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.
Wetherby — it’s partly the “death panels” (ick, what BS) and partly…racism…did you see where the “tea party” was calling Obama a witch doctor? and claiming that wasn’t racist but just how they viewed the health plan?
Also, our republican party has a serious stick up its ass about the mere thought they might have to pay for something someone else receives without paying into it as much as they have (social security retirement benefits exist on the principle you’ve been paying into it for a certain number of years) — it’s “go capitalism!” at it’s worst basically.
I have an interview with social security in two weeks for them to determine if I’m disabled enough to pay benefits too — if they decide I could do any sort of work, they’ll pay nothing. And that’s how a lot of Americans think it should be, or worse, that paying the disabled anything if they haven’t paid into it is bad because…I have no fucking idea. Bad because capitalism, you commie!! seems to be the only “argument” they’ve got >.<
How is this not racist? (warning, it’s very racist)
“but I’d never seen anyone react to the word “socialism” like it was the bogeyman until I got here.” — so much so you can’t even try arguing for socialized healthcare, it’s universal healthcare — a game I’ll play if it gets us either!
The British aren’t socialist by nature – in fact, the last time a major political party ran for election on an unambiguously socialist manifesto (Labour, in 1983), one of its own MPs described the resulting document as “the longest suicide note in history” and it went on to gain just about its lowest share of the vote ever.
In fact, I’d say that the typical British political position is broadly centrist, leaning slightly leftwards on social issues and rightwards on economic ones – this is certainly borne out by election results over the last couple of decades.
That said, it’s hard to know how a proposal to introduce our National Health Service might have gone down in the last three decades had it not already existed – I suspect it might well have been as controversial as Obama’s proposals. But because every Briton under the age of 64 will have known it all their life, and every Briton under 82 will have known it all their adult life, we can’t imagine being without it.
My dad was talking about when he was a kid, before Medicare. He says if you had no money the doctor didn’t charge. Mind you, back then they didn’t even have PENICILLIN! X-rays were new. Even he doesn’t think we could go back to that way of doing things. there is so much more that medicine can do now, and it costs so much more.
Magpie — if you’re talking as far back as family doctor’s making house calls, they also had a lot more leeway in setting their own prices, I’m sure that had its downsides too (google the Heinz dilemma and see if the question even makes sense anymore for example) — but it also meant they could charge far less/nothing without having their boss flip out.
Wetherby — I wasn’t trying to imply the British are socialist, though I may’ve been taking the outrage killing the NHS would cause too far. Maybe it is just a matter of already being used to it.
You know, speaking of the Heinz dilemma, MRAs seem to be about a stage two of “Heinz should not steal the medicine because then his stupid bitch wife might get him in trouble” — probably while thinking themselves stage five “Heinz should not steal the medicine because men go to prison at higher rates and that stupid bitch can steal it her own damned self!”
*head desk* (for the record, there is lots of criticism over Kolhberg’s moral stages, particularly the order, but the MRA self-interest probably is something most people over grow in grade school or soon after — it’s like they hit puberty and went backwards morally…)
Which is a major part of the problem. The debate in Britain isn’t whether the NHS should exist at all (any political party that proposed its abolition would be slaughtered by the media and the voters), but whether it’s supplying too many services that it can’t really afford – and of course this is complicated further by a steadily aging population putting increasing strain on even the most basic services.
But we’ve adopted a mindset that we expect most treatments to be “free”, even though they’re clearly nothing of the kind.
What do you reckon the MRA’s would do if it was Mr Heinz who was sick, and Mrs Heinz trying to get the medicine? 🙂
Assume that Mrs Heinz would run off with the alpha thug doctor.
Then there’s the problem here where PM Howard did a few dodgy things that resulted in rich people getting more share of the health budget, and poor people less.
Cassandra – have an internet 😀
Magpie — something akin to the stage 3 example of “Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects it; he wants to be a good husband.” but I’m not sure I’d take it as stage 3 in the context of “steal the medicine *for me*” as that’s clearly still self-interest. Unfortunately being a bigoted asshole doesn’t really count against you here >.< — which is another criticism of it really, one could say "Heinz should not steal the medicine, because others may need the medicine just as badly, and their lives are equally significant." while meaning "assuming they're white cis hetero men of a certain class" and still be counted as stage 6 (which even Kohlberg wasn't sure anyone really was consistently)
Stage 4+ or 4 1/2 or whatever he decided to call it does get mistaken for stage 2, but MRAs seem to have little interest in "the greatest good for the greatest number of people” if those people aren't men.
Yeah Cassandra gets an internet for that. It is *really* hard to judge morality from how someone thinks other people should act, it becomes impossible to tell whether they’re pulling a special snowflake or not.
My (British) SO believes that Obama, considered WILDLY!RADICAL! by the American right wing, would be considered right-of-centrist by UK standards.
“Though in Britain we get plenty of people either downplaying or being entirely ignorant of the colossal contribution made by Poles to the British war effort ”
And Czech’s, infact all over europe. Also Canadians and Americans, its just alot of the Americans said they were Canadian to avoid any embarrassment over America not being in the war at the time.
Also poorly remembered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwKLL0TklxU
So much this. I invite all dudes who think this way about Asian women to meet my in-laws.
Vindicare: GingerSnaps, then Cliff’s comparison with smoking doesn’t work, too…
Except that you made a false equivalence.
Cliff didn’t say “Sex is a drug”. She said “attitudes toward rape, and attitudes toward smoking”.
People who are addicted are going to have a hard time kicking the habit, but people who don’t start won’t get addicted. Making smoking (or drunk driving, or the owning of gaz guzzling cars or…) something which has social pressure to not begin is going to reduce the people who choose to not do it.
Seen an presidents who had a beard or a mustache? Not in my lifetime. Yet all those men grow facial hair. It’s natural. Not wearing a beard/mustache is cultural.
Varpole: I disdain commenting here for obvious reasons,
Which is why you commented.
the concept has no veracity in a misandric, male-hating, anti-man culture. A culture, by the way, that MEN set up, and MEN continue to run, at both the low and high levels.
So misandry is all the fault of men. Ok. Why are you angry at women about it?
Involuntary means not by choice it’s not in reference to blaming anyone.
Except for blaming the women who won’t fuck them. Except for blaming The society that says it’s OK for women to not fuck them. Except for blaming the people who won’t work to get them laid.
Nope, no blame there.
But you can probably go into great detail, and inspire a brilliant discussion on your own blog
@Wetherby
How the fuck is the BNP still around? Every time I go to England, without fail, some BNP bullshit turns up during my stay. After which, of course, my mates fill me in on the rest of the BNP fails of the year 😎
@Argenti
I know you mentioned it, but Kohlberg’s Laws as a universal morality is really problematic. I ccan’t think of a more “White is Right” model of morality that doesn’t just come right out and state it.
The worst film… “The Green Slime” has some merit. “Dance With a Stranger” wins my personal comment of worst waste of time I ever spent in a theater. We saw the end, where the credits explained it was a true story and all we could say was, “ok, we should care”?
The acting was good, the direction decent, the cinematography competent and you didn’t care about anyone in the film, not even the kid. That they hanged the protagonist. enh, They could have saved us two hours and lot of tedious, “meaning” by not making it.
God, it’s been 26 years and I still recall the sense of being abused by the filmmaker.
No one’s seen Birdemic, eh?
I’ve got family coming in from out of country today so fuck reading the comments, I’m just going to blather on:
~He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named said that he only came back because people were misquoting him, but he wouldn’t have *known* people were misquoting him unless he came back to read.
~As a Norwegian, I take offense to calling him a Whine Kraken 🙁
~As a Norwegian, I take offense to internet trolls in general
~re: characters — part of what I love about Hunger Games is the characterization. Katniss, in the books at least, is arguably a woman of color, as are a number of other characters. She’s strong, but not the relentlessly strong female archetype, because doing what she does fucks her up like any real life trauma would. Also, ALL the fangirls for Peeta, because his vulnerability is portrayed as not only *not* a weakness, but a full-on strength. Men in media are not allowed to be vulnerable without being pathetic, so mad props to Peeta.
~re: Zombieland — there is absolutely NO reason why that couldn’t have been a movie about Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. It was decent, and campy-fun, but the default to DOODSTORYBECAUSEGUNSANDDANGER! made me a little meh.
~Regarding the original post (OH GOD SHE’S ON TOPIC RUN AWAAAAAAY!), I can’t help but point out AVfM doods failed to realized that in spite of trying to prostrate himself for the approval of ladies, all that Roger Ebert has done is draw criticism from feminists (other feminists and manboobz regulars).
Why is any remotely feminist sounding thing held as the epitome of feminist belief, even if it is thoroughly criticized by other feminists???
My guess is that the MRM, having no ability to (A) critique itself or (B) understand that its experiences are not the experiences of the entire world, believes feminists incapable of self-critique.
~You guys should totally try eating ham and watermelon sometime (assuming you eat either of these normally). It’s a salty/sweet snack that’s great for summer.
re Gregory’s Girl: I guess I am just really good with English Dialects, because I understood all of that clip. It took a moment to get the vowel shift (resign would have been opaque if it weren’t repeated), but after that it was fine.