NAFALT

MHRM blogs and forums often see posts from women self identifying as feminists who object to the characterisation among MHRAs that feminism is not interested in equality and that it is in fact an anti-male movement. They often make a statement similar to Not all feminists are like that. This statement is now so well known it is often simply referred to by its acronym, NAFALT.

There are many women in the community who profess to support gender equality and openly call themselves feminists. It is reasonable to conclude that the majority of women who make this claim are honest in their belief. This article is intended to respond to those queries.

Opinions among MHRAs differ about whether feminism was ever a movement interested in gender equality but the overwhelming belief is that if it ever was, it isn't any more.

The very name of the movement gives a clue about its real aims. The early founders of this movement could have given the movement a gender-neutral name such as Egalitarianism but they didn't. They named the movement for one gender. They called it feminism. This name immediately indicates that this movement is for women rather than being for gender equality.

Regardless, most MHRAs are concerned about modern (third wave) feminism rather than historical feminism.

Feminism

Denying Men's Issues

Attempts to bring legitimate men's issues in to conversations with feminists are often with met with derision and dismissal rather than well thought about responses based on evidence. This has even become a meme, But what about the menz or But what about teh menz.

Sexist Sexism

The feminist definition of sexism explicitly excludes the possibility that women can be sexist.

This is the defintion of sexism from the feminist blog finallyfeminism101.workpress.com and is typical of that used in modern feminism:

Sexism is both discrimination based on gender and the attitudes, stereotypes, and the cultural elements that promote this 
discrimination. Given the historical and continued imbalance of power, where men as a class are privileged over women as a 
class (see male privilege), an important, but often overlooked, part of the term is that sexism is prejudice plus power.
Thus feminists reject the notion that women can be sexist towards men because women lack the institutional power that men have.

In contrast dictionary.com defines sexism as:

sex·ism  [sek-siz-uhm]
noun
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination 
   directed against women.

The definition of sexism used by feminists is itself inherently sexist by drawing a distinction on the basis of gender. The dictionary definition presented here is still not gender neutral but it should be clear that it at least accepts the possibility that women can be sexist.

Patriarchy Theory

Feminists maintain that a system they call patriarchy has engaged in the systematic oppression of women throughout history and all around the world and that this system continues to function. This is a definition of patriarchy by the London Feminist Network

Patriarchy is the term used to describe the society in which we live today, characterised by current and historic
unequal power relations between women and men whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. This
takes place across almost every sphere of life but is particularly noticeable in women’s under-representation in
key state institutions, in decision-making positions and in employment and industry. Male violence against women
is also a key feature of patriarchy. Women in minority groups face multiple oppressions in this society, as race,
class and sexuality intersect with sexism for example.

Not only is this not true, as observation of the world around us should show, it has never been true anywhere any time. Human cultures are more complex than that.

Silencing Opposition

The activities of feminists at the University of Toronto to attempt to shut down a conference on men's human rights are now legendary. The feminists formed a crowd outside of the building hosting the conference and yelled and jostled people who tried to get in. They also illegally activated a fire alarm in the building to force all of the conference participants to leave the building and thus disrupt the conference.

http://www.macleans.ca/education/uniandcollege/a-mens-rights-advocate-spoke-at-the-university-of-toronto/

Shutdown of men's program at University of South Australia.

Claiming that Violence is a Gender Issue

Feminists maintain that violence is a gender issue. They maintain that men are the perpetrators of most gender-based violence and that women are the victims. They try to minimise recognition of violence against men, even though men are roughly twice as likely as women to be a victim of violence.

Feminists routinely claim that domestic violence (also known as intimate partner violence) is overwhelmingly something that men perpetrate against women. In fact men constitute at least one third of victims of domestic violence and may be half of victims.

In providing a summary of a meta study examing assaults by women on their spouses and male partners, Martin S. Fiebert from the Department of Psychology California State University, Long Beach wrote:

This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which
demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses
or male partners.  The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600.

See Also

• Patriarchy

References

<references>