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.
@Jason
“But can you honestly argue that, if he were a black female, it would have gone down the way it did? ”
Unfalsifiable claim as well as a strawman.
@Ana – You’re right. Next time I want help stereotyping, I’ll ask a feminist for assistance.
“… that Trayvon Martin was, in part, shot because he was male,”
And he was shot by another male. What does that mean?
“… and that racism is largely misandrous – and we need to address this issue, or else more incidents like this will happen.”
But since he was shot by a man, you’re implying that men shooting other men is misandry.Okay, but explain what you mean.
Right, that would be unthinkable.
Nope, unarmed black women never get shot by the cops.
@Sarah – Well, let’s put it this way: I don’t think we were afraid of Japanese women and children being spies for their country. And it’s a thought experiment. We don’t know for sure what Zimmerman would have done. But I think it quite likely that far more people would see a black man as a potential threat than a black woman, don’t you?
Apparently young girls don’t have any energy, they just sit around and paint their nails all day. Young girls could not possibly also be struggling to sit through boring, repetitive lectures about things they don’t care about, frustrated that they’ll have to go home and sit around doing more of the same. No. This is a MALE problem, only young MALES have to fight back the urge to run around when they’re supposed to be sitting in class.
I’m just Jewish enough to be offended that you don’t think Jews are an international cabal of neurotic bankers who control the media and the world economy, Jason.
@Cloudiah – Cops will shoot at anything that moves and looks like it might have a gun. They’re operating on hair trigger. Zimmerman wasn’t, he made a conscious decision to go after an individual. And you can provide plenty of anecdotes, but there’s no denying that there’s a definite trend towards seeing black men as more dangerous than black women.
@Jason
I can’t speak to how racists perceive black men vs black women, or as I like to call them men and women.
I also think that if the American Government did not perceive all citizens of Japanese ancestry to be a threat it makes little sense that all the aforementioned citizens, regardless of gender or age, were imprisoned.
I don’t think we were afraid of Japanese women and children being spies for their country.
This seems like an appropriate time to bring up McCarthyism and all of the women who were blacklisted on suspicion of being communists.
Jason doesn’t want to acknowledge race in this.
As others have observed he would not have shot a white man.
He did stalk and shoot a black man. The difference being race. People have covered this. In the past he made phone calls to the police about black men in the neighborhood.
I just can’t…..
Oh, so it’s a fair assumption to make that Zimmerman wouldn’t have shot a white man, but when I make the equally fair assumption that he wouldn’t have shot a black woman, that’s an unfalsifiable straw man?
The fact that all the racist stereotypes that are applied towards black men aren’t exactly the same as all the racist stereotypes applied towards black women doesn’t mean that black men therefore face more racism than black women.
“But I think it quite likely that far more people would see a black man as a potential threat than a black woman, don’t you?”
No. You’re obviously, a racist and a sexist. Stop projecting yoor issues on to us.
It’s not all or nothing, this sort of things happens to women too. But men are more likely to be seen as dangerous, or criminal, or guilty. There’s no denying that.
Jason:
Google scholar is your friend. Throwing out baseless accusations…well, isn’t.
I love how Jason is so fixated on how black men are seen as dangerous (more dangerous than black men) which is why MEN are being discriminated against and not race.
Both black women and black men have animalistic stereotypes. It is a common tactic to dehumanize people. Just because the stereotypes are different does not mean that gender is a bigger factor than race.
Oh, and earlier when you said angry black woman is a stereotype? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Google it you ignorant troll. It is a stereotype and just because you stick your fingers in your ears doesn’t change that it is a problem.
Thanks for the link, Sarah. I’ll take a look at it. I’m not familiar with maritime law in general or policies when it comes to sinking ships – but MRAs bringing up the Titanic as some example of misandry always bugged me (because it makes no sense).
And, Jason, the case with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman largely has to do with race and the portrayal of those in the black community being “natural-born criminals.” I doubt all those portrayals in pop culture were because they were men and more because their skin-color differed from that of the majority – not to mention all the years of slavery, being secondary citizens, and pseudo-scientific theories like Phrenology. This happened to men and women. This is a fact and no amount of ahistorical analysis is going to change that.
The need to turn it into a case of “misandry” is exactly the problem I have with MRAs: every issue must focus on them, regardless of actual context. It’s self-victimization, which is odd because I see them accuse actual victims of such for no reason other than pure spite. Bring up the fact the prevalence of women who get raped is higher than that of men, and the response will be how it is “actually” just as bad if not worse…when it isn’t. At all. It comes off as as mass grouping of those with narcissistic personality disorder – it’s all about them and their pain and their feelings while dismissive of everyone else’s – and will continue to do so, as long as the group turns everything into an act of “misandry” and act oppressed when they obviously aren’t.
Edit: more dangerous than black women
I’m sure I made more errors, but I just can’t right now.
@David – I’m not arguing that black men face more racism. Racism hurts both men and women equally, it isn’t some razor sharp device that gets only certain people and not others. But misandry is often at the heart of racist stereotypes, there’s no denying that.
The assumption that Zimmerman wouldn’t have shot a white man and gotten off scot free is supported by data.
Men are more likely to be murdered than women — by other men. Women are also more likely to be murdered by men. I fail to see how this is caused by feminism. NOTE: I do not think the cause of this fact is that men are worse than women. I think men and women are good/bad in roughly equal numbers.
….Here’s a contest for you, Jason.
The next time you feel like writing there’s no denying that, well, FIND SOME RESEARCH TO BACK YOU UP FIRST.
When people try to stereotype the women of a marginalized group, they usually try to make them as manly, and unfeminine as possible. That’s why black women are portrayed as sex-crazed, stocky, coarse, streetwise, etc… as manly as possible. There’s no stereotype of a fair black maiden. (Not until The Princess and the Frog, anyway, and that was deliberately meant to be antiracist.)
*cough* Asian females are stereotyped as being weak and submissive. *cough*`
Which is why when people want to stereotype Asian women they depict them as ultra-feminine, submissive, and as un-manly as possible.
Jason really isn’t very good at this whole arguing thing. I still think he’s a sock, FWIW.