Debate: Feminism is not a hate movement

DavidByron2 · 2015-04-26T22:35:05+00:00

Just going to re-post the link to my old web site (now on the way back machine) which laid out a case for feminism as a hate movement.

Front page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020327221658/http://members.tripod.com/feministhate/index.htm

Definition of hate movement;

https://web.archive.org/web/20041108125032/http://members.tripod.com/feministhate/id35_hate_definition.htm

A hate group,

Advocates lesser rights in law for the target group

Propagates discrimination against the target group

Teaches that the target group is inherently inferior and immoral

Teaches that the target group is a threat

Uses lies including historical revisionism to spread these views

Tolerates violence towards the target group

And since then I would also add that hate movements like to practice segregationism (as part of a commitment to "purity" as they see it).

DavidByron2 · 2015-04-26T22:52:10+00:00

so I don't currently have anything to counter

Well I did point you to an entire web site on the topic so there was that....... I know it's a lot but it is the web site I wrote for precisely the reason to display the evidence for this hypothesis so I'm probably just going to be repeating parts of it.

At any rate the question of pervasiveness of the sentiments that indicate hate was the main point of the web site since pretty much everyone has to recognize there's substantial amounts of hate in the movement. Most of the web site pages are examples of it. I'll take two examples that are good ones for me, and I'll also take the example you suggested. So that's three:

The treatment of domestic violence by the movement, and in particular the widespread support for the VAWA which is explicitly sexist (segregationist, institutional discrimination, demeaning of men, hiding male victims, normalizing violence against men, etc). I choose this issue because the VAWA at the time and now somewhat enjoyed almost universal support from feminists across all "types" of feminism, and that support was for sexism. I wont be talking about Duluth though.
The wage gap. Again I choose this issue because of the almost universal support by feminists across all "sub types" for this hate speech / conspiracy theory / attack on men that falsely states that women get paid less than men for "equal work" and then promotes a statistic that measures all kinds of different work (eg the way feminists calculate "Pay Equality Day")
Rape culture / lynching / "yes means yes" / sexual harassment / rape shield laws. This form of attack on men and protection racket enjoys again, huge support by feminists. This was the issue you choose and I think it's a good one for mass support.

In addition rape, domestic violence and the wage gap are among the top five issues feminists name as issues facing women when they are asked, so these topics are very much at the forefront of feminist thinking, and their thinking tends to be monolithic on these topics (at least in the sense that almost all feminists agree with the opinion that I characterize as fulfilling the criteria of political hatred - there's probably some difference of opinion on minor issues).

ETA:

So I guess do you accept that these attitudes are generally representative of feminists? (support for VAWA and feminist run DV shelters segregationism / support for and promotion of the wage gap myth / and support for sexual harassment law, rape shield laws and the concept of "rape culture" existing leading to lynching of young men at colleges?

At the time I wrote the web site the VAWA was a hot topic because feminists had been heavily lobbying for it for a while before it passed in 1994. It was huge for feminism (literally billions of dollars) and easily IMO the biggest success of the feminist movement of the 1990s, just as in fact I would say each of these issues represent huge successes for the feminist movement at the time they were lobbied for; the sexual harassment successes, the successes of rape shield laws and recently the success of the new "yes means yes" law. The wage gap is not legislation but is easily the most repeated piece of hate speech ever created by feminists and its success is amazing. It's amazingly popular, even being repeated by the US president many times in the last few years.

Nevertheless I have found some feminists (because I looked hard) who did not support VAWA at the time. Well one person who claimed to be a sort of feminist -- Wendy McElroy (the fox news commentator). You could find probably more than one feminist dissident attacking the wage gap or the rape culture stuff, but it would be very few (because there are very few dissidents) and of course they would all be dissidents (ie feminists who accept that they are at best on the margins of the movement and attacked by other feminists most of whom would say the dissidents are not real feminists but conservatives attacking feminism with a "feminist" label falsely slapped on).

ThePigmanAgain · 2015-04-26T23:36:33+00:00

"I think that this is largely isolated to a loud minority"

That's where i stopped reading. Come on, jackass, tell me that NOW is a "loud minority" amongst feminists. They want all crimes of violence against women to be considered hate crimes so that the convicted will get more jail time than for a similar crime against men -- tell me that wanting greater protection for your group isn't hatred.

Eulabeia · 2015-04-26T23:22:38+00:00

my argument is not that hatred/anti-male ideas don't exist in feminism, but that these aren't representative of the movement as a whole

What does represent feminism? Women's rights and empowerment? Then how come they aren't universally on board with say legalizing prostitution and making sex work safe for all women? In fact some are totally against all sex work for women and argue that that they're pretty much all being trafficked or forced into somehow, and it's something no women should be doing. So how does that fit with the idea that women should be able to do what they want? It doesn't, but it makes sense if you understand that their motivation is keep men from easily getting what they want.

And sure, you can point out that not all feminists are sex negative like that, but what makes them more representative of feminism than the ones who are? What they do have in common though is being sex negative for men. They may be able accept women choosing to become sex workers, but they still look down on the men who use those services. They still make up bullshit about "objectifaction" to shame for even daring to openly express their attraction to women's looks.

The only thing feminists are consistent with is attacking men. They even manage to talk about issues that have nothing to do with men at all in ways to talk shit about them. Like abortion being about "men trying to control women's bodies" or whatever. Or "homophobia is the fear that a another man will treat you like you treat women". Name any topic feminists have talked about and I can probably give you an example of how they do shit like that.

Demonstrate hate from multiple influential leaders and a sound argument as to why these are representative of feminism

Well you've probably seen lists of hateful quotes from popular feminists before but since you're asking this you have probably dismissed them, so my question is why? What makes them not representative of feminism and who do you think is if they're not? Name someone who you think is and I'd bet I could find something hateful from them too.

Demonstrate how feminist activism has created policies that harm men

This shit is even in the sidebar. C'mon.

my current understanding is that some nutters ended up with too much power

How do you think they ended up in power if they had little to no support like I figure you'd argue?

v8beetle · 2015-04-27T02:15:34+00:00

I wasn't going to chime in because I've been immersed in reading, but I think something needs to be said with regard to "feminist theory" as a whole.

When you look at issues like rape, domestic violence (Duluth Model,) child abuse, all can be traced back to "feminist/suffragette theory and action," and the lens through which each is seen and defined.

Let me say this too, so there's no misunderstanding. Many men like myself have survived child sexual abuse, and other forms of abuse at the hands of women, but due to how the feminists framed the entire conversation at the outset e.g. male perp/female victim, as well as the laws and academic research, we're underrepresented and far less likely to report as a result of almost 200 years of societal/legal/academic conditioning, particularly in the last century when we've made the most advances technologically, educationally, and politically speaking

I don't like rapists, or child sexual abusers or physical abusers. I will say this though as it's quite evident to me that even the supposed "professionals" haven't a clue what is what. By professionals, I mean those who insist that when men fight back against a woman who has attacked them, that the woman is still the inherent victim. No, she's not.

Researchers then, like Kimmel like to argue proportionality while simultaneously ignoring that men have evolved to be violent as a necessity of survival. Those instincts and behaviors are very much primitive. If you trigger someone else's primitive response to threats, why are they responsible for your actions that brought about such a response? Even if you look at research regarding women injured as a result of DV/IPV, women are more likely to be injured when they start the violence.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1858633/

Until feminists stop fighting things like alimony reform, shared parenting, gender neutral research into sexual violence and domestic violence (while giving men the same outs as women,) the sentencing disparity, and paternity fraud, I could never get on board. I am astounded that those who identify as feminists cannot grasp the inherent sexism in the way the laws/theories were framed by them and continue to be framed. Perhaps they should rethink how it is they define "power" as there are many things that women have and use as a means of behavioral control and to exert "power" over others. To deny such is simply delusional.

rickyharline · 2015-04-26T22:25:40+00:00

Feminism is very much a hate movement

FTFY

Demonspawn · 2015-04-27T15:42:32+00:00

I've had this discussion a number of times. Here's a collection of some of those arguments:

The first thing to remember is that feminism was never and likely will never be a movement for equality. It was a movement for, in it's most pure form, equal rights for women. But equal rights alone is not equality, as it ignores the burdens of equal responsibility. And remember this point, as we'll return to it again. But for right now, let's look at modern feminism:

1) Please enumerate any government-granted rights which men have and women do not have in equal or greater levels.

2) Please enumerate any government-enforced responsibilities which women bear which men do not bear in equal or greater levels.

If women have equal or greater rights and equal or lesser responsibilities, as enforced by government, then why is there need for feminism (a movement of equality) to petition the government for redress of grievances?

Otherwise, to propose that the government needs to assist women to create a equal playing field is an admission, by feminists, to one of two potential facts:

A) Women are not equal to men, and therefore women need help from the government to be equal to men (to be able to fairly compete).

B) Feminism is not about equality, and is instead about giving women advantage over men (if women were equal to men AND receiving government help, then they would be in the position of an advantage over men)

Given that it is easy to see where feminists are arguing for more rights in areas where women's rights are equal to or exceed men's rights, then we must question the ultimate end:

If A is true, Feminism is a lie. If B is true, Feminism is a hate movement. I can demonstrate that it is both.

How can it be both? Well, if we suppose that the people who support feminism truly do believe that men and women are equal, then they exist under condition B. Feminism is a hate movement of female superiority. As for it being a lie, I'll hold that to the end because I want to tackle another issue on the idea of equality.

And that issue is the idea of social influence. Despite the fact that government has no business regulating social values, feminists will argue that feminism needs to petition government to re-adjust social values so that women can be equal. This, again, is a farce. Given that women make up 51+% of the population, then again women would have to be less than equal to require government's help to change social values. But it gets even more interesting. Given that 85+% of K-12 teachers are female, given that 40% of births are out of wedlock, given that women get primary custody in divorce 90+% of the time, given that even in intact families women are much more likely to be a stay at home parent... we can see women's disproportionate impact on influencing the youth of the next generation. When you add those facts to the understanding that women are a majority, how can the next generation be anything other than what women want it to be?

I'm sure the wealth argument will be played out next. This is quickly dismissed by multiple studies that demonstrate women control 80% of consumer spending. The results of this are very easy to tell as women are the sacred cow in commercials. Women also have more free time than men on average, which reinforces the positive portrayal of women on ad-supported television.

So now that we've demonstrated, without a doubt, the feminism cannot be about equality, and given plenty of evidence towards demonstration of feminism as a hate movement, how can it also be a lie?

That comes down to the third leg of the equality triangle. There are rights and responsibilities, but there is also disposability. Disposability is the ability to remove or dispose of a person from society, either by accepting bad happenings to them (men in warfare) or removing them from society (men are punished via jail much more harshly than women). We will find that men have greater individual disposability than women do, and the fundamental reasons behind this are biologically driven (and therefore uncorrectable). This is why exact equality, where each leg of equality is balanced, is impossible between men and women. As such, the only possible equality between men and women is relative equality where each leg is imbalanced but the total is roughly equal. Traditionally, this has worked by men having more rights, women having less responsibilities, and women having less disposability. (hrm... notice that feminism was all about "equal rights" and ignoring the other two legs where women were ahead? More proof that feminism was never an equality movement.)

Our society and, in fact, all societies serve women. They are more important than men. Men are the disposable lives that protect society, and women the reproductive potential that grows society. This is how it has been for the history of the world. Some societies protect women by reducing their freedoms (Islam) others do it by not holding them accountable for their actions (Western society). But the gall of feminism is to rail on about "the patriarchy" when, in fact, all societies treat the average woman better than the average man.

Why? Reproduction. It comes down to that simple fact. Might makes right, numbers make might, and women make numbers. That's why we don't send women to war (we need to repopulate so we are safe from the next invasion), it's why we get women and children off the boat first (repopulation), it's why we care more when women die working in the coal mines (and, notice that women only wanted "workplace equality" once jobs didn't include the risk of life and limb?). Quite simply, society individual men as more disposable than individual women.

But there's a counter side to that as well. You can't treat the men as too disposable because society advances on the backs of men. Now, I could repeat Dr. Baumeister's insightful essay, but I'll just condense it down into a few points. Men create civilization by the gender trend to value equity over equality. Women prepare the next generation by following equality over equity. Women select the best men and reward them with sex and children. Men compete to become the best men to be chosen by the best women. That competition is what advances society. This is why when sex becomes cheap and competition declines, so does the society.

That's the fundamental bedrock of what makes civilization work. That's another reason that feminism is not about equality. The truth is, we cannot free our men from traditional roles as we have freed our women from them. To do so would be near-instant social suicide. The sad truth is that freeing women from traditional roles is also social suicide, just on a slower scale.

So there it is, Feminism is not only a hate movement, it is also a lie. And the sad truth is that it can't be stopped. The simple facts are that if you give legal equality (including suffrage) to a group which enjoys social favor, the disparate influence will shift the legal equality to legal favor... ever increasing until the system can no longer support itself. Or, as I like to say: Feminism is a self-correcting social problem. It destroys the society it infests.

TL;DR: Too bad. Scroll up and read.

Alzael · 2015-04-26T22:49:15+00:00

but that these ideas aren't representative of the movement

Name me a prominent feminist or feminist leader that is not a man-hater or racist bigot. For every one you name,I'll name two that are.

Let's see who runs out first.

Also name one instance of feminism fighting for the rights of anybody besides women,or acting in the interests of genuine equality,or behaving in a benevolent manner to other groups that are not them.

For every one you name I'll name three where feminism has worked to remove or restrict the rights of men and other groups or has acted in hate and bigotry.

Let's see who runs out first.

You should have no trouble being the winner,since you're not a hate group and all.

rickyharline · 2015-04-26T22:20:40+00:00

When this is what the founders of feminism say about men, i cant see anything but a hate movement. :/

http://m.imgur.com/mu85PtE

rickyharline · 2015-04-27T00:06:11+00:00

[permanently deleted]

mushybees · 2015-04-27T13:14:54+00:00

Good thread, I'll be reading with interest

rickyharline · 2015-04-27T14:42:57+00:00

I don't see it as a hate movement, I see it as an advocacy movement, and because of that it does most of its activity in the cause of self-interest. That self-interest sometimes (perhaps even often) comes at the expense of other constituencies, and so can be construed as hatred because of the damage it causes, but it's not inherently looking to hate on people, just advance its interests.

So, for example, NOW's advocacy against shared parenting can be interpreted two ways, as a hateful stand against men becoming equal parents, or as a self-interested stand for women remaining the primary caregivers. NOW wants to keep women supporting their cause, and they know that truly advocating for equality in parenting would cost them support. Ergo, they do what they can to NOT cost themselves support.

Same thing with the changes to how rape is viewed. They want more rapists jailed, and they are smart enough to know that in any reasonable court room where proof of rape is pretty hard to come by, this just isn't going to happen, so they are willing to advocate openly breaking the general tenets that back up our legal system, like the presumption of innocence, in order to get what they want. That this will jail innocent men is immaterial to their goals.

Why is it not hate? Because it's millions of people, not one monolithic mindset.

2015-04-27T15:56:02+00:00

its a not a hate movement but a catharsis movement. it will do anything, no matter how absurd, to generate catharsis among it's followers, that means not just blaming a set of targets, like a hate group, but mindlessly blaming their and everyone else's problems on literally everyone who is not an active participant

In short, Feminisim isn't a hate group or a political movement, it's a freaking religion.

down7up8 · 2015-04-27T16:56:20+00:00

Modern mainstream feminist leadership is not so much hateful towards males as much as dissaproving of traditional gender roles in general. This deconstruction of traditional gender roles superficially appears as hate towards the strong male identity of biological males.

drinkthebleach · 2015-04-26T23:14:49+00:00

Please take your drama stirring to /r/FeMRADebates. We both know there is no way your opinion will change whatsoever from anything you read on here, there's no point. If you want evidence it's a hate movement head over to /r/feminism and ask how they feel about us.

MRSPArchiver · 2015-04-26T22:17:35+00:00

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guywithaccount · 2015-04-27T19:59:39+00:00

BULLSHIT.

Sorry for the bold, but there's an important point here: this debate is bullshit because its terms are not adequately defined.

First, what is feminism? I can say without a doubt that David (whose position we are all familiar with here, I think) and, uh, Ricky have different definitions for feminism. Crucially, David views all feminism as having certain core assumptions or tenets that are fundamentally misandrist - so it doesn't matter if you're a liberal feminist or a radical feminist or an ecofeminist or a socialist feminist - if you are a feminist, then you must be a misandrist, and if you are not a misandrist, then your beliefs are not actually feminist. (David, let me know if I've gotten you wrong here, but I don't think I have.) Whereas Ricky seems to think that different factions of feminism are fundamentally different; I would guess his(?) definition of feminist is "anyone who self-identifies as feminist" and his definition of "feminism" is "anything that's pro-women".

Second, what is a hate movement? How do we know that something is a hate movement? I suppose if the movement self-identifies as a hate movement, that makes it easy - but what if it won't? Or what if some members of a group admit they're a hate movement, and some don't?

For instance, take everyone's favorite hate movement, the KKK. Supposing I were a Klan member, I could have a position statement like this:

Modern civilization as we know it was built by white people, by white culture. White culture is the greatest civilizing force and the greatest force for technological advancement ever known, and it is because of the hard work and ingenuity of whites that our modern world exists.

Yet it is a fact that globalization and interracial breeding are eliminating the white race. It has been projected that if the current trend continues, whites may be eliminated within just a few hundred years, reducing human diversity. Meanwhile, whites have been pilloried for their success, blamed for endless oppression while non-whites are lionized and catered to. The engine of human progress is threatened by this popular sentiment and the resulting drive to discriminate against white people and eliminate white culture.

I'm proud to stand up for white people's rights, their dignity, and the preservation of traditional white culture and the white race.

Well, a lot of people would give that statement the stinkeye. But nowhere in that statement does it suggest that nonwhites are inherently biologically inferior, or that the purpose of the KKK is to discriminate against nonwhites, or that the group has a hateful attitude. So how can anyone say that the KKK is a hate movement?

Easy: you just have to look at it. Look at its history, look at the people who join it and their attitudes and the hateful things they say and do. We don't need the KKK to explicitly self-identify as a hate movement to know what it is. They can't point to a Klan member and say, "hey, these people never lynched anybody. They never burned a cross on anyone's lawn. You can't hold them responsible for the acts of a few extremists and lunatics" in order to excuse the group. And in the end, "X is a hate movement" is not something that can be objectively proven with tests or statistics; it is merely the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence.

Feminism is no different. Even if we define feminism one way or another, there will never be a way to objectively prove that feminism is a hate movement so long as feminists continue to deny or make excuses for feminist misandry... and no such proof is needed or expected! It is enough to see what feminists say, what they support or oppose through their activism, and who they stand with in solidarity, in order to draw the only reasonable conclusion about whether or not feminism is a hate movement. And we see that feminism has lied about male privilege, lied about rape, lied about domestic violence, lied about wages, blamed men for all manner of oppression, leads the fight to deprive men of due process on college campuses, stokes the fires of moral panic over an imaginary "rape culture", and argued that men can't be feminists. We see that feminism largely ignores male obligations and female privilege, claiming that misandry doesn't exist or that it's proud of misandry, claiming that men's issues don't exist or that they're side effects of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, which they deny any culpability for. And when prominent feminists or feminist organizations say hateful things, misandrist things, blatantly biased and untrue things, they are not called out and shunned by the movement; they are praised for their bravery and their uncompromising vision, reblogged and retweeted, or at worst, their offenses are quietly overlooked.

Yes, of course feminism is a hate movement! But debating this is pointless, particularly when the participants don't even agree on the terms of the debate.

Debate: Feminism is not a hate movement

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BULLSHIT.

YOUR POINT IS A GOOD ONE, THANKS FOR BRINGING IT UP.

Title	Debate: Feminism is not a hate movement
Author	rickyharline
Upvotes	0
Comments	116
Date	April 26, 2015 10:17 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/33yq74/debate_feminism_is_not_a_hate_movement/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/debate-feminism-is-not-a-hate-movement.981788 https://theredarchive.com/post/981788