Feminism is not so much an ideology as is a strategy for constructing narratives in order to seek power.
Men and women both use language to seek power, but they have different ideas of what power is.
To a man, power is direct power: the ability to act and effect change in the world. It is skill, strength, knowledge, technology, wealth, resources, the ability to command others and be obeyed.
To a woman, power is indirect power: having the status, prestige and value which makes others act on one's behalf, sometimes by request, but ideally without. It is having one's needs, safety, and happiness seen to automatically by virtue of being a priority to others.
In the 1960s and 70s, feminism was mostly referred to as "women's liberation", or "women's empowerment", referring to the sort of power which a few feminist intellectuals coveted — the direct power to act on their own, without any interdependence with men, whom they despised.
But coveting direct power is a very masculine mindset, and as these intellectuals gained followers who were more feminine in outlook, their original goals were altered and then replaced. The terms "women's liberation", and "women's empowerment" fell out of favor, replaced by terms like "women's rights".
Because "liberation" and "empowerment" require individual initiative and action, while "rights" are automatic.
The modern feminist does not want to exert power directly, and bear the responsibility for that power. She wants indirect power.
Often the goal isn't even to achieve her stated ends, but simply to have power exerted on her behalf.
This is why the modern feminist becomes angry when you offer her a pistol with which to defend herself.
You perceive this as offering her direct power which she can wield to solve the problem she faces, or claims to face. But she perceives this as pushing the responsibility to solve that problem back on her.
This why feminists will advance frivolous arguments against carrying a gun:
"I am so klutzy and incompetent that it is literally easier for a man to take the pistol I am holding and shoot me with it than it is for me to shoot him when I am already holding it."
"What if I am attacked by Dracula riding Godzilla? A pistol won't help me then."
"Guns should be unnecessary because I deserve to live in a world that is 100% free of violence."
They don't want the gun.
They don't want that power.
They don't want to be powerful.
They want someone else to be powerful, and use that power to take care of them.
This is why they would rather the government spend outrageous sums of money on stupid stunts like this video, that clearly won't work, than slap down $500 of their own money for a Glock which clearly will.
But why?
Why would they prefer indirect power which won't keep them safe to direct power which will?
The answer is in the question.
They don't want to be safe. They don't even want to feel safe. It isn't about safety. They already feel safe.
It isn't even about power.
It's about what indirect power really does for them. It makes them feel cared about.
If you accept that as your premise, all the noise about "men don't respect women", "society doesn't care about women", "the government is failing to protect women" suddenly makes sense.
The point of ERA, the Violence Against Women Act, Title IX, the Duluth Model, etc, etc, isn't actually any end to which government power is being put. It's the fact that power, disruptive power, society-altering, system-smashing power, is being wielded on behalf of women at all.
They demand this because having the demand met makes them feel cared about. Valued. Loved. Special. Important.
This is critical to them, and it makes sense if you think about why. Women evolved under conditions in which they were physically helpless. They couldn't survive without men. Any women who preferred to pick up a spear and hunt buffalo for herself, rather than have men take care of her, didn't pass on those genes to the descendants she didn't have.
So, now, when you tell a woman to get a Glock and a decent IWB holster, many of them still react as if it were 10,000 BC and you had offered them a flint-tipped spear.
What the hell is this? That's not how it's supposed to go. You're supposed to defend them, right?
So if women are hardwired to want to be cared for, and feminism is an expression of that desire, why is it so clearly toxic and obnoxious to anyone who doesn't already subscribe to it? Why is it toxic and obnoxious at all?
Because it is a twisted expression of that natural desire, not a healthy one. It is an addiction, and it makes feminists behave like addicts.
Addiction is any expression of a desire whereby the process of fulfilling the desire intensifies rather than satiating it.
Feminists obtain indirect power by constructing a narrative that claims they are insufficiently protected, insufficiently cared about, insufficiently valued.
This obtains exertion of power on their behalf, which should make them feel cared about, but in the very process of demanding it, they are brainwashing themselves into the same belief they wish to project on others... that society thinks they are worthless trash, second-class citizens, not important, and so on.
This merely intensifies the psychological need they set out to fulfill.
In reality, middle and upper class western women are the most cared-about demographic in the history of the known universe. In no other species, and no other civilization, do males care anywhere near so much about the welfare of female strangers. In most species, they do not care at all.
So how do you deal with feminists who are addicted to indirect power?
Same way you to deal with any other junkie. Don't supply them with their drug of choice. Don't enable with them. Don't argue to them that they are addicts, rather than someone who has spontaneously developed a massive drug deficiency.
Simply present them with no attack surfaces for obtaining their drug of choice. Reserve your expressions of caring to women who seek it to inspire it by treating you how you wish to be treated, rather than berating it out of you.
On a political front, don't argue with them. You cannot talk them out of their demands, because their demands are driven by emotional needs that have nothing to do with the thing demanded. You aren't going to talk them out of it. Instead, focus on making them look ridiculous to the audience.
One fine way to do that is, in fact, to offer them direct power over their own lives.
And let everyone watch them angrily refuse it.
