Once upon a time, you may recall, women were denied the right to vote, couldn’t own property, were prevented from having careers of their own. Well, it turns out that all of these pesky “restrictions” weren’t really restrictions at all! They were protections that men provided women out of the goodness of their hearts. Men protected women from the terrible burdens of voting and property-owning and so forth, because they just cared about women so much.
Or at least that’s what a lot of Men’s Rights Activists seem to think, judging from this highly edifying discussion in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
![rogersmith25 325 points 1 day ago As I read /r/mensrights[1] more and more, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the primary female privilege is empathy. If a woman or girl is hurt, people care. If women are kidnapped, there is international media attention. If women are killed, their deaths are highlighted. If there is a conflict between a man and a woman, then people will jump in to defend the woman. If women are under-represented in an area, people want to take action to make things "equal". If a man is hurt, it's funny. If men are kidnapped, we hear silence. If men are killed, their deaths are glossed over. If there is a conflict between a man and a woman, people will attack the man. If men are under-represented in an area, the president will call it a "victory" (as he did regarding the female majority in colleges). Basically, people are programmed to have more empathy for women than men. 200 years ago, that empathy manifested itself in keeping women safe from harm by having them stay home to raise the family rather than die on battlefields or toil in mines. It was empathy not misogyny that kept women from having careers. Present-day, work is safe in offices, so today we have campaigns for women to earn more money and yet have more "balanced" lives where they can both raise a family and earn an "equal" career and, in other words, "have it all". permalink save report give gold reply [–]sierranevadamike 82 points 23 hours ago wow... as a history major, I never looked at the "repression" of women throughout history as empathy rather than misogyny. I NEVER considered this option.. blew my mind.. thank you](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/empathy1.png?resize=567%2C594&ssl=1)
It wasn’t just sierranevadamike who was “blown away” by rogersmith25’s comment: the Men’s Rights mods were so impressed that they reposted it and pinned it as the top post in their subreddit.
Apparently every day is “Opposite Day” on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
EDIT: Here, courtesy of Cloudiah, some more pictures of girls and women protected from that big nasty world out there.
She was ranting about the importance of the moment of conception in one post so I’m guessing she’s probably in the birth control in general is evil camp. Maybe she’s just one of those taken in hand types who loves being told what to do by her husband and thinks that she needs that kink validated by everyone else pretending that it’s an automatic part of the way men and women relate to each other. Like Gor without all the leather.
She’s also conveniently ignoring that men benefit from welfare, food stamps, medicaid as well. And also forgetting that it’s not the government paying for them, it’s men and women who pay taxes.
She really seems to think that women are incapable of supporting themselves, and if they don’t have a man to support them, they’ll need hand outs.
News for you, IB22, just because you don’t want to support yourself, doesn’t mean everyone else is the same as you. You are the outdated anomaly here, clinging to a wonderful past that never existed.
You should pull your head out. Where exactly was this said?
I mean, putting aside my attempts at inspired
verbiageword-garbage, I think you’ve made your first critical mistake when you without irony or apparent realization decide to gender the neutral conglomerate of people that is government as a male noun.It kind of says a lot, that.
What a shock that the anti-feminism has been blended with libertarianism. You might have a point if anyone here was advocating for an authoritarian government*. But we aren’t.
It’s interesting that you’ve been trying to speak for working class and poor women and yet you seem to believe social safety sets for low income people are oppressive. You must actually be privileged if you think it’s oppressive to provide food and health care or in any way comparable to a social structure in which women are second class citizens.
*Having to pay taxes doesn’t count as authoritarian. Taxes are the price of admission of a democratic government.
Troll, please. What do you think the state is…a fucking MACHINE? Bwahahahaha. No. It’s PEOPLE. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s us, and we are it. And so are you, like it or not.
And no, you don’t get to opt out. Unless you have a nice desert island at the ready for all your flibbertigibbertarian nonsense. Ha, ha.
Bingo! FINALLY, a few words of sense out of you! Took you long enough.
On second thought, in addition to the primary problem of being rooted in misogynistic tropes, the MaleProtector model strikes me as really stinking unfair for dudes.
It’s essentially saying, “If this family fails, it’s all YOUR fault. You FAILED them.” Even if the circumstances are legit out of his hands, the model blames him.
That kind of pressure can’t be that healthy.
Me, I trust systems more than individuals. I think most people go with the flow, and tend to follow the rules regardless of morality.
Create a system where wealth is the only security, and greed becomes the order of the day. Create an environment where screwing over people is legal and profitable, and the system becomes clogged with hucksters.
Create a system where man must be the head of the household and the woman must be subservient, and you create a system where abuse by men is blamed on the disobedience of women.
My “trust” in the state depends on the systems in place to make those in power accountable and responsible.
Actually, I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen this yet:
Dead MRAs, Let women protect men for a little while.
We’ll take away men’s right to vote, and turn the military and government over to the women. We’ll pay men less, and expect them to be the primary caregivers after birth. Women can pay the taxes and choose where it should be spent. They can own the property, and pass all inheritance to their daughters. They can be the majority of faces on television, the vast majority of CEOs, and the celebrity athletes. You can pledge your virginity to your mothers, until she passes you on to a wealthy daughter who facies you for your body.
After 2000+ years of your hard work and protection, you must be tired. Let women take it from here. Sound ok to you?
No?
Didn’t think so.
Leftwingfox, I’d like to bet all the change in my pocket (alright, dryer-lint in my pocket) that none of them would take it.
Just because the protector model might be not healthy for dudes, the being ‘protected’ is still the nastier end of the stick.
@leftwingfox
Perfect. If it’s as good a deal as they keep telling us it is, then it’s irresistible, isn’t it?
Exactly contrapangloss. The “protection” model is unfair to both genders: it screws women out of their own rights as human beings, and it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on “healthy” men, who will feel a complete failure if anything happens to their family, even if it’s in no way their fault. So, the only people for whom this model works absolutely fine is jerks: they get to do whatever they want, and, if their family gets in trouble, they won’t give a shit. Or, more often than not, they will be the precise cause for their family getting in trouble in the first place. (And the fact that this model works so well for jerks, and only for them, explains very well why the MRAs are so fond of it.)
I still think there was room for healthy relationships between husband and wife, in those times. Maybe I’m a romantic, but I think good people managed to have a companionship, a cooperation, in married life. Life was very hard for everybody, for most of the lower class, for most of our past history: I want to believe that many couples helped each other, each doing its bit, through the hardship. Which, of course, is totally irrelevant to the discussion, but here it is 🙂
Insanitybytes,
It’s OK. If you want to see yourself as only a womb that deserves no rights to your own voice, property or income who needs to rely on a man to protect you because it’s easier than changing the patriarchal system that threatens you with rape, abuse, starvation and homelessness and murder if you don’t, no one is going to stop you. Enjoy. Stay ignorant of history, sociology, etc. We won’t interfere with your ignorance. The rest of us prefer to have some say over our lives, recognise reality, have basic human rights and true partnerships with our partners, even if they are not men.
PS. If you want to just lay there and ‘receive” someone elses cum, that’s cool. you feel like a passive object that gave up her autonomy to fuck? Fine. you feel that way. That’s your private life and we won’t stop you from being a shitty lover or a sad example of why anti-feminism is joy killing. But for most fertile cis women who like fucking men, that sounds awful. We like sex and don’t feel the need to lay back and hope for a bun in the oven to make us “life givers” to feel like we matter. I for one don’t feel especially special for doing something stray cats do everyday. I’m not saying that pregnancy and birth are not hard. They are incredible hard. (Stray cats have it hard.) That’s one of the reasons no one should be forced to do them without their consent. But for me, it’s something I did once upon a time and it doesn’t define me. I like being able to have sex without procreating against my will. That isn’t a “culture of death” it’s a culture of rights for all human beings, not just the ones without functional uteri. BTW, if you have ever cum from anything other than piv sex or given a single hand or blow job, you’re a hypocrite. You ain’t gettin knocked up by that sort of fucking either.
contrapangloss: Yeah, I’m reminded of the recent statistic that people who own guns in the US are three times more likely to be the victims of gun violence than people without. Harmful “protection” is worse than no protection at all.
It’s all the worse because the things women are supposedly being protected from are created by that system of protection. Men will protect you from a life of poverty, but to do this only men can have jobs, so you NEED a man not to be poor! Men will protect you from rape, but we don’t count the spousal variety, making him more of a threat than the random stranger.
Kids have to get taken care of, because they really can’t manage without protection for developmental reasons.
Something like 250-300 kids are killed by their parents yearly in the United States.
Again, in a system where a husband is the only protection a woman is allowed to have, who protects her from him? Insanitybytes will presumably answer that if her husband is hurting her then she must have done something wrong.
@Luzbelitx:
Ohhh…
Riiiight, right. I forgot that women expecting crimes committed against them to be treated as crimes is asking for special treatment! Goddammit, men worked their way to being recognized as equals before The Law!
Women aren’t as equal because they spent all that time they could have fought for equality in the eyes of the Cosmic Council on discussing lipsticks and eating bonbons!
Men built the equal society that protects the lazy wimminz from giant firebreathing cat monsters from outer space out of the goodness of their hearts, and then, out of a misguided belief that women would do the right thing, they graciously gave women the vote, again, out of the goodness of their hearts (Suffrage? Yeah, as if women ever worked for anything, amirite?). And they betrayed men by voting for Obama, a plant for the dreaded Killer Tomatoes.
(Note: Men didn’t vote for Obama, and USA is the entire world, right?)
Shit, trying to wrap my brain around what I presume is what MRAs and other misogynists believe about history makes my head hurt.
@insanitybytes22:
Your idea of trusting the kindness of random men sounds a lot like the idea of minimal taxation encouraging the wealthy to be good for the sake of good – as if giving someone in a privileged position absolute freedom would lead to them doing good things, for some reason. This is folly. A “benevolent capitalist system” is an oxymoron, since capitalism itself is designed to discourage benevolence and charity. That’s what society, and ultimately the government, are there for. A government is by no means a perfect system (most of it still largely consists of wealthy, privileged people looking out for the interests of wealthy, privileged people), but it’s a hella lot better than counting on the benevolence of people in whose best interests it is to not be benevolent (for instance, men in a patriarchal system).
Ideally, a society is there for people to support each other, and the burden of supporting others should not lie solely on the shoulders of people who understand the necessity of it, particularly since people who don’t understand are doing their very best to limit all support to the underprivileged.
I am an anarchist (not of the fucking stupid “pro-capitalism” type; I mean a real anarchist; well, anarcha-feminist), and I believe the current system based on layers of privilege and power differences is the very reason the current system is fucked up beyond repair. We can’t achieve equality by counting on the people higher up in the hierarchy to do the right thing. On the contrary, trusting in the moral judgement of people in (and blinded by) power and privilege is outright counter-effective. The whole privilege system must be dismantled, and all traces of the concept of “power over another human being” must be eradicated. Only when men and women are truly equal in all respects (socially, politically and economically) can we start suggesting that trusting in the benevolence of men towards women is a reasonable thing to do*. As long as men can dismiss women’s opinions, feelings and choices as they do now, we do not live in such a society.
As cassandrakitty put it so eloquently:
*Disclaimer: This is not “man-hating” or “anti-man”, as antifeminists and other knee-jerkers like to say; I am a man. The difference to misogynists and anti-feminist men is that I don’t see my masculine identity as something that elevates me above women in any way. I do not celebrate toxic ideas of masculinity while blaming society for forcing me to live up to them because I’m not an idiot, and I don’t seek to control, or “protect” women because I’m not an asshole. Yet while I strive to be more empathetic and socially aware, I realize that I am still occasionally blinded by my privilege. Power corrupts, and I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I’m immune simply because I’m aware. This problem will only truly go away when we, as a society, really understand what equality is all about.
TL;DR: Stop being silly, insanitybytes22.
Um…thinking that having the gun doesn’t necessarily *cause* the victimization…was thinking one of the possibilities is that people carry guns because they sense they are under threat, and the sense is accurate.
OTOH, I can see acting like a badass because of the gun you’re carrying, because you think it can do more than it actually can. This especially in the sorts of goobers I grew up around in the trailer park…
My favorite sociology professor popped up in my brain there saying “Correlation is not causation!”
@blahlistic:
It wouldn’t shock me in the least if part of the causation was accidental firearm deaths. Kinda depends on how “gun violence” is defined.
Also, if someone breaks into your house and you point a gun at them I’d think that would make them considerably more likely to try to shoot you.
Leftwingfox’s suggested deal to the MRAs reminded me of a comic I first read in my childhood: Valhalla, a Danish comic book series retelling of old Norse myths. One book (specifically the one about Thor’s hammer being stolen and him and Loki dressing up as women to retrieve it) deals a bit with gender issues, and Thor, portrayed as a bull-headed, conservative he-man, is making a proto-MRA argument of it not being easy for men to lead and rule and make decisions and blah blah. His wife Sif promptly tells him that if it’s so hard for men to make decisions for women, then why not stop? Women certainly wouldn’t mind.
Good question, really. I didn’t have a real concept of gender expectations back then (my parents were fairly liberal in this particular regard, and didn’t try to force me into a role), but I remember wondering the same thing. I mean, nobody is forcing men to act in a particular manner (besides themselves, I mean), so what’s the problem?
An average idiot would probably say necessity, because gender roles and what do you mean they’re constructed and shut up you’re confusing me. It takes a special kind of idiot to say it’s actually women making men do it because dominant male hypergamy biotruths.
blahlistic: As I understand it, it’s a combination of factors, including a greater willingness to enter into or escalate violent confrontations, greater rates of successful suicide attempts, accidents from mishandled firearms, and of course, availability of a firearm during heated arguments/abuse.
@ LWF that first one is why I’m not really interested in getting a CCP. Could lead to a case of stupids.
re Guns in the home: People are more likely to shoot a friend, family member or themselves than a dangerous or threatening intruder.
Not I! I’m Canadian, and I chose to get my tubes tied after years of the Pill (and its side effects, which in my case included depression and weight gain). The government paid the ob-gyn and the surgical team. Didn’t cost me one extra cent. WIN!