Feminism is for equal rights for all genders not just women.

Thank you, VoiceforEquality. I will first continue my Negative Case, then I will address my opponent’s arguments. Negative Case Premise: The myth of gender equality Wholly untouched, thus it stands. A1: Unequal rights in STEM fields My argument that shows clear inequality forced by the hand of feminism is wholly uncontested. A2: Pay Gap Theory is inherently sexist against men One of the most common arguments espoused by feminists is that there is a roughly 0.75:1 ratio in pay between women and men. This is fallacious argument that relies on dishonest manipulation of statistics, which includes ignoring the varying factors in the gap (things like hours worked, types of jobs worked etc.) [5]. Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs, two scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, found that the differences could be explained in a similar fashion, “men were almost twice as likely as women tow work more than 40 hours a week, and women almost twice as likely to work only 35 to 39 hours per week. Once that is taken into consideration, the pay gap begins to shrink… 88% of male earnings” [6]. They continued, taking similar factors that would affect pay, and effectively reduced the gap to a negligible amount. An OECD report, The Price of Prejudice: Labour Market Discrimination of the Grounds of Gender and Ethinicity, found that when examining UK data, merely “differences in motivation, expectations and field of study can explain up to 70% of the observed wage gap” [7] [8]. When all factors are controlled for, the pay gap vanishes in the U.S. It is only through feminist’s blatant ignorance and/or manipulation of statistics is there an unjust pay gap between the sexes. Thus, once again, feminism pushes towards inequality by arguing that the “patriarchy” discriminates aganst women when it does no such thing here. A3: Feminists show unbridled hatred for men Let me show you what some famous feminists have treated us to, in terms of quotes involving “equal rights for all genders”: “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honourable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class is oppressing them” – Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor “To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo” – Valeria Solanas, Authoress of the SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) Manifesto “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex” – Valerie Solanas “The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness…can be trained to do most things” – Jilly Cooper, SCUM “I want to see a man beaten to a blood pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig” – Andrea Dworkin “The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men” – Sharon Stone; Actress “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race” – Sally Miller Gearhart, in The Future – If There Is One – Is Female If feminism is about “equal rights for all genders”, then these proclaimed and celebrated feminists advocate man-hating as “equal rights for all genders”, which is clearly contradictory. Counter-arguments The faulty definition of feminism: equality of the sexes. I completely reject this definition on this basis that I have shown it is not reality. We are debating whether feminism is about equal rights of the sexes, so my opponent’s appeal to definition is fallacious in that it is purely a ploy at semantics, rather than a sustained argument as to why the definition should be that way. Eliminating of stereotypes because we do not understand human psychology Short-hair: My opponent declares that this is merely a “stereo-type” without providing a shred of evidence, thus making this argument a logical fallacy as it is a bare assertion [1]. Hair-length is one of the many facets that rated in terms of sexual attractiveness, according to evolutionary psychology. In his book The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, which collaborates research on the topic, David M. Buss describes how multiple studies have found hair-length is highly correlated with female attractiveness, due to long hair indicating good health [2, page 309]. “Starvation causes loss of hair, nutritional deficiencies in vitamins and minerals cause damaged hair… hair, therefore, provides an observable record of an individual’s recent health and nutrition”. This is why, as Etcoff (1999) found that long-hair is attractive across ALL cultures, despite the wild differences in cultures [3]. Once again, feminism has the incorrect context of “stereotypes”, instead of the correct context of “evolutionary psychology”, thus feminism, in reality, feminism ignores our instincts rather than pursuing any notion of “equal rights for genders” by fixing “stereotypes”. Make-up: The notion that women put make-up on purely because society tells them is to ignore the context in which inspired women to put it on in the first place. Again, have a look at evolutionary psychology. David M. Buss’ book elaborates on why skin quality is another facet in which human males looked for sexual partners. In ages where insect bites, diseases, infections and a host of other ailments brought ill health, men would choose for women with the least blemished skin as that was the healthiest (and thus, most likely to continue the lineage) [2]. As Grammer et al. (2002) found in his research involving men rating the attractiveness of naked women, he found that there was a large positive correlation between skin “homogeneity” (a symmetrical face without blemishes) and general attractiveness [2]. Similar findings were found in Fink et al. (2001): “[when subjects were presented] with faces whose shapes were standardized… [it was] found that skin texture significantly influenced attractiveness ratings” [2]. Finally, in another article published by Fink and Pento-Voak called Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness, which summarised the findings of researcher’s work into the field, it was concluded that “these mechanisms [involving evolutionary psychology] are presumed to be highly resistant to cultural modification” [4]. As you can see, make-up use has its origins in wanting to be more attractive to the opposite sex, rather than merely being “stereotypes”. My opponent’s list of bare assertions “Feminism brought women out of the household — if they so chose. Feminism broke barriers for little girls with presidential aspirations. Feminism triggered the FBI to change the definition of rape to include men. Feminism enabled men to spend more time with their children. Feminism demanded that the media change its representation of men.” My opponent provides no sustained reasoning as to why you should believe these claims. Thus, they are bare assertions, which is the second time my opponent has applied this logical fallacy [1]. Even if any of these are true, my opponent gives you no reason as to why to believe that, hence these are insufficient as arguments in a debate. References [1] http://www.toolkitforthinking.com... [2] http://books.google.com.au... [3] Etcoff, N. (1999). Survival of the prettiest. New York: Doubleday. [4] https://www.uni-muenster.de... [5] http://www.marketwatch.com... [6] http://billmoyers.com... [7] http://www.avoiceformen.com... [8] http://www.oecd.org...