If you ever need proof that Men’s Rights Activists live in a world of their own, check out this, er, argument, found in a posting on A Voice for Men UK, the official British franchise of the American hate site we know so well :
All women are homophobic.
Whether the men being prejudiced against are gay or not is kind of beside the point – after all, ‘homo’ = man, ‘phobia’ = fear, therefore: ‘homophobia’ = Fear of Man – but, if you want to quibble over Greek & Latin etymology, perhaps we can at least agree on this: all women, to a greater or lesser extent, display the ‘symptoms’ we attribute to said condition: overt caution, fear &/or disdain of men.
Yep, that’s right. In order to find an excuse to call women “homophobic,” they’ve invented an entirely new definition for the word not based in any way on the actual etymology of the word “homophobia” (which is of course derived from “homosexual”) but on something they’ve just made up.
By this logic, the word “homosexual” would not mean “of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex” but rather “man sexual.” If we take this to mean “attracted to men,” this would suggest that all straight women with sex drives would therefore be homosexual as well. Brilliant, A Voice for Men UK.
The author of the post then uses this weird logic to make excuses for actual homophobia among straight men:
Female ‘homophobia’ is so normalized in our society that treating every man you meet like ‘Schrödinger’s Rapist’ is considered an ordinary, common sense fact of life – just so long as you are a woman. But if a man feels at all uncomfortable around another man sexually, he is presently branded an evil bigot for behaving the way all women do at all times.
A Voice for Men: they reject your reality, and substitute nonsensical unreality that allows them to say bad things about women.
My Medievalist/Priest wife would like to point out that Homosexual is from the same Greek root that gives us homogeneous meaning “same” whereas Homo Sapiens comes from the Latin for “man” so… etymology fail.
Sounds like he knows he’s flat-out wrong but to for someone else to point that would be “quibbling over it.” Just what I’d expect from these dudes who are so much more rational than my womanly self. So how would he make the words homonym, homophone, homogeny, homolog. etc., mean that women are awful?
Why would women be “man phobic” either? Can’t have anything to do with the hordes of men sending threats of rape and violence online, or the hordes of men defending them, or the hordes of men insisting women take absurd precautions against rape. Can’t be those things because those are MRA things.
Is it possible for any MRA to actually understand what the notion of Shroedinger’s Rapist is actually about?
Also holy fucking etymological fallacy V_V
On the bright side, MRAs are going to be jumping all over anyone who says “no homo.”
The false etymology doesn’t even make sense, because Homo means “man” in a gender neutral sense, as in “human” or “mankind”.
Then again, maybe the MRAs have really been talking about misanthropy and not misandry this whole time.
Maybe they’re finally realizing that misandry isn’t real and so this the next ridiculous attempt?
In which case, we should all buy shares in popcorn companies. Watching the next chapter of ridiculous attempts at …… ?? …… would be seriously good entertainment.
Like a worst-ever-movies festival.
Well, in his comment he uses the term SJer in a context I haven’t run across before. The first think it makes me think of is a resident of San Jose.
But from my brief Googling I guess this is an acronym for “Social Justicer”? And this is a derogatory term?
Yeah, he’s using “social justice” as a pejorative, like how some people use “liberal.”
OTOH, some social justice folk don’t get it. I’ve seen some SJ people call asexuals homophobic.
“When I use a word,” the MRA said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
Uh, no. Just… no.
I mean, aside from anyone else… straight guys, you are statistically way less likely to get raped by a gay man than a woman of any kind is to get raped by any man.
I swear, it’s some bizarre catch 22 where if you’re a woman on the Internet, you’ll be deluged in rape threats, but if you take them seriously, YOU hate men?
Also, yeah, etymology fail. I suppose you could call it androphobia, which would actually make etymological sense, but then it’d deprive you of your oh-so-edgy-and-clever idea, wouldn’t it?
So if I believe in social justice does that make me an SJer? Or is there are other prerequisites to being an SJer? I’m kind of confused.
Wow. Maybe I should have known better, but I didn’t expect the argument here to be quite so terribly made.
But speaking of the UK, our favorite penguin-associated MRA claims to have started shooting his documentary.
Oh, the money I would pay to see this thing as it’s made.
I also thought SJer might mean a Jesuit.
@grumpycatisagirl: Well, when I first read your comment, I thought it was going to be “Sperm Jacker”
Wouldn’t the proper term be “androphoic”?
Aside from the blatant stupidity of his redefining of words, I’d like to know why strange men think I am supposed to automatically trust strange men? I’m sorry but what fucking planet is this nitwit from? Being overly friendly with strange men can and does attract unwanted attention which in some circumstances can turn dangerous.
How can this guy not know or understand that? Oh, that’s right… privilege.
We KNOW most men are not “bad” in the sense that they are likely to randomly rape or kill us. At the same time… there are some who ARE bad, so randomly getting chatty and friendly with these dudes is not advised. Further, since date rape is so incredibly common it would seem that a significant portion of men feel that if you give them ANY indication at all that you have ANY even basic like of them as humans (even just a simple smile or friendly hello), they get enraged like you’re a fucking tease if you don’t allow them to escalate your social engagement all the way up to sex.
Sorry, no. All men, for me, are on the ‘potential creep’ list until they prove they aren’t one of them. The more a man behaves like a normal person, the quicker he gets off that potential danger list. But to behave as if a woman who HAS a potential danger list is some kind of nutcake or feminazi or random hater or fearer of all men is just lunacy. It’s a basic security measure and most men clear the initial hurdles for social engagement without random fear of rape relatively quickly if they can manage not to be creepy. If they can’t manage not to be creepy they stay on that list, and if they start getting more creepy, they escalate to “Danger, get away from this guy”.
Sorry, to add… when men like this go off about the “potential rapist” thing, what I hear is: “I don’t really care about your comfort and safety as a woman, all I care about is that you validate me and my needs.” So… automatically guys like this get shuffled into a box of non engagement whether I think they are dangerous to me personally or not. I just don’t want to deal with a man who would put his own stupid ego ahead of my personal sense of safety.
All I’m gonna say is my stepson and his husband would be really surprised to learn all the women in the family, me included, are homophobic. As would my husband, though strictly speaking he’s bisexual; he was far more attracted to men than women in his earthly days, though.
(Okay, not really all I’m gonna say.)
@grumpycatisagirl – “So how would he make the words homonym, homophone, homogeny, homolog. etc., mean that women are awful?”
Does this mean we have to hate homogenised milk too?
They don’t care. Dollars to donuts some of them do understand it, but it suits their purposes to pretend they don’t.
The important thing, for them, is having a reason to rationalize their Fail. They Fail cuz everywhere they go, they are Shunned by fearful women. They Fail cuz they’ve been oppressed by feminazis. Etc.
It’s Throwing-Out-the-Distinction-Between-Latin-and-Greek-Roots Day!
What a bunch of fuckwits.
Perhaps we should call MRAs SJoffs – Stupid Jerkoffs.
To be clear: I don’t think failure, in itself, is something mock-worthy. What’s mock-worthy is blaming your failures on scapegoats. And hating on marginalized people. And indulging in histrionic self-aggrandizement seasoned with self-pity. And having piss-poor reasoning skills. And being dishonest. And…well, basically all that shit they do.