By David Futrelle
Found in the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit:
So … feminism is an adult cat being bottle-fed by some random nice dude. But then it transforms instantly into a huge lion — not a lioness, but a male lion with a mane and everything — that eats the dude’s head, without even giving him the chance to change his outfit.
This makes about as much sense as those old Gateway computer ads featuring a cow with a man’s voice.
Elsewhere in the MGTOW subreddit today, a bunch of MGTOWs being racist as hell.
(Oh and sorry for posts being a little light lately; I’ve been under the weather and also my laptop seems like it’s about to die on me.)
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Actually, the lion is kind of awesome. Also, don’t bottle feed animals that can eat you. The man has no one to blame but himself.
Oh, and David, I hope you feel better soon.
I’m not a zoo worker or a wildlife expert, but something tells me that cub’s a bit big to be being bottle-fed.
Likewise, I hope you’re taking care of yourself and feel better soon. If you need money for a laptop, please don’t hesitate to ask.
@KindaSortaHarmless
OT, but how’s your NaNoWriMo going?
Get well soon, David! (Hope your laptop does, too.)
Don’t bottle-feed Bast after midnight, or she turns into Sekhmet?
I hope you feel better, David!
Get well soon, David!
Get well soon David Futrelle!
@Naglfar
Not at all well, I’m afraid. I’ve done maybe 3k words, all from disjointed parts of the story.
I’ll still try to do what I can. If I can break my personal best of 10k words, I’ll be happy with that.
Slightly more on-topic: apparently, lion cubs start eating meat at around 3 months old, are completely weaned around 6 months, and will start joining hunts at around one or two years old. So, the cub in the picture could still be bottle-fed, I guess.
I’m not sure if the guy can come out of this okay even if there is no bottle feeding.
I mean, as it is the lion is about to feed on some breast anyway. Doing the breast feeding first seems to just lose you a couple minutes of life if you ask me.
…separately…
I’m really not sure why it’s weirder that female cow talks with the voice of James Earl Jones or Edward Olmos or Mandy Patinkin than with the voice of Beyoncé or Jiang Qing or Sarah Vowel.
I mean really, would it be weirder if you were walking through a pasture and you heard a cow speaking Burmese and advocating for greater US support of Aung San Suu Kyi or if you heard a cow singing The International in Spanish or if you heard a cow struggling through Fox in Socks in halting english?
What, precisely, is weird here? Are our gendered preconceptions so ossified that what’s weird isn’t hearing a cow talk, but that the cow’s voice is too damn masculine?
@WWTH
Please watch the flickery gifs. 🙁
Yuck. I really, really wish I didn’t click on the racist as hell miggie blog link. Anyway, get well, David!
David, get well soon. And I love the orange kitten gif.
In other news, MGTOWs apparently believe that feminists cannot be trusted. That we may be cute but we are in fact lethal to men. Who knew what a frightened bunch they are! Other than everybody, I mean.
It’s okay, MGTOWs, really it is. You can avoid feminists. You can avoid all women. In fact, why don’t you do just that.
If this is the sort of dude who believes feminism only exists because it’s been condescendingly allowed to have nourishment by men, then he’s also the sort of dude who votes for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Off Party, and I don’t feel the least bit sorry for his ironic fate.
Moon Custafer:
Yep, that one beats all the interpretations of the meme that I could come up with.
@WWTH
Ok I gotta know, where is that gif from!? What’s the real story going on there?!
@wwth
OT: Good news for me I got more money into my bank account thanks to this new job I have. Okay I have to worry about the dreaded Black Friday but on the other hand I have money! I can buy things for myself like lgbt stuffs.
Observe the typical right-wing projection. The claim: that male allies of feminism will eventually be betrayed and thrown under the bus. The reality: that female allies of reactionary ideologies will eventually be betrayed and thrown under the bus. (See also: Finnegan, Lizzy.)
OT– I need etiquette advice please. I teach at a university where some of our students do part time office work in our dept. So I see and interact with the student workers but some of them I will never have in class. I just attended a presentation by one such student and learned (by the way my colleague introduced him) that I have been misgendering him. I am mortified. I really like and respect this student. He has never corrected me, which makes me wonder if I ever did this in his presence. (I don’t need to say he or she when I am talking directly to him, after all…). But then our students are so deferential it is also possible that he chose not to correct me. Anyway, my question is do I apologize? Or do I assume/hope he is unaware of my mistake and just let it go and do better?
Many thanks!
@David — hydrate and get some rest!
@Susan,
My assumption would be that it is better to avoid calling attention to the fact that this student was ever identified as the wrong gender (as many people, both cis and trans, may be sensitive to how others perceive their masculinity/femininity), but I am very curious to see if others here agree.
@Susan
It is much safer to assume that he chose not to correct you.
I’d suggest not directly apologising (likely going to be an unpopular suggestion), but rigging things to ensure you do use their correct gender publicly next time they’re around. You know, praising an aspect of his presentation to someone else while within his hearing – something like that.
Then never forget.
I like the bit about not apologizing. After all, if they wanted an apology, they would have corrected you before this.
But instead of assuming you know the correct gendered pronouns (etc.) to use for this person now, the best thing to do is simply ask, in a way that makes it clear this is no big deal. If you make it momentous, it’s probably not going to feel okay for either of you. Something like this might be appropriate:
(Of course this only works if you are actually happy to use whatever words they consider best, but I gather that that’s true.)
The point here is that you’re not talking about what’s “correct”. Many of us find that approach to be about figuring out the right rule to use when at least some of us disagree with any emphasis on rules at all. If there is such a thing as a “rule” after all, there must be a consequence for breaking it. Many of us would simply rather that people actually want to, and then do treat other people with respect.
You never know, maybe the person will even feel comfortable enough to say something like, “Yeah, in that setting I asked people to use X pronouns, but in my idea world, people would use Y pronouns instead. I just don’t feel comfortable enough to ask most people. But if you want to know the best pronouns, those are the best.”
In any case, it has always struck me as hard to go wrong if you are making an honest effort to be respectful.
@ Susan
As someone who is misgendered semi-regularly, I’d recommend simply being sure to use the correct gender from now on, and not otherwise calling attention to it. I personally find it humiliating when someone makes a big deal of a mistake like that by apologizing.
Rest well and have a nice recovery, David.