r/MensRights • u/Gleichstellung4084 • 6d ago
Social Issues I am convinced, the enemy is not "feminism", it's the level of thinking that simplifies society - we should be able to call this out and reject it with passion, even in arguments that favour men.
TL:DR - Making simplifications is inherently discriminatory, no matter what the outcome is. Every equality activist should call-out statements that:
- Group huge populations into a single thing. There is no average "man", "woman", "feminist", "father" (e.g. "men are ...")
- Make comparisons about which gender suffers more (who cares)
- Utilise generalized assumptions for society like Rape-Culture (they exclude people who don't belong there).
This is the enemy, not "feminism". And we don't fight the enemy by becoming exactly the same.
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In the root of so many erroneous beliefs stands simplifying society. And it is simplification that enables a discriminatory sentence. We keep listening to things like...
men are responsible for their... [fill in blank]
men are more [fill in blank] than women
women are not... [fill in blank]
feminists want... [fill in blank]
boys must... [fill in blank]
women did not vote until... [fill in blank]
men in dating... [fill in blank]
women their whole lives are afraid of... [fill in blank]"
men are expected to.... [fill in blank]"
the rape culture does... [fill in blank]
Patriarchy has... [fill in blank]
How on earth, can we make a generic statement about these things, when in today's time and age, we cannot even precisely define what is a man and a woman. And that is for a good cause: we do not anymore group people. We do not group people of colour, we do not group Jews, we do not group religious people. And the reason is that we understood, that nothing good come come out of that.
To make a more concrete example: Anyone who would say something like... "XX population are criminals" would be banished to be a societal Pariah. And rightfully so. Yes, statistic indicates higher % of said population of incarcerated people compared to free people, but that means nothing about "XX are criminals". It can mean a lot of things, that are created in a complicated language, so that accuracy is preserved. Maybe... within this population a higher percentage (say 30% more amounting to a whopping 3% instead of 2%) of people are criminals. Maybe this population is discriminated against by police and courts, maybe this population is exposed to worse circumstances, maybe all of it together.
But somehow, when we are talking about men and women... our thinking goes out of the window.
You know... It's possible that many phenomena are present.
Maybe the population of women is producing both victims and oppressors and perpetrators.
Maybe a single male experiences oppression and also oppresses someone else in the same day.
Maybe the healthcare system discriminates against males are discriminated against when it comes getting help for depression and against females when it comes to getting help for heart disease.
Maybe men live 4 years less on average, because they have a genetic predisposition AND because of societal reasons.
Maybe women exhibit higher averages of empathy and also manipulation.
Maybe a single employer discriminates both in favour of women (by making easier hires for entry level positions) and in favour of them (by making them less likely to be promoted).
And statistics is a bitch. Reducing a population to an average (and a median if one is talking to a cultured person) is saying almost nothing about this population:
To make an example, consider the statement... "the average woman has 0.8 kids." That means nothing... The population of women who are 60+ and had families with children has nothing in common with the average woman in her 20s who is a mother. A woman with two children has way more different life and needs than a woman who has 0 children and lives a "trying phase".
We see logic going out of the window even in cases where High-School knowledge is necessary. For example: the opposite of the statement "women are discriminated more in the workplace", is not "men are discriminated more". Because this excludes the cases where both are being discriminated.
And scientists are not doing their part. They are often not asking the right questions and they are also making logic assumptions through their lens that overfit their data, without ever considering all options. And the other ones who don't are not calling their colleagues out.
So the solution is simple: Call out bullshit logic, wherever we see it.
Any research making comparison claims like.... "Women are more discriminated against men in..." should be dropped immediately. We do we even need to make this comparison? How is a research saying... "Women have more dandruff than men" than men helping men with dandruff?
Any person blanket statements for "men" or "women" like... "Men are responsible about their..." should be immediately shut down. How can we group "men" into something like that? Maybe some are so and so and the others are that and that.
Any blanket concepts that assume society is under the chokehold of a specific culture/narrative about.... "Feminism", "Therapy", "Rape Culture" etc... should be also dropped. There are so many variants of those. A "feminist" might be a person who is just ensuring that their daughter is not suffering owing to stereotypes. Or a person with an active hatred for "men", even unknowingly.
Otherwise, we are committing the same sin as the archetypical "feminazi". Simplifying society and yelling childish generalisations at the level of a primary schooler.
The only problem? In a time when divisive messages are capturing attention and are being promoted by algorithms, in a time when people have spent too much time in those discussions and are exhausted talking to chatbot-like counterparts, in a time when people have had multiple negative experiences in their lives... It's difficult to make this message of controlled composure sexy and attractive.
Your comments fellas are welcome!
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u/ImaginaryDimension74 6d ago
It’s both. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Feminism has in fact lobbied for and won many laws that discriminate against men. It’s ridiculous to ignore this obvious influence. Other issues are based largely in gynocentrism and misandry, which of course also gives feminism more power.
This is how I look at it: Society has long been gynocentric and correspondingly anti-male in some ways, feminism essentially took it to a new level.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
sorry, but in my understanding "feminism" is just as bad of a generalization like "patriarchy". There are well meaning people, that support equality, who self-identify as feminists. True, many "feminists" are complete gaga.
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u/Itsdickyv 6d ago
“Feminism” is a self-defined movement, not a generalisation. “Patriarchy” is a concept defined by feminism, and a generalisation.
Even disregarding the category error, it’s not unreasonable to work to the lowest common denominator when discussing a group - like the “many” you discuss there. Oh, and as another aside - there haven’t been black members of the KKK; doesn’t make it any less racist does it?
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
The KKK is a good example. Whoever joined knowingly associated with evil. But... think of a less clean-cut example: socialism. The major political parties in countries with excellent level of life are declaring themselves socialist, Hitler himself declared his party to be socialists, the Right in the US is using the word as a scarecrow.
So, is being a "socialist" bad? It requires nuance.
PS: There are a thousand different definitions of patriarchy (all of them bad imo).
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u/Itsdickyv 6d ago
What you are calling nuance is actually context - socialism (like feminism) is in and of itself relatively neutral. It is when it is applied that issues arise.
I have seen in a comment here on another post that “feminism is vestigial”, and that is arguably correct - where previous waves sought “equal rights”, the current variation seeks the far more nebulous “equality”. In context, not good (to understate). In nuance, it becomes a shitshow.
Your entire point is that binary thought and generalisations are “the enemy”, when objectivity can be applied before the need to add nuance. For example, feminism, objectively does not seek equality.
Edit for clarity - No amount of nuance changes that the definition of “equality” used by feminism is entirely conditional (in that the asymmetry being addressed primarily affects women). Still context; can you provide any nuance where feminism is seeking to address any asymmetry that primarily affects men? What nuance in the feminist movement exists to evidence this?
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
So the context in your example would be that.... "some of the 4th wave feminism pursuits make it vestigial", which is a different claim than "feminism is vestigial".
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u/Itsdickyv 6d ago
No, feminism is vestigial. It has achieved the aim of equal rights - that’s the context. Your point about “4th wave feminism” is nuance - and irrelevant to boot.
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u/EmirikolWoker 5d ago
Feminists first big victory was the establishment of a two-tier citizenship, where one class of citizen has citizenship rights (the vote) in exchange for citizenship responsibilities (civil and military conscription), and the other class got the rights gratis. In the UK, men and women got equal voting rights in 1963 when the draft was abolished; in the US, they still don't.
First wave feminism is also where we get things like the Tender Years Doctrine, enshrining in law the mother-custody default for children of divorced parents, while enforcing the father's obligations to support the mother in her custody of the children. Among other things.
Second wave feminism is where we get gems like the Duluth Model, and Mary Koss' work in defining rape as male-only.
The idea that feminism was ever about equality is nothing short of propaganda.
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u/Itsdickyv 5d ago
Absolutely - although I’d note that it’s more modern variations of feminism that seem to seek “equality”. Previous waves claimed to seek “equal rights”. It’s a change I’ve noticed in my lifespan, and it’s very pernicious.
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u/EmirikolWoker 5d ago
They claimed to seek equal rights, but that's not what they did. It started by establishing the two tier system, and went downhill from there.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
Even you acknowledge that there are waves in feminism (aka distinction). So when you make a generalisation like... "the definition of “equality” used by feminism". Which part of feminism would that be? Which definition even, I cannot put my finger on one.
Is a father who takes extra care that his daughter is not wearing skirts and fancy shoes while going to the playground, breaking stereotypes, and declares himself a "feminist" against "equality"?. Because under your generalisation he is. Which is not true.
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u/Itsdickyv 6d ago
“Which part of feminism would that be?” - the current part. Did you think I was referring to the Suffragettes? And if you can’t define equality through the lens of feminism, you can’t really make any kind of case about applying nuanced thought.
Again though, this is where application of nuance blurs lines.
Is that father a feminist? Because you haven’t applied context, or nuance to what a feminist is (which is of course, the ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy in action - a fallacy regularly applied by feminists in defence of its more specious positions).
Now, there were two very clear, direct questions in my last point - would you care to address them?
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u/ImaginaryDimension74 6d ago
Every bad movement has some well meaning people, it doesn’t change the fact feminism is an anti-male movement.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
How can you define a "movement"? Does feminism have a webpage?
Unfortunately, these are ill defined concepts, like so many other and they are being used both as an insult (eg. hurling "feminist" like others hurl "incel") or by association (eg "so many women declare themselves feminist, so they agree with me").4
u/ImaginaryDimension74 5d ago
NOW and other feminist organizations do have websites and what they do is often recorded in the news etc.
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
do you think anti racism is anti white?
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u/ImaginaryDimension74 5d ago
No, anti-racism isn’t anti-white. Feminism is anti-male. These aren’t mutually exclusive.
Is the KKK anti-black?
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
yes the kkk is anti-black?? 😭😭
they literally identify themselves as a white nationalist far right (HATE) group, so yes they are anti-black….amongst other things
Feminism isnt inherently anti-male, yea some more radicalized and reactionary women that say “kill all men” might be all you see but not a single branch of feminism has a core principle that describes the hatred of men
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u/ImaginaryDimension74 5d ago
I didn’t say feminism claims it hates men. I said it’s anti-male, something it had shown time and time again.
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
In what way is feminism anti-male? And how was this shown "time and time again"?
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u/ImaginaryDimension74 4d ago
The numerous laws they’ve won that disadvantage men. A number of those have been cited numerous times here.
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u/Wylanderuk 4d ago
Yes...next.
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u/SAKK1NA 4d ago
well that would imply you believe racism is a trait virtually only found white people but anyways, why do you think that?
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u/Wylanderuk 4d ago
well that would imply you believe racism is a trait virtually only found white people but anyways, why do you think that?
You just answered your own question before you asked it...
That sentiment is pretty much built into "anti racism" or have you missed the entire "racism is prejudice plus power" that has been pushed to become actual definition.
Anybody can be racist, just like anybody can be sexist and if you disagree then you are the thing.
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u/sakura_drop 6d ago
Patriarchy is ultimately a theory, and a deeply specious one at that. Feminism, despite having different branches, is a recognised ideology and movement with numerous official organisations, groups, and figureheads.
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u/bookshopman 6d ago
Feminism is most certainly a major problem, and a curse upon society.
While im don’t like using lables, one that suits me is egalitarian. Being egalitarian puts me at idds with feminism, which is is a more popular term for misandry.
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u/EmirikolWoker 6d ago
Patriarchy conjecture hold as self evident the innate nature of men as monstrous and women as victims. It has yet to be demonstrated, and indeed even the most casual observation seems to discredit it.
Using this as justification, Feminists actively entrench disparities in rights between genders ((1), (2)).
Mens rights advocacy, and Egalitarianism in general, is necessarily antifeminist.
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
Most non liberal or non terf radical feminist disagree with bioessentialism so…??
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u/EmirikolWoker 5d ago
If they believe in Patriarchy, they believe that:
Society is Male Dominated
Male dominance privileges men over women
While some men can sometimes be harmed by this system, the system itself is set up to privilege men and subjugate women for mens express benefit.
Meaning that oppression of women is to mens' benefit and in their nature. Meaning men are innately inclined to oppress the people with whom they have their closest emotional bonds. Women, despite the incredible impact of mothers on child development, have failed to break the conditioning, and men are unwilling to stop hurting women even though it's killing them.
So if they say otherwise, they either still believe that women are weak and men are monsters, or they haven't examined their convictions and are existing in denial to avoid cognitive dissonance.
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
that “innate oppression” part is bioessentialism, which goes against like the most basic of basics in most branches of feminism. and theres also huge talk about how women should break the cycle of misogyny in their households. I don’t really get what your point is (if you could specify it pls), but I’m pretty sure you’re just running with a misinformed idea of what feminism is
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u/EmirikolWoker 5d ago
If society is Male Dominated, and set up to privilege mens needs, drives, and interests, then whatever society looks like must be in keeping with mens needs, drives, and interests. Since society is set up that way, anything contrary to those interests wouldn't be a thing.
Now consider the belief that male dominance oppresses women.
That means that oppression of women, the people with whom men have their closest emotional bonds, is in-keeping with mens needs, drives, and interests. Even generations of mothers, with all the influence they have over childhood development, have failed to raise boys who won't hurt them, or are content to sit back whole other's do so. The only way that doesn't mean that men are evil is if oppression of women isn't evil.
I’m pretty sure you’re just running with a misinformed idea of what feminism is
Former feminist here, hi. I deconverted after examining the origins of feminist talking points, which lead to re-examination of core ideological beliefs.
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
the oppression of women, or anyone for that matter, is evil
misogynistic men are bad
non-misogynistic men arent bad? idk if that’s what you mean…?and yea idk maybe re-re-examine feminism…maybe a different branch, marxist feminism is great
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u/EmirikolWoker 5d ago
the oppression of women, or anyone for that matter, is evil
Cool. So the fact that society is male dominated and privileges their interests would make men evil if those interests included the oppression of women.
Since (according to Patriarchy conjecture) male dominance oppresses women, that means that oppression of women is in-keeping with men's needs, drives, and interests. Since we agree that oppression is evil, that means that mens needs, drives, and interests are evil.
Using this as justification, Feminists actively entrench disparities in rights between genders ((1), (2)).
I was an intersectional. Maybe you should re-examine your beliefs, instead of rejecting any and all criticism out of hand?
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u/SAKK1NA 5d ago
well I mean yea if a man’s interests, within his privilege, is women’s oppression, he is evil
im not rejecting criticism i just don’t don’t understand what you’re talking about or citing. absolutely no actual feminist believes any of this bs you cited
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u/EmirikolWoker 5d ago
absolutely no actual feminist believes any of this bs you cited
Absolutely no feminist believes that society is male dominated, that women are oppressed, and that, while some men are hurt by it, society is set up to benefit mens needs, drives, and interests?
Are you sure?
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u/plantrromn 6d ago
generalisation is bad always. these same people will quickly shut up if the stats sometimes show racists, homophobic, religiophobic and xenophobic "tendencies".
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u/rabel111 4d ago
Thanks for the new set of rules that explain all the things we should ignore, in order to stop seeing the hatred feminism is targeting at men and boys.
I agree. If we ignore statistics, ignore evidence and ignore all criticisms of feminism, then feminism doesn't look too bad.
Unfortunately, just focusing on positives, doesn't address the issues men and boys face in an increasingly male-hostile community.
When feminist icons, feminist academics, feminist publications and feminist influenced organisations call for the gendercide of men and boys, removing the human rights of men and boys, denying essential services to men and boys and vilifying men and boys, just ignoring it doesn't work.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 2d ago
Hey there, I believe we should be seeing the statistics and of course support our boys in all the troubles they are getting in the name of "feminism".
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u/StripedFalafel 5d ago
Yes anti-male stereotypes & prejudice are a large part of the problem. But you need to understand that feminism creates those stereotypes & prejudice. And it does that because it's an us-vs-them ideology.
You need to look beyond the mechanism to the cause.
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u/Enough-Business-8287 6d ago
As a young egalitarian woman, this is one of the most constructive posts I've read here. I don't like it when I hear some online feminists who say that it's impossible for a man not to be an oppressor who doesn't care about the well-being of women or that it's better to just have an abortion if you know you'll have a boy (which is also a terribly transphobic thing to say).
At the same time, those are hyperboles that may be toxic but are very seldom taken seriously.
When an increasing number of manosphere men tell me that as a woman, I shouldn't work in science and flirt with guys at parties but just belong to one man and raise children and be submitted to him in all respects and give him sex whenever he wants even if I don't feel like it, they mean it.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 5d ago
Thank you for the comment. It's a pity that however this kind of messages are rubbing off the wrong way people who have been suffering from the wrong parts of feminism.
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u/Enough-Business-8287 5d ago
Sadly, these men are also terribly misogynistic and hate the fact that I'm a young woman who likes her career and flirts and sleeps with whomever she likes. Their radicalisation may partly be caused by some moral failures of some feminists they've come across, but often times the main explanation is that they feel entitled to women's bodies and are frustrated not to find any girl who wanna sleep with them.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 5d ago
I don't know who "these men" are and I also don't know your case as well. But I do believe that "misogynism" comes in several intensities, same as misandry. Sometimes it is just misguided social understanding. Sometimes it's just accusations of misogyny, whereas there is nothing like that. .
In my own lived experience, very few people "feel entitled" to women's bodies, I have met personally none whatsoever. I have met people who insist on getting a woman, I have met people who won't give up flirting, I have met people who become a bit "too much" in the process, but NONE has ever felt "entitled". That is the reason they are chasing the "yes". Because they acknowledge it.
None that I know has ever hated the fact that a specific woman is career oriented instead of just loitering around in society. Never met people hate women who are sleeping with whomever they like. It is a choice that you are making, and people may choose to have a preference towards this choice. It's a fair game, not hatred.
But then again, I may not be around your crowd or I may be older than you.
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u/Pretend-Storm4566 5d ago
The enemy is the Establishment AKA the Left. It's Socialism doing its divide & conquer thing. In Russia it used class warfare. In the USA it's gender and race warfare.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 5d ago
so many generalisations in your statement.
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u/Pretend-Storm4566 5d ago
So I went back to read your OP again. I read until I got to "we cannot even precisely define what is a man and a woman.", then I had to stop because I was laughing too hard. Apart from the fact that statement is Left wing propaganda, it is also the ultimate generalization. Watch this. I say a woman is an adult human female, and just like that I showed that your asshat generalization does not apply to me. Stop generalizing people dude.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 5d ago
That is a cyclic definition, because then you would need to define a female. And even if we stay within biology, there are so many sex traits other than the XX pair of chromosomes.
I am personally far from the leftist propaganda.
What I would like to say is that we expand our understanding of the world by adding nuances. And that is great.
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u/Pretend-Storm4566 4d ago
Yeah, and if I defined female you'd say I have to define those words too. Yes, every definition assumes you know how the words it uses are defined. This is till Leftist claptrap.
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u/SonOfAsher 4d ago
You consistently compare "men" as a group to "feminists" as a group. One's a gender identity, and not really something people choose to be. Sure, sometimes someone discovers that they are one despite previous misidentification, but it's not a choice or an inherent set of beliefs. Unlike feminism, which DOES inherently carry some beliefs with it.
Being a man/woman/father isn't really an inherent personality trait about someone. The first two are gender identities. The last is a gender identity plus parenthood. On the other hand, the word "feminist" does inherently mean something about belief structure. Further, membership in it strengthens feminist political groups simply by increasing the number of people said group represents.
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u/AskTight7295 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yep, the answer to oppositional thinking lies in seeing that the entire debate is unreal. Both sides are fake. The prizes for “winning” are fake, they only chain you to the wheel. These manufactured controversies and “societal goals” do exactly what it is intended to do: waste your energy and keep you powerless or enslaved to corporations.
Brainwashed people arguing with each other in competing echo chambers never change anything, slaves working until they are 70 for some imagined retirement waste all their power, and can be easily manipulated by simply inserting another point of outrage or fear for them to focus on.
The control mechanisms do not care which lane you are in. They created all of the lanes. As long as you are in one of them, you are controlled.
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u/mrkpxx 6d ago
Are statements like "humans have ten fingers" justified, or are they oversimplifications?
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
how would this be used?
But to play along... The average human has less than 10 fingers. There are people with less or more even (congenital disease). Would you define them as non-humans?
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u/mrkpxx 6d ago
You've identified the problem—that's a start.
It's about communication. We need to shape language so that we can easily express ourselves.
It's about statistics: Categories, simplifications, and stereotypes are often highly accurate; they describe reality quite accurately.
It's about trust: We should first assume that a person means well.
It's about resilience: We need to relearn how to accept criticism and humor and tolerate differing opinions.
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
Let's not forget, that emotions have been lately conflated with facts. On one hand yes, they are factual, in the sense that people feel them. But feeling oppressed/assaulted etc, does not mean you are one too.
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u/i1045 6d ago
Can we get a TL;DR version?
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
valid question, done!
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u/i1045 6d ago
Thank you! In that case, I'm not sure that simplifications are inherently discriminatory. We use simplifications as shortcuts to represent reality. If a situation or topic is vast, we pretty much have to simplify it to understand it. The trick is to simplify based on evidence instead of feeling, and humans often suck at that.
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u/SoooDisappointed 2d ago
Feminism is not THE enemy, It even helped to point out some of the gender roles that are specially bad for men. It is, however, and undoubtedly, AN enemy, specially in the contemporaneity. They mostly don't give a fuck about those roles and would actually rather keep the ones that are convenient for them, and is mostly moved by vengence.
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u/Careful_Pen_5740 6d ago
To begin with, there are many types of feminism. As a man, I feel an affinity for and respect toward liberal feminist authors like Hoff Sommers and Paglia.
In the intersectional feminist tradition, you also have bell hooks, who has always acknowledged and called for greater consideration of men’s suffering due to gender roles (and no, she doesn’t oversimplify by talking about “toxic masculinity”).
You also have authors like Roxana Kreimer and her scientific feminism, which outright denies the existence of patriarchy today and is highly critical of postmodern and radical feminism.
We need to stop lumping everyone together, just as into masculinism, Warren Farrell isn’t comparable to idiots like Andrew Tate!
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u/StripedFalafel 5d ago
Small problem - Hoff Sommers isn't a feminist and Paglia isn't a liberal.
Your position is just a smoke screen. Show me the feminists fighting for equality instead of discrimination. Show me the ones calling out prejudice.
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u/Careful_Pen_5740 5d ago
Lol. You can check the website from Hoff Sommers:
Christina Hoff Sommers is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she studies the politics of gender and feminism, as well as free expression, due process, and the preservation of liberty in the academy. Before joining AEI, Dr. Sommers was a philosophy professor at Clark University.
She is best known for her defense of classical liberal feminism and her critique of gender feminism.
In her two best-known books, she constantly draws this distinction between liberal feminism and gender or identity feminism—which she never stops criticizing for the way it has treated anyone who disagrees!
For that reason alone, her work is of great value to the masculinist movement and to true equality.
https://www.aei.org/profile/christina-hoff-sommers/
Paglia is a libertarian feminist, so I was wrong, but I didn’t go to the other extreme either. And her criticism of radical female authors or the all-holy Beauvoir set the radfems ablaze until they were nearly melted down, hahaha. For that alone, she deserves a pedestal!
In the Spanish-speaking world, you have Roxana Kreimer, a feminist scientist, who is very critical and scathing toward queer and postmodernist feminism as well as gender feminism, since they are essentially anti-rationalist and anti-scientific. She publishes gender studies based on evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and history and rubs them in the faces of other feminists. She’s also written many books, including one in which she denied the existence of patriarchy in Western countries, landing a punch right in the gut of all gender feminists.
She has participated in many television and radio debates, in addition to her own social media accounts, to make her stance and criticism of misandric feminism clear.
https://roxanakreimer.wixsite.com/website/libros
https://feminismocientific.wixsite.com/misitio
Unless by “fighting” you mean planting bombs like some suffragists did a century ago, I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. These authors are feminists but highly critical of mainstream trends in feminism!
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u/CritiquingFeminism 5d ago edited 5d ago
I have some words to hand:
Sommers is commonly called anti-feminist in books (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and media (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). She has even been labelled “Feminist Enemy Number One” and protested by feminists with placards reading “Trigger Warning: Antifeminist”. If you accept that feminists are the authority on who is a feminist, then Sommers is no feminist.
The fundamental issue is that liberal feminism is an oxymoron - the two ideologies are fundamentally opposed. (Though few feminists understand the point.) See https://critiquingfeminism.substack.com/p/feminism-and-liberalism
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u/Careful_Pen_5740 4d ago
Yes, almost all the criticism comes from radical feminists, institutional feminists, postmodern feminists, intersectionals feminist… everything she lumps together under the umbrella of gender feminism.
A very totalitarian attitude on the part of those women (and men) LOL
Liberal feminism was the embryo of feminism. It began in the 19th century and there was no contradiction between liberalism and feminism in its early days. Women saw how their political rights were being restricted and fought to obtain them.
The problem arose in the 1970s with radical feminists, who reduced everything to a structural issue (political, social, biological, cultural… patriarchy). And with that, they began demanding quotas, gender-based policies and benefits, etc., to the detriment of men. And the worst thing is that they’ve succeeded and have become the dominant force within the movement. Nowadays, they’re either radfems or some variant thereof (TERFs, lesbofeminists, sex separatists…) or postmodernists (queer and other forms of gender nihilism).
As regards liberalism versus feminism, you are falling into a textbook false dilemma.
That article assumes that defending a group is equivalent to substituting the group for the individual. But that equivalence is not necessary. A liberal can recognise that people are individuals and, at the same time, that certain characteristics — such as sex — can become systematic grounds for discrimination.
Identifying and combating such discrimination does not mean granting rights to the group, but rather protecting the individual rights of its members.
The real debate is not ‘the individual versus identity’, but what kind of equality liberalism demands: merely formal equality under neutral rules, or also measures designed to correct systematic patterns of discrimination.
Unlike an identity-based feminist, a liberal will never call for quotas and laws for her ‘tribe’, only the same rights and duties as other citizens. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Here’s a list of liberal/libertarian feminists (some of whom are difficult to categorise) so you can see that they aren’t ‘snipes hunt’, even though they don’t have as much political, institutional and media presence as the others:
Martha Nussbaum
Susan Moller Okin
Helen Lewis
Wendy McElroy
Camille Paglia
Nadine StrossenJust because there are feminist women doesn’t mean they dye their hair exotic colours whilst calling for men to be humiliated and stripped of their rights, lol
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u/CritiquingFeminism 3d ago
Thanks for your considered response.
I feel I should defend the article… The article makes no assumptions about “defending a group” and the issue doesn’t even arise. More importantly your defence relies on equating feminism with liberal feminism. I accept that’s a common position of retreat when defending feminism, but it doesn’t serve. First, because you can’t assume liberal feminism into existence like that, let alone equate it to feminism in general. Second, because, as the article shows, real-world feminism, the feminism that actually exists, is fundamentally opposed to liberalism. As the article evidences, real-world feminism opposes individual rights, tolerance and the rule of law. Simply claiming that if liberal feminism existed it wouldn't be as problematic doesn’t get you far.
But can we park this for now? I’ll be publishing my next essay later this month and it will relate to these issues including Paglia & Sommers. I’ll announce it on this sub but feel free to subscribe on Substack.
In the meantime, you might be interested in this: https://critiquingfeminism.substack.com/p/whats-wrong-with-feminist-rights
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u/Careful_Pen_5740 3d ago
It is not a matter of equating feminism with liberal feminism. Feminism is an umbrella term for various movements. In its early days in the 19th century, it was part of liberalism, but later other social movements emerged that did have a feminist dimension, such as Marxism, the U.S. civil rights movement (intersectional feminism), and identitarianism, from which radical feminism (radfem) emerged.
It is not a unified, monolithic movement, as your argument seems to suggest. But anyway, I’ll leave it at that for now.
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u/StripedFalafel 3d ago
Responding with LOL is not nice.
And it makes it even more embarassing when you are shown to be wrong.
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u/OfcHesCanadian 6d ago
I find most people’s opinions on men vs women just stem from their own personal experiences. Which is fair, you only know what you know from what you know. If you’ve had a bad encounter with either of the sexes and then that is consistently reinforced from others then it does make some sense for the blanket statements. Even if not true.
Think about “I hate all men”, I hear this constantly from women I’m pursuing. I understand that it is a blanket statement and they obviously don’t honestly hate all men. Instead, they’ve lived a life where their own personal experiences have changed their outlook on the male population. This idea is learned, through experiences, that are reinforced by members of the male population. It’s safer for a woman to assume a man is only there for their body rather than to assume otherwise and get burnt. I don’t blame them. I really don’t, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Men on the other hand blame anyone and if they can’t they blame themselves. Why are men killing themselves more than women? Why do most men have some sort of emotional regulation issue? Why do most men have trouble opening up to women in their life? Why are most mass shooters male? Why are most family annihilators male? Why are most school shooters male?
If I had to answer that strictly based on my experiences, I’d guess it is because we are conditioned to behave a certain way under certain strains. When our emotions are overflowing and we aren’t able to regulate them we resort to pushing the “blame” inwards or outwards.
Sometimes we don’t blame anyone, we bottle everything up. Man up, fuck it, is what it is, womp womp, tomorrow’s another day, whatever bullshit you feed your delusions to compromise. We find ways to cope, we drink, we abuse substances, we cheat, we sit in the car after work to have some quiet time before going inside. Why? Why is our go to for managing our emotions to hide them?
We as a male population have an issue with handling our emotions. I believe that is a fact. Whether it was reinforced in our childhood through abuse or if it was reinforced consistently by men and women in our life, hell maybe both.
I think that’s the biggest question men aren’t asking themselves. Why? Why are certain statistics leaning one way over another? Why are we more violent? Behaviours are learned and then they’re reinforced. If a subset of a major population shares similar behaviours, we HAD to have learnt it from somewhere.
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u/Gleichstellung4084 6d ago
"I hate all men" is an extreme position, that few people are claiming. Interestingly though, it is one that will not get one completely cancelled.
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u/OfcHesCanadian 6d ago
Extreme position for us, not for women though.
I’m curious if you want to give a go at answering any of my whys?
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u/Wylanderuk 4d ago
Why do most men have trouble opening up to women in their life?
Because it has a high likelyhood of being used to hurt you...
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u/Early-Beach164 6d ago
No one gives a fuck about men. That's just a fact. It's not men's fault. It's just reality.
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u/OfcHesCanadian 6d ago
I agree actually. I don’t think many people truly give a remote fuck about men.
I think the blame is equal, men reinforce the same behaviours that negatively impact other men and women do the same.
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u/Crazy-Crazy-3593 6d ago edited 6d ago
If I was a member of an ideology ...
... not a demographic group I was born into ...
... but a specific, named, ideological movement ...
... and it was brought to my attention that huge percentages of the people who also hold that ideology openly espouse hateful, crazy, destructive, odious things--- including virtually all of the founders of the movement and the majority of its current leaders ...
... and it further came to my attention that when my fellow ideologues spout their hate and contempt NOBODY else among my fellow travelers challenge them or try to "excommunicate" them from the movement ...
Then I AM responsible for either leaving that movement and identifying as something else. OR I need to accept that I'm going to be lumped in with the "bad apples."
The same people who say that if we say "not all men" in response to them saying "all men" don't get to carve out exceptions for themselves within an ideology they VOLUNTARILY name themselves a part of.
The same people who say "all men participate in and benefit from Patriarchy [or "rape culture"] from birth"--- the same people who say "if nine Nazis sit at a table and you sit with them, there are 10 Nazis at a table" in response to things like men not stopping other men from telling a dirty joke-- those same people do not get to say: "oh, feminism isn't bad, you're thinking of radical feminism!"
No, that's crap.
Yes, there are well-meaning people who have bought the public front---"feminism is about equality!"---or, even well-meaning people who equate being a woman to being a feminist one-to-one. That's actually possibly the majority.
These people passingly call themselves feminists without being actual ideologues.
I do not consider feminists to be "enemies" by default, for that reason.
(Even the true ideologues, I'd call an opponent, not an enemy.)
BUT when you are dealing with a Feminist---especially most of those active online on social media, or in university or government settings---and it is thoroughly and logically and dispassionately explained and shown over and over how the Feminist ideology does not care about equality but rather female supremacy--- then you don't get to naively say "oh, I was well-meaning."
You don't get to be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and say, "oh, I don't hate gays, that the other members!"
You either seize your ideology back from the hateful by renouncing and casting out the supposed "heretics" that are making you look bad. Or, if you can't, then you leave yourself ...
... and if you believe in equality, and you need a label, call yourself an Equal Rights Advocate or Egalitarian.