Another day, another apologia for male violence from the Men’s Rights crowd. This time the apologist is W. F. Price at The Spearhead, who uses several recent news stories involving violent men as an excuse to attack feminism.
Repeated provocations against men, systematic discrimination against men, and state-sanctioned debt slavery are starting to have the inevitable effect. In a triumph for the feminist movement, men are lashing out violently against women, fulfilling the feminist fantasy of a gender war.
In the old days, everything was (presumably) peachy keen between the sexes. Then along came the feminists, and all hell broke loose. Those “take back the night” marches feminists love so much? They’re just red flags to the bulls – that is, our society’s ample stock of “mentally unstable and out-of-luck men.” You don’t want to make these guys mad!
[W]omen were encouraged to be militant against all males, which can only have unfortunate results, given the hands-down male superiority in combat. …
In other words, the fact that there are violent men out there is why women shouldn’t complain about violent men. Presumably the only marches women should be organizing would be “No, Go Ahead, You Keep the Night” marches. Don’t want to offend those rapists –that’ll just make them even rapier than usual!
According to Price, though, feminists actually like violence against women — because it keeps them in business.
For feminism to exist as a valid movement, there must be violent conflict, so many of the efforts of feminists have sought to provoke just that. … You see, for a feminist to justify her job there must be some degree of brutality against women. … So, if you are a feminist, the hapless women murdered or assaulted by the damaged men feminists have created are necessary sacrifices for advancing the feminist agenda.
So not only do the feminists provoke these “damaged men” – they created them in the first place, by being so feministy.
Wouldn’t this whole provoke-the-men strategy make life more dangerous for feminist women as well? No, because feminists are all rich ladies, and everyone knows that rich ladies are never beaten or raped or murdered:
[W]e all know that feminism has never been about the typical woman who lives a humble life, but rather the ambitious elite who want to have access to the big boys and big money on Capitol Hill and Wall Street. … Disadvantaged women are truly the cannon fodder of feminists.
So what “proof” does Price offer for his claim that men are “lashing out” at women because of feminism? He cites three news stories: one dealing with a woman-hating trucker who’s accused of killing several prostitutes; another involving a man who went on a shooting rampage at a church, killing his wife and wounding two others; and finally, the case of James Ray Palmer, the Arkansas man who shot up the offices of the judge who’d handled his divorce and custody case more than a decade earlier. (I wrote about his case here.)
How do these cases relate to feminism? You’ll have to ask Price, because none of the news stories suggest any connection, and Price doesn’t explain why he thinks there is one. True, the trucker is said to be a misogynist, but misogyny is far more ancient than feminism. Meanwhile, we have no evidence that the church shooter was angry at any women other than his wife.
In the case of Palmer, there may be an indirect connection, if it turns out that he was influenced by the angry, violent rhetoric of the Men’s Rights movement. As I pointed out in my post on Palmer, many in the MRM have made a martyr out of Thomas Ball, who committed suicide on the steps of a courthouse, leaving behind an manifesto that urged men to literally burn down police stations — and courthouses. It is certainly conceivable that Palmer’s courthouse rampage was inspired by this sort of rhetoric.
But to blame feminism for any of this is ass-backwards. Feminism is a response to misogyny, not its cause. To blame feminism for violence against women is a bit like blaming Jews for provoking the Holocaust. (Forgive me, Godwin; it was the clearest analogy.)
Price ends his piece by urging women to, in effect, shut up and fix him a sandwich:
Women’s best bet for security is not in denouncing and fighting men, as feminists would have it, but in cooperating with them and taking on their proper role.
Then he ends with a weird coda suggesting that feminists should be locked up for having the temerity to speak up in the first place:
The United States will once again be a righteous society only when feminists are jailed for interfering with families, and their academic apologists are removed by security from their jobs in taxpayer-funded educational institutions. This would be the most humane course of action to take. Far more humane, in fact, than provoking men and women to physically attack one another, as feminists would have it today so that they can unleash state agents on confused and demoralized families.
I didn’t have the stomach to read all of the comments responding to Price’s argument, such as it is. But here are some highlights – lowlights, really – of the highly upvoted comments I did read.
The ironically named Anti Idiocy seconds Price’s basic argument:
Anger against feminism has been building for years. As the men’s rights movement has gained momentum, feminists and their lackeys have doubled down and become more virulent in their anti-male hatred and propaganda. Women today are becoming more and more nasty on an interpersonal basis, and they are doing so more frequently. A breakpoint will come. It will probably take a catalyst; another severe economic downturn might do it. But it will come. Feminists and their pet femboys will push things until it does.
Wait. If the Men’s Rights movement is, in effect, provoking feminists to get more feministy, then wouldn’t (by Price’s logic) the allegedly increased violence be the fault of the MRAs?
Rod worries that in the case of a real gender war, men might actually lose – all because of those darned “white knights” and their reluctance to beat up the ladies:
I’m afraid that if it ever came down to a real physical war between the sexes, men would unfortunately lose. There are too many men who can’t stand the sight of men harming women, and would immediately step in to save them. Perhaps nature instilled in us a visceral reaction to women’s suffering, making us want to step in and help, and at one time in the history of our species, that reaction was no doubt a salutary thing. Now it just works against us.
Antiphon, meanwhile, blames it all on the Jews. Or, more specifically, the Jewesses, who apparently control the feminist movement in the same way that their husbands control the banks.
Needless to say, this being The Spearhead, Antiphon’s comment has three times as many upvotes as downvotes. Apparently, the only thing worse than a feminist is a Jewish feminist.
I guess my Nazi analogy earlier in this post wasn’t so out of place after all.
In the past, men used to get recognized and praised for “playing the hero”. Now it is safer to not get involved since you could be sued or hurt yourself.
When do you mean by “in the past”? o:
I’m still amused that NWO regularly reads all our blogs and keeps track of who comments in them xD
YAY!!!! IT’S AMIS ALL THE WAY DOWN! 😀
You know, I hate to say it, but he’s right. I totally do cooperate with men and take on my proper role, and it does provide me with security! Every day I do this, when I go to my job as a computer programmer and leave behind my messy house. They pay me and stuff. It is great. It’s the kind of thing my grandmother would’ve loved to do, but of course there was no college and job for her. If only there had been a social movement of some kind, to change people’s views so that education and a career was an option… Hmm. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
Brandon, darling, you’ve barely tripped my snide-o-meter.
“The problem as I see it is you and other commenters jump to the worst possible conclusions.”
Maybe this has something to do with what you say? Just a thought.
Kristin is my real name, and MH are my real initials (not just “Mistress of Hounds). kristinmh is my screen name on my own blog and every blog I comment on, and if you google “kristinmh” you get my professional website. I talk often about what city I live in and what I do. I’m one of the least anonymous people here. Does what I say count?
Hey, how about you, Brandon? What’s your last name or last initials? What city do you live in? You already said you work in IT – what company do you work for? Why should we believe a single thing you say if you don’t immediately reveal your personal details online?
OT, my mom just suggest I name the baby “Connor” because it means “lover of hounds”.
“Even in relationships, men are often seen as the protectors. When there is anything remotely dangerous (wild animals, potential fights, hostile situations), men are pressured to jump in and “handle” the situation. We would be seen as wimpy, cowardly or cruel if we just let a woman fend for herself.
Also a lot of the “old chivalry code” has “men as protectors” as a major theme. Since chivalry is pretty much dead (at least on its last leg), those rules are disappearing.”
MRA’s bring this up a lot, this supposed patriarchal “benefit” to women, but how tangible is it in the real world? How often do situations arise, and for how many men, of having to take a bullet for a woman (for a woman, not for everybody as part of a job), fight off animals (other than an occasional roach or spider, that is) or defend against boogeymen? Seriously, how often does this occur? Even back in the 1950’s, that so many MRA’s are pining over — the man being “at the office” for most of the time, the wife mostly had only herself to rely upon if she was set upon by wild animals or violent people. By contrast, the services that women are expected to provide in traditional, “chivalrous” relationships — where women are seen as the servants — are very real, time-consuming and thankless. So the problem is, Brandon, that women were and in some circles still are expected to give up their economic self-sufficiency, intellectual and social interests and dignity itself in return for a mere chance that their husbands and boyfriends will, maybe, rescue them from a bear in the extremely unlikely event such a rescue will become necessary. It’s an unfair trade — something big and concrete in return for something tenuous and illusory. “Give up your career, so that MAYBE one day I won’t abandon you to fend for yourself in a burning vehicle.”
You know what, Brandon? I can’t speak for every woman out there, but I personally would rather keep my career, thankyouverymuch, and take my chances with life’s dangers. And I would rather retain access to civic participation, which is likely to keep situations in which my life is imperiled in the first place to a minimum. Chivalry is illusory — all it is, is fleeting gallantry done mostly for show in safe situations, and doesn’t go very far beyond pulling a dining chair out for me. It’s a nice gesture, granted, but it isn’t worth the price that “real men” expect me to pay for it.
What you say also isn’t true to human psychology. In a life-threatening situation, people may be pressured to “handle” the situation for the benefit of another, but they are also pressured to, you know, save their own skin. When men jump in to rescue a woman, or a child, or another man, they do this out of empathy — not because they are worried about their image in a situation where life itself is in danger. Your failure to understand that tells me you probably have never been in one of those situations. Or maybe you just don’t get empathy.
Chivalry is NOT about “men as protectors.” It is a specifically class based code amongst the nobility. So you guys who are constantly whining about “alphas” are missing the point yet again, because when it comes to chivalry, only alphas need apply. And considering that we’re talking about medieval times here, you can’t pin this one on the feminists.
I mean even a small child knows if you kick a dog you’ll get bit, or if you smack a wasp nest you’ll get stung.
Gotta love the casual misandry of comparing men to dumb animals who react out of pure instinct and can’t be expected to take adult responsibility for their actions.
How about schrodinger’s rapist as a theoretical puzzle taught in school? What if we taught schrodinger’s filthy, lying whore as a theoretical puzzle instead, or schrodinger’s false rape accuser?
NWO is right here–any woman could be, potentially, a false rape accuser. That’s why it’s very important not to do anything with an unknown woman that could be misconstrued as rape, like having sex with her without getting her consent.
you can identify yourself as a blue cheese western omlette and it really changes nothing.
I know he’s just rolling and trolling, but I hear this one so much, and I always wonder: say someone does identify as a bleu cheese western omelette.
…so?
I don’t see the harm in addressing this person as “hey there, bleu cheese western omelette, how’s it going?” If they’re putting one over on me because they’re not really a bleu cheese western omelette, well, it’s their loss; and if they really are a bleu cheese western omelette, thank goodness I’m not misbreakfastfooding their identity.
This is one issue where even the most absurd reaches of the slippery slope still seem perfectly fine to me.
Brandon: You said, “semi-anonymoous”.
So what does that mean to you?
Because I figure that when someone can click on that link in my handle, and get my name, some bio, photos of my face, that’s pretty much not semi-anonymous.
You… you could be anybody. All anyone here can know of you is what “Brandon” tells us about, “Brandon”.
Your reputation in this community is based on that (and go back and look at what I said, read for content, not for the fleeting thrill of being angry. The context; and plain text, is about reputation; reputation isn’t constant. My reputation is variable. Talk to Karl Lembke and you will get a very different sense of me than you get from Teresa Nielsen Hayden Everyone has a number of reputations. You have one here, it’s what we are talking about.). If you don’t care about it, then don’t care about it. Whining that people aren’t taking you, “in context”, when you’ve established that context, and subtext, are things you actively, vehemently, disagree with when they don’t favor you…. that’s the result of that reputation, and the available evidence says you do care.
You don’t care about slack, fine. But when you whine about people not giving you the benefit of subtext, or, “jumping to the worst conclusions”, stop and ponder why that is?
I can help, with an example from this post.
I think marriage is bad for men = thinks women are lying gold digging whores.
But Brandon… you said women were in it for the perks. You kept changing gender neutral language by the people here into gendered language; even after people called you on it.
But, when I took you at your written word, no reading into the subtext, you got all butt-hurt that I took your example and applied the conditions of the real world to it.
Tell me Brandon: if you were a security guard, and helping someone (man, women, child) was likely to get you fired… would you do it?
I suspect not. So why get upset when someone points out that your example is flawed? I didn’t say you were stupid. I didn’t say you were malicious. I just said your example wasn’t applicable.
Why did you jump to the worst conclusion?
I’d be willing to bet, from the evidence, the lack of slack your reputation has earned in this community has made you sensitive, and a bit defensive.
It’s not as if we don’t call each other out for things which offend/bother us. Molly called out Ginmar for jumping on MRAL. I called Molly out for jumping on Ginmar. CB called me out for things I said to NWO.
But, for all that you may not agree, I am seen as a generally reasonable fellow. Why is that? Because (I think), I’m willing to own my words, and accept that others will read them, and see things in them I didn’t say; some of which I may not have meant.
I don’t see you doing that. I see you stating a claim, usually one that has a lot of second-order effects, and then denying the second order effects. People are supposed to take Brandon as if nothing other than this post exists. No past, no related comments, no consequence.
That doesn’t work, not in the real world, not even in gedankenexperimenten. MRAL, to use an example, seems to get this. He waffles, and sometimes his anger at the present seems to blind him to the future, but when he’s not raging he admits that what he is talking about has consequence.
You don’t.
Shaenon is moderately well known in the broader world.
Thanks, but I am only Internet Famous.
You’re welcome, and the internet is part of the broader world. The meme that there is “real life” and the internet, is nonsense.
“Well it’s not much different than blaming men when they complain about the lack of support for male domestic violence victims instead of blaming the female perpetrators who cause the problem to begin with. We usually get told, “do something about it”…as if the random average guy can heh.”
Random average women open shelters for female and minor DV victims. Why *can’t* men do the same for our own?
Are you saying that we need *women* to do it for us? How fucking useless are you?
“Chivalry is NOT about “men as protectors.” It is a specifically class based code amongst the nobility. So you guys who are constantly whining about “alphas” are missing the point yet again, because when it comes to chivalry, only alphas need apply. And considering that we’re talking about medieval times here, you can’t pin this one on the feminists.”
And it was also just a way for alphas to show off to other alphas by showing how nice they were to the meaningless creatures so beneath them: women. It had literally nothing to do with treating women well because they liked women but with trying to show up other dudes.
@Pecunium:
CB called me out for things I said to NWO.
Really? When? I’m having a hard time imaging that.
@Holly Pervocracy
“Gotta love the casual misandry of comparing men to dumb animals who react out of pure instinct and can’t be expected to take adult responsibility for their actions.”
Oh no! Reverse psycology, I’ve been bested. You are a trip. You, being a woman, (female gender at birth) what could you know about adult responsibility? Now go dress up to sexually attract men and act like a dumb animal.
————————-
“NWO is right here–any woman could be, potentially, a false rape accuser. That’s why it’s very important not to do anything with an unknown woman that could be misconstrued as rape, like having sex with her without getting her consent.”
You are something else, do you really believe anyone with the slightest inkling of independent thought buys into the manure you swear is angus beef?
Here, I’ll clarify, so even an indoctrinated lemming like yourself can follow. Since schrodinger’s rapist is taught in schools, we need to teach schrodinger’s filthy, lying whore as a theoretical puzzle as well. This way, young men will learn that women can and do lie about rape, sexual harrassment, cheating, murder, extortion, ect.
Boys and young men need to be taught that even being a perfect gentlemen is no guaruntee they won’t be victims of State violence at the hands of a woman.
Boys and young men need to learn they might do hard time while being completely innocent, while their false accuser walks free. And even if they aren’t falsely imprisoned, their name will be dragged thru the mud while their false accuser remains anonymous.
Boys and young men need to learn that their children can be kidnapped at a moments notice, and they will be forced to pay extortion or go to jail.
Boys and young men need to learn that in education and employment women will be given preference over them by State mandate.
Boys and young men need to learn that charity organisations are for women/women and children only. Once a boy hits puberty, he will be on his own.
Boys and young men need to learn their unborn child can be murdered and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Boys and young men need to learn it’s a crime to defend yourself from a womans physical attack. They need to learn they will go to jail if they hit a woman back.
Boys and young men need to learn that a restraining order can be placed on them at any time with only a womans word. They need to know they can be evicted from their home at any time, even if they foot all the bills.
Boys and young men need to learn so many things. They need to know women have lobbied for, and endorsed this systematic oppression. They need to know they are forced to pay for this system with their own taxes. They need to know women will call all these injustices patriarchy. The very system they have worked so hard to enact, they will blame men for.
Does this clarify things for you precious? I know you’d prefer to continue preaching the gospel feminism, where women are angelic beings innocent of all wrongs, but I thought reality might be a better approach. Schrodinger’s filthy, lying whore would be a welcome addition to preparing boys and young men for the harsh realities of life. Don’t you agree? Or is only Schrodinger’s rapist appropriate material to teach?
I believe that’s what I said. And Good Samaritan laws ensure that the expenses accrued during defense are reimbursed.
Herp! Derp!
Cynikal, are you being snide? He hates it when we do that. XD
Who are you–Snidely Whiplash? 🙂
I qualify more as semi-anonymous, since I’m really not known outside here and maybe Pandagon, where I haven’t commented in quite some time. I’m really big in Japan, however.
I went and looked the dictionary definition of snide just to be sure. I wouldn’t want to have to prefix my paragraphs with LITERAL and SUBTEXT so you don’t have to read into what I am saying.
But, yes.
I was being snide in the literal sense.
(The whiplash is only to be read in SUBTEXT)
CB: I thought it as you. It was… May, or June. Back when actually engaging NWO seemed even vaguely worth doing.
Pec: maybe I was just mad that you thought of something more clever than I. 🙂 Wasn’t the last time…
Now go dress up to sexually attract men and act like a dumb animal.
Okay, I’ll dress up… just like animals do???
NWO, you’re amazing.
Also, I think we need to add “Schroedinger’s Rapist is taught in schools” to the now very large list of Fun Facts About NWO World.
“Also, I think we need to add ‘Schroedinger’s Rapist is taught in schools’ to the now very large list of Fun Facts About NWO World.”
Seconded!
Love this article. THanks so much.
THere will always be those who embrace anger and hatred. Still we must embrace each other as brothers and sisters, as friends and forgive, listen, understand. nothing is as terrible as it seems as long as we do not give up hope. that simple. <3