One of the few atheist feminists on youtube Steve Shives posted a joke about that today:

The name “Steve” comes from the Greek word meaning “5th or 6th most popular non-misogynist YouTube atheist.” ‪#‎LittleKnownFact

‬ Aron is gratified that Steve considers him an exception to the rule.

I responded:(few edits for clarity)

The weird thing is how popular anti-feminism is with a lot of youtube atheists. I’ve watched this pattern even with people I respect on other matters. It seemed to originate at Elevatorgate with avid discussions of basically “Rebecca Watson is a cunt” or some variant thereof. Now a few years later even “Anita Sarkeesian is a fraud” is starting to become dull. As if, even if those statements were true and also throw in as many individual feminists, whose style people don’t like, and together that would not invalidate the axiom that -feminism means equal rights for women.

There were also a few popular arguments that circulated like “online harassment of women is trolling or grow a thicker skin”, and who could forget the piss poor arguments about rape? And remember folks patriarchy doesn’t exist! Only said seriously and defended with shifting goalposts that could bend space time.

Now the argument seems to be defending the goalposts that Islamic women have it worse, so Western Feminism is trivial. I’ll remember that the next time I go to a rally in Texas for the millions of women that are now unable to obtain a safe, legal abortion because the Religious Right shut down all but 8 of the 40 abortion clinics.

Someone invited me to a discussion of basically Sarkeesian makes bad arguments and is hurting the cause on youtube. As if I would throw her under the bus (not that I think she argues perfectly) and play good feminist/bad feminist to get a pat on the head from anti-feminists. Anti-feminists, who trolled the science education videos Aron Ra and I make together that aren’t even about feminism. It’s like they see the videos as less important than their petty ax to grind. An opportunity to talk about their favorite obsession instead. The truth doesn’t matter.

And look at what a great pay out it has been for anti-feminists -clicks, sympathy, attention, subs, patreons, crowd funded poorly executed takedowns of the “bad” feminist of the week.

It’s like some kind of Great Shushing of feminist atheists for the past few years.

It is stunning how a people, who pride themselves on rationality, can argue for the male dominated status quo. A status quo that hurts men too.

Here are some more goalposts from posters to Steve’s thread that atheist youtube anti-feminists have defended: