We Hunted the Mammoth: The FAQ-ening
Q) A mammoth, huh? What’s this blog about?
A) Misogyny, not mammoths.
Specifically, this blog focuses on what I call the “New Misogyny,” an angry antifeminist backlash that has emerged like a boil on the ass of the internet over the last decade or so. These aren’t your traditional misogynists – the social conservatives and religious fundamentalists who make up much of the far right.
These are guys, mostly, who range in age from their teens to their fifties, who have embraced misogyny as an ideology, as a sort of symbolic solution to the frustrations in their lives – whether financial, social, or sexual.
Some of them identify as Men’s Rights Activists, trying to cast their peculiar struggle against what they see as the excess of feminism and the advantages of women as a civil rights issue of sorts. Alongside those who explicitly label themselves MRAs we find a great number of antifeminist and antiwomen activists we might call Men’s Rights-adjacent – like those in the Skeptic and Atheist subcultures who still haven’t gotten over an offhand remark Skepchick founder Rebecca Watson made about a dude in an elevator a couple of years ago.
Others proclaim themselves Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), declaring a sort of independence from women – while spending much of their time on message boards talking endlessly about them.
Still others see themselves as Pickup Artists (PUA), or masters of “Game,” espousing elaborate “scientific” theories of male superiority while trading tips on how best to pressure or manipulate drunk women into bed. This misogynistic wing of the PUA subculture has a considerable overlap with a subset of traditionalist and far-right blogs. Many of those in what has come to be called “the manosphere” — hey, don’t blame me, I didn’t come up with that name — don’t simply embrace misogyny; they also proudly embrace “scientific” racism and other bigotries.
Still, while some of the New Misogynists see themselves as conservatives, even “neo-reactionaries,” many identify themselves as libertarians or even as liberals. Theirs is a backlash that frames itself as a step forward.
That said, there are numerous posts here that don’t have anything to do with MRAs or MGTOWers or PUAs or any of their ilk. Sometimes I like to post cat pics.
Q) Ok, but you still haven’t explained the mammoth thing.
A) This is a reference to a quote I once posted from a dude who felt women weren’t sufficiently appreciative of what men had supposedly done for them over the ages. Here’s the quote, in all of its weird glory:
We men built a nice safe world for you all the the coal-mines of death, roads, railroads, bridges and tall office buildings. Its $1,000,000 spent per death of a man on a large dangerous project on average now you can just 9-5 it and call it a day in air-conditioned and heated safety. Forget about the wars we died in and the sacrifices made just ignore history or is it now hersorty? You are accruing the benefits without ever having to pay the price you still don’t have to sign up for the draft and who will protect you? The Sex and the City girls will fight off the North Koreans with their Manolo Blahniks?
Men gave you this modern world now you take it for granted we hunted the mammoth to feed you we died in burning buildings and were gassed in the trenches but that was just for fun right?
How quick and conveniently you forget who made this possible.
We gave you Leonardo da Vinci, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy not to mention countless others, Jonas Salk saved half the world from death and you just piss on it all.
This quote is such an amazing clusterfuck of misogyny, entitlement and unwarranted self-importance – not to mention historical ignorance – that the bit about mammoths became a catchphrase around here, neatly conveying pretty much everything this blog is against. And so I decided to make it the name of the blog.
Q) And who exactly are you?
A) David Futrelle. I’m a freelance writer and blogger living in Evanston, IL, and the guy behind the Confused Cats Against Feminism blog. For more on my illustrious career, see the David Futrelle FAQ.
Q) You’re against the Men’s Rights movement. Are you against men having rights?
A) Of course not. As hundreds of posts on this site show pretty clearly, the so-called Men’s Rights Movement is a hateful, reactionary movement driven largely by misogyny and hatred of feminism. It doesn’t help men. It encourages them to scapegoat women and stew in their own bitterness.
Q) Are you secretly funded by the international feminist conspiracy?
A) No. I’m not funded by any organization. Some readers have very kindly given me donations. You can too, if you wish.
Q) What’s with all the cat pictures?
A) I like cats.
This is where you can carve off a nice little slice of the PUA mindset, one devoid of all the nasty “no doesn’t mean no” “keep pushing till she says yes” bits, and claim that therefore PUA is not a rapey philosophy.
Sorry, there’s years worth of evidence right here on this very site that begs to disagree.
If you want to talk about fundamentals, let’s talk about your “objective.” Your objective in PUA is sex with a specific woman. What she feels is treated as an obstacle; your goal is to turn her no into a yes through any means necessary, even through things like “kino escalation” (physical contact that may be unwanted) and various ways to apply psychological pressure.
That. Is. Rapey. As fuck. PUA doesn’t have to directly promote rape to be rapey; the fact that it treats intimate human interactions as “selling” rather than “negotiating” should be your biggest clue that something is fundamentally wrong with it.
And, side note, “selling” is not inherently neuteral. “Putting the foot in the door” and doing a “hard sell” by talking rapidly to prevent people from thinking clearly and forcing them to agree to something they may not actually want isn’t exactly the image you want to have for your dating advice.
Nope, sorry. Sure, strong emotion can interfere with logical thought. Strong emotion can also be the result of logical thought. Speak to any real human rights activist to get a sense for how justified anger can be, or tell a man like MLK that anger is a sign of irrationality. This is just you again refusing to empathize with the person you are speaking to, and a practical refusal to understand why the people you are talking to are angry.
You want an example of irrationality? How about claiming logical victory when you’ve annoyed someone to the point of frustration?
Does it really matter if PUA felt like a rape philosophy to you? No. Because it doesn’t effect you. It’s not threatening you. It’s attempting to give you a dangerous “advantage” over women.
Women are NOT an “objective”, nor should we ever be. We’re human beings who want to get into relationships because a significant other wants to be with us, not because they’re completing a checklist or some kind of quest to get laid.
“You saying that I’m wrong is exactly like being racist! How very dare you, you extremists!”
You have got to be joking me. How is this even a comparison? What wires are crossed in your brain to make you think that that’s somehow equivalent?
Us saying “Hey, rape isn’t cool, could you not try to advocate for it in any way?” =/= “Black people are all thugs!”
Mostly because the first is women saying “Hey, could you not do things that violate my bodily autonomy?” and the second is white people being prejudiced.
I can’t believe I’ve had to explain that.
Thank you for mansplaining emotions to us. I’m sure we were all so stupid with our feeble lady brains (and Kirby with his feeble man brain) needed this explanation as to why we shouldn’t be able to be emotional about people saying they want to rape us.
[/sarcasm]
Uh huh. I’m sure you think we’re all “screeching” solely because we’re letting our widdle lady emotions get in the way of us saying you’re full of shit. I’m sure that’s the only reason. Not like you’re sexist or anything!
[/sarcasm]
Has someone emailed David yet? This guy’s gross.
@Paradoxical Intention:
No no, see, one is “you’re calling me wrong” and the other is “you’re calling black people thugs.” They’re both calling people something! It’s basically the same thing, if you look at it rationologically!
This troll is gaslighty as fuck.
No, they fucking are not. This is Gaslighting 101 right here: telling people that if they feel upset, they aren’t being rational because being upset and being rational at the same time is impossible.
I call bullshit on this. You’ve demonstrated absolutely no conception of anthropology beyond what you read in a single book. Taking one class as a undergraduate does not constitute “a formal education” in anything. That’s called “fulfilling a general education requirement.”
I’m honestly so impressed with those of you who try to explain anything to these misogynist asshats. They know nothing and think their white cocks make them the smartest people anywhere at all times. They’re devoid of honesty or morality, yet think themselves the arbiters of civility. I just want to turn the hose on them like dogs pissing on a flowerbed.
The sheer fucking gall of, “All I did was come in here, lie from the get go, vomit rape apology, talk down to everyone here though I hadn’t clue as to what I was on about, use ablist terms, pout-flounce-return-repeat and gaslight the lot of you and you were mean to me! How could you? YOU must be so much less intelligent and informed than I am. Allow me to continue sea lioning ad nauseam…”
How the fuck do people get to be like that?
Yeah. No.
That’s the sort of lie that reveals itself. Did you really think you were so clever that you could fake it and we’d never notice?
Where the fuck did troll get his information about neuroscience? No. An active limbic system does not shut your whole brain down. Being annoyed with misogynistic trolling does not mean my pfc stopped working.
I’m sitting in my work break room. Talking with and listening to coworkers while I read and type here. I’m not having a nervous breakdown.
There’s no indication anyone else is either.
Trolls always have such an over inflated sense of their. I’m rolling my eyes at how gross he is. I’m laughing at his pomposity. Get over yourself, troll. I’m not losing sleep over you.
POM and Lea,
I clearly remember him saying he studied business and marketing. Nothing about anthropology. Maybe he took one class in college and read a book or two.
I’m enjoying a bowl of gumbo with some cider while laughing at this asshole. I’m sure as hell not breaking down either.
@WWTH
I’m being immensely charitable and presuming it’s a wild exaggeration, puffing a general-ed level, introductory undergraduate class into “a formal education,” rather than an out-and-out lie. Given how little understanding the troll has demonstrated (on the same level as his University-of-Wikipedia-grade education in formal logic), an out-and-out lie is not out of the question. But I do like to think the best possible of everyone.
Got up from a nap after spending most of the day at the pool with my kids. Got an ice pack on my neck and dogs snoring at my feet. (Fuck this headache.) Gonna go shopping with the hubster shortly and have some laughs like we always do. I might even treat myself to a cherry cola. Thus will my wild fit of rage go.
So wild.
Much rage.
Being completely over (So very over) some smarmy asshole is hardly a full on come apart. Telling said asshole exactly what’s what and where he can stick his uninformed bullflop, is just what people do when they’ve had enough willful, unrepentant stupid for one day.
fwiw, that’s correct, Policy. It was actually three classes so a bit more than “General Ed” but I opted to go into Business for the obvious reasons of muniez are a natural and self-evident good. I would say it is formal – certainly more than what’s being claimed here by others. I realize that might lead to flaws in my understanding, but this is why I’m open to divergent considerations.
Not much else to say except the posts remain adorable. I would say something about insults and cowardice, but that’s just repetition at this point.
Keep up the self-congratulations. You all win all internets.
Oh, my mistake, clearly you are the expert. FFS by your standards I have a double formal education in economics, and a triple formal education in philosophy. I don’t actually claim that, because I’m not a pretentious wanker drunk on my own self-importance.
LOL definitely not a philosophy major here.
Wouldn’t implicitly calling people cowards be an insult? What’s that saying about insults and cowardice, shonpan?
http://1wdojq181if3tdg01yomaof86.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/stewart_gif4-300×214.gif
“I only took three classes, so that means I’m capable of being wrong, but I still obviously know so much more than all of you! And I’m so open-minded! Look at me considering all you have to say and still finding you all to be silly feeble-brained ladies who think with their feelings!
You’re all so adorable when I’m condescending to you! You’re all being silly-billys by insulting me and my grand intelligence, which, when you disagree with that, you’re akin to racists, just saying.
You guys keep trying to explain to me how “PUA is based upon a rapey ideology” and “women aren’t objects to be bartered for”, while I sit here and denounce you because white penis.”
Whelp, the Asshole-to-WHTM translator seems to still be working, so at least we have that going for us.
Why do all these “logical” trolls always think you can separate emotion when judging human behavior in any way? Humans are driven by our emotions in SO. MANY. WAYS. Even when we try to be driven only by logic, we end up becoming arrogant, holier-than-thou shitstains who feel better than everyone else.
who feel they are better*
“Contempt” is an emotion, so I guess it’s consistent with the “emotions and reason are mutually exclusive” dogma that the troll expresses high levels of contempt but virtually no reason.
@isidore13:
Anything to feel superior, I guess. Lord knows they aren’t going to get that superiority from actually trying to convince people of anything or demonstrating any real knowledge or skill. Plus, that type of personality is endlessly aggravating, so if that frustration adds to their sense of superiority, even better!
It’s like natural selection. With douchebags.
Come on Kirbywrap, I’m sure our troll read Ayn Rand at some point, so he’s definitely a philosopher.
I think I’m going to apply for some English professor jobs. I took two English literature and two English writing courses in college. Expert, here!
We haven’t even name called very much. Unless you count troll. Nobody used an ad hominem at all. So what’s the problem? Did he seriously expect any pro PUA and rape apologia to fly?
Empathy is something you feel and all pro-social behavior is based on it. It is what makes it possible for crows, wolves, killer whales and humans to work together to achieve a common goal. Without it there is no morality and no civilization. One thing humans are specialized to do that has ensured our survival is feel empathy.
Rape is an act devoid of empathy. It is not a pro-social behavior. It does not strengthen community bonds. It weakens members of society whose contributions are desperately needed. It is the antithesis of what makes our species as successful as it is and should we ever rise above the little tricks we use to short circuit our empathy, like bigotry and mindless patriotism we will be far more successful than we’ve been so far. If we do not manage to shake off erroneous ideas that allow us to dehumanize and commodify other humans we will die out. It will be ugly and it will be soon. Those are our choices.
Btw troll, the same “logic” you are attempting to use to defend rape has also been used to defend slavery and genocide. You are mistaking things that profit the oppressor class with things that profit humanity. That’s mighty white of you.
WWTH,
They never understand what an ad hom attack is.
They can’t see the difference between:
“You are wrong because you are and asshole.”
and
“You are wrong and you are an asshole.”
Oh, my word.
May I congratulate all the wonderful wimminz dealing with a paradigm case of the WHTM troll despite the drawbacks of relying on their fluffy pink ladybrainz.
EJ and kirby also deserve a mention for their stalwart manly forbearance despite being hampered by their alliance with the aforesaid fluffy pink ladybrainz operators.
As for ye olde wikipedia expert, you came here to argue with women. Referring to adult women as “girl/s” — as you’ve done at least twice — indicates to me that you need to get a better handle on this treating-people-with-appropriate-respect angle. And then there’s all the PUA-rapey shit on top of that.
You appear to have flounced. That’s a good thing. Stay away.
Comment: “PUA is kinda rapey and makes women feel uncomfortable.”
Shonpan: “That’s adorable.”
Comment: “Now you’re starting to make all of us here feel uncomfortable.”
Shonpan: “Awww, that’s so adorable. You’re all so adorable.”
Not condescending at all. Nope.