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.
@Nanasha:
“It seems like a pretty sad and sociopathic way to view human relationships to me, but that’s THEIR problem, not mine.”
Amen.
Every time I read something about how relationships “are” or “are supposed to be” from the MRA camp, I usually end up thinking “or, I could treat my partner like a human being” or “that would be true…if either my partner or I were total asshats.”
Weterby,
The point that every assholish MRA is a psychiatric case and that every psychiatric case is an asshole is not at all the point I made. Though Shade seems to think so and you seem to think slightly similar to him.
What I actually said was that MRAdom is abounding in obvious mental health cases, which I stand by. How you can turn that into “every assholish MRA must be a mental health case” is probably due to willful misreading on your part to turn my point into something you can refute.
Some of them quite clearly are mentally ill, given the dysfunctional views they have on things and the occasional comments they make about their lives, I also said that setting up a site for mockery which will include such people in its catch-net, precisely because they are mentally ill and acting out, is probably not the most noble thing to do.
2. That the MRM is so heavily comprised of people with mental health issues that they need to be treated with kid gloves, lest they get triggered by anything said out of turn;
3. That because of (2), MRAs can’t be held responsible for their douchebaggery.
Nope and nope. Not kid gloves, just avoidance of antagonistic ridicule. Can you spot the middle ground between kid gloves and antagonistic ridicule? It’s there, believe me, it exists!
Last point: No, people are responsible for what they do; how you decide to hold them responsible is up to you. Though I imagine a site for ridicule serves your own psychological needs more than it forces any kind of responsibility on your targets.
RHW, but I will bet you anything you think that Feminist are just the picture of mental health.
Indeed it does, and the commentariat at this blog is living proof – consistently, we do a far, far better job of occupying that middle ground than any MRA site that you care to name. I’ve already cited examples, and there are plenty more – hell, even NWOSlave has been given a sympathetic hearing on occasion.
It doesn’t serve any psychological need at all: as with any other blog that I appreciate, I enjoy David’s posts and I like virtually hanging out with the vast majority of the regulars who post here. But if Manboobz were to disappear overnight, I suspect I’d cope just fine.
Oh noes! Won’t somebody please think of the hateful bigots?
It’s impossible to “force responsibility” on anyone by any means. People either take responsibility or they don’t. Obviously, people who think that half the human race have too many rights are part of the latter. There’s nothing to be done about this, at least on the internet. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised wasn’t just about television, or just about racism.
Mocking hate sites is fun. Call that a psychological need if you want.
@Tulgey
No worries, it’s a meaningless spoiler and is irrelevant to the story loll. And dude, you will love the movie, I’m prolly gonna go catch it again on Thursday. Pay no attention to Flava Flav, the hype is real 😀
@Quackers
They don’t name a country so not Middle Eastern specifically, but definitely Islamic. The landscape is meant to evoke Middle Eastern or North African though.
RE: the safety issue. I don’t know if other POC posters here feel the same but, everytime I move to a more affluent area I feel just a little less safe because Goddamn with the police harassment!!! And, for some reason, I went through practically nothing for the first six years of my life in Canada, to like once or twice a month the last 4 years (which is still less than a lot of black and hispanic people so, you know, don’t want to whine too much). I think i wouldn’t mind it so much if it didn’t almost exclusively happen within like a 4 block radius. I desire more conversational options than “What are you doing here?” “I live here” 😎
“Indeed it does, and the commentariat at this blog is living proof – consistently, we do a far, far better job of occupying that middle ground than any MRA site that you care to name. I’ve already cited examples, and there are plenty more – hell, even NWOSlave has been given a sympathetic hearing on occasion.”
So you’re happy measure your conduct according to how it compares to MRAs – a standard you yourself would regard as bottom of the barrel. Psychological “need”, psychological “desire”, whatever. Can you ever resist the nitpick?
Ugh,
“hateful bigots” indeed. Haha. As far as responsibility goes I think it seems like you should probably take that point up with Wetherby rather than me. Anyway, I’m pretty much done.
I think part of why I am fearful of things like walking alone at night is because I know, I’d anything did happen, it would be automatically considered my fault.
Embarrassing story time! When my bf and I had our first date, we’d already seen each other around the office for a couple months and had been talking/flirting for maybe half that time. We’d gone to the same party the night before and spent the whole night talking. I’d learned a lot about him, and told him a lot about me. I felt quite comfortable and safe around him — which was damned important to me, given the last relationship I’d been in. I’d actually figured I wouldn’t feel safe enough to date someone for at least a year after that, he really surprised me. Anyway, I digress.
We’d already arranged a date for the day after, but out of the blue at about 2:00 he asked me, did I want to come over tonight to watch a movie? At his home, where he lived alone? At 9:00*?
So, risk assessment time. Did I think he would hurt me? No. I thought he was feeling the same way I was, which is to say, really excited and eager to go out together. But what if he actually did assault me? I’d be held responsible by pretty much everyone. What, you went to a man’s house at night and you’re surprised this happened? What did you think that invitation was for? You probably wanted it, and now you feel embarrassed and are trying to blame him so you don’t have to feel like such a slut. Can’t think of many people who would condemn him for assaulting me, not after I foolishly put myself in a position where it would be easy for him to do so.
I decided to go anyway. We had a really nice time. But I’ve told almost nobody since, as there’s a good chance they’d give me a tongue lashing full of analogies about leaving your valuables out and whatever-the-fuck else. I also explained later to my new bf that late-night invitations to your home aren’t really fair to make, even if you have a good rapport with a woman, because she’s going to be faced with this risk assessment and the knowledge that she would be blamed if anything happened. He was totally surprised — and instantly ashamed — that I’d thought there was any risk at all. Ah, the cluelessness of privilege.
tl;dr: Sometimes I don’t want to do things that are considered risky for women, even if I don’t actually feel very threatened, because in the unlikely event something does happen I will be blamed for it.
*I will note that it’s still light out at 9:00 during the Calgary summer, but still.
@RHW
Read the title of the article you’re posting on and get back to me on whether or not hate and bigotry are being expressed. Only compassionate, equitable people criticize victims of attempted murder immediately after horrific tragedies for their supposed future love lives, right? Or murder victims for not getting sex out of their own murders?
Wetherby’s fine in my book. Most people are. It’s actually really easy to meet the minimimum basic standards of human decency, which is why its all the more hilarious how many MRAs can’t do it.
Oh the irony.
“The Cluelessness of Privilge ” ????? Are you kiddding me ? I am a gay man that travels for my law firm all over the nation and stay sometimes at gay resorts and my lectures may be late and night and if a big drunk man hits on me in an eleavator or in a hall way am I supposed to be offended or does he have prvilege and I do not ? Please explain my male privilege at that due moment in time ,or his .
Wil, in some instances you will have privilege due to being male. However, being gay means that there are many instances where you are at risk, where you would have to do the same risk assesments a woman would for the potential of facing physical harm. Particularly if you are known or suspected to be gay.
So, no privilege in terms of the scenario you outlined.
Key phrases: “These young women will…” “…in several months time…” “Well ok they’ll be…” “…are probably…” “These women will…”
There’s a lot of precognition going around in MRA circles.
Mental health concerns — especially mental health concerns you’ve decided someone has because you’ve read their words on the Internet, that may or may not actually exist — do not exempt people from criticism. Mentally ill =/= so totally without agency that we’ll just believe any damn thing and can’t be held responsible for it, you condescending jackass. I surely hope that if I start spouting bigoted trash, y’all here will call me on it hard, not tut tut to one another about how it’s sad, the poor thing, she always was sick. Don’t make fun of her hurtful ideas, she has difficulties.
Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.
Can you tell me my prvilege ? I am lacking 1700 state and federal rights and am the most beatn, killed and discriminated America according to The Southern Poverty Law Center, uh, your the one that has the privilege, I think you need to rethink that one. The diffenrce betwenn people like me and feminist I don’t whine.
Someone needs to go learn about intersectionality.
How broken of a human being do you have to be to believe this MRA crap? Sometimes I wonder what happened to these guys.
Soooo, you’re NOT here whining that people are talking about other people being unfairly and undeservedly privileged to the detriment of the unprivileged? Maybe you prefer to take your beatings sitting down but the people here are more interested in fighting back. So run along and go back to sitting and waiting for someone to give you those rights that you’ve been denied, we’ll inform you when they’ve been won for you
I am here to defend my fellow men ,straight or gay because they saved my life one night when I was stabbed eleven times and beaten in to a coma and had to learn to walk and talk all over again, and the people that stood by me the entire time and saved my life that night were all straight men , the so called” Privieged”. I do not need to be informed on when I will have full rights one day, as I am one of the few that is fighting the big fight wth my law firm. My guess my decades end.
Please note that your situation and my situation have fuck-all to do with each other, so making a point about the privilege dynamics in one says absolutely nothing about the privilege dynamics in the other.
How about we compare my story to one that actually makes sense as a comparison? What if I’d invited my bf over to my house instead, for that first date. Would he have had to run the same risk assessment? Would he be the more vulnerable of the two of us if he chose to come? If something happened, would he be blamed for it? Oops, nope! Still me!
Women also risked their lives during the Aurora shooting to save friends and family. Taking a break from their cellphones, I guess.
The good news is that this inspired me to tell my boyfriend that if I die, he has my full permission to move on and find someone else without an ounce of guilt. Not that there was a question, but I think it’s nice to say it all the same.
Wil, in certain instances you do have privilege. Like any time you’re speaking about something serious and a woman is also present. Because you are a man, people will give what you have to say more weight than they will the woman.
Unless you happen to present as somewhat effeminate or are known in the neighborhood as being gay, or are walking hand in hand with a partner, you will not face the constant sexual harrasment women experience just for walking down the street (not that its anything good to be automatically assumed hetero).
You will never be asked “how do plan on balancing kids and a career”. You will not face employment discrimination based on the presumption that you’ll shortly be pushing out babies and too distacted and unavailable to be a good employee.
When you express anger, people will listen instead of cracking jokes about being on the rag…
It will not be an unspoken assumption that yourcareer will suffer in favor of minding the husbands’ or childrens’ interests. It will not automatically fall to you to coordinate every detail of the household, despite having a perfectly capable adult partner living with you.
Shall I go on Wil?
Um, Wil, dude…
Dude…
Firstly, does this site stand for hate against straight dudes? Let me check.
Guys, do you hate me because of who I am?
No?
Thanks.
This site stands against the kind of hatred and bigotry that led to you being attacked and beaten.
Straight dudes saved you? Who exactly was beating and stabbing you, Wil? Was it not straight dudes doing that part too?
The MRA is trying to drive all men into a homophobic violent frenzy. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t read what they say. (oh, hai there, nwoslave!! yes, I’m talking explicitly about you…) (hey, Steele, I know you deny it… but you’re either disingenuous or you just refuse to accept what they’re saying)
Vicaria, did you read what happendf to me in a post above that landed me in ICU for days ? We all take a chance in life, and yes your boyfriend might be at risk for such things as a false rape claim , or a jealous boyfriend from the past lurking around , men take risk as well Viscaria. In my world you are the one that is privileged.