Warren Farrell, the intellectual grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement, is doing an AMA on Reddit today at 1 PM Eastern time. UPDATE: It’s started, and it’s here.
AMA, in Reddit-speak, stands for Ask Me Anything. So I would encourage you to ask Mr. Farrell questions about anything he has said or written in the past that you find troubling, or even just confusing.
Here are some suggestions. Seriously, ask him any of these, as I’m not sure I’ll be able to be online when the whole thing goes down.
1) Mr Farrell, in your book The Myth of Male Power, you wrote that:
It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and that her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when nonverbal “yeses” (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.” He might just be trying to become her fantasy.
Are you suggesting that if a woman clearly says no to sex, but does not stop kissing a man, that he is entitled to have sex with her anyway because she has given him a non-verbal “yes?” If not, what specifically do you mean? What sort of non-verbal “yes” would outweigh a clear verbal “no?” Why doesn’t her verbal no mean no?
Source: Myth of Male Power, page 315.
Screencap here: http://i.imgur.com/cwSoc.png
2) Mr. Farrell, regarding your research on incest in the 1970s, you told Penthouse magazine that:
“When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200,” says Farrell, “the incest is part of the family’s open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve — and in one or two cases to join in.”
Were you actually suggesting that there are “glowing, positive cases” of parent-child incest – that is, child sexual abuse? How can child sexual abuse be “glowing” or “positive” for the child?
If this is not what you meant, what did you mean?
Penthouse also quotes you as saying that you were doing your research
“because millions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn’t.”
As I understand it, you’ve said you were misquoted and that you did not say “genitally,” and that what you actually said was “generally” or “gently.” But even with the word replaced, you are suggesting that parents are repressing their sexuality and their children’s sexuality if they don’t “caress” their children. What did you mean by this?
Sources:
Transcript of Penthouse article: http://nafcj.net/taboo1977farrell.htm
Scanned pages of original article from Penthouse: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/fathers/farrell2.htm
3) Mr. Farrell, why did you choose a photograph of a nude woman’s ass for the cover of the new edition of The Myth of Male Power? Do you really think that male power is somehow negated by female sexuality?
4) Mr. Farrell, why have you chosen to associate yourself with the website A Voice for Men, a site that frequently refers to women as “cunts,” “bitches,” and “whores?” If you are not aware of this, would you disassociate yourself from the site if given clear proof of the site’s frequent misogynistic attacks on women?
If you’re looking for more ideas on questions to ask him, check out my posts on him in the archives.
These might be good to start with:
The Myth of Warren Farrell: Farrell on Rape, Part One
Warren Farrell’s notorious comments on date rape: Not any more defensible in context than out of it
What Men’s Rights guru Warren Farrell actually said about the allegedly positive aspects of incest.
MRA founding father Warren Farrell responds to questions about his incest research with evasive non-answers. And a smiley. (About his last AMA appearance.
Warren Farrell on Unemployment, Salesmanship, and Other Things That Are Like Rape, Supposedly
Also check out the excellent Farrell’s Follies series on Reddit.
And Fibinachi has a series on Farrell as well.
He still seems to be answering questions.
Alas, I have to go offline. Ah well, I’ll check back later.
CLOUDIAH WE ARE HYPNOTIZED BY ASS PRETTY PRETTY LADY ASS
DO NOT OPPRESS US WITH YOUR ASSES LADIES
WE WILL BE FORCED TO EARN MORE THAN YOU
Wow, Farrell is peddling actual, bona fide misandry in his own AMA. I’ve literally had people tell me that this exact thing is what feminists teach children, and here he is verbalizing his contempt for his own gender right out in the open! It’s truly baffling how little self-awareness there is to be found in the MRM, and in its leaders in particular.
That ass thing is so weird. Isn’t the solution to feeling imprisoned by your own shallowness… to work on not being shallow anymore?
As a heterosexual male, I’ve no idea what he’s talking about. Although I’ve never been much of an “ass” guy.
That comment honestly read like a joke.
Actually, would that sentiment be misandrist? It makes men sound like village idiots. “Ass, ass, ass, pwetty ass, ass!”
I’ve trusted a big butt and a smile before. He was actually a lot of fun.
More male hypoagency:
What is it with insecure men and Brad Pitt?
Christ, if you’re in a relationship, don’t cheat, Warren. It’s really not that hard. You can still find other people attractive, appreciate a good-looking stranger, just don’t fuck them. He acts like women have no sexual desire, no interest in the good-looking men around them. And I’m sorry, but not cheating on someone you profess to care about and respect is not a feat of great sacrifice or love. It’s the bare minimum. Yeesh.
I think he needs to be set to basket-weaving rather than book-writing.
Oh for the fuck of shit. Are we all cockatrices and basilisks, then? Jesus, Mary and Broseph!
I think he means a woman is an accomplice to his cheating but that isn’t always true. It assumes every man who cheats is honest about it to his partner and not posing as single. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence for this but most cheaters don’t go up to someone and say “hi, I’m married want to sleep with me?”
I think he’s actually blaming the man’s partner for his cheating.
See this in particular:
She cheated him out of his primary need to intimacy, causing him to cheat on her.
Maybe I’m wrong though.
Nope. That’s pretty spot on. It’s idea that by not providing “enough” of anything, emotional validation, intimacy, attention, listening, presence, anything, she is indirectly causing someone to cheat.
And that might be true in some relationships, and you could always argue that one reason people cheat is that their needs are unfulfilled, but in this case the sole onus rests on the woman, always and forever – because of some deficiency of hers, her poor butt-addled man strays from the path and he wouldn’t have If Only She’d Done…
Grrr.
Nope. Nope. Can’t deal with Farrell today. Nope.
*walks away to listen to metal covers of ‘You Are A Pirate’*
Really, Farrell? All men? All men are unable to be attracted by women if their rear is not perfect?
And actually, matey, the thing this heterosexual woman feels imprisoned by is (so many) men’s inability to see me as human, whatever the state of the perfection of my rear.
That exists?
They do.
[Disappears into youtube]
“i’m suggesting not that men have no control, but that the experience of the heterosexual male is a little like the experience of a woman seeing Brad Pitt standing next to her at a party.
i want my readers to appreciate how much men love women by so often resisting the temptation to pursue what they are so attracted to. and that the control men exert so often is out of the love for a woman who is his primary partner. it is any intimacy she may provide that counters the temptation and fosters loyalty.”
So… men have control, but only if women treat them a certian way? Men have no control over whether or not they have control over themselves? I’m not sure that counts as control.
Weird, scary, vague threat here, too. “Men have control IF YOU DON’T STEP OUT OF LINE.”
You CAN kind of see the popularity here, though. What he keeps coing back to is “I HAVE PAIN. PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE IT.” It’s pathetic and sad, especially because he can’t or doesn’t see where that comes from.
They’re saying that as if it’s unreasonable to claim that the patriarchy can backfire on men. Analyses of patriarchy aren’t the only ones that take into consideration potential backfiring effects of systems. Some analyses of class can also reveal that the ruling class can occasionally have a taste of its own medicine, and many people in fact argue that rich people are oppressed.
It can backfire on men, but it doesn’t “hurt” men as a class. They are still well-insulated from oppression even when they face some disadvantages. In any case, it’s entirely reasonable to say that, despite the fact that the patriarchy contributes to gender policing against men, such gender policing is an inherent feature of the same structure that determines men to be an oppressor class.
Yep. And for women, it’s not only imperfect, but it’s also a form of oppression they experience as a class. The fact that the patriarchy isn’t always kind to men doesn’t change the fact that they benefit from it overall. This is nothing more than a veiled false dichotomy; either the patriarchy exists as a perfect system for men, or men are just as oppressed as women. Bullshit.
Invoking an individualist analysis of patriarchy in order to argue against the concept altogether is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot. It’s not that men aren’t “clever” enough; it’s that men as a class see the patriarchal as beneficial to them despite all of its potential backfiring. That’s why it’s not incoherent to say that the patriarchy privileges men while potentially harming some of them in certain ways. Men as a class simply don’t care about the side-effects because they think the privilege is worth it – this dynamic can be found among literally every man who supports patriarchal social relations.
I’m not going to bother checking the thread, but did Warren Farrell actually say all of this? If so, that’s a new level of absurdity coming from him.
Blaming women when men cheat on them – how convenient.
@Ally Yes. And so original of him, too!
@titianblue
Wow. Warren Farrell is living proof that PhDs don’t stop people from making the sloppiest analyses of gender relations ever. Perhaps the Dunning-Kruger effect can explain things here.
@LBT: Wait, there’s more than one? I was just familiar with Alestorm’s (a band I really enjoy, by the way. Pure fun. Wish they played in Philly on their North American tour).
It looks like it was /u/vaselinepete who said that nonsense about the concept of patriarchy. His name sounds like an implied rape joke. Gross.
auggzillary: It’s thje way Asspack is saying, “women cheat”. See, if a man cheats, there was a woman to blame (he couldn’t do it without her) so he’s not really to blame (there was, after all, “that ass”).
Ally S: I’m not going to bother checking the thread, but did Warren Farrell actually say all of this? If so, that’s a new level of absurdity coming from him.
The thing about AMA is they are off the cuff. Farrell, at his best (time to rewrite, someone to do some structural editing, etc.) is a piss-poor writer, with tortured logic and a less than solid grasp of facts and piss-poor analytical skills.
So his writing in a first draft form is going to be even less articulate.
The sad thing is he has enough people on his side that he gets the sort of softball he ought to have ready answers for; because they are just asking him to regurgitate his books (as if getting the shit from the source, all wet and steamy, is going to make it better).
But he can’t even pull that off.
I don’t feel “imprisoned” if a random man doesn’t like my ass. If I’m not sleeping with him, I give exactly zero fucks about his opinion of my ass. Now, if he bases all his interactions with me on his opinion of my ass and gets mad at me because he’s convinced my ass is telepathically controlling him, we have a problem, albeit only for the duration of time it takes me to get the hell away from him.
And I’ve been in a room with Brad Pitt and managed not to cheat on my partner, sexually harass Mr. Pitt, or do whatever else Farrell is coyly hinting men should be permitted to do when a woman willfully and maliciously stands somewhere in the vicinity. Mostly it was just nice to see Brad Pitt. He seems like a pleasant guy.
Women are imprisoned when they lack attention from men? Sounds like passive dehumanization to me. Clearly that’s just part of a system that hurts men as much as women. Not.
Also, you’re a man – you don’t represent women’s interests or serve them single-handedly. Fuck off you misogynistic dipshit.