Ok, class project!
As regular readers of this blog know all too well, the manosphere has a rather distorted version of feminism. Indeed, MRAs, MGTOWers and other misogynists spend a lot of their timedoing battle against feminists of their own imagining, whose alleged beliefs only have a tangential relationship with anything you or I know as feminism. It’s not always clear if MRAs know they’re battling straw feminists or not, and I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to figure that out.
In the meantime, I’m trying to assemble a little guide to this straw feminism.
I’m wondering what you all think are its central tenets?
(Specific examples and links, to posts and/or discussion on this blog or elsewhere, would be great if you can provide them.)
Take a look at Kate Beaton’s amazing “Straw Feminist” cartoon if you need inspiration!
Ironically, the gang over on the Men’s Rights subreddit had a whack at the “straw feminist” question the other day. They didn’t do too well, with the OP basing his “refutation” of accusations that MRAs spend much of their time attacking straw feminists … on a list that incorporated some not-actually-real feminist quotes. (I factchecked a similar list of EVIL FEMINIST QUOTES here.)
Lots of strawfeminists here: http://factsforequality.wordpress.com/
I can’t even attempt to compete with the brilliance here, but I’m dropping by to say that virgin shaming aside, the original Wicker Man is so much better! (I’m got that ballad during the opening credits down, more or less…violins are yummy!)
Ok, I said I’d stop posting comments but this one just has to be on this list. It is also very specific to geekdom, and I’ve heard it/lived far too many times.
Ahem.
There are no female geeks. No woman likes comics, games, or science fiction movies. The ones that are saying they do are only doing so to get the attention of the real geeks, just to then shoot them down for a date. Or kill them. Whichever.
Argenti Aertheri- of course the original Wicker Man is better, but I couldn’t help enjoying the remake:
I guess MRAs might prefer the remake for the added violence against women, and in particular the scene where Nic Cage *SPOILER* punches a woman while wearing a bear costume. That would figure: only people as warped as MRAs could possibly argue that the remake is better.
^^^ I guess I’d better add a TRIGGER WARNING for the first clip above- as ridiculous as it is it does contain actual violence. Sorry.
Strawfeminism is about dominating the world, presumably like Dr. Evil.
http://manboobz.com/2012/12/05/on-popes-pills-and-the-alpha-asshole-cock-carousel/comment-page-5/#comment-254931
Are we talking about the average MRA’s straw feminism, Paul Elam or JohnTheOtter’s straw feminism, the even more far-right straw feminism, or NWOslave’s straw feminism, in order from least to most insane?
Straw feminists try to make women more ugly.
Straw feminists force men to have sex with ugly women, while making sex with attractive women always rape.
Straw feminists try to falsely accuse all men, even virgins, of rape.
Straw feminists try to make society so that men do all the work in life while women just use their looks (yes, at exactly the same time that they try to make women more ugly.
Straw feminists are an ancient conspiracy that have been going on since the Dawn of Man and have been responsible for every single war, every single society falling, and every single injustice in history. They’re not done until every single man in the world is enslaved and has an absolutely miserable life. They have no motive except the fact that they’re EVILLLLLLLL.
You know who else was a [straw] feminist? HITLER.
Also, the sad thing? A few years ago, I actually thought that feminism was a lot of this (except for the more conspiracy theory-ish stuff. I wasn’t that insane.), mainly because the only knowledge I had of it came from the Internet. Just goes to show you how harmful this can actually be.
Straw feminists are trying to do something to video games. You want to know what it is? Why should I tell you, it’s so damn obvious. I’m not even going to try to describe it and waste my breath on you. Just know that it’s really bad.
Straw feminists (along with teh gayz) are intentionally destroying marriage, while at the same time we will be SORRY when it means no men (evarrrr) will want to get married.
Straw feminists encourage women to be useless with our scented cupcake princess candles, but we are ALSO butch lesbians who are destroying delicate femininity.
(Agreeing with the idea that a true Straw Feminist can’t reach their full potential until they have reconciled two opposing views of FEMINISM as equally and absolutely true.)
So are we just pretending that radical feminists don’t exist? Or are they somehow excluded from the umbrella of feminism?
Phil, they exist. What’s your point?
I’ll just leave this here. It’s well worth listening to…best straw feminist ever!
http://youtu.be/6ix_L5uEzBs?t=1m24s
Ahem. I believe that at least one of my posts referenced radfems, and possibly others.
Phil, have you tried reading? Just a thought!
Phil’s trying to do some lame gotcha, failing to realize that radical feminists are called radical because their idea are outliers. Phil thinks that radical feminism is all the feminism.
cloudiah, asking a man to read is misandry!
Was this listed as a tenet already? It’s the one that popped to mind before even reading the comments.
I didn’t read all 100+ comments, no.
If you admit that radfems exist, then how are they “straw” feminists? Sure, it might be “straw” to claim that the more moderate feminists believe the same thing, but wouldn’t it just be the case that when people respond to the extreme end of feminism that they aren’t talking about the people who aren’t on the extreme end?
This isn’t a gotcha. I’m just asking.
Dude.
(A) Basic netiquette. Read the comments.
(2) Feminists aren’t responsible for everyone with a blog. MRAs aren’t responsible for every sexist asswipe who comments on YouTube. This is like Internet 101.
Ah, now Phil’s JAQing off. Awesome.
Phil, MRAs think all feminism is radical, that’s where it becomes straw. Nuance, they are not good with it.
Phil, the MRM likes to pretend that radical feminism = all feminism. They also talk shit that I doubt any radfem has (and I don’t have much time for radical femism, from what I’ve seen of it).
The point is that MRAs hate women and think any sort of feminism – any idea that women are people, not their property – is a personal insult. They’re masters of projection … if nothing else.
@hellkell
Plus, most of the strawfeminist stuff in this thread isn’t really what radfems believe anyway. One of the tenets of strawfeminism is that nothing has any nuance. Radical feminists sometimes have blind spots, but mostly they have pretty nuanced opinions of things, imo.
Damn, long past my bedtime in this timezone. Night, boobzers and have fun with the new toy.
“Night, titianblue.
Oh yes, someone said the word “mangina.” That’s another one.
Straw feminists are bent on destroying manliness, trying to make men more -ugh- sensitive and empathetic. More…FEMININE!! The horror, the horror!
Off topic, but there is all kinds of messed up in this r/mr thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/17zls1/dry_spell_try_12_years/
It links to a blog post in which a guy fantasizes about committing acts of violence against women because he was “incel” for 12 years. It’s so bad, that there’s actually a feminist on r/mr currently getting upvotes for pointing out what is wrong with the original post. (Don’t know if that’s because there’s some upvote/downvote brigades going on, or if even the dudez or r/mr think it’s beyond the pale.)
Nonetheless, there are plenty of other mensrighters saying terrible things in the comments.
Now, please carry on with the strawfeministing. Don’t mean to derail.