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.
13 strips all DRM thingies from the books I buy him so we can split them so I do not think we can do it that way.
@Cassandra: I sure as shit wouldn’t have been studying on a Friday night, finals week or not.
…sometimes I study on Friday night…
But mostly I play board games! XDDDDD
Old person is old-I am working.
half assedly but I am still working.
This is what I love about Ozy, zie manages to shock and scandalize so many MRAs while actually being sort of a geeky good kid. It’s funny – they’re just way too easy to freak out.
Actually, I did math, for fun, on a Friday night. I think I’m officially a dork.
I’m home working on a Friday! It’s much too cold to go out, and I am a wimp about the cold.
Good luck with your finals, finals-having people.
So he has one friend with a domineering wife, and the solution for that is for all women everywhere to be quiet and let the him and other dudes talk more? I also wonder if he knows any straight couples where both people are equal partners, and nobody is submissive to the other.
I am staying home tonight. My work x-mas party is tonight, but after the day I had, I need to forget I have a job for the next couple days.
Ozy, what board games? XD
Quackers, you are incorrect, when a man makes a sandwich, he is a CHEF! And should be rewarded as such for his sandwich-making abilities. Because penis + sandwich = hard.
I am also not a real woman, because I both hate and suck at vacuuming. Forcing, nay FORCING my husband and father to occasionally do it for me (did I mention I have severe dust allergies?) wherein they complain for weeks/months before doing it themselves, because I’m happier without, don’t notice or give a shit, but oh the agony and why don’t I do it? Can’t I clearly see it needs to be vacuumed?
Dust that lies down is less toxic than the kind stirred up in the air.
Still waiting for Ami to make my anti-vacuum Magyc card. 😉 Yes, I PM’d you.
omfg, I’m killing myself laughing at the twitter feed. He’s even gone into “I grew up poor! I have no privilege!” Man, my bingo sheet is filling up fast!
So… this is what my Friday night looks like.
I am also trying to figure out why my @!#@@!ing microphone stopped working. My cat has knocked it off the desk a few times, could that break it? I need it to do an interview via Skype.
O_O
http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mcdonalds_id_hit_it_ad-jpg.jpeg
Yeah, the Twitter feed is something to behold. He is so defensive. If feminists criticize his views, they are “wrathful”, and he compares his feminist critics to MRA’s.
oh wow, now the dumbfuck thinks all women are meanies for apparently assuming all men are rapists…
bethhicks0518 summed it up nicely:
Instead of blaming women for being scared in a world that tells them they have to be, hold men accountable. In a real way.
Do these assholes realize how SELFISH they are when they claim hurt fee fees that women are afraid of men, when the reality is that women do get raped and harrassed? that they are told not do dress like sluts or not walk at night, and when they do get raped they get blamed for not being careful enough?
People like Matlack are so selfish, so entitled and so privileged it makes me sick. DO SOMETHING ABOUT RAPISTS INSTEAD OF BLAMING WOMEN FOR BEING RAPED AND SCARED. Everyone knows not all men are rapists. But there are some that are and of course you’re going to be scared or take precautions. Just like you’d be scared of having your house broken into if you didn’t lock to door. Or that you’d get mugged walking down the street in a shady part of town.
No matter what women do, we are blamed. You aren’t careful enough? out come the faux concerned victim blamers with their “oh you should have known better!” “why would you accept that drink?” “why would you wear that, you’ll give him the wrong idea” “why did you go out alone with him?”
But if you do act scared or overly cautious, out come the shrieks and accusations of being a man hater.
What do they want from us? should women just stop everything and just accept rape? is that what they want? because no matter what we do, our actions and reactions are wrong.
Matlack and MRAs- pull your heads out of your ass and realize this is not about YOU PERSONALLY. This is not about hating men. This is the symptom of a worldwide societal problem that affects billions of women and more men as well. Punish the rapists for raping. Don’t blame women for being scared or cautious.
Just look at how many of the trolls we have here that don’t even understand consent, or how many PUAs teach not to respect women’s boundaries. And then we’re the bad guys? ugh.
Lol, I doubt if there’s too much masculinity over at the castrated eunichs pagoda. Here’s exerpt from a few of the comments.
“(For the record: I am a cis man. My in-person communication style is coded feminine about half of the time. I thus often have trouble fitting in with any group, and it would really help if people would just listen to what I have to say instead of constantly trying to gender it.)”
————–
“My son, however, can’t wear pink, or a dress, or flowers, or braid his hair, because to identify with anything traditionally female is bad, wrong, deviant, and disgusting.”
————-
“When men, whether gay or bi, ‘crossdresser’ or not, masculine or feminine, see me they go – they go head down, arse up in short order( eg. 2 emails, a quick facetoface chat for 10 to 20 mins to check that theyre not a lunatic – and then BANG, Im in their behind).”
————-
“My husband looks delicious in makeup, and is no less “manly” thereby. He claims he’s straight because he’s never met the right man. I told him that if I make the change to transman, I had better be his type or he’s dead meat.”
————
It just drones on in this emasculated, slightly androgenous, heavily gay/femme tone. I doubt you could gather up a quark of testosterone amongst every gay/bi (haha)-man there, as they discuss the horrors of toxic masculinity. Maybe you might get a gibblet of testosterone from the women who are the majority of commenters there, who the pathetic excuse for men fall all over themselves to agree with.
Well excuuuuuse me xD
Well then it would be a manwich. Which takes more effort and is deserving of money unlike silly lady sammiches.
also long rant is wrong. Sorry but that part in the convo really ticked me off.
@Quackers
“Instead of blaming women for being scared in a world that tells them they have to be, hold men accountable.”
A woman talking about accountability. That’s as cute as your ducky gravitar!
Shorter Owly: men being feminine and women being masculine! WHAT?!
I mean I think this is far less extreme and insulting than Hugo’s recent article, which I really didn’t like. I don’t think Matlack is obligated to acknowledge anything not immediately relevant to his topic. And he’s talking about how women often dominate the emotional climate in relationships. I don’t know if that’s actually true or not because I’ve never been in a relationship, but all this stuff about how he needs to focus on rape statistics or women being cautious or whatever is kind of irrelevant, and reminds me of the “what about the men” thing that MRAs do.
Only men should talk about accountability! Like this:
“I wonder if those future, or presently model feminists stripped the boy
to expose his lack of control? I noticed the one in the green shoes was
wearing very little for such a little girl. And the other has on skin
tight half pants and a skin tight shirt. I don’t know what the
camera-girl is wearing”
http://manboobz.com/2011/12/15/the-false-rape-society-is-shocked-shocked-by-a-fraternitys-who-would-you-rape-survey/comment-page-6/#comment-98570
(the girls in question were about 11)
Guess who that was?
Hugo is weird at times. I have quit reading his stuff. There are better feminists to read.
@Moewicus
They were the good (men?) at the projects comments.
@NWO
I would have prefered it she said “hold the men who rape and harrass” accountable since it implies that only some men do that, not all. Because I’m such a horrible man hater you see!
But really NWO, you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. You’ve frequently said women dressing sexually is done on purpose to entice men, even in the case of female children, so when they get raped it their own fault. Yet you also claim feminists and women all hate men and think they are rapists. So do many other MRAs
So no matter what we do, we’re blamed for being raped, or accused of being man haters. Tell me, how DO women avoid getting raped without hurting your fee fees? should they wear a burqa? should they refuse to be alone with a man? wouldn’t that imply suspicion of men?