Some words of wisdom from TheRedPill subreddit, a lovely little subdivision of Reddit devoted to a sort of mishmash of Men’s Rights and Pickup Artistry. It’s at least as ridiculous as the sum of its parts.
And I can prove that with actual numbers. Well, a single number: 95. That’s the number of net upvotes the comment I took the following quotes from had gotten from the assembled Red Pillers (at least when I last looked at it). Let’s listen in as Whisper enlightens us on a variety of topics:
World History:
[M]en have never had an easy ride unless they were one of the aristocracy. We’ve always been the labouring sex, the risk-taking sex, the disposable sex.
Little known fact: Poor women throughout history have never had to work or suffer at all, having been issued comfy pillows and a lifetime supply of bon-bons at birth from the Invisible Matriarchy.
The Squeaky Vagina Gets the Grease:
[W]hen something unfair happens to a woman, her usual response to point this unfairness out to whoever appears to have power. But men, being less submissive, tend to blame ourselves, ask “What am I doing wrong?”, and try to change either our behaviour or our environment (by going elsewhere).
All that complaining you think you hear from Men’s Rights Activists? Not really complaining. It’s just them wondering what they’ve been doing wrong. Apparently they’re talking in a strange sort of code. When they refer to “feminists” and “bitches” and “sluts” behaving horribly and deserving blame for everything, they are in fact referring to themselves.
On Stabbing:
[W]hen a man sees someone doing better than him, his first impulse is not to stab, but to try to learn.
Good to know! It is generally considered impolite to stab unless someone else attempts to stab you first.
On Advice, Christmas Giving and Bananas in Ears:
[W]omen were certainly willing to give us advice. Oh, boy, were they ever willing to give us advice. Page after page, speech after speech, of what we should and shouldn’t do, who we should and shouldn’t be …
And, of course, when we followed this advice, things got worse.
And gradually we came to realize that when we asked these “new women”, empowered by feminism, what a man should do, they didn’t hear “What should a man’s life be like?”, they heard “What do you want for christmas?”.
This last bit seems a little puzzling. Are you sure these women you’ve been speaking to didn’t have bananas in their ears?
On Daddies, Ponies and Maternity Leave:
We woke up to the fact that women’s lists of what a man should do were the equivalent of a 12 year old girl asking daddy for a pony. She doesn’t worry about whether daddy can actually afford to buy her one …
Every feminist lobbying for paid maternity leave is a submissive asking daddy to care for her. Every “men can stop rape” poster is a woman admitting she cannot protect herself. Every woman complaining that we shouldn’t portray women like that in video games is a woman saying “I can’t make my own video games, please consider my wishes when you make them for both of us”. ….
Feminism was never about female independence. If it were, it would not require men to cooperate or even notice. They wouldn’t need us to give them jobs if they started their own businesses. They wouldn’t need us to give them “equal pay” if they were doing the hiring. They wouldn’t need laws mandating maternity leave and free birth control if they were the ones setting, and paying, employee benefits. They wouldn’t need “no means no” if they were the ones making the sexual advances. They wouldn’t need “men can stop rape” if they took responsibility for defending themselves from psychos.
So all we have to do is stop. Say no. You can have a slightly bigger allowance, but you cannot have a pony.
Did you hear that, ladies? Wanting equal pay, or maternity leave, or simply not to be raped – all those things are exactly like throwing a tantrum for a pony.
Also, apparently only men pay taxes, or work in the video game industry, or really anywhere at all. And no one deserves police protection because that means they’re some sort of wuss.
Who knew?
Thanks, TheRedPill subreddit!
EDITED TO ADD: I just noticed that Deansdale’s Blog, a Manospherian blog that’s previously defended some of the less savory utterances of assorted MRA and PUA celebrities, has reposted Whisper’s comment in its entirety under the headline “A gold nugget from Reddit,” with no sarcasm intended. I’ll agree that it’s some sort of nugget, but it’s neither gold nor chicken. And again, for those critics who think I mae a big deal of comments, well, this is a comment that MRAs and Manospherians are making a big deal of themselves.
He is very generous in assuming that all men are the god-like creature he thinks he is, no?
Wow, Reddit is awesome: http://theweek.com/article/index/243339/student-wrongly-tied-to-boston-bombings-found-dead
@ worldsp1nner
Even then, poor women (ie the vast majority of women) did the same kind of backbreaking job men did (I assume this guy is talking about European societies) + childbearing until the 1800s.
I wish my notion of history was like Whisper’s. There would be a lot more unicorns flying around during the Civil War, healing injured people with their magic rainbow powers.
@freemage. Any suggestions on where to start? I’ve never read anything by Dorothy Sayers, but I’m always in the market for a good romance/detective story.
I think this goes hand in hand with people that feel disgust at elderly people simply for existing. In that mindset, only able adults with paying jobs are useful, and everyone else is a drain. If someone is dependent in any way, if even for a short while, they are treated as lesser than. It’s a sad, cold way to look at the world, and it seems to be more common during economic crises. Austerity cuts get aimed at children, the disabled, and the elderly because of it, too.
Another aspect of it is how women’s work is invisible unless it is paid. So if a woman is raising children, caring for a person with disabilities, or tending to an elderly person, then she is seen as a drain as well, even though her unpaid work is actually helping to hold up the rest of society, not bring it down. I realize than men do some of this work, too, but the burden is still overwhelmingly carried by women.
I wonder what those people think they’re going to do when they’re old…
>>I wonder what those people think they’re going to do when they’re old…
“I can work till I’m 90 because I work with computers, duh!”
Meanwhile, in the real world…
(Incidently, don’t let them know that the Comp. Sci. field has a strong hiring bias against older men. I’ve met a lot of older men who were freezed out of jobs because the industry would rather hire pimple faced kids out of college rather than someone as old as a decrepit 45 year old.)
Even now women are doing lots of hard work.
.
The super cute ponies are called Fivla and Vitamin, which for some reason I think makes them even cuter. More wonderful pictures here (sorry I can’t do the pretty link thing) (yet)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/visitscotland/sets/72157627950014884/with/8436422058/
bookdragonette: Whose Body is the first of the series with Lord Peter Wimsy. There’s a few more after that, and then Harriet Vane is first introduced (in the dock for murdering her ex-lover) in Strong Poison. My personal favorite so far is Gaudy Night, which is all about Harriet Vane going back to her alma mater, a fictional women’s college in Oxford, and the discord she encounters there.
Screwed up the italics a bit in the middle there. Whoops!
@thebionicmommy Clever name for MRA version of Poe’s law: The Pole’s Law? MG Toe’s Law? Terrible, sorry
@Bagelsan
Sadly, this seemed to be the inevitable conclusion. The Tripathi family’s statement was class personified though.
Ah, my homeland, where the weather is so miserable that even creatures with fur need a sweater.
(They should really have raincoats and some rubber booties too.)
bookdragonette: Busman’s holiday. You could start at the beginning with, The Attenbury Emeralds”.
DON’T start with either Gaudy Night, or, “The Nine Tailors”. The one requires backstory, and the other, while very good, is a bit abstruse (unless you are fan of change ringing
The stories are grand, and Sayers covers a lot of ground (among other things Whimsey suffers from PTSD).
freemage: It seems italics are screwed up for me too.
BabyLawyer: vile Monster law?
@Briznecko and thebionicmommy
Teh Poe Menz Law?
Thanks, Pecunium and Freemage!
@BabyLawyer
I think that is perfect. XD
@princessbonbon – thanks for posting that video, i enjoyed it.
fibanachi is a genius.
@freemage + bookdragonette–
YES to Dorothy L. Sayers. She is insanely funny and smart and witty and wonderful. I think Harriet first shows up in Strong Poison (the fifth book), and it happens to be the first Lord Peter book I ever read so you can start there if you want, but I think “Whose Body” is technically first.
But yes, everyone must read these. They are divine. In Busman’s Holiday, Peter writes to Harriet, “Even if it is the twilight of the world I will sleep in your arms before night falls” and I still swoon every time.
Excuse me, must go re-read these.
PERFECT!
this little piggy is prepared.
That is the most adorable pig ever.