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Douchebags of History: T.M. Zink and the Zink Womanless Library

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?“)

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Johnny Pez
13 years ago

We also need an “Ion the Scornful” card. “Every day, Ion the Scornful would visit the agora to mock those who visited the agora.”

Pecunium
13 years ago

What I find amusing is that Ion, in his disdain, has abandoned his big argument in this thread. Which, by itself, isn’t surprising. It’s rather typical.

But usually he just stops, as if an outside life were keeping him away, and waits a few days before trying again (and somehow thinking the cultural practice of expecting logically sound responses and supported argument will have faded away, and resolved into a dew in the interim).

This time something struck a nerve, because he is staying around to defend why he … well why he’s better than people who stay around.

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth
PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth
13 years ago

I was posting while on the road to San Diego for heaven’s sake-thanks to the ubiquitous of wifi, now you can post online even in the middle of nowhere. (Well depends on which way, coming back had few signals but going out had full service all the way even in the mountains.)

mediumdave
mediumdave
13 years ago

We also need an “Ion the Scornful” card.

“Whenever Ion was thwarted by the superior intellect of others, he fell back on mocking them for being too serious,” could be the legend at the bottom.

Heh, I keep misreading “Courtly Love” as “Courtney Love” even though the TV Tropes article specifically warns against that…

Holly Pervocracy
13 years ago

I was posting yesterday from a blanket on the grass by the river, surrounded by friends and waiting for fireworks.

So much for “if you’re on the Internet you have no life.”

Ion
Ion
13 years ago

Really, Holly? You too? Wow… MMA fighters, people who work in the fireworks industry, road trips… everyone here has such rich, amazing lives! Surrounded by good friends! It’s like an Olive Garden commercial. Which they feel the need to share the details of, no doubt hoping to… what? make me feel bad? envious? Huh. Sounds a lot like the “I have a life, unlike you losers!” thing that people were accusing me of doing. And of course, everything posted on the internet is true. By the way, I’m a secret agent billionaire playboy kung-fu master, Pope stand-in and part-time Victoria’s Secret photographer and I’m typing this from my private jet over the Adriatic Sea.

What else? Hmm… Kave has become an Internet Tough Guy, Jumbofish is just random, Pecunium is still a wordy pseudointellectual bore who thinks internet arguing is serious business (although lately he’s sunk to “oh I bet he’s MAD! I can tell your motivations from your posting pattern!” which disappoints me), and the rest of you are your usual charming selves. You’re the smug nerd table in the cafeteria who always sit together away from all the others, believing themselves intellectually superior and mocking everyone around them in those nerdy nasal voices, but only when they’re out of earshot of course. But by all means, keep telling me how wrong and unimportant I am, because I really care.

Also guess what – this isn’t your blog. You’re all just guests here, same as me. So until Dave decides to ban me, I’ll keep posting whatever, whenever. Toodles. 🙂

redlocker
13 years ago

(insert analysis of Ion’s behavior that will probably annoy him here) 😉

Snowy
Snowy
13 years ago

“You’re the smug nerd table in the cafeteria who always sit together away from all the others, believing themselves intellectually superior and mocking everyone around them in those nerdy nasal voices, but only when they’re out of earshot of course.”

Oh my goodness, such scathing criticism!

“But by all means, keep telling me how wrong and unimportant I am, because I really care”

Truer words..

speedlines
speedlines
13 years ago

Ion seems intimately familiar with the goings-on at the nerd table. Can’t imagine why.

Holly Pervocracy
13 years ago

I sat at the nerd table because it was the lowest-status table and I wasn’t allowed at any of the others. 🙁

Also, I wasn’t saying “I have a life, unlike you”–I was just saying “I have a life.” I don’t know about you; I’m just asking that you not make any assumptions about me.

However, if you think that saying I was out with friends or that Kave’s son does martial arts is tantamount to saying I’m a “secret agent billionaire playboy kung-fu master”… that doesn’t suggest well about your experiences with real life.

Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

For someone who claims not to care, he really seems to…care.

Ion
Ion
13 years ago

speedlines and CB: NO YUO ARE

I’d just like to point out that Captain Bathrobe sounds like the nickname of that homeless guy in the park who exposes himself to passersby. Now there’s a card idea!

Kave
Kave
13 years ago

Ion

I asked you a question. Why are you posting here?

speedlines
speedlines
13 years ago

I sat at the nerd table because it was the lowest-status table and I wasn’t allowed at any of the others. 🙁

Me too. I have no trouble admitting it at all. Ion, on the other hand, seems deeply ashamed of his past, otherwise he wouldn’t try to shame other people with his own recollections.

Actually, we had tons of fun at the nerd table.

Bee
Bee
13 years ago

You guys had a table? My high school friends and I DREAMED of sitting at a table. We sat in the bottom of a yogurt container in the middle of the gymnasium floor. All seven of us. And then the freshman soccer team would kick us around for practice.

Ion sounds like a charged particle, or that TV channel my parents always watch. Ha!

ithiliana
13 years ago

Ion: I type fast. Very very very fast. Plus, I’m not on contract.

Ami: I’ve got to walk doggies, so no time to check the magyck cards — but I had asked for one, um, a while back, when you had caught up–mentioned roses, crones/witches (OLD EVIL ONES), cats, etc.

Re: making real ones. Chiming in with others that the cards are transformative and thus probably fair use if you’re not selling them.

Snowy
Snowy
13 years ago

A yogurt container?!?!?? Luxury!!!!!

ithiliana
13 years ago

Yeah, I was a nerd before they sold yogurt in containers! We had to um….walk uphill both ways in the snow with cardboard shoes to the dairy to carry it home in um….a hollowed out gourd!

mediumdave
mediumdave
13 years ago

Ha! My high school was too small to have a table just for nerds…

Actually, that was a good thing, because the “nerds” and the guys who played minor sports like wrestling and cross country formed their own clique (I fit into both categories, so it was perfect for me). Sometimes girls even sat with us (shocking, I know).

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

o_O What’s going on? Why is Ion so upset? At least now we KNOW why he’s been so passive aggressive lately… he feels jealous? o_O Envious? Apparently we’re still in high school and we’re the cool kids and this is a sour grapes thing? Revenge for his exp in HS? o_O

Weird xD Well he’d be like what the 4th troll to think I was the cruel and evil queen bee or something? XD

It’s Dave’s blog but it’s become more than that, it’s become a community :3 I mean ppl post here so often to just talk, like the convos that Pecunium and Ithiliana were having about authors, and it’s a good vibe 🙂 I mean it’s kinda like going to a book club if you don’t like books and saying “YOU PPL HAVE NO LIVES YOU LOSERS” when they’re happily doing what they like, and when they ask the person why they’re there they’re like “WELL I SHOW UP TO HARASS YOU LESS OFTEN THAN YOU’RE HERE, SO WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU?” xD Um, it makes them ppl who like books? xD

I just dun understand this “I’m cooler than you, I have a life thing”… xD At the end of the day, when we all die, I think I’d rather look back and know I spent my life doing things that fulfilled ME, and that made ME happy, and hung out w/ ppl I liked online or off, than I spent my life trying to be cool, or afraid to do things b/c it wouldn’t make me cool, or etc etc : Life is short, and you can’t take it w/ you, (sry I was thinking about this last night xD ) who cares if you sat at the nerd table or not as long as you were having fun? 😀 I mean… clubbing is cooler than making Magyc cards in theory right? xD And I like clubbing, but most nights, I’d rather be at home making Magyc cards, talking w/ Kirby and my other friends online, and just relaxing :] It makes me happy, and I’ve spent SO MUCH of my life being unhappy, trying to be what other ppl want, etc… that who cares whether things are “cool” or not? xD I’d rather spend my time doing things that are FUN than worry about if the things I’m doing are “cool” or if I’m “cooler” than other ppl or w/e xD

Also Kave, thanks! :], but NWO wasn’t bugging me xD I appreciate the concern tho :3 I find him hilarious…

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth
PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth
13 years ago

Ion-you are claiming we are spending 900 billion hours of our time on here and only people who have no lives could do that.

We are saying “hey, we have things going on but during those things going on, we can still post because of technology.”

You are just jealous because I went to San Diego and did not invite you. :p

Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

I’d just like to point out that Captain Bathrobe sounds like the nickname of that homeless guy in the park who exposes himself to passersby. Now there’s a card idea!

Please. I haven’t fit that description for at least the past several months. Besides, everyone knows flashers wear raincoats.

Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

I always hung out at the library with the other nerds. Then we all became Stoners and hung out in the back parking lot, where we were shunned by all the other Stoners unless we had weed. We remained nerds for all intents and purposes.

Molly Ren
13 years ago

@Ami That reminds me of a time during a BBQ this weekend when me and my friends broke out our host’s Apples to Apples cards. Someone came in, saw what we were doing, and just shook their heads. “There’s make-outs outside!” they said.

What they probably didn’t know is that we’d spent the former week at a nudist camp/kink event. We’d already gotten our make-outs in, we were tired and just wanted to chill and drink beer… and we didn’t have an Apples to Apples game at home! 😉

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

I was totally posting comments here while I passenger in the car on the way to a BBQ yesterday. There wasn’t anything on the radio and my fiance and I didn’t have anything in particular to talk about. Sometimes I do think I should put down the internet a little more and watch the world go by, but, whatever, it’s not like I’m here because I really have nothing else to do, the convos can be fun, there are cool peeps.

The first thing I’d drop if I was trying to cut back on internets wouldn’t be manboobz – it would be Vampire Wars! I’m getting better though – haven’t signed in to that in about 3 days. Go me!