I‘ve lost track of the number of times that some aspiring Man Going His Own Way has shown up in the comments here, indignantly objecting to some post I’ve made about the MGTOW lifestyle, such as it is. All we’re doing is trying to live our lives in peace, the MGTOWs declare. Why are you always picking on us?
Well, I think from now on I’ll just send them a link to this post. Today we’re celebrating Memeday one day early with three of the most ridiculously misogynistic memes I’ve yet seen in my five years of running this blog — all of which were posted to the MGTOW subreddit in the last week.
This, MGTOW dudes, is why we pick on you. Because instead of actually going your own way and living the free, independent lives you say you want to live, you stew in your own hatred and fritter away your life talking endlessly about the alleged evils of women online.
Seriously, dudes. When Thoreau went and lived by himself in a shack by a pond for a year, he emerged from the experience with a book people are still talking about today. Left to you own devices, you guys produce crap like this:
So not only is this woman “a baby aborting, lawsuit filing, backstabbing psychotic whore,” but she is also:
- a feminist
- a vampire
- a Satanist
- either the Beast of Revelations or just someone with glasses decorated with the number of the beast
Also, she really needs to see an ophthalmologist STAT, because there is definitely something a bit off about her eyes.
About the only good thing I can say here is that this meme got a mixed-but-mostly-negative reception in r/MGTOW, with responses ranging from “topkek” to “[t]his is why MGTOW has a bad name even amongst MRM,” though the critics were more annoyed by the anti-abortion stuff than by the raging misogyny. And in at least one case because the abortion talk meant that he could post a little manifesto on why men should be able to “financially abort” any of their children they didn’t feel like providing for
This next terrible meme has an otherworldly theme:
I hate to break it to you, fellas, but that alien there is a Small Grey. They’re not interested in chatting about science with you. They’re the ones who go around abducting people and using them in medical experiments. And mutilating cattle, but I think that’s more of a hobby of theirs.
This one also got a mixed reception in r/MGTOW, with reactions ranging from “sadly, women in Brazil are not that different from American women” to “this is probably one of the dumbest things I’ve seen. This post honestly looks like it was made by a mentally handicapped middle schooler.”
I don’t even know where to start with this one. I just hope whoever made this paid for the rights to all those stock-image angry ladies!
Also, dude, if the purpose of these Bitch Snacks is to provide women with the energy they need to make themselves miserable, why would they contain Prozac? The whole point of antidepressants like Prozac is make people less miserable, not more. That’s why they’re called antidepressants.
Seriously, dudes, antidepressants. They could do you a lot of good (and I say that as someone who’s been taking the things for more than twenty years). They’ll certainly do you more good than spending the rest of your life in the MGTOW subreddit laughing at hateful, shitty memes and trying to convince yourself you’re happy.
So how did this meme, possibly the most misogynistic of the three, fare in r/MGTOW?
The fellas loved it. “Bitch bones. Love it,” wrote one. “Words cannot express how awesome this is,” declared another.
It was kind of hard to see it at the time, especially when they’d usually call me at a really bad time and the fact it was repeated so frequently made me less and less tolerant.
I really tried to be polite about it the first few times and just state I wasn’t interested, but after the sixth or seventh or eighth time while I’m dealing with a bunch of other stresses (one of which was a relative who would break into my room to steal things and pawn them for drug money) was too much for me.
Ugh, the dehumanization in the alien one. Women aren’t members of the human race now and don’t have interests that are any good?
I also think aliens would have a different sense of ethics. If the abduction/non consensual experimentation thing is real, they certainly do.
@ authorial alchemy
That’s pretty much the central thesis of “war of the worlds”. Some editions have a rather good essay at the end examining that in more detail.
Of course Wells, as a proto SJW, was trying to make the point that the Martians treated us no differently than the way we treated farm animals or the Tasmanians.
Nowadays most people would be horrified at the way the Tasmanians were treated; but we’re still as horrible to animals. It will be interesting to see if in a century or so the people then look back at us and wonder how people who self identify as decent, could still eat animals and conduct medical experiments on them.
@Alan
They’ll have their own issues to be dealing with. They’ll have as much room to talk as we do about the past, so I don’t really care what a bunch of smug vegans from the future have to say about my life.
(This is mostly a joke. I’m not really good at conveying humor through text.)
I don’t fault him for being a telemarketer. Everybody has to eat, and telemarketing pays the bills.
I don’t even fault him for being duplicitous about his profession. “I’m a telemarketer” decreases one’s credibility in a way that “I’m in corporate sales” does not.
He’s enough of a laughingstock without ragging on his job.
“Back in the early XXIst century, people were permitted to keep companion animals in their house without paying an additional oxygen tax for them. Naturally this shortsighted policy was corrected during the Great Readjustment.”
@ josh
What future generations will think of us is something I do occasionally ponder about. We look back now at past injustice and wonder how people could have been so blasé about them; but of course it’s all about the values of the time.
Slavery was a “respectable trade”. To us that seems incomprehensible, but for most of history that’s been the view (although interestingly the Romans defined slavery as being “against the normal human condition” so even they seem to have thought there was no inherent ‘slave caste’)
We cringe at comedies from only a few decades ago. But will commentators in 20 years be expressing bewilderment that the Big Bang Theory seems to poke fun at people with disabilities yet is so popular?
I do think that within a few centuries it will seem unbelievable that we ate animals and especially that we conducted medical experiments on the great apes. Or that we put animals in theme parks and forced them to perform tricks for our amusement.
I always bear this in mind when looking at the past and considering whether there really are any universal values.
@ EJ
Well if we keep chopping down the rain forests for farming and especially if we carry on polluting the oceans then oxygen may be at such a premium it has to be paid for.
Of course, the anaerobic organisms probably whinged about the change in the composition of the atmosphere caused by oxygen pollution; but that worked out pretty well for us. So maybe it’s time for an eco system that favours sulphur loving organisms. They might turn out to be charming.
I just find his choice of career really hilarious. He’s a seething, toxic rage-bomb of hatred, thinks women in the workplace are lazy garbage, has horrible social skills, turns every interaction into a power struggle….and he’s in sales? I mean, a minimal requirement for sales is to not have a totally repellant personality. Salespeople have to sell themselves along with the product, in order to gain trust and get their pitch heard. I wouldn’t hire this guy to sell water in the desert.
He must rank at the bottom of the sales ladder every quarter, seeing as how 50% of potential clients are automatically off the table. It sounds like he works for a d-bag company that doesn’t really care. In one of his posts he was bragging about how they fired all the women, and profitability skyrocketed:
Uh-huh. So, his all-male MGTOW company voluntarily cut their recruiting pool in half, and he expects us to believe it’s still competitive. I’m sure 21st century clients are delighted to do business with a blatantly discriminatory organization. Pull the other one.
I have to wonder if this Bitch Snack guy was hired to make Trump’s latest anti-Hillary ad (the one where she barks, followed by Ril Man Putin laughing at her).
Hello.
MGTOW/MRM poster for dummies :
1 – Take a picture/photo, even if you have no right on it. Rights is for pussies. And you have all rights to and on pussies (Arh arh arh * nudge nudge wink wink*). There must be a woman on this picture. If it is a “bangable” woman, it will be a feminist new style, which can catch the male gaze because you have not to forget who your poster is aimed at. If no, it will be a feminist old school. In all case, try to choose a picture where the woman makes an odd face or display an over-the-top emotional face (angry, shooting, crying, you get the point).
2 – Optional : because you are a man, and therefore are good at anything, you can add additional features on the woman stuff, like $ eyes, horns, butcher knife, religious linked evil common symbols, a slutty mouth stuffed with a big black piece of m… RHAAA LOVELY – sorry, this for dummies piece is written with only one hand -.
3 – Because you main lectorship is what it is, you now need to add text. A lot of text. A great bunch of text. Even more than the space used by the picture. It is important. Of course, some evil leftist feminists or mangina cucks are going to point out to you that the idea of a poster must first be understable through the picture, but this is a consplie ! It is absolutly not because your picture is so often out of context that they do not understant its purpose, it is because they are so mentally limited. No. The text part is made to ensure the message really goes through, like hammered. And a hammer must be heavy. Thick. Like my d… erhem… So, double the power of the main message with load and load of text with insightful and fact-based informations, and men-empowering messages. If it can be done in less than one short sentence, then it means your poster lacks representativity and ideas. Would you rant at someone with only one sentence ? Of course you would not ! It is the same here. Swell the message a bit if needed, and do not forget intersections. The more intersections, the more these bad SJW will have difficulties to fight against it, because you can call them on one point they may forget or take apart ! Double win !
Anyway, i can not stress enough that there must be a lot of text, may be only to remember them that the pen is stronger than the c**t sword ! The pen is sharper than evil feminist tongue ! The pen is the only think a real MGTOW should think and care about !
4 – Post in in appropriate forums and collect the upvotes and the laurels of victory ! You win the internet !
—–
It is exagerated, but maybe not that much for the text part. Why the hell so many sentences ? Even without reading them i am already feeling bored. It is not only inaccurate but also dull.
Have a nice day.
@Alan
There really is no such thing as ‘universal values’. What’s considered just or good is different everywhere and every time. Ancient Greeks believed it was good for everyone to banish the sons of criminals, that the handicapped or disfigured were inherently disgusting.
The ancient Hebrews believed that mixing different types of clothing or working on the sabbath were crimes worthy of death.
So yes, we have the benefit of looking back and saying “How could they be so cruel!?” But we forget that people were conditioned to accept those things as normal.
So if some Smug jerk from the future wants to criticize me because I eat chicken, then whatever. Let him. But it’s as smug and self satisfied as looking back and the Romans and saying “Well, at least we’re SOOO much better than them.”
To me, eating animals is less of a big deal than never letting them glimpse the sun, or feeding them the pulped remains of their fallen comrades.
Like, I’m pretty sure I can get bacon without torturing the pig its entire life.
Josh, Alan:
I’ve got something I call the Progressive’s Prayer: “My greatest hope is that someday, I will be believed to be a horrible person.” I want smug jerks in the future to look back at this era and view things we regard as totally normal as uncomprehensibly awful.
I know there’s stuff I could be better at; I also am certain there’s stuff I could be better at, but have no clue what they are.
@ josh & binjabreel
Yeah, that’s why I try not to be judgmental either in temporal terms or even location. It easy to dismiss someone as ‘morally wrong’ and fail to see how by their own standards they don’t see it that way. We often fall into the trap of assuming that there are universal objective standards.
Of course, some people are both nasty and know they’re nasty. I wonder for instance if there are any MRA ‘true believers’. I think possibly for some of the more naive youngsters (they’re basically just radicalised), but I’m sure the elder statesmen know exactly how horrible they are being and it’s the hate that motivates them.
I don’t judge people for eating meat though (I happily did it myself for decades) and (unlike a lot of my animal rights friends) I think people who engage in medical research are genuinely decent people acting for the best motives and don’t deserve the harassment and intimidation they get, even though I don’t like the research myself and I think it’s inevitable that one day we’ll look back at it like we do on Dr Mengele (of course, by the standards of his society, he was also doing the morally correct thing. I certainly don’t see any equivalence between him and researchers today though)
@Freemage:
That’s a lovely idea. I’m stealing that.
@Freemage:
I’ve told other people, when it comes to how we’ll be seen to those in the future, I’d rather they look up this time period and go “…Wow, what a bunch of stupid assholes…”
It was partly in reference to how much I despise how many in the U.S. deify the founders of the country as well as how many Libertarians act as if the 1800’s was some kind of Golden Age (’cause, like, there were no regulatory government agencies – nevermind the lack of modern convenience or a hard, short-lived life, or the racism faced by non-whites, or sexism faced by women, etc., etc., etc.)
@ josh, binjanreel, EJ, freemage
Assuming we can all agree on a definition of ‘progressive’, do you think that there’s been a historical trend overall towards progressive values? Is it a straight upwards graph, is it like a stock market graph with ups and downs but an overall trend, or is it just a mixed bag that has varied over time and in location?
We’d probably all agree that women seem to have had the shitty end of the stick, at least throughout historical times, but the ancients seemed a lot less hung up on sexuality than we are today. And whilst the Romans had plenty of weird prejudices, race didn’t seem to be an issue for them (black citizen = cool; white barbarian = scum)
Any thoughts?
(I appreciate in this context using ‘progressive’ sort of begs the question but I’m sure you understand the substantive issue)
ETA: to invite Nick to the discussion
Alan: The ‘stock market’ model seems to fit best, overall–complete with the periodic crash where some front or another takes a giant leap backwards.
Also, I tend to stick to contemporary nations in my assessment. “Human history” is harder to gauge, because we add and subtract so much baggage along the way–revolutions, wars and imperial invasions all have a profound ‘reset’ effect on how a population in a given area conducts itself.
I feel much more confident comparing, for instance, modern America with the nation we were at the time of the Founding Fathers. European nations, I mainly look as far back as their current mode of government (so, for instance, I can see the arc of England from the founding of Parliament; comparisons going back further than that are more fraught).
I love this. I’m stealing it.
Freemage,
Seconded (well, thirded after EJ and probably n’d after everyone else who reads that rather beautiful sentiment).
As long as I’m thought horrible for not being progressive enough, obviously! (if we (if I may say we) are one day thought horrible by a future worldfull of Trump-alikes, assorted other fascists and mras etc. for having been outrageously feminist and SJ-oriented, well that would not do at all)
@Alan
I agree with Freemage, the stock market model seems to fit better. It’s a long, slow, set back filled climb, but I think over all the trend points upward.
Though, I don’t think we’ll see animal medical experiments as like Mengele. I think we’ll see it in a sort of “well intentioned but wrong” sort of way, even assuming animal rights really become a thing.
@Alan:
Along with everyone else, yeah, I’d say the stock market model is the most accurate. There’s ups and downs, with a steady climb over time. Though, were I being more cynical, I’d argue that a progression in time doesn’t always equate to a progression in values – sometimes there’s even a regression and thus things get worse.
I do have an issue (not too big of one) with two bits of your statement though:
Not necessarily.
Since it is relevant to what I’m going to say in the next part: Ancient Greeks, while they weren’t shy about sex the way we are now, were still raging misogynists. A lot of their mythology comes off as fetishistic about rape – in which even the victim of such are punished, such as Medusa becoming a Gorgon, or whose physical violation is justified because a god or demi-god did it (e.g. Zeus’ sexual conquests by often disguising himself).
Plus, when compared to Victorian-era England, we’re downright perverse.
Actually, despite sharing much of their culture with them, the Romans looked down upon the Greeks – even when living amongst them in Rome.
I’d say this would be a more accurate description of how Romans thought about non-Romans and Roman citizenry black, white, and otherwise whether:
Roman, born and bred = You’re the best of the best and everyone else sucks in comparison
White Roman citizen, born outside of Rome = We’ll tolerate you as long as you don’t get on our bad side, but we’ll always look upon you as an outsider not deserving of much respect like a natural-born Roman even if you don’t look that different from us
Non-White Roman citizen, born outside of Rome = We’ll also tolerate you as long as you don’t get on our bad side, but slightly less so as you do not look like the rest of the Romans and thus will be met with more dismissal
Non-Roman citizen, anywhere and of any race = If you don’t bow down before us and give into our demands, we’ll fucking kill you and then sell your family into slavery
@freemage Yes, that is fantastic, thanks for sharing it.
Re women’s status in historical times, an excerpt from Debt: The first 5000 years:
‘In the very earliest Sumerian texts, particularly those from roughly 3000 to 2500BC, women are everywhere. Early histories not only record the names of numerous female rulers, but make clear that women were well represented among the ranks of doctors, merchants, scribes, and public o?fficials, and generally free to take part in all aspects of public life. One cannot speak of full gender equality: men still outnumbered women in all these areas. Still, one gets the sense of a society not so di?fferent than that which prevails in much of the developed world today. Over the course of the next thousand years or so, all this changes. The place of women in civic life erodes; gradually, the more familiar patriarchal pattern takes shape, with its emphasis on chastity and premarital virginity, a weakening and eventually wholesale disappearance of women’s role in government and the liberal professions, and the loss of women’s independent legal status, which renders them wards of their husbands. By the end of the Bronze Age, around 1200BC, we begin to see large numbers of women sequestered away in harems and (in some places, at least), subjected to obligatory veiling.’
‘It has always been something of a scandal for those who like to see the advance of science and technology, the accumulation of learning, economic growth—“human progress,” as we like to call it —as necessarily leading to greater human freedom, that for women, the exact opposite often seems to be the case.’
In the period I write about I’ve heard other historians talk about (but weirdly never write about) the ‘return to the parlour’–middle class Englishwomen in the eighteenth century were integrally involved in economic life, and this seems to have changed within a generation in the early nineteenth century. Since I’m not aware that anyone’s really written about this I can only speculate on the cause–in my opinion it has to do with the decline of family firms and private partnerships and the rise of joint stock corporations (only technically legal since the repeal of the Bubble Act in 1825).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_Act
@occasional reader
You explain MRA “art” so well!