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| Scott Adams: Sometimes dumber than Dilbert’s boss. |
So Scott Adams — the Dilbert guy — has a blog. About a week and a half ago he made the mistake of asking his readers to give him a topic to write about. Well, some MRAs heard about this, and, being MRAs, decided that they would flood his site with comments urging him to write about Men’s Rights. And so he did.
What they got from him wasn’t quite what they hoped. Really, though, it wasn’t what anyone would have hoped. So much so that Adams decided to take his post down, saying that it had gotten “a bit too much attention from outside my normal reading circle.”
Luckily, through the voodoo of Google, we can still see the original post. Adams started out, depressingly enough, by more-or-less agreeing with MRAs on a wide assortment of their pet issues big and small — from men paying more for car insurance to the alleged anti-male bias of the legal system. Much of what he wrote made as little sense as many real MRA rants; even his little jokey asides fell completely flat.
We take for granted that men should hold doors for women, and women should be served first in restaurants. Can you even imagine that situation in reverse?
Generally speaking, society discourages male behavior whereas female behavior is celebrated. Exceptions are the fields of sports, humor, and war. Men are allowed to do what they want in those areas.
Add to our list of inequities the fact that women have overtaken men in college attendance. If the situation were reversed it would be considered a national emergency.
After more or less agreeing that men are getting a raw deal, Adams dismissed the complaints of women upset that women earn less than men; to Adams, this is because they are naturally timid souls who don’t know how to ask for raises.
So far, so not-so-good. But then Adams pulled the old switcheroo on his MRA readers, who up until this point were presumably giddy with excitement.
Now I would like to speak directly to my male readers who feel unjustly treated by the widespread suppression of men’s rights:
Get over it, you bunch of pussies.
Uh oh! Shaming tactic! MRAs love directing vagina-based insults at others — mangina anyone? — but they hate hate hate it when anyone directs a vagina-based insult at them. To be fair, calling someone a pussy is not much of an argument.
But here’s where Adams pulled a sort of double switcheroo. After insulting Men’s Rights activists, he did them one better with a bizarre, brazen misogynistic argument that seemed to have been cribbed from some of the more idiotic comments on the various MGTOW message boards. It turned out that the reason Adams thinks men should “get over it” is that … well, read it for yourself.
The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.
What what what?? This is the sort of shit you expect from some low-grade misogynist loser on The Spearhead. But no, this is Scott Adams, internationally famous cartoonist and bestselling author. Instead of trying to explain just what the fuck he means by all this, Adams continued on with a very strange, and strangely sexual, chess metaphor:
How many times do we men suppress our natural instincts for sex and aggression just to get something better in the long run? It’s called a strategy. Sometimes you sacrifice a pawn to nail the queen. If you’re still crying about your pawn when you’re having your way with the queen, there’s something wrong with you and it isn’t men’s rights.
Apparently In Scott Adams’ world, chess players don’t get all their kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
After a few more paragraphs that, frankly, don’t make any more sense than what I’ve quoted so far, Adams seemed to realize that maybe he shouldn’t have really suggested that women were a bunch of retarded children. But instead of going back and removing that from his post, he dug himself further in with a weird and completely unconvincing denial:
I realize I might take some heat for lumping women, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I’m not saying women are similar to either group. I’m saying that a man’s best strategy for dealing with each group is disturbingly similar. If he’s smart, he takes the path of least resistance most of the time, which involves considering the emotional realities of other people.
As far as I can figure out his weird and convoluted argument, it is this: The world really is unfair to men. But you’ll never win this argument with a women — you know how they are. So keep quiet and maybe … you’ll get to fuck the queen?
No wonder he deleted the post.
Completely off-topic observation: Every time I hear the name Dilbert, the song Dilbar Dil Se Pyare, from the 1971 Bollywood hit Caravan, gets stuck in my head. So let’s see if I can get it stuck in your head:
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>Elizabeth, that's a breath of fresh air. That said, I am not really sure if Phyllis Schlafly and Suzanne Venker are really feminists. If they are, too bad this only makes up not even 1 percent of femimism.triplanetary saidI think you'll find that feminists are not big on blaming the victimYou're extreme bigotry never ceases to amaze me. You are too dumb to realise that men can be victims too. Not all women nor men as a whole are victims. People are victims, not based on gender."But as has been pointed out to you many times before, patriarchy as an institution is reinforced by men and women both"That makes no sense what so ever as if women are reinforcing something, How can this be patriarchy?Feminists like you crack me up as you think even if women enforce something, it's still somehow patriarchy. WTF??? ROFLA lot of your feminists seem to be borderline retardsAnyway this is enough for now as I have a life to attend to, unlike the feminists on this blog. I shall be back for another laugh
>Nick, not sure what exactly you're looking for here, but here's a comment from one feminist:"I am aware, as every other human being I've ever meet is aware, that both men and women can do horrible, horrible things. Individual women abuse children, kill people, and screw over men and other women alike. They basically do every bad thing in the world that men do. You want to see how horrible some women can be? Watch the documentary Dear Zachary. It's on Netflix instant watch. It's really depressing." Oh yeah, that was me, in my "dumb things to assume about this blog" post. (see sidebar)
>Nick-those two are such anti-feminists they believe that men *should* support their wives and wives should not have to work. This despite Ms Schlafly having been working for decades outside the home.And they are one of the reasons it is so hard to get things to changed to where that is not a requirement for any man or woman.
>Nick. Patriarchy as a sociological concept does not exclude women. I'm not being paid enough (see: nothing) to provide a lecture on gender and social theory here, so go check out any number of textbooks on the issue. It's a very well settled academic issue, in fact it's practically self evident, that there are women who are part of the intellectual concept of patriarchy.
>That said, I am not really sure if Phyllis Schlafly and Suzanne Venker are really feminists.They're not. Nobody said they were. Elizabeth was providing you with an example of feminists criticizing women. Schlafly and Venker weren't supposed to be the good guys in this example, though I'm hardly surprised that their arguments appeal to you.
>Oh, and here's a book by a feminist friend of mine about "slut shaming" in high school; she deals at great length on girls who engage in it — more so than boys — and reinforce backwards sexual double-standards. http://www.amazon.com/Slut-Growing-Female-Bad-Reputation/dp/0060957409/
>Nick, the fact that women are involved in maintaining patriarchy is rather crucial to understanding what feminists mean by patriarchy; many women actually benefit in various ways from patriarchy. If you can't understand this, you probably shouldn't be making pronouncements about patriarchy at all. If you are actually interested in learning about patriarchy, read some Gerda Lerney. If you are NOT interested in learning about it, then might I suggest you shut the fuck up about it, as you clearly have no fucking idea of what you are talking about. People can support ideological/political systems in which they are not the primary beneficiaries. Lots of people who are not kings or queens support or historically have supported monarchy; some non-kings and non-queens (like palace guards, for example) actually benefit directly from monarchy, others benefit less directly.
>Name one example where "feminist literature" blames female issues on women and not patriarchy or men?Not coming up with an answer proves my point.Waste your time on my non-argument or I will declare victory! I will, of course, not bother to come up with any proof to support my own claims! Research is girl work!Pretty much every book on feminism I've read takes women to task for contributing to sexism/patriarchy. Random examples from looking at my bookshelf…Susan Faludi's Backlash spends a lot of time on Beverly LaHaye and Phyllis Schlafly. Faludi criticizes women who buy into harmful beauty standards, including the bizarre story of a woman who got a heavily-publicized full-body plastic surgery makeover to attract a husband. (P.S. It didn't work.) Her section on "The Backlash Brain Trust" covers five men and four women, including two self-identified feminists. Faludi's next book, incidentally, was Stiffed, about the burdens American society places on men, but I must be making that up because feminists never talk about men's problems.In Lynn Peril's awesome Pink Think and College Girls, sexist women come in for plenty of ribbing. There's a good section in Pink Think on the "pleasing your man" books Fascinating Womanhood and The Total Woman, both written by women. There's also a section questioning the wisdom of the advice dispensed by Sex and the Single Girl author Helen Gurley Brown, who wasn't really feminist or anti-feminist, more of a kind of apolitical champion of casual sex. (Casual sex is cool, but Brown's idea that married men make great boyfriends…not so much.) Peril includes a chapter on "blue think" sexism aimed at boys and men, but, again, I must have hallucinated that part.Cynthia Heimel used to write a column for Playboy. She did some pieces on the modern (circa the '90s) battle of the sexes that I'm constantly tempted to just post here in their entirety.Really, though, this is a weird argument to get into, because social justice movements aren't about "blame." They're about changing the system. And laughing at the haters, but you've probably noticed that by now.
>The Total Woman is one of my favorite insane books ever. Seriously, people, if you ever see it in a thrift store, buy it.
>If you are actually interested in learning about patriarchy, read some Gerda Lerney. If you are NOT interested in learning about it, then might I suggest you shut the fuck up about it, as you clearly have no fucking idea of what you are talking about. I can say with some confidence that a person who isn't sure whether or not Phyllis Schlafly is a feminist has no fucking idea what feminism is.
>Phyllis Schlafly is in her pink office right now crying a single pink tear.
>Scott Adams manages to bring together MRAs and feminists in the shared belief that he's an idiot. Impressive.
>There is no "patriarchy" or "rape culture" in Western Society. It is a ridiculous argument, because, it isn't – an argument. It is a belief system conjured up by ideologues who believe their in their faith.
>Scott Adams frequently says things that show he is an insufferable douchecanoe…He has also said that women hitting men is funny(hence the character of Alice)but of course men hitting women is never funny…..of course this sentiment which is usually said by men is attributed to feminists which makes me stabby as hell!And comparing women to children…..why, I have never seen that before!
>And we're supposed to take magdelyn's word over the general consensus of research conducted by those who study Western society because…?In other news, as someone who has experienced weather, I declare myself more competent to discuss global warming than any mere geologist.
>I also recall Scott Adam's flirtations with intelligent design. I am odd in that I've never found Dilbert funny. Actually, I'm odd in that I don't find any currently running newspaper comics funny. They stopped being good when Bill Watterson retired. It doesn't help that I've been spoiled by webcomics.
>May I humbly suggest that David construct a small section on this blog wherein the arguments that always come up (for example, "feminists never blame women") are dealt with succinctly, so we can just refer these guys there when they inevitably bring up an argument that they think we must have never heard before because it didn't come out of their genius brains yet? Or, to shorten it even more, we could have a list of the usual MRA arguments and David could just replace their repetitive comments with the relevant number? Then we can continue on with the mockery of misogyny, which is way more fun.
>rachel-swirsky: "…general consensus of research conducted by those who study Western society because…"HahahahahahHahahahahha…. You kill me. A "general consesus" among who? Ideologues? Women's studies professors, and the "sanctimonious women's studies set?"silly.
>@thewhatifgirl "…we could have a list of the usual MRA arguments…" For that, feel free to browse http://goodwomynproject.comI'll be making MRA arguments over there all the time.
>@thewhatifgirl:We could always make bingo cards!
>Magdelyn, I believe it was right there in the OP: a general consensus among those who study Western society. You know, for a living. I.e., sociologists. You've heard of them, right? Also anthropologists and the like. Sometimes they overlap with feminists. Of course, studying social relationships is one of those fields not regarded as particularly "manly." So it's underpaid and not well-regarded. And that's because there's no patriarchy, no sir. None at all.
>*blink blink*For some reason I had hoped that Scott Adams would actually be less of an asshole than the Pointy Haired Boss. How disappointing.
>Pink Think is the shiznit.Also: Phyllis Chesler's "Woman's Inhumanity To Woman," which granted is rather slanted toward "my experience as a very important type academic celebrity" and then later she became an insufferable neocon douchecanoe, but anyway. Andrea Dworkin's "Right Wing Women"not to mention any number of critiques of mainstream white feminism/ists (yes, that means mainly other women) by queer women, women of color, feminists with disabilities …
>nicko81m said… That makes no sense what so ever as if women are reinforcing something, How can this be patriarchy?Well, then I guess there are no feminist laws as the MRA's claim since men are the majority of congress,police and judges that enforce them. I like using nicko logic, it's fun
>j. kaje, I have found Dilbert to be sometimes funny, though I haven't read it for years. But newspaper comics in general? They are beyond terrible. But really, it's basically been all downhill for newspaper comics since, oh, the 1920s. You ever looked at early 20th century newspaper comics? They were fucking amazing works of art. They really were. whatifgirl, on standard MRA "arguments," I've got a few of those addressed in my "dumb things"faq and in some of the "further reading" posts, linked in the sidebar, but I think I will do another post on "brilliant MRA arguments and insults we've never ever heard a bazillion times before."If you (or anyone) have any specific thoughts on some we should include in that, post them below.