Why do Men’s Rights Activists hate the heroes of the Aurora theater shooting?
Our old nemesis The Pigman — the MRA blogger and one half of the cartooning team responsible for atrocities like this — has some thoughts on the Aurora shootings, specifically on the men who lost their lives to protect their girlfriends from gunfire. Their heroism makes him angry, much like the fellows on The Spearhead we looked at the other day. Here’s his complaint:
How’s that for inequity? How’s that for disposability? These guys appear to have sacrificed themselves for these people primarily because of their sex.
Well, no, I think they sacrificed themselves for their girlfriends because they loved their girlfriends.
After all, where are the guys who jumped in front of their best mate, or their dad or brother? And above all, where are the women who died saving their boyfriends?
There were many heroes in the Aurora shooting. Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves died protecting their girlfriends. Stephanie Davies risked her life to keep a friend shot in the neck from bleeding to death. Other acts of heroism had less storybook endings: Marcus Weaver tried to shield a female friend. He was wounded but lived; she died. Jennifer Seeger tried to drag a wounded victim to safety, but fled when the shooter returned.
But the Pigman is interested in none of this:
This isn’t heroism, this is male disposability at its worst and by praising it society is encouraging it.Cheering these men’s actions is as reprehensible as it is stupid and discriminatory.
The heroes in Aurora acted quickly, and on instinct; they didn’t have time to stop to think. Is it possible that, in the cases of those men who tried to shield the women with them, gender socialization had something to do with what their instincts told them to do? Almost certainly.
But “male disposability” has nothing to do with it. We live in a society in which heroism, as an idea and as a cultural ideal, has been gendered male for thousands of years. In the stories we tell ourselves, the video games we play, the movies we watch (including The Dark Knight Rises) , the “hero with a thousand faces” is almost always male, and the damsel in distress is, well, almost always a damsel.
The Pigman ignores all this, instead attacking the three dead men as
foolish enough and unfortunate enough to fall for a lifetime of anti-male propaganda telling them to die for the nearest woman whenever the shit hits the fan.
I have no doubt that many are concerned with the feelings of the dead men’s survivors and wish I would just shut up.
But then he barrels ahead anyway:
But this is a simple case of “What you praise, you encourage,” and I for one think calling out those who encourage men to waste their lives for people worth no more than themselves is more important than being “sensitive”. Die for a child if you must, die for some guy on the verge of finding a cure for cancer if you must – die for someone no better than you simply because you have been taught to and you are a fool.
Had these men died protecting male buddies, would The Pigman have applied this calculus of worthiness to the beneficiaries of their heroism? Would he have suggested that the dead men thought they were worth less than their friends? Of course not.
The three men didn’t do what they did because they thought they were worthless or disposable. They did what they did because they wanted to protect those they loved. Others in the theater, like Stephanie Davies, risked their lives for friends, or people they didn’t even know. There’s nothing foolish or “wasteful” about putting yourself on the line to protect others. In every major disaster, whether natural, or like this one man-made, ordinary people emerge as heroes precisely because they are willing to put the lives and safety of other people ahead of their own.
Do these real-life stories of heroism play out in gendered ways? Often times they do. Men may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their wives or girlfriends; mothers may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their children.
In real life crises, it’s hardly surprising that people sometimes act like characters in these stories we tell ourselves. If you want to change how people act, you need to change these stories.
MRAs like to pretend that men are the “disposable sex” but in their hearts they know that’s not true. They’re well aware, as are we all, that our cultural narratives of heroism privilege and glorify men and put them at the center of almost every story. MRAs like The Pigman aren’t interested in expan ding our cultural narratives of heroism to include female heroes — nor are they willing to even acknowledge that there are such things as female heroes in the real world. They certainly don’t want more stories, more games, more films featuring female protagonists.
Instead they’d rather wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood, and attack real heroes like Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves as “white knights” or “fools.”
How people react in a crises reveals a lot about them. How MRAs like The Pigman, and like the Spearhead commenters I quoted the other day reacted to the Aurora shootings has certainly revealed a lot about them, none of it good.
Unfortunately, attitudes like theirs aren’t confined to the fringe that is the manosphere.
After hearing the stories of Blunk, McQuinn, and Teves, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto tweeted “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.”
After numerous readers responded to his remarks with outrage, Taranto offered an apology of sorts, along with an explanation that suggested he really didn’t understand why people were angry in the first place. When someone does something noble and heroic out of love, it’s not up to you to second guess their actions or their love. Taranto’s words not only dishonored “the the girls whose boyfriends died to save them;” it dishonored the heroes as well.
Like The Pigman, like the Spearhead commenters, Taranto has failed this test of his humanity.
Posted on July 26, 2012, in misogyny, MRA, oppressed men, patriarchy, white knights. Bookmark the permalink. 856 Comments.
“I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.”
Does anyone else here wonder if this is code for “I hope it takes these women a long, long time to get over the loss and it will be many years before they date again”?
Also, if society did not honor these mens deaths, what would MRAs say then? That is what disposability means, that not only do you make huge sacrifices on the behalf of others, but no one is going to care enough to notice. And its societies honoring of heroic (white) men that puts the lie to any supposed disposability.
They know that a single father of four died protecting his children, right?
Is that also an example of “male disposability” or should we encourage parents not to sacrifice for their children as well?
These fucking guys…
I have a theory that MRAs hate these men so much because:
1) I think they truly fear that no one cares enough about them to make any sacrifice for them, let alone die for them.
2) If they stop to wonder who they might be willing to die for, few if any people spring to mind. Largely I think, because many of these men are emotionally or socially isolated from others.
3) MRAs tend to take the nyms of great heros and leaders but like the rest of us, rarely have the opportunity to be heroic or to show the superiority they believe they have.
4) For a variety of reasons, they just hate women that much.
In this episode of Manboobz, Futrelle demonstrates his ability to communicate with the dead.
“Well, no, I think they sacrificed themselves for their girlfriends because they loved their girlfriends.”
Damn. It’s a good thing that in addition to being a feminist advocate, he is a spiritual medium.
It’s not like these men were suffering under the oppressive misandrist social structure which demands that their deaths or else they will lose their “man”-hood status bestowed upon them by society.
Nah, it couldn’t be that.
They did it for love. Futrelle proved it for us.
Just like when Futrelle went back in time that one episode and laughed at the dudes dying on the Titantic.
The real reason why Leonardo DiCaprio died on the Titanic. Futrelle pushed him off of the driftwood Kate Winslet was on.
Why?
Title IX Legislation.
Yes, count me in as one who wished Pigman would shut up.
Do MRAs actually care abut anyone other than themselves? Would Pigman save his mother if they were in that situation? I’m starting to think not.
Because deep down, they know they’d be the guy who left his family behind and actually DROVE AWAY.
The Taranto tweet was somewhat ambiguous until I read that he has a history of blaming feminism for everything he doesn’t like in a suspiciously MRA sort of way.
“[W]hile feminism and the sexual revolution have been great for high-status men like Krugman and Alter, and for those women who place a high value on professional careers, things have not worked out so well for those who are less privileged.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/enslaved_by_freedom_and_equali035578.php
(Context was Taranto praising Rick Santorum for blaming feminism and contraception for out-of-wedlock pregnancies.)
So what have we seen so far from the MRA on the shooting?
MRAs sympathizing with the shooter, because he’s a white, college educated dude who didn’t have everything handed to him
MRAs adding insult to injury by saying shitty things about the girlfriends of the men who died
MRAs adding insult to injury by saying shitty things about the men who died protecting their girlfriends
MRAs making veiled threats that it’ll happen again if we ladies don’t put out for awkward white boys
MRAs making veiled threats that it’ll happen again if awkward white boys are ever allowed to fail at something ever again
You stay classy, guys.
Having seen David’s earlier posts on the phenomenon of calling these men “suckers” and their girlfriends “sluts who will immediately move on to the next guy,” I just knew he was coming from the same Spearhead-ish place with that tweet.
If a woman was on the verge of discovering the cure for cancer, would a MRA take a bullet for her?
My guess is no. Because woman.
He’s making pigs look bad!
And a woman cure cancer? Psh. Like that’ll happen. /sarcasm
In all seriousness, though, I do wonder how it is they plan on determining if someone is on the verge of curing cancer? Do folks on the verge of curing cancer carry special verge of curing cancer cards? And how does one know they’re truly on the verge? I mean, someone could be at a place where they and their colleagues really think they’re damn close, but from what I understand, it’s a tricky thing (hence, no cure yet). What if you end up saving someone who’s really close, but their medicine winds up turning everyone into zombies?
Dude, you saved the guy who started the zombie apocalypse. Nice going.
Well obviously you need a time machine. So you better be on the look out for the guy who’s going to invent it just in case you need to save him so he can invent it, so you can then go see who invented what and who needs saving.. oh wait.
Well the pigman handle has it at least half right: He certainly is a pig.
The egocentric, professional victims of the world don’t fully understand a person’s drive to do something so profound for another for an altruistic reason so they distrust such motivations. Also, I think that they feel compelled to explain away other people’s altruistic actions. To justify to themselves that they aren’t really the shitheads people keep telling them they are they claim the rest of humanity shares their self-absorbed nature.
This is why I used to be an MRA, I thought that society was to blame for my own awkwardness. Then I actually started talking to girls at school, online, generally everywhere, and I realized “holy shit, the only person to blame for me being awkward is me”. To this day I’m working one step at a time towards reaching genuine self-improvement, instead of blaming everything else for my problems.
Gah… There will never be “a” cure for cancer any more than there will be “a” cure for infectious diseases. The best we can hope for is a treatment that “cures” most cases of a certain kind of cancer.
I’m remembering when my mom told my neighbors that I was going to be a biologist, they said, “Oh, you’ll be figuring out what causes cancer?”
1) We know what causes cancer–the buildup of mutations the lead to cells reproducing rapidly and increased DNA damage, which accelerates the cycle
2) This does not really help, except for preventative strategies, because it is really, really hard to come up with a treatment that kills cancer cells and not normal cells, because biologically they are very similar. This is why cancer treatments tend to be so rough.
3) The cure for cancer probably won’t come from any one lab. It will come from a group of people looking at cancer biology to come up with possible strategies (for example, targeting dividing cells or the growth of blood vessels), and then labs working on finding strategies for doing that in vitro, and then will come issues of large-scale manufacturing, dosage, and safety and effectiveness in vivo. And let me tell you, given the demographics of biology research, a lot of those people will be women.
I can’t even begin to imagine what these women are going through having their partners die, let alone being vilified and tormented for something some dunce thinks they might do in the future maybe. I mean fuck, it’s just so unbelievably awful.
To take my mind off it I’d like to be a bit pedantic here and say that there’ll never be a cure for cancer, because all types are different. But if a researcher discovered a cure for some kind of “chick cancer” you can bet your arse the MRM would be bloody hunting them down.
Ninjaed. *tips hat to WordSpinner*
George Costanza isn’t a coward, he’s just establishing his non-disposability. Stop laughing, you misandrists!
The “I hope she was worth it” tweet sort of makes my skin crawl. It’s said in a really sneering tone of voice in my head and ugh. I just don’t like it. And it’s just so shitty. Who decides if she was “worth” it? Taranto, I’m guessing, but if they had been about to split up, were they then no longer “worth” it? And ugh, on “worth”. They were *people*, of course they were *worth being saved*. It would have been just as true in reverse.
Also: WHY the fuck is he not sneering “I hope it was worth it” (shitty as that sounds) at the freaking shooter, or those who shipped him the weapons, or what the fuck ever? Holy crap is victim blaming/ victim focus deeply, deeply embedded.
How could we ever know that?
Yeah, Taranto’s got a long history of being a total ass with MRA-like attitudes, even if he is (like most people) unaware of the existence of the MRM. And unlike Piggy, he has a substantial audience. Glad you mentioned his tweet, and his fauxpology. Anyone who would do something so publicly to add to the survivor’s guilt those people are already experiencing is a colossal failure as a human being.
…you realize we’re talking about people who died protecting loved ones, right?
Agreed, David.
@Rutee: given that their other recent post was to demand details from a hypothetical argument…
Perhaps this is just me but this is how I picture an MRA that thinks heroism is for suckers:
oh man, total fail at the cut and paste job. *facepalm* Sorry guys.
Um, okay… It’s apparently a youtube issue. Sorry for cluttering up the page.
BROs: The “wage gap” exists because Women’s Choices do that.
But when men put themselves at risk for women, it’s all down to society.
@Rutee Katreya:
Loved ones? A girlfriend of three weeks? I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I suspect other reasons, at least in that case.
Are you a robot? Or have you just never once in your life been in love?
howardbann1ster, please, feel free to use any pronoun you like for me, use he, she, ze, whatever, but don’t use “they”, I’m not a symbiotic organism. Thank you.
Well, the Monstars have been suspiciously quiet, and they ARE notoriously misandrist. Hmmm
@Nikan
You know, a much easier solution is just to tell us what pronoun you prefer
Surely any question that begins “Why do Men’s Rights Activists…?” can be answered “Because they’re a bunch of arseholes.”
Do tell. Does it have anything to do with whores and misandry?
Whoops, sorry David, I used a bad word and got myself moderated.
If the MRM isn’t a hate group, why is there so much hate and bitterness evident in their websites and postings?
As far as I’m aware, ‘they’ as singular pronoun for a person of unknown gender is an entirely standard English usage. I’ve been doing that all my life.
And in the long argument on a previous thread about the usage of the term “zie,” another troll argued that we SHOULD be using “they” when gender is unknown. So, can’t win for losing, I guess.
If you read the comments on Taranto’s column, you’ll find a woman commenter pointing out that yes, women saved other women’s lives too. A group of NRAs then jump on said woman commenter to yell that she’s diminishing men’s achievements and let the men have their heroic moment, etc.
Because reality has a well know misandry bias.
livingcolor and cloudiah, thanks for the info and links on Taranto.
also, garvan (in a moderated comment I just let through; I can’t remember if he’s moderated or banned), said
I love how you guys just make up whatever you want to believe about me and somehow convince yourself it’s true. When the fuck did I laugh at anyone dying on the Titanic? As I’ve pointed out a zillion times, my great grandfather was one of them.
Remember that time garvan ate those puppies? Man, that was disturbing.
“our cultural narratives of heroism privilege and glorify men and put them at the center of almost every story.”
Haha! Thanks for that. Naturally if this kind of lethal bullet-catching gender norm applied to women, Feminists would be all over it with their garbled critiques.
The priivlege of having the glory of being a human shield! Hmm, I’d almost rather have a girlfriend who’s fat enough to hide behind.
Yeah Garvan, it’s such a wild extrapolation to guess that people trying to save the lives of people they care about loved them. Far more reasonable to believe in a shadowy cabal of invisible bigots baying for their blood. That totally makes more sense.
@Rutee Katreya:
So he was infatuated (well, that’s the best explanation, there are worse, maybe he just wanted to have a good argument to finally take the relationship one step further.)
@Shadow:
Maybe they have their reasons?
@blitzgal:
I think “they” is acceptable, if the rest of the sentence makes it clear that we mean singular.
you’re not good at getting what words mean, are you?
soo… you are a robot?
This is going to be their new Titanic, isn’t it? :/
Which, how nice for them. The old Titanic was getting old. Fantastic that someone has found an upside in this tragedy. All the George Costanzas of the MRA, who would trample their own children as they ran for the exit, can turn the deaths of these three brave men into a grievance that proves how all men are “disposable”, and completely erase all the other victims, survivors and heroes of the Aurora shooting.
Then they’ll keep complaining about it for the next 100 years as a symbol of how much their butts hurt because they got asked to wash the dishes/the bitch they harassed on the street laughed at them/their ex-wife escaped to safety with the children/a woman looked at them funny and they just know it was because the bitch expected them to hold the door open AS IF FEMINAZI/their chairs are too hard.
I really, really hope I’m wrong about this because it makes me feel a bit sick.
you’re right. it’s not like that at all.
RHW on Monday: MRAs display a high number of indicators of mental illness. They deserve to be pitied and condescended to because they can’t help themselves from being giant tools.
RHW on Thursday: MRAs are totally right that people who sacrifice themselves for others are huge suckers who are being mind controlled by the media. Also having a fat girlfriend is bad; no one would ever save them.
How do you feel about the women who saved men in Aurora, and didn’t get a lot of press? Were they also being mind controlled by male hero narratives?
garvan, do you know the names of all the men who, during the Aurora shooting, did NOT shield their girlfriends with their bodies? I don’t. Because nobody is condemning those men or taking away their right to be men or any other fucking thing.
Now, they’re not being treated like heroes in the way the actual heroes are, but you kind of have to sacrifice something before you can be honoured for your sacrifice.
Why is it that MRAs are so invested in the idea that it’s impossible for men to be good people?
I can’t imagine anything more “misandric” than saying that it is more likely that a man died trying to have more sex than to save those he cares about. Why all the man hatred?
Wow…
Really? Really?!
So, you’re copping to the robot thing, right?
Why is it that MRAs are so invested in the idea that it’s impossible for men to be good people?
It’s male nature to be a terrible human being, and it’s feminist oppression to expect them to be anything else.
I was thinking about this and I realised that that’s why they believe feminists are so almighty powerful, and the extreme cases believe that feminists run the world. Because even people as completely disconnected from reality as MRAs must notice now and then that actually there are many men who are not terrible human beings like they are. The explanation? Those other men are scared of the feminist oppressors! Otherwise they’d talk and act just like MRAs do! Damn, those feminists control everything.
Ugh and Sharculese, you are vewy pwecious, but I think we all know this isn’t really a debate site. And Shar doesn’t debate so much as snipe inanely anyway.
I only suggest that Feminism’s own paradigm would suggest this privilege isn’t much of a privilege at all. However, Feminism is not a good-faith ideology – it serves sectional interests, the clue is ultimately in the name.
In my own opinion the guys are indeed noble in their heroism, but, uh, not quite “privileged” by their heroism. Unless the peace of the grave is a privilege.
No, I didn’t say MRAs should be condescended to, no I didn’t say the media is controlling people’s minds, no I didn’t even actually say having a fat girlfriend is bad and absolutely no-one would save them. Most of that has been your own random neural flare-ups that reading me seems to cause you to have. :)
Ninja-ed by Sharculese.
To be fair, that’s about as much seriousness as your comments generally deserve.
Care to address the contradiction between you on Monday, complaining that MRAs need to be handled gently because they’re likely to be mentally ill, and you today, spouting MRA talking points?
So all you were saying was that YOU, personally, wouldn’t value a fat girlfriend enough to save?
I love how “neural flareups” = critical thinking. That actually explains a lot about the MRM.
HAHAHAHA and what kind of interests does the “Men’s Rights Movement” serve? Hint: the clue is in the name.
Re: Privilege. Being told you’re better than half the human race is having certain expectations put upon you to act above and beyond. Why, it’s almost as if patriarchy and gender roles hurts men too! Now who could have ever said something like that?
MrB proposed to me after about three weeks of dating. And we’ve been married eleven years. So true love after a few weeks does happen.
@Ugh
Evopsych and biotruth, I’ve found that a lot of these people are of the opinion that everything is horrible, and therefore everything must back up the fact that everything is horrible. They simply can’t fathom the idea that something good exists.
It’s true! You said the mentally ill should be condescended to. And that many MRAs are mentally ill. It’s different! In a… worse, kind of way. Yay?
@RHW
Also, do you care to comment on the virulent hatred of men in Nikan’s comments? You say that feminists are a special interest group, but, strangely, we seem a lot faster than you to call out people on saying that men are immoral sex-seeking robots.
“Most of that has been your own random neural flare-ups that reading me seems to cause you to have.”
Clue stick: If someone can read blogs and be okay, and read comments and be okay, but YOUR comments are an issue, then you’re probably not communicating clearly.
Because I have yet to meet an MRA for whom the M in the acronym shouldn’t be replaced with “ME ME ME ME ME.” They’ve never cared about any men who aren’t them, and they especially hate any men who prove that it is entirely possible not to be a whiny, self-absorbed asshole, which is why they’re so angry about men doing something selfless and heroic but don’t really have a problem with men murdering people. If they actually cared about men, they’d be doing their best to support the families and loved ones of the heroes of Aurora, since it’s patently obvious that that’s what those men would want, but they’d prefer to sulk about how men being awesome people makes “real” men (you know, the ones like them, who spend their lives whining on the internet about how women are bitches) look bad.
I am so disgusted with this shit.
Or maybe he had great health insurance, or maybe he was you know, A GOOD PERSON.
Good lord you are a smeghead.
You’ve already been cited for poor grammar.
But I call you out on the whole ‘not a symbiotic organism’ thing. PROVE IT.
@Ugh:
I don’t know. I’m not an MRA, do you want to hear my own reasons?
Well, maybe because there are some hints that suggest that? Also, it wouldn’t be the first time that a man risks his life for sex, so why is that explanation so unreasonable?
Yup. Or it could be that he just liked her a lot, and that was enough. Or it could be that he was the sort of truly awesome person who would have done exactly the same thing for anyone he happened to be next to in that moment. All of these options seem a lot more likely than either “he was just trying to get laid” or “he felt that as a man, he was worthless and disposable.” And it offends me so damn much that people who claim to speak for “men” are trying to make an awesome, heroic man out to be a douchebag in order to assuage their own egos.