Feminism is, as feminists like to say, a "big tent". It turns out this big tent is full of contradictions and often works at cross purposes to itself.

This is because the Motte of feminism ("equal rights") is often directly opposed to the Bailey of feminism ("advocate for women in all situations").

What happens is, the Bailey feminists will push women's rights to the point that they exceed men's. Then when asked why they didn't stop at "equal rights", these feminists will point to the Motte and say "of course we support equal rights! The fact that women's rights exceed men's in this situation is because of ... um ... The Patriarchy™!"

Historical examples:

Child custody: women's rights advocate Caroline Norton pushed the Tender years doctrine which preferentially gives custody to the mother. Feminists now assert that mothers only get custody because The Patriarchy™ devalues fathers as parents. But there is a noticeable lack of feminists fighting this aspect of the patriarchy that was introduced by one woman.

Women wearing pants: women's rights advocates fought for women to do "masculine" things like wearing pants, but expended little to no effort for men's rights to do "feminine" things like wearing dresses. Again, feminists blame the result on The Patriarchy™, saying that the patriarchy values "masculine" things more, which is why everyone is allowed to do them, while The Patriarchy™ doesn't value "feminine" things and disallows men from doing them. Ironic how the women's rights advocates of the past valued things exactly the same as The Patriarchy™ does now, isn't it?

Sentencing gap: women's rights advocates repeatedly fight for longer sentences for men (especially men who victimize women), while others advocate for shorter sentences for women because "women aren't a threat to society". But if you bring up the sentencing gap, who do feminists blame? If you guessed The Patriarchy™, you're right!

So whenever a men's rights issue is brought up, feminists point to their Motte and say "well that's The Patriarchy™, so we're fighting it!" Which in theory they are. But in practice, they never seem to fight very hard ... if at all ... against the parts of The Patriarchy™ that hurt men. Because feminism is the Motte in theory (and when evangelizing it to other people), but the Bailey in practice.

And the Bailey is advocating for women in all situations - even situations where their rights already exceed those of men.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.