Many of you may have been worried, but I’m happy to report to you today that the future of the Men’s Rights movement is in good hands! My evidence? The following essay on the evil that is feminism, posted recently to the Men’s Rights subreddit by a 5-year-old boy.
At least I’m assuming it was posted by a 5-year-old boy. If it was posted by a teenager, or — heaven forbid! — an adult, well, all bets are off.
The essay was inspired by the age-old question: What is the nature of evil?
To that, the fellow who calls himself newmressay answers: Feminism. Let’s let him explain:
The New Webster’s Dictionary defines evil as “what is morally wrong, what hinders the realization of the good,” and “what is materially, esp. socially, very harmful,” (328-329 New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language). It also defines feminism as “the policy, practice, or advocacy of political, economical, and social equality for women,” (346 New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language).
Aw, yeah! He’s kickin it off Webster-style!
Now, for a massive leap in logic: Feminism is a modern evil.
Well, a leap, anyway. We’ll see about the logic.
Why? After all, in the past century it has achieved most of its goals in the developed world and is permeating into the third world; numerous pieces of legislation, specifically in the United States, have given women the right to vote, own land, and prevent discrimination and harassment in education and the workplace.
You can OWN LAND, ladies. All lady problems have been solved forever! Time to close up shop!
But wait! The feminists have the audacity to continue to exist?
Feminism is good to a fault. Much like a line, it keeps going.
Much like a line? A line!? That just doesn’t have much zing to it.
Much like the Energizer bunny, feminism keeps going and going …
Much like a shark, it must continually swim forward gnashing its giant teeth or it will die!
Much like sandpeople, feminism travels in single file to hide its numbers.
Like a banana, it splits?
I’m just spitballing here. I’m sure you can think of a million more.
It is no longer about equality, but equity.
Uh, equity means “fairness.” That’s a bad thing? Or do you mean “equity” as in “ownership?” I guess newmressay probably means that, but we’ll never know because he never says.
Western contemporary Feminism has become synonymous with the nature of evil: materialistic pursuits with adverse societal consequences.
Oh, so you quoted Webster’s but didn’t actually understand its definition. When it said “materially” it didn’t mean “materialistically.” Also, huh? What does feminism have to do with materialism?
Feminism has Orwellian tendencies to maintain and “enforce” its beliefs and goals in the name of following ideological tenets, rather than empirical data they see before them, Feminists censor and distort data found in their studies.
Newmressay then cites a self-serving paper by Murray Straus, who claims that feminists have unfairly dismissed his domestic violence research and threatened fellow researchers who’ve failed to toe the feminist line. In fact, there are many valid reasons to be wary of Straus’ work, as I point out here.
The alleged threats are more worrisome, but newmressay cites the example of only a single researcher; if you check his original sources you will find that the harassment took place decades ago and that the perpetrators were never identified.
Newmressay drags out his copy of 1984 to give us some quotes about our boy Winston being forced to change facts and figures to fit the party line. Which would be very damning if there were evidence that feminists actually did this, but there isn’t.
Then with the help of more antifeminist “scholars” he misrepresents the notion of “patriarchy” and gets mad at feminists for that. He follows this by summarizing (badly) two feminist-bashing columns from neocon faux-feminist Christina Hoff Sommers before moving on to his grand conclusion:
Feminism’s essence is that of a greedy quest, resulting in harm to society: evil.
Greedy quest? Greedy Quest sounds like a third-rate Bejeweled knockoff.
It pushes and pushes to further its agenda of equity, not equality.
You know, you really might want to rethink this whole “equity” thing, given that most people are going to assume you mean “fairness,” and given that your gal Christina Hoff Sommers actually calls herself an “equity feminist” and means that as a good thing.
In its pushing, it has damaged society by stereotyping men and belittling the issues of others in the developing world. Although in the past it has served for the benefit of all in society, it now is pushing an agenda that threatens everyone. This evil, that which damages society, will persist until more realize what it is doing.
Dude, I don’t even understand what you’re doing.
Oh no, said newmressay! “She has stolen my boner! For do not the sages say, with their vocal cords, that women’s sports suck! And besides, any woman who plays sports is obviously mannish and unfeminine, and this unnatractive! MISANDRY!”
So the evil wizard newmressay put on his magical fedora and climbed to the highest spire of his fortress made of women’s shoes. There, he raised his magic wand (which was a very manly magic wand, made of ebony, not one of those silly girly ones with the streamers and glitter) and summoned….
Summoned the Great Cat, which swatted him with its paw, looked annoyed, and wandered off. He remembered that cats, dogs, and even goldfish didn’t like him, he never could figure out why, so instead he summoned…
Ally, your critique was thoughtful and quite generous, considering. They’re just downvoting you because you interrupted their circlejerk. Their hatred of feminism isn’t based on logic or understanding so they don’t really care if the essay makes sense or is persuasive in any conventional sense.
“My ass defines evil as ‘hard chairs’ and ‘sitting on legos’ it also defines feminism as women having equal opportunity to own my ass as men do?”
Shoot, that started off well, but I really have no idea what my ass would define as feminism.
… so instead he summoned all the other evil wizards he knew, to a GrandMenzWizard meeting.
But none of them came. This upset newmressay very much, so he …
…three his magic fedora up in the air. It turned into a wooly mammoth.
“I shall go myself, then, to the enchanted city of r/mr, and seek the aid of the Misters who live there!”
But unbeknownst to newmressay, the Great Cat, who was not only a Grand Duchess of the Furrinati, but also a great friend of feminist, was just at that moment making her way to Egalitaria, the seat of the Feminist Hivemind. There she….
I have no idea why that turned into link.
It’s the link monster! :O
That is no essay, I know an essay when I see one. What that guy wrote is called a screed.
There she reported everything newmressay had said, and what she saw while summoned (including his fortress made of stolen shoes). Then she demanded…
Fibi — did you really get a goldfish? Cuz FISH LECTURE! They get big, and old, like decades old and the size of a tennis ball (or bigger) and are shit machines. When it’s tiny a small filter will do, but you definitely want a 10g (or bigger) and actual filter. When it grows up you’re talking a tank the size of my big one and a hefty filter (I recommend fluval, but I’ve known people who hate them because they don’t auto-start the siphon effect [though, there’ say newer line than mine, new one’s might])
And they don’t much like warm water, so assuming the room temp stays on the 70s, you don’t need a heater. Which makes tank mates complex.
That is all. Sorry for the lecture, but you know how I get about fish 🙂 (oh, I was right, doofus, aka puff, was begging for snails while obviously still full of *drum roll* snails)
The Abyss of D’Ohhhh isn’t coming up for me. Damn the horrid combination of old pute, old Firefox, and the ever-creative fuckery that is WordPress…
Funny, the same could be said, quite truthfully, about MRAs. And with ample proof right here.
Good one. =P I always like my sandwiches toasted.
The abyss of D’ohhh doesn’t come up for me, either. ‘cos it only plays in the US. Poop!
Dagnabbit.
Well, it was a clip from The Simpsons episode called “Bart the Daredevil” where Homer jumps the Springfield Gorge on a skateboard. Well, he tries to.
I don’t know if any of these would work, most of them seem to be from Hulu:
https://www.google.com/search?q=homer+jumps+the+gorge&tbm=vid&ei=GAjWUorgGLKlsQS_nIHwCQ&start=0&sa=N&biw=480&bih=269&dpr=2
Sorry about that.
Greedy quests can be cool. Anyone remember the Ducktales cartoon? That was off the hook.
I actually think this is a very positive piece, in its way. It shows that the ideas of women as property are fading, even in the fringe. They’re not equal, but they’re human, which is far more than the far right in other religious and conservative groups across the globe believe, and it’s far better than women were regarded among Western Europeans in the past. I honestly believe this guy would probably agree that beating your spouse of either sex is wrong. Now I’m not defending this guy at all, but he is not the Taliban. So I guess what I mean – if it makes any sense at all – is that there is a tiny, tiny bit of forward movement even in the dregs of our society, and I see that is a good thing, in the big scheme. It means that what is heresy today will be accepted “tradition” in 50 years, to a large degree, even among the edges of society.
What quest isn’t greedy?
“Your Highness, we found the Holy Grail, but….well, there was only one, and we didn’t want to be grabby. So we left it for others to enjoy too.”
Hulu hates me too. Sometimes being Canadian sucks, eh?
Ally S:
That critique would have helped a great deal if the lecturer allowed him that initial derail. I doubt very much that they will. The question seemed to me to be asking the student to read up on the views of a number of different philosophers, weigh them up and come to his own conclusion. A pretty common undergraduate (possibly first year) question. I also don’t think that he was…er…looking at the writers he’d been studying in class. If that’s true it’s a major mistake.
I think you were very kind and helpful to him. You didn’t criticize the actual ideas (problematic as some of them were) but gave him a lesson in basic essay-writing which would have been helpful to almost any first year student. Most lecturers, I found, were happy if you disagreed with them as long as you a. understood how to use the essay format, b. had an alternative point of view that hung together and c. were entertaining. I remember one of my lecturers saying that a well placed, relevant, clever joke could really set a student apart because in order to make that kind of joke they had to have come to grips with the reading and the question. I really don’t think this kid had a clue.
In conclusion, America is a land of contrasts.
…which the Indians call ‘maize’.
/).< twice. That joke is terrible, and I think you mean Native Americans.
Seranvali — oh is that why my analogies never got negative feedback? I guess I'm used to using them to explain things to people who may or may not get the concept, not simply explain that I get it…
Seranvali:
This. I would fail him immediately for showing no understanding of the question. If the title was “Describe an example of evil at work in society” or something along those lines, that would at least be a valid starting point for his poorly-supported conclusions. I would bet that this is for a philosophy (or possibly theology) class, but the student demonstrates no awareness of the vast bodies of writing on the nature of evil that already exist in these fields. The only working definition of evil he offers is a copy-paste dictionary definition anyone could find on Google with five seconds. And for that, I would also fail him.
Also, I love the way the top comment points out that “the topic seems askew from the prompt” as a NITPICK. Not, you know, as a major structural flaw that will almost certainly result in a low grade. Because actually addressing the topic you have been assigned is a minor thing in academic writing, especially when the evils of feminism are running rampant in our society!
Oh MRAs. Master “academicians” you are not.
That’s the name of my perfume. I’m hoping someone will start making scented fucking candles with that sent …