Why so much hatred for feminism?

[epepke]

Yes there's a lot of people who would not identify as feminists who share the background sexist assumptions that in many respects feminism has helped to encourage (although I think they were often there even before feminism to some extent).

So you said you had studied the feminism of the 1980s / 1990s and read about 250 feminist books and you seem to have a lot of interesting comments. I asked you some questions in a different thread if you wouldn't mind having a look at them?

Sure, but I'll answer them here because there's some context with this thread here. (BTW, 250 is a conservative low-balling figure, because I didn't count them. They were somewhere between 250 and 400)

As above my theory is that feminism today is a popular hate movement; ie like the KKK in the 1920s when "all the best people were in the Klan" and not like the KKK nowadays who are a ridiculous joke and know it. Your views confirm in part and contradict in part.

OK. I differ, of course, but there are several aspects to this. But first, a rather ironic aside that you bring up the KKK who were allies with feminists favoring women's suffrage, which was considered to be a way of getting prohibition enforced. The person most responsible for enforcement was Mabel Willebrandt who, when asked about the KKK, said that she didn't mind people dressing up in sheets if they enjoyed that sort of thing. But never mind.

A lot of these inquisition threads where feminists basically end up defending and justifying themselves try and make a defence about so-called "extremists" (a deliberately ambiguous term) and try and prove that feminism is OK by claiming that "ordinary" feminists are nice people.

Yeah, this happens. I call it "running interference."

Anyway, you can find nutty, anti-male feminists, but you have to look to find them. Back then, they were front and center.

Then, Andrea Dworkin was testifying before the Meese commission. With Catherine MacKinnon, she influenced anti-pornography legislation in the US and Canada. Well, Dworkin is dead now, and McKinnon hasn't done a case since the late 1990s. There are no modern similar people, and I really doubt they'd ever be on the Santorum Commission. In contrast, Susie Bright is still publishing today.

Robin Morgan of WITCH became the editor of Ms., the premier feminist magazine in the nation, which used to be on every newsstand every week. Now it struggles as a quarterly, and I don't think I've seen a cover in a decade.

When I walk through campuses, there is a distinct absernce of flyers for this stuff. When I wrote John Gordon, 1982 author of The Myth of the Monstrous Male that thi stuff was just gone, he agreed. He had been teaching a freshman class on the battle between the sexes, and he says that the sense of humor and decency with respect to gender in his students have come back.

So it's this and other little pieces of what amount to anecdotal evidence that makes me think that this misandrist aspect of feminism is, if not gone, significantly depressed, if only for a time.

 

[DavidByron]

a rather ironic aside that you bring up the KKK who were allies with feminists favoring women's suffrage, which was considered to be a way of getting prohibition enforced. The person most responsible for enforcement was Mabel Willebrandt who, when asked about the KKK, said that she didn't mind people dressing up in sheets if they enjoyed that sort of thing. But never mind.

Yes and I think the first female bishop in the US was connected with the KKK. The Women's Klu Klux Klan is an interesting example of a hate group that avoided direct violence by relying on proxies. And as a genuinely independent organisation it was a sort of early feminist success story. I think there are some other links between the KKK and early feminists but it doesn't amount to a whole lot. It's just the way of things with a popular hate movement. They were well thought of by a lot of people.

With Catherine MacKinnon, she influenced anti-pornography legislation in the US and Canada.

And then had her own books refused entrance to Canada on the basis of those same laws. Very funny. But also an interesting example of how the feminists were fine working with the conservative religious right. These days I wonder about other feminist imperialist hook-ups.

McKinnon hasn't done a case since the late 1990s.

But her work was never repudiated. Sexual harassment law is still supported broadly by the movement even if was the brain child of a total man hating nutcase (and boy does it show). Normal feminists support it without any real thought, even if they also claim that they reject that sort of radical feminism. Same thing for VAWA. Feminists just knee-jerk continue the patterns laid down by the worst kind of radicals in previous decades.

There are no modern similar people, and I really doubt they'd ever be on the Santorum Commission. In contrast, Susie Bright is still publishing today.

It's all very well to say there are not famous radical feminists doing nasty stuff right now, but there aren't any famous feminists of any kind doing that sort of stuff. It's all become institutionalised now it seems. There's no need to have celebrities who rock the boat because feminists already have the levers of power. And I don't see that the institutions they dominate are anything but radical although perhaps not absurdly silly radical but then neither were Dworkin and MacKinnon when they got down to business (as opposed to their books and philosophies).

he says that the sense of humor and decency with respect to gender in his students have come back.

On the other hand some of the "new" stuff I've noticed seems to indicate a decrease in decency and respect for men. Like the term "mansplaining" and the term "whatabouttehmenz". These appear to be widely understood terms which indicates an increased level of contempt, or at least an increased level of paranoia. Of course that's just the internet and it might be the worst feminists congregate here.

If there is a change in the youngest people he's seeing in his classes it might be that there's just been a reduction in the number of people who identify as feminists at all? But I don't think it's moved much though over the last few decades from around 20-25% of women identifying as feminist. Still maybe it has changed if you only look at the youngest generation? That would explain students taking his courses becoming better, without requiring a change in how feminists think? The last poll I know of said most women in the US now think that either men are worse off than women are or that there's no difference.

So it's this and other little pieces of what amount to anecdotal evidence that makes me think that this misandrist aspect of feminism is, if not gone, significantly depressed, if only for a time.

Yes your hypothesis about going through cycles. But I don't think the history repeats itself so closely. For example this really is the first time that feminism has gone from being the outsider that greatly influences power, to being within the halls of power itself, albeit limited to within feminist ghettos (basically any office to do with gender). The movement may not really need that many new recruits to keep pulling stunts like getting the Southern Poverty Law Center to condemn MRAs as hate groups, or covering up research data produced by the CDC on sexual violence.

 

[000063]

...
On the other hand some of the "new" stuff I've noticed seems to indicate a decrease in decency and respect for men. Like the term "mansplaining" and the term "whatabouttehmenz". These appear to be widely understood terms which indicates an increased level of contempt, or at least an increased level of paranoia. Of course that's just the internet and it might be the worst feminists congregate here....

Speaking of which, here's another post from Feministing where feminists try to hijack a discussion of men being falsely accused of rape and other sex crimes to make it all about the womenz. Note that even other women come under fire when they say something disagreeable.

This is her central argument: Men who are accused of rape are not given the privilege of being innocent until proven guilty while women are automatically believed.

And to that I respond, on which planet does Ms. Young live? Here where I live, women who report rapes are sometimes believed by the police but most often are not believed by anyone else. Their stories, personal lives, clothes, histories are picked apart by anyone and everyone looking to discredit them.

This is the exact same website I linked to earlier where one blogger refused to apologize for saying the Duke boys were guilty. In fact, it links to that post in the very next paragraph

I’ve rarely seen (oh wait except for Duke Lacrosse which Young cited because that is the most prominent example of a claim that was unfounded) men accused of rape be publicly shamed or have their sexual histories examined. Wouldn’t it be interesting if a man was accused of rape and someone asked him questions about what he was doing that night, what he was drinking, and other relevant questions that are not so relevant when asked of the victims.

Except that's exactly what happened in the Duke case. The suspects had people saying things like they were racist in high school, therefore they must've raped this black woman. Mention wanting to have sex with "b*es" in an email? They must be rapists! Hired a stripper? Bad people, therefore rapists! They had their dirty laundry and sexual info aired for no good reason, much like an alleged rape victim often does, and Samhita--who is currently the Executive Editor of the site--had absolutely no problem with that.

Even in the post in question, you can see both the blogger and several commenters trying to make it about "the bigger picture". "Why don't you want to talk about other crimes?" they say. "Why the focus on only false accusations of rape?" Which is, of course, an attempt to actively derail the subject. Not just the usual social justice definition of "derail", which is "to try to talk about things I don't want you to talk about"; the blogger went into the discussion fully intending to do her best to change the subject away from the purpose of the talk.

Bottom line: the attitude is, fairly often, that men have no right to mention their issues in feminist spaces, but feminists have a right to discuss their causes when men are discussing theirs.

 

[000063]

PS: Remember the Duke rape accuser, Crystal Magnum? She's on trial for Murder, and was already found guilty of three counts of child abuse. Interestingly, she was found fit to stand trial, which means unless she was insane during the Duke case, means she either knew she was contradicting herself, or was for some reason unable to recognize that fact, which would make her a less than credible witness. And gosh, I can't seem to find any feminist sites willing to talk about it. Or about her tell-all book.

http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/marcotte-and-empathy-a-letter-to-the-editor/

TMatlack: WTF. So the only way to be a “good” man is to imagine how hard it is to be a woman? What a crock of ****.

AmandaMarcotte: Imagining the POV of someone you’re in conflict with is bare minimum of being a good person, yes.

Marcotte, incidentally, called those who thought the Duke players were innocent "rape loving scum", and then deleted all her blog posts on the matter after the case was dropped. She decries Nifong's misconduct, but tellingly does not apologize for her own actions.

 

[Maya22]

Feminists believe that women and men shoul be treated equally.

They are trying to correct gender disparity.

Btw, I believe in choices - the choice to work at home or work outside of home

 

[epepke]

Feminists believe that women and men shoul be treated equally.

They are trying to correct gender disparity.

No.

Some feminists believe this. Some do not. Playing dictionary games does not make those who do not vanish or cease to be influential within feminism.

 

[Piggy]

Feminists believe that women and men should be treated equally.

Well, then, please name all the different groups you think should be treated equally, and we'll see how many isms you have to believe in.