The actions of a minority of individuals in a movement do not define what the larger movement is. A movement is also not defined by the people who seek to misrepresent the movement to others. The actions of the majority of the people in the movement are what defines it. Arguments directed at individuals, especially those individuals that do not represent the larger movement, neither change what the movement is nor are they compelling.

I personally recommend the hierarchy of disagreement. Arguments that focus on the refutation of arguments will be more compelling than those directed at the people giving the arguments.

https://themindcollection.com/revisiting-grahams-hierarchy-of-disagreement/

[–] Dark_Blade@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In that case, maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement, rather than this long defense of feminism and how only the majority of the movement can define it (which isn’t entirely true either)

[–] ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement I've been doing that. Your comments specifically seemed a good place to start.

Individual people can certainly try to define a movement, but the voices of the majority of people in the movement are going to best represent what the movement actually is. Most sizable movements inevitably have some bad actors that do not represent the majority of people in the movement. If we judged every movement by its worst individuals we would never have any kind of social change at all.