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.
@ trollwiththesillyname
“And yes I do think it’s crass to attempt to put relatively minor issues (at best) like sexism/racism/homophobia on the same level as poverty/economic inequality.”
“…it’s all ultimately secondary to wealth and class, especially in a world in which the top 85 individuals control more money than the bottom 3.5 billion. ”
No one is saying the huge inequality in wealth distribution isn’t a real or important thing. It is. (If you are American I hope you support raising the minimum wage, worker’s rights, etc.)
The hard thing is that people don’t exist in or experience only one type of discrimination or injustice at a time. They tend to overlap, because, you know, we’re all human. I’m going to drop this link again because I think it is relevant. If you really care about the wealth gap I suggest you watch the lecture called “Don’t Panic” http://www.gapminder.org/
It reveals quite eloquently that for many families in developing countries, one way out of poverty includes empowering women (aka reducing sexism).
What I’ve always wanted to know about orcas is why they don’t eat people. I know that some pods only eat fish, but even the pods that eat mammals don’t seem to see us as a potential food source, which is interesting.
(And lucky, given how strong and intelligent they are.)
“But I’m not rich you see!” is all the rage right now, such an easy escape from having to acknowledge realities about society, yourself, and the pain of other people. Coincidentally it seems like very few people these days will call themselves rich. How convenient! A category with no hard boundaries, anyone can squeeze in and call themselves not-rich to deflect any risk of those nasty things called self-examination or empathy. The only catch: class privilege is only one privilege and a black person, a woman, an LGB person, a trans person, a disabled person and so on with the exact same monetary assets as you down to the cent will be slapped in the face by life over and over, just for existing, in ways you never will be — and in fact since birth faced tougher obstacles to reach that same wealth level. Hiding behind class is intellectual cowardice.
“Mostly I just got sick of the self-obsessed non-issue feminist whiney entitled white boy crap that’s infected the internet/tumblr.”
FTFY
I totally want those kitty leggings. I have no idea what I’d wear them with, but I want ’em!
Speaking of clothes, I got a nice pair of black trousers last night. They’re cut like jeans but a softer sort of cotton. Drawback to that is, they’re lint magnets! I’m surprised Mads hasn’t been in and rolled on them yet.
But but but doesn’t that mean they must be SPINSTERS?
I have a pair of pants that I’d wear all the time if they weren’t magnets for cat hair. Every time I wear them I have to ward the cat off before I leave the house, and try not to touch anything that may have a stray cat hair on it. Poor kitty, normally I cuddle her before I go out, but in those pants I’m basically backing away from her going “avaunt, furry Satan!”
@buttmunchboy,
Sexism, racism and homophobia are intertwined with poverty and income inequality. Women, people of color and LGBTQ people are more likely to live in poverty and have less wealth than straight white men.
That’s why we have the word intersectional, even though you don’t like “social justice” language. No kind of privilege exists in a vacuum.
Awesome ,incredible ..and a lesson …(((HUGS)))
And finally, it’s worth nothing that the quote from GeigerWasRight is spot on, and deserves the upvotes it got. The so-called “white male privileges” that internet feminists like to accuse us of having are mostly reserved for rich white men.
Orca are just picky eaters. Even the mammal eating populations have little interest in dining on anything outside their very particular menu. We aren’t on that menu so they don’t eat us. Under dire circumstances, I’m sure they’d give us a go. Whenever they have choice though, they select based on dietary preference. They don’t eat just anything. Same reason we eat some animals and not others.
It’s pretty neat, the way they use their echolocation when hunting in dark, murky waters to identify chinook salmon specifically.
I got ninja’d by so many people! Great minds I guess 🙂
Yes, lets all keep things in perspective and think of how bad white, straight, cis men have it. They have real legit issues, here!
/sarcasm
Wow, headuphisbutt really can’t read for comprehension at all, can he?
Do you know where the food preferences come from? I’ve always found it interesting that some can be, say. in an area where there are seals but won’t eat them because that particular pod only eats fish (possibly of a specific kind?).
So what the butt guy is saying is that since he doesn’t like feminism all over his intertubes, he signs on with men’s rights because they don’t dwell on silly non-issues like the rampant inequality faced by women, PoC, and Transwomen and men.
I mean, whining about hypergamy, friendzoning, and how it should be okay to kill and rape women is the most important human rights issues face us today. Right? That is what he’s saying.
Hi, weirwoodtreehugger, are you new? (Great nym, btw.) Have a Welcome Package!
Whether racism, sexism, etc. are “secondary to class” as you say really isn’t important at all.
In the end, they are real issues that deserve attention and they cannot be ignored in the name of anti-capitalism. The fact that you said racialized class issues constitute the majority of race issues implies that you think a class-centric understanding of racism is flawed. Racism still is at the heart of the socioeconomic disadvantages of people of color.
And there are significant aspects of white supremacy that aren’t closely related to class in any way, such as colorist, white supremacist standards of beauty and the general hatred for people of color. Similar things can be said for sexism, transmisogyny, ableism, and a host of other forms of social oppression.
In any case, even though there are important, complex relationships between class and various forms of social oppression, they cannot be compared and so it makes no sense to say that class is a “secondary” or “primary” issue.
Of course, I’m saying all of this under the assumption that “secondary” here means “ranked second in importance.” If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me.
As a socialist I have to say, this is so not how you do class consciousness.
And you call feminists self-absorbed? You benighted little shit.
You’d have to be pretty unfamiliar with male privileges to think only rich males get them. It’s hardly an accusation, just facts. What’s going on here is MRAs thinking the only significant privilege is getting women, and in their twisted heads they think women only go for rich men. Therefore only rich men could possibly be privileged to them.
The idea that not getting laid as often as you’d like and with women as hot as you’d like is the greatest social rights issue of our time will never stop being funny.
I’m sure homeless white men are just as likely to be victims of racist violence than homeless black me- oh wait. It’s as if no axis of privilege is “canceled out” by another.
I’ve actually witnessed the cops pulling a driving-while-black on someone who, judging by the way she was dressed and the car she was driving, had lots of money.
No they are not . White men on average are automatically going to have more opportunities and parents with any wealth behind them than black men .
Wait what do you describe as rich ? I would be curious to know your definition of “rich .”
The social structure of Orcas is actually found in humans as well – within matrilineal cultures.