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I mean, that women have to be punished to the same degree as men for the same offenses and the ‘Pussy Pass’ needs to be rescinded.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:
Interesting how their system is “the majority of people aren’t allowed to vote”.
LBT:
This is known as Libertarians disease.
I want to know what outstanding contributions to literature, science, technology, art, music or anything else this particular small buzzing insect has made. Or is he happy to have no voting rights either? (Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s of the too fucking lazy to vote variety.)
MRA logic:
universal suffrage = TYRANNY!
at least half the population barred from voting = DEMOCRACY!
Which makes it all the more obvious that they do not see women as people.
If the internet allowed for highfives, kittehserfs palm would be sore.
It’s infuriating how MRAs have zero understanding of the difference between what feminist women want and what traditional women want. A feminist has no problem with men opting out of traditional gender roles. It’s the traditional women who engage in the “man up, don’t cry” shaming. But MRAs continually blend the two, which just reveals that really all they care about is hating women.
kittehserf,
don’t overlook this invaluable contribution to literature:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Pill-ebook/dp/B00ANZ1YK2
@Alice
this may be random but it looks like whoever did that cover job badly photoshopped the pill there 😛
Someone MUST have written SFF about a person who helps to define and create the libertarian ideal society in which only the elite/Superman/cream of the crop thrives, while everyone else toils as their serfs — only to find out that they become one of the serfs in this brave new world.
Right? If not, could one of you write it?
Can I break for a moment to say how much the phrase “status object” grates? The idea is that men being valued for their intelligence, talents, and accomplishments is as dehumanizing as women being valued for their looks. That’s not what objectification means, guys. Being valued for your actions is the opposite of being treated as an object. It’s being treated as a subject.
I would be thrilled to the bone to be a “status object.” It would be awesome if being talented in my field made me popular and attractive and tons of dudes wanted to bone me. Especially since I am super talented in my field.
this may be random but it looks like whoever did that cover job badly photoshopped the pill there.
In my day job as an editor, I would be shooting off an email with “C1: Clipping around image; please fix” in the body. I would also take a long, stern look at those margins.
Heinlein did a short story (Coventry) where those who don’t like the “onerous burdens of the social contract” could opt out, and live in a Libertarian enclave.
It opens with Our Hero, boldly setting off to this paradise.
From his perspective, it doesn’t go well; thought it goes about as one might expect.
MRAs prove that they know absolutely nothing about science whenever they decide to opine on it. (To be fair, I can’t think of anything they’ve proven knowledge of, except hate.)
Male* b/c (besides condoms) is hard, because female* fertility has a natural “off” switch–pregnancy–and isn’t on all the time even when women aren’t pregnant, so the hormonal changes necessary to keep us from ovulating are rather simple. Testes make sperm all the time.
Making a baby is a complex process, and I can’t help but think these MRAs think artificial wombs are near because they discount anything female, but we understand neither development nor the making of artificial organs enough to do anything like that. We did make the first artificial hamburger recently, and we’re getting better at tissue engineering (basically, getting the right kinds of cells to grow into the right shape).
I’m all for either of them–I think male contraceptives will eventually show up, but I doubt we’d get an artificial womb in my lifetime. I’d love it, though–I think MRAs would be surprised at the numbers of people with uteruses who would love a chance to make children without using their own.
On the other hand, we have found viruses the size of small bacteria that have genes for tRNA and therefore might transcribe some of their own proteins, so that it kind of awesome. (Basically: these “giant viruses” pose a question to the dividing line between living and non-living, and expand the range of diversity in structure.)
* I’m talking about the kinds of bodies that get you assigned-male-at birth or assigned-female-at-birth
I just sold a story set in a postapocalyptic world. The narrator grew up in a libertarian separatist community that ultimately failed because they only invited one doctor and people wouldn’t stop pooping in the water supply.
I was inspired by Reddit Island.
The obsession with artificial wombs doesn’t really make sense unless you look at it from the angle where removing women from every aspect of life is a desirable goal. MRAs can still hire a surrogate, which is a fairly common thing, though expensive. Plus, I really doubt that an artificial womb would be all that cheap, so why is that seen as so vastly superior to hiring a surrogate? It’s not like someday Artificial Womb are going to be at Walmart between the Redboxes and the Coinstars.
@Face, according to teh OED, both the spellings “tsetse” and “tzetze” are acceptable. As is “tsetse.” http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/207096?redirectedFrom=tzetze#eid
Ack. The OED.
I actually typed that horrible “teh” word. No. Bad me.
my bad. XD
And I just realized that was not the intended emoticon. :/
Huh. Female only health care. You mean health care where the woman’s doctor might recognise the symptoms of a heart attack?
“The study also found that women often fail to realize that they are having a heart attack – and so do doctors. This is because heart attack symptoms in women can be different than they are in men. The symptoms we most commonly associate with a heart attack, like pain in the left arm and tightness in the chest, don’t always occur in women. The study found that 42% of women who have heart attacks never experience the “classic heart attack symptom” of tightness or pain in the chest. Instead, they may develop pain in the back or jaw, light-headedness, nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath.”
http://feministing.com/2012/02/23/for-women-heart-attacks-look-different-and-so-do-heart-health-outcomes/
I can’t even finish this right now. Will come back later to read the rest.
@Shaun DarthBatman Day
I will never be able to tell if Im having a heart attack, because almost all of those sympmtoms are very common for me, minus vomiting and shortness of breath thank god.
It’s totally okay, Fade. I always appreciate an excuse to look something up in the OED. 🙂
Also I just realized I typed “tsetse” again when pointing out the third acceptable spelling of the word. In that place I should have typed “tzetse.” So obviously I am in no way superior.
Education tailored to the respective genders natural inclinations?
Sounds like a call to insure that girls don’t get more education than what’s required to clean up after men and gratify their boners. After all, bitches ain’t shite when it comes to thinking or hard work right?
“Girls are all about unrestained frivoloty, dancing around, being unable to listen, and require strong leadership in order to make them do anything beyond merely prance around. ”
I’m frankly amazed that I can get anything done, what with my incessant prancing, chirping, and babbling.
It only stops when the organ grinder takes a lunch break.
Oh wait…
Wait, I thought boys were unable to listen or sit still, which is why all of their feminist teachers ply them with medication and give them big fat Fs in every subject.