So the Men’s Rights activists on Reddit are having a big discussion of how unfair it is that male sexuality is demonized while female sexuality is glorified. (Try telling that to any girl who was labeled a “slut” in high school.)
The discussion has taken a strange turn, as many discussions among MRAs do.
![ignatztempotypo -3 points 1 day ago
Eggs vs sperm. Do the math. It all stems from there.
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[–]Jolly-Hovercraft1568 1 point 1 day ago
The sperm moves, the eggs don’t
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[–]Spencer2091 1 point 1 day ago
The egg has to flow down the fallopian tubes from the ovarie and reach the uterus.
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[–]Jolly-Hovercraft1568 3 points 1 day ago
Flow. Doesn’t move on its own
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[–]Spencer2091 2 points 1 day ago
No, but the fallopian tubes push it. What is your point? That sperm are superior because they have a flagellum? I'm more confused than anything.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-19_19-33-07.png?resize=580%2C504&ssl=1)
Spencer goes on to point out that, genetically speaking, the sperm and the egg contribute equally to human offspring.
![Exactly. The human race is dependent on both males and females. The sperm doesn't have a more active role than the egg. It's not the only source of DNA.
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[–]Jolly-Hovercraft1568 1 point 1 day ago
OH GOD. Which one swims to the other? That’s the point he was trying to make](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022-01-19_19-42-05.png?resize=580%2C534&ssl=1)
OP Ignatz returns to assure his MRA colleagues that he’s not trying to say the sperm is superior, but … *cue Ancient Aliens guy.*
As are, Ignatz thinks, men:
When Spencer points out once again that “conception is dependent on all parties equally,” Ignatz concedes that, and then basically un-concedes.
Ignatz then suggests that pregnancy is also passive.
The 17th century called, they want their “science” back.
As I was writing this post, I began to feel a sense of deja vu, as if I had written all of this before. And, it turns out, I sort of have — the last time I ran across a Reddit misogynist suggesting that ovaries are just lazy lumps compared with the highly athletic sperm.
‘Scuse me while while I cut and paste what I wrote them:
At the tail end of the 17th century, after the invention of microscopes allowed scientists to see those little swimming spermies for the first time, the smart set of the day decided that these vigorous little fellows just had to be the real source of life on earth.
I quoted biologist Robert D Martin writing in an article in Aeon,
[P]hilosophers and some students of reproduction [held that] the egg was merely a passive receptacle waiting for vigorous sperm to arrive to trigger development. And sperm? The head of each contained a tiny preformed human being – a homunculus, to be exact. The Dutch mathematician and physicist Nicolaas Hartsoeker, inventor of the screw-barrel microscope, drew his image of the homunculus when sperm became visible for the first time in 1695. He did not actually see a homunculus in the sperm head, Hartsoeker conceded at the time, but he convinced himself that it was there.
Luckily, we know better now. Or at least some of us do.
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Hey my ovaries do a lot more then that. It chucks out ever fertilize egg that the sperm makes contact with lol. It’s hard carrying the most hostile place on earth inside my body
Maybe they get their information from this?
“Eggs vs. sperm. Do the math.”
“Math”? Okay. Sperm outnumber eggs, so sperm are better. And that *logically* means that men are better than women.
Or, or, or wait. Different math. Eggs are measurably much bigger than sperm, so they’re better. And therefore women are better than men.
But maybe I’m just bad at math because I’m a woman. You have to be a man to do math, because men are the ones who do everything.
Men do basically all the societal work? Damn it, how come every secretary, receptionist, nurse, assistant whatevers I deal with and think of as Radar from M.A.S.H are women? Clearly a feminist plot to control the efforts of the real workers, by making them dependent on women to organize their customers, patients, and coworkers demands on their time.
Hmmmm… that sounded better in my head. Whatever, I’m not fixing it, that’s my non-existent secretary’s job.
Poor, poor MRAs:
A Woman’s Egg May Prefer One Sperm To Another
By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, June 10, 2020 (HealthDay News) — People have certain qualities they look for in a mate, and now a new study finds that a woman’s eggs may be choosy about sperm, too.
Researchers said the findings offer new insight into human reproduction — showing that eggs will not accept just any sperm, and actually have more say in the union than previously recognized.
In the moments just before fertilization, there is a chemical “conversation” between an egg and sperm, explained John Fitzpatrick, an associate professor at Stockholm University, in Sweden, and leader of the new study.
“The chemical signals released from eggs allow sperm to change their swimming behavior,” Fitzpatrick said. “Sperm swim straighter and move towards the egg when they are exposed to the chemical signals. In other words, eggs are releasing sperm-guidance chemicals, like a trail of bread crumbs leading the sperm to the egg, and this can influence fertility.” . . .
https://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/news/20200610/a-womans-egg-may-prefer-one-sperm-to-another
MRAs: Always wrong about everything.
A Woman’s Egg May Prefer One Sperm To Another
From the WebMD Archives
By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, June 10, 2020 (HealthDay News) — People have certain qualities they look for in a mate, and now a new study finds that a woman’s eggs may be choosy about sperm, too.
Researchers said the findings offer new insight into human reproduction — showing that eggs will not accept just any sperm, and actually have more say in the union than previously recognized.
In the moments just before fertilization, there is a chemical “conversation” between an egg and sperm, explained John Fitzpatrick, an associate professor at Stockholm University, in Sweden, and leader of the new study.
“The chemical signals released from eggs allow sperm to change their swimming behavior,” Fitzpatrick said. “Sperm swim straighter and move towards the egg when they are exposed to the chemical signals. In other words, eggs are releasing sperm-guidance chemicals, like a trail of bread crumbs leading the sperm to the egg, and this can influence fertility.”
https://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/news/20200610/a-womans-egg-may-prefer-one-sperm-to-another
@ Kat, ambassador, feminist revolution (in exile)
See!!! Even eggs only accept Alphas!!! Proof of how horrible men have it in this world. Oh, the huMANity.
Sperm is cheap and easy. Eggs are expensive.
@ .45:
“See!!! Even eggs only accept Alphas!!! Proof of how horrible men have it in this world. Oh, the huMANity.”
Well, technically, “Beta” males, AKA the kind of clueless fuck that thinks that sort of drivel passes for logic.
@Robert
How dare you make me choke on my Chamomile tea like that sir. Went straight up from nose from the laughter.
@.45
So true.
And I have more proof of the tough time guys have long had in this cold, anti-male world. I looked up “sperm” in Webster’s. As usual when I’m online, one thing led to another, and I found this:
ovism noun
\ ˈōvizəm \
plural -s
Definition of ovism
: an old theory that the egg contains the whole embryo of the future organism and the germs of all subsequent offspring
I’d heard of the theory of the homunculus before, but never its opposite. How men have suffered. . . .
Personally, I’m a big fan of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), who believed that life arises from inanimate objects:
“spontaneous generation, the hypothetical process by which living organisms develop from nonliving matter; also, the archaic theory that utilized this process to explain the origin of life. According to that theory, pieces of cheese and bread wrapped in rags and left in a dark corner, for example, were thus thought to produce mice, because after several weeks there were mice in the rags. Many believed in spontaneous generation because it explained such occurrences as the appearance of maggots on decaying meat.”
https://www.britannica.com/science/spontaneous-generation
My fondness for this biologist stems from eleventh grade, when my textbook discussed his theory of spontaneous generation. Missing from this discussion: the fact that Lamarck thought this was true only of insects and mice and such. This omission made me think, WT actual F. I was too shy to ask my teacher if Lamarck thought humans came from dirty rags and such.
I like how growing a human inside your body is “passive” (I guess because women aren’t physically heaving new souls from the void with their bare hands?) but these guys are basking in the reflective glory of how athletic their sperms are.
Okay, I think the word they are looking for here is: fetishized!
Women’s (especially young, conventionally attractive looking white women are fetishized in American culture because I can guarantee you ain’t nobody out here “glorifying” the sexuality of any women of color, disabled women, any woman over the age of thirty, and for sure sh**, transgender women!
All statements like these do is prove to me how severely myopic and narcissistic is their vision of the world, and the complete and utter disregard they have for other human beings who may have problems or issues. They are the only people on the planet with issues.
Remember, they describe other human beings as non-playable characters who only exist as sidekicks to the lead characters, themselves!
@.45
You have to remember that any job you see a woman doing is one of two types:
1. A Real Job, i.e. one that is primarily done by men, that women are “stealing” and thus depriving men of meaning.
or
2. A Fake Job, i.e. one that is primarily done by women, which means that it doesn’t actually do anything and women just work these jobs to keep busy and feel important while being supported by one or more beta men.
Note: The above was sarcastic, because I just realized that if you read it straight it would sound like actual MRA talk.
@ .45 & Allandrel
The thing to remember is, men choose high status high paying jobs like doctor, engineer, or lawyer. Whereas women choose low status low paying jobs, like female doctor, female engineer, and female lawyer.
@Lkeke35says
Glorify? no, but they will also fetishize it and then act like those women should be grateful for it because they aren’t conventionally attractive. it’s really gross
I just tried to comment on the Jordan Peterson thread but it got eaten.
When will the site be back to the way it was two weeks ago??? Someone tell me!
So I can comment on this thread but not on the other. Why??? No rhyme or reason!
To paraphrase The Life of Brian, “Apart from all that, what has female reproductive biology ever done for us males?”
Well 90% of my inlaws now have covid. Fffffuuuuuuck
@Elaine
Oofta. Sorry your in-laws are unwell.
@Surplus
Maybe take a 10 min break after each comment on a thread? Things don’t tend to move that swiftly, so you won’t miss much (if anything).
Plus, maybe it’ll give your comments a chance to load so you won’t have to be as anxious about “oh no shadow blocked”.
I have a good amount of latency for comments, myself. Easier to be a chill person about it if I’m not busy counting the number of reloads while the widgets and server get their stories straight.
I don’t think I can add anything to the bon mots above; you guys have covered it all in proper snark.
@Elaine: I hope they all do OK. I’m guessing they aren’t big on vaccination? I know several people who’ve gotten COVID lately, but being vaxed and boosted, it’s merely annoying, like a cold. I hope the in-laws have a pulse oximeter — the deaths so often occur when people wait too long to go to the hospital and too much has already been destroyed. I also hope their wills are in order.
@Alan Robertshaw
“The thing to remember is, men choose high status high paying jobs like doctor, engineer, or lawyer. Whereas women choose low status low paying jobs, like female doctor, female engineer, and female lawyer.”
Whoa. I realize now that I’ve always taken my female self to work. What a mistake.
Also, you made me laugh.
@ kat
Ironically I nicked that from a woman; so I can’t really take the credit.
But then again, I do like to be meta.
@GSS ex-noob
Actually, all of them are vaccinated. when I say in-laws I don’t just mean my husband’s parents. I mean my husband’s parents and 7 of his siblings.