Anna Bey’s Strange Brand of Feminism
The bizarre philosophy of an ‘elegant’ woman that men love to hate
There’s something about Anna Bey. A Swedish girl who seems to have come from a fairly inauspicious background, she has risen to become a well-known lifestyle sub-lebrity. It’s hardly an uncommon occurrence these days. There are plenty of low-rent influencers to be found offering the same advice repackaged with linen sheets or a spritz of lavender water on your pillow case, but Anna Bey offers something a little different.
Her basic philosophy is that the key to a better life is to embrace elegance. Elegance in clothing, elegance in action, elegance in mind. When we embrace this way of life, wholeheartedly, everything else flows, and our life becomes elegant.
As a person who spends a lot of time attending aristocratic balls (because books) I found this philosophy intriguing. I looked a little deeper into Anna Bey and here’s what I found:
- She claims to be on a mission to make women’s lives better;
- She claims to be feminist;
- Men hate her.
The basic idea
Anna Bey, for anyone who doesn’t know, is basically a lifestyle coach. She believes that when we set a certain standard for ourselves in our lives, we end up in a better place. She does this by embracing “elegance”. If we keep our eye on the prize of living an elegant lifestyle and never deviate, we will live an elegant lifestyle.
Why elegance? I get the impression it is about safety. There’s obviously a huge safety net that comes along with money, and money and elegance tend to go hand in hand. Further, in the upper-class society that one may set their eyes on to obtain elegance, there is a rule book. Rules make people feel in control. If you follow the very explicit rules you might end up living in a world of cool breezes and drinks on little silver trays and big yachts and no alarms and no surprises.
This all sounds fabulous. Where do I sign up? Well, at one of Anna’s Bey’s websites. She has several which all come with their own tip-sheets on how to break into the upper class. She will tell you where to shop, what to wear, where to rent, who to talk to and where to holiday.
Fantastic. Anything else?
Well, yes. Once you get there, in that glittering room full of rich people, you don’t want to make a fool of yourself. That’s where Anna Bay’s online finishing school comes to the rescue. For only $300 USD, she will tell you how to sit, stand, pour champagne, pronounce your words, choose your conversation topics, pick the appropriate outfit, know when to visit, when to leave, what not to do or say, and on and on.
Ms Bey will, for a fee, hold your hand through the entire process as you “level up”, become the best version of yourself, and try to insert yourself into this safe, shiny world. But Anna knows, just like Jane Austen knew, just as we all know, a woman who is not born into that class is not staying in that class unless she marries into it.
Anna Bey tells us over and over that high society tends to go one of three ways:
There’s the aristocracy, and, quite rightly I think, she tells her viewers, don’t even bother. They don’t need you, they don’t want you, they will tolerate you and then marry amongst themselves. I essence: don’t waste your time.
There’s the trashy new money which she strongly advises her “ladies” stay away from. They’re the guys with the flashy cars and the bachelor lifestyle and they will use you and move on. Good advice, Anna.
Her money, so to speak, is on the less showy but still fabulously wealthy man. Sure, he’s probably looking for arm candy too, but he will marry his arm candy and treat her with respect. This is where her “feminism” comes into play.
The good
Anna Bey’s rule is that a woman should always be independent and never need a man. She should have her own friends, her own hobbies and her own interests which she should spend a significant amount of her time on. Further, she should have her own career. So far so good.
Anna teaches her students about the kind of men they should avoid. If he messes you around, ditch him. If he is rude to you, ditch him. If you’re not a priority in his life, ditch him. She says, it doesn’t matter how rich a man is — if he doesn’t care about you, he’s not worth your time. Again, all very reasonable advice.
Anna also has plenty of videos on the kinds of things women should look for in a man. He is ambitious. He is caring. He takes care of himself and his partner. He treats his partner with respect and she treats him and herself with respect.
This is all, honestly, perfectly sound advice. Until we start to dig a little deeper…
The bad
The first accusation generally levelled at Ann Bey, who wants to live a healthy, wealthy life, and help other women do so via the security of a happy relationship with a wealthy man, is that she is a “gold digger”.
To be fair, she has advised women that even if their partner is really a good person who loves them, if he’s not ambitious enough, if he’s not chasing the money, then move on.
Ouch.
Why is this? Well, in her philosophy, men should be taking care of women. Your partner may love you and contribute 50% to the household just as you do, but given that men have (and have always had) an unfair advantage over women in society, he should contribute, financially, more than 50%.
This isn’t particularly outlandish. Men still earn more than women. In their lifetimes, men will earn on average 1 million dollars more than women. Men still get the top jobs. All those billionaire bankers she wants you to aim for? The vast, vast majority are men.
In addition, even if a woman achieves a career of this type, if the couple want children it’s the generally the woman’s finances and future employability that take a hit. There are all the basic complications of pregnancy and childbirth that come first, and after that, almost always, most care of the family falls to the woman. Again, men are raking it in while women are not.
This all makes sense. If it’s an equal partnership, the partner who has more due to an unfair advantage shares so it evens out and everyone is taken care of. Sharing 101. Okay. But there’s more.
Ms Bey states that men, or at least the kind of men she wants you to marry, expect a certain level of beauty and attention from their partners. She makes no secret of the fact that these men want arm candy.
Getting your teeth replaced every decade so they’re lovely and straight and white is expensive. Buying virgin Russian hair for your hair extensions, applied by top hairdressers, costs a regular fortune. You’re going to want a bit of plastic surgery done, even if you’re naturally gorgeous; ageing isn’t a good thing here. Your clothes will need to be top of the line, appropriate for any occasion. A suit, a ballgown, drinks with the wives — you have to look the part and it costs money. You need to be hot! You’re going to have to go to the gym and work hard there every day. On top of all of this, you’re going to need to be interested, interesting, sexually available and supportive. This last bit, in addition to everything else, means you don’t have as much time to work. You still have your job that makes you interesting and independent of course, but you’re not going to be earning as much as your man.
Meanwhile, what’s this banker doing all day? Well, he goes to his job and comes home to his beautiful wife.
It’s an exchange. The way Ms Bey seems to see it, the man should be aware women don’t just naturally exist in the way she has described. If you want that “perfect” wife, you must make a financial allowance for her to be that way. She believes it’s only fair that the man pays for all outings, the rent, cars, etc, and on top of that she should receive a stipend. Spending money to keep her beautiful. Basically, she believes that the work of “being an ideal female” should be monetised if a man wants to be with a woman like that.
If you’re a man who does not want to pay for your wife to look like this, you need not apply. The men she’s talking about know as well as the women she’s talking to, this is the deal.
In a way, it’s logical. It’s not my sort of thing but these aren’t my sort of people. Then her philosophy goes a little deeper. And a little more haywire.
The very bad
Anna Bey believes there are basic biological reasons that the above is the correct way for men and women to behave. In a nutshell: men are hunters, women are gatherers.
Men need to go out into the world and hunt for money.
Women would rather gather shoes in their lady cave. Um. You know what I mean.
Men are more visually oriented so it’s vital to him a woman be beautiful.
Women are more emotional so we don’t value looks as much as the safety a caring and successful man can offer.
No, it’s fine, go vomit. I’ll wait.
Are we good? Let’s keep going.
Anna Bey carries these ideas over into her fashion and deportment advice, in that women need to embrace their “femininity”. She seems to believe that society has made women unnatural and hard and they need to come back to a place of soft delicacy, because that is the natural order.
If all men were caring and protective of women, financially, physically, and emotionally, women would never have gone down the path of wearing baggy jeans and oversized sweaters. We would all be thin and beautiful and cinched at the waist to attract the primitive eye of the male of the species because he is a slave to his beast as much as women are all helpless princesses deep inside, for all their side-hustles and witty conversation and nice nails.
If women were allowed to be truly feminine, if men would lift their game a bit, well, it would all be a bit more Jane Austen. We would be sitting around having tea and fainting while they all go out hunting, before we all get dressed for a ball and do it all again tomorrow. This is exactly what Jane Austen was fighting against.
Oh, and LGBTQ? No, sorry. You don’t get a look in here. Masculine men and feminine women marrying each other is the end of the line with Anna Bey.
So why do men hate Anna Bey?
No, sadly, not because of the above painfully sexist notions of masculinity and femininity.
“Gold-digger” is the number one insult men seem to sling at Ms Bey, but is she a gold-digger? Not at all. First of all, she’s worth between $1–5 million all by herself if you believe Google. She doesn’t need to dig for gold.
A gold-digger is with a man for his money and no other reason. Anna Bey actively advises against being with a man just for his money. Her “high calibre” male is judged on his personality as much as his bank account. Make no mistake, that bank account is vitally important — it means success and safety — but she has never once, to my knowledge, advised women to prioritise money over a loving relationship. Yes, she advises women move on from a good man who isn’t ambitious, but she expects them to move onto a man who is just as good, but wealthier.
Her number one rule is that a woman should set a high standard and never deviate from that. Be the best and expect the best in return. If a man isn’t the best he can be, he’s not at the level of a woman who’s the best she can be. Anna Bey is teaching women that they can and should expect better from men.
The idea of women raising their standards seems to upset a lot of men. But why? Because many men still seem to think they have a right to women, as though they are a commodity.
There are the class of men that resent Anna herself for stating publicly she would never date less than a millionaire, as though that should matter to anyone else what she chooses to do, and then there are the men upset by her influence. What happens when more women want to date kind and successful men? Does that mean suddenly negging and ghosting/love-bombing won’t do anymore?
Actually, yes.
Is she worth listening to?
While I don’t agree with any of Ms Bey’s outdated ideas on the biological nature of men and women, and while I think advising women to rip their teeth out and have them replaced with fakes to look pretty is awful, awful, irresponsible advice, there are a lot of women who need to hear that it’s ok to expect a respectful relationship. It’s okay to walk away at the first sign of disrespect, because abuse goes hand in hand with disrespect. It’s ok to have a high standards.
The sad fact is, the cards are still stacked against women in our society. Whether it’s earnings, glass ceilings, childcare, basic sexism in its myriad forms, women are still searching for a safe place.
Anna Bey will never be a feminist icon by any means but I think it’s worth taking a look at what drives her and women like her to search for safety in limitless money and in the arms of wealthy men. I certainly can’t resent her for wanting that security.
Anna Bey’s philosophy is a fascinating look into a very long history of sexism and the ways women have been forced to fight against it throughout history. It suggests we have not come as far as many of us wish we had. That said, I believe her advice comes from a good, if warped place. I also believe it should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
