In a case of spectacularly bad timing, Fox News happened to choose the day before the Zimmerman verdict was handed down to publish an op-ed proclaiming “the White American Male” to be the most oppressed creature on Planet Earth. In a piece entitled “Men — The New Second Class Citizens,” professional antifeminist Suzanne Venker declared that
From boyhood through adulthood, the White American Male must fight his way through a litany of taunts, assumptions and grievances about his very existence. His oppression is unlike anything American women have faced.
What is revealing about this quote, besides its complete disconnection from reality, is that Venker makes no other references to race in the rest of her piece, which runs through a number of tiresome and oh-so-familiar MRA talking points about the alleged oppression of men.
Venker complains about schools being biased towards girls, from grade schools that force students to sit still to colleges with their infernal Title IX. She whines about “sit coms and commercials that portray dad as an idiot.”
Quoting antifeminist psychologist Helen Smith, a friend of and sometime contributor to A Voice for Men, she suggests that women can get their boyfriends or husbands locked up on a whim just by claiming abuse.
I’m surprised she didn’t talk about the evils of “friend zoning.”
But when Venker refers to “men” in all of these complaints, she is evidently thinking only of white men — why else would she switch so seamlessly from talking about the alleged oppression of “men” to proclaiming “the White American Male” the ultimate victim?
There’s really no other word for this than, well, racist.
The day after Fox published Venker’s nonsense, we were of course reminded (as if any of us really needed to be reminded) of the very real oppression faced by “the Black American Male.”
Trayvon Martin didn’t die because he happened to see a show featuring a bumbling sitcom dad. He died because George Zimmerman saw a young black man in a hoodie walking home from the store and assumed, apparently because Martin was young and black and wearing a hoodie, that he was up to something sinister.
Trayvon Martin didn’t die because he was male; he died because he was a black male. His killer walked free not because his victim was male, but because his victim was a black male.
Suzanne Venker did us all a favor by revealing the unconscious racism underlying so many Men’s Rights complaints. The Men’s Rights movement is not only a movement that is overwhelmingly made up of white men; it’s a movement that’s almost exclusively about white men, and their largely imaginary oppressions, as well. We might as well call it the White Men’s Rights Movement.
It’s funny that this very issue with which I was trying to stir up compassion for men – the pain men frequently suffer when they go off to war and see horrible things – is now being used to try and silence me.
How about you read about it instead of proving to us that you have an abysmal understanding of it?
How many fucking times have I suggested something like this right here in this thread?
Surely you’re not this dense.
Society “glorifies” rape? That’s right, because rapists are heroes. When you learn someone is a rapist, your first instinct is to high five them and get a group cheer going. You are so far divorced from truth on this issue that I don’t know what to say.
I never said that ALL veterans suffer from PTSD. When arguing with a pack of feminists, one must be careful with one’s words, and that includes avoid all-or-nothing statements.
This is what you said:
“Men who go off to battle are haunted by it forever”
Unqualified, which makes it an all or nothing statement.
And it was a damn clever idea, too, using women’s power over men to manipulate them.
But that’s not what you initially claimed.
mmeline Pankhurst. She wanted suffrage for women (well, rich women, anyways) but when World War I started, she went around giving white feathers to teenage boys to shame them into fighting. Not such a problem with gender roles when she was the one benefiting, eh?
No mention that it wasn’t her idea. No intimation that it might have been in pursuit of more than just the war.
No actual investigation of what her attitudes toward the war were. Nope, a thin caricature as a hypocrite.
@Ally – I’m glad we agree that rape culture doesn’t exist, then.
Are you trying to argue that one suffragist being pro-war makes feminism invalid? Because a) that makes no sense, and b) many other suffragists were anti-war.
Mother’s Day, for example, was created by Julia Ward Howe as a pacifist holiday on which women would fight to protect their sons from being killed in war:
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/0000/1870_howe_mothers-day.htm
I never said it was Pankhurst’s idea. But she had no problem with it.
And he’s never once heard a woman say “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”.
(Annoying to me personally because it tends to dismiss the experience of others, both rape survivors and DV survivors, who clearly aren’t stronger yet, as well as those who are deeply traumatised and a long way from OK let alone stronger than before.)
“@Ally – I’m glad we agree that rape culture doesn’t exist, then.”
Thanks for assuming what my stance is. Not. Please do some reading if you want to have meaningful confidence that you know what you’re talking about. Christ.
” silence me”
Me being the key word there dipshit. No one here is trying to silence men or dismiss the pain they go through. We are, however, trying to silence YOU because you are a lying piece of whale shit.
That’s great for Julia Ward Howe. We need more like her. But it’s not something I see in feminism much these days, women caring about men’s issues…
https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/rape-culture-101/
Do women not suffer pain when they go off to war and see horrible things?
One of my favorite MRA beliefs is that whatever awful things prominent MRAs do or say now should be overlooked because reasons, but any awful things that a feminist said or did 100 years ago are proof that feminism is evil and must be destroyed.
On the rare occasion women go to war, certainly.
Ah, the great moral crusader Precunium.
So you aren’t new round these parts.
Why would I pretend to be new? I am new, I usually have better things to do with my time than read the archives of Manboobz. Precunium is acting like a giant moral cruader to shame me into silence, so that’s why I said that.
Odd, to assume that I, who hadn’t been in this thread before, have a “tone of moral crusade”. It’s like you have some familiarity with me; given that the accusation that I am some sort of moral force has been leveled before.
But if I need to steel myself to dealing with you, then You can call me Betty, and I can call you…
And I’m not trying to shame you into silence, I’m calling your bullshit for what it is.
First of all, feminists tell women that rapists are everywhere and they need to be afraid constantly. But rather than taking common-sense measures to prevent rape, they feel the need to put up signs telling all men to stop raping. Most men are not rapists, and the few that are certainly won’t stop because of a sign that tells them not to rape.
It’s funny that this very issue with which I was trying to stir up compassion for men – the pain men frequently suffer when they go off to war and see horrible things – is now being used to try and silence me.
Is that what you were doing? Looked to me like you were saying women were evil-evil harpies for making men go do turrible things and get all scarred.
I don’t see you saying, “end the draft”, I see you saying, “make women suffer too”.
Still delusional, Jason.
‘Don’t Be That Guy’ ad campaign cuts Vancouver sex assaults by 10 per cent in 2011
Give men fewer responsibilities, or give women more. It’s your choice.
We don’t tell women that rapists are everywhere and that they always need to be afraid.
And that sign is directed at rapists, not men. The word “men” is only there because most rapists are men. Not all men are rapists, though, and if you actually gave a shit about understanding mainstream feminism, you would know this.
@NightShadeQueen – Maybe people just stopped reporting rape, because those posters served to normalize it. Ever thought of that?
Society “glorifies” rape? That’s right, because rapists are heroes.
Seen “The Big Easy”? The hero rapes someone, and she gets into it. That’s not the only film to do that. Thelma and Louise was villified for having women go out and hunt down a rapist.
So yeah, rape gets glorified. Heck, The Illiad opens with a dude whining because he didn’t get to rape the captive. That dude is still held up as “the iconic hero”.
” feminists tell women that rapists are everywhere and they need to be afraid constantly.”
Hey Jason, hey, look over here. I am a Feminist and I don’t tell women that rapists are everywhere. There. Debunked that statement.