Why should I be a feminist?

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You mean the schools? In the board of education think the schools should be used as a medium to push their propeganda, rather than for education? You mean the schools where there are laws giving teachers the authority of parents?

The reason why parents are so accepting of school authority is because 20 or 30 years ago, they were conditioned in the same school system.

I don't think "toxic masculinity" provides constraints on the degree of masculinity that is acceptable, more a small set of behaviours that we'd probably all agree are undesirable.

Take Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation. Ron is a man's man. He has contempt for the government, vegetarians, people who rely on others, friendship, emotions, sensitivity, taxes, lying, the Federal Reserve, and everywhere except America and Scotland (because he likes scotch). He loves meat, solitude, freedom, construction, handiwork, hard liquor, honest labour, and facial hair. He softens on some of these stances as the series progresses, but he's the height of masculinity, a clear contrast to New Age vegan Chris or feminist nerd Ben or family man Jerry or failed entrepreneur/playboy Tom or goofball Andy. But Ron still respects women and indeed everyone's individuality. He gives great advice to his co-workers. He warns them not to be manipulative in their personal relationships, although it's good to do it if it stops the government getting in your way. He abhors violence. And although he usually avoids forming close friendships, he doesn't like upsetting people. Ron is usually presented as sympathetic, despite being ideologically opposed to almost everything that happens in the show; it frequently upsets the POV character, ultra feminist Lesley Knope, when she alienates him, and she will go to extreme lengths to make him happy.

Here is a fairly prominent feminist definition of toxic masculinity. Would ending this actually limit men in any way, beyond requiring them to just be good people? For example, abolishing the idea that men can never show emotions (except maybe anger or jealousy) wouldn't stop men from showing emotions if they want to be a stoic Ron Swanson.

I've seen here that lot of women prefer this and wouldn't like s guy who won't defend their honor.

1. No, but I can read what you wrote. If you don't right what you mean, you either suck at communication (which seems likely, as you've shown you don't understand how logic works in language with all your quips about equality), or you're a sophist. And it's obvious you knew what I meant based on how you responded to my other points. Now stop it, or I'll report you for trolling. No one appreciates what you are doing here and they can all see what you are really doing.
2. Yes, there is nothing about men in the defination. That's precisely the point. That also means "By definition, a feminist isn't concerned with the rights and equality of men" is a blatant lie. In order for them to be required to be not be interested in men, that would also have to be part of the defination. You clearly don't understand how definitions work either. The rest of this paragraph is a blatant strawman, as I've said nothing of that sort, nowhere did I say not advocating for women's rights makes someone evil. And whether or not you identify as sophist, you're still a sophist, more examples of your lack of logic. Now cut it out.
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/c ... ns_issues/
4. I got a 790 on the SAT's reading comprehension section, so there is no way in hell you're going to convince me that my reading comprehension is what is at fault here. I can say with conviction that no where you implied what you are claiming you implied. All you did was give suffrage of an example of equality with out explaining HOW it is in anyway an example of equality, so the implication was that suffrage is inherently equality.

Here is why your next paragraph is idiot logic: by analyzing equality as within a gender group rather than across gender groups, women would have already been equal regarding voting rights, as they all lacked the ability to vote. Thus it's obvious we were talking about equality across gender groups, as the alternative doesn't make any sense. To make men's voting rights be equal to women's is exactly the same as making women's voting rights equal to men. When people talk about feminist being for women equality, it's obvious they mean "equal with men" not "equal with all other women" (which is how you used it when you talked about equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome), thus you are engaging in blatant sophistry. This is your last chance. (Also, this is what Julie Bindel was actually talking about: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -fertility)
5. So here you are further proving you don't know what you are talking about. The issue is you fail to understand what a symmetric relationship even is, because it actually is implied by the defination of equality. It's explicitly stated in mathematical defination, of which the linguistic defination is a subset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_(mathematics) I also said nothing about universal application, that's just more of your sophistry. The only one confusing any defination is you.
6. Feminist and feminism are defined relative to each other, so if you discuss one you discuss the other. More of you demonstrating a lack of understanding of how language works.
7. No, I did not demonstrate ignorance of the meaning of equality, you did. You proved you failed to realize it's symmetric relationship, while I actually demonstrated it as being a relationship between two entities, you just failed to pick up on that.
8. And again, your fallacy is assuming there is an equality of opportunity. There isn't. Men can't get pregnant, and they don't get paid paternity leave, that's two missing opportunities. This is turn causes women to lose out on opportunities because of their relationship with men: if a man and a women are married and the man has to work, then the women has to raise the children, which restricts her employment opportunities. The pay gap DOES exist, and it can pretty much be entirely explained in terms of this predicament.
9. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just how anti-feminists use it is not how other people use it. It's not a conspiracy, it's just memetics, anti-feminists just jump on the same bandwagon because they have the same world view and that explanation fits into that world view. The chief fault with your world view is the assumption feminists think there should be equality of outcome despite equality of opportunity, which actually they are trying to correct inequality of opportunity which is covered in a more nuanced view of society than you have.
10. Equality of opportunity is not well defined, that's one of the chief criticisms of it. The fact is what you think is an arbitrary difference could very well be extremely important for determining outcome.
11. ...which by implication is that women are inferior to men because there outcome is less than that of men. You're really not good at the whole logic thing.
12. Lol, my weasel words? All of this is just sophistry on your part.

While being a white knight is bad thing, it's better to advance worthy for ulterior motives than to not advance worthy causes, so it's hardly the worst thing to be. It's kinda silly argument anyway, because generally the women who would be most impressed with a man being a feminist are the ones who men are the least interested in getting in their pants.

Last edited by Ganondox on 15 Nov 2016, 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This is a clear misunderstanding of feminist theory. First off, this isn't general feminist theory, it's specifically radical feminism. While radical feminism is very influential on modern feminism, radical feminism is not innate to feminism. Second, it's not defining innate aspects of masculine behavior as toxic because it doesn't believe there is such thing as innate aspects of masculine behavior. Rather, the patriarchy encourages such aspects of behavior in men and those aspects of behavior are toxic. Finally, no, it does NOT define all men as being oppressors of women, it defines the patriarchy as being the oppressor of women (as well as any other minority group), where the patriarchy is the system which keeps men (as well as other oppressive groups) in charge. Only the men who are actively part of reinforcing the system are oppressors, women can be oppressors as well if they reinforce the system, and men are oppressed by the system as well as women.

But what is the patriarchy? Does the word derive from pater? (meaning father)

Well, I already defined the patriarchy as the system that keeps men in power and oppresses women. Exactly what it is, who knows, it's more complicated than could be explained by a conspiracy, but the fact there is so few women in power is evidence there is *something* keeping men in power. Basically it's the dark energy of radical feminism. Anyway, it comes from the save term patriarchy as it's used in other contexts, "a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it", but it moves it away from being an explicit government structure to a more abstract social force. Whatever the patriarchy is, you fight it by empowering women.

How do you empower women?

So you replace the mythical patriachy with an actual matriarchy.

*Facepalm*

Exactly how to do this is where the butt ton of feminist theory comes in, I can't just answer this in a sentence. If you care about women's rights, you'll do so research on this subject.



It's not a myth. There are far more men in positions of power then women. That is the patriarchy that is being referred to, you can't deny it's existence. The question is why. And few are actual advocating for a matriarchy.

It's only a patriarchy if it holds women down.

Even if it was real, you don't replace male oppression with female oppression. You would need to fight against the people that believed that kind of oppression was a good thing.

Why is it bad for men to be in positions of power?

It's not a replacing of male oppression with female oppression, it's that the male oppression ends when they no longer have a monopoly on power. Most feminists what both men and women to have power. Now, there is an extreme branch of radical feminists who want an actual matriarchy, but they are an extreme minority.



It's not bad for men to be in positions of power, it's bad for EXCLUSIVELY men to be in positions of power. That is bad because it oppresses women by keeping them out of power, and because there are places where the interests of men different from the interests of women, so the men in power aren't going to advocate for their interests.

I don't buy into the notion that one gender will not care about the other. Men have wives, sisters, daughters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, girlfriends and female friends. They will care about these. We're not in a fight with each other. Women have the same rights as men.

It's not a matter of not caring, it's a matter of being ignorant. Men have different life experiences then women, and that shapes what they view is important. Also, there is far more to policy making than just rights.