Some of you may have noticed that I often tag my posts here with the phrase “Men Who Should Not Ever Be With Women Ever.” From time to time I worry that I’m being a tad harsh. After all, not all of these fellas are totally irredeemable, right? Right?
And then I run across some guys for whom my tag is if anything a gross understatement. So today, some Men Who Should Not Ever Be With Women Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever. And our dear old friend Roosh, the woman-hating woman-chaser, heads up the list.
The other day on Roosh’s forum, some twisted asshole posted a link to a news story about two hikers who had been rescued after getting lost in the fog in a state park in Maine — only to drown after accidentally driving off a boat launch on their way out of the park and getting trapped in their minivan.
Oh yeah, they were women.
The commenter on Roosh’s forum thought this was hilarious “proof of the equality of the genders, except when it comes to navigation, opening doors, etc.”
While a few of the commenters reacted like decent human beings and pointed out that this story wasn’t actually funny — raising the question of why they were hanging out on Roosh’s forum in the first place — others joined in with their own “jokes.”
Roosh himself set the tone, seizing on the detail that one of the women had called for help on her cell phone as as the minivan sank.
This is what happens when you create a culture of helpless women dependent on the state for everything.
The LAST thing I would think of in their case is to make a phone call with a car filling with water. Too bad they were idiots, but god gave them a chance at life on the mountain. He just said “fuck it” and let them die.
Regular forum contributor Scorpion added:
I really don’t understand how the fuck it’s possible to drive your car at full speed off a boat ramp and then have your first response be to pull out your fucking cell phone.
It’s a good case study for what happens to women when left to their own devices in a world without men. Completely and utterly helpless in a crisis. Any time something goes wrong, just pick up the phone and call a man to fix it.
Lady, that might work when it’s your basement is filling up with water, but not when it’s the sinking car you’re sitting in.
The death of the unborn baby was like a mercy-kill from God. If they had lived, no doubt the dimwitted mother would have found some other way to kill them both, like leaving the gas on or dropping a radio in the tub while bathing the baby. Amazing she made it to her late 30s. I wonder how many times the men in her life have bailed her out before.
And someone called Divorco offered his two cents as well:
This is not funny, it is a terrible tragedy
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.
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… because an innocent dog died too.
There’s more of this, much more.
And these are men who honestly think they’re inherently superior to women.
@ Falconer
That tunnel is awesome!
Falconer — if you stayed unconscious it’d be painless though. Small comforts? Also, if you go into water unconscious, you’re screwed without the car part. I guess in a floatations device you’d probably stay face out of water but yeah, odds are not in your favor in general.
I’m not real fond of the vehicle underwater thing myself, do not need to know when the subway is under the river // bay // other body of water. Give me Pittsburgh’s T, the thing that isn’t a subway because it runs above ground, or rather, above river.
And that only helps if your electrical system isn’t already shorted out since most vehicles now have power windows. In that situation you need to break out the windows which is not easy to do unless you have some tool in the car to help like a hammer or a window breaker.
The Mythbusters have tested this scenario several times and found that even in entirely controlled circumstances (in a well lit pool with divers ready to give them oxygen) that getting out of a submerging car is difficult. While not 100% scientific I’m pretty convinced by their experiments. I carry a knife that has a seatbelt cutter and window breaker built into the handle because I’m paranoid about things like that happening and I’m not certain I’d be able to keep my head enough if I was submerged in a car in the dark to get out of my seatbelt, break the window, and swim out.
Those two women died in an area I know. Everyone in Maine realizes how easy it is to get lost in the mountains (everyone reads Lost on a Mountain in Maine in school, it’s a true story about a 12yo boy who survived lost for 9 days). And nights in the area are pitch black, there are not street lists or anything, you have your car’s headlights and that’s it (of minimal help when it’s foggy). Those women were horribly unlucky but both getting lost and going into the water are things that could happen to anyone. A few years ago some people drowned after driving into the lake near my parents’ house at night and they were locals who drove the road regularly but it was dark and foggy.
Falconer — Stolen Earth episodes. The plants missing from the display are that one, and the lost moon of poosh (sp?)
Yeah, unless you can get the windows open enough to get out, in the first couple feet of water, you need something to break the windows.
You can add this to the list of reasons why if I ever get my license it’ll be a motorcycle one. (Also on the list — probably only kill myself if I fuck up)
Seems like if you waited until the car was mostly full of water the door would be easier to open, due to roughly equal water pressure on both sides. But that’s just speculation on my part.
Probably, but depending how deep the water is you may still be screwed, you’d have to hold your breath until you surfaced after all. And if the locks are electric and locked…see what Noadi said.
So what would it be like if they tried to do statistics/any kind of science at all?
Generic Psychology Lab:
Head Psychologist: You’ve got an experiment to propose? Well, tell me what it is and I’ll decide whether to fund it.
Roosh: No, no. You don’t need to fund it. I’ve already proven it! It’s that women are dumber!
Head Psychologist: That’s your hypothesis?
Roosh: No! Those are the results!
Head Psychologist: So wait, you already did the experiment? What were your methods?
Roosh: Look at this news article! A woman did something stupid!
Head Psychologist: Is that all you have? So your sample size is 1?
Roosh: Eh, I can find more if you need me to.
Head Psychologist: And have you performed any psychological evaluation on this subject and analyzed the conditions of her environment to determine whether the cause may be something else? And are you going to do the same thing to the rest of those women that you find to determine if there’s any other possible correlation?
Roosh: No. I’ve never even met them.
Head Psychologist: Furthermore, where’s the control group?
Roosh: The what?
Head Psychologist: Have you put a group of men in the exact same situation to see if they do something different?
Roosh: No. Why would i do that?
Head Psychologist: *sigh* Where did you get your degree?
Roosh: What, a university? Why would I go to one of those misandric places? You know what, I don’t really need you.
*Roosh sends his paper to a peer review journal. A different psychologist uses the same method.*
Other paper: “Results: Found woman doing something smart. Conclusion: Women are smarter than men.”
Seriously, this is like concluding that all movies feature big green things voiced by Mike Myers because the only movie you watched was Shrek.
To clarify: I’m not saying that the women in the original situation were dumb, for the sake of argument, I’m talking about some other generic dumb thing that makes them come to that conclusion.
the fact that anyone’s reaction to that story is something other than sadness, and for me at least, feeling sick to the stomach is… baffling. i actually have recurring nightmares about going off the edge of a bridge or something similar into water. i am not going to read the much more.
The dogfaces in the Normandy invasion were issued some kind of swimming vest. I think it was inflated, but maybe it was filled with cork. Anyway, some of them didn’t keep the vest high enough on their bodies (and they had a buttload to carry already) and when they went off the landing craft into water over their heads, oopsy-daisy and they drowned with their feet in the air.
The Marines sometimes used amphibious tanks in the island campaigns. Sometimes, they sank when they were deployed.
Sometimes, I have trouble sleeping.
No, that’s how Adam got out of the car in their first set of tests. Of course, that was in broad daylight, in a clear swimming pool, with a clear idea of what he was going to try, but it’s still a viable strategy.
The trick is to keep breathing until that point. Your air pocket is going to rush to the back of the car, ending up near the top of the rear window before it vanishes at all.
I am going to stop talking about all of this and go to bed. Pleasant dreams, he said.
Before reading this thread I had no idea it was so difficult to get out of a submerged car. I thought it was just a gimmick movie makers used, and in movies they never seem to have that much trouble anyway. Obviously I don’t watch enough mythbusters.
On the plus side, I can now tell my mother I was *sensible* to get a soft-top convertible. 🙂
And Kim has the ultimate solution! Though maybe a jeep would be more practical for other potential mishaps, the idea of a convertible rolling over trumps water on my list of things to shudder about.
Falconer — make probably into possibly then >.<
They are terrible, terrible people. Even the ones disagreeing on that thread are terrible people unless they leave immediately and spend the rest of their lives atoning for going there in the first place.
Argenti, motorbikes are way more dangerous than cars – or rather, motorcyclists are a hell of a lot more vulnerable. An accident that would injure or maybe just shake up a motorist is going to seriously injure or kill a motorcyclist. That’s stuff that happens all the time, regardless of environment, whereas plunging into water isn’t.
@cloudiah
Srsly. There are a million PUA sites out there. Anyone who’s still a member of that community has clearly said to the world “this sort of behavior is acceptable to me.”
I do search and rescue as a major part of my life, and I always think it’s funny (well, you know) when MRAs comment on cases of women going missing or dying in wilderness areas/national parks because they always say this (I know you weren’t agreeing, to be clear). Yet in my experience and that of every searcher I’ve talked to about this, it’s well accepted that men are far more likely to make bad judgments, overestimate their abilities, under-prepare and get themselves in serious trouble. Field studies of hypothermia in high altitude mountaineers (hypothermia being one of the major killers of missing hikers) show that women are less susceptible to it than men are as well.
I’ve been in fog where you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. I’ve driven in fog where you literally cannot see beyond the hood of your vehicle. It’s terrifying and disorienting. I can easily see how someone can get lost on a trail, or drive into a boat ramp. We do water searches so train on lakes twice a month, and at least at the lake we usually train at, in limited visibility you could be quite deep before you realize you turned the wrong way and drove into the lake. It does happen. Hell, just two weeks ago I got in an argument with a guy who has 30 years of SAR and wilderness experience about which way to turn to get back to incident base on a featureless plain at night, just unmarked dirt roads to follow. I was right; he was absolutely certain that we should go the wrong way. And we didn’t even have adverse weather to contend with.
I’m an experienced wilderness navigator and even I have often been in situations where I could not tell where I was going. It’s not uncommon, actually, even on search missions. You’re in heavy fog or on that featureless plain at night or whatever, and it is shockingly easy to get disoriented. Navigation is extremely difficult without clear visual clues, even when you have a GPS. map and compass and know how to use them. And yes, it is extremely difficult for anyone to get out of a submerged vehicle. People of all ages and genders drown in ditches and lakes all the time if they roll over or otherwise get into them and can’t get out; accidentally driving down a boat launch is no different.
These guys are idiots, plain and simple. Their mockery of these poor women is not only cruel, it is ignorant, and as someone who actually sees what happens when people go missing or need to be recovered, I find it very upsetting.
Kitteh — I’m well aware, I prefer the idea of risking myself to risking others.
You say that because you actually want to make the world a better place, rather than simply advancing your own interests. Such white knighting! /sarcasm, coupled with genuine admiration for the work you and others do in this area.
Seriously, just this weekend a MAN drove onto the Venice boardwalk and killed a woman and seriously injured several other people. Visibility was fine. Then he drove away without stopping. Even with that, I am not assuming men are dumb, or even that he was dumb. I don’t have all the facts.
@AK
I just wanted to say that it’s awesome that you rescue people. That you want to, that you’ve made yourself capable of it, and that you actually go out and do it.
Omigosh omigosh omigosh! Mother Jones reviewed a feminist comics anthology to which I contributed:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/08/big-feminist-but-comics-shannon-oleary-joan-reilly
And the comments section is bursting with MRA goodness! Apparently they all have Google Alert set to “feminism” so they can spring into action the moment anyone writes anything about the pernicious assault on men’s rights. I’m so proud.
Also they ran a page of my comic, so bonus.
Shaenon, That’s AWESOME (that they ran a page of your comic) and SAD (that MRAs are leaving their smelly droppings on MJ)! I’m buying that anthology to piss off MRAs, and to read your comic!
On another note, anyone who reads a story like this, and thinks “How can I use this to attack an entire gender/race/whatever,” is seriously fucked up as a person and should remove themselves from human society.
@AK
Thanks for sharing, it’s interesting to read the perspective of a rescuer.
@Cloudiah, I am the ultimate white knight. I’ll respond to a text message at any hour of the night and drive for hours into the middle of nowhere to help someone out, and I don’t even expect sex in return! o_O
Seriously, though, Cloudiah and Kim, I appreciate the kind words but they’re not necessary. 🙂 I really enjoy the work, even when it’s hard or unpleasant. This particular thread really upset me though (and it’s my own fault for reading it, I knew exactly what to expect when I saw the title and opened it). I think it’s probably because due to my specialty, I do a lot more recovery than rescue, and I’ve been out on 3 successful (in a technical sense) but terribly tragic water searches in the last two months. It’s been a really bad year for that and I found this triggering emotions I didn’t even realize I was dealing with, if that makes any sense at all.
Bah, I don’t want to make it all about me though. It just made me really angry, because people just don’t understand what it’s like in those conditions. It’s easy to say someone is stupid when you’re sitting behind your computer, but the fact is that staying out of trouble in those conditions is a skill and far from innate.
Shaenon, huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!
Now you just need to get someone to publish the Big Book of Learnin’ …