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| Damn you, you monsters! This scarf does NOT make me look gay! |
This is just embarrassing. A bit over a week ago, the Wall Street Journal published a chunk of antifeminist polemicist Kay Hymowitz’ new book Manning Up, which argues that young men today have turned into a generation of immature pre-adults as a result (to simplify only slightly) of excessive exposure to Judd Apatow movies and to young women who won’t let them step up and be real men. The article stirred up quite a tempest in the tea-pot that is the Men’s Right’s/MGTOW world online. Completely missing the antifeminist implications of her argument, manosphere men attacked her for impugning the honor of young men and their video games, and for generally being, to quote a few typical comments, a “bitch,” an “entitlement whore,” a “cunt,” “a fugly tranny skank,” and someone who “on her best day … has a face that reminds me a mule my uncle used to own.”
Now Hymowitz has responded to all this vitriol by penning … a partial defense of her attackers for the Daily Beast. While she notes that there are elements of “backlash” and, yes, misogyny in the rage of the manosphere, she’s quick to equate this manosphere tantrum with the feelings of men in general (as Amanda Marcotte has already pointed out), and to suggest that there are legitimate reasons for the hate. Which apparently have to do with, er, male frustration with having to ask women out for dates. Yes, that’s her real argument. Let’s let her explain:
[T]here’s another reason for these rants, one that is far less understood. Let’s call it gender bait and switch. Never before in history have men been matched up with women who are so much their equal—socially, professionally, and sexually. … That’s the bait; here comes the switch. Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren’t so sure.
At this point, Hymowitz launches into a tired old litany of male complaints about the alleged horrors of post-feminist dating: OMG, in this crazy mixed-up world of ours, men don’t know whether or not to open doors for their dates! Some women want to pay their way on dates, even when they make as much as or more than the dudes dating them … and others don’t!
Men say they have no choice. If they want a life, they have to ask women out on dates; they have to initiate conversations at bars and parties, they have to take the lead on sex. Women can take a Chinese menu approach to gender roles. They can be all “Let me pay for the movie tickets” on Friday nights, and “A single rose? That’s it?” on Valentine’s Day.
As Marcotte points out, Hymowitz is essentially echoing one of the dopiest of manosphere complaints about the ladies, “that they’re all different people, instead of easily controlled sexbots.” Indeed, on many manosphere sites, one gets the impression that women are, or should be, a bunch of interchangeable sperm receptacles, differentiated only by how high they score on a “hotness” scale of 1-10. If you think of women this way, no wonder you’re confused when women have, you know, actual personalities and shit.
But here’s a hint for the angry dudes of the manosphere: once you realize that women are not all the same person inside, you can turn this fact to your advantage, by deliberately seeking out women who are actually compatible with your own personality. Don’t like paying for dates? Then find a woman who likes paying her own way! (Just don’t be shocked if she finds your retrograde ideas about women repulsive.) I know that this may come as a shock to some of you guys, but there are men out there who actually find women’s distinct personalities … interesting. Stimulating. Attractive.
Back to Hymowitz. As strange as it is to see her parroting some of the dumbest manosphere complaints about women and dating — some women want one thing, while other women want something different! some say they want good guys but then they date bad boys! — even stranger is her notion that manosphere rage has its roots in frustrations about dating. Given that she’s not a complete idiot, there are only two possible explanations for this strange conclusion of hers. One, she’s so eager to find evidence for her thesis that empowered women are the root of male immaturity that she is willing to overlook the crazy misogyny of angry MRA/MGTOW dudes because they, too, blame women for their dating woes. Or two, that she has not actually given the blogs and forums of the manosphere much more than a cursory glance. I think it’s a bit of both.
The list of manosphere sites she mentions in her article bear out the second of these theses — it’s simply cut-and-pasted from her 2008 article Love in the Time of Darwinism, and it’s pretty clear she hasn’t revisited any of them since then. Or, in one case, ever: EternalBachelor.com isn’t a Men’s Rights or MGTOW site at all. but a skeleton site for a web magazine “coming soon” whose only content at the moment consists of photos of buff, shirtless guys (and a page where you can order t-shirts, presumably to keep the poor fellas from freezing to death). I can only guess that Hymowitz meant to refer to the Eternal Bachelor blog, which has itself been dormant for more than three years.(Another site she links to, Nomarriage.com, is also “under construction.”)
Kay, if you read this, please take a moment to peruse some real MRA/MGTOW and related forums, like, say, The Spearhead, and take a look at some of the comments there. For example, this one, about you — which, last I checked, had gotten 33 upvotes and only a handful of downvotes from the Spearhead peanut gallery:
I wish I could reach through my computer screen and punch this bitch. …. this stupid bitch is using the pain of innocent men destroyed by the same misandric system that publishes her shit to make more money and she is probably part of the feminazi conspiracy to appropriate and colonize the growing MRM. …
WTF is up with jewish women? They seem to be the most misandric of all. They demand that baby boys get their dicks chopped off and grown men too, I have hooked up with a few and they all got weirdly gitty knowing I was uncut and then sad when they realized I wouldn’t get chopped up and submit to their version of a sky god. I mean, really, WTF? I haven’t read much into the torah but just scanning the feminists and other feminazi loons it’s is obvious that there are a lot with jewish names. … Really, I don’t get it and am not trying to sound like a nazi but I must be missing something.
Somehow, I don’t think the rage in this comment has much to do with confusion over whether or not guys should open doors for their dates.
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>"…a fugly tranny skank…" Whoa!! For a minute there, I thought they were talking about me.
>"Really, I don’t get it and am not trying to sound like a nazi[…]". OH WELL THAT'S REASSURING
>Any time anyone starts a sentence with "I'm not trying to sound like a Nazi …" you're in for trouble.
>Anytime anyone starts a sentence with "I'm not trying to sound like a Nazi…" – you know they're about to sound just like a Nazi.Unbelievable. I read that Spearhead article and that comment this morning. My first thought was – I wonder whether David will catch that.I read Hymowitz's drivel the other day and just rolled my eyes.
>Heh – I just took a good look at the magazine cover. Down in the right hand corner is the caption for the fiction bonus:Death Wears a NegligeeHow fitting for the MRA/MGTOW crowd.
>God, why do women have to be so DIFFERENT and CONFUSING? How do you know what you're supposed to do on a date with one of them?!…Wait… talk to them? Find out about their feelings and opinions? The hell is wrong with you? They don't have penises!
>Every generation in history has been convinced that the men of the younger generation are turning all sissy and feminized. Usually there's also concern about young women being too macho, but the "we must man up our boys!" sentiment is as old as Ecclesiastes.You think the 1940s was an era when men were real men? You wouldn't have thought so if at the time. More likely, you'd have been reading Philip Wylie's bestselling 1943 book Generation of Vipers, which complained that the young men of the day had been softened by weak, overindulgent mothers and general "momism." You know, the young men who went on to crush the Nazis. Although there was eventually a backlash against Wylie's book, his fear of "momism" survived into the postwar era and fueled many a panic about 1950s housewives coddling their sons into femininity.Wylie's a great source for misogynist rants, by the way. MRA guys, next time you're about to take the lazy way out and paste "perfect princesses" into yet another post, I urge you to study the classics and spit out something like:"…the child wife, the infantile personality, the woman who cannot reason logically, the bridge fiend, the golf fiend, the mother of all the atrocities we call 'spoiled children,' the middle-aged, hair-faced clubwoman who destroys everything she touches, the murderess, the habitual divorcee, the weeper, the weak sister, the rubbery sex experimentist, the quarreler, the woman forever displeased, the nagger, the female miser, and so on and so on and so on, to the outermost lengths of the puerile, rusting, raging creature we know as mom and sis."I tell you, today's young misogynists have grown weak and feminized compared to the robust misogynists of yore.
>Man, I read Generation of Vipers (or portions of it, anyway) back in grad school, forgot how crazily over the top it was. I want to meet all those women he's writing about, especially "the rubbery sex experimentist!" I may just have to give it another look. And do a post on it, even. Thanks, shaenon!
>It is my opinion that if a girl is so Nintendo Hard she'll complain because you can't actually read her fucking mind, you probably shouldn't have a romantic relationship with her anyway.Everyone else? Seriously, if you don't know whether you should pay for meals, ASK. If you don't know what she wants for Valentine's Day, ASK. (If you think she likes surprises, ask her best friend. If you don't know who her best friend is, reconsider your relationship.) If you don't know whether to open doors, ASK. And men always have to initiate? I wish.
>just admit it already. the MRM is gaining steam, no matter how many spearhead articles you peruse in hopes of garnering some more dollops of the only thing keeping this shit rag of a blog afloat (out of context quote mining)
>David:I like how you're playing Real Scotsman Fallacy with Hymnowitz's "real" dissenters. Some of her dissenters were angry and talked about harming her, true. But there were also plenty of dissenters who weren't so violent – such as the ones who wrote in to this weekend's WSJ editorial page. It's getting old, you painting every anti-feminist with the same worn out brush. I mean, it's cool that you want to focus on the more extreme element of the Spearhead and MGTOW forums, but you should be honest and label them as what they are: extreme views. But you try to normalize that voice so that your blog seems more urgent and relevant.
>Well, I did do a post recently on something you wrote. Are you one of the more extreme elements too?
>David, entertaining take-down of KH.. really, she is on my last good nerve.
>@ bar – No, David is not digging up out-of-context quote mining. Most of his quotes come with plenty of context, and plenty of evidence that the quotes are well-respected. And from what I've read, most of the quotes he picks from sites like The Spearhead are very representative of what everyone else writes, and the comments he selects generally receive loads of upvotes. So no, not really out of context.
>David, you're the one who determines your blog's content and theme so you tell me.
>Chuck, this blog is about misogyny, and I find it where I find it. I tend to find the most entertaining and/or egregious examples on MRA/MGTOW sites. The only "quote-mining" I do is to try to find interesting examples. If I were simply posting every misogynist comment I found on MRA/MGTOW sites, I'd have to post dozens of posts a day. I'm curious what non-extreme MRA sites you would recommend.
>Asking a MRA to name some moderate MRA voices is always amusing, because inevitably they'll name one or two, and those one or two writers will have a front-page post up about how rape isn't really a problem.
>MRA'S ALL EXTREME!!!!And yet returning America to having a debtors prison for men never seems to be "extreme" to the feminists who pushed for it and continue support it. Tricking a man into supporting a child who is not his, and then forcing him to continue paying for the bastard, is never considered extreme to feminists.Putting him in prison for not supporting someone else's child is not considered extreme by feminists.Restraining orders based upon just a person's word and nothing else is not considered extreme by feminists.False rape accusers not receiving harsh punishments is not considered extreme, in fact feminists claim that if you punish false accurers real rape victims will not come forward. These beliefs are not "extreme" according to feminists.In fact false rape is trivial to David that he completely skipped the whole Heidi Jones fiasco.Amazing. It's seems that extreme speech is wrong, at least when done by MRA'S. But extremist laws, well as long as the only hurts men feminists can't bother to give a shit. Truly Amazing.Random Brother.
>@ richardyes this blog was conveniently silent on, the hateful misandric false rape accusation by poor innocent heidi jones.here we have a woman who feels it necessary to invent a rape out of thin air, and being that shes a racist, blames it on a hispanic man that didnt exist, yet blogs like these dont think that rape shield laws and false rape accusations are a real problem.its truly amazing
>Tricking a man into supporting a child who is not his, and then forcing him to continue paying for the bastard, is never considered extreme to feminists.Actually, we do consider it "extreme" in the sense of "an outlier situation that doesn't happen nearly as often as you'd think if you were just going on how much MRAs whine shrilly about it."Restraining orders based upon just a person's word and nothing else is not considered extreme by feminists.What's the problem with restraining orders being based on this, exactly? If somebody doesn't want you contacting them, don't. If you plan to respect their wishes in that regard, the restraining order won't hinder you; and if you don't plan on respecting their wishes, the restraining order was necessary.This also can't be portrayed as a "women oppressing men" issue without hiding half the truth, which is that plenty of restraining orders are taken out against women as well. There are a lot of cases of female stalkers out there. I have no idea which gender is likelier to be a stalker, but it's not really relevant.Yes, I fully acknowledge that female stalkers exist, yet I'm still betting $20 that it won't take more than one or two comment threads before you use the phrase "perfect princesses" again.False rape accusers not receiving harsh punishments is not considered extreme, in fact feminists claim that if you punish false accurers real rape victims will not come forward. These beliefs are not "extreme" according to feminists.I have yet to see a single MRA explain why rape accusations should be singled out in this way. There are already laws in place to cover things like filing a false police report, slander, squandering emergency resources, etc. And despite MRA claims, women have been charged with filing a false police report in cases related to rape in the past.If it can be conclusively proved that no rape occurred at all, women can be convicted under existing laws for filing a police report. What MRAs really want is for every rape charge that doesn't result in a guilty verdict to be flipped around into a conviction of "false rape accusation" against the rape victim, which is complete lunacy. If my house gets broken into and I accuse you, and it turns out you didn't do it, I'm not going to get charged with anything. Why should a rape case be any different?
>"I have yet to see a single MRA explain why rape accusations should be singled out in this way."Probably because it's obvious why. They're guilty of it, or are so afraid of women that they think some from their past will accuse them of it, therefore every.single.rape.accusation must be assumed to be false. Or else they might have to grow up.
>"I have yet to see a single MRA explain why rape accusations should be singled out in this way."it should be singled out because of the seriousness of the crime being falsely accused. a false rape accusation. will send a man to prison for a few decades, its completely fair and reasonable to have a rubric to correlate false accusation punishments, with the potential damage done by the crime that is being falsely accused.if someone falsely accused you of murder, or pedophilia, and you are prove innocent, is it not appropriate for that person to spend the same amount of time in jail that you would have had you not been able to prove your innocence?
>"will send a man to prison for a few decades"[citation needed]And that means proving it is a common occurance, not that this one dude your best friend used to know heard about it happening to someone once.
>"will send a man to prison for a few decades"[citation needed]are you kidding me?! really? you need a citation to discern that a false rape accusation, can send a man to prison for a good part of his natural life?at this point you are making a mockery of a very serious issue. if you really need proof, stop being lazy and look up the average time served for a convicted rapist, and then look up examples of the many men that have been exonerated of rape convictions, with the help of the innocence project.but i will put no further effort into this
>furthermore before i go, the proof you need that it is indeed a common occurrence is heidi jones herself.by her admission she made up a lie about being raped. and those in the media never questioned her, where it not for a diligent investigation from the authorities, it would have been taken for fact that a Hispanic man raped her. the fact that society at large would have just accepted it as fact, where it not for the thorough investigation exposing her as a liar, proves that we currently live in a society where the accused are considered guilty until proven innocent