Talk:Antifeminism

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Poor quality

I agree in general with Ariel31459 and 206.174.0.58. There is quite a lot problematic about this article and indeed many on this wiki. However, I see two paths. Get to work cleaning the mess, or start a better wiki. No rational oriented community should be using vapour numbers ("some", "most"). Oh, and I'm quite amused by "Your IP address will be recorded in this page's edit history, and will be visible to anyone", which matters very little to those of us getting a new IP addy every time the DHCP lease expires. I had such hopes for you, RationalWiki. Hopefully there's better efforts in future. ^{— Unsigned, by: 67.161.9.245 / talk / contribs}

Go ahead and get started on that new wiki — we'll be right over. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 05:49, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Deliberate misunderstanding/distortion of facts

In the section "Critical theory and Cultural Marxism", it is said that calling feminism based on/a branch of critical theory/cultural marxism is not accurate because: "Critical theory arose in the 1930's,[29] and Cultural Marxism in the 1960's, with its first use as a term in 1973... It is hard to claim that feminism is a subset of critical theory, when it predates the earliest critical theorists by at least 70 years."

A quick analysis: Obviously, most people who say that feminism is based on c.t./c.m. are referring to modern/3rd-wave feminism. No rational person would believe early/non-modern feminists were influenced by c.t./c.m. So right off the bat the author either misunderstands the argument, or constructs a strawman to get around it. Now, the question isn't whether: "Is feminism, as seen today, based on c.t./c.m.?" But "Did c.t./c.m. influence all waves/incarnations of feminism?" This allows the article to sneakily and manipulatively get around the actual point raised by addressing an obviously false strawman. So this leaves us with three choices.

1) All writers of this article misunderstand the argument according to which modern feminism is based on/heavily influenced by c.t./c.m. 2) It is generally accepted that modern feminism is largely heavily influenced by c.t./c.m. To conceal this from the reader, a strawman is constructed. 3) It is generally not accepted that modern feminism is largely heavily influenced by c.t./c.m., but the writers don't have or can't point to facts which justify their view. A strawman is constructed, hopefully to lure the reader into accepting whatever dogma was just imparted on them without trying to critically examine the issue themselves.

Let's hope this article can become even slightly less ideologically biased.

E: Also mandatory mention on how the article completely discards the fact that 1st-world feminists are most concerned with jokes, achieving equal rights when no woman (in (most) the western world) doesn't have a right that a man has. Meanwhile, outside the western world, women face actual oppression. That's a mild word for it, but in any case, it's just infuriating how fucked up feminists' priorities are. Like their 1st-world problems compare in any way to FGM or oppression a tenfold worse. ^{— Unsigned, by: Aninterestingthought / talk / contribs}

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First of all: You may likely be right that the entire enterprise of feminism isn't as closely connected to critical theory as the article claims. In that case, a well-sourced rewrite is the obvious solution.

Secondly: "Deliberate distortion"? Calm down there, Infowarrior.

Thirdly: Nice whataboutism.

Fourthly: One of the major points of third wave feminism was to share this exact criticism — how 2nd wave feminism focused too much on white, well-off women who had things incomparably freer than women in the third world. That exact uproar marked the birth of third world feminism and postcolonial feminism. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:18, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Why should gay rights supporters be campaigning in the USA when gays already have rights??? Don't they know that there's still places where gays are slaughtered??? FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 15:06, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

The Feminzi link

...loops back to this page.

And surely the term of itself violates the first derivative of Godwin's law ('whoever mentions Hitler/the Nazis/Stalin/other dogwhistle person without justification automatically loses the argument')? 31.51.114.61 (talk) 21:55, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

It seems fine. The manosphere glossary entry points the reader to antifeminism, and the antifeminism entry points the reader to the manosphere glossary. The point is, if you're reading one of the articles, the other is relevant too. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 22:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Shitty, biased article, right from the beginning

The vast majority of people who describe themselves as anti-feminist, and especially the most prominent ones, do not fit any of the categories this article opens with. The article may as well open by asking us when we stopped beating our wives. The overwhelming majority of anti-feminists describe themselves as such because they are responding to the absolutely batshit crazy radfems we find ourselves increasingly surrounded by. The authors here are quite obviously frightened by and/or threatened by AF's, and therefore erect the traditional feminist strawman in the very first paragraph. That because we oppose feminists, we must hate women. Never mind that only a tiny amount of WOMEN will even call themselves feminists. They're all self-hating women, of course, and this condescending, infantalizing twaddle isn't sexist because WE'RE the ones saying it, and we can't possibly be sexist because. Because because. What a complete crock of shit this is.

Neuralsim (talk) 13:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

'Feminist strawman' sums up what the problem is (and possibly 'erect' if one wishes to use creative misinterpretations of Freudian analysis).

Most such movements will have 'more mainstream' and 'more fringe' elements - some of which will be rather radical, extreme or peculiar. As some components become part of the generally accepted worldview (equal pay and opportunities for promotion/access to resources etc) what is left will appear to be more strange - and those promoting the cause will have to define themselves against the new mainstream. 86.146.100.0 (talk) 10:20, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Charges of misrepresentation (from all sides; some of them warranted) are likely unavoidable when dealing with such an inherently divisive supposition as "fair exchange between antifeminism and feminism". It's far from obvious that such an exchange could even take place (especially in the sense of 'pleasing everyone involved').

And there's much to say on it all — the subtopics are too numerous to list, ranging from the political (views on abortion, free speech, childcare policies, transgender bathrooms, etc) past the philosophical (postmodernism, feminist epistemology, gender supremacy/equality, etc) and beyond.

With or without feminism — religion, culture and all the rest would obviously still clash. As such, one would be misguided to consider feminism 'the cause of the troubles', per se. Feminism just happens to be the name of one important 'battleground', in a proverbial war that would by necessity be taking place, regardless of what we'd call it.

Now, the article doesn't speak for me (no article does), and I don't speak for the article (nor any article). And this particular article, in its current state, obviously doesn't rank among any of our best (even in our view, per brainstar rating). And I'll be the first to state the obvious fact that it could use a lot of work.

But even so, I think I'm not alone in considering antifeminism to mean — to pick one candidate wording — something broadly akin to "the wishing away (and/or active dismantling attempts) of much of the civil rights progress of the past odd century". I don't mean to give this as a definition of antifeminism, but more as an impression of it (if you will).

And really, as misrepresentative or subjective as that might sound to you — the important thing to remember here is that (regardless of which impression one assigns to a term) that is about as much meaning as any given 'topmost umbrella term' (cf. "feminist" and "antifeminist") is even able to carry on its own.

Indeed, what could be taken for 'strawmanning' actually results, atleast in part, from a linguistic feature of umbrella terms — they are true (i.e. convenient), but only in a trivial sense (as they lack precision and depth by design).

Now, I'm not defending the article — or antifeminism, or whatever — in saying this. All I'm saying is that; considering both human nature and the vagueness of the terms involved, anyone who thinks the issue could ever be as simple as "all X are unequivocally good/right and all Y are unequivocally bad/wrong" frankly lacks the psychological maturity to grapple with the subject in the first place. This, I state as fact.

Where opinion (informed or not) comes in is concerning questions like; does X or Y represent my values better (e.g., aligns better/worse with religious traditionalism)? Is "valid criticisms of X" and "Y" really the same? Are X and Y really comparable (e.g., which, if any, has acceptance in academia?). Is X basically infinitely less bad than Y? Etc.

While centrist, I'm certainly more to the left than to the right. As such, here's another opinion: I call myself a feminist without blinking when the context relays the intended definitional triviality (i.e. "I like rights for all people"). It also helpfully communicates that, if nothing else, I'm not antifeminist (i.e. "I dislike rights for certain people").

But for anyone seeking to find out my views in particular, we'd have to discuss the specific issues at hand — work, which no label (no matter how convenient) could ever save you. It may be helpful to keep this in mind the next time things seem "shitty and biased right from the beginning". With sufficient personal outrage investment on your part, things inevitably will. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:07, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

RBP - I was responding in part to the previous comment.

And would you agree with my 'generalisation about all such movements'? (Being of the 'as far as practical treat people on what they can do/what they are personally responsible for, rather than the aspects which they are not' persuasion - but there will always be a tendency to group people into "us" and "them.") 86.146.100.0 (talk) 21:47, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Privileged point of view doesn't belong here

Aside from the Marxist subsection, the "First world, middle-class white, privileged point of view" section is has valid criticism of feminism. Instead of being against feminists as a whole, it argues for a widening of scope of the women to focus on, and there's an obvious support for women's rights. In contrast, the Marxist argument argues for a shift of focus, therefore, it's quite different from the other subsections. Although the Marxist subsection is a crank idea in my view, it still advocates women's rights, even if it goes against the mainstream version. Because of this, I think the entire section can be moved to the Feminism article.—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 20:14, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Definition needs modification

1. Opposes the entire project of feminism, 2. Opposes equality between the sexes, 3. Considers one biological sex inferior to the other (typically women to men),

Some critics of feminism call themselves anti-feminists but insist that none of the three characteristics of anti-feminism apply to themselves. Now, we could conclude that they are just wrong (misusing the term), or we must assert they are dishonest. I don't see how the latter assumption is generally tenable. I suppose one could employ the "useful idiots" clause in the definition, but I prefer not to resort to partisan ridicule. As an example I would mention the youtuber Armoured Skeptic, a feminist nutpicker.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2018 (UTC)