# Anti-Feminism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390 "2015-07-17T06:05:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 61
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1201 "2015-08-13T20:05:34Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Of course the real issue as far as hiring goes is that it’s almost always too micro-level to take this kind of thing into account. You’d have to look at the individual candidates. When it comes to ‘looking at the individual candidates,’ study after study shows that this doesn’t actually happen. Demographic characteristics (such as gender) count for far more than most people want to acknowledge. There are, quite literally, thousands of reputable studies that show that when the exact same resume or CV is submitted to employers–with the ONLY difference being the name at the top (a female name versus a male name)–the hiring outcomes differ quite predictably by the gender of that name. I picked just the first few hits I did in a search of _resume / gender / male name / female name_. The first quote shows a literature review citing many such studies: > [@](#): > > March 21, 2006: Gender and Racial Bias in Hiring; authors: Shelley J. Correll1 and Stephen Benard2 (1 Associate Professor of Sociology, Cornell University > 2 Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology, Cornell University) > > … Despite reductions in blatant forms of discrimination, women continue to experience more subtle forms discrimination, such as having their input in groups ignored and having their performances devalued (Ridgeway and Correll 2004; Valian 1999). Evidence supporting this claim comes from a diverse set of studies, including selfreports of discrimination, attitudinal surveys of those who make hiring decisions, and experiments that hold the quality of applicants constant but vary their gender on application materials. … > … In one interesting natural experiment, Goldin and Rouse (2000) found that after symphony orchestras switched from auditions where the gender of a musician was visible to a procedure where musicians auditioned behind a screen, the rate of hire of female musicians increased by approximately 25%. Studies have also found that female university faculty receive 3 more negative teaching evaluations than their male counterparts from both male and female students (Sinclair and Kunda 2000). Letters of recommendation for female faculty applicants have been found to be shorter, contain fewer descriptions of their research accomplishments, give more emphasis to their teaching ability, and raise more doubts compared with letters for male faculty applicants (Trix and Psenka 2003). In one particularly relevant study, researchers modified an actual curriculum vita so that it either contained a female or male name and sent the CV to a random sample of university psychology departments and asked faculty members to evaluate the person on a number of dimensions (Steinpreis, Anders, and Ritzke 1999). In one set of conditions, the CV was the version the actual applicant had previously used to get a job as a new assistant professor, and in the other conditions, the CV was the (more impressive) version she used years later as a tenure candidate. The researchers found that when the new assistant professor CV had a male name, the candidate was judged by both male and female evaluators to be worthy of hire approximately 73% of the time. When the same CV had a female name, it was rated worthy of hire approximately only 45% of the time. … [http://diversity.illinois.edu/SupportingDocs/DRIVE/Gender%20and%20Racial%20Bias%20in%20Hiring-1.pdf](http://diversity.illinois.edu/SupportingDocs/DRIVE/Gender%20and%20Racial%20Bias%20in%20Hiring-1.pdf) > [@](#): > > … Handelsman and Corinne A. Moss-Racusin, a postdoctoral associate in MCDB and psychology, as well as colleagues in social psychology decided to test whether this bias among researchers might help explain why fewer women than men have careers in science. They provided about 200 academic researchers with an application from a senior undergraduate student ostensibly applying for a job as lab manager. The faculty participants all received the same application, which was randomly assigned a male or female name. The faculty were asked to judge the applicants’ competency, how much they should be paid, and whether or not they would be willing to mentor the student. > > In the end, scientists responded no differently than other groups tested for bias. Both men and women science faculty were more likely to hire the male, ranked him higher in competency, and were willing to pay him $4000 more than the woman. They were also more willing to provide mentoring to the male than to the female candidate. … > **[Scientists not immune from gender bias, Yale study shows](https://news.yale.edu/2012/09/24/scientists-not-immune-gender-bias-yale-study-shows)** > > Hypothesis: Scientists have a superior ability to root out gender bias in their labs because they are trained to rigorously reject subjective criteria. > [@](#): > > The Matilda Effect in Science Communication: An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest > Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick1, Carroll J. Glynn1, and Michael Huge1 > 1The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA > Science Communication 35(5) 603 –625 © The Author(s) 2013 > Abstract: An experiment with 243 young communication scholars tested hypotheses derived from role congruity theory regarding impacts of author gender and gender typing of research topics on perceived quality of scientific publications and collaboration interest. Participants rated conference abstracts ostensibly authored by females or males, with author associations rotated. The abstracts fell into research areas perceived as gender-typed or gender-neutral to ascertain impacts from gender typing of topics. Publications from male authors were associated with greater scientific quality, in particular if the topic was male-typed. Collaboration interest was highest for male authors working on male-typed topics. Respondent sex did not influence these patterns. > **[Department of Addictions | School of Academic Psychiatry | King’s College London](https://www.kcl.ac.uk/academic-psychiatry/about/departments/addictions)** > > Formed in March 2010, The Addictions Department brought together the addiction research unit and the sections of alcohol research, tobacco research and behavioural pharmacology. The Addictions Department is also known as the National Addiction Centre... There are too many of these studies (showing that the exact same material–CV or essay or what have you–is rated according to the gender of the name at the top), and the studies come from far too reputable sources, for the findings to be argued away. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1202 "2015-08-13T20:11:43Z")
I’m familiar with studies like that. I don’t think it disproves the point, other than to show that even when in theory employment _should_ be a case-by-case basis, it a significant number of cases it’s affected by those general presumptions. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1203 "2015-08-13T20:40:01Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > If a woman is killed by a serial killer, she’s a victim. If a man is killed, he’s a what? Heroic non-survivor? Dead but totally non-victim male person? > > What about kids? If it’s a boy is he a proto-man death sufferer? I don’t know if this is addressed to me or not, but when I said men, in general, don’t like to think of themselves as “victims”, I was talking about living men, not dead ones. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1204 "2015-08-13T20:54:44Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Funny how you cut out all the stuff which documented how slut shaming is a girly Matriarchy thingy. Or rather, I suppose it’s the evils of The Patriarchy forcing women to behave like bitches to each other. > You just can’t win. Men being bad to woman: it’s The Patriarchy. Women being bad to women: it’s The Patriarchy. Men being good to woman: it’s bad and it’s The Patriarchy. Women being bad to men: it’s The Patriarchy. Women being good to men: well we haven’t seen that one yet, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s bad and it’s The Patriarchy. > > Now send some sluts my way, so I can get full benefits from my white hetero-oppressive cis-normative patriarchal privilege! “The Patriarchy” does seem to have an expansive definition. Slut-shaming? Patriarchy. The industrial revolution, democracy, penicillin… I’m sure they had nothing to do with “the Patriarchy,” whatever it is. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1205 "2015-08-13T21:09:14Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I’m familiar with studies like that. I don’t think it disproves the point, other than to show that even when in theory employment _should_ be a case-by-case basis, it a significant number of cases it’s affected by those general presumptions. I may not have fully understood the point as I don’t play Minecraft. What was it? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1206 "2015-08-13T21:58:55Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I may not have fully understood the point as I don’t play Minecraft. What was it? In Minecraft, you have several modes. Most of which are simply levels of difficulty - higher difficulty, and things are made trickier for the player - but one of them is Creative mode. In Creative mode, you can, basically, do whatever you want. Create any object in whatever numbers you wish, be invincible, go wherever you want with ease. **robertliguori** ’s analogy (as I understood it) was treating being in an advantageous (or not a disadvantageous) group is like being in that mode; you can do whatever you want, with no bad consequences, and no problems you really have to face. His argument was that if you had a kind of person who didn’t have to worry about facing obstacles, then that’s the kind of person you want to hire, because they won’t face any obstacles working for you, either. My response is just trying to show that the analogy doesn’t really work; the claim isn’t that being part of an advantageous group gives you a guaranteed ticket to success, and that everyone faces some kind of obstacles at some point. With that in mind, there’s an argument to be made that when it comes to hiring, people who’ve faced obstacles in their lives are also more likely to have experience in dealing with them. Beyond all the other problems with hiring based on population statistics. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1207 "2015-08-13T22:32:30Z")
Thanks for that, Revenant Threshold; that does make sense. It reminds me that some people do over-rely on ‘all or nothing’ arguments; for example, to argue that it’s not possible that men benefit from any sort of pro-male bias in hiring because sometimes females do get hired (as if the circumstance that a female sometimes gets hired means that the playing field must logically be absolutely even. In fact that would not logically follow.) ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1208 "2015-08-13T22:44:42Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Luckily, NOW doesn’t support this. > > Why does there need to be a starting point at all? Why wouldn’t the court just start from “we’re going to determine what’s best for the children”, rather than starting at 50/50 (or any other position)? Ah, good question. The simple answer is that the courts are biased against men. As I posted upthread somewhere, mothers are 4x more likely to get custody than fathers. Despite the fact that fathers who do get custody both (a) getting less child support, and getting it less often, and (b) nevertheless, less likely to live in poverty. Now, you’d argued earlier that the 5% difference in pay between men and women was at least partly because of sexism. Is an 400% difference in the likelihood of getting custody evidence of sexism? Or are women _just that much better_ at being parents than men? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1209 "2015-08-13T22:58:49Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Ah, good question. The simple answer is that the courts are biased against men. As I posted upthread somewhere, mothers are 4x more likely to get custody than fathers. Despite the fact that fathers who do get custody both (a) getting less child support, and getting it less often, and (b) nevertheless, less likely to live in poverty. > > Now, you’d argued earlier that the 5% difference in pay between men and women was at least partly because of sexism. > > Is an 400% difference in the likelihood of getting custody evidence of sexism? > > Or are women _just that much better_ at being parents than men? Possibly. It’s very possible that this is yet another casualty of enforced gender roles (your favorite p word). If mother’s are much more likely to stay home with the kids, then courts may think the child is better off with them. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1210 "2015-08-13T23:34:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Because it is consistent with these traditional and homophobic views and gender roles. > > In general women have not been priveliged. For most of history they had fewer economic and political rights than men. They were usually blamed and punished for adultery, more so than men. They had little or no rights if they were abused by husbands or other male relatives. So, mostly, women have not been priveliged. > > A central tenet was the value of female sexual purity, which is the main cause of slut shaming, victim blaming for rape, and other sexual double standards and injustices. Considering that wives usually had no recourse if beaten or raped by their husbabds, I don’t believe that patriarchy particularly valued women’s safety, except to keep them safe for sexual and reproductive use, and it certainly didn’t value their well being, considering the lack of rights and even education afforded to women. I don’t know about all that. You have a very feminist reading of history, but I’m not sure it’s accurate. Let me try a couple of things. Historically, (though not anymore, of course) both a wife and a husband had a right to sexual relations with their spouse. Marital rape was impossible, because marrying someone was itself consent to having sex with them. That is, as I said, now a relic of the past. But is that relic really about rape - or is it about a former, but not current, expectation about marriage - specifically, that if you married someone, part of the deal is that you were agreeing to have sex with them - whether you were a male or a female? And then there’s [this book, which you can buy on Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Photo-Sensible-Roosevelt-Whipping-post-wife-beaters/dp/B005Q1OJY6), if you like. It’s from 1883. The whipping post had been abolished in America, but Roosevelt proposed bringing it back - specifically for the purpose of punishing men who abused their wives. I want to emphasize that. The whipping post was for men, not for women. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1211 "2015-08-14T00:27:42Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In my experience men also play a role in slut-shaming, especially from the pulpit. \ Uh, no. Religions that prohibit sex outside of marriage teach that to men as well as women. In fact, I think you’d have to look pretty hard to find a religious sermon that even included the word “slut”, much less a religion that taught that sex outside of marriage was OK for men, but not women. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1212 "2015-08-14T00:30:28Z")
[quote=“even\_sven, post:1174, topic:725390”] > [@Rune](#): > > Funny how you cut out all the stuff which documented how slut shaming is a girly Matriarchy thingy. Or rather, I suppose it’s the evils of The Patriarchy forcing women to behave like bitches to each other. > > You just can’t win. Men being bad to woman: it’s The Patriarchy. Women being bad to women: it’s The Patriarchy. Men being good to woman: it’s bad and it’s The Patriarchy. Women being bad to men: it’s The Patriarchy. Women being good to men: well we haven’t seen that one yet, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s bad and it’s The Patriarchy. > > Yes! You are getting it! > > “The Patriarchy”, or whatever you want to call it, isn’t a thing that men do to women. It’s a system. It’s a system that affects everyone, a game that everyone plays because everyone can be worse off for not playing along. Men do it. Women do it. Everyone is involved in this screwy, harmful, limiting way of understanding the world. > > This isn’t a men vs. women thing, really. It’s just a system that doesn’t really care who wins and who loses. > > It’s absolutely true that women enforce “slut shaming” because controlling sex is a way of maintaining scarcity value. But this is part of a larger system, one where women have limited opportunities outside of finding a man to support them. It’s not a coincidence that taboos around premarital sex have dissipated almost exactly as economy opportunities for women have expanded. > I would argue that the real origin of all of this is small scale agriculture, which requires child labor (even today farms are exempt from many child labor laws), makes inheritance (and thus paternity) a big deal and generally incentivized keeping the baby producer under lock and key. We see many different patterns in non-agricultural societies, and of course our own sexual norms transformed completely as soon as we got off the farm. “Patriarchy” is too simple an explanation for the problems of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1213 "2015-08-14T00:36:59Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I think culturally we absorbed the economic issue and made it one of morality. Going against the grain is a sin, not just a bad idea. Shameful, disgusting, perverting the natural order, inherently wrong, against God’s plan, etc. I’m not sure I know what you mean by that. If you mean that - in a society with capitalistic values - being poor is an embarrassment. A mark of failure. And a perfectly valid reason for being ignored, I agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1214 "2015-08-14T00:44:30Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Is an 400% difference in the likelihood of getting custody evidence of sexism? > > Or are women _just that much better_ at being parents than men? Query from the peanut gallery for someone other than **Linus** , who will pretend I have never said this: is there a hidden third option, other than 1. sexism or 2. women are _that much better_, that could explain the fact that women are awarded custody more often in absolute terms than men? Something, perhaps, you can pull from your own life experiences about men, women and child care? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1215 "2015-08-14T00:53:05Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > And then there’s [this book, which you can buy on Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Photo-Sensible-Roosevelt-Whipping-post-wife-beaters/dp/B005Q1OJY6), if you like. It’s from 1883. The whipping post had been abolished in America, but Roosevelt proposed bringing it back - specifically for the purpose of punishing men who abused their wives. I want to emphasize that. The whipping post was for men, not for women. What was his rationale? Women are weak and need to be protected. What was the historical context, and what was the result of his proposal? > [@](#): > > In all states of the Union, we believe, laws have been provided for the punishment of persons > guilty of the cowardly offense of cruelly beating dumb animals…There is, however, another crime > of the same class, but more brutal and more cowardly, more infamous, and more commonly > committed, for which the laws of the States make no specific provisions and no adequate > punishment. That crime is cruelty to wives by violent treatment (“Wife-Beating” 1882:4). > [@](#): > > […]As mentioned before, this push to institutionalize a whipping post was followed > by a counter-argument claiming that wife beaters should not be punished. This new > perspective on wife beating was represented as expert knowledge and wielded by a Dr. > William F. Waugh, Dean of Bennett Medical College, chief physician of Jefferson Park > Hospital, and a well recognized neurologist. Dr. Waugh made his argument calling upon > the myth of human evolution. Specifically, Dr. Waugh claimed that for a man to beat his > mate was natural, instinctual and dating back to the cave man. He further describes the > instinct of man using four maxims that were produced by his research. > > 1. When you find your mate, take her. She awaits you. > 2. When you have her, live for her. She wants that. > 3. When she arouses your jealousy, beat her. She needs it. > 4. If she betrays you, kill her. She deserves it. (“Jealous Women Need Whipping” 1912:1) > In giving these maxims, Dr. Waugh was represented as continuing to build a > frame of wife beating as a natural element of male/female relations. He reportedly > accomplished this by further illustrating the nature of man and comparing it to our > attempts to become more civilized. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1216 "2015-08-14T01:00:26Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > “Patriarchy” is too simple an explanation for the problems of humanity. But it’s still to blame for the films of James Cameron, right? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1217 "2015-08-14T01:08:32Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > I want to call it THE BORG. I know THE BORG is a system and persons aren’t individually to blame for it. However it is a system which puts men in a position of power and privilege and women in a subservient position, and this is a picture which I just cannot recognize in the real world. And when one points out the many glaring flaws of THE BORG theory (women get better educations; women have larger buying power; women gets child custody over the children which men are supposed to reign over like a patriarch of old; men are portrayed in commercials and sitcoms like silly irresponsible children; preferable they should just go to their “man-cave”; women are considered wonderful; women get smaller sentences for the same crime; pay/rape statistics have been showed to be bogus; men dies earlier; more men commit suicide; more men are sent to prison; more men are homeless; more men did on the job; men are sent off to foreign shit hold to die for their country; etc.), they are merely turned around in such a way that THE BORG can absorb them. In fact this is classic 101 conspiracy theory tactics – presented with challenging evidence, the conspiracy theory will always enlarge to engulf the challenging evidence and people as being part of the conspiracy. > > I wonder if at this point THE BORG theory is even falsifiable. One of the principles of science is the possibility of falsifiability: in other words, the possibility that some experiment could be done or observation made, that would disprove the theory. If there is no such experiment that could be done, or observation that could be made, the theory is sometimes called pseudo-science. One reason pseudo-science is popular, is it so often appeals to emotions, rather than facts. For example, most people believe in heaven. Not because there’s any evidence of it, but because it would be so comfortable if it were true. With feminism, at least in this thread, the tactic seems to be that of attacking the messenger: If we can just keep people from talking about it, we can go back to believing what makes us comfortable. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1218 "2015-08-14T01:22:26Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > One of the principles of science is the possibility of falsifiability: in other words, the possibility that some experiment could be done or observation made, that would disprove the theory. If there is no such experiment that could be done, or observation that could be made, the theory is sometimes called pseudo-science. > > One reason pseudo-science is popular, is it so often appeals to emotions, rather than facts. For example, most people believe in heaven. Not because there’s any evidence of it, but because it would be so comfortable if it were true. > > With feminism, at least in this thread, the tactic seems to be that of attacking the messenger: If we can just keep people from talking about it, we can go back to believing what makes us comfortable. Wait, you’re the one who, oh, about 20 pages ago, mentioned that women would not be capable of stepping in and getting into some jobs necessary to run society because of… fear of bugs. :rolleyes: :dubious: :smack: That qualifies I think for your pseudo-science comment, and also for your appeal to emotions. Also about attacking the messenger, **Jack of Words** did that when he immediately dismissed some arguments and posters by claiming they were Tumblr feminists, then got angry when the charge was levelled against him. As well one of the posters herself has a degree in history. He also tried attacking the messenger, with the comment singling out **Larry** and me. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1219 "2015-08-14T01:42:17Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > “Patriarchy” is too simple an explanation for the problems of humanity. Indeed. I totally agree, and will rain down the hellfire of powerful arguments on anyone who suggests that patriarchal culture is responsible for all of the problems of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390/1220 "2015-08-14T01:43:35Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Uh, no. Religions that prohibit sex outside of marriage teach that to men as well as women. In fact, I think you’d have to look pretty hard to find a religious sermon that even included the word “slut”, much less a religion that taught that sex outside of marriage was OK for men, but not women. Slut-shaming does not require the use of the word “slut”. And even when religions disapproved of extra-marital sex for men, the concept of purity was never emphasized nearly as much for men as it was for women. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390.md?page=60) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-feminism/725390.md?page=62)