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.
you guys have probably seen this parody blog already, but it definitely helped me ease off my habit of hate-reading sunshine’s blog to, like, shock myself awake or something. There’s even twilight fanfic… http://sunshinegary.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/new-twilight-fic/
Oh and she’s wrong about birth rates. Replacement rate is 2.1~ in developed nations! a smidge higher in places where premature death is a bigger problem, and the US rates?
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/05/17/explaining-why-minority-births-now-outnumber-white-births/
Whites and Asians are just under, Hispanics are over, and blacks are just on the line. So nope Mary, Hispanics aren’t the only ones reproducing at replacement rates. Not that a fertility rate that close to replacement rate is a problem in a country such as the US.
Anyway, are Catholics non-Christian by you? Or did you miss where lots of Hispanics are Catholic and thus them having more kids means more Christians?
Oh, right, you somehow missed just how much of the US is Christian and decided most people aren’t Christian (about 75%, if you include Catholics)
——
Saying “Christian” so many times reminds me…they’re looking for an actor for Christian Grey. They’re turning 50 Shades of Fucked Up into a movie. The end is neigh!
That first ! Is a , corrupted by autocorrect >.<
Argenti – I don’t know if I want to see this movie. I know it’s going to be bad. How are they going to remove the domestic abusive overtones inherent in the novels is beyond me.
Alice — oh I’m watching it, I have a thing for horrible movies, they make being elbow deep in potting soil or fish shit less sucky. (I also have a thing for, uh, “acquiring” media…)
So if women have lost all their power and men are in control, why did I just spend two days over on Ally Fogg’s blog arguing with a bunch of brainless MRA’s who were screaming about how men have no power and OMG TEH WIMMINZ GET EBBRYTHING FROM TEH SOCIETY!
What the hell did I just read? This was an actual conversation on that thread:
Men 4 Justice Guy: More women than men work in the public sector. This is clear anti-male discrimination, but the government never tries to recruit men for those jobs.
Blog Lady: Yes it does. Here are links to several initiatives to recruit men to teaching, nursing, and preschool care.
Men 4 Justice Guy: Teaching, nursing, and childcare? That’s women’s work! Are you suggesting men lower themselves to such inferior drudgery? How will they impress babes?
Blog Lady: But those are the female-dominated public sector jobs. You just said you wanted more men to do that work.
Men 4 Justice Guy: I didn’t mean THOSE jobs! I meant the GOOD jobs! Men should get all the high-paid, high-prestige public sector jobs. Women can go on doing the crap work.
Blog Lady: Men already dominate the high-paid public sector jobs. It’s just most public sector jobs are low-paid.
Men 4 Justice Guy: I’m on to your feminist plot. You’re trying to trick men into accepting teaching and nursing jobs so all the female teachers and nurses can go be millionaire doctors instead. Even though doctors are supposed to be boys and nurses are supposed to be girls.
Blog Lady: …Okay, sure.
Shaenon – Wat?
Argenti – I’m of two minds about it. Hm.
Blog lady is a man, but otherwise Yahtzee!
these people have lost the plot
You mean they’re renaming it The Old Grey Mare?
Hmm, what actors can we think of who suck enough to deserve being stuck with these roles?
Kristen Stewart and Hayden Christensen.
I’m not sure that Christensen is up to the role, honestly. Is there a part where Christian is in a coma? That would be just perfect for him.
Also, a feminist girlfriend might well finger you where Sunshine doesn’t.
(since we’re going down the gutter)
I don’t get how the last sentence follows from the first many.
Does Just Saying believe that men getting pleasure is a bad thing that only dumb people would try to increase?
Like, I… What? I understand a world view that assumes “Sex” is something women “trade” for “Marriage” and “Protection”, in much the same way I understand the rules of Dungeons and Dragons – I can see how the assumptions of the system work together to create an imaginary world you can participate in with other people, far removed from the constraints of reality, loosely based a shared assumption of the fiction (I believe the term is: “Zing!”)
But where does all of that lead into women being dumb?
At worst they’d be “Financially irresponsible”; selling themselves short because they now offer oral sex without a commiserate nuptial agreement and sometimes agree to try anal without a ring on their finger. Not as much “Sluts” as “Poor traders”.
All of David’s comments (And you lots), which is really just the same person speaking to themself, as I am doing with me and us right now to communicate their confusion with those words, are spot on different things, but, still… Sure, fear and anger and confusion and rage, all right, but where does the stupidity enter into it? Why?
The only explanation I can think of is that Just Saying wants women to trick men into marrying them in order to fullfill some gender-thing all women must, and when they don’t, but just give sex for free to men who need it like they need oxygen and cuddles, they don’t live up to their potential, but…. I just….
Aw. My brain. Our brain. The brain.
Katz, I’ve actually been working on a theory about Kristen Stewart’s acting based largely on Snow White and the Huntsman, and it goes like this:
That’s what the director told her to do.
Seriously, I have seen so many women who can clearly act and have acted in other projects take the lead on a movie with a lot of movie involved and suddenly they aren’t acting; they’re working as hard as they can to be a blank slate, a empty space for the viewer to project their sexual fantasies.
Lara Croft was like a two-hour exercise in How Not To Show Emotion. Lips turned ever so slightly, in a way that reads as sexy, now do stunts! Lots of them!
Part of this theory stems from having seen KStew actually act once or twice, in those movies where she wasn’t headlining. When not headlining actual emotions are allowed to show on her face, and stuff.
This has been a very long derail to say, Hate Tha Game, Not Tha Player.
😛
It seems that, as always, for MRAs love & affection never enters into the equation. The idea that people might feel anything towards each other beyond lust or greed. Or even that people might find the giving and receiving of pleasure fulfilling in itself.
MRA het-world – such a sad, cold place.
Well, I’m anti-porn if that wasn’t obvious. When kids get their sex education and expectations of sexual relationships from porn, as they do a lot these days, that makes it easier for predatory men and boys to pressure girls and women for sex they don’t want, i.e. for porn sex which is typically abusive and exploitative. Porn is produced by misogynistic older men to profit from the sexual exploitation of mainly young women, and it’s packaged and sold as a legitimate sexual fantasy for youth to emulate, instead of being exposed for the industrial model of sexual exploitation that it is. Huge industry as it is and taking how mainstream the reach is today, it would be stunning if it weren’t having an effect of kids’ socialization and expectations about sex and relationships.
My reading is that Just Saying tries to pin the blame for pornification, which he sees as a good thing, on feminists and feminism, which is of course crazy. It’s predatory men’s fault and the fault of the industries they’ve built, as well as silence on many others’ part.
I didn’t argue that sexual abuse didn’t exist prior to porn. I do not blame women and girls for their victimization at the hands and genitals of men. I think it would be terribly naive to expect young women and girls to deal with the misogynistic shit poured down their necks by the bucketful by the rape and porn culture and somehow not come through that with their expectations changed for the worse, hence the “openness” to abuse which I think in many ways is real and growing. This is grooming for sexual abuse, make no mistake, and it’s irresponsible if we as adults don’t deal with it. Similarly, I won’t for a second believe porn isn’t changing the expectations of boys and men for the worse. Insofar as women and girls are able to live authentic, sexually and otherwise liberated lives, that’s in large measure thanks to feminists and is in my opinion being seriously undermined by the pornification of everything.
On afterthought, my previous joke seems to be veering off topic and into prude-shaming, which I do not condone. I maybe should limit the number of these one-liners and try to compose a real comment sometime.
Just Saying is the OP quote, M.H. is right above this and on the top-ish of the first page.
I was thinking Keanu Reeves for Christian — his career is already shot and overacting is what he does best.
Booooooo! Keanu is versatile! He can overact AND underact!
@Howard Bannister, yes, I saw Snow White & The Huntsman and I was surprised to find that KStew actually can act. She’s also a pretty cool person IRL, and between the Twilight stigma she’s already carrying, and the whole “scandal” of her making out with her director (for which she was removed from the project and he was not), I really wouldn’t wish any more career-killers on her.
OTOH having the same actress as both Bella and Anastasia would really drive home the whole “this is Twilight fanfic” point…
Sunshine just left this gem on today’s post, which is about whether men should ever marry non-virgin women;
[ssm: A simple solution: no welfare for sluts together with adoption for unintended
pregnancies in unmarried women. This is exactly the way it was prior to about 1970. It is far better for a child to grow up in an loving, two-parent adoptive family than with a slutty single mother.]
This women just oozes with Christian compassion.
Stealing babies and putting them in taxpayer-funded institutions until/unless a rich married couple decide to adopt them and spend money on them doesn’t sound like the best use of resources, IMO. Precisely how many children who are already in the adoption system has SSM taken in?
FSoG, starring Gilbert Gottfried and Fran Drescher. Alternate casting – Crispin Glover and Rosie Perez.
DOES NOT COMPUTE.