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.
I would say “don’t let the door hit you…”. but I can’t think of anything that a perfectly innocent door has done to deserve that.
Hey, I’m terribly sorry to hear that. It must suck. But the fact is, throughout history it’s been men who were expected to die in wars, not women. That’s been a male cross to bear, up to this century.
Clueless.
Have you read the Illiad? What happens when a city under seige falls? It gets sacked.
Think the women and children are spared? Nope.
If the city surrenders, the sack is less brutal, but it’s still not easy (lost property, rape, the random killing).
When it resists, then it’s kitty bar the door. After the third Siegeof Badajoz (1812, the first two having been in the year before, and lifted by the French mounting relief columns, so the breach wasn’t made) Wellington allowed his troops to run riot: they killed 4,000 of the inhabitants.
Gonna argue this was limited to the men in the town?
There were more civilians killed than soldiers.
There was also (in the Penninsular Campaign) the issue of French Reprisal for la guerrilla, which wasn’t limited to men, rather it was the wholesale slaughter of entire families.
Women weren’t allowed to fight, that has never prevented them from bearing the cost of war.
As to your sorrow, you can keep it.
I’ve read Farrell. I’m not an MRA. Funny.
I should be going to sleep now. I’m at the point at which my forgetfulness is as bad as it is when I’m slightly inebriated – and it’s all because of severe sleep deprivation and a lack of food and water (I’m expected to fast this Ramadan since my family still thinks I’m Muslim, and aside from secretly getting snacks, I can’t easily break my fast.)
Night everyone!
Well at least the Celebrate vid put me in a better mood. Thanks CassandraSays.
@ Argenti Thanks for the survey info.
I’m not American myself, but I find it sad how many people I know actually feel this way. And race isn’t even a big issue in Ireland. But I’ve heard some friends of mine, some really good friends, say something along the lines of “Straight white men are the last acceptable target of discrimination.” No really, with a straight face!
I need new friends.
@Pecunium
So much for the “empathy” he professed earlier in the thread.
BTW, This one isn’t a sock. Just standard Farrell disciple. I heard from the Dark Lord Himself.
The fact that there are so many pissy young guys who all spout the same crap makes me think of this.
@ David Futrelle
Off topic
Hello, less than two weeks ago, I became the 3000th email subscriber. There’s been well over a hundred since then.
This makes me happy 🙂
If we were MRAs, this would herald the forthcoming victory of manboobz,,but since we’re not, it just means lots of people are enjoying funny, witty and enjoyable writing, necessary writing too.
MRAs will consider the Fox News clip a stunning leap forward… It’s not. It just illustrates where on the political spectrum they reside.
I know he’s gone, but just in case he comes back, I’ll post this (and for the rest of you, of course):
http://agewa.tumblr.com/post/49846590511/we-went-to-kineshma-thats-in-ivanovo-region-to
From “War’s Unwomanly Face” by Svetlana Aleksievich
The Soviet women are the ones I’m most familiar with, but really, if you care enough to do some research you will see that there are far more cases then you would expect of women in battle (and not being appreciated)… From other women of course, but more importantly from men, who were disgusted and ashamed to have women fighting with them. It wasn’t a matter of “protecting” them, it was a matter of pride, and, when outside the military setting, not seeing these women as desirable.
Shit, this is awful (although not uncommon), just read it in our local paper and have to share.
So, this fifteen-year-old girl had been at a party, and went into a room with a guy and had consensual sex. But then his entire gang of buddies came in there too and raped her. She went to the police afterwards. The police found that the boys claimed it had been consensual, but they told contradictory stories, plus they had sent text messages between their cell phones making it very clear that they were aware of having raped her. The boys were convicted.
Now the girl is slandered all over town as a “whore” and has received threats of physical violence unless she takes her story back and has the boys acquitted. BUT WE’RE TOTALLY NOT LIVING IN A RAPE CULTURE, OH NO.
From what she tells the press, she sounds very, well, cool-headed. She told she’d been thinking during the rape that okay, there are a lot of them, no point fighting, just stay calm and focus on getting through this alive and then you can call the police. And after she filed the police report she also said she’d tried as much as possible to focus on ordinary things, on just living her life, rather than dwelling on what happened. Well, apparently people have seen this behaviour as evidence of her lying, since a real rape victim must be completely broken down and hysterical.
Although we all know that if a girl had been completely broken and hysterical, that too would have rendered her unreliable in the eyes of society. It’s a no-win scenario.
Reblogged this on dariancase.
Yeah, that kind of thing never happens…
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/people-queued-to-shake-this-sex-attackers-hand-108061.html
Wars are about men protecting women?
Earth to MRA. 🙂
~ ~ ~
Somebody tell these chucklefucks that women have always fought in wars. When they were barred from fighting–and it wasn’t women making the rules–some have disguised themselves as men.
Then there are the women who’ve fought openly–and kicked ass. Ever hear of the Soviet fighter pilots, the Night Witches?
(What are these boobz going to whine about when the U.S. finally allows women into combat positions?)
(Oh, that’s right. They’ll whine because the U.S. allowed women into combat positions.)
P.S. Sorry for being UScentric, there.
‘Stocky’? I LOL’d.
Tell us what other racial stereotypes ‘other people’ hold, Jason. It’s fucking hilarious.
Ah, an MRA who is a fanboy of Warren Farrel, what a surprise. I don’t know if he is as ignorant and obtuse as he comes across in his writings, or if he is misandrist enough to believe that a majority of men are, and thus he’ll laugh all the way to the bank as his disciples buy into and buy more of his schlock. I mean, for goodness sake, amongst other things, he posits that MOC and homosexual men are the most disparaged of all men due to their not proferring themselves as disposable protectors of women.
Just for clarification, my use of the pronoun was in reference to Farrel, not the fanboy.
I’d of replied to Jason but…he obviously lives in Bizarro World. Up is down! Left is right! forwards is backwards! God, I’m done…
However:
Speaking as a self-aware white guy – they really don’t. If they’re particularly well-off financially, they’ll still find a way to act as if there is still some great injustice being committed against them. What injustice? They don’t even seem to know – it’s just there and we just have to accept on hearsay it’s happening. We just “can’t see it” like they can.
Couple that with, say, Christianity and it’s even worse. “O woe is me – I live better than most people and part of the largest religion in the world, it’s agony!”
Convincing yourself you are the underdog – while everyone else is a mob of bullies who “don’t get you” – is a great way to dismiss the fact other people have it far worse than you do.
I, too, actually became a feminist after reading Warren Farrell and other MRA tripe, not an MRA. So again we see that Jason’s assertion that reading Warren Farrell will convince someone to become an MRA is pretty laughable. I suppose if we read Mein Kampf we’ll all be convinced that there’s a “Jewish problem” too, right?
@futrelle
“There’s really no other word for this than, well, racist.”
I like white supremacist better, sounds more honest and immediately lays the blame where it belongs (whites).
…Um, did I miss it, or did darling dearest Jason suggest Black women weren’t slaves and Japanese American women weren’t suspected of being spies? o.o;
Granted, this is someone who apparently idolizes Warren “incestuous rape of minors is hunky dory but gay sex is the devil” Farrell…
Well, regarding wars, I’m perfectly willing to admit that being pushed or outright forced into fighting in wars is a kind of oppression that has and still does disproportionately affect men (not only men, but men more than women).
Granted, I haven’t read the entire thread carefully, but it seems like most regulars don’t want to grant that point… I think we can just grant it. I mean, seriously, yeah, women have always fought in wars too, but to a much lesser degree, there have been much less of actually forcing women to fight in wars, and there are many ways in which fighting in wars suck.
We can grant that without jumping to the unwarranted conclusion that men overall suffer more from wars than women overall (civilians get shot, bombed, raped etc too), or the even more unwarranted conclusion that men as a group are more oppressed than women as a group.
It seems like the regulars here failed on a few points in this thread, honestly :/