Does anyone else have the same trouble I do with understanding anti-feminists?
Try as I might, it always seems to end up in the same place. I hear the arguments about men as victims of domestic violence, men who lose out in divorce settlements, men as victims of discrimination in education and the workplace and all the rest.
When anyone asks for an explanation, it degenerates into a row over which statistics are trustworthy at best. At worst it devolves into denial and ad hominem attacks.
Yet whenever I debate anti feminists, it comes down to pretty much the same thing. I can understand every point they make, and even sympathize with some of the grievances about the problems men face in society.
But I really really do not understand why they are blaming feminists or feminism for those problems.
I can't think of a single grievance anti feminists cite which can't be far more credibly explained by, for example, class oppression, cultural oppression, traditionalist attitudes or simple bad luck.
I don't understand the desire to blame feminism or the logic for it.
Does anyone else have the same trouble I do with understanding anti-feminists?
Colonel Reb2008-12-27T21:19:23Z
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Fair warning, this is a long answer, because I have a lot to say on this subject.
I do not think feminists and/or feminism are responsible for the majority of the problems, but they are complicit in some of them. Most feminists claim to want true equality, right? How many of them campaign for fathers' rights? I believe even the majority of feminists have noted that the courts are at least to some extent biased against men and fathers (the extent is what's debatable, but that's another point really).
I will say that I think more innocent men getting convicted of domestic violence is a direct result of feminism. Feminists were largely responsible for pushing the VAWA. I don't think VAWA should be completely repealed before we get into that debate. It has good intentions and is a good thing at face value. It is the implementation that I don't like. While it's true that the number of women arrested for DV has gone up since VAWA was introduced, it is still not nearly equal all the time. Let's face it, if a man and a woman get into a mutual fight, the man is going to get arrested 99% of the time, period. The woman MIGHT get arrested, she might not. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. VAWA basically tells law enforcement to assume that the man is guilty. That may not be the intention, but that's what happens. But feminists not only don't often condemn this view, they often encourage it. Traditionalist attitudes are partly responsible for this view, but feminists aren't exactly helping the cause either.
I will agree with you to a large extent. Many anti-feminists don't really make a lot of sense in their arguments (by the way, I don't think a lot of feminists do either at times, but that's not the point of this question). I think anti-feminism to a large extent is anger at a society that is marganalizing men more and more every day, and it is reactionary and isn't often thought through by the anti-feminists. If these anti-feminists are like me, they pretty much grew up thinking that men were overwhelmingly responsible for the bad things of the world and/or not as important as women (my own mother told me that I wouldn't be as important to my future children as their mother will as one example), and I think anti-feminism is a knee-jerk response to that. It's generally misguided, but considering what feminism is saying and how society has responded, it's really kind of inevitable since most feminists aren't really doing much to fix these views.
I know feminists are focusing on women's rights, and I respect that. But as long as they take the attitude that "men always had rights" (which is untrue to a large extent, but I'll make that argument another day) and either bury their heads in the sand to the reality that men do sometimes get screwed over by society or in a few cases encourage it as punishment for things done years ago, they are going to continue to get attacked. When feminists acknowledge that there have been side effects that need to be corrected instead of blindly insisting that they hold the moral high ground on every position without fail, maybe some people will start to really believe they're fighting for true equality.
I can see exactly where you're coming from with this post - it is odd that they spend so much time with people they hate - but then, so do we, where there are so many feminist-only groups we could join. Plus, as much as the really offensive ones annoy me - they do have a right to be here, and to their own opinion. If feminism is a theory for all of society, which it claims to be, then all of society has a right to discuss it, even if people come to a different conclusion than us. There is no particular difference, ideologically, politically or in terms of achievements between democracies and dictatorships - except one allows its enemies to speak, organise and even challenge them, while the other does not. So it's not so much a question of why do the anti-feminists keep coming here - obviously, if you could shout at your enemies and call them names all day long - wouldn't you? Imagine being able to heckle politicians this much? And that's how they see feminism - as the ruler of the world. The much more interesting question is, why do the feminists keep coming here? When there are, as I say, so many other feminist-only groups they could go to? They get no credit for it, it gets them no-where, nobody agrees with them, they don't even get admiration, they get trolled, cloned, insulted every single day, on almost every single post - yet here they are, calmy, patiently, and for the 15,000th time explaining what equality is all about, and what feminism is. Would you think a politician brave, if he took this much grief and kept going? I would... Voice of reality - a 'chav' is a lower class english person - similar to 'poor white trash' - it has absolutely nothing to do with chauvinism :-)
Yes, absolutely. Trying to discuss facts or the real causes of problems, often things like you listed, seems useless sometimes. At some point, it's like they were let down with life and had to find someone to blame, and they ended up picking feminists. I honestly think they have been dumped, had a bad divorce, had a rough time with their mom, or something very personal, and that one bad experience has made them hostile to all women, and the women become the scape goat for everything bad in their life, their layoff, their debt, whatever. It's frustrating.
When I say, factually, no, I don't hate men, I'm married to one, I get blocked. They don't care about any facts, it seems, maybe just want to vent their disappointments in life.
You are right...anti-feminists are rarely coming from a position of academic argument. Since the "anti-feminist movement" is not a movement at all, it tends to be very personal. Most of these guys feel personally oppressed by society and the law. They blame feminists because feminism is a source for much of the language and mentality whic fuels the above feelings of oppression. If you already feel oppressed, how would you feel about a group that painted you as an oppressor? Anti-feminism is a frustration reaction...
I wouldn't say that I have a problem understanding their grievances, because in may aspects of their complaints and rants I do see where they're coming from. I'm not saying that I agree with them, but I have seen some of my male friends pay big money in child support after a separation with a woman that was unfaithful, I have seen cases of men paying huge alimony to an ex-wivies (but that's if he makes a substantial amount of money annual), and I have assisted male victims of rape/sexual assault and domestic violence.
And like any other cause thats labeled as being an 'injustice" all of these issues need to be reevaluated on a case by case basis to ensure no one is getting 'screwed over' so to speak.
But on the same note, you have to realize that the majority of the male posters (and female posters) who make these claims of victimization suffered at the hands of feminism, are the men and women who've experienced some negative dealings with women in their lives. For example, the user who comes here frequently posting rants against all women in divorce based on the actions of his ex-wife (and we all know who he is) or the user whom I spoke too off line who lost a sexual descriminiation case with two female employees; that resulted in his decision to only hire men (go figure why he lost his case in the first place).
These anti-fems are men and who've been dealt a bad deck of cards in their lives with the women around them; and they lay blame to anything that respenst the 'female' as a whole. It goes back to the 'blame game' question that Flyinghorse posted not to long ago. Its so easy to find faulth with everyone else but yoruself when things don't go right in your marriage, your career/business, schooling and education, or relatoishisp with people of the opposing sex in your family. This way these users no longer have to shoulder the burdon of the fact that they didn't do what it takes to finish college, keep thier wives and marriage/family life in tact and happy, or facing the fact that they can't date a decent woman because they keep chasing the women who lack morals, or could care less about anyone else but themselves.