I’m back from a brief vacation in Migraineland, and thinking about the ways in which Men’s Rights Activists love to appropriate the language of feminism and other progressive movements, usually in ways that are face-palmingly ass-backwards.
Take this recent discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit of the dire threat of “fake gamer girls” invading the “male space” of gaming. The generically named guywithaccount sets up the discussion with this post:
So the uber-manly woman-hating woman-chasing alpha dogs over in the Red Pill subreddit are discussing the declining marriage rate. Which is a GOOD thing. Because marriage is for BETAs and FRUMPY WOMEN! It’s worse than RAPE!
Huh. If any of these Red Pill dudes were to get married I’m pretty sure it would be be a completely, you know, consensual act on their part. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t rape a, you know, nonconsensual thing? (Reading the Red Pill subreddit, it’s sometimes hard to remember.)
At this point a fellow calling himself TheZimmerMan throws in his two cents on the subject. Like his fellow Red Pill alpha dudes, he’s no fan of marriage. But then he remembers that feminists are supposedly plotting to take down western civilization by destroying marriage. And feminists are bad, right? And so his brain sort of explodes, producing this wondrous bit of red pill word salad, sprinkled liberally with racism as well as misogyny:
Wow. Just wow.
I’ve never seen “Disney” used as a verb before.
Also, I’m not exactly sure what “they want everyone to be on welfare barley subsiding” means. Unless the government has started up some sort of barley redistribution system I can only assume he meant “barely subsisting.”
I also like the complaint about how the “actual working man” pays for all these evil welfare moms while “being denied traditional provider respect and benefits.”
In misogynist-speak, that’s code for “how come we have to pay money for welfare when we don’t even get to fuck the welfare moms and boss them around?”
Red Pill dudes: please continue your marriage strike. Also consider: A vow of silence? Moving to a desert island? Living the rest of your life in a hole in the ground?
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the lovely IHaveALargePenis explains that it’s not sexism holding back women in science and technology. No way! It’s just that women are inferior at science and technology. No sexism involved at all!
Maybe IHaveALArgePenis should have taken an English class or two and learned what “irony” is.
Also, uh, how exactly are security cameras supposed to guard against sexism? This is a new one to me.
Thanks to Wrecksomething on the AgainstMensRights subreddit for pointing me to this mantastic quote.
Alas, the Men’s Rightsers aren’t hopeful that anything will wake up the snoozing sheeple. BrambleEdge, for his part, worries that men will remain oppressed forever.
Apparently, to a lot of the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit — like the hundreds who upvoted a post of this picture — the notion that men should raise their sons to respect women as equals is nothing more than foul propaganda and MISANDRY of the highest order.
And seriously, those guys in the poster look like total White Knight Beta Manginas.
Some of the Men’s Rightsers were especially offended by the white ribbon at the bottom of the poster, which they saw as a vaguely sinister reminder of a World War I campaign to shame British men into enlisting in the army. Because suggesting to your sons that boys and girls should be treated equally is the same as being guilt-tripped into becoming cannon fodder:
Others used the poster as an opportunity to rail against … marriage. The top comment in the thread, as I write this post, is this one.
Caspian_Drifter responded to the eeeevil poster with a rhetorical question that unintentionally helped to underscore the whole point of the campaign in the first place:
Seriously, ladies, why do gals like to go on and on about “equality” so much when your ladybrains weren’t even smart enough to come up with the idea in the first place? I mean, really, you ungrateful gals, you have a man/men to thank for that.
If I remember correctly, it was T. Reginald Equality who came up with the idea, with some help from his brother Ned (who suggested that he name it after himself).
The fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit are getting worked up over imaginary feminists again!
Yesterday, in a discussion of paternity fraud, a brand-new Redditor who had never posted a comment before posted a completely unsourced screenshot of what quite a few of the regulars took to be some sort of official feminist statement on paternity fraud.
Today, a brief foray into racist conspiracy theory, courtesy of the Men’s Rights subreddit. This is from a discussion of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s internet porn ban, which the Men’s Rightsers seem to think was orchestrated by the evil feminist overlords.
Lovely! You may wish to peruse k66ish’s comment history for many other nuggets of wisdom that may involve use of the word “cunt.”
Thanks to Cloudiah for pointing this one out in the comments here.
Hello, and welcome to The Man Boobz Fiction Workshop! Today we will learn my foolproof two-step method for writing believable fiction. It’s as easy as pie — well, easier, since pie can take a bit of finesse — and it is absolutely GUARANTEED to work.
Here it is.
STEP ONE: Write believable fiction.
STEP TWO: If step one fails, write a story that makes a woman look evil and foolish, and post it to the Men’s Rights Subreddit as a true story.
If you don’t believe me, check out this little story from a fella calling himself the-final-word — a Redditor for less than two weeks, with only one previous comment to his name — in which a highly successful gentleman happily humiliates an ex-girlfriend trying to steal his money with the old “baby” ploy.
Take a look at the thread itself to see how eagerly the Men’s Righsers eat up his tale of victory over evil womanhood!
That is the beauty of my two-step method. If people don’t believe your bullshit, find a more gullible audience. And there are few audiences in this world more gullible than Men’s Rightsers.
I should note that I had nothing to do with the-final-word’s story, nor did I sneak into the Men’s Rights subreddit to give his story 47 upvotes and a bunch of positive comments.
Thanks to hackattack92 in the AgainstMensRights Subreddit for pointing out this wonderful example of shitthatneverhappened.txt
Ladies! Here, fresh from the MensRants subreddit is A Man With Whom You Do Not Want To Be Friends. Or acquaintances. Or anything, really. To be honest, you probably don’t even want this guy to spot you at a distance from the window of a speeding train. Much T.M.I. in this quote:
Dude, I would seriously suggest you start masturbating. A lot. Preferably not in public.
And try not to bother any actual women for a while, at least until you can start conceptualizing of them as something more than objects (like candy or books) that have been set out for you to use as you please.
Also, your “mad and furious master?” “Mad and furious master?” Did you really just write that? I think you mean your boner. If you want to get fancy, your libido. What are you, Heartiste? Can none of you idiots write about sex without getting all purple prosey on us?
So the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit are discussing the Saatchi/Lawson divorce, as we were yesterday, and, well, it’s going better than expected, in that quite a few of them are actually willing to accept that Saatchi actually abused Lawson and that his demand that she defend him against the accusations of abuse thus don’t really make much sense. I guess that’s what happens when the abuse is literally caught on camera and printed on the front page of every British tabloid.
But not everyone there has responded so, well, rationally. Take this fellow:
Dude, I’m pretty sure the rich and/or weird are subject to the same laws (and moral judgements) as the rest of us. Billionaire art collectors don’t get a free pass to choke their wives in public. Nor is that equivalent to a hypothetical Playboy centerfold cheating on you.
Also, as a point of fact, Saatchi isn’t a billionaire. According to Celebrity Net Worth, he’s worth something on the order of $100 million; the site estimates Lawson to be worth $15 million.