Why Are You Anti-Feminist? | Karen Straughan | Outtakes from "The Red Pill" — Transcript

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1. 0:15So in your speech today,
2. 0:18you said: "I consider myself more of a
3. 0:22anti-feminist than an MRA. Why is that?
4. 0:25Because
5. 0:28Men's rights activism may not always be needed, anti-feminism will always be necessary
6. 0:36I actually described it once. I forget what the question was that I was considering
7. 0:45A lot of people describe gender issues as a pendulum and the pendulum has swung too far
8. 0:51It's not a pendulum. It's an engine. It's an engine that is always pushing in one direction
9. 0:59That direction is the direction of a favouring the female.
10. 1:02And this is to say this is the case of every species, so why would it be not be the case in ours?
11. 1:09favoring of the female, giving the female
12. 1:11significant amount, on average, of reproductive power.
13. 1:18So in in most species you will have 5% of the males siring all the offspring and every female
14. 1:26sires a few offspring, and this is really the endgame of life
15. 1:35It's passing on your genes; it's the whole point: the real reason we behave in any way whatsoever
16. 1:41Is because we are the product of generations of people who behave that way
17. 1:47And if behaving that way didn't get them laid and didn't get them kids, then we wouldn't be behaving quite
18. 1:56Since the entire game, right, so you have
19. 2:04You have this system where It used to be
20. 2:10that the harshness of nature
21. 2:12Right and the harshness of people
22. 2:15and
23. 2:17scarcity and war -
24. 2:20All of those things
25. 2:23Kept that engine
26. 2:26From getting too far. That was a pushback. MEN were never the pushback
27. 2:33men were the ones who were
28. 2:36standing between women and the pushback
29. 2:41I guess women interpreted that as
30. 2:44Because there was a layer of men in between what was pushing against them they figured men were pushing against them
31. 2:53That was the push back and that's all been removed
32. 2:57and now
33. 2:59it's free to
34. 3:01chug along and
35. 3:03You know and now you see
36. 3:06Governments tripping over each other. You know governments tripping over
37. 3:10politicians tripping over each other to pander to women, to offer women entitlements
38. 3:15at the expense of their children
39. 3:18They are saddling their children with you know
40. 3:24$50,000 per capita of debt
41. 3:26right
42. 3:28before they're even born
43. 3:29to pay for a few free birth control pills
44. 3:33Right to pay for affirmative action
45. 3:36To pay for whatever women will decide they fancy today
46. 3:41free abortions, whatever, all of this
47. 3:46To pay for having a Women's Center at every University
48. 3:50to pay for all of this we're mortgaging our child's future. We're taking out a second mortgage. Maybe third at this point
49. 3:57On our children's future. They're the ones who're gonna have to pay and they're the ones whose ability to pay that we're crippling, because
50. 4:05We're not raising them in a healthy environment. I mean, this is the thing that really
51. 4:09drives me crazy is this whole last
52. 4:1450 to 75 years has been a huge social experiment perpetrated on ALL of society - not in a lab
53. 4:21ON society. Nobody has any idea how it's gonna turn out; nobody has any idea what the side effects are
54. 4:30The people who are suggesting that we do it have the predictive ability of a coin toss right and
55. 4:39When their predictions don't come to fruition, What do they tell us? "we need more feminism"
56. 4:47And
57. 4:49I mean, we're looking at marriage right we look at marriage - feminism decided early on and I'm talking
58. 4:57around the time of the declaration of sentiments (1848)
59. 5:01that marriage really is needed to be destroyed because it was a
60. 5:06construct designed to oppress women
61. 5:09and
62. 5:12The justifications for marriage
63. 5:15Were you know having sex outside of marriage is sin, it's against God?
64. 5:19If you do it God won't like you right, so don't do it
65. 5:23Right as a justification, and it's an outdated one. It's an outmoded one right. It's
66. 5:28It's not really a reasonable justification to any enlightened individual
67. 5:33Right so we figured because the justification was
68. 5:37Fallacious right that we could just toss out marriage
69. 5:41Right we could toss out the idea of having sex outside of marriage is a bad thing
70. 5:47That's because we never understood what the function of marriage was
71. 5:51what the purpose of marriage was: it wasn't a purpose
72. 5:54where somebody dreamed it up and then imposed it on everyone. It was just something that people did and it worked
73. 6:00Right and it worked because it performed a function and nobody really knew what that was, but they just knew it worked
74. 6:06it for a stable society and all of that . Here's what the function of marriage was:
75. 6:11every single child
76. 6:13Has a father that can be identified as the father of that child and can be held responsible for that child's well-being
77. 6:20financially and
78. 6:22To protect that child. And the mother. That was the whole purpose of marriage
79. 6:29Attaching fathers to children because that's the weakest
80. 6:33The weakest... You know, you have that (saying):
81. 6:36"men love women women love babies, babies love puppies"
82. 6:42It's that hierarchy - and the weakest bond in the family and the most valuable one
83. 6:49is the father-child bond
84. 6:52the father-child bond
85. 6:54Took us from chimpanzees to where we are today
86. 6:58that's that's
87. 6:59one of the major factors that did it
88. 7:02and that's the one marriage strengthened. the mother-child bond will exist whether there is marriage or not
89. 7:10whether there is
90. 7:13whether a man knows this child is mine
91. 7:16or not
92. 7:18the father-child bond
93. 7:20is the one that is the most easily broken
94. 7:24That is the one that needs to be bolstered: that is what marriage did
95. 7:28It not only held men accountable for the children they created
96. 7:33But it made them feel proud to do something, to be accountable for them made them feel
97. 7:39respected for being responsible for their children; made them feel appreciated
98. 7:45Like it rewarded them not even with
99. 7:48tangible things, but with intangible things like respect and honor and admiration and you know
100. 7:56all of those things that used to be attached
101. 7:59and that are highly valued by men
102. 8:04And we've thrown all of that in the trash. we have. and and now we've replaced it with
103. 8:12child-support
104. 8:15Money
105. 8:17This is where I get confused with the men's rights movement though
106. 8:19I hear some MRAs saying we need to strengthen the family like Erin Pizzey
107. 8:24It sounds like you stand like that and [NAME]
108. 8:28But then I hear other MRAs say that why even get married if it's not a safe place for men
109. 8:33And then you have men who go their own way. Oh, yeah, I don't see those as contradictory
110. 8:37One a sounds like the traditional family and the other sounds like, get away [with that?]
111. 8:43No, do it. Well, there is no traditional family now. There is no traditional family now
112. 8:50you know
113. 8:51You get married. You're not gonna be respected only if your wife decides that she is going to respect you right
114. 8:57Are you gonna be respected she doesn't have to there's no. There's no law
115. 9:01There's no social pressure on her to do so in fact. She will be applauded for disrespecting you, socially
116. 9:08And for bad-mouthing you and and treating you like like dirt. She will she will be "you go, girl"
117. 9:15You know, by lots of people
118. 9:17so I mean there is no traditional marriage. There is no
119. 9:22father and husband who is respected, and admired for his wisdom, his diligence and
120. 9:29his responsibility and his willingness to go out and work a 70-hour week
121. 9:32for the good of his family. If he DOES go out and work a 70-hour work week for the good of his family his wife
122. 9:37will complain that he's never home
123. 9:40right, and he's not doing enough for her - often
124. 9:45Right and
125. 9:46Or even if she's not so inclined she could be - and there's no recourse for that man
126. 9:53Because he knows that the moment the marriage ends. He's lost his kids
127. 9:56They're gone
128. 9:58Are you saying that's the majority though? because there are a lot of marriages where the man does not respect the wife
129. 10:03And she's doing on you know child-rearing
130. 10:05So where does the...
131. 10:08majority-minority lie in the majority of it, um. It's not a matter of the majority or the minority because those are problems regardless of how often they happen
132. 10:18Right? In either direction. They're problems regardless of how often they happen
133. 10:22or who it happens more to, which sex it happens more to, what the issue is... is the system...
134. 10:32...reinforces...
135. 10:35...women doing those things.
136. 10:37Right? And the system will punish men who do those things. That is the problem, right? And I saw that
137. 10:45so clearly when I split from my husband and I I don't talk about my
138. 10:51ex-husband very much, I don't do it because
139. 10:54There's really no realistic way he can defend himself
140. 10:57or tell his side of the story and
141. 11:01I actually really do still care about him, and I want him to be doing well and being okay and all that
142. 11:12It was just impossible to live with him, and I think he was no happier than I was but
143. 11:21When it comes to...
144. 11:24...the divorce process...
145. 11:26and
146. 11:28I mean he was recalcitrant;
147. 11:31he was combative and the reason he was combative was because he'd been through it before and he wasn't combative before
148. 11:39he had tried to be cooperative before and
149. 11:42He got taken to the cleaners
150. 11:44This time he was not going to let that happened so he kind of came on swinging
151. 11:51and
152. 11:53Even so I
153. 11:56Probably could have
154. 11:59completely destroyed him and
155. 12:01What I would not have had to pay my lawyer even
156. 12:05$500 more than I ended up paying
157. 12:08in order to completely destroy my ex.
158. 12:10I showed my lawyer
159. 12:12the separation agreement my ex and I drew up the first to cover the first year - it would expire at the end of a year
160. 12:17and
161. 12:19My lawyer said "I should smack you for signing this"
162. 12:24And I said, "I thought it was fair..."
163. 12:26"...it's *fair*". And he said: "But you're entitled to so much more"
164. 12:30and
165. 12:32then when it was time to negotiate the divorce I
166. 12:37I actually wanted to be
167. 12:40very fair. But because there were already lawyers involved
168. 12:45therefore it had to actually be really analyzed by a judge and .. uh...
169. 12:52because the judge had to sign off on it
170. 12:55or I would not be granted a divorce
171. 12:58I could not be anywhere near as fair as I wanted to be and have a judge to be willing to sign it
172. 13:05These are things that I didn't even ask for
173. 13:08Right I didn't even ask for them. I didn't want them and the judge
174. 13:13imposed that
175. 13:15Right, in the agreement, or he would not sign it
176. 13:20so imagine what would happen if I had decided I was going to
177. 13:26Completely fuck over my husband. I was gonna completely ruin his life
178. 13:33He would still be living in a car
179. 13:37after 5 to 6 years of us being apart.
180. 13:44How could it get to this point - how did it get to the point of lawyers having
181. 13:48their
182. 13:50direction swayed. Well it's because women
183. 13:53Are seen in a specific way and one of the ways they're seen is their harmless,
184. 13:59innocent victims
185. 14:02they are not strong enough to defend themselves and need help
186. 14:07Lawyers are as chivalrous as anyone else and so are judges; and men are seen as
187. 14:15capable, as self-sufficient, as all those things that help you get a job, but as that they don't need help
188. 14:24And
189. 14:25I
190. 14:27Forget whether it was Tom Golden or Warren Farrell today who said
191. 14:31one of the problems is
192. 14:35One of the problems is that
193. 14:41When men need help, when men say they need help, have just forfeited their right to it
194. 14:49The act of saying, as a men, "I need help"
195. 14:54forfeits a man his right to help
196. 14:58Because any man who needs to be helped. He's not a man, and it doesn't deserve our help
197. 15:06And I've seen this all over the place right I mean
198. 15:11there are people who help you get a job
199. 15:12there are people who will hook you up with whatever:
200. 15:16: as long as you don't appear to need it
201. 15:19right
202. 15:21the moment you actually need it and you actually reach out and say "I really need your help"
203. 15:27Okay, you're done
204. 15:29people erase your phone number off from their phones and they stop taking their calls
205. 15:36because
206. 15:37Nobody sees a man like that as someone who is worth even knowing
207. 15:48It's a huge, huge thing - it's a huge paradigm, and I see it playing out all the time
208. 15:58Even look at how feminists deal with this: feminists say
209. 16:03"well feminism is about men too"
210. 16:07Right and
211. 16:08then so MRAs
212. 16:11often very
213. 16:13Often not MRAs yet, they're still calling themselves feminists - they say: "Well, what about men and this and this and this?"
214. 16:21"Well, that's not our job, okay
215. 16:24you go and solve those problems yourself
216. 16:27Right "you stop derailing our conversation: this space is about women", right?
217. 16:33so then these men go off by themselves and start trying to deal with it and
218. 16:38Then feminists go : "you can't do that you have to examine this within feminism
219. 16:44"there are plenty of places within feminism to deal with men's problems"
220. 16:49Right so then the men come and they say well. "What about the men?"
221. 16:56"Just go sit down in the corner and be quiet - stop mansplaining to us"
222. 17:02"oh, you neckbeard. Oh shed some beard tears. I drink those for breakfast"
223. 17:08I mean they say things like this right
224. 17:12Say things like to men who've been victims of rape and domestic violence
225. 17:15who talk about their issues right and try and talk about it; they say those things to these people who have been victims.
226. 17:21without any sense of compassion
227. 17:25"Oh shed some more beard tears
228. 17:28"adjust your fedora, loser". I thought once they bragged about "I have a new purse
229. 17:35"I made it out of baby foreskins that I stitched together"
230. 17:38right
231. 17:40like just absolute
232. 17:43disgusting cruelty, right
233. 17:46These are the people who told them you can't discuss your issues
234. 17:50without us
235. 17:51Right sort of guiding you, right?
236. 17:54And then they come and try and do that
237. 17:56then this is what they do to them, so then they go off and try to talk about them on their own and
238. 18:01then feminism says "you bunch of misogynist rape-apologists
239. 18:05"how dare you look at these issues outside the lines of feminism"
240. 18:09and the whole thing just repeats
241. 18:11And so a huge amount of male MRAS are former feminists
242. 18:19many of them were raised by feminists, to be feminists and
243. 18:25they tried to deal with men's issues within the feminist movement, they tried to have them addressed in some way and
244. 18:34and some of them are still thinking that
245. 18:42We should eventually come to some kind of cooperation
246. 18:45Or compromise or negotiation right I don't think any of these men
247. 18:53Were
248. 18:54you know
249. 18:55Hostile originally right when they were presented with the issues, and I don't think they would have given up on feminism that easily
250. 19:03it wouldn't have been like one afternoon some feminist said something shitty be to them
251. 19:10it was a long, hard road
252. 19:13away from that and to dropping the name, dropping a sense of belonging, for a lot of these guys and
253. 19:22then they came to us and and the reason they are MRAs (now) is because they WERE feminists
254. 19:29If they have never been feminists, they would not be MRAs - if they had never been feminists they would not be anti-feminists