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Why I'm not a feminist

Feminists like to claim that feminism is nothing more than a movement for equality; no more, no less. They often say things like "if you are for equal rights, you are a feminist" (ie. that "feminism" and "promoting equal rights" are completely synonymous and interchangeable). They might ask someone things like: "You are for equal rights, you oppose discrimination and oppression of women, how can you not be a feminist?"

But feminism is not only that, no matter what feminists say. They love to repeat that claim like a mantra, but when you listen to the other things they say, you get a rather different picture.

Watch this speech by Anita Sarkeesian on a panel named "how to be a feminist".

Her speech is just astounding. It's effectively conspiracy theory gospel preaching.

She starts by saying, effectively, "I used to be a reasonable person, with reasonable opinions, but then I read these books, saw the light and became converted." Then what follows is something that can't be called anything else than a conspiracy theory. Just watch the video.

What's worse and most egregious, she objectifies all women. She says that women who feel independent, empowered and who think are able to make their own life choices, are just delusional. She paints women like cattle, like property, whose opinions and life choices don't matter, who are self-deluded if they think that they are independent and have free will. If there's any woman who doesn't feel insulted by this, she should really check her values.

Just to demonstrate the spirit and the mentality of the things she's saying, let me quote something she says after the speech:

"When you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time. So that was year of my life where I was the most obnoxious person to be around."

This almost sounds like a person who has been extremely bigoted and judgmental comes clean and describes how bad it was, as a warning to others... but no. She's not saying that she was being paranoid and bigoted. Instead, she continues by effectively saying that she had to learn that people were indoctrinated into these "systems" and thus she had to "understand" them and be more tactful.

In other words, she maintains that "everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic". Your approach to pointing out simply needs to be more tactful.

This is just a small sample; you have to hear her entire speech to get the full picture. This is paranoid delusion. This is effectively conspiracy theory talk. And her audience cheers her for it.

And this is not something unique to Sarkeesian. This is not something that only she thinks, or that she came up with. This is very common rhetoric among feminist academics.

So no, I'm not a feminist, and here's one reason why not (among many.)

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