Men’s Rights Redditors came dangerously close to achieving a moment of self-awareness yesterday. But the crisis was averted, and the Men’s Rights subreddit was able to safely return to its habitual obliviousness, with all of its illusions intact.
Someone calling himself ffff1234 disturbed the universe of the Men’s Rights subreddit with a simple question yesterday: “Why is this subreddit frowned upon?”
Happily, the regulars were able to assure themselves that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it totally wasn’t their fault, nun-uh.
Their movement’s poor reputation in the wider world is, rather, the result of devious machinations by “feminazi overlords” who see the brave little Men’s Rights subreddit, and MRAs generally, as a threat to their continued hegemony.
“The people in power always hate the truth,” declared rg57.
“[W]e work against the plutocracy’s interests,” agreed the longtime MRA and terrible cartoon writer known as ThePigmanAgain. “That’s what it really comes down to.”
The plutocrats in question? Feminists. Or, rather, feminazis.
As Adanu0 put it
the feminazis hate it when you call out their bullsh*t, and this place does it all the time. We are the epitome of freedom of speech compared to them, and they want to keep their special snowflake narrative alive.
In a followup comment, he explained that
If you’re male, there is no existing with the feminazis, because their whole goal is the destruction of ‘the patriarchy’. This effectively means any form of male power is frowned upon and a target.
Anyone who thinks that is a good thing is ridiculous and belongs in that sub, slaving to the feminazi overlords.
I’m going to make this last bit my standard answer when anyone asks what I’m up to.
“Hey, David, what’s up?”
“Not much! Just SLAVING TO THE FEMINAZI OVERLORDS.”
K1NTOUN, meanwhile, warned his fellow MRAs not to underestimate their wily feminist foes.
They don’t give a damn about men or men’s rights. Equality means nothing to them. It’s merely a buzzword they use. Modern feminism is one group that can be completely generalized because they are all the same. There are no levels of feminism. You either accept the doctrine or you don’t.
Other commenters noted sadly that feminazi propaganda has infected much of society, leading many men to conclude that, contrary to MRA TRUTH, maybe women don’t actually run the world.
“Women are special creatures who are the peers of children when it suits them and the peers of men when it suits them,” lamented v573v.
Whatever women want – men must facilitate – including taking the blame for the demands that women place on men.
Either that, or women are capable human beings with an ability and power of their own, but if that was true – the victim card couldn’t be played; or perhaps the card is just another source of power which women can use as a path to power – a damsel in distress can inspire men to move mountains and under these rules women get the additional benefit of blaming men for anything bad that might of happened when the mountains were moved. Everybody wins! Except men, but they don’t count.
One bold fellow noted a parallel between the Men’s Rights movement and another movement that’s frequently frowned upon by polite society. The Men’s Rights subreddit is frowned upon, pazz explained,
For the same reason White Pride is. People always re-phrase it as a double negative and it changes the meaning. I am Pro-White and proud of my history is heard as I am Anti-Non-White and hate everything about you. Which is horrible.
Similar translations happen when you say I am Pro-Mens Rights. People hear I am Anti-Womens Rights. Which is horrible.
Like the rest of those I’ve quoted here, pazz was upvoted for his thoughtful stance.
Thus providing yet more evidence of some of the real reasons why people look down upon the Men’s Rights subreddit.
@Alan:
And yet, that specialist terminology exists precisely because it makes discussing complex subjects easier amongst those who already have the base knowledge, so it’s not going away any time soon.
My favourite moment about that was when I was off for dinner with several friends. Two of them both happened to have backgrounds in geology, were sitting at one end of the table across from each other, and hadn’t really got a chance to talk much before. Before dinner was half over they were deep enough into geological jargon that none of the rest could follow (including me who’d had one of them as a housemate for years).
I turned to the friends on the other side, hooked a thumb back towards the first two, and said, “Ahh, so this is what it sounds like when I start talking about computers.”
Somewhere I’ve got a CD with a madrigal called ‘Two Lawyers’ as sung by a folk group called ‘Clam Chowder’, which is all about two lawyers shaking hands and going for lunch after the case, and the client of one of them wondering how this could work.
Yayyy! 😀
@ jenora
I like madrigals, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find that one.
Going for lunch is pretty common. Apart from anything else we usually all eat in the same places and you can get a bit of ‘housekeeping’ done if you chat (“How long will you be with this witness? Shall I tell the next one they can go home for now?” Etc). Also once we’ve seen how things are going that often promote negotiations. (“The jury clearly don’t like your officer; take a plea to ABH?”)
In England its often the case that the prosecution, defence and even the judge may all be from the same chambers, so we’re mates anyway and its fairly common to end up in the pub together after court.
We don’t shake hands though. There’s a convention (don’t know the origins) that barristers don’t for some reason.
Fist bump instead?
@ violinless
I think I might try to promote nose rubbing.
(One of my friends is of Inuit* heritage and she does that. I was surprised it was real. She said it wasn’t but she just likes it)
*Apparenty that’s like calling all Europeans “German” but she understands the intention.
@ Alan Robertshaw.
I’m no lawyer, but I can’t help suspecting the ‘no handshake’ convention was originally intended to help maintain the legal system’s reputation for probity. If there is no hand to hand contact happening, there is no bribe being passed.
@ Kevin
I suspect you might be right there; the other theory is its to allay any suggestion of “funny handshake” Masonic type shenanigans.
As to money. Traditionally barristers aren’t supposed to sully themselves* with anything as sordid as cash. There’s a pocket on the back of our gowns called an Honorarium where clients are suppressed to discreetly slip the fee when we aren’t looking.
* I’m pretty easy going so I’m happy to take cash, cheques, BACS payments or hash. I also like the Rumpole quote:
Also:
What they don’t seem to realise is how damaging the Patriarchy is to men as well as to women. Any man other than the ‘Top Dog’ too is subjegated. It isn’t a system to create equality, it’s what you might consider ‘social Darwinism’, survival of the fittest. Machiavellian in fact. When men have to fight among themselves for their place in the hierarchy, there aren’t any winners.
@pitshade
By alfalfa male do you mean the Japanese grass eater boys?
@wwth
Republicans are influenced politically by the religious doctrine of Calvinism, which basically states that the most prosperous people are the most highly favoured by God (being a very loose concept of God, based on misinterpretations of the Judeo/Christian bible) and if someone is poor it is a direct result of their ‘sin’. Hence, a Republican believing that someone working full time but still living in poverty makes sense to their twisted world view. This is also why Tea Baggers et al are against paying tax, as they consider this to be giving away their God bestowed blessings onto ‘poor sinners’. Of course, this is direct defiance to what Jesus (historical or otherwise) actually taught, ‘render unto Caesar’, therefore pay your taxes, feed the poor, heal the sick, and cast out ‘demons’. I see a lot of ‘demons’ that need casting out right there in the GOP.
BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask, are you a real communist?
@ Virgin Mary
It’s probably fair to say that Jesus, or the authors of the gospels anyway, didn’t have much regard for tax collectors. “Tax collector” is pretty much the default metaphor for the most evil person on the planet.
See Matt 18:17 or 5:46 for example.
Jesus and John the Baptist specifically singled out tax collectors as those most in need of redemption.
(Of course the political situation at the time, i.e. tax collectors being collaborators working on behalf of the Roman occupiers probably had a lot to do with that)
How was your meeting btw? You barred from voting yet?
Dear Nazi MRAs: if you’re so worried about “white genocide”, stop MAKING IT SO APPEALING.
@alan
No, I’m not barred from voting, I got my confirmation a couple of days ago. Most of the local CLP know about our merry band of comrades. The first Momentum meeting was great, they had booked a room for thirty, and actually got an attendance of 64. I’d say about 50/50 male female ratio as well, including a lot of couples. There is a lot of female support for Jeremy, despite the stories about Momentum bullying female MPs. They seem to want to brand Momentum as a faceless rabble rather than individuals, sure there are a few agent provocateurs out there, believing they speak for Momentum as a whole is a ridiculous idea. Our lot are very reasonable intelligent people. I even managed to sell a few Socialist Appeals.
@ Virgin Mary
Cool. I saw a thing in the paper saying about a quarter of new applicants had been banned! Weirdly, one of the reasons for banning was previous support for a different party. Seems the NEC has trouble grasping the concept of “winning people over”. 🙂
Virgin Mary,
I tend to avoid labels beyond liberal or progressive, although I definitely have socialist leanings. It’s not a special snowflake too cool for labels thing. I just put my focus more on policy and issues and voting and campaigning for the candidates I think make the most sense. Philosophy and ideology is a bit less important to me.
@Alan:
The place I have it on is an album called ‘Screams of the Vegetables’, which is a recording of some of the filk singing at the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention. (The album is called that because Clam Chowder also did a cover of the Arrogant Worms’ song Carrot Juice is Murder, which contains that line.)
If you’re not familiar with filk, well, it’s a rather eclectic mish-mash, a combination of actual old folk songs, burlesques (in the sense of parody songs like ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic), and custom written songs on a variety of science fiction and fantasy topics. That name is used because back in the days of using typewriters to print program sheets, somebody at a science-fiction convention misspelled ‘folk singing’ on a door sign as ‘filk singing’, and fans being what they are, they decided to run with it.
@Virgin Mary
Yes!
The guys on your football team are heroes — never mind the punishment their bodies and brains are taking.
The guys in the armed forces are heroes too — but injured veterans (male and female) have a difficult time getting proper treatment.
Men are expected to heroically keep their emotions in check. They can’t of course. So they might drink. Or take their anger out on their families. Everybody suffers.