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antifeminism I'm totally being sarcastic it's science! misandry misogyny MRA reddit the c-word whores woman's suffrage

Science proves the Men’s Rights subreddit to be totally not (completely) misogynistic

So apparently I’m way off base with this “misogyny” thing. For example, I have been under the impression that I have been finding misogynistic stuff in the Men’s Rights subreddit, like, all the time. With upvotes, and everything. But evidently I’m wrong.

Because now ignatiusloyola, one of the subreddit mods, has done a very scientific study that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that, well, whatever misogyny is there is officially not a big damn deal.

Ig explains his protocol:

I did a quick scan of the first 400 comments on the list (100/page, 4 pages in). I scanned for words like “cunt” and “whore”, and read the context of these. I looked for the words “woman” and “women”, and read the context of these. I looked for “suffrage” and “vote” also.

I found two comments that used the word “cunt”, one of them was used to describe men, the other to describe a specific woman. The only instances of “whore” were “attention whore”.

There were two comments involving the word “woman” that generalized women with negative stereotypes.

“Suffrage” and “vote” instances did not involve any context that suggested that women did not deserve the right to vote.

How a person defines “hatred of women”, either loosely (suggestive from context, rather than explicit) or strictly (explicit statements), it is pretty clear that out of 400 comments, very few are misogynistic.

Does misogyny exist? Yes. But it does not seem to be a significant contribution to r/MensRights. At best, people are seeing a few comments and focusing on their existence while ignoring the rest.

It’s a lot like that time Michael Richards did that standup routine, and everyone focused on that one word he said, totally ignoring all the other words he used that were totally not racist slurs. I mean, yeah, he said that word a bunch of times, but it still made up a very small percentage of all the words he used that evening.

So that’s that, then. Misogyny, officially not a problem!

Or that would have been that, had Ig not actually posted about his experiment to the subreddit he had just proved was, like, totally non-misogynistic:

Because it turned out that a couple of the fellas had an issue with Ig’s methodology. In particular, that stuff about female suffrage. Because, apparently, you can totally be against women having the right to vote and still not be a misogynist. As zyk0s put it (garnering upvotes in the process):

[T]here’s the matter of female suffrage. I really don’t see how suggesting women should not have been granted the right to vote is misogyny. It might be motivated by it, but not necessarily so, and treating it as such is akin to criminalizing holocaust denial: it’s censorship, pure and simple, and if [1] /r/MR wants to keep calling itself an open space where ideas are not silenced, that attitude has to change.

Our friend Demonspawn went even further(and got a few upvotes himself):

Suggesting that the government works better without the women’s vote is not misogyny. It’s an analysis of the facts and the consequences of allowing women’s suffrage.

Suggesting that women retain the right to vote without the corresponding responsibilities that men face is misandry.

So there you have it. The Men’s Rights subreddit doesn’t have a misogyny problem; if anything, it’s a hotbed of misandry.

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Rahu
Rahu
12 years ago

Tom – still curious over here about how you’d handle the rights of the not-quite-up-to-three-weeks-old “criminal” that I mentioned.

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

@ Fembot- Tom requires you to invent something no one else has thought of ever to be worthy of respect in his eyes. Which should be terribly easy and a worthwhile goal- who wouldn’t want that man’s approval. I recommend wholesome and delicious Boson particle brownies!

fembot
12 years ago

The next phase, is to decide how you would like to make the world a better place.

I help children (some of whom are boys) by being a teacher. I make my husband happy, which may not matter to you, but I think it’s important 🙂

What are you going to invent?

Does having children count?

If not, then probably nothing. I don’t like science, and I’m not a techy type person. I may write a novel someday, but don’t count on it. Guess I’m stuck being a wh*re 🙁

M Dubz
12 years ago

Oh man, I was right in my hypothesis. YAY ME!

(Also, can I just bring up the irony that he just called a single, financially independent future rabbi a wh*re? Priceless!)

ozymandias42
12 years ago

Fembot: Fortunately, he likes receiving presents, because he hates shopping. XD

Tom: What if someone sells sex AND invents things? Are they a wh*re?

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

Has Tommy ever claimed to have invented anything? Apart from his definition of prostitution, I mean.

cloudiah
12 years ago

A. There is nothing wrong with sex work, provided it is not coerced or coercive. It’s work.
B. People in relationships should be free to negotiate the arrangements that work for them (provided they are not coerced or coercive).
3. The above pertains to adults making free choices, not children. [19 days old! I despair for this world sometimes.]

That’s not perfect, because wine, but it’s a pretty good summary of what I think.

I feel no need to convince Tom that I am not a sex worker because I honestly don’t care what he thinks about anything, and because of what I’ve said above.

fembot
12 years ago

Wait, today I thought of something. I told my husband someone should invent a jacket with compartments in it that you could fill with ice. The fabric would keep the ice from numbing or burning your skin, and you could wear it when you don’t want to turn on the air conditioner. But he wasn’t too impressed.

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

He sure as shit ain’t making the world a better place, that much I do know.

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

He has invented a lovely palace in the sky that he likes to live in. Does that count?

M Dubz
12 years ago

@Dracula- And who’s to say I’m NOT a witch? Apparently by some definition of some term, I have been selling sex for money without my knowledge, so maybe I’ve been casting magical spells unwittingly as well…

MollyRen (@MollyRen)
12 years ago

Tom is now going to think we’ve proved to him that every woman is either living off her husband’s money or their parent’s money. XD

AliasC
AliasC
12 years ago

Happy birthday, moonz! Or nearly, depending on your time zone.

For you, a .gif – which also represents my reaction to so many things that manboobz links me to:

Nope Nope Octopus

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

Don’t forget the government’s money

Flib
Flib
12 years ago

Dracula, Tommy boy thinks he does experiments. He keeps mentioning random interviews and such, along with some sort of experiment to prove misandry. I’m sure he has done a thorough literature view and doesn’t hold a million validity problems. I’m sure…

Wasn’t it awhile back that by his own definition of what he considered people “whores” that he was one himself?

fembot
12 years ago

Even if a woman works and pays all of her bills without a man, she still depends on the police and fire department to help her, so = wh*re.

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

M Dubz – Well yeah, exactly.

fembot
12 years ago

@MollyRen

I think that point was “proven” in Tom’s mind a long time ago. Our discussions here are inconsequential.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
12 years ago

I am very deliberately not looking into the case involving the 19 day old baby, or I’m going to need a lot more to drink.

Plex Flexico
Plex Flexico
12 years ago

Do you think it’s ever occurred to Tom that his obsession with prostitutes makes him little more than a whack-ass trick?

cloudiah
12 years ago

@Plex Tom thinks “tricks” are the victims of sex workers. He also thinks children can be sex workers, and can victimize adults. Yes, he is that terrible.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
12 years ago

BTW, was there ever any response from any MRA to Tom’s theory of how child prostitutes victimize innocent pedophiles, other than Steele’s paranoid fantasy about feminist secret agents?

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

I seem to recall NWO either praising him or offering sympathy, possibly both.

M Dubz
12 years ago

@cloudiah- It might explain why he is so bitter. If every woman is a wh*re, then he is constantly getting taken advantage of by their leeching misandry, and he’s not even getting laid in the bargain (at least, not by all women at all times, although I hope for the sake of women everywhere that he isn’t getting laid by anyone).

Monsieur sans Nom
Monsieur sans Nom
12 years ago

” MSN- Aaahh, so there’s your problem right there- any useful academic definition of misogyny includes the understanding that particular form of hatred comes from systemic oppression. Unless you are looking to dictionary.com for feminist theories you really ought to know that. But now that you do you ought to know why no one accepts misandry- it really can’t exist as the flip side of misogyny.

So what term do you use to describe the hatred of/hostility towards men? Androphobia? Oh wait, “manophobia”! 😛

I’m not interested in any of these pseudoscientific sociological “theories” until there is some actual evidence for them that can stand up to both statistical analysis as well as the scientific method. Most dictionaries, including the Oxford and Merriam-Webster, define misogyny as the pervasive hostility towards women. Since when do academic feminists get to reinvent the english language?

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