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.
That’s a great idea. Can we give the trolls entrance exams? If they fail, none of their comments appear.
And I love this bit, emphasis mine:
That veneer, only nanometers thin.
Oh yeah, “will of the people” when not all those eligible to vote bother, and people are deliberately excluded from voting by your precious Republicans. You’re pathetic, sonny, you really are.
Also it still doesn’t seem to have sunk in that not everyone on this blog is American. So, you know, fuck off. Or do you get your feeble jollies from staying where you’re not wanted? What a saddo you are.
Except for those who you deem unworthy. Who are they? Don’t beat around the bush.
Okay, he’s trolling. I refuse to believe anyone is that stupid. He seriously just said “feminists aren’t allowed to care about the outcome of an election.” And he thinks he’s made some a brilliant gotcha!
Hah hah hah he thinks other people have obligations, but as a white man he has only rights!
I know that lots of you are further away from the USA than I am, but as someone who resides in it’s northern no-fly zone, I am fairly impacted by their politics. Of course, I don’t get to vote in their elections, but that’s OK, as I’m fairly confident that Emperor and Grand Poobaaaaaaa Harper will dance to whatever tune his southerly masters call.
Also, I’ve lost highbeam’s point. Did he even have one? Ever?
Huh, I’d have said something like “the apocalypse” or “a plague outbreak that kills billions of people” or “for humans to lose the robot war”, but sure, I guess “someone I don’t like as President” would be terrible too. Priorities, what are those?
n response to a comment about who is going to be president… context, what is that.
Contextually, as a president, Hillary Clinton is pretty low on the list: Of the likely Democratic Party candidates, I can’t think of anyone else likely to to run I’d less prefer to see in the White House.
Given that her politics are far to the right of mine. She is held up to be the paragon of what is “radical left”, and so will be strongly pressured to “triangulate” to the “center” (which is now to the right of where it was when Bill did it twenty years ago) and her history implies she will be more than willing to do that.
But yeah, compared to total annihilation I suppose that’s small potatoes, so the next time someone makes a comment about politics and I have a strong sentiment about it I’ll be sure to reply with a non-sequitur about how much worse the extermination of all life on earth would be should Tau Ceti explode with a massive gamma burst, because that will be so much better than the use of topical hyperbole to make my point about the actual topic being discussed.
Beamster: Yowza!!! I am so confused as the Republicans won by a landslide and are super popular…
Sources?*
Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country,
Ah… so you have decided we were right to castigate Typhon Blue.
Which raises the question, why are you here?
Ah, right, you wanted to yell at some feminists, and figured you’d be able to necro this thread and attack them for being hypocritical.
Sadly this comment I am so confused by all these comments! seems to be all you are getting from the discussion, especially as you’ve expressed three different sentiments.
1: The right to vote need not be held sacrosanct, and discussions of stripping women of the right to vote because something which isn’t actually affecting men now didn’t affect women in the past.
2: Society might be improved if we created some sort of test, required some active contribution (more than caring enough to vote)
3: Everyone has the right to take part in goverment.
4: my rights (as a white male) or other’s rights and or obligations.
Which is to say everyone is equal, but some (white men) are more equal, and have unfettered “rights” while others have duties and obligations (to those white males).
Fuck that shit.
*because in those places where the Democratic candidate ran a progressive campaign and took a more liberal stand, rather than trying to pander to the “swing voters and moderate Republicans, they did well, polling well above the expectation. “Liberal” Issues (such as Prop 47 in Calif. with changes in the penal code to reduce the number of felonies [and so making the travesty of justice which is “Three Strikes” less pernicious], as well as making it possible for some 10,000 people to be released from prison, etc), did well.
What I saw this cycle (and the last) is that the Republicans are very good at using bogeymen (e.g. Ebola, Healthcare) and dogwhistles (Ebola, entitlements) to rally voters to the polls; even when they know they have lost the larger fight (healthcare) and then manipulating their intractable opposition to paint the opposition as feckless and ineffective (the latter being sadly true, as the Dems have let them run the show; When the Dems have been in opposition they have meekly embraced, “bi-partisanship” and when in the majority have allowed the Republicans to have a free hand with dog in the manger contrarianism: which feeds the cycle, because the midterms have come to be events where the disaffected can engage in referenda on policy of “sticking it to the other guys” and the huge amounts of outside money the Republicans are able to raise (see Adelson in Florida on the question of marijuana reform there, or the Koch’s pretty much everywhere) makes it difficult to keep the talk to actual issues (exacerbated by the weak-ass, “work the middle” the Dems have been doing; even as the Republicans move the middle to the right. Nixon (fucking NIXON!) is to the left of pretty much every national Democrat: even (heaven help us) on matter of privacy and espionage on the American public.
So go on, explain to me how the Republicans are popular, rather than effective at exploiting the flaws in the system.
I’ll also point out that Rauner, who has apparently won the governor’s race in IL, ran by downplaying or rejecting much of the Republican platform, and attacked the Democratic incumbent for doing things like cutting public pensions (and raising taxes … but whatever). I didn’t see any campaign materials that espoused any of the Republican stances on social issues.
Granted, it’s Illinois so he had to pander to the “left” more than most Republicans do, but still, he probably won a race in a state that hasn’t had a Republican governor in a long time, but didn’t run as a recognizably Republican candidate.
Since when has Hilary Clinton been held up as a paragon of the radical left?
This trolling is pathetic. Dude should at least try to hold an opinion and argue it, no matter how bad he is at it. Throwing a bunch of statements that he thinks are sure to drive feminists into a tizzy at the wall and hoping something sticks is just boring and sad.
Can we ban the thebeam? For sheer tedium? He stopped pretending to have a point or a coherent argument a long time ago.
I am normally a fairly patient person, but I have about had it with you. You come into an acknowledged feminist place and proceed to figuratively drop your drawers and crap all over. Well, Mr. Privileged White Dude, I am formally issuing an invitation for you get the hell out of here. Your verbal and emotional garbage is stinking up the place and I, for one, do not appreciate it.
So…good bye, hasta la vista, dosvedanya and so long. Please let the door kick your pointless ass on the way out.
Oh, you talking about the many thousands who were disenfranchised and had their votes taken away from them by the repubs you love? The ones in Texas and other southern states? You know…the dems and AfricanAmericans and such? THOSE people who were SUPPOSED to have a “secret, free vote?”
Asshole. Crawl back into the primordial ooze out of which you should not have crawled in the first place.
What sparky said…PLEEEEEEEEZE?
Send messages to David asking for a ban, people. I’ve already emailed him.
grumpyoldnurse – we’re affected by USian policies in a big way here, too. It also doesn’t help that our reactionary parties are just the GOP-lite.
@ kittehserf – Oh boy, do I hear you! What’s up with neo-cons trying to impersonate the worst of the GOP? Do they look at the US and go “Wow! That reactionary stuff is failing so bad over there. I totes think we should try it here now!”? I just don’t get it.
@ grumpyoldnurse, those policies may be failing from a social/economic standpoint, but they’re apparently quite successful at getting people elected.
@world, I’m sorry that my country’s major export is ass-backwards conservatism.
I am kinda shocked at the comments insulting my intelligence and attacking the things I have put forth. And to kittenserf… banning me? Am I truly being that offensive or even a little abusive? I am not attacking feminists nor your little group — even though I can’t say the opposite is true.
I thought everyone had the right to freedom of opinion and expression. If I seek, receive and impart ideas and hold opinions…should I not be free to do so without interference? (This applies to everyone, of course.)
There are interesting ideas being discussed here…and I am learning from this forum — how can anyone learn from your ideas if all outsiders are attacked and mocked for attempting to interact with you??
I do feel that you have the right to freely assemble, discuss and associate with each other — and no one should be compelled to to join a group. Please give me a chance?
Instead of a ban, how about a troll challenge? Make himself say Beetlejuice three times at the beginning of each post? You know he’d do it.
N, you didn’t. You are lying. See d00d this right here is why you are being banned.
You know perfectly well that you do not have the right to walk in to other peeps space and spout off “without interference”. Your are trolling and doing it extremely poorly. You fail to meet minimum requirements.
Read the comment policy, troll boy. Being tedious is a bannable offense.
Hellkell, there are people* who still insist that Obama is a Marxist Muslim socialist despot. There are also people who insist that Jesus Christ was not a Jew. Considering that, to view HRC as a ‘leftist’ is just a five finger exercise.
Regarding Sweatband, I’m convinced his disingenuous act is as bogus as his arguments. He knew coming in what his reception would be, and now he can scarper back to the He Man’s Woman Hater’s Club tree house and boast about counting coup on the mean scary feminists of the Mammothariat. His attitude reminds me of Mel Brooks’ line: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in a sewer and die.” In summation, and to be utterly unfair, Sweatband reminds me of why I stopped dating white guys in college.
*For an extremely generous value of ‘people’.
@ highbeam – no one here is limiting your right to free speech or your right to peacefully assemble. We just don’t have that kind of power. We are saying, however, that the ideas that you are putting forth around here are tedious, old news, and that we disagree with them. Yes, some people (myself included) have, indeed cast aspirations on your intelligence. That does not actually prevent you practising your right to free speech, but is us practising our right to free speech. Coming into a feminist blog and shushing the commentariat for disapproving of a woman who says that feeeeemmmmales should not have the right to vote will almost certainly result in you being called an idiot. No rights of yours have been threatened by this, however.
I find you thick, disingenuous, and tedious. If you want to learn, fine, stay. But please, STFU unless you have something original or at least witty to add to the discussion. My saying that is not a threat to your human rights. It may have offended you, but the right to freedom from being offended is not guaranteed by any government nor set of laws with which I am familiar.
TL,DR; boring troll is boring.