On Fathers Day, somewhere on the internet, the following meme was posted:
The Men’s Rights subreddit reacted, as it so often does, with manly indignation: how dare these women take our Fathers Day from us! Even by normal Men’s Rights standards for empty outrage this seems a bit much. After all, it’s not exactly news that a lot of women raise their kids by themselves, when the fathers of their children, refuse to act as, well, fathers to their children. Indeed, “financial abortions” — that is, consequence-free child abandonment for men — is one of the central demands of the Men’s Rights movement.
But to one anonymous commenter on the Men’s Rights subreddit, this meme could well be the final insult that transforms the men of the world into angry panda impersonators destroying everything within reach.
According to this anonymous observer,
this really scares me, enough that I wake up at night thinking about it.
Wait. You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about … a meme?
No one could deny that there is open warfare on men all throughout western society. Whether or not it is deserved is somewhat irrelevant (you’ll see why in a second). There’s a minority of men who are alarmed but the vast majority just doesn’t have this on their radar…yet. This is mostly because it doesn’t affect them directly.
How can there be “open warfare” on men if most men haven’t even noticed it? Has there ever been a war in which the majority of those ostensibly affected by it don’t even know that it exists?
But never mind, because “[t]hat’s all going to change soon.”
Mixing his metaphors with wild abandon, this anonymous Men’s Rights Nostradamus predicts that
It won’t be long until the inroads that feminism has blazed start to butt up against the everyday Joe that’s just living his life.
Ah, the ever-reliable “everyday Joe,” beloved icon of reactionary grumblers since pretty much forever. In 2008, he took the form of a plumber (well, sort of). In 1970, they made a movie about him.
It appears that feminism doesn’t know when to quit and I clearly see the movement doing something that causes ‘Joe’ to not only look up from his newspaper but also impact him in a negative way.
You wouldn’t like me when I look up from my newspaper!
This lights the fuse.
Throughout history the one thing men are good at is responding to threats, whether they are real or not. I’m reminded of a video of a robbery at a convenience store I saw. The robber had a knife pointed at the clerk, demanding the contents of the register. Two random men were behind him, watching it all go down. One guy looked at the other and did the “upward head nod”. The other guy responded with the same discreet movement and they launched at the robber, taking him down. These two guys didn’t know each other at all but they, like most all men, are given to cohesive bonding when a threat is present.
Men also make up the vast majority of those robbing convenience stores, but never mind.
Feminism gives a perfect storm for this response and it’s going to be really ugly. When men get pissed, especially when they feel disenfranchised or morally wronged, they start breaking things.
Are you sure you haven’t confused men with toddlers having tantrums?
If this starts to steamroll it will make Ferguson look like a dress rehearsal.
That escalated quickly. Good old everyday Joe was just sitting there reading his newspaper, when all of a sudden he caught sight of a feminist meme on the internet. Next stop, literal rioting in the streets.
Those cops that will be asked to stop it? Those are overwhelmingly men too. Many will be sympathetic and I see lines being crossed.
A Man/Cop Alliance of Rioting Manbabies?
Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if this doesn’t get dealt with that it could be something on par with a major social upheaval. It’s going to be expensive, bloody, and it’s going to change everything for several generations. Once men start hammering, it ALL looks like a nail.
Yeah this bothers me a lot. I hope I’m badly wrong.
No you don’t. MRAs and other reactionary misogynists are forever airing these kinds of apocalyptic fantasies, in which the evil feminists “push men too far” and the men “finally explode” like some kind of “male bomb.” Civilization crumbles, and those evil complainy women get their final comeuppance.
Some of the men profess their deep “concern” that the women they want to shut up won’t shut up until it’s “too late.” Others can barely conceal their glee at the prospect of a bloody Manpocalypse that will put women back in their place.
Because this isn’t a warning. It’s a threat. It’s what every wife-batterer does when he “reminds” his wife that she won’t like him when he’s angry. It’s a way to control women through fear. Or at least an attempt to.
The only difference now is that the dude doing the “reminding” isn’t threatening his wife at home; he’s playing to the crowd in the Men’s Rights subreddit, and getting upvotes for it.
All over a meme.
So which gender is supposed to be the emotional one again?
H/T — r/againstmensrights
Isn’t that bog-standard conspiracy stuff? He’s just find-and-replaced “Real Americans” with “Men” and “New World Order/Illuminati/Jews/Obama” with “Feminists.”
@tessietura
Why do you bring this up again? I’m leaning towards PoM’s interpretation, that sounds like you’re trying to goad people.
@Lea
Oh God, can you imagine Sam Vimes having to deal with a Mens’ Righters group in Ankh-Morpork? I haven’t been through all of Pratchett’s books, but he didn’t do something like this, did he?
No. It’s a male power/abuse fantasy. The porn performers hate it too. Getting punched in the cervix isn’t a good time. Sadly, most straight porn is for men who don’t care if women have a good time and in fact, may prefer we don’t. This is why we need more feminist porn.
Bernardo Soares,
I dunno. I haven’t read them all yet. But, I can imagine Pratchett’s take on the MRM.
Well now Bina, punching up is hard, you know. It would take a lifetime of hard work, cooperation with minorities and bravery to actually make things better by fighting the real cause. On the other hand, hating women on the internet is easy and it perks up his pecker. It’s all about priorities.
No, he doesn’t, but you can get a pretty good picture of what he’d have thought of them from the series.
Sam Vimes would have no time for people who want to abandon their children, especially in the later books.
Ugh these guys practically jerk off to the idea of hurting people with no consequences…
Tessie Tura is the “You Gotta Have a Gimmick” girl from Gypsy.
There is one tessietura on Twitter and she’s all about using dick jokes and gendered slurs while trying to be politically liberal. She’s a nasty piece of work. She is not, however, using the hashtag this tessietura is trying so desperately to start.
There are two twitter users who have used that hashtage. Michael @MD_Schoenfeld and SJWomble @sjwomble tweeted them. Both to reference and mock #spankafeminist and the MRAs using it. Neither said anything remotely like, “You know they want it”. They were tweeted on the 22nd and 23rd. No activity before or since.
Tessie here is a troll trying to be an agent provocateur.
@Falconer:
I should get to those, then. Sam Vimes is my hero ever since he formulated my favorite economic theory of all:
aaargh! I got too cocky the last time and have now been humbled by the blockquote mammoth.
@Miss Andry, thank you for alerting to me the evils of Angel Soft. 😀
It’s a derail, but may I ask the hivemind a question about this since it’s come up?
I’ve noticed a trend in the young women I’ve slept with over the past few years: a lot of them have learned more about sex from pornography than they have from their own experiences, and coupled with the normal desire to try to impress their partner, this leads to them suggesting activities which I would normally blink at. I deal with this by going slowly and communicating clearly, and by not sleeping with anyone who isn’t okay with careful communication and slow exploration.
What is the opinion of this august assembly? Is my privilege blinding me to something essential here?
@Lea
I am no longer as sure about that as I was an hour ago. I found a few comments she’d previously made on WHTM and they were pretty inoffensive. It’s actually really easy to track her across the Internet. I found her Twitter and it isn’t @tessietura. She’s not actually using that hashtag.
I really don’t understand her pushing that hashtag, because all her comments elsewhere, while not exactly super-aware (there’s some obvious ableism and some nastiness aimed at Cathy Brennan, who absolutely deserves nastiness but her being old is not one of the reasons why she deserves it), are also not anything that makes me think she’s secretly on the MRAs’ side.
I have to say, I love that sites other than this one have taken to mocking their dumb asses too – wait… Esquire? That Esquire?
Oh dear, MRAs. When a men’s magazine that publishes yearly “Sexiest woman alive” lists thinks you’re all ridiculous sexist idiots, you may just be ridiculous sexist idiots. Unless you want to claim that a boobs ‘n’ ‘splosions lads’ mag is part of the femigynocommunazi conspiracy.
Can’t they just celebrate single fathers on Mother’s Day, like people are celebrating single mothers on Father’s Day, I mean, really.
… And I just looked at the comments. Dean Esmay himself has stepped in to declare said lads’ mag to be part of said conspiracy. *facepalm*
I know some people did. I don’t remember if there was an outcry. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if there was one.
@SFCH
Of course it is. That mag is all about the “miniskirt power”, thus it is a female empowerment medium. it also oppresses men by telling them to work out and that basic hygiene is relevant.
@Bernardo Soares:
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll laugh some more.
Pratchett was one of those people who looked at the world and got angry at how it worked. Vimes, I think, is where his anger is closest to the surface.
@EJ (The Other One):
I’ve never made love to anyone who watched porn, so allow me to derail your derailment. That Dwarf Fortress game I had, where everything I needed for steel was right there at the surface? Got corrupted and I didn’t have a backup. You may now gloat.
So I started a new game, found a good site, but got too close to a Sinister region and lost most of my dwarves to zombie mountain goats. Then zombie parrots came and stole everything that was left outside of my fort. I was down to three dwarfs, a dwarf girl, and two cats. Fortunately, I made enough of an impression on the fortress liaison and the first dwarf caravan that I’m up to forty-something adults and thirteen (!!) children. The first human caravan got slaughtered by the aforementioned goats, so I’m trying to arm up and run them off before the next caravan comes along.
POM,
My google fu has failed me.
I will now sentence myself to a nice cup of tea and a time out. Thank you for doing it right.
EJ,
I don’t sleep with alot of young women. So, I wouldn’t know.
I know young women who like things like putting needles in sensitive places. I could not tell you what influences their tastes, but to each their own. I suspect that women have been this kinky for a long time and are only now starting to be able to freely admit that they are. I’m really happy to hear that young women are regularly communicating what they want in bed. I’m so proud of this generation. Back in the 90’s when I was just entering adulthood most women I knew were much too worried about what a man would think of us to be that open. Then again, many of the girls I knew were raised Southern Baptist. That will stunt your sexual expression.
It s very likely that both men and women are influenced by easy access to porn and try to be what they think their partners want them to be. Sexual gratification is often as much about making the other party happy as it is your own sensation. So, if they’re doing what they do for that reason, it probably gets them off anyway. Whatever works, works.
To clarify: When I’m talking about hammering away at a cervix, I’m not talking about hard fucking with appropriate preparation and pressure thoughtfully applied to the right spots at the right time. I’m talking about banging clumsily away at the cervix like you’re trying to get into Helm’s Deep.
To quote an episode of Risk that summed it up, “He was fucking me like he didn’t know I was a stand up comic.”
AND he could make you laugh at it. That’s why so many people loved him. He gave us such a gift.
This is a great point. I don’t really have anything to add.
“One guy looked at the other and did the “upward head nod”. The other guy responded with the same discreet movement and they launched at the robber, taking him down. These two guys didn’t know each other at all but they, like most all men, are given to cohesive bonding when a threat is present.”
This:
I keep feeling they think we spot them because we are very good at spotting trolls, instead of because they are so obviously full of shit.
@Falconer:
I would never gloat at that misfortune! That’s an awful thing to have happen. I must remember to back mine up.
Your new fort sounds, if not fun, at least Fun. Zombie animals can be extremely annoying – and for the love of all you hold dear, never do any slaughtering of animals or disposal of their parts in an Evil biome. I’m not sure about Sinister ones but I wouldn’t risk it.
Can you trap the zombie goats? Cage traps are easy and powerful, often to the point of being considered an exploit, but they may be what you need here.
@Lea:
Thank you for that summary. It definitely fits with my experiences and what I’ve heard from other people.
What I’m more worried about is the normalisation of non-kinky degrading porn, and the consent issues which that creates. Does that make sense or am I making a meaningless distinction here?
@Lea
I find myself fairly reasonably disposed toward tessietura right now. The ableism and ageism was a couple of years ago, and I’m inclined to think her feminism is likely to have developed beyond that point by now. The #SpankAnMRA thing might represent additional growing pains. None of us leapt from the womb as perfect feminists, so until/unless additional information comes along, I call non-troll at this point.