So this is … interesting. Last night, Saturday Night Live did a sketch, featuring guest host Lena Dunham, about Men’s Rights Activists. Alas, it wasn’t actually funny, or particularly on the mark, and it was kind of, sort of, maybe, a little bit racist (well, ok, a lot), but it did at least give a pretty good impression of what people in the real world think of the MRAs we know and loathe so well. I can’t embed it here, so go take a look at it on Hulu.
The folks in the Men’s Rights subreddit are up in arms about it, and have started not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six threads on the subject. (There may be more; that’s all I noticed.) Well, it’s not often they get this much attention, so I guess their excitement is understandable.
Given that the sketch was actually pretty crappy in a lot of ways, the MRAs did have some legitimate complaints to make against it — like the fact that the women in the sketch mocked the MRA character for being an unattractive loser. But naturally the Men’s Rights Redditors managed to undercut even this perfectly reasonable criticism by attacking the women in the sketch for being uggos. (Oh, misogynists, why do you hate Lena Dunham so much?) Here’s a rather delightfully ironic snippet of the discussion:
![SNL manages to misinterpret MRA arguments, shame man who are less physically attractive than others by implying they are somehow lesser, says that all MRAs are only MRAs because of bad love experiences, and accuse the MRHM of being pro-life, which is a blatant lie. (hulu.com) submitted 7 hours ago by Feminists_Are_Jelly 29 comments share source save hide give gold report hide all child comments sorted by: hot navigate by: submitter | moderator | friend | admin | IAmA | images | popular | new you are viewing a single comment's thread. view the rest of the comments → [–]MockingDead 16 points 6 hours ago (27|11) A bunch of unattractive unfunny women impugning a man for being not an apex male. permalink save source save give gold hide child comments [–]ugly_duck 5 points 5 hours ago (16|11) A bunch of unattractive unfunny women impugning a man for being not an apex male. Imagine if the genders were reversed. permalink save source save parent give gold [–]Grubnar 6 points 4 hours ago (12|6) I am trying ... and I can't. Men are not usually judged by their attractiveness, but by their wealth.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ironymrastyle.png?resize=536%2C556&ssl=1)
Indeed, I’ve rarely seen irony so thick as in the outraged comments of MRAs in these threads. Here’s another angry Redditor:
Heavens! Sexism and shaming! MRAs NEVER engage in either of those things!
Oh, wait. That’s pretty much the entire basis of their movement.
Ruwanimo, you say you can’t imagine how it would look if the genders were reversed? You don’t have to imagine. All you have to do is go to the Men’s Rights subreddit, or A Voice for Men, or any other prominent (or not-so-prominent) Men’s Rights site. Or you could read through the Man Boobz archives. Ta da! Literally hundreds — make that thousands — of examples of MRAs directing “flagrant sexism and shaming” at women. (Also note: this shaming is directed at women, not only at feminists, whereas the SNL skit directed its shaming only at MRAs, not at men in general.)
You’re welcome!
The AgainstMensRights subreddit is also all over this thing, though they’ve limited themselves to four threads — here, here, here and here, which is where I found that first discussion I screenshotted.
I’m reading that book Delusions of gender by Cordelia Fine, and she covers studies where exactly this happened. And the bosses, when interviewed, proudly talk about how free of bias they are while they’re doing this. I don’t have it with me, so I can’t supply any choice quotes.
If we’re burning bras, I brought marshmallows.
“My bras are much too expensive to burn.”
Truth
You’re right. I presumed the person spoke English as a first language – but that may not be the case. I forgot that different languages spell animal sounds differently.
My apologies…
If it’s wealth that’s such a turn-on, how come my office wall is plastered with this instead of this?
It’s true. Everyone loves feminists, and literally no one has ever cracked a joke at feminists’ expense or stereotyped us in any way for the sake of comedy.
I’m always fascinated by the way that people associate ceasing to wear a garment that prevents breasts from moving and moulds them into shapes that are considered more beautiful/less sexually provocative than their natural state with hating men.
Not only are my bras too expensive to burn, ALL bras are. Have you priced those motherfuckers lately? For so little fabric, they’re a rip. If I didn’t have a massive pair of gazongas, I’d trash ’em like the ACTUAL feminists did.
Too right about bra prices. The only one I have that’s really comfortable and flattering cost one hundred and forty five fucking dollars.
@Cloudiah The Gender Delusion – I love that book! 😀
@Janet The only way I would consider burning my bras is if there was a bonfire involved, and as I only have three old bras (the only type I would be happy to burn) it would be a pretty unimpressive bonfire. Also, to be brutally honest, I would rather recycle them into rags …
Aren’t bras misandry and shouldn’t MRAs burn them? Afterall I’ve seen MRAs claim padded pushup bras are akin to the emotional manipulation that PUAs use (because bras don’t come off eventually when you have sex with the dude, yet you never know when a manipulative dude is being honest or not, unless you’re trained to snuff out the really good manipulators) but they also keep women’s boobs from bouncing all over the place and keep their nipples from poking through their shirts, thus denying men their natural right to ogle and comment on women’s body parts!!! Bras are totes the evil concoction of feminists!!!!!
Actually in one Simpsons episode, highschool Marge burned a bra after reading an article in Ms magazine about pay inequality.
My bras minimize my giganamous boobs. That’s probably somehow misandry too.
Re bras as feminist invention, there’s a grain of truth to that. I read somewhere that a Frenchwoman created the first commercially-sold brassières in order to liberate women from the tyrannical torture of the corset. The first mass-produced one was called Le Bien-être, meaning “the well-being”, alluding to the idea that comfortably supported breasts were healthier (and so was life without a corset pushing everything into all sorts of weird and unnatural shapes).
Bras are also misandry because they can lift the breasts above their natural place over the ribcage, and create cleavage, and so on. Oh noes, women’s breasts don’t naturally look like that! The horror! The deceit!
Yeah, like no MRA ever stuck a pair of rolled-up socks down his pants…>snort<
That’s right! To my understanding the woman who created the brassieres did so exactly because she found corsets too constricting and uncomfortable (and, as shown in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they made it difficult to breath when tightened “appropriately”). The reason corsets were popular is that they made women’s waists look very small which, along with showing some ankle, was a sexual turn-on for men in Victorian Era society.
It kind of reminds me of Sarah Silverman bringing up how she hired a designer to make her dress for an award show (in her autobiographical book), but had some conflict as to how it would be done because she wanted it to be comfortable while he wanted to follow the uncomfortable standard most actresses wore. She was able to get it her way, but various fashionistas mocked it for being “frumpy” and some of the people who worked on making it refused credit for making it.
Honestly? It wasn’t that bad a dress. But, then again, I kind of don’t give a shit what other people wear as long as it is comfortable for ’em. I despise it when my dad or other family members give me shit for my dress sense – even though the clothes they want me to wear feel incredibly constricting and (with my high body temperature) makes it feel like I’m wearing an oven. So, why do that to anyone else..?
Doubly useful for them to do that. Makes instant rage-wanking easier.
The sexy-corsets thing had its own double standard, too. Wearing stays had long been equated with being morally upright at the same time as being equated with being evil and sexy. The very term strait-laced comes from an earlier era of tight lacing, and women who went for the Aesthetic look in the 19th century were regarded as potentially “loose” in both senses, because they weren’t wearing corsets.
Yet another situation where women couldn’t win.
And yet we know nothing about the size of a man’s dick, and if a woman refused a man because of it she’d be called a bitch and a slut. It’s just naaaaature that men want big tits though stop shaming their sexuality waaah.
The sad reality is some people care about the size of these body parts, but only women are supposed to bare everything upfront, and if they don’t it’s cheating akin to destroying a woman’s self esteem through negging and other emotional manipulation, yet you know nothing about what a guy’s size is until sex.
And yeah, standard disclaimer that this is just pointing out the double standard, I could care less about what’s in a dude’s pants. This shit just annoys me. Past feminists got crap for not conforming to beauty standards and now current feminists or “modern women” get shit for wearing makeup and wearing certain bras and clothes. Funny how either way, so many of these types of guys think their opinion on women’s appearance is so gosh darn important that they make it so openly known. Some misandric culture of silence we live in eh?
In a weird way, dressing sexy and wearing makeup is almost more liberating because it pisses off misogynists more nowadays. They’re mad that they can’t just grab these women and have sex with them, how DARE they look hot and deny them that right!
Damn creeps.
Part of me really wants to try wearing bras eventually, and part of me is terrified at the thought of something bound to my chest all day and making me itchy and sweaty. But if I don’t wear a bra after having developed larger breasts then I have to be careful in wearing certain shirts in public. X_X It’s a real dilemma for me.
Anything we do pisses off some misogynist – a thought that gives me some pleasure.
Yay! You’re reading one of my favorite books. 😀 The whole book is worth reading. Too bad I don’t have my copy anymore…
Ally – there are some types of bras that are soft enough not to be too bad. I use maternity bras that are just soft pull-on ones in hot weather, because I’m very prone to chafing. There’s still elastic around the ribs, which is my least favourite bit of wearing bras, but it’s no worse than the band of one’s undies.
Also, depending on your situation, it’s possible to wear a singlet (tank top?) in cooler weather, especially if you like loose clothes, and not bother about a bra at all. I’m a D cup and do it regularly.
@trans_commie
You could try a t-shirt bra? They are relatively plain and there are ones made of cotton so it will breath easier and keep you cooler. I love the look of lacey bras but I wear t-shirt bras every day since they are the most comfortable 🙂