Our old nemesis The Pigman — the MRA blogger and one half of the cartooning team responsible for atrocities like this — has some thoughts on the Aurora shootings, specifically on the men who lost their lives to protect their girlfriends from gunfire. Their heroism makes him angry, much like the fellows on The Spearhead we looked at the other day. Here’s his complaint:
How’s that for inequity? How’s that for disposability? These guys appear to have sacrificed themselves for these people primarily because of their sex.
Well, no, I think they sacrificed themselves for their girlfriends because they loved their girlfriends.
After all, where are the guys who jumped in front of their best mate, or their dad or brother? And above all, where are the women who died saving their boyfriends?
There were many heroes in the Aurora shooting. Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves died protecting their girlfriends. Stephanie Davies risked her life to keep a friend shot in the neck from bleeding to death. Other acts of heroism had less storybook endings: Marcus Weaver tried to shield a female friend. He was wounded but lived; she died. Jennifer Seeger tried to drag a wounded victim to safety, but fled when the shooter returned.
But the Pigman is interested in none of this:
This isn’t heroism, this is male disposability at its worst and by praising it society is encouraging it.Cheering these men’s actions is as reprehensible as it is stupid and discriminatory.
The heroes in Aurora acted quickly, and on instinct; they didn’t have time to stop to think. Is it possible that, in the cases of those men who tried to shield the women with them, gender socialization had something to do with what their instincts told them to do? Almost certainly.
But “male disposability” has nothing to do with it. We live in a society in which heroism, as an idea and as a cultural ideal, has been gendered male for thousands of years. In the stories we tell ourselves, the video games we play, the movies we watch (including The Dark Knight Rises) , the “hero with a thousand faces” is almost always male, and the damsel in distress is, well, almost always a damsel.
The Pigman ignores all this, instead attacking the three dead men as
foolish enough and unfortunate enough to fall for a lifetime of anti-male propaganda telling them to die for the nearest woman whenever the shit hits the fan.
I have no doubt that many are concerned with the feelings of the dead men’s survivors and wish I would just shut up.
But then he barrels ahead anyway:
But this is a simple case of “What you praise, you encourage,” and I for one think calling out those who encourage men to waste their lives for people worth no more than themselves is more important than being “sensitive”. Die for a child if you must, die for some guy on the verge of finding a cure for cancer if you must – die for someone no better than you simply because you have been taught to and you are a fool.
Had these men died protecting male buddies, would The Pigman have applied this calculus of worthiness to the beneficiaries of their heroism? Would he have suggested that the dead men thought they were worth less than their friends? Of course not.
The three men didn’t do what they did because they thought they were worthless or disposable. They did what they did because they wanted to protect those they loved. Others in the theater, like Stephanie Davies, risked their lives for friends, or people they didn’t even know. There’s nothing foolish or “wasteful” about putting yourself on the line to protect others. In every major disaster, whether natural, or like this one man-made, ordinary people emerge as heroes precisely because they are willing to put the lives and safety of other people ahead of their own.
Do these real-life stories of heroism play out in gendered ways? Often times they do. Men may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their wives or girlfriends; mothers may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their children.
In real life crises, it’s hardly surprising that people sometimes act like characters in these stories we tell ourselves. If you want to change how people act, you need to change these stories.
MRAs like to pretend that men are the “disposable sex” but in their hearts they know that’s not true. They’re well aware, as are we all, that our cultural narratives of heroism privilege and glorify men and put them at the center of almost every story. MRAs like The Pigman aren’t interested in expan ding our cultural narratives of heroism to include female heroes — nor are they willing to even acknowledge that there are such things as female heroes in the real world. They certainly don’t want more stories, more games, more films featuring female protagonists.
Instead they’d rather wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood, and attack real heroes like Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves as “white knights” or “fools.”
How people react in a crises reveals a lot about them. How MRAs like The Pigman, and like the Spearhead commenters I quoted the other day reacted to the Aurora shootings has certainly revealed a lot about them, none of it good.
Unfortunately, attitudes like theirs aren’t confined to the fringe that is the manosphere.
After hearing the stories of Blunk, McQuinn, and Teves, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto tweeted “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.”
After numerous readers responded to his remarks with outrage, Taranto offered an apology of sorts, along with an explanation that suggested he really didn’t understand why people were angry in the first place. When someone does something noble and heroic out of love, it’s not up to you to second guess their actions or their love. Taranto’s words not only dishonored “the the girls whose boyfriends died to save them;” it dishonored the heroes as well.
Like The Pigman, like the Spearhead commenters, Taranto has failed this test of his humanity.
@CassandraSays:
Well, that’s not exactly what I said, but anyway, the reason for that is that my rule rule of inference “in males first assume sexual motives”, to explain human behavior, rarely failed me. I have a lot of trust in it — I’ll give you an example: the incident in Nebraska two days ago, where a lesbian was attacked by three men, well, if we use the rule, we come to the conclusion that it is a hoax, if it were real, she also would’ve been raped. Remember that, it will turn out that I’m right.
@MorkaisChosen:
I think, that’s just a convenient illusion, a respectable belief for a functioning society, but not really true at the core (or why should a human at the intellectual level of a chimp be more worthy as a chimp?)
just this
@ Steele
Please note the vile misandry of Nikan’s comments. Now you two have a nice talk.
i actually specifically called mikey a creep to watch him lose it over it
and yet he still doesnt seem to notice hes being fucked with
Nikan: MrB’s non-verbal autistic nephew has more societal value than you’re currently demonstrating.
Like I said, Nikan, you’re a shithead.
Steelepole translation: Men should pay for women’s livelihoods! I mean, I know it never says that, but misandry.
Really, Mikey, if confronting the simple truth is so hard on your stomach, you really shouldn’t be doing this.
Nikan: My two year old nephew also has more societal value than you’re demonstrating He’s sweet and funny and not a misogynistic asshole!
Acting like a non-gendered insult is gendered is silly, can we get this on record?
“Shaming misandrist-feminist language is misandrist and shaming, what else is new.”
This is particularly funny in that the MRM uses “misandrist” as a shaming word designed to shame women out of being feminists. Or of displaying any sort of self-respect, really.
I’m ashamed to admit this, but I have seen Sex and the City 2, and I know that it passed the reverse Bechdel test. In the scene of the wedding with Liza Minnelli singing, a guy hit on Mr. Big at the bar. Mr. Big politely declined him and went to his wife, Carrie. Then Mr. Big bragged that he “still got it”. Steele is wrong.
I don’t remember on SATC: The Movie, and I’ve never seen Bridesmaids or Black Swan, so I’ll take his word for it on those.
@KathleenB:
Certainly that’s probably the last thing I am.
well why should feminists get to have self-respect when mikey clearly doesnt have any?
Is it me or is slavey just a few “Excuse me”s from digivolving into Owly 2.0?
Nikan: Sweet and funny? Yeah, you’re not showing a lot of either. You are being a misogynist, though!
oh shit I’m naked.
pecunium — “Bechdel test.com is wrong.” — there was debate if the second woman there was named or not, and having not seen it, I can’t comment.
Non-spoiler version or that cypher is that two women have a conversation, about not-a-man, but the database debates whether the second was named, pecunium’s saying she was I guess. (I have no real stake in this, other than the clarity of the list I made)
Actually Nikan’s spiel is just as anti-man as it is anti-woman. He seems to have a terrible attitude towards everyone, really.
Cassandra: Point, he appears to be an equal opportunity asshole I stand by our nephews having more societal value than Nikan is currently showing, though.
My cat has more societal value than Nikan. Actually, so does the keyboard that I’m typing on.
Gah, punctuation!!!!
My dog has more societal value than Nikan.
In the time it took me to eat dinner:
“Excuse me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Excuse me.”
CURSE YOU, SHARCULESE, FOR THIS IS A THING I SHALL NEVER UN-KNOW.
Poor, Steele. He’s making the same mistake I used to make. Expecting the indocrinated to make sense. Feminism is based on hate.
The patriarchy is men being controlling.
The patriarchy is bad.
Women are bad if they uphold the patriarchy, although they’re still victims of the patriarchy.
Gender is a social construct of the patriarchy.
Patriarchy hurts women.
Patriarchy hurts men.
Patriarchy is sexism.
Patriarchy is racism.
Patriarchy is all bad things bundled into one.
Feminism is enlightenment. Once you accept the religious faith of feminism reality has no meaning. All evil flows from patriarchy, all good flows from feminism.
Partiarchy is the giant strawman of feminism. No matter what the problem is, patriarchy is to blame since patriarchy covers everything evil. Since feminism covers all things good, (enlightenment), more feminism is always the answer to any problem.
Patriarchy is feminists representation of man or masculinty.
Feminism is feminists representation of woman or femininity.
This is all that you need to know. This is what’s indoctrinated into our culture by every means possible. This is why all media outlets, our schools and politicians preach the same doctrine. No matter how you slice it. Man = bad. Woman = good.
O HAI NWO
You do get that paying employees better generally means less profit right? And that that has little, if any, relation to production? Further, this is basically wtf happened to the middle class, the answer to that question is that we’ve been producing more, but getting larger chunks of the profits kept by the bosses.
Economics, please learn some.
whataboutthemoonz — here, try un-knowing this —
http://youtu.be/Xn6Gwb0U9bc
It’s like 4 o’clock met Wonka’s Pure Imagination, I love it.