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Upvote, downvote: Men’s Rights Redditors on the evils of “p*ssy privilege” and women being encouraged to go into tech
Many Men’s Rights Redditors see themselves as fighting a noble fight against genuinely evil, misandrist radical feminists on the internet. One of their most powerful weapons: the deadly downvote.
Reading through one old thread on Men’s Rights last night, I noticed how some Men’s Rights Redditors had deftly deployed their downvotes to fight off the evil feminist misandry lurking in this comment:
Outrageous! A statement that could have been ripped straight from Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto!
Kudos to the brave Redditors who saw this vile misandry for what it was.
Elsewhere in the same thread, I happily noticed, Men’s Rights Redditors were helpfully upvoting the reasonable and uplifting sentiments of decent fellows, like the Men’s Rights Redditor who goes by the name theboners, who offered a sensibly critical take on the always controversial question of whether or not it was a good idea for men to give in to “pussy privilege” and let ladies have the vote:
Oh you irresponsible women! Why do we let you do anything?
I mean, aside from letting GirlWritesWhat make YouTube videos; that’s ok.
-
It might be time for that blinking
gif to remind possibly literal-minded readers that I do not actually agree with theboners or think SweetieKat is a reincarnation of Valerie Solanas.
Hugo-nominated Vox Day: Even worse than you think
Strike up the band! Vox Day has been nominated for a Hugo!
So our old friend Vox Day – the proudly bigoted science fiction/fantasy writer and self-professed expert on all things “Alpha” – is in the news again. This time, it’s not for declaring most date rape imaginary or writing a racist diatribe against a fellow author. Nope! It’s because another of his literary efforts, a novelette entitled Opera Vita Aeterna, just got nominated for a Hugo award.
In other news, apparently it’s not that hard to get nominated for a Hugo if you have a coterie of hard-core fans who are perhaps still pissed that you got kicked out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and you suggest on your blog beforehand that it would be cool if they voted to nominate you.
Anyway, there’s already plenty of discussion of the news amongst the science-fiction set, most of them understandably displeased that a racist, misogynistic, homophobic asshole got a nomination. Here’s a bit more about the racist attack on black fantasy writer NK Jemisin (and misuse of the SFWA Twitter account) that got him tossed from the organization. If you’ve never seen what he wrote about Jemisin, I’ll just quote some of the more memorable passages again here, because, wow. I’ve bolded the best — that is, worst — bits:
How Melody Hensley is putting the bullies to shame
Yesterday, a message arrived in my email inbox with the title “Are you happy to die a virgin,” a somewhat unusual question, I felt, not just because of its faulty premise but also because of its lack of the conventional question mark at the end. The email itself was equally blunt and illiterate:
You sound like a 40 y/o FAT VIRGIN living in a basement rotting away. Is manboobz.com your way of hide behind your own internal issues u refuse to face? Father issues???
Ah, here’s where the missing question mark went, along with some friends.
The sender appended a photo of an extremely obese Asian man at least 20 years my junior, mostly if not completely nude, along with the question (and I quote verbatim) “This this photo you??”
8 Men’s Rights Memes From A Voice for Men That Make No Damn Sense
Yesterday, we looked at 6 memes from A Voice for Men’s “meme team” and decoded what they really meant. Today, some memes from AVFM’s Pinterest page that are a bit harder to decode, because they really make no sense at all. I’ll do my best to try to sort them out.
1) TALK TO THE HAND
What might it mean? “Ha ha girls talk too much, well joke’s on you because I’m GOING MY OWN WAY and later I’ll go home and make a poster about how I imagined I might I totally really did put that bitch in her place.”
I mean, that is what this poster is saying, right? It’s illustrating the notion that men and women should listen to one another by depicting a dude just up and leaving because he’s tired of listening?
How exactly does this advance any “men’s rights” other than the right of men to act like petulant children?
6 Memes from A Voice for Men, and What They Really Mean
Memes, memes everywhere, and not a drop of sense.
A Voice for Men seems to have gone a bit meme-crazy. The site’s official Pinterest page, which seems to be fairly new, is loaded up with 374 memes on such subjects as Sexual Politics, False Accusations, MGTOW, and of course Feminism.
It’s not clear how many of these memes were created by the AVFM “Meme Team” and how many were simply grabbed from the internet. But a number of the memes are emblazoned with the A Voice for Men name and/or logo, so I think it’s fair to say that these, at least, are “official” AVFM memes.
Going through these memes, one thing about them becomes clear very quickly: most of them seem to convey messages that are often considerably different than those their creators seem to have intended.
So here, without further ado, here are 6 AVFM memes and what they really mean.
Women who get catcalled are the real sexual harassers, explains Men’s Rights Redditor
Woman sexually harassing a group of men with her slutty attire.
A month or so ago, after an antiques dealer responded to her comment about a piece of furniture by asking her if she and her female friend “ever made out with each other,” Leah Green of The Guardian decided it was time to try a little gender-reversal experiment: she would use hidden cameras to film her to treat unsuspecting men to the same sort of inappropriate sexual remarks that women get treated to every day, using real life examples collected by the @everydaysexism project.
You can see their reactions in the short video she posted on the Guardian’s website; she discusses her motivations more here.
Many of the men, unaccustomed to this sort of harassment, weren’t exactly sure how to react to her comments. When she asked a bartender for a drink and a lap dance, she had to repeat herself several times before he got her point. When she tried the “have you guys ever made out with each other” line on two older men, they couldn’t quite even process the question at first.
Others got angry. When she yelled “oi, get your asses out” at some construction workers – a gender-swapped version of the classic “show us your tits” — one of the affronted men responded with “you can’t talk to us like that.” And that was essentially the point of the video: no one should be talking to anyone like that.
That point seems to have escaped one angry commenter on the Men’s Rights subreddit going by the name of frankie_q, who spewed forth a well-received virtual manifesto arguing that it’s complaints about cat-calling, not the cat-calling itself, that is the bigger problem. And that the biggest problem of all is that women wear clothes that men consider sexy.
Phyllis Schlafly channels the manosphere with a column about female “hypergamy.”
The world’s most eligible bachelor?
Professional antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly – perhaps best known for her fervent opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment – seems to have been channeling the manosphere in a column she published yesterday on the issue of “paycheck fairness.” Turns out she thinks such fairness is actually a bad idea, because ladies love marrying rich guys more than they love earning money.
According to Schlafly, equal pay messes with the fundamental female desire for “hypergamy” – that favorite manosphere buzzword – and undermines marriage:
[H]ypergamy … means that women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don’t have the same preference for a higher-earning mate.
While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.
Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.
Indeed, Schlafly argues, women love marrying men who earn more than them so much that when the pay gap is eliminated some of them just won’t marry at all. Which is apparently the end of the world, or something.
The pay gap between men and women is not all bad because it helps to promote and sustain marriages. …
In two segments of our population, the pay gap has virtually ceased to exist. In the African-American community and in the millennial generation (ages 18 to 32), women earn about the same as men, if not more.
It just so happens that those are the two segments of our population in which the rate of marriage has fallen the most. Fifty years ago, about 80 percent of Americans were married by age 30; today, less than 50 percent are.
So it’s not enough that most people end up getting married; civilization will crumble if more than half of them don’t marry before the age of 30!
And so, she suggests, if American women knew what was good for them they would be begging for employers pay them even less, relative to men.
The best way to improve economic prospects for women is to improve job prospects for the men in their lives, even if that means increasing the so-called pay gap.
Hmm. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that Schlafly – a best-selling author and popular speaker on the right – didn’t send back any of her royalties or speaking fees so that she would feel more like a woman and her late husband would feel like more of a man, and I doubt she’s doing so now, as a widow. She’s also been unmarried for more than twenty years. Coincidence?
NOTE TO MEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS: When you find yourself agreeing with Phyllis Schlafly on pretty much anything (beyond, say, the existence of gravity, the need for human beings to breathe air, and other widely accepted beliefs of this sort), this is an indication that perhaps your movement isn’t the progressive, egalitarian movement that you like to pretend that it is, and that in fact it is sort of the opposite.
That said, I should also note that Schlafly’s notion of “hypergamy,” while sexist and silly, is decidedly less obnoxious than the version peddled by PUAs and websites like A Voice for Men — congrats, Men’s Human Rights Activists, you’re actually worse than Phyllis Schlafly!
She just uses the term to indicate a desire to marry up. For many manospherians, by contrast, “hypergamy” doesn’t just mean marrying up; it means that women are fickle, unfaithful monsters who love nothing better than cuckolding beta males in order to jump into bed with whatever alpha male wanders into their field of vision. (I’m guessing Schlafly hasn’t actually been going through the archives at AVFM or Chateau Heartiste looking for column ideas.) While many MRAs love to complain about hypergamy, many of them also seem to think that it’s unfair that “beta” males with good jobs aren’t automatically entitled to hot wives.
In case anyone is wondering, the actual definition of the word “hypergamy” involves none of that. According to Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, the word means “marriage to a person of a social status higher than one’s own; orig., esp. in India, the custom of allowing a woman to marry only into her own or a higher social group.”
That’s it. It refers to the fact of marrying up, not to the desire to marry up, much less to the alleged desire of all twentysomething women to ride the Alpha Asshole Cock Carousel. The manosphere’s new and not-so-improved definition came from a white nationalist named F. Roger Devlin.
ANOTHER NOTE: Big thanks to the people who emailed me about this story. If you ever see something you think would make for a good Man Boobz post, send me an email at futrelle [at] manboobz.com. I get a lot of ideas from tips!
Pickup guru Roosh V: “I’m a clown.”
Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my sadness hid
Oh, dear. Our old friend Roosh – the rapey, racist expat pickup guru – seems to be having some sort of existential crisis. In a new post titled “Men Are Nothing More Than Clowns To The Modern Woman,” – yes, really – he laments the sad fact that women are no longer forced to rely on men.
There is definitely not a single woman alive in the Western world who needs a man. While in the past a woman had to put forth effort to obtain a husband who would help her survive, today she is protected by a welfare state that ensures she will never go hungry or spend one night on the street.
The HORROR!
Well, Roosh can rest easy, because, at least in the United States, his nightmare of women not going hungry or being forced to sleep on the streets is just that, a bad dream. Presumably he will be pleased to learn that lots of women (and children) go hungry. Lots of women (and children) are homeless.
Even a child she has out of wedlock from a drunken night out will not have to suffer from her mistake, and that’s in spite of the fact that many nations already provide her with free contraception to compensate for her lack of judgement in selecting worthy mates.
A tad ironic coming from a dude who constantly brags about “raw dogging” it – that is, having sex without a condom – with drunk women he’s just met.
Anything required for a woman’s survival or pleasure can be easily achieved without her having to put forth commitment, sacrifice, or labor. She can shave her head, gain 50 pounds, and disfigure herself with tattoos yet still have many suitors to—at the minimum—have sex on demand.
Such a terrible injustice, that women Roosh finds unattractive are actually able to have sex.
Her food and shelter will be provided by a state which has embarked on an extraordinary effort to compete with men for her devotion and loyalty.
So instead of looking for women who say that they “need a man,” Roosh has begun to focus on women who say that they “want a man.” Unfortunately, when he’s asked women if they want a man, “[o]nly in a few instances did a woman outright say yes, and these usually happened in Ukraine.”
Huh. Not sure that’s a real scientific poll there kiddo, as I imagine that very few women are going to answer “yes” to that question when it’s asked of them by this guy:
Do you want a man? Do you?
Anyhoo, so all this has given poor old Roosh a sad. Because women who don’t need men, who actually have options in their lives, are less interested in jumping into traditional long-term relationships than those with few options in life other than hooking themselves to a male provider.
And so, Roosh has sadly concluded, the typical young women of today
will treat you as a distraction to her more important job, girls’ nights out, and social networking validation happy time. Men have become an utterly replaceable and expendable commodity in a girl’s life. Her interest in a man is not unlike her interest in a new television show or Apple product … .
Huh. Or perhaps this is because you’re dating women at least a decade younger than you, in their early 20s, and this is how people in their early 20s often approach dating?
When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t see a man who has improved himself over the years to be the best that his genes allow—I see a glittery skirt that a girl encounters in the mall.
You see a what now?
Is the skirt too expensive or is it on sale? Is there only one left of her size or is the rack full of them? Does she already have something similar or is it totally novel? Does her friends think it’s cute or just alright? After trying it on, does it flatter her body or make her look fat?
Dude, this metaphor really isn’t working for you.
We are like glittery pieces of fashion to women—items that she truly doesn’t need. Not only has she already collected so many of them, but she can easily obtain more within walking distance from where she lives. She can even browse online from home while in her pajamas through a nearly unlimited selection.
Oh no! WOMEN HAVE CHOICES!
We are not men in the traditional sense—we are clowns.
Well, some men are.
With our tight game we have to be entertainers who create drama and excitement in a girl’s life, just long enough so that she spreads her legs and makes sexy noises, and even though she did commit such an intimate act with us, she will soon lose interest or simply get bored, and then move on to the next shiny cock that catches her eye.
Gosh, who would imagine that the women you have one-night-stands with after meeting them in a bar would treat you like a one-night-stand?
Also, if your penis is actually shiny, you might want to check with your doctor about that.
The other side of this coin is that we no longer need women. We don’t need them to maintain our home or cook good meals for us. We don’t need them in an age where having children is no longer important or valued.
That is true. Men are not incapable of cooking. I can even manage a grilled cheese sandwich once in a while. And, no, you’re not obligated to have kids. Heck, as a man you can get away with not having kids and not even have to take a lot of shit about it.
Whatever natural connection that once existed between the sexes has now been severed. Neither sex needs each other so we dedicate ourselves to corporations, entertainment, and base pleasures instead, and this is a great tragedy that most people believe is a sign of progress, a cause for celebration.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I think Roosh think’s he’s had some sort of profound insight here. All because the 22-year-old women he spends his life pursuing don’t seem interested in properly genuflecting to him as a real man.
For the next girl I meet, I’m not going to ask her if she needs a man, because I know she doesn’t. Instead I will simply ask her if she wants a man, and if the answer leans yes, I will perform like the good clown I am so that she is entertained enough to have sex with me. Either she or I will eventually get bored and the relationship will end. Then I will simply repeat my performance on a someone new, because I’m a skilled clown, and that’s exactly what women today want.
You do that, Roosh, honey. Just try to make sure she’s actually sober enough to consent to your “performance” first. I know you have a little trouble with that.
Here’s a little video for Roosh to watch the next time he’s feeling down.
Return of Kings: “You must recognize feminism for what it truly is: one of the arms of Communism.”
From cosmarxpolitan.tumblr.com
Today, some cutting edge POLITICAL SCIENCE from the fellows over at Roosh Valizadeh’s Return of Kings blog. Specifically, one fellow named Samson Lamont who offers up some warnings about a dire threat to western civilization that most people have probably forgotten about: COMMUNISM.
Yes, it seems that the wily Communists are still trying to take over the United States. Only this time they’re not threatening us with missiles and stealing our atomic secrets and recruiting our young people into Maoist sects. (Well, a few of them are doing the latter.) Nope, they’re trying to sneak it past us in the form of FEMINISM. Let’s let Mr. Lamont explain:
It is a mistake to look at dealing with the effects of feminism as just putting up with spoiled, entitled bitches and learning how to deal with their endless shit tests so you can get in their pants. It is not some phase or fad that will eventually fade away. You must recognize feminism for what it truly is: one of the arms of Communism, with its goals being to break up the nuclear family, effectively weaken the country from within, and to eradicate any form of masculinity or aggression, thereby reducing the number of people who can engage in dissent.
But golly, you may say, I know a bunch of feminists, and I’m pretty sure none of them are – what did you call them? – Communists. But that’s where you’re wrong!
Now some of the younger readers might not be too familiar with the term Communism. That’s because you know it as Socialism, Progressivism, Liberalism, or Social Democracy. Same shit, different bull. I don’t use any of these synonyms because, just as we should engage in fat-shaming and slut-shaming, we should engage in Commie-shaming.
One of the Left’s favorite tricks is rebranding. Communism is still a bad word here in America, especially with the Baby Boomers that grew up during McCarthyism and the Red Scare in the 50’s and 60’s. So the Left refers to them only as “socialists” or “progressives” now, to disguise their true intentions.
Ah! Just like some guys refer to themselves as “pickup artists” rather than “date rapists.”
Anyhoo, so all this Communo-Feminism has pretty much destroyed everything good about the good old U.S. Of A.
[I]n a span of less than 50 years, creeping Communism has eroded all the hard work and sacrifice of our ancestors. … Our populace is lazy, spoiled, arrogant, and fat, while we build nothing of value here anymore.
We all know what happened to our women. Thanks to feminism, the nuclear family is gone and homosexual perversion is not only deemed normal, but is now openly promoted, accepted, and forced on us. Honor and integrity are now quaint remnants of a bygone era, existing only in small pockets of civilization. Workers are basically drones or expendable cannon fodder, known more by their number designations than by their names. If you are a man, the validity of your rights is determined by man-hating feminists and homosexuals and you are now guilty until proven innocent. Long story short, we are inexorably headed towards … hell … .
The only solution? Stop talking about equality and accept that attractive rich people are simply better than you.
This may be hard to swallow for some, but there is no such thing as equality. Life isn’t fair. Deal with it. Strong/weak, beautiful/ugly, tall/short, smart/dumb, rich/poor—some people are just simply better than others. …
Equality must be earned, and cannot be given.
Wait, what? I think I’m going to stick with the Communo-Feminists and the Homosexual perverts, thank you very much.
NOTE: I don’t like giving Return of Kings traffic, but I feel obligated to link to my sources, so I’ve hidden the link somewhere in the text above, if you feel the need to investigate further.
A Voice for Men fans have appropriated logos of real anti-violence organizations for new “Don’t Be That Girl” postering campaign
From @im_adam_barrett on Twitter
Here we go again. Like small children who have just discovered the power of the tantrum, the terrible people at A Voice for Men seem to have realized that the only reliable way for them to get the attention of the world is to act like complete assholes in public. And so some fans of AVFM have decided to bring back the “Don’t Be That Girl” campaign — you know, the witless and misogynistic “parody” of the successful Canadian “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness campaign. Now they’re postering in Halifax.
But there’s one difference: this time they’ve put the logos of the real sponsors of the real “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness project on their phony posters. (You can see the whole list by downloading one of the pdfs of the real posters on this page.)
So far, two of the organizations listed on their phony posters – the Bryony House shelter for victims of domestic violence and the Halifax Police Department – have made very clear that their logos are being used without permission.
https://twitter.com/BryonyHouse/status/448148862193389568
It’s a pretty safe bet that the other organizations whose logos were appropriated feel similarly.
I’d like to encourage anyone who can afford it to follow up on a suggestion from Cloudiah in the comments and donate to Bryony House so that some good can come out of all this.
Now, I’m no expert on Canadian law, but it seems rather unlikely to me that it’s legal to simply stick some organization’s logo on something and pretend that they have endorsed it. Especially when that organization is the police.
Apparently some MRAs disagree with me on that:
“Your consent is not required” seems to be the operating assumption of a lot of those drawn to the Men’s Rights movement.
In later tweets, Elam claims that using the logos is legal because of “fair use,” which is not actually a term used in Canadian law, and promises that the “[p]osters will continue, cupcake.”
I guess we will see. Here are several more photos of the posters. There’s more discussion of this in the AgainstMensRights subreddit.
EDITED TO ADD: Elam has now responded to the critics, and promises to bankroll any legal challenges against the posterers. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t understand why the logos are a problem.
EDIT/CORRECTION: It’s not completely clear that this postering campaign originated with AVFM. It’s pretty clear, though, that it’s supported by AVFM, and that those involved in it are supporters of AVFM. I’ve made a few changes to the headline and first graf to reflect this.
