By David Futrelle
Well, feminism was fun while it lasted, but now it’s time for us to negotiate our terms of surrender to the Men’s Rights Activists. And all because of this post in the MRAmemes subreddit by some dude called MRA-automatron-2kb..
Yes, that’s right, the earplugs in the lavender-colored box are somewhat more effective than the ones in the blue box. And you get a few more of them at a slightly lower price.
Well, you could get that if you were a lady, because obviously men are barred by law from buying anything lavender. Clear misandry — and clear proof that it is men, not women, who are discriminated against by boxes of earplugs. Checkmate, feminists!
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I don’t see anything stopping a man from buying those earplugs (other than toxic masculinity). They’re not locked behind the counter where you have to prove you are a woman to access them. And it’s good that they’re not there, otherwise it would probably be hard for women like me to buy them.
It’s actually unusual that those earplugs cost less. Usually items marketed to women in different colors cost more (i.e. the “pink tax”).
Serious question: On some level, do MRAs realize how ridiculous this sounds? Do they see how obviously bullshit this argument is even by their standards? Or are they just that idiotic?
Well fuck, I’m convinced. Guess I better register a Reddit account and start complaining about all of the women in my workplace.
I thought this was going to be a post about how earplugs are misandry because women wearing them are harder to sexually harass. So, kudos to an MRA for actually surprising me.
Gee, those menz had better behave themselves, then. You don’t want Walgreens after you, especially when you buy those women’s earplugs and you’re not a woman. And everyone knows “T-shaped” is secret code for “men’s”.
MRAs are some silly folk. Too bad they’re not fictional characters.
@wwth
But if you think about it, aren’t MEN the ones who need to block out WOMEN’S screeching? So really this is, like, double turbo misandry!
(Sarcasm, just in case it wasn’t clear.)
@Karalora
…is the name of my new feminist hair metal band.
I didn’t even understand the argument until I read the comments and realized lavender is supposedly a feminine color. Just didn’t get it. Absurd.
Oh, just noticed it actually says women’s earplugs on the box. It sucks being a man in today’s world, doesn’t it.
Seriously though, who has time to even go around noticing this stuff?
… the T-shaped ones aren’t default standard ear plugs. They’re a specialty shape to make them fit a little better in certain kinds of ears. The “women’s” plugs there are just standard foam, in purple.
If you compare the “women’s” purple foam to the standard default blue foam, it’s $4.49 for 12 pairs (about $0.37 a pair) for the women’s and $4.59 for 14 pairs (about $0.32 a pair) for the standard. So if you consider the standard gender-non-specific ear plugs to be “men’s”, then men are still getting the better deal, and women are still subject to the pink tax.
Or, in this case, the purple tax.
I hate that shape of foam ear plug, but they’ve always been cheaper than the T-shaped ones (which I also hate). Independent of the colour.
For my ear canals, which must be weird I guess since nobody else in the world likes them, the ones that work best are the cylinder ear plugs. Which happen to be the cheapest.
@numerobis
Since I’m a musician and I go to lots of concerts, I’ve tried a lot of kinds of earplugs. If your ears are unusually shaped, try these. They change shape to fit wars and they allow low volume sound in so you can have a conversation while wearing them while blocking louder sounds.
Even more misandric, the women’s earplugs are labeled “New Item!”
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
I thought it was going to be: “If we wear earplugs, we can’t hear you, so we win,” but I guess that would be too on the nose.
I got the opposite of the pink tax when I bought power tools; the pink ones were 10% cheaper. My masculinity survived the hit remarkably well.
One thing. One thing without a gorram Pink Tax on it and misogynists of all kinds say sexism is over, and has even gone misandrist. May the gods help them if they ever truly experienced discrimination.
One thing. One thing without a gorram Pink Tax on it and misogynists of all kinds say sexism is over, and has even gone misandrist. May the gods help them if they ever truly experienced discrimination.
Also, those kinds of earplugs suck for me. Audio overstimulation vs the sensation of something in my ear is an awful dilemma for me that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
@Katherine the Adequate:
T = Testosterone.
Moggie, ahh ha! Thanks for cracking the secret code. You’ve uncovered the misandrist plot for sure!
If you look on the Walgreens website, you can find a box of own-brand non-gendered earplugs which appears to be identical to the lady ones, apart from colour, and cheaper (14 for $4.59 vs 12 for $4.49).
The reviews for the ladyplugs are terrible. One woman complains that she can still hear her husband talking!
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
My first thought was that feminism was over because they could just put in earplugs to block out what woman are saying, but I suppose that might be a bit too on the nose.
(Sorry if I end up posting this twice, I think my first post got eaten)
T = Testosterone? That’s just what the femilluminazis want men to think. A T is actually a subliminal schematic for the female reproductive system.
Dude should see how much my razor cost compared to my husband’s and then get back to me
Hmm, i am probably stupid, but are not earplugs unisex ? I had work in an airport, and earplugs were just standardized soft plugs distributed among workers regardless of their genre.
The MRA commentator is ludicrous, of course, but so is Walgreens, in my opinion.
My first thought was that maybe they’re cheaper because of the “new item!” thing, so that people would by them just to try them out, though I don’t know if that’s how earplugs are marketed.
But no, it must be the misandry.
Well, it does say “women’s” on them and, if you don’t think about it very much, you might think that there’s some biological reason why there might be differences between the earplugs since they’re things that are inserted into you in some way. Of course, going from there to “therefore men are discriminated against!” is one hell of a leap.
And I’m pretty sure that when it comes to earplugs, biological sex doesn’t, in fact, make any difference.
But I have a pretty severe perfume allergy and I tried a number of different deodorants that all claimed to be allergy-neutral and I’ve thus far found only one that actually is and is also somewhat reliably available and that is from Clinique.
And they used to market this scent-neutral deodorant both in gun-metal grey container labeled “Clinique for Men” and a pink container labeled “Clinique for Women” which was unaccountably sligthtly more expensive.
A friend of mine actually suggested that they might not be identical and that women’s armpits might be, on average, slightly more or less acidic or in some other way qualitatively different from men’s. While I thought that sounded a little dubious, it wasn’t outright science-fiction – it’s not entirely impossible that Clinique might have two different formulations for scent-neutral deodorants.
But a couple of years ago, I was looking to resupply in the tax-free shop in an airport and couldn’t find the gun-metal grey roll-on anywhere and it turned out that Clinique had stopped selling the “for men” and “for women” grey and pink versions and were now only selling one scent-neutral deodorant in a pastel-green container, so I guess that’s that settled. 😉
(I liked the gun-metal grey better but that’s mainky because I’m not keen on pastels.)