So our excitable old friend MarkyMark (not the actor-singer) just put up a not-very-original rant of the “women are worse than Hitler because of abortion” variety. More interesting than his post — which is frankly not very interesting — is this comment from an anonymous fellow that takes misogynistic self-righteousness to a whole new (low) level:
This is one of the reasons that I use women for my convenience. They can kill with impunity – nothing I do to them comes close to that level of evil. So they are for my pleasure, then I ditch them although I do come back sometimes. (They aren’t very bright which is what makes it workable.)
Yep: He’s not just a self-righteous prick; he’s self-righteous about being a prick.
I can only hope his own “evil” is mostly of the “slept with a woman and didn’t call her back” sort — or is just imaginary internet boasting — because his “logic” could pretty much justify anything short of violent murder.
@driversuz, I’ve been mocking misogyny since the early days of Usenet. It’s worth mocking. Want to have some fun in your copious free time? Hit Google Groups and read the archives of soc.men. It’s hilarious.
Or not, maybe, to you. But to me it was fun, and also sadly enlightening. Perhaps I don’t measure up to the remarkable standards of your awesomely manly studly model of perfect masculine perfection son, but I tend to see women as people rather than cum-dumpsters. So sue me.
And I also like cute animals just like the girlies. So sue me again.
Misogyny strikes me the same as the blatant racism I see here in my home state. Stupid, baseless, destructive, self-pitying, and ultimately self-defeating.
So, what do you see in it?
Honest question. I’m a career academic and I like to know things. And would actually like to engage in an honest discussion if you’re up to it. (Although I’m coming up on Finals Week and am stressed out, hence the cute tigers.)
Up to it?
Oh, forgot to add. I have cats.
Okay … men who like women are pandering and therefore effeminate and therefore creepy.
Fail on all possible levels. You know who’s creepy, Sux? You are, with your bigotry and stupidity and hatred of anyone who doesn’t want to fit your nasty little gender-role fantasies. Go back to pimping your offspring.
Scuse you driversuz, I am so effeminate I am sometimes taken as a girl, and yet no one has ever called me creepy.
And further, I am so pleased not to live up to anyone’s standards of masculinity, because if I did I wouldn’t feel comfy wearing skirts in public.
Crap. I’m here, awake, ready to engage in witty repartee, and Suz has left the building. I take no credit for it. And am actually disappointed.
I shouldn’t be. Back in the [insert Abe Simpson “in my day”] rant, Usenet was all the rage and I tried to engage the He-Man-Woman-Haters-Lobby on soc.men and found that when they were presented with a reasonable argument they 1) freaked out 2) engaged in pure ad-hom attacks 3) strawman 4) move goalposts 5) killfile 6) declare victory.
sub sole nihil novi est
If it came to a choice of “which stereotype creeps you out” I would vote for the hyper-masculine body builder type over a feminine man any day. (I hate the word effeminate, it so heavily implies that feminine = weak and bad.)
Oh well.
Suz, if ever you’d like to defend misogyny, let me know in another thread. I’m off to get some sleep and prepare myself for the nightmare of overseeing and proctoring finals, so don’t look for me regularly for a few weeks. But if you’d like to set a date, please feel free. I would truly love to chat with a female misogynist.
And just for you:
I’m a feminist in a very feminist-hostile town, and I just stumbled on this website. It’s hilarious, and accurate, and I’m just glad there are men out there who don’t think all women feminists are baby killing, man hating ice queens. I really, sincerely thank you for bringing more male feminism to the interwebz.
Niters freitag, sleep well. 🙂
So you’ve never met a goth? You need to get out more.
Wait, I’m confused. Is driversuz still pretending to be the mom of a super-cool macho guy who’s too good for us because he owns his own car and everything, or is he now pretending to be the guy?
Hey Failsuz, in today’s post David wrote a total of 128 words, including the post’s title and image caption. In your 1:17 am post alone, you wrote 152. Considering how he’s a professional writer and you’re just some misogynist on the interwebs who hasn’t bothered to put forth a single coherent argument on any topic in this thread, by any given measure the question is much more relevant to your own pursuits than to “boobzie’s.”
And we already have a blog for cats and stuff, but if it were David’s Cutsie Cat Emporium it would still possess more meaningful and interesting content than your empty, gassy evacuations into this forum.
No one else noticed that Judgy Bitch was referring Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous article “a defense of abortion” from 1971?
Her argument basically goes like this:
Really early abortions are certainly not the killing of a person, but the anti-abortionists DO have a point when they start pointing out that in, say, week fifteen, it’s pretty well developed already. So let’s skip the whole issue of when the fetus becomes a human being in its own right. Let’s for the sake of argument pretend that it really is one from conception. Now, what follows?
It does NOT, in fact, follow that abortions ought to be banned. For being pregnant equals donating of your body’s resources to keep someone else alive. We never force people to do that. There are situations where we would consider people immoral or even cruel for failing to do so – situations where doing so would cost them very little – but not even in these instances do we FORCE people to donate their bodily resources. And in situations where doing so would cost them a lot, we don’t even consider them cruel for not donating.
Therefore, abortions should be legal.
Although she does add, that IF we consider the fetus a person, and IF it were possible to keep it alive through artificial means after abortion (one might imagine that science one day constructs some kind of artificial womb that the fetus can be put in), then the woman would have no right to demand that it’s actually killed off. Rather the hospital could choose to let it develop to a full baby and then adopt it to someone. On the other hand, if a fetus is just a part of the woman’s body, she would have that right.
Still, it doesn’t follow from assuming that the fetus is a person or a full human being that abortion ought to be illegal, and that was her major point.
Btw, Judgy Bitch didn’t touch on this, but Thomson also responds to the following objection:
Anbi-abortionist objection: A woman who has voluntary sex knows that this might result in pregnancy. Therefore, she has in a sense invited the fetus into her body. This does give the fetus a right to her bodily resources, and makes it wrong to just kick it out again.
Counter argument by way of analogy: Suppose I left my window open to get some air in, knowing about the existence of burglars. Suppose now a burglar enters my house. Does this mean that I have somehow invited the burglar, and that zie now has a right to live in my house?
Suppose further that I had actually taken the precaution of installing safety bars in my window to stop eventual burglars. I open my window to let some air in. Due to a manifactural error in the bars, a burglar still manages to enter my window. Of course I was aware that no security bars are absolutely fool proof and that manifactural errors sometimes happen, and that burglars exist. Does this mean that I have invited the burglar and zie has a right to live in my house?
Okay, the burglars aren’t innocent, which the fetus certainly is, so let’s add that they weren’t burglars, but some homeless confused people who happened to wander in. I had opened the window to get some air in, I had even put these safety bars in place, but due to a manifactural error a homeless confused person manages to pull the bars out and climb in, and now I have this huge colony of homeless confused people in my house. It’s cold outside, and they don’t have any food, so they might freeze or starve to death if I don’t let the entire gang stay in my house, and if I don’t put loads of resources into housing and feeding them. Yeah, I might choose to do so because I’m a total saint; but if I don’t house and feed all these people, it doesn’t mean I’m a MURDERER, and they don’t have a RIGHT to use my house just because I opened the window knowing that no safety bars are absolutely fool proof and knowing that homeless people exist.
@Dvar
Exactly!
Let’s call abortion what it is (killing a baby) and acknowledge a woman’s absolute sovereignity over her own body and then we can move on to talking about WHY women choose to kill their own children.
I’ll bet a lot of women are just straight up POOR. I’ve long argued on my blog that women should be PAID for their reproductive labor and if being poor is the only reason you have chosen to kill your child, well, there are ways to deal with that, if we choose.
Some women are too young, inexperienced or just plain old don’t want to have a baby. What kind of mother is that woman going to make? That’s just cruel.
The abortion debate is really a debate about women’s power. Insisting that a baby is referred to by a medical term (rather like insisting your tongue be called your lingulus) elides and obfuscates the fact that the whole argument is about the power to determine life, and in the case of abortion, that power belongs soley to women.
With power comes responsibiliity. With power comes obligation. With power comes consequence. And I find THAT is what the pro-choice side of the debate does NOT want to discuss.
But judgybitch, seriously, do you think of a couple of cells, even a cluster of them, as a baby? That’s not a matter of playing with words, it’s comparing something that has absolutely no life of its own – and that the woman’s body may reject spontaneously without her even knowing it was there – with a being that has been born, rather than being dependent on the woman’s uterus to survive. It’s simply not the same at all.
The anti-choicers aren’t really interested in potential children anyway (at least not in the arguments in the US), because they are resolutely against any sort of support for actual born children and their parents, and are also against women having access to contraception. Hell, some of them want no abortions available even after rape, after incest, or if the woman’s (or girl’s) life is at risk from pregnancy/birth. The whole argument boils down to hatred of women’s agency and desire to control and punish. Much of it is prompted by twisted religious beliefs, but it is uniformly anti-women, not pro-life.
It’s also pretty damn insulting and patronising to talk about power, responsibility, obligation and so on as if women don’t already think hard about their options with an unwanted pregnancy, or have the whole “you’re killing you’re babeeeee” message thrown at them constantly, or even risk their lives just going to clinics. Plus in a country where there is such determination to make contraception harder and harder to get for women, it’s downright hypocritical to go on about power and decision-making.
All I know is that the unborn isn’t a person in the same way that a seed isn’t a tree. It has the possible potential to become one, but it’s not one just yet. Humans consider babies to be people in their own right, that’s why it’s not a good idea to conflate the two. It just makes everything that much more emotionally charged for the dogmatic thinking, scientifically illiterate folks out there. This is what some people think of when they think of an ‘unborn baby’:
Hi, Mommy. I’m your baby. You don’t know me yet, I’m only a few weeks old. You’re going to find out about me soon, though, I promise. Let me tell you some things about me. My name is John, and I’ve got beautiful brown eyes and black hair. Well, I don’t have it yet, but I will when I’m born. I’m going to be your only child, and you’ll call me your one and only. I’m going to grow up without a daddy mostly, but we have each other. We’ll help each other, and love each other. I want to be a doctor when I grow up. You found out about me today, Mommy! You were so excited, you couldn’t wait to tell everyone. All you could do all day was smile, and life was perfect. You have a beautiful smile, Mommy. It will be the first face I will see in my life, and it will be the best thing I see in my life. I know it already. Today was the day you told Daddy. You were so excited to tell him about me! …He wasn’t happy, Mommy. He kind of got angry. I don’t think that you noticed, but he did. He started to talk about something called wedlock, and money, and bills, and stuff I don’t think I understand yet. You were still happy, though, so it was okay. Then he did something scary, Mommy. He hit you. I could feel you fall backward, and your hands flying up to protect me. I was okay… but I was very sad for you. You were crying then, Mommy. That’s a sound I don’t like. It doesn’t make me feel good. It made me cry, too. He said sorry after, and he hugged you again. You forgave him, Mommy, but I’m not sure if I do. It wasn’t right. You say he loves you… why would he hurt you? I don’t like it, Mommy. Finally, you can see me! Your stomach is a little bit bigger, and you’re so proud of me! You went out with your mommy to buy new clothes, and you were so so so happy. You sing to me, too. You have the most beautiful voice in the whole wide world. When you sing is when I’m happiest. And you talk to me, and I feel safe. So safe. You just wait and see, Mommy. When I am born I will be perfect just for you. I will make you proud, and I will love you with all of my heart. I can move my hands and feet now, Mommy. I do it because you put your hands on your belly to feel me, and I giggle. You giggle, too. I love you, Mommy. Daddy came to see you today, Mommy. I got really scared. He was acting funny and he wasn’t talking right. He said he didn’t want you. I don’t know why, but that’s what he said. And he hit you again. I got angry, Mommy. When I grow up I promise I won’t let you get hurt! I promise to protect you. Daddy is bad. I don’t care if you think that he is a good person, I think he’s bad. But he hit you, and he said he didn’t want us. He doesn’t like me. Why doesn’t he like me, Mommy? You didn’t talk to me tonight, Mommy. Is everything okay? It’s been three days since you saw Daddy. You haven’t talked to me or touched me or anything since that. Don’t you still love me, Mommy? I still love you. I think you feel sad. The only time I feel you is when you sleep. You sleep funny, kind of curled up on your side. And you hug me with your arms, and I feel safe and warm again. Why don’t you do that when you’re awake, any more? I’m 21 weeks old today, Mommy. Aren’t you proud of me? We’re going somewhere today, and it’s somewhere new. I’m excited. It looks like a hospital, too. I want to be a doctor when I grow up, Mommy. Did I tell you that? I hope you’re as excited as I am. I can’t wait. …Mommy, I’m getting scared. Your heart is still beating, but I don’t know what you are thinking. The doctor is talking to you. I think something’s going to happen soon. I’m really, really, really scared, Mommy. Please tell me you love me. Then I will feel safe again. I love you! Mommy, what are they doing to me!? It hurts! Please make them stop! It feels bad! Please, Mommy, please please help me! Make them stop! Don’t worry Mommy, I’m safe. I’m in heaven with the angels now. They told me what you did, and they said it’s called an abortion. Why, Mommy? Why did you do it? Don’t you love me any more? Why did you get rid of me? I’m really, really, really sorry if I did something wrong, Mommy. I love you, Mommy! I love you with all of my heart. Why don’t you love me? What did I do to deserve what they did to me? I want to live, Mommy! Please! It really, really hurts to see you not care about me, and not talk to me. Didn’t I love you enough? Please say you’ll keep me, Mommy! I want to live smile and watch the clouds and see your face and grow up and be a doctor. I don’t want to be here, I want you to love me again! I’m really really really sorry if I did something wrong. I love you! I love you, Mommy.
Do these kind of people really need to be confused anymore than they already are?
@Judgybitch:
The problem here is that we don’t have the same definition of responsibility. Normal people define responsibility as a duty or an obligation logically flows from something that you’ve done or from your relationship to other people (emphasis on “logically flows”). You, on the other hand, seem to adhere to an insane, misogynist definition of “responsibility”, which I can best summarize as a principle that if a woman derives anything of value or pleasure in her life, she’s required to suffer for it, even if there is no rational purpose or justification for the suffering, and it’s of no tangible benefit to anyone. Incidentally, that’s the root of all the rape apologetics. If a woman dates, lives by herself, takes a walk in the park, raping her is a way to make her “take responsibility” for the sinful pleasure of dating, independence or just taking an evening stroll. Sorry, but while I realize you really-really believe in this particular concept of “responsibility”, it’s not one I will ever accept.
Women live in the same world as men. We understand the consequences of our medical decisions, we pay taxes, we pay our bills (well … maybe not YOU, but most of us do). I, for example, have a job that involves tremendous responsibility, and where I answer to a lot of very demanding people. To get that job, I went through 7 years of higher education and horrendously tough exams graded on a strict bell curve. I know, I know, you are going to come back with the usual talk about how you are a a full-time wife and mother, but I am that too. The things that you do in your household don’t magically do themselves in mine. So from my perspective, lectures on responsibility coming from someone who lives essentially as a child sound about as convincing as a forger opining on the subject of integrity.
Being “judgy” is alright in my book, as long as you judge yourself on occasion — honestly. And you, clearly, haven’t done that in a very long time, which explains a positively comical lack of perspective.
I now eagerly* await Bitchy’s next comment, in which she outlines the price that she thinks women should have to pay for having sovereignty over our own bodies. Since that part is clearly what she’s been working up to all along, and why she’s been trying to get us to agree to her unique and medically questionable definition of the word “baby”.**
* Not really
**Sorry, hon, but your debating skills aren’t as good as you think, and it’s been quite obvious since the beginning where you were eventually going to go with this.
Judgy With power comes responsibiliity. With power comes obligation. With power comes consequence. And I find THAT is what the pro-choice side of the debate does NOT want to discuss.
I knew it would come out. Consequence and responsibility.
This from someone who said a man cheating on his partner was doing the honorable thing, and ought to be considered the hero. I don’t think it was an accident you cast it that way either. It could have been neutral, it could have been cast with the woman (because, if it’s a matter of ethics the gender of the parties is immaterial).
But you didn’t. You made up a very stilted story, with a lot of conventional tropes, all designed to absolve the man from living up to the responsibilities he accepted when he committed to his vows.
One of those (the most important, IMO),being to be honest with his partner. When faced with that he punted, and you said he was right, and noble, to lie and cheat and hurt his wife.
But now, when it’s a woman who is faced with choices; now it’s all consequence and responsibility, and “facing the music”, and “calling a spade a spade”.
Being judgemental isn’t wrong. We are all judgemental. Some of us here are outspoken in our judgements. What makes you wrong (intellectually, logically, and morally) is that you not only accept, but celebrate double standards.
Suzie: I think I see your disconnect.
Did you ever consider asking Boobzie the same question? Or perhaps you didn’t read today’s post.
Yep.
Dude said that because some women do something he disapproves of, he’s entitled to treat all women like shit.
Dave thinks this is shitty. You think it unremarkable. You also believe finding it shitting shows how intellectually bankrupt feminism is.
And more cute animals? Really ladies, give the poor guy a break! he’s trying to impress you!
I don’t think he’s trying to impress us. He’s doing what you did with the “letter” you posted. Making a point about something in the world which offends him.
I happen to think he is doing good work because, more often than not, what he talks about offends me too.
The cute animals are how we deal with the unpleasant things in the world (e.g. your own dear self). Like time spent with babies, or in the garden, or listening to music we enjoy, it rejuvenates us. It increases the net happiness in our lives.
That seems to offend you.
d I also know that males who pander to women are effeminate and therefore “ceepy,
Whut? Pop-quiz.
1: Do I, “pander” to women?
2: Am I “effeminate and creepy”.
And we all know how seriously we must take what’s in a woman’s mind…)
And “ain’t you a woman”?
I don’t agree with Judgy Bitch though that labelling abortion “baby killing” is just telling like it is. It’s not obvious to me that a ten or fifteen or what-have-you fetus should be labelled baby. There are obvious and important differences, like a baby having consciousness while a fetus probably don’t until week twenty-five (see my earlier posts) due to a lack of synapses between its brain cells. On the other hand, it’s not obvious to me EITHER that it’s completely wrong to call a ten or fifteen week fetus a baby. It does have a lot in common with born babies. It certainly looks a lot like a tiny baby, has most of its bodily organs etc.
I agree that words have the power to sway people’s emotions. Still, if an anti-abortionist goes “it’s wrong to have an abortion because it’s the killing of a BABY” I think that there are better counter arguments than getting hung up on the very word “baby”. Sure, words affect how we think, but at the end of the day, whether something is morally right or wrong does NOT depend on what words we use to describe it.
Anti-abortionists often point out true facts like “the heart starts beating in this-and-that week” (don’t remember exactly which week it is, but the heart begins to be pretty well developed in week five, and it has been beating for quite some time then) or “unborn babies at week ten will suck up more fetal water if it has a sweet taste” or “unborn babies at week six reacts if you touch their faces”. Now what is the right way to respond to this? In my view: Just flat-out acknowledge that all this is true, and then give reasons why abortion should be legal anyway. I think that if pro-choicers become evasive at this point and start repeating “it’s not a baby, it’s a cluster of cells” or “it’s not a baby, it’s a fetus” or “it’s just part of the woman’s body” they’re just making it look like the anti-abortionists have a stronger argument than they actually have.
Cassandra: Yes. It’s pretty plain that anyone who trots out,”it’s only semantics” is aiming to neutralise someone’s line of argument by sidelining it; and all the attendant facts which come with the definition.
Words have meanings. From her other writings it’s plain that either she doesn’t care about meaning; if it gets in they way of her narrative, or that her meanings are not the same as the rest of the world’s use of the word.
Dvärghundspossen: The debate is hard, because at root it’s not really about babies. It’s about personhood; and who has it.
@ pecunium
She must not have spent much time debating over the past few years, or not have been debating with very impressive opponents, to have expected the weak tricks she’s been trying here to work. Most high school debating teams could rip this stuff to shreds.