Today we celebrate one of history’s greatest, the largely unheralded misogynist douchebag T.M. Zink, who managed to stick it to the ladies even after he died. As Time magazine reported shortly after his death in 1930:
At Le Mars, Iowa, the probated will of T. M. Zink, deceased attorney, revealed:1) His $100,000 estate is to be placed in trust for 75 years; 2) In A. D. 2005 the accumulated principal is to be used to establish, equip and maintain a library on whose shelves will be no woman author, on whose catalogs will be no woman’s name, over whose portal will blaze: “No Women Admitted”; 3) To his daughter went $5; 4) To his widow not 1¢.
As he explained in his will:
My intense hatred of women is not of recent origin or development nor based upon any personal differences I ever had with them but is the result of my experiences with women, observations of them and study of all literatures and philosophical works.
2005 has come and gone and sadly, at least from the point of view of misogynist bibliophiles, the Zink Womanless Library was never built. As a piece in The Guardian noted, his family successfully challenged the will, I’m guessing on the grounds of Quando podeces te regi eorum fecerunt? (“When did you become king of the assholes?“)
Whoa. That’s my favorite estate planning story since “The W. C. Fields College for White Orphan Boys and Girls (Where No Religion of Any Kind Is Ever to Be Taught).”
“I do not avoid women writers, Mandrake. But I do deny them my shelf space.”
That some serious chops. There was a man who knew how to go his own way.
Interesting how he thought of it as the “Womanless library” instead of a “Men’s Library” to celebrate men’s literature.
Shades of modern MRAs…
Idea: build a library where all author’s names are referred to in the catalogs in numeric code, and put wooden signs reading “no women allowed” over the doors…which are subsequently burnt. It’d *technically* be meeting the conditions of the will, right?
Good point Pervocracy but I think his goal was to make women mad, not celebrate his own sex.
@ Elizabeth
So, in other words, yes, a proto-MRA.
$5 to his daughter, huh? Oh, but doncha know, MRA-types are the only ones who care about the children.
@ Dire Sloth
You’d also have to make sure there were no women authors on the shelves. Technically you could still put their BOOKS there, though.
Just call the electronic database an electronic database instead of a catalog. No need for numeric code at all.
I’m not sure how to get past “No women permitted”. I mean, he doesn’t stipulate that it has to be enforced, but getting rid of the words seems tricky.
and study of all literatures and philosophical works.
Is this the pre-digital-age equivalent of being aware of all Internet traditions?
Sure sounds like it. I guess being aware of all intellectual traditions is one of the timeless signs of douchbaggery. Like going your own way.
Peter Nolan’s grandfather.
Also too, cute kitteh is cute!
LOL.
T.M. Zink – the patron saint of MGTOW
So the man’s last wishes were ignored, to the smug gloating of feminists and their mangina lapdogs everywhere. Good job.
If a radfem had wanted to create a women-only library with ‘no men allowed’ signs, she probably would’ve been hailed as “strong” and “revolutionary”, and nobody would’ve dared to say anything against it for fear of being branded sexist.
You know, I’ve been trying to find the words to describe the men on this site, but this guy does a much better job than I could, so I’ll just leave the link here:
http://usually2theright.blogspot.com/2009/08/manginas-lapdogs-of-feminism.html
I know those guys! 🙂
“Mangina Lapdogs of Feminism”–new Ami card? 😀
The fact that they were his last wishes doesn’t make them any less stupid or mean spirited. Wills get set aside all the time.
“Wills get set aside all the time.”
Reading Man Boobz continually reminds me that I don’t know jack shit about how a lot of things are done. For some reason I thought wills were inviolate.
If a radfem had wanted to create a women-only library with ‘no men allowed’ signs, she probably would’ve been hailed as “strong” and “revolutionary”, and nobody would’ve dared to say anything against it for fear of being branded sexist.
Well, you sure as fuck would have. You strong revolutionary you.
Also, I don’t know if arguments about “what totally would have happened, I totally bet” really count for much against accounts of things that DID happen.
Also women’s writing has been traditionally treated like a niche interest, so a library of female writers would be working against that stereotype, rather than perpetuating the already-very-healthy impression that men can write about anything.
Also if it were explicitly made because of hatred of men, rather than appreciation of women (TWO DIFFERENT GODDAMN THINGS AND VICE VERSA ALSO), I would in fact say things against it.
MRA tactic: Hypothetical arguments against actual reality.
On topic: So wills can be set aside? Huh. The More You Know.
The other day I was bored enough to check up on a couple of old threads to see how they turned out. I’ve seen a lot of sad, sad things on Manboobz, but nothing so far has been sadder than Ion, in the Kate Beaton thread, pouting because we like MRAL better than him.
Well, so I’ve heard. My understanding is that wills can be contested in a court of law, and that it’s not unheard of for these contests to succeed. I’ll defer to the lawyers among us for a definitive opinion. I don’t think, however, that it’s the extraordinary tragedy that Ion is making it out to be, either.
In other words, I could just be talking out my ass on this one. Wouldn’t be the first time . 🙂
A contract is sacred, Cap’n B! Except when it isn’t!
I’ve lost track of the number of self-styled libertarians who just plain ignored the terms of their ISP agreements in order to troll online.