Why I Don’t Like Feminism via /r/anti_feminism

Many people do not understand why feminism is widely disliked. I'm here to shed some light on that. Let's begin listing all the things wrong with feminism.

1. It lacks objective criteria. In others, nothing is rigidly and universally defined, which is quite a problem for a movement that is supposed to reach a certain goal. There are two sub-issues that exist because of this major flaw:
2. There is no objective measuring stick for determining equality. Almost all of feminism's goals are based entirely on feelings, which makes them impossible to reach because everyone has different feelings about something. You'll often hear feminists say, “Equality will be reached when women feel safe walking down the streets at night, when women stop being harassed in the workplace, and when women stop having gender slurs said to them.” Do you notice a pattern, here? There's nothing objective about any of these goals. Do you ever wonder why feminism hasn't stopped after the 20th century? The suffrage, civil rights, and abolitionist movements stopped. Feminism didn't. This is why people have constantly told feminists to stop complaining. They already have access to everything in society, just like men, so what exactly are they fighting for, and when will they stop? Without objective, tangible goals, how will you ever hope for your movement to succeed?

3. The movement has no organization to it whatsoever. It's too divisive. For one, you have so many different flavors of feminists that range from sex-positive to individualist. Another thing is that the definition of being a feminist is so loosely defined that many of these people are flinging No True Scotsman fallacies at each other. “Oh, they're not real feminists!” “Oh, you're not a real feminist!” This raises an important question: what exactly is a feminist? Is a feminist someone who simply believes that men and women are equal, or is it someone who advocates for women's rights? Is someone not a feminist anymore if she openly hates men yet still advocates for the equality of women and men?

4. My second main issue with feminism is its inability to see the bigger picture. Feminists are notorious for their general lack of understanding of context. Here are examples:

5. Feminists view coverture, an old historical system of patriarchy, as an example of the oppression of women. What they fail to realize is that couldn't be further from the truth. Under coverture, married women were subordinate to men, and their legal identities were merged with those of their husbands, but it was not to the point where married women didn't have any rights. On the contrary, coverture was actually a system that was intended to protect women. Under coverture, husbands were obligated to protect and provide for their wives. For example, if a wife had accumulated any debts before her marriage, then her husband had to pay for them. You don't have to like or agree with this system, feminists, but at least acknowledge that its intent was to protect women. After all, you can't protect someone and give that person full autonomy at the same time.

6. The "pink tax" is very misunderstood. There are feminists who claim that women's products cost more than men's simply because of discrimination, but if you actually look at this from an economical standpoint, women's products cost more because (a) women are willing to pay more, and (b) women's products typically cost more to make. Again, feminism, it helps to have a full understanding of something before you judge it.

Basically, everything that I mentioned above is a by-product of the fact that the entire feminist movement is ruled by feelings…all. the. time.

This is what is so destructive about feminism. [Degrassi SPOILER ALERT] I've seen an entire gaming club get shut down simply because the game they played was deemed too "triggering and offensive" to the Feminist Club after they saw that it had half-naked female characters. I don't mean to be derogatory, but it was ridiculous, and I hate how the show supports things like this. Centering policies around feelings is never a good thing. [END SPOILER]

You may be thinking at this point, "Okay, feminism is not a very good movement, and it's starting to show in very destructive ways. What can we feminists do to change this?"

Well, here's a list of things you can do:

• Reevaluate your goals, and turn them into something that can actually be reached and isn't based entirely on feelings. No more complaining about having your feelings hurt (again, I don't mean this to be derogatory). Focus on actual injustices that go beyond hurt feelings, such as illegal discrimination in the workplace.
• Learn to act as a cohesive whole. There's too much in-fighting within feminism to the point where I'm more inclined to call it an ideology with different sects. In order to be an effective movement, you all need to work together, despite your differences. You don't have to agree with each other on everything, but you have to be united.
• Learn to look at the bigger picture first. Too many feminists are out there making snap judgments about things that they haven't taken the time to understand, such as coverture, Sharia law, the wage gap, the "pink tax," video games, etc. I'm not saying that you should like or agree with any of these things, but at least try to see things from another perspective for a change.

To conclude this long essay, someone online once typed in a comment (I can't remember whom, but I will give him credit) that if you're skeptical of a movement, you should ask them one very important question: what will it take for the movement to stop being a movement?

If they don't give a solid answer, then they aren't fit to be a movement at all…and feminism isn't.

Thank you for reading.