Two weeks ago, you may recall, antifeminist crusader and recent A Voice for Men recruit Erin Pizzey made an “Ask Me Anything” appearance on Reddit which was a rousing success, at least by the standards of Reddit and the Men’s Rights movement. (By the standards of logic and ordinary human decency, not so much.) This Saturday, she gave a sort of encore.
Here are some of the interesting things I learned from her latest three-hour appearance. (I haven’t read all thousand-plus comments in the thread; this is based solely on what she herself said. Click on the headlines to see her original comments in their entirety, in context.) Her comments are, as always, models of good sense and lucidity.
Ban feminists from government perhaps! Personally, I think, I would describe feminism, and I have fought for 40 years to publicize the damage that they were doing to family life and men and boys. To me, to condemn men as sole perpetrators of all or almost all atrocities in this world, feminists are a hate movement. I say this because just recently Sweden, Norway, and I think Finland are trying to bring in a law in those countries that will make any criticism of feminism a punishable offense. That is not the action of a movement dedicated to equality and freedom of speech for all, it is totalitarianism.
As far as I’m concerned, a sufficient amount of women have reached boardrooms and many of them publicly have said that they prefer a quality of life which includes family time, which for women in many ways is more important because we, in the long term, through our children and grandchildren. Men, as they climb up the steps to fame and fortune define themselves by how well they can take care of their wives and children. Different lifestyles, different goals, very few women want to spend the time and the total energy in making that high-achieving career lifestyle.
According to the most recent Catalyst survey, only 16.6% of Fortune 500 board members are women, and an even smaller percentage (14.3%) are CEOs. That’s a very strange notion of equality you have there, Ms. Pizzey.
So many men are lickspittles. Often in my travels when I’m speaking, I have asked men, informally, why they would never stand up to women who were devoted to the idea of a world without men. The honest answer was they were too dependent on having relationships with women to stand up for what they believed. …
I think most men live lives of quiet desperation–that’s a quote, I can’t remember who said it but it’s true.
I believe that was Elmer Fudd.
Wait, no, he said something about hunting wabbits. No idea, then. Who could have Thoreau-n such an idea around? Walden you like to know?
I’m not surprised that men are going their own way. Why would any sane man want to risk losing his property, his relationship with his wife, his financial stability, the children that he will be deprived of… at the moment, men don’t have any rights in this area. In England, Harriet Harman and her very powerful harpies are trying to bring in a law that will mean a woman has only got to live with a man for a very short period of time before she’s entitled to exactly the same amount of money and power that is given to married women. That’s already happened in Australia and Canada too!
I am constantly in the company of women in their late 30s and 40s who after choosing a career have decided they want children and marriage. I have to regretfully inform them that the present climate against men, they are very unlikely to have a relationship with a man and will probably never have children.
It’s true. Nowhere is the problem more noticeable than Los Angeles, by the way, where men give themselves the right to date (meaning, they can have sex with as many women as they want at the same time)… very sad situation, but, why would they do anything else? The legal system can destroy them if they commit to a relationship.
The Feminist Hegemony will fuck up your hard drive:
I did manage to get exactly one paper published, decades after the fact, on the surveys I did of the first 100 women in my Refuge. Just one, in a tiny journal. … But the feminist hegemony has worked hard to keep work like this out of the public eye.
They actually destroyed the hard disk of Professor Viano from Washington University when he tried to publish some of this work.
[citation needed]
For what it’s worth, there doesn’t seem to be anyone named Viano associated with Washington University in St. Louis (aside from a physics professor who got her PhD there), nor, for that matter, with George Washington University in Washington DC.
There is an actual Professor Emilio Viano who teaches at American University’s School of Public Affairs and is an adjunct professor of law at the Washington College of Law, and he’s written about violence and victimology so perhaps he is the man Pizzey is referring to. There is, however, no evidence I can find online that anyone, much less the “feminist hegemony,” has ever destroyed his hard drive, and he seems to have published extensively and had what looks like a pretty successful academic career without any obvious hindrance from the evil femlords.
I did find a news article in which Viano is quoted about a case in which the FBI secretly got its hands on the hard drive of one of its agents suspected of selling secrets to the Russians, but 1) that wasn’t Viano’s hard drive and 2) I’m pretty sure the Feminist Hegemony had nothing to do with that, as it was never discussed at any of our meetings that I can recall, though admittedly I spent most of our meetings eating the complementary bon-bons and playing with the cats.
I eagerly await Ms. Pizzey’s clarification of her assertions about the mysterious “Professor Viano from Washington University” and his “hard disk.”
The last little lesson I learned from Pizzey’s appearance:
Fried food gives me indigestion.
This from a woman who claims to care about victims of domestic violence, and whose biggest claim to fame is that she was the founder of one of the first DV shelters for women. Evidently when you spend a lot of time in the company of Men’s Rights Activists, jokes about “battered women” are just part of the landscape.
Ms. Pizzey, might I suggest that if you indeed suffer from any sort of digestive problem it might just be because you are full of shit?
Good to know it’s been a good experience for so many! The descriptions I’ve read have been… intimidating, to say the least.
The interwebs are not strong with me tonight; I keep writing out posts only to have them dump out into the ether before they make it to the site. Or maybe a dozen increasingly surreal messages from me will show up all at once…
Happy anniversary, Kittehs!
Best luck KathleenB. No one should have to go through that.
It’ll be my transition anniversary, I hope. =]
Happy Anniversary, Kitteh!
Oy, I need come here more regularly again. No promises, though (hi, everyone!). Is PEMRA fairly new?
Hi Alex!
Permatwit is fairly new, unless he’s a sock. Haven’t had confirmation one way or another yet.
Thank you, gillyrosebee!
Aaliyah, that’s what I’m hoping, too.
Whoops, forgot to say Thank You, Alex!
@Fibinachi
Thank you so much for your translations.
@thebewilderness
Your avatar reminds me of Fizgig, from The Dark Crystal.
@kittehserf
Happy anniversary!
@KathleenB
No advice, but best wishes.
Thanks, theseventhguest! 🙂
Oh dear, I’m arguing with Mr. “False rape accusers deserve to be raped” again on a forum I frequent. And he’s telling me that women who are penetrated while unconscious or drunk to the point of mental and/or physical impairment aren’t rape victims.
V_V
Here’s the discussion: http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/29385236/1-in-4-college-women-are-raped?page=1
I’m “ghoklebutter.”
Ugh, that guy sounds like a shitstain. Does he think that people can be beat up or robbed while unconcsious? Or is this some imnumnity he grants to rapists for his own sexist reasons.
Or let me guess, is he of the “well, if there’s no physical damage, it doesn’t count” kind of guy, ignoring that you don’t have to get beat up to be physically damaged.
@Aaliyah
Ugh. I saw that guy’s quote. What kind of forum is this you’re on? it says game spot, so I’m guessing a gaming forum… but I don’t frequent gaming forums so I don’t know.
Ugh, I kept reading. Why do I do that?
“Though since I’m listening to Emilie Autumn atm, when you said you’e heard it for over six decades, all I could think of was heard it all”
Catching up here but how do you do it?! I’m incapable of reading (or anything else really) while listening to EA. If you’ve read her book, she does for me what she writes about in the intro — it’s like perfection and everything else just stops. ‘Tis excellent.
Nooooo stay off the gaming fora!
She is awesome. XD Me and my sister just heard a bunch of stuff, and mom was like “who is this emilie person you keep talking about?”
Though I don’t know if my mom would like her. We kept singing fight like a girl and she asked us to explain the lyrics cuz she thought they were … widgy. Idk, like she didn’t like them very much b/c of the getting revenge stuff. I think she got it (or at least, my interpertation of it), when I explained it, though.
I have not read her book though. What’s it called?
I see pempem is gone for the nonce; perhaps he mixed a little carbon monoxide with his oxygen and is happily passed out full of equality and preoccupied hemoglobin?
lensman: Maher was borrowing from Thoreau. He’s clever, but not that smart.
The only real fault you found with her beliefs is that she supports equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
No. My complaint is her delusional nature of the world, e.g. the idea there are lots of feminists who want a world without men.
Or, for example, this, As far as I’m concerned, a sufficient amount of women have reached boardrooms
That’s not equality of opportunity, that’s saying the world is fine as it is, and no change is really desirable; because there alread is equality of opportunity; never mind things like the wage gap, etc., and is completely dismissive of the women (and men) who are, in substantial number (elstwise why would she complain) possessed of a different opinion.
Dvärghundspossen: Conveniently she listed three countries. If it isn’t Sweden it’s Norway, or Finland. Clever that.
Fade — The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. And reading it makes the violence in FLAG make far more sense! It’s her time in the psych ward, and her Victorian counterpart Emily (with a Y)’s stay at The Asylum for…
The Key is a straight scene from the book for example. FLAG and Time for Tea are very similar to their book counterparts (and yes, in the book that level of violence is Absolutely Necessary)
Start your mother on Enchant or Opheliac, worked for mine 🙂 (Enchant in particular is very parent friendly, assuming said parent finds Shakespeare acceptable)
Kitteh — anniversary, w00t!
TomBcat– job, w00t!
Aaliyah — don’t give up ok? It won’t be this week, and it may not even be this year, but eventually you will be able to live as the woman you are. Yeah, “eventually” can feel hopeless, but don’t give up and we’re all here if you need anything, including “just” venting.
KathleenB — good luck!
Pecunium! Just the person I was about to email before I asked Aaliyah — you know anyone out there who’d be willing to loan her a dress and take her out to lunch or whatever? Just so she could at least get an afternoon of being herself?
Aaliyah feel free to shut me up if you think it’s a terrible idea!
Aaliyah, egad, there’s a lot of gross stuff being said on that thread. I commend you for being able to handle it so well.
I’m just going to put this here in case anyone needs it. I know I do.
Fade — this is half a quote, because pecunium and I ended up killing a thread discussing the military when I posted the second half, but the beginning totally applies and might help your mother chill about FLAG.
“Going back to the basis, the phrase ‘Fight Like A Girl’, and we’ve all heard that growing up. And by that they mean that you’re some kind of weakling and have no skills as a male. It’s said to little boys when they can’t fight yet, and it ridicules us. By the time we were born, the most of us hear things which program you to accept and know that you are less than your male counter part. It comes apparent in the way you’re paid for your job, it comes apparent when yóu are not allowed to go outside after a certain hour because you stand a good chance of getting raped while no one says that to your boyfriend. While women, anywhere, live in some kind of fear, there is no equality and that is mathematically impossible. We cannot see that change or solved in our lifetimes, but we have to do everything that we can. We should remind ourselves that we are fifty-one percent. Everyone should know that fighting like a girl is a positive thing and that there is not inherently anything wrong with us by the fact that we are born like ladies. That is a beautiful thing that we should never be put down because of. Being compared to a woman should only make a man feel stronger. It should be a compliment. In this world we’re creating it actually is.”
As for the intro bit I was referring to —
“As long as I live, I will never forget the night when I lay in my bed, and, screaming for help, sobbing, and covering my ears having failed to produce any result, I tried the only thing left…I played music in my head. I played the most beautiful piece of music my eight-year-old mind could comprehend: Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Of course, to most people, this work has become as trite and empty as the bride wearing white, having been played at weddings ad nauseum. But, to me, it was the sound of heaven; of all the plants aligned, all spheres throughout the entire universe moving together in perfect accord. And even though anything so utterly perfect always made me cry, it didn’t matter. Canon in D was the sound of “making sense,” and it may have saved my life.”
/fan-squee
Thanks, Argenti! 🙂
Hey, you frequent-bearer-of-scratches, you might like this: I was in a changing room yest and thought, “What are those weird little red spots on my arm? Oh, I see … they’re in two clusters of five. Maddie the I-hate-being-cuddled cat kneading when I cuddled her this morning.”
😛