Just another day on r/mensrights, dealing with the terrible injustices facing men today in a thoughtful and compassionate way.
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We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The MammothJust another day on r/mensrights, dealing with the terrible injustices facing men today in a thoughtful and compassionate way.
You know who has a negative view about men? Those who think men just can’t cope if they aren’t allowed to pay teenagers for sex.
Ever noticed how MRAs are exactly like the straw feminists they hate so much.
Well, my theory is that the MRAs intentionally imitate feminists. But since they don’t understand feminism they end up imitating their own straw men. Which is a failure of truly epic proportions.
Naira: the difference between making a snap judgement and women’s intuition is the idea that the latter shines a light on some underlying truth. If a man says he doesn’t like someone, well that could be for any of a number of reasons many of which are quite daft, the problem is the idea that if a women knows that someone is intuitively “creepy” it means there must be something fundamental about him that means he should be perceived as creepy.
ozymandias42: intuition is a real thing. Prejudice is a real thing. Pretty much everyone is really awful about separating the two, and I haven’t seen any evidence that women are an exception to this rule. So sure it makes sense for everyone to protect themselves as best they can, but that doesn’t mean their gut feelings are less problematic.
As for male feminists… on the one end feminism has an annoying tendency to attract the kind of men that think all men are rapists because they are, and on the other it tends to pull in those that think there’s nothing wrong with certain parts of male gender roles and masculinity because they don’t have a problem with them. Usually for the latter it’s the culture of male-on-male violence that they seem to think is a non-problem; Feministing in particular seemed to attract a lot of military and ex-military men.
“Ever noticed how MRAs are exactly like the straw feminists they hate so much.”
Several times. And yet they don’t have to awareness to know it.
If we could go into their minds, a la Inception, we’d probably see a boxing match between them and Mary Daly, hosted by Don King.
“Ever noticed how MRAs are exactly like the straw feminists they hate so much.”
Several times. And yet they don’t have to awareness to know it.
If we could go into their minds, a la Inception, we’d probably see a boxing match between them and Mary Daly, hosted by Don King.
(meant to post this as Red_locker. Sorry for doubleposting)
“As for male feminists… on the one end feminism has an annoying tendency to attract the kind of men that think all men are rapists because they are, and on the other it tends to pull in those that think there’s nothing wrong with certain parts of male gender roles and masculinity because they don’t have a problem with them.”
Wait, what?
What is your source for all this? And no, “Your Ass” is not a credible one.
My Ass*, but eh.
makomk: Yes, but the correct time to be like “I am prejudiced and should examine my prejudice” is not when you’re freaked out by a person, because when you’re freaked out you don’t know if you’re freaking out because of racism/sexism/ableism/classism or because this person is actually doing something subtly off.
Uh… there are ex-military people (male and female) on this very blog and I’m pretty sure most of them are, in fact, both cool people and generally not in support of male-on-male violence.
makomk – One. Hello, I’m ex military, not a man, and against male on male violence.
Two. When feminist women defend our right to the gift of fear, or even the gift of calm caution, we are not talking about enshrining the mystical wooey magic that is women’s intuition, itself a patriarchal lie. Stop muddying the waters.
For that matter, all we are really asking for is the right not to automatically trust, or be warm and open, to strangers. Think about that. Think about what’s being expected of us. Think about whether it’s expected of you.
The idea that Parliament is colluding with aged sex workers to keep hot young things out of the trade is ludicrious, obviously, but it does say a lot about the person making it. Not just that they have Pedobear tendencies, but that they have a very odd view of how women relate to each other. For example, that the idea that older women in the sex trade might want to protect younger ones because they have a very clear picture of the potential hazards of the business and don’t think 16 year olds are really equipped to negotiate those hazards yet. Or that since most women are not sex workers, if a majority of British women supported this law that still couldn’t logically be interpreted as the omg so old and icky ones protecting themselves from hot young competition for johns because again, most women are not sex workers.
The idea that most women, as a group, are jealous of the most vulnerable members of a group (sex workers) that faces a ton of discrimination and lots of very real danger is so absurd that you have to be a really hardcore misogynist with a deeply messed up view of sex and human relationships to make it.
ozymandias42: it’s not really a question of supporting male-on-male violence, at least not in the “yay violence” sense. It’s more that they don’t seem to believe that anyone else should ever have cause to fear it or that it really matters.
red_locker: sadly there isn’t some group of academics out there analyzing the problems of the feminist community and writing nice summaries. Sorry. (It actually seems to be quite hard to pin down any negative information about feminism full stop – no-one much out there interested in recording or summarizing it. The best I generally find is passing references from those who were there and perhaps the odd contemporary news article. This is even true for big specific events like the feminist attack on the Chain Reaction lesbian nightclub that everyone seems to know about.)
zhinxy: well yes, not automatically trusting strangers is reasonable. It’s when it gets on to things like expecting others to ostracize people because they’re “creepy” that things get rather sour. (Which isn’t at all the same as ostracizing someone because they’ve done something specific that’s unacceptable, and calling them creepy because of that, of course.)
… everyone except me, apparently. Quick Google reveals a bar that ran sometime in the mid-80s to 90s?
. “It’s when it gets on to things like expecting others to ostracize people because they’re “creepy” that things get rather sour. ”
Examples?
@makomk: Firstly, that is the first time of heard of the CHain Reaction lesbian nightclub incident, but a few google searches tells me that it is a controversy…that occured years ago. So, there’s an essay written (by a femenist) that mentions it: http://glamourousrags.dymphna.net/reviewjeffreys.html
Are you saying that Feminism (or people who call themselves feminists) are not criticized by the media or even other feminists? HAHAHA, that’s a good one.
Seriously, it has been said multiple times that Feminism is not a monolith. RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU there are people with different views on certain topics (in this case, Sex Works), but it hasn’t gone into an all out war.
Secondly (hit “Post Comment” button too soon), you admit that you can’t find proof of what you assert are the problems with male feminists…I wasn’t even asking for academic papers (though that topic would make for an interesting one), so what is your deal?
MollyRen, that was Sheila Jeffreys, transphobe and sex worker phobe. No, everybody doesn’t know about it. http://glamourousrags.dymphna.net/reviewjeffreys.html
Everybody would know about it, if everybody is the sex worker’s rights/australian trans rights/ sphere, however.
Makomk, I’m sorry, but can I ask you something? It seems like you’ve been hanging around pro-sex worker activist feminism, lurking on blogs, reading on the edges, without involving yourself or knowing actual sex workers. Is this a fair assessment? You seem somewhat knowledgable on the issues, but not the knowledge of somebody who’s been in the movement, just someone who has skimmed the sphere. As if you’re prepared to view feminism through the lens, darkly, from the sex worker side, critical of “mainstream” feminism, but without really being part of that movement. Can you fill me in?
If makomk wants a critique, I’d say that yeah, the 70s and 80s seem to have been a rather weird time to be a feminist (or anything else, really). They were more like Anonymous is now, and did a lot of protesting and throwing red paint on books and didn’t have a great tolerance or understanding of sex.
… now, if you want to argue about what feminism has been like in, say, the past ten years? You’ll actually need an up-to-date story.
*didn’t ALWAYS have.
One day I will write all the words *before* I hit publish!
I see the trollz are still busy implying over-21 “old hag” feminists are getting jelly of ‘tutes. Keep digging your own grave, MRAs. 😀
The closest MRAs have found to the straw-feminists of their dreams is The Radfem Hub. I lurk there, and sometimes it seems like a genderswapped AVfM. The thing is, RadFems will never piss me off as much as MRAs, because they don’t act so goddamned sleazy. For instance, I don’t see the RadFems running a site like “register-him” or doxxing anyone, although IMO, I wouldn’t blame them if they did.
I know that’s why MarkyMark left the manosphere, and probably why Zeta Male left as well. They’re skurred they’ll get a taste of their own medicine. All thanks to the bwave efforts of Paul E-lame.
Ozy, thanks for the post explaining why some people are in favor of decriminalization instead of legalization. Good points. Sounds like the arguments I’ve heard for decriminalizing/not legalizing pot, but I still think both should be legalized so taxes can be collected. My philosophy is a combination of Ron Paul’s “LEGALIZE ALL THE THINGS” and Straw-Liberals’ “TAX ALL THE THINGS.” 😀
*sticks hand up as someone who was alive but in Idaho during the 70s and becoming feminist in 80s*
P.s. Bra Burning never actually happened, so beware of the “HIStory”
Got to go walk new rescue dog now but will be happy to talk later.
There were radical feminists who took tactics from some of the protests, but there were also liberal feminists who were wearing nice suits and pearls and getting laws changed.
and everything in between.
red_locker: that passing reference is the best, almost the only, published information about it I’ve seen and it’s basically a side note. Not sure there was even any contemporary news coverage. It’s not even so much that the particular incident in question is particularly relevant now, more the way it seems to have been passed down orally and through personal contact without really getting set in paper and ink. (It’s not the only one; there was some US feminist who took in girls who’d been sex trafficked and then apparently used the threat of kicking them back onto the street to coerce them into sex. Huge legal fuss some years ago, lots of press references to it, now she’s living a comfortable life in feminist academia and the whole thing seems to have been forgotten except for oral history.)
A couple of years ago I would have been able to give you specific, linked examples of what I mean about male feminists, but it never helped and thanks to not really being involved with feminism that much I don’t keep track anymore. Sorry. There are definitely female feminists that hold similarly negative views about male feminists though, especially after the Hugo Schwyzer fiasco.
zhinxy: sort of. Being more involved in the movement isn’t terribly practical for various reasons and from what little online contact I’ve had with the feminist mainstream here it’d probably be a massive exercise in frustration. It’s not like sex worker rights is the only problem either; they still have a fairly big transphobia issue which is hell to deal with too.
Xardoz: supposedly – and this may be triggering to some – you’d be wrong about the radfems not acting so goddamn sleazy. I don’t personally have the intestinal fortitude to hang around at places like The Radfem Hub though. There was also a certain amount of anger in the not-exactly-feminist blogosphere about a blog outing and encouraging violence against trans women a few months ago that you may remember.
Transphobia? Here? LULZ.
I think at this point the trans people outnumber the cis people…
@Makomk:
You say:
I am the site’s raving researcher, btw, and a professor who who works with feminist (in literary studies area). There is a HUGE amount of lesbian and/or feminist (the terms are not co-equal) history that hasn’t made it into the official stuff yet, but I don’t think that the internet is quite as barren as you think. Some others noted how easy it was to find links.
Putting in separate post to avoid moderation.