I mentioned those two exact things in my original post, that feminism is a belief in equality coupled with a social criticism that our society is not equal.

You're drunk dude, go home.

Implicit in feminism is the realization that we live in a male-dominated society, not a female-dominated one. In your hypothetical female-dominated society I'm sure there would be something called masculinism. I think you could put both those ideas under the umbrella of humanism, which puts humans and their well-being at the centre of our moral universe.

As a matter of fact, humans used to live in matriarchal societies in pre-literate times: Google "The Alphabet vs The Goddess".

Not really, men are subject to the same expectation. I think its natural that as women are able to have careers the same pressures are put on them as men, but I don't see how you could blame feminism for this. Feminists aren't automatically at fault for every problem in our society.

The post I responded too seemed to say exactly that, that trying to improve women's status in our Western countries was vain when women are treated worse elsewhere. This is like calling the people who run your city's water supply jackasses, because so many people in Africa have no clean water, and they're obsessed with mineral content, chlorination, etc.

Why is it feminists specifically who have to make our economy more fair? Its everyone responsibility, and in my experience many feminists do argue in favour of a more fair economy.

This Duluth model is your personal bugaboo, so you'll have to explain to me what it is and why I should care.

Also, I told you that only a complete idiot would believe that rich elite men care for other men. I'm not sure how to be more clear on this. Read my original post.

You're looking at the past with rose-coloured glasses. You think the sexism in society was more than fair? That's your opinion. Some women felt it wasn't, and decided to try to change things for the better. These people were called feminists.

Frankly, I feel these women had a better understanding of their place in society than your idealized, nostalgic point of view.

So you accept the notion of widespread persecution, but you think its directed towards men? That is a pretty weird thing to believe in a society where the vast majority of politicians, CEOs, and wealthiest people are men. I just don't see it.

My original post made the exact opposite argument. The 'boys club' is not interested in helping men as a category, its a handful of selfish men (with a handful of women) pissing on everyone else. If you actually thought this is what feminists believed, no wonder you are so confused.

The spending power is normal people, not the elites. Our society has become more egalitarian over the past few decades, which I personally feel is a good development. It also makes sense in light of the many single mothers out there, and kids being pretty expensive.

I frankly don't know alot about these things, which is why I didn't bite. If you feel these are important issues, champion them yourselves, rather than sneer at other people for not doing so.

Men are also raped about as often as women are. Again, the problem is that the windmill you are tilting at is not feminism. The world is unfair in many ways, and you would have to be a total idiot to claim that all men live like kings.

1) No one is trying to force women to work who don't wish to. Economic forces are what causes that. Strawman argument of feminism.

2) Why shouldn't elected leaders in our society work to improve our society? Western women should see how bad women in other countries have it and just shut up and be grateful? Try that one out on your girlfriend or wife and see what she thinks.

3) Right, so its preposterous to think that anything could be wrong with our society. We're perfect. Even though I acknowledge women's right to vote as a positive change, the changes should definitely have stopped there. And anti-black racism in the US ended in 1964.

4) Damn society, thinking it can defy nature. We should live as cavemen did! Are you by any chance vaccinated?

5) "Is feminism really such a great idea?" Yes, read my original post if you're curious as to why I think so.

So your problem is that it isn't a scientific theory?

Here's a falsifiable statement: do a small group of elite men dominate society for their own interests? This statement is false if no group dominates society, or if a group of elite women do. Given how subjective many of these concepts are, its not as neatly falsifiable than Newton's laws, for example. Life is complicated. I find it interesting that this theory is basically what people are espousing when talking about inequality and the 1%, its just that the connection to gender isn't as obvious if you are a male. Few would deny that most of the money is in male hands.

As for what feminism actually does, I'll trust my own judgement on that thanks. The fact that you mentioned 'bra burners' is interesting as it is actually a myth. I referenced it as an example in one of my posts but I don't literally think it is something that happened.

Fair enough, maybe I was feeling a little suspicious of your motives. I'm glad we can keep this civil.

Yep, that's exactly what I meant. What is the 'wrong way' to take that statement?

I take your point about what is vs what should be. I'm not quite as fatalistic about people's attitudes, given that we raise the next generation with our values. Given the huge progress we have made on these social issues, I don't think telling radicals to tone their attitudes down will make progress happen faster. Simply, I disagree with your suggested strategy.

I don't get the difference between your two tones here, or which one you think is me. Maybe you could explain this a bit better. Also, I never said it was all men's fault the term has become poisoned. Some women have misogynist attitudes, and even help spread them. I'm a man who is a feminist, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't reject identity politics.

Again, looking at what is vs what should be, I think you're probably correct. I wrote my post to try to convince any logical, interested person who read it. I can't do anything about people being fired for whatever.

I find it pretty weird that such a logical, clear thinker has no opinion on the question of whether society is unfair to approximately 50% if its members, but fair enough, your choice.

I wouldn't describe it as a conspiracy, but as a group of people attacking an idea they view as immoral or dangerous, in the most effective way possible. This often involves picking isolated sentences out of context to make a different impression that you would get reading the entire book, or blog post or whatever. Its very effective in our soundbite, 'gotcha' culture. I think the exact same thing happens to the other groups of people you mentioned, usually by the same reactionary people.

This shifts the burden from people who over-generalize to the objects of generalization, to police other people. Trying to control free thinkers and individualists is folly, as is trying to protect the ignorant from their own errors. People who are interested will explore ideas for themselves. Gay people shouldn't need to hide the guy bare-ass in chaps and a cowboy hat, and nothing else, to be respected and have equality before the law. Feminists shouldn't have to hide the bra-burners to have the same rights and opportunities as men.

I also think that for all your example there are plenty of moderates putting their ideas out there, and denouncing extremists, and it doesn't work the way you claim it should. You can't argue people out of positions they were never argued into in the first place. The majority of anti-feminists, anti-gay, anti-whatever people who I have run into have these opinions because of cultural and political identity.

I wasn't trying to be defensive, but to defend an idea. I didn't see any good posts defending feminism, and plenty of weak ones attacking it.

1} Not everyone's politics are about blame, I'm more interested in what is, and how to improve things.

2) If blame is the issue, then men (not men as a category, but certain specific men) are literally to blame. If this is the truth then why should feminism pull its punches?

This is the problem right here: the term feminist has been poisoned intentionally. Its similar to the right-wing hit job on 'liberal'; the only way to defeat an idea that most people already accept is to reframe and demonize that idea as something objectionable.

You could find me a billion links to nutty, anti-male websites if you like. It doesn't matter. If you think it does matter than I allow me to discredit all right-wing politics by giving you a link to the American Nazi Party, or to discredit any idea of treating animals humanely by linking to PETA.

Feminism is the belief that women are just as capable and deserving of respect as men. Unless you believe women deserve less respect or fewer opportunities, simply for being female, congratulations, you are a feminist. Being anti-male, wanting to feminize men or de-feminize women, denying basic biological differences, or whatever other stupid idea you have been taught feminists believe, these are categorically not feminism.

Feminism is basically a social criticism that in many spheres of our society an elite group of men has taken control for their own benefit, to the exclusion of others. Keep in mind that women only gained the right to vote last century, as late as 1970 in France, and that people are still alive who remember women not being able work after marriage, legalized martial rape, and a whole bunch of other obviously misogynist practices, and its not a huge stretch to imagine that our society might still not be 100% perfect, or that social groups who were severely discriminated against in living memory still are.

Even if you are 100% self-interested, you should recognize that as women have gained more freedom over the last 50 year so have men, particularly in areas of child care and parental leave. Freedom and rights are not zero sum. The fact is that the same 'boys club' attitude that is bad for women is also bad for the vast majority of men.

I'll leave you with a Germaine Greer quote (paraphrasing):

Not to defend the word 'USian', which is horrid, but this issue is not as clear and simple as you make it out to be. The word 'American' has several uses; someone from the USA is only the most common use.

First, what is the adjective (or demonym) for someone from the Americas? These guys decided it was 'American'. Do you have a better answer?

Second, some people disagree on how many continents there are, with some people combining North and South America, or Europe and Asia. I think there's a stronger case for the second pairing, but using 'the Americas' to refer to a single continent is clearly wrong.

Third, what do we call the native people of the Americas? Historically, that word was American, as an analogue to African, Asian, and European. People make do with Native American, Amerindian, and a whole bunch of of other stuff, but its still kind of a mess. I added this one for historical perspective, but to be fair I have never heard anyone use American in this way.

The person you responded too was clearly a chump, but your refusal to aknowledge the ambiguity doesn't make it vanish. Words can carry a variety of meanings, and we depend on the context to make it clear.

When the Americans attacked York it was the capital of Upper Canada (Ontario). US troops set fire to the Parliament buildings, which lead to the British burning the White House in revenge. This attack is the reason Ottawa later became the capital of Canada; it was not as easy for the USA to attack, keeping in mind that a major attack would come by water in the 1800s.

I don't know if shelling was involved or not, but a famous American explorer, Zebulon Pike, was killed when the British troops blew up their own magazine.

Sure, I absolutely am willing to bet that cities bring more economic activity into the province than the rural areas do. The presence of one wealthy exurb does not change that. The fact is that the big cities, Toronto in particular, bring a large benefit to everyone in the province.

Also, the electoral map is misleading for two reasons: one the much larger size of rural, conservative ridings and the winner-takes-all nature of our elections. If you look at the map you sea a mainly blue southern Ontario, large patches of orange in the north, and a few tiny specks of red in certain areas. Remember that its the number of seats that matter in our system, not the surface area of the riding. The cities have many ridings because of their population. The northwest most riding in our province, where Kenora is, is bigger than all of southern Ontario, yet they only elect one MPP. The other thing is that there is a fair number of voters for all parties in every riding, but small tendancies towards Liberal or Convservative have a big impact. Its ridiculous to paint either the cities or the rural areas as politically unified when most winning candidates get less than half the vote.