In Defense of Feminism: A Handy-Dandy List of Links for Cishet Men

Let me get this out of the way first: I am not a feminist. I believe in Egalitarianism an anarcho-feminist with intersectional leanings. (See footnote 1.) I disagree with some of Feminism's ideology (Lesbian and Radical, for personal/self-interest reasons) and there are vast gaps in my knowledge. I am a single, white, cis-het male and a self-aware arsehole. (id est I have faults, privileges and blind spots I'm endeavoring to overcome.)

Be that as it may, I see so much — so much — BS posted about feminism by people who're truly clueless about it. For example:

1. Feminism is for man-haters. [As if this is somehow a personal attack and there are no such things as subgroups of thought. "Radical Feminists" are not "true" feminists, but that's a subject for another post.]

2. If a woman doesn't let you violate her body/boundaries/consent/rights and throws a fit, she's a "feminazi" because blah blah blah entitlement and invading her intimate/private space(s) like she's Poland (which doesn't even make syntactical, let alone semantic, sense)

3. Feminism seeks to treat everyone the way women want to be treated. (See Footnote 2.)

Every time I've seen these "arguments" put forth, I wished I had a single article to which I could refer that has a list of links to appropriate literature, but I did not. So this is that article. (I have republished it in multiple places on the Web, including my patreon and Publish0x.) Please feel free to suggest additional/alternate links. (I am aware that some may not be reliable/credible.) I'm currently going through it, vetting the content and doing my best to onboard it with an open mind free from judgement and criticism.

"Contrary to popular opinion, feminism is not concerned with women hating men or trying to “be like men”. What feminism is interested in is ending sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. [...] The sexism that is to be ended is [not] only female sexism. Gender roles are sexist against both sexes, male and female."
— Nadia Persaud; A Discussion On Patriarchy, Oppression And Feminism (2016)

"I want to show people the behind-the-scenes of women’s lives. I want you to look in the face of the women who you might objectify, discourage, discriminate, or take advantage of. I can’t be more appreciative of the experiences that women tell me every day. I don’t think they do it because they want to piss us off or make us feel guilty. I think they do it because they want to have better relationships with us."
— Anthony Recenello (2020); Why Male Participation Is Needed in Order to Rectify Harassment Against Women; Natascha Wittmann; The Good Men Project

The first two links are particularly good for dealing with horse shit, IMO.

• Feminism And The Men Who Refuse To Understand

• Feminism 101

• The Feminist Movement from a Western Perspective

• Male Privilege and Magical Man Sparkles

• Nice Guy™ Syndrome and the Friend Zone

• Schrödinger’s Rapist

• I Don't Care About Your Boner

• I am Not a Character in Your Story

• More Helpful Hints for Dudes

• The Manic Pixie Dream Girl and What it Means

• The Bechdel-Wallace Test (See "Criticisms" section)

• The Mako Mori Test

• "Yes" Means "Yes" Blog

• How does biology explain the low numbers of women in CS? Hint: it doesn’t.

• Elementary Mistakes in Feminist Discussion

• Bad Sexism Comebacks

• Good Sexism Comebacks

• Don't Be That Guy — for straight men interacting with straight women

• Being an Ally, Part I

• The Do's and Dont's of Being a Good Ally

• So You Want to Be an Ally?

• Bad Ally Quiz

• Ally Smells: Fear of Speaking Up

• A Call to Men: Tony Porter TED Talk

• Words are Not Fists — Wayback Machine

• Stuff What [sic] Boys Can Do

• On Male Feminists

• Privilege Checklist

• Check My What?

• Feminism Needs You, Not Your Privilege

• Rape Culture 101

• The Opposite of Rape Culture — I didn't even realise I'd already added this until @Skyyandra suggested I read it. Thank you for getting me back on track. It's both highly pertinent and highly poignant.

• SWM: The Lowest Difficulty Setting

• Moving Past Privilege Guilt

• Interacting with Women

• How to Message Women on Fet — Conduct Guide for the clueless dudebro

• Patriarchal Bargaining

• Casual Sexism: What About Lesbians?

• List of Feminists

• Malala: The Girl Who Was Shot for Going to School

• Nice Guys™ Redux

• XKCD: Friends with Detriments, because of course I can't not include an XKCD link

• The Friend Zone Myth — Looks like a PUA hotspot (but it isn't; the man makes sense).

• A Straight Geek Male's Guide to Interaction with Females — Day-to-day interaction, not "pick up chicks"

• The Reality That All Women Experience That Men Don’t Know About

• The Female Price of Male Pleasure

• WHO's global statistics on violence against women (committed by men)

• Understanding the Dangers of Dating — nothing screams “Sex me up now” like entitlement issues.

• It’s Not That They Don’t Understand, They Just Don’t Like The Answer — guilty as charged and trying to do something about not liking it (not the rape part).

• Predators and the Social License to Operate

• The Consequences of Enthusiastic Consent

• Male Privilege in Nerd Culture

• Just Trying — “I thought I was horrible with chicks, but holy shit these guys make me look like James Bond." [Not a great character himself]

• Changing the Creepy Guy Narrative — "... the real villain is the culture that discourages her from rebuking him in no uncertain terms lest she be castigated, lest he escalate to anger."

• You're not "Awkward"; You're Creepy — "... I can promise you that nearly every woman you meet is already going to assume that on some level, you’re considering the possibility of sex with her. Objectification is the background radiation of every woman’s life. Your lobbing out a ham-fisted sex joke is not actually the naughty little witticism you think it is. It’s tiresome and boring."

• Dude, enough with the entitlement! She doesn't owe you shit. — please Keep reading, because these comments contain lessons all men must learn. [Aside: Does anyone still wonder why I'm against Abrahamic religion? Yes? Here's a giant hint: misogyny]

• Emma Watson On How Being Threatened for Speaking About Feminism Enraged and Motivated Her — I'm not sure how credible Vanity Fair is as a source.

• Stop Asking Strangers to Help Your Penis — The Robot Devil || Thanks to @SMG99 for helping me find this writing. I strongly encourage reading her OMG Lessons.

• Why Male Participation is Needed in Order to Rectify Harassment Against Women || Gender equality is not a one-way street. It’s not something only women have to fight for.

• Excuse me; I'm Speaking

Patriarchy Hurts Men Too

• 5 Must-Follow Man Rules — It's not manly men doing manly things.

• The Quiet Strength of True Manhood — another decent article from Dr. Nerdlove

• The Toxic Appeal of MRAs — James Fell; 2014

• #NotAllMen and derailment — Oh, FFS, do we really need to delve into this?! (Yes, we do.)

• Let's call MRAs by their True Names — Whiny Fuckless Losers (WFLs)

• The Worst Thing about MRAs — Co-opting real issues and the Suffering Olympics.

• Five uncomfortable truths about MRAs — Spoiler alert: Blaming other people (women) for your problems; Warning: Cracked is somewhat dubious as a source.

• The Delicious Irony of MRAs’ (Mis)Appropriation of The Matrix’s Red Pill

• The First Myth of Patriarchy: Patriarchy Ultimately Benefits Men — "Patriarchy is not authentic masculinity. It is the shadow side of it. It is the toxic mimic we have come to accept. There are ways to be a man that don’t require being dominant over women – but in partnership with [them]."

• What is Toxic Masculinity? — The Good Men Project || It's not just a way of saying all men are bad.

Supplemental

Here are some useful links not strictly to do with feminism, but useful none the less.

• Photo Metadata 101

• I Know Where Your Cat Lives — What happens when your photos contain Exif location data

• Dick Pic Locator — Did some douche nozzle send you a dick pic from his phone? Locate that sucker and put the fear of Glod into him.

• Jesus Assholes Online (No link because it's an IG account; one word, all lowercase)

• The Mask You Live In — Documentary on toxic Masculinity

• Why there is no such thing as "reverse racism" — works just as well for "reverse sexism"

• White Fragility (Why it's so hard to talk to white people about racism)

• Call Trans Opt: Transgender Themes in The Matrix and The Path That Lies Behind Me — AKA Most Guys Do; Useful for gaining some (limited) perspective on trans* people, if you're clueless.

• Here, Use this Profile Template

Even More Links

Since this article was very long (and difficult to edit without a dedicated markdown editor) when first I wrote it, subsequent suggestions on the site where it first appeared have been tacked on here. My apologies for any duplication that occurs.

• The female price of male pleasure

• The mask in which you live

• The WHO's statistics on violence against women (committed by men)

• An Epidemic of Disbelief: A problem with rape kit backlogs

• YouTube: What "Questions for SJWs" taught me about Anti-Feminism

• YouTube: Why I Didn't Jump on the Anti-Feminism Bandwagon — T1J [Anti-feminism is not about civil discourse or using valid reasoning to criticise Feminism's faults and shortcomings. It's a vitriolic, reactionary movement.]

• YouTube: What's Wrong With Capitalism — Contrapoints Part 1 &
  Part 2

• YouTube: On Sex Work — Philosophy Tube

Shrödinger's Rapist Revisited

• Schrödinger's Rapist: Yes, We Have to Talk About This Again

• For those Who Don't Understand Schrödinger's Rapist, Part 1 & Part 2

• Schrödinger’s Rapist: ever-reliable source of women being told that (yet again) we’re doing it wrong

• Schrödinger’s Rapist Revisited

• Wayback Machine/Web Archive link for Schrödinger's Rapist.

More Books

• Feminism for Everyone — Bell Hooks

• We Should All be Feminists — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; this is to have succeeded."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher

1. This is not because I believe "women have all the power and we men need our rights back" (I don't), but because I'd like to live in a world where equality is not a race/gender/identity issue. (I know it's far from it.) Also, "liberal" screams "indecisive, fence-sitting, spineless, limp-wristed" to me.

2. This one is particularly insidious, because it almost mirrors the correct definition, but it poisons the sugar with "the way women want to be treated" by insinuating it's somehow not the same way men want to be treated and therefore violates them.

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Lead image: Photo by Markus Spiske from/on Pexels