Ladies! Make sure you sign up for your free house! Apparently they’re just giving them away, like Oprah or something!
At least that’s what I heard on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Well, he’s got a point here. Ladies, do make sure to send a nice “thank you” note after unwrapping your new house.
But we men haven’t just been giving you ladies houses. We’ve given you ALL THE THINGS.
We hunted EVERY F**CKING THING to feed, house and clothe you!
I mean, seriously. it’s not like women ever build anything. Here are some photos of women not building things.
Oops. Sorry, it looks like some of those women are building things.
Well, it’s not like women do any other important jobs.
Really? These are important jobs? Would anyone even notice if all the women in the US stopped showing up for their pretend jobs? Seriously, how essential to the economy are administrators, accountants, insurance fraud investigators, tax collectors, nurses, or teachers?
And what’s with all those different kinds of managers? I mean, it’s not like the economy would grind to a halt if all the office managers just up and quit without notice, taking all the women staffers with them to enjoy workless lives of ease and plenty by scamming beta providers out of all their money.
Wait. I’m being told that the economy would indeed grind to a halt if the female half of the workplace suddenly vanished. Apparently some of these so-called jobs are actually essential to the economy and society in general.
But we men are still number one when it comes to building houses! WHOO!
Admittedly, I personally have not built any houses, or even picked up a hammer in years, but ladies, you know the rules: As a man I’m entitled to credit for every good thing other men have done (and none of the blame for the bad things).
And I have the right to yell at women on the internet about it.
Come to think of it, that’s something else men are really really good at. WE’RE NUMBER ONE!
H/T — r/AgainstMensRights
Its funny to me, a CNA when they insist that if you’re a working woman you must have a useless pretend job. Guess they plan on staying young and healthy forever??
I doubt we could accomplish it well in a coma, since there are a number of quite serious health issues that go with comas.
But all they can build in a coma is ear wax, so, you know. I think we still win.
Yeah, pretty sure being in a coma is not ideal medically. This one really makes me sick. I’ve had a lot of friends give birth recently and a few had 50+ hour labors that put a lot of stress on both Mom, Dad, and baby. And that’s without any major complications. It is the most pain many people ever experience, and in most cases it LITERALLY breaks your genitals. That’s not even counting the previous 9 months and all of those potential side effects. And how many have DIED doing it? And MRA’s keep complaining about their “dangerous jobs???”
Even if you decided not to have children or cannot, surely it’s not that hard to respect that giving birth is not FUCKING EASY?! Of course, that would require empathy…
(Sorry if any of that’s way off medically or too graphic, just a lay person’s interpretation here.)
I’m sorry to have used language that could have implied otherwise.
I see that I’m having a foot in mouth day.
The phrase just for some reason reminded me of the Soylent Green slogan and struck me as entertaining.
I am truly sorry for any offense caused.
Nah, they just think it’s normal for a woman to spend her time cleaning up a man’s sh*t. They think she should be doing it paid or not.
You did but thank you for apologizing.
MRA: “Men built everything!”
Me: “…Sooo how’s that male shelter coming along?”
Gosh, is looking up history too hard for some people? Women and non-white people have invented and built many, many things.
And gosh darn it Harvey I liked you!
I’ve been following the red pill reddit drama for a few days. I came in to alert David but I see EJ beat me to it. It’s a complicated mess. What’s clear is that there was a schism in the “Red Pill Women” subreddit. Some of the “Red Pill Women” have quit and started a new subreddit called “Red Pill Wives.” So far I’m only familiar with their version of the story, and I have no idea how well it corresponds with reality.
The subreddit called “the red pill” is defined by 2 things — it’s mission, which is to discuss “male sexual strategy”, and it’s premise, which is a bunch of evo-psych-inspired quasi-econ-based speculation about the inborn natures of men and women. Men and women are both allowed to post, but all posts have to be intended to help men pursue their goals. In the past it had very strict moderators, and buying into not only the official red pill premises but an especially misogynistic subschool was a de facto requirement to post. Anything that questioned the orthodoxy was deemed anti-male sabotage and removed.
The “red pill women” sub-reddit was a place for women who bought into the same evo psych premises to discuss “female strategy.” They talk about how to land a keep a husband, how long you should date a man before having sex, ways to be “feminine” and placate the egos of “dominant” men without ruining your life or rolling your eyes so hard they fall out, etc.
Their relationship with r/TRP has always been tense. A lot of red pill dudes rabidly hate women, after all, and in some regards their missions are opposite — one reddit is about manipulating women into no-strings the, the other is about manipulating men into putting a ring on it. But a lot of the leaders of the 2 reddits seem to have genuinely liked and respected each other and cultivated an “all’s fair in love and war” attitude. Anyway, Red Pill Women was carefully moderated. I don’t remember if men were outright banned from posting but they did delete most of the rantings of the overt woman-haters.
The male TRP subreddit changed moderators and got much more liberal about what they allowed. I’ve tested it and though I didn’t call myself a feminist, I did challenge a lot of red pill common wisdom without getting banned.
According to one of the founders of Red Pill Wives, when TRP loosened moderation, Red Pill Women followed suit and it was a disaster. They agreed to let men post as long as the men were there to advise women on how to advance female interests. Allegedly, this led to a ton of red pill men trying to convince the women on Red Pill Women that casual sex is a legitimate and potentially good thing for women to do. The founders of Red Pill Wives were furious. They said that Red Pill Women should not allow anyone to advocate for casual sex, because (a) the red pill men recommending it were transparently self-serving hypocrites who spent all day ranting about how much they hate sluts when they weren’t telling women casual sex was fun and empowering and (b) women who have casual sex are misguided sluts doomed to a life of misery.
So a bunch of the Red Pill Women started a new forum called Red Pill Wives, not because you have to be married to post there (that’s Married Red Pill), but because you can only post there if you agree that the only legitimate goal for a women is to find and marry an alpha male.
I had a humorous exchange recently with a fellow online who pulled this argument on me. He totally lost it when I told him I live in a sustainable commune that was built mostly by women, and demanded I show him pictures of where I live so that he could “see if it was equal to New York”.
When I told him it naturally wouldn’t be equal since the entire point was to not be overcrowded, overpriced and squalid (apologies to any proud NYers) and that he could look up cob housing to see examples, he said I proved that Camille Paglia line that “if women built the world we’d all live in grass huts” true, and is basically strawmanning (or straw-housing) in any way he can to convince himself that a woman’s accomplishments must be inferior to the point of primitive.
aaaaa you live in a cob house?
I’m so jealous! They aren’t legal where I live, building codes etc :C I want one so bad.
Cob is amazing, I live in the setting for Fallout New Vegas and the material is SO effective at insulation and keeping in that delicious coolth. It might be possible within your state, if you can buy land outside city limits the zoning can be less restrictive.
We originally planned on settling our own homestead, but realized it would be more feasible if we shared a co-op with other people.
Fellowship for Intentional Community is a great place to start looking for like minded locals to set up communities and even household roommates if you ever entertain the idea (be aware, there are a few openly cultish groups on there too).
I also volunteer for the Watershed group to install home greywater systems where we do it like a barnraising all in one morning on Saturdays, and I’ve noticed that the turnout the women consistently outnumber the men 3-1. A lot of the older ladies who turn out have history in construction, one even had a career in digging irrigation ditches. They can put down a trench in no time.
Calmdown, I spend a lot of time trying to resist posting about the difficulties of birth and pregnancy because I had a nightmare time in both and have had potential mothers tell me they never wanted to know that stuff could happen. At least after hearing my messed up story, I’ve never had someone continue to claim that ‘pregnancy is easy’, though I do sometimes get ‘well, it’s easy for MOST people, you’re unusual’.
I think if an MRA gave me the sniveling ‘you’re just a whiner’ response, I’d consider violence before I thought better of it.
A friend of mine is a medieval historian and had a great long list of skills women had to have to keep a household alive, and it was amazing – bee keeping, wax processing, mead making, beer making, spinning, weaving, sewing, washing, threshing, moulding, fruitpicking, firewood harvesting, preserving, milking, cheesemaking, repairing, herbalism, accounting, counting, records remembering or keeping, sheep shearing and lastly apparently sometimes stealing wool off someone else’s sheep, meaning there were some pretty serious trials going on. Weaving, sewing, and spinning were huge things that meant the difference between life and death. You know, all of this without childraising, teaching, birthing, feeding babies, etc…
Not to mention the fact that it was not uncommon for an older woman to marry a younger man – women usually died in childbearing, men in farm accidents, so it wasn’t uncommon for a young man OR woman to improve their lot in life by marrying into a solid working household – it worked both ways. If you’ve survived a couple of children well, you might have good hips for it, and your husband might simply die from being kicked by a horse. You could easily attract another partner if your household was in good condition.
So wait, none of the grocery bags I’ve been making actually exist? Does the yarn disappear as it leaves the hook? Have I been imagining the whole thing?
I guess this doesn’t exist either.
@Steampunked
My sympathies for your nightmare! I know it’s hard to explain exactly why childbirth is difficult to someone who hasn’t been there yet without giving some details, which can upset some people so I hope my post didn’t do that. It’s very hard to determine what to share, since knowing about risks makes some people overthink the situation and become more anxious but helps some people feel prepared. I also really admire all of the healthcare workers that deal with all of those issues. I know that some of the risks have been reduced a lot since, say, the middle ages, but I agree that too many people assume that a.) all potential mothers have access to the highest level care or b.) It is somehow now “risk free” or “easy.” One thing I do appreciate is that we have more knowledge about the psychological side effects like anxiety and postpartum depression, etc. But there are still plenty of folks out there that minimize the significance of that as well.
I’m no historian, but I do remember reading “Catherine, Called Birdy”(historical fiction about coming of age in a medieval household) as an adolescent and it did seem like the women were constantly doing chores like making candles and soap and preserving meant and shit, and I think that was supposed to be a fairly well-off family. If you had less social standing I imagine everyone would have to work even harder and be at higher risk of losing everything. 🙁
@Buttercup
Women as an expansion team? That’s a pretty perfect analogy. Fewer than half of expansions have won even a single World Series, generally being shut out by clubs that make more money (not exactly sure how many cents per dollar). Then, the older, richer teams (including my own Yankees, the Donald Trump of baseball) get snippy, when efforts are made to address the imbalance. Expansion has stalled, in part cos existing clubs don’t wanna mess with their monopolies or revenue sharing. At least nobody’s gone their own way yet. It’s a cluster…
I like that analogy. Never thought of it that way. Thank you for that 🙂
@GenJones
Unless your commune was settled in 1624, I think y’all have a few years to catch up to NYC, ifn ya wanted. Bros online, yo… What the fuck?
Also, just looked up cob housing, and…
http://static2.hypable.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/the-shire.jpg
It’s glorious
Excellent article. Thanks for writing it! Sarcasm was just right. <3
Just today, my sister and I fixed the busted door knob on our house. The house we paid for.
I'm kind of feeling like I slept through the free house hand-out. And now I have to fix the broken things in this house o' mine that I'm working off. Life is so unfair if you consider this hypothetical world we're missing out on.
Well, I’ll come clean. I did not build my own house. Sorry. (I did buy it, with my own money, but I guess that doesn’t count).
But I do know two women – and not one man – who built their own houses. One built an off-grid house with her husband in Canada (she did everything but the electrical wiring, and he did everything except the roof as he had no head for heights). The other was part of a collective of single parents building their own houses and learning the skills as they went. She’s a qualified bricklayer and plumber as a result, and has spent the last few years rebuilding a 19th century ruin in France into a liveable smallholding.
So, there’s that.
Not all men build useful things.
For example, Vox Day built this monstrosity:
http://hothardware.com/newsimages/Item13603/WarMouse.png
I grew up in a house that still had traces of the earlier owners–my grandparents–around. It was clear to me from the artifacts that they worked really, really hard.
The women (my grandmother and aunts) beat rugs in the spring on a special horizontal pole in the front yard. They grew a large vegetable garden (which was up a steep hill) and two flower gardens. They picked the fruit from the trees. They canned. They made rag rugs. They sewed. They darned socks. They made tea towels out of flour sacks. They did lacework. They used a wringer washing machine and hung the clothes on the clothes poles in the front yard. They could look over the hills and see whether rain was coming. If so, they had to grab those clothes and run for the front door!
Whew!
@Fruitloopsie
Ha, ha! Blindsided him!
@GenJones
Whoa!
I once worked at a temporary job where another temp, an older black woman, casually mentioned to me that she was retired from construction work. She had been the first woman in construction in her California city. She told me that at the end of each day she would be really, really tired, just like the men, but would never admit it to those guys!
@ genjones & scildfreja
I’m currently planning on building a house so I’ve been watching a programme called “Grand Designs”. Basically it follows people building their own interesting houses.
One of the episodes is about a family who built a huge cob home. Seriously it’s like Windsor Castle. Up until that point I’d never even heard of cob building, but it’s amazing to think that mud and straw can be so substantial.
I won’t be attempting that myself. Notwithstanding the fact that mud is free appeals to my Yorkshire sensibilities.
ETA: This thing, might be the biggest cob building in the world
http://www.ebuk.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/buildsomethingbeautiful_452-e1414930743819.jpg
During my the birth of our youngest, my blood pressure shot up to nearly 200/something (I’m a bit fuzzy on the details because I began to “grey out” during contractions, then began to black out). I have dim memories of agreeing to an epidural and of having it put in place. It’d been a birth without medication until that point, but epidurals have the side effect of lowering blood pressure – usually a liability, but perhaps essential in this case.
If it’d been, oh, 100 years ago anywhere, 50 years ago most places, or great swaths of the present day world, my husband would likely currently be a widower.
MRAs can bite me.
Even the thing that they’re most likely to dismiss about women* (“Hurr durr, anyone can shit out a crotch nugget”) can be – and often has been – a deadly proposition.
*I’m not meaning to disinclude trans, non-binary, infertile, or childfree by choice women in that, but am rather addressing the tendency of MRAs and their ilk to dismiss even what they’d usually label as the most “necessary” capacity of women.
@GenJones – All of that is awesome.
All of it.
@bluecat – Also very cool.