Why is feminism popular?

Blithmuthuth · 2021-09-22T19:19:46+00:00

I'd say it's a lot of things.

Most people don't really care about equality or try to think empathetically in any capacity at all. They're mostly self-serving, and subscribe to popular culture to that end. Feminism is popular culture.

Women are conditioned to tend to have in-group bias, and men are conditioned to not, so advocating for themselves is relatively much easier.

It's socially acceptable for women to complain, and socially unacceptable for men to complain, in line with gender roles. Subject any large group of women to some form of discomfort, and a large group of men to a proportionally equal discomfort, and I'm pretty confident they would report it as less severe, in order to not show weakness.

There are intense gender roles in dating culture. For many men who are highly invested in appealing to the other gender, and don't really care to think about social issues, or empathy in general, feminism allows them an extra layer to practice chivalry, and thus becomes the "equality movement" that best serves the self-serving man's interests.

Primary care giver roles are predominantly occupied by women, the majority of which will advocate for the "equality movement" that best serves their own self-serving interests, which also happens to be feminism. Impressionable minds make for easy cultists.

Feminism logic is easy and people are dumb. People see men in most of the positions of agency, in line with their gender role, and make the juvenile, but "agreeable" assumption that it must be because all men are relatively privileged and we live in an oppressive patriarchy, as opposed to the more nuanced, but consistent view that positions of agency are consistent with the gender expectations/bias, and profile society has of the male gender

etc.

Algoresball · 2021-09-22T20:00:58+00:00

To be honest; I think the vast majority of people don’t spend too much time thinking about these issues. When people hear “feminism” they think of the right to vote and stuff like that

TheMaskofMan · 2021-09-22T23:12:30+00:00

Because it is pushed by the elite. It's kinda funny how it claims to be a grassroot movement, yet clearly traces its origin in higher education and media. Most of everything comes from the top down because the upper classes have the leverage of social power, while the lower classes don't (like control of media and education, as I mentioned). It's a part of what some people call the 'succesor ideology', a new state religion for America and therefore the world.

Doctor_Curmudgeon · 2021-09-22T17:25:05+00:00

Did you think humans were foremost logical beings or something? Have you ever applied logic to Christian theology? People like easy righteousness and I think that is part of the appeal in both cases. To be told that they are part of the correct tribe.

BloomingBrains · 2021-09-22T22:40:14+00:00

Why is any stupid/evil ideology popular? Not because it makes sense. Plenty of people don't care about that though, so they're buying into them for other reasons. Its want they want to believe, because it gives them some measure of power, etc.

What you're really asking is why people are so selfish, which is a question as old as time. It probably has something to do with the tension of altruism vs. selfishness. Both are useful survival strategies, but the former is only beneficial on an impersonal, long term, societal scale. Evolution probably just hasn't caught up to modern societies yet, and some people are still ruled by lizard brains more suited to jungle life.

Blauwpetje · 2021-09-22T18:52:14+00:00

There is something about women. Men - partly by nature, partly taught so I think - love the idea that the world will be a better place when women, 'those soft, sweet beings who seldom are openly violent,' have the power. Even when feminists say horrible things, they find it hard to take them seriously, let alone fear that women can wield power in a way harming them and harming the world. Women, on the other hand, have a rather normal group chauvinism. So even when feminism is illogical and hateful, they think the movement is necessary to defend their interests and give them more power.

quesadilla_dinosaur · 2021-09-23T01:09:17+00:00

Wow, none of these comments are hitting the mark at all.

I used to ask this question quite a bit until I started readily engaging with feminists and feminist sympathizers. Here are the categories that I think best explain why feminism is so popular:

Ignorance: This is by and far the most impactful reason why feminism is so popular and why mainstream and simplistic notions of gendered oppression live on so much. Most people just dont know. They often don’t believe that men can actually be victims of abuse by women and many times we’re gaslighted into thinking that we can’t set boundaries with our SO. They also aren’t aware of the statistics on the disproportionate rates at which men are impacted by the criminal justice system, or by the ways that men lack reproductive rights, or how men are systematically hurt by mental health and social services. Most people simply dont or cant conceive of men being victimized in any context ever.
Refusal: A large group of feminists (particularly white feminists or privileged feminists that tend to believe feminism based on mostly ideological groups — I dont see the same mindset from 3rd world/developing countries feminism), either re-interpret, distract from, or minimize the impact of men’s issues. This tends to be done in a couple of ways, by saying that either 1) these things are just another way the patriarchy harms society, 2) that men’s issues cannot be gendered oppression because men who have the institutional power are largely victimizing other men (this isn’t necessarily true when it comes to rape, IPV and SA btw, women assault men more often men assault men) and 3) the ways men suffer pale in comparison to the way women suffer and thus don’t warrant as much attention (as if they receive any at all).

3) Its Easier to care about women than it is to care about men: It’s hard to understand unless you’re actively a man, but women and men care more about women than they do about men, period. Women receive more social attention, more social services, live longer, more lenient sentencing, are attributed more often to positive stereotypes, are given more the benefit the doubt when It comes to criminal activity, are more pleased with their interactions with criminal institutions, are given more attention when they die/go missing etc etc etc. Its depressing, but it’s the truth. This makes appealing to feminism and women’s rights morally and politically convenient and in western society, this becomes especially true when it comes to white women. This has been true for centuries. Women were typically seen as groups to protect, keep secure and safe. This is part why much of the first feminism movement focused on increasing women’s agency especially and even by a racial group of women who could legally own, sell and abuse enslaved people in the US.

I think these are the most significant reason why it is so popular.

Skirt_Douglas · 2021-09-22T18:36:29+00:00

There is something else happening here, namely power is what is happening. Over the last several decades Feminism has embedded itself in academia where it now has stronghold. To give credit back to feminism, it hasn’t all been trash, there are definitely woman’s right battles that have needed to be fought, still need to be fought, and lessons from those battles needed to be learned. It’s really when they tack on the “theory” and the ideological cultural engineering, especially the radical shit, is where they go awry. So the last couple of generations get spoon fed Feminist ideology, with this idea in their head that they now need to go out in the world, smash the patriarchy, and create feminist utopia. These college students grew up and became journalists, screenwriters, politicians, CEOs, authors, and other people who influence the cultural status quo, and lo and behold, the status quo is now a feminist status quo. So there is now power in appealing to feminism, it can potentially get you votes, get you funding, get you attention, get you social mobility really. The truth of it is, feminism is not special in the regard, there will always be power in appealing to the status quo. Christianity is also easy to pick apart, but that didn’t stop it from being the status quo at one point.

So it’s not just stupidity, it is many things: ambition, greed, or perhaps just a desire to get along with the powers that be so you can be “successful” in this world.

ElementalChicken · 2021-09-23T06:58:56+00:00

Honestly I believe it is only popular because it has been forced into the world. Feminism and critical theory constantly talk about power structures, so that is the way they see the world. They believe other people are forcing their view upon them, so they feel justified to use any means necessary for force their view into institutions like academia. It is only about power to a lot of them.

gratis_eekhoorn · 2021-09-23T06:35:21+00:00

Insane amounts of funding it gets to fuel its propaganda machine.

lightning_palm · 2021-09-23T10:54:57+00:00

Excerpt from The Empathy Gap by William Collins:

The empirical evidence for an empathy gap against males, associated with a widespread gynocentric orientation, is overwhelmingly strong. It is remarkable that this remains imperceptible to the general public, and to feminists in particular. The reason is gynocentrism itself, which promotes its own invisibility. […] there is a complex of emotions which promotes the pair bond. It includes lust but also compassion and tenderness and many other elements, traditionally summarised as love. This complex of emotions is the proximate cause of the pair bonding behaviour whose distal origin, or function or "purpose", is successful genetic propagation. […] Evolved matricentrism is enacted by those same emotions which drive the pair bond. This includes, for example, the key element of the ceding of moral authority to mothers, and by extension to women in general. One of the associated correlates of this moral authority is men's discomfort at female disapproval. The veil which has obscured this matricentrism is the traditional patriarchy which the feminists are so intent on smashing. The societal respect which patriarchy embodied hid, and hence made tolerable to men, the underlying matricentric subservience. As matricentrism has intensified into feminist gynocentrism, and the veil of respect for men has been withdrawn, another mechanism of obscuration has become necessary. This is the doctrine of female oppression and poisonous masculinity. For most people now, this new perspective on the sexes serves very effectively to hide gynocentrism. […]

SpanishM · 2021-09-22T17:35:31+00:00

Lobbies. They are doing a good job.

coolboy_24278 · 2021-09-22T19:05:47+00:00

if its popular and mainstream, its no longer considered fringe

Title	Why is feminism popular?
Author	Itrusttheinternett
Upvotes	44
Comments	43
Date	September 22, 2021 5:19 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/ptcb2i/why_is_feminism_popular/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/why-is-feminism-popular.1074938 https://theredarchive.com/post/1074938

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