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So from what I've observed on this site the overwhelming majority of the user seem to hate feminism and i mean really really hate feminism. And so i want to understand why. So i propose we have a CIVIL discussion about it.

The rules are simple. Don't use the karma system as a means to disagree with someone's opinion. If you disagree with it then tell us why in a respectful way.

If you have nothing intelligent to say don't say anything

Don't be an asshole. Be respectful

I don't hate feminism… I just hate what people do with the concept.

fair enough. i think a lot of people tend to point out places where feminists will be sexist’s. But the point is is that what those people are doing is not feminism. And I know people will bring up the no true Scotsman fallacy. But the difference is is that feminism is an ideology. Feminism is defined as the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. Anyone and i mean anyone who does or says anything different is not a feminist because their words and actions do not fall in place with the ideology

Feminism is …krshh… and even though …krshh… we can …krshh… the Misandry vs Misogyn …krshh… could it be …krshh… I think …krshh… ideally …krshh… in my opinion …krshh… suck …krshh… my …krshh… nobbus

So i propose we have a CIVIL discussion about it.

I don't think JFF is the place for that, so I'll move it to General now.

@RandomMan

Thanks

The major problem seems to be that people tend not to discern the difference between ordinary Feminism (which is good) and extreme Feminism (which is bad). The difference being not to blame women for being raped (which is good), and all men are rapists and should be castrated at birth for safety (which is bad).

Tumblr Feminism is the worst kind of Feminism

The thing is, no one hates feminism.

Its these screaming barbarians demanding special privileges for usually made up shit, like looking at them is rape, is what pisses everyone off.

I had a large rant coming on, but the universe decided to shut down my power for an hour hue hue hue.

The reason people on this site hate feminism so much is being that most people on KYM spend lots of time online, and online is where you can find the cruel feminists. Offline, most every feminist I meet is just an average person looking for complete equality. Also, most of the people on KYM happen to be males who have little experience interacting with actual females, so they never get to meet normal feminists and all their experiences with feminism is the shitty-kind and people like The Amazing Atheist (who I watch and enjoy from time to time but still disagree with on certain points) jam into their heads the fact that all feminism is bad feminism, no exceptions.

That's just kind of my hypothesis on why. Also, there's the Echo Chamber Effect and overall just the endless circle-jerking of feminist-hate going around. When people are surrounded by people telling them things, even lies, they are more likely to believe it and become indoctrinated into those lies, only pushing the lies further into their head. This quote from Metal Gear Solid 2 basically sums it up:

"Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large."

So from what I’ve observed on this site the overwhelming majority of the user seem to hate feminism and i mean really really hate feminism. And so i want to understand why

A lack of empathy, probably. I doubt many of the users here have any contact with women for various reasons, so they don't understand that they're just people like everyone else and ought to be treated the same as anyone: with respect and decency. That's all feminism is, really. There are misogynists who see it as an attack on their superiority and misandrists who simply hate and believe themselves to be superior, but both are missing the point. It's about equality, and not being treated as objects.

I'm perfectly fine with normal feminism, in fact, I'm an ally with these rights. My line is when somebody says someone who is X is much better than Y or go all special snowflake on everyone, is where I find just ridiculous.

>"I doubt many of the users here have any contact with women"

I don't have contact with women because my waifu gets jealous you ass.

I find that people who frequent the forums don't jump on the feminism hate wagon nearly as much as the people in the comments sections do. It doesn't help that once a hashtag is involved everyone will hate it no matter how valid or important the subject may or may not be. Though to be fair Twitter isn't the best place for political discussion to begin with.

But really, I could handle all the raging anti-feminist hatred the entirety of the internet has to offer, but once someone suggests that feminism is no longer needed in first world countries that's when my jimmies get into a bit of a jam. I feel like people who hold that viewpoint are blind and lack empathy.

Most Civil Rights arguments get jumped on in the comments, not the best place for logical discussion of any kind, the forumgoers are a lot friendlier in that respect.
Personally I'm totally okay with feminism, even god forbid Anita Sarkeesian has some valid points, even if she has some I disagree with. I can totally understand why there is still a need for feminism, I just don't understand why people have such a kneejerk negative reaction to it, it's not like you're going to be negatively affected if women get more rights.

To put it bluntly, without going into detail and yada yada, it can be said that there are two main types of feminists.

1. The regular feminist. Nothing wrong with this one. Feminism is all about striving for equality, equal rights between men and women, removing gender roles in society, and making women regain the rights over their own body again (abortion, clothing, etc.).

Again, there is nothing wrong with that, because equality is a good thing. Just because someone was born a man or a woman shouldn't be a reason to threat them differently in society. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, because you still have the genes mother nature gave us, which makes it that there will always be genetical differences that should be taken into consideration in specific cases. But outside of that, gender should not be a reason to threat someone differently in society.

Therefore it's also normal that male feminists exist. As said, feminism is about striving for equal rights between men and women in society, and a man can strive for this just as easily.

2. The radical feminist. This is the type of 'feminist' you often see being mocked and shamed in the comment section as you noticed as well OP. Known to suffer from tunnel vision, over exaggerates issues, and tends to hang out in echo chambers.

Whereas the normal feminist simply aims for equality, the feminazi's goals can look more as they're aiming for giving women more priveleges than men. And their way to achieve this goal can often seem quite radical (down with the patriarchy and whatnot).

-

So don't believe that feminism is bad, because feminism is about striving for equality, which is a good thing. It's simply the case that a portion of the feminists ruin the image for feminism in general.

It can be said that this is a case of the loud minority. They are the often seen loud minority that ruins it for the calm majority. Like radical muslims ruin the name for the Islam, or something way smaller like fetish porn artists in fandoms ruining the image of their fandom, you have radical feminists ruining the image of feminism.

But the mistake also lies with the mindset of people who read about it, like for example our comment section. They don't look further into the case, but instead ignore the actual case and just sweep it under the big “trivial stuff radical feminists rant about” rug. This is really unfortunate, and it ruins the succession rate of cases that might not be so trivial if you look into them. It also becomes nearly impossible to then have proper discussions about the case, because a vocal minority replied like they did and therefore made it seem like everyone who shares a somewhat similar opinion belongs into the same group.

I am a feminist although some feminists would disown me.

I have to emphasize a couple of points I read here:

• "Also, there’s the Echo Chamber Effect and overall just the endless circle-jerking of feminist-hate going around."
• "That’s all feminism is, really. There are misogynists who see it as an attack on their superiority and misandrists who simply hate and believe themselves to be superior, but both are missing the point."
• "But the difference is is that feminism is an ideology. Feminism is defined as the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."
• "The reason people on this site hate feminism so much is being that most people on KYM spend lots of time online, and online is where you can find the cruel feminists. Offline, most every feminist I meet is just an average person looking for complete equality."

I agree with all of those statements, and I can't add on to what those users have already said concisely.
 
I've spent a decent bit of time around women (I work in public health and did graduate school in a Social Work school,) so I've been around women in a professional setting. Further, a lot of my friends (male and female) are getting married now, so if you know the husband, then you'll get to know the wife (in my case though, the friend was a female herself, or I was already good friends with the the friend's wife before they were married.)

And being around highly intelligent women, I think they'd all say that there is a good bit of sexism going on. Often times, it's just annoying, but as they begin to get into positions with their degrees or as they have children, I think they're beginning to notice more bothersome if not downright detrimental effects. One of my friends just had a child, and she wants to breastfeed. However, she doesn't want to go outside or to a nasty bathroom to breastfeed her kid, so she's having to deal with feelings of being immodest, stares and whispers, and probably outright insults about breastfeeding in public. It's my guess that few people here even thinks about how often babies need food, how bothersome it is to milk yourself to get breast milk into a bottle and then find a way to keep it warm, or how good breast milk is compared to formula milk.

Or you probably don't know what it's like to have to be hyper-vigilant to uphold a certain appearance in certain spheres. For example, because I normally wear jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie with nappy hair, I have to sound very intelligent whenever I speak to a new person to keep from being thought of as a hood or something. On the other end, I I went to a black barbershop and it was expected that I'd know when the busiest times were. I don't, because I cut my own hair. If that happens every once in a while, then that's just annoying. If that happens 3-4 times a day, then that gets to be a systematic hassle.

That's all stuff "minorities" (by power, prestige, number, or otherwise) have to deal with, but a lot of it is stuff we shouldn't have to. It's not intentional, but considering it isn't necessary, I think some reasonable discussion should occur throughout society as to how society can change to promote equality. Of course, not everything can be changed or should be changed, because the changes may be too much trouble for most people. But I think it should be talked about given that people have to go through a bunch of crap a lot of other people don't have to deal with sometimes for no good reason.
 
That's why I tend to be a third-wave feminist, although all of my stances are not that of a third-wave feminist. I think that there is an unintentional preference towards men in society regarding many positions, and I believe there is a strong belief regarding what a man should be and what a woman should be (which can harm both parties, or benefit.) Male suicide rates are an example of the same "system of oppression" that negatively affects men as well.

To answer OP, anyone can hate a loud jerk on Tumblr no matter what their stance is.

I generally explain the hatred of "feminism" towards the third-wave though through the very libertarian way of web culture: You can do whatever you want as long as I can still do whatever I want.

When you're asking such people to avoid certain language, to rethink how you think about gender, or consider things they thought were OK as being not OK, you're going to get a ton of backlash (especially on the Internet where people have found solace, because it's a place of freedom where you can basically do whatever.)
 
You can usually point out those people fairly quickly: They use the crap out of words and prhases like "SJW," "Tumblr," and "special snowflake." They also like to use "fucking" as an adjective a lot.

Verbose wrote:

To answer OP, anyone can hate a loud jerk on Tumblr no matter what their stance is.

You can usually point out those people fairly quickly: They use the crap out of words and prhases like “SJW,” “Tumblr,” and “special snowflake.”

But whether you see it as a lame argument or not, it can be said that the presence of feminism on Tumblr has influenced the image of feminism on the web (mostly negative though).

But as you said, anyone can hate a loud jerk anywhere on the web regardless what their stand is. You don't hate them for the stand, you simply hate them because they're loud jerks, which are two different things. Therefore the loud minority shouldn't influence your opionion on a group in general until you're given more reason, which unfortunately has happened with feminism.

Sounds like a you problem.

No issues? Not necessary? You sound like one of the circle-jerkers confused by the cho chamber we were talking about above. Let me list some problems off for you that are still prevalent:

- Abortion is still a problem
- Fear of breast-feeding in public like Verbose was saying
- Being treated as weaker by many people still
- Not enough representation in high-power positions like big politicians or CEOs and it is more difficult for women to get to these places than men.
- And don't forget the horrors of the lives of women in the third-world.

If I missed any, someone else can add on because I know there are lots.

most kym members opinions about feminism seem to have been tainted by several obnoxious online community e.g. tumblr, twiter. but in person most feminist are completely reasonable people who are willing to explain there opinions rather then immediately chastise anyone who disagrees with them.

I was going to say the same but you said pretty much everything. I'd also add wage gap and rape discussions.

>"Social movements from 1974"

I'm gonna skip most of the explanation and just quote Wikipedia here:

Charles Fourier, a Utopian Socialist and French philosopher, is credited with having coined the word "feminism" in 1837. The words "feminism" and "feminist" first appeared in France and the Netherlands in 1872, Great Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910, and the Oxford English Dictionary lists 1894 as the year of the first appearance of "feminist" and 1895 for "feminism". Depending on historical moment, culture and country, feminists around the world have had different causes and goals. Most western feminist historians assert that all movements that work to obtain women's rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves.

>"Social movements from 1974"

As you can see, feminism has already been around for centuries, and that wouldn't have been the case if issues were solved back in the Nineteenth century already. But not all problems have been fixed, and inequality still exists. Therefore feminism also still exists, because those are issues that need to be fixed.

Please educate yourself first, and follow the advice given to you in your previous thread about the same things you're listing here.

As for the article you're linking. You're clearly not looking deeper into the message, because you completely misunderstood what she said.

The only cringeworthy thing I see here is perhaps your shallow mindset.

I think a BIG part of it is the echo chamber effect. Another source of the misunderstanding is the simple fact that most people don't really understand how privilege/patriarchy/etc. works, and I completely understand that. Then you have just plain ol' stereotyping and strawmen galore.

If you look closely, you'll see that almost all of the antifeminist comments are coming from the same 4 or 5 people. The upvotes/downvotes on the other hand, that is how we know it's a site-wide trend and not just a couple of people.

I'm with you, TripleA. Sometimes this site feels like this fanfic broadcast on a loudspeaker over and over again.

Well, in spirit of preventing circlejerks (although I also disagree with the user's you responded to stance,) I'll actually counter those points as best as I can. Just like how most stated feminists aren't idiots, people who…well, not everyone on the other side of an argument isn't an idiot.

• Although I think people don't always acknowledge the underlying reality of legislating abortion (i.e., a bunch of old, white men with money telling women what to do about the children they are expected by society to raise, wanted or not,)
  • Abortion will probably always be a problem as long as people see abortion as the unnecessary killing of a child. Personally, I can't argue very hard against abortion when the mother isn't at any fault or the child will likely be doomed or would very like doom the mother immediately. But in instances where the sex was consensual, I think the child should be borne. I do recognize the issue with "telling a woman what to do with her body," but I still see the life a child as not being a mother's decision to take away at any point. I would argue that the child should decide whether or not it wants to die later in life and not the mother. I'm not saying mothers who decide to have abortions outside of rape or incest are irresponsible nor am I saying they make the decision to get an abortion lightly. But I will say that sex comes with risks, and I don't think abortion is an ethical option in terms of planned parenthood.
    • It should be noted that I am a Christian, and I hold life in higher regard than most. I do recognize that a fetus won't even be truly aware of any pain it is in especially in the first trimester, but my faith is not really negotiable.
• Well, there is the obvious matter that you're baring a normally concealed part of the body, one that is normally used in any sexual relationship as a point of pleasure. You can argue that it's not being used in a sexual way, but a streaker isn't streaking in a sexual way either. It is very inconvenient to have to leave a room just to feed your growing kids who needs milk every other hour, but so is farting, and that need might be even more frequent than feeding.
• Well…one, let's not pretend that women aren't as physically strong as men. Even beyond that, you'll probably find that most straight women desire (if not require) a man to be bigger and stronger than them in their most intimate relationships. To be held in their strong arms, to be submissive in sex…in the most core, personal interactions, many (at least) women, if not most, prefer the man to be stronger. And many still like or subscribe to norms established in the belief that women are the weaker sex.
• Well, the devil is in the details. People argue that women may just plain not go for these sorts of positions, but I can't really argue for it. You don't "go" for a CEO positions. It's generally offered without an interview.
• That is true, but those are entirely different cultures. What he's probably talking about is in the western world where women still outlive men.

Truth be told I think its because most of the people on this site haven't met the right feminists. I know this because for a good chunk of time i hated feminism too for a while. But was because some of my exposure to feminism was people who would say things like, a woman can't rape a man. Or women can't be sexists. And don't even get me started on radical feminists (who for some reason seem to be much more prevalent on the internet). But after seeing a few debates on this side from both sides and a little learning of my own I decided that feminism wasn't as bad as i thought it was and that those people i had encountered weren't true feminists. And i believe this because i've people on this site before who have convinced other people that feminism is good.

-I have to agree with you that abortion is not only a issue of discrimination.
-I think society could handle exposed breast much better then most people give it cedit for, only complete creeps would gawk over someone breast feeding.
-im unsure if you are endorsing this your self? but really believing that women are unfit for positions of power is by definition sexist.
-actually women just live longer in general. http://www.prb.org/DataFinder/Topic/Rankings.aspx?ind=6

What the Feminist movement is and was IRL

What it is on the internet

and this is a true description of Feminist Trolls on the internet and Male trolls who love to spread the hate and heated discussion. I find any and all discussions of topics like this to be Bait.

there are two reasons why people are going to hate feminism

1. some of the feminists ("feminists") are doing it wrong
2. some non-feminists are trolling by posing as feminists doing it wrong

I don't hate feminism. I just do not want to be involved with it in anyway (I'm not against it and all for equal rights) for three reason. 1. I do not and probably cannot understand the problems women face. 2 My experience with females wasn't bad or anything but I just don't have many female friends or interact with them that much. 3 I have my own problems to deal with and I need to sort them out.

Also I just like everyone has mentioned don't like the feminazis/misandrists.

Much of what I was going to say has already been said.

All I can add is that I've noticed that the reputation of feminism took a sharp decline, after the actions of male haters went viral across the internet in our favorite Fail Images, and this was labeled feminism

Though their behavior is few and a minority, the typical effect of the "loud minority" once again painted a foul image over the entire movement. Reducing the image of feminists to being hateful aggressive tumblr users that constantly defame men as worthless slobs.

People of the internet love to exaggerate and overreact to things completely out of proportion so when one feminist says "kill all men", suddenly millions of people feel like they are at war with feminists. I feel that this is how we got to this point in a nutshell.

I don't hate feminism. I agree with it. I simply don't approve of how it has been used by a small but vocal minority.

Feminism as a philosophy is good. As the goal is to keep the playing ground even and fair for both sexes.What's bad is taking feminism as a battle standard to wave against men with rallying cries of war.

I believe it is not so much feminism itself, but aggressive and bitter anti-male attitudes that the internet collectively hates and responds towards with equal amounts of anti-female sentiments from disgruntled men. It is unfortunate that both feminism and male rights movements suffer as collateral damage in these trades of angst between genders

The reason some people disagree (or hate) with feminism is that, I just don't think it's being used properly by certain people within feminism. As a philosophy, it is a relatively good one. Flawed, yes, but it was created with good intentions. It's just that some 'feminists' misuse the idea of feminism to hate males, attack anyone who disagrees with them and otherwise tumblr the living crap out of the movement. This probably gives a few people negative opinions about all feminists, which is pretty unfair. It does become pretty hard not to label feminism as oppressive and aggressive when #killallmen is being thrown around carelessly.

tl:dr femenazis are the worst

I think people are looking for something evil to tear apart, but there simply isn't enough close by evil in the world to really yell at. So the most logical thing to do is to make stuff up to yell and scream at, which endangers legitimate problems and holds back whatever progress was made to equalize us so that the merit of our skill defined us, not physical traits.

It's sad really that a hateful ninny often speaks for a larger group.

Interesting article about MRAs came up on Cracked just as I was finished lurking this thread

The MRA movement is an interesting one to me. Before I even knew the movement existed I held the opinion that men have their own fight with sexism and societal norms that doesn't get nearly as much recognition as women's issues do, and when I first learned about Men's Rights I was under the impression they were thinking the same thing. Let's just say I was sadly disappointed to see that it wasn't so much wanting their own recognition or their issues as much as it was straight up misogyny and anti-feminism. I'm not going to pretend there are no MRAs out there that actually want to do things with their movement other than hate women, but let's just say they're definitely the minority in that group. Men's Rights isn't necessarily a movement I want to disappear, though, but I want to see this movement actually get its shit together and move away from "hate group" territory and more towards "respectable equal rights movement" territory.

@Locks

So I read that article, and, well…

I would rather not see these kinds of "gay, redpill, and proud" posts. Masculinity is in part defined by our attraction to the feminine. If your preference is to be a man-pleaser then you're not expressing any kind of masculinity that's worth celebrating.
Quote from a "Men's Rights" group on Reddit

Yeah, fuck those guys. They're the sort of 'man' that society really needs to outgrow. The idea that the only valid form of masculinity is that which involves fighting, beer-drinking, weight-lifting, and a strange obsession with breasts is just as backwards as the idea that women should be house-keepers and caretakers above all else. This mentality may be partly to blame for the high male suicide rate, since it leads to men putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on themselves and not seeking help when they become depressed (because after all, 'A real man can handle his own problems').

As much as I'd love to see that movement crash and burn, I do wish there could be a little more focus on real men's rights issues. I'm not sure what the situation is in the US, but in the UK it's gotten to the point where female students are outperforming male students in just about every subject in schools. There are also issues involving male depression and feelings of inferiority that should be addressed, and something should probably be done about the idea that men are basically expendable while women are sacred beings that should be protected at all costs. As much as it may seem admirable to call out 'women and children first' on a sinking ship, it doesn't really seem fair that possessing a pair of testicles should doom you to an early grave. I understand that there are biological justifications behind the idea that the lives of women are more valuable than those of men, but they aren't particularly relevant in modern society.

[I'd comment on feminism itself, but my views have been expressed several times already. I can sum them up as 'feminism is a great idea, shame about all of those crazies though']

There's really nothing I can say that hasn't already been said.

Feminism is great. Feminism is fine and dandy.

Hell, equal rights in general is awesome.

But you can't push your own agenda to the point where (if it were to come true) it would put someone else at a disadvantage. I'm, of course, talking about extremists.

It makes me sad when I'm cruising the web and I stumble across a feminist blog that clearly states that if I've got man-baggage, I identify as a male, and I'm white, I shouldn't exist, regardless of whether or not I've done anything to harm them.

It makes me sad that somebody could take something as great as equal rights and warp it to be something the Aryan Brotherhood would be proud of.

Just some observations I've had while arguing about it on the internet, obviously this is IMO:

1. Feminism is the "enemy" [for parts of the internet]. When someone's part of the "enemy", it doesn't matter how reasonable they are or how sensible their arguments – they're bad, stupid and wrong, plain and simple. When you read and respond to someone on the "enemy side", you aren't looking for good points, common ground or to evolve your opinions based on new arguments, you're looking for something to pick apart, expose how flawed and horrible their position is compared to yours, and show how much better you and your team are than them and their team. And, contrariwise, when you read something from someone on "your side", you aren't going to be going out of your way to look for flaws, and if you do see them you'll see it as understandable and doesn't really detract from their and your position being correct. This isn't usually concious, and it's probably because it doesn't feel nice to feel like you could be wrong about something, whereas it feels good to be reinforced in what you think. Much has been made about confirmation bias, but it's not something specific people suffer from (i.e. the "enemy") – everyone has it, and this is it.

That's the problem I have with the "crazy feminists" argument. Sure, there are some really unpleasant feminists. There's also really unpleasant anti-feminists, and unpleasant people in general, everywhere, esp. on the internet. The reason people notice the unpleasant feminists is because they already have a vested interest in finding unpleasant feminists. Feminism gets a bad name from these people not merely because they exist or are vocal, but because people want to find them, talk about them, and give them exposure, as it supports their preconceived notion of feminists being bad.

Also, this sort of thing colours everything, so someone can be fairly reasonable with good, well balanced points, and still come across as one of the "crazies", because everything they say and do is examined in minute detail to find the flaws, exaggerate them, shout them to the rooftops and minimize anything good they've done. Anita Sarkeesian is, IMO, a good example of this. She's not perfect by any means and her work very definitely has room for improvement. But, she's not the second coming of Satan concocting an ingenious and elaborate scheme to strip innocent people out of their money while at the same time being a barely functional meat-head who can barely string two words together let alone make anything close to a good point, either. She's just a normal, human lady, who's making videos about something she wants to make videos about, with all the positives and flaws that a human doing something entails.

But, as she's a feminist, she's already the "enemy", and from there on it just gets worse because now she's the enemy everything about her that isn't perfect (and some things that are outright made up) is going to be picked up and used as evidence that she's bad, stupid, and wrong. The enemy has to be those things – it's the enemy!

2. Feminism is a very complex topic. It's historically been pretty well entwined with academia, and so it involves lots of subtle, nuanced ideas that aren't something you can fit in a caption or a Tweet etc. Since people aren't usually inclined to spend a lot of time researching something (esp. when it's from "the enemy" – who wants to spend time reading stuff you already know is wrong?), they're going to get the wrong end of the stick a lot of the time when these ideas are brought up. This obviously isn't necessarily their fault, because in all seriousness who does have the time to research everything in depth? But by the same token, people who do understand it to some degree can't be expected to educate everyone they meet about the concepts involved, because that would take even more time.

As an example of this: As I understand it, "patriarchy" (a.k.a. kyriarchy for a more intersectional version of the idea) isn't a crazy conspiracy theory that all men are scheming to oppress all women, or blaming men for all the world's ills. It's the idea that society is set up in such a way that benefits a very small group of people (i.e. specifically rich, powerful men), and is biased towards men and masculinity and against women and femininity, and sets up strict gender roles to enforce all this. It may have formed over time without any specific concious or deliberate design, people of all genders perpetuate it, and usually unintentionally, because it's so much a part of our world that it's as natural to us as breathing – it doesn't necessarily make anyone a bad person. And it's harmful to everyone who isn't in that small group of people it benefits – men face many problems because of it as well as women, a lot of which are the sort of thing people try to use as ammunition against feminists, who are the very people trying to do something about the root of the problem in the first place.

But people don't get this, they don't understand the complex ideas behind it (nor do they wish to take the time to understand), they see people saying the word, assume it's a crazy conspiracy theory that they themselves are oppressing women, chalk the person using the term as crazy/stupid/bad, and go on the attack.

3. Feminism is constantly slammed. You guys think feminism having a bad reputation started with Tumblr? It didn't. Feminism has always been getting bad rap, right from the word go, including the times when people currently think feminism was "useful" vs. now. This is because it threatens the status quo, and those that benefit from it, i.e. rich, powerful men. The sort of people that also happen to have a lot of control over the media, and can heavily influence the public discourse. And once you've influenced the discourse just enough to make people consider something "the enemy", they will, again, go out of their way to find problems with it, because that's how people's minds work.

It's not an accident that the "feminazi" term that people are so fond of using was popularized by Rush Limbaugh.

4. Feminism focuses on women, and people do not like it when something is about women and not men, because men are expected to be the focus (patriarchy in action). There are things that focus mainly and exclusively on men all the time and people rarely bat an eyelid, but any time anything is about women and not men, I guaranteed you'll find at least one person, if not several, bringing up men and trying to divert the conversation to be about that.

Now of course, there's definitely a need to discuss issues that affect men as well as those that affect women, but not all the time, everywhere, to the exclusion of ever discussing issues that affect women. The reason why feminism exists in the first place is that conversations were dominated by talk about men all the time, and women's issues were ignored. If we were to exclusively have "equalism" instead of feminism as so many people very vocally wish for, we'd most likely end up with the same situation – those with the most societal power and thus the "loudest" voices will dominate the discussion. There needs to be things that specifically address women (and, indeed, other groups with less societal power like ethnic minorities, LGBT people etc.) because otherwise there will be little if anything that addresses them at all.

5. Feminists can be rather aggressive towards people who disagree with them. Again, I believe this comes down to the "enemy" thing. No one is immune to it, not anti-feminists and not feminists (and certainly not me). So of course, you have a fairly reasonable person who kinda hasn't heard very good things about feminism, doesn't really know much about it, and so asks a feminist some questions. The feminist, who's been on the receiving end of these sorts of questions for a long time, often by people who aren't actually very interested in the answers but, again, scoring points against "the enemy", doesn't want to spend time educating yet another person and so isn't all that nice or helpful. The other person is understandably offended and so acts aggressively back, and so the battle-lines are reinforced. Neither person is unreasonable or stupid or mean, they're just set against each other by circumstance.

I think another problem is that feminists can assume that because feminism is a good thing, and there isn't really any particularly good reason to disagree with it in and of itself, anyone who doesn't classify themselves as a feminist or, gods forbid, is against feminism, must disagree with the women being equal to men for some reason, and so they're probably a bad person. But this isn't usually the case in my experience, it's again because they don't understand the complexities of it and/or they see feminism as being "bad" for some other reason and so it's the "enemy". Basically, people are more often flawed/ignorant, not deliberately malicious, and people forget that (which in and of itself is being flawed/ignorant rather than malicious).

6. People don't like the name. Seems a little petty, and the name isn't likely to change any time soon, but oh well.

7. More stuff, but this is already long enough.

Anyway, I'm not trying to specifically call out anti-feminists as being unique in these things – it's just human nature that affects feminists/me as much as the next person. But it does strike me that the hostility towards feminism has very little to do with what feminism is or what feminists are actually saying and more to do with people's preconceived notions and ignorance on the topic. /rant

EDIT: Oh gosh, that was longer than I thought it was going to be. Sorry guys!

@Twee

Feminism is the enemy

I decided to add some context here so people dont instantly downvote you for calling feminists the enemy

I think you meant to say don't, mate.

GG no RE.

Haha, good idea. I see how that could have been misconstrued.

Saw that article too.

On the internet, there are two kinds of MRAs.

1. Angry people with a laughably twisted view of feminism who are convinced that it is hell-bent on the destruction of men and human society. These are just anti-feminists, and not actively fighting for men's rights.

2. Concerned people providing resources and support for men and boys, as well as doing serious thinking about how society is biased against men/how this originated. These people are usually feminists as well, and understand that both movements can work together.

Don't lump the useful MRAs with the antifeminists!

The problem with the MRA movement is that most of its members who are open about it are like this unlike the feminist movement where it's only a few crazies. Also, the MRA movement was built and primarily exists in shitty parts of the internet like deep 4chan or deep Reddit. Just like the feminist crazies, the MRA crazies only seem to hold equality for both genders back instead of advance it. I really wish there were more level-headed MRAs out there. I consider myself to be somewhat of an MRA as well as a feminist and it's a shame how so many MRAs aren't really concerned with equality at all. My goal for the MRA movement is that you don't really have to be a manly man (breadwinner, never care for kids, always muscular, beer, tits, etc.) to be accepted in society.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

We still have "a lot of ":http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rape_culture work to do.

Another possible issue why there is hostility to feminism is there's good people who get confused and fed up with the way feminists combat misogyny. Because I do think the internet is the right place to get it done or at least on websites where there the focus of the site has nothing really to do with these movements are just frankly irritating. I don't go on websites unrelated to feminism to get moaned at for being born a white male who is straight. A lot of the time it just feels as if either your some kind of dirty misogynist scum that tries to protect the patriarchy for not being born a woman or your some man trying to be "a special snowflake" because I'm pretty sure those snowflakes wouldn't be so special if feminists didn't instantly assume that a guy can not be a feminist but also not an asshole or someone who is just saying "well i'm not like that."

Ultimately now it's got to the point where I actually don't care what feminists has to say because I realized I shouldn't. If not wanting to discuss it anymore makes me some kind of asshole then whatever.

i have to agree with spider-byte, fighting for equality is a good cause and everything but sometimes people can start making assumptions. It can be a bit overwhelming. For example Although what people may say about woman being not as important in video games as male is 100% true, the idea that I play only video games in order to pursue virtual woman, or to explore a power fantasy I feel is heavily sexist because it's basically saying the only thing men care about is sex and feeling badass. I play videos games because they're fun, and I like a game with a good story

This video sums up my opinion on it fairly well

I'm going to add my two cents
I believe feminism is a dated movement. First wave and second wave feminism? That has my complete and utter respect. Third wave feminism? Pls go
The reason I say this is because the major inequalities between genders were tackled and removed by the first and second movements. The right to vote? Check. Equal education opportunities? Check, in fact, there are several scholarships offered only to women where I live. Equal employment opportunities? Most countries I know of have several laws specifically regarding this, so check.
More women than men are graduating from universities. The pay gap myth was debunked by this (tl:dr for those who don't want to read: it's basically saying that the gender pay is explained through degree choice and women choosing to sacrifice more time for their families).
So why does feminism continue?
I understand that there are still instances of sexism, but does this really constitute a movement for it? Feminism used to exist because there were major differences between genders universally and this needed to be remedied. And it has been remedied. Instances of sexism does not provide substance for the existence of a movement like this…. unless, feminism morphs into egalitarianism, which I whole heartedly support, and would even campaign for. I believe this should happen because there are also many instances of sexism against males.
I really don't believe in "rape culture" nor "the patriarchy." I believe both of those were made up by extremists to begin with, and feminism exploited it to be victimized
And therein lies my main dislike of feminism. The victimization. It doesn't fix anything! Why do it? I think feminism does it because it lost mainstream support (for good reason) and is trying to gather sympathy to become mainstream again.

I've seen a lot of feminists argue that feminism is for equality. If this was true, I would suggest my previous thought of feminism turning into egalitarianism, which is basically a movement for equality. However, I don't think this is true. Despite claiming they fight for equality, feminism really only brings up female-only issues. And even the name, "feminism" denotes a preference for fighting for female rights.
So, feminism, should it exist?
….not on the large scale it is now. Yes, sexism happens, but you don't need a global movement to support this. More like a weekly AA-type meeting to provide support. Feminism should continue to exist, but on a much, much smaller scale, and on a more specialized level, depending on the situation (so, community based feminism)
The rest of feminism should convert to egalitarianism in order to fight the sexism that occurs against both men and women in all countries where it exists on a large scale.
EDIT: I see a previous member has already quoted the dated pay gap myth. Also quoting Rape culture, which I neglected to go over, which I shall do now.
Rape Culture. As quoted by Wikipedia; Rape culture is a concept that links rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society,[1] and in which prevalent attitudes and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape.[2]
Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, and trivializing rape. Rape culture has been used to model behavior within social groups, including prison rape and conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire countries have also been alleged to be rape cultures.[3][4][5][6][7]

Now, let me pick this apart.
I'd have to say, that like feminism, the worst part of this so called "culture" have been brought out and put to light.
Now, I consider myself an average guy, in touch with society. And do tell me if I'm wrong, but I have encountered no male who believes that rape is a good thing that deserves praise. Heck, at high school (a few years back), a guy slept with a drunk chick and got the shit beaten out of him by some guys the next day. And from the all the high schools I have been to, or asked about, they have all taught that rape extremely wrong and wicked. So, no to the normalization and encouragement. Onto objectifying. Both sexes are objectified. From what I have encountered in my life, females complain about it much more than men. So this must mean it happens to them more, right? Nope, not in my experience. Most of the objectification comes from teenagers. This comes from hormones, which stems from puberty. For one thing, blaming puberty as sexist is silly, but on another, males are simply more outspoken and visible with their objectification. That is not to say female objectification does not exist. Now, we all the time see men ripped with muscles and abs. In the famous shortpacked comic, the author (who is a male feminist) claims that this is a male power fantasy and not female sexualization. WRONG On many "best selling" female dirty novels, it has ripped males all over it. I see a lot of females talking about ripped guys.
Now you may say this is just the media, it doesn't exist in most places and highschools. Again, wrong. I was good friends with the head boy at my highschool. He told me, and I experienced it myself being a house captain, that girls would always objectify the males who they thought were good looking. He was actually sick of it, and embarrassed about it.
So objectification, is it a problem? Hmmm…. maybe…. is it a female only problem? Nope.
And onto victim blaming. Now, this has to be a gigantic misinterpretation by feminism.
We are not blaming the victim. We are saying that the victims should excersize more caution and show more responsibility with themselves and their actions. Just as if you were in a sketchy neighbourhood, you wouldn't leave your car unlocked, or your house unlocked. Heck, you wouldn't do that in a nice neighbourhood. FACT: there will always be psychopaths. You cannot remove psychopaths. If it were possible, this would have been done a long time ago, and not just with rape. So, if you're at a party where you don't know someone who you trust enough to look after you, don't get black out drunk….. and if you are drunk but still perceptive, it's not rape. Why do we blame the drivers in a drunk driving accident? Because they showed bad judgement in driving a car. Similarly, if you are able to recall making that decision, it was bad decision making on your part. This is where it's a lot more grey, because I know in some situations, it is the males taking advantage of the drunk females (and yes, it happens vice versa.) But even so, you cannot paint women as a damsel in distress when it suits you. Women are not weak like that. Don't dishonour past feminists by painting them as such. Females should be responsible with themselves, just as males are expected to be.
And finally, onto the most stupid part of "rape culture"
Trivialization…. if rape jokes are not allowed, then neither are murder jokes. That is all I have to say on the matter.

@Mr. Mercury:

You make a well thought out argument, and I can agree on certain aspects. But I feel your impression that sexism only really exists in small instances that don't require a huge movement anymore is due to you never being a woman who experienced it themselves in the modern day. I'm not saying this makes your opinion invalid, but it's good to keep in mind that what one side may perceive may not always reflect what's actually happening. I can agree that some aspects that feminism focuses on now are overblown, but not all of it is. The one thing in your argument that I can 100% get behind is that men's issues do not get nearly as much recognition as they deserve. Personally, I feel one of the things feminism needs to put the most focus on is giving men's issues as much attention as women's. Unfortunately feminists seem to be at war with each other more than ever and it seems recognition of men's issues is moving in the opposite direction.

I could go on about every statement you made in that long post, but frankly my head isn't in the right place to be making huge walls of text about feminism. One thing I will say is that the existence of the poisonous side of the Men's Rights Movement (and don't pretend that it's just a handful of people in that group) is proof enough that sexism is alive and well and we still need feminism (ironically enough even though MRM started as a backlash to feminism)