If something is that clearly Not An Example, you need feel no compunction about just deleting it.

That's really just impossible. As you'll note, this page is about women who accept double standards, it's impossible to "remove judgment" from the examples because people often whine and bitch about what constitutes "a double standard" not to mention, you have people trying to argue whether something a supposed straw feminist does is considered a double standard, because people are biased when it comes to this kind of thing.

The only way to "stop" the natter fest is to just lock the page, otherwise it'll need continous moderation. It might be a good idea to delete RL examples. But then you'll get people complaining that its an attempt to discredit the (very valid) points against RL radical feminism/trying to slant the article into a biased message.

Straw Feminist is, in itself, a bad name for this trope anyways, because it assumes that this is all "Straw" in reality there are a lot more "Straw Feminists" then people like to believe/accept/recognize. YMMV on whether or not they're even a minority, considering the kind of media influence they can get.

Well, whether they are a minority or not probably depends on how you define the term. Out of people I've met who call themselves feminists, 100% fit the straw feminist definition. I know plenty of people who just want equality though, but they don't call themselves feminists. That's just an anecdote though, but about 99% of feminists in the media also fit the straw feminist trope, although that might just be media bias, I don't know. Personally, I would probably rename it to something more neutral, since "straw" really does imply that these people don't exist or are a minority, and a lot of people disagree with that, and then try to make it as neutral as possible.

This should be about the trope in fiction, not real life. And in fiction the term Straw Feminist is perfect, especially since that's how they are used.

"And in fiction the term Straw Feminist is perfect, especially since that's how they are used." Not really. Straw, as I understand it, means the author is trying to make a point by creating this straw character. As far as I can tell with this trope, it is more that this is how most people in Hollywood actually perceive feminists, whether that perception is accurate or not.

That's because the old definition was too long and unwieldy for a lot of people to properly get a grip on. The new definition is clearer. You want to start a YKTTW for Hollywood Feminist or something, go right ahead.

nm, I misunderstood something.

My teacher Mrs. Kerry Reynolds is so a Real Life example of this you have no idea

A straw man argument must, by definition, mischaracterise and condemn through that the subject of it's attacks. If there is no mischaracterisation it is not straw. If a simple, neutral (or even self) observation of some feminists would place them on this page it is not even an attack.

Feminism gains nothing by denying the existence of extreme views.

Well, the point, I think, is that strawmen literally can't exist in real life, by definition. A strawman opponent is specifically defined as one created by an author for the explicit purpose of making a particular belief or position look bad, thus making it easier to "prove" that this position is wrong. A real-life person, no matter how extreme or otherwise unconvincing their beliefs might be, can't possibly fit this definition. I agree it could probably be stated more clearly, but the point is a pretty sound one.

Especially since Tv Tropes is about cataloguing fictional tropes (such as strawmen), and not real-life people (such as feminists that someone doesn't like).

Also it's been there for a while, and so far I don't think I've seen it make the article any worse...

The problem is that this fails the most basic of logic. A. Strawmen can't exist IRL B. "Straw Feminsts" exist IRL ergo straw feminists are not straw at all, just IRL extremists (whether they are or aren't an insignificant minority is irrelevant here, the important bit is that they exist).

The statement is not only blatantly false, it is inflammatory and is included as part of a ban on IRL examples meant solely to prevent flaming. And age has no bearing on its value, contribution, or correctness.

Um, where, exactly, is "B. Straw Feminists exist IRL" coming from? I thought the whole point was that no, as a matter of fact, they don't exist IRL, again, just by definition. Extreme feminists may exist in real life (just like extreme anything may exists in real life), but the whole point is that they don't fit into this article, not being "straw-" anything.

Age has bearing when your argument is that having this in the article "adds fuel to the fire." It was added about 2 months ago, IIRC, and I haven't seen any flame wars about it so far, even though this is always a fairly active article. There was a couple of people who edited the line, mostly to make it longer or elaborate on it in some way, but so far it seems you're the first person who wants to delete it outright, if I am not mistaken, and none of the previous edits led to any flame wars.

Check. The entire point of a Straw Feminist is that they are clearly written as objects of ridicule. Real people cannot be designed as objects of ridicule. If an example doesn't meet that criterion (for instance, if an extreme feminist's views are portrayed as fair and reasonable within a work), it's a bad example.

@girlyboy: I want to shorten it, not delete it. All it needs to say is "Please refrain from adding Real Life or Truth In Television examples in this page" If someone is curious as to why they can check this discussion page

@Iaculus: You are defining a term, then using the self defined name of the term as proof. Of course real people aren't designed as an object of ridicule. But the actual content of description fits real people, that description is: a misandrist who advocates female supremacy and the denial of rights to men. Both misogyny and misandry are real, but the tropes (staw misogynist as well) wording strongly suggest that every depiction of misandry or misogyny in fiction is a strawman, and that real cases are impossible.

I think the issue is, that both articles seem to focus too much on the definitions of misogyny and misandry without sufficient focus on the straw aspect. Also the straw feminist article suggests feminism IS misandry... and now that I think about it, specifies "drawn" instead of depicted (suggesting a comic or cartoon only).

I think the following line: A character whose feminism is drawn only for the purposes of either proving them wrong or ridiculing them. Would be better as: A character whose misandry is presented as feminism for the purpose of either proving them wrong or ridiculing them.

And to add some more focus to the straw aspect in both articles.

This is the trope's description in full. It follows precisely the definition I'm using.

A character whose feminism is drawn only for the purposes of either proving them wrong or ridiculing them.

This trope often relies heavily on a pro-female, anti-male version of Mars And Venus Gender Contrast. Compare Does Not Like Men for a less extreme, more rounded version and Licensed Sexist for the comedic version.

The misandry is simply a common manifestation of the trope. The central purpose is that the feminist be designed to be proven wrong or ridiculed.

Next time, I would advise you to read the article you're complaining about.

@taltamir: Yeah, I'm not getting it. "Strawman" is obviously a well-established pre-existing term, not something this article is trying to define for the first time ever. Saying that this article describes straw-people is not a claim that people who hold extreme beliefs are impossible or don't exist in real life. It's simply a statement that this page is describing the use of fictional devices, not the political or social beliefs of real people. Not because real people can't possibly share the views spouted by these fictional devices, but simply because real people aren't what the article is about. The article is about fictional devices that are crafted for a specific purpose. Which real people aren't. This bit of the description is really just meant to make clear why you shouldn't try to talk about real-life feminists here. I don't understand where the claims of this being a logical fallacy come from.

I can agree, I suppose, that the line "Related to Straw Misogynist, the anti-female version of this," wrongly implies that this trope is simply "Straw Misandrist". In practice, however, misandry probably would be used as "straw feminism" most of the time when brought up in fiction, so it'd likely still fit into this article. Maybe that particular line should be changed to make it clearer that it is not meant to imply feminism itself has anything to do with misandry (since implying misandry=feminism is itself a strawman argument against feminism :P ), but I don't see how this is connected to your claims of the article being flawed as a whole.

And in any case, I don't see what this has to do with the issue you brought up of deleting the "as real people are not crafted for a specific purpose" bit. Perhaps it can be discussed as a separate issue. See below.

I see the issue now. My understanding is that strawman is a MISrepresentation of a certain view meant to be torn down. The article takes the view that a strawman is any representation of a fictional trait that the author is disagreeing with. By this type of definition ANYTHING depicted in works of fiction is straw. Straw homophobia, straw racism, straw murder, etc. etc.

I believe that other on this discussion page who have spoken up about it come from the same point of view, which raises the question, which is the correct definition of strawman. Dictionary.com: "a weak or sham argument set up to be easily refuted" Wikipedia: "A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position." meriam-webster dictionary: "a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted"

Either every dictionary is wrong, or this article is wrong. A strawman is specifically when you misrepresent your "opponent" to easily tear it down.

An example of a REAL straw feminism is when the author attempts to paint ALL or the majority of feminism as misandry. It is a misrepresentation of feminism meant to be torn. The author will tear it down with anti misandry arguments and declare feminism to be trounced.

Actual misandry and misogyny can be misrepresented in theory in order to tear down, but they are considered ridiculous enough by the average person that to date I have never seen anyone bother doing so.

You'd probably get better feedback in the Trope Repair Shop.

As the discussion page for this trope, I feel this page is a good place to discuss things about this trope, such as this potential change.

The Trope Repair Shop, IMHO, is a place of absolute last resort for horribly messed up things that can't possibly be fixed without a month of meandering and often redundant discussion followed by some sort of majority vote that will be decided by people who, if we're very lucky, maybe even did as much as skim a quarter of that discussion and glance briefly at the actual page. I'd really rather not go there unless it's really, really, really, really necessary.

For a rename it'd be necessary to go there, but at first I'd like to see what other people's opinions are. If this devolves into a flame war or if no-one is interested either way, then I guess repair shop discussion would be unavoidable. And that would be bad.

I agree on this issue. Saying straw feminism is straw misandry is actually claiming that feminism IS misandry. The straw feminist is set up as "feminists hate men, hating men is wrong, therefore feminists are wrong." I don't see how this can be separated as an issue from the misuse of the definition of straw in this article though. Every dicrionary I checked agreed that you must use the weakest arguments or misrepresent something for it to be straw.

Straw Masculist? Straw Mens Rights Activist?

The feminist being drawn as extreme is a straw man argument in and of itself. As you point out, it pigeon holes feminism as being at one end of a continuum of ideas. If there are no other feminists portrayed in the work with less extreme ideas, feminism is painted as being extreme.

By the way, it doesn't matter if there extreme feminists in the real world. Our articles are about how things are used in storytelling.

I think you've missed what I'm saying. Some feminists are extreme. Feminists are not pidgeonholed by mentioning the existence of extreme feminists any more than Christians are pidgeonholed by mentioning the witch trials.

It certainly does matter if there are feminists in the real world, because the feminists in books are generally written to reflect feminism in the real world. Dismissing any mention of real exteme ideas as a strawman for all feminists is very unfair to authors.

And I also pointed out that the trope page includes examples that don't have extreme feminists in a vaccuum from the rest of feminism, or portray them as typical. Wiki Magic has expanded the page beyond just straw feminists, any example of extreme feminism is linked to this page now on the wiki.

The point is that, if only portrayed via an extremist, the thing (feminism or otherwise) is being shown as being extreme. That is the straw man.

"In the World Of Darkness game Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the all-female Black Furies fit this trope to some extant. While some are into the spirituality of womanhood and/or seek gender equality and reproductive freedom, others are on a sacred quest to castrate every male they come across. But even the more well-rounded Furies have the Tribal Weakness of an easier time frenzying against men due to pent-up frustration against them. They eventually became more well-rounded with later editions, going from man-hating Amazons to a mystical cult of warrior women that worshiped Gaia in her guise of Artemis and provided the Garou Nation with necessary prophecy. "

"while some are into the spirituality of womanhood and/or seek gender equality..."

In other words, more or less mainstream.

"Both used and subverted in Y The Last Man, which contains both the insane, violent Amazons as well as other, rational feminists (both peaceful and not). "

So not extremeists in a vacuum.

"Although her pro-feminist stance was portrayed as a good thing in the '70s, by the Justice League Europe days of the late '80s, Power Girl was portrayed as an obnoxiously outspoken feminist; this may have been a reflection of the more conservative attitudes of the Reagan years. Today, her attitudes are portrayed in a positive light again (though the fanservice has been dialed up a bit as well). "

Well, if feminism was portrayed as a good thing it's hard to see how a feminist being obnoxious is an argument against feminism, just against being obnoxious.

"There are those who would regard Serendipity (Salma Hayek) from Kevin Smith's Dogma as a Straw Feminist because of her comments about the Church and the Bible as well as her statements regarding God's gender. "

because no 'normal' feminist believes there is sexism in the church, I assume

I could keep going through the article for more examples, but my point is that the article now describes characters that are not strawman, but only mention the existence of extreme feminists, and therefore either the trope name or the article must be changed.

maybe that last post I made was tldr

The point I was making was that many of the examples on this page were not exaggeration to the extreme. Some could be considered normal for feminists. Others could be considered normal for some extreme feminists.

Saying that an 'exageration' (if these are exagerations) is always a straw man is ridiculous. It's like saying that the portrail of Marxists is a right-wing strawman, or the portrail of Islamist terrorisms is a Christian straw man.

and BTW you may be a mod but leaving my post unreplied then, when I edit the page, reversing the edit for the same reason without further discussion seems a bit impolite.

The straw part comes from mischaracterizing of femenism to the point it seems as if the character in question is sexist and doesn't actually know what the politcal belief is in any shape or form. For example the justice league example in the western animation section, where the character forgets that men can do good and even dismisses the part where a man saved her life at young age (thereby allowing her to start her mad plot). The straw before any politcal belief means its not the key element just the lamer gist of it