Anti-feminist arguments.

[Bala Perdida]

I just don't get how they try to dispose of feminism. The weirdest one I've heard is that feminism is obsolete, but they'd support a sufferage movement in the middle east. Do they really think that's what all this is about? Worthless paper rights? What are other arguments and what are they trying to get across? How do you respond to them? Just out of curiosity I ask, also because this 'anti-feminist' trend is really starting to bother me. Especially since most of it's champions seem to think of themselves as 'authentic egalitarians' or some shit. Trying to dispose of a feminist bias but failing to understand it. Calling any dedicated feminist a 'radical' as if implying a danger. What is up with all this?

[Palmares]

A radical critique of feminism, like from that of Feral Faun, I believe has some merit.

http://anti-politics.org/feral-faun/ideology-of-victimization.html

Though such views have a slippery tendency towards complete disposal of critiques of patriarchy.

But likely you mean coming from a different perspective to this? Could you be more specific? Either way, patriarchy is ever-present, and any argument to the contrary would be akin to climate sceptics. There are innumerable statistics (but not limited to) that show the discrepancy in binary (but not limited to!) gender power relations.

[Bala Perdida]

What I mean is basically what are some of the mainstream arguments being put out, and what is the feminist response to it? How are the anti-feminist arguments supported, because upon further analysis most of them seem like assertive, but uninformed statements. They're basically ear candy for anyone looking to demean women or anything more brutal.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The classic argument put forward in more developed, western countries is that because women have equal rights under the law (in terms of voting, pay and conditions), that there is 'nothing left to fight for'.

The feminist response would be that whilst equality has been achieved under the law, it has not been achieved in the workplace. Women are generally paid less, discriminated against because they might one day carry babies, and normally bear the brunt of rises in unemployment.

Feminists would also point out that women are still dis-proportionately the victims of rape and that most rapists don't get convicted (or even stand trial), and that women still face everyday instances of sexism that are overlooked by men (verbal insults, catcalling, sexual innuendos and inappropriate touching).

Socialist/communist/anarchist feminists would also point out that the patterns for discrimination against women are endemic to capitalism; their (our) argument would be that women are economically dis-advantaged under capitalism because:

1) capitalism needs unemployment to keep wages down and women, statistically speaking, bear the brunt of unemployment

2) capitalism needs large amounts of unpaid employment to be completed in the form of household and domestic work. This is a large reason why women were excluded from the workforce for such a long time when capitalist countries were industrialising.

3) institutions of political, economic, military, social and religious power, whose interests lie in retaining the current system of capitalism, are generally ruled by men, together creating a system we call patriarchy, which is essentially where men dominate and use their positions of power (in governments, in the media, in financial institutions, in powerful religious institutions and in the military hierarchy) to maintain their advantageous position in society.

In particular, as socialist/communist/anarcha feminists we argue that this last point, of patriarchy, is tied up with class. Because it so happens that most capitalists hitherto have been men, the systems of capitalism and patriarchy have become bound up together; women from the working class face a double oppression/exploitation by ruling class men (And you can extend this analysis to say that working women who are not-white face a three-way oppression, and so on...).

[trickster]

Tw because I'm briefly going to discuss sexual violence.

The three main arguments I run into from this movement....

1) Feminism ignores how men are systematically oppressed.

When I ask for examples of how exactly men are systematically oppressed, the only response they seem to have is 'women get sole custody of their children then men do'. And although this is true, it's true because women tend to ask for sole custody more often, and men often go along with it. In reality, the courts are actually biased towards men, and will typically grant men parental rights, even if the man has a history of abuse.

2) Feminism ignores how society treats male rape victims.

Not only is this blatantly false, but the treatment of rape victims is poor regardless of the sex of the victim/survivor. It doesn't have to do with the 'oppression of men', it has to do with how our society treats rape. Male and female survivors are often disbelieved, and feminism is trying to fight this. Anti-feminists seem to insist that only male survivors of rape face any kind of discrimination or mistreatment. Feminists recognize that all rape survivors face this issue.

3) Feminism is teaching people to hate men/that all men are sexual predators/the men are dangerous.

This is the one I have trouble with the most, because it makes me so angry, I just want to scream at them. First of all, feminism is only teaching that women should have equal rights (which we may have in law, but we certainly don't have in action), it's not about 'hating men'. Second of all, after decades and decades of women being systematically raped, enslaved, tortured, etc. by men, are they really surprised when we get nervous when, say, we're walking along at night and there's a man behind us? I get sexually harassed every single day. Without fail, if I leave my house, someone somewhere makes a comment about my body or crudely talks about what they'd like to 'do' to me. Ever. Single. Day.

So no, not all men are going to sexually harass you, but every single woman has experienced sexual harassment. And most often, that sexual harassment comes at the hands of men.

If anti-feminists don't want women to be nervous around men, they both need to look at the history of the world to understand WHY some women are nervous around men. And they need to work on changing society and the mindset so that women don't feel like we HAVE to be worried. Anti-feminists are just focused on silencing feminism, they have no interest in actually protecting the safety and security of women.

4) I've also heard them say that one of the problems with feminism is that it's 'sexist' because it wants woman to have equal rights 'just because they're women, instead of equal rights because they're human'.

In a perfect world, differences like sex wouldn't matter. But in this world, they do matter. I am seen differently, and treated differently, because I am a woman. I do not have equal rights because I am a woman. Saying 'we're all humans aren't we' follows along the same lines as 'talking about racism perpetuates racism'. Most often, it's used to silence women and minimize and invalidate their experiences with discrimination.

These may be more extreme examples, but I hear these arguments tossed around so much by anti-feminists and MRAs, it gets really frustrating to hear them again and again.

Honestly, I think a lot of them read something like 'I hate men', and rather than try to understand that A) that is being said in the face of decades and decades of oppression, and B) it's an individual making a statement, they like to point at that and say that's what the whole movement is about.

[Lowtech]

I'm encouraged that feminism exists at all, imho it means that women define their own identity. And anyone with at least the slightest exposure to recorded history will attest to the fact that Feminism is in part a response to the horrible treatment of women.

With that said, well formed bias against feminism is really a strong conservative position that is fundamentally anti intellectualism. Conservatives in general and particularly those in strong opposition to feminism want to perpetuate a negative perception of free thought. A kind of social engineering that supports conformism. Which is quite contradictory because the only ideologies that fall prey to their misinformation based "critique" are those they hold a personal bias against.