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.
What the hell do guys like this want!? If you’re too friendly and trusting with men, you’re a dumb slut who’s asking to get raped. If you try to be careful around men, you’re an evil man hater.
Reminds me of this party I was at in high school. A guy who I hadn’t said a single word to all night overheard me say that I should go home soon, and offered to give me a ride. I said I was going to call a cab, so no thanks. He kept insisting, saying how I’ll save money, but I said it wasn’t going to much and really-I’m-fine-thanks-anyway.
“Don’t you trust me!?”
“… What?”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Not… really…”
Then he got all pissy and stormed off. Settle down there, Aladdin, I have no goddamn idea who you are. I don’t owe total strangers my trust.
What they want is to be able to decide how women should act in any given situation based on what’s most convenient for them.
What do they want? To be able to fuck women when and as they want, with no repercussions. They want us silent slaves.
baileyrenee, of course MRAs would say, “but if he WERE Aladdin (or Brad Pitt) you’d have gone with him!”
Anyone I don’t know who angrily uses the “Don’t you trust me” line with me immediately gets put in my People I Don’t Trust folder.
That’s actually right out of The Gift of Fear. If someone says “don’t worry, I’m not going to do X” out of the blue then they were in fact planning to do X.
Is The Gift of Fear good? I actually have it, but haven’t read it.
The Gift of Fear is good, but take the domestic abuse section and rip it out. DeBecker lets his own baggage get in the way, and is seriously victim blaming.
The UK AVfM is dumber than the US version, much like Law & Order.
I would say it’s useful rather than good. The tone gets a bit splainy and blamey at times, which to be fair may be inevitable given the subject matter.
Also, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…” However you automatically take it is exactly the RIGHT way, and they know it.
Also most of that book is common sense – basically it just reinforces stuff that we all know, really, but many people have been socialized not to acknowledge. It serves the same function as one of those Model Mugger classes where the main barrier to overcome is getting people to feel like it’s OK to scream and fight back.
@Everyone
Yea, that’s pretty much it.
That is a good rule right there.
Okay, I’ll read it and skip over the victim-blamey parts. My common sense could use some reinforcing.
I think I did start it once, and got a little bit put off by something.
Oh, yuck, there it is. Perfect. GWW said something like that on her blog once… something along the lines of “rape isn’t that big of a deal, it’s just your vagina.” What a cool girl she is, right guys? Such a special little snowflake, so brave and strong.
I fucking hate GWW.
I really think the main purpose of that book is to reinforce people (particularly women’s) belief that that feeling you get sometimes that something is not quite right about the person you’re interacting with? Trust it.
I’m kind of surprised that it hasn’t provoked more rage in the manosphere for that reason, since they’re exactly the people who give others a bad feeling that the book is talking about and display pretty much every flashing danger signal there is.
I thought the part about dealing with stalkers was the most valuable part of the book; that’s something most people aren’t taught anything about.
Like, look at the rage over the word “creep”. Normally these guys get really angry about the fact that woman can often spot men who’re up to no good fairly quickly (the problem being that many of us are socialized not to act on that feeling in case we upset someone).
By the way guys, how long does registration usually take for the forum? I’ve been waiting for a while now and I e-mailed David and everything.
I’m just curious how far down into kick-me-for-I-am-a-mere-woman self-abasement she can go.
I wonder if GWW says “it’s just [name]” of any other body part? Or is it because the vagina is specifically a female-body* thing that she’s so dismissive of it? Would she shrug off a male rape victim’s violation with the same sort of comment?
*I’m trying to acknowlege that vagina =/= woman with that phrasing; don’t know if I succeeded.
http://gww.quartz.net.nz/2013/03/04/my-path-to-recovery-from-sexual-assault/
(I mentioned it in another thread before but didn’t link to it)
I should probably say trigger warning for rape.
It’s right near the top there… Her actual quote is “It’s a vagina, it’s not who you are, ffs. If you get raped, it will always be something bad that happened to you, but shit, it isn’t who you are. It has nothing to do with your worth as a person. No one can take that unless you let them.” Then she acts like some feminist who got angry with that statement is saying that all women are just vaginas, or something.
That entire thing is worth reading… it’s one of those articles that has potential to be good, but completely and utterly fails. She takes what could be an empowering stance (rape is awful, but don’t worry, you’re still you and you can recover) and turns it into a totally retarded insensitive one (you should just get over it, part of the reason it happened was probably because of bad choices you made anyway, it happened to me guys I know). I just fucking hate her whole “look how cool I am, I got over my assault in a matter of minutes” thing. I seriously hate her. I can’t type that enough.
Linked to the article were that’s from, but the comment is awaiting moderation. Just wondering, is that because I said TW or because I linked to GWW’s blog?
*where
Man I wish I could edit posts, I make way too many typos.
@Cloudiah I love that you have a folder for that! (people I don’t trust)
I love how so many men don’t seem to grasp what trust actually entails, what it means, and the stakes if it is given freely to the wrong person.
The equally gross flip side that I’ve encountered a few times is guys who think that if you do say that you trust a man you mean that you think of him as sort of asexual or gay or somehow not-man. They really don’t seem to be able to conceive of the idea that a woman might think of a man as a sexual being, even find him attractive (or know he finds her attractive) and not consider him a threat because she thinks he’s a decent human being and not a rapist.