Here’s the entirety of a recent post by an MRA who calls himself Snark:
Uh, dude, I think you’ve confused “feminists” with “Daleks.”
Our new friend Fidelbogen thought this was such a brilliant idea he devoted a post to it himself, declaring:
Such economy, such concision. …
Really now, we wouldn’t go far wrong to make our rhetoric revolve around this above all, and very little more. The saying is deceptively simple, for it goes deep and reaches into many corners.
It puts them on the spot, and nails them there.
I knew Fidelbogen was a bit of a pompous doofus, but this is a whole new level of stupidity for him. I don’t even know what to say about something this idiotic.
Also, check out the comments to Snark’s piece. There’s something about potatoes you kind of have to see to believe.
Rev, I’m sorry you had bad experiences with feminist organizations, but you say that was 30 years ago, and feminism has changed a lot since then. One important change has been the recognition of the harmful effects our cultural mores have on men. It’s the culture as a whole that treats women as harmless and men as tough, and so denies the possibility of female-on-male abuse, but feminists have done important work in trying to change this perception.
‘I was merely recounting my experiences and not trying to convince anyone of anything’ That seems disingenuous at best. You’ve recounted said experiences on several threads now with the underlying message of ‘American women kill their children and feminists don’t take it seriously’. Clearly you’re trying to convince someone of something. You’re not just idly speculating here.
‘ I was stating the facts that existed 25-30 years ago’
So nothing recent or relevent. Great. Yet you keep making broad statements about how feminists (not feminists of years past) refuse to take child abuse seriously, despite evidence to the contrary which has been presented to you. And which you seem to ignore. No one here, many of whom are feminists, have been anything but supportive of child abuse victims in this discussion.
‘You’re the one doin’ the rootin’ tootin’ shootin’. You’re right I must be wrong, the CDC is a Patriarchal Conspiracy. American moms are the best in the world,’
So…you are making an argument? Poorly and with wilted straw-feminists. But apparently you are arguing something despite your previous comment of moments earlier where you stated you’re not trying to convince anyone of anything. I was hoping you were arguing in good faith, but I’m starting to doubt that in a large way.
‘let’s see your stats to back that up.’
Following your example, I only need anecdotae from decades past. And hell, anyone can present anecdotes to back up pretty much any twisted train of thought.
p.s. Pro-Tip : Stop assuming everyone you meet on the internet is American. Guess what? We’re not.
Is that a situation of a feminist exploiting it or of the media exploiting it?
Fair enough. That’s pretty sick. Do you remember what group it was?
Like ToySoldier, you have a way of liberally interpreting what other people say. Who said the CDC is a patriarchal conspiracy, or that american moms are the best in the world? I already asked you why that’s relevant when the US is not the most feministic of the industrialized countries, but you went off on a tangent about how maybe women support football because they get horny seeing scarred faces. If you’re not going to stick with an argument then don’t bring it up in the first place.
Regarding the term “americans,” I am taking a Latin American History course right now and as I recall, one of the liberal constitutions of Mexico in the 19th century declared that criollos, mestizos and indigenous peoples would from then on be termed “americanos.” Also, one thing that stuck in my head from the movie Turistas is how the Latin American organ harvester referred to his victims: “norteamericanos.” I strongly suspect that MRAL is talking out of his pageantized rectal display.
Haec Dixit Spatio Papa
‘Do you remember what group it was?’
Personal anecdotes are best served vague. That way no one can fact check or contradict you.
Uh, no, we are talking about the argument you have been making, which is that feminism caused your aunt to sexually abuse you. It is taken for granted that an ideology causes people to behave differently than they would otherwise: so does the weather and whether a time traveler stepped on a butterfly in the Triassic.
Nor is it semantics to say that enabling is different from causality. As much as I despise the Catholic Church, I don’t get to say that by shuffling around abusers they caused child abuse: the Catholic hierarchy enabled it. Nor do I get to say that Catholicism caused the guy who told his victims that his semen is the eucharist to engage in child abuse. He wanted to and manipulated his victims as he saw fit. It’s what abusers do.
I don’t trust your interpretation of what feminists claim.
Again with the staggering misrepresentations. Again with something right in front of you. I do not agree that “feminist thinking is messed up.”
Moewicus: Yes, the group was called V.O.I.C.E.S. Victims of Abuse Can Emerge Survivors. I didn’t say American women were the most feminist. I said according to the CDC American women kill more of their own children than any other mothers in the industrialized world. I just found those CDC stats a couple years ago and was quite frankly stunned. I would think feminists would have been on it like a pubic hair on a coke. And where’s the press, we’re talking dead children here. So yes, if I have an agenda it’s repeating the CDC study. So far no one’s refuted the CDC stats. Women’s groups have only recently dealt with maternal child abuse and have a long way to go,
America has a lot of ‘the most crappy’ statistics in the industrialised world. Ever look at income inequality, infant mortality or health statistics?
Gee I wonder if these things are related?
Nah, can’t be. Must be that feminists.. um.. something. yeah.
Actually American statistics are quite good. Bias gets rooted out and the remainders vary slightly but are basically consistant. And yes there are many factors to take into account. Income inequality, infant mortality and health statistics are all related and actually do effect the maternal child murder rates. Low income, disaffected single mothers are more likely to kill their children within the first year.
Do you recall what it was they said?
BTW, there’s a lot of stuff on the CDC website and it is difficult to mine it for one particular comparison. Just saying “the CDC” is not a citation.
Please show us the study that shows that.
Also, you are ignoring the point about the stats-they are bad because of things that feminism is trying to change-not because feminists are in charge and ruining things.
RevSpinnaker,
Again, without you actually providing information, like links to reliable sources, arguing with you doesn’t really make sense. You have to back up your claims.
And please don’t lie about easily checkable facts. It makes you look even less believable.
We are not stupid. Don’t treat us like we are.
Yaz: It is funny how feminists treat anecdotal evidence from other feminists as gospel, but regard anecdotal evidence from non-feminists as inconsequential. Just as I stated about men’s rights activist comments, a handful of random online comments from feminists do not prove every feminist shares those views. Unfortunately for feminists, there is a well-documented history of feminists denying, dismissing, ignoring, and trivializing sexual violence against males.
Bostonian: I do not trust a word McEwan writes, but setting that aside, did all of you not just argue that one feminist does not represent the whole of feminism? You do realize that works both ways, right? And of course there are no men’s rights blogs condemning child rape.
Moewicus: I will keep in mind that ideologies have no effect on people’s behavior the next time feminists claim that some social norm or “patriarchy” leads violence against women. It would be ridiculous to claim Catholicism caused a priest to engage in a specific criminal act. However, it would be fair to argue that Catholicism’s views on priests higher status over their congregation may cause some of them exploit that view in a criminal way. I do not trust your interpretation of what feminists claim, either. And I did not misrepresent your comment; I made a quip at your expense.
RS –
US health compared with other countries: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/etc/graphs.html (links to original report)
US infant mortality compared with other countries: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88418.php (source: Save the Children)
US income inequality compared with other OECD countries: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/2/41528678.pdf (source: OECD)
US prison population compared with other countries: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/wppl-8th_41.pdf (source: Kings College, London).
So, um, which American statistics are quite good? Because they aren’t the one I listed.
I suspect you are talking through a hole in your head.
Also, just so we’re all clear on this, and because you obviously aren’t willing to back what you say with sources, here’s some statistics from the US DoJ showing that more infanticides are committed by men than women: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/children.cfm.
It’s true that more women commit infanticide than most people would expect, but that’s the closest your statements are coming to matching anything backed up by statistics.
So now we’ve moved from talking about feminists supporting abuse to talking about random statistics that the US ranks poorly on.
Thus I can add my voice to the litany of “Yes, I agree that the US ranks very poorly on [topic], which is why feminism is seeking to change [underlying cause].”
I’ll add my voice there too, given that the whole point of that list is to demonstrate just how much bollocks RS is talking.
In fact, somewhere among that giant list of statistics is one that shows the US does not rank highest for infanticide in the industrialised world by a long shot.
Ah, but you see, feminists are supposed to be all over the story because…
I guess he hasn’t filled in that blank yet. Because feminists are all about how terrible women are? He says there’s “no blip on the domestic violence front,” which has not been established since we don’t even know what he’s referring to, and the lack of which we cannot establish the significance of without context.
See why we want specifics, links, etcetera, Rev?
Meanwhile the stuff we do have links for flatly contradicts his main argument.
To be fair, I suspect that the Rev misunderstood the phrase ‘bad statistics’ to mean statistics that are poorly supported, rather than, as I suspect was meant, statistics that represent bad things.
Yet homosexuality is a sin? You are not being consistent with yourself. Ask the question, “if it is not bad, why does God not want people to do it?”
Being homosexual is no more a sin than being heterosexual.
Hell, as an explanation is complicated too, and Catholics an hell is even more complicated, because the issue of eternal damnation requires issues of volition which are another realm altogether. Fucking (no matter whom) isn’t eternally daming. Rape is. Sex under false pretense (i.e. seduction) is, but simple fucking isn’t.
The Catholic Church doesn’t view (and never has) non-procreative sex as dirtying. The most recent encyclicals on the issue are worded in such a way as to cast doubt on the common belief that birth control is completely forbidden too.
Majority Catholic Countries in Africa:
Burundi
Congo
Kiribati
Cape Verde
In none of those is homosexuality a capital offense. Since you were mentioning the drive to make things criminal offenses, and the people campaigning to do it are, by and large, protestants (though Uganda is one in which male homosexuality is criminalised, Vatican City isn’t).
No, I didn’t mention African countries, because they are few, and the overall culture is more a controlling factor (see my comments on the US), and the present wave of attempts to criminalise is being driven by protestant missionaries. The Catholic Church is adamantly anti-death penalty.
Only if the only people participating in the argument are so desperately grasping for apologetics straws that they can ignore the context of even new testament prohibitions which call for the death of “passive” partners as well.
Care to cite the texts?
Care to translate the Koine? Care to discuss the cultural issues of the time (and not the post early church exigesis of the Protestant Reformation.
I am not (read what I said again) defending calls for murder. I am, in fact, pointing out those calls are in contradiction of the actual calls for same, just as the explantion that what Toysoldier’s aunt said was feminism wasn’t.
You are saying that things which aren’t actually true, are true, and I don’t appreciate that.
MRAL: That’s fucking stupid. If you called a Chilean an American, they’d look at you like you were a god damn idiot. Which you are.
Really? Because I’ve had Chileans, and Ecuadorans (the latter while I was in Ecuador) call themselves Americans. If I called them a Yanqui, they would have looked at me as if I were an idiot, but that’s different.
Speaking as a Canadian, I don’t like being called American. For what that’s worth.
Wait, feminists aren’t Daleks? I’ve been doing it wrong all this time! Guess I should take the plunger off my head now.
[i]Majority Catholic Countries in Africa:
Burundi
Congo
Kiribati
Cape Verde[/i]
Kiribati isn’t in Africa. It’s a Pacific island; it’s part of Oceania if anything. And which Congo are you talking about, Republic of the Congo or Democratic Republic of the Congo? They’re different countries.
Mind you, I don’t have anything to say about your argument one way or the other. I just enjoy engaging in geographical nitpicking.
‘Speaking as a Canadian, I don’t like being called American. For what that’s worth.’
Likewise. But that’s probably because when you are abroad and confused for an American it carries a lot of negative connotations. It’s generally not meant as a compliment (YMMV).
I cling to that ‘u’ in colour for all I’m worth!
Unfortunately for feminists, there is a well-documented history of feminists denying, dismissing, ignoring, and trivializing sexual violence against males.
Except last time you told David that he needed to show that not just did MRAs said this but what the response is by all MRAs and the comments and etc etc etc… but when arguing about feminists, you did not hold yourself to that same standard, merely saying that a couple bloggers online doesn’t talk enough about something you think they should talk more and that proves that “feminism” doesn’t care about XYZ. :
So… just to make it easier for all the ppl here who are fighting about WHICH MOVEMENT IS WORSE xD Let’s set some standards? o: Like, at what point are ppl merely individuals, and other ppl represent the movement no matter what other individuals believe? :3 (and does that apply also to POSITIVE actions by an individual of a movement? Or only to negative ones)