Tag: MRA

a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism crackpottery GirlWritesWhat homophobia misogyny MRA oppressed men playing the victim sympathy for murderers

AVFM asks: Was the Fort Hood shooting the fault of same-sex marriage and the "Lesbo Circle of Doom?"

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date May 2, 2014
90 Comments on AVFM asks: Was the Fort Hood shooting the fault of same-sex marriage and the "Lesbo Circle of Doom?"

Harmful to males? One AVFM writer thinks so.

On April 2, Army Specialist Ivan Lopez shot and killed three people on the Fort Hood military base in Texas, before turning his gun on himself; 16 others were injured. It’s not clear what caused Lopez’ killing spree, though the incident seems to have been triggered by the difficulties he encountered trying to get a 24-hour pass to attend his mother’s funeral.

But a writer for A Voice for Men, Michael Conzachi, has a novel explanation for the tragedy: the military’s excessive niceness towards lesbians and gays.

In a post entitled “What role has feminism played in the shooting at Fort Hood and its aftermath?” Conzachi sets forth his thesis:

Numerous directives from the Pentagon and the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS), of which some in the military refer to the group as the “Super-Feminists” or jokingly, the “Lesbo Circle of Doom,” allow for and promote an immediate leave period of five days for same sex military couples to marry. …

How is it that a large contingent of feminist dominated military and Pentagon leadership enacts policies that favor, prioritize, and give expanded benefits for same sex couples; yet Specialist Lopez apparently was only allowed two days to bury his mother?

If that was you, and you could only get two days to attend to your mother’s death, and you see same sex military couples being allowed five days immediate leave to marry; wouldn’t that bother you a little, regardless of what your opinions are of gay and same sex couples? Where is the equality?

Yep. An unhinged man murders his fellow soldiers in cold blood. Let’s blame it on same-sex marriage and the “Lesbo Circle of Doom.”

At least Conzachi admits that his theory is only a theory, and that “whether or not we will ever learn [the shooter’s] true motives is unknown.”

Setting aside the absurdity, and offensiveness, of Conzachi’s argument for a moment, he’s wrong to suggest that same-sex couples are somehow being coddled by “Lesbo” brass. Straight couples can also get marriage leaves of up to 3 days, and the reason the military gives extra time to same-sex couples is that many of them have to travel long distances to get married, since same-sex marriage is only legal in 17 states. The military has been slow to actually implement the new policies, and many same-sex couples have simply been denied leave to get married. Soldiers, regardless of sexual orientation, also have 30 days of earned leave each year they can use to get married.

Coznachi spends the rest of his post tearing down the female officer who confronted Lopez and brought an end to his killing spree.

He ends with this question — a question that he seems to have already answered to his own satisfaction:

Are the military’s priorities of same sex couple, gay, and women in combat issues harmful to males in general?

A number of those who are associated with A Voice for Men — most notably “managing editor ” Dean Esmay and “contributing editor” Karen Straughan — profess to be great Friends of the Gays; indeed Straughan describes herself as a “genderqueer, bisexual … woman”).

I can only wonder why they would want to associate themselves with a site that publishes articles suggesting that supporting the rights of same sex couples in the military to marry is “harmful to males in general.”

a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism consent is hard entitled babies evil sexy ladies men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men paul elam playing the victim rape rape culture reddit sexual harassment victim blaming warren farrell

Warren Farrell on Date Rape: Defending the Indefensible

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date May 1, 2014
370 Comments on Warren Farrell on Date Rape: Defending the Indefensible

George Orwell, meet Warren Farrell

Men’s Rights Activists tend to be fairly blunt; when they express a noxious opinion – and oh so many of their opinions are noxious – they do it in the most obnoxious possible way. It isn’t enough for Paul Elam of A Voice for Men to blame victims of rape; he also has to call them “STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH[es]” wearing the equivalent of PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign[s] glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.”

Warren Farrell is different. He takes a softer approach. He would never call a woman a bitch or a whore or a cunt. When he speaks, he manages to sound gentle and caring. He talks about the importance of listening to others. He sometimes even manages to give the impression that he cares as much about women as he does about men.

And yet his ideas are as noxious as Elam’s. He is as much of a victim blamer as any slur-spouting MGTOWer complaining about “stuck-up cunts” on an internet message board.

It’s just that he does his victim blaming with such carefully evasive language that he’s able to hide the noxiousness of his ideas – and to avoid taking responsibility for them when he’s challenged on them.

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Warren Farrell: Men Are Oppressed by Women's Butts

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 30, 2014
148 Comments on Warren Farrell: Men Are Oppressed by Women's Butts

Man being oppressed by female ass power

Yesterday Warren Farrell – the intellectual grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement, the man who single-handedly came up with probably half of the terrible arguments that are endlessly rehashed daily in the manosphere – went to Reddit and proclaimed “ask me anything!”

And so we, and a lot of other people, did. And he even answered a couple of the questions I posted here yesterday – though as I sort of suspected he pointedly ignored the questions about his incest research. Still, there were so many astounding things said in that discussion, both by Farrell himself and by his various supporters, that it’s going to take a couple of posts to get to them all.

Let’s just start with the ass question, shall we? Because there was nothing quite so astounding in that whole sprawling thread, or at least the portion of it that I managed to read, as “Dr.” Farrell’s – he has a PhD in political science –answer to the ass question.

That’s right. Warren Farrell literally believes that heterosexual men are powerless in the face of SEXY FEMALE BUTTS. They are BUTT HYPNOTIZED by women’s shapely buttocks, virtual prisoners to the power of DAT ASS.

Not only that, but they are slaves as well, forced to earn more money than women so that they can “pay for women’s drinks, dinners and diamonds.” Who knew that the wage gap was caused by the ass crack?

We like big butts, and we cannot lie. But that way tyranny, I espy.

Only if men can free themselves from the TYRANNY OF THE BUTT they can “have more control over [their] lives, and therefor [sic] more real power.”

But who will write the new Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of Queen Ass?

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for horny dudes to get rid of the boners which those ladies have caused with their smokin hot dumpers and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the babies who have got back requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation, and that is, ladies we can’t think straight if we’re looking at DAT ASS all the time.

Oh, but “Dr.” Farrell is worried about the ladies, too. I mean, he said so:

it’s in women’s interests for me to confront this. many heterosexual women feel imprisoned by men’s inability to be attracted to women who are more beautiful internally even if their rear is not perfect.

Yes, you’re beautiful on the inside to m….holy crap did you see the ass on HER!?

Now, this isn’t entirely new. As I’ve noted before, Farrell makes a version of this argument in his book, talking about secretaries manipulating their bosses with their “miniskirt power, cleavage power, and flirtation power,” [p. 21] describing “female beauty” as “the world’s most potent drug,” [p. 85], and arguing that “many men feel ‘under the influence’ the moment they see a beautiful woman.” [p. 320]

But these, er, arguments weren’t the central focus of his rambling treatise. Now, at the age of 70, by not only putting a naked ass on the cover of his book, but also by defending it in such ludicrously overblown terms, he’s decided to put this unsolicited update from his penis at the center of his argument about the alleged powerlessness of men.

Yep, the closest thing that the Men’s Rights movement has to an intellectual heavyweight seems to think that the most pressing issue facing men today is how sad and mad and confused they feel because they can’t immediately have sex with every hot piece of ass that walks by (and, presumably, the women attached to these asses).

It’s really hard to find a better symbol of the sexual entitlement – and sexual resentment – that lies at the heart of the Men’s Rights movement than this.

Oh, and by the way, my new book is still available for purchase. So far I have sold no copies. Which might have something to do with the $1000 price tag, and also the fact that I haven’t actually written it. But you’ve got to admit the cover is pretty good.

In case you needed a clearer explanation of the power of women’s bodacious hineys, one Redditor by the name of Doldenberg has scienced things up for us and provided us all this useful graph. First, his brief explanation:

Being a brave Alpha from TRP, I have found the solution to the evident misandrist oppression of men by cute butt owners meaning owners of cute butts, not cute owners of butts, or butt owners of cute, or…, that is, ranking butts on an objective BMV (butt market value) scale. I’ve made the data up in my head, but it seems plausible. According to this data, the butt loses BMV when having sat on to many objects, while it’s cuteness only works as a limiting factor. I have made a handy graph[1] with supporting data and sources to explain my theory.

IS1KbbZ

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Warren Farrell is doing an Ask Me Anything on Reddit today. Some suggested questions for him.

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 29, 2014
142 Comments on Warren Farrell is doing an Ask Me Anything on Reddit today. Some suggested questions for him.

Ask him anything!

Warren Farrell, the intellectual grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement, is doing an AMA on Reddit today at 1 PM Eastern time. UPDATE: It’s started, and it’s here.

AMA, in Reddit-speak, stands for Ask Me Anything. So I would encourage you to ask Mr. Farrell questions about anything he has said or written in the past that you find troubling, or even just confusing.

Here are some suggestions. Seriously, ask him any of these, as I’m not sure I’ll be able to be online when the whole thing goes down.

1) Mr Farrell, in your book The Myth of Male Power, you wrote that:

It is important that a woman’s “noes” be respected and that her “yeses” be respected. And it is also important when nonverbal “yeses” (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal “noes” that the man not be put in jail for choosing the “yes” over the “no.” He might just be trying to become her fantasy.

Are you suggesting that if a woman clearly says no to sex, but does not stop kissing a man, that he is entitled to have sex with her anyway because she has given him a non-verbal “yes?” If not, what specifically do you mean? What sort of non-verbal “yes” would outweigh a clear verbal “no?” Why doesn’t her verbal no mean no?

Source: Myth of Male Power, page 315.

Screencap here: http://i.imgur.com/cwSoc.png

2) Mr. Farrell, regarding your research on incest in the 1970s, you told Penthouse magazine that:

“When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200,” says Farrell, “the incest is part of the family’s open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve — and in one or two cases to join in.”

Were you actually suggesting that there are “glowing, positive cases” of parent-child incest – that is, child sexual abuse? How can child sexual abuse be “glowing” or “positive” for the child?

If this is not what you meant, what did you mean?

Penthouse also quotes you as saying that you were doing your research

“because millions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn’t.”

As I understand it, you’ve said you were misquoted and that you did not say “genitally,” and that what you actually said was “generally” or “gently.” But even with the word replaced, you are suggesting that parents are repressing their sexuality and their children’s sexuality if they don’t “caress” their children. What did you mean by this?

Sources:
Transcript of Penthouse article: http://nafcj.net/taboo1977farrell.htm

Scanned pages of original article from Penthouse: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/fathers/farrell2.htm

3) Mr. Farrell, why did you choose a photograph of a nude woman’s ass for the cover of the new edition of The Myth of Male Power? Do you really think that male power is somehow negated by female sexuality?

4) Mr. Farrell, why have you chosen to associate yourself with the website A Voice for Men, a site that frequently refers to women as “cunts,” “bitches,” and “whores?” If you are not aware of this, would you disassociate yourself from the site if given clear proof of the site’s frequent misogynistic attacks on women?

If you’re looking for more ideas on questions to ask him, check out my posts on him in the archives.

These might be good to start with:

The Myth of Warren Farrell: Farrell on Rape, Part One

Warren Farrell’s notorious comments on date rape: Not any more defensible in context than out of it

What Men’s Rights guru Warren Farrell actually said about the allegedly positive aspects of incest.

MRA founding father Warren Farrell responds to questions about his incest research with evasive non-answers. And a smiley. (About his last AMA appearance.

Warren Farrell on Unemployment, Salesmanship, and Other Things That Are Like Rape, Supposedly

Also check out the excellent Farrell’s Follies series on Reddit.

And Fibinachi has a series on Farrell as well.

antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? imaginary backwards land imaginary oppression misogyny MRA oppressed white men prison rape racism reddit

White Men's Rights Redditors agree: "Men are the new n*ggers."

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 28, 2014
113 Comments on White Men's Rights Redditors agree: "Men are the new n*ggers."

Paula Deen: Role model for MRAs?

So why are so many white dudes so desperate for an excuse to use the n-word? Consider this white dude, who recently posted this bit of, er, wisdom in the Men’s Rights subreddit:

TheLiberatedMan 25 points 14 hours ago (36|12) Men are the new n*ggers. Is this going to become a new slogan for the Men’s Rights movement? It certainly seems to be popular amongst Men’s Rights Redditors, sporting a couple of dozen upvotes and no criticism (at least at the time I wrote this) from other MRAs. (There were a few critical comments from opponents of the Men’s Rights movement, however.)

Bear in mind that the Men’s Rights subreddit is 86% white, which is a good deal whiter than the United States as a whole, and only 1.5% black, which is way less black, according to a recent survey of its members. I’m pretty sure none of the white dudes upvoting this little slogan have obtained the proper n-word privileges. (Note: The survey in question was spammed with a number of identical responses, BUT the percentages I’m giving are based on the survey data with all the spammed entries removed, thanks to the industrious Angelica Field; see here for details.)

It’s hardly surprising that black men haven’t exactly flocked to the Men’s Rights movement, given the overt racism of a significant number of MRAs and other Manospherians. And even those MRAs who aren’t so obvious about their racism tend to be dismissive of issues that disproportionately affect men of color: MRAs almost never talk about the drug war that has put so many black men behind bars (two thirds of all those in prison for drug offenses are people of color. mostly men), nor have they ever attempted to organize or even offer any real support to campaigns against prison rape (60% of all prisoners are people of color).

This slogan isn’t likely to help the Men’s Rights movement with what the politicians like to call “minority outreach.” It might help reach a different sort of audience, however — an audience already quite fond of the n-word. When I did a Google search for the phrase “men are the new niggers,” the first result was a discussion on the Vanguard News Network Forum. I won’t link to it, because the Vanguard News Network is a virulently antisemitic, white supremacist website that the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “gutturally racist.” The site’s motto: “No Jews. Just Right.”

Of course, the notion of describing men as “the new nigger” didn’t originate with white supremacists. It was clearly inspired, in a backwards way, by the John Lennon song “Woman is the Nigger of the World,” a feminist attack on misogynistic hypocrisy. While Lennon wrote the lyrics, the titular phrase originated with Yoko Ono, who deliberately used the racial slur in what was evidently an attempt to shock people into recognizing the ways in which women, like black people, were dispossessed.

It was a bad idea. Even though Ono and Lennon didn’t mean to reinforce racism by using the slur, it’s not a word that they had any cultural right to appropriate for their own purposes; not only that, but Ono’s slogan seems to implicitly define all “niggers” as men and to ignore black women, who don’t need John or Yoko to remind them that many people already see them as “niggers.” In the end the title ended up undercutting the message of the song. It can’t listen to it; it makes me cringe.

But glancing over the lyrics again, which aside from the title are essentially about the hypocritical messages sent to women by sexist society, one line in particular stands out to me, because it so deftly captures a certain kind of sexism — and even though it was written years before Warren Farrell first started going on about “disposable men,” it also captures pretty well the MRA tendency to view gender relations upside down:

While putting her down, we pretend that she’s above us

Yep, that’s what the Men’s Rights movement does, all day, every day.

And it’s that kind of delusional thinking that leads some of them to conclude not only that they are the “new niggers,” but also that using the n-word is somehow an appropriate thing for their almost all-white movement to do.

antifeminism evil women GirlWritesWhat I'm totally being sarcastic imaginary backwards land men who should not ever be with women ever misandry misogyny MRA no girls allowed pussy pass reddit vaginas woman's suffrage women in tech

Upvote, downvote: Men's Rights Redditors on the evils of "p*ssy privilege" and women being encouraged to go into tech

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 27, 2014
257 Comments on Upvote, downvote: Men's Rights Redditors on the evils of "p*ssy privilege" and women being encouraged to go into tech

Many Men’s Rights Redditors see themselves as fighting a noble fight against genuinely evil, misandrist radical feminists on the internet. One of their most powerful weapons: the deadly downvote.

Reading through one old thread on Men’s Rights last night, I noticed how some Men’s Rights Redditors had deftly deployed their downvotes to fight off the evil feminist misandry lurking in this comment:

SweetieKat -7 points 20 days ago (23|27) As a feminist, I think the tech community does NOT work fine without females women. Women should be encouraged to enter the tech community if they want to. I'm glad people are speaking up and trying to make opportunities available.

Outrageous! A statement that could have been ripped straight from Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto!

Kudos to the brave Redditors who saw this vile misandry for what it was.

Elsewhere in the same thread, I happily noticed, Men’s Rights Redditors were helpfully upvoting the reasonable and uplifting sentiments of decent fellows, like the Men’s Rights Redditor who goes by the name theboners, who offered a sensibly critical take on the always controversial question of whether or not it was a good idea for men to give in to “pussy privilege” and let ladies have the vote:

Oh you irresponsible women! Why do we let you do anything?

I mean, aside from letting GirlWritesWhat make YouTube videos; that’s ok.

–

It might be time for that blinking

gif to remind possibly literal-minded readers that I do not actually agree with theboners or think SweetieKat is a reincarnation of Valerie Solanas.

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New Manosphere theory: Cliven Bundy is being attacked because he talks too much like a black person

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 26, 2014
112 Comments on New Manosphere theory: Cliven Bundy is being attacked because he talks too much like a black person

Cliven Bundy: Too black?

Well, I was wrong. I thought that Heartiste would be the first Manospherian to come to the defense of fallen Fox News hero Cliven Bundy. Nope. Turns out it was W. F. Price of The Spearhead, who blamed Bundy’s fall from grace not on his crude racism but on the fact that the white rancher with the guns and unpaid bills … talks too much like a black person.

No, really.

Here’s Price’s argument, such as it is:

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How Melody Hensley is putting the bullies to shame

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 22, 2014
165 Comments on How Melody Hensley is putting the bullies to shame

bully

Yesterday, a message arrived in my email inbox with the title “Are you happy to die a virgin,” a somewhat unusual question, I felt, not just because of its faulty premise but also because of its lack of the conventional question mark at the end. The email itself was equally blunt and illiterate:

You sound like a 40 y/o FAT VIRGIN living in a basement rotting away. Is manboobz.com your way of hide behind your own internal issues u refuse to face? Father issues???

Ah, here’s where the missing question mark went, along with some friends.

The sender appended a photo of an extremely obese Asian man at least 20 years my junior, mostly if not completely nude, along with the question (and I quote verbatim) “This this photo you??”

a voice for men are these guys 12 years old? doxing drama kings entitled babies hypocrisy irony alert lying liars misogyny MRA oppressed white men playing the victim

MRAs post secret recording of non-secret event, confuse feminism with the complete opposite of feminism

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 21, 2014
82 Comments on MRAs post secret recording of non-secret event, confuse feminism with the complete opposite of feminism

Secret Squirrel: Much better at this than MRAs

If you’re a feminist holding an event, and you don’t want to have recordings of that event posted online without your permission by MRAs, it looks like your only option is to ban anyone and everyone associated with A Voice for Men from the premises. AVFM “activism director” Attila Vinczer has made that very clear.

Earlier this month, you see, Jaclyn Friedman – feminist writer, speaker, founder of Women, Action & The Media (WAM!) – gave a talk at Queens University in Kingston, Canada, followed by a panel discussion.

A number of Men’s Rights Activists associated with everyone’s favorite hate site A Voice for Men showed up with cameras and other recording devices, as they do.

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8 Men's Rights Memes From A Voice for Men That Make No Damn Sense

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date April 20, 2014
184 Comments on 8 Men's Rights Memes From A Voice for Men That Make No Damn Sense

Yesterday, we looked at 6 memes from A Voice for Men’s “meme team” and decoded what they really meant. Today, some memes from AVFM’s Pinterest page that are a bit harder to decode, because they really make no sense at all. I’ll do my best to try to sort them out.

1) TALK TO THE HAND

listening

What might it mean? “Ha ha girls talk too much, well joke’s on you because I’m GOING MY OWN WAY and later I’ll go home and make a poster about how ~~I imagined I might~~ I totally really did put that bitch in her place.”

I mean, that is what this poster is saying, right? It’s illustrating the notion that men and women should listen to one another by depicting a dude just up and leaving because he’s tired of listening?

How exactly does this advance any “men’s rights” other than the right of men to act like petulant children?

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