Like many social movements, the radical elements sometimes (often) gain control, displacing the moderates and true intellectuals, and that causes many people to perceive the movement (overall) as being about gaining special treatment more so than equal treatment. I think that's happened to the Black civil rights movement, with the loss of Dr. King and others, and them being replaced by people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I think that's happened to the U.S. conservative movement, with the loss of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, and them being replaced by people like Rush Limbaugh, S@rah Palin and now Ted Cruz. It's happened to the Jewish movement, where Zionism has made itself tightly linked with the Jewish religion. By doing that, if ones opposes Zionism (especially radical Zionism), it becomes incredibly easy (or should I say, convenient) to refer to that person as anti-Semitic. And it's happened with the western feminist movement, with "deep thinkers" like Camille Paglia being pushed aside and people like Gloria Steinem, Catharine MacKinnon, Naomi Wolf and Patricia Ireland being the only ones given a voice (by the mass/pop media) years ago. IMO, that sort of radicalization or extremism has caused more reasonable people (some women and certainly more men) to be suspicious of anything that comes out of that camp. But because that camp (and its supporters) has an incredible amount of influence with the mass media, what we are increasingly seeing these days is a sort of Pavlovian social conditioning, which encourages (and even rewards) people to accept whatever double standards the movement is pushing at that time. And people are conditioned to react to disagreement (or just lack of total acceptance) with those double standards with claims of misogyny or bigotry. And because there are some bigots who oppose them, well, you just lump them all together and you "win" - though I think, in the end, society loses. If the only way you can make your group strong is by making some other group weak, then neither side is truly strong... both are, in truth, weak. And that makes society weak.
Here's my deal: I don't generally don't believe in radical movements. Let's take radical Zionism. I don't support it. I don't care for Abe Foxman one bit. He's just a version of Al Sharpton who doesn't eat pork, IMO. But I have no issue with the religion or Jewish people... or any other religion or group of people, for that matter. It's just that I don't accept that any group of people is any more special or deserving than any other group of people. So when we were having a discussion about U.S. aid to Israel on another board I'm on, and I voiced my great opposition to the Cranston Amendment, I found it "interesting" how quickly some people began rolling out Hitler, the Holocaust and the Nazis as they tried to shout me down. Why do that? Why be that way? The exact same thing has happened when I've gotten into discussions with people about D@nca Patrick being in Formula One. I love racing (F1 specifically) almost as much as I love life. I have followed it since I was a small child. I don't know everything about it, but I know a fair amount - probably a good deal more than the average person or even the average racing fan. And so I know that in the 60+ year history of F1, there has not (AFAIK) been a driver in F1 who has competed without first winning at least one professional level road course race in their life. And the only drivers who make it to top teams have won road racing championships. Danica is 30+ years old (pretty "old" to be an F1 rookie) and has never won even a single road race, no championships and but one oval race in her entire life in ANY professional auto racing formula! So why would someone (who probably doesn't know as much about racing as I did when I was 10 years old) want to call me a misogynist, a "woman hater" or a bigot because I said that D@nica Patrick was not even a little bit qualified to be on any F1 team, much less go to Ferrari or McLaren, as they claimed she should??? "Give her a chance, man!" What?! Why?! Hell, give me a chance if we're going to start throwing any chimp into a $250 million racing team! Danica's only claim to fame is that she is a reasonably attractive female who drives race cars and has management team who has done an amazing job of getting her attention. And though it might work in NASCAR, where she can drone around and stay out of the way for the most part, that's not how F1 works - and that's why F1 is the premier form of motorsports on this planet... and it need to stay that way! My feelings have nothing to do with her being a female. She's just not qualified. Simple as that. But by social conditioning, people (even some TV announcers) are rewarded by singing her (nonexistent) praises, while those who simply state opinions, backed up by simple facts, are called bigots. And the modern mass media backs them up. How about we reward performance and those who seek success (of either gender, any race, any religion, any ethnicity, any sexual orientation, etc.) by what they accomplish, and not what they are superficially??? :dunno: And then those who truly are bigots can be made to stand alone.
Whether it's feminism, Zionism, neo-conservatism, Black Nationalism or any other ism, as the great American philosopher, Ferris Bueller, said, "Ism's, in my opinion, are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself."