The Men”s Rights subreddit weighs in on the “Why is Reddit So Anti-Woman?” debate.

What do you mean by “self-proclaimed” feminist? Are there any other types? Do you think that somebody else gets to declare real feminists to be feminists?

I think…..his very short and misleading summary of it does not begin to address the issues she raises — although I agree with commenters above that her desire to identify a Black man or Black men turning her down for sex as an example of male privilege is definitely a problem–I see from comments above, there’s a followup, but I didn’t read it yet (this post got long and link laden fast).

But it’s a bit more complicated than just “patriarchy” (which, if you take an intersectional approach, doesn’t situated Black men as privilegd as White men!).

A quote from the end of her post:

I wish I had some pithy insights about how to negotiate this madness. For instance, I know these kinds of stories make pro-sex feminists (of which I am one, very uncomfortable). In a system that highly constrains choice, agency is a precious commodity, and no one likes to feel like they have no agency. And that is how this shit feels on many days.

I’ll say this one thing: I’m not indiscriminate in my sexual choices. Given the AIDS crisis among Black women, and the high rates of HPV, an STI which condoms do not offer 100% protection from and which disproportionately leads to the cervical cancer deaths of Black women at a rate 200% of that of our white counterparts, I cannot afford to be indiscriminate.

Moreover, I refuse to apologize for having standards, even for my sex life.

Truth be told, it sucks to feel like on the one hand, good long-term relationships are hard to come by (and 70% of Black women with advanced degrees are single, mind you) and on the other hand, your sexual empowerment strategy is literally a life and death situation, every single time.

This is the kind of ish that professional women of color confront on our journey to trying to find the balance, the all, that highly educated professional white women rarely have to think twice about. {Good reply here though.} I mean, fuck ALL. Can I just get some?!

But I know my desires are healthy. Human. Holy, even. I also know that
#AClosedMouthDon’tGetFed. So I have no choice but to keep asking, hoping that in “asking, it shall be given, that in seeking I will find.” And along the way, I will remember Joan’s most important words from Emotional Justice: ”I try to be as fearless as possible in my love practice.” Word. May courage be my angel.

And the idea that there is a lot of agreement-well, I didn’t read all 81 comments, but here’s what Joe said:

Feminists quite rightly condemn attitudes of “you owe me teh sex” in men, but if you read the comments you’ll see that while there are, yes, feminists taking her very gently to task (swap the sexes and imagine the flame wars!) there are also feminists supporting her attititude!

Feminists, eh? Supporting her attitude, eh? Here’s a list of the first few comments mostly by male contributors (who may or may not identify as feminists!).

Miles Garvey defending the men saying no

Edward, accusing her of being a hypocrite (he and Joe would probably get along)

DC Mike, telling her she s full of shit.

Daniel: Telling her she is not entitled to sex

Sista, including herself as part of “we” the women, warnng aganist objectifying and essentializing men.

Lordamaru, cheering Sista (see below–this poster is a man).

hotairgenerator defending men’s right to say no.

A response by Crunkastic:

I do call foul when I write a post that attempts to get at the more complicated ways male privilege operates in intimate interactions and the men who read the post (and most commenters have been male mind you) all automatically empathize with the guy, and proceed to make the comments section an amen corner for discussing male desire and discounting the legitimacy of female frustrations and struggles. It’s a classic male privilege move (the act of recentering men’s narratives) if ever there were one.

Since Black feminist scholars are the pioneers of Black masculinity studies, I’d venture to say that this is not a blog space in which you have to preach about how Black men’s male privilege intersects with racism. But you should recognize that a core tenet of Black feminist thought is that racism does not discount the operations of Black male privilege in Black male-female interactions (platonic, romantic, or familial).

That response engaged in great and caring detail while disagreeing by Lordamaru (whose comments show he is a man).

I know a lot of major Black feminists’ work–but about 99% of that if not 100% deals with the issue of racism in the white feminist movement (as a white feminist, that’s what I need to work on).

I don’t do masculinity studies in my own scholarship (though I do have some readings on it in my graduate gender studies courses, and my students can write on masculinity studies in those courses). Therefore, I’d have to know more about the work in Black masculinity studies that she may be referencing to situate her argument in that context, and to make complete sense of it.

And yes, it’s not an argument I’d agree with (I’ve only skimmed fairly quickly), but as everybody else said: she does not speak for all feminists; she does not speak for all Black feminists. The blog is a collective which means there will be different perspectives–and the commenters do not fall over themselves agreeing with her.

And here’s where Joe and Steele and NWO may suffer head explosions: I actually do not think that Crunktastic saying what she does is in any way equal to being like a man who does not want to take a woman’s no for an answer–because DUDEZ there is no frakking documented history of Black women raping Black men (or White men) (or any other men) (and the actual statistics on women raping men–which does happen–is pretty damn low), so the CONTEXT for her unhappiness with being told no and exploring what to do in response to it (NOTICE NOWHERE DOES SHE SAY SHE GETS TO FORCE THEM! Which a whole shitload of PUA and MRA’s say outright at times) is completely different from what a man would do..

AKA: False equivalency Joe.

Plus, crap summary, and bad reading skillz.