Here are a couple of, well, let’s just call them very intriguing questions asked of me by a Men’s Rights Redditor. Since I can’t respond to them on the Men’s Rights subreddit — I’m banned — I thought I’d respond here:
Mr. Levelate, allow me to answer your serious questions with some equally serious questions of my own:
I’ve wondered for a long time how people like you react to the men’s rights mantra of ‘all women are wombats’, when you see a woman who isn’t a wombat, how do you explain this?
Also, many MRAs advocate turning all squirrels into bologna, what makes you think squirrel bologna would taste better than regular bologna, and what would the world do with all those extra uneaten nuts, were it ever to come to that?
Here’s the thing, Mr. Levelate: those things you think feminists believe? FEMINISTS DON’T ACTUALLY BELIEVE THEM.
That “all men are rapists” quote from Marilyn French you guys like to pass around? That was from a character in a novel.
The number of radical feminists who seriously want to get rid of men, or a significant number of them, you could probably count on your fingers. I’m not sure how many MRAs want to make squirrel bologna, but the numbers are probably similar. And, fyi, there are actually more than a few MRAs who fantasize about breeding certain types of women out of existence, like this dude on The Spearhead, and a small army of MRAs and MGTOWers who pine for the imaginary future where babies are gestated in artificial wombs and women are all replaced by sexy sexbots.
Listening to MRAs talking about feminism is a bit like sitting in on a book club in which no one has read the book.
I just want to chime in a little bit to say that I don’t think all men are rapists, but it’s always in the back of my mind that a particular man whom I’ve just met might be. Because, hey, I was raped. By a friend. Whom I trusted.
If some random MRA doesn’t like that, maybe the problem is with the men who are raping the women, not with the women being rational and thinking, This dude could possibly rape me at any time. It’s like, if you’re in a dark alley and someone is following you, you think, This guy could mug me at any second. So you keep on your guard. Because it would be stupid NOT to.
Yeah they should stick to actual statements that feminists make. Like a Jewish feminist calling an entire race a cancer. Or Ms Magazine editors supporting the release of a a homicidal, gendercidal maniac in Valerie Solanos. Truth is stranger than fiction!
http://www.womenagainstmen.com/media/feminism-is-a-hate-group.html
“Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” — Susan Brownmiller
“In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.” — Catherine MacKinnon
“The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.” — Sally Miller Gearhart
That’s just historical feminists. The current bunch of misandrists are far less interesting. It’s just people like Marcotte who were outraged at the privilege that men have to be innocent until proven guilty in rape cases.
Some women (and men) ARE wombats. A wombat is a lover who eats roots and leaves. 😉
@Speedbudget
Schrödinger’s Rapist.
But then, MRAs would probably understand it as “all men are rapists” anyway.
My beloved family members said to me “if a woman follows a man into a dark alley, she DESERVES to be raped”, or, to put it another way, he SHOULD rape her! 🙁 🙁 🙁
Buttman, those were the radical feminists that David was speaking of in the OP. Perhaps you should read it?
If I had a nickel for every time some fool brought up Solanas, I could buy a nice lunch, at the very least.
In my experience, this is true.
Oops, that should say “the threat of rape …”
“Buttman, those were the radical feminists that David was speaking of in the OP. Perhaps you should read it?”
Actually, he was arguing that it was a misrepresentation of what a feminist thought. Those “radical” statements came from mainstream feminists.
@abeille: Not only would they, they do.
Schrödinger’s Rapist isn’t the opposite of “some men are not rapists,” it’s the opposite of “no men are rapists.” It says “∃ a man, such that he is a rapist” (which is true) not “∄ a man, such that he is not a rapist” (which is false). But MRAs don’t seem to accept that, or understand the distinction.
As long as a significant portion of half the population make rape jokes a significant portion of the other half of the population are going to suspect that they may be rapists.
That should not really be hard to grasp.
Yes, Assman, the Duke Lacrosse case means that there is no such thing as rape.
Unicode fail!
Anyway, Magpie, the whole “deserves to be raped” notion is the depressingly common erasure of the rapist as sentient being.
Though, typing this, I do wonder if there are people who would respond to “in an ideal world, there’d be no rapists” with (though obviously not in so many words) “but then what would prevent women from walking alone on dark streets?”
“Yes, Assman, the Duke Lacrosse case means that there is no such thing as rape.”
White on Black rape is so rare that even a man-hating feminist should have allow innocence until proven guilt.
Listening to MRA’s talk about it? Listening to almost anyone, really. I know plenty of people who actually agree with most *actual* feminist leanings and still think feminists are insane man-haters out to something something I never read the manual.
@Hershele Ostropoler
In the theoretical game of Schrodinger’s Cat, the question is, is the cat dead or alive? There is no guess work for Schrodinger’s Rapist. Any man placed in the box is a rapist, hence the term rapist. Or is the question still the same? Is the man, dubbed a rapist by the name on the box, dead or alive?
@thebewilderness
“As long as a significant portion of half the population make rape jokes a significant portion of the other half of the population are going to suspect that they may be rapists.”
Your statement indicates as a fact that a significant portion of half the population does indeed make rape jokes. Much like Hershele Ostropoler’s Schrodinger’s Rapist game, guilt is assumed.
Wombats are adorable.
Brownmiller’s thesis is much more subtle than that: you can’t pull out one sentence out of context and expect it to tell you what was up in a several-hundred-page book. Essentially, she theorizes that under patriarchy the threat of rape is a tool of control of women, especially of their sexualities. “Don’t be too slutty, you’ll get raped. Don’t go out alone, you’ll get raped. Don’t go to parties, you’ll get raped.” That way, patriarchy insures that more women are sexually inexperienced or virginal and under the thumb of men.
Your second sentence is not a quote from MacKinnon, it’s a quote from Professing Feminism, an anti-feminist book, summarizing what the author thinks MacKinnon’s theories are.
I’ve never heard of Gearheart, so I highly doubt she’s a mainstream feminist voice today. I cannot find that quote online, except on MRA websites, nor can I find the essay it’s apparently from.
@blitzgal
“Yes, Assman, the Duke Lacrosse case means that there is no such thing as rape.”
Would you find a flippant remark by an MRA, such as, “Yes, blitzgal, case x of a woman brutally beaten and raped means that there is no such thing as a false accusation,” vile and hateful?
Guess what you are?
Somebody misusing or inventing quotes from feminists to distort and misrepresent their views? I’ve never heard of such a thing!
So… how ’bout that book, everyone? I really like the plot, and there is characterization, which is good. The protagonist is likable, and I find myself taking their side in events overall. The feminist character is a bit shrill and distorted, though, and I find she isn’t really representative of feminism at all.
@Ozymandias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Miller_Gearhart
I’ve read Gearhart’s best known sf novel (THE WANDERGROUND) which is one of the lesser known feminist utopias of the seventies feminist utopias–it was the least interesting to me, and I don’t have a strong memory of it.
Despite the claims of all feminist being lesbians, I think many of the lesbian feminists are less well known generally, for whatever reason.
I haven’t read a lot of her work, as I said, but given the typical MRA quoting style, I’d be willing to bet that the quote has a good chance of coming from her Fiction.
Or not at all.
I googled it myself and only found it on MRA type sites.
I have a little free time now because finals are over, so let’s play a fun game of Factcheck the Quotes on Buttman’s Link! Follow along here: http://www.womenagainstmen.com/media/feminism-is-a-hate-group.html
Robin Morgan’s quote, in context, does not refer to hating men, it refers to hating the male role, in much the same way as poor people may hate the rich, people of color white people, or trans people cis people– because the oppressor tends to be a douchebag to the oppressed. You can disagree with her model of how gender works, but it’s certainly not misandric in and of itself.
No fucking feminists like Solanas. Seriously. Lady’s a murderer and disconnected from this plane of reality. Every movement has at least one complete wacko.
The third quote is from a fictional novel by Andrea Dworkin and is almost certainly not meant to be an expression of her actual beliefs.
The forth quote was already discussed above.
The fifth is by Sharon Stone, who is an actress and not known for being a feminist activist afaik; quoting her does not prove feminists are evil, it proves that a woman said a stupid thing once. It can also be easily interpreted in a nonproblematic way– i.e. that a woman has to be famous to have the power to hurt men. This may or may not be TRUE, but it is not an expression of man-hatred. Finally, I did not find a source for this outside the usual MRA websites.
The sixth and seventh are discussed above.
The eighth is a lady I’ve never heard of and she does not have a Wikipedia page. One random person saying a stupid thing once does not mean feminists are evil.
The ninth is, again, from a work of fiction and does not represent the beliefs of the author.
The tenth is a quote from Greer’s the Female Eunuch. It probably refers to masculinity and how, under conditions of patriarchy, masculinity is fragile and must continually be earned, even if you don’t fucking want to earn it. In fact, this is a pro-male statement.
By the numbers, we have:
FOUR ladies who are not mainsteam feminist theorists
THREE misinterpretations
TWO quotes from works of fiction
ONE fabricated quote
And a partridge in a feminists-aren’t-actually-evil tree!
Fiction writers often have characters in their books say and do things the writer does not agree with or approve of. It means nothing.
MRA’s , like many people, have a fantasy about a group of people and act as though the fantasy is real. They’re fighting people who don’t exist.