So the Men’s Rights movement has faced some setbacks in the past. The Southern Poverty Law Center profiling them as a movement filled with hate (if not literally a hate group by the SPLC’s strict definition). Events that literally no one showed up to. Paul Elam.
But MRAs have never faced anything quite like this.
Wil Wheaton — yes, that Wil Wheaton, the one who was on Star Trek TNG — has stated publicly that he thinks they’re a bunch of idiots:
https://twitter.com/wilw/status/348291001481310208
Naturally, this tweet has the fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit feeling hurt and angry. Well, they always feel hurt and angry, so I guess I mean they feel even more hurt and angry than usual, with a lot of this hurt and anger directed in a Wil-Wheatony direction.
Here are some of their comments. I don’t really have any jokes to make about them because, I mean, just read them. I can’t top this sort of ridiculousness.
Click on the individual comments to see them in context on Reddit. Oh, and note that this comment at the top has MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED UPVOTES.
![giegerwasright 119 points 7 hours ago (150|31) Wil Wheaton has never had to live life as a regular man. He has never been treated by women as a regular man. He is a privileged white male. All those things that feminists say that white men have that we recognize are actually really only reserved for rich white men? Well. He's a rich white male. So. What do you expect? Perspective? LOL. He has media to sell and pussy to pander to for approval, hanglowstankin, and profit. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]cfornax 63 points 7 hours ago (82|17) Ironic isn't it. He undermines men to elevate his privileged status in eyes of feminists who wish to undermine his privileged status. permalink source save parent give gold [–]giegerwasright 39 points 7 hours ago (53|17) And that, my dear lad, is how the wealthy mangina maintains his status. Key word being "wealthy", a distinction that the unfortunately unwealthy manginas don't recognize. Always. Follow. The money.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/geiger2.png?resize=580%2C365&ssl=1)
Wait. What is “hanglowstankin?” Oh, never mind.
Also, I would bet a mint-in-box Wesley Crusher action figure that Wheaton didn’t call you guys “idiots” because he wanted to pander to “pussy” but rather because you are the sorts of guys who routinely refer to women as “pussy.”
![ruboos [-2] 10 points 7 hours ago (16|6) Wil Wheaton has always been a self hating misandrist. I've never liked him. And his narration is atrocious. Listen to "Ready Player One" if you don't believe me. The dude is a joke. Thank you for calling him out in public. He has no excuse.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/narration.png?resize=580%2C101&ssl=1)
![AnotherDAM 14 points 7 hours ago (24|10) Just because someone is famous in one context does not make him an expert in any, or every, other context. The man made a decent beer with Stone Brewing, he is incredibly practiced at talking with people so don't expect to win a war of words with him or out "cool" him. Just point out to him that he has had everything handed to him on a silver platter his entire adult life ~ he doesn't need to worry about money or getting girls or an invite to the uber-cool CES ~ does not actually mean his opinion matters to anyone but himself. He will eventually get it when all of his male friends start dying decades before his female admirers. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]VortexCortex [+1] 4 points 3 hours ago (5|1) I would merely appeal to his sense of logic: "There's much evidence to the contrary, Wheaton; You have not tried try to refute the null hypothesis before holding your belief." Not that it would actually work -- He's an actor who once played a young scientist -- but many of his viewers practice rationality.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dyingrational.png?resize=580%2C327&ssl=1)
But Wil had one defender amongst the Men’s Rightsers:
![chocoboat 6 points 5 hours ago (25|19) Wil is still cool. He just got misinformed by some feminists, who in an effort to protect their privilege, smear the name of MRAs and fight against equality when it doesn't serve them. He was taught that MRA = a whiny bitch who wants a return to 1950s gender roles and can't stand women having any power over anything. Of course he thinks that kind of person is an idiot. Don't bash Wil, bash the people who misinformed him. I can virtually guarantee you that he would support the same pro-equality ideas that MRAs do, and that he's against the sexist situations that men sometimes run into (such as being arrested after calling police when your wife attacks you, or being made to change airline seats due to "every man is a pedophile" hysteria). permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]Zetadood 17 points 4 hours ago (23|4) Nah, no one gets a pass for misinformed ignorance. If he changes his views later on that's different, until then he's a tool.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/wilcool.png?resize=580%2C326&ssl=1)
EDIT: H/T to the AgainstMensRighters for pointing me to this.
Eh, I’m going to leave this here. Mainly, I like the takedown by rob-anybody (if I’m reading the conversation correctly).
http://celebreceipts.tumblr.com/post/67680058057/rob-anybody-that-fabulous-bastard
The whole Reddit thread is huge WTF-fest.
TIL Due to a gynocentric medical system and male disposability, women on average outlive men by several decades.
Because geeks-verse mostly focuses on racial justice.
The biggest WTF? The tweet is 7 months old. The MRAs staying on top of things as usual.
Breaking News: Wheaton creep-shames in this tweet, it’s clearly mano a Manosphere.
They’re doing “mangina can mean anything” thing again. If he’s rich and gets the girls, doesn’t that make him an awesome alpha? Shouldn’t they be holding up whatever he does as correct male behavior since it’s apparently working so well?
The granddaddy of all Alpha Males and a wife beater to boot? I can see it like: “Noooo! Our god has deserted us!”
Maybe you didn’t quite think this part through?
One of the things that annoy me the most about MRAs (well… it is hard, so many things about them annoy me) is this discourse about not being able to “get girls”. Seriously? I know so many guys who are not conventionally attractive, geeky, shy and what-not that have no problem having dates or girlfriends (and boyfriends). One of our geekiest and shiest friend just got married to a girl who is as geeky (but not as shy) as he is. They have been together for years. Another one always has a new date, many of them are very pretty girls and he has all those cliches for “unattractiveness”: considered overweight, wears glasses, etc. These cliches, by the way, are delusional in themselves. I am almost always attracted to nerdy looking guys, for instance.
Also, I am considered quite conventionally attractive and not all the guys I have been attracted to have corresponded my interest or feelings (some of them the nerdy looking dudes I told about above). You know what that is called? Life. That is life! It is complete bullshit that women can get any guy they want just by being women and it is bullshit that certain guys (“betas” or whatever terminology these guys use) never have a chance. It is like they are living in a high school themed 1980’s daytime American movie.
Wheaton would totally stand up for the rights of domestic abusers and pedophiles if he hadn’t been brainwashed by feminists. Wha-?
@Jojo
In all seriousness, I don’t think that’s true. In the grand scene of things MRAs don’t matter and men’s actual problems do.
TIL Due to a gynocentric medical system and male disposability, women on average outlive men by several decades.
Several…decades? As in, “ten year chunks of time?” Do they actually believe that? The average American woman lives until 81, the average American man lives until 76, which is a difference of 5 years. (Data from America, and of course “average lifespan,” different countries will have different data and doesn’t really tell much about how long any one individual person will live). This is not a huge gap and this is not difficult math.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/04/life-expectancy-map/
And that would be a blockquote fail. The first paragraph under the blockquote is Brooked’s.
also… the transphobia in will wheaton’s post made me a sad… :/ I hope he notices how uncool that is.
Figures. And these radioactive waste fascists call US Nazis?
Yeah, I could have lived happily without that knowledge too.
I expect a lot of the longevity gap has to do with historically higher tobacco use by men vs women. I am sure that is women’s fault. Or manginas’…
Moving men on airplanes due to paranoia about child molestation is messed up and should stop, though. I have no idea how widespread the practice is but that really is nasty. Lenore Skenazy makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes ’cause she is juuuuuust this side of being a rape apologist sometimes but I think she makes good points about how kids 1) are way likelier to molested by people they know well, not strangers on the bus or at the park, and 2) even if that were not so, the issue, while very serious, is not an excuse to treat men-in-general like sexual predators.
(Plus I think it subtly trains people to define male sexuality as inherently predatory, which never helps anyone, really.)
I may not be in the same pussy-getting league as Wil Wheaton, but at least I haven’t had ZERO and looking forward to ZERO MORE EVER!
Because they have to grossly exaggerate in order to actually have a need for their “MRM”
Similar to this ridiculous gross GROSS exaggeration quoted in the Southern Poverty Law profile .Not to mention the chilling suggestion to kill your ex in “self defense” over the exaggerated violation of “men’s rights.”
Steal your kids” ? Extort you ? For every current and future dollar you will ever earn.?
Seriously can you scream FIRE in a crowded theatre any louder ?
And on the “decades” comment .That would be a minimum of two because the s at the end. 20 years ?The closest I could find to that (in the U.S) Is white women specifically outlive black men specifically by an average of 10 years . Black women outlive black men by close to 7 years.
http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/white-women-in-us-live-10-years-longer-than-black-men?news=842423
There are many factors. But one is that men are more likely to engage in more risky behaviors. Not just smoking .Cutting their own lives short. And no not just because men are the ones in higher risks occupations .Take motorcycles for example .
And yeah its the evil fems and the mangina’s forcing them to do those things.
The other thing on the “women” outliving men ? Why aren’t they screaming in a tizzy fit that WHITE men outlive BLACK men by a farther gap than women ,black or white, outlive white men ?
In fact in that link I provided ? Black women only outlive white men by 1.2 years. But black men on average expire 5.3 years sooner than white men .A slightly wider gap than white women verses white men .Which is 4.7.
Jojo — I’ve been slowly working on a list of resources to link to from the Borg, maybe you can find something useful in here —
RAINN — online sexual assault helpline (international if in compliance with your local regulations) and US phone helpline
Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women (US)
One in Three — resources of male victims of family violence, Australia based but has international resources and GLBT specific resources (all appear to be Australian)
Male Survivor — resources for male sexual assault survivors, mostly US but some international and an online forum
1 in 6, support for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse — online helpline, other helplines (including Canada and UK) and online resources
I see or hear of Wheaton and just think “no Ace, just you” because that line, his delivery of it, perfect!
The transphobia ain’t cool though.
As for his female fans outliving his male friends by decades, well, yeah, but only becaus his friends are likely his age while movies like Stand By Me and his Star Trek role likely get new fans often. So he’ll be 70 and have teenagers fawning over teenage him, if that happens no shit his 70~ year old friends are gonna die first. Even when they’re right they manage to be wrong!
That post by Wheaton was made early in 2013. I don’t pay much attention to him, so it’s possible he apologized for it or walked it back, but I saw it that one time and was rather disappointing, given the circles in which he seems to have become a sort of media darling.
Anyway, has anyone ever seen any MRA talk about banning or regulating the tobacco industry as a Men’s Rights Issue? I’ve seen stuff about how smoking contributes to the gender longevity gap, but somehow that makes zero impact on the MRA hivemind (probably because they can’t chalk it up to a feminist conspiracy).
My understanding is that among younger cohorts, male and female smoking rates are a lot more similar than they used to be. Plus the US has a raft of traffic safety and other “nanny state” laws that it didn’t used to have… I expect that might help save some young men, too.
so yeah, it is multifactoral but in my family nearly all the tobacco users are/were male, and it has been striking to see the older generation’s men die in their 60s, while the women truck on into their 90s! yikes
Personally I think the longevity gap will get a lot narrower.
In the UK, the male/female longevity gap is narrowing already and is getting very close.
I suspect that the US gaps between, for example, black men vs white men are primarily affluence related. I’m betting it’s down to access to healthcare, food availability, etc.
All I hear is “BAWWWWW, I HATE WHEATON BAWWWWW”
OOPS quote monster ….1st paragraph is quote of Tulgey Logger.