Is feminism the solution to what MRAs often complain about?

[Cory]

If they can neutralize the Dworkinites, then yes. But modern Tumblr/Jezebel neo-feminism is just recreational outrage more than anything else. Stop all the nonsense about "micro-aggressions" and start focusing on actual things that matter in real life.

Somebody saying "man up" is not sexism. Many modern neo-feminists are some of the most privileged human beings to have ever existed in human history. They are mostly upper middle class white college graduates who make a living basically talking down to working class men, and women who don't share their views. Being offended by literally every little thing isn't getting them anywhere.

Basically if they can knock off the lynch mob mentality then we might have something we can work with.

[VPH]

First off, I do think that our perspectives as a generally privileged cis-male filled forum probably aren't the same as those of women who undergo discrimination and sexism. That being said, a lot of people misconstrue feminism's intent. True feminism means gender equality. Don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch. I do know a few so called feminists that are extremists who tilt towards misandry as opposed to equality. Thus, I don't see them as furthering the goals of feminism at all. Gender equality creates a breakdown of harmful traditional roles and stereotypes, which clearly benefits men. True gender equality creates an environment where men and women have equal value under the law. Once again, this helps both sexes. I don't call myself a feminist for the fear of being seen as trying to make the movement about men because I bring up how equality helps men as well. I call myself an egalitarian who supports the root goals of feminism.

Fine post until the bold, which I want to respond to. You ARE a feminist, but you undermine its image and credibility when you call yourself an "egalitarian who supports the root goals of feminism." Bringing up male benefits does not make the movement about men; the movement has been and will continue to be largely about women simply because they are the ones who suffer from the imbalanced social structures in place today.

I've been accused of it before, and it made me feel uncomfortable being known as a "fake who wants to derail the movement" to this group of people. For that matter, I have no issue calling myself a feminist minus the accusations from people I know. I generally shy away from it, which as you point out, I probably shouldn't do.

[ingemann]

If they can neutralize the Dworkinites, then yes. But modern Tumblr/Jezebel neo-feminism is just recreational outrage more than anything else. Stop all the nonsense about "micro-aggressions" and start focusing on actual things that matter in real life.

Somebody saying "man up" is not sexism. Many modern neo-feminists are some of the most privileged human beings to have ever existed in human history. They are mostly upper middle class white college graduates who make a living basically talking down to working class men, and women who don't share their views. Being offended by literally every little thing isn't getting them anywhere.

Basically if they can knock off the lynch mob mentality then we might have something we can work with.

The problem is that mainstream feminists can't stop complete man haters from calling themselves feminists, and giving up the name would give the terrible people the name which generations of women used, while they fought for their rights to be treated as human beings.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The "Dworkinites" are a total strawman, and besides, considering that there are still plenty of issues that are uniquely or disproportionately faced by women and structural inequities in society that marginalize women, I don't think that some people using a few out-of-context quotes by a particularly radical representative of feminism to discredit all of the feminist movement is ridiculous (not to mention, utterly transparent in its motives).

[Cory]

The problem is that mainstream feminists can't stop complete man haters from calling themselves feminists, and giving up the name would give the terrible people the name which generations of women used, while they fought for their rights to be treated as human beings.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The so-called "RadFems" need to be sidelined where they belong so that real feminists can take the helm and push for progress real issues like fair pay and reproductive health.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Cory more or less gets at what prevents me from lending my sword (however little it matters in the grand scheme of things) to modern feminists; I prefer a little more intellectual honesty and a willingness to call out the unhelpful actors. That, and a focus on actions rather than words.

Being gay instilled me with an inherent desire to always want to help the less privileged and oppressed so no one suffers structural inequalities as I have and do, but please don't piss and tell me it's raining. Pay inequality (though it should be more appropriately called employment inequality) is a good example. I think it's absolutely a huge issue, but must we constantly repeat tired old numbers that people have long since pointed out are far more complicated than they appear? Stop implementing laws that people openly admit are sh**ty and prone to overreach? And while we're at it, no longer cherrypicking numbers about sexual assault or conflating every form of sexual assault with rape, a serious term that should remain serious?

Can we admit situations where women are actually doing pretty well (better than men, even) instead of using rhetoric that implies women are second class citizens when they're not? When Anita Sarkeesian says something ignorant or asinine, can feminists please call that out as dumb without everyone who says a bad word about her being labeled misogynist? Can we not put sexism labels on entertainment products, and drop the long-since-proven-false notion that violent media leads to violence in real life in anything other than astronomically rare instances? Our society is less violent (including sexually violent) than in decades, bros. Some feminists sound like my grandparents after watching the news. "Boy, the world is just getting worse and worse, isn't it." No.

Can we treat the Bechdel Test as what it originally was as opposed to some sort of sacrosanct for-serious code to create media by? An interesting occasional observation and literal joke? And when influential feminists start pushing something called "Indigenous Science" can feminists please call this out for the woo that it is?

Like, if we could do things like that, focus on the things that we can agree on without pushing some sort of distorted narrative, I'd be on board. Women should be safe from harassment, paid equally, given all the same opportunities as anyone else and vice versa. I've never disagreed where it counts. But of course modern feminism isn't doing this, because in the last few years female politics became a forefront wedge issue in American politics more than ever, so now the dialogue that surrounds it is more partisan, tribal, and very very stupid. Calling out idiots means weakening your "team" and "giving the other guys ammo" so each prominent group just fills up with idiots. There's no disincentive.

Feminism is one of the only social movements I can think of off the top of my head that so strongly obsesses over making sure everyone uses that exact label; even this thread just a few posts above contains an example of it. Why does it f**king matter? I'm with you guys where it really counts, I'll vote for the good people, I'll support the issues that help you out whenever I can. Whether or not I call myself a feminist doesn't change how I think and act already and I try to be the best person I can be. It just strikes me as dogmatic and downright religious. I can't think of another force in society that constantly tries to tell you what you are as often and focuses on the petty trivialities, constantly imploring you to prove your piety in a showy fashion, instead of simply doing good with no fanfare. Or spreads unfalsifiable social theories as hard fact with nearly the fervor. I remember a handful of days back on the 2016 board in a thread about Huckabee where it was revealed he "suggests watching soap operas make adultery, lying, divorce, murder, hating, and stealing seem routine and normal to people" and everyone laaughed and laaughed. Except, purely logically speaking, what makes this a more absurd hypothesis than any two bit pop-feminist that says video games or Game of Thrones normalize violence and misogyny? Each one is simply based on the number of people who believe it, and very little more.

I don't hate feminism, and when it's constructive and focuses on clear-cut, honestly-assessed problems with specific solutions, I'm right there with them, but it is more than a little disappointing that modern feminism is often so caught up in arguing about itself that it's forgotten to make specific proposals in solving the structural inequalities. The article effective tumblr reblog masquerading as "news" posted from BRTD is an example of this. It highlights a problem, recites platitudes and feel-goods in gif form, and more or less ends with "man, if we could just solve all the problems, we could solve all the problems!" Thanks. Very insightful.

Sorry for rambling.

[SWE]

You can tell this is a bad thread because ingemann is the voice of reason

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Being gay instilled me with an inherent desire to always want to help the less privileged and oppressed so no one suffers structural inequalities as I have and do, but please don't piss and tell me it's raining. Pay inequality (though it should be more appropriately called employment inequality) is a good example. I think it's absolutely a huge issue, but must we constantly repeat tired old numbers that people have long since pointed out are far more complicated than they appear? Stop implementing laws that people openly admit are sh**ty and prone to overreach? And while we're at it, no longer cherrypicking numbers about sexual assault or conflating every form of sexual assault with rape, a serious term that should remain serious?

Can we admit situations where women are actually doing pretty well (better than men, even) instead of using rhetoric that implies women are second class citizens when they're not? When Anita Sarkeesian says something ignorant or asinine, can feminists please call that out as dumb without everyone who says a bad word about her being labeled misogynist? Can we not put sexism labels on entertainment products, and drop the long-since-proven-false notion that violent media leads to violence in real life in anything other than astronomically rare instances? Our society is less violent (including sexually violent) than in decades, bros. Some feminists sound like my grandparents after watching the news. "Boy, the world is just getting worse and worse, isn't it." No.

Can we treat the Bechdel Test as what it originally was as opposed to some sort of sacrosanct for-serious code to create media by? An interesting occasional observation and literal joke? And when influential feminists start pushing something called "Indigenous Science" can feminists please call this out for the woo that it is?

Marokai given your interest in the science I must ask, as a moderate gay, do you condemn Queer Theory? What is your opinion of Queers against Gay Marriage? Or These Guys? Hey, given the diversity of opinion that may exist what is 'Gay Rights'? What is a Gay Rights activist? Should you divest yourself against William Burroughs or the 70s Sexual liberationists for their extreme views? What did they have against bourgeois society so much? I'm totally confused, please help me out here Marokai.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Witty. Maybe you'll even make it into the Sulfer Mine.

The truth is though that I never actually have liked the showy and radical side of the gay rights movement anymore than I've liked other radical, showy sides of civil rights groups. But this is all a strawman of what my argument actually was (and of course, you're smart enough to know this, but whatever) because I'm not playing at the "Andrea Dworkin is so unlikable, why don't all feminists condemn her?!" angle. I cede that argument as being pointless to make. The vast majority of the nit that I'm picking comes from the substance of what gets mainstream feminism in the news being based on faulty premises, and how much of what influential, big-name, on-the-news-as-serious-people feminists resembles the unfalsifiable theories of religious hucksters and the instigators of moral panics from years past.

Honestly your entire post is just a poor attempt at false equivalence; none of your examples really line up to what I was saying or even the main points I was making, and even if they were, aren't nearly as mainstream right now, or I would be throwing more shade at those people than I already do. Like 95% of the excerpt you decided to respond to was complaining about common feminist claims and arguments, and like 5% "btw this guy over here is a crank." Except, as opposed to having websites that resemble the 90s, the people I do choose to poke at (in this case being FemFreq I guess) are all over the news with a wealth of attention and following. Queers Against Gay Marriage is no rival in terms of stature or popularity, regardless of the comeback potential.

But I won't give that post of yours more fleshing out than that, because sarcasm is one of the least interesting ways to conduct a conversation like this. I'm not a troll, so you need not engage me as if I were one.

[TDAS04]

Yes.

[Beet]

Yes.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

As a feminist, my answer is

Yes.

,obviously. As Nagas pointed out, MRAs are idiots who try to blame feminism for problems that men face, rather than realizing that allying with them to combat all forms of gender oppression/discrimination/inequality is the solution.


At the same time, I do agree with Marokai's points on the intellectual dishonesty, recreational outrage, and poorly thought out policy initiatives that are propogated by "activists" of all stripes (whether it be on feminism, gay rights, civil rights, body acceptance, etc.) that only serve to undermine their own goals.

Really, you can't win.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Stop all the nonsense about "micro-aggressions" and start focusing on actual things that matter in real life.

why do you get to decide what "matters in real life"?

[Gustaf]

Stop all the nonsense about "micro-aggressions" and start focusing on actual things that matter in real life.

why do you get to decide what "matters in real life"?

He's a white, straight, cis-gendered male. What do we not get to decide?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Stop implementing laws that people openly admit are sh**ty and prone to overreach?

Oh, God. That Ezra Klein piece is a horror show. California's affirmative consent law is good not just despite a strong likelihood that there will be numerous false convictions... it is good because there will be false convictions! This is someone who epitomizes what it means to be a sane and proper liberal in 2015 making an argument that reduces to "keep them fearful."

Vox has really gone to shit, hasn't it?

[Cory]

Stop all the nonsense about "micro-aggressions" and start focusing on actual things that matter in real life.

why do you get to decide what "matters in real life"?

That's not what I was saying and you know it. I was saying that they should focus on things like fair pay and reproductive health. Not getting outraged because someone said "work is a bitch today" in casual conversation and the like.

[Lief 🗽]

Stop implementing laws that people openly admit are sh**ty and prone to overreach?

Oh, God. That Ezra Klein piece is a horror show. California's affirmative consent law is good not just despite a strong likelihood that there will be numerous false convictions... it is good because there will be false convictions! This is someone who epitomizes what it means to be a sane and proper liberal in 2015 making an argument that reduces to "keep them fearful."

Yes, how dare our laws keep would-be rapists fearful.

[The Dowager Mod]

First off, I do think that our perspectives as a generally privileged cis-male filled forum probably aren't the same as those of women who undergo discrimination and sexism. That being said, a lot of people misconstrue feminism's intent. True feminism means gender equality. Don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch. I do know a few so called feminists that are extremists who tilt towards misandry as opposed to equality. Thus, I don't see them as furthering the goals of feminism at all. Gender equality creates a breakdown of harmful traditional roles and stereotypes, which clearly benefits men. True gender equality creates an environment where men and women have equal value under the law. Once again, this helps both sexes. I don't call myself a feminist for the fear of being seen as trying to make the movement about men because I bring up how equality helps men as well. I call myself an egalitarian who supports the root goals of feminism.

Fine post until the bold, which I want to respond to. You ARE a feminist, but you undermine its image and credibility when you call yourself an "egalitarian who supports the root goals of feminism." Bringing up male benefits does not make the movement about men; the movement has been and will continue to be largely about women simply because they are the ones who suffer from the imbalanced social structures in place today.

A forum with very few women is predictably awful when it comes to this topic.

This. Very much this. That we have posts saying anything but yes is incredibly disturbing.

This forum has incredibly warped and misguided perceptions on what the central tenants of feminism actually are. The reasonable issues that MRAs complain about are covered by feminism.

Not all of them, many certainly (thanks to crossover support or parallels [objectification is an excellent example of a parallel]), but definitely not all of them. And nor can it be that way. To expect that would be to expect MRA's to have all the solutions to issues women face (appallingly, one can find a lot of those egomaniacal ones that actually think they do ), to expect one minority to speak for all minorities, when in fact there are clashes at times.

And even if they did, as any human rights activist can tell you, in a case like this, the main responsibility to get the issues voiced need to lay on the disadvantaged group to lead (in this case men), who gain allies along the way (women and feminists).

Men are the one's being disadvantaged in the status quo? Even if we take the most favorable take on arguments MRAs like to focus on (ex. divorce, child custody), we still have to weigh those harms against those women endure. Writ large, women are far more worse off on both quantity and quality of problems; men are not the disadvantaged group in the slightest.

Men who are focused on fixing negative male gender roles that go under the MRA movement end up undermining the very cause they are fighting for, because the MRA movement is 1. attempting to shift the narrative that men are somehow victims on balance (which too many fedora types on this forum latch onto) and 2. the movement contains many individuals who want to reaffirm (whether intentionally or not) the patriarchy, which alienates feminists from solving these issues longterm. Integrating into the broader feminist movement is the only correct choice, for the simple reason alone that feminism is literally fighting for the same thing.

The real issues that hurt men are unjust laws in regard to divorce, child custody, and child support, as well as a disturbing trend towards ostracizing and punishing people based on the mere accusation of rape, no matter how baseless or problematic the accuser's story is. Feminists support and push all of these things, so no feminism isn't any kind of solution.

You clearly do not know what feminism actually is. I'll warn you here deus, based on your posts in this area (re. rape/women), it is best for you to not take another step down this road, lest you be willing to be flayed alive by the greater forum community. Please do some reading on the subject.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[traininthedistance]

Stop implementing laws that people openly admit are sh**ty and prone to overreach?

Oh, God. That Ezra Klein piece is a horror show. California's affirmative consent law is good not just despite a strong likelihood that there will be numerous false convictions... it is good because there will be false convictions! This is someone who epitomizes what it means to be a sane and proper liberal in 2015 making an argument that reduces to "keep them fearful."

I think that's a misreading of Klein's argument, or at least a deeply unfair simplification. False accusations are just so vanishingly rare as it is, and at least personally, I'm skeptical that this law will change that. 

[traininthedistance]

Stop implementing laws that people openly admit are sh**ty and prone to overreach?

Oh, God. That Ezra Klein piece is a horror show. California's affirmative consent law is good not just despite a strong likelihood that there will be numerous false convictions... it is good because there will be false convictions! This is someone who epitomizes what it means to be a sane and proper liberal in 2015 making an argument that reduces to "keep them fearful."

I think that's a misreading of Klein's argument, or at least a deeply unfair simplification. False accusations are just so vanishingly rare as it is, and at least personally, I'm skeptical that this law will change that.

How do you interpret this comment, then?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

My point here is not that affirmative consent laws are necessarily bad, but that Klein makes a fundamentally illiberal argument in support of them.

Also, how common do false accusations need to be to matter? Does the existing body of research literature convincingly demonstrate that false accusations are, say, less than 5%? 10%?

"Genuinely ambiguous" is not the same thing as "false", but even putting that aside there's a lot more to the article than that one paragraph and I don't think the whole case for affirmative consent laws (either in general or specifically Ezra's take on it) depends on it.  I'd rather drop that paragraph and proffer that the existence of the law can provide a chilling effect on predatory behavior without there needing to be "unfair" prosecutions, sure.

As for "false" accusations, hm.  I was under the impression that the official number was vanishingly small (as in well under 1 percent) but that appears to not actually be the case.  Might have to back up a bit there.  But, still, the official "false" number is pretty inflated, as it includes such "ambiguous" situations (such as when the victim is, say, blackout drunk and too inebriated to consent, or if there's undue pressure/coercion involved), as well as cases where due to social pressure/hostile police/whatever the victim retracts a legitimate, truthful allegation. Even if the "official" number is eight* percent or something, that's still a) way WAY lower than the incidence of unambiguous sexual assaults that never get reported, and b) the rate of outright fabrications are, I'm sure, much more miniscule.

*Which, even in its inflated state, is a far cry lower than what a lot of people think it is.

[they don't love you like i love you]

I think the problem is too many assume the Duke Lacrosse case was some type of normal happening.

[Beet]

My point here is not that affirmative consent laws are necessarily bad, but that Klein makes a fundamentally illiberal argument in support of them.

I think I agree with this. Klein's argument is atrocious.

The best defenses of it are (a) it doesn't really change much, since UC and many other universities already use the affirmative consent standard (b) conservatively interpreted, there's nothing unreasonable in the actual text of SB 967. For example, a lot depends on your interpretation of "affirmative," which is never defined. The rule is appropriately ambiguous. (c) the world is not going to end / a witch hunt is not going to start as the result of this. The media are far more likely to start the latter, but they've burned themselves and people are starting to get wise to them.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Klein's argument is basically the same as that of "LAW AND ORDER" reactionaries, anyway.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The unfortunate reality about false accusations is that there's really no way to know with much certainty how many actually occur. What is the standard that determines whether or not the accusation is true or not for the purposes of calculating the rate of false accusations? If that standard is anything other than the outcome of court cases, each study is doing little more than pulling standards out of their ass and using guesswork.

Let me make it clear there that I understand that using court outcomes to determine the rate of false accusations is total crap because rapes are exceptionally hard to prove for a number of reasons and obviously a disturbingly high number of them will forever go unproven, it's just that this is what makes trying to come up with an agreed-upon number for what the actual rate of false accusations are almost impossible. Each study invents it's own standard of proof and then people cherry pick the one most favorable to them. Feminists pick up studies that say it's anywhere from 1-5% (this number is so low that it strains logic something fierce to believe) and MRAs throw around numbers like ~40% which of course they would because that just benefits the "bitches be crazy" narratives of creepy MRAs.

I actually tend to believe the feminists in that outright fabricated rape accusations are exceedingly low (not 2% low, but pretty low), yet it's only logical to conclude that when you create a greater incentive to lie by stacking the deck against the defendant that number would naturally increase.

However, even if we set aside that argument entirely (which we probably should because it's not possible to really have an honest percentage anyway, and even if we did, that shouldn't affect the legal process, so whatever) I find it unsettling that people argue about, not the rate of false accusations, but the rate by which there is some sort of acceptable collateral damage in locking up and ruining the lives of innocent people if lowering the standard of proof might benefit other individuals a bit more instead. The presumption of innocence until proven guilt is the foundation of liberal democracy and the fundamental problem with Ezra's argument is that his approach runs contrary to a liberal judicial system; taking potentially innocent people and using them as a scary example is not a liberal-minded judicial argument but there really are people out there who actually think that's okay. Which I find terrifying.

Though Beet is right that the law is not actually as explicitly bad as its harshest critics complained it was, the fact that it is so deliberately ambiguous and open to interpretation should be a bit unsettling in its own right.

I think the problem is too many assume the Duke Lacrosse case was some type of normal happening.

You're right that it's not "normal happening" but the opposite end of this spectrum is just as bad (and, it should be pointed out, actually really damaging to rape victims too!) because there was very recently a story from the University of Virginia that Rolling Stone jumped on, immediately taking the accusers story as gospel out of respect and insistence that since she was probably telling the truth statistically, they didn't need to do their due diligence as a news outlet and properly investigate it before publishing anything, and they completely bungled the story so hard because there ended up being multiple problems with the subjects account of the events that they had to back away from it and apologize.

I don't understand why "rigorously investigate, but treat with respect" is so impossible in all of this. There is a wider spectrum of positions here than "ignore all rape accusations because of some false ones" or "create a system wherein we believe all false accusations and potentially ruin lives because The Needs of the Many, etc."

[© tweed]

George Costanza: He's right! It's the same thing with the feminists. You know, they want everything to be equal... everything! But when the check comes, where are they?