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.
Thank you dustydeste!
RE: Falconer
I’ve gotten into the habit of taking my morning walk and then taking an icy shower. (Sometimes accompanied by tearing off of the shirt and bellows of, “I HAVE BEEN REBORN IN THE BLOOD OF THE ICE GIANTS!” I’m told this is highly attractive behavior.) It’s a horrible sensation that within seconds of getting out of the shower, I am still wet, but am no longer cool.
Seconds? I’m getting a few minutes. And yeah, then it just mixes with sweat.
Idk when it’ll get up there, but Pittsburgh’s having a thunderstorm and it’s heading our way. If it doesn’t die and stays all Pittsburgh glorious, it should be wonderful.
Fuck. It’s humid enough my cloves keep going out. You know it’s bad when a cigarette goes out in the time it takes to type three lines!
LOL I am totally gonna use the blood of the ice giants line some time.
I’m sorry it’s so hot. If I could send y’all some central air, I would.
Fear not. I am MSTing the g0ys and their long tortured metaphor about guns being penises and asses being holes in the ground and video games. (I HAVE NEEDS OKAY.)
Falconer — well at least the twinsees are nice and cool.
LBT — more MST? 🙂
Eh, not cool so much as not burning up.
But at least the sun’s gone down here, and it’ll start cooling off.
RE: Argenti
Yup. Not the IS folks this time, just me, Mac, and (surprisingly) Sneak, who’s turning that propaganda into something about the gay zombie cyborg Satanist apocalypse.
THEY COMPARE A PENIS TO A LOADED WEAPON I CAN’T HELP IT.
That’s just silly, everybody knows that the Gun is good and the Penis is evil. The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots Death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Like, this is 101 stuff here people.
RE: Myoo
Sneak is stealing that to work into zer halfassed mythos.
Myoo, you have won my heart forevermore with that reference.
No fair, Myoo, you already won the thread once today.
@LBT
It’s actually a reference to Zardoz, a really bizarre movie from the 70s:
FTFY
LBT — oh gods, Sneak is MST’ing, this should be good!
And tell Mac he wins at strip poker, assuming he’s remotely decent to go out in public. I’ve been reduced to my underthings.
Falconer — aw, at least they’re young enough to hang out in just diapers? While the rest of us are stuck playing strip poker with ourselves?
RE: Argenti
Yeah, every once in a while, one of the kids gets in on MSTing. Gigi’s brief appearance on the 50 Shades of Bears MST was possibly the most popular part of it. (Then she got bored and wandered off.)
Enh, we’re currently reduced to shorts and just flopping in front of our AC like a miserable, sweaty dog. I’m just so glad to HAVE it.
Also, it is HOTTER here than it is in Austin. FUCK THIS NOISE.
I guess we’re tied then! And I don’t have AC >.<
Hm, I never read 50 Shades of Bears because yeah, it's…no. Did you manage to make it funny?
"Also, it is HOTTER here than it is in Austin. FUCK THIS NOISE."
That's fucking ridiculous.
RE: Argenti
According to my friends, yes, yes we somehow managed to make it funny. It got really difficult though, which was why we eventually stopped around Chapter 15. The contortions required to make it funny were just too much. Really, I think the only way I made it that far was that it was the sickest I’ve ever been in the head, and 50 Shades was the best distraction ever. I will forever be indebted to that piece of schlock, purely because it got food into my face when nothing else did.
So it is good for something! That’s up on your LJ? I’ll have to give it a go (I still haven’t finished Bodily Reconstruction because then I’ll be out of IS to read and NOOOOoooooooo)
RE: Argenti
Yes! And I’ve got the IS MSTing maybe half of it too.
And don’t worry, I really WILL get Thomas Gets Laid up soon. I just swore to spend some time with Mac today, so we’re MSTing g0ys instead.
Five words: 50 Shades of Specialist Grey.
I think my favorite use of Fifty Shades was having a friend read it out loud, doing Christian Bale’s Batman voice for what’s-her-face and Christopher Walken’s voice as rapey-dude. It was… unexpectedly even more hilarious than we expected.
But also I went to a comedic reading of it where they alternated with sex tips from Cosmo’s Fifty Shades edition, and that was pretty worthwhile, too.
I would still feel better about the world if those books had never gotten written, though. I’m of the opinion that all amusement derived from them is strictly of the silver-lining variety.
I’m so glad other areas are getting the heat and we’re not as bad as usual. Sending cool thoughts!
LBT — so he’s not just flirting with me, good to know! If he’s gonna be naughty, you are the appropriate receipent after all.
“Five words: 50 Shades of Specialist Grey.”
Shouldn’t that be Specialist Grey uses five words?
In any case, sounds a welcome break from OMGS IT’S TOO HOT
Dustydeste — silver lining is, more or less, what my nym means (finding “lining” in Latin turned into a headache so I went with æther since that’s basically what the inside of a cloud is)
This is the BEST song to MST g0y shit to ever. OMG. THANK YOU YOUTUBE.