Why is the new generation rebelling against Feminism?

The problem: The dangerous gender political divide and why it will hurt humanity

In the West, a significant backlash against modern feminism has begun to take shape among a segment of men. What started as disagreement has hardened into open rebellion.

In countries like South Korea and the United States, this reaction has become so intense that it is now reshaping national politics. We are witnessing an unprecedented political gender gap, where large numbers of young men are shifting sharply to the right, while young women of the same generation are moving sharply to the left.

This divide is profoundly dangerous for the future of human society. A society cannot survive when its men and women see each other as political enemies.

When trust and cooperation between the sexes collapses, everything that depends on it collapses too. It leads to the breakdown of family formation, a steep fall in birth rates, and a deepening epidemic of loneliness and isolation for both men and women. It poisons the workplace, the public square, and intimate life with suspicion and resentment. It fuels political extremism and paralysis, as no common ground can be found. And ultimately, it destroys the most fundamental human bond on which all of civilisation is built, i.e., the partnership between man and woman.

If left unchecked, this polarisation will not just create unhappy individuals; it will lead to a demographically shrinking, socially fragmented, and emotionally hollowed-out society.

If We Have Identified the Problem, the Next Question Is: How Do We Solve It?

I say this as both an atheist and a feminist. Therefore, my argument is not against the fundamental principles of feminism, but is made from within a feminist perspective.

Before proposing a solution, we should first examine how contemporary feminism typically raises awareness about the oppression and discrimination women face.

Consider the following as a representative example of modern feminist messaging:

"When a woman says 'no,' many men experience it as an attack on their ego. From childhood, they have been conditioned to believe that a woman's attention and affection are prizes they are entitled to win. When faced with rejection, their wounded pride often turns a desire for connection into anger, character assassination, insults, or emotional manipulation. This reaction stems from a patriarchal mindset that sees women not as free and equal human beings, but as property or territory to be conquered."

There is undoubtedly an important element of truth in this analysis. Patriarchal socialization, centuries of discrimination against women, and the unequal treatment women continue to experience are all real problems that cannot be ignored.

However, this raises an important question.

Even if this analysis captures a substantial part of reality, is the current way of communicating it achieving its intended goal?

The evidence increasingly suggests that it is producing an unintended consequence. Instead of encouraging many young men to understand feminism, this style of messaging often causes them to feel personally blamed and morally condemned. Manosphere influencers, online grifters, and reactionary political movements have become highly effective at exploiting this reaction. They convince many young men that feminism is fundamentally hostile toward them, pushing them away from equality and cooperation and toward resentment, polarization, and anti-feminist politics.

The question, therefore, is not whether feminism's goals are morally justified. I have no disagreement with the goals of protecting women's rights, achieving equality, and reducing violence against women.

The real question is a strategic one.

If our objective is not merely to express justified anger, but to genuinely reduce violence against women and build a more equal society, then strategy matters just as much as moral correctness.

Can we communicate the same moral principles in a way that invites young men to become partners in this change rather than pushing many of them into a defensive reaction?

I believe the answer is yes.

That is the central argument of this article.

How Feminism Can Win Back Young Men Without Abandoning Its Principles

The suggestion is simple, i.e. directly attacking men and painting their egos as the enemy is likely not the wisest approach.

First of all, we need to recognise a very fundamental truth, i.e. nature is not 100% perfect or fair for humans. Evolution is blind, and it moves forward without caring about human comfort, and humans have had to make massive compromises and sacrifices just to survive its blind trajectory.

This same unguided nature is what gave us the gift of "might is right," where the strong exploited the weak, regardless of gender (i.e. strong men/women both exploited other weak men/women both).

This same "might is right" rule then further gave us the gift of "patriarchal system", while men were stronger.

That brings us to Lesson 1:

• Instead of blaming modern men for inventing patriarchy, we should view them as inheritors and victims of a thousands-of-years-old system. The root culprit is an imperfect, blind human nature that originally birthed these structures.

Similarly, blind nature made women physically more vulnerable, while loading men with an excessive, unbalanced level of aggression. This is that same out of balance impulse that has historically caused men to fight, suffer, and kill each other over mates.

That brings us to Lesson 2:

• Men are, in their own way, victims of this over-the-top biological wiring. Hearing a woman's "No" can genuinely challenge their baseline instincts, meaning they have to actively sacrifice and restrain those impulses.

To be crystal clear, nature does not mean men inherently want to commit sexual violence. Rape is a horrific crime and a profound moral wrong, not a natural goal of a healthy mind.

However, we cannot ignore well-established findings from behavioural science and evolutionary psychology, i.e. on average, men experience stronger sexual drives, higher mating motivation (libido), and higher testosterone levels than women. These biological realities do not dictate a person's choices, but they do mean certain impulses run stronger on average, creating a distinct biological pressure.

Even so, the pressure men feel is completely incomparable to the systemic oppression women face. Women suffer far more.

So, let's look at the true root problem:

• Man is not the ultimate root problem; he is a byproduct of the real root problem, i.e. the unguided, blind nature of evolution.

Why the "Blind Nature" Argument Doesn't Let Men Off the Hook

Yes, we acknowledge that nature is blind. And yes, men deal with biological pressures and are, in a sense, victims of their own biology.

However, that does not excuse inaction for two crucial reasons:

1. The Gap in Suffering: The discomfort or pressure men feel is nothing compared to the severe, systemic oppression women endure.
2. The Gift of Consciousness: Even though nature is blind, it equipped humans with advanced reason. We have the capacity to comprehend this vast imbalance of suffering between the sexes.

We must remember two things:

First, nature is not morality.

Second, morality always demands sacrifice.

Civilisation itself is built on regulating our natural instincts. We are expected to restrain our natural tendencies toward aggression, revenge, selfishness, and tribalism. In the same way, men must learn to respect a woman's "No," even when it conflicts with their instincts and egos. That is precisely what morality demands.

Once we become conscious of the fact that women suffer far more severely than the pressure men experience, change becomes mandatory. Just as once we became conscious of the horror of slavery, we abolished it for the sake of humanity, we must now do the same with patriarchy.

Morality advances when humans become more conscious of unnecessary suffering and use reason to reduce it.

The Dangerous Gamble of Admitting That Men Themselves Could Be Victims of Their Nature

Yes, I am fully aware that this approach has a dangerous side. Many feminists may feel extremely doubtful about it, or be outright against using it.

For example, after I first published this article, a feminist reader wrote to me:

"The nature argument doesn't make sense when you see that we have had functioning societies even without patriarchy. And this nature argument doesn't stop at just that. They literally justify abuse by men too, since apparently men are not robots and they can't control themselves, which is not only harmful for women but even dehumanizing and offensive to men themselves."

And this was my reply:

I completely understand your concern, and I spent a long time weighing the risks of bringing up "nature" before posting this.

However, I still chose to include it for a very specific tactical reason, i.e. to disarm the manosphere grifters at their own game.

When grifters say "men are not robots" to excuse bad behavior, ignoring biological realities leaves a gap that they eagerly exploit. The most effective way to counter them is not to pretend that natural impulses do not exist, but to immediately anchor the conversation in morality, ethics, and accountability.

Even historical non-patriarchal societies did not function because men's natural aggressive instincts magically disappeared. They functioned because strict social laws, culture, and ethics forced men to control those impulses.

Nature is inherently imperfect for both sexes, because it does not evolve for human well-being. It made women physically more vulnerable, while it burdened men with an over-the-top, unbalanced level of aggression that historically led them to kill one another for women.

Acknowledging that biological pressure does not give men an excuse. On the contrary, it sets the stage to demand exactly what civilisation requires of us all, i.e. that human choice and ethics must always override the raw instincts of nature.

Conclusion: From Blame to Responsibility

The goal of feminism has never been to win an argument against men, but to win a better world with men.

If our current messaging, however factually correct, is pushing an entire generation of young men into the arms of those who hate feminism, then we must be brave enough to change our messaging. Not our principles, but our strategy.

This alternative approach does not absolve men. In fact, it raises the bar for them. It says: Yes, you face natural pressures, but you are also a moral human being with reason, conscience, and choice. And because women suffer so much more, morality demands that you make the sacrifice to control your ego and respect her autonomy.

That is how we disarm the grifters, win back the middle, and remind men and women that we are not enemies by nature, but partners against the flaws of nature.

Do women also have to sacrifice and change?

At this point, a reader might ask me a fair question, that is if morality demands sacrifice from men, does it also demand sacrifice from women? And what about the demands that the manosphere makes? Are any of them fair?

My answer as a feminist is yes to both.

Civilisation has never survived on one-sided sacrifice.

In the traditional model, the deal was very clear, though unequal that men sacrificed by taking on dangerous work, wars, and the burden of providing, while women sacrificed by giving up autonomy, career, and sexuality.

Modern feminism rightfully dismantled the second part. But it did not always renegotiate the first part.

That asymmetry is what the manosphere is reacting to.

If we want a truly equal society, women will also have to let go of some things. For example:

1. The privilege of being exempt from the harshest duties:

If equality is real, it cannot be selective. It has to include equal expectations around dangerous jobs, military conscription where it exists, and financial contribution to a household.

2. The privilege of moral infallibility:

The idea that women's perspectives are by default more moral, more empathetic, or that women as a group cannot be oppressors or abusive. Equality requires accepting that both sexes are capable of both good and bad.

3. The privilege of traditional expectations when they are convenient:

Expecting men to still be the primary earners, the initiators, the protectors, the ones who never show vulnerability, while at the same time rejecting the traditional role for themselves.

Acknowledging this does not weaken feminism. It strengthens it, because it makes it consistent.

What does the manosphere actually demand, and what is fair?

We have to separate the manosphere into two layers. There is a lot of hate and misogyny on top, but underneath there are real grievances that progressive society might has ignored for 15 years.

Here are the demands we can categorise:

Demands of manusphere that seems to be legitimate and backed by data:

1. Family courts, custody, and alimony:

In most Western countries, mothers still get primary custody in 80%+ of cases, and men report feeling that courts are biased against fathers. The demand for default shared custody seems to be fair. And actually, the trend is changing now in the western countries and indeed men and women getting equal shared custody of children.

2. Due process and false accusations:

Feminism has rightly fought for believing women. But young men are now asking: "what protects a man from a false accusation that can destroy his education or career without due process?" Thus, the demand for both believing victims AND preserving due process seems to be fair.

3. Male disposability:

Men are 95% of workplace deaths, 75% of suicides, the majority of the homeless, the majority of war casualties, and now the minority in higher education in the US and Europe. They are asking why there is no empathy infrastructure for these issues comparable to women's issues. That seems to be a fair question.

4. Male victims of violence:

Male victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and emotional abuse have almost no shelters or support systems. The demand for gender-neutral victim support seems to be fair.

5. Sentencing and conscription:

Men receive 60% longer sentences than women for the same crime in the US, and in many countries only men are forcibly conscripted. It does not seem fair.

Demands of manosphere that are NOT fair or compatible with equality:

1. The demand for sex or female submission:

The idea that if men provide, women must provide sex, obedience, or return to a housewife role. That is not equality, that is just reversing the hierarchy.

2. The demand that women give up their rights to solve male loneliness:

Women are not responsible for fixing male loneliness by dating men they do not want to date. Loneliness is a real problem, but its solution cannot be coercion.

3. The denial of women's specific oppression:

Claiming that patriarchy never existed, that women were never oppressed, or that feminism is a conspiracy to dominate men. That is factually false.

4. Blanket generalisations about women:

Terms like "all women are hypergamous / gold diggers / incapable of love" are the mirror image of "all men are trash." Both are dehumanising.