So Amanda Marcotte has some thoughts on Sunshine Mary’s post about feminism allegedly reducing women to nothing more than sex objects:
Why should women want the attention of men who see them as nothing more than unpaid servants and semen toilets? …
The alternative to having a hateful misogynist around who expects you to clean up after him, accept his ranting about how women are a repulsive subhuman class whose only purpose is service to men, and to masturbate him without any hope of sexual pleasure yourself is simple: Not being with such a man. As many feminists can tell you, there’s a really pleasant alternative: Men who like women and like to hang out with us and aren’t just tolerating us in exchange for sex and housework.
But what if, as manosphere men (and antifeminist women like Sunshine Mary) like to gloat, you can’t find a man?
Being alone is better than being with a man who thinks you’re part of a degraded class put here to serve him. No matter how much misogynists may rant, they can’t get around this inherent problem in their philosophy, which is that “alone” is always a superior alternative to their company.
Sunshine Mary has responded with a post that basically argues, well, but men don’t like you, you fat slutty feminists — take that!
One of the core pillars of feminism seems to be trying to control how men think about women. We want to be seen as smart, so by fiat order we’ll command men to see us as equally intelligent. We want to be seen as having the ability to be sexually promiscuous, so we’ll command men to hold a positive opinion of sluttery. We want to be seen as beautiful at 200 pounds, so we’ll command men to find us hot despite our obesity.
But it doesn’t work. Men don’t like slutty women for anything other than sex, as the last comment thread here rather conclusively proved. Men don’t find fat women attractive. Men don’t like bitchy, loud-mouthed mannish feminists. Men don’t care about women’s supposed careers. All the commands in the world will only cause men to keep their opinions quiet, but it does not change those opinions. All the attempts in the world at resocializing men to like what feminism has turned women into will always fail because it works against the natural order of things.
Now this is just nonsensical and, you know, not true for all but a backwards and rather assholish subset of men. But it’s what follows that’s really chilling — not chilling because it reflects reality, but chilling because it suggests how punitive and self-hating Sunshine Mary’s philosophy really is.
She argues that feminists find the Manosphere “scary” because manosphere misogynists won’t do what feminists want them to do.
It is scary to imagine that men will stop doing what they are told by women to do. It is scary to feminists in particular because, instead of being dependent on one man like I am, they are dependent on men as a group to fund them.
Men pay the majority of taxes in the United States. Without men’s taxes, student financial aid for Women’s Studies degrees will dry up. Without men’s taxes, baby mamas will starve. Without men financing it, women who are being placed into corporate leadership simply as a response to affirmative action and who then quit these jobs after a year to write tear-filled articles in the Atlantic about work-life balance, demanding even more subsidies from men to ensure that women never need to suffer the consequences for their stupid choices, will cease. I only have to manage my husband’s opinion of me in order to secure his provisioning; feminists have to control all men’s opinions of them in order to secure their provisioning.
Yep, that’s right. Sunshine Mary believes that women are incapable of taking care of themselves and so must depend, essentially, on appeasing men in order to survive. She thinks she’s lucky because she only has to appease one man, while women who actually, you know, earn a living have to appease all men. Because they’re not really earning a living. They’re just playing at earning a living because the men of the world are nice enough to humor them.
But don’t make the men mad, Sunshine Mary warns, because then you’re screwed!
And she seems rather pleased that she can make this threat from what she percieves as her position of relative security.
How fucked up is that?
“Women don’t work, so men pay more taxes, so they’re subsidising women who don’t work so women shouldn’t work in case men stop paying for them”
Well now I know why SSM is so fond of the idea of a rationalisation hamster.
Considering this woman’s got nothing going for herself, she’s sure got a high opinion of herself. She’s a plain lower-middle class housewife with no accomplishments outside of having children and an unremarkable husband and children who spends an enormous amount of time pissed off on the internet. Her claims of extraordinary beauty and wealth and happiness just don’t hold up. That’s OK. I wouldn’t say I’m a super happy person, myself. I wouldn’t say I’m hot as hell or look much younger than I am or that I have a superstud husband or enough money for others to envy though either. She sure spends a lot of time telling herself and others untruths.
The Eldersluts makes me think of dragons in skimpy outfits raining fire down on the terrified men of manospheria. As for sunshine Mary even if she is right about women depending on men for provision she has made the wrong choice. The chances of every man in the USA just not paying their taxes or staging an armed revolt to overthrow the feminist regime are pretty fucking slim. The chance that you are unlucky and end up with an abusive asshole who uses the fact that you are depending on them to “provision” for you, to abuse you and make it nearly impossible for you to leave are unfortunately high especially if you are looking for the sort of asshole who thinks like sunshine Mary.
I think SSM is trying to convince herself just as much as she is trying to convince her readers that she’s happy being a puppet of a wife.
@thenatfantastic- I think the rationalization hamster is cute! I want to take her home and feed her alfalfa…
You’re right, hamsters are too cute for SSM.
Even if they are homicidal little monsters.
We had a suicidal hamster when I was a child. It used to climb to the top of the cage, hang upside down & then drop.
It wasn’t very successful at it.
So’s Puff, I still love him! And he’s actually a homicidal little monster — aggressive carnivore, versus cranky herbivore. He’d probably attack a hamster despite being an inch long little fishie. (Seriously, his species has been known to go after anything they get put in with, no matter how large, strangely, he doesn’t attack my hands, I think he may be smart enough to know not to literally bite the hand that feeds him)
Not that I know it’s a boy, or will ever know, but my 55g has my gorgeous cory girls, so I figured I’d even it out. His tank is below theirs though, so MISANDRY!!
First, a side bar: thank you Mr. Futrelle for removing the link to the images that were stolen from my private Facebook account. The first picture depicts my sister and four of my children. The second picture depicts the back of my daughter’s head; there is also a man whom I don’t know off to the right in the picture who probably wouldn’t appreciate people claiming that he is my husband. If people want to come after me, fine. I’ve made myself a target and expect it. But my children and random strangers in my private photos should be left out of it. For that reason, I aggressively pursue copyright violations of my stolen images.
Second, I’ve never claimed that my husband is an uber-alpha nor that I’m some beauty; other people have said that, and I have denied it. In fact, I have repeatedly said we are dead average looking. I’ve posted pictures of us on my own blog (this is me, this is him – not especially beautiful people…middle aged and plain).
Third, obesity is a health epidemic in our country; feminists are doing no one any favors with their delusional fat acceptance movement. I’ve been very open about the fact that I struggled with my weight in my thirties, at one point ballooning up to 185 pounds (I’m 5’7″) after the birth of our last child. Going by what feminists say, I should have just accepted that and told my husband to suck it up and deal with the fact that he had a chubster for a wife. Instead, I got my butt in gear on the treadmill and slimmed down considerably in my 40s, but it is still a daily struggle. To say that men on average find fat women attractive is simply denialist. Most men do not. It’s that simple.
Yes, you have correctly summarized my position. That is exactly right. Women in general are less productive and, without investment from men, would be unable to support themselves. Women make up the overwhelming majority of recipients of government aid; men pay the bulk of income taxes. Do the math.
I have not made any threats. I have been the recipient of a number of fairly violent threats and violent fantasies from feminists (here is one of many examples, some of which they’ve post on their own sites, but I have never personally retaliated by making any threats of my own. Why are feminists so violent?
Speaking of my gorgeous girls, I’ve got at least four babies from them and they’re getting big enough to just spot, no searching, just lean over he tank and SQUEE!!
And I think I’ve got a 2:1 female:male ratio for the parents, which is pretty much ideal (I’m not sure why, the females can [and do] lay 50+ eggs and each clutch of 10~ can be a different set of sperm so *shrugs* but apparently you want more females than males and my girls are gorgeous, never seen a reddish aenus before! [I don’t think any of these are hers though])
SSM… *Sigh* You read her stuff, and the reaction is this perpetual oscillation between pity and disgust. She’s just so much awful rolled into such a tiny package. She’s, like, the textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome as the basis of a relationship.
And my fish squee got interrupted by fat shaking, useful that.
You may want to google “health at any size”. The point being that fat =/= automatically mean unhealthy and thin =/= healthy. You can be overweight (particularly by the seriously shitty BMI measurement where athletes are often “overweight”) and be healthy, and be thin and not be healthy.
Since I expect you’ll try claiming I just want my fatness accepted, I’m a scrawny ass.
Shaming*
That was a case of fat-finger-itis on my touch screen, can’t even blame autocorrect for my hitting the wrong damned key. (I’ve been spoiled by touch typing, having the look at my keys is still weird)
Sunshine, if you think, as I understand you do, that women should not be out in the cutthroat world of private sector “productivity” because it interferes with her family obligations, and you also likely oppose the universal state-funded childcare provisions that would make more female “productivity” possible, then does it not strike you as a natural outcome of this that men wind up paying more taxes?
Someone still has to look after the young’uns. It usually either doesn’t pay, or pays really poorly. Which is not to say it’s unproductive. I hope, even if it adds nothing immediate to GDP.
I am also not so sure about women being net beneficiaries of gov’t spending. Last I checked, things like defense and agribiz subsidies made up a bigger proportion of our actual spending than food stamps and er, women’s studies programs.
(What is MRA’s deal with Gender/Women’s studies anyway? Do a lot of people get those degrees? Is that inherently stupider than getting degree in philosophy or marketing or Latin-American studies or poli-sci? Or is it just that gender isn’t worth talking about academically?)
Also, why don’t MRAs go into Gender Studies and pursue their interests more systematically? It seems like an area that interests them a lot; they’d shake things up and maybe learn some things in turn.
Mary: why would you confuse childfree women with feminists? I know you’re not smart, but come on. If you honestly think all women who don’t want kids are feminists, you are fucking delusional. I’ve seen some serious anti-woman shit on cf boards, a lot of you would have a lot in common.
So what was I doing before I got married? Oh, right, working and supporting myself.
Since I’m still working and contributing to the household, am I doing feminism or wife wrong?
How sad is it that Mary has Google alerts on herself so she can try to justify her shitty little worldview everywhere? I don’t think it’s us she’s trying to talk into shit.
@Mary Sunshine- You should come meet the people in my grad program. We are all working super hard (full time class plus several part time jobs is expected and the norm), but most of us don’t make any money, because we are in grad school and have tuition to pay etc. Those of us who are unpartnered, or don’t live with our partners, support ourselves (I count in that category). And those of us who are partnered have our spouses to help support us. In several cases, that means a male grad student being supported by his female partner. Which, by the way, was also often how things worked in the 50s and 60s, when a man would go to law school or medical school and his wife would work full time to pay the bills. And then afterwards, she would be expected to drop out of the work force entirely.
TLDR: You know nothing, screw off.
@ hellkell- the answer is extremely. she is extremely sad.
Sunshine Mary: I read that link you sent us. What ‘darkequestrian’ said about you was, indeed, a violent threat, and completely out of bounds. I’d go so far as to label it appalling and disgusting.
But there’s a little piece missing–the part where you identify her as a ‘feminist’. She’s certainly part of the child-free culture. But she shows no sign of being particularly interested in feminist issues at all–click on her Reddit nick and you’ll see a slew of posts about things that are completely unrelated to feminism, and none talking about it. Given that, she’s far more likely to eschew the designation.
Now, I know that conservative Christians such as yourself have a hard time with this concept, but really, try to understand: Not everyone who disagrees with you is part of a single, monolithic team. Pretending that everyone who thinks you’re an ignorant git because of your attitude towards child-rearing, relationships and science (love that “Darwinian religion” bit in your post, so very revealing) is part of a massive conspiracy sent by Satan to oppose you. Rather, you say a lot of things that are wrong, offensive or both, and thus you manage to generate a lot of back-talk from many people.
Some of those people will be the sorts who are violent-threat making douchecanoes, and I genuinely hope that no more of them run across your writings. But when you decide that because one person who dislikes your writing makes such threats, that people from a completely different group are also inclined to be violent, you just wave the flag of your own ignorance proud and strong.
Oh, Mary, honey, women aren’t less productive than men. It’s just that throughout history, men have systematically seized what women produce and claimed it for themselves. Or separated necessary work into “men’s work” and “women’s work” and labeled the women’s work as unproductive.
SunshineMary reminds me of a bluebottle. (The insect variety.)
Now I don’t like the fly, it’s kind of annoying, but being the uber SJW that I am, I don’t really want to spray it.
After all, fly spray is toxic, I don’t want to have to breath that stuff and the planet doesn’t need it either.
Also I realise the fly can’t help being the fly, and even if it was Margaret Thatcher in a past life I really don’t want to spray it with that can of Raid.
So instead, I try really hard to shoo it out of the window, but no matter how hard I try the pesky little fucker won’t get the hint.
So I leave it, try to ignore it, buzz, buzz, buzz…
But in the end I realise – That thing eats shit! Sits on shit and spreads shit!
Pass me the Raid!
Yup! Totally killed that metaphor. 🙂