The 1st question to ask is, ¿what’s wrong with the term “feminism”? The 2 answers I’ve always seen given:
1. “It’s antimale”.
2. “Men are greater victims”.
The hypocrisy o’ the 1st is obvious, since emphasizing male rights is just as biased.
The 2nd is hard to take seriously. Its proponents can cite various studies that show arbitrary situations in which men are worse off than women, such as IQ & life expectancy. However, these don’t say much ’bout actual relative power.
What would are statistics o’ political & economic power, & those show beyond doubt that in general women are worse off.
MRAs who do acknowledge these facts turn to the argument that these are caused not by society but by s’posed inherent flaws in women. 1st, this is a digression: it’s not saying, “No, society isn’t mo’ sexist gainst women”, it’s saying, “Yes, society is mo’ sexist gainst women, but they deserve it”.
2nd, it’s hypocritical, since MRAs ne’er accept that answer for the reason ’hind the statistics wherein men are worse off, such as IQ. ¿How can they reconcile this arbitrary inconsistency?
3rd, this is given as a bare assertion, not backed by any evidence, usually in the form o’ flimsy stereotypes that themselves have no proof. Worse, these stereotypes don’t e’en fit the modern way humans get success & power. You can tell someone has no societal savvy when they talk ’bout “alpha males”, as if we’re still baboons. The fact is that the most muscular & hostile people are mo’ likely to be lowly workers while the most successful humans are flabby, weak, ol’ men in suits. The fact that in the last few millennia since humans 1st developed human society has radically evolves far beyond the rate o’ their biological evolution — that whatever basis in helping survival whatever purported biological differences ’tween sexes has has long since become irrelevant in a world wherein coming up with creative slogans & being able to afford high-quality health care has mo’ importance than being able to bash someone on the skull or spawn healthy kin — is oddly beyond MRAs.
We end up deciding ’tween whether society or biology is to blame; that MRAs lean toward the latter with no evidence is peculiar since the former makes mo’ common sense & requires less explaining. They blatantly ignore the fact that societal rules are based largely on political & economic power, & thus these rules must, by objective empirical fact, be mainly controlled by men. Indeed, e’en those who acknowledge the truth o’ these studies keep to the conclusion that women have mo’ power, e’en though they contradict each other. They also ignore history, which also unquestionably shows a tradition o’ an e’en greater level o’ discrimination. & since this level was e’en greater than it is now, then it can’t be based on s’posed inherent biological flaws, since this imbalanced was lessen by societal changes, ’less they’re trying to take the mo’ absurd argument that women evolved ’way these greater biological flaws, in which case, ¿why couldn’t they do so e’en mo’?. The argument that this change was caused by society being biased in favor o’ women despite their s’posed biological flaws doesn’t make sense, thanks to those pesky empirical facts o’ their inferior political power, ’specially relative to the past. ¿Are they trying to argue that the time o’ gender equilibrium was when women couldn’t vote @ all? That would argue an interesting but absurd point: that women have greater skills @ influencing people relative to their actual power than men, which would be a strange superiority to grant to them, given all the flaws they s’posedly have. & yet, while men taking advantage o’ their s’posed biological flaws is fine, women doing the same is “corrupt”… This is ’nother inconsistency that lacks an explanation.
In sum: the idea that women have some mysterious “less initiative” gene is mo’ believable than that a tradition o’ sexism could continue into the present. I’m bleeding, I’ve been cut by Occam’s razor so much.
4th, e’en if women’s inferior power were due to inherent biological flaws, that wouldn’t be caused by them but by their biology that they can’t control &, the obvious corollary is that men’s purported biological advantages aren’t their own. The question then would be to ask why someone should be rewarded for something they didn’t do within their own individual will — what philosophy could logically argue for men’s “right” to have unearned advantages.
This is ’specially strange considering how oft MRAs criticize purported corruption, when being born into advantages is the biggest form o’ corruption one could have. Hell, if women did use their “wiles” to trick society into bending to their will, despite the empirical fact o’ their inferior political power, then that’d show mo’ individualist accomplishment than being born with genes. E’en manipulation requires some skills.
’Course, those who call themselves “feminists” don’t fall into the 2nd problem thanks to those same economic & political studies: they can accurately argue, through a mix o’ empirical fact & better consistency, that it’s a fact that, in general, society is mo’ biased gainst women than men & that the word compensates for that bias.
Thus, I can see a logical basis for calling someone who supports gender equality a “feminist” or a “equalitarian” — or some other neutral term — ( though the former, being an established term, would be less confusing ), no consistent logic backs any match o’ “gender equality” & “men’s rights activist”. Anyone who claims to serve both is either a manipulative liar or incompetent; those who don’t intend the former should change what they say if they want to avoid embarrassing themselves.
That’s a lot o’ words for, “‘Men’s rights activist’ is a bullshit term”.
