So: many if not most of you have probably heard about the whole #INeedMasculismBecause thing. For those who aren’t: a bunch of Men’s Rights Redditors and other MRAs, inspired by a post on 4Chan, decided to swarm Twitter with #INeedMasculismBecause tweets in response to the #INeedFeminismBecause hashtag. Feminists responded by outswarming the MRAs, flooding their new hashtag with often quite hilarious parodies of MRAspeak, as well as some just plain ridiculousness.
Today, on r/mensrights, MRAs are surveying the damage in a host of different threads, with some plaintively wondering “why is everyone so hostile towards the idea of men having issues,” and others claiming that the hashtag really “started as a caricature of Men’s Rights, in order to lure out the real life caricatures of Radical Feminism.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Jezebel has already chronicled some of the funniest parody tweets. And I was thinking of doing the same. I mean, these are pretty good:
Ok, that last one was just a dumb joke about someone ordering a watermelon-flavored drink. I “favorite” a lot of things.
Anyway, catching up on the whole thing last night, I found myself thinking that the parody comments – as funny as some of them were – couldn’t really compete with the loopiness of the real MRA tweets.
So here are some #INeedMasculismBecause tweets by some of my new favorite Twitter MRAs. (I only started going through these really late last night, so a lot of my examples come from the Indian MRAs who were posting prolifically at the time.)
Let’s start with Average Man, who opened a new Twitter account just for the occasion:
Uh, maybe they gave you “less marks” because you don’t know the difference between “less” and “lower.”
Alexander shared these somewhat perplexing thoughts:
The prolific SaveIndianFamilyNGO had all sorts of interesting opinions:
I found myself often perplexed by wnnbl, but I don’t think his troubles with English were the main problem:
I assume these last two are jokes, but honestly, who knows?
I have no idea what Virag was going on about with these tweets:
But this one at least was pretty clear:
Atit seems to have a rather strange idea of what “equality for men” means:
Warrior for Justice also doesn’t seem to like women very much:
Martin Clausen ramped up his largely dormant Twitter account to post these gems:
I don’t quite know what to make of Jackson here, but he seems to be a real MRA.
This is just a theory, but maybe women look at you strangely when you pick up your kids because of that uncontrollable boner you mentioned earlier?
MRAs show once again that they’re beyond parody — or at least indistinguishable from it.
Maybe this is performance art. Come see “The Art of Tone Trolling, with special examples based on audience suggestions”! He was just trying to demonstrate what Viscaria’s example of tone trolling looks like in action.
Why did I laugh so hard at this?
Well, I find her hilarious. Now what?
I don’t recall seeing that here. Pics (or links, or even quotes) or it didn’t happen.
Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!
Well, was he entitled much?
CassandraSays, we all owe you a debt of gratitude.
It’s because we all know he has no examples of good MRA’s. We just have to take his word that some do exist, somewhere in northwestern Florida.
3/10, standard -1 for being so damned long winded that even I got bored, and I am not pithy.
Should he fail to stick the flounce, he may take the standard challenge — find a well known moderate MRA.
To be honest though, I find the PS a nice touch, especially after he had already written how he disliked CassandraSays multiple times.
Ps: Did you notice he wrote he disliked CassandraSays multiple times?
Or, wacky idea here, if he wants there to be a men’s movement that isn’t negatively perceived he could a. not call it the MRM and b. think of a new name. And then not let any of the angry woman-hating assholes into the new clubhouse.
I guess that would involve effort, though, so it would be less fun than whining about how mean we’re being to him.
So I checked out the twitter of this Alexander he keeps going on about. Not only is he the original source of the “and that’s real” comment, his twitter account features a retweet of an “emotional women with periods ha ha” joke, outright slut shaming, and questioning gamer girls. I didn’t go through his entire twitter account, of course, but from what I looked at I saw exactly zero tweets about men’s issues aside from the two featured in David’s post.
So if this is the best example of a legitimate advocate for men’s rights that Keegan can come up, he really isn’t doing much to convince me that there are non-sexists in the movement.
And that’s real.
Yeah, it dismays me that we’ve gone so long without a troll actually WINNING the Manboobz challenge.
Starts humming “To dream the impossible dream …”
Keegan: Viscaria, condescension and sarcasm doesn’t discredit me, help your argument, or make you look superior. Debate with respect or you just give everyone else trying to a bad name.
So does the condescension and sarcasm in this post discredit you, or does your super-special snowflake of purity status inure you against the effects of obvious duplicity inherent in publically keeping a double standard?
Titanblue, we’re trying. Legitimately, we’re trying. There are a lot of guys that are doing their best to support subjects like homosexuality, gay marriage, and guys who want to be stay at home dads.
Without blaming everything on the women of the world? Without saying, “women have the upper hand in all things”? Without being blithering idiots and misogynistic douchecanoes?
If so, feel free to share examples of their exploits. Tell us, oh sagacious spirit of equality where we might find them, that we might laud them; and gift them with frankincense and myrrh, as we shower gold upon them, so they might better pursue these noble efforts.
Don’t mock in bulk – mock in particular. When you have this blanket assumption that any guy who wants to talk about gender problems he experiences is making fun of you, it discourages legitimate conversation and leads him to make assumptions about you and your movement and what you stand for or don’t.
Don’t be an idiot. Go back and read the comments made here. See what groups are being mocked, then try to tell me they don’t deserve it. Show me where, “all men” are the targets of ire.
Go on, I dare ya.
emilygoddess I was addressing one user specifically because it was a sentiment expressed by many of the other comments. I don’t frequent this website so I wouldn’t know what has or hasn’t come before.
But you are willing to tar all feminists with the same brush you (without adequate foundation) accuse one person of being.
What was that about not judging the whole from the particulars… oh right, you don’t give a shit that you keep a double standard.
Keegan: I haven’t gone back and read all 200 some comments on this thread, and if I missed something crucial then by all means point it out to me and I’ll correct myself, but last I checked the abbreviation “MRA” stood for “men’s rights advocate/activist” and making assumptions about the people who would advocate for men’s rights is lumping them together.
Show me the money; that is find me some MRAs who aren’t being asshats and fuckmuppets, and you might have a point. Until then I don’t see a problem with the title.
Anyway, maybe you should have read more carefully.
From the dude who admits he’s not read the thread to which he is pontificating.
Presumption much?
Ally S, in all *sincerity* can you explain why MRA is considered such a dirty term to you guys? Because I’m sure I could find people who are prominent in the feminist community that say things you object to in order to falsely justified lumping feminists together with them, but I don’t because I know that their beliefs – even if popular – don’t represent the whole of the movement. What is it about people who identify as MRA that makes you so certain the group as a whole is rotten?
Long experience, and an appalling dearth of people who aren’t shitheels and assholes. But if you think you’ve got some, by all means, share.
If you find wading through a wall of text cumbersome, then you’re right – there’s no reason for you do so. I would just rather you don’t address a post you didn’t bother to right or summarize and argument you didn’t actually consider. I haven’t read a lot of the older posts here and I’ve personally been pretty careful not to make assumptions about the community,
Physician, heal thyself.
Sounds awesome, but then there HAS to be another name for those concerned with men’s rights and men’s rights advocates is literally expressive of that idea.
No, there doesn’t. Not when doing the one requires the other.
And you misrepresent the thrust of feminism when you say, . We’ve already established (or at least, others in this community have been particular to point out) that feminism is concerned chiefly, primarily, and unabashedly with female issues and feminists are under no obligation to concern themselves with male issues since they are directed towards correctly the gender hierarchy. and then go on to say feminists aren’t concerned with helping men.
They (we) are concerned with establishing gender equality. Since the present system is one of inequality, with the advantageous aspects accruing to men, the act of making things equal is going to, perforce, appear to be “not concerned with male issues”.
I would argue those who think this fail to have an actual grasp of the issues, and see the present (superficial) inequities men face as needing a “movement” to correct, aren’t looking at what feminism is actually doing to rectify them.
I don’t know if it’s just the internet toxicity that is muddling the sincere from the obscene, but I think claiming that a “majority” of men’s rights advocates are in favor of rape seems EXTREMELY ill informed.
I think that means you’ve not looked very deeply into the movement (much as you’ve not looked into this blog, nor feminism).
Keegan: CassandraSays I find you unpleasant.
We should care?
Why?
Maybe I exist in this odd section of the US where that stuff doesn’t happen or I have just coincidentally never encountered it, but all the people I’ve met who HAVE been that disgustingly vile have been properly shunned, vilified, and mocked for misrepresenting people who legitimately want equality rather than a re-establishment of more severe patriarchy.
Could you show me where this is? Because I’d be willing to live there.
Oh, wait, you won’t, will you? The demand for evidence is as one-way a street as your demand for non-snarking civility, isn’t it.
Keegan, you walk in here and necro a thread and expect me to go back to a comment I wrote months ago? Get a life, man.
Also, MRAs =/= all men. They’re not even all domestic abusers (in both senses). They are, however dirtbags and misogynists, by definition. If you think saying that makes me a sexist, tough luck. It’s not my job to coddle their egos or yours.
Allow me to summarize dudebro’s comments.
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
(repeat for 5000 words)
More hypocrisy
Wah why are you so mean?
Hypocrisy
Fuck you I’m leaving.
At least he actually seems to have left, right?
And you got him all upset in fairly short order, Cassandra – win!
What a wimpy troll, though. He didn’t even hang around long enough to get some fierce hellkell swears going. 😉
We should really keep a pack of virtual tissues around to offer the more weak-willed trolls when they melt down that easily.
With virtual aloe vera, ‘cos they’re so delicate. (The trolls, not the tissues.)
Apparently, he’s in northwest Florida, and it’s some kind of utopia of gender equality. I’m sure those beach cities like Destin are lovely and all, but I’m pretty sure they have misogyny just like anywhere else.
And I didn’t mean to be one of the polite “good guys”. I thought my show me comment was snarky. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. He’s already gone anyway.
I think the subtler sarcasm in your comment sailed right over his head (it happens when you insist on burying the head in question in your ass).
Kitteh’s: I was thinking some Boudreaux’s Butt Paste for after-flounce care.
I’ll send you my invoice for that coffee and that chart, hellkell.
Damnit, this is what I get for staying up all night and crashing at 7~! I missed pecunium telling off the fool who thinks MRAs are actual advocates for human rights!
And I’ve been to Florida, after being asked what country Connecticut is in, I think I’ll stay up here thanks (though I gotta say, Pittsburgh denounced Sodini quite loudly, while the whole “the south hates women” thing is bull, his misogyny was specifically a no go)