Questions about how TRPers interpret feminism

SirNemesis · 2014-09-19T05:25:53+00:00

It kind of reminds me of when hardcore conservative types complain about "the liberals" or when /r/atheism types complain about "fundies", like some kind of nebulous common enemy that everyone can rally against.

What they're talking about is a group of people that clearly has a strong influence on society or government (and this influence is seen as harmful).

For example, conservatives complain about the liberal influence on the media narrative or the narrative in academia. I would say the controversy surrounding Brandon Eich and his ultimate resignation from Mozilla is an example of what conservatives are complaining about when they complain about liberals controlling the media and being intolerant towards dissent. These conservatives aren't complaining about average everyday liberals, but about the strong (but somewhat nebulous) political force of liberalism that has such a major effect on society.

As another example, atheists complain about the fundamentalists who cause evolution to not be taught in schools. They aren't complaining about ordinary religious people, but about the fact that religion has resulted in the teaching of bad science in many classrooms, along with doing stuff like putting God in the pledge of allegiance.

Similarly, red pillers are not complaining about random people who call themselves "feminists" because they believe in equal rights. Rather, they're complaining about the force of "feminism" that results in such things as unequal child custody (tender years doctrine was created by early feminists and later feminists have been unwilling or unable to overturn it) or the ridiculous affirmative consent standard being put into place in universities today.

AFormidableContender · 2014-09-19T05:10:39+00:00

I wrote a fast, succinct social definition of Feminism for AskMen because it used to get debated regularly, and I was sick of typing it.

Feminism = A social movement creating an overtone characterized by the perpetuation of victim mentality amongst otherwise perfectly equal or otherwise advantaged female individuals (women) for the purposes of accruing social, political, and judicial privileges at the detriment of men due to an expected reaction to their poor performance in socially Darwinian meritocracies (ie. unprivileged life)

~/u/AFormidableContender

As for your questions...

What makes someone a feminist?

I would argue anyone who believes in mainstream concepts of "equality" which is essentially the act of granting women privileges above and beyond those for men is a feminist. Obviously they would disagree as to the aim of their social movement.

How much power do feminists really hold?

Of course we're bombarded with feminist propoganda. The feminists have won. Modern society is so terrified of upsetting women in any way, we cow tow to just about everything. Bill Maher said it best "men have given up the debate. You could say "women are smarter than men" and men just nod...". Being anti feminist in any regard is equated to misogyny. Feminists get just about anything they want. Feminists organizations can and have removed CEOs even. The ability to control the social culture of a city or civilization is far more power than having more women in a boardroom, or increasing the rate your gender makes to the male dollar (which is a false argument anyway).

My city has a lot of young activist feminists. We recently had our university hockey team (the entire hockey program..) shut down and the lives of the young players ruined because feminists made a huge stink about some puck bunny whore feeling ambiguous about her initiation (which was to give a buch of them blowjobs or something)

Another feminist activist recently created a city wide firestorm because she saw a shirt that said "fuck safe spaces" and tweeted it. The shirts actually had nothing to do with the concept of safe spaces for women, and were actually about protesting a "safe space" rule for volunteers in a university organization. The firestorm from this got so bad that feminists actually started fighting other feminists because they couldn't agree on whether they should be fighting on behalf of women who used to be men, or pure biologically female humans.

I actually have a study (albeit, it's conducted by students) about how society has become so feminized, that legitimate equality is socially deemed unacceptable and misogynistic by women.

Not to mention that women essentially control socio-sexual culture with an iron grip...

Red Pill tenants and corollaries I accept as being generally true

When it comes to human interactions and socialization, women have the advantage in every respect: including, but not limited to, emotional support, available resources, empathy, sympathy, laws, societal programs (e.g., women’s shelters), and quick validation for their feelings and experiences from friends, boyfriends, and those whom the Red Pill calls “beta orbiters.”

~**/u/HalfARedPill

That's true power. I'll gladly make your .77c on the dollar if I get to be the gender that society actually gives a fuck about, and gets to decides who gets laid and who doesn't.

How, exactly, has feminism impacted the lives of men? (What can a man no longer do or have because of feminists? ) What steps have feminists taken to cause these changes?

Well, for starters, men are now viewed as second class citizens. You can't stand within 6m of a child anymore for fear of being suspected as a child molester. Airlines actually boot adult males out of seats of they're next to an unaccompanied minor. My country had a nationwide anti-sexual assault campaign cause they figured too many women were being sexually assaulted/raped in college parties and clubs (which is a politically correct, "don't upset the feminsts!" way of saying women got drunk, made poor sexual decisions, decided they'd rather not have done that, woke up the next morning and decided they were "raped!") called "don't be that guy", depicted men and women in morally ambiguous situations insinuating that normal, mentally stable and healthy men would simple choose to sexually assault a woman, and/or that men need to somehow be educated not to rape women else we're rape machines who are completely not in control of our actions...

That's a start. However, most of feminisms impact on men is simply via exclusion.

exit_sandman · 2014-09-19T17:10:13+00:00

Wall of text inc.

What makes somebody a feminist:

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people" is a sarcastic definition that falls short in basically every regard. The strawman "feminism has such wonderful goals, who can someone possible be against it?" works only under the assumption that feminism wants indeed what it professes to work for, which is doubtful - my typical counterpoint to this is usually "the greatest trick feminism ever pulled was to convince the world it's only about equality", and considering how many people (and especially feminists themselves) are still buying into that narrative, I'd say it must have had the most awesome PR of the 20th century.

The problem is that even the moderate, comparably benevolent persons who only adhere to a "minimal standard" of feminism (i.e. those who don't consciously hold misandrist beliefs and genuinely only want equality) tend to fall for typical feminist fallacies and don't question the typical feminist narrative (rigged statistics, the assumption that both genders are for all intents and purposes equal on a cognitive level, the idea that when it doubt, it's the male who is to blame etc.), are oblivious to both natural and social female privilege where it exists and only see the shortcomings; are willing to benefit from female privilege when the opportunity arises and still don't work for equality of conditions, but equality of outcomes unless it works to their advantage.

This doesn't mean that feminist goals are by definition illegitimate or that they've pulled all their objections out of their asses - the glass ceiling is very real, and workplace exclusion, unflattering depictions in the media etc. were very common during my childhood. However, the more of these problems were tackled and even successfully taken care of, the further the goalposts were moved.

How much power do feminists really hold?

The "professional feminists", i.e. the vanguard of the ideology, hold little actual power; however feminist-minded people in politics, media, the education system etc. are quite common, and people who adhere to feminist ideas simply because they're so pervasive are even more ubiquitous.

Heck, I never considered myself a feminist and actually considered the movement and its proponents with their open misandry rather offputting, yet I had internalized feminist ideas which were, quite frankly, simply wrong and/or extremely biased - yet so omnipresent in the media and at school, that I never seriously considered questioning them. This is also because opposing viewpoints were simply silenced or vilified as reactionary and evil. Speaking for myself - the first time I actually read books (those written by Allan and Barbara Peese, for those who want to know) that unapologetically stated that men and women were different on a neurological level, had different priorities and perceived the world differently was around 2000, and despite the fact that the authors used their findings basically to tell men how to become better white knights in their relationships, they said that while they got a lot of support from their readers regardless of gender, they were relently attacked for it (one can only guess by whom). Their crime: they stated that women were better and some things but (gasp) worse at others - and of course that could not be. And this doesn't even get into PUA territory.

So yeah, developing an accurate idea of gender dynamics was something that doesn't come lightly due to what I would indeed consider "bombardment with feminist propaganda" - just because it doesn't use the sledgehammer approach like political propaganda doesn't mean it isn't there. Think of the constant background noise in a somewhat religious society: you probably aren't in mass all day or are reading the bible all the time, yet the basics are always driven home - "facts" like that God exists, and that Jesus was his son etc., and that it's socially expected of you to share these beliefs (and that therefore you aren't a good boy if you don't). It isn't that they get shoved down your throat 24/7, it's rather that you are subject to a constant injection. But our cultural system as such is indeed gynocentric - it's just that many don't really notice and therefore rarely question it.

That's also why I think the bluepill metaphore is so apt: people aren't inside the matrix because they've consciously decided to be in matrix, they just don't know it any other way and don't question whether the world built around them is actually real. But on the other hand, it invites to actually question it because on some level, it lacks internal consistency - I always felt bad and certainly not at an advantage for being male, yet held the belief that it was bad (as in: disadvantageous) being a woman - and at some point, I rejected the whole belief system.

How, exactly, has feminism impacted the lives of men?

Indirectly: See my verbose answer to the second point, which is already quite a load. I for my part can certainly say that this has affected me, and I assume that many TRP readers have similar experiences, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

Directly: Laws were made that factually put women at an advantage because they were tailored around predominantly female issues. In many cases, the problem isn't so much the legislation but rather the judicial side (those cases of allegations of rape or sexual harrassment which have little substance but nevertheless destroyed the existence of probably innocent men). However, these incidents are, while deeply disturbing and outrageous, hardly so incredibly widespread that they affect a large chunk of men. Affirmative action is another thing, though (especially if you learned a trade that is predominantly female - try to get a job in a HR department when a company has a 50:50 policy in place and therefore needs to fill their open spots at least somewhere with the available female applicants). Probably the biggest direct hit to men is in family-related matters. Divorce, alimony, custody, you name it (no need to go into details, I guess). The direct impact on men is that they're opting out of the marriage market because the benefits aren't enough to justify the potential cost for many, especially considering the fact that men can have the most important marriage-related perks (relationships and family) without it.

Which is also the positive side for men - at least those who do well with women: the descandalization of premarital relationships and promiscuity has given them access to a pretty much inexhaustible pool of available women.

sleuthoftrades · 2014-09-19T03:41:52+00:00

Do feminists even know who is a feminist? Early in college, I considered myself a feminist. I eventually grew disillusioned.

One thing to note, there are so many different "strains" of feminism. Its even divided into waves. Many on /r/twoxchromosomes and /r/askwomen are quick to point out that there is so much diversity in feminism. Any criticism is quickly deflected by saying "oh thats just some feminists, there are many different categories" or "those people aren't even feminists [by how I define that term]".

fiat_lux_ · 2014-09-19T02:29:34+00:00

What makes somebody a feminist?

When they make sure others know that they are feminists.

How much power do feminists really hold?

Not that much. Much of what they've accomplished is by piggybacking on other major social movements.

This feminization being talked about, or at least the indicators of it, I see as some of the natural consequences of stable societies.

How, exactly, has feminism impacted the lives of men?

A chunk of them have annoyed me with a bit of their hypocrisy, but besides that, Western feminists are not as impactful as they or much of the manosphere think.

EDIT: Before I get any responses about the accomplishments of individual feminists to prove me wrong, I'm thinking on a much larger scale which is considerably more difficult to prove or disprove. I know enough "good" individual feminists who are more than just armchair SJWs/hypocrites and I know for sure if it wasn't one banner it would be another that they fly while doing "good deeds" for society.

thebuddhalifts · 2014-09-19T09:49:51+00:00

For me, a feminist is someone who believes women deserve privileges for being women.

[deleted] · 2014-09-19T16:27:46+00:00

Almost as bad as how a Jewish person feels about Hitler.

niczar · 2014-09-19T09:34:48+00:00

It's a problem with such labels. They're moving targets. "Feminism" means whatever the fuck people who use the word take it to mean, there is no clear-cut definition. Does supporting reproductive rights and voting rights make you a feminist? Then I'm one. Do you have to believe in the insanity of "rape culture" to be a feminist? Then I'm definitely not.

babyguineapig · 2014-09-19T06:19:37+00:00

Terpers generally view feminism in the same way in which the Ku Klux Klan views black activism.

[deleted] · 2014-09-19T14:14:00+00:00

Not directly on point, but I think you'll see the relevance: I'm probably rare in TRP world in that I think feminism (and in connection with other roughly contemporaneous cultural and hormonal plate shifts) has been just as rough on women as men.

Here's a post I made on TRP:

We live in a culture that robs women of their value as humans, tells them they are primarily valuable as drone workers/mindless consumers, pharmacologically alters their natural sexual drives, encourages them to engage in behavior that destroys their ability to pair bond, and deprives them of their most important, emotionally fulfilling years by delaying their reproductive schedules until they are nearly barren. Of course they're depressed.

This was in response to a post about the insane number of women on SSRIs. Of related interest: the paper - The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness by Stevenson and Wolfers http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969

[deleted] · 2014-09-19T18:11:30+00:00

Feminist is just a buzzword on the internet now, kinda like "hipster". It means drastically different things to people depending on who you ask. And if a word doesn't have a meaning that everyone can understand, it's not a very useful word.

Phokus · 2014-09-19T03:30:50+00:00

Going to repost this:

Watch through these videos. You'll find feminists doing the following: Turning off the lights to meetings, pulling the fire alarms, blocking the entrances to the meeting, going into the meetings and screaming/banging desks so they can't hold the meetings, screaming/swearing at people who try to debate peacefully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOnuZsXRwTA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2KPeMcYsuc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iARHCxAMAO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxY-5ISEHPg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRWff4gCwTw

It's standard MO for how feminists conduct themselves. Rather than reasoned debate, they want to stifle debate and remove a group's right to freedom of speech/freedom of assembly. At an academic institution, no less.

Title	Questions about how TRPers interpret feminism
Author	fchs
Upvotes	7
Comments	112
Date	September 19, 2014 2:08 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/2gtmlp/questions_about_how_trpers_interpret_feminism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/questions-about-how-trpers-interpret-feminism.284831 https://theredarchive.com/post/284831

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