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
@WWTH
I particularly like that he complained about people saying what type of humor was correct or not, and then he makes a claim about people not being funny.
Tehy5
Just go, no one wants another person to mansplain to them about trans people, how everyone should live their lives and they’re wrong if they don’t want that kind of life. Stop with the hyprocrisy and mansplaining and just go.
This is probably wierd but I wish we had better trolls.
*crosses fingers and tries to blockquote*
Yeah, as an aromantic, allosexual woman with no maternal instinct whatsoever, this would be hell. And fuck you sideways with a cactus for trying to tell me what would make me happy.
*awards one internet for perfectly used Firefly reference*
@ EJ (The Other One)
Internet pants:
pants that exist only in cyberspace. (Popular fashion worn by someone who also only exists in cyberspace)
For context:
Person 1: so I was having cybersex last night with hotchick69
Person 2: are you telling me you’re so out of it that it means something to you that you got down hotchick69’s internet pants? You know that online isn’t real right?
** A more complex version ‘Ashley Madison wears internet pants.
– I had to add another definition of “internet pants” because the first one is tmi/gross… I’m way more satisfied with ‘political jujitsu, don’t care that the two had to be combined because neither get much in the way of up-votes but do get down-votes – I don’t care what those kids ‘like these days didn’t need their u-votes anyway!
political jujitsu
the political fighting style in which an opponent’s energy and position is used against them with an emphasis on throwing out baseless claims in the press, immobilizing their funds and selectively applying the principles of balance (eliminating it), leverage (from back room deals), and momentum (from relentless lobbying) and as a last resort, putting important decisions on hold until the next session.
Judging by all of the legislation that congress has voted on in his favor, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle is a master of political jujitsu.
Thanks Chesselwit. I’m glad someone got it, I can’t post memes from my phone for some reason.
In the universe where we’re married and have kids, are our incomes and living spaces increased accordingly? That would have a large effect on whether it made me happier.
My thoughts on kids: aww, how cute… uh, why are you sticky? Where’s your adult?… your kid is adorable but I have no clue what mystery substance they managed to get covered in. Subtext: and it’s not my fucking problem!
Adorable, lovable, sticky messes that I prefer to hand back to their parents before I get covered in bodily fluids.
Agreed. This is why I love being an aunt. I get to do all sorts of fun things with my nephews, but I get to give them back to their parents. This is something that I still struggle with sometimes. I thought that I wanted to have kids, but it took me a long time to figure out that it was because I was told that I should want to have kids. I was socialized to think of getting married and having kids as a goal, which is kind of messed up. I still think about it sometimes, but the longer I wait (*gasp* I’m 31, unmarried and no kids), the more I think that it’s not something that I want. Pregnancy sounds awful. It would be a huge problem for my career because pregnant people aren’t allowed to work in microbiology labs. Not to mention the fact that I am finally realizing all the cool stuff I can do (like traveling and climbing mountains and long distance hiking) that would be difficult or impossible with kids. On top of that, my partner doesn’t really want kids either.
To the troll,
You don’t know me. You have no idea what makes me happy and I didn’t ask for your opinion.
Tehy5: Wow, that blockquote mistake was epic.
Well, there you go. Men’s “comfort” comes first at the expense of others personal space and convenience. Women should just accept not being able to an open seat or having her personal space invaded because the man’s comfort is much more important. The perpetuation of the idea that men are allowed and are supposed to take up as much space as they can, while women are supposed to make herself as small and quiet as possible. Definitely not an issue feminists should even consider.
Well, this is a fun self perpetuated thing isn’t it? Not long ago, women were forbidden (both legally and socially) from working in science, so of course it’s women being “added.” Which automatically makes them the “other”. Then look at the many professional fields and practices that women were historically forbidden from even attempting. So in all these fields, women are automatically the other and a disruption to the men who get the default status simply because women were forbidden in the past. Even though romance goes both ways, because women were oppressed historically, it’s all their fault when romance happens in the workplace. This is just a means to keep women out. An excuse. Another part of the “no girls allowed” sign.
Well, if the “Royal Council of Science” doesn’t want a member of its council promoting segregation of scientists, then don’t they have the right to remove them?
You really don’t understand the gender roles and gender identity thing. Let’s try it this way. Let’s start from birth of cis-female child. She will identify that she’s a girl at a pretty young age… and guess what, she learns how “girls” should be through observation of the world around her. The socialization starts very young. Also, keep in mind, little kids don’t buy their own stuff… The parents provide them. This will also help shape a kids view of gender. So the girl grows up seeing what stuff is meant for girls, and what stuff is meant for boys. These are very learned.
This means there are two different factors involved here. Gender identity vs gender roles. An internal knowledge of ones gender, and the societal rules regarding gender. And gasp, people are affected by societal policing of gender. It can affect what interests one feels more comfortable pursuing. Like if a boy really wanted a toy cooking set, and also but slightly less wanted a baseball, he’d know which one is for boys, and even though he had more desire to play at cooking, he’d learn there would be much less social resistance to play baseball, so he’d choose that. These kinds of interactions between our desires and social pressures continue through out life.
Trans and non-binary people are also affected by social pressure of what it means to be a boy vs what it means to be a girl. This doesn’t mean the trans-woman’s lady brain automatically pushes her to girly things, but it’s an interaction between her perceptions growing up in a society with enforced gender roles. And how individual trans women express themselves is not as 1 dimensional as you believe. For non-binary people, because societal pressure tries to force a binary option, and doesn’t allow much wiggle room, when they are young and recognize their own non-binaryness, it’s confusing because the outside forces disagree. So they have competing forces of knowing they aren’t one or the other and society not only assigning them a role for them, but also telling them they’re wrong about their own perceptions.
Gender roles are just a bunch of traits assigned to a gender, like a stereotype that got so out of hand, it became a rule enforced on people. It harms people who do not express the traits enough, or try pursue an interest assigned to the other group. Let me math it up for you. For a man to go into engineering, he must have (i)nterest + (d)rive + (a)ptitude + (o)pportunity (opportunity can further be broken up and divided across other intersectional axes, like class and race) to reach (s)uccess. A woman can have the same interest, drive, aptitude and opportunity, but will also have a level of resistance to negative pressures faced solely on (g)ender. So for men it’s I+D+A+O= S and for women it’s I+D+A+O+G= S Depending on the field, the value of G is higher, as there are more social pressures. As a feminist, I’d like to get rid of the requirement for G and make the equations more equal. (As an intersectional feminist, I also want to get rid of many of the factors in O.)
You may think this is all wrong, but if it is, why is there even the need for policing it at all? Why would we need to enforce any role at all? Wouldn’t it just happen naturally without anybody telling others they’ll be “happier” if they have a baby? Or telling men what it takes to be manly? There would be no need to ever shame men for being too feminine, or to harass and insult women who try to invade “men’s occupations.” No reason to tell girls they don’t do math. No beating up boys who like dolls. In the past, there would have been no need to institutionalize women who got too uppity. Or kill women who wore pants, or tried to fight in wars. None of this would be needed because it wouldn’t happen. But no, we hold fast onto gender roles and even you insist that simultaneously that men act like men naturally and then say we need to start teaching boys to act like men again.
How about we eliminate what a particular gender is “supposed to do” and just let people follow their own interests?
Oh! and Tehy5, you should read this thing about the men “arrested for manspreading.”
And even considering the people here who do have or do want to have kids… Shockingly, trollboy, different people like different things. We’re not some sort of robotic clone hivemind. What I want doesn’t affect Catalpa’s life any more than what you want affects my life, nor should it.
And even then, I still don’t fit into your magical biotroofs-approved roles. I’d love to have kids, but I’m also a goth nerd who works in STEM, plays video games all day and would rather cut my own hands off than wear a pink frilly dress. Oh shit! Different people like different things! =P
(And before the inevitable “CANDY CRUSH ISN’T A GAAAME! FAAAKE!” – well, it is a game, but that’s irrelevant. I’m playing Resident Evil 4 today.)
On the subject of manspreading: To me, it’s not even about them taking up space. Annoying, but I can deal with that. No, what I hate about manspreading is how spreaders all dangle their balls out of their shorts, fondle themselves through their pants or comment on how huuuge they are whether or not you’ve even looked in their fucking direction. ALL OF THEM. It’s not “First World problems,” it’s fucking sexual harassment.
Manspreading is a tasteless act which is completely without justification. Anyone who does it – especially on crowded public transport – is basically wearing a giant “I WAS IMPROPERLY SOCIALISED” sign.
I’m male. I have genitals large enough to terrify horses. I can sit with my fucking legs together. If I can do it, so can you.
D-bags: “Women close your legs and also respect yourselves and others”
:says while sitting with their legs wide opened, taking up so much space when sitting around others and sometimes even fodeling themselves”
Lady spreading
http://images.elephantjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/unnamed7.jpg
Again with using women of color from other countries and other underprivileged women to shut up white women from America even though we have feminists working on these issues.
http://i.imgur.com/SS0hSkj.jpg
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/946/070/a13.jpg
Deviantart
http://t10.deviantart.net/d1-4uDLUVF3xtxDLX37sdGgvghg=/300×200/filters:fixed_height(100,100):origin()/pre01/a89d/th/pre/f/2015/072/1/d/mcheroism__manspreading_by_mexpiratered-d8krn5l.jpg
http://pre04.deviantart.net/70e3/th/pre/i/2015/014/f/3/man_spreading_by_anouchis-d8dv8gu.jpg
What?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bfH2E2Unnoo/VKcQOPB0exI/AAAAAAAAEws/vstiVTiKQKg/s1600/10898219_972560216105502_8975929995234421778_n.jpg
Avfm meme
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Manspreading-Image.jpg
What men think of women blog
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cskf34Rfsow/VZdNZ7__unI/AAAAAAAANys/L8rovgufQS4/s1600/manspreading.png
Something happened to men, let’s blame feminism but yeah women shouldn’t take up space either. Just because a woman does something wrong doesn’t make her a feminist just like any man does something wrong doesn’t mean he’s a mra.
http://img.ifcdn.com/images/5cb56ec6d434cf9b44f187ad67e3ba97c1b5bcd7a1a373c5de03e578b0321412_1.jpg
My post was deleted ah well anyway about “man spreading” no one should take up space but the biggest problem are men and boys who would sexually harass women and girls by touching them, keep bothering them when she clearly wants to be left alone, show their genitals and even touch themselves. These aren’t “first world problems” this is disgusting and even terrifying and don’t even try to excuse this with that “biology” nonsense and then be hyprocritical/contradicting and complain about “misandry” and women/girls should take responsibility in the same breath.
Oh trolly5, you fail so hard. First with blockquoting (did you REALLY have to make it take up half the page??? You do realize no one bothered to read that, right?), and now this:
Actually, EVERYTHING you’ve said here is assholish, because you are by definition an asshole. You came here to defend the idiocies of one Janet Fucking Bloomfield, who is also an asshole. How is THAT not assholish? Also, this:
Well, at least you admitted you were trying to stir up trouble. Problem is, a lot of us (myself included) are cis feminists who heartily support trans rights, because we see how trans people’s struggles parallel and often intersect with our own, and we figure it is better to work on those together than apart. Also, we feminists (including trans people) often see prescribed gender roles, the kind you’re apparently very fond of, as at best merely arbitrary and ridiculous, when they’re not complete bullshit. Kind of puts a crimp in your tidy little theory about us there, doesn’t it?
And this, too, is intensely assholish:
Dude, you barged in here demanding elaborate explanations for our views, then discounted any that anyone took the time to give you. Why won’t simple ones (which are also true — we don’t owe you shit, remember) suffice you?
Also, my cussing you isn’t “random”, it is utterly intentional, and you fucking deserved it. You may fancy yourself some kind of brave neo-intellectual, but you really are a good ol’ garden variety idiot, the kind I’ve been demolishing online since the mid-1990s. (Yep, I’m one of those older women you so love to deride!) You came barging in here to defend the idiocies of an idiot with even more idiocies, and somehow the onus is on US to prove YOU wrong? That’s hilarious, troll. Why not just barge into someone else’s house, shit on their carpet, and then demand that the home-owners prove it was shit, and not roses, that you dropped there for them to pick up? Seriously, trolly…FUCK YOU.
You came in here looking for a fight, so don’t complain that you got one, and it isn’t on your picky widdle terms. The onus is on you, the troll, to prove yourself right, not us to prove you wrong.
Pick up your own damn shit, while you’re at it.
Urban Dictionary is not more valid as a resource because it’s written mainly by teenage and early-20s online trolls. It is LESS valid for those very reasons. Young people are, after all, not renowned for their well-developed intellects or their superior judgment, only their trendiness. Trendiness does not cleverness make.
And outsiders defining feminism does not a valid working definition of feminism make, either. Feminists define feminism. Online trolls — juvenile ones in particular — do not. Capisce?
Oh, and UrbanDictionary is not the “brave resistance” to some “1984-style conspiracy”. Actually, it’s rather more like the constant rewriting and dumbing-down of language that takes place in the book. Clearly, you have either not read that book, or not understood what it actually says. Otherwise you would be aware of that.
And you wonder why we laugh at you? Dude, do yourself a huge favor and don’t come back until you’ve learned a good old-fashioned thing which most people value, and which smart people value highly. It’s called READING COMPREHENSION.
If manspreading is a first world problem, than getting angry at people telling you to shut your damn legs and be courteous on public transit is really a first world problem.
Seriously. Feminists are not saying that manspreading is the worst problem to ever exist. We’re just saying that the tendency of men to take up multiple seats and press their legs into their (usually female) seatmates feels like a subtle act of aggression. The fact that internet anti-feminists have had a complete meltdown about the discussion just proves us right.
Just stay in your own seat, asshole. Your nads don’t need two or three seats.
Once this woman sat next to me on the bus. She had a toddler, a sizable purse and a diaper bag and she managed to keep herself and her stuff and her kid in her own seat. The diaper bag went on the floor beneath her, the kid and the purse on her lap. I always think of her whenever dudes complain about how simply can’t help but encroach on other’s personal space because it’s sooo uncomfortable for their fragile little bodies to keep their legs at hip width apart. If she can do it, they can do it.
WWTH — ok, I’m impressed. I can do it with my climbing backpack, and laptop bag, but add a kid in? That takes both skill and good parenting, cuz toddlers squirm!
And idk about everywhere (duh), but in NYC it’s just flat not legal to take up two seats — be it your bag, feet, or massive balls. You paid for one seat, you get one seat, this is not difficult, and certainly not some anti-man feminist conspiracy!
Wow, Tehy5’s block quote demonstrated the spaghettification process! Would it be appropriate to draw parallels with troll logic and the dangers of entering black holes?
Ok my comment is back, huh weird.
@sn0rkmaiden
I don’t know, but I am experiencing a surge in my wish to avoid both troll’s questionable logic *and* black holes, should one ever happen to show up nearby enough to be a danger.
That spaghettified nonsense was painful just to scroll past. I can’t imagine what it would have done to someone trying to read it – ok yes I can, and it involves exploding heads.
Some of those women in that last MRA meme look like they’re trying to squeeze themselves and their stuff into the corner and not take up too much space. It sort of betrays that they’re actually mad at us for existing, we don’t actually have to be doing anything inconsiderate to incur their wrath.
Also, all those women appear to be on fairly empty cars. There aren’t any pictures with obviously uncomfortable men squished into the corner beside them and politely not saying anything.
WWTH
And they say we are the entitled ones who overreact.
Katz
Theres no problem with people (no matter what gender) who spread out on the seats if there are no people around, the problem is that people (usually men and boys from what I see) are making others uncomfortable with sexually harassment and taking up room when it’s crowded and if it’s uncomfortable to sit down then stand up and leave some room for everybody.