Longtime antifeminist crusader Erin Pizzey recently did an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit. Here are some highlights — by which I mean lowlights — from her answers.
Ms. Pizzey wants to ban feminism as a hate movement:
Personally, I would like to see the feminist movement described as a hate movement, so that we can then ban them from the government, from university faculties, from anywhere where they can destroy the minds of young women and men.
It’s just a teensy bit ironic, I would say, that she characterizes feminism as a hate movement at the very same time that A Voice for Men, a site she has very publicly aligned herself with, is leading a hate campaign against an individual feminist activist. (More on this to come tomorrow.) Indeed, Pizzey herself adds to the vilification of the activist here.
And speaking of A Voice for Men, she apparently agrees with AVFM’s Paul Elam that feminists are only interested in the issue of rape because they have rape fantasies and are angry that they’re not getting enough attention from men:
If you’re referring to Paul’s statement that many or most women fantasize about being taken, I’m sorry but that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean they want to be raped, but it’s a fantasy I think almost all women have. And I think he went on to say that feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were and are so obsessed with rape are really projecting their own unconscious sexual frustration because men don’t give them enough attention. Andrea was a very sad lonely woman like this–I didn’t know her but I knew of her, and I knew Susan Browmiller and you can just read her stuff to see it there.
Yeah, I’m thinking that Dworkin’s “obsession” with rape might have had less to do with her wanting “attention” from men than it did with the fact that she had been raped.
In response to a question about using Title IX to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), Pizzey argues that most women’s brains aren’t equipped to handle all that sciencey stuff, and that most women would rather be raising children:
what will happen is that a few women will come out of that world in those areas that suit men’s brains better than women’s, and do well, but most of them won’t, and they’ll just leave and go on to other professions or to have children or family. That’s what’s been happening all the time when they’ve had quotas.
But what about the men who get excluded because of that? That’s the tragedy isn’t it, and the waste of money. Harriet Harman has proposed quotas for women in parliament, quotas for women in all the high-status fields, and women have flocked in but do not want the gruelling hours that men are willing to put into their professions because most of them–MOST of them–want to be spending time with their children at home, and that God for that.
Pizzey believes that most feminists are “mental patents” who deserve only condescension:
Personally, I don’t get into arguments with mental patients, which is what most feminist women are. Look at them with pity and compassion if you can, speak the truth as you know it.
But if you want a real reaction, pat her on the head and tell her not to worry her pretty little head about it. That’s what I do! I think men have to start using their sense of humor as a weapon. You must get past any sense of anger when you do such things though!
She believes most prominent second-wave feminists were feminists mainly because they hated their dads:
One of the early mantras of the feminist movement was to make the personal political. Therefore, those women who had bitter and violent experiences of the first male their lives (e.g. their father) then branded all men as violent and dangerous. They are also what I call the walking wounded. As far as I’m concerned the prominent feminists of the day virtually all had appalling relationships with their fathers. So if feminism grew out of a justified sense of grievance, and created a platform where they did not attempt to heal their own damage, but to project onto all men… so yes it’s very cultlike that way. But it’s any cult group that works that way, they all have either a figure they adore or a hate object that keeps them together. And their hate is against men, even when they deny it.
Yes, that’s right, she says all this and somehow does not notice the hatred of women amongst the MRAs she’s aligned herself with.
While she dismisses feminists with “daddy issues” she urges those who have been abused by their parents to forget the abuse they’ve endured, forgive their abusers and “move on.”
[T]each yourself that the past is truly the past, it is done and you cannot change it, all it is is a loop in your brain that needs to be closed down so that you can move forward. Because those patterns are deep within you, it takes a lot of hard work, but in the end you FORGIVE YOURSELF and you FORGIVE YOUR PARENTS and move on.
Meanwhile, she thinks that it makes sense for men who don’t like feminism to “head for the hills” and Go Their Own Way.
It was many years ago I was talking to a very eligible bachelor, who was a lawyer, and asked him about American feminists. He laughed and he said “what they never banked on was that men would get together and take to the hills.” This is where that expression comes from. He and his male friends would get together and have a wonderful time, they did not make permanent relationships with women, because they realized they would have too much to lose: their homes, their children, and their money. I always remember this. When 40 year old feminists complain that they can’t find any men to commit themselves, why is it men’s fault? I can’t blame men who feel this way in today’s legal environment. If the so-called women’s movement, the feminists, want men, they have to care equally about men’s desires and men’s need for protection.
This sort of makes sense, given that Pizzey seems to live in an imaginary world in which women, not men, are the truly privileged.
The actual irony of this situation is there is nothing more privileged than white middle class women, who are most of feminists. Very very privileged, because they know when they are born that either the state or a man will take care of them if they do not choose their own career. Men on the other hand are born underprivileged, particularly now, even as small boys they are demonized and discriminated against. …
I cannot see how sane sensible educated intelligent woman can consider that men are privileged. It has always been rich and middle class women who have been protected, and they are the truly privileged.
Indeed, she’s managed to convince herself that “never in the history of the world have men been so unprivileged, if you think about it.”
Naturally, all of her comments were happily upvoted by the Reddit masses, and her “Ask Me Anything” post itself got more than 1200 upvotes. Evidently pandering to Reddit’s collective fantasies about the oppression of men pays off big in the upvote department.
LBT, not too sure how to describe the differences between the two… But here goes.
Vaccines are usually either dead/weakened viruses or parts of viruses used to trigger the immune response in human bodies. Viruses themselves are not living. They are bits of RNA code that insinuate themselves into the bodies cells, and corrupt the DNA sequences of healthy cells to create more replicants of the virus. Mutations in viruses refer to slight changes in RNA code, which affects proteins and other molecules on the surface of the virus. Vaccines are often updated, particularly for flus as new strains and variants appear. Medical officials try to predict which varients will be the most prevalent each year and develop a vaccine. Vaccines are beeficial even to non vaccinated people because so long as eighty percent of a population has been vaccinated, the disease is slowed or stopped in its tracks.
Antibiotics only work on bacteria. The reason being that bacteria are living creatures, and thus are vulnerable to certain toxins. They do have shorter life spans (many about twenty minutes until it replicates itself again) which allows for evolution to be a particularly strong force. Antibiotics used improperly (not taking the full course of medicine, not taking it at regularly schedualed times) acts as natural selection. Most of the bacteria will die, but a few mutate and then start replicating again passing along an increased resistance. Had we used vaccines in a more discerning manner, this problem would have taken much longer to appear. But antibiotics were marketed as a cure all wonder drug. Its a wonder drug all right, but it has zero effect on viruses which doctors also prescribed antibiotics for. The over prescription allowed penecillin to encounter a huge range of bacterium, even those it wasn’t particularly effective in treating.
I think I got it right. Its been a while since I’ve had to recall so much science.
RE: pillowinhell
Liberal arts wussy here, but what you say sounds about right, as far as my memory goes.
So yeah, Yellaine. Antibiotics kill the bacteria for you (if they work properly). A vaccine doesn’t do that. It just gives your body a virus in a way that allows your body to learn how to kill it without actually getting sick. (Or getting much LESS sick.) Your body still does all the work.
LBT:
Liberal Arts Wussys fistbump ACTIVATE!
Hmmm…. I know Erin was involved in womyns shelters but I have trouble taking the whole thing she said about rape accusations occurring because of wishful thinking… perhaps for her. That’s why I avoided her reddit forum thing. I don’t know what these people are on? It’s like what? Sounds really conservative and somewhat detached. None of the speakers who spoke to/with CAFE have impressed me as great or critical thinkers. I’m still hopeful though. I just can’t give up hope that it will not just lead to MRA’s but the more I poke the horse that CAFE left on the lawn of the U O T the more MRA’s fall out so I’m beginning to wonder if we should just leave it outside.
I can never figure out what Buntzums is saying.
@fade
You aren’t the only one.
Oh god, have we really gone from one triggering subject on this blog to another? How the hell did we get onto the anti-vaccine movement? (rhetorical question, I know I can just go back and read the thread)
I can’t decide what I like best about anti-vaxxers – the fact that they disregard not just “big pharma” and the government (which i sort of get) but that they disregard scientific evidence itself. Because there is truly no proven link between vaccines and autism (the part of the movement I have the most experience with).
Or maybe it’s their argument’s implication that getting a life-threatening disease yourself or causing an outbreak of life-threatening diseases is fucking preferable to being born with or developing (most anti-vaxxers also don’t get that autism develops prenatally) my neurology. Real nice.
(Sorry, I’m ranting because I just came from the latest post about the feminist who’s getting all the abuse and HOLY SHIT THOSE QUOTED COMMENTS. To think I get freaked out if I get one or two people who even disagree with me online. And of course Tumblr is full of awful news about the Boston Marathon. INTERNET WHY)
By our powers combined … I am WISHY WASHY INTELLECTUAL!!
My thought to the victims of the Boston explosions and their families. I’m glad that apparently non of the manboobzers were hurt.
Thanks for the medical explanations. I guess a lot of my vaccine-related fear are irrational. I’m still distrusful when it comes to that kind of thing, even though I’m glad I’m vaccined against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus. (and I’m glad that wasn’t a choice)
Dvärghundspossen mentionned the swine flu. In France the situation was pretty much the same, except that people mostly refused to take it, and we ended up with way to much. IIRC, we tried to sell the surplus to third world countries. And we had at the time an incompetent Health minister who on top of all had shady connection to the companies that produced the swine flu vaccine.
So on one side I don’t want to even remotely associate myself with the lunatics who say that vaccines cause autism. On the other side, the recurrent public health scandals makes me suspicious every time I hear “we have a brand new vacinne for X, lets get everyone vaccinated”.
RE: Yellaine
It can be a tricky balance. Often, if there’s some new health thing that seems too good to be true, I just wait a while and see if it sticks. If it does, likely it’s okay.
Here’s a thing tho’ Futrelle: in all your heaping patronising invenctive on Erin Pizzey, you handily omit to mention WHO she is or WHAT she has done, or HOW she was attacked and threatened by feminists (to the point she had to flee the country) when what she wrote from her own honest experiences and observations went against feminist dogma.
Unlike you – Futrelle, (and to be perfectly honest unlike most feminists AND most MRAs), Erin Pizzey was one of the pioneers in creating something extraordinary and revolutionary that immediately helped hundreds of people and that grew into a social change that has helped thousands, if not millions of people.
Erin Pizzey founded the first Domestic Violence Shelter for women, here in the UK.
And she wrote at least two books about her work with the women and kids there, it was the second that got her in deep shit with feminists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey
“Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey (née Carney, born 19 February 1939) is an English family care activist and a best-selling novelist. She became internationally famous for having started one of the first[2] women’s refuges (called women’s shelters in the U.S.) in the modern world, Chiswick Women’s Aid, in 1971,[3] the organisation known today as Refuge.[1] Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her statement that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally as capable of violence as men.”
More detail in the WIki.
Erin Pizzey has walked the walk, while all you do David, is talk the talk.
That you omit to mention any of this, tells the informed reader that you are either:
1) ignorant
or
2) deliberatley misleading by omission
Quite frankly, AvFM is ridiculously lucky to have Erin Pizzey as a commenter on their website.
Joe, we already KNOW Erin Pizzey’s history.
That doesn’t change that what she’s saying right here in the stuff David quotes is wrong and completely douchey.
And First Joe, Erin Pizzey is lucky to have you as her fawning toadie. 😀
Joe: you’re not telling us anything we don’t know. Pizzey is still an asshole, and so are you, for that matter.
Must be drunk post o’clock.
Joey, do you agree with Erin that most women fantasize about being raped? Should women keep their pretty little heads out of science and engineering and other such manly pursuits? Do you think feminists should be blacklisted from certain careers? I mean, it’s clear that you are an obsequious lickspittle prostrate at Pizzey’s feet, but I am just wondering how obsequious and how complete your devotion is…
You might be surprised to find that Pizzey’s contemporaries doing the same work don’t have quite the same high opinion of Pizzey as she has of herself, but she certainly is skilled at self-regard AND self-promotion.
SRSLY.
I’m surprised that someone as into conspiracies as Joe would use Wikipedia as a source.
She hates her own gender. I don’t think it’s necessary to spend time on her.
Edita, you don’t seem to like anything we talk about here. Perhaps you’re in the wrong place?
Edita, you are more than welcome to discuss whatever you want to discuss in your own blog.
I wonder how Erin Pizzey would react if she was told “most antifeminist women are mental patients” and was patted on the head and told not to worry her pretty little head about it. Or told that she only hates women because she had a bad relationship with her mother? Or barred from participating in politics, academia et c, to prevent her from poisoning young minds with her hate movement?
Something I’ve noticed (purely my anecdotal experience) is that sometimes people who have very strongly held political or social beliefs, particularly unusual or extremely liberal or conservative beliefs, have inaccurate ideas about what people with different or opposing beliefs think and advocate. The examples I can think of off the top of my head are some animal rights and vegan activists (clearly, not all) who say that everyone who eats meat does so because they are evil monsters, no exception ever, completely impossible that anyone ever could have difficulty being vegan because they live in a food desert or have health issues that limit what they can eat without dying. Or some (not all) pro-life activists who say everyone who wants abortion to remain legal at all wants to force women to have abortions whether they want to or not, or that every clinic or health care worker who ever performs abortions is incompetent, and getting rich from doing it.
The MRA’s seem to do this to an extreme degree, more than anyone else I can think of.
Oh good grief. I’m going to stop reading here. I don’t know how you can do this blog day in day out. It makes my head hurt just reading this stuff.
I’m going to take my mad, rape fantasizing, and incapable of logical thought processes (I’m such a dumb girl who can’t do math) brain off now and do something completely different. Like stroke a cat. Cats are nice.
Even evil cats are nice. 🙂
“She hates her own gender. I don’t think it’s necessary to spend time on her”
Why should somebody be obliged to love their own agenda? I am a male myself, but I don’t identify with “men” as a group because not only is that an undefinable (3 billion and counting) thing but some men are schmucks.
I am not feminist but I am only too happy to speak up about men who do bad things because I am not on some mission to preserve the interests of a group that is A). Undefinable because of it’s sheers size B). Not necessarily something that cares about my best interest.
I don’t 100% agree with everything Erin says. Although I see areas in life that are undoubtedly a bit more difficult if you are a guy, I would’t buy in to the idea that men are systematically oppressed.
The idea that feminism is 100% perfect and without fault is absurd. There is nothing in this world that is without fault. Feminism has a lot to offer this world and has brought about some positive changes but it’s not all fairy dust and happy endings. Feminism is capable of making mistakes.
The most damning thing about feminism, is that if you criticize it your are anti-woman. That’s about as logical as saying if you don’t think the earth is flat you hate god and should be burned.
I am neither a supporter of feminism or an anti-feminist (sorry if you can’t get your head around that). There is space in this world for feminism and those who want to openly criticize feminism. If feminism does not open itself to criticize and allow other organised group to question and criticize it, feminism will kill it’s self off.
I have come to this Man Boobz site a few times and I really don’t understand it. It doesn’t seem to be about anything more than mud slinging.