Our old nemesis Fidelbogen — the Would-Be Counter-Feminist Philosopher King — has taken on a dire, if altogether hypothetical, threat to the men’s rights movement as we know it today: the danger that actual activism that benefits men in the real world will get in the way of the feminist bashing that he thinks is job #1 for all good MRAs.
As he argues in a recent post:
Doing good things for men – opening DV shelters, men’s centers, passing male-friendly laws, and so on – is all very excellent and fine, but it does not attack the root of the problem.
This is kind of a remarkable statement for him to make, given that the Men’s Rights movement that Fidelbogen has attached himself to — or at least its very vocal online contingent — has so far succeeded in opening precisely zero DV shelters and/or men’s centers and has successfully lobbied for zero “male-friendly” laws.
Indeed, it’s only in recent months that any MRAs active online have managed to raise even a miniscule percentage of the money it will take to open much less operate a single shelter for men.
But apparently Fidey is worried that even these paltry efforts from MRAs will get in the way of the noble task of yelling about feminists. As he puts it, in LARGE BOLD TYPE so you know he’s extra serious:
Fidey, I don’t think you need to worry for a minute that MRAs are going to actually accomplish anything in the real world. And you can quote me on that,
Oh darn.
On another note, two kind of interesting conversations on blog comment managing happened at Scalzi’s blog and at Pharyngula. (Scalzi’s post is linked in the Pharyngula post.)
And we’re back to the “you want to fire me? well I quit!” paradigm again. It’s pretty easy not to intercourse when nobody wants to intercourse with you.
Not for the more rapey MRAs, and some of our repeating trolls. They seem happy to force the issue. 0_o
p.s. My commenting comment up above shouldn’t be taken as meaning that I think there’s something wrong with the commenting here (except for wishing WP gave you a Preview view), or with David’s moderation policy, or anything like that. I just though they were kind of interesting meta-discussions.
Slightly off-topic, but I’m looking for some examples of appalling MRA/manosphere graphics/posters/memes, etc. Not so much bad design — that’s kind of a given — but horrible messages. If any of you can find some of your favorites and post links here, that would be grrrrreat!
“Fidelbogen can pretend that what MRAs are doing is the result of a tactical decision, and not because of their “leaders” complete inability to get them to do anything productive.”
Except that assumes any of them actually want to do anything productive. Mention men’s shelters and they demand women organise it. No, all they want to do is abuse women, whether in their online rants or in person (I’m using “abuse” in all its senses here). As was already said, hatred of women is all there is to the MRM.
There was a really good post on The Blue Pill maybe a month back… people were asking some MRAs to list anything the movement has you know, actually done to improve men’s lives. Usually MRAs respond by saying the most important thing is to “raise awareness.” Someone said that MRAs have these grandiose aims, but totally fail to realize that activism means you start small.
I once was on r/MensRights, and some of them were bitching about male disposability and shorter male life span. This is a very interesting topic to me, so I posted that a very large part of the gap is thought to be caused by the fact that men tend to ignore their bodies’ warning signs and don’t follow doctors’ orders as carefully as women do. I made a bunch of suggestions for activism, from very small (go to the doctor yourself) to large (maybe do an AWARENESS campaign? With POSTERS?). And that killed the thread other than one guy saying it was more important to look at the “root causes” of that behavior, which apparently precludes any practical efforts. I assume the root causes are feminism and evil.
So I guess you overthrow feminism AND THEN you help men.
“Usually MRAs respond by saying the most important thing is to “raise awareness.””
::snicker:: given most people have never heard of the MRM, and are torn between amused and appalled when they do, I’d say that’s another FAIL to add to the list.
PS “bitching” is a gendered slur, please don’t use it.
D’oh! ‘Bitching’ is one of my favorite words. Sorry, will scrub it next time.
🙂
Anyone else think Fidelbogen has escaped from Bizarro World? He seems to be quite skilled at saying the exact opposite of what a rational person might think.
I only wish he (and the rest of the MRM) had. Then we might be able to send ’em back there.
David, You can find some pretty terrible graphics with equally terrible messages posted by their proud MRA creators on r/mensrants. Other than that, well, it’s just too bad that Artistry against Misandry stopped paying its bills.
Fiddly just wants to remind everyone that it is A VOICE FOR MEN that matters, not doin’ stuff.
It’s right there in the name of the site. Their goal, their purpose, their reason for existing is to use their voice to condemn feminists who are actually doin’ stuff.
RE: Jack Graham
Because – as is well known – hysterical, tautologous over-emphasis is a substitute for an argument.
Have you READ Fidelbogen? The guy is MADE of hysterical over-emphasis. (Not tautological, though, because damned if I can follow his train of thought half the time.)
I figured Jack Graham was talking about Fidelbogen in the first place. I might’ve misunderstood though. His comment was a bit opaque.
I think Jack Graham was talking about Fiddle, ‘cos he nailed it about Victor Zen’s stupid pics in the other thread.
Yeah, I saw that. Graham, if you were being sarcastic… well done.
I love imagining what Fidelbogen’s coworkers and associates must think of him. You know that if he works in an office of any sort he is That Guy, that coworkers must talk about him allll the time to their friends and partners. “Hey, how was your day? Did the Philosopher King do anything funny?” I wish so much that the people who derive continuous amusement from him in real life knew that he’s source of limitless comedy on-line. Perhaps they do. But I wish they would join us.
Is he a washingtonian?
Yeah we could be actually doing something that matters OR we could continue exposing the feminazi marxist conspiracy to steal the sperm from right out under our testicles! Comrades, I think you all understand the importance of foiling this judeo-islamic bedouin plot.
#FidelboganCastro #MRM #malefreedomactivism #ZOG
HM – but can you imagine anyone employing Fiddle? Can you imagine him thinking clearly enough to get any work done, ever?
@ YoullNeverGuess
Everything you said illustrates exactly what makes a “men’s issue” for an MRA: Things like prostate cancer and the lack of funding isn’t an issue because it’s effecting men in a negative way. It’s an issue because feminists are too busy marching about breast cancer.
To me he seems like someone capable of thinking clearly who believes he is of far greater intellectual heft than he actually is and therefore spends a lot of time crafting terrible, opaque aphorisms and recording absurd videos packed full of attempted depth. The thing that’s so entertaining about him is that his lack of clarity clearly comes from his bad impersonation of a true intellectual. I imagine him being unable to get work done due to being so busy bringing new tautologies into the world and generally thinking he is of far too much importance to have to “work.” Do those nanny-state scolds in HR not know that they are in the presence of the Socrates of today?
You know he’s some poor soul’s unbearable libertarian co-worker.
“his lack of clarity clearly comes from his bad impersonation of a true intellectual.”
::snickers:: Not just pseudointellectualism, but BAD pseudointellectualism. The pseudointellectualism where you’re fooling nobody but yourself.
::snickers some more::
In the comments, Fidelbogen’s bragging about this post. You’ve fallen into his trap, David!