Is the bellicose conspiracy doofus Alex Jones moving further into Men’s Rights territory?
In this video, posted on his Infowars site today, Jones introduces a special report on what he calls the “bizarre excesses of the anti-human transhumanist super-Nazis who are the feminazis.”
In the report itself, Infowars’ Paul Watson – like Jones, a bit of a yeller — describes an evil plot spearheaded by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and the National Basketball Association to – brace yourself – encourage men to do more housework and child care. This includes, Watson reports ominously, scrubbing the dishes and even doing laundry.
Is nothing sacred to these depraved superfeminazis? Don’t men already have enough chores to do? Indeed, as Watson notes, there are reports of men taking out the trash, shoveling snow and even mowing the lawns.
Never mind that surveys suggest that women do anywhere from twice to three times the amount of housework as men. Never mind that this includes working women, and even working mothers. Indeed, as Bryce Covert noted in a Nation piece last year, “even mothers who work full-time will still put in a week and a half’s worth more time on household tasks than their male partners each year.”
I’m sure Watson and Jones would dismiss all this evidence as femisupernazi propaganda. Indeed, Watson starts in on a very Men’s Rightsy rant about how men work more hours than women and do more dangerous jobs and so on and so on.
Never mind that even men who don’t work do less housework than women and that overall, if you add up paid work and housework, men work three hours less a week than women do.
Watson even throws suicide rates into the equation, as if the fact that men are more likely to succeed at suicide than women has anything to do with who is washing the dishes and changing the diapers.
“Isn’t it ironic,” Watson bellows,
that Sandberg, architect of the ‘ban bossy’ campaign is now bossing men on how to behave in the privacy of their own homes?
Uh, dude, the whole point of the “ban bossy” campaign was to point out that women invariably get called “bossy” for acting the same way as men who are invariably not described as bossy.
The fact that you’re calling her “bossy” for urging men to do more housework kind of proves her whole point.
After noting that Sandberg’s new campaign has a number of – gasp! – corporate sponsors, Watson declares that it
has nothing to do with advancing equality and everything to do with creating more division between the sexes through social engineering and the promotion of
– wait for it –
misandry!
Even the evil Hillary Clinton has signed on to the campaign.
Watson rails on about sky-high divorce rates – even thought the rate has been dropping for decades. But never mind:
Feminism has clearly been a disaster for relationships between men and women. Feminism is a cancer to marriage in America. This campaign is only going to lead to more pressure on men, more resentment, more arguments and the breakdown of more relationships.
So, in conclusion, I guess, women should never suggest that men do anything differently?
Apparently. Watson, after lecturing us all about the evils of feminism, demands that Sandberg et al,
stop lecturing people on how to behave in the privacy of their own [explosion sound effect] home.
Shouting now, he orders the nazisuperfemis
Stop being bossy by dictating how gender roles in household tasks should be decided upon by couples.
Dude, you’re sounding a little, dare I say it, bossy.
Stop implying that men are deficient or losers because they’re not doing enough laundry or not cleaning up enough dirty dishes …
And so on. His voice dripping with contempt, Watson continues on with his tirade, sounding like nothing so much as an angry Men’s Rights Redditor on a rampage. Jones, muttering incoherently into his microphone, can be heard over Watson’s rant.
Watson throws in a reference to “cutural marxism.” He describes Sandberg et al as “joyless feminist harpies.” Then the segment lurches to a halt and Jones starts up again, declaring the evil plot to get men to wash a few more dishes as “a plan to wreck women” and give more power to the “megabanks raping us.”
It’s a little weird to see dudes who think the world is run by Moloch-worshipping Illuminati parroting so many MRA talking points – or, in this case, yelling points.
It’s also a bit weird to realize that Watson’s “argument” is actually a good bit more coherent, and less obviously misogynistic, than the Youtube rantings of most MRAs. Hell, he didn’t even call Sandberg a bitch or, you know, that word that starts with c.
Jones et al may need to step up their game — and crank up the hatred — if they really want to make inroads into the Men’s Rights movement.
@pendraegon
It’s not evil, it’s just chock full of libertarian types who think everything will sort itself out, technologically and socially. This tends to manifest certain behaviors where privilege is cast as technical skill and high IQ and deserving of praise and often overlaps with the elements of neoreaction where they view some people as simply biologically superior to others.
And it just so happens to line up with who has power now! What an amazing coincidence!
I’ve got some small theoretical and scientific objections to transhumanism as an idea divorced from its supporters, but by far the biggest problem is the followers who think that IQ is a simple sort criteria from worse to better people, and that progress is guided by the smartest, rather than something that takes lots of people working together. It’s an easy mental trap for hapless nerds to fall into.
I had never heard “transhumanism” before. Along with “super-Nazis” and “anti-human”, I though they were referring to a comic book.
Matthew Chiglinsky:
And, of course, homemaking isn’t “real” work so the homemaker doesn’t deserve a break or a day off or anything like that.
Ah, I see. And where, exactly, on the Y chromosome is “leadership ability” located?
Oh yes, “reprogrammed,” because feminism doesn’t have any actual merit on its own, or appeal to people based on the truth or logic of its analyses of gender roles and sexism or anything like that. People have to “reprogrammed” to accept it. How, exactly, is this “reprogramming” carried out? Super-secret feminist reeducation camps in Area 51?
My husband has a bone to pick with you. I bet a lot of other husbands do, too. Feminists have been threatened with “men won’t want you!” since the dawn of the feminist movement. You’d think you guys would find a new insult.
You don’t appear to understand either one.
@ikanreed As a hapless nerd. 😛 But yeah a lot of the hardcore transumanist types are also embarrassingly fascist types. I was more curious about the whole idea that large banks would support moving towards a singularity type event that Jones seemed to be saying.
I mean I understand them opposing transhumanism on the basis that it largely hinges on developing a post scarcity society. And since they’re all psuedo-libertarians at infowars that means anything not predicated on complete laissez faire capitalism is by definition evil.
But then they claim that this is supported by large banks because… reasons! I know looking for rational reasoning in something Jones puts out is inherently irrational itself but still, that connection there is just weird.
And sidenote did anybody else find that little moan at about three minutes in on the video deeply creepy and uncomfortable?
@mrex, et al – I agree re: pressures on men and women.
I get some flack for being a stay-at-home Mom with a degree, but given our commutes (45 minutes + each way for me, 1 hour up to heaven knows – going into DC – for him), our work weeks, and three children, it made sense for *one* of us to drop back a bit of we could swing it financially. Our evenings were an unpleasant blur of picking up the kids before daycare and aftercare closed/homework/dinner/bed and our weekends were jammed back with the drudgery of errands that we didn’t have time to get done during the week (and with 3x the crowdsas on a Wednesday).
Given that he made more than me (now substantially more since he’s been able to more thoroughly meet the demands placed on him by workplace culture), it was me.
Given that, I do most of the chores, light home improvement (painting, etc), and the great bulk of the cooking – BUT once home on weeknights he also helps the kids with homework, helps with dinner as he can, does random tidying up/folds laundry, and puts the kids to bed (usually while I do the dishes and pack lunches – I prefer it that way…a little time to decompress).
The bonus is that we’re all a bit less harried (and the kids aren’t basket cases from being in daycare or beforecare/school/aftercare from 630am-630pm) and our weekends are much more our own.
A household – especially one with children – is never ending work.
The awful part of the attitudes of these chuckleheads is that they’d rather stake out their claim on “Muh Time Island” than just help to get things DONE.
Nice. When all those sex-bots the MRA’s are planning to replace women with achieve true intelligence and rise up against their male oppressors, that’s what they’re going to call themselves. Also, a good band name.
My feminist husband – much more so than me, actually, if you’d like to jusdge based on the ability to cite actual scholarly feminist thought while engaging in a rollicking debate regarding its finer points – would beg to disagree as well.
Per usual, please excuse typos and confusing autocorrects.
Proxieme: you just described my situation! But when he was going through a career change, he stayed at home while I worked. So he was responsible for lions share of child care and housework. We both did both when I got home from work and sometimes I would just kick him out of the house so he could have a break because I know how staying home can stress you out and mess with your head. Now he’s working and I’m at home. Since he’s been a stay at home dad, he now “gets it” so that’s nice. So yeah, it’s almost like we both do what has to be done to support ourselves, without the gender assigned roles bullshit.
Feminists don’t want men who dislike feminist women. It’s just the emptiest threat ever.
Also, it’s ridiculous to simultaneously argue that women are not natural leaders and that a woman’s place is running the household and raising the kids. It takes leadership skills to resolve conflict between siblings and determine when kids need discipline and when they need nurturing. In upper class white traditional households from the Downton Abbey era that reactionaries seem to idolize so much, the lady of the house managed several domestic workers and there were often head maids with the most experience who would manage several younger maids under her. And what about the traditionally female job of primary school teaching? Because it doesn’t take leadership to manage a classroom full of wriggly, energetic children who would rather be playing outside than learning their sums?
@Matthew:
You finally found the elusive proof that it’s biological! Yay! That’s awesome work, you’ve managed to do what many scientists have been researching for centuries without finding anything significant, you should publish!
That’s probably enough sarcasm.
So you’re saying that being bossy and being a leader are different things? Telling people what to do isn’t the same as telling people what to do, that’s an interesting theory, yes.
I don’t know that I think “ignoring the housework” is a good systemwide way to deal with the issue. I’m a pretty indifferent housekeeper myself, and FlyLady is a major figure in my personal pantheon of heroes, a couple cuts above Jesus, because my house got distressingly bad after having my second child, and her system really helped me bring things back up to par.
Problem is, once you drop below a certain minimal standard, poor housekeeping is actually really wasteful– things get lost in the mess, so you have to spend a lot of time either tracking “it” down or wastefully replacing stuff you already have… somewhere in there.
And things get ruined before their useful life should have been over. Cue early replacement and waste… even perfectly decent food goes bad before you got a chance to use it, ’cause your fridge and pantries are a disorganized mess.
Plus, people-in-general seem to avoid spending their leisure time in untidy surroundings. Even people who claim not to care about tidiness still seem to prefer to shop at tidy stores and eat in clean, tastefully arranged restaurants.
If someone’s home is messy/cluttered enough, they may just compensate by spending more time in public establishments where someone else gets paid to deal with the business of organization, arrangement, and grease removal. Which is fine– and in some places I get the impression that it’s a really common and accepted way of life. Maybe bigger swathes of the US are headed that-a-way now, helping to provoke a lot of reactionary angst as the functions of the “traditional” middleclass household are increasingly supplanted by restaurants and childcare centers and schools? IDK.
Maybe in another generation or two we’ll all have calmed way down about it. lol
Anyway, yeah, housekeeping and childcare both require a fuckton of time and effort, so handwaving them off as trivial is… completely crazymaking. ugh
WORK HARDER, LAZY BITCHES.
WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS NOT WORK.
BUT WORK HARDER
Dave, can you please remove the fart gobblin? This isn’t the first time he’s come here to wave his prick around (and not impress anybody with it).
-waits for fart goblin to claim his free-speech is being violated even though WordPress is a privately owned company and WHM is a privately run blog and no one from the government is fining or imprisoning him because apparently capitalism only counts when it goes you way serving and not in one of the few cases that the invisible hand actually works-
Dude, seriously. Stop pretending to speak for all men. I’m a man and I married a feminist. If this marriage were to fall apart and I wanted to remarry, I’d marry a feminist again. How about everybody marries whomever the fuck they want without you assholes trying to dictate to other people how to live their lives.
Sorry, should’ve read the other replies first. Just so pissed off.
@Eliot Rodger:
They’re making threads on 4chan about how none of the 2000 women won’t have sex with the Dancing Man, so their gesture counts for nothing, and how the women are only doing it for attention and to look good and feel good about themselves and because they’re addicted to social media.
I’ll have to tell my husband that. Somehow he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to want me.
Do you know what an absolute fool you sound like when you tell other people how they think what they want as if you are an authority of any kind? You don’t even know the definition of feminism, you ignorant ass. You know even less about women.
“Or, here’s an idea. Feminists should never get married, because we (men) don’t want them.”
I wouldn’t want to marry a woman who isn’t a feminist.
haha, I tell my husband about the wacky/hateful antifeminist shit I read on the internet and he’s like, “That’s completely bizarre. But why do you do this to yourself?”
A sensible question for which I lack any reasonable answer. :/
What blockquote abomination have I wrought!?!
@Matthew
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-nature
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/begging-the-question
“All men everywhere?” I ask as I absentmindedly play with the small metal band on my finger, “Not that being a lesbian separatist is totally out of the question. It’s just not for everybody.” I reach down for my tea and realize it’s gone cold. I take a sip anyway. “Then again, increasingly, lesbians can also get married, even feminist ones, so I guess your hang up isn’t about marriage at all.”
* I am seriously considering replying to boring trolls in narrative form from now on. It’s fun.*
To be fair, house work is pretty awful, but that’s what podcasts, audiobooks, and Kindle Fires that you can carry from room to room so you can half watch Hulu or Netflix while you do some damned boring thing are for.
Or dining or conversation or whatever if you don’t have access to streaming media ;-p
Few people *like* housework – it’s never-fucking-ending drudgery (except cooking when it’s appreciated and using a carpet cleaner because “LOOK AT ALL OF THIS FILTH THAT I HAVE EXTRACTED FROM OUR COUCHES! RAAAH!”…and pressure washing if you include outside stuff, because, c’mon – pressure washing is awesome) but it’s shit that needs to get done if you don’t want to live in your own refuse (or that of small, perpetually sticky people if you have children).
@Nitram – Exactly.
I’m not going to knock anyone who’s single and/or choses to remain single, but when you’re in a (modern) partnership and have chosen to function as a partnership, oftentimes people do what makes sense for a given time or with given strengths – my husband took care of the lion’s share of the housework when I was working FT while finishing up a BA and he was a TA while working on his MA.
Roles can be fluid.
Heck, I’ll fully admit that my experiences may not be typical, but I know two seperate married lesbian couples with kids where one works full time and the other stays home because that’s what made sense for their situations.
I wish my gender had natural leadership abilities. The ability to take initiative and delegate responsibilities would have come in so handy in this life of mine. Right now is especially tough because I don’t have a supervisor to tell me what to do. If the air conditioner breaks or the car battery dies, what will I do without Mr. FM to give me direction? How will I manage if one of the kids gets sick; I need someone to tell me to call the doctor. All the bills will have to wait until my husband is back in town, because seriously, what business do I have handling money? Mr. FM has threatened to issue a standing order authorizing me to make decisions and take the lead. But we honestly don’t know well that would work out, what with my biology and everything, so instead I have to email him my meal plans every night and decline offers to chair PTA and club committees.
If only leadership and management were something you could learn! Then colleges, private businesses, and the military would have in-depth courses devoted to these subjects, and people could learn methods to help them lead of large groups and effectively manage resources. Wouldn’t that be an incredible world? Alas, we are ruled by nature. Excuse me while I go stare at something pink.
Oh! FM!
I have something for just such an occasion:
http://imgur.com/8ibxh3m
(It’s a pretty princess pony.)