhood, you’re basically a “fascist.”

In fact, if you’re encouraging this maternal norm, as President Donald Trump does, you’re much like the Nazis! “So avoid that, ladies,” is the message. “Be a good cog in the machinery and stake out your space in an office cubicle.”

This appears the thesis of a recent article in the left-wing Guardian. Its title reads, “From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home.” (And weak men rely on their cats and computer fantasy life?)

“Fascist regimes pushed narratives of domestic bliss, yet relied on women’s unpaid labor,” the piece’s subhead elaborates. “In the US today, ‘womanosphere’ influencers promote the same fantasies.”

What’s the “womanosphere”? It is a traditionalist media ecosystem paralleling the manosphere but, of course, geared toward females. Commentator Milt Harris, writing at Canada Free Press, presents its key themes and messages, writing:

Now, the Guardian article’s author, left-wing radical Adrienne Matei, doesn’t like this traditionalist sense of virtue one tiny bit. And she devotes a barrel of ink to drawing her parallel between fascism and the Womanosphere/Trump Axis. Here’s a representative example of her claims:

Racially selective population growth was core to the agenda of such nationalist, fascist regimes as Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy.

… Similarly, the Trump administration touts pronatalist rewards, such as a $1,000 government-funded investment account for new babies, and has discussed others, including a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women with six children.

For the record, Matei is wrong about WWII-era Italy. Authentic fascism did not, contrary to myth, have a racial agenda. Mussolini himself called Nazi racialism “arrant nonsense” and stated, “National unity has no need of the delirium of race.” (It was only later, approximately 15 years into his reign, that Mussolini mirrored some Nazi race policies, pandering to Hitler to enhance his position.)

Matei is correct in a more general sense, though: Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany did enthusiastically embrace pro-natalist policies. But then there’s this:

So did Marxist mass-murderer Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.

In fact, he even banned abortion.

So pro-natalism is a communist policy, then? Not exactly.

Roman emperor Augustus Caesar also adopted pro-natalist policies 2,000 years ago. He offered tax breaks and social privileges for couples with multiple children. He also imposed penalties, such as inheritance restrictions, on unmarried or childless individuals.

And today, countries as varied as Poland, Hungary, Greece, modern Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, and Finland also have pro-natalist policies. Finland! My, fascism is just running wild.

The point is that the stay-at-home-mom standard is the historical norm. It has been essentially universal since time immemorial, until just recently. Even today, though, up to 50 percent of the world’s women are “stay-at-home” moms.

Another universal is that people have recognized that if your group stops procreating, it disappears. Hence the norm of encouraging pro-natalism via governmental policies — or, more commonly, social “policies” — anywhere and everywhere. Hence the ancient biblical injunction, “Be fruitful and multiply.” So as to Matei’s theory, you could also point out that Hitler and Mussolini encouraged healthful practices for their populations.

And, therefore, pro-health policies, all the rage among today’s Left, are fascist.

Matei has a habit, though, of labeling norms she doesn’t like as fascist. For example, she also identifies as “fascist values” things “such as gender hierarchy and duty to the nation.” Yet as to the former, love it or hate it, patriarchy has been the human norm, not a fascist exception. And “duty to nation”?

Yes, well, that notorious fascist Democratic president John F. Kennedy did say, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

National-strength imperatives aside, there’s an even better reason to encourage what’s now called stay-at-home motherhood (once known as just “motherhood”).

That is, it’s a higher calling.

And no one explained this better than happy-warrior philosopher G.K. Chesterton. In a 1910 book chapter not surprisingly titled “The Emancipation of Domesticity,” he wrote of a mother’s role:

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

So why does the above elude so many feminists? Well, actually, it may enrage more than elude. Coming to mind here, too, is a lesson from The Catcher in the Rye. At one point in the book, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, gleans insight into criticism leveled at his writer brother, D.B. He realizes that much of it could be driven by envy of D.B.’s success.

I also became aware of this phenomenon as a youth — through experience. When people see others exemplify or enjoy a good, one they can’t or won’t cultivate for themselves, jealousy can result. They may then demean the good in question in an effort to rob it from others. Of course, they will instinctively pretend as if the good is a negative to sanitize their motives. But in their hearts reigns the green-eyed monster.

In many feminists’ cases, they either can no longer have kids or selfishness precludes them from accepting the responsibility. (This isn’t to say they’re always aware of this motivation, however, as self-delusion is a common human fault.) So they shower a highest female calling with the lowest female condemnation. Call it the Revenge of the Spinster, aka modern feminist theory.