By David Futrelle
Pretty much any time a dude says anything vaguely positive about feminism, or women, or a particular woman online, some idiot will pop up to accuse him of being a “white knight” who’s only pretending to be feminist in order to get laid.
And while, yes, there is a certain subset of skeezy dudes who do pull this crap (Lush’s Ladykillers video skewers them expertly) this accusation is mostly just a way for antifeminists to put feminist dudes on the defensive — and to keep from acknowledging that, yes, lots of people, including men, actually support feminism on its merits.
This early 20th century anti-Suffrage postcard reminds us again just how hackneyed the cries of “white knight” really are.
To put this postcard in a little context, here are some other anti-suffrage postcards from around the same time. You may notice that some of their “arguments” are similar to those of 21st century antifeminists as well.
The funny thing about the next to last picture is that the husband looks to be old enough to be the wife’s father — if not grandfather.
One of the first arguments that was used against 1960s feminists was that they were lesbians who were bitter because they couldn’t get a man. (Because what woman would be a lesbian if she COULD get a man — or so the assumption went at that time.) One of the reasons that Gloria Steinem became a particularly important early “second wave” feminist leader (other than that she was intelligent and a good leader) was because she had gotten a job as a Playboy Club bunny in order to write her famous expose, and it was difficult to argue that a woman attractive enough to be that kind of male wet dream couldn’t get just about any man she wanted.
I find the accusation of being a White Knight so hurtful that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know if I could go on living if somebody called me a mangina.
MRAs, Incels and similar arseholes are all about projection.
The only reason they would show any kind of decency towards women, would be as a ploy to get laid. They assume all men act the same.
#notallmen…but not the way most MRAs use it. Feminists actually believe men can be decent, empathic human beings. Meninists don’t.
@Amy
Very glad you responded. I have not been in the depths you have, but I could see them from where I was standing without a telescope. I agree with everybody else that depression lies. It’s your neurotransmitters playing a sadistic trick on you and your perceptions, and it took me many, many such cycles to realize what was wrong. It distorts to heighten the worst, wipe out all enjoyment and pleasure, and make living seem unbearable. By whatever means you can use, tell it to go fuck itself.
In other news I’m darkly amused by that third from last illustration on how the suffragette got uglier the older she became. As if demanding voting rights was like anti-Oil of Olay. It said a lot, and mostly about the artist.
QFT.
One thing that sets my heart racing at a million miles an hour is the word “natural” when someone – always a man – uses it, usually in a Guardian comment about how awful women complain about sexual assault.
How can they be so dense as to not see what they’re saying? They’re openly saying that men are both vile and violent and that women should simply accept the fact and learn to live with it. And that women should restrict their lives in order to avoid them, rather than that men should be put under curfew or some similar sensible restriction that would protect others from this inevitable, unavoidable social blight.
Men are not like that unless there’s something wrong with their upbringing or their previous or current socialisation. And there are plenty of men who’ve grown up in a violent household-community-society and found ways to be decent people despite all that.
It’s women who say that being horrible, rude, nasty, abusive or violent is a _choice_ which men can make. Even if they’ve been like it before in some circumstance, they can still choose the “never again” option. We’re the ones who are optimistic about men’s potential for decency, friendliness, friendship and intimacy with women. It’s the male “supporters” who make men out to be irredeemably violent, sexually uncontrollable and all round unpleasant.
It’s not inevitable. It’s certainly not natural.
Ah, but if they accept that it’s a choice, then they’d have to accept responsibility. They could no longer rationalize what they want to do with “I can’t help myself; it’s my nature”. They would have to either accept a negative self-view … or (gasp) put in some kind of actual effort to not be that way.
@amy When I had my first episode of depression, I used to call the clinic from the pay phone at the mall. Payphones are a bit rarer now, but I suppose a burner phone is also an option, and they definitely aren’t going to send the cops to stake out the pay phone. Or there are online resources that provide counseling by chat. Nobody can promise an easy fix, but there are ways to get the help you need to get through it without getting unwanted “help” forced on you.
As for “not taking the abuse personally”, it’s all about understanding that some people don’t know shit. They conjecture, repeat whatever their echo chamber just said, and believe whatever confirms what they want to think, and even when it’s about you it’s not; you’re either a convenient target or just collateral of what they’re already thinking and doing. I guess I’m “lucky” in that I ran into schoolyard bullying long before any of my various issues came to the fore, so I have the handy-dandy reflex of slapping a mental “bully” label on certain kinds of people and downgrading their opinion’s worth. It sounds trite, but you don’t have to listen to assholes.
Hang in there, fellow Canadian.
And on a lighter note: I can’t be the only person who noticed the parallels between the common complaint of “incels” and that “Husbands for Old Maids” poster in the cartoon of the suffragette meeting. And the suffragette threatening a man who disagrees with her with violence sounds awfully like some Reddit MRAs. I suppose if we’re to follow through on the parallel, “white knights”–a person of the opposite gender feigning support in order to get approval and/or get laid–would then be the female anti-feminists the male anti-feminists love to quote.
Violet the Vile, Possessor of an Ideologically Weaponized Vagina
Don’t apologize for the length. I cheered when you said:
I am amazed how often absolute nonsense gets spewed out (often about women and other minorities) by otherwise intelligent people. The line between a rational argument and a rationalization is so thin that these jerks cross over it as though it doesn’t exist.
The first step is to stop buying their claims that they have the facts or science or logic on their side….because that claim usually falls apart under close examination.
Relevant to suicidal list writing
https://mobile.twitter.com/SusanArendt/status/865404242986532864
Especially the bit about inviting yourself into other people’s lists. I’m terrible at that kinda thing, but I will get better at it
Also, the hats in the last pic are both pretty rad. Just saying
@Mallir: Interesting! Shelved for my own later use as well!
@Amy: There’s a very good chance that the music track will have none of the deep significance to you that it did for me, but whenever I encounter these situations, Final Fantasy 9’s track “You Are Not Alone” plays in my head. Everyone else here already contributed much more to expressing that concept, but I wanted to add that little bit. I’ve listened to it while in a deep pit of depression at times and it’s helped me.
Fun fact about Ladykillers: the song was actually written in ‘honour’ of a specific person (after a cringeworthy encounter with him in a bar, apparently), that being none other than Anthony Keidis of overrated funk-rockers the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
@Amy
“I keep thinking about getting a hose and asphyxiating myself in my car”
Why this, specifically? It’s not painless, if that’s what you’re thinking. None of them are.
“I feel like all I am is a joke for the world”
Nah, you’re not a joke. You’re amy, kick-ass feminist who will die at 106 after giving sexists the finger for decades.
I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was hospitalized for suicide idealization last October, and that was one of the toughest weeks of my life, even though most of the staff and all of the patients were very nice and I got to watch all the horror movies I wanted. You might want to have a mental health counselor look over your meds and see if there’s anything that might be contributing to your depression and anxiety. Some meds don’t play well with others, and your doctor may need to switch out a few that hurting you more than they are healing you, particularly if you are on pain meds. Just my two cents.
As to the topic at hand; that girl was a little pet at 15?!!! WTF, kid? I’ve been a feminist since I was thirteen. (And fifteen is a little old to be playing with baby dolls. It’s obvious that the cartoonist knows as little about women and girls than he did about suffragists.)