“Men’s Studies” has existed as an academic discipline for several decades now. Not surprisingly, most of those involved in it identify themselves as feminists – as people interested in studying gender tend to do. But not all of them: A couple of years back, a group of mostly anti-feminist academics and popular writers with an interest in gender decided to try to do a sort of end run around the discipline of “Men’s Studies” by conjuring up a whole new, altogether un-feminist discipline called “Male Studies.”
Recently, The University of South Australia announced that it would start offering postgraduate courses in Male Studies sometime in 2014; our old friend Eoghan/Sigil1 brought this earthshattering news to the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day, where it was greeted with … suspicion and hostility.
GotMyFrogHatOn wrote:
Great, now men have the same opportunity as women to waste their time and money on a worthless degree!
Liverotto was even blunter:
YES, because the cure to bullshit is… MORE BULLSHIT! /s
That’s right: Men’s Rights Redditors hate Women’s Studies, and Gender Studies, and apparently every academic discipline with the word “Studies” in it so much that they’ve transferred this hatred to a new academic discipline that could well have been (and sort of was) designed just for them.
But don’t worry, they still hate Women’s Studies the most:
What was I saying the other day about projection?
I am not sure what kind of “homeopathy” you are talking about blothne, but if you’re talking about the kind that says “diluting this substance in water (with magical shaking motions) to the point where statistically speaking none of the molecules are likely to remain in the sample you are currently holding will cure your various ailments” then badnotfierce is totally correct to call it “junk science”. They are also totally right in that homeopaths often make claims about the supposed failure of evidence-based medicine in order to sell their wares, up to the point where they (homeopaths) sometimes claim that the medical mainstream is suppressing evidence that homeopathy works because it would cut into doctors’ or pharmaceutical companies’ profits. Some homeopathic practitioners are so mistrustful of the medical establishment that they convince their patients to stop existing treatments for their illnesses, including cancer. I don’t know about internet ads, but who else would be responsible for homeopathic “treatment” ads but companies that sell said homeopathic products?
“I think we misandrists should use complete sentences, and dress up — preferably with top hats and monocles.”
If teeny tiny top hats and pocket watches count, then I’m way ahead of you on that one. (Note the Misandry! of the conditional statement XD )
“But then again, I am a woman, and we’re supposed to be fitted for lives of quiet drudgery, so there’s that….Tell me again how this feminizes boys?” — you answered your own question VoIP
I don’t do monocles. Top hat, check (well silk opera hat). Tails, check. Cloak, check. Walking stick, check. Gold pocket watch? Check.
I’m all set for a night on the town, being misandrist.
It’s all about how crazy those lesbians are who say they aren’t attracted to men, yet their partners have all these masculine traits! How crazy, right? If you are attracted to people who wear pants and have short hair, why not just be attracted to dudes? Cause we’re in preschool and only men wear pants and only women wear dresses…
That guy must go on a lot of awkward third dates with long-haired men in kilts.
I would love to see MRAs try to pass off their bullshit in an academic setting
“Open your books to page 25. We will now read a quotation from the esteemed scholar ‘Cooter Bee’ about how all women are irrational bitches”
Kladle said:
“Some homeopathic practitioners are so mistrustful of the medical establishment that they convince their patients to stop existing treatments for their illnesses, including cancer. ”
My aunt (who spent fifty five years working at Auckland hospital on their oncology/haemotology wards) came across this a lot. There were (and still are) plenty of alternative therapists and faith healers, of one kind and another, who would take away patients from their treatment rooms and try to cure them with a variety of treatments of their own. According to her not one of the alternative treatments worked and they’d all come back eventually, hoping that conventional medicine could save them but far to late for anything but palliative care. Some of these people would not have survived even if they’d stayed with conventional medicine, but many of them could have had at least a fighting chance. I don’t know if anyone remembers Milan Brych but he was one of the most persistent and dangerous of the alternative therapists and Jean (my aunt) and the other doctors and nurses at Auckland hospital had him disbarred (this was during the 70’s) to practice in NZ and I know she still considers him no better than a murderer. I remember as a teenager listening to her talk about it and I’ve never seen her so angry, even years later she was still spitting chips and I don’t blame her in the slightest.
I’m more than “leary”. That website seems to be a community comprised entirely of wife beaters and date rapists. I’d be scared of someone who believes that shit.
I loled at Varpole calling darksidecat “hysterical.” Protip: “U mad, bro?” only works when somebody actually sounds angry, fool. But I guess it’s only natural for a misogynist to exaggerate the emotionality of someone he thinks is a woman while stroking his own sexism.
Good point. To say that I’m leery of someone who endorses the Manhood Academy is an understatement. I noticed Artistry against Misandry also listed them as a men’s rights group.
That’s what I’m wondering about. How can they make an entire course of study devoted the the theory of women=suck?
There’s a reason Playboy has always been much more popular than Playgirl. Women just aren’t as interested in looking at naked men as men are in looking at naked women. This isn’t body shaming, it’s just the way it is.
@Dracula
And now I willingly eat humble pie, and concede to being shown for an optimistic fool.
@ Pecunium – I know of Aphra Behn as a novelist and play-write, (and, if that wasn’t awesome enough, a spy), I had no idea she was a scientist too. What did she do?
@Ruby
That probably has more to do with the repression of woman’s sexuality, coupled with the fact that, for a long time, women didn’t have the disposable income to purchase playgirl, therefore there wasn’t a market for it.
Not only is this an inherently stupid thing to say, but even if this were true, it would still not validate this: Nudity is not a great look for men. Sorry guys.
A man’s naked body is not there to scintillate women (and vice versa), so whether or not women want to see men naked has no bearing on whether or not men look good naked.
Shadow – Believe me, I’d have much preferred to have been proven wrong on this one.
VoIP wrote: “The notion of bodily and intellectual discipline on which these institutions rested was gendered masculine: just like factory work or military service, schooling involved sustained effort, which only men and boys were supposed to be strong enough to undertake.”
FWIW, my younger sister worked as a newspaper reporter before she went to law school. She did a story where she visited a local elementary school and told me later that it was so different from our school in the 1960s. She talked of how the children were encouraged to speak up, move around, work in groups, etc. We had the same first grade teacher and we were terrified of her. My sister even wet her pants because she was too afraid to raise her hand and ask to go to the restroom.
But somehow MRAs are convinced that boys do worse than girls in schools now because children are expected to sit down and keep quiet, as opposed to the past when, as far as I can tell, schools were more rigid and draconian. Bottom line for them: Girls do worse at school, it’s the girls’ fault; boys do worse at school, it’s the school’s fault.
I’m not opposed to finding more effective ways of teaching all children. I just don’t buy that schools have become more authoritative and that’s why girls are doing better.
There’s also the fact that the pornographic world is mostly controlled by men, so that Playboy is made by men for men and Playgirl is made by men for women. Therefore, while Playboy is basically designed to respond to men’s desires, Playgirl is design to respond to men’s belief of women’s desires.
Similarly, lesbian porn. Lesbian porn is principally oriented around what men want to see women do to each other, not what women want to see women do to each other.
I sometimes wonder if sales of Playgirl would increase or decrease if they featured softcore gay content…
Sounds like GWW has a challenger for World’s Specialest Snowflake
@Ruby
I think you’ll be surprised to find there is a whole lot of porn around the net that women like. none of it quite like play girl seeing as at his point its being made by women from the ideas of what they want. not you know from the idea of what some guy who didn’t ask a woman what she would want to look at.
The fact that men like to look at naked women more than vice versa probably has a lot more to do with women being the fairer sex than sexual repression. I’m not saying men aren’t nice to look at. It’s just that I’d rather view GQ than Playgirl.
But men are hot! I mean, have you seen them?
Ruby, that I said attacking you for your stupid views was a waste of time when you *weren’t* bringing them up does not mean that I will say that when you *are* bringing them up.
There has been a lot of things that were “just the way they are” at the time like slavery and women not being allowed vote. Just because thats how it is now doesn’t mean its natural or “just how things are”.
You are such a dumbass ruby, you buy so into what society tells you about men and women despite supposedly being a feminist. I mean you base the most attractive gender based on what most men find attractive. Will you cut it out with the men=default crap thanks?
You also fail to account that women have a history of being wayy sexually repressed than men. Like back in the day it was literally considered a disease for a woman to exhibit too much sexual attraction. These things still effect us as a culture today, though to a way lesser extent in some places. It takes a long time for such a widely held idea to be utterly demolished and since we don’t live in a perfectly equal society you have to take in account prejudices and how they effect people. For example, trans and gay people have a high rate of suicide. This is not because they naturally have that tendency but because its still not entirely social acceptable to be trans or gay.
Sure, Jumbofish, anyone who doesn’t think like you is a dumbass, right? I admire your tolerance.
If it were so easy to sexually repress people so that they denied their true desires, gay people could learn not to be sexally attracted to people of the same sex. And we all know that’s impossible. Can you sexually repress males so much that they don’t find naked women sexually attractive? Somehow I doubt it.