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.
This is incredibly disingenuous. MRAs don’t have “entirely reasonable” standards for women. Every forum I’ve seen is full of idiots going on and on and on and on about how women’s attractiveness peaks at 19 and takes a sharp nose dive after 25. They literally see every woman as fat, wrinkly, ugly, and unfuckable, even if she’s conventionally attractive, simply because she’s over 35, or has short hair, or dares to eat an ice cream cone in public, or has opinions while female. It’s like they’re wearing the opposite of beer googles.
But nice try at pretending to be so open-minded, you’ll date anybody as long as they’re not a type 2 diabetic.
My boss buys into this crap. She was quizzing everyone in the office (all women) about what they got for valentine’s day, and when I told her what my bf did (drew a heart and smiley on the bathroom mirror for me to find – he goes to work while I’m still in bed – which I thought was lovely and made me smile) and she said “yeah, I guess that’s worth taking your clothes off for”. She is bizarrely like an MRA’s stereotypical woman in a lot of ways.
My co-worker spent the day before Valentine’s haranguing the poor guy who sits next to us about his choice in gift for his girlfriend. They are both avid bicyclists, and he wanted to get her a nice leather seat for her bike. She thought this was just TERRIBLE (“You’re buying something for her BUTT! Yeah, keep reminding her about her BUTT!”) and insisted that he buy jewelry instead (“Every woman wants jewelry.”) She ignored me when I piped up that I don’t wear or like jewelry, and he probably knows his girlfriend better than she does.
I just prefer to ignore the holiday all together. I keep it to myself and don’t bother anyone who enjoys the day. However, in my experience, it’s the people who buy into it who are the ones policing everyone else’s behavior.
“a gardening top matched to yoga pants and crocs.”
Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh.
Totally agree with Mark and Tulgey: The problem with there being so much talk about “Mr Right” but not about “Ms Right” is that women are supposed to look for the right man to complete their lives, while men are supposed to have other interests.
Regarding engagement rings, me and Husband got engaged on a rock festival and bought our rings there; fake silver with spiders on. Unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) the quality was crap, so we had to stop wearing them after a year or so because they fell to pieces. However, at that point we were married anyway, with plain silver bands made to last…
I was starting to wonder where the annual manosphere Valentines Day rage-fest was.
And aww, Jonathan is totally not upset at all about this post! Look how not upset he is!
Fucking THANK YOU. The whole “he gives her shiny things, she gives him sex” model that gets turned up to 11 by advertisers this time of year (looking at you especially, jewelers) makes me want to punch a wall, and it ain’t because of the “misandry”.
Right? His go-to example of a reasonable preference just happens to hit a lot of misogynistic and fat-phobic buttons.
Gee, I hope we’re allowed to apply this standard to men. Because Type 2 diabetes makes ’em impotent.
(Viagra is MISANDRY!)
Hubby and I both have nasty colds. Our Valentine’s Day celebration was sipping Wild Turkey, eating cheap burritos and watching movies cuddled up with a cat. It was exactly what I felt like doing. My favorite gifts were the Valentines my kids gave me. I don’t need a grand gesture to know I’m loved and neither does he.
Dvarghundspossen,
I remember the year my stepdad got my mom an expensive tennis bracelet for Valentine’s Day and was shocked when she she told him it was nice, but she’d rather have a waffle iron. He thought that was a boring, unromantic gift, but he returned the bracelet. He came back home with a waffle iron that made heart shaped waffles and a bottle of maple syrup in a gift bag. She loved it. Us kids did too, because we got waffles out of it.
My partner and I don’t do Valentines Day, partly because we both find it a little overly consumeristic, but mostly for financial reasons. Our anniversary is in early December, then Hanukkah/Xmas, our one big SF convention in January, Valentines Day, My birthday in March, and his birthday in April. That’s a lot of gift-giving occasions in less than half a year! So Valentines Day and Xmas get cut, and our anniversary gift to each other is a hotel room for the con, all of which saves us a buttload of money.
I told you that story to tell you this story: holidays, no matter how popular, are not compulsory. Find what works for your relationship and do it.
I know this is only tangentially related, but why do people assume that all fat people have diabetes and all people with type 2 diabetes are fat? My grandfather got it when he was older and he was never overweight. Now my aunt has recently gotten it and she isn’t fat either. There’s a big genetic component to it. Being obese increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. That doesn’t mean obesity guarantees it or that only obese can have it.
Valentine’s Day is actually a very rough day for my husband, so it tends to be more about comfort than romance, but we went out for sushi, watched Footloose (HIS taste, not mine!), and looked at porn together. It was a good way to spend the day, I daresay.
I swear, I want to throw Diabetes is After Your Dick! at this guy, because he seems to have gotten the wrong idea from the title. Also, diabetes != fat.
Speaking of which… guys, I think I mentioned to y’all that I lost my wedding ring during the Shitty Years. At the time, I didn’t really have the resources to do much but go, “Well, go figure,” but now things are better and I kinda want a replacement. I’m old-fashioned that way. (Technically, I did get a replacement, a chain mail thing, but the creator actually kept insisting I didn’t want it, and now he actually kinda succeeded in making me dislike my ring, which also keeps catching on my clothes.) Can anyone recommend a place that does simple ethical gold bands that don’t suffer from the Wedding Tax?
RE: Kiwi Girl
Last year, I think it was, I commissioned him a picture by LBT.
I remember drawing that! I had a lot of fun.
RE: catgirl
I saw hot guy and my ovaries exploded.
O_O That sounds… painful.
This post is a clearly far reaching effort to ridicule something and the effort is quite unsuccessful. What Taylor states is really not disputed. Its like someone making fun of the claim that the Earth is round.
Valentines day is a gynocentric celebration and there is no equivalent androcentric celebration. As Chris Rock stated, “its all about her”. The fact that many feminists support the celebration (look at the Valentine’s Day debate video posted on A Voice for Men) shows that feminists don’t truly want equality, for women, but rather advantage for women.
Sam, still waiting to hear what citation you want from me. I’m going to keep badgering you until you actually respond to me. Please don’t tell me I have to resort to petty annoyance, dogging you on every thread like a small child.
O RLY? Gee, what was my post first up out of the box, if not to put his bullshit in dispute? Nice of you assclowns to ignore that, and all the other disputations here too.
>snort< Actually, Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday, designed to make single people (and especially women) feel inadequate for not getting enough sex and shit. If you're female and you don't get diamonds, the message goes, you must be ugly and unloved. If that's what you call "gynocentric", then you're an idiot.
And I'd really rather NOT watch that AVFMorons video harangue-a-thon about the poor beleaguered menz, thanks. I have bigger things on my mind than their sad widdle unsucked boners on this most "gynocentric" day of the year.
Kim on February 15, 2014 at 6:51 am said:
“not to mention, the woman is supposed to “reciprocate” by having sex, so in the strict “guy buys” model, it’s not like we’re just getting shit for free”
I thought that sex was a mutual expression of affection, not a service performed for payment. I’m sure that you would scoff at the radical idea expressed by some that all or most women are prostitutes, yet you have just supported this statement.
Plus, the notion of expecting sex after entertaining or buying gifts for a woman is a notion that is criticized, especially by feminists, yet the notion of a man being obligated to wine, dine and give gifts to a woman on Valentine’s Day without receiving anything is quite acceptable.
Welp, Sam has finally started reading the comments, and now we know why he didn’t until now. I think the point is LIGHT YEARS above his head at this point.
This piece: http://jezebel.com/college-gals-should-make-husband-hunting-their-major-s-1523126206 is on a piece in the WSJ.*
isn’t she the same idiot that previously gave a speech at Princeton about how the female students should pick their husbands while they’re still studying so they won’t be left on the shelf? Given that this is the quality of some of the Princeton alumni, marriage possibly is the greatest achievement they will attain.
It appears she’s an annoying one-trick pony.
*I’m never going to read anything in the WSJ again. I hope advertisers are taking notice, because females are customers too.
Gee, I guess the idea of a gift given out of love, with no expectation of tit-for-tat, is just beyond you.
Thanks for telling us that this day is just about prostitution for you guys. Not that we hadn’t already guessed.
Retail-wise, Valentine’s Day is the Pink and Red Season, which is succeeded by the Pastel Season, somewhat after which comes the Red-White-and-Blue Season, then the Orange and Black Season, the Brown, Yellow and Orange Season and the Green and Red Season. Each of these has its appropriately-themed crappy candy, which may be purchased at half off at the start of the next season. At least this is the situation in the U.S.; I daresay it’s different elsewhere.
For those of us who don’t want jewelry or flowers and who think that the usual heart-shaped candy assortments are crap, and who in addition don’t like pink much, it really has very little to offer.
I must say that I appreciated our nearest Trader Joe’s approach; their concession to the season was, I think, one sort of cookie, some pink-and-chocolate cupcakes, and a rather-greater prominence of their usual flowers. Oh, and chocolate pudding/strawberry/whipped cream samples. That was okay.
The only holiday that I personally find more irritating than Valentine’s Day is Mother’s Day. Of course, since that has no particular seasonal colors, it doesn’t really count.
Bina, you gave a rant, not a refutation.
Sam, you need to work on your reading comprehension. Kim was not endorsing that model. She was pointing out that the popular notion of V-day in our culture was that man buys flowers/jewelry/dinner and then he gets laid/a BJ. In the popular culture version of valentine’s day both the man and the woman give and receive something. However, if you had bothered to read the thread you would have seen several posts calling bullshit on this.
Life isn’t a Hallmark or Kay’s commercial. It also isn’t a bad rom com. Stop getting your ideas of how women behave from bad movies and ads and actually get to know us as human beings and you’ll find the vast majority of us aren’t spoiled princesses who will only suck a dick for diamonds.
Valentine’s Day is not a gynocentric holiday. It’s a DeBeers-and-chocolate-manufacturer-centric holiday, designed to make both men and women feel insecure about themselves in order to increase sales. Patriarchy’s same-old same-old roles (men as provider, women as passive recipient) happens to provide a convenient framework for tapping into those age-old insecurities. Ad agencies are well aware of that.
If you don’t want to buy into it, then don’t. Plenty of women don’t like the artifically inflated expectations surrounding the holiday either.
Au contraire, mon petit frère. T’es un idiot, et tu ne vales pas la peine de répondre avec un tas de mots.
So what if a woman will only suck a dick for diamonds? That’s her right. If you don’t like that price, go find someone else or masturbate.
Well, for Valentine’s Day I made stuffed heart for dinner. Can someone tell me where that falls on the gynocentric scale?