Reactionary and “traditionalist” Men’s Rightsers tend to share a lot of the anti-Islam prejudices of the American right in general. When they talk about Islam it’s usually in vaguely apocalyptic terms, and usually with a side of anti-feminist conspiratorialism thrown in for good measure: Feminists are destroying Western Civilization and making the Muslim takeover inevitable!
But I’ve run across a few highly upvoted comments on the Spearhead recently which suggest that the generally less than warm feelings about Islam found in the Manospehre may be tinged with a certain amount of envy and even admiration.
Take this Rapses fellow here:
It is high time papa (patriarchy) take some harsh measures to discipline her little naughty girls (feminists). Papa has yielded too much to their tantrum and whining. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Western papa has to toughen up a bit and tell them that their stupid whims would not be met. These little girls are really not that tough as they show and still need papa to provide and protect them. See how Saudi papa deals with his girls and still his girls are not complaining.
51 upvotes, 10 downvotes, last I checked.
And then there’s Aharon :
I think there are many American women that American men would prefer to burqad up for their obese figures and even more obese whining mouths. Perhaps we can customize the burqad in America to include a dog muzzle. …
Feminism along with its allies has been very effective the past 45+ years in decimating the nuclear family along with traditional American values and ethics, and loyalty to church and synagogue. Most religious institutions are failing men in America. … Men leave liberal places of worship because they can’t relate to the female-value emphasis. …
American men have been living – for generations – in a post Judeo-Christian modern American misandrist society that for the most part sold men out. Islam comes along and teaches Sharia Law will not discriminate against men, and that men are respected in Islam, etc. Bingo. … I can see American men in the future becoming increasingly interested in Islam.
He adds this bit of speculation at the end:
I can also see new pro Men’s religions being created and taking hold. I see them mostly as manly without the provider/protector/chivalry crap, and not mangina metro-sexual in their beliefs and values.
30 upvotes, 1 downvote.
Apparently any religion is okey dokey with this crowd – even one made up on the spot – so long as it’s butch enough.
You wake up screaming every couple hours? 😉
Nice to meet someone who can verify it. I just remembered it from a summary of different studies I read a few years ago. Think it might be from a book called ‘Babies Remember Birth’ by David Chamberlain, PhD.
MRAL, while peeing in an arc may be cool and come in handy, I don’t think about it to the point of watching youtube videos of it. Not really the same.
As a dude (and a 20 year old one with fuckall in the way of life experience), it’s incredibly flippant and condescending of you to tell women who may or may not want kids to do it for the lulz. There’s a few things I’m not doing, no matter how rewarding someone else may find it, and kids are one of those things. If you want to be taken somewhat seriously around here, you’re doin’ it wrong.
To all the expecting moms, good luck!
As a dude (and a 20 year old one with fuckall in the way of life experience), it’s incredibly flippant and condescending of you to tell women who may or may not want kids to do it for the lulz.
His thought really isn’t uncommon, I’ve heard some women say that they’re doing it for lulz, or at least, that’s what it comes down to. And to reiterate Ant-Moron’s Right’s comment, yeah, they get really disappointed when it’s not all clouds and fluffiness. But then they have the baby and while they know babies poop and pee and stuff, they are kinda shocked at how it’s not all unicorns once the baby is born. The total sad thing is, you can’t talk them out of this idea until they actually have a kid. And a lot of people like this will maintain that the next stage of development will be unicorns and are disappointed when it’s not. I have no kids, so sometimes I feel like a condescending jackass when I say, “You do know that toddlers cry and throw tantrums, right?” or “Think about your own teen years – didn’t you ever stomp around and get huffy?” Most of the time, I just keep my mouth shut, because apparently the fact that I don’t have kids means that I’ve never, ever interacted with any.
I mean, I don’t go around telling parents what to do, but some things should be expected, like tantruming toddlers, eye-rolling from 10 year olds, and “You’re unfair!” from teens. It happens.
In this thread so far (admit I haven’t read to end), I’ve seen MRAL talk about “pregnant people” (WTF?) and females — what’s the matter, dude, can you not say “women” without having serious rage attack.
It’s very GOOD to consider women people, of course, but your past usage and current comments (get pregnant just to have experience then dump the baby out for adoption, riiiiiiiiiiiight), do not indicate you see women as people.
Just that you have a hard time oh I don’t know talking about WOMEN unless you’re in ragecaplockbitches mode.
Weird, really, weird, and that’s on top of the womb envy bit.
Skeevy. Even, dare I say, CREEPY.
My mom wanted kids but hated pregnancy and regaled my sister and I with all of the horrors we put her through.
Except birth, Sister was born in 5 hours and I popped out in 3 and a half.
About babies remembering things-from what I understand it is the lack of ability to describe it that makes us unable to “remember” it.
I don’t know MRAL the way a lot of you guys do, but he does come across as a very, very naive little brother, prone to displays of temper/trolling, but also very much wanting to be included. I think his pregnancy comments were made innocently in reference to trying to conceive of the realities of being in possession of a reproductive system that can do cool shit, without much exposure to the realities. I get the impression he (sorry to talk over the top of your head MRAL) didn’t have much in the way of exposure to women as people growing up. I don’t think he had sisters to howl over break ups or ask him to pick up tampons, or close female friends to bitch about mutual gender related annoyances with.
Mind you, grawr! is probably a valid reaction to insulting propositions, even ones made with innocent intent, kinda like me prodding my brother in the tummy for trying to annoy a reaction out of me.
Dear MRAL:
The reason why people were unable to make the comparison between childbirth and entertaining excretion probably has to do with the long term historical problem of the act of bearing children being a leading killer of women, basically we started living longer as soon as human medical science worked that little problem out. It understandably leaves the possessors of wombs a little gun shy when the otherwise exciting prospect of incubating human life involved a high risk of dying in slow agony, and even today, leaving aside fringe cases of sepsis, child bearing routinely leaves you diabetic and wrecks massive changes on your body including nerve damage to your sexual happy places, vascular strain and cosmetically disliked stretch marks.
But I do wish science could give you a loaner womb so if you wanted to make a baby in a more active way you could, too.
~MP
MRAL’s talk about babies is reminded me of my one really awful ex, who has become a Shining Example of Terribleness to be brought up in stories for the rest of my life, even after only two years together. I haven’t ever really wanted kids. Pregnancy and labor scares me silly, between the horror stories from my mom and all her 8 sisters, and then the two times I’ve been pregant
(both ended in terminations at 11 weeks and 14 weeks respectively) being utterly miserable. I just have no interest, and I’m not much of a fan of kids before they can form full sentences.
Anyhow. This guy was a titch older than me. At the time I was 22-23 and he was around 27. He’d been married super young whilst in the Army, and had a kid who he purposely had no contact with and didn’t pay child support for. He let his mom pay it for him (charming). He lied to me and told me he didn’t wanna do that again, and then switched on me, telling me how badly he wanted to marry me and how badly he wanted me to bear his children. I told him the complications, unpleasantness and difficulty surrounding pregnancy and how I was just not interested in that or infants/toddlers. I also told him how pregnancy had nearly killed my mom, and how much fun being pregnant wasn’t the two times I was. He would hear none of it though. His justification for me going through that? “It can’t be that bad! Besides, I’ll be there to hold your hand, etc, and it’s only 9 months!”, plus he thought pregnant ladies were sexy and he reassured me he’d still have sex with me while pregnant. He was basically a paragon of Not Getting It.
“By the way, feminists tell women what to do with their bodies all the time. “Don’t punch people!”, “Don’t assault people!”, “Hire women!”. Not saying this is unreasonable, but it opens a can of worms.”
…
Oh for the love of every fucking thing. I know you’re a troll, but try harder.
I kinda wanna see the journey of a kid who tracks down his adoptive mother, and gets “Oh, I just wanted to know what being pregnant was like. Figured I’d adopt you out after” as the tale of how he came to be.
It’s probably AN AWESOME hallmark special in MRAL world.
Ithiliana, I thought the phrase “pregnant people” was used to be inclusive of trans men who keep their uteri and use them for reproduction. Admittedly this is a very small number of people, but they do exist.
Skyal, thanks for the good wishes! Here in Ontario midwifery is pretty well integrated into the medical system, which is awesome. I’m very low-risk, so I’ve had midwifery care throughout my pregnancy and I’ve been really happy.with it.
Up until about 3 weeks ago I found pregnancy very easy, but it’s still not something I would undertake on a lark. If only because abstaining from alcohol for 9 months is a total bummer. The stretching pains and heartburn are no fun either.
“Ithiliana, I thought the phrase “pregnant people” was used to be inclusive of trans men who keep their uteri and use them for reproduction. Admittedly this is a very small number of people, but they do exist.”
Yeah, I try to use it that way, but I doubt MRAL was going for that… I think he just has a weird aversion to talking about women doing normal or positive things, specifically as women, as ithiliana pointed out.
Oh, now we’re piling on and accusing him of horribleness, so he’s justified in defending himself and can stay all day, I bet.
….
“PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth | January 11, 2012 at 7:50 am
About babies remembering things-from what I understand it is the lack of ability to describe it that makes us unable to “remember” it.”
As for this and other questions as to fetus memory… There’s a fascinating study somewhere that followed twins from the third trimester through ultrasounds, etc, and then up to two years to see if they repeated behaviors from when they were in the womb.
One pair had a habit of stroking each other’s heads in the womb, and almost until out of the toddler stage would get on opposite sides of a curtain or blanket, as if to simulate the membranes between them, and would stroke each other’s heads just as observed when they were in there . So there IS evidence that what’s going on in there at the end of our gestation period is forming real neuron connections and we’re learning or developing habits in there.*
Why we can’t remember baby stuff is a whole big complicated thingy, in general. I tend to go with lack the words too, but who knows?
*Now wondering when/if yuppie parents will start freaking out about how if their baby doesn’t have a twin they aren’t getting enough stimulation in there!
MRAL, there’s a whole sub-field of psychology known as infant-parent mental health (it’s the fields I work in right now). Where you are, Boston, is one of the best places to be to study this field. I’m not sure about your particular university, but Ed Tronick at Boston Children’s Hospital and UMass is one off the world’s foremost authorities on the subject. If you’re interested.
cb, that is so cool! I want to go into counselling, but the siren song of pure academia calls to me sometimes. There’s just so many interesting things to discover.
Of course, maybe if I want to get into grad school I should learn to say there are so many things to discover…
Dracula: In keeping with the footwear theme, I think “pebble in the shoe of humanity” works.
Gives them too much irritant value. I think they are more the sweat in the socks of humanity.
@Pecuinum
The sweaty socks of humanity seems very apt. Most people are unaware they’re even there until they’re exposed, and then they’re shocked by the mouldy, pungent stench of concentrated. unoriginal misogyny.
@Viscaria
Are you applying to grad schools? Good luck!! I’m mad jealous of you, What counselling are you planning on going into?
Sweatsocks in the locker room of humanity? 😛
Not right away, Shadow, I’ve still got a year of undergrad after this (longest undergrad ever XD). Probably not even then 🙂 my grades probably won’t get me in, so I’m going to need a few years of work experience in a related field. But it’s the long-term dream!
I would like to work in marriage and family I think… but I’m not sure. Definitely not clinical. Were you thinking of counselling as well?
@Molly Ren
They’re not a big enough movement to stink up the whole locker room 😛
@Viscaria
I’m your long lost twin actually, it’s nice to finally track you down 😛 I’m still in undergrad but it’s been dragging on SO long, through my own fault. I’m planning on doing my grad in marriage and family counselling as well, but I plan on practicing family counselling only. I’m still a little up in the air though. I made the mistake of going into undergrad with absolutely no idea what I wanted to do so I’ve been jumping between degrees trying to find something. Plus as an only, and late, child, my home for the next couple of decades is set so I wanna do my degree outside Canada and that’ll cost me. Plus there’s the grades, Dear God the grades!
@KristinMJ: I thought about that possibility for about 10 seconds, remembered it was MRAL we’re dealing with, and rejected the idea–especially given the other patterns.
Adding to the good wishes for you!
Plus, talking about pregnant men is sort of cool–I cannot speak for anybody else, and I doubt there’s any one way that trans men who were pregnant would choose to identify, but “people” is sometimes used as euphemism rather than inclusive choice.
@Viscaria,
I am actually a Marriage and Family Therapist IRL, so if you ever want to chat about the field, feel free to PM me on the forum.
You too, Shadow, or anyone else who’s interested. 🙂
@ithaliana: I had the exact same thought than you, but I decided to pretend, against the odds, that he said people to be inclusive. Because I like when people are nice, being inclusive are nice, and if I don’t pretend people are a bit nicer than they are I’ll end up stabbing myself with a spoon to escape the bitterness and hatred of this world.
🙂
*sneaks in and removes all of Kyrie’s spoons*
**offers virtual hugs if they’re acceptable**
@Shadow, we’re totally the same person! I’m thinking there’s a Tyler Durden thing going on here.
@captainbathrobe, aww, thank you, that’s a really thoughtful offer and I’ll probably take you up on it.
Hey I forgot to mention earlier, best of luck to everyone who spoke about their pregnancies!