I found this stickied to the top of the Men’s RIghts subreddit — a collection of powerful retorts to things that feminists sometimes say to MRAs. Clearly, feminism will not be able to survive these devastating rhetorical counterpunches.
“Ms. Understanding!”
How can we possibly compete with such an obvious master of quick wit and repartee?
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“involunteering barren”
yeah, because all women want to be used as a baby making machine.
A first grade pun? That’s really the best they can do? Although I’m surprised this didn’t contain more misogyny.
Also, you can’t just claim “straw-whatever” like it’s a Get Out of Argument Free card, you have to actually understand what it means and how it’s used first.
Getting strong Mr Collins from Pride and Prejudice vibes here.
“At least I won’t be involuntarily barren” is an odd one. You’d have to check first if the person you are speaking to has kids. Also, how does he know? In the UK you gotta be trying for a year before they’ll take a look at your swimmers. I think he might be falling into the mindset (which unfortunately affects even the medical profession) that fertility is by default a woman’s problem.
I’m pretty sure that if you’re not having sex, you won’t be making a baby with anyone. So that comment about “involuntarily barren” needs a little work.
@ Lollypop
“Your only declining my proposal because you want me to propose again!”
CW: suicide
Also, the “You’d have to check first if the person you are speaking to has kids” reminds me of one time when someone online was arguing against “too much” suicide prevention, since suicide is, apparently, a natural way of weeding out the weak stuff from the gene pool. Because no parent has ever committed suicide, that much is certain.
“I’ve found these to be useful.”
More likely that his opponents are so baffled by such a ridiculous childish “comeback” that they don’t know what to say, which he then inteprets as “I destroyed feminists with facts and logic!”
Whenever I read comebacks like this, I feel like Steve Martin in Roxanne.
Hi y’all, odd question here: I lurk on this site a lot. I originally turned my then-teen, earnestly feminist daughter to your discussions about seven years ago — she wanted to build an online presence, and I wanted her to be prepared for pushback from the usual misogynist suspects. Several of you (WWTH, Alan Robertshaw, Bina, Pecunium, and especially Scildfreja, among many other compelling commentators) are magnificent at countering the routine misogynist crap that so many women suffer from on the internet, and I wanted her to gain experience in addressing the relentless anti-feminist crap from observing skilled commentators address these attacks.
So here’s my question. Do you know how to search comments by commenter name? Sometimes I remember a brilliant discussion or comeback from a certain commenter, but have trouble finding the response in the archives. Is there a way to do this?
Many thanks, as ever, for the insights you share with us all. For everybody who’s ever taken on a troll’s obvious malice for the sake of the argument and the sake of the other readers — thank you. You model effective engagement for so many who are figuring out how to respond with reason, wit, and passion.
“Involuntarily barren” sounds like like an odd phrasing for what most normal people would interpret to mean medical infertility. However, here it seems to mean the supposed “cat lady trap” where young women are too picky to settle down and then eventually find themselves aged out of the dating market.
It implies that women usually want to settle down primarily to have children, or probably specifically financial and social support for raising children. Therefore, while for men failure to establish romantic relationships would be primarily a sexual failure, for women it would be primarily a failure in building a family. Of course, lonely men also miss the opportunity to raise children (arguably more strictly than lonely women) and lonely women also tend to mostly miss out on partnered sex, but these are seen as less relevant effects.
My general impression is that manospherian men do not see themselves as (potential) fathers, except possibly those relatively few who are currently chased with child support bills. They either don’t consider children at all, or they consider children as a part of the societal status package that is granted by ownership of a woman.
@Kaybee
Hello! I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to searching on the site. I’ve sometimes had luck Googling for “wehuntedthemammoth.com” AND “(commenter name)” but I recognize that’s not the most elegant way.
@Victorious Parasol — thanks! I’ve had some luck with going through specific topics based on David’s keywords, but other times there are HUNDREDS of comments, and references to Famous Trolls and their known sock puppets. I guess maybe I should just copy some of the better takedowns when I find them. They can be so effective at laying out WHY the most recent MGTOW/MRA talking points are crap!
Kaybee, as far as I know that functionality does not exist. And, given our trolls, probably should not exist.
For a current example, with how much of a fixation that one dude had on Stacey, giving them an easy way to hunt through comments to try and attempt to aggregate personal data is probably not a good plan.
You can probably utilize some of google’s baked in search things, though!
Google will let you search by site if you add:
site:www.wehuntedthemammoth.com
after your other search terms. You can also add additional keywords if you know the general gist, or add words you really don’t care about.
I admit I found Ms Understanding mildly amusing.
My husband and I took some home covid test about an hour ago and somehow I’m still positive and he is still negative. He’s been taking care of me and in the same bed with me this whole time. So i don’t know how that happened
Hey some of us not only have the sex, but we’re voluntarily “barren”.
And some of us don’t have the sex, but manage to have children either through adoption or sperm banks.
And some of us have cats AND children!
@SunnySombera: He thinks he wins when they stop talking to them; they’ve actually just realized he’s not worth wasting time and breath/electrons on and they’ve put him on ignore.
@Elaine: I had a mild breakthrough case and the Mr. has been just fine, even though we spend most of our time within 4 feet of each other. It’s one of those things. I guess he just has a manly Marine immune system. Just glad one of you is well.
PS: David, don’t think we didn’t see what you did with the headline.
@GSS ex-noob
Yeah but now I have to listen to him brag about it.
Uh, isn’t ‘Incel’ a self-coined description? It’s like calling a supporter of women’s liberation a ‘feminist’, or insulting an open Marxist by calling them a ‘communist’.
I suppose it’s the intent, but it can sometimes backfire. Back in the 80s racists in Vanvouver would sneeringly refer to immigrants from India and Pakistan as ‘Punjabs’. Someone used this term to a co-worker of mine, and a fellow worker jumped to his defence: “I’m not gonna sit here while you call him a Punjab!”
To which the bewildered recipient, not knowing it was intended as an insult, replied “But I am a Punjabi- I’m from the Punjab.”
@Elaine: Breathe on him more when he’s not looking. You might still be contagious!
@Lumipuna
They’d make terrible fathers anyway, probably best they really don’t think about children.
@Kaybee
I take screenshots. Lots and lots of screenshots. That I now have a billion of to sort through, but I’m lazy. I also sometimes still save webpages as html pages on my PC, then you can try to Ctrl+F for what you want.
@ Elaine
Get well soon!
“Involuntarily barren.” Is this dipstick for real? Also: he seems confused as to what an “insult,” a “rebuttal,”‘ and “straw” are.
Tried to post this on the “Leave it to Breitbart” thread but it got eaten:
@Surplus:
I don’t think things will revert back exactly the same way because (if I recall correctly) David switched servers. There are some growing pains and technical issues. But there’s nothing we can do about it until it is resolved.
As to the timeline, I’m sure David has plenty of things on his plate besides this blog. We are not entitled to a flawless interface and experience here. Please give his some grace. Yelling at David will not speed things up, it will only serve to make everyone more anxious.
@ Surplus
I’ve been seeing that happen too. I don’t understand why you seem to think David is somehow purposefully keeping the glitches here like he could just fix everything by snapping his fingers or putting in enough work – and, if the latter, I’m sure he has other things to do.
Everyone else seems to be managing with this situation, so could you please chill?
@Surplus
Right now my sympathies are with David. I’m sure he’s doing everything he can, when he can, and even if he isn’t, berating him for not fixing it more quickly will not, in fact, result in him fixing it more quickly.
Honestly, duckie. I’ve encountered the same issues you’ve been complaining about. The difference is I’m not throwing a tantrum every time.