Yes, All Men

According to Karen Straughan, Feminism was Never Not Rotten:

They sought, and received, the automatic right of mothers to custody of children after divorce, but did nothing to change the financial obligation of fathers to provide all material necessities to said children. 

They sought, and received, the right within marriage to hold and keep their own property and income untouchable by their husbands, but did nothing to change the legal obligation of husbands to financially support their wives, to pay their wives taxes, or to repay their wives debts.

They sought, and received, the right to vote, but did nothing to change the civic obligations of men toward the state, including military conscription, which had informed the primary justifications for universal male suffrage, nor did they campaign to impose any such obligations on women. 

While men were dying in their thousands to win the right to form a union and earn enough to support their wives and children, early feminists were campaigning for a woman’s right to take a man’s children away from him through separation or divorce, and still enjoy the same access to his wallet she’d become accustomed to in marriage. 

While men were dying in their millions to protect societies in which most men didn’t have the vote, early feminists were terrorizing and injuring innocent civilians, demanding votes for women.

I believe nothing to be above criticism, and there are few cows more sacred in protestant Christendom these days than feminism of any wave.   But I can't help but feel that Ms. Straughan might be being just a wee bit harsh here.  One can't blame feminists for agitating for women's right to vote, own property or have custody of children over whom they are the primary caregivers, after all.

Feminists knew what their interests were and were prepared to fight for them.  They haven't changed. Claire Berlinski, in a recent opinion piece in the American Interest, writes of the recent wave of sexual harassment allegations:

Women, I’m begging you: Think this through. We are fostering a climate in which men legitimately fear us, where their entire professional and personal lives can be casually destroyed by “secret lists” compiled by accusers they cannot confront, by rumors on the internet, by thrilled, breathless reporting denouncing one after another of them as a pig, often based only on the allegation that they did something all-too-human and none-too-criminal like making a lewd joke. Why would we even want men to be subject to such strenuous, arduous taboos against the display of their sexuality? These taboos, note carefully, resemble in non-trivial ways those that have long oppressed women. In a world with such arduous taboos about male purity and chastity, surely, it is rational for men to have as little to do with women as possible. What’s in this for us?

Claire's article is a good read, and kudos to her for speaking out against the moral panic. The problem she has, though, is that women have thought this through.  This is exactly what they want.  Some variation of "now men understand the fear that women live with all the time" is the stock response of women online to the capricious nature of some of the allegations, among those that are targeting genuinely degenerate behavior and egregious abuses of power.

Neither gender can claim real innocence here.  We were warned.  I recall reading feminist author Daphne Patai's Heterophobia all the way back in 1998, wherein the ideology behind the radical feminist take on sexual harassment and cavalier disregard for due process was laid out very explicitly, and the dangers of what we're now beginning to see made absolutely clear.  Patai was not alone. The now famous Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia said many of the same things in books also written back in the 1990s.

None of this was accidental.  Feminism wanted to make rape and sexual harassment allegations into a club that they could hold above the heads of all men, as just desserts for how they believed and rationalized that all men held rape and sexual harassment themselves as clubs above women's heads. I would agree with Straughn and Berlinski's criticisms of the ethics, or lack thereof, in abusing the concepts of rape and sexual harassment in this way.  But I also can't help but think that I don't really blame the feminists either.  As I said, feminists know what their interests were and were prepared to fight for them.

Nonfeminist men and women need to complain about that less and learn from that more.

The burdens that men of the lower classes bore as described by Karen Straughan and Warren Farrell in his seminal work The Myth of Male Power were and are certainly unjust.  But as I've argued elsewhere, is it honest or accurate to blame the feminists for those burdens?  They should not be let off the hook for their actions, of course.  But neither should they bear the brunt of the blame for what their critics and opponents have done and failed to do.

To read antifeminist material these days, you'd think that feminism was this semi divine force, a power of nature beyond the reach of us mere mortals that has recently turned hostile towards the male of the species and afflicts him with woes of all kinds. To the extent that this is true, antifeminist propaganda would lead you to think that human agency and choices made by flesh and blood people has never had anything to do with it all. Reminiscent of neoliberal propaganda in the 1990s surrounding globalization, a political construct is recast as something akin to a law of nature, irresistible as it guarantees its own fidelity at all times. Best not to argue or try to resist, but rather to simply accept and adjust to the new reality as best you can.

Nonsense.  We have to start talking about male (and non feminist female) complicity in the excesses of feminism. Failing to speak out against something you think to be wrong helps to enable it, especially when it becomes a culturally ingrained habit among the general populace.  Feminists own no trademark on the concepts of organizing, activism and lobbying for the changes they desire.

By male (and non feminist female) complicity, I don't mean simply the odd male feminist sympathizer. I mean a very systemic hand-in-glove ongoing support for and enabling of feminist activism on part of powerful social and political institutions that were predominantly, sometimes exclusively, male in the composition of their executive and governance bodies, at least at the time the reforms in question were enacted.

Predominantly male legislative bodies passed laws that gave mothers primary custody and levied onerous alimony requirements on divorced men. Male governments and heads of state made decisions about how and when to go to war and who to conscript for said wars. Laws that allow men to face civil or even legal repercussions for polite civil greetings towards women in the workplace, or consensual sex that was subsequently regretted the next day were similarly passed by predominantly male governing bodies. Male bashing in media - corporations whose shareholders and upper management were, probably still are at least majority male. Women's studies courses and academic speech codes enacted by male deans and boards of governors in academia. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

In the face of ongoing feminist absurdity, a reasonable yet no-nonsense pushback from the male population and female sympathizers remains almost nonexistent. This is puzzling because, as Ms. Straughan's article points out, organizing a workplace and going on strike was a potentially fatal endeavor for working men up to the passage of the Wagner act in the New Deal era. Yet this did not stop many more strikes from occurring than we're seeing today. Defeat of the male working class manifests across multiple vectors. Civil rights workers were similarly taking their lives into their hands well into the postwar era, trying to register poor minorities to vote. 

To my knowledge, nobody has ever been killed for being an MRA. Doxxing and dismissal from employment is about as bad as they've gotten it to the best of my knowledge.  As far as systems of power go, western feminism, though contemptible in endless numbers of ways, is relatively mild. I won't end up in a gulag or being machete'd or stoned to death for criticizing feminism, like I would have been for criticizing the regime in a communist, military junta or Islamist dictatorship. Yet there's an ongoing paralyzing unwillingness on part of men to stand up for themselves vis-a-vis radical women. Why?

There are many explanations.  That women control access to sex and that men capitulate for fear of being denied sex.  As laughable and stupid as the most absurd plank of gender feminism.  The entire purpose of what's been called feminism for the last century and a half has been to reduce male sex with women to a vanishing point, though they'll never admit this.  To fail to resist for fear of losing precisely what you will lose if you don't resist is the definition of cowardly foolishness.  Other explanations are that we evolved to instinctually place a greater premium on female life, as the bearers of future generations, or that being raised by mothers primarily leads to a subconscious association of women with moral authority.  Perhaps it is being raised with chivalrous attitudes, internalization of feminist narratives of male guilt and so on.

Any or all of these may be true.  But ultimately they're no excuse.  With awareness comes responsibility.  Instinct and upbringing are hard (at first) to go against.  That's what collective support and consciousness raising are for.  

In the case of feminism, the benefits of men showing collective backbone go beyond simply curbing misandrist nonsense in the public square.  That women are naturally more attracted to men with spine enough to at least stand up to them is not exactly a well kept secret.  This simple insight is pretty much the basis of a lot of redpill and PUA game theory. I'll not be the first to hypothesize that the juvenile, stupid and standoffish elements of feminism are largely a collective "shit test" aimed at forcing men to actually stand up and speak out against it.  A man who cannot stand up to his woman cannot stand up for his woman, and not surprisingly few women actually find that attractive.  More than one woman has actually explained that to me in exactly those terms.

I do not let feminists and their numerous excesses off the hook. This isn't about victim blaming. But there needs to be more acknowledgement in MRM and antifeminist circles of male complicity in even the worst excesses of feminism. Andrea Dworkin was married in life, as is Clementine Ford married with children today, last time I checked. So what does that tell you? It does not reflect well on us men, that is for certain.

Radical feminist ideologues of that nature were a tiny minority of the population in the 60s and 70s when their influence peaked, and have never been anything approaching a majority of the population since. They won and they continue to win because they consistently face little or no opposition that's organized and strategizes. I find it utterly astounding that so neurotic and screwed up a segment of the population has managed to dictate gender and sexual mores to whole populations.

There simply has to be a taking of ownership on part of men, individually and collectively, for their role in enabling or at least failing to speak out against the excesses of feminism. In the age of social media, it should be easier now than ever for men and sympathetic women to organize and begin exerting pressure in a more reasonable direction as far as gender politics goes. I can't believe that it can't be done when I look back on historical revolutions, the formation of the industrial unions, civil rights and the end of segregation and apartheid, the fall of communism and see numerous instances of very corrupt, unjust and autocratic systems of power gradually yielding to sustained populist pressures. 

It's almost as if the bulk of the population is asking permission of feminists to dissent and criticize, or are simply content to navel gaze and wait for the radfems to come to their senses on their own. We'll be waiting a damn long time the way things are going.  

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Beyond Feminist vs. MRA

Opinion: The Alt-Left should be neither feminist nor for men's rights. It should be for good relationships between the sexes.

It's a familiar story for anyone who's been online for any length of time. A discussion starts over a gender or feminism related topic.  There've been plenty of these lately since the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal broke in Hollywood and the me too hashtag campaign, so there's no shortage of examples to choose from.  There's nothing unique about these conversations, however.  They've been taking place on social media since Facebook and Twitter first launched, and were commonplace on bulletin boards long before anyone knew what a comments section was.  The basic conversation hasn't changed much in the decades since Al Gore invented the internet. <grin>  A typical conversation will go something like this.

Feminist: Men rape and harass women. <subtext> That's why men suck and women should reject them.

MRA: But not all men.  <subtext> But not me.  That should give me an advantage in the mating game with women, should it not?

Feminist: But only men.  Plus patriarchy, power, privilege, rape culture, etc. <subtext> Not so fast, buster!  You're part of the segment of the population that does the most rape and who benefits from rape, and are therefore not so innocent as you'd like to believe.  And therefore suck no less and are no less deserving of rejection.

MRA: But what about false accusations? What about women who sexually assault men? <subtext> This nullifies the advantage you claimed in your previous statement.  Therefore, women should more readily accept and sleep with us.  I mean me!

It's never long before a conversation like this breaks down, and school yard level copypasta insults break out.  "Boo hoo!  Teh poor menz!" "Enjoy your cats!" So on and so on.  It'll inevitably come down to one or both sides being ugly, living in their parent's basements and being unable to get laid. This is due to the fact that the surface conversation is never nearly as important as the subtext that continually underlies conflicts over gender theory and its real world implications.

The unstated but nonetheless omnipresent axioms that are revealed when any kind of deconstructive analysis is applied to such discussions are that male power is expressed through sexual conquest of the female, and that female power is expressed through sexual rejection of the male.  All else is ancillary.  Which is largely why pro and anti feminists talk past one another and at one another far, far more than with one another.  The legitimate issues raised by either side fall by the wayside because they're obviously being weaponized to one or the other of those two ultimate effects.  The real purpose for bringing up rape, harassment, divorce, child support or any other issue, at least in online discussion, is to lower the value of one gender relative to the other, for the ultimate purpose of making sex either easier (in favor of men) or harder (in favor of women) to attain.

There's just one problem with this paradigm, however.  It doesn't work.  It's not making anyone happy.  It's based in a glaringly flawed assessment of human nature, and is much more rooted in ego than in reason or human empathy.  Men are not going to be rejected into sympathizing with women's concerns.  They go their own way instead, doubtlessly with the intent of bringing those pesky, uppity women to heel.  No dice: women are angrier now than ever.  Who'd have guessed?  The result is that heterosexual activity has been driven into a kind of moral black market, wherein most people actually do it at some point or another, but also have to conceal it, rationalize it or engage in it under some kind of false pretenses much of the time to avoid social censure. "An Ashtray With a no Smoking Sign," as Slavoj Zizek recently described the emerging rules of sexuality.  No wonder bad behavior abounds.

It's time to smarten up, people.  Get out of the grade school mentality.  Let's at least try and hit puberty, okay internet?  Human nature is not especially complicated.  We tend to simmer down when we feel that our concerns are being heard and taken somewhat seriously, even if disagreed with in some ways.  The natural response of people when faced with a lecturing, condescending tone is to get defensive, not to open one's heart or mind.  This is true however legitimate the surface grievance actually is or is not.  Which isn't to say you accept bullshit uncontested.  Rather, let your assessment of what's bullshit and what isn't depend on honest appraisal, which you can't get without listening and understanding.

Whatever your claim to victimhood, past or present, however poorly you were treated as a child or in your past relationships, other people, even the opposite sex, will not accept your shitty and abusive behavior. Not indefinitely, at any rate.  However much you feel entitled to it.  Two wrongs don't make a right.  This is something we feel instinctively, if not intellectually.  It stops mattering who started it, or who inflicted or suffered the greater suffering after a point.  Neither women nor men will accept the other's claim to morally superior status based on previous victimhood and grievance, even if real.  

It is easy to say that we should set our fragile egos aside and listen seriously to the other side when they lay out their grievances and issues.  This is true.  But when the other side does not expect this of themselves, even the most legitimate gripe becomes tainted by the ultimately self-serving purpose to which it is put.  The kinds of behavior displayed by feminists and MRAs alike in most internet discussions between the two would be emotionally abusive were they done in real life, and increasingly these kinds of relationship dynamics are spilling out of cyberspace and into the real world.  It is no wonder that growing numbers of people, especially the young, are eschewing relationships with the opposite sex all together, and claiming to be happier doing so.

And that's fine for some individuals.  If you're happier going it alone, and I think some people are naturally disposed this way, have at it.  But that'll be a disaster for society as a whole.  Fewer lasting successful marriages and long term relationships (LTRs) are poised to cause all kinds of problems down the road.  Demographic and economic dependency ratios are bound to get worse, and socially destabilizing levels of mass immigration will need to be employed to compensate for falling birth rates.   Frustrated romantic and sexual drives will find expression in other, usually more antisocial ways, from mounting political or religious extremism to mental health problems and increased cynicism.  Even many, though not all, of those who claim to be happier being single are not so much once you scratch the surface. A certain regret often, though not always, presents itself. And why not? Humans were not hardwired to live alone and not pass on their genes to future generations. A society losing its capacity for love and empathy is not one we should aspire to be a part of.  

So here's a proposal.  The alt-left should be neither feminist nor MRA.  Not exclusively. We should be instead for healthy and good relationship dynamics, be they platonic, romantic or erotic.  We should listen to the concerns of both sides and sort the valid and legitimate grievances from the entitled whining and vapid boasting.  It should not be a concern of the alt-left which of the two has the more legitimate grievances and is therefore more deserving.  Ten years and God knows how many flame wars into the social media age later, we should know by now that ideological partisanship and competitive victimhood isn't actually helping anybody. It's driving a spiral of mutual frustration that is causing increased polarization and extremism. 

Even if one gender really does have it worse than the other by a wide margin, our approach should be one of mutual listening and empathy, not one of grievance and vengeance.  This is not to say that we can't prioritize some issues over others or that wrongdoers can't be called out and exposed to such sanction and censure as their actions warrant. But it should never be an ego stroking exercise.  Even if you've had it worse or your sex or gender has been on the receiving end of injustice.  The world doesn't owe you anything, whatever you may think.  Success, be it alone or in partnership, derives from responsibility, not entitlement.

So if you're single or attached, male or female, here are some things you can do vis-a-vis the opposite sex to improve the situation.  And in case you are wondering, this is over twenty years of relationship success (I've been with my present wife since 1995) and a decade of every mistake imaginable leading up to it, talking.  There's much I learned the hard way:

• Listen.  Nothing is more effective at defusing anger.
• Do not stereotype the opposite sex unironically or for non-comedic purposes.
• Stop with the vain, stupid games. Crushing some young man or woman's confidence in him/herself won't bring down the patriarchy or gynocentrism, and it doesn't make you strong or independent.  It makes you an asshole, be you male or female. 
• Do not participate in discussions that tend to descend into pissing contests of competitive victimhood, and clearly state this.  Ask instead, "what do you want?"  That's a powerful question that can very effectively shut down entitled whiners with weaponized grievances.
• You are owed nothing.  Approach all relationships with the opposite sex, or with anyone, with that in mind.  This is not to say that you should tolerate shit and abuse. Don't. But don't expect to be put on a pedestal either.
• Do not have as an expectation from an ideal partner a trait you do not have or can not match.  Half of our problems stem from 6's thinking they're actually good matches for 10's, so to speak. Do not expect a prince if you're not a princess, or vice versa.  And assess yourself honestly to save a lot of trouble.
• Live a good life outside of a relationship context.  This signifies that you will not be dead weight but instead a net asset in other people's lives.  No one wants a needy dependent.
• Trust must come before any kind of relationship intimacy, be it physical or emotional.  Always. Take it upon yourself to earn rather than demand trust.  Decide at what point your efforts are in vain and when to move on.
• Do not expect from a relationship partner anything that you can do for yourself.  Relationship success thrives best when free of contrived obligations and expectations.  Otherwise resentments creep in and do damage.
• Do not be afraid to point out the <subtextual> elements and their underlying axioms (see above for examples) in gendered discussions, but do so only if the person you're discussing things with becomes obstinate, obtuse or clearly hostile.  The underlying pettiness and stupidity become readily apparent when brought to light.
• Likewise, if need be, remind people that two wrongs don't make a right.  Plus, no man was ever rejected, nagged, scolded or castrated into liking and respecting women.  No woman was ever convinced by rational argument or else likewise rejected, scolded or shamed into liking men.  People don't work that way.  Don't hesitate to point this out.
• Make your disdain for passive aggressiveness clear, if need be.
• If people insist on dominating conversations with socially destabilizing displays of rudeness, sarcasm or hostility, do not be afraid to call them out on it and exclude them from further social activities.  If you moderate or administer an online or social media space, you have a special responsibility here.  Trolls thrive on the emotionally destabilizing effect that their refusal to be decent and reasonable people has.  Do not tolerate it and ban them at once.
• Admit that the opposite sex doesn't always have it easy.  Try to replace resentment with walking in the other man or woman's shoes, as the case may be. This isn't to say it's equally bad on both sides, all the time.  Occasionally people will need to be told to stop whining.
• Do not attribute to malice what can be attributed to clumsiness or ignorance without evidence. This is especially true with flirtation, flattery or the like.

And above all ...

• Get the f**k off the internet every once and awhile.  Yeah, I know.  It's hard.  But there are numerous dynamics that contribute to the internet being a relatively uncivil place where your faith in humanity can easily go to die.  Meet people in the real world from time to time.  They're usually (though not always) not what they appear to be when seen as just a social media profile.

So that in mind, get out there and see the world, dear reader!

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Why That Guy Got Defensive Over Your Me Too Hashtag

Why "That Guy" Got Defensive Over Your Me Too Hashtag, and Why he Really Shouldn't Have

I'm writing this as if my reader was any woman who's used the #MeToo hashtag in the days since the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal broke out of Hollywood.  I doubt that I have many such readers, but if you are, thank you for taking the time to consider things from another point of view, as it were.  That seems to be a challenge for people in all segments of the political and cultural spectrum these days.

My understanding is that the me too hashtag has been posted and/or commented on several million times on numerous social media sites, worldwide.  That is indeed a substantial outpouring of emotion over a serious issue.  However, not all responses have been positive, or at least what many women using it have hoped for.  Some men have also posted their me too confessions of harassment at the hands of women, and some have responded with a not-all-men kind of response that feminists on social media find so infuriating.  To be fair, many women, including many feminists, have expressed support for men using the hashtag to articulate their own negative experiences.

I do not doubt that many of these me too posts from women are valid.  I am sorry such things happen to so many of you.  Were it in my power to prevent it, I would.  As someone who's survived some kind of sexual assault, perhaps you feel invalidated when men post similar stories about their own experience, or post some "not all men" type of response.  Doubtlessly, some men out there are truly indifferent to your suffering, and a few most definitely have contributed to it in some way.

While I do see where you're coming from, dear female survivor of male maleficence, I also see where the guys who post their own me too stories or not all men kinds of hashtags are coming from.  I think there is more to be gained from mutual understanding, and I probably do have at least a rough idea why it is that guy in your Twitter or Facebook feed posted his own me too story, or a not all men kind of hashtag, or referenced false rape accusations or the like.

The most crucial thing to understand is this: just as your me too hashtag was not directed at that guy specifically and deliberately, so too was his response not directed at you specifically and deliberately.  Just as you know that not all men are harassers, he knows that not all women make up false allegations of harassment.  If there is no need for him to therefore get defensive, there is likewise no need for you to do likewise.  He's not trying to silence you.

Social theories prevalent on college campuses and in the media today speak of social demographics: males, women, whites, blacks and so on as if they were incorporated bodies whose actions are guided by the collective will of the majority of its members.  This corporate metaphor will not be directly stated.  It is implicit in the manner in which demographic groups are spoken of, especially when the privilege of one is stacked against the marginalization of the other.

This will sound patronizing, but it needs to be said.  There is no annual general meeting of the male gender, whereat they collectively elect their directors and decide what their collective future policy will be.  There was no motion that was passed deciding that women should be paid less than men or that men are entitled to women's bodies at their whim.  Men are not acting as agents or representatives of the corporate body of the entire male gender when they grope or cat call.

At the most, he's been exposed to a subculture wherein a disdainful attitude towards women was expressed.  I've seen many over the years.  I would hope that he would not allow this subculture to rub off on him, but he's less capable of challenging and changing it than you might think.  So what that guy is trying to tell you is that ultimately, he's nearly as powerless as you are.  Perhaps moreso.  You'd be very surprised at how little control he, or any guy, has over the collective conduct of the male gender as a whole, or even of the conduct of any guy other than himself.

There's a good chance even that boorish and shitty behavior is as a result of  powerlessness, not
power.  This is not, and should not be a consolation to you nor a defense of his actions, but in the moment when he's a boor or even a rapist, he has power that he otherwise does not have.  There's also the possibility that he's mentally ill or else has a personality disorder of some kind or another.  Neither of which are at all related to his gender or his societal attitudes towards women.  Of course, it's quite possible that he is a male chauvinist or even a misogynist.  There's no sense denying that they exist, and there's more of them than we'd like.  But human motivation is, if anything, complex.  There is very rarely a single cause of why people behave the way they do.

I do get the appeal that concepts of male power and privilege have, especially for women who've been hurt by men.  If only the male of the species could exert their collective will and remedy the ills that befall womankind at their hands.  As a woman who's been hurt by the conduct of a male, you have neither the power nor the responsibility to make that change.   That men are not collectively doing this must mean that they are unwilling to give up on their power and privilege.  And from there, they have the gall to demand your sympathy for their Mickey-Mouse feelings of injustice at being targeted by a social media hashtag campaign!

If only it were so easy.  That guy in your social media feed is giving you really bad news, and I understand why you don't like it.  What he's telling you is not that he won't stop the ills that travail women.  It's that beyond the reach of his own actions, he can't.  That is the limit of his, or any of our power.  And that means that the problems of rape and sexual harassment will not be so easily solved.  That's not what you wanted to hear.  I get that.  That's not what I wanted to say either.  But that's the cold, hard truth.

It's worth considering that if he really didn't care, or he regarded you as the object your feminist theories tell you he does, he wouldn't be trying to communicate his own sense of powerlessness to you.  I do not suggest in saying this that you should prioritize that guy's emotional struggles over your own.  He needs to own his insecurities, just as we all do.  Unless he too has been a victim, his insecurities do not match the pain you've suffered if you've been sexually assaulted.  I do not suggest otherwise.  But it might lessen your own angst somewhat to understand that he is not so ill intended as you might think.

Of course, that guy may well be guilty, and we can only hope that he'll reflect upon his conduct and change his ways.  But if that guy is not guilty, than lumping him in with the men who are simply because they have "male privilege" will not only be ineffective, it may well be quite counter productive.

When that guy hears feminists attacking and denouncing him, he quite understandably begins to question the validity of the entire feminist enterprise.  After all, acknowledging that things might not be so great for him does not in any way nullify your own very real and legitimate pain.  If anything, it's a greater recognition of how serious a problem sexual assault and harassment really are.  Yet time and again he hits walls of ideologically driven self righteousness and denialism when he attempts to articulate his own viewpoint on the matter, which again is not done with the intent of silencing your viewpoint.  It is not a zero sum game.  He wonders why it is being treated as such.  Isn't this about equality, after all?

So he harbours doubts.  And as time goes on, those doubts will only grow as his inquiries are met with increased self righteousness and sanctimony.  Those are harsh words, I know.  But I really do think we're at a moment now where real motives must be questioned.  He will, as I have, come to the conclusion that most feminism today is not about equality at all, but about the maintenance of a cultural myth of feminine purity and moral superiority.  He might not know this intellectually, but he senses it instinctively.  And he knows it's wrong.

This means using privilege theory as a legitimizing way of erasing or rationalizing away instances of  female misconduct towards men, or of silencing dissent and criticism of feminist ideology, since they jeopardize the narrative of monolithic male power and female victimhood that the myth of innate feminine morality depends upon as an axiomatic foundation.

If women are so powerless, he wonders, then why is feminist theory virtually hegemonic in colleges and universities?  Why does it enjoy such favorable media bias?  Why is it rarely subject to any kind of real fact checking or scrutiny, except from rival ideologies with their own sets of problems?  Why do they have the willing ear of legislators on a whole bevy of issues?

Feminists claim that males are so rarely told that they are not entitled to women's bodies or emotional labor.  He, like I, don't know whether to laugh or cry when we hear such claims.  Most of what he and I are exposed to day in and day out on social media is feminist sloganeering from people who think their self declared marginalized status exempts them from all the moral strictures they expect us to live by.

It seems to that guy, as it does to me, that feminist claims of universal male privilege and female marginalization are more a kind of "big lie" - an ideological rationalization that escapes scrutiny because it underwrites too many cherished assumptions of too many people with the clout to insure that it remains uncriticized, and repeated often enough by enough credible enough sources that to even think of questioning it will strike many as beyond the pale.

When that guy tries to speak his peace, he is told that he is derailing conversations, and buzzwords and slogans are unloaded accusing him of "making everything about men."  Again, tell a big enough lie and hope the ensuing confusion ends the discussion.  Truth is, the discussion is already about men.  It's been about men, about all men and collective male responsibility at least as far back as Susan Brownmiller's 1975 polemic Against our Will: Men, Women and Rape.  Wherein it was made very explicit that rape is "a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear."

The disingenuous voices in this discussion, then, would be those calling men out for making a discussion "all about men" when men is what the discussion already is all about.  What feminists object to is men daring to assert themselves and to have their own points of view in relationships with women, private and public, at all levels of society.  That guy, like myself, fails to see how this is conducive to positive relationships and an atmosphere of mutual respect, though if he's anything like me, he's long since given up believing that feminist ideologues, at least as they represent themselves in all their maternal sanctimoniousness on social media, care a whiff about positive relationships or mutual respect.

I would hope that they do in real life, leastwise given how many of them do seem to be in intimate relationships of some kind or another with men. At times I wonder how sincere the whole thing really is.

Remember, my thoughts here are not about you, female readers.  Nor do I think it wise or accurate to simply reverse the feminist narrative and declare all women privileged and men the marginalized caste in society.  And I certainly don't doubt your very real negative experiences at male hands.  Instead, I think we need to go beyond these ideologies of collective identity and responsibility.

That will be a long time in coming.  In the meantime, I will agree with you on one thing, however.  That he should not interject his own issues into feminist discussions.  He should simply bow out of them entirely.  Not because he, or I, do not care about the very real problems women face.  It's because we lack the power feminists attribute to us, and we really oughtn't subject ourselves to the moral judgement of those who seem to us to be more interested in exploiting issues like harassment and rape so as to feel superior to us than they are in solving the actual issues. 

Many feminists do not seem willing to listen to anyone who does not confirm their faith in the moral and intellectual infallibility of feminist theory, and use "power plus prejudice" kinds of formulations to rationalize their ideological hubris.  Real social justice involves huge amounts of listening and dialogue rather than ceaseless one way sermonizing.  Other people, male and female, are to be valued as ends in and of themselves with every right to their own dignity, not merely as instruments for the pleasure of others (as the sexual abuser sees them) or merely as heathens to be converted to the one true faith or sinners to spend their days in ceaseless repentance for sins they did not commit, as many (though not all) feminist theorists see them.

It's regrettable that things have to be this way, but I've long since concluded that my time and effort are not well spent on this kind of egocentrism and emotional parasitism.  What's passing for feminism these days has more in common with a cult than it does with any meaningful movement for positive social change.

I would suggest to this guy that he should not have relationships of any kind with women or men who exploit feminist theory in these kinds of self righteous and self serving ways.  He sure shouldn't waste his time arguing with them on the internet.  I've seen far too many battle of the sexes kinds of discussions online, and they've all generated far more heat than light.  Fragile egos are what matters in these situations.  My observation is that repetitious talking points, buzzwords, slogans and copy pasta continually get trotted out and presented with all the reverence of holy incantations.  As if they were the word of God, or perhaps more appropriately Goddess rather than the tentative theories of fallible human beings.  Discussion with this kind of irrationality is futile. I prefer reasoning to liturgy and problem solving to self indulgent ritual.  The only way to win is not to fight.

I would instead suggest to him that he take his concerns to alternative media spaces where gender issues are discussed more openly and freely and with less emphasis on dogmatism and ego.  There is no sense in trying to reason with the kinds of ideologues we now see so prevalent on social media and in partisan media outlets.

Men like he and I and the women who likewise reject gender theory dogmas need instead to organize and strategize on how we can one day claim the commanding heights of our culture: academia, media, government and civil society more broadly, for those who reject the ideas of male chauvinism and female moral superiority alike.

If you are not that feminist, you have nothing to worry about.  And even if you are, you'll find mutual respect and partnership far more satisfying in the long run than the temporary ego boost granted by institutionalized feminist theory.  And it will probably eventually result in less rape and harassment of women (and men) in the long run.