When ideology wears a lab coat, question everything.
I grew up hearing about theories and ideologies without paying much attention to the difference—until I found myself surrounded by people who can’t recognize a woman as the adult human female and get offended if you dare say that a feeling doesn’t make you Russian, a singer, or a woman.
So, I decided to study. Not only do I not mind doing so—I actually enjoy it. From the theory of relativity to Nazi ideology, there are plenty of examples that make it clear we’re talking about two completely different things. Not just in subject matter, but in method and purpose. And the conclusion is obvious: a theory and an ideology are not the same thing—not even close.
This distinction isn’t academic nitpicking or rhetorical styling. It’s decisive. On it depends, to a great extent, whether we are able to think critically or just repeat slogans. A theory seeks to understand reality. An ideology seeks to mold it according to a pre-established vision. One explains; the other prescribes. And that’s where the problem begins: when we confuse the two—or worse, when the word “theory” is used to smuggle in ideology under a false academic cloak.
A theory is built on observation, analysis, and the willingness to be proven wrong. It doesn’t aim to convince, but to understand. It may be wrong, but it doesn’t lie—it remains open to revision, like any scientific model: humble, and sincerely willing to correct itself in pursuit of truth. An ideology, by contrast, begins with a belief about how the world should be. It doesn’t start from facts—it filters them. It doesn’t aim to understand, but to justify. It isn’t open to debate—it entrenches itself in dogma.
This distinction—so basic and necessary—has been intentionally erased in recent years by those who built one of the most effective rhetorical tools of our time: so-called “gender theory.”
Calling it that is a strategic move, not an academic one. It’s not a theory in the scientific sense, nor in the classical philosophical one—not even in the rigorous sociological sense. It is not verifiable, not falsifiable, and has no empirical structure. It’s a postmodern ideological construct—an offshoot of structuralism, cultural studies, and a distorted appropriation of certain feminist ideas—that seeks to reinterpret social and biological reality through new linguistic and moral frameworks.
Unlike classical radical feminism, which focused on sex-based oppression and maintained a structural critique grounded in material reality, this ideology shifts the center to “gender” as a subjective and fluid category, detached from the body and biology. Its strength lies not in logical coherence or empirical testing, but in political usefulness: it serves to colonize institutions, rewrite language, and block dissent under the guise of academic legitimacy.
The cultural engineers behind this movement knew that theories carry authority. Calling an ideology a “theory” isn’t just sloppy—it’s a tactic. By labeling it as such, they managed to install it in academia, legislation, media, and education as if it were scientific. But it isn’t. It’s not an objective attempt to explain social roles—it’s a moral and normative framework designed to impose a specific worldview. In short: pure ideology.
One of the most effective maneuvers was to replace the concept of “sex” (a verifiable biological fact) with “gender” (a subjective cultural construct). This was no accident. By eliminating biology from the equation, everything becomes a matter of opinion. And if everything is debatable, then whoever controls the discourse controls reality. From there, the definitions of man, woman, family, violence—and most worryingly, mother—were rewritten.
But this goes beyond a conceptual misunderstanding. The so-called “gender theory” hasn’t just colonized academic spaces—it has also contaminated movements that once had solid theoretical foundations, like liberal feminism or Enlightenment-era feminism. Those earlier feminisms fought for legal equality, individual liberty, access to education and property—measurable goals that could be debated with reason.
Today, much of institutional feminism has been hijacked by an ideological agenda based on vague and unmeasurable concepts like structural patriarchy, symbolic violence, or non-binary identities. It no longer seeks reform through reason but through resentment, envy of the womb, and linguistic engineering.
This confusion is no accident. It’s the result of a carefully crafted strategy: to redefine the framework of public debate so that anyone who questions the dominant ideology can be labeled a reactionary, a fascist, or a denier. And as many dystopian novels warned us:
when language is captured, free thought becomes subversive.
The case of “gender theory” is just one example—but a paradigmatic one. It hasn’t prevailed because it better explains reality, but because it has been politically useful. And it’s winning (for now) not through strong arguments or some greater good, but through its ability to disguise itself as science, as progress, as social sensitivity.
From an epistemological standpoint, a theory will always stand above an ideology—not because it’s necessarily right, but because it accepts the risk of being wrong.
Ideology never takes that risk.
That’s why it’s dangerous when it masquerades as theory: it shuts down thought in the name of a fabricated “truth” engineered to be untouchable.
As we’ve already said, whoever controls language controls thought.
And taking it one step further: whoever controls thought, controls action.
What we now call “gender theory” has become one of the most effective tools in the cultural conquest of public discourse. An ideology dressed up as theory—one that has infiltrated institutions, corrupted debate, and forced rational feminism into a sentimental and politicized drift, one that has replaced the political subject of feminism: the adult human female.
The result is calculated confusion, designed to rob people of the words they need to defend what should be obvious:
That sex exists.
That children and their mothers are not ideas or feelings.
That neither theories nor ideologies can erase us from our spaces or our reality.
And above all: no one should have the power to accuse us of hate simply because we disagree with their plans for humanity.
While they attempt—Machiavellian as ever—to claim the moral high ground and the sole authority to define what counts as “hate,” it’s on us to defend ourselves against this brand of social engineering, no matter how it's dressed.
Because even when it shows up in Little Red Riding Hood’s disguise…
the claws give it away.
Painted or not, claws are still claws.
Isabel Salas
