This sounds so damn familiar.
The problem with feminism, I think the principal problem, is the cultivation of an attitude of victimization. Feminism tries to make women believe they are victims of an oppressive, male-dominated, patriarchal society. They wake up in the morning with a chip on their shoulder.
Oh, right. I’ve heard it a thousand times from all the critics of Freethoughtblogs…a thousand Phyllis Schlafly clones. Every MRA. Every man and woman who thinks women have a place — on a pedestal, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, where ever — and they ought to stay there, where they belong.
And, from the MRA’s at least, it’s such pure projection! Their entire worldview is based on a bone-deep sense of victimization. Self-pity wraps around them like an event horizon.
“monstrous regiment”
Reference to Knox or Pratchett?
:-)
The problem with MRA’s, I think the principal problem, is the cultivation of an attitude of denial.
MRA’s try to make people believe that women are not at all victimised by a society that cares more about reinforcing status quo than about basic human dignity. This is exactly what you would expect from an oppressive, male-dominated, patriarchal society.
They wake up in the morning with a deluded sense of self-entitlement.
The problem with feminism is that it tries to convince women that they’re victims of the patriarchy.
The problem with atheism is that it tries to convince people that gods don’t exist.
The problem with cosmology is that it tries to convince people that the universe is 13ish billion years old.
The problem with mathematics is that it tries to convince people that there are degrees of infinity.
Every time I hear an MRA say something, I just picture the bit from A Fish Called Wanda:
“You’re an ape, Otto.”
“Apes don’t read philosophy.”
“Yes, they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Let me correct a few misconceptions you might have. Aristotle was not Belgian. The London Underground is not a political movement, and the central tenet of Buddhism is not ‘Every man for himself’. These are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.”
This sort of thing always makes me think:
“Now you know who made the cages.”
But… But… If women ever truly become equal to men, then to whom can I feel superior?
;)
**Shudder** First time I ever linked to WND. Yikes. The ads for dooms day preppers, and a column by Lord Monckton. My eyes need to see some MSNBC right now, byeeee.
…oh bull fucking shit. How dare you anti-feminist jackasses try and claim Rosie the Riveter for your own? That gal was designed specifically to get women out of hte home and working, because we desperately needed the labor in our factories during the war. She was, as a propaganda icon, the antithesis of you assholes.
That siad, none of these assholes are MRAs, afaik. Remember, they’re still little bitty fish. Ladies Against Women actually manages to do things.
Monstrous, indeed. How dare those women complain about being told to git back into the kitchen?
/Puke.
The more I see things like this the more I’m convinced that MRAs don’t want to dismantle the Patriarchy.
@10 For the same reason some white people don’t want to become a minority or why religion hates secularism, loss of privilege. They won’t be able to order their “inferiors” around any more. They won’t be automatically believed in what they say anymore. Phyllis Schlafly turned the ERA from 30 states in agreement to defeat by spreading her obnoxious lies, funded by obnoxious, rich, bigots, and she’s still doing it. Her son, of course, is following in his lying, deceitful ways.
But…{titter}…some of the critics of feminism and FTB are….{snerk}….on the left of us politically….{bwaaahahaa}….no….really….we just don’t understand intersectionality.
Okay I couldn’t even type that shit with a straight face.
Louis
The thing is, according to feminism, there ARE ways in which men are also victimized by the patriarchy. They just aren’t the things that the MRA’s complain about.
Every time a little boy is ridiculed because he wants to play with a doll — that’s a male victim. Every time a man gets laughed at and belittled because he’s a primary caregiver while his wife works — that’s a victim. Every time a father who takes his kids to the playground is treated like a child molester by the other parents — that’s a victim.
Feminism teaches us that men can be imprisoned by gender expectations just like women. But are those the victims the MRAs complain about? No, they are not.
brucegee1962 @13:
Don’t forget every time a man fails to seek necessary medical attention but instead chooses to “tough it out.” Or every time a man shoots (accidentally or otherwise) another man because he’s been taught that carrying a gun makes him a man (two victims for the price of one!). Every time a man feels that he should take a job he hates because it pays more than the job he would love.
@2 richardelguru:
Why not King?
Your title had me very excited at first. I thought you meant this kind of Schlafly
http://schlafly.com/#
Can we just talk about that kind from now on?
Atheist @ 1:
QFT. Off all the kooks and cranks that this blog attracts, MRAs are by far the whiniest. Every post by them can be summed up as “BAAAWWW! I AM OPPRESSED BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T’ AUTOMATICALLY THINK I’M CORRECT ON EVERYTHING, BAAWWW!” Their whole schtick is that men are the ONLY victims of sexism in this feminazi dominated society, after all.
Ironically (no, really), the mentality behind this thinking–that you’re only victimized if you say something about it, and true strength means stuffing it and keeping silent when something is hurting you–is a major source of victimization of men by the patriarchy.
Somehow this seemed appropriate:
Can we agree to change the ‘men’ in the acronym MRA to ‘Whiney Asshats Who Give Real Men A Bad Name’ please?
WAWGRMABNRA
Doesn’t really trip off the tongue the same way as MRA does, but does capture the essence of what they really are.
Oh, and P.Z. if you could please warn us before supplying a link to WorldNutDaily, I’d like that too. I don’t want to support them or their advertisers with my clicks if can possibly help it :)
How about just “Whiney Asshats”? I am so, so, so bored with the use of “manly” and “real man” as compliments.
Can anybody name one single commendable trait that can only be expressed by men?
Weapons grade projection here. For the last 20+ years one of the most constant bleats from so-called “Conservatives” as been a steady whine about how victimized they are. From Rush to Beck, the whining shrieks are deafening. From feminazis to political correctness the whine is 100 decibel level hysteria.
Why? Why did I read the damned comments?
That’s as vile a pile of vomitus as I’ve ever encountered. Of course, the writer of this comment a bit later on claims to be christian and all biblical and whatnot.
@loreo #21:
Pissing over an eight-foot wall?
¡But that’s exactly what women have, for the most part, been since the beginning of time!
…which raises an interesting question. Like religion, male-dominance is generally the rule in all human societies, past and present. How’d that happen?
Footnote: please note the weasel words “for the most part” and “generally”. They were necessary to allow for the odd exception to these general rules.
The problem with Schlafly, I think the principal problem, is the cultivation of an attitude of ignorance..
@ # 23 Gen, Uppity Ingrate
“That’s as vile a pile of vomitus as I’ve ever encountered”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Why? Why did I read the damned comments?”
I guess because people like us have to, to know what these arsehats are up to and to counter them when we can.
A friend once told me that anger is not a bad thing as long as you focus it into doing something productive with it. And calling out these people is productive.
The more the whine, the better we know are doing
But it is an emotional drain sometimes seeing such ignorant privilege .
PeeZee … T.O.P.
Delicately put there to remind them that breakfast doesn’t make itself and should be fried. Deep fried.
remyporter @ 4
I’ve always loved that ! Lurved it! It’s just so, so, mmmmmm.
sez rfw:
Set the WABAC machine to sometime back before this ‘spoken language’ deal really got going. Say, 250,000 years ago? Half a megayear? Way the hell back. Anyway. At that time, physical force would have been a very influential factor in settling disagreements… and the male advantage in physical strength means that a disproportionately large percentage of disagreements would be settled in favor of male disagree-ers.
Also: In purely biological terms, the number of available females is a lot stronger limiting factor on population growth than is the number of available males. All else being equal, a primitive tribe with 20 fertile females is going to have a lot easier time replacing its losses than a primitive tribe with only 5 fertile females. Which means that back in those ‘golden’ days, when there were lots of things that could kill humans with impunity at any frickin’ moment, Keeping The Wimmin Locked Away From Harm would have been a practical necessity—any human tribe which didn’t do that would always be small in numbers, and therefore more vulnerable to getting wipes out by Bad Events™ (tribal warfare, animal attacks, etc) than would a human tribe which did do that.
That, it seems to me, is how the whole ‘patriarchy’ thing got started in the first place.
In the present day, of course, things are slightly different: We can allow disagreements to be settled in favor of the side that has the best solution, not just whoever’s got the biggest stick to beat on the other guys. And we’ve got medical expertise which means that we simply don’t need to Keep The Wimmin Locked Away From Harm in order to save our ‘tribe’ from extinction. So the functional reasons underlying patriarchy, which were once valid in brute practical terms, aren’t valid any longer… but the sociocultural structures which were built on the ‘foundation’ of those functional reasons are still sticking around.
This is a problem. Some people are trying to solve it.
NO FAIR! I almost was linked to WND??? I killed the link before it could take form in this dimension, but it DOES go to a WND site???
NO, THANK YOU!!!!
PLEASE indicate when a link will be with evil!
I suggest, without being in any way original, something like “WARNING: LARK’S VOMIT” in big red letters.
…
I’ll be washing my hands, again.
But, but, women were created Second, and from a piece of Adam’s rib. So, they has to be teh inferior, see? ‘cuz Bible sez it!
Oh, and hows come none of you girlies has goed and make me a sammich ?
An where’s my Beer! ?
From #23:
Soooo….when men do this since, like, forever, it is “manly,” but when women do the EXACT SAME THING it is “sick.” Because wimmenz brainz is different or something. Riight.
cubist
The problem with your argument is that it’s a nice “just so” story for something we simply don’t know.
+++
brucegee
Same as why surrogate mothers are just plain evil*, or better said, women who pay them. Because they have to sacrifice their bodoes for the baby-making. Have, have, have, have. You’Re evil for using another person’s body to procreate. If you’re a woman.
*Let’s not pretend that there aren’t any actual problems and concersn with that, I’m not talking about those.
+++
frog
Don’t get me started. Yesterday my dad in law helped us with a problem with the washing machine. At one point it needed to be tilted. Now, he recently had an abdominal surgery. Would you believe that he would let me, an able-bodied and stronger than average woman do it? Nooooo, his dick might fall off if he does the sensible thing and lets the person who’s not in danger of having her scar wound open do it.
Seconded.