Over on Reddit, a regular on the Blue Pill subreddit — devoted to mocking Red Pill ridiculousness — recently reposted the cartoon above, one of The Onion’s brilliant parodies of the terrible political cartoons that are pretty much omnipresent in every second-string newspaper in the country. I don’t think I’ve ever posted it here before — I’m not sure I ever saw it until today — so I thought I’d share it here as well.
What makes this particular cartoon extra delicious is that its “argument,” such as it is, is one that a lot of Men’s Rights Activists actually believe. Indeed, it calls to mind the cover of the revised ebook edition of Warren Farrell‘s seminal MRA manifesto The Myth of Male Power, in which a picture of a woman’s posterior is presented as if it truly is, somehow, a threat to the rights of men:
Hell, as you can see, that woman’s butt is literally shattering the word “power.” The only question in my mind is whether the butt-damage was caused by some overenthusiastic twerking, or by a particularly powerful fart.
But Farrell — who is essentially the Founding Father of the Men’s Rights movement — didn’t mean it as a joke. As he explained in the new introduction to his book, he intended the cover to highlight the power “genetic celebrities” — his term for attractive women — have over hapless horny men:
When asked about the cover in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, Farrell doubled down:
MRA’s: when the arguments of your most famous “intellectual” are indistinguishable from a parody editorial cartoon in The Onion, it might be time to rethink your whole movement.
Oh, are we doing “pretty people are stupid” again? I was hoping that could be avoided.
I have actually met dudes who think that way. Stupid, but … it exists. Luckily most of them outgrow it, the rest become MRAs and PUAs.
Suggesting that lots of boys want to have sex with the most conventionally pretty and/or popular girl at their school is less the problem than the assumption that the girl in question must be dumb as a box of rocks, or that intelligence is inversely correlated with bust size.
You say that you “Liked” her but you’ll freely refer to as “The ugliest woman you’d ever met”? Yeah, no, you’re either an alien in an Edgar suit or you’re lying. People do not non-jokingly talk that way about people they genuinely like.
*Refer to her as. Missing word.
The casual sexism from men who presumably think of themselves as being against misogyny when it comes to this topic is always depressing. Like, I’ve had some coworkers who weren’t the prettiest people, but I’d never be all “lol lemme tell you, that sweetheart of a guy in accounting was so ugly, when I found out that someone wanted to date him I nearly fell off my chair”. Everyone is entitled to their preferences, but why go out of your way to be an ass about it?
I know. That confused me too. Maybe he was only thinking of JGL as his character in Don John who he bulked up for.
To be fair, Loki is a bad boy. But Tom Hiddleston, not so much.
Wait, who is everybody responding to about the ugly coworker?
Yes.
Weir – GrumpyOldMan
And before someone comes back with “but you’re doing it too!”, no, I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with the way Levitt looks, and I’m not snarking at his appearance, it’s just that he’s not the big and buffed type, so it’s odd to include him in a group of men who’re supposedly being valued for their muscles.
Oh great, Minter left another comment showing how she hasn’t even a passing familiarity with what sexism and misogyny is and also seems to think men are cyborgs who can be reprogrammed to desire women they don’t desire.
I’m going to ignore her blather because she will no doubt not stop with the “see, Dr. Farrell, Phd is making a really cogent and astute point” despite the fact that he’s clearly not remotely doing anything of the sort.
This thread has a near endless supply of people tearing apart Farell’s claim that hot young chicks oppress men when they are pursued for sex, dates and relationships ergo women have power over men. Sorry lady, Dr Farell, Phd is effing joke and no one outside of anti-intellectual MRA circles takes him seriously, if by some chance they’ve heard of him.
I remember a young man from my single days, who was probably as close to a ‘genetic celebrity’ as anyone I’ve known. He did not live a life of privilege and power as a result. Unless you regard being the object of truculent and obsessive attention from men twice his age as that – wait, that’s exactly what Farrell would regard it as!
Funny thing – I got to get with him by being pleasant, appropriate and honest with him. He said it made a nice change from being stalked through the club.
[WARNING: CAT DERAIL BELOW, BY ORDER OF MINAKO]
I will convey your most appropriate adoration to her fluffiness.p]pp Now if you care to hear her doozy of a tale, sit right down and have a read. (All cat text has been left as is)
Halloween afternoon, 1““` 11 days after the most devastating passing of Niko, esteemed lord of the ginger fluSff (RIP), the lack of catness (not to be confused with Katniss) hit me most keenly. So, dressed as Carmen Sandiego, I paid a visit to our local animal shelter for a bit of furrinati therapy. The main cat room did me some good. There was a fair range of types and personalities present, from the rowdy ones that would nip at your hands if you weren’t careful to the skittish wallflowers pressed against the backs of their cages, but none that figuratively called out to me.
Anyway, I ended up chatting with the guy in charge of the cats, shared my depressing spiel about my poor late diabetic darling and showed off a few pictures. He tells me there’s some that kind of look like him in the back, if I wanted to see, so I figured sure, why not?
(IMPORTANT ASIDE: In retrospect, that was a BAD IDEA. It’s like on ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ when the bride decides to try on gowns outside her price range and you just know she’ll absolutely adore one of the uber-expensive ones, then have a total emo sadfest over having to wear something inferior until parents and/or fiancé agree to pony up the extra few thousand. Only worse. Because KITTIES!)
That was when I met No. 446. The guy opened the cage, this sweet fluff ball comes right up to me to be petted, and I was hooked, line and sinker. Sure, there was another kitty nearby that looked way more like Niko than she did (even had the white tuxedo trimmings), but that was a skittish kitten, not at all what I needed. Cat Caretaker Dude tells me a bit more about her, that she was a stray they picked up in a park and had recently given birth but they couldn’t find the kittens. All the while, she was being cuddly and fluffy and oppressing the shit out of me, the tyrant.
Despite the blatant “YOU WILL SERVE ME, HUMAN” signs, she did not come home with me that day. One, she was in the back room, two, I wanted to mull it over a few days. So, I did, and a few days later, returned to see if she was still there. Well, she was. Still in the back room. Only now with an upper respiratory infection. They thought it would pass in a few days, told me to come back then. So, I did. Still no dice. I wasn’t even allowed to see her cause of the quarantine they had going. However, by that time, I’d picked out a name, and the receptionist graciously added that to her paperwork. She was officially Minako, Mina for short. And I was in for the long haul.
The quarantine went on for the entire month of November. The shelter workers were soon familiar with me to the point I didn’t have to say my name or what cat I wanted to check on when I called. Just a “This is [Amnesia], isn’t it? Sorry, Minako’s still sick.” Towards the end, it was triggering some major anxiety. Like “What if this is something chronic? What if there’s some underlying condition that’s too expensive/too difficult to treat? What if I lose her too, barely a month after Niko?” level anxiety, made even worse by the fact that I COULDN’T SEE HER. Tentatively and reluctantly, I started considering other cats there.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\— Shy but sweet Ashka? Fluffy but finicky Pandora? Maybe try fostering for a while?h=
But then everything changed (when the Fire Nation attacked). No, not really. T%%%%%%6tj Two days ago when I called, she was still sick, but slightly better cause of a shot they gave her last week. This time I asked if they’d let me see her if I wore gloves and a face mask.
“We’re more worried about you getting any other pets sick.”
“I don’t have any other pets.” Those, my friends, were the magic words. Roughly an hour later, they called back with a proposition. If I was okay with taking care of her while she was still recovering, they’d not only let me, they’d even waive the adoption fee. Naturally, I jumped at the offer, and the much pined-after Minako came home with me that day. Yay for happy endings!
Nope, not over yet. Epilogue: I was checking out her medical records, and noticed they had some major inconsistencies. Lik/i oLike the wrong gender and n9umber, for instance. p[ Made yet another phone call, find out that one of the records is right save those two things, but the other is completely wrong, and they didn’t even have a copy of the right record from that particular vet visit. They offered me a free appointment as a result. Finally, Oprah showed up with a brand new car, I found a winning lottery ticket in the trash, and as a result of a wacky cleaning product mishap, a cure for cancer now exists. Wait, sorry, that last part didn’t happened. Yet.
Yes. It often means “dude who’s much better looking than me”. Also “smarter than me”, “better at dancing than me”, “a better kisser than me”, and really, just about anything about him that’s better than the dude who’s stewing in a jealous rage because women like this guy better than they do him.
It’s funny how rarely it actually means a guy who’s a bad person, though.
Great Lady Minako, thank you for allowing your servant Amnesia to tell the story of how you hired her!
::genuflects::
I mean, Mr C has long hair most of the time and owns a guitar, and he did smoke a lot of weed at one point. Does that mean he’s a bad boy even though he’s been married for more than 15 years and has a steady job, is owned by a cat, and so on?
This stuff is silly.
@ cassandrakitty
If he’s having sex and not via PUA means, it is my understanding that that means Mr. C is a bad boy.
Sorry to be the one to break it to you.
I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to be a man who women like and not be a bad boy, in PUA terms.
Both Pan and Jade were sick (upper respiratory + complications) when I adopted them, and I had to take them into the vet less than a week after getting them, but some antibiotics cleared them both up. I’m glad I took them home, because Jade was a lot sicker than she looked–cat coughs sound like hairballs, and even I wasn’t sure if she was eating (spoiler: she wasn’t).
Also, they gave me the wrong paperwork for Pan. I thought he was a girl. (I asked for the kitten who was cuddling with Jade.)
cassandra – well, Mr C must be a bad boy, because he’s not alone and friendless and spending his life mourning his sadboner and hating on the world for it. He also has skills beyond frothraging on the internet, so yeah, definitely.
Doesn’t it say something that bad boy is the term used? I don’t like boys. Men, yes, boys, no thanks. Boy just makes me think of someone immature, whether because they’re an actual child or because they’re that most unlovely creature, a manchild.
It just reads as them being stuck in high school from an emotional perspective, honestly.
Magnus was coming down with the flu when we bought him, and the shelter people didn’t even know at that stage, so we did all his doctoring. Never forget the spectacular effect Vicks in steam had on him … oy. We also learned that the quiet, purring, cuddly chap we brought home was not Magnus’s natural character at all! Think a tabby Greebo and you’ve got Magnus.
Fribs has a touch of the flu at the moment, but without fever, mercifully. She’s on antibiotic paste – she can’t have the usual antifinflammatory because of the state of her kidneys.
cassandra, yes, exactly.
I don’t think I’ve ever brought home a sick cat. Starving cat, yes. We’ve gotten a few who were little bags of bones. My current cat was a starving abandoned kitten when we got her. So skinny! 🙁 She was too weak to do anything but purr in the hope that someone would take pity on her.
She went from quietly purring to bundle of energy in about 2 days of careful feeding. Hasn’t slowed down since.