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One thing I am struck by again and again as I read the blogs and the message boards of the manosphere is how little basic human empathy I see there, towards women in general and towards feminists of both sexes. We see it in the routine references to women as “whores” and “cunts” and other terms that reduce them to their genitalia.
We see it in the profound lack of empathy for women injured or killed. You may recall my recent post about an MRA blog that basically celebrated the possible death of a missing Las Vegas dancer. The body of the murdered woman, Deborah Flores-Narvaez, has since been found. The news inspired a moderator of the Happy Bachelors Forum to start a topic entitled “Dirty skanky whore found dead.”
And of course we’ve seen similar reactions to the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others. While many in the manosphere responded to the shootings like normal human beings (displaying honest shock and horror) and others responded like typical internet paranoids (wildly speculating on how this meant the government would take away all our rights), there were others who found ways to blame women for the shootings or to twist the issue into one of men’s putative oppression. On NiceGuy’s MGTOW Forum, one commenter found an ingenious way to blame women for the shooting:
He [was] probably dumped by a girl and that’s what started him on the road to crazy batshit loonery. I can’t think of any other factor that could more quickly drive a man to violence than women.
Others complained that the news coverage was slanted by evil feminism. From the MGTOW proboards forum:
it pisses me off when i see all this outrage on the news and from the public knowing that if it was a congressMAN who was shot, everyone would be wondering what he did to deserve it.
this really shows you how society values women over men. and she’s not even dead!
Over on NiceGuy’s MGTOW forum, one member complained that Giffords was getting most of the news coverage and that the six others who were murdered in the attack, most of whom were probably men, were being ignored:
This is yet another example of how Femerica values female lives more than male lives. In the eyes of most Americans, men are less human than women.
The male judge gets a mention because he is a lackey for the interests of the elite. Even though he is dead, since he is a male, his death is presented by the media as less of a tragedy than the non-lethal shooting of a female politician with a good chance for recovery.
The death of the young girl was portrayed as third in line in terms of level of tragedy. By American standards, it was a tragedy because she possessed a vagina, but since she was not grown enough to be a full-fledged feminazi, her death was less of a tragedy than the non-death of the female politician.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the four unnamed dead people were men. If they were men, they would be considered less human than the others. They are not even human enough for the media to investigate and name. Their death, by American standards, was a tragedy but less of a tragedy than the non-death of female politician.
This comment is jampacked with an assortment of bad assumptions. To correct the most obvious of them: Giffords has gotten most of the coverage because this was not a random murder, but an attempted political assassination. Gender has nothing to do with it. When people talk about the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, they rarely mention the three others who were also wounded that day. (Except for James Brady, and that’s because he has gone on to be an influential gun control advocate.)
The male judge has gotten a good deal of attention, but isn’t the main focus of the coverage because he was not the target of the assassination attempt. The girl has gotten attention because she was a child. The other victims were not named at first because authorities had not yet notified their next-of-kin. There were three men killed in the attacks, two women, and one girl.
Meanwhile, on this very blog, a regular antifeminist commenter who calls himself Random Brother has made clear that he doesn’t extend basic human sympathies to feminists. Asking whether or not Giffords is a feminist, he explains:
I want to know if she has spent her whole career passing laws that harm men. I want to know this before I commit any sympathy to her. If she was a great politician who tried hard to help her constituents, was fair and just then she has all of the sorrow in the world from me. …
If she was a typical politician, a bigot or a man hater, why should I care?
Setting aside for a moment the fact that there is precisely zero evidence that Giffords is any any way a “man hater”: Because she’s a human being?
Sadly, this failure of empathy isn’t confined to the manosphere, as Marianne Kirby notes on The Rotund:
Empathy is, in its simplest form, the ability to acknowledge the thoughts/reasoning/emotions of another person as valid. It is, so to speak, being able to see where they are coming from even if you do not agree. … Empathy is, I think, coming to the realization of our own humanity and the humanity of other people – we are all simply people. …
[W]hen politicians depend on hate and violent rhetoric to stir up their followers, no good can come of it. … It teaches them that these people who believe different things are “the enemy” – that they are a danger and must be eliminated.
Is it any wonder that some people reach a point where the literal elimination of those who are different becomes the end goal?
For a long time I labeled the MRA/MGTOW blogs I’ve put in my sidebar as my “Enemies List.” It was a partially tongue-in-cheek reference to Nixon’s famous “enemies list.” But many people took it literally, and some (even if they didn’t) worried that this kind of terminology could lead to precisely the sort of dehumanizing of the “enemy” I’ve been criticizing here. In the wake of the Arizona shootings, and after pondering several eloquent emails sent to me on the subject, I’ve decided to change my “Enemies List” to, well, a “Boob-roll.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “boob” as “a stupid or foolish person; a dolt.” The people I write about may be — at least in my mind — wrong, and foolish, and sometimes hateful assholes, but they are people.
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>Problem is I have met many of these MRAs in person at conferences where we were working on strategies to help men. They are from all walks of life, as are feminists. They are married and single, gay and straight, heavy and thin, black and white, male and female, liberal and conservative. If you do not like people calling feminists overeducated ugly dykes with hairy armpits who couldn't get a date in high school, then please do not attack MRAs with the similar insults. It is unproductive and childish. You will see few MRA's who condoned the violence in this political shooting. Just as you will find a feminist or two who will "you go girl" when some woman kills someone, you will find one or two men who will do the same. That does not mean MRAs as a group or even many of them condoned it. On the other hand, looking at the media treatment of the event and disecting it for sexism is NOT the same as condoning the act which is being reported. We are criticizing the media for bias, not justifying the deaths of the victims. On the site I frequent we have been discussing the complete distortion of the tackling of the shooter. The woman involved says she was already on the ground, and when the shooter was tackled down by two men she reached over and took the ammo magazine. The media has spun this to make the woman seem to have leaped at the gunman and wrestled the ammo to her actually tackling him alone. These are lies to make the woman appear more heroic than even she is comfortable with. She was an important part of keeping the shooter down and unarmed, but SO WERE THE TWO MEN. The woman herself gives most of the credit to the two men who physically brought the shooter down. We have to ask why the media is so invested in overplaying the woman and all but denying the men. None of these concerns means we are not praying for those victims and their families. They do not mean we are happy a politician was shot because she was a woman. You are putting words in our mouths and twisting intent. That is dishonest.
>"The woman herself gives most of the credit to the two men who physically brought the shooter down. We have to ask why the media is so invested in overplaying the woman and all but denying the men."— TBQThat's a very good question.Unfortunately, those here trying so hard to demonize MRAs aren't typically concerned about answers to questions like that. Great post, btw.
>Much as they may claim to the contrary, the prevailing "but what about teh menz?" MRA techique here only proves David's point.When we protest against "but what about teh menz"-type comments, we don't mean to say that men's issues should not be discussed seriously and empathetically. Rather, it's an objection to the type of comment whose point boils down to denying empathy to women on the ground that it should always go to men, who are the more important sex. It's a type of comment, at the center of which there is the idea that the attempted assassination of a female politician by a man is an occasion to discuss the victimization of men by women — just like violence by a woman against a man would also be an occasion to discuss the same thing; in other words, we should never, godforbid, express sympathy to a female victim of violence, because that somehow takes away from the more important victims of violence — men. This goes back to that analogy I made a few days ago, to the story of Justice Brandeis' confirmation. People who see men as the default "sex" — in other words, see only men as people, and women as chattel who exist for, and at the mercy of, people — are outraged because they see any sympathy going towards any woman, under any circumstances, as unfairly taking attention away from men, who are the "real" people. Ask any reasonable person, without reference to gender: "Do you think that an attempted assassination against a politician by an extremist, coming on the heels of years of exceedingly violent rhetoric by a major political party, something that's very newsworthy?" The answer will, without a doubt, be "yes". But insert gender in there, and the outlook changes: MRA's see any media coverage of a violent act committed by a man against a woman, no matter what the socio-political context, as unfairly taking media coverage away from men, because in the minds of MRA's, "important" news coverage should only be about men.Also, it's cute how they blame Giffords for her own shooting by implying that she deserved it for not carrying a gun — but don't apply the same argument to the male judge, casting him instead as victim of feminists, never mind that he was shot by a man. In other words, it's all the fault of Giffords, because she failed to protect herself, and failed to protect him.
>Yohan-Gabby was trying to address the security concerns by having smaller events and doing so in places no one expects to have shooters just showing up.One cannot live in a bubble when one is an elected official like Gabby. You must be accessible to your constituents because they have the right to petition their government. When she is at an event like that, she is the government in person and to have cops standing around will have the affect of chilling a person's constitutional right to petition their government.Also, I live in AZ. It is not the wild west out here with OK Corral shootings every other day. Yes there is violence but Tucson is not known for this for a reason-even with the border having a lot of violence going on, it is on the Mexico side with the US side is generally peaceful.
>David,You are a hypocrite. You called me a dick a few days ago. In your misandry and bigotry, you have reduced me to my genitalia in order to insult me.
>"People who see men as the default "sex" — in other words, see only men as people, and women as chattel who exist for, and at the mercy of, people — are outraged because they see any sympathy going towards any woman, under any circumstances, as unfairly taking attention away from men, who are the "real" people."~ AmusedEither you have just taken psych 101 or started in a women's studies course. The average person, and indeed the average MRA does not see women as less of a person. They simply want men to be seen as equal people as women. If this had been a congressman shot, we would have seen less coverage. Had it been a 9 year old boy killed we would have seen less coverage. Had only men disabled the shooter we would have seen less coverage. We value the lives of women more than men. This is shown to be socially accepted by such assumptions as "women and children first", negotiating female hostages first, the male only draft, and other chivalric practices. It is seen in media coverage showing sympathy for female criminals and victims, and distain for male criminals and victims. It is seen in how we laugh as a nation at genital violence against a man, and condone genital violence of male children, but (rightfully) show outrage at female genital violence. Wouldn't it show far more …empathy…for people to condemn violence against women AND men? The actual practice of the majority of men is in direct conflict with your very acedemic, and removed from actual reality idea, that men somehow see us as less. Step outside your ivory tower and talk to some actual men. I have known many MRAs for nearly a decade. I can count on one hand the number of real misogynists I have come across. And those few were dismissed by my fellow MRAs and are not a part of the mainstream movement. Disagreeing with feminists does not make one a misogynist. Feminism is not defined as equality in our opinion, which is based on observing the actual actions of feminists. Thus disagreeing with feminism is in our minds a greater act of equality than being a feminist. Shaming people for asking to be treated equally is exactly what feminists claimed was so bad about men, and exactly what racists did to blacks. How is it better when you do it to men?
>"You are a hypocrite. You called me a dick a few days ago. In your misandry and bigotry, you have reduced me to my genitalia in order to insult me."See David, this is why you should use gender-neutral terminology like "pedantic asshole" instead.
>Much better.
>Wow. There really isn't a point reasoning with MRAs…. I've recently also come to the conclusion that a lack of empathy is really the main issue.
>It should be very clear by now that David made those posts about those shootings with FULL KNOWLEDGE that connections to MRA's were weak or non-existent and FULL KNOWLEDGE that the majority of comments would NOT be 'sympathetic' so he could trumpet from the rooftops "Look how awful these MRA, (anti-fem) type (commentors) are!"
>There's really no point in using reason on the internet, period, "theclementine." It's not like feminists are going to give up their ground and come to the middle to agree on anything, nor are MRAs going to give up any ground and come to the middle either. (Or ANY diametrically opposed groups – atheists and the religious, left and right, so on and so forth.)That's why you troll and make lulz.
>The Bisquit Queen, women and children first does not show that we value the lives of women more than men. It is part of the traditional idea of masculinity: independence, bravery, sacrifice for others. Putting women and children first was a noble thing to do because a man's life was so valuable.It is also part of the idea that women are like children, weak and in need of protection.Therefore, it was noble for a man to sacrifice the most valuable of things, his life, to protect women, who were weak and helpless, like children."Women and children first" was an ideal in an age when men owned their wives and children. There is little doubt that the lives of men were valued higher.
>Also:1. You may have met a handful of misogynists, the rest of us have met many more in the MRA movement.2. No where on this blog is misogyny used to mean "disagreeing with a feminist." 3. No where on this blog are pleas for equality shamed. Rather, misogyny is shamed.
>Some drunk stoner who happens to also be a PUA shoots a woman in the face. Naturally he did this because he was a PUA and not because he was a drunk stoner.And leave it to David to spin a political assassination in which men were also targeted as another Polytech massacre.
>It is a well-known tactic in feminist communities for men who disagree with women having rights to assume female handles and pretend to be women in order to lend themselves some kind of credibility.And yes, there are ways to find out. Just tossing this out there.I like how in the same thread we have someone saying "Ameriskanks" and how Giffords got herself shot by "not taking threats seriously" (kind of like how women "get themselves raped" or "get themselves pregnant," right?), and then we have someone claiming MRAs totally see women as people. I think there's plenty of evidence right here that women are not considered people by MRAs. Loads of politicians receive threats. Some are taken more seriously than others based on a lot of factors, but as anyone knows, when you receive threats you can't just hide in your house. And it's funny that this is what people are saying about Giffords because this is what women hear all the time. Basically, "Don't go out without your male escort (and if your male escort rapes you, we won't believe you)." Even if she'd had twelve giant security guys standing around her with machine guns and gotten shot anyway, she would be blamed for being outside of her house. Some men still consider women to be children who shouldn't be allowed to go out after dark or without their chaperone, and get what's coming to them if they do.
>"It is part of the traditional idea of masculinity: independence, bravery, sacrifice for others. Putting women and children first was a noble thing to do because a man's life was so valuable."What? Suggested reading, although, you need at least a high school level reading comprehension go understand the arguments.
>"It is a well-known tactic in feminist communities for men who disagree with women having rights to assume female handles and pretend to be women in order to lend themselves some kind of credibility."Because feminists NEVER assume male identities and post crap that makes MRAs look bad, right?
>Dr. Deeze, why don't you respond to my argument instead of offering a tired link and an insult.
>"Some drunk stoner who happens to also be a PUA shoots a woman in the face. Naturally he did this because he was a PUA and not because he was a drunk stoner."I read this comment and momentarily forgot whether I was in the Giffords thread or the Gunwitch thread. Although they all seem to end up as the same thing, anyways.
>"Women and children first" was an ideal in an age when men owned their wives and children. There is little doubt that the lives of men were valued higher."Women lives have ALWAYS been valued more (due to the sperm-egg bottleneck). BUT being valuable and having control over ones own value are not the same thing.Not clearly making such a distinction is the reason men and women accuse each other of having always 'ruled the world'.The men think this because they see only the value of women but not their lack of autonomy.Women think this because they only see the control of men but not the man's expendability.
>Boo, hoo, hoo sounds like the feminists are finding out what it's like to be treated like a man.
>Sandy,Because the link THOROUGHLY handles your argument and hence was the point. Men did not put women and children first out of some stupid "nobility" which made men's lives valuable – men did it because men are (and, biologically speaking, always will be) the more expendable sex. All it takes is a simple thought experiment to confirm:Suppose you had two societies of equal size – 100 men and 100 women. One society loses 99 men and the other loses 99 women. Which one will be able to replace itself faster?
>"The woman involved says she was already on the ground, and when the shooter was tackled down by two men she reached over and took the ammo magazine. The media has spun this to make the woman seem to have leaped at the gunman and wrestled the ammo to her actually tackling him alone."Jesus fricking pancakes, The Biscuit Queen … where did anyone say that the woman tackled Loughner? I've read a lot of reports on the incident, and nothing I've seen even came close to suggesting that version of events. In fact everything I've read claims that the woman was on the ground, saw the cartridge, and grabbed it while the men tackled him. I've also never seen anything where the woman takes credit for anything she didn't do. Not that the media always portray events in the most truthful light, but seriously? Your revision of media coverage is breathtaking.
>So I went through these comments and counted each one where *IMO* the poster demonstrates a lack of empathy. I counted ad hominem attacks, and negative personal characterizations of entire groups (e.g., "MRA's", "feminists") as empathy FAILs, along with dehumanizing language.22/49. Better than I expected. I'm not going to point to specific examples, because it's not worth arguing with people who operate via innuendo instead of rational discussion. But I will say that I counted empathy FAILs on both "sides" of this "debate".
>@Earnest NOT ENOUGH *raspberries*