So over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the top post at the moment (with more than 370 net upvotes) is a link to this image:
If I might hazard a guess: that’s because IT HAS YOU NUMBSKULLS.
Sigh. Let’s look at a little chart showing the striking decline in the incidence of rape we’ve seen in the last 30 years.
This is based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Some have criticized the survey’s methodology and say that it undercounts the incidence of rape, but even if that is true, the trend is clear: Rape has declined significantly over the past three decades, and I think it’s fairly obvious that increased awareness and understanding of rape, largely the result of feminist anti-rape campaigns, has contributed significantly to this decline.
Naturally, those who tried to point this out in r/mensrights found themselves downvoted.
Reading the Ta Neisi-Coates piece I was reminded/made aware that I’ve been disabled for more than 35 years, from the day my nearsightedness was spotted (I was in the room for my sisters exam… I wanted to know where the letters she was reading were. She was about eight, I was about nine).
The amazing detail in the world when I got my glasses… 🙂
But that is a prosthesis we don’t even note. It’s so common that being half-blind is “normal”.
@thenatfantastic
Excellent article and thanks for sharing. It is actually the second time today I’ve seen that point made (the first was to STFU, Sexists which is normally – not always – better about that sort of thing), and I think it is important to keep in mind as it is historically where western feminism fails and fails big. (Not that the NYT is some feminist bastion, though.)
@pecunium
I was eight when I first got my glasses! I didn’t even think of that, although I should have since the recent medications I’ve tried have made my vision worse so much so that I think about being unable to see a lot. (I should get them checked, but when you only leave the house for appointments with doctors, a new doctor and another appointment is a bigger deal than it would normally be.)
@some gal, @pecunium I got my glasses when I was five or six, I have the highest prescription of anyone I know who’s not actually registered as disabled because of it (-14.5). Speaking of medical aids being (unnecessarily) used as fashion items, I get seriously pissed at those hipster ‘nerd glasses’.
that beats me. (I’m in the -6.5 1.25cyl range). The most dramatic I know is someone who has prisms, because of how his eyes are angled.
I have to wear really large lenses, because my eyes aren’t parallel. I have GREAT peripheral vision, esp. when I am wearing contacts; though I lose some detail vision from the greater than 1.0 astigmatism.
Lights have halos at night, when I wear contacts.
I still remember when I got my first pair of glasses as a kid, and discovered that trees had LEAVES and weren’t just fuzzy masses of green at the top. Nat, my prescription is a tad lower than yours. 4-eyes unite!
I was all upset when they raised my prescription to -1.5/-2.75 from -1.25/-2.5 – OMG my vision is deteriorating with age, in only about 5 years! Now I just feel silly.
High fives to the glasses club!
I actually only wear my glasses at home. The sensation of my vision changing at the periphery when I look past the bit the glasses cover while walking around bugs the crap out of me, so I always wear contacts.
“But make no mistake: Your “job” — the useful thing you do for other people — is all you are.”
It’s like this shiteater has never heard of massive unemployment, or recessions. It’s like he’s never conceived there is such a thing as a poverty trap, which prevents people from doing the uni or the courses or whatever to do all those studies and getting those wonderful Jobs That Make Your Life Acceptable To Him.
I haven’t read the article, because enough comments here have convinced me the guy’s being a creep. But the quotes from it sound like he’s so fucking materialistic and full of that pervasive, right-wing-individualism-fuck-society bullshit that seems to be so pervasive in the US in particular, or at least to get pushed so hard.
I’d like to see what happens when his drains get blocked and there are no plumbers because it’s just not a fancy enough job, money or not. I’d like to see him never able to eat out again, because nobody wants to be a cook in an ordinary place, let alone a kitchen hand. I’d like to see what he’d think if there were no more of those underpaid and undervalued teachers.
It’s even worse than the whole “follow your dream or be a sellout” shit. This bloke might have the fanciest, highest-status job in the world; it wouldn’t rescue him from being despicable.
@ ERA – Citation please
Another glasses-wearer here! I’ve had mine since I was about 15 (late starter, lol) and found I couldn’t read the blackboard at school. My vision was very stable – very short sighted but with really good close up vision, which was great since I used to do the most minute hand-sewing. Age has caught up, though. My close vision is nowhere near as good as it was, but I’ve found those basic magnifier specs they sell at chemists’ are all I need to blow things up a bit. I’ve also gone into multifocals and they’re very good for general wear.
I have to say, you guys are right about the David Wong article. I still think there’s some good advice in there, but you’re right; saying that society values people only by what they can offer is not the way to go about things.
Manboobz is right again 😀
@ERA:
The author has a hypothesis that the feminist movement’s campaign against rape is a factor in the decrease in rape and sexual assault in the US. The fact that other crimes also have (in general) been declining does not actually disprove that hypothesis.
Try again, but you’ll have to make a much more convincing argument.
I have mixed feelings about the cracked article. On the one hand it is both unnecessarily mean and also inaccurate (people who do a lot or work really hard don’t always get rewarded), but the point about not blaming all your problems on ‘the system’ or pointing to your group of friends as ‘evidence’ is quite well made, I think.
He’s wrong about one thing, though: He mentions that not being sexist, racist or abusive is not enough to get the attention of a potential romantic partner. Thing is, if most people you know behave badly, your standards will go down. I’m not saying most people I know are bad, but my standards in a man are a lot lower than they were five years ago, for example. In one respect this is just me becoming less picky (not thinking stuff like ‘he must like the same books I do’… hell, 75% of the guys I know don’t even read), but I think adjusting your standards to what you see around you is inevitable.
Not to mention that the MRA jerk quoted is trying to say that rape hasn’t decreased at all, which was kind of the point of David’s article.
Glasses at home, contacts to drive and go out.
@CassandraSays You’re like the opposite of me, I sleep in my glasses every night, I only take them off to shower (I can only see about two inches in front of my face and didn’t take to contacts).
Hell, more feminism (and other social justice movements) could be responsible for all declining violent crime. That fits “since the 18th Century” just fine.
Gotta be fair here: He does say specifically that he doesn’t mean just work for money. So what he’s really saying is “your skillset is all you are.”
Of course you can also lose (or be unable to gain) skills due to circumstances beyond your control.
Atomicgrizzly, thanks for your gracious reply; I hope you didn’t feel ganged up on because that was certainly not my intent!
How do you manage that without either the glasses falling off or you breaking them?
Nat: How do you not squish them?
atomicgrizzly: The problem with his article is actually parallel to his analysis of the PUA scene in the piece.
“So, what, you’re saying that I should pick up a book on how to get girls?”
Only if step one in the book is “Start making yourself into the type of person girls want to be around.”
He cuts out the part, “how can I be happy”, and fills it in with, “get a good job”. From there you will “have something the world wants” and happiness will ensue.
Which is rubbish. It leads other things he makes fun of, the “Truther” film, “Loose Change”: which is a guy doing everything Wong thinks is good, in this piece. But, since Wong doesn’t like the product (never mind that lots of people do, and are willing to buy it).
This guy managed to, “close the deal”, and Wong thinks it’s bullshit. Which is it is. But form the POV of the piece we are talking about that is immaterial. That dude closed the deal. That makes him “good”.
The funnier thing is… this is exactly what Glengarry Glenross was about. They were selling bullshit real estate. The Speech (you can hear Wong put it into capital letters) is all about convincing people to buy bullshit.
And now I’ll stop. I’m not trying to beat up on you, Wong is irritating enough that he needs more thumping.
@CassandraSays @Katz I don’t know, I’ve done it since I was little because I was scared of the dark (didn’t want to wake up and not be able to see anything) – I was about 19 before I realised that it wasn’t just something everyone did.
I’m now I’m racking my brain trying to remember if John Dies at the End had any problematic aspects I overlooked, given how many show up in his nonfiction articles.