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!
Vaginal delivery is far more physically traumatic for the fetus than delivery via c-section. This idea it’s gentle is just frigging dumb. They are getting pushed and pulled and squeezed and squished the whole way out. It’s unpleasant for the mother and baby and prior to c-sections led to a LOT of birth injuries. You have to remember “She can’t push it out” isn’t the only reason we perform c-sections. We perform them to avoid a plethora of negative outcomes, all of which are far worse than the harm caused by the c-section such as brain damage to the baby. If the injuries the baby and/or mother will incur as a result of proceeding with a vaginal delivery are that bad, even if vaginal delivery is possible, you reduce harm and proceed with the c-section.
C-section has become safer for the patient every day since it’s inception. There has never been any convincing evidential support that delivery via c-section does any lasting harm to babies. Furthermore, while we know recovery generally takes longer following delivery via c-section due to the harm of a surgical procedure we never even talk about injuries to mothers as part of vaginal delivery and their long-term repercussions. We pretend they don’t even happen when they very much do.
Neither is a cake walk free of risk.
This topic reminds me of how I’ve being clashing a bit lately with white male privileged guys online, and it’s not MRAs, it’s guys whom are opposed to them and appear pro-woman on the outset. Maybe they’re just being friendly in the hopes of getting dates… either way, I’ve notice among guys like that, of all races, that the smarter they are the more chauvinistic they are and the more they prefer conservative behavior in females — hence, part of the ‘clashing’.
But I’ve also notice this chauvinism in dumb guys.
This has being part of the reason I’ve not always gotten along with pro-feminist people of both gender. I even notice this in groups and online sites that are supposedly pro-feminist or pro-woman. There’s this measure of conservatism that causes conflicts. Some people there are so proud and contained, hence frown when they see other feminists acting unladylike. And I’ve notice this especially in white male crowds. They expect feminists to always be in control, wearing classy clothes, high heels, as they walk into City Hall or a University to do serious acvitism for women’s rights. Civilized work. They don’t see feminists as dancing wildly at a beach party, half drunk, half naked.
What some of these guys don’t understand is how “unladylike” and “uncivilized” did feminists in the 1st/2nd wave appear to sexist men (and other conservative women, for that matter). And in a manner of speaking, they were unladylike. They had to be because what they were asking for was something out of the ordinary.
These are often my thoughts when I read topics about MRAs voicing their male privilege and all the things men built, etc. It’s just male pride spewing forth — and I’ve seen both anti-fems and pro-fems affected by this pride. Yet it’s MRAs who whine about men dying in wars and women not opting for the draft. Well, you MRAs built the weapons, you run the govs, yet you deny women a voice in Congress, then you expect feminists to go and die along side you because you think that should be the qualification to vote?
The idiocy and chauvinism of MRAs is just…abysmal as it is profound.
@Felisha, the problem with sexism (or any other ism) is that once you start seeing it, you can’t un-see it. All the things you accepted as just how the world is suddenly start coming back into focus.
Sounds like you’re seeing the IRL version of tone-trolling and silencing. The good old “we’ll only listen to you if you say the right (magic) words in the right (respectful) way whilst wearing the right (conservative) clothes”. Fuck that shit!
Reblogged this on dariancase.
Samantha:
I heard about this too when I was at university (in a psychology course within an Anthropology degree, it was also discussed later when I was studying counseling). Lobotomies were being carried out on women without their consent until the late seventies. They were used quite deliberately to make angry, emotional or “uppity” women nice, sweet and docile. It was said to make them “happier”. In fact it made it pretty much impossible to feel anything at all as well as the ability to use thier higher mental functioning.
I don’t know if you remember the 1975 version of The Stepford Wives but both of my lecturers were strongly of the opinion that it was a rather oblique method of raising the issue with the general public. I was really angry when they made the later version and turned the whole thing into a farce. It felt like a slap in the face.
It also puts a very unpleasant construction on some of the nasty things the MRAs say, especially when they start talking about gynoids and sexbots. No need for artificial wombs or high technology when all you need is a probe and a hammer. I probably shouldn’t have said that, it might give the arseholes ideas.
They were still trying to use ECT to try and get a similar effect when I was first diagnosed with depression in the mid eighties. My treating psychiatrist wanted to try it with me. I didn’t let him.
I’ve read so many “Oh but ECT isn’t like that at all, people saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and got the wrong idea!” claims from doctors, shrinks and so on … yeah, well if it’s so wonderful and harmless you go first.
I know I will certainly get on my knees and thank whichever white man it was in Finland that okayed Tom of Finland stamps.
(No I won’t)
I’d do it. If pills didn’t work for me and ECT would cure chronic depression, I’d get zapped. Short term memory loss doesn’t seem too much to trade for that. *shrug* Spring Break benders have much the same effect on memory and people live with that.
A friend of mine had it done. They told her she’d lose about a week. She lost a month. Still, if it works, it’s worth it.
From what I’ve read about ECT, the arc of the technology was essentially:
1) Holy shit, this really works!
2) Let’s use it for EVERYTHING!
3) It doesn’t actually work on everything, and the side effects are pretty severe.
4) ECT is terrible!
5) ECT works well for specific illnesses, but it has major side effects, so we only use it in extreme cases.
Which historically seems to be the standard arc for any new medical treatment.
Samantha, that is simply terrible…and the worst part is, I’m not even a little bit surprised that it happened. Lobotomies have fallen out of credit now, mercifully, since their ill effects have become too well known to repress THAT little bit of sordid misogynous medical history. They are utterly useless against any actual mental illness. As bad as some modern antidepressants are, at least they don’t destroy an entire chunk of the brain! And the idea that fathers and husbands once had so much veto power over what happens to a grown woman is like something straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale. I used to want to be a doctor when I was a kid, because I thought nothing could be better in this world than helping sick people, so things like this just make me burn with rage.
BTW, I translated some German documents awhile back for a man whose mother had been lobotomized in the US by a German-trained doctor (he had a Polish surname and hailed from Eastern Europe). The doctor had attended Heidelberg University’s medical school in the mid-late 1940s, with a hiatus in his schooling during the war. Well, imagine my surprise when I found out that the subject he specialized in at Heidelberg, and the one he wrote his doctoral thesis on, was NOT neurology, or neurosurgery as one would expect of a surgeon performing brain ops, but the use of antibiotics against skin infections and “venereal” diseases! So US hospitals were doing such a brisk trade in this barbaric mental castration (for lack of a better term) that not only were they hiring foreign-trained doctors to do it, they were hiring doctors who had zero training and experience in neurosurgery!
And to my mind, the mention of “venereal” diseases in this doctor’s documents also suggests that this became a common op for women and girls thought to be “promiscuous”, or likely to become so, in order to render them chaste and tractable, whether in “respectable” marriage or as “proper” sexless spinsters. Better to sterilize the mind than let some wayward young thing get too independent and take her chances with men full of the clap, appears to have been the (incredibly sexist and backward) thinking.
So I guess that’s why I’m not surprised to hear about that woman who lost her artistic ability because her husband wanted her docile, and didn’t even bother to inform her of his intentions before she landed on that gurney. Horrified, disgusted, grieved and outraged, yes, but not a bit surprised.
My grandfather had ECT. He had a heart attack and lost several years, but he was in his seventies and had spent the last five years in his room, only coming out at night to eat. Since it did work, the general family consensus is that it probably saved his life, but oh, God–try everything else first.
(They did–he has bipolar disorder, and none of the pills seemed to be doing anything.)
Also, just thought I’d post this:
Sometimes, you just want to flop out on the floor 🙂
This is definitely my remembrance of school history as well. History “began” when white people showed up. The history of the Americas begins when Europeans came. The history of Africa began during colonial times as well, except for Egypt, which began when the Romans showed up. (Also, lets pretend Egyptians are white.)
And it hasn’t necessarily gotten better. I was doing some Wikipedia trawling and looked up the history of the Hutu and Tutsi, and according to Wikipedia, their “history” begins, you guessed it! When Europeans showed up to colonize.
I’m sure we’ve also all heard about “primitive” groups of people living today described thus: “Their culture is virtually unchanged for thousands of years”. And we’re supposed to just take that for granted because they wear animal skins and hunt with spears and bows or something. Because clearly the only way a culture could change is through contact and trade with Western culture.
Joe Kennedy had his daughter Rose lobotomized for being “inappropriate” with men and generally being considered unstable. She was left incapacitated at the age of 23. It was a wide spread practice. It was not as dangerous as the hysterectomies that came before it. It was cheap, quick and it shut ’em up.
And always remember that “planned” c-sections may be planned because of entirely predictable problems with a “natural” delivery. Having got to near 3 weeks overdue with my first, the obstetrician said we’d better pencil in a c-section for a couple of days hence. I was horrified. Why not induce labour? Well, he said, we could do that. But seeing as the baby’s head isn’t anywhere near where it should be for a natural birth, we’d be giving you an emergency section after a few hours. It’s better to schedule it in the first place.
I wasn’t happy. But I had both babies by section. From what I’ve since heard about induced labour going haywire – probably for the sort of reasons he was referring to – I’m glad the doc did the right thing.
About ECT: It has a horrible history of abuse that should be remembered. But it really is a far different procedure today than it was, it and is only used as an absolute last resort when therapy and medications fail. I’ve seen it done. The person is given a mild, short lasting anesthetic and is hooked up to monitors to watch heart rate and vitals; also EEG and ECG. The shock administered is a lot lower than it used to be, and a lot shorter. It’s a medical procedure, so the person has to give informed consent before being given ECT. The most common side effect is short term memory loss.
I once interned at a state mental hospital. There were a couple people there who actually begged their doctors to send them for ECT (the treatment was done at the nearby medical hospital, not at the psychiatric facility) because they said it was the only thing that worked for them. The doctors were very, very hesitant to do so, because it was such a drastic and last resort treatment.
This all happened in Pennsylvania, USA. In the US, ECT is regulated by state and federal laws.
Psychiatry and medicine really does have a horrible and sordid history of human rights abuses and cruelty. Lobotomy is a case in point. Shudder. I remember from one of my psych classes, they used to use ice baths and put people into insulin shock as treatments for mental illness – absolutely no scientific backing for either, just lets do this and see what happens.
A friend linked me to this http://thoughtcatalog.com/mark-saunders/2014/04/18-things-females-seem-to-not-understand-because-female-privilege/#bpgBZ5OKmv9RlCt3.01
The sight is thought catalog, bit this article has very little.
@contrapangloss
You know, I used to be much more upset over an abusive childhood and such than I am now. I have had long conversations with my husband about my life and, over the years, I came to the conclusion that, on the whole, what I do with my experiences is a hell of a lot more important than what they were.
I do not know if I can explain it well, but I have learned so much. Compassion is, I think, the most important lesson, followed closely by the importance of staying awake and paying attention. And I believe that everyone has challenges that may seem horrible to others, but are opportunities to expand one’s own sense of self and the world. Of course, there are limits. There are things that happen to folk that can just cripple them, and I have seen people who have come here from other countries who have gone through FAR whose than anything I can even imagine and still have the ability to love and feel that life is worth living.
Gives me hope and joy, it does.
Thought catalog is the worst. I don’t think I’ve ever read one intelligent thing there.
Re: the OP, there seems to be a very widespread idea – not just with MRAs, but with the general public – that if the person widely credited with inventing X hadn’t done so, X would never have existed. That ONE AND ONLY ONE person could ever have had the stroke of genius that enabled them to create X.
Obviously this isn’t true. Who these days doesn’t know about Elisha Gray? The printing press (already mentioned upthread) is another good example, especially since the Germans and the Chinese invented it completely independently of one another. My hunch is that if white people hadn’t developed the technology that enabled them to exploit the globe, the world of today would be…pretty much the same, just with another group dominating. Someone would have come up with the same or similar ideas and inventions.
As Terry Pratchett puts it, you get steam engines when it’s steam engine time.
opium4themasses:
And isn’t it funny how most of those aren’t actually female privilege, but male privilege? And the rest either aren’t really things that happen (i.e., “women and children first”) or the result of rigid, toxic masculine gender role (i.e., being told to “man up”)?
@sparky Very true. That article talks about a lot of things which remove agency from women and calls it female privilege.
He even appears to long for the days when men could skip town on their family and avoid supporting their children.
About the timing of an invention, I highly recommend the video series “Everything is a Remix” which talks about how many ideas are created through communication and disjointed collaboration. Shared culture is the giant whose shoulders we stand upon. (Also, Newton was an asshole.)
Thought Catalog, ironically, is rather short on cogent thoughts, and long on self-absorbed wanking by people who haven’t yet learned to see past the ends of their noses.
Re the various shock therapies: Sylvia Plath went through insulin shock, if The Bell Jar is any indication. Naturally, it didn’t work; it was a “throw mud at this wall and see how much sticks” approach. All she did was gain some weight. She got electroshock, too, but while it worked a bit, it only worked up to a point; she ended up killing herself ten years later, when her illness came back with a vengeance. No word on what medications, if any, she received. I’m guessing either the wrong ones, or none at all, because doctors at the time loved to tinker with sick people’s brains. And because back then, sedation was more important than combatting mania and depression. Docs preferred docility over actual wellness, it seems.
The Tom of Finland stamp with the head just kind of floating between the guy’s legs is pretty funny, gotta say. It’s the fact that it doesn’t seem to be attached to a body so it’s just kind of hovering there.
Marinerachel:
“There has never been any convincing evidential support that delivery via c-section does any lasting harm to babies. Furthermore, while we know recovery generally takes longer following delivery via c-section due to the harm of a surgical procedure we never even talk about injuries to mothers as part of vaginal delivery and their long-term repercussions. We pretend they don’t even happen when they very much do.”
I’ve done both. First baby was an unplanned c section after 3 hours of pushing. Next baby shot out of me like a cannon, 40 minutes after getting to the hospital – no pain killers. The recovery was far worse with the latter and oh my lord, the pain!!!. Lots of bruising and 3rd degree tearing (sorry for the tmi). After my c section I was hell bent on having a “natural” birth. Seriously be careful what you wish for! lol!
My experience is in no way a norm and I don’t bring it up to promote c sections. Every birth brings it’s own unique set of circumstances I think is the lesson.