Why so many "anti-feminists" in the atheist community?

[TaraJo]

To be honest, I get a little uncomfortable applying the label 'feminist' to myself or my putting my beliefs under 'feminism.' Sure, I believe in gender equality; I don't know very many people who don't believe in that. If it really was just down to that specific dictionary definition of feminism, I think everyone would gladly call themselves feminist.

But then I started to learn otherwise. You see, I'm trans and because of the issues I've had with my ex and the family courts, I'm also interested in fathers rights. I have children with my ex; I haven't seen them for years and because of child support deductions, I've been in a state of nearly constant and extreme poverty without the ability to get the stability I need to get out of that poverty. Yet, when I attempt to discuss these issues in feminist spaces, I'm told I'm derailing, I'm internalizing misogyny or that my problems aren't real problems. It was nothing but hostility towards someone who was desperate and struggling and on the verge of suicide multiple times because of those issues.

And that kind of experience opened my eyes. You see, before that I assumed feminism was an automatically benevolent thing. When I faced that kind of hostility, I started to question things and I started to see a lot of bad feminism as well. I saw Rebecca Watson labeling all athest men as misogynists (or at least any atheist who doesn't make their discussions all about social justice). I saw Anita Sarkeesian taking pop culture completely out of context, find the worst possible interpretation and harping on that interpretatio like there's no possible question. I saw Chanty "Big Red" Binx, attacking a group of men for attempting to talk about mens issues. I saw Meg Lankier-Simmons politicizing a rape threat she made to herself. I saw Adria Richards getting a guy fired becase she was evesdropping on a personal conversation he was having at a conference. I've seen self descibed feminists turn everything into rape and then turn aroud and get upset because nobody takes them seriously when they talk about rape. Yes, there are a lot of crazy people who use the title 'feminist' to justify very bad behavior and I'm really uncomfortable being associated with it.

But I don't call myself an MRA, either. Truth is, a lot of MRA's just mirror the feminists they claim to hate; some are way too extreme or crazy or hateful, others are more reasonable. I really don't like putting a label on my beliefs; I believe in equality and you can put any label on that belief system that you want.