Oh, the Men’s Rights subreddit is on a roll! Earlier in the week, as regular readers will already be well aware, a sizeable number of the regulars there were waxing indignant about a spermburgling girlfriend who turned out to be imaginary, and expressing sympathy for the imaginary girlfriend’s imaginary boyfriend, even though he’d admitted to punching her in her imaginary stomach.
Now they’re directing their wrath at a British journalist whom they’ve decided is being insufficiently grateful for being rescued from being hit by a speeding automobile by Ryan Gosling.
The backstory: Earlier in the week, British journalist Laurie Penny was wandering the streets of Manhattan, lost in thought, when she almost stepped off the curb into the path of a taxi. A man standing nearby grabbed her and pulled her to safety. That man happened to be famously hunky young actor Ryan Gosling.
Naturally, Penny tweeted about it, and her tweet aroused something of a Twitterstorm, in part because of the novelty of the situation, and in part because the thought of someone so dashing performing this little act of urban heroism made more than a few ladies (and men) swoon a little. I would probably react the same way if I heard a story about Kate Winslet saving a kitten.
Anyway, Penny was a little bit overwhelmed by all the attention her story was getting, and ended up writing a funny, spiky little essay for Gawker reminding people that while, yes, Ryan Gosling had indeed done a very nice thing for her, for which she was grateful, that it wasn’t really the biggest deal in the world. For one thing, she pointed out, lots of ordinary decent people perform similar acts of “heroism” all the time. For another, there are bigger heroes out there – like those working tirelessly to keep Rick Santorum from becoming our next president.
She ended the piece with this:
I really do object to being framed as the ditzy damsel in distress in this story. I do not mean any disrespect to Ryan Gosling, who is an excellent actor and, by all accounts, a personable and decent chap. …
But as a feminist, a writer, and a gentlewoman of fortune, I refuse to be cast in any sort of boring supporting female role, even though I have occasional trouble crossing the road, and even though I did swoon the teeniest tiniest bit when I realized it was him. I think that’s lazy storytelling, and I’m sure Ryan Gosling would agree with me.
And the thing is, I’m sure he would. I’m sure he’s as embarrassed about the attention as Penny is.
Well, for some people, Penny’s refusal to play the “boring supportive role” was simply unacceptable. Over on The National Review, antifeminist asshole Suzanne Venker wrote a snide and misleading piece portraying Penny as an ungrateful bitch:
If Western women want to know where all the good men have gone, they need only look in the mirror. Not only can men no longer hold the door open for women or pay the check after dinner, they can’t even save a woman’s life and get a simple thank you.
Never mind that Penny wrote explicitly that she was “grateful to the dashing and meme-worthy Mr. Gosling.” We can conclude that Venker either has terrible reading comprehension, or is deliberately lying about Penny. In any case, she continued on in this vein:
Feminists have totally destroyed the relationship between the sexes. Not all women seek the feminized version of the American male. Most women like big, strong, sexy men. They want men who are willing to put out fires, fight in combat, and, yes, even save damsels in distress. But in post-feminist America, Marlboro Man is a rare breed. We can thank women like Penny for that.
Well, actually, the reason the Marlboro Man isn’t around any more is that he died of lung cancer. (Well, to be more specific, two of the actors who portrayed the Marlboro Man did in fact die that way.) But let’s continue:
If Americans don’t wake up to the evils of feminism, the next time a woman walks down the wrong side of the street, the men of America will simply walk right past her and let her get hit.
And we’ll have no one blame but ourselves.
Really? Really? I’m pretty sure that Penny’s Gawker essay isn’t actually going to turn American men into a bunch of woman-hating psychopaths. I think we can all agree that Venker is being a giant turd here.
Well, not all of us, I guess. Someone posted Venker’s little screed to the Men’s Rights subreddit – you were wondering when I’d get back to them, weren’t you? And the regulars responded, well, like you would expect them to. Here are two of the most highly upvoted comments there, from two of the subreddit’s most prolific posters.
Stay classy. Men’s Rights Redditors!
Antz:
I’m terribly confused about your hypothetical. Why is the husband complaining about being the primary caretaker for the kids? I thought you said all dads wanted equal or higher amounts of parenting time. Shouldn’t he really be like, “yeah, it was great while she was running circles around her silly little jogging track and leaving us alone, but now that she’s done, she’s going to be alllll up in my grill about what the kids eat and when they go to bed! Hell, she’ll probably even insist on signing their field trip permission slips!”
Also, I don’t see how Laurie Penny writing on her own behalf about an incident that happened to her is at all the same as Husband/Dad butting into an article written by a third party about Marathon Winner. (How did he do that, anyway? Did he sneak into the newspaper office after hours and tinker with the Heidelburg?) That second one is jerky behavior because it is interrupting. Penny wasn’t interrupting Gosling; she was using her own space to make her own point.
Unless you think all women who comment on anything anywhere ever are butting men out of the way to do it because all public space and discourse belongs to men by default. In that case, your equivalency makes perfect sense.
[blockquote]If Western women want to know where all the good men have gone, they need only look in the mirror.”[/blockquote]
ALL THE GOOD MEN HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO WESTERN WOMEN!
The Spearhead lovelies decide to grace us with their opinions on the matter too
and they wonder why they’re considered a hate group.
I do like big, strong, sexy men. However, and this is the important part, I also like being a big, strong, sexy woman who is capable of helping others as well. I also don’t look down on anyone, of any gender, who isn’t doesn’t (or can’t) do those things just because it’s my preference.
The one exception is that I certainly reserve the right to look down on people who are able but do not help people, or wish harm on others, out of sheer spite or bitterness. That just makes you a bad person, or an MRA.
Oh, The always-reliable Spearhead. Only 8 comments there so far, but already a few that are hateful as fuck. I believe I see a post coming up. I’ll wait until they poop out/upvote some more of that shit.
I wish we had an edit button, how did I end up writing “isn’t doesn’t”? Ignore that “isn’t”.
In re r/mensrights: Don’t hate us because we’re A W E S O M E ! ! !
Is it Boring Troll Day, or what?
Or, as Virginia Woolf put it in her essay, ‘A Room of One’s Own’:
“Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.”
But not at the price of marginalizing and rendering invisible women who do the same or similar in order to perpetuate the myth of women as ubiquitous damsels in distress infinitely in need of rescue by eternally self-sacrificing men (and only men) because of whom the entire male population need be worshipped by all women at all times.
Or, as Virginia Woolfput in her essay, with 500 pounds and a room, women can write, which translates roughly today, “if you give a woman 50K a year, and pay for her apartment, she can write….”
I really need to get around to watching Drive. It’s also been recommended that I watch it whilst in an altered state of mind. Yea or nay?
Shorter AntZ:
Bart: That house will never sell! Nobody who could afford it would want to live in this neighbourhood!
Homer: Big Shot!! Too good to buy a house here, Snobby?!!
Bart: Who’re you talking to Dad?
Homer: The guy who doesn’t live here.
I know this is unimportant in the greater scheme of things but I think Gary Lough would know that the “Tyne/Wear half marathon” is called the Great North Run. And it’s Tyne AND Wear.
I wouldn’t throw stones on this count if I were you, because you can’t write *anyway* XD
I mean, you really didn’t understand the essay, but that isn’t novel.
@rutee
you don’t really believe she actually read it, do you?
Have any of you even read what this ungrateful, cliche’ of a woman wrote? She prattles on about reproductive freedom, women’s rights, the war on women. Typical entitlement mentality of modern day women. I’m surprised she didn’t pull out the old 70 cents on a dollar routine, along with 1 in 4 women, (fill in the blank of your choice). And how only men commit DV.
Life is so unfair for modern day women. I mean, occasionally those $300.00 shoes don’t even match your $200.00 handbag. Men having the audacity of being sexually aroused by women dressing and acting like animals in heat 24/7. Sometimes men even act on the arousal women porposely initiate. Some men even expect to not have their unborn children slaughtered, or have equal custody, as if men had any reproductive rights. Oh wicked men, when will they cease this horrific war on women.
Men should be grateful when women give them the honor of saving them, even if they die doing so. It’s why we go to war. All the lefty news outlets are just filled with women like rachel madow just cheering on men to kill and die for them. To not kill for women IS a war on women.
Why should she be grateful? Saving, empowering, paying for, entitling, privileging and working for women is the most honorable thing any man can ever do. Throughout recorded history women have been rightfully spared all the hardships of life. Modern women are less likely to do any manual labor their entire lives that at any point in history.
Until all women are clothed in the finest silk, have careers that consist of writing articles on the glory of feminine spirituality or the deviltry of masculinity, the war on women rages on.
Here’s a woman whose been duped by the evil patriarchy. She has the misguided opinion that subhuman mooks deserve respect. Even though her words carry more weight because she’s a woman, she’s clearly misguided. Boy’s should be taught that they’re beneath contempt. Thank the goddess that they are taught how worthless men are while they’re young.
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3519117
I’m willing to grant the possibility, but it wouldn’t change that it was done for her own brand of comprehension.
Is there a difference at this point?
@Maya: I’m sure there are bad people who are NOT MRAs.
But I’m not sure sure there are any MRAs who are NOT bad people……….
Why is it always really boring on here the days when I’m actually around?
*dances a jig to entertain Katz*
“In re r/mensrights: Don’t hate us because we’re A W E S O M E ! ! !”
Don’t worry, Mags, there is literally no chance of that happening.
Lol then she goes on to imply that women can’t write. So enlightening to have around, that Mags.
So in Suzanne Venker’s world a female British journalist is responsible for the destruction of American masculinity (singlehandedly) by… not dying in an accident?
Damn Brits.
I’m not a Ryan Gosling fan but he at least seems like a decent human being, which is always a relief to know about famous people. Seeing as there seem to be a lot of them who are jerks.
*throws coins at princessbonbon*
*falls over after being hit in the head with one of the US $1 coins*
Ow.
Oops, sorry. I will throw soft cotton balls next time.