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.
My husband and several of his cis male friends (all of whom are feminists) came up with some awesome pastiches of #INeedMasculismBecause yesterday. We all laughed ourselves into tears reading them.
RE: thebewilderness
Yeah, the ‘consequence-free’ thing has always made me give the ol’ side-eye. It reminds me a little of my current circumstance. I live in an uninsulated crawlspace without power or proper walls. I chose that over moving in with my folks, because honestly, just dealing with the flat consequences of my actions (‘unstable housing’) sounded way better than the consequences of living with them, which would’ve had me facing their disapproval on top of everything else.
I learned a long time ago that dealing with the flat consequences of my actions was a lot easier when I didn’t have people glaring down the back of my neck over them. I can spend less time appeasing people and more time DEALING WITH MY ACTIONS.
“Consequence free” for MRAs means one thing: they are outraged that any women anywhere can do things some men may not like, without said men having the right to punish them for it, preferably with violence. It’s not enough for them that many women don’t have the actual freedom to do so, that their lives are still subject to male power; oh no, even the theoretical right is too much for these secondhand sick-bags.
When they rail about all those nasty women who don’t have to, “deal with the consequences” I ask them how they feel about child support.
The start to blather about how women have all the power, and so they ought to be able to avoid the consequences of their actions.
Because it’s not really about consequences, it’s about, “keeping women in their place”. Just as Meller.
SaveIndianFamily writes that most women and all feminists can’t see facts and use logic and then lie. Wouldn’t that in lots of contexts be a GOOD trait, if it were true? I’m not gonna say in ALL contexts, because you can think up situations where a lie is really necessary. But if it’s the case that feminists, after seeing the facts and using logic, feel compelled to honestly telling it like it is, it would make feminists really trustworthy, right?
Okay, I read through the twelve-step-program, and realised I already follow most of the points!
etc.
I don’t think I’m any more important than men or children, and I often criticize the way various products are marketed specifically at women. Point one: Done!
I think for myself! (Would be hard to sustain a career as a philosopher if I didn’t.) Point two: Done.
etc
Yeah, I think both men and women are often prone to a little bit of this… going all “I couldn’t help myself, I’m not responsible for my own actions because REASON” only when one is accused of something wrong. I try not to do that.
Point three: Done!
etc
Yeah, this is actually a certain context where men have it worse; criminal justice. In my feminist analysis, it’s because gender essentialism teaches us, among many other things, that women are non-aggressive, so if a woman IS charged with some violent crime the court becomes more prone to look for causes of this presumably abnormal behaviour, and when you look for causes you might find lots of mitigating circumstances. While a man being violent is seen as more normal, and therefore mitigating circumstances might not be looked into. I do acknowledge this is a problem.
Point four: Done!
etc
Whether the people telling me things are women, “feminised” men or “masculine” men, no, I don’t accept everything the media tells me uncritically.
Point five: Done!
etc.
Well… I don’t pretend that I like all other women, because I don’t. On the other hand, I’m not gonna pretend that I despise all other women either, because I don’t. So I presume that means…
Point six: Half-done!
Well, I DO seek equality with men. On the other hand, I’ll freely admit that I, as a cis-woman, can’t produce sperm.
Point seven: Also half-done!
Totally agree with the first part. I’m a bit unclear as to what “suffuse your sons egos” mean, but if they mean one should cultivate a healthy self-esteem in boys, and teach them that sex is nothing to be ashamed of, I’m totally on board.
Point eight: Done!
etc
I don’t really understand what this means at all, but I suspect it means I shouldn’t be playing videogames online. Well, I don’t. So I guess I’m already respecting these sanctuaries, then.
Point nine: Done!
etc.
This entire point is basically about not judging men unfairly. Well, I happen to think that neither men nor women should be judged unfairly (when they deserve to be called out on something, that’s another matter, but this point doesn’t say anything about that at all) – so I’m totally on board with this point as well!
Point ten: Done!
I quoted this one in full because it’s really confusing, but I’m pretty certain that I never do any of the things mentioned. I don’t want to control a loss of control (whatever that means), I never want to be harassed, and I’ve never suddenly fallen in passionate love with a harasser or rapist.
Once again: Point eleven: Done!
etc
Yeah, I do speak up when people say sexist prejudiced things about men as well as when they do about women.
Point twelve: Done!
Now HOW COME I’m still a feminist????????
“Men shouldn’t be subject [sic] to women’s conflicting signals of attraction”
Is Average Man for real??? What does he actually want here- for half of the world’s population to modify their body language and innate behaviour just so he’ll find it easier to tell if he can give them his boner or not? What would this entail- 7.5 billion women wearing badges as if they were attending one big global Traffic Light Party?
Perhaps the most offensive thing about this is the way he’s framed his “problem” like it’s a disability or a real form of abuse. Never mind autistic people who struggle to read any body language at all, or deaf people who can’t even hear the word “no”, never mind take it for an answer, or disfigured people who struggle to form relationships at all, never mind victims of abuse who become too psychologically damaged to even consider a relationship ever again- Average Man has a REAL problem! Give your money to the Society for Helping Assholes Get Screwed TODAY!
Damn, I wish I could think of a better acronym than SHAGS, but that would still be pretty close to describing Average Man’s aims.
^^^ I meant 3.5 billion women there obviously, but that’s still a lot of badges.
Men’s Rights group need snappier acronyms* in general. Demand Our Ugly Cocks Have Excellent Sex! Against Sexually Selective Humans Only Liking Everyone else!
*ooh, a word spelled with “y”! Misandry!
Make Rape Legal Now would sum up their core goals in a nice short acronym.
Shouldn’t we call it Mysyndry?
I dislike the term “Men’s Rights Activist” because they don’t actually do anything apart from sit around whining, and while I’m sure I’m not the first to make that observation it does make me realise why the MRAs haven’t actually set up a charity. One could have imagined them doing more for male victims of domestic violence, etc, but they’re so narcissistic they’d only set up a new charity on the condition that they could use it as a front for pushing their real agenda- the chap who tried to volunteer for Big Brother showed us that.
Oh yes, and there’s also the fact that their demands don’t make any sense.
Back to Average Man’s demand for example: I can recall numerous times when I’ve tried to be unambiguous with men and they still haven’t understood the message, or have pretended not to, and I’ve literally been accused of “sending out signals” by two now ex-friends who seemed to take my “I’m not interested in you in that way” as a come-on anyway.
Then there are men who choose to see rejection as “playing hard to get”, and I recall one really scary situation where I told a creep who was following me down the street “look, I’ve got a boyfriend” and he just leered at me and said with a grin “it doesn’t matter”- that was a lie as I was single at the time but combined with my attempts to walk away that was still a very unambiguous “go away, you’re frightening me” and he still refused to take the hint. With some men no matter what you do you come out of the situation as the wicked temptress, with them the powerless victim being lead by their poor vulnerable little boners. A friend of mine calls it “the sexy autism defence” but of course they’re not autistic, just pretending you’re the bad guy and they’re the passive victim.
What would be the point in trying to be less “conflicting” when there are plenty of men who simply don’t take “no” for an answer? I think what Average Man really wants is for women to give just one very clear answer, and for that to always be “yes”- or for them to never be allowed to say “no”, or never believed they said “no” in a court of law…
So, again, we’re back to Make Rape Legal Now being a more honest title for their movement.
But they’re not in favor of men being raped. So it’s more like a Men Should Decide What Consequences Women Face for Their Actions and Those Consequences Better Be Painful movement, which is kind of a mouthful.
@The Stepford Knife:
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/mythcommunication-its-not-that-they-dont-understand-they-just-dont-like-the-answer/
Just like it says in the title. They understand perfectly well. THEY JUST DON’T LIKE THE ANSWER.
I’d say it’s more like they don’t actually believe that men can be raped, they just pretend to when it’s politically convenient, and they just don’t care at all about men who’re raped by other men.
Alternatively, they could call themselves the Bitches Should Hate Themselves And Worship Me movement. BSHTAWM? Not very snappy, but accurate.
Well it’s certainly more pronounceable than my suggestion: MSDWCWFTATCBBP.
That sounds like I ate something that didn’t agree with me.
Whoo! It’s all right, I’ll turn the fan on for a few minutes. No, I don’t need to go that urgently.
MRAs need a dystopian sheep-like chant:
“One X chromosome good, two X chromosomes baaad!”
I feel that I am missing the joke?
cloudiah’s stinking up the
bathroomthread with acronyms.A lot of bathrooms here in the States come with fans you can turn on. I guess it’s so they don’t stay so humid after a shower, but in my experience they’re run most often after someone has had a rather embarrassing session on the toilet and made a bad smell.
Bathroom fans are the norm here, too, but that doesn’t help when the loo is in a separate room … ::yes I’m looking at you Fribby, creator of nuclear-strength poos::
It’s actually for both, which is why 1/2 bathrooms come with fans as well (atleast IME they do). How’s the new house dude? Congrats on that.