It’s not news to anyone that some of the most popular antifeminist “arguments” are in fact logical fallacies.
For example, here’s the fallacy of relative privation, suggesting that women in first world countries aren’t allowed to complain about sexism so long as anyone in the world is worse off than them.
And here’s the good old straw man, in the form of a meme accusing feminists of believing all sorts of things they don’t believe (as well as a few things they do believe, but for perfectly good reasons).
MRAs: in case you’re wondering which of these statements are straw men and why, I’ve attached a helpful footnote below.
So, yeah, those are some logical fallacies on display. But looking through the memes on display on the Male Lives Matter Facebook page today — which is where the memes above came from — I began to realize that MRAs have invented a whole bunch of brand-new logical fallacies of their own.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
Argumentum ad Picard Facepalm
This “argument” might make a little more sense were it not for the fact that Patrick Stewart — you know, the dude who played Picard — weren’t in fact an outspoken feminist who has literally worn a “this is what a feminist looks like” shirt in public.
I should note that using a Picard facepalm pic isn’t always a fallacy For example, if you are Ian McKellen, a personal friend of Stewart who famously carried a Picard facepalm sign at the London Women’s March this January.
Argumentum ad Ha Ha You’ll Never Get Laid
Granted, “white knighting” is not the same as feminism; it’s a rather patronizing form of “chivalry.” And that last post on the right up there is a little cringey.
But this meme is aimed at male feminists. And while there are some ostentatiously “feminist” dudes who profess a shallow facsimile of feminism in hopes of scoring with the ladies, genuinely feminist dudes are feminists because, you know, they actually believe in equality and shit. As much as this might shock MRAs and others obsessed with classifying men according to simplistic schemes using Greek letters, feminism doesn’t actually render men unfuckable.
Hell, I have actual photographic proof that one of the guys in this very meme has had sex with at least one woman at least once. Here’s the guy in the middle up there — Nev Schulman of the show Catfish — posing recently with his very pregnant wife.
IN YOUR FACE MRAS!!!11!
In case you’re wondering, she has since given birth to a baby girl.
Argumentum ad WTF-um
Wat
Argumentum ad You’re Not a Fireman
Apparently if you’re a female feminist you’re not entitled to emergency services? Even if you pay taxes just like everybody else? Does that apply to male feminists too? I need to know before I light my apartment on fire.
It’s true that there are not a lot of female firefighters. It’s also true that women have been largely kept out of the profession. But not by feminists — the only people I ever see arguing against women firefighters are MRAs and other antifeminists.
Argumentum ad You’re Not a Coal Miner
A kind of mash-up of the Fallacy of Relative Privation and Argumentum ad You’re Not a Fireman. It’s worth pointing out that none of the MRAs I’ve ever seen making this “argument” has themselves been a coal miner.
Argumentum ad Women Sometimes Get Drunk
It’s true that women sometimes get really, really drunk. I’m not quite sure how exactly this is a rebuttal of feminism.
Or is this about the hats? Are you suggesting that women need to start wearing 1956-style hats again?
It’s all very confusing. I think I need a drink.
FOOTNOTE:
Here are the straw men in that straw man meme above:
On drunk women: feminists DO believe drunk women should be responsible for their behavior. Just not the behavior of others. If a woman drives drunk, feminists have no problem with her charged with drunk driving. If a woman is raped while she is drunk, by contrast, feminists don’t think she should be charged with “drunk being raped.”
On alimony, etc: Women do pay alimony and child support when a court rules that it’s appropriate, and no feminist I’ve ever seen has argued that they shouldn’t.
On the draft: Feminists have long argued that women should be allowed to serve in combat and the National Organization for Women has in fact taken legal action to try to extend selective service registration to women,
As for the other ones? I’m not quite sure how exactly the “false accusers should be charged” crowd defines a “false accuser,” but, yes, it’s true feminists don’t want rape accusers charged if they lose a rape case any more than they want murder accusers to be prosecuted for losing a murder case. Accusers of all sorts can be prosecuted for filing a false police report, but this is relatively rare.
Meanwhile, 50-50 custody can be crappy for kids, so it makes little sense to make it the default setting. As for the one about “unwed fathers,” is that really saying what it looks like it’s saying? If so, no, feminists don’t think fathers should be allowed to force women to get an abortion (or to not get an abortion).
EDIT: I reworked the paragraph on feminist dudes and sex to make myself clearer.
@eli
OK, I’ll do it! But it may take a day or two since
I need to add sprites of Miles Edgeworth to the video because I’m a huge nerdMGTOWRevolutionary gave us quite a few doozies in this thread.Women don’t do physically taxing work? I dare you to do the duties of a nurse for one week, Miggie-poo.
As for being a natural follower, my parents sent me to a Catholic daycare before I was old enough for kindergarten. The nuns complained to my father that at naptime I would tell all the other children, ” They can make us stay on these mats, but they can’t make us sleep!”
He was so proud.
Miggs,
Project much, cupcake?
Oh, come on. I adore you, David, but please don’t use the word cringey — have the decency to write cringe-inducing or cringeworthy. It’s like people say someone’s being judgey.
@Masako
– Compliments David
– Tells him how to write
– Implying some sort of moral failing
– while necro’ing a dead thread.
Really? You can at least try to sound a little less condescending.
Blog posts tend to be written in conversational rather than formal language. Nothing wrong with “cringey” in this context.
@Ooglyboggles
Yes, I am a terrible human being for checking WHTM once or twice a month. I like to read as many articles in one go as possible — “bingeing” — evidently I am an utter reprobate. Especially for adoring Futrelle somehow? And where the sweet & actual fuck did you get the “implied moral failure” from, you caterpillar jockey? Also, I am apparently missing out on something big as, to my best knowledge “necroing” is only ever an issue on message boards where the latest reply to any given thread bumps it to the front page — so you’re moaning about me posting a late reply?
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
Thank you for introducing me to this newfangled thing called “the weblogs” and their lingo, irregardless, Romero.
The pretentiousness and smugness is so, I don’t know, what the word I’m looking for?
Oh, yeah. Cringey. It’s cringey.
@Masako
You know where this goes, and you don’t want it…
@Masako
Condenscending purple prose on an old thread, where have I seen that before?
@Axe
Well at least you warned her.
First, It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Star Trek, but I’m pretty sure the picture is not a Picard facepalm. The hair and beard kind of give it away although the beard is kind of hidden.
Second, mommy’s baby daddy’s maybe. I know that feminists (the Michigan chapter of NOW) fought so that men who fathered children with another man’s wife could not legally establish paternity, but legal fatherhood isn’t the same as biological anyway. Also, people don;’t have to have sex to father children. It’s called IVF.
Third, there have been feminists who’ve demanded that women not be charged with making false rape reports. They have this crazy belief that it might make a woman who was really raped not file a report. Heck, there are some feminists in England who don’t thinkk women should ever (or nearly never) go to prison and so women’s prisons should be closed.
Fourth, about male feminists believing in equality. They believe in feminist equality, which is not the same thing as equality. Heck, it’s not even the same thing as feminist equality if it were gender blind. I’ve yet to see feminist demand 50 / 50 quota’s for the U.S. military or that we should only draft women to address historical discrimination.
It’s always the same with MRAs. They don’t even care about men. They’re just desperately searching for an excuse to hurt women.
Imagine if a feminist said that men should be systematically raped in order to compensate for all the times men have raped women? What if feminists said that men’s property should be taken away from them and given to women, to compensate from when we couldn’t own property. What if feminists said that men should have the right to vote taken away to make for women not having voting rights. MRAs would have a shitfit. Yet it’s okay for them to say this kind of vindictive bullshit.
@John Anderson
John Anderson please.
You don’t see how punishments
Like these hurt women?
That fashion looks more like late 30’s, early 40’s, to me.
@MGTOWRevolutionary
Your opinions are riddled with fallacy.
True, many men do suffer under our current economic system. That has nothing to do with women deserving equal rights. False dichotomy.
If we are living in a matriarchy, there must be loads of evidence supporting that fact. Where is your evidence?
That’s step one.
Step two, as in any scientific process, is finding evidence that contradicts your position and forcing yourself to take it seriously. If sufficient proof is found that cancels out the research in support of your position, you must admit you are wrong.
That’s how debates work.
Otherwise, you are akin to a religious zealot spouting off about beliefs based purely on faith.
Faith does not determine reality.