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.
I’m sure woman #2 would be very glad for woman #1 to help her or her children out if they got sick or hurt and had to go to the emergency room.
Scented fucking candles were the #1 consumer product in 2010. In 2011, the top consumer product was hands-free fucking video cameras.
http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list
my mom also had me at 30s and my MIL had my husband at 34 I think….so all her concern trolling is absolutly bullshit. Also I am a magician, and have performed at the magic castle! and am doing volunteer work and have many wonderful family and friends…I feel very fulfilled and happy after 25 and so do many many other women…..I think Pecunium is right…these men and women(who i don’t understand why they think this way) REally get angry at the thought that yes, women can lead fulfilling lives!
BTW if you want to hear more Andi that will make your blood boil, she was also going on and on about how working mothers weren’t real mothers and how she only went to college to get a MRS degree…
What I find ironic is this…she hates feminists for empowering women for having control in their lives..and seems to think that feminsts brainwash women unto tdoing stuff they don’t want to do….but her and her friends are the ones that want to shame and control women into making choices they want
errrr sorry if I have been rambeling lately….just have a lot on my mind…tell me to shut up if I am being annoying lol
Average marriage age in the US is 26/28.
Women don’t usually become infertile in their 20’s so it’s perfectly fine for them to wait on marriage and children. And choosing not to procreate is a great choice for many people.
BTW, Mainstay’s Black Cherry is my favorite scented candle. I put the $5 candle in my candle warmer and it makes the room smell so good.
@katz: Okay, that means plenty of women in the US as well are getting married when they’re like thirty or so.
It’s always a little problematic to speculate about what’s going on inside of other people, but I wonder if this isn’t stemming from the same place as ‘Left Behind’-esque cosmic revenge fantasies. Sure, you’re having fun now, doing what you want to do, having fun sex with no guilt, and you have independence and a disposable income and don’t have to change diapers … but someday, you’ll realize how wrong you were, and it will be too late, and THEN you’ll be sorry! I can’t help but think that’s at least part of what’s behind the virulent anger from “shieldmaidens.”
The scented candles thing I don’t get at all. Do stay-at-home moms not use scented candles? Why not? Just put them where any kids who are too young to understand ‘we don’t touch fire’ can’t reach them. Scented candles are nice.
I realize that women who do not have or want children are worthless and should kill themselves, but do I get a pass since I carry the gene that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy? This means that if I have a son (DMD almost only affects boys; misandry, I know), there is a good chance that he will have it, which will deteriorate his muscles until he can no longer walk or breathe on his own. There is no cure and most men with DMD die in their late teens or early twenties. Am I still a reprehensible bitch for not wanting to bring a child into the world that may have this dreadful disease? In their mind, I probably am.
I’m normally an incense kind of woman, but those sound awesome! I’ve never seen them though. Where can I further the oppression of men by buying some?
That makes a lot of sense. I couldn’t wrap my feeble female brain around the point she was trying to make. All I could think was, What in the fuck do scented candles have to do with anything?
Yankee Candle is one of the largest candle retailers in the country and they just came out with a line of scented candles FOR MEN. http://www.yankeecandle.com/yankee-candles/man-candles I’m sure this is some type of misandry.
The “women become infertile at 26” is a weird bit of concern trolling that a lot of women’s magazines use. After all, women’s magazines only run about 10 different types of stories, one of which is “I had a great career and got married at 30 but then couldn’t have a child and my life is meaningless.” It’s written in a way that tries to play it off as just a bit of information (you need to be aware of this just so that it doesn’t happen to you) but in reality it’s a way to scare women. Because scared women buy shit, and magazines are all about selling you shit.
Some people can only be happy in their life decisions if they are able to put down everyone who makes a different decision. The idea that you could be married, or single, or have children or not and all be happy is foreign to these people. Life is a game with only one correct path. Everyone who is on the path that isn’t you must, therefore, be miserable.
“In 2011, the top consumer product was hands-free fucking video cameras.”
I think you meant to say HANDS-FREE FUCKING VIDEO CAMERAS.
Thanks, feminism!
What a piece of shit, just like the boys in the tree house she’s so desperate to find entry into.
Lady commenters say “fucking” a lot.
Well, I’m 45 and I haven’t had kids, so I guess I ain’t a woman. Does that mean I’m going to get a 30% raise at work?
My biological clock was ticking pretty loudly in my middle 30’s, but then I spent 2 years being a full-time nanny, and it shut down completely. I love being an auntie. Don’t want to be a mom AT ALL. Full-time, 24/7 child care is not good for my mental health.
What the fucking fuck? My resume rapes currency? What kind of drugs to you have to take to come up with that? Even if she mean “reap” instead of “rape”, it still doesn’t make any fucking sense.
I’m pretty sure the 26 yo woman is Holly, and yes, providing medical care in an emergency room is certainly doing utterly useless shit. I’m also heartened to know that the female EMTs and firefighters I know are doing utterly useless shit. Not to mention the daycare providers, teachers, engineers, electricians, plumbers, cooks, health inspectors, etc. etc. etc. are serving no useful function in society, and are just getting paid for no apparent reason.
And I see no logical connection between women working and children being raised without fathers. Also, these Family Values people are always going on about the evils or GIANT ASS government without ever seeming to notice that it’s conservative governments who become GIANT ASS while at the same time cutting all the support systems that they’re so contemptuous of. Why, why, WHY can’t they use critical thinking skills?
****
I actually don’t like scented fucking candles, because their scent has a waxy, chemically undertone. I prefer a pot of simmering water with a few drops of essential oil in it. Much cleaner scent.
I denounce thee women, from whence scented candles didst spring!!!
/is a devout despiser of scented candles
10 bucks says her daughters are coming for us because they’re planning on ditching her dumb ass as soon as they can. I think what Andie considers a charge, the rest of the world recognizes as defection
Like I observed, lady commenters say “fucking” a lot.
Elmer: in this cas, it’s on topic. If it annoys misogynists, that’s a fucking plus.
Maybe the problem with candles is that ladies quickly escalate to the “Johnny Wadd” model, which tends to jade them somewhat.
@Uncle Elmer, I sure fucking do! Lots of other women fucking don’t! It’s fucking almost like women have individual fucking communication styles, like fucking men fucking do. Do you have a fucking point?
@Unimaginative,
Ooh, that sounds really nice!
I only see a few “lady commenters” saying fucking in this thread, and I notice I have both been saying “fucking” more than usual and have a penis.
I think you have more observing to do, Uncle Elmer.
Elmer has taught us an important rule: If you say something and the very next post isn’t replying to it, say it again.
It’s always nice when total strangers tell me that I’m not really a woman because I don’t want kids. I’m pretty sure, though, that both my doctor and the tech who did my last pelvic ultrasound would be very surprised by this…
Uncle Elmer: What’s the big fuckin’ deal? Fuck, fuckity fuck fuck fuck!
And yes, I swear like this in real life, too. In front of my mother and husband (and even my father, when he was alive)!