I have issues with feminism

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I used to consider myself a feminist because I believe in the egalitarianism of the sexes.
In my opinion, only neanderthal males would disagree in western societies.

However,
The feminists I "encountered" when I was younger were not the feminazis of today.
"ALL men should die"? EEP!

Not all modern-day feminists are so extreme, I hasten to say.
It is a spectrum.

I'm afraid of you *SOMETIMES*.
Does that make me a part-time misogynist?

Are you allowed to say that to a woman, these days?
I find it hard to keep up with Political Correctness, to be honest.

But not in the same numbers as men. That's the point I'm trying to make. Even when women had rights, men had more of them and that's the problem. Feminists want women to have as much rights as men.

Why would you expect men and women to do anything in equal numbers? Thats not a sensible standard to hold, unless you think men and women are the same. Google the Norwegian Gender Paradox.


As for feminists wanting women to have as many rights as men; when was the last time you heard a feminist advocate the abolition of alimony, the outlawing of male genital mutilation and protest the transparent bias in family court? Or even pay lip service to the fact that what little extra consideration there was for men came at the price of them literally signing their life away in the form of the draft? Because all I've ever heard on any of those matters is silence and squirmy approval, except for the last one where they think them not being in favour of the draft for anyone means that anything men had because of the draft is still examples of inequality.

The issues you have listed here are (ironically) technically in place because of laws created by males

Oh, I forgot how very hesitant feminists are to protest things made by men...


Also, why do you think being male would preclude them from being feminists? Are you conflating "feminist" with "women"? Again?

You're missing the point. What feminists want is equal chances with men to do things, not that there'd be a literal exact same number of men and women doing things. I was talking about number because while women had some rights, men had way more. Men and women should have the same number of rights when it comes to their own properties and bodies.



For the things you listed, let's see... I've never heard feminists demand for the first to stop, but then again that's not really a gender issue, at least not where I'm from. Here that law is equally about men and women; if the wife owns more in case of a divorce, then she pays more. If the husband owns more, he pays more. In here, that can be avoided by making legal documents that protect one's property in case of divorce.

Outlawing male genital mutilation... last month, I think? Could have been the month before that, too.

Transparent bias in family court? I read an article about that this week from a magazine in the library, written by a woman who identifies as a feminist (yes, that was mentioned.)

Men and drafting, that's actually been one of the subjects of talk among local feminists for quite a while. In Finland, men who are abled enough (minus some religious groups, but that priviledge was moved or is being moved) are expected by law to either take part in military training or do civil service. If they refuse, it's jail time for them. We're working to change that, either that men would have the choice to refuse both or that women would have the same obligation. Personally, I'm supporting the later, but would accept the former as well.

I'm not missing the point. You're moving the goalposts.

And if you want equal chances, does that mean you're against "affirmative action"?




On the first, I can assure you that it's a gendered issue, even in most of the west. Being FOX aside, I found this clip to be pretty glorious, especially the ending:




On the second, when Iceland tried making the ban actual law, feminists joined the muslims in their cries about Islamophobia. And whenever MGM is brought up in discussions, the immediate response is that it isn't so bad and actually FGM is the real issue. This is something that kills between 200 and 300 infant boys a year in the US alone. But it just looks nicer, so it's okay...

As for the rest, I guess Finland might have some Feminists that aren't nuts, but in the grand scheme of things, feminists are still more hung up on womens issues that don't exist (like the wage gap, as they describe it) than they are with men's issues that are actually quite pressing, and until I see them make an honest and unbiased attempt at adressing those instead of drowning them out, shaming them and labeling them as distractions and covert misogyny and everything else I've seen them do, I will not be taking their claims that "feminism advocates for men too." seriously.

Not only have I never heard of any feminist advocating for any of these issues; but when others have, feminists organised protests that attract thousands of demonstrators and have even been successful at pressuring institutions into canceling the events altogether a number of times.

I'm not. I might have trouble getting what I mean across, but that's more of a rule than not when one's autistic... and I'm not writing in my native language.

Well, yes and no. I believe that affirmative action can help discriminated people, be it women, disabled people, black people etc. to get closer to equal chances. I think it's a good thing, but it must be used very carefully so that it doesn't give the originally discriminated people a huge leverage over the ones who weren't discriminated. It's tricky, and sometimes it fails. So no, not against the idea of it, but it's often done poorly with either no results or giving the originally mistreated group an unfair advantage.

Watched the video. Not sure what it has to do with what we're talking about...? Are you talking about how the man says that women use men's money? That men are taught that they need to pay for stuff? If yes then that is an issue, both for men and women. It's toxic to teach women (or girls, I suppose) that they should find a provider instead of focusing on how to provide for themselves, but it's also bad to teach boys that they should automatically be the ones to carry financial resposibility 'cause they're men. It'll create a lot of pressure to succeed financially... or well, society puts that pressure on everyone and it's true these days, but it puts too much extra pressure that doesn't need to be there.

I was not aware that that has happened in Iceland. However, that happening doesn't change the fact that there are feminists who fight to protect men too. Clearly not everyone, but there are.

A lot depends on what one considers to be "actually quite pressing." Pretty sure that if a person is directly affected by issue A then they're more concerned with it than issue B which doesn't affect them, even if someone who is affected by both would call them as big. That's human, but also why male feminists are needed as well. They can help the movement, where majority of members are women, to see men's issues better as well. And show other men that feminism is a good, necessary thing.

You are also conflating feminism with women's rights. Feminism is a peculiarly white European invention that arose to give white women the vote.

Feminism is largely driven by middle class white females.

Some of the things you listed are however issues that are cross cultural and feminism and things like the #metoo movement are largely irrelevant in countries in the developing world where womens rights means something completely different.

Why should they?

There's no reason they should. But the common refrain is that men don't need a right's movement of their own to adress issues specific to or disproportionally affecting them because feminism will take care of all of that, so men should just join a movement that don't take their issues seriously and relegates them to be a supporting sub-category ("allies") instead of equals, and that will surely solve that.




No, I assure you that I seperate those two things with a wrought-iron fence made of tigers. Also, feminism predates the vote by almost 90 years.






Well aware.




Literally all the things I listed are things relevant to the west right now. Intentionally.




Neither am I.




I really don't think you can equate being black or a woman to having a disability. Women and black people are fully capable adults and can be judged on their own merits. Disability is an entirely separate category.




It related to the bit about alimony. The blonde screechy one harps on about how strong and independent she is, but when called out on her taking alimony suddenly she's a poor little woman with three children to feed (conveniently forgetting that alimony is spousal support, and child support is separate).




Great, so why can't men have their own movement to adress their own issues?




This is just your a priori assumption. This is not something that is objectively so that you just "show" people like it's a science experiment. It's something you'd need to convince them of. And at this point there are so many reasonsfor men to stay well clear of it, if not to actively oppose it.

I don't take issues with feminists choosing to focus exclusively on issues that disproportionately affect women. What I'd like to understand is why they feel such a need to oppose and silence others who speak up about issues that disproportionately affect men.

The point is that all mentioned groups are sometimes discriminated due to features they were born with. That's wrong, so setting some rules that prevent the discrimination can help.

Ah, got it.

Who says they can't? Lots of people are against feminism (and other stuff), which I'm sure you definitely know, yet it (and other movements) still exist, so there's no reason for those who want to a movement that drives men's rights specifically to not found one. There would probably be some people opposing it, but hey, it's the same with feminism. You want a men's rights movement? Start building one. Be the change you want to see.

I agree with you on this one, actually. The thing about it not being an objective truth, that is. No moral values or ideas of right and wrong are. But to me, it's the right thing to do, so do so I shall. Just like other people often try to get others to do things in ways they think are right. "Right" and "wrong" are matters of opinion; their definitions are written by winners, just like history.