Empirical means “derived from or guided by experience or experiment.” Prima Facie, in legal terms, means something that is self-evident.
So I was intrigued when Man Boobz Man Boob All-Star MarkyMark recently promised, in the headline to one of his blog posts, to present “Empirical & Prima Facie Evidence Women Should NOT Vote.” I’m game, MarkyMark. Where exactly do you find the empirical evidence for this evidently self-evident proposition?
In a vast collection of empirical observations called “The Bible.” Specifically, the book of Genesis (not the one with Phil Collins in it).
If you remember Genesis 3 in the Bible, you’ll remember that God gave men & women their respective curses after The Fall. For men, it was to “labor by the sweat of their brow all the days of their lives”; IOW, men were cursed with work. Women were cursed “with pain in childbearing.”
So far this empirical evidence is pretty powerful. MarkyMark continues:
Now, what feminism sought to do was, in ADDITION to having their own curse, was secure for women the curse of men too. And women FELL for it-real smart, Ladies! Not only did you swallow the feminist bullshit hook, line, and sinker; it looks like you ate the rod, reel, and line to boot! Only women could do something so foolish, idiotic, and STUPID.
And now he comes to the nub of his argument:
Though many arguments could be made against women’s suffrage, though many arguments could be made against giving women the right to vote, this situation right here provides both empirical and prima facie evidence that women are NOT smart enough to vote; they do not have the mental wherewithal to vote. I mean, come on! How stupid do you have to be to DOUBLE your cursings from God? …
Seriously, men do NOT go around seeking to add to their curses in life. Have you ever seen men CLAMORING to experience child birth, and all the pain that goes along with it?! No, you have not. …
In closing, though many arguments could be made against women’s suffrage, we don’t need many arguments; we only need one: women, not men, chose to DOUBLE their divine curse; women, not men sought to ADD to whatever pain child birth brought into their lives; finally, women did this eagerly, accepting men’s divine curse with gusto as they STAMPEDED into the world of work. That alone shows us that women cannot think causally, linearly, logically, or for the good of others. Therefore, women should not be allowed to vote-end of story.
After all this talk of divine curses, I thought I would share with you a Divine blessing. Here’s Divine, with her 1983 club hit “Love Reaction.” I think they call her Divine because she sings like an angel. And yeah, the song does sound an eensy teensy little bit like “Blue Monday” by New Order. Her producer was sort of known for completely ripping off other people’s songs.
It’s a great bingo card! What’s in the middle, everything or nothing?
@Kyrie I think just ‘generic misogynist comment’!
@TheNatFantastic You have created TheBingoCardFantastic! I like having that generic square in the middle, which can be used for things like Tom Martin’s “Female penguins are whores.” You know, those generic misogynist comments you just can’t anticipate!
All right, just to be sure.
In the Old Testament, God’s favorite people are males of Hebrew descent. Who wrote the Old Testament? Males of Hebrew descent. Hmmm….
So…. women are stupid for wanting to work, and thereby take on a second “curse”…..
… Wouldn’t that make MRAs equally stupid for not gladly allowing women to take on their “curse” as well?
According to the story itself, Adam was there, and as far as we know, not only didn’t try to stop her, but even partook of the fruit himself. Some might try to interpret this as a man too afraid to question his wife, but then we see this:
“It was all her fault! She made me do it!” Right. Too afraid to question her when she went for the fruit or refrain from taking the fruit himself, but not afraid enough to keep from blaming her for everything.
Again, even just using the Bible, that’s not true. We’ve got Deborah the Judge and Jael, the woman who killed an enemy leader with a hammer and a tent-pin in the book of Judges. We’ve got Ruth, who selflessly stayed with her mother-in-law after her husband died and went to the fields everyday to pick grain for the two of them in the book of Ruth. We’ve got Abigail in 1st Samuel, who aided David in his campaign when her husband refused to offer any assistance (Her husband died soon after and David took her as a wife, a story that would be far more romantic if David didn’t have a wife collection problem that would end up biting him in the ass later on, see Bathsheba). We’ve got Rahab the harlot in the book of Joshua, who aided God’s people and thus spared herself and her family from God’s wrath. And, of course, the story of Esther, who put her own life at risk and saved the Jews in the land by confronting the king and his corrupt advisor. Not only that, but if you read Proverbs 31:
Does that sound like someone who can’t be expected to think causally, linearly, logically, or for the good of others to you?
That also sound like someone who can work, including physical works.
@Amnesia:
Booyah!
(I can’t pretend that I fully understand all of the bible talk, but I recognize a smack down when I see it.)
Booyah!
During my ‘fundamentalist’ teenage phase, I made it a point to read my Bible every day, so I’ve been through it several times. Thankfully, I outgrew my old ‘pro-life’ and ‘submission’ views, and learned to question the motives behind middle-aged white guys vehemently defending a system that primarily benefits themselves. Back in Biblical times, guys like that were commonly known as ‘Pharisees,’ and Jesus had many words for them. XD
@ Boggi
Sorry, but that’s not how things work. If your go-to insults are sexist, I’m going to wonder if you are in fact sexist, no matter how many excuses you have for lashing out in that way. That’s the issue with the femininity can’t be positive comment – I can’t see any reason why a person who wasn’t sexist would go there, no matter how upset they were at MRAs. In terms of the comments about religion, I’m an atheist so I wouldn’t say that they hurt me in any way, but even I could tell that anyone who was religious would probably be offended by them. And if that’s how they feel, then that’s how they feel. They’re not overreacting – the comments really were bigoted.
Jumbo is right – you’re trying to hold the other commenters here responsible for your mental and emotional wellbeing, and it’s not cool. If you want people to not view you with suspicion, you just need to not do anything that triggers people’s alarm bells for a long time. There are no “but you have to trust me because otherwise I’ll be upset” shortcuts, and given how much unconscious misogyny* is often on display on this page, people tend to be extra vigilant when they see signs of it. It’s the nature of the environment.
* By which I don’t mean that the people David quotes aren’t openly misogynist – they are. They often don’t seem to be aware of their own misogyny though, or to realise how deeply it’s affected what they see as logical conclusions, that are only logical if you start from the assumption that women are stupid and evil.
About the work issue, there we have unconscious misogyny again. MarkyMark, prejudiced dumbass that he is, can’t imagine women as people who might have normal reasons for wanting to work, like the reasons that he himself might have, so the explanation for women wanting a job must be either stupidity or evil, because he already believes that women are stupid and evil. It’s a perfect logical loop. It’s a good thing that we don’t actually disqualify people from voting on the grounds that they’re not logical, or our friend Marky wouldn’t be allowed to vote any time soon.
I don’t actually think the problem is what Boggi said about religion in and of itself, but rather the context. Religious people make statements implying or stating that their religion is true and their deities or spiritual beings exist, expecting non-religions people to be barred from making statements implying or stating that religion(s) are false and their deities or spiritual beings don’t exist is a double standard. To me, most of the issues with Boggi’s comments was contextual, they came virtually out of nowhere within the context of the discussion, making them as odious as random insertion of religion into a conversation.
“making them as odious as random insertion of religion into a conversation.” Well, not quite, given power discrepancies between the two in most parts of the world (atheists and Christians are not similarly situated in the US), but the same general category of thing.
I guess what’s tripping me up about calls for atheists to be polite and respectful is that I don’t see how saying “I don’t believe your religion is true and I don’t believe your deity or deities exist” does not carry at some level a mote of dismissal.
Okay yeah I get that “invisible Sky Fairy” and “the Big Beard in the Sky” are overtly disrespectful, but there’s a poster over on Slacktivist who claims that she has met God personally. If I were to say to her, “I don’t believe you,” I would be calling her a liar or delusional or mistaken, any of which would be a blow to her.
I missed Boggi’s statements so I can’t say anything about them.
RE: Xeginy
Totally off-topic, but was watching Teen Titans last night, so now I envision you as Cyborg (who also likes to say BOOYAH).
This is a good thing.
LöL, the funniest part was when he tried to use the bible to justify his claims…. ¡The bible of all books! Hahaha. «Don Quixote» would have been equally suited for such a task, if not more so… XD