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“Feminism’s essence is that of a greedy quest,” Men’s Rights essayist explains.

Montaigne wept
Montaigne wept

Many of you may have been worried, but I’m happy to report to you today that the future of the Men’s Rights movement is in good hands! My evidence? The following essay on the evil that is feminism, posted recently to the Men’s Rights subreddit by a 5-year-old boy.

At least I’m assuming it was posted by a 5-year-old boy. If it was posted by a teenager, or — heaven forbid! — an adult, well, all bets are off.


The essay was inspired by the age-old question: What is the nature of evil?

To that, the fellow who calls himself newmressay answers: Feminism. Let’s let him explain:

The New Webster’s Dictionary defines evil as “what is morally wrong, what hinders the realization of the good,” and “what is materially, esp. socially, very harmful,” (328-329 New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language). It also defines feminism as “the policy, practice, or advocacy of political, economical, and social equality for women,” (346 New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language).

Aw, yeah! He’s kickin it off Webster-style!

Now, for a massive leap in logic: Feminism is a modern evil.

Well, a leap, anyway. We’ll see about the logic.

Why? After all, in the past century it has achieved most of its goals in the developed world and is permeating into the third world; numerous pieces of legislation, specifically in the United States, have given women the right to vote, own land, and prevent discrimination and harassment in education and the workplace.

You can OWN LAND, ladies. All lady problems have been solved forever! Time to close up shop!

But wait! The feminists have the audacity to continue to exist?

Feminism is good to a fault. Much like a line, it keeps going.

Much like a line? A line!? That just doesn’t have much zing to it.

Much like the Energizer bunny, feminism keeps going and going …

Much like a shark, it must continually swim forward gnashing its giant teeth or it will die!

Much like sandpeople, feminism travels in single file to hide its numbers.

Like a banana, it splits?

I’m just spitballing here. I’m sure you can think of a million more.

It is no longer about equality, but equity.

Uh, equity means “fairness.” That’s a bad thing? Or do you mean “equity” as in “ownership?” I guess newmressay probably means that, but we’ll never know because he never says.

Western contemporary Feminism has become synonymous with the nature of evil: materialistic pursuits with adverse societal consequences.

Oh, so you quoted Webster’s but didn’t actually understand its definition. When it said “materially” it didn’t mean “materialistically.” Also, huh? What does feminism have to do with materialism?

Feminism has Orwellian tendencies to maintain and “enforce” its beliefs and goals in the name of following ideological tenets, rather than empirical data they see before them, Feminists censor and distort data found in their studies.

Newmressay then cites a self-serving paper by Murray Straus, who claims that feminists have unfairly dismissed his domestic violence research and threatened fellow researchers who’ve failed to toe the feminist line. In fact, there are many valid reasons to be wary of Straus’ work, as I point out here.

The alleged threats are more worrisome, but newmressay cites the example of only a single researcher; if you check his original sources you will find that the harassment took place decades ago and that the perpetrators were never identified.

Newmressay drags out his copy of 1984 to give us some quotes about our boy Winston being forced to change facts and figures to fit the party line. Which would be very damning if there were evidence that feminists actually did this, but there isn’t.

Then with the help of more antifeminist “scholars” he misrepresents the notion of “patriarchy” and gets mad at feminists for that. He follows this by summarizing (badly) two feminist-bashing columns from neocon faux-feminist Christina Hoff Sommers before moving on to his grand conclusion:

Feminism’s essence is that of a greedy quest, resulting in harm to society: evil.

Greedy quest? Greedy Quest sounds like a third-rate Bejeweled knockoff.

It pushes and pushes to further its agenda of equity, not equality.

You know, you really might want to rethink this whole “equity” thing, given that most people are going to assume you mean “fairness,” and given that your gal Christina Hoff Sommers actually calls herself an “equity feminist” and means that as a good thing.

In its pushing, it has damaged society by stereotyping men and belittling the issues of others in the developing world. Although in the past it has served for the benefit of all in society, it now is pushing an agenda that threatens everyone. This evil, that which damages society, will persist until more realize what it is doing.

Dude, I don’t even understand what you’re doing.

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cupisnique
10 years ago

Whenever someone starts off their essay with quoting the dictionary definition of something, it really is just code for “I have no idea what I am talking about”

hellkell
hellkell
10 years ago

He made a leap alright, and fell flat on his face. The Texas judge gives it a 2.

KathleenB
KathleenB
10 years ago

Wow. Is it just me (or the vicodin, thank you abrupt weather changes), or is this guy even less coherent than most MRAs?

Ally S
10 years ago

Now my comment has a net rating of -2. I’m well aware that I can make mistakes, and there are times that my critiques sound too judgmental even though I try to not be like that. I’m not an educator, either, and it would be arrogant of me to assume that I know Everything About Essays.

But I’m genuinely confused as to why people would downvote that comment. It’s not unsolicited critique as the author asked for constructive criticism, and nowhere did I even try to argue against it as a feminist – in fact, I was tacitly encouraging him to write an effective, well-written anti-feminist essay despite disagreeing with his arguments. I focused a lot on his sentences and word choices, but these things matter for persuasive essays. You can’t make a good essay without adequate word choices and effective writing style even if the underlying argument(s) are solid. Poor writing ruins the author’s credibility and in turn the persuasiveness of the essay.

I would have addressed the arguments themselves, but 1) the thesis did not address the prompt at all, so there was no point anyway and 2) doing so would have just lead to a derail with MRAs jumping ahead to argue with my points. I’m willing to bet that someone looking for constructive criticism doesn’t want to just see a big argument get started in front of him – he would just want corrections and suggestions and nothing else.

But then again, this is r/MensRights we’re talking about.

katz
10 years ago

It’s r/mensrights. They’re downvoting you because you didn’t suggest peeing on anyone.

cupisnique
10 years ago

Ally, I thought your comments were spot on. It really is a bad essay and horribly supported by any factual evidence whatsoever, his writing really doesn’t convey what he thinks it is conveying except to those that are already hard-line MRAs. If he’s supposed to be persuading people of anything he’s failing to do so.

I work as a Teacher’s Assistant where I do the marking for the instructor at a University and I come across countless essays of this skill level. I really struggle with teaching them how to construct proper essays, especially since I didn’t major in English or anything, I just learned essay writing by practising it – A LOT. We also aren’t given a lot of time to teach them these skills or to give a lot of feedback when grading. I thought your criticisms were not only very fair, but also constructive since you attempted to provide him with actionable solutions to the problems. If he doesn’t take your advice he’s only hurting his own grade.

cupisnique
10 years ago

Also, anyone who thinks they can condense an entire discipline of thoughtful and constructive research into the dictionary’s definition of it is sadly mistaken. From the start the essay sets up a straw argument. He also provides absolutely no reason or evidence that feminism has gone from a force for good to a quest for material possessions. After reading through the essay all it made me think was it sounds like he is talking about capitalism rather than feminism.

Isn’t it funny that when threats are lobbed at antifeminists this is evidence of evil feminazis everywhere, but the same complaints by feminists are met with “too bad you should just expect that”. He also hasn’t demonstrated how feminism is in power, how do they control this stuff (aside from the two examples of supposed fact changing and bomb threats which aren’t proof of a widespread phenomenon). I would also be far more sympathetic if this person would stop referring to feminism as if it is a hive mind. Not acknowledging that there are nuances within a rather large and diverse group of people is just lazy. And giving so much agency to “feminism” is simply weird, feminism doesn’t do stuff people do.

hellkell
hellkell
10 years ago

I wouldn’t worry about being downvoted on r/mr, look at the venue.

kittehserf
10 years ago

Ally, you have no reason to apologise. You were kinder than that gobshite deserves with his “feminism is evil” bullshit, by concentrating on the writing rather than the content. You critiqued his witless essay, you weren’t attacking his contemptible character.

Like everyone’s said already: it’s reddit men’s rights, of course anyone who doesn’t hate on women, or who offers any criticism of men in any way, is going to be downvoted.

You owe them nothing, you’ve done them no harm, and as to their good opinion – well, think of the sort of scum who do have the good opinion of MRAs. Do you really want it? Being downvoted by those shitstains is a good thing.

Buttercup Q. Skullpants

“To prove that feminism is Evil, I’m going to describe it using a bunch of adjectives that I copied from the dictionary definition of evil. Q.E.D., byotches.”

I can use the same method to demonstrate that my toaster is Sloth, the doorknobs are Chastity, and the hairball the cat threw up in the printer is an MRA essay.

Ally S
10 years ago

Oh, I’m not actually distressed by the sight of those downvotes. I was just saying that it was strange. It’s especially strange because, in the last r/mr thread I argued on (about the cissexist AVFM article) I got tons of upvotes even though I’m sure quite a few people knew I wasn’t an MRA. But I couldn’t care less if some MRAs are whining about a innocuous comment of mine.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

The hairball in the printer probably makes more sense than most MRA essays. Throwing letter blocks on the floor like a toddler would result in a more coherent argument in most cases.

kittehserf
10 years ago

Ally, I’m glad of that. I was worried you were getting apologetic to those snotbrains.

Hairball in the printer …

http://youtu.be/bymRNX0NJDo

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

I have the same reaction to faxes.

Runic
Runic
10 years ago

When an article begins with the same technique that a fifth grader would use to pad out their essay to a full page you know that that article is going to be well thought out and informative!

kittehserf
10 years ago

sparky – you know that awful noise you get when you answer the phone and it’s a fax? There was something making a similar noise on the train the other night. My train trip lasts over an hour …

cupisnique
10 years ago

@ Runic YUUUP!

vaiyt
10 years ago

“it has damaged society by stereotyping men”

As if these dingbats even care. Just another case of trying to use other men as a talking point, and a talking point only.

vaiyt
10 years ago

Men have the right to vote and own land. Why does the MRM exist again?

kittehserf
10 years ago

The joke is that these dingbats are walking stereotypes.

Lili Fugit
Lili Fugit
10 years ago

That couldn’t possibly have been authored by a five year old. Most individuals at that age are WAY more coherant.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

sparky – you know that awful noise you get when you answer the phone and it’s a fax? There was something making a similar noise on the train the other night. My train trip lasts over an hour …

Ew. I’m gritting my teeth just reading about it.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

It would be funny to tell the basic ideas to a 5 year old and have them try to explain it, though. Especially if they added the usual 5 year old elements like magic, unicorns, time travel – hey, the MRA whose ideas are being described could be an evil but incompetent wizard!

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

One there was an evil wizard called newmressay. He lived in a fortress made of women’s shoes that he’d stolen from little old ladies who were out walking their dogs. One day, newmressay saw a woman on TV talking about women’s tennis and got very angry, because he was worried she might be better at tennis than he was. Oh no, said newmressay! She has stolen my…

(someone else can continue the story from here)

cloudiah
10 years ago

What’s sad was how many upvoted replies he got saying, “Great essay!” Thereby contributing to boys not doing well in school.