So FeMRA videoblogger Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan flapped her gums for nearly two hours the other night and sounds came out. This time she wasn’t sitting at her kitchen table blabbing to a webcam about female “hypoagency” and regurgitating misremembered factoids about bonobos but was speaking to an audience of mostly white dudes at Ryerson University in Toronto Canada.
I haven’t watched her performance — which is of course online as well — because life is short, and frankly I’d rather endure this for ten hours than subject myself to the tedious GWW for nearly two.
But I did take a look at a thread on the Men’s Rights subreddit started by a dude who hoped he and his fellow MRAs could have “a proper discussion about the talk, pros and cons, without descending into a circlejerk or a downvote party.” That’s right: he actually wanted GWW’s biggest fanboys to discuss her ideas (such as they are) on their merits.
This did not go over very well with the regulars, who jumped up to defend their favorite damsel in distress. ManUpManDown argued against the very notion of criticizing GWW, on the grounds of 1) her being supercool and 2) giving talks is hard:
Huh. But by NOT offering any criticism, aren’t you in fact treating her not as a writer or activist or, god forbid, a thinker, but precisely as a mascot?
Still, a few brave MRAs did bring up substantive critiques of her talk. For example, both 2095conash and memetherapy noted that she probably said “Right?” too often. Bluecharge, while proud of her performance, noted with brutal honesty that her “way of wrapping up points by saying ‘so there you go’ was a bit trite.”
So there you go.
Oh, I forgot to mention one dumb criticism some dumb guy made. GWW apparently suggested that if all the men in the world took three days off it would take three years to recover from the disaster that would ensue.
Essemd implied that this was a bit alarmist, arguing that if you gradually replaced men in the workforce with women — over the course of many years — it wouldn’t be the end of the world, because women could do these “men’s jobs” too. “[S]aying either gender is required because this and this job is mainly occupied by men or women is just false,” Essemd concluded.
Luckily there were a few real MRAs around to teach this fella a thing or two. Like Rikevo, who offered the powerful rebuttal that women can’t do shit:
Right?
And xNOM had a little list:
So there you go.
NOTE: I actually had that loop of “What is Love” on during most of the writing of this post. Hey, it’s a catchy song.
@argenti
Ps: I figured your fish were always on topic. Like, it was a given XD
*hands out cookies*
Thanks contrapangloss!
Marie — cool! 🙂
neuroticbeagle and emilygoddess – ROFL!
Is it just me, or is that poster a bit glib about “If there were no women, there would be no babies-the end”
I mean, it doesn’t seem like the end of our species through no children is something that really concerns him that much.
Yep. He is. Astute observation, JM.
I don’t think he cares much about the state of the world, really: just his little piece of it.
Plus, he makes the mistake of thinking ladies are nothing but baby factories. It’s like he thinks they are parthenogenic, and their spawn has nothing to do with any male reproductive system, at all, ever.
It’s kind of sad, really. He’s preventing his own poor widdle self from knowing some über-cool people because he thinks they might have cooties, or bury him in children, or make him do this painful thing called thinking critically about his assumptions.
“painful thing called thinking critically about his assumptions”
Now, now. If you have a severely limited number of neurons, thinking might very well be painful.
Regarding the comment about cats having the dark triad: How the f do cats have low levels of emotion? Cats are the biggest drama queens ever! Dracarys acts like I’m abusing her when she eats all her food and there is no more or I won’t let her eat all my dinner. If I leave for ten minutes to replenish my diet coke supply, Darrow is waiting for me at the door, pacing and crying like he thought I was never coming back so he best be placated with treats.
What is it with people still buying into the stereotype that women like cats and men like dogs. I’ve met lots of men who like cats more than dogs and I’ve met lots of women who like dogs more than cats. I ask, why do you have to choose? I love them both. Am I womaning wrong? Maybe I just like cute furry animals. Cats are the preferable pet though. They’re so much more independent. The amount of attention dogs want is exhausting. The only downside to cats is that you can’t bring them over to friends houses or the park like you can with dogs.
The Dark Triad is an immoral trifecta of personality traits that results in immense personal power which grants high social status, tight control over interpersonal social dynamics and intense sexual attraction,
This is starting to sound like summoning demons or something. Don’t they offer the same benefits? Plus, the demon is probably a more pleasant salesman than the MRA.
RE: Fibinachi
I’ve actually found a few very useful self-help books (a couple about preventing suicide, a couple about living with DID, one about recovering from sexual trauma), but Sturgeon’s Law is in high evidence. And then you have shit like The Secret. Ugh!
Then again, I guess it’s no coincidence that most of the books I mentioned were specifically in relation to mental illness or trauma. <.< Those tend to be the kind of things where navel-gazing is actually incredibly important, so you check before you wreck.
(As opposed to naval-gazing, which is looking for hot sailors on submarines.)
::snicker::
QFT!
Mads this morning needed huge apologies + treats because I put my foot on her. Didn’t kick her didn’t stand on her,didn’t even biff her; she was lurking under my computer chair and when I went to get off it (it’s a high one) my FOOT pressed her BACK for a moment. Oh noes! Cruelty! Ring the RSPCA!
@LBT:
Oh, Dark Triad, my nemesis, we meet again. I’ve tried and tried to stop Red Pillers from embracing it, but all my efforts have been in vain. To embrace such psychopathic traits is to doom oneself to a life of loneliness and the possibility of becoming a criminal.
The Dark Triad cultists once sang the praises of having poor impulse control as well, which is a very bad sign. The glorification of psychopathy has to stop before I can change anything.
Um, what? Were you under the impression that you would be able to change them? Are you the Neo of the MRM? I’m so confused.
(Seriously, if there’s some context here that I’m missing could someone clue me in?)
That’s the thing that has me scratching my head about this Dark Triad stuff – being an arsehole doesn’t actually guarantee success in anything except alienating people. There are plenty of shitstains out there, but when they’re as fuckwitted as most of the scrotosphere, it’s not going to do them a whole lot of good. It’s like setting yourself up as the stereotypical stupid school bully.
Sorry, CassandraSays, I don’t know the context. *spread hands*
RE: the Dark Triad
Exactly, Kittehs. You can get away with being a manipulative asshole, but you have to at least be a charming one, or an intelligent one. You have to have something else going for you, something so good that it trumps the “manipulative asshole” part. ANYONE can be a manipulative asshole; it requires something special to make someone successful as such. (That, or you have to specifically hang out with children or people whose filters haven’t quite developed yet.)
Most of the people on those sites lack that something special. So they don’t even get to be ENTERTAINING assholes. They just get to be another garden-variety asshole that people complain about.
MRAs and PUAs always confuse “things that women will tolerate if they want to fuck you badly enough” with “things that will make women want to fuck you”.
These clowns talk as if being a scuzzbucket is going to turn them all into multimillionaires, or have huge harems, or something.
Nope. It might get them sacked, it’ll wreck any relationships they might have had, but that’s about it. Crosses between the Koch Brothers and Hugh Hefner they ain’t.
I mean, if you’re a super hot celebrity who women are already motivated to pursue because super hot + celebrity? Sure, they may be willing to overlook some less than charming traits. But if you’re not a super hot celebrity? Then you’re just “that asshole who was rude to me on the bus”.
@Cassandra:
I take offense that you think I’m part of the MRM. I hung out on Blue Pill and merely jumped on any Dark Triad pusher who wandered in from Red Pill. I want to stop them from dragging other people down with them.
I have no idea what you were trying to say with your earlier comment, or what your relationship to the MRM is. That was the point.
Honestly, I wish the whole “nice guy finishes last” meme would just DIE, already. What drew me to my husband was his kindness. It’s what I’m most proud of in my younger sibling too. I believe the world needs more kindness, not more assholish behavior.
It would help if the dudebros stopped defining “nice” as “girls won’t date me” and “asshole” as “girls seem to like him”.
Mnemosyne has done plenty of comments here and is no troll, I know that.
This bit confused me (might be the part that confused cassandrakitty?): ” The glorification of psychopathy has to stop before I can change anything.”
I also read cassandrakitty’s comment re PUAs and MRAs as a general remark, not talking about you being one.
Yeah, I feel like I walked in in the middle of a conversation, which is why I was asking for context. Why would Mnemosyne be in a position to sway the direction of the MRM? It’s not like they generally listen to women, or anyone who isn’t already part of the cult.
Ditto. Or rather, it’s one of the things I was so delighted to find in Louis. I knew he had plenty of kindness in his earthly days, but also a shitload of issues (child abuse) that made him bloody impossible to live with and yes, at times an arsehole. Seeing all that stuff has long since gone is one of the joys of life together.
Oh, and seeing him make an elaborate kitty bed that then gets rejected. I confess to being amused by that.
RE: CassandraSays
Your handle seems to keep changing. O_o Is WordPress being a butt?
And yeah, basically. My husband is one of the kindest men I’ve met, but pretty sure these guys would define him as an asshole. He was the big jock boy who got laid a lot; the thing is, he got laid because he actually was fun to be around.