One of the strangest things about doing this blog is all the things I ‘ve learned about myself in the process. I don’t mean all the insights into my inner being I’ve gained, though there’s been a bit of that. I mean all the completely untrue things I’ve learned from people who hate me.
For some reason, many of the people who most hate this blog– many of whom have never read it — aren’t satistfied with criticizing me for what I do and who I am; they find it necessary to make up many new and horrible and not-actually-true things to criticize me for: That I plant the things I quote on this blog to make Men’s Rightsers look bad, that I write all the comments myself (all the hundreds of thousands of them) to make Man Boobz look more popular.
Today is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada, an annual event to honor the victims of mass murderer Marc Lépine, who gunned down fourteen women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. Lepine, driven by a poisonous misogynist ideology, specifically targeted women, yelling “I hate feminists” before opening fire on one classroom of female students.
Reading over his suicide-note-cum-manifesto today, I was struck again by how, well, familiar it all sounded. While only a few MRAs have explicitlycelebrated Lepine as a hero, his views on women and feminism would not be out of place on most Men’s Rights forums. Here’s Lepine, in his own words. (I’ve broken the wall of text into shorter paragraphs.)
[T]he feminists always have a talent for enraging me.
They want to retain the advantages of being women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventive leave) while trying to grab those of the men. … They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. …
Thus, the other day, people were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontlines during the world wars. How does this sit with the fact that women were not authorized to go to the frontline at the time??? Will we hear of Caesar’s female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50 per cent of history’s ranks, although they never existed?
I’ve seen complaints virtually identical to these — I hesitate to call them arguments — reiterated many times over on places like A Voice for Men and the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Speaking of the Men’s Rights subreddit, here’s how the regulars there honored the victims of the massacre today: someone posted a message that today was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (this is actually a different day, in November), and, well, this is some of what ensued.
Apparently some of the folks at A Voice for Men are afraid that, amidst all the eulogies for one of the greatest freedom fighters of our age, people may lose sight of the fact that Nelson Mandela was, in fact, a man. Not a man in the fallible human being sense, as he was and all of us are, but a man in the not a lady sense.
So AVFM Managing Editor Dean Esmay felt it necessary to remind the world of this fact:
This, again, is a site that thinks of itself as the locus of the “Men’s Human Rights Movement.” It’s also a place where the death of a real human rights icon becomes just another excuse to talk shit about women.
For more proof that bigotries flock together, let’s take a look at some tweets the always despicable Matt Forney made today after learning of the death of Nelson Mandela:
His “statistical evidence” of an alleged “white genocide” in South Africa? A page that links to a curious document full of unsourced claims and hysterical language, and which refers to South Africa’s former apartheid system as “so-called apartheid.” (It’s a pdf; TRIGGER WARNING for gruesome pictures of murder victims.)
Men Against Misandry is a blog, and a Facebook page, devoted to the proposition that feminism is misandry.
The anonymous fellow (or fellows) behind the sites, or group, or whatever it is, has apparently decided that the best way to fight the alleged misandry of feminism is with raging misogyny.
I would call it fighting fire with fire, but it’s more like fighting an imaginary campfire with the flaming pits of hell.
The latest post on the Men Against Misandry blog takes on the issue of women athletes, and why they get less attention and money than their male equivalents. Mr. MAM has a fairly simple explanation:
Why are there no truly famous women in sports?
It’s because women suck at sports. Period. We all know there’s only one real professional sports team that anybody actually cares about – the men’s team. Men just let women have their own sports teams to feel better about themselves. That’s just the truth.
I didn’t put that bit in bold. He did. He wanted to make sure we understood just how much he thinks women really suck at sports.
And in case we haven’t gotten the message yet, he continues:
You know that old saying? you throw like a girl!
Well, it’s a saying for a reason. Women just plain suck at sports. If women sucked dick half as well as they suck at sports there would be no more divorces in the great US of A.
Yep, he’s the one that put that last bit in bold, too. Indeed, he was so proud of that last sentence he posted it — just that one sentence — as a separate post on his Facebook page.
It’s all in a day’s work for this noble fighter against misandry.
Thanks to the folks in AgainstMensRights for pointing me to this blog post.
Oh, Reddit! Why must you be so Reddity? As a reminder of how deeply shitty Reddit can be even outside the confines of the Men’s Rights and Red Pill and related subreddits, consider the following comment from AskReddit, in which a RedPiller responded to another comment trying to summarize the “Red Pill Philosophy” for those unfamiliar with it.
Cyralea, a dedicated Red-Pill popper himself, took issue with the notion that Red Pillers are angry. (Gosh, why would anyone think that?) “Some are, certainly,” he wrote. “Particularly former betas who are recovering and are just discovering the nature of the world.”
But, he added,
The philosophy follows that one shouldn’t be any more angry at a women for her behaviours than one gets mad at a dog for chewing things up. We encourage self-improvement and self-respect in light of this newfound information. Some men use the knowledge to pursue sex, but others use it within their relationships/marriages. Alpha behaviours lead to healthier, stronger relationships. The women we date end up more satisfied in the long run, so both parties benefit.
I think it’s easy to get distracted by the angry people in /r/theredpill. There has been a recent influx of subscibers, so there’s been a little more angst than usual. The philosophy absolutely doesn’t hinge on anger though, though the language used may suggest such.
Emphasis added. As of this moment, this comment has a net 7 upvotes, 11 upvotes and 4 downvotes. That’s right: 11 Redditors saw this comment suggesting that women are like dogs who chew up sneakers and thought, “I’d better reward this bit of timeless wisdom! UPVOTE!”
In a followup comment, Cyralea tried to explain why the word “bitch” pops up so frequently on the Red Pill subreddit. Amongst Red Pillers, he noted, “bitches” is
literally interchangeable with “women”. It does not have the negative connotation when used there, again the same way 4Chan uses “fag”. I can understand how this seems aggressive.
Oh, “bitches” is like “fags.” Well then, no problem, use the word all you want, my dear fellow!
The mods removed this followup comment (though it’s still visible in his comment history). Apparently, in AskReddit, explicitly comparing women to female dogs is fine, and will even win you some upvotes, just so long as you don’t actually use a word meaning the same thing.
Thanks to a reader for pointing me to this very Redditty discussion.
So our old friend Roosh Valizadeh seems to have fully embraced the Matt Forney school of misogynist internet celebrity, posting over-the-top offensive posts in a transparent attempt to gin up controversy and blog traffic. And it’s working: he’s brought an avalanche of well-deserved hate down upon himself. But don’t worry: he’s still got some supporters — not only on his own blog but in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
This quote from the Men’s Rights subreddit was featured on the Against Men’s Rights subreddit a week ago, but I can’t resist reposting it here, since it’s such a marvellous distillation of Men’s Rights LOGICS at work.
That’s right: while we of course agree that women are all crazy bitches, we generally don’t like to say that sort of thing out loud, at least here in this subreddit, because our actual opinions are so foul they discredit us every time we say them out loud in public and the evil feminists cherry-pick our statements and reveal to the world WHAT WE ACTUALLY BELIEVE.
And jabberwockeysuperfly won himself 60 upvotes for that wondrous bit of SUPER STEM MANLOGICS.
Later in the discussion, our dear old friend Pecanpig clarified that even if there are some women who aren’t crazy bitches, they’re definitely a bunch of bad … oranges?
So A Voice for Men, classy joint that it is, “reported” yesterday that Elizabeth Vargas of ABC’s 20/20, who interviewed Paul Elam for a 20/20 piece that has yet to air, has checked into rehab in order to deal with her alcoholism. The general reaction of commenters there ranged from “ha ha” to “well, maybe once she’s cured she’ll see how oppressed we men really are.” Those aren’t exact quotes. The exact quotes are below.
Today I feel an irresistible urge to post music videos. Above, an awesome interpretation of a rock classic that is sure to get you PUMPED for the weekend.