So over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the regulars are engaging in a bit of self-reflection. Well, that may be a bit of a generous description on my part. They’re discussing the question “Are we fanatics?” Not surprisingly, they conclude that they aren’t.
Yet this is the most upvoted comment in the thread:
Those of you who have studied twentieth century history may have remembered Lady Hitler’s war on the Jews, the Romani people, and homosexuals; the Great Feminist Purges of Lady Stalin; the Cultural Revolution of Lady Mao. (Oh, wait, there actually was a Madame Mao, and she was a pretty evil gal, though she owed her power largely to her husband and was ousted shortly after his death.)
Moving on from all that war and starvation stuff, let’s return to that first sentence, since MRAs are so fond of blaming eeevil feminists for the draft.
The link in that sentence goes to a discussion of an organization called The Order of the White Feather. Take it away, Wikipedia:
In August 1914, at the start of the First World War, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather with support from the prominent author Mrs Humphrey Ward. The organization aimed to shame men into enlisting in the British Army by persuading women to present them with a white feather if they were not wearing a uniform.
It’s worth pointing out that at the start of WWI, people of all political stripes and in all the countries involved were pretty gung-ho for the war. Even the big socialist parties of the day quickly forgot their pledges of international solidarity in favor of supporting their national war efforts.
So where do the evil feminists come in? Well, a couple of the most famous British suffragettes signed onto the White Feather crusade: Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. And yes, they supported compulsory national service — though they supported it for both men and women: men would go to war, while women would be required to work in factories.
Of course, the Order of the White Feather didn’t represent all feminists at the time. Indeed, it didn’t even represent all the Pankhursts: Christabel’s sisters Sylvia and Adela were pacifists.
Even aside from all that blather about feminists being responsible for wars and concentration camps, it’s highly misleading to present the story of the Order of the White Feather as “proof” that feminists are warmongering all-male-draft-lovers. As a quick visit to Google will demonstrate, feminism has a long history of antiwar activism, dating back to the 19th century — when feminists first organized Mother’s Day as a protest of war.
But, hey, MRAs, if you want to invent your own mythological version of history, knock yourself out. You only make yourselves look like the fanatics you are.
Thanks to this thread in the AgainstMensRights Subreddit for pointing me to this most edifying discussion.
Theda Bara, lovely to see you back again! How’re things? The Mister and I are very well, thank you. I’ve been on a knitting marathon lately. I’ve even got to keep some of the results for myself! 😛
King Henry VIII, the greatest alpha in English history
King Henry VIII was a blue pill white knight, because he kept marrying western women, knowing that other English men were starting a marriage strike. His first wife, Catherine, refused to gestate him a son, because she hated men and boys. He got sick of her misandry, so he divorced her. It was a no fault divorce, but she still stole all his money in divorce court, and made him pay child support for some other guys’ kids.
The Catholic Church was run by radical feminists, and they told him that not even men could get a no fault divorce, even in California. He told those manginas to fuck off, and he started the Church of England. But of course women ruined that church as well, because they have to destroy everything men create.
His next wife was Ann Boleyn, an HB 10 even by Roosh’s standards. But she was opinionated and unruly, and she also refused to make him sons. So he executed her and married Jane Seymour, back before she was a medicine woman in the wild west. She died in childbirth, which is example of female privilege, by the way. He had three more wives, one of which he beheaded, one he divorced, and the last was his widow.
Feminists don’t want you to know this story, because they think all women are angels.
Perhaps we should have a fashion derail. That usually makes the trolls spin out.
… Which I am totally using as an excuse to show off the slouch cap I finished last night. The photo doesn’t do the colours justice (they really only show in daylight) – not muddy brown but triple strands of green, mushroom and fawn, very subtle.
” So he executed her and married Jane Seymour, back before she was a medicine woman in the wild west. ”
::dies::
thebionicmommy wins ALL the internetz. And crocheted bonbons.
So the English nobility’s wives were all upset because they had furs and jewels and horses and servants and all that shit, but they looked and they saw that King John’s wife had more furs and better jewels and faster horses and more subservient servants, so they sat down in the streets and cried until the nobs could stand it no more and they made King John sign the Magna Carta which says all women are saints and men are eternally wrong and incidentally gold fringe on flags means the court is under naval law and the courtroom is actually a ship.
An MRA’s History of Bodicca
When her husband the king died and left all his land to the Romans, Bodicca got all uppity and tried to claim that the land was hers because of some matrilineal inheritance shit. The Romans had to go put her in her place, but when they did she false-accused them and made all the mangina men in her tribe fight to defend her “honor.” They all died, but she and her entitled princess leech daughters got away and went to eat bon-bons in Scotland.
She also wins a kind of crooked scarf I’ve been knitting to alleviate the stress. It does have a Tardis motif. Awesome reference.
The Hindenberg
On May 6, 1937 the airship Hindenberg caught fire and exploded in New Jersey. In spite of having been built and piloted by MEN, the law of the sea still applied and women were allowed out of the airship first. Naturally, they delayed by stopping to adjust their makeup and check all their hundreds of bags before leaping to safety. Then they insisted on arguing with the badly burned and exasperated men about which hospital to go to. By the time they were FINALLY ready to jump to safety, everyone was dead.
World War II soon followed.
The Romans were peaceful dudebros until Julius Caesar was forced to invade Gaul by his wife, who’d heard about French pastry and wouldn’t shut up until he went and got her some. Then she kept eating it until she turned into a total orca and she blamed Caesar for this and wouldn’t let him back in the palace, and so he had nowhere to go and got caught by that other hypergamous bitch Cleopatra, but she dumped him when she saw his Roman place was nowhere near as good as hers, and left him there to get murdered by her beta lackeys. Then she tried to make up to Octavian, who was totally alpha, but he saw right through her and she had to go with that beta Antony, until she forced him to kill himself because he couldn’t afford the child support and Rome’s totally feminazi laws wouldn’t allow him to get a paper abortion.
@Theda Bara – a scarf with a TARDIS motif? Got pics?
Ok, a couple of theoretical questions, and possible derail material, almost entirely serious:
1) Do manginas tingle for alpha females? Or are alpha females not a thing? Or is attaining “high status” among females predicated on displays of submission/”femininity”, so that an “alpha female” would be Barbie and not G.I. Jane? Curious…
2) How would redpillers react to the suggestion that (as is considered “common sense” in most cosmopolitan cities, e.g. NY) the uber-alphas of the world — financiers, hot shot attorneys — are mostly bottoms and some of the world’s most reliable consumers of BDSM services? Would their worlds collapse were they to know that most of the alpha-est alphas, in the end, like to be dominated by women? Slightly less serious but still, an interesting thought experiment…
LMAO and I give a shit about “your experience” because?
Sorry Joe, as much as you might like to believe otherwise, mra’s do not have a monopoly on the topic of “men’s issues”, so your feeble attempt to conflate feminists’ criticism/mockery of the mrm with feminists being against anyone talking about issues affecting men falls, predictably, flat. Nice try, though.
@kittehs Link for a fellow knitter http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss12/PATTbigger.php I am very jealous of hers, I’m blaming the stress!
@kittehs, that is a super cute cap.
@cloudiah, just to make sure, I wasn’t thinking you were trying to appoint yourself forums boss or anything. 😉 I just recognized the wisdom of your advice, yet could not resist. I think I must have missed out on a great deal of the First Joe drama…
Sorry this is off topic…
Why don’t we consider trans* a disorder or something? NOT because of the reasons it was before, but because its tough to not have your body match what you are(this is ignoring the discrimination and the way our society views gender too. Tough is an understatement).
The old reason for it being a disorder is because was pretty much “person thinks they need to mutilate themselves” or believing that genitals override whatever the patient thinks.
If I were trans* I’d probably have low self esteem(mostly from society, but I’m talking about if we lived in a society that treated LGBT people completely equal) since my body would be “wrong”. The “problem” would be my body, not how I perceived myself. So why isn’t the “wrong body” problem considered a disorder?
I’m sorry if this question comes across as ignorant, since I’m really new to the trans* stuff…
sorry if that sounded offensive… I was reluctant to ask because I really don’t know about trans* stuff and I’m trying to learn. Correct me if it was offensive.
AK – thank you! It’s really easy to knit, too.
Theda Bara – OMG THAT SCARF IS AMAZING
Ooh, fashion derail! I shall contribute historical fashion! Which I made! Because history thread! 😀
Whoot! Cool dress! What’s the pink fabric? I really like the look of the texture.
Haha I actually have no idea; I got it out of the fabric bin at the thrift store… The light pink miiiight be linen or linen-look, and the red-pink texture-y one is some kind of synthetic that just looks legit if you’re not right up on it, lol.
@ anadiomene122:
1) Given that they say they want “feminine” women a.k.a. women who do everything they want, I think the goal is to become an alfalfa male so they can get “beta” females. Being a guy dating a woman who’s more alpha status than he is would likely make the guy into an automatic mangina. So to avoid this, if an alpha male meets an alpha female they’re required to have some kind of alpha-off to see who wins.
2) They’ve described alpha males as violent criminals, athletes, rich doctors, CEO’s, underwear models, guys in bands, guys with jobs, broke homeless surfer dudes, drug dealers, random loud guys they saw out at nightclubs, etc. So since alpha male at this point pretty much means “any man women are attracted to for any reason”, they can probably stretch anything that conflicts with however they’re defining it so that their heads don’t explode.
Oh dear, Joe’s raving on about Muslims again? Going back to read comments from everyone else now, but thank you in advance to all the people who suggest a policy of non-engagement.
@dustydeste Can I just say wow. 90% because historical fashion is my reason for being and you are a very talented person. Seriously. The 10% is pure fucking spite because they hate when we ignore them.
@kittehs’ Very difficult but worth it! Even if it is uneven. Must be misandry.
Heheh glad I’m not the only one who’s happy to cheat with the fabrics! 😀
I found this in a book on the history of knitting I was reading the other day (a V&A book and very good). Fashion plate though it is, it looks like an 18th century men’s version of What Not To Wear.
I totally want an alfalfa male now. Even though I have no idea what that is.
Theda Bara – of course it’s misandry. You’re trying to upset the Doctor because he’s an alpha. Or a beta. Um.