Antifeminism?

The Fraser River: July 12

Antifeminism

Lately on You Tube, I have noticed some 'men's movement' videos in the featured videos under 'Recommended'. I have watched a few of these videos. I have viewed over the years several sermons on dating and marriage, which I do use for material for my academic websites. I also have viewed, over the years secular and Christian psychological lectures on human nature. Perhaps this explains why these videos appear.

To be clear, any kind of the 'men's movement' or antifeminism is not embraced within my personal worldview.

Much of the philosophy, so far, is nearly identical to psychological material from secular perspectives on dating and marriage.

One gentlemen I  have listened to, makes some good and reasonable philosophical points that I can agree with based on how I have been treated by many women within western society and the Church. But, he is also so radically negative on women, with unbalanced evaluations, that I will not endorse this person or embed one of his videos. He supports MGTOW: Men going their own way.

This presenter reasons that he needs to share his views with the men of western society. He opines that within evolution, due to feminism, women now have been exposed as having an evil nature.

Of course, with my years of study on the problem of evil, theodicy, free will and determinism, this interests me.

The presenter is correct that women have an evil nature, as do men. A biblical worldview explains the universal fall of humanity (Genesis 1-3) and the corrupted and sinful nature of both male and female (Romans). A finite nature that is sinful by nature and choice, is not perfectly good. Therefore, strictly speaking, humanity is evil. A Reformed theological perspective of total depravity is that humanity is depraved and tainted in nature as a whole. This does not mean that people are maximally evil.

I do not reason that a reasonable solution to degrees of feminism and antifeminism is for both sides to villainize the other sex. As bad as many of the attitudes in western society today are, including  by some in the Christian Church, I do not agree with teaching that each sex should avoid dating and marriage, and only use the other side for sexual activity, which seems to be the implication of many of the radical antifeminism and feminism approaches. I am not stating all the views expressed are radical. As with many worldviews, concepts can range, including from very moderate, moderate to radical.

A biblical, New Testament response is that through divine enlightenment by the gospel message, for male and female to repent of sin within the battle of sexes and seek the guidance of God.

Note:

Blackburn provides a definition of feminism, where feminism is committed to correcting biases leading to the subordination of women. (137). In my view, this is not by definition, strictly equated with 'radical feminism', although radical feminism will take place as forms of feminism.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.