Men’s Rights Activists aren’t good at much, but they’re remarkably adept at one thing: blaming women for things done by men. Rape? Don’t blame the rapists, blame their allegedly abusive mothers who made them that way. Environmental catastrophe? Don’t blame the CEOs of polluting corporations or the politicians who enable them, blame women and their love of shopping.
As the antifeminist Nazis of the Alt-Right move ever further into the territory of the MRAs, they’re doing their best to perfect their women-blaming skills. But they still have some ways to go, if a supremely muddled recent post on The Daily Stormer is any indication.
Daily Stormer contributor Master Ace starts off with a premise that will be familiar to anyone who has been following MRAs for any length of time — that women are destroying civilization by picking the wrong dudes to hook up with. YouTube “philosopher” and erstwhile MRA Stefan Molyneux, as you may recall, presented a particularly blunt version of this thesis in a now-notorious video rant blaming women for all the evil in the world because of their alleged inclination to choose assholes as boyfriends and husbands.
Master Ace offers a similar, if far more muddled, version of this argument in a post with the chilling title “For the Sake of All That is Good, Female Sexual Choice Must be Suppressed.”
Like many of his MRA brethren, Ace starts off with a bit of the old Evo Psych. Like their orangutan sisters, Ace declares, human females gravitate towards macho alpha males.
A human female will attempt to become impregnated with (what she judges to be) the best genes available, and simultaneously, she will attempt to utilize her sexual capital to maximize the resources at her disposal.
But alas, the innate hunger of human females for all things alpha runs contrary to the needs of our modern civilized society.
Civilization has historically operated on the excess production of “beta” males. “Beta” males ganged up on the “alpha” male and convinced him to guarantee them sexual (reproductive) access to females in exchange for excess labor, and allowing him to live. Or, possibly, the “alpha” male decided there were too many women for him to fuck, and it made more sense to use them as bargaining chips, in exchange for excess labor.
I’m pretty sure that neither of these hypotheses bears any resemblance to anything that ever happened in the real world.
The precise details are irrelevant.
I suppose they are, if you’re just pulling random crap out of your rear end to rationalize something you already believe.
The important point is that in a post-agrarian world, any normal man is capable of producing far more than he needs. This extra production has myriad uses (traditionally, supporting a family, and the endeavors of the state), but a man requires some incentive in order to generate this excess production. That incentive has historically been sexual access to females, and there is no substitute, so far as I can tell.
Uh, have you ever heard of “money?”
Basically, civilization happened because “alpha” and “beta” males got together and said, “Hey, we’re stronger, smarter, and more imaginative than these twats. Instead of letting them play us like a bunch of shmucks, let’s divide them up amongst ourselves, and then there will be more for everybody, including them.”
But alas, the women of today don’t want to be divided up amongst men like so much booty. Now that women have been brainwashed by the evil Jews to believe they should have choices — you knew he was going to work Jews in their somehow, right? — they are actually picking out which guys they want to have sex with.
And as far as Mr. Ace is concerned, they’re picking out the wrong guys.
The women are free, they are fucking every asshat with a facial tattoo, or a headful of hair that more resembles a peacock than a human being, or an abundance of gaudy jewelery, or a physique that expresses, “I spend more time trying to look tough, than actually training to be tough.”
But Ace isn’t just mad that women are allegedly throwing themselves at every tattooed “alpha” while ignoring the world’s hardworking betas. Ace, who acknowledges that these guys are “probably getting more pussy than I am,” is pretty much furious that women are picking anyone other than him.
[A]llowing females to choose who gets laid and which genomes survive isn’t working for much of anyone. They manage to land a guy who can afford a butler and the next thing you know they are fucking the butler. They find a guy who can bench 300#, and suddenly they want a man who has read a book. Show them a pretty boy, with great hair, an eyebrow piercing and a few trendy tattoos – they’ll demand a man with calluses on his hands and boots on his feet.
In short, they want it all.
Even assuming any of this is true, how would this mean that the current system “isn’t working for much of anyone?” In his scenario, the system seems to be working quite well for 1) butlers, 2) book-readers, 3) boot-wearers and, oh yeah, 4) the “females” who are having sex with all of them.
Somehow, in Ace’s mind, this imaginary world in which everyone but him seems to be having almost constant sex is in fact a world in which
Almost nobody is getting laid as often as they would like, even the most attractive people. Everybody knows something is off.
As Ace sees it, there is only one solution to fix this world in which “almost nobody is getting laid” — while simultaneously getting laid all the time: we need to get rid of women’s right to choose who they have sex with.
Simply remove female sex selection from the human reproductive equation. Almost everybody will be getting laid. The women will feel like they are being raped. And everybody will be more or less happy.
I have a much better idea, dude. Go fuck yourself.
Or they think asexuality isn’t a thing, because “women don’t enjoy sex anyway” Apparently we just do it for that sweet, sweet alimony money.
I don’t usually comment on posts like this (though I read them) because, well, whatever. But this bit struck me, because I’ve made this same mistake:
‘They manage to land a guy who can afford a butler and the next thing you know they are fucking the butler. They find a guy who can bench 300#, and suddenly they want a man who has read a book. Show them a pretty boy, with great hair, an eyebrow piercing and a few trendy tattoos – they’ll demand a man with calluses on his hands and boots on his feet.’
This would be weird behaviour if you imagine all women are one woman, but not weird behaviour at all if you translate it as ‘some women like rich guys, some women like weightlifters, some women like book-readers, different women have different preferences in physical types, interests and personalities.’
Years ago I realised that when confronted with people who talked about ‘women’ as an indifferent mass I fell into the same exact trap. If anyone said ‘women can’t do math’ I’d say ‘of course women can do math,’ as if all women are Emmy Noether. Now I say ‘well, sure. Some women can’t do math. Some women are great at math. You know, like people.’
Of course this guy is probably making the same error with respect to men, i.e. that all men are attracted to the same (narrowly defined) physical/personality/etc. type of woman (presumably the type that he is (or thinks he is required to be) attracted to).
I can bench press a pound AND I’ve read approximately 300 books. Does that count for anything?
We’re all disgusted by the horror Master Ace has loosed upon the world, especially his repulsive comments about rape, but his essay is offensive on several levels. I just wanted to point out a thread connecting many of the articles David writes about: the use of financial/transactional terms like “sexual capital”, “resources”, “excess production”, “excess labor”, and “bargaining chips”.
Why do Nazis and manospherians use such bloodless imagery? Because they have an ugly, cynical worldview with no room for love, joy, or compassion. They seem to regard women not as human beings, but as ATMs; you’re supposed to get what you want if you press the right buttons, and if you don’t it’s not because you did something wrong, but because the woman/ATM is broken or defective.
personalpest, yeah, I think that’s absolutely right.
misophistry
I really really really hope it doesn’t come to that but I don’t think it can be ruled out entirely.
It’s just dawned on me that this evopsych alpha/beta male stuff is much more than anything SciFi or animal-behavior, well it sounds downright biblical to me. I mean anyone who’s read the first few books of the bible will know women had almost no choice there, were treated as chattel, raped and enslaved with impunity… these guys are basically fantasizing about bringing back bronze-age patriarchy, but somehow egalitarian among men… like that would work…
Asexual people are getting laid as often as they would like.
Plus, “getting laid” is not something anybody has a right to. Of course, misogynists have to consider it a “human right” or “man’s right” or something else they can’t consider themselves an oppressed people.
I actually think lots of (maybe even most) people are having as much sex as they’d like. I’m not asexual, but I am celibate, so I’m having as much sex as I want. My friends in relationships are generally having as much sex as they want – because they don’t want to have sex if their partners aren’t into it. Even my single friends are usually having as much sex as they’d like, given that having strings-free sex when you’re single often takes a lot of effort in the preparation.
@tim guegen
Nah, they just don’t exist. Any feeemales who appear to be indifferent to, contemptuous of, or openly hostile towards manly mans are actually “shit testing” and/or attention
seekingwhoring, and really just want to be taken in hand so they can produce babies. Y’know, deep down.I find this pretty upsetting as an asexual women. I am not attention whoring or waiting to be taken in hand and raped by some entitled idiot. I am not a part of an amorphous mass.
Maybe the bench pressing chap was reading this?
http://www.fitnessrxformen.com/training/how-to-bench-press-300-pounds/
Meanwhile, in the UK – where we had universal child benefit, non-means tested – the government has now decided to restrict it to the first two children only.
Unless a third child was conceived by rape or coercion (I know, it’s one step up from the Republican asshat who said women’s bodies “have a way of shutting that down”).
So, someone has had the job of designing this form:
https://www.scribd.com/document/344243608/Support-for-a-child-conceived-without-your-consent#from_embed
It’s potentially even worse in Northern Ireland as women who disclose rape as part of the claim can be prosecuted for failure to report a crime…
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/06/tax-credit-rule-puts-northern-irish-women-in-legal-peril-charities-say?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
“Some women can’t do math. Some women are great at math. You know, like people.”
Totally right, guest, these guys are treating all women like they are one woman, and all men like they are one man. Whether their sources are (pseudo-)biological, religious, historical, or a mashup of these, they come back to the idea that there is exactly one right way to do things.
Which is sad. It seems dangerous…and it also seems really scared and codependent and needy, underneath that.
REQUEST: I see some tendencies toward this kind of thinking among men I know, and it creeps me out. While I don’t think it something I can argue people out of, does anyone have any resources they could suggest on the kinds of thinking frequently on display here at WHTM – I’m not sure exactly what to call it – that could help me understand how/why manospherians think the way they do? I’m a grad student, so I have institutional access to research journals, if anyone wants to point me in the right direction. Alternately, personal narratives of people who used to be this way – somebody referred to himself as a “recovering nice guy,” things like that – would be welcome.
“Some women can’t do math. Some women are great at math. You know, like people.”
Totally right, guest, these guys are treating all women like they are one woman, and all men like they are one man. Whether their sources are (pseudo-)biological, religious, historical, or a mashup of these, they come back to the idea that there is exactly one right way to do things.
Which is sad. It seems dangerous…and it also seems really scared and codependent and needy, underneath that.
REQUEST: I see some tendencies toward this kind of thinking among men I know, and it creeps me out. While I don’t think it something I can argue people out of, does anyone have any resources they could suggest on the kinds of thinking frequently on display here at WHTM – I’m not sure exactly what to call it – that could help me understand how/why manospherians think the way they do? I’m a grad student, so I have institutional access to research journals, if anyone wants to point me in the right direction. Alternately, personal narratives of people who used to be this way – somebody referred to himself as a “recovering nice guy,” things like that – would be welcome.
http://i.imgur.com/Ka9zmvT.gif
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GoFuckYourself.gif
Arctic Ape:
Just watch out for butlers with tattoos.
It’s like the concept of women *actually enjoying sex* is utterly baffling to them.
Guys. Just because you’ve never pleased a woman doesn’t mean they CAN’T be pleased.
Considering the fact that this bozo apparently thinks that “having sex with a woman who is not exclusively having sex with only you” means “not getting laid”, it’s clear that this guy doesn’t give a single shit about having sex, but only cares about being able to control women entirely and treat them like chattel.
Not that this comes as any surprise; that seems like the usual mindset of Manospherians.
Well, isn’t he a delight. His mother must be so proud. He has no grasp of history and wants to rape people.
@ David: Thank you. That means a lot coming from you.
Master Ace … oh, I get it. So witty. I wonder if he used to be an “incel” who used the name Master Bates before he became a racist …
I hadn’t read this article before I read some of the comments, and for a while there I was worried that Masta Ace had said something gross.
This guy fails in economics, history, sociology and psychology. Once again, the will to wield power over others overpowers rational inquiry.
Just to add to what personalpest brought up, this notion of seeing women as “systems” to hack or “game” (ohhey, that’s their term for it) goes hand in glove with what I’ve observed about GamerGate and the broader 4chan/Pepe/Alt-Right phenomenon that has emerged into the public sphere.
There was a fantastic response I remember on some blog (I can’t find it, unfortunately). But the gist of it I think explained a key component of why the broader gaming community became so upset by cultural critiques such as Anita Sarkeesian’s: throughout the rise of video games as a popular pastime, the conversation was nearly universally about the system a game uses. Camera controls. Hit detection. Inventory management. Cooldowns. Limit breaks. Whenever the RPG du jour would come out, the mechanics were the focal point of reviews and gamers considered it a meritocratic means of measuring the success or failure of particular game title. And this went all the way back to Nintendo Power, which I had a copy or two of back in the day. It was always hints and tips for beating or mastering the system.
Then all of a sudden (he says sarcastically), there are all these games journalists coming along and saying “Hmm, why don’t we set the system aside for a moment and talk about… the plot. Characterization. Narrative. Stuff that actually permits games to rise to the level of art.” And commence all the caterwauling about “SJWs invading video game circles.”
The same logic seems to permeate both RooshV’s hideous “Bang” books as well as the talking points about the Friend Zone. Women, like video games, are a system to be mastered or hacked, whichever gets you to the “good end” the fastest. You can also see it in the Big Story of the election, where a lot of the animus towards people of colour was that liberal concepts like affirmative action had permitted them to take advantage of the system at the expense of the “hard-working” white people.
Where this mindset comes from, I frankly have no idea. As an engineer, I’m trained as a problem solver, but somehow I doubt every 4chan user has a post-secondary degree, let alone one in applied science.
Just an observation.
If women really liked dating assholes, these douche buckets wouldn’t spend all their time complaining that no one will touch their willies.