Every Friday is Memeday here at We Hunted the Mammoth, but this week I’m going to start the celebration a day early, with a collection of “told you so!” memes I found, mostly, on Men’s Rights and other antifeminist Facebook pages.
Now, most of us human beings enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude now and then; it’s not the most noble of emotions, but it’s kind of hard to resist laughing a little when some horrible person gets their comeuppance.
Men’s Rights Activists are a pretty bitter and immature bunch, so it’s hardly a shock to see them giggling away at other people’s misfortunes. But it’s still a bit surprising to see just how many of the memes they create and/or pass along are little more than meanspirited “told you sos.”
Even more striking is how many of them offer up a sort of future-tense Schadenfreude. They’re not laughing because some feminist they hate has gotten their comeuppance; they’re laughing at the possibility that this feminist will get their comeuppance some time in the future. And I don’t think I’m wrong to see a sort of anxious desperation underlying these memes; I think on some level most MRAs know their Schadenfreudy fantasies aren’t going to come true.
The meme posted at the top of the page — I posted it before in a roundup of memes from A Voice for Men — is a visual representation of the rather tired claim, repeated endlessly by MRAs, that feminist women will end up dying alone surrounded by a small army of cats.
It’s not clear to me exactly why MRAs find this prediction quite so hilarious. Women tend to live longer than men, which means that even the most staunchly antifeminist women are likely to outlive their partners, giving them pretty much the same chance of ending up “alone” late in their lives, at least if they have no family or friends outside of their late husbands.
But for some reason there aren’t a lot of feminists sitting around cackling at the thought of GirlWritesWhat dying alone at some date in the not-so-near future. Because that’s petty, and tacky, and mean.
In addition to being a stony-hearted bunch, MRAs also tend to be a bit impatient, and like to imagine their sworn feminist enemies having their Waterloos long before they get to the age of seventy.
And so MRAs fantasize about feminists having a sudden realization that they were wrong and the MRAs were right — shortly after hitting age 30 or whenever it is that modern misogynists like to imagine that women magically turn into pumpkin-faced uggos.
Dudes, only MRAs, misogynists and pedophiles think that a woman’s “best years” are in her teens and early 20s.
By why wait for these imaginary feminists to have some sort of drastically premature mid-life crisis when you can just pretend that they’ll all be miserable just as soon as they graduate from college with their women’s studies degrees.
Whoever made this meme picked an awfully cheerful-looking woman to represent a young feminist brokenhearted over having to work at Subway.
But women don’t have to work in food service to be miserable, the mememakers insist. Having to work ANY job at all is going to make them regret their feminism. Because apparently, before feminism came along, women were pampered creatures who slept all day on silk sheets, surrounded by bon-bon wrappers and an assortment of tiny dogs, while their husbands worked 25-hour-days in the salt mines.
Huh. Somehow I missed the part where feminism told women that working in an office was the closest thing to paradise on earth
Then there’s this tired trope, a lovely example of misogynoir turned into a meme by a black MRA cartoonist I first noticed on DeviantArt a couple of years ago.
And let’s end this survey of future-tense schadenfreude with a meme that somehow manages to work in two historical cartoons I really like and that I think I’ve posted here before.
I’m going to say, “yes,” except perhaps the portion of her life she spent married to a dickhead.
And because the first two cartoons there deserve better than to be shoved into a dopey antifeminist meme, let’s look at them in all their full-sized glory.
We love you, kickass suffragette girl!
This cartoon was originally intended as anti-suffragette propaganda, but, seriously, that girl is AWESOME.
Looking through the collection of anti-sufragette cartoons featured on the post I linked to above, I noticed another one that shows pretty clearly just how ancient and utterly unoriginal the “you feminists will all die alone” trope really is.
See, wanting the vote makes women UGLY!
Is is even necessary to point out the obvious: that despite all the mean cartoons they inspired, the suffragettes WON.
And here’s that other cartoon, of more recent vintage:
Wait, is that redhaired gal dating Carl Sagan?
Yup. I also wonder how she went from blond girl to black-haired woman. It’s like she’s not even the same person from one picture to the next!
ETA: Wow, what unsubtle colorism at work there too, eh?
Feminism leads to loneliness in old age? That’s got to be the biggest damn fallacy of all. Feminists are the ones looking at alternatives to loneliness in one’s senior years. We’re not the ones telling women to put all their happiness eggs in one man-basket, after all.
Plus, there’s this:
Trade feminism in for THAT? Sounds like a mighty bad bargain to me.
Stop!
Toddler time!
http://i.imgur.com/KAPXR5P.jpg
They are three years old!
If all the Feminists end up old and alone what happens to the:
Beta Orbiters?
Alphas?
Cucks?
Manginas?
White Knights?
And combinations thereof?
I thought the carousel riding feminists married their Beta Orbiters when they couldn’t snag an Alpha? Do Beta’s die at a younger age?
I’m always so confused
Seventy-two, surrounded by cats, dogs, and a lazy hen, and a lot happier than when I had men in my life.
Beta orbiters, White Knights and Mangina spontaneously combust at their 30th birthday, because they failed their sex. It’s a well know biological fact that testes generate a highly flammable oil in the first 30 year of life. At 30th birthday, the teste evaluate the worthiness of its bearer. If he isn’t a manbaby, women hating douche who scored an average of 3 HB10 bitche a year, the testes release the oil and the guy self combust.
When did the hatchet become associated with suffragettes, anyway? I thought that was more a temperance thing.
Oh! Wait! The two can comfortably be equated because everyone knows that older women organizing for a cause are nothing more than a collection of scolding nags, so the various slogans, memes and appurtenances of one set of scolding nags are interchangeable. No understanding of nuance, or even paying of much attention, required! (MASSIVE sarcasm)
And, of course, the message of all the MRA memes is that feminists are just more of the same, doncha know, and no one wants a scolding nag.
Once you’re under the yoke of the hypergamous feminist, your life force ebbs considerably.
Why do these guys assume that feminists never have romantic relationships or marry? It’s weird. I’ve been a self-proclaimed feminist since I knew that feminism existed and I’ve been married for 46 years and have two kids and two grandkids. WTF is wrong with these people? They live in an alternate reality. I make a point to have younger friends and keep good relationships with my nieces and nephews because I have no intention of being lonely in my old age, which would be true even if I weren’t a feminist. These people live in a bubble, apparently, and no reality is allowed to intrude.
I love the “have fun with your cats, feminists!!” line. Like… yes, yes I will, thanks. I’m pretty sure literally every interaction I’ve ever had with my cat has been more fun than spending time with an MRA, and that’s including the time she pooped on my bed. While I was in it.
Also, Oravanystava makes a really good point. Where exactly are all these old, bitter, unfulfilled, regretful feminists wishing they’d shut up and married a misogynist back in the 70s? They seem to be awfully quiet.
Amused, if that is Ivan Bunin you are talking about, I never got that the lady in “Sunstroke” got drowned. She apparently went back to her husband and daughter without a hitch, and it was her one-night stand who was left wandering desolate around some summer-dusty Volga town.
Quite a few women in the literature of that day died in childbirth, because quite a few did so in real life. Without contraception or Caesarian delivery available, it was pretty common. When a doctor or a nurse/midwife attended a home birth, they carried instruments that would make you faint… giant corkscrews for drilling and collapsing a baby’s skull, giant nutcrackers for collapsing it; decapitaters. During a stuck birth, that was the only way to save a woman’s life. If the husband did not permit this intervention… oh, well.
@Falconer: There was some overlap between suffragists and the Anti-Saloon League, at least in that both were against drunken men spending all their wages on booze, and then coming home to abuse their wives. Only a complete nincompoop would equate that with being anti-fun, however.
Meanwhile, the very fun-loving David Bowie also liked him some suffragettes, if the lyrics here are any indication:
I graduated from MRA college and got the job of my dreams. Yelling at women online while people even dumber than me fork over all of the money that they really should be using to pay child support.
Moratorius
“Alphas” probably die sooner, due to higher testosterone levels, which decreases the survival probability from prostate cancer. Not to mention all those fights over HB9s.
#misandry
http://www.medicaldaily.com/ring-finger-length-may-predict-prostate-cancer-survival-241968
I maintain, “being in company of cats that love you” is not the worst fate in this world.
Also, has anyone else noticed that women with 2 or 3 cats are being called “crazy cat lady”, even when all cats are well-fed, not attention-starving, well-behaved, and so on? Instead of compulsive cat-hoarding it used to imply?
Another happily married feminist couple here, so I’ll just leave a little present-tense schadenfreude here, featuring a pretty hardcore WGTOW specimen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11359317/109-year-old-woman-reveals-amazing-theory-on-the-secret-to-a-long-life.html
Huh. My comment disappeared, but WordPress recognizes that I’ve already said something, and it’s not stuck in moderation. Weird.
I was just breaking up the fun by linking to today’s contender for Horrible Fucknugget of the Year: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/patrick-fox-web-attack-revenge-porn-criminal-harassment-desiree-capuano-internet-1.3444576
Warning: I haven’t peeked, because no, but the CBC comments are notorious for their awfulness.
Let’s get back to mocking bad memes, shall we?
@Jamesworkshop: “Why wait? become MRA/MGTOW and you can be lonely today!”
Right? So dumb.
I am getting really sick of being told that being surrounded by a small army of cats is a bad thing and that having cats and having a relationship are mutually exclusive.
I know it’s just a trope, but it’s super annoying. Men often also like cats, and I’m, contrary to popular belief, capable of loving both my fur babies and a human being at the same time.
And if I end up alone at 70 I am not going to be the least bit unhappy to fill my time with furry friends just because some grumpy dude thinks it’s pathetic for no reason that anyone’s ever bothered to explain to me.
Razwick: As someone who is going to be a kittymom to two cats very soon (SQUEE!), along with my Significant Otter who love-love-loves cats, you’re spot on!
Seconding all the great comments here.
Also I seriously love memesday! I’m glad this is a regular feature Thanks for this bit of happiness, David.
Re: feminists being lonely alone when they’re 70
Isn’t the Manosphere dream of the women they would like to marry more likely to be alone. Assuming they can find the woman who has no red flags and fulfills whatever ridiculous functions they require, these men are statistically more likely to die before their spouse, leaving a woman who had no interests, no social life, nothing outside this gasbag of a man. Her kids are grown and maybe don’t live in the same town and probably only see her on rare occasions out of obligation because she has no personality.
Re: education meme
As a college professor, I get to see what happens to students after they earn degrees, and it is interesting to see what kinds of jobs there are out there for students with “worthless degrees”. Granted, most students do not just have a single major but combine majors, minors, tracks, specializations and do internships, study abroad, community service and other things to spice up their resume.
Lesson: study what interests you and get some good career advice (usually free at your university).
Also, I was a grad in the late ’80s and a lot of my friends worked in retail or restaurants or both during their 20s. They eventually found work in a satisfying field.
Lesson: the thing you do right out of college does not have to last your whole life.
RE: the woman who is having a bad day with papers piled up.
Newsflash: every job has its annoying parts!!! I know, I know, you can pick yourself up and try to catch your breath.
I love my job most of the time. I enjoy teaching, I love interacting with most colleagues, there are moments of joy and creativity. However, there are times when I hate it. Paperwork, bureaucracy, that crappy colleague who’s an asshole or a little Napoleon or whatever…
RE: army of cats
When I met my husband, we both had a cat, and this was one of the areas of compatibility. When we moved in together, one of the things we did was adopt another cat to symbolize our relationship. Several years later, we fostered kittens who totally did a number on us and we adopted them. For several years, we were “those people” with 5 cats. Three have since passed away, and we adopted another cat, so we have three. We love our little feline friends. And my stepson would have nothing but cats.
I’m think projection here. It’s not like your average MRA keyboard warrior has much to look forward to.
@ Arctic Ape and Bina
Indeed – and I suspect a breast reduction too, somewhere between age 20 and 40.
Possibly the poor dear foolish woman has been and gone and got herself an education, which, it is well known*, shrivels the breasts and makes the uterus shrink to the size of a walnut.
[* Well-known to 19th-century opponents of women’s access to education.]
I’d never heard it changed hair colour, but objectively speaking, dark hair just IS less attractive than blonde. (I’ve known that since I was five, even though my parents made sure they got me a dark-haired doll). / sarcasm.
The other disturbing thing about that meme is that the woman in it has peaked in her attractiveness when she’s still young enough to be playing with dolls, for goodness sake
Then she’s on the Coquette Carousel at 20. Taking your glove off in the presence of a man to whom you are not married just RUINS a woman.
@Mary Contrary
What a great article! I’m not a fan of porridge and I got married. Oops!