Over on the technically still alive Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, our old friend August Løvenskiolds deposits a piece of “political analysis” that is so completely contrary to fact and logic and basic historical understanding that we might call it a Wrongness Onion — no matter how many layers of wrongness you pull off of it, there are still more layers lurking underneath.
Also, it stinks, and might make you cry, though mostly out of embarrassment for Mr. Løvenskiolds, also known in these parts as McLøvenskiolds.
Near the beginning of a post titled “How will Nominee Trump pander to women?” but which in fact argues that “Nominee Trump” won’t “pander to women,” McLøvenskiolds drops this onion:
Women are 52% of voters, and so technically women control the outcome of all elections in ways that men do not: should women desire it, no man could ever win elective office.
In Imaginary Hypothetical Land, I suppose. In the real world, even though women do make up the majority of voters — both because women slightly outnumber men in the US, and because women are more likely to vote — women don’t vote, and never have voted, as a bloc. Neither do any other large demographic groups.
Also, as is clear to any political observer who does not have their head up their posterior, there is a lot more to politics than the gender ratio of voters. Women may slightly outnumber men, but the overall power structure, in the US and around the world, is heavily dominated by men, Men control the party apparatus of both major parties in the US; wealthy men (and groups of mostly men) skew election results by pumping money into the system to cover ads and other expenses.
I could go on and on about this one sentence from McLøvenskiolds, but like I said, this thing is an onion.
And we haven’t even gotten to the best bit. Let’s continue:
Men cannot control elections in the same way because men as a class are not the majority of voters.
Men “are not the majority of voters” in part because individual men are less likely to vote than women. If men started voting in higher proportion than women, they could easily become the majority of voters.
Also, all the stuff I said above. Political life in the US is so heavily dominated by men that men can opt out of voting and still expect men as a class to get more than their fair share of power.
So far, so bad. But it’s at this point that McLøvenskiolds sets forth his most, well, unique perspective on human history:
That’s right, feminists: your alleged “patriarchy” was created and maintained by the female electorate. Everything elected officials do is the responsibility of women as a class, not men. It is all YOUR fault, not men.
Er, dude, the patriarchy has been around for literally thousands of years. Historian Gerda Lerner’s celebrated The Creation of Patriarchy argues that the mixture of legal subordination and lopsided social power that we now call patriarchy developed “over a period of nearly 2500 years, from app. 3100 to 600 b.c.”
Women in the US got the vote less than a hundred years ago. They only became the majority of voters in presidential elections in the US in 1980.
Yes, women were involved in the creation of patriarchy — as Lerner notes, elite women benefitted from it in various ways, thought obviously less than their male counterparts — but unless there was some gigantic rift in space-time that sent modern American women back to the ancient Near East that I’ve never heard about, women didn’t vote patriarchy in.
Demonstrating an understanding of politics as keen as his understanding of history, McLøvenskiolds goes on to suggest that Trump might get a bump in the polls if he were to pick Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg as his veep.
She is a successful author and businessperson like Trump himself; Trump and the recently widowed Sandberg would make a formidable pair that would make progressives like [nickname of college student currently being harassed by MRAs and other terrible people deleted by DF] fling her toddler arms so fiercely they would surely fly off her well-marbled torso.
And that whole “widow” thing puts her over the top!
Asking a recent widow to be his running mate would strike a chord of sympathy with women that would ring on for months. It would be a masterstroke worthy of The Donald.
Never mind that Sandberg is a feminist and a longtime donor to Democratic causes who supports Hillary Clinton.
Also, Trump would probably have to apologize for this:
Just watched Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on 60 Minutes. She should spend more time trying to get the F stock price up & less on her ego!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2013
You see what I mean by that Wrongness Onion thing?
EDITED TO ADD:
Here’s how AVFM teased McL’s post on its main page:
Concur? Do they mean “conquer?”
And, no, AVFMers, women are only “the leisure class” in your delusional minds.
Who the hell “edits” these things?
@Policy of Madness
When it comes to describing single women and single men as “alone,” I’m an equal opportunity offender.
That said, I never mean that they’re tragically alone. Unless they are on a deserted island or in a cave — that’s no good.
Most people do not, so by being “equal opportunity” you are contributing to this misogynist narrative, in the same way that “race neutral” people contribute to structural racism.
How about we describe nobody as “alone” solely for reason of not having a romantic partner?
Hillary’s VP will definitely be Cory Booker, right?
I read this the other day and perhaps others may find it relevant:
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2016/05/04/women-are-less-happy-than-men-in-marriage-so-why-does-the-media-insist-otherwise/
@IP
More likely Julian Castro, right? The establishment likes him and the DNC seems to be grooming him for bigger things
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5jx3m7jk1CY
They gave Obama that same speech spot in 04. He likeable, younger than Booker, and… I mean… just look at him. Is he allergic to not smiling? If ya got it, flaunt it, but like dayum…
Her Black numbers are better than her Latin support, so Julian helps there. Castro is from the South, Texas specifically. A NYNJ ticket, according to conventional wisdom, just ain’t as strong, and making a big stand in TX and AZ is important for flipping those states later. Also Booker, as a Senator, is gonna have baggage that a relative unknown like Castro won’t. The name could be an issue, but if Trump attacks him on it, that’s another major gaffe to use as a ‘Trump hates Hispanics’ redirect. And let’s face it, Trump will more than likely mention it, he can’t help himself
@Axecalibur
You make a strong case.
@pitshade
Like someone’s annoying habit, I never really noticed the extent to which the media pushes ‘women are all about marriage’ until you pointed it out.
It’s freakin everywhere. Even the wedding itself is called ‘her big day’. Girls are taught that getting married will be the ‘best day of their life’.
In a related note, the more I’ve learn of feminism and portrayal of women in the media, the more uncomfortable I get watching a show where the female characters are so obviously designed according to how a man thinks (or wants) women to act.
Pitshade,
I noticed in the comments that the women agreed and a lot of the men were disagreeing. Because they know how women feel better, I guess.
EJ:
And now various Tories have expressed disgust with Goldsmith’s racist campaign. Seems their disgust was so extreme that it rendered them speechless on the matter until after the election.
Dunno whether this has any connection with the election, but I walked past the Israeli ambassador’s pad on Thursday, and there were three cops on the pavement outside with submachine guns. Normally they’re a bit more discreet than that. Maybe they heard Ken Livingstone was in the area.
@IP
Well, thx
@Brits
Speaking of elections, and since Khan and Brexit were mentioned upthread, are they related. That is, does Khan mean anything Brexitwise. Like, does his win speak to which way the country (countries?) might go, or is it more limited in predictive power? Just curious…
@pitshade/WWTH: Of course the men would insist that the wimmens are happy! They’re married to them!
If the wimmens aren’t happy being married to them, then that means that the menz are doing a bad job, and menz are awesome at everything they do, and can never be bad husbands! Surely the wimmens are just upset they haven’t had their daily allotment of bon-bons. [/sarcasm]
Seriously though, I wouldn’t put it past quite a few men to immediately hand-wave a woman’s feelings on something, despite women telling them the truth.
Hell, that’s happened here with Glenn and Richard in the two threads they lurked in. Glenn insisted that his pick-up strategy wasn’t creepy or not-okay at all, despite just about every woman regular here telling him otherwise, and Richard was going off in the Sargon thread about how he doesn’t think rape culture is real, despite the rest of us telling him he’s wrong.
Men are taught to prioritize their feelings first, and fuck everyone else, and at the same time are taught not to express any emotion other than “Neutral” and varying degrees of “Anger”. It’s really fucked up.
(Off topic: It’s my birfdai today, and my mom’s coming to visit, so I’m slightly bracing myself for that. It’s also Mother’s Day here in the US, so happy Mother’s Day to all the moms here!)
The worst media representation relating to women and marriage has got to be the Hallmark Channel rom-com. If anyone thinks regular theatrically released romantic comedies are, Hallmark takes the formula and adds a pseudo Christian fundie twist. Religion is never actually mentioned, but all the same, they’re so conservative and prudish that they are clearly targeting that audience. I think they’re meant for repressed traditional women who are trying desperately to convince themselves that they’ve made the correct life choices.
Pretty much all their movies involve a career woman meeting a man and leaving her career to live happily ever after with him after about one kiss and a few days of knowing each other. It’s terrible.
Yet sometimes I hate watch them. Why? I don’t know.
It does seem like more and more women don’t want to be pandered to with shitty, formulaic, and sexist rom-coms. They’ve been doing poorly at the box office. Here’s an interesting but long look at what happened.
http://www.laweekly.com/news/who-killed-the-romantic-comedy-4464884
They talk about how male centered romantic comedies have been doing better, but they don’t come to the conclusion that it might be because men are actually more interested in a romantic fantasy than women.
Hipy papy bthuthduth, Paradoxical Intention! I hope you have a really lovely one. With people and presents and candles and cake (mmmmm, cake 🙂 )
And I hope everything goes nicely with your mum too.
@Paradoxical
Again, is forum is not exactly a microcosm of all women. And without observing me in action, you can’t accurately comment on my pickup strategy.
No, but everyone here seems to suggest that a man should always put a woman’s feelings before his own.
Anyway, happy birthday.
@weirwood
I know you missed me, I’m back!
I took a weekend trip to the Temple to try my pickup approach on Dany Targaryen.
@Policy of Madness
Hear fucking HEAR. I’ve been without a romantic partner now for only a few years less than I was in romantic relationships, but I’m not ALONE.
@ Moocow
Have you ever seen the Sinfest comic where Patriarchy is the Matrix? Feminism is a far better analogy for the red pill than what we normally see.
This is where it starts: http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2011-10-07
@ WeirwoodTreeHugger, Paradoxical Intention
I like that site but the comments have often been full of sealions and MRA types. I tend not to read them, tbh.
Disclaimer, I’m AMAB agender, asexual, aromantic and asocial (mostly) I am mostly here (and lurking elsewhere) to learn and share but I don’t have much in the way of original insight to offer.
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2013/3/26/risegrave.gif
So, Glenn lurks around here until someone mentions his name and then he comments? Is that his new schtick? Oh, but there’s no possible we can know he’s creepy. Nope. None at all!
@ Skullpants, Kat
Thank you!
@ Policy of Madness
Good call, thanks. I definitely don’t want to perpetuate the notion that singlehood is necessarily a sad thing or a failure, whether it’s gendered or not.
Earlier ITT when I used the word “alone” instead of “single”, I did mean for the implications of sadness and failure to be there. I was saying it’s a sad thing that some women have to choose between having a sexist partner or no partner at all, and I was saying they (we) are being failed, by our sexist culture. The words came out pretty much as I meant them.
But you’re right, people are likely to read that as supporting gross ideas about single people. I wasn’t thinking that many steps ahead.
@WWTH
Reminds me of the one line review in a local paper of Mel Gibson’s 2000 ‘What Women Want’: Better movies than this piece of shit.
One of the most striking aspects of gender socialization, IMO, is that girls are socialized to be good at relationships (including intimate ones), but on the other hand, if you set out deliberately to train boys to be bad at relationships, you could hardly do a better job than the traditional (toxic) masculine model. It has been my experience that there is a very significant excess of women who can become good partners compared to men with those qualities. I have definitely benefitted from that imbalance in the relationship/matrimonial sweepstakes myself, since I’ve had trouble getting and holding jobs due to my criminal record (Vietnam-era draft resister) and rather cantankerous personality. I was fortunate to meet a woman who is an excellent bread-winner and was looking for someone who would be willing (and reasonably capable) to stay home with the kids when they were little. In any case, it is probably true that a lot of women who would prefer to be in a relationship will be forced to accept that being single is preferable to a relationship with an unsuitable man. Maybe men will learn that they don’t get to have a loving partner just for having a penis.
I have been a committed pro-feminist ever since I read de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex at the age of 19 almost exactly 50 years ago, but I still have to struggle with my masculine socialization more times than I really like to admit, and I don’t always win the battle. Most boys are raised to believe that if they aren’t firmly in control of any situation, including relationships, they aren’t “real men” and women won’t “respect” them. (And it is true that there are still a lot of women who won’t respect a man who is not dominant.) The fact is that society has tried to make all of us males deeply insecure about our manhood (and of course has done the same thing with women) in order to manipulate us, and to some extent the dudes that David exposes to ridicule are the ones who have bought into the traditional stereotypes most strongly and therefore react with the greatest degree of insecure anger to those women who haven’t bought in to the feminine stereotype. The MGTOWs are faced with a major conflict: they can’t really relate to most women because women aren’t adhering to the patterns that the dudes have been conditioned to expect, but they still need to have sex with them to validate themselves as “real men”.
I think we are in the midst (probably in the middle or a bit before the middle) of a great transformation in gender roles that will probably end up with at most a small fraction of the gender role differentiation that existed before the modern wave of feminism — say, before about 1960. The pace may seem glacial in terms of a human life span, but I think it is inevitable — although it might be speeded up or slowed down — for at least two reasons. First is the steady decrease in the value of brawn and the increase in the value of brains in economic life. In the mostly agricultural-based economy of the past, women worked as hard as men but at less strenuous, more skill-based tasks (cooking vs plowing, for example). The economy we have today can’t afford to waste the intellectual contributions that women can make, while we have a really serious issue of how to deal with all that male muscle power which is no longer particularly in demand. Second is the fact that the modern economy requires more cooperation and teamwork on projects far too large for any individual to accomplish, so the value of the brilliant lone wolf type has diminished — and women’s traditional socialization tends to make them better suited for this sort of thing than traditional male individualistic competition. In other words, I think that while women have to move a certain distance toward what men have been traditionally socialized to be, men have to move a greater distance towards what women have been traditionally socialized to be. Unfortunately, men, having been given most of the power in the traditional system, are finding it a lot more difficult to adapt to the world of the future — or to even accept the need to adapt.
What I am hoping will come out of the Trumpenstein campaign is that women will be motivated to speak up and assert themselves against what he represents and will discover that it actually feels good; that more and more women will insist on having a greater role in public life.
Credit where it’s due, Peter Oborne and Sayeeda Warsi strongly criticised the campaign while it was running – but they were very much in the minority.
But it’s worth reading Oborne’s denunciation, as he doesn’t remotely pull his punches.
Sorry – I forgot to link to the Oborne piece: it’s here.
And it’s well worth a read, not least because he’s become the British equivalent of thoughtful American conservatives who are utterly appalled by Donald Trump.
@EJ
Thank you so much! :3
@DustBunny
Honestly, I don’t think you are wrong at all. It’s much better and wiser to look for men who are feminist in the first place, for several reasons. They just tend to be kinder, (sorry if that’s ableist) smarter and safer. It’s simply a safer bet to let yourself fall for such a man. Hell, its even safer (and better!) to hook up with them, according to my experience.
I am only insisting on him because we had been together for 2 years before I even knew of feminism, and when I entered it, he acts so much like a feminist and accepts so many feminist concepts (when you give them other names) that I actually THOUGHT he was a feminist.
Before feminism, as a silly teen, I was a bit transphobic, fatphobic, slutshamer, and he called me out on all that and educated me. He gave me the last push I needed to accept my bissexuality, without using it for his entertainment. And mostly, when I was raped, he noticed it was rape even before I did, offered me all support I needed, without any victim blaming, even when every one blamed me. Not to mention I love him so much, and I can see he loves me too. So I think my case is very especific and wouldnt advise anyone to follow my steps. Don’t expect people to change much, ever. It’s a waste of time and emotional strength.
But I will keep you informed!