One pattern I’ve noticed in a lot of modern feminist discourse—both online and in real life—is a hyperfocus on certain “problems” that don’t actually hold up when you look at the evidence. And when people invest emotionally in problems that don’t exist, those problems become, by definition, impossible to fix. You can’t solve something that isn’t real.

Take this example:
The “lazy father” narrative.
A study published in 2019 debunked the idea that fathers are dramatically less involved with their children than mothers. In reality, fathers today are doing more childcare and household labor than ever before:

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

Yet here we are—six years later—and this narrative is still repeated as if it’s an unquestionable truth.

Or consider the gender pay gap.
The original popular statistic (the infamous “23% gap”) came from a 2004 analysis that didn’t control for career choice, hours worked, or job role. A 2006 follow-up that did control for these factors found the difference shrinks to around 1%—not 23%.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/gender-pay-gap-myth-wont-go-away

And yet the 23% claim is still treated as gospel by many people today.

This creates a dangerous feedback loop:

  • A false problem is believed to exist.
  • Because it’s false, no real-world changes can “fix” it.
  • Because nothing fixes it, people feel increasingly aggrieved, self-righteous, and hostile.
  • Cooperation becomes impossible, because one side is defending reality and the other is defending a narrative.

I’ve had feminists tell me with complete confidence that we need new laws to ensure equal pay—apparently unaware that the Equal Pay Act of 1963 has already made unequal pay for equal work illegal for over 60 years.

When people insist on problems that don’t exist, no policy can satisfy them and no amount of good faith can bridge the gap. It poisons dialogue, turns discussion into accusation, and makes getting along far more difficult than it needs to be.

In fact, legal attempts to “fix” problems that don’t actually exist often create new ones. Laws are blunt instruments, and when they’re used to address myths rather than realities, the unintended consequences can be significant. There are legitimate reasons to oppose constant changes to the legal system simply to appease people who feel aggrieved over narratives that don’t withstand scrutiny.

A common assumption I hear is that if men push back against these demands, it must mean they “don’t care about women’s problems.” This framing is incredibly destructive. It immediately shuts down dialogue and creates the illusion that men are acting in bad faith when they raise concerns. This contributes directly to the widening divide between men and women.

The truth is the opposite: men have spent the last century being remarkably cooperative and supportive of women’s struggles and goals. Social, political, and legal reforms that benefit women have overwhelmingly been passed with male support. Casting men as the obstacle simply because they question a flawed narrative is not only inaccurate—it’s corrosive.

It’s also important to remember that many feminist organizations, such as the National Organization for Women, benefit materially from keeping certain conflicts alive. Like many NGOs, their financial incentives reward ongoing problems, not solutions. If a major social issue were actually resolved, the donations dry up. This creates a perverse incentive to push oversimplifications, exaggerations, and sometimes outright falsehoods. If you want to understand how deeply this issue runs, I’d recommend watching the documentary “Poverty, Inc.”, which breaks down how nonprofit incentives can end up perpetuating the very problems they claim to solve.

Personally, I’ve reached the point where I scrutinize any claim of “systemic disparity” to see whether it’s (1) real, (2) significant, and (3) even fixable through policy. Many disparities are rooted in personal choices, tradeoffs, cultural patterns, or biological differences—not in oppression by men, white or otherwise. Not every gap is the result of discrimination, and not every imbalance is solvable by legislative force.

It’s clear that many people on this forum have strong feelings of frustration and aggrievement. And to be honest, those feelings aren’t inherently bad—strong emotions can be a powerful catalyst for real social change. Anger has historically driven major reforms in every era.

But if that energy is directed toward unsolvable or nonexistent problems, then all it produces is stagnation. Everyone ends up stuck in a perpetual standoff:

  • one side outraged about an issue that can’t be resolved,
  • the other side frustrated because they’re being blamed for something that isn’t real,
  • and both sides walking away convinced the other is acting in bad faith.

We can’t move forward that way. If we want real solutions and real progress, the grievances have to be anchored in reality—because only real problems have real solutions.