These are serious suggestions for having a productive discussion or debate with a feminist. The goal isn’t to embarrass or “own” them, but to increase the chance that they (and others watching) will consider your points and change their mind.

(Length: 1,300 words.)

1.1 Don’t treat them as a stand-in for past feminists you’ve encountered. Absolutely reference the words or actions of other feminists to make points about feminism as a whole, but don’t hold this feminist personally responsible for things they didn’t say/do.

1.2 Don’t give them free opportunities to correct or nitpick you. Avoid exaggerations, hyperbole, careless generalizations, and imprecise language. Force them to engage with your main points by not giving them opportunities to focus elsewhere.

1.3 Don’t treat your claims as self-evident. Take responsibility for demonstrating them with statistics, sources, or examples. When dealing with people who don’t already agree, it doesn’t matter if you are right, it matters if you can show that you’re right.

1.4 Stay calm. Don’t be hostile, abrasive, or snarky. Being antagonistic might be satisfying in the moment (and it might earn you cheers from other people on your side) but it’s not going to help convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.

1.5 Don’t get discouraged if they seem set in their beliefs. Compelling arguments often take time to sink in (even months or years). Also, if the discussion happens on a public platform, making your argument to bystanders is just as important, if not more.

2.1 When explaining men’s issues, mention how they affect poor or minority men.

This is good practice in general because most men’s issues (e.g., incarceration) have a corresponding racial or class counterpart that leaves poor or minority men the worst off. It makes extra sense in discussions with feminists because they tend to already be aware of (or sympathetic to) minority issues, and sometimes class issues too. They probably already know about the incarceration rates for black men in America, so make it click for them that this is related to race and gender. They might not care about paternity fraud if they have an upper-middle class man in mind, but they might be more sympathetic if you emphasize the consequences for poor men. And when discussing false accusations of rape against men, mention the racially-charged history (and present).

There’s some evidence that this framing can be useful. In one of my survey studies, support for gender profiling of men decreased when people were previously asked to think about racial profiling of minorities.

But be clear you’re talking about minority/class issues and men’s issues compounding, not just minority/class issues. Many intersectional feminists are eager to explain how men can be hurt by their class, race, or orientation. These are valid topics, but unfortunately they’re often used to side-step or obfuscate the effect of gender. One example:

Our society views poor people and minorities as disposable, not men as a class. Prisons aren’t filled with middle class white men, they’re full of poor men and POC [“people of colour”].

This argument doesn’t work because it could easily be made in the opposite direction: “poor people and minorities aren’t disadvantaged or viewed as disposable because prisons aren’t filled with poor women or minority women”. The reality is that being poor, being a minority, and being a man are all factors leading to an increased chance of imprisonment, with the result that poor minority men have the worst rates of incarceration.

2.2 Explain men’s issues using concepts and terminology that they can relate to.

You don’t have to sell out and blame men’s issues on loaded terms like “patriarchy” or “toxic masculinity”, but many or most men’s issues have their roots in traditional gender roles, and feminists can relate to opposing those. For example, I define male disposability as “our society’s tendency to have less concern for the safety and well-being of men than of women”, but feminists might relate better if I add “… in other words, the flip side of the protective attitude towards women that we’ve inherited from traditional gender roles”.

2.3 Keep discussion of their concepts (and yours too) grounded in definitions.

Don’t just tell them “I don’t believe in male privilege”. Explain specifically what you do and do not believe. For example: “I believe that men have some advantages, but I don’t believe in male privilege in the sense of men being the ‘privileged sex’ with far more advantages than women”. A similarly grounded response on patriarchy: “I see that there are more men than women in positions of power, but this doesn’t mean that men as a group collectively have power, or even that the powerful people care more about regular men than regular women, so in that sense I don’t believe in patriarchy”.

This applies to other feminist concepts like the pay gap or wage gap, as well as any big concepts that you bring up. Don’t reference male disposability, the empathy gap, or the women-are-wonderful effect without explaining specifically what you mean.

2.4 Understand the different kinds of feminism (similarities and differences).

Sometimes “feminism is not a monolith” is used in an obscurantist way to deny that feminism is cohesive enough to oppose (which, if taken seriously, raises the question of whether feminism is cohesive enough to support).

But there really are different kinds of feminism (brief overview and links). You should understand not just how they differ (e.g., radical feminists put more of a focus on seeing men and women as groups rather than individuals, in contrast to liberal feminists) but also how they’re similar (they all pretty much see women as disadvantaged or oppressed compared to men—see section 2.4).

You should be able to quote or reference actual material from feminists. Ideally this would include some books and other traditional formats (Feminism is for everybody is a good resource that I would recommend both for feminists and critics of feminism). Additionally you can browse websites (such as Feminist Frequency, Everyday Feminism, Feminist Current, Geek Feminism Wiki, and Finally Feminism 101) or follow feminist journalists, like Jessica Valenti at The Guardian (see also the categories feminism, gender, and women).

When reading these resources, consider taking notes of relevant passages, especially bad ideas that you think would be useful to demonstrate because they’re likely to be downplayed. For example, the idea that misandry or sexism against men isn’t real is quite common within feminism, and yet I’ve heard it downplayed as “just Tumblr feminism”—only associated with random online feminists who have no clout in the actual movement. Being able to demonstrate the idea with examples, like the following tweet from Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency (700,000+ Twitter followers), is really useful.

There’s no such thing as sexism against men. That’s because sexism is prejudice + power. Men are the dominant gender with power in society. Feminist Frequency (@femfreq), post on Twitter (2014/11/14)

2.5 Be ready to deal with the validity of your opinion being challenged because of your gender (if you’re a man and the feminist you’re debating with is a woman).

Many feminists argue that women’s opinions should prevail on women’s issues, or even that women’s opinions should prevail in general because their status as an “oppressed” group gives them a privileged perspective on society (feminist standpoint theory).

There are a few ways to respond to this, depending on how they word it. You could point out the absurdity of having a debate where the correct position is determined by which position is lucky enough to get a woman arguing for it. You could ask them how they’d like someone using their gender as a mark against their credibility. You could ask them if they’d also accept men’s opinions prevailing on men’s issues.

Also remember that a lot of the debates are basically about whether women are in fact an “oppressed” group. “I’m oppressed, therefore you must listen to me when I say that I’m oppressed” doesn’t work because it uses its conclusion (“women are oppressed”) to argue its conclusion.

2.6 Clearly distinguish between feminists and women.

Women are more likely than men to be feminists, but plenty of men still are feminists, and plenty of women aren’t (Washington Post). As a result, it’s important to not hold women accountable for what feminists do. Don’t say “women want this” when you mean “feminists want this”. (Even better, explain which feminists and use examples!)

This is important for reasons of accuracy. It’s also useful to deal with one common way to dismiss criticism of feminism, which amounts to “men have power, not feminists, so what do you want feminists do to?”. Setting aside the fact that “men have power” is an incredible simplification, a large number of men (including in the political, economic, and cultural elite) are in fact feminists.