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.
Great thread. I’m not even going to try to top any of the alte-histories presented here.
Though, I keep thinking about how all the meteorites that wiped out the dinosuars was somehow the fault of the female dinos. See, the females were such cockteasers, the male dinosuars were distracted — because they were forced into thinking about teh sex so much. That’s why the male dinosuars did not take shelter or try to construct crude protection from the natural disaster with their snouts and claws. I mean, it’s not like the female dinosuars could have done anything about it, because females aren’t natural leaders — no matter which species you happen to be talking about. And even still, the only surviving dino is descended from a evil bitch plesiosaur who survived extinction from hiding behind male plesiosaurs. This dinosuar is known as Nessie and lives in Loch Ness.
Hey, I know that fashion book! Don’t think I owned it but I’m sure I read it at school.
At least its drawings are better than some. You want really bad reinterpreted fashion, go to 19th century books. Or anything drawn by Victor Ambrus, who can’t draw heels and makes everyone look like they’re wearing hessian.
OOH! I wanna add my favorite little snippets of history to the list… the ancient Aztec ritual sacrifices!
You see, the eeeevil Aztec women forced the poor helpless Alpha Males to kill Beta Males that the eeeeevil women didn’t like every day, so that the eeeeeevil women could ride the Alpha cock carousel all day! The eeeeeeevil women made sure that the Beta Males couldn’t hide from them by making all the Males play violent ball games for the eeeeeeeevil slutty women’s shameless titillation! Obviously the only ritual sacrifices were of Beta Males. Then the eeeeeeeeevil women forced all the Alpha Males to take positions of power in the Aztec government so that the men would do all the work for them, and no one would think to blame the eeeeeeeeeevil women!
I feel so bad for butchering what little I still remember from school. I didn’t even do any research for that; I feel so dirty.
@dustydeste I may have ugly guffawed at your captions. I hope you don’t judge.
@Kittehserf – Yeah, it’s not too bad a book when you get down to it. Plus I’ve got the internet to research and corroborate before I make anything based on these 😀 But even some of the accurate stuff is ridiculoud. I mean really, French dudes, why oh why did you think it was a good idea to cover yourselves in ribbons? Alternatively, anything with mutton leg sleeves.
@Theda Bara – I WOULD NEVER <3
LOL I like those fashions – that’s mah stepsons you’re talking about – though I like the 1630s ones much better.
I gotta admit, the “nursing — easy nursing” marginalia made me LOL.
No one ever, ever wore that Mycenaean getup. But don’t let the MRAs know about it, they’d take it wrong.
Kids these days.
Don’t ruin mah image of the Mycenaean/Minoans!
Plus, the dudes had little waist-cinch kilts. At least in the artwork. And long curly hair.
I feel sorry for the Mycenaeans, really I do.
They didn’t get to talk about cute bras.
They don’t just run around on my lawn, they ‘spect their father and me to come over and do their gardening!
@kittehs’ Love the new blog post by the way, nom nom nom… ahem. Pardon me.
That’s a bit of a commute, innit? All the way to France?
The kiddos are FINALLY asleep. I bid you all bonne nuit.
Of course wommins vote led to bad things for mankind; when wommin got the vote the Furr1nat1 also got the vote.
In the Garden of Eden, the Furr1nat1 tried to warm up to Adam. Adam, however, was only interested in banging Eve. Understanding that the pussy pass worked even then, the cutest puppet masters ever went to work on Eve. Her new found kitty friends continually purred, “Trust the snake, trust the snake” into her subconscious. Thus the fall of mankind was assured.
During the witch hunts, alpha men noticed that the wommin were using magic powers and had “familiars”. However, these men had only taken the red pill and not the furry pill and did not realize that wommin were in fact the familiars while the mostly cats with some dogs and occasionally other assorted animals were in fact the real witches. Many puppet wommin were killed while the puppet masters went unharmed and learned to be more discreet.
This is why the red pill is ineffective and wommin still seemingly rule over men– THE FURR1NAT1 RULES ALL.
@ Falconer LOL no, this is across the veil, we’re a lot closer to each other there.
Niters!
@Theda Bara thank ‘ee! I have slacked off SO much doing that blog.
Wait – Kittehserf – your stepsons are French dudes covered in ribbons? Can… can I get pictures of that? Actually pictures of anyone covered in ribbons would be great, now that I think about it…
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh neuroticbeagle has spoken the TRUTH OF TRUTHINESS!
I <3 "Furr1nat1"
Thought the furry pill was for prevention of hairballs, tho' …
dustydeste – this is my stepsons across the veil: none other than Louis XIV and Philippe d’Anjou. I haven’t made any up to date pics of them (and they don’t dress up that much these days, though they don’t do jeans and so on) but I do have the current look of their lovely papa readily to hand. This is him in his latest stolen hat.
Neuroticbeagle –
We should include that part in the upcoming Red Pill History of MANkind book.
Heh
Philippe d’Orleans
I’m thinking of his original title before his uncle Gaston took his nuisancy self across the veil
That’s an adorbs pic of Charlie, Maude. Lookit those big black eyes!
For anyone wondering, this is the only picture I could find of someone covered in ribbons. I am disappointed with the apparent lack of people covered in ribbons in this world :'(
Hey David, there was an interesting op-ed at the NY Times today, and they are talking about it at /r/MensRights. It’s a Feminist Professor, citing only other feminists for legal opinions and feminist philosophy, coming to the conclusion that men should be able to opt out of fatherhood.
She actually sounds very much like an MRA, yet she is clearly a feminist through and through.
She uses arguments that coming from an MRA would have many feminists complaining of misogyny.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/is-forced-fatherhood-fair/?ref=opinion
You might want to look into it.
David, can you explain why my comments go to moderation?
What is it I have done here that makes you think my comments need moderation?