Can you "talk someone out of" an extreme feminism mindset?

192873982 · 2016-01-16T12:22:27+00:00

It's possible, but hard.

She does not trust you, but instead trusts the feminist ideology as it seems.

If you want to "talk her out of it" (it's actually the wrong wording, you don't want to talk her out of it, you want her to realize things herself), you have to do it slow. She will definitely stop listening to anything you say (and start praying her feminst BS), if you try to convince her too fast.

You should always acknowledge the little truth that is in the false statements.

"Women are treated like objects" is not wrong in some context, but EVERYONE is treated like an object most of the time. Almost every person treats the cashier as some sort of machine, even thou it is a person. That applies to people in most jobs, actually.

But also we often don't treat people as objects when they think we do. If you are sexually attracted to a picture of a woman, you are seeing her as an object. The other way around too, if it's a picture of a man seen by a woman. But when you are sexually attracted to your girlfriend, you don't suddenly forget her human side. You can't objectify people easily if you know them very well, that's just a myth.

"there is a lot of material for you to read about this" is basically a bullshit statement. It is definitely true, but there is a lot to read about every topic, doesn't matter if true or false. Also, you'll know if you had that experience, religious fanatics always try to convince you by claiming you have to read this 1000 page book and that 3 hour youtube video to really understand. That's wrong because if you have understood the book, you can always bring across the main points in a few minutes. There's no reason to tell someone to read a long book for a conversation.

"You don't think that women are objectified because you haven't been made aware" relies on two premises. The first is that people are not neccesarily aware of all things around them, until you point it out. The other premise is that women being objectified is such a case. The first premise is absolutely true. Feminists with their false logic will often believe you deny both premises if you deny this statement, but as you surely know, this is logically wrong. The second statement is partially true, since everyone is objectified, but it's not relevant when the contrast to someone that isn't objectified doesn't exist.

"It's been normalized under the course of centuries that women are worth less than men" is as wrong as can be. There are wordings like "don't be a pussy" that are used to degrade men by relating them to femaleness. Feminists see that as prove that women are seen as less worthy humans, but it's actually wrong. There are also wordings that are used to degrade women by comparing them to men (less often thou, because woman have the FREEDOM to look like a man without complaint by society). So if the logic used by feminists would apply, both women would be less worthy than men and men less worthy than women. A contradiction.

"In today’s society, they are worth less than men" is the same thing again.

"Their work isn’t worth as much, their opinions, their positions in society, etc, isn’t equal to that of men" is wrong. Women get paid the same for the same work, but for her to realize you have to start at the definition of job-related fairness (only job-relevant factors determine the wage) and then show her logically that equal average pay doesn't follow from that. But yes, the opinions, positions and so on are not equal to the ones of men, but also not valued less. Or at least not because they are women. When evaluating opinions, we don't flip a coin to ensure gender fairness, but we think about the arguments and then come to a conclusion about the other person. It would be easily provable that this is the case. A study would just have to let people chat with each other without knowing the gender. Then they evaluate each others opinion on the topic they discussed. Then compare that to the same experiment where people talk on the phone and therefore know the gender. But I don't think it has been done, would be an interesting read. But to come to the point. If feminists claim such things and it's that easy to find out the truth about such statements and the discipline gender studies exists at universities, why wouldn't they have done that small effort to find out wether it is actually true? I can only explain that by the fear that it turns out to be wrong. When you build up on something wrong, it become increasingly harder to accept that everything was just bullshit. But that's what science should do.

boringcarpets · 2016-01-16T15:14:47+00:00

garglemesh42 · 2016-01-16T16:58:13+00:00

If you're in a relationship with this woman, get out NOW. Just don't piss her off when you do it.

Feminism is basically a cult, yes. At least, tumblr-style feminism is, and that's what she's getting sucked into. The problem is, if she decides she wants to make your life a living hell, she can do it. The law, the cops, and the judges are all going to take her side. As long as she's careful to make up a story that can't be proven either way and doesn't change her story, she can fuck up your life real good. A false accusation of rape against you will ruin you. Even if she fucks up and you can prove that the accusation is false, it can still ruin your life.

I know that sounds a little ... extreme. But the fact is that any woman can ruin your life that way if she wanted to. The vast, vast majority of them won't! Still, she's started to listen to people that will convince her that she's always a victim of something. The people pushing this ideology can and will take any little misunderstanding and turn it into rape. Did you ever have consensual sex with her when both of you were drunk? or maybe when she was the only one that was drunk? These people can and will convince her that that was rape. Did you ever have sex with her where you didn't ask her for permission first, even though she was ripping your clothes off you? They will convince her that it was rape (because it doesn't meet the "yes means yes" standard).

... Obviously, the choice is yours, but whatever you pick, be very damn careful.

Philosophyofpizza · 2016-01-16T13:35:38+00:00

Feminism is not exclusive to men's rights.

KrisK_lvin · 2016-01-16T13:45:24+00:00

should I just save myself the heartache and get out as soon as I can?

You mean you’re in a relationship with this woman?

I think you ought to consider why it is she might have become attracted to these ideas in the first place. What’s happening in her life, at work or at college or wherever, that might be making these ideas attractive for her?

It sounds like she’s depressed, to be honest - people with depression often have a very narrow focus on negative aspects of her life. I’ve no doubt she can point to examples of women being objectified as she puts it, but she needs to ask herself whether this happens everywhere or only in some certain times and places.

soalone34 · 2016-01-17T04:13:40+00:00

"Women are treated like objects, there is a lot of material for you to read about this."

The idea that women being princesses to be rescued or seen as sexual desires somehow oppresses them is laughable. While it is true this is objectification she's ignoring the fact male objectification is far worse. Females are seen as something important, desireable, needs to be protected. Male objectification? See: Every throw away death in movies or tv. You don't see piles of dead female soldiers do you? Also it can be argued objectification isn't even a bad thing, it's a natural human behavior.

"You don't think that women are objectified because you haven't been made aware. It's been normalized under the course of centuries that women are worth less than men."

Remember that time when millions of women were forced to fight to the death by the government? And all because they were women capable of fighting? And they let all the men stay safe within the country? No because it happened to men and it was called War. Men are conditioned from birth they are disposable, women are widely regarded as extremely important and a need to be protected. This is evolutionary. A man can impregnate many women but a woman carrying a baby takes 9 months, as such if a tribe had 5 men and 5 women it sent the 5 men to hunt and fight because as long as one got back they could make 5 babies. If they sent 2 men and 2 women they could only make 3 babies.

"In today’s society, they are worth less than men. Their work isn’t worth as much, their opinions, their positions in society, etc, isn’t equal to that of men."

See the 1963 pay equality act. If a woman is being paid less based on her gender she can sue.

Also national experiments show a hiring bias for women so that employers can seem equality driven

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract

Position in society? Women have the majority vote. As a position we still have the draft, almost all violent deaths are still by men, cops are men, soldiers are men.

It boggles my mind how people can say, since more women are abused then men it's a gendered problem, but then turn around and completely ignore that

The majority of homeless are men

The majority murders are men

The majority of combat deaths are men

The majority of inmates are men

The majority of workplace deaths are men

The majority of rapes are men (prison, in America)

And say that they aren't gendered issues. Well they are by YOUR criteria. Females being abused and raped by the way is and has always been seen as more of a problem then men being abused or raped also.

That's literally basically all the majorly bad things that can happen to someone, and they are the majority happening to men.

Want to see proof you view male lives as less important? See YOURSELF and how this hasn't ever even entered your train of thought. That train being built by the labor of men who where able to do it because they were safe thanks to the dead bodies of drafted men somewhere.

ee4m · 2016-01-16T13:46:41+00:00

There was a study that showed that convincing and contradictory evidence made these sort more set in their beliefs.

2016-01-16T15:10:28+00:00

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's.

Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity.

The lunatic's theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: "Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers."

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

lostapwbm · 2016-01-16T18:21:29+00:00

Feminism is a cult, particularly one that regards women as the "Elect" and men as the "forsaken." In socialist terms, women are the proletariat, the ever-oppressed, under-valued workers who carry civilization on their backs with their "labor" and men are the capitalists, who just sit back, twiddle their thumbs and enjoy the fruits, with a little rape tossed in every once in awhile to keep the woman-proles in line.

If she's not family, cut all ties, kick her to curb, ASAP. If she is family, reduce contact to a minimum.

2016-01-16T22:15:39+00:00

No, but you can educate them out of it be teaching them tough lessons in life, usually by giving them the equality they demanded. So much absolute equality that they beg you to stop. Then the question becomes one of reciprocity for the special treatment they actually want... or if they birth a son they truly love, want the best for him, and see how their son is treated (or will be treated). Also, if a male they love or care for is raked over the coals can sometimes change them.

MisterDamage · 2016-01-17T01:52:29+00:00

All three statements work just as well turned on their head.

"Men are treated like objects, there is a lot of material for you to read about this." True.

"You don't think men are objectified because you haven't been made aware. It's been normalized under the course of centuries that men are worth less than women" Not only is this true, her original comment is false. See the Titanic.

"In today's society, men's lives are worth less than those of women. They die more often of most causes (female specific maladies and old age being exceptions) and in particular, of workplace injuries and violence, yet it is violence against women and women's health which is afforded special emphasis in politics" Not only is this true, her original statement ignores the premium men get paid for literally risking their lives. Apparently, in her world view, men's lives are literally worthless

That said, I don't think she can be convinced. What should be done is her views must be challenged so as to prevent their spread.

MenandBoysareGood · 2016-01-17T02:27:06+00:00

Well, I used to be of an "extreme feminist" mindset. It wasn't just a belief but a conviction. What did it in for me - was a steady searching from non biased sources. Its just incredible how much disinformation we're fed. Young people are especially vulnerable to media frenzy campaigns that often utilize convenient statistics. But from there on you usually fall into one of two camps - you either accept it as truth or you challenge it.

I don't think your approach should be to refute her but rather to show her information that demonstrates that men don't have it that much better than women. However, if she refuses to move beyond her comfort zone and simply wants to dig her heels into the woman is victim (men are perpetrators) mentality then you really need to think hard whether you want to be with a person like that.

snowplough77 · 2016-01-17T03:01:29+00:00

I think it would be worthwhile showing her counter-information, eg some Karen Straughan videos.

The problem is that most feminists seem to be utterly impervious to logic. Some have even gone so far as to say that rationality is a patriarchal construct and that subjective feelings represent a "higher" realm of truth. This would be fine and well if they didn't wield the power of the state.

If her opinions harden after gently showing her the info, get out and get out fast. It's one thing to have a philosophical disagreement with your girlfriend, it's quite another when she's having her head filled with bizarre ideas about "rape culture", "yes means yes," etc.

Personally, I would never date a feminist in today's political climate. It's like playing with fire. I hang out with a few from time to time, but when it comes to romance I look for non-crazy people who don't regard me as an oppressor because I have a penis.

2016-01-17T20:26:37+00:00

Demand sources do not take her word for truth. Collect massive amounts of your own evidence through recent times (e.g. What if she asks about domestic abuse law in the 1700s? Its always good to have a history of things in mind as feminists usually lean on the alleged action of past feminism).

Eventually she will be caught performing circular reasoning in which case she will concede or you can regard her as a lost cause.

Title	Can you "talk someone out of" an extreme feminism mindset?
Author	Honeycone
Upvotes	16
Comments	29
Date	January 16, 2016 11:38 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/4181ja/can_you_talk_someone_out_of_an_extreme_feminism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/can-you-talk-someone-out-of-an-extreme-feminism.963049 https://theredarchive.com/post/963049

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