U Not Gonna Like This

This from What Men Are Saying About Women:

An Essay by D Byron.

A criticism of iFeminism

In reply to Wendy McElroy on the iFeminist board

Wendy McElroy's iFeminist board is probably the best and possibly the only example of the picture of feminism that many people seem to think is the "real" feminism. ie a movement for genuine sex equality, but with a focus on women only. Since I am against all feminism I felt I should criticise the best of it and not just the far more numerous explicitly discriminatory feminism.

Wendy recently said,

"Individualist feminism embraces men as full and valued equals who have the same political interests as women -- that is to say, politically there is no validity to gender/class distinctions."

But feminism is based on the idea that there is a validity to gender/class distinctions. Otherwise why would anyone create a movement for women only? Wendy admits that even ifeminism is biased towards women in the FAQ:

"Being a feminist is a form of specialization. In fighting for individual rights, some people focus upon injustice to women just as others focus upon injustice to gays or children."

Is this a contradiction? Yes. iFeminism seems to be saying that its practical approach to justice will be the exact opposite (sex biased) of the theoretical point it is suposed to be making.

Wendy attempts to make a analogy with groups that help only children for example. But no childrens sites claim to be fighting against the idea that children should be treated differently to adults, and indeed children *should* be treated differently to adults for many reasons which is often why these groups exist.

Wendy attempts to make an analogy with pro-gay sites. But these groups have many issues where gay people are treated worse than heterosexual people in law still. They could also claim that gay rights were marginalised by other groups. The exact opposite is true of women. Women have more rights than any other group. Women's interests are over-represented and are more talked about and considered than any other group.

You could argue on the "gay" analogy that a men's movement could be thought of as legitimate, although my personal assesment is that it is not.

However at least men's rights advocates can point out practical reasons for supporting only men--- that men as a sex are discriminated against and their issues ignored while women's rights are inflated and highlighted.

This is so much the case that the iFeminist site has many articles underlining injustice against men despite the FAQ's suggestion that iFeminism "focuses" on injustice to women.

This brings up another argument against concentrating only on women's (or men's) issues which is that in researching honestly any sex based uinjustice you have to research both sides of the story. There is no practical saving of time by excluding one sex from the "focus" unless you wish to dishonestly frame issues in favour of one sex or the other.

This is unlike eg. child or gay groups. Issues which are highlighted by gay groups simply aren't issues for straight people. For example there is no issue for straight people in marriage because straight people can and always have been free to get married. With sex concentrating or "focusing" on on sex automatically means discriminating against the other.

In practise the way things work out on the iFeminist board is that relatively obscure "issues" for women are presented alongside stories that highlight gross injustices against men. As per the answer the FAQ gives, the mention of male issues is not part of the "feminism" of iFeminism".

Many issues for men are simply so important they are not ignored. However this obviously (and intentionally) means men are NOT treated "as full and valued equals who have the same political interests as women".