Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Brief Reign of the Feminist Troll Queen

Who died and made you Queen of the trolls?
So the MRA who calls himself Troll King – but who is not actually a troll – recently decided he would create some lulz by trolling Reddit’s Mens Rights subreddit as a pretend feminist calling “herself” feministtrollqueen. What followed was perhaps the worst impersonation of a feminist the world has seen since, well, Sarah Palin called herself one. But the whole embarrassing spectacle is worth looking at, as it reveals a great deal, not about feminism, but about some of the strange things rattling around in the heads of some of feminism’s most ardent and addled critics.

During her brief reign, feministtrollqueen posted a series of long rambling comments filled with what “she” evidently thought was a highly witty parody of feminist-speak, but which bears about as much relationship to feminism as what’s inside Glenn Beck’s head does to reality. Here's a chunk of her first post::

WHY can't us feminsits and mens misogynists get along? ...

I LOVE men so much that I want to help you "nice guys" and I want you to become real men so that women, like me, will want to have crazy and hot and slutty sex with you. Don't be losers and creeps….
Us feminists, we don't want to hurt you...we probably want to suck your dick, 'cause we LOVE men and their dicks...Just because you have unjust privilege doesn't mean you are evil or bad...it just means you need to lose your patriarchal privilege and become feminist men....then you will be good men. Then you won't be virginal losers, once you except and deny your privilege you will get SEX and be valuable
Naturally, some of the locals assumed that this was a real feminist talking – all but one of those who commented on this post seemed to think it was real -- and set out to school her on a thing or two. One wrote a lengthy point-by-point "rebuttal," ending it with:
[S]ince you are female (presumably), don't presume to tell men what a "real man" is. …  [W]hile you claim to "love men", you're posting shows you are actually closer to a misandrist who thinks the only good man is the one beneath her feet.

Feministtrollqueen then  began posting even more obviously loopy comments. Far from being the sex-negative Dworkin-ite  stereotype of yesteryear, she seemed, if anything, rather obsessed with sex and how much she loved it:

OMG!!! You guys are such misogynists. You need to realize that I am a feminist and I know what feminism is cause I am a feminist. HOW dare you talk about such a movement in such a bad way, you are evil penis wearing misogynists! Those evil penises of yours cause RAAAAPPPEEEEE and that is all men's fault.
Those testicles of yours create woman hating, aka misogynistic, thoughts. NOW, understand that I LOOOVE men.... I just think you misogynists need to understand that you can be better, real men. Until you step up and be real men, you will always be manchildren.
Now, I love men. I really do. I have sexes with many, many men. I luvs casual sexes with men. I do it all the time. I just don't like it when you men make me feel bad by exercising your own sexual rights and opinions and call me fat. I am not fat, I AM BIG AND BEAUTIFUL!....

Warming to her subject, she continued: 

You pathetic virgins in the MRM are just bitter and lonely and can't get any pussy cause you live in yo mommas basement. How pathetic.
I read all of your posts and I still won't have nasty and sexy butts sexts with you. I am simply too sexy for you and even if you wanted it you couldn't get it. I am that much bettar than you but unlike you I actually believe in equality.
You little boys need to grow up and become real men and learn about feminism and how us women will actually help you and solve your problems for you. I am for equality! I want men to be free and feminine like me, you little boys just want to whine and moan and need to call a waahhbulance
Even at this point there were some who thought it was still possible that this was a real feminist. Presumably, even these gullible souls realized something was afoot when feministtrollqueen started going on about how much she liked “casual sexes with da manchilds!! I like their pee pees” while also claiming that men “want to rape you and kill you and eat your dead pussy.”
The brief and insignificant reign of the feministtrollqueen is in many ways instructive. 

Given the obsessive discussion of sex, and feminsittrollqueen’s endless nattering about how she doesn’t want to have sex with non-feminist non-real-men, Troll King seems to conflate “feminists” with “women who don’t want to have sex with him.” While I can’t imagine that many feminists do want to have sex with him, I can’t believe they are the only ones. (A Venn diagram of the two groups would consist of two concentric circles, with the “feminist” circle entirely within the larger group of “women who don’t want to have sex with Troll King.)

Like many MRAs and MGTOWers. Troll King seems to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, and getting angry about, women having sex, particularly those having sex with people other than him. As we’ve seen again and again, manosphere men seem to take it personally when women fuck anyone but them. When attractive women have sex with confident, attractive men, they’re denounced as hypergamous, gold-digging and/or thug-loving sluts. But manosphere dudes’  hatred of women having sex goes well beyond sour grapes, as they also tend to be furious when women they consider unattractive have sex. If any woman out there is having sex with anyone who is not them, it is somehow a personal affront to all men who aren’t having sex at that very moment.
If that woman is also a feminist, well, their heads nearly explode. Forget the old stereotype of feminists as dour, hairy-legged, man-hating, cat-owning lesbian bluestockings. Troll King is obsessed with what seems to be the new stereotype: the sex-positive feminist as wanton slut. And he’s not the only one. Manosphere dudes regularly attack prominent feminist bloggers as “sluts” and “whores” and worse. Sometimes their minds become so addled by it all that they get the old and new stereotypes mixed up into one weird misogynist soufflé --- like the commenter on Antimisandry.com who denounced one famous feminist blogger as both a “super slut” and a “worthless, dried up, spinster whore.”

One commenter on Hooking Up Smart set forth what seems to be the general manosphere “theory” about feminist sluthood:

they want to suppress male “patriarchal” mating preferences

they want to have their cake and eat it too, i.e. want the option to be as slutty as they want but also want the respect and social status that was never given to such women

they want to neuter men because they only want the biggest alpha assholes to initiate sex, since these are the only type of men they are attracted to
 
As you may have noticed, this theory makes no fucking sense at all: feminists criticize asshole guys because they only want to have sex with the most assholish of men? Yet I’ve seen variants of this "argument" all over the mansophere. 

Troll King also seems to conflate feminists with all women who ever criticize men for any reason. His faux feminist creation continually refers to men as “manchildren,” an obvious reference to the arguments set forth recently by cultural critic Kay Hymowitz, who has denounced young men today as perpetual adolescents obsessed with video games and pop culture, while celebrating the supposedly more masculine men of yore. Trouble is, as I've pointed out before, Hymowitz isn’t a feminist at all; she’s an anti-feminist, and some of the most pointed critiques of her retrograde ideas have come from feminists. (Here’s one recent example.)

There’s really no way around it: the obsessions of the Troll King’s faux feminist identity seem to be driven mainly by masculine insecurity and sexual jealousy – and rage at women displaying autonomy or in any way challenging male prerogatives: How dare women refuse to have sex with us! How dare they call our masculinity into question! It’s no wonder his feminist parody reveals so much more about himself than it does about feminism.  


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*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.

35 comments:

  1. These guys need to learn: women are not factory made.

    Your sex robot might be though.

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  2. Anybody placing bets on who it'll be to say that Andrea Dworkin said exactly these same things?

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  3. I wish MRAs would make up their minds. Are feminists ugly, hairy-legged dykes who are just angry because they can't get a man? Or are they vapid, appearance-obsessed sluts who just want to bone as many hot men as possible?

    A little consistency would be nice, dudes.

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  4. Maybe it was zombie Andrea Dworkin returned from the dead to take revenge on the men of the world. BECAUSE IT COULD TOTALLY HAPPEN!!!11!!

    (Not really.)

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  5. After what happened in Wisconsin today, anything can happen including Dworkin returning from the dead.

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  6. Elizabeth said...

    After what happened in Wisconsin today, anything can happen including Dworkin returning from the dead.


    Prosser's up by 7500 votes? Aw, fuck. Well, I thought it might be too good to be true.

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  7. david if you're still allowed to post on feministe sharing this with them might be good since troll king was in the season before last of FNTT.

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  8. they want to have their cake and eat it too, i.e. want the option to be as slutty as they want but also want the respect and social status that was never given to such women

    He says this like it's a bad thing that feminists want to get rid of slut-shaming. Of course women want to feel free to enjoy sex with whomever they choose without being made to feel dirty for it.

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  9. I know CB...not even bacon popcorn could make up for this.

    And that woman needs to be fired.

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  10. David, you are awesome beyond words.

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  11. You know, I had my doubts about feminism of the lipstick variety... but now I think it's awesome.

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  12. The troll seems to be mixing ideas that don't mesh well together. The notion that men are agressive/rape prone due to biology and the notion that they just need to learn about feminism are rather mutually exclusive. Essentialist and constructionist ideas are opposing theories, for the most part.

    On second thought, wtf am I doing trying to make a "you do not understand essentialism vs constructionism" argument against a troll. And, on that thought, how does one fail to guess someone might be a troll when the word "troll" is in the name?

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  13. There are feminist bloggers out there on the Internet who are indeed promiscuous. So why does Amanda Marcotte, who's in a stable monogamous relationship, keep garnering all the accusations of sluttiness?

    Could it be that MRAs are totally detached from reality? No, that's silly.

    I have sexes with many, many men. I luvs casual sexes with men.

    This reminds me of something, but I can't quite... oh yes...

    >> So, what kinda amps are you gonna be using?
    >> Ones dat makes my guitars louders, okay?
    >> How many guitars do you take on the road?
    >> A millions billions.
    >> How many extra strings do you take?
    >> Exactly how many packs, or how many strings by themselves?
    >> How many strings by themselves.
    >> Ones millions.

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  14. I luvs casual sexes with men.

    It's so true! I duz. I luvs them casual sexes. I also luvs them stable-in-a-relationship sexes. I'm also quite keen on the sexes with womens too. I also adores sexes with more than one person at once. I also luvs them sexes with just myself. I mean, fuck, what's not to like about any kind of consensual sexes?

    Crazy innit?

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  15. tri:

    Is that Toki from Dethklok? I love that show but can't watch it because I start to talk like Toki and can't shake it for *months*!!

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  16. Geez, the troll queen is Jar Jar Binks?

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  17. Apparently, he belives the feminists speak LOLspeak

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  18. He he sort of sounds like the Crocs in Pearls before Swine or Yoda on crack....
    How Gullible are the MRAS on there? Come on, not only is there troll in his name, No one, and I mean , no one in the real world talks like that!

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  19. "Spinster Whore: Behind the World's Best Band Name"

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  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  21. hahaha, at last this guy has a sense of humor....

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  22. I have sexes with many, many men. I luvs casual sexes with men.

    But we hates sexes with nassty Hobbitses!

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  23. "What followed was perhaps the worst impersonation of a feminist the world has seen since, well, Sarah Palin called herself one"

    What is it about Sarah Palin that makes her "not a feminist" despite considering herself to be one? I suppose that would first require you to define what you believe a feminist is. But upon doing that, what is it about her that gives you the authority to exclude her from being one? After all, if feminism was truly about equality, as some people claim, that would then INCLUDE her and her differences.

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  24. “I wish MRAs would make up their minds. Are feminists ugly, hairy-legged dykes who are just angry because they can't get a man? Or are they vapid, appearance-obsessed sluts who just want to bone as many hot men as possible?

    A little consistency would be nice, dudes.”

    You are joking, right? Men and women are not factory made. We don’t all come out with exactly the same mentality, and thus, cannot be expected to all think alike. Just as there are many different views within the feminist ideology (gender feminists, radical feminist, conservative feminists, socialist feminists, etc etc etc), people in the MRM also tend to have differing opinions on things (not that I actually believe these people David keeps linking to are MRA’s. after all, I may be posting on this feminist mangina site, but I am in no way a feminist mangina). If you want to judge how inconsistent the MRM is, I suggest you first clean up your own house.

    “The notion that men are agressive/rape prone due to biology and the notion that they just need to learn about feminism are rather mutually exclusive.”

    But that is what much of the rape culture attacks on men are built on… IE, “you are all rapists, so you need to learn not to be rapists and respect women, here, let me teach you about feminism so you won’t want to rape anymore”. Killmartin, Josh Jasper and even Bidden are all like this. As for them being opposing idea’s, I sugest you speak with iodineShuffle about consistency.

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  25. What is it about Sarah Palin that makes her "not a feminist" despite considering herself to be one? I suppose that would first require you to define what you believe a feminist is.

    The fact that you're ignorant of the various feminist self-definitions doesn't mean they don't exist. I don't tend to quibble about them anyway.

    But you can talk about equality all day long; a line still has to be drawn somewhere. If I say I'm a civil rights supporter, but oh hey, I also don't think black people should be able to vote, people have a right to call me on my bullshit. Sarah Palin can call herself a feminist, but her policies are harmful to women. The fact that she doesn't think women should be locked away in the attic just doesn't cut it. She's fighting for the status quo (at best; at worst she's positively regressive), and nobody who supports the status quo is a real feminist.

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  26. But that is what much of the rape culture attacks on men are built on… IE, “you are all rapists, so you need to learn not to be rapists and respect women, here, let me teach you about feminism so you won’t want to rape anymore”

    Completely wrong. "Rape culture" is about the ways that our culture tacitly excuses rape because the threat of rape is useful as a tool of social control. Most feminists don't think that men are inherently prone to rape. The vast majority of men don't rape, after all. But the minority of men who do rape get away with it far more often than not, and that's because, depending on the social statuses of the rapist and the victim, the patriarchy benefits from it.

    Mainstream feminism doesn't blame men for having male genes. But if you actively defend the male power structure in our culture, you deserve criticism.

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  27. Here's a simple test for telling whether a woman is a feminist: imagine a man saying and doing the same things she does. If you wouldn't call him a feminist, then you can't call her one.

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  28. @Kratch, I second tri's statement, but want to point out that even if your version were correct, it is a fairly constructionist version. "Our culture turns all men into rapists, you must re-train them" would be a contructionist statement. "Men are rapists by their very nature. They want to rape because of man hormones. We must seperate ourselves from them." Is an essentialist view. Thinking something is a purely biology caused ill is mutually exclusive with thinking something is an ill caused purely by social systems. Granted, there is a "middle ground" position where one assumes that certain groups are biologically prone to activity that is in part deterable, but note that this view would also not support the idea that learning new social systems would easily eradicate the problem. Essentialism vs Constructionalism is something you do not seem to understand.

    On Palin, I will give you an old joke attributed to Abraham Lincoln:

    "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?"

    Answer: "Four, calling the tail a leg doesn't make it one."

    Calling Palin a feminist does not make her one. A feminist is someone who holds a certain set of beliefs and positions, even you seem to know this when you state that feminists are "all about equality". So, see how as Palin is not "all about equality" she is not a feminist by your own definition? " what is it about her that gives you the authority to exclude her from being one" I am not excluding her, she is excluding herself by not actually holding the beliefs and positions that define the term. Palin is the one keeping Palin from being a feminist, not actual feminists. Actual feminists are simply disputing her right to use the word while she is not actually engaging in feminism. She only gets to stop calling herself a tail when she stops being a tail.

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  29. Darkside. You are making the mistake in believing that the idea that "all men are inherently rapists and thus must be trained from the crib not to rape", it is in fact the message behind many rape culture attacks on men, including Jaspers PSA with the little baby, and the various college orientations that are mandatory for male only students, that discuss how it is wrong to rape. You can tell me all you want how the idea's are mutually exclusive, that doesn't change the fact that feminist men, such as Jasper, Kilmartin and Bidden) are making these arguments, not me. I'm very much opposed to such attacks on men.

    "even you seem to know this when you state that feminists are "all about equality""

    First of all, I didn't acknowledge feminism as being about equality, in fact I questioned the very idea based on the intentional exclusion of Palin, simply for having a somewhat differing viewpoint. I know for a fact that feminism isn't about equality, and I very much doubt it ever was. the fact that people like dworkin, mcKinnon, Valenti, Harman and Kellett (not a one of which seeks equality, only female empowerment) are acknowledged as feminists (radical or otherwise), proves this. Feminism cannot be about equality when those prominent within it (or even just a faction of it) do not believe in equality themselves.

    As to Palin not believing in equality, I've seen nothing of the sort. In fact, I believe she has demonstrated MORE openness to equality then most feminists, as she embraces the idea that a woman who wants to be a homemaker should be celebrated for the choice. Seems to me, that if anything, she is hated by feminists because she doesn't seek female supremacy, she respects men and seeks to live in balance with them. I suppose to a feminist, that is a truly terrifying opponent to have in her position.

    And with that said, I still note not a single person has actually defined feminism (truth told, I don't expect this to happen because I don't think anyone actually knows what feminism is, except to themselves personally. I do not believe there is a defining feature to feminism, except female (ONLY) empowerment, that can be agreed upon by all feminists.), in order to demonstrate that she fails to live up to that definition. You simply claim she fails to live up to the definition you never gave, and expect that to be enough.

    As for TriP. he has demonstrated, in past encounters, that he is incapable of rational debate, he is only capable of making personal attacks. Even here, the 4-5th words written are calling me ignorant. So I tend to ignore his comments. I would strongly request/recommend further discussion doesn't require me to acknowledge him.

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  30. In fact, I believe she has demonstrated MORE openness to equality then most feminists, as she embraces the idea that a woman who wants to be a homemaker should be celebrated for the choice.

    *sigh*

    We've corrected your straw feminism many, many times on this site, Kratch. It's pretty clear you're going to believe what you want to believe, regardless of reality.

    Nevertheless, I'll point out once again that feminists fully support the right of a woman to choose to be a homemaker. What patriarchal people do is claim that being a homemaker is the natural calling for a woman. That's not "celebrating," that's "oppressing."

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  31. And with that said, I still note not a single person has actually defined feminism

    I'm sorry you're too lazy to do a two-second Google search. Here, let me do that for you:

    Feminism refers to an assortment of social movements that try to define, establish and defend political, economic, and social equality for women, to ensure that women have equal opportunities and rights within society.
    That's from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism

    I would strongly request/recommend further discussion doesn't require me to acknowledge him.

    You're already not required to acknowledge me. This isn't a structured debate.

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  32. I could give a fuck whether Sarah Palin thinks women who stay home to raise children should be celebrated or whatever. I call her a non-feminist because she actively supports policies that would make it more difficult for women to make the choice. Also because she thinks rape victims should pay to have the evidence of their assault collected and processed. It's like charging a robbery victim money to go to his house, take photos, and dust for prints. Not something that would occur to you to do, unless you have oppressive ideas about how women should be behaving, particularly WRT sex.

    Palin fails as a feminist not because of her particular beliefs, but because she assigns a huge, unavoidable SHOULD to her beliefs. She not only believes that abortion is wrong, she believes that all women SHOULD agree with her. Not only does she believe that staying home to raise children is an awesome choice, she thinks it's a choice all women SHOULD make. She certainly doesn't seem interested in celebrating the contributions childless women make to society.

    Me, I don't think that staying home to raise children for 20 years would be very fulfilling, but I'm not out advocating for government policies to make it more difficult for women who want to stay home to do so. If anything, I'd like to make it EASIER on them. Because it's all about choices.

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  33. Thank you Sally for answering my (primary) question instead of just attacking me for simply asking it, like others did. I was starting to believe that Palin really wasn't deserving of being ousted from the sisterhood.

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  34. Tisk Tisk people, I just found this article about me, because this site sucks and I rarely read it or follow it but that is going to change, and already you are not talking about me but instead about sarah fuckin palin...who is a feminist BTW...I saw her on Gretas show on faux and they were talking about feminism and women's converage in the media and feminist shit like that.

    Now, to clear some things up. FeministTrollQueen was me Clifforing the cliffors on r/mensrights and having some fun. I meta-trolled manboobz and you feminists.

    I gotta say, I have been laughing for a good 30 minutes reading through this blog post and comments.

    To clear some things up. I am a MRA. My mother is a feminist who used to sit on a local board of NOW and I have even met one of the presidents(not gonna say which one) as a boy before she became president of NOW. I used to call myself a feminist when I was a stupid teen who hadn't read through feminist literature but simply regurgitated the oft spoken catchphrases like, "feminism means that women are people too!" What the fuck would women be? Aliens?

    Which is odd, I only found this post about me when I saw AFPM Techs article on reptillian aliens which has been cliffored around reddit due to a stupid joke I make awhile back on the spearhead...spooky.

    Anyways, you won't convince me that you feminists are anything but evil. I have read through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd wave feminist crap and seen way too much of it in school. I even had a mother who distanced herself from the movement because it got too radical for her. This same mother deconstructed my masculine personality and tried to make me wear womens clothes and wouldn't allow me to do things like play sports because it, "would turn me into a patriarchal oppressor." I actually like feminism though, I think it is a freeing force for men and the more boys raised by feminist mothers means more boys that will grow up to become MRAs/MGTOWs/PUAS.

    Oh, and I call myself a troll because I have tried debated feminists, even that stupid bitch at hooking up smart, many times in good faith and got called a troll...so I figured I should own the lable.

    I do think I will bring feministtrollqueen back again, this time not as a one off though and I will do a much more nuanced imporsonation of feminism and the ideological double binds and constuction of femininity and the deconstruction and following feminist construction of masculinity.

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  35. OK sally, I will place myself into this argument and agree with you.

    Sarah Palin isn't a feminist because feminism is about choice for women. Does this choice extend to men too?

    To be clear. Feminism was about expanding the choices women had in society and allowing them to be liberated from their societally assigned role. These roles, loosely speaking, were domestic roles or burdens. They had to do with house cleaning and child raising and so on.

    These roles were, from my understanding, born out of a dualistic system where women were assigned the home front to look after while men were assigned the political/economic sphere...

    SO, should men have the choice to not provide financially for their children? Remember, the traditional male role is one of provider/protector. This is why men went to war and still sign up for the draft. This is why alimony even exists in the first place, it was a man's responsibility to pay for the woman and children first and then himself second.

    Today, women have liberated themselves from their roles while men are still expected to play by their traditional roles or in many cases, as with most feminists, expected to take on the feminine and some times even the feminine and masculine roles.

    How does CS or Alimony make sense when women make as much or more than men, and even if they don't they still have primary custody and still have the means to work to provide for themselve and THEIR children.

    Now I know many will say that CS is for the child, and I know that isn't usually or always true, but then the question becomes why make the particular man pay? Why not subsidize the CS from taxes instead of individual men. The government pays it out anyways and then puts interest and charges on it and then collects it from the man and if he can't pay he is sent to prison work camps where he will make chairs and other shit for 16 cents per hour.

    Anyways, the point is that the natural rights of fathers have been severed at the bequest of feminists and traditional conservative women but the economic or resource based elements still stand. To put it simply, men have no right of custody or the ability to father and protect their children today but are still forced by society to burden the responsibility of being work horses and pay for...the opportunity to baby sit their own children every other weekend?

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