So the New Statesman — a rough UK equivalent of The Nation here in the US — has published an awesomely snarky yet utterly accurate piece on the Men’s Rights movement, such as it is, including references to Man Boobz favorites Tom Martin and A Voice for Men. Read it! Some excerpts:
Like your arse, men’s rights are massive right now. Of course, this has been “a thing” since the Fathers4Justice superheroes first scaled a public building, reiterating in one fell swoop that irresponsible, life-endangering behaviour and silly costumes are not only newspaper-friendly, but are also not qualities many women look for in a potential birthing partner. Then we had Tom Martin suing the London School of Economics’ gender studies programme for sexism, one of his complaints being that the chairs they sat on were too hard and not suitable for the comfortable positioning of his goolies. Poor Tom.
…
A Voice for Men is essentially the EDL [that is, the Islamophobic English Defence League –DF] of the mens’ rights movement, positing as it does such statements as “a single mother is a woman who in most cases chose to have, or to raise a child without a father. This demonstrates terrible, selfish values”, and “fake boobs are a sexual advertisement. If your wife or GF wants them that means she’s seeking to attract heightened male attention.” It’s extremist, bitter, and encourages men to “not get fucked” by taping every conversation that they have with a woman, like a troop of paranoid angry, ninja spies.
Naturally, MRAs are up in arms about this horribly unfair completely accurate (and if anything rather understated) description of their “movement.” I added some thoughts of my own to the discussion on Reddit here. Here’s one of the responses:
Keep digging that hole!
EDITED TO ADD: The New Statesmen is going to have a whole week of stuff on Men’s issues. So stay tuned!
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: On the Men’s Rights subreddit, the battle rages on, but alas I can contribute no more, having just been banned from there, apparently for mentioning The Spearhead too many times, or something. Separate post on that in a second. But in the meantime, here’s my favorite comment from the whole thread, from someone who apparently didn’t enjoy the New Statesman piece as much as I did:
If anyone knows of any sorority newsletter that reads like that New Statesman piece, please let me know, as I would like to subscribe to that newsletter and/or join that sorority, if my status as a mangina qualifies me for membership.
In the meantime, I have added The Vagenda, the online home of Rhiannon and Holly, the authors of the NS piece, to the “Antidotes to Boobery” sidebar.
It’s not like it was a snuff film, there is animal humping videos all over youtube.
What the hell? Fuck off, for expecting people to follow a ridiculous perfect standard of goodness. its not going to matter how damn perfect we act, mras are always going to make up some excuse to make feminists and people who are against mras look bad. You are blaming the victim here.
@ cloudiah
If it was a dog biting a kitten, for example, would you post it? You’ve every right to be embarrassed, promoting cruelty to animals is a disgusting thing to do.
Lowlife.
I was not aware that we had to be perfect now.
Happy, READ MUCH? It was in keeping with the meme. No one’s making you play it. And for you to be throwing “lowlife” around after some of the questionable shit you’ve posted… well, that’s rich.
You are not the Grand High Arbiter of Morals up in here.
Do you run around teaching animals how to behave with each other? Unless someone provoked this dog to hump this chicken, it’s not cruelty to animals
Happy, I don’t see how cloudiah did anything wrong by posting that video with an explicit warning that it’s not pleasant and you might not want to watch it. At worst, it was irrelevant. Hardly something that merits an apology.
@Tulgey Since I am in the current shame penalty box, I won’t endorse your hamster meme except to say Tom Martin is the gift that keeps on giving.
But what is up with this one created just before yours? http://qkme.me/3pdu7a (clearly not created by a manboobzer, even one as reprehensible as ME)
Who threatened to kill the woman who “came up with the idea of a women’s shelter?” WTF?
Dogs are predators, chickens are prey. On the list of things dogs usually want to do to a live chicken, ineffectual humping by a dog smaller than the bird is low of the cruelty list.
So now posting a video of something means you promote it? There was a video someone posted of a woman being whipped that disgusted me but it was not in support of that kind of practice so while it disgusted me I did not claim that person supported that kind of thing.
Dogs and cats have a tendancy to bite when they mate so it was only following its natural instinct. I think the people should have done something since the chicken did not like it but there is no need to say cloudiah is promoting animal abuse.
Liver Cancer is one of the more awful cancers. It can take decades to die from. An ex of an ex had it for more than 15 years.
The thing is, your liver grows back, but it’s remembers how it was. If you have cirrhosis, and they cut it out, the liver will be cirrhotic when it regrows.
The same with liver cancer. If they cut the tumor out, it will regrow. So it’s a constant monitoring; and repetitions of chemo, and the wait for metastasis, as you have surgery after surgery to remove the affected lobes, before the liver itself gets more involved (as well as to prevent metastasis).
That person chose a truly awful curse.
Happy, I work with biologists who study animal behavior.
Animals are cruel to each other. I could give you a huge, long list of horrifying things various animal species do.
But I won’t.
I wonder if this is a new record for the fastest thread derail on Manboobz. Then again, if every thread is off topic, can any thread be derailed?
Holy shit. It’s a Manboobz koan.
I found the video unpleasant, but as it was posted with numerous disclaimers, I’ll leave it up. Dogs hump things. People’s legs, furniture, animals that aren’t dogs, sometimes actual other dogs.
@ the many detractors
The chicken was clearly distressed. The person making the video could have stopped it.
Posting a video clip of an animal suffering as part of a joke is wrong, it’s hideous and it should be called out as such.
@ Hellkell – yawn, yawn, thrice yawn. You do bore me. Lil Ms ENRAGED over there.
Erin Pizzey, who apparently set up the first shelter in England, later wrote an anti-feminist screed in which she claimed to have been threatened by feminists for advocating shelters for men. It’s entirely possible she was. If so, whoever did it was a shithead.
MRAs often cite this, although it happened 40 years ago, as a sort of excuse for why they haven’t tried to set up shelters for men themselves, and as proof that feminists are evil monsters who don’t care about DV against men.
Maybe I should spend the next 40 years denouncing all MRAs for wanting me to get liver cancer.
Well, it is probably best that I not acknowledge certain people who will likely be ordered to commit seppuku by the Emperor any moment now, thus sparing the community being sullied by her deep dishonor, but I will say that particular memelet does not make much sense to me at the moment and could probably use a little explanation.
The video’s not that bad. The dog just pulls the chicken around a bit and humps it, it doesn’t seem to break the skin or actually penetrate the chicken. If I were filming I would’ve split them up, but eh, the chicken’s clearly not getting seriously harmed.
But whatever. The more important point is that no, this does not reflect upon all of Manboobz, all of anti-MRA speech, and upon the very concept that women are human. Even if it were a completely horrible video, it still wouldn’t do that. A tasteless video posted by one member of Manboobz does not somehow refute everything else said by everyone else here.
Massively fast derail… I’ve seen a lot worse, what with having kept geese, chickens, dogs, guinea pigs, horses, mules, mice, and snakes.
Is the chicken dead? No.
Did anyone attach wires to your eyelids and make you watch it? No.
You said your piece. cloudiah was decent about it, and now you’re being a douchenozzle about it.
Keep fucking that chicken.
Oh look at all the angry MRA comments on that article. Armchair activism at its finest!
The chicken was clearly distressed. The person making the video could have stopped it.
It did look distressed and the people could have stopped it but I won’t lie when I say I have literally seen way worse stuff on America’s funniest home video. It was exploit-y but no more than videos of animals falling from weird places (mostly cats).
David: I think by “MRAs” you mean “Eoghan.” He’s literally the only person I’ve ever seen cite it.
I’m personally uncomfortable with videos of dogs humping chickens and I think whoever recorded the video was an asshat, but Cloudiah did warn for it.
Happy, I’m far from enraged, but I do think you’re full of shit. Keep yawn–fucking that chicken, cupcake.
@David Thanks for the Erin Pizzey info; I couldn’t figure out what the reference was. Sincerely sorry to all for the unintended derail.
So, back to the original topic, how about that r/mr response to the New Statesman article? Pretty terrible, amirite?
Tulgey, here’s the original:
It’s since become what’s said to someone who won’t let a topic die and keeps on digging their own hole.