Over on The Spearhead, the regulars are discussing the three young men who sacrificed their own lives to save their girlfriends in the chaos of the Aurora theater shootings.
Needless to say, many of them aren’t too keen on any act of heroism that might benefit a woman.
Here are the two highest-rated comments in the comment thread. (I have bolded some of the more egregious stuff.)
Young Guy writes:
Sacrifice was once expected of men and women, but it has only been expected of men since the social contract between men and women was torn up by feminists. Most women have been told their entire lives they can have it all, and their happiness is the most important thing in the universe, so most women hate the thought of having to give up anything or putting other people before themselves. Most relationships today are one-sided, so don’t be shocked when men shun marriage or take up pumping and dumping. That might sound harsh to some people, but most women did it to themselves.
Why should I give every ounce of my being for a woman when she is one bad mood away from tossing me onto the scrap heap? I have heard the horror stories from men who worked hard to provide for their families, only for it to mean nothing to their ungrateful ex-wives. I have seen men risk life and limb to protect women they loved, only to have the women in their lives leave them or forget about their sacrifices. It has been said men have obligations while women have options in our modern world, I and agree with that statement. Most women think the world is their oyster, and everyone should cater to them. Most men understand the world is a harsh place, and no one is going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Most women have done an excellent job pissing away all the goodwill men had towards them. I look at women my age, and I realize almost none of them are relationship material. Their entitlement is through the roof. They almost never say “thank you.” They demand chivalry even though they think they should never have to return the favor. They have been told any man who stands up for himself is guilty of abuse. It really is too much to ask of most women to be pleasant, keep the house clean, take care of the kids, and realize a relationship isn’t the Disney fairy-tale which they have been brainwashed with since birth.
Nietzsche (presumably not the ghost of the real Nietzsche) is a bit more concise:
They saved their lives so the girlfriends can be screwing other dudes in several months time…….. probably much less. Heroism is a suckers game.
These two comments each got nearly two dozen upvotes, even though the thread is still young.
Some other highlights of the thread:
Peter South agrees with Nietzsche’s assessment, but expects the girlfriends to move on even more quickly:
These young women will don black for the rest of their lives to mourn and commemorate the passing of these great fallen heroes.
Well ok they’ll be twittering, texting and yakking on their “smart phones” within a week about other guys…
But I think we can all agree that men generally make great meat shields.
Phil, meanwhile, derides the heroes as “suckers.”
Those boyfriends were suckers. These men were living in the past. The boyfriends were living in the 1700′s while modern day American women are living in feminist 2012. Modern day American women don’t live by the old social contract. The problem is men like these three don’t understand. These women will find new boyfriends and move on with their lives. The three men are dead. Gone forever. They died believing is something that doesn’t exist. It is tragic and disgusting.
Eric adds:
the grrlz who survived are probably moving on to the next cock even as we speak. And I’ll bet the types of guys they’re moving on to won’t be the type who’d take a bullet for them either.
Meanwhile, the lowest-rated comment in the thread, with more than two dozen downvotes and only 6 upvotes, is a comment from Georice81 praising the heroes, which starts off with:
The Bible says that there is no Greater Love than when a man gives up his life so that another man may live. I believe in this no matter what anyone may say, MRA or Feminist.
What these men did was heroic and defines what a true man should be. It isn’t a question of being a white knight. It is a question of being a brave man and a true man at that.
I guess the Spearheaders are only fans of traditionalism when it benefits them personally.
I think the problem here is that these MRAs are projecting big-time. Every time I hear them say “Oh, women are evil bitchez and they will replace their guy as SOON AS POSSIBLE,” all I have to do is take a look at one or two posts they’ve made about how women are/should be replaceable by robots/sex bots, or that you should “trade up” to gain more status as soon as you can, or classifying women by number, etc.
These guys are insecure because they think that by treating their partners like they are disposable, they themselves are also disposable. It’s like the logical extension of capitalism on social interaction- people are reduced to resources to be used up and discarded by the consumer.
It seems like a pretty sad and sociopathic way to view human relationships to me, but that’s THEIR problem, not mine.
I’ll be over here, having a meaningful relationship with my partner and family and friends that’s not based on money and disposability of people. No born human is objectively disposable.
If there’s one thing I know about knights, it’s that they went around being butlers and drivers to any and every woman they could find.
Chivalry, man.
Seriously?
Man. Worst spoiler ever.
I’ll probably love it, though. Just like I loved The Avengers, while I couldn’t help noticing that the bad guys were big meanies who hate our freedom and by the way chose a skyscraper/monument to capitalism in New York City to make their flashy/violent entrance.
Completey off topic…. but: Mmmmmm, Loki ^___^
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4cskv6idg1qbxre1.gif
@Tulgey Logger- I highly recommend that anyone who really wants to learn about chivalry and what it’s all about (largely male posturing using women as objects), should read “Tirant Lo Blanc” which is basically the original manual of what chivalry was supposed to be all about.
Basically, it’s stupid ass dudes trying to prove how much more manly they are by doing dangerous and horrible things and killing each other and stuff and then claiming women as prizes.
Chivalry is not a feminist institution, and I wish it would die a quick and final death. Seriously. Respectful consideration for fellow humans is a much better way of behaving than this weird outdated machismo bullshit.
Hanna Rosin? Every feminist I know hates the self righteous….well, I’m trying to be polite but I really can’t. She’s an awful person and repeatedly is in shit for making the most idiotic possible comments about mothers and mothering; especially relating to breastfeeding.
As for the guy, as far as I’m aware, he’s not getting flack for leaving his girlfriend, but because he took the baby at first, then apparently when the little one wouldn’t stop crying, he put the baby on the floor and legged it. It’s sheer luck the mother found the baby and was able to get him, the little girl and herself out, all after being shot in the leg. Luckily a complete stranger helped her and the kids get to safety.
@Skyal- That guy’s behavior was reprehensible. A crying infant in a loud theater isn’t going to draw fire any more than a screaming person. I hope that he realizes that he deserves all the derision in the world for abandoning a helpless infant like that.
I’m also hoping that this experience teaches people not to bring infants and small children to MIDNIGHT SHOWINGS of INCREDIBLY VIOLENT MOVIES. It is obviously not the fault of people going to see a movie that they got shot at, but at the same time, if you’re in a movie theater with very non-child-appropriate stuff going on, that is pretty much the best time to get a babysitter or family member to watch your kids. I can’t tell you how many times my husband and I wanted to have a nice evening out, went through all the trouble (and money) of getting a sitter for our daughter so we could go out to dinner and enjoy a movie, and then end up having a newborn infant squalling through the whole film because the sound is so fucking loud that it’s probably hurting the poor kid’s ears. Or the 4 year old who is jumping around on the chairs and crawling under legs and making animal noises- obviously bored out of their minds.
It’s bad enough that you have to worry about people being shithead morons about bringing their children to non-appropriate movies, but now you have children who have DIED because their parents were too lazy to get someone to watch their kids. I mean, I am all for choosing to let your kids watch whatever you want when you’re in your own home, but in a theater, that shit affects a bunch of other people who are paying assloads of money to see a film.
And if you can’t find someone to watch your kids? Then don’t go to movies in the theater- wait until it comes out on video- my husband and I know that we have to make sacrifices in our personal lives because we decided to be parents, and if a person isn’t willing to do that- then they probably shouldn’t be parenting in the first place. It’s not the end of the world if you can’t see a big screen movie. Perhaps now people will have more of an incentive to leave the kids at home.
@Shadow
Did they mention him coming from the middle east specifically? I thought it was an unamed place, then again I was so overcome with fangirlish glee while watching I might have missed the details? Either way of course it had to be somewhere ‘ethnic’ and non western -__-
you gotta read some of the wackjob reviews from conseratives and libertarians saying this film was against occupy/liberals….don’t want to say much due to spoilers though
@ Nanasha
Yeah, I was going to say, I wish people wouldn’t take little kids to late night movies. I understand that it’s not always possible/affordable to get a babysitter, but in that case maybe the midnight show isn’t the best time to go. Also, consider how the kids will feel about the whole thing – I saw Jurassic Park with some very small children in the theater, and I’m betting there were a whole lot of nightmares featuring marauding T-rexs after that.
About the person who abandoned his kid, panicking and just running without stopping to grab the kid I can kind of understand, but pausing to put the kid down raises my eyebrows a bit.
That being said, I hope “don’t take kids to loud movies” is not the take-away that people have from this incident, because that comes across as pretty insensitive. Hopefully the take-away will be more like “don’t shoot people”.
@CassandraSays- I think that there are a lot of things that people should learn from this situation. I guess the big thing here is that these are people who don’t live with daily violence- they lived in a wealthy suburb, so the violence was more shocking than it might have otherwise been. In my experience, there are plenty of places in the US and other countries, where people are murdered, shot, and are in fear of their lives pretty much all the time.
I think that’s one of the things that really hit home for me- I really *DO NOT FEEL SAFE* in most public spaces as an adult woman. At first, I thought that this must just be because I live in the town that I do (where there are a lot of really aggressive transients/drug addicts that the city does little to mitigate), but then I started thinking back to my childhood and realized that the majority of the time, I was either at my parent’s house, in school or in a handful of places where I was basically sequestered away from “society at large.” In most public spaces, especially if I am walking alone in the evening, I simply feel unsafe. And as I have said before, that’s the worst part- the uncertainty. I know that I’m not going to get catcalled or groped every single day. But I have that dread in the pit of my stomach knowing that at some point, I *will* encounter someone who will likely do that shit and it’s probably going to come out of nowhere the second I let my guard down.
Many of these people are going to have PTSD- they won’t be able to go to a movie or hear a gunshot on TV without triggering. But I think that this is also a symptom of a larger disease- there are still SO MANY FUCKING PLACES that are so dangerous that people feel in fear of their lives in the same uncertain way that I do- the idea that you can’t even take a nap in your own home because someone will climb in your window and try and rape you, or you can’t go see a fun movie without some asshole trying to gun you down just makes everyone feel like they are less safe- like the criminals have all the cards and the inmates are running the prison.
And what do you get for being a law- abiding citizen? You have to lock your doors, buy security systems, drive around in cars with tinted windows (making sure to not buy a car that could be in “gang colors” so it’s not targeted for a drive-by on accident like that poor family that was shot to death at the Oakland Zoo a couple months ago), make sure your kids never go out without a chaperone, always look over your shoulder and carry some sort of weapon or self-defense spray…..
And you never feel safe, not really.
That’s really what hurts the most for me. The fear- the knowledge that bad people will probably keep doing bad things, and that innocent people will get hurt simply because the bad people cannot really be stopped and the police are more in the business of cleaning up after the crime has happened than preventing the crime in the first place. 🙁
There were two kids sitting next to me when I saw it, old enough to be there, but not sure if I personally would take them to DKR. Anyway, at one point the little girl was crying, but so was I. I was both ashamed at the fact, but also felt a moment of solidarity with her….I know that feel kid, I know that feel :p
I honestly don’t feel unsafe in most public spaces. Not sure what kind of differences in background and experience go into that, but even walking around the city at night I don’t feel truly unsafe, just sort of…alert? As in, I’m aware that something could happen, but don’t feel like the probability is high, and taking steps to minimize obvious hazards makes me feel safer. Maybe it’s partly that I grew up in a few places that were genuinely unsafe, and then others that were less so, so my brain tends to filter public spaces based on hazard assessment.
This.
Also, it’s worth remembering that all kids are different. A couple I know figured out that one of the great ways for them to have a low-cost date night after having a baby was, in fact, to go to late-night movie showings, because for about six months of his infancy, nothing could wake that kid between about 9 PM and about 1 AM. You could practically set your watch by him. Given that he never once woke up during any of the movies they went to see, I think it’d be pretty shitty to begrudge his parents that little pleasure because other babies would have screamed through the movie.
Similarly, I’m nearly 30 and I still can’t watch scary movies without having nightmares for months, but a friend’s 7-year-old daughter is a huge horror movie fan who shows no signs of being traumatized by all kinds of things that would scare the crap out of me. I’m uncomfortable saying that I know better than my friend what’s best for her daughter when there’s no evidence to suggest her daughter is being harmed by being allowed to watch violent, gory movies. Basically, different kids are different, and while I’d agree that it’s generally true that bringing a small child to a late-night showing of a violent film sounds like a bad idea, I don’t think it’s fair to declare that any parent who does so is a shithead lazy moron who caused their child’s death. That seems, y’know, a wee bit harsh.
Yeah, I think that “in general, loud violent movies at midnight might not be the best place for most children” should be a separate conversation from “guy went postal and shot a bunch of people in a movie theater”, because the going postal part has very little to do with the late night movie part.
Ridiculous MRA bullshit, not really worth commenting on — but I will say the Daily News article you posted is some of the worst journalism I have read in awhile.
@Cassandra
Same here. And its been constantly drilled into my head by my very cautious family that its dangerous out there, and even at my age I’m still reminded to be careful. Women are always warned about this then we are criticized for being too afraid. Damn hypocrites.
Anyway, I’m just as alert as I can be, especially at night. Fortunate enough to not have been in situations that cause me actual fear in my day to day life, though. There are bonuses to being a taller and bigger woman. Less sexually attractive to the majority, but also less likely to be seen as an easy target. That’s been my experience anyway.
@ Quackers
Even in London I wandered around by myself at night, starting at age 18. I was wandering around Glasgow (much sketchier than most parts of London) after midnight by the time I was 16. The worst things that ever happened were creepy guys trying to chat me up (so, not much different from walking around during the day for a teenage girl), and watching a lot of drunks and junkies stumble around/try to bum change/cigarettes off me. For whatever reason the idea that being a woman and being outside is inherently super hazardous didn’t take with me, no idea why. It’s not that I’m super brave or anything – I’m scared of spider, ffs. It’s just that I saw no reason to assume that walking around at night was any more dangerous statistically for me than for a guy, and I was aware that the rape stats say that I have far more to worry about from people I know than from random strangers on the street, so it never made sense to me to limit my own movements. I am alert at night, far more so than during the day, but that’s pretty much the only concession I’ve made to the woman in public = unsafe idea. I understand why other women feel differently, though, and make different choices.
While i haven’t ever brought an infant or child to a midnight showing, I did bring my 2 and 5 year old to the Avengers, Captain America and others. some infants are good sleepers and are easily unnoticed by others. some kids might seem young but be huge batman fans themselves and parents thought it would be a fun treat for the whole family to experience together. Like new years, it is a special occasion.
I just don’t like the way the conversation about bringing the kids (like around the little 6 year old girl who was killed) gets framed most the time. I’m sure it will now give parents pause about letting kids see midnight showings, from infant to teens. I’m sure each parent that brought their children for a night of fun already feel like worthless shitty parents and have plenty of guilt.
Some theaters have policies about kids at movies after 10. I think those are good policies and probably will be adopted at more theaters (like written rules about wearing masks or carrying props).
I guess I just feel like this is so low on the list of societal issues that contributed to the tragedy that it is not worth talking about. Even on a list of parenting problems it is damn low. I’d say even on a list of inconveniences to the public who go to theaters it is pretty low. Just my 2 cents.
@Personal safety comments: I think that a lot of my increased fears are more to do with the fact that I am pregnant and have a young child (often in tow) when I go out in public. So it means that if someone decides to do something horrible to me, they might hurt my 3 year old or my unborn fetus, and that scares the shit out of me. I definitely feel a lot more fear as a parent than before I had children, but I also think that the drug addict/aggressive street-people problem has gotten a lot worse (and there have been several street-rapes and a stabbing perpetrated by transients near where I live, so that’s scary as hell). I don’t want to carry a gun or other weapon that my child might accidentally discharge, so I just feel kind of like I’m tempting fate if I walk around the block. And sometimes it is safe. But other times, I get chased by scary meth heads. And the 100 times when it is safe starts feeling like it’s just not worth it if I have to worry about 1 time of running from meth heads with weapons.
Also, in terms of sexual harrassment and being a woman wandering around at night, I think by the time I was about 17 or so it was like…background noise? By which I mean, I was still alert for anything that seemed out of the ordinary, but in a certain sense it had been so constant for so long that after a while it was like what happens when you live near a train station or an airport, and you start tuning out the noise unless it’s unusual in some way. Or at least that’s what happened for me. Individual incidents are more noticeable now than in my teens, because it’s not as constant.
I can definitely see how being responsible for a child would change your sense of risk in all kinds of ways. Also, I’m not sure how far along you are, but pregnancy doesn’t exactly improve one’s mobility after a certain point.
@CassandraSays- I’m about 28 weeks right now, and on my second pregnancy. I’ve been having pretty bad sciatica and leg numbness, as well as all of the tendons in my hips and pelvis relaxing and making my joints feel like they’re popping out of the socket in painful achy ways. Even when I’m not pregnant, I’m a short-stocky legged lady, so I have to walk double-time to keep up with most people, and if given my druthers, I’m definitely a slow walker, which means I’m easy to overtake by most people walking on the street.
I generally just ride my bicycle around town to keep away from the weirdos, but then there’s the times that I have to stop and lock it up and people are loitering around and I feel unsafe. And having a small child, I can’t exactly put her on my bike because it’s set up as a commute vehicle and there’s no place for a kid seat, so it’s either walking or driving. I really hate driving if I have to do it, but when I feel unsafe, I don’t want to walk either- so I end up just sitting around my living space because I’m scared about the “what if”s.
Generally, I just try and walk downtown with friends or find someone to go with me, but many of my friends have moved away (mostly to live with parents after graduating from college and being unable to find gainful employment beyond shitty retail that doesn’t pay for the rent), so I have become increasingly isolated and alone. It would be very nice for me to move somewhere “safe” but most “safe” places are also places where you have to drive everywhere, which defeats the purpose of wanting to walk out in safe public spaces. It’s a conundrum for me- I want to be safe, but I feel like I’m either forced to lock myself up in one place, drive somewhere (with the doors locked) and lock myself up in some other place, or I have to brave the uncertainty of the public spaces that are populated by scary people on a regular basis. And there just doesn’t seem to be another option.
See, different risk assessments. I actually feel more vulnerable on a bike, because I feel like it makes people more likely to notice me, and I’d prefer to be as invisible as possible to sketchy people. Also I worry that if someone is sketchy and they try to grab at me when I’m on a bike I might be seriously injured, so between that are potential poor visibility I won’t ride my bike at night.
In terms of “safer” public spaces, where in CA are you? There are tons of places in the Bay Area that are fairly safe (and some that aren’t, of course). There are only a few places in San Francisco where I feel the need to be very alert at night, for example. I definitely felt like walking around LA at night was a bit sketchy depending on neighborhood, though I felt fine in West Hollywood.