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.
@ Cloudiah- Swear here, get it out of your system before you defend your thesis. I hear they frown upon that in academic circles. Also, break a leg!
Good luck, cloudiah! I hope you prove your thesis about cat videos. That’s what you’ve been working on here, right? Anyway, I suggest that you a) do not break a leg, since it could land you in the hospital and delay your defense and b) watch some cat videos, which I hypothesize will calm your nerves and also make you somewhat more productive after you watch them (Source: Science).
Like this one:
Daw.
A friend of mine is defending at the same time on the same day and we’ve decided* we’re bringing in cat toys, so that if things go totally to hell (aka cattawumpus, ha) we can try to distract our committees.
Good plan or bad plan?
__ Good plan
__ Bad plan
* We’ve also decided we’re each bringing flasks full of alchohol.
I don’t get the hate for promiscous women in those circles. Don’t these guys realize they they’re also benefiting from having more partners?
Unless they’re not.
Mmmmmm. This is some good popcorn.
Hm. What proportion of your committee is cats? I feel like it is a good plan in direct relation to the number of members that will be cats. Alternately, if there are no feline professors, you could bring in cats to play with the toys.
Cloudiah: Sleep. I mean it. I had an exam, on which my future depended, and the week before I stopped sleeping well. I was a wreck. An instructor asked me what was wrong; he knew I was better than that. I told him I wasn’t sleeping well.
My advisor took me aside, told me to get some sleepytime tea, and not study, just go to bed.
It helped, a lot.
I will sleep, I promise. I actually have drugs in reserve if the non-sleeping doesn’t abate; I’m just trying to avoid using them if possible.
@cloudiah, just remember you did all the work, so you *know* the information. Sometimes relaxation/meditation can help. A tip I was given was to turn my alarm clock around so I couldn’t read the time on it and panic myself wide awake. And that if I couldn’t get back to sleep, get up and read a good book/have a picnic in the living room – basically cognitive behavioural reframing of insomnia from a negative into a positive. Avoiding caffeine after noon is another tip – when I was in my 20s I could drink coffee up to bedtime and still fall asleep in 5 minutes, now not so much. 🙂
I wouldn’t say it’s completely impossible, though difficult, to measure happiness. I have no idea whether there really are studies showing that women who focus more on their families are happier than other women, but let’s say for the sake of discussion that there are. This doesn’t prove that 1950:s gender roles are the way to go for more happiness, since the same thing might be true about men! I wouldn’t even consider it particularly surprising if there was a correlation for all genders between “working a bit less and spending more time with the family” and “happier”.
Also, even if there’s a general correlation between focusing on family and happiness, it doesn’t prove that this is the right choice for every single person.
Some very peculiar ideas about sexuality in a supposedly left leaning paper:
“It’s a place where they can step outside the anxiety-fraught dating scene”
“a man expressing his sexuality isn’t going to be met with a sexual harassment lawsuit.”
“male sexual fantasies are complex and not infrequently politically incorrect”
“watching nude women dance is a rite of passage as common as a first kiss”
“escape from reality”
“women parade around nude…in which doing so doesn’t get anybody arrested”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/19/strip-clubs-new-normal
@cloudiah And remember, although it’s called a “defence” which sounds like the committee’ll be attacking you, they won’t be. They WANT you to be successful, they just need to ask clarifying questions to ensure that neither you nor they have missed anything, and that your work is sound.
@The Kittehs
What are you talking about? toilet paper is WAY useful. You especially learn to appreciate it when travelling to countries where it’s in very short supply as well as having contaminated water….
This crap? No way you can compare it to the glory of toilet paper. Perhaps as useful as…. a car elevator? a diamond dog collar? sarah palin’s opinion on the economy? I don’t know really
@Crys – as useful as used toilet paper, I said! 😀 Believe me, I appreciate the unused stuff. But MRAs definitely remind me of used bumf.*
“Useful as Sarah Palin’s opinion” doesn’t really need qualification, does it?
*Bumf = bum fodder = toilet paper, for anyone who hasn’t heard the term.
Matt Forney is kinda funny, he’s outta shape but rails against women he finds unattractive. But he always gets called out for hinting at his “successes” with women on his travels but not actually getting into any specifics. He also refuses to post recent photos of himself.
That said, what he says about the MRM is pretty much spot on. And I think he’ll drop the misogny soon enough.
@Cloudiah: That post is beautiful and you should feel awesome.
Good luck!
BTW, the ‘virginity means less divorce’ statistic actually bothers the heck out of me.
So there’s this large population that will never admit to not being virgins when they got married (and tried like heck to be) and will never, ever get divorced. No matter how miserable this makes them.
Because it’s personally fulfilling? Heck, no. Because you will be a pariah and outcast. Because in fundie-land divorce is worse than killing a dude. Killing a dude might be self-defense. You aren’t actually allowed a divorce for self-defence.
(my old preacher, who I sometimes rip on, was considered a dangerous liberal because he said Jesus didn’t want any woman to stay and get her teeth punched in. I can’t make this stuff up. That was….yeah)
“A friend of mine is defending at the same time on the same day and we’ve decided* we’re bringing in cat toys, so that if things go totally to hell (aka cattawumpus, ha) we can try to distract our committees.”
Good plan or bad plan?
_X_ Good plan
___ Bad plan
I’m not fat, I’m sturdy 😛
I noticed that “stat,” too. Yeah, it’s not at all surprising to me that the kind of repressive cultures that would force women to hide their sexuality would also put an extreme amount of pressure on people to never divorce, no matter what the circumstances of the marriage actually are. And this is a good thing, according to this dood.
You’re all so sweet to be so encouraging — much appreciated. I have a really great committee, so while I am nervous I am also looking forward to it in a weird way. And I got a good night’s sleep last night, which proves that mocking misogyny is therapeutic. Science!
Good luck Cloudiah! I’m sure you’ll tear it up! Seconding what everyone else says about getting plenty of sleep and self-care–much more important than any last-minute cramming or worrying. I think the fact that you’re looking forward to it is a very good sign; it sounds like you have confidence in your command of the material. Now the major task is anxiety management.
Just remember: no matter what happens, you’ll still be awesome as far as we are concerned!
Ok, yous guys, I thought you might be into this:
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=53573
also:
Child brides in countries where divorce is illegal don’t get divorced as often as adults in countries where divorce is legal. Fancy that.
@cloudiah
Good luck!! My fingers shall remain crossed until that moment you give us the good word!