Sometimes posts by Men’s Rights Activists seem like transmissions from some alternate universe, a Bizarro world that bears a superficial resemblance to our own but where everything is backwards and upside down.
Take a recent post on A Voice for Men by FeMRA Diana Davison with the seemingly innocuous title “Women don’t own sex.” Ostensibly a response to a piece about rape in the Irish Times, the piece contains a series of bizarre assertions about relations between men and women that Davison apparently thinks she can use as proof that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it’s really women, not men, who run the world. And that men only commit crimes in order to make women happy.
Let’s go through her, um, argument:
Though men appear to rule the world, that is because women treat them like gophers: Go get me stuff.
Really? Perhaps on Real Housewives, but I’m pretty sure most women in the world don’t actually live like the Real Housewives do. Nor do they particularly want to.
A man’s worth in our world is not assessed on how much wealth he possesses, it is based on the level of happiness of his woman.
Really? Here’s Forbes’ list of the 71 most powerful people in the world — most of them, of course, men. You will notice that “the level of happiness of his woman” is not one of the criteria used to determine who gets on the list or not. Barack Obama is the top name on the list; his “woman” outearned him for years until his books took off. The Pope is #5. He doesn’t have a woman, at least as far as I know. Going down the list you will see powerful man after powerful man, none of whom are judged at all by how much stuff they buy their “women.”
But no: in MRA-world men are helpless creatures who exist only to give stuff to women– and who are sometimes even forced into a life of crime to fulfill the feminine need for more and more stuff!
Why do men commit crimes? I’ll posit this: because they need more stuff to make a woman happy or because they have been rejected by a woman shaming them for not being good enough and feel they have nothing left to lose. Committing a crime has a penalty. They need a reason to risk that penalty. It’s going to be primal. Think… think… are you with me?
Uh, no?
MRAs complain endlessly about how women need to “take responsibility” for this and that — which mainly seems to mean that they should sit still while men call them sluts for having sex like men do — but in MRA world men are never, ever, ever responsible for anything they do. There’s always a woman to blame.
Hell, even if a dude rapes a woman who’s sleeping in a bed beside him, he’s not to blame, because in Diana Davison’s bizarro universe lying in a man’s bed automatically overrides the necessity for him to obtain consent before having sex with you.
Men have every right to believe that a woman sleeping in the bed next to them is going to be happily awoken [by sex]. If you don’t want sex, don’t sleep in their fucking bed.
So if you’re a married woman, or you live with a guy, and you share the same bed, apparently he has the right to have sex with you any time you’re asleep in that bed. No matter what. In Diana Davison’s world, no means no, but sleeping in bed means yes. And if you don’t like it, ladies — that’s your own damn fault! Go sleep on the couch. (Or does that make you fair game too?)
Davison then turns to the power of metaphor to clinch her case that women are to blame for everything:
The man is the head of the house but the woman is the neck and she can turn the head any way she wants.
This may be the strangest metaphor I’ve run across in weeks, and as a regular reader of manosphere blogs I’m used to some pretty strange metaphors.
Speaking of which:
Feminists claim that men objectify women but it’s women who think that men are just walking, magical penises and that the penis has the mystical quality of getting them stuff.
I don’t really have anything to say to this stupidity, but I would like to share with you some of what I found when I searched YouTube for the phrase “walking penis.” As you might imagine, a lot of what follows is probably sort of NSFW, unless you work in a sex-toy recycling facility, so view with appropriate care.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Mysterics: you’re wanking in front of more than a few atheists, and we’re certainly not trying to get you to conform to any religious standard. However, we are respectful of our regulars’ beliefs.
We could ask you what you mean, but I’m sick of word salad for lunch.
(Offers a bite of my green curry)
Umm… who are you talking to?
Are they… are they in the room right now?
Yeah I go for the generic seasons greetings unless I know the appropriate religious phrase for the person in question, or are repeating what was said to me.
It’ skitsIt’s just easier that way.But, um, yeah, you’re allowed to criticize a religious concept, the way, say, Athywren just did. Insisting that everyone can use a religious concept however they like? Nope, words have meanings.
“then
stop making outreligious (or spiritual if you’d rather) concepts to be the registered property of a certainracereligion when they aren’t”FTFY
Pfffffft, yes, that was the problem, that we were all just unable to pierce the MYSTERY of you.
You coming in and telling us that references to religion are not and cannot be appropriation, and so Lady Gaga’s burka-thing is A-OK, that had absolutely nothing to do with the feedback you got.
Maybe you can ask a question. Find a mirror, look at yourself, and ask, self, am I being an asshole?
Repeat till it sinks in.
I’m still wondering whether he realizes that Buddhism and Hinduism are separate religions.
But but but but… sometimes I do that and the answer is yes, and that makes me sad! And I don’t like being sad!
@Athywren and HellKell
It’s religious apologism, it’s something athiests should know better than to do, but it’s a tactic religious people use to get atheists on their side and allow them to be immune from the criticism and jokes that other ideologies arn’t, you should know better.
@Argenti
Not even religions own religious concepts, religions ‘plagiarise’ all the time, borrowing aspects from other religions and incorporating them into their own, and frankly I’m often frustrated with religious people claiming something to be original to their religion, when that thing just isn’t. That, and all kinds of people celebrate ‘religious’ traditions even though they are not religious themselves, they might not even be brought up with that religion.
…I should be able to criticize religions when they’re being assholes!
…and that’s why I should be broadly allowed to appropriate from cultures that are not my own!
It makes total sense!
Oh, fuck off, Mysterics.
Howard, I never said references to religion can never be appropriation, and I am highly suspicious that YOU don’t understand the importance of the burka, it is NOT comparable to anything I’ve discussed.
Sometimes I wonder if you really believe I don’t want a civil conversation, if I didn’t I’d be long gone.
Burka… karma…
Hmmm. Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?
I am having trouble believing it, yes.
Stinky sock smell rising, and me with no Febreze in the house.
Is there some kind of dimensional bleeding going on? Who’s saying you can’t criticise religion? Who’s allowing it to be immune to criticism, and why aren’t I being blocked for saying this:
or this:
(I also say happy solstice because it’s a real astronomical event, marking the date which is roughly half way through the winter, and the point where the days start getting longer again as we approach spring, which is nice and means something to me, because brr.)
Because brr is the only important thing in wintertime, says I.
More interesting than the Mysterical blathering is the fact the lows here will be in the 50s this weekend. Fuck yeah, fall is coming to TX! I can finally turn the AC off.
You’re so weird. I’d be going into mourning.
I’d really like to find a place where spring transitions straight to autumn and back again. I get so tired of summer and winter with their sweat-sweat-sweat and their freeze-freeze-freeze…
Winter, fuck no! I should just move to Hawaii already.
You know, I might have an easier time replying to that if I wasn’t sitting around with LBT and pecunium. Seeing how I am, I’m just going to go HUH?!?
Oh, I know! Christmas didn’t originate in Israel, it was a pagan holiday long before that. Because yes, religions do borrow from each other, but the concepts remain very, Very similar. The western // non-religious use of karma does not resemble the original religious use. This is not expanding the definition of sin, or hell, or non-Jews saying oy vey, this is a complete divergence from the actual meaning.
I suppose I must go, those who were actually willing to make an argument I appreciate,but I was actually fairly disappointed that this got nowhere.
I suppose celebrating Christmas is wrong because the Romans appropriated the Birth of Christ from the Israelis,then Romans appropriated Yuletide from the Celts,called it theirs and then tried to kill the Celts for being heretics.
And no, wearing a burka for fun is not comparable to saying ‘karma’ for fun, not in the slightest.
Sorry, got distracted by LBT and missed that we’d moved on to weather. It’s 70 and raining at my parents’ and nearly 90 and quite nice here. Never know I’m not that far from there.
It’s a pretty nice fall day today, at about 12C (54-ish F). I have not yet begun my yearly “why do we even live here??” whine. It’s coming though.
The folks from our other office in Houston are coming up for our Christmas party in late November this year, which I think is hilarious.
Oops, can’t spell my own email address so I got stuck in moderation. Sorry David! All I had to say was this:
It’s a pretty nice fall day today, at about 12C (54-ish F). I have not yet begun my yearly “why do we even live here??” whine. It’s coming though.
The folks from our other office in Houston are coming up for our Christmas party in late November this year, which I think is hilarious.
OT but a lot less so than atheists’ rights to say merry Christmas . . . has anything heard anything more about when Paul Elam’s interview will be airing on 20/20? I’m beginning to think likely never.