Uh oh! I just discovered this, currently the top story over on the Men’s Rights subreddit:
Yes, my sisters (and honorary mangina man-sisters), Russell Brand has dealt a severe blow to Operation Alimony, which (as you well know, at least if you’ve been attending the meetings) is our dastardly Feminazi plot to destroy the patriarchy by getting pretty ladies to marry and divorce rich dudes and take all their money.
You may remember our wild revelry when we heard that comrade-ess Heather Mills had walked off (no jokes please) with £24.3 million of Paul McCartney’s man money. And the joyful tears we shed when we heard that Mel Gibson’s ex-wife had (reportedly) scored a cool $425 million in her divorce settlement.
But today, we shed only the bitterest of tears. We have not only been thwarted, but we’ve also been exposed! Damn those Men’s Rights Redditors and their evil allies at the Daily Mail!
The comments in the r/mensrights thread show that they understand our evil plans all too well. How can we respond to Aetheralloy’s withering critique?
Feminists see the absurdity of their own pushed polices?
LOL no. No they won’t. I’d sooner expect scientologists to ask their psychiatrist if they are in a cult.
But ladies! Do not despair! Russell Brand may have set back our efforts, but he, and his Reddit allies, shall not defeat us!
Ladies, you know what to do. Get yourself all prettied up, hit the town, and snag yourself some rich dudes! Let’s see how many of these guys we can have married off by the end of the year.
Marrying (and divorcing) rich dudes: it’s the feminist way!
I had a
The party story would have been fine without the sprinkle of “entitled bitches”
Funnily enough, calling people “entitled bitches” for no reason is kind of a big deal on a feminist site. I would have thought that was obvious.
Save it, MRAL. You could have told the party story differently, and I think you know how. You have a high IQ, after all.
What, so Jumbofish can harass me, but I can’t say anything back? You’ve been dogging me on the forums since day one, and now you’ve moving on to the blog.
Yeah, after the sneering at men who touch your robes stuff, the lashing out at the girl who had the gall to sleep with someone else, and the crap about how dare I date gorgeous men, I’m done.
Kiss my ass, kid. With your attitude it’s your own fault that you’re unhappy, and you are very likely to remain so.
@Alphalady
Can I ask how you were able to overcome it then? how does one achieve self confidence? because I’ve tried everything. I lost weight, I know I look better than I did in my teenage years and early 20s. But I can’t really fake it either, that’s how much I don’t believe I’m anything worth looking at, plus I’ve never been good at faking things. Its very frustrating because I believe I’ve taken many steps to improve my appearance. I just don’t get how some people have this magical self confidence, how they just feel fine and dandy with themselves and other people like me don’t. I’m not expecting that men just come up to me and throw me compliments or ask me out either, but from what I hear women apparently get this all the time from men. Does not compute.
And MRAL/Dad2Boys, take a hike will you? or just fucking listen to what people are saying. It was you who was saying in the other thread that the advice of “just be confident” was crap and I’m practically agreeing with you and asking people here who have experience how to be confident or at least fake it, so why don’t you just listen to what they have to say because it may actually help you in your struggles.
The party story wasn’t a big deal. You went to a party, talked with a woman and at the end she went away, possibly to have sex, with an other man. Hell, that make your new year’s eve way cheerful than mine.
The big deal is your misdirected anger, bitterness and the fact that you read contempt for you into things that are not.
I could have not said “entitled bitch”, and I said that was a mistake, but the more I express any sort of remorse here, the more I get bashed, it’s like emotional sharks sensing blood in the water. This has ruined my day. I’ll leave the thread, if everyone wants, but I don’t think I’ve been treated fairly.
The positive thinking stuff is bull. If every unemployed person in America started thinking positively 24/7, that wouldn’t make there be enough job openings for all of them.
Oh boo hoo MRAL. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
It wasn’t just the entitles bitches comment, MRAL, your behavior has been appalling throughout this thread.
Poor you, MRAL. You earned what you’re getting.
Dude I was doing my job AS A MOD. You were trolling the crap out of that place I am not just going to sit on my ass while you do that.
I don’t see how I am harassing you I am not calling you a “cozening fuck” or telling you to “take s Gatorade and stuff it up their ass” I am just saying that I am not going to ignore all the crap you have done.
Yes you were.
You stepped outside of your comfort zone and talked to a strange young woman at a New Year’s Eve party. The conversation didn’t lead to anything more, you spun a wild scenario about why you were rejected, and used the first post you could to create a discussion about dating and “elitist bitches”.
I don’t know if you’re ready to date, MRAL. Because what you’ve utterly failed to examine what was really positive about your experience. Assuming you aren’t just misremembering -or exaggerating- your encounter with that young woman YOU DID WELL. In the past you expressed such terror at the prospect of being rejected that you told us you didn’t communicate with women at all. You held a pleasant conversation with a stranger. Just because some guy who was probably her boyfriend or someone she’s been seeing casually showed up and you think -think, mind you- that they left and had sex doesn’t change the fact that you communicated, successfully, with a member of the opposite sex and had a good time doing so.
Get over yourself for a minute, stop being so fucking pissed off, and consider the positive implications of your story. You keep saying that you’d like a real girlfriend; someone you can talk to, and relate to, who can also be a lover. Being able to hold a decent conversation is going to have to be a part of that. You’re making progress. It’s slow and halting but still progress.
But don’t act like a dickhead.
MRAL, you also tried to change the subject by using a (known) sock-puppet to say even worse crap. Being mocked for that is hardly bullying.
MRAL, suggestion.
The thing is, I agree that finding self-confidence can help you in your interpersonal relationships, but getting to that point is extremely fucking hard. And to suggest that people with low self-esteem can’t have healthy relationships is not only false, it’s cruel.
And as I’ve said before, it’s possible to have a measure of self-confidence and low self-esteem at the same time.
So I was at a New Year’s party where there were about 8 guys and me. Some other women showed up a little before midnight, but it was just me for most of the evening. They were all nice and interesting and two of them (plus my husband) were totally cute. And at the end of the evening, I went home with my husband.
I went home thinking “That was fun. Those people were cool. I would enjoy hanging out with them again.” Hopefully they went away thinking the same thing, and not “We talked about ontology for like 10 minutes and then she left with someone else? What a bitch.”
MRAL: I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, you feel the woman you talked to owes you. Should she have dropped to her knees right there at the party, out of gratitude for your attention? Did talking to you constitute some sort of binding guarantee of sex or further conversation or whatever? You talked to someone. Great. But that doesn’t entitle you to more than, you know, a conversation.
Now I’m wondering if MRAL knows that girl wasn’t already in a relationship with that other guy. Just because he walked in and talked for 3 minutes doesn’t mean that was their first interaction ever. I spent most of the party talking to non-husband people because he’s always around and I can talk to him whenever I want and we’ve already heard each others’ opinions, anecdotes, and jokes.
(There were many jokes comparing pizza to Catholicism.)
I have no intention of being “unfair.” I’m not putting anyone down or attacking anyone here.
I had self-image problems myself in the past. (Interestingly, I suffered from this at the times in my life when I was extremely physically attractive.) But I took the bull by the horns and worked very hard to overcome this. I really am just making some observations meant to help. And, sorry, I do believe in the “Just World Fallacy” (if that’s what you wish to call it, although I don’t) because I have seen it in action in my life and the lives of many others, many, many times.
So what’s up with the defensiveness?
(Wow…this really did strike a nerve!)
….
Sigh. I explained that while you may not know why it struck that nerve, and might have the best of intentions, a lot of us have a LONG HISTORY with this stuff being used in very questionable ways.
Annnnnnnnd you make it all about you and your “trying to help” As for WOW, this struck a nerve! We told you why. Can the surprise.
Also, in a way, if we’re going to go here- I guess you could say I do “lean towards” some acceptance/ belief in “karma” and “dharma” in the Buddhist sense…
And that’s yet another reason this stripped down Law Of Attraction junk is offensive, because it’s often full of simplistic Western appropriation of deeper/different Eastern concepts.
“I’ll leave the thread, if everyone wants, but I don’t think I’ve been treated fairly.”
Good. Don’t come back.
@katz:
I agree. The thing is, when I talk to people at parties, I’m very rarely vetting them for sex, even if I’m single. Mostly I’m just talking to people at parties. I get the impression MRAL doesn’t have any women friends, and thus thinks that any communication he has with a woman has to be related to sex or romance in some way. I suspect she was just having a nice, friendly conversation, and wasn’t even thinking about sex. Talking and flirting are different.
That’s not to say that every heterosexual guy who doesn’t have woman friends only thinks of interacting with women on a sexual/romantic level, of course. Just that I think it hasn’t occured to MRAL that women friends are a possibility.
Following on Dracula’s last point – everyone goes through periods of low self esteem. What if you’re already in a relationship when that happens? Should your partner walk away because you’re having a rough time and not your best self for a while?
Now if someone’s low self esteem is leading them to lash out at others and generally be unpleasant to be around (hi MRAL!), then sure, that’s a valid reason not to date them. But some people are just sort of insecure, and some are melancholy by nature, and some of those people can make perfectly good partners to the right person. A lot of this stuff about self esteem sounds like social Darwinism, which I think is what grates about it.
I mean, I’m thoroughly convinced I’m objectively awesome at this point, but my inner voice of self-doubt isn’t dead, it just has competition now. 🙂