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| Women in groups: Always trouble. |
One of the strangest places in the burly world of Men’s Rightsers and MGTOWers is The Spearhead’s Shieldmaidens forum. And no, I am not making that name up. It’s a forum, essentially, for women interested in being a sort of Women’s Auxiliary to a bunch of guys who are all about hating women.
Given that such a role – trying to help dudes who don’t much like you or your whole gender — is a bit of a tricky one, the forum moderator Hestia has written a long introductory post explaining just what new gals should and shouldn’t do to support their menfolk. It’s kind of a masterpiece of doublespeak. Let’s look at some of its highlights.
Hestia starts out by warning the ladies that these rough men sometimes talk in a rough manner:
As this is a male environment, us girls can expect styles of communication that we might not use ourselves or readily relate to. For the purpose of this post, I will call all of this “locker room talk”. … Topics and expressions women may find crude are likely to occur and generalizations about women (or white, western, whatever) used to adequately get a point across. These differences, while bothersome to some women, are not wrong in and of themselves and are not reason to shame men into expressing themselves differently. As women in the locker room, we are the ones who need to look the other [way] and make accommodations; not the men for whom this website is for.
In other words: the guys here may call you sluts and whores and worse, but really, that’s your fault for being here in the first place, so don’t complain.
Welcome aboard!
Hestia continues:
We must also respect this place as one of the few politically incorrect sanctuaries that men have in today’s misandrist world. … We should not be bullying men into saying, “yes, indeed not all women are like that!” to appease our own egos. … This is sacred male friendly ground and should be treated as such. … We are but guests on this website and must know our place and respect certain boundaries for the sake of the men here and for the work towards gender peace.
Hard to be more abject than this. So how have the menfolk responded?
It appears that not too many men actually read the Shieldmaidens forum, but among those who do, the reaction has been a little less than enthusiastic. Our friend GlobalMan, one of the more excitable Spearhead regulars, basically tells her (and all women) to fuck off entirely:
I have voiced my opinion many times women should be banned all together from here. They are contributing nothing and they are taking up a lot of time and energy of the stupid young men who do not realise that women are just attention whores who won’t actually do anything at the end of the day. ….You women pretty much fuck up everything you stick your nose into. And you never, ever tire of fucking things up for men under the delusion you have ‘something to contribute’. You don’t. Get over it. You pop out babies. That is your one and only ‘claim to fame’ and it used to be enough for a man to love a woman for her whole life and to provide for her and the kids. Now it is not. So you women need to ‘act like men’ and suck it up.Indeed. If women had any class at all you would leave of your own accord and let the men sort out what you refused to. The only posts from women here should be ‘Men, please tell us what to do’.
A fellow calling himself Diogenes offers his two cents:
That Hestia has to write this thread proves that indeed women who come to this board do exactly that which she complains against. They have such a cozy and male-coddled life that they are shocked when some men rightly express their scorn and foul language towards their attitudes and manipulative behaviour. Women BREED misogyny because all they do is constantly manipulate and get the attention and protection of men by trying to look sexy all the time. Every time a man turns his head towards a pretty lady, she knows she is being looked after and will be rescued by a man if ever her poor little ass does something stupid. They are CHILDREN at heart. One female college student mentioned to me how according to her “every girl” has gone on dates just to get free dinners. How much more proof do we need that women are NO GOOD WHORES?
I guess that’s some of the “locker room talk” Hestia was warning the ladies about.
Granted, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the inside of a locker room, but I don’t remember much of the talk in the locker rooms I’ve been in revolving around the no-good whorishness of all women. I think that might be because most men are not in fact hateful assholes who think all women are NO GOOD WHORES.That’s just a theory though.
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>I am not asking about rights. I am asking about "how do you think the funding came about for a woman's shelter?"
>Nick, It is not fair to demand that feminists fight on behalf of men's issues when they are already busy with other issues. I believe you that there is a need for battered men's shelters. This is something men's rights activists could spend money and time on. I agree that people shouldn't have to fight for equal rights. Unfortunately, the political reality is that we do. I have been called names and ridiculed when I joined groups and protested for gays and lesbians to have the right to marry. In a perfect world, they would already have this right. Since this is not a perfect world, I think it is up to each of us to do something to make it better.
>Sometimes I feel like I'm not angry or upset enough to participate in these conversations.(Renee)Yep, I hear ya. Trust your gut, its probably right.
>You might think it's sexist to exclude men from the shelters, but the shelters aren't put there to make men feel better – they're put there to serve and protect abused women, and in this case, their needs come first.(Lady Vic)Of course its sexist. Because the truth is, if we are all about equality then it is about protecting the victims of violence. And THAT shouldnt be about gender. I know, I know, it was a man that beat the woman so obviously she wouldnt be comfortable if a man was in the same shelter with her, regardless if he was abused he still might hurt her, right?
>Like I said, in a shelter constructed for abused women, the needs of the clients come first. If that means that men can't stay there, then men can't stay there. I don't believe an abused man is likely to abuse a woman also staying at the shelter, but I do believe that their presence might be disruptive to women trying to recover from abuse. I believe an abused woman in recovery deserves as much peace of mind as she can get, and that's part of what the shelters are there to do. What's the alternative? Women might not want to go to the shelter if they know that men will be staying there, and that could prove to be a very bad decision for the woman – most abused women are at greatest risk for injury and death when they're leaving the relationship. If a men's shelter had a similar policy and would not allow abused women in order to protect the needs of their clients, I would not complain. Also, relationship violence has a different dynamic when it's man on woman or woman on man. I suspect that a woman-oriented shelter would not even have the appropriate resources to properly serve the needs of an abused man. I mean, you've implied or stated before that some men can be so badly abused that they seriously contemplate suicide; but I don't think the same is true for women (though I'm open to being proved wrong in this). In that case, the people running a domestic violence shelter for men would need more suicide prevention training than those running a shelter for women. They would need access to legal counsel who specialized in their sorts of cases, and access to doctors and therapists who knew how to treat male victims. They may also need child therapists who specialize in treating children abused by their mother. Also, let's assume that there is a shelter which primarily serves women, but decides to accept a male client in a particularly dire situation. What's to stop his ex from posing as an abused woman herself to try and get access to him? In a men-only shelter, that situation is avoided completely and the people running the shelter don't have to waste time verifying that someone looking for the shelter's services isn't just a vengeful ex.Again: Women's Shelters Are Not Built To Serve Men's Needs. Women's Shelters Are Built To Protect Women Because There Are Women Who Need Protection. The people running shelters aren't demanding that men perform rituals of public humiliation before they use their resources to open men's shelters. They're not withholding their time and energy on a whim. They just don't see that they should be obligated to change the course of their careers because a couple angry men are screaming 'sexism!' No one here is going to tell you that you can't or shouldn't try to build shelters and programs yourself. Go for it. Hell, if I was employed right now, I'd kick a couple dollars towards any reputable program you care to name – no one should be abused, and people who are abused deserve to be protected from their abusers, regardless of gender. But you can't provide that protection by taking it away from someone else who also needs it. You provide that protection by creating it from your own resources.So go ahead – make your own efforts to raise awareness. Hold your own fundraisers. Get your own people trained. Make sure the people who need to know about your shelter are aware of it. I seriously wish you all the best, and I hope your project succeeds. You might be laughed at, but isn't the ability to save some people worth putting up with some mockery from the ignorant?
>It's amazing, the extent to which even a feminist such as myself can instinctively slip into a misogynistic double standard. I recall an episode of The Office in which Michael invites a few co-workers to a dinner party at his house. During the dinner party, an argument ensues between him and his live-in girlfriend, and she hurls something at him (or hits him, I don't remember). At this point, he breaks down in front of his friends and tells them, as I remember, that this is not the first time his girlfriend has attacked him. His friends commiserate and wisely advise him to pack a change of clothes and head to a shelter.And I remember thinking instinctively: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, this is bullshit. She beats him, and HE is the one who is supposed to leave his residence and go sleep on a bunk somewhere?" Except, of course, had the victim been a woman, telling her to go to a shelter wouldn't seem so weird, but the "normal" way to handle the situation. It's neat how, reversing the genders casts a whole different light on the situation. And yet, here we have people who believe that for a woman to go to a strange place with the minimum of possessions while her abuser remains comfortably in the marital residence is a privilege.
>AmusedHere is the real irony, they wouldnt let the guy in.
>I have a longer comment in moderation. It's a strange world where the MRAs are jealous of battered women, and manage to turn attempts to protect them into yet another way in which they believe men are oppressed.
>What's the alternative?(Lady vic)Well, here's an idea.http://titfortat6.blogspot.com/2011/03/domestic-violence-equality-and-justice.html
>Hey I'm back evrybody, I'm sure you'll all be glad I didn't die in my haha high paying job which you all claim I get paid well to do. I banged out a coupla 17 hour days since them but I'm alright, aren't ya happy?On the comment from nick about shelters for battered men, well it seems Canada has agreed to federally donate $5k a year to this worthy cause. Thats right $5k. So it seems men are worth about one millionth as much as women in DV. Sweet huh.Oh and for all you women who say you had to "fight" for those shelters and such, get real you suffered not. It's all about control. Inflate the lying statistics, (create the marxist problem) then offer the solution, (more marxist security forces). More power for Big Daddy Guv, (cause he loves his harem, right?)Oh and on your right to vote, keep in mind that men as a whole didn't have that right nationwide until around thirty years previous. Thats right in the entire history of mankind. Mankind by the way means men and women, where womankind only means women.Anyway, back to that voting thingy. After men as a whole were given the right to vote, the Guv pretty muched staed the same. After women got the right to vote the Guv doubled in size in just 10 years, freaky huh? And it grows and grows to where today it's over 22 million bloodsucking, money grubbing leaches of which over 70% are………women. But ya got no power right? But don't worry the jobs in the Guv that men have are the sewerworkers, consruction, wiremen, ect. ya know all the dirty dangerous jobs where people (men) die.Hey, do you ever wonder how in an equal society when a story comes out about when a men gets his man parts cut off or glued to him or sliced or bitten off by some vindictive woman, the mainstream media plays it up like a joke and all the women giggle about it. I mean this is the mainstream media, not some obscure blog somewhere. I know, I know, you gender feminists wanna end all that bad patriarchy stuff.Anyway I'm kinda tired, I just got back from dallas but I wanted to say that I took someones advice and read up a bit in gender essentialism, (as much as I could stomach), and as far as I can tell feminists just looked at reality and basically wrote a reverse philosophy based on fantasy. Kinda like lord of the rings but not nearly as entertaining.Maybe if Dave posts something good I'll debunk it for ya. Oh yea, if you want sources, look it up for yourselves, (I hear women are superior at multitasking). Big surprise there. Or you could you womens intuition. I hear women have intuition because the intuit they have intuition. What a sweet deal. I may have misspelled somethings or used improper punctuation, a sure sign of my inferior intellect, so discount everything I've said.
>Tit for Tat: Oh, but it's not nearly as ironic as if the abuser could follow his victim into the shelter claiming he was abused too, and continue to abuse her there.You missed the point — which was that abused women in our society are expected to leave their homes and seek shelter in a communal dormitory, because a woman's house is really her husband's, and she is there at his pleasure. Once you reverse the genders, the bias becomes apparent.
>AmusedI know, I missed your point. Though it does seem you missed mine. Did you ever consider that the abuser of the male could follow him too?? Equality cuts both ways.
>"I know, I missed your point. Though it does seem you missed mine. Did you ever consider that the abuser of the male could follow him too?? Equality cuts both ways."Oh, I got your point — and it lead me to conclude that the possibility of the female abuser following her male victim into the shelter just isn't a concern for you. Which, in turn, confirms my suspicion that most of the clamor for shutting down women's shelters or giving men access to them is merely a rhetorical device in support of the basic argument that women shouldn't enjoy legal equality to men unless they give up the last recourse against their abusers.
>If you want to make claims about Canada (which has less then forty million people) you might want to actually look up the stuff and cite it.That is one reason we think you are an idiot. The other reason is that you are so wrong that you show us you ARE an idiot.
>AmusedReally, you can make that leap that I dont have concern for a human because I point out an obvious double standard?
>My longer comment is up, and actually addresses the idea of an abuser following the victim to a mixed gender shelter, as well as the fact that a women-only shelter just might not be equipped to help men deal with their abuse.
>And hope springs eternal!
>Lady VicAgain, isnt the idea of a gender specific shelter sexist? If it isnt, could you explain to me why it isnt.
>tit for tatWhat happened to that men's shelter that was started in Alberta? It was big news in the mra a couple of years ago.
>Sexism is the belief that one gender is inferior due to inherent characteristics. If I said that all men were just abusers waiting for a chance to get away with it, that would be sexist. If I said that men didn't deserve shelters because they should be able to stand up for themselves, that would be sexist. Gender-restricted shelters are not sexist, they are protecting their clients from actual threats. You can call that sexist if you want, but isn't it *more* sexist for a man to believe that his partner is his property, his to abuse and control as he sees fit, and even kill if she rejects him by leaving? Frankly, I think that someone who is subjected to *that* kind of sexism deserves to have all the stops pulled in the interests of protecting them. You might as well claim that all-girl or all-boy schools are sexist for restricting admissions based on gender. Isn't it sexist to demand that the people who are running the shelters stop what they are doing to build shelters for men; when the people demanding this are perfectly capable of doing this for themselves? Here's another idea – you've hung out on MRA websites, you've seen the hate and anger that some of them direct to women. If mixed gender shelters were available, it seems to me that some of these men would be willing to pose as abused men so they could gain access to these shelters, figure out where they were located and then proceed to harass the women staying there. Or who knows, maybe the assholes behind the ACORN or Planned Parenthood pseudo-stings would try and conduct one around shelters. I don't believe that every man in the MRA movement is capable of this, but I do believe that some are, and even three men who would do this are three too many. No one is saying that men can't have their own gender-specific shelters. I wholly support the idea of supporting abused men in transitioning out of abusive relationships. I just think that the men who are demanding these shelters and programs should stop demanding that other people do their work for them, get off their asses, and make them happen for themselves.
>You might as well claim that all-girl or all-boy schools are sexist for restricting admissions based on gender.(Lady Vic)In Canada, Scouts ran into this problem.
>KaveI dont know, what happened to it?
>Well, T4T is consistent: he won't read anytihng a woman says, and he won't consider anything a woman says if by some chance he manages to accidentally take some of it in. The reason for gender-segregated shelters has been explained ad nauseum. Now you're just wasting more time.
>And Ion wonders why we called Tit an idiot.
>The scouts are not abuse shelters, and trying to equate the two is a bad faith argument and extremely ingenuous. There is no compelling reason that women should be barred from joining scouting organizations – unless you want to make the claim that the boy scouts have reason to fear for their safety and have need to be protected from violent women.