When you think they can’t get any creepier, they do. Here’s a disturbing new Men’s Rights meme-in-formation I’ve recently run across.
In a late-December rant about anti-porn feminist Gale Dines, the self-proclaimed “Male Renaissance Agitator” who calls himself Fidelbogen wrote:
In olden days of rough village justice she’d have gotten the scold’s bridle, or the the ducking stool, or the stocks. And quite right.
A couple of days later, regular A Voice for Men commenter DruidV, perhaps inspired by Fidebogen’s post, made a strikingly similar suggestion on that site:
I urge all Men here to have a look at wiki’s description of what was commonly known as a scold’s bridle, or the Branks. For whatever foolish reason, this item was done away with some time ago. This invention to end Men’s suffering, needs to be brought back into public acceptance and application, post haste, imo.
So let’s take a look at the Wikipedia page he linked to and see just what exactly this “Scold’s Bridle” was:
A scold’s bridle, sometimes called “the branks”, as well as “brank’s bridle” was a punishment device used primarily on women, as a form of torture and public humiliation.[1] It was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head. The bridle-bit (or curb-plate) was about 2 inches long and 1 inch broad, projected into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue[2]. The “curb-plate” was frequently studded with spikes, so that if the tongue moved, it inflicted pain and made speaking impossible.[3] Wives that were seen as witches, shrews and scolds, were forced to wear a brank’s bridle, which had been locked on the head of the woman and sometimes had a ring and chain attached to it so her husband could parade her around town and the town’s people could scold her and treat her with contempt; at times smearing excrement on her and beating her, sometimes to death.
Emphasis mine.
I will be charitable and assume that both Fidelbogen and DruidV were joking. That is, they don’t literally want to strap women’s heads into ghastly torture devices, smear them with shit and beat them to death. They just think that the very notion is hilarious.
Whether the suggestions were made seriously or not, they’re still pretty hateful. Given that Fidelbogen was recently taken aboard as a regular writer for A Voice for Men, and that DruidV’s comment on that site got mostly upvotes (and no criticism) from the regulars there, would it be fair to call A Voice for Men the “underbelly of a hate movement?”
I’m not sure why that particular phrase popped into my head, but somehow it seems all too appropriate.
vacuumslayer:Do you guys think David Meller masturbates to “Mary Poppins?” Not if he’s read the books.
Though I will add this, from, “Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The life of P.L. Travers, by Valerie Lawson”
She was writing to please a man she she was beginning to love, Francis Macnamara…. He had warned Pamela not to expect him to read Mary Poppins. He hated children’s books. She sent it to him anyway and he read it, reluctantly. His reaction had a profound effect on her. He wrote, “Why didn’t you tell me? Mary Poppins, with her cool green core of sex has me enthralled forever.” Pamela believed Macnamara understood more of Mary Poppins than anybody ever had, even more than she did herself.”
Dani: I wonder if any of those husbands regretted parading their wives around in the scold’s bridle after the wife had been stoned to death by the locals?
The husbands didn’t have much say in the matter. If they’d not dragged her round the town they’d have been abused for being ruled by a woman. Village life wasn’t a good place to be seen as outside the norms.
These weren’t things done to the average women. They weren’t even done to the sort of things the MRA think of as, “shaming and nagging”. They were almost certainly never done on the husbands whim. On the occasions they were done the probable reason was that the ways in which the woman so treated was acting toward the people in the town; not to her husband, was the reason for the treatment.
And the nature of her being a pain the ass to all and sundry would (as with the use of stocks: see the way in which Captain Thomas, Lord Cochrane was treated after his conviction for his father’s being involved in manipulating the stock market) depend on the way the community as a whole saw her.
Meller, my darling: It is true that there were no overt, explicit, ideologically driven feminists then, but obviously there were what may be called “protofeminists”, women(?) who were envious of men, resented men, were in their own way competitive with and denigrating toward men, and basically held all of the attitudes and temperment of modern women!
right… the women are always to blame when the men abuse them.
See my comments, supra, about your tacit acceptance of torture.
“It’s brutal and counterproductive to hit women, makes them less fluffy, but on the other hand I can totally see how willfull women might drive a man to it!”
You actually said that (I’m paraphrasing since I didn’t save the exact text and I don’t speak deranged steampunk misogynist) to me a while back in reference to the words that I’ve written on this blog. Words, Meller, not even actions. You think that the wrong words from a woman can serve as an excuse for a man’s being physically violent towards her. We have the evidence on this very blog, in your own words. Did you really think that everyone was going to forget that little outburst?
@CassandraSays: He’s said over and over that he totally understands women LIKE THE WOMEN ON THIS BLOG or other women (including my student) could drive a gentle man to beat them, abuse them, and kill them. It is always and forever the woman’s fault in the Millerverse.
He is vile.
Cassandra: Of course he does. He expects us to forget he said he takes pleasure in women who die in agony. That, if women don’t come to their senses and commit to being slaves they will be replaced with sexbots, and that all but a few (of the prettiest, or most slavishly Gorean, or something) will be killed off. Those who remain will be given to the powerful men, as rewards for being uber-studly.
We, of course, are supposed to forget all this. It was just an excess of emotion, not something he really meant; and all those other comments which seem to support it…. forget about them too.
He didn’t, “REALLY” mean them. He just took the time to write them down and post them on the internet, to vent a little steam. And the “sending women to brothels if they dare to fuck without permission… totes understandable, and good for them. Every rational person would agree.
“He is vile.”
Yep. I think that’s why he hates you and me in particular – a lot of people would sort of dance around passing direct judgement on him, but I have no problem pointing out that he’s a monster.
You are the stuff of nightmares, Meller. You’re the guy that parents warn their daughters about.
Her what? o.O
Right on. He is truly more worthless and disgusting than a piece of dog shit under my shoe.
There are so many things I want to say to him but they might be deemed too inappropriate or mean. He’s not only the guy that parents warn their daughters about, he’s the type of guy that made feminism happen in the first place and proves it right every time. Women are not human beings to him, and when people say that feminists exaggerate about misogyny, all the lurkers have to do is read his posts to prove that there are indeed filth like him running around in this world, in the US and in 2012.
@CassandraSays
I don’t think parents are aware that Mellers exist! I sure as hell wasn’t
Hey, I’m just quoting the book.
The books (which are a lot more recent than most of us tend to think) are a lot different from the film; though I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, “hot green core of sex”, myself.
emmendation: the book I am quoting is a biography of the author of Mary Poppins.
Let me tell you, Mary Poppins would make Meller, and his ilk, shrivel up like worms on a hot sidewalk.
Again, though, I take a malicious sort of joy in the knowledge that there is almost no place for men like Meller in society any more, and they know it. That’s why they spend so much time shrieking in rage on the internet.
Feminism still has a lot to accomplish, but the existence of the MRM is proof that we’re winning the long term battle. The only reason it exists is because feminism also exists – it’s the last gasp of a particular breed of sexist dinosaur.
Welp, I’m going to have to find myself a copy of Mary Poppins.
The torture devices are suitable for feminists, not for all.
Oh okay, as long as you’re only torturing a certain subset of women, I suppose it’s cool. Especially since that subset of women disagrees with you in terms of ideology.
That was sarcasm, by the way. Not that you’ll ever read it, Since you’re the superspy of trolls! Get in, do the job, get out as fast as possible. *Starts humming the Mission: Impossible theme*
Sort of OT but- DKM wouldn’t last half an hour with the steampunks I know. Messing with women who are wearing the equivalent of body armor and carrying various implements including but not limited to parasols and spanners?
Yeah, that’ll go well.
The road to Mellertopia does not lie through Steam country.
DKM said:
“Isn’t there a kinder, more humane, and more civilized way to negate the malign influence of feminists, and enhance the influence of ladylike and domestic-oriented sweet old-fashioned girls? Brutality is often counterproductive, and feminists who are terrorized by these barbaric devices would probably NOT be capable of ascending to true womanhood, even if such mistreatment was rountinely carried out!
We catch more flies with honey than with vinegar! Wouldn’t being nice to good women, while ignoring and ridiculing feminists at every opportunity work infinitely better than torturing feminists? Even animals often respond badly to torture and sadism, and such abuse would bring out the worst in feminists that you were trying to prevent! It may even create widespread sympathy for victims, and more influence for feminuttery then would otherwise be the case.
In short, BAD idea, all the way around! Back to the drawing board!”
So wait…so your objection to torturing women isn’t that it would be wrong but that it wouldn’t work?
DKM being against that is like McCain being against torturing prisoner: I know it’s mainly because it doesn’t work, but I’ll take what I can get. But I have a double standard: I expect much more from people I respect.
Meller seriously creeps me out. Just saying.
Kyrie: McCain isn’t, sadly; almost unbelievably, against torturing prisoners.
Torture is an issue I care about; it’s an issue I know a lot about. <a href =http://pecunium.livejournal.com/306236.html John McCain isn’t really against torture
There are some other links, in that piece, to more of the ways McCain has worked to make torture easier for the US Gov’t to get away with.
Try that link again. John McCain isn’t really against torture
Abd yes, Meller has never said that abusing women is an absolute moral wrong; merely that it’s less efficient as a training method. He’s against it on practical, not moral grounds.
Travers’ Mary Poppins series is superb.
And OMG “cool green core of sex” in original series YES YES YES.
*coff*
That disappeared in the Disney film of course-Julie Andrews has talked about how she got typecast into “good girl” roles in part because of that film (thank heavens for VICTOR/VICTORIA).
Of course I also had a total lustcrush on Julie Andrews (from THE SOUND OF MUSIC)……so it may just be me.
But Mary Poppins’ totes magical goddess awesomeness is much more in the books than the film.