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.
Falconer: There is a lot of social commentary, but it’s affected by being from inside the system, and from an age long gone (the interwar years were the last gasp of the pre-war British Class System, as an overarching cultural force.
WW2 kept it from being reestablished, in toto.
“Sorry but Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walters – the definitive Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane. And that’s real.”
Hat Walters played Harriet Vane? Now that would be so good!
My other favourite in the series is Murder Must Advertise. Not that Harriet’s in it, I just love the chaotic goings-on at Pym’s. It’s also the only thing I’ve read that made a cricket match not only not-boring, but exciting.
I’m just tossing this jewel from r/mr in the most recent thread. Someone posted a (probably fake) story about a woman who cheated on her husband to “secure better genes” for her kids, which is itself a hilarious little piece of pop evo psych. Of course the misters are eating it up, saying it proves the need for mandatory paternity tests even when they’re unwanted by either parent, talking about foot fetishes, etc. But it wouldn’t be the men’s rights movement without an endorsement of violence (TW):
Twelve upvotes as of this moment.
That’s gotta be fake, everyone knows the r/mr dudes are lolcows.
Oh God.
Formatting success!
Freemage:
I whole-heartedly agree with you about Sayers. Her books are fascinating and the relationship between Peter and Harriet is astonishing. Strong Poison was wonderfully written but the attitudes portrayed by the public and the “justice system” made me so angry I felt like breaking things! It seems to me that in many ways they’re both broken on some fundamental level but manage their problems with a great deal of courage, intelligence and help from friends. Also: Bunter. In many ways he’s the person who keeps Peter functional. Gaudy Night was real eye opener in a lot of interesting ways. It bothers me that the issues that were raised therein are still being argued about. In some ways things have changed but a lot of the anti feminist/women’s education arguements are still with us and are easily found on MRA websites and sadly in mainstream society as well.
I think that The Unpleasantness at the Belona Club was first and the series finishes with a set of short stories that take place at various times after they were married. I can’t recall the name…
Busman’s Honeymoon also makes some interesting comments about the nature of feminist marriage, especially working women, for example the way Peter puts down anyone who suggests that Harriet should give up her writing and take up a more traditional role. Harriet no longer needs to write to support herself but she loves it and Peter defends her right to do so.
Sorry, this seems to have gotten long and rambly….
They’re talking about that post on the “Red Pill” too, where they seem to have figured out that it is likely fake but they’re still mad about it. Which explains much about the MRM, actually.
Also, I got Sayers’ Whose Body to take on my vacation, and I am going to sue all of you if I don’t enjoy it. 🙂
cloudiah, just remember Whose Body is the first book and they get better after that – much better, imo.
Is the latest boring troll whose name I forget already paying for your vacation, too, or just Viscaria’s? I hope he coughs up for me, whether to visit my sister in Queensland or my buddies in the US next year. It’s the least he could do.
Falconer: In addition to the note that yes, this particular relationship is still taking place 80+ years ago, I’m going to add that for the most part, she doesn’t actually say “no”–in fact, he trips over his own tongue several times, insisting that an outright refusal will result in him heading off. Instead, she gives him a perpetual “Not yet, and maybe never”, and he accepts her terms. No, it’s not perfect, by any stretch, but I do think you need to consider the times it was written for. LPW is working against a system even more oppressive than ours; that he occasionally fails to take into account how that system constrains Harriet from responding is, frankly, hardly surprising. When he realizes her position more fully in Gaudy Night, he immediately makes it clear that his next proposal is also the last; she can either be free of him, or with him, not as an ultimatum, but as a recognition of her inability to say “No” when she can politely demur–so he removes the polite demurral from the table, so that she has the freedom to say no, or yes, as she will, rather than as society might think she should.
if you all would like a laugh, the idiots don’t even realize this comic is making fun of them
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1d4g0y/a_softer_worlds_latest_comic/
Quackers:
LMAO!
An advocate for male victims of DV committed suicide today though, and it is sad 🙁 Don’t know much about the guy but it really did seem like he was trying to help men.
Sorry don’t mean to derail, everyone’s pretty much covered the disgust regarding this post.
That last comment – “That guy is clearly a giant vagina” – shows just what these “equal righters” really think of women. They hate the one thing they really want from us, that part of our bodies. Damn, if only the vagina dentata were real …
@katz
I mean, even if they don’t get the comic itself, the artists’ commentary pretty much seals what it’s about.
Ugh. I wish I knew how to adequately express how I feel about all this. I absolutely despise MRAs but I do think men need advocacy in certain areas. I feel like MRAs have destroyed any attempt at discussing this without memories of doxxing attempts, misogynist comments and other fuckery popping into peoples’ heads whenever the topic is breached.
@kittehserf
It does speak a lot about them. Clearly men wouldn’t give a shit about womens’ issues unless they were getting some vag, I mean what else are women for right?
Strangely enough, no one calles feMRAs giant penises of femcocks or some other stupid slur
Giant penises OR femcocks, rather
Though Giant Penises of Femcocks would make a good band name! XD
I dun killed the thread .__.
Ah, but that’s because penises are good and wonderful and mighty, they are the male organ*, the very definition of maleness** and thus it’s not insulting at all, because male = good and making sure human males get their orgasms = the reason for living for all creatures. Back in the real world, even calling someone a dickhead or saying they’re being dickish has nothing like the venom of all the slurs based on vaginas and vulvas.
*in the cis-centric MRA world, of course
**except when it’s convenient for MRAs to whine about it
No yer din’t 😀
if calling people a dick was so horrible, Dick wouldn’t be an actual name for a male ie Dick Clark.
And yeehaw!
Quackers, who was it that killed himself?
Men absolutely do need advocacy, it’s just that the “MRM” isn’t doing anything to help men since they’re so focused on hurting women.
I just looked up to see when that bit of slang came into use – it’s recorded from 1891 to mean penis, used that way in the British Army. Dick meaning fellow or lad has been around for centuries (recorded first in the 1500s) and Dick or Dickon could be even older, since Richard is a very common English name.
Cloudiah-
Earl Silverman was his name