In the beginning it was the incels. Seduction gurus and online preachers of a toxic masculinity (the renamed “manosphere”) capable of transforming sentimental failure into ideology. Today the other half of the mirror (and the algorithm) arrives: the feminine one. And there it is “femosphere”a digital universe of creators, coaches and communities that intercepts the disillusionment of some women towards the feminism most in vogue now and towards the failed promises of sentimental modernity.
Widely followed on social media, the priestesses of this thought have an easy time in our contemporary West – including Italy – in pointing the finger at the way in which one is a woman, considered too subordinate and not very manipulative. In short, in the femosphere it is not good to treat men as equal partners: much better as strategic adversaries.
The algorithm of disillusionment and the return to rigid femininity
«Minned in 2024 by the British scholar Jilly Boyce Kaythe femosphere indicates communities of online women who feel disappointed by the feminism of recent decades, and who from this disappointment return to a rigid idea of femininity. The worlds it includes are different, and often hate each other”, explains the writer and philosopher Maura Gancitano.
To explore this vast universe we need to start from Anglo-Saxon countries, where trends are baptized in an instant. Inside the concept of femosphere come the tradwife (contraction of “traditional wives”), who want to return to the family of the past, but also the femcel (“involuntary unmarried”), who talk about their exclusion from the love market and develop a pessimistic reading of relations between the sexes. Then the dating strategist who treat the relationship as a competitive negotiation and teach how to maximize the emotional, economic and social advantage in choosing a partner (once they would have been called social climbers).
The phenomenon is a symptom of a larger crisis: that of the progressive promise that economic autonomy, sexual freedom and individual independence would automatically produce healthier relationships and more satisfying lives for women.
For many young people who grew up in the era of dating apps, economic precariousness and social hyper-exposure, reality has produced frustration, disappointment and cynicism: there is more choice, but less stability; more freedom, but also more competition; greater autonomy, but also increasing levels of loneliness.
The business of resentment and competitive personal branding
As with any self-respecting social phenomenon, discomfort is monetized in the femosphere too. Courses, consultancy, entry into closed communities, manuals for dominating the dating market are sold. But above all – above all – we fan the flames of a grammar of resentment: a language through which to reinterpret personal disappointments as proof of a systemic truth.
«The femosphere» comments the writer and performer Gianni Miragliaexpert in web phenomena and recently in the bookstore with Acquarium (Atlantis) «reveals that we have overcome the phase in which the personal is political: it is now a tactical asset. Identity is built through opposition. Conflict is no longer an incident in the dialogue between genders, but the fuel that keeps digital visibility alive. The more you fight, the more you exist.”
And so, in this virtual battle, feminism is fueled in a digital-capitalist way between algorithms, engagement and personal branding. And from a movement it transforms into a cultural and commercial product.
“We should have understood by now,” he further analyzes Maura Gancitanojust returned to the bookstore with Narrative animals (Marsilio), «that platforms are designed to transform every speech into content that generates traffic and better captures users’ attention, with the aim of keeping them online. We continue to talk about digital spaces as neutral tools, and instead what happens is that every creator, regardless of his ideas, ends up having to put himself, consciously or not, at the service of that platform. Reactive femosphere, tradwife and femcel are also a product of this digital capitalismand in fact they have created a market niche that the platform rewards because it works.” A market niche that has the deepest roots in the USA, where gurus and aspiring gurus are very popular.
From SheraSeven to Ballerina Farm: the divas of the love market
But who are these protagonists? On the dating strategy side, the American stands out SheraSevencreator with flocks of followers on social media, nicknamed by many “the Andrew Tate for women” (Andrew Tate is a British influencer who advises millions of young men on how to be dominant males, particularly over women). SheraSevenborn Leticia Padua, builds her philosophy and her business on the idea that the relationship with men must be eminently strategic and economic: her followers learn to climb the social hierarchy, avoid “dusties” (men without money or status), focusing on wealthy partners. Her most famous mantra is “Sprinkle Sprinkle”, a formula with which she closes the advice on how to “get supported” under the motto “be smart, use your feminine power to gain advantages” (“sprinkle” means to sprinkle, as Tink does with the magic dust in Peter Pan). In short, a full-blown opportunism of the new woman who – evidently – finds fertile ground in men who accept being manipulated in exchange for a certain ego titillation.
Another is Nara Smitha domestic content star with 12 million followers on TikTokwhich glamorized cooking (and other household items) for Gen Z. Its implicit message is that femininity must be redefined in the name of luxury and beauty. And of men used only to pay bills.
Beyond individual influencers, the success of a collective brand such as Female Dating Strategy. Born as a Reddit forum and then becoming a podcast, website and autonomous community, it spreads a hyper-selective and strongly antagonistic vision of man-woman relationships. The credo is very simple: «No hookups, men must pay», or «no casual relationships, men must pay». The relationship is considered as a negotiation in which the woman must maximize value and minimize vulnerability.
The British newspaper The Timeswhich has extensively covered the femosphere phenomenon, reports the testimony of a member of Female Dating Strategya certain Savannah, for whom the rejection of the “50/50” model in the couple’s expenses counts. “If a man invites you, he must pay.” And even more cynically: “Marriage is first and foremost an economic transaction.”
On the tradwife front, i.e. those who abhor the idea that women must assert themselves with their own strength, falling instead into a traditional mother-wife figure, the ringleader is Hannah Neelemanentrepreneur and influencer with 10 million followers on Instagram (where her name is “Ballerina Farm”) who transformed rural domesticity into a lifestyle: numerous offspring, homemade bread, country life. Which then means: no hellish meetings in the office, colleagues who want to beat you, stress to prove your worth; better to go to the hairdresser, do a Pilates class and wait for the nanny to bring the children back from school. Traditional femininity, with all the comforts that a man can offer them.
The Italian context between receptive energy and instagrammable revolutions
The situation is different in our country, where the femosphere is fragmented into a constellation of micro-influencers who absorb and normalize the lexicon. They do not openly preach submission or manipulation; they talk about “authentic femininity”, “receptive energy”, “high standards”, “men in the healthy masculine”. It is a less radical and more homemade version of the American phenomenon. On TikTok depopulated Estefani Love Coach – which builds its content around the idea of “feminine energy”, and promises to teach how to “stop chasing love and become irresistible” – and on Instagram Micaela Martinis focuses on the recovery of “embodied feminine power”. In short, the search for happiness passes through the search for femininity, and above all through social media. «Even the revolution must be instagrammable to exist» he concludes Miraglia. Online, between galleries, slogans and strong thoughts that become likes, there really is room for everyone.
