"These aren't real feminists. They're not representative of the majority of feminists. They don't count." How does one address this argument?

NohoTwoPointOh · 2020-01-02T13:00:42+00:00

Then why don’t “real” feminists publicly denounce them? By remaining silent, they show implicit approval of the “fake” feminists.

No True Scotsman fallacy

QueenNayru · 2020-01-02T14:47:37+00:00

I generally respond with: "Real or not, they call themselves feminists and they're the ones making change, so they're the ones I'm concerned with".

Oncefa2 · 2020-01-02T13:23:20+00:00

My strategy is to highlight the popularity of things like Ms magazine and other mainstream feminist organizations and figures, all of which support "radical feminist ideas" (like fighting against equal custody laws, passing gendered domestic violence and sexual assault laws, etc).

Here's a response I made about a week ago to someone who said something similar to, "as a feminist, I support equality".

but it's also fighting for men to be able to have equal custody of their kids and women getting equal sentences for equal violent crimes

I'm very glad to see this written somewhere besides the various men's rights subs and by someone who calls themself a feminist.

I really don't think "feminism" is the important qualifier here though. You support these ideas because it's the right thing to do, not because you're a feminist.

And while I don't doubt you when you say this, most feminists who hold any amount of power and authority in the movement, do not believe this. They give it lip service at best, and then hide behind things like "toxic masculinity", "the patriarchy", and "men harming men" to justify their sexist, anti-male attitudes.

For example, you mentioned child custody as an example of a problem that you think needs worked on. But do you know who passed our current divorce and child custody laws? Feminists did. And do you know who continues to fight against equal parenting proposals both in the United States, and around the world? Again, feminists do.

Feminist lobbying groups are the single largest obstacle that father's rights groups run into trying to get these laws passed.

And maybe you're not one of these feminists. Which is great. But you don't hold institutional power. People like Katherine Spillar, Mary Koss, and the National Organization for Women are the ones who hold institutional power. They are the ones fighting for inequality. And your tacit support of these people and organizations are why they hold so much power and are able to get away with all of the harm that they cause in society.

Men-Are-Human · 2020-01-02T13:50:43+00:00

Girl Writes What explains that the Feminists in charge are real Feminists. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/68v91b/comment/dh23pwo

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2020-01-02T13:57:13+00:00

What are the "real" feminists doing to overturn the policies of the far more numerous and successful "no true" feminists?

rabel111 · 2020-01-02T21:30:14+00:00

Feminism is a popular movement, defined by the actions and dialogue of it's adherents. This reframing of feminism as a dictionary definition is a tied old trick, a pea and cup scam.

Feminism is what feminism does. If the movement has become a gender hatred movement, that's because feminism has nutured that hatred, given it a home, a family and empowerment. If feminism was not based on gender hatred, then feminists should be condemning gender hatred, but they don't. They remain silent. That acquiecence is the tell.

1LegendaryWombat · 2020-01-02T14:50:32+00:00

I'm a pull a quote from Karen Straughen did to someone on reddit.

So what you're saying is that you, a commenter using a username on an internet forum are the true feminist, and the feminists actually responsible for changing the laws, writing the academic theory, teaching the courses, influencing the public policies, and the massive, well-funded feminist organizations with thousands and thousands of members all of whom call themselves feminists... they are not "real feminists".

That's not just "no true Scotsman". That's delusional self deception.

Listen, if you want to call yourself a feminist, I don't care. I've been investigating feminism for more than 9 years now, and people like you used to piss me off, because to my mind all you were doing was providing cover and ballast for the powerful political and academic feminists you claim are just jerks. And believe me, they ARE jerks. If you knew half of what I know about the things they've done under the banner of feminism, maybe you'd stop calling yourself one.

But I want you to know. You don't matter. You're not the director of the Feminist Majority Foundation and editor of Ms. Magazine, Katherine Spillar, who said of domestic violence: "Well, that's just a clean-up word for wife-beating," and went on to add that regarding male victims of dating violence, "we know it's not girls beating up boys, it's boys beating up girls."

The whole thing if you're interested in it. She lists a bunch of feminists who have done demonstrably awful things and whatnot, some of which are hailed as feminist icons i'm pretty sure.

Essentially, Karen is correct. Feminists often say 'those aren't real feminists'....and then do nothing about those who say that men should be killed, that men can never, ever be victims of rape, sexual assault, etc, that women never lie, etc etc. Terfs, for example, are rarely ever even MENTIONED by feminists, let alone told to stop calling themselves feminists or something. Feminism is a movement that does zero self policing, so its radial elements can just do whatever the fuck they want.

It would be like, the catholic church, not that long ago actually, 100% knowing about all the pedophile priests and NOT stopping them. Knowing about say, Westboro baptist church and saying 'yeah, they're bad, not endorsed' and then doing nothing about them at all.

Its a way to avoid criticism because people want to believe their movement in this case, has no actual problems

mcmur · 2020-01-02T16:01:40+00:00

Feminism is...what ever feminists make it out to be.

Whoever ever is saying this to you isn't the ultimate authority on what is and isn't feminism. For every 'woke' feminist that claims that she isn't a man-hating harpy there is another one who is.

Lion_amongst_gods · 2020-01-02T16:04:05+00:00

"Yeah, and Hitler wasn't a real Nazi, that's not real Nazism"...

Lethn · 2020-01-02T13:06:18+00:00

Ask them about patriarchy and the usual feminist rhetoric and see what they believe. I've done this with only one person so far and plan to use it more often but it was remarkable how fast the 'moderate' facade slipped and they started spewing conspiratorial nonsense.

I've always suspected these people are just feminists on damage control and I think this is the best way of exposing that. So go through the list, do they believe in the patriarchy, do they think the gender pay gap is a result of discrimination and do they think toxic masculinity is a real thing?

All of this is in mainstream feminist ideology and if they answer yes to any of them you can show them up for being the disingenuous bastards that they are. Real moderates do not believe in that kind of nonsense but I can understand how frustrating it is trying to have an earnest argument with these lot and that was my mistake to.

They're not here for an argument though, they're here to salvage the reputation of feminism by attacking us for pointing out all the problems with the movement and how there are genuinely horrible people that are in it and they have taken over.

So yeah, don't waste time defending yourself from their accusations, go on the attack. Make sure to get their beliefs clear for everybody to see and they will quickly fall apart. Basically once they even acknowledge that they think there is a patriarchy in the west they show themselves up to everybody. It took me awhile to work this out because they're spammers and very difficult to deal with but eventually I clicked on how to deal with them.

jeff_the_nurse · 2020-01-02T14:24:05+00:00

“That’s the issue right there. It’s more important for you to tell people like me who point out the misandrists in your movement that they aren’t real feminists than it is for you to tell them that they’re not being real feminists.”

irrelevantmoniker · 2020-01-02T13:41:20+00:00

You cant , or at least not here. The Karen straughan quote should of made a dent if the douche canoe was open to being persuaded. You used it. It didn't make a dent. This person is a moron incapable of changing their mind.

ApprehensiveMail8 · 2020-01-02T19:36:52+00:00

The word "feminism" is not a person. I don't care if it gets hurt.

double-happiness · 2020-01-02T21:40:03+00:00

Related: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/g2eme/feminists_tell_you_that_the_solution_to_mens/

TheStumblingWolf · 2020-01-02T23:01:07+00:00

The so called "not real feminists" are the ones out there making changes in law and culture. That makes them the real feminists.

bufedad · 2020-01-02T14:39:48+00:00

So, you're telling me that the majority of people claiming to be "feminists" aren't and you choose to be associated with them and support their endeavors?

Ody_ssey · 2020-01-02T13:57:18+00:00

The one who are in minority are the ones who say they are not real feminists. Media, government, universities and institutions only listen to radical feminism.

ShawshankRetention · 2020-01-02T14:03:28+00:00

It is actually i think more strategic and effective to agree that they are not the majority.

Hence your interlocutor must recognise than at least a part is toxic, and you have a common basis to determine what is toxic and what to do aboit it.

If you can make people realise that a part of feminists are actually harmfull, they will have to wonder which things are harmfull and will ultimately realise the corruption in the movement.

JestyerAverageJoe · 2020-01-02T14:19:29+00:00

I wrote a post about that here: https://www.reddit.com/comments/eiltwm

RoryTate · 2020-01-02T15:05:46+00:00

I usually like to simplify the conversation down to just a few topics or even a single issue, and see how they approach applying equality to specific situations. The best issue to use as a litmus test I've found is male incarceration and the legal system. If sentencing were done equally for men and women, 6 out of 7 men currently in prison would be released. Ask them if they would support equal punishments for the same crime for men and women, or if they instead think that the current outcomes that see men getting disproportinately higher jail times are fair and "equal".

Then you can note that the only actions taken by feminists have been to close down women's prisons, ban incarceration for the majority of female crimes, and further widen the sentencing gap.

There are a lot of double standards though, and education, employment, genital mutilation, medical funding, health, and many other issues could be used as well. Just pick one to start with and focus on doing a deep dive into it, and make the conversation as specific and practical as you can. Broad and nebulous platitudes serve their arguments the best, so avoid general statements and pin down exactly what words mean whenever possible. I've often thought that having a series of tests ("answer this series of questions to see where you land on supporting equality"), kind of like a poll, might be a handy tool for us to have when debating this type of feminist.

cfcsvanberg · 2020-01-02T20:14:51+00:00

Tell them that if that's all feminism is, they don't have to call themselves feminists and feel the need to defend feminism when the "extremists" do bad things. They can just call themselves egalitarians or human rights activists, and avoid that whole issue. If they persist, ask them why they would want to keep a label that has been tarnished by the bad behavior of those non-feminists. If they don't think feminism is anything beyond equal rights for women, they don't really need to be feminists.

RingosTurdFace · 2020-01-02T21:36:41+00:00

Firstly and most importantly ask for their concise definition of feminism - as they can tell you what feminism isn’t, they should therefore be able to tell you what it is.

If they won’t give you a definition, don’t waste time with them - as soon as you start to debate, if you make valid points against feminism, they’ll “shape-shift” again and claim it’s not feminism.

If they do define feminism (I’d hope along the lines of “equality of opportunity for females”), then you have something to discuss. Now you can present example which you believe are feminism that contradict their definition of feminism.

Go on to ask what they’re doing to ensure “feminism” is what they think it is or ask what your example of feminism is if they do not believe it to be feminism.

2020-01-02T21:48:32+00:00

Do more research and identify those feminists in media and higher education. Cite popular Misandric articles and books.

The overall goal is to highlight the powerful positions these feminists currently occupy where a lot of our current laws and viewpoints on men were shaped.

genkernels · 2020-01-03T00:24:38+00:00

I like the term "institutionalized feminism" to refer to the NOW and Ms Magazine and friends. I don't care who is a "real feminist" I care about real people and what real people do. And the reality is that politicians believe that the NOW has the broad base of feminism behind it. I'd love to have some help in disabusing politicians of this notion, I say to the feminist.

But this idea of defining feminism as a movement for equality is just pretzeled logic. There are obviously some people who are unambiguously feminist (like Sally Miller Gearheart) who are clearly not about equality. In fact, someone made a good list (well it's a list about bad things, so I'm not sure whether to call it a good list or a bad list...anyways). If one wishes to have a personal definition of feminism that excludes many feminists, I mean, one can define blue as red but it won't help people communicate. My beef isn't what someone calls feminism or not, my beef is with the real actions of real people.

But I suspect /u/Lethn is right, ask about patriarchy.

omegaphallic · 2020-01-03T00:54:46+00:00

Point out there is no central authority for feminists, or as Camille Paglia would say no Pope of feminism. So the best way to gage feminists ay feminists is how much clouf do they possess individually within the feminist movement and/or within public institutions.

iainmf · 2020-01-03T04:10:54+00:00

Another approach I have tried is to apply their definition of feminism to myself.

"If feminism is believing in equality, then I'm a feminist. And as a feminist, I think we should be concerned about ..."

I've only done it once or twice, but one time, suddenly the other person had extra criteria to excluded me from being a feminist.

DignifiedAlpaca · 2020-01-03T06:40:45+00:00

Once you have given a long list of prominent feminists who have done bad things, you have then proven that there are in fact a lot of bad prominent feminists. If your opponent continues to insist that the long list you gave is actually only a minority of prominent feminists, then the ball is now in their court. It is up to them to provide counterexamples.

You made your side of the argument. You did everything that could have possibly been expected of you. Any reasonable person walking away from the conversation at that point is likely to be convinced that you are right because your opponent is willingly providing little to no counterexamples to the examples you are giving.

Since the ultimate goal of a public debate is to convince the audience rather than the person you are debating with, the result here is that you won. There is nothing else that you need to do.

Lupinfujiko · 2020-01-03T16:28:11+00:00

Douglas Murray summarizes this quite well. I will try to paraphrase.

Are women equal? Or victims? Or are they better?

Messages coming out of feminist camps greatly differ.

We've all heard "women are equal!". Okay, no problem.

But then we've also heard women are victims. "Believe all women" is a great example of that. It immediately sets the precedent that "all women are victims, therefore need protection".

How can women be equal if they're victims?

But it doesn't just stop there. Women are better.

The "Future Is Female" t-shirts for example. Or the narrative "if we had more women in power, we'd have fewer wars".

The classic is "if the Lehman Brothers were the Lehman Sisters, maybe we wouldn't have had the financial crisis of 2008."

So the question for feminism really is: Are women equal? Or victims? Or better than men?

DarthCallidous · 2020-01-02T16:07:15+00:00

Just say "these aren't representative of the majority of men" or "these aren't representative of the majority of white people"

Their heads will explode because then they'll have to say "but men/white people did blah blah blah"

zeerust2000 · 2020-01-03T04:27:19+00:00

Say.... "Then it's the fake feminists you should be talking to, not me. Come back when you've sorted things out with them and then maybe we can talk."

azazelcrowley · 2020-01-03T06:24:56+00:00

If i'm not talking about you and instead talking about some other different thing called feminism, then why did you join this conversation? You apparently understand i'm not talking about your feminism but felt the need to come here anyway. And I note your effort is spent on me, a man and thus the victim of these misandrists, not them. Every second you spend telling me this is time you should be spending telling them. I'm not going to stop calling the bad stuff feminism because that's what it's called and it's how it is labeled and how to recognize it, as well as it being necessary to educate people on what is wrong with it. You might not like that, but i'd suggest you take that up with them instead of me.

All you are doing is derailing my criticism of this hate movement and coming to their defense because you're angry about your movements name being appropriated by them, supposedly, if we're charitable to you and agree that your movement isn't "Really" anti-male, and yet you're here talking to the victims of that hate movement and trying to make it impossible for them to call out what's happening to them. I suggest you get over the fact that most mens experience of feminism is of the hate movement, and not yours, such that your claim that it's not "Real feminism" is based on your own myopic bias and lack of concern for mens experiences. It's real to them, it's how they experience it.

Once you get over that you might also see your way into realizing that even calling yourself a feminist is anti-male, even if you're supposedly "One of the good ones", because it involves ignoring mens experiences.

GingerRazz · 2020-01-04T11:56:23+00:00

This is a point of cognitive dissonance that requires much diplomatic effort to even have them hear what you're saying and not get aggressively strawmanned.

They have an idea in their head of the dictionary definition of feminism and believe that any person who doesn't fit that definition isn't a feminist. As such, if you bring up an individual who claims feminism acting that way or a feminist group, they'll retreat to the no true Scotsman fallacy.

My method, and it takes a lot of research, is to keep up to date with the individual groups feminists support as pure. Ask them to give you an example of a "real" feminist group who has passed policy, and then provide an example where they run afoul.

When they tell you who a real feminist group is that they support and you show them the flaw, give credit where credit is due. Acknowledge a place where they have done something that has pushed equality and tell them they should call out the problems while supporting the good.

If you can inspire them to give nuanced disagreement with something they support, they will be in for a ride awakening. They will take a half step out of line and be treated like we are. At that point, they may finally understand what we are saying.

Sure, most of them will just learn to shut up and fall in line, but some of them will become former feminists, and an even smaller portion will become anti feminists. Either way, we will slowly make people understand that we are not crazy speaking of the totalitarian nature of feminism and the scorn for men's rights if we can get people to express even the most nuanced disagreement with feminism.

Sadly, it is far harder to red pill a person than it is to get them to express nuance and have feminism red pill them for us.

lostapwbm · 2020-01-04T17:39:23+00:00

"That isn't really what feminism is about...

How do you know that?

...feminism is just advocacy for women...

What kind of advocacy?

a movement for equality, full stop"

What do you mean by 'equality'?

not_slaw_kid · 2020-01-04T18:59:52+00:00

Im sure the majority of Nazis weren't in favor of concentration camps in WWII Germany either.

Ukman_44 · 2020-01-04T19:13:39+00:00

I'm not sure you needed to "win" these arguments. A feminist who acknowledges men are also victims of discrimination is on our side as far as I'm concerned.

oremfrien · 2020-01-05T00:05:06+00:00

The way that I typically address any ideological group with numerous different parties and affiliations is to say, "I realize that this ideological group has many outliers and individuals who veer off the general path. However, if we look at the institutional leaders of this movement, we see certain consistent behaviors."

In the case of feminism, I use the National Organization for Women, Gloria Steinem, and the Slutwalk. Those organizations have consistently lobbied against men's rights and for women's rights, but women's rights in a more maximal way than the prior men's rights in that field were (like voting without the draft requirement).

If I need to press that I am aware of feminist countercurrents, I point out that despite my numerous disagreements with Big Red, she actually agrees with MRAs on a number of issues that mainstream feminists don't. For example, she is in favor of shared custody for children of divorce while the NOW actively lobbied against shared custody. However, I don't care about Big Red's opinion in any material sense because there is no institutional weight behind her.

ZimbaZumba · 2020-01-05T02:38:59+00:00

No True Scotsman argument - is when someone tries to change the definition of a word in order to ignore a valid counter-example.

levelate · 2020-01-02T12:46:38+00:00

with ridicule.

vanharteopenkaart · 2020-01-02T18:13:03+00:00

“Feminism” is historically just a label and takes many forms. I distinguish basically liberal feminism, which IS about equality, radical feminism which is openly misandrist, and “middle feminism”.

Middle feminism is the dominant feminism and what’s seen as “feminism” today, especially here on reddit, and is not hateful to men but rather dismissive of men’s struggles, hostile to men’s complaints and inherently for less rights for men than for women.

Most “feminists” are middle feminist, but create the strawman in that you confuse them for radical feminists. So when you say that a certain feminist is misandrist, they’ll say “no I’m not, those are those dumb radfems” but when you’ll ask them further, they’ll still oppose paper abortion, circumcision ban etc.

DanteLivra · 2020-01-02T19:05:32+00:00

Then why is it the popular vision of feminism ? If "real" feminists are so great, why don't they call out the radical/fake ones. Compare it to bullying, bystanders who do nothing contribute just as much as the bully. Maybe the majority of feminists low-key agree with that kind of stuff but are too scared to actually show it.

Or you can always counter with the good old "sexual harrassers aren't men, they are not representative of the majority of men, they don't count".

Ketsuni · 2020-01-02T13:20:27+00:00

I 2nd; you can't. I can kinda see both sides, and get how those feminist examples/thoughts would be seen as leaning towards the more extreme... like how not everyone in the mens rights are the terrible caricatures that get portrayed, but there's always those people in social groups that cross the line. I'd just let it go; changing their mind probably isn't happening tonight

Title	"These aren't real feminists. They're not representative of the majority of feminists. They don't count." How does one address this argument?
Author	problem_redditor
Upvotes	142
Comments	99
Date	January 2, 2020 12:45 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/eixt16/these_arent_real_feminists_theyre_not/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/these-arent-real-feminists-theyre-not.861826 https://theredarchive.com/post/861826

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