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If you’re ever looking for a pretty much sure-fire way to get a Men’s Rights Activist to blow his top — not that this is a particularly difficult feat — just tell him to “man up.” Indeed, the phrase is so infuriating to some MRAs that it causes them to spew typos like a mad man. “Few phrases in the world make an MRAs [sic] want to rip our [sic] their spines and beat people to a bloody pulp with them,” writes TheZetaMale on his Zeta blog. “‘Man Up’ has to be one of them.” Meanwhile, on the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit, a fellow calling himself olythoreau seconds this emotion:
I noticed that people using the phrase “man up” or “be a man” really fucking pisses me off. A trigger of sorts. Fuck everyone who has any expectation that I or any other man perform masculinity to their liking. Yes, I’m a man, but I’m a fucking individual… and I’ll perform masculinity any way I fucking please!
Thing is, I completely agree with this sentiment: telling a guy to “man up” is an obnoxious thing to do. Oh, sure, I sometimes agree with the message people are trying to send by using this phrase: stop whining about trivial shit and get on with your life.
Indeed, no group of people I’ve ever run across is so expert in turning molehills into Mt. Everest than the MRA crowd; they put the whiniest of “victim feminists” to shame. Do you really need to boycott half the companies in the Fortune 500* because they ran “misandrist” ads featuring doofus husbands failing in their doofusy attempts to cook dinner? Does the fact that some random hot chick finds you repellent really mean that evil women rule the world? Does the fact that some anti-MRA blogger calls a dumb old sexist cartoon a dumb old sexist cartoon really mean that “feminists and manginas .. would love to enforce a world where the very thought that men experience problems with women in relationships is taboo[?]”
So I can certainly understand the exasperation so many people feel towards the MRM, as the very existence of this blog attests. But the phrase “man up” is absolutely the wrong way to make these points, for precisely the reasons olythoreau outlines. And I’d add: the phrase is sexist as hell, suggesting implicitly that non-men and non-manly men are a bunch of, well, pussies. (It’s telling that the most common alternate way to tell someone to “man up” is to tell him to “stop being a pussy.”)
I’m hardly the only feminist-ish person to dislike the phrase “man up”: Jezebel ran a story called “Stop Telling Men to ‘Man Up'” the other day, noting the sudden ubiquity of the phrase in the political world, and making the point that the phrase implies “that the worst thing to be is not-a-man — weak, lacking in courage.” (Of course, there are some MRAs who have no problem with the phrase “man up” for exactly this reason.)
But there is an irony to MRAs’ distaste with the phrase. No, scratch that, a HUMONGOUS GIGANTIC FUCKING IRONY. While they complain about the phrase “man up” being applied to them, they are the first to question the masculinity of anyone who disagrees with them or who displays their masculinity in any other way than they do — hence their almost ritualistic use of the gender-bending term “mangina” (NSFW link) to indicate anyone not-them. (For ample proof of this, just scroll down to the comments on virtually any post on this blog.) As cat points out in a comment on this very subject on this very blog:
The thing about MRA patriarchy foot soldiers is that they can’t seem to get the old slogan of “the patriarchy hurts men too”. First, they complain about not being able to express emotions and variety, then they turn around the first chance they get to bash the guys that do. You know, if you stopped doing all this gay-bashing gender shaming, you would be able to express your emotions verbally, dress in different colors, admit you enjoy musicals and baking, etc. You’re slitting your own damned throats and blaming it on everyone but yourselves.
I’d only add one little caveat to this: the people attacking “manginas” aren’t always the exact same people in the MRM who are complaining about being told to “man up.” Indeed, TheZetaMale — the first guy I quoted above — actually took his fellow MRAs to task in an earlier post for using “shaming language like ‘Faggot’ and ‘Emasculated Mangina.'” Unfortunately, his attitude is rarer than rare in the MRM.
So here’s a challenge for any MRM who hates being told to “man up”: take a stand against the term “mangina” and all the other obnoxious gender-questioning slurs that litter every message board or comment section populated by MRAs. Post a denunciation of this shit right here, in the comments to this post. Just human up, and do it.
NOTE TO EXTREMELY LITERAL READERS: *I realize that they’re not literally advocating boycotting half the companies in the Fortune 500. Sometimes I keed.
EDIT: Amanda Marcotte posted an excellent piece on how “man up” fucks stuff up for everybody. Check it out.
>David, what do you think of the phrase, "grow some ovaries" as a substitute for "grow some balls"? Subversive or no?
>In my opinion, there are some times when it is appropriate for one man to tell another male to man up. That is when the first man has the interests and wellbeing of the second man in mind, hoping to benefit him by spurring him on to behavior that is befitting of a man, rather than a child. However, in popular culture, most of the time that the phrase "man up" is used, the speaker is trying to assert dominance over the target by using social alienation against the target. Both men and women are most certainly guilty of this motivation when they use the phrase "man up." Sharon Angle, the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, recently used the phrase against her Democratic opponent, Senator Harry Reid. She stood to gain politically by isolating Reid, and so in my view she was using the phrase "man up" not to benefit Reid, but to defeat him in the upcoming election.Feminists criticize the phrase "man up" because it can be used to heap shame on males who are not masculine. They want as many men as possible to be non-masculine, so that more women can portray themselves as masculine. Men's activists, by contrast, seek to keep the biological distinctiveness of men from being obscured by feminist ideology, or demonized by feminists as though promoting masculine men were somehow oppressive.And so, David, what you perceive as a double standard by MRAs is not necessarily so. When some of us use the phrase "man up," we may be trying to defend the natural distinctiveness and uniqueness of men, which is indicated by masculinity. The phrase (and/or the term "mangina") can also be used to criticize a feminist man who seeks to glorify himself by undermining male distinctiveness, or by portraying himself as the rescuer of women. Male distinctiveness does include the ability to rescue the vulnerable from genuine threats, but a feminist manipulator is not really rescuing anyone from a genuine threat.
>I really dislike that phrase. Gender performativity is bad for everyone; I don't like being judged on my femininity or lack thereof, and I don't think anyone else should have to feel shamed because he doesn't measure up to some arbitrary, transient, culture-specific standard of masculinity. Also, maturity is a trait of adults, not males; it can certainly be a trait of adult males, but it is not their exclusive domain.I also dislike the phrase "Put your big girl panties on," because it contributes to the infantilization of women, but I digress.I prefer the phrases "Adult up" or "Put your adult underwear on," when desired.
>One time my boyfriend used the phrase "Free bitch up" on me – referencing the line from a couple of Lady Gaga songs. It was unexpectedly effective.
>Oh, just the context of my last comment – he was trying to get me to finish some quesedillas.
>"The thing about MRA patriarchy foot soldiers is that they can't seem to get the old slogan of "the patriarchy hurts men too"."Feminism is good for men too eh?I sure wish you feminists would stop being so kind to us.
>Can we please stop pretending that the majority of Feminists actually give a shit what happens to men?There's only two reasons a feminist woman says that "the patriarchy hurts men too." 1. As a hand waving dismissal of male complaints. "yeah yeah 'The Patriarchy Hurts men Too.' Whatever. Move on."2. As a way to get White Knights to join them.
>part of growing up is realizing that as a man you are superior to women
>Man up Dave
>"What about teh menz?"A dismissive phrase that quite accurately expresses how contemporary feminism really views the issues of men.
>@ 1:52 am:Feminism is not a monolith, and I, obviously, do not speak for it. But speaking for myself, no, I will not stop asserting that I care what happens to men. I was raised not to lie, after all.For your list, here's 3: Out of compassion, because we don't like watching our friends and family members suffer as they try to contort themselves into transient, culturally-determined, arbitrary definitions of masculinity. Out of a sense of justice, because oppression is oppression whether or not it happens to you. (I guess that's 3 and 4.)
>Regarding 'man up,' I dont think it's sexist. I think at most it's tacky and the neuter wording 'grow up,' works better to me. It reminds me of laws like they have in Las Vegas where a woman can do nude dancing but men can't. It's actually sexist to women but also happens to be to a certain extent sexist to men as well. You could say the same about the prostitution there where it is only legal for women to be prostitutes. One could say 'woman up,' but thats a bit of a big mouth full to say. To me I dont consider any MRA a man, at most a male, but mostly a boy. Same with your Camille Paglias and Phyllis Schlafleys as I consider them girls and not women. To be a woman or man you have to have mental discipline and a certain level of maturity. Claiming that white hetero 21st century western guys are bigger victims than a Black 19th century slave, Afghani woman and Iranian homosexual is delusional, corrupt and completely defecient in a balanced and rational perspective. Claiming that they're adult females or males is an insult to actual adult females/males. 'Man up' also seems to be sexist to women as no one uses that phrasing for women so it's perhaps that they dont think women capable of the same virtues embodied in men? Perhaps they think theyre more helpless/incapable? I dunno, but it always seems tacky to me and something that would be found more on Jerry Springer than anywhere else. MRA's as usual, over-react to it in fitting with their belief that they're the Worlds Greatest Victims (echoooo)!!!
>Dias,"we may be trying to defend the natural distinctiveness and uniqueness of men, which is indicated by masculinity"Gawd, you MRA's are such gender amateurs!"They want as many men as possible to be non-masculine, so that more women can portray themselves as masculine"What a paranoid freak! Not to mention but WHY would that even be? You think "masculinity" is superior than "femininity?" It's clear you do from that stupid conspiracy theory rant you posted above. If not why would they want "masculinity" so much?And no mangina is meant to shame a guy by associating him with a female organ which according to your misogynistic alignments is meant to get him to hyper-reactively denounce any association with having a back bone and get on your BS bandwagon. It's the equivalent of calling a guy a 'girl', or saying that he 'wears pink.' You try to shame a guy by associating him with feminity and he's supposed to disassociate from it, lest he be associated with that 'icky girl stuff!' He's supposed to hate women as much as you and NOT want to be associated with the very thing that unequivically is presumed to make a woman a woman; her vagina. (obviously Dave is a man and not a boy so your tactic doesnt work on him-and neither does your bubbleheaded defense of the word 'mangina')
>Anonymous, feminism is fundamentally based on the belief that there are no substantial distinctions between the sexes. That is a political viewpoint, not based in biological fact. Being a political viewpoint, it is therefore a means to bring about a political outcome. Sexual distinctiveness, to the feminist, is a notion that must not be accepted as valid because it impedes the political goals of feminists.
>@Anonymous: "What a paranoid freak! Not to mention but WHY would that even be? You think 'masculinity' is superior than 'femininity?' It's clear you do from that stupid conspiracy theory rant you posted above. If not why would they want 'masculinity' so much?"Well, one example is the book "The Female Eunuch" by feminist Germaine Greer. She likens masculinity to vitality, and says that women who have families are stifled in their masculinity, being rendered "eunuchs." This indicates to me that Greer, as one particular feminist, does indeed feel contempt for femininity and does indeed elevate masculinity as superior. This, however, is not the position of men's rights activists. MRAs reject the feminist notion that gender is unrelated to biology, and so MRAs value both masculinity and femininity highly. MRAs also value clear definitions of what constitutes masculine and feminine, whereas feminists continually attempt to fracture the meanings of masculine and feminine in order to render these words meaningless (and in the process advance their feminist political agenda).
>John, Greer is ONE feminist. And a rather atypical one at that. Certainly many feminists play down the role of biology, at least when compared with MRAs (who dramatically overestimate its impact), but that does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that "feminism is fundamentally based on the belief that there are no substantial distinctions between the sexes." That's goofy. No feminist I know believes that.
>@David Futrelle:The difference between MRAs and feminists (well, one difference anyway) is that MRAs just want to minimize social and political coercion whereas feminists want to use these in order to advance their agenda. Do MRAs have a political agenda too? Yes they do, but only to dismantle the aforementioned coercion. That's where you get the word "rights" as the R in MRA, meaning that men and women have the natural right to be allowed to live freely, not under the thumbs of social engineers and political ideologues.
>@David Futrelle:"…but that does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that 'feminism is fundamentally based on the belief that there are no substantial distinctions between the sexes.' That's goofy. No feminist I know believes that."Pretty much every feminist believes that, David! Take any area of human endeavor where men dominate. The feminist reflexively attributes that domination to intimidation and control. Certainly that is one possibility. But another possible reason for male dominance is that their natural distinctiveness as men grants them an advantage. The implications of this biological reality mean that women too have certain advantages as a sex compared to men.Feminists believe that "anything you can do, I can do just as well, if not better." THAT'S what I'm talking about, David. Feminists reject the idea that the sexes are unique or distinct from each other in any substantial way. Distinctiveness implies advantages, and the feminist simply cannot accept that a man is better suited to virtually any role or job.
>marissa:"grow some ovaries"I think grow cahjones (<- however you spell it) is neuter since I think cajones simply means genitals.
>dias:"Distinctiveness implies advantages, and the feminist simply cannot accept that a man is better suited to virtually any role or job."Gawd, you are such an open sexist! Not to mention, that's complete bullshit! I'm even studying in my management class at uni how women score off the charts in leadership in comparison than men and bring in more money when put in managerial positions!
>Greer doesnt use the words masculinity in there, and youre taking her words completely out of context. You're the one who wrote about how women are trying to be "masculine" which is idiotic since if it wasn't barefoot, pregnant and behind a kitchen it was considered 'masculine' because thats what the myopic roles were. Just like if a guy wanted to be a househusband it would not mean that he is 'feminine' or 'masculine' simply an individual. Youre the one that holds up myopic constructs of masculinity and feel that masculinity is superior to femininity which is why you have some delusional concept that women feel inferior about being women. Even a mon-feminist would be able to see through your misogyny and bull.
>@Anonymous:"Youre the one that holds up myopic constructs of masculinity…"You're making my point. Masculinity is not just a construct, it's an outgrowth of the nature of men. When men are in harmony with their nature, they tend to exhibit more masculine qualities. And so if it is in their nature to be masculine, you can imagine the contempt that I have for any ideology that attempts to portray nature as a sociopolitical construct, making nature itself the problem. That is the danger of ideology; it exists in order to justify anything, no matter how unnatural or counterproductive.By the way, Anonymous, I am going to challenge you to exhibit the quality of a mature adult rather than a childish ideologue, an attitude which you have emulated so far as far as I'm concerned. If you can't be civil, then consider yourself ignored.
>Right, nature is not a sociopolitical construct, the majority of humans are born either male or female. However, gendering humans as being either masculine or feminine, is a sociopolitical construct.
>"no matter how unnatural " Okay, now we have an official invocation of the "The Appeal to Nature" logical fallacy. Bravo, you have officially advanced your argument into the realm of official logical fallacy. Are you proud? (here's a link to an explanation http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adnature.html so no one will whine about their inability to use google themselves to look it up). Okay, onto failure in reasoning number two. If something just happens all by itself, the notion that it needs enforced on people is absurd. If masculintiy simply followed from having a penis and feminity from having a vagina, there would be absolutely no need to set up social systems or policing to enforce it. You don't go around instructing people to grow hair in certain places at puberty, do you? If it is so very 'natural' why the hell do you have to put so much effort into making sure it happens? I bet you go around telling gravity to keep on working too…(<-note, this is sarcasm). Now for reasoning failure number three. It does not follow from the fact that a person has lower talent at something that they should not strive to accomplish it if the goal is worthwhile. Even if this: "their natural distinctiveness as men grants them an advantage. The implications of this biological reality mean that women too have certain advantages as a sex compared to men." were true (which it isn't), it does not follow that people should not strive to do worthwhile things simply because such things are more difficult. I had a university classmate who had dyslexia and it took him vastly more time to read the assignments for class than his peers, but does that mean he should not have bothered to try to learn and earn his degree at all simply because he had some biological obstacle making the task far more difficult? Just because something is harder for someone does not mean they shouldn't try to do it. Even if it were the case that math were harder for women and baking cupcakes harder for men, that would be no reason for women not to do math or men not to bake. Not everything in life worth doing is going to be easy for you and if you give up instantly simply because there are others for whom it is easier, you will never do anything at all.PS, calling your opponent a 'childish idealogue' is not a good way to demonstrate your touted civility.
>@Anonymous:"dias:'Distinctiveness implies advantages, and the feminist simply cannot accept that a man is better suited to virtually any role or job.'"Gawd, you are such an open sexist!"On second look at the sentence that you quoted from me, I realized that it's possible that I was misinterpreted. Let me reword the same sentence to clarify my meaning (being a feminist, I wouldn't be surprised if your hostile reaction to it remained unchanged, but here goes):Original: "Distinctiveness implies advantages, and the feminist simply cannot accept that a man is better suited to virtually any role or job."Clarified: "Distinctiveness implies advantages, and the feminist simply cannot accept that there could ever be any role or a job in which men are better suited."The first sentence could be construed as me claiming that men are better than women always, in every job, and in every situation. In fact, I was criticizing feminists for their dogmatic belief that men are not unique or distinct in virtually any situation, that they simply don't have any natural advantage over women at all, in virtually any role or job. I reject that dogmatic belief.