Category: feminism

Categories
antifeminism feminism

>Country-fried feminism?

>

Don’t fuck with this woman.

I love old country music (the new stuff, not so much), though sometimes the lyrics are a tad, you know, reactionary. (Merle Haggard, why did you hate marijuana so much?) And so, when what was then called “Women’s Lib” erupted back in the day, it’s hardly surprising that it inspired a bunch of backlashy country songs. Here, courtesy of WFMU’s Beware of the Blog, are ten songs giving the libbers what’s what. Or trying to, anyway. These are protest songs protesting protest.

Of course, there have always been plenty of ass-kicking women in country music who had no trouble standing up for themselves, labels be damned. So if these anti-feminist songs leave a bad taste, take a Pill — well, The Pill, as in  Loretta Lynn’s hit song from the 70s that actually, to use feminist lingo she never would herself use, champions the power of women to take control of their reproductive destiny instead of being relegated to the status of baby-making machines. (She knew what she was talking — er, singing — about, having had 4 kids by the time she was 19.) Or check out her “”Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).”  (For more on Lynn’s proto-feminism, see here.)

Loretta Lynn wasn’t — isn’t — the only proto-feminist amongst the old school country singers. Check out Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels,” an in-your-face response to Hank Thompson’s slut-shaming “Wild Side of Life.” Or the ultimate anti-slut-shaming country song, “Harper Valley PTA,” which was actually written by a dude. Tammy Wynette, sometimes caricatured as an antifeminist doormat by people who don’t really know her music, was a bit of an ass-kicker herself, as “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” makes pretty damn clear. Was she a feminist? Nah. But life is more complicated than labels.


Categories
discussion of the day feminism homophobia MRA oppressed men reddit violence against men/women

>Straight talk on homophobia … on the Men’s Rights subreddit??

>

Oh Reddit. Sometimes you make me so sad. Case in point: the 5,415 upvotes Redditors gave to this old dog of a story, a blatantly misogynist, and blatantly made-up, revenge-vasectomy tale from the “Best of Craigslist.” Mitigating factors: the fact that some commenters correctly labeled the story a hateful fake; the 4,582 downvotes the story got (resulting in “only” 833 net upvotes).

But sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. Even as I was contemplating the idiotic reaction to this idiotic vasectomy story, I ran across another headline: “Does homophobia affect straight males too?” Good question. Weirdly, the post was from the Men’s Rights subreddit. Hoping for the best but fearing the worst, I took a look. Lo and behold, the post had actually inspired a real, honest discussion of the issues.

The OP set the stage with a few specific questions:

Have you ever hesitated to become close to another male for fear that it might be misinterpreted by someone else? Was there ever a time you resisted getting close to another male emotionally because you were afraid it might be seen as sexual? Does the fear of being called gay or a faggot ever change the way you behave in front of other males?

Among the answers there were of course a few jokes, including one that was actually sort of funny:

dontputsaltinyoureye 9 points

it has had a tremendous effect on my life. i am unable to wear my avril lavigne [shirt] in public due to the fear. WHY CAN I NOT WEAR MY AVRIL LAVIGNE SHIRT?!

And there was the requisite reference to Glee:

AGenericGoon 44 points

I am heterosexual, and watch/enjoy glee.

I will take this secret to the grave.

But there were also a number of bracingly honest comments, comments that would not be out of place on a feminist or LGBT message board. Some commenters talked about being gay-bashed — even though they aren’t gay. Others talked about how hetero-normative gender roles force men to keep quiet about their feelings:

TheBananaKing 27 points

Absolutely. all -normative behaviours box people in.

Straight guy here. … there’s an awful lot of restriction and anxiety in inter-male behaviour. You can’t ever be sad or hurt – only angry. You can’t extend comfort or affection towards another guy, except via humorous taunting / rivalry / aggression (eg play-fighting), unless you’re very, very drunk. You have to do this kind of… reverse double-entendre the entire time, translating everything into John Wayne before you speak or act it, and back again to understand others. It’s a pain in the ass.

Others offered more personal takes on what it’s like to be a straight guy who’s frequently taken to be gay:

ecartes 9 points

I talk with a lisp and dress really well. I’m also heterosexual.

Almost everyone I initially meet believes, nay, KNOWS, that I’m, ACTUALLY homosexual. It’s weird, living with the thought that everyone I meet thinks I’m gay. Although I will never know fully the oppression that some gay people face, I feel like I’ve felt a lot of it just from being perceived as gay. …

And perhaps the most unexpected of all:

soylentcoleslaw 33 points

If I acted on my normal impulses, I’d be extremely effeminate. I love cute things and cute clothes, I have subconscious feminine mannerisms, and I’d love a strong partner who makes me feel safe and who would take charge. I’ve never had a gay fantasy in my life. The thought of being with another man just doesn’t do it for me, but given what I want and who I naturally am, I’m said on numerous occasions how much easier my love life would be if it did. As it is, if I want to attract someone new, I have to tamp all that down and put on my reasonably masculine face, and maybe if I’m lucky, I can reveal some of that side of myself gradually. But I can’t be totally myself. Never. … So I go on pretending to be manly sometimes and hopefully don’t screw up.

Oh, sure, there were some answers that were bluntly homophobic — redwood9 states plainly that “I just hate fags … I hate all cocksuckers and those who bend over and take it in the ass” — but they made up a tiny minority of the comments, and were generally downvoted.

So what’s going on here? Has the Men’s Rights Subreddit suddenly become a beacon of open-mindedness? Not exactly. Most of those commenting in the topic don’t appear to be Men’s Rights regulars, but Redditors who were drawn to the topic when it appeared on Reddit’s main page. Here’s what someone who is a MR regular had to say:

aetheralloy 0 points

“Bro’s” and “bromance” is the term often used to shame men … Women (feminists) in particular love to use it. …

The really interesting question here isn’t if it affects males, but why women are both extremely homophobic towards gay males while also willing to use them as emotional buddies.

Yeah, damn those feminist women and their hatred of gay men!

So, no group hug just yet. But it’s good to see an outburst of good sense in a discussion forum that’s often pretty backwards.

It’s just a pity that the moderator of Men’s Rights remains convinced “that there is an international, feminist, antimale conspiracy,” as he puts it in the sidebar, and that the subreddit’s slogan remains “Earning scorn from feminists since March 19, 2008.”

Because, you know what? If you’re a guy feeling boxed in by normative gender roles, some of the best people in the world to talk to about it are, you know, feminists.

Categories
antifeminism feminism hypocrisy misogyny reactionary bullshit sex Uncategorized

>Conned by a young rake? It’s all feminism’s fault.

>

Oops. Wrong picture.

A fiftysomething British woman is seduced and abandoned (and ripped off to the tune of £40,000) by a twentysomething con man, and it’s all the fault of … feminism? The Elusive Wapiti, a right-wing Men’s-Rightsy blog, writes about the case of one British woman let herself be charmed by a sweet-talking young fellow on Match.com and, despite an endless stream of obvious lies from him which should have kept the alarm bells in her head ringing continuously, agreed to meet him in South Africa, and ultimately hand over a huge chunk of her life’s savings to him. Her actions were incredibly stupid; the story is pathetic and sad.

And according to The Elusive Wapiti, feminism is to blame. And it actually kind of is. But not for the reason Wapiti thinks: 

Today’s exhibit is a Brit named Caroline Gates-Fleming, a twice-divorced middle-aged woman desperate to maintain her relevance in a culture that, thank you feminism, shackles feminine worth to her ability to attract a man.

Huh? Apparently I’m not up-to-date on the latest anti-feminist stereotypes. I thought feminists were all supposed to be man-hating lesbians, living alone with their cats and their “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” posters. But apparently it’s feminism — not, say, our sexist society — that makes women feel like they’re nothing without a man. Wapiti continues:

Hilarity ensues when a being that is accustomed to easy-come-easy-go male attention since the age of 15 experiences the shock of watching her attractiveness slowly die, after decades of taking it for granted and kicking perfectly good men to the curb.

The “perfectly good men” are her ex-husbands, though I’m not sure how Wapiti has determined that she cast them off for no good reason. No matter, Wapiti is just warming up. He returns to his main theme: Feminism bad!

[T]hanks to feminism, the old morality that once protected women from the siren song of their gonads has been stripped away. Used to be that women in their late 40s / early 50s were respectable housewives and grandmothers in stable if somewhat less than satisfying marriages, and slut-shaming and other social conventions kept them there, safely ensconced.

Ah, the good old days, when women stayed married, no matter how miserable they were, and gave up their sexual desires once they hit, say, the age of 47.

Now we discover that supposedly mature women instantly morph into priapic young boys–subbing vulvas for penises of course–given the right stimulation to their egos and hopes of emotional intimacy long since gone.

Damn you, evil feminism, for convincing women they might possibly have sex in their late 40s or — gasp! — older! Quite possibly with younger men! I mean, it’s not like men in their late 40s ever want to have sex with women younger than they are. I have never, ever heard of that happening, ever.

EDIT: Added a sentence in the second paragraph to make my point clearer. 

Categories
antifeminism crackpottery feminism funny Uncategorized

>Could it be … Satanists?

>

Feminist witches have captured Jack Nicholson!

Today’s tasty helping of antifeminist crackpottery comes from Len Hummel, courtesy of henrymakow.com. In an article titled, for reals, “Satanists Seduce Women With Wicca,” Hummel asks:

Are you aware of the close connection between feminism, lesbianism, wicca, and goddess-worship? It is rampant and getting worse by the minute.

Vast numbers of women today have been seduced into the occult, satanism, and various forms of witchcraft and wicca by the evil spirits behind those movements and feminism. …

Consider these insights from a Christian researcher who has investigated these very disturbing developments among modern-day feminists: …

“Much of what is currently published under the guise of New Age “enlightenment”, is nothing less than Old Age doctrines of nefarious invisible hosts. As in antiquity, so in modern times, those who practice paganism are guilty of worshipping “devils”…

Categories
feminism masculinity MRA rape violence against men/women

>That’s not funny: Prison rape jokes

>

Looking back through older posts on the OneY subreddit on Reddit, a relatively new and very promising subreddit devoted to men’s issues, I ran across a surprisingly civil and illuminating discussion of prison rape jokes. “Scarletbanner” opened the discussion by asking why there is a double standard with regard to these jokes:

As someone [who’s] majoring in Criminal Justice, I hear comments when the topic of women being raped that it’s “fucked up shit”, yet when the subject turns to prison rape, it’s a massive joke… from derogatory comments regarding sexual preference to “don’t drop the soap”. Between 43,000-140,000+ are raped each year ffs, with men (especially homosexuals) as the largest targeted group…

The typical Men’s Rights take on this is that there’s a double standard “because nobody gives a shit about men,” as EddieVanHelsing put it in a comment there. This explanation doesn’t take us very far, given that women are also raped in prison, and that people make jokes about that too.

Others in the discussion offered more incisive takes on the issue. puffinmuffin pointed out that

the problem is NO ONE CARES about people in jail. No one gives a shit about prisoner’s rights. It really isn’t an issue about raping, it’s an issue about the fucked up system that no one cares enough to fix. Conditions in a lot of jails are downright abhorrent. Unsanitary environments, abuse, horrid bureaucracy … But no one cares. They think, “Oh, well, they’re criminals so they deserve whatever.”

Archythearchivist, a self-described “XX, card carrying, baby eatin’ feminist” suggested that the double standard

is perhaps more indicative of the way that masculinity is viewed. Male rape is funny (to some) because it subverts common narratives of male virility and roles. It’s a “joke” where the main idea is that the world is a certain way, and only certain less masculine men would be raped. … It bases itself on a world that supposedly does not exist, at least not for “real” men. … These jokes should be considered as tasteless and hateful as any other rape joke.

But perhaps the most thoughtful comment came from AlphaCygni, who noted that there had recently been a post on Reddit

from a guy who had been sexually abused in a juvenile detention facility. Apparently there was systematic abuse and rape of young boys within this facility. What struck me the most about the [discussion of this on Reddit] was the number of individuals asking the victim why he didn’t just bite the dicks of his attackers. It was a situation so far out of their mindset, they couldn’t imagine how a person can be made to feel so powerless and scared that their primary focus is on staying alive rather than avoiding emasculation. Rape as a real possibility is something that just never seriously occurs to most men and, since they never think about, they can’t place themselves in the victim’s shoes. …

All that being said, I do know some women who joke about rape. I know a rape victim who makes rape jokes. I know other rape victims who can’t stand them. I think if more people could experience what it’s like to be the object of unwanted, intense, sexual attraction by someone who is more powerful than you, there would be less rape jokes overall except by those who enjoy gallows humor. I think that if more men were allowed to openly share their rape experiences and men were to listen to these poor individuals and try to put themselves in their shoes instead of asking how they could allow such a thing to happen, or discounting their masculinity, prison rape jokes wouldn’t be seen widely as funny.

The whole comment is worth reading; this is only an excerpt.

Prison rape is a disgrace, and jokes about it don’t help. Because most of those in prison are male, it primarily affects men. But women in prison are more than twice as likely to be raped or abused by other inmates than men. And, as Scarletbanner alluded to in the comment that started off the discussion, gays (and transsexuals) face a much higher risk of rape in prison.

I’m preparing a “further reading” post on prison rape, but in the meantime if you’re looking for more information on the subject, I suggest you start with the fact sheets on the web site of Just Detention International, a human rights advocacy group working to stop sexual abuse in detention facilities worldwide; the pictures I used to illustrate this post come from a media campaign by the group.

Categories
feminism

>Survey says: Feminists not actually man-haters

>

Evidently she’s not a feminist.

From a recent paper in Psychology of Women Quarterly titled ARE FEMINISTS MAN HATERS? FEMINISTS’ AND NONFEMINISTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD MEN:

Despite the popular belief that feminists dislike men, few studies have actually examined the empirical accuracy of this stereotype. The present study examined self-identified feminists’ and nonfeminists’ attitudes toward men. An ethnically diverse sample (N = 488) of college students responded to statements from the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI; Glick & Fiske, 1999). Contrary to popular beliefs, feminists reported lower levels of hostility toward men than did nonfeminists. The persistence of the myth of the man-hating feminist is explored.

Emphasis mine. Oddly enough, I discovered this paper though a link on the Men’s Rights Subreddit. Here’s a pdf of the study.

Categories
antifeminst women feminism idiocy pics

>One thing we can all agree on …

>

… MRAs and feminists alike, is that this t-shirt, recently discovered at Old Navy, is irritating as fuck, and any (straight) woman who would wear such a thing would be someone to avoid at all costs. Seriously.  (In case you can’t quite make out what’s going on with the graphic, the “o” in “hope” is an engagement ring.)

As one Redditor pointed out in the discussion of the subject in the TwoXChromosomes subreddit, where I found the pic, the only people who could wear the shirt without being complete douchenozzles would be lesbians and gay men, because then it would become a political statement about gay marriage. Actually, come to think of it, I’d have no problem with straight guys wearing it either; that would be kind of hilarious. Or security guards of either sex who happen to be guarding the Hope Diamond. 

I guess basically the only people who shouldn’t wear it are straight women who aren’t guarding the Hope Diamond. Or babies. A baby wearing this shirt would just be really weird.

Categories
evil women feminism homophobia misogyny MRA reactionary bullshit Uncategorized

>Around the world in a Google-Translated daze

>

No girls allowed.

So yesterday I asked the MRA masses to post the names of blogs, websites, online manifestos, etc. that in their opinion represent the best that the Men’s Rights Movement has to offer.

I got a lot of comments, but, er, I didn’t exactly get a ton of suggestions. The first commenter to come through with actual URLs was Yohan, a non-native English speaker who mainly reads non-American sites. He posted three URLs, all to sites not in English.

But hey, we live in a global village, and I’m not going to let a little thing like language get in the way. So I pasted his URLs into Google Translate and took a look.

The first site he mentioned, a German Men’s Rights hub called MANNdat, looked, sadly, almost completely identical to any number of American Men’s Rights sites, from its page on “Feminist Myths” right on down to the obligatory “Woman Behaving Badly” post on its front page. 

The second URL led to an Austrian site with the translated title “Executioner,” which looked too dour and creepy to me, so I didn’t even bother poking around.

I approached the third site he mentioned with a little bit more optimism. It was Japanese, so I figured the combination of vast cultural differences, gross translation errors, and the natural hilarity of internet antifeminists would lead to pure win, as they say on the internet.

And at first, I did indeed seem to have struck internet gold. I found myself utterly charmed by the site, which is apparently called “Feminist Fantasy,” and which through the magic of Google Translate seemed to be a virtual repository of fantastic Dadaist poetry:

Identity of feminist leadership

America seems to be the queen of quibble.
Around in a thoughtful but very good at sophistry,
In the United States to refrain from the country so fast lady,
I argue that it is no longer anyone to organize a quibble

I can even sort of agree with that. America really is the “queen of quibble.”‘

But, alas, my euphoria was short-lived. As I kept looking around the site I found some things that even Google Translate couldn’t render charming. Like the articles “Sodom, Gomorrah, and the Netherlands” and “Gay marriage is a human misery,” which explains, in Google-translate-speak:

In order to destroy the institution of marriage, the idea of same-sex marriage are pushing a plan to destroy the sanctity of marriage.

So God does not bless same-sex marriage in the Bible the same shape as opposite sex marriage.

Yeah, I don’t need a perfect translation to get the gist of that article. Or this one, which I reproduce in its Google-translated entirety:

American abomination

Abomination ever played the glorious U.S. military in Iraq. Why such a moral collapse happened. Between men and women of loose morals are the leading cause of it. That gender equality and women soldiers of the United States, the relationship between men and women, who had loose sexual relations, she was weakening resistance to an immoral abuse.

Also, female sumo wrestlers? They aren’t having any of that either.

So much for my foray into international antifeminism.

Categories
antifeminism feminism further reading links MRA

>Further Reading: General critiques of the Men’s Rights Movement

>

Actual Father’s Rights Demonstrators

This is the first in what will be a series of “Further Reading” posts that will provide links and brief excerpts/summaries of posts, articles and books useful to critics of the Men’s Rights Movement. They will all be permanently listed in my sidebar. I will add more useful links as I run across them.

I’ve also started adding a series of pages that offer information and links rebutting more specific claims typically made by those in the Men’s Rights movement. These will also be permanently listed in my sidebar under the heading “Anti-MRM Info and Resources.”

Here are some useful general critiques of the Men’s Rights Movement:

Kathryn Joyce: “Men’s Rights” Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective”

These men’s rights activists, or MRAs, have long been written off by domestic-violence advocates as a bombastic and fringe group of angry white men, and for good reason. … But lately they’ve become far more polished and savvy about advancing their views.

A generally useful overview, with one caveat: Joyce considerably understates the amount of domestic violence that is perpetrated by women. See here for my thoughts on the subject.

Jezebel and Salon have pieces commenting on Joyce’s article. Amanda Marcotte offers some blunt opinions on the piece, as well as some reflections on her general experience dealing with MRAs.

Michael Flood: Backlash — Angry men’s movements (pdf)

In general, “men’s rights” is an anti-feminist and sometimes misogynist (woman-hating) backlash. Its analysis is wrong, its strategies are misdirected and sometimes harmful, and ultimately it does not serve men well. There are legitimate aspects to the issues it raises, but they will not be addressed when surrounded by its hostile and sexist agendas. … Feminism is a movement and set of ideas to which many men’s rights men show venomous and semi-hysterical hostility. … Men’s rights men in fact offer a bizarre caricature of feminism, a highly ignorant and selective misrepresentation.

A shorter, non-pdf version of the article.

Michael Flood: How the fathers’ rights movement undermines the protections available to victims of violence and protects the perpetrators of violence

While fathers’ rights groups often claim to speak on behalf of male victims of domestic violence, these efforts undermine the policies and services that would protect and gain justice for these same men.

Fathers’ rights advocates also: Make excuses for perpetrators; Act as direct advocates for perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of violence against women; Use abusive strategies themselves; Work to undermine and harass the services and institutions that work with the victims and survivors of violence.

More pieces by Flood and others on MRAs at XYonline.net.

Hugo Schwyzer: Masculinity and the failure of the Men’s Rights Movement

The problem with the men’s rights movement is that they confuse men’s unhappiness with oppression. They assume that if men were in control, they would be happy, because patriarchal oppressors ought to be happy. Therefore, if a man isn’t happy, he isn’t oppressing. Newsflash, folks: Just because you don’t know you’re privileged doesn’t mean you’re not. Just because there are aspects of your power and privilege that you find alienating and burdensome doesn’t mean that you are any less a beneficiary of an oppressive system!

Other useful pieces:

The use of violence by fathers’ rights activists: A compilation of news reports

Jezebel: Should Feminism Be “About Equality For Males?”

Jezebel: In Canada, Men’s Rights Groups Gain Power And A Blogger Supports “Femicide”

Alas, a blog:  Men’s Rights Activists, Anti-Feminists, And Other Misogynists Comment On George Sodini

Amanda Hess: Can’t Feminists and Anti-Misandrists Just Get Along?

Amanda Marcotte and Alas, a blog on MRAs’ legitimate complaints.

Blogging Molly: The misguided, embarrassing war against feminism rages on

Categories
evil women feminism pics

>Stunning photographic proof of the historical oppression of men

>


I have discovered stunning new proof of the historical oppression of men. In these photos, from mid-century America, we can see clearly how men are humiliated, annoyed and otherwise held down by The Woman. Just look at the expression on this man’s face as the wily female emasculates him, assaults his ear, and makes him listen to her blab on and on about clothes.

These photos obviously predate the Second Wave of feminism in the 1960s and 70s, but that just shows how sneaky the feminists are. I blame women’s suffrage. You give them the vote, and the next thing you know, they’ll be wantonly adjusting their girdles, wearing wrinkly stockings, and poking their fingers in your ear.

For more of these deeply disturbing photos, see here.