I swear, sometimes I wonder if the entire Men’s Rights Movement is an elaborate hoax. Our old friend Fidelbogen weighs in today with a typically pompous post on the cutting-edge issue of women’s suffrage, posted with the almost-too-good-to-be-true headline: Women Couldn’t Vote.That Was “Oppression?” If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to dismiss it as half-baked satire – except that FB is serious, deadly serious. (And deadly dull, too, most of the time, but I’ll try to keep this snappy.)
Fidelbogen’s thesis:
It annoys me to hear the feminists say that women were “oppressed” because they didn’t have the voting franchise in olden days. Excuse me. . . oppressed? I would take exception to the semantics in this case, for is not a bit clear to me that what was happening ought to be called by such a heinous name.
While most people are either for or against women having the right to vote – though I’ve never met any of the latter group outside of MRA blogs – FB bravely declares himself “a third way thinker upon this subject.”
Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen, because Fidelbogen is going to get all philosophical on us:
I would submit that women’s historical lack of voting rights was neither a good thing nor a bad thing. Rather, it was a morally indifferent state of affairs, based on a cultural consensus that was shared by men and women alike in the past.
Hey, it was the olden days. People wore silly hats and watched silent movies and no one had iPhones.
Our ancestors lived in a very, very different world than we do, and their cultural norms were very, very different from ours, yet undoubtedly befitting to their world — a world mysterious and unknown to us nowadays. Who are we to judge?
I mean, really, how dare we offer any sort of moral judgment of anything that happened in the past. The Holocaust? Stalin’s purges? Hey, it was the mid-twentieth century – people were just into that shit back then.
Well, FB doesn’t mention either Hitler or Stalin, but he definitely considers women’s former lack of voting rights to be just one of those things that, hey, people were into back then:
[W]as it really, inherently, such a horrible thing after all, that women could not vote? … Why should it even matter? Did the average woman in those days honestly feel that voting was “all that”? Seriously. . . who are we to judge the men and women of past times for their very different way of life which we can no longer entirely fathom?
And besides, most men had been denied the vote earlier, so even if it matters and it totally doesn’t, what’s the big deal if the dudes in charge decided to deny the vote to the ladies for a while longer? As FB puts it:
[W]as it really such an unspeakable crime that the female population couldn’t always go to the polls during that comparatively trifling span of years?
Or is that entire concept nothing but feminist historiography, meant to wring pathos out of history for present-day political purposes by the device of retrojection? That would certainly conform to standard feminist tricknology, wouldn’t it?
Seriously. Those feminologicalnists are totally retrojecting the fuck out of the pastological period using their standard sneakyfulogicalnistic tricknology.
And besides, even though we’re not supposed to judge the past, and even thought that whole denying-the-ladies-the-vote thing was totally a “morally indifferent thing which ought to concern us very little,” FB thinks that maybe it was actually sort of, you know, cool.
I believe a case might be constructed that it was a positive good in the context of those times.
FB decides to leave that case unmade, and returns to the whole “who the fuck cares” argument.
Once upon a time, women didn’t have the voting franchise because societal norms found nothing amiss about such an arrangement. Then times changed, norms changed, and women were admitted to the franchise. That’s all. And women were never, at any point along that general story-line, “oppressed.”
Besides, the whole idea of “rights” is, well, just like, an opinion, man.
Furthermore, women were never at any time deprived of any rights. You see, women’s “right” to vote simply did not exist in the first place — or not during the period when the so-called deprivation occurred. I mean that “rights” are only a figment. Only a mentation. Only a notion. Only a construct. Rights do not exist in their own right. They are not some mystical pure essence which hangs in the air all by itself — they must be conjured into existence by a strictly human will-to-power, and fixed by law or custom.
And so, if the dudes of the world denied the ladies these “rights,” well, uh, it was “morally indifferent” yet also probably good for some reason.
In conclusion, shut your pie holes, ladies:
So in conclusion, I wish that second and third-wave feminists would shut the hell up with their dishonest, self-laudatory rhetoric about “the vote”. They need to quit tooting on that rusty old horn. It is getting really, really old.
Well, unless they’re this lady. She’s actually pretty good at tooting a horn.
Man, gjdj is fucking awesome. Feminist = pwned
@gdjd
your points do make some sense but these things that are protect women are a reaction to an everyday culture that DOESNT value women as people. Things are getting better but there’s a long way to go. I mean you’re talking all about things that involve crime, and perhaps men are more likely to be victims of crime in general but by OTHER MEN not by women! that’s a very key point if the discussion is about gender bias in the culture or why things like a women’s only late night shuttle might be useful. A mens only one in most cases in general society would just be pointless cause the women still aren’t the ones committing these violent crimes.
@Eneya:
I’m not saying that all woman are given the value as people that they deserve. Being unattractive, black, poor, etc. works against the advantage they have in being female.
Firstly, there is an under representation of unattractive, poor, or black men on tv as well. There may well be more men than women who come from these disadvantaged classes. My suggestion would be that men are more valued for what they do, so these other barriers are easier for men to overcome than women. So you can have an unattractive, nerdy, smart guy on tv who is valued for his science or economics or whatever. You can have an athletic black man who is valued for his ability to play in the NBA. But I will say that if you had two pretty faces – one male and one female, neither of whom is particularly accomplished, then the female would be more likely to be placed on tv.
gjdj: “men are more be valued for what they do”
ding ding ding!!! thats what the feminist movement is about. what you do (and say and think) is what makes you human.
@Bee:
So because women spend more health dollars on themselves – it shouldn’t matter? I’m not really sure that is the case anyway. I suspect most of the money comes from insurers or possibly the joint account of a male-female household.
I’m Canadian. We have socialized medicine, which I support. The fact remains that most health expenditures in Canada also go to women. Why? I suspect that it has to do with the following: – men are mocked for weakness and avoid doctors
– women are encouraged to see doctors
– doctors see women as more valuable, and therefore encourage more health care usage by women (eg. they’ll order that extra test for a woman but not a man)
@MRAL -thanks!
@MRALWT: Didn’t you announce you were buggering off? Can’t stick the flounce, eh?
*shoo*
Two problems here. One, you’re assuming women don’t also participate/live in/grow up in/become socialized in the same system as men. Women can hold biased, sexist ideas, too. So just because male and female judges sentence men who harm [young, attractive, non-poor] women less, doesn’t mean that it’s not a property thing. We’re not saying “Men only see women as property”. We’re saying “society at large, thus many men and women who are not feminists/humanists, sees women as property, or at the least as not-fully-human objects. Hence, Congresswomen who are anti-abortion, and a whole other plethora of “Women do it, too, so it isn’t sexist” examples.
A second point, especially in regards to your “appearing on television” comment. You are sure to mention pretty faces. What gender is more valued for their appearance? What other sort of things are valued only/more for what’s on the outside? The answers, in order, are “women, objects”. There are huge holes in your line of thinking that I think you feel are just hard to explain. A lot of your theories are sort of a stretch, and I think what would be better is a switch over to a different line of thinking. Yes, men are valued more for what they’re capable of. But they’re also valued more for their personality beyond reproductive capabilities.
@filetofswedishfish
I’m tired, so I’ll be heading away. I appreciate your note – so I’m leaving in a happy spot. You disagree with me, but you seemed to give some thought to what I said and didn’t rely on insults in your rebuttal. Thanks!
Here we go.t
The more female judges a given jurisdiction has, the less gender disparity there is in prison sentences.
This comment in and of itself devalues women as people. Women comprise the majority of the population — so exactly how much attention should women’s problems and issues receive? The classic misogynist argument against suffrage and equality generally treats women as a “special interest” group, a tiny minority. The reality, of course, is that such arguments are based on the belief that only men are, in fact, human beings, whereas women are chattel (and thus every woman counts as approximately 1/5 of a man).
Basically what I’m finding is that female judges are slightly more likely to sentence female criminal defendants to prison than male judges are (Gruhl, Spohn & Welch). The literature on (mostly male) judge’s verdicts against female defendants is rife with references to protective paternalism and chivalry, and there are a lot of studies that show that judges are more likely to consider a female defendant’s children/pregnancy in sentencing, so … that doesn’t do a whole lot to buttress your argument that it’s all about valuing women as people. There are also, interestingly, studies that show that female defendants are more likely to get stiffer penalties than men when their crimes are particularly inappropriate to their gender (i.e., the “evil woman” theory).
Well, no. Not that it shouldn’t matter that men aren’t seeing doctors and getting preventative care. Only that “Women go to the doctor more often and spend more money on health care than men” is significantly different than “Women are valued more as people, and the reason I know that is that more health care dollars are spent on them” — which was your original argument. I think men should get the health care they need; it’s just that … I mean, what’s your argument here? That women should hold men’s hands and force them into the doctor’s office? Saying that men don’t go to the doctor as much as women because they feel like it strips them of their manhood — that’s not a problem attributable to women, feminism, or society’s overvaluation of female personhood.
That’s a problem easily solved by moar feminism.
The argument based on the history of most men being excluded from voting as well as all women ignores the fact that universal male suffrage was enacted on the principle that all men are created equal and entitled to political freedom and basic human dignity regardless of their social status and land holdings. As Thomas Rainsborough summarized it in the 17th century:
“For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.”
The fact that women were expressly excluded from these lofty ideals was a travesty and a perversion. It was no different from the way that Southern plantation owners could exalt liberty and justify slavery in the same breath. After all, a woman has a life to live as well as a man, and therefore, like a man, is entitled to l live under a government of her own consent; and a woman, like a man, has no moral obligation to obey a government she had no voice in choosing. If such principles are held to be self-evident for men, why not for women? The express, deliberate denial of this basic liberty and human dignity to women — not on the basis of wealth, or social status, but on the basis of gender alone — was a testament to how women were denied the right to vote simply because they had no value as human beings.
I agree that men don’t go to the doctor cause it’s viewed as “weak” or something but that’s PATRIARCHY that does that, not feminism. Feminism doesn’t mock men for not going to the doctor geesh. I doubt doctors order more tests on women then men unless necessary though and also women’s reproductive systems are more complicated and do actually require more care and preventative care than mens. That’s one biological difference that is in fact a difference and not just some distorted idea.
Just freed a bunch of comments from moderation, including a bunch of thoughtful ones from LyssatakeaBow.. Scroll up to see the latest comments from her.
Since a bunch of them are old enough to be on the previous page of comments, I’m pasting those in here:
More from Lyssa:
One more:
Oh wow thank you David!! We can just call this “how i spend my day off” haha 🙂
Apparently gjdj has gone away, but this just popped out at me.
Are black and female exclusive then? Black women aren’t really women … or something?
You said you’d left already, MRAL. And he didn’t really meaningfully pwn anyone. Violence against women getting harsher sentencing doesn’t really mean women are more valued as people. You could read that into it… but it also fits nicely with some misogynist memes — such that women are weak and helpless and need to be protected, while men can take care of themselves. Or that since women are considered property, you’re not just hurting the woman, but whoever “owns” her, leading it to be a harsher crime.
Indeed. I was amused by how gjdj took the fact that victims who are tall, young, white, blond women elicit a disproportionate amount of sympathy from the media as evidence that women are valued more than men as human beings. In fact, his comment proves the opposite — when you take into account the fact that most women are not tall, young, white, blond women (what I mean is that very, very few women meet all of those qualifications), it’s obvious women are only valued for their looks (and when they don’t meet the beauty standard, devalued to the point their very existence is ignored).
David is just a mangina.
MRAL, thank you for that insightful commentary.
You sure as hell don’t need to be tall or blonde to cause a media fervor. So really you just need to be young to middle-aged, female and somewhat attractive. There are a LOT of women that meet that criteria.
Black women elicit a lot less sympathy, of course- because of racism- but black men elicit even less than black women. Because they don’t have female privilege. Likewise for fat or elderly women- less sympathy, but still more than men in that class.
examples of conventionally unattractive women who caused a media fervor please…
Well, sometimes they’re brunettes.