The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!
If you hope to make it through the day without losing all hope in humanity, you may not wish to read the following thoughts on Ray and Janay Rice from our old friend from The Spearhead, W.F. Price.
I know people instinctively and reflexively sympathize with the victim of a brutal attack, but …
Yeah, I’m giving you all one more chance to back out of this right now, because we all know that nothing good is going to come after that “but.”
… there comes a time when one has to ask whether or not the victim bears some responsibility for putting herself in this situation. Does Janay really think that will be the last time Rice gives her a beatdown? And even if she does, what statement is she making in marrying a man willing to treat her like that?
The statement is clear: she thinks the violence is a reasonable tradeoff for whatever she gets in return for her relationship, whether it’s sexual gratification, status or money. …
But feminists would have us believe that domestic violence is a patriarchal imposition, despite the fact that married women in patriarchal families suffer the lowest rates of domestic violence of all partnered women in the United States.
Price cites a previous post of his as evidence for this claim, though to declare it wildly misleading would be an understatement. While domestic violence rates among married couples are lower than among cohabiting couples, this isn’t a clean comparison; as Joanna Pepin notes on The Society Pages, it ignores “that selection out of cohabitation and into marriage – and selection out of marriage through divorce – creates an apples-and-oranges comparison between these two groups.” It’s also worth pointing out that as marriage rates have fallen over the last several decades, domestic violence rates have fallen as well.
In fact, study after study after study after study find that domestic violence rates tend to be highest amongst those with traditional – that is, patriarchal – values.
Let’s let Price continue, as we haven’t even gotten to the worst stuff yet.
Maybe feminists think the patriarchy has secretly implanted little chips in women’s brains that lead them to seek out men who will beat them up.
Somehow, instead of choosing granola-crunching lesbians, these women make a beeline for musclebound athletes, beefy bikers and ghetto thugs.
How many different types of bigotry can he fit into one sentence? I count three.
But maybe it isn’t the patriarchy. Maybe there’s something about female sexuality that defies feminist ideals. Perhaps it’s kind of a chaotic, anarchic thing that doesn’t pay attention to pronouncements about what’s right and proper.
Maybe, just maybe, the only way to really cut down on intimate violence would be to restrict women’s sexual freedom.
Well, aside from the fact that this is, uh, an utterly appalling thing to say, particularly in response to an incident in which a man knocked out his then-fiancee in an elevator, it’s also completely wrong. Indeed, studies show the opposite – that the more control women have over their lives, the less domestic violence there is.
Oh, but Price stops just short of explicitly advocating that men should be put in charge of women’s sexuality.
Would I advocate for that? No. As adults, women should make their own decisions in that regard. However, to blame men in general for the results of women’s sexual decisions is absolutely unacceptable.
As terrible as Price’s post is, the comments from The Spearhead’s regulars are, as usual, even worse.
According to the fellow who calls himself TFH,
The biggest error that Western Civ ever made was assuming that women could be ‘adults’. …
The woman’s brain-gina interface is obsolete. She is programmed to get gina tingles from men who were suited to excel in the world of pre-historic times, while she is programmed to be revulsed by the man who would have fared poorly then (the introverted STEM guys of today).
One cannot fully understand why women write love letters to serial killers and continue to get back with violent boyfriends, without also realizing the hate that women have for tech nerds, and how there is an obsessive push to divert tech money to women (i.e. they hate that money is appearing in the hands of men their gina does not tingle for).
Again, the brain-gina interface of women is obsolete. That is the most complete explanation.
I should point out that TFH – also known as The Fifth Horseman – is considered one of the leading intellectual lights of the Men’s Rights movement, with his loopy 2010 manifesto The Misandry Bubble winning praise from everyone from A Voice for Men’s favorite therapist Dr. Helen to self-promoting British MRA Mike Buchanan to crusty old Counter-Feminist Fidelbogen. Oh, and WF PRice, too.
Back in The Spearhead’s comment section, meanwhile, Eric J Schlegel trots out some evo-psych just-so stories to buttress a similarly backwards conclusion:
Women get the ‘gina tingle from the alpha male because, from an evolutionary perspective, those are the genes that contribute to survival. Trouble is, those same sociopathic thugs are not at all any use as protector and provider, so she takes the results of her selective breeding, along with her black eye, and finds a beta schlub provider to help raise them. … [P]erhaps others here have similar stories where female aquaintances chose assholes in their hormoned youth, only to settle for a nice guy with 3-4 thug bastards in tow. Women such as the one you’ve talked about here are those who have not overcome their animal instincts, every bit as much as the men who put them in ICU. The authority that a man used to have over his daughters as well as his sons used to act as somewhat of a check on this social dynamic, but we all know what happened to that…
I think it’s safe to say that if you ever run across a dude who refers to “‘ginas” instead of “vaginas” you should run as far away as your legs will take you.
Someone called Stoltz concludes
This is what happens when a society tells women they are equal – no,no – superior – to men. Movies and TV shows that show a female character acting like a hellish b*tch, goings around kicking everyone’s rearends. … Feminist and a feminist-backed government who tell women they have no responsibilities, and all the rights, so they believe they can do whatever they please to whoever (of course, the ‘whoever’ are men).
Meanwhile, another commenter suggests that the only solution is “to repeal the civil rights laws that prevent people from keeping ‘those’ people out.” Yet another declares that “Ray Rice triggers my gaydar pretty hard” and suggests that Janay “looks like a tranny.”
Price himself shows up with some comments even worse than his post, arguing that abused women stick with their abusers
because it feels good. Having a dominant man is a pleasurable feeling for a lot of women. It’s like a shot of dope for a heroin addict, who knows that he’s taking a big risk each time he injects the drug into his arm, but can’t stop himself from doing so anyway.
Just a couple days ago there was a power outage where I live due to some construction/maintenance in the area. I had to go to a nearby hotspot to do some work online and so did a few neighbors. One of my neighbors was an ordinary, middle-aged woman. She left her phone on speaker for some reason, and she got a call from her man that I heard as clear as day. He called, and then when she didn’t pick up immediately I could hear him yelling at her in a threatening manner for not answering promptly. Then, the guy demanded she get power of attorney over her mother so he could drain the old lady’s bank account, and when she raised reasonable objections to it he was insistent and angry. I was just shaking my head, but this mild-mannered, very plain 40-something white lady looked positively radiant upon receiving this kind of violent attention from her thuggish, scumbag boyfriend.
This is what English teachers like to call an “unreliable narrator.”
@Policy of Madness:
“Maybe Partner would do a “choose me or them” with all of Judgey’s friends and family, and only start the physical abuse once the support structure is gone.”
I recall one (elderly) manurespherian openly saying just that: he was looking forward to the nearest future when his wife’s family members would die out so that he could fully implement his “dread game” in their relationship.
Isolating their wives from their family and friends and any other possible support systems is one of the classic abusers’ tactics. (There is a reason why all those poormenz at Dalrock’s bitch and moan about the modern church being “feminized” — i.e., no longer blatantly endorsing the husband’s abuse of his wife and children.)
@Aunt Edna
That’s the first time I’ve heard of someone consciously ascribing their own will to abuse and manipulate. I know everyone will pile on me again for ablism or whatever, but isn’t that clearly sociopathic behavior?
How about listening to the one who isn’t victim-blaming? How about to the one who is a decent human being? See, here’s the thing: marrying an attractive person and having kids proves jack shit about your worth as a human.
I thought MRAs were supposed to be so logical. What would the attractiveness of a person’s spouse have to do with whether or not their arguments are correct and/or ethical?
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
Meanwhile, I’m curious about whether or not WordPress will embed gifs:
http://share.gifyoutube.com/YDL2pM.gif
Awwwwwwwwwwww, it did.
AAARGHH!!!!!!!!!
’nuff said.
Also, David Futrelle has one less divorce than W. F. Price. So, according to MRA logic, men should listen to.,..
Oh, never mind, MRA logic is similar the Six-Headed Bumblefunder Beast of Venus. It doesn’t exist.
.Thank you for all the scientific take-downs of the “alpha-fucks, beta-bucks” myth. The biology nerd in me enjoyed it very much.
One point not mentioned; violent men are a threat to a woman’s fertility. Violence can damage a woman’s reproductive organs, cause miscarriage, etc. Not to mention that a lot of men violent towards a woman are also violent towards his children, which is clearly a biological dead end.
Its almost like this has nothing to do with biology, but is part of society’s toxic values that dictate how “being a man”=”being in control at all costs”. But of course now I’m insinuating that men shouldn’t always be in control of everything, how anti-male of me. Control is often a response to anxiety, expecting “manly problem solving” men to admit to having, never mind sucessfully deal with, anxiety is the height of misandrony. /s
There’s nothing to say about the Price controversy. “Mutual combat” = “not self-defense”
= “dudes in the wrong”. It doesn’t matter what she did; two wrongs don’t make a right.
But. Each generation has 50% of the girls die from a genetic disease, and the men outnumber the women 2 to 1. This does not reflect the reality we see around us, so this doesn’t work either.
If I recall correctly, there are slightly more women than men because boys tend to die off easier. Does this imply that “betas” are actually more survival prone than “alphas”?
When MRAs try to logic it sounds like they’re collectively writing a fantasy novel, a terrible one at that.
I used to be naive and think, “why don’t these women just leave”? But then I met a woman who had endured unspeakable abuse and rape at the hands of her husband. She finally left and entered a battered women’s shelter, but he tracked her down within days, and the abuse only got worse. She said she had nowhere to run, as he was a billionaire with unlimited resources at his disposal. She turned to alcohol and got arrested, and said she was relieved because jail was the only place she felt safe from him. She had no money, no support network and was an immigrant – she literally had nowhere to go.
Many people assume that all these women should have seen the signs. Well, she said he was the nicest person she had ever met until after they got married, and it was like a switch flipped. I last saw her 10 years ago, and can only hope that she eventually escaped and her husband is paying for his horrific crimes.
“I like being with abusive men” said no woman ever.
Do Mras really believe that women have mind reading powers and can tell the future? Abusers are sneaky they know how to manipulate people into thinking that they are nice then they show their true colors.
My head is hurting with all of this science stuff that not only it hurts women but men too and yes ‘tech nerds’ can be abusive too. I shouldn’t take all this seriously, they just hate women and don’t see us as people.
At least natural selection is working properly :
Price : 3 kids.
Dalrock : 2 kids.
Stacy McCain : 6 kids.
Manboobz : Zero kids, and zero dates, and zero women who want to be seen with him in public.
Yep. The natural order is in force.
When will Manboobz learn that the reason for his failure with women (and his financial poverty) are because :
1) He doesn’t understand that women hate men who agree with feminism.
2) He is fat and smelly.
3) He has no career.
Manboobz Futrelle cannot get a date to save his life. That is a fact.
They always sound like the abuser lobby to me.
The first rule of misogyny is that women are responsible for what men do.
Alice Miller has written extensively on this subject. There is also an excellent resource library at drirene.com.
Amanda
Oh my gosh, I hope she finds help and he does pay.
Could we dispense with this Anon2 and their juvenile taunting pls?
None of these things are facts.
This is a fact: You are supporting a victim-abuser and are therefore a disgusting asshole. Fuck off.
And yes, I would also recommend the mods ban this one.
Anon2
Just because he has no kids or a wife doesn’t make him less of a human. People are still people whether they are virgins, non virgins, fat, skinny, married or divorced. And also He’s a writer.
Women who hate men who agrees with feminism? Where did you get that?
There is more to life than marriage and kids.
As a woman who married two, count them, two abusive men (and left two abusive men), I understand firsthand the psychological dynamics at play.
I do agree with whats-his-name that the women in these relationships bear some responsibility in that they go back to their abuser, and often marry them AFTER they’ve been abused by them. I did it myself.
But I can assure you, it’s not about sex. It has NOTHING to do with sex, money, power, or status. It’s far deeper than that. Far, far deeper.
The only way that women will stop entering abusive relationships is to do DEEP soul searching. It’s taken me an entire life time (I’m in my 60s now) to figure it out. But, thank God, I did. I will never let another man (or anybody) abuse me again.
Anon2 is boring. Ad hom after ad hom is boring.
Hey, can we also just make it clear to the trolls (not that it will do any good)…
David Futrelle makes a living as a independent journalist.
He has a job. He has a career. Get over it.
Mods can’t ban, even juvenile trolls like Anon2, but I have emailed the ferrets in a David Futrelle suit who run this blog.
*an
I respect indefinite articles. Really, I do.
@Anon2: I guess I don’t exist, considering my boyfriend not only agrees with feminism, but IS a feminist.