Categories
misandry misogyny MRA

Men’s Rights Activists are mad at the dictionary for “taking control of language”

Feminists and the dictionary: In cahoots?

Over on the AntiFeminism subreddit, some of the regulars are getting royally pissed-off at the dictionary — or at least at Dictionary.com — for not defining “feminism” as a movement of anti-male hatred.

“Bruh… ” wrote MangoAway17,

dictionary.com seriously thinks that feminism is simply advocating equality for women, and not a men-hating group 

He posted this snippet from the Dictionary.com page on “female chauvinism.”

Naturally MangoAway17’s colleagues on the subreddit found it outrageous that Dictionary.com would define feminism as anything other than a form of female chauvinism.

“Taking control of language,” complained 40moreyears. “This is really starting to become dystopian.”

Yes, how dare the dictionary try to have any influence over how words are defined and used!

(By the way, every other dictionary I found online has a virtually identical definition of “feminist; it’s not that Dictionary.com is some weird outlier on this.)

Meanwhile, over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, there’s a guy there who’s pig-biting mad at the Spanish language — or at least the way the language is used by Spanish-speaking feminists.

“I just like how cultish hispanic feminists sound when reffering to themselves,” sniffed Man-akle.

Instead of using “Las mujeres” (plural) they decided it sounded cooler to use “La mujer” (singular). Even though its not gramatically incorrect, it’s often used to hide blantant misandry from their sentences.

Clearly there is nothing worse than “blantant” misandry.

For example, instead of saying “Los hombres oprimen a las mujeres” (The men oppress the women) they use “El hombre oprime a la mujer” (The man oppresess the woman). Its almost like if you have to imagine a singular case for your bullshit to make sense it doesnt make sense at all.

I’m not sure it’s the feminists who are having trouble making sense.

It’s also kind of mean to brainwash, too. If you were an unstable teenage girl and i came and said “Hey, look, the woman is strong, join my cause!” you would likely at least look up to it.

Huh. I’m a little confused by his claim here, but then again I’m not an unstable teenage girl. If there are any unstable teenage girls reading this, let me know if he’s making any sense. Gracias!

Follow me on Mastodon.

Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.

We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.

30 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
GSS ex-noob
GSS ex-noob
3 years ago

I think the last guy maybe doesn’t know as much about Spanish grammar as he thinks? I know he definitely doesn’t know anything about teenage girls, or indeed any girls or women.

<begins singing Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman”>

Snowberry
Snowberry
3 years ago

If the general public had long considered feminism as a whole to be some form of hate group, then most dictionaries would note it or imply it.

The thing is, even though feminism wasn’t well thought of for most of its early history, it wasn’t because people thought it was a hate movement. It was because they considered gender equality to be a bad thing. Thus, even though there always have been people who did think that way, it wasn’t representative of how most people used the term.

This is what happens when you get so deep in your own echo chamber that you forget other people exist.

Battering Lamb
Battering Lamb
3 years ago

It’s also kind of mean to brainwash, too.

This sentence without further context is kinda true (if a bit of an understatement), so single point there I guess?

And yet, they seem as insistent of changing language to their preferences as they claim we are. Do unto them as you don’t want them to do unto you (and accuse them of doing that anyway). *sigh*

Kat, ambassador, feminist revolution (in exile)
Kat, ambassador, feminist revolution (in exile)
3 years ago

It’s also kind of mean to brainwash, too. If you were an unstable teenage girl and i came and said “Hey, look, the woman is strong, join my cause!” you would likely at least look up to it.

As a teenage girl, I found the patriarchy odious. So when feminism came and said, “Hey, look, the woman is strong, join my cause!” (or words to that effect), I was thrilled to do so. Unlike Edith Piaf (“Non, je ne regrette rien”), I regret many, many things. But I don’t regret becoming a feminist.

Last edited 3 years ago by Kat, ambassador, feminist revolution (in exile)
MexicanHotChocolate
MexicanHotChocolate
3 years ago

Is it just me or is every complaint MRA types post online just whiny nonsense that points more to their own ignorance than to an actual problem?

Big Titty Demon
Big Titty Demon
3 years ago

If you were an unstable teenage girl and i came and said “Hey, look, the woman is strong, join my cause!” you would likely at least look up to it.

Though no longer, I was in fact an unstable teenage girl, can confirm I would have joined up in an instant had anyone said that to me. In fact no one did so I had to wait until my twenties, fighting a bunch of awful lonely battles. Did you know that in 2000 it was still acceptable to reject a woman from a major US university for being a woman and unable to handle the curriculum because she was a woman? Not grades or talent or anything? Just gender. Yup. True story. I know it was that because the guy who was responsible said it to my face.

(In fact, in retrospect I’m hella fucking glad that happened for other reasons but at the time it was crushing and I didn’t know how to fight it. Then a bunch of other shit happened. The road to strident feminism is paved with discrimination.)

Ohlmann
Ohlmann
3 years ago

I am probably less stable than an “unstable” teenage girl, but dunno if that count.

That being said, I suspect that the writer is a very impressinable man who believe anything that he hear, so he think teenagers do the same.

Which isn’t correct : they try to be skeptikal, and normally end up doubting everything that is true and guenuine, and believeing everything that is sketchy and problematic. But that’s how people learn adulting I guess.

hammerofglass
hammerofglass
3 years ago

So they’re mad that the definition they made up wasn’t retroactively adopted by everyone else decades before they made it up?

Reactionaries are weird.

opposablethumbs
opposablethumbs
3 years ago

TW TW TW murder

I apologise if I should not be posting this here or if it’s already got a post elsewhere; @David please delete if I should not have posted.

OT and @David there was an act of incel terrorism in Plymouth yesterday, with (I think) 5 dead including a child ?

Kevin
Kevin
3 years ago

@ opposablethumbs

Looks like you are right about Plymouth. (County of Devon, UK, to be clear about location,) it’s a mystery why the authories here don’t seem to view incels as a terrorist threat , given what they’ve already done elsewhere. The suspected perpetrator appears at this point to have used a shogun, and had a licence for one, which is worrying.

Moggie
Moggie
3 years ago

Reading what the Plymouth shooter wrote about himself, one gets the impression of someone in his 40s or 50s, finally giving up after decades of disappointment: “Imagine failing at everything in life and having absolutely no support whatsoever … how many years have I been working out? How many years have I been wanting and dealing with all these frustrations? … Now I’m so beaten down, and defeated by fucking life. That drive that I once had has gone … You get old, you’re ground down … I’m still in the same house, same situation, same position … I’m still a virgin, fat, ugly, whatever you want to call it.”

He was 22 years old: barely out of childhood, still with a world of possibilities ahead.

That’s one of the most awful things incel spaces do: convince guys just starting adulthood that it’s already too late for them, that there’s no possibility of betterment in their future, whatever they try. It’s a disgusting crab bucket of despair, and it kills people.

StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved
StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved
3 years ago

@Kat

I was the same.

Last edited 3 years ago by StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved
Big Titty Demon
Big Titty Demon
3 years ago

@opposablethumbs

That had just happened when I went to bed, and I suspected based on the witness descriptions of the crime reported, but there was no reporting on a manifesto.

One day, people will realise that you can in fact hate half the population of the world with a deep and abiding hatred, and commit crimes from it. Or rather, one day, enough people who care will be in power.

TB Tabby
TB Tabby
3 years ago

The word is “misandry,” not “feminism.”

Ohlmann
Ohlmann
3 years ago

OOT : https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-58197414

A toxic masculinity shooting, since what is sure is that a guy thought he had no issue so he randomly shoot people in the street. It’s alway men who do that, for some unexplained reason. (the unexplained reason is masculinity)

Might or might not be an incel. There’s clue toward that but it seem not certain yet.

Hambeast
Hambeast
3 years ago

MexicanHotChocolate said

Is it just me or is every complaint MRA types post online just whiny nonsense that points more to their own ignorance than to an actual problem?

Oh, heavens no! It’s just why there’s so much fun to be had poking holes in their rhetoric.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
3 years ago

Bit more on the Plymouth incident here.

“Plymouth gunman: a hate-filled misogynist and ‘incel’”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/13/plymouth-shooting-suspect-what-we-know-jake-davison

Last edited 3 years ago by Alan Robertshaw
Jayjay6464
Jayjay6464
3 years ago

I have never met a “hate males” feminist other than tv shows or movie written by MEN. Where are this men haters at?

IgnoreSandra
IgnoreSandra
3 years ago

“Taking control of language,” complained 40moreyears. “This is really starting to become dystopian.”

Dictionaries are not holy commandments. They do not define how language is to be used, they report how language is currently being used.

Its almost like if you have to imagine a singular case for your bullshit to make sense it doesnt make sense at all.

I don’t get it. A singular case is a pre-requisite for a plural case, is it not? And it is correct either as “Men oppress women” or “This man oppresses this woman”. If I say that the earth orbits the sun, this does not imply that venus does not orbit the sun.

If you were an unstable teenage girl and i came and said “Hey, look, the woman is strong, join my cause!” you would likely at least look up to it.

I’ve been an adult woman with the wild hormones and difficulty with emotional regulation associated with teenage girls for the past four or five years, and I’d certainly describe myself as unstable.

This may be just because I am also gay, but “Look at this woman, she’s fucking strong” is a great way to appeal to me.

Bakunin
Bakunin
3 years ago

I have no idea what the Spanish language thing is on about

Yutolia the Laissez-Fairy Pronoun Boner
Yutolia the Laissez-Fairy Pronoun Boner
3 years ago

So… the dictionary doesn’t control language. It’s really more like a documentation of commons usages that is about 20-40 years behind the times.

These assholes used to love the dictionary when it reflected usages that were relevant to white men in the 1950s. Now that it’s reflecting more recent stuff, they hate it.

Jenora Feuer
Jenora Feuer
3 years ago

Back on the original topic, yeah, there’s a certain amount of ‘do you guys even know what a dictionary actually is?’ going on here. Dictionaries tend to be descriptive rather than prescriptive; they describe actual general usage rather than dictating from on high what is correct. We don’t have anything like L’Académie Française for English (and creating one, especially given the number of different countries speaking English, would be politically impossible). The Oxford English Dictionary is vary explicitly descriptive, being essentially a living history of the language. That’s part of why it’s so huge.

(I actually attended a talk by some of the folks working on the New Oxford English Dictionary project in the late 1980s; a lot of the computerization work and database design was being done in Canada at the University of Waterloo while I was there. They had to design an entirely new search algorithm for it.)

Last edited 3 years ago by Jenora Feuer
Moggie
Moggie
3 years ago

It’s not surprising if these guys are firmly in the prescriptivist camp. They want to dictate how people should live, so of course they expect dictionaries to lay down the law about language.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
3 years ago

Jonathan Hall QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation:

“Incel(dom) definitely can be an ideology for the purposes of terrorism. It always depends on the evidence, but if you kill people in a symbolic way because you hate what they represent within your ideology, it’s not a big stretch to conclude that killing them is in pursuance of an ideological cause.”