Men’s Rights Activists and manosphere misogynists love to complain that I “cherry pick” quotes in an attempt to make them look bad. Which makes it especially ironic that all too often when I call them out on some particular bit of bullshit, they more or less double down on that bullshit, reiterating and in many cases amplifying the terrible things they originally said.
Several days ago, I wrote about a Spearhead post from W.F. Price with the priceless title “After 25, Women Are Just Wasting Time.” It was appalling even by Spearhead standards. Price used the untimely death of a talented young writer named Marina Keegan as an opportunity to rehash the belief, widely held in the manosphere, that women over the age of 25 who haven’t managed to snag themselves a “good husband” are “just wasting time,” growing older and uglier and less appealing to men. (Evidently, women’s appeal to men is the only thing that really matters about them.)
Price’s article inspired numerous comments from Spearheaders that were even more grotesquely misogynistic and cruel than his own post; Price at least pretended to care about the dead girl, even though his post was a crass and opportunistic insult to her memory.
And it inspired one regular Man Boobz commenter, a 26-year-old woman, to wade into the muck that is the Spearhead’s comments section to point out that Price’s grand narrative of female decline after age 25 has no relation whatsoever to her own life story:
I’m 26 years old. 27 terrifyingly soon. I am nothing like the person I was when I graduated college.
After originally getting a film degree, I’ve just started nursing school.
I’m living on the other side of the country and loving the different culture here.
I’m dating a wonderful guy who mysteriously didn’t dump me on my 25th birthday.
I’m doing difficult, not always fun, but ultimately socially useful work, work I couldn’t imagine myself doing when I graduated college.Since I graduated college, I’ve read more books, worked on more movies, learned more skills, lifted more weight, traveled more places, marched in more protests, gotten published more times, saved more lives than I thought I ever would.
And I’m still only 26.
You think I’m going to stop protesting and writing and working the wild Saturday midnight shift in the ER before I’m 30? Before I’m 60?
Or do you think it doesn’t matter because I might not be as fuckable then?
Well then fuck you. I’m 26 and I got miles to go.
–
(Oh, and I’m way better at sex now. Guys who thought I hit my “expiration date” just around the time I was first learning what a Kegel was, you are missing out.)
The Spearheaders responded, predictably enough, with downvotes and insults and a lot of mainsplainy comments suggesting that she’s regret it forever if she doesn’t get married ASAP and start popping out children.
The strangest comment of the bunch came from a Spearhead “Shieldmaiden” (that’s what they call female commenters on The Spearhead, for reals) by the name of Andie, who launched into a barely coherent tirade that somehow revolved around, er, SCENTED CANDLES!
Price, after seeing Andie’s rant mocked by the commenters here, decided to feature it today as the Spearhead “Comment of the Week.” So without further ado, here is what Price considers to be the Spearhead community at its best:
@26 year old woman
Let’s see how you feel when you’re 29 and the end of everything possible is right at your doorstep. Hell, lots of women are infertile at 26. Done. You won’t do everything. You won’t be a mother.
And if that doesn’t bother you, darlin’, you ain’t a woman.
And if your plans are to actually BE a mother (as in do the damn work), you are already in very deep water.
Your resume will never put his chubby little arms around you and tell you he loves you, like a child will. Your resume will never give you grandchildren, like your children might. Your resume will never share in all your joys, all your sorrows, all your triumphs, all your tragedies, like your husband will.
But you WILL be able to rape that resume of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS over your lifetime. Yay!
The fastest growing consumer product category: scented candles. SCENTED FUCKING CANDLES.
Yes, 26 year old woman, all your education and opportunity and rights have resulted in millions of children raised without fathers, the total destruction of the family, the rise of GIANT ASS government to give all those wymyns a place to work (doing utterly useless shit) and what was it for? What did we gain?
SCENTED FUCKING CANDLES!!
Nicely done, ladies. Really good job.
Fuck you, bitch. My daughters are coming for you. And millions of daughters just like mine. We see you, you superficial piece of trash. You have cost us our lives. For patchouli candles.
You will pay.
Go back and read @26 year old woman’s comment, then read Andie’s again. Quite a contrast, wouldn’t you say?
I should note that when Price first posted the quote, he evidently left out the last few paragraphs; perhaps even he realized they were a tad over the line as a response to a woman whose only real “crime” was telling the Spearheaders that her life was interesting and fulfilling to her, and that she wasn’t planning on having any babies in the foreseeable future. (And if they didn’t approve of her life, too fucking bad for them.)
In the comments to Price’s “Comment of the Week” post, HL offers this thought:
Every time something like this comes up, it becomes ever more apparent that the ignorance, hate mongering, bigotry and fallacies rests so much more heavily on the side of the feminists.
To paraphrase Rick James, lack of self-awareness is a hell of a drug.
So the argument here is that … only women are employed in the scented-candle industry? Or that women are only employed in the scented-candle industry? Or that scented candles have anything to do with anything? Okay then.
“all your education and opportunity and rights”
Good to know the Shieldmaiden disapproves of her education, opportunity, and rights because babies.
Isn’t the “argument” that women are only employed in government sponsered jobs, because on the free market nobody wants to hire them, and these women then use their salary to buy scented candles.
Er… I THINK that’s what she’s trying to get across. It’s still…. batshit crazy.
Oh no! Her daughters are coming after me!
This thought leaves me strangely unaffected, and I doubt andie was going for laughs.
I wonder what it would take to convince these people that even at the advanced age of forty, I’m not particularly concerned about getting married (except to avoid the possibility perhaps)?
What is so terrible about having the occassional woman who does not want kids or marriage? And I highly doubt that many women who reach my age with out the wedding but wanted one are weeping into their pillows each night. Surely most women by this age have learned to handle disappointment more gracefully?
scented candles rule especially the ones with the wooden wicks that make the firecracklin noise
I suppose this is a “good comment” because the incoherence makes is harder to understand.
Or something.
Makes me wish I had a good bayberry candle.
Mmm, loganberry.
Seriously though, my husband’s the biggest boon to the scented candle industry there ever was. And you can pry his patchouli from his cold, dead hands.
Would someone please explain the resume metaphor to me? I just don’t…
pillowinhell: What is so terrible about having the occassional woman who does not want kids or marriage?
It undermines the basic tenet that women are infantile, incapable and need a man to function.
It really does seem to be that simple with a great deal of the misogynists of the world.
The manosphere has the (non-trivial) contingent which thinks any woman who isn’t married is evil for existing; past puberty, unless she sleeps with them. If she won’t, then she’s either a shameless flirt: assaulting them with her sexiness; while not putting out,or she’s a brazen-harlot for not putting out with them
But it’s all predicate, in both camps, on women being unable to function on their own. That one does calls the entire philosophy into question. It’s not really a surprise that rant was written by a woman who is fellow-travelling with them. She needs to believe it more than they do, because she seems to have modeled her life on the idea.
I think the argument is that women who earn income by working are preventing men from earning that same income in that same job, and then the women spend that money frivolously on SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING CANDLES!! If a man had that job, of course, he would spend the money on Important Manly Things. Certainly, they wouldn’t buy scented candles, because those have girl cooties!
It makes a lot of sense, really, when you remember that women don’t need to eat or clothe themselves or their dependants because of ladymagic; and no man has ever spent his money on something just for his own amusement. And of course, buying something for your amusement is bad, because things that make you happy that you buy with your own money are sinful and wrong.
There you go misrepresenting MRAs again by directly quoting the comment of the week from one of their most popular websites.
Cloudiah: Would someone please explain the resume metaphor to me? I just don’t…
A job can’t love you. It may provide you with a home, and food, and clothing, but it’s not going to love you.
So, one needs a baby; which will love you, unconditionally, and without reservation. Men, of course, aren’t in the same boat. A job can, “fulfill” them, but women can’t do that. The “biological clock” will make them have a sad.
BTW, Ami reminded us of why babies are so important for women:
http://m.quickmeme.com/meme/3pgq6f/
I think “scented candles” serve the same symbolic purpose as “white or pink wine that comes in boxes.” Both are stereotypical lifestyle ornaments of the lonely, childless career woman.
I should clarify it was the resume-raping that was giving me pause. Thanks Viscaria and Pecunium!
How are Andie’s daughters coming for us if they’re going to be too busy pounding out babies and not going to college? Oh, right, they won’t be.
How in the world could you describe 26-year-old-woman’s original post as a “nasty comment?” And how could you then turn around and commend the response? The only “nasty” bit is the “fuck you” at the end, but by god the response was worse than that! (If only logically by containing “fucky you bitch” plus other stuff)
And for that, feminism is a cult… And “zomg your sooo angry! Why are you sooo angry?” *sigh* Not angry, but annoyed and flabberghasted that you are saying that women (and only women) are completely worthless after about 1/4 to 1/3 of their total life span.
Which, according to WTF Price, is actually just a criticism of the ideology of “boundless possibility and limitless options.” Good lord, you could hold a spaceship stable with that spin.
By the way, was this
In Price’s original post? Cause it’d be hilarious if Price was stealth editing his posts while labeling critics as all angry and foaming and raging and nonsensical. That’d be great.
And as I said before on this page; I don’t know what the average age for getting married among women is in the USA, but here in Sweden it’s 34. That’s the AVERAGE age women are getting married. Meaning lots and lots of women are even OLDER than THAT!
Maybe it’s lower in the USA, but I seriously doubt that in your country almost nobody gets married when they’re past 25.
I propose we come up with a new word to describe Formerly-Known-As-Childless-Women. Something sparkly and appreciative.
In all honesty, though, I’d LOVE to hear what these people have to say about overpopulation in the world. A few women deciding to not have children does NOT spell the end of humanity.
Oddly, enough last night I was doing a Pagan ritual and I used incense and scented candles…I remember how at peace it made me feel and relazed.
Then when I woke up this morining and saw this….I burst out laughing
The 26 year old is Pervocracy, right?
I know my parents got married at around 30ish. And they… wait for it…
Had kids. *dramatic sting*
And my mom… wait for it…
Had a career! *even more dramatic sting*
While raising kids! *the dramatic in this sting is overwhelming*
After having gotten a college degree (unlike my dad)!!! *oh-gods-the-drama-tic sting*
My god… you mean it’s possible for women to do stuff after about three or four years after they graduate college? Seriously. And that’s just undergad. If you talk graduate school, women would basically be useless upon graduation. Fuck.
Yeah right, I don’t have children and I’m not planning to either (35 now, so I don’t think it likely that I will change my mind). Does this make me a man? Or something else?
For any spear-headers happening to read the comments, let me clarify. I know you aren’t saying that its impossible for women to do anything worth-while after 25 if they don’t have kids. But think about this for a sec:
How many women have gone through grad school?
Since you’re claiming that the norm is for women to basically be worthless after 25, why in the world hasn’t it been brought to peoples attention that the majority of women with graduate degrees lead unfufilling lives?
And for gods’ sakes, think about how many female politicians, ceos, activists, and so forth are over 25. And you still want to claim that your life is set at 25? Guh.