A Sort of Response.

So cousin Cynthia brought up a good point, that much feminism can be easily discounted as radical and subsequently shallow because those that say "men are to blame for our troubles" are not taking responsibility for their own well-being. I agree that there's really no point in making generalizations in any sense, for instance saying all women hate the idea of nurturing children or that it's the duty of all men to care for and protect their presumably female partner. I also agree that it's the easy way out to get mad at the man who writes against men coddling women - no one should be overly coddled lest that action lead to incidences like the "spoiled rich chick" video

In the preface to "Prone to Violence," the author Erin Pizzey writes this, which I think captures a solid point against radical feminism: (though I tend to believe the more subtle the incident(s) is, the more dangerous and potentially insidious.)

"I remember that I was particularly interested in finding if anyone else had come to similar conclusions on why some people actually choose violent relationships - which is the major theme of this book. But in response I mostly met again the hostility of those people who insisted that all women were simply victims of male oppression.

It seems to me that America's Women's Movement is much more broadly based than its British counterpart. It was with members of the National Organization of Women that we had the best dialogues - at seminars and meetings where people wanted to share a sense of bewilderment arising from the fact that now there were established refuges, so many women seemed to be merely using them like revolving doors. They would come to the refuges when the level of violence got too much, only to return to their violent men for another few weeks, and then come back to the refuges again for help."

The thing that makes me pause and think here is that I'm not saying that women should be fighting/educating themselves/simply being aware of feminism (now in its third wave) so they can extricate themselves from violent situations, nor am I saying that women have to band together to right the wrongs that men are enacting on them at a national level. In fact, there are many men out there that help the cause because, as any logical sane person realizes, the good of humanity (presumably the ultimate goal of said humanity) has a better chance of being achieved if the pool of humans to enact that good is bigger and makes no arbitrary distinctions based on gender.

That said, my response to people like this guy is that he's dumbing down or personalizing women as a whole when he writes out against us. Not all women think that it's a man's fault when they get pregnant, or get pregnant when they don't want to at all. In fact, most women that have any ear to the ground and/or access to education and/or good, strong role models know that there's Planned Parenthoods nationwide. What I'm concerned with is larger-scale social changes for women that have no been enacted because we (I'm guilty) are too lazy or scared to admit that change still needs to be made.

A rant. Not the best, but something.