I’ve been following the Men’s Rights Movement for some time, and I’ve never been quite sure exactly what the major injustices faced by men are. I haven’t really noticed much to speak of in my own life, but evidently there are some and they are really, really bad.
Luckily, in recent days A Voice for Men has begun to clarify the issue for me. For example, AVfM Radio’s new theme song points out two of the worst injustices of all:
- Men having to hold doors open for ladies.
- Ladies wanting to marry us.
But these are not the only important men’s issues out there. In a recent post titled “A hard rains gonna fall: how hard is up to you” (clearly a reference to the famous song by Carly Simon), AVfM head dude Paul Elam spells out the most important issues of all in a set of bullet points. To save the beleaguered men of the world some important man-time I will summarize them for you here. Bullet-time!
- Thomas Ball’s suicide isn’t mentioned on Wikipedia because feminism.
- The Obama administration urged colleges to use the same standard of proof used in most non-criminal cases in their non-criminal disciplinary proceedings dealing with rape cases. Because feminism.
- Australia. Something about Australia. Ok, here’s the deal: Australia is very, very far away from me, like literally on the other side of the planet, and my eyes sometimes glaze over when reading about it. I’m sure whatever Elam is mad about is really bad. It might involve Koalas. Feminist Koalas. But that’s just speculation on my part.
- In India, where women are routinely harassed in public and groped on train cars, there are a tiny number of women-only train cars set up to cut down on the groping.
- In Sweden, a small group of feminists did a theatrical production based on/dealing with the writings of Valarie Solanas. It was performed in some schools.
- “Men constitute the lion’s share of combat deaths[11], workplace deaths[12], suicide deaths[13], and are afflicted with almost every known human malady and disease more frequently and more severely than women.” Obviously, the feminists are to blame, for their staunch opposition to women serving in the armed forces, and for their secret program of giving men girl germs.
- There are agencies dealing with women’s health issues. Clearly, men need to have just as many of their own agencies to deal with such male health issues as not being pregnant.
I hope my summary of these issues has been fair. As Elam has pointed out on a number of occasions, I am fat, so really nothing I do or say has any value. Plus, of course, I am a mangina. Just, you know, FYI.
In any case, these injustices have Elam plenty mad:
I am truly curious as to what festering, morally atrophied deviation of humanity could look at anything approaching this level of discrimination and suffering without becoming angry.
So mad that his metaphors all get up in each other’s business:
Whether it becomes a wave of social change, or a violent tempest of indignation and fury, the pendulum will continue to swing.
So there you have it. Naturally, Elam’s readers are grateful for his efforts to bring justice to the world by yelling about it online and trying to get people really, really mad at certain specific ladies without explicitly advocating violence against them. That’s pretty much how Martin Luther King did it, only with fewer references to “bitches” and “cunts” and not so many threaty remarks.
As Alfred E puts it:
Well said Mr Elam. May the harpies finally get a clue about their complete lack of compassion for men and boys all the while living in a gold box carted around by the prince.
Justice and compassion for all, except you harpies in your gold boxes! And also the rest of the bitches, cunts and manginas.
NOTE: That bit about Carly Simon above was a joke. Obviously the song in question was written by The Bangles.
Cassandra: I’m big, but I managed to be pretty fast. Not super fast, but my reach helped with that. Or, you know, I got my ass handed to me. That happened way too often.
Cupcake, I only just now read your post, thanks for the support. 🙂
TBH, I generally avoid most mass media, most of it is shallow crap anyway, and even if it’s not, it’s just painful for me for reasons that I’ve discussed earlier. I don’t live under a rock, I watch the best stuff (mostly because everyone does, and it makes socializing easier) but otherwise, I don’t care for TV or movies or whatever. Actually, this is one reason I read so much these days- I’m free to imagine the protagonists as I choose, and I generally choose to see them as normal people. Oedipa Maas is, in my mind, an average twentysomething, not Gwyneth Paltrow or whoever the fuck would play her in a (god forbid) film adaptation. Hal Incandenza is a regular guy, not Zac Efron, etc.
Dear MRAL:
STOP IT.
Bostonian, I disagree. I suppose I’m maybe envious of some of the things women have, some of the messages they receive as kids, etc. But I don’t resent women themselves.
Yeah, I’m done with giving you second chances. Your posts are making it clear that you have no interest in helping yourself.
MRAL: I’m not making any statement about me, I’m uncoordinated with horrible depth perception and I am also a pussy. But I’m talking about average men.
And so; from a lot of experience, am I.
You, on the other hand, are saying I don’t know what I’m talking about. From all I can see you are saying this with zip for credibility.
So why should I take your opinion over that of experience, and training? Why should the rest of the people here?
What is, apart from your saying so, supporting this opinion of yours?
Yeah, I can see why you’d be envious of the messages I got from our media as a kid. Like how I couldn’t do anything because I was a girl. And how the only thing that mattered about me was how I looked- if I wasn’t pretty enough, then I was worthless. And how I was probably stupid anyways, since girls can’t do math, etc. How I shouldn’t try out for sports or stuff because I would be too weak to do anything, so I shouldn’t even try.
sarcasm
You are envious of the messages you THINK girls received as kids because you never actually listened to those messages. So listen now: those messages were terrible. And, fyi, I’m like 8 yrs older than you, so no, it wasn’t in the 1930s.
Sarcasm is only for the first sentence. The media messages are all too serious and real. 🙁
What do you think I have that you don’t?
What messages do you suppose I received growing up?
What makes you so sure?
I’m not making any statement about me, I’m uncoordinated with horrible depth perception and I am also a pussy.
…That’s a statement about you.
Try not making any statements about you at all. Just talk about other not-you stuff.
“I suppose I’m maybe envious of some of the things women have, some of the messages they receive as kids, etc.”
Things women as a group have that you don’t – we can have babies, and most of us probably have an easier time getting laid than you do. Which comes along with lots of bonus harrassment!
Messages we received as kids – that the most important thing about us would always be our looks, and that therefore we might as well just wander out into the snow and die right around menopause, or possibly before, depending on which specific message you’re referring to.
Once again -there is something wrong with the way your brain works, and the way you interpret things is skewed by being filtered through that. Medication might help, but therapy is a must. Notice how this blog’s tagline is not “Free Therapy – We Give It”?
Note – Obviously not all women can have babies. I’m referring to the concept of “woman” that lives in MRAL’s head.
So I made the mistake of wandering over to TV Tropes Hollywood Homely page only to find someone stating, without irony, that Anne Hathaway has a GIANT HORSEFACE and is soooo unattractive.
…ANNE HATHAWAY.
@MRAL
You tell us how movies make you feel, we accept that. Just a little earlier you told the female commenters here not to presume to speak for your experience as a man and yet you’re so quick to argue with them about their experiences. They’re telling you that the messages that YOU think they receive are not actually what THEY receive, and you have the nerve to tell them no, the message that you receive is somehow more valid. What in all this makes you think that you’re arguing in good faith?
And WTF is up with you being so incapable of typing “women”? You say that you don’t hate women yet you can’t refer to them without malicious, sneering references. Why is it so hard for you to replace all your cute little misspellings with the correct word? It’s women or woman. W-O-M-A-N. If you want the female commenters (and the male ones too) to treat you with respect, you can start by not referring to an entire gender with such fucking disrespect
Lauralot: And they somehow manage to claim that women have ridiculously high standards for looks. With a straight face.
@ Lauralot
I still remember stumbling on the “Scarlett Johannsen is really ugly because she’s FAT, SO FAT, OMG SHE’S HUGE” discussions some dudes were having a few years back. This is why when MRAL gets all ARROGANT BITCHES when I say I don’t really fancy Russell Brand my reaction is basically “LOL!”. It’s always OK not to find someone attractive, but note the lack of websites devoted to detailing all the specific ways in which male celebrities are un-hot run by women.
Feminists and even people right here love to tell me how wrong I am, how I’m misinterpreting the deaths of worthless men as misogyny, not misandry.
This is why I stay away from discussions about Maggie Gyllenhaal. I think she’s beautiful and a great actress, but I can just imagine how many people would whine about how HIDEOUS she is.
MRAL, stop pretending to be a martyr here. Once again, you’re telling us what HORRIBLE things we’ve said about you, and how BADLY we’ve misrepresented you, and you are deliberately ignoring/twisting our points to do so.
Really, it’s totally OK to say “person X? not for me”, but getting into the finer detail of all the things that are horribly wrong with them physically on a public forum is just cruel. If you feel the need to have that conversation, have it with your friends, in private, where it can’t hurt anyone who stumbles on it.
(Like, for example, the celebrity themselves. Shockingly enough they do tend to have internet access.)
Yes, because for it to be either misogyny or misandry, it has to be a societal problem. That message that you receive has to be one that a significant percentage of men receive for it to be misandry. A number of male posters have been telling you that that is not the message that we, or our male friends and acquaintances have been receiving.
I don’t think someone like Scarlett fucking Johansson is going to be all that emotionall fragile about her appearance.
Not really, the original movie at least had extremely graffic images of rape against the hacker, and numerous other descriptions of men raping and murdering women. There’s a lot of gender related violence in this film and its sequels (it is intended as a critique of such violence). It would be interesting, though not extremely reflective of reality in many cases (some men are brutally raped, but the systematic nature of the rapes, trafficking, police cover ups, etc. are a socially gendered thing), to have such a depiction
Moving on, why am I not surprised that MRAL simultaneuously believes:
1) It is misandry that most fighting roles in movies (such as soldiers or goons) are played by men
and
2) Women are too weak to be fighters
@Lauralot
I’m actually one of those people loll. I think she’s a hella talented actress, but as far as physical looks go I find her to be plain.
And this is why everyone tells you you’re a self-centered asshole.