So over on the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) subreddit, the regulars are discussing the various ways they’re oppressed by a Nike-sponsored women-only nighttime 10k run called “We Own the Night.” Basically, it’s Take Back the Night with running, and Nike.
Well, a guy who calls himself “DegradedSerf” is having none of it. Because lesbianism? And a lack of women in the stage-construction business?
The two things I wanted to point out are the obvious lesbian connotations, there are DJs and dancing and what not until late, women only on a massive scale, and the fact that although the theme is claiming public spaces at night for females, I worked on assembling and deassembling all the stages, lighting, etc. etc. and there were no women working on the whole site.
You know, I hate to tell you this, fella, but there are places where there is lesbian dancing and “what not until late” every single night of the week. Also karaoke, sometimes. Google “lesbian bars.”
So anyway, “We Own the Night” is a sign of the End Times for normal manly men.
If you combine it with the slutwalk phenomenon now women have more rights and privileges than ever before and now a feature of the political and cultural landscape is these mass, semi-sexual, female only (eunuchs sometimes tolerated) demonstrations that public space, (physical and psychological) belongs to women and they intend to make it inimical to males and no expression of masculinity will be tolerated.
DegradedSerf’s lament about the slut walks inspired this little exchange:
![Nicholas_ 5 points 1 day ago Knowing the fact that slut walks exist make me wish I didn't live on this planet anymore. permalinkembedsavereportgive goldreply [–]RecQuery 1 point 5 hours ago I sometimes wish we could go live in a colony somewhere just to show the world what things would be like without us. Even if you don't engage you're still supporting society by being there.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/slutwalkconvo.png?resize=471%2C244&ssl=1)
Huh. I’ll admit, there are a number of things that sometimes cause me to think I don’t want to live on this planet any more. You know, like genocide, rape as a weapon of war, the millions of people on earth who are living in extreme poverty, that sort of thing.
This guy is driven to existential despair by … women protesting rape.
Bryce, the whole point of Take Back the Night marches is to symbolize women, you know, taking back the night. Men don’t need to “take back the night” as a gender. The Nike events may be less political but seem to be driven by a similar logic. Why exactly do men need to be involved? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of the event in the first place, or at the very least undercut the symbolic value of the gesture?
A friend of mine told me that when she was in college there was always a big controversy because guys insisted not only on being in the take back the night marches but also in the front row carrying the banner. Sort of like Hugo S at the slut walks.
What the fuck, dudes; sit on the sidelines and cheer for once. Or at the very least don’t try to steal the fucking spotlight.
So women are supposed to just stop going out in public after dark instead? Women are just supposed to always have men about, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes them feel or how unsafe it makes them feel?
This isn’t about “men making the night unsafe so no more men after dark ever”, this is about women reclaiming a time of day that they’ve been fearful to go out in. This is about women slowly (and safely!) regaining the confidence to go out after dark and do things without fear of being attacked or hurt for daring to do things that society tells them they shouldn’t do if they know what’s good for them.
Women have already been told that we shouldn’t go out after dark because we’ll get hurt, and that shit sucks, so let’s not project the whole “women just want to subjugate men!” nonsense, because that’s just going “women will do the same thing men have done to them!”, and that’s silly.
How generous of you!
/s
The concept of the safe space isn’t just about being physically safe. But yeah, pretty much every space is unsafe for women. Women get harassed and catcalled on the street, even in broad daylight. So, not safe in public. Women get harassed at work and discriminated against (often in soft covert ways that are next to impossible to prove at court). So, not safe in the workplace either. Three women a day in the US (I don’t know the stats for other countries) are killed by domestic partners and the vast majority of the time, a rape victim knows her rapist. So our own homes and friend’s aren’t safe either. That’s why events like this exist.
Yes there is. You can stop whining when women want to carve out a couple of rare safe spaces/events.
Nobody suggested you do this.
Sure, if you’re a whiny misogynist looking for an excuse to feel antagonized by feminism. A true ally doesn’t expect cookies and fawning reverence just because you don’t express a desire to rape and kill us. But if I do give you a cookie, will you stop demanding that feminism center itself around men’s feelings? Here ya go!
http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/feminist-cookie.jpg
And there it is.
Dudes do not need to be involved in everything, nor do they need to be front-and-center.
Y’all can sit the fuck down and just let us have this.
@WWTH:
That didn’t work. Try this one?
Bryce is totally one of those guys who would put together an all male panel about women’s issues.
Paradoxy,
Weird. The image is showing up just fine on my computer. I wonder what trickery Overlord Katie is up to tonight.
Hey, it was still a legit lesbian neighborhood 20 years ago. Andersonville has turned into Boystown part deux? That’s a bit of a bummer. Now I’m lost in a Proustian reverie for the early 1990s, I’m going to listen to some Jesus Lizard and sigh.
Trying for reasons of time wastage to track down what happened to Erin Pizzey’s dog. She definitely says it was shot but she vacillates between implying it’s feminists that did it: http://fathersforlife.org/pizzey/failfamt.htm or racists http://www.webcitation.org/6UKmcdccU It happened while she was running a shelter in New Mexico and working with rehabilitation of paedophiles, both activities that have violent opponents, so I don’t know why she ruled out a work related attack.
Aren’t we all?
Bryce:
You’re concern trolling. Stop it.
If your main worry is that women aren’t sacrificing their own issues in order to make you personally feel comfortable, then you are not the ally they’re trying to recruit: you are the problem they’re trying to solve. If you feel uncomfortable or alienated, good.
A wild Sealion named Bryce has appeared!
Bryce uses concern troll
It’s not very effective…
Moocow uses Rollout
Bryce uses entitled inclusivity
Bryce’s attack missed.
Moocow uses Rollout.
Bryce has fainted
Apparently MRAs live in some kind of alternate universe to ours, wherein a woman can claim she was raped by anyone, be immediately believed and lauded by literally everyone around her and showered with money, all while the poor dude is being carted off to a life sentence in jail. And claiming to be a feminist gets you similar, but less extreme, results.
I wonder how they managed to open up a wormhole to our dimension, where rape victims are rarely believed by authorities or even their social circle, 90-some percent of rapists do zero jail time for their crimes, and survivors of sexual assault are likely to develop PTSD and other mental illnesses, and all the stigma and struggles that go along with that.
Early nineties was a majestic thing. I will fight you on this.
https://youtu.be/eGXE7AF_sK4
Catalpa:
A valid question.
More importantly, though, can we somehow send them back through this portal to live under the friendly green skies of their alternate world, and leave us alone?
Early nineties!
https://youtu.be/SDTSUwIZdMk
https://youtu.be/LTtdtURXKqc
@paradoxical intention
“This is about women slowly (and safely!) regaining the confidence to go out after dark and do things without fear of being attacked or hurt for daring to do things that society tells them they shouldn’t do if they know what’s good for them.”
Fair enough. I didn’t really look at it for what is was: a literal demonstration of women going out at night without fearing for themselves.
https://youtu.be/ft56il9bGMk
Cannonball, possibly in the top ten songs in human history.
Brooked, there are still lesbians here. And it’s not really boystown 2. It’s nowhere near as densely packed with gay bars, etc. There is one leather bar, but it’s been around for a long time (as have many of its patrons; I think it sort of caters to an older crowd).
Just wanted to point out, while it’s ridiculous to conflate feminism and the white supremacy movement, feminism has its own baggage and could do better on race. Not only did Suffragettes ally themselves with white supremacism and launch a campaign against civil rights activist Ida B. Wells (oh, the more things change…), modern feminists are frequently oblivious to outright awful on race. And that’s not because feminism equals white supremacy, it’s because feminists, like most people, think and act in the ways they’ve been conditioned by their societies.
The first London slutwalk educated me so much. Although I knew that it shouldn’t matter what a woman is wearing, I learned that statistically it really doesn’t matter what a woman is wearing, rape happens to more women dressed “modestly” than it does to women dressed in “slutty” clothes. I learned about what sex workers face, from sex workers who gave speeches at the event.
It helped me to heal from my own rape. I’d always felt a little to blame because I was drunk, even though I’d never blame another woman for being drunk.
At slutwalk I wore a tiny skirt and I made a strappy top with “raped” on the front and “survivor” on the back. At one point the London naked bike ride cycled past us and shouted support. It was awesome.
So yeah, if he hates slutwalks so much, I’ll chip in to the one way ticket off this planet fund for him.
Is it Touché? I haven’t been to Chicago in ages but I remember Touché if only because the name didn’t sound leather barish to me at all. It’s no Manhole, name wise.
Andersonville was a cool neighborhood and Chicago would be an nearly ideal big city to live in if the winters weren’t such bleak grey sunless Seasonal Affective Disorder factories. Seriously the sun sets at noon (slight exaggeration, but only slight.)
My dad Mick was a long-distance runner and coach, and this post inspired me to look up Katherine Switzer. I found her own account of what happened the day that photograph was taken here:
http://kathrineswitzer.com/about-kathrine/1967-boston-marathon-the-real-story/
I hope they never figure out what the world is like. Maybe imaginary repercussion will hold them back.
I mean, the rare publicized rapes here they don’t catch them. The police department here told women in that condescending but you would lock your possessions to be safe! way “advised” on their facebook page to not drink or go out at night.