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.
ugh im impressed you had the patience to read through that stream of mush
Procrastination from actual work is a hell of a thing.
To be honest, this kind of guy is sort of a hilarious new type of troll that is developing in MRA circles. They know their movement is ridiculous so instead of defending it, they run circles around their actual opinion with shit like
“I’m just DEEPLY concerned that Futrelle, by making points with which I agree , might in some intangible way be excercising man-hatred and making it impossible for our hate movement, with which I disagree, to operate without hurt feelings. And that is bad.”
Maybe these trolls realise they personally can’t get away with death threats, so they’re now trying to bore us to death instead.
Not only would I not save a girl like this, I would use her as a shield. Why do I hate these guys? Because they are reenforcing the idea that I am worth less than a woman. Unacceptable. No thanks. These white knights are my enemy.
How about these girls save ME and then after they are dead, I then move on to the next girl to have sex with.
Mike, it’s not about whose life is “worth more”. The heroes at Aurora decided to give their lives to save the people they love. Women do this to, for their children, friends, and sometimes even for strangers. That’s what love is about, when you put your lay down your own life for someone else.
I’m sick of seeing MRA RIPTrolls show up at obituaries for heroes like Don Lansaw to bash widows, and using these tragedies as an excuse to bash women. That kind of behavior makes them no better than the Westboro Baptist Church. They also love gloating over other peoples’ suffering.
It’s okay, Mike: we already knew you want to be considered superior to women.
No no, these guys were clearly being chivalrous. If these guys had done this for their mothers or maybe their sisters (I wouldn’t do this for my sisters, my mother, yes, but not my sisters) I wouldn’t be so harsh. These guys are not heroes, they are the enemy What they have done has offended me..
Not only are they NOT heroes, they are stupid too. Soon enough these girls will be getting plowed by new guys while these guys will still be dead and will then be forgotten. Stupid. I would rather have my self respect and not let women think I am not a person because I am a man.
I’m not ashamed to say it. I would have left any girl I was with for dead, and if necessary, hid behind her. After that, I wouldthen do what these women will soon be doing. Move on with my life and move on to the next woman.
So I want to be considered superior because I won’t die for them? Yeah, ok.. Every person for theirselves, THAT’S equality. BTW, I’m not angry at the women who were saved, as they only did what I would do, I’m coming down hard on these dipshit guys. Good riddance.
Fine then, that’s how you’ve decided to react in a crisis. You have the freedom to make that choice. That still doesn’t make it okay for your to dishonor the men who made the ultimate sacrifice for the people they love. No matter how you feel about it, I will keep honoring those men and call them heroes.
Mike, there are women that die saving people, too. Did you know there were several babies and children that survived the Joplin tornado because their mothers used their own bodies as shields from the debris? I covered my own children during the tornado, too, and luckily we all survived. There was a woman working at a cell phone store nearby that died saving customers. This is what her husband described
from The Kansas City Star
People of all genders make sacrifices for others. When you try to take away their hero status, you are dishonoring them.
Of course you think they are heroes, you’re a woman and you want guys to die for you when shit hits the fan. I’m not even angry at you for it, because you’re only doing what I would do if I were a woman, but I’m not a woman, I’m a man.
Re-enforcing the idea that men are not worth as much as what you are as a woman works to your favour. But be warned, more and more men are getting wise to this, and it will all come to an end for you eventually.
I’m not pissed at these guys for saving women, I have no problem with guys saving women during a house fire, or helping a woman who is having a heart attack, I’m pissed off at how they fucked theirselves over to save these women, re-enforcing this shit.
Why are all these guys so fixated on the idea of the women having sex with other men in the future? One of the reasons that they shouldn’t have been saved seems to be that they’ll move on with their lives and horrors! have SEX with someone in the future. How fucking distateful can this stuff get?. The focus on the hypothetical future sex is super creepy. Projection much?
Fuuuuck you troll. That’s pathetic, talking that way about someone who died protecting their loved ones.
Yes, dying to save children, not men. If you can show me women dying to save men in the same way these men died to save them I’d like to hear it. Also, I am dishonouring them, and it needs to be done. They have demeaned me as a person.
No, you’re wrong. I do not want anyone to ever die for me. After the tornado, my husband demanded that he be the one to first leave our basement closet and figure out a safe place to go. I argued with him, because I wanted to take that risk. He said that he would rather die than lose me, but that’s the same exact way I feel about him. That’s what love is about, that you’d rather die than lose the people you love the most.
I’ve told my husband several times that if we ever end up in another life or death situation, that I get to be the one to take the most risk. He doesn’t want to hear any of it, and said the tornado doesn’t count, and it’s still his turn. Maybe I’m an optimist here, but I think most people in happy relationships would be the same way.
They have demeaned me as a person.
Pretty sure you don’t need their help to do that.
Speak for yourself jackass, I’m a man and they haven’t demeaned me. They’re heros. You think that they’ve demeaned you because you’re a gross troll not because you’re a man so don’t try to pull that bullshit.
What about the story from the Kansas City Star I linked to,about the woman who died at the cell phone store? She died to save customers, both men and women. Believe me, I know all these stories inside and out. I’ve read all 161 obituaries several times.
Yes because children are uniformly only female until the age of 18. Then somehow half of them become men.
Also, men wishing to protect the people they care about is only bad because it shows Mike how small of a person he is inside. See, the men protected the ones they cared about. Because that is what people do when they care about someone, they want to keep them from harm. However Mike is too busy being only about Mike. And he knows, deep down, this is wrong. It makes him feel bad. So he has to project his anger onto men who were better than he will ever be.
Men are fixated on this idea because these girls are getting a better deal than the dead guys. And again, I’m not mad at these girls for going out and getting some new guy to cum on their faces, because if I were them, again, I’d do the same thing. Are you kidding me, if by some freak occurance my girlfriend died protecting me, I’d be using that shit constantly by telling girls all about it to get me some sympathy sex. I’d be all over that.
Also, if I should die young, I want my husband to remarry and be happy. It’s possible some of the fallen heroes at Aurora would have wanted their wives and girlfriends to find love again, too.
Eww, Mike, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Why do you say this kind of stuff? Seriously. “Men” are not fixated on this, you are. Why do you feel the need to be so cruel to people who died and the people they left behind? I really don’t understand.
Yeah, it’s easy to say that when you’re not expected to dive in front of bullets to protect him.