>
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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>Dr.Deezee: "Chivalry's been dead for a long time. What do you expect? That's "equality."Chivalry was always an illusion, as I've explained. Better a dead illusion with equality, than a persistent illusion with oppression. At least that's the way I see it.
>"Women would be the first ones to shame a man for not giving her such treatment. Exactly like the chivalry that prevails today. If a man is not willing to buy the woman dinner, many women would quickly jump at him and call him a cheapass. To call this patriarchy is comical"That's a bunch of nonsense. Traditional women — not feminists — expect preferential treatment. So you guys should stop talking out of both sides of your mouth: if you want a woman who adheres to Victorian values, don't whine about having to buy her dinner. If you want a woman who will not see you as a meal ticket, stop bashing feminism and women who pride themselves on being financially independent.That aside, if you are the one hosting an evening — whether for a date, a friend, or a relative — you are the one who should pay. If she hosts the date, she should pay your way. That's merely a simple rule of hospitality. And, in a relationship, it's natural for people to buy each other meals and presents. They don't have to be expensive, but that's just what people who like each other typically do for each other. Someone who takes meticulous care never to spend a penny towards his girlfriend's benefit or enjoyment IS cheapass; as she would be if she acted that way towards him.
>Dave – Saying that "chivalry is not always all it was cracked up to be" is misleading, because the Lusitania wasn't really an example of a failure of chivalry per se. The reason chivalry did not take effect is because it is a learned, cultural behavior (like my other link, which I will quote from below, pointed out as well) and on the Lusitania, with 18 minutes to react, there wasn't time for these behaviors to kick in – pure, instinctual survival ruled the day.Since I don't think anyone bothered to read the Baumeister piece, below is his section on how and why males are more expendable than females:Any man who reads the newspapers will encounter the phrase “even women and children” a couple times a month, usually about being killed. The literal meaning of this phrase is that men’s lives have less value than other people’s lives. The idea is usually “It’s bad if people are killed, but it’s especially bad if women and children are killed.” And I think most men know that in an emergency, if there are women and children present, he will be expected to lay down his life without argument or complaint so that the others can survive. On the Titanic, the richest men had a lower survival rate (34%) than the poorest women (46%) (though that’s not how it looked in the movie). That in itself is remarkable. The rich, powerful, and successful men, the movers and shakers, supposedly the ones that the culture is all set up to favor — in a pinch, their lives were valued less than those of women with hardly any money or power or status. The too-few seats in the lifeboats went to the women who weren’t even ladies, instead of to those patriarchs.Most cultures have had the same attitude. Why? There are pragmatic reasons. When a cultural group competes against other groups, in general, the larger group tends to win out in the long run. Hence most cultures have promoted population growth. And that depends on women. To maximize reproduction, a culture needs all the wombs it can get, but a few penises can do the job. There is usually a penile surplus. If a group loses half its men, the next generation can still be full-sized. But if it loses half its women, the size of the next generation will be severely curtailed. Hence most cultures keep their women out of harm’s way while using men for risky jobs.These risky jobs extend beyond the battlefield. Many lines of endeavor require some lives to be wasted. Exploration, for example: a culture may send out dozens of parties, and some will get lost or be killed, while others bring back riches and opportunities. Research is somewhat the same way: There may be a dozen possible theories about some problem, only one of which is correct, so the people testing the eleven wrong theories will end up wasting their time and ruining their careers, in contrast to the lucky one who gets the Nobel prize. And of course the dangerous jobs. When the scandals broke about the dangers of the mining industry in Britain, Parliament passed the mining laws that prohibited children under the age of 10 and women of all ages from being sent into the mines. Women and children were too precious to be exposed to death in the mines: so only men. As I said earlier, the gender gap in dangerous work persists today, with men accounting for the vast majority of deaths on the job…"If men's lives are so valuable, like Sandy argues, why aren't our front lines primarily filled by females? Why aren't females serving in combat roles? If feminism is truly about equality, why aren't they lobbying for a 50/50, fully integrated military where females can share the burden of combat service equally with men? Why don't women have to register with the selective service when they turn 18, as men do?
>Amused, I never said that feminists expect preferential treatment. My complaint is that feminists try to blame this on patriarchy rather than simply blaming it on women who have a poisoned sense of entitlement which they have 100 percent control over this mentality.
>If a man is not willing to buy the woman dinner, many women would quickly jump at him and call him a cheapassSure they would, as (and MRAs don't seem to understand this) not ALL women are feminists or believe that equal rights/egalitarianism for the sexes is preferable, many women want to retain "traditional manhood and womanhood" roles. To them, yes, he is a cheapass, and not only that, he is probably not going to make suitable "husband as protector/provider/head of the household" material. From what I've read, MRAs seem to want to hold fast to that dominant male authority/submissive, obedient woman hierarchy, so those are the women that they should be aiming for, not complaining about!On another note, I have dated men where I have offered to pay or, at the very least, offer to pay my own way, and that was seen as damn insulting in some cases, downright emasculating in others. Women certainly don't corner the market in hurling abusive insults at someone who doesn't fit their paradigm of how things ought to be. But in either case, neither should hurl abusive insults, they should just move on to finding a partner who shares their values.
>And as Deezee was saying; it's funny how when women are privileged in an area, such as not being forced into combat against their will, there is a deafening silence from feminists who will protest against it. It's only important for feminists to protest against something when they feel males have a privilege
>I don't know how many times in how many different forums I have seen this 'women not serving in combat' issue raised. And almost every time it is raised, the fact that feminists have been lobbying for YEARS to have women serve in the military and on the front line is pointed out. To that there is commonly a volley of insults aimed at women……their uselessness, laziness, inferiority, etc., ….. mainly coming from men and many of whom state that they are in the military, who are protesting AGAINST having women in the military because women are so incapable that men will get killed due to the fuckups of women. So convinced many men are of their superiority over women in every way that they are blinded to the fact that they are shooting themselves in the foot (no pun intended) over this issue every time. Deafening silence from feminists? They're too busy watching you shoot yourselves in the foot, no need for them to get involved. You are your own worst enemies! As Amused stated, "you guys should stop talking out of both sides of your mouth".
>It's not just men who oppose it, but the actual women who've served as well: "Many Army women are puzzled when they see feminists in the media pushing to open up combat roles to women, because they are unaware of any military women who are interested in such roles.(1) These feminist activists accept the policy for men as the standard and seek to apply that policy to women. Thus they support making women eligible for the draft and assigning them to combat arms, even on a non-voluntary basis if necessary.Many Army women, however, believe that lobbying for compulsory service for women is regressive, and instead maintain that serving in the military and in a combat role should be voluntary for both men and women. When pressed to choose between the current exclusion of women from the combat arms and a policy that would assign women the way men are now assigned, women soldiers tend to support the status quo."
>PamWe are aware of people not agreeing with women being in the frontline etc etc. But can you show come source of evidence where feminists actually protest at the fact why ONLY men are FORCED against their will into combat? Probably feminists have and I haven't seen it. Forgive me if I am wrong.My point was in my last post is that feminists only seem motivated to actually protest something when men are somehow privileged.
>nick –Can you show me evidence of MRAs actually protesting draft registration? Not complaining about it online, actually getting off their asses and marching down to a recruiting center and protesting? Also, just so you know, men aren't being drafted in the US. Generally speaking there is not much anti-draft activism from anyone when there is no draft. Feminists are often involved in anti-war protests, and have been since the beginnings of feminism. Here's an example of a feminist who was arrested for protesting the draft:http://books.google.com/books?id=kpNarH7t9CkC&pg=PA365&lpg=PA365&dq=feminists+against+the+draft&source=bl&ots=WmAxwfOGpb&sig=syfIS6mO5DhvsXCho_9yxOrweuo&hl=en&ei=_FMuTeODM4WdlgfeqqiaCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=feminists%20against%20the%20draft&f=falseHere's an example in Israel; the draft affects both sexes there, but it's not like the femininists there are only against the draft of girls/women.http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2009/04/feminists_in_isFeminist antiwar activism:http://womensstudies.homestead.com/antiwargroups.htmlhttp://www.barnard.edu/crow/archive/militarism.htm
>"Can you show me evidence of MRAs actually protesting draft registration?"No I can't as I don't think they have. I am not an MRA myself so I wouldn't have a clue.However, I just find it amusing how feminists will jump up and down when its males who are being privileged but when its females being privileged, they don’t want to know about itYou show examples of anti-war protest which is a totally different thing to the disparity of which gender is likely to get drafted
>Secondly David, feminists act like the gender police and all. They always seem to want to be the primary voice of gender issues. For such a movement that acts in such a way is amusing when they are silent over female privilege.Secondly, it's funny how feminists constantly tell MRA's to stop complaining online and do something about it. It's ironic when 99 percent of feminists do nothing but complain online themselves. Only a small minority of feminists actually pull the strings to make things happen. I would not be one bit surprised that every feminist online who has thrown this at me would be a hypocrite.
>Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Judy Goldsmith are prominent feminists who, though not supporting conscription for either sex, pushed for conscription to include women if there must indeed be conscription. They also did not want such things as, for example, alimony being decided on basis of gender.But staunch ANTI-feminist, Phyllis Schlafly, wrote an article that included this:"While claiming to benefit women, the ERA would actually have taken away some of women’s rights. We based our arguments on the writings of pro-ERA law professors, among them current Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The amendment would require women to be drafted into military combat any time men were conscripted, abolish the presumption that the husband should support his wife and take away Social Security benefits for wives and widows. It would also give federal courts and the federal government enormous new powers to reinterpret every law that makes a distinction based on gender, such as those related to marriage, divorce and alimony."Now, after reading the above, who is it that does not want equitable laws and legislation, and views "privileges" that women had/have as being their rights, feminists or anti-feminists.
>nicko81m: …funny how feminists constantly tell MRA's to stop complaining online and do something about it. It's ironic when 99 percent of feminists do nothing but complain online themselves … Feminists were spoiled in the past. They could publish any hateful statement against men and nobody dared to say even a word against it.Times are changing. I see more and more anti-feminist websites coming up, not only in USA, but everywhere between Germany, India and Australia.Most men, but also more and more women, feel disturbed by all this hateful rhetoric coming from a few feminists, who are claiming leadership over all women.Men are talking back now to feminists, everywhere, not only online.Men are not ashamed anymore to file lawsuits against malicious women, demanding the same laws – they are gender-neutral and we all are equals – to be applied for them too.Other men give advice, how to avoid marriage, inform about problems many ex-husbands and fathers might face after divorce, talking about foreign women and even about expat to another country.Many men see the best solution to remain single and to ignore women in their own country due to bad laws and their excessive demands.The other important point is about who pays for feminism? Even Western countries are more and more unwilling, due to their financial situation, to pay for the expenses of a non-productive movement.Future of feminism does not look nice.
>"Secondly, it's funny how feminists constantly tell MRA's to stop complaining online and do something about it. It's ironic when 99 percent of feminists do nothing but complain online themselves. Only a small minority of feminists actually pull the strings to make things happen. I would not be one bit surprised that every feminist online who has thrown this at me would be a hypocrite. "—NickoThey want to use men to do their dirty work via proxy, and if those screw up they blame those men, too and feel guiltless.
>booboonation said… Also Nick, nobody is required to disprove a claim you make. If you make the claim you have to prove it. Also can you prove that MRA movement is not misogynist, what has the MRA movement done for women? Why don't they focus on the abuse of women? Why don't they care about what happens to women? Please explain this deficit in the movement. Also can you please prove to me that the bulk of MRAs do not consist of disgruntled abusers that are no longer propped up by the more enlightened segment of society and are now just bitter they can't lord it over the bitches? "You need to disprove that MRAs are not DV abusers that are bitter. In fact there is evidence to the contrary, Many are convicted batterers. The fact is, that if I make the claim, I am the one that needs to provide evidence."—booboonation said… You made this inflamatory and slanderous claim, and you provide zero evidence. Many are convicted batterers? What planet do you live on?
>"Why don't they care about what happens to women?"—booboonation Being a feminist, you care nothing about what happens to men.
>In the US, the fact that women are excluded from the draft was decided in 1981 after Congress reactivated the Selective Service from President Carter's request (which included a request to have women drafted.)Several men filed suit and multiple briefs were filed by women's organizations asking for the draft to include women. "In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court held that Congress's decision to exempt women from registration "was not the 'accidental by-product of a traditional way of thinking about females'" and did not violate the Due Process Clause. The Court found that men and women, because of combat restrictions on women, were not "similarly situated" for the purposes of draft registration. The Court also upheld Congress's judgment that the administrative and military problems that would be created by drafting women for noncombat roles were sufficient to justify the Military Selective Service Act." http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1980/1980_80_251 The link is the oral arguments of the case.http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/US/448/1306.html This is the case itself.http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=u20026 This is the case regarding the Virginia Military Institute and having a male only admission policy. It also had multiple filings from women's organizations asking for the allowing of women in military institutions.
>I've never seen anyone jump up and down demanding to be drafted. Women don't, but men don't either — though MRA's and their pals here obviously imply that this issue should be the basis for denying women equal rights with men. People who join the military do so overwhelmingly for pragmatic reasons, and those who seek combat assignments do this for pragmatic reasons as well, since this is the surest way to promotion and success in one's career. As far as women in the military go, just this morning on NPR where was a segment that dealt with the problem of women actually being in combat, but not getting officially assigned to combat units — in other words, putting out and getting no credit for it. In fact, this situation became increasingly common since World War I — that women serve, but because it's not "official", it doesn't "count".However, all this is beside the point. As a feminist, I think equal rights should come with equal obligations, and people of both sexes should be registered with Selective Service. However, what is crucial here is that who is "forced" to serve in combat and who is "forced" to work in a dangerous occupation — this is a giant RED HERRING. There hasn't been a draft now for nearly 40 years. Most men, and indeed, most MRA's, don't serve in the military, don't want to, and never will — to say nothing of being in combat. Most men, and most MRA's, don't work in dangerous occupations. And yet MRA's demand that special privileges be extended to all men on the basis of what a tiny minority does. This, to me, is absurd and utterly unacceptable. Look, we could take a page out of Israel's book, where one's civil rights and liberties are contingent upon service for every individual separately. If you served in the military, you get rights. If you didn't, you don't. You don't get rights because your friend, or your brother, or some guy you read about on the Internet served, just because you look similar down there. If engaging in dangerous endeavors is to be the sine qua non of enjoying civil rights, then this should be on the basis of individual contributions, not gender. Truth is, if civic participation and civil liberties were ever made contingent on military service and/or dangerous occupations, then the overwhelming majority of men would be shit outta luck and in the same position as women. If you don't want to be denied civil rights simply because you aren't a soldier, a miner or a fisherman, then stop insinuating that women should be treated as subhuman chattel because our lives aren't dangerous enough. Merely having a penis doesn't put you in the same league with people who engage in dangerous occupations, and you aren't entitled to claim credit for what they do.
>@Elizabeth, I have read the opinions in that case and a key point of dispute was the fact that women are banned from combat roles in the US (under federal law) and the draft is for the purpose of obtaining people to fill combat positions. This is what the issue of being "simularly situated" revolves around. The majority opinion argued that it was pointless and a waste of money for women to be forced to register when they were prohibited from serving in the necessary capacity, making the sex specific rules valid. The dissent held that notions of women being unfit to serve in combat were based on stereotypes and therefore were not valid reasons for gender discrimination in draft law. NOW filed a friend of the court brief supporting a removal of sex specificity in selective service.As to dangerous occupations, it is worth noting that dangerous occupations involve far higher pay than those available for people of similar backgrounds and educational levels who do not work dangerous jobs. It is not difficult for men to find jobs of comparable risk to women, they just would not receive the same level of pay as for working a dangerous job, but it is very difficult for a woman to get work in fields like mining or construction and reap the higher pay for the higher risk. Construction pays three to four times as much per hour as food service, men can work either, women generally can only work the latter. This contributes to the much higher rates of poverty for women.
>Years ago, I was in the military and I distinctly remember that female personnel were subjected to a lower standard than males in their physical training (PT) competency tests. It's not enough for feminists merely to demand that women and men be equally drafted. In order to serve they should be equally qualified. The reason why the determination of qualification sets a lower standard for female military personnel is precisely because compared to males, they are less competent physically, and this lower competence is a reflection of their biology. If both women and men were equally obligated to serve in the military, there would thus still remain privileges and exemptions for women (and this would present a net liability to the security of the nation if such women were given an equal role in combat). Either lower the minimum PT standards for all military personnel (assuming that a lower standard would not negatively affect military readiness), or exclude women as less physically competent. If women are then excluded on that basis, then male authority over such women is justified, based on the male obligation to register (and the female exemption/privilege from registering) for the Selective Service.
>As an addendum to my comment above…Feminists — including the feminist author who David Futrelle is fond of citing, Gerda Lerner — claim that men determine all the standards by which humanity is judged and evaluated. And so even an equal standard in the minimum physical training requirements for military personnel would inevitably be challenged by feminists as unequal, and by implication unjust, because it didn't measure and evaluate women by standards that are easier for women to meet. This is textbook feminism: lower the standard on behalf of females whether or not this lowered standard inures to the benefit of males, and call it equality.
>John Dias -The standards are still much lower for women than they are for men.
>John Dias: By that logic, women should have authority over men who are less qualified than they. Also men would have authority over other men, who are less qualified. Naturally, older men would lose their authority and civil rights, as well as men who were sick or disabled (including men disabled as a result of service, since they could no longer "protect" anyone). In other words, you confirm what I stated: that if military prowess is a prerequisite to full human status and enjoying civil rights, then most men would be relegated to the same subhuman status as women under a system like that. However, nothing in your comment justifies your apparent belief that a man, regardless of his personal qualifies, just because he is a man, should lord over "his" women, and even all women, just because some other man can bench press 90 times.
>"Feminists — including the feminist author who David Futrelle is fond of citing, Gerda Lerner — claim that men determine all the standards by which humanity is judged and evaluated. And so even an equal standard in the minimum physical training requirements for military personnel would inevitably be challenged by feminists as unequal, and by implication unjust, because it didn't measure and evaluate women by standards that are easier for women to meet. This is textbook feminism: lower the standard on behalf of females whether or not this lowered standard inures to the benefit of males, and call it equality. "The benefit of males shouldn't be the only concern, especially since you deny that males are the "default" people. After all, men comprise only half of humanity. Women are not a narrow minority or a "special interest" anymore than men are, because we comprise half the human race.Now, as to standards. High standards, no matter how extremely high, are fine if they are rationally related to the objective. However, certain standards imposed solely for the purpose of creating a legitimate-looking ground for excluding people based on gender, race or class are bogus and should be done away with.I don't think reasonable physical standards in the military should be relaxed to accommodate women — just like I don't believe that humanities and languages curricula in our schools should be dumbed down just because boys are "less verbal" than girls and therefore can't be bothered to learn a foreign language. But then, requiring fluency in a foreign language along with flawless pronunciation to get a job, say, as a doctor would privilege women without any good-faith basis for it.