Back in the day – way, way back in the day – dudes opposed to women’s suffrage loved to depict suffragettes as ugly spinsters (that is, when they weren’t depicting them as sexy young women using their feminine wiles to manipulate men into supporting suffrage). We looked at some examples of this yesterday and noted that, when it comes to dismissing feminists as uggos, some things never change.
But why, oh why, are feminists so (allegedly) ugly? Or, to turn the question around, why are so many (allegedly) ugly women (allegedly) drawn to feminism?
Well, we’re in luck, because some manosphere dickwads have stepped forward to provide us with possible explanations.
Over on Freedom Twenty-Five, the “red pill” Casanova who calls himself Frost offers this theory:
Feminism is the set of ideologies whose aim is to redistribute the natural allocation of access to desirable men. It is Marxism in the Sexual, rather than Economic Marketplace.
Frost is so proud of this sentence of his that he puts it in bold, as I have. He continues:
The ultimate goal of the Feminist is to create a world in which all women are as hideous and awful and dead inside as they are, so that everyone can have an equal timeshare in the alpha harems, and everyone’s fatherless offspring can be raised by the same uninspired bureaucrats in the same grey-walled, concrete and plate-glass buildings.
I can confirm that this is indeed the ultimate goal of feminism; we talk about it at all the secret meetings. The penultimate goal? To get Sleater-Kinney back together again.
Frost breaks it down:
– Feminists tend to be some combination of fat, old, ugly, abrasive, and slutty.
– Feminists want to convince men that we should be attracted to fat, old, ugly, abrasive sluts.
– Feminists want to convince women that it is OK for them to be fat, old, ugly, abrasive sluts. They want desirable women to become fat, old, ugly, abrasive sluts, so that the feminists no longer look so bad in comparison.
– Related to (1) and (2), Feminists want to convince men and women that it is immoral for men to not be attracted to fat, old, ugly, abrasive sluts.
This is why Feminism is working so passionately to ruin American women. [Who benefits] from the widespread adoption of feminist beliefs that destroy our once-slim, once-feminine, once-nurturing women? The answer, first and foremost, is the women who were already destroyed to begin with.
Feminists know that, in a monogamous world where everyone pairs up with an equally desirable mate, they could only ever earn the favour of weak, bottom-feeding men. Feminist ideology, i.e. the hysteric and childish whining about Patriarchy, Shaming Language, and Socially Constructed Gender Roles, is no more than the set of rationalizations with which they seek to drag the rest of womankind down to their level.
Over on the blog of a fellow named Anatoly Karlin, meanwhile, a commenter calling himself fcomp has a similar theory to explain why so many feminists are (allegedly) fat fatties.
If you think about it, there is a strong rationale [sic] self interest between feminism and the increase of female obesity. If feminism is to be defined as increasing the societal power of women, then it would serve them well for their to be more obese women.
Go on.
The desirability of a women to a man is far more objective then subjective. If women were to be, across the board, more attractive, if all women became, at minimum, 6s, men who ended up marrying 6s, the men who would be the lowest in male desirability in such a society, wouldn’t nearly be as unhappy as men who end up marrying 1s in our society.
I’m not quite sure that fcomp really understands how averages work. Lake Wobegon aside, you can’t actually have a world in which all women are above average in “objective” desirability.
The logical result of that, is that in such a beautiful society, ironically, the value of female beauty would become far less valuable, and beauty would be far less desired. If there isn’t a chance that one might end up with a landwhale, I suspect that most men would hardly bother with stuff like game and the like. I would imagine that such a society would experience little sexual discrimination, but at the same time, be very anti-female, in the sense that women who are competitive with men in economically productive fields would be quite successful, but at the same time, “feminine virtues”, a females capacity attracting men, the only area in which women surpass men, would be far less valued.
If all women are beautiful, then no women are beautiful?
There is a upper cap on female attractiveness, which are the feminine ideals hardwired into us by evolution, but there is no downward cap. … [F]eminism is intrinsically a downward trend because the only thing a beautiful women can do to that makes herself more desired in a society, is to reduce the amount of beauty in that society.
The blogger on whose blog this muddled comment was posted, Anatoly Karlin, is so impressed with fcomp’s theory that he highlights it in a post of his own, adding
This is why your typical Third Wave feminist or rape activist is fat, has a manjaw, or is otherwise unattractive.
If you are ugly, devaluing beauty is not bad evolutionary strategy.
On a blog called Misanthropy Today, meanwhile, Dan Y. is not only convinced that (most) feminists are ugly; he also seems bitter that anyone would dare criticize him for calling women ugly.
[M]ost women who try to guilt us out of using looks as a criterion for judgment tend to not be very attractive. It makes sense that someone lacking in a certain perceived quality would want to dissuade others from assigning value to that quality, and would want those who possessed that quality to be humble and not flaunt it. It also seems extremely self-centered and petty to try to convince others to think and feel a certain way just so we can marginalize our lesser qualities. …
Feminists’ cries of outrage at man’s obsession with physical beauty are not altruistic. They are … upset that other women are benefitting from a quality that they don’t and probably never will possess. Their own perceived value relative to better-looking women will inevitably increase if looks are dismissed as unimportant.
Apparently, suggesting there’s more to a person than conventional attractiveness = shallow and petty. But basing your judgment of a particular women largely on whether or not she gives you a boner is the height of sophistication.
As these guys show again and again, real ugliness is more than skin deep.
And I thought Feminism was about equality. Silly me.
Ogress: Of course this stuff will all be pissed out eventually, if withdrawn sufficient time before slaughter. *It isn’t*. Of course it would be broken down, if all meat were eaten very well- done. *It isn’t*. If you saw our good old boys heaping tons of meat on the barbecue and heaping it on plates while it still has a heartbeat, you’d have a better idea, and if high-fructose corn syrup were that efficacious at causing weight gain, *that’s* what they’d be feeding our slaughter animals.
I don’t really have a standard I equate with hotness. Like there are definitely certain physical traits I find more attractive than others, but when it really comes down to it, what really attracts me to someone is their personality after time spent getting to know them. And by time I mean a matter of years. I may be diagnosed now and working to start fitting into society better, but I’m no miracle worker, the social anxiety and absolute clumsiness are still there no matter what I do really.
I got sent her new album to review a couple of months ago. I was super-excited but haven’t been quite that disappointed in a while. I mean, it’s not bad but it’s dull.
On topic, I find the most annoying thing about these ‘feminists = ugly’ arguments is that some guy always turns up to reassure us that we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads, he is still good enough to want to knob us.
I honestly don’t give a fuck. There’s seven-billion people on the planet, and I couldn’t possibly sleep with them all, so it doesn’t keep me up at night worrying that I might not perfectly fit an unattainable ‘standard’ of attractiveness that, you know, doesn’t actually fucking exist. I’m happy with myself, because unlike the MRM, I am actually, factually, A W E S O M E.
Re: factory farming and obesity – they do give feedlot animals the raw ingredients for HFCS. Feedlot cattle eat corn, and lots of it, during the homestretch before they go to slaughter. It’s cheap (though the recent drought has changed that for the moment at least) and make cattle gain weight like nobody’s business. I’ve never seen any data that says one thing or another about whether eating beef finished on corn makes you fatter than grass-fed beef, but the nutritional profile of grain-fed meat is poorer than its pastured counterpart (the omega-3 levels are particularly sad in comparison).
I’ve seen data all over the place for what’s causing the obesity epidemic. I wouldn’t discount that the way we’re raising our meat animals has something to do with it, whether it’s what they’re fed or what we inject into them. But HFCS, which as Ogress pointed out, is in effin’ EVERYTHING, seems likely to be the biggest culprit.
Notably absent from your butthurt indignation is evidence of attractive feminists.
“peenfeelings”
lol forever
HA! So says the guys who are constantly complaining about the “alpha cock carousel” and how unfair it is that they don’t get the sex they are entitled to.
And angela is still (post-flounce) going on about how it wasn’t about Slavery, and didn’t end Slavery (really, she said, unconstitutional =/= illegal), and I just want to start losing my temper.
I think the reaction to Sandy is starting to set in. It’s far from over, and (no offense to anyone here, I understand it) outside the actual disaster zone it’s “old news”. I might also be over sensitive, because it’s sort of the way the war felt too; and for me it’s still “happening” because I still have friends being shot at; even though it’s well below the national radar.
My unit is going to have a re-union; 10 years since we first deployed. The war is still ongoing.
So Angela is wearing on my last nerve.
Quick dance move! Everyone stand up. Biomedical professionals to the right, everyone else to the left.
Everyone on the left, you need to stop using the words “obesity epidemic” and those other epidemiology phrases that you like. I know that you like them, and they’re very dramatic indeed, but you need to remember that you are talking about people, and people are not diseases. I understand that you are probably very passionate about the subject, but I am equally passionate about the fact that people have bodies, which they live in, and that these people are worthy of respect, regardless of how their bodies look.
Murmuring deep thoughts about “epidemics” and “culprits” and “evolution” – and even “endocrine disruptors” for those who are feeling particularly clever – is work best left to the workers. Because when you do it – and I am very aware that you are doing it out of your own deep personal interest – you are doing it without professionalism or respect. In some cases, you’re using terms incorrectly. It amounts to criminalizing bodies, equating human beings with diseases, and insisting that everyone who does not fit a particular beauty ideal is a poor deluded freak who was left out in the cold by evolution.
Perhaps you could imagine how it would feel if you were older than 30 – some of you are – and everyone thought it appropriate to derail conversations with complaints about an “elderly epidemic.”
“It’s spreading just like a disease,” the people complain, “I never used to have to look at ugly old people, but now they’re EVERYWHERE. I had to give up my bus seat to one the other day, with visible crows-feet. Why do they all have to be so visible? Fifty years ago, there weren’t disgusting thirty-pluses, and if there were, they weren’t offensive. The population is going down the drain fast – we used to VALUE gorgeous springy young people! We were all glowing with youth, and NOW look at us! Why can’t these derelict freaks see that they’re killing themselves? Why do I have to look at their flabby skin, spotty faces and frankly disgusting HAIR all the time? The other day, I heard an old person’s KNEES crack, oh my god, they must have been FORTY YEARS OLD – I am not kidding – can you imagine? And the clothes, ewwww god, they’re such a joke, they should honestly kill themselves, haven’t they ever heard of evolution and medicine and stuff? It’s so unnecessary. They don’t give me boners at ALL. Why can’t these aged uglies just stop eating corn syrup and taking public transportation? Everyone knows that car accidents and cornbread cause aging, so WHY aren’t people just avoiding THOSE?”
Everyone has to live in their bodies. Pathologizing and criminalizing those bodies, when you do not have a shred of education to stand on in order to do it, is unproductive. Regardless of how you feel about fat, if you must derail conversations with your feelings about Other People Having Bodies In Public, please criticize using terms that you are licensed to use, which are also respectful of humanity. I am not expecting you to know anything about science or medicine. I am asking you to stop using words that you don’t understand and to stop acting as if other people’s bodies are morally, aesthetically and medically offensive to your delicate sensibilities.
Okay we can all sit down now.
GO FUCK YOURSELVES, YOU EVOPSYCH BELIEVING BUFFOONS.
THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY, STOP POLLUTING THE WORLD OF REAL SCIENCE WITH YOUR BIGOTED SMALL MINDED BULLSHIT. WE HAVE ENOUGH TROUBLE JUST FIGURING OUT HOW THINGS ACTUALLY WORK WITHOUT MORONS LIKE YOU CLOGGING UP THE SYSTEM WITH YOUR PET “THEORIES” ABOUT HOW HUMANITY MUST ALL BE EVIL AND SELF-INTERESTED BECAUSE IT’S “IN OUR NATURE”. GO FUCKING DIE IN A HOLE, IF YOU SO SINCERELY BELIEVE THAT EVOLUTIONARY SUPERIORITY IS A NOBLE GOAL TO ACHIEVE, THEN IN DOING SO YOU’D BE DOING ALL OF HUMANITY A FAVOUR BY ERASING YOUR STUPIDITY FROM THE GENE POOL.
I’m sorry, but these people make me mad, very mad, willful ignorance about how evolution actually works makes me mad. I mean seriously, how fucking dense do these people have to be to not get that how evolution actually works is that some traits fare better in some environments than others. THERE’S NO FUCKING STRATEGY TO IT. EITHER YOU HAVE TRAITS THAT HELP YOU SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO REPRODUCE IN THE WILD OR NOT, END OF STORY. FUCK, WHEN WE EVOLVED THE CAPACITY FOR COGNITION AND HIGHER ORDER THINKING, WE ESSENTIALLY MADE ANY AND ALL APPLICABILITY OF NATURAL SELECTION TOWARDS US NULL AND VOID BECAUSE GUESS WHAT, AS HUMANS WE ADAPT THE ENVIRONMENT TO US NOW.
I fucking despise the naturalistic fallacy, cant ya tell.
@elodie – Good points. Am now exorcising phrase “obesity epidemic” from vocabulary.
Pecunium: Hm? The Woody Allen Casino Royale was released in 1967, and Dr No was released in 1962 (with From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball in the interim as well).
I won’t say that we are exempt from evolution; we survive or not, as a group, with selective pressures. We are certainly changing what those pressures are, but we can’t opt out of them altogether.
But I agree that “strategy” is bollocks. There is no “goal”. Evolution isn’t “going” anyplace. You can’t strategise it.
Hrmnn…. Now I am feeling confused.
Elodie, can all of us standing on the right do something too? The passive voice could stop being abused by us.
Fitzy, you’re a sweetheart.
Nepenthe, we can enjoy some delicious drinks and footrubs! And we can also stop abusing the passive voice. It would be also be good if we didn’t portray evolution as having a positive endgame – it’s resulted in the public’s perception that Evolution = Always For The Best.
And we also get some snacks too
I think you are thinking of the book Pecunium.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/casino-royale-ian-fleming/1100675049
*applause* for Elodie. I am occasionally guilty of forgetting that there are real people under all the talk about the “obesity epidemic” – even as I struggle with my own weight and diet issues. Thanks for reminding us.
I was about to say the same thing, emilygoddess. I mentioned in a comment on another thread about how half of my family struggle with their weight. However, when I run my mouth (or my keyboard) about “the obesity epidemic,” I never think of my mom standing in her kitchen with a food scale and a portion-control chart. I think of diseased cows and GMO grains and tidal waves of high fructose corn syrup. I’m glad elodie gave me a virtual kick in the avatar butt; I needed it badly.
@Pecunium
You make a valid point, I think I was more trying to say that natural selection doesn’t have nearly the pull on us that it has on other animals. It’s nowhere near pulling enough that it would still affect our behaviour in any significant way, or at least not in the way that a lot of biotruthers seem to enjoy fapping to.
Well, you could say that natural selection has an enormous impact on human behaviour… For instance, natural selection favoured self awareness and reflective thinking in human beings, and there are loads of things we only do because we have these capacities.
The problem isn’t saying that human beings are affected by evolution, the problem isn’t even saying that evolution has affected our behaviour a lot. The problem is a) anthropomorphising evolution, thinking it has a goal it’s working towards, b) forgetting Hume’s law, and most often c) making very specific claims about how this or that particular behaviour in our species has been directly shaped by evolution (rather than indirectly shaped in the sense that evolution made us social creatures that create societies and cultures and care about what other people think about us and so on and this in turn means that we have various social norms that we often try to adjust our behaviour to).
*hands elodie the internet*
That? Was awesome.
Off topic request- american election thread for awesome american election ads please! Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Es82leIkE&feature=g-logo-xit
One of the local candidates here (Republican, natch) is robo calling voters with the wrong polling location.
I hate this. It is so depressing.