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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
“…But you thought it was a good idea to make a list of 12 things to order feminists to stop doing?”
I note that this was posted in a forum where shallow feminist arguments seemed to abound.
As opposed to ass-backward MRA arguments.
LOL at “lowbrow forums.” Because we all know the Spearhead is a shining bastion of higher thought.
@Fibinachi – “What is the maximum distance a african sparrow of the most common genus can travel in two weeks?”
Laden or unladen?
Laden of course.
The better question is what is an African sparrow doing in Europe?! (Migrating, they’re the same bird)
@Jacob Ian Stalk:
Thank you for taking the time to answer. That’s very comprehensive of you.
Might I recommend that you read just a tiny bit about feminist thought before attempting to critique it? I realize that might sound glib, but I want to indicate that nothing you have just dismisses the notion of feminism, the ideals thereof, or the things feminists strive towards except perhaps the “feminists seeking power over men, schizophrenic fools” as might exist in your imagination.
I appreciate you took the time to answer. I really do. Thank you. I’m going to mock you now, however, following this break, so you might want to disregard anything I say from here, as it’s strictly speaking more for the benefit of the usual crowd, and you might not really… gain much from it, beyond perhaps an appreciation of what your argument sounds like to someone like me.
Because men can’t be equal, why should women? We can’t have those hormonal, insecure schizophrenics running around thinking they’re equal to us! THat’d be weird!
No, the hiearchy is quite simple! It’s me, then it’s Bob, then it’s Jake because he’s a little slow, then it’s the Chinese, then it’s Women as a group. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it works.
Yessireee. Also the idiotic notions of equality are idiotic, because men are just better than women. That’s why it’s okay to pay women less, you know. Their lady brains can’t do economics anyway!
Because of other people’s inability to phrase themselves, I am allowed to sink to a low, low level. Shaming language? No, no, I was just highlightning your cognitive dissoance between your stated ideals and your biological fate as an inherently inferior model of humanity. What? My cognitive dissosance in doing this, highlightning my own lack of understanding? Pafh! I disregard your conjecture! Obviously I can say that equality is an idiotic notion, that you’re a narcisistic shrill schizoprehnic and that you’re inferior, plus, you don’t possess as many positive traits as a man, but that’s just TruFax, when you do it, it’s cognitive dissonance!
Speaking of cognitive dissonance, I realize I have literally just stated that men and women have the same capacity for empathy, compassion, wisdom, grace, mercy and love – but there’s still other traits they don’t share that make men better. WHich traits? Their manliness, of course. Don’t see why you even have to ask. They’re on a spectrum, you know, and the hormonal difference just means that I’m better than Bob and Bob’s better than Suz, so ultimately, women can’t have equality. Because of this simple TruFax, women should stop shopping and find a sheepdog to obey.
Logic! I’m doing it!
The sad limitation of human mindscape unfortunately rules out telepathy as a valid mean of communication, and because of this defeciency, I can’t know what you’re thinking, and you can’t know what I’m thinking – so it’s okay if I rape you, because last week, you kind of liked it, and with our lack of equality, it means my word is better than yours. It comes with being a man, you know!
Further, feminists and MRa have animosity, not because people who call themselves MRA call for feminists to be burned at the stake, rounded up and put into whore houses, call them hypergamous sluts, tell them that their notions of equality are idiotic and that they’re biologically inferior, but because they can’t read minds. If Feminists could just read the minds of MRA’s, they’d realize that they are in fact just inferior, weak females, and meakly accept their roles as permanent fixtures to help highlight the many heroic traits of men. Heroic traits females might share, but which we disregard, because men are still better.
YES. I disagree with MRA’s and have animosity towards them because I Just Don’t Get THeir Perspective, and if I just LIstened Empathically Enough, we could reach a Middle Ground, wherein I agree that sometimes, women ARE total sluts with no rights, and they agree that maybe not raping someone is an okay thing to do, sometimes?
Fibi, you female slut of the highest order, your natural biological inferiority means you can’t let this point go: Hormonal differences mean that men and women cannot be equal. If we correct for “equality under the law”; suddenly they can! As if anyone, anywhere, ever argued for any other kind of equality! And it’s probably just because you can’t read the minds of all those nice, logical MRA’s that you think their ideas are insane! Your hormones are acting up again, ti hi.
Jacob, mate, nothing you say is directly reprehensible (Except in the qoutations up there in the blog post), but I’m going to say this:
Being polite does not excuse being unable to see perspective.
This is just… sad.
You’re arguing against a ghost that doesn’t exist, and furthermore, your list is betwixt some phantasm of your mind and a fantasy of your blinds and I quite mind that you have taken the time to write out this bile, blimey.
Calling men to give up their male privilege does not clash with equality, in fact, it would enforce it. When men do not have privilege based on their gender, and women are not oppressed based on their gender, gender-based equality will exist
What do you have to say about that?
Thanks for the invitation to respond. The logic of this statement is sound enough but it assumes that men are privileged and women are oppressed. I don’t make this assumption. I note that the debate going on in the Manosphere is not about the rightness or wrongness of this statement but on the rightness or wrongness of the assumptions it makes. It’s also about the consequences of using debatable assumptions as the basis of wholesale changes to the social landscape when a significant portion of the population don’t accept them as true.
“Because we all know the Spearhead is a shining bastion of higher thought.”
All blogs are as low-brow as the lowest common denominator. There are examples of that here and there. If we all aim higher, I suspect we’ll all be better informed.
The same thing can be said about the MRA bullshit you espouse. MRAs make plenty of assumptions that many people disagree with. (Although it happens to be the case that their assumptions are simply wrong.)
In any case, focusing on the inevitable consequences of advocating for social change based on certain assumptions is very strange. You might as well through social justice discourse out of the window – I mean, certainly not everyone agrees that inequality is a problem. In fact, you seem to be one of those people.
“I don’t make this assumption.”
Of course you don’t, because you’re living in male privilege and have never experienced (never mind had the empathy to contemplate) what it is like living as a woman.
This blog is for mocking misogyny, not being polite to misogynists. Moron.
throw*, not through
Yes.
Quite.
I agree completely
“I’m going to mock you now, however, following this break, so you might want to disregard anything I say from here, as it’s strictly speaking more for the benefit of the usual crowd, and you might not really… gain much from it, beyond perhaps an appreciation of what your argument sounds like to someone like me.
Mockery is not unexpected. Thanks for the warning!
Just a couple of points:
Might I recommend that you read just a tiny bit about feminist thought before attempting to critique it?
You may indeed – thanks. However, as I mentioned before, I prefer not to critique genuine feminist thought. I find it more helpful to critique feminist thoughtlessness instead. There seems to be a lot of it around.
Being polite does not excuse being unable to see perspective.
What about spending some quality time in here – will that do it?
Reach for the stars, Sparky. You got a long way to go with the company you keep.
Why the failure to engage with :genuine” feminist thought? If you think there’s none of that here, you’re wrong. I think you’re just afraid of having your ass handed to you.
If you can handle the lame puns we’re going to make (“Ian Stalk? Are you stalking us BADUMTISSCH”), then sure. Go ahead. You’re welcome! I have no authority to welcome you, and you don’t need me to! Hurrah for equality. Feel free.
No, really, how would I know? It’s not my pregorative to define what perspective is – except to note, perhaps, that going from “women” to “feminists” to “feminist cognitive dissonance” to “Feminist thoughtless” implies a certain need to expand the scope of the conversation as it goes on.
A bit of… perspective broadning, if you will. A shift in your perspective. You might even say that the posts that define your perspective has been corrospondeningly moved in accordance to the ongoing converation.
The implied limit of your perspective seems to translocate in relation to our specific on going debate.
So on, so on.
Shorter Fibinachi — you sure enjoy moving those goal posts don’t you?
Really though, if you want to claim your 12 step program is for feminists then your points need to be about feminists. Discussing “feminist thoughtlessness” is about as useful as if I wrote a dog training manual that focused on training your dog not to walk into things that will fall onto him and why no one is going to play fetch with a brick (because yes, my father’s dog is that dumb)
That’s a dog training manual I’d like to see. 😀
It’d have more chance of success than an MRA training manual. Your dad’s dog is smarter than the average MRA.
“This blog is for mocking misogyny, not being polite to misogynists.”
It is sometimes helpful to mock things that frighten us. We all do it. I hope that once the mockery is spent we can commit ourselves to better understanding of each other’s perspective.
lol
wow
“Really though, if you want to claim your 12 step program is for feminists then your points need to be about feminists.”
Thanks. This is helpful.
Oh, Jacob. I don’t feel the slightest need to understand your perspective, because your perspective is fucked. This insistence that all perspectives are valid is such sloppy thinking.
We mock you types because you’re evil and dumb. Not because we’re afraid of you. Don’t get twisted, you’re sad little internet asshole basement dwellers.
We’re not afraid of you, duder. We do think you’re amazingly racist, misogynist, and self-unaware.
Argenti Aertheri:
Thank you for taking the time to transcribe my thoughts into a form better express in a simple statement without corrosponding redudancies for better clarity.
ie:
Yeah. Pretty much.
Although I think your translation skips over the finer points of my babbling :]b
Good luck with that manual! It might come in handy. You know. To instruct dense folk.
OK, that seems to be all the questions and comments for now. Thanks for your help. I’ll visit this thread from time to time to respond to any further comments and questions.