The new feminism certainly doesn’t look like the old. Some recent activism has left me wondering what the latest generation thinks “feminism” even means.

Canadian Association for Equality is a group that’s been hosting events on men’s rights — the idea that males aren’t getting a fair shake in certain aspects of society. One event last month featured Professor Janice Fiamengo arguing women’s studies isn’t real scholarship but activism.

Some may take issue with these ideas, but ultimately they’re just public lectures featuring serious academics. Anyone can attend (and critique!).

But instead of letting free thought prevail, agitators barricaded the doors, harassed attendees, pulled fire alarms, chanted curses at speakers and more. Police had to get involved. On a related note, the University of Toronto Student Union — funded by student levies to represent all students — held a town hall on shutting down men’s rights events on campus. Some attendees reportedly wanted to expose where men’s rights advocates lived and worked. Other student unions have since moved to ban the creation of men’s groups and one student group called for physical confrontation. I apologize to national readers for all my examples being from Toronto, but it’s the city that apparently breeds this stuff.

Last week a coffee shop proprietor was charged with assaulting anti-abortion protesters in front of a school. I’m relatively pro-choice but wouldn’t assault people for their views. Yet online, he was lauded as a pro-women’s rights crusader, with some seeming to especially approve of the assault angle.

When a Toronto cop said women should be careful how they dressed, this spurred the massive SlutWalk. Then Mayor Rob Ford’s niece tweeted something similar and the activist crowd went into hysterics.

I could focus on how people claiming to oppose oppression have perversely become the oppressors. But what’s more interesting is how the anger is so disproportionate to what’s actually said or done.

You’d think people are arguing to ban women from voting or travelling without the permission of a male. Far from it. It’s really just people arguing relatively docile views: Public lectures. A cop’s off-hand comments. Pro-life activists doing what they’ve been doing for years (and, might I add, not exactly receiving support from the government).

So why the fabricated hysteria? Why tilt at windmills? To answer this, we need to distinguish between two approaches to gender equality: Empowerment and victimization.

I remember in high school the teacher said raise your hand if you’re a feminist. I was the only one who did. I was laughed at by the class. The teacher asked me what I thought feminism meant. I said it meant men and women should be equal participants in society. Others then promptly raised their hands.

The empowerment branch are those who, decades ago, fought to have opportunities that were denied to them. They were trailblazers and heroes. Now that North America more or less has gender equality, empowerment feminists aren’t a visible group anymore. They’re regular people getting on with their lives, pursuing their goals.

Victimization feminists have no goals to get on with, aside from railing against injustice. They define themselves through their victimhood. So when there isn’t injustice, they look for things to distort into injustice. They need the glass ceiling so they have something to fly into like a disoriented bird. And then complain about it afterwards.

That’s how we’ve come to this backwards point where the new feminist activism, for some, is about oppressing those with different views. So much for equality!