What do Men’s Rights Activists want? Based on what they actually do, it’s seems pretty clear that many of them want little more than the right to pester women with endless cries of “what about the menz?” But from time to time MRAs will step forward with little bullet-pointed manifestos presenting their grievances — and their goals — to the world.
So today let’s look at one of these little manifestos, from an MRA calling himself TzeTze Anopheles. It’s pretty revealing. And stupid. But that goes without saying.
Tze Tze starts off by demanding:
A complete rollback of all misandric laws. … It is high time we assigned the systematically unjust, contradictory and oftentimes outright insane feminist laws to the dustbin of history.
So what does Tze Tze mean by this? Well, you guessed it: “Paper abortion.” That is, the right of men to abandon their children without penalty.
Reproductive rights must be bestowed on *both* men and women and the cruel farce that is the current family law regime ended. This entails granting men the right to unilaterally “abort” their responsibility for any child they might have sired for the *exact* same time period a woman has to abort her child.
Huh. If this man lives in Texas, should he have to drive to a clinic in another state in order to carry out this “abortion?”
Tze Tze continues:
I want nothing less than the complete removal of sex from the equation regarding laws. By this I mean, that women have to be punished to the same degree as men for the same offenses and the ‘Pussy Pass’ needs to be rescinded. Additionally, I demand that women no longer be excluded from having to register for selective services. Draft has to be unisex.
Given that there hasn’t been a draft for decades, and that it has been feminists, not MRAs, who have been pushing for women to have the same rights to serve as men, I’m not sure this is the gigantic CHECKMATE FEMINISTS issue you think it is.
Tze Tze’s next proposal is a doozy. Indeed, it’s positively Anthony Zarat-esque in its audacity:
A complete segregation in society with regards to schooling and work. By this I mean girl only and boy only schools combined with appropriate education methods tailored to the respective sex’s natural inclinations. With regards to work I mean creating – as best possible – companies that are male only or female only.
Wait, what?
If Feminism’s claim that women can do everything men can do holds water women shouldn’t have a problem with this since it gives them an excellent opportunity to demonstrate this claim by *deeds* not words. Likewise, I am convinced that men – undistracted by the actions of women and without the necessity to sugarcoat everything they say and abide to a totalitarian politically correct behavioural code – can achieve far better performance than we have at present.
Oh, but Tze Tze isn’t done yet. He also demands:
The creation of male only and female only healthcare, pension funds and other social benefit schemes. And here again I say to Feminists who might have a problem with this: put your money where your mouth is. If women are naturally superior at basically everything – as claimed by Feminism – they should be delighted to no longer have to “carry the burden of the inferior male”.
Yeah, I don’t know many feminists who actually think that women are “naturally superior at basically everything,” or who even think about the genders in these terms.
It just seems a little odd that Tze Tze’s grand political program is based largely on playing a weird game of GOTCHA with the straw feminists living in his head.
And men for their part will know that their labour will no longer be abused in order to pay for the entitlement of western “princesses”. I for my part am convinced this would strongly increase the incentive of men to work hard, seeing as they would be sure to actually be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
I’m pretty sure “men for their part” — and even a good number of MRAs — would see your plan as pretty much the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard.
Tze Tze then throws in some garden-variety libertarian nonsense about reducing the size of government and “return[ing] to the US constitution, the original constitution.”
But it turns out he’s got quite an odd definition of democracy, as he then moves on to demand:
A complete reworking of suffrage.
Oh dear. This doesn’t sound promising.
I believe universal suffrage is unbecoming to any republic. When the mob rules democracy degenerates into a corporate circus, a cesspit where corrupt individuals bribe criminals to pose as politicians and the plebs is fooled and hoodwinked on every level.
Yes, “the plebs is fooled.” What kind of elitist can’t master subject-verb agreement?
As such more democracy is actually *less* democracy, and certainly…less freedom.
Black is white! Up is down! Freedom is slavery!
Cats are dogs and dogs are cats!
What I envision is a mechanism by which merit can be determined effectively and suffrage bestowed accordingly.
Presumably this wouldn’t involve a writing test. (See “the plebs is fooled” above.)
Hence, any individual would have the potential to acquire voting rights but only if he or she manages to demonstrate outstanding merit by, for example, inventing a useful technology, creating a successful business, creating excellent works of art, literature or philosophy (and thus demonstrating above standard wisdom). Naturally, this mechanism would have to be balanced out and its details worked out in a holistic sense.
Yeah, that sounds great.
It was nice of Tze Tze to suggest that women might pass this little test of his, but he didn’t mean it. A mere five days after publishing his little manifesto, he published a post with the title “Why Women’s Suffrage Destroys Democracy,” arguing that
Any country that thus gives women the vote is *inevitably* doomed to devolve into tyranny ere long. There is no other possibility.
Too bad, ladies! I guess the vote is too important to be entrusted to you, what with your love of tyranny and all.
Tze Tze moves on from the question of suffrage to another critical question of our age:
A widespread and stringent inquiry into the feasibility of a male contraceptive pill as well as an artificial womb. These two innovations are of pivotal importance as they will finally create absolute equality between the sexes – something women and feminists claim to support. As such I cannot see and will not accept any rejection of this basic human right of man.
Well, get to work on it, dude! As a man with a superior man brain I’m sure you’ll be able to have both of those invented by dinnertime.
Tze Tze then regurgitates some notes he wrote down while reading Warren Farrell — or while listening to some other MRA regurgitate their Warren Farrell notes — demanding
The undisputed right of any man to opt out of traditional male gender roles in very much the same way women have done. If women reject their role as sex objects then men should equally have the right to break their shackles and no longer act as status objects, as disposable instruments for the advancement of the Feminine Imperative.
Go for it, dude. Be as unsuccessful as you damn well please.
Every man should have the right to live his life the way he choses and *nobody* should have the right to shame him for his individual decisions. If a man doesn’t want to marry or start a family with a western woman (or any woman) that is his *own* prerogative and nobody has the right to judge him for that.
Dude, do whatever the hell you want. I would actually prefer it if you didn’t marry or start a family; you’d clearly be a terrible husband and/or father. Just don’t delude yourself by pretending that the women of the world actually give a shit about what you do.
Tze Tze moves on to the most important issue of all: the right to tell rape jokes in a crowded theater.
Either the complete abolition of all P.C. suppression instruments with regards to women’s sensitivities and their concomitant mob hysteria every time a man makes a “sexist” joke *or* the expansion of these same strict standards to include men as well. Basically, if it is not acceptable to make sexist jokes about women or portray them in less than flattering fashion in movies etc. the same applies for men as well.
Do you actually think it’s against the law to “to make sexist jokes about women or portray them in less than flattering fashion in movies etc?” Have you ever seen a movie?
So either stop demonizing men or allow men to likewise demonize women. Anything else is gross hypocrisy.
Well, you’ve declared women to be intrinsically inimical to democracy already, so apparently you were allowed to demonize women all along.
NOTE: In case any of you were wondering about the reference to Anthony Zarat above, he was an MRA who used to hang around these parts, and who had a rather dramatic proposal to solve all our pesky man-woman problems. This little video will explain:
True, but I’m sure feMRAs like GWW would be happy to share.
Of course, now I feel a squicked out at the thought of that…
Good, why do you think you know what I think and want (both as a woman and as a feminist) better than I do?
Oops – facepalm – posted in wrong thread. I definitely didn’t want to do that.
Pecunium — blue whales I’ll grant, I’m not feeling generous towards algae lately, the feral shit is on an <72 take over cycle still. It's going to cause me to maim myself pulling out my hair trying to remove it. I prefer HAIR ALGAE to this stuff.
Hair. Algae. Motherfucking Hair Algae!! It at least takes over slowly and you can deal with removing it if you only bother with the glass itself (and, honestly, makes a nice touch to tanks that can't be planted because you'll just be feeding your catfish)
So that's 1~2:4~3 and you encounter a blue crab yet? A live, captured, FUCKING PISSED blue crab? Fireplace gloves won't save your fingers, I have no idea why anyone would catch those things, they make nasty look like a complement!
Not specific enough >.<
Solid leather gloves will save you from the possibility of the fucker killing you, but not from the HOLY SHIT LET GO YOU FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING…yeah, they hurt, a lot. An unprotected nip can also cause that wonderful thing known as sepsis. You know, blood poisoning? They hurt, they can potentially kill you, they have a temper to make big cats looks cuddly, and people eat them. I suspect those of you who consider them food are not familiar with the catching them side of things.
I do not like them, in any sense.
It seems worse than that: whoever cares, loses.
Which is funny in that in terms of both marriage and sexual relationships, who cares more about getting those things, feminists or MRAs? Definitely MRAs. In fact I’ve never met anyone who cares as much about those things as the average MGTOW.
I should have added the definition I had in mind – cares about other people’s or animals’ welfare or happiness. The unselfish sense of it. MRAs and MGTOWifonlytheywould care about things, all right, but it’s all about them and their imagined wrongs.
I never quite understood what feminists were talking about when they mentioned “tone arguments”, or the idea that women are expected to be nice to men all the time. That didn’t seem like a thing that happened, from my own experiences. However, seeing pretty much every single manosphere troll here whine about how zie was being polite and all the feminists were being mean to hir…. now it’s like, oh, that. The same goes for the women=irrational* trope. People actually still say that? Yup, guess so.
The Manosphere really is the best argument for feminism.
*Have these people ever been around women? Are we sure this segregation project hasn’t gone through already? Some of the smartest, most rational people I know are women, including two actual logicians (one from philosophy and and one from the math department).
thekidwiththereplaceablehead — to channel Owly…they’re token women, big daddy gov’n makes all employers give job to women even if there’s a more qualified man. So sure they seem smart, but imagine how smart the guys whose spots they stole must’ve been!
Can someone bleach my soul?
In short, No True Scotsman.
I mean, it’s almost like this whole emotions / logic binary is complete horseshit.
If it has, I’mma complaining to the organisers. They weren’t supposed to let the MRAMGTOW dud[e]s have internet access!
They also weren’t allowed to learn extremely pretentious and verbose writing!
True! 😀
Wow. I’ve been away too long, but it’s cool. You all dealt with the little prick beautifully.
This is how people manage to hide behind the “just joking” excuse. Other people are more ready to take the side of the laid-back “jokester” than the person whose feelings they hurt with their “humor.”
“I mean, it’s almost like this whole emotions / logic binary is complete horseshit.”
More often I hear the binary is presented as emotions/rationality.
Human beings cannot be separate from emotions and still make decisions, rational or irrational. So the binary is based on false ideas about how the mind, in the psychological sense, works.
The Spock wannabes can try to act as emotionless as they like, if their argument contains poor internal logic or is based on false premises they need to be called out on it. The whole facade tends to fall apart with a little bit of picking, though.
RE: thekidwiththereplaceablehead
I never quite understood what feminists were talking about when they mentioned “tone arguments”,
I envy you. In my family, I was expected to quietly, calmly argue my right to exist and speak, even when my parents were talking about schizophrenia and institutionalization. If I ever expressed anger or emotion during it, I would have it taken as proof that I was obviously unstable and unable to care for myself. It was one of the nastier things I had to learn wasn’t actually usual and healthy.
I like to point out that the difference between rationality and reason is values. And I would also add that the things often dismissed as icky “emotional” are more accurately described as values. A system of thought that’s devoid of values, even if possible at all, is altogether pointless. All that philosophizing is always towards a certain end, and that end is invariably arbitrary.
“If I ever expressed anger or emotion during it, I would have it taken as proof that I was obviously unstable and unable to care for myself.”
We can’t have you expressing strong emotions about possibly being institutionalized, now can we? That’s an awful environment to deal with when there’s a very real threat.
“A system of thought that’s devoid of values, even if possible at all, is altogether pointless.”
I have problems explaining my value system and that’s where I tend to snag in my arguments. I can point out flaws in my opponent’s reasoning or point out factual errors, but I don’t seem able to defend my world view. I know my values aren’t arbitrary, but I cannot tell people why I think their lack of empathy or readiness to use other human beings is wrong.
@sarahlizhousespouse: I think values are, by definition, arbitrary. They are starting assumptions for arguments about what it means to be a good person. If you believe, for example, that society should provide help to children, the elderly and the disabled, and your opponent does not, there is no way to resolve that difference logically. It’s simply a difference in values, what people emotionally perceive to be good or bad.
RE: sarahlizhousespouse
We can’t have you expressing strong emotions about possibly being institutionalized, now can we? That’s an awful environment to deal with when there’s a very real threat.
Yeah, and that threat wasn’t even all that credible. Way more creepy is that I’m expected to DEFEND MY RIGHT TO EXIST while totally emotionless. (I still remember our mother asking if there were meds that would make me go away. And of course, I smiled at her and said no, and explained gently that she was stuck with me, all very calmly and rationally, and then I went to bed and sobbed like a small child.)
“I still remember our mother asking if there were meds that would make me go away.”
Make you go away? 🙁
I feel for you, LBT. I was never in danger of being institutionalized, but back when the ol’ depression was orders of magnitude worse than it is now, I had to deal with people – people who were supposed to love me – treating my perfectly normal emotional responses like problems to be solved. I adamantly refused to get any sort of official diagnosis and prescription, even though it might have helped, because I did not under any circumstances want to be in the situation where people could treat me badly and then respond to my healthy protest with “You’re grouchy again, go take a pill.”
I can’t imagine how much worse it must be to live with the prospect of hearing that, only with “You’re existing again” in place of “You’re grouchy again.”