Did Tom Matlack of the Good Men Project – not to be confused with Ben Matlock, fictional defense lawyer beloved by the elderly – swallow one of those mysterious “red pills” I keep hearing about on Men’s Rights blogs? Whatever he swallowed, it’s apparently causing him to hallucinate.
How else to explain his recent post on the GMP site titled “Being a Dude Is a Good Thing.” Now, as a dude who spends a good deal of time every day being a dude, I’ve got nothing against anyone being a dude, provided that’s what they want to be. It’s just that the piece itself is full of some rather strange generalizations that don’t actually seem to be, you know, true, at least not in what’s commonly known as “the real world.”
Rather than try to rebut his argument, because he doesn’t seem to have much of one, let’s just look at some of his loopier pronouncements:
Why do men get blamed for everything?
Uh, because they don’t? Sure, men get blamed for things, but guess what? Women get blamed for things all the time, too, from witchcraft, to divorce, to getting themselves raped, battered or killed. They’ve been blamed for earthquakes, for “inciting” male lust, for killing chivalry and “killing off real men,” for “taking roles intended by God only for men.” Heck, some inventive sorts have even figured out how to blame women for men who are assholes. And this guy has decided that “Black Women are to blame for the disrespect Black Men show towards Black Women.” For endless additional examples, scroll back through the posts and comments here, visit any of the blogs on my “boob roll,” or simply continue living on planet earth.
Back to Matlack, whose generalizations get more surreal by the sentence:
In the locker room, in the bathroom, on the walk out of the board room, in my conversations with men of all kinds, that’s what I hear more than anything. The resignation that to be a man is to be unacceptable at some level to the woman in your life.
Really? Who on earth are you hanging out with? And what women are they hanging out with? Are men other than Tom Matlack and his possibly apocryphal conversational partners actually having conversations like this on a regular basis? If the “woman in your life” basically hates men, what is she doing with you, and what are you doing with her?
One close friend jokes, “When speaking to my wife I always make sure to look at the ground in deference. And I make sure not to make any sudden movements.”
Um, what?
I’ve watched him. He loves his wife.
He’s a very competent human being. But with her he’s decided the only way to survive is to submit. The female view is the right view. The male view just gets you into trouble.
You see what I meant before about the hallucinations, right?
But Matlack suggests there is hope for the poor demure, never-before-heard-from men of the world. Apparently they are starting to open their mouths at last.
It seems that the blame game in the mainstream, whether through the minimization of male life in pop culture or on television or through the continued obsession with men behaving badly, has finally struck a chord with the average guy.
Let’s just pause a moment to reflect on this whole “minimization of male life in pop culture or on television.” Mr. Matlack, do you actually watch movies or television, or visit libraries or anything like that? Most movies revolve around men as the main characters, with women in many cases serving as little more than a love interest or simply as scenery. Have you ever heard of the Bechdel test? Read up on it, run the test on some of your favorite films, and then get back to us on the “minimization of male life in pop culture.”
Now back to Matlack’s manifesto:
We are no longer willing to be blamed for being men. We are no longer willing to avert our gazes and stay silent about our feelings. We are raising our voices and telling our stories in our own male vocabulary.
Yeah, because men have been so utterly silent about their feelings, their opinons, and pretty much everything, up until now.
To women, I assume the response is, “well, it’s about time.” But just remember when we talk it’s not going to sound like a women in a man’s body. It’s gonna be all dude. And you are just going to have to deal with that.
Ladies, prepare yourselves for a lot more Dudesplaining in the near future. Dudes will be ignored no longer! Dudes!!! DUUUUUDESSS!!!!!!
EDITED TO ADD: Matlack’s gotten some responses on Twitter to his dudely roar; he’s posted a bunch of them here. Guest appearances by Amanda Marcotte and (seriously) Roseanne Barr.
In my personal creation story, woman came first, but God is a dude. So God jacked off over the clouds, and then woman arose from his spunk, after which she gave birth to man. So, we’re all interconnected in the circle of life.
In my personal creation story, sexless cells came first. Sex roles emerged in animals based on which one was required to make the greatest reproductive investment (note that in fish, where the female can release her eggs and scram before they’re even fertilized, the male is more likely to be caregiver) but serve no further purpose in humans, which are able to make conscious reproductive and childcare choices.
See, there’s also jizz in my creation story (even if it is fish jizz), but it’s a lot more nuanced.
Nothing wrong with fish jizz. It’s a delicacy.
I’m not a narrow-minded person, but ewwwwwwww.
(Although I’ve eaten fish eggs happily, and I can’t really justify why that’s different.)
Occam’s razor, Holly.
Then again, I eat chicken eggs but I wouldn’t eat chicken jizz.
That you know of, Holly.
Creation Story: when I was about 4 or 5, I was sitting in Sunday School in the basement of the church, reading the Little Golden Book of the Genesis story. My takeaway: Eve ate the apple and therefore history happened. Go Eve!
Twentyish years later I started reading feminist essays, and a huge number of them started off with an introduction by the author referencing the pain she had felt her whole life, being punished for Eve’s sin. I was baffled, because I’d never looked further into the Genesis story than my 4 or 5 year old interpretation in which Eve was the hero of the story. What sin? What punishment?
Hugo’s resignation post is my second favorite thing he’s written, after his essay about the trouble men have feeling desired (which was the first thing of his I read). Of course, it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d do in that situation, so I identify.
I’m an atheist and I dig the hell out of Christmas. I like the melancholy feel of the season; it’s the time to drink too much mulled wine and listen to sad winter music. Also, I love giving gifts.
Seconding this.
I also gotta admit that I’m not exactly a fan of Hugo Schwyzer, for the same reasons many have already mentioned, but the resignation post was really spot on. I used to like GMP, but not anymore. I think NSWATM is the better choice when it comes to men’s issues.
There are all kinds of things that are delicacies that I won’t eat. I’m adding fish jizz to the list.
Fish eggs/tobiko on the other hand is awesome. It’s sort of crunchy? I like it as a garnish.
In his resignation post, he essentially says that my voice is less valid because I am a white male. I already have low self-esteem, so that cockhead can go fuck himself.
Strong words, perhaps hastily chosen. I should say he doesn’t make me feel good, and I already struggle with feeling good.
MRAL, even though I’m really glad you notice when you went to far, maybe you should really step back from this. I know the feeling you describe,and I don’t think arguing here will make you feel any better (quite the opposite, actually).
So let’s think about awesome things instead!
Like all the yummy christmas food!Yeah, I’m not sure I’m really arguing anyway, most people here seem to be not big fans of Hugo. But, either way, I just have a problem with the logical implications of his arguement, even if I think that he’s mostly just thinking about shutting Matlack down.
Yessssss, my minions. Everyone read NSWATM! Soon, soon my mind-control beams will…
Uh. I mean. Christmas lights. Jolly good.
I, for one, welcome our new christmas lit, ozytastic overlords 😀
When it comes to religion I’m most defiantly a hardcore agnostic I would dearly love to believe in a benevolent god who loves us all equally but scientific discovery’s are making that concept more and more far fetched (if there is a god he’s closer to MRAL’s interpretation)
Our whole concept of god in western society has shaped how we see gender, sexuality and race and has led us into the cluster fuck we’re living in now. We gave our religious leaders to much power over us and now we pay the price.
But god help me, I still see merit in theology, Christianity to me at least still means having a private relationship with the almighty trusting in him to help you grow as a person, sitting in quiet contemplation trying to find serenity away from the sound and fury of the 21st century fundy nonsense.
This is similar to my own beliefs, which I guess you could call “pantheism”? For me, religion is more about my responding to the universe and its beauty than about a set of factual descriptions about events. I was really into Joseph Campbell in undergrad, and one of the things I took away from that experience was the idea that religious practice is about orienting your own mind to the cosmos and your life through ritual and symbolism.
BlackBloc:
Can you say more? This sounds pretty interesting.
I tend to have a BlackBloc-ish view of Christianity so I can say what I personally find immoral and strange about the whole Jesus story. I thought I’d answer because I don’t know when he’ll come back. I do want to see what BlackBloc would say though.
This is pretty strongly worded, so I am going to warn any Christians here that if you don’t want to hear that sort of stuff directed at your religion, or are triggered by it or anything like that, you can keep scrolling down the page. I don’t think I’ve insulted believers or anything like that, but I do say some harsh things about Christian concepts and religious figures.
1. I don’t find the Christ story to make very much sense, period. God sends his son down to earth, who is actually God himself, to scoot around as a really strange preacher guy for a couple of decades and then get tortured and die, but not really die because he comes back, in order to fix a situation that God created (humanity’s capability for sin and a lack of opportunity for redemption for it) in the first place. WTF??? I honestly can’t find any of this coherent at all. In fact, hearing the story laid out like that was one of the final nails in my deconversion coffin. It just seems like a bizarre and unnecessary runaround on God’s part and an excuse for a torture show.
2. The story has also always struck me as sort of “slumming it” on Jesus’s part, like some rich white kid going on a 2-week voluntourism trip to Nicaragua or something and then coming back and being like I LEARNED SOOOO MUCH! (Jesus celebrating the poor so much has also hit me in the same way, but that’s a different conversation.) I don’t think Jesus made much of a sacrifice at all– what’s 30-some years living on Earth and then a day or two of pain when you’re God? We’re supposed to think that Jesus’ death was some big huge redemptive thing when there were I-don’t-know-how-many-other-people getting crucified at the same time, who weren’t divine prophets, who weren’t going to get resurrected, who didn’t have the comfort of knowing what exactly would happen to them, and who were probably (if you assume there is an afterlife) going to go to hell. For a human being, giving up your life in heroism or for an ideal is meaningful precisely because you don’t get it back, and there is possibly no reward for what you have done. How could an all-powerful divine being (one who knows exactly what’s going to happen, and knows a reward is coming) possibly make any sort of meaningful sacrifice?
3. The idea that “sacrifice” in the religious sense is possible is sort of morally disgusting. Nobody except you can shoulder the responsibility for your “sins” or moral failings. It’s a drastic abdication of responsibility to put that burden on somebody else. And taking up that burden yourself (i.e. Jesus) for another person is useless at best and disturbing at worst. How does becoming a scapegoat for everyone solve anything? The world had the exact same moral quandaries before Jesus’ death and afterwards. A human (or animal, i.e. in the OT) death can’t possibly “redeem” anyone else, or absolve them of anything, or cleanse them of anything. Absolving yourself is something you do, it is hard work that you have to go out and accomplish in order to make up for causing harm. Nobody else can do this for you, and certainly not by getting tortured to death.
And any attempt to do that kind of thing you should be extremely frightening. That’s abusive and a classic example of guilt tripping somebody over a situation the abuser is ultimately responsible for. “See, look what I did for you! I got myself killed for you! Why don’t you appreciate me? Don’t you see I’m helping you here by saving you from being tortured eternally? Well then, if you don’t love me back you know what the consequences are!” That’s not eternal love. That is 100% unequivocally abuse.
Also, I just plain find celebrating any sort of human sacrifice to be repugnant. Although I discounted Jesus’ suffering up there because he was part divine, it’s still suffering, pain, and death nonetheless. Suffering can’t cleanse anyone of anything. Suffering and death are terrible, gruesome, and humiliating things, and the idea that they bring any sort of moral credit with them (i.e. to get you out of the red in your Sin Account) is a mere justification for inflicting further suffering and death on others in the name of moral fortitude or vague religious rewards. Having someone publicly shamed, tortured, and killed in the name of other people’s wrongs is grotesque for any reason; there is no possible justification for it, even religious ones.
Getting stoned and crucified to death builds character, as Calvin’s dad would say.
@Kladle
I’m not religious, but I also think that Christianity places way too much emphasis on the suffering and death of Jesus, and not enough on his teachings.
I think there is something to the “slumming it” notion, however. The way I interpret it, God is all-knowing, but he’s not all-understanding. He knows about suffering but he doesn’t understand it, so he comes to Earth, probably just to show everyone how awesome he is, but then he realizes that it’s not so easy being human, and that’s why a lot of the stricter rules are removed.
I have the same issues with the Jesus story. I don’t see suffering as being something that can cleanse or heal, and the whole underlying idea makes no sense to me because if sin exists, it’s individual and personal. No one else should be able to atone for something that I do, because I’m the one responsible for it. It feels like a morality get out of jail free card. Also, people kept right on sinning afterwards, so what did the whole suffering, death, and rebirth thing accomplish? It didn’t change anything in terms of humanity’s overall behavior.
I’m an agnostic, but I’m sort of in awe of the fact that the universe spontaneously generated organisms that developed consciousness and figured out that the universe spontaneously generated organisms that developed consciousness. I mean, far freakin out.
I’m also amazed that we can figure out the math that explains how the universe works (roughly) and that dudes with slide rules were able to figure out to get spaceships to the moon and back.
I’m thinking that the next step in evolution will involve sort of cyborgy computer-organic creatures that are designed to learn and evolve and which will eventually supplant human beings while absorbing all that we know and all that we are.
And that these new ever-more-perfect cyborgy creatures will look like kitties. But with thumbs.
(Maybe not the bit about kitties.)