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And now back to our regularly scheduled post:
Reading through some of the stranger comments from MRAs and PUAs and other manospherean types I often find myself wondering to what degree this “new misogyny” reaches beyond the internet. I don’t mean old-fashioned misogyny and sexism, which are obviously fairly common offline. I mean the elaborate misogynistic ideologies we discuss here – the “feminism runs the world,” “all women are hypergamous bitches who will dump you in a second for an alpha,” “we hunted the mammoth to feed you” kind of stuff.
I run across much less of this offline than on, though the people I hang out with aren’t exactly a representative sampling of the general public.
So I’m asking you, dear readers, to tell me a bit about your own experiences. Do you run across MRAs/PUAs in the real world on a regular or even an irregular basis? Where (online or off) did you first encounter MRAs and/or PUAs? What aspects of what we might call the manosphere ideology are the most common offline? If it seems less common offline, is this because the beliefs are not that widespread, or is it that people are less willing to say the kind of horrific misogynistic shit they say online to other people face to face?
Thoughts?
The “best” one was the guy who was so drunk we’re amazed the bar served him. He came up to me and my friend and pronounced us lesbians, told us we should be proud and come out of the closet (please note that we were friends and mildly sloshed, but not lesbians), then told us about his wife and kid and his job at the MoD, then asked me for permission to kiss my “girlfriend”. I told him no. Then the pub closed, thank god.
I hope he woke up with a terrible hangover and an overwhelming sense of shame.
My genitals are not food!
CassandraSays, I’ve had that as well – “I’m a lesbian!” “Oh, that’s okay!” No, dude, it’s not. It means GO AWAY.
I’ve heard guys try to justify this by saying “well, some women just say that to try and put you off!” and I totally fail to see how whether someone is a lesbian and wants you to go away or is pretending to be a lesbian and wants you to go away changes the fact that if you’re hitting on someone who says they’re a lesbian, you really ought to back off.
Actually, one of the most disturbing examples of “no doesn’t always mean no, right?” came from my own father, who is normally nice and laid-back and progressive but has seen fit on several occasions to say things like “well, why didn’t you just push a bit harder?” when I came home upset because a date hadn’t worked out. Because…that’s creepy and gross, dad, and I really don’t think you should be trying to teach me to take romantic or sexual rejection as a challenge.
Don’t feed the troll.
If I may ask, what led you to dedicate so much of your time to putting down the Manosphere? It seems like you spend more time reading ‘sphere blogs than most of tge denizens of that corner of the web. Do you feel superior through all these insults? Feel free not to answer, I’m just curious.
To answer your question, I have met 2 serious PUAs in real life, both in the last few months and both at my job.
“Guided shot in the dark…”
“Guided shot… in the dark…”
Steele?
(no, totally different Troll MO… but that writing was so bad…)
I knew a guy with no connection to online MRAs who was worried about sperm-jacking (though he didn’t actually call it that) from used condoms. While he seemed to like sexist jokes, he never mentioned any other MRA talking points.
Remember the stripping teacher, how it’s a “pussy pass” and proof of misandry? Here is a male professor who did the same thing. In your face, MRAs.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/19/columbia-professor-shocks-students-by-stripping-during-quantum-mechanics-lecture/
So far all that’s happened is a promise by Columbia to “review” the situation. He was not arrested.
So, on the original post…
I’ve mentioned before I come from a right-wing fundamentalist church originally, right?
Things that were taught there.
Feminism is destroying America.
Feminism wants women to be paid more than men.
Feminism is anti-Christian.
Women belong barefoot in the kitchen.
(and of course all the stuff about gay people bringing fire and brimstone down on America, but the question was about MRA beliefs they internalized….)
Child support is weighted in the woman’s favor.
Divorce law is weighted in the woman’s favor.
So much more. Ugh.
I’m 5’2″ and I can reliably report that the whole walking through short people as though they are invisible thing predates mobile phones. Can’t count the number of times I’ve stood in a queue and been treated as a gap to walk through …
Until @everydaysexism appeared on twitter, I thought that things had vastly improved for women, especially as regards street harrassment. Turns out I am just priviliged by having become invisible to the harrassers.
I don’t think I’ve encountered any real MRA-level ridiculousness.
In college (with 70% men, mostly white) there was a whole lot of “white men like me are discriminated against by affirmative action” and “anything I want to do with X object is equally valid as what you want to do with X object, even if you made X object and I want to destroy it” and “People choose to be offended, so if I do something intended to be offensive and someone is offended by it, it’s their problem”
That last one was sometimes upsetting to me because it was a conflict between some of the students and the mainly hispanic housekeeping staff, who were upset by faux-satanic rituals.
for PUA, my favorite one looking back was this:
I was at passport control in Miami, coming back from Costa Rica. The guy at passport control said, “Did anyone ever tell you you have ugly eyes?”
I was like, “huh?”
he said, “Just kidding, you have beautiful eyes”
I was like, “huh?”
I’m still confused by this, since there was no chance he was going to sleep with me regardless of what he said. It was passport control! I was about to get on another flight to Boston! There was someone in line behind me!
And general male entitlement:
Mr A is very cute, and we hang out a lot and go on dates, and then I decide he’s not a good match for the long term. (for insisting that I should trust him, because *he* trusts himself). I move very far away for unrelated reasons. He visits because a friend is getting married sorta nearby. He tries to convince me that he loves me forever blah blah blah. Slightly later, Mr B, who had never met Mr A before, literally corners me a party, and lectures me about how I’m being super unfair to Mr A and should really just give him a chance because he really likes me blah blah blah.
What feminist conspiracy? There appears to be an entitled male conspiracy.
“a nice tasty vag at the end of the night.”
Ugh I feel really sick right now. I still have some Nice Guy traits that I’m trying to get rid of and I’m pretty young so I can’t say if nice guys are any more prevalent than they used to be but the internet seems to be pretty full of nice guy crap especially “the friendzone” which i read in dozens of places before I ever heard it in real life.
A few years ago I was quite depressed, I hadn’t had a girlfriend at that point and I felt some resentment towards women in general that characterizes nice guys and I think if I had come across the mrm at that point I might have become one, luckily I was reading pharyngula so I got a good grounding in feminism there and my first introduction to the MRM was a link to this blog I think it was the one about the guy who thought women would beg him to protect them from bears when the apocalypse comes.
In the real world, I do not typically encounter the MRA or PUA types. Or, if I do, they aren’t proselytizing their anti-feminism garbage. Online, I encounter them semi-regularly. This leads me to suspect a couple of things about them. First, the mentality is probably more prevalent than we want to believe. The internet offers a degree of anonymity for people to express whatever things they lack the courage to say openly and publicly where their *real life* person can be identified. This leads me to the second thought, which is that while they may believe privately the things they promote online, they recognize that those views are not “socially acceptable” and probably never will be. I have yet to meet an MRA or PUA (irl or online) who would dare spout their nonsense to their own mothers or sisters or other female relatives. That -by itself- speaks volumes about how well they know their views are utter swill.
Feels like forever since I’ve been on here! Lots of stuff has actually been happening in my life, but that’s off-topic. Some on-topic stuff first:
Exhibit A: When a friend of mine was at a bar for a bachelorette party, some old ugly guy was trying to pick her up with lines like “It’s so hard being ugly. You understand, don’t you?” and regaling her with tales of his horrible ex-wife/child support issues. However, another person at their table was a social worker who was easily able to make swiss cheese out of his story (or poke holes in, whichever metaphor you prefer).
Exhibit B: On some ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ auditions I saw recently, there was a dancer who had ‘learned some stuff on the internet’ about attracting women and was trying to pick up girls in the audience. I felt so sorry for the dancing partner he had, you could practically feel the slime dripping off him. Here’s the video:
Exhibit C: I had an otherwise very good computer graphics teacher who said the reason people couldn’t make a livable wage now was because so many women entered the workforce. He was in his seventies (he had lots of experience in the print industry before it went digital), so I didn’t hold it against him. However, when another guy in my U.S. history class tried to make the same argument, I countered by pointing out by that logic, it could also be the fault of the men who didn’t want to stay home in equal numbers. He then tried to claim that women were capable of being either breadwinners or homemakers, while men were only capable of being breadwinners, so it was only right that women stay home because somebody had to. My reply? “So why can’t men learn?”
Exhibit D: After I thanked a guy for holding a door open for me, he responded with, “If I don’t, it’s discrimination.”
That’s all I can think of at the moment. In other news, I’ve got a job now! It’s with a growing custodial company that uses green materials and makes it a point to hire people with disabilities. I just started yesterday, and I’m loving it so far.
Got an updated psychological evaluation recently, and they added Aspergers to my mental conditions. I’ve known about my ADD/anxiety for years and have done my research accordingly, but have minimal knowledge of Aspergers. Links/explanations would be much appreciated if anybody feels like it. After all, I know this blog is really a vast network of pooled experiences and expert knowledge on just about every topic known (and some unknown) to humankind disguised as an internet suite dedicated to mocking misogyny. Isn’t it?
Oh, Mr. Minter.
What about Elam and his quarterly beg-a-thon? That fool can’t even find free pictures on the internet and is soaking you dumbasses for new equipment. Unlike David, that asshole will gladly take the unemployment money of his followers. You know what they say about fools and money.
Get lost.
I had a bunch of acquaintances in my University social group who got into pick up artistry. They were pretty much all of the science set, and seriously thought they had “solved” human interaction.
The thing that stands out more in my mind than the sexism of it all was the sheer stupidity. Like, these were people I had considered smart, who seriously thought that a couple of for-profit authors on the Internet had provided them with the essential truths of humanity.
Most of the women in the group got annoyed as hell and stopped hanging out with them. Some of the guys that I still talk to have grown up and realized they were being morons though, so that’s good.
Ugh, my last martial arts instructor pretty much followed the PUA handbook. Soooo many rapey things said in class. It was horrific. But I really loved my particular art and he was the only school to go to. In fact, it was rage over that guy and the crap that he used to say that got me researching misogyny and brought me to this place.
Yeah, looking back on it now, I realize how fucked up it really was. I think a big issue is that traditional gender role shit is so rapey, that when PUAs restate those rapey things as a lifestyle choice it comes off silly instead of horrific.
Probably if I could go back in time and do it again, I would have just pulled a Yo is this Racist and swore at them and then never spoke to any of them again.
Also, that sucks that your instructor somehow saw the need to bring dumbass misogyny into physical intstruction.
Like, how do you even bring that shit up?
Hi David,
I first encountered the MRA when they started harassing my husband for a PSA he made tackling the subject of how we raise boys to be violent. (I’m Sara’s sock puppet, had to change my email)
I had no clue this craziness existed in the world. I tried joining avfm and engaging in debate with commenters. I soon realized these guys had no interest in men’s rights or issues. They just hated women.
I first became aware of PUA when that lame show aired on vh1. Although they watered down the misogyny a bit, I had trouble with the sexism in the episodes. This blog has been a real eye opener.
I often wonder how many of them are in my circle, in my town. In my day to day life I run into lots of nice men, smiling, chatting while in line, holding the door open for me, saying thank you when I hold the door open for them – you know, normal decent-ness. It’s hard for me to believe the majority of these men harbor such hostility.
I mostly just encounter the normal run-of-the-mill sexism, like my father-in-law joking about women drivers. Followed by me reminding him I have lower insurance. Followed by both of us laughing and moving on to something else.
The MRA is either really small, really quiet, or really chicken, or a combination.
Occasionally I’ll get stink eye from some guy and I wonder to myself if he’s a seethingly angry MRA dickwad, but of course I have no clue, it’s just a thought that I started getting since encountering the manosphere.
@ Ugh- actual sexual assault stories told as funny stories, stories about his conquests, frequent rape jokes. It was a total shit-show. And no matter how much I tried to keep my head down and just do my thing whenever there was a particularly nasty slur or story every head would turn my way (only woman in the room). But the dissonance comes when these dudes were actually my friends and I cared about them and they cared about me. It was sooooo frigging sad and hard. I just wish people would trust- women feel the shitty misogynistic slurs you use, whether they are in a position to protest or they aren’t.
I rarely find people who have MRA-ish views. Probably because I don’t want to deal with them.
I first encountered actual MRAs and PUAs in websites like Angry Harry and Anti-sexism for Idiots. Oh, and Manhood Academy, too. All of them make me feel sick to my stomach.
In my childhood, I was surrounded by conservative people, most of whom espoused ideas characteristic of many MRAs and PUAs. The most salient ones were “Women are vindictive bitches who enslave men with child support and alimony,” “Women get back at men by falsely accusing them of violence,” and “All women want strong assertive men to dominate them.” And, as far as I can tell, that’s how things are today as well.
@ttf
Wow, that’s horrible.
@ Ugh- it was a piece of crap, but I left and I found this little haven!
This is much more of a traditional sexism thing, but it has always stuck with me. i am in a volunteer program that involves staying at a campus in mississippi. my team was just packing up our equipment to leave that phase of the program when one of the (female, disappointingly) staffers came out of the dorm and asked for someone to help clean the dorm. one of the guy volunteers walked over and the staffer said “no, a girl.” we figured she wanted someone to clean the girls bathroom or something, so a girl volunteer went over instead. she was promptly told to clean the communal kitchen and lounge areas.