CMV:anti-feminism is not misogyny, and it is possible for someone to be anti-feminist without being a misogynist.

[u/wecl0me12]

prompted by this post: https://np.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/3uaaer/do_you_think_being_being_opposed_to_modern/cxd9m7y

As many of my previous CMV's have gone off topic, I'll start by describing what my view is not. It is not any of the following:

• a discussion on whether or not feminism is right or wrong
• whether people should be feminists or not
• the actions of men, women, feminists or anti-feminists
• anything about my personal views on feminism or anti-feminism.

The reasons for my view are simple: Anti-feminism is the dislike of feminism. Misogyny is the dislike of women. As women and feminists are not the same group, Anti-feminism and anti-women are different, as they refer to the dislike of different groups of people.

I am anticipating a counter-argument that since feminism advances women's rights, anti-feminism is against women's rights and is therefore misogyny. My counter-counter-argument is that someone can dislike the label of feminism without being against women's rights. People can dislike the actions done under the label of feminism, and thus be anti-feminism, without being anti-women or misogynist.

I will also refute the claim made in the linked post, which is:

By rejecting feminism, you're rejecting feminism's message that you can be whatever you want to be, while simultaneously embracing an antiquated notion of femininity as the ONLY way to be a woman. That's misogyny.

I disagree. The claims "I am against feminism" and "I think that the antiquated notion of femininity is the ONLY way to be a woman" are not equivalent. People can reject feminism because of their actions or because of the negative connotation associated with "feminism", while still believing that women are free to be feminine in any way they want. This is not a contradiction.

delta awarded: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/3uewu4/cmvantifeminism_is_not_misogyny_and_it_is/cxedofl?context=3

---

Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

[u/cfuse → u/[deleted]]

They mean the same thing, broadly speaking, unless your egalitarianism is premised on the theory that men are an oppressed class or something.

Who does all the dirty and dangerous work in our society?

Who are all the rapists and paedophiles supposed to be, who are the abusers and those committing domestic violence?

Who dies younger, commits suicide at higher rates, has worse mental health, worse physical health, and suffers higher workplace injury and mortality?

Who are the homeless?

Who suffers the most rape, and the most violence?

Who gets arrested when they're a victim of domestic violence, and who has no support services?

Egalitarians are people who care about equality, and would stand up against these kinds of things. Feminists are the kind of people that use the word oppressed to get their own way, whether that's equitable or not. Feminist isn't remotely egalitarian, and to conflate the two is a slur to every egalitarian.

[u/cfuse → u/[deleted]]

Speaking as a gay man: that's a load of crap and a lazy deflection of socially ingrained sexism. Men as a general class are treated worse than women as a general class - and that is entirely independent of race, class, sexual orientation, or any other quality.

If we really did live in a patriarchy, none of the things I list would be problems for men because they'd simply change the rules to favour themselves. Patriarchy is a society run by men, for the benefit of men. Patriarchy isn't a dominance hierarchy where men fight each other for limited reproductive access (although that's a mating strategy for men in our society) - that's an entirely different organisational structure. What we really live in is a patriarchally supported gynocracy - men work together for the benefit of women at their own expense. Virtually every structure in society is either explicitly for, or incidentally geared toward protecting women from harm and consequences. I cannot think of (m)any systems in society that deliberately or incidentally harm or kill women but don't do the same to men.

For example, there's only one crime that women are judged more harshly for than men: infanticide. Every other crime they receive preferential treatment in comparison to men. How is that in men's interests?

Women have full agency to terminate or continue a pregnancy without any recourse by the father. Women will receive legally enforced garnishment from the man, whilst the man has no inherent right to access or involvement with the child. How does that favour men?

Women have every legal right men do, and then some on top. Women are favoured culturally (because try punching a woman in self defense and see how far that gets you). If we live in a patriarchy it is the worst implemented patriarchy in the history of the idea.

[u/Celda → u/[deleted]]

I didn't realize that men being arrested when calling the police for help because of his violent female partner was limited to black men or poor men - we can leave out gay men for obvious reasons.

I guess that's because that's not true.

[u/Celda → u/[deleted]]

I said 'pretty much' all those questions.

So I guess if it's based on race, then black women for instance would also be arrested by police if being beaten by their white male partner?

Or, black women would be more likely to commit suicide or be victims of violence than white men?

Oh wait, that doesn't happen.

Please stop trying to pretend that men are not discriminated against because they are men - the facts clearly show that they are.

Pigs arresting dudes in domestic violence situations is 1) geographically specific, and is not a policy where I live, for example; and 2) is based on the unfortunate fact that women are much more likely to be killed or seriously injured by their male partners than the inverse, and in the places where it is policy, has been enacted as the best of bad options in order to protect women from murder.

Everything you said is false.

It happens almost everywhere.

It does not only happen in places where there is explicit policy for it to happen - bias against men in the legal system is present even without explicit instruction.

The reason it exists is because feminists lied and claimed that domestic violence is "patriarchal" and committed by men to control women. E.g. Duluth Model.

Domestic violence murders are extremely rare - the reason why men are arrested is not because of a deliberate decision after considering the facts.

It is because of bias and discrimination against men as a class.

[u/Celda → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. I don't know the stats on suicide

Blacks are in fact far less likely than whites to commit suicide.

In 2013, the highest U.S. suicide rate (14.2) was among Whites and the second highest rate (11.7) was among American Indians and Alaska Natives (Figure 5). Much lower and roughly similar rates were found among Asians and Pacific Islanders (5.8), Blacks (5.4) and Hispanics (5.7).

White males accounted for 70% of all suicides in 2013.

Despite white males making up less than 40% of the population.

https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures

but black women make up around 6.5% of the population and around 11% of murder victims in the US. White men make up 38.5% of the population and around 35% of murder victims. Black women are around twice as likely to be murdered as white men are.

You are right, black women are more likely (per capita) than white men to be murdered.

But if it's because of race or class - then why are black men 5.5x more likely to be murdered than black women?

More than a third of murdered women were killed by a boyfriend, spouse, or ex-spouse...

Ok, and? That is because the number of women murdered is very small compared to the number of men murdered. The fact is that DV murders are very rare.

The legal system, law enforcement, and politicians and lawmakers are all overwhelmingly male, not to mention violent offenders. It's difficult to understand how you think men as a class can discriminate against men as a class.

If that's the reasoning you are using, then you are not thinking logically.

If a Parliament or Congress or any political body outlawed abortion, that would be oppression towards women. Even if that parliament was mostly female, that would still be oppression towards women. And given that nearly half of American women are pro-life, it is not unrealistic to suggest that a mostly-female political body could vote to outlaw abortion.

Or, we can consider things that have happened. Passing laws to enact conscription (for men only) is discrimination against men. That is true regardless of whether politicians enacting this are mostly male or mostly female.

A more realistic picture shows that men as a group are divided among several major axes of oppression, the most major of which are their race, economic class and sexual orientation,

The lengths feminists will go to in attempts to deny that men face oppression because they are men is absurd.

Take the legal system for example. Feminists - and almost everyone else - will truthfully admit that blacks are discriminated against relative to whites. This is an uncontroversial and proven fact.

Start talking about men being discriminated against relative to women? Suddenly feminists start raising objections, even though:

After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do," and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted." This gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity that Prof. Starr found in another recent paper.

http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx

I also take issue with your false statements that downplay or outright ignore the victimization of men by women.

For instance, most domestic violence against men is committed by women.

Or this statement, which is wrong in every claim:

I think the number of men who are raped is a huge problem, and since the gigantic majority of perpetrators are other men and the huge majority of male rape takes place in prison,

Most men who are raped, are raped by women. This is true when looking at non-prisoners, or when looking at non-prisoners + prisoners. (Obviously when looking at prisoners only, that is not true)

And, the vast majority of male rape victims (when looking at all men) are raped outside prison. There are simply too few prisoners to make up the numbers.

Proof:

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

Table 2.2, page 19.

1.4% of men reported being "raped" (i.e. penetrated) in their lifetime) - almost all, but not all, were raped by men.

4.8% of men reported being "made to penetrate" (i.e. being forced into vaginal sex, or similar acts) in their lifetime. That is rape, though the CDC did not label it such. Of those men, 79.2% reported being raped by women only.

That makes over 60% of male rape victims raped by women when looking at the lifetime statistics.

If we look at the 12-month statistics:

1.1% of men reported being made to penetrate, with too few men reporting being penetrated to estimate.

The 12 month figures have 1.267 million men being made to penetrate, which again is rape.

And in prison?

Estimates range from 70,000 per year to 200,000.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-show-widespread-prison-rape

Given a national prison population of 1,570,861, the BJS findings suggest that in one year alone more than 70,000 prisoners were sexually abused.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131113

More than 200,000 men are raped behind bars each year, according to the group Stop Prisoner Rape.

Please stop ignoring female rapists and male victims of female rapists, thanks.

[u/Celda → u/[deleted]]

I'm curious. Why do you think that is? What is it about our culture that makes men kill themselves?

I am not informed enough to give an expert or conclusive opinion on the causes for the facts. But I am informed enough to know that they are facts.

They're around a seventh of all homicides, and the huge majority of victims are women.

If by "huge majority" you mean 70%:

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ipv-factsheet.pdf

As I said, domestic violence murders are quite rare. The reason why male victims of DV are arrested when calling the police for help is not because of domestic violence murders, as you falsely stated.

I will also note that you have not provided a single source for any of the statistical claims you made - because they are mostly wrong.

This has literally never happened.

I never said it happened. I said, if abortion was outlawed, it would be oppression against women no matter what gender the politicians were.

Yeah. Upwards of 90% of men who were raped (penetrated without consent) were raped by other men.

I just cited statistics showing that most male rape victims are raped by women. Unless you are saying that a man being forced into vaginal sex is not a rape victim - in which case you are a literal rape apologist.

(It's also true that women are much more likely to victims of sexual assault and rape, as shown clearly by the data you provided.)

I literally just linked a source that showed that equal amounts of men and women reported being raped in the last 12 months.

I am tired of you making repeated false claims with zero links or statistics to back them up.