So our old friend Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield has written a rather silly post on how men are a bunch of STEM geniuses while women are basically designed to make babies. (On average.)
You’ve heard all this nonsense before, I am sure:
Human achievement depends on the tenacity and ingenuity of men, and their willingness to shoot for the moon (or a comet). Our mastery of the human condition, an end to suffering and poverty and disease and destitution requires technology. Water doesn’t magically clean itself, food doesn’t spring forth from the Earth without coaxing (at least not in sufficient amounts to feed all of us), the oceans do not replenish, diseases do not cure themselves and our ability to communicate and connect with each other, from one side of the planet to the other, all depends on technology.
Technology is designed, built, installed, maintained, repaired and operated almost exclusively by men. Without men, we would be living in grass huts, eating mud.
I’ll give her credit for at least suggesting a slightly novel “solution” to women (allegedly) being a bunch of stupid-heads compared to men. And by “novel” I mean “novel” only to MRAs.
Here is what I propose: we socialize girls to be more like men, and more like exceptionally intelligent men, in particular.
As she sees it, that means (among other things) making girls play with legos instead of Barbies (or any other traditionally girly toys), forcing them all to play Dungeons & Dragons (no, really), and requiring that they
study logic and rhetoric and traditional game theory, to sharpen their ability to work through a problem using reason and the empirical method.
Huh. I’m thinking that most of the dudes in the Men’s Rights movement must have slept through that part of their male socialization.
JB’s proposals are weirdly totalitarian, envisioning a mandatory one-size-fits-all approach to education for girls. And the misogyny underlying her glorification of “male” ways of thinking is fairly obvious. Her attempts to challenge traditionally gendered ways of raising girls fall more than a few steps short of feminism.
Sure, feminists have long fought against the pervasive gendering of toys. But they’re also into, you know, kids making choices for themselves. Encouraging girls to play with legos? Great! Forcing all girls to play exclusively with Legos, because you want them to become STEM geniuses? Not so great. Some girls want to play with legos; others prefer dolls. As do some boys.
For what it’s worth, JB describes her proposal as, yes, a “modest proposal,” so it’s not clear if she actually thinks that raising girls the same way as boys is a good idea, or if it’s one akin to eating babies.
Speaking of babies, here’s my favorite line in her post:
[T]he ultimate expression of femininity is a baby, and the ultimate expression of masculinity is the Large Hadron Collider.
Assuming this is true — and Janet Boomfield said it, so it must be! — just imagine what humans could accomplish if men and women worked together.
Yes, I’m talking about the ultimate in technology: the Large Baby Collider.
Oh, wait, we already have one of those; it’s called the Men’s Rights Movement.
But that’s a pretty primitive model. Here’s a prototype for an improved Large Baby Collider. It’s still a long way away from perfect — you may notice that half of the babies have been replaced by dogs — but it’s still a wobbly step in the right direction.
H/T — @TakedownMRAs
Confession: I’ve been known to put bags on seats to keep pesky men from sitting (and/or spreading) near me. Also harassing. But I repeat myself. (Manspreading is harassment. It’s basically saying, “Here, Little Woman, fear my smelly balls!)
Clearly, I am a Terrible Person.
Bina
Yes you are a terrible person I mean how dare you think about your safety and making men take responsibility for their actions! Don’t you know if you don’t let men do whatever they want it’s misandry!? /s
Ok I’m sorry that’s a bad joke. I don’t know if it’s considered harassment.
I saw a picture of this woman on this train who is carrying some kind of metal square frame and all these idiots were calling her a feminist saying that she was doing it to keep men from harassing her, making fun of her saying they don’t want to harass her because she’s too ugly and girls who were laughing along with them saying stop blaming men for everything and more.
That made me sick and it just proves why we need feminism and it comes to show if women and girls get hurt they’re blamed/not believed and if they do something to protect themselves then they are man haters and paranoid, we can’t win. And I bet she wasn’t even a feminist or carrying that frame to protect herself maybe that frame was for some sort of project or something.
@Fruitloopsie
They proved none wanted to harass her… by harassing her. That’s grand.
But I have to admit I didn’t get the metal frame thing. How did it work?
Though I imagine it’s not really relevant. If a woman is upset about harassment, people will tell her to take measures to avoid it. When a woman does take measures, they say none would harass her anyway, or, more strangely, that what she’s doing is misandry.
When you see this sort of stuff, it makes you wonder if what these people actually want is for women to just take harassment without complaining.
Ugh, that is a dreadful story. For the thousand-millionth time, guys: SEXUAL HARASSMENT HAS SHIT-ALL TO DO WITH FUCKABILITY, YOU MORONS. (Sorry for the ALL CAPS shouting, but they’re so dense, you have to yell in order to penetrate their skulls.)
Oh sorry I’m really bad at explaining/describing something. They’re metal attached to other metal to form into a box and she was standing inside the box. I suppose she did that because she was on her phone and so no one can steal it. The people were in the comments of the picture not in the picture itself.
It’s so terrible that anyone would take a picture and idiots would just mock and harass people like her. Its completely understandable and justified to be angry/make everything all caps because how stupid and unempathtic people can be.
RosaDeLava:
Well, I think they don’t think it happens much because they don’t notice it or experience it. So they only hear about it when someone speaks up. And to them the problem would just go away if people would shut up about it, because for them, it will. If nobody talked about it, they’d happily go back of never noticing or experiencing it. Problem solved.
@Fruitloopsie
I see.
No joke – why is that even other people’s business? Unless it was taking up too much space or making noise, it should be fine – and it doesn’t seem like this is what was bothering the people in the comment section.
@Tessa
Yes, it probably will for them, but you’d think people would know that ignoring a problem won’t make it disappear, even if said problem doesn’t affect you.
What bothers me is that it seems like there’s a lot of telling others to protect themselves, then getting angry when those people actually do it.
Here you go it looked somewhat like this only without the blue glass top and the metal was white and thicker
RosaDeLava
“why is that even other people’s business?”
People just want to be in others’ business and just be cruel.
“Unless it was taking up too much space or making noise, it should be fine”
The metal box was super small too so yeah it was fine.
Tessa & RosaDeLava
“Hey shut up about cancer! It will go away!” Doesn’t make sense huh?
I do this too, but if the train/bus starts to get crowded, I will move my stuff so that someone can use that seat. Usually, I just want to be left alone on public transit and I put my things on the next seat to try to make sure that happens. I, however, am not entitled enough to believe that I still deserve to use both seats when other passengers need a place to sit.
Not to “what about the menz” the conversation, but: Is there any behaviour that I, as a man (who wears a suit and tie most of the time when I’m on transport) should use in order to act as an ally when other men behave in such a fashion?
@katz
Apparently, to them, women are interchangeable with “air”. Seriously, if that’s the best they can find, all they did was prove that men really do take up space for no fucking reason far more often than women do.
EJ,
Sometimes I reclaim the space by going up to the spreader, saying “excuse me, may I sit down?”, and sitting next to them, (in the seat they tried to spread onto). Well, I don’t usually actually say all those words because as men, we have the ability to communicate through grunts, mumbles, and pointed looks. But that’s my strategy.
@EJ (TOO)
That’s actually a really tough question. It really depends on the situation. Calling other men out on harassment is good, but you don’t want to step in if the woman has the situation under control. Doing that takes the power away from her and tells the harasser that they can continue unless a man tells them not to. These guys need to learn to listen to women when we tell them to back off.
If she really wants/needs help, but feels like she can’t say anything, she may look around to see if anyone else notices what is going on. I’ve done this before and most people try to ignore the situation. The fact that no one seems to notice makes me doubt my feelings and think that it must not be that bad. Try to catch her eye. Let her know that you see what is going on. It may give her the confidence to speak up if she knows someone else sees the problem and will back her up if she says something. She may also give you a look that says “Please help me,” at which point, you want step in. Depending on the situation, I’d suggest talking to her first. Ask if she’s OK. That lets her know she has support and lets the harasser know that his behavior has been noticed. Often that is enough to stop the harassment because he’s been caught, even if it wasn’t directly addressed. By talking to her, you’re telling the harasser that you saw what he was doing. It also takes some of the power away from the harasser and gives it to the woman because she now has an opportunity to call him out, if she wants to. She may not have felt safe doing so on her own and she may not want to do it now, but you’ve given her an opportunity.
I’d also suggest trying to draw as little attention as possible. Making a big scene will probably make her more uncomfortable. In all likelihood, she just wants it to end and to get where she is going. If she wanted to make a scene, she probably would have done it on her own. It’s really important to let her take the lead in how you handle the situation. She already feels vulnerable and you don’t want to do anything to make her feel worse. Harassment is about power and you want to do whatever you can to give that power back to her (if that makes sense). I’m sorry for that vague statement, but it’s really difficult to give you specific instructions when each situation is going to be different.
TL;DR Step in only if necessary and let her take the lead in how you handle it.
Also, thank you for asking. Not everyone does and many men will fall into the situation in the first paragraph. They step in when they are not needed and unknowingly make the situation worse. So thanks for being willing to listen and be a better ally.
Thank you, ej (The Original One).
@Orion:
I’ve done things like that a few times; sometimes it helps and sometimes it makes it worse by making the manspreader feel as though he has to escalate in order to avoid looking weak in front of a woman. As always with humans, there’s no easy heuristic.
Rape culture 101. Women must take responsibility for not “getting raped” but not actually do anything about it in a practical sense. Because then we’re accusing all men of being rapists…somehow.
Rape Culture Dudes: “Don’t be a slut…OR dress like one! If you are (or do), you’re Asking For It! Learn to fight and scream! Don’t be a victim!…Hey! Why are you fighting me and screaming? NOTALLMEN!!!”
@Fruitloopsie
This book looks really uncomfortable to wear, though 😀
@Sunnysombrera & Bina
We’re supposed to be afraid, but not really, because then we’ll upset the menz. Do these people not see how those are two sides of the same coin?
@Rosa: yup.
BTW, back to the original topic, it looks like Judgy is all wet about a lot of things. Including, you know, all those sciency, inventive menz. Women invented computer programming, and discovered both nuclear fission (without which the Hadron Collider would be impossible) AND the DNA helix.
But yeah, let’s just give ALL THE CREDIT to those menz. Because we wouldn’t want to, you know, hurt their delicate manly feelings or anything that would make them dislike us!
@ Bina
How can you list women inventors without including Hedy Lammar and Barbara Cartland!?
Blame Mother Jones, Alan…they neglected them! And Admiral Grace Hopper, too.
Oh, they know. That’s the point. Keeping us under control through impossible demands.
@Bina
“If women don’t want to get raped, they shouldn’t go home with a man they only just met at a bar. But anyway – hey hot stuff, how about we catch a ride back to my place to chill? What do you mean no? It’s not like I’m gonna rape you, I just want to hang out! How could you think such a thing? Bitch.”
(I know this sounds very Roosh-esque and I was going to name it as such, except that he actually does rape women once he gets them home.)
As, in fact, do most guys who talk like that. But don’t hurt their fragile manfeelings by calling that RAPE!