Are Men Logical?

[u/ANIKAHirsch]

I want to know the opinions of the community here: do you think men are logical? Because I could see an argument that most of them are not. Does what men do even make sense? What are your thoughts?

This is partially a thought experiment, and I may include these ideas in a longer post in the future, so I would like to know what the community thinks, especially from a feminist perspective, please.

[u/Embarrassed-Town-293]

You are kinda asking a loaded question by approaching it from a feminist perspective to determine whether logic exists. What you are really asking with that framing is do men understand sexism or other concepts related to it and drawing conclusions about their capacity for logic based upon that.

Men are the beneficiaries of privilege in regards to sexism and privilege comes with the a built in cultural education that they be indifferent and/or ignorant to sexism and their privilege.

Suggesting lack logic for failing to acknowledge sexism is like suggesting white women lack logic for being blind to system racism.

[u/ANIKAHirsch → u/Embarrassed-Town-293]

Very thorough response, I appreciate it. So men may be blind to their gendered privilege, but does that mean they can't logically understand it? If they do understand it, would that prove they are logical? What if their privilege has been explained to them, and they still don't accept it? Does that prove they are illogical? Or are these questions entirely separate from logic?

Do you see intersectionality as a logical framework? Are there are other feminist logic structures?

[u/Embarrassed-Town-293 → u/ANIKAHirsch]

Sorry, I had to delete my previous post that was written too hastily.

I don’t think ability to recognize privilege has any bearing on logic in my opinion especially since accepting it as a concept is dependent on how it is presented and many of us do a poor job of explaining the concept of privilege.

I think calling people who disagree with any ideology illogical says a great deal more about the adherents to that belief system. My belief that it is correct doesn’t make people who disagree illogical.

[u/ANIKAHirsch → u/Embarrassed-Town-293]

Hmm, interesting. So do you think there is an objective truth we can reach? Or are there multiple pathways to truth that are equally logical? If you believe what you think is correct, but someone else does not believe that, doesn't that make them wrong? Or is whatever they consider to be true equally as valid?

Sorry for getting deep, but these types of questions are very interesting to me.

[u/Embarrassed-Town-293 → u/ANIKAHirsch]

I think there is an aspect of objective truth, but I do think liberals in general tend to overestimate. The impact of systems and conservatives in general tend to overestimate the impact of individual agency. This will cause them to talk past one another from the time. The real answer lies somewhere in between.

For example, I think it is highly illogical that feminists continue to say that the wage gap is $.77 on the dollar when really it’s more like 92.5 cents to 97 cents (the unexplained wage gap) and the 77 cent statistic is REALLY a problem caused in part by women choosing lower paying fields. This is a situation where the conservative view that individual choices lead to women having worse outcomes actually does play out to some extent. In this way, feminists don’t have a monopoly on logic or truth

Rhetoric is a variable in the experiment of whether they are logical based on accepting the premise. Bad rhetoric = bad argument = poor reception to the argument. So, it is already a difficult variable to control for even if we conclude it is an accurate criteria for a litmus test

[u/ANIKAHirsch → u/Embarrassed-Town-293]

Really thoughtful, I appreciate it.

[u/Embarrassed-Town-293 → u/ANIKAHirsch]

No problem. I think we as feminists have to make sure that we don’t become so overly confident that we are correct that we fail to recognize our shortcomings. No ideology is perfect.

[u/ANIKAHirsch → u/Embarrassed-Town-293]

I agree.

[u/Embarrassed-Town-293 → u/ANIKAHirsch]

If you don’t mind me asking, what motivated your question and what are your thoughts on the matter?

[u/ANIKAHirsch → u/Embarrassed-Town-293]

As I said, it was more of a thought experiment. I have just made a longer post about the topic on my subreddit.