Feminism is epistemically irrational but potential instrumentally rational for both women (obviously) and men.
Consider factual claims about domestic violence. Domestic violence costs around 50,000 dollars per person AUD according to this paper.
The foremost authoritive Australian source summarises the matter as such:
eminist researchers have long identified ‘gender asymmetry’ in domestic violence, arguing that women are the primary targets of abuse and that men comprise the large majority of perpetrators. On the other hand, family conflict researchers typically find ‘gender symmetry’, arguing that women and men experience and perpetrate violence at similar rates. > Feminist and family conflict researchers also differ in their data collection methods. Feminist researchers tend to favour qualitative approaches commonly used in clinical studies, as well as quantitative information collected via officially reported data and community sample surveys. Family conflict researchers tend to favour quantitative approaches, relying predominantly on acts-based surveys (such as the Conflict Tactics Scale).
Somewhat contradictingly, the paper concludes:
From the real life examples presented in this paper and in many other studies canvassed, practitioners and advocates should have confidence in claims of gender asymmetry in domestic violence.
Another one of their papers ironically concludes that the data confirms it is clear females are the predominant victims while conceding that data on male victims doesn't get collected at any comparable rate.
It seems to me that we could get results a bit like that without anyone being grossly dishonest or incompetent, if (1) men and women are violent about equally often but (2) men tend to be substantially more violent than women when they are violent. And #2 seems a plausible-enough just-so story; even if intentions are exactly equal in each case, men tend to be stronger so will do more damage.
(Why would this lead to such results? Well, e.g., officially reported data will tend to focus on violence serious enough for the police or social services to pay attent...
I don't mean to claim that there should be a conflict.
Most likely the conflict arises because of many things, such as 1)Women having been ostracized for much of our society's existence 2)People failing at the is-ought problem, and committing the Naturalistic Fallacy 3)Lots of media articles saying unbelievably naïve evolutionary statements as scientific fact 4)Feminists as a group being defensive 5)Specially defensive when it comes to what is said to be natural. 6) General disregard by people, and politically engaged people (see The Blank Slate, by Steve Pinker) of the existence of a non Tabula Rasa nature. 7) Lack of patience of Evolutionary Psychologists to make peace and explain themselves for the things that journalists, not them, claimed. and others...
But the fact is, the conflict arose. It has only bad consequences as far as I could see, such as people fighting over each other, breaking friendships, and prejudice of great intensity on both sides.
How to avoid this conflict? Should someone write a treatise on Feminist Evolutionary Psychology? Should we get Leda Cosmides to talk about women liberation?
There are obviously no incompatibilities between reality and the moral claims of feminism. So whichever facts about evolutionary psychology are found to be true with the science's development, they should be made compatible. Compatibilism is possible.
But will the scientific community pull it off?
Related: Pinker Versus Spelke - The Science of Gender and Science
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html
David Buss and Cindy Meston - Why do Women Have Sex?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA0sqg3EHm8