Under the Covers with Eve - Episode 15: Why I'm Not a Feminist

29:15 Under the Covers with Eve episode 15 / 34 Dec 20, 2015 28 comments 6553 1485

Download (53 MB, MP3)

This week I present a pretty controversial topic, one I've been asked about a lot. Again I want to stress that these are just my opinions and I won't engage in any knock-down drag out fights about this, if you don't agree with me, that's fine.

I tried to keep it general to cover as many of the main points I thought were worth discussing, but please read up on these things yourself if you're interested.

Here are the many links I promised in the audio:

Recommended:

Christina Hoff-Summers

Economist Thomas Sowell on the supposed wage gap

Further Reading mentioned in this audio, in order:

Rolling Stone’s A Rape on Campus

Duke Lacrosse Rape Case

Women’s educational gains

Women outperforming men at college

Half of boys failing school by 5

Stats Canada on male dropout rates

Esquire article on The Drugging of the American Boy

Child support after sperm stolen

Man has to pay child support for another man’s kid

Rape victim made to pay child support

Only male domestic abuse shelter closed

Death threats against woman who spoke about domestic violence

Pizza delivery guy hit on her! OMG!

6 year old boy suspended for kissing girl

Arrested for ’man spreading’

Women in video games i.e. ”Gamer Gate”

Dr. Matt Taylor and shirtgate

Elly Prizeman, designer of the ”shirtgate” shirt

Examples of misandry on tv and elsewhere from Psychology Today

Couple convicted of insurance fraud

Twitter criminal harassment case

Mensrightsactivism.com

MGTOW - Men Going Their Own Way


Other audios in Under the Covers with Eve

Comments

You must be logged in with a commenting account to post comments. Log in with a commenting account or register a commenting account if you don't have one. This is not the same as a Membership account.

  • MakrMaldrill on 2021-12-13 13:31:52 (UTC)

    So refreshing to hear women calling attention to all this. I'm very passionate about this kind of thing. I made a 20 minute video destroying the whole wage gap myth as well as several videos addressing the double standard in reproductive rights. And plenty vids on how men are portrayed. Even as a kid I noticed the anti-male themes of shows like Home Improvement.

    There was an episode of Seinfeld that perfectly encapsulates the very real phenomenon of people seeing non-existent female discrimination over real male discrimination. Elaine noticed all the waitresses in the resturaunt were big-breasted and thought of it as discrimination against small-chest women. But she didn't think about the fact that none of the employees were male.

    • A Eve on 2021-12-23 19:50:30 (UTC)

      I'm pretty passionate about it too, I'm an unapologetic man-lover!

  • billymacorbuddy on 2017-04-03 02:56:43 (UTC)

    I withdrew from a couple different online communities because of this very topic. These were groups of people who were so called "intellectuals" arguing over the minutiae of gender equality, and there was bad behavior on both sides. But the worst creation came out of the feminist camp. They called it JAQing off. Just Asking Questions. It was a term that they threw at any person who happen to question their assertions, even if only for clarification. It completely shut down debate and walled themselves off from any differing opinion. I was a potential ally, but I can't support a cause when there is no room for middle ground. Every man should not have to accept the default title of rapist until he proves otherwise. (I'm sorry I can't put these points in their proper full context, but I just don't have the energy to relive these debates.)

    Oh, one more thing; I'm totally going to be man spreading everywhere I go now. Look out ladies! ;)

    • A Eve on 2017-04-12 19:01:27 (UTC)

      I know exactly how you feel, it's so one-sided and genuinely offensive, and as a woman I know I have to speak out against it. There is such you're-wrong-we're-right rhetoric out there, and it's based on a lot of hysteria.

      I hope you do 'manspread'!

  • CharlieRomeoLima on 2017-03-04 03:32:49 (UTC) (edited)

    #killallmen? Just....wow. If that's supposed to be a tongue in cheek joke by whomever started that handle then it's in egregiously poor taste. Recalls to mind a T-shirt decal from 2003 that said, "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them!" (Wikipedia reveals that slogan was made by...a man, exploiting the controversy for his company's profit.)

    Equality of the sexes notwithstanding, I still offer my seat on the train to women (haha as long as my feet aren't killing me after a long day's work) or hold doors for any woman or man right behind me. Rarely do I get any response but appreciation even if my gesture is declined, but I was taught that it is better to err on the side of consideration. I believe it's worthwhile for men to aspire to gentlemanly conduct even, maybe especially, in these modern times given this corrosive social influence of rad/militant feminism and a masculine identity the very definition of which is in a state of flux. There's a radical feminist concept of 'benevolent sexism' I've encountered on the Web that calls attention to just how insidiously rooted misogyny can be, even in men who think they hold positive attitudes toward women. This idea also implicates women of endorsing such apparently benign male behaviour. So by holding a door for a woman I may be potentially accused of sexism/political incorrectness and it's easy to see how these ideas can muddle the waters for confused men struggling to retool their relations with women for the 21st century.

    On perennial media reporting of the imbalanced sex ratios of CEOs and boardmembers of Fortune 500 companies, it all just tends to fly over my head, frankly. I'm just an average person more worried about scraping together something to put away for the future. But I recognize this to be a tangent into the equally enormous topic of class-based societies, so I will say no more on that.

    So good of your comment box not to timeout! Your listeners seem to be quite an intelligent crew and, like anywhere else I post on the Internet, I want to fit in with the community so I tend to overthink my comments. Thank you Eve, very much for speaking out and reaffirming to me that awesome women are out there and are not a vanishing breed.

    P.S. Thanks for the supplemental links. Lots to think about. In case you're a webmistress who likes to maintain these things, the recommended link on Thomas Sowell's wage gap myth appears dead.

    • A Eve on 2017-03-05 21:29:20 (UTC)

      Thank you very much for you insightful comments, I really appreciate this kind of discussion. And thank you, that link was dead and I replaced it with a video of him speaking. 💋

      • CharlieRomeoLima on 2017-03-06 17:18:14 (UTC)

        You're most welcome, it's always a pleasure to engage with people of your erudition. And since I still have a ton of your older audio work to go through (lucky me!) I can be like a web crawler (Spider of Eve's Garden, haha) and give you a heads up on any other dead links I find.

        • A Eve on 2017-03-06 21:55:34 (UTC)

          Thank you, I'd appreciate it 💋 And I love spiders in my garden :P

  • hobidee on 2016-11-28 00:58:54 (UTC)

    I haven't given much thought to this subject, but it seems to me that women are allowed to do more things than men are. For example, a lot of young men are recognized mostly for their looks and not their talents and personality. Although this applies for loads of young women too, it appears to be more acceptable to target young males focusing on the looks. I saw a while back a video where a model woman grabbed exactly a 100 men's cocks on the street. Have a man attempt to do that to women and he'll be in social and legal trouble when he gets his first touch.

    • A Eve on 2016-11-28 12:48:29 (UTC)

      You're absolutely right, almost across the board women have more freedom and more choices than men. I could name hundreds of examples, but the most egregious to my mind is this one - I can decide I don't want to be a parent once a child is conceived, but a man has no choice - either he will be or he won't be depending entirely on what the woman wants. His thoughts and feelings are morally and legally irrelevant. Some 'patriarchy'.

  • Martti45 on 2016-11-13 20:13:40 (UTC)

    Modern day feminism has almost completely destroyed relations between the genders. Women nowadays have complete power to destroy a man's life with a divorce or false rape accusations. I don't blame any man that wants to go his own way, it is basic self-protection at this point. Boys are drugged in schools for being boys and male sexuality is demonised constantly. So no wonder men feel so angry and frustaded.

    • A Eve on 2016-11-14 19:43:13 (UTC)

      I agree, and this is why I think it's so important for women like me to speak up, so that men don't start believe every woman feels this way.

  • Chaseraynor on 2016-09-01 01:28:02 (UTC)

    Thank you for speaking out and saying this.
    I really agree with the idea of Equality is being drowned out and lost to a sea of misandry and female superiority, all in the name of equality.

    Personally I really kinda needed to hear this today. I really needed to hear that my being male is not an excuse to inflict punishment for my being male...
    Thank you. Thank you for saying that guys still matter.

    • A Eve on 2016-09-01 18:37:41 (UTC)

      Anytime, sweetie. Guys always mattered, and always will. Don't listen to the toxic voices out there that make you think otherwise. There are lots of women like me who still love men dearly ❤️

  • Hoffman1 on 2016-05-15 04:00:23 (UTC)

    I agree with you on the riddelin topic, the education system is failing boys, and in some ways make them more feminine. I agree that if a boy can focus for hours on an xbox or playstation for hours on end are NOT ADHD! However like you stated, boys need a different approach. As a boy, I loved gym class, I loved recess, and playing tag, I loved throwing a football or frisbee with other guys. I still love it! I realize I went off on a tangent, that you just breifly touched on, but still, I appreciate hearing this from a woman. You rock!

    • A Eve on 2016-05-15 21:13:14 (UTC)

      Thank you! I think more women need to speak up if they don't agree with the feminist rhetoric out there. More women need to assert that feminism doesn't always speak for everyone.

    • A Eve on 2016-04-04 20:27:57 (UTC)

      Thank you! 💋

  • leytod on 2016-01-08 18:39:48 (UTC)

    Catching up on my Eraudica! This is great stuff. You make me think and, as a nerd, I so do love thinking ... :)

    • A Eve on 2016-01-08 19:49:35 (UTC)

      haha nerds rock!

  • internet777 on 2015-12-24 20:04:06 (UTC)

    Eve, thank you for your beautiful audio work. i stumbled upon this podcast of yours about feminism and it took me a bit off guard. the definition of feminism reads as follows (taken from top result in google):
    "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. "

    although the word "feminism" has become a very loaded word full of negative connotations, it's hard for me to believe after listening to you speak on different topics that you wouldn't agree with the crux of this statement.

    you are right in observing that women have made great strides in many areas of the first world countries, but in my opinion, the concept of feminism is still quite necessary to combat thousands of years of oppression and deeply ingrained unconscious social and cultural opinion. it's like saying racism is gone because supposedly equal rights have been established... it's still a work in progress. until the majority of men accept women as inherent equals on all levels then feminism serves a necessary purpose. i agree with you that radical "man-hating" feminism is not needed and very abusive... but i will say that there are many sex-positive feminists out there who love men very much, but still want their equal rights. unfortunately, there is still a glass ceiling in many professional arenas because of an undeniable "old boys club" who think many if not most women are inferior, or who simply want to keep the power (and money) for themselves because if they gave it up to a woman, it would threaten 1: their manhood and sense of security, and 2: all that they've internalized from our first world culture about what it means to be masculine, powerful and in control.

    thank you for your time and effort, and for taking the time to read this.

  • MadWithLust on 2015-12-21 05:04:39 (UTC)

    *Vehemently applauses* Eve, you just get it! You love us men and we love you! Your positions are so very well thought out and researched and just completely fair-minded. It is such a relief to find a woman on our side!!!

    My biggest gripe with feminism is their proposed solution is the exact injustice they fight: namely, the oppression of the opposite sex. Men oppressing women is the ultimate sin but somehow women oppressing men is the ultimate good.

    I think it is much worse than women vilifying sexuality. I would understand if it was universally condemned but in my opinion, the problem is the acts are acceptable or criminal depending on whether or not it's advantageous for the woman. A man flirting with a women is criminal if he isn't attractive but more than OK when the man is attractive to her. Women are equal to men and deserve the same jobs...but still need to receive alimony and child support. Falsely calling a woman a slut warrants angry mobs but falsely calling a man a rapist warrants no reprisal.

    Equality means equality. No favouritism because of gender.

    • A Eve on 2015-12-22 11:47:30 (UTC)

      Exactly, and you made some really good points about how one-sided so much of this is. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

  • sh9084 on 2015-12-20 23:27:29 (UTC)

    I find it interesting that a person like you would be writing stuff like this. A woman, who is brave enough to make erotic/sexual audio, is rejecting feminism, which happens to (or is supposed to) promote women's sexual freedom. Yet, in fact you are not the only one of those sexual women who seem to have negative thoughts on feminism. I have seen some other camgirls who are against the idea of feminism. Based on my observation, women who are more accepting their femininity and their sexuality, and who are more comfortable about who they are seem to be more on the side of rejecting feminism. All of these are interesting to me and make me wonder why that is the case. Is it that the women who are hardcore feminist are lacking love from men? What is behind the anger toward men? Why all the combative mode? And in fact, shouldn't feminism more be about helping women being able to embrace their feminine energy, but isn't combative energy more masculine than feminine? Are women in western hemisphere (hardcore feminists) that insecure to blame everything on men?

    I watched and read some of the sexologists' teachings, and many of them are not necessarily all against feminism, but many of them seem to acknowledge side effects of feminism. 1. It helped women gain more social status, and have more respect in the society, but in what was predominantly masculine structure (as men were traditionally the breadwinner that the social structure was originally around men, or made to suit more for men), and because of this, it forced women to be more like men, having negative influence in their femininity. 2. One good thing that it did for men is that men became more acknowledging, more exploring and more expressing their emotions and moods (although we still have much more to go). In a way this can be seen as boosting feminine energy in men. But, what's problematic is that it left men's masculinity in the question, and there wasn't much development or discussion on what male masculinity is supposed to be in this current world with feminist culture, and etc. These were two of the things I heard/read about problems with feminism in some of the sexologists works.

    A third problem I see with feminism is that it neglects differences in men and women, and it just try to promote equality. (Although I wonder if this is still the agenda) We have different physiology. We are raised differently with different expectations based on our gender. Our hormonal balance in the body is different. I like the idea of equal respect, and equal status. However, they should be coming from the understanding the differences in men and women. People are so afraid that when we talk about differences we will automatically discriminate based on the differences. (Similar in racial matter, I think.) And yes, there is the danger, but if we ignore the differences, while trying to make everything equal, we will inevitably meet another disaster. (Or we have already.)

    Fortunately, there now seems to be more talk about masculinity in the era of feminism. In fact, many women in my grad school/college seem to like that idea and participate in this program. (Women seem to be doing this more than men.) I don't know whether it is a good type of program as I wasn't able to participate yet, but I like the idea of it at least.

    Perhaps what we should be striving for would be how to embrace our own masculinity and femininity, (both in men and women) and be comfortable with it, and respect it mutually (and respect others mutually too). If you look at many PUA areas or in the dating forums, many men rant about how women are terrible in western hemisphere, while women complain that there are no good men in the western hemisphere. Perhaps our being able to understand better about masculinity and femininity, while fostering mutual respect will be able to solve this problem too. And this will probably lead more love, less loneliness, and less hate.

    Men and women both should not be treated unfairly. They both deserve respect from each other and within themselves. And I suppose feminism has taken a wrong turn and forgotten about the respect for men part. (Not all feminists, but many of them seemed to have forgotten it, in my opinion.)

    And Eve, you hit a good point by starting off with making a distinction from them problem of feminism in the developing world the problem of feminism in developed world. In developing nations, people need more feminist movement to boost women's status, (as they seriously have problems, and boosting women's status in there were linked to many positive improvements in many social areas) but hopefully they are not going to be neglecting men, and the dynamics of masculinity and femininity.

    The world is more increasingly becoming very self centered. Heck, we are now moving toward being able to have your own baby without having a partner. (I'm not talking about adoption, I'm talking about giving a birth to a baby without having a partner, or having a gene from other person.) Without modifying the problematic parts of feminist ideals, (which also requires men's effort too in fixing this) I think we will continue have this problem, if not worsen.

    Eve, thank you for bringing controversial, yet interesting topic. I want to continue this talk. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? (Just kidding, please don't press sexual harassment charges on me. LOL.)

    • A Eve on 2015-12-22 11:48:48 (UTC)

      haha I would never!

      I think you'll find that a lot of very sexual women have distanced themselves from feminism because, contrary to what you might think, feminists don't approve of us being so sexual and so into men. They consider us part of the problem, and definitely don't embrace us as part of the sisterhood.

  • Jandrusel on 2015-12-20 19:25:24 (UTC) (edited)

    Despite looking like a fool, I'll admit, like Socrates, my own ignorance on 'feminism', gender dynamics, and all of this stuff. Please excuse me if I sound too naive but, whatever happened to the old 'treat others as you want to be treated?'. It seems like these days we're more worried about fighting and stepping over each others. It's no wonder why we find it difficult to trust anyone. Some of the links you've posted are really depressing.

    A year ago, here on Spain,, there was an online controversy (and calling it that it's really dumb) on Twitter. A male college student offered a cup of coffee to another female. She responded to this by insulting him and calling him 'machista' (a word used for when a man is a total jerk and really disrespectful to women). Sounds really stupid but this controversy lasted for a few days. It even made it on the news broadcasts. Makes you think about all the hate and paranoia that surrounds us...

    As always, interesting and thoughtful points Eve. As a man, I learned a little bit from it. But I really dont' want to get involved in this drama, I already have enough things going on.

    • A Eve on 2015-12-22 21:47:05 (UTC)

      I hear you, hermano :)

  • SomeRandomGuy on 2015-12-20 17:44:18 (UTC)

    I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. Many of these points are the reasons for why I find it scary to marry a woman, and have almost decided that I'd rather not. It has gotten to the point where I see more downsides than upsides to marriage.

    • A Eve on 2015-12-22 21:46:40 (UTC)

      Well, I'd hoped to at least show you that not all women are like the ones you read about, and that there are women out there who are worth marrying.