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Is Feminism a Healthy Movement for Social Change?
April 20, 2025
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Is Feminism a Healthy Movement for Social Change?

This post was written by David Shackleton in response to a woman’s question about the nature of feminism. I felt his reply captured its essence with clarity and thoughtfulness. See what you think.
 
 
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Thank you for asking this question about the nature of feminism. Confusion about this is universal and embedded in our culture. Even your short paragraph below reveals some of this confusion, when you write, "I would like to hear how you all would define feminism vs working for women's rights back in the 60s and 70s. Even back then there was debate about who was a feminist and who was not...but still working for equal rights." You use the phrases "working for women's rights" and "working for equal rights" interchangeably, as if they are and were the same thing. But they are not, and were not. I will explain.

In this explanation, I will use "feminism" as synonymous with "the women's movement," because at the level of analysis that I am proposing here, there is no difference.

First we will consider the difference between positive and healthy movements for social change and those that have pathology built into them. And then we will consider an error of judgment that is built into feminism specifically, at the level of its founding analysis.

For an example of a healthy movement for social change, consider the movement for racial equality led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s. It was founded on a vision of racial equality (see his "I Have a Dream" speech for a clear exposition of this vision), and it was collaborative, meaning that he welcomed whites and blacks as equal participants in the movement (see his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" for evidence of this). No one was stigmatized for past wrongs; all were invited to share the vision and to collaborate in working towards it. This is the essence of a healthy movement - it focuses on a positive vision of a desired future rather than a moral judgment of a dysfunctional past and present, and it invites collaboration from all as equals rather than dividing the world up into guilty oppressors and innocent victims.

There is no doubt that blacks WERE oppressed historically by whites - slavery and, more recently, legal segregation were evidence of that, and the hundred years or more of public lynchings are irrefutable evidence. Yet, King saw no need for moral judgment and stigmatization of whites for this history. For him, all who shared the vision of equality were equal and were welcomed into the movement. What mattered was what people wanted, not their past, their ancestors or their skin.

And then he was assassinated.

We have not had a single healthy mainstream identity movement since that time. All, including feminism/the women's movement and all of the movements for racial equality, culminating in the Woke movements of today, have been founded on a moral dichotomy, a dividing of the world into guilty oppressors/perpetrators and innocent victims, a division built not on behavior but on identity. This founding analysis builds moral inequality in at the movement foundations; since victims are morally innocent and oppressors are guilty, the purported vision of equality is rendered unobtainable, forever out of reach. What equality can exist between oppressors and victims? Such movements are pathological and that is why, despite all of the equality legislation and the trillions of dollars spent on amelioration programs, we still hear constantly that equality remains far away.

I want to be clear about something. My purpose here is not moral judgment, but clear description. I use the term "pathological" as a term of ill health rather than moral judgment. Such movements cannot work, where "work" means actually achieve their claimed objectives. They are literally dysfunctional, they do not function to seek equality, and they never did. The founding analysis of moral division by identity defeated them from the start. Such movements are populated by many who sincerely seek positive change, but until the seductive story of moral superiority (for designated victims) is repudiated, they will continue to fail and leave various kinds of devastation in their wake.

Feminism/the women's movement has always embraced this destructive story of victimhood for women, but this movement suffers from an additional error - in their case, it isn't actually true. It isn't true that men as a group have oppressed women as a group - ever. What men and women have suffered historically is the effects of gender roles, roles that were enforced not by men but by biology. Biological differences, principally reproductive differences, between men and women resulted naturally and inevitably in women being ascribed the role of child-raiser and homemaker, and men the role of provider and protector. Nothing else would work when women were obliged to have multiple children (since many of them died). Life was tough, and evolution selected for what worked, as it always does.

For proof that the relationship of women and men isn't one of oppression, consider the survival numbers from the Titanic. First and second class, who had access to the lifeboats (unlike the "steerage" third class passengers who were locked below decks) numbers are as follows: Children, 100%. Women, 93%. Men, 22%. The richest man in the world was on that ship, and he went down with it. His wife and his wife's maid were saved. Now, what do we have here? When the stakes are the very highest, when only some can be saved and some must die, who gets prioritized? Not men. This, if one is honest, is proof absolute that men do not oppress women. Oppressors do not give their lives to save the oppressed. Never in history has this occurred. The notion is ridiculous. Consider the slave ships with blacks chained in their holds - that was real oppression. If one of those ships foundered, do you think the crew would give their lives to save the slaves? Of course not.

It only takes a single counterexample to disprove a general rule. If I say, "All swans are white," you have only to point out a single black swan to prove me wrong. The Titanic is just one example (there are many) that disproves the general statement that men oppress women. That is not the relationship that pertained in 1912 when the Titanic sank, long before feminism went mainstream in the 1960s, and it is not the relationship that pertained throughout history. And so feminism is not only an unhealthy movement founded on a story of moral superiority/inferiority. In its case, that very analysis is a lie.

I do not claim that it is an intentional lie. For most, I believe that it is sincerely believed. Nevertheless, it is mistaken and should be corrected, because it is doing great harm, both to women and to men.

To return, at last, to the question that started this all, which is whether feminism is responsible for boy's and men's problems, the answer is yes, in part. The moral stigmatization of men and boys that is the result of the founding analysis that men oppressed women is indeed the responsibility of feminism, which is revealed as a movement of female moral chauvinism. But a part of men's and boys' problems is the persisting gender roles (e.g., the male draft) and not the responsibility of feminism/the women's movement.

David Shackleton

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David Shackleton is a thinker and writer about culture with a focus on identity politics and gender. His books "The Hand That Rocks the World: An Inquiry Into Truth, Power and Gender" and "Daughters of Feminism: Women Supporting Men's Equality" are available on Amazon. His website is genderhealing.com.

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The Right Length to Reach the Floor: Why Being Offended Matters


At a White House Christmas party, President Abraham Lincoln was mingling with guests, exchanging laughter and good cheer. He came upon a group that included a woman known for her biting tongue. Looking at Lincoln’s tall frame, she quipped, “President Lincoln, don’t you find your legs are far too long?”

Without missing a beat, Lincoln smiled and replied, “No, madam, I have always found them jus the right length to reach the floor.”

The crowd laughed, the moment passed, and the party went on. But in that brief exchange, Lincoln showed something important: there are many ways to respond to offense—and one of the best is humor.


Being Offended Is Part of Growing Up

We tend to treat offense today as a kind of harm. But in truth, being offended is part of life—and even more, it’s part of maturity. Boys in particular seem to intuit this. Watch a group of young males and you’ll see it play out: teasing, poking, sarcasm, verbal sparring. It’s not (usually) meant to hurt—it’s meant to test.

And those tests serve a purpose.

When a boy is told he’s stupid, or too slow, or mocked for his hair or clothes, he learns to respond. He might crack a joke. He might sharpen his wit. He might challenge the premise with logic or brush it off with a shrug. What he’s doing is learning to handle adversity—on his feet and with others watching.

It’s practice for the world.


The Skills Boys Learn Through Being Offended

  • Humor – defusing tension, maintaining dignity

  • Repartee – learning to think and speak quickly

  • Logic – pointing out flaws in the jab

  • Grace – choosing to let it slide

  • Strength – not needing validation to hold his ground

These are not small things. They’re the building blocks of workplace confidence, relational resilience, and emotional independence.


The Cultural Shift: A World Where Offense Is Forbidden

But we now live in a time where being offended is treated as a kind of assault—especially if the offended belongs to a “protected group.” Entire institutions—from universities to HR departments—have adopted the idea that certain people must not be offended, and if they are, someone else must be punished.

But what happens when a group is shielded from offense?

They may never learn to develop the inner muscles that others do. They may never build the grace, wit, or confidence that comes from surviving discomfort. Like the body that withers in the absence of challenge, their maturity is stalled.

In the name of protection, we end up infantilizing them.


The Asymmetry of Offense

Let’s be honest: not everyone gets the same protection. Boys and men are fair game. So are Christians. So are people with dissenting views on political, medical, or cultural issues. These groups are expected—often required—to endure offense without complaint.

Meanwhile, others—especially women, certain minority groups, and favored ideological stances—are shielded from offense. The rules shift depending on who’s talking and who’s listening. But one thing is clear: there is a deep asymmetry in how offense is allowed and punished.

This disparity starts early.

Boys are more likely to be offended because they’re less protected. In fact, they often grow up in environments where ridicule, teasing, and verbal jousting are common—and not discouraged. In contrast, girls are more likely to be shielded from offense. Schools, parents, and media tend to be quicker to intervene when girls are targeted. The result? Boys get toughened. Girls get guarded.

Some call this compassion. But what if it’s something else? What if we’re unknowingly denying girls a chance to build the same emotional endurance we demand of boys?

This has serious implications.

Being offended, and learning how to respond constructively, builds the skill set necessary for leadership. Leaders must take criticism, navigate hostility, and remain calm under pressure. That doesn't come naturally—it comes from experience.

So if we raise boys to expect offense and learn to handle it—but raise girls to expect protection and institutional outrage on their behalf—we shouldn't be surprised if more boys grow into leaders. They’ve been trained for conflict, while girls may have been trained to avoid it.

And here’s the twist: when we limit offending women, we may also be limiting their capacity to lead.

This isn’t about discouraging kindness. It’s about understanding that discomfort is the engine of maturity. If we teach one group to handle offense and deny another that chance, we create a lopsided playing field—not by talent, but by tolerance.

We also send a subtle but damaging message: this group is strong enough to be offended, but that group isn’t. That’s not respect. That’s condescension.


“Offense becomes a weapon, not a wound.”

Traditionally, being offended was understood as a personal emotional response. Someone says something, you feel hurt, insulted, or challenged—it’s unpleasant, maybe painful. A wound. But it’s something you deal with, like Lincoln did, through humor, logic, or resilience.

But in today’s culture, offense is often treated not as an emotional experience, but as a moral accusation.

Now, when someone says, “I’m offended,” they’re not just saying, “That hurt my feelings.” They’re saying:
“You’ve done something wrong, and I now have the right to punish you.”

  • Careers are destroyed over tweets.

  • Public apologies are demanded for misstatements, jokes, or even factual claims.

  • Institutions overreact, fearing backlash—not because harm was caused, but because someone claimed harm was felt.

This turns offense into a strategic tool—a weapon to silence disagreement, gain status, or assert dominance. And here’s the deeper truth: this behavior often stems from an inability to respond maturely to the offending message. When someone lacks the internal tools—humor, logic, composure—they may externalize the discomfort instead. Rather than engaging the message, they attack the messenger.

The more ruthlessly someone wields this strategy, the more power they acquire in certain environments—media, academia, HR departments, online culture. And the more others scramble to appease them.

Society begins to bend not to the wise or the strong, but to the emotionally volatile. This doesn’t promote dignity or equality. It promotes fragility and fear.


Real Maturity: Offense and Reciprocity

True equality means that everyone has:

  • The right to offend

  • The duty to withstand offense

Lincoln didn’t file a complaint. He didn’t lecture the woman. He made a joke and moved on. That’s what strength looks like.


Conclusion: Offense as an Opportunity

When we forbid offense, we shut down an ancient and necessary process. Human beings grow not by being protected from all discomfort, but by facing it and finding a way through.

Let’s stop pretending that offense is violence. It’s not. It’s a signal, a chance, a test. And if we meet it well—like Lincoln did—we just might reach the floor with our dignity intact.

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First a tweet from Jim Nuzzo.

 

https://x.com/JamesLNuzzo/status/1940296998072226262

Next, a written response from Paul Nathanson that I saw on a mutual mailing list. I think it captures this woman’s ignorance of men and our present situation very well:



This article makes me angry. For many years, I have tried to foster inter-sexual dialogue, a project that seems like utopian science-fiction for the time being. With that in mind, I read the author’s discussion of one woman’s deceptive plea for men to “come back.”

Rachel Drucker claims to understand what drives men away from women. “I get it,” she says. But she clearly doesn’t. Otherwise, she’d be “interrogating” women instead of complaining about men. Listen, I’m a gay man. I’ve never played mating games with women and have no personal stake at all in the rules—old or new. But even as an outsider—or maybe for that very reason—I can see the depressing reality that’s becoming more and more obvious to straight men. It’s true that many men, at least in the most articulate and influential circles, are withdrawing from women. But that’s mainly because women have already withdrawn from men. And no one who reads the Times does so without being aware of its historical and cultural context. For half a century, these women have made it clear that they, as a class, consider men the inferiors of women at best and the evil oppressors of women at worst. In other words, they have indulged publicly in subtle condescension at best—this article being one example—and open contempt or revenge at worst. Consider an article, both famous and infamous, for the Washington Post. In it, Suzanna Danuta Walters openly abandons the most basic moral principle of all by asking, “Why Can’t We Hate Men?” (8 June 2018).

Okay, maybe many men are unaware of what’s going on. They’ve never actually read feminist denunciations of marriage as legalized prostitution, for instance, or as legalized rape. (According to feminist theorists such as Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, women are incapable of consenting to the sexual advances of men due to the “eroticization of power,” which supposedly makes women capable of sexual arousal only in the patriarchal context of submission to rape.) But most men are indeed aware by now that women have organized themselves politically as enemies of men, at least of those men who don’t convert to feminism (and not even those men deserve redemption according to the woke version of feminism). This hostility is as obvious in the relatively safe context of casual entertainment, moreover, as it is in the riskier contexts of friendships or “relationships” with women. Why would any reasonably healthy man be willing to put up with the lurking possibility of incessant complaining, relentless insinuating or implacable ranting? Enough already.

Explaining the current state of affairs is one thing, and recommending an alternative is something else. I’m not advocating the position of either Men Going Their Own Way (who have reasonable grounds for fearing entanglement with women despite the high cost to themselves) or the “incels” (who cannot attract women and therefore have unreasonable grounds for hostility toward women). I mention all this for two reasons. First, men and women are biologically programmed to unite not only for purely reproductive reasons but also for childrearing purposes. Because no society can endure the estrangement of men and women, reciprocity lies at the heart of any social contract. Second, human existence would be meaningless and unendurable without at least the hope of moving beyond cynicism toward altruism. Striving for reconciliation between any groups in conflict is also, therefore, a moral imperative.

Some women really do “get it” by now. Janice Fiamengo sure does, for example, and she’s not alone. Being explicitly anti-feminist, though, they have a long road ahead. I doubt that I’ll live long enough to see the dawn of genuine inter-sexual dialogue, but I’ll do anything that I can to join them in that effort.

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Thank you Paul and James! Men Are Good!

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July 03, 2025
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Presidential Message on National Men's Health Week, 2025

I’ve grown accustomed to hearing politicians talk about men’s health, usually focusing on the idea that men need to stop taking risks and start going to the doctor. The implication is that it’s somehow men’s fault that they’re at risk of dying early, and so on. Of course, this is what feminists often refer to as "blaming the victim."

That’s why I was so pleased to read Donald Trump’s message for National Men’s Health Week. He spoke candidly about the disadvantages men face and the ways in which men and masculinity have been targeted by a vicious campaign. It was a breath of fresh air.

No matter how you feel about Donald Trump, you have to give him credit for calling out the reality of men’s issues in today’s world. Below, I’ll paste the entire message for you to read. It’s a step in the right direction.

Link to the White House page https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/06/presidential-message-on-national-mens-health-week-2025/

For far too long, the health, happiness, and well-being of our Nation’s men have been neglected, contributing to a troubling reality: men in the United States have a life expectancy five years shorter than women. They visit healthcare providers less frequently and often delay critical care. Men tend to have their first heart attack an average of 10 years earlier than women.


This neglect has been compounded by a vicious campaign against masculinity. This war on manhood has left many American men in a state of loneliness, confusion, and emptiness, with devastating consequences: men in the United States are four times more likely to commit suicide and more than twice as likely to overdose than women.


This National Men’s Health Week, I make a solemn pledge to honor the men in America: we will always have your back—and we will never waver in our promise to embolden you to lead long, healthy, and safe lives.


Just last month, I proudly signed an Executive Order to deliver most-favored-nation pricing to American patients, improve access to quality medical care, and lower the price of medications. Together, with my Make America Healthy Again Commission, we are empowering men to prioritize their health and prolong their lives.


Under my leadership, we will relentlessly pursue a healthier future for the men of our nation. We will always lift you up rather than tear you down, and we will champion the voices, values, and wellness of hardworking American men across our country.

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