Why do feminists have such a bad reputation?

[TaraJo]

I'm going to start out by saying that there's a lot more good feminism than there is bad feminism. But there is undoubtedly bad feminism and it's adherants are so toxic they make the whole group look bad by association.

It's been clear as day to me. The issues of sexism that have hurt me the most directly are the sexist notions that generally hurt men more than women. Specifically, I have children from 'before' but I don' know if, when or how I'm going to see them and a large part of that has to do with the way the state of Oklahoma treats anyone with the title 'father.' Fact was, my ex was able to be a manipulative bitch and the law was on her side. Yet, if ever I made the mistake of trying to talk about about my own problems with sexism, I hear a dismissive "what about the menz" while they go back to talking about rape culture. Or, if they're feeling especially malicious, they'll go on to tell you none of those issues are real issues. Sorry, ladies, but if you're telling me I might never see my children again and that's not a 'real' problem, I automatically despise you like the scum you are.

But the flip side to that is that these same people, if you suggest men form their own groups to talk about sexism from men's perspective, they react like you just slapped them in the face. I can't count how many times they've told me "Feminism talks about those issues!" I'm not saying all feminists are like this, but there are unquestionably a lot of them.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can find these kind of unreasonable all over the place. They have several sub reddits if you go over to reddit, they've turned the term 'social justice tumblr' into a joke, they're all over youtube (usually with comments and ratings turned off) and they're on facebook. There's an unofficial skeptic group on facebook with a few of these feminists who have gotten into a shit storm with me when I suggested they're wrong (one of them even blocked me). They're constantly fixated on telling me how much worse women have it than men and I'm telling them that no matter how bad women have it, it still doesn't justify treating men like garbage and it doesn't mean issues or concerns of men should be dismissed.

To give an example of the kind of damage they can do, there's my boyfriend. Like me, he is transsexual, but he's female-to-male (born girl, wants to be a boy). He was raised in a religious fundamentalist household. We can debate how women are treated in other aspects of society, but in highly religious environments, women aren't considered much more than just breeding stock. So, he's gone to feminist sites and blogs and social sites, seeking healing from the painful misogyny he was raised with. Problem is, he goes to them and they tell him how awful and misogynistic and oppressive and hostile men are and it hurts him there, too. It leaves him in a difficult position: where can he go to heal from a painful, misogynistic childhood that won't attack him for identifying as male?

And that was it for me. You want to know the surest way to get on my bad side? Hurt someone I care about.

On the other side of things, I'm extremely reluctant to side myself with people like Rick Santorum or Todd Akin. Part of me does wonder if there's something I'm missing, that they must see something I don't, but I'm unable to have a conversation with them that doesn't result in their hostility. It almost seems like, unless I get some borg-brain-link thing going on, they're going to react with hostility to anything I say. There was an article I read on The Guardian that expressed a lot of those conflicted feelings I have on the issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...commenters

But I also think this is, in part, just another unfortunate side effect of the internet. There are a lot of people who now just get onto the internet and don't have to interact with anyone they disagree with. It removes them from hearing different perspective or points of view and really makes them closed minded and it's frustrating.