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.
Well, you know what they say: If it’s too good to be true, it’s usually not.
And in this case, they were right.
I just saw that gif on tumblr and really liked it. Sorry. 🙁
Though, I might consider watching it now that Power Rangers are coming back thanks to nostalgic 90’s kids now making movies about it.
I also saw a huge Pink Ranger mug (classic costume) at my local ThinkGeek brick-and-mortar a while back, and I really want it for my growing mug collection. Also because the only other large mug I have is my Space Jam mug, and it could use some 90’s-style company.
http://www.entertainmentearth.com/images/AUTOIMAGES/SBPR1434Zlg.jpg
Look at it. LOOK AT ITTTTT.
JennyWren is right. I’ve done a lot of RenFaires wearing a bodice which is a forerunner to the corset. I can see why it became popular, especially with larger-breasted women, the support is fantastic. A bodice looks great, but because it cuts off at the waist, it can be rather uncomfortable if you have some pudge around your middle.
I made* myself a corset some years ago to wear beneath my Elizabethan costumes and what a difference! It’s comfy** and works like a back support as a bonus! I’ve also had a cheap corset with plastic boning and those are utter crap and uncomfortable as hell.
*Not as hard as you might think; the hardest part is installing the busk but the directions in the Laughing Moon pattern are easy to follow. Also, like knitting, you really must make a mock-up (without the boning) to check the fit first; don’t skip that step! Also, buy metal boning, you’ll be glad you did.
**I can wear mine for 4-5 hours, but my normal bad posture being corrected starts to get uncomfortable until I can take it off and slouch again. I generally have to hike up and down hills at faires and breathing is not a problem. Bending over is impossible, though.
Well, I think the comfort of corsets depends on your body type and your expectations. I have a very nice, expensive corset that I bought from one of the largest Ren Faire’s in the Midwest (the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha, if anyone else knows of it!), and I still find is uncomfortable to wear. That’s in spite of it’s steel ribbing and excellent craftsmanship. The first few times I wore it I had it tightened so that it conformed to my body properly, but I had to breathe shallowly and that tends to feed into my anxiety.
The last few times I’ve worn it I’ve had it tied more loosely, so it doesn’t tighten around my chest like it should but I can breathe a little better. I still find anything that keeps me from bending my torso normally to be constricting, which is a frustrating sensation for me.
But I’m someone who looks at high heels like they’re poisonous snakes. I have a desperate desire to be prepared to fight or run at a moment’s notice, at all times. I don’t think about it much, until that ability is compromised, and then I just don’t feel safe anymore. I get that some people can run in high heels, but I am not one of them. And while corsets might be okay for walking, and mine would pretty much act as armor if someone punched me in the gut (due to that steel ribbing) my strength as a fighter comes from quick, evasive maneuvering and a corset can only limit me.
I still like to wear my corset to the Ren Faire, because that costume just looks bad-ass, but for me wearing it is a compromise to my sense of agency and power. It’s just a compromise I’m willing to make on rare occasions where everyone is dressed up and I want to do the same.
I don’t know what to say at this point.
What.
Where…did I say anyone was acting out of character? Anywhere? I mean, I guess I could have been complaining about inconsistent characterization of the PC, being that you have a variety of more choices of dialogue to choose from that other characters can react to differently compared to the other parts of the game but I’m pretty sure I made that pretty clear that it was the writing I was criticising there rather than characters being out of character?
And I’m not criticizing the character of Belle, I’m pointing out people have been calling Belle “passive” in the original movie, as if she didn’t ride out into the woods to find her father and switch places with him, instigating the entire goddamn movie! Things didn’t happen at Belle, she didn’t sit around in ball gowns all day!
I mean I didn’t even bring up the fact that in the new film they made her an inventor and that she teaches other woman how to read–which are really cool new characterizations. Literally I am just pointing out that people thought she wasn’t active enough in her whole story before the new movie, one of which is Emma Watson herself.
@ Lord pabu
I’ve got a bit of an interest in women’s self defence. If you don’t mind sharing I’d be curious as to whether you have any preferred system or if it’s a personal style.
@Alan
I took some Tae Kwon Do in college, but that style didn’t work all that well for me. Mine is more of a personal style, I suppose. I’m very good at reading body language and posturing, so none of the physical altercations I’ve been in these past few years have come to blows at all. People tend to back off once they can tell I’m serious.
But I used to brawl with my cousin a lot when I was growing up, and my mother and I got physical with each other numerous times (and not because we were practicing our form. That relationship was toxic). I have good instincts for fighting and I rely on them to keep me safe, but it’s really not anything I could easily teach anyone.
Sometimes, I want to try and take classes in something I could show off. But it’s actually very difficult for me to practice fighting in a leisurely setting. It’s just too real for me.
@ lord pabu
Now that is really really interesting.
We’re always saying that 95% of self defence is non physical. i.e. That the best skills are firstly the ability to read situations* and then, if necessary, ideally to de-escalate by appearing to be a ‘hard target’. All the technical stuff is very much a last resort.
It’s genuinely interesting to me that you’ve evolved that on your own. Heh, you’re a natural.
Also, what you say about training. The psychological aspects of violence are the hardest to prepare for. So ‘leisurely settings’ just won’t work. You need an environment where you can emulate the reality as much as possible; and that very much involves keeping things very stressful (and that can be harder to cope with for people than the fear of getting hurt, which demonstrates your point I suppose).
(* my usual plug for Gavin DeBecker’s ‘Gift of Fear’)
Thank you ever so much for sharing that. This is all very helpful to me.
Yay! Rant on Disney movies!
I haven’t seen the new Beauty and the Beast, nor read much about it aside from what’s been reiterated here, but I really hope the quotes from the participants in the movie aren’t a larger sign of people disrespecting the original Belle. I’ve made my feelings on the misinterpretations of the original cartoon pretty clear before, and absolutely agree with Handsome Jack that Belle was never the passive character some people commonly mistake her for.
It’s true that many classic Disney princess protagonists, such as Snow White and Aurora, have fairly passive and uninteresting roles. Things just kind of happened to them. That was the style: They represented a blank slate upon which anyone could project themselves (think Bella from Twilight)*. The Disney Renaissance, thought as having started with The Little Mermaid, changed this paradigm: the focus began to be on finding one’s identity. Now, the protagonists started actively moving the plot forward. For instance, Ariel seeks out Ursula and makes the pact, she isn’t a passive victim of a petty, vindictive witch fairy like Aurora. Without her active involvement, we wouldn’t have a movie.
Similarly, Belle makes the deal with Beast herself in order to save her sick father, she isn’t traded by him like in the original fairy tale, and she refuses to take Beast’s shit from day one. She refuses to eat dinner with him and starts breaking his rules pretty much immediately. She leaves his ass once his anger management issues become apparent, she decides to return in order to save him from freezing to death in the snow after the battle with the plot convenience wolves, and she promptly shoots down his pathetic attempt to justify his temper tantrum. She’s not just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. Even the groan-inducing old-time-y gender trope montage of her trying to teach him how to eat dinner and feed birds like a normal person are still presented as her seeing the potential in him and actively bringing it out.
However, both of these movies are also perfect examples of how the early Disney renaissance movies turned the woman’s tale into a man’s tale. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel learns nothing: she’s the same person in the beginning as she is in the end. She never learns the consequences of her actions, and others fix all her problems for her. The main character is then really her father, King Triton, who goes from being an overprotective father with anger management issues to accepting that he needs to let her daughter make her own decisions in life. Also, Ariel doesn’t get to defeat Ursula, prince Erik does. That’s right, a character who has little to no personal antagonism towards the villain gets to deliver the killing blow, just to adhere to a patriarchal damsel in distress trope. That’s just… wrong.
Similarly, Belle, despite her active role in the story, is just a supporting character to the Beast, whose character growth from an angry loner with toxic masculine beliefs into a sensitive, compassionate person makes up the bulk of the movie. The confrontation with the villain Gaston (essentially his darker self), at the end of the movie shows how far he has come, but… Belle doesn’t get a part in defeating him, despite having been the explicit focus of Gaston’s abusive tendencies throughout the movie? What the hell?
Sure, I guess the movie kinda tries to give Belle a character arc, but doesn’t deliver. Her own dreams and desires are presented in her own words as “adventure in the great wide somewhere”, but… that goes nowhere? I mean, by the end of the movie, she doesn’t have to settle for the provincial life she’s grown bored of, she doesn’t have to marry Gaston, she doesn’t have to stay with the judgemental villagers, but that’s it. Her desire for adventure is never mentioned again. Her story is left hanging.
One could assume that after marrying at the end of the movie, the prince’s vast wealth and social status will allow the couple to make those adventures, but that is never explicitly shown. Belle’s internal conflict remains unsolved. I remember this bothering me enormously as a kid, just like the one tagline saying how “Belle learns the lesson that real beauty is on the inside.” Except… she doesn’t? She reacts with horror at Beast’s initial appearance and behavior, but once he stops acting like a dick, she’s not bothered by his monstrous features at all. The tagline lied. It’s not about Belle learning anything, it’s all about Beast.
I would have preferred that the romance subplot be dropped entirely, and the focus be on two outsiders finding mutual friendship, understanding and acceptance with each other. Stupid earlier Disney with its stupid hetero-normative bullshit *grumble grumble*
So yeah, there are good and progressive things in the original movie that I think way too many people overlook, instead mistakenly assigning it features from the more classic line of Disney movies. Doesn’t mean it is perfect, far from it. Belle should get more focus, she should get an actual character arc, and I really hope the new movie addresses this. But she has never been a passive character in the vein of Snow White and Aurora.
*I’ve seen a few interesting takes on why the classic Disney villains were so memorable compared to modern ones: they had to make up for the personality the main characters lacked. The need for that also started changing when modern Disney movies started focusing on the protagonists and making them more interesting, which is why modern Disney villains are no longer the scene-stealers the classic ones were. One could argue that this is an improvement: Personally, I hate the “villains are inherently more interesting than heroes” argument, which I think stems purely from lazy writing.
Anyone who thinks Belle is passive in the animated film wasn’t really paying attention. After Mrs. Potts tells her the Beast isn’t son bad once you get to know him she immediately snaps back “I don’t want to get to know him! I don’t want to have anything to do with him!” I don’t remember Emma Watson’s Belle doing that.
I disagree with this article, sure in the past feminism was needed and the reasons for antifeminism were bullshit. Weve given equal rights to women and men I fail to see why feminism is needed anymore in the western world. What a stupid fallacious article.
@Brad
Where in the article does Futrelle say that feminism is currently necessary? I mean, that’s your objection. I just can’t find that anywhere in the post. Also, which fallacies a present in the OP? Cos, last I checked, mockery wasn’t one
@Brad:
Wah.
Love, PeeVee
@Bradley Shore
Open thread: science journals; never read.
Oh, boy, a man came along to tell us ladies that we don’t need feminism any more! Gosh, thanks, random dude!
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/hmc.gif
Welp, fellow feminists, a man told us that he doesn’t understand why feminism is needed anymore; therefore, feminism isn’t factually needed! Follow my logic, if you will:
A man doesn’t understand why feminism is needed.
Men never lack for information or ability, and if even one man doesn’t understand something, that means it objectively makes no sense.
Therefore, feminism makes no sense.
Additionally, if something doesn’t make sense, it isn’t necessary.
Therefore, feminism isn’t necessary.
I can see zero flaws in this logical progression and all the premises are airtight, and I am therefore turning in my feminist card. Someone let Katie know for me, please, since as a non-feminist I can’t speak to her personally anymore.
Who’s “we?”
Because it kinds of sounds like you’re saying “we men have given you ladies the right to vote, now sit down and be quiet.”
That kind of patronizing bullshit would indicate that we do in fact still need feminism.
@Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
“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 a strawman fallacy. MRAs and anti feminists “are” forever warning anyone of that? Really, you dont see anything wrong with that statement?
[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”
I fail to see anything wrong with that comment. Unreasonable demands for rights are never good.
I also find fault with this snarky reply. It is devoid of any substance.
“Take that, feminist cat ladies with no husbands!”
“whilst the extreme tendencies of the women’s rights movement will usually not come into heredity, but will constantly tend to die out.”
I also fail to see whats wrong with the above statement. The extremes of the women’s rights movement will not continue to the future generation.
As we get more and more progressive, unreasonable laws/rights will be removed.
The reply to that statement is again a ridiculous strawman fallacy. It might be fun making a strawman of someone and attacking it than attacking the points but its not intellectually honest.
@ Who’s “we?”
Because it kinds of sounds like you’re saying “we men have given you ladies the right to vote, now sit down and be quiet.”
That kind of patronizing bullshit would indicate that we do in fact still need feminism.
No it does not sound like that. It only sounds like that to you cause youre being biased. What I meant was that the citizens of the western world made it happen. Next time try not to jump to conclusions and put words in my mouth. Its not the best way to have a reasonable discussion about things. Youre only making yourself look foolish.
@Policy of Madness.
“Welp, fellow feminists, a man told us that he doesn’t understand why feminism is needed anymore; therefore, feminism isn’t factually needed! Follow my logic, if you will:
A man doesn’t understand why feminism is needed.
Men never lack for information or ability, and if even one man doesn’t understand something, that means it objectively makes no sense.
Therefore, feminism makes no sense.
Additionally, if something doesn’t make sense, it isn’t necessary.
Therefore, feminism isn’t necessary.
I can see zero flaws in this logical progression and all the premises are airtight, and I am therefore turning in my feminist card. Someone let Katie know for me, please, since as a non-feminist I can’t speak to her personally anymore.”
Passive aggressiveness and strawmanning. Again, stop putting words in my mouth Im starting to see a pattern when I talk to the members of this site.
When misogyny is not a thing anymore, then feminism will no longer need to be a thing. Women in the US don’t even have legal equality yet, let alone social and economic equality. The fact that women can vote and hold down a job doesn’t mean feminism’s work is done here, move along.
WTF makes you think you are the one qualified to make this judgment anyway?
Bro, I am not passive-aggressive. I am straight-up, in-your-face aggressive. Learn the diff, and then tell me where exactly I strawmanned your argument.
@LindsayIrene
Oh really, so just cause Im a man I cant read up on women’s issues talk to female friends of mine about these issues or be well versed in them? Kinda sounds sexist doesnt it.
If you people really cared about intellectual honesty, youd debate with me instead of saying things like “Youre a man what do you know” or implying that Im being misogynistic in any way shape or form.
Now for a serious question Irene why do you think that women dont have equal rights as men in the western world?
Why do you think feminism is no longer necessary, Mr Shore?
@Policy of Madness
Cause Ive actually researched into this. I’ve scoured financial data, crime statistics and the law.
How are they not economically or socially equal? Id say in most cases in the western world, women have more rights.
If you account for the industries women select and the amount of hours worked, women actually outearn men. “Socially” How are women socially unequal to men? Women can be and do whatever they want, men are still stuck in traditional masculine roles. Why is the sentencing for sexual abuse much much lower for women than for men. Why do the courts take the side of the women the vast majority of the time when it comes to divorce and alimony and child support payments.
Why does the society trivialize female on male violence, but doesnt do the same when it is male on female violence.
I can name dozens more.