Listening in on conversations amongst Men’s Rights Activists is often like taking a brief journey into an alternate universe, where cats are dogs and water is dry and men are the most oppressed creatures on planet earth.
Over in the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day, some of the regulars seem to have just discovered a famous feminist quotation, a paraphrase of something Margaret Atwood once wrote:
Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.
A number of the Men’s Rights Redditors were indignant that anyone could possibly suggest that women have more to fear from men than the other way around. And so, collectively, they came up with a rebuttal of sorts.
OneBigCosmicHorror began by suggesting that the real fear men have of women is much more primal:
Ah, but isn’t being laughed at basically the same as castration?
Indigoanasazi explained:
Oh, you silly ladies with your fears of being killed by men. We men face an even greater peril — the ever-present threat of laugh-castration!
I went through a phase when I was about 12 of realizing that sleeping with someone (as actually sleeping next to them) was an amazing act of trust, because they could flat-out kill you with ease if they wanted to.
It made me wonder how the hell domestic abusers could actually sleep in the same house with their victims.
I wonder if the castration fear is rooted in the fact that on some level, they recognize that they treat women so badly they need to fear retribution.
If a man being laughed at in public is like castration, the MRM must haaate this blog. We’re chopping off penises left and right here. It’s a veritable castrationapalooza!
This fear of castration probably explains the reluctance some men exhibit at the thought of having their dog neutered. Maybe they’re afraid that they will be next? (Sarcasm)
@Bonelady,
Check that sarcasm, because there was actually a campaign for neutering and spaying where the female actor proclaimed her hatred of “balls.” The MRM promptly lost its shit and shouted misandry from the highest rooftops. Pretty sure there were more than a few who thought that campaign was feminism testing the waters for a neutering campaign of men.
The thing is, though, why? Why would women want to do that? For what purpose? What goal would that serve?
“What goal would that serve?”
The final total subjugation of men, which we all know is what you women dream of. (Solipsism.)
Truth.
It’s also the real reason that a smiling woman wearing a T-shirt that says “male tears” gives them fits of rage.
…and it just makes laughing at them that much more fun.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/3655afc1d64c0d148e35bbb242502136/tumblr_mfnw78hSoS1rq28nzo1_400.gif
There’s something odd about the way men see their genitalia that I’m clearly not getting here that they’d think that removing it would be the first thing women would think of when we’re pissed off. Given how fond the MRM is of projection that actually makes me wonder what horrible things they’re dreaming of doing to our bits.
Actually, I think it’s interesting to consider that a sort of primal castration anxiety might be at the heart of a lot of weird misogyny behaviors. Are there men who hate women because women — being non-penis havers, for the most part — symbolize to them their worst fear? Waking up without a penis?
Of course, in typical MRA fashion, instead of getting introspective with this, they have to make a poorly reasoned attempt to claim that hating women because of unresolved castration anxiety is actually entirely, objectively reasonable.
@Incognita Secunda – that was awesome. Thank you.
Also thank you to the misters for the confirmation that ‘being a man’ can (in their eyes) be taken away and given. What do they become in the interim? No wonder they’re so furyscared. But if they truly do have these terrors why don’t they embrace the idea of being good and kind and true and who cares what’s under your clothes? They refuse to help themselves.
Also, I’m sure I saw somewhere a survey of some dating site users, it asked their biggest worry of a blind date. For women it was meeting up with a murderer (and getting murdered), for men it was fat women.
I’m sure non-acceptably-beautiful women are also a form of castration.
I posted an article on my FB regarding Christy Mack and the beating she suffered at the hands of her boyfriend. I was upset because the article started off as “Porn Star describes assault”, and I asked what the hell her being a porn star had to do what happened. I felt it was a way to devalue her somewhat, since most people when the hear ‘porn star’ tend to focus on that and get all moral-issue about it.
My friend got very upset at me and began spewing MRA rhetoric just like this! How MEN suffer media scrutiny far more than women and for a man that’s much, much worse.
Then of course he proceeded to blame the girl for even being in a relationship with a man who’d beat her up, but that’s besides the point. It was just very frustrating.
Trigger Warning
Well, male genitalia ARE extremely vulnerable. I don’t think there is anything quite like it for women, though sex murderers do sometimes amputate a breast. Perhaps object rape is the more frequent analog; I recall a case in NH where a woman hired a friend to kill her abusive husband after the husband (among other horrors) threatened to rape her with a butcher knife. But I think that is a relatively very rare thing compared to fear of castration, both literal and figurative.
OK, but what does any of that have to do with the fact that she’s a porn star? Again, they do this thing where someone points out something bad that happened to a woman and they rage-vomit up a bunch of MRA talking points, but none of them ever seem to have anything to do with the subject currently under discussion.
Found this. Cracked up. Had to share.
Over at Pandagon Amanda Marcotte has an article about misogynists crying buckets over misandry jokes. This is an actual quote from the comment section and it isn’t the only one of it’s kind. This guy is saying that laughing at men behaving badly is just like pointing a gun at them. It’s that threatening.
So, I’m gonna post these gifs and giggle.
http://media.tumblr.com/ed749a8637eaea0f05cfa38fc60bc0cf/tumblr_inline_mid93zOts71qz4rgp.gif
http://www.ingeniouspress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/misandry.gif
http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/malificent-misandry.gif
http://38.media.tumblr.com/d4430b8aeb1941e3029ec1d8324dcc94/tumblr_mua3bwlWKv1rl6c79o1_500.gif
http://37.media.tumblr.com/49f45265fe3593d5f0a8d6ac61282962/tumblr_mwh4zgDVh01rl6c79o1_500.gif
It does explain why they lose their shit over this blog, doesn’t it?
Julie,
They hate tranwomen too.
That made me smile. I like being the scariest thing a jerk can think of.
BOO!
It’s to dehumanize her by reducing her to her job and to make the story sound like a cautionary tale. Linking her job with her abuse suggests to the reader that she somehow deserved it. Also, it’s titillating (some guys really seem to get off on conflating sex with violence, especially violence directed at women for the crime of being sexual) and clickbatey.
If they’re seen with a fat women, other misogynists might laugh at them. It makes total sense!
The one thing MRAs, MGTOW, and PUAs have in common (besides of course misogyny and being a loser) is that they’re all really wrapped up in other’s opinions of them. I think a lot of the obsession with having a girlfriend, wife or sex partner that is conventionally hot is due to that. Not actual attraction. Remember our troll who claimed to have been in a relationship with a woman who wasn’t conventionally attractive but they connected physically and emotionally. Instead of appreciating that relationship he was upset that he wasn’t attracting someone hotter and was either going to wait for his rich relatives to die so he could get a trophy girlfriend or just kill himself.
It is strange. If they’re so opposed to the idea of getting a woman pregnant and having to face the ultimate misandry – child support – maybe being nad free wouldn’t be so bad? Why do they fear it so much? At least they’d be forever safe from spermjacking!
Note to the MRM: “Social castration” should be the new “misandry”. Just as meaningless as a social justice term, sounds much more violent and serious as a buzzword.
Incognita Secunda is definitely on to something here. Privileged groups are deathly afraid of the non-privileged “bringing them to their level”, socially speaking. That is why satire (not the MRM-kind, I mean real satire) is such a powerful weapon. Those looking to keep their privileged social status want to be seen as above ridicule precisely because being laughed at by those socially below them makes them seem less powerful, and exposes the power they possess as what it truly is: not inherent, but socially constructed. This is also why they hate the concept of actual equality. You don’t worship someone on the same level as you, and to be worshipped is what these guys want.
Or, as I like to say: the will to power is the root of all evil.
And true, the set of genitalia traditionally associated with men (though I have to point out that there are women who possess them as well) are extremely sensitive. Which is why associating balls with toughness is inherently ridiculous.
Thing is, though, even if having women talk back is genuinely distressing for some men, that doesn’t mean that women should stop talking back, because we’re people and we get to have opinions, boundaries, and so on. The argument that women should avoid “socially castrating” men only works if you’ve already accepted the idea that women aren’t people and that our natural place in the world is on the ground with your feet on our necks.
It’s funny that they mention approaching women. While I don’t have knowledge of every society/culture that has existed ever, I am at least aware that “dating” is a modern phenomenon. Because historically speaking, women actually had NO choice in marriage/courtship. Hell, even women today will feel trapped when a guy approaches them because WE ARE TERRIFIED THEY WILL KILL US IF WE REFUSE THEIR ADVANCES. The menz hurt fee fees, however, is MUCH worse than women fearing for their lives.
Social castration belongs in the garbage with misandry and date fraud.
Remember Warren Farrel’s claim that a woman not having sexy times with a man who bought her dinner being “date fraud” and how he thought that was the male equivalent to “date rape”?
There’s something else to chuck in the bin. There is no such thing as “date rape”. It’s just rape.
That was underpantsonhishead, wasn’t it?
I think he ended up admitting that he had some serious issues. I hope he can get over them one day. Apparently, if he can’t, he plans to end his life. He’s a skid mark, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it.
You took that seriously? I figured it was the online equivalent of a toddler threatening to hold his breath till he dies if mom doesn’t buy him a candy bar.
Agreed. Distressed by women having voices? Tough.
It distressed a considerable number of white folks that little black boys and girl would sit next to their children in school. Many are still distressed by that.
Transphobes are distressed that little trans kids are going to pee in the stall next to their little (presumably) cis kids.
Boo-hoo for them. Their distress just does not matter.
Not even a little.
I vote for Laughstration, too!
So, I’ve been offline for quite some time. First, it was because I had a new kitten, and who has time to get online when there is a KITTEEEENNNNNN! Then, my sister was in the hospital, and life has generally changed, and not yet settled down into a new normal. Plus, it’s summer, and my other sister and I are both suffering from some weird sort of malaise. I could barely keep my eyes open for longer than 12 hours at a time. I have no idea why. So, I’ve been gone.
I came back to this, Ferguson, and other nastiness. Bleah.
I’d say this is one of the Signs of the Times, except it’s been around forever. Signs of the Times are supposed to be NEW stuff. These complaints of the Men’s Rightsers are so old and moldy. It’s just “honor killing” in another costume. They put their man-feels above a woman’s right to existence.
Thank y’all for giving me something to laugh about in all this, though. It’s laugh at their ridiculous attitude, or cry about it.
Laughstration is a skill that must be mastered!
cassandra,
Yep. I think he’s that afraid of not having his every whim catered to. I think he’s that lazy, that entitled and that shallow. Yes, he’s basically saying he’ll hold his breath if he can’t have a pony. I just think his life is so empty that he’ll really do it. At least, he believes he will. At 25, 40 looks a long way off. When he blinks and it’s upon him, he may reconsider.