Over on Reddit, DoktorTeufel has a problem: he likes the ladies, but he doesn’t like the feminists. Unfortunately, some ladies are also feminists! And therein lies the danger. Naturally, he turns to the fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit for help.
I’m just going to come out and say it: I will never knowingly enter into a romantic relationship with a feminist. I do have some female relatives and acquaintances who are feminists … and it’s not like they all wear signs that proclaim I’M A FEMINIST. (Some do.)
Aside from obvious telltales (feminist bumper stickers, etc.) or outright asking them “Are you a feminist?”, what are some discreet ways to ferret out a woman’s views on gender activism without creating an awkward situation? Feminism is a minefield topic, and I certainly wouldn’t broach the subject directly with a woman I’ve just started dating.
Naturally, this being the Men’s Rights subreddit, he received much helpful advice. Celda broke it down for him:
You don’t really care whether she identifies as a feminist or not – you care what her views are.
For instance, does she feel women have the right to force men into parental obligations against their will?
Does she feel women are oppressed in Western society?
Does she think that women make less money than men for the same work?
If yes to these questions or similar, then you probably want to avoid her.
Exactly. Always avoid those with a basic grasp on reality. They’re the worst!
Naive1000 suggested looking for more subtle clues.
Ask their thoughts on “benevolent sexism” if they know what your talking about you likely have a feminist. Just to make sure go into male privilege, it’s the feminists’ most popular talking point. Let her talk about it then you can see what she’s really like. But, there are some women who call themselves feminists, but are really egalitarian: they just don’t know the term.
Memymineown also suggests a subtle approach, and holds out hope that some of the younger feminist girls can be won back to the path of righteousness:
Bring Men’s Rights issues into the conversation subtly. I was talking with my family about Justin Beiber and brought up the paternity charge and no rape charges filed against the woman.
That led into a discussion about how women aren’t punished for rape.
Just do things like that.
But you shouldn’t exclude all feminists. I would say that the vast majority are just girls(I do use that word on purpose) who have been lied to. Once you show them the real facts they will probably come around.
ThePigman, by contrast, urges DoktorTeufel to go for the jugular:
Why do you need to be discrete about it? Just ask her. If she is a member of the cult she will start screaming about the patriarchy, then her head will explode.
It’s true. Pretty much every conversation involving feminists quickly devolves into screaming about patriarchy. Heck, a feminist friend and I once screamed about patriarchy for five hours straight. We probably could have gone longer, but the manager at Applebee’s, evidently not a feminist, threw us out. Sometimes I start screaming about patriarchy when no one else is around, just to keep in practice.
Conversations with feminists pretty much all go like the conversation in the video below, only instead of a cat you need to picture a feminist, and instead of the word “no,” the word “patriarchy.” You can see how annoying that might get, and not just to Hitler.
First off, for Anti-Moron’s-Rights, we don’t live in a capitalist country. We live in a socialist/communist country.
…
We don’t live in a free market country, which may in some understandings, and in different market forms, be properly referred to as capitalist, socialist, (or other things)
More libertarians are seeking to divorce free market economic ideas from the word Capitalism, as they believe that it properly describes not a free market system, but the current system of corporate-state privelege. In that sense, the mixed economy we have is Capitalism, and the free market is something else, voluntary socialism, market anarchism, freed-market, whatever.
I have a real affection for the term Anarcho-Capitalist, but this is probably a losing battle.
*sniffle*
We are NOT in a communist country. That word means things. Socialism does not necessarily equal communism. (Which does not all equal state communism, but you really, really can’t handle the advanced class here, as poor foe-and-comrade blackbloc has to endure the proof of.)
…
NWO –
“How is wanting to end all social welfare programs and returning the wealth to the general population licking the boot that kicks me in the face? I worked a lot of hours this year and paid around 10K in federal taxes which pay for all those social programs.”
Because unless you stop corporate welfare and limited liability and the myriad other ways they fuck us over with our tax dollars, saving the few of our tax dollars they give us to mollify the pain from the beatings is fucking ridiculous, and “saves” us nothing.
Do you really, truly, fucking think that what’s sucking up all your federal taxes is all that DAMN WELFARE!
Holy fucking shit, NWO.
Holy fucking shit.
hellkell – “NWO, I am not going to get into an economics discussion with someone who clearly has no idea what taxes are for or how jobs are created. Seriously, shut up. I have more productive talks with my cat.
You must have worked 24/7 365 for you to be paying that much in Federal taxes. <.<"
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YOU SHOULD TALK TO MY CAT! MY CAT CURLS UP ON MY TUMMY WHILE I DOZE OFF LISTENING TO AUDIOBOOKS ON ECON, AND IS THEREFORE AN EXPERT, and I discuss it with him ALL THE TIME!
@Holly Pervocracy
“Hey, imagine if you were married. Wouldn’t you want your wife to get maternity pay? That would be a huge burden off your back!”
Do I have the right to have someone else pay for my children?
Do I have the duty to pay for someone elses children?
That extra 10K a year means that if my wife and I each worked for 1 year we would equal the same in savings as taking everyones wealth.
In just personal income tax the State collects about 1 trillion a year. If that money was spent by the rightful owners that would be 1 trillion more product services needed. At a wage of 50K a year 20 million jobs for poducts/services would be needed.
Everyone could easily afford their own child care and there would be no unemployment and no welfare.
Taking peoples wealth = poverty.
People keeping their wealth = prosperity
No matter how you slice it, everyone keeping their wealth = prosperity.
LEARN TO USE APOSTROPHES, STUPID. 😀
If NWO thinks that the US is a communist country I hope for his sake that he never goes to Europe.
As far as I can tell, you think no one at all should pay for children, and anyone who isn’t independently wealthy and gets pregnant should starve to death.
Huh? You’d get 20K. Which will support you for maybe eighteen months of very frugal living, if you ever lose your income. After those eighteen months…
Childcare costs about $200 a week and it’s underpriced. 10K/year savings would not pay for it.
“People” really is a very distinct group from “women” in your mind, isn’t it.
“I don’t envy the situation NWOSlave and other college students his age find themselves in today.”
maybe you mean MRAL?
“If those people retained that wealth those trillion would be used for purchaing power. ”
I don’t really want to get in the conversation with NWO, but I wonder, can you buy power in a free market? If so that’s awesome.
USA, a socialist country? Mouhahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And communist =!= socialist. I know for some it basically the same insult as Muslim and Nazi, but come on!
Kudos to those of you picking apart the not-econ NWO is spewing. There;s a damn good reason he is a dairy technician and not a guy out there actually Doing Things and implementing his ideas in an active way. I’m just a lowly international politcal/econ MINOR and holy damn dude. Not even close to how it works.
No taxes would be good! Yey! We should be free, and governance should take many voluntary forms, yey!
But the current system of privelege and no social welfare would be bad! Very bad!
@CassandraSays
Can the military detain me indefinitely without explaination and no due process?
Keep in mind what was just signed by dear leader.
Is my wealth taken under penalty of law?
Can I go to debtors prison?
Perhaps dictatorship might be more to your liking?
Another fallacy NWO keeps repeating is that money given to mothers is just set on fire or something. it gets spent! It gets spent, if anything (since mothers’ expenses are higher and their incomes lower) faster than the incomes of men or childless women. It’s not evaporated out of the economy.
Zhinxy – Yeah… Trying to dismantle a government starting with the safety net is like trying to dismantle a skyscraper starting with the first floor. If your thesis is “with less government people will be richer and not need welfare,” make people richer first.
Zhinxy – Yeah… Trying to dismantle a government starting with the safety net is like trying to dismantle a skyscraper starting with the first floor. If your thesis is “with less government people will be richer and not need welfare,” make people richer first.
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And the really FUN thing is that you can start by taking away the rich people’s welfare!…
@ NWO
We have these things called dictionaries, and they can tell you the actual meaning of words such as “communist”. You should check it out.
@NWO
I suppose you support full access to abortion services then, so that people can terminate pregnancies that they can’t afford right? Since you’re so against any social safety net, you wouldn’t be heartless enough to want children being born into desperate poverty, or want men and women killing themselves trying to support a family on little to no money right?
@CassandraSays
“If NWO thinks that the US is a communist country I hope for his sake that he never goes to Europe.”
Something tells me he’s not a fan
zhinxy, apart from NWO crazy talk, I really don’t get the basics of libertarianism. If you don’t mind, for example, what would be your response to the problem of pregnancy in the workplace? How would it work in your libertarian utopia?
(if you do mind I understand completely)
@CassandraSays
Can the military detain me indefinitely without explaination and no due process?
Keep in mind what was just signed by dear leader.
Is my wealth taken under penalty of law?
Can I go to debtors prison?
Perhaps dictatorship might be more to your liking?
….
It works in a way, but doesn’t really express how corporatism and the state combine, and Dear Leaders of either party are basically figureheads.
State-Corporate is good, Crony-Capitalist is good, HOLY FUCKING FUCKING STATIST MOTHERFUCKING SHITPILE DOGFUCKORGY FUCKING OH SHIT WE’RE ALL FUCKED, Mixed Economy, Neo-LIberal, Neo-Conservative, Big-Ass Banana Republic, etc…
All good
But no, it’s not Communist.
“If NWO thinks that the US is a communist country I hope for his sake that he never goes to Europe.”
Keep your own lunatics!
@ Shadow
I wonder if NWO owns any furniture from IKEA? That’s supporting communism and misandry, that is, shopping at IKEA.
@Holly Pervocracy
In the childcare scenario a woman @40K a year gets six months leave = 20K
An extra 10K a year for me equals if we both worked a year that’d = 20K.
Also, I’d “get” more wealth, that $960.00 a year that I wouldn’t have to pay into a childcare program.
A man and a woman working for 5 years would each have an extra 50K plus $4,800.00 they didn’t pay into the childcare program. That’s $109,600.00 verses the 20K. Net loss of $89,600.00 in five years.
You tell me how your system of wealth retention is better than mine?
Well, in my system, people can ever afford to have kids.
(Also, you’re double-counting again. That $960 is part of the $10K. Both of which are completely fictional numbers, but I’m just saying.)
In your system, people can’t ever have kids by accident (I hope you’re real liberal on abortion!) and they can’t have kids until they’ve been saving for years, at which point they may be pretty much at the end of the woman’s fertility. And if they’re not rich enough to be paying 10K in taxes in the first place (that’s quite a lot), then they’re shit out of luck for ever having kids. Most couples could never have children in your world, and that’s not a reasonable expectation.
They also can’t have kids because the country has abruptly descended into chaos due to the sudden suspension of all social services and public infrastructure.
@Holly Pervocracy
Is there a “cap” to your system? Like if you make a 100K a year do you get 50K for six months leave?
Thats gonna up the price of the “childcare” costs of course. Who’ll pay? The guy or girl making 20K a year?
CAn I “opt” out? Can anyone “opt” out?