I typed 45 minutes of very on-topic, safe, and non-attacking post asking for friendly debate over the topics that keep me from being a feminist. I’m 15, and I thought it’d be a good idea to see how big the breakdown was. I intended to stir people up a little within reason.

My post did not post so I assumed it was caught in a spam filter, and messaged the mods. I was told this was off topic, even though out of all the rules, off topic is one I wouldn’t say it was close to.

Post:

Hey! I’m Ashlynn, 15

I don’t identify with the feminism movement, I’m one to call myself egalitarian instead of feminist. I’m here to discuss and peacefully debate opinions of mine, but I’m mostly interested in how they resonate with you all.

I try to do my best to look at everything from different perspectives, and think about the logic and rhetoric used when constructing arguments, so keep in mind that my beliefs are constructed using this principal to the best of my ability.

My primary belief that fuels this is that I believe that the best way to make a society is build up everyone, not tear down some and build up others. I see a lot of arguments that are plagued with blatant and subtle ad hominem strategy against men.

What I mean by this is that many of the terms frequently used in feminist circles as negatives are inaccurate assumptions. For example, rape culture. Rape culture is a phrase that suggests rape, a violent criminal act, is a systemic issue.

Most sane people would agree that rape is a heinous crime. However where opinions differ is that some suggest there is a cultural factor normalizing sexual assault. In the United States and other developed nations, I feel this is inaccurate, and also slightly a shot against men in general in some ways.

My main concern with this argument is that sexual violence isn’t exclusively male to female, but many who argue rape culture depict men as the perpetrators. Additionally, rape is not considered acceptable behavior in most developed countries, therefore I’d say it is an individual perpetrator crime without mainstream many cultural factors in support of it. RAINN, or the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network also holds a similar stance in the White House recommendations

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A second issue that prevents me from identifying as feminist is feminism vs due process. This ties into my first argument.

In the United States, due process is in the core of the justice system, and is considered a human right. Feminist media reactions to accusations of criminal sexual violence is rather vigilante like, and assumes guilt. which does not afford due process.

In a legal context, it would be directly against article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 14th amendment of US constitution.

Even though a relatively small portion of sexual violence cases are false, by false accusation or otherwise, imprisoning an innocent person is grossly unethical.

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A tertiary argument is a rather subjective and personal opinion, but there are many toxic groups and ideologies under the tree of feminism.

Even if you are in a branch of feminism that argues reasonably with opinions that are not extreme or biased, putting yourself in a group where there are also many extremists, and the most visible people are extremists, does not make you look good. I consider myself a gender (and overall) egalitarian for this reason

https://imgur.com/a/fYySktL

^^ Above contains screenshots of my exchanges with mods

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/913phz/f15_id_love_to_openly_discuss_some_viewpoints/?st=JJY27635&sh=190c9499

^^ Original post (edit)

Edit; added original post link