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.
Augochlorella, here are some internet cupcakes to go with your internet.
RE: Dragon Slayer
For the past forty years, women have had feminism telling them that their shit smells like rainbows and cinnamon buns.
So, what was feminism like before 1970? You know, it was around before that.
Hell, an entire academic discipline has been built around tonguing the swollen clitoris of women’s ego.
Truly, you have a way with words. With such mauve metaphors, I can’t fathom why I find you douchey.
What it all comes down to is that #WomenNeedFeminism for whatever idiosyncratic first-world problem that they angst out over
Yes, because Female Genital Mutilation, protecting sex workers, and protecting people from rape are totally first-world problems. (And everyone knows that first-worlders don’t have REAL problems. Poverty and homelessness and abuse don’t exist here, no siree.)
between checking their vapid Tumblrs and twittering away on their MAN-made iPhones.
Actually, Ada Lovelace had a hand in creating compilers, allowing future tech like the iPhone to exist. Also, do you know how many people were involved in the creation of the iPhone, are you SURE that absolutely none of them were women?
She’s overweight? No, she’s sticking it to the mighty phallus’ oppressive beauty standards.
…so? I don’t have to live with her body. She does. (Also, I come from a fat family. You really don’t seem to understand that people can be fat for plenty of reasons, none of which are your business.)
She’s an unpleasant harridan with 0 friends? No, she’s speaking out against the patriarchy.
…so? I don’t have to live with her personality. She does. (Also, you’re a flaming internet troll douche, so you’re in no position to claim righteousness.)
Her puckered meat clam
You really, REALLY have no idea what a vulva looks like, do you?
drools in anticipation whenever she sees a presentable man? Fight the purity myth!
WHY DO YOU CARE? I FAIL TO SEE WHY YOU FUCKING CARE. I mean, Jesus, is this woman not wearing underwear? Do you just see them gushing fluids as they walk by certain men? Also, why is this problem? Why should I care if a woman is horny? WHO CARES? My husband is horny all the time!
And so on. This enabling of consequence-free behavior
What consequences do you endorse, exactly?
is essentially what’s driven feminism since 1970,
What was so magical about 1970 that changed everything? Do you feel the same way about feminism BEFORE 1970?
and it’s basically all it’s good for.
Not like YOU. Why, you are fighting against evil in the world… by trolling people on the Internet. Yeah, I have intense faith in you changing the world.
So let’s not be making fun of #INeedMasculismBecause.
Nah. It’s stupid. Gonna keep mocking it.
*Proffers LBT the internetz, tied up with mauve ribbons.*
Thanks, titianblue. I had a rough last night and apparently it’s made me ragey.
Sorry for the rough night, LBT, – virtual hugs if you’d like them. And can I just say that you rock the rage.
Stupid wordpress changing my handle!
May I offer (again) mauve sparkly cupcakes to go with the mauve-ribboned internet, LBT?
Purple cupcakes with edible ball bearings! (It’s a Doctor Who reference, one of Rose’s last episodes :'( )
Sorry about your bad night LBT, hope things look up!
Those are terrifying.
RE: Kittehs
I… I don’t know how I feel about those cupcakes. O_o
Also, thanks for the condolences, guys. Unfortunately, it’s just one of those things that are part of my brain right now, and it can’t really be helped.
They’re not your average cupcakes. You thought yellowcake was bad? Mauvecake is even deadlier! 😀
And y’know, even without the obvious historical error, this is still an obviously dumb statement. As is
So, like, women being able to vote and own property, go to college, drive, be independent, get jobs and be paid close to a man’s salary for the same work, have greater social freedom to try to do what they want to do with their lives instead of being forced to depend on their fathers or husbands — basically, achieve personhood — in Dragon Slayer’s mind, that’s all the equivalent of telling women “that their shit smells like rainbows and cinnamon buns” and enabling consequence-free behavior for women.
Whereas, in reality, despite feminism’s achievements, FAR from being told their shit smells like pastries, women are still stuck in can’t-win social situations where their bodies are always up for public discussion, whether they’re either too fat or too skinny; or where if they stay at home with their children they must be poor mindless drones, but if they go to work after having kids they’re horrible mothers who have abandoned their poor babies! As far as consequence-free behavior, people who believe that rape is just a consequence of wearing short skirts and abuse is just a consequence of mouthing off are fucking rapists and abusers.
Gross.
Dragon Slayer: The Purple Prose and Phrases Harlequin Would Reject as Too Much Forum is down the hall on your right. GTFO.
#INeedMasculismBecause is incredibly stupid and deserves mockery, so we’ll keep it at it, thanks.
RE: hellkell
I dunno. I read weepingcock. I have read phrases you cannot imagine. (The naughty monkey. Oh god, the naughty monkey…)
Weepingcock?
I’m thinking either “tearful rooster, poor thing” or “aren’t there antibiotics for that?” 😉
Dragonslayer (self aggrandising much?): So let’s not be making fun of #INeedMasculismBecause.
Why not? It’s stupid. Even if that laundry list of lies and delusions were true, not one of your “arguments” is about a need for masculism. Rather they are the excuses you give for hating women.
But please, come back and actually defend masculism. Show us the ways in which men are oppressed, and relegated to second class status.
LBT: I try to avoid that place, I just can’t take it the tortured language.
Also, sorry you are having a bad brain day. Jedi hugs to you.
“consequence-free behavior” = “women can have sex with dudes who are not me with impunity and that’s not fair wah wah wah”
And probably also “women can have sex without getting pregnant more easily and end a pregnancy they don’t want.” It’s the forced-birther language rearing its head in the MRM, as usual.
RE: Kittehs
Read for yourself…. IF YOU DARE! http://weepingcock.livejournal.com/
RE: hellkell
I can’t help it! IT HURT SO GOOD. (But then, I’m the guy who slogged through half of 50 Shades of Bears purely for the kicks.)
50 Shades of Bears?
“Oh my. My inner goddess sensually catches salmon over a waterfall. Holy crap!”
RE: CWS
It’s kinda a weird story how it came about In short, I gave fifteen chapters of it the MST3k treatment, and one of the running jokes was how the story would be a lot more interesting if it involved a serial killing bear, controlled by Christian Grey, who we decided was a Neptunian mind-controller.
It started just as a really torturous set-up of a punchline, but then it became a running thing and the story was forever after known in the household as 50 Shades of Bears.
Who, who will stop this pernicious plague of women being happy?
Also I’m like 100% sure there are women assembling the iPods. Shithole factories with shitty wages have always been equal-opportunity employers.
LBT – I took one glance. It was enough! 😀
Ah yes, the old “consequence free behavior” bleat.
There is no such thing as consequence free behavior. All actions have consequences. Even refusing to act has consequences.
What they mean is behavior free of negative consequences. Preferably meted out by them.