Men’s Rights Activists, and anti-feminists generally, are forever warning anyone who will listen that excessive feminism could, any day now, bring about the end of western civilization itself.
This is not a terribly new or original idea. And a post on Nazified pickup artist blog Chateau Heartiste today reminds us just how old and unoriginal this notion is.
The proprietor of that blog, James “Heartiste” Weidmann, brings his readers’ attention to a lengthy quotation from a 1911 book by a fellow named Octavius Beale.
[U]nreasonable demands for exaggerated “rights ” of women will always find a limit in the fact that the majority of men will constantly prefer for wives those who do not claim such rights, but who rather seek their happiness in cultivating and developing their specially feminine virtues and attributes, apart from any aim at equality with men.
Take that, feminist cat ladies with no husbands!
These attributes will also therefore be preferably inherited, whilst the extreme tendencies of the women’s rights movement will usually not come into heredity, but will constantly tend to die out.
Well, he was half right. Feminism did die out, for a time, but then it came back.
Notwithstanding, should woman-rule —contrary to all expectations— become so strong in any single State that it will be able to enforce all its demands, even the most extreme, that result could only be possible where the men are completely degenerated.
Degenerated, huh? Can you see where this is going?
Such a nation would soon be supplanted and dissolved by healthier peoples, who might, perhaps, stand on a lower scale of culture.
I believe he is referring to what the Nazis of today like to call “white genocide.” Back in 1911, Beale called it “Racial Decay” — which was in fact the title of his book.
Amazing how quickly and easily Beale slid from antifeminism to white supremacy. Just as so many antifeminists do today.
Heartiste follows up Beale’s dire, racist warning with a dire, racist warning of his own.
After declaring “equalism” to be “a corruption of civilized man’s soul,” he tries his best to rally the troops in defense of their white “tribe.”
[F]emcuntery will only achieve wrecking power in a nation of degenerated men unable and unwilling to act to preserve their culture and protect their tribe. Women are followers and will follow their nation right into the abyss if it guarantees their social standing among peers; as I’ve been saying, it’ll take shitlord men with big balls to bring their women to heel and their nation back to greatness.
Heartiste, seriously, no one wants to hear about your balls.
@Bina I love DPNs so much! But he’s got like, two needles between his fingers of each hand, going straight down. Is this a technique I should know about? XD
I have the WORST time keeping my stitches tight between the needles though, and I hate that. I need to practise again, I think. (maybe after mass effect………..)
I remember hearing a few weeks (months?) ago that the Daily Stormer took umbrage with one of the Belle dolls, said she looked like a [transphobic slur]. I think it’s because the doll had kinda a big forehead.
Also, I heard the dress was designed by a five year old…I’m not sure how true that is though. I still don’t like it as much as the animated one.
@Rhuu:
Nope. The artist just didn’t know how to draw, poor thing. Also explains how he got the lady’s feet so dreadfully, DREADFULLY wrong. (I mean, they’re smaller than her hands. WTF???)
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017-03-13.jpg
I’m just going to leave this here
@ Newt – Ack, sorry! I had no idea it had that connotation across the pond. I’ve only ever seen it used as a general synonym for “shitlord” or “jerk” (probably on here, as a matter of fact). I’ll scratch it off the list. There are certainly better, less problematic epithets available. Thanks for the heads up.
@ Bina – Also, when you darn stockings, aren’t you supposed to stretch stockings over a darning egg or cup, and weave it flat across the hole? And isn’t it usually the heel that needs repairing?
Hard not to conclude that the artist wasn’t interested enough in women’s work to depict it accurately, or seriously.
@Buttercup:
Either that or the toe, yup. And you’re supposed to use a wool needle, which is a larger, blunter sewing needle. Not DPNs.
Misandry!
A lot of the design was by Emma Watson because she didn’t want to wear a corset during the ball scene for some reason.
@PaganReader
I was about to post that too, heh.
Long live Kelly Turnbull and MGDMT.
“Women are followers”
[multiple citations needed]
He wouldn’t happen to be related to Teddy, would he?
Maybe she wanted to breathe?
@WWTH: Yeah, that seems likely. Properly sized corsets tend to drive the breath from people. Which, y’know, some people like but I totally get Watson’s desire for oxygen. It’s what plants crave!
@WWTH:
Yes, it kind of helps one’s dancing to be able to breathe. I can’t blame her a bit for that.
Literally everyone else in the movie was wearing a corset and dancing though.
Also, I googled and found out
So that’s cool. Obviously women can never be badass in a corset or anything like that. I mean it isn’t like Belle was cool and awesome and took action before or nothing like that but you know whatever. She’s no Merida or Mulan is all.
I seem to recall that the cartoon Belle was represented as something of an intellectual because she read romance novels. You really can’t help but go up from there.
It’s not like someone can’t be badass in a corset and people are perfectly free to wear them if they want. But they do represent suffering and pain for an unrealistic beauty ideal. Something only women are forced to do. I don’t see why it’s offensive to not want to wear a restrictive and uncomfortable garment especially a garment with such a fraught history. Watson is A list enough that she was able to have some control over the costuming in the movie and she used it. If she did wear a corset, people would be complaining about that too.
It reminds me of Emilia Clarke renegotiating her contract for Game of Thrones so that she would do nudity only when she felt it was important to the story. People were mad that she was nude a lot in season one then people were made when she did less nudity in later seasons.
Or when Natalie Portman got shit for breaking her vegan diet while pregnant, choosing to go with her cravings while Emily Deschanel got shit for staying vegan while pregnant.
It’s almost like women can’t win. No matter what we do with our bodies.
Yeah, totally, repressed. That’s why she was reading a “romance” book. Totally.
@WWTH
It isn’t the fact that Emma Watson HERSELF didn’t want to wear a corset, it’s that she didn’t want BELLE to wear a corset because “she’s not like other girls” shit.
I’d be fine if EMMA didn’t want one, but she wants BELLE not to wear one because “THIS Belle is a woman of ACTION and isn’t some PASSIVE BEING OF DESIRE for Beast or Gaston like in the original”.
As if Belle was passive before. It’s not like she sacrificed herself for her father or anything. It’s not like she didn’t snap back at the Beast when he was being a fuckhead. Its not like she fought against Gaston. Evidentially Belle being smart and assertive just isn’t enough for Emma Watson, she has to be a woman “ahead of her time” and forgo a corset because Emma Watson think a smart, capable woman character can’t also wear a corset.
Of course, their definition of “asshole” is “men who are not me who I deem to be an asshole because projection”.
I mean, they want to subjugate women into doing what they want, but whenever a woman fucks someone else, that dude is somehow an “asshole” because that’s what women want. To date an asshole.
But, of course, women won’t fuck them because women are all apparently bitter and evil harpies who want to be with
someone who doesn’t treat them like a baby-making, house-cleaning, blowjob dispenseran “asshole”.Riiiiight.
_______________________________________
Off topic, but the new Power Rangers movie apparently has an openly gay character in it!
This is really great because one: Openly gay superhero, and two: the original blue ranger was an openly gay man, but was harassed off of the original set due to his sexuality. I’m hoping this will go well, even if it’s the Yellow Ranger and not the Blue Ranger who’s gay.
I’m so excited to go see this, and I got permission to take the day off from my internship (to work on my portfolio, but I’m also going to go have fun!) to go see it on opening day with Roommate!
So excited!
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/excited2.gif
Have a butt gif in celebration:
@Punkle Stan: I take it you haven’t seen the film yet? (I haven’t and I’m not sure I’m that enthused to), but I’m wondering… in another discussion the “gay scene” was apparently LeFou dancing with a man in a dress. Did they rework the older gag with Madame Garderobe crashing down on one of the mobbing villagers with the result that he gets put in a dress? (In the original animation he freaks out and runs away.)
@Paradoxical Intention – Resident Cheeseburger Slut
Oh my stars, another person who watched Akibarangers?! This is too good to be true!
But a corset does restrict movement. That’s a big part of why they fell out of style in the first place. I have a phony one without any boning in it that doesn’t cinch the waist all that much and it’s still too uncomfortable for me to do anything more than stand motionless.
I don’t see anywhere in Watson’s quote where she says Belle is better than other woman because she doesn’t wear a corset. I’m really not seeing it. If a woman says she doesn’t shave her legs because she doesn’t want to conform to current gendered beauty norms, that doesn’t mean she’s saying that all women who shave their legs are bimbos and tools of the patriarchy. Having Belle not conform to a particular beauty norm is not the same as saying she’s superior I don’t think. It’s a pretty uncharitable read of Watson’s quote.
@WWTH
When Watson said “a woman of action” she meant “a woman with agency”, as if Belle just stood around and let the Beast and Gaston fight over her in the original film.
Here, from a Glamor article.
However, it seems I may have misattributed a quote about the corset to Watson when it was actually from Jacqueline Durran, the costume designer.
Here:
However, in my defense, Emma Watson was the person who came up with the idea that Belle wouldn’t wear a corset ever as Watson had a lot of control and helped reimagined Belle.
And, to reiterate, I’m not complaining that she didn’t waist train or shit, I’m not asking for them to CGI a thin waist on her, I’m just saying the reason why Belle is the only woman in the movie not to wear a corset–yeah, there’s other women in the movie who wear corsets still–is dumb. Other than the stunt part because she does ride a horse but also you can take the corset off before riding a horse ffs. And even if she didn’t want to wear a real corset, you can fake the look of a corset pretty well. It’s 17th century France, just smoosh the boobs.
I can’t believe you would even think I’m trying to fucking police someone’s body when someone got all pissing when I told them not to body shame a man, a shitty man but still.
@Nequam
No, LeFou didn’t dance with a man in a dress. During the dancing scene (where every woman but Belle was wearing a corset for some reason), LeFou and a woman trade partners, the camera stays on LeFou. The man he has is in a coat and tails, as what men worse back then.
I wish the myth that you can’t breathe in a corset would go and die, quietly, in a corner somewhere. I’m wearing one right now. I wear one most days. Freakin’ opera singers wear them, and you’d better believe they need to breathe.
Sure, modern life isn’t designed for corset-wearers. It’s not as easy to sit on a slumpy sofa or wear low-cut trousers. But a corset is just the historical equivalent of a bra.
Jack,
I don’t think you’re trying to body police. I think you’re trying way too hard to look for a negative interpretation and it’s coming off a little like a straw feminist.
The live action Cinderella had her in a corset and the poster gave her a CGI waist. People reacted very negatively. So this production went in the other direction. Writers asked about it. They had to give some answer.
I’m saying there’s literally no costuming choice that wouldn’t be criticized and there’s literally no answer that Watson or Durran could give on the subject that wouldn’t be nitpicked to death. Which does result in body policing even if that wasn’t the intent.
And it wasn’t Emma Watson’s fault that other characters were put in corsets.
Jack, you were complaining in the other thread about characters from Skyrim and Fallout acting too out-of-character. And now you’re complaining about Belle acting too in-character.
I know you dislike Bethesda and Emma Watson, but being this much of an ass about it is, well, out-of-character for you. If there’s something else going on that you’re taking out on them (and us), tell us.