Categories
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.

934 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tom Martin
12 years ago

I have just come up with a theory about why women aren’t as funny as men on average. I believe that when women are with other women, they do laugh, but at inane non-jokes. They’re laughing at how terrific they think it is to be women and not even bother coming up with actually funny jokes – their attitudes, it seems, being not so much an appreciation of how “funny ha ha” they’re being, more a celebration of how “funny whore whore” they’re being.

I was just explaining this theory to someone who too does not like me using the w word, but nevertheless, when I ran it past them, they begrudgingly acknowledged its veracity.

The bottom line is, if you timidly say the w word, people call you out as a misogynist etc, but if you plough through the shit-tests and forcefully put your point home (and if you’re right), then that makes it okay.

fembot
12 years ago

@MollyRen

I think the only men who spend that kind of money on a ring are either wealthy to begin with, or they buy the ring on credit and spend two years paying it off. People who are responsible with their money usually don’t throw down $10,000 on a ring. I always laugh at these women with huge rings and say “she’s wearing the down payment for a house on her finger.” The three months salary idea is propaganda perpetuated by DeBeers and others in the diamond industry. My husband and I picked out our rings together, and only spent what he had in the bank to spend. If your woman is demanding an expensive ring, maybe you should think twice about marrying her, even if she is super hot.

Bushfire
Bushfire
12 years ago

Tom, you just avoided actual conversation to use an ad hominem “women aren’t funny!” which had nothing to do with the conversation. This, shortly after you said yourself that women do this. Are you a woman, Tom?

Tom Martin
12 years ago

Women are on average less funny than men.

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

Humor is apparently defined as what Tom finds funny.

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

Also, no one is arguing by calling you names. People are winning arguments with you and then calling you names. Maybe you meet the same posters again and again, and they might call you a few names at the outset because they remember you from the last time they out-argued you? That could be where you’re getting confused.

Tom Martin
12 years ago

As I was saying, not so much funny ha ha (on average).

hellkell
hellkell
12 years ago

Oh, look! Tom’s drunk posting again. His need for attention is spiking.

Dracula
Dracula
12 years ago

Shorter Tommy: “I was just cobbling together this bullshit thought experiment out of nothing but my own prejudice, and my imaginary friend totally agrees that it’s true!”

fembot
12 years ago

I have a great sense of humor. My husband, friends, coworkers, and family are always laughing at my jokes. You’re wrong about women not being funny, along with so many other things. But you’ll just say, “no you aren’t nah nah.” Oh well. You’re not important, anyway.

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

Oh, speaking of funny women talking about ridiculous men, Jenna Marbles weighed in on Yet Another Idiot who thinks women not being busty enough at the Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag4C0MFRnmE

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

*who thinks women not being busty enough at the Olympics is bad

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

Tom, do you mean to say your definition of humour is ‘funny haha’? Do I have to tell you that your definition is lacking in, um, definition, or are you going to go ahead and clear that little mess up yourself?

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
12 years ago

Maybe at some point we need to do bra sizing part 2 – the sports bra edition, since so many male readers apparently found that educational last time.

(Quick summary – boobs, they are squishy.)

pecunium
pecunium
12 years ago

Tom’s attempts to use insult are his way of engaging in dominance posturing. It “proves” he is in a position to insult others, thus showing he is a more, “powerful” figure.

Of course he is doing this in a place where his ability to do so is based on the sufferance of the person he insults, which actually undercuts it, because it means Dave is strong enough (dare I say it, “Alpha” enough) to not care what the Tom Martin’s of the world do.

Vitamin D
Vitamin D
12 years ago

@ pecunium- I thought he was just saving face

Argenti Aertheri
12 years ago

whataboutthemoonz — *rat claws* I missed you too! And oh gods, I am so sorry that I missed Tom’s attempts at Spot That Fallacy!! (here’s a hint Tom, my fallacy list? it’s straight off wiki, you could easily use the same list)

pecunium
pecunium
12 years ago

Argenti: The Standard Logical Fallacies fail to account for the special failures of logic made by feminists.

Tom would be glad to explain it all to you, as soon as he gets done defining prostitution.

fembot
12 years ago

@pecunium

That’s why it’s taking him so long to define prostitution. The list keeps getting longer and longer, because everything is prostitution.

katz
12 years ago

Careful, Tom, your mask is slipping. The other day you were claiming to be doing a sober and academic study of whether women could be funny or not.

fembot
12 years ago

They’re laughing at how terrific they think it is to be women

Never did this. Never even thought about it. You really are a paranoid messed up person, aren’t you? Stop obsessing about women 24/7 and get a fucking life already.

Tom Martin
12 years ago

Fembot – the documentary will be finding out precisely what unfunny things women laugh at among each other – a hidden camera, mics and a cheap bottle of chablis in a waiting room, whilst they think they’re waiting to participate in drink driving simulator research in the next room, is all the props we need to hear it all straight from their boring mouths – the anatomy of female inanity.

jumbofish
jumbofish
12 years ago

I am rather curious where you are going to get all the money to do that tom considering your massive debt. I mean you need to buy the camera,mics,wine, rent out the space to do your research, pay the women, and probably more.

And for what exactly? to prove women are not funny? Are you going to have a control group of men? How will you judge how funny someone is? What if they do not even talk? or try to be funny? What is the point in proving women are not funny anyhow? Won’t your predetermined opinion that women are not funny cloud your judgement?

Also how can women’s physical mouths be boring?????How are women’s mouths more inane than mens???

Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
12 years ago

What’s your point? That drunk people in private aren’t attempting to entertain the general public? That people who aren’t talking to you aren’t attempting to pique your interest?

a) You absolutely will never organise this.
b) For the setup you describe to be plausible would require the assistance of an University or similar. You’ve kind of burned your bridges.
c) I’m no expert but, I’m pretty sure recording psychological experiments is usually okay. Broadcasting the footage without permission? Not okay.
d) Does this “experiment” have a control? What are you comparing to the conversation of these intoxicated women? How are you quantifying ‘humour’?
e) I could go on, but all this is nitpicking, because it will never happen. Same as the last dozen documentaries you’ve described.

Tom, I’ve asked this before and I ask it again: how the hell did you even get into a grad programme at LSE? You clearly haven’t got the slightest idea how research works or how academic ethics work. I’m an English major. If I can poke holes in your research project then, it’s a pretty shitty research project.

Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
12 years ago

Ninja’d

1 30 31 32 33 34 38