Not the apology that Clint Carpentier is looking for.
We met new A Voice for Men writer Clint Carpentier earlier this week, when we took a look at a recent post of his waxing nostalgic about the good old days before marital rape laws, when wives couldn’t say “no” to their husbands and expect the law to take this no any more seriously than a husband intent on rape.
In a second posting, he’s doubled down on the whole marital rape thing and incorporated into a vast and fantastical vision of the past and future of humankind that bears so little resemblance to reality that it’s worth quoting in detail as a sort of case study in Men Going Their Own Way delusions.
Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power, published twenty years ago, defined much of the agenda for what’s become the contemporary Men’s Rights movement. If you hear a Men’s Rights activist prattle on about “male disposability”or “death professions” or complain about draft registration (even though the draft itself has been dead for decades), you’ve got Farrell to thank, or blame.
So when Farrell decided to release a new ebook edition of his most famous book, it was perhaps not all that surprising that he decided to turn to the folks at A Voice for Men, probably the most influential Men’s Rights site around, for advice on a picture to use for a new cover.
But what was surprising was the pictures he asked the AVFMers to choose from, three sexually charged, and slightly NSFW, pics highlighting what Farrell evidently sees as the key female challenges to male power: their vaginas, tits and ass.
A vigil to honor the victims of the massacre at the Ecole Polytechnique.
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.
So my post yesterday pointed out a rather extravagantly misogynistic post by the Men’s Rights Activist behind the blog Men Against Misandry. If you read it, you probably remember the money quote from his post, which he was so proud of he posted separately on Facebook:
If women sucked dick half as well as they suck at sports there would be no more divorces in the great US of A.
Today a new commenter here on Man Boobz, evidently an MRA irritated that I had quoted his comrade, posted a link to a discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit that went up a couple of hours ago, and that specifically disavowed this quotation, declaring “This is NOT who we are, and this is NOT Okay.” The thread, when last I checked, had gotten nearly 800 upvotes from the Men’s Rights regulars.
I thought to myself, “wow, a rare moment of self-reflection, and self-policing, from MRAs!”
So I was watching a little video roundup of some of the worst video games ever the other day and I came across some footage from a justifiably obscure little first-person-shooter called Operation Matriarchy.
The premise of this 2005 PC game, made in Russia, may as well have emerged from the fevered imagination of some Men’s Rights activist. Here’s how the promo blurb at MobyGames explains it, with the especially MRA-ish bits in bold:
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.
Dalrock, a manosphere traditionalist with a great love of charts and statistics and other accoutrements of SCIENCE, has managed to figure out a way to stretch “don’t be so picky, ladies, or you’ll get old and ugly and no man will ever want you” out to 1500 words.
Let’s say you wake up one morning and you decide, for some reason, that you’d like to make it your goal for the day to get yourself banned from the Men’s Rights subreddit.
If you’re a feminist, it’s not hard. I managed to get myself banned there some time ago and all I had to do was … well, I’m not exactly sure what it was I did. Actually, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, Reddit-wise, other than argue with the regulars there. It’s possible I may have engaged in some light sarcasm. So maybe try that.
If, on the other hand, you hate women, all you have to do is … well, again, I’m not sure. Because earlier today, as one friend of Man Boobz pointed out on the Against Men’s Rights subreddit, a dislikeable fellow who calls himself sciencegod posted an elaborate, graphic torture fantasy to the Men’s Rights subreddit. I’m posting it below as a thumbnail; click to see it full size, but TRIGGER WARNING because it’s very graphic.
It got some downvotes, and the mods deleted the comment. But it didn’t occur to any of the mods, evidently, to actually ban this user from the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Because obviously anything he might ever have to say on the subject of Men’s Rights is much more worthwhile than anything I might ever have to say on the subject.
I asked the mods why they felt it necessary to ban me when they wouldn’t ban someone like sciencegod, and here’s the response I got back:
This is pretty much the answer I get whenever I ask them anything. I could ask them if they thought the sky was blue and they’d send me the same response and probably put something in the sidebar saying the sky was red.
Ironically, elsewhere in the Men’s Rights subreddit today I learned this:
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?
![MRB2012 8 points 6 hours ago (12|4) Her explanation included how it all started with how a bunch of people who were labeled feminist were shot. This is a reference to the mass shooting committed by Mark Lepine. Most murder victims are actually male, but because of this one guy who targeted women we're all supposed to cry about how hard it is to be female. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]enzikio 2 points 3 hours ago (2|0) I didn't know about Marc Lepine until your post, but it looks like his page was updated with a feminist slant with this great quote A few men's rights activists seek to rehabilitate Lépine as hero of the anti-feminist cause. A look at the sources are a joke. They all appear to reference a single person who apparently made some comments that agreed with what Marc Lepine did. No where do their sources rise to the evidence of the quote above. permalink source save parent give gold [–]muttmonster 1 point 6 hours ago (2|1) Isn't that also the guy who yelled, "I hate feminists"? permalink source save parent give gold [–]darklycan51 -3 points 4 hours ago (5|8) To be fair there's some times i've considered doing that to feminists... lol](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mrblepine.png?resize=519%2C525&ssl=1)
![7Vega 11 points 6 hours ago (14|3) How many fucking days do we have for violence against women? permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]muttmonster 6 points 6 hours ago (7|1) Yeah, I swear we just had one, and that's why google had a black ribbon on it's page. And they also use a white ribbon for the same thing? permalink source save parent give gold [–]7Vega 4 points 6 hours ago (7|3) Soon all colors will be associated with violence against women.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/vega.png?resize=505%2C257&ssl=1)
![sillymod [M] via /r/MensRights/ sent 51 minutes ago We don't answer to you. You have zero influence through which to get a discussion out of us. Goodbye.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/sillymod.png?resize=521%2C124&ssl=1)
![jabberwockysuperfly 60 points 7 days ago (93|33) We appreciate your solidarity. However, please refrain from making statements like "women are all crazy bitches" regardless of how true it might be; feminists mine this subreddit in the hope of finding this kind of statement so they can use it to discredit this movement. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]lolyesok [S] 30 points 7 days ago (33|3) Woops, I'll edit that out when I get to a computer. permalink source save parent give gold [–]theskepticalidealist 15 points 6 days ago (19|4) They'll quote that too.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/crazybitches.png?resize=504%2C247&ssl=1)
![dejour 13 points 7 days ago (29|16) It's not true though that all women are crazy bitches. So she shouldn't be saying that. For me the point though is that some women are and the legal system and public shouldn't assume that women=good, man=bad. permalink source parent save give gold hide child comments [–]Pecanpig 5 points 6 days ago (8|3) Depends on individual circumstances, if you eat 10 oranges and they are all bad then for all intents and purposes oranges are bad, that can be true despite contradicting your own experiences with oranges or whatever.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/badoranges.png?resize=502%2C234&ssl=1)
