Science proves the Men’s Rights subreddit to be totally not (completely) misogynistic
So apparently I’m way off base with this “misogyny” thing. For example, I have been under the impression that I have been finding misogynistic stuff in the Men’s Rights subreddit, like, all the time. With upvotes, and everything. But evidently I’m wrong.
Because now ignatiusloyola, one of the subreddit mods, has done a very scientific study that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that, well, whatever misogyny is there is officially not a big damn deal.
Ig explains his protocol:
I did a quick scan of the first 400 comments on the list (100/page, 4 pages in). I scanned for words like “cunt” and “whore”, and read the context of these. I looked for the words “woman” and “women”, and read the context of these. I looked for “suffrage” and “vote” also.
I found two comments that used the word “cunt”, one of them was used to describe men, the other to describe a specific woman. The only instances of “whore” were “attention whore”.
There were two comments involving the word “woman” that generalized women with negative stereotypes.
“Suffrage” and “vote” instances did not involve any context that suggested that women did not deserve the right to vote.
How a person defines “hatred of women”, either loosely (suggestive from context, rather than explicit) or strictly (explicit statements), it is pretty clear that out of 400 comments, very few are misogynistic.
Does misogyny exist? Yes. But it does not seem to be a significant contribution to r/MensRights. At best, people are seeing a few comments and focusing on their existence while ignoring the rest.
It’s a lot like that time Michael Richards did that standup routine, and everyone focused on that one word he said, totally ignoring all the other words he used that were totally not racist slurs. I mean, yeah, he said that word a bunch of times, but it still made up a very small percentage of all the words he used that evening.
So that’s that, then. Misogyny, officially not a problem!
Or that would have been that, had Ig not actually posted about his experiment to the subreddit he had just proved was, like, totally non-misogynistic:
Because it turned out that a couple of the fellas had an issue with Ig’s methodology. In particular, that stuff about female suffrage. Because, apparently, you can totally be against women having the right to vote and still not be a misogynist. As zyk0s put it (garnering upvotes in the process):
[T]here’s the matter of female suffrage. I really don’t see how suggesting women should not have been granted the right to vote is misogyny. It might be motivated by it, but not necessarily so, and treating it as such is akin to criminalizing holocaust denial: it’s censorship, pure and simple, and if [1] /r/MR wants to keep calling itself an open space where ideas are not silenced, that attitude has to change.
Our friend Demonspawn went even further(and got a few upvotes himself):
Suggesting that the government works better without the women’s vote is not misogyny. It’s an analysis of the facts and the consequences of allowing women’s suffrage.
Suggesting that women retain the right to vote without the corresponding responsibilities that men face is misandry.
So there you have it. The Men’s Rights subreddit doesn’t have a misogyny problem; if anything, it’s a hotbed of misandry.
Posted on August 10, 2012, in antifeminism, I'm totally being sarcastic, it's science!, misandry, misogyny, MRA, reddit, the c-word, whores, woman's suffrage and tagged antifeminism, feminism, men's rights, misandry, misogyny, MRA, reddit, women’s suffrage. Bookmark the permalink. 934 Comments.
Fembot, on the subject of sucking dick, some more win/win news for women:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2186710/Could-oral-sex-pregnant-womans-best-defense-morning-sickness.html?ITO=1490
But what if she ever accidentally alluded to the existence of the skidmarks? That would presumably be Code Brown.
Tom, for the millionth time, we’re not including misandry in the discourse, because it’s made up. May as well ask us to incorporate the Easter Bunny.
Okay, that is ableist as fuck. Tom is full of shit because he’s a fraud. His mental health status has nothing to do with it.
The sneering just sounds so silly, though. If people read it and take it seriously, there is just no hope.
Code Brown. LOL.
You know, I understand to a point not being super uptight about skidmarks and other bodily functions. People get sick, they have accidents. But if it is a regular occurence, you have to stop and ask yourself “why the fuck is my ass so dirty?” But my husband is a soldier, and sometimes he goes weeks without a shower, so I would never laugh at him about that stuff.
“Horrible”, “sexist”, and “bully” are not DSM classification.
@ Tom- Oh, wow, you know you got completely tuned in these little arguments, right? I thought that was why you weren’t talking as much anymore.
BTW, for anyone who missed it the first time, here’s the video about how women are evil bitches for looking upon men who frequently have skidmarks in a negative way.
Expecting your male partner to know how to wipe his own ass = expecting men to be perfect.
What is the DSM?
Steve Hoca. What a hunk! ;D
That dude looks like the Scarecrow from the batman movies!
Fembot – a military wife! Feminism my arse.
DSM = the manual that mental health professionals use to diagnose patients.
Before feminism, women lived behind toilets, and wiped men’s asses for them. Hey, Tom, this could suitable work for all of the elderly women who have outlived their usefulness and should be sacrificed.
@Tom
That’s military wh@#@ to you!
Second statement does not follow first.
@Dracula
Yeah I don’t get it either.
@Cassandra,
Thanks for explaining.
Now I don’t mind washing diapers and training pants for babies and toddlers, or underwear for sick or elderly people. However, I will not wash poopy underwear for a healthy, abled adult man that is too lazy to wipe his own butt. For the love of Pete, he can wash his skidmarks himself.
And we’re back to that rants from last week or whenever about why can’t women treat me the way they did when I was a child? They didn’t mind my skidmarks when I was 4!
To be fair to fembot, it is possible to be a military wife and not a whoore. Unlikely, put possible.
Do you have a job, fembot? Apart from worrying?
No, Tom does not know he was tuned in every argument. Tom continues to post obscenely offensive things, completely and blissfully unaware he doesn’t just seem like an ignorant sexist, he has unequivocally proven himself an ignorant sexist. Nice work, Tom.
Wow, he’s still here? I went out and had a lovely early dinner (heirloom tomatoes! striped bass! wine!) with friends, and come back to find the comments now run to 8 pages and Tom is on all of them.
My best guess at a summary without reading everything: Tom insults everybody, plugs his web page/nonexistent video, and continually declares victory but never actually leaves. How’s that?
I had never seen that skimarks video before. He wants a woman that can be a mommy for him and happily clean up every mess he makes, no matter what. I’m not surprised he thinks women are picky. It’s no wonder women reject him, if he thinks he’s too good to wipe his own butt. Oh but women should be thrilled to have the chance to scrub his poop stains for him. The older my kids get, the more jobs and responsibilities I give them. They can do things like make their beds, wipe up spilled drinks, put dirty clothes in the hamper, take dishes to the sink, etc. So if a kindergartner can do this stuff, an abled adult man should, too.
Oh, and the MRA’s must have a very low opinion of men if they think all abled, adult men are incapable of wiping their own asses.
Mislepidy!
@ Cloudiah- Suspiciously accurate- oh crap, and here I thought I might be participating in Tom’s enlightenment. He’ll never get better, will he?
Vitamin D: Except not as pretty. :(
Tom: Hey, Tom, am I a wh*re? I certainly wouldn’t want to harm men with my wh*redom.
@ ozy- Yeah, I meant the crazy, fear wracked look in the eye. Also, kind of Irish. That dude who played the scarecrow is a really talented actor, isn’t he? Loved him in 26 days and that plane movie.
Well, I have seen him before and he has certain … patterns.
@Tom
I’m not working now. I was a teacher, and I will go back to being one next year. I took a two year leave of abscence to follow him when he got stationed in another state. This was non-negotiable for him, btw. I would have been willing to live apart and visit when we could in order to keep the money rolling in, but he wanted me here. I could not find a job at first. Then I started volunteering for the Army, and I’m busy with that.
So I guess I’m a part time temporary whore?
When I go back to work, I will be making the money, and providing the health benefits for our family. The husband wants to go back to school.
@Tom
I’m not working now. I was a teacher, and I will go back to being one next year. I took a two year leave of abscence to follow him when he got stationed in another state. This was non-negotiable for him, btw. I would have been willing to live apart and visit when we could in order to keep the money rolling in, but he wanted me here. I could not find a job at first. Then I started volunteering for the Army, and I’m busy with that. When I go back to work, I will be making the money, and providing the health benefits for our family. The husband wants to go back to school.
So I guess I’m a part time temporary wh***?
I forgot to bleep out the W word, so there’s an identical comment in moderation.
Ozymandias42,
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say yes, you are a wh*re.
Oh, dear, I forgot to give life details.
I’m a full-time college student. I live off my parents’ (substantial) savings, which are a result of my mother’s and father’s middle-class incomes and my father’s ridiculous budgetary and investment skills. I have worked for pay more-or-less continually since I was twelve (I took my senior year of high school off), although never full-time, or even a substantial number of part-time hours.
I know I’m super-class-privileged (super super super super class-privileged), but am I a wh*re?
See, I shouldn’t be surprised that Tom would callously insult military spouses who can deal with years of being apart from their partners with only occasional visits, and who may or may not become permanent caretakers to veterans with mental and physical combat scars. If this dude can go after trafficked children…
But I got angry. Congratulations asshole, you win.
I’m a wh*re? Great! I’m glad to take my place among my sex worker brethren and sistren.
I mean, Tom darling, wh*re isn’t an insult to me. Sex workers are people who work a hard job, one that I might not be able to do. I support sex worker rights and self-determination, and am very against using slurs against them.
First – thank you so much to all for the welcome!!!
Second – to be clear – I am very much in favor of women’s right to vote.
Third – I have a question for Tom. I was reading all your posts about child prostitution, and am very against your opinions, btw, but interested in how you’d work out the practicalities. For example, it is required in many countries that the police be completely sure that the suspect understands their rights. For example, in this recent news – http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/August/Authorities-Unravel-Horrific-Child-Porn-Ring/ where one of the kids you would have arrested was only 19 days old – how would the cops be able to know for certain that he/she understands their rights to legal counsel? Ok, there certainly wouldn’t be any problem with the “you don’t have to talk” issue, but are you perhaps starting to see a problem here?
I work with a great many Army Wives, and even though some don’t work, the ones that volunteer do extraordinary things for soldiers and their families, things that would never get done if we had to wait for a paid person to come along and do it. So think of it that way. When a family’s house burned down, the next day they had a new house with trucks full of donated furniture and clothing backing up into the driveway. Volunteers collected the donations and set up the house so they could move in the next day. Volunteers drove the trucks around town picking up donated goods and dropping them off. You can’t put a price on that.
So fembot, why can’t you get a job now?
You’re story sounds a little bit like one I heard today from a couple who got chatting to me about my next film on gold digging. The woman was doing all the talking, about how she’s always hated gold diggers, and has two jobs etc, and I was nodding away politely, and she opens her wallet and its full of paper money, and she’s giving it the big “independent woman” speech, and “we’ve always had separate bank accounts” then her boyfriend chimes in saying something about her steeling money out of his wallet on a regular basis!
I don’t think many women who give it the big equality speech would be able to put up with an audit of the actual financial facts. We’re too chivalrous to correct them, just agreeing and placating as they make claims about how unwhorish they are, but usually, on closer inspection, they’ve had an engagement ring off him, or he paid for more of the house, or he pays for the car, or he paid for the dates, and so on.
Or “He works, then I work” means “he works full-time and over-time, while I dabble at part-time” and so on.
Even if fembot does earn as much as her hubby, she should be doing more of the military service, because statistically, she can earn the same money without being put in harm’s way, compared to him.
I have the sneaking suspicion that when Tom calls people wh*res, he actually means “women who participates in the network of mutual obligation and assistance that forms any human society” and just uses that vile slur because he’s mad that women are a part of his society at all.
Also, @fembot, all of the military spouses I know do freaking awesome things. Y’all deserve some serious respect.
This one’s for MSN.
Rahu: 19 days old? Holy shit. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate the human race anymore… D:<
Women are all golddiggers? Man, it’s almost as if I *hallucinated* the time I gave my boyfriend a present two weeks after Christmas so he wouldn’t feel obligated to give me one back.* Of course, judging from MRAs’ philosophy, I’m hallucinating my entire dating life.
*I hate receiving presents and enjoy giving them; he’s vice versa.
@Tom- My mother runs her household’s finances, and has for years. My father regularly asks her for cash, because he’s an artsy type who never remembers to run to the bank. Both of them work two (or more) paid jobs, and pool their accounts. Who is the wh*re?
Katz – yup. 19 days.
Also, please explain to me why unpaid labor is less valuable inherently than paid labor.
No, it means I will teach full time while he goes to school. There is no part time job for me.
But basically I don’t work right now because I don’t want to and I don’t need to. End of story. You would call that a wh*re, I call that fortunate. Yes, my husband bought me an engagement ring. I’ve never bought him anything of value. But if you asked him, I think he would say that he is more than satisfied with our arrangement. He comes home to a clean house and a warm meal. We are very happy and affectionate, and almost never argue. And like I said, I do volunteer work, even though it is only part time, and I don’t get paid for it. But it is work.
And has it occured to you that some men don’t want their wives to work? My father never let my mother get a job, even though she wanted to. I’m not saying it’s right, but it happens.
Huh? That doesn’t even make sense. And even if I wanted to join the Army, and my husband agreed to it (he never would) I couldn’t do my husband’s job because he is in combat, and women aren’t allowed in combat.
My favorite part of Tom Martin is watching him crow victory, tbh. It’s fucking beautiful.
See, this is the neat bit- a groan inducing anecdote about taking money from your partner’s wallet in a relationship where finances are shared and household expenses benefit both partners becomes proof positive for Tom that women are always taking money for men, even when they’re not. See, your claims are extremely poorly evidenced, Tom, and pretty much textbook examples of confirmation bias.
@ozy
I love giving gifts, too. I always buy tons of rewards and stuff for my class when I’m teaching. Unfortunately, my husband doesn’t like to receive gifts, and he’s always awkward about it :( I’ve learned to just give him a card and cook him dinner.
@ Rutee- the crowing in victory hasn’t happened yet that I can see- maybe there’s a vestigial inkling of self awareness that somehow got activated today. Perhaps it’s the weather.
Fembot, you’re a hore. Next!
@Tom
I know. I just don’t care.
MDubz, you are, for pretending you don’t know what a whwar is.
I will never renounce prostitution in all its forms! Never! Never I tell you! AAAARRRRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Ignorance of prostitution makes you a…prostitute? LOL
The creative spelling in attempts to get around moderation reminded me of something, and now I have a perfect song to share.
Fembot,
Your first step, on the road to renouncing prostitution, and becoming a really interesting person with the potential to really make the world a better place, is acknowledging you are a prostitute. You’ve done it!
The next phase, is to decide how you would like to make the world a better place. What are you going to invent?
What do we need, that no one else has thought of, that you would like to try and develop?
Nah, fembot, a vagina makes you a prostitute. because Tom likes to imagine that there is some financial transaction that might one day allow him access to your vagina. Never mind the mutual love and respect you might have for your romantic partners- if you are a dime in their debt that dime could be transferred to Tom’s ledger!
This is basically witch hunt logic. Can’t say I’m shocked.
Tom – still curious over here about how you’d handle the rights of the not-quite-up-to-three-weeks-old “criminal” that I mentioned.
@ Fembot- Tom requires you to invent something no one else has thought of ever to be worthy of respect in his eyes. Which should be terribly easy and a worthwhile goal- who wouldn’t want that man’s approval. I recommend wholesome and delicious Boson particle brownies!
I help children (some of whom are boys) by being a teacher. I make my husband happy, which may not matter to you, but I think it’s important :)
Does having children count?
If not, then probably nothing. I don’t like science, and I’m not a techy type person. I may write a novel someday, but don’t count on it. Guess I’m stuck being a wh*re :(
Oh man, I was right in my hypothesis. YAY ME!
(Also, can I just bring up the irony that he just called a single, financially independent future rabbi a wh*re? Priceless!)
Fembot: Fortunately, he likes receiving presents, because he hates shopping. XD
Tom: What if someone sells sex AND invents things? Are they a wh*re?
Has Tommy ever claimed to have invented anything? Apart from his definition of prostitution, I mean.
A. There is nothing wrong with sex work, provided it is not coerced or coercive. It’s work.
B. People in relationships should be free to negotiate the arrangements that work for them (provided they are not coerced or coercive).
3. The above pertains to adults making free choices, not children. [19 days old! I despair for this world sometimes.]
That’s not perfect, because wine, but it’s a pretty good summary of what I think.
I feel no need to convince Tom that I am not a sex worker because I honestly don’t care what he thinks about anything, and because of what I’ve said above.
Wait, today I thought of something. I told my husband someone should invent a jacket with compartments in it that you could fill with ice. The fabric would keep the ice from numbing or burning your skin, and you could wear it when you don’t want to turn on the air conditioner. But he wasn’t too impressed.
He sure as shit ain’t making the world a better place, that much I do know.
He has invented a lovely palace in the sky that he likes to live in. Does that count?