Transcript for my video "What is feminism (a response to @antifempraxis)"

The video:

Transcript:
In his video, at anti-fem praxis, Nick Reading asked 3 questions and challenged 3 youtubers to each answer one of them.
Those questions are:

• What is feminism
• Where to nonfeminist people stand
• What is to be done

The about page of the Anti-feminist Praxis website (linked to in the lowbar of that video,) asks that question of its readers.
Having read it, I've decided to share my answers, each in its own video. This first video answers the question, "What is feminism?"
Feminism is a political movement designed to capitalize on society's naturally gynocentric outlook by gendering human rights issues to exclude men from consideration as human beings, and women from any related obligation or accountability should they violate another person's human rights.

To achieve this, the movement portrays women (and only women) as victims of everything, including the direct consequences of their own choices. Their written ideology blames this manufactured victimhood on men as a group and as individuals, treating them in social, legal, and psychological terms as both all-powerful, all-comprehending gods, and as devils who are responsible for all of the world's evil. This supports their promotion of the view that female experiences and interests are uniquely relevant, meaningful, and impacting, women and girls are uniquely deserving of relief or protection from discriminatory law and policy, and men and boys are uniquely guilty of being the cause behind any grievance feminists name as a women's issue and therefore accountable for providing relief.

This is fleshed out via some of the movement's ideological concepts, such as Patriarchy.

While different feminists will articulate the concept differently, the various descriptions all have in common a reliance on the belief in a social structure comprised of legal and social environments and practices created by and geared toward accomodating men, which by that very nature oppress women. Essentially, it is a term created by the second wave to expand the concept of male chauvanism from an individual behavior to a chronic, society-wide issue.

Belief in Patriarchy theory relies heavily on circular reasoning which uses the aforementioned gendered view of human rights issues as evidence that women are oppressed, and the claim that women are oppressed to justify gendering one's view of human rights issues.

The feminist movement itself is divided between its establishment, (or its archetects, leadership and organizations,) and its grassroots.

Among both of these sets, the movement can be further divided into activists, academics, media, grunts and warm bodies.

Activists include legislative lobbyists or leaders who direct grassroots campaigns to influence legislators... policy lobbyiests, or leaders who direct grassroots campaigns to influence policy, and propagandists... or leaders who direct grassroots campaigns to influence public perception and attitudes.

Academics include the composers of feminist theory, feminists working in research fields who produce statistics and conclusions to back that theory, administrators in educational institutions who ensure that feminist theory is part of the institution's curriculum, feminists working in education to train students in that theory, and students who absorb feminist theory as part of their studies such that it affects their interaction with others in society.

Media involves broadcasting and publishing - this would be anything from television and movies to news publications to radio to podcasts and blogs.

Grunts are the movement's working grassroots - feminists who don't necessarily have individual power and influence but by following the directives of various leadership, assist in achieving their goals. These are the foot-soldiers in feminist grassroots campaigns,  the students who fill the seats of interdisciplinary studies classes, the distributors of feminist propaganda to their peers in society, and very often the providers of anecdotal evidence feminist activists, academics, and media use to support and perpetuate their beliefs.

Warm bodies are the part of the movement's grassroots who do nothing but wear the label and talk about how great it is. They're useful to the movement in three ways: They spread its propaganda without question, they increase its apparent size, and they provide a loyal but mindless shield against criticism of the movement's malicious acts against men and boys. In other words, these are the movement's useful idiots.

Feminist activists use a gendered approach to human rights issues to push for law and/or policy ostensibly to remedy a social or legal infringement against a human right, written in such a way as to reserve its benefits and protections for only or mostly women and girls, and so that any obligations or restrictions laid out in it only or mostly apply to men. These laws and policies often include funding which benefits the feminist movement through job creation and payment to feminist-run organizations.

Feminist academia and feminist media are used to support this activism by producing and selectively presenting information to support the activists' portrayal of issues and environments in a way that supports the anti-male discriminatory legislative and policy changes they seek.  In some cases, feminists have even lobbied for law which funds research done in facilities that only serve women and then used that research to promote the narrative that the issue in question only or nearly only affects women. Grunts and warm bodies are used to widen the dispensation of related propaganda, and defend against criticism of its content. Their function in the cycle is to make challenging the narrative socially unacceptible.

One example of this is the feminist approach to family and sexual violence.
Despite compelling evidence that these types of violence are a genderless issue, the feminist establishment spent decades getting gendered intimate partner and sexual violence law passed in the United States.

Feminist leadership latched onto the stereotype of the drunken, wife-beating husband and longsuffering, innocently victimized wife, and the existing perception of sexual violence as only a male-perpetrated crime against female victims.

They expanded that type of domestic violence, a minority among cases, and promoted it as the predominant type of case.

They began to push the envelope on sexual violence from an intentional crime of contravening unwilling victim's refusal toward a crime defined by how the female in the interaction felt about it after the fact.

Feminist academia tailored survey-based research designed around existing feminist theory to inflate statistics on male violence against female partners, while ignoring evidence of female violence against male partners.

This research was particularly designed to inflate the apparent incidence of sexual violence by defining instances in which, in the researchers' opinions, the woman should have felt victimized, as sexual violence... a stipulation which treats the intent of the alleged perpetrator and the actions of the alleged victim, including active and willing participation in the sex act, as irrelevant.

Feminist media used the combination of feminist theory and the data, and conclusions from that biased research to promote their "epidemic of male violence against women" narrative.

Feminism's grassroots picked up on that narrative and spread it far and wide. Belief in the supposed epidemic was established, preparing society and legislators for a call for action.

Feminist media increased public pressure by promoting that narrative, along with the data and conclusions from that biased research, and feminist leadership and organizations lobbied for gendered federal law using those media reports. The grassroots was rallied to pressure legislators to comply.
   
During this time, a genderless federal law was passed that provided funding for shelters where victims of family violence could flee their home environments. The Family Violence Prevention and Services act of 1984 strengthened law enforcement's approach to intimate partner and sexual violence by establishing that the victim being a member of one's household or in a relationship with the perpetrator does not excuse any violent crime. Feminists, not satisfied with it, continued applying pressure until it was replaced with the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

The Violence Against Women Act gendered everything in the Family Violence Prevention and Services act, including the label for the shelters. They were no longer family violence shelters, but women's shelters.

The law also funded training for officers, prosecutors and court personnel to view intimate partner and sexual violence as a an area of crime that is specifically male perpetrated agaisnt female victims, and to interpret all evidence in intimate partner and sexual violence through a filter of feminist ideology.

It funded the creation of special units specifically to focus on the requests of female accusers.
It funded the development of communication and tracking systems around the concept of addressing only violence against women.
It funded the provision of additional crime victim's services, over and above that which is available to the general public, for only women.
It funded agenda-based research intended to quote increase the understanding and control of violence against specifically women.

These grants fund research done at facilities which only serve women, and the data is used to portray intimate partner and sexual violence as a male perpetrated and perpetuated, female experienced issue. The data and conclusions from this research are used to pressure legislators to keep law addressing intimate partner and sexual violence gender discriminatory.

Each of the areas I just mentioned that are funded by grants from the Violence Against Women Act is a fountain of jobs for graduates with an interdisciplinary studies focus or expertise.

Establishment Feminists - the movement's leadership and organizations - use the data and conclusions that come from them, along with that Patriarchy-theory-based filter through which female experiences are seen as more relevant, meaningful, and impacting and all culpability is transferred to men and boys, to perpetuate the public narrative and continue to shape public opinion for the purpose of supporting that pressure.

The movement's grassroots picks their propaganda up and spreads it far and wide, and again, the warm bodies shield it by perpetuating the social unacceptability of questioning that narrative.

So feminism, in a nutshell, is the politically targeted financial exploitation of society's tendency to favor and protect women. In other words, it is a giant scam.

*  *  *

I put my research on feminist activism into blog posts, articles and other videos. In lieu of listing all of those sources, here are the work I did using them (all with sources cited.)

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-lies-feminism/more-equal-than-others-bias-in-intimate-partner-and-sexual-violence-victims-advocacy/

http://breakingtheglasses.blogspot.com/2013/01/vawa-is-not-like-that.html

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/11/17/war-on-victims-of-female-perpetrators-goes-to-back-college/

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2016/06/04/nice-feminism-how-a-hate-movement-uses-its-grassroots-against-men/

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-lies-feminism/double-standard-rapeib/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6IFLbGkbbA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob4DFbLMbyg

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2016/03/01/the-feminist-crusade-against-fatherhood-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csGVuuyuYNk

Feminist/MRM conflict is rooted in feminist ideology and activism (originally from mensrights.ca)

This is an addition to the conversation started by the post, The Men’s Rights Movement versus the Feminist Movement… Necessary conflict?

One commenter asked, “Why does there have to be a conflict?”

I left a reply, but the topic is something that really can’t be condensed into a simple comment.
The short part of the answer is that many of the discriminatory conditions men face can be traced back to causes rooted in feminist activism.

It really starts with what’s behind the sense of entitlement that is inherent to feminism.

Feminists fail to differentiate between having a fundamental need, and having a fundamental right.

The pursuit of conditions or factors to meet fundamental needs (eg., putting forth effort to obtain food and shelter) is a human right.

The receipt of conditions or factors to meet fundamental needs (eg., having food and shelter provided at the expense of others) is not a fundamental right, but an act of charity on the part of the provider (as long as it’s voluntary – otherwise, it’s theft by the recipient, even when those things are needed.)
With this misapplication of the word “right,” feminists treat the condition of being given possession or position as if it were the same as the condition of having one’s pursuit not being wrongfully obstructed. This is related to the positions of equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity. In the equality of outcome scenario mentioned in the article above, feminists are expecting women to be given wealth/positions that were not obtained in order to achieve equalization. In the equality of opportunity scenario, the focus is simply on removal of barriers so that the effort put in by every individual results in similar achievements.


Another problem which has a side effect upon this is that feminist advocates fail to differentiate between fundamental needs, and dearly valued/wanted conveniences.

Food and shelter are fundamental needs.

Yummy food and nice shelter are dearly valued/wanted conveniences.

Feminists go beyond claiming the right to the pursuit of fulfillment of fundamental needs to claim the right to receive dearly valued/wanted conveniences. A striking example of this is their campaign for government in the U.S. funding for Planned Parenthood, and their loud demands for a provision in Obamacare requiring coverage for birth control drugs.  Abortion and birth control drugs are dearly valued and wanted conveniences, but they are not needs. Feminist advocates were dishonest in their advocacy for both, arguing as if women’s access to these conveniences is controlled by outside funding.
 
One outgrowth of that combination of beliefs is a sense of entitlement to enforce the provision of the fulfillment of needs or dearly held wants upon other human beings. Treating this as a given fact upon which society must base law and policy, this is equivalent to the assertion that “If A has a need for or dearly held want of a factor, B must provide it,” where A is the individual with whom feminism identifies itself, and B is the individual with whom feminism takes issue.

This is further modified by another fundamental flaw in the movement: Patriarchy Theory, which, in short, blames upon male society all issues or conditions which feminists define as oppression of women. Patriarchy Theory makes female society group A, and male society group B.
 
So you have a group which labels having (as opposed to not being prevented from reasonably pursuing) that which women want or need to be a right, and asserts that as justification for demanding or taking it from men.

A result of that combination of entitlement and blame is that feminist groups are content to lobby for law and policy which is discriminatory toward men in order to acquire benefits for women. This has further led these groups to be the cause behind some men’s issues, and the opposition holding back any effort at remedy for others.

For example, men face discrimination in family court. In custody disputes, it’s much more likely for mothers to be awarded custody of their children than for custody to be awarded to fathers. Mothers who retain custody are awarded child support more than fathers are, and in larger amounts.
Feminists confronted with this issue claim that this is not because of feminism, but is instead based on the presumption that women are better caregivers, a concept they attribute to “patriarchy.” History shows  that this presumption is not a result of patriarchy, but in fact a result of the activities of feminists themselves. The tendency of courts to award custody to mothers can be traced back to a 19th century feminist who campaigned for it because of her own custody battle. Though the doctrine she wrote as part of her campaign is no longer cited as the reason for awarding custody to mothers, the presumptions laid out in it are, including the idea that women are better caregivers.  When father’s rights groups have lobbied for more evenhanded child custody law, the National Organization for Women lobbied against it, using demonization of fathers as deadbeats and abusers as their argument.

For the last 40 years, feminist advocates have (successfully) fought to impose their gender ideology on the issue of domestic violence, managing to deny assistance to half or more of the victims of abuse.

Feminist advocated law and policy in the U.S. has whittled away at the due process rights of accused men, provided incentives to make false allegations, and made restraining order abuse easy to commit, and hard to counter.

They’ve advocated for laws which remove the presumption of innocence from men accused of rape. The handicapping of an accused man’s defense makes false conviction a significant risk for men in the U.S., keeping organizations like The Innocence Project busy undoing the damage done by a severely imbalanced, heavily biased legal system.

They have advocated for federally required changes in disciplinary policy at colleges and universities, which have led to an environment that encourages and enables the leveling of false allegations of sexual violence against men on college and university campuses in the U.S. In March of this year, the Campus SaVE act goes into effect, making federal law from policy which has already been shown to be unbalanced and dysfunctional.

In all of those areas, group A has obtained social, political, and legal power by slandering group B and then demanding to be protected from them.

The tactics feminists have employed to grease the legal wheels for their sponsored legislation have included deliberate, targeted demonetization of men to the extent of creating a perception of them as subhuman in comparison to women, and portraying women as helpless victims. This portrayal of men as subhuman brutes and women as helpless victims has been instrumental in convincing politicians and their constituents that it’s acceptable to pass laws which infringe on people’s civil rights… as long as it’s done in small increments, and it feels like it’s for a good cause.

Much of feminist activism has been about obtaining funding for feminist-led programs and organizations; things like domestic violence victims advocacy agencies, women’s shelters, campus rape prevention programs based on feminist theory, women’s studies programs with feminist professors and feminist department heads. There’s a lot of money involved in maintaining the current political outlook. A lot. No, really.  A lot.  Tons and tons.

Men’s rights activism is in direct confrontation with that. It is not possible to fight for reform in family and criminal court without butting up against feminist interests. Feminist interests require a group B; a group upon whose human rights it’s acceptable to infringe in order to continue the cycle that funds feminism.

MRAs can’t compromise with feminist activists because that would entail adopting aspects of feminist theory which are in direct contradiction to the best interests of men. Successful advocacy for legal and social reform to reduce the discriminatory conditions faced by men partially depends on countering myths and stereotypes about men and women, including those promoted and exploited by feminist advocates. People who are willing to see civil rights trampled because men are considered disposable and dangerous, and women valuable and vulnerable, won’t be persuaded to want to protect those rights unless their attention is first drawn to male humanity, and female agency.

That conflict leaves the two groups in opposition to each other whether we want to be at odds or not. It is not that men’s rights are pitted against women’s rights, with one having to win and the other to lose. It is that men’s humanity is pitted against feminist power.