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.
But now I’m curious. I know it’s a bad curious, but damn my brain, I’m curious. Dare I ask?
LOL dare we admit the reason for the Corner of Shame?
Happy birthday, Argenti! :>
Thanks!
Kitteh — meh, out of context I guess it isn’t too horrible?
dustydeste — lowquacks described his style of dress and we both said we found such style, um, attractive, and then realized we were being creepy and went to the corner of shame. Where we return every time that conversation comes up.
In short, the answer is “we were creepers and are ashamed of it”
I admitted that if I saw a feller who looked the way lowquacks described himself (think Mr K), I’d have a hard time not doing the covert staring thing.
Pff, that’s only a tiny amount of shame. I think you’re fine.
It is rather funny in context, given the MRA fondness for the idea of doing away with the age of consent, that you guys feel like creepers for not really hitting on a young adult.
(I mean, I’d feel weird about hitting on someone that age too, it’s just funny when you compare it to someone like Tom “evil child prostitutes prey on innocent pedophiles” Martin.)
Meh, I was more “mildly embarrassed with a side of amusement” than ashamed. Hence it being funny enough to be a running (lurching?) in-joke.
(It was “Oh gods I’d be that creepy old person in the street STARING oh noes shame shame shame” stuff at the time.)
Of course if young fellers will go around looking like Inigo Montoya WHAT CAN THEY EXPECT? They are just ASKING to be stared at, next thing they’ll be sitting on the footpath crying to get stuff …
Yeah, Pecunium said he wears a fedora from time to time. I’ve also pointed out that I like comic book reviewer Linkara, who always wears a fedora, despite being explicitly a feminist. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall?from=Main.AtopTheFourthWall
How did that happen, anyway, that fedoras became some kind of symbol of misogyny? It is just a hat after all.
Argenti, yay for the bristlenose! They don’t typically tend to start growing bristles until they’re a bit older, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t see any yet.
I wear fedoras, my grandfather gave me a bunch of his. Although I think the fedora thing is a meme on Reddit, at least that’s where I understand it’s from. It goes along with the forever alone, Nice Guy™, and PUA/MRA things. Because you link to SRS in the sidebar (who used to regularly mention the fedora thing) and regularly mention reddit, I’d assume that’s where they’re “from”.
I think it comes from OKCupid? Ie, assholes wearing fedoras in the profiles in which they declare their assholery to the internets.
It’s been around an awfully long time though, I remember hearing about it back in 2006/2007 from friends who were on Reddit… When did OKC start up?
It seems to me that at a certain point all kinds of pompous assholes all starting wearing fedoras at once, but I’m not sure what kind of asshole singularity caused them to decide to do that.
Perhaps you’re thinking of Spearhafoc? I think he drifted away from manboobz.
Jason: “Trayvon wouldn’t have been shot if he was white. I agree. But can you honestly argue that, if he were a black female, it would have gone down the way it did? No matter how racist Zimmerman might be, he wouldn’t have gotten out of the car to chase down a black woman because she might be a criminal.”
You are assuming that the reason why Zimmerman murdered Trayvon is because he actually thought he was a threat. I don’t believe that line of bullshit. I think he was looking to bully and victimize the black people in his neighborhood. No, (trigger warning) he probably would have raped and then killed a black teenage girl if he thought he could somehow get away with it like he did this time.
That doesn’t have to be the assumption here. The assumption could also be Zimmerman wanted to murder someone whom he could paint as a threat afterwards in order to get away with it, and it’s easier to paint another man that way.
I just googled the FBI statistics on murder in the USA and there are more than five murdered black men for every murdered black woman.
I’m taking that back a bit because I don’t even think Zimmerman was twirling his moustache saying to himself “hahaha, I’m totally gonna commit murder and get away with it”. I mean, moustache-twirling villains are far and few between, so it just seems statistically unlikely that Zimmerman is one.
He probably does think of himself as a hero, and being all like “but it was a black man – meaning he was probably really dangerous, meaning I had to follow him and confront him for the safety of everyone in the neighbourhood, and then there was this fight and I totally had to kill him!”.
I mean, justifying yourself like that is just so, so much more common than being an actual moustache-twirling villain. (Obviously you can think like this and still be an evil fucking racist though, self-justification and racism are not exclusionary in any way.)
Mr. Grant is actually wearing a fedora in my new gravatar. I hope that won’t be taken to mean I’m an entitled asshole.
Also, I would wear a fedora but I don’t typically wear suits and I understand that, Indiana Jones notwithstanding, fedoras should only be worn with a suit.
We had a regular (Spearhafoc) who was fond of sartory, and yes, he likes hats. Given the modern look, I would guess trilbies to be on his list of acceptable hats.
I can’t wear them, but a fedora is ok (I need a larger brim than a trilby, both for aesthetics, and to keep the sun off my eyes).
Yes, I have many hats.
1 Wool Felt Fedora (stetson style)
1 Leather Minnetonka flat stetson (US Western Porkpie)
1 Black Silk Opera Hat.
1 Newsie style unstructred cap, small brim.
1 Beige wool felt “snapbrim”
1 Leather flat cap (for my faire garb)
1 Black wool felt bowler.
1 US Army Dress Blue Cap
Many berets
A few “garrison” caps
Some “ball caps” (almost never worn, unless I am playing softball)
Forage caps (in three styles of camo)
“Jungle hats”(two styles of camo, one in OD green)
Black Watch Caps
Some handmade crochet caps, to keep my head warm when camping/in winter (when lying abed to read).
All told, I prolly have between 20-30 pieces of headgear (some of them trades, when I was in the army, and a lot uniform issue I never got rid of)
How did that happen, anyway, that fedoras became some kind of symbol of misogyny? It is just a hat after all.
A lot of people who spout misogynistic shit wear them, aggressively, esp. the trilby style.
Spearhafoc! Yes, that was him. Very dashing (you know, the image I had of him in my mind, based on his descriptions).
I’m thinking maybe hat-wearing MRAs evolved from those Cat in the Hat hats that slime artists wore at raves back in the 90’s or 2000’s, but I’m not basing that on anything but my ass.
I think it’s more complex than that, and a bit more sordid.
Zimmerman went to a lot of effort to get various sorts of training. He wanted to be a cop. Cops, in the media, are portrayed as doing lots of “life and death” stuff. In TV, and the movies to be a cop is to shoot people. It’s always justified.
So Zimmerman knew what the requirements were for getting away with shooting someone.
Carrying a gun is seductive. Most people think it’s magic. That having a gun is, in itself, protection. This makes a lot of people who have guns stupid.
They walk into harm’s way, because they have the gun an it will save them. They get more agressive, more cocksure, and it causes problems. In a state that doesn’t have a stand your ground law, this is less of a problem. Words aren’t assault, and pulling the gun = a trip to the pokey. So people tend to be a bit more circumspect (Fla also has one of the most liberal CCW regimens in the nation. You can do it all by mail, even if you live in another state).
So Zimmerman did all this. He had dreams (fantasies) of being “The Good Guy”, and he’s steeping a racist culture that tells him black men are, ipso facto a threat. He has a blatantly racist father. So he goes and confronts, “one of those people”. He does it terribly.
He sets up what is guaranteed to be a hostile encounter. I think (based on the photos at his booking), he had the gun in his jacket pocket. I think he got pushy with Trayvon, and Trayvon (reasonably scared… recall he knew we was being stalked), swung at him. And Zimmerman pulled out the gun and shot him.
Because that’s the way it plays out in the movies. Do I think he was scared? Yeah. A BLACK TEEN had hit him. His map of the world tells him that black kid is a THUG, a heartless killer who thinks $20 for crack is worth killing for. The kid was supposed to accept being bullied, being reminded that Zimmerman was boss (and I think the lesser, but not zero racism against hispanics plays into this. Zimmerman may have been trying to prove he was part of the “ruling class”).
Does Zimmerman think he was the hero? I’m sure he does. He’d be a rare bird if he didn’t.
I’d like to think a civil trial will go badly for him. I’d like to have one that aggressively pursues all the contradictory evidence, one that drags his pursuit of training, his violent past, his inability to pass the tests required to be accepted to a police acadamy, etc.
I want the fuckmuppets who excuse what he did, or valorise it, to have to see what they are praising.
I think the hat thing is guys who are jerks thinking that donning one will make them a suave as Frank Sinatra in his early years. It’s magical thinking. They also think they should use the “Man Men” style of treating women badly as a sign of their, “macho manliness”.
Which isn’t going quite the way they hoped.
Thanks for the elaboration, Pecunium.