While Men’s Rights Activists are quick to label virtually any woman that they disagree with a feminist, they react with outrage when anyone who is not a self-admitted MRA is described as one.
The folks at A Voice for Men are still fuming about what they consider a “trust-shattering” media scandal: the fact that a bunch of news outlets wrote about a supposed Men’s Rights boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road, when in fact the virulently antifeminist Youtube blabber calling for the boycott wasn’t technically a Men’s Rights activist at all.
Meanwhile, there’s a dude cluttering up my Twitter mentions with demands I take some sort of action against a tiny handful of commenters on this blog who have referred to the woman-hating mass killer Elliot Rodger as an MRA, even though, as far as we know, he wasn’t one.
To which I can only say: Sorry, guys. You’re Kleenex. And you’d better get used to it.
I don’t mean to imply that MRAs are thin sheets of paper best suited to being used as disposable snot-collectors. What I mean is that MRAs, like the makers of Kleenex, have lost control of their brand name.
Just as the word “Kleenex,” a brand name designating the product of one manufacturer, has become, in popular usage, a generic term for disposable snot-rags, so “MRA” has, in popular usage, become a catchall term used to designate any and all varieties of woman-hating nitwits who think “misandry” is a bigger problem than misogyny.
So why have Manospherians, Pickup Artists, Incels, MGTOWs, GamerGaters, “slut haters,” Dark Enlightenment “thinkers,” and assorted other types of woman-hating nitwits all found themselves labelled MRAs, much to the chagrin of some self-declared MRAs?
Well, dudes, it’s actually pretty simple: because no one but you — and close followers of the New Misogyny, like the readers of this blog — can tell the difference between any of these groups of people. Because 90% of the backwards beliefs you espouse are exactly the same.
Take the idea of female “hypergamy” — that is, the notion that women are perpetually obsessed with finding a “better” guy, and will happily desert or cheat on “beta” partners whenever they get a whiff of a nearby “alpha.” This particular redefinition of a term that used to simply mean “marrying up” originated with White Nationalist F. Roger Devlin; now it’s a central belief of Red Pillers everywhere, from the reactionary plate-spinning PUAs of the Red Pill subreddit (where Devlin’s, er, seminal work on the subject is listed in the sidebar) to the “Men’s Human Rights Activists” of A Voice for Men (where no less than 35 articles have mentioned the subject, including 7 in their headlines, and where one writer declared Devlin’s writing “supremely indispensable.”)
MRAs aren’t PUAs aren’t White Nationalists, but there are a lot of people whose identity straddles two or more of these labels, and they all love talking about hypergamy.
As for Elliot Rodger, he wasn’t an MRA or a PUA or a White Nationalist, but he hung out on a website, PUAhate, whose participants were immersed in the same misogynistic ideology that drives so many MRAs; indeed, one of the site’s mods was a regular contributor to AVFM. If you read through book-length manifesto left behind, as I have, you’ll find a lot of anti-woman rhetoric that is virtually identical to the hateful nonsense you can find posted all over the broader “manosphere.”. He also was a believer in female “hypergamy,” offering his own chilling take on one “meme” depicting the alleged unfairness of women’s sexual tastes that you can find all over the manosphere.
This isn’t the same sort of mislabeling that happens when, say, someone calls Margaret Thatcher a feminist, or when MGTOWs describe contemporary marriage as a feminist plot to enslave men, or when some particularly confused commenter in the Men’s Rights subreddit, say, declares far-right Norwegian MRA Elvind Berge to be some sort of feminist because he has suggested that teen boys raped by female teachers are “lucky.” (Never mind that this is not exactly a feminist belief in the first place.)
No, it’s much closer to identifying a Puffs facial tissue as a Kleenex.
Or, to fall back on the classic Monty Python bit, mixing up the Judean People’s Front with the People’s Front of Judea.
The outrage over the Men’s-Rights-boycott-of-Mad Max: Fury-Road-That-Wasn’t has gotten nearly as silly as that Monty Python bit. Over on AVFM, the site’s excitable managing editor, Dean Esmay, has been posting furious post after furious post attacking the “bigoted hatemonger[s]” and “hate-filled bigots” who in his mind are promoting “fabricated bullshit” claiming that Men’s Rights activists were boycotting the film.
At one point, he even suggested that these stories might be the result of “an actual coordinated plan by corrupt journalists who want to inject slander of human rights activists into supposedly straight news.”
In case you’re wondering, when Esmay talks about “human rights activists” he’s referring to MRAs. No, really.
Esmay is right about two things: Aaron Clarey, who called for the boycott, isn’t an MRA, nor is Roosh V, on whose site Clarey’s post was posted.
But it’s not hard to see how Clarey might have been mistaken for an MRA, given that in his post he sounds exactly like one. Indeed, he sounds enough like an MRA that AVFM has posted a number of articles and videos by Clarey on its site, the most recent of which, posted last month, was an excerpt of the white writer’s rather presumptuous self-published book “The Black Man’s Guide Out of Poverty.”
The whole fake controversy reached new heights of silliness today, when AVFM posted a piece denouncing a Forbes writer for talking about the supposed “Men’s Rights” boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road alongside a piece … decrying a supposed “feminist takeover of Hollywood.” No, really.
I’m going to post five quotes below. One or more is/are from Aaron Clarey’s non-MRA call for a boycott; the other or others are from Rachael Lefler’s AVFM attack on Hollywood feminism. Can you guess which are which?
- “[T]his maddening obsession with a distorted concept of egalitarianism and fairness is never going to end … and Hollywood will keep trying to make films that meet their demands which are never able to be met, because the feminists will still find shit to complain about.”
- “[F]eminism has infiltrated and co-opted Hollywood, ruining nearly every potentially-good action flick with a forced female character or an unnecessary romance sub-plot to eek out that extra 3 million in female attendees.”
- “[Feminists are] totally fine with a movie that perpetuates negative stereotypes about men, since we all know men are just dumb oppressive shitlords who can’t keep their rape-sticks in their pants for five minutes.”
- “This is the vehicle by which they are guaranteed to force a lecture on feminism down your throat. This is the Trojan Horse feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to (vainly) insist on the trope women are equal to men in all things, including physique, strength, and logic.”
- “Feminists will never be satisfied by any work of fiction, no matter how in line it is with feminist principles. They can always demand more, and they always will. Their whole idea of “activism” is to cry about how they are being oppressed by the latest blockbuster and to angrily denounce the next one on Twitter.”
So which of the quote(s) above is/are from the NON-MRA article by NON-MRA Aaron Clarey, posted on the NON-MRA “Return of Kings” website, and which is/are from the post by MRA (or at least MRA-sympathizer) Rachael Lefler on AVFM, the most influential site of the Men’s Rights movement?
.
1, 3, and 5 are from Lefler (Team MRA); 2 and 4 are from Clarey (Team Don’t Even Dare Call Him an MRA You Hatemongering Bigots). Don’t beat yourself up if you got some wrong: I had to doublecheck the origin of a couple of them, even though I’d cut and pasted them into this post only moments earlier.
So yeah, MRAs, you’re Kleenex.
Now, I’m a stickler for details, so I will personally continue to draw distinctions between MRAs and the various other sects of New Misogynists out there. But not everyone else will. Some because they don’t know all the details, others because they don’t care to distinguish between 31 flavors of terrible.
EDIT: Rewrote the conclusion.
I swear, I’ve only ever seen the term “shitlord” used by right-leaning internet commenters, and only used when referencing a strawman version of social justice commentary. I’m gonna go ahead and blame Internet Aristocrat for it. He dropped the term a lot in his Tumblrisms vids.
mark graham:
1) What do you consider “actual disadvantage” in the context of your comment?
2) Where do you draw the line in which a disadvantage is worth talking about?
3) There have been anti-feminist women for as long as feminism has existed.
@Alto
OHHHHHHHH DAAAYYYYYYYMMMMM!!! xD
@mark
Ooh I’m actually awake for the party this time. Anyway, Mark, would you care to expand on how modern feminism is “awful” and “divorced from reality”?
Not to shock anyone, but the AVfM article about the how the feminist takeover of Hollywood is totally happening is rock stupid. I don’t have the energy to break down all of the stupidity, so I’ll just throw some of it out there.
Translation: Even though Cultural Marxism is a SJWish bad thing, but I’m going to directly crib my Intro to Humanities class notes on Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.
The Renaissance art bit is a mess, yes, artwork commissioned by the the Catholic church did convey a Christian message, but every intro to Art History course discusses the emergence of Humanism in the Renaissance period. Also, despite being expensive and, at times, publicly displayed, I don’t see how Renaissance sculptures work as an example of “something created from commercial purposes”. That’s OK, because the whole essay makes very little sense anyway.
The biggest mistake here is the delusion that twitter and social media in general has “the power over Hollywood movies”. The author doesn’t realize how social media is a marketing device and how internet bitching is short lived and way more inconsequential then the people who do the bitching realize. For example, look at the hysterical bitching over casting and other early news about big properties, from Twilight to Star Wars, and you’ll see all that bitching has no real effect on eventual profits.
In fact, this essay has offers zero examples of movies becoming more Feminist due to Social Media outcries. The author clearly has no idea how major studios function, for instance, how exhibitors, movie theater chains like Regal and AMC, have a lot more say on what films Hollywood makes then Twitter.
Instead, this is another example of MRAs and anti-feminists endless obsessive rageathon about anyone, particularly women, who sort of resemble a feminist discussing anything publicly.
Every AVfM “think piece” I’ve ever bothered to read is just a crap little essay like this, usually written by an undergrad who doesn’t have a clue and shows barely any effort. I can see why AVfM doesn’t draw much traffic, they offer such bare bones content. Paul should really consider occasionally paying a writer.
I’m more curious why Mark Graham hates capitalized letters, did they kill his parents or something?
@Brooked
It might be Bigboy again.
Not a single MRA-or-whatever-the-fuck-they’re-called-they’re-all-the-damn-same realises this either. It’s the bedrock of the movement.
Oh goody, another fake, pretend-neutral “both sides do it” troll who is actually an MRA, with a hearty helping of ableism on the side. I was getting worried that there might be a shortage.
None of these trolls are ever able to point to specifics about what makes being a woman such a cakewalk, other than “feeeemales can have sex any time they want” (which is wrong because it ignores the existence of unconventionally attractive, socially awkward, and asexual women, assumes that objectification is beneficial for the object, and is also a stupid thing to whine about) and “men have to do all the haaaaard labor” ( which is wrong because it ignores all the often-unpaid haaaaaaard labor women do in raising children, caretaking, nursing, field labor, household management, and yes, as of recently, mining, construction, STEM, firefighting, and combat). Take your armchair theorizing elsewhere, Sonny, and come back when you’ve gotten a little more real-world experience and are able to understand that everybody works hard, everybody has struggles, and running the world isn’t done 100% by men. That’s just ridiculous and self-aggrandizing, and it makes you look willfully blind to other people’s contributions.
What’s the difference between an MRA and a Kleenex?
One is fragile, falls apart easily, soaks up disgusting stuff from its surroundings, and spends its time in a box. The other one is a facial tissue.
@SFHC – But he hasn’t brought up femtheist yet, and also bigboy
liked to put in random dramatic
pauses
in his comments
I’m willing to entertain the possibility, though. It’s more entertaining than listening to mark rehashing the same-old same-old.
What’s the difference between an MRA and a Kleenex?
If you’re ever upset a Kleenex doesn’t give you a condescending pat on the head and then disappear to whine online about how “needy” and “emotional” you are.
Buttercup Q. Skullpants-bigboy really did
love random
dramatic pauses
in his
comments
didn’t he?
“The only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts”
Sorry for the LOTR quote, but I’m reminded of it whenever I hear these guys sound off about women’s psychology (or people’s in general).
Sikhs and Muslims have a lot in common (like turbans, and beards!!). So much so that a lot of people can’t tell the difference. Yet somehow, I reckon that if you started attributing the atrocities of IS to Sikhs, it might upset Sikhs.
If you attribute the atrocities of ISIS to Muslims who aren’t in ISIS (ie, the vaaast majority of them), it might upset them too. Fuck off, fucking racist.
There are lots of women who are disgusted by modern anti-feminism, too, so we pretty much break even.
Seriously though, a viewpoint having opponents doesn’t mean the viewpoint is wrong. Not a particularly hard concept.
Master Beta:
And the difference would still be that the actual beliefs professed by IS vs. Sikhs are different. Entirely unlike all the various flavors of woman-hating asshole.
And uh, yeah, Sikhs and Muslims belong to *entirely separate religions* (let alone moderate Muslims and Islamic extremists). Not even close to an equivalent analogy. Land’s sake.
@Master, I think you thought you were being clever both in name and comment. You weren’t.
@Mark, You type all of that and all I can picture is you making a long, loud farting noise. Wait, no, the farting noise actually makes sense.
And honestly, you think MRA and kleenex would be best friends given how most of them go on about how horribly alone they are. Poor kleenex. No one deserves that.
Please point out the differences between MRAs and the various flavors like MGTOW, PUA, Red Pill, and incel. When I was trying to explain it for a friend I ended up having to say MRA + some focus for most of them. MRAs ended up being gender role traditionalists who complain about women who fulfill traditional roles and women who don’t fulfill traditional roles. As for activism, the only place I could find it was in the name.
IS* v Sikh – a completely inappropriate analogy
Better to compare IS and Al-Shabaab or Boko Haram or old fashioned Al Qaeda – similar stated objectives, but some different operational approaches and circumstances – and you’d be right – they’d probably still complain if you said they were all the same. Just the same as MRA, PUA, MGTOW, etc. can complain about being lumped together. But really, essentially, they’re more similar than different.
Feminism and MRMism are both alike in that they are loose groupings around some shared ideologies (not with each other! inside the loose grouping) and that some of the specifics are contested. So there can be some similar group dynamics. But they aren’t dissimilar in behavioural group dynamics to lots of other loose groupings around ideas that people feel passionate about. But that doesn’t make them the same. Heck Al-Qaeda operates a lot like a really effective professional network with unified objectives. Some professional networks could learn a lot from how Al-Qaeda used to operate.
But improved practice – in say nursing care – really isn’t the same objective as destroying the West and establishing a caliphate through violent means and tromping on women and – so you can see why the Nursing and MIdwifery Council might chafe at being compared to Al-Qaeda. And that’s why feminists chafe at being compared to MRA. Sure there may be some really anti-male feminists, but they really are the minority. Whereas in the MRM there might be a few guys who see women as real people, with real needs and desires, but not many.
__
*I refuse to use ISIS, since that was my favourite Saturday morning tv programme when I was a kid and she’s a perfectly good goddess.
@opium4themasses
The best I can come up with is that they all have a slightly different order in which they organize their hate. To me, it makes no difference. I certainly don’t bother to distinguish them beyond “they all prioritize the hate different but hating woman is usually #1 or #2” when we talk to our daughter about them.
I think the difference between all the different flavors of misogynist is in how they delude themselves that they’re not horrible people.
Is it similarly OK to group radfems and their wacky comments with you guys?
Mark/bigboy and Masterbater,
You couldn’t find you asses with both hands. You don’t even know what the terms you’re using mean. There is no excuse for your hate. Whine, whine, whine is all you’ve got. You’re crapping out nonsense and you’re so ignorant you can’t even see it. Pathetic.
What makes the manureosphere one conglomerate is the fact their beliefs are the same and hatred of women is all their “movements” are about. You’re all whiny misogynist assholes angry that it’s getting harder for you to abuse women. Boo-fucking-hoo. Not one of you has a clue. The only things you disagree on is which ones of you are the true “alpha” men and what the best way to hurt women is. The rest of your babyman blubbering is the same. You’re in denial, creeps. As usual.
Maybe you cant tell the difference between two completely different faiths but that does not make you pitiful attempt at an analogy anything but bunk. There are so many things you don’t understand. We’ll chalk religion up to being one of them.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GSNpCsqnL._SX940_.jpg