Happy Valentine’s Day, gynocrats!.
Over on A Voice for Male Students, the always-reasonable and never-hysterical Jonathan Taylor celebrates this day of candies and flowers and irritating Kay Jewelry commercials with a lovely little piece entitled “The gynocentrism of Valentine’s Day, and the spoiled princess mentality.”
In it, he takes aim at a holiday he sees as rewarding the sort of woman who behaves like a “privileged princess who didn’t get her pony when she was five.”
His proof of this “gynocentrism?” The custom graphics on Google’s home page today, which I have screencapped and pasted in above.
At first glance, this all seems very innocent. We all remember these adorably crappy candies with the little messages on them. But Taylor is able to discern its insidious deeper meaning in their words:
The inclusion of the “Mr. Right” heart may seem like a small thing, but it is also rather telling, especially coming from the #1 website in the world. Women have expectations and standards. Where are men’s expectations and standards?
We aren’t told about them. Unlike “Mr. Right,” the phrase “Ms. Right” isn’t used in common parlance. The very incidence of men having standards for women is often regarded as sexist, even if they are entirely reasonable – such as not being so fat that you are diabetic by the time you are 35 and bedridden by the time you are 55.
In the age of Feminism, the only people women “answer to” are themselves.
Now that I’ve taken a closer look at Google’s message, I think that Mr. Taylor is if anything understating its creepy gynocentric intent. Take a look again at the first two candies.
CRUSH MR. RIGHT
Clearly this is an invitation to murder. Nay, to MAN GENOCIDE.
FIRST KISS 4EVER YOURS
… because if he is dead, your first kiss will make him — or at least his corpse — forever yours.
PUPPY LOVE
Of course if he is dead, he will not be able to fulfill his normal sexual functions. So Google seems to be recommending bestiality.
BLIND DATE
And then, to cover up your crimes, it suggests that you blind all of your future dates so they can’t see the corpse you’ve got stashed in the spare bedroom. (You may also need to do something about their sense of smell.)
Has the true ugliness of this gynocentric holiday ever been more nakedly displayed?
—
Just in case anyone missed it, this post is almost entirely made up of
… except for the bit about Kay Jewelry ads, which really are irritating.
All over every fucking thing, duh. One can’t get away from them, unless one becomes a hermit…and on days like this, believe me, I am sorely tempted.
That’s because we’re so inundated by messages about how imperfect and never-right we always are and always will be. Every man gets a chance to be Mr. Right to somebody; we are never Ms. Right to anybody. Bro, do you even SEXIST?
(But hey, at least he used “Ms.” — so, yay and a tiny, crumbly cookie for him.)
Funny how that “reasonable” always translates into something completely unachievable…so much so that even supermodels are photoshopped beyond recognition.
And he wonders why we consider that sexist? Dim bulb is none too bright. What diploma mill is he currently attending, I wonder?
Dude, you say that like it’s a BAD thing. And like our individual preferences and choices are Bad Things, too.
I kinda expected you to at least try to infer some kind of “hidden misogyny” into my article. Perhaps slide in a “maybe he’s a right-wing extremist” as you usually do.
If you have fun with this kind of article, though, by all means go ahead. You won’t get a look of disapproval from me. I think activists of all stripes – MHRAs and Feminists – take themselves too seriously anyway, and it helps us all to lighten up every now and then.
I’ll admit, it got a chuckle out of me.
It also helps me. By employing a radical overexaggeration of my article in yours (which is quite clear when generally apolitical bystanders compare the two, although it would of course not be as clear to Feminists), it also lowers the bar of relevance for your collection of articles that attempt to discredit my site. It also boosts my rankings.
So it’s a win all around.
Cheers! And Happy Valentine’s Day, folks.
David, PUPPY LOVE is merely hinting at where Google’s real loyalties lie: they are minions of the Great Furred Ones.
There is no such phrase as “kitten love” in common parlance, because the puppyocracy pomotes the idea that cats are not capable of love.
By using the Puppy Love heart, Google has shown that it agrees with this evil puppycentric world view and that it has nothing but hatred and contempt for all cats everywhere.
Google is proof that agents of the Gynocracy and the Furrinati are in cahoots.
Further photographic evidence: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Afm6-TcZ7Ho/TPWxOlRrAhI/AAAAAAAAD1c/nm_adeBOEsI/s1600/vogue%2Bcats.jpg
(Hint, the boxes on the nightstand have bonbons in them)
LOL omg what a photo!
My favorite bit from the original essay is:
Is this something that actually happens in the real world?
Further down:
Obviously no one would give this chocolate figure of a man as a romantic gift. It looks like a gift for a bacherlorette party, but it could also be the sort of Valentine’s Day gift that one women might give to another, to cheer her up after a bad breakup.
So there’s no reason at all that Mr. Taylor needs to be unhappy about it. He could imagine all the women who have dumped him (because he didn’t give them ponies for Valentine’s Day) sitting alone in their cold and ponyless apartments and gnawing bitterly on one of these confections.
How miserable his life must be! Even the simple pleasures of schadenfreude are beyond him.
Actually, unless they include a “Ms. Right” candy as well, that is kind of sexist. But not in the way the author means. The expectation is that men aren’t interested in finding “the right one” and are quite happy to hop from one bed to another all their lives, and it’s only women who are interested in a long-term, stable relationship. And of course, it turns right around into slut-shaming, if you happen to be a woman who isn’t looking for Mr. Right.
This is why I hand out M&M’s on Valentine’s Day. “Mmmm” is nicely non-commital.
@markb: Shhh, stop providing cultural context!
Seriously, though, it’s like their complaint that weddings are all about the bride. Like, yeah…in a society which tells women that their top priority in life should be to find THE ONE and settle down as quickly as possible, holidays and rites of passage which centre around monogamous relationships also focus on women. Whatdoyaknow.
I wonder if it occurs to this twit that Valentine’s day is hugely commercial and companies pushing the whole romance theme aren’t known for being exactly progressive with their attitudes? I wonder if it occurs to him that heaps of people (apart from those in countries where Valentine’s Day isn’t a thing anyway) don’t give a shit about it?
Yes if you look very closely, including “Mr Right” but not “Ms Right” is kinda sexist. But really, most of the modern world, including dating, assumes the male perspective as default, so I see nothing wrong with this one instance of there just being “Mr Right”.
Now, concerning the, err, essay’s wider topic… yes, Valentine’s Day is crap. It, yeah, kinda *is* sexist, to a more substantial degree. But that’s mostly because it’s so consumerist (another point to hold against it), and standard attitudes and expectation are still that the man is the money-earner – and hey, due to the wage gap, he even is most of the time. So really, this is a reflection of society’s wider sexism that targets both genders. This means that funnily the guy is right that we should do away with those Valentine’s Day customs… but he’s right for all the wrong reason. Also, he gives too much importance to a crappy, artificial “holiday”.
In the age of Feminism, the only people women “answer to” are themselves.
THE HORROR
Jonathan, your misogyny is not actually all that terribly well hidden; read the comments here to see some discussion of some of your misogynisitic assumptions.
As for the rest, enjoy your delusions. We certainly do.
“A Voice for Cats?” HERE is the TRUE Voice for Cats:
http://cat.www.avoiceformen.com.meowbify.com/
So, do many more men do this, compared to men who do not? Who the hell cares about expectations, it’s actual behaviour that’s important.
Citation required.
Citation required.
An arse-pluck at this point to negate the arse-plucks you said above. At least you’re consistent, they’re all arse-plucks.
To answer your question, which isn’t “curious” it’s merely “stupid”, women do not require goods and services to be provided before they will provide physical affection. Also, you appear to not understand what the word “exchange” means: in the scenario you outline, because goods and services are exchanged first, then the women has provided the man with a good and/or service ahead of the physical affection.
No, no, this is the true voice of Felinist Counter Theory!
What’s to separate a man from a kerb-crawler who sees a woman as a thing to be used?
i meowbified manboobz but i couldn’t tell which ones were replacing non cat images an which images were already cat images.
the how i censor commments replaced the cat sitting on the computer screen with this
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3xno8oOiy1rtbmh0o1_500.gif
it still makes sense in context. XD
“In the age of Feminism, the only people women “answer to” are themselves.”
Kind of ironic, because since the invention of the pill men have been making huge gains in the answering-to-no-one-but-themselves dept. These days men can have commitment free sex, they don’t have to get married, there are less children to support, they can have multiple partners. Where’s the gynocentrism in that? They even get their own candy heart on Google!
You’re both using extremist positions, this is mainstream felinist counter theory: http://bit.ly/1gidvDC
This is horrible. Deeply, deeply, horrible. I am horrified. Horrified, I tell you.
@jonathan
Dang, I wish I had some kind of troll bingo open! Then I could take one for “well you’re just as bad as X!”
@auggz
GOsh, I don’t hate valentines day, and I do love pink, lace, candy, ect, but even I find it unbearably over the top. Maybe I’m just vindicative this year, because I was feeling too sucky to make a valentine day cake that said ‘happy chocolate day’ on it. /rambles
wait, what I meant was: DISSENT IN THE HIVEMIND! ABORT! ABORT!
Oh yeah, also another reason I don’t like valentines day is so much of the junk around it (though not all!) feels really heteronormative, and I’ve had, like no patience for that recently. Idk, whatever. well, troll boy here is certainly being very man + woman work this way AND ONLY THIS WAY!!!!eleven.
/rambles
Yeah, sorry for the stream of conciousness, I kinda am feeling weird today.
Brain bleach:
Uh, I’ve heard people say “Mr. and Mrs. Right” several times before…
Dear fucking God – not this false equivalency nonsense again…
Ah, this kind of article always warms my cold, materialistic feminist heart right up. I’m so glad men like Jonathan understand women so well /sarcasm.
I mean I like Valentine’s day, because I think it’s cute. I like the decorations, I like baking cute V-Day cookies and I like telling everyone I love that I love them. I think it is a very materialistic holiday, but the same can be said for most mainstream holidays in America. The main point is to get candy or gifts, media would tell us. I’m happy though, I’m spending V-Day with one of my best friends playing GTA 5.
The one thing people (guys especially) don’t seem to get is that they don’t need to spend a shit ton of money to be romantic. If I wanted a romantic Valentine’s Day I’d want to stay home and cook dinner together and then play Mario Kart 64.