
By David Futrelle
So I thought I would take a look at the Men’s Rights subreddit today, and as usual I learned a lot.
I learned …
... that feminists fighting for women’s rights “on the basis of equality” are against equality.

… that men are oppressed by women wearing leggings to work.

… that men are unfairly being denied credit for inventing high-heel shoes.

… that men who even suggest that “there might be a gynocentrism going on” are unfairly mocked.

… that male feminists are all incels in the making.

… that if you got a disposable Gillette razor for Christmas (!?) you should return it to the store because MISANDRY.

… that Men’s Rights Redditors will happily give more than 180 upvotes to dudes who post incoherent walls of text accusing feminists of, among other things, removing “gentiles” from Greek statues.

Dude, setting aside the whole genitals/gentiles problem here and the fact that what you’re saying about Greek statues isn’t, you know, true, I think you might have a little bit of a statue fetish.
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Hi! I’m an AMAB feminist in a happy relationship with an AFAB partner. My feminist practises of not being a complete turducken of a person and seeing my partner as a human being with their own interests that partly but not fully overlap with my own definitely helped out in that regard.
As far as I can tell, both male and female (and other) people in my life (including my partner) don’t sneer at me with derision for having feminist beliefs. I work with a lot of different people on a daily basis and they tend to appreciate being seen as persons.
I get the impression that if one were to swing from self-identified male feminist to incel… Well… One’s self-identification was misinformed at best and more likely insincere and/or opportunistic. And since these types seem to believe any self-identification as a male feminist is insincere opportunism… Well, I’m questioning the posters anecdotal sources.
Anyway, I hope everyone had okay holidays/wednes/thursdays. Have fun with the new years celebration if you are so inclined. I know I’ll spend it playing D&D with my partner and two of my closest friends (also AMAB feminists I might add).
PYGMALION?!
I’ve never heard of a feminist trying to alter a statue. I do remember when right wing Christian Attorney General John Ashcroft did it though.
Also, lots of feminists have pointed out that high heeled shoes were invented by and for men. Because we like to point out that there’s no reason men shouldn’t wear heels if they want and there’s no reason to expect women to wear them if they don’t want to. Because high heels are not inherently gendered female. So go ahead dudes, take credit for high heels. But when you do, point out that it’s because men wore them.
For a group that doesn’t exist anymore, the Boy Scouts sure have a fancy website.
“Wow, one little hint that I think women are too uppity and suddenly I get labelled a woman hater! Me! Can you believe it? Hate women?? Anyways I’m thinking I should try to avoid all women forever.”
@Battering Lamb
TBH I suspect most “male feminists” who become incels/MRAs/etc. were there for the cookies and social clout to start with. Or just incredibly self-centered assholes. Guys like Louis CK etc.
i know for a fact that there are two guys only high schools in my area, i went to the girl only one and we paired up for our plays to get cast members, do these guys not know how to google lmao
I’ve seen naked(ish) statues get clothes put on them, but that was seldom because of fear of nudity. Normally it’s because it’s winter outside and passerbys feel the need to put warm clothes on them (usually hats and scarves, given shirts and pants are almost impossible to get on one). Or if said statue is in a college town, it will wear the team jersey during playoff time as a gesture of support. Prudery usually has little to do with covering statues, I’ve noticed. At least where I’m at; other places may differ on that point.
Weird, I’ve seen feminist complaints that a lot of the “classical” female statues and paintings are too de-sexed, but never the reverse. Straw feminism strikes again, I guess.
Truly, this is the line of the century. I’m picturing this guy visiting museum after museum, approaching the statues excitedly, only to turn away, consumed with disappointment, yet again. He takes out a little notebook, crosses off an item in a list, then leaves.
@Battering Lamb
I just got home from going out to dinner with friends to celebrate the holidays, eating way too much, then going to the musical instrument shop and jamming on various instruments until they closed. A pretty good night.
@WWTH
IIRC high heels were invented for horseback riding.
And a lot of men can look good in high heels. Look no further than the glam rockers of the 1970s (David Bowie comes to mind).
@Snowberry
The irony of their straw feminists is that MRAs would probably get on well with TERFs, who sound like straw feminists more than any actual, non-transphobic feminists I know.
I can’t even count how many women I know who have reported finding Bowie attractive. I wish more men would accept that we don’t all want “alpha” males.
I think my earlier post got eaten or moderated (my bad, as I mucked up my nym). But I was imagining the museum guy wandering through the museums of the world, getting sad at all the “nude Greek woman statues” because the feminists got there before he did.
@wwth – Bowie was absolutely gorgeous. I’ve always loved that kind of look on guys – or girls for that matter.
@WWTH
Count me in as finding Bowie much more attractive than some “alpha” PUA chud.
The whole alpha-beta male thing is rooted in so many layers of wrong I’m not even sure where to start. Wolves don’t actually have an alpha-beta structure, the scientist who originally proposed it retracted his findings and apologized, but it was too late. Even if wolves did have alpha-beta hierarchies, that wouldn’t mean that humans would as well, and there’s 0 evidence for such a structure in humans.
Plus, if women were only attracted to one type of man, there would be extreme sexual selection towards that type and we wouldn’t have any other phenotypes. The fact that other types of men exist is proof that not all women have attraction to one type.
I’m pretty sure almost all the Greek statues are of gentiles. Certainly the male ones are.
I’ve always wished I could do the Annie Lennox/Tilda Swinton androgynous type look. But I’m too voluptuous to pull it off. Grass is always greener I guess. I was a late bloomer and when I was still in a training bra in 9th grade I was dying to have big boobs.
I mean, I’m pretty sure most feminists (the intersectional ones at very least) support the removal of Confederate civil war statues, does that count?
Good point. I amend it to say that I’ve never heard of feminist trying to alter a statue for nudity censoring purposes.
Fuck Confederate statues though.
Regarding Bowie, I am of the same generation as any number of people who experienced their first sexual awakening watching Labyrinth and being mesmerized by “The Area” of Bowie’s costumes. The fact that it had to be pointed out to me was a pretty good sign that I am very straight.
There was a Jim Henson exhibit in my city a few months ago, and it included Jareth and Sarah’s masquerade ball costumes. Some dedicated soul had strategically padded the Jareth mannequin to ensure that it was Bowie-accurate.
(My 80s fantasy movie childhood sexual awakening was Joanne Whalley in Willow. It probably explains why my reaction to a woman in a bikini is “she has a lovely figure” while my reaction to a woman wearing armor and brandishing a sword is “be my bride.”)
Androgyny doesn’t have to be waifish! Someone with a voluptuous figure can look just as marvellous in the right suit.
Word
I should specify that I just mean how I view myself and am not judging how people of any body type want to do androgyny! I’m just ridiculously hard on myself and have body image issues, so while I don’t like how I look in anything, I can sort of accept myself in a knit top with a skirt and that’s about my only comfort zone.
Highly likely the MRA who claims to have encountered ex-feminist incels has actually encountered ex-Nice Guy incels.
Classic Nice Guys are these proto-incels who feel they treat women relatively respectfully and aren’t rightfully sexually rewarded for that. When/if these Nice Guys join actual incel communities, it’d perfectly fit the ethos to brag about “not being a nice guy any more”.
The gynocracy of femail teechers is oppressing me by making me lern tu spel korektly!
(Normally not a spelling or grammar nazi, but for him I’ll make an exception.)
Expo 1986 in Vancouver was run by a right-wing Christian businessman. He made them put a bra on the figurehead of the tall ship shown, and made one of the national pavilions cover up a photograph of a beach scene that had a topless woman in the background, much to their bemusement.
If there ever is a cover-up of the countless nude women in painting and sculpture, it’s always done by religious figures screaming about the moral depravity.
Re: heels
It’s often noted that the use of heels originated as men’s fashion. This seems slightly different from “crediting” men for the “invention” of heels, like it’s some important technological breakthrough.
You can avoid all women.
Yes, avoid all women.
Yes, avoiding all women is really the only option.
@Catalpa
I definitely support the removal of Confederate statues. There is no good reason to keep statues of men who fought to maintain slavery and destroy America.
@galanx
I’d imagine MRAs would probably be big on censoring statues. TERFs might as well. I can just imagine a TERF demanding the censorship of statues of Hermaphroditus because they display an androgynous form with intersex genitalia. From what I’ve seen, TERFs either flat-out deny the existence of intersex people or really don’t like them, so they would not like such a statue.
“I am uncomfortable when history and literature aren’t about me.”
@Naglfar:
I can’t believe how often this argument crops up in manosphere circles as an example of Serious Rational Thinking. “Animal X engages in behavior* Y, so humans should do it too.” It’s a variation on “But Jimmy’s mom lets him stay up late and eat whipped cream for breakfast!”
*Behavior Y is ALWAYS some form of patriarchal, regressive, thuggish behavior. Because civilization is the crowning achievement of history and we should be kowtowing and thanking men for it, but also we need to discard it and return to the jungles/oceans/caves.
These are the same sort of guys who would wax rhapsodic over the purity of white marble statues, and absolutely blow their tops when they see the reconstructed paint jobs, right?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture
“Although there is a persistent, racist preference for lighter skin over darker skin in the contemporary world, the ancient Greeks considered darker skin” for men to be “more beautiful and a sign of physical and moral superiority.”
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Of course, they’re quite selective about which animals they choose to look at. I have yet to hear any claim we should follow the way of the black widow spider, where the females eat the males after sex; or the banana slug, which bites its own penis off.
They purposely ignore the obvious, which is that if a behavior or hierarchy was in our instinct, we’d do it automatically without being told to do it by clueless grifters.
@Victorious Parasol
I can just hear the white nationalists screaming that this is the work of “cultural marxists” because alt right crybabies can’t live with the idea that their beloved ancient Greeks didn’t idolize snow white skin.
@ Naglfar
Oh, fersure. Check out this other quote from the New Yorker article:
@Victorious Parasol
IIRC the ancient Greeks also had some different ideas than the contemporary alt right regarding genitals (or “gentiles”, as the MRAs spell it). They thought that small penises were best and that large penises were funny.
Since it is known that the ancient Greeks did what we would now call BDSM, this makes me wonder if they had large penis humiliation instead of small penis humiliation.
@Naglfar
All of which is to say, once again, that the manosphere’s blathering about absolute standards of beauty and cultural norms is all a load of codswallop.
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This can even happen to barely 20 cm long mini statues of cartoon “bait”.


@Naglfar
I think you may have just chanted “Walter” five times while looking into a mirror in a dark bathroom.
@Malitia, Redsilkphoenix
In Boston there are statues of ducklings in a public park (a reference to the children’s book Make Way For Ducklings, which is set in Boston) and each winter people put hats and scarves on them.
@Allandrel
I’m not sure I get your joke. Can someone explain? My apologies if it should have been obvious.
Do traffic cones count as clothing? If so clothing statues is popular in Glasgow.
The tiny statue I showed is a reference to this local cartoon from the 80’s.
“A nagy ho-ho-horgász” translates approximately to “The great fi-fi-fisher” so yes, the worm is a very sarcastic bait, who helps (he treats it as a very shit job) the main character in his (totally inept) attempts of catching fish.
Under “Feminists Ruin Everything”, the 4th line of text from the bottom – what the hell does “crunchy roll banned” mean? Does anyone have any ideas?
David Bowie was beautiful. I especially loved his look in “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” which I saw on cable TV during the 1980s. I wanted red hair just like his, soooo bad. Too bad I lacked the complexion to go along with it.
@Naglfar
It’s referencing a former troll from a few years back. A very odd duck indeed, too, who firmly believed that the hierarchy of men was determined by dick length (girth didn’t count, far as I recall).
YAY! I can finally answer a trolls of yore question!
@Specialffrog
Maybe as improvised hat’s perhaps?
@Dormousing_it:
Crunchyroll is an animé-streaming website. I watch things on it occasionally. I have a very long backlog on my viewing queue of series which I plan to get to watching “someday”.
I don’t know what series they’re talking about. Crunchyroll does generally use the “censored for broadcast” version of series which contain nudity and/or sexual content, but they’ve never been shy about including controversial content. Nor have they been shy about showing uncensored versions if they can get it. For example, this coming season they’re including “Island of the Giant Insects” which supposedly contains insect-on-human rape. (I checked just now to make sure they didn’t pull that one over complaints. So far, they haven’t, so that’s not it.)
They do occasionally pull things due to legal and contract disputes, or remove things from their site a few months after the series run due to getting only short-term streaming rights, but I’ve never heard of them caring what either SJWs or anti-SJWs think is appropriate. Then again, I haven’t been on the site that much for the past few years, so I can’t say for sure.
@Shadowplay
Thank you, that makes more sense. I was unaware of said troll.
Oh gods I remember that guy, he showed up here more recently under a different generic white dude name IIRC. People fairly tore him a new one. Consensus as I recall was that he was a penis size humiliation fetishist, but the humiliation he got here was of a very different and less appreciated sort. 🙂
He’s pretty much the only troll I remember*, being generally bad with names. The rest blur together – not him though!
*Well, there were the Shakespearian dude, but he weren’t memorable enough for me to recall his names.
@Cyborgette
I feel like it’s possible a lot of incels have that fetish or similar. There’s nothing wrong with fetishes, but IMO trying to force non consenting outsiders in is never ok.
@Shadowplay
What about Jim and Sack (also known as Sackus)?
Oh, someone hasn’t heard of Walter? Buckle up; it’s a wild ride.
https://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2019/03/02/incel-wisdom-only-cucks-wear-underwear-because-it-restricts-penis-growth/comment-page-3/#comment-2497437
Thank you, kupo.
*Reads date. 2019.
I’m going to stand by my “few years back” assessment. This year has been several millenia long. 😛
@Dormousing_it:
Crunchyroll (it would help if the MRA could spell it correctly) is a streaming service, like Netflix or Hulu, that specializes in anime.
They carry literally hundreds of shows, so our evil SJW mastermind plan of (allegedly) getting one whole show banned, on one particular service, is obviously a massive threat to all of anime /s
@kupo
*reads the link*
Well, that was nonsensical even by manosphere standards. Penises have intrinsic value to the universe? I know some men seem to think the world revolves around their dicks, but few openly claim that it’s of intrinsic value to the universe.
That sounds rather like something Jordan Peterson would say, though.
@Shadowplay
Oh, there is definitely something from a few years back with walter. Let me see how good my Google-fu is.
…
Found it!
https://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/12/05/worried-about-your-penis-size-blame-feminism-mgtow-explains/comment-page-1/#comment-577369
Edit: there are mentions of him being “back” in that thread, so there’s more out there!