So some MRAs are rallying around Herman Cain – not in spite of the sexual harassment allegations against him, but because of them.
On The Spearhead, W. R. Price notes that Cain has gotten a flood of new donations since the scandal broke. His conclusion:
The support for the conservative candidate suggests that the decades-old trend of male helplessness in the face of female accusations may be coming to an end.
Other Spearheaders are a bit more blunt:
It is refreshing to see a man (politician or otherwise) in the spotlight stand up and defend himself against a P.C. hatchet-job such as “sexual harrassment” when so many before him did the whiney-baby kiss-up “I was wrong” pandering while bowing before the golden hoochie.
Meanwhile, white and nerdy on Omega Virgin Revolt (yes, that’s a real blog) has actually put his money where his mouth is, sending along a donation to Cain.
I usually don’t bother with voting. Everyone running for most offices is either a liberal feminist or a conservative feminist. To me that is no difference. However, if Herman Cain is still in the running by the time my state’s primary happens (and if he is the Republican nominee) I will vote for him.
Herman Cain is now dealing with at least three women who are claiming that he sexually harassed them. Public figures who were accused of sexual harassment in the past didn’t take on their accusers directly, but Herman Cain did. He pointed out how what is happening to him is a false accusation. As a result of this Cain has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in the last few days. One of those donations was my donation.
This may not seem like much, but this small act as made Cain more anti-feminist than all of the other candidates for president.
Notice that in white and nerdy’s version of the controversy, Cain has “pointed out” that he’s being falsely accused. Actually, what Cain has done is to deny that he harassed anyone. At this point, we don’t actually know enough to judge definitively whether the allegations are true — though the fact that the National Restaurant Association paid out tens of thousands of dollars to settle the cases makes me a bit skeptical of Cain’s denials. But apparently, in W&N’s brain, there’s not even a chance he’s guilty of anything other than standing up to the dirty feminazis.
One of the commenters on Omega Virgin Revolt is even more enthusiastic about Cain than the blogger himself. Jack writes:
If Cain becomes president, we might actually see an end to the incessant pandering to women by the mindless political class. It’s about time that a politician stood up and declared that women have responsibilities in life and are not entitled to a free ride. Cain might actually do that.
Over on Reddit, meanwhile, OffensiveBrute doesn’t defend Cain so much as he defends not giving a shit about sexual harassment:
I say even if Cain is guilty, who the hell cares? Sexual harassment is illegal, but not immoral. well not the kind that Cain is accused of anyway.
Skooma714 offers a similar take:
He didn’t even touch them. They probably hear shit like that on the DC Metro everyday.
They probably are over it. They want to get some paper and attention.
And, yes, both of these comments garnered some upvotes.
Of course, not every MRA out there is rallying around Cain. On Reddit, there are plenty of MRAs who are suspending judgment on the allegations, or who dislike Cain because he’s, you know, a right wing asshole. Over on The Spearhead, the only ones who seem to have an issue with Cain are those who, well, let’s just say that they probably also think burning crosses make great lawn decorations:
Black men are notorious for their sexual escapades, their testosterone being greater than that of White Men – as is their level of rape accusation. He may be innocent but he may just as well be guilty of a real indescretion.
I am happy to report that this comment got a lot of downvotes there; not every Spearheader is a raving Stormfronter. Of course, it says something about the general political and social backwardness of the site that those Spearheaders who are defending Cain from the crudest Klan-tastic racist attacks are doing so basically because they think he’s a credit to his race:
If the Blacks in America were like Herman Cain, this country would be measurably better for it and most of us would be hating on someone else.
But don’t worry: On The Spearhead they can still all agree on one central point – that women are evil, lying whores. As Keyster put it, in one of the most-highly upvoted comments in the thread:
What this indicates is that people are fed up with political correctness and the feminist/sexual grievance industry. …
In the new Femocracy you can’t date them, you can’t marry them and you can’t even work among them, without risking untold trouble for life. Is it any wonder men are distancing themselves from women, if not abandoning them altogether? How’s a man to know whether she has a “false accusation bomb” strapped to her waist or not? If you’re a man among women stay alert, you’re outside the Green Zone.
Will MRAs end up rallying around Cain in the way they rallied around Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Or will something – his political views, his race? – prevent them from jumping on the Cain train? I guess we’ll just have to see.
As PM. And, to be fair, it was historically significant, since it was the first time a British leader had acknowledged any culpability over the famine – but given the passage of time, it was widely ridiculed nonetheless.
Not least because Blair seemed to find it all too easy to ‘apologize’ for things over which he clearly had no control, but was inexplicably tongue-tied when it came to things that he damn well should have apologized for.
I personally tend to hold self-described feminist men to a higher standard, in fact, and depending on how he claims to be a feminist I can be a bit suspicious or it can even get my back up (though that’s mostly based on a creepy landlord who gave me the “I am so feminist!” performance before turning out to be completely BATSHIT about women. He got himself banned from volunteering at the local women’s shelter, on account of his creepitude toward his ex-girlfriend. That’s skillful. D:)
It’s not like feminist women hear the words “I’m a feminist dude” and all our sense goes completely out the window. For me that’s more likely to pique my interest in exactly what they think about X issue or Y blog or Z legislation, and I’ll be more likely to want specific knowledgeable answers, while guys who don’t make that kind of claim still get me acting like a feminist to them (duh) but in a gentler more 101 way.
And this is only related to fucking in that “not sexist” is one of the various checkboxes on my person-to-hang-out-around list, which is to say it’s necessary but not sufficient.
I don’t wish to apologize for all men, but sometimes (after I receive my umpteenth dick pic on my AFF profile that week, or a friend posts another “so I invited this guy over to hang out and chill, and he went stalker on me once I made it clear sex was off the table”) I wish I could renounce my membership to that gender.
Bagelsan:
I would bet Brandon takes the “pussy-dispenser” view, which holds that necessary=sufficient
This reminds me of the Roger Mellie strip in Viz, specifically the one where he decided to revive his flagging TV career by coming out as gay (this was in the wake of quite a few similar real-life instances). Naturally, in so doing, he lets slip just about every casual homophobic slur imaginable – they must have had fun combing through the thesaurus, or more likely urbandictionary.com.
I imagine MRAL or Brandon would put in a very similar performance if they ever decided to pretend to be feminist.
Philippa, I’m sorry. That came across wrong, I think. I was more responding to the idea that some people might look down on others for only giving money and not volunteering for their favorite cause. That seems a silly thing to be snobbish about, from my perspective, since money is needed as much as (if not more than) volunteers. But yeah, in my efforts to gather funds for my organization, I hear all sorts of things, from “I’m unemployed/underemployed/don’t have any extra money to give” to “I’ve already donated to other charities” to “I don’t particularly like your organization.” All of those are great reasons not to give my group money. I totally respect that.
And in your particular case, as one unemployed person to another — I’m sorry! I hope your health improves and things get better. That certainly takes priority over anything else.