Peter Boghossian often claims feminists today don’t care about the third world. That’s bullshit. In fact, almost everything he ever says about feminism today is bullshit. This article is a corrective. It’s time to clean the Augean stables.
Feminism is often badly understood by people who don’t study it well or don’t read widely among contemporary feminist authors. This is because the feminism culturally communicated to people is largely a mythical creation of feminism’s enemies, rather than what is really going on among feminists themselves. Much as the atheism communicated culturally to a large percentage of people (in the US, maybe as much as half the population) is largely a mythical creation of Christians, rather than what is really going on among atheists themselves. Jews and people of color face similar obstacles to understanding, as what “other people” know about them is often the promulgated stereotypes of racists and anti-semites, rather than reality. And when people just repeat what they’ve absorbed from their culture, they often have no idea how inaccurate that cultural knowledge is.
That’s why it’s important to check.
Cultural knowledge is often wrong. Religion itself, for example, is the most prominent example of cultural knowledge. That’s why Christian apologists struggle so hard to fabricate and disseminate false claims about history (from faked quotes of the Founding Fathers to a fictional history of science). For an analogy, comedian David Cross once joked about his experience with “cultural knowledge” of Jews in the South as a young man…
All the parents see you as is a Jew; I’m a Jewish kid. I’m like a fucking alien to them, you know, I’m a freak…so If I slept over a friend’s house, I’d always have to deal with these questions in the morning, like, you know, Mom coming in going <southern accent> “David, I’m so sorry to have to ask you this, I’m so sorry, um…I’m fixing to make breakfast for everybody and I certainly wanna include you…and I’m just having some questions I was hoping you could answer…do y’alls people eat oatmeal?” What? Yeah. Is there something in the Torah that says we shouldn’t eat oatmeal? “No, it’s just that I don’t know much about y’alls people, that’s all, I just don’t know–I know y’all hate Jesus! I know y’all hate Jesus, that much I do know…aand, I know y’alls have seven Jew bankers that control the world’s money supply, right? In a bunker somewhere about a mile into the earth’s core? Is that right? Yeah? And y’all do dances in the woods, y’all wear cloaks and do secret services and burn potions and whatnots, and y’all have horns–that’s all I know about y’alls people!”
He’s joking, of course (sort of). But feminism is similarly disparaged with fictional stereotypes promulgated by its opponents. Which become what everyone assumes is true. Because they don’t check. (See Carrier, “The Curious Case of Jaclyn Glenn” and “How to Do Men’s Rights Rightly,” and in “Why Atheism Needs Feminism,” if you want detailed examples and perspective.)
In my talk for the Secular Student Alliance in 2014 I discussed “Practical Logic,” in which I explain (among much else that is relevant to sound practical reasoning) how and why one of the easiest ways to err in any argument or process of reasoning is to not look for concrete examples of any generalization you are asserting (or worse, to cherry-pick examples, rather than surveying an objective sample of them to see if your generalization actually holds, or has too many exceptions to). I said Peter Boghossian’s discussion of feminism in chapter 8 of his Manual for Creating Atheists is a paradigmatic case of this kind of error, and even used it as an example in my talk.
I’ve said enough on that already (last week in Why Atheism Needs Feminism). I believe that chapter would be much improved by providing examples of any of the contemporary feminists he believes he is describing there, and presenting their claims by quoting them and citing the context of those quotes (or at least citing where they make the claims he attributes to them). In the effort to add that material, it would also be hoped that he would survey the whole field of contemporary feminist writing, to test whether his characterizations are actually typical or not. I suspect from my own experience with feminist literature that his characterization is at best of a fringe subset of feminists and not at all representative of feminism today as a whole.
Last year I co-taught a course with Boghossian on his book, and when we got to that chapter in the syllabus, the following (and the above) is what I presented the class by way of demonstrating almost everything he claimed in his book about feminism is false. He didn’t interact on the matter, so I don’t know what he thought of it. But since I won’t likely be co-teaching a course with him again, it’s time I published this for everyone’s benefit, and as a corrective to his book.
We are now in what is increasingly coming to be called the Fourth Wave of feminism. If you aren’t already up to speed, I highly recommend some readings. Ealasaid Munro of Glasgow University summarizes some of the aspects of Fourth Wave Feminism. And Jennifer Baumgardner of The Feminist Press at CUNY not only briefs Fourth Wave Feminism (adding to Munro) but situates it in the context of the prior three waves of feminism (providing a good primer on what these periodizations of feminism mean and how feminism as an idea and a movement has evolved over time). And Kira Cochrane of The Guardian provides a thorough journalistic profile of the characteristics of Fourth Wave Feminism, including, for example, its growing interest in the issues affecting women in the Third World (and women immigrants and minorities).
As Elizabeth Delacruz and Joanna Rees write in “A Short History of the Women’s Movement in the US” about what characterizes what is now often being called fourth wave feminism:
Feminists today have a far reaching and global perspective. Contemporary feminists from all over the world and from diverse racial, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds now shape the work of and debates within the women’s movement. Feminists are facile with digital and social media. And they maintain a strong connection to environmentalism. Core issues comprising feminist activism worldwide include the ongoing fight for women’s self-determination, reproductive rights, affordable health care, family well-being and childcare issues, the right to education, to own property, to participate in political life, ending sexual and domestic violence, and employment equity.
One of the fourth wave’s features is increasing integration of elements of Postcolonial Feminism, which seeks to integrate greater interest in and understanding of the issues affecting Third World women, women of color, and the globalization of feminism (as well as a greater acceptance of intersectionality, resulting in, for example, trans-inclusive feminism). For example, these and other developments are surveyed (with a bibliography) in Gregory Castle’s entry on “Feminist Theory” in The Literary Theory Handbook (2013), pp. 190-98.
Feminist leaders today are as diverse as Jessica Valenti and Arundhati Roy. Feminist Studies in university departments are increasingly diversified and global in perspective. For example, examine the faculty and specializations at UC Santa Barbara and Duke University. And feminist academic associations are also increasingly integrating the interests of feminists of color and feminist issues in the Third World. For example, see the about page of Feminist Law Professors.com and its recent articles on Women of Color in Legal Education and feminist academic conferences like Applying Feminism Globally.
Within the atheism identity movement this is evident in the rise of influence and popularity of feminist bloggers who address both domestic and foreign issues in feminism, from Sikivu Hutchinson to Amanda Marcotte. Here at FreeThoughtBlogs we now feature several feminist writers and activists of color and/or from the Third World, including Heina Dadabhoy, an Indian American ex-Muslim, Maryam Namazie, an Iranian ex-pat, Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi author who has been the target of riots and fatwas, and Yemisi Ilesanmi, a Nigerian human rights activist and lawyer dividing her efforts between feminist issues in the UK and Nigeria. And that’s just a sample.
By far the predominant paradigm is not culturally relativistic, but culturally sensitive. Patriarchal assumptions, institutions, and social structures that abuse and oppress (and all too often literally physically harm, mutilate, or even kill) women in Third World countries are not defended by most fourth wave feminists but openly attacked. But they are attacked by first gaining greater familiarity and understanding of the local cultures involved, and working with local feminists, and not acting like ignorant Westerners condescending to lecture other peoples, but making well-informed attacks on the social systems harming women, and seeking to help empower feminists in these very cultures.
Feminists always have to direct most of their attention to the problems in their local culture. Because that is the culture they and their friends, family, coworkers and supporters have to live with, and because it’s the culture they have the most knowledge of, influence over, and ability to change. But now, with the rise of the internet and the age of globalization, they also cooperate globally to help each other across cultural and national boundaries. A paradigmatic example is Feminist.com’s statement against female genital mutilation and likewise that of the Feminist Majority Foundation. But key to fourth wave feminism is that, unlike third wave feminism, it has been listening to Third World feminists and is aware that issues like FGM are not the top priority of feminists in cultures afflicted with it. Not because Third World feminists are not opposed to FGM, but because they have much bigger issues to deal with that they rightly tell us should take priority. As Azizah al-Hibri wrote in 1994:
In Copenhagen, Third World women were told that their highest priorities related to the veil and clitoridectomy (female genital mutilation). In Cairo, they were told that their highest priorities related to contraception and abortion. In both cases, Third World women begged to differ. They repeatedly announced that their highest priorities were peace and development. They noted that they could not very well worry about other matters when their children were dying from thirst, hunger or war. Sometimes, First World women shook their heads and indicated that they understood. But nothing has changed. First World women still do not listen; they still do not hear.
That has since changed. Feminist movements like the Feminist Majority Foundation and Equality Now look at all the issues afflicting women in the Third World and recognize that priorities vary locally and can’t be dictated by Western feminists. See the commentary of Nanjala Nyabola on “Uniting Global Feminism” as an example of observing the shift. For another example, on the role of anti-war activism as a new cornerstone of global feminism, see the 2007 article by Patricia McFadden for Ms. magazine, “War Through a Feminist Lens,” and the quite thorough eye-witness global survey of feminist sociologist Cynthia Cockburn, From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis (2007). Al-Hibri and women like her were heard.
This is the New Feminism. It’s not entirely new. There have been feminists doing all of these things for decades. And there are feminists still stuck in the past. But this new wave is fast becoming the dominant paradigm of feminism as a movement. And I have only scratched the surface with this essay. There are many debates and differences among feminists today, as there are within atheism, for example, but there is increasing unity around a number of core ideals, and an increasing marginalization of the views of old.
For more information on what feminism is about these days, see:
[The photographs used in this post are all sampled from the hundreds collected on the Who Needs Feminism tumblr.]
Feminism can often fall into the same traps as evolutionary biologists, where they come up with elaborate “just so” stories that can be logical, but hardly factual. For example, your own link goes to some stuff from Shakesville, which in my observation, loves these types of things. Rape jokes are wrong, because rapists think everyone rape, and thus rapists like rape jokes, and thus you are the problem if you like rape jokes. This is probably nonsense, but makes just enough sense and hits just enough triggers (you wouldn’t want to make someone who was raped uncomfortable, would you?) that arguing against it descends into name calling pretty quickly.
Hence, many of these goofy internet arguments where people argue over nothing and mostly use insults.
You have not correctly characterized the arguments you are referring to. But people can see that for themselves. It isn’t relevant here. That members of a group are sometimes wrong (some atheists are neonazis, lots of atheists use bad arguments and have facts wrong, etc.) is an entirely moot point to make. That you think it relevant to state here says more about you than feminists.
It is not a moot point to make. Certainly, being wrong isn’t limited to feminists. However, what is often limited to feminists is the idea that if you disagree or debate a point about feminism, then you are against feminism or against women. This is annoying, and seems to generate a lot of excess negativity around feminism. Having strong and new opinions generates enough heat on its own without throwing logs on the fire.
Except that isn’t true.
I have arguments and disagreements with feminists about feminism all the time. I never get what you describe as their reaction.
So if you do, then odds are you are not “merely” disagreeing with them. You are probably wading into a debate like a self-entitled man who didn’t get informed first, like a racist who wants to have a serious debate about why it’s wrong to conclude black people weren’t better off under slavery, and is so “shocked” by the appalled reaction that they think all anti-racists are excessively negative and annoying and should just shut up already.
Interesting. You say it isn’t true, but here’s a quote I found:
In the atheist movement over the past five years or so what people call “drama” the rest of us call fighting for respect for minorities and victims of harassment and sexual assault. The people who hate that we do that are the ones who have caused almost all the drama you have ever called drama. Pretty much entirely.
The enemies of truth and justice do this by counting on people who don’t care enough about the truth to check and find out what’s really going on. Because out of an apathetic aversion to “drama,” such people will just believe whatever bullshit anyone says loudly enough or officially enough.
So, according to this person, one is either on the side of respect for minorities and victims of sexual assault, or in the camp against truth and justice. It’s like the author wants to divide people into two camps, one good and one evil, and of course puts himself into the “good camp,” and everyone who disagrees with him into the “evil” camp. No feminist would ever do such a thing, correct?
At no point in that quote is it said there are only the two sides. To the contrary, there are quantifiers that eliminate binary interpretation (e.g. “almost all”), and in no case is the community being sorted to exclusion, but only two of many groups within the movement are being described (those doing x, and those who hate x; this does not exclude those uninterested in x or not noticing x or just not doing x, in fact they are addressed in the second paragraph as a wholly different group, and that second paragraph does not say there are even two groups within that, much less only two). Nor is the word “evil” ever used.
So, you need reading comprehension courses. Or therapy. Because you are delusionally seeing things that aren’t there.
I was initially taken with Boghossian and his novel approach to religion, but I recall now having some misgivings after watching some of his early lectures. I think it may have been the Easter Bunny talk, anyway, I noticed that during the Q&A portion, he did not handle difficult questions well and managed to deflect or re-phrase the question so that what he ended up answering was not what the questioner asked. It seemed somewhat shady, more what I’d expect from a (disingenuous) politician than a philosopher. Sadly he has confirmed my initial misgivings since then. I am disappointed with the way that so many continue to defend and support so many of the “leaders” in the movement who share his inability to critically examine many of their beliefs. I recently left my local group over this and other issues.
Richard Carrier writes:
There are plenty of people that consider themselves feminists that say and do things that discredit feminism such that it doesn’t need “enemies” to give it bad PR. Take Andrea Dworkin. twisty faster, witchwind, or Hugo Schwyzer.
Likewise, “feminism” has lots of disagreement in its’ ranks. Women like Camille Paglia or Christina Hoff Sommers get a lot of criticism from the more radfem types. Also there is the TERF faction that whip up more than a little controversy.
You can’t blame the bad behavior of some feminists on outsiders, do you?
Said the man who ignored literally everything I have ever written about this subject.
And who is so foolishly deceived by MRA propaganda, he actually thinks Sommers isn’t actually an anti-feminist.
And who thinks Dworkin hasn’t been dead since forever.
And who thinks the Sad Puppies aren’t pathetic whining asshats.
Hello Richard, LMFAO, this is about getting laid isn’t it? With all that traveling you do, what better way to arrange hookups. Kiss some ass before you kiss some pussy.
It’s funny how anti-feminist douchebags think we pretend to care about women in order to get laid. Rather than actually caring about women, and then getting laid as one of many side effects of not being a total fucking douchebag.
This means you are so misogynistic, you can’t even imagine a man actually caring about the rights and welfare of women. And that’s scary. If women won’t fuck guys like you, that’s to their benefit.
Wow. It’s notable how these types of comments always seem to follow any attempt to educate or show support for feminism.
It seems to me that your essay ignores the fact that there are currently *many* different kinds of feminists, and not all are similar to the ideal reasonable feminist that you have talked about. Many of the feminists I know, maybe even most of them, are as fanatical about their beliefs as your typical dawkinsian atheist from reddit. You can’t ignore the fact that there is a pretty ugly side to this movement, which uses false statistics, fear-mongering, and tries to suppress free speech in order to advance its political agenda. I suppose many of the people who reject the label ‘feminism’, such as me, do so because they don’t want to be identified with these radicals. Apparently, even the majority of women reject the word: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/feminism-poll_n_3094917.html. If you want to see how ugly this fanaticism can get, I recommend the YouTube channel Factual Feminist, made by Christina Hoff Sommers, in which she talks about these issues.
Other than that, I agree that there are many reasonable, intelligent feminists who are doing important work for many different causes, and that they are often misunderstood by their critics – incluinding critics like Dawkins and his friends (who, to be fair, misunderstand pretty much everyone). But you can’t ignore the existence of those fanatics.
Um, follow the links. My previous article about feminism specifically covers the diversity in feminism. I didn’t “ignore” anything. I also refute your claim about Dawkins there, so that you don’t know that, tells me you didn’t do your homework.
The rest of your rant is just delusional, paranoid nonsense.
And Christina Sommers is a false flag. She is just the current incarnation of Phillys Schlafly. Almost everything she tells you is bullshit.
Christina Hoff Sommers is not really a feminist. She is an anti-feminist Men’s Rights Activist. She only pretends to be a feminist. She is akin to someone who falsely claims to be an atheist but does nothing but defend belief in God and attack atheism and every atheist cause and claim. And this isn’t a No True Scotsman fallacy, because she isn’t even a Scotsman. Rather like someone born and raised in China who has never even been to Scotland and has no Scottish citizenship or heritage, falsely claiming to be Scottish so people will mistake their opinions for those of a Scotsman.
Just do your research: this; this; this; this; this; this; this; this.
[Note the first link here is by an anti-trans feminist. If even they know Sommers is a poser, you know something is up. That author’s very existence illustrates the difference between being a bad feminist and not even being a real feminist.]
Sommers has certainly said some things worth criticising, but are you really claiming that she’s opposed to gender equality?
Obviously many feminists argue that there’s more to being a feminist than that, but you also get people saying things like: “feminism is simply the belief that women are people”, and arguing that almost everyone should identify as feminist.
The links you’ve chosen to support your case that she’s really an anti-feminist are certainly interesting, and do make some good points, although I’m not sure that an auto-tune parody of her video about gaming is really what I’d call research into her views. Despite that, there are plenty of feminists who disagree with Sommers but still accept her claim to be a feminist.
I certainly think I’d take Sommers over the bigoted transphobe in your very first link, who throws racist and whorephobic slurs at people who disagree with her, and tells people they aren’t welcome on her blog if they think transwomen are real women. Do you agree with her that PZ Myers is an MRA too?
But unlike Sommers I guess she’s still a real feminist, after all you’re using her opinion as ‘research’ into the anti-feminist status of Sommers…
Oh, indeed. Anti-trans feminists are shitty feminists, but even they are still feminists, in precisely the way Sommers is not. So when even they recognize she is an MRA, you need to take note. That’s the point.
You seem to be confusing “being a feminist” with “being a correct feminist.” That’s a No True Scotsman fallacy. Some Scotsman are awful people. They are still Scotsmen. But some people who claim to be Scotsmen aren’t even in fact Scotsmen. And that is Sommers.
She denies all the facts of feminism and attacks nearly every feminist issue and sides almost uniformly with anti-feminist MRAs. That’s not even a Scotsman.
[I’ve added a note there now to make this point clear.]
I see this all the time. Nearly every critique or denial of “rape culture” I’ve seen either never cites the definition in any feminist literature, or never defines the term in the first place. The vast majority simply repeat anti-feminist talking points as if they were gospel. Christina Hoff Sommers is a serial offender here, but examples are as easy to find on Google web search as actual feminist literature is on Google Scholar.
Small issue – you have a broken link for “I won’t likely” – it’s missing the leading “h” in “http”. =)
Fixed. Thanks!
I have noticed this anti-feminist scab festering in Atheism the past few years. I worried you would be part of it when i read the headline. Thanks Richard for being one of the good ones.
Does anyone know of any substantive responses to this essay made by any supporters of Boghossian. Ideally, I’d like Boghossian to address this himself, because it’s a strong rebuttal to his lazy attacks on feminism, but I’ve pretty much given up hope on that. Still, he’s got lots of fans. Surely someone must be up to the challenge. Has anyone seen anything like that anywhere?
As something of a social libertarian, my problem with 4th wave feminism is what I see as its increased puritanism and rejection of individual choice. While it may be better at listening to third world feminists, to a large extent it strikes me as a negative reaction to the more liberal and tolerant wing of 3rd wave feminism, and a return to a more collectivist and authoritarian stance. The attacks on the 3rd wave of feminism as a “neoliberal” movement are telling in my opinion.
Many of the claims and campaigns I see coming from 4th wave feminism strike me as poorly evidenced scaremongering aimed at pushing misguided authoritarian policies. For example, the claimed “pornification of society”, and the idea that further criminalising the sex industry and restricting sexual images would reduce rape and violence against women, is barely even supported by their cherry picked examples of correlation (e.g. blaming Nevada’s higher than average rate of rape on its tolerance of sex work). I think the way some feminists use that to attack sex workers as complicit in the rape of other women is particularly ugly.
I’m sure there are some people who identify as 4th wave feminists while holding different views, but it’s interesting that the links you provide show little evidence of that. For example, the 4th wave primer from the Guardian spends most of its time celebrating the likes of Object, UK Feminista, No More Page 3, Reclaim the Night, Lose the Lads’ mags, the London Feminist Network, etc. in support of their campaigns against things like offensive pop music and softcore pornography. Other feminists organisations you cite, such as XYOnline and Equality Now, take a similar stance. That’s not something I agree with, or a movement I’d choose to support.
None of that has anything against individual choice. Not one case of using law to silence anyone. You need to bone up on actual Libertarianism.
You can still buy skin mags and say awful things. The only thing that has changed thanks to 4th wave (and 3rd) is that we get to individually choose to not buy your sexist products, and we get to individually choose to criticize you or your publication for saying stupid things, or for treating women like objects and not people, and so on.
If that hurts your sales, that’s called the free market.
I would expect a Libertarian to be all for that, not whine about our freedom.
I didn’t mention capital ‘L’ Libertarianism or the free market. I did described myself specifically as ‘something of a social libertarian’, but that isn’t exactly the same thing. Clearly I’ve confused things in a way I didn’t intend by bringing up the ‘L’ word.
I find some of your comment bizarre to say the least. As far as I know nobody was being forced to purchase “sexist products” (not that I agree with you that things like “skin mags” are inherently sexist) for that to be a choice any wave of feminism could create. Perhaps you can clarify what you meant by that?
While your assumption that I’m obsessed with the free market is incorrect, I’d question whether even activism like feminist picketing and letter writing campaigns are part of it. If you actually look at the membership of those 4th wave feminist organisations, it’s very small compared with the population as a whole. If that minority’s picketing campaign convinces a shop to stop selling a particular “sexist” product, or their letter writing and petitions lead to a local council shutting down the area’s successful strip clubs and sex shops, is that really a case of the ‘free market’ in action?
Of course feminists are certainly free to criticise and protest whatever they like, just like people are free to criticise them in turn. In my opinion many of the claims made by those 4th wave feminist groups just don’t hold up under scrutiny, and when those poorly evidenced claims are used to demonise and scaremonger, that’s more than enough reason for me to reject their ideology, even if all they did was simply criticise.
I don’t see how you can claim that none of these 4th wave feminist organisations are opposed to individual choice. In fact, some of the leading figures mentioned in that Guardian article attack “choice feminism” and the “neoliberal individualism” of the 3rd wave. To be honest, they lose me as soon as they start talking about feminism being for “women as a class” because that’s a collectivist stance I just don’t buy into.
Some of their campaigns, for example to “end demand” for prostitution through criminalisation, or the calls to completely ban strip clubs or certain kinds of pornography, are certainly incompatible with my view of individual choice. I’m familiar with the feminist argument that certain choices are “inauthentic” and a product of the patriarchy, and therefore it isn’t truly a restriction on choice to take them away, but I’ve never found that very convincing.
I don’t expect that we’ll agree on this, but I thought I’d explain why I don’t personally see the rise of the 4th wave of feminism as a good thing, and wouldn’t welcome its influence on the atheist community.
I personally do not like the label Feminist, right out of the gate it is divisive. egalitarianism would be something humanity needs to strive for instead of something so intrinsically single sided. I am all for equal rights but not just for one gender, how about both? don’t be a feminist be an egalitarian.
If you think “feminism” is a divisive a term, then you have a problem. It means you are so uncomfortable accepting that women are indeed the ones most disproportionately mistreated in society (even in our society), that you don’t even want to hear that fact represented with a word, much less accept the fact it refers to and get to work doing something about it. Physician, heal thyself.
Start with this and then this. Those will get you up to speed with what’s wrong with what you’ve said.
The way you cheated on your wife serially and arguably took advantage of intoxicated women at conventions makes you very close to Hugo Schwyzer.
And it’s laughable to think that Sommers, who has been a feminist since the second wave, has taught feminism, and who still can be seen to share the values of second wave feminism is no longer a feminist in your eyes because you disagree with her. Hell, I guess since I am an atheist, and I dislike your brand of atheism plus, so I guess you are no longer an atheist.
Anyway Hugo, carry on.
Um, Hugo Schwyzer tried to murder his girlfriend.
False equivalence much?
Indeed, not a single thing he’s been scandalized for, have I ever done.
At most, I have accepted and taught as students in my online courses women who were already my lovers. And those courses assign me no power over them (they aren’t graded, and no degrees or anything depend on their outcome). So, still, quite the false equivalence.
I think you just tried to find some random name of some guy feminist who did something bad and tried to pin that on me. Even though the example does not fit me even remotely at all. That’s kind of lame, dude.
You also don’t seem to have a good grasp of logic. “I guess since I am an atheist, and I dislike your brand of atheism plus, so I guess you are no longer an atheist” makes no sense. It should be “I guess since I claim to be an atheist, but I attack atheists and defend theism, so I guess I am not really an atheist.” If you said that, then you’d be right: that is a perfect analogy to Christina Sommers.
Finally, are you saying it is wrong to have sex with a woman who has been drinking at all?
Because I suspect you are lying when you pretend to think there is anything wrong with that. Much less that it’s as bad as being Hugo Schwyzer. Indeed, I’m willing to bet you’ve done it a few times and would defend to the death it being right to have done so.
Meanwhile, I no longer cheat on people.
As I said, you’re close to Hugo. A scholar such as yourself would realize I didn’t make any claims of equivalence.
In addition to Hugo trying to kill his girlfriend, he cheated on his wife. Many times. Like you dick.
All while proclaiming himself god’s gift to feminists. Like you dick.
Um, that’s what a false equivalence is.
Basically, it’s like saying “You are just like Hitler! … because Hitler used rude words, and so do you!”
Uhuh.
I’ve never claimed to be god’s gift to anyone, much less feminists. Nor have I ever claimed to be morally perfect. And indeed, a major reason I am divorced and openly poly now is so I never again am in a position to cheat on anyone. It’s much nicer living honestly. Now I do. That’s called moral progress.
Meanwhile, you act like a child who still thinks “Dick” is an insult.
Yeah I read the Dick Richard thing and still don’t get it. It’s like the ontological argument. After hearing it, you see your mind being convinced of the impossible and quickly realize someone just pickpocketed your wallet.