What’s the deal with MRAs and urinals? You may recall the highly touted “URLs @ urinals” campaign from last year, a plan to plaster little posters over urinals in public bathrooms to lure peeing men to Men’s Rights websites; evidently the way to a man’s heart is through his urethra?
Then there was that big to-do in the Men’s Rights subreddit when a Canadian restauranteur removed a urinal shaped like a woman’s lips after some feminists complained about it.
Oh, and who can forget GirlWritesWhat’s weird FemRA lament that men hanging out in men’s bathrooms can’t even bitch about women any more due the encroachment of evil mangina language police. (Note: Men in public bathrooms do not actually talk to one another.)
Well, now the MRA videoblogger who goes by the nom-de-internet of ManWomanMyth has weighed in on the Urinal Problem in a long and rambling blog post titled, and I am not making this up, “Urinals – a genesis for male psychology?”
MWM (let’s just call him that) argues that “male spaces” have been so encroached upon by evil feminists that men have no place they can truly call their own.
Why are female spaces inviolate and male spaces forcibly opened to females?
Why are males spaces not seen to be equally as important as female spaces?
I’ll tell you why, it’s because under our Feminist governance, anything that maintains or leads to any concept of male camaraderie or the enhancement of male self-awareness is actively attacked and suppressed. It’s vital in our society to strip men of their identity as ‘men’ so that they can be assaulted in the myriad ways. …
By preventing the development of male-bonding and understanding between men (which is difficult enough, even under the best of circumstances) men are successfully kept isolated from each other and more easily used and abused.
Seriously, he’s got a point here. If you look at the various photos of corporate Boards of Directors I gathered together in this old post, you’ll notice that a couple of them even have some ladies in them!
So what does this have to do with urinals? MWM explains:
This is where urinals-in-the-home comes in. …
By installing one in your home, what I think is being done is making a claim to a portion of space and making that claim based solely on the fact of your manhood.
Only men can successfully stand up to pee, women have no choice but to sit down. This is a point of difference that has little relevance in normal daily life, but has every relevance to male psychology.
You see, the urinal is just for you as a man. It’s impossible for her to use it. It’s for you. For your son. For your male friends.
In other words, MWM thinks that men (cis men, anyway) should have them installed in their bathrooms for no other reason than that (cis) woman can’t use them. In your face, bitches! Try peeing in THIS! YOU CAN’T!!
Though I should note that this does not stop women from trying, as this album cover from the 1970s clearly documents:
MWM goes on to explain the logic behind this new crusade:
There is no means by which the exclusive use of the urinal can be taken away from you by any claims of unfairness or any other irrational female claim.
There can be no quotas for the female use of urinals; there can be no Presidential Council for Women and Girls calling for more ‘Women into Urinals’; the UK Minister for Women could create no tax-payer funded programme to encourage girls to be the same as men and use urinals.
It’s yours because you are male and can only remain yours.
Now you might ask yourself, why the fuck would anyone care about this? MWM has an answer to that question as well:
Why is this important?
I think that this is an example of a beginning, a genesis for male self-awareness. Particularly if you have a young boy in the household. It could well be the first thing and perhaps even the only thing he will ever encounter in his young life that is not ‘equally’ open to girls and there is no ‘equalities’ agency that can do anything about it.
Most boys grow up today having to play every sport and share every activity with girls and woe betide him if he seeks to win or is too aggressive. …
The urinal could be the only thing in his life that is for him and exclusively for him and others who are like him in only one essential way: they are also male. …
This is a little space in the bathroom, a little space in his life, where his sister can’t go and doesn’t want to go and couldn’t go if she did want to. It’s off limits because she is not male. …
A urinal is not particularity interesting in itself, but it may well be a first step in the development of a sense of self for boys and men that otherwise typically never happens or else is savagely crushed in men. A catalyst towards a sense of what it means to be male and a first seed of understanding of the essential difference between the sexes which goes beyond mere anatomy. …
This is where anti-misandry starts.
While all this is very moving, I don’t think it goes far enough. Consider the Home Pregnancy Test. This is something that woman can pee on, but men can’t – at least not without being ridiculed by society for peeing on such a girly thing.
Wait, you might say. If (cis) men get urinals to pee on, why can’t (cis) women have these little sticks that they can pee on? Because these pregnancy tests involve little chemical strips that CHANGE COLOR when you pee on them, depending on whether or not you’re pregnant. Urinals don’t change color! And that’s not FAIR!
STICKS FOR DICKS!
Now THAT’S where anti-misandry really starts!
Because, PRIORITIES.
…*kfslkdfsdfjsldfj* I just spit coffee. 😀 Thanks.
Hahaha! Whew. I have a male friend who had a female friend who insisted that the men (husband and son) she lived with SIT DOWN to pee. Why? Because it caused less clean-up for her. When my friend asked me what I thought, I at first was all “Whoa! Making men sit down to pee?” But then when I thought about it, it seemed kinda arbitrary to say that men should stand up to pee. I mean, I assume the men who live in/visit my home will stand up, but where is it written? When we toilet-train our sons, usually we start with sitting down to pee, as they aren’t tall enough to hit the toilet water if they’re standing up.
Also … women do stand up to pee sometimes:
http://nataliehartford.com/2012/02/21/women-peeing-standing-up-amen-to-that/
Damn! Is nothing sacred any more??!
I wonder if MWM ever got the news that female urinals exist. They’re not common because you still have to pull your pants down, but they do exist.
And the notion that every male space has been invaded by women is rediculous. Aren’t organized sports for kids still divided up by gender? Even if it’s just school PE, your son might have to play against girls, but I really doubt they have co-ed locker rooms now.
Except your (presumably cis) wife can totally use it if she wants. Has he ever heard of an STP (stand to pee device)? You can even make them at home!
You can also buy a flesh light. It’s way cheaper than a urinal and it’s also penis only.
A purported (can’t speak for its accuracy) history of the urinal:
http://yimengchang.blogspot.com/2009/03/history-of-urinal.html
And this old chestnut:
http://www.jokes.com/funny/whatever/one-day-adam-and-eve-notice-god—
Tim and Eric covered this one already.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D54t0iyp_udc&v=54t0iyp_udc&gl=US
I do field work in often very cold locations. I have a device I use that lets me pee standing up because I hate being cold.
So, uhhh… Theory blown.
If someone tells this dude about Stand-To-Pee devices he’s going to start frothing at the mouth.
Can I just say, I really really don’t understand men who are obsessed with standing up to pee? I mean I get it in public restrooms, those things are gross and *nobody* wants to sit down if at all possible. But at home? Where the toilets are clean? It’s not actually that hard to pull down your pants and just sit down. In fact, I’m pretty sure it takes me exactly the same amount of time as to do it standing up. When you add to that there’s no chance of a mess and it’s more comfortable, I personally just sit down at home… it’s just more practical.
When did standing up to pee become an identification thing anyway?
Why do they get so mad about equality and then act like not letting men have male-domination is “misandry”? It’s one thing if men were forced to pee in the street while women used gold toilets emblazoned with the faces of the (male) presidents and wiped their asses on cock-print toilet paper, but this is not the case. A toilet is a multi-purpose thing- you can use it to sit on it and read magazines, you can pee, you can poop, you can vomit, you can even use it to wash out diapers. Toilets are great for many things! So isn’t it MISOGYNY if someone is doing something SPECIFICALLY to disinclude people who pee sitting down (there are guys who do it too, ya know) because “women suck and have cooties and shit”?
I thought we figured out that this was stupid back in the second grade. Guess I was wrong.
Leave it to MRAs to be discriminatory and hate on women and insist it is their “right” because not being accepted for being a douchebag misogynist is MISANDRY, amirite?
Nope, you don’t get a free pass for being an asshole just because you have a penis.
http://i46.tinypic.com/svqwjd.jpg
Pressing issues affecting the men of today, people!
Why not just dig a hole in the back garden? I can guarantee no one else will want to infringe on their “right” to have a man-only space then.
They feel that their manly manhood is being encroached upon by the icky females, that they won’t be able to grow up to be construction working lumberjacks who hunt for their food, without a woman there telling them they have to eat a balanced diet.
Now I want a stp device to go hiking. Peeing without a bush or a tree to hide (because of altitude) is a pain in the ass.
It is entirely possible for a woman to pee in a male urinal. Like, super easy…
Why not custom-tailored urinals where the face of your most notorious feminist womanbeinghateful is painted onto the surface where you can aim, every time you unrinate. You can relieve yourself and vent your anger at castrating manhaters at the same time!
Tell me there is no market for this!
You want “misogyny”? Here is misogyny!
T
I have found that the men who are the most insecure about their masculinity are men who generally think that their masculinity hangs on a tenuous string that relies heavily on stereotypical gender roles, mostly because they hate anyone who doesn’t fall into those roles. Little did they know that you can’t stop being a guy if you like a pink shirt or enjoy making cupcakes. Your gender is not directly linked to your hobbies and style.
Case in point: http://memegenerator.net/instance/23783079
I love this, because ManWomanMyth is a guy MRAs love to point to as a shining example of one of the Manosphere’s intellectual & philosophical heavyweights.
Ha.
(I sit down to pee because I don’t like mopping).
It’s your money. If you have enough money and space to waste on the remodelling work just to exclude the non-dudes, in your own home, I really couldn’t care less.
Why don’t they just build “man caves” and only put urinals in their “man cave” bathrooms? Then when they need to shit they can um…go use their wife’s bathroom…oh wait…
But yeah, sure, if they’ve got the space, and the money, to put in a urinal, have fun with that I guess?
Ok, here’s the thing- if you want your own urinal, you have to clean it regularly, by yourself, since only you use it. And you have to install it with your own money and time. And if you’re honestly so obsessed with hating on women, perhaps you shouldn’t live with a woman at all! Then all of us will be happy!
@Argenti- but what about if they need to take a Big Manly Poop? Pretty much every man I have ever talked to has expressed incredibly frustration at the asshole who poops in the urinal. So yeah. It’s just kind of impractical. It may make sense in a public restroom when there a ton of men in and out just going pee because it’s faster, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense in a household where there might be on average maybe two men living there. And then there’s the “urinal trough” that you might have seen at Boy Scout camp (I know, I saw them because the Girl Scouts rent Boy Scout camps when they’re not in use by Boy Scouts). Might as well just pee in the tub!
That’s actually how most of history can be summed up!
Anyway, the little white dome urinals: are they just a USian thing or what? I’ve never once seen one, and I’m not public-toilet averse. I’ve seen metal troughs mostly, with a few raised individual troughs, if that makes sense.