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.

No, we still can't all just get along. (Response to a youtube comment.)

The comment on this video:

My response, posted in answer to the comment, was wordy, but to the point with regard to the "can't we all just get along" charge. I've copy/pasted it here rather than using a screenshot specifically to make it available if others want to use part of it to compose responses to specific claims related to its parts, if that makes sense.

The claim feminists have something in common with MRAs does not even deserve consideration until some serious changes are made in feminist advocacy: Get back to me when mainstream feminist groups acknowledge they've been lying about the dynamics of intimate partner violence, take female violence seriously, cease promoting the "condone female violence while generalizing & condemning male violence" formula that PERPETUATES they type of partner violence that makes up about half of existing cases, and lobby to revert the gender-discriminatory VAWA back to the original, non-discriminating Family Violence Prevention and Services act of 1984 so that two-way violence and unilateral female violence (which combined make up the majority of partner violence) are addressed by the law instead of it shoehorning those cases in with the unilateral male perpetrated minority of the problem. For more explanation from me on this, see this video & the citations in the lowbar: https://youtu.be/m6IFLbGkbbA

Get back to me when academic & media feminists stop gendering their promulgation on sexual violence to demonize men as predators and infantilize women as victims, when they demand that their own movement's researchers both within and out of government research give female perpetration the same labels and push for those labels to lead to the same condemnation as male perpetration, when they stop using generalized demonization of men to push for legislated infringement on due process, and when feminist acknowledgement of female sexual violence leads to feminist lobbying for changes in law to hold female perpetrators equally accountable to the system accused men face. For more explanation from me on this, see this video & the citations in the lowbar: https://youtu.be/ob4DFbLMbyg

 Get back to me when organizations like the National Organization for Women and other mainstream feminist lobbying groups stop fighting to block equally shared parenting laws, when they stop generalizing demonization of Dads as deadbeats and abusers to excuse promotion of the idea that regardless of their or their children's interests, their only value to their families is to be a walking wallet, when mainstream feminist organizations begin admitting that the harm done to kids when a parent uses custody interference to prevent the child from having a relationship with the other parent is NOT limited to paternal perpetration and that the majority of parents doing that are mothers - in short, when feminist organizations stop using "best interests of the child" as a cheesy catch phrase and actually start supporting children's best interests. For more explanation from me on this, see this video & the citations in the lowbar: https://youtu.be/csGVuuyuYNk

Get back to me when academic feminists stop using feigned sympathy for gender atypical men to demonize men whose masculinity manifests in a more rugged nature, when interdisciplinary department professors stop using "male privilege" as a proverbial bludgeon with which to beat their male students - regardless of background and experiences - into meekness and self-condemnation, when feminists stop thinking it's no big deal that so much of their movement is predicated upon man-hating. I have not made a video on that as of yet, but I recommend watching the series that starts with this video, because I have discussed it as part of my responses to Liana: https://youtu.be/jL9lNocuPV4

 Get back to me when feminist organizations stop responding to gender disparity in the justice system (http://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/gender-disparity-in-criminal-court/) by advocating for MORE of it and treating advocacy for protection of due process rights as an attack on women. Get back to me when the mainstream in academic and media feminists stops marginalizing the falsely accused and exploiting actual victims' stories to excuse the promotion of railroading & sacrificing the rights of men in general. I put responses to the main arguments I've received from feminists on the false accusation issue into this article: https://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/dangerous-rape-myths-part-1/

For a particularly heavy example of what I've witnessed in terms of system-facilitated false accusation, read this: http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/domestic-violence-industry/seven-years-in-hell/ And for more examples of the effects of false accusation & due process infringement, check out the Community of the Wrongly Accused: http://cotwa.info/

Those are some of the bigger issues between men's issues activists & feminists. There are more, too many to address in a comment, but I think this is enough to understand why no... the two movements are not compatible, and as long as feminism is what feminism is, we never will be.

Charge of the Soggy Knees

This was done in collaboration with Mad man Ministries, who did the music. I wrote the lyrics, and since no other woman we asked was willing to sing, I did that too.
Probably won't do that very much because it's really not my forte... pun intended.

Anyway, the title is The Charge of the Soggy Knees, and here are the lyrics:

There is a thought terminatin’ cliche
They call misogyny
And it’s been the ruin of many a good debate
With the charge of soggy knees

Been called a gender traitor
Just because I’ve said I see
Through feminism's hateful rhetoric
And their claim to speak for me

Didn’t know compassion’s limited
It’s a negative sum game
And you’re not allowed by the social justice crowd
To have sympathy for men

These motherfucking children
Can’t discuss things rationally
Treat care for men as an attack on women
So they cry misogyny

We all will be no platformed
We all will be called names
We’ll be accused of having hateful views
To silence us with shame

There is a thought terminatin’ cliche
They call misogyny
And it’s been the ruin of many a good debate
But that won’t be stopping me

Comment under the video "Why feminism is good for men."

The video's url:
https://youtu.be/CHzlFYQwpJo

My comment:

Feminist initiatives like #HeForShe impose on men the very gender roles feminists like you claim it tries to eliminate. It just adds one detail: Only fill those roles for the benefit of women, never because it's natural or comfortable for you. And never expect to have your masculinity considered BY women while they're busy demanding you be strong & commanding against other men on women's behalf, because your humanity is secondary to your function as a shield/beast of burden for women.

Feminist propaganda campaigns like "Don't be that guy" do the same thing - make every man, specifically BECAUSE of standards for masculinity, responsible for the safety of women who can't or won't be responsible for themselves.

Meanwhile, feminists clearly feel entitled to tell men which feelings they're allowed to express.

Feeling girly? Great! You're a feminist!

Feeling a need for human companionship? Get the heck outta here, creep!

Feeling hurt over being rejected? Now you're a misogynist!

Resent the damage done when you were circumcised? Don't expect help from feminists. They're too busy lining up to tell you that women, whose genital integrity is legally protected throughout the vast majority of the world in many nations where yours isn't & even where neonatal male genital cutting is common, have it worse. And they'll tell you that you're a misogynist if you think the more widespread cutting practice is anywhere near as bad of a problem as the comparatively rare one. 

Heart broken because your children were taken from you in a divorce? Don't look to feminists for help. They're too busy opposing equally shared parenting legislation.

Would you feel more comfortable with equal reproductive rights, such as a legal equivalent to women's "safe haven" option? Don't look to feminists for help with that, either. They're too busy demanding stricter child support enforcement against you.

Hurt or afraid because you're being abused by your wife, girlfriend or a woman in your family? Don't look to feminism for that, either. They've spent the last 40+ years telling the public that doesn't happen, and if it does, it's "preemptive self-defense" because they believe you'll inevitably hit back. 

Trauma from being assaulted or even raped by a sexually aggressive woman? Yeah, don't look to feminism for help with that either. Feminist research on sexual violence has been carefully designed to avoid evidence of experiences like yours so they can paint sexual violence as a male behavior & blame you for it. 

Has your life been wrecked by false accusations? Don't expect feminists to care how you feel about that, either. Their story on your experience varies from "it's not as bad as experiencing (whatever crime you were falsely accused of) or "It's ok to sacrifice a few innocent men to ensure we catch all men guilty of (whatever the crime) as if hurting you somehow helps real victims of that crime... to "it's no big deal, because it's rare" as if rarity makes a crime less heinous (Jeffrey Dahmer's victims' families should be glad to know that)... to "This is beneficial - the falsely accused could learn something from the experience" as if you had no sympathy for victims prior & any harm done is negated by changing that... to "Women don't lie about (the crime) so it can't be false" even if you have evidence of your innocence. 

So yeah, men... you're supposed to express your feelings, except when it's not convenient for feminists, such as when you've been raped, abused, alienated, or falsely accused BY A WOMAN... or permanently scarred in a way that they feel competes with a female victim narrative. 

What DO they want you to do? 

Take dance classes, have your ass waxed, and only ever cry when bad things happen to women, because it doesn't really matter to them when bad things happen to you. 

But feminism is totally NOT about hating men, right?

Rape, a dish with no turnips

Is rape as we know it a social construct? 

If so, what does that mean about our legal and social response to it?

Does that make feminism's "rape culture" theory a social construct?

How does that affect the validity of the theory?

Let's talk

Rape/Assault victims: Phoebe Greenwood wants to hear from you (either sex) if your assault was dismissed "because you had been drinking." She tweeted a few hours ago that she was looking for such stories from women. In response to a reply criticizing her for ignoring male victims, she amended her statement in a second tweet, saying she'd be interested in hearing from men, as well.  
   
I think she should hear from victims whose assault was dismissed because they're male, or because their perpetrator was female, which I believe happens far more often than the dismissal of an assault strictly because the victim was drinking, regardless of gender.    

    
Why?    
    
Because this looks like a case of a feminist journalist attempting to use reporting only part of the story to support feminism's female-victim rape culture narrative.

How can you help?

If you've been victimized and you've been dismissed when seeking assistance or legal recourse, either because you're male or your perpetrator was female, or if you're male, because you'd been drinking (her original question) please reply to the tweet I sent in response to her request, and describe your experience. If it can't be put into 140 characters, Twit longer is a useful tool for creating longer than normal tweets. The tweet will then show the title, with the option of viewing the rest of the post.

If you haven't, but you know someone who has been dismissed while seeking assistance for any of those reasons, pass the tweet on. If you can, tweet a link to it with a request for responses.

Please only tweet responses that describe wrongful dismissal of your own experience or the experience of someone you know. Though it is frustrating to deal with a person who seems to have an anti-male or at least male-dismissive bias, this will only be productive if we offer evidence rather than blunt or emotional criticism, no matter how justified it might be.

I don't know if we'll touch her heart or change her mind, but at the very least, maybe receiving examples will help Ms. Greenwood see that narrowing her focus to support a narrative won't go unnoticed.

As I recall... a little history on feminism's SPLC claims

This post is actually a fleshed-out version of one of my responses in a skype conversation. In writing it, I realized that this particular bit of reddit's history hasn't been written down by anyone, so I thought I'd put it here. The following is from my memory.  

When the conflict between reddit feminists and /r/mensrights started, neither /r/mensrights nor /r/feminism had many subscribers. Reddit itself wasn't all that big yet. When it was new, its format was slightly different from the way it is now. Originally, links could be posted without choosing a subreddit. They were there, but they were not the focus for the site. They were for specialized posting when the link in question might not be fitting for general posting to the front page... but if you wanted to just post to reddit.com, you could. Both /r/feminism and /r/mensrights were created during that time, when subreddits were basically a side gig.

Contrary to feminist claims about men's issues discussion, it's been functional from the beginning. When /r/mensrights was new there was discussion about things like the Innocence Project, Dr. Farrell's writing, Murray Strauss's work, Erin Pizzey's work, etc. That was true even before AVFM had the readership or visibility in the movement that it has now. It took time for the staff to build up a body of sourced writing, and during that time it was just one among many blogs with sourced writing, all of which were regularly linked and cited in posts and comments on /r/mensrights. Discussion in the subreddit made it a communication hub for different groups of MRAs, where sources of information were offered, issues discussed, theories shared and evaluated, conclusions drawn, and even some real world activism planned. And while reddit's feminist presence divided itself among a plethora of heavily moderated subreddits (which feminist sub moderators have since labeled "the fempire,) for the longest time, men's issues discussion remained open, but centered firmly in /r/mensrights, leading to the faster and larger growth of that subreddit.

Feminists became upset that information contradicting their narrative was being shared and discussed in /r/mensrights. In fact, they didn't like any of what was going on in the subreddit, and some reddit feminists took it upon themselves to put a stop to it.

They began attacking /r/mensrights in a few different ways. Concern trolling complete with shaming tactics began immediately. There were a lot of women who seemed to think visiting the sub to state their disapproval would shame these unruly guys into silence, so there were actual lecture posts.

I wish today that I'd archived them, because it's hard to go back more than a few years on reddit, and some of those posts were really comical. One chick took the Nurse Ratched approach and demanded to know what our mothers would think if they knew "what we were doing in this subreddit." What I did eventually do was spend a little time archiving into a post titled "For the record" a set of links that includes concern troll posts and comments, manipulative efforts, and posts that appear to have been brigaded (targeted by other subreddits for vote or discussion manipulation). I'm not working on that as a project any more, having sampled a pretty good sized window in time, but if you look at today's posts on /r/mensrights, I'm sure you'll probably see some of the same things I noted during the creation of that archive.

Another form of attack was to make a sockpuppet account and post something positive that would garner emphatic responses, then edit it, changing to something that made the existing comments look misogynistic. That would then be archived and the archive of the edited post presented elsewhere on reddit as evidence of rampant misogyny in the sub. The mods of /r/mensrights had to employ a bot created by another redditor to archive posts so that there would be an accurate record when those accusations were made.

There were two results of this: One, the admins did temporarily ban /r/mensrights in its early stages, and we had to argue for it to be reinstated (it obviously was,)... and two, reddit was so inundated with complaints about posts and comments being edited to make responding comments look bad (in multiple subreddits) that they took user suggestions to denote edits. Posts and comments edited after the first 60 seconds are now marked with an asterisk, so now while you do have a chance to fix formatting, nobody can use editing to gaslight their commenters.

At the same time, there was a discussion among reddit's feminists about writing to the SPLC and asking them to declare men's rights activists a hate movement (referred to as "the MRA" because they apparently didn't know the "A" stood for Activists and not something like "Association.")

The SPLC article that feminists now cite as a declaration that the MRM is a hate movement came out shortly after that spate of edit-based gas-lighting and the reddit discussion. The speech it describes as hateful and misogynistic could just about only be what was presented after editing those posts.

Now, the SPLC itself is just a mouthpiece for the American left, for whom identity politics represents a major cash cow... and though they didn't apply the requested label, I believe the article is evidence that the organization was influenced by those demands from reddit feminists.

Even when the SPLC didn't do what feminists were asking, feminists immediately began citing the article to back the claim that the organization had labeled men's rights "a" hate group. They did that so quickly that I suspect we weren't even on the SPLC's radar until feminists started complaining about us, and that feminists have been bent on that goal (using the "hate group" label to discredit our advocacy) from the first time they heard of us.

Transcript for my video, "Rant on Enthusiastic Consent"

Video Link

This isn't a response video, just a short rant about feminism and consent... particularly the "enthusiastic consent" standard, which is getting more and more coverage and has now been adopted into law in California.

This is something I've discussed in various other forums for years, and there's a response I consistently get that is terribly dishonest so I want to address it now & get it out of the way. All of feminism's various approaches to separating consensual sex from sexual violence rely on the very same traditional gender roles and stereotyping they claim to oppose. Every campaign they've had has been based on assuming that the male role in a sex encounter is seeker, and the female role is gatekeeper.

Their portrayal of social interaction is insultingly melodramatic, presenting the female role as that of a naive, helpless non-participant who never seeks sex and never has control over our environment or ourselves, making men and boys, with the inferred privilege of agency and strength, responsible for us by insinuation.
They, in turn, are presented with a false dichotomy: Fill the age-old role of women's guardians and protectors, or by default fit the villain portrayed in these campaign's propaganda; indiscriminately sex-obsessed, insensitive, pushy, and unscrupulous about where and how he gets what he wants.

When that reliance on traditional roles and stereotypes is pointed out, then and only then do feminists promoting any given campaign ever mention male consent as a factor. Often, that mention is limited to homosexual relationships, thereby still excluding female responsibility for obtaining consent, until that, too is pointed out. It takes a hard push against their own lack of self-awareness before feminists even so much as pay lip service to the human rights of men and boys in relation to sexual choice.

So before anyone responds to this video with statements about how your particular brand of feminist consent campaign includes men and boys and therefore isn't about demonizing and dehumanizing them, you'd better be willing to prove that from the beginning, you've been equally targeting females with "don't rape" messages, equally teaching women and girls not to assume their advances are wanted or accepted, equally portraying them the same way your campaign portrays men and boys... in short, assigning women and girls the same responsibility and accountability for their role in an encounter as you do men or boys.

If not, you might want to re-examine your claim that you're giving male consent equal time. If you're following the existing formula that relies on presenting hapless female helplessness and ineptitude as the norm, you can't rightfully make that argument, and it's a waste of your time to bother making it here.

With that out of the way, on to the rant itself.

I wrote about this a while back in my breaking the glasses post about the enthusiastic consent standard, titled Tit for tat: A standard advocated is a standard owed. I'm going to revisit it here so although the article is a longer statement, much of what I'm saying will be the same.

According to feminism's expressed rhetoric on the enthusiastic consent standard, spoken word is the only acceptable method by which female consent during a heterosexual encounter may be accurately confirmed.
The inference is that nothing a woman does, even to the point of aggressive sexual pursuit of a man, indicates consent to sex. It's basically a statement that no matter what action a woman takes, men must ask for permission to respond, even in kind.

Within this mentality, a man's consent is assumed, partly on the basis of the same behaviors feminists claim don't indicate a woman's consent, but mostly just because he's a man. This standard relies on treating women's sexuality as sacred and coveted, while condemning male sexuality as automatically predatory and in a way, larcenous. It's very clearly intended as nothing more than a means of enforcing the traditional male seeker, female gatekeeper sexual dynamic women use to make sex a tool for manipulating men.

I don't think men have to let it be used that way.

Instead of accepting the imposition of these traditional dynamics, if you're living in an environment where this is now the legal standard, you can use it to cast those dynamics off.

For one thing, stop juming through hoops to earn the affection of women who can't even be troubled to respond to your efforts with equal enthusiasm. Stop shouldering all of the responsibility for the experiences of both parties.

Most of all, don't accept being treated like your consent is a given.

While feminists advocate their enthusiastic consent model as a means of giving women the upper hand, logic makes it a reason for men to exercise the right of refusal when you are not comfortable or satisfied with the dynamics of an encounter.
Nobody is entitled to your attention or affection. Being male doesn't make you community property.

Don't let women treat you like it does.

If nothing else, you have the right to protect yourself from what this standard turns shy or demure women into; essentially Schrodinger's false accuser. After all, you're being told that a woman's participation in a sex act isn't valid consent unless she enthusiastically says so.

She can initiate sex with you, make all of the advances, ride you like a post horse and later accuse you of committing a felony because she didn't say the magic words.

Logically, that's reason to presume heterosexual sex a risky proposal that you're entitled approach with suspicion. You've got every right to require that your partner prove her intent with clear, unmistakable communication before you give your consent. It's reasonable for you to reserve your attention, your affection, your regard, and your trust for only someone willing to give you that reassurance.

And really, you should have been entitled to expect that all along anyway. You're no less deserving than a woman is to be treated as a wanted and interesting partner, to be offered an equal experience of demonstrated intent to please and impress.

Don't settle for some lazy scumbag who expects you to put in all of the effort while she sits back and makes you guess.

Don't tolerate getting treated like a beggar or a slave instead of a romantic interest.

Don't accept being ignored or lied to throughout a sexual encounter.

Those behaviors are abusive.

If the woman you're with cannot afford you the human dignity to treat you as, and act as, an equal partner, she hasn't earned the right to be one. No one has the right to expect you to put up with that, and you don't have to.

You never should have, but now you can also cite this standard and the danger it presents as supporting reasons why you refuse.

As for any women watching this who are offended by what I've said, I'm not the person you should be complaining to about it. Tell your feminist friends who have asserted that male courtship behavior is predatory, consent resulting from it isn't consent, and only verbal communication is communication.

They've made these demands in your name and governing bodies are listening.

Therefore, you no longer have the right to expect to be courted for your attention, subtly flirted with, or even treated like your own actions are intentional, because men have been authoritatively told that when they give you that they're abusing you.

Protesting the expectations I just laid out is asking your potential partners to risk a rape charge just to be with you.

That's a hell of a demand to make, and frankly, there is not a person on earth whose attention is worth that risk. Therefore, women, it IS your responsibility to prove yourself trustworthy... or even worthy at all, the same responsibility men have always had. You no longer have the right to sit back and expect a man to impress you, while you attempt to maintain an air of demure, modest propriety. If you're shy, if you prefer a traditional approach, if you like to be romanced... well, tough shit. Get over it. It's the 21st century now, and you're outdated.

Realize that a requirement for communication goes both ways.

If men are to be expected to obtain communication, women must be equally expected to provide it.
By asserting that men may be expected to assume that anything a you don't directly and clearly request is unwanted, feminists have given men license to assume that you don't want anything until it has been directly and clearly requested.

They haven't just placed the greater burden on men to obtain verbal consent, or be guilty of rape.
They've placed an equal burden on you to speak up and do so with enthusiasm, or go without sexual intimacy.

So it's on you now. Quit being so lazy.

Get off of your ass, stop expecting to sit back and leave all of the work in a relationship to the guy, and start proving yourself the way they've had to for centuries.

Under the circumstances, you're an abusive asshole if you don't.

The feminist derailing fallacy

Feminists abuse the term "derailing" as a tool to avoid information that contradicts an opinion, belief, or attitude they want to promote. While the term ordinarily refers to taking a discussion off on an unrelated tangent, feminists instead use it to describe any speech that contradicts one of their assertions. They rely on mislabeling relevant information as irrelevant and a distraction in order to protect disinformation from scrutiny and potential contradiction. It is like a line from The Wizard of Oz; "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

This exploitation of the term is rooted in a combined sense of ownership and entitlement to dictate public opinion. These ideologues believe, in all seriousness, that they own women and by extension, all gender issues. Therefore they feel morally exempt from being questioned or contradicted in assertions they make on our behalf, even when engaging the public in a dialogue led by an unsupported and potentially damaging claim.

One of the more ridiculous examples of this is their response to women who refuse to be fodder for the movement's ideological declarations. Feminists begin issue discussions with pronouncements like twitter's #yesallwomen, intended as blanket statements which generalize the experiences and beliefs of some women to all women. None of us are permitted under their worldview to disagree with their narrative about our lives, our experiences, our needs, wants, and beliefs. When we do we are silenced by a special brand of projection, accused of doing that which we're protesting. Feminists attempt to silence dissenting women by shouting us down with accusations that women who, in describing our experiences, question or contradict their dogma are "talking over other women to deny their experiences."

In other words, feminists are claiming that their experience of having ideological beliefs about women's lives is a more valid description of us than our own experience of living them. They use that claim to treat any resistance to their appropriation of our voices as an attack, rather than a defense against a presumptuous violation of personal boundaries.

Another example which is equally ridiculous is their response when their advocacy for a gendered government approach to a genderless issue is contradicted. The method is very similar to that used with women who refuse to be feminism's props. The accusation of derailing is used to shout down the voices of men and boys by treating their experience of conditions or circumstances, no matter how common, as an intrusion on what feminists want to portray as uniquely female experiences. The purpose in this case to sneak bigoted marginalization of men and boys past public scrutiny so that lobbying efforts for discriminatory law and policy will not be recognized for what they are.

This pretense has been a very effective tool for feminists desiring to enforce an ideological monopoly on gender issues discussion, especially, but not exclusively, in the areas of intimate partner and sexual violence. It has been used not only to shut dissenting voices out of feminist discussions, but also discussions involving the general public, discussions in academic and professional settings, and in the legislative process.

This is how American feminists manipulated the public and legislators into accepting a change from the genderless Family Violence Prevention and Services Act of 1984 to the female-specific, feminist research and training funding Violence Against Women Act of 1994. When men's advocates call for equal funding for assistance for men, feminists treat it as an attempt to siphon funds away from female victims they've convinced legislators and the public are more numerous and more in need. And to maintain that illusion, they accuse anyone offering evidence of female perpetration and male victims of "derailing" discussion about female experiences and female needs.

This tactic relies on two things: The fear of being seen as disruptive and rude, and the promise that diplomacy will result in some form of cooperative good will between these ideologues and the groups against whom they have used it. Feminists have demonstrated over and over that the former is going to happen regardless of when and where we speak, and the latter is simply a false hope. Believing they own these discussions, feminists invade and attempt to impose their ideological beliefs on any discussion about issues related to gender, and even many which are not. The only way for nonfeminists to have open discussion that is not dominated by feminist rhetoric and feminist sensibilities is to simply have it; to refuse to allow such accusations to shut us down. Speak up. Don't let feminists have a monopoly all discussion on gender issues.

Toxic feminism

Toxic masculinity is a buzzword created by feminists to facilitate blaming men for the external pressures to which they are subjected, most often by the very systems and social attitudes that feminists themselves support and exploit. Its definition falsely represents genderless dysfunction like insecurity, violence and prejudices as gender specific behavior.

Responding to men's advocates discussing men's issues by deflecting to "toxic masculinity" is not an offer of information or effort to find a solution. It's a form of reductionism feminists employ to excuse marginalizing men in favor of promoting feminist ideology.

They seem to believe that belching, "toxic masculinity!" into men's issues discussion is enough to justify their male-bashing rhetoric and hide the relationship between feminist lobbying, propaganda, and other agitation, and the continuation of oppressive discrimination against men into the 21st century.

It really doesn't, and that is one of the more obvious reasons why so many people of both sexes are rejecting the label "feminist" as a name associated with hating men.

If feminists ever want to persuade intellectuals to accept the claim that feminism is not primarily about hating men they must first stop targeting men and boys with such dehumanizing labels.

Shedding some light on the subject

Discussing gender issues with feminists is like being in a complicated light bulb joke.

Of course it couldn't be an ordinary light bulb joke, because feminism can't produce anything that straightforward.

Instead, it would be a long meandering series that ends with a vague loop back to the beginning, probably something a lot like this:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. Feminists don't do that.

No, it takes dozens of second wave feminists to bitch that incandescent is the wrong kind of bulb until men take action to update it to an LED light.

Later, they will insist feminism be credited for the change, and say that everything was dark for women until feminists came along and invented light bulbs.

Social Justice ideologues in entertainment and journalistic media will shade their narrative to promote the feminist version of light bulb history, and it will be threaded into school curriculum, exposing the next generation.

Third wave feminists will cast the canard into debate and consider any challenge to it, no matter how much factual information is provided, to be an assault on women's light.

The light debate will burn on for years with the same arguments being exchanged while establishment feminists successfully lobby for affirmative light and lamp shade laws. Feminists will not acknowledge the dimming nature of these laws and will blame the darkness caused by their enforcement on "patriarchy." They will then suggest embracing feminism as a solution to the light discrimination they'll claim is inherent in the patriarchal system.

New-age hippie feminists will contend that artificial lighting is an invention of the patriarchy, to be rejected by all women in favor of using candles. It will not occur to them to consider men's involvement in the invention of candles, the reduced illumination candles produce, or the possibility that human manufacture of candles makes them an artificial light source as well.

Establishment feminists will respond to the controversy by suggesting that equal light could be achieved if straight white men were required to live in the dark 23% of the time.

Radfems will criticize other feminists and social justice warriors for their soft stance on patriarchal light oppression and float a plan to kill or gouge out the eyes of 90% of the male population to mitigate the danger created by men living in women's light.

Establishment & radfem bloggers will write posts celebrating illuminated women and extolling the virtues of lighting tools for women. They will write other posts painting men's need for light as shady or harsh, peppered with terms like male glare and shadow masculinity.

"Nice" feminists will talk about how The Patriarchy has kept men in the dark, and offer feminism as a remedy. Reminders of the feminist light lobby will be treated as an attack on women's light, or responded to with "not all feminists are like that."

Christina Hoff Sommers will write an article patiently explaining the actual, documented history of light bulbs and make an easy to understand video explaining why the feminist light bulb narrative is bullshit.

Social justice warriors will criticize the video's format and graphics to avoid discussing the facts, and write whiny posts about Sommers in remote and dusky internet "safe spaces" where they don't actually have to engage in any debate. They will refuse to discuss the video anywhere else.

Men's light activists will fight among themselves over the best approach to the light bulb controversy and debunking radiance myths.

Some will strive to enlighten the public. Others will participate in heated debate. Still others will get fired up and engage legislators.

Left and right leaning activists will each blame each other's political parties while proclaiming the brilliance of their own. 

Traditionalists will call life easier when men bring home the light bulbs and women see to it that they're screwed in right & properly replaced when they burn out.

Men Glowing Their Own Way will argue that women can touch the light bulbs, but not take any of them home.

"Moderate" men's light advocates will promote adopting the false feminist narrative on light bulb history in an effort to befriend them and get them to join a coordinated effort at promoting equal light today.

Everyone in both movements will criticize "flick up artists" for discussing ways to turn on the light even when the switch is difficult to flip.

Feminists will use associating men's light activism with flick up artistry to distract men's light activists from the issue itself.

David Futrelle will spotlight the controversy in his blog, framing the post in the feminist narrative on light bulb history along with the presumption that light belongs to women and men are interlopers even when invited. That will lead into portraying men's light activism as an attempt to roll back women's light, wrongfully gain access to it, or both. The writing will include mischaracterized quotes, fabrication, hyperbole, childish name calling, and dishonest barbs directed at various men's light blogs, forums, and news sites.

Social justice leaning news blogs will reference Futrelle's blog in articles demonizing the men's light movement as a call for a return to the dark ages.

Fringe establishment media will widen the spotlight, referencing the news blogs. 

Corporate run establishment media will reference the fringe and then later each other, effectively eclipsing the origin of the narrative behind layers of consensus.

Feminists will reference the articles in debate as evidence that men's light activists are demons from hell bent on plunging the world into darkness, while failing to realize they're content to live in it themselves.

And the Sunny Badgers will highlight the entire debate on internet radio for deconstruction.

The PUA cheese touch strikes again

The men's rights movement is no stranger to the tactics feminists try to use to silence viewpoints they oppose. Those tactics have been written about for years, well before the movement was as large as it is today, and well before it ever received media attention. If you're not familiar with them, read Exposing Feminism's post "The catalog of anti-male shaming tactics."

These tactics are a manifestation of a sense of entitlement to control the dialogue based on one's own belief in one's position. I'm right, so your argument must be rooted in objectionable characteristics. They're designed to put the target on the defensive against unmerited charges in order to distract from existing debate. An example would be a feminist leveling the accusation that you support due process rights because you hate women, or an attack on your masculinity in response to your discussion about female perpetrators of sexual violence and their male victims. These tactics are a window to feminism's underlying hateful attitude. Their basic premise is that agitation for any remedy to conditions which are oppressive to men is unneeded, undeserved, illegitimate, and an affront to women.

Many times, activists are able to spot these tactics and call them out when their feminist debate opponents use them, effectively rendering them useless. However, the community at large has failed miserably at this when the shaming involves an attempt to pit us against the pick-up artist community. The most recent version of this failure is an attempt to distance the two groups from each other in response to a feminist diatribe about a recent blog article by Roosh V. Here we go again, handing feminists control that they do not deserve, allowing an unmerited, illegitimate attack on the movement to put us on the defense.

Roosh's article is not bad for the men's rights movement. The feminist reaction is bad for feminists, or at least it would be if MRAs would take a step back and view it without the filter of feminist shaming language through which the article complaining about it is launched. Remove it and the complaint would largely disappear. It can be clearly identified as a vehemently worded charge of misogyny, with a layer of "by association" thrown in.

The only reason feminists feel like this tactic works is that MRAs run scared every time they do it. This is what happens when you give feminists control over the dialogue; their first impulse is to silence views they disapprove, rather than to engage. Feminist use of shaming tactics does not make MRAs or even PUAs bad people. It shows that feminists are so bigoted they can't handle the existing debate, that they must resort to mudslinging and distraction tactics, and they'll use any kind of misrepresentation MRAs are willing to accept.

Letting feminists put the movement on the defensive by carefully framing their own over-reaction to cherry-picked factors and then associating them with the MRM invites this. Capitulation is asking to be slandered again. The behavior tells the shame-thrower, "Hey, look, an enormous target! Shoot here and we'll scramble for damage control just like you want, rendering us totally ineffective for a time."

All they have to do is get MRAs to treat their outragegasm as legitimate and an accurate representation of what they're responding to, and you let them achieve that by panicking without question over the terms in which they frame their complaint. They don't have to be accurate, honest, or even remotely rational, so long as their accusation is sufficiently scandalous, because even though they've demonstrated over and over again a determination to hate, oppose, and slander the movement, there are MRAs who continue to seek their approval.

You're not going to get their approval because their approval doesn't rely on what's right, on logic or reason, or on genuinely equal treatment. It relies on you keeping your head down and saying "okay." It relies on your agreement to subjugate your advocacy to feminist interests. It does not matter if you condemn 1000 PUAs, agree with feminists calling drunk sex rape, even let feminists define all of the terms of the dialogue. None of that will earn you a more open, friendly discussion because you are dealing with people who don't want to have it in the first place.

The Raw Story writer was not really complaining out of a belief that Roosh's article means MRAs want to legalize rape. Feminists do this because they know it will shut you up about men's issues for a while, as you're tied up with damage control. They know that leveling the right accusation the right way will spread hysteria throughout the community.

And over what? The article itself is simply using the style of A Modest Proposal to point out that ideology isn't an effective shield against crime. Contained in it is a paragraph driving home the point that rape is bad and the author understands that. The reaction to it is a typical female chip-knocked-off-the-shoulder knee-jerkin' temper dance. And what's the first thought the responding writer had after reading it, but how it could be used to silence advocates for boys in education, male victims of intimate partner and sexual violence, children's right to a relationship with their fathers; to muzzle opponents of debtors prisons and discriminatory law and policy and eclipse efforts to raise awareness of male suicide. How hateful!

The rush to frame this discussion in the most inflammatory way, light it on ideological fire, and throw it at the MRM isn't a misunderstanding. It's a bigoted attempt to enforce feminism's self-assigned entitlement to control the gender issues dialogue. And it'll continue to happen until MRAs stop falling for it. You want feminists to quit using PUAs as mud to sling at the men's rights movement? Take the benefit out of it! Stop giving them the reaction they want. 

Stupid question of the day

It's nothing new to see women questioning the validity, ethics and usefulness of birth control options for men. Dr. Coutinho, who studied a then though possible formula for a male pill, recounts how feminists led by Betty Friedan protested his research years ago. Friedan's accusation that men will lie about the pill to obtain consent is ridiculous in the context of a legal system that pins 18 years of financial responsibility on a man if he and his sex partner conceive, but it's been echoed by feminists every time the idea of birth control for men is brought up. Feminists assert everything from a belief that men are too irresponsible to a belief that despite the risk of becoming an estranged, unwed father, they don't want the option. It's also not uncommon to see the issue discussed in terms of zero sum, writing or speaking as if one partner's use of any form of birth control precludes the other partner's ability or right to do the same. Radhika Sanghani of DailyLife.com is the latest writer to do this, in an article about Vasalgel, an upcoming new innovation in male birth control, titled "Male birth control could be here by 2017 - but will anyone take it?" Her subheading asks if women would "relinquish responsibility." Even before the body of the article, she has hit two of feminism's main talking points on the topic.

Sanghani uses conjecture from a female behavioral psyhcologist to lend credibility to her theory. Donna Dawson is quoted stating that men will either say birth control is a woman's job, or be too squeamish to take the shot. This, despite the fact that men do opt for a more invasive and permanent procedure; Vasectomy.

Dawson goes on to suggest, despite the fact that they make up the majority of workplace deaths and injuries due to being the majority of workers in dangerous, difficult, and dirty jobs, that men won't handle the responsibility because they're not accustomed to it, and have a lower pain threshold than women.

Treating the issue of birth control as a zero sum game in which only one partner may use preventative methods at a time is irrational. There is nothing about a man's use of any birth control method that would prevent a woman from also using birth control. Widening men's access to birth control does not raise a question of trust, but eliminates a need for it. Expanded options for men will not reduce options for women, but they will make it harder for women to use chicanery and lies to become pregnant with a male partner's child against his will. Given that, the tendency of female-oriented media and outspoken feminists to nay-say the upcoming increase in options for male birth control is senseless at its face value. At best, it's a thinly disguised protest against an impending break of women's near-monopoly on control over conception and childbirth by providing men with a new measure of preventative control over their own reproduction.

Equally irrational is the suggestion that men don't want the option. Currently, a man only has two, condoms and vasectomy. Condoms reduce sensation, and are subject to abuse by unscrupulous women. Vasectomy is intended to be permanent, and though sometimes reversible, it is not always, so it's mainly an option for men who are done wanting to have children, or never want to have them. Even when a man does want to opt for a vasectomy, some physicians actually require the wife's consent before the procedure can be performed.

That men do opt for vasectomy even with its potential drawbacks (somewhat painful procedure, some risks, permanence) directly contradicts the supposition that they'll wimp out of using the less invasive, safer, and reversible procedure involved with Vasalgel. The claim that they will smacks of looking for any excuse one can come up with to oppose the option, or an attitude of disdain toward men. It sounds particularly stupid coming from people working in an industry which places little physical demand on the body, writing about the half of the population from which come the majority of workers in industries in which daily tasks cause bodily damage.

The most ludicrous thing, however, about discussion on male birth control by female and feminist media is the presumption that women's opinions on the subject even matter.

If we were discussing the right to use a diaphragm, birth control cream, gel, film, pills or injections, intrauterine or sub-dermal implants, or even abortion, most of these women would shout down any man who chose to express an opinion which contradicted their own. The "my body, my choice" mantra leads the charge to make female birth control and termination of pregnancy a woman-only issue. Even the suggestion that women should be responsible for obtaining these conveniences at their own expense when they are elective has been deemed a shot fired in an imaginary war on women promoted by feminist ideologues. That particular feminist flag has been picked up and carried by the uninformed voter in droves, with the layman... er, woman, knowing no better than to compare medically unnecessary drugs used for convenience to medically necessary drugs used to treat bodily dysfunction as an argument in favor of forcing insurance companies to cover elective use. Any man daring to question this ideological push faces an onslaught of accusations of attempting to interfere with women's choices in what to do with their bodies.

In light of the facts, questioning the validity, ethics, and usefulness of increased options for male birth control is truly stupid, as is making one's support of it contingent on how it helps women. This issue is not about women. A more reasonable question is this: Women's issues ideologues have fought to make women's bodies a strictly female-opinion issue. What even makes feminists like Friedan and writers like Sanghani feel entitled to the slightest consideration of their opinion on what men may do with theirs?

A question of respect

A question I heard out of context today kind of crystallized for me an aspect of the #gamergate controversy, multiple men's issues, and the difference in public response to incidents of domestic violence among famous people depending on whether the perceived perpetrator is male or female. Standing in a convenience store, listening to a woman complain about a man smelling like smoke, I groaned inwardly as she landed on what seems to have become an old standby for gals with something to complain about.

"What's the matter with that guy? Doesn't he respect women?"

Most of the time, when I hear that line, the woman saying it is using the word "respect" when she really means "venerate."

Once upon a time there was a trade-off under which women earned special treatment. It was contingent on eschewing rough behaviors like heavy drinking, fighting, and sexual promiscuity. Women were presumed morally superior, and expected to live up to that. They were presumed gentler than men, and expected to live up to that, as well. Even feminine aesthetics were about being something more special than a man, which is why women were and still are allowed the luxury of wearing clothing that restricts one's ability to perform heavy or hard labor. In return for living up to those standards, women were entitled to certain concessions not afforded to men. They could display more delicate sensibilities such as offense at rough language or crude subject matter, and expect their aversions to be indulged. They could expect exemption from some of life's responsibilities, like supporting a family or even themselves. It was not just a gentleman's responsibility, but his honor to assist a woman in need, and doing harm to a woman was taboo for any man. Women who lived up to the moral and social standards associated with their traditional role were considered respectable in a way that deserved veneration; men who lived up to theirs revered them.

The reverence that women today so loudly and crassly demand in the name of "respect" is not earned under such an arrangement. Sixty years of feminist protesting has freed women from the constraints of social obligation, allowing us to, without expecting judgement for it, become as crass, as violent, and as sexually promiscuous as men, and in many cases, more. Feminists fought for this under the guise of equality, demanding society acknowledge not only equality of rights and human value but capability and toughness. Feminists fought to free women from our side of the bargain, yet what do we hear from them the moment a man's equal treatment of a woman means she is no longer indulged or exempted as before? "What's wrong with that guy? Doesn't he respect women?"

What does that have to do with #gamergate? Well, it began with women complaining of a lack of equal treatment and ended up with a massive shaming campaign wherein women and their supporters drew on traditionally unequal standards to try to shame gamers into giving them special treatment; exempting the women central to the controversy from criticism they would be expected to face and address if they were men. Both the women and the media substituted a demand for veneration of women, requiring subjugation of male gamers' concerns, where an open dialogue was needed.

How is that respect for anyone?

You can see the same treatment in various issues discussed by the men's rights community. Bring up equal parenting rights, and women's groups shout down arguments in favor by demonizing fathers without evidence, calling them deadbeats and abusers. Try to apply fact and reason to discussion about the wage gap, and the misogyny card is immediately thrown down. In the face of impending equal treatment, women's groups defend gender disparity in likelihood of arrest, in chance of a conviction, in criminal sentencing, and in length and type of sentence served in cases where men and women commit the same crimes. Even in an area that should be a no-brainer, involuntary underage genital cutting, women's groups defend girls' bodily autonomy, demanding total elimination of the tradition, while supporting the use of it on infant boys. This, with no better reason than those given for the use of it on girls.

The same groups which claim physical equality in their arguments for equal pay reverse themselves when the discussion turns to intimate partner and sexual violence. Abuse is abuse, unless a woman is the perpetrator and a man is the victim. A man must treat a woman the same as he would another man... unless she assaults him. Then, he owes her the special treatment of not defending himself as he would against another man. She is to be coddled like an unruly child. Though we're equal when women's advocates are demanding an equal share of life's rewards (*edit - excellent point made by Bernard Chapin - feminists demand rewards women have not earned such as equal representation in CEO positions despite women not putting in the work and making the sacrifices to get there... a more than equal share*), when confronting life's rough side, we're not at all equal. Suddenly, women are inferior, not only too weak to back up their display of temper with a strong assault, but also too stupid to acknowledge that by keeping their fists to themselves. Which message should women buy into? Are we strong and smart enough to earn the same pay as roughnecks and loggers, scientists and engineers, or are we too weak to defend ourselves yet too stupid to refrain from picking fights with men anyway? Do feminists and other social justice warriors think women aren't savvy enough to notice that contradiction?

This indicates to me that women's outrage is badly misdirected. It isn't men's attitudes that need to be examined, but those of feminists and other social justice warriors who play the misogyny card to deflect attempts to hold women to the same standards and expectations faced by men. That behavior is not indicative of very much faith in their supposed charges.

Hey, feminists and SJWs! What's wrong with you guys! Don't you respect women?

Suffragettes can't save feminism

Feminists unable to defend against criticism of their lobbying history often fall back on the suffrage card. To put it simply, feminists claim that the suffragette movement means feminism is responsible for women's ability to exercise the right to vote. They present the voting card framed in the belief that prior to activism by the suffragettes, women were universally denied voting rights which were universally enjoyed by men, or at least men who were not black. It's offered as a get out of criticism free card, as if this one thing redeems the entire movement's history of anti-male rhetoric, unsupported claims, and agitation for discriminatory law and policy. It does not, but even if it did, there's another problem with the belief.


History does not support their position.

Historically, men did not have the universal suffrage that suffragettes demanded for women. Voting rights were tied to all kinds of terms and conditions. Further, there are examples (with more emerging) of women voting before the women's suffrage movement.

One such example is a recently discovered document listing English women voters in an election which took place in 1843, 75 years prior to legislation recognizing women's voting rights in 1918. At that time, suffrage for men was not universal, but limited to the upper classes, with various groups agitating for parliamentary reform throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The women recorded in the 1843 document would have had to meet the standards met by men. They paid a fee, and it determined how their vote was counted. Note that the article mentions that the high fee paid by Grace Brown gave her 4 votes, where those who paid less got only one vote. These women also enjoyed a privilege denied to men who did not meet legal voting requirements. Adult men who were not heads of households could not vote.

Prior to the formation of the United States, voting in the colonies was largely governed by the same standards used in England. However, contrary to popular belief, women were not universally barred from voting. As with the women in England's 1843 document, American women who voted prior to the 20th century did so under the same terms and conditions faced by men, save for one: Women were not and still are not subject to being drafted into the military in times of war.

One interesting example of early female voters prior to universal male suffrage is the colony of New Jersey, where gender was not a factor in voting rights until the Democratic-Republican party, which eventually became the Democrat party, took the vote away from Jersey women, minorities, non-citizens, and the poor in 1807 over conflict between their party and federalists.

Even after the U.S. became a nation, men's suffrage was not universal. Voting rights continued to evolve throughout the 19th century, with states slowly letting go of property ownership requirements over the course of decades. After the 15th amendment was ratified, recognizing black male citizenship and voting rights, southern states passed "grandfather clauses" to roll back their rights, and used Jim Crow laws and poll taxes to get out of recognizing them until the success of the civil rights movement in the mid 20th century. This allowed wealthy and middle class white women to vote while many poor and minority men and women were kept away from the polls.

In 1876, the supreme court ruled that Native Americans were not citizens as defined by the 14th Amendment, and therefore could not vote. In 1890, they were told they could apply to become naturalized citizens in their own ancestral land. Laws denying citizenship to various Asian immigrants passed in 1882 (the Chinese exception) and 1922 (Japanese immigrants.) In 1919 Native Americans and in 1925 Filipinos were told they could earn citizenship by risking their lives serving in American wars. Various stipulations, including Jim Crow laws and poll taxes, left the majority of the indigenous population of the U.S. and its territories, along with the majority of Asian immigrants, and most minorities, subject to the rule of the American government without representation by officials for (or against) whom they had the right to vote - the same injustice that sparked the Revolutionary war. Asians did not see their voting rights universally recognized until the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Native Americans' right to vote was not fully recognized until 1957, 37 years after the 19th Amendment recognized women's right to vote... 12 years before the first man walked on the moon. It was not until 8 years after Native Americans were recognized, 4 years after the first manned American space flight and 4 years before we put a man on the moon, that the Voting Rights Act passed, protecting the right of all blacks and other minorities to vote. Upper class white women got the vote in 1920. Impoverished black men and women did not truly get theirs until 1965.

Feminists who paint the history of citizen suffrage in starkly gendered terms do so in either ignorance of or contempt for reality. Western civilization's growing pains have not been so clearly defined, nor has the weight of feminism's influence on the evolution of voting rights. It was both separate and tandem fighting by many disenfranchised groups which brought about voting reform in England and the United States, including, but not limited to, women's rights.

The suffragette movement is yet another example of feminists approaching a human problem as if only women are impacted, and only women deserve relief.