Fox News lends a hand to the White Men’s Rights Movement
Suzanne Venker: White Men’s Rights Activist
In a case of spectacularly bad timing, Fox News happened to choose the day before the Zimmerman verdict was handed down to publish an op-ed proclaiming “the White American Male” to be the most oppressed creature on Planet Earth. In a piece entitled “Men — The New Second Class Citizens,” professional antifeminist Suzanne Venker declared that
From boyhood through adulthood, the White American Male must fight his way through a litany of taunts, assumptions and grievances about his very existence. His oppression is unlike anything American women have faced.
What is revealing about this quote, besides its complete disconnection from reality, is that Venker makes no other references to race in the rest of her piece, which runs through a number of tiresome and oh-so-familiar MRA talking points about the alleged oppression of men.
Venker complains about schools being biased towards girls, from grade schools that force students to sit still to colleges with their infernal Title IX. She whines about “sit coms and commercials that portray dad as an idiot.”
Quoting antifeminist psychologist Helen Smith, a friend of and sometime contributor to A Voice for Men, she suggests that women can get their boyfriends or husbands locked up on a whim just by claiming abuse.
I’m surprised she didn’t talk about the evils of “friend zoning.”
But when Venker refers to “men” in all of these complaints, she is evidently thinking only of white men — why else would she switch so seamlessly from talking about the alleged oppression of “men” to proclaiming “the White American Male” the ultimate victim?
There’s really no other word for this than, well, racist.
The day after Fox published Venker’s nonsense, we were of course reminded (as if any of us really needed to be reminded) of the very real oppression faced by “the Black American Male.”
Trayvon Martin didn’t die because he happened to see a show featuring a bumbling sitcom dad. He died because George Zimmerman saw a young black man in a hoodie walking home from the store and assumed, apparently because Martin was young and black and wearing a hoodie, that he was up to something sinister.
Trayvon Martin didn’t die because he was male; he died because he was a black male. His killer walked free not because his victim was male, but because his victim was a black male.
Suzanne Venker did us all a favor by revealing the unconscious racism underlying so many Men’s Rights complaints. The Men’s Rights movement is not only a movement that is overwhelmingly made up of white men; it’s a movement that’s almost exclusively about white men, and their largely imaginary oppressions, as well. We might as well call it the White Men’s Rights Movement.
Posted on July 16, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, FemRAs, imaginary backwards land, imaginary oppression, irony alert, ladies against women, misogyny, MRA, on the tv, oppressed white men, racism and tagged antifeminism, fox news, men's rights, MRA, racism, suzanne venker. Bookmark the permalink. 665 Comments.
WTF is this world coming to!? We have white chicks who are defending MRM now lol!? Someone give me an aspirin plz! But this is typical of Fox though to air stuff like this. The MRM is stpupid as RooshV said. Those guys aren’t headed nowhere.
Bravo. I’ve noted this myself in an article I entitled “The intersection of misogyny, racism, homophobia, and transphobia in the MRM” where I likened them to the “white power” movement.
Can we amend that to the Straight White Mens’ Rights Movement? Because they aren’t exactly dripping with empathy for gay guys either.
Mra arglebargle + Right wing media = A match made in heaven.
Where else would one find an audience so ready and eager to believe that straight white guys are naturally meant to run things, and anything that threatens their total dominance is upsetting the natural order of things and will inevitably destroy society?
inb4 Obsidian Files starts yelling that we’re just as bad.
They are rascist right down to their little white toesees. But call them on it and they whine and howl and run off to play with vox day.
I don’t know if I would consider that worse than the oppression of the countless African-American women who were enslaved, Suzanne. But then, much like you mean “white men” when you say men, you mean “white women” when you say women, don’t you? Racist crap.
Ugh. People I was around today were talking about the case, and how we can’t really know what happened, and it had nothing to do with Trayvon’s race. According to them, people are overreacting and making it about race when it wasn’t. But they were stumped when I asked them why there is a trend of people being found innocent when the victim is a person of color. I hope I at least made them start questioning their insistence that it isn’t about race.
Cassandra, also cis white straight dudes.
I also don’t get how oppression of men with taunts is any worse than what women get. Do women not get taunted? What about women like Amanda Todd?
And why are feminists the ones responsible for all this? Were men never taunted and told to man up before feminists?
Also(sorry for spamming) is she crying? It looks like she’s got mascara running down her cheeks.
Women – the old second class citizens because of thousands of years of oppression and control.
(White) Men – the new second class citizens because Title IX and VAWA.
Sometimes you hear an argument so convincing, you can’t even look it straight in face because you’re afraid you’ll vomit all over it.
Worse is implied, but the statement is unlike. And I suppose this is true. White males have to share schools with non white males, which they did not used to have to do. So not only do they taunt one another mercilessly but there are witnesses to their behavior and ohmydearpawsandwhiskers they actually have to effing compete with non white non males!!!
Teh horrorez!
Echidne give this white male supremacy lament an excellent going over.
Yes, the straight white male is practically an endangered species. WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THEM, FOR ONCE?
I really wish there was a sarcasm font.
When Dr. Helen Smith is the most convincing authority in your article you know you have a problem.
Falsoncer: shhh, please don’t summon him. I’m starting to think socialkenny comes from the same skidmark in the PUA sphere.
^Falconer.
Title XI is oppression now? People like her do not make men look good. She’s standing up for rapists in the name of all men. I’m sorry lady, but that’s some serious misandry.
She does look like her mascara had run. Maybe she was moved to tears by the plight of the MRAs?
Another one of those completely not oppressed women in Indiana have been arrested for feticide as it appears she spontaneously or medically aborted.
Eh, I’m still undecided on whether socialkenny is here in good faith or to spam PUA shit. In this case though…
“Someone give me an aspirin plz!”
Will Advil suffice?
Ok I am totally off topic now, but ket’s backed this fucked up train up. Arrested for a possible spontaneous abortion, as in the medical term for a miscarriage? Arrested, because she miscarried.
Not that I doubt you, but got a link?
And not only must the White American Male fight his way through a litany of taunts, assumptions and grievances about his very existence, he has to endure the rigorous torture of [gasp!!] sitting still at a desk in school!! Boys need to be ACTIVE, dontchaknow, unlike those icky girls who are innately ultra-passive and inactive.
Does anyone here have info on girls and boys in schools? Like her claim of bias in favor of girls?
Aaaaaawww, she’s the Tammy Faye of the MRA
“Does anyone here have info on girls and boys in schools? Like her claim of bias in favor of girls?”
Give me a minute, it’ll be US stats, but I found this for NWO at one point.
Basically if those uppity women and POC would accept their proper subordinate place in society and stop trying to get an education and a job all would be right with the world, and oh by the way do as I say not as I do!!
Here is the Indiana linky http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/07/16/indiana-woman-charged-with-feticide/
Holy shit… I read that as India and was not surprised at all, but now that I see, wtf America.
I’m not saying it would be ok in India, its just something I’d expect there.
Her claim is that boys should not be required to sit still in class and the recent doing away with recess favors girls cuz I guess they don’t need recess. Never mind the fact that in the many years when girls and POC were forbidden school the withe boys were indeed expected to sit still and do their work.
I’m sure she finds the laws set up to protect women from discrimination from banks also cruel to white men too? You know because it stops banks from denying loans based on gender. Now less men will get loans from the bank all because woman are getting loans.
This is the second woman Indiana has charged with Feticide. The previous was a woman who ate rat poison in an effort to commit suicide.
I remember when NWOslave posted a link to a Title IX document, and how it turned out that it was gender neutral throughout, with the exception of a bit at the beginning talking about how women and men could be victims of sexual assault.
Thebewilderness, so now women don’t need exercise?
What bullshit. Also inb4 MRA crying “well women are already sitting around and eating bonbons”.
I just don’t understand this. Exercise is beneficial to women in so many ways, in fact it’s necessary. Taking away exercise for children hurts both genders, how paranoid does one have to be to think that it’s oppressing men?
N00b time…
What is NWO?
Are schools really doing away with recess? If so, that is a crime against children. All kids need time to just play, for Dworkin’s sake!
@augzillery, but anything that some men don’t like is oppression, whereas when the wommenz don’t like something it’s because they are feminist bitches – sorted?
auggziliary, NWOslave is a troll who used to comment a LOT here.
Read this to get his worldview: http://manboobz.forummotion.com/t454-nwo-s-big-book-of-learnin
Sorry let me correct that, anything some WHITE men don’t like is the worsest oppression Eva.
Cloudiah, I love the icon! I haven’t been around much for a bit, let me know who it represents. :-)
Not what I was looking for, but it works — http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057988#abstract0
Epically short summary? Girls are catching up with boys at math, while the reading gap remains. Combine the two scores, and yes, girls are outperforming boys. Considering everything I find keeps asking how to close the reading gap, I’m not sure how this means feminism is making boys stupider, but rather efforts in teaching math are making girls better at it.
For the non-math inclined, think of it this way — if the boy average in math is 50, and the girl average 25; and the boy average in reading 25, and the girl average 50, then both genders have an average score of 75 (this is not in percents btw). When you close the math gap — putting both scores at 50~ — without closing the reading gap, you have boys having an average score of 75 still, but now girls have an average score of 100.
So yes, improving girl’s math skills has put them, on average, ahead of the boys. And yes, the reading gap does need to be addressed. How any of this makes the remaining gap (which is, in a sense, growing as long as girls’ math skills increase) the fault if feminism…I got nothing.
And Petey? Check out the table on math scores by gender, in percentiles. Note how the ratio is only barely favoring men, and pretty stable, until the 99% percentile.
Yoyo, I have no idea who my avatar is; I found her in some old French fashion magazine that had been digitized and thought she looked snooty and entitled enough to piss off MRAs. :D
Lets do this.
:D
“The most obvious proof is male bashing in the media. It is rampant and irrefutable. From sit-coms and commercials that portray dad as an idiot to biased news reports about the state of American men, males are pounced on left and right. “
Of course, there is no female bashing in media. NONONONONO. Only men. Poor things shown as bumbling fathers……By the way where is this “journalists” sources?
The Women’s Media Center has an interesting study recently…….Which shows that women are underrepresented in media. Which would mean that if women are underrepresented then men must be……overrepresented. Hmm….interesting.
Media and Gender Monitor reports only 24% of news stories are about women. Which means 76% must be about men…..Interesting. These poor men. Poor poor men. So, discriminated against.
Women are also younger on average than their male counterparts. Ah, its always nice to be reminded that if you are a woman you damn well better be young.
In the top 100 grossing films of 2007,2008 and 2009 women had speaking roles 1/3 of the time. Meaning men must have had speaking roles 2/3 of the time. Poor misrepresented men.
Well, I suppose that Suzzanne must have sources which prove men being shown as a a bumbling idiot occasionally is on the same all these other things. After all, what about the men?
“Plus, many schools have eliminated recess. Such an environment is unhealthy for boys, for they are active by nature and need to run around. “
Interesting. I guess only boys enjoy running around. Us women just like to sit still and look pretty.
“Title IX is also abused when it comes to sex. In 1977, a group of women at Yale used Title IX to claim sexual harassment and violence constitute discrimination against women. “
I have to ask how much research she did into this case. I’m guessing by her dismissal and anger about it that she didn’t do that much digging. You know where the professor where groping the female students. And male classmates where belittling their female peers in class. Fraternities going to the freshmen dorms and screaming “fucking sluts” and “no means yes yes means anal” at them. And the school not responding to allegations. But of course suing the schools lack of action was unfair of those women because the poor men.
End of part 1
From boyhood through adulthood, the White American Male must fight his way through a litany of taunts, assumptions and grievances about his very existence. His oppression is unlike anything American women have faced.
Well, that last sentence is inadvertently true. It’s completely unlike anything American women have faced, in the same way that doorknobs are unlike trombones. But then, these are the same people who routinely compare universal health care to ZOMG NAZI DEATH CAMPS. Historical awareness is not their forte.
Also, “Fox and Friends”? Is that lady friendzoning us?
Another satisfied block quote customer!
“Fox & Friends” could’ve been such a cute children’s TV show, too.
Yes, of course white men are the most oppressed people ever. And the scores and scores and scores of Black and brown women whose deaths occur without any fanfare every year and whose killers are rarely identified much less brought to trial are all just coincidences. Possibly suicides, even, because reasons. Nothing to see here, let’s go back to boo-hooing over those poor Aryan boys being made to sit politely in class.
Cloudiah it’s very cool, if I were at all technically capable I might use a frida khalo just because her eyebrows would send them insane, or patty smiths armpit photo from horses. Fun thought! ;-)
“If a woman gets angry for any reason, she can simply accuse a man and men are just assumed guilty in our society,” notes Dr. Helen Smith, author of the new book, “Men on Strike.” This is particularly heinous since, as Smith adds, violence in domestic relations “is almost 50% from men and 50% from women.”
Lets see. Where is her source for that number? I went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics to see what they claimed. Shockingly, I found that they claim females are more likely than males to victimized by family violence (which included romantic partners as well as spouses and children). Women are 84.3% of spouse abuse victims and 85.9% of the victims in violence between bf and gf. Not really lining up with what Dr. Helen claims. But I suppose she would know better than the folks that collect the data. Men, however, are more likely to be victims of violence by strangers: 68.3%. Oddly enough men were also more likely to be the offender in violence against strangers as well 86%. And not all violence is equal. Wives are 81% of those killed by spouses and girlfriends are 71%. Men accounted for 79.2% of murders within the family………So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
(break to watch kitty videos)
Part 2
Guffaw ferrets, there is a dreadful photo, I think from Time, which shows a woman with two twins on her lap, one is a skeletal girl and one is a fat much bigger boy baby. The long story is an except from a study about all the missing women in the world, left to starve denied healthcare or just aborted for gender reasons. So yes we should all worry about white Menzies problems like hard chairs. Facepalm.
@Cloudiah
Gah! You ruined it for me. Are you telling me you DON’T wear fancy hats all the time?
“America needs to wake up. We have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction—from a man’s world to a woman’s world.”
Ah, yes thats right. Its a womans world. Which is why women hold a majority of senate seats….wait you mean they don’t? Well, then women must be the majority of CEOS? No?
Are you telling me women are silenced in the senate when they want to talk about womens issues? Are you telling me that womens reproductive health is being legislated?
That doesn’t seem like it is a womens world……That doesn’t seem right….
“This is the second woman Indiana has charged with Feticide. The previous was a woman who ate rat poison in an effort to commit suicide.
On that note, the petition to free her is 2.3k~ signatures short of the current goal. I got 1,640 survey responses. You know what to do.
Argh, I hate the “the bumbling male -stereotype in media is misandry because it teaches men that they’re stoopid” argument so much. Anyone with their head out of their ass can see that the moral of this trope is actually “patient wife/girlfriend/mother/daughter/grandmother/friend/dog/goldfish/whatever repeatedly forgives and loves the bumbling man anyway, no matter how selfish, obnoxious, irresponsible and/or dangerous the things he does are”. And “if the female supporting character fails to forgive him/calls him out on it/does something even remotely stupid herself, she is a/an [insert favored gendered slur here].”
Radical Parrot: yeah that trope pretty much says “do whatever, some woman will play mommy and bail you out in the end, it’s what women are for.”
That 50%/50% thing, is that the one where it’s based on her asking her teacher friend to keep track in school? I think David reported on that.
“But I suppose she would know better than the folks that collect the data. ”
Oh no, that’s real data alright, from a collection method that will send me on an hour long rant.
Along the lines of my previous comment: http://www.forharriet.com/2013/07/who-will-march-for-marissa-alexander.html –> and that just pertains to the North Americas, specifically the US. Definite evidence that white men are oppressed and all one has to do to put a man in jail with or without due process is exclaim “he did it!”
Petition: Signed. Lemme know when there is one for the second woman as well.
Btw: in case brain bleach is needed early on this one, I found this video of some narsty narsty feminists receiving their divine comeuppances.
I’m one of those oppressed American White Males, and let me tell you, it’s awful. I mean, the cops pull me over for speeding and don’t even ask whether I have guns or drugs in the car. I apply for a job and the hiring manager just assumes I don’t have a criminal record, as if you could tell someone’s not a criminal just by looking at their skin.
People don’t grope me on the metro, people don’t make creepy comments about my ass at work, and people act as if I have a right to live in the United States and do whatever I want. If I were assaulted, sexually or otherwise, people would assume my attacker is in the wrong, and not ask me “but what did you do to provoke this attack? Weren’t you asking for it?” Whereas, if I assaulted someone, I would get the benefit of the doubt – maybe she was just lying and exaggerating what I did to her, maybe he was provoking me, maybe he started the fight. People practically act as if I can do no wrong.
This is what oppression is like, people!
/sarcasm
I’m constantly confused as to HOW modern classrooms are worse for boys than the 1950s classroom. My father went to Catholic schools and was constantly getting wrapped on the knuckles for talking, moving, not paying attention, etc. If anything classrooms today are more friendly towards activity than they used to be. Instead of rote memorization many classrooms use tactile learning and stations (i.e. to learn math they will count out m&ms at one station, do a worksheet at another station, and then a word problem at a third station).
I just never know where the idea that classrooms used to be great for boys because they could run and jump and play came from. Sitting still and following directions has always been a major part of the education system. This isn’t new.
Argenti….signed.
@guffaw-ferrets, so many kittehs! I should report that the inferior beta male whom I am only dating for his money and White Knighting abilities will soon be inducted as a servant of the Feminist Furrinati. I shall share evidence of our triumph with the Hivemind.
(non-MRA translation: My boyfriend is getting a kitten and I promise to provide pictures!)
Happy to sign.
In middle school I had a math teacher who announced the first day of class that while a girl might be the top student, the boys would generally do better than the girls in class. In high school I had an English teacher who told me that women don’t write at the college level, and a science teacher who pushed his anti-choice views in class because SCIENCE!
Not really seeing how this was favorable treatment . . .
I feel your pain… it’s not easy being white, male… gods I hope you don’t have to carry the weight of being heterosexual of the appropriate approved religion(s). ;)
In fourth grade, I once had a teacher react with surprise at how good I was at science and math. She told me that girls are hardly ever good at science at math. If I wasn’t the type of person who tries harder when you tell me I can’t do something, I would probably have given up on science and math right then. But now I’m studying biology at an excellent university.
Polydactyl, I totally understand, my aspiring middle class parents were still sure that the best I could be was a librarian. Nothing like low expectations to make you angry enough to do better, until recently I have held many high rating positions in a number of technical fields (and I still love librarians).
Theoretical question: if a man loves cats a lot, like A LOT a lot — as in, has hand-raised several kittens and is given to posting many pictures/videos of all kinds of cats (including many of his own kittens and one of a basket full of someone else’s kittens) to his social media account every single day …
but he often labels these pictures “pussy”, as in “see how much I love pussy” …
is he way alpha, or totes a beta mangina?
This may also relate to the weekend’s cunnilingus conversation, so the answer is probably too complicated for me (a mere woman) to understand.
Jayem, congrats on the impending addition to your family : D
Yoyo-So true! I’ve also done really well at university partly because my stepdad told I wouldn’t be able to make it in college. I was too stupid and irresponsible to take care of myself and get good grades. I’m happy to say he was very, very wrong.
Another thing that has happened to be in school that favors male students is when the teacher asks a question and I raise my hand to answer. I answer correctly but get told I’m not quite right. Then a male student raises his hand, gives exactly the same answer I gave, and gets praised for giving such a good answer. It makes me so mad.
This. It makes me so angry when it happens. I’ve gotten pretty good at pointing out to my professors when it happens to others, but it’s not often I get the same support when it happens to me.
I’m confused. Did boys not sit at desks before feminism?