Um, what? I think your definition of "feminism" is a bit flawed. Could you explain which part of feminism rejects the notion that you decide who you like?
In a way that is the essence of political correctness, it tries to establish a general law for your preferences. The article here is a case in point - it's not enough that everybody has their own list, now there has to be a public list, under control of the feminists.
Of course feminism has more aspects than that, I don't define feminism in that way.
Feminism is about how people are treated, not about who you like. No one cares who you like.
By the way, what is with this "the feminists" bullshit? It's not a society. People of all walks of life, who believe that women deserve the same respect and rights men do, call themselves feminists. It is a sure sign of a small mind to go around blaming shit on supposedly homogeneous and insidious groups like "the feminists," "the communists," or "the homosexuals."
It seems that if you want to say something good about feminism, it is a perfectly well defined concept. But the moment a person says something critical about feminism, suddenly there is no such thing as feminism to be criticized.
They want to determine who I hire, or who I am attracted to (the subgroup of feminists who campaign against certain beauty ideals).
As for "the feminists", it's true that some people who haven't really given it much thought call themselves feminists (they think they fight for equality). I don't really blame them.
But I have followed feminism for a while now and I think there is a group you can call "the feminists". For starters, even the people you mention ("women deserve the same respect") tend work on the basic assumption that women get less respect and generally receive the shorter end of the stick in society (or in other, more common words, women are victims).
Never mind that "they" tend to generalize about men and "masculinity" in much the same way as you claim nobody should about feminists.
And why would anybody have to call themselves a feminist if they were merely for equality? It seems fair that if you call yourself a feminist, certain prejudice is applied to you.
I've read lots of papers explaining the wage gap. The wikipedia article is too long for me to read right now, but thanks for pointing it out. I may update it if applicable.
Also what you don't take into account is that "wage gap" is not an arbitrary measurement. It is picked specifically to make women look like victims. You could also measure "time spent with friends and family instead of working" or "life expectancy" or "probability to die on the job" instead and men would look like the victims.
Another thing I wonder is how many of the wage gap studies take into account that typically income in a marriage is split equally. So a woman's wage in a job might be less than her husbands, but her effective income is the same.
Furthermore, might it be a privilege that women don't need to worry about money as much as men.
Just a few things to think about. Actually I think statistics like the wage gap are interesting. Something is going on, but it is probably not what feminists think. It's worthy of study, but feminism is not open to study or science - the only allowed result is "women are the victims". Typically the wage gap papers stop when they have identified the wage gap. Then they blurt out "see, it's discrimination" and no further investigation is attempted.
Of course feminism has more aspects than that, I don't define feminism in that way.