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!
Question for those who might know – in that kind of castration, where the penis is removed too in what does not sound like a particularly careful or precise way, how does the person pee afterwards? I know there are ways for doctors to make that work fine using modern medicine, I’m just wondering what happened to those folks who were auto-castrating in the temples.
I’m not convinced of the fragile masculinity either. Most of the men in my life are extremely secure and have non-conforming hobbies/likes, etc.
Of course these misters are upset at laughter. Right thinking people laughing at them is the soundtrack of their lives.
I don’t let her do it. I keep my “kitty bell” secure, and remove the lid, myself. It’s my sister who lets her pry it off.
All of us have our own plastic container for the treats, which we refill from bagged treats. It’s an effective way to get the cats from one room to another. For example. “I want to go to bed, but the cat is in the way. If I pick her up and put her out, she’ll be angry with me, so will someone else please ring their kitty bell and she’ll run to you, and I can close my door?” Works like a charm!
So, now my kitty bell is still pristine, while my sisters’ (both of them) are getting tatty. Of course, I have to get up and go get the treats every time, whereas my sisters just have to put the lid back on, and they’re done, until the cats want another treat.
And I don’t worry about getting milk all over my bedding. Oh, Man! She was busy all day cleaning up that mess! Poor thing. I offered to help, but she told me not to, because she doesn’t want me to throw my back out again.
Incidentally, if you’re on narcotic pain pills, you get excused from jury duty! Yay! I guess they don’t want a juror yelling “Liar!” in the middle of court.
See, this is why I have always preferred clownish men. The class clown always seemed to me to be the “safe” bet, back before I even understood misogyny, at all. But I did understand the fear, and there were plenty of popular boys I would not, under any circumstances, date. But a class clown? Yowza! Loved them.
Any man who felt confident enough in himself to not only be OK with being laughed at, but would actually invite the laughter, was sexy as all get out, to me. Add in some brains, and a gaming hobby, and I would just get all melty. I liked gamers, because gaming is so cathartic. I know for myself that I take out my aggressive tendencies on the games, and then I don’t feel like beating up actual people. If I’ve had a bad day, I can play pretend, whacking some orcs or dragons, and after that, I feel much happier, and no longer angry. I just can’t hold onto anger, if I have a healthy outlet. After gaming, I shrug about the issue, and just get on with my life. So, I just LOVE gamers.
Or, I did love gamers. Recently, I have discovered the rampant misogyny in online gaming groups, where they are so hostile to feminine (or feminist) gamers. I’ll never understand that, because when I was growing up, the table-top gaming groups I joined were always very welcoming to me.
Of course, my brother was the game master, and he could be downright EVIL, when ticked off. Hmmmm…
And on that note, Thank GOD for Runescape. I have encountered a few fools who try to pick me up. Telling me that I’m gorgeous, and other such “street harassment” type things. As if they can tell what I look like, at all. I even had one dude ask to smell my feet. And of course the guy who told me how “large” he was.
However, that is rare enough, and I can block them with a couple of clicks, and never have to worry about them again. And did I mention it is rare? I have seen very little of the meanness that seems to inhabit so many of the other online gaming communities I’ve read about.
I don’t know why that is, but I’m very grateful for it. I guess the MRM don’t like that game.
Kitty story! The day that we bought that collar for Mittens, we though we had lost her. You see, the little black kitten hid in the dark recesses of a cabinet (No idea how or when she got into it, but it was closed at some point). She stayed there, fast asleep, for hours, while we combed the neighborhood for her.
Eventually, she wanted out, and started meowing, but I swear, she must have been contentedly asleep for twelve hours! No harm done, though, and now she has a reflective collar and a bell. And when she curls up to sleep on the black chairs, I’m glad of that collar, because she really blends. Without it, I would have sat on her, more than once. She tucks her little white paws beneath her, and you can’t see anything but the black.
She’s a really sweet little one, though. She loves to lick and suck on my arm, and give me itty-bitty kitty hickies, as she’s settling down to sleep.
I’d say only the scrotosphere has masculinity that fragile.
It shows in nearly everything they do.
the constant harrasment of “weaker” women, the abuse apologia, the paranoia of being spermjacked/falsely accused, the attempts at emasculating any man who disagrees with them, the “I TOTALLY GET LAID ALL THE TIME” claims
They are absolutely TERRIFIED of not measuring up to their idea of what makes a real man.
I’ve been told my several times in my life to be extra special nice to men, lest I bruise their “male egos”. I figured out pretty quick that supposed weakness of ego was because men expected women to treat them as superiors. Letting them know they are not is considered cruel and “emasculating”. What a word that is!
e·mas·cu·late
iˈmaskyəˌlāt/Submit
verb
make (a person, idea, or piece of legislation) weaker or less effective.
“our winner-take-all elections emasculate fringe parties”
synonyms: weaken, enfeeble, debilitate, erode, undermine, cripple; More
deprive (a man) of his male role or identity.
“he feels emasculated because he cannot control his sons’ behavior”
archaic
castrate (a man or male animal).
So much to unpack.
Emasculate – a very effective warning that, if you hear a man use this word, he is not a man who you want to be around.
I wouldn’t say it’s only the manospherians who have fragile senses of masculinity; a lot of men have it to varying degrees and in varying areas.
Even from an early age, I never had any doubts about my masculinity, but I used to have real issues about sex. I was deathly afraid of not being good enough for my partners; because of that, for many years I had trouble approaching women. I’m not sure it’s exactly comparable (and I certainly didn’t react to it by hating women), but the fear was pretty damn paralyzing.
Not in any way like being afraid for one’s life, of course, but the fear of not measuring up can be pretty devastating.
Hmmm….there is an extra “my” tossed in there. Sorry.
CONFIDENTIAL TO WOODY: OK, Woody, that’s one! Just 4 more!
Gaebolga,
Women feel that too, in addition to hoping he doesn’t kill you.
GO WOODY! YOU CAN DO IT!!
But then of course, you’d have to keep it up….
Well, that’s just a whole extra layer of suck….
Is it wrong that I’m not really pulling for Woody’s return?
Woody’s still at it?
Bwahahahahaaaaa!
Shut up, Woody.
Look, I don’t want to be unkind, but why are you doing this? This thing where you’re saying, well, I know social anxiety isn’t as bad as fearing that someone will kill you, but still…
Some women have social anxieties too, and we have a whole extra layer of anxiety related to looks that men tend not to experience in nearly as severe a form. Is any of this comparable to being afraid that if you displease someone in any way, which you may not even be able to predict that you’re going to do because some guys are so hair-trigger about any defiance from women that it’s almost impossible not to annoy them, they might get angry enough to kill you? And knowing that if that was to happen people would analyze what you did to “provoke” it?
No, it is not. So let’s not go down this path of minimizing the fact that being in danger of being murdered is just a teensy bit more of a problem than feeling like people might do something to damage your self esteem.
Ooh, excitement! Is woody gonna finally make a come-back? What was his comment that used the word “sporkle” or whatever it was? How long will he be able to comment before he loses it again and has to try another challenge?
*grabs popcorn* ^_^
I inmediately distrust any man who thinks that emasculation is a real and negative thing that can happen to men.
Ooh, was the Woody comment about how it really is harder to be afraid that a woman won’t agree to date you than it is to be afraid that a man will beat the crap out of you? I bet it was.
I guess I fail to see how validating that social anxieties can be pretty terrible implies that I’m minimizing fear of bodily harm or death. It certainly wasn’t my intent, as I tried to make clear by stating “Not in any way like being afraid for one’s life, of course…”.
I was attempting to offer a perspective on male motivation/fear, and if it came across in any was as trivializing anyone’s perspective or mansplaining the issue, I sincerely apologize.
Again, I’m trying to be nice, but actual apologies do not begin with “I guess I fail to see”.
I’m not joking when I say that I wish I could only be in public armed with ninja smoke bombs and a grappling hook gun. That way, when random people try to talk to me I can say, “I’m Batman” and disappear in a puff of smoke.
@MCY: I even had one dude ask to smell my feet.
Um, that was possibly the first half of a puerile misogynist joke aimed at insulting you.