Various Rantings on Feminism

Over the past couple of months I've been posting in /r/FeMRADebates, trying to test and refine my position in regard to feminism. At some point I'd like to gather these ideas together, adjust them based on the responses I've received, add references where necessary and turn them into an all-in-one anti-feminist manifesto.

Until then I thought I'd share them here. Many of the ideas are ones I originally encountered in this sub so you might be interested in the response they get from non-MRAs.

At times I have been extremely cautious about how I worded things. This is partially due to the rules of /r/FeMRADebates. Negative generalizations about groups (including feminists) are very strictly policed. Overall I think that this has had a positive impact on the way I have expressed the ideas, making them less confrontational. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts especially about any ideas I am missing.

On Anti-Feminism

• What is an anti-feminist?

• Defining Feminism

• How can we discuss the problems with certain types of pop-feminism without generalising about all feminists?

Discussing "Male Privilege"

• The Problem with Privilege

• Assumptions and Expectations: The Double-Edged Sword of Gender Stereotypes

• "Men have power in society" can be interpreted in three ways, one false, one ridiculous and one essentially meaningless.

• Does society really favor masculinity over femininity or does it simply favor conformity?

• Is male being the default necessarily misogynistic?

• Was society designed in favor of men? (I'd also like to highlight this specific response from /u/woah77 on the subject.)

• The acceptance of women in male roles and what it says about society

Discussing "Patriarchy"

• Power, Authority, Influence, Money and Strength

• Patriarchy as a symptom rather than a cause. (This one uses some horribly arcane jargon and sounds more pretentious than the concept being discussed. Basically the argument is that gender roles are the cause, the things identified as "patriarchy" are simply the set of symptoms which appear to hurt women.)

Other topics

• Genre, Responsibility, Empathy, Value and Women in Fiction (An argument that the tropes discussed by feminists like Anita Sarkeesian reflect negative ideas about men at-least as much as they do about women.)

• What does abortion have to do with equality? (A response to the feminist assertion that restrictions on abortion represent legal discrimination against women)

• Comparing the race and gender axes (Discuses how some feminists try to hijack black issues to promote the female victim narrative)

• Why aren't men's issues considered "systemic?"

• Infantilisation (On how feminism exacerbates women's issues by denying their agency)

• Victims and Victim Classes (On generalized victimhood)

There's a few things I'm aware that I've left out. "Rape Culture" and "Male Entitlement" are the big ones.

I've not done a post on "Rape Culture" because it's been argued ad nauseam. I would like to link to two comments from this sub though which express what's wrong with the idea better than I can.

• mushybees

• chocoboat

As for entitlement, I want to argue that women display more entitlement than men. They feel entitled to chivalrous behavior from men. They feel entitled to marry up. Unfortunately I an not on firm ground academically here. The research I am aware of insists that men show more entitlement than women. However, this does not make much sense. If men really felt entitled to women then being single would not be a source of shame. People are not ashamed of not being given what they are owed. They are angry, like women are when men don't give them special treatment. I can only assume that these studies measure a specific type of entitlement which excludes that displayed by women.

Other great comments I want to bring attention to:

• DavidByron2 provides an interesting view on why we believe history was worse for women than it actually was.

• SchalaZeal01 explains why women are obviously not an oppressed class

• oneiorosgripwontstfu responds to the assertion that insulting a man by calling him "girly" represents female oppression.

• BlameBillyVan responding to the same thing

• A deleted comment from /r/FeMRADebates in which CaptSnap does a great job of summing up many problems with modern feminism.

Finally, if anyone wants to know what this has to do with men's rights, /u/GenderNeutralLanguag says it rather well:

All successful attempts at advocacy have a similar pattern.

1)Disrupt/destroy the current dominant social narrative on the subject.

2)Become the dominant social narrative on the subject.

3)Enact change.

If we are to be successful in advocating for men's rights then step 1 is disrupt/destroy the dominant social narrative on gender, feminism.

Advocating for equal shared parenting? Great. Step 1 disrupt the social narrative that paints men as controlling abusers and oppressive patriarchs, disrupt feminism.

Advocating for male reproductive rights? Great. Step 1 disrupt the social narrative that paints sex as something men impose upon women, disrupt Feminism.

Advocating for equality in education? Great. Step 1 disrupt the social narrative that paint women as helpless objects that need to be coddled through the entire process while ignoring boys, disrupt Feminism.

Feminism is the current dominant social narrative on gender. This is why MRA attack it. To bring about change, we must change the dominant social narrative on gender from one of "advocacy for women" to one of "equality is equality"