So over on Roosh Valizadeh’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Return of Kings blog a gentleman named Blair Naso has penned a weird paean to Barbie (the doll, not the Nazi war criminal), suggesting that she is a perfect “inspiration” for girls today.
I suppose it isn’t all that shocking that the kind of men who frequent Return of Kings would be fond of an imaginary woman who doesn’t talk and can’t defend herself.
Naso starts off his post by ridiculing feminists for criticizing Barbie. In his mind, they’re just jealous:
For feminists, what bothers them is that Barbie is beautiful. Feminism is an ugly ideology that overtly seeks to glorify both inner and outer ugliness. …To them, Barbie represents a vile standard of beauty.
In Naso’s mind, Barbie is both a Nietzschean Übermensch (no, really) and the embodiment of a Greek goddess.
Barbie is an over-man to little girls. She transcends reality and inspires admiration. Like Theseus for the ancients and Batman for today’s boys, Barbie goes beyond what a normal person can do. Barbie is not a standard; she is an ideal. She inspires aspiration, not imitation. Barbie is the modern Aphrodite.
Here’s a famous statue of Aphrodite from back in the day. Despite being, you know, a literal goddess, her proportions are a bit more human than Barbie’s.
Naso really seems to have a thing for Barbie:
If characters like Indiana Jones are the apex of masculinity, then Barbie is the same for femininity. She is beautiful, intelligent, domestic, social, gorgeous, hard-working, wealthy, attractive, outgoing, healthy, confident, pretty, talented, lovely, has great tits and hair, accomplished, alluring, charming, elegant, unblemished, graceful, and committed to only one man.
Apparently Naso, like Barbie herself, hasn’t caught on to the blindingly obvious fact that Ken is gay. Also, what about Allan, Brad, Curtis, Todd, Steven, Darren, Derek, Kurt and Ryan? Everyone knows that Barbie is riding the smooth flat crotch area carousel.
As Naso sees it, it’s men, not women, who are the real victims of our “fascist beauty standards.”
Men have to grow muscle, which is a journey that is painful, expensive, and filled with misinformation. And if he’s under six feet tall, his chances with women are drastically cut no matter what his other characteristics.
Women on the other hand have to buy an exercise video and keep their hair long. I suppose make-up can be time-consuming, but fashion is not nearly as expensive as women like to claim.
And if some women develop eating disorders trying to live up to the beauty ideal, well, they have no one but their own inferior female selves to blame.
It would be both mentally and physically unhealthy for a man to obsess about achieving the impossible body of Beowulf. So if Barbie and Aphrodite inspire women to turn to unhealthy practices (like eating disorders or fad diets) in a way that He-man doesn’t to men, then what does that say about women?
Either it is a lie that strict beauty standards cause women to obsess at the risk of their own health, or it is manifest that women are mentally and emotionally inferior to men.
Anyone who really wants to be a hottie needs to work for it.
Both anorexia and fat pride are shortcut cheats to beauty. Mature adults achieve what they want through hard work.
Naso does acknowledge that beauty standards are more “stringent” today. In a spectacularly ludicrous leap of logic — the intellectual equivalent of Evel Knievel’s famously failed jump over the Snake River canyon — he blames this on … ugly women.
My guess why beauty standards are a little more demanding today than they were 100 years ago is because today women are ugly. They are overweight, they have bad hair, they lack social grace, and they think hideous products are fashionable by sole virtue of their popularity. Women and little girls know this instinctually and over-correct through their fantasies.
Perhaps little girls love Barbie and Ariel so much because they see how frumpy mommy and their teachers at school are.
And it is the evil feminists who are keeping these little girls from living out their over-corrected fantasies dreams.
Women just want to be beautiful and have a beautiful life. Barbie gives them the inspiration to achieve their dreams. Then feminism sweeps along and tells them to remain stagnant.
In case anyone here needs inspiration, this song should help.
Also, now that I’ve read all the other comments, I want to express my sympathies for those commenters who have or have had eating disorders. You are strong, brave people, and your illness was 100% not your fault. You deserve respect and sympathy for the hell you’ve had to go through, not Naso’s idiotic trivialisation.
If men are disposable because they die in war, women are disposable too. Even if we set aside that women have often been killed, raped or enslaved during wartime. Childbirth was extremely risky until recently. It’s something women have always been expected to do and back when there was no modern and reliable contraception and many kids didn’t make it to adulthood, we were expected to go through pregnancy and childbirth many times. Even today, pregnancy and childbirth carry lots of risks.
If it weren’t early in the morning and if I weren’t so far caffeine deprived, I might compare the number of women who died from complications during pregnancy or childbirth with the number of men killed in war in a handful of countries. Maybe when I get home. I suspect the former might be higher. Not that it should be a contest, but MRAs insist on making it one.
It might not be higher in raw numbers, but what do you think that the odds are that childbirth was the #1 killer of women for a long time? Probably pretty high.
Yes, the disposability of both women and men is way more of a class issue if one looks at it honestly. Even pregnancy and child rearing were less risky and way less work for the upper classes due to access to what passed for medical care and child care. War was and is more risky for the lower classes who become cannon fodder while the upper classes were officers who could more easily avoid being killed.
I’ve decided I really want a fat Barbie, now. She’s really cute and makes me feel less bad about my double chin!
It should be noted that warfare only become more lethal statistically speaking than childbirth after the invention of penicillin-and the machine gun.
I love how MRAs completely fail to realize that women in all lower classes have *always* worked outside the home, and yet were also always expected to rear successful surviving children.
>”….and they think hideous products are fashionable by sole virtue of their popularity. ”
Isn’t that sort of the definition of fashionable?
Mra logic:
“men die, that’s because ‘Misandry'”
“Women die that means that men are superior”
“men die, that’s because ‘Misandry’”
Even when men kill other men on orders from a man. Somehow…
Spindrift
MRA logic:
Men taking responsibility for their actions is misandry everything bad in the world should be the fault of women/feminism or its misandry.
@Fruitloopsie
MRA logic:
And if you’re male and don’t agree with MRA logic you must be one of these!
:large
Spindrift
Or like David, just a bunch of cats in a suit.
I’m surprised they like Barbie despite the fact that she’s had “masculine” jobs like doctor and president. As well as the fact that Ken (and any other guy friend) is just an accessory for her. Barbie doesn’t need Ken and could go her own way.
RE: Spindrift
Not a purple poodle? I’m hurt.
LBT! How are you?
It’s so good to see you here again!
Hey sparky! Yeah, I heard things got a bit nicer here, so I decided to stick my head back in, try my luck.
Things are going… generally good! Making a 2D horror game about multi with Sneak, my comics are getting bulk orders by zine distros and mental health providers… it’s pretty awesome! My mental health is pretty stable, though lots of bad memories are coming up. But the rest of my life is just so goshdarn great, it’s helping me pull through! How are you doing?
LBT
That’s awesome! I’m so happy for you! (Except about the ‘bad memories’ part)
What seems saddest is that these MRA/PUA goons have bought into every marketing gimmick about masculinity and hate them (muscles, height, cool hair) but worship the same standard forced on women.
I imagine them flipping through a Maxim magazine seeing sexy dude models and crying, whimpering “curse you women, making me long to look like that!”
Traditional masculinity would be above worrying about abs and Tinder profiles. Obsession with these things has been a negative but stereotypically woman thing, but the MRA types have totally embraced it.
I was not aware Beowulf was ever held up as an example of male beauty. (given its a poem and all) That’s just weird.
Thanks fruitloopsie! Yeah, I’m pretty happy too. It’s good to know my comics are helping people.
LBT
Good to hear from you.
Glad things are working out OK.
LBT:
Oooh, that sounds cool.
And that is awesome!
I’m glad it’s mainly going good for you. Things have been good with me, the same old mundane routine, which is exactly how I like it!
LBT! *bounce* I am /so/ glad to see you commenting again!
Sounds like you’re doing great, LBT, and I think things will only get better for you from now on.
Also, good points everyone made about the lethality of childbirth pre-20th century (and the fact that working-class women have always, well, worked, just like their husbands and brothers).
Welcome back. LBT. 🙂