So the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit are currently discussing one of the most important — if often overlooked — issues of our time, which is: How come nobody but us sees that the ladies aren’t oppressed any more? Or, as paranoiarodeo497, looking hopefully towards the future, has chosen to put the question: “What future event/tragedy do you think will happen that will make people realize not only are women no longer deprived but in fact equal to men?”
Alas, the Men’s Rightsers aren’t hopeful that anything will wake up the snoozing sheeple. BrambleEdge, for his part, worries that men will remain oppressed forever.
![BrambleEdge 17 points 15 hours ago (18|1) Seeing as men are deprived and far from equal to women, and people don't see it now, I doubt they ever will. I sometimes fear that gynocentrism is biological and not cultural. [–]Demonspawn [-1] 1 point 52 minutes ago (1|0) gynocentrism is biological Treating women as human beings and men as human doings? Yes, it is biological. It's also why "equality" isn't, and seeking it creates a system of female supremacy.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/bramble.png?resize=573%2C230&ssl=1)
Shrekem, meanwhile, turns to the work of eminent historian GirlWritesWhat for evidence that women were never oppressed in the first place:
![Shrekem 9 points 13 hours ago (12|3) The problem is that women were never oppressed or deprived, they just had different roles. Women are certainly not "equal" to men today, they receive special treatment and are immune to many laws that would get a man locked up for life. I recommend you watch Karen Straughan's video on "When female privilege backfires". permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]villevillakulla -4 points 11 hours ago (4|8) I guess it depends on how you define oppressed or deprived, but it kind of sounds like you're full of shit, and "different roles" can be a blanket statement to mean anything you want it to mean. permalink source save parent give gold [–]Shrekem 5 points 8 hours ago (6|1) I would define oppression as "the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner" just like everybody else. I challenge you to come up with one example of women being oppressed in western society in the past few centuries. The treatment of women is nothing compared to real oppression like that of blacks during slavery.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/shrekem.png?resize=567%2C377&ssl=1)
IHaveALargePenis, in addition to being highly confident about his relative penis size, is also a bit more optimistic than his peers, suggesting that the irresponsibility of evil slutty single moms will eventually end up annoying not only single men but other women as well and thus, I guess, help to spark a new wave of antifeminism:
![IHaveALargePenis [+3] 5 points 12 hours ago (6|1) Government taxing bachelors to sponsor single moms/women in general. If shit keeps going the way it's going, everything women need will be provided by a government, while working less and claiming there's still a pay gap. It won't take a genius to put two and two together and realize that the benefits women get from the government, plus the benefits they get from working are huge compared to what men pay/get out of it. But that's not when things will change, not yet. What we're going to see is a rise of single, irresponsible moms who breed and have their lives paid for by taxpayers. And part of those taxpayers will be other women, who can't find men willing to "breed with them" or marry them, etc. These women will be working 40+ hours a week easy, will sacrifice greatly, miss their chance to have kids, and realize they're paying for all these irresponsible women to have their cake and eat it to (our society is pretty good at rewarding the irresponsible). That's when things will change.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ihavealarge.png?resize=580%2C276&ssl=1)
But Scoundrel, a more pessimistic sort, can’t imagine any scenario that would get the evil femmies to admit that men are oppressed:
Sorry, IHaveALargePenis, but you’ve been outvoted.
Meanwhile, loose-dendrite, off on a bit of a tangent, warns those who might otherwise be susceptible to feminist-think that seeing similar numbers of men and women in positions of power would not be a sign of gender equality — but rather a symptom of FEMALE TYRANNY!
Huh. I was unaware that high IQ was a prerequisite to power in our society. Did anyone tell George W. Bush?
In conclusion, MRAs have once against shown that they can use any and all evidence to “prove” what they already believe. Another flawless victory over the forces of reality.
Sorry, idk it. But your comment before that is spot on.
Cloudiah: In fairness, not many people seem to be falling for that one. (I’m awfully amused by the idea of a woman just randomly going back through the trash and finding a positive pregnancy test and instantly believing she’s pregnant without any other confirmation.)
@katz, NWOslave? It sounds like his kind of sarcastic rejoinder.
Also, I want a cookie.
Cloudiah: Ding ding! Have a cookie!
Nepenthe, feel free to read the next page of that thread to hear Ozy and other smart people explain how it is.
Usually women look to see whether the pregnancy test is positive or negative themselves before they throw it way. #pointingoutheobvious
@grumpycatisagirl, Wow, really? I have spent so many wasted hours looking through public waste bins for discarded pregnancy tests to find out whether or not I am pregnant! I wish someone had told me before.
/feminismHasFailedMe
/sarcasmIfItIsn’tObvious
/sarcasmIsNotDirectedAtGrumpycatisagirlWhoIsAwesome
And now I am going to eat my cookie and go to sleep.
Nepenthe is now going to say that it’s totally different because NWOslave was being transphobic and zie is only saying that religion is wrong. But they both believe there are certain types of personal identities it’s inherently wrong to hold, so they’re both parts of the first camp.
It’s actually difficult to be so very narrow that you only think there’s one correct way to identify on every possible axis, especially since identity can be split into almost infinitely fine-grained distinctions. So NWOslave thinks identifying as trans* is wrong and ridiculous, but being religious is OK. Nepenthe thinks being trans* is OK, but religion is wrong and ridiculous. The Boy Scouts of America thinks it’s okay to be any religion you like, but not atheist. Pat Robertson thinks it’s OK to be trans* if you get surgery (surprised me), but not OK to be gay, and not OK to be trans* without surgery. Etc, etc.
Any one of these could say “But I think it’s perfectly okay to be X or Y, just not Z,” but fundamentally they all think that you don’t have the right to choose your own identity without their approval, so they’re all facets of the same meta-belief.
Meh, it’s not really wasted time for me; I just check any pregnancy tests I find while I’m looking for condoms to spermburgle.
So Pat Robertson agrees with the government of Iran? This does not surprise me at all.
Damnit, my comment was eaten. So I’m going to pretend it was really eloquent. (It wasn’t.)
I am an atheist. I don’t get what Nepenthe’s point is, and I am not feeling generous. I feel like at this point I need to separate myself from hirself — NAAALT.
Lack of sleep/overwork has made me cranky, so I apologize in advance if this is out of line. I have enjoyed many of Nepenthe’s comments in the past, but on this post they are leaving me cold.
Ha ha, stupid Reddit stories. Because it’s totally plausible that:
1. Just when the guy needs a wacky scheme to “get back” at his girlfriend, a female friend just happens to take a pregnancy test that comes out positive IN HIS BATHROOM.
2. He’s able to fool his girlfriend into thinking it’s her pee stick because
2a. it’s coincidentally the same brand she used recently,
2b. she utterly trusts a reading from a pregnancy test that’s been sitting in a wastebasket for days, and
2c. she has somehow forgotten that when she took her pregnancy test it was negative.
3. This whole ruse is possible because the girlfriend is CONSTANTLY TAKING PREGNANCY TESTS. You know, like ladies do.
Not even people on Reddit are dumb enough to believe this.
I like to take my pregnancy tests when I first wake up, just so I don’t forget. I have a nice cup of misandry tea while the test is processing.
Naturally she takes a pregnancy test every day, but the one positive one she doesn’t remember taking is the one she believes.
I wonder how boring your life must be for you to feel the need to write shitthatneverhappened.txts. Unless you’re trolling to see if anyone falls for it, I don’t get it.
And a late hello to leocigale, a new de-lurker!
Hear, hear. NAALT, lol! I know it for sure.
Nepenthe, you do realise you’re essentially sneering at quite a few regulars, don’t you? Those remarks were really assholish.
I’m just going to wait for Mads to tell me if I’m pregnant. No reason she shouldn’t be the Pregnancy Kit.
Mine only tells me when she needs food or if she wants me to cuddle her – pregnancy diagnosing services not included.
I’m thinking it’ll be a breeze to be able to claim Mads is the Pregnancy Kit, considering how, ah, unlikely it is she’ll ever have to say yes. Negatives she’s already good at. 😛
Happily, like a lot of assholish remarks, they’re essentially self-refuting: Zie can’t come up with any rebuttal to “people should be able to define their own identities, even if it’s something weird” except “but then people would believe things that were really weird!“
Pretty much!
… Damn. I was going to ask Mads or Fribs their opinions, but all I’m getting out of them is zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Some debate team they are.
I asked my dog her opinion (and also whether or not I was pregnant) and her response was[singing] Feed me, Feed me all night long – That’s right! – You can do it! Feed me / Feed me all night long / Ha ha ha ha ha! / Cause if you feed me / I can grow up big and strong.
Well, at least she’s demanding kibble and not humans.
I think we should separate identity from belief, although they’re often intertwined. Beliefs are capable of being true or false independently of the honesty of the person expressing them, and therefore the analogy between religion and trans don’t always work, since more or less beliefs may be involved.
For instance, if someone says “I’m trans – because men and women are born with different brain structures, and I’m born with a female brain structure although I have a male body” this person isn’t just telling us her identity, but also that she believes certain things about the brain. That her identity is “woman” could only be proven false if someone were to show that she (or in this case, it would of course be “he”) didn’t really mean that, but was just coming out as trans as some kind of stupid prank. But as long as she speaks honestly, the identity part is pretty much automatically true. The belief part about female brains being different from male ones OTOH, that can be proven true or false by biology.
If someone says “I’m Jewish – and with that I mean that it’s an important part of my identity to observe the traditional Jewish holidays and rituals”, that could be false if the person is just trying to fool us and zie doesn’t really care about Jewishness. But as long as zie’s speaking honestly, the statement is pretty much automatically true. But if zie says “I’m Jewish – I believe there is a God that created us, and I take all the Old testament stories as literal fact”, then the latter part of what zie said could be proven true or false by archeology and other science, and although the existence of God can’t be settled by empirical science, it’s still either true or false, and people may have various reasons to believe it’s either true or false.
When people make a statement which is purely about identity (and you have no reason to suppose they’re not just pulling some kind of prank on you), not believing them really amounts to thinking that they’re just attention whores and they’re just being silly and you know them better than they know themselves, and that’s not okay. But when people make statements that involve various beliefs they have, there’s no obligation to believe them. Always believing people’s belief statements would even be impossible, since it happens all the time that A expresses a belief in P and B expresses a belief in not-P. You should still abstain from trying to convince them though, if their beliefs are a) really important to them, and b) harmless.
And yeah, then we can discuss back and forth if there is such a thing as a completely harmless belief or not, and if so, where to draw the line between harmless and not so harmless ones. Still, that’s pretty much my position.
My sister just rang; her girl Sally has passed over. She had a stroke late last night and the vet came out and sent her Home this morning. 🙁
Sorry to see her go, and sorry for my sister, but – well, glad Sal’s young and healthy again. She was about 16, fairly deaf, arthritic and her sight was going.
This is Sal a few years ago.
Sorry about Sal. Sending beagle kiss (with peanut butter breath) your way. Btw, what breed was she?