Dan Savage kept hearing from Christians that they were sick of being presumed bigots because of the way bigots have hijacked the good name of Christianity. They would come up to him and complain after talks he gave that “not all Christians were like that”. So he challenged them to do something about their image and the NALT (Not All [Christians are] Like That) website is the result. Huffington Post quotes him:
“Savage told The Huffington Post that he thought the videos were really important. ” The It Gets Better Campaign brought LGBT kids who were struggling a message of support. This series of videos will be great for young LGBT kids coming out to their Christians families who can direct their parents to NALT.” Savage went on to say that the NALT campaign can also have a political message in that anti-gay Christians appear to speak for all Christians when they condemn gay people. “I know that isn’t true. My mom was a Christian,” Savage says. “Go tell Tony Perkins that he is the one lying. This is an opportunity to harness social media and mass activism online.”
So people have been uploading videos.
Today feminism has the same problem. Something like 70% of young women polled refuse to identify as feminist and they cite feminism’s man-hatred as the main reason, regardless of how much it may have benefited these women personally. Their humanity gets denounced as ingratitude and they get the Feminist Pimp Hand, which really just makes their case.
So feminism has about the same image problem as Christianity does, with the Religious Right monopolizing and degrading the brand. What to do, what to do? How about a NAFALT website where feminists can post their videos of recognition of men’s issues and their support for men.
And that recognition of men’s issues and support for men should start with a renunciation of misandrist gender tropes. We have talked about this before. We noted how modern feminism is funded on a list of misandrist tropes derived from the Redstockings Manifesto. Fidelbogen long ago drew up an oath of renunciation for feminists who wanted to abjure their these man-hating tenets. Here is my own more detailed and specific form of an oath for feminists to take to show they have renounced all misandry:.
Oath of Rejection of Misandry
1. I renounce and reject any analysis that objectifies or dehumanizes either men or women by crudely and reductionistically lumping them into classes and that denies their individuality or individual agency.
2. I therefore renounce and reject any analysis that identifies all men as oppressors and all women as victims, or that denies that men can be victims or that women can be oppressors, or that defines these power differences as based on a person’s sex alone.
3. I also renounce and reject formulations or slogans based on accusing men of being oppressors as a class such as “male privilege”, and “men can stop rape”, in the absence of female equivalents or formulations that include male victims on the same basis as female victims.
4. I renounce and reject gender-based discrimination. I reject analysis that uses false equivalencies to minimize harms to men, such as: equating rape of women to murder of men or insults to women’s faithfulness with paternity fraud against men, that seek to explain away harms to men as insignificant because they are done by other men, that seek to exculpate women for blaming men for the violence that women do to them or their children. I condemn any gender-based discrimination before the law, whether intentional or simply resulting in disparate impact – the female sentencing discount, gendered disparities in scholarships, institutional support groups or quality of instruction and educational outcomes in government-run education, disparities in the family court system resulting in disparate rates of child custody and disparate treatment of parental misconduct, and all other forms of governmental and institutional gender discrimination. I condemn gender-based infringements on due process and other Constitutional rights.
5. I renounce and reject the demonization of human sexuality, either as dangerous and creepy or as sluttish and dirty, or as perverted or unnatural. I reject notions such as “rape culture” and “male gaze”.
6. I renounce and reject any social or political project that treats one gender as morally inferior to another. I reject calls from women to “fix” men and attempts by women, or their male enablers, to define or decree what constitutes a “good man” a “real man” or masculinity.
This is how a feminist can make her or his statement that Not All Feminists Are Like That. All she or he has to do is renounce every actual and operative – and demonstrably man-hating – as opposed to bogus textbook tenet of modern feminism. This is no different from what Christians are doing at the NALT site when they reject Christianism and Fundamentalism, and in so many words, when they denounce homophobia and other hatreds as unchristian. And it’s not too much to ask of a feminist who truly renounces misandry and denounces it as anti-feminist, if misandrist really isn’t an inherent and structural part of feminism.
How does a feminist show she or he doesn’t hate men, dismiss harms to them and treat them as disposable? They just have to renounce the misandrist – which also happen to be the structural – tenets of feminism.
That’s all. Is that so much to ask?
- The Woman Card - May 2, 2016
- Frat boy bachelorettes and the invasion of gay bars - April 15, 2016
- “Not my kid….” - February 22, 2016
by 
I would love to see something like this, but I’m not holding my breath. People have been telling feminists to prove that they’re “not all like that.” for years, but the fact of the matter seems to be that feminists are incapable of not putting their own issues front and center. As proof I submit both Ozyfrantz’s now defunct No Seriously What About The Menz? blog and The Good Men Project.
While both purporting to be about men, and maybe even starting out that way, they both turned blogs dedicated to “fixing” men.
And both wound up engaging in blunt and knee-jerk censorship in order to block any dissenting or questioning views that deviated from feminism-is-what’s-best-for-men orthodoxy.
Ironically enough, it isn’t the “Feminists” who would be drawn to such a campaign. That 70% rejection stat doesn’t mean 70% of women want to be 1950’s housewives (duh), but that the label isn’t right. There are so many non-Feminist-identified individuals out there who are getting shoved to the side while also having the actual exchanges and discourses necessary to come to understanding and progress. Those are the people who need to invade and reclaim the “feminist” label (or something new) to get us out of this identity-war culture.
Paul,
“but the fact of the matter seems to be that feminists are incapable of not putting their own issues front and center”
This goes to their narcissism. Everything has to be about them even when it’s about someone else.
“While both purporting to be about men, and maybe even starting out that way, they both turned blogs dedicated to “fixing” men.”
More narcissism and objectification. “Fixing men” to be what these people want is instrumentlaization, a form of objectification, and it also is ownership, another form of objctification. And objectification is at the root of narcissism.
People like this are never, ever going to see anything in themselves that needs to be fixed. They have no self-awareness and are incapable of self-criticism.
Copyleft,
“And both wound up engaging in blunt and knee-jerk censorship in order to block any dissenting or questioning views that deviated from feminism-is-what’s-best-for-men orthodoxy.”
Spastic and refelxive ego-defenses are symptomatic too.
Corw,
“There are so many non-Feminist-identified individuals out there who are getting shoved to the side while also having the actual exchanges and discourses necessary to come to understanding and progress. ”
YES! The progress is all happening outside the feminist community. They are irrelevant and peripheral to the actual gender discussion that is leading somewhere. I think they sense this and it fuels a lot of their dismissiveness, sense of victimization and anger.
I think some people use ‘feminism’ as a justification for (‘feminine’) machismo, without engaging its ideas. The pledge asks people to reconsider their framework, but a framework might not be there to begin with.
You know what’s so befuddling about this?
Everytime, whenever a hole in feminism is pointed out or an ignorance of specific mens issues (even citing misandric articles written by prominent ones in the mainstream), there’s always a feminist or two that comes out and says “But I believe in mens rights and I’m a feminist.”
But here’s the kicker: When pressed as to why they’re not calling out those gynocentrists in their movement, they say “I’m a minority. I have no real power.”
Then why do they call themselves feminists then? What, because they think the movement can be fixed? If they have no real power and have seceded the reigns to the misandrics, why bother trying to fix it in the first place?
Ballgame at Feminist Critics is a feminist, yes. So is Christina Hoff Sommers and Erin Prizzy. However, the first two are hardly considered feminists by the misandric majority. The third was threatened to the point of leaving her country.
I’ll never know why these feminists, who are egalitarian, insist on trying to fix something that would kick them to the curb (or already have thrown them out).
@Eagle35
“When pressed as to why they’re not calling out those gynocentrists in their movement, they say “I’m a minority. I have no real power.””
I think part of it is the same reason why many of us in the men’s movement wish to remain anonymous. The feminists who are like that attack those who aren’t. Look at Hoff-Sommers. Although she still considers herself a feminist, she has been rejected and ejected by the movement.
The irony is that feminists claim to give power and voice to those in the minority and instead take it away from those in their own movement.
“The irony is that feminists claim to give power and voice to those in the minority and instead take it away from those in their own movement.”
The mechanism they use is the Feminist Pimp Hand. And this is how it works:
“However, the first two are hardly considered feminists by the misandric majority. The third was threatened to the point of leaving her country.”
Dani, feminine machismo is a big fetish in the culture, not just feminism. And something else to remembebr – in every movemet there will always be people who hijack the ideology to play out their own pathologies.
Eagle: “But here’s the kicker: When pressed as to why they’re not calling out those gynocentrists in their movement, they say “I’m a minority. I have no real power.””
And that gives me all the licence I need to not consider them when I form an opinion on Feminism.
But for some reason I can never get them to understand that.
Ginkgo: “YES! The progress is all happening outside the feminist community. They are irrelevant and peripheral to the actual gender discussion that is leading somewhere. I think they sense this and it fuels a lot of their dismissiveness, sense of victimization and anger.”
I agree 100%. They do sense this, at least on an unconscious level. They sense they are losing control of the discussion and are desperately trying to reposition themselves.
We’ve all noticed the shifts in feminists stated views on things. Suddenly they all care about male victims. A couple of posts later they’ll go right back to dismissing them again of course, just not as overtly as before. Now it’s either “men don’t need DV shelters or any tangible help – we need to look into what they need” with no intention of actually supporting efforts to look into what they need, or “we shouldn’t talk about it in terms of ‘men’ and ‘women’ but ‘victims’”. Yes, non-feminists have been saying that for a decade now and you’ve been dismissing us. Now that you’re being left behind in the discussion suddenly you say it as though you’re saying something fresh and original.
And at the end of the day that’s all they’ll ever do to help; say something which ‘sounds right’ and positions them as an authority but with no followup action: They still oppose anything that will actually help men, especially if it means women giving up a minor privilege. We need to keep leaving them behind and push them further to the sidelines.
For the Norwegian readers: There is 10 page article today about the mens movement in Dagens Næringslivs D2 magazine. It is positive and besides presenting Norwegians have interviews with Farrell and Girlwriteswhat. Read it!
“2. I therefore renounce and reject any analysis that identifies all men as oppressors and all women as victims, or that denies that men can be victims or that women can be oppressors, or that denies that these power differences can be based on gender roles alone.”
Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong but shouldn’t the last point read as “… *defines* these power differences can be based on gender roles alone”?
Other than that, great post!
Adiabat,
“We’ve all noticed the shifts in feminists stated views on things. Suddenly they all care about male victims”
Oh yeah – whatever happened to “what about teh menz”? But they are the experts on all things gender, so anyone else is usurping the feminists’ role when they presume to speak up.
Wanna know how weird this gets? I stumbled across a feminist’s blog post where she fretted that MRAs were presuming to discuss gay and POC men’s issues. Because obviously those are the purview of SJW types like her. Fortunately her commenters called her on that absurdity.
Welcome, Lucian! Or welcome back if you’ve been here – you’ve been away.
“Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong but shouldn’t the last point read as “… *defines* these power differences can be based on gender roles alone”?”
Good catch. Thanks. Going ot make the correction now.
Welcome, Tim!
That’s an interesting development in Norway, that GWW and Warren Farrell are getting media play. But then there have been lots of interesting developments in Norway recently having to do with gender issues.
Oh yeah – whatever happened to “what about teh menz”? But they are the experts on all things gender, so anyone else is usurping the feminists’ role when they presume to speak up.
Lindy West, infamously, tried to use both at the same time. She said she and other feminists hated men for talking about their issues, but feminism was still helping men.
This fooled nobody except feminists looking for rationalizations. In fact, most of the tumblr posts quoting it in a “see? See, MRAs?” fashion ignored that bit entirely. They mostly quoted the soothing, rhythmic, cultlike chanting of the “the Patriarchy did it” bit.
Wanna know how weird this gets? I stumbled across a feminist’s blog post where she fretted that MRAs were presuming to discuss gay and POC men’s issues. Because obviously those are the purview of SJW types like her. Fortunately her commenters called her on that absurdity.
I once found one who complained that people were trying to make a discussion of male rape erasure about men. (Instead of, implicitly, how women are being misogynistically oppressed by being ignored as perpetrators of rape.)
A lot of them can’t seem to acknowledge men’s issues as significant unless they somehow make it really about women, no matter how silly their rationalization. Narcissism.
SYABM – two things:
Can you find me that link? I am going to try to find this one I referred, for a post on feminsts tryng to addres men’s issues. And this tendency yoo monpolize gender discussions is one big reason they fail so pathetically.
Second – i would loe to post more of your stuff to Mensrights on reddit – they get a great response – but I can’t figure out how to separate out the specific posts to link to them. Can you help?.
Sure you see this aal the time. Some are more plausible than others: The reason men were conscripted rather than women is because those in charge viewed women as being incapable of being soldiers- probably true. Compare that to: the reason women get shorter prison sentences than men for the same crime is because “the patriarchy” views women as too weak to handle prison- Are you fucking kidding me?
“Ballgame at Feminist Critics is a feminist, yes. So is Christina Hoff Sommers and Erin Prizzy. However, the first two are hardly considered feminists by the misandric majority. The third was threatened to the point of leaving her country.”
Eh……Erin Pizzey has flat-out stated that she is not a feminist, unless I am mistaken.
As for the other two, well, it is most unfortunate that they would tag themselves with the F-word. They seriously – I mean seriously – need to stop doing that, and come right out and declare their non-feminism in broad daylight to all the world.
I am losing patience with people like them.
Fidelbogen, honored, as always….
I also wsh they would drop it. it’s not helpful. Ballgame is doing it out of sheer stubbornness, and it confuses rather than clarifies things.
Paul,
“The reason men were conscripted rather than women is because those in charge viewed women as being incapable of being soldiers- probably true”
This one in particular sets me off. This is a truly sociopathic example of Snatching Victimhood Out of the Jaws of Privilege. They are trying to put some strictly notional devaluing of women, which benfits women pretty prfoundly, on par with men’s actual exposure to death and maiming; no, they are actually trying to claim it’s worse. Only the most mendacious sociopath could care so little about other humans.
Adiabat: We’ve all noticed the shifts in feminists stated views on things. Suddenly they all care about male victims.
What I find equally rephrensible, and downright egotistical, is when we’re starting to recognize Male Survivors and Victims, they can’t resist proclaiming “Thanks to feminism, you have the language.”
They’re right one one thing, but totally wrong on another. Yes, they have the language to call it rape and assault.
But feminists were also instrumental in making the definition of rape “What a man does to a woman”. For decades this definition stayed in the public concious and influenced discriminatory laws for Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse.
Meanwhile, we have Male Survivors in their late forties and even fifties coming forth with tales of sever woe done on to them by female perpetrators.
Maybe if the feminist movement stepped up and fought againt the “What a man does to a woman” definition from the beginning, those survivors wouldn’t have had a struggle to get recognized.
So every time a feminist says “Thanks to feminism blah blah blah” in regards to Male Sexual Abuse Victims, I will just point out “YOU started the mentality that it could only happen to women and did jack-shit to address it from the beginning. So screw you.”
Eagle, they didn’t start that mentality, they found in the traditionalist culture they grew up, didn’t examine or analyze the actual progressives do with traditions, then co-opted it for their own agenda – and that’s what is so hateful about them. Their ignorant traditionalism.
I stand corrected.
Still, they didn’t do jack-shit to combat it so that makes them disgusting, egotistical hypocrites attempting to take credit for Male Victim recognition.
“I’ll never know why these feminists, who are egalitarian, insist on trying to fix something that would kick them to the curb (or already have thrown them out).”
I suspect it’s because feminism has so monopolized the conversation and analysis of gender that they have a hard time imagining a group or movement for women interested in women’s issues to join that isn’t “feminism”, or seeing such a group as relevant or empowered.
I mean, why do progressives keep voting Democrat, even though it’s obvious that the Democratic Party doesn’t want to give them what they want? Because there’s no viable progressive party? I imagine this is similar.
Xpolo, welcome!
That’s big part it. Monopoly.
This is posted to reddit and the reaction is interesting. A lot of it comes down to White Lady Tears – people are so invested in their own righteousness – they are on the side of Justice after all – that the idea that they might be haters, and that the ones they hatemay in fact be righteous victims – is intolerable. So they start hamstering like this.
@Ginkgo
The Lindy West one? It’s one of the first Google hits for “misandry”, at least on my computer.
http://jezebel.com/5992479/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-thing-will-you-stop-turning-it-into-a-self+fulfilling-prophecy
And rebuttals;
http://judgybitch.com/2013/03/29/men-stand-up-for-yourselves-and-we-will-hate-you-the-new-feminist-war-cry/
http://justinvacula.com/2013/03/29/if-i-admit-that-hating-women-is-a-thing-will-you-stop-turning-it-into-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/ *
http://siryouarebeingmocked.tumblr.com/post/46621351440/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-thing-will-you-stop
If you mean the other one;
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1maqj9/this_proves_sexism_exists_if_these_were_boys/cc7phc1
Note that the subject of the discussion was a sexual assault, by girls, on a boy, and how male sexual assault is more likely to be erased. For all that many feminists accuse MRAs of “deraling”, they sure seem to be willing to engage in it themselves at the drop of a hat.
Use on the link that says “X [units] Ago” next to the posts. If you’re on the post page, the Permalink will be the actual date at the bottom.
@Paul
Apparently, being thought “too weak” to go to jail is worse than the benefit they receive from not going to jail.
Weird. When men allegedly receive preferential treatment in court for, say, being accused of rape, it’s a privilege. When women receive it, it’s still misogyny. Almost as if this “femmephobia” nonsense was a post facto rationalization.
@Ginkgo
Considering that most feminists seem to want nothing to do with them, and both FC and this site are censored, it’s pretty obvious their views aren’t mainstream.
@Eagle35
Ironically, I’ve seen several tumblrfems complaining about MRAs and egalitarians “appropriating” feminist language.
@Gingko
Which is why feminist efforts to “persuade” MRAs almost invariably sound like they’re trying to maintain their monopoly. It takes a lot of effort to listen to someone going “I don’t think feminism can adequately address men’s issues.” and going “Yes it can! You should be a feminist!” while waving away all of their criticisms**. Or rather, it takes no intellectual or emotional effort at all. Which is why it’s so appealing.
Hence NAFALT and “those aren’t real feminists!”, which fools basically no one at all who’s not a feminist looking to defend the Party. In fact, Lindy West doesn’t even bother to do that. She starts off acting like she’s going to criticize them, but immediately starts downplaying them. Not to mention the inevitable conflation of “women” with “feminists”. It sure is odd how so many feminists claiming they’re not sexist against men forget about male feminists when it’s time to try and garner sympathy by portraying feminists as oppressed women.
And when the biggest feminist website on Earth can say “men need to shut up about their problems or we’ll hate them” and “we’re helping men with their problems” in the same article, and few feminists call them out on it, and this is considered an authoritative argument, something’s gone horribly wrong.
* Note how in the comments someone complains that “fisking” – a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal – is somehow dishonest for reasons including the removal of context. When the West article they’re defending provided no context or evidence for a single one of it’s claims, IIRC.
** I once had one tell me I should become a feminist and fix problems with the movement if I was going to complain about them.
SYABM, excellent comment. Just excellent. If you don’t mind, I am going to lift it and post it. Please advise if that’s alright to do.
@ Ginkgo and Paul
On the military issue I think some feminists feel the need to go on a clearly absurd offensive because being expected and encouraged to lay down your life for you country is one of the strongest arguments against men clearly having things better in the past.
I was reading an article today about the huge role that war poetry played in the education of British public school boys in the late 19th and early 20th century. What really amazed me was that the glorification was not so much of heroic acts but death. It was less about great deeds on the battlefield than it was about sacrificing your own life for Queen and country. Or sometimes women back home. These lines – published in 1916 – from the poet Katherine Tynan particularly capture that sentiment:
‘Pinks and syringa in the garden closes,
And the sweet privet hedge and golden roses,
The pines hot in the sun, the drone of bees,
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.’
For your database on threats:
http://alexsparky.tumblr.com/post/49457169942/just-saying
HEP, welcome!
You make a very good point:
“What really amazed me was that the glorification was not so much of heroic acts but death”
The whole memeplex was Romantic in the extreme.
Thanks, John.
We used to joke with the Brits that we had our doubts about allies that saw anything in the Charge of the Light Brigade to praise. They would chuckle ruefully.
@Ginkgo;
Sure, no problem, post it if you like.
@ H. E. Pennypacker
“I have a rendezvous with death” – Alan Seeger
“In Flanders Fields” – McCrae
Also, WRT the post itself;
http://permutationofninjas.org/post/38503693707/expelling-radicals-a-guide-for-feminists
I’d say #5 is inherently feminist, because women will always know who their children are, but men can never be sure. Monogamous sex within marriage is pro-man. Promiscuous sex is a violation and spit in the face of men, regardless of the gender. Being pro-man means embracing the total man. To say that women can fulfill the role of a man, is a disrespect to men. Feminism will always be opposed to men, because it attempts to strip men of their natural dignity as men. I encourage men, if they can’t be masters of their own domain, wreck the society that hates you. And by wrecking it, I mean don’t support it anymore. Don’t be productive. Don’t be a protector. Pay as few taxes as you can. Advocate less police on the streets. Men can take care of ourselves, it’s women who need to have a man around to be safe in public. In the old days, that was her father or husband. Today, money is taken from her father so that she can run around in public with police protection like a little princess.
Welcome, Hendrick!
“women will always know who their children are, but men can never be sure. Monogamous sex within marriage is pro-man. Promiscuous sex is a violation and spit in the face of men, regardless of the gender.”
Men can be sure now. Men have developed technology that can tell them with absolute certainty that a child is theirs or not, at least sons, which is the issue after all. The one remaining obstacle is man-made and can be removed by men – the legal presumption of paternity with concomitant obligation of support. That is nothing more than a legal artifact. Another such legal artifact might equally well say that no person shall be forced to assume the duties of a parent against his/her will, not even to harbor the child in his house. That leaves a woman with this illegitimate child with two options – put it up for adoption or abandon the marriage, with all the attendant consequences.
“if they can’t be masters of their own domain,”
Mastery is a dangerous position. Every master spends most of his time watching for attempts on his position.
“wreck the society that hates you. And by wrecking it, I mean don’t support it anymore. Don’t be productive. Don’t be a protector. Pay as few taxes as you can.
” Advocate less police on the streets. Men can take care of ourselves,”
Men are already the overwhelming majority of victims of violence, so no, we men can’t take care of ourselves. This rugged individualism fantasy dies on contact with societies like Afghanistan or Somalia. those are real-life examples of governmentless societies.
” it’s women who need to have a man around to be safe in public.”
They are no alone in that.
“To say that women can fulfill the role of a man, is a disrespect to men.”
Only if you think that women are less than men. In any case can or cannot are moot, since women’s traditional role has been industrialized out of existence. Men don’t need housewives anymore. Or do you mean motherhood? Why is motherhood any more of a role than fatherhood is? Holding motherhood up as something unique is the real disrespect to men, and to fatherhood.
Thanks for the welcome Ginkgo. I see lots to like on your blog.
Just to clarify, I’m not a believer in equality. I believe people should be treated equal under the law.
IMO, men have multipurpose bodies. Men create, build, codify, ect. Studies show that the male brain diverges from the female brainwith the introduction of testosterone when they are an infant. It’s nature versus nurture. I take it you believe in the Social Construct Theory?
IMO, it’s called Mankind for a reason. Without the benefits that Men bring to the species, we would all live as animals.
“This rugged individualism fantasy dies on contact with societies like Afghanistan or Somalia. those are real-life examples of governmentless societies.”
Correction: those are both real-life examples of what happens when a totalitarian soviet entity attempts to control an already poverty-stricken part of the world, which of course ends up with the US meddling and somehow making things worse in the form of constant civil war with radical Islam. Nothing individualistic there.
But I agree with your point that men usually have serious trouble taking care of themselves. The culture of gender-based stoicism is unnecessarily harmful these days.
“Correction: those are both real-life examples of what happens when a totalitarian soviet entity attempts to control an already poverty-stricken part of the world,”
Neither of those were model civil societies. Clan was everything and outside of a clan no one had any chance, and clan violence was endemic.
In fact when people complain about the breakdown of family, civil society and the market economy bear most of the blame, because they make these clan affiliations redundant.
An overlay of a totalitarian regime only froze the system in place so that tensions could build up. the ensuing collapse was the opening for radical ideologies of social salvation to take old and poison everything.
And you are right, there is nothing individualistic in any of this. No room for it. in these societies an individual is just meat on the hoof.
This whole back and fourth ignores the fact that Somalia and Afghanistan are both war zones. Europe was a war zone during the World Wars, and Nazi Germany was a far cry from a governmentless state. Why compare apples to oranges?
We can compare different societies and just guess what makes them the way they are, or we can be more scientific about it and compare societies which have a similar starting point, but diverged because of certain policies. Or take our own society, and see how it changed when certain policies were implemented. But still better in my opinion is to take the psychological approach, and ask ourselves what behaviors and attitudes are reinforced by certain policies.And we shouldn’t divorce this analysis from concepts of ethics and morality, because a society that is just will have the support of the men in that society.
Hendrick: IMO, men have multipurpose bodies. Men create, build, codify, ect. Studies show that the male brain diverges from the female brainwith the introduction of testosterone when they are an infant. It’s nature versus nurture. I take it you believe in the Social Construct Theory?
I take it you believe trans persons do not exist?
@Daisy
Thank you for proving my point that the male brain is different from the female brain.
Hi, I assume that this article is addressing people who support feminists, or are active involved feminists themselves. Is that right? I wrote on a youtube video that I didn’t know what to refer to myself as. I believe that my gender is just as important as men, but at the same time, I don’t support what feminists stand for and am far from being a misandrist. Can I call myself a feminist if I don’t support or agree with their ways just because I believe that both gender are equally important.
Hendrick (sigh) — so could you answer the question and dumb it down for us girls who didn’t get it? Because no, I do not understand how I “proved your point”–so please explain to us dummies (I also did not attend college; that could be it).
Are you saying it is brains that are different in trans people? Because IMHO, it is due to higher hormone levels (of the gender they identify as).
If all people w/male gonads became “male” (identify as men) due to testosterone, then why do some not identify that way? I think its due to lack of that testosterone, but that is a minority opinion, apparently. Is this also your view?
KB: Can I call myself a feminist if I don’t support or agree with their ways just because I believe that both gender are equally important.
Some people like the terms “equity feminist” or “egalitarian feminist”… you might try one of those.
I have reverted to “socialist feminist” if I am pressed for a qualifier.
Call yourself whatever you like. The only thing that a label does in the gendersphere, as far as I can tell, is force you to explain yourself when confronted with what the rest of the people with the same label are saying and doing.
KB: “Can I call myself a feminist if I don’t support or agree with their ways just because I believe that both gender are equally important.”
If you do so, you won’t be alone. There are many like yourself who rebel against what current feminism represents but still want to apply the label.
KB, welcome! I wanted to answer earlier, and tried to respond but the comment didn’t post.
Anyway, everyone else is right, there are lots of people who are pro-men’s rights and call themselves feminists. Daisy is one. And you clearly are an egalitarian just based on the way you framed this – “I believe that my gender is just as important as men,”
Notice you didn’t say men are as important as women, as if that needed to be said. You take it for granted already.
‘… but at the same time, I don’t support what feminists stand for…”
Well there are lots fo feminists and a lot agree with you.
Two things:
Feminism and what feminism is – this is an issue of defintion and there are two definitions of feminism, linked to each other. One is that feminism is a movement to achieve gender equality. The other is that feminism is the set of core doctrines such as partriarchy theory, men as the oppressor class, rapeculture, etc. What links them is the notion that since women are the oppressed class, whatever advances them, regardless of any deleterious effects on men, advances equality.
So the first thing to do is to settle on a definition of feminism if you want to call yourself one.
Second, a note on misandry and misandrists. There are misandrists who just don’t like men. This ranges form the extremists who fanatsize about reducing the male proportion of the population to 10% to those who just take it for granted that little boys are harder to teach and are inherently dirty and violent. Believe me, as many or more of these people are men as are women.
But then there is the issue of systemic misandry, although there are those ideologues and tradcons who have an interest in denying the plain facts that show misadry is a structural feature of our society. systemic misandry makes all of us in the system this kind of misandrist, I suppose, because we are complicit unless we actively decry and oppose this sytemic misandry – people like you, KB.
Welcome aboard and I hope you stay.
Ginko: “This ranges form the extremists who fanatsize about reducing the male proportion of the population to 10% to those who just take it for granted that little boys are harder to teach and are inherently dirty and violent.”
I would also add that there are those who just display complete and utter apathy and indifference to the struggles of boys and men no matter how many reams of evidence you present or clearly you make it sound. You don’t have to call for the extermination of 10% of the male population to be an outright misandrist.
That’s a very big part of the systemic misandry I am talking about, Eagle, thanks for catching that.
Daisy, it is of no interest to me why Trans people are the way they are. Gender to me is not identity, it is reality. A mans brain is capable of things that no other creature is capable of. This humbling fact is the seed of civilization, culture, and invention. Trans is just a grain of sand compared to this. It’s just trivial in comparison.
KB: If true equal treatment under the Law resulted in women being impoverished and needing to submit to men in order to survive, would you still be an advocate of equality?
Hendrick: Trans is just a grain of sand compared to this. It’s just trivial in comparison.
Wow… I think if you are trans, probably isn’t trivial at all.
But I see what/who your priorities are. Thank you for your reply.
Daisy your bizarre tactics are plausibly deniable, but transparent and boring. Whatever thrill you get from distracting from the actual point is not shared by me. Maybe the folks at the cooking and gardening blog would enjoy having you switch topics from chocolate cake to transsexual politics, but i’m not interested. I came here for intellectual stimulation, not mud pies.
Hendrick, huh?
Dude, I was just asking a matter-of-fact question and was honestly seeking your opinion. I didn’t mean to make you hysterical. If you can’t rationally and politely address my question, then I guess that’s that. But don’t expect me not to notice that you obviously can’t answer it and instead must resort to patronizing insults.
If that makes you feel better, have at it.
Happy new year.
Happy New Year, Daisy.
And nicely done, BTW.
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