I don’t often write about Alison Tieman – the eccentric FeMRA videoblogger known better as Typhon Blue – in large part because, well, have you ever watched one of her videos? Her arguments and assertions bear so little relation to what the rest of us know as reality it’s as if she lives in some weird inverted world of her own making.
It’s rather difficult to address the arguments of someone when virtually everything she says is wrong – logically, historically, morally – in some fundamental way.
But I’m going to have a go at her latest video anyway, because, well, it’s only 4 minutes long, which will make unpacking its fractal wrongness a little less of a daunting task. Also, there’s a kitty in it.
In the video, Tieman, in the guise of “Professor Hamster,” makes the startling claim that Women’s Suffrage was “Feminism’s first act of female supremacy.”
How, you might wonder, does equality at the ballot box count as “female supremacy?”
Well, according to Tieman – one of A Voice for Men’s self-proclaimed Honey Badgers – it’s because women (at least in the US) don’t have to register for the draft.
This is an old argument of hers, based on the strange belief that voting rights for men in the United States are contingent on them signing up for selective service, something that’s not, you know, true. She seems to be confusing the United States with the fictional universe of Starship Troopers, in which “Service Guarantees Citizenship.”
In any case, because suffragettes didn’t demand to be drafted when they demanded the vote their demand, Tieman concludes that they weren’t seeking equality but supremacy.
Never mind that at the time the notion of women being drafted would have struck the general public as absurd.
Never mind that when draft registration was being considered for reinstatement in 1981, the National Organization for Women sued to have registration expanded to women as well, because not requiring women to register would relegate them “to second-class citizenship by exclusion from a fundamental obligation of citizenship,” as the New York Times summarized their position.
Ultimately, over NOW’s objections, the Supreme Court ruled that registration could be restricted to men only. The all-male Supreme Court; the court didn’t get its first female Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, until later that year.
For all of the hullabaloo, the requirement that men register for the draft is an essentially meaningless “obligation.” The draft is a dead issue in the US, about as likely to be revived as Jarts.
Tieman goes on to note that “female suffrage enabled women to vote for wars that only men had to fight in.” In fact, as anyone who’s paid any attention to real world politics knows well, women are consistently less likely than men to support war.
Tieman’s arguments about women’s suffrage are just bizarre. It’s when she starts talking about the civil rights movement that she moves beyond bizarre to offensive.
Throughout the video, she contrasts what she sees as the good and humble civil rights movement with the “privileged” and “entitled” suffragettes; it’s a strange and backwards argument, at odds with historical reality, and one that insults not only the suffragettes but our greatest civil rights heroes as well. “During the civil rights movement,” she proclaims,
black moderates believed that black people needed to EARN their civil rights. Extremists at the time believed that blacks people should receive their rights by virtue of being human beings. …
Minorities felt they had to earn their rights and often had to make enormous sacrifices in war prior to even having their requests for rights considered reasonable. Women felt they were simply owed. …
Minorities approached suffrage from the usual mentality of people who are actually oppressed: We have to earn everything, including citizenship rights. Whereas women approached the issue of suffrage from a mentality of privilege and entitlement: We are owed our rights.
Where even to start with this jumble of wrongness?
Let’s start with her most basic misapprehension, that human rights are something that have to be earned. In fact, the basic premise of human rights is that we have certain rights because we are human beings. This isn’t entitlement or extremism; it is the fundamental basis of democracy.
You would think that someone who calls herself a Men’s Human Rights Activist would have a better understanding of the rudiments of human rights.
In the Declaration of Independence, you may recall, Thomas Jefferson famously proclaimed “that all men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” He didn’t say they had to earn these rights; he said that they were born with them.
Granted, it took quite some time before this sentiment applied not only to white men but also to women and African-Americans, but this had nothing to do with anyone “earning” rights; it had to do with the fact that some human beings were seen as more human than others.
When Martin Luther King made his case for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, he harked back explicitly to Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence. In his most famous speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington in 1963, he declared
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. …
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
This was not the first time he had made this argument. In a 1957 speech also delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he declared that
The denial of this sacred right [to vote] is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic traditions and its is democracy turned upside down.
So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.
It’s our humanity, not a signature on a selective service registration form, that entitles all of us to the right to vote.
If the Men’s Rights Movement wants to campaign to end selective service registration, go for it. Just don’t pretend that this has anything to do with the right to vote. Or that demanding basic human rights is a sign of “entitlement,” much less “female supremacy.”
Also, maybe lose the stupid hat?
Below, a song that kept popping into my head as I tried to make sense of Tieman’s most peculiar views. Well, the chorus anyway; the rest of the lyrics don’t really fit.
Various shades of red, definitely. I can’t think of the name of it, but this streaky type of crushed velvet catches my eye.
The Streaky Evidence Party – has a ring to it. 🙂
Sorry, it took a bit to read all the replies.
How about these as feminist ideals: Everyone should be recognized as a person before the law — across the entire planet. Specifically I am meaning that all should be equal before the law — protected without discrimination (even if they are, like myself, a white male…everyone is entitled to equal protection against any discrimination?
Dude, you are mansplaining what feminism should be to women.
But the troll came back the very next day.
Yes, the troll came back. They thought he was goner
But the troll came back. He just wouldn’t stay away.
It would be nice if the trolls could *read for comprehension*.
Pallygirl for president!
More interesting than Forehead – check out this bouncy castle. Need a bouncy castle for your totally goth 5 year old’s party? Have an emo teenager who could use some cheering up? Well, here you go.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/529384131170847588/
Last I heard,Scotland still had Not Proven’ as a verdict. We’ve managed to hold onto our own legal system and laws anyway.
Reminds me of a story about some friends of mine. They had bought a house they shared whilst at Uni, but were selling it once they had left. The guy who was buying it was English. The night before the contract was signed, he phoned up and demanded they take 2 grand off the price or he wouldn’t buy. He was terribly surprised when they laughed in his face. In Scotland, as opposed to England, saying you will buy is a legal contract. No gazumping here!
Now if that bouncy castle is claw-proof, it would be a great house for a black kitty.
Perfect for vampire children as long as they bounce with their mouths firmly shut.
I wonder who else should try that?
If you sincerely write things like “protected without discrimination” and “equal protection against any discrimination” you really don’t have to bother saying you’re a white male, it’s implied. Anti-discrimination laws don’t discriminate against people who don’t experience discrimination. Promise.
Kitty castle besieged by corgis!
http://i.imgur.com/ZEhFqSX.jpg
Yet, mysteriously, still no response to my question. How bizarre. How utterly bizarre!
Wow. The asshole’s still here? Sorry for being away.
@thebeam2008
Since you seemed to have addressed a bit at me, let me reply to you:
Show me where, exactly, I ”attacked” you for being a white cishet man. Better yet, show me where I even fucking called you a white cishet man. I didn’t. I was referring to the status quo, as were you (if you didn’t see it, I’d gather it’s because you feel “white cishet man” is the default and assumed in every situation, which is kind of the point here, but I digress).
You suggested we should take seriously a person who wants to deny women the right to what amounts to contributing to decision-making in modern democracies. The gender (or lack of it) of this person is irrelevant, as it is still a fucking awful thing to suggest. Allison Tieman is not a man, and I call her a terrible person all the same. Being an asshole is gender neutral.
I’m not disregarding your opinions because you’re a white cishet man (again, I never suggested any such thing). I’m disregarding your opinions because it’s become increasingly clear that you have no idea what you’re talking about, yet expect people to take you seriously anyway*. You claim all people are equal, yet defend a person saying all people shouldn’t be equal. Feminism is about equality and getting it for all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation etc. The rights of white cishet men are not being infringed upon, the same rights are just being extended to everyone else. What are you trying to achieve here?
I am well-meaning in general, just not towards arrogant assholes like you. Get off your imaginary high horse and try to actually read some Feminism 101 pieces and educate yourself before barging in to a feminist blog to share your nuggets of solid crap.
*The fact that you’d even think that anyone should take your opinions seriously despite not having anything of worth to contribute to a discussion is a sure sign of privilege of various sorts.
As for the rest of your pointless chatter, I think brooked summed it up pretty well:
@thebewilderness
Yep, and a very good one at that. Captures all the relevant nuances of this particular troll dialect.
@kittehserf:
That picture is pure perfection.
Now I really want to see a reimagined version of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields starring kitties and corgies.
Beam reminds me of a cat my dad used to have. Mack was a gorgeous Norwegian forest cat (or mix thereof). My dad and I would be chatting, as we often did, and Mack would come in and start meowing at us, just to be part of the conversation.
And it was still a more relevant contribution than anything Beam has said here.
Obviously, dear boy, you still have no idea what feminism really is. Allow me to enlighten you, to the best of my ability. Following, you will find the entire text of the Equal Rights Amendment, a document that so many men (and a few women) find to be the basis of the end of nen, the total takeover of society and the loss of all real freedoms. Scared a bunch of brave fellows no end, let me tel you:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
Scary, huh? Well, there you have it. Feminism – women are people, too. Folks is folks and should be treated as such. And all that that implies. Terrifying to pin-headed MRA-types, what with the wanting Mommy to do their bidding, stay at home and be sexy and cook and clean and just generally make theirlittle lives easy and comfy. And nix the having lives, ideas and dreams of our own. Glad I live in a state where the ERA actually just passed and is Oregon law.
I LOVE that cartoon and song!
Fuck you baseball hat dude, I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.
Rather, I will join USians in being sick to death of our political system. Districts should be drawn by computers, not gerrymandered by partisans for one thing. For another, Democratic leaning voters need to start getting of their lazy asses and fucking voting in midterms. Making election day a national holiday would help with this.
I voted in the midterms, and we managed to retain our Democratic senator and house representative (a tiny bright spot in a depressing election). Had to go at 6am. My polling place was a college campus. The entrance to campus was plastered with Republican campaign signs and had no indication of where the actual polling place was.
I can’t help but wonder if the fact that we’re a relatively left-wing precinct in a fairly conservative area (most of the local positions were Republicans running unopposed) had something to do with this.
The fact that it looks like Illinois has elected Rauner is especially frustrating. I get that Quinn wasn’t exactly a good governer, but the choice we got was the incompetent one or the actively evil one, and apparently we chose evil.
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! The Repubs gerrymander and the Dems sit around twiddling their thumbs and then wonder what went wrong!
I am a lifelong Democrat and I have voted in all 43 elections since I came of age, save one. And that one was because I was in surgery. I get so mad at the lazy my-one-vote-does-not-matter attitude! What the hell?
And now, with electronic voting and all of the horrors that THAT can create…do not get me started. I guess my biggest rage is with how easily so many are stampeded to vote their fears, instead of actually studying the issues and voting for a better country for everyone. GAH!!!!!
(pant, pant…hyperventilate) And then there are the MRA’S!!!!!!! I have to go watch cartoons, now. I think I am having an apoplectic fit…..
I live in Kentucky. Mitch McConnell just won re-election because the Democratic candidate tried to talk out of both sides of her mouth and wouldn’t take a fucking stand on anything until it had passed through 10 focus groups and the populace had been polled on it twice.
This was her election to lose, and she fucking lost it! The national Democratic party pulled out of her campaign entirely near the end. McConnell’s PACs were able to put just about any message in her mouth because she wouldn’t put one of her own there first.
And that is the sad, sad truth! Why, oh why, are the dems so afraid to actually say anything of substance? Do they think We The People are too stupid or too easily frightened to be fronted with someone who actually, you know, believes and/or knows something and has something real to say??? Or is it that their corporate masters would spank their little asses if they expressed real and original thought?
I am so frustrated. I really love the Constitution, especially for its flexibility. But I am thinking that I would prefer to live in Finland. Really. Their Constitution almost puts the US one to shame, and the people there actually, you know, VOTE!!!! And they have the BEST environmental policies! You can get a pdf of their Constitution here:
http://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1999/en19990731.pdf
Will you accept The Matrix Reloaded starring a kitty and border collie puppies?
I have my theories on that, but it’s a long and sorry story and I’m too irritated at Lundergan Grimes to go into it right now. She had a strong chance! McConnell has never polled worse. “Generic Democrat” could have beaten him.
Those already ARE feminist ideals, you fucking doorknob. They have been since the very beginning. And yet, guys like you are still pushing back by claiming that feminism isn’t about YOU enough.
And you think we’d be stupid enough to step back on the defensive just because you felt “discriminated against”, as a white male? Fuck. YOU.
AND the idiotic non-argument you rode in on, too.