This article by the Standard Examiner details the recent cancellation by Anita Sarkeesian at Utah State due to threats to her life and the lives of attendees by someone claiming their life was "ruined by feminism".

The email author wrote that “feminists have ruined my life and I will have my revenge, for my sake and the sake of all the others they've wronged.“

Obviously not every individual who dislikes feminism is going to threaten or commit violence, but the attitude of feminism "ruining lives" or "ruining marriage" is said often enough by RPers I think it warrants some discussion.

According to feminists males exploit females by giving them less than they take. Males exploit females by essentially paying them less than they are worth for their sexual capital. What else does a female bring to the table other than her femininity, her vagina, her womb?

From passages like these (and there are many of them) I get the sense that the only perceived value women have at all is reproductive and sexual capacity, as if all women did was lay in bed waiting to be impregnated and give birth over and over. [That wasn't the case, though.] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_workforce#History)

Women have worked at agricultural tasks since ancient times, and continue to do so around the world. The Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries changed the nature of work in Europe and other countries of the Western world. Working for a wage, and eventually a salary, became part of urban life. Initially, women were to be found doing even the hardest physical labour, including working as "hurriers" hauling heavy coal carts through mine shafts in Great Britain, a job that also employed many children. This ended after government intervention and the passing of the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, an early attempt at regulating the workplace.

During the 19th century, an increasing number of women in Western countries took jobs in factories, such as textile mills, or on assembly lines for machinery or other goods. Women also worked as "hawkers" of produce, flowers, and other market goods, and bred small animals in the working-class areas of London. Piecework, which involved needlework (weaving, embroidery, winding wool or silk) that paid by the piece completed, was the most common employment for women in 19th century Great Britain. It was poorly paid, and involved long hours, up to 14 hours per day to earn enough wages to survive. Working-class women were usually involved in some form of paid employment, as it provided some insurance against the possibility that their husband might become too ill or injured to support the family. During the era before workers' compensation for disability or illness, the loss of a husband's wages could result in the entire family being sent to a Victorian workhouse to pay debts.

Inequality in wages was to be expected for women. In 1906, the government found that the average weekly factory wage for a woman ranged from 11s 3d to 18s 8d, whereas a man's average weekly wage was around 25s 9d. Employers stated they preferred to hire women, because they could be "more easily induced to undergo severe bodily fatigue than men". Childminding was another necessary expense for many women working in factories. Pregnant women worked up until the day they gave birth and returned to work as soon as they were physically able. In 1891, a law was passed requiring women to take four weeks away from factory work after giving birth, but many women could not afford this unpaid leave, and the law was unenforceable

So arguments like this seem a bit obsequious and counter to reality.

Maybe I can get a more sensible discussion on this in PPD?

So, how exactly does feminism ruin anything for men? What was taken from men by feminism?

For BPers, do you think TRP's criticisms of feminism are warranted? What about feminism do you tend to disagree with, or dislike yourself?