Over on The Spearhead, W.F. Price celebrates the harassment directed at Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes Against Women video project as a sign of a powerful new backlash against the evils of feminism, a backlash he’s proud to be a part of. Dudes being obnoxious to a woman on the internet: Men’s Rights at its finest.
Oh, sure, Price acknowledges, some of the attacks on her were “juvenile” – and thus not as effective as they might otherwise have been — and the controversy did enable Sarkeesian to raise more than $130,000 for her project, but Price even sees this as a victory of sorts:
As for Sarkeesian’s success, we should be happy about it, because I can’t think of a more worthless way to spend over a hundred thousand dollars than in finger-wagging over video games. For one thing, it’s sure to piss even more guys off, and the game industry is very competitive, so her documentary (now expanded to 12 parts!) will likely have zero effect on production and consumption of this form of entertainment. The feminists are simply pissing all the money away, and that’s fine, because this time they’re paying for it themselves.
No question about it: those grapes were definitely sour.
Naturally, the Spearhead regulars were overjoyed by these new signs of, er, progress. Here are some highlights from the discussion that followed; lest I be accused once again of cherry-picking outliers, each and every one of the comments I quote below got literally dozens of net upvotes. This is what these guys really think.
Mojo offers a sort of backlash manifesto:
Feminists will never understand that it is -they- who are the oppressors. They cling to their delusion that they are the ‘underdog’ against the system, even as they control the system.
Revolution requires an enemy class to attack … this is seen as justified when the enemy class controls the system. But feminism is perpetual revolution. So what happens when they gain control over the system? They continue to attack the enemy class, i.e. men, thinking they are striking the next blow against the patriarchy, when what they are doing is more like a pogrom.
Yep, he went there.
Now -they- are the system, they are able and more than willing to intimidate, humiliate, expropriate. It will get indefinitely worse if they have their way. Liberal feminism leads -necessarily- to radical feminism.
Still, we don’t need feminists to ‘understand’ that they are the persecutors (I imagine some of them know this full well and are just misandrist sadists, little Eichmanns). It doesn’t matter what they think or know or understand. What matters is what -we- think, know and understand, and how we are going to act on it.
So … like the swivel-eyed feminist lunatics progressing from attempted assassinations to laying the foundations for institutional and legal abuse … I ask you – what are we going to DO with this knowledge and awareness beyond changing online discourse? …
Thinking like a leftist, though: why not attach ourselves to the GOP in order to subvert its gender politics and radicalize it in the MRA direction? That kind of approach has worked wonders for leftists and their infiltrations into public institutions …
Huh. Reactionary anti-feminists attaching themselves to the Republican Party? No one’s ever thought of that before.
Keyster offers some equally, er, innovative thinking:
Feminism has failed because women as a group adopted the notion of “equality” with men, while stubbornly clinging to their sexual/reproductive power over men. Had feminism truly helped women “realize their greatness”, there’d be far more great women. Instead there’s just more feminists. It’s run it’s course over 3 generations and it’s out of time to prove itself righteous.
The original “male chauvanist pigs” of the early 70′s, were right all along. Women are biologically and chemically ill-equipped to be men. If the Creator had meant women to be more like men, he wouldn’t have given them the ability to bring forth life from their bodies.
Ryu not only embraces the backlash, but seems perfectly fine with the notion that the Men’s Rights movement is a hate movement:
Good. Hatred and anger are power. Whenever you hear someone say “stop the hate”, it is a call to throw down your greatest weapons.
Young Guy purports to speak for all young guys (manginas presumably excepted):
If feminists think men, especially young men, are angry, they don’t know the half of it. As a 26 year-old male, I have seen this society bend over backwards to accommodate women all the time.
The school curriculums are geared toward female success. Schools have countless women’s programs. Female teachers can be as hateful as they want towards male students without facing consequences. People cheer when girls succeed in school, but jeer when boys succeed in school. Even though females have every advantage in the education system, they somehow still have the audacity to complain. They take fluff majors but don’t realize anyone with less than half a brain could pass classes in the humanities and social sciences.
What makes so many MRAs such proud yahoos?.
Oh, and just look at the workplace. Sexual harassment laws give women freedom to dress slutty and still have the nerve to complain when men sneak a peek. If you are a man who has a female co-worker, you have to walk on eggshells everyday or else you can get fired because the twat in the other room got her panties in a bunch over something minor you said. You can be a man who has busted his ass everyday to succeed in your chosen profession, only to see it mean nothing because some woman who was nothing more than an affirmative action hire. If this isn’t bad enough, you get these useless women who are subpar, yet they still never shut up about breaking through the mythical glass-ceiling that they didn’t break and didn’t exist in the first place.
Working men, forever cursed by subpar women.
Also, I have really had enough of women dragging this country down with their dead-weight. Female soldiers, police officers, and firefighters are liabilities. No, all you ladies in these jobs, you aren’t heroes. I am going to go insane if I hear one more female soldier, police officer, or firefighter cry about not getting the respect she thinks she deserves. She doesn’t get respect because she doesn’t deserve respect. The military, law enforcement, and firefighters would be A LOT better off if women stopped lowering the bar to astronomical proportions.
“Lowering the bar to astronomical proportions?” Young Guy here has clearly not yet mastered the fine art of metaphor.
He blabs on a bit longer before wrapping up with:
The backlash is not only real, but it is well-deserved. Apologies won’t erase the damage which has been done. Acting like what happened because of feminism either didn’t happen or was minor is a slap in the face. Saying women have suffered from feminism just as much as men is like spitting in the faces of all the men who have suffered ten lifetimes of pain because of feminism.
Not one, not two, not five, but ten lifetimes of pain? MRAs really are the world’s greatest drama kings.
Andrew S., meanwhile, seems a little confused as to what feminists would like to see happening in the video game industry:
It will be interesting to see if feminists can ruin the gaming industry like they ruin pretty much everything else. There is a lot of money being made off “gamers,” and even guys like me who play the occasional game but aren’t hardcore contribute a lot of money to the industry.
I doubt there are a lot of young guys and men out there who are going to want to play games that involve a bunch of screaming feminists, and where the object of the game is to destroy the “evil patriarchy.” The truth is guys who play games want their female characters to be either hot, large breasted, ass kicking types, or sexy non-feminist types that you save. If the gaming industry changes this dynamic to much due to Feminist/liberal pressure they will destroy a cash cow. And feminism will have yet another “victory.”
Unrestricted and uncriticized access to giant tittied video game ladies: a sacred men’s right!
Kevin evidently speaks for many when he says he wants video games to remain a boys club:
Video games are pretty much the only place that feminism can’t invade unless the principle consumers of them want it. You don’t have to play with girls, or listen to girls, or do other pansy shit. You probably can’t leave a football team and join a different one that has no women, you sure as hell can do that online. Don’t like all the teamwork talk? Play by yourself.
Feminists don’t like video games because; they can’t make them, they can’t force you to buy them or play them even if they did, they couldn’t ruin the experience for you unless you wanted them to.
You can do anything feminists don’t want you to do, and best of all you’re rewarded for it.
Anonymous Age 70 doesn’t even play video games, but he was pleased to learn that you can shoot ladies in them:
Speaking of video games, I am reminded of my son 8 or 10 years ago. I visited him, and he had some kind of shoot-em-up video game. He was partnered with a dearie, and the instant the game started, he always put a bullet in the middle of her forehead. Then, he’d laugh as if it were the funniest thing ever.
I told him he was a sick man, but I was also laughing as if it were the funniest thing ever.
Seriously, he told me he performed better with her dead than needing to be protected.
A great analogy for marriage 2.0, yes?
Women, can’t live them, can’t shoot them in the head. Except in video games!
Criticizing video games is misandry!
Oh m fucking GoD! Did asswipe just complain that its such an injustice for native Canadians to be able to make their own rules in their own fucking land????????
Native people being given a few scraps from the table is SUCH an iNJUSTICE after being conquored, occupied, nearly genocidally wiped out, having their children stolen away and reprogrammed to loath themselves while being beatn,raped and abused in others forms, and having it made illegal to practice their own culture and religion and languages.
So, to sum up. AFLAC objects to feminists speaking for women, but wants to speak for men, because he knows how they really feel, man. He also wants to speak for women, on account of his wife agreeing with him. He doesn’t watch TV, but somehow this does not change the fact that he knows that TV is super anti-male. And for some inexplicable reason he thinks that we should care about his feud with some other MRA.
I’m confused. Why does this person consider himself so important, and why are we supposed to care? So he interpreted various cultural messages in an overly broad way, partly because he doesn’t appear to be capable of understanding that different women want different things from their male partners, and now that he has a partner whose preferences fit a different stereotype to the one that he’d previously assumed to be true, he’s pissy at feminism for not appropriately training him to please his current partner? This person is ridiculous. Also boring. Why don’t we ban trolls for being boring?
About the height thing, I do think that overall it’s easier for a man to be tall than to be short, in terms of dating, if he’s hetero. That’s not a monolithic thing though – I know some women who actively prefer short men because they’re teeny themselves. I’ve dated guys from 5ft5 to 6ft5, and although I’d say I have a slight preference for men in the 5ft9-6ft2 range, as long as they’re appealing in other ways it’s all good until they get to be, say, more than a foot taller than me, at which point things get awkward (it’s rare that I meet men who’re shorter than me). The things that I tend to key in on (pretty faces, bodies much leaner than is considered ideal in North America, very little body hair and none at all on the chest/back, friendliness, kindness) haven’t even come up in this conversation, which I think is a pretty good indication of how far from the reality of women’s actual preferences this kind of generalizing usually is. Any time you start saying “women like this” or “men prefer that” you’re generalizing to the point that it’s pretty much meaningless when it comes to the preferences of individuals. If someone doesn’t like the kind of person that you are in either body or personality, they’re not the right person for you, go find someone else. Trying to mould youself into some sort of idea of what’s generically supposed to be attractive is pointless, because if it’s not really you the other person will figure that out eventually.
Ok so I finally caught up, what a waste of time that was. 🙁 Oh well.
Oh and to reply to pecunium of fuck knows how many posts ago, yeah I didn’t really think of the implications of an edit button there. I blame the tiredness.
Preview would still be nice though, at least then we could check our formatting (especially the blockquotes) are working before posting.
“That’s really different, you silly billy! You said you need to ask permission from your previous sexual partners, and that’s wrong on two counts: you need to inform previous conjugal partners. Now why on earth the country of Canada thinks your ex has a right to know that you’ve got a gun now, I HAVE NO IDEA.”
Excepting of course for the fact that if your previous partner informs the RCMP that you shouldn’t have a gun, then you don’t get license. What is that, if not permission?
“So, my question is: why the hell have you not applied for a gun licence? Knowing what a kind and compassionate interlocutor you are, my guess is 16(e):”
Hey asshole? I have guns. I live in Canada. GASP! How did this happen? I seem to know a lot about the licensing process… IT IS A MYSTERY… But then, you didn’t read that part of my previous comment, did ya now?
YOU are the person who said, “DURR! NAW! IT’S EASY TO HAZ A GUN IN KANADA! LOOK AT WHAT DIS GUY FROM TWO HOURS AGO SAID! HURDURR! HUR-DURR!”
I said, “Actually, it’s pretty damned hard to get licensed.” And, you called me a liar for saying so, when you didn’t have all the facts.
It’s rather astonishing that you don’t have the mental capacity to be embarrassed.
Stop feeding the troll.
But he’s a bit funny!
He’s so long-winded and trollish, though. Can’t we vote him off the island?
@Ruby Hypatia
“And good for Anita for raising $130,000.”
Precious princess cries that her feelings were slighted in the virtual world of the internet and get’s rewarded.
Bored now.
Can we keep him as a pet?
Only if you promise to feed him, walk him, and clean up after him when he pees on the rug. Or maybe when he shoots holes in the walls.
ACLAF: I’m against feminism because as a young person, I felt…
That’s the second time you’ve mentioned how your perceptions made you an anti-feminist. How you thought it made you feel.
That’s not the fault of feminism. If (and it’s a big if; have fun with it) you could show that feminism is actually so all pervasive, you’d have a better case.
We don’t deny that you feel that way. We say the things you point to are bunk. That it wasn’t feminism that provided all those elements.
Yet, special treatment under the law, in our schools, on American college campuses, in government budgets abounds
Citations needed.
And she blames feminism for forcing her into a work-force that she doesn’t want anything to do with.
Really? I wouldn’t. Not unless she can show that feminism is the reason real wages (pretty much everywhere) have been dropping for the past thirty years. It’s not as if SAHW wife has ever been the norm.
So… citations needed.
Who else pushed to get women into the workforce as a part of an equality program?
No one. Feminists said that women in the workforce ought not be limited, nor underpaid. That’s not the same as saying all women need to have jobs.
ACLAF:
Oh for Christ’s sake. You said feminism was (and is) against men being manly men. You said you don’t hate women, just those uppity one’s who are feminists.
That’s gender policing.
Gee, A Canadian Conservative Claiming Libertarianism has anti-Native bias. Color me surprised.
So. Feminism bad because Canadian gun control laws and Homer Simpson. Also something about 2 hour cunnilingus sessions, which admittedly does seem a trifle ambitious. And “woman” doesn’t mean the same as “feminist”. But “feminists” made Canada’s gun control laws because it was seen as a “women’s issue”. But “woman” doesn’t…
Ah, forget it. Anyone want to talk about Dr Who? I hear that the first episode of the new series is set to feature the legendary Special Weapons Dalek. No goddamn Canadians will be emasculating that bad boy, no sirree.
Would another bra sizing derail work to banish GunTroll, do you think?
The answer, of course, is that feminists aren’t forcing his wife to work outside the home. She’s a stay at home wife and mother.
Somehow the fact that she wasn’t a stay at home wife and mother prior to marrying and having children with someone who could financially support that decision is the fault of feminism. Or something.
If a young guy approached me and said, “ACLAF, how can I improve my chances with women? If I want to be happy, with women, what can I do?” I know how I’d answer. I’d tell him, to the degree that a person can change these things, “Be at least a little taller than average, say 5’11”-6’2″. Have broad shoulders, work out, and don’t allow yourself to get too fat. Have a good job, make decent money, and display your symbols of your status. Appear in public well-dressed, and keep yourself well-groomed.” because on average, women tend to like these things more than their opposites.
Naturally, doing these things aren’t a guarantee, and not every woman is going be favorably inclined, regardless of anything I tell him. For example: it doesn’t make a difference what clothes he puts on, he’s not going to attract a woman who has a gender object preference that is say, women and not men. C’est la vie. But I believe, and I don’t even know why it’s controversial that on average, these things would help because, women tend to like men who display these traits. Again, not a guarantee, and of course, women aren’t slaves to their hormones, nor a monolith.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with this idea.
But the reaction in these comments to these relatively uncontroversial ideas has been… WTF?
“OMFG! YOU’RE GENERALIZING ABOUT WOMEN!! HOW DARE YOU! WOMEN LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS!”
And?
Yeah, I know there’s variation, and yeah, I know that women overlook things all the time in men they date. On average, doing these things is more helpful than not.
Wanna see me generalize about men? On average, men tend to like slender hour-glass figured women with well-defined, well-proportioned breasts, buttocks, long legs, long hair, and thick full red lips.
OMG! MEN ARE A MONOLITH TOO!
Hardly. However, females who display these traits are more likely to attract attention from a greater number of males. Will some men go for different things? Of course. Some men like blonde hair, some men don’t care in the slightest. On average, men tend to be favorably inclined towards a nice rack.
*GASP!* BUT I LIKE SOMETHING DIFFERENT! MY MAN DOESN’T HAVE THESE TRAITS, YOU DON”T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!
Cool. Good for you. If your man, who’s never had broad shoulders suddenly started developing them, would you be angry, would you be pleased, or would you be indifferent? Again, on average, the trend is that if you’re average, you’re going to like the change.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s all good!
What is NOT all good, is when that same young man says, “ACLAF, how can I improve my chances with women?” to say, “WOMEN LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS! THEY AREN”T A MONOLITH! THEY AREN’T THE BORG YOU DAMNED MISOGYNIST!” That doesn’t answer the question, and assumes all kinds of baggage about what this guy actually wants. And it’s not entirely honest.
Yet your repeated denials, and accusations of generalizing have demonstrated once again that not only is your average feminist entirely unrealistic and unwilling to accept anything about human nature, it also proves that you’re willfully, and deliberately agents who oppose human happiness, on human terms. A more primitive descriptor would be, evil.
Maybe we could talk abut how Sherlock survived certain death, and how very impatient we’re getting waiting for the new season.
We could aslo talk about the the intricate and mundane details of childrearing now the kids aren’t in school…
Yep, the perfect instruction to give to an advice-seeking young man is “be tall, but not too tall”. Because of course that’s something that’s under the control of the individual.
Also, guns, don’t forget about the importance of guns.
@ pillowinhell – yeah. And was the sniper in the last episode of Sherlock meant to be Col. Moran? Because that would be awesome!
Well ok, more people in the labor market drives wages down, but let’s think about this.
I remember Rockin Mr. E’s first video on how we need to examine the impact of women working on the economy, and my comment was, “OH do black people next! Do black people next!”
The assumption is that the male is default and women are “taking” their jobs, not that human beings have a right to pursue what they like. Are companies more exploitative of women and do they take advantage of lower wages and a more pliable workforce? YES (I am speaking globally here, think maquiladoras and the Philippines,etc.) But we’re really supposed to say, ok ladies, you have vaginas, so… no work for you, you’re messing everything up.
But also like I kept saying before women have always worked, we’ve always had the Pink Ghetto. If we want to raise our ability to sell our labor on a market more competitively then incentives for NOT bearing children are in order. South Korea has a low population growth issue, so the government gives incentives for breeding, the US should NOT. South Korea has a very competitive job market, still though but that’s their peculiar situation related to what they manufacture sell, and the Asian financial crisis, etc.
But yeah, extra human beings mean lower wages, and that’s entirely besides the point.
If this woman he’s talking about think feminists drove her to work, why doesn’t she get off her lazy ass and get a man capable of providing? lol. I mean she’s clearly not against that.
And maybe she’s greedy and materialistic. I mean why not live simply? Is she “needing” to work so that she can by expensive lipsticks? Inquiring minds want to know what this feminist hating chick feels entitled to cashola for? Sounds like an ungrateful harpie to me.
I’m going to be living in the part of the country where ONE income can support a family of four, thank you very much. I have a disabled son that needs caring for, so what’s this woman complaining about working for? Go where the cash is, and if she’s not married, I call bullshit on the whole angle, her complaint makes no sense for any time period.
BOOM
@CassandraSays – What’s the problem? Whenever someone asks me for advice, I tell them “reconfigure your skeleton”.
Does it solve their problem? No. But they stop fucking pestering me for advice, and I’m prepared to call that a win.
I know nothing about Sherlock, so how about an old favorite derail? What did everyone have for dinner last night, and what are you planning to make today? I had pad kee mao and pad prik khing (with, respectively, pork and chicken) for dinner, and I’m thinking that if it’s hot again today I’ll probably make a light pasta with sausage, mushrooms, and spinach for dinner this evening.
I’ve been kind of obessing about these particular ice cream bars recently, so I may go get some more later today. Normally I don’t like artificial melon-flavored things, but these are to die for.
http://respectablepress.net/roxybmontoya/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/melona_blogbibi1.jpg