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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2513 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 28, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I want to eventually get some grasp on feminism as a whole. While I can find pro-feminist writings and arguments easily, I find myself unable to find anti-feminist arguments of a suitable quality.

Therefore, I'm asking for recommendations on anti-feminist arguments, books, etc. Ideally, these should be as evidenced, charitable, nuanced, etc. as one would expect from the older SlateStarCodex posts. They don't have to be perfect, but I'm going to be less engaged with someone trying to tell me the feminists are all stupid or evil or some combination of the two.

The Lorenzeo Warby essay series Worshipping the Future is a must read

Try Catharine Beecher or other anti-suffragists. To sum up, she considered the lack of women's suffrage a feature. Just like the legislature is separate from the administration and the courts, so too the power of the ballot box should be restricted to a subset of the society.

Parties and voters are shaped by partisanship. If party A supports restrictions on smoking, then party B will oppose restrictions on smoking, just because it's the opposite position. Voters that love smoking will gradually adopt other positions of party B. Both parties will naturally drift further apart on the issue, one trying to ban smoking, one trying to get rid of all restrictions.

When women can't vote, this doesn't mean they aren't involved in politics. They can influence their men both individually and in organized groups, and because they aren't influenced by partisanship, they form a massive moderating influence that counteracts the forces that push the parties apart. "I don't care if you smoke on the porch or in your study, but I don't like when you smoke in the dining room or in the bedroom" is something the wives of both party A supporters and party B supported can say.

If I am not mistaken, anti-suffragists considered the prohibition, its failure and subsequent repeal a direct consequence of universal suffrage.

Karen Straughn aka GirlWritesWhat has some good antifeminist videos on youtube, but they often lean into rhetoric so might not be what you are after. Her older stuff was pretty good anyway.

What's feminism to you?

There's rather a gap, for instance, between arguing that women are already adequately represented in the workplace, and arguing that a woman's place is in the kitchen, to use employment as an example (but similar contrasts could be done elsewhere).

Some possible arguments you might see:

The sexual revolution is harmful to women (see Louise Perry).

The pay gap is mostly due to their own choices—choosing lower paying jobs, fewer hours, less distasteful jobs, having lower ambition/competitiveness on average, etc.

More egalitarian countries have larger gender segregation, hence lack of women in an area does not equal discrimination.

In practice, we focus on careers over motherhood, resulting in women passing their fertility window, before they realize that they're out of time.

We're already inclined to care more about women than men (see, e.g. Richard Hanania on women's tears and the marketplace of ideas, though I'm not sure to what extent he meets your nuanced/charitable thresholds), so focusing on them further doesn't help.

Male norms in the workplace are more productive, even if less welcoming to women, so we should try to endorse male norms.

In practice, feminists are not sympathetic to men, or see things in too zero-sum a manner.

Divorce/alimony/child support are unfair.

A majority of those in college are women, already.

There are far more female-only spaces than vice-versa.

Women live longer, are healthier, are less likely to commit suicide, etc. so the attention should lie elsewhere.

Presumption of guilt in sexual harassment cases is unwise.

Marriage is good.

TFR's too low.

Women voting is bad (maybe because they value sounding nice over good policy, or something)

There are more important things than independence and self-sufficiency.

Gender norms match innate tendencies.

Women are physically weaker, and more likely to quit/become pregnant, so it makes sense capitalistically for employers to prefer male workers.

I don't endorse all of these, I think some are probably contradictory, and I'm sure there are more arguments out there, but these sorts of things are worth being aware of. As I said, what you mean by feminism is relevant. It's of course possible to be a feminist in one respect, but not another.

Sorry for the lack of actual recommendations. I suppose there were a few Scott posts that were somewhat anti-feminist (at least, as it actually exists in practice).

The Garbage Generation is an antifeminist book available for free here.

Have you seen /u/TheTinMenBlog's posts on reddit? I don't think he considers himself an antifeminist though and they might be a bit too shallow (in the neutral sense of that not being their primary purpose) for what you are looking for. The studies he cites in them are probably of interest however.

I will provide you with a low-effort post, waving vaguely in some direction, as I lack the resources within myself to build a more coherent argument. First, I would start from the defense of the patriarchy, since I find feminism not well-defined, basically more a multi-layer motte and bailey construction. I think it is safe to say that the patriarchy is the Nemesis of all feminists and no feminist supports patriarchy. First I define patriarchy (following Wikipedia) as

Patriarchy is a social system in which men are the primary authority figures in the areas of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property.

Some possible arguments in favor of patriarchy:

  1. Evolutionary argument - basically all known societies, starting from the most primitive ones share the patriarchy as a founding order. Evidence for matriarchal societies is very scarce, and if there was such evidence it would be very well known. Thus, there must be something to the patriarchy so that it allowed for the proliferation of the civilization.

  2. People are emotionally skewed against men due to women-are-wonderful effect. Thus, the society in general views men as worse and women as better then they are in reality. Because of this bias, we need to be very careful when considering the feminist agenda trying to ascribe to men all the worst qualities like selfishness, violence, greed and lack of morals.

  3. Great variability of men - Feminism has a tendency to narrow the masculinity to the set of controversial traits of violence, selfishness, greed etc. (toxic masculinity). Looking at the historical records and greater men variability hypothesis one can conclude, that this set of traits was only characteristic to the very narrow group of men. Men were also: farmers, artisans, poets, saints, pacifists, socialists, martyrs, hermits, merchants, monks, singers, dancers, philosophers, dreamers and librarians. There is no single trait that men share, although there are some tendencies. There is no essence of man that makes him less valuable or more socially suspicious then woman.

  4. Great creativity of men - one can trace almost all works of art, all scientific breakthroughs, all architectural feats, all architectural miracles to men and their work. These creations benefit all of mankind and men who were freed from the pains of child-bearing and rearing by the patriarchy, have been proven by the millennia of civilization to be able to raise the standard of living for everyone.

  5. Evolutionary bottleneck - Men went through a tighter evolutionary bottleneck then women and developed some traits that make them better at cooperation. Thus, they are able to build complex organizations and engage in large-scale enterprises. Without these traits modern societies would cease to exist.

Ok, so these are five exemplary arguments, approximately from the least subjective to the most subjective, or from the most evidence-based to the least-evidence based. I also personally think that men are more loyal, generous and less cruel then women in certain circumstances, but it is extremely hard to find any papers that would paint men in better light then women. I run multiple queries in multiple search engines and had hard time finding barely anything, (I encourage to do this as a simple exercise) which shows how strong are prejudices against men (see 2.). But this is my subjective musing, so I end here.

I also personally think that men are more loyal, generous and less cruel then women in certain circumstances, but it is extremely hard to find any papers that would paint men in better light then women.

What convinced you that the issue was the papers were being suppressed instead of a lack of evidence for your belief?

Not OP, but personal experience as a scientist has thoroughly convinced me that the great majority of science is done with a consistent bias in favor of center-to-far left mainstream beliefs (depending on the field). I've been told multiple times by older scientist that if I want to write a paper with a conclusion that goes against modern progressive sensibilities(I don't even mean deliberately, just that the data turned out that way), I will need to bring better evidence and will be scrutinized much more closely than the opposite. And worse, the main difference between scientists was the emphasis - a minority sees this as a regrettable reality, a majority is neutrally pragmatic, and a second much more influential minority outright sees this as a good thing. Of course biological differences between men and women would be a bad thing and we should be careful to even insinuate the possibility!

In short, my personal experiences with men. Many times different men in my life have helped me despite having no personal interest and me being an underdog and having nothing to offer them in exchange. They pulled me out of dire straits many times. I recall one story with a father of my friend borrowing me a car for a couple days, fully fueled and asking me to take care of myself. This story brings me to tears almost immediately, even now. My father died quite young, and my mother took all the money I should have inherited and spent it all lavishly on herself. So this is deeply personal and heavily based on my experience, but as I emphasized, this is what I have observed in my life and probably least important part of my post. I have met also selfish, cruel men, and there is a lot of them, but in general men are great, really great. Thus, I will defend patriarchy to my last breath.

And I don't think that papers are being suppressed, not at all. This is just women-are-wonderful effect. People want to know how women are great and so these papers are well known. I don't think that papers are suppressed, they are just difficult to find. And I don't have energy and patience to find them today. I also don't base all my beliefs on reading scientific papers, I'm far from rationalist philosophy.

Books :

Old Books :

  • The Manipulated Man - Esther Vilar
  • The Legal Subjection of Men - Ernest Belfort Bax

Documentary: The Red Pill

Reddit: Haven’t been there in a long time, but /r/mensrights was always decent. They have a huge FAQ with references, more books, etc. Though I must admit, they don't like feminism over there. Neither do I . I think feminism is intellectually very shallow, relying more on people's general goodwill towards women, as well as on accusations of sexism against critics, than on a coherent model on how the world actually works.

I'm asking for recommendations on anti-feminist arguments

Haven’t been there in a long time, but /r/mensrights was always decent.

I'd describe the position of /r/mensrights as "the publicly stated doctrine of feminism should be applied, not the de facto version which gives new rents and social license to women only". For example, I recall many posts about how society stigmatizes men for emotionality and liking children, and that a fair society should treat men just like women in this regard. Also many blank slatist posts implying women commit sexual violence just as much as men, and that society just ignores female rape. So MRAs aren't rejecting feminism as an ideology; they're embracing its rhetorical frame.

A true anti-feminist position should reject the premise that men and women be treated the same, legally or culturally.

I don’t think the law should be tailored to every group’s capabilities and sensibilities. One law for the tall, one law for the women, one law for the red-haired, one for the stupid… . Waste of time. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. This does not require a belief in the blank state.

one law for the red-haired

The only law they need is the law of iron, fire, and pain.

Purge the gingers!

(Having some fun this morning, that's all)

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