Men’s Rights Activists learned a long time ago that the easiest way to win an argument with someone is by playing the old straw man game, ignoring what they actually believe and instead pretending that they believe something much less defensible — and much easier to rebut.
Trouble is, when you’re actually debating one of these people directly, they may point out to you that they don’t actually believe what you claim they believe. And this makes it oh so much harder to win the argument.
Luckily, MRAs have found a workaround for this little difficulty. Instead of debating real feminists who can argue back, they debate imaginary ones who say only what the MRAs allow them to say.
One quick visit to a stock photo repository and hey, presto! You’ve got yourself the following memes depicting Straw Feminists Confused About Everything.
Er, what? Feminists have the power to ban hot babes from going out in public? Do these hot babes have to make themselves less hot before they can get a walking around permit from the Department of Jealous Feminists Who Won’t Let You Go Out if You’re Too Hot?
I think I may have posted this one before, but I still don’t quite understand it. Hey MRA dudes, you’re supposed to confuse the imaginary women in your memes, not the rest of us!
This dumb little cartoon, drawn in 2003 by a dude hoping to sell a few t-shirts, has provided MRAs with thirteen years’ worth of cheap outrage so far. Congrats, MRA meme-maker, for squeezing a little bit more outrage from its desiccated corpse.
I ain’t saying she’s a golddigger but, yes, you are saying that. Again. That song is more than a decade old. Move on, dudes.
@Katz
That’s what that piece is called. Thx, thx, thx!
@the memes
There should be an ‘e’ at the end of “therefore”
Why is “Ban” capitalized after a comma? It’s a single sentence. Like, it’s not a poem or whatever. Is it a stylistic thing? Am I wrong about this, cos either way, it’s grating on my eyeballs
Also, the best (worst as well) thing about antifeminist nonsense is when they drop the pretense and just say ‘WOMEN say/do yadda yadda’. You’re not fooling anyone, ladies and gents. It’s just nice to know, for what it’s worth, at least some of ’em know they’re bigots
@EJ
Ew. In fact, Trump’s campaign slogan should be “Make Daddy Proud Again”.
Then they’ll be familiar with daddy floundering about and making a complete ass of himself in public.
Dustinzeit
Choices don’t happen in a vacuum. And you don’t just choose a job and magically get it, either. Who is doing the hiring is a huge factor. A man will typically be seen as more qualified than a woman even if he is equally or less qualified. Many peer reviewed studies have shown this as well. So it takes more for a woman to get these higher paying jobs.
There are also social pressures affecting what career paths people choose, with women having a lot more hurdles than men.
Would you choose a job people told you your whole life “wasn’t for you?” Before you toss out a trite “well, it would make me even mooore inclined to try” please point to jobs that men are discouraged that are filled with men.
“making?” hahahahaa! How do you think the average MRA would take a woman insisting on paying for herself or even both of them on a date?
Interesting about the “women need to watch their weight” part. So you’re saying women are more often fatter than men? Because actually the statistics say otherwise… or are you saying that it’s more important for women to be skinny than it is for men?
I just wanted to quote this because it’s amazing.
So wait, he’s telling me that all women can turn into giant, awe inspiring, cool monsters like in my most favored movies?
Sign me the fuck up.
Behold!
WOMEN`S TRUE FORM!
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/godzilla/images/7/7c/Colossal_kaiju_combat_nemesis_by_kaijusamurai-d6en2na.jpg
http://altairandvega.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/penguindrum21himari21.jpg
Fanboying so hard
@IP:
I wonder how long it’ll be before “Make X Great Again” stops being funny?
@EJ
Implying it ever was funny to begin with.
@ binjabreel
Whenever I’m racing against the edit clock I like to pretend I’m defusing a bomb. Makes it more fun.
AVFM should be called “AVFMASF” – “A Voice For Men And Straw Feminists”. x)
@ msexception
I have learned that if a disrespected expert warns the town that this time there really is an earthquake/volcano/alien invasion on the way; it’s probably a good idea to listen.
“don’t care, the wage gap is a bullshit lie anyway, and one for which men are frequently blamed”
Lets see, on the one hand we have:
several governments, journalistic outlets, & other huge organizations that, based on myriad data sets & scientific studies, not to mention case studies & personal experiences, acknowledge that hiring discrimination based solely on gender, higher wages based on solely gender, more promotions based solely on gender, higher sexual harassment of women based on, you guessed it, the fact that theyre women, and so on, actually exists & should not.
on the other hand we have:
Angry MRA trolls who dismiss evidence out of hand bc misogyny
hmmmmm, I wonder what I should believe? I mean, Ive seen a lot of the studies and data sets but the male-run government, the same government that rejected the ERA & passes abortion restrictions & has members openly say women shouldnt even work, Im sure that government is totes an evil Obama Liberal conspiracy to fabricate all that data and science. curse you, Obama!
& why on Earth would we blame the system that forbade women to even vote or own property or go to college or interview for most jobs for the fact that women are discriminated against in hiring and saddled with the majority of housework even when they work more hours for higher pay than their spouse? Clearly women chose and enjoy making less money.
ETA: women make less money even in female-dominated careers; check out the nursing pay gap studies. Even female actresses make less and have less roles. & its not like female construction workers or soldiers enjoy higher pay amd status.
What’s fascinating about Dustin “top kek” zeit is that, like the men who sent the college students death and rape threats, he feels so entitled to cupcakes that he thinks it’s an emergency when he’s required to pay slightly more for one.
Cupcakes, y’all.
Cupcakes.
You know how you can get a whole plate of cupcakes for far less than $1 per cupcake? Buy a fucking mix and make them yourself. This is actually an option available to you and people like you, Dustinzeit! I know that you think that everything should be handed to you, but that’s not the objective truth you think it is!
Your evidence? I know that on 4chan and 8chan you’ve convinced yourselves that false flag operations are more common than real harassment, but until you provide evidence that is more substantial than your assumptions I’m going to side with the actual evidence I have seen from similar incidents.
Incidentally, for some recently-publicized pay gap information, just look at the disparity in pay between the US men’s soccer team and the US women’s soccer team. Despite winning championship after championship after championship and raking in money for the parent organization, members of the women’s team make 40% or less what the men make in order to lose, lose, lose, lose, lose and did I mention that the men lose? And that the men’s team loses money hand over fist, and the women’s team is subsidizing their dead weight?
But there’s no pay gap, y’all. None whatsoever.
So if women/feminists are Kaiju then I guess this Dustin guy must think He’s a either Ultraman or a Jagger.
Of course if it was the women’s team that was losing chances are they would have been shut down by now and used as proof that ‘women can’t do sports’
@ Fabe
How hard do you think it is for someone like Dustin to find a Drift-compatible partner? On the one hand, MRAs say they’re fierce individualists. On the other hand, it’s hard to tell them apart because they all keep repeating the same weak talking points.
“Of course if it was the women’s team that was losing chances are they would have been shut down by now and used as proof that ‘women can’t do sports’”
tell that to the Chicago Cubs
In response to the lawsuit, US Soccer declared that it was “disappointed” that the little ladies want equal pay for equal work. Disappointed!
Who’s making men pay for dates? Nothing is stopping you from holding out for a girlfriend who doesn’t mind splitting the bill or taking turns paying. Of course, most of those women would be feminist and/or progressive while the conservative, traditional women your type tends to prefer are the ones expecting men to pay for dates.
Men like you also tend to forget that you’re every bit as responsible for this convention as women are. Every first date I’ve been on that’s involved going to dinner, I’ve offered to pay my own way. The men have always said they wanted to be the one to pay. I’d be happy to split the bill on a date, but men seem to feel threatened by that. I’ve heard reports from other women that some of them even get upset when they offer to pay their own half of the bill.
It always cracks me up when anti-feminists get all angry with us because men traditionally pay for dates. That’s not feminism’s doing.
Although, I do want to point out that you could argue men and women pay about equal amounts to date. Because women take care of the expenses of obtaining birth control. We’re also expected to put more effort into our appearances than men are. Makeup, nice hair salons, and trendy clothes aren’t free. Which brings me to the other part of your comment.
Why do only women need to watch their weight? As Tessa already pointed out, obesity is as prevalent, if not more prevalent among men.
Are you saying that men are three dimensional human beings who have worth beyond just their looks and that women are only worthy if we’re conventionally attractive? Are you saying it’s women’s job to be beautiful, but not men? Because that really undercuts your earlier assertion that the culture is not sexist towards women.
My experience is that there are two factors at work in this. First, men are told that they aren’t “real men” if they don’t “take care” of “their women.” Not all men buy into this message, but the ones who accept it uncritically think you’re threatening to unman them by offering to pay your own way. You’re threatening their masculinity by not needing them to “take care” of you, and by sending the message that you are a person and not a possession. See also: #masculinitysofragile
Second, too many men think that a date is not actually an opportunity for two people to get to know one another, but an economic exchange in which the man pays for dinner and, in the process, buys access to sex. A woman contributing monetarily to dinner confounds this economic transaction. In fact, in this model, if she pays for dinner entirely, she is buying access to sex with the man, which goes against any number of cultural norms related to women being both sexual gatekeepers and sexual possessions. Good luck untangling this knot of sexism and rape culture.
Not that I expect to be telling you anything you don’t know already, but Dustin seems like he could use a brief primer on why it might be good for him to spend some time examining the premises under his presumptions.
Is this even a thing in the real world?
Obviously this is just anecdotal but in my experience such things usually start with one of the parties saying something like “Come on, I’ll take you to (x)” or if things have happened more spontaneously we have this routine “I’ll get this (you got the last one)”, “You sure? OK, well my treat next time”. There may be variations depending on current relative financial situation of course, but covering for each other when times are tough is what friends do.
I don’t keep spreadsheets but I’m pretty sure that over time things have always evened out.
ETA: and even if they haven’t who gives a fuck? Relationships aren’t subject to economic factors.
ETTA: if any woman feels she hasn’t fully contributed I’ll accept a cupcake in full settlement. I hear you can get them at a discount.
My partner and I track who-owes-whom-what in units of drinks.
“You owed me a drink, but then you bought the tickets to tonight’s event and those were three-drinkers, so now I owe you two drinks.”
One of the many benefits of feminism is that it allows people to be frank about this sort of thing, instead of participating in a toxic, sapping web of you-should-have-known-to-do-X.
I also find it hilarious that in Dustinworld, women need to bootstrap their way out of the wage gap by choosing to ignore or overcome the social pressures and biases that keep women in lower paid jobs and keep women as the primary caretaker of children. But men are helpless against the evil women who “make” men pay for dates. Mjen are not capable of choosing dates who are willing to split the bill. Men can’t possibly be expected to try and change the culture if it’s not to their liking.
Once again, women are responsible for women’s choices and women are responsible for men’s choices. Men are responsible for nothing.