Carl Jung posited that human beings share a “collective unconscious” full of symbols and archetypes that populate our dreams and make regular guest appearances in our fairy tales and mythological sagas.
Return of Kings contributor Donovan Sharpe apparently believes that men share a collective scrotum.
In an execrable post on that execrable site earlier this week, Sharpe complained that
The National Football League recently helped women get a firmer grip on the scrotum of masculinity by hiring its first full-time female referee, Sarah Thomas.
Yes, that is an actual sentence that was written and posted online by an adult human being who believed it to be true.
As Sharpe sees it, having a single female referee for the sport of professional football threatens the symbolic balls of all men. Dismissing those unenlightened dudes who see the hiring of a female referee as no big deal or even (shudder!) a good thing, Sharpe warns that
hiring a female referee is the continuation of the NFL’s consistent support of the feminine imperative at the expense of both the athlete and the male spectator. …
One of the main objectives of feminism is giving women power over men. The ability to exercise power over men in a male-dominated sector is something feminists have drooled over for decades. Thomas’s hire is the crack in the door they need to eventually realize this dream.
Apparently Sharpe is unaware that there are women on the supreme court, in the Senate, running companies, offering opinions about video games … Oh, wait, he writes for Roosh’s terrible video game site too, so I’m guessing he probably knows about that last one.
Anyhoo, as he sees it, the hiring of Thomas opens the floodgates for other female referees with designs on the collective male scrotum, who will soon “have the capacity to exert dominance over men in the most physically demanding, testosterone-driven sport in the world” despite their allegedly obvious physical limitations.
Because, you know, there’s no possible way that she’s in good enough shape to be a referee, as everyone knows that
men are physically superior to women in every way. This is why 99.9% of employees on oil rigs, sewers, warehouses, etc. are men.
Yes, it’s true that there are small percentages of women in jobs they’ve been systematically excluded from for generations. Big surprise. And yes, while nearly 4% of those working on offshore oil rigs are women, only a handful work on the drill floor.
But, uh, warehouses? You really think they’re 99.9% male? Sorry to break it to you, fella, but 14% of warehouse workers are female already, and there’s no reason there couldn’t be a lot more. I briefly worked in a warehouse several decades ago, picking orders for distribution, and, yep, it’s true that everyone working on the floor was a dude. But not because the work we did was suited only to “physically superior” men. Probably the most common item I dealt with on a regular basis was the humble o-ring. I really didn’t tax myself physically lifting these:
I also once worked in a grocery store where one of my main duties was filling a giant freezer with boxes of frozen baked goods. They hired me because they wanted a large dude for the job, and I was in decent shape at the time. I worked my ass off, but my supervisor, a 5-foot-tall woman twice my age, could do the job probably three times faster than I could.
Sorry about the digression. Back to the biggest threat to the scrotum of masculinity since Katherine Heigl made that Funny or Die video about balls.
Sharpe also manages to get himself a bit worked up over the fact that he finds Ms. Thomas attractive.
Though the 41-year-old Thomas is well past the wall, it’s easy to see that she still retains some of the beauty she no doubt benefited from in her youth. …
Better looking girls have always lived better lives. Despite feminists’ efforts at social engineering, it will always be this way, and that’s perfectly okay. Crying their way into the boys’ club is no different because at the end of the day, feminists aren’t going to use trolls to infiltrate the almighty patriarchy (Billie Jean King notwithstanding) and neither are men.
Huh. I’m pretty sure that female pioneers like Sandra Day O’Connor or Janet Reno or Madeleine Albright didn’t get where they got by crying or fluttering their eyelashes at men.
For all his harrumphing, the only actual “harms” that Thomas’ hiring might inflict upon men and their collective scrotum that Sharpe can come up with are
- There are probably lots of dudes who are better referees than her that the NFL should have hired instead because, you know, men are pretty much always better than women
- She might make a bad call someday, thus doing a terrible injustice to some giant football-playing man.
Horrors! I was not aware that any referees ever made bad calls. The very notion makes me feel a bit faint. I may have to lie down for a while.
Ya! But those bad calls weren’t made by a woman!
Still this whole rant seems a bit on the nose. Being held to the same rules as before but this time by a woman is somehow emasculating? Fuck off. People who have a problem with this need to realize that the problem is their own to fix.
If your masculinity causes you this much distress, maybe you need to find a version less toxic to you.
Yeah, because male referees have never made shitty decisions before! *coughcough*
This paragraph started off fine; nice clear premise followed by a what appears to be a segue into supporting evidence. But then the words took flight in a flutter of vowels and consonants and became a directionless swarm.
Is he saying that Thomas “[cried her] way into the boys’ club?” Why does he describe this kind of thing as “perfectly okay” when his whole spiel is about women invading boys’ clubs to grab their testicles? What does that notion have to do with using “trolls” for infiltration? What does “trolls” even mean? What does Billie Jean King, former world #1 tennis player with 39 grand slam titles, have to do with anything? What is the “neither are men” ending supposed to mean?
It must be hell to go through life with the enormous burden of fear, insecurity and hatred these kind of dudes are carrying.
What kind of also sucks about this is that NFL cheerleaders don’t even get paid well.
Hopefully hiring a female referee will start to open up some more discussion about the cheerleaders getting a bit more pay for their hard work, considering how much money they do bring in.
I referee. Just kids’ games, mind. But one of my female friends is a rugby ref and I think she’s pretty good (from what I hear). She has to pass the same fitness and assessment tests as men do. I bet this is true in the NFL as well. My friend gets some crap off some of the players and she’s had some issues with the referee’s society, too. At least the players can be sin binned or red carded if it all goes to hell.
I guarantee that this new NFL ref will make some bad calls. Because we all do (not that I put myself anywhere near her standard). I very much doubt there are many men in the world who can call a football game better than she can, cause she’ll have had to be very, very, very good to get this far. Some men can, sure, probably, but not many. And I’d be willing to bet a bunch that this Sharpe dude ain’t among them.
Anyway, NFL isn’t my game, but I was really pleased to hear about her appointment. I think it’s a really good thing for women in sport – and for men in sport, too. I knew she’d get some crap, but these guys who think that the slightest degree of equality is somehow ruining their party are really taking the cake.
I thought log throwing was the most physically demanding, testosterone-driven sport in the world? They even do it in kilts, one of the most manly ways a man can not wear underwear.
Kirbywarp – my interpretation of the troll reference is that he thinks the Feminist Hivemind sends conventionally attractive women to infiltration bastions of Decency and Normality. Mere men, as is well known, have no defenses against conventionally attractive women, and surrender the fortress. Then they are at the mercy of the Hivemind, which is no mercy at all.
Now, living in consensus reality as I do, I have no idea how a woman working as an NLF referee figures in all this. For that matter, I don’t understand why baseball coaches* wear team uniforms when they don’t actually play.
*Unless I’m thinking of the team managers.
Because nothing says “consistent support of the feminine imperative” like a sport that’s literally all men and now one woman.
Yeah, I was poor, dirt poor. I was born poor. My father worked in the sewers. Then the depression hit, and they closed down the sewers.
youtube.com/watch?v=Uf8WIlyKu6U
It’s funny that you never hear from MRA/PUAs that actually work any of these jobs. Or scientists, philosophers, chess grandmasters, etc.: any of the things that they will defend male superiority in to the death, really. The more they subsume their personal identity into the abstract form of masculinity, the more they can take credit for anything any man has done.
Their thinking seems to be along the lines of (e.g.) men are good (better than women) at logic, I’m a man, therefore I’m good at logic. They see women logicians as a threat to their personal worth because the existence of women logicians puts “men are good (better than women) at logic” into question, and thus threatens “I’m good at logic.”
Did that make any sense?
@katz:
Maybe he’s referencing all the stuff about wanting to tone down all the head injuries and concussions? Because caring about brain damage is so feminine…
Oh, I shouldn’t have ventured into the comments, but I did
“This is a very dumb, risky move for the NFL.
Every NFL season, 2-3 times during the season, a referee will get hit by 240+ pound men going full speed. Women lighter and less equipped to handle such a hit, and referees do not wear protective gear.
If the female referee gets hit and gets hurt…. The NFL will be over. The feminist whining, temporarily halted with pink ribbons, will return at full blast. Every joe average blue pill man will be white knighting on behalf of the poor hurt girl. There will be media inquiries and congressional investigations.”
Congressional investigations???? WTF? When my friend gets knocked down on the rugby pitch by guys going full pelt, she just gets up again. One day it will happen to me (as the kids I ref get older). The RFU doesn’t shut down. Rugby goes on for another day.
Catastrophic thinking over the appointment of a linesman. Which is what she’s doing. It’s just the freaking touch judge. (Though this is a standard apprentice position for first official, so she may move up.)
“All right, I want to work in a sewer, then. And discover sewage that no one’s ever discovered and pile it on my head and then come to the surface and sell myself to an art gallery.”
Getting your scrotum torn off or ripped is quite common in rugby, it’s not happened to me but has done to several team mates, I did play American football for a couple of seasons here in the UK, I have to admit the experience was ruined by ALL the padding and protection, it did feel very wet and I certainly never had any worries about my scrotum at all, it felt very secure and protected.
This might be somewhat appropriate for the topic. I mean, like, in the ballpark.
It would be embarrassing to confess how long it took me to get whyinhell a picture of Balzac is at the top of this post. So I won’t.
…also, I’m now afraid I’m never again going to be able to refer to said author by name with an entirely straight face. Thanks for that.
Same hysteria over here every time there’s a woman soccer ref or coach. I’ve rolled my eyes over this so many times before.
Just for a bit of perspective here, I work on an offshore platform. It’s true that women are the minority out here, although it’s a bit more than 4%.
Here’s the thing: physical superiority means jack with regards to working out here. Knowledge is key and the women here are top of the game.
So, it’s not strenuous physical exertion that is keeping women from working offshore in larger numbers. What is keeping the numbers down is stereotypes regarding gender and STEM careers combined with a work environment that is largely unwelcoming towards women. Not a hitch goes by that I don’t overhear some bit of casual misogyny. Last month I had to explain to someone why wearing a “Cool story babe, now make me a sandwich” shirt was unacceptable. This month it was a co-worker spouting rape apologia.
The truly sad thing is that the company makes a big show of diversity and inclusion and yet these attitudes still persist. Talks can be given, disciplinary actions handed out, but things continue on–maybe just a little bit quieter.
I like this job, and the free time it affords, far to much to quit, but sometime it really wears you down.
Shame on you, David, for not using this image of Balzac.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/images/standard/WebLarge/WebImg_000157/9272_1694229.jpg
Back around 25’ish years ago, my sister was the first female high-schoolAmerican football official in the state of Maryland. She worked with my two younger brothers. The players weren’t a problem and, while there was some static from a few coaches, it was the parents that gave her the most crap.
@AJ Milne
… ditto.
I’m sure many women here have worked in warehouses, including myself. I knew a woman who was so tiny she had to wear children’s shoes who worked in a warehouse. They had to start parking the pallet jack in a new place so she could push off the wall to get it going. Yes she was weaker than most of the men there, but she still ran circles around them, getting way more done than most of them ever could.
Lots of the men were just too lazy; physical ability had very little to do with it.
Of course, being a woman, she probably HAD to work just as hard to “prove” her value there, while the men just coasted on their man-ness and napped amoung boxes of toilet paper.
For dudebros so concerned about this issue, they sure haven’t been paying attention.
First of all, Sarah Thompson has been refereeing NFL preseason games for a while now, as is standard operating procedure for trying out prospective ref hires.
Secondly, the NFL had female refs (admittedly, temporarily) in 2012 during the referee strike as part of the replacement refs. Now, the replacement refs did prove to be incompetent, but the refs in the “Fail Mary” game were all male.
In the meantime, the NRL (rugby league) has last week appointed its second female linesman, and my friend Bee is full time on the rugby sevens circuit. She kicked my fragile little arse in our last yo-yo test (a fitness and sprint speed test which is truly torturous) so I don’t think her fitness is an issue.
@rugbyyogi Amusingly, the worst injury I had refereeing was as a TJ. No sideline management meant I got caught between the spectators and the very large player being bundled over the touch line and tore a ligament in my knee.
I weigh about 115 pounds. Even at the lowest weight restricted high school game, some players are bigger than me. In adults’ matches it’s not uncommon to have players who are literally twice my size (including in women’s games.) Yes, getting bowled by someone that much bigger than you does hurt. But it’s far more painful on your pride, so you get up and hope a) you didn’t miss anything, and b) nobody saw it.