Tuesday, January 18, 2011

How feminism accidentally liberates teh menz!

Charles Atlas is sick of this shit.
It seems I have been suffering from a misapprehension. I have been assuming that pretty much every single last guy in the Men Going Their Own Way crowd just hates, hates HATES feminism. But apparently I am wrong, and some of them -- well, at least one of them -- really loves, loves LOVES it. That guy calls himself womanhater, and he recently posted about his deep appreciation for feminism on the MGTOW proboards forum.

Brace yourself, because there are a few gigantic logical zigs and zags coming here.

Womanhater starts off his post with a bold, contrarian statement:

We ghosters have been falsely accused of hating feminism. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, feminism has been the greatest liberation of men since the end of feudalism.

Whaaaaaa!? How so, womanhater?

In the past, men obtained employment and pursued a career. This involved soul crushing conformity, precious hours of our lives spent in inhuman working conditions supporting unconscionable corporate interests while paying confiscatory taxes. We were denied sex by fat shrews who had duped us into marrying them with no hope of escape, and we were nagged incessantly by those same diabolical beasts with whom we had to share living quarters.

Soul-crushing conformity! No-sex-having shrews! Sounds like this situation was truly teh suck. So what changed?

Then, it all began to change. The women who had dominated our deeply empty consumerist lives declared us to be the enemy, abandoned their traditional domain of the home, outsourced the raising of children, and began to compete with us for jobs thereby lowering our economic value.

That also sounds like teh suck. But no! in fact, womanhater explains, 

The man-haters like Steinem and Friedan and Dworkin had in fact done us an enormous favor!
We were freed from OUR bondage to the home. We no longer had to work for money solely to provide a home. We no longer had to tolerate nagging cunts who extorted us by manipulating our sexual desire. We were FREE!


Sounds great! Let's round up some hot chicks and have a party!

Oh, wait.

Womanhater continues:

Women have criminalized our showing interest in them and in attempting to engage them sexually. Good! Now we are free to avoid them. They have repeatedly told us how useless we are, and how we are wrong. Fine. They can have the university educations and get the bullshit managerial jobs where they oppress the men who actually do the work. So much the better! They can live in their little townhomes and tend their cats all alone freed from men. And we are now free from having to work in soul crushing corporate environments in order to placate the bitch at home.

All us dudes need to do to take advantage of our new freedom is to deliberately take shit jobs and completely ignore all women.

We can now live off the grid – intentionally avoiding working with or for women. We can make enough money to live frugally and happily on our own, while intentionally earning too little to pay taxes.

Aw yeah! And don't assume just because we take shit jobs that we aren't really the bestest guys in the fucking universe, much better than mere women.

Among our ranks you will find men with the intellect to be engineers and physicians who instead flip burgers and park cars. You will find men with the physical strength and courage and wits to be military leaders and ferocious warriors – who instead of risking their lives for the benefit of a state that hates them, now paint houses or mow lawns. We men have found that we are infinitely more happy alone in a studio apartment or living communally with other men for very little money, than we were killing ourselves to provide a bullshit Brady Bunch lifestyle in the suburbs for the greedy twat.

But, gosh, what will happen to society once all these magnificent dudes take their marbles and go home?

Women and their conspirators in the halls of power will soon find out ... When men are no longer willing to work at the level needed to finance the social programs that favor women, what will happen? When men are no longer willing to enlist in the military to become amputees for the benefit of a state that despises them and to make the world safe for corporate looting, what will happen? When men simply fade away, own nothing, contribute nothing, and merely watch smiling as the world burns, what will happen?

My brothers, we are soon to find out!

OMFG! It's almost as though -- bear with me for a moment here while I work out this metaphor. It's almost as though these dudes are like Atlas -- not Charles Atlas, silly, you know, that Greek dude -- holding up the world, and then all of a sudden they say "screw you guys, I'm going home." And then everyone is like, oh noe! What's going to happen to the world! And then the dudes are all like, *shrug.* Not my problem! C-ya, suckers!

That is such a perfect metaphor. Much better than anything some dumb bitch could come up with. You guys are totally free to use it if you like.


--

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111 comments:

  1. Would be a surgeon if it didn't mean I'd have to work for some bitch. Also avoiding money, it attracts bitches.

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  2. I know what would happen! The world would go on. And every once in a while someone would stop, stare at the handful of men marching around with "Hate Women, Live Free" picket signs, blink, confused, and then go on with his or her life. Because very few men are woman-hating, equality-shunning types.

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  3. "attempting to engage them sexually" – never a good idea to run up to a strange woman and grab her boob, son.

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  4. Sometimes I feel sorry for the MRAs, because they seem sad and pathetically bitter- and totally out of touch with reality.

    Also, I really don't understand people who consider marriage to be a loss for a man. He gets a free domestic slave for the rest of his life.

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  5. "Sometimes I feel sorry for the MRAs, because they seem sad and pathetically bitter- and totally out of touch with reality."

    Wow I was thinking the same about feminists. 24/7 365 days a year, feminists have been pissing and moaning for the past 60 odd years. Feminists at this day and age don't only whine about the present, they also can't let go of the past. All of this is the very definition of being sad and pathetically bitter.

    Also feminists are totally out of touch with reality. They are miles away from it when they claim that males are somehow privileged over women ROFL.

    But of course, a pussy pass is given to all of this type of sad, pathetic, and bitter attitude because its in favour of ummm women. The feminist pissing and moaning is what actually stands as political correctness these days. As political correctness is in favour of women, I wonder how they are oppressed and under privileged? Heh If a man even opens his mouth about male grievances, he is likely to get belittled about his masculinity and shamed about the past

    "Also, I really don't understand people who consider marriage to be a loss for a man. He gets a free domestic slave for the rest of his life."

    The woman gets a financial slave. It's obvious which position is better. But that fact gets all pulled under the rug because of political correctness/feminism. It’s against political correct rules to claim male victim status. Damn it’s great being a *cough* privileged *cough* man

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  6. nobody and nick

    Marriage does not mean a domestic slave or a financial slave.

    You two just mirrored each other. Pot kettle black.

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  7. Two hundred years ago, these dudes would have become monks.

    More power to 'em, if that's what makes them happy. Makes me wonder what a secular monastery would be like?

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  8. So, a man going the wrong way wrote something totally gay: and you quoted it.

    I am not sure who is worse Futrelle: you or them.

    The fact that you even pay attention to anything a man going the wrong way says: tells me its you.

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  9. PS are you sure it was an actual man: or a ghost going the wrong way?

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  10. Why do feminists commonly refer to men as "teh menz!"?

    Is it because feminists don't take men seriously? That sounds accurate

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  11. "Also, I really don't understand people who consider marriage to be a loss for a man. He gets a free domestic slave for the rest of his life."


    men marry = slavery for women

    men don't marry = misogyny

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  12. Men not doing what feminists say and want = misogyny

    Men telling women what to do = chauvinism

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  13. Kave, except that the "second shift" is still very much a real thing, where women finish a day at work only to come home and be expected to do the majority of housework and child rearing.

    When it comes to distributions of housework, women still disproportionately take care of indoor duties that need to be done every day, while men take care of the outdoor ones that need only be done once in a while. When asked, men are more likely to say that their share of housework is very fair, while the actual breakdown of the household duties tells another tale. Even in more egalitarian households, housework is not 50/50 most of the time. Even when the wife is working 60 hours a week and her husband is unemployed, women end up doing more housework.

    This is another thing I don't get about these guys. They don't want women to be empowered (they demonize feminists) and whine about women taking "their jobs," which I can only assume means most jobs, but at the same time they don't want women to be financially dependent on men either! It boggles the mind. Women should somehow manage to be financial equals without having jobs (or without, you know, getting too much of an EGO about it)??

    And when a woman decides to be a housewife and forego the years and years of job experience she could be getting and then gets a divorce and wants some compensation to make up for that ... she's a money-grubbing bitch taking his hard-earned dollars. (I take it she just spent the whole marriage eating bonbons, not washing his dirty underwear or vacuuming his rugs.)

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  14. Once I get my fembot, all of this dealing with teh bitches, competing with them for men, sleeping with their husbands and boyfriends, is going to be totally superfluous. I'll never have to think about them again.

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  15. "When it comes to distributions of housework, women still disproportionately take care of indoor duties that need to be done every day, while men take care of the outdoor ones that need only be done once in a while."

    Substance please

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  16. @ nobody

    nobody said: "Also, I really don't understand people who consider marriage to be a loss for a man. He gets a free domestic slave for the rest of his life."

    Tending to the house for your family equals slavery to the feminist minid. It's no wonder men don't want to marry.

    You can't have any sort of relationship with women who have this shitty attitude about something this basic.

    Random Brother

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  17. nick, if you're going to post dumb comments here, at least have the decency to write the dumb comments yourself instead of pasting in dumb comments you found elsewhere. Deleted as spam.

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  18. Or deleted because you know most or all of it has a strong element of truth and you as a feminist bigot doesn't want it exposed

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  19. All I ask for is a little originality.

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  20. "When it comes to distributions of housework, women still disproportionately take care of indoor duties that need to be done every day, while men take care of the outdoor ones that need only be done once in a while."

    Weeeeeell eeeeeef YOU possess the inclination or aptitude to do a lot of those outdoor things then maaaayyybee you have a point.

    This is like me getting my car's transmission overhauled and bitching to the mechanic because he didn't clean out the floorboards.

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  21. nobody said...
    .....I really don't understand people who consider marriage to be a loss for a man. He gets a free domestic slave for the rest of his life.


    This statement is wrong, it's not for the rest of his life, but only up to divorce, and this might be whenever she wants to leave you for another.

    A female slave does not have the right to leave anytime and to ask for alimony until the rest of HER life.

    -----

    MRAs recommend men NOT to marry, but to use professional services.

    About washing: Give it to a laundry service.

    About cooking: Go to a restaurant and do not forget, best cooks in this world are MEN!

    About clothings: Go to a tailor, HE will do a good job. Do not forget, many successful fashion designers/tailors are MEN!

    About children: Give your money voluntarily and support children of the 3rd world, visit them from time to time and make vacation with them - no need to be in jail, because you cannot pay child-support.

    etc. etc.

    And finally calculate the sum.

    Result: Marriage is by far more expensive.

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  22. "This is another thing I don't get about these guys. They don't want women to be empowered (they demonize feminists) and whine about women taking "their jobs," which I can only assume means most jobs, but at the same time they don't want women to be financially dependent on men either! It boggles the mind. Women should somehow manage to be financial equals without having jobs (or without, you know, getting too much of an EGO about it)??"---chocomintlipwax

    No, you don't get it. Some men still want to be the provider. Others---like myself, do not.

    Personally, I want someone who is financially responsible, hardworking, and stands on her own merit without resort to the sexism card, mistreat and harass men, or utilize workplace manipulation in order to get ahead. Women like that are valued in the dating pool (by men like me) because they are not always available.

    . . . As opposed to other types of women. I'll give you a brief example---I was at work the other day and one woman stated---without any attempt at irony or sarcasm, that "a man should pay for everything." I wonder what her idea of economic equity is in compensation.

    Needless to say, I don't date women like that. It's either real equality on a level or I move on.

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  23. Is there a name for the phenomenon where a traditionally privileged group (often a majority group) develops a huge persecution complex during a transition toward equal rights? We're seeing it with whites (currently with border control and English-only policies; in the past with backlash over desegregation and civil rights); with heterosexuals who think that legalizing gay marriage is going to somehow taint their own marriage vows; with Christians crying over 10 commandments on public land and the "war" on Christmas; with Americans fussing over post-imperialism; and here with some men jumping up and down about the pervasive, systematic persecution of men. I'm sure there must be research looking at this general trend, but is there a blanket term that covers all of these phenomena?

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  24. Wytch,
    The problem I have with your statement is that too many of the MRM believe that women are monolithic. That each woman is exactly the same.

    Well they are not. If men all have differences, so do women and so do *gasp* feminists.

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  25. I think we should encourage every MRA or MGTOW to go ghost. Then the rest of society will not be forced to deal with the misogynistic scum.

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  26. @Sal

    > is there a blanket term that covers all of these phenomena?

    Yes: post-colonialism. It's broader than just the phenomenon of privileged groups co-opting identity politics, but it includes that phenomenon.

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  27. Joe,

    Ah, thank you. Kind of a dumb question, I guess, but (obviously) my academic background is in other fields. That'll help for a Google Scholar search.

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  28. Elizabeth,

    Don't you know women are like the Borg? That does drive me insane, but on the otherhand posts above where women as again the borg are all working sixty hour weeks then coming home to do the housework.

    What ever happened to treating individuals and individual situations as; individual?

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  29. @Sal

    > Kind of a dumb question, I guess

    Not a dumb question; I still don't know what the specific term for privileged groups trying to claim the perceived benefits of "oppressed minority" status.

    I think it's endemic to late capitalism. The reality of globalization is colliding with entrenched national and ethnic identities. The problem is, the the new, super-rich multinational aristocracy that have essentially sold the future of the other 99.9999% down the river has no loyalty to our national or ethnic identities, which we're only just now noticing, and we don't like it one bit.

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  30. Joe,
    which we're only just now noticing

    Unfortunately that "we" in the U.S. doesn't yet include lower- and middle-class Republicans, who still staunchly defend the rights of the aristocracy to screw them over. It's a backwards "Eff us, they've got theirs". Makes no sense.

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  31. @Sal

    It makes perfect sense. If you see no option for changing the power structure, you nevertheless can ingratiate yourself to the powerful, in the hopes that they will grant you some special treatment. This goes back to feudalism, if not way before that.

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  32. (Foregoing the "Joe" since everyone else seems to have left)
    If you see no option for changing the power structure, you nevertheless can ingratiate yourself to the powerful

    I'll have to read more about that, because I don't fully understand how that operates on an individual level, particularly among people (like my parents) who don't seem to receive any real benefits from ingratiating themselves to anyone powerful. (I have some ideas what smaller (mostly social, not economic) benefits there might be. And knowledge that people's intuitive cost-benefit analyses have been repeatedly shown to be illogical.)

    Anyway, thread derail. Thanks for entertaining random thoughts from a stranger. :) Coming back to the topic at hand:

    (from LexieDi)
    I know what would happen! The world would go on. And every once in a while someone would stop, stare at the handful of men marching around with "Hate Women, Live Free" picket signs, blink, confused, and then go on with his or her life.

    We've seen this with the fabled extreme feminists, too. There may always be a few who've chosen to live as man-free as possible; their numbers and influence on more common strands of feminism are way overestimated (esp. among MRAs). The world has gone on.

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  33. @Yohan, for someone who likes to whine about being poor (even though it does not seem as if you have actually ever really been so), you sure don't know how much things cost. I also yo pity your wife (as if I didn't already) as you think all of her work put into raising your kids and housework is worthless.

    A similar point applies to 'womanhater' who somehow thinks you can afford even a studio apartment on less than $5000 a year (standard federal tax deduction for single adult http://www.freeusaguide.com/ftax_exemption.htm which you must file taxes for if you make more than). I think his strategy for not paying taxes is known as 'tax evasion' and is a crime. Also, given that women are so keenly 'competeing for jobs' it would be pretty obvious what they would do if men just didn't do them, i.e. take the jobs.

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  34. Kave, on that point-the second shift thing apparently has been studied to be a fairly common problem.

    One of the reasons I think some women divorce their husband (and this is strictly a guess) is if he is not producing much for the family, does no housework and/or much of the child care, why does she have him around? Sex is usually also a major factor in that he may not be up for it regularly enough for her in addition to all of the other problems with her doing the housework/childcare. I understand male libidos are NOT the stereotypical all the time like in the media.

    So she leaves him and he has no idea why. And she may be resentful for all of the time spent doing what should have been a 50/50 division in the first place so she takes it out on him during the divorce. To him this is unreasonable but to her it is reasonable because she is tired of being the one who has to clean, cook, child care, and still work with barely any or inadequate input from him.

    At any rate, the idea that it is all about the individual is not quite perfect since most humans have similar traits (which is why you can claim someone is normal even if they are not from that town.)

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  35. @evilwhitemalempire:

    I would not go back to a mechanic who did not clean out the floorboards. Or at least lay down those paper things.

    Re: marriage. It makes sense to me that women initiate most divorces because they aren't happy with the deal they are getting out of marriage. Sure, there was a time when women were pregnant or had dependent children for the majority of their adult lives, when women were barred from the levels of employment that could comfortably support themselves and their children. During that time, it made economic sense for women to continue to trade housework and sexwork for security even after when the spark had gone out of their marriages.

    But now Western women will be pregnant and have dependent children for a small portion of their adult lives and have the ability to support themselves, the marriage equation has changed. But I can't see how it's a bad thing.

    There is a really good book about this, Wifework by Susan Maushart.

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  36. Where on earth do feminists get this crap from that all these evil men are making women do the majority or all the house work and child care?

    Sure, it may happen in some relationships and vice versa. But all the relationships I see around me, I never see this. All I see is both the man and woman employed, both the man and woman doing their share of work around the house depending what suits best on that day.

    However, if a woman is a stay at home mum, I think she should be expected to do the majority or not if all house work as the male is the financial slave. Don't expect a free ride ladies.

    All I want is an equal 50/50 relationship. I think most men in my generation pretty much want the same. But unfortunately we live in a generation where male bashing/misandry is rampant. Feminists/ some women will make such ridiculous generalisations about men such as the house work topic.

    What Elizabeth is saying above is absolute rubbish.

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  37. > However, if a woman is a stay at home mum, I think she should be expected to do the majority or not if all house work as the male is the financial slave. Don't expect a free ride ladies.

    So: 40hrs/wk of child care, *and* all the housework, vs. 40hrs/wk at a full-time job.

    > All I want is an equal 50/50 relationship

    It sounds like you want more like a 33/66 relationship.

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  38. Nice try Joe. Let’s put it this way; the man earns ALL the money. Yes, the money that puts the roof over her head, puts the cloths on her back, puts the food on the plate. The money that allows her to get spoilt with a nice pair of shoes, a nice dinner out, jewels etc.

    Don’t give me this rubbish that a man is expected to come home from a hard days work to provide the woman all these things and do more work on top of that when he gets home.

    How hard is childcare? Really? Change nappies every now and then, provide 3 meals a day. WOW so hard. my god. I think that job is easier than nearly any job in the work force.

    And is housework really a full time job? I don't think so.

    More than anything, in most cases, what the man is doing in the workforce is probably a lot more hard yacka than house work and childcare put together.

    To be someone’s financial slave, I think that should come with a price. Don’t you think?

    Anyway, I am off for the next 6 hours. I will be happy to come back then and see your poor argument for a laugh

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  39. "How hard is childcare? Really?"

    A question which can only be asked by someone who has not spent any time responsible for the safety, well-being, and mental stimulation of a 5-year old.

    Young children never shut up or leave you alone, and if they are awake they have to be supervised or they will find some novel way to die. But other than that, you're right, it's a vacation.

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  40. Yep, sounds like Nick has no concept of housecleaning and child care.

    Housecleaning:
    Kitchen
    * Dishes washed and put away
    * Sinks cleaned and shined
    * Counters and backsplash clean
    * Appliances and cabinet doors wiped and cleaned
    * Floors swept/vacuumed and mopped
    * Trash dumped
    Bathrooms
    * Sinks cleaned and shined as well as vanity tops
    * Toilet cleaned and disinfected
    * Tub/shower cleaned and disinfected
    * Mirrors cleaned
    * Towels changed
    * Trash removed
    * Floors swept/vacuumed and mopped
    Bedrooms/Family Room/Living Room
    * All areas picked up and items put away
    * Bed linens changed
    * All furniture dusted
    * Trash taken out
    * Mirrors and pictures cleaned
    * Electronics dusted
    * Carpet vacuumed
    --------------

    http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm has a break down of the time spent doing all the activities a person does a day. Averages of course.

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  41. Well, the 'second shift' is BS. Men on average work 10 hours more a week than women on average. The idea that women work more hours is ridiculous.

    Women and men often have different standards of cleanliness and organization, and women seem to think that their standards are the way the house has to be. If a man was insistant on maintaining his (higher) level of cleanliness it would be seen as abusive, but it is a common joke that men are slobs and women have to clean up after them or 'teach' them how to be clean.

    Elizabeth has provided us with a perfect example. In her mind, all these things must be done weekly, I am assuming. She feels all these things must be done in order for her home to be acceptable. If she is married, maybe her husband would only do these things every other week, or once a month. Sheets maybe every other week. Things like mirrors, pictures, electronics, or cupboards washed, many people only do twice a year.

    So if Elizabeth wants them done every week, and her husband only needs them done twice a year, why should he have to work more when they are not necessary and she is the one who wants them done?

    BTW, that list should take 4 hours tops to complete, and I live in a 4000 sf house. I used to clean houses and a normal size house would take me 2 hours to clean.

    This is a form of gatekeeping. Women often think their standard is THE standard, and they tell their husbands how to do the jobs. Then they correct their husbands. And they minimize their husband's contributions. Say a woman works an extra 4 hours a week doing housework. A man may once a month have to spend a whole weekend on a home improvement project, or fixing broken plumbing, or changing out the alternator on the car. Sure, she worked here and there all month, but in one weekend he has put in the same hours. Women tend not to see these things. I certainly did not see these things until 10 years ago when I started researching men's issues.

    The debate is NOT as simple as women working a double shift and men sitting on their asses all the time. Anyone with a grain of intelligence knows that things are never that simple.

    I think men and women in general work about the same all told. But I guess that is not victim enough.

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  42. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  43. BQ:

    That's fine, but when you talk to women who got divorced the trigger is usually some tiny thing that piled up over years and years until they are just unwilling to pick up their husband's socks (or whatever)one more time. The husbands are shell-shocked and thought everything was fine and can't believe that she wants to destroy their family.

    But the truth is what it takes to keep someone willing to live with you has changed, and if, "she feels all these things must be done in order for her home to be acceptable," then that's her prerogative. Being a good roommate is becoming the price of staying married/in a relationship, just bringing home a paycheck is not enough.

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  44. Sorry BQ-not only am I not married, I also pay someone to come clean once a week or twice a month depending on how bad the pets have been. I posted a common list that can take as little as two hours to however long it takes to thoroughly clean a home regardless of size.

    However, some women have a certain standard that they wish their family to live in and a husband should be willing to compromise on that *just as she should be.*

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  45. Compromise is great....when it is truly compromise and not just the guy gives in and does it her way. The "yes dear" syndrome, which is so common there are t-shirts.

    What does your "married and paying a housekeeper" have to do with my point? Perhaps if more working women were willing to pay another person to do the extra work they required rather than expecting their husband to do what he considers a waste of time, they would not get to the point where a dropped sock would end a marriage.

    If a woman divorces because of a cleaning issue, and she has failed to communicate her issues to her husband in a way he understands (and is not just seen as criticism), or she is not compromising her standards to meet his halfway, then she IS destroying the marriage unfairly. Just as he would be if the situation were reversed.

    I don't buy into the quiet martyr for years until a sock ends it all. That is called a failure to communicate. Just as it would be if the situation were reversed.

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  46. Hey, Liz, thanks for proving my point. Your link to the list of daily activities shows women do around 1 hour a day more of "household activities", and men do around 1 hour more of "work related activities".

    Sounds about even.

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  47. BQ: Hearing how many men still talk about their household work in terms of "helping" their wives, even in families where wives work longer hours outside the home and earn more money, I think it's not that men have a "different standard of cleanliness", but that society still perceives household chores as women's work. That's why so many men congratulate themselves on doing their own laundry, on loading the dishwasher, on changing a diaper. Any one of those things is perceived as practically an act of heroism when done by a man, yet something that women simply do as a matter of course.

    "Standards of cleanliness" can indeed differ. But when certain men make their homes practically unlivable for their partners, I don't see why it's the women who should suck it up. Not to mention the fact that men who leave their stuff all over the place generally have a habit of expecting their wives to know where their shit is at any given time.

    Hide & Seek is right: having to pick up after someone who is a walking disaster and gives no thought to how his habits affect those who live under the same roof, eats away at your soul. I'd say men who are slobs should only marry women who are also slobs. That way, there won't be any "nagging" and complaining about scum-encrusted bathrooms. That, and in families where both spouses work outside the home, each person should do his or her own laundry and iron whatever needs to be ironed. That way, no one's "standard of cleanliness" will be disrupted by "unnecessary" washing.

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  48. BQ:

    I think you are making my point. If a wife has a problem with something her husband does she has to communicate that problem; she must also communicate it in a way he understands, which is somehow different from regular, normal communication; she must also make sure that her communication does not come across as "criticism" but instead comes across as a gentle, friendly reminder that adults are expected to clean their own messes; and, on top of all of that, she has to pick up the socks, or whatever, over and over and over again.

    Eventually, it would seem, living alone and not having to do any of that starts to look like a sweet deal, even if getting to that point means going through a divorce.

    And, in a final sense, getting divorced is also a kind of communication, one which is difficult to misunderstand.

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  49. Ah, Bisquit Queen's defense boils down to "Men are filthy pigs, women are neat freak bitches, har har."

    Hide and Seek, I'm with you on the childcare thing, as nick's version would probably count as criminal negligence in a serious way

    Paying for someone to do labour comparable to a stay at home mother would cost over $130,000 if they were paid for their time like workers doing similar tasks (and the US has notoriously low minimum wages and notoriously low pay for child care workers for a developed country). http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/ThePriceOfAMom.aspx It is worth noting that this income would be far greater than average and far greater than these women's likely standards of living. And this study did not even take into account the fact that plenty of these women are qualified for higher wage jobs than low paying service jobs (cooking, cleaning, etc.). Only work traditionally done by men gets consider real work and is renumerated. While as work that women do that is essential for any functioning society, like caring for and raising children, preparing food, etc. is not called work at all or seen as deserving of pay. Feeding a child is given less value than flipping a burger, welcome to capitalist patriarchy.

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  50. Amused said:

    "but that society still perceives household chores as women's work"

    My god feminists are delusional twits LOL. Yes, this was the case a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. It's hilarious how feminists pull the same old cards that were in place generations ago and try to make out it's still happening in the present as a poor attempt to claim female victim status.

    Or if feminists are not delusional, they may feel that they are running out of things to claim victim status on so they recycle the same crap that was in the past, hoping people are dumb enough to not know better.

    Observing all my friends and family around me; I see the men doing house chores all the time. Such as cooking, washing dishes, doing the laundry etc etc. Some times the male does it, other times the female.

    What I quoted from Amused is obvious that it's totally false as if a male even dares to tell women in today's society that it's a woman's job to do house work, he would be deemed as a chauvinist pig. In other words, he would be looked down upon by society and not seen as a worthy husband or boyfriend to think so little of women.

    And as for the list of chores Elizabeth provided, for one, most of these things are short task that are hardly time consuming. Secondly, plenty of things on that list are things that only need to be done once a week or even once a month or longer.

    Then for the rest of the time, these certain stay at home mums are usually having tea parties, shopping for clothes, talking on the phone for hours, watching Oprah and them silly soap shows. etc etc etc

    While these stay at home mums have so much spare time to do these things, they are usually doing them while their husband is still at work busting his butt for the next dollar to keep her standard of living.

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  51. @ Darksidecat

    That salary.com study is bullshit. It, like so many feminsit canards has been debunked over and over again. I quote from walletpop.com

    "The survey calculated Mom's market value by studying pay levels for 10 jobs titles including Child Day Care Worker, Teacher, Taxi Driver, Facilities Manager, Short-order Cook, Laundry Attendant, Janitor, Counselor, CEO, Administrative Assistant, Accounting Clerk, Licensed Practical Nurse, Plumber, Automotive Mechanic, and Cake Decorator. The biggest driver of stay-at-home mom theoretical earnings is overtime pay, since many stay at home moms report working more than 90 hours per week.

    Here's the thing: It's garbage. If the theoretical value of a stay-at-home mom were really $117k, far fewer women would have to work at jobs that pay far less than that. And nannies would earn six-figure incomes instead of the sub-$25k rate they normally earn.

    It's not that stay-at-home moms aren't awesome and extremely valuable. It's that they're too valuable to be exploited by cynical marketing experts looking to drum up press for Salary.com."

    Random Brother

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  52. @ Joe

    How hard is it for a woman to pop in a tape of Dora the Explorer and throw a meal in the microwave for the kid?

    Random Brother

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  53. Elizabeth said:

    "Housecleaning:
    Kitchen
    * Dishes washed and put away
    * Sinks cleaned and shined
    * Counters and backsplash clean
    * Appliances and cabinet doors wiped and cleaned
    * Floors swept/vacuumed and mopped
    * Trash dumped
    Bathrooms
    * Sinks cleaned and shined as well as vanity tops
    * Toilet cleaned and disinfected
    * Tub/shower cleaned and disinfected
    * Mirrors cleaned
    * Towels changed
    * Trash removed
    * Floors swept/vacuumed and mopped
    Bedrooms/Family Room/Living Room
    * All areas picked up and items put away
    * Bed linens changed
    * All furniture dusted
    * Trash taken out
    * Mirrors and pictures cleaned
    * Electronics dusted"

    Wow. I am underwhelmed. Apparently stay at home mom's have it even cushier that I thought.

    Random Brother

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  54. The pure idiocy the feminists are going on about here is that they think between a stay at home mum and a man; the man should earn the money from hard work to keep up the lifestyle for the woman and then come home and do more work on top of that.

    That means the man is putting in a huge amount more effort into the relationship than the woman.

    The feminists are too fucking stupid to see this. Their argument is god damn ridiculous and hilarious in a disturbing way. But really, what else can you expect from bigots?

    If stay at home mums want their husbands to do equal house work, go and get a fucking job and stop expecting the man to do ALL THE HARD YARDS to pay for all the expenses in living. Their clothes, shoes, makeup, jewellery, the food they eat, the roof over their head, the electricity they use, the water they use, is ALL paid by the man. So shut the hell up and do the house work or else get off your ass and get a job that pays half of expenses of living. That way, its validated for the man to be expected to do half the house work.

    I am sorry that you bigoted femitwits can’t see this simple logic.

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  55. Elizabeth said...
    "Wytch,
    The problem I have with your statement is that too many of the MRM believe that women are monolithic. That each woman is exactly the same.

    Well they are not. If men all have differences, so do women and so do *gasp*"

    Then how come most of the feminist-minded here are practically saying the same thing?

    And for every Christine Hoff Sommers there are who knows how many Jessica Valentis, the later of which continue the party line. Sommers is one of the few who actually gives a damn about men and has been vocal about it. Most don't.

    As far the MRM is concerned, there are a plethora of men from different perspectives---more than feminists, I should think. They largely agree on a fews things, however: feminism is titled in women's favor, most men are getting the shaft in this culture, and there has to be something to do for men in order to stop this imbalance and bias.

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  56. "Feeding a child is given less value than flipping a burger, welcome to capitalist patriarchy."---DarkSideCat

    Then don't procreate. Problem solved.

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  57. "Wow. I am underwhelmed. Apparently stay at home mom's have it even cushier that I thought."---Random Brother

    No doubt.

    And I've been doing housecleaning for years. I wonder where my cut of the money is . . .

    Oh, wait---I'm not female so I don't my share.

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  58. Should have read, "I don't get my share." Heh.

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  59. BQ-if you wish to shorten my name, it is Beth, not Liz. Also, I think that Nick's claims of his male friends tasks ring hollow as he is not privy to the household divisions of cleaning or the negotiations that it took to get there.

    As for the list? That was a list to lessen the time spent cleaning.

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  60. DarksiteCat: Paying for someone to do labour comparable to a stay at home mother would cost over $130,000 if they were paid for their time like workers doing similar tasks (and the US has notoriously low minimum wages and notoriously low pay for child care workers for a developed country)

    This is for sure not true.
    Show me ONE live-in maid, who is earning USD 130.000,- per year.

    Our very experienced Filipina office maid (same person since 22 years), who takes care of the office, but also of the rooms of our senior officer will do such cleaning/laundry work listed above easily within 3 hours and will do the cooking, shopping/taking care of children and many other duties for about USD 2000,- per month+nice room and Japan is NOT a cheap place for salaries for legally employed staff.

    Otherwise, if you cannot afford to pay for your maid, give it to professional services, laundries are not expensive. Take-out food is not expensive, some monthly cleaning service for your home is not expensive. For sure such professional services will not cost you USD 10.000,- per month, that's ridiculous.

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  62. ...she must also communicate it in a way he understands, which is somehow different from regular, normal communication; she must also make sure that her communication does not come across as "criticism"...
    So in addition to the time spent performing those chores, her time must also be spent on devising a way that she can communicate her needs/wants/wishes to her husband in a manner that will NOT be seen as trying to usurp HIS authority, him being head of the household and all...
    I guess that should be added to the list.

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  63. Richard...nannies would earn six-figure incomes instead of the sub-$25k rate they normally earn

    But ... nannies can be dismissed for bad performance and have to move out of the house of their employer. I never heard about a maid receiving alimony for life.

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  64. @ Pam

    Pam said: " So in addition to the time spent performing those chores, her time must also be spent on devising a way that she can communicate her needs/wants/wishes to her husband in a manner that will NOT be seen as trying to usurp HIS authority, him being head of the household and all...
    I guess that should be added to the list."

    I know it's a foreign concept for feminists, and I'm likely wasting my time putting it here, but for the two or three straight feminists that actually exist: When trying to get ones husband or boyfriend to do something, NOT being an obnoxious bitch, and being able to use some tact can often work wonders.

    I know, I know they never taught you that in Manhating 101.

    Random Brother

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  65. Richard: "I know it's a foreign concept for feminists, and I'm likely wasting my time putting it here, but for the two or three straight feminists that actually exist: When trying to get ones husband or boyfriend to do something, NOT being an obnoxious bitch, and being able to use some tact can often work wonders. I know, I know they never taught you that in Manhating 101."

    I know it's a foreign concept for misogynists, and I'm likely wasting my time putting it here, but for the two or three MRA's who actually have any chance of getting some unfortunate woman to live with them: When trying to get your wife or girlfriend to not be an obnoxious bitch, NOT being a callous, inconsiderate ass can often work wonders. I know, I know, they never taught you that in How To Blame Women For Everything And the Kitchen Sink 101. Fair enough?

    As for the rest -- I can only thank our resident misogynists for saving me the time in disproving John Dias' and Biscuit Queen's protestations that women's work in "patriarchal" families is valued and appreciated. You were kind enough to provide ample evidence to the contrary: that women's work in patriarchal families is devalued, ridiculed, and discounted, and that wives in such families are seen as nothing more than overpriced maids and prostitutes. Thank you for proving my argument that a woman is better off dead than taking care of children, the home and the Other Child full time.

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  66. @Amused:

    "Thank you for proving my argument that a woman is better off dead than taking care of children, the home and the Other Child full time."

    No one is forcing any woman into that role; therefore any women who do choose it chose on their own to value a nurturing role more highly than working in a paid job (otherwise they would have gotten a paid job). Stop forcing your anti-nurturing, anti-self-deterministic values down women's throats; its misogynistic.

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  67. John Dias: Oh please, don't get so melodramatic on me. I have no beef with women who buy into illusions, nor do I accept your ludicrous idea that having a career somehow precludes nurturing or self-determination. If anything, having a career promotes self-determination, and your insinuation that challenging your views by me is the equivalent of putting a gun to women's heads and forcing them to become brain surgeons is ludicrous.

    Second, the fact that women knowingly and voluntarily choose a lifestyle in which their contributions are devalued, unappreciated, mocked and criticized doesn't change the fact that their contributions ARE, in fact, devalued, unappreciated, mocked and criticized. A woman may, for example, knowingly and voluntarily become a prostitute -- but the fact that she wasn't dragged into it kicking and screaming doesn't change the fact that prostitution is usually dangerous and degrading, and that the overwhelming majority of prostitutes end up exploited.

    And then, there is the question of whether the "nurturing" women you refer to actually take on the housewifely role in a properly informed manner. Because the comments here demonstrate a fundamental contradiction: you claim that housewives are valued and appreciated by their patriarchal husbands, but the majority of traditionalist men here have expressed the view that housewives are actually worthless pieces of shit, whose "nurturing" services can be cheaply obtained from maids, hookers, laundries and Chinese takeout. Therefore, it would seem to me that any woman who contemplates becoming a housewife should review such comments so that she can better understand how the majority of men in her circle (probably including her husband and the family's "benevolent" head patriarch) will regard her. That way, she can make an informed decision, instead of making one on the basis of illusions and distortions of patriarchy advocates that can be summed up in that brilliant phrase from George Orwell's "Animal Farm": "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." After that, let her do what she will: her life is hers to wreck, as far as I'm concerned.

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  68. I know, I know they never taught you that in Manhating 101.

    WOW, what a comedian!! And SO darn ORIGINAL, too!!

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  69. "I know it's a foreign concept for feminists, and I'm likely wasting my time putting it here, but for the two or three straight feminists that actually exist: When trying to get ones husband or boyfriend to do something, NOT being an obnoxious bitch, and being able to use some tact can often work wonders."

    Oh, really? I find it that not hanging around with people who call women obnoxious bitches works even better.

    But the main component in getting anyone to do something, including husbands and boyfriends and wives and girlfriends, is them being interested in your happiness. If they don't care, it doesn't matter if you ask nicely, or bitch, or passive-aggressively leave their dirty socks in their breakfast pancakes. If men don't do their share of the housework, it means that they don't believe that they should. And, in my experience, it is much easier to find a different partner than it is to convince someone to change.

    But, what do I know, women are just crazy and no one could possibly figure out what they want, amirite?

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  70. The thing is; where are all these men with a girlfriend/wife WHO IS EMPLOYED TOO!, where she does most or all the house work?

    Feminists seem to be talking about them an awful lot but I never see these men. Sure, a very small percentage of men may exist who are like this, just like there are women. But in a feminist world, women can't be as bad as evil oppressive menz

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  72. @Amused:

    "Second, the fact that women knowingly and voluntarily choose a [stay-at-home] lifestyle in which their contributions are devalued, unappreciated, mocked and criticized [by feminists] doesn't change the fact that their contributions ARE, in fact, devalued, unappreciated, mocked and criticized [by feminists]."

    Maybe you feminists should knock it off, then?

    @Amused:

    "...you claim that housewives are valued and appreciated by their patriarchal husbands, but the majority of traditionalist men here have expressed the view that housewives are actually worthless pieces of shit, whose 'nurturing' services can be cheaply obtained from maids, hookers, laundries and Chinese takeout."

    I challenge that. If a husband supports his wife by financially empowering her to voluntarily exercise a life choice to stay at home, then both partners are making a choice and both are valuing the roles of the other. This breaks down, however, when one party uses State-imposed force to obligate the other while simultaneously shirking their own obligation. A stay-at-home wife who files for divorce can obligate her ex-husband to pay alimony to her in order for her to continue receiving the benefit of staying at home, but her ex-husband cannot obligate her to provide all of the nurturing benefits that she used to provide to him. All of this is enforced by the State, meaning enforced by violence -- at the behest of the divorcing wife.

    That is why the men that you seem to be referring to have such a low opinion of marriage. It's not because they necessarily hate marriage (since getting married is a voluntary choice), but rather it's because they hate the obligations of divorce, in which ex-wives shirk their former obligations while simultaneously forcing ex-husbands to continue theirs. It's fundamentally unfair, and more to the point, it's about the coercive power of the State (whose power is enforced through violence). The former husband goes on providing, whereas the former wife is released from nurturing; if the ex-husband does not comply with this unfair State-imposed arrangement, he can be jailed by a judge for contempt of court and his wages can be garnished. Current policy on divorce law has thus made marriage too risky, and feminists were the ones who originally promoted this injustice.

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  73. Very precise John. But feminists will still try to make out one way or the other that women are the true victims in all of this and what you are saying is all a big misunderstanding.

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  77. @nick81m:

    "...feminists will still try to make out one way or the other that women are the true victims in all of this and what you are saying is all a big misunderstanding."

    You know feminists pretty well, Nick. But the ideological cesspool contains even worse varieties, as I suspect you also already know. I'm always on the lookout for the likes of Amanda Marcotte, who I've recently noticed lurking around this blog. She and her kind have a knack for taking a woman's malicious allegations against her peaceful and law-abiding male victims, and somehow conflating their outcries for justice into a male-imposed expectation of entitlement to rape and pillage, such as the way she described the Duke Lacrosse players who were maliciously victimized with a fabricated allegation of rape by a female predator. Ideologues like her don't care too much for the "just a misunderstanding" card; people like her instead go straight for the rhetorical kill.

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  78. John, it's a little hard to take your complaints that people are "assassinating your character" seriously when you devote post after post to, well, assassinating other people's characters.

    I especially like the increasingly loaded language you're using. Someone reading this blog is in your mind "lurking" here. (Meanwhile, you "lurk" here every day and sometimes recruit "your kind" to come and post here.)

    When I asked you about some of your beliefs last night, because I honestly don't fucking understand them (I still don't), this became in your mind me "lying about your views" and "assassinating your character," and using some sort of dastardly techniques out of the "Futrelle playbook."

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  79. "Thank you for proving my argument that a woman is better off dead than taking care of children, the home and the Other Child full time."---Amused

    Then don't get married, have a family, or do household chores. Since you are so condescending and borderline hostile at times, staying away from that proverbial jail for you should not be problematic.

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  80. @ Amused

    Amused said: "I know it's a foreign concept for misogynists, and I'm likely wasting my time putting it here, but for the two or three MRA's who actually have any chance of getting some unfortunate woman to live with them: When trying to get your wife or girlfriend to not be an obnoxious bitch, NOT being a callous, inconsiderate ass can often work wonders. I know, I know, they never taught you that in How To Blame Women For Everything And the Kitchen Sink 101. Fair enough?"

    I see what you did there! You took MY words and then changed them just enough to make it look like YOUR view actually has merit! Wow! You're such a clever little girl! SUCH A CLEVER GIRL! Congrats! You are a tribute to a feminist education, yes you are dearie! Yes you are!

    But the point remains, honey, that if you want someone to do something, an ADULT should:

    1. Not assume the other person automatically knows what he or she wants.
    2. Should ask nicely.

    I know, I know the thought of an empowered, strong, proud, independent, morally evolved, superior to all males WOMYN (TM) having to ask a mere man for something just burns your penis despising loins, but for normal heterosexual adults this is the way it acutally works, okay honey?

    The clever, clever girl continues: "As for the rest -- I can only thank our resident misogynists for saving me the time in disproving John Dias' and Biscuit Queen's protestations that women's work in "patriarchal" families is valued and appreciated. You were kind enough to provide ample evidence to the contrary: that women's work in patriarchal families is devalued, ridiculed, and discounted, and that wives in such families are seen as nothing more than overpriced maids and prostitutes. Thank you for proving my argument that a woman is better off dead than taking care of children, the home and the Other Child full time."

    Wow! That was brilliant! You deduced from your feminist interpretation of the comments on this board that ALL men devalue stay at home moms! Clever girl! I mean, some patriarch oppressor might note that it doesn't matter how the men here or even most men feel, but the matter would be if that individual woman's husband values her contribution THAT should be one of the main factors for her to decide whether to stay at home or not, but fuck that! Why should a woman care what here husband thinks! She should base her decision based upon your interpretation of what the men on this board have said.

    Oh, you feminists!

    Random Brother

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  81. @ Pam

    Pam said: "I know, I know they never taught you that in Manhating 101.

    WOW, what a comedian!! And SO darn ORIGINAL, too!!"

    Thanks dear. I really appeciate your sincere compliment. And by the way I think you're smart and sexy!

    Random Brother

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  82. David, you wouldn't be pulling a weasel feminist diversionary tactic now, would you?

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  83. @David Futrelle:

    If you don't take my arguments seriously, then it's probably because you disagree with them.

    "I especially like the increasingly loaded language you're using. Someone reading this blog is in your mind 'lurking' here. (Meanwhile, you 'lurk' here every day and sometimes recruit 'your kind' to come and post here.)"

    You like that, eh? Well you should, because the person who perfected the art of packing a paragraph with loaded accusations is Amanda Marcotte. However, in my use of loaded language I endeavor to remain intellectually honest, unlike her.

    "When I asked you about some of your beliefs last night, because I honestly don't fucking understand them (I still don't), this became in your mind me 'lying about your views' and 'assassinating your character,' and using some sort of dastardly techniques out of the 'Futrelle playbook.'"

    There's nothing wrong with seeking clarity, but there is something wrong with being clear in one's understanding while pretending not to understand, and worse, intentionally misstating the views of your opponent in order to create straw-man arguments against them. That is intellectual dishonesty, and it's what I'm referring to when I attack the methods of the "Futrelle playbook." This whole blog is a straw-man argument against the legitimate views of the men's rights movement, trying to impede its political progress by associating it with misogyny. THAT'S the Futrelle playbook, namely the use of straw-man arguments. It's fallacious.

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  84. John, I'm not pretending to not understand your views. I don't understand them.

    As for this blog being a "straw man" argument against the MRM, I am very clear about not attributing views to people who don't hold them. I prefer to quote rather than to paraphrase. When I quote one MRA I am careful not to suggest that his views reflect all MRAs. I've made that point again and again. I put a fucking disclaimer to that effect in the sidebar.

    But what I gather you are bothered by is the implication that misogyny is widespread in the MRM. If my blog gives that impression, well, no apology from me there; that's because misogyny IS widespread in the MRM, and even more so in the overlapping-but-not-identical MGTOW community. I am not associating the MRM with misogyny. The MRM *associates itself* with misogyny. You know that as well as I do.

    Are the sites I quote from not mainstream MRA/MGTOW sites? Are the comments I quote from the spearhead or a voice for men or reddit (all sites that allow up and downvoting of comments) not upvoted on the sites in question?

    Again, if I am looking at the "wrong" sites, I will ask you again what sites I should be looking. When I've asked that before you've assumed the question is some sort of devious trap, and that I'll immediately rush to malign those sites through the devious strategy of ... quoting people there.

    If there are MRM sites that honestly are not overwhelmed by misogyny, where outbursts of misogyny are criticized by the regulars there, why would you not mention them to me?

    And speaking of straw men... virtually every argument made by antifeminists in the comments on this blog about feminism is based on a straw man. Virtually every statement I've seen in the "manosophere" about this blog has been wildly misleading or flat out wrong (often deliberately so).

    Also, if you're going to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty, of me "intentionally misstating the views of your opponent in order to create straw-man arguments against them," then give me a an example.

    And no, the questions I asked you about your views last night don't count, because they were QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR VIEWS, which I asked because I actually do not understand them.

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  85. Can everyone see that David made no argument what so ever against John's post dated January 20, 2011 5:26 PM.

    It just totally knocked his socks off and now he is trying to change the topic.

    His post totally owned feminists big time

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  86. @ David

    The problem David is that you define almost any dissent against your version of feminism as misogyny. For Christ's sake you've got Warren Farrell on your boob list. Have you ever listened to Mr. Farrell speak? Mr. Farrell is damn near neutered, so if Mr. Farrell is too pro male for you than there is no hope.

    Your personal pendulum is pushed so far into womyn are goddesses land that almost anything a man says other that "yes mistress" to you equals misogyny.

    Random Brother

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  87. DarkSideCat said...
    @Yohan, ..... I also yo pity your wife (as if I didn't already) as you think all of her work put into raising your kids and housework is worthless.


    The usual feminist shaming language from Mrs. Anonymous.

    How our family is arranging OUR way of life since more than 35 years as a married couple with children and parents under the same roof, DarkSideCat, is for sure not your business and not the business of any other feminist.

    Your comment sounds rather desperate, bitter and lonely.

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  88. Richard: Being deliberately patronizing and then explaining how "adults" handle disagreement renders your comments quite ironic. But don't waste your breath: I am impervious to insults by people whose opinion simply doesn't matter to me. The insults do demonstrate, however, that you could not address my comments on the merits.

    As for whether housewives are valued: at the very least, men of your ilk talk out of both sides of your mouths. On the one hand, "stay-at-home moms" are awesome, on the other, they are overpriced maids-with-benefits. As I've said numerous times: if a particular woman chooses to spend her life with a man who regards her, at best, with a mixture of condescension and laid-back contempt, that is her business. That's what feminism is about: choices. But the fact that something is freely chosen does not alter the fundamental nature of the subject matter of that choice.

    And sure, what one's husband wants is very important -- but it's not dispositive. If a woman's husband wants her to jump off a cliff, I don't think she should do it -- but hey, that's just the crazy radical feminist in me talking. Similarly, if a woman's husband wants her to adopt a lifestyle which he will then use as a basis to devalue and infantilize her, it would be very unwise on her part to accede to those wishes. But as I've said many times, and will say yet again: she should be free to make a dumb and self-destructive choice, if that's what she wants.

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  89. @ Amused:

    Amused said: "Being deliberately patronizing and then explaining how "adults" handle disagreement renders your comments quite ironic. But don't waste your breath: I am impervious to insults by people whose opinion simply doesn't matter to me."

    I responded in the same smug assholish tone that you always post in, skirt. If you had any class, which is a trait that seems to elude feminsts, you could post without being such an ass.

    Amused said: "The insults do demonstrate, however, that you could not address my comments on the merits."

    If being insulting in post equals incapable of addressing a comment on the merits, then you've never ever answered a post on this site.

    Amused shat on: "As for whether housewives are valued: at the very least, men of your ilk talk out of both sides of your mouths. On the one hand, "stay-at-home moms" are awesome, on the other, they are overpriced maids-with-benefits."

    Wow, its almost like some MRA's think stay at home moms are great, and OTHER MRA's think they're worthless, because different men think differently! But that can't be right because all non feminised men must think exactly alike. You are a clever, clever girl.

    Amused: "As I've said numerous times: if a particular woman chooses to spend her life with a man who regards her, at best, with a mixture of condescension and laid-back contempt, that is her business. That's what feminism is about: choices."

    You mean choices for women.

    Amused said: " But the fact that something is freely chosen does not alter the fundamental nature of the subject matter of that choice."

    In other words you've decided that being a stay at home mom is bad and while you'll graciously allow other women to have their choice, it's still bad, not matter the dynamic of the individual relationship, because you, a smug feminist says so. Oh, your wisdom, kindness and tolerance is a sight to behold!

    Amused: "If a woman's husband wants her to jump off a cliff, I don't think she should do it -- but hey, that's just the crazy radical feminist in me talking."

    Yes, stay at home mom = jumping off a cliff.

    Amused: "Similarly, if a woman's husband wants her to adopt a lifestyle which he will then use as a basis to devalue and infantilize her, it would be very unwise on her part to accede to those wishes. But as I've said many times, and will say yet again: she should be free to make a dumb and self-destructive choice, if that's what she wants."

    Yep, all men who want a stay at home wife are destined to use it to devalue her. All. Every last one as proven by your fucking say so. Never in the history of mankind has there been a stay at home wife valued by her husband. Feminut 101.

    And you femicows say MRA's have issues with the opposite gender.

    Random Brother

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  90. Amused: On the one hand, "stay-at-home moms" are awesome, on the other, they are overpriced maids-with-benefits

    Yes, with alimony for life after divorce...interesting to compare a labour contract of a maid with a marriage certificate.

    And you femicows say MRA's have issues with the opposite gender. Random Brother

    Hahahahaha...

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  91. There is a potentially fascinating dialog occuring here about gender,resposibility and communication. With so many widely divergent opinions available this is one of the more useful disscussions of this topic I have seen. Except all of y'all talk like asshats. The interesting conversation is buried under a thick layer of defenisveness and ad hominum attacks on both sides. If every one could stop showing off their dissing skills some progress towards understanding each other could occur here. Its so close to happening it is frustrating to watch eveery one create obstacles to their own success. Keep on trying to be heard y'all, but try to drop the posturing.

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  92. John Dias: That's not the only way these roles break down. But let me play along for a minute. What kind of divorce law do you believe would be fair? The kind where each partner gets to keep only what he or she has earned on the job market? I sense that is your idea, so let's imagine that's what the law is like. And then look at how much "financial support" is really "empowering" a woman to exercise a choice.

    In a patriarchal household, all income is the husband's and all property is in his name. By contrast, his wife has only limited use of his assets (and he completely controls the extent of that use), but no income or property of her own. If at any point in the marriage, there is a divorce, he walks away with all the money and property, she walks away with nothing. As he gains prestige and expertise in his professional field, he becomes more highly paid, more professionally flexible and more employable. By contrast, the longer his wife stays out of the job market (and off the marriage market), the less employable and less marriageable she becomes, so her "professional" value decreases over time.

    Sure, eventually, the husband's age begins to work against him out in the "real world" -- but that is offset by retirement benefits and social security benefits, as well as the appreciation of his assets. His wife, however, has no retirement benefits, social security benefits, or assets of her own. Besides, the "financial support" that the employer provides to her husband includes discretionary income that he may invest or put into a savings account; the wife gets only what she absolutely needs, and what she needs is determined by the husband.

    With every passing year, the wife in a patriarchal family depends more and more and more on her husband's continued willingness to support her -- and human nature being what it is, that is quite likely to lead to increasingly outrageous demands being placed on her. In fact, historically, before divorcing housewives were entitled to anything other than clothes on their backs, they were expected to provide "nurturing" to their husbands' illegitimate children and even their mistresses. And even then, a housewife would be left with nothing if, 40 years after the marriage, the husband decided he wanted him some "nurturing" from a younger woman.

    All this tells me that housewifery is, in fact, a terrible deal for women -- an equivalent of subsistence wages, really. Again, if some woman wants to do it -- that's her business. But in no way is this "empowerment" or "freedom".

    As for men who want to get married, but are afraid of alimony, the solution is simple -- marry someone who is self-supporting. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you marry someone to do nothing except wait on you hand and foot, then there is a good chance that after a decade or so, you might have to finance a retirement plan.

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  93. Richard: Calling me "skirt", "clever girl", "nut" and "cow" is really convincing! Wow, name calling really, really gets your point across and makes me take you seriously! You win: every woman should drop everything, forego education and dedicate her life to shoring up someone whose manhood is so fragile, he needs a lackey to feel like a man. Because there is a slight chance he might view her as better than a household appliance. Thanks for clearing it up. Now I know why women abandon highly paid professions and lucrative businesses in droves. Oh, wait ...

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  94. @ Amused

    Amused said: "Richard: Calling me "skirt", "clever girl", "nut" and "cow" is really convincing!"

    Thanks!

    Amused: "Wow, name calling really, really gets your point across and makes me take you seriously!"

    Awesome! I was hoping it would!

    Amused: "You win: every woman should drop everything, forego education and dedicate her life to shoring up someone whose manhood is so fragile, he needs a lackey to feel like a man"

    Oooh, no you still didn't get it. I never said any of that, once again a feminist projects her fucked up views on others. And as for needing a lackey, um which group of women is constantly demanding the government give women money via taxes that they didn't earn? Oh that's right it's feminists. So, if men need a lackey, then feminists believe that women need millions of lackeys forced to aid her by government command. Feminists seem to need big daddy gubmint becasue feminists believe women are so weak and fragile that they constantly need gubmint help.

    To feminuts, leaching from millions of other people via gubmint programs is okay, but *gasp* staying home and marrying a man! Heaven forbid! A woman can only be strong, proud and independant with a gubmint check in hand!

    Amazing, cash sucking feminist parasites firmly attached to the host of big daddy gubmint (and therefore men's wallets) insulting THE institution that every modern society needs for raising healthy moral children.

    Amused: "Because there is a slight chance he might view her as better than a household appliance."

    Some angry feminist is engaging in a little projection!

    Amused: "Thanks for clearing it up. Now I know why women abandon highly paid professions and lucrative businesses in droves. Oh, wait ... "

    Actually, hun, many women after being in the dog eat dog business world DO abandon it to get married and have kids. So sorry you don't agree. So sorry dear.

    Oh, and lastly you are an arrogant poster. You, like most feminists, want to have your cake and eat it as well. You want to be a snide and assholish, but bristle when you get treated in the same fashion. I know you femikooks have problems with this, but if you want to get respect you might want to try and give a little. Lets be honest though, a femiclown like you. . .no chance of that.

    Random Brother

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  95. Richard: Being married and having kids is not the equivalent of being a housewife, but nice try changing the terms. Nor does being married and having kids require one to abandon her career. That's because, as a man-hating "feminut", I have this outrageous idea that men aren't helpless infants who constantly need someone to feed them and wipe their butts. So sorry you don't agree. So sorry dear.

    As for the whole "gubmint" thing -- until I see MRA's actively lobbying for deunionizing "dangerous professions" (so that those working them are paid market wages), removing security for state-employed laborers and repealing social security, I will dismiss all that screeching for what it really is: a big red herring. Dollars to donuts my taxes support your sorry ass, not the other way around.

    Lastly, given your general attitude and tone towards not only people who disagree with you, but even those who dare assume a position less extreme than yours, you are simply being disingenuous when you complain about my supposed "arrogance". Oh, right, a woman is "arrogant", while a man is "outspoken". And no, I don't bristle at your petty nastiness any more than I would bristle at a clump of mud or a common cold. Irritating? Sure. Something to think about for more than 10 seconds? If I'm really bored.

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  96. Amused asked me this question:

    "What kind of divorce law do you believe would be fair?"

    The question itself assumes the premise that a law should determine the outcome of a divorce. In my opinion, marriages should not be licensed; we should do away with marriage licensing. If you want the government to be involved, say for example to designate control of assets, then contract law suffices for that. I just oppose the idea of the State parsing out the rights and obligations of divorcing spouses, and that includes alimony and also any division of assets. In my opinion, the government should get out of the divorce business, and for that matter the marriage licensing business.

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  97. "And you femicows say MRA's have issues with the opposite gender."

    Hmm, it's a bit long, but that might work on a t-shirt.

    John: This last answer of yours is why I am confused about how your views on patriarchy relate to the real world. Amused asks what kind of divorce law you would support, and you respond with a fantasy of the state not being involved at all. Which is not going to happen.

    That's why I was pressing you on what the proper role for the state is in DV as well. You were suggesting, or at least it seemed to me, that state intervention in the family was illegitimate and that in a proper patriarchal system wouldn't be necessary. (If I am not accurately representing your views, please correct me.)

    Frankly, your answers are a bit like those of some Trotskyists I've known: "What do you think of [political issue X]?" "After the worldwide Trotskyist revolution [X] will no longer be an issue."

    So here are the 2 questions again, rephrased: IN THE REAL WORLD, what kind of divorce law do you support? IN THE REAL WORLD, what kind of DV law do you support?

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  100. @David Futrelle:

    The MRM exists in part as a political movement whose goal it is to reduce the reach of government into the private sphere. This goal has broad appeal outside of the MRM, and so it's not as "unreal" as you might suggest. If the reach of government can extend over time, then it can also be made to halt or even retract. Practically, in small ways this is already happening. Father's rights groups that employ full time lobbyists succeed every year in blocking legislation before it even becomes law, which eliminates the much more burdensome task of subsequently challenging unjust laws through the electoral process or via the courts. Killing a bill is not as dramatic as overturning a law, but it's common and it's effective. So you can see that my philosophy (of being politically active solely to diminish State power, and not to augment it) is actually quite realistic.

    As far as my ultimate goal of getting the State out of the marriage licensing business, whether statutory repeal happens now, much later, or never, there is a way to circumvent it. Just don't get married legally, and while you're at it, don't live in a state that imputes marriage (i.e. a common law marriage state). Have a wedding if you like. Socially you can refer to your partner as your spouse. Culturally or religiously, your church or your community can recognize the validity of your marriage, whereas the State can think of you only as boyfriend/girlfriend who happen to cohabit (provided that no government statute gives the State the power to impute marriage obligations to either party).

    That still leaves at least three areas where the State will intrude regardless of whether it recognizes the existence of a particular marriage:
    1. Court-ordered child support obligations
    2. Court-ordered child custody designations
    3. Court-ordered bogus restraining orders issued without trial

    Cultural reinforcement -- through religious institutions, through private or home schools, through one's network of friends, and through the extended family itself -- can minimize the chances that one party or both parties (but more likely the woman, as the current system gives them nearly unchecked advantages in these areas) will invoke one of the above "nuclear options." In addition, exercising personal discretion in selecting a mate can also minimize the excesses of State intrusion; patriarchal values and expectations can thus be a voluntarily-accepted condition of marriage. All of these are at least some tactics that can marginalize and mitigate the excessive and unjust intrusions of the State into private family matters. But yes, political engagement is absolutely necessary in order to reduce State excesses, and this requires a robust movement of supporters that are not only willing to coalesce around a set of ideals, but are also serious about raising and donating money to a professional lobbying organization. In no way is any of this pie-in-the-sky thinking, David. As the MRM (or at least the father's fights movement or FRM) matures you'll increasingly see these things happening.

    Meanwhile, the rates of legal marriage are steadily declining year-over-year, which indicates that such cultural trends are already underway.

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  101. As far as what DV laws I would support, I wouldn't be opposed to sensible laws that ensure the constitutional rights of the accused. For those who believe that constitutional rights are insufficient to protect potential victims of domestic violence, there should be options for such people to leave an abusive environment safely if they so choose, such as a network of shelters for abuse victims. Men's advocates, including myself, are engaged in the effort to expand access to such shelters -- and to improve outreach efforts -- to victims of both sexes.

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  102. John, well, that answers a lot of questions. I don't agree, obviously, but most of that makes sense.

    One part that doesn't make a lot of sense, though: your support of patriarchal marriage seems to contradict your opposition to female "advantage" in child support/custody, etc. In a patriarchal marriage, as Amused has suggested above, women are giving up a lot and could easily be screwed over completely in the event of a divorce; if they haven't been in the job market for decades, they will NEED some sort of support. If you want to have the right to be the head of the family, it seems to me you need to be willing to shoulder the responsibilties as well, like providing some support for someone who has been out of the job market for decades in the case of a divorce.

    And if women are the primary caretakers of children on a day to day basic, as they are in patriarchal marriage, doesn't it make more sense for them to be given custody?

    As for the comment about shelters, I think you are literally the only MRA I've run across in the manosphere who is actually trying to do something about male access to shelters, instead of simply complaining about how unfair it is that feminists didn't build shelters for men as well as women. (Well, Glenn Sacks had his supporters bombard donors to a woman's shelter with phone calls in order to get them to stop donating; I suppose that counts as activism, but it's not exactly positive activism, nor is is a good way to build bridges with those who have the most experience with DV shelters.)

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  103. John Dias: Your believe that marriage should no longer be a public institution recognized by the State doesn't address the issues I've raised -- which is whether you also believe that in the event a marriage breaks up, the housewife is to walk away with nothing because she "earned" nothing. It seems, my point stands: making marriage one's "job" and staying home makes a woman increasingly vulnerable and dependent on her husband's willingness to support her, while depriving her of the opportunity to build her own financial security, to fall back on in case there is a divorce.

    And like David, I also don't quite understand why, if the mother in a particular family is the primary care-taker of children, she shouldn't automatically get physical custody of those children. Someone needs to feed them, bathe them, take them to school, help them do homework, etc. If all this is the mother's "job" during the marriage, then who is going to do all this if the father (whose only "job" is to earn the money and to lay down the law on weekends) gets custody?

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  104. And if women are the primary caretakers of children on a day to day basic, as they are in patriarchal marriage, doesn't it make more sense for them to be given custody?
    LOL!! Don't even GO there!! It seems to me that I said something quite similar in the comments at another discussion on this very blog, and was accused of insinuating things that I absolutely didn't allude to.

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  106. @David:

    Re: safety net for divorcing wives:
    What recourse is there currently for divorcing husbands? During a marriage, a wife gets the benefit of her husband's protection and financial provision. After a divorce, the wife still receives the financial provision of the husband under the current system, but the husband no longer receives the nurturing benefits that his wife once provided. This is an injustice. Obligations should be tied to the fulfillment of one's responsibilities, and so if one spouse files to divorce the other, then in my opinion the one who files for divorce should not expect to receive anything from their former partner, because they have violated their marriage vows.

    Prenuptual agreements are another way for people to marginalize the reach of the State into their marriages, but these are just defensive measures. In my opinion, the default (i.e. the absence of a prenup) should not be that the State has unchecked authority in a divorce, but today that is not the case.

    Re: women getting default child custody
    I simply disagree with your view. Not only is it unjust to fathers to wisk their kids even further away from them than was the case during the marriage, and not only is it unjust for a family court not to order the divorcing stay-at-home mother to seek full-time employment in order to pay her share of child support costs, but it's also an injustice to the children to remove them even further away from the providing parent. I simply disagree with the "it's only right for mom to get this entitlement" viewpoint, because I think it's self-absorbed and irresponsible. Children need both parents, and so long as neither parent is demonstrated through credible evidence to be unfit, the children should not be impeded to have access to either parent, period. A divorce is happening, and that should not exempt the mother from adapting by fulfilling her obligation not to somehow treat the children as assets or as pawns in a chess game.

    Re: DV shelters:
    "I think you are literally the only MRA I've run across in the manosphere who is actually trying to do something about male access to shelters..."
    The National Coalition For Men is the organization that is leading this charge, and they're the oldest men's and father's rights organization in the United States. They're the ones that successfully argued the Woods vs. Shewry case before California's 3rd district appellate court in 2007, which struck down language in the state's Health and Safety Code that permitted discrimination against male victims of domestic violence in the use of taxpayer-funded matching funds for DV shelters. So it's not just ol' John Dias waging a solitary battle. And let me clarify that I don't support the practice of most shelters to encourage women to file for move-out restraining orders without a formal criminal indictment or a jury trial. Most shelters employ staff that provide so-called "victim's advocacy services" which include filling out paperwork that does attempt one such end-run around the constitutional rights of the accused. I support a legal and/or legislative challenge to the legitimacy of the current incarnation of restraining order laws, and if I achieved my goal then the power of such shelters to obtain bogus restraining orders would be moot. A shelter should provide options for someone to flee an abusive environment, but in my opinion a shelter should not empower one partner to chase the other allegedly abusive partner out of their own home. My position on restraining orders is summed up in this statement: If you're genuinely in fear for your life, then *you* be the one to leave. So shelters could be a legitimate option in my view, so long as the taxpayer-funded ones didn't discriminate against male victims and so long as they made good-faith efforts to reach out to male victims.

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  107. @ Amused

    Amused said: "Richard: Being married and having kids is not the equivalent of being a housewife, but nice try changing the terms. Nor does being married and having kids require one to abandon her career."

    I didn't say she had to. Also many women WANT to abandon their careers as they do not find them as fulfilling as raising their child. An obvious marriage and man hater such as yourself probably can't see that, but it's true.

    Amused said: "That's because, as a man-hating "feminut", I have this outrageous idea that men aren't helpless infants who constantly need someone to feed them and wipe their butts. So sorry you don't agree. So sorry dear."

    Staying home to take care of your children or being a stay at home wife has little if anything to do with wiping your husband's butt. Liar.

    Amused: "As for the whole "gubmint" thing -- until I see MRA's actively lobbying for deunionizing "dangerous professions" (so that those working them are paid market wages), removing security for state-employed laborers and repealing social security, I will dismiss all that screeching for what it really is: a big red herring."

    1. Why the hell would unions deunionize? What sort of idiot thinking is that? Wouldn't that lead to their wages decreasing? So MRA's should work so that men have LESS money? Are you drunk? There's a rallying cry, join MRM and earn less money! Moronic.

    Amused said: "Are Dollars to donuts my taxes support your sorry ass, not the other way around."

    No. I'm not like your kind. Some sort of welfare loving entitlement queen. I work for a living, novel concept for you, no?

    Amused said: "Lastly, given your general attitude and tone towards not only people who disagree with you, but even those who dare assume a position less extreme than yours, you are simply being disingenuous when you complain about my supposed "arrogance"."

    I consider you arrogant. How is that being disingenous? Do I secretly think you're not arrogant? You're an arrogant poster and a tool, IMHO. I treat you with the contempt you treat me, MRA's and men in general. If you ever change your attitude towards us, I'll consider changing my attitude towards you.

    Amused said: "Oh, right, a woman is "arrogant", while a man is "outspoken"."

    Oh this old canard. Just an excuse for women to be obnoxious. Get a clue, dearie, men don't like male or female assholes. And since your posts are arrogant and assholish, I'll choose not to like you.

    Amused: "And no, I don't bristle at your petty nastiness any more than I would bristle at a clump of mud or a common cold. Irritating? Sure. Something to think about for more than 10 seconds? If I'm really bored."

    Me thinks you doth protest too much.

    Random Brother

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  108. @ Amused

    Amused said: "And like David, I also don't quite understand why, if the mother in a particular family is the primary care-taker of children, she shouldn't automatically get physical custody of those children. Someone needs to feed them, bathe them, take them to school, help them do homework, etc. If all this is the mother's "job" during the marriage, then who is going to do all this if the father (whose only "job" is to earn the money and to lay down the law on weekends) gets custody?"

    You really don't understand this.

    Really?

    You don't understand the difference between primary and best?

    Really?

    Really?

    Jesus.

    By that rational the day care teacher who watches a woman's child should be given custody over a working mother.

    Can your estrogen addled brain get it now?

    If a marriage ends the question of custody of the child/children should be not who currently takes care of the child but which parent can in the future best take care of the child. Which parent has the best ability to provide for the child and raise the child to be the most he or she can be.

    Random Brother

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  109. Well, "Richard", here is an interesting fact: you took a whole lot of time out of your extremely busy day of NOT working to write a three-page screed the upshot of which is that you REALLY hate me. So much passionate writing dedicated ... to me. Hmm. Who's "protesting too much" now, Dick?

    As to the rest, you seem to be laboring under a delusion that an opinion of someone like you actually matters to me. Get it through your skull: you have no moral authority over me; your approval or lack thereof does not matter to me; and my personal life is none of your goddamned business. Repeat it a few times to yourself, maybe it'll sink in.

    Also, Dick, a bit of advice: in order for an intended insult to have any hope of effect, it must contain at least a grain of truth, some tiny facet in which the person that you intend to insult will see herself. An accusation that is utterly false doesn't insult because none of it strikes close to home. When you accuse of being a welfare Queen, a bitter unmarried hag or a childless hater of children, it's about as effective as if you accused me of being a tree. The only effect of such ranting is to demonstrate once again your impotent rage.

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  110. @ Amused

    You chicks are so cute when you try to be tough.

    Random Brother

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