In this episode of Man Boobz Super Fun Time Video Party, new hosts Little Girl and Manbot Woman Hater 5000 discuss the views of an MRA who thinks all men should live on one side of the Mississippi and all women on the other.
Yes, those of you who regularly read the comments here know which MRA I’m talking about here: regular Man Boobz commenter and antagonist “Anthony Zarat,” who spelled out his simple solution to the whole man-woman thing in the comments here. Full text, and a link to the original comment, below.
Here’s what Manbot quoted from Anthony’s comment, which you can read in its entirety here.
[T]he separation of our species will liberate men and women from FEAR.
Women will be free from fear of INDIVIDUAL VIOLENCE.
Men will be free from fear of COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE.
Said another way:
Women will no longer fear the faceless man in the darkness.
Men will no longer fear the police officer of civil judge in the daylight.
See, better for everyone.
In my dreams, we divide this continent along the Mississippi. Men on one side, women on the other. Never to meet again. Free at last, free at last, free at last.
Made with Muvizu animation software.
Francois: Read the book before you tout it, please. It’s not quite what you think it is…
Great, now I’m imagining what the world would look like if Rob Liefield somehow gained omnipotence.
As someone who has actually read The Gate to Women’s Country:
[major spoilers]
Gay people are not addressed at all, and the female elite are tricking the rest of the women into never breeding with the male soldiers, but only breeding with men who will actually communicate with/live with women in an attempt to breed out the war-happy instinct. It’s a weird-ass distopian universe, but an interesting read.
amandajane5: I actually think that the soldiers call the men who live in the city gay or effeminate? It’s been awhile – not my favorite Tepper book by a long shot.
They were called “servitors” and I believe they were at minimum considered emasculate. I thought that there was a further ulterior motive behind the breeding program, actually, but I can’t remember it myself.
Mandos: Ah, thanks. I knew there was a specific word! Just couldn’t pick it out of the grab-bag that currently inhabits my brain.
Zarat
Having a wife and two kids on ilife is not the same thing as having a wife and two kids.
Two days tops before he starts posting here under a different name. Or maybe he’ll keep the same. Either way he’s not working all day between this and his VR family there is not much time left.
I’m pretty sure you’re right that the servitors were insulted in ways including calling them gay or emasculate, what I meant was that actual gay people were not addressed, which I’m pretty sure is accurate, but it’s been years, so may not be true.
I present to my fellow Manboobzians “Sultana’s Dream”.
Sultana’s Dream” is a classic work of Bengali science fiction and one of the first examples of feminist science fiction.
This short story was written in 1905 by Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, a Muslim feminist, writer and social reformer who lived in British India, in what is now Bangladesh. The word sultana here means a female sultan, i.e. a Muslim ruler.
“Sultana’s Dream” was originally published in English in The Indian Ladies Magazine of Madras, and is considered part of Bengali literature. It depicts a feminist utopia in which women run everything and men are secluded, in a mirror-image of the traditional practice of purdah. The women are aided by science fiction-esque “electrical” technology which enables labourless farming and flying cars; the female scientists have discovered how to trap solar power and control the weather. This results in “a sort of gender-based Planet of the Apes where the roles are reversed and the men are locked away in a technologically advanced future.”
Crime is eliminated, since men were responsible for all of it. The workday is only two hours long, since men used to waste six hours of each day in smoking. The religion is one of love and truth. Purity is held above all, such that the list of “sacred relations” (mahram) is widely extended.
FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE HERE IT IS
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sultana/dream/dream.html
GtWC: The thing to remember about this novel of Tepper’s is that the ruling caste of women and servitors have multiple layers of deception open that the majority of the population (women, Warriors, and presumably some of the servitors) know nothing about: on the surface, the Warriors protect the city. In reality, the Warrior camps are used to identify the men who are prone to violence–and the cities ruled by women (this is all after a nuclear holocaust) orchestrate battles to weed out the Warrior caste when they get too numerous or start plotting to take over the City (which happens on a regular basis). The Warriors believe they father all the children; in reality, if the women in the city follow the schedules (including medical checks), the Warriors father none of the children. The Servitors father all the children (but again, something like 98% of the population don’t know about this). The boy children are raised by their mothers until five or six (it’s been a few years, I may be misremembering); then they go to the Warriors; the young men (puberty?) get a chance to leave the warriors and come back to the city as Servitors–the disdain of the Warriors is real, but the Servitors are in fact the only one allowed to father children, and do receive training in martial arts (just not flashy armor and swords). This very elaborate deception which is set in a dystopian novel is revealed slowly and by stages as the young female protagonist grows up and gradually goes through various experiences (including a period spent in a religious fundamentalist enclave) and finally learns what lies behind the ‘mask’ of her culture (her mother is involved in the ruling elites), and what the meaning of the play performed every year in public (based on the Greek play, The Trojan Women). Tepper has her limits as an author (her worlds do not allow anything but heterosexuality, but that’s not unusual in sff even these days; her characters and plots tend toward a certain essentialism to the extent that her body of work seems to convey that no matter what, patriarchal men will dominate cultures, and only extreme outside causes–alien invasion OR genetic change brought about by various means, possibly aliens–will change the male tendency to dominate women). She worked for Planned Parenthood for decades, and that ideology shows — plus, with only one exception, her characters all tend toward whiteness even in future space travelling cultures.
However, there are some things she does very very well (my favorite is the Grass/Raising the Stones/Sideshow which are a very loosely related series).
And while her work is uneven (sometimes the ideology overcomes the art!), there are some of her novels I just adore, even with all their problems.
But there is no absolutely freaking way that Gate to Women’s Country can be read as a cheering section for separatism (no more than Pamela Sargeant’s similar work–Shore of Women? Am spacing out on the title).
The boy children are sent to the warriors at five, and I think they’re fifteen when they first get to choose if they want to stay with the warriors.
Since Gate to Women’s Country ends with the elites acknowledging that Women’s Country is in fact Hell, and with Joshua, the father, warrior, and man of Women’s Country weeping for them all, it’s not cheering on separatism.
It is Shore of Women (I went and looked.) 🙂
@Hippodameia Thanks!
I can admire the narrative techniques in GtWC much more than the overall work itself–my absolutely favorite is GRASS which is a feminist epic revision of DUNE in which a mother rescues her daughter, and which deconstructs a bunch of the epic tropes. Not to mention slamming the LDS and Catholic religions as patriarchal oppressive structures.
Also her early Marianne trilogy which is quietly creepily charming.
p.s.: GtWC is set in a post-nuclear holocaust world so it’s not just a case of teh evil wimminz haz taken over and killed the men. Patriarchal governments blew the world to shit, and these are the survivors.
You want a real gritty look at what that might mean, I can highly recommend Suzy McKee Charnas’ Holdfast Chronicles, a salutory work that deconstructs all types of separatism.
Okay, intrigued! However, I found Dune dull as dishwater (but that’s okay because the sequels were even more dull!) and Tepper can be a bit much in large doses. Which series would you choose to start with?
katz:
Joanna:
If I were married to someone like that I’d be totally on board with moving somewhere he wasn’t,
KathleenB:
The rigidly adhered to code of context that forbids any man from doing anything adverse to any woman is the only thing that allows feminism to flourish.
*conduct.
There is no context.
@amandajane5: The Marianne Trilogy is short (three books, but very short books):
http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/2007/07/review-marianne-trilogy-by-sheri-tepper.html
GRASS has a fascinating world (GRASS is the name of the world) and a galactic plague threat — it is much longer (that epic thing), but it does everything the opposite of Dune which is why I love it so much.
Hey commies, whats up? Been kinda busy as always, and now with Obama and his 500 billion dollar plus “tax cut,” although I’m not really sure how cutting taxes cost so damn much, I’ll remain busy. Please Obama! No more tax cuts, we just can’t afford the taxes!
Anyhoo, I thought this story was a perfect example of women wielding State violence and making lotsa dough in the process. And it does have a direct bearing on this thread as well. It seems mom, the “fairer sex” was strangling the kiddies, (in their best interest no doubt), while she had full custody. Cause, ya know, the title of “primary caretaker” wallops fatherhood for child custody, or even equal custody. Wierd too, that reguardless of who makes what, it’s still dependent upon a womans word as to whom holds the “primary caretaker” card.
So the story goes, this gem of a women will pull down 96k a year, just in case, someday, she’ll need a home for the child she isn’t even allowed to see, (in the childs best interest mind you). So how does this pertain to this particular thread you ask? Well, maybe it’s not so much a literal splitting of the country into men and women, but a splitting up between the “haves” and the “have nots.” I mean with all them fine laws already in place we’re just about there already. Women wielding State violence while remaining “innocent” of any violence, plus just flat out taking mens money. Big Daddy so loves his little girls, he’ll lock up any man who refuses or can’t pay! Read the story, it’s a blast!
———————————–
On August 31st the Courthouse News Service announced that a California appeals court affirmed the lower court ruling that “Two and a Half Men” star Jon Cryer must keep paying ex-wife actress Sarah Trigger Cryer $8,000 a month in child support, even though the child is in Jon’s custody,
Sarah also had a child with David, her next husband. That marriage ended in divorce after Sarah was arrested for allegedly choking her two-year-old son.
Child Protective Services placed both children with their respective fathers. Subsequently, the Court reduced Sarah’s timeshare to near zero and ordered supervised visitation with her children.
Jon asked the Court to reduce his $120,000 voluntary child support settlement agreement to zero. Jon correctly, but unsuccessfully, argued that the money he paid should be put in a trust account for the child since it appeared Sarah was using it to pay her attorney rather than to support their son .
Later that year the court ordered Jon to pay Sarah $96,000 per year, even though $14,000 and change is California’s child support “Guideline” amount.
The court deviated from the Guideline because; (1) it would be in the “child’s best interest” for the child’s mom to have a place to live in if and when a reunification process occurs, and (2) dad could easily afford to still pay $96,000 which was a pittance compared to his $5.7 million a year salary.
Jon was also ordered to pay $20,000 of Sarah’s attorney fees. He was ordered to pay another $5,000 of her attorney fees after losing a motion for an accounting of monies paid Sarah since nothing in law requires a parent to account for how child support is spent.
After several more hearings, the court maintained it was in the best interests of the child for Sarah to continue receiving support so she would have a home for their son to return to.
Jon appealed.
He lost.
Jon was ordered to pay another $40,000 for Sarah’s attorney fees.
It appears the appeals court very selectively cited and misconstrued certain Family Code sections which supported the lower courts findings while omitting (or ignoring) other sections which supported Jon’s requested outcomes. *
The court basically said “give the poor woman some money, you have more than enough and can easily afford it”.
In the future this appellate opinion may be used to argue that any non custodial parent (especially mothers) should be entitled to the custodial parent’s earnings for no other reason than some unknown time in the future the non custodial parent may have to provide a home for a child
Ohh, an add on to my above “moderation post,” ya know, for being a bad boy.
No doubt the blame will be placed into the, “see how patriarchy hurts men,” category. Ahh the patriarchy conspiracy, my personal favorite. These are laws women write and endorse. Do women build the patriarchy law by law? You tell me. Maybe a wiki-answer will put me in my place. Or perhaps this is another example of that “justifiable oppression” ya’ll seemed to take to so well. In fact, pretty much everyone of you jumped on the “justifiable oppression” of men bandwagon.
NWOslave has his logic shield on Full Blast, I see.
Amazing how folks who scoff at the patriarchy conspiracy will run off at the mouth, ad nauseum, about the TRUE FACTS of Illuminati conspiracy, the Rothschilds conspiracy, lizard people, etc.
Keep on making sense and staying classy, NWO.
What does this spell Slavey?
мудак
It’s especially hilariouis when MRAs whine about ‘chivalry’ given that the actual code of chivalry only ever applied to noblewomen. Peasants were specifically exempted from chivalry, and in fact the authoritative texts on proper chivalrous behavior assured men that peasant women are pretty much farm animals and don’t mind a little rapin’ from their betters.
And it’s interesting that in umpty-ump years of listening to men bridle about mean women rudely declining to have a door held open, I have never – not once – heard a self-described feminist, anti-male or otherwise, proudly brag about how some dude held a door for her and she told him to get stuffed. Never. Who *are* these mysterious women?
@Wanderer: If you hang on on writers’ blogs, you regularly hear them talk about people who say “Oh, I’d love to be a writer!” but then have a million lame-ass excuses as to why they never write. (I don’t mean even, why they don’t write a novel, or why they aren’t published, but why they don’t simply sit in front of the ol’ word processor and write.) They don’t want to do the work, they just wish it would magically fall in their laps somehow. And of course if you don’t try you don’t need to risk failing. Same for AntZ et al. He doesn’t really want a Manly Utopia that requires him to do something other than attention-whore on feminist blogs, because that would be, you know, work, planning out the men’s land and deciding who will do what and how are we doing go keep the place running. And then there’s the chance of failure. (“I sank all my money into Mentopia and then those fucking alphas voted me off the Council!”)
Given a choice between simply talking about what they will have someday, bitches, just you wait and doing the work that might – but is not guaranteed to – get to that goal, AntZ and his fellow travelers will always pick the lazy and ineffectual path. MGTOW might as well be MSOTA (Men Sitting On Their Asses).