This blog gets a lot of drive-by commenters, usually hostile, who drop one comment and then vanish, never to return. A lot of these comments are insults and one-liners, but a good number of these one-shot numbers, apparently seeking to maximize the impact of their one bit of input on this blog, deposit mini-manifestos setting forth their grand visions of what Men’s Rights stands for, why feminism is evil, or whatever it is that has them most riled up that day.
The most recent of these manifesto-droppers was a self-described Man Going His Own Way called Disgruntled, who set forth at some length his own rather punitive version of gender equality. It’s a rather revealing document, so I thought I would share it with you all.
Disgruntled started off by declaring that
I … demand increased equality among the 2 main genders and whatever additional gender-types have entered the fray
But his vision of equality is a rather blinkered one, to say the least. He singles out three areas in which men fare worse than women, and demands not that the suffering of men be alleviated — but that the suffering of women be ratcheted up to meet that of men’s.
He starts off with a reasonable enough request, one that is in fact supported by most feminists:
One demand I have is that females in the USA be required by law, as males are, to sign up for the military draft and to be subject to a draft if enacted.
Indeed, when Selective Service registration was reinstated in 1981, the National Organization for Women sued to include women. And given that women can now officially serve in combat in the armed forces, it seems likely that women will be included in registration as a matter of course.
Not that this is really much of a live issue, since the draft itself is dead and isn’t going to be resurrected in the forseeable future.
But Disgruntled’s next demand shows what his real agenda is:
To achieve parity I want the vast majority of draftees to be females until a general equality is attained with the numbers of dead and maimed males from past wars. To ease the determination I would start with World War 1.
That’s right: Disgruntled is calling for a government-sponsored lady-killing operation, one which would mean the death of hundreds of thousands of women, because women weren’t dying in combat during a period when they weren’t allowed to serve in combat.
Indeed, during World War I, when Disgruntled begins his program, they weren’t allowed to vote.
He’s not the only MRA to feel this way; A Voice for Men has advanced a similarly punitive, if less drastic, “solution” to gender inequality in the armed forces.
I should note that the period that Disgruntled is trying to make up for, the twentieth century and early twenty-first, was a century of mass carnage. The United States managed to escape the worst of that carnage; while we were involved in numerous wars and other military operations, no wars were fought on US soil.
This may have given Americans — and American MRAs in particular — a rather skewed vision of what war is. The vast majority of American casualties in twentieth (and twenty-first) century wars have been military personnel — that is, they’ve been overwhelmingly male.
But in fact, in most wars, civilians (male and female, adults and children) make up roughly half of all casualties, some dying as a direct result of military actions and some as the result of disease and famine. In World War II, last century’s bloodiest war, possibly as many as 2/3 of the total casualties were civilian. Men don’t have a monopoly on suffering in wartime.
After a brief mention of criminal sentencing disparities, Disgruntled moves on to another topic that is a favorite of MRAs:
Another life aspect is the woeful number of males maimed or dying performing the tasks that keep the USA operating on a daily basis. As a society we must do all we can to get females employed in those high-risk jobs that traditionally have high injury/death rates.
Again: the solution is for more women to die!
Interestingly enough, though MRAs talk about “getting” women into these professions all the time, the women who have tried to enter professions like coal mining have faced massive resistance, not from feminists trying to protect them from dangerous “male” jobs but from management — and the men in these jobs themselves. Women coal miners not only face the dangers of the job, but open hostility and sexual harassment from their male co-workers as well.
Now, a real men’s movement — one interested in actually helping men and not just in attacking women or gleefully imagining them getting their comeuppance by dying in war or in a mine collapse — would look at the reports of (mostly) men dying in accidents on the job and would, you know, ACTUALLY TRY TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT UNSAFE WORKING CONDITIONS.
It seems weird to have to point out that generally speaking real activists try to do something about the issues they care about, but in all my reading of the manosphere over the last few years I have not once seen any MRA actually attempt to examine why there are so many workplace deaths, much less ask what can be done about it.
Sure, MRAs complain about workplace deaths all the time, but simply as “proof” that men are the “disposible sex” and that women are a bunch of spoiled brats. Or, like Disgruntled, they use it as an excuse for elaborate fantasies of what Michael Kimmel calls “restorative, retaliatory” violence.
Do you want to know why there are so many workplace deaths?
Maybe it’s because companies that put workers at risk with serious violations of safety regulations get only a slap on the wrist from OSHA? The typical OSHA fine for a serious violation is $1700. Even if someone dies as a result of this violation, the maximum fine is only $7000.
Maybe it’s because so many employers put temporary workers in dangerous situations with inadequate training?
Maybe it’s because so many employers don’t give a shit about immigrant workers? As one recent report on preventable death in the workplace (from which I cribbed the above points) notes:
While the overall U.S. fatality rates for workers have gradually decreased over time (though they are still too high), the fatality rate for immigrant workers has increased at an alarming rate.
When you start looking into the details, you discover that workplace deaths happen for some pretty predictable reasons: companies try to cut costs by cutting corners, and regulators (deeply intwined with the industries they regulate) look the other way. And so workers — particularly more vulnerable workers like immigrants, temp workers, and young workers — pay the price, sometimes literally with their lives.
It’s a labor issue. A class issue. A race issue. And insofar as it’s a gender issue, it’s not feminists or “cultural misandry” that is to blame, but rather a patriarchal narrative that suggests that macho men don’t need to worry about following the rules (even if those rules are designed to protect your life), that stoic men shouldn’t complain about rough conditions at work.
How do you organize to fight this? You don’t yell about the “death professions” on the internet. You don’t fantasize about how great it would be if more women died in coal mines. You actually research the issue rather than reciting MRA slogans. You contact the people who are already working on the issue — mostly labor activists — and ask how to help.
And that’s the problem here. MRAs don’t want to help. They want to rage against women.
And so comfortable middle-class MRAs, whose jobs are as about as dangerous as the lives of my (indoor) cats, appropriate the real suffering of vulnerable poor and working-class men as an excuse to yell at women online and fantasize about their deaths — all while doing precisely zilch to help the men they claim to care so much about.
Hell of a civil rights movement you’ve got there.
If anything I’d have thougth the next numbers would be one and six.
Yep, 1 then 6. I second Argenti, where does the 9 come in?
Pi.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi
Not as tasty as pie, but it has its uses.
D’Oh!
Does this mean the sequence is as much about how much maths one learned, and whether one remembers it, as about actual intelligence?
Bingo.
I couldn’t really explain pi to anyone in any kind of depth; it’s just a little factoid that stuck in my head.
I struggled with arithmetic and maths all through primary and high school (I dumped it as soon as I could, after fourth form) and don’t remember anything much about it.
Call me biased, but I don’t consider that a sign that I’m unintelligent.
Hey, y’know, that’s real sweet advice, bro. Maybe we should just make like you, instead…walk all over the chessboard like a strutting pigeon, and take a massive fucking dump in the middle of it. WIN!
Okay, totally off topic I know, but everyone seemed to be here and the open thread seemed dead, sorry. OCD whine.
I’ve been holding a fucking empty glass for the last fucking hour and my hand is going numb, I CANT FUCKING PUT IT DOWN! OCD says terrible, terrible awfulness will ensue if I put the fucking thing down! I’m so fucking tired of this!
Sorry to burden you all, but it’s 1:30 am, Mr M is asleep and I’m really fucking tired. I thought some kind Boobzer might be able to unstick me. Could somebody please tell me I’m being an idiot or something, I don’t know. I’m just such a fucking freak!
Ophelia: You are not being an idiot or a freak. There is no need to apologize. It’s jerk-brain that’s doing this, not you.
I’m sorry your OCD is acting up :(. It sounds like you’re having a really rough time. And the hugs, contact or no-contact, whatever’s best; and all the good Internet vibes too.
Okay, here goes: Hey, OCD? Could you kindly let go of Ophelia so she can put that glass down? The only awfulness that’s happening is that her hand is going to sleep, while the rest of her can’t. Be a dear and let her get some rest, ‘kay? Thanks.
Cute puppy:
http://www.puppycuteness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/64-cute-chihuahua-2.jpg
And kitty hugs:
http://pinkbluelovescute.com/2012/10/must-see-gif-momma-cat-cuddles-her-sleeping-kitten/
Ophelia, I don’t know if this will help you, but I recently came across a mantra, I guess, to help me with procrastination (I tend to build things up in my head so that I can’t do a until b is done, and of course I can’t do b until c is done, etc). “What would that look like if it was easy?”
So, OCD, what are the GOOD things that will happen if Ophelia sets the glass down? What if Ophelia dumps the contents of the glass and carries it to bed? What if something or someone else could be trusted to hold the glass so Ophelia can go to bed?
Nthing what everyone else said, Ophelia!
Chocolate cake for you.
Deadly Kitten Cuteness (that’s not my hand, it’s a friend who didn’t move fast enough)
Fan photo of Terry Pratchett, with signature!
You are all so lovely. Lovely brain bleach everyone, thank you so much and sorry for the attention seeking.
Glass holding no more! Gods my hand hurts!
Now if I could just stop:
Checking that the front door’s locked.
Making sure the taps are off.
Opening and shutting my bedside drawer 15 times whenever I think about it.
Pacing from bed to door 15 times every time I enter the bedroom.
Checking all the plugs are out of the sockets.
Singing that bloody song I hate.
Reading comments I write obsessively.
Tapping the finger tips of my right hand in a specific order.
I might be able to get some sleep.
More vodka. 🙂
@auggziliary, I did respond to you about your comment about OCD on the open thread, but I was a bit late I think, sorry.
Ophelia, that wasn’t attention-seeking. You just ask people for help when you needed it. That’s a good thing, and let people help you, that’s another good thing.
Seconding what Robert R. said, Ophelia.
Thirding.
Ophelia: Nthing everyone. Asking for help is most definitely not attention-seeking.
Cute photo-bombing husky:
http://www.earthintransition.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/husky-photobomb-012013.jpg
I love that photo. It gets some great “we all have a friend like this” captions, too. 🙂
I’m putting kitt33 on moderation for being deliberately disruptive and not actually reading anyone else’s comments before posting. So, kitt, if you want to keep posting here, you need to post the word “blorfle” in your next comment in this topic in order for me to let it through. That’ll show me you’re actually reading comments.
If you do post that. er, word, you’re still going to be on moderation, and I’ll only let through comments that actually show you’ve read people’s comments here. If you don’t include the word “blorfle,” you’re banned.
Thanks David! I was getting really sick of him.
Thanks, David!
And that is how you pick a safe word — no way is he going to manage to accidentally say that!
Thank you David, the tedium was getting tedious.
I used to bang on endlessly in long form with some old trolls, because I have no better use for my time and have one of those mental blocks where I think excessive verbiage is the same as wit.
I haven’t done that in a while though, so here’s another round.
And so begins the saga of “Kitt, the Kitten Who Didn’t Know What Implied Logical Limitations Meant”
Hi kitt. Blorfle.
If someone wants to eat, that means that person is willing to kill someone to eat. So long as you define “wants to eat” alone by the striving for eating without any other requirements, you have to own all the oddity that comes with that special way of accomplishing it.
In case that’s too obtuse, Kitt, you’ve made your own point redundant here. If you logically define something as one thing with no other requirements, not even ethical ones, obviously a female death quota is logically consistent with the definition you’re using. So is equality by not wearing pants. The problem is that not one soul on this planet defines feminism solely by “Equality”, there’s always a bit in there where ethical implications are assumed a priori to the argument being made for the logical framework.
Also, this is the first of a long strand of things where you are… automata-like in a slavish dedication to the letter, not the spirit, of communication. “Equality” in social justice doesn’t mean “Mathematically equal”, it means – if nothing else – “Equal under the law and opportunities”. The intangibles set precedent for the way we form arguments, since the intangible concepts of our lives form our preconceptions. Want a direct example? Google Priviledge.
Other people pointed out plenty of flaws in the reasoning, and I know I just did up above too. One of the flaws in your reasoning is that only a robot asked to maximize the potential equality would arrive at the conclusion that killing would do it, because a robot hasn’t been coded in with the attendant ethical filters a human operator would have.
The problem with this kind of robotic reading of any given issue is that you start using words like “fascist” without knowing what they actually mean, and stating that you have presented a dilemma when you actually haven’t (What you stated earlier was a logical conclusion – if so and so, then this and that. A dilemma is this: You can only pick between posting a youtube link or a link to an old newpapper article about a controversy from 1978, which do you choose to make your brilliant anti-feminist point?).
Equal, again, doesn’t mean numerically the same. Equal is not identical. Saying that women and men are different is like saying that the moon orbits the Earth. Sure, you’re right, but you’re missing the fundamental issue of gravitonic influence on tidal locks around the world and the issue of werewolves that haunt towns in Transylvannia. The good stuff.
A person’s mind, emotion and personality is all part of the physical self – but since neurologists are throwing around terms like “quantum” these days, I’ve got way many research papers that’d blow your insipidity-circuits. Men and women being different physiologically has no influence on whether or whether not they’re equal as people, unless you mean to argue that a 10 % difference in average muscle means it’s okay to enslave one half of the human race.
What? I’m only using logic here. If physiological differences mean people are not equal, that means one is better than the other, and you’ve implicitly argued that the lower life form is less deserving of justice and compassion and ressources. Who’s the fascist, kid? I mean kitt. I mean kid. Wanna get some jackboots with your lack of logical consistency? Not that there’s anything wrong with jackboots, I just figured we were all past the point of going on about the inherent base nature of the flesh and how it drags us down.
No, I’m a pragmatic asshole. You’re the fascist here, since you want to enforce unequal outcomes for the unworthy. Anyway, hey, I didn’t know hormone levels meant you couldn’t have justice or be held accountable in court! I’m so glad. I’ll just have someone test my testoerone levels, and get out of that “Fraudulent Impersation Of a Viccar” charge.
The thing about you, Kitt, is that your smug belief in your own masturbatory superiority lies coiled behind every word you write. It’s a fascist thing. Tell me, does the phrase “Das Volk” mean anything to you? Ah, thought so.
See, in your world, once we remove all sexism and discrimination, women are still doing unequal things and men are still better off</i. So, women are inferior. They’re lesser people who make lesser choices.
Of course just admitting that out loud is kind of haphazardly hard on your own psyche because I bet you want to imagine yourself as a great person, so you cloak it up in words about reality, hormones and “Behave differently”, when what you really want to say is “Behave wrong, and make bad choices, and they don’t sleep with me either! Women are silly!”.
No, my contention is that it’s false and misogynistic. It’s almost as if you’re not very good at English or logic.
We’re back with “implications” and “assumed logical limits” and “a priori assumptions” here. If all men are smarter than all women, then all women are dumber than all men. You just said half the human race was dumb.
If I were to say that smug internet MRA’s had no more self control than wolves, that would be both hateful and wrong. Wolves are very well behaved pack creatures. But the implication is still hateful for everyone involved in that sentence. It’s sort of like writing that children and pets are intellectual inferiors and people still love them, like other examples of stupid creatures adorable for their silly behavior and smugly hinting at those unfortunates being women.
Why? What’s the point? Double helix research was women and most anthropologists hold that they invented general farming too, plus, the strapless bra. All wonderful inventions.
But anyway, you’re not worse than a wolf, and I do love you, Kitt ^^
See, this is one of those direct intangibles of the argument I have been trying to talk about, in my usual caffeine full manner and with great inability.
Who says I can’t win a game of chess by throwing the pieces at my opponent?. If my opponent yields, then I have, per definition, won the game. The rules of the game we are playing at the time define what is allowed or is not allowed, and very often, the boundary constraints we play under and the tests we make with them have a great impact on our ability to win, lose, or continue playing for fun.
But, because you’re a stifled robot with no capacity for lateral thinking, appreciation for nuances and a minor fascistical bent and a massive wonder for oppression of the less capable – again, look up Das Volk – you already made assumption as to the game we were playing, the rules of the pieces, and the way the movement plays out. In your mind, you view this argument as a tactical exercise of your superior intelligence trying to outsmart the dull feminist hordes who don’t comprehend chess, but what we’re actually playing here is Calvinball, and you just got zinged on the third base with the whifflebat of spurious goals, which sets your team back to znarflarks in the eight round before the Putpat shot.
If you’re confused, then welcome to real life.
Why are you a facist that wants to oppress those you perceive to have less worth, and want to hold on to unequal outcomes despite the removal of sexism and discrimination?
wait, I know.
it’s because you’re an autocrat with a hunger for control of the meat puppets in your life, incapable of emphasizing with others or using logical to view the world.
That’s… not the sentence you meant to write. It’s a hell of a Freudian slip. It’s really the wonderful capstone of your own thought process gradually turning towards revealing just how little you care about the world and how much you want to humiliate uppity women and put them in their places. You and the author of the Pleasure Girls of Reef Nine would have a lot to talk about.
Yeah, female enslavement wouldn’t be so wonderful for us as we all dream about, because people like you would make it worse. Wow. Being a fascist means never admitting your own contextual mistakes, I guess.
Now, as for your video transcript and case study in objectivism, your friend there might be cynical, but he’s not very clever. Take a deep breath with me now and say it out loud:
EEeeeeeeeeehhhiiiiit’s not the same as commodification and it’s not the same across every nation and protection is not procreation and objectification is not a sole positive wherein the reduction to an object can be described in economic terms where “commodity” ends up meaning “product” instead of “solely vessel to project sexual desire into and remove all personality and agency”, because it’s about economics and investment, it’s about erasing the entire personality of a meat puppet and rendering it into a mere object for your own advances and fantasies, hence the word “objectification” and not “commodification”.
Phew, I need a moment to catch my breath.
Feeling wanted and desired is a wonderful thing. Getting to enjoy protection and care from others with nothing but a smile can be a wonderful thing.
Having desire, protection and care forced on you because you are nothing but a stringless doll for someone to fill up with their own fantasies of conquest, power and sexual dominance is neither pleasant, pleasurable or enjoyable, and becoming a soulless vessel bereft of agency to be, say, enslaved by someone else and rendered as object that functions to satisfy their desires Is terrible.
But, then again, I wouldn’t really expect a fascist who secretively dreams of female enslavement to think that. In fact, I’d expect him to think of objectification as a wonderful thing, because he does it all the time, and can’t image women having a problem with being nothing but objects (Since, ultimately, there are unequal and are just objects in his mind).
… odd how familiar that seems, Kitt, wouldn’t you say?
Have a nice day, you fucking fascist scum ^^