Roger Ebert recently wrote a well-intentioned but misguided faux-feminist blog post setting forth the thesis that “Women are better than men.” Here’s the gist of it, from his opening paragraph:
Women are nicer than men. There are exceptions. Most people of both sexes are probably fairly nice, given the nature of their upbringing and opportunities. But in terms of their lifelong natures, women are kinder, more empathetic, more generous. And the sooner more of them take positions of power, the better our chances as a species.
Here’s how to respond appropriately to this sort of argument, courtesy of Jill at Feministe:
I love me some Roger Ebert, but this is a big piece of crap. His point basically comes down to, “Women are nurturing and wonderful and non-violent, men are competitive and want to see boobs, because Evolution.” … Most people are capable of great kindness; most people are capable of being total assholes. The degree to which any of us displays any of these traits depends largely on circumstance and partly on individual personality and temperament. Those things are certainly influenced by gender, but our gender does not in fact hard-wire us to be nice or awful.
Here’s how to respond inappropriately to this sort of argument, courtesy of John the Other at A Voice for Men:
[Y]es, it’s another one of those articles. Men are bad, women are good, men are worse, women are better, men are the worst thing ever, and women are just the best, squee!!! …
Ebert, in his attempt to ingratiate himself to a mostly female audience has done what countless other approval seeking men have done. Simply, to metaphorically prostrate himself – declaring – look, I’m a good man, not like those other bad men, you see how I heap scorn on them and flatter you? Approve of me!…
Ebert’s male-abasing and false esteem is a tired and monotonous repetition of standard gender ideology.
Sing along with me, you all know the words!
Women are better then men!
Boom boom boom!
They do everything better than them!
Boom boom boom!
Ladies are generally nicer!
Quack quack quack!
Their thoughts and feelings are higher!
Quack quack quack!
Girls and women are smarter!
Bing! Bang! Smash!
To keep up, men must try harder!
Clang! Bang! Bash!
Well, there’s a thoughtful argument.
Naturally, the commenters at AVfM are happy to join in the fun.
Shrek6 trots out the old “we hunted the mammoth” argument:
[E]verything on this earth from the knickers these women wear on their fat buts, all the way through to just about every single thing they touch in their day, up to and including homes, buildings, cars, trains, rockets, and the food they stuff down their throats, has all been either invented or produced by those useless ‘less than’ human, men. What a waste of space those men are!
Yep, I can feel a man strike coming on.
If all the men and boys in this world pulled the pin and sat on their buts for a month, the world would come to a grinding halt and anarchy would reign. All the women would be seen crying, screeching at men with gnashing teeth. Then they would eventually come begging.
Yep, that day is coming to these over indulged women. That day is coming!
Andybob, meanwhile, offers this analysis of what he sees as the gender enemy:
There are four main categories of women:
1) Women who care about the men in their lives, but never make the connection that their naked misandry contributes to the misery of these men. Most of those women who whooped and cackled when RegisterHer lifer, Sharon Osborne, expressed delight when an innocent man was genitally mutilated belong in this category. They would not have cackled quite so much if someone had brutalised their sons. Other women’s sons? No problem. It has ever been thus: white feather campaign in WWI.
2) Women who may pay lip service to caring about the men in their lives, but in reality, see them in the same way they see all other men – as utility objects to be manipulated and exploited. Such women don’t think of the men in their lives at all, except when they want something from them.
3) Feminists. These range from the mild (man-hating bigots), to the radical (man-hating bigots who advocate genocide and eugenics).
4) Women MRAs. These are rare women (I’ve never seen one, even in captivity), who regard men as actual people with collective and innate value. I can count them on two hands with fingers to spare.
Men have been struggling for many decades now with nary a peep from women. There is a reason for this.
They don’t care.
Feminism has provided today’s pampered princesses with the privilege-stuffed, consequence-free Nirvana that they believe they’re entitled to. Do you really think they can be swayed with reason and logic? Have you ever tried to discuss men’s rights with women? They will show concern for some imaginary, hypothetical female from some Third World country before they give two shits about the son, brother or friend standing in front of them. …
We are in a battle against a powerful, well-financed and establishment-supported entity which has succeeded in stealing our rights in every sphere. This has been done with the silent collusion of vast numbers of women. As such, a few “derogatory remarks” are the least they deserve.
Guys, I hate to have to tell you this, but you’re sort of making it look like Ebert might have a point.
Happily, I know that you all are statistical outliers, and that your raving misogyny (while it may reflect views common amongst AVFM readers, as evidenced by the upvotes those comments got) doesn’t reflect the views of most men. Heck, even some Men’s Rights Redditors are getting sick of your bullshit.
Snowy, he was failing to stick his 3rd while you were typing, if I’ve counted right.
“Can we redefine “asshole” as “not sticking the flounce”?” — only if you mean the way a square is a rectangle, if so, then I second that motion.
You can have all the sexytimes you want, just not with my vajayjay.
Of course, I don’t have anyone with whom I desire sexytimes, but my social circle is small and I have more important things in life than sexytimes with other people, so I don’t consider myself incel.
(psssst – see how that works?)
Chris’s constant need to turn every thread into The Incel Thread makes Sad Keanu sad.
I see. Can we just leave it at you not being very likeable, based on you generally acting in an unlikeable manner and people on this blog not liking you? Or would you like to argue about that, too?
GingerSnaps — I’m sorry if my comment crossed a line, I was trying to note that sexytimes =/= PiV sex, and that view is actually something feminists do give a shit about. Unlike Chris’s celibacy.
@Argenti Aertheri- true, but at the same time, there are still plenty of people who are absolutely miserable putting themselves into roles they don’t enjoy (ie: homosexuals who get married to opposite sex partners without telling said partner about their homosexuality or people who come out as transgendered and desire a sex change right around that same “middle age”. While this seems to be less common now (younger transgendered folk seem to be more open to coming out than before, hopefully because it’s safer although not all that much depending on where you are), it seemed to start happening really frequently with a certain number of middle aged folks in the 90’s and early 2000’s- people who had built up “the average life” only to get to a point where they just couldn’t lie to themselves about who they truly were anymore.
Of course, it can often manifest itself in an affair, a divorce, a desire for a big, fast car, or some other “mid life crisis” behavior as well.
And unfortunately, even though non traditionally gendered relationships or homosexual relationships are more well-known for falling into non-traditional roles, there is still a lot of gendered behaviors (femme/butch, etc) that are also problematic and they are often based off of toxic cis hetero roles. *sigh* I’m not very personally experienced with it, but I’ve read a lot of it and some of my friends who are active in the gay/trans/ace community have expressed concern about the adoption of these roles to relationships that don’t fall into the male/female hetero cis dichotomy.
Heck, even my husband and I, although we “pass” for a heterosexual married couple, have our own issues that certain people would firmly disapprove of, were they to know- I am pansexual and have some gender dysphoria (I sometimes feel very depressed and anxious over the lack of having a penis, even though I’m ok with having a vagina) and my husband is firmly bi, but both of us are also highly monogamous. Just because we don’t “act out” our sexual identities for all to see doesn’t make our sexualities any less integral to our senses of Self. Also, there are parts of my sexual identity that I would not prefer to share with the outside world at all, and as far as I’m concerned, as long as people think that I’m making decisions that appear socially “normative” for whatever reason, it’s nice that they’re leaving me alone but that’s their misconception.
Besides, being a mom (or involved parent in general- my husband is also very involved with caring for and helping raise our daughter) is basically the ultimate “screwed if you do, screwed it you don’t” situation. You diaper your baby in disposables and everyone calls you an Earth killing Nazi even though you don’t live in a place big enough to keep a diaper pail safely and the amount of quarters you’d have to spend on laundry and the “premium” modern cloth diapers is prohibitive. You breastfeed your kid, everyone tells you that you’re a gross slut for flashing your boobs in public. You bottle feed instead and everyone tells you that you’re dooming your child to ADHD and autism with that “fake stuff.” You cosleep with your kid and everyone starts clutching their pearls about how you’re going to roll over on your child or sexually abuse them. You put your child in their own room in a crib and it’s ZOMG SIDS WILL KILL YOUR CHILD. Feed your kid all organic, you’re stuck up. Feed your kid a mix of things because hey, kids are picky, and you get judged for every french fry the kid puts in their little mouth. If your kid is too tall, too short, to fat, to skinny, too talkative too quiet too whatever THEIR child NEVER was, you get an earful about it from family, from friends (who often don’t have kids but seem to think they know “everything” about parenting), and from random strangers on the street who want to regale you with how perfectly their child-rearing experience went. Frankly, it’s exhausting.
Remember when I was talking yesterday about how my rape experience sucked more based on EVERYONE ELSE’S reactions to it? Yeah. Pretty much everything else is the same way. You get more trauma about people around you meddling and poking their noses into your own choices in who you love, where you live, what you do for a living, how you parent if you have children, etc, then you’ll ever be traumatized from those events alone (and let me tell you, a poop explosion up the back of your infant five minutes after having already changed another blow-out is pretty damn traumatic).
Let me tell you, though- the more experiences I get in my life, the more compassion I develop for people in different situations. When I was a kid, I was under the mistaken impression that life was simple and people were idiots for screwing it up. I know now that life is so multifaceted that the most complexly cut diamond has nothing on it, and there is no way to judge others harshly without looking at my own privilege and my own luck and circumstances to say, “I may not live it, but I can understand it.”
That was generally the gist I got of it.
I don’t mind sexytime, but most people consider sexytime only valid if penises are involved, and then only if the penis is in my vajayjay.
I think we’re talking about the same thing?
Do you have a preferred pronoun that you would rather we use?
Also @Chris- RE: the assumption of “sex on demand if I had a gf/bf” thing-
Er…no. That’s not how it works.
I’m in a long-term monogamous marriage.
I’ve been with my husband for going on 9 years.
We’re both still quite sexually attracted to one another.
But we only have sex maybe once or twice a week (sometimes less depending on time constraints since we both work opposite work shifts, I’m pregnant, and we have a small child who is on nap-strike).
Sex is not a right, not even when you’re in a relationship. I have a weird genetic disorder that makes me have higher testosterone levels than most other women. This makes me want sex a LOT. I want it every day, at least twice would be preferable, and my idea of sex is not just PiV, so it’s hard to have the sort of sex that I would enjoy the most. I’m still not going to turn down a quickie, but it’s not completely satisfying. My husband suffers from depression. Sometimes he loses his sex drive for weeks on end when he’s hit a bad patch. So I do the non-asshole thing and please myself with various methods while he’s working through his shit. THAT IS WHAT CONSCIENTIOUS PARTNERS DO.
Sometimes I’m not in the mood- I’m falling asleep or I’m in pain or whatever. So he respects my bodily integrity and goes to take care of himself. Seriously. There is no rocket science involved here.
If you’re single, you have no right to get automatic sex from anyone you find attractive. If you are in a relationship, you STILL HAVE NO RIGHT TO GET AUTOMATIC SEX FROM YOUR PARTNER. Not if you are the sole breadwinner. Not if you bought some fancy jewelry. Not if you paid for dinner. Not even if you spray pheromone spray into the air, sat on the bed naked with rose petals covering your junk and waited your partner to get home.
NO ONE OWES YOU SEX. And the sooner you accept that this isn’t some slight against YOU PERSONALLY or some kind of mark against your innate manhood, the better.
@Nanasha — another brilliantly well said post…I’m really not sure how to reply to all that, besides to note that I’d been trying to say that I think it’s easier for people who do mostly “fit the mold” to make it to middle age without realize the mold itself is fucked up.
Regarding the changes in trans* people coming out // transitioning though, I’m not sure how much it’s about safety versus how much it’s about there being some chance of people being accepting…I grew up in good old liberal New England and it’s not really *safe* up there even. I mean, ymmv, but police will be assholes about it everywhere I’d assume, if you don’t “pass” some asshole will say something, and if you’re lucky, that’ll be the limit to it — unkind words — if you aren’t…let’s just say a lot of trans* people still end up dead >.<
And even if you do "pass" — then people either get pissed if you haven't had surgery, or accuse you of hiding things if you don't out yourself Right Away…and if you don't fit on the binary? If I ever get arrested I'm just going with the biological gender for the sake of my safety…
Basically it's a similar minefield to parenting, except some assholes will actually get violent over it. (Oh gods, could you imagine if the Mommy Wars were a real war? the species would last like 5 min!)
FTR here — genderqueer, not trans* — so it's just weird all over the place. (My mother's reaction to one of my childhood friends coming out as trans* was "think of her poor mother"…about a trans man…it's awkward)
@GingerSnaps — "I think we’re talking about the same thing?" — yeah, we are, I just didn't want to come off as a creep, what sexytimes you have is your/your partner(s)'s business, not mine. (A lesson Chris could use)
Nanasha, make that two more brilliantly well said posts. “we have a small child who is on nap-strike” — good luck!
@jumbofish- I am comfortable identifying as female, but it’s just not 100% good at explaining who I am. Kind of like how “gamer” or “anime fan” or “enjoys pork buns” is not a very good way to describe who I am. I’d kind of like to create some weird and strange word to roll all of these things that make me ME that could be recognized fully by others when said word is uttered, but unfortunately, that’s not possible at this time.
When I first heard about Ranma 1/2 (a show involving a guy who can turn into a woman when a certain type of water is poured on him and then changes back when the opposite water is poured on him again), I wanted that to be REAL so FREAKING BAD. It’s not that I don’t want to be female. It’s that I kind of want to be able to have a sex fluidity that is not technologically or biologically possible in this day and age. I have already played around with gender fluidity before, and have been quite pleased with the results. But there is something to be said about innate biological differences between what we generally consider XX and XY, and those are things that I will never truly feel that I can experience in a way that would be authentic to me. And that makes me feel a little sad sometimes.
The good news is that there is a lot to enjoy about being female as well, so I try and balance out the dark clouds with the silver lining, ya know?
“Not even if you spray pheromone spray into the air, sat on the bed naked with rose petals covering your junk and waited your partner to get home.”
Has that ever gotten anyone anything besides laughter? “Hi honey, I sat around naked waiting for you to come have sex with me” is more pathetic than hot, go play a video game while you wait or something…
Ok I keep being accused of saying things that I did not say
“the assumption of “sex on demand if I had a gf/bf” thing-
Er…no. That’s not how it works.”
Quote me where I said that. Because I didn’t. I said I wanted a girlfriend, I didn’t say I wanted “sex on demand”. There is a lot more that I would like to do with a girlfriend besides having sex anyway, like kissing, cuddling hanging out. You’re just making assumptions about what i’m saying that just aren’t true.
And now someone will say i’m coming back to argue. I’m coming back because someone accused me of saying something that I didn’t say.
“When I first heard about Ranma 1/2…” — omgs I haven’t thought about that show in *years* and loved it for the same reason!
And genderfluid anime fan ehh? Does my icon ring bells? It’s Haku from early Naruto, nearly a decade later people are still debating what gender Haku “really was” >.<
I have a proposition for everyone — we won’t talk about Chris, and he will actually stay away. Deal? (I want to mock him too, but I’d rather just be rid of him at this point)
Agreed! Also, if he does keep coming back and trying to get us to engage and we don’t that may yield some bonus comedy.
Deal.
“I want to mock him too”
If you’re going to mock me, mock me about something I actually said. That’s all i’m saying. I don’t see how anyone reading any of my comments can say that I was demanding people help me get laid. Or that I wanted a girlfriend so I could have unlimited access to sex.
Other than that I will leave the website.
“Other than that I will leave the website.” — thank you
@Argenti Aertheri- I recognized the character, but I admit that I tend to stay away from a lot of the popular mainstream stuff and unfortunately, Naruto got co-opted early on by all the 4Kids bullshit and the Naruto fanatics came onto the scene and I got intimidated and instead I basically went off and started enjoying some more obscure stuff that wasn’t being shat all over by dubs and ridiculous censor/editing.
For example, I highly recommend the show “Kino no Tabi” (Kino’s Journey) because there is actually a lot about gender fluidity (I will not spoil how or why), as well as a lot of weirdly almost “Twilight Zone” types of stories, only somehow they are even more awesome (for example, an episode about a country where there are only children and adults and when you reach 12 years of age, you have an operation and get turned into an adult).
And as for Ranma- well the whole idea of being able to shapeshift in general would be amazing, but even just from bio male to bio female would be amazing.
Yeah….I’m really looking forward to Memorial Day weekend. My parents are going to take care of our daughter, and my husband and I are getting a 4 day anime convention weekend trip. It will be the first extended amount of time that we’ll have large uninterrupted blocks of just being ourselves and being together since we had our daughter almost 3 years ago.
/offtopic geekery
Anti-Anti-Manboobz — nice theme choice!
So how bout them yankees?
Nanasha — I started watching Naruto back when the Haku arch was current, which has led to so much frustration over the years since (less filler, more plot!) — I’m nearly a year behind, again, because of how much is just flat out filler.
Found and bookmarked Kino no Tabi, my list of things to read/watch just keeps growing thanks to everyone here, it’s going to take me awhile to catch up! (this is a good thing)
Have fun at the anime convention!
And meh to it being off topic, this thread hasn’t been on topic since page 2.