You may recall a post I did the other day about Roger Ebert’s recent claim that women are superior to men. You may also recall that my basic thesis was that Ebert was completely wrong. Heck, you didn’t even have to read my post to see what my stance was; I made it clear in the title itself, which started off with the words “no, women aren’t better than men.”
Well, apparently my saying explicitly that women are not superior to men, and approvingly quoting another feminist saying the same thing, was too much to handle for the proprietor of an exciting new blog chronicling how wrong and bad I and my commetariat are. Mikhael Varpole of the imaginatively named Anti-Man Boobz blog (motto: “Exposing Man Boobz as a vile hate cult”) wrote about Ebert’s claim, and my response, in a recent post.
Here’s what he wrote:
Naturally, Futrelle and the boob gallery had to get in on the action. To his credit, Futrelle doesn’t condone Ebert’s misandry- but then again Dave’s always been a sneaky one that way. He won’t stand in solidarity with Ebert- but note that he’s happy to spin an instance of bold-faced misandry into an opportunity to bash MRAs who are righteously angry, ultimately concluding:
Guys, I hate to have to tell you this, but you’re sort of making it look like Ebert might have a point.
Remember what I said about subtle bigotry? This is a prime example. Misandry and misandric attitudes are dismissed in our culture because the concept itself is seen as illegitimate. And by portraying AVfM’s righteous anger as childish and “proving Ebert’s point”, Futrelle is knowingly and consciously destroying the legitimacy of misandry as a concept. It’s psychological manipulation on a global scale, and it’s downright sinister. And Futrelle, along with his lickspittle toadies, are happily contributing to the anti-male conspiracy.
Yes, explicitly stating that women aren’t superior to men is an exceedingly subtle form of misandry indeed.
Oh, and in case you’ve forgotten what the allegedly “righteous” anger of the AVFM crowd looks like, here’s are a couple of excerpts from the angry screeds I quoted from in my post:
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?
And:
[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.
That doesn’t sound so much like “subtle bigotry” as “just straight-up bigotry.” This is anger of an exceedingly un-righteous kind.
Well, after receiving some gentle mockery at the hands of the Man Boobz commetariat – sorry, at the hands of my “lickspittle toadies” – Varpole posted a comment here trying to clarify his stance.
I disdain commenting here for obvious reasons, but I have to clarify that subtle or “benign” misandry can be as damaging as overt bigotry- moreso, even, because it’s harder to call out. Radfem-level misandry can usually be dismissed (usually). But less overt displays of male-hatred are very difficult, because 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.
Well, this is an interesting thesis. Men – sorry, MEN – created the world as we know it, and run things – and yet have decided to set up a culture that is “male-hating [and] anti-man.” How would that even work?
After several commenters – sorry, toadies – asked him to explain this mysterious paradox, Varpole posted a clarification of his clarification on his blog.
First, I admit that “men maintain the culture” is an oversimplification. Obviously, that’s not true- certainly not today, arguably not ever. There are women police officers, women in government, women farmers, women firefighters, etc. Women do contribute to the maintenance of civilization. Not as much as men, but nonetheless.
On the other hand, women, feminists, and their assorted mangina lackeys have a disproportionate influence in the media and pop culture. Feminists and their dogs control the messages beamed at us through music, video games, and Hollywood. They have the print news media. They control primary education (how many teachers are men?) and thus the shaping of our youth. The infamous SOPA was almost certainly backed by feminists, in an attempt to bring the Internet (not coincidentally, the primary holdout of MRAs) under their control. Even when it is a male hand holding the pen, a male voice speaking into the mic, they are generally manginas who kowtow to female demands (see: Roger Ebert; Bill Clinton; H.L. Mencken). Thus, they are mouthpieces for the misandrist NWO, and are not in any way representative of men as a class; it’s just a different mechanism for the female perspective. …
I’m not saying thy’re calling for mass castration or anything like that (such a move would be too obvious). But there is a systematic denigration of men and masculinity in the media, and a subtle promotion of a misandrist, feminist, female supremacist ideology. In the news, in television, movies, literature, comic strips- we see the epidemic with our own eyes.
Huh. MEN created and still run the world, but “women, feminists, and their assorted mangina lackeys” dominate the media and popular culture with their evil anti-man agenda? There’s no getting around it: Varpole seems to be suggesting that MEN are just terrible at running the world.
Wouldn’t such an argument be … misandry?
Not even subtle misandry, at that.
I look forward to more blatant misandry from Anti-Man Boobz in the future.
As well as some critiques of his misandry from a mysterious, even newer blog that sprung up the other day: Anti-Anti-Manboobz, devoted to debunking Anti-Man Boobz and being meta as fuck.
Wheels within wheels.
I thought we’d already decided that Hugo is Saruman. It’s the initially seemed a bit weird but not evil and then turned out to be an attempted murderer bit and his being prone to extended speeches that leave you going “WTF are you talking about? your sense of ethics is so messed up” that seals it.
What I mean is, the role of Saruman requires someone who at some point appeared to be a friend or ally, and then you realized that they weren’t in a rather dramatic way.
Cassandra — Yeah, Hugo’s Saruman, 9+ hours of LoTR stole that part of my brain I think. That, and I read all 1000+ comments of the feministe disaster thread about him. I’d like to just block him from memory I think.
Jayem Griffin — um, if you want to be a wraith, be my guest? I’ll take the hobbits and the line about how they don’t just love food, they also love ale and pipe weed (tobacco). Though they are slow to anger, which doesn’t really fit with mocking trolls…then again, Tolkien’s trolls are nothing to mess with…
“and then you realized that they weren’t in a rather dramatic way.” — random attacks while seeking counsel vs “hey I was on drugs when I tried killing my girlfriend!!” yeah, the analogy works, I just want to ignore his existence.
He is basically everything I hate about Christianity too though, so he has extra hate points from me. That whole bit about how we all have to forgive him because he says his god has? Yeah, no we don’t >.<
I figured that if Dave is Sauron, and we’re his toadies, we’d be Ringwraiths. Though if I were on the other side, I’d be of Rohan. Always been a horse person.
true story, once i was in alaska with my family and i made a crack about a mountain range looking like the entrance to mordor, and my brother asked me why i was quoting led zeppelin
y’know, despite being an atheist i’m way into granting forgiveness to people who genuinely seek it, but i haven’t seen the slightest shred of evidence that he even understands what he did wrong
Claiming to know what God thinks seems awfully arrogant. I mean, I’m an atheist so maybe there’s something I’m missing here, but I always thought that kind of thinking was rather frowned upon.
Ok, I have been baited into a youtube argument, oh man. I feel like this was a good response on my part.
http://i48.tinypic.com/50p4lz.png
For those of you who don’t like clicking links, I was trying to explain how feminists can focus on multiple causes at once (they can be feminists while still being sensitive to the problems that some men face for example) and he told me that we should then call ourselve’s “humanists” to which I replied
You think he’ll get the point?
@ Sharculese
I love Zeppelin, but I also blame them for the existence of an entire genre of metal that’s basically shitty fantasy novels set to even more shitty music.
Muahahahaha, the cycle is complete! Soon my power will be at its height!
CALLED IT. I saw the future of the internet and it is increasingly meta circles of Manboozism.
Anti-anti-anti-manboobz goes to the WordPress “page not found” page because I originally miscounted. I thought about keeping it around to head off competition, but seriously, I have too many joke blogs already.
P.S. Sorry to anyone who got stuck in moderation; I moderate my primary blog but there’s no need for that on AAMBZ so I’ve turned it off.
Vile hate cult! VIIIILE HAAAATE CUUUULT!
*throws confetti* *passes the popcorn*
the thing i love most about mikhael varpole is that he clearly imagines he’s writing this scholarly, thought provoking arguments, but he can’t help tying in conspiracy theories and early twentieth-century humorists because his head is just full to the brim with big ol’ fucking rocks
@ katz
after the last few hours of fun i now have five, including paulineelamef.wordpress.com, which i think i’m going to end up actually using
C’mon, does anyone really believe that, if Ebert was harping about how much better males were than females, that liberals would react in just the same, calm-fashioned way?
Bullshit.
i dunno, i think we handle elam’s ranting and raving with considerable aplomb, so yeah, maybe.
Sharculese — I’m of the opinion that the only person who’s forgiveness matters any is his victim, and even within his own little hyper edited story she didn’t want contact with him (and I can’t really blame her for that). I guess it does depend on forgiveness for what though. I’m not going to be all blame-game if you cheated on a test in high school or something, but he tried to kill someone (because she was “a broken person” and then let the police think she was suicidal which is it’s own can of traumatizing psych ward worms)
Cassandra — “Claiming to know what God thinks seems awfully arrogant. I mean, I’m an atheist so maybe there’s something I’m missing here, but I always thought that kind of thinking was rather frowned upon.” — I said “thinks” there because even if their god does exist, they can’t possibly know what he thinks, but some Christians sure like to act like they do. Christian forgiveness only needs to come from god though, one must merely repent (actually, no, but that’s the most commonly taught school of thought regarding forgiveness) — I spent years stuck under how my father had apologized, if I can’t forgive him I’m hateful and sinful and evil…when he’d just do the same thing again next week.
Which is basically Hugo, he says he’s repentant, but then goes around bragging about how repentant it is — the whole schtick really is anathema to his religion if he was paying attention and not twisting that to suit himself too. (religion, laws, feminism, he’s a master at twisting things to make himself look good)
superbloop — I hate to break this to you, but Ebert is a movie critic — meaning I don’t really care wtf he has to say about anything that isn’t a movie plot. I suspect that’s not just me. As in “oh look, Ebert said something dumb…meh whatever, he’s the movie guy right?” — regardless wtf dumb thing he said.
@argenti
i mean only that i’m willing to give someone who genuinely seeks forgiveness another chance. i wouldn’t ever force my forgiveness on anyone else.
also
actually, ebert is usually a very insightful observer of american society, for the same reasons that make him a good critic- he generally has his finger on the pulse of america, and he’s thoughtful about it and good at expressing it. this article is unfortunate, but not indicative of most of ebert’s non-movie writing.
The thing about repentance is that you have to understand why what you did was wrong, which Hugo clearly doesn’t. Also, the fact that (he thinks) God forgives him doesn’t mean that anyone else has to.
That whole essay was basically just “why I, Hugo, have forgiven myself for this horrible thing. actually I think attempted murder, like every other horrible thing I’ve done, has made me a better person – not just better than I used to be, better than people in general. admire me!”.
I don’t think that someone with a pattern of seeking power over women and then abusing it should be a teacher. If he’d truly understood what he’d done and repented for it, he’d now be in a different line of work.
Yeah, Varpole, video games are reeeeaalll feminist; they’re not misogynist, no not at all.*
* Note to any fellow video game fans on this board, esp., but not limited to, those of us who are female, I apologize for my blanket statement. I’m well aware that not all games or gamers are misogynist, but there is an undeniable sect of games/gamers that really are, so it seemed a silly media medium for Varpole to make his “all-media-is-misandrist” argument.
Clearly there is a need for anti-anti-manboobz with big shiny knobs on!
Just saw AVENGERS for third time.
Now thinks that somebody should write an awesome crossover fic with Loki and Q!
Sharculese — ah ok, if I came off sounding annoyed it’s a combination of watching all of LoTR in one sitting and being annoyed at Hugo’s fan club being all “I forgive him, why can’t you?!!?” — wasn’t annoyance at you.
Cassandra — holy shit yes on wtf that essay was! And while I agree he shouldn’t be teaching, you want to take a man’s job away? MISANDRY (and now we’re back on topic!) — Makes me glad I’m not still in school or I’d be wondering if any of my profs had tried killing anyone though. *side eyes kinda creepy “use my first name” sculpture prof.*