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I replied politely that I understand her outdated view that feels women are weak and require special treatment, but that I believed that women are strong and independent and should be treated as equals.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.
The fact that he put “special” in scare quotes just makes me wonder if he has some sort of weird sexual fetish involving being pelted with paint at high speed.
This post and thread are amazing. I love you manboobz. David, I could read your stories all day.
Glorious.
Also look at the title of the thread:
“Skepticism vs. Douchebaggery or Why using the “r/thathappened” does not help out men trying to open up about their problems”
Meanwhile women keep making up rape stories and need to be probed for all details, and have it explained to her that it wasn’t really rape and she’s being silly. This is helpful because we respect women so much that we want them to not worry about rape anymore, so we need to tell them it doesn’t happen and when it does it’s no big deal.
Reddit, everyone.
@Basiorana
Really? You serve female dogs in your cafe?
I, too have a terrifying jury duty story! If you think that getting your doctor to excuse you on the grounds that there is not enough xanax in the multiverse for you to deal with it is scary. I’m actually a little bit sad, because jury duty is an Important Thing that everyone should do if they can.
Don’t worry, David! If it was legitimate misandry, the male body can prevent itself from remembering anything it heard on “The Talk”
I was at a store one time. I had only one product and the woman ahead of me let me go ahead of her since she had more products than me. That should prove to MRAs that women can be nice to men and not do “ladies first” actions.
Fighting misandry with misogyny. Way to go, Ace.
I’m guessing paintball is so “special” for the self-proclaimed post-apocalypse warlord because he gets to run around the woods pretending to hunt down and kill people. That power fantasy is a nice blend of juvenile and homicidal. It’s pretty creepy how this guy is praying for the colapse of civilization because he thinks it will give him an opportunity to exact violent revenge on “spoiled, entitled little shits”.
However, I really can’t hate on someone who enjoys going old school collaging.
Are you kidding me? The Panera logo has a lady on it. That’s enough proof that it’s misandric.
There’s a rule on public transport here that if you are traveling on a child fare you shouldn’t be sitting if someone who paid full fare is standing. I usually end up paying child fares and even if I don’t I’ll tend to offer my seat to adults if they’re standing because occasionally some dude will complain that I am clearly a child occupying a seat illegally.* So that means sometimes giving my seat up to a woman who is actually younger than me.
Oh noes the misandry!
(I’m more likely to give up my seat if I’m wearing my rugby uniform because the one time I didn’t was the one time a grumpy old man called up the association to complain about it.)
Here’s a poster quite taken with Mr Whibbly’s manly stand.
Has any social movement excelled more then the MRAs at flooding comment boards, telling made up stories, doxing, harassment, raging and whining on the internet? Hence all that hard work and training. Ever forward, MRAs!
As a side note, I’m so very tired of people confusing good manners and whatever the hell they think qualifies as “chivalry”.
Another anti-chivalry advocate rants on reddit.
I had no idea common courtesy can be so traumatizing.
This one time a (really) elderly gentleman got on the bus. He was very slow and unsteady and I automatically stood up (as I was near the front of the bus).He glared at me and didn’t sit down.
MISANDRY!
This other time I was on crutches and my partner had to barge on in front of people so I could get a seat and not get trampled
MISANDRY!
This one time a guy started trying to talk to me at a bus stop then sat next to me on the virtually empty bus then started following me home.
MISANDRY!
One time on a train when I was about 15 this guy started touching my hair and trying to hold my hand, I actually was quite terrified (I know its not ‘woman exists near me’ levels of terror but what is??)
MISANDRY!
The funny thing is, the only people who ever told me that I had to let men open doors for me, give up their seats etc., etc. were my guy friends in high school. They’d been trained up to think that was their job and by getting my own door I was not allowing them to show off their good home training in public. (As their female wing man, I was letting them down.) My boyfriend at the time even got upset that I asked him out too much. He felt I was denying him some sort of right of manhood or something by beating him to the punch. I’m so glad those days and those guys are behind me.
Bite your tongue!!!
Ooh, I have a true story too.
One time I was 9 months pregnant. It’s the last day at work. For my work, I have to lug around heavy equipment, and then use said equipment in a class to interpret the lecture into another language. Generally students make provision for us to sit in front, we’re kind of a set feature in front of the classes. So I get into this class on the third story after struggling up the stairs with the damn case, and it’s the fifth class of the day already and I’m *tired* and *sore*, and the class is full. I head for the last open seat in front, where I usually sit, because I thought they’d left it open for me, when one of the students just slide past me from behind and into that seat.
I looked at her (yes, it was a woman! Clearly MISANDRY!!!) and said “Sure, let the heavily pregnant interpreter stand and have to work through the lecture” and she mumbled “sorry” and gave me the seat.
I felt like crap all period for doing that, though, and found her to apologize after class. Perhaps I need to reapply for my feminist mind-hive card?
Oh yes, I see this a lot. What I do NOT see a lot is feminst harpies biting men’s heads off for daring to open a door for her.
I mean I know I’m not harpy material (see my comment above) but normally I just shrug and enter, y’know. If I’m there first, I’ll be the one holding the door, you get there first, you do that, regardless of the genders involved. Never seen anyone get grief over door holding, nor about refusal to door hold.
Moar evidence that MRAs live in LaLa Land
Great comments, everyone. I lol’d!
I lived most of my life in NYC and always assumed that younger or abler people should give up their seats to older or less able people, regardless of anyone’s sex. I am also old enough to remember when “ladies first” was how “gentlemen” were expected to behave, but that became obsolete when I was just a teenager.
It’s been many years since I took public transport on a daily basis, but on several vacations to Disney World over the past few years, I rode the Disney buses between hotels and parks, and several times witnessed older men (60’s) trying to give their seats to younger women. They were always politely declined.
I recognized that the men were operating from habit the way they had been raised, but so were the women, who had not been raised to expect men to give them seats just because they were female. This is why the stories of women so young aggressively playing the chivalry card sound so false, as many here have pointed out.
One man was sitting right next to me, and standing near us was a young couple with a small child. The man offered the mom his seat, and she said no thanks. He looked so crestfallen, I said to him, “She just wants to stay with her family.”
He said, “Kinda hurts.”
That stayed with me. His sense of manhood was so wrapped up in having his chivalry accepted. Yet he didn’t seem like he would take that hurt and make the next woman he met pay for it. I hope he figured out that times have changed, and he had no reason to take it personally.
I think its funny how pitifully clinging these guys are to the art of “chivalry.” Over and over I have heard the implication that ‘hey you feminist want equality ? YOU GOT it ! You’ll find
out when No more chivalry for YOU ! HA HA HA!!!!!NO more MEN dying on the TITANIC to save YOUR ass! No more pulling out your chair !
Um excuse me ? I’m 46 (just turned 2 days ago) .A woman. Chivalry the way i was raised ? Is just consideration and manners and was not limited to men treating women . Example I was raised to give up my seat for my elders (adults when I was a child) and as an adult the ‘elderly” . I hold doors open for other women especially if they are struggling with a stroller or other wise small children in toe. I hold doors open for men . I gave up my seat in a crowded vets office to a gentleman who was advanced in age and was holding a dog .(I wasn’t only a lot younger than him but I had a cat that was secured in a cage .)
And I don’t care who it is man, woman, young old ..If I’m in line at the grocery store and I have a buggy full and the person behind me only has a few things I offer if they would like to go ahead of me .Usually they say sure thank very much .I feel like as small a gesture as that is MAYBE I brightened their day .
I have NO idea where these guys live that they encounter all these women ‘demanding” seats or whatever because this apparent entitlement because they are women ?
There was a woman she happened to be older walking through the parking lot with a grocery buggy full .(I was in my car) she hit a pot whole and her whole buggy tumped over and the contents spilled all out . A couple(a man and a woman) was passing her and the woman rushed over to aid the other woman.
Its called being KIND ,considerate and civilized to lend a hand to each other .At least where I came from .
I for one am not wringing my hands, gritting my teeth if I’m standing while a man sits.Wishing back for the “good ole days” when I could not vote or I could be legally raped in marriage to get back “chivalry.”
Is it misandry or not if, when I encounter the kind of guys who really really want to do all the chivalrous door-holding stuff, I just go ahead and let them do it? I don’t expect it, but I don’t strongly object to it either, so I figure that if doing it makes them happy then why not?
(Unless it’s accompanied by treating me in a patronizing way, in which case we’re going to need to have a little talk about how holding doors for people can be considered good manners, talking down to them is most definitely not.)
Weird door-holding story:
I was 17 (still thinking I was cis male) and still in community college. After my globalization class ended, I happened to be walking in the same direction as my fellow female classmates were walking, and at each door I approached, two of the girls opened the door for me…10 feet before I approached each door. It was one of my most bizarre school experiences ever.
You guys are scaring me with all these horrifying experiences! Now I am frighten to go outdoors for fear that some evil woman will stand next to me and be terrifyingly real! I want my mommy!
I always hold the door for anyone who’s behind me, or open it for anyone who seems like they might have trouble with it. I wonder if that’s misandry too, if the person I end up holding/opening the door for is a man. What if he’s really elderly and kind of frail? Am I still emasculating him?
Cassandra I think if a guy really wants to do those things and he knows its not something you “expect” there is nothing wrong with it .
In fact I think if you made a big deal out of it and refused to let him or complained that would be petty . I’m sure he knows you are capable and taking offense over it is silly .Its actually sweet of him . Like you said unless he had it in his head you were the weak little woman that couldn’t manage without him .