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.
Does anyone read newspaper comics any more? Does anyone even remember reading newspaper comics? One of the worst of the bunch is a mawkish little one-panel strip called “Love is …,” with a simple formula: a little drawing of a plump, happy, naked couple (minus sex organs), with a caption starting off with the words “love is.” The more popular strips were turned into greeting cards. I actually have an oil painting someone made of the Love is couple that I found in a thrift store for $1.47. The caption: “Love is … letting him win once in a while.”
The strip began in 1970, and the creator turned it over to the current writer and artist in 1975. I have no fucking idea how on earth he can come up with a new “love is” caption every day. His life must be some kind of existential hell. He must spend hours just staring out the window looking for inspiration. Love is … a dog taking a shit, no. Love is … a fat guy waiting for a bus … no. Love is … sitting alone in my underwear wondering what has gone wrong with my life.
I’m pretty sure that feminists aren’t the ones expecting men to pay for dates, so I’m not sure why feminists should be held to account for something they’re not doing, but in any case, the Men’s Rightsers don’t seem much interested in hearing explanations from feminists. No, they’re rather offer their own theories.
Enter a new convert to Men’s Rightsism called MrKocha, who enlists the aid of SCIENCE to offer his own explanation of this terrible date injustice:
Is THIS your quotation from Marilyn French? No? Um …
Is there something about Men’s Rights Activists that renders them utterly incapable of admitting a mistake? The other day, I performed a bit of rudimentary factchecking on a collection of allegedly “misandrist” quotes assembled by Jonathan Taylor of A Voice for Male Students.
Among other things. I pointed out that the drastically truncated version of a Marilyn French quote he posted completely misrepresented the actual meaning of what she had said, making it appear that she was charging the majority of men with killing, or beating, or raping women and/or molesting their own daughters:
It became quite clear to me some time ago that your typical woman would be fine making most men live in cages under 24/78 supervision if it meant they could feel just slightly safer about their lives. This is why feminists spend so much time lying to make them afraid.
Last I checked, he had gotten 18 upvotes for this BRAVE comment.
Here — above and below — are a couple of amazing works of Men’s Rightsy propaganda I missed in my survey of deviantART yesterday, both from a fellow calling himself alexlartwork22. And, yes, they both seem to be meant completely seriously.
Pity the poor Men’s Rights activists. The real civil rights movements that MRAs like to compare their, er, “struggle” to may have faced many obstacles that MRAs haven’t — from legal prohibitions on voting to fire bombings and assassinations — but at least they haven’t had a hard time explaining just what it was, and is, that they’re seeking redress for.
When Martin Luther King so famously dreamt of a world in which “my four little children will … not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” he was not only speaking eloquently; he was expressing an idea that was, well, pretty easy to understand.
Want to earn yourself some quick karma points on Reddit? It’s easy! Just post some terrible misogynistic comic and wait for the inevitable upvotes. Like this one, which combines some standard-issue victim-blaming rape apologism with a bit of racism and serves it all up in terribly drawn cartoon form, and collect dozens of upvotes!
It’s labor day here in the US of A, a day for picnics, parades honoring our nation’s workers, and going through Fidelbogen’s timeline on Twitter looking for especially obtuse tweets from the always obtuse Men’s Renaissance Agitator and would-be philosopher-king of the Men’s Rights movement.
Yes, I know we just did Fidelbogen the other day, but we’re doing him again.
