I'm curious about your view of feminism and your experience with it. You do mention that there are reactionary feminists--the ones people redshooz and MMM are reacting against and wrongly overgeneralizing to all feminists. I wondered which ones these would be? Steinem? Wolf? Falludi? Irigaray?

In my real-life experience with people who called themselves feminist, I did notice some who were exploiting the label or protecting themselves with it, but mostly they were normal people, working hard on their own lives, and interested in real equality. The ones who were female did not seem interested in running down men and were appalled by 'all men are rapists' claims. They would agree that the draft laws are discriminatory, that men are human and have feelings, and that equality is also about sharing the burden, not only the perks. Posters like MMM and redshooz make me sometimes wonder if I simply was lucky and met mostly people who were better than average. What was your experience, if you don't mind my asking?

Mmmmm. So, I've never met any of these reactionary feminists personally. In my particular circles, fully half of the feminists are men, actually. They must be out there, though, right? yeah, ummm.

I have seen some women behave in weird ways about feminism recently. Concerning Senator Clinton. My mom, for one, actually accused me of not being a feminist because I supported Obama. That's a little weird. I agreed with her on the sexism inherent in the way the media treated Senator Clinton; I just didn't support her for president. I think we need a new guard. See now, I was about to start equivocating for why I support Obama. That's not important, really. It has nothing to do with the question you raised.

I've come into contact with people online who don't like my scientist take on the fact that women are inherently different than men. Most of them (like the two people online) were more worried about the politics of what I was saying than the actual biology. I seem to be a feminist who says things that feminists are SUPPOSED to hate. I still end up arguing with some men online who are predisposed to dislike my message because it comes with the "feminist" label. Even when I'm actually agreeing with them, with a few caveats.

I DO disagree with the 70's feminist line that women and men are exactly the same. I think it was needed then, though. I wouldn't be where I am now without Steinem or Wolf. Our biology in response to the flight-or-fight response, however, shows the difference between male and female definitively. I'd like it if "your average female" (as if there is such a thing) would acknowledge that the women's movement has made an impact on the way men go through life. In fact, I see the major failing if the women's movement to be that we didn't properly explain it to the individual male. The patriarchy f***ed them up too. I've read "Iron John" and I get it. The whole "Men are providers and women are nurturers" thing cuts both ways. Some men are confused right now. Hell, I'm confused. There's a level of competition (and a new way of competition) in which we are all insufficiently versed. Is this our problem? Yes. In so much as we're working for equality. At least, that's how I see it.

In a perfect world, we'd have a free and (dare I say it?) accepting conversation about how our differences come into play in making decisions. MMM's comments did make me think that wasn't possible, for a moment. But, then you responded. I can't say I understand the anger, but then I know for a fact that he can't understand mine. And I'm angry about a lot of the ways this society makes me impotent. I've had a problem before with some of the feminists on Broadsheet assuming the worst. Granted, it's usually been about something small - like a commercial. BUT I think all anyone wants - me, you, MerelyMortalMale - is to be legitimized. There was this guy on here a while ago (is he still around?) Brightstar. He came out with the harshest diatribes about how horrible women are. I just wanted to hug him. Just. Take him in my arms and prove to him that the world is not such a bad, bad place. People don't have control over their lives in this world. People focus on a detail and concentrate all their energy on hating that thing. I do it. I bet you do it too. Some femininists focus that on men. Granted, I've never met any of these people personally. It's a lot easier to have major problems online than elsewhere. I bet most people are pretty nice to the opposite sex in daily life.

Hmmm. I should probably have quit while I was ahead (which was a few paragraphs ago.) I'm very interested to hear your personal stories and opinions too. How has feminism worked for you? What do you think of the arguments that go on in the online environment? Are we changing anything?

Your post is interesting, and similar to my own thoughts. I'm a 39-year-old male foreigner (Brazilian). In Brazil, feminism is much weaker than in America (other things, like huge class differences between the poor and the rich, take precedence), and what is there is more "laid-back" than the American version. So my first contact with a more activist kind of feminism was when I came to grad school in America, actually in Texas. (Yes, I'm in science too--I'm a linguist, doing research on Amazonian indigenous languages.)

The anti- or non-feminist guys here--the "Angry Guys", as bigguns once called them--describe feminism as something horrible. My contact with women--and men--who called themselves feminists was actually quite good: they seemed to believe in self-reliance and in working seriously on their careers (and we were all a bunch of enthusiastic grad students anyway). At that time, I had started a sort of self-knowledge odissey: I was trying to listen to others and understand them (in a previous phase, I had been a misanthrope in many ways: I used to hate people in general and want to be alone; life changed me). So I listened and asked questions, felt interested and started reading. I found books on feminism in the library, went to a few conferences, and tried to understand.

Indeed I found a lot of good things. But I also found a number of claims that struck me as hard to believe--among which the one you mentioned from the 70's, second wave feminism: men and women are the same except for social construal of gender roles. It seemed to me that hormonal differences could not fail to have a certain impact on people; and while I was always aware of our common humanity (men and women do have a lot in common), I also could see that some differences had to exist. (Actually it was a little complicated, because some time before that I had wanted to believe that there were no differences between men and women--but that was, curiously, before I read about feminism, it was just an idea of mine, something about love making it necessary for the lovers to be able to identify with each other, and how harmonious and beautiful it would be if they were the same; but a number of events in my life quickly dispelled this.)

Also, some of the books I read--I remember Falludi's Backlash--had certain claims that suggested that men were, well, "evil." I pursued this thread, and read about Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, whose work really made me cringe. What they were saying about men, 'patriarchy' (a concept I have a few problems with), pornography, and the relations between the sexes seemed just too extreme. I was actually very angry at what these two were saying. I went back to some of my feminist friends, and was relieved to see they considered Dworkin and MacKinnon fringe cases unworthy of much attention. I went on reading, and found other people whose ideas I could relate to better--from Camille Paglia to Cathy Young to Christina Hoff-Sommers--and went to a few conferences and lectures.

At some point I began to form my own picture of "what was going on", a picture which diverged somewhat from what I saw in those books (I liked some more than others, but I didn't agree 100% with any of them). I decided not to call myself a feminist, because I saw the label asociated with many different, even mutually exclusive, viewpoints (Wikipedia defines feminism as "a form of discourse", not a theory or school of thought). Like "socialism", another label that has many ideas I like but which is so fluid that I don't want to identify with it. If I were to call myself something, it would be an "egalitarian": I believe in equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work, etc. for all.

As you say, some men are indeed confused, and some feminists have contributed to this confusion. This is the grain of truth in the posts that the "Angry Men" keep sending to Broadsheet. But, at least in my personal experience--maybe I just was lucky--there are many good feminists, good people who show that this confusion comes from mistaking extremists for mainstream. Just as men had stereotypes about women and their roles in the past, some feminists had stereotypes about men and 'patriarchy.' If I were to choose a model to follow, I'd pick Cathy Young and her book Ceasefire!: why men and women must cooperate to achieve equality.

I agree that, whatever it is we call 'patriarchy', men suffered from it too. And that excluding them from the effort, as some feminists do ('a man can't be a true feminist because the privileges which he has always enjoyed make it impossible for him to understand and feel empathy towards women', etc.), actually works against the success of any gender equality. Just as I agree that some of the Angry Men here, like MerelyMortalMale, are blaming feminists too much and refusing them any humanity. (Yes, Brightstar is still around, and he still often says women are all bad, have all the rights, oppress men, etc. But he's also said a couple of more sensible things too. I hope he reads your post!) I like to call such anti-feminist men and anti-male feminists "gender extremists," because I think they actually resemble each other. They say pretty much the same things with the same tone of voice, always directed at the opposite sex.

Society always has ways to make us feel impotent. I hope you've managed to win your own battles! (I've had to win quite a few battles myself.) Maybe you're right when you say that "most people are pretty nice to the opposite sex in daily life." I'd like to think that gender extremists are actually nice to the opposite sex in real life. I'm sometimes afraid they are as "evil" in real life as here, but I'd rather believe what you said. It's possible. Even probable.