Men’s Rights Activists and other antifeminists love playing “gotcha” — demanding answers to questions designed to make feminists look hypocritical or illogical or just plain dumb.
Trouble is, despite their fondness for the “gotcha” game, most MRAs and antifeminists just aren’t very good at it. Their questions, often based on gross misunderstandings, tend to reveal less about the alleged hypocrisies of feminists than they reveal about their own profound ignorance of feminism.
Let’s take a look at a few of these failed gotcha memes, collected from a couple of antifeminst Facebook pages and elsewhere online and making use of the popular philosoraptor meme template
Well, that would be because women have been systematically oppressed for thousands of years; in order to get to equality, we need to focus on the things that have held women back. It’s the same reason that the civil rights movement fought for the rights of black people instead of white people.
If you think it’s wrong to call oneself a feminist instead of a humanist or equalist or whatever, why do you support something called the Men’s Rights movement?
Uh, because fighting for the “rights” of a group of people who already have more than their fair share of privileges is backwards and silly? Because MRAs are less interested in making life better for men than they are in making things worse for women? Because most MRAs are ridiculous?
Uh, because they don’t? Feminists do sometimes point out that the overwhelming majority of rapists are men, but they don’t call all men rapists.
Er, what? That doesn’t make any sense. Among other things, ‘rapists” and “whores” aren’t equivalent categories, given that the latter category involves consensual sex and the former involves nonconsensual sex.
Do you not understand how adjectives work? When feminists talk about “toxic masculinity” they don’t mean that masculinity itself is inherently toxic any more than someone referring to a “red car” means that all cars are red. Some kinds of masculinity can be toxic; that’s what feminists are taking about when they talk about “toxic masculinity. As the Geek Feminism wiki explains it, “toxic masculinity … refers to the socially-constructed attitudes that describe the masculine gender role as violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth.
I don’t know why so many MRAs still don’t understand this; it’s certainly been explained to them more than enough times. And do MRAs not know how to use Google? That Geek Feminism definition I quoted above is literally the first result you get if you Google “toxic masculinity.”
And now we’re just getting silly. First off, fictional characters don’t hijack franchises; they’re fictional characters. Second, since when do movie franchises belong to a certain gender? There’s no movie law that says ghostbusters have to all be dudes, just because that’s what they were in the original Ghostbusters films.
Everyone has the right to defend themselves, but “hitting someone back” in a punitive manner is an escalation of the fight, and that’s not a good thing. Also, why are you putting “woman” in scare quotes?
I can’t even. What?
Also who the fuck Feminists are saying that it’s cool for women to hit men? These shitpiles are so dense that they think anything that is vaguely in women’s favour is caused by Feminism, even when those things are rooted in the sexism that Feminism is fighting to end.
“Society is okay with women hitting men, but not vice versa? FEMINISM!!!!!!”
Exactly.
Of course, these guys are looking for plausible excuses to go around beating on women, and then, when challenged/questioned/arrested for it, to whine “But SHE started it!”, just like the schoolyard bullies they are. Whether “she started it” is in fact irrelevant. They’re just salivating at the prospect of an “equal” right to hit a person they don’t, in fact, WANT being their equal. Beating is their way of keeping us unequal.
(And they also want women to be too scared to hit men BACK, because heaven forfend that we underlings should rise up against those who beat us down.)
http://i.imgur.com/hZB9UpX.jpg
Does society view women hitting men differently than men hitting women? Yes. Yes it does. However, what these guys (and, to my shame, I in my teenage years) don’t understand is that this doesn’t reflect our culture’s double standard in women’s favor. It reflects our culture’s habit of infantilizing women.
When a child hits an adult (in movies, news, or America’s Funniest Home Videos), it’s seen as funny or justified because we believe that the child is so small and weak there is no way they can do lasting harm to an adult. This is also why the adult retaliating is considered abhorant. Our perceptions of female on male violence and vice versa mirror this for similar reasons. And that’s fucked up.
It’s really simple guys. Just don’t hit anyone. It’s how I’ve lived my life and it’s worked pretty well for me so far.
@WWTH:
They’re not using that same image because they’re being lazy. I mean, they are being lazy, but that image is a more well established meme that they’re just using to further their lazy/ignorant/sexist/stupid message.
@Bina
That also fits in really well with the idea that a lot of the violence that occurs *among* men is ritualistic in nature; it’s a more about posturing and projecting strength among peers than inflicting harm. Yet when they talk about wanting to be able to “hit women back” it always seems to be very punitive in nature, rather than competitive. They aren’t interested in butting heads with women to establish dominance; they already know they are dominant, and want women to stay in their place. Violence against men is to impress men, violence towards women is to frighten women.
Philosophical Raptor is one of my favorite memes and I am upset enough about MRAs using it, let alone people who are on the internet a lot not knowing about it.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/crybaby.gif
I mean, am I the only memelordtrash on this site??
(sarcasm)
EDIT: Ninja’d. Boo.
Tough on straw, tough on the causes of straw.
Today I learned that film is a male franchise. And men’s rights are human rights (which they are) but human rights are exclusively men’s rights and “women” is a term used by feminists so it needs scare quotes and … and… and I’m lost here.
About the hitting/hitting back nonsense – not long ago I was talking to a police officer about the policing of our “night time economy” – the area of my city which at weekends resembles Dante’s vision of entertainment hell, only with kebabs.
He said that one of the most irritating things with policing there is when drunken blokes come within a few yards of the police, make eye contact, and then punch one of their mates.
The police have to break it up at once, of course – and then have to faff about processing it, and seeing the paramedics get to tend to the victim and so on.
They tend to suspect that the aggressors are relying on them breaking it up before the other guy can hit them back.
Ritualised, as dlouwe says – not to mention cowardly.
The officer I was talking to said they’d been discussing whether they could wait for the second punch before intervening.
But they can’t, for obvious reasons.
All in all, a great way to enjoy yourself.
Philosoraptor is supposed to ask stupid, meaningless questions. As such, he’s perfect for these memes!
Ah, okay. That…bothers me so much more than “MRA” already does.
I really wish it were “hat-wearing.”
I wonder why you bothered to put “playing ‘gotcha'” in the headline.
We want articles to have unique titles is why.
Zing!
IF FEMINSISTS EVOLVED FROMWOMEN THAN HOW COME THEIR R STILL WOMEN CHECK MATE
The last one is actually a correct application of the philosiraptor meme.
@Paradoxical
You just caused me an epiphany on the reason strawberries were called that way. I had never thought about that before.
The Spanish word “frutillas” merely means “small-ish fruit”.
Indeed! Most of the ones I remember (at least in Spanish) were also witty puns.
Ok, lots of bad puns too.
War on straw war on straw!
@Lea
I get the distinct impression that these guys could put out their shingle so to speak, and wait, and wait, then wait some more – because nobody wants what they’re selling. They’d of course then blame women for making them unsuccessful man-whores, rather than things like 1.) abysmal hygiene, 2.) the fact that they’re lousy company which combines with, 3.) no good at sex because they don’t even imagine that they’d need to find out what women like in bed, or care that hammering away is not it, plus the whole abysmal hygiene thing…
Oh, and many of them would freak the f-ck out should someone tell them that some actual man-whores (for lack of better wording, my apologies to sex workers of either gender and orientation) customers are other men.
Nothing quite makes my skin crawl like a man whose immediate comment on the topic of feminism is: “Gender equality means I can hit women too!” Or some other variance.
DUDE. SERIOUSLY. Your very first thought on gender equality is being “allowed” to punch the opposite gender?!?
Off topic, but I just found out my 90 year old Catholic grandmother who often votes Republican because of abortion is a Bernie Sanders fan. I was watching TV with her and a Bernie ad came on and she cried “go Bernie!” and started fist pumping. I was pretty shocked. I knew she dislikes Trump, but I didn’t think that would drive to the most far left candidate.
Good job driving off your non-frothing bigot voters, Republicans!
Apparently this whole GOTCHA meme is a thing now, among all kinds of people fighting “against” social justice of any kind. You’ve got racist knuckleheads trying their damndest to catch black people doing anything, (including just walking around and breathing) and yelling “Racism” at them. (Incidentally, when I told my white, male co-worker that there were sections of the internet that actively fights FOR injustice, he thought that was the funniest shit he’d heard all day. He just couldn’t believe it. If I mentioned MRAs, I think his head might explode.)
For example, that little eleven year old girl who did the “1000 Books for Black Girls” book drive, which is all kinds of cool, got called racist and a monkey by a woman teacher (of all people!) on Facebook. And then there were those people who totally lost their shit over the remake of The Wiz, and decided it was “Racist”. Never mind the existence of the original Wizard of Oz with nary a PoC in it. And those idiots who continue to point out that Black History month is …wait for it!
“Racism!”
Sometimes social media is full of such a sheer level of stupid, I have to avoid it for long periods of time, just to save my brain cells.
Cuz dayyum!
I sometimes think it’s hilarious how all the various -isms and -phobias are basically all being committed by the same people, all of them with the exact same arguments, because apparently, originality is their bee-yotch.
Why is “don’t hit people” so freaking hard for these guys?? If a woman is beating a man up – and this happens, I stitched up a guy who had his xbox smashed over his head last week, put in at least 30 stitches – she is absolutely at fault and should be charged with assault. If a guy is afraid for his life, he should absolutely fight back with the amount of force necessary to get away, and then, this is probably the part that these guys can’t figure out, get away.
The solution for somebody attempting to flee domestic violence is not to be violent back. The solution is to GTFO. So not only are these asshats advocating for violence, they are making life worse for men who are actually in violent relationships. Human rights activists indeed.
(Also, as an aside, I think it was last year that AVFM tried to do a “sting” of domestic violence helplines to “prove” they were sexist against men. In my city, there is a group that runs a domestic violence program specific to men, and I’ve personally referred several men to them. It’s true that I don’t treat male and female domestic violence victims the same – I make sure I spend extra time with men to normalize their experiences and assure them that they are not alone, that they are not weak, and that these experiences do not reflect on their masculinity.)
Again, these aren’t even the first female Ghostbusters.
That bridge was crossed in 1997 with Kylie Griffin, as any *actual* Ghostbusters fans already know. Man I hate fake geek boys.
Back around the time of the Civil War, some (privileged white and wealthy) first-wave feminists did, in fact, make some boneheaded statements sometimes about how they wanted equal rights but also wanted to retain the right to be handed out of carriages and shit like that.
That “equal rights plus extra shit” hasn’t come up recently. Like, in the past 100 years or so.
Usually MRAs are living in the 50’s, but in this case they are living in the 1850’s.