Cloudiah found this amazingly awful rant — from a prolific manosphere commenter and Spearhead supporter by the name of Jacob Ian Stalk — in the comments section to a piece on feminism in The Tab Oxford, a student paper. She posted it in the comments here on Man Boobz, where it’s already generated a good deal of discussion (see comments here, here, here, and here for starters). But I thought it deserved a post of its own.
So without further ado, I present Jacob Ian Stalk’s “12-Step Program for Recovering Feminists.”
Equality is equality. Feminism is about the unbridled pursuit of power for women. Got that?
Uh, no, actually, because it’s not true, but please continue.
The age of feminism is over, thankfully. The comments here that support feminism are from the rats that refuse to leave the sinking ship, thinking there’s sustenance still to be found there somewhere. Sorry to disappoint, but there is nothing nutritious left.
So the ship is sinking at the very moment it’s run out of food that rats can eat. That’s quite a coincidence! Or is it sinking because it ran out of food? Were the dudes on the ship using rat food to plug holes in the hull?
Men the world over are waking up to the damage wrought by rampant feminism and they’re shocked to realise it all happened while they were asleep. Well, they’re asleep no more. Bleat all you like about feminism being about this or that, but the truth of it’s evil is written all over the once noble institutions of the world and the wishful bleatings of solipsistic girl-children can’t erase it. It is done. The cailphate is establishing its power base once more and Sharia law is spreading.
Huh? Because of feminism? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Feminists have destroyed the family and have eschewed child-bearing in favour of credentialism and the illusion of success, killing their unborn children and robbing men of their will to be fathers and husbands. The laugh is on you, Western feminists, as Western birth rates have at last fallen below their replenishment rate and the Muslims are laughing all the way to the maternity wards.
Oh, dear, you got some racism in your misogyny. Two terrible tastes that taste worse together!
The best you can hope for, Western women, is to abandon feminism entirely. Abandon that idiotic notion of ‘equality’, as it will never happen. All it has earned you is the disrespect of men and an increasing number of women the world over. Feminism doesn’t make you strong. It doesn’t make you powerful. It doesn’t make you free. And it sure as hell doesn’t make you equal. It just makes you despicable.
Wait, weren’t you just complaining that feminism is about female supremacy? Now you’re admitting that it’s actually about equality – and you’re preaching male supremacy in its place?
Abandon feminism. Here’s a 12-step program for recovering feminists. There are others.
Ok, here we go.
1. Don’t be narcissistic. Never think you’re more important than men or children. Marketing departments delight in exploiting the feminist fallacy that you are. They promote ‘women’s only’ this and that, and women have bought into it. This appears sexist but it is really a marketing ploy that works because most women are narcissistic. Companies know they can charge more for goods and services by using the words ‘women only’. Narcissistic women are easily exploitable women. Be neither.
Huh. Isn’t the Men’s Rights Movement all about exploiting the narcissism of men who think they’re more important than women? (And children – at least in the case of the MRAs who whine endlessly about how unfair it is they can’t financially abandon their kids.)
2. Don’t let others make choices for you. This should be self-evident but for most of your life you’ve allowed yourself to be told what to wear, what to buy, what to eat, how to dress, where to go, how to think – in clubs, gyms, magazines, websites, books, stores and by TV talk show hosts. You’ve ‘needed’ a step-by-step guide through life, which you’ve followed with your sisters like sheep. Companies have exploited this need. Behave like a sheep if you must but obey the sheepdog, not the wolf. Better yet, be a woman who can think for herself.
… so long as “thinking for yourself” means “thinking you’re inferior to men and generally thinking the way men who hate women want you to.”
3. Get rid of the self-induced schizophrenia. Don’t insist you’re strong, confident, capable and independent one minute, then weak, frightened and vulnerable the next, especially when you’ve been caught doing something wrong. Don’t chop and change whenever it suits you – learn about who you are and be true. Admit when you’ve done something wrong. Don’t suddenly remember that you suffered abuse in the past or have some kind of mental illness or other instability, then use it to get yourself off. If you never sought help for these problems before you were caught, don’t use them as an excuse afterwards. Accept responsibility for yourself.
And for everything bad that men do as well, as manospherians repeatedly insist. If men are violent, it’s because women (allegedly) like dating violent men. If men brutalize the women in their life, it’s because the women provoke them. If a man arms himself with high-powered weapons and massacres children, his mom is to the real villain. For manospherians and MRAs generally, “responsiblity” means “a woman is always to blame.”
4. Don’t let the law take responsibility for crimes women commit. Speak out against women routinely receiving shorter sentences than men for the same crimes. If the law punishes women as it does children, treat them like children and encourage others to do so too. Don’t call these women ‘victims’ and say “they’ve suffered enough” because they’re women. Believe in, and stand up for, equal justice on the basis of gender.
Women do tend to receive shorter sentences than men for the same crimes. But this isn’t the fault of feminism. Indeed, female judges are slightly more likely to give women harsher sentence than male judges, possibly reflecting paternalistic attitudes on the part of male judges.
5. Don’t believe everything women and feminised men in the media tell you. Many serve up slop by the bucket – celebrity gossip, slimming tips, sex tips, man-shaming tips, rape and abuse lies, etc. TV shows like Oprah and Dr Phil are filled with advice on how women can transform themselves into victims and blame everything on men, while constantly ridiculing them. Partake of more nutritious fare than this. Get your infotainment from equitable programs. Be aware of the cultural status quo from both perspectives.
I have no idea what Jacob here would consider an “equitable” program, but, really, no one of any gender should be getting life advice from Dr. Phil.
6. Don’t fake solidarity with other women, especially in public. Don’t pretend that all women are your best friends when everyone knows nothing could be further from the truth. Openly acknowledge the reality that women despise each other unless there’s personal advantage in not doing so. Most good men can see through these attempts at deception, so lies won’t travel far. Don’t be a liar, especially not an obvious one.
I have no idea what the fuck he’s going on about here. “Don’t fake solidarity with other women, especially in public??” Do women who hate each other march around Jacob’s neighborhood arm-in-arm, pretending to be BFFs and singing the Lady Internationale? (“Arise, you prisoners of menstruation … .“)
7. Don’t seek equality with men. Masculinity and femininity are inherently different. They are neither equals nor opposites, but different parts of the sexual continuum that can’t be defined from each other. Actively separate masculinity from femininity, and separate both from the sexual politics that keep them in healthy tension. Don’t claim women can do anything men can do until you start producing your own sperm.
Um, what? Is Kate Bush not a brilliant musician because she doesn’t have balls? Is Joan Didion not a brilliant writer because she can’t jizz into a sock?
Not every sperm producer is sacred.
8. Don’t demonize male sexuality or the male sex. Both sexes can be evil, both can be virtuous. Empathy, wisdom, grace, mercy, compassion and love are all as masculine as they are feminine. Don’t invaginate our boys by shaming or medicating the masculinity out of them before it matures and don’t impregnate them with the corrosive lie that being a woman is like being a man only better. Male sexuality is a pearl to be cultured. Suffuse your sons egos with promise if you want your daughters to have good men to love.
Uh, “invaginate?” Invaginate means to “be turned inside out or folded back on itself to form a cavity or pouch.” I’m pretty sure that teaching boys not to rape their dates does not in any way, literally or figuratively, turn them into a pouch.
9. Respect the sanctuaries of men. Men are judged much more harshly than women so they need their safe retreat. They don’t have the same opportunities for emotional support as women so they need a place where they can express themselves free of judgment and ridicule. This place must be respected. Take care if you venture there as your feminine narcissism is the enemy. Don’t draw attention to yourself and don’t expect protection if you do. If you must speak don’t attempt to control the dialogue or steer it towards you. Don’t censor language to suit your sensitivities. Male sanctuary is sacred – treat it as you would a cathedral.
Dudes, if you want to start your own little clubhouses where you can call women “cunts” in peace and quiet, go ahead and do it. Just don’t pretend they’re about anything more than misogyny. And if you put these allegedly sacred sanctuaries on the internet, don’t be surprised if some people take offence. Oh, and don’t claim that, say, video games, or STEM fields, or atheism, or whatever male-heavy thing you’re into, is a “male sanctuary” that need to be protected from evil girl germs.
Some male spaces can be totally awesome:
Others, not so awesome.
10. Don’t use shaming tactics. Don’t accuse men of having anger management issues when they’re angry at injustice. Don’t accuse them of being a threat when they call you out for being a bigot or a tyrant. Don’t accuse them of having a fear of commitment when they’re merely making a choice between bravery and stupidity. Don’t assess the merit of their arguments on the basis of their attractiveness to you. Don’t attribute their views about women to past disappointments when it is merely an objective assessment of your sex. Shaming tactics are remnants of childhood so leave them in the nursery if you want to be taken seriously.
I think this one just broke the irony meter. It’s not like manosphere dudes ever use shaming language aimed at anyone.
A word of warning here. The next paragraph is the worst one in the whole manifesto, and, honestly, one of the worst things I’ve run across in my more than two years of doing this blog. TRIGGER WARNING for rape apologia.
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11. Be honest about sexual harassment. If you assert that you have the right to dress as you please and that men should be able to control their sexuality, honour their right to be shielded from yours. If you don’t want men to control themselves but instead want to control their loss of control for your own enjoyment, be prepared for the consequences when things go awry. If ‘harassment’ – the stares, sexual innuendos, sly touches, and even rape – magically cease to be harassment and become the foundations of a passionate new romance occasionally, admit that you don’t really want men to control themselves. Don’t expect men to know when it’s right to ‘harass’ you and when it’s not. Don’t treat Man one minute as an exciting and courageous hero and the next a monster intent on tyranny and abuse if you’re inconsistent in your sexual intentions and desires.
Woah. Let’s take another look at that especially terrible comment in the middle of that mess:
If ‘harassment’ – the stares, sexual innuendos, sly touches, and even rape – magically cease to be harassment and become the foundations of a passionate new romance occasionally, admit that you don’t really want men to control themselves.
I’ve got no jokes for this one. You honestly think that RAPE can be “the foundation of a passionate new romance?” What the fuck is wrong with you?
12. Speak out against misandry. The main reason for its proliferation is that women have remained silent. Silence in the face of injustice is cowardly. It has allowed loud, obnoxious women to preach hatred with impunity, which has reflected badly on all women. When you speak out against misandry you do all women a favour. Don’t be a misandrist, don’t be a coward and don’t be silent.
At this point, I really don’t think I need to bother to point out the hypocrisy here.
hahaha. My first AOL webpage had a cloud background and about a metric ton of animated gifs. I can’t even remember what it was about, I just remember how awful it looked.
None of these are as blingy as my worst memories of internet days of yore.
I was more of a reductionist at the time. Plain solid-color background, plain text, a lot of tables and horizontal lines dividing it up.
I also went by Duchess Dreams about Carrot Cake. Don’t ask.
I think that’s actually one of the biggest differences between back-in-the-day sites and contemporary blogs, even more than the look-and-feel and the social-media aspect. Back then, you just made a site so you could have a site. You didn’t think about who would visit your site or why or what would make them come back, you just put something up there. Blogs, however bad, usually understand that you need to have a topic!
When me and my friends were playing around with Geocities sites they were a place to publicly post your angsty 13 year old diary (because our parents just DIDN’T UNDERSTAND, okay?) I don’t think we expected anyone to read them, necessarily, we just liked the idea that someone could.
I’m going to write about the Matusiewicz story; just waiting a bit to see how it develops. If any of you see MRA types commenting on it, let me know. (I’m looking through the comments at that HuffPo article now.)
Did they ever go off about what happened at Oikos University, or did they decide there was no need to offer their moral support because the shooter wasn’t white?
What barrel’s butt did HuffPo scrape to get those terrible commenters? There aren’t even any kitties, fer crissakes. I’ve only seen one pretty generic MRA-type comment, and that was like two pages after the very first one I saw, which was about how the second amendment apparently gives us the right to shoot tyrannical government employees.
Hmmm,from the way he discusses them, I can see he understands the concepts of “narcissism” and “schizophrenia” every bit as well as he understands women and feminism.
Tulgey – HP is always full of misogynistic scum in its comments; that’s mainly why I stopped reading it. They may not identify as MRAs, but they’re horrible.
AUGH MY EYES! Those old sites are AWFUL.
We’re a bit weird in that we still do most of our web stuff in plain HTML. It’s just the easiest way to insure accessibility on different platforms, and means we can do everything by hand without too much trouble.
Heheh I put up my website with WordPress’s template and stuck in the background I like. If anyone else likes it, fine, if not … well, I’m not exactly hunting for elebenty billion hits.
Dastardly feminist, how dare you invade male-only safe spaces?! Everybody knows newspaper comment sections are for MRA eyes only!
LBT at Dragon Slayer: “Get your head out of your ass; it’s got enough shit in it.”
I laughed so hard at this I just about cried. Thank you for that. It cured my crabby mood today.
As for Dragon Asshat: When someone puts up bullshit in a public place, nobody, not them or anyone on their behalf, should get their nose out of joint when people call them on that bullshit.
And another thing, the wonderful thing about the internet is, it’s not entirely private. That’s why there’s lots of warnings saying people shouldn’t post things on the internet if they want them to be private, or out available out there for the rest of time.
And women not capable of love? Who are you to say what women are capable of? You must not know very many with your point of view. I certainly wouldn’t want a piece of work like you in my life.
And to all those who posted photos of kitties: KITTEHS!!! <3
Wandering in two days late to award Tulgey Logger on Internet for the demi-Rickroll on page 2.
I hate so much the myth that women can’t be friends together. I’m a woman, my two best friends are women as well. I don’t envy them, I don’t have a bone to pick with them, I have nothing against them. Au contraire, I enjoy their presence and conversation, I have many common points with them and I genuinely like them.
I genuinely don’t understand MRAs. Is this coming from some place of entitlement and the sense that this entitlement rug has been yanked out from underneath them? What universe are they living in? Are they really unaware of the vast numbers of women and girls who are sexually harassed and assaulted on a daily basis–most many times in their lives–and, as always, suffer it in silence, because of the lack of social support for victims/the persistent misogynist victim-shaming in our culture and the stupid yet still pervasive “Madonna/whore” dichotomy (which no, Madonna did not break down simply by calling herself Madonna and sleeping around)? This is the real pernicious “shaming” that happens–yes other sorts of name-calling are bad, but really there is nothing worse than to have the core of your being attacked and then to be shamed for it. What about the other myriad injustices perpetrated against women worldwide? Are MRAs unaware that women were, in all countries, considered inferior to men until very recently, in many countries still openly are, and even in first world countries still secretly are (which has become more apparent recently with the “antiwoman” laws the teabaggers have been trying to pass)? I will be the first to say that double standards and sexism hurt men as much as women–men in more equal nations (that is, men who don’t have a great big ol’ macho chip on their shoulder) have routinely reported greater levels of happiness. I just don’t get why they would pretend they are being oppressed by women, rather than by the same oppressive societal machinery that is also oppressing women. Why, just, why?
Thanks so much for drawing attention to my list and providing deserved criticism. It does need improvement, so you can be sure I’ll take all of your comments into consideration before posting it again. Since you’ve all been so kind, I thought it only fair to make myself available for questions and clarifications so we can all move forward in understanding. I’ll check in on this thread from time to time over the next few weeks to catch up and respond. Thanks for your patience and sorry for the belated response.
Are you really afraid that Muslims are going to take over the world with their higher birthrates?
Can you clarify if you actually know what “feminism” is?
Hi Jacob, thank you for dropping by. I hope you are well. Added to Katz, I have a few questions I’d love to get an answer on since they puzzle me. Namely:
In example 2, you write “Behave like sheep if you must, but obey the sheepdog”… who would the sheepdog be in this example? Husband, partner, president?
In example 7, you write “Don’t seek equality with men…” – why not? I understand you answer that in part in the following, with the notion that feminine and masculine traits are inherently two parts of the same specutrm and I’ll accept that, but where does that slip into “Not seeking equality?”. If the argument “You can’t produce sperm” works, how about the argument “You can’t produce babies”? Being equal is not being identical.
In example 11, you write: “magically cease to be harassment and become the foundations for a passionate new romance…” in relation to rape, sly touches and wicked flirtation. Would you argue that the notion that something OCCASIONALLY happens invalidates the idea that AT ALL OTHER TIMES, IT’S STILL NEGATIVE? If so, why? Note, as abhorent as I find the idea that rape could lead to a passionate romance, I am not saying it cannot – I’m asking why it’s still okay. It’s still a crime, I believe?
In example 10, you write “Don’t use shaming tactics”, a notion I fairly agree with. However, earlier, you also write: “Abandon that idiotic notion of ‘equality’, as it will never happen. All it has earned you is the disrespect of men and an increasing number of women the world over. Feminism doesn’t make you strong. It doesn’t make you powerful. It doesn’t make you free. And it sure as hell doesn’t make you equal. It just makes you despicable”. This reads to me as an attempt at shaming language, ie: a shaming tactic. Could you explain why it’s okay for you, but not okay for “hypothethical feminists”?
In example 8, you write: “Don’t demonize male sexuality”, something I agree with. However, you follow it up by claiming that empathy, compassion, honor and other such traits are as masculine as they are feminine. How does this work with example 7, if feminine and masculine behaviour are at a spectrum and equality is “an idiotic notion”? If these positive traits are neither inherent one or the other, why is there a marked difference in the value of either sex/gender?
Oh, to add:
You also write: ” The laugh is on you, Western feminists, as Western birth rates have at last fallen below their replenishment rate and the Muslims are laughing all the way to the maternity wards” and “The cailphate is establishing its power base once more and Sharia law is spreading.”
Do you sincerely believe that feminism is to blame for the lowering birthrates of “The western world”, and that the caliphate is intent on spreading so far as to destroy this “Western civilization” – and further, if this is the case, would rape then be okay? It’s a bit of a jump, but in example 11 you seem to be implying this, and I am honestly confused.
Hmm, thread necromancy or not? I mean, he does have a reason to comment on a dead thread…
Anyways!
Your first few points could well be anti-commericalism if you stopped acting like only women are sold shit. Also, ditch the whole “men and women are inherently different” — gender is a continuum and there’s plenty of overlap.
Basically, stop blaming feminism for everything wrong with society.
As for the birth rate, you’re just plain wrong, mathematically.
GDP is correlated with birth rate. In short, people in poorer countries tend to have more kids.
But hell, we’ve all seen that one enough to know that what you really mean is the same old racist bullshit about population growth being driven more by immigration than white births. Please refrain from blaming feminism for an increase in GDP and immigration.
Also, what is the orbital velocity of the moon during winter months in the southern hemisphere?
What is the maximum distance a african sparrow of the most common genus can travel in two weeks?
If I have a fighter of 7th level in dungeons and dragons 3.5, what feat selection will allow me to maximize the utility of my 2 available attacks, assuming no deflection or natural AC of any opponent?
Further, what would be the specific difference if instead I was playing Pathfinder?
In the typical understanding of economics, using a keynesian interpretation of “full employment”, what would be the best measure to reduce inflation over the long run in a national economy?
What would change if we used a neo-classical interpretation of the same data over the same time period?
What would be the best way to get an egg out of its shell if one intents to make an omelette?
In order to maximize the gain one makes with physical improvement training, what would you suggest one does over a 28 day period, if we assume adaquate intake of food / protein / calorie / liquid? Which efforts would lead to the greatest gain (measured in lean mass)?
Could you name three characters of the popular fantasy book series “The Sword of Truth”, and, if possible, explain to this forum why an objectivist interpretation of the books leads one to a better understanding of the plot?
Further, in the book “Naked Empire” ,of the same series, the protagonist murders and army of “evil pacifists”. Could you clarify why this action is understandable within the context of the series but remain morally reprehensible when viewed under a real world lens?
In creating a fire to secure heat and flame for the longest period of time, which kind of wood and what shape would be most optimal, under a consideration of wood/time?
If possible, could you clarify the specific way one dances a threestep cha cha cha?