Has the Men’s Rights subreddit found its Walter Mitty? Yesterday, a fellow by the name of Mrwhibbley won himself nearly 200 upvotes from the assembled Men’s Rightsers with a tale of terrible misandry at his local Panera Bread.
I am sitting at panera bread. I got here at 6am, when no one was here. After ordering, I took the only comfy chairs next to a nice fire place and started reading. Halfway through my meal two women came up and asked me to move because they wanted to sit where I was sitting.
Ok, but before you say that this didn’t happen, consider this: Only a few minutes ago a woman demanded my seat, and when I didn’t get up to give it to her she simply sat right on top of me. And by woman I mean cat.
I told them I would be done in about 10 minutes and they could have it them. The older woman (only about 35) said “a real man would be a gentleman and offer his seat to a lady”
That is exactly how those “older ladies” of 35 talk these days.
I replied politely that I understand her outdated view that feels women are weak and require special treatment, but that I believed that women are strong and independent and should be treated as equals.
That’s right. Mrwhibbley has installed a Reddit-comment-to-speech generator in his mouth, and can conveniently turn it on when he wants to recite a Men’s Rightsy talking point.
Immediately, another table about 10 feet from me filled with women (4 women over 70 years old) started chuckling. I initially assumed they were laughing at them women, but then one of them said “what ever happened to chivalry? In my day, a real man would have jumped up….and pulled out the chair for the lady. That man is an ass!”
Ah, yes, because all women, across all generations, are united in their goal of making men give up their nice comfy chairs by the fireplace at Panera Bread.
It was obvious that she said it loud enough for me to hear. I politely replied “In your day, you just got the right to vote, and were not treated as equals. Aren’t you glad you aren’t still in your day?”
Oh, snap!
Well, Mrwhibbley sure showed those old hens what’s for!
By the way, women in their 70s would have been born in the late 30s or early 40s.
Naturally. the assembled Men’s Rightsers applauded Mrwhibbley’s great heroism in standing up to the gynocracy.
But this isn’t the first time that MrWhibbley has had this sort of heroic confrontation with evil, privilege-demanding females, as one of the few skeptical Men’s Rightsers in the crowd pointed out. Only a month ago, he had a surprisingly similar showdown an an ice cream parlor with some teenage girls:
This is a rant. After a long day at work (6am until 3:30) without a break, I was tired and craving an ice cream. I walked in about a minute before a group of 6 girls about 16-18 years old. I ordered my ice cream and paid, and took it.
No misandric misandering so far.
while they ordered theirs, one of the girls commented loud enough for me to hear that a real man would have let a lady go first.
Oh no she didn’t!
Seriously. This didn’t happen.
I ignored them. Two other girls made other comments about my car and my clothes not being fashionable. Again I ignored them. A couple more goggles and comments under their breath that I didn’t hear. After 15 minutes I finished my ice cream and got up to leave. They said “bye loser!”
Imaginary teenage girls can be so cruel!
I decided the high road wasn’t working and said “You are not ladies, and you are to fat to be eating ice cream. Next time try a salad.” Felt good. They were insecure bullies in a pack and deserved to be spanked.
Naturally, the Men’s Rightsers congratulated him for his deft handling of these little misanderers.
So am I being too hasty in assuming that these little stories are fiction? I mean, strange encounters do happen.
Heck, a couple of months ago I was walking back from the grocery store at 1 or 2 AM (I keep odd hours) and a group of gay guys drove up in a convertible, stopped the car, and asked me what I was carrying in my bags. I awkwardly mumbled something about “a lot of different things.” This was apparently not witty enough for them. One of the guys repeated “a lot of different things” with a note of disappointment in his voice, and they drove off.
A few moments later, I realized I should have said “condoms and cat food — I’m having a party!” The first two parts of that would have even been true.
The difference between my story — which actually happened — and MrWhibbley’s — which almost certainly didn’t — is that mine is just a weird thing that happened, and which proves absolutely nothing.
The guys in the car had obviously just left one of the gay bars in the neighborhood and saw me with grocery bags, and must have thought this was sort of amusing given how late it was. So they decided to say something to me. This turned out to be more awkward than hilarious, as real life often is.
The story doesn’t reinforce any weird gay stereotypes — oh those gay guys, they’re always asking about groceries! — and doesn’t make me look like some sort of master wit with a perfect comeback, because I didn’t have one.
In MrWhibbley’s stories, by contrast, the women seem to have come straight from Men’s Rights Central Casting; they are misogynistic caricatures. And of course he always has the perfect comeback — or at least what passes for perfect on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Another day, another battle with imaginary evil women. That’s the Men’s Rights movement in a nutshell.
The AgainstMensRights folks have been all over this one.
Have you considered, Futrelle, that he’s just wittier than you?
A while back, I was sitting on a crowded bus, and a woman comes on. She stood near me very pointedly, and her body language clearly indicated that she believed I should give up my seat. I smiled very pleasantly at her, and kept my ass in my seat.
These women aren’t “Men’s Rights Central Casting”; they are terrifyingly real.
David…where is the year end review?
If that’s your definition of terrifying, you lead a very sheltered life.
OMG, the exact same thing is happening to me right now!
Poor kev. Yes, that incident sounds downright terrifying.
You know how frightening it is when a woman stands near you on public transportation.
Ken, I am glad you made it out alive. That does indeed sound terrifying.
Mrwhibbley’s post reminds me of how when you’ve just left an altercation and you’re sitting there thinking of all the good comebacks you COULD’VE come up with.
You know the other day I was riding a bus and guess what happen…the bus driver decided to pick up some guy in a wheelchair and since I was seated in the wheelchair access seat the bus driver actually had the nerve to ask me of all people to give up my well earned seat to the person in the wheel chair..and I had to stand for the rest of the two blocks of my ride…boy oh boy…was I ever so sore about that…it crushed my ego. The wheelchair people will be asking for equal rights next thing we know!
I give Mrwhibbley 4/10 for style & creativity. If he really wanted to talk about the ebil wimminz, he should have added being kicked to the curb by manginas white knights.
Thank you, Ken. Your insight puts it all into perspective for me. Here I thought the guy who followed me back to my apartment for four blocks and hovered in the parking lot for an hour before I called campus security was terrifying. My female self-centeredness kept me from realizing the plight men who venture in public face – women passively indicating that they want to sit down.
I hereby publicly renounce my feminism and my misandry
After a moment’s thought, I have decided that my response to kevin 11 was unkind, even rude. After all, who am I to scoff at these women he calls “terrifyingly real.” Think of the ordeal he describes…
How brave of him to smile at her and stand (sit?) his ground (seat) in spite of his terror. We should be congratulating him, not mocking him.
All hail, Sir Kevin!
*I apologize for the extra ‘s’ on mangina. What was I thinking!?!?
@kevin 11: Really, are they? I am a male, and I have never, ever been in the situation you described or the situation described above. Neither have I ever seen such a situation happen, ever. It is entirely possible you misread your situation and such occurrences are not nearly as common as you might think.
If there’s anyone I know to be heavily invested in chivalry, it’s girls born in 1998.
Then again, maybe those ice cream shop girls weren’t from our time. It’s entirely possible that Whibbley met some time travelers from the 18th or 19th centuries, times which I hope we all know were truly the height of misandry.
All I can say is I have lived for nearly sixty years on this planet as an identifiable “lady” and NEVER has a man of ANY age offered me a seat, nor have I ever expected one to. While waiting for a table at a restaurant last weekend, however, I did offer my seat to an (even) older woman with a cane, which she rather irritably declined — probably because we old farts don’t always like to be reminded that we are (relatively) infirm. And that story really happened.
Body language is terrifying, especially when you combine it with standing. I am so sorry you had to go through that, Kevin 11.
“YEAH WELL UR FAT!!!”
Gosh so witty. It’s not like practically every guy on earth hasn’t defaulted to that statement at least one time or another when he needs to insult a woman for whatever reason. It’s always either about weight or appearance.
What’s that famous Margaret Atwood quote? Ah yes:
“Women are afraid that men will kill them. Men are afraid that women will make them give up their seats.”
Oh, that’s nothing. This JUST happened to me.
I was at the checkout line at CVS, buying beef jerky, Monster Energy, condoms, lube, and Mtn Dew Code Red, plus some things like flowers and chocolates that I absolutely HATED buying because they were for my girlfriend. 10 people behind me there were some fat black feminists buying scented candles. They shouted “This guy isn’t a real man. He’d jump at the chance to let some womyn in front of him.” But then I just looked at her and I said “You see men and women as equals, don’t you? Then shouldn’t I be in the front of the line?” They just gasped at me. But I wasn’t done there. “Would you mind if I hit you?” They were clearly pissed off then. “We’re going to falsely accuse you of rape!” But I was unfazed. “Ah, but I recorded this. Proof that YOU just committed a crime.” They then ran out and cried. It turned out that in that line was also Paul Elam, Warren Farrell, and Christopher Hitchens (…somehow). They all clapped. Everyone else in the line clapped and we immediately went home to read The Myth of Male Power and watch the best rape jokes. The other guys in line immediately joined the MRM. It was an amazing day.
Cthulu’s Intern:
I’m stifling guffaws, here.
When I first got here after the email link to the column, there were no comments. I almost posted one saying, “How long til Kevin11 shows up and tells us how this is totally a thing that happens all the time?” I decided not to because I didn’t want him getting a big head being talked about all the time (since, like many low-grade trolls, he doesn’t understand the difference between negative and positive attention).
And so, thanks to my restraint, Kevin11 got first post, and said exactly what I expected, only at more length.
Seriously, most boring troll ever.
Sometimes standing on crowded transport is better than sitting, I find. When you sit there’s usually someone at ass or crotch level with you and it’s rather uncomfortable. I know you MRAs have your little fantasies about us women crying about lack of chivalry and regretting ever supporting those meeeean feminists and running back to you apologizing, but really, a loss of a seat on a bus or pulling out chairs is a teeny tiny NOT EVEN price to pay in exhange for freedom and equal rights under the law.
You want to know what happened to ME today?
I was at work and looking for our little folding hand truck so I could move some items down to the big storeroom, but for the life of me I could not remember the term “hand truck.” My male coworkers were probably emitting telepathic Patriarchy Vibes to mess up my memory. So I asked them “Do you guys know where the thing is? You know, the pushy wheely thing?” And they said “You mean the hand truck?” and I said “That’s the thing!” And you know what happened then? They SCOFFED at me. “Stupid little woman, can’t even remember the name of a simple object. Also, you’re fat. Why do you even work here? You’re stealing a job from a deserving man!” And I said “I know you are, but what am I?” and they were so stunned that I harnessed their emotional waves and sublimated to a pure energy being and flew away. But I came back because the world needs me.
@Karalora
LOL. That’s good. So far you’re winning…
Oddly, i ride the bus every single day to work. and every single day, men offer their seats to women. and every single day women smile and say “oh, no thanks. but it was nice of you”.
with a few exceptions: women in heals (not sure why they wear them, but they do, and 45 on a bus with high heals hurts..), and women who are older or big.
Any chance the woman was just standing by you, not wanting a seat, but was pissed about something else in her tiny little pretty head that made it look like she was thinking about you and your really precious seat?
Poor man. Give him his victories, imaginary or otherwise – he defended his chair! How manly is that? That’s red pill success right there.
Remember, hard chairs are misandry!
Where are all those evil women demanding seats with their body language? Are they the same women demanding sex with their body language, but claiming they are not interested?
Personally, I take the bus daily, and I have yet to see a woman demand a seat (I have seen one bus driver demand that a pregnant woman get a seat, which sounds fair enough to me). But it may happen often in the land where all women are the same. In the real world, most (healthy, young to middle aged) women would be insulted if you offer your seat to them. I’ve had a few men offer their seat to me (20 something able woman) and I’ve always refused. Some of them got pissed off at me refusing their great offer, but oh well.
How do these guys go from ‘yielding your seat’ to ‘blame feminism’ beats me.
Moldybrehd reminds me… I wonder how Tom Martin’s documentary on golddiggerism causing losses in comedic value is going.
Sometimes I see people on public transportation offering their seats to elderly women (and possibly elderly men, but I can’t recall) and parents dealing with several young children. Heck, I’ve done this once or twice. Sometimes I see people offer to switch seats so that people who are obviously together can sit together.
But oftentimes the people with seats just let these people stand.
I also once watched a douchebag pester a woman about ten years younger than him into letting him sit next to her. There were plenty of other open seats on the train — it was mostly empty — and she was obviously feeling very shitty; it looked like she had been crying. But he just pestered and pestered, and then said something like “well that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
CHIVALRY!
Yeah, David, it stinks that this never happens to you (or any man I know). It’s just that some dudes have all the luck, is all.
I, for one, always do my best to use trips to Panera for making a show of demanding the best seat in the house (even when I only order my Frontega sandwich to go), especially when a dude sits there. Just because.
And because nothing, but nothing makes my day like issuing loud statements about the state of male-female relationships on casual excursions outside the house. And if I can publicly humiliate someone — a male someone — in the process, then it is extra special. We all know that this is what we women do. Like, everywhere. And all the time. It’s just awesome.
I remember when I was 9 months pregnant and I demanded that a teenage boy who was lying across the 3-seat bench in the back of the bus move so that I could sit down. Looking back, I’m so ashamed of my misandry.
Almost the same thing happened to me. I was in an ice cream parlor that only had one comfy chair, so I ordered an ice cream and ate it in the comfy chair, then flipped through the newspaper for a few minutes and left.
As I was walking out the door, a misanthrope came in. He said that I should have let him order first, and that I also should have let him use the comfy chair. I kept calm and told him that I hadn’t realized that he was waiting to place an order, and that the comfy chair was free now in any case.
That just made him madder. “I don’t want a rational discussion!” he bellowed. “I just want to take out my frustrations on other people, and you seem like as good a target as any.”
“I was just leaving,” I replied, “but there’s a coupon in the newspaper.”
Without another word, he shoved past me, cornered the manager, and started an argument about whether 10%-off coupons applied to the pre-tax or post-tax price.
I suppose I could have come up with a couple of cutting insults before I left, but, honestly, what’s the point? Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde had already invented all the really good ones.
Yep, men definitely have the fuzzy end of the lollipop compared to women when it comes to public transport. Forget the pestering, the harassment, the frotting, the groping. Because having women stand near you while you occupy a seat – that’s the true suffering!
Oh, and SevenEleven, have you noticed the one thing that no one on here has said? Not one of us has said or implied that you should have given up your seat. Because equality – we actually believe in it.
Also once I was on a train and there was a woman with headphones on singing very loudly and very badly to some r’n’b and doing some dance moves, sort of, while sitting. A guy asked her to stop, and it seemed like she had, but she was just waiting for the next vocal part to kick in.
MISANDRY!!!!
Another time I was on a train platform and there were some dudes smoking pot there and one of them was complaining about how the police had profiled him as a drug user.
MISANDRY!!!!
Another time on the same train platform a guy on a meth and/or crack bender asked me for directions and then tried to engage me in some sort of long involved conversation that made no sense.
MISANDRY!!!!!!
One time I was carrying a bag of books across the street and the bag broke, and as I was trying to pick up the books the driver of a car who was trying to use the lane to turn even though that would have meant him going the wrong way down a one way street yelled “ASSHOLE” at me, and I replied by yelling back “yeah, well you’re a fucker!”
MISANDRY!!!
I ordered some Mexican food earlier this evening and the delivery guy forgot the drink, and I told him this and he went away and hasn’t come back with the drink and it’s been like an hour.
MISANDRY!!!
When I say “terrifyingly real”, I’m not literally saying the experience was traumatizing. There a bizarre element of contradiction in women these days- they have a double whammy of entitlement from feminism and chivalry.
I remember when I was 9 months pregnant, and the only person who offered me a seat was a woman in her 80’s with a cane. I declined. Clearly I was waiting for an able bodied man to sacrifice himself because misandry.
…. so we shouldn’t expect any actual truth value in any of your words, not even in your statements about the way you feel?
I’d forgotten all about that! Oh man, I really want to see it!
“There a bizarre element of contradiction in women these days- they have a double whammy of entitlement from feminism and chivalry.”
Because women are the Borg.
No, but you are literally writing that the experience was traumatising.
Oh, sorry, did you mean to say that you weren’t saying that the experience was literally traumatizing?
Words have meanings. Meanings matter. Idiots who say stupid things, whether they mean them or not, will be laughed at.
Citation needed.
Keevin11,
You clueless, entitled brat. If a woman looking at you like she might want your seat terrifies you, be very glad you are not a woman. We endure quite a bit more than expectant looks.
Women from 35 to seventy are on shrooms. Sorry its the truth.
He needs his superior reading comprehension skills in order to read his own writing.
It’s true – I picked up some very tasty oyster ‘shrooms from the market, only today.
I remember when I was waiting in line to pay for parking, and the woman ahead of me only had paper money and the machine wasn’t accepting it and she was really frustrated because she had an appointment to get to, and so then I offered to use my credit card if she gave me the cash, and then we did that and it worked just fine, and then I remarked on how cute her baby was (she had a baby in a stroller), and then she didn’t accuse me of being a child molester, and then we wished each other a great day and went on with our lives.
That was terrifyingly real. Just like all the other days of my life, where things like that seem to happen regularly.
Also, I agree that words have meaning and nuance. If they did not, then we would all have purple monkey dishwasher marbled armistice.
I like to think she was trying to memorise Beowulf …