I sometimes make fun of Men’s Rights activists for their assorted misunderstandings of feminism. But this guy gets it! I’ve never seen the essence of feminism distilled into a comic as ably as this.
It brings back memories of the first time I read Andrea Dworkin’s classic “Intercourse: You’re Not Getting Any Unless You Pay for My Dinner.”
Found on the Men’s Rights subreddit, with 100 upvotes.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
NOTE: POST CONTAINS SARCASM
@weirwoodtreehugger Nope. I can shrug and move on. Not getting terribly worked up about it.
You, on the other hand, seem realllllllllly upset about it. And, you’re making a lot of assumptions about the cartoonist. And, you don’t care to hear what he was thinking….. neither to dissuade your worst suspicions NOR to confirm them, or even to find out it’s worse than you could POSSIBLY have thought. Nope, just wanna have your opinion, and state it loudly and repeatedly. And this, I think, says a lot more about you than about him. Speaks a lot about outrage, very little about integrity or courage of one’s convictions.
You may be right or wrong. But you certainly do seem to *enjoy* your place of not-knowing-but-piling-on-the-worst-assumptions-because-reasons-also-outrage-raarrrrr.
@NickNameNick Yes, nothing is more anti-intellectual than engaging in discussion and exchanging ideas. I stand corrected.
I have an idea, and it goes something like this:
Brogressives are using a quasi-progressive line of politics as a means to get laid. (Another useful word you might like: Macktivists, who are “leftist” dudes using “leftist” activism to meet and bed as many people as they can.) The problem with brogressives (and macktivists) is that their politics eventually ring hollow; they’re only sincere about one thing, and that’s getting as much sex as they can. And they can use all kinds of “ethical” arguments about sexuality in really unscrupulous ways.
Example, from my own experience: a guy I know, who’s also a Facebook friend, insisting that we are all “naturally polyamorous”. Um, NO. Not all people. In fact, probably not even a majority of people. Serial monogamy is still the commonest mode of coupling in the western world. I’m certainly not poly, and at 48 I’ve had plenty of time to figure that much out. This guy, BTW, is married (and never bothered to tell me as much; I found it out at second hand). Luckily, I wasn’t interested in him period, whether he was married or not. Oh yeah, and he was also big on Slutwalk and Boobquake. Can’t imagine why!
I’m sure there are plenty of others like him. You know the kind: They tend to think that if you don’t put out, you ain’t “liberated”. And so on.
Yet you’ve doubled and tripled down defending him even as it becomes increasingly clear that he’s a misogynist.
TIL that forming an opinion about what someone’s art is saying makes one a screeching hysterical harpy. Yep! You’ve got my number. I’m super upset and emotional. After seeing all the times you typed the letter “L” in the word “really” who could deny it?
You’re right. Nobody can criticize an artist’s work unless they’ve personally interviewed the artist about that work.
Oh no. I couldn’t possibly have legit reasons to disapprove of and mock a piece of sexist. It’s only the outrage. It’s not as if I’ve ever actually experienced sexism. It’s not like I haven’t heard the same tired bullshit over and over again and am tired of it. No, I must just be doing this because I like to be mean and love outrage!
I think anti-intellectual is a fair assessment here. I haven’t really seen you actually attempt to analyze any of the pieces we’re discussing. You haven’t presented alternative explanations. You haven’t made an argument that either of us are wrong. All you’ve done is finger wag about how we’ve come to conclusions in ways that displease you. Do you have anything of substance to say or are you just going to tone police?
@Inez Milholland
Correct, you can’t win. The game is rigged. But if you have sex with him, he’ll forgive your defects. Until you burn the toast. Or his boss yells at him. Or he stubs his toe.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants, @Spaceman
Thanks for the seriously inspiring alternative scenarios!
Actually, this comic is probably literally true if you think about the author. I believe these conversations really happened… but with three different women. In his mind, though, all women are interchangeable and their individual identity is as unimportant to him as their opinions.
@SFHC, @Bina
“Brogressive”? Is that the term?
I just call these guys “crappy ex-boyfriends.”
@Cassie Devereaux
If you want to convince us that Comic Guy isn’t as rapey and misogynistic as he seems, being a condescending, tone-policing, hyper-defensive shitlord to WWTH of all people is not the way to do it. Jesus, if that’s how you respond to getting exactly one extremely mild pushback post… ಠ_ಠ
I swear, people always whine that feminists are “Oversensitive,” but it ain’t us who invariably blow a screaming angry gasket the moment we don’t walk in deferring lockstep with them.
Anyway.
@WWTH & Bina
Excellent points both! And you’re right, I think it’s a combination of those two things (plus the lying – I can’t overstate how much I despise lying). Thanks for the food for thought. =)
Oh, an look what I found up above. Quite the gem.
Do I have to be gentle about the comment policy with this one? Because I think using crazy as an insult about 100 times in a single paragraph is enough to warn a good, stern “fuck off!”
It’s cute that he’s scared to be around a woman for an hour because she might be a serial killer. There have only been 64 known serial killers in the past 200 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer
I know, I know. Wikipedia isn’t the most academic of sources. But I’m not putting in lots of effort for a probably drive by troll.
Yet, I bet you think it’s misandry if women are afraid of being sexually assaulted despite it being much, much more common than serial murder. In fact, bub, even men are statistically more likely to be sexually than to be falsely accused of rape!
For someone who thinks all women are crazy, you sure don’t logic so well.
Only 64 known female serial killers, I mean.
@alan robertshaw
Re Chrissie Hynde: I look at it like this. What someone else does (short of me intimidating that person into doing it) is never my fault. Never.
If that person’s actions were my fault, then I could make some sort of amends.
I could make sure that the situation never occurs again.
But I can’t do that. Because it’s not my fault.
In the same way, Chrissie Hynde didn’t control the actions of those bikers. She probably showed fear, revulsion, and anger while they were attacking her. That did no good. And those guys probably went out and raped again. Chrissie Hynde doesn’t control them. She’d like to think that she does. That doesn’t make it true. What controls a person? That individual’s conscience–or fear of reprisal.
All that said, it’s good to always have a safety plan for yourself. Ask a friend to keep an eye on you at a party. Listen to your spidey sense. Remember that alcohol and drugs interfere with that spidey sense. Take yourself–and your life and dreams–seriously. You are worthy of safety.
@Kat
And god, do I wish we as women didn’t have to go through all that shit, that constant background *fear*, to be able to do simple things that men take for granted all the damn time. It’s the psychic purdah that’s driving me batshit.
@ Kat
Cheers for that. Our row about CH wasn’t so much about what she said; we all agreed that her views on where the responsibility for rape lies were incorrect. The argument was whether it was right to blame her for having those views and for expressing them.
Essentially it’s whether there’s such a thing as rape culture and internalised misogyny which causes even victims to victim blame or whether even a rape victim should know better than to hold those views.
All got a bit fractious.
If I may, as a rape survivor myself: There is very much a thing as internalized misogyny and rape culture, and no one comes out of the womb knowing everything about everything, feminism especially.
Not every rape victim/survivor is going to know about victim blaming, or the kinds of things they say that are victim blaming. Not every rape victim/survivor is going to cope in the same way. Not every rape victim/survivor is going to have the same mental process of picking up the pieces.
If your friends would like to debate whether rape culture or internalized exists or not, I’m sure there are some feminism 101 blogs they could look through, and here’s some links that might help them get started:
– Geek Feminism Wiki’s definition of rape culture
– Rape Culture 101
– 25 Examples of Rape Culture
– Feminism 101 FAQ: What is “internalized sexism”?
– What Kristen Stewart Taught Me about Internalized Misogyny
– Internalized Misogyny: “I’m Not Like Most Girls!”
**I’m going to talk about rape (nothing explicit, I promise) after this bit**
However, if I may get a little personal about the last bit you wrote: I did blame myself for my own assault because the woman who caught my rapist trying to violate me told me that it was my fault for not saying “no”. I internalized that shit. I believed I was in the wrong, even though I was terrified of my rapist because he had beat me in the past, and I was scared to find out if he’d beat me for trying to resist. I believed I could have prevented being raped by telling a man in a position of power over me “no”.
**Okay, all done**
It took me a long time to shake that off and realize that it wasn’t my fault. Almost a decade, in fact.
There is no “knowing better” than to buy into victim blaming. It’s just impossible.
Sorry, I had to get that out. The idea of “rape victims should know better than to victim blame” got my hackles up.
@Alan Robertshaw
So they’re saying that a rape victim can never be mistaken about her analysis of the crime?
Once I was in a bank, head down, counting my money. Another customer walked into me from the side with the full force of his (large) body.
Clearly I was being robbed–or worse. Kidnapping? I made the instant decision that I would not go down without a fight.
“HEY!” I said as I raised my head and whipped it around. (OK, at least a verbal fight.)
“Oh, sorry,” he said.
He was wearing dark glasses and carried a white cane.
So if I’m allowed to be wrong about my analysis of a crime (not a crime), why can’t we extend that same courtesy to a rock star?
People seem to be using ‘brogressive’ differently from how I normally see it used. Anyone care to offer up their definition? I’m a bit of a neologism nerd.
I’ve always understood it to mean a person who is progressive on social issues up to the point where they cause that person one iota of personal discomfort or inconvenience. So weed is cool and gays can be married and women and blacks are totally equal, man. But those gay pride parades are too in your face and blacks need to stop yelling about police brutality and rape culture totally isn’t real and why can’t people take a joke, my friends all use the n word and we’re not racist at all and affirmative action might mess up my career plans. Brogressivism is, incidentally, why a lot of gators believe themselves to be left wing, despite every single high profile gg supporter being on the right.
Anyway, I’m seeing ‘brogressive’ used here interchangeably with ‘macktivist’ (one who engages in activist politics to gain sexual access) and also as a inherently dishonest (rather than just lazy, thoughtless and uncaring) position, so wondering if anyone has an alternate definition to mine they’d be willing to share.
@Jo
Not that I’ve been using it here, but here’s my definition pair. (As in, I think these are both definitions that I’d use it for.)
Brogressive:
a. A dudebro who’s down with the feminism thing until it inconveniences him somehow, especially in the self-examination sense.
b. Someone progressive on most issues, but who refuses to see that sexism is a problem that actually exists.
@andiexist
Thanks! Your (1) is basically the same as my definition, but (2) is an interesting variation. Basically, (2) is similar to the sort of white woman who is progressive in most ways, but manages to ignore her white privilege and (unconsciously or otherwise) excludes black women from her feminism. It’s just that gender and race are swapped in importance. I’ll look out for that usage.
I think brogressives are sincere, they just only care about progressive issues if they stand to benefit. A lot of them are college students, so they care a lot about college affordability, jobs and wages, public transportation, rent prices, legalizing marijuana, and of course freeze peach. And they can have really intelligent opinions on those issues.
But as soon as the issue doesn’t directly impact them anymore, they turn into bristling reactionaries. At best, they turn into those “class inequality explains everything” types who are constantly splaining how black people are actually only worse off because of poverty, because that’s the only way to fit those concepts into their matrix of “only problems that might affect white dudes actually exist.”
hippielady:
That (waiters assuming my male companion will pay even if given repeated contextual clues otherwise) has happened to me too! A lot! It’s amazing how this stuff still hides in our social interactions, even in this day and age.
And alas, it doesn’t end there… as I found out when I started dating my husband. Because with him, the dynamic suddenly got more complex: the fancier the restaurant, the more likely that the waiter will place the check before me and not my husband.
I should probably mention that my husband is black and I am white.
Even more dismayingly, at the really fancy places, this starts well before the check – often the waiters will preferentially talk to me, right from the start, and only acknowledge my husband as an afterthought. It’s not done blatantly enough to stand out as some sort of intentionally broadcast insult or “cutting” – it’s subtle enough that, I am embarrassed to admit, I didn’t actually notice it as a pattern until my husband pointed it out to me. I suspect in the majority of cases it’s not even done consciously. It’s just… an internalized assumption about who is the “real diner” at a fancy restaurant and who was “brought along.” Bleh.
Jo,
I use it the same way Andiexist does. It’s analogous to white feminism in that the willfully blind spot is focused in on a specific issue. Although a brogressive can be posing as a progressive to try and gain access to sex, it’s not always that way. They can have a different agenda.
Here’s a thread with a meltdown from a brogressive that I have a nasty history with on Gawker. Luckily, other people are finally starting to see his true colors, but you tend to have to have to poke him a bit to unmask him. It’s like vampires on Buffy, they have a normal human face but when they get aggravated the monster comes out.
http://gawker.com/he-is-so-one-of-those-idiots-that-genuinely-thinks-he-s-1726712342
The person who it is becomes obvious pretty quickly.
On a less depressing note, an anecdote of exploiting stereotyped societal assumption for fun and profit!
In the mists of time, when I was only a few years above the legal US drinking age, I was dating a lovely young gentleman who was, indeed, a few years below the legal US drinking age. Having both lived in other areas of the globe with more lenient age restrictions before, we both considered the US laws on the matter to be rather silly. We also both enjoyed an occasional glass of wine with dinner.
And sure enough, we both were able to enjoy our glass of wine at pretty much any US restaurant as long as we made sure that I ordered my glass of wine first. The waiter would card me, note that I was above legal drinking age, and bring me my wine. Then my boyfriend would order his wine. This way, he never got carded. Thank you, ingrained societal assumption that the guy is always as old or older than his female partner!
Those are both good definitions too. It’s one of those “you know it when you see it” things, whether it’s Redditors who are ready to die on the hill of net neutrality while posting things that make you wish someone was policing the internet, or Seth McFarlane declaring himself a liberal while making…well, Seth McFarlane movies, or a bunch of Silicon Valley philanthropists who only donate money to research about preventing malevolent AIs.
Except that isn’t what you said, it was that we should just give this guy the benefit of the doubt – even though his work is pretty indicative of his opinions – and that we can’t say anything negative about him because…we need to know him personally or something? That’s an absurdly daunting task to take, to have an opinion on a web-based comic, and doesn’t change the fact that – even if he wasn’t sexist – the work itself drips with misogyny on one level or another.
You keep coming up with reasons as to why no one should criticize him and, yes, that is anti-intellectual. It’s no more different than when someone criticizes a film and someone comes along to say “well, if you don’t like it – why don’t you make a movie yourself?!” You make it sound like a suggestion by telling TreeHugger that they should talk to this guy to get his side of the story, but all you’re really doing is coming up with way to say “shut up” without using those exact words. I see it all the time in discussions, people trying to silence others while putting up a disingenuously open-minded (if only to certain things) tone.
It’s all the more obvious you simply dismiss her comment as “outrage” instead of thinking that, perhaps, it’s an accurate observation on the material read. Hell, why are you giving him all the benefit of the doubt but not TreeHugger? Why is he off the hook and the onus is put on the person who criticized his work? TreeHugger isn’t the one who made the comics, Pablo Stanley is and he’s obviously letting his work speak for itself.
Because, by their (il)logic, getting worked up into a tizzy is totally justified – ’cause reasons – while anyone else who has even a fraction of that reaction is “overemotional.”
It’s amazing how many white guys will throw a massive, childlike tantrum over the most petty thing and yet still pat themselves on the back while claiming to be the most level-headed person alive. I’m not sure how an enraged outburst is less “overemotional” than mildly pointing out that some creative work has a problematic element.
Then again, these are probably the same people who thought the Australian branch of WalMart and Target not selling copies of GTAV was “censorship” (technically, it already was before release – things like blood effects were taken out). Nevermind that, y’know, the game was still up for sale on numerous other venues in the country nor did the government of Australia take any part in asking two private commercial entities to not sell it anymore. Apparently just not getting a game at those places constitutes as “censorship” now, based on their ever-changing and arbitrary criteria about “free speech”…