I have a confession to make: I don’t always read the comments on posts by Men’s Rights Activists.
I realize this might come as a shock to some of you. I mean, one of the main, er, critiques I get from MRAs is that I “cherry pick” comments from MRAs to make them look bad — never mind that it is the comments that make them look bad, not me. But the embarrassing fact is that I often don’t read the comments at all.
In my defense, I have a hard enough time making it through the posts themselves. Life is short, and MRAs are long-winded. And by the time I get to the end of a lot of MRA posts, I’ve pretty much lost my patience with their nonsense. The last thing I want to do at that moment is to read the fawning word-vomit of a bunch of irritating fucks whose comments are likely to be as bad or possibly even worse than the original post.
So today I decided to do a sort of penance for my sins — and to actually read through a week’s worth of comments on A Voice for Men to see what I could learn about the world, and (perhaps more to the point) about the sort of people who actually enjoy reading posts on that terrible site.
I tried my best to do this little experiment as scientifically as possible. But I cheated a little. I didn’t read the comments to every post. And I didn’t read every comment on the posts that I did look at. I mean, what the hell. There’s a limit to my masochism. Seriously, you try reading a week’s worth of this shit in one sitting.
Anyway, here are the Top 7 Insights I’ve learned from a week’s worth of comments at AVFM. In choosing the following, I stuck with comments that were either upvoted or unchallenged by the site’s regulars, or both.
1) Feminists literally want women to be able to kill men with no repercussions.
In the comments to an allegedly humorous post about the female “rationalization hamster,” Angelo sets us straight about the real agenda of feminists and their mangina allies:
2) Most young females are vile pigs.
This one, from a post about Men’s Rights Edmonton’s harassment of noble human rights activism towards that city’s Slut Walk, is pretty self-explanatory. Take it away, jbantifem:
3) It is “female nature” to falsely accuse men of rape. In another comment on that female “rationalization hamster” post, TheMaskAndRose praises AVFM for running articles addressing the important issue of women being dirty lying you know whats.
4) Women are “vipers” with credit cards
In the comments of a post meditating on the notion of privilege (or something, I didn’t read it), l jess warns men not to get involved with women at all. Because of that viper thing.
5) Don’t marry women because they’re selfish narcissists who won’t let you have a model train set
In the comments to a novella-length post detailing one man’s legal battles with his ex, John Durant reveals that his mother wouldn’t let him have a model train set. And he shares the lesson he took from this childhood tragedy: Avoid women at all costs.
6) Attractive women have no need nor desire for feminism. Or maybe they do? After praising the looks of an antifeminist YouTuber, Sway draws the only possible conclusion from this evidence. Or is it the only possible conclusion? I’m not sure what to believe.
7) Women have too many feelings to be engineers
In yet another comment on that “rationalization hamster post,” Roby 83 compares women — inherently emotional and opinionated — with men — more adept in “objective reasoning.”
There is perhaps a teensy bit of irony in the fact that Roby 83 has chosen to post this comment on A Voice for Men, a site run by, and overflowing with, men who think that their tantrums are rational arguments.
And I think that’s my cue to end this little experiment.
Perhaps the Model Railroad of Misandry should be an item included in the welcome package?
I also wonder if these guys believe the bullshit that they say about women and feminist
I always wanted a camcorder but my mother wouldn’t let me have one. =(
She seemed to think some of the other kids would beat me up and steal it. On reflection, she was probably right.
It is! I’ve watched it so many times.
Militant Hamsters, the end of the world is nigh!
Oooh, I like that idea!
I’m seeing the cock carousel-riding lady who used to be on the banner on it. (Cock carousels are all very well, but they don’t get you as far as a really good Misandric Model Railway.)
I always hear from MRAs about women are just spoiled “princesses” and “cupcake” and yet, in the mind of an MRA not getting something from your Christmas list one year is a valid reason for lifelong misogyny?
That makes sense. Oh, the masculine STEM logic!
Anyone else side eying Roby83 for using a kitty as an avatar? I have a feeling that the furrinati will not be too pleased with this appropriation. Doesn’t he know that feminists are a subservient arm of the furrinati?
Dare I say War Hamsters?
There already is such a thing. It’s called a RealDoll, and it is creepily human. It has less than ten verbal responses, if memory serves and each one costs several grand at least.
I would personally spend the rest of my life signing over my paycheck to supply men with one of these monstrosities because that would be one less man raping women. It wasn’t until I happened across a post from a male who naturally turned it into just another way to destroy women – he would manipulate his gf into having a “3some” with him and the sexbot, for the rapist pleasure of having forced her to have sex with the creepy replacement of herself – and something she straight declared she did not want to do. Of course.
So ‘the rationalisation hamster’ causes women to do things that displease logicmanlymen? Purely out of interest, where would one acquire such a beasty?
They claim they’d prefer robots but you can’t humiliate a robot or rape a robot so I don’t think it’d work. Their obsession is women and it’s unlikely that would change (unless they get smacked with a big dose of self-awareness and empathy).
I have seldom seen such deadly levels of cuteness! Is it possible to die of squee?
Glad you like it! I had to stop drawing it because of art style changes :/ My current style doesn’t handle fur well.
ginatingles:
Ugh. Those guys. This reminds me of this brilliant Captain Awkward letter about a super-rationalist dude who refused to clean up broken glass BECAUSE OF LOGIC. http://captainawkward.com/2014/02/06/547-is-it-my-anxiety-or-is-my-relationship-dodgy-spoiler-holy-fuckshit-its-the-dodgiest/
With dudes like this, “rational” means “I would prefer not to” and “irrational” means “anything that is in disagreement with my subjective preference.”
In any case, it’s obviously FAR more rational to keep your options open in the early stages of any dating situation rather than investing all your time and emotion in one dude you’ve only met twice and who could (and did!) turn out to be entirely incompatible with you.
As someone who identifies as a feminist on my online dating profile, I occasionally get essay-length emails from dudes trying to “logic” me out of my long-held and well-informed political views (because, you know, random dude on a dating site is definitely going to have an original and airtight dissenting argument that’s going to lift the veil from my clouded eyes.) But I’m always struck by the tone of these messages, because it’s never “I disagree with your position on this, let’s have a conversation.” It’s always, “You are WRONG, for reasons X, Y and Z. Please change your opinion now so we can date.”
Also, re: 7, anyone who thinks that Rational and Emotional are opposite or incompatible states is not a rational person. Humans have emotions. Denying that emotions have impact on our decision-making processes is irrational. Denying the fundamentally subjective experience of being human is irrational. Pretenses of objectivity and refusal to acknowledge your own biases are irrational.
Emotions are built into our brain chemistry for a reason. They are directly linked to things like motivation, attention span, sense of responsibility, the cognitive link between task and reward, the ability to assess long-term consequences… you know, all those things that allow us take of ourselves and our loved ones, do productive work and live peacefully in society with other human beings. Understanding your emotions, being able to assess when they are justified and when they are out of proportion, knowing when to act on them, and managing them appropriately is a crucial aspect of human intelligence. If you refuse to acknowledge your emotions, you will very likely be ruled by them.
::applauds tinyorc::
I get SO sick of that, too. Straw Vulcaning with a vengeance.
Straw Vulcaning, I like that.
It’s my biggest pet hate whenever any discussion about feminism comes up. Any attempt to portray one viewpoint as “rational” and its opposing viewpoint as based on “emotion” is so obviously based in sexist ideas about logical man-brains versus flighty irrational woman brains I have trouble hearing the words over the sound of my own teeth grinding.
Do the douchebros not realise that anger is also an emotion? Because that seems to be the single biggest defining trait of the MRM and adjacent groups. So any argument about how dispassionate and unemotional they are in comparison to them hormonal-feels-unthinking wimminz deserves to be heartily laughed off the internet.
Guinea Pig armour. It’s a thing! https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSpuxvAM29ZHjohfJaR7k2Dv_JW70yagrJq9sGIpMGYIplg6BTrQfNuaho
I like how the one dude goes to great lengths to brag about how he will not share a red cent of his hard-earned money with another human being–and then proceeds to call women selfish.
@ginatingles
Interestingly, you can put the “I am logical, because I’m a man and men are logical” into syllogistic format and reason it through deductively. If you do that, you’ll find that this is faulty logic (it commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle, to be technical).
I think it goes without saying that a dude who attempts to prove how logical he is by using faulty logic has not succeeded.
I must tell Mads an undistributed middle is a fallacy. She’ll be pleased; hers is very well distributed. So’s mine, come to that. 😉
Ugh, ginatingles, that sounds so gross. I once had the same sort of reasoning come from kind of the opposite direction, only thankfully there was no evopsych since it was back in 2002. I went out to a bar with some coworkers one night and met a guy who seemed really nice. He was in the Navy and worked on nuclear subs; he was smart and cute and we were having a nice time talking. The only thing that was a little odd was that he kept insisting that he should buy me a drink (I was driving and needed to cap it at one – which was the the one I had bought myself and was already drinking when we started talking). I chalked that up to a desire to be polite and generous. After we’d been chatting for a few minutes he asked me if I’d like to grab dinner with him sometime. I declined, telling him that I was seeing somebody (Mr. FM and I had met a few weeks before). Guy asked if we were serious, I said no, but that I had hopes and wasn’t really interested in dating anyone else. That’s when the petulance came a-calling. Why wouldn’t I just have dinner with him? Would going out to dinner really count as “dating” him? The other guy was probably going out with other girls! It didn’t make sense that I wouldn’t give him a chance! I finally cut him off mid-sentence and asked if he wanted to have dinner with me because he was interested in friendship. If that wasn’t the case, then he was asking me out on a date and I wasn’t interested. He didn’t have an answer for that, so I wished him well and called it a night.
It was like ten years later before I realized what a bullet I’d dodged that night. Not only because Mr. FM was interested in being exclusive, but because of that guy’s attitude. If he was that invested in logicking his way around a “no” to a drink or a date, how respectful would he have been when any other “no’s” came into play? My estimate: not very. Trying to manipulate your way around a woman’s firm answer, definitely STEMlogic at its finest!
The cutest revolutionaries ever. They slay their enemies with “D’awww!”
…
Hmmm…I also got to thinking about this whole model train thing and just realized that my brother has one. He inherited it from my grandfather. It’s a vintage Lionel set that Grandpa put together, one car every Christmas, over the course of the 1940’s.* My brother also has a well paying job, lots of hobbies (some expensive to provision, some not). He’s also partnered with a girlfriend who pays for her own hobbies and interests with an even better paying job. Does that mean that toy trains and women are not mutually exclusive?
And does my anecdote trump John Durant’s? Or is it invalidated because it’s filtered through emotional ladybrainz?
*When did Grandpa start doing this? After he and my grandmother got married; wonder why she tolerated an expenditure that was blatantly not for her?
Jesus tapdancing Christ, that sci fi story…
Because even though it hasn’t happened it is, of course, true…
I am now filled with sad darkness and a remembrance of the fact that humanity is lost in its own vast, depraved, eternal night.
At least work is less boring when I am choked with moral despair.
#SoundsMelodramaticButSeriouslyManThatStoryOhGod
Yeah I’m pretty sure my lack of sleep last night can be at least partly attributed to reading “All My Darling Daughters” earlier in the evening.
@WWTH – [Anyone else side eying Roby83 for using a kitty as an avatar? I have a feeling that the furrinati will not be too pleased with this appropriation. Doesn’t he know that feminists are a subservient arm of the furrinati?]
Quite the reverse, or nearly. I can’t bring myself to give up all hope for anyone who has the virtue of being fond of cats (I’d likely think the cat deserved better). Think how much worse he’d be if he weren’t.
In my experience, the major philosophical requirement well-pleased cats impose on those humans fortunate enough to live in their homes is felinism.
Or like not needing health insurance because you’re not sick right now. Or…