I‘ve been so busy with all the shenanigans surrounding AVFM and their little conference that I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting the good old Men’s Rights subreddit. Don’t feel bad, Men’s Rights subreddit, for today I took a few moments out of my hard-core semi-vacationing to pay you a little visit!
While there, I noticed the regulars discussing a terrible quandary that faces all modern men: “As a man, would you help a child in distress?”
Here are some of the answers that got upvoted:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 3](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-3.png?ssl=1)
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 1](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-1.png?ssl=1)
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 4](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-4.png?ssl=1)
Yep. Upvotes for a fellow who says he let a three-year-old boy literally fall out of a shopping cart and smash his head open because, oh no, some hypothetical hysterical mother might have accused him of child molestation.
The details of his story make so little sense I can only assume he’s making the story up — if he was walking past the bakery, how could he have been close enough to “reflexively grab” a child in a shopping cart inside the bakery?
I’m not sure which is worse, the thought that this guy actually let a kid fall and smash his head, or the thought that he made up a story about doing so in order to gain some internet points from MRAs. (Well, the former, obviously, but either way this is a mortifying spectacle.)
But not everyone got upvotes. Here’s a comment that got thumbs down from the Men’s Rightsers — along with a heavily upvoted reply:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14.png?ssl=1)
Human Rights: You’re doing it wrong.
Thanks to r/AMR for pointing me to this lovely thread.
Jarred H:
RIGHT? I have an otherwise-very-reasonable-and-intelligent male friend who told me a story about a woman getting bolshy with him because he opened a door for her. This was his counterpoint to a story I was telling about a particularly nasty incident of street harassment I had experienced the day before. This, along with “a woman was once very rude about rejecting me”, was his evidence for “both sides are as bad as each other” and “sometimes feminists take things too far.”
I was just sort of gaping at him thinking about the blinding levels of privilege you must have to think that a woman not being delighted by your chivalry is the same thing as being followed down the street by a man who thinks you should give him a blowjob because – and I quote – “you’re fucking ugly, it’s not like you’re going to get a better offer.”
On holding doors:
I live in the South, in the US, so my views on this are a bit skewed. Everybody down here holds doors. I hold doors, even, because it’s polite and that’s how we roll in the South. I have never had an issue while holding a door for anyone, nor have I had an issue with anyone holding a door for me.
Well, minus my best friend.
He only holds doors for me if I look “like a lady,” ie am wearing a dress/makeup/ look “nice.” I call him on that every single time because it’s obvious. I still love him to death, but we always have a talk about why that is something he feels like he has to do under those parameters.
[CN: rape]
“I watched a woman being raped in an alley and chose not to help her even though I was perfectly able to do so. Marry me and let me have joint custody!”
Oh–
Everyone is someone’s crotchdumpling.
I always assumed the “women freak out when you hold the door” line to be one of those “hysterical feminists are ruining the world” fever dreams that people have. I did once have a friend post a super angry Facebook rant about a women who didn’t say “Thank you” when he held a door for her, though, using some unfortunate language and referring to her as a “stuck up bitch.” I suspect if you encountered that enough times, you might be reluctant to let people hold doors for you in the future.
I have also had a couple dudes act weird about me holding a door for them. But since I live in the real world with real problems, a mildly socially awkward moment with a dude who can’t parse a woman holding a door for him hasn’t lead me to stop holding doors for people.
So these inexplicably rude and ungrateful women are indeed reaching epidemic levels of door-indifference. Perhaps this can be addressed at the next men’s rights conference.
@WatermelonSugar and @cassandrakitty: I think the idea behind not telling your partner you’ve had the vasectomy might be that women hate sex but love children, so they will only let you fuck them if they think there might be some genetic material in it for them? That’s just conjecture though, as I am not myself an MRA – I’m just a child-crazy female who would help a lost, vomiting child without even running a cost-benefit analysis like a rational person would.
@magnesium
I’ve heard similar stories and to be honest, I tend to wonder if a lot of these “offended women” tales involve something beyond simple door-holding.
Also, I’d like to think that if I do ever run into a woman to takes issue with me holding a door for her, I’d apologize, walk away, and get on with my life. Not least of all just for the reason you point out.
(Guess that’s why I don’t work in STEM huh)
magnesium:
I get thinking “rude!” if you hold a door for someone and they don’t acknowledge it with a quick “cheers” or whatever, but taking it so personally that you post an angry sexist Facebook rant is, dare I say it, being entirely over-sensitive.
Feminism gone mad = women no longer thanking men on bended knee for performing acts of basic courtesy.
@tinyorc
…who told me a story about a woman getting bolshy with him because he opened a door for her.
Maybe I’m reading too much into the words here, but “opened a door for her” rather than “hold a door for her”? Does that imply he wasn’t opening the door to also go through it himself? Because if so, it does raise a few other questions for me. Like, was he just standing next to a door when this woman approached it?
And yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous to compare those experiences to street harassment.
@Sredni Vashtar–
That makes sense (in that is doesn’t make sense at all and is therefore likely the thought process behind Rule #4).
In real life, though, it seems really irresponsible not to discuss having a vasectomy or not. I don’t know any women who are all “DON’T TELL YOUR SEXUAL PARTNERS YOU HAVE AN IUD!” I screamed it from the roof top when I had mine. And I am sure MRA-types would be very fussy indeed if a sexual partner didn’t disclose an IUD/other contraceptive method/tubal.
I think it’s also influenced by the fact that women are held responsible for birth control in general.
Jarred H:
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve been one of those horrible offended women in some guy’s personal narrative of his life, because I occasionally only give a quick nod when someone holds a door open for me because I am in a hurry/distracted/tired/having a brain fart/not in possession of working vocal cords because it’s 8am and I haven’t had my tea.
Could my decidedly unfeminine curtness have been assimilated as further evidence of the feminists “agenda” getting out of control? Quite probably.
Although, I do occasionally get annoyed with guys (mainly my male friends) who insist on holding doors open for me and other women when it is just not logical – like when it’s a pull instead of push or there’s not a lot of room or there are other people coming from the other direction and you have to awkwardly squeeze around them or maneuver under their arm to get through and there’s a lot of unnecessary jostling and it’s like DUDE IT WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE EFFICIENT IF WE EACH JUST WENT THROUGH ONE BY ONE. I PROMISE MY DELICATE LADY WRISTS WILL NOT BREAK IF YOU LET ME BEAR THE FULL WEIGHT OF THE DOOR.
I don’t know about you, but I won’t bother fucking a guy unless there’s a chance I can spermjack him. A vasectomy is a dealbreaker, obvs.
I think this is just an excuse for them to not get off their lazy asses and do something. “Oh, I can use false rape accusations as an excuse to not have to help people who need it? Awesome!” Sadly, I can totally see them having this thought process (although maybe subconsciously in some).
@Jarred H:
I confess, I have had a few times of being bothered that someone held the door open for me.
I mean, I don’t mind in the slightest if a man gets to the door ahead of me, or happens to be standing there, and opens the door. I say thank you. (This accounts for probably 90+% of my door-opening experiences.)
I get a bit squicked out when a man falls all over himself to rush ahead of me and get the door with a grand flourish. But you know how I respond? I grumble a bit inwardly, but I say thank you and keep walking. Because it’s just a door.
I was, however, full-on bothered by the guy who I’m just barely acquainted with, who hollered at me to wait for him to get there so he could open the door for me. I just said, “No thanks, I’ve got it,” and let myself through. I proceeded to be intensely bothered by the fact that he followed me and lectured me on how I really need to learn to let guys get the door for me.
I responded, “Not really,” and kept walking.
I guess I’m the one traumatizing dudebros and killing chivalry.
I actually did get freaked out by a guy holding a door for me once. Where I live, it’s common for the door to be held open by whomever gets there first. This is normally no big deal. My freshman year at college, I was heading towards a building and was about a foot from the door when some guy I hadn’t seen came running up from behind to get the door. I didn’t yell at him though; I just mumbled thanks and went through. I couldn’t get one of my guy friends I later told to understand why this creeped me out. He said I was too feminist.
If women were only interested in sex for procreation, then no women would use contraception. But as we all know, there are 527 methods of birth control for women, and approximately -2 for men. What gives?
@emilygoddess
So true! I keep forgetting that I am doing feminism wrong by forgetting to spermjack. I’ll have to read The Evil Empire 101 again.
I wonder if these imaginary-secret-vasectomy guys leave condoms behind at their sexual partners’ houses, thinking “Mwa ha ha, she may try and spermjack me but little does she know my ejaculate contains nary a sperm to be jacked!”
Maybe the whole “don’t tell your partner about your vasectomy” is because they have this weird obsession with being cuckolded and being forced to raise the biological child of some “bad boy” or being trapped in a relationship by their partner secretly stopping taking the pill or whatever to get pregnant?
Maybe they think “ah yes when my partner sleeps around with bad boy alpha’s, gets pregnant and then comes to me claiming that it is mine I can reveal that no you scheming hussy it cannot be mine because I have had a vasectomy I will not be trapped into the prison of marriage!”.
Or because they assume that women regularly lie about being on some form of contraception in order to get pregnant and “trap” men they don’t see why they shouldn’t lie as well.
The fact is that there is only one kind of situation where lying to your partner about contraception is ok and that is when it is an abusive relationship and there is a risk that the abusive partner would sabotage it. This being an extremely common form of abuse. For example, a woman in an abusive relationship whose partner is pressuring her to get pregnant when she doesn’t want to and who has been hiding or destroying birth control pills could secretly get the contraceptive injection (I read an article written by a woman who was in a situation very like this) and tell their partner they had stopped taking the pill. This would protect them from unwanted pregnancy and also protects them from the risk of violence or further abuse from their partner by appearing to follow their wishes.
But lying to your partner about contraception, especially in the case of MRA’s who are most straight, cis men where it is your partner and not you who is the person who is capable of pregnancy and all the risks that entails, is utterly irresponsible.
If you can’t talk honestly and openly with your sexual partner/s about contraception then you shouldn’t be having sex with them.
Whoops, ninja’d by everyone ever.
It also feeds their persecution complex, because they can complain about women wanting both equal rights and “chivalry” (having doors held for them). Apparently holding doors for women should allow you to opt out of treating them like people.
I’m not even into ironic cross-stitch and I want this on a pillow.
WatermelonSugar:
I can actually see the logical of not telling a male partner you have an IUD, particularly in a casual context. For some reason, a lot of men don’t seem to realize that preventing pregnancy is not the only reason to wear a condom. If a dude knows you can’t get pregnant, he might be more likely to pressure you into having sex without a condom. In fact, I’ve had guys try to pressure me into condomless sex even when I’ve explicitly told them I’m not on any form of birth control – even one dude who tried to slip it in without one when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I don’t really understand the mentality of men who act like wearing a condom is some huge inconvenience they must endure because of demanding women, especially in casual contexts. Like, dude, you have no idea where I’ve been, do you not care about your own health? Do you think you are magically immune to STDs because you can’t get pregnant?
First try at block quotes, let’s see if I can do it on my phone…
Yes. This. So much of this.
@Watermelonsugar, you should really update to the new edition of the EE101. In addition to the new spermjacking rules, there’s a whole new chapter on how to fake being a geek girl, and an updated list of approved candle scents.
Apparently WorldsEndGirlfriend doesn’t understand basic biology. You see, living things are not immortal. For a species to survive it must reproduce and some of those offspring must survive. If every man gets a vasectomy male survival will not occur beyond those males that have already been born. What a stupid comment. I’m glad he’s not reproducing though!
Did anyone in that thread post any evidence at all that men who try to help children in danger routinely get accused of being pedophiles? I’ve never heard of a man saving a child’s life and then get jailed for it. That’s just ridiculous. I have seen news stories about men saving children’s lives and being lauded as heroic though.
Googling ‘man saves child from drowning’ turns up 1,310,000 results. Every story on the first page is positive towards the man. No stories ended in the man being called a pedophile.
If mothers are cringing away and holding on to their young children when Popriarchy is around it might just be because he’s creepy as fuck. Not because he’s a man.