In a recent post, dotty reactionary antifeminist Sunshine Mary offers her thoughts on an idea that has become something of a cliche in the Manosphere, and which she agrees with roughly one thousand percent: that “[r]egardless of what feminism may purport to be about, the result of feminism is that women have been reduced to being nothing but sex objects.”
What on earth is she talking about? She quotes one of her readers, someone called Just Saying, explaining the peculiar logic behind this assertion in a little more detail:
Feminists lost long ago. Men are in control – at least the ones that understand. We get to call the shots – now instead of being able to keep house, have children, and cook (very, very few women can cook these days) women are ONLY sex-objects. It is the only thing they have to offer to a man, that will get a man’s attention and to hold it for a while. And we don’t have to marry them to get it …
Feminism has brought about all of the things they say they hate – women today only bring sex to the equation. So I have to thank Feminism – I doubt that young women would be as skilled, or as open to oral sex, anal sex, and every other type of sex, without it. And for that, I say, “Thank you Feminism.” If there were a patriarchy, I doubt they could have ever come up with something as beneficial to men. No one would have believed women were that dumb.
The Sunshiny One uses this as a starting point for a bizarre post purporting to show that “feminism has also reduced many women to being childless careerists who must purchase other women’s reproductive capabilities.”
But let’s forget about Mary for now and take a somewhat deeper look at this whole “feminism reduces women to sex objects” argument — which only makes sense if, like Just Saying, you define the worth of women as consisting only of 1) sex and 2) “housewifely duties” like cooking, cleaning, and bearing children.
If you simply ignore all of a woman’s other abilities and accomplishments, and basically her humanity, well, I suppose you could say that the worth of a woman with no interest in cooking, cleaning, or children was “reduced” to sex.
But what a strange way to look at the world, to base your judgement of a person’s worth on a small subset of human interests and abilities and to condemn them if they aren’t enthusiastic experts in these pursuits. You might as well go around dismissing everyone who’s not a proficient accordion player.
The other strange thing about Just Saying’s argument is that it doesn’t even make sense on its own terms; it requires a willful blindness as to how the world works these days. Women make up roughly half the workforce today. Yet babies are still being born and raised. Meals are still getting cooked. Homes are still getting cleaned. It may not always be a wife in a traditional marriage doing all the cooking and cleaning and baby-raising, but couples — and single parents — are making the arrangements they need to in order to get all these things done.
So is the “feminism reduces women to nothing more than sex objects” simply an indication that certain kinds of men — and women — have a hard time recognizing women as full human beings?
Well, to some degree. But I’m pretty sure that even the most backwards thinking misogynists of the manosphere recognize that there’s more to women than cooking, cleaning, baby-making, and sex.
No, I think their attempts to reduce women to these things stem from their own defensiveness over the gains of women — and not just in the workforce, and in politics, and the wider culture.
Consider how Just Saying describes the sex-having women of today. They’re no shrinking violets. They’re not passive receptacles. They’re “skilled … open to oral sex, anal sex, and every other type of sex.”
In other words, they’re women with sexual agency. They’re women who are engaging in sex for their own pleasure, for their own reasons — not simply as a lure to capture a man to marry.
And I think this makes a lot of men deeply uneasy — especially the sorts of men who inhabit the manosphere. That’s why so many of them are so quick to shout “slut” at the very same women they’re so obsessed with pursuing.
That’s why, when they’re lucky enough to find a woman who’s enthusiastically in charge of her own sexuality, they have to pretend to themselves that sex is all she has.
Sunshine, why do you care about the birth rate? I have four kids but not everyone needs, or wants, a big clan. It’s no skin off my nose if most other people don’t follow suit.
It’s also no skin off my nose if they do.
As for the Atlantic, are you talking about the Kate Bolick story? I read that, too, but she just struck me as just being overly-picky. There are plenty of people of both sexes who I think are overly picky for whatever reason. You know, they’ll claim they just “can’t find anyone” but then reject perfectly nice prospects for what seems like completely trivial reasons.
Whether they become super picky over time or start out that way, they usually don’t wind up settling down and having a herd of kids.
But that doesn’t strike me as being tragic– to me most of ’em seem pretty dang happy. One of my aunties is 50something, never married. Claimed she never found the right man. (I always thought she looked a lil too gleeful about that for propriety’s sake.)
Always thought I’d be like her, but hey, it didn’t work out. 😉
But again, it’s none of my business, right?
@Mary
Bwahaha!
“Men would rather use women for sex (inasmuch as one can “use” a willing partner) than treat them as equals, and that’s women’s fault for wanting to be treated as equals.” You do know why we keep calling you a misogynist, right?
So you support same-sex marriage and adoption?
@Cassandra
Surely they can’t like not being married?
@Nat
I need dis.
Sunshinesoutyourarse:
Bullshit. They’re all in favour of it: they just deny that it exists now, or that it ever has.
Also, what sort of oral sex are you and JustJAQingOff whining about? Women enjoying cunnilngus or fellatio? I don’t see most het men complaining about the latter; is he upset that he might be asked to do something for a woman’s pleasure?
@Nat again
Yes, but are you married?
There you are, going along thinking that we are all currently living in the year 2013, and then some weirdo on the internet goes all “and among the other horrors of our time, some women are having oral sex!”. And then you get really disoriented and wonder if you’ve just been zipped back to some undetermined point in the past via time machine. Are there going to be Morlocks? I’m so confused.
Full disclosure? I usually wake BoyFantastic up on a morning, since we both work from home there’s no need to set alarms and I naturally wake up earlier. I usually do the dishes, clean out the rats and do the tidying, whereas he does hoovering, surfaces and bins. He cooks about 5/7 nights. We have no children, nor do we plan to do so ever, but the sexytimes go from 50-50 effort neutral to more like 80-20 his way in terms of giving.
Suck on that BumshineSquarey*.
(*I know I’m a child)
Oh, no! The brown people are breeding! Someone get the salts for Mary! Better yet, get a crowbar so we can get her head out of her ass.
Mary, just because we could all theoretically fit in TX, we shouldn’t have to.
@Emilygoddess: Your wish is my command – sriracha popcorn recipe
Also alas, I am unmarried. I live with a totes awesome bloke now, but was engaged to an abusive wanker when I was 20. Guess who SunshineMary would have wanted me to spend the rest of my life with?
But a clever child! You get one elephant stamp and a free internets.
No worries Auggz, I just said it because I thought it was a mildly amusing joke! ^_^
*fistpumps*
That reminds me – I spent last weekend with TinyFantastic and gave her a necklace which was a mirrored medallion with Gallifreyan writing on it and she nearly flipped her shit when she found out I’d had it sent from Oz ^_^
Kids eh? You give them something with writing from another dimension on and all they care about is that it came from the other side of the planet.
I don’t wanna live in TX!
I also don’t wanna live in the vast, thinly inhabited regions of Australia. Not just ‘cos it’s too flamin’ hot, but because the land cannot support a European-based society. The environment is simply too fragile for those numbers and those demands. The original inhabitants had worked out entirely how to live in those ecosystems, but I don’t see many people wanting (even if they learned the skills) to live that way, and that’s apart from the little issue of it not being their (non indigenes) land.
C’mon, shinybutt. Tell us which sort of oral sex your little mate’s complaining about and why it’s bad for women to enjoy it. Or are we supposed to service men without enjoying it? I bet that’d just suit your perverted notions.
Sunshine Mary:
Prove it. Prove that: a. The majority of men are unable to view women as human beings and instead only as nearly useless objects for “easy sex.” b. Feminism is a direct cause of men unable to view women as anything other than nearly useless sex objects. Please use things like statistics and original research, not some random dude on the internet’s thoughts about women.
Please prove that: a. Human sexuality is a marketplace; b. the majority of women who want to marry are unable to find husbands (ps, sad individual case studies in the Atlantic doesn’t count; and c. feminism has caused all this. Again, random dude’s ramblings don’t prove a thing.
Kittehs: A lot of days, I don’t want to live in TX. XD The thought of everyone squished in gives me the heaves.
But it’s not like Christians like Mary give a fuck about the environment–they figure they’ll be all raptured away, so who cares?
I almost wish they were right about the rapture thing, just so the rest of us wouldn’t have to listen to them waffle on about useless crap any more.
But … Oz! Yellow brick roads! Wizards! Horses of another colour!
Does that make it the crapture? 😛
It’s kind of like the way I’ve always imagined the Puritans leaving the UK for America going – everyone else gathered on the shore having a party to celebrate their departure.
Cassandra: like this?
Cassandra, are you saying the Mayflower lot were the original MGTOW?
@ nat
I would say that, but the problem is that the people on the Mayflower actually left, whereas…
BWAahahahahahaha!
If only all of ’em had left.
Clearly Mary hasn’t filled out any demographic info lately. Or knows any Hispanic people.
Auggz: to people like Mary, whites have babies. Others breed.
If only all the people leaving Europe had drowned at sea before getting here. I’d be a lot better off.
That said, A Feminist Recipe for yummy Sweet Potatoes and Rice!
you’ll need however many sweet taters/yams you want, peeled, chopped into little cubes!
salt if you want some
vegetable oil in a wok, get ‘er hot!
throw those taters in there! coat ’em with oil, get ’em a wee bit soft
throw some red chili powder on those babies!
throw some low sodium soy sauce on em, toss ’em around, then throw the juice of one or two limes on em, toss ’em around
and let them cook through. The juice and soy sauce will help finish the job.
Add some chopped fresh cilantro, add some rice (white or brown, already cooked), toss around, and EAT. Delicious!