Feminism

I will listen to the full video later. For now I'll just leave my preliminary two cents.

Quote

Some people are going to argue with me on this one, but I'm going to stick with this decision.

This begs the question, why did you post this? Were you hoping to get a round of congratulations? Are you trying to identify the people who agree with you and the people who don't? You're apparently trying to start a discussion, but you've also announced your complete unwillingness to actually participate in a real discussion.

You asked me, personally, to consider the points you made here. You asked me for my opinion. But why should I take the time to write a counterargument if you've already decided not to change your mind regardless of what evidence is placed in front of you? I may as well just say “I disagree.” and be done with it.

But I like you. I think you're a decent kid, so I'm going to actually consider your statements seriously and respond to them seriously. As I write this, I have 10 pitches on my desk that I need to flesh out and send to a publisher pretty urgently. I'm putting that off because you asked me to weigh in on this question. I hope you can give respect to my efforts by resisting the urge to dismiss arguments that don't align with what you already believe.

I'm going to start out by addressing your post where you put your opinions in your own words, then I'll move on to the video which, presumably, you fully agree with.

Quote

I'm going to say something. Feminists are some of my least favorite people on the planet, and here's why:

While I personally do not use the term to describe myself, referring to “feminists” as a singular group is about as smart as referring to Christians as a singular group. The word “feminism” covers a broad range of ideas and philosophies. Should all Christians be judged by the fact that some people use Christianity as an excuse to promote the death penalty for homosexuality? No, they should not.

Referring to “feminists” as some kind of monolith is nothing short of ignorance.

Quote

1. They already have their equality. Since the 1920s, women have been given a ton of equalness to men. You'd think that would satisfy them, but nope! They think everything is still unfair between men and women. I agree that men and women should be equal, but to tell you the truth, we kind of already are. They're just dragging this useless movement on for no reason.

Great strides have been made since the 1920s, it's true. At least, greats strides have been made in the west. In a strict legal sense, women are supposed to be treated the same in all circumstances.

Of course, it doesn't quite work out so cleanly. Legal changes don't necessarily lead to social changes. Modern feminsim is generally geared more towards social reform than it is towards legal reform. (Though in some cases, some feminists believe that some social reform is best served through specific legal reform, which might be argued as a good or bad route to take without necessarily disagreeing that the social inequity needs to be addressed.)

For example, lets take a look at a great TV show that I just finished watching: The Legend of Korra. It's the sequel to the phenomenal, once-in-a-generation success “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” Since the original was such a wild success, you'd think Nickelodeon would throw their full financial support behind the sequel, right? And yet the show barely got off the ground. The creators had to fight tooth-and-nail to get the show made. And even when they did, their budget was tiny. Small enough that they were only able to produce 4 half-seasons; including a clip show that they had to rush due to budget cuts. And why was this?

Because Korra, the protagonist, is a woman. And according to the Nickelodeon executives “Boys and girls will watch a show about a boy; but only girls will watch a show about a girl.” The executives believed this despite overwhelming factual evidence to the contrary. In test screenings, boys emphatically did not care about Korra's gender. They just thought she was cool.

This kind of thinking pervades our popular culture. How many TV shows can you think of that:

1. Feature a woman as the main character.

2. Are not insultingly obviously aimed at only women.

Now ask the same question in reverse. The numbers are pretty far from equal. Does that mean we need a law demanding some kind of equality on TV? Obviously not. I've never heard a single person ever suggest something like that. But perhaps we can have a conversation, as a culture, about the way we view women?

As an interesting experiment, next time you're watching a movie, try out the Bechdel test:

• Does the movie have more than one woman in it?
  

  
  

• If so, is there any scene where two women talk to one another?
  

  
  

• If so, do they talk about something other than a man?

It's an interesting little experiment you can perform in your head while you're enjoying a movie. Does failing the test make a movie bad, or sexist? NO! Some of my favorite fucking movies fail the Bechdel test. But as you start to notice that 80-90% of the movies you watch all fail the test, it does beg the question: why? Why aren't there more movies where women have real relationships with one another?

As with so many things. The individual work of art is not at fault. But when all works of art are taken together and a trend begins to emerge, it becomes evident that there's a systemic issue that we should tinker with.

(I don't want to get off on a tangent, but incidentally, this is where Anita Sarkeesian and I hit a major point of disagreement. She puts a lot of weight on the responsibilities of individual works of art to break the cycle, which I don't think is fair. I'm super not interested in discussing Anita Sarkeesian, because I really know very little about her or her views. But I think this serves as a good example of how “feminism” encompass an entire spectrum of beliefs.)

Quote

2. Their reasons are bullshit. Their reasons for doing this are complete bullshit. I don't think I need to say anything more about this.

This is the laziest fucking argument I've ever seen. Why did you take the time to write this? What purpose did it serve? Did you really think everyone who read it would instantly go “YEAH! I sure do hate all those bullshit reasons they have.” ?

I'm not asking you to be a rhetorical wizard. I know that detailed, serious discussions are intimidating. But I expect more than this from you. You're better than that.

Quote

3. Sexist. Yeah, I said it. Some people are going to argue with me on this one, but I'm going to stick with this decision. A LOT of feminists have a hatred towards men. Just because, "OMG WUR NUT EQUAL".

How many feminists do you actually know? Women or men in your life who have identified themselves to you as feminists off of the Internet? In what way have those people indicated to you that they hate men?

Personally, I know a lot of feminists. And I don't believe a single one of them hates men.

Either way it's anecdotal, and not real evidence one way or the other. But I'm curious to hear the answer.

Rhetoric gets out of hand on the Internet. We've all encountered the Internet tough guy who swears he's a marine with 300 confirmed kills, and that he's on his way to your house right now to fuck you up. This attitude takes many forms. For a lot of young boys playing Call of Duty, it takes the form of racial epithets when there are no women present, and sexual harassment when there are. When you're talking about a celebrity on social media, it takes the form of demands that a person kill themselves for releasing a sub-par episode of their podcast. And for some people steeped in Jacobin-style leftism, it can express itself as hating anybody who isn't part of an oppressed group.

The important thing to remember here is that The Internet isn't real life. People talk a big game online. They say things they wouldn't normally say. They express their views more extremely than they ever would in real life. And they do it because the Internet feels like a middle ground between reality and fantasy. Intellectually we know that there's a person on the other side of the screen, but we don't have see their body language or facial expressions. We don't have to hear the tremor in their voice or see the tears well up in their eyes. It's easy for us to turn them into a caricature of everything we hate. We know that they're human, but we don't have to face the fact that they're a person.

Quote

I have some pictures that point out a lot of flaws in this thing called "feminism" to share with you all.

This image isn't an attempt at discussion. It makes no argument, presents no evidence. It's just sass. It's a joke aimed at people who already agree with its message so they can shout “YEAH! FEMISM BLOWS” It doesn't “point out a lot of flaws.” But for fun, I'll respond to it seriously.

Essentially, the logical syllogism being presented here is:

-Women suffer in a far away place.

-Suffering in a far away place is caused by men in that far away place.

-Ergo, men here are bad people.

The idea is that this is a reductio ad absurdum for feminist arguments. The person who made the meme has taken a feminist argument, and cut it down until they reach a very simple way of expressing that argument. And, once simplified, the ridiculousness of the argument is evident.

Except nobody has ever actually made the argument that has supposedly been refuted. Never in my life have I heard someone say that men in X location are responsible for female oppression in Y location. I'm sure you could find someone making that argument, because the Internet is a big place filled with dumb people, but it's certainly not an argument that any significant portion of feminists take seriously.

Which, incidentally, makes this the very picture of a strawman argument. An intentional misrepresentation of the opposing viewpoint, so that the argument can be knocked down easily, and fool people into thinking that the opponent's argument has been defeated.

Also, it's a misuse of the scumbag teacher meme. If you're gonna use a meme, use it right, yo.

Quote

So, for the benefit of anyone who isn't from the U.S., this image is referring to American prohibition, which was a whole fucked up mess of an attempted social reform. It was spearheaded primarily by radical religious groups, which yes, were largely composed of women. Although it was nowhere near universally women. For example, the “American Temperance Society,” which was a driving force behind prohibition, was roughly half women. As I understand it, women were used as the face of the movement because they were viewed as the primary victims of alcohol abuse. The movement wanted to evoke the image of a drunkard who fails to provide for his family, or goes home to beat his wife. But just because women were the poster children for the movement does not mean that they were the only driving force behind it. It was far more of a religious thing than it was a woman's thing. (Which isnt' to understate the role women played. They played a pretty big role in enacting prohibition. Prime example: Carrie Nation).

What the image fails to mention is that Carrie Nation was arrested MORE THAN THIRTY FUCKING TIMES. She got out on bail each time because she had deep pockets. Because yeah, the rich get away with a lot. She was also a fucking nutter who literally cheered the president's assassination because she suspected he was secretly a drinker.

So congratulations, whoever made that image. You've successfully found a woman who is a bad person and proven precisely nothing about feminism.

And that bit at the end about women being coddled, handled with kid gloves, and insulated from adult consequences? That's true. It's very true! And it's a bad thing. A very bad thing, which every feminist I've ever met hates.

See, there are two kinds of sexism. There's hostile sexism, and benevolent sexism. Generally, when we hear the word “Sexism,” we think of the former. We think of the big bad man shouting “A WOMAN!? WOMEN CANNOT DO JOBS LIKE MEN CAN! THEIR BRAINS ARE TOO SMALL! THEIR PERIODS ATTRACT BEARS! RAUUUUUGH! I'M SO ANGRY!”

But in point of factit's benevolent sexism which has been probably the more pervasive problem, and the more consistent enemy of the women's movement throughout history. Benevolent sexism places women on a pedestal. It treats them as fragile creatures who need special consideration. They need to be treated delicately because they're just not strong or smart or resourceful enough to take care of themselves.

Benevolent sexim exists, yes. Have some women learned to exploit it to get what they want? Absolutely! Hell, wouldn't you? If you were never allowed to do anything because everyone around you thought you were too delicate and simple minded to handle real life, wouldn't YOU try to get what you want out of life by exploiting that belief? Imagine you're a prohibitionist. You want to affect legal change in your country. But nobody takes you seriously. You can't be elected to public office. Fuck, you're not even allowed to fucking VOTE. You've got all those barriers standing between you and your goal. The one thing you've got going for you is that men won't treat your crimes as seriously as they would treat the same crimes committed by a man.

With the whole world stacked against you, wouldn't you grasp at the one advantage you have?

Alright. That covers your original post. Now, to move on to the video. Though, for the record, responding to videos is a huge pain in the ass. I essentially have to sit here for 35 minutes listening to this guy make arguments that I can't be 100% sure you agree with, then I have to skip back through the video to try and find the specific points I want to respond to. And the speed at which people talk is way slower than the speed at which I read, and in general videos just create a massive time-sink. I appreciate that you want to borrow this person's eloquence because you feel like he expresses what you thoughts better than you can. But I hope we can avoid making this discussion a one sided back and forth where you post videos and I have to respond to them.

So, first point of amusing hypocrisy in this video. Paraphrased:

“There are people in the Men's rights movement who disagree with first wave feminism, but I personally do not.”

Throughout the video, this guy treats feminism as a monolith. He refers to feminists as though they are a single group that agrees on everything. And yet right out of the gate he's making a point that his opinions differ from the group that he associates himself with. I hope we can all see the blatant hypocrisy in this bit, and I don't have to explain it further.

Following that, he goes into a discussion of the definition of feminism. Which...eugh. I don't even know where to start. Let me try to hash through all of this.

Words are vague. Particularly high concept words like “Feminism.” The word “Feminism” covers a vast swath of things. It covers at least the last hundred years of activism for gender equality. It covers the thoughts and the theories of thousands of writers and philosophers. It covers the personal beliefs of countless individuals. “Feminism” is not a simple concept.

Dictionaries are not designed to communicate the entire essence of words. Dictionaries are not word-bibles that have the absolute first-and-last say in what a word means. All dictionaries are, are quick reference books to help you understand the barest surface meaning of words you might encounter and not understand.

Anybody who ever, ever, ever makes the argument “You're wrong because the dictionary says so.” is dumb.

And before moving forward, I'd like to talk about my favorite people divider: equivocation. Equivocation is when a word or statement is ambiguous enough that different people can understand it in different ways. If you're the kind of person who likes to trick people, you might intentionally employ equivocation as a way of making people think that you're saying one thing, when you're actually saying another. This sorta thing is political science & legal documents 101. But there's also the issue of unintentional equivocation.

Equivocation can be unintentional when two or more people are having a discussion, and they're all using a word or phrase that they understand in different ways. FOR EXAMPLE:

TIO: “Blargle is bad.” (TIO thinks “Blargle” means getting punched in the face.)

LS: “Blargle is good!” (LS thinks “Blargle” means a friendly brofist.)

You see how we could end up having a super pointless argument over whether Blargle is good or bad, without ever really getting anywhere because we're actually talking about two completely separate things?

That's why, when forming a proper argument, smart people do something called “Defining their terms.” So they might say “I'm defining blargle as a punch to the face. I think blargle is bad.” This might not be the definition of blargle you're familiar with. It might not even be the commonly accepted definition of blargle. But none of that matters, because when you read “blargle is bad,” you now know what that person means.

So opening a video that discusses feminism by defining feminism for your purposes? That's a perfectly fucking natural thing to do. It's the smart thing to do. Because there are few more vague and difficult to define words in the entirety of the English language than “feminsim.”

MOVING ON:

“(Sarcasm) I'm sure that 80% of the country are just wrong and really just need to listen and believe what you're telling them about feminism.”

Did this guy seriously make the argument that the majority of people think a thing, and therefore it is true?

For serious?

For reals?

So, lets be clear about what he's advocating here. In 1967, interracial marriage was federally legalized. Black people and white people could get married in all 50 states for the first time. At the time this law was passed, it had a roughly 20% approval rating. Which means that 80% of the country thought interracial marriage was wrong and should be illegal.

By this guy's logic, those people knew what they were talking about. They didn't need anyone to try and make an argument about why they should approve of interracial marriage. They didn't need anyone to help them understand interracial marriage. They already understood interracial marriage, and they found it abhorrent, and everybody should have just been cool with that.

I'm not cool with that.

After this comes a very long rant which I'll refer to the first point I made in reference to the video. He talks about small cliques, and individual people, who are bad people and are denounced by every feminist I know. But he attributes these people's sins to the movement as a whole. He's able to view himself as an individual who has beliefs that differ from “some” in his movement. Why is it so difficult to address the bad things done by bad people towards the actual bad people? Why must he pin those crimes on the movement as a whole, which by and large doesn't support those bad people? Rank hypocrisy.

The rant goes on for a long time, devolving into nonsense about how he believes “feminists” are going to “resort to violence.” within his lifetime. Which, ya know, is pure fear-mongering that he completely pulled out of his ass. There is literally no backing for this assertion. And still he's attributing the actions of a few people to the feminist movement as a whole. Does this mean that if I can find some MRAs who've made death threats, I can ignore everything he has to say because he's part of that movement?

Christ on a cracker this manchild is annoying to listen to. What's worse than someone making a bunch of uneducated, unresearched, illogical arguments? Someone doing it while screaming in the nasally righteous anger of a teenager whose upset that his parents bought him the wrong color iphone. I honestly have to pause this video ever 2 minutes just to give my ears a break from his incessant whining.

Moving on. Much of what he complains about with regards to hoards of people harassing others on the internet is just poorly considered. He lays it all at the feet of feminism, completely ignoring the fact that many feminists face the exact same thing from anti-feminists. And none of it actually has anything to do with gender issues, it has everything to do with people becoming more radicalized when they're on the internet. If you're visible, you will be attacked by someone for something you did. But the people who harass people on the internet generally aren't representative of their movements. Fuck, often times, they're not even representative of themselves. They say what they say because they think no one will ever read it. If you actually respond to them and say “yo, I'm a person. That hurt me.” Then a good chunk of the time they'll express some kind of remorse.

Okay, FINALLY, 1/3rd of the way through the video, we get to what the video is actually about. Addressing the 5 myths about feminism presented in another video. I suppose it would be too tangential of me to go on a rant about what kind of shitty writing is at play here that fully a third of the video is dedicated to introductory discussion.

Myth 1: Feminism is outdated.

The opening of his response is an ad hominem attack. He doesn't address what is said, he addresses how much he hates the person who said it. This is not logic. This is not discussion. This is play acting. This is politics. This is making people THINK you're right by accessing the flaws in the human brain that make us think that a bad person can never say a good thing.

(not that I agree this woman is a bad person. I know nothing about her. Her character isn't a relevant issue here.)

This bit is my favorite:

“The best you can do is be as good a person as you possibly can, and try to influence some of those around you that may have bigoted opinions without coming off as a fucking dick because otherwise they're just going to stick their feet in the ground and refuse to be moved.”

I can't be the only one that sees the irony in this statement, right? This guy. This petulant bearded baby has (at this point) spent over 10 minutes hurling every epithet his small mind can concoct at feminism. I honestly cannot think of any possible way for him to come off as a bigger asshole to those that he views as bigoted. And he has the gall to preach “not coming off as a fucking dick.”

I actually somewhat agree with what that paraphrased quote. I think real change is best affected by people who will strive to internalize change, and express it through their works and their deeds. I, for example, make a point of depicting women in a conscientious manner when I write. I think the act of creating something that lives up to my ideals does a lot more good for the world than if I tried to force others to accept my ideals.

Similarly, I don't write angry screeds denouncing the bigotry of people I've never met. But when I see a good person that I respect expressing a belief that I believe is misinformed and even bigoted, I try to make the time to show that person how I think they are wrong. And when I do it I don't denigrate them or call them bad, because they're not. I just try to address their fears and their concerns. I try to identify the things they don't know, and provide what education I am capable of providing.

Everything this guy says he hates? He does it. He does everything he hates. But he thinks he's on “the right side,” so he doesn't see it that way. It's truly pathetic.

Next, he addresses the issue of the pay gap.

I confess, I'm ill educated on this specific issue. I find it somewhat confusing. I've seen convincing arguments and statistics going both ways. For example, some studies show that men are more likely to pursue dangerous, physically exhausting, but high-paying work. On the other hand, there have been studies that pretty conclusively demonstrate that managers will give raises to men who ask for them, but that they expect women to wait until a raise is offered. Which, of course, means that men start earning more money earlier in their careers. There's a TON of information on both sides of this issue, and I honestly feel like I don't have the level of education required to fully understand it. And there are complex ideas at play, like social expectation and gender socialization. At some point I would like to do more research, but I haven't done that yet. So I can't conclusively agree or disagree with his point that “the pay gap is bullshit.”

But what I can say conclusively is: whether or not the pay gap exists for sexist reasons, nobody is a bad person for having a belief one way or the other about it. Feminists aren't being “disingenuous” when they say the pay gap is an issue. They're not lying. There's a lot of compelling evidence that it is a sexist issue!

This is the sort of thing we could have a discussion about. But as soon as we start claiming that people who disagree with us are bad people, we've stopped having a discussion and started having a feud. And feuds are for morons.

Then he has a bit where the woman he's responding to says there aren't very many female CEOs, and he says “But they CAN BECOME CEOs, so there's no problem.”

Which brings me back to a point I made waaaaaaay at the beginning of this currently 8-page-long document. The difference between social and legal change. This guy thinks that because legal equality exists, social equality must also exist. But think about it in a depoliticized way for a second. Lets say we're talking about coin flips.

“I flipped a coin 500 times. It only landed on heads 40 times.”

Clearly, something is going on. It's astronomically unlikely that that result is due to random chance. Any non-moron would assume that there was some unknown factor which caused the results to be so wildly unbalanced.

Feminisim asks the question: “What causes this imbalance, and how can we fix it?”

Is that really so unreasonable?

He then moves on to address rape statistics. And, again, there's a kernel of truth in what he says. Depending on your source, rape statistics vary pretty wildly. Of course, this is hardly unique to rape. As the old saying goes: there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Rape is a deep and difficult topic. One which I'm not very confident talking about. It is undeniably true that male rape victims face different challenges than women do. There's less of a support network for male victims of rape. It's also true that women are disproportionately affected by rape, and that men are disproportionately the perpetrators of rape. Some of the starkest differences between the genders emerge when you talk about crime. Men and women just commit crime in different ways. Regardless of the victim's gender, rape continues to be a notoriously difficult crime to seek justice for.

One thing that I will say unequivocally. When we're talking about the victims of rape, we should speak and act with compassion. Their horrific ordeal is not our political talking point.

By the way, to again address the ridiculous levels of hypocricy for this video. He blames the video he's responding to for not citing sources for their “1 in 5 women during their time in college” statistic. He then seamlessly transitions into saying “And now they're trying to change it to say 1 in 5 women during their FIRST YEAR in college.”

He provides no source for this new statistic.

Regarding prison rape: prison rape is horrific. And he's right: nobody cares about it, because we all just assume prisoners are bad and they 'deserve it.' The only people I really ever see talk about prison rape are men who want to prove that women don't have it as bad as they claim. Though they never really try to help the men in prison, as far as I can tell.

The American prison system is the single most horrific thing about this country. I am consistently ashamed of the endless parade of evils that the united states of America perpetrates against people who’ve been found guilty of a crime.

Obviously the many issues in our society are a tapestry, seamlessly woven together and only arbitrarily categorized away from each other. But I'm going to go ahead and say that prison rape is an issue with the way we view prisons, rather than an issue with the way we view gender.

He wraps up his discussion of the prison system by saying prison rape is justified. No, seriously, he does. “It doesn't shock me that these men who are stuck behind bars, who don't have the benefit of a conjugal visit, have to resort to raping each other.”

According to Tyler Valle, if men aren't given someone to fuck regularly, they “HAVE TO RESORT TO RAPING.”

“HAVE TO”

As in “it is a reasonable necessity.”

This guy doesn't give a fuck about the ills of the justice system. He just wants to score argument points against feminists.

More unsubstantiated facts:

“Fifty percent of all domestic violence is against men, perpetrated by women.”

No source is provided for this, so I can't know which study he's citing or make any assessment of its credibility. For someone who attacks the video he's criticizing so viciously for lacking sources, he sure doesn't seem to give a shit about providing any of his own.

There is some truth to the fact that men a discriminated against when it comes to the enforcement of domestic violence law. But despite any special challenges men may face, everything I've ever read leads me to believe that this is a problem which disproportionately affects women.

If someone wants to provide a study that I can consider and assess, then I'd be happy to do so. I'll readily admit that the waters are murky on this issue.

“Lesbians have the highest rate of domestic violence.”

Despite the continued complete lack of sources, there seems to be some merit to this statement. Lesbian relationships do appear to have a shockingly high degree of domestic violence and sexual assault issues. It's something that is being discussed in earnest within the lesbian community. I found a couple websites that addressed the issue with an eye towards ending the problem.

Of course, the websites with the most hits are all menninist & christian websites using it as proof of evil. Menninists say “LOOK LOOK! WOMEN ARE MORE ABUSIVE!” and Christians say “LOOK LOOK! HOMOS ARE MORE ABUSIVE!” The angle you take on it really depends on who you want to feel justified for hating.

“EUUUGHHGHGHGHEUGHEGUEGHEUGHEG I'M LOVING THIS.”

Oh man I just figured it out! This guy thinks he's Rush Limbaugh.

Myth #2, Feminism is only for women.

So the first bits of what he says here have really already been addressed by what I wrote above. I'm amused by his expressed need to sit down because “this woman” has driven him into such a frothing rage. This guy seriously thinks he's Rush Limbaugh. He's not making an argument, he's a performer. He's not trying to inform you or convince you. He's trying to entertain you by becoming an over dramatized valve for your fear and your anger.

Anyway, then he moves on and says this:

“When feminsits tell men that the way they need to be good feminist allies is to shut the fuck up and let women do all the talking, it really doesn't make the area welcoming to us at all. “

This is an issue that tripped me up a lot when I first started to study feminist theory. Honestly, I think it's what trips up a lot of men at first. It's a big emotional and intellectual hurdle to get over. Two relevant points help make this issue a lot more clear:

First, listening in general is a skill that very few people develop in their youth. A lot of people never develop it at all. Consider: when people are talking to you, what are you usually thinking about? Are you really doing your best to take in what they're saying? To access their emotional state and see things from their perspective. OR, are you planning what you're going to say when they stop talking?

Be honest, it's probably the second one. It's the second one for most people. That's fine. It doesn't make you a bad person. But it does mean you're not really listening. Because listening is a skill. And the fact that so few of us really know how to listen prevents us from actually understanding each other. If you're a man who is interested in feminism (for or against it, I don't care) then your first step should be trying to understand it. And the first step to understanding is listening.

Second, it has been pretty conclusively proven that people (all people) have a fucked-up internal gauge when it comes to ratios of women and men. In large groups, a 50/50 split between men and women will be perceived as a female majority. If women spend 50% of the time talking, it will be perceived that women are dominating the conversation. And that's both men and women who see it that way. They believe women are talking too much, when they are indisputably talking an equal amount.

Why is this? Well, personally, I think it has to do with socialized expectations. We see and hear a lot more men most of the time, so when we see and hear more women than usual, we think “wow, that's a lot of women!” But WHY we think that doesn't matter. The only important point is that we DO. Which means we need to make an effort to ensure that women are being heard. Which means we need to establish times and places where women talk, and men listen. No one is suggesting that men should do nothing but listen ever. But sometimes, some places, we need to just let women have the space.

And a word about women-only spaces, which he implies are awful at the end there: yes, they sure do feel exclusionary, don't they? I agree. I get it. I always feel a little sting of resentment when I hear about them. But come on. What's wrong with a group of people trying to create a space where they can focus entirely on their own issues? Who does it hurt?

People often make the argument that if men did something like that, it would be sexist! Which really isn't true. If you said “Hey, I want to create a space where men can discuss their concerns safely, without feeling like they have to worry about a woman judging them,” then I doubt anybody would have a problem with it. You might be lambasted by some 14 year old tumblrite. But it's a 14 year old tumblrite. Who cares what they have to say?

The point where it becomes sexist is when those gender-exclusive groups start making decisions that affect groups that aren't represented within their number. Like when those gender exclusive groups run the company you work for, or legislate the laws you have to live under.

Then theres a bit that doesn't make much sense and I don't understand. Then he insults the other video for not being scripted. Is there a joke that I'm missing here? Is this guy's schtick that he always tries to be as hypocritical as possible? Like...damn. An unscripted youtube rant against another youtube video, calling it unscripted.

Then there's a bunch of garbage that doesn't mean anything and doesn't make any kind of claims, and is really just an amalgam of his rage-boner.

Then he gets into some quotes which he claims prove that feminists hate men. In doing so, he quotes the fucking SCUM manifesto. It's hard to imagine a more ignorant approach to making an argument against the feminist movement as a whole. Quoting the SCUM manifesto in a discussion of feminism is like quoting ISIS in a discussion of Islam. Or quoting members of the inquisition when discussing Christianity. Yes, radical feminists do exist. Personally I've never met a radfem, and I've never met a feminist who doesn't agree that radfems are fucking nutters. But they do exist.

The most prominent radfems grew up in a very different world than you and I have ever known. A world where they didn't simply face social inequality, but legal inequality as well. A world where they could literally be lobotomized for the heinous crime of having an opinion that embarrassed their father or husband. And it's not like that shit ended when women got the right to vote. Look up Rosemary Kennedy sometime.

Is it any wonder that such a world produced some bitter, hateful people?

I notice that the guy who posted this video actually used some of the least offensive bits of the SCUM manifesto. I mean, he's quoting it, so clearly he thinks its some kind of legitimate founding document of modern feminism. Why not pull out the really big guns? Like the whole “The Y chromosome is merely a broken X that must be repaired.” part. Or the fact that Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol?

Perhaps because he only brings it up in a disingenuous attempt to lend credibility to his hatred of feminism. If he takes it too far, makes it seem TOO silly, maybe his viewers will start to realize that Valerie Solanas is not representative of the feminist movement.

I wasn't familiar with many of the women he quoted, so I took the time to look them up. ALL of them, without exception, were born SIGNIFICANTLY before the feminist revolution. And NONE of them are currently active or taken very seriously by modern feminists. Most of them are dead.

If feminists are so bad, why can't he find any contemporary sources?

Then there is this absolute gem:

“Go and look at tumblr. Go and look at the hashtag #KillAllMen”

This is what we call a selection bias. But sure, lets check it out. I searched the hashtag. Of the 7 posts that I could see without scrolling, 6 of them used the hashtag ironically, as a way of belittling radfem extremists.

Funny, even when I SPECIFICALLY GO LOOKING for misandry, I don't find as much of it as this guy seems to think I will. I wonder how much misogyny I'd find if I went looking for that?

And then OHHHHHHHHHH, this guy gets BURNED! His whole fucking thing has been about how feminists don't care about men's issues. But then UH-OH! The video he's criticizing? The one advocating for feminism? It includes a whole section about how men face their own gender based challenges, which feminism addresses. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Of course, as I said above, he's not having a discussion. He can't concede a point. He's an entertainer. If he doesn't keep people good and angry, he starts losing views. So instead he just jumps right into making broad claims about how he perceives feminism addressing those issues. He also starts bitching about how upper class and white men are treated in particular, which seems weirdly out of place for this video which is specifically about feminism v. men's rights. Although it doesn't exactly surprise me that this guy feels persecuted by more than one oppressed group.

From here he takes some potshots at the concept of privilege. He doesn't actually use the word 'privilege,' but I'm pretty sure that's what he's talking about when he says feminists want him to be responsible for the sins of his ancestors, despite the fact that (apparently) all of his ancestors were always on the right side of history. (I'd be interested to see him prove that. He says it with such confidence that I assume he can. Either that or he's a liar.)

So, privilege. Like many words, this is a very good and useful word. But then the dark days of tumblr came. A bunch of 12 year olds learned a word that had previously been used primarily in activist circles. 12 year olds popularized the word, but unfortunately, 12 year olds are stupid. So they started using the word wrong. And now most people understand it wrong. Allow me to explain.

On TV, black people are often portrayed as criminals, while most cops are white. (This is less true now than it was 30 years ago, but it's just an illustrative example, not an argument.) Now, everybody watches TV and enjoys it. TV is our cultural conversation. One of the people who watches TV is manager bob.

Today manager bob is interviewing two candidates for a new job. Both are equally qualified, equally friendly, equally talented. Equal all around. But John is black, and Dave is white. And for some reason, Bob just feels better about Dave. He can't quite put his finger on it, but John seems a little untrustowrthy in comparison to Dave.

This is just one example of privilege. Is anybody really a bad guy in the scenario above? No! Dave just wants a job! It's not bad that he got the job. Bob believes believes his decision completely based on an objective assessment of the candidates. It would never occur to him that he was subtly influenced by a culture which views black people as unsavory compared to white people.

Having privilege means that you've got an edge in life over people who don't have it. It doesn't mean that your life is easy or that you've done nothing to earn what you have, it just means you've got an edge. Most of the time, nobody is actually a bad person for having or acting on privilege. It's just an invisible force that affects the flow of people through our society, and it's important for us to try to recognize and understand it. And, hopefully, figure out how to correct it.

I know I didn't do a very good job explaining this, but there's a phenomenal comic that I think does a great job of making the point. (Though it's about economic inequality, rather than gender inequality. It still helps to express what privilege is. Once you have the basic concept, you can extrapolate it to understand how it affects people from a variety of backgrounds).

He then rants more about how the video he's critiquing is “bad at this.” Which, given how awful this video has been, is a pretty laughable thing to say. He then makes the argument that feminists are against marriage.

So, as someone who is totally against marriage, and in particular thinks that the modern marriage ceremony is a vomitous sexist farce, I'm not particularly inclined to argue in favor of feminists being in favor of marriage. Except that, by and large, feminists I've known totally are in favor of marriage. Or at least they're neutral towards it.

He proves his point by reading a big ass quote that he provides no source whatsoever for. Without knowing where it's from, I can't really make any assessment of how seriously that quote is taken within the feminist movement. Given his history, I'm going to guess that he's quoting something woefully outdated, and refer you to my arguments above.

He then makes a suicide joke. I mean, I have no problem with that. But I find it odd that you, TIO, would post this video and claim that it represents your views well. You've always been vehemently against suicide jokes.

He actually has a really good point at the end about the loudest feminists being white middle class women. This is true, and it has been a huge problem within the feminist movement from its inception. The mainstream feminist movement has always been biased towards wealthy white women. There's also a huge push within the feminist movement to change that.

I'd never make the argument that feminism was perfect. If it was I would be happy to call myself a feminist, rather than simply a supporter of feminism.

Alright. Holy shit...I actually got to the end of that. I can't tell you how happy I am that I never have to hear that voice again. Haha.

This is already the longest thing ever posted on this forum, so I'll wrap it up quick. I like you, TIO. I think you're a smart kid. That's why I took the time and effort to write this. I hope you can appreciate the work I did here as a sign of respect, rather than an attack on your character.

This is a complicated issue. It's one that I still struggle with myself, and I doubt that anybody has really figured it out yet. All we can do is be open to new ideas, and compassionate towards others.

I will do my best to address any questions or responses you want to make.

Alright. With such an extensive answer I can hardly hope to express my opinion in such a well expressed way. Feminism is a thorny topic, and honesty while I do have strong knee reactions reading this topic, given the way you expressed your views I thought I might as well take the lazy approach and answer with a vague video that can be taken either way, providing absolutely no clue on what I meant by it. It is just easy to have sass being the one that does things for you instead to actually trying to dig into "why" is that I think this way. Beyond the comforting strawman of "all the opposite team says is BS", why am I embracing this? How can I put it into words? Is it just raw emotions or is there some rationality in it.

So, let's commence with what I originally backed up to say that night. The biggest issue I have with your way to express about feminism is that you are confusing extremist, which are derogatively called feminazis, with the feminism in general. If you were talking about Feminazis I would find easier to agree with reasons as they falling into sexism and having BS reasoning. But you're placing all feminist into one bag. Making them into a giant All-are-the-same straw man.' Maybe it comes from simplifications other people have developed to better digest the movement.

It is a natural trait trying to label and simplify things. We also tend to learn patterns. If a machista believes men are superior, a feminist must believe women are superior, even though it is well known that feminism is searching for equality, there is always this suspicion that they actually are trying to place themselves above and have the best of both worlds. Egalitarianism and feminism are not that separated, as feminism is taking from egalitarian ideas and focussing in gender differences.

Now, let me pause for a moment to clarify something VERY important: In general the feminism movement is not against being a housewife or having feminine traits. The movement is about allowing the women to make those decisions on their own. It is about women having the choice.

Another thing, it is not a single linear movement. Feminism has branched as not every person identify wholeheartedly in every detail. I only could find the 4 movements related to the waves, but I am pretty sure there are more.

I also hate the whole "them" versus "us" it generates. Talking about feminism is usually thought on just women. Thinking about people opposing the movement makes us think on just men.
It is easy to both sides to demonise the other side and at the same time accuse them to stereotyping your side instead of trying to understand it.

Before I get too off-tangent, let's go with your points.

Quote from The Inhaling One

1. They already have their equality.
A). Since the 1920s, women have been given a ton of equalness to men.
B). You'd think that would satisfy them, but nope! They think everything is still unfair between men and women.
C). I agree that men and women should be equal, but to tell you the truth, we kind of already are. They're just dragging this useless movement on for no reason.

Okay. Let me be as clear as possible with this: You're talking about equality as it is definite object that has already been tossed to them. There are more than one type of equality and the movement has been more successful closing the gaps in some aspects than others. There is the way that laws differentiate men from women, the social constructs, the cultural traditions, the biological differences and tendencies, etc.
Just saying "You got it already. Shut up" becomes meaningless when you're not even explaining what kind of equality you're talking about and how is that "they" already got it.

Now, my knowledge on the past decades and the feminist movement is muddy for two reasons: I did not live through it and I wasn't raised in America, where most of the waves achievements and talks come from. However, I still feel your asseveration, specially in the first half of your explanation merits some rebuttal. Through A) and the first part of B) You're saying that what was achieved by the first wave was enough. I take from this you're talking about the legal aspect since it is my understanding the biggest achievement was the culmination with women being accepted to finally get to vote. The movement was mostly changing the legal separation where only men had a voice in the country. Only men could get certain positions, only men could vote. Women were to stay at home. It did not however changed the cultural or social views in a whim. While the path was open to vote and even in some regions even postulate to important charges there was still a stigma.
When the War ended, the American tried to focus in the perfect, functional family, where the husband and wife had a very well defined roles and characteristics. Men is the provider, the women is the fortress of the home. He is strong. She is understanding. Not adhering with this idealisation was seeing badly. A loud woman was a rude woman. A woman could enroll in job positions but they were paid less because of her sex. Enrolling your daughter in school was seen as an utter waste of time. What's the point? She'll just grow to be married and stay home. She should instead be learning useful things like sewing and cooking. That was the mentality then, and that is what you're heavily implying they should have been happy about.

Between 1920 and 2015 many things in between changed, heck even just in the last 50 years you could argue a lot of changes came regarding views in education, gender and race. That is the other thing, this was not something isolated. You have the abolition for slaves, the fight for the black people to be recognized as an equal, the misinformation on nations away from our owns, the fear that big changes would bring chaos and the fall of our system.

Look. here is the thing: We're all tangled here. We all grow and fall in paradigms and misconceptions, women included. Every time a woman expects the man to do things they wouldn't do or find fair to be asked to do. We keep separating matters than are terrible and separate them in genders. Rape is awful, but instead of focusing how going through it is terrible we make it a sex problem. The online harassment. Many terrible things we just rather to divert into who is more justified in feeling a a victim.

All the changes we have seen in the last decade re-defining gender roles and challenging the binary order. It is part of it. We're socially and culturally linked in different ways. You have people advocating the desaparition of gender altogether. People talking about an spectrum. As our ideas of man and woman being a defined set of attributes comes down and a push to instead consider those attributes regardless the sex we were born. Not all women are fragile, quiet and considerate. not every man is loud, strong and impulsive. We're in an era where we are becoming more accepting of people having different traits without that making them any less than other people. Each generation has a point of start from the environment they grew with, and a limit of what they can take. Older generations cannot understand or agree with many recent changes and points of views. This is the era where we have been born, all we know is what we assume has been the case. It's been a process.

[INDENT][INDENT]"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
~Napoleon Bonaparte[/INDENT][/INDENT]

A lot of the people labeling themselves either pro- or anti- feminist don't know the movement or understand the process. They just parrot what other people said before them, and they risk ending up asking for things that reverse what has been gained. being informed and trying to understand what kind of good can other people see in something can help you make your mind better.

The point in C is kind of self defeating. If they are still dragging this it is obvious that there is still people that don't think that way. To be honest the problem right now is that we are focussing in this well developed areas. You have young girls saying they don't need feminism because men don't tell them how to wear or act when the movement does. We're at the point where the times I talked about 3 paragraphs ago, are not even in our minds any more. However there are other parts of the world with women activists fighting for equality, fighting for their right to choose and be be respected. So there is still work to be done.

Quote from The Inhaling One

2. Their reasons are bullshit.

Their reasons for doing this are complete bullshit. I don't think I need to say anything more about this.

You do. You really do. Please enlist some of her reasons and how they are bullshit.

Quote from The Inhaling One

3. Sexist.

Yeah, I said it. Some people are going to argue with me on this one, but I'm going to stick with this decision. A LOT of feminists have a hatred towards men. Just because, "OMG WUR NUT EQUAL".

A lot of terrible acts have been committed in the name of God. Does that means that every person believing in God agrees with said acts?
They may call themselves feminists but that doesn't mean the majority accept them as their voice. People that are blinded by hate are a hinder to the cause.

People being sexist also damage the movement, whether they realise or not they are being sexist. The problem is, sexism is most of the time situational. It is something we have to scan ourselves in our interactions to avoid it.
You have those adverts where the man is portrayed as a clueless idiot. As a woman I can feel easy to minimise it, but I should instead challenge the paradigm.

I think there is a lot from the man side that can be addressed in social stigmas. There is misinformation even in how a penis work. There is this idea that a man cannot be raped because if he got an erection it is basically consent.
A beautiful chick throwing herself at you is not something bad but something to brag about, regardless if you didn't want anything with her. The jokes on manhood card. The idea that you should never ever hit a woman...

Quote from Kaynil

Finally, we're back to my video. The reason I like this video is because for some reason I feel more emotion when he slaps her than when she slapped him. It makes me realise I have my own paradigms to fight.

Answering your question, it is not rare for a girl to have a man using the bus movement as an excuse to get creepily close to you. Rubbing their crotch, smelling the hair. I believe that is why she thought was happening. Without any benefit of the doubt she just chose to judge and slap him. He knew, because he just had gone through, that she got close to him not in harassment but because of the bus movement. He slapped her the way she did before. It drives the point home. This video is not real ,as far as I can assume. Given the change in angles and that the original one records from when he gets in the bus. For all I know is not about feminism or equality but about to take in account the other side before jumping to conclusions.

This is what we need. Forget about the name. Sure, focus in being egalitarian instead. No worries. Just let's stop making witch hunts out of it and focus on the stuff that can actually be good. I don't care what you label it.

Quote from Kaynil

There is the way that laws differentiate men from women, the social constructs, the cultural traditions, the biological differences and tendencies, etc.

Biological differences is a super interesting issue that I didn't even manage to get into. In part, we don't even fully understand the biological differences between the genders yet. It's not entirely unreasonable to imagine that our brains work differently, but gender socialization is such a huge impact that every time we think we've found a way that our brains are different, it usually just ends up being a result of environment.

But more concrete than that, there's stuff like menstruation and pregnancy. Nature has made the genders unequal in these ways. How do we, as a society, respond to these inequalities? I tend to think we should try to balance, or at least accommodate them. The cost of feminine hygiene products in America is insane. Living as a woman is more expensive than living as a man because women gotta buy products to plug up the blood hole every month. And then there's issues like maternity leave and abortion which I love, but don't even want to get into right now.

This shit is many layered and complicated, yo.

Quote from The Inhaling One

I am in debt to both of you. I made a HUGE mistake agreeing with that video. I'm not really good at this "Serious Discussion" stuff XD Thank you both for showing me the truth. I don't hate feminists anymore. Well, besides the extremists. the ones that hate the men, and stuff. Other than that, I understand your points, and I appreciate you both taking the time to type them. I think it's safe to say I agree with the both of you now. Again, thank you for changing my views.

Nobody starts out being good at this serious discussion stuff. I mean, I literally went to college for 3 years to study the art of argument. And I've met people who run circles around me. My goal is never to win, but to communicate and educate.

I do hope you're not just retreating because you feel overwhelmed and attacked. I really don't want to 'win.' If you have questions or concerns, or if you don't understand something that was said, or if you disagree with something that was said, or if you have a counterexample for something that was said, post it. Lets engage in a discussion.

That's tricky business, because physical altercations between men and women tend to be viewed only one way by police. There was actually a study done in the '80s that found that in something like 12% of cases where men called the police to say their female spouse was being assaultive, it was the men who ended up getting arrested.

It's one of those places where theory diverges from practice. You _should_ be able to defend yourself, but in reality you're probably be better off not doing it.

If you ever end up in a physical altercation, I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is "Am I in danger?" Did the person who hit you do so in a burst of anger, and now they're done? Or are they going to keep hitting you? If you leave, will they chase you? If you don't fight back at all and contact the police immediately, the odds that you're going to end up in jail are pretty low. If you fight back (against a man or against a woman), then they're probably going to arrest you both until they figure out what they want to do.

If you _are_ in danger, then your technique should be to redirect and subdue, rather to inflict harm. Don't hit them back. Try to avoid their attacks. If necessary, try to wrestle them to the ground.

It's not very macho, but honestly I'd rather not be macho than go to jail.

Love this topic, but geeze there's a lot there. This should be interesting, because I regard myself as representing a certain type of onlooker: I try to be rational and logical, but I do not try to be educated. Purely for reasons of time. Just like so many things, I simply do not have time to become fluent in the names of feminists or MRA participants, in the history, or the legalities. I have to make do with the underinformed conclusions I can draw during my family/work-filled life. Even reading this thread is something I had to plan into my week. All too often people are pleaded with to 'read about it and educate yourself'. It's not going to happen. If I take the time to educate myself, I'm depriving that same time to my wife and daughter. And I think that applies to a great mass of people. How do you engage people like me? As an aside, this isn't strawman-ing what's been said by anyone here, it's an independent observation I've made prior to reading any of this.

And that doubles as something of a disclaimer for the opinion I'm about to express: Shouldn't men make better leaders? This is a difficult thing for me, because my logic is contradicting my social desire to regard the genders as equal. So, if anyone wants to disagree with me, that would actually be super useful. The reasons are evolutionary. Men are predisposed to be physically more able. We also seem to enjoy watching violence more than women. Fearless and 300 are two of my favourite movies, dumb as they are. My wife thinks they're boring because they're 'just full of fighting'. These psychological and physical traits, from an evolutionary point of view, would suggest that men are built to do the fighting/hunting whatever. Which gives us the advantage in claiming leadership. Men became in charge (the oppressors) for a reason. Nature isn't fair. None of that by itself makes men better leaders - everything so far is explanatory, rather than providing justification. But following on, wouldn't evolution select for better leadership in men? Especially considering the vast majority of human history occurred before the agricultural revolution when evolution still held sway. Futhermore, both men and women seem predisposed to see men as leaders ahead of women. Which, even if a man and a women are equally able, if the population more effectively follows the man, that must also be considered.

I feel a vague embarrassment about expressing this sort of opinion. And I think that's a big problem in society. I'm expressing it here because I'm very happy for people to change it, and because the internet provides a safer environment for this sort of thing. But I would never utter any of this at a dinner table. And opinions that are bottled often become radicalised, which explains a lot of the anger I've seen in MRA.

But even if everything I've said so far is true (which I'm suspicious of, to be honest) it still gets more misty. There is also obviously an element of social indoctrination that is difficult to separate from biological forces. Also, when any group of people (in this case it's men) end up in charge, things get better for the leaders and generally worse for those without a voice. And our progress as a species is largely a matter of defying our natures. I, as an illustration, am a vegetarian. This is against nature, I am biologically an omnivore, but I choose to override nature because I believe my morality to be philosophically superior to my 'nature'. Similarly with gender - if men really are better leaders, it still isn't fair, and therefore should be overridden. But when a country faces some immediate crisis, people will often vote for the more masculine candidate who is seen as more powerful and better able to deal with the crisis. And as there is always an immediate crisis, well that makes things strategically very difficult for the feminist movement.

@LinkSkywalker , I'd be very interested to hear your views on marriage. I don't see that it enforces gender discrimination. Maybe it did once, but nowadays I think it does the reverse. And, as you mentioned it, here's the figures from UK government: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-…tner-abuse.html

The NHS (UK) summarises as "1 in 4 women" and "1 in 6 men" (http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/abuse…lence-help.aspx). Don't ask me about America. I read that as being more men than people might think, but still more women. I lived under an abusive relationship for a while, and I'll admit it's skewed my perceptions. I'm working to bring them back.

For this reason the one-way-violence thing is a very sore subject for me. And it's enforced in a lot of media. If anyone's had the misfortune of watching 'made of honor' , you'll know what I mean. But it's in a lot of movies. Even apparently forward films like Frozen. Anne decks the backstabbing Hanz. Yay, he deserved it! Probably did. How many movies end with a woman being decked?

As for the split between theory and practice, it depends on how courageous and selfless you're prepared to be. The only way to make something acceptable is to normalise it. The more people defend themselves regardless of the risks, the less likely the next set of people is to be treated with the same disdain. Martyring yourself is easier said than done, of course. But the principle is true.

There is often a claim that feminism has gone too far and that things are going in reverse. I generally disagree with that, but there is an exception I'd like to raise - sexuality. It does seem that sexual promiscuity is what defines a "Womaniser" or a "Liberated woman", depending on your gender. Feminists seem to disagree about whether promiscuity is something that liberates women or something that is forced upon them by a leering male audience. But there seems to be more agreement about promiscuity being a bad thing in men.

A final observation, about people's fucked up gauge, how a room with equally mixed men and women will be seen as having more women. I think it's more complicated than simple social indoctrination. Music production 101 theorises that high-pitched sounds gain the attention and grate on the ears more than low-pitched sounds, which often go unnoticed as they subliminally affect your feelings. This would not only explain the fucked-up gauge thing, but a lot of male leadership tendencies. As a case in point, Margaret Thatcher took vocal lessons. The coach taught her that when she wants to speak over other people, she should lower her pitch rather than raise it. Her political success was pretty instantaneous after that. Unfortunate, really, because I hate Thatcherism.