How stupid do you have to be to actually believe the following nonsense? Not just regular stupid. Men’s Rights stupid.
Heck, this is even stupid by normal Men’s Rights standards. It made me think of this line from Ruthless People.
Now, horqth could very well be a troll. His account is brand new, and, I mean, this is just amazingly dumb. But here’s the thing: his comments are being treated as if they are completely reasonable by the Men’s Rights subreddit. I noticed only a couple of mostly ignored comments out of more than 100 even raising the possiblity that he was a troll.
Not only has his post gotten dozens of upvotes, but in the comments there are numerous other Men’s Rights Redditors — not trolls — who’ve actually managed to outdo him in the sheer ridiculousness of their opinions. And they’re getting upvotes too.
Milessycamore seemed to suggest that horqth had understated the degree to which men were being victimized in both places, and more than 200 Redditors agreed:
Saxonjf thought it would be nice if more women would act like these strippers and make men feel “important special.”
Itchybrain, putting his economist hat on, suggested that the root of the problem was the massive over-valuation of women:
So how did the ladies get so overvalued in the first place? Blame the government and all that darn welfare. Responding to one contrarian Men’s Righster who suggested — get this! — that women are appropriately valued — FloranHunter laid down this truth bomb, by which I mean a bunch of complete and utter crap:
If only we could return to the good old days, when women would starve unless they were super nice to unattractive dudes who pestered them in bars!
Lawtonfogle also has no problem with the idea of men being valued for their money; he just wants to get more bang(s) for the buck.
![Lawtonfogle 10 points 1 day ago (12|2) Government intervention in the means of social support programs that result in a woman having far more bargaining power in relationship dynamics. If it weren't for laws that provided support for children and forced fathers to pay for children (even when they aren't the biological father), it would be a very different issue. Men would still be valued for their money and women for their attractiveness, but money would hold more value and being a male willing to commit would also hold (more) value. permalink source parent save give gold hide child comments [–]IOIOOIIOIO 5 points 23 hours ago (7|2) Effective male contraception is going to be amazing.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/lawton.png?ssl=1)
I give up.
Marie: in this case, it feels like a solution in search of a problem.
@kittehs
Sorry I could have been clearer.
you said:
So when I said “Yeah, but the problem isn’t actually people being stupid” I was still referring to ‘idiot’, which I think was the word we were talking about? Either way, I’m bad at getting a read on how words are used. But I find it rather …idk, weird. Because when I hear ‘stupid’ my brain doesn’t always jump to “Yeah, but the problem isn’t actually people being stupid, it’s them being willfully ignorant, or hateful jerks, or whatever. It doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence. ” <– that. It just seems like a generic insult with mild 'not intelligent' conotations to me.
:/ Anyway, I really wish I remembered who brought this up in the first place. I'd like to see their 2 cents at the moment.
@hellkell
I don’t understand what you mean.
@Marie
dlouwe brought it up.
DLOUWE, COME BACK I DON”T BITE I PROMISE. : ( 🙁
///weird mood.
Marie – dlouwe brought it up, and iirc referred to anything along the lines of stupid, idiot, etc.
I must confess my reaction to the bit about an idiot having the mental age of a toddler was “Yup, that’s MRAs all over” rather than thinking about people with actual mental development issues. The “willful” part is implicit for me – YMMV, of course.
Ninjaed by Fade! 🙂
If some MRA is going to think I’m subhuman because I’m female, then I’ll be thinking they are stupid.
@hellkell
See, I think the problem is “what the heck do you mean by stupid”?
Marie, look at the discusson on Wikipedia. Stupid is definitely related to choice there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupidity
My two cents may here may not be worth much, but if something I wrote was received badly by someone here, they would have my profound apologies and I would try to change my usage. I’m also receptive to the general point that there are some words that are beyond acceptable, especially when stigmatizing a trait that someone has no control over, but I’m not so keen on eliminating all insults from my vocabulary on general terms because someone somewhere might not like them.
Stupidity, it seems to me, feels eminently controllable. Stupidity feels like a choice. It feels like the difference between “I can choose to repeat this talking point or I can think it through and realize that it is an appeal to emotion in order to short circuit rational thought.”
I’m also really sensitive to kitteh’s point about Feministe, which has begun to (in my opinion, mind you) swallow its own tail in the constant search for points on which to call others out.
tl;dr – it seems there’s a fine line between a slur and an insult. Slurs I am uncomfortable with, but insults feel less problematic, especially when used for someone who is choosing to act in a way that is offensive.
@kittehs
Okay that makes sense :/
I found dlouwe’s original comment
So (from what kittehs quoted) it seems like stupid has a different meaning that idiot or moron? idk I’m kind of confused, I’m not really the most knowledgeable on this topic…
Ninja’d beautifully by kittehs, with an assist from Wikipedia!
Well, IIRC, both ‘idiot’ and ‘moron’ were technical terms in the past, referring to folks with some degree of mental challenge or retardation. They became slurs because of that usage. I’m not sure about ‘stupid’, since my subscription to the OED has lapsed, but I think it has always had connotations of bullheadedness and willful ignorance, rather than a simple lack of some measure of cognitive ability.
I appreciate your two cents very much.
Whoops, I’m in moderation. Probably belonged there. Here’s what I said, amended:
“Well, IIRC, both ‘idiot’ and ‘moron’ were technical terms in the past, referring to folks with some degree of mental challenge or “r*tardation” (the r word deserves those scare quotes). They became slurs because of that usage. I’m not sure about ‘stupid’, since my subscription to the OED has lapsed, but I think it has always had connotations of bullheadedness and willful ignorance, rather than a simple lack of some measure of cognitive ability.”
“Stupid” and “idiot” are somewhat problematic. But they’re not synonyms for “r*etard.” And I don’t think we should simply write them off as “ablelist slurs.”
In the case of “idiot,” the pejorative “medical” meanings attached to the word are generally not known to the general public; they aren’t part of what anyone means when they use the word, or what anyone assumes the word means when they read it. And they’re not used by psychologists/psychiatrists any more either.
“Idiot,” in popular usage, isn’t only (or even primarily) a reference to someone’s IQ; it means someone who has ridiculously bad judgement, someone who is foolish, obtuse, who lacks common sense, who doesn’t “get it.” But it can’t really be replaced with any of these words or phrases; it conveys all this in one handy word — that’s why it exists.
The definition at Dictionary.com:
“Stupid” is also problematic, in that it also can be used pejoratively. But again, it has a host of meanings and connotations that it can convey, and I’m not sure we should throw out the word entirely, though I agree it’s probably better to use it to refer to ideas rather than people (even though, yes, I used it with people in this post).
Here’s the dictionary.com definition:
There are a lot of words out there that have meanings that are or that can be seen as offensive in some ways, but I don’t think we should get rid of them all. We would end up with a pretty restricted vocabulary.
For example, “mad,” as we all know, doesn’t just mean “angry,” it also means (somewhat archaically) “insane,” and it conjures up some pretty retrograde notions of “madness” that are generally detrimental to those dealing with mental illness.
But as someone dealing with mental illness I don’t think it makes sense to ban the word “mad,” even when used as a synonym for “insane.” I think that’s going too far.
gilllyrosebee – seconding hellkell, your two cents is much appreciated.
Also round of applause for David.
Oh, on replacing words. When I’m tempted to use words like “stupid” or “idiot” I do ask myself if there’s another term I can use that will convey what I mean equally well. With MRAs, “obtuse” often works well. Google defines it as “annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand.” It conveys a certain willfullness to their refusal to “get it” that I think captures them exactly.
Thanks, hellkell & kittehs!
My pleasure!
Swallowing its own tail seems a good description of Feministe. When it’s not infighting it’s just … so dismal. Okay, they’re talking about horrible stuff most of the time, but shit, the whole site is such a downer. Not that they’re alone in that, of course.
@kittehs
Now I’m really curious what happened on Feministe? Cuz I seem to have missed…well, everything that happened. I haven’t been there very often. :/
I didn’t mean a specific incident, Marie, just the overall atmosphere of the place. Most of the posts seem to have at least one thread that turns into a huge fight over something barely related, or a word choice, or, or, or …
Yeah, there’s no one thing going on, and Jill and the other admins still post really good work, but the comment threads have become incredibly toxic. There’s a lot of calling out over every little possible thing, and a lot of appealing to identity in order to justify who is allowed to take offense. Above all there is less and less good will; as if everyone is constantly looking to play ‘gotcha’ or for a reason to accuse others of heterodoxy.
If you’ve been following the controversy on feminism’s “twitter toxicity”, I’d argue that the comments at Feministe could serve as exhibit A. Granted, the movement is experiencing some growing pains at the moment, as all movements do, but some forums are having more trouble with maintaining a spirit of good will and collaboration than others. I still read a lot of the comments; there are some smart people over there with a perspective that I find important to hear and understand, but the atmosphere is tense and people are always on guard over themselves and quick to lash out at others for every perceived slight, which doesn’t allow for much in the way of meaningful discussion.
It’s like they’ve decided the header about “in defence of the sanctimonious women’s studies set” isn’t tongue-in-cheek at all, any more. All the threads seem such downers, even the open ones. I get more of an “Oh fuck, what now?” feeling than anything else there, these days; it’s really not worthwhile reading for me (not least because it is so very US-centric).
Same can be said of Pharyngula, alas. Took my first look there in months, yesterday, and reminded myself why it’s not for me.
Seconding all of what hellkell, kittehs, and gillyrosebee said. If this place was to turn Feministe-like I’d be out the door so fast I’d leave tire tracks on the floor.