30 May 2015

“Dear Moderate Feminists, You Don’t Exist” Feminism Is Defined By The Laws And Public Policy It Has Created

MensRights subreddit: This is a letter to all the moderate, armchair feminists out there. You know who you are. You’re a feminist because you believe in equality! You believe men and women should have equal rights, that feminists aren’t all a bunch of man haters, and you don’t understand why some people (like MRAs and Red Pillers) are just so darn angry with feminists all the time. You certainly never did anything to hurt us! You only want for all of us to just get along!

To all you ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to take you through an explanation as to why you, yes you, sitting at your computer or browsing on your mobile, you, who are an actual living, breathing person with a variety of thoughts, feelings, and experiences at your disposal, why you don’t actually, for all practical intents and purposes, exist.

(1) You don’t make the laws.

Ask yourself this, my moderate feminist reader – when was the last time you, and whatever moderate feminist organization that you’re a part of, created or influenced legislation that got passed or policy changes that got enacted? You got women the vote, you say? Come now, I highly doubt it was you and your specific moderate feminist lobbying organization that you’re a part of that got women the vote. Nothing? Interesting. Well, since you haven’t created any laws that have impacted society, I guess there’s no proof there that you exist these days.

Radical feminists, on the other hand, have given us the Duluth Model of domestic violence which was incorporated into the Violence Against Women Act. If you don’t know, the Duluth Model is the gold standard for determining who police should blame and arrest in a domestic violence dispute (hint: it’s always the man’s fault). They’ve done this despite the fact that the Duluth Model is, through and through, flawed.
They’ve given us the Dear Colleague letter, handed down by the federal government to colleges, and inciting college campuses to create campus kangaroo courts, to violate the rights to due process of those male students accused of rape.
They’ve given us the Yes, Means Yes law, which implies that men are rapists unless, during a sexual encounter, they stop and re-affirm consent with the woman regularly. If they forget to re-affirm consent (as consent can be withdrawn non-verbally by the woman at any time), they’re a rapist.
They have actively and successfully stood in the way of shared parenting laws, where fathers, by default, would gain 50% custody of their children during a divorce. According to the feminist organization NOW, “Increased father involvement does not necessarily result in positive outcomes for children.” That’s funny, couldn’t the same thing be said for increased mother involvement? Or…wait a minute?!? Is NOW actually promoting the outdated gender role of women being the best caregivers for children? How neanderthal of them!
So you see, my moderate feminist readers, when it comes to the political landscape and passing laws and policies that actually effect the lives of, well, everyone, your radical feminists friends have proved themselves to exist again and again. Whereas you, with your occasional retweet of #heforshe and a sincere wish for everyone to just get along….well…
(2) You don’t get out there and “represent.”
If you exist, my moderate feminist friend…then why do we never see you? Shouldn’t you be out there somewhere? Getting petitions signed? Attending protests for or against….uh…whatever it is would concern a moderate feminist (we’ll go into that later)?
Your radical feminist brothers and sisters are only all too visible.
Here they are in Toronto at an event for Doctor Warren Farrell, who was talking about a number of dangerous and highly volatile issues that radical feminists apparently hate men to talk about, such as “why are so many men killing themselves?” and “is there anything we can do to stop all these men from killing themselves?” I’m glad these brave feminist men and women were there to literally fight with police officers in an attempt to shut this dangerous talk down.
And then there’s Dr. Janice Fiamengo, who regularly talks about how modern radical feminists have gotten a little crazy and cultish, how they go so far as to oppose dissenting opinions and free speech. Well, the radical feminists were only too happy to prove her right when they showed up to blow horns and chant to completely disrupt the event. Way to prove your existence Rad Fems!
And who can forget the radical feminist’s fascination with pulling fire alarms, as is demonstrated at this anti-sexism talk hosted by a men’s group.
As you can see, not only have radical feminists pushed laws that affect our lives nationwide, they do their best to keep boots on the ground, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
Now, my moderate feminist friend, got any video or photographic proof of yourself doing great feminist works? No? Well, that’s not helping your case for actually existing, now, is it?
(3) Your leadership is non-existent.
Help me out here, armchair feminists. Is there an armchair feminist queen? Is there a council of elders? Is there any kind of leadership, authority figure, hell, even a published author you can point to as the voice for moderate feminism? And good luck trying to prove Christina Hoff Summers is your leader. By all accounts, the feminist movement seems to have disavowed her existence.
In the meantime, lets see what noted radical feminist leaders and authors are saying:
  • “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.” – Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor
  • “To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo.” – Valerie Solanas
  • “I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.” — Andrea Dworkin paraphrased from a work of fiction. New and improved Dworkin quote below.
  • Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. – Andrea Dworkin
  • “Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” — Susan Brownmiller
  • “In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.” — Catherine MacKinnon Misattributed to MacKinnon. New and improved MacKinnon quote below.
  • Perhaps the wrong of rape has proven so difficult to articulate because the unquestionable starting point has been that rape is definable as distinct from intercourse, when for women it is difficult to distinguish them under conditions of male dominance. – Catherine MacKinnon
  • “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.” — Sally Miller Gearhart
  • “Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience.” – Catherine Comins
  • “Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.” — Germaine Greer.
  • “Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman.” – Mary Koss
  • “Although men may sometimes sexually penetrate women when ambivalent about their own desires, these acts fail to meet legal definitions of rape that are based on penetration of the body of the victim.” – Mary Koss
Well, that looks like a strong showing from radical feminist figureheads to me, and certainly more proof of their existence of radical feminists. Moderate feminists…not so much.
(4) No one knows what you actually want to do.
So, oh moderate feminist, you want “everyone to be equal and just get along.” So what, actually, do you mean by that? What do you want the government/society to do to actually make women equal? It’s okay, I’ll give you a minute. In the meantime…
Radical feminists want to eliminate the burden of proof for rape cases.
Radical feminists are pretty sure that most women should stop going to prison for committing crimes.
Radical feminists want men to stop having sex with women all together, because all penis in vagina sex is rape.
Since all sex is rape, prostitution is flat out, because women can’t consent.
Radical feminists also say we’d better just eliminate pornography while we’re at it.
They want to sterilize men, unless they get a procreation license.
Which should make it easier to reduce the population of men down to 10%.
Hell, let’s start reducing that male population now!
Looks like radical feminists have some pretty strong ideas for where they want the world to go.
Whereas you, dear moderate feminists…well…your battles have been won. Women can vote. Women can own property. Women out number men in colleges. Not only is the wage gap gone, but in some age categories, women now actually out earn men. Women outlive men. Women are in prison less than men. Women are attacked on the street less than men. Women get custody of the kids more than men. “Rape culture” has disappeared out of existence so hard that now a woman can completely make up a story about being raped and be taken seriously by the national media with no proof. Women can now be proud to be sluts! Women can be proud to join the workforce! Women can be completely ashamed of themselves for wanting to be stay-at-home moms. You’ve won!
Conclusion: You don’t exist.
And that’s just the thing…when your movement has won, well, there’s no point in having a movement anymore. When you win the game, you pack up and go home. Your movement ceases to exist. Your identity as a member of that movement ceases to exist. Poof. Gone. Bye bye.
And that, dear feminist is that. Whether it be lawmaking, activism, ideas for going forward, and leadership to guide the way, you just don’t seem to exist on any front, whereas radical feminism seems as real as ever.
So the next time you see an MRA, MGTOW, Red Piller, or average Joe/Jane on the street complain about how whacky feminism is, remember what it is that they’re actually talking about. They’re complaining about the feminism that actually EXISTS in the world. That actually does things, enacts changes, makes policy decisions, writes laws, and maintains an active presence in the universe. They’re not talking about the puff of non-existence that is your precious feminism. So maybe you should give them some slack for attacking something real and dangerous instead of a harmless figment of your imagination. And while you’re at it, maybe just start calling yourself an egalitarian instead. It’ll probably be an equally meaningless title in your hands, but at least people won’t mistakenly confuse you for an actual feminist. That’d be terrible.
I like several things about this.  First, it documents many of the problems with feminism in one place with links.  Second, and more importantly, it forcefully makes the point that political power matters.
There are lots of people who say that feminism is just about equality between men and women.  Even if that any truth to it, that doesn’t matter.  People who think that way (if they exist) don’t have any political power.  It’s the feminists described above who have political power.  They are the ones who are influencing laws and public policy.
There are people who might criticize this as a logical fallacy of defining feminism by which feminists are the “loudest”.  This is not the case.  Being the “loudest” and having the power to create laws and public policy are not necessarily synonymous.  More importantly, how feminism affects people, particularly men in this case, is defined by whoever has the greatest ability to create laws and public policy.  If feminism was just a bunch of annoying cranks then the arguments of silent moderate feminists might have merit.  However, the ability to create laws and public policy trumps that because laws and public policy are enforced by the state.  The state has guns, can put you in prison, and even have you executed (depending on your jurisdiction).
Feminism can and should be defined by the laws and public policy it has been able to create, not by a nonexistent moderate wing that only shows up in internet arguments.  By that definition feminism is a dangerous totalitarian movement that wants to destroy individual freedom.

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