Sorry if I came across as a bit aggressive, too! I'll respond to a few points to try to clarify my position.
Note how all of the references that I made were to third-wave feminism, inter-sectional feminism, and the extreme left wing. This is the sect that is most powerful in academia, politics, and which is guiding the conversation in many media outlets. That is why I focused on them.
I have had 'third wave feminism' described to me as basically comprised of anyone that joined the feminist movement during the 90's or later. This seems to me like blaming an entire generation of feminists rather than one deviant sect, in a kind of 'new blood is bad blood' sort of thing. I guess my problem is more with the term, then, rather than your criticism of particular radical feminists, as it's a bit too all-inclusive for me.
That is why I pointed out to you that the director was actually a major third-wave feminist, and thus the connection people were making was not spurious.
You're absolutely right, I did get that wrong. I was unaware of his political activity, and from his only other work that I've seen, which is a terrible, stereotype confirming, vaguely misogynistic piece of garbage(Bridesmaids. Though that was just my opinion- many people seem to like it.), I never would have guessed that he considers himself a feminist.
However, for better or worse, the general public often judges entire groups based upon what they are perceived to actually practice. Currently in the US we have affirmative action in favor of women in academia despite the fact that there have been more women in universities than men for over 30 years ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/educat...c9e1_story.html ), we have boys falling behind girls in primary education benchmarks ( http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/0...rm-academically ), we have alimony laws which are outdated, we have family law which strongly favors giving custody to women, we have men who have to sign up for Selective Service but not the women, we have men which are far more likely to die from violence on a per capita basis than women ( http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevent..._key_fact_6.pdf ), and we have men who make up 40% of domestic violence victims ( http://www.thehotline.org/resources/statistics/ and http://www.medicaldaily.com/domestic-viole...ring-it-284682) despite the domestic violence laws and most shelters focusing on women, but yet attempts to address these imbalances are typically derailed by feminist organizations. As long as these organizations continue to be seen as focusing mainly on women's issues as opposed to actually trying to achieve fairness for both sexes, they will probably retain the lukewarm reputations that they have obtained. As the saying goes, "Change must come from within."
I agree with this for the most part, though these other organizations are hardly 'innocent victims of the feminist agenda,' so to speak. Death threats and miscommunications come from all sides- the men's right movement is also guilty of certain extremest factions slinging death and rape threats, which sadly gets much more publicity than the valid concerns raised. And in the case of journalistic malpractice you mentioned earlier, what may have started off as a well-intentioned thing certainly escalated way out of hand. A friend of mine received a storm of doxing, harassment, and death threats for literally just saying that he 'agreed with them on principle, but disagreed with the methods that they were using to achieve results.' It's kind of funny, in a horrible way- it's almost like the 'internet death threat squad' is a subculture on its own that transcends other group affiliations. I tend to see myself as more of a humanist as well, and as such I try to argue all sides that I understand the underlying principles of. There are still a lot of valid feminist concerns affecting the world, just as there are valid men's rights concerns and journalistic integrity concerns. To effectively change any of these we have to be willing to empathize, sacrifice, and compromise, and we have to be able to understand other sides of every argument without blindly assigning blame and hatemongering. Also, it's looking like Selective Service is not going to be gender restricted much longer:
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/militar...draft/83624490/
