Hey, ladies! You know how the dudes of the so-called manosphere are always saying horrible shit about you? They’re not doing it out of hate. No, no, they’re doing it for your own good! In a guest post on the blog Freedom Twenty-Five, Matt Forney offers women his own brand of tough (alleged) love:
The manosphere is frequently accused of being misogynistic because we mock fat girls, disdain sluts and criticize the behavior of modern women. … But scientific studies and common sense both show that women are generally happiest when they’re physically fit, chaste and focused on their families instead of their careers. Women who are virgins are exponentially less likely to divorce; women with BMIs in the normal range are more likely to have fulfilling relationships instead of being pumped and dumped; women who throw their lives into their jobs are less happy than those who become wives and mothers.
If you follow the link back to his post you will see how Forney has carefully footnoted all these assertions. For example, his line about women who aren’t fat having better relationships links to this carefully constructed academic study.
Oh, wait, that’s actually a link to a discussion on Yahoo Answers that’s full of alleged wisdom like this:
Fat women have to settle for less for the same reason that people: in wheelchairs, poor people [especially men], balding people, or single people with children have to settle for less. They have less to offer on the dating market, so; there is a much smaller pool of people willing to date them. And the people who are willing to date them are usually of lower quality.
You can’t argue with that kind of SCIENCE.
Forney continues:
Basically, for women, the modern feminist consumerist lifestyle is a path to misery and loneliness.
[Citation needed] [And by “citation” I don’t mean “some dude spouting shit on Yahoo answers”]
In light of that knowledge, ask yourself this: who are the real misogynists? The ones who are guiding women back onto the path to happiness, or the ones encouraging them to destroy themselves through poor life choices?
Here’s an example of Forney “guiding women back onto the path of happiness,” taken from an earlier post on his own blog:
Bashing fat girls is all well and good, but how many of us have taken the fight to the enemy? By not viciously rubbing their hideousness in their faces, we are encouraging fatties to blimp up even more. Silence implies consent.
Back to his Freedom Twenty-Five post:
The fact is if you defend and excuse away womens’ bad behavior, fully aware that they’re harming themselves, you don’t truly love them. If you want to avert someone from traveling down the path towards death and destitution, you’re going to have to get in their face and risk hurting their feeeelings. In that sense, not only do we in the manosphere love women, we perhaps love them more than any other men in the world.
The manosphere is a space for men, but it also doubles as a mass intervention for the female of the species. Stop crying about your hurt feeeeelings and listen up, ladies. You might learn something.
Matt Forney, you’re a shithead.
I say that out of love.
@Constance:
Yeah, I’d agree. I’m just musing on the complete cluelessness of the “for your own good” drivel. Thebewilderness has a good point: whatever is said, it is about being *entitled* or *allowed* to do so, which then gets into dominance and/or bullying.
The ONLY coherent message is “I’m entitled to say shit like this and your humanity doesn’t matter.”
Is this guy from the same branch of the manosphere that always whines about how women have impossible standards? Because it seems like if fat women have to lower their standards, then the effects would cancel out and all those poor hardworking betas might actually be able to get dates. Not that it would work out that way in real life, but you know, you’d think they’d be happy about a visible cue for ‘More Likely To Date You’.
http://youtu.be/g7rZTZBOrqQ
No one will ever love you like I do so you have to stay and tolerate the abuse I heap on you every day of your life. Straight out of the abuser handbook.
No no, betas are supposed to get ultra hot (as in Hollywood standards) women. And fat chicks are being mean by not conforming so the betas can get dates with ultra hot women.
Regardless of what the actual man and woman wants.
If viciously rubbing your disgust for fat women in their face caused them to become thin, there would be no fat women left in the Western world. If he was really so concerned for the well-being of women (or even interested in making a half-decent effort to pretend to care), he’d have changed strategies by now.
@ako
We do have plenty of women (of various sizes) who are neurotic about their weight, often obsessive about even the most minor (or even charming) of bodily ‘flaws’, and a fair number suffering from major mental health issues as a result.
I really don’t think the “mock others thin” plan is really working.
If they succeed in making even one woman unhappy, insecure or outright afraid with their hatred, they probably look on that as some sort of win, even if it doesn’t mean she turns into Instant Hot Chick Who’s Totally Ready To Bang Losers Like Them. Trying to make women miserable is a large part of their raison d’etre.
@ Princess Bonbon
//See here is the thing, I find chubby males who are pale and spend too much time on the computer super hawt. //
I did not mean to imply fat pale men cannot be hot! My last boyfriend was pushing 400# and spent eight hours a day watching movies. And yeah, I found him pretty irresistable, as did the young woman he later married (we’re friends now so life is good).
Women who are virgins are exponentially less likely to divorce
Similarly, people without driver licenses have a very low DUI arrest rate, and vegetarians seldom choke on chicken bones.
I can’t quit this, probably because I have spent the last fifty years on the front lines dealing with fat shaming misogyny. I’ve run into Matt Forneys dozens of times. I am sure being fat has “cost” me many potential “dates.” But I can say in all honesty that my love life overall, as a fat (and by MRA standards, “slutty” ) feminist has been no more or less painful or pleasurable than that of my thinner, more compliant, and more conventional sisters. The pool of men interested in me sexually might have been smaller, but the quality of the relationships (or sex) I’ve had was not less. In fact, sometimes I think being thinner would just have meant having to weed though more jerks…
But of course when the Matt Forneys bully fat women (from safely behind their computers of course), they are really trying to bully ALL women. If they can keep young women feeling insecure about their physical appearance (not hard to do in this culture), they can more easily keep them in a subservient position.
So yeah. It all comes down to trying desperately to suppress half the population in order to compensate for their own powerlessness. And there is part of me that really, really feels sorry for them.
There are so many ways here to rip Matt Forney apart, could we maybe not start slinging body shame at him?
Attention misogynistic asshats:
FAT PEOPLE ARE AWARE THAT THEY ARE FAT. YOU’RE NOT TELLING THEM SOMETHING THEY DON’T KNOW. YOU’RE JUST DOUCHEY CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.
That was only one of several thousand things wrong with Forney’s post, but Christ on a bike, I’m sick of that crap.
I always thought it was Costa Ricans who are the happiest people in the world, because, well, they get to live in Costa Rica.
Is anyone else going to get nightmares from those masked people? I totally will.
Yeah, TTF, that gif is creepy.
And I broke the blockquots of course
Oh my God, yes, that gif is really creepy!
Actually, studies show that fat-shaming either does nothing for fat people’s weight or health, or may actually make both “worse” (I don’t consider being fat a bad thing necessarily, so that terminology feels strange to me).
http://theconversation.edu.au/study-finds-obesity-stigma-erodes-will-to-exercise-socialise-3583
http://theconversation.edu.au/study-finds-fat-acceptance-blogs-can-improve-health-outcomes-2890
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/public_health/171061661.html
It’s not body shaming, it’s to point out his hypocrisy.
Sgt. Grumbles: It can be both.
OT again (are you surprised?), but over on r/mr there’s a thread titled Prostitute proves provocation and is only convicted of manslaughter after murdering a client. what was accepted as provocation is ridiculous.
It’s a terrible, sad story so TW for all the bad things imaginable.
The female sex worker had been sexually molested as a child, and then sexually assaulted as an adult. 2 weeks after that assault, a client wanted to act out a fantasy about sex with a child; she snapped and killed him. Her defense was “provocation.” She got a relatively light sentence of 4 1/2 years.
The r/mr commentariat seize on that as proof that women are treated like children in the justice system.
One fellow says,
Only one problem with that. MEN USE THE SAME FUCKING DEFENSE, MORE OFTEN THAN WOMEN, AND ALSO GET SHORT SENTENCES, YOU ASSHOLES.
From the linked article:
Of course, special snowflake typhonblue weighs in to say
Except, no, they were not being physically attacked.
And I hadn’t realized that the MRM believes that a verbal attack means it’s okay to slit a man’s throat or batter him to death. Oh RIGHT, THEY DON’T THINK THAT. IT’S ONLY OKAY TO DO THAT TO A WOMAN.
FUCKERS.
(Sorry, the countdown to defending my thesis has me a bit on edge. I will try to stop swearing uncontrollably.)
@cloudiah good luck, I’m sure you’ll be fine. /virtual pats on back 🙂
As well as what everyone else has said, the other thing that gets me really annoyed:
“…Women who are virgins are exponentially less likely to divorce…”
exponential distribution, MF, I do not think that you understand it.
I have now convinced myself he also uses “PIN number”, “ATM machine” and wishes women would look stop letting their kids be “hypo”.
Cloudiah… I feel your pain. You’ll do fine.
Aw, thanks, guyz. I’m actually feeling pretty good about it when I’m awake, but when I try to sleep I have these terrible anxiety dreams so I’ve been averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night for the last month or so. Turns out that getting enough sleep is kind of important, and not getting enough sleep can make a person a tad irritable.
This one’s for Lauralot.