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!
…and thus does the Manosphere appropriate Aristotle.
I kill all of my victims with iocane powder.
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/inconceivable_princess_bride.gif
An apology and three years later, and Sharon Osborne is STILL frightening these guys more than Ozzy ever did. =/
Did they just argue that being laughed at is worse than being killed?
Why am I asking this question? Of course they did.
Also, LMAO at the guy who thinks there’s an epidemic of women poisoning men that the FBI can’t catch, because MRM catch phrase
daintydougal: There really is no such thing as an “untraceable poison”. It’s more like, poisoning isn’t suspected and so isn’t tested for.
And men commit more poisoning a than women.
With regard to all the “untraceable” poison discussion, check out “The Poisoners Handbook.” No, it’s not a manual for women on how to best kill men. It’s about the beginning of forensic science, which came about because in the early 20th century, most poisons were undetectable and people were literally getting away with murder. Forensic science started because detectives and coroners needed to be able to detect poisons.
Oh Sparky, you and your “sources” I think we can all agree laughing women are deathly painful and that women love (and get away with) poisoning men. F.A.C.T.
If you didn’t like the sandwich your girlfriend just made you it means that it had poison in it and she’s trying to kill you. FACT. The woman who works at the deli is also trying to kill you. Coffee tasted a bit burnt this morning? Poison.
@ Incognita Secunda
That was soo spot on, I had no idea what the commenter in the article could be talking about, this “social castration” until I read your comment. It reminds me of a scene from my favorite movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?” where a bank thief and murderer (he hates livestock, too) gleefully lines up folks in a bank and proceeds to rob them, until a lady whispers a cute, apparently diminutive nickname (Baby-face Nelson) and giggles at him. He is completely deflated and hysterical, even though he is the one with a machine gun! It’s amazing what laughter can do when it’s coming from the oppressed.
It’s interesting because now that I understand the impulse, it totally makes me get how someone in a position of power wouldn’t be able to see that this is not actually comparable to the myriad of real, life threatening things that many women are afraid of when it comes to men.
Wow does it ever express why a shift in perspective is so desperately needed.
I would like to one day visit this magical opposite land that the entirety of the mrm live in.
The first step in the death-by-social-castration process is when a man is forced to go out in public improperly dressed. Here, a woman’s familiar assists her in making this come about. Women are so evil that we’ve taught perfectly innocent pets to steal.
Russian home videos, man.
We spent all that money to put a guy on the moon and we overlooked the real arena of competition.
“I would like to one day visit this magical opposite land that the entirety of the mrm live in.”
No, you wouldn’t. It sucks.
Manhood is very fragile and is constantly being challenged and must be defended time after time, every day — the castration anxiety is merely a manifestation of the Fear That Cannot Speak Its Name. I used to be as insecure as any man but eventually I talked myself out of most of it. It helped that I am big and look tough (I’m not). I found that I could get away with carrying my wife’s purse or buying tampons or wearing a pink t-shirt and nobody would laugh at me. I sometimes would do that sort of thing just to have a giggle at what I could get away with on account of how I look. On the other hand, if you’re a bit on the small side and look a bit nerdish, life as a man can be a constant skate on thin ice.
Remember the fairy tale about the Emperor’s New Clothes, where it was the little boy who pointed out the fraud? Masculinity is basically a pretense which can be destroyed by a grown-up little girl’s laughter.
Male privilege obviously exists, but it doesn’t FEEL like anything real.
I knew a guy who seemed macho enough, but he had an alcohol problem. His wife told me he had a recurrent nightmare. His father had been a Navy officer and quite successful, but Ed never quite measured up to the old man. His dream was that he was in the line to sign up for the Navy, and he would suddenly realize that he had no pants on. You don’t have to be Freud to figure out the significance of that dream.
You know men have male privilege when they compare castration anxiety to the fear of death.
Does it really feel that fragile for everyone? I’m not convinced. My father, for example, has never shown any of the symptoms of fragile masculinity or any anxiety related to masculinity, and he’s conforming in some ways but not in others. He’s not very tall, but he had a powerful career. He likes kids and cooking and has very little interest in dude-associated sports (he does play golf now, but his youthful sports were swimming and gymnastics, just like mine). He was buying tampons for my mom by the time I was old enough to notice, and does the same for me without any apparent anxiety. For frame of reference, he was born in 1948. My husband, born in 69, doesn’t get anxious about that stuff either, just annoyed at people who act like they expect him to play along.
I’m guessing part of how stressed out men feel when they’re not performing masculinity in the conventional ways has to do with their family of origin and how much pressure was put on them to do so there. I also suspect that either being physically big and imposing or being very successful career wise probably make it easier not to care about the ways in which you’re not conforming and not to have that cause anxiety, which would explain why the MRM draws in primarily A. middle aged men who’ve gone through divorce and who feel like they’ve lost whatever status they felt like “owning” a wife was giving them, and who aren’t getting that status reinforcement from their career either and B. young men who feel like their status is low because they’re nerdy or not very attractive or socially awkward or whatever.
Note that this is an explanation, not an excuse. Having a fragile sense of identity sucks, but that doesn’t justify adopting a philosophy based on the desire to reinforce your own sense of power by hurting other people and trying to force them into a subordinate position.
@Ally:
Especially when that “castration” anxiety is actually just a fear of social rejection or a strange sort of identity crisis.
The whole thing is basically a demand that women keep our mouths shut and willingly accept subordinate status just so that men will feel more confident and secure. That’s not a reasonable expectation.
Kitten pics? Well, I can’t upload the ones on my phone, but my sister blogged about the little overlady, so here you go:
http://poppycockpublishing.com/tammyjrizzo/unintended-consequences/
@cassandrakitty:
This makes me think of the question at the airport: Has anyone had any access to your luggage without your knowlege?
You have a tuxedo! Very cute, though I’m not entirely sure it’s good for her teeth to let her keep doing that.
OMG! That curling video was hilarious! Thanks, cloudiah!
@Lea
“You use that word a lot. I think you don’t know the definition.”
freemage: daintydougal: “Castration”, technically, refers solely to the removal of the balls.
Historically this isn’t true. In the late Roman Empire there was a cultic worship of Dionysus (of all people) which often indulged in ecstatic auto-castration. They used clamps to secure the genitals and then just “shaved” what was exposed.
Some of them took off everything.
In Turkey it was not uncommon for post-pubescent eunuch to have both penis and testicles removed, as some thought that being adult meant they might still be able to have sex (this is sort of true, but generally one has to be older, and have some practice at being sexual, and the dive does diminish). Given the latency of sperm it’s just possible for someone who has been castrated to have one, or two (with different partners) child post gelding.
Those who had been “shaved flush” had to use a quill to urinate.
Here I am, going, “Did they just react to that Margaret Atwood quote by getting all indignant and then confirming it?” Oy.