So I recently ran across a site called “Is It Normal?” The idea behind it is simple, and kind of wonderful: people confess some possibly odd thing about themselves, and others tell them if it’s normal. Now, normally (as it were) I’m against the too-rigid enforcement of what is considered “normal” behavior, especially when it comes to sexuality and sex roles. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here. Ohhhh, no. We’re talking about grown men and women eating their own boogers; having sexual fantasies about zombies; feeling an urge to jump off of high places; or wanting to be turned into a doll or manikin. (Hey, whatever floats your boat.)
Naturally, I did a search for “misogyny” just to see what turned up. Is that a normal thing to do? I don’t know, and I don’t care, but I did it and the search pulled up a couple of pretty interesting little discussions.
The one that really grabbed my attention was from a guy who said he hated female sexuality. Which may not be “normal,” though as readers of this blog know it’s not uncommon. But this guy is no Christopher from Oregon, whose hatred of female sexuality is part of a package deal that includes hatred for pretty much everything female.
No, this guy hates female sexuality in part because, well, he thinks the male body is ugly and so assumes – or at least feels on a gut level — that any woman having sex with a man is being coerced, bamboozled, or raped. Yep, we’re talking about a rich and toxic stew of misogyny and misandry here. Let’s let him explain:
I Hate Female Sexuality
What little mysogyny I have in me is directed at female sexuality. I can’t stand it that females are attracted to males, ever. I hate them a little for it, just feel it in my gut. I thought for a long time when I was younger that females were basically asexual, not interested in sex, and that romance for them was something far removed from physical love. It didn’t occur to me that anyone might find the male form attractive, and I always suspected males were using some form of deception or raping women in some way when they were with them. I don’t understand this hate and distrust for my own sex. It really bothers me.
I hate that I feel there’s something wrong with a female having an active sexuality when I know intellectually there’s not. I’m a passionate feminist and attracted to females myself. I don’t really understand this feeling.
I think maybe a small part of it is jealousy when I see a couple, and the rest mostly my wierd, incongruous hatred for the male sex.
I don’t think females are doing something wrong but that something wrong is being done to them when they engage in sexual activity, even consentual, with a male, and they’re allowing it to happen, are complicit in it. This is just a feeling I have and can’t shake. It’s not overwhelming, like I’m freaking out whenever I see a couple but it’s there a lot, subtle but persistent. I’m atheist and I’m not someone who belives sexual promiscuity is wrong or even undesirable in male or females. This is just a wierd, lingering emotional problem, like fear of the dark or something like that.
Is it normal?
So, yeah. For what it’s worth, only 14% of those reading this confession rated it normal. But, as I said, I don’t think it’s uncommon. We grow up, after all, in a society that treats sexuality as a commodity that women possess, and that men try to “get” from women – by charming them into “giving it up,” by buying it directly or indirectly (by going to a prostitute or paying for dinner), or simply taking by force.
This way of thinking about sex is pretty deeply embedded in our culture; as regular readers of this blog know all too well, many MRAs, MGTOWers, and PUAs (especially) seem unable to conceive of sexuality in any other way. Neither does the questioner on Is It Normal (who goes by the name SamuraiPeeper), even though he’s a self-described feminist.
Like a lot of misogynistic ideas, this “women own sex, men must fight to get it” idea contains a heaping helping of misandry as well – suggesting that women basically don’t enjoy or desire sex with men because male bodies and male sexuality are inherently disgusting. It’s only a few small steps from this to SamuraiPeeper’s whole muddled mixture of desire and disgust, hatred and self-hatred.
The biggest difference between SamuraiPeeper and the MGTOWers and other misogynists I write about here is that he’s aware that his views are fucked up, and is trying actively to work through his issues. And he’s actually gotten some good responses to his query on Is It Normal?
PoisonFlowers suggests that some of his hatred and disgust probably stems from a fear of female sexuality:
Is it misogyny? I don’t think it’s as clear cut as that. Perhaps because the image you had of women (almost an idealised impression it seems) when you were younger has been destroyed (instead of having romance that is above sex, it turns out that women can be just as animalistic as men), you feel a sort of resentment and that mixes with the jealousy and then as you say “a weird, incongruous hatred for the male sex.” This then becomes a strong dislike for female sexuality.
Why do you have these feelings about men? Is it the people you’ve been surrounded with throughout your life and their behaviour/attitudes? Have you witnessed a man being abusive towards a woman at any point in your life? …
You say that you feel as though “something wrong is being done to them,” which could point to an urge in you to protect women, or perhaps it is more accurate to say to protect the _idea_ you have of women that stems from the concept you had when you were younger.
randomsensuality offers some similar observations:
It definitely sounds like you want to protect the idea of females as pure, with an almost divine stature. It also sounds like you have been taught or embraced the idea that penetrative sex is inherently degrading or immoral: therefore a woman who enjoys it is equally so.
Another bit on the matter is that many men do not find it attractive when women lead the hunt, as it were. They want to be the ones in control, in the pursuit of the sex and relationships. If a woman is as much “on the prowl” as he is, then he can’t say that it was a full conquest. He wants to know he’s been where others have failed to enter, that it took his prowess to crack the nut, setting him apart and making his mate a trophy and attribute to his stature.
Lets also not forget the angle of loathing the male form, which you say you can’t understand a woman being attracted to. If you are heterosexual male, this makes sense. Of course it’s easier to wrap your brain around lesbian sex, you like women, you understand innately attraction to women. Attraction to men, is scary for more than that reason though. If a woman is attracted to a man, then she could be attracted to any man the way a man can be attracted to any woman: this vision of the situation can induce pre-emptive jealousy and defensiveness.
Meanwhile, a 19-year-old girl calling herself so_damn_unpretty offers a blunter response – and one that might do the questioner as much good as the longer, more thoughtful responses:
I love men… and cock.. and sex… so i really cant relate.
In the end, that’s probably the most important takeaway here, as they like to say in the business world. Women – most women, anyway – genuinely like and enjoy sex as much as men. Sometimes more. When a guy “scores” with a woman — she is also “scoring” with him. Rigid gender roles that define man as the sexual pursuer and women as the sexual prize may make it hard to see this, but it’s true. Not only that, but women – heterosexual women, anyway – actually like and enjoy the male body.
Guys, know this: while you are watching sports, or playing video games, or playing with yourself, or knitting (or whatever your favorite hobby is), there are thousands of women writing, sharing, and reading slash fic about dudes (from various TV shows and movies and books) getting it on with each other. There are no women in these stories, at least not in the dirty parts. Just dudes, and their dude bodies, having dude sex with each other. Freud once asked: what do women want? And to that we have a partial answer: stories about Sam and Dean from Supernatural penetrating one another’s deepest mysteries.
@Darkside So, in order to prove me wrong that VAWA has, indeed spent money on men in it’s 17 years of existence, you provide me an application kit, released just over 6 months ago, that lists Violence against men as a gap that needs to be addressed (meaning it is something that hasn’t been addressed enough, if at all, in the past.) and STILL doesn’t actually show money being spent on men, only an acknowledgement of a gap that needs addressing… Conveniently this comes at the same time it is coming under fire for being sexist, and also conveniently, at a time approaching it’s renewal.
I also notice that, despite my mentioning that I wasn’t positive about VAWA, you seem to have chosen to focus on that and ignore my mention of Canada’s women’s ministry. You will find a single allotment of $1,500 to one west coast men’s shelter… again, this year, allocated by a court that referred the male victim to the shelter (IE, they were forced to).
I’m not opening the can o worms that is victimization rate. I’ve been distracted far enough from my original point
Pecunium “ Also, when did the subject move from abuse by males vs. abuse by females to abuse to children?
When you claimed that women were sensationalized in the media for violence because it was more rare.
Remember, this discourse isn’t about abuse at all, it is about the hateful, disrespectful …misandric attitude directed at men today, and the embracing of female chauvinism as a virtue. It’s in our media, our government policies, even our charitable foundations. And it is most certainly in the Domestic Violence, Family court and rape culture industries.
The claim was made that radical feminist idea’s have disappeared, but I argue that they have not, they have simply become so commonplace that most don’t see it, like your nose in front of your face, only noticeable if you choose to look. And I don’t think any of you will choose to look. I’d be willing to bet you each couldn’t find five things in the media demonstrating hateful of men or extremely female chauvinistic that the rest couldn’t then justify in the manner these ads have been. I’ll also point to traindodger as an example…
@Marc In other words, we should feel justified in dismissing anything we don’t agree with because people don’t put their real name on things? That would be Marc …? Or should I just dismiss you as an anonymous troll?
Whatever. Since I’m just a lazy lazy conspiracy theorist, I think I’ll go to bed.
I guess what I was trying to say in that mess I wrote was that it ain’t fair and it ain’t right that women receive unequal criticism for doing the same work and having the same hobbies and talents as men do.
I think that a large number of “men” out there like to sadistically denigrate women – along with the fruits of their labor – in the hopes of damaging their self-esteem and somehow making them more amiable to sex.
I guess you could say that I hate female sexuality because I hate male sexuality too. They’re both manipulative and controlling, but in different ways.
The problem with our society is that we suffer from phallogocentrism, i.e. “a vagina is a defective penis”, or “the penis equals power and control, the vagina equals a lack of power and control”, or “a woman is everything that a man is not”. Don’t believe me? It’s even in our language, which derives in large part from Latin. Where do you think the word “virtue” comes from? It’s not really gender-specific today, but it derives from a word that literally meant “manliness” or “positive attributes ascribed to men”.
So, when you hear someone say something like “feminine virtues”, what they’re actually saying is “things that are manly about women”. How can we have a society free of tyranny when every other word that comes out of our mouths contains subtle put-downs against femininity? If you want to put a stop to sexism, the first step is to completely revamp the language we speak until it no longer privileges or prioritizes one sex over the other.
“I guess what I was trying to say in that mess I wrote was that it ain’t fair and it ain’t right that women receive unequal criticism for doing the same work and having the same hobbies and talents as men do. ”
Men receive similar unequal criticism for doing the same work and having the same hobbies and talents as women do.
That’s why stay-at-home-fathers are often treated harshly – by their wives and SAHM in communities there.
Men who have any interest in childcare of any sort are treated as ‘less manly’ and potential pedophiles (because why else would they have ANY interest in children that aren’t theirs (and sometimes even theirs)). That’s so attractive, I just can’t see why all men aren’t jumping in McMartin…oops, I mean caregiver roles in daycares and the likes.
So it’s not all “men give those roles to women because they think women suck”.
It’s more of a “we have an attitude that punishes people who stray from the role that was assigned to them at birth”. And nearly everyone does it to a degree. Parents do it for sure.
“I think that a large number of “men” out there like to sadistically denigrate women – along with the fruits of their labor – in the hopes of damaging their self-esteem and somehow making them more amiable to sex. ”
I think it’s more or less universal to denigrate others you care little about (for most people, and not just men: everyone but their family and friends). Not that it’s good or moral – but people do it often. That’s what bullying is after all. Not everyone bullies directly, but everyone vents, rants, and some groups are easier to attack than others (and those groups are not just ‘men’ or ‘women’, they’re subgroups). Everyone who isn’t like you in some way, whom you think could give you an advantage by being put down. People considered ugly certainly get that treatment, by the people who consider them so.
You think men put down feminine men to have sex with them, too? Everyone guy who commented about it wants to screw Johnny Weir?
“Where do you think the word “virtue” comes from? It’s not really gender-specific today, but it derives from a word that literally meant “manliness” or “positive attributes ascribed to men”.
So, when you hear someone say something like “feminine virtues”, what they’re actually saying is “things that are manly about women”.”
There are two ways to speak of virtue. You used it’s etymology – and the sense most people DON’T know about. The sense most known is the one in Ultima videogames. Something good about you as opposed to something evil about you.
Courage, patience, compassion, empathy. All virtues. Greedyness, gluttony – vices.
Feminine virtue commonly means Chastity by the way.
and about “people who get sex change”
Most people don’t sacrifice their health, possibly their attachment to family, friends, their own children, thousands of dollar and voluntarily face incredible discrimination, just to have their pet theory heard, or being taken seriously.
Coming out as trans is usually not a good thing for your career, or your dating prospects. It’s like you contracted leprosy for some people. They’ll justify not hiring you on spurious basis and say it might affect their income if they have you there, even in the back – because what will the clients think?
Schala, you’re being willfully obtuse.
Traindodger, I appreciate you sharing your honest thoughts here. As I said earlier in this thread, I think you recognize that this way of thinking is maladaptive. You really aren’t so unusual… many bright, idealistic young people become frustrated with the messy realties of human relationships, and turn misanthropic as you have. Fortunately, it tends to be a temporary condition. 🙂
The thing is… people are complicated, and we have lots of contradictory thoughts, feelings and desires bouncing around in our heads. It’s true, as you say, that men and women resent one another. But we also genuinely love one another (most of us do, anyway).
BTW, if you’re thinking about seeking professional help, that’s good, but be careful. There’s a great deal of sexism in the “psych” profession still. My own therapist, actually, is a bit old-fashioned in this area even though he’s great in most ways.
“Schala, you’re being willfully obtuse.”
Because going to look for old meanings that don’t matter for present day words is useful?
In other news, “girl” used to mean “child” (as opposed to female child). In the 1200s. So when we use the word child or children or kid/s, we really mean that they’re all female…
That’s what he did with virtue.
Kratch-I think Kave once explained why the men’s shelter did not get a lot of money. It was not because the government was outright refusing, it was because there was no demand so the government decided to not waste money.
I know! How dare a government at any level be sensible about money! It is unfair I tells you!
But with limited funds and resources, simply saying “well it is not fair to have a woman’s shelter but not a man’s shelter” is not going to change the fact that with no demand, there is no reason to waste the money.
What you could point out is that there is a lot of male on male violence. And work on reducing that while making it more acceptable for men to seek help for female on male violence. That helps with achieving equality-not removing programs for women for the mere fact that may be unfair or unequal to have such programs with no male equivalent.
Oh and no asking feminists or other women to drop their efforts for women to fix the problem. That is unfair to demand that what women are trying to do to help other women should be left alone until men are taken care of.
That’s true, but it’s irrelevant to the point he was making, which was that sexist assumptions are built into our language.
“Kratch-I think Kave once explained why the men’s shelter did not get a lot of money. It was not because the government was outright refusing, it was because there was no demand so the government decided to not waste money.”
Yes, demand for women’s shelters sprung overnight, because of victims themselves marching in the streets asking the government for them, right?
There was outreach work before they could even ASSESS the demand. And outreach to male victims will be a toughy, since part of the definition of “being a man” is “NOT being a victim” or weak or vulnerable.
So many rationalize that they can NEVER BE victims, regardless of what actually happens. Because men are not victims. Rather circular, but rationalizations often are.
Unwarranted assumption, Schala. “Male victims of DV are too ashamed to seek help” does not imply that there’s a vast, unmet need out there for shelter for them.
Maybe, but saying “Men don’t need shelters” and “Men are not victims” certainly is not a way to make them come forward (and to who, I might ask?). The 85% figure is also police reports. Hence inaccurate, unless you think rape police reports are an accurate presentation of the rate of occurrance, too (which I personally don’t).
Who would a male victim ask if he wanted a DV for male victims service not too far from his home (like not in another province)? The council of status of women?
There is a vast unmet need simply because there is no offer at all. Go all you want with a “but there’s no demand!” but if you don’t offer anything, no one will come.
blockquote>saying “Men don’t need shelters” and “Men are not victims”
I said neither of those things. I said that a theoretical need is not a demonstrated, actual one.
Schala, there is no “vast unmet need” because we cannot assume that not asking means there is a large need.
There is a need-that much is obvious because there is violence against men by other men and by females or by domestic partners period. But the size of the needs is unknown because no one has bothered to check so best not assume the size.
You’re not saying that, but I’ve heard and read it.
I’ve seen a shelter that showed on its site a snippet to the effect that 95% of victims are females victim of males, 5% are male victims, including 1% victims of female on male violence (so 4% are male victims of males). No mention at all of female victims of females.
Based on no study at all. Even police statistics are far from this blind.
People on ‘Alas, a blog’, a moderate blog, have said things to the effect that men are richer than women, and often don’t need shelters at all (as a place to stay), are not fearing their spouse (made up assertion, with “common sense”), and so we can safely ignore them.
Shelter staff often treats males who call them as if they were abusers themselves (and it’s not like they got that many places to turn to, either).
Shelters often say they do offer services for males…but only perpetrators – anger management stuff.
And the Duluth model, which posits power and control as a male-exclusive thing, and innate. It’s probably innate (something healthy gone wrong due to bad social variables), but not male-exclusive.
Kratch, can you show me one example of the MRM actually trying to raise money for shelters for men and/or lobbying the government for funding?
Not complaining about it online, harassing people who put out ads about DV you don’t like, but actually trying to raise money for a concrete project that helps men.
Toy Soldiers and Daran both have tried to help male victims directly, and seen firsthand that funding could be removed if an organization served male victims at all (even secondary to female victims).
This is both rape and DV shelters and organizations.
Who denied the funding? Those who control it’s dissemination. Ergo, feminist organizations who decide which shelters get funds. Here in Quebec province, the Minister of Culture and Women is who controls that funding at the very top (and is a woman, yes). Then it’s the Council of Status of Women. Then aggregate feminist organizations of which shelters are member of, and lastly, shelters themselves.
Who blocks the funding and says it’s unnecessary?
“It’s more of a “we have an attitude that punishes people who stray from the role that was assigned to them at birth”. And nearly everyone does it to a degree. Parents do it for sure.”
Very true, and this is precisely what disappoints me about humanity. On some level, we always feel the need to conveniently file people away into little drawers with clearly-marked labels on them. No wonder I’m such a misanthrope. Ah, see? I just put myself in a file cabinet too.
“I think it’s more or less universal to denigrate others you care little about (for most people, and not just men: everyone but their family and friends). Not that it’s good or moral – but people do it often. That’s what bullying is after all. Not everyone bullies directly, but everyone vents, rants, and some groups are easier to attack than others (and those groups are not just ‘men’ or ‘women’, they’re subgroups). Everyone who isn’t like you in some way, whom you think could give you an advantage by being put down. People considered ugly certainly get that treatment, by the people who consider them so.”
I’m a bit of a black sheep in social settings. I’ve been called names. I’ve had people rip stuff out of my hands to demonstrate to me what they believe is its proper method of use. In conversation, I tend to go on and on about whatever useless trivia that I happen to be obsessed with at the moment. When I’m lazy, I’m the laziest guy on the planet. When I work, I’m a tireless workaholic who won’t put a task down until it’s finished even if I’m commanded to.
I have the face of a serial killer. I can’t help it. Even if I put on a genuine smile, I still look like I’m plotting to put people in bodybags. It doesn’t help that I’m built like an ox. Sometimes, I scare myself when I look in the mirror.
When I grow my facial hair out, people actually physically recoil from me. It’s like I project a dense miasma of negativity that has the power to clear just about any space. I can literally end up having a room all to myself just by being present. Since I enjoy the solitude, that’s more room for me to roam. One time a few years ago, a bunch of dudes playing loud music from their stereo hassled my mom outside our old apartment. I went outside all dressed in black with my mustache grown out, and they bolted like rabbits. I didn’t even say a word. I just frowned at them. They probably thought I was going to rip off their legs and club them to death with them.
But if there’s one thing I’ve never done, it’s bully someone else. I’m a softie on the inside. I’m always polite, courteous and respectful to others. I’m as slow to anger as a human being could possibly be. Do I get any respect for it? No, I don’t. Whenever I’m in a group, people start treating me like… like a woman, or something. Always trying to boss me around, even if it’s completely uncalled-for. What’s the deal? Do I give off some kind of pheromone that says “I’m a woman”, and is that what’s making them act in a controlling manner towards me? Is it a result of my own personal problems or theirs? I can’t tell. At one point, I reasoned that if the treatment I’ve received is anything like the way people treat women, then women have every right to be irate about it. Heck, maybe we all aren’t so different after all.
But still, I just don’t get it. Why am I such a pariah? What is it that compels people to tell me what to do while letting everyone else get away with murder? Why is it that I can see other folks make the same mistakes I do and get a slap on the wrist or a knowing look of camaraderie mixed with mild disappointment, while I – on the other hand – get the full lecture like its the McCarthy era and I’m commie sympathizer? Why is it that I get singled out and made an example of, while others don’t? I asked my dad about it, and to hear it from him, it sounds like it basically runs in the family. Maybe it is in the genes. Maybe I “smell” weird to other people, and it ain’t just personal hygiene or lack thereof. As far as I know, I’m simply the most obnoxious dude in the universe. I also have a tendency to ramble on and on like an idiot about pointless crap, like I’m doing right now. Sorry, can’t help it. All I can do is hope that the rambling and personal anecdotes flesh out my arguments somehow, or lend my grievances some credibility.
The more I learned about this pecking order nonsense, the more I realized that we’re just a bunch of hairless apes who walk upright. The way things are now, if you aren’t a silverback, you’re just an ass in the air waiting to get screwed. Whenever there’s a leadership void, someone always tries to be top dog, even if they have to rip out a few perfectly good throats in the process.
When I hear all those self-help people going blah blah on their talk shows, rambling on about how to “be more assertive”, I hear a bunch of sadists saying “be more like us”. Conform. Follow the herd. That’s all it’s ever really been about. I would have sought therapy ages and ages ago if I didn’t think they’d try to deprogram me and turn me into a mindless sex machine. I’d rather be an obnoxious, rambling little weener than a take-charge jock asshole. Yeah, that’s right. They all hold up “Alpha” as the ideal.
What good is “Alpha”-ness anyway? As far as I can tell, all that jock bullshit did was deplete the ozone layer, drain up aquifers, empty out mines and leave us with seven billion people and counting, whose progeny have a very real chance of starving to death when the century’s up. Civilization’s such a triumph, eh? Well, fuck that. I’d rather live in a tree if it meant I didn’t have to hear about how great and manly those “Alphas” are for stranding humanity in such a precarious fucking position, fuck you all very much. Heck, they’d probably find some way to blame women for it anyway. “I couldn’t help it that I overpopulated! Their vaginas made me do it!”
You think I’m crazy? You think I need therapy? That’s rich. We’ve got FDA-approved poison in our foods. Hedge fund managers sit on their ass and do nothing, all while making money hand over fist. Factory workers in China starve if they don’t do overtime, and political activists over there are executed and their organs given to wealthy transplant tourists. How many women were raped in Sudan in the last minute while we were having this nice little chat? Apparently, sanity entails total apathy, so put those blinders on and get back to work. The government needs your income tax money so the IMF can use it to destabilize some more third-world governments.
Humanity disgusts me. Well, except for my fellow nerds, that is. I get along with Trekkie types just fine. We can sit around and jibber-jabber for hours about things like the performance specifications of a ten-story tall walking robot from an obscure eighties anime while people give us funny looks or put their hands to their mouths to amplify their voice and scream “VIRGINS!” at us.
Yeah, that’s it. Point and laugh all you want. When I build a nuclear-armed walking tank in my garage and the zombie apocalypse comes, then we’ll see who’s laughing.
Needless to say, I got problems. On some level, we all do, but I suppose we try our best. Sometimes, I wonder what for. It’s easy to be nihilistic when your entire species makes a giant douche out of itself on a regular basis. On the other hand, it’s difficult to respect one’s role in a society when you think that civilization itself is simply another form of organized crime.
“You think men put down feminine men to have sex with them, too? Everyone guy who commented about it wants to screw Johnny Weir?”
Actually, you might be onto something there. It could very well be that their revulsion towards him stems from a subconscious rejection of their own latent homosexual attraction to him. Just a theory; I’m no psychoanalyst, but I have a few hunches about how this stuff works.
“Because going to look for old meanings that don’t matter for present day words is useful?”
Etymological origins of words do matter when you’re sniffing out the subtext behind them. The example that I used – virtue – contains the “vir-” prefix which means “of a male”.
If you think about it long enough, you eventually realize that the essence of the word means “to be good, courageous and morally-upright is to be like a man”. In other words, “man = good, woman = bad”.
The English language has some sexist hold-overs from its forebears. I mean, we don’t even have a proper gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun (singular they is a grammatical abortion, in my humble opinion), and the feminine versions of the names for some professions and titles are just variations of the masculine ones, which is why we have suffixes like “-ess” and “-trix”.
In summary, I think that female sexuality itself is precisely why MRAs are so violently opposed to feminism. For them, it just doesn’t compute. The whole idea of women being treated with respect on the same level as men is completely illogical to them.
To an MRA, the penis is a literal siege engine, and the vagina is a fortress waiting to have its gates smashed in. The fortress cannot approach the battering ram; it’s supposed to be rooted to the ground, immobile and helpless. Even if the fortress could sprout legs and approach the battering ram, what would it do then? Demand to have its gates smashed in?
As you all no doubt realize, there’s a double standard where males are expected to obtain sex like it’s a trophy, and women are expected to guard their genitalia from it for as long as is humanly possible.
Feminism changes this sorry state of affairs. It offers to basically take female sexuality – which has long been restricted and controlled by men – and give women the reins like they should’ve had all along. Naturally, this incites fear and jealousy from men, who begin to see women as competitors on the sexual battlefield and not simply fixed fortifications.
MRAs view such women as mercenaries who will “do anything or anyone for money”, while seeing themselves as true patriots who fight solely for the good of their tribe and not for personal gain. They think that these women are trying to “whore themselves out” to the other tribes (read: other men), and this makes them green with envy. So, naturally, they shout “get back in the castle, where you belong”, or something of that nature.
To the chauvinist male mind, power and control of any variety comes strictly from other males. If a woman is not obeying you, then she’s obeying another man. If she’s not obeying that man, she’s obeying a third, as-yet unseen man. It never occurs to them that a woman could basically be obeying herself, following her own directives and setting her own goals like a normal human being. They cannot even comprehend the idea. They think that women are physically incapable of not being led around by the nose 24/7, and for what it’s worth, that perception colors their entire worldview.
After you redefine the language, you need to redefine sex itself. You need to get rid of the notion of sex “defiling” women, otherwise the above scenario will continue to play out in the back of people’s minds.
Pecunium “ Also, when did the subject move from abuse by males vs. abuse by females to abuse to children?
When you claimed that women were sensationalized in the media for violence because it was more rare.
Nonsense. I made an apples to apples comparison. You changed it to artichokes. This discussion isn’t about “misandristic attitude”, it’s about misogyny.
The claim you are making is that feminism, by it’s very nature is unreasonabl. Simone de Beauvoir said, Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male. . Schala makes much the same claim in her definitions of, “male/female” behavior.
Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler made it plain what it is you, and yours, find extreme in feminsism. feminism is the radical notion that women are people..
When you say we won’t choose to look, and so not see the, “radical nature” of feminism you make mistakes. The primary one is the category error of assuming anyone who does look must see it your way. Do I think all feminism is well thought out? No.
But those failures don’t negate the actual harms feminism talks about. I could argue your blinkered idea that Men are being oppressed, and villified unjustly is because you refuse to look at the facts. That you won’t admit to the truth.
That’s your argument. It’s nonsense, because it only allows for one correct answer.
Men make up half the population. Men are the greater number of partner abusers. Men are socialised to think this is, at the very least, the way things are. You are in denial about it. When pressed you change the topic. I won’t say you like that. I won’t even say you Mwant to perpetuate the problem. I will say you don’t give a damn about stopping it.
Because guess what… if the general idea is that abuse is bad… abuse will decline across the board.
But you have a hair up your ass that men are being accused of something you don’t want to think is true, so you go on about how this is unfair. The stats don’t support you. I can offer any number of sources, but you will find a justification to dismiss each of them.
MRAL is at least honest. He says he doesn’t care about the studies. He doesn’t believe them. You shuck and jive, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. There is no meat on the bones of your argument. Persiflage and empty rhetoric.
But I’ll give you this, you aren’t a lazy conspiracy theorist.
“But if there’s one thing I’ve never done, it’s bully someone else. I’m a softie on the inside. I’m always polite, courteous and respectful to others. I’m as slow to anger as a human being could possibly be. Do I get any respect for it? No, I don’t. Whenever I’m in a group, people start treating me like… like a woman, or something.”
It’s all about resentment for past hurts they get out on you.
The one person who bossed me the most around…has been my younger step-sister (not blood related), because everything had to be micro-managed her way (or her mother’s way).
She didn’t treat me “as a woman”, she treated me as a slob (anything less than perfection is a slob) because I wasn’t up to their cleanliness standards. I would keep papers on my desk, and do the dishes once a day or when needed. With them it was no papers, dishes every meal, right after it.
I did feel bad about being controlled and also more or less forced into this arrangement (I didn’t pick my mother’s girlfriend for him, but had nowhere else to go).
Schala, then good for Toy Soldiers and Daran.
As for the fact that some people are opposed to this funding, well, guess what? Every single political and social movement has faced opposition.
Back when activists started the first shelters for women, there was no govt. money for them. It took years of activism and advocacy, against considerable opposition, before there was any money set aside for DV shelters for women.
What do political and social movements do when they face opposition?
1) They try to convince people who don’t give a shit about the issue that there is a problem. I’m guessing that the MRM who responded to that “baby rapist” ad with threats and violent rhetoric didn’t exactly help the cause. Nor does making jokes about DV and rape, or otherwise trivializing violence towards women.
2) They try to win over those on the other side, if they can. One of the greatest victories of the civil rights movement was convincing millions of racist whites that racism was wrong. Harassing donors to a shelter that has ads you don’t like isn’t a great way to win over those on the “other side” who may well be sympathetic to your cause.
2) Of course, there are people who can’t be won over to your side. So you try to get people more sympathetic to them into positions of power.
When the suffragettes were campaigning for the vote, they faced a lot of opposition from those in power. They couldn’t exactly vote allies into office because — oh yeah — they didn’t have tghe vote. They persisted and won.
The fact that the people you’ve selected as the main villains here are feminists and/or women doesn’t mean that all feminists and/or women are the enemy, as many in the MRM seem to assume.
I and a lot of the mostly feminist readers of this blog would in fact be supportive of a movement to address DV directed at men. (Does this mean building a male shelter for every female shelter? At the moment, we don’t know what would be the best solution for men.)
But by and large MRAs seem much less interested in actually campaigning for DV services for men and far, far more interested in using he issue as an excuse to bash feminists (and in some cases women). I can’t support that.
“It’s all about resentment for past hurts they get out on you.”
Yeah, well maybe if people stopped hurting each other…
“Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male. . Schala makes much the same claim in her definitions of, “male/female” behavior.”
I’m describing other people’s definition. Not my definition.
When I use quotes like “this”, I mean that someone else said it, or I don’t believe it myself (the term itself). Like say “change sex”. It’s an inaccurate term, because, as I said, I was always female.
If people say that they’ve been told all their lives that to be weak, vulnerable or a victim was unthinkable for a man, that it meant his failure as a human…well yes, some will internalize it.
I personally don’t, but being aspie means questioning what is thought to be common sense or wisdom. I’m also very “outside the box” in thinking, like traindodger.
“As for the fact that some people are opposed to this funding, well, guess what? Every single political and social movement has faced opposition. ”
What is especially damning is that people who claim to be for equality are fine with stepping on victims for ideology’s sake.
When a theory doesn’t fit the facts…rethink the theory, don’t dismiss the facts.
Schala: Once again, I must stress that this is my own personal interpretation of what is stereotypically defined as masculine or feminine in extreme cases,
That’s not quoting other people.
@David
Well, as someone said before, maybe on some other blog: feminists and people of color and lesbian+gay and transgender, and bisexual movements have a bit of an advantage in terms of organizing. They’re older, they got government backing in some way.
You’re expecting the MRM to be as advanced and mature.
Back in the 70s and second wave feminism’s nascence, it was extreme, vocal to the limit, hateful in many respects, also transphobic and racist, and definitely misandrist.
But hey, it needed to start this way to get heard at all. Same for men’s rights. Squeaky wheel and all.