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?
“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.”
Okay, I’m willing to take that statement at face value. But it contains a disconnect. Hasn’t Sunshine Mary just made a case which says it’s impossible for men to hear what women have to say? Hasn’t Sunshine Mary just proved* that men can’t be controlled by women?
*yes, I know she hasn’t really proved it, but she’s stated it emphatically — which in her milieu is equal to “I proved it”
Sunshine Mary: Is it her MO to leave a turd and disappear without even trying to defend what she says?
You really believe that? Women are completely unable of taking care of themselves in the big bad world? How sad. You must live in a constant state of fear. This reminds me a little of what Matt Forney said, that if all women lost their jobs tomorrow then society would just go on as usual. Because, of course, women don’t work real jobs and any job a woman works isn’t a real job because its a job being done by a woman (ahh! It’s a Möbius strip of stupidity!). Of course, I’ve always believed that one of the major goals of feminism was to make the playing field level and equal for men and women, by closing the pay gap and getting rid of the glass ceiling and encouraging women in the STEM fields and exposing sexist hiring practices and all that. And I’m pretty sure that most women, being adults, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves without a Big Strong Rich Man to take care of the little dears.
And as far as fat acceptance goes? You’re conflating the health risks of obesity with the social consequences of being fat. And conflating fat acceptance with “all men have to be attracted to fat women.” 1. Yes, healthy living should be encouraged because it cuts down on human suffering; but not all fat people are automatically unhealthy because they are fat. And shaming is a horrible way to get people to take care of themselves; it just doesn’t work. Education and support work. 2. Fat acceptance is about combatting the stereotypes we have of fat people; stereotypes that have nothing to do with a person’s health and everything to do with appearance. And judging people based solely on appearance is what now, children? That’s right, prejudice! 3. No one is saying anyone has to be attracted to anyone else. What is being said is that not everyone is attracted to the narrow definition of “beauty” that society has, and that those who do not fit that narrow standard (which is most people, really) are as deserving of respect and live as those that do. And that it is ok to be attracted to someone who does not fit the culturally approved beauty standard.
It might blow your mind, but us fatties are perfectly capable of finding love. And having long term relationships. And having hot sex. And being perfectly happy with ourselves and our lives, despite what random guy on Internet thinks.
Might want a doctor to look at that.
“Sunshine Mary: Is it her MO to leave a turd and disappear without even trying to defend what she says?”
Yep
Katz — I missed an e, I was referring to corydoras aeneus, which are supposed to be green. But I’m fairly sure she’s an aeneus, and she’s reddish.
According to Sunshine Mary’s post from today: http://sunshinemaryandthedragon.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/i-would-rather-be-owned-by-my-husband-than-owned-by-the-state/#comment-31533 working women and feminism are responsible for the sorry state of the world today.
Actually, what have women traditionally produced that was of value? Babies. It’s sort of our niche. And men have traditionally provided the bulk of the resources needed to raise
those babies while women cared for the home and children. It seemed to work pretty well and most people liked it just fine.
If women just left the workforce and provided unpaid labor to their husbands, their husbands would earn more money, there would be less unemployment, and all would be right with the world. You see, feminism is an evil marxist plot.
Call me old fashioned, but I think I liked it better when it was just our husbands “seizing what [we] produced and claiming it for themselves.” I would much prefer working for my husband’s benefit than working for the state’s because my husband loves and cares about me, but the state is a nameless, faceless entity capable of loving and caring about no one. The ultimate goal of feminism is the total destruction of the family.
Sunshine: Women make up the overwhelming majority of recipients of government aid; men pay the bulk of income taxes. Do the math.
Childrend, actually. That means, for reasons you support, women get the checks; because when men abandon their families the women can’t make ends meet.
Since you think women who fail to appease “their” man deserve to be left, you either think those children/women should starve, or you support them getting the bulk of benefits.
Men pay the bulk of taxes because of… (wait for it) the wage gap. Since women’s labor is devalued, and denigrated (see the writings of Mary Sunshine for examples of same) they don’t earn as much as men. Since the tax system has some pretense of fairness, those who make less, pay less.
Concommitantly, one would therefore expect the group which pays less to be the group which most needed to avail itself of the social safety net.
Of course you leave out the indirect ways in which men are the direct recipients of gov’t aid. Highway workers… taxpayers provide their salary. Prisoners… not only are they housed/clothed (inadequately in many cases) at gov’t expense, the people who oversee them are paid for with gov’t money (often at an exhorbitant rate through the use of privatisation of prisons).
Cops, firefighters, soldiers, politicians; and the support staff who make that possible… They are all “beneficiaries” of gov’t money. Tax dollars at work (you may have seen some evidence of this in the earlier part of this month, when many were furloughed).
You also (quelle surprise misrepresent the issues of fat acceptance and health. Feminists (and others, it’s a larger movement than that) argue that reviling fat people is unfair, unjust and bigotted. You think it’s morally decent. I know which of those positions is more christian.
As to health, yes, obesity causes health problems, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be mitigated, nor that fat people are ispso facto unhealthy.
Of course SunshineDipshit thinks HER definition of family is the only definition.
Alas, is the appeal to tradition supposed to be an argument for traditional gender roles?
@sparky
SSM’s whole post is about how women live in constant women-specific fear, the freaking title is “Scary Reality”.
SSM argues that “feminists” or women tricked by feminism (a group that apparently includes: working women, single mothers, unmarried women, fat women, promiscuous women and non-submissive wives of limp-dick white knights) may pretend that their lives aren’t bowls filled with misery, but she not fooled.
So did shielding herself from the malevolent forces of feminism lead to contentment and life without fear? Err, not really.
Latter in the comments a male poster talks how men also experience fear and dread about their uncertain future. But since talk like that may lead to discussions about the human condition and how all adult humans live, it was ignored so they can get back to harping on fat slutty single mothers and the husband filled joy they will never ever know because Feminism.
So… if men stopped working and paying taxes, women would totally die, but if SSM’s husband disappeared she would “manage somehow.”
“As to health, yes, obesity causes health problems, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be mitigated, nor that fat people are ispso facto unhealthy.”
My favorite, which I’m sure you’ll understand, is the reverse of the assumption that being overweight is the cause of most joint problems. So, since I’m thin, they’re just “weak”, exercise them more (meanwhile, in the real world, the vast majority of knee related exercise makes them lock and go all owies [swimming is pretty much the one exception, and it doesn’t put actual pressure on my fucking knee])
And your scrawny ass gets the same “you can’t be that size and healthy” don’t you? Whereas “normal” weight people are assumed healthy? But I know it’s true for you, and more or less for me, that actually falling in the “normal” range means eating junk, and lots of it. (I hover right on the line usually, so I don’t have to binge on junk food to fall just barely into normal)
Oh, you want more stupid from meds psych? She questioned my weight being one pound less than it was when she weighed me two weeks before. ONE POUND! Because that isn’t normal fluctuation or anything. (I pulled an excuse out of my ass, it was easier than trying to teach her anything)
@Sunshine Mary: Alrighty, so according to your argument, men are more productive because they pay more taxes? But, let’s say your statement that men pay more taxes is true…that only makes them “more productive” because the metric by which you are measuring productivity is financial. – You’re arguing that women are only able to sustain themselves financially through the help of men.
But if we flip this all on it’s head and look at it another way, the argument could go thus: women are more productive because they invest more in the upcoming generation (i.e. children). If we change the metric by which we view productivity, we can change who we determine to be most productive. So, something like – men are only able to sustain their family through the help of women.
Or to keep your initial metric of productivity (financial)…if your argument is that women in the workforce are still reliant on pleasing men (because men pay more taxes)…then men who are in the workforce aren’t independent either…because they ALSO rely on pleasing other men (who pay taxes) to sustain publicly funded programs.
Which is to say…all of your ‘analysis’ is based on the faulty logic of lumping all men and all women together and then attributing blame/praise onto the whole group based on some slight statistical variations.
Men pay the bulk of taxes because of… (wait for it) the wage gap. Since women’s labor is devalued, and denigrated (see the writings of Mary Sunshine for examples of same) they
don’t earn as much as men. Since the tax system has some pretense of fairness, those who make less, pay less.
According to Sunshine, the wage gap is a myth perpetrated by feminists. There is no wage gap. It’s not men’s fault women want to major in women’s studies and liberal arts instead of high paying stem fields.
She’s written extensively about this on her blog.
Awwwww, Mary quoted me! I feel totally special or some shit.
So once again, let me see if I understand this properly.
When men work and create value, it belongs to them by right. If they have to give any of it up (via taxes, etc.), that is gross injustice.
When women work and create value, one of two things happens. If they are properly married, their husband gets to claim the fruit of their labor for his own, and that’s good and holy and correct. If they are not properly married, or if society is too infected with feminism, then the profit women create goes to…the state? Which is bad?
But there’s no possible way of ordering society such that women create value and then get to enjoy it for themselves. All the money in my bank account, as well as the craft supplies I spend some of it on so that I can pursue creative hobbies, is an illusion.
Argenti: And your scrawny ass gets the same “you can’t be that size and healthy” don’t you?
(TW, weight/body image stuff)
yep. My BMI is about 16.5. I am the lower end of the 2nd percentile. I get lots of, “you need to eat more”. Which is probably true lately, but the amount of eating/working out I have to do to get to the 13th percentile (BMI 20) was 1: incredible, and 2: not sustainable (I was eating something like 4,500 kCals a day, and carrying 30 lbs everywhere I went while walking 10+ miles a day, and doing lots of calisthenics).
The moment I stopped doing that, and went to merely some calisthenics, and running only 35-50 miles a week, my BMI dropped to 18.5, and the 5th percentile.
JustJulia: She’s written extensively about this on her blog.
I know, that’s why I said to see the writings of Mary Sunshine: I expect the Irony to be lost on her.
Hey Mary
If you jump on the idea of “semen toilets” either you really hate semen, deep down, and equate it with urine, or
ur husband is doin it rong
Also, I haven’t been supported by a man since I was ten. My mother and I work to support ourselves, thank you very much.
Plus, being a submissive is obviously your thing – fine! But it’s not every woman’s thing. It is some men’s thing. You don’t have to justify your kinks by universalising them, or hating on people who’re different, you know.
Whatever happened to “love thy neighbour as thyself” and “do not unto others that which is hateful to you”? You seem to have lost the core of your religion with all this hate of women whose lives are different from yours.
Or, as I asked elsewhere – is it envy? You might want to look at your motivations.
He doesn’t know if he’s coming or going.
I honestly feel sorry for her. What a shitty way to exist.
Seriously, I can only imagine what it’s like to need validation so desperately that you’re willing to live poorly and denigrate yourself constantly in exchange for the affections and praise of a deeply unpleasant crowd that perceives you as the best of the worst. As long as you have someone to feel superior to, I suppose, though. Must be comforting.
Pecunium — (TW: more weight stuff, with a side dish of an eating disorder)
I average a smidge over 19, and get the “eat more!” shit, particularly since less than 70F and my hands are likely cold (not that that has ever not been true). My lowest, when I was positively unhealthy? 16 but I have to have a steady diet of chocolate cookies to really break 19, and even then I don’t gain much. Feed me a constant stream of desserts and carbs and I’ve, exactly once, broken 22. Which is, you know, technically healthy. But I felt like a fucking cow cuz I’m not exactly over the whole eating disorder thing (but damned do I love these cookies)
So telling me to eat more? Makes me all triggered and want to eat less. It is flat out counter productive.
And you may be a scrawny ass, but you aren’t exactly bony, you really do make a very comfortable head rest! I’m trying to picture you much heavier and it isn’t working, not unless it were muscle, which really, is how you were heavier in the army, no?
——
I haz permission to spider web the front yard, need to go buy yarn! This is the compromise on being banned from that fake webbing stuff.
Argenti: (more weight issues).
At 13 I was carrying visible body fat; in that my arms were a bit rounded and my veins were buffered. A friend who’d known me for a decade commented on it, “You have got some fat, I can’t see your veins”.
But yes, most of it was some more of the whipcord and sinew which layers my bones
@auggziliary
Yes you quoted my semi-serious summary of SSM’s patronizing self-righteous argument, which is that all women were put on this earth to be a Christian daughter/wife/mother submissive being led through life by superior Godly men. She claims that all women should accept this single God-ordained route to happiness; you and I claim that she is full of shit. Not to put words in your mouth. 😉
Honestly, I usually leave debunking of “Christian Patriarchy” crap to women and men who are Christian, but this unctuous assholery is tough to take especially since they use against GLBT folk as well. Just replace “spinster” with “sodomite”. They prey on normal insecurities and struggles, suggesting that everyone who doesn’t fail in line is deservedly doomed to unhappiness.
My best friend got his undergrad degree in critical gender studies, but I don’t think he’s a manboobzer
But now he’s a master of evil.
Pecunium — gonna assume you meant either 31 and reversed it, or 23 and hit the 1, cuz 13 makes no sense in context. And you’ve seen the difference in my case, though that photo is about ten pounds off my heaviest (and I keep forgetting to send you the other end, perhaps later tonight I’ll get to it)
On topic, SSM has what we dubbed “plank eye syndrome” — she’s worried about the speck in her neighbor’s eye while ignoring the plank in her own (it’s a paraphrase of a bible verse, so she really oughta know better)