Sometimes I ask myself: what is it that I really hope to accomplish with this website, aside from entertaining myself and my readers, and exposing misogynist assholes for who they are. There’s a part of me that still hopes that someday, something I write will cause some misogynist and/or Men’s Rightser out there to develop a modicum of self-awareness, look at what they’ve been saying or doing, and say to themselves, “I’m really kind of a tool, aren’t I? Maybe I should stop.”
When the Southern Poverty Law Center report on the Men’s Rights movement came out, I hoped it might have a similar sort of effect. Or that, even if it didn’t persuade any MRAs out there that they were wrong, it might at least convince a few that they were going about things the wrong way. Nope. On the Men’s Rights subreddit, at least, it seems to have sent many of the regulars into an indignant tizzy, and they have doubled down on their peculiar brand of politics-by-whining-online.
Consider this post:
Yes, that’s right. Some Men’s Rights Redditors seem to think that the best way to convince the world that they’re not part of a hate group is to continue to celebrate a self-admitted child abuser who urged men to firebomb courthouses and police stations and kill people.
Then there’s this post, currently the top post on the subreddit:
Wow, if the Men’s Rights subreddit had anything to do with that, that would indeed be a victory. As one regular put it:
Thing is, I read r/mensrights pretty regularly, and I don’t remember any campaign there to protect the rights of fishermen in New Zealand.
Turns out that’s because the campaign, such as it was, consisted of one post some months back, which got all of 11 upvotes at the time. The current post in which r/mensrights congratulates itself for its “victory” has gotten, last I checked, 120 upvotes, more than ten times that. Simplecosine’s self-congratulatory comment in the new thread has gotten 36 upvotes. The comment in the original thread asking r/mensrightsers to send an email to the US Secretary of State’s office got … one upvote. In other words, only a handful of Men’s Rights Redditors even noticed the original post, much less sent along an email.
Reading one of the linked news articles makes clear the real reason the State Department opened an investigation: a six-month long, three-continent wide investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek revealing abuses in the industry.
The Men’s Rights subreddit: Taking Credit for Shit They Didn’t Do Since 2008.
And then there’s this post:
I’ve got nothing to say about this one — it’s basically self-refuting — except that I’m sort of bemused by the notion that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a “semi-women group.” Uh, what is that exactly? A group with some women in it? A group that doesn’t think women are all a bunch of evil bitches? The horror!
Oh, Men’s Rights movement. You’ll never change, will you?
EDITED TO ADD: And speaking of never changing, here’s how one Men’s Rights redditor responded to my comments there suggesting that maybe, just maybe, MRAs should actually denounce and distance themselves from someone calling for terrorism:
Let me just highlight that bit at the end again:
[T]he cost to the establishment to maintain the status quo in regards to divorce, custody, etc. must be made so high that it’s just no longer feasible. If that means instilling abject fear into the hearts of judges, cops and legislators by making them think their careers and/or lives could be forfeit unless they change their attitudes towards men, then so be it.
Trying to instill fear for one’s life in your opponents: that is the very definition of terrorism.
What do you want me to do?
Well, if you’re serious about this question, read the following:
1. If you want to have actual discussions of feminisms, especially with feminists, you could understand that framing statement with “it’s just my opinion” is not a “get out of argument free card,” and that you should back up such claims with some sort of evidence. Just for Mags: you are arguing from a privileged position and by definition an ignorant one, which is what led to the mansplaining issue.
For example: what benefits do you see “feminine women” getting from the patriarchy? Specifics, plus examples, required to support a claim that not just “here is this claim I’m throwing out without any support and expecting people to “respect” you (whatever that means)”. Protip: I am sure everybody respects your basic human rights, but that doesn’t mean we have to 1) agree with you; 2) coddle your entitled little manly feelings, or 3) use the language you demand.
2. Don’t do fauxpologies: aka: I’m sorry IF you were offended type of thing as you did. And following a fauxpology with “is that enough?” also not incredibly useful.
3. Stop namecalling: “fringe idiot” for example. (Also, if you identify one feminist’s position as fringe, compared to mainstream, what do you consider mainstream feminism?)
4. Understand the basic premise of what CassandraSays said: When you’re aggressively unpleasant on a forum where nobody knows you. . .
Yes, it’s a ‘public’ blog but as with all blogs, there is a community here where people have built up histories and relationships online. Anybody who barges in and starts demandng stuff is going to be met with some resistance (given how many misogynists post here, how much trolling goes on, etc.) How long did you lurk, and how much of the discussions here have you read, if any? How much do you actually know about this blog and its community? I read here for some months, and only then began, cautiously, to interact.
5. Although this might be 4.1: Understand you’re not a special, unique snowflake: that is, as I’d noted with regard to my asking previous trolls who claim to know feminist theories or read feminist authors, you’re not the first to post here and start mansplaining, and a lot of your rhetoric is very very very very familiar to anybody who has been involved in feminism for any time, AND to anybody who knows some of the basic conventions of internet discourse. Also, tone trolling.
So, there you go! Totally up to you of course, but you did ask.
*points up* Just in case it’s not clear from context, that post is addressed to AVT.
AVT: It’s got nothing to with what one says, but how. If a man comes in and makes a statement of his opinion, and does it in a way which implies that opinion should be given preference, or weight, or just be accepted… that can be mansplaining.
Saying, “It’s a good thing I wasn’t doing that”, was mansplaining that the people who saw that aspect, were wrong by virtue of not being you… which is claiming an authority.
Context and subtext are important.
@Cassandra, I’m not trying to pick a fight with you.
Really? By telling her to take a public conversation to email because you did something rude and she got snarky?
you seem to be laboring under the delusion that everything’s got to work out in your favor. That’s not how it works.
You might want to read that again, and ponder Socrates comments on the unexamined life.
Tbh, I’m sick of you, DSC. You’re an asshole. To be slightly contentious… why should DSC care? Zie has no reaason to give a damn about your good opinion of her and your theories are cracked, your explanations patronising and your tone offensive.
It’s a public conversation, with a large number of particpants, of wide, and varied, experience, undertsanding and interest. You show up and act as if your understanding of things ought to be considered afresh; as if it weren’t something often seen before (see above, re mansplaining). You are pissy to the regulars (who do have the privilege which comes of being a known quantity) and then seem to think you’re a special snowflake who ought to be coddled and treated well just because why?
Because you came to share.
Not the way it works. There is a basic level of respect people get. There is the respect you earn in a community by taking part (for good or ill), and there is the respect one pisses away by not taking a look around before making a cannonball splash in the deep end of the pool.
If you actually step back, look at what you said, how you said it and what you then did to upset the people who have responded to you, you can get the level of hostility you’ve created to abate. But you have to want it. It’s not gonna just happen because you stamp your feet and declaim how unfair people are being.
To use your model, they don’t think they are being unfair, which is their opinion, and perfectly valid.
And what ithiliana said.
I think feminine women and masculine women get different things from the patriarchy at times: feminine women get less looks-shaming, masculine women get less unwanted sexual attention, feminine women are seen as more likable, masculine women are seen as more competent.
But these are more like “different bites of the shit sandwich” benefits (especially since it’s never “no looks-shaming” or “seen as just as competent as a man”); being a feminine woman isn’t a privilege so much as a different way to experience oppression.
@Holly: good points! And even those differences are heavily tied to intersectional issues: that is, young white slim able-bodied and conventionally attractive feminine women may for a short time believe that they receive benefits (pure on their own merits of course) from men within the patriarchal system, but those ‘privileges’ are heavily continent on a number of factors that will inevitably change.
“Temporarily favored because one fits the ideal paradigm” is not the same thing as privileged.
But in that case, isn’t male privilege tied to a similar paradigm?
AVT: But in that case, isn’t male privilege tied to a similar paradigm?
Not sure what you mean here, but you might be talking about Intersectionality. In a kyriarchial system (definition here), there are interconnected and interlocking axes of identity: it makes no sense to talk only about gender, or only about class, etc.
In the intersectional theory, males in any group have privilege that women in that group don’t; one of the favorite things our misogynistic trolls like to talk about is how men have to work hard and die young in terrible jobs while women sit around eating bonbons being supported by men: they claim this was historically true for millennial, and also that it’s just come about because feminist oppression.
That makes sense only if you identify the intersections: working class men, and upper-class women. The idea that working class women (or during the medieval and early moden periods) peasant women (and peasant was the numerically but not socially dominant category in the noble/church/peasant class structure) worked physically hard and as demanding a job as men n their class PLUS had more responsibility for childcare is lost on them.
MEN have male privilege; WHITE people have race privilege (I’m talking US here), STRAIGHT people have straight privilege. As a WHITE woman, I am a member of a class that has benefitted from affirmative action in hiring (universities) more than men of COLOR (but men of COLOR have benefitted more from male privilege than women of COLOR). As a QUEER woman, I have less privilege on the gender and sexuality, but do have CLASS (university professor) and RACE privilege.
By talking only about men and women, which is what most misogynists do, you revealed a lack of knowledge intersectionality.
It is not, however, a way to say that there’s some equality or equivalence in “benefitting” from the patriarchal between what was it that you said: masculine men and feminine women (which you never defined).
There are all sorts of women that might be categorized as feminine (again, not that useful a term in feminist theory because it assumes a single universal definition that doesn’t exist) who do not benefit that much because of age, disability status, weight, race, etc. etc. etc.
Rats. Sorry for HTML fail.
@AVT: and also note how male privilege especially when joined with race, class, sexuality, etc. privilege plays out — so that yeah, all those corporate boards of directors that David featured a few posts ago–a lot of old white men who I am damn sure are predominantly straight and whose family incomes are a lot more based on ASSETS (taxed differently than) INCOME.
And that’s the point of that discussion: sure most men are NOT in that group. But men in any demographic group by virtue of male privilege have more privilege than women in that group, and are going to be treated very differently.
Fair enough. I appreciate the civility. It’s just that your contention that gender performance means nothing, well, in an academic and/or theoretical sense I understand where you and Holly are coming from. But empirically, that simply doesn’t seem to be grounded in the real world. There are studies that show attractive people (of both genders) make more money. They have the knowledge that the culture is behind them. They will be disproportionately represented in the media. Maybe this isn’t a “privilege” per se… but I have a hard time accepting that it counts for nothing.
No one said gender performance means nothing, it just does not mean what you think it means.
Empirically, women who perform femininity get some substantial disadvantages with the small perks of being treated slightly better in some situations.
RE: AVT
What does gender performance have to do with attractiveness? O_o They’re two completely different things.
AVT: There are studies that show attractive people (of both genders) make more money. They have the knowledge that the culture is behind them. They will be disproportionately represented in the media.
Well, not having read or having the experience to evaluate the studies, only having heard about them, I cannot speak to them–but I would bet a real nickle that “attractive” (straight, white, middle or upper class, etc.) men benefit more than women and for longer (look at the relative ages of white male celebrities vs. white female celebrities). And all the studies show that (allowing for variables such as time worked and within the same professions), men (straight,white) earn more than (straight white) women.
There is also a dominant cultural narrative that when a straight white man makes it big, it’s his own individual success (based on merit); when anybody else makes it, it’s to satisfy a quota, or because of appearance/manipulation/etc. So “success” in any field is credited differently based on gender (and race), etc. And ‘attractiveness’ is heavily culturally determined (there are lots of studies that show how much more money, proportional to income, women have to spend to achieve that level of attractiveness which has a lot to do with make-up (yes a few more men are wearing bronzer now, but it’s nowhere near the same), clothing, high heels (which if worn continually are going to have severe physical effects), etc.).
Your earliest posts seemed to be claiming that “feminine women” were in some way equivalent to the ideal category of men–I’m not feeling like going back and reading/quoting, but the (very rude and insulting implications) way you talked about it was simplistic and overgeneralized (as others have pointed out to you–most of them civilly).
And for your sense that the incivility was somehow unwarranted–again, if a person has heard the sort of mansplaining crap that was a part of your earlier posts again and again and again and again and again for years and years and years, well, then as far as I’m concerned the anger is perfectly warranted. Your ignorance of the way your rhetoric tapped into sexist, paternalistic, and at times misogynistic discourses is not an excuse.
RE: ithiliana
Also, “attractive” can really skew in different ways.
For instance, back when I IDed as a cis girl, I was Barbie. Put me pretty high up on the ladder. But funny, once I start IDing as a trans man, suddenly I wasn’t nearly as attractive to people. “Attractive,” in many people’s minds, means “cis-looking.”
@LBT: Yes, definitely–there are a bunch of interconnections that limit “attractiveness” to a relatively small population, and usually for a limited time.
Well, frankly, I think it’s more simplistic to reduce everything to “male privilege” (or, if we’re talking about kyriarchy, “white straight male privilege”). And you might have all this impressive SJ language from kyriarchy 401, but in the end, I sort of see a lot of justification for oversimplification.
I mean sure, let’s say attractive men have a longer “shelf life”- that’s probably a function of male privilege, right? But as I’ve heard people say, privileges don’t cancel each other out. An attractive woman still has opportunities that unattractive women don’t have. Can you explain to me how this is not a privilege?
AVT, I’m seconding LBT in saying that conforming to gender roles =/= attractiveness. I’m assuming you mean conventional attractiveness, but even then it falls apart. A hyper feminine fat woman in her 60s is not conventionally attractive.
“Feminine” and “attractive” aren’t synonyms. A fat, elderly disabled woman may be feminine as all get out, but she’s not getting any Pretty Points from the patriarchy.
No one has said the people do not have privilege relative to one another. There is a clear hierarchy in the US, and Europe that is broken down on color and gender lines. This is reflected in income and opportunities.
@Cassandra
Oh yeah, growing up in a multigenerational household was really enlightening, though that was also due to how intelligent my grandparents were. They both shaped a lot of who I am. but not being a communist myself, and being a restless teen, I didn’t get as much out of the time I spent with him that I should have.
@ithiliana
My path may have been somewhat unusual because I’m always interested in how other people view the world, which is why I checked out WN and rad fem sites even though I knew they would not have pleasant things to say about people like me. However, I think there are a lot of people that saw feminists calling out sexism on the internet, who decided to check out those commenters’ blogs and thus becoming introduced to the feminist blogosphere.
@AVT
Holly said this like 10 comments above you
Maybe you could try refuting that before demanding more explanations. Also, noone here is your professor, and they are not here to educate you, so understand that demands to do so won’t be met kindly. Finally, many of the commenters here ARE professors and academics, so if you’re going to sit here pooh-poohing what they say, might I suggest you flash some credentials to tell them why they should bother taking you seriously. I’m not an academic and I’ve run across discussions about your claims so I’m finding it hard to take you seriously.
Also, being conventionally attractive does tend to give you some privilege over those who aren’t, but that’s as relevant to gender privilege as class or race. The fact that a white woman is more privileged than me because she’s white, says nothing about our hierarchical standings as a man and woman.
Okay, than let’s go with pretty privilege here, forget performance. Are you seriously willing to tell me that attractive people aren’t afforded opportunities rooted in said attractiveness? I mean, you really can’t say that, because studies have amply demonstrated that conventionally attractive people actually make more money on average.
As far as (conventional) attractiveness, in some ways it IS a privilege, but it still doesn’t cancel out being a woman. Pretty women make more than other women; they don’t make more than pretty men.
Also, pretty women are more subject to sexual harassment and more likely to be assumed to be dumb and shallow.
Sure, so? Being white is a privilege. Being rich is a privilege. But rich, white women still get to eat the shit sandwich that is sexism.