Last Update - Wed May 20 2026
Feminism PM | GW | OW OG | CG | CO Mattew Toomey, Tejas Subramanium, Elena Rădulescu Panama WUDC 2025 Round 4 Pt1
PM | Mattew Toomey | 86 Why this leads to better feminist advocacy on our side, and thirdly why this leads to the feminist movement doing less harm. Claim But next, you also get less buy in from men, and for a small minority of men you get them hyper radicalized. That looks like them going to things like andrew tate, that looks like them becoming, you know, manosphere MRA(men’s rights activist), completely anti-women. We think that is an enormous harm on self. But even for the majority of men who aren’t as radicalized as that, it’s quite a large harm. First of all, men don’t like being told that they’re wrong and bad and evil. Secondly, this doesn’t align with their personal experience, cuz they think I’m not hyper privileged, I’ve had struggles in my life, and they don’t understand the relative distinction between that and woman in the same situation. But it doesn’t align with their intuitive version of their personal experience, they’re unlikely to buy into it. Third of all, you then require them to get defensive, so you actually negatively polarize them into a more anti-feminist position because they feel the necessity to defend their own actions, which means that they then need to explain why the complaints of the women are wrong. It also becomes more opposed by political parties, and obviously particularly conservative political parties. And obviously conservative political parties will on either side oppose feminism, but there’s clearly a margin here. And I’ll note here that you’re now more likely to believe incorrectly that feminism is anti-men, which explains why it becomes substantially less palatable. I’ll also note here by being aggressive and adversarial you make yourself into a less palatable political movement, which means that you can’t be brought into spaces that aren’t ready for confrontation. Things like you can’t get spots on at like lunchens, you can’t get spots on like morning TV, because politeness culture means people don’t want to bring you in. I’d also note that this alienates specifically the most vulnerable women, the people with the most internalized misogyny in the most conservative areas, to whom the feminist movement owes the greatest obligation, cuz they’re the most held back by the Patriarchy. They’re the most likely to be the victims of men, CU they’re around the most conservative and pentious men. They’re the least equipped to deal with the problems because they haven’t had as much exposure from the fist movement. So wom of the most confrontation us are the most important ones to who we owe this obligation. Second argument. Here’s why we get a better feminist movement that works better. First of all, I note being adversarial misdirect blame, CU most problems can’t be blamed on a specific person. They are broad systemic problem. But when you say that blame is what we’re looking for, you’re looking for a clear source against which you can discharge that blame. So when you are dis finding source to discharge that blame, it’s very difficult to do so against any more for structures, and you’re more likely to oversimplify the problem such that it can be simplified to be blamed on a unit to which you can discharge blame, which means that we don’t get as much good discussion in the feminist movement. Because it becomes enough to shame men, that that is a form of catharsis on and of itself, as opposed to dealing with it. And it frames feminism as anti-men, which you shouldn’t. Feminism should also liberate men against, for instance, the expectations of masculinity that make their lives worse. A feminist movement that is anti-men and pro women is worse than one that is pro man and pro women. It also means that discussion becomes substantially less viable, because problems are complex, they require complicated discussion, and when discussions become more highly emotional they’re less likely to be highly logical. GW | 87 | Tejas Youtube link (timestamped):HERE 17%, that’s the percentage of women in the US who identify as feminists. I want to start by answering closing opposition's argument on people instincts to be too consolatory. I have four responses to this claim. On top of Which social media competition means posts that get the most comments and move up on the algorithms are the most controversial ones, like things that label things that are extremely murky or gray area things as gas lighting. So those are the first behaviors you notice and the first behaviors you call out. When that drives personal conflict in your life you are likely to trust the movement and the message it came up from less. Second, it is unlikely that this messaging comes from people who you already consider as Role Models. Why? Because it changes the composition of the movement. Women who have previously been moderate or mixed between anger and reconciliatory approaches are being replaced by are the most angry women, and this is due to the logic that Liz gives you about a selection effect. Imagine your role model is a feminist who initially portrays an aggressive or or angry approach to feminism. Now they might be doing it as strategically as opening opposition wants them to, but as an ordinary person looking up at the feminist movement you aren't perceiving the strategy, you are just perceiving the anger. When the selection bias of individuals who are likely to join the movement are individuals who are already prone or the most frustrated women with patriarchy, and that means your next generation of leadership is lucky to push forward far too extreme a message that alienates women who are looking to this messaging. And here's the critical thing they say this raises the cost of being defensive. Basically the opening opposition argument, here's the problem, this causes an iterated prisoners dilemma. People realize that this is what is going to happen to the culture, it's going to become a culture while male actions are more policed. People are going to have a chilling effect where they feel like they can't ask out someone on a date. Now this might be good in terms of social effects, but the thing is men may realize that this is the long run consequence of these actions meaning they are more to be negatively polarized against this messaging. Example But finally a lot of the risk aversion that people have in their personal lives is Justified. People shouldn't engage in as much conflict in Partnership. This over correction might be a reasonable corruption in a society that more broadly stigmatizes conflict. They do not explain why men listen to you except men tend to be sympathetic to their Partners. Maybe they are not when they feel like their partner is angry at them or potentially going to leave them. Now I want to engage the top half first on opening opposition. The first thing that Liz introduces an extension is the argument about the selection effect of people who join the movement. Here's the problem. Opening opposition assumes every bit of the feminist cause is good no matter what, but confrontational feminist activism has often driven major structural problems for women. For example the violence against women act in the US which drove higher prison rates substantially increased the number of women in prison due to mandatory arrest laws that caused victims of domestic violence to be arrested when they were engaging in self-defense against their partners. Here's the problem. The people who rise up to the top ranks of the feminist movement on their side of the house are much more likely to be carceral feminists, because carceral feminists have a history of anger against men which they can rely on for credibility in their messaging. So they can say I have rhetorical consistency, other leaders in this movement lack this rhetorical consistency, but also it becomes a measure of loyalty to the movement. And this answers Lucy's POI. Isn't strategy and being good for the movement likely to be a measure of loyalty? No, not for the average person. The average person isn't looking for the grand strategy of the feminist movement. The average person is looking for whether your messaging is indicative of whether you're going to stay within the feminist movement. And that is much more likely to be true when they have consistent consistently have a track record of agreeing with the new messaging of the feminist movement. On top of the role model effect that I so, even if you accept opening opposition arguments it leads to a feminist movement that is pushing policy that is bad for women, because more radical policy tends to Wi the long run alienated men and also causes things like mass incarceration which tends to back and bite back against women. But also their arguments about the social movement working are relatively weak. Their argument is basically middle class moderates will feel a learned sense of guilt and empathy overpowers defensiveness. They have two justifications. One that there's some social pressure because feminism has had some impact in educated environments. For this social pressure might work in cases of open sexism, but if you're an educated person in this thing isn't already stigmatized you still need a process of Turning New behavior in stigmatized Behavior which is not across the state describe. But also less than 40% of Americans have gone to college and are educated and politicians are often cing to those voters. Second they say that defensiveness overpowers empathy overpowers defensiveness. This is unlikely. Empathy involves feeling suffering. People have emotional regulations that tries to stop them believing that you're bad. Often correcting the behavior is insufficient. When you did a shy thing the guilt is persistent. You don't want to feel guilt so your empathy is likely to be overpowered by your defensiveness because most people don't want to believe they are a bad person. POI So you can still hate on men, the specific men who perpetuate patriarchy, while not being anti-men in your policy advocacy. Liz explains why the rhetorical consistency and selection that and show you can't do that, meaning a large number of men who would potentially view feminism as a benefit for them are alienated from the movement. Second lots of women are sympathetic to feminist messaging, and this is the argument we give you. When feminism takes an excessively confrontational stance what they are doing is competing for attention. And this is the critical thing, when you take a confrontational stance your of politics into a politics of attention. But the feminist movement is amorphous. It has many different feminist organizations. Any one group gains more attention by being angrier, creating a race to the bottom that makes the feminist movement much more alienating. We stop this race to the bottom and create a path for buy-in for men. Happy to propose. CO | OW | 86 In the 1960s a group of feminists gathered on the Cornell campuses in the US to articulate the experience that was happening to them. They weren't being Fred, but they were being demeaned, aggressed and harmed by men in some way or another. And after hours of talking and yelling and fighting with each other they coined the term “sexual harassment”. Ever since millions of women across the world have been able to define the experiences that have been happening to them, have been able to articulate what exactly is wrong when somebody takes off their pants in front of you and why that is bad, and have been able to build resistance strategies because that term was articulated, was explained in a confrontational sense. Note three important facts about our extension that means it wins. One, this extension is not just about a minority of women that are in the isolated communities although it has most impact there, it is literally about everyone. Every woman who has probably interacted with the men given the statistics say that around 90% of women do become sexually harassed at one point in their time. It has the widest scope in terms of people that it reaches. But two, it operates where most change can happen to begin with. Understand that the troubles for feminists in the developed World which we're talking about are no longer institutional in nature, because the legal Frameworks, the type of the vote, the access to the market, the ability to start a business, get a bank account, and all of those protections by the law happen anyway. The Delta and where you can create change as a feminist movement in 2020 nearly five is in interpersonal relationships, in how you deal with your brother or your uncle or how you pick your partners, and whether you go for the people that are abusive or whether you know how to scream for those people because you have been given these tools finally. And thirdly and most importantly we don't need women to identify as feminists for our extension to kick in. Donations and progress and money to the movement is never going to come from the people in the middle or on the right wing anyway. It's going to come from the people who believe it, from the 177% that they just love. Those are going to contribute on either side of the house. All we need for our extension to kick in is for these women to be able to understand what's happening to them, to watch a Tik Tok from another housewife and explain her experiences and then go talk to the housewife next door who you know when your husbands are more roused because they're out there winning bre I don't know, which makes them feel heard, makes them feel part of the community and significantly eases their lives even if they don't read believe that abusive marriage. This is the most tangible impact for the most affected women's and it's why it wins. Now two observations of opening government. One, their entire case is offensive. They always explain why confrontation is bad, but check door flows when do they explain why reconciliation Works? They say in set up they're going to have conversations. What is in the conversation, who has the conversation and why is that conversation going to be effective? I have no clue, no thank you. But the second more important observation is that their case is entirely disjoined from reality. Understand that women in these democracies do have a lot of the institutional benefits they claim they don't. In these interpersonal relations where abuse harm gaslighting happens that's why this motion operates. And the truth about humans here is that any progress in interpersonal relationships requires personal confrontation and friction in any relationship, even between two gay men for instance. It requires confrontation. In the worst cases it means getting the concepts to articulate things that are happening to you as a victim, but in regular cases it means having better conversations with your partner about how they're act you know gaslighting to you without wanting etc etc. Extraneous points that remain on open in government. They say problems can't be flamed on one person, like yes to protest structures but often problems can be blamed on one person, like the husband of jelle pelo who invited 70 people to break her to their credit. They say you are going to antagonize men and that is bad, which is something that Tejas just also rep repeats in their web speech. Three responses here. One see the kicker, men have an easy way out. Don't want to be antagonized, don't abuse. You are going to antagonize some men, the people who are awful. Most men have very easy tools which is their to use not to be bad. Then they say well what of these people are going to listen to Andrew Tate and get radicalized. Panel, men don't turn extreme or to Andrew tate because of feminists. They do that because there's an endemic crisis of masculinity, because there's a slow decline of gender roles and they can no longer Define themselves, and because women are increasingly getting more and more educated. These Trends are independent of feminism. At least on our side of the house you get to call out alate for being the that he is, because you can articulate confrontational rules. Finally as a response to the whole idea that people are not going to want to body up with you if you're confrontational, which deals a lot with with with spr rate as well, look to history. When did women achieve most progress? It hasn't been in the last 10 years of couch activism and being nice and saying Kumbaya. It has been in the 1920s when suffrage literally would bury themselves, starve themselves and jump in front of horses, being confrontational to achieve all of their progress. It is a lie that not being confrontational makes people go away. Opening What's left with your extension is there's no reason these Concepts can't be created both sides, and we explain why this buy them on our yeah on closing government. Finally because this also ties into a POI, the main thing that they say is that when you get conflict you tend to give up and no longer trust the movement. Dang says you're going to start off by being too confrontational and that's worse. One, Most people, most women, are inclined against confrontation as for the things that Aiden explains and most people in this debate agree. Two, people in general aren't going to go 110% on a strategy they've never tried before. They'll listen to a bunch of you know options and do it gradually. Importantly women aren't immediately going to be assholes to the people they love. They're likely to be you know to do small but impactful things that Aiden talks about, small but impactful strategies of resistance. Even if there is conflict, women then see this as proof of the fact that the defensive V is bad and should be stopped and that is probably a progress. The final thing that CG says that we're likely to be very extreme because of competition mechanisms. The simple observation here that takes this argumentation down is to explain human diversity, which is to say there are a lot of feminists, some very outspoken, some very soft and shy, who operate in very different niches and bubbles on social media. You know many are going to have their own independent audience and Niche and crucially they don't compete against each other. Some will be loud and will be in their niche, others will be in other niches. They can all be confrontational in ways that speak to them, make them feel heard, and make them have the progress. For all of these reasons closing opposition.
86, 87, 86
Youtube link (timestamped):HERE
*Full recording is unavailable
Let’s start with buy in. This team might say there’s a group of women who have been harmed by feminism, and in order to get them to buy in we need to include anger in our advocacy.
First of all, most women have internalized narratives that the majority of society have pushed to them, and that they don’t have that same degree of high levels of anger because they don’t see it that way. They’ve been internalized into these structures within society.
Rebuttal#1: Not all women’s response to patriarchy is the same due to external reasons
Secondly, this is about feminist advocacy, not about everything that feminists do. So feminist organizations want to bring in people who feel an incredibly high degree of anger, then we’re still able to set up other systems for them to discharge that anger.
Rebuttal#2: Advocacy is different from what feminists can do to dispel that anger
e.g individually showcase anger via personal interactions but not collectively online
Thirdly, we can explain to these women that this is not a helpful way of doing it. We can explain to them that yes, we are angry, but we need to make the rational choice about how it is that we can best do it.
Rebuttal#3
And fourthly, even if there are a set of incredibly angry women, we would say that those women are unlikely to want to externalize that anger in a way that potentially puts them in danger, in a way that makes those interactions bad. They’re probably more likely to value their own safety.
Rebuttal#4
POI
Yes, do you think that slavery should not should be confrontational of slavery? Slavery slaves have internalized you.
=Slavery and feminism in the modern day are different political issues that require different approaches. Disanalogous.
Why is it that this is likely to get substantially more buy in? First, we get more buy in from women on our side.
Sub Claim
Firstly, because women are socialized not to be confrontational.
Mechanism
They’re socialized by media depictions, by their parents, by social conditioning in their social circles growing up, which means they probably not going to want to buy into a movement that is confrontational, that frames them as confrontational, makes people see them as confrontational, and requires them to be confrontational in their micro advocacy.
Secondly, they’re told not to by men in their lives, particularly in socially conservative areas. It has become socially unacceptable to be a part of the feminist movement because many women care about their relationships with men and don’t want to imperil them by being seen as confrontational.
But thirdly, because now if you’re going to engage in micro feminist advocacy yourself, you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation where you have to be adversarial, which is something you not likely to want to do.
Why it's not symmetric
A more aggressive form of feminism that says men are bad not only gets more attacked from conservative political parties, but makes it easier for those conservative political parties to explain why they aren’t on side with that feminism for the reason that it is aggressive, that it is
anti men.
Easier for conservative parties to attack the movement
You’re less likely to get buy in from political parties when it’s overly controversial. That means you’re less likely to be brought in as a feminist interest special interest group to policy discussions. That means that the political party is less likely to bring you into their policy platform, and that’s even for left or right-wing political parties. And this justifies counter escalation against it.
Statistics used to undermine how popular the feminist movement is the status quo
-Actual numbers might be closer to 40%
The overwhelming majority of women aren’t going to look at a social movement that is becoming confrontational and learn that it is okay to be confrontational in their personal lives, rather the feminist movement becoming confrontational stigmatizes confrontation in your personal life when neither you nor your partner identifies as feminist. At the same time the feminist movement doesn't get change.
Response to why gov’s case would be done poorly (too much)
(1) one women aren't likely to trust this movement as much. Why? Because pushing a concept like gaslighting initially leads to personal conflict in your lives and when it does cause personal conflict they allow you to stop trusting the movement as a whole. Why? Because you are learning to start by over correcting. These are relatively new Concepts and language, that means you learning to recognize gas lighting incorrectly, Mis misidentify and call out men in your lives way too much.
Why Opp’s characterisation of selectively using anger doesn’t work
(3) I actually think this has the opposite effect of a chilling effect on conflict. Why? Because any conflict or standing up to your partner for example has seen as association with the broader feminist movement, and your partner whatever your social change is is likely to be skeptical of the movement. This because most people are skeptical of the feminist movement. This is both an empirical fact and it's true because the feminist movement is asking people to make changes in their lives that are incredibly uncomfortable for them to make.
This is why the first few years of the me too movement were followed by massive backlash against DEI initiatives in firms around the world, because people realize these changes happen and were incredibly uncomfortable with these changes. And that means associating conflict with this movement is bad.
Confrontational feminism (when successful) has led to bad outcomes in the past
While can be contentious, VAWA allegedly led manadatory arrests and decontextualization of circumstances when apprehensions are made.
This lead to dual arrests of both parties involved, self defence seen as aggression and statistically there is notably increase in incarcerated women convicted for protecting themselves and their children
Highlights the two mechanisms that underpins OO’s argument
Rebuttal#1
Rebuttal#2
Yeah opening.
“the women who are not interested in feminism will not buy into reconciliation because they have other approximate narratives they care about women people that…..” no moderate individuals have substantial willingness to buy into feminism due to the arguments that we give you in closing government.
First, Critically men have incentives to buy into feminism. Now I know opening government makes the argument that men are often hurt by the patriarchy as well, but they don't explain why a confrontational message is one that can't include promen messaging. Like you can be like we hate male day and we hate all the male politicians who don't vote for laws that are like protecting men from sex s.
Elena Rădulescu
Youtube Link (timestamped):HERE
POI
I gave two minutes proving men and the media and women over confrontation IGN it C most Horizon and you can it the problem.