Open thread! As always: No trolls, no MRAs.
This is a general open thread; for more personal stuff, go here.
Oh,and the pic above is from a hilarious new website called Manfeels Park, which mashes up whiny MRA complaints with … Jane Austen.
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Does this website ever explore the non-whining complaints made by the less crazy-seeming MRAs? Some MRAs sound sincere in their objections about their treatment in family courts, about false rape accusations, etc. Perhaps this is the wrong website for taking a balanced analytical approach, but I’m not sure.
Comedians: Any Trevor Noah fans out there? (You must watch to the end of this clip because he does this ridiculous Hitler imitation.)
Katz
“Any Trevor Noah fans out there?”
I am now 🙂
http://youtu.be/SsWrY77o77o
Erik – read the header. This is about mocking misogyny. It’s not a debating site.
MRAs can be as sincere as they like, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re spouting bullshit and are misogynists. Sincerely hating women is no improvement.
No trolls, no MRAs! It says it right there! SOMEONE CONTACT THE DARK LORD!
CN: suicide, involuntary hospitalization
I need some hugs from ManBoobzers. One of my internet friends (doesn’t comment here) was suicidal (plan, means, and intent) and I decided to call the police. IDK what’s going to happen to her (beyond that they did find her), but they might end up involuntarily hospitalizing her. I feel terrible, but also don’t feel like I had another choice. Just hope she won’t hate me for it.
Leum, she might be angry with you temporarily, although I hope not. In the long run I think she’ll see you did the right thing.
@Leum
Finds hug barrel. Packs hugs into hug barrel. Rolls hug barrel to center of the internet.
Leum, seconding weirwoodtreehugger and AL3H.
You all seem like clever people with excellent taste so you’d be a good bunch to ask: I need some new podcasts, do you have any recommendations? And is there such a thing as manboobz in podcast form?
Sorry, I know zip about podcasts, AngryMouse!
(Nearly wrote podcats then. OH NOES ALIEN CATS ARE TAKING OVER)
@Leum seconding WWTH and giving you lots of hugs.
@Erik:
It’s been my experience that every time we scratch the surface of one of those “reasonable” or “moderate” MRAs, it turns out they’re just doing a better job than most of restraining their natural urges to blame women for everything. There seems to be a lack of good faith on their part when engaging with anybody they perceive as The Enemy, which is why this site exists – we mock people who we can’t reason with.
@Leum:
Oh, that sucks. :/ Hopefully in the long run your friend will understand you did what you had to do in order to guarantee her safety. In the short term, she will probably not.
Something I’ve noticed happening more in the last year or two: people excusing their words and actions by proclaiming “I’m an ally (of whatever movement)!”, then getting upset when they find out this doesn’t place them beyond all criticism.
If you’re unwilling to listen to the person you’re supposedly an ally of, you’re not much of an ally, are you?
CN: suicide, involuntary hospitalization
The police department got back to me, my friend was taken to a hospital, idk if she went voluntarily or not. Glad she’s somewhere safe, sad that she has to be somewhere safe, worried about who will notify her family (I don’t have their contact info).
@Melissia:
That sounds a lot like the point of this great piece by Aphra Behn at Shakesville about men who are great Allies, In Theory, but drop the ball pretty badly when it comes to walking the walk.
Yeah. I also see it for “LGBT allies” as well. Less so for racism, but it’s not unheard of.
@Leum, that’s a safe place for her, it’s great that she had you looking out for her. You’ve done all you can, the rest is just letting her know that you’ll be there when she needs you.
I’ve been through this myself, including “narking” on a friend to their home-visit nurse and had them readmitted a number of times. I hated doing it each time, but they had a very high risk of self-harm/suicide if I didn’t. And now they’re as right as rain. 🙂 And we’re still friends. See, there can be good outcomes from this.
/hugs if you want them
@AngryMouse
My faves are
Pop Culture Happy Hour – which is a discussion style podcast about Pop Culture, often very funny, and really great for recommendations for media to try.
We Hate Movies – where they talk about bad movies, also very funny. They do great impressions, and will go off on weird tangents. And even though they are afaik all nerdy white guys, when there is sexism, racism, etc in the movie they’ll call it out for being stupid.
Ask Me Another – a quiz show. Also very funny and fun. Lots of word puzzles not just trivia. The in house musician for the show wrote Still Alive for Portal.
I’d love some recommendations for more podcasts too. I am about to move an extra 20 minutes from where I work so I have 200 minutes of drive time to fill. I am picky though in that I need them to be very consistent quality and tone. For some reason inconsistent podcasts make me very anxious. Yes I’m weird.
For podcasts I’d recommend “Welcome to Nightvale” by Commonplace books. It’s wonderful and weird.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barhR-i_Ak8&w=420&h=315%5D
Random, but for anyone who wants a good laugh, here are some stats on r/mensrights.
http://vegetablearian.tumblr.com/post/82679055981/total-queer-move-look-its-every-single
99% white, 84% “strong conservative”, most favored issue pot legalization, only 6% want abortion to remain legal. I’m not sure whether 88% aged 17-20 is a good sign (because they’ll hopefully grow the fuck up and get some perspective) or a bad one (the children are our future and so on).
Crickey, what a shit show paraded in that online r/mensrights poll. I’ve actually lost respect for them, which is a near impossible feat at this point. There are only a hundred guys over the age of 25, they should probably spend a little less time complaining about divorce court and custody battles. The age demographics does explain why they think creep shaming is one the key issues of our time. I like how only 26 women were polled, I guess about 1/5 are on the AVfM staff.
WTF are the older people there even doing there? It would be like me hanging out on Tumblr haranguing all the kids about the cost of covering my grey roots, except that I’d have to blame both the roots and the fact that hairdressers don’t work for free on men.
I cannot express how much I love that Manfeels Park is being drawn from the best adaptation of Pride and Prejudice ever made. …Which I now feel like I must go watch.
Re: The demographics of r/mensrights–I thought I had heard that the numbers were artificially inflated by some sort of glitch / bots / something in the poll. But even accounting for that, it’s still a pretty lopsided representation.
@Erik,
Let’s not. Please.
But anyway, about your actual question, Warren Farrell has long been considered a “moderate” MRA, but there have still been posts about him. Even though he doesn’t spew violence the way Paul Elam or others do, his views are still incredibly disgusting and toxic. The most moderate MRA I ever met (he denounced MRAs who were openly misogynistic, didn’t spew violence, and wasn’t directly disrespectful to me) was still a rape apologist, so y’know fuck that noise.