Almost any feminist today, be they a remnant of the second wave or a so called third wave moderate will revert to one programmed defense when faced with facts that paint an unsightly smudge across the believed to be good name of feminism. So simple is this defense that while it can so easily be set aside by those digging up the inherent bigotry of feminism, those tossing dirt back into the hole, feminists, seem to grip this new defensive mechanism as tightly as their ideal that women are being oppressed by men this very second.
What defense may this be? It is quite easy to find out. Speak with a feminist about any of the discriminatory laws passed under the banner of feminism. First they will deny the fact that the laws are discriminatory. Next they will deny that the laws were created and supported by feminists. Finally, after the subject of your one point has been changed and expanded upon about twelve times over, yet still proven, the feminist, faced with facts that her/his movement is a direct cause of bigotry and discrimination will back down, not meekly but rather arrogantly with that one simple defense:
“Not all feminists are like that”
The sentence will have several different variations such as
“There are many subdivisions of feminism”
or
“Those are the radical feminists”
but the intended defense will always be the same. Just because one group within a movement has done terrible things doesn’t mean the entire group is bad. On some levels this can be true. There are many within the Men’s Rights Movement, that wish to return men and women to their roles of the past. However, the most obvious difference between the radicals within the anti-feminist movement and the radicals within the feminist movement is where truth and corruption reveal their true bedmates.
The advocacy the anti-feminist movement undertakes is for equality within western legal systems such as, default shared custody upon divorce, a VAPA (Violence Against People Act), for men accused of rape to be kept out of the media and afforded the same constitutional rights as the accuser, and many other balanced laws that do not favor one gender over the other.
The advocacy of feminists, all feminists, is for the imbalances that grant women special privileges and protection from men to not only continue, but increase. The hypocrisy of those who claim they do not support the so called radical elements of the feminist movement is seen through one simple principle. Those who claim that feminism is a movement for equality always claim that the entire movement is for equality. Yet when they are finally forced to admit that there is discrimination born of the movement, the movement suddenly splits into different subdivisions that all uphold different values and ideals that cannot be blamed for the actions of the other. The statement any feminist will make to you will always be
“Feminists want equality”
not
“My subdivision of feminism wants equality”
yet when you unmask the hypocrisy of feminism the statement will change to
“There are radicals, but feminists want equality”
or something along those lines. The defense may be longwinded but no matter how long the explanation is it will always boil down to those few simple sentences.
Furthermore, another blatantly obvious difference between feminists and anti-feminists is, anti-feminists will actively voice their protest of those who taint the movement with radical ideologies such as
“Women are evil”
or
“All women are whores and liars”
voicing their disdain for these foolish notions. If there was ever a complete opposite, a complete yang of one’s yin, it is the actions that feminists will take towards their radical members, no actions at all. The moderate feminists, the pro this and pro that feminists, will remain silent, while those who taint the movement they believe in so strongly with bigotry continue to shout their hatred to anyone that would listen.
What has happened to those who the MRM and other anti-feminist groups have shunned? They have been sent packing, free to wallow in their hatred of women for whatever legitimate or illegitimate reasons they may have. What was the fate of those within the feminist movement that spoke out against the injustice of its leaders, and its movers and shakers? They were the ones sent packing and branded as anti-feminists. The evidence is easily attainable on any third wave feminism website. Such former feminists as Christina Hoff Sommers and Wendy McElroy who dared to speak upon male issues and the discrimination against men in the west are scorned and slandered routinely on the so called moderate feminist websites.
There are many young men and women today that view feminist propaganda through public service announcements, which feature only men as domestic abusers. In my preteens I remember rape awareness announcements that of course featured only men and young boys as rapists and I once thought those commercials made sense. We are bombarded with billboards, pamphlets, and websites of men destroying women’s lives through violence and sexual abuse. To top it all off, there are college courses young women are now attending in order to not only be convinced of their so called male oppression but also learn how they are being oppressed in their own countries. It is no shock that without nearly as much government funding and media attention with which to counter these lies, many women and men are simply raised to become feminists. The knowledge of these young people is limited to what they are taught, but they are taught that no matter how limited their knowledge is on a certain situation, as long as the outcome of their argument is men are the problem and feminism is the answer then all is well with the world.
Given these facts, one can understand why it matters not that feminists do not agree on how women are being oppressed, the point of the matter is women have not been, nor ever will be oppressed solely because they are women. Given these facts one can understand why they do not have to back down when met with the “not all feminists are like that” defense. Regardless of the ideology they uphold, be it patriarchy, gender socialization, rape culture, or whatever other theories they are cooking up, the fact remains that each and every one of these ideologies paints men as oppressors (forcefully and or unwittingly oppressive) and women as victims (innocent of any damage they may cause to society).
After infancy, no human being is innocent and while I have met very few (4) self identified feminists that acknowledge the discrimination men face in the west with no protest, or senseless theory to explain away the blame feminism carries, the fact still remains that if they were to voice those acknowledgements openly they would face the same scorn as Sommers and McElroy. They would face this scorn because the feminist movement is not one that advocates equality of opportunity but equality of outcome and one feminist propagating the bigotry that is the feminist movement carries the voice of the entire feminist movement, for there is no one within the movement bold enough, or righteous enough to protest it.
One common observation that I have yet to see challenged is simple. Feminists: So Say One, So Say Them All.
