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Does radical feminism damage the profile of women's rights?

TheTinMenBlog

February 24, 2023

279 upvotes

/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates

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Title	Does radical feminism damage the profile of women's rights?
Author	TheTinMenBlog
Upvotes	279
Comments	47
Date	February 24, 2023 3:22 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/11atwo0/does_radical_feminism_damage_the_profile_of/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/does-radical-feminism-damage-the-profile-of-womens.1153494 https://theredarchive.com/post/1153494

Comments

[–]TheTinMenBlogvalued LWMA contributor[S] 26 points27 points28 points 3 years ago (18 children) | Copy Link

Another draft, looking for corrections or feedback!

Is there a more difficult space to exist in than the one we are in right now?

‘Mens advocacy’ is quite literally compared to the alt right, to white supremacy and even Nazis.

Wow. Not quite the starting off point I had hoped for when I joined.

But the fact I have (in a small way) helped shift perspectives out of such obscenely unfair equivalences, is something that has taken a lot of time, and even more patience.

It seems very clear to me – that there is nothing problematic with advocating for men and boys. Nothing.

The problem gets even harder when I have to confront the reality that feminism has been, in some part, responsible for such a poor brand image of mens advocacy.

And more concerning still, responsible also for denying such issues exist, or that these conversations are even needed.

If ‘mens advocacy’ is the seen as the devil, then yes ‘feminism’ is often seen as the saviour. The do-no-wrong goddess of humanity, that cannot, and should never be criticised.

The frustrating thing is, that although I am certainly a well established critic of feminism and its bogus gender theories; I am also a passionate supporter of women’s rights, a lover of women, and a pro choice advocate.

But, as it always is, the few ruin it for the many.

And women’s rights, have been tarnished by the vitriol of an annoying and persistent fly in the ointment. An ugly bug that yells and squeals like a big baby, that we all need to squash.

A fly that blames men for everything. Calls them trash and even advocates for them to be killed – and yet naively also asks ‘where are the men?!’, when the boys pack their bags and go home.

The annoying fly. The radical. The brittle whino.

It buzzes in the ear of me and many other men, and no matter how much I try to swat it, it simply will not die.

For it can only be vanquished by women, and least of all, by a white straight man such as myself.

In the meantime, the fly will continue to make enemies of allies, and spit the same vitriol is claims to abhor.

So does radical feminism damage the profile of women’s rights?

What do you think?

~

Sources

YouGov USA – why are you not a feminist?%20182%206.8.2018.pdf)

Attitudes to abortion by sex

Images by Moderat, Neauthy Healthcare, Gemma Chua Tran, Ekemelev, and Kiwi Hug from Unsplash.

[–]gigachadkawasaki 50 points51 points52 points 3 years ago (12 children) | Copy Link

[–]TheTinMenBlogvalued LWMA contributor[S] 28 points29 points30 points 3 years ago (10 children) | Copy Link

[–]knightfluttershyleft-wing male advocate 21 points22 points23 points 3 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]TheTinMenBlogvalued LWMA contributor[S] 9 points10 points11 points 3 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]knightfluttershyleft-wing male advocate 33 points34 points35 points 3 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

She is the writer of such delightful lines as:

“Yes, All Men Only a small percentage of men attack women, but the majority let it happen”

At times, her rants go from bigoted to downright unhinged, such as “perhaps you are looking forward to the sweet respite afforded to us in death – silence from a world of misogynists and mansplainers. But guess again, my friends, because there is no rest for sexism – even when we’re long gone.”

She justifies her evil and her hatred using the same, tired old excuse of ‘My enemies are worse…so whatever evil and cruelty I perform is always justified’ with her article: “Feminists don’t hate men, but it wouldn’t matter if we did - Hurting men’s feelings is not the same as life-threatening misogyny“.

This last one is especially disturbing and pernicious. She knows perfectly well that male suicidal rates are high and is telling people “if you emotionally abuse men, if you make them feel isolated, ashamed and angry, you’re perfectly morally justified in doing so and should probably do it more because of “life-threatening misogyny”. “

At least feminists like “Big Red” are very out there and forthright. But people like Valenti are those rare sorts of people with a huge platform who are just about smart enough to put forward their evil ideology in a rhetorically savvy way that does the greatest amount of harm.

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[–]a-man-from-earthleft-wing male advocate 7 points8 points9 points 3 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]Foxsayy -2 points-1 points0 points 3 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

You really think that all men conspired collectively to oppress women collectively? It's a blatantly ridiculous notion.

No, I don't think that's necessarily the case, and that's not what I said.

If you read about any ancient history, and much of it women were often treated and spoken of his objects and possessions rather than people. Women often had less autonomy to choose partners, or divorce, or choose what career they wanted, etc. Even if I had more power and responsibilities, in many periods women couldn't choose to take on more responsibility.

There were queens sending men to die on the battlefield. There were upper class women who had male slaves or serfs. Certainly those women were not oppressed by those men.

Upper class women were still often traded in political marriages, and we usually the ones that were traded out. And queen was not exactly a common occupation.

If all of this isn't as true as it seems, I'm looking for a good response to this common trope.

[–]a-man-from-earthleft-wing male advocate 5 points6 points7 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]SoMuchForSubtleties 17 points18 points19 points 3 years ago (8 children) | Copy Link

[–]TisIChenoir 28 points29 points30 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]bejaydocrimes 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–]SoMuchForSubtleties -1 points0 points1 point 3 years ago* (5 children) | Copy Link

No, though I get where you're coming from, and it's certainly a common view!

Here's my perspective:

Bodily autonomy is the reason we care that pregnant people have the right to have abortions once we assume that the fetus doesn't have (full) moral value. It's not enough to justify abortion full stop, and any assertion that it is cannot survive scrutiny.

It's impossible to show you that without some back and forth, though, so I'll start off with some basic points to get that back & forth started:

Moral Intuition - while moral intuition is not decisive, it can be insightful. The vast, vast, vast majority of people all across the world, including the vast majority of liberal people do not support late term abortions in the absence of medical need (which, to be clear, motivates essentially all late term abortions, which is why it's stupid to criminalize them). It is impossible to justify the combination of opposition to late term abortions and support for early term abortions without conceding that the evolving moral value of the fetus is the core driver of abortion morality. The bodily autonomy side of the equation has not changed sufficiently to justify a shift in stance in the absence of the fetus's moral value being the core factor - namely, the risk, pain, and etc. of childbirth will always be enough to justify a bodily autonomy argument in the absence of concern for fetal moral value.
It’s just like how you can’t take blood from a person without their consent even if it would save a life.

This is not an equivalent hypothetical. Similar to the violinist hypothetical, the core problem is that you are not considering the moral culpability of the pregnant person in creating the situation. The fetus is not a malignant parasite or even an innocent bystander. No - it was created and placed in its situation of dependency by the pregnant person. Yes, the pregnant person may have used birth control, but she still accepted, by having sex, moral culpability for whatever percentage chance of pregnancy she had after usage of the birth control. To give a contrary hypothetical:

A person has a button which gives them pleasure. It serves no other purpose aside from this - it gives dopamine hits. (Someone I was once having this same discussion with in college called this "the sex button")
Unfortunately, this button also carries with it a .001% chance per push of causing a random person to instantaneously develop a rare condition which only the button pusher's blood can cure. It also teleports the person to the same location as the button pusher.
The person pushes the button, even if just once, and, unfortunately, that low chance triggers. Does the button pusher have a moral responsibility to the other person? Should there be a legal one?

To me, and I believe most people, the answer to the first question is clearly yes. And the answer to the second one is yes as well, but maybe with a little bit less confidence.

3 We can also observe our expectations for parents/adults with post-birth children to gain insight into what our stance on abortion would/should be if the fetus were morally equivalent to a full person. We place very significant expectations on adults to take care of children. To give a hypothetical,

Suppose a 2-3 year old child and an adult who are unrelated somehow end up stuck together in a cabin in the woods in the middle of a snowstorm.
They can get out of the cabin and walk around (with significant, but not crazily high risk of both bodily harm (e.g. frostbite) and death), but the roads are inaccessible, and cell service is down.
There is plenty of food and water available in a store room nearby; however, there is only enough food/water in the house for the adult to feed himself/herself.

Is there an obligation for the adult to brave the journey to the store room to provide for the child? Is there an obligation for the adult to take care of the child generally while they're stuck (prepare the food, help bathe, etc)?

I would argue that there absolutely is to both of those. And there is little functional difference between legally obligating someone to risk death/frostbite by trekking through a snow storm and legally obligating them to risk death through pregnancy and childbirth. See similarly child neglect laws, the lack of "financial abortions" (which basically just means that we're comfortable forcing men to work for the sake of the child), and more.

So there's a few points 🤣. It's not really a massive deal in practice why someone supports abortion as long as they do, but I do think it will be practically impossible to ever convince/sway people who oppose abortion or are on the fence through purely bodily autonomy arguments. Even if you do think it's morally right, it fundamentally contradicts most people's moral intuitions.

edit: woman -> pregnant person 😊

edit 2: Also, in case it wasn't clear, I fully agree that men (e.g., a pregnant person's partner) shouldn't have a say in the personalized decision-making on abortion once we agree as a society that we will allow them. I simply mean that men (all men in the society) are absolutely a valid part of that societal decision-making on the morality/legality of abortion writ large.

[–]bejaydocrimes 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago* (4 children) | Copy Link

I do not think that it’s fair to say that the woman is culpable in any way in a world where doctors can and will deny you medical sterilization because they think you’ll regret it, or because you’re too young, or because you don’t have kids yet, or because you don’t have a husband to give you permission. Not to mention, culpability still doesn’t justify stripping bodily autonomy. If I hit someone with my car, whether intentionally or accidentally, and they need a blood transfusion of a type that happens to match mine, the government cannot force me to give my blood as punishment.

Second, I do not think that the adult in your second situation has responsibility to put themselves in danger to save the child. Most countries actually do not have a “duty to save” written in law, and in those that do it’s usually limited to calling authorities. You can argue that it would be morally better to try and save the child, and most people would agree with you there, but that doesn’t mean the adult should be legally penalized for choosing not to. It’s the same reason why people are encouraged not to perform CPR, save a drowning person, etc if they cannot do it safely. Now you’re just killing two people.

In my view it is morally acceptable to abort a fetus up until the point at which it can survive without the use of the mother’s body - until it has its own autonomy. And at that point labor can simply be induced.

I don’t disagree that the bodily autonomy argument is often dismissed by pro-lifers, but I find it easier than arguing about personhood. It’s the same reason I prefer the slogan “Trans liberation now” to “Trans women are women.” Of course I agree with the second one, but saying that to a transphobe invites a dead-end discussion about the metaphysics of gender, whereas the other invites questions like “what do trans people need liberation from?” That’s something that’s much easier to have a productive discussion about.

[–]bejaydocrimes 2 points3 points4 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]SoMuchForSubtleties 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

I do not think that it’s fair to say that the woman is culpable in any way in a world where doctors can and will deny you medical sterilization because they think you’ll regret it, or because you’re too young, or because you don’t have kids yet, or because you don’t have a husband to give you permission.

Moral culpability in a situation cannot be discharged because others had a hand in crafting the situation unless those others completely removed your agency (so, to be clear, a woman would of course not have any moral culpability in creating the situation were she raped). To say so would entail that almost no one has moral culpability for anything. Which, like, isn't the most insane idea philosophically (indeed, it is shockingly hard to disprove), but it's so far removed from practical considerations as to be irrelevant. And that is not the case here - There is still, fundamentally, a choice to have sex, which is the act that creates the possibility of this situation. The moral culpability may be reduced, but it is not close to eliminated by the refusal of the doctor. The bulk of the culpability still lays with the couple having sex. To the extent that we're crafting our legal regime, the answer to this would be to regulate the ability of the doctor to refuse procedures for arbitrary reasons rather than to shape abortion policy around their bad actions.

If I hit someone with my car, whether intentionally or accidentally, and they need a blood transfusion of a type that happens to match mine, the government cannot force me to give my blood as punishment.

The implicit assumption we're making here as a society is that there is almost always going to be alternative sources of the blood available. If you are the only choice, and you hit them intentionally, I am very comfortable forcing you to give your blood. And I believe most people would be. Accidentally would be trickier and a better analogy - the core difference would be why and how you were driving. E.g., if you were driving negligently and/or recklessly (or drunk) and you were the only possible donor, I think I'd feel comfortable forcing you to donate. If you were driving purely for pleasure but reasonably, I think I'd feel mediocre about forcing you but would be willing to ultimately. If you were driving purely for well-accepted practical purposes (e.g., to and from work) and driving well, I would agree that the government shouldn't force you to help.

I recognize that current laws don't necessarily reflect those hypotheticals even when there may sometimes (rarely) be situations which mirror them (e.g., they need the blood now! and the hitter is the only one w/ that type there). However, you have to recognize that we make laws to be correct in most situations, not unlikely ones. 99%+ of the time, it isn't necessary to take a morally culpable agent's blood without their consent, so we view it as immoral and make it illegal. Leaving that <1% of the time potentially unaccounted for.

Second, I do not think that the adult in your second situation has responsibility to put themselves in danger to save the child. Most countries actually do not have a “duty to save” written in law, and in those that do it’s usually limited to calling authorities. You can argue that it would be morally better to try and save the child, and most people would agree with you there, but that doesn’t mean the adult should be legally penalized for choosing not to. It’s the same reason why people are encouraged not to perform CPR, save a drowning person, etc if they cannot do it safely. Now you’re just killing two people.

Again, the implicit assumption here that society makes is that, for the vast majority of situations, there are alternatives available - namely professional help which can do it better, which ruins them as comparisons.

Also, I'm aware the Common Law countries don't have a tortious general duty of care (and have very clear memories of thinking that that was beyond stupid while in 1L Torts lol), but any chance you could provide some reading on civil law countries? Not doubting you, legit just curious.

I don’t disagree that the bodily autonomy argument is often dismissed by pro-lifers, but I find it easier than arguing about personhood. It’s the same reason I prefer the slogan “Trans liberation now” to “Trans women are women.” Of course I agree with the second one, but saying that to a transphobe invites a dead-end discussion about the metaphysics of gender, whereas the other invites questions like “what do trans people need liberation from?” That’s something that’s much easier to have a productive discussion about.

I mean I don't really have a response to this other than to say that I have 100% found the opposite of this to be true in my own experience. The pure bodily autonomy argument, almost everytime I see it used with conservatives, just results in both sides screaming past each other. And "Trans liberation now" would make the (many) conservatives I know shut down instantly. Though, yes, "trans women are women" is likely to direct the conversation towards the nature of gender rather than practical discrimination.

[–]bejaydocrimes 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]SoMuchForSubtleties 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

You raise some interesting points that I hadn’t really thought of before wrt the analogies I’ve been using. While I still stand by my position I’ll think on what you’ve said.

Very fair, that's all I can ask for!

I think at the end of the day, some (if not most) people will never be convinced by any logical argument, no matter how sound, since our immediate reaction to information that conflicts our beliefs is to shut it down. Not to say there’s no merit in refining and examining our own arguments, but sometimes people can’t be convinced of anything new unless the planets align lmao.

100% true. Persuasion is possible, but not always, and certainly not always with purely logical arguments.

Thank you for far and away the most respectful discussion about abortion I’ve ever had on Reddit.

Of course, you too!

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