I made a similar post about the importance of how you argue, rather than what you argue, but I think this one is even better!

Yesterday I was on /r/feminism, and a feminist pointed out that MRAs were against VAWA; she said it was fucked up to criticize people who create women's shelters, and that they should be commended. After all, women are 95% of the victims of domestic violence, and so deserve priority!

I responded:

I'd like you to cite this as the only number I've seen come out of Justice was 85%. There are plenty of newer, larger, and more thorough studies which show parity in intimate partner violence; but, let's not turn this into a pissing contest. For the sake of discussion, let's just assume your data is correct.

[Avoid useless arguments.]

If 95% of the victims of intimate partner violence are women, that means 5% are men. Given those numbers, it would be reasonable to say that 95% of shelters should be for women, with 5% for men, right? The thing is, before VAWA was reauthorized only 0.001% were for men; and, given the provisions in VAWA, we can only expect that number to have dropped.

[Point out the issue at hand.]

The problem isn't giving women shelters, the problem is giving people who have shelter more shelters, while leaving those who do not have shelter to fend for themselves; plus, VAWA has provisions for homeless women, despite men being the majority of homeless people.

[Drive the point home.]

When the wind changes, you must adjust your sails, and this seems like something modern feminists have forgotten how to do.

30 years ago it made sense to invest in women's education, as they were a minority. Today, women compose 60% of university graduates, yet feminists are still fighting to further women's education; and, to say that we must invest in the education of men is blasphemy. These actions are no different from men fighting to better male education 30 years ago, when women were the minority.

[Analogies are fun.]

If in this situation I had started discussing different statistics, it would have just turned into a pissing contest without ever really discussing the point of the argument; by removing statistics from the argument and making it very clearly about gender marginalization, I've removed the battle and started a discussion... sort of.

She never responded, but somehow that seems more positive to me than most feminist responses. :/