So a judge in Ontario has said “nuh-uh” to a deceased doctor’s plan, set forth in his will, to set up scholarships for straight, white, single students.
As the National Post reports:
[Dr. Victor] Priebe’s will asked the trustee to set up bursaries for students planning studies in science …
It said one should be directed to “Caucasian (white), male, single, heterosexual students,” while the other should be reserved for a “hard-working, single Caucasian white girl who is not feminist or lesbian.” …
There were other odd stipulations, too, such as that the male bursary should not go to anyone who plays inter-collegiate sports, and that the recipient should ideally demonstrate “they are not afraid of hard manual work in their selection of summer employment.”
But the judge, a known woman by the name of Alissa Mitchell, says she can’t let something so blatantly discriminatory to stand.
Naturally, the good folks in the Men’s Rights subreddit are outraged by this assault on all that is good and decent.
“I am a white heterosexual single male, and I quite like myself that way,” a fellow calling himself CompayViejo declared, in a comment that got more than a dozen upvotes.
And I associate with other white heterosexual single males, and I generally think my friends are really a great bunch of people to be around. Does that make me racist and homophobic too?
Although we’d really have to read the guy’s entire will for an informed opinion, it’s just harrowing that nowadays, apparently you’re a racist homophobe just because you want to do something for a certain defined section of society after your death. …
Men, white heterosexual men, really have it quite bad these days in many Western “civilized” countries and are increasingly being marginalized. In a world like that, if you really think that scholarships for white heterosexual men are against the interest of the state, then that’s just pathetic.
Maybe this video will help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ESgWlzQQag
H/T — r/againstmensrights
Hello.
Yeah, as a religion, there are Jew from many places and many colors, but i guess he suppose all jews are from Middle East… There are people who still use “jew” as an race/origin rather than religious belief, which is quite puzzling in an era of overinformation.
Next step : i suppose they are going to also exclude the redhairs ?
By the way, what about the non-white Caucasians ? And the white non-Caucasians ? Does his course only accept white south russians ? Is he a mole for the FSB, still believing the Cold war is running ?
Have a nice day.
I’m generally in favour of people being able to do whatever they like with their money – including setting up a dipshit scholarship somewhat like these. However, I very much doubt that the ‘benefactor’ had in mind actually developing a real scholarship fund and rather had in mind stirring up the shite. Since he’s made these available to people who are white and STEM (for the male) there were other ways to make this doable without causing comment or legal action. You can do that by specifying STEM (not illegal) and then selecting particular secondary schools which are predominantly white (also not illegal) and specifying one scholarship each for boys and girls (I think that’s probably not illegal, but I don’t know). The sexuality issue is so invasive (and easily evaded by not disclosing) that the ‘good’ Dr would have just had to take his chances. Yes, even with restrictive criteria it’s possible that someone he really disliked might get the scholarship (say a gay black male STEM student) but if he chose carefully, the chances of this would be fairly limited. This scholarship sounds impossible to administrate, the criteria is just so poorly set out. Plus what happens if the girl started attending university and then became a feminist? How would they test this?
I was the recipient of a scholarship that was only available to people who graduated from a three county area and majored in a specific subject (agriculture) at a specific university. Chances are that person would have been white and male – as it was it went to someone white and female when I had it. I doubt that it was the benefactor’s intention to deliberately exclude anyone who wasn’t white (but I don’t know that), they just happened to have been from that area and studied that subject at that university. It also happens that these are very white geographic areas, a very white-dominated and somewhat more male-domincated subject area at a fairly white university. The outcome was more white male students getting the scholarship, but the intention was (probably) ok and the scholarship was legal.
@epitome of incomprehensibility: In Ontario, it still takes four years to get a degree at a college. At least mine did! It’s also super weird in that we have a hierarchy of ‘most valuable post secondary’ that goes university, college, technical/apprentice things. Which i think is bullshit, my degree from college is no worse than a degree from a university, i worked my ass off for it.
While i agree that the focus should be less on funneling everyone to get some sort of degree and making a profit on it, i’m still frustrated by the ballooning class sizes in my program. They have always had difficulty finding teachers with both the practical industry experience as well as the qualifications (a masters that if pretty useless EXCEPT for teaching, and i don’t think you have been able to get one for long).
Teachers are overwhelemed, and are quitting. Students can’t actually fail, even when their work is SO subpar it looks awful, or they clearly didn’t do the assgnment. They can not show up and do no work on the group project, which is the point of the entire third year, and still be back for year four.
It’s just so obvious that the school is running a really respected program into the ground for money, and it really will devalue my degree. It’s not the fault of kids who got in, but maybe should have practised their skills for another year, i hope they are able to keep up with the program. It took me two tries to get in, and i know people who tried for longer.
Gaah. The whole thing is frustrating.
EJ:
I’ve heard the concept of “white” race originated in colonial America, presumably in opposition to “black” race (later on, “red” and “yellow” people were arbitrarily crammed in the skin color scheme). Looks like “white” originally heavily implied “English or passing as such”.
Wonder if the Revolution was the main reason why America’s ruling ethnicity stopped calling themselves English?
It is rare indeed, and sometimes mistranslated/misunderstood from American usage.
Buttercup:
Hey, my STEM field is agriculture. I deal with literal plant stems, in a literal field.
Just a head’s up: Another oppressed white guy was banned from Twitter. Robert Stacy McCain, the racist anti-feminist who sometimes writes for AVFM. Now they’re giving him the Milo treatment.
Dave,
I would love to hear your opinion on the Kesha ordeal. I am not surprised the MRA/JudgeyBitch/AVFM audiences have already attacked Kesha the day of the verdict.
Thanks!
Oops, i didn’t mention how ridiculous it is to look down on people who went a more technical route with an apprenticeship, or who just work without any extra schooling. I am super happy when someone who clearly loves what they are doing is getting paid for it, it takes all kinds of people to make up a society.
I also hope that people who are working a job for the money and not because it is a passion also enjoy some aspect of it, even if it’s the money.
Basically education doesn’t make someone better, because it is super expensive and that is just not fair.
@Miss Andry: ugh, i googled that and every result was basically ‘THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR’.
@ Arctic Ape – That’s so cool! You STEM stems, and your field is fields!
I didn’t mean to imply manual labor and science are mutually exclusive. Practical, hands-on experience can be really valuable when it’s related to the area of study. It’s just the way the scholarship qualifications are worded – “not afraid of hard manual work” – that sound suspiciously like reverse snobbery. It’s like he thinks college kids are lazy hothouse flowers who would benefit from being taken down a peg or two by breaking rocks in the hot sun.
Speaking of race, something that always bothers me is how white MRAs talk about police brutality as a men’s issue. That in itself isn’t wrong at all (it absolutely should be addressed), but they try to remove the race aspect of it. One redditor even said that police killings “are not about them being black, its about them being men”. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but AMR documented it. (Ignoring that black women are killed by the police as well, more than white men I think). It’s also like how they bring up black men being lynched after being falsely accused of rape, ignoring that the reason behind this wasn’t because the lynchers were rabid feminists who were incredibly concerned with sexual violence but because they were violent racists who hated the idea of a black man and a white women sleeping with each other, regardless of if it was consensual or not. Like they’re acting as if it’s in the same category of how they picture false accusations.
A men’s rights movements that actually did good would spend a LOT of time on the issues of black men (and other marginalized men), but MRAs just want to separate race from the issues black men face. Not surprising seeing that a lot of MRAs tend to believe in “reverse racism” and the like.
More specifically, my field is horticulture, which is a) about as stereotypically unmasculine as you can get in science and b) rather women-dominated demographically.
Also, I’ve only done a couple summers of “real” full time gardening work and it was indeed hard enough for me to appreciate an office career. And while I love doing some manual field and greenhouse work associated with my research, it’s arguably not very smart use of my time.
@epitome of incomprehensibility
In non-Quebec parts of Canada, “University” generally means institutions that offer graduate studies (as well as undergrad), whereas “college” generally means institutions that offer only undergrad. There’s also “community colleges” which offer 1-2 year certificates and diplomas, plus various other programs.
Supernova,
They also fail to mention that when white men do face brutality, they’re typically in a marginalised group. They’re homeless, mentally ill, or disabled. It’s not like upper class abled white suburban men are being dragged from their BMWs and shot. But discussing that would mean that admitting white men aren’t marginalized for being white men, making their movement invalid.
I argued with my father, a substitute teacher over this. He sent a high school girl to the office for the offense of wearing a tank top, causing some boys to be distracted from their work. Finally, I lost patience and said, “So, based on what you’re saying, if one of your granddaughters when she’s older wore a short skirt that caught a guy’s attention and he decided to try to put his hand up it, she’d totally be at fault for it for distracting him with her sexy attire?” It was a quiet and awkward dinner after that.
Wow, what a bunch of bullshit. Oh no, the boys weren’t misbehaving; the clothing choices of another person caused them to become distracted. What a lovely introduction to “Every Bad Thing Men Do Is A Woman’s Fault”
The average hetro white guy has as many problems as a round peg going into a round hole; unless you’re trying to shove the peg in sideways, everything’s fine.
In high school, I was fired from a job for ‘distracting the boys’. It was at a takeout pizza place. I was the only person there who would work extra hours (we needed the money) and do the shit jobs no-one else wanted to do, but yeah – apparently, I was too distracting. My mum called the boss up and gave him shit, which of course did nothing except make us feel even more frustrated.
Saphira, good for you challenging your father on that. I hope he really takes it to heart.
@Policy of Madness
Because of course god forbid the poor have dignity, privacy, or a semblance of family life.
@PoM
I have some mixed feelings about this. I think that having access to free necessities like food and housing would be a good thing, but I don’t think it necessarily replaces social services. It’d be nice to know there is a safety net in case I lose my home, but an infinitely preferable situation is to not lose my home in the first place.
One alternate idea that I’ve heard proposed is replacing social services with a guaranteed monthly stipend to every person, essentially cutting out all the overhead involved in managing the various programs and giving the money directly to people. I see this as basically a one-up on the guaranteed living wage, as it also gives people near/at/above the living wage additional resources to buffer unexpected life setbacks. So on top of helping elevate people out of poverty, it also helps keep afloat those in danger of falling into poverty, and avoids the trap of “if I make more, I get less assistance.”
Obviously that’s a pretty radical change, so it’s hard to say how it would work out in practice, but on a theoretical level I can say I’m a fan.
WeirWoodTreehugger,
That too. There was also a post in AMR lately where a gay MRA talked about how anti-fem facebook groups told him to stop talking about how being gay affected his experience as a man. The comments in the subreddit where pretty much just as hostile. I also get this vibe that they’re afraid to admit that they have any kind of privilege. I also can’t see them defending mentally ill men, since these kind of people often defend to the death using “r*tard” as a slur because free speech.
epitome of incomprehensibility
I worked in Education for four years in the USAF and developed the attitude of ‘anyone who can afford it can get a degree, doesn’t mean they’re smart’ from working with the officers that had to get their mandatory continuing education* training materials through our office. A not insignificant minority of them constantly needed time extensions to complete the courses (for which they got a year to do, ffs) and had trouble filling out the extension applications.
kupo – This happened to me, too! A long time ago, I bumped into a guy I went to Jr. High with and went to his house to catch up. It was his roommate who was wearing the revealing shorts, though. It was the first, last and only time I went there. The two of them grinned at each other when he revealed his “surprise” so I think it was either planned or just something they did for the lulz. I’d say it could have been an MRA “shit test” except this was the early 90’s. BTW, This is what runs through my head when the word “skeevy” is mentioned.
*Most officers had to take Squadron Officer’s School as a correspondence course; only the exceptional ones got selected go to actual classes (these ran six to twelve weeks.) This was also true for NCO equivalent courses.
Holy crow, I’m so sorry for bringing that up for you again. What a sleezebag. :U
@dlouwe
It’s been tried on a small scale here and there and worked quite well. I understand that Finland is looking into implementing it on a national scale; any of the Finns here care to weigh in on that?
OMG, can’t stop laughing. Although I can honestly say I’ve felt her pain…in more ways than one.
Urgh. I believe the word you’re looking for is “schlong”, or “dong”, or in this guy’s case, “the seat of all his intelligence, such as it was”.
And yeah. Why ARE dress codes all about keeping girls’ bodies policed and “proper”, while the boys get away with everything under the Sun…including, in this case, blatant sexual harassment? And why do teachers think that’s just a harmless case of boys-being-boys, when girls don’t get to be girls — comfortably?
It’s also worth adding that throughout history, one thing has been apparent: whatever female body part gets covered up the most for fear of impropriety, gets fetishized the most and ends up driving men bonkers as soon as they catch the tiniest glimpse of it. (See: women’s legs in Victorian times, or their hair in Saudi Arabia. See also the absence of breast fetishism in parts of Africa where women routinely walk around uncovered.)
You know if they actually understood what privilege meant, we wouldn’t have this issue.
I really don’t understand where they got this idea that privilege = free shit always.
Did the internet use hyperbole unwisely and they just latched onto it?
I’m sure all of you have figured this out a long time ago, but since I’m pretty new to this scene, I recently figured out why they think the feminists have already won.
They think privilege = life is easy
What they don’t realize is that just because they have more opportunities than other groups doesn’t mean you don’t have to, you know, actually try, or have skills or ambition in order to succeed.
So if feminists say all men are privileged, but these guys haven’t gotten their platter of free amazing life and hot bitches yet, then obviously privilege doesn’t exist. And “logically” if privilege doesn’t exist, feminists are making shit up to take stuff away from men. If privilege doesn’t exist, then everyone is already equal and women are evil harpies trying to get all the power for themselves!!!!!!11one!
TL;DR The feminists have won because life didn’t give these guys a blow job.
Again I’m sure you’re all fully aware of this, but this blog is like reading my old high school psychology case studies, and these guys are equal parts upsetting, hilarious and fascinating. It must take a lot of willpower to be so intentionally ignorant.
See Morton’s Demon. While that’s specific to creationists, the same principle can apply: some people seem to have a subprocess in their brain that deliberately blocks any contradictory evidence so the rest of the brain doesn’t have to deal with the cognitive dissonance.