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.
Vsicaria, go and ask him, he needs the comments.
Thing is, Chris is not a noob, and we’ve batted other trolls a lot harder. I see Varpole doesn’t want to dig for his stuff.
@Arielle Shander
“Music: Many popular rappers have extremely misogynistic songs. But, even if we ignore the rappers, I still don’t see how feminists control the music industry.”
All you ever hear about is beyonce this or selena that from the music industry. Women musicians have been promoted for generations. Funny thing is they only sing about themselves or how pathetic men have wronged them. Let’s be honest here, men write love songs about women at a rate of about a thousand to one compared to women writing about men.
——————-
“Video games: Oh, goody! My specialty (I’m a game designer)! Does this guy even play games? Most games have a male protagonist, and many games have ridiculously-proportioned women.”
Did ya fill a quota? Admittedly, I don’t have much time for games. From what I’ve seen though, during character creation you can make your character look pretty much anyway you want. Don’t blame men for your indulgence in creating the busty babe.
——————
“It took Pixar a long time to have a female protagonist, and Pixar has some amazing, open-minded people working on movies. That says something.”
Pixar was bought out by Disney right after the incredibles. That’d be the channel where tweenie girls prance about wearing body hugging barely there outfits. Where the girls outwit, outclass, belittle and degrade the dullwitted effeminate boys. On average on those shows a girl hits a boy five times. And it’s funny, you can tell by the laugh track. Little girls in heat demeaning the boys for being attracted to them. A fine message.
I asked! XD
People — myself included — were actually pretty sympathetic and tried to help Chris the first time he stopped by. The first time.
It’s always jarring to see just how disdainful NWO is of knowledge.
You know Owly, as someone who spends a lot of time with baby cousins and nieces, I’ve had to sit through an army’s worth of tweenie shows. My usual thoughts are “kill me now”, and occasionally “huh, that’s funny/sweet”. To this day I’ve never sat there thinking “WTF is she wearing, she miust be in heat”.
I kind of wonder what would happen if NWOslave watched My Little Pony. Would he start frothing at the mouth because the Ponies weren’t wearing any clothes at all?
“So, there is a field I know nothing about, but I’m sure the expert on the subjct are wrong and have no reason to complain.
Also, I still want to have sex with little girls, and I’m very angry at them and women in general because of that.”
Shorter* NWO.
*MISANDRY AND EUGENICS!
“Hahaha awww were we mean to Chris? I want to know more about the sad fate of that poor astute individual!”
Wait, isn’t this why I bothered to reread all of that thread and summarize how 4 pages of it were all about Chris? A summary which included how the first page or 2 was fairly polite All About Chris? >.<
@floraliae — I take it you're new around here? You'd be right if we were dealing with reasonable people, but we aren't. Saying men and women are equal is MISANDRY!!! (not in reality, just in MRA-land)
@NWO — "Admittedly, I don’t have much time for games. From what I’ve seen though, during character creation you can make your character look pretty much anyway you want." — try playing some more video games before taking your second point too seriously, it's like 5-10% of games you have any say over what your character looks like.
“Little girls in heat demeaning the boys for being attracted to them.” — utter logic fail aside, animals don’t go into heat until puberty, so even if humans did, children wouldn’t. *basic biology fail*
Now to read this anti-manboobz post I apparently get mentioned in, I feel special guys!
Hey now, I’m not just “a spoilsport” I’m Princess Spoilsport McGee the third!! As so dubbed when I said that no, I didn’t think the corcisa would make it over a highway barrier intact.
I find it frustrating that NWO seems to think that the horrible and misogynist portrayals of girls via Disney tweenie-bopper shows are actually POSITIVE? Bad role models are *NOT* better than NO role models!
Also, NWO seems to spend a LOT of time watching the Disney channel.
@Arielle
Yeah, I was one of five women in a group of about 25 in film school (and then they added another 10 men a few weeks in). On the set the ratio is about the same give or take. Out of the few women I’ve seen on set in general, even fewer have held traditionally male roles. I’ve worked with two female directors (who had to self fund their short films just to hold this title), one female assistant camera, and one female who is normally a Director of Photography, but had to take a gaffer position. Otherwise the women I’ve worked with have either been in art/makeup/costumes/set design, clerical producer positions and script supervisors, craft services, casting, or just PAs who run and fetch whatever is needed. It’s so so so hard to find women to aspire to be like in this industry. It’s also really hard to get an in with the boys clubs that are completely real.
See, in this industry, you often get gigs based on word of mouth. You get on set and find that they are missing some crew members, so they have you recommend people you’ve worked with in the past. And the men always have each other’s backs and call each other. The only people who spread my name for paying gigs have been women. And it’s treated almost like a responsibility of women in the industry to help your fellow female film makers out because you know the men aren’t going to keep them in mind. And it has nothing to do with work ethic, because I’ve seen these completely useless men who do more to hurt the production than they do to help get call after call after call, when the talented and hardworking women are disrespected and forgotten.
So seriously, feminist media my ass. If the media was feminist, I would not have nearly as difficult a time finding work as I do now.
Oh and for NWO slave talking about filling a quota, ffs. Dude thinks these industries work like Walmart where the corporation gets tax breaks and whatnot for being inclusive. Again, if these industries were controlled by feminists and had quotas to fill, I’d never not be working. Also, this sexist idea that women get hired based on affirmative action and men get hired based on merit. Now THAT’S subtle misogyny.
On SOME games you can customize characters. However, I have never seen a customizatin feature that lets me pick the man’s dick size.
The mental picture of NWO sitting around watching the Disney channel after a hard day’s milking and geting all worked up is kind of funny.
And also DEEPLY disturbing.
That too.
Everything Jessay just said about film applies to stage theatre as well. I absolutely loved doing stage crew in high school, but knew there was no way it’d reliably pay the bills. I was good enough at what I did everyone was amazed our technical director seemed to actually like me, he hatred everyone.
Seconding that the entire entertainment industry is a boys club.
You were saying?
Also, since when do male singers not sing about themselves? Oh right, since never.
And here we have a man, singing about being wronged:
@David Futrelle- The whole Disney thing is annoying to me because most of the female characters are annoying and bratty. They’re really not all that great and all I can think is that a lot of the characters for boys are just more cool and interesting. It really bugs me that the majority of the female characters in these disney shows in question base their entire characters around liking boys and doing things for boys instead of doing anything interesting or independent, whereas most male characters do things for all kinds of reasons.
Blah.
A classic–male singer, male narrator, all about how he been done wrong!
You know, NWO, if you want to make this comment of yours extra-hilarious, you should really do a quick Google search for the title of the most recent single (AFAIK) by either of the only two female musicians you, personally, ever hear about.
(And, incidentally, what is it with you and the Disney channel and the kids who got famous on it? I would not categorize Selena Gomez as anything approaching “all one ever hears about” except possibly in the context of her more-famous boyfriend.)
…Why is a single, childless middle-aged person watching the Disney Channel?
Well, I’m not middle-aged, but if he’s anything like me he’s watching it for Phinneas and Ferb and the Avengers cartoon.
But we know damn well he’s not anything like me, so my guess would be he watches it to rage-ogle teenage girls.