This post is created from a combination of posts and comments I have written in the past which I think deserve further discussion.
I’ve found time and time again that there is a certain brand of feminist that is just impossible to deal with: those that are really invested in the ideology and are really good at coming up with rhetorical tricks to obfuscate and confuse their opponent. When they have really strong staying power, the argument basically turns into a competition of who can say “I disagree” in a more sneaky and creative way, and if they’re better than you rhetorically, they can run circles around you until you give up.
Rhetorical tricks are feminism’s stock in trade - I noticed that a lot of feminists tend to come to conclusions very quickly based on knee-jerk, instinctual perceptions of things, and spend a lot of time justifying why they think the way they do and inoculating their worldview from criticism using these types of word games. MRAs tend to spend more time consciously thinking over and mulling about a topic, and generally use language in a straightforward manner. It’s generally more difficult to tackle word games and rhetorical tricks when you’re inclined towards communicating clearly without dishonest obfuscation.
I’ve written extensively about the most common feminist rhetorical tricks.
Motte-and-bailey is one of their most common tactics. They spend most of their time in the bailey where they push X: positions about society and about men which are extremely questionable and controversial, and when called on it they'll retreat to the motte by insisting that they only meant Y: a comparatively defensible and uncontroversial statement or position.
They mainly do this through definitional twisting.
They push all sorts of questionable beliefs and exclude people from their movement for not believing in said questionable beliefs such as patriarchy theory (Look at their treatment of Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia) while insisting that feminists simply believe in gender equality, nice and simple, and that no extra beliefs are necessary in order to be a feminist.
They'll use "patriarchy" in discussions to refer to what they clearly think are societies built by men to oppress women but when called out on these statements they'll run back to the motte and firmly assert that "patriarchy" only means a society where men predominate in positions of political power. Then when their interlocutor can't rebut them due to the motte definition of "patriarchy" which they have claimed they're using the feminist can go "See? X society is patriarchal." Then when the inconvenient interlocutor leaves they can go right back to using the word to refer to a society built by men to privilege men and oppress women.
They'll use the word "toxic masculinity" in a way that implies that men or masculinity generally is inherently deficient and harmful to men, women and society, connecting it with some of the worst human behaviours such as rape, school shootings, war and genocide, but when called on it they'll say they're only referring to a subset of masculine expectations which harm men and say they don't think that masculinity in general is bad or worse than femininity. Even though they never speak about how bad or toxic feminine traits can be (and definitely never connect it to the worst human behaviours like they do with masculinity) and hardly ever speak about the positives of masculinity.
Arguing with them is like trying to argue with someone who's firmly insisting that the word "chair" really refers to a table and who won't budge on it no matter how many times you call them out on their definitional twisting. Them keeping the words they use so poorly defined that they can be constantly redefined whenever convenient allows them an out every single time anyone tries to back them into a corner. They can always assert that X wasn't what they meant and that they really meant Y, even if everyone knows they were pushing X.
They speak out of both sides of their mouth, and when you call them on it, they'll either say you're misunderstanding or they'll actively accuse you of being the bad faith actor, trying to misrepresent feminists and smear them with falsehoods. It's the worst form of gaslighting I've ever seen in action.
Another word game they play is the "benevolent sexism" word game. That tactic is basically to reinterpret every gender norm, even those that harm men and benefit women, as originating from misogyny and hatred of women.
A comment on Reddit outlined what a dishonest debate tactic "benevolent sexism" was with this hypothetical and I thought it needed to be posted here.
Men are seen as more logical and rational which means they have higher chances to be hired in STEM positions. This is sexist towards women because it denies them access to STEM positions if men get hired purely based on the assumption that they make better rational problem solvers.
Women are seen as more emotional and empathetic which means they are more likely to be hired for jobs that require work with children. This is benevolent sexism towards women because it assumes that women are inherently better suited for social situations and puts pressure on them to act social even if they're not.
Let's reword those statements:
Men are seen as more logical and rational which means they have higher chances to be hired in STEM positions. This is benevolent sexism towards men because it assumes that men are inherently gifted with superior logical reasoning and puts pressure on them to act unemotional even if they're not.
Women are seen as more emotional and empathetic which means they are more likely to be hired for jobs that require work with children. This is sexist towards men because it denies men that want to work with children the right to be involved in the emotional development of children since the assumption is that women are socially more adapt.
Benevolent sexism as a term is the mother of all language games.
Both sides can play this bullshit word game, but only feminists do it. By doing this, they've essentially created a self-sealing theory, creating ad hoc hypotheses to reinterpret all apparent evidence against the theory as evidence in favour of the theory whenever convenient. The more damning the counterevidence appears to be, the stronger the theory. The more men are disadvantaged, the more this is just evidence of m a l e o p p r e s s i o n o f w o m e n.
These types of tactics when they get brought up are already difficult to tackle, but this post is only addressing the most common ones. A particularly skilled debater can come up with new, novel ones on the fly and completely throw you for a loop.
I’m not good when it comes to dealing with tons and tons of tangled rhetoric. I’m mainly good with providing statistics and empirical claims. I generally communicate in a straightforward manner and can be thrown easily with particularly nasty rhetorical backflipping. And there are a bunch of feminists I’ve seen who are very good rhetorically, and who can use words to argue even the most asinine positions.
I suppose what I’m looking for is a way to deal well with these people if I ever have to. And I could just let it go, but their rhetoric might work on low-information people, and I feel uncomfortable letting them stand.
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The best way to deal with people who play word games is to insist (politely) that they define every word or phrase that might have more than one meaning the moment they use it. If you can hold them to a particular definition, you can debate them. Otherwise it’s not worth it.
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