That's about the gist of what happens when someone says something really insane that fits in line with everything we've come to know about radical feminism and what they believe, but happens to be satire.

I am talking about this, where the blog goes just short of saying "haha look at those people for thinking that's what radical feminists actually believe. What idiots." I ran across this on /r/TumblrinAction, so apologies that I'm largely paraphrasing what I wrote there.

I also moderate both TiA and /r/srssucks, so I am used to spotting people who "false flag"; my satire-dar went off immediately on reading it. On the other hand, I've heard that same argument made unironically before. It's one of those situations where even if it were satire, there are people who have said things like "patriarchy oppresses women into wanting sex" and meant it.

This blog neglects to consider some pretty obvious points, namely: it's not like radical feminists have a history of codified, clearly-defined, easily-accessible beliefs that anyone can refer to if they have internet access. Not only are their beliefs not common knowledge or defined clearly, but they work to avoid explaining any aspect of their ideology other than the conclusions reached. They will tell you that women are oppressed by patriarchy because that's a conclusion reached by their beliefs, but if you ask them to go deeper than that you're out of luck. If someone, somewhere, gets radical feminism wrong, this is understandable. It's an ideology they purposely make difficult to get right, even though it's not that complicated or difficult to understand when explained clearly.

To put it differently, if it turned out that someone from Scientology wrote a satire about what people think about Scientology and someone misinterpreted it as sincere, I don't think we would blame the second person.