How to not irritate feminists

A great post over at Unfogged, which lists “guidelines for avoiding actively irritating women who are discussing feminist concerns” including every feminist’s unfavourite:

6) Don’t say, “Men have problems too! Women are always doing mean things to men! [stamps foot] And we don’t complain about it as much!”

Feminists love to talk about the ways men are ill-served by the current arrangement. But if you’re one of the guys who Have Problems Too, you sound an awful lot like you’re talking about men’s problems to say, oh well, we all have something to be upset about, I guess there’s not much reason to think anything’s that unfair. We bring up men’s problems because we want things to change. You bring them up because you’re invested in the current system, and you want to tell us we don’t have that much to complain about.

I also really like this bit regarding women who denigrate feminists:

There are powerful and profound rewards in our society for women who don’t call men on their bullshit. Just because there are other women out there who are not calling you on your bullshit doesn’t mean it isn’t there, or even that they don’t see it.

Read the whole thing.
And read White Bears response as well.

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Tagged as: feminism, gender