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.
@Holly: Definitely agree on the essays.
And it IS true that SOME men will listen better to other men, and male allies can be important, but if they forget that the reason they’re being listened to is linked to their male (and often race and class and heternormative privilege) rather than their being TEH MOST AWESOME FEMINIST EVAH, then, they’re moving fast away from ally to appropriation.
Is that actually Roseanne Barr? What the hell is she going on about?
Blitzgal: The number they are focusing on is the numbers for the last 12 months (see tables on page 18 and 19) – those numbers say that in the last 12 months:
1.1% of women were raped the last 12 months while
1.1% of men were “made to penetrate someone else” the last 12 months (of those 79.2% said that they were made to do so by a woman)
This is not immediately clear in the report since rape and “being made to penetrate someone else” were presented as separate categories – hence being made to penetrate someone is not rape according to CDC (in contrast to the law many places).
Definitions of “rape” and “being made to penetrate someone else” can be read on page 17 in the CDC report.
What this means is that just NOW in the US men are just as much at risk as women for being raped (if one considers the definition of “being made to penetrate someone else” used as rape). And 79.2% of those raped men reported that the perpetrator were a woman.
Now, not acknowledging this and continuing to claim that women still are the overwhelmingly majority of rape victims and that men are the overwhelmingly majority of rapist are denying this and that basically discounts the male victims and that is just plain rape apology.
We are raising our voices and telling our stories in our own male vocabulary.
Which should not be any different than a woman’s vocabulary. Unless by “male vocabulary”, he means highly gendered insults and ridiculous theories about women. I honestly don’t see what’s hard about treating women as people, it seems like it would be easier than all of this frothing. No one’s a nagging shrew if they keep asking you to take out the garbage because you have a history of not taking out the garbage, they’re just going by observed behavior. If someone’s such an unpleasant person that they can’t even handle simple requests without sulking, that’s not the fault of the person making the request. And it has nothing to do being women’s fault. If you’re a passive-aggressive asshat who’s now moving to be an aggressive asshat, you are still an asshat.
I would hate to be in a relationship with someone like this – oh, wait, that’s why they’re ex-boyfriends.
And wasn’t there a study done? I remember reading about a study that was done – they found that women don’t talk more than men, it’s actually about equal, but women are perceived as talking more. Or something like that. Apparently, the only way you can be perceived not to talk too much is to talk far less than men.
Late to the party.
This is really funny. It reminds me of an incident when I was with my family on a road trip. My dad did something silly while driving. I can’t remember what it was but it defied common sense and my mam called him on it.
My dad said, “You’re always nagging. Women only nag cos they think it gives them power.” To which I sincerely laughed out loud and said “No, Dad. We nag so you don’t to stupid stuff. We nag because we care.” Silly dad.
Obligatory Onion link.
I don’t nag.
I speak.
Sometimes–a minority of the time, in fact too small a minority of the time–I speak and I ask for something I want or need. Let’s not call it “nagging” just because it comes out higher-pitched than something you’d call a “request” or “reminder.”
haha spear were you reading my twitter?
Nope, I remember that one from when it came out. I saw your Tweet after I posted it here. Sorry about that.
No worries, just think we were thinking exactly the same thing.
…Which is that Hugo Schwyzer’s “please hire me to speak at your event!” stuff always comes with a nasty undertone of “please hire me to speak at your event, I’m just so much more reasonable and respectable than those other feminist speakers!”
These guys are unbelievably narcissistic. Whenever someone calls a narcissist on their douchebag behavior, there will be hell to pay. You would not believe the abuse I was subjected to on one of those MRA blogs when I dared to disagree with their delusional views about women. I finally gave up. It would be easier to have an intelligent debate with a houseplant.
That’s not true: my houseplants don’t resort to misogynist insults and dumb statement when they don’t know what to answer. (which is often)
And they’re never creepy.
My houseplants have never said anything that works out to either “Shut up so I can fuck you” or “Shut up because I don’t want to fuck you.”
Also I can eat some of them.
Hey, I was defending houseplants! They have at least 125 IQ points on these guys! LOL!
Oh HUGO SHMUGO !
Yet another smug self-promoter undeserving of discussion.
@quackers: I find it laughable that you consider it such a grave historical injustice that women had to work TOO. Men do their part and pull their own weight without complaining. Modern bourgeois women whine about having to do their part because they think they’re entitled to “have it all”.
True enough. Though my plants always refused to take an IQ test.
Holly, what kind of edible houseplant do you have?
I have a basil plant and a mint plant. Honestly both of them are kind of dying, but that just means I have an excuse to chop them up and eat them. 🙂
Many MRAs are obsessed by the sex life of Hugo Schwyzer because they see him as an Alpha male and a feminist and therefore a proof of their obsession : that feminism is about women that want to have sex with Alpha males.
In reality, Hugo Schwyzer, is a guy that constantly ask to be forgiven because in the past he was a Don Juan and he became a feminist because of his guilt.
@Holly: Also I can eat some of them. (them=houseplants)
OMG you EAT them! They must think you are terribly…………….CREEPY!!!!!!
Hugo? ALPHA male? SRS?
Because he’s had sex with a lot of women?
……….
wow.
Moar proof of nonsensicality of the system.
Ithiliana: Alpha male is defined solely as “a man who fucks lots of women.” A beta male is “a man who fucks some women.” An omega is “a man who fucks no women.”
Yes, really. *sigh*
@Ozymandias42: but but but but but…….I thought there were you know objective qualifications! Criteria! Abs! Rock hard jawline!! etc.
But yeah, the hilarious part is that in most of the geeky and/or academic (or both) circles I’ve hunt out in, the guy that’s sweetest, funniest, likes to dance (BIG turn out for so many women), and actually likes women is often the most popular…..
I did get tired of all the mra dudes whining on Hugo’s site about how he should talk, he’s had lots of sex, he should have more compassion for them blah blah blah blah. One of the many reasons I quit reading over there.
Manboobz is much more fun, and a WHOLEHELLUVALOT geekier!
oh, all of you critisizing Hugo S.-
I wanna bake some cookies for y’all….
As I’ve stated before I’m neither Feminist nor MRA.
Actually, I find the “men’s vocabulary” a very interesting turn a phrase, considering whose public speech is respected, and also because the idea that there SHOULD be different vocabularies to discuss gendered experiences has actually been discussed by linguist Suzette Hadin Elgin– she created a constructed language specifically to try and relocate female experience within a female language.
I’m not sure I agree that male and female modes of communication are necessarily different, but I think cultural expectations shift communication methods and thus, possibly vocabulary.
Professors are powerful and influential, socially. When you’re a professor you have authority over a woman’s entire peer group, and by extension control over that entire peer groups repository of vaginas as well. How is it controversial to call Schwyzer alpha?