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.
@Argenti I actually prompted Tom’s comment so I am rather proud of it. See http://manboobz.com/2012/03/16/tom-martins-anti-male-discrimination-case-against-the-london-school-of-economics-dismissed-he-responds-by-calling-his-critics-whores/comment-page-12/#comment-136949
Argenti: (which is ignoring that animals don’t generally have consensual sex in the first place…)
I don’t think that’s true. I think animals do have consensual sex. I know that mares refuse stallions, snakes I’ve wanted to breed have refused, Bower birds choose a mate…
What they don’t do is have sex when they aren’t fertile (more or less).
I do have to say that Happy has managed a very successful derail.
The idiocy which is the MRM reaction to yet another media entity discovering what feeble lackwits they are has been completely lost.
The quote’s right here on the site, where you said MRA’s should be bred out of existence. Anyone have a link handy?
Maybe it was a bad joke, but the idea that undesirable people can be bred out of existence = eugenics.
Martin’s condescension in that comment is also a treat. “Who can do better than Penguins? YOU can do better than Penguins! Now, stop being whores, human women. Come on, I know you can do— Good girl!!”
Also, I think I deserve credit for the derail. Can I get a merit badge or something?
I remember that remark by Sandra somewhat vaguely, but I remember it beig tongue-in-cheek, since I think it was in response to the post about the ass who proposed breeding white women out of existence. There probably wouldn’t be much confusion over this (I’m assuming she was joking) if she didn’t also say things like misogynists are unevolved, etcetera, apparently sincerely.
So Sandra, do you deny saying, on multiple occasions, that MRAs are genetically inferior and destined for extinction? Because that’s my recollection.
Pecunium — I should’ve said certain species, I was mostly thinking of dogs. Some fish have silly complex rituals that really look like consent (certain species of cichlids have what looks like oral sex foreplay first even) — fish are weird. Dogs in particular though seem to just take it if they want it. I kept expecting the dog to actually manage something not totally ineffective though, and that would’ve been “why, oh why, did I watch that?”
I really just didn’t want to derail the derail further while going o.O?!! I typed that line like three times before settling on that instead of ranting about how we don’t really expect enthusiastic consent among animals to begin with. “don’t generally” may’ve been too broad though, maybe “some species”
cloudiah — that’s…very random of him. Bengals *are* whores though! My ex had a female bengal and a male Russian blue, she was always humping him, rather funny considering they’d been spayed/neutered.
Argenti: If a bitch doesn’t want to be covered, she can keep the male’s penis out.
What dogs do is wank anytime they want to prove dominance. It’s really funny to watch a dog who doesn’t care ignore the dominance humping and then go on just as before.
You know I don’t think calling animals (or people) “whores” is really appropriate. It’s a common slur against sex workers or women who are too “slutty”.
jumbofish — I apologize, I was running with the joke and didn’t think it through.
And ftr, I loved that cat, that’s the problem with ex’s, you break up with the cats too.
Pecunium — considering I’ve seen one dog mating success, and the bitch was the stupidest poodle ever I’m going to just default to what you said then. She really was impressively dumb, she went jumping over things before chewing one of the puppies’ umbilical cord loose — I was kind of amazed they both survived she had so little interest in mothering them.
Sample size of 1 is still not statistics though >.<
Argenti: I’ve had way to many animals in my life (or not enough). Dogs do some strange dominance displays, and humping is better than fighting.
Holy shit, this thread. I am judging the SHIT out of the people filming the puppy harassing the chicken; apart from the general discomfort of the chicken that’s a terrier people, you don’t think you should teach it boundaries with the livestock?
But yeah, I don’t get the Panic Stations reaction. That chicken was unimpressed but if it was getting really shitty it could have had more of a go at the puppy – she may not have spurs but they still have a good bit more fight in them than demonstrated.
As for consensual sex in other animal species… I think it’s fair to go with a blanket “not really”. Chicken, mallard, goat and cat sex = gang rape. Queens may be overwhelmingly keen to mate when they’re on heat but no one who’s seen cat sex would think it’s not rapey. *shudder* Dog sex = mostly not as bad. Then of course you have species that mate for life so hard to make generalisations of course. 😀
Anyway. Dogs hump things. It’s the human’s job to stop them doing it because daaaaamn dog, you ain’t the boss of nothing while I’m around.
“Dogs do some strange dominance displays, and humping is better than fighting.” — agreed on that. I’m a fish person though, and like I’ve said, they’re just weird. Actually, that point about displays being better than fighting applies to clown loaches too, they actually have alphas and betas and they can do damage fighting over that.
Maybe MRAs got humans confused with fish? XD
Wonder if I was the only one who kept imagining the show The Newstatesman with Rik Mayall. Which led me to think of Bottom, which led me to think of The Young Ones and the womanizing character, Mike.
I don’t know if this commenter was intentional, but I like it because it shows how stupid the reasoning is when used on human victims
Sadly I’ve seen a worse video someone linked on my FB. It was a monkey using a frog as a…fleshlight :/ It was taken at a zoo and kids were laughing in the backgroud…pretty twisted shit.
Re: this upcoming shitstorm
I’ve been taking a slight break these days from the net. Not to much because I am still addicted, but it’s a start. Its amazing how when you actually go out in public and observe people, this whole damn gender war MRAs keep insisting exists- this brutal hatred between men and women constantly trying to one up and hurt each other….it’s just not real. I come home from a day out in the city then read the latest on the manosphere and it’s like reading about society on another planet. Today I saw men and women together. I saw a couple with their tongues down each other’s throat (literally- it was awkward as hell) I see men and women hanging out together as friends, I see parents with their kids enjoying the weather. I see fathers pushing strollers. I see couples cuddling in the movie theater while watching the Avengers (which is fucking awesome btw)
On top of that, two things happened today that I want to mention. One, I had a door held open for me. I thanked the man that did it because it was a polite thing to do. I did not yell at him like the MRAs claim I would do because I’m a feminist. Two, on the bus ride home, it was crowded and there were no seats left so lots of people including myself had to stand. A man offered me his seat. I thanked him but declined because I didn’t mind standing nor did I feel entitled to it because I have a vag which is what MRAs would think I would do. Later on that same man gave the seat to children who needed it much more than an adult would.
I’m saying all this because no matter how big the MRM will grow, no matter how many articles are written, no matter how much arguing and hate is spewed back and forth in the comment sections….. the majority of men and women are not going to have some metaphorical or literal battle. Because the majority of men and women do not hate each other. Do we get frustrated with the opposite sex? yep. Do we get frustrated with our respective restrictive gender roles and double standard? oh yeah. Will people disagree on gender issues? yep. In time will they start to change for the better? yes they will, and they have already. But in the mean time, are all men and women going to be adversaries the way the MRM paints them? NO.
Maybe I’m just in an uncharacteristically optimistic mood because I had a great day (omfgavengersomg) but the real world is not like what MRAs or other extremists make it out to be. I think I need to have a post-it note by my computer that says “GET OFF THE INTERNET AND GO OUTSIDE” because when you do more often you realize it’s not as bad as the internet makes it out to be.
Well, NOW it is.
Also, “Keep trying to invade Russia!”
I’m blind in my left eye and routinely bump or quasi-fall into things (I have balance problems too, maybe because of the Asperger’s). I am not a chicken, and I’m not morally equivalent to one.
I hope his video cards are always slightly out of date.
I don’t know much about animal mating except for dogs. But in that species, the bitch won’t let the male penetrate her unless she’s into it. That’s why there even is a term for “forced breeding” (which is against Swedish law, but some people do it anyway). That’s why some dog breeders put a muzzle on the bitch, hold her by force etc. There would be no need for that if the NORMAL course of things was the male just taking what he wanted and the bitch being helpless to do anything about it – if that was NORMAL for dogs you’d just need a willing male and that would be it.
I actually know a dog breeder who went all the way to Finland to mate her bitch. Once they got there, it turned out the bitch wasn’t interested in the male. The owner of the male suggested they’d put a muzzle on and hold her, but my friend refused, and said if she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want to, period. So they went back home again. In a perfect world all animals would have their veto respected in situations like that.
Tom Martin!
Tom Martin!
Tom Martin!
(We know he ego-surfs for mentions of his name, so maybe this will prompt a return appearance, which would be hilarious.)
I have over fifty hours of nature documentaries in which the film makers did not lift a single finger to stop animals, plants, and insects from doing exceedingly horrible things to one another. I suppose that makes Sir David Attenborough a horrible human being; if so, I want to be just as horrible as him. In other words, the reaction to a dog humping a chicken is so far down the pecking order of animal cruelty I’m frankly amazed at the bizarre over-reaction.
In other news vaguely relevant to the derail, I recently used the “keep fucking that chicken” meme elsewhere, and was subsequently delighted to learn that some non-MRA misogynists had rephrased it to imply I’m a pedophile by substituting another word beginning with ‘ch’ and ending in ‘en’ — ick. (Actually not impressed. #mencallmethings)
Quackers, awesome comment!
Something about MRAs and citing 40+ year old one off instances and blaming modern feminism for them (and in this case, an instance that wasn’t even proven?). It’s as if they can’t find new stuff to gripe about or something.
I also don’t get why they expect us to fix all of men’s problems, yet they clearly don’t give a shit about ours. We are responsible for lobbying for men’s shelters. But we don’t so MISANDRY! How many women’s shelters have been set up by MRAs? And why, instead of lobbying for more men’s shelters and funding, are they whinging about us not doing it for them? Can somebody make some damn sense of this for me please?