The fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit are getting worked up over imaginary feminists again!
Yesterday, in a discussion of paternity fraud, a brand-new Redditor who had never posted a comment before posted a completely unsourced screenshot of what quite a few of the regulars took to be some sort of official feminist statement on paternity fraud.
A few of the more discerning commenters suggested that the screenshot might just be satire, but others were convinced not only that it was real, but that it was the completely serious opinion of a representative feminist. As one put it, referring to the Reddit watchdogs in Shit Reddit Says,
Another chimed in with this:
I took a few moments to Google some of the text in the screenshot to find out where it originated and discovered that it came from a now-defunct Tumblr blog called feminismrising.
While the blog is gone, it has left little traces of itself all over the internet, and from these traces it’s easy enough to figure out that it was a satirical/troll blog meant to parody feminism. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that that it was written by a feminist out to parody the absurd visions of evil feminism that are prevalent amongst Men’s Rightsers and other antifeminists. But who knows. The only thing that’s really clear is that it was a joke.
Proof? Well, here’s one “Q-and-A” that evidently once ran on the site:
Q: My boyfriend recently asked me if we could have sex. I tried to explain to him that asking me to have sex with him counts as sexual assault, but he couldn’t understand it that piv sex is ONLY okay if I am the one who asks for it. Can you help me try to explain why what he’s doing when he asks for sex is misogynistic?
A: It seems he doesn’t understand sexual harassment to such a degree for all intents and purposes is basically sexual assault.
This is normal; men in general don’t understand even the most basic tactful ways to approach women.
A rule of thumb is that if you can see him, hear him and feel him it’s most definitely sexual assault. Now does that mean that just because you can’t feel him it isn’t sexual assault? No. That’s just something rape culture says. Going by that line of reasoning it wouldn’t be sexual assault if you simply couldn’t feel him as you’d been administered some sort of anesthesia.
So through absurdity reduction we rule out that it’s necessary to feel him. If you can hear him, see him and you feel sexually assaulted then you have been sexually assaulted.
He’s being misogynistic for saying he doesn’t understand.
I think only a complete Men’s Rights dunderhead could fail to detect the satire here.
You can see more examples from the blog here.
Elsewhere in the same Men’s Rights subreddit discussion, helping MRAs live up to another unfortunate stereotype, this fella gets a few upvotes for his I’m-just-sayin’ semi-advocacy of vigilante justice — specifically, murdering judges:
Oh, Men’s Rights Redditors. You’re just awful, aren’t you?
@ auggziliary
Freud didn’t like loud piano playing. He doesn’t seem like he was a very fun fellow.
I’m glad the Wayback Machine captured it, at least partially. It makes it even clearer that it’s some kind of parody site, though I can’t really tell if it’s a feminist parodying MRA misconceptions of feminism, or an MRA parodying what zie thinks feminism is, or what.
Off topic, someone named Frank who said he loves Manboobz decided to leave a comment of disapproval on the Welcome Package post on my blog. I just find it amusing that he felt the need to let us know we were terrible people for offering people a welcome package that explains a lot of the funny history behind the stuff we chat about, rather than just not reading it or whatever. 😀
Tried to read the comments on reddit, couldn’t do it! They ACTUALLY think this is serious, and someone even found the tumblr it came from. The stupid, it hurts.
I wonder, how do manboobzers deal with real life people who think MRAs have legitimate points and are really just the flip side of feminists? I try not to argue with people off the Internet about it, but it kind of feels odd to have friends who think this way. I’d point them to manboobz but the posts are long, and these people have reading comprehension issues. Kids today…
I think the reason for “seed” is simple. Notice how “seed” is considered a property of a man, rather than a woman: woman is the empty, neutral ground which is cultivated by the man for his purposes. Their debate over whether sperm is the equivalent of the womb says it all. From this perspective, the MRA fascination with controlling women and calling it equality makes perfect, awful sense.
@Mongoose:
I try to reason with them one little piece at a time. But there does come a point where it’s ridiculous and I drop a Fuck You and peace out.
…
No, wait, that’s what I WISH I would do. Mostly I seethe and argue a lot.
auggziliary
Not quite. MRAs are, most often, FOR men being allowed to have a say in whether or not a woman gets an abortion. Typically, if nothing else, they want the rule to be, “If she refuses to abort, I get to have a ‘paper abortion’–ie, walk away without paying child support.” But most of them ALSO support rules that require paternal notification, or even better, approval of an abortion.
Basically, as always, it’s “Women bad, men good, womenz no make decisions, that menz job.”
More “precious bodily fluids” paranoia and over-credulity from MRAs? Shocked.
I think the MRM COULD be like that… but… yea.
It’s really depressing to think about actually. I would love to see more men talk about toxic male gender roles without turning it into a ridiculous and exaggerated feminist/female/mangina/liberal conspiracy. The way things are going I doubt that is going to happen anytime soon, if ever, though…
Oh, and on the abortion thing: One MRA on YouTube (nobody with videos, just a dude in the comments) told me we should either ban child support and keep abortion, or keep child support and ban abortion.
Wait, women have something men don’t have? Biology is misandry!
About the promotion of killing judges–
In Santa Cruz, about 15 years ago, a judge opened a package that had been mailed to him, and had his arms blown off.
I worked for the courts, and word was it was the ex of a woman he had represented in a divorce case, but there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest him.
So, funny as their obtuseness is, that comment scares me. These cowardly shits. Their money and their pride means more to some of them than human life. Aaaaagh.
Word!
I think they feel the same way about the women’s movement. Hadta have a male equivalent, because how dare women have something men don’t have?
Women are oppressed? We’ll show them! We’re MOAR oppressed!
OMG people, this is totally off-topic, but I just have to share. I came across a widget today called Jailbreak the Patriarchy, and it is absolutely hilarious when used in conjunction with sites like AVfM. It more-or-less reverses gendered nouns and pronouns in text, so you end up with stuff like:
I can’t imagine I’m the first person here to have come across this delightful little thing, but I just couldn’t let there even be a chance that someone didn’t know about it. Really, this is completely making my day with the joy of Opposite Land MRAs.
(That said, Jailbreak the Patriarchy doesn’t actually make gross hatesites safe; nasty screeds by JtO are still nasty screeds by JtO, proceed with caution and a stiff drink, etc.)
So true it made me laugh. The only one I know off the Internet is my cousin by marriage. He’s not really a MRA, just an old-fashioned sexist and big believer in gender determinism. I used to argue more with him, but now I follow a strategy of wry mockery.
“It’s not ideal but one was force to kill a judge because they demonstrably fucked your life up, other judges would thick twice before doing the same thing. Also, sadly, it would have to become a trend before you actually see any real movement of the needle.”
MRA’s are sad that they might be “forced” to kill a public figure in order to force compliance among other public figures. It’s really not “ideal”. You know, sometimes you have to be the “bad guy” to get anything done.
They are most definitely NOT a hate group. See, they feel badly about murder.
In that same thread, the sad judge-killer also notes that, sadly, people might have “no recourse” but to kill both judges and their families.
And that comment has 10 upvotes!
I get really confused. That’s par de course for most of my interactions with other human being in real space, but sometimes it gets really strange.
I remember a conversation about conscription once, which cropped up apropos nothing. I’m probably misrepresenting my friend, who is usually quite eloquent, but in my mind, the conversation went like this:
Fibi: “Yeah, but I guess we should make it apply to both men and women so long as we have conscription anyway”
“No, the average man is stronger than the average woman. They make worse soldiers, so we should keep it a male thing”
Fibi: “But the average person doesn’t matter. You get physical education and training, there’s… physical requirements. I don’t care about the people who can’t pass my standards, but if you can get through the hoop, you’re in”
“Yeah, but the average male is still stronger… So they’ll be better soldiers.”
Fibi: “But…. What if they can pass the standard requirements?”
“Well the requirements are pretty easy to pass. That doesn’t really mean anything. WHat’s important is how much use you’ll get out of them afterwards, and if you get women, they’re weaker, so you’ll only get 90% of what you’ll get out of a man”
Fibi: “But that doesn’t… How does… Why let women into anything then? If the posted requirements for the position isn’t the actually required requirements for the position, how will you ever let anyone do anything?”
“Besides, women shouldn’t fight in wars. It’s not chivalerous…”
Fibi: “But we have highly decorated female combat veterans right now.”
“Yeah, but if you’re activating conscription anyway, you’re in real trouble… So you need people who can really fight”
Fibi: {Chugs a bottle of vodka to deal, breaks front tooth on it}
——-
And then I get annoyed and carry a secret, malicious and spiteful grudge for a few days about the way some of my friends think, the weird… stuff that crops up in casual conversation sometimes. And I feel guilty, because they’re my friends and I shouldn’t get that weirdly illogical spike of surprise where my brain literally tells me that they’re being… silly.
I think that’s normal for two people sharing belief that is important to both of them, momentarily thinking the other is so sadly misguided. Or maybe I think that because it makes it easier to deal with feeling that the world is full of silly people. Defensive strategies.
ManBoobz helps me deal with that, in the form of these long winded incoherent posts of mine!
But all in all I’ve found that most people tend to react with mild surprise if you just repeat back what they actually say to them. Very few people consciously go around being terrible. But they just… often accept the saddest explanations that are repeated the most, and which allows some general little explanation to fit the bill (women can’t fight).
( “Besides, in my experiennce, women seldom say what they really want”
“… So you are constantly second-guessing your friends? Must be exhausting”
“No, Fibi, that’s not what I meant. I’m just used to women using a lot of double speak and saying “noooo” when they really mean “Yes!”
“Weird, maybe you should ask them to say what they mean”
“Yeah, I know, right, Fibi? And I do, and then they get all insulted when I tell them they’re being silly about their preferences. I don’t understand women at all, man”
“… So women who talk to you use a lot of doublespeak and subterfuge, because if they don’t, you mock their preferences and refuse to take them seriously?”
“That’s not what I… But… In my experience, they never say what they mean!”
“Small wonder, yeah. I don’t think I would either. Sounds like it’d be exhausting. Want some tea?” )
Unexpected doses of awful from friends are just the worst. That’s a big part of why I like this place, too.
I don’t really know anyone offline who’s an MRA, there are some garden-variety sexists though (I just ignore or mock them). I do have one male co-worker who’s pretty fucking cavalier about using the word rape to describe something unpleasant, which is working my last nerve. I want to tell him that no, having to do X is not equivalent to rape, shut up. It makes me too mad to say anything. Anyone have any pointers?
I’ve been fairly lucky. I’ve burned a lot of bridges, and I don’t have a lot of assholery to deal with anymore. If it comes up, I’m just less likely to talk to that person. I still have to make judgment calls on what I’m willing to deal with, and what I’m willing to not discuss–for instance, one of my friends is a dick about autism, and another is a dick about my college shit.
RE: hellkell
Sorry. That shit tends to make me to angry to argue too. Though now that I think of it, our best friend in high school in freshman year actually had a pretty good response! It’s been a long time, but I think she said something like, “You don’t know if someone here’s been raped. They probably wouldn’t like you making that comparison.”
LBT: that’s a great response. I’ll try it next time he runs his mouth.
@Fibi, I love that tactic. I have been so worn out over the years trying to provide counterarguments to just unthinking sexism and gender essentialism, that I just gave up when assholes would bait me about my feminism. I would just refuse to engage. But I LIKE turning their words back on them.
On the woman fighting issue, 20yrs ago I had a debate with a mate about women serving in the army. His point was that enough people were injured by war and we should protect women from it and let men take on the responsibility. It was utterly ridiculous.
I’ve met lots of bog-standard sexists, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who identified as an MRA. I think irl it would cause me to first stare in shock, then laugh, then tell all my friends to avoid that person. It would be like encountering a really rare but really ugly vulture or toad or something, so you’d be going “wow I actually saw one!”, and then you’d remember how ugly it was, possibly notice the smell, and/or remember not to touch it because its skin is toxic.
When I try to form a mental image of the older MRAs (bitter divorcee who wants to buy a mail order bride half his age edition) my brain keeps defaulting back to these guys.
Also the escaped gelfling is one of the younger name-brand feminists, like Valenti or Marcotte, and the skeksisMRAs intent to try to suck out her essence because it’s all that’s keeping them alive.
(Jim Henson was clearly a prophet.)