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By David Futrelle
Anyone who has ever tried to discuss almost anything with a Men’s Rights Activist knows how much they pretend to care about those killed in workplace accidents — more than 90% of whom are men.
So you might expect MRAs to be up in arms about Don Blankenship, the reactionary, racist Republican who’s the frontrunner in the West Virginia Senate primary, to be held tomorrow. Up until he entered this race, after all, Blankenship was best known as the coal industry exec whose grotesque disdain for worker safety got him convicted of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety and health standards after an explosion in a mine he ran killed 29 miners in 2010.
But MRAs aren’t saying a word. Pretty much literally. I searched the two most prominent MRA websites — the Men’s Rights subreddit, an active forum with more than 177,000 subscribers, and A Voice for Men, recent winner of a coveted “you’re a hate group”award from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The results? Blankenship — a man who has been in the news so much in recent days that he is literally being discussed on MSNBC right this instant as I type these words — has been mentioned all of three times in the history of the Men’s Rights subreddit, the most recent mention coming two years ago.
He has never been mentioned on AVFM at all.
You can recreate these searches yourself if you don’t believe me. Click here to search the Men’s Rights subreddit; click here for AVFM.
And it’s not because either site ignores the issue of workplace deaths; both the Men’s Rights subreddit and AVFM talk about it all the time.
But I suppose that is the point. While MRAs like to talk about the issue all the time, it’s usually as part of a laundry list of complaints intended to prove that men are the “disposable sex” — or that they deserve to earn more than women.
Meanwhile, they do absolutely nothing about it — launching precisely zero campaigns to actually make workplaces safer for anyone. Indeed, MRAs who voted for Donald Trump — and there are a lot of them — have actually made the problem worse by helping to elect a man who is doing his best to gut workplace safety protections, as I pointed out in a recent post. Trump’s assault on worker safety is likely to result in a lot more than 29 deaths.
While the chance of any individual man dying in a workplace accident are vanishingly small — in 2016, the most recent year for which we have complete data, American working men had only a 0.006 percent chance of getting killed on the job — workplace safety is a real issue that needs addressing.
One obvious way to take a stand against it would be to actively campaign against a Senatorial hopeful whose deliberate violations of mine safety standards contributed to an accident that killed 29 of the coal miners that MRAs claim to care about.
But MRAs have done and will do nothing, because they don’t really care about making the world a better place for men; they’re much more interested in ginning up excuses to yell about — and at — women.
Weird Eddie:
I just heard from someone that he’s not actually a felon after all, it considered three counts of misdemeanor or something. Whatever.
For the record, I think everyone should be allowed to vote, even while in prison. Running for office might be restricted due to criminal background.
Lumipuna, yeah, I’ve seen that too.
I saw a clip of clip of a guy who had 3 of his relatives die in that coal mine disaster who said he was going to vote for Blankenship: “I want an honest crook.”
This is where we’re at. Wtf.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/wv-man-whose-relatives-died-in-blankenship-mine-disaster-voting-for-him-anyway-i-want-an-honest-crook/
I think that guy has the potential to be the new this guy
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/026/479/morans.jpg
Anyway. I’m also wondering if MRAs have opposed the nomination of Gina Haspel. Probably not.
On the one hand, she was involved in torture and the victims of torture would’ve been mostly men. Plus, she’s a woman. MRAs do find it a lot easier to care about the suffering of men if there’s a woman to blame.
On the other hand, she was nominated by their boy Trump and the men who were tortured were Middle Eastern and Muslim. So they’re probably a-ok with the torture.
He might be a tad defensive since the honest-sounding not-a-politician he voted into White House 18 months ago has turned out to be more of a crook than any actual politician he’s ever seen.
Not that he necessarily regrets voting for a fellow bigot in office, but it must be embarrassing if he ever lauded Trump as an “honest type” or a “working man’s president”.
As an MRA I didn’t talk about this guy because I’ve never heard of him, or his company or what he stands for.
Sorry for not being telepathic.
And thanks for portraying an extreme outlier as the norm
Seems pretty standard practice to support a weak argument.
Pick an ad hominem extreme outlier and portray it as typical.
Well done. You’ve failed to live up to my already “limbo dancer” low expectations of journalism.
It’s so weird, this idea that honesty is the only important virtue there is, and if you’re a complete asshole it’s fine as long as you’re honest. If I have to choose between an honest asshole and a hypocritical asshole who tries to look good, I’ll take the latter! The latter is probably gonna do less damage and hurt fewer people since at least he’s trying to look good.
@ dvarg
I had a client who was most aggrieved that armed robbery was classed as a ‘dishonesty’ offence (because of the theft element). His case being that he wasn’t actually tricking anyone or being sneaky about it.
It’s not like people like Trump and Blankenship are even honest in general. They lie constantly. They’re just honest about how much they hate everyone that isn’t cishet, white, wealthy, and male. It’s not honesty these voters want. They just want confirmation that it’s okay to be a bigot.
They also don’t like honesty so much when say, sexual assault victims come forward. Or Obama talks about how conservatives cling to guns and God.
When a modern conservative praises a politician’s “honesty”, that’s frequently just a euphemism for “unfiltered cruelty”. That’s how it’s possible for Trump to be “honest” when he says both A and not-A in quick succession.
A year after the inauguration, I read one of those pieces where a journalist visited Trump’s base and interviewed them about their impressions of the past year. It was strange to hear people admitting that they no longer believed he intended to deliver on his pre-election promises, and in the next breath say that they still support him because of his “honesty”. It makes sense when you decode the euphemism.
@WWTH, re: Haspel
At a guess, if they have to justify supporting her, they’ll claim it proves that women like torturing men, as they’ve always said. She’s just more honest about it.
I was listening to Spirit of the West’s song “Mum’s the Word” recently. I don’t know if was written specifically about Blankenship, but it might as well have been, starting off with prison references:
and the chorus:
https://youtu.be/FhwtxLsDBr8
I think also they can’t conceive of caring about people you’re not personally attached to, so anyone who cares about minorities, the poor, the elderly, etc. is being ‘dishonest’.
No one asked you to be telepathic. Just, you know, informed. You’re telling me that not one MRA knew about this guy even though he’s been in the political news in the US for weeks. Not one of you saw in the news when he was charged with causing the mining deaths.
If you’re concerned (as a group) about men’s safety in the workplace, why don’t you know even the most basic facts about it?
Could it be you don’t actually care about the issue?
@Dvärghundspossen
I agree. Honesty has become an excuse. Do whatever, then claim at least “being honest”.
Posting this for relevance.
> Claims to stand for men’s rights, including men’s safety in the workplace
> Doesn’t know a man who was in the national limelight for being a terrible person responsible for the deaths of almost 30 men.
> Gets pissy when someone brings this to their attention, instead of maybe admitting they don’t know everything and could possibly benefit from this new information.
Hmmm.
Look dude, I daresay I’m not well informed on a lot of things that I’m concerned about. It happens all the time. No one’s omnipotent. So, I do some googling. Which leads to reading things that people write who do actually know their shit. Which leads to knowledge.
If I don’t know who someone is, and I need to know if I should be concerned about them, I google it and do some research. It takes about 30 seconds to bring up a new tab, and another 10 to put in a query.
David’s point is just what you’re demonstrating. MRAs don’t know about this dude, because it’s very likely they don’t care. Like I said, this guy was on national news because of his actions, and now that the media has moved on from it, he’s trying to poke his head out and run for office.
Surely you have to admit that this is bad and MRAs should be upset about this, right??? They claim to care about men’s safety in the workplace and are rather upset that so many men die in dangerous lines of work.
So, why haven’t big name MRAs done any damn research into this and said something at the very least?
And here we see the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in its natural habitat, though I have to wonder why this is what you’re trying to defend yourself with.
Are you saying that Blankenship is the “extreme outlier”, or that the MRAs that David chose are the outliers you’re referring to?
Because if it’s the MRA examples, then I hate to break it to you buddy, you don’t get to decide who is and isn’t in your group because of the way that it’s structured. They wave your flag. You gotta deal with that, and you have to be lumped in with them if you fly the same flag.
The same thing happened with GamerGate and the Alt-Right. They can claim until the cows come home that This Person and That Person aren’t really part of their group, they’re just an outlier, or a troll or a “false flag”, but those “fakers” are still flying the same colors and claiming to be a part of their team.
And because it’s such a nebulous group with no real structure or hierarchy or joining requirements, anyone can pick up that label and run with it.
Feminism deals with the same problems all the damn time (Joss Whedon, TERFs and SWERFs, C.K. Lewis, random fuckbois who think that saying “I’m a feminist” is not only all it takes, but it will get you laid, and so on and so forth). The only difference is, we own that shit and we handle it.
I don’t think you know what ad hominem means. An ad hominem is attacking someone’s character, rather than their position. David is attacking their position of silence on a matter that they claim concerns them, and thus is making a statement on their moral character. Silence is a position, and a strong one at that.
David’s not saying that “MRAs are bad people!” and calling it a day, he’s saying they’re (and pointing out specific examples who are well-known names within the manosphere) bad people because they claim to care about something (that should absolutely be cared about), and then go silent as the grave when they can actually bring attention to it in a positive way.
What IS an ad hominem is saying that David is “failing to live up to your low expectations of journalism” and not backing that shit up with evidence. If David is wrong, prove it.
You want to play with fallacies, you better know your shit.
@Jenora Feuer Wikipedia says “Mum’s the Word” is about the 1992 bombing at the Giant Mine gold mine, near Yellowknife, that killed 9 miners.
It’s not like it’s just Blankenship that’s the issue either. I can’t think of a single thing MRAs have ever even pretended to do about workplace safety.
Support striking union members? Advocating for union organization? Nope.
Protesting truckers being forced to drive unsafely long hours? Protesting how the punishment for workplace safety regulations is usually a measly fine that costs big corporations less than the money saved by violating worker safety? Nope.
Challenging gender norms that encourage men to disregard safety practices because caution isn’t considered manly in our culture? Nah.
Raising money to cover medical bills for injured workers that didn’t get their workers comp because they’re temporary workers? Not a chance.
Advocating for the safety of migrant workers? Hahahahaha! No fucking way!
Campaigning for candidates that prioritize workers rights? Of course not. MRAs tend to be too libertarian for that. They’d rather have their rights deregulated away. Cause that totally owns the libs.
I’m still laughing at the notion that keeping up with the news and staying informed about the issues you supposedly care about requires telepathy.
I’ve heard a lot of excuses from MRAs over the years about why they don’t actually do any real activism beyond putting misogynistic screeds online, but that one right there? One of the best I’ve heard.
Doesn’t everyone receive their news through a telepathic uplink? There’s just no other way to be informed about issues that you ostensibly care about, after all. There’s certainly no massive and easily searchable repository of knowledge and discussion which is readily accessible worldwide. Having news beamed directly into your skull is the only option. Since MRAs apparently have the dehabilitating handicap of not having neural implants surgically installed by a vague-yet-menacing government agency, I completely understand why they are incapable of doing anything constructive for their cause.
WWTH:
It sort of makes sense if you have no real principles beyond hating on the womz. So you don’t get fired up about an issue not directly involving women until one of your authority figures issues marching orders.
Beautifully executed and well-deserved takedown, PI and WWTH!
When will MRAs ever actually campaign for better workplace conditions and workers’ rights that would help the men whose endangerment they supposedly care so much about? Those flesh-and-blood exploited and endangered men will have a long wait for any practical support from MRAs.
It’s a particularly strong example of how their only real interest in exploited men is as ammo for railing against women. As usual.
But campaigning for workers’ rights is hard work! I was a union rep, many years ago, and had to give it up, because of the workload (also, I have to admit that I kinda sucked at it). Ranting online is a lot easier.
Having chatted to someone last night about how hard it is to be a union rep and the demands that come with that, I think union reps need a union.
Was that a Welcome to Night Vale reference thar Catalpa?