One favorite tool in the misogynist’s toolkit is the old “if women want to be protected from violent men it proves they need patriarchy” argument. It’s a rather silly argument, but those making it tend to do so with enormous smugness, feeling that they’ve got the ultimate “gotcha” to use against feminists.
Cast in point: A post today on Roosh V’s reliably horrendous Return of Kings blog arguing that, as its title puts it, “#TakeDownJulienBlanc Shows Feminists Need The Patriarchy To Protect Them.” Never mind that the woman-led campaign against the abusive pickup artist seems to be doing pretty well already.
“Well feminists, I’ve been waiting for this a long time, and it’s finally come,” the ROK contributor who calls himself runsonmagic writes. “I’ve been waiting for the day you’d ask us to bring back patriarchy.”
He’s so obviously and so extravagantly pleased with himself here you could probably see his smug grin from space.
His “smoking gun?” A comment that #TakeDownJulienBlanc organizer Jenn Li made in a video about the campaign she started.
Describing the video in which Blanc told a room of tittering men that the best way to pick up women in Japan is by literally grabbing them while shouting “Pikachu,” she wonders aloud why women should be put in the position of having to defend themselves against being assaulted by socially stunted wannabe PUAs.
Or, as she puts it,
The responsibility shouldn’t be on the women. It should be on these nasty ass men.
That is, she thinks that the “nasty ass men” in Blanc’s audience giggling at his stories about assaulting women should have enough self-control to, you know, not grab women they don’t know and put them in headlocks because some creepy “dating” guru tells them it’s a good idea. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, as I suspect it does for most non-nasty-ass men.
But runsonmagic decides that what Li is really saying is that she
doesn’t want to fight her her own battles. She wants a men [sic] to protect her. And she isn’t alone. Many of the #TakeDownJulienBlanc tweets echo the same sentiment. Why aren’t men stopping men like this?
His conclusion: “Feminists Need Patriarchy To Save Them From Julien Blanc.”
Filling in the rest of runsonmagic’s post is a bit like playing connect the dots; you pretty much can tell what the picture is going to look like by just glancing at it.
He begins with an idealized vision of patriarchy in which men are the wise protectors of their women.
It used to be if a man was abusing or harassing women, the older men of that community would get together and teach the young man a lesson. Fathers in particular would teach their sons to be respectful of women. This system of men maintaining order was known as patriarchy. The word patriarch literally means rule by fathers.
Now, in the absence of patriarchy and male organizations, women only have ineffective government organizations, Twitter, and change.org petitions to turn to.
Huh. Men have access to all these things too. And the women, men and everyone else involved in #TakeDownJulienBlanc has been doing a pretty good job of making use of the tools that are open to all of us in democratic societies.
Apparently forgetting that he has been mocking feminist women for relying on men for protection, runsonmagic takes a few swipes at Li for talking about defending herself from assault with a taser.
Are you so frightened of men that you carry a weapon at all times? Or is this just a violent power fantasy you indulge in, in the absence of any real power? You live in Washington D.C. If you don’t feel safe walking the streets in the city with the most government of any place in the world, who can you turn to for protection?
Uh, possibly the police? The people we pay with our taxes to ostensibly “serve and protect” us from crime?
Yes, proud patriarch, most police officers are men. Is this proof that women need “patriarchy” to protect them? No more than the fact that most teachers are women means that men need matriarchy in order to be educated.
But to runsonmagic
#TakeDownJulienBlanc is a cry for help, a damsel in distress trope.
Oh lord, is runsonmagic a #GamerGater too?
I say this not to be mean, because I truly want each and every woman tweeting that to feel safe and secure, but because I believe what will make those women most secure is being surrounded by strong men, who’ve been raised by their fathers to behave honorably and justly. Patriarchy is what make women feel safe, which is why survey after survey says that conservative married women are the most happy and sexually satisfied demographic in America.
This is a favorite argument of patriarchy (and marriage) fetishists, but it’s not that simple. The study often cited as proof that married women are safer than single women also notes that the safest demographic of all is … widows.
So instead of arguing that women who want to feel safe should run out and marry the first guy who seems interested, perhaps the marriage-promoters should be arguing that women should marry and then, er, somehow have their husbands die?
These dark speculations aside, study after study after study after study find that domestic violence rates tend to be highest amongst those with traditional – that is, patriarchal – values, as I pointed out in a previous post. Blanc’s own behavior towards women seems to be rooted, at least in part, by the notion that in some fundamental way their bodies belong to him to do with what he pleases. That’s a pretty patriarchal idea.
But runsonmagic has moved on, declaring (based on nothing but speculation) that Julien Blanc’s seemingly sociopathic behavior must be the fault of his mother, whom runsonmagic has simply decided was single. Noting Blanc’s evident delight that he was able to assault multiple Japanese women and get away scott-free, runsonmagic writes
“I didn’t know how much I could get away with,” is the voice of a child who was never taught boundaries. It is the voice of a child who never had a father to teach him right from wrong, or to give him meaningful challenges by which to discover the limits and abilities of his own powers. …
I have no doubt that Julien is relishing much of the controversy that surrounds him now. No one would give him attention when he was a fatherless young man who wanted girls to talk to him, and now he’s got his own hashtag. …
When I see Julien, I don’t see a monster. Julien is what men become when they are raised by only women, and told women’s attention is what defines their worth.
I tried to find evidence of Blanc’s alleged “fatherlessness,” but was only able to find evidence that there was a famous French “romancier” by the name of Julien Blanc who was fatherless. And apparently motherless, too, after the age of eight. They’re definitely not the same guy, as the older Blanc died in 1951. Presumably the current douchebag “romancier” calling himself Julien Blanc borrowed his name from the dead guy.
If feminists truly wanted to #TakeDownJulienBlanc and keep men like him from ever becoming a problem again, they would make sure their sons grew up with fathers who were present active parts of their life. They would give attention to men they respect, rather than only engaging men who choke them and call them “dog.” And they would encourage the men in their lives to band together and lead their communities.
Or they could, you know, organize on the internet to shut down Blanc’s venues and get him tossed out of the countries he tries to bring his toxic teachings – and behavior – to. So far, that’s been working.
Yeah, I assumed someone would come out with this nonsense.
Honestly it looks like his entire rant is premised on his worldview-skewed misunderstanding of what she meant when she said “nasty ass men.” He lives in a bizarro world where of course a feminist thinks all men are nasty ass. He can’t fathom that NO SHE IS TALKING SPECIFICALLY ABOUT DBAG MEN LIKE PUAs AND YOU. She’s talking about self-responsibility, something he clearly lacks.
I honestly do not get the whole “men who don’t respect women are the ones without fathers to teach them boundaries argument.” You would think that their mothers would also teach their sons and have a better perspective on that, being, you know, women. Then again, his entire argument is based on insane troll logic. He seems to be saying that women need patriarchy to defend them, but if the women *gasp* have means to defend themselves, it’s just a power fantasy for them. And living in a chivalrous patriarchal society isn’t?
He’s proven that he has no working knowledge of D.C. Just because the seat of government is there, doesn’t mean it works for the residents of D.C.. There’s a reason their license plates say “taxation without representation.”
Also, that city lead the nation in murders at one point not all that long ago.
Tell it to me straight, David. How many of those True Men magazine covers involve a burly man fending off attacks from the random animal of the day, defending an attractive blonde woman in a swamp? All of them? Is it all of them?
OT:
As always, it’s these dudes who exemplify misandry. What, men couldn’t possibly treat women with respect unless those women were his property? I also continue to find the constant obsession with declaring that feminists are anti-father baffling.
No, it’s a recognition that the people in the best position to stop harassment of women are the people who harass women.
Yes, this totes happened because women only engage with men who choke them and call them “dog”.
:/
*shakes fist violently at women*
David would you mind me asking how much time you put into researching stuff and writing about it for this website? You just seem so prolific, pumping out around two articles per day.
This runsonmagic guy is just full of it. Having a number of patriarchal men in my life did me absolutely no favors, and not only did those men fail to make me feel safe, but they often made it clear they were public enemy #1 in my life and I had no way to get away from them. But of course my mother was dating them, so that was her fault, right? Never mind the fact that my father was dead by the time I was thirteen and my mother’s father died when I was twelve, the latter being a patriarch who was actually quite fond of me. See, the problem with allowing patriarchal men to be the sole defenders of women from other aggressive patriarchal men is that the women in the equation are SOL if something happens to the very few patriarchs who are on their side. This is because patriarchal men only care about women they are directly related to and tend to be kind of shitty to all the rest.
Not that my grandpa was one of those. I loved my grandpa, and he favored his granddaughters over his grandsons. Clearly he’s not the stereotype that runsonmagic is thinking of.
Then there was my close cousin Mark, who was abused so terribly by his stepfather (another one of those patriarchal assholes) that I am still scarred for life just from being in the vicinity of some of those episodes and feeling completely unable to protect him. Not because I’m a woman, but because I was seven when I saw that shit firsthand for the first time. That wasn’t something I could solve by hitting people the way I would other children if they were being awful to me or my friends. Adults are giants to seven year olds, and scary ones at that.
All in all, my mother was much better to my sister and I when she wasn’t dating anyone (she had a thing for asshole patriarchal types who would take the parenting responsibilities off her hands). I’m sure this would make it easy to blame her for what happened to me, at least for guys like runsonmagic, but I recognize that she was conditioned by the patriarchal men she was surrounded by growing up to feel like she wasn’t equipped to raise children on her own. Runsonmagic himself is a perpetrator of that shitty attitude, so he doesn’t get to rip on women who follow his own logic.
Anyway, I’m still feeling nauseous from election results (Wisconsinite and veteran recall activist here) so I’m just going to lay down for a while…
@Fnoicby:
It’s not like you can really avoid “engaging” with someone who has you by the throat anyway.
Well, runs-on-stoopid, I guess you’re going to have to keep on waiting till moss grows out your ears, because you will never hear that from ANY feminist.
Only the last sentence is true, and stoopid left the y off “patriarchy”. The rest, however, is 180 fucking degrees removed from the reality of what patriarchy has been for us since its inception: namely, the “older men of the community” teaching the younger ones how to abuse and harass women. Fathers have been telling their sons that “no means yes” since forever. And who would know all that better than these disingenuous fucking PUAs, who are trying to rake in money doing just that?
Bull-fucking-SHIT. PUAs make it a veritable profession to make women unsafe and insecure! What the hell else is all this “negging” and “relationship game” that we’ve been hearing so much about? What the fuck is “rape game”, fergawdsakes? This dude is being nothing BUT mean.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “BENEVOLENT” PATRIARCHY. It is ALL malevolent.
If these guys really want what’s best for women, they wouldn’t be PUAs. They wouldn’t be assholes. They wouldn’t be playing head games on us. And they sure as hell wouldn’t be writing windy screeds on their shitty blogs as to how best to do that, either.
True confession:
Sometimes, I actually want to find articles from the “True Men Stories” Magazine. I’m sure I would bust a gut laughing.
Watch out for our Next Issue: When DUCKLINGS turn UGLY.
(Cute ducklings, acting menacing)
aebars, I’m not sure. A lot.
kirbywarp, not all the covers. Sometimes the men are just defending themselves. There are also a lot like this:
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/91/0d/a5/910da5b0234015c1203f143771904273.jpg
I LOLd at the “American Men Are Unfit For Married Love” on the cover. MISANDRY!
One entitled asshole claiming his version of entitlement is the better option compared to another’s equally appalling entitlement!
Nobody Wins! Yay!
I read this while making the same facial expression as the woman in the comic with the green lizard monkey otter creatures. Combination of WTF and ew.
Let me explain this in nice, simple, MRA-friendly language. When a woman says that nasty-ass men should stop harassing women, she doesn’t mean “save me, kind sir!” she means “stop being such a fucking creep, you asshole”. It’s not an appeal for protection, it’s a demand that the men being addressed stop being assholes. No intermediary, just straight-up telling them to stop doing what they’re doing. Remember how when you were a little kid your mom would say “stop torturing the neighbor’s cat/trying to grope your little sister/peeing all over the rug”? That’s what she’s doing.
She doesn’t want your help, or your protection. What she wants is to never have to interact with anyone like you again, and she’s not alone.
TL;DR – You’re not people who anyone would ever turn to for protection, you’re the people who other people sometimes need protection from. Not because they’re women, but because they’re decent human beings, rather than rabid shitweasels like you and your buddies.
Now get off Jenn’s lawn.
Also, anecdote not data and all, but the most respectful towards women men I’ve met have all been much closer to their moms than their dads, and several of them grew up with single mothers. No father at all has less of a negative impact on a boy than a father who teaches him to view women as ambulatory fucktoys.
49 deadly virgins? Where can I find and read this story? LOL
Every time I read things like this on this web site, my head hurts because of all the aneurysms and all the veins on my head that burst such stupidity and assholery trigger on my poor self. David, how do you manage to not be consumed by anger and despair ?
I’m now regretting being less deadly as a virgin. I didn’t enslave anyone, really fell behind on the job.
Also, San Diego Pacific Passion Port? Clearly San Diego was a lot more exciting back then than it is now.
Samuel Schmitt: As longtime readers know, David prevents being consumed by rage by being all of us, and also a bunch of cats in a humansuit. This provides the necessary emotional distance from the toxic swill he dredges up.
And those magazine covers… magnificent in their purity.
freemage: correction. David is ferrets in catsuits in a david suit. And all of us.
Do keep up.
🙂
It may be anecdata, but there’s still something to that. No dominant male influence = no negative male influence.
And the supposed need for positive male influences is often overstated and twisted out of shape by the Fathers’ Rightzers. More often than not, those guys are the very kind that teach sons to abuse and daughters to be abused. When they’re not neglecting their child support payments out of sheer spite, that is…
Shitty male behavior is not inborn, after all — it’s learned. And it has to be learned from somebody.
This is like throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you’re an orphan during your trial for killing your parents. The menz, they creates the danger to the wymmnz, so they can save the wymmnz from danger.
Like the GOP asking for votes to fix the deadlock in Congress.
This logic is so tricksy I’m spinning.
Those lurid mags are straight up AMAZING. I love them.
runsonmagic owes me for the pain and suffering caused by my repeated gigantic eyerolls reading his nonsense.
I know this guy’s reasoning may look like it doesn’t have any logic, historical base or empirical support. You may be thinking that it is contradictory for the whole ROK-Roosh-PUA gang to care about women and try to get them all conservative-wifey and wanting to be protective and respectful, when they are pioneers in the whole creepy-rapey-predatory business, and denigrate those they call sluts.
But ya see, it all makes perfect sense for those man-brains:
The thing is, these dudes have been riding the alpha-vag carousel for a few years, and now they’ve hit the wall: their charms are gone, they’re all used up and and their biological clocks are ticking. They’ve realised the only women that would stick with them are beta traditional wives so they’re now desperate to get one to settle down have kids and be ‘patriarchs’ because what’s left of them is no good for anything else.