Listening to the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” the other day, I was struck by how much the lyrics resembled a misogynistic MRA rant. Ostensibly a song pointing out the hypocrisy of suburban squares attacking the drug culture whilst themselves popping prescription pills, the song extends its “critique” to cover such subjects as the evil of women making cakes from mixes instead of from scratch. (See below for videos of all the songs mentioned in this post.)
So you go from this bit of, ahem, social criticism:
“Things are different today,”
I hear ev’ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill
There’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of her mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.
To this:
“Things are different today,”
I hear ev’ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband’s just a drag
So she buys an instant cake and she buys a frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter etc etc
Yep, that’s right. Mick’s as bothered by the frozen steak as he is by the dangers of tranquilizer abuse. By the end of the song, the hypothetical freezer-and-cake-mix-using mother has died of an overdose. Told you so!
Misogynistic rock songs aren’t exactly a rarity – hell, “Mother’s Little Helper” isn’t even the worst offender in the Rolling Stones’ disography.
But unlike more straightforward outbursts of misogynistic nastiness like, say, “Under My Thumb,” “Mother’s Little Helper” pretends to be something nobler: a social critique.
The blogger behind the wonderfully arch I Hate the New York Times blog pointed out to me in a tweet that a surprising number of old rock lyrics play this little trick. Taking the form of a “critique of today’s inauthentic & hedonistic society” they are in fact “directed at [a] specific shallow hussy.”
Along with Mother’s Little Helper, IHateNYT suggested I take another look at the lyrics to Paul Revere and the Raiders’ “Kicks.” And, yep, it’s basically the same thing: a critique of drug use in the form of a patronizing lecture to a young woman in search of “kicks,” starting out with this little bit of I-told-you-so, delivered with a sneer:
Girl, you thought you found the answer on that magic carpet ride last night
But when you wake up in the mornin’ the world still gets you uptight
It turns out that the song, written by the songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, was inspired by the drug use of a male friend of theirs – though somehow in the song this specific man became a hypothetical “girl.”
And then of course there is the Guess Who’s American Woman, a sort-of critique of America’s “war machines” and “ghetto scenes” in the form of a long, sneering diatribe against a hypothetical woman:
Now woman, I said stay away
American woman, listen what I say
American woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be
Don’t come knockin’ around my door
Don’t wanna see your shadow no more
And on and on and on for a very long five minutes and nine seconds.
One of the reasons these songs sound so much like MRA rants is that MRAs like to play the same little game, dressing up their misogynistic sentiments in the form of “social critique.” Thus Paul Elam’s faux-environmentalist attack on female consumers, and all that talk about how single mothers and/or “picky women” are going to bring about the end of civilization. Heck, some manosphere fat-gal-bashers even pretend they fat-bash out of concern for the well-being of the women they’re ridiculing.
It might be entertaining to transform some of these old woman-hating songs into critiques of woman-haters. “Stupid Girl” by the Rolling Stones might be a good place to start. I mean, seriously?
Like a lady in waiting to a virgin queen
Look at that stupid girl
She bitches ’bout things that she’s never seen
Look at that stupid girl
Those are real Rolling Stone lyrics, not a comment from NWOslave. Have at it.
Here are videos of all the songs I mention above:
Modelling in trade for photos is pretty standard for starting models. It’s a way for photographers to get started too. The bit where they sell the photos for loads of cash is dodgey though.
@Kim
Okay i checked the site again and they charge at most 10€/month for a “premium membership” which isn’t loads of cash for only a few more functions and pictures to look at. I think it’s more like a community/online magazine than a porn subscription.
So my first gut feeling was correct as Kinkats isn’t as exploitive as SG seems to be.
The mp3s in my phone
About 1,100 songs
Adam Ant
Aengus Finan
Al Stewart
The Alan Parsons Project
Alla Pugacheva (Russian, Modern)
Amadou Et Mariam (Jamaican, French)
Amanda Marshall
Ancient BeatBox
Andy Prieboy
Annie Lennox
Arlo Guthrie
Arrogant Worms
Band of the Grenadier Guards
The Bangles
Barenaked Ladies
Battlefield Band
Beach Boys
Big Country
Billy Bragg
Billy Joel
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Springsteen
Capercaille
The Carpenters
Cat Stevens
The Cheiftains
Chris De Burgh
Chumbawumba
The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem
Clandestine
Colm Mac Con Iomaire
Concrete Blonde
Cowboy Junkies
Crash Test Dummies
Cry Cry Cry
The Cure
Cyndi Lauper
That’s just through the Cs.
🙂
That instrument looks more like an oud to me. I don’t see any of the drone strings I’m used to seeing on lutes (I don’t play lutes, but I know several people who do).
re TfP (Trade for Photographs). It’s a common way for models and photographers to exchange an item of value.
The SG model is foul. It’s not an honest TfP: not because the model’s image is being used (which can happen in TfP), but because it’s being used for profit from the get-go. And it’s being used for profit in a big way.
Kinkats is absolutely just as bad (from a structural standpoint: I can’t say if the internal culture is as toxic). No, 10 euro doesn’t seem like much, but if they have 1,000 subscribers it’s 10,000 euro. I doubt their costs are anything like that high. I’ll also wager they have far more subscribers than that. They are using the apparently low return, to convince models to work for free, when they ought to be getting paid.
@Khitty Hawk
Oh, I know. I just didn’t want to spam the thread.
Seconding the comment that each of Emilie Autumn’s eras are completely different from each other – I’d recommend “What if” from Enchant and “Opheliac” from the album of the same name to see exactly how different two of the eras are. I haven’t listened to much of her newer stuff.
I was lucky enough to see her live a few years back. It was so much fun – I loved the Bloody Crumpets.
I’m so glad that I’m not the only person who loathes the SG business model. But sad to see it spread to other countries.
Actually it reminds me of one of those dating sites that are for free women but men have to pay to message them (KK premium includes sending messages to other members and, well, there are mainly female models). I really hate such websites. It’s not really for free; you are actually being sold.
Plus there’s the whole “oh it’s not really porn” thing that they did when they started, which both made it easier to lure in models who might have normally balked at the idea of doing porn and also made it easier to get away with not paying them properly. From a business point of view the people who came up with it were certainly clever, in an evil sort of way, to be able to get women to compete for the “honor” of having their images sold, and to figure out a business model that allows consumers to pat themselves on the back too.
And I hate having conversations with a lot of alterna-dudes about this because they attempt to shut down criticism by calling anyone who makes it a prude. Which is bullshit – it’s not that I find porn shocking and offensive, it’s that “porn model” is a job and people should be paid for it, with actual money, and at normal market rates.
@CassandraSays — it’s like Harlan Ellison says: Pay the damn
writermodel.To return to an earlier source of conversation – I do not find “Goodybe, Earl!” to be particularly misandric; that is an obvious place to turn but it does us a disservice by ignoring the far more insidious and dangerous subtle misandry. “Break-up” songs, and such, filled with rank misandry, top the Billboard on a regular basis. Songs that employ the “Female Gaze”, and such; which has become “not only socially acceptable, but socially encouraged” (to quote another astute MRA: I believe Fidelbogen).
What songs are those, Steele?
LOL @ “subtle misandry.” Get bent.
Excuse me? I’m not going to provide evidence that the sky is blue, HellKell; this is a widely recognized social phenomenon. Shaenon earlier provided a semi-cogent list, although of course it was tainted with his or her misandrist-feminist bias.
I personally am very alarmed, as it were, by the subtle and, indeed, vile misandry in the following anti-male “anthem”
Then you should have no problem naming songs if it’s so easy and you’re so smart, right? Otherwise I’ll just have to think you’re full of shit as usual.
Steele, your MRA websites do not constitute ‘widely-recognized’.
4 rill doe, put up or shut up. Literally dozens of examples of misogyny in song lyrics have been stated here in this thread alone. Your sole, weak-ass example was slapped down immediately.
5 troy ounces of gold says that every example of weak sauce ‘misandry’ you manage to list is due to patriarchal gender roles, anyway.
There was a schism in my local punk scene about 18 months ago after a band got pulled from a weekender when it was found out they intended to play a song they’d wittily titled ‘The Rape Song’. Although almost no one will book the band for gigs here any more, there’s still a lot of people who think this is ‘unfair’, because a song that’s essentially three minutes of rape threats is just hilarious.
Your turn now Steeley. Tell me about how awful misandry in modern music is.
almost no one will book the band for gigs
Unsurprising; and yet somehow, this is indicative of “misogyny”? I’m actually chortling out loud.
This is standard misandrist-feminist-logic.
Maybe you should read the post again, Steele. I don’t think you followed the narrative.
Steele, My Dear Boy: (to quote another astute MRA: I believe Fidelbogen).
This is why your writing sucks; it may also explain the gross failures of logic you so often express.
Now that I’ve dispensed my avuncular advice, and so performed my good deed for the day:
it does us a disservice by ignoring the far more insidious and dangerous subtle misandry.
Please share these with us; we are obviously so blinkered by the feminist ideology of hate that we can’t see it. Please use your potent man-brain and explain it to our stunted selves; so lacking in comprehension of the terrible burden Real Men™ labor under in the hell that feminism has made the pop-cultural scene.
Or, to put it in terms more common in the manosphere: EGTFO (Evidence, or Get The Fuck Out).
Oh wait… I see…
Excuse me? I’m not going to provide evidence that the sky is blue, HellKell; this is a widely recognized social phenomenon.
This is so widely recognised you won’t include so much as one link? That’s some lazy shit there.
It’s stupid too. It makes you look more petty and childish that the whining about how mean we were to believe Dave, when he was telling the truth, than you; when you were lying.
It’s more pathetic than your rants on anti-manboobz.
It’s piss-poor activism.
1: Assume, for sake of argument, you are right.
2: Assume, for sake of argument, we are not suadable.
If those are both true it therefore follows you are not writing to persuade us which leads to:
3: You are writing to amuse yourself (i.e. masturbating in public).
4: You are writing to persuade the people who are suadable and following along at home.
It is reasonable to assume these, “fence-sitters” are probably pre-disposed to being deluded by feminists, which means you need to be simple and clear in your writing†. You also need to actually change their minds. Since you have no gift for rhetoric that means you aren’t going to dazzle them with flights of inspirational prose that will make it easier to believe things contrary to their experience.
You need facts, examples, data. What those in the reality based community refer to as, “evidence”. I realise this is contrary to the way the manosphere works, but you are deep in enemy territory here, the rules are different. You have to fight fire with fire, resort to the same sort of dirty tricks your enemy uses to defeat.
-stick the high road of slogans and jargon. You are going to have to get your hands dirty if you want to win.
Or… you can keep on -stick the high road of slogans and jargon. You could, of course refuse to stoop to our level, not get your hands dirty; i.e. continue to lose. That is of course if you are trying to actually convince anyone.
It’s up to you.
Me, I think it’s really just that you like to wank in public.
&dagger Fidelbogen isn’t really the role model here… I’d say HellKell, or ithiliana, or Nobinayamu. Hellkell is probably the place for you to start. I’m good, but tend to digression, silly wordplay [often resorting to locutionary tricks in the vein of Swinbourne; and far too prone to assuming my audience is as well read as I, it’s a failing].
Steele: almost no one will book the band for gigs
Unsurprising; and yet somehow, this is indicative of “misogyny”? I’m actually chortling out loud.
Where did I leave my cluex4?
1: They wrote a song which offends the audience.
2: In a very capitalist way they were sanctioned.
3: Misandry?
Dude… this is what you say the Manosphere will be doing: boycotting those institutions which are misandrist. You may not like the justification here, but you have no moral high-ground to complain about it.
Pecunium, I think what Steele’s trying to say is that not wanting to listen to people be horribly misogynist in public is ‘misandry’. How telling.
Also I was gonna say this earlier but I actually find Beyoncé’s music to be really insidiously misogynistic. By themselves, the messages aren’t that toxic, but the fact that they’re dressed up as female empowerment bugs the shit out of me.
Nearly all of her songs that feature a woman excoriating a man for some reason — ‘Irreplaceable’, ‘Single Ladies’, ‘Ring the Alarm’, ‘Beautiful Liar’, to name a few — all ultimately feature a woman who derives her worth throughout the song based on her attachment to a man. Unsurprisingly, all songs feature more male writers than female.
The conclusions that Steele draws from the words he reads are almost never connected to any kind of reality.
Debate classes in Varpoland must be very weird.
Varpoland seems to be a strange and fascinating place. Someone should really write a book about it.
(Not Steele, obviously.)