Never underestimate the ability of Men’s Rights Activists to get worked up over the most ridiculous nonsense.
I found the meme above on the Men’s Rights Australia Facebook page, accompanied by this explanation:
Women are allowed to wear whatever they like to work, including sleeveless tops, short skirts, and even thongs. Yet if a man were to wear sleeveless tops, shorts, or thongs you can be sure he’d be sent home from work or even fired. In summer men have to suffer in the heat wearing trousers, long sleeve shirts, and tie. Feminists claim they also care about inequalities facing men so why aren’t they fighting against this? -ms
YEAH FEMINISTS WHY AREN’T YOU FIGHTING AGAINST THIS TERRIBLE INJUSTICE, WOMEN NEVER HAVE TO WEAR ANYTHING UNCOMFORTABLE OR AWKWARD AT WORK 0h wait
Note: I should point out that the “thongs” being referenced aren’t the ones that ride up your butt, but rather are the ones you wear on your feet and that are also called flip flops, at least here in the US.
BONUS MEME: This isn’t a Men’s Rights meme, obviously, but it literally made me laugh out loud.
Apparently the best way to fight communism is to do nothing while the oceans rise. I guess the Communists have their secret bases on the Marshall Islands?
I’m reminded of this legendary toilet paper ad.
A spectre is haunting the bathroom — the spectre of really really scratchy toilet paper.
Who else thinks his conversation with a woman went like this:
RUPRECT: You’ve never been sexually harassed, right?
WOMAN: Um, well…
RUPRECT: See, I knew sexual harassment wasn’t real! I’m glad you agree with me. You’re much more rational than those other women.
@ katz
That’s kind of what I was thinking. And I mean A LOT of women have a hard time labeling the things that have happened to them as harassment/assault/rape precisely because the world is full of Ruprects who deny and dismiss their experiences. It’s just all part of how the game is rigged.
*wakes up, yawns, picks up a kitty from a place where she’s not supposed to be aka server monitor’s top and that’s a LCD, not CRT, silly kitty*
*craves breakfast, sniffs something tasty coming from a browser window left on overnight*
*wanders to desktop, sniffles until she finds the right screen, sniff sniff sniff smells like roasted troll yum my fave breakfast*
Awwwwww.
*pokes at charred leftover bones and gristle*
Dangit. Wanted a bite of that.
Number five zero four.
And Skiriki, my boyfriend and I laughed at your “roasted troll” comment. I hope that the kitty bath went well.
‘Side note: I work at home now, people suck and outside is bullshit.’
Hear fucking hear. I’ve been off work sick for about a week and a half…have to go back into the office tomorrow…. I used to work from home (visited office or client maybe 1-2 times a week, was paid for having to leave the house)–wish I could do that again.
Kat: Kittybath has not happened yet, mostly because I’m trying to figure out if kittylitter is contributing to her smell or not. We should find it out soon, old litterstuff is now almost gone and I got new litter in use.
But yeah, I mean, imagine tenderly then fiercely roasted troll, served with some melted cheese toast and possibly a side order of omelette or fried eggs. Or grilled mushrooms, that would be nice.
Lacking troll, I could always enjoy some mini-bratwursts, nice crispy brown on the outside, mmmmmmm…
What proudfootz said.
On three occasions I have argued with women about feminism. One was a woman who said that unless I was a TERF, I couldn’t call myself a feminist. The second was a woman who said that feminism was simply hatred of men and had no place in western society. The third was a woman who said that she and the other #GGers were the real feminists, and Anita Sarkeesian was a (string of gendered expletives redacted.)
I don’t want to be the ally of any of these people.
I’m gonna post something nice now:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35834370
I’m always suspicious of people whose solution to everything is to do nothing. Everything will work itself out if you just ignore it!
@ IP
Your point certainly applies in the case of infected injuries if the doctor who pumped me full of antibiotics is to be believed.
@Imaginary Petal
Yes! According the them, the status quo is beautiful if viewed in just the right light. And anyway, don’t be silly–you’ll get used to the status quo!
@Skiriki
Ooh, in that case, good luck if and when you decide to bathe her.
And I know that I speak for all of us when I say that I’m sorry we ate all the roasted troll. There was some confusion about whether we had roasted one or two trolls, and we were so distracted by that, that we ate it all. Next time!
In summary:
Objectification of people is bad, but it becomes worse when the objectified person lacks social power.
Economic/social change alone cannot solve the problems of women because the objectification of women is orthogonal to the economic system.
Also, the unfortunate position that women find themselves in isn’t a result of biology, but an artifact of the culture.
Is that basically what you are saying?
Anyway, when I say that there is a problem with identity politics, I mean that (1) there is a tendency to think that *everything* is about cultural/sexual/ identity (I say: “the failure of the SJW to seriously criticize economic liberalism/ big finance is a problem”, someone insinuates that I’m anti-semitic) (2) You can’t listen to what anyone has said once you’ve decided they are against you – because if someone is attacking your identity rather than your ideas, you’ve got to defend yourself no matter what.
Anyway, I’m not an MRA, not really a libertarian (not an internet one, anyway), um… I’m not in favour of harassing women, or anyone else (all I’ve ever said is that rules enforcing basic politeness would be *insufficient* – and that I’m somewhat dubious of the SJW (or whatever you want to call it) agenda, and also not really any of the other things I’ve been accused of being.
The question I asked to the woman in question was “when was the last time a man came up to you in the street and said something that made you feel uncomfortable”. She couldn’t remember it happening, but also said that she was aware that such a thing could happen and that this caused her some anxiety.
Anyway, thanks to all of you for your answers and replies. I might not give the impression that I’m listening (I think it’s a normal human response to want to ‘stick to your guns’) rest assured that I have heard what you said, and I’ll be cogitating upon it over the coming weeks and months.
Take care!
Kat: As long as roasting the troll was done efficiently! Based on what I read… it was. 😀
In a way it’s a pity the chap has gone as something cropped up over the weekend that seems relevant to the whole thing about why it’s important to listen to women. I’ll stick it here anyway in case he’s still lurking.
I was chatting to one of my real world friends. She mentioned that she was down because of all the hassle she was getting whenever she left her house. Her friends chipped in with similar experiences. Now it’s not like we spend our time endlessly discussing feminist issues, but the fact that this topic came up just in response to a general “Hows things with you?” query shows how prevalent this is.
But to his point about how he’s not really seen any examples of women being harassed (and his consequent ‘scepticism’). The thing is, I’ve never seen any examples of harassment when I’ve been out with women friends, yet just about every woman I know reports this experience.
So, either there’s something different going on when I’m present, or all women have conspired to lie about this. Let’s examine those two alternatives.
Might my being present skew things and, if so, why? Well perhaps it’s because (a) creeps see women as property, so if they see me with a woman then she’s already ‘taken’ and they hold back out of consideration to another man; or (b) they think there might be consequences if they try something like that when I’m present. That seems plausible.
Or are all women conspiring to lie about this? Well, to go back to basics we can ask Cicero’s “Cui Bono?”. In other words what’s in it for women to do that?. There doesn’t seem to be any advantage in doing so (arguably, quite the opposite) so why would they? Therefore even disregarding the fact that this would have to be a conspiracy involving more people than the supposed Apollo hoax, there appears to be no evidence for this hypothesis.
So we can reasonably conclude that, if we only went by the personal experiences of men, we would erroneously assume that harassment doesn’t happen. The only way men can find out harassment is happening is through the experiences of women.
And that’s why it’s so important to listen to women on this subject if you really want to know what’s going on.
If you’re out there Mr Ruprect I hope that addresses your queries.
@ Alan
I think there’s a c) possibility which is that you may actually have witnessed it but, because it’s not a thing happening directly to you every time you stick your nose out your front door, it doesn’t register as more than a minor, easily forgettable annoyance .
Hello.
I wonder : is “Notes from a boner” an answer to “the Vagina Monologues”?
Also, the complaint of those two persos makes me think about an old song from Jacques Dutronc “Et moi, et mo,i et moi !”.
Have a nice day !
@ seven
I’d like to think that if it happened I would have noticed (and done something about it); but I certainly can’t rule out that possibility. Maybe a man can spot obvious stuff like cat calling and abuse, but are there are non-verbal ways of harassing that slip under my radar perhaps?
I’d hope that if that happened any woman I was with would mention it; but there’s that whole conditioning thing where women are socialised ‘not to make a fuss’ or maybe it’s just so prevalent that women have just got used to giving an internal exasperated sigh and moving on.
Again, this is something that men can only find out by listening to women rather than going by their own, completely different, experiences.
It’s a reference to Captain Awkward’s excellent article of the same name.
Maybe. I’ve told a story before of the time I was gently dry humped on a busy Underground train by a man trying to pretend it was the swing of the carriage making him press his crotch into my ass. It’s possible that he was being subtle enough that nobody knew it was happening except for me. Not even my colleagues seemed to notice. And you know how much everyone keeps to their own little worlds on the tube.
Don’t you realise, silly lady brain holder? If they’re getting positive comments for the things they’ve done then that means in order to get positive comments, they have to actually DO things.
THEY HAVE TO DO THINGS.
Menz have to actually EARN compliments based on THEIR WORDS AND ACTIONS. They can’t be praised and adored just for showing up, which is totes the natural right of dudes according to Red Pill Troof. Meanwhile us wimmins get compliments on our bodies just by walking down the street! Can you not see how men are oppressed in today’s society?!
Skiriki~ My unsolicited cat bath advice is to use water that is a lot warmer than you would typically bathe in. Cats run at 100-102°f and so will usually want water that is warmer than what us human folks would want. Good luck if you end up having to do it. I shudder at the thought of having to bathe my cats any time soon.
I EMERGE FROM THE LURKVOID TO COMMENT
Hello all, I’ve been reading the site and its comments for around a year now, and I really enjoy the people here. What I love espeically is how you all drag trolls around, never gets old. I and a friend (let’s call her M) read last week’s troll aloud with a BIG DRAMATIC VOICE while playing music from the Metal Gear Rising soundtrack because he was such a ham. Hell, let’s call trolls like that “Drizzle”, because they sound like the unlicensed Chinese knockoff of Monsoon.
A bit of info about me, 19 y/o suburbanite from Texas, cishet white guy, likes guns but hates how they’re so often downplayed as a social issue, and I read this site because I don’t want to end up like the people featured here. Still learning to be an ally/feminist/whateverIshouldcallmyself, but I’m sure if I stay in my lane and listen to feedback, I should get along swimmingly.
I think men sometimes don’t notice street harassment because they don’t need to be as hyper aware of their surroundings. Women are always aware out of necessity. So it’s not necessarily that he hears it but doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but that it occurs under his nose and he doesn’t hear it all because he isn’t paying attention.
Did anyone notice that the quotes that Ruprect provided as evidence for his “disagreement trigger warning” came AFTER the comment with the warning?
I wanted to see where that rabbit hole ended up. In my experience getting them to actually go and find the real things they base their insulting hyperbole on is an opportunity to see who is getting ignored.
@ WWTH
That’s more what I meant, yes. Women are conditioned to notice this stuff.
There’s a video on Youtube about selective attention. A bunch of people are tossing a basketball around. A voice tells the viewer to keep track of how many times the ball gets passed. After a while the voice asks if you noticed the gorilla. About half the people who watch it don’t see the gorilla. So you watch the video again, this time looking for a gorilla and, lo and behold, a person in a gorilla suit walks into the shot, stops to thump their chest and then walks off the other side. They’re on screen for like 9-10 seconds; not just, say, peeking discreetly around a corner where they’d be easy to miss.
TL; DR people often don’t notice things they’re not expecting to see.