How should feminism respond to growing blame and backlash from men?

[TheywontletmehavethenameIwant]

Whilst we fight to regain the rights we've had taken off us, there are those, and I by that I mean men, who are saying that feminism is to blame for everything, will we soon be fight a rearguard action against this attitude.

It's from the USA, he's a Republican legislator, at the state level I think, but as we all know if it happens in the USA one week, it happens here the following week.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KAoPNNsjRSI

How do we answer this attack, not the Tate brothers specifically, but this 'blame the feminist' game is going to get worse I fear.

I don't think those things at all. Maybe it came across that way, if so, that's not what I intended.

Could that pervasive atmosphere or currency simply be down to the fact that males have always been more dominant down to their greater size and strength and ability to control others that way? That aligned to the fact that females - due to their role in childbearing and childcare - are more bound by those sorts of responsibilities, than males are. Males can come and go, if they choose - in a way that is far more difficult for a female to do. . Male behaviour tends to the territorial and aggressive in many/most species. It is the males that engage in fights for land, resources, and for access to females.

These may well be some of the biologically rooted reasons for what we now call 'patriarchy'; though in civilised societies we have developed concepts of fairness and justice and equality, and we have also developed laws, bills of rights, or constitutions, to enshrine them. As 'civilised' societies we attempt to rise above our most base instincts, especially the more destructive ones and tame them with rules, laws and punishments for infringement.

We also recognise that the mind and individual or personal characteristics are not entirely conditioned by our biological sex, and that male and female people are both capable of different types of task or occupation - and that both should be rewarded equally ( things not quite so straightforward here). But we also recognise that males tend to be better at the sorts of tasks and occupations which require more muscle, and maybe females at others ( generally speaking)?

Really, unless you agree with the shields that the Tates are using that he points out, there isn't much to answer.

As others said, blaming feminism as a whole isn't new, I wouldn't even say it's growing so much as continuously changing as cultures change, but I don't think that video is really doing that or is an attack on most feminists that really needs a response. In this case, the answer is to leave it to the Americans he is talking about. I think there is merit in keeping our peace when we can.

The guy in video is Nick Freitas, he's a Christian Republican legislator for Virginia, a fairly Republican state. He isn't blaming feminism this time, he's blaming "the left" aka Democrats - some agency/choice-focused feminists would be part of that and he has had a go at them before, but in this video, he's having a go at Democrats who have promoted the things like sex work is work and that hiring women (even if they're at the lowest most exploited level) is progressive while putting everyone they don't like - such as the Tate brothers - on the right. His tone suggests to me that he doesn't view the Tates as on the left either or even that the left is responsible for their behaviour, just that they're using that popular rhetoric to defend themselves is used by some Democrats.

With the Southern-American lens he's using, "the right" has for decades been equated with a particular type of Christianity, ever since the American evangelicals got politicised and pulled into the party, so the Tates wouldn't count. The right from that perspective is fairly into purity culture, even if not always consistently applied it's a strong value that the Tates absolutely fail and their views of feminism don't change that.

Putting everyone and everything into either the left or the right is nonsense and outdated, and putting everyone you dislike on the opposite side tends to be a bit of a weak argument whether it's arguing that the Tates are on the right or Freitas's argument that puts everyone who uses the rhetoric that having sex with a lot of people is empowering on the left. I see very little that most feminists would need to answer to in this one, especially radical feminists or similar who've been pointing out the flaws in 'women choosing it or doing it makes it feminist' rhetoric for a while now. I don't see this as any form of attack unless you are in the small subset that he is talking about, and even then, I'm not sure it's worth any form of response or answer.

I am not sure it should? It should continue focusing on women. I don’t think feminism can do or say anything to tackle this kind of attitude in men. Especially as I don’t think blaming feminism (or women’s rights) is particularly new.

Also this man is wrong. People don’t associate the Tates with the “Right” because of their attitude to feminism. It’s because so many public Conservatives embraced them. I cannot think of any public “Left / Liberal” who did likewise.

I don’t think feminism and left wing politics are synonyms. One can be one without the other.

And to be clear I have never heard the Tates use any of those arguments. Seems to be the biggliest of Strawmen.

Where supports “abortion up until birth” except in extreme cases?

The man in the video is white american. Can we stop pretending the increase is misogyny and backwards attitudes on gender only occurs in some cultures none of them Western.

But the Tates have not made the arguments he claims they do. For one Andrew Tate is very disparaging of “independent” women and women with a freer sexual history.

I don’t think you should concern yourself with men like Freitas. He’s a Christian Nationalist - a very American breed which while growing in the USA doesn’t seem to be as popular in the UK largely because we don’t have a powerful and large evangelical Christian community nor are we spectacularly religious.

Also the Tates have never made these arguments and it’s really a nonsensical stance if you think about it. Almost like a threat. That either we accept a traditional place in society or sex trafficking is the result. Women have been sec trafficked since the beginning of time even when a more aggressive form of religiosity and traditional gender roles were the norm.