NOTE TO AVFM READERS: See UPDATE 2 at bottom of post.
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, a dude named unkleman wants us all to remember the debt of gratitude we owe to the white men of the world:
This message went over pretty well with the overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly self-pitying and self-congratulatory and maybe just an eensy teensy weensy bit racist demo in the Men’s Rights subreddit. I guess it pays to know your audience!
Men’s Rights and White Supremacy: two … tastes that go together.
Thanks to the folks in the AgainstMensRights subreddit for pointing me to this lovely comment.
UPDATE: Apparently, Unkleman’s comment was meant as sarcasm. That is, while he seems to think that his version of history is accurate, he thinks that the notion that individual white people today deserve credit for things other white people did in the past is stupid.
Interestingly, when he pointed out that this was what he actually meant, he got downvoted below zero, a stark contrast to the reception his original comment got. Take a look:
![ishm 5 points 1 day ago (10|5) I am in agreement with the majority of your statement! But the "owe to white men" stanza going on for a multitude of sentences triggered negative feelings in me. I do not believe we "owe it to white men", yet I would be much more complacent with "we should appreciate the MEN and WOMEN who discovered them". Owe should be excluded as there was no damned contract signed. Minorities and other whites do not owe anything to whites who discovered various technologies. Appreciate is the word you meant I hope. permalink save parent report give gold reply [–]unkleman -1 points 1 day ago (4|5) Yeah, it was entirely meant to stir negative feelings and the premise is ridiculous. It is just the other side of the coin of the thought process for people who use such excuses to be "politically correct" racists and meant to show that their justifications should lead to a reverse conclusion. If I actually believed I am owed kudos for racial reasons, one should assume that I literally have nothing else going for me in life and that would be sad.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/unkle2.png?resize=533%2C445&ssl=1)
Evidently, the Men’s Rightsers liked his comment much better when they thought he totally meant it.
UPDATE 2: Evidently my point in posting a picture of King Leopold of Belguim was a bit too subtle for the not-so-great minds at A Voice for Men to understand. So here is the point, in plain English: If you’re going to talk about all the good things done by white men in history, which have been considerable, you should also be prepared to talk about the bad things they have done, which have also been considerable. Since the fellow I quoted gave examples of the good things he sees as white male accomplishments, I thought I would provide an example of a white man who was not such a good fellow as a counterexample. I hope this helps!
Not even that. Symphysiotomy was flat-out illegal, but that didn’t stop those “enterprising”, “good Catholic” doctors from doing it. C-sections are the actual last-ditch emergency procedure (so last-ditch, in fact, that when they were first codified in the laws of the Caesars, it was mandated to save the child of a dead mother). Symphysiotomy, on the other hand, is just plain barbaric.
And it’s something nobody can blame on the usual non-white suspects, either.
Why do non-whites, and only non-whites, have to “justify” their presence in fiction?
Thanks, Bina! I like the cussing-surveyor Sam Hill the best.
That is unbelievable that some ob-gyns consider natural childbirth tantamount to abuse. C-sections aren’t all that great for babies either. Vaginal births help expel amniotic fluid from the lungs and colonize the baby’s digestive system with beneficial bacteria. There are probably other benefits to entering the world via a gradual passage down the birth canal, versus being suddenly yanked out of their cozy, warm home. As I recall, my little guys weren’t too happy about it. One twin had to spend some time in the NICU because his lungs hadn’t cleared completely.
On the whole, though, I was very glad to have the option of a C-section, since Twin B was breech.
What really grates on me is how. No, “white men” didn’t invent the printing press, Gutemberg did, and you don’t get to declare yourselves inventors by proxy because he shared a continent with your ancestors. The near totality of white men didn’t invent jack.
As for inventions done by non-Europeans, nobody can write in English without referencing the alphabet itself – a Phoenician innovation.
PS: Re c-sections, this part of the Wikipedia entry leapt out at me:
So not only did white folks not invent the c-section, they were very late to the game indeed, since it was obviously being practiced with some success in Africa by local midwives before the first white surgeon attempted the first “modern” one.
Just one more thing NOT to “thank a white man” for!
OT etiquette question – I have a question for the “what is attraction like?” discussion thread from about a week ago. Should I post here? Should I post there? Should I wait for that topic to come up again?
Also, on topic, please continue with the examples. They are very entertaining. 🙂
There’s an OT thread, just for you (and everyone else):
http://manboobz.com/2014/04/11/open-thread-for-personal-stuff-april-2014-edition/
Thanks! 🙂
Trigger warning for violence done to women in order to make men happy. If your own feelings can be triggered by this, please do not read.
Bina, I read this and I actually wept. When I was 17, back in the ’60’s, I spent a year in a hospital while I was recovering from a year spent in a place called Audy Home in Chicago. While in the hospital, I became friends with a woman – a talented and very hurt and angry woman. We used to go to “occupational therapy” several times a week and, being also an artist myself, we would paint together.
She was so good. Her paintings were full of vibrant color and intense emotion. She told me her story. When she married, she agreed to put her art career on hold until the kids were in school. When they got old enough, she started up her career again. This made her husband unhappy, since she was no longer devoting all of her time making sure the house was super clean and dinner was on the table when he got home.
He responded by having her committed, which husbands could do to wives who were not behaving as wives were supposed to. Husband and father came to see her a lot, but she never seemed happy to see them. One morning, after we all got up and got ready for the day, I saw her on a gurney in the hall. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she had no idea. She was wheeled away and no one saw her for a couple of weeks. When she came back, she was different. She seemed somehow blank. She did not talk much and showed no interest, that I could tell, in her art anymore. Her father and her husband had signed, without asking or telling her, for her to have a lobotomy. This was done to women back then to make them more docile and “normal.” Her dad cried after he realized that he had basically killed her, but her husband was happy because the art seemed to be gone and she did what she was told.
This, and Audy Home, were the triggering events that made me a feminist. Any woman who believes that she is safe from this kind of thing needs to look more closely. Men are trying to take our reproductive freedom from us and some talk about how we should not be allowed to vote. Just like racism, sexism is a constant evil that we need to be vigilant about.
I say this in all seriousness – I may be paranoid, but that does not mean that they are not out to get us.
@samantha
I felt chills from this story. It really shows what misogynists wish women to be – brain-dead doormats and servants.
Samantha, that is heart-breaking – all the more so because it was so fucking common.
@ Samantha
I lived in Saudi Arabia as a child. Trust me, I’m under no illusion that women are safe or that this stuff is gone for good. Things have gotten much, much better, but they could backslide pretty easily if we aren’t vigilant.
That is why I have such a hard time seeing the mra-impaired as a joke, even though I know that on some level they are.
kittehserf, that is the hardest thing of all. All over the world, women are being stripped of their humanity by our so-called brothers. And it is considered normal!
And the guys like Elam – they would do it all and more. I have no idea why so many men hate women so much, but they do. They even try to make the very fact of femaleness into a pathological, diseased condition.
What if they hate us because we are really more powerful then they are? There has to be some reason…something about us that they fear and, as a result, hate.
And, to David and the truly human men on this blog, I do not think that all men are like the scary dudes we all love to joke about. We need the men who understand that being human is far more then the mra’s can even imagine, and who embrace that challenge with us.
I was the sysop of a BBS I called Lysistrata for about ten years. I would like to see a Lysistrata movement, with real teeth and power behind it. I despair, however, of finding enough women now to pull it off.
@cassandrakitty
Oh, I read Tarot for a small group of Saudi women a long time ago. Their husbands were here at the university and they had brought their wives. A more frightened bunch I have never met. And they only wanted to know one thing – will I have a son? When I asked the woman who translated for them about that, she told me that Saudi men can put their wives out if they have no sons! She also told me that if their husbands found out that they had been to see me, they could be executed when they got back home. Is that true???????
I’ve never heard of any law related to tarot readings, but their husbands could certainly make their lives rather unpleasant if they didn’t approve.
The whole “you don’t have a son” makes me grind my teeth so hard. Someone tell all these dudes about Y chromosomes and who (generally speaking) has ’em …
Auntie Alias, technically ‘Climate change’ is a better descriptor, as there’s a whole lot more stuff happening than just an average temperature increase. Like, a whole lot more stuff.
For instance: pH weirdness in the oceans, changes in atmospheric gas composition, greater instability in weather patterns…
We still can’t officially blame the climactic weirdness entirely on people, but we can totally say that people have had a significant impact.
@Samantha: Those stories are absolutely horrendous. I’m appalled, and feel sick that you had to experience and see stuff like that.
To be fair, c-section rates have skyrocketed as its safety has increased incredibly. Now it is slightly more likely to lead to maternal death, but other complications are a bit of a trade-off with vaginal birth. For example, recovery time is generally greater, but c-sections tend to leave women more continent than vaginal births, and have a lower risk of hemorrhages. C-section babies sometimes have treatable breathing difficulties, but they are less likely to have accidents during birth that lead to brain damage (my sister probably would have strangled to death during vaginal birth–her heart rate scared the crap out of the OB at a check-up, and she came out with the cord around her neck) and an overall lower death rate. All things being equal, c-sections are very safe–for low-risk patients, maybe more dangerous than vaginal birth (for the mother), but as soon as you aren’t low-risk, they are a lifesaver for mothers and babies.
Also, it is hard to say whether the reported risks of c-section apply to c-sections or are caused by factors that make women more likely to have c-sections, or are only a factor in emergency c-sections and not planned c-sections, since most studies don’t compare births by planned delivery mode (which as far as I’m concerned is a huge drawback–what if it turns out that most of the problems with c-sections are caused by emergency surgery and could be solved by scheduling c-sections? I certainly would want to know that before planning either mode of delivery.)
A major risk of c-sections is that they increase the risks of subsequent pregnancies, but that is something that needs to be weighed against the current pregnancies, and for women who want 2-3 kids, it isn’t that much of a problem.
My pet peeve when people talk about childbirth is neglecting the fact that vaginal delivery is not risk-free either, and that choosing between the two requires an honest evaluation of individual risks and preferences. For me, if I were to get pregnant, I’d seriously consider planned cesarian. Possibly this has to do with the fact that both my sister and I were c-section babies, and it probably saved both our lives.
(Source: https://www.acog.org/Resources_And_Publications/Committee_Opinions/Committee_on_Obstetric_Practice/Cesarean_Delivery_on_Maternal_Request)
Even as a kid it bothered me to hear women referred to as Umm Saed or Umm Khalid or whatever, and never, say, Umm Leila. If you have a son then that’s what people call you now, Son’sMom, but not Daughter’sMom.
I’m headed out into the cold night to see if I can get a good look at the lunar eclipse. Surely the blood moon must be a harbinger of something dreadfully misandric.
How about the Jack from “you don’t know Jack?”
@samantha
Well, many families and communities in the Middle East (Islamic or not) cling to an archaic, patriarchal concept of honor. It is the ideological justification for so many acts of honor-related violence committed against women and girls, such as honor killings, and it is because of this ideology that even the authorities often ignore or excuse those who have committed honor-related violence.
Although honor killings aren’t as common as they are made out to be, there are other forms of honor-related violence that aren’t lethal. It is very plausible to say that there are some Saudi husbands who are willing to abuse or murder the women and girls in the family who commit some form of transgression, especially if that form of transgression is rooted in something perceived as “magic”, such as tarot cards. Many folks, particularly ultraconservative Muslims, believe that magic (perceived or real) is a crime punishable by death.
I also face the threat of honor violence, particularly from my Moroccan step-mother’s side of the family. If she has the will to call my little sisters whores in Arabic (I’ve actually heard her use “sharmuta” before, whose awfulness I’m sure cassandrakitty recognizes), threaten family members with death, and gloat about the history of Arabs enslaving Indians, I’m sure she won’t be very kind to me once she learns I am trans. (Especially since she has also demonstrated very strong heterosexism.) She is most likely to just keep my little sisters away from me (because I’m clearly just an evil, perverted person for existing), but I know she is also very fond of violence. And having learned about her family’s esteem for family honor, I suspect that they may react dangerously towards me if I come out to them. The shame of me existing is probably “too much” for them to handle.
Oh, and it doesn’t help that I’m an apostate from Islam and that being an apostate is, according to almost every Muslim I know, punishable by death (although not all interpretations of Islam support any punishment for apostates, the death penalty for apostasy is a mainstream belief). It’s hard to imagine not being threatened with death, honestly, because being trans and non-Muslim is so blasphemous to most Muslims I know that I will be seen as the shame of the community or something to that effect.
Re: the OP – As an amateur theologian, I just have to say that the whole “mark of Cain” thing absolutely makes my blood boil.
Firstly, there is zero indication in Genesis that the mark has anything to do with skin color. The only other times people are supernaturally “marked” in the Bible, it’s represented by something like a seal on the forehead.
Secondly, even if the mark of Cain WAS about skin color, there is zero indication as to whether it made him lighter or darker.
Thirdly, Cain was marked, but there is zero indication that any of his children were.
Finally, even if we WERE to grant the completely unfounded and racist idea that the “mark of Cain” was the biblical origin story of dark-skinned people (leaving aside the fact that the Bible was not written by white people, except for *maybe* one author)–the entire reason God marked Cain was specifically SO THAT PEOPLE WOULDN’T HARM HIM. In fact, according to Genesis, God promises to avenge Cain “sevenfold”.
In other words, if you choose, against all evidence, to interpret the mark of Cain in a racist way, you also immediately theologically undermine your justification to act like a racist poophead. Unless, you know, you LIKE the idea of incurring the judgment of God on yourself.