So the other day I was perusing the front page of the angry dude blog – sorry, “human rights organization” – A Voice for Men, looking for something inspiring to read. My eyes hit on a promo for a recent AVFM radio show. It was on the topic of feminism, and, apparently, women in general:
Flatworms, eh? You know, those “relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrate animals” without brains, with primitive eye spots that allow them to sense light?
As you know, human rights organizations are widely known for comparing large categories of humanity to primitive worms.
I am reminded of the inspiring words of Martin Luther King:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And by the fact that they’re not slimy, dirt-eating worms, like all those damn white kids.
This is, of course, from King’s famous “I had a dream – a really weird dream, where all the white people were worms” speech.
Oh, perhaps JohnTheOther and GirlWritesWhat have some highly clever explanation for that whole “flatworm” thing, but in order to find out I would have to listen to their “radio” show. But life is short, it is a lovely, if a bit chilly, Saturday in April, and I would rather have ferrets chew the flesh off my bones while I am still alive than listen to an hour or more of those two, so I guess I will never know.
But no matter, because there was another post on A Voice for Men that caught my eye:
Yes, I said to myself, I will have to find out what Cooter Bee thinks about the differences between intellect and emotionalism. In the course of my day to day life, I often find myself pondering the deeper philosophical questions of human existence, and when I do, I always wonder: What does Cooter Bee think of that? It is rare that I actually get to learn what Cooter Bee thinks on a particular matter of philosophical import. So naturally I clicked on the link.
Here’s what I learned from the esteemed Professor Cooter Bee:
Endless citation, refutation of fallacy and Socratic pursuit of truth are the tools of reason. Men tend to understand them. Women, generally speaking, don’t because indignation, outrage and gut level distaste are rooted in emotionalism. Women do understand base emotionalism and do respond to it in a more predictable way than they could ever respond to reason. They are also more likely to respond appropriately because the message is more clearly understood. Emotionalism is their language.
So, really, there’s no point in actually arguing anything with those flighty ladies.
No need to waste words or knock yourself out reasoning with feminists or even your wife, for that matter, when a short and visceral pronouncement from on high will do and is more effective.
For example, you can just call them sluts:
Sluts are against slut shaming because sluttiness is, indeed, shameful. Say so. Your position would be unassailable because they too believe it. They invoke moral relativism and slut pride marches as a means to escape the inescapable.
Actually, it’s better if you call the ladies sluts over and over and over again:
Slut Walks, “Sex in the City” and the self esteem cult are all attempts to reassure women that even when they behave abominably that the bad behavior has the sanction of the collective and they face no risk of expulsion if they engage in it. To modify the behavior of women, reimpose that risk. The good news is that it can be done in relatively short order. … A stark and unvarnished remonstration from someone in closer proximity will undo the propaganda swiftly. Declarations of “that is disgusting” accumulate. Hearing it once may not overcome Cosmo and she can dismiss it as an isolated raving of a lunatic. If she were to hear it more often, however, she begins to doubt herself and wonder about her status within her more immediate collective.
You can also modify chick behavior by praising them when they act the way you like them to. It’s really quite simple:
Chick language provides us with a construct that we can use. To women something is “nice” or it is “mean”. They use that simple, emotionally based dichotomy because that is what chicks understand. They use it with us and they use it with each other. That is how they evaluate the world. Use it. …
Most women want to be good so tell them what good is in a way they can grasp easily.
What if they disagree with your assessment of what is good? Doesn’t matter, because you are a man, and therefore right:
Who is to decide what is good and what is evil? Simple. You are. Some men might think it arrogant to anoint themselves as the final arbiter of all moral issues. Not true. As a man, nature equipped you to make decisions based on merit alone without respect to consensus. … You know right and wrong when you see it.
Are there any good women out there? Yes, Cooter Bee tells us. Indeed, there are several women who contribute to AVFM, so there’s them. Beyond that, Dr. Bee, tells us,
I am of the belief that most women are good, if somewhat misled. They only resist righteousness because they think that any behavior that the collective endorses IS righteous. The rare woman who is capable of moral judgment will select good herself and would not be on the receiving end of harsh moral criticism.
Then again, you still might have to yell at the good women from time to time. Really, it’s your duty – it’s for her own good.
Good women are human too. Even in the seldom occurring event of a temporary moral lapse by a decent woman, your diatribe will be no more severe than the one she administers to herself. Would you do less in the case of a man whose judgment falters?
Thank you, Cooter Bee, for your insights!
I had no idea that going around telling women that they’re sluts was a form of human rights advocacy, but apparently it is. The next time I see a woman standing on the streetcorner trying to get me to sign a petition for Amnesty International, I will simply tell her what a dirty whore she is. I will accomplish more with these words than she will in a day of collecting signatures and donations!
NOTE: Since you bring it up all the time, fellas, you might try to remember that the name of the show is Sex AND the City. Also, it ceased production eight years ago.
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This post contained some
Boggi you can’t ignore us forever you know.
I adore Chris Noth, but I have to admit that Warburton would be perfect as Mr. Big.
I’ve watched all the episodes of Sex and the City. Every time an episode would end, my husband would ask me to play the next one (I was watching them on DVD). He made fun of the show, but he needed to know what happened next as much as I did. We also watched every episode of Desperate Housewives. That show is probably MRA kryptonite, too.
Speaking of commenters who like to sockpuppet, I think MRAL is now attempting to troll Jezebel.
“I was having a pretty good day and then I saw Schwyer’s lastest poop-green excretion. Are you kidding me? “Creep” is nothing but a bullying slur used by men and women (mostly women) to bully men who are physically unattractive, awkward, or just have the temerity to be in an entitled woman’s highness eyeline at the wrong point and time. And it’s uniquely effective because there’s no way to change your behavior to NOT be a creep- you just are one.”
It’s the use of “highness” and the obsession with Hugo that pings my MRAL-dar.
And of course, Cooter Bee provided citations and logical arguments to support this claim.
*facepalm*
Do MRAs really just not get irony?
David, you should use this picture of Al Bundy in one of your upcoming articles
http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/0/98/4948/11147865/al-bundy-02-8316.jpg
Sounds like the man himself all right.
I’m not really sure how he would know this, as he has yet to change his behavior at all.
@ Crumbelievable
It’s not actually that hard? “I think/feel/know X. I know I’m a Good Person, so X is something that Good People think/feel/know. Anyone who doesn’t think/feel/know X is a Bad Person.” It really is that simple. And that stupid.
I love how they claim the word creep is a shaming word that only applies if the man is unattractive or some such shit.
Getting ‘the creeps’ is a gut level reaction to a person or situation that could be dangerous and that dangerousness is picked up on. Men get ‘the creeps’ too and there are plenty of women who are creeps. And you can be attractive and still be a creep.
We’ve all had that experience. You walk into a situation or encounter someone who is just ‘off.’ You get an uneasy feeling and want to get away. It could be that they get into your personal space, or they look at you in such a way that lets you know if you don’t get away from them, they’ll hurt you.
That’s a creep. It isn’t some unattractive or socially awkward guy.
So, feminism is now on the hook (at least partially) for the existence of homophobia in the MRM.
Really? Is there a single fucking problematic thing in their own movement these clowns will ever take responsibility for, ever?
” Is there a single fucking problematic thing in their own movement these clowns will ever take responsibility for, ever?”
No.
Every time the “creep” conversation comes up there are endless dudes insisting that “creep” is in practise used to mean “man who is not handsome and does not have good social skills”. This amuses me, since I used to work in the tech industry and the vast majority of the not particularly handsome and not at all socially adept men I worked with were not creepy.
Indifferentsky, Holly, Boggi/Maya, et al.,
it’s a tired old trope that’s regularly trotted out specially for bashing atheists, that we are all asocial, autistic women haters and that we regard all theists as religious nuts – so those two bullshit generalisations in effect cancel one another out. Meanwhile everyone reading the thread can take offence, at being labeled either a nut or a misogynist – hurrah for reason!
Anyway, on another of my regular blogs I did see something tangentially related to today’s topic, especially concerning the throne of Peter. The Vatican, via the
Holy InquisitionCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly headed by Pope Ratzinger XVI, has issued an order to the US conference of Catholic bishops, saying that they need to assert their patriarchal authority over some disruptive dissidents in their sees.Who is being a problem, you might ask?
Radical Feminist nuns. Yes, those naughty nuns need to be put back in their place. Quote from the letter from the Holy Inquisition (link is to a PDF):
So yes, those naughty nuns have been questioning the order of things in their church, whereby they are subservient to the bishops (all male), who are subservient to the archbishops and cardinals (all male), who are subservient to the pope (male). The answer to this horrific act of rebellion? More patriarchy!
H/t to Ophelia Benson at Butterfly & Wheels.
There is so much fuck-up-ed-ness at AVfM this week. In their post, “What we stand for,” we have this:
This actually got some pushback on r/mr, which is saying something.
And then there’s “The peoples guide to marriage” which uses two alleged 1927 newspaper articles from The Salt Lake Tribune and The Charleston Gazette to describe Soviet attitudes towards marriage. Not only does the language from those “1927” articles sound suspiciously like MRA sites of today, that kind of leaves aside the point that 1920s American newspapers were not known for their objective, historically accurate articles documenting the Soviet experience for women. (Not in any way to glorify that.)
Every time one of these MRAs open their mouths, or place their fingers on a keyboard and type some hateful comment, a little piece of their credibility is eroded. The SPLC is just the beginning. While there are certainly valid points to be made by the MRM, they are being overun by the lunatic fringe. And like a politician who consistently landers to his base, the reasonable element within the MRM refuses, or is too scared to condemn this radicalism and outright woman hating. They know who their paying customers are.
I’ve long held that the Catholic Church would be vastly improved if its power structure were turned upside-down – i.e. if the most important and respected people were…nuns. (Closely followed by monks, then priests, then bishops, and so on.)
Or they could just freaking ordain women already. (Which, of course, is almost certainly the main thing this letter is whining about – a growing number of nuns openly support the ordination of women, many of them saying they would become priests if given the opportunity. And of course we can’t be having with that! They would probably menstruate all over the communion wafers or something!)
That Phil in Utah post is really special. He’s gonna tell you What the MRM Stands For, and it’s totes gonna disprove that the MRM is an embarrassing violent misogynistic hate movement.
1. No Draft: Some wars happened under women leaders!!! It’s their fault!
2. No False Rape Accusations: Obviously these happen all the time and there’s just no point in even talking about it. But did you know that once a woman accuses a man of rape, he must kill another man? TRUTH!
3. Ending Corrupt Family and Divorce Courts: As evidenced by the documentary “Falling Down,” evil women and the judges who love them will stop at nothing until peaceful MRAs are forced to become violent.
4. Stop Pleasing Women: …by not allowing women to force you to be violent.
5. Stop Financially Supporting Women: AND
yourtheir children. Tough love for babies!6. No DV Against Men: MRM Talking Point #8942, plus “women cruise far more easily than women,” so … you know. Stop bruising, ladies.
7. No “Chivalry Justice”: Because Amanda Knox should still be locked up. Misandry!!!
I was really hoping there’d be ONE grievance — just one — that wasn’t directly related to how much teh wimminz sux, and was only about improving men’s lives. But no. The MRM stands for women sucking. Lol ur human rights movement.
*”women bruise far more easily than women”
Cruise was my typo. The “women … women” part was Phil’s.
So now they compare us to flatworms. Good one guys.
And I have my own moral compass, I don’t need any man (including my husband) to tell me what’s right and what isn’t. I particularly don’t need members of the MRA telling me, because as far as I’m concerned they are morally clueless.
Women have been telling men for decades to stop the gendered slurs and many of them laughed and continue to laugh in our faces. Now their little feelings are hurt for being called a creep when they’re not respecting women’s boundaries?
Cry me a river CREEPS.
I also don’t care for the argument that slut shaming and creep shaming are the same thing. A so called “slut” is making individual choices about her own personal sex life that doesn’t affect anyone else but herself and her partners. A creep is someone who inflicts his/her unwanted desires onto other people. A creep is someone who doesn’t respect another person’s boundaries. A creep is someone who leers or follows or makes unwanted sexual comments. See the difference here MRA lurkers? One personally affects someone else, the other one doesn’t. Learn the difference.
And if we’re gonna talk about unwarranted use of the word creep, how about all the times men call women sluts, bitches and cunts for a simple rejection? how about all the times women are called those things when they act in any other way that isn’t a simpering doormat? how about all the times fat women are called fat when they aren’t even fucking fat? not that it would be right either way.
If you’re called a creep and it’s not warranted, then yeah, that sucks. But if a guy is genuinely behaving like a creep towards me, I am going to call him out on it.
@abeegoesbuzz Thanks for fisking the “What we stand for” AVfM article, I had no energy for it.
The Spearhead has been compromised
Maybe Anonymous ha0xors got them. It’s a pleasant fantasy…
Hey jumbofish! What do you want me to do? Grovel for forgiveness?
LOLOLOLOLOLOL I TROLL YOU!!!!!!!!! THIS IS A PIX OF ME!!!!!1111
http://images.encyclopediadramatica.se/1/14/Google_founder_Sergey_Brin_in_drag.jpg
Fuck you.
The post-communist (and communist) experience of feminism and women’s rights, though. Though feminist organisations are starting to make their presence felt in some post-communist countries, friends of mine in Estonia say that the Communist Party, by co-opting the language of feminism and equality, has essentially poisoned the well for feminist movements while at the same time never truly dealt with gender inequality (basically just telling women they have to work and then calling it a day). Wasn’t really what Engels had foreseen, methinks.
Estonia is a bit of a special case, of course, since their backlash to the Soviet era brought them a lot more to the right than many other countries, so government interventions are today suspicious in general.
Swearing at people who are a. moderators and b. far more well loved than you – always a great way to win favor in a community that’s already suspicious of you.
Maya, you’re being a prototypical Wally Smith.
In case you don’t get the reference, the link is to a mega-thread where the rampant sockpuppetry unravelled, puppet by puppet: at last count Wally Smith operated an entire menagerie of over a dozen puppets who would talk to one another on a supposed “joint author” blog called You’re Not Helping, which was a thinly-disguised front for libelling people who were unwise enough to blog using their real world identities.
One puppet would say something outrageous, while another would soft-pedal the insult by saying “that’s over the line… but there is a grain of truth there” – when of course there was no truth to the libel at all. This habit of the puppets reinforcing one another eventually became a cliché, of a never-before-seen interloper in a thread popping up to say, “I agree with Polly-O!”
This thread on the forums, on the face of it, has one sockpuppet quoting another sockpuppet, which is then replied to by a third sockpuppet to say, “I agree with Polly-O!”
Not cool – unless you want to make yourself into an Internet pariah.