Lots of women aren’t feminists, and become very insulted if you presume them to be.

OTOH, I think it’s just as important to acknowledge that feminism has had a huge impact on public consciousness - men and women alike - so even those people who do not self-identify as feminists will likely be influenced by its theories, and believe that the traditional gender roles were designed to benefit men and keep women down.

The effects of feminism can be quite insidious and more pervasive than one might think.
And what we need to counter are those effects, the incorrect arguments, and not the men and women who honestly believe that feminism has basically nailed the gender dynamics.

Well, no shit. Very few women hold these opinions. But then, we were talking about feminsts, not women in general. Feminists presume to speak for and to represent women, without much basis in actual assent from women. Feminists are the vanguard party after all; other women are wallowing in false consciousness, you see.

Very few women hold the opinions that most feminsts hold; feminists are in reality a fairly small perecentage of women. This comes up in poll after poll, both of opinions and self-identification as feminists (which is too bad; feminism is to credit for some truly positive social changes and specifically young women owe feminism a lot.)

Feminists contradict each other on basically every issue. Some insist on there being no biological difference between the sexes when it comes to cognition or capabilities, while others are so insistent on inherent sexual differences that they openly hate the very idea of trans-gendered people and insist that men are violent by nature and women are gentle by nature. Inherently. There are numerous other examples. The one thing they agree on is the existence of the Patriarchy.

Except that that doctrine is incoherent. If men run everything, then every woman is born with a meal ticket between her legs. That’s power, uneraned privelege! Uh, no, that…..exploitation! Prostitution is not an unequal advantage, it’s horrible, horrible exploitation, completely unlike selling drugs for instance. If men run everything, then predictably there should be competition for that power - so some men will be losers. But no, according to feminist theory men are the Borg, we all benefit from Patriarchy.

Unless we don’t. When you point out a clear downside for men, you get a patronizing Patriarchy Hurts Men Too (But Women More). It’s all like a religion trying to find mre and more patches to explain its worldview as more and more people poke holes in it.

Jims comment on “If men got pregant, abortion would be funded by the government” is in fact a statement made by some feminists. Any resulting discussion concerns only those who holds that belief unles somebody explicitly claims this is the view of all feminists.

As you say, feminism embraces alot of ideas, some are sexist, some are for equality, alot of them are contradictory, its impossible to adress feminism as a whole. Im sure noone here is unaware about this fact, and it is indeed obvious to mention it; unless you feel that we somehow do not take this into consideration. If so, please point us to it and we can discuss it.

I agree with you, Pelle, and I don’t think you’ve crossed it. I think you do an excellent job!

And sorry if I happen to make obvious comments. They’re not that obvious to me.

I don’t think we’ve crossed the line in this discussion, but it’s always good to be reminded, so thanks for that Kristian.

Even though I find it counter-productive to attack women and men, I still think it’s perfectly OK to ask more of people, and expect them to do better. So even though the gender dynamics on a systemic level interest me the most, the individual component is still there, and individual change is needed if we want systemic change.