komponisto, “trying to move our ‘real world’ in the direction of an ‘ideal world’” is different from “pretending our ‘real world’ is already an ‘ideal world’;” the latter action often undermines the former goal.
If the ‘real world’ merely had a history of male oppression, it would not be a problem. The problem is that the ‘real world’ has substantial ongoing male oppression, some of which is contingent on the past environment, and is better detected when you know something about past, in exactly the same way that knowing something about the human ancestral environment enables you to discover things about present day human psychology. This is what is being referred to when one speaks of history.
How about “Comparing Apples and Oranges,” or “How Dare you Compare,” a misrepresentation of the scope of analogies. For a recent example, see the response to John Lewis’s drawing an analogy between certain aspects of the McCain campaign and those of George Wallace—the response is not a consideration of the scope and aptness of the analogy but a rejection that any analogy at all can be drawn between two subjects when one is so generally recognized to be Evil. The McCain campaign does not attempt to differentiate the aspects under analogy (rhetoric and its potential for the fomentation of violence) from those of Wallace, but rather condemns the idea that the analogy can be considered at all. Under the epistemology of Fail, any difference between two subjects of comparison is enough to reject its validity, regardless the relevance of the distinction to the actual comparison being drawn. See also: Godwin’s Law.
Some self-entitled males like to use this one, particularly in defense of the notion that one has in inviolate right to make sexual advances toward other people regardless of circumstance or outward sign. Sooner or later, after demonstrating how each of their justifications also justify sexual assault, it leads to “how dare you compare me to a rapist,” which is where the fun begins. After I have done epistemologically belittling them I point out that the obvious fact that sexual assault is known to be bad is a manifestation of general principles of ethical interaction among humans, and not a special case handed down from a God who says that everything that is not expressly forbidden by a law is good.