Here’s a cool, if momentarily puzzling, gif.
And another question for you all. Well, several related questions, really.
Where did you first run across MRAs and/or PUAs etc online (or offline)? What was your reaction at the time?
Flash forward to now: Where do you tend to run across MRAs/PUAs/etc or their ideas online (expressed by people who may or may not be MRAs/PUAs/etc)?
Oh, and by the way, feel free to discuss whatever else you want, or to post links to misogyny, and generally behave as if this is an open thread, because it is.
One of my friends is a rare example of a non-misogynist MRA. I think he’s wrong about a lot of things, especially feminism, but he has distanced himself from the typical internet MRA to the point where he no longer really participates online.
Warren – yeah, our media’s gone really downhill. The Murdoch press, well, no surprise there, but when I look at the Age website, it’s full of sexist rubbish, both articles and comments.
I used to read a few of Robert Greene’s book, like The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction. Tried some of the stuff in the latter one IRL, but I could not fail to realize that I was being creepy and that it made me employ social pressure to get people to do stuff they did not actually care to do. I felt that that certainly was not what flirting and dating should be about, but I wasn’t too suprised when I found that some people would disagree.
Only heard about PUAs as a movement when Mystery got his MTV-show and people started making fun of his awful fashion sense all over the net.
I first came across MRAs reading stuff posted to fstdt.net (Fundies Say the Darndest Things.) They have stuff copied from a few different MRA sources, some of which also show up here.
Someone posted a comment mentioning a blog post on the same material here, so here I am. Wish I could remember which post it was.
The website Doctor Nerd Love has a forum, now, and there’s a vocal minority of MRAs on there. I mean, they might not be MRAs and haven’t outed themselves as such, but they pretty much respond to every and any thread parroting the exact sort of PUA/MRA/Nice Guy bollocks that would tend to make me believe they probably are.
There are a couple there that are just sad-making, though. One guy, having never had a relationship with a woman or even many terribly well-developed friendships with any people but especially women, speaks on dating and romance matters, and on matters of understanding womens’ motivations, with all the confidence – and all the understanding of reality – of a 7 year old kid loudly declaring that “if someone tried to hurt me I’d just karate chop them to death!”.
He spouts a hell of a lot of stuff that makes it clear his understanding of women comes mostly from watching terrible films and extrapolating what he sees into real life, And it’s hard to tell if he’s a particularly cunning troll/MRA or just the sort of person likely to fall into the trap of turning into one without help.
Other than that, I’ve mostly encountered them in the comment threads of feminist blogs and, well, anywhere that someone has posted an article mentioning women, and that allows comments.
On the conversation about age and misogyny, I feel like with older men you run into a lot of sexism but it’s mostly of the clueless, separate spheres variety, rather than the raging ranty why-can’t-I-hurt-women-without-society-complaining variety. It’s patronizing rather than angry/violent, for the most part.
I think I first ran into MRA’s (though it would be some time before I had a name for them) on USENET back in the early 90’s. Groups like soc.singles would attract endless repetitions of the Nice Guy (TM) debate, with all the misogynist blather that go with it. Since, I’ve come to realize that debating gender roles, gender and relationships, gender and children, etc. on the net is mostly futile; anywhere these topics are brought up, MRA-like characters will eventually derail the conversation – making comment sections on most news outlets etc useless.
Once my friend posted something about sexism and feminism on facebook. One of her male friends posted a link from the Brazilian MRA, “Masculinismo”. It was about how men too suffer sexual harassment from women. It pissed me off and I responded it directing him to Feminism 101. He didn’t like it.
*delurks* how common do you guys think MRAs are? Considering they post on every fucking feminist site ever, are they a loud minority with little better to do or are they big and are just too afraid to voice their shitty opinions IRL?
I’m 18 and most dudes I know are or have the tendencies of Nice Guys ™ so I’m legitimately worried about the commonality of there dudes’ awful attitudes. :/ I’m so glad I like girls too because if this is how most guys see women than I’m prolly gunna stay away from TEH menz.
…
I ain’t even kidding.
4chan, I’m sad to say. Worse even, I was twelve and almost bought into it.
I’ve met two probable MRAS IRL; one was a guy I knew who *insisted* I delete a quote from AAMP I posted on my Fb wall (post did not concern him, he was not tagged in it) where the dialogue between him and myself degenerated into him calling all rape victims manhating sluts and demanding I apologise for hurting his feelings after he triggered me. The second guy I met was when I was working at a thrift store and he began on my shift. He seemed to be perfectly normal until I mentioned reddit and how I thought the MRA subreddit was a complete joke- he mumbled something about MRAs being right sometimes and I sort of changed the subject so I wouldn’t have to deal with BS in front of the other volunteers. He never came back, thank goodness.
@Cami. I did the same thing to the guy on fb. He started crying about male oppreshun or some rubbish.
Maybe the Nice Guys will grow out of it? I hope so, because if not I feel really sorry for women your age, catbeast.
(Is an olds.)
Wikipedia, while I was editing. For a while, all of our articles on patriarchy and similar were based primarily off of Steven Goldberg’s “The Inevitability of Patriarchy” and “Why Men Rule”. I think I recall some of Warren Farrell’s stuff being cited too, but I’m not willing to dig into the histories now.
Finally the worst offender was banned for unrelated reasons (shock, MRAs are often just plain assholes, even when dealing with men) and people with brains and the ability to string together a concise sentence were able to clean up the place. We’ve had a recent influx of MRA “activism” but they’ve been mostly unsuccessful, as even the rather sexist Wikipedia establishment finds them obnoxious.
I’ve only commented on here a couple of times, but I thought you might be interested in my perspective. I am probably the antithesis of most ManBoobz readers in that I’m politically conservative(ish). I’m also a happily married, Christian mother of two young children. Despite some of the obvious differences I may have with David and many of the commenters here, I think this site does a tremendous service.
I read a lot of mainstream (i.e. not crazy, at least IMO), right-leaning publications/sites, such as the Wall St. Journal opinion page, and Instapundit, which is written by Glenn Reynolds, a libertarian law professor at the University of Tennessee. About a year-and-a-half ago, Instapundit linked to Roissy, who was slamming an article by Bill Bennett decrying the permanent state of adolescence to which many young men currently seem to aspire. He linked with the neutral comment: “The PUA community is not impressed with Bill Bennett’s advice.” From there, I went down the rabbit hole into a bizarre and horrifying world I had no idea existed.
I’ve always respected Reynolds, and part of me can’t forgive him for that link. I think his interest, in part, has to do with the fact that he’s married to “Dr. Helen,” who is writing a book on the subject of why men are shortchanged. It’s a niche she’s latched onto, and together they’re working it.
Since then, I have noticed some of these ideas creeping into other respectable right-leaning outlets. James Taranto, who writes the Best of the Web column for the Wall St. Journal’s opinion page, has now written a couple of articles predicated on the kind of fascination with evolutionary psychology that you see in the Manosphere. I think he can be credited with introducing the term “hypergamy” to the masses. There was an article in National Review Online that riffed on the “chicks dig jerks” meme. The author, whose name escapes me now, had the shaved head and arrogant expression of someone who’s bought the PUA line. The execrable Roosh predicted that 2013 would see PUA/MRA ideas finally enter the mainstream, and based on what I’m starting to see, I fear he may be right.
The interesting thing is that those on the right who seem most responsive to this message tend to be pure libertarian/atheist/nihilist/Ron Paul-loving types. The Manboobz readership may not realize this, but while PUA/MRAs see feminists as their biggest enemies, at a close second are more traditional conservatives. Why? The latter dare to have expectations of men. In the PUA/MRA’s view, insisting that men get jobs, marry, have children, and/or in some way make a valuable contribution to society is just another way of forcing a “fem-centric” agenda on men and denying them their basic freedom.
I hate to admit it, but there are certain elements I agree with in the philosophy that animates the Manosphere. I won’t get into that, because it’s not my intention to start an argument here. But PUA/MRA ideas are swathed in so much misogynist, society-destroying bile that it obscures any truth they might have touched on.
Anyway, keep up the good work, David. And to all the young women who are encountering men who’ve imbibed these nasty ideas, my heart goes out to you and I wish you the best!
@Catbeast
I’m not that much older than you and I’m happy to say that a lot of the men I know who were Nice Guys in high school and college did get over it, more or less. Once they start having more life experience, a lot will realize that they aren’t entitled to sex and dates and that there are, in fact, more critical issues in the world than having a two month dry spell.
There are also a lot of younger men who are to some degree pro-feminist, certainly a lot more than in my parents’ generation (or maybe my parents just don’t have particularly enlightened friends). At least that’s what it seems like to me.
My exposure is from googling sites like AVfM and such, prompted largely by feminist articles denouncing the MRA movement. I thought to myself, “There has got to be some hyperbole here. There’s no way these so-called activists are going this far without intending to parody themselves.”
And as I continued to Google-fu, the horror sunk in. I hugged my boyfriend (and later my dad) so hard afterwards. I guess I have to give MRAs some credit in that they do make me appreciate so much more the truly good and honorable men in my life.
I can’t say I have knowingly met in person any really obnoxious dyed-in-the-wool activists, but I do have one male friend who I learned is not all that sympathetic about women’s concerns. I remember another female friend and I having a rather intense conversation with him because he couldn’t understand why women such as myself didn’t revel being hit on all the time and everywhere. To him, it was like I was whining about receiving what he would consider mana from heaven. He didn’t seem to take very seriously how we actually felt about our experiences, or consider that his assumption that the grass is greener was wrong. He was dismissive about our points concerning unwanted invasion of space and threats to personal safety– without realizing that as a tall guy and a former wrestler, it was easy for him to say. He could put just about anyone face down on the ground in seconds. Me? I’m feisty, but at 120 pounds soaking wet, I know my limitations.
The conversation came to a draw after my other friend and I just gave up. Granted, he has some rather deep rooted self-esteem issues, so I realized where he was arguing from and forgave him. Still, it was pretty goddamned annoying having to try and persuade him to think past “your problems aren’t valid until you convince me that they are.”
@Kitteh’s Help: Been lurking a while for the LOLs, may have posted once or twice, can’t remember. Thanks for the welcome in any case.
Hey, I found it! Hahaha, this still makes me happy.
@Tulgey Was it this one?
I’m still a blockquote virgin, so here’s to hoping this goes well…
Because, you know, there’s no situation that can’t be solved with a little of that old fashioned violence! And if people don’t stop saying and doing things I don’t like, I’m gonna start with the beatin’ and the killin’!
@picklefactory Thanks for that, I think it’s actually going to come in handy! I’ve recently had the ‘pleasure’ of being informed, at great and exhaustive length, that walking out of a date that was in an unmistakable death spiral is “a total c*nt thing to do” and now I have absolute proof that it is a good thing because a man told me so!
(okay, I was laughing so hard while typing that last bit that it took three times to edit back all the typos!)
@catbeast
I don’t think mra’s are too common, but misogynists sure are. :/ Maybe I just hang around a bad bunch of people.
I had that feeling too when I was going from straight to bi to lesbian :/ (not saying it means your a lesbian, just that I’ve also felt the ‘well, technically I know all men aren’t like this, but I really don’t want to deal with the potential anyway.)
Sorry about your face book friend 🙁
(catbeast and catbeasty, you’re the same person, right? or just two people w/ similiar names. If so, the last line was to catbeasty)
My first exposure to MRAs online was Angry Harry’s website. I really don’t remember how I came across it. It’s kind of hilarious how bad that site is in retrospect. Angry Harry is from the UK (and older), but it seems to be that the really awful misogynists are not as common here in the UK as in the US, Australia and Canada – or maybe I’m just being too hopeful here.
I too have noticed that younger men are a lot more misogynistic than older ones, and 1st-year university students seem to be the worst. I have a theory that they come to university, are taught about feminism for the first time in some of their courses, and they really, really don’t like it. Added to this may be the fact that they are not enjoying the anticipated university life of sex with tons of hot women. They are constantly complaining how ugly and fat most young women are. Lately, every single seminar I have gone too has featured some obnoxious male undergraduate from the English department asking after the lecture something to the effect of ‘ is this an example of men being discriminated against by society?’. Yesterday it was ‘this poet was being stifled by the women in his life and prevented from reaching his true genius’. You realize women didn’t even have the chance to show their genius back then, right, fuckwit?
Don’t get me wrong – I like most of the guys I know, young ones included. I just have to come here to rant sometimes.
Oh, god, yes. It wasn’t where I first encountered manosphere douchebags, but it’s the first site I left specifically because I couldn’t deal with all the misogynist douchebaggery anymore. I think the “highlight” for me was the time I was lectured by a Gorean on how the fact that my ex abused me was proof in and of itself that I was worthless and deserved to be abused. I wish I were exaggerating.
(That same conversation also featured the brilliant declaration, from a DIFFERENT idiot, that “women don’t actually have friends, they just pretend to care about other people in order to piss off their boyfriends.”)
on the message board MMO Champion. in the off topic forum, there are always several huge popular threads per year about the lack of men’s rights in the world, and many smaller ones that are inspired by MRM principles although they may not explicitly mention the MRM.