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?
I wonder if those dating strategy cites are going to be
A) evopsych argle bargle about how women are hypergamous (which is bad because reasons) and men can’t be monogamous because they have to spread their seed (which is good because naturalistic fallacy).
B) evopsych argle bargle about rape being okay because it’s a mating strategy
C) whining about how men don’t get enough hits on dating sites but women are inundated with dick pics, therefore female privilege
D) still more evopsych about how teen girls make the best mates
E) all of the above
PI,
And when there is a movie or show about women, it has to be a white cis conventionally attractive woman. So,everyone watches Orange is the New Black for Crazy Eyes, Sophia, Taystee, etc. but the show has to center around the pretty white rich character none of the fans even care that much about or it was never going to funded. At least Piper is queer though. I’ll give them that.
Considering the way The Force Awakens was an outlandish smash hit, we can now consider it officially proven that people will in fact watch movies with female leads. That is no longer a fact that can be questioned; there isn’t even room for it to have been more successful.
There’s a lot of interlocking reasons why a given movie might fail, but generally if a movie with a male lead fails people blame some aspect of the production or script and if a movie with a female lead fails people blame it on having a female lead.
Some women do want all-new franchises with female protagonists. But the thing is Hollywood executives secretly don’t actually know what they are doing. People generally have a hard time nailing down exactly why they like a given movie; they can name things they like but then not like another movie that has everything on the list. So Hollywood has a habit of replicating an old success as closely as possible while emphasizing the things they think people liked about the original, and they’re not likely to risk a lot of money on a new project in general. And superstition holds that female action leads are unpopular, so no way are they up for a new series and a female lead. If Star Wars has gotten through to them then they might greenlight some starting now.
And yeah, they tend to be conventionally attractive and white. Protagonists of either gender tend to be conventionally attractive; guys have a little more leeway for fashionably scarred, but not much. Hollywood superstition also holds that minority leads don’t sell and they’re therefore usually unwilling to double up.
@WWTH and guy: Also good points. There’s a bunch of intersectionality I didn’t address in my post, mostly because with ex-faux-feminists, you have to take it in baby steps.
I mean, we can’t let him know that PoC are, you know, people just yet. He can barely manage to get through the idea that women are people as it is.
@Bina
Thanks for posting that. I was a bit more charitable because I could imagine such a thing, but they were reasoning from a specific to dismiss a general. It’s good to have that information.
Sure, male romantic leads, action heroes, and brooding mysterious vampires tend to be conventionally attractive. But for every other type of role, there are plenty of regular looking men. Female roles tend to go to conventionally attractive women even when it isn’t necessary because the plot doesn’t require beauty and it isn’t a wish fulfillment type of role. Actresses who aren’t super beautiful are usually stuck playing roles where their fatness or plainness is a central plot point. I’m not a huge Gilmore Girls fan, but one thing I did love about it is that Melissa McCarthy’s character was just allowed to exist without everything being about her weight all the time. Viola Davis winning an Emmy was a huge deal because dark skinned black women who aren’t young and model thin are not usually recognized and not usually given nuanced and interesting roles.
Even if an actress is conventionally attractive, that won’t save her if she has the gall to age. Remember the post we had a while back about redditors were mangry about Monica Belucci being a Bond girl because they thought she was too old. But she’s around the same age as Daniel Craig and nobody thinks he’s too old to be sexy. Then there was the time Maggie Gyllenhal was told she was too old to be the love interest of a male lead in the same age group. I’ve been noticing lately that although Julia Roberts still gets work, she’s not typically the romantic lead or the sexy woman anywhere near as often. She’s only considered appealing to middle aged women now.
Also, when men that aren’t conventionally attractive are cast in something, women don’t have meltdowns on the internet about how they’re not hot enough. Women on the other hand are always subjected to boner verdicts. That’s why I loved Amy Schumer’s 12 Angry Men sketch so much. Although of course, the comments on stories about it were filled with men completely missing the point and debating her hotness. Sigh.
That’s another thing I love about Mad Max: Sure, Furiosa is white and conventionally attractive (under the grease), but she’s also physically disabled. And none of the other characters even mention it, much less define her by it, because it’s normal. No stares, no unwanted pity, no big deal.
You never see that in other movies. Ever.
Max wears a leg brace, too.
@WWTH
Only, I am certain, because she is based on a real-life person, who is bisexual, and that that fact couldn’t be written out of the bits based on her biographical account.
@Guy
A huge amount of marketing is like that; it’s based more on someone’s gut feelings and imitation of something that worked once for unkown reasons. Thus, it trends heavily towards reinforcing the common prejudices of the time, because gut feeling basically means ‘I didn’t analyse this’, which means it’s loaded with unexamined prejudices.
If that’s a privilege, they can have it. They can have the random photos of some random stranger’s genitalia taken in poor lighting and at a bad angle and just randomly suddenly on their screen while they’re at work because no one expects to open a text and see that shit. I know they probably think that’s awesome because they enjoy porn, but I also enjoy porn and don’t want unsolicited genitalia.
They can also take the 100 messages immediately upon signing up for a site, ranging from “hey cutie ;););)” to accusations that you must be a liar because you haven’t even finished filling out your profile so your height is set to the default 4’0″ (btw, wtf is that? Shorter people exist!) to 6-paragraph novellas about how dome dude 20 years older than you fell in love at first sight and how compatible you are with him (even though your profile I’d still missing all of the info) to the person who sends you like 5 messages in rapid succession and when you don’t respond within 20 minutes, flounces with “well your ugly neway, no ones going to f*ck you!!!” And I’m not even all that conventionally attractive, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for an HB8.
Sorry, had to rant about my privilege.
@kupo
That should be a compulsory experience for all guys, pretty much. I still remember being 15, using the MSN messenger, using a female sounding chat name, not figuring out how to set the thing to only accept messages from friends. Also, I accidentally clicked a box that said I spoke Spanish. BAM, 100 messages/day from random Spanish guys.
I had my age right though. *shudders*
I feel like I’m seeing a tiresome resurgence of the idea that equality in the technical wording of laws is the absolute most important lawmaking principle, as if that had any value whatsoever if it didn’t translate to equality in real life.
Not coincidentally, I hear this from people who a) stand to benefit from this rule and b) are really, really ignorant about what the law really says.
@WWTH (from yesterday, sorry, just got caught up with the thread):
But… but… but we get told what we can’t do with them! They tell us we can’t just stick them wherever we want whenever we want! Oppression! Oppression!!! Misandry!!!
Three Guns blasts us with this jumbled ahistorical gibberish.
Paradoxical Intention, bless their hearts, went to the trouble to find an article about this (Riding the Donkey Backwards: Men as the Unacceptable Victims of Marital Violence) and supply a quote so at least we now know in what centuries and on which continents some of this happened.
It turns out that Three Guns is pretty proud of that jumbled ahistorical gibberish because then they get all huffy when faced with factual information:
Seriously, I pity every history teacher Three Guns ever had.
“Emma Goldman was a part of these groups”? Huh? Emma Goldman wrote an essay about Seneca Falls 61 years after it took place, an essay you haven’t read or are simply incapable of understanding.
Three Guns is thick as a brick and not worth the effort.
@Paradoxical Intention
Wait, Karen Straughan has a YouTube video that’s less than an hour long? For real? I can’t believe it. The Honey Badgers responded to the BBC’s “Manosphere” half hour program with a three part video series that’s a combined 9 hours and 45 minutes long. I don’t think Straughan can pore a cup of coffee in less then an hour.
I’m pretty sure PI only has one heart but I failed to fix this typo despite the new mercy edit window. Sigh.
Hard pass on that
It reminds of a chapter in the Emerald City of Oz where Dorothy and some others are travelling through the country and they come across Rigmarole Town. It’s where the citizens of Oz send all their citizens who have the complete inability to ever be concise or get to the point. As you can imagine, if you haven’t ever read it, the gang get the hell out of that as fast as they can.
I’m starting to think YouTube is the real life 21st century version of Rigmarole Town. They spend all their time yammering on there and the only people who watch them are fellow rigmarole people. The rest of us can just blissfully not press play and move on with our lives.
@Three Guns
David is a journalist and he ably reports on the Manosphere.
I’m not sure what the hell you think you’re doing.
@Three Guns
I’ve reposted my earlier comment below, so that you can respond. Or are you busy reading Emma Goldman’s autobiography, Living My Life?
I don’t have time to read your entire rant, but the above leaped out at me. Your reading has been broad but hardly deep. I don’t believe that you even know who Emma Goldman was–that is, without referring to your notes.
You say that when the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments came out, she joined an opposition group.
The Seneca Falls Declaration came out in 1848. Emma Goldman was born in 1869. So no.
And yes, Emma Goldman opposed votes for women, but that was because she was an anarchist. You have completely misrepresented her stance. She was definitely a feminist!
http://kids.britannica.com/women/article-216007
As for the “demonetization” of men, why would you oppose ceasing to use men as a monetary standard?
You clearly need to read Emma Goldman! She would have passionately supported the demonetization of men. She did everything with passion. Start with Living My Life–it’s almost 1,000 pages. Then get back to us.
Wait, you only have one heart?
Not if it involves her pontificating about how awful women are to men because she’s looking to be “not like other girls”.
I’ve never heard someone talk so long while just saying nothing. All of her videos can be summed up like: “Women are awful because [reason].” or “[Thing] is all women’s/feminism’s fault.”
I watched a fourty-five or so minute video today on how to electrically wire dollhouses (Tapewire is so cool and “sconce” is a funny word). I’ve watched people play video games for an hour just to see if I’d like it. I’ve watched people open blind bags of Disney Villian keychains. I’ve watched people demonstrate how to make a Botania based wand in Thaumcraft in Minecraft mods.
And that was just today.
All of that is far more worth my time than Karen talking about how much she hates women. Especially because I’m a woman myself and I’m not going to put up with someone who obviously hates me for that long.
TW: Brief mention of female genital mutilation and its effects
@Three Guns
My penis is mutilated. It happened when I was a small baby. I had no choice in the matter, and there was no medically necessary reason for it to be done. Complaining about it is seen as strange. A mutilated penis is seen as normal.
So you must be very, very sympathetic to the 200 million women alive today (some in the USA) who have (unwillingly and not as a baby!) undergone genital mutilation. Right?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/06/health/200-million-with-fgm/
According to the World Health Organization, the following consequences are common:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/11/e006316.full
To the reader: Do not click through–and do not search Google for female genital mutilation–unless you feel especially strong.
I’m not going to relate horror stories here because they are just too horrible.
If you are feeling pretty strong, read Alice Walker’s book Possessing the Secret of Joy.
TW: Brief mention of female genital mutilation and its effects
@Paradoxical
I’m watching a WoW ironman challenge and every episode is an hour and thirty minutes long and a much better use of my time than watching anything the Honey Badgers have done.
I ruined two batches of pate de fruit, each takes about an hour of labor, and that was still a better use of my time than watching anything from the honey badgers.
I’m watching an absolutely terrible horror movie on Amazon. Still better than GWW. Then I will be watching an old gymnastics competition until I get sleepy. Way better than GWW.
I also expect work to be incredibly boring tomorrow. Not as boring as the Honey Badgers though.
@W.W.T.H.
It is quite amazing how many people are willing to spend so much of their time, on their computer, listening to people rant at them over some pet peeve of theirs’. It made sense that people would listen to talk radio when driving from their job and back – but it’s difficult to imagine why anyone would sit at their computer for an hour or more to do the same. Especially when everything stated is something they already heard of and agree with, which makes it even more pointless.
I’m willing to watch an episode of “Best of the Worst” from RedLetterMedia, even when they run for more than an hour, because it is fun to see these people watch and analyze terrible films. In fact, despite how awful they sound, it makes me want to watch them as well.
On the other hand, I’m willing to watch a debate that may go for two hours – such as the one between Bill Nye and Ken Ham – because it deals with an issue I have interest in and might learn something. Even if the only thing I learn is how current creationist rhetoric works.
I don’t get either from people like Karen Straughan – because her rants are not only dull, but they repeat talking points I’ve already heard a million times elsewhere. The only reason to watch her videos is purely ideological masturbation.