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Grace Jones will kick your bumper sticker's ass. |
One of the quickest and easiest ways to make yourself look like a complete idiot is to festoon your car with an assortment of bumper stickers – preferably stickers that are belligerent, incoherent, and “funny.” (By “funny,” of course, I mean “funny only to people who share all of your social, cultural and political beliefs, and probably not even then.”)
Alas, the Men Going Their Own Way movement doesn’t have any bumper stickers of its own. Oh, sure, there are a vast variety of just plain sexist bumper stickers out there
(“If I wanted a bitch, I’d buy a dog”), and you can even buy
“I HEART misogyny” stickers on Cafepress. but there’s not much out that deals with the specific stupid concerns of the MGTOW crowd.
The good fellows on MGTOWforums.com want to change all that. Recently a batch of them began brainstorming about possible slogans for MGTOW bumper stickers. Womanhater
started the discussion off with a doozy, managing to be both belligerent
AND baffling to anyone who hasn’t already taken a sip of the MGTOW Kool-Aid:
Chivalry is Treason!
A promising start. Not all the suggestions that followed quite lived up to this standard. Quite a few were earnest and plodding, not very slogan-y:
When Was the Last Time You Treated a Man Fairly?
Single moms should stay single.
Some men live happy fulfilling lives, the rest get married.
Women and happiness don't go together.
Still, some of the more earnest attempts managed to be attention-grabbing nonetheless:
I don't believe any accusation of rape
Many others simply rehashed basic MGTOW themes:
We Are Men, Not Wallets
Marriage is for morons
Alimony is Slavery
But a number of the suggestions contained the spark of creative loopiness that keeps me coming back to the MGTOW forums again and again. Take, for example, the surprisingly large number that managed to work vaginas into the equation, generally in a highly off-putting manner:
Give women the finger and not in a good way
Excuse me, is that fish I smell?
Two holes don't make a right
This last one, while not without its charms, is a little puzzling. If you do the math correctly, women have seven holes, and men have six (or seven, if you include one very small hole). Up to three of these lady-holes (and up to two for men) may come into play in the course of routine sexual activity. (More advanced fetishists may use more holes, as
this somewhat NSFW video illustrates; don't worry, it's not a link to a video of someone putting something in a man's seventh hole, because, OW!) I'm not entirely sure which two holes our sloganeer is fingering as the villains here.
Quite a few of the suggestions seemed almost designed to baffle everyone outside the confines of MGTOWforums.com (and even some within it):
Don't blame me for 1920
Hammurabi was correct about women
Listen to Cato the Elder
For those playing along at home,
1920 was of course the year in which matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks married actress
Mary Pickford, known as "America's Sweetheart," even though she was Canadian; it was also the year in which construction began on the Holland Tunnel between New York and New Jersey, thus setting the stage for the horror later known as the “bridge and tunnel crowd.” But I’m guessing the event our sloganeer is really concerned about is the passage of the 19
th Amendment, giving American women the vote, though, unless our sloganeer is quite elderly indeed, I’m not quite sure why anyone would be blaming (or crediting) him for the Amendment’s passage.
As for the other two, well, the Code of
Hammurabi, the first king of the Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC, “mark[ed] the beginning of the institutionalization of the patriarchal family as an aspect of state power,” as historian Gerda Lerner
notes. Hammy (as I like to call him) also invented the idea of “an eye for an eye.” And Cato the Elder? He said some nasty shit about women.You can look it up yourself. I'm lazy.
Other slogans weren’t so much obscure as just plain odd:
If the FDA screened pussy, you'd need a prescription to get it.
I'd rather have guns than gals.
A cow in the bed...but a freak in the courtroom!
And then there was this little riddle:
Q)Why don't women respect men?
A)Becoz a Mousetrap laughs at the Mouse
Uh, what?
Of all the proposed slogans, only one actually showed any real wit, this punny little contribution from Apeiron:
Better dead than wed.
Indeed, this one was so good I suspected it had to have been used somewhere before. And indeed it has been. A quick Google search showed that the UK anarchist group
Class War used the phrase back in the 1980s on a poster protesting the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson. Of course, that temporarily happy couple ended up separating after only six years, and divorced a few years after that.
Maybe slogans
can change the world.
Scary thought.
Despite that risk, I would like to encourage the MGTOWers to make up some stickers of their own. Maybe some t-shirts, coffee mugs, and baseball caps as well. Heck, put these slogans on everything you own. Seriously, anything that makes it easier to identify you, preferably at a distance, is more than welcome.
--
If you enjoyed this post, would you kindly* use the "Share This" or one of the other buttons below to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or wherever else you want. I appreciate it.
*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.
Ooh! I'll help!
ReplyDeleteMGTOW is pretty cool guy, eh hates women and doesn't afraid of anything.
All your sexbots are belong to us.
Y u no like beta males?
The cake is a lie. And by cake, we mean feminism.
Play on a classic?
ReplyDeleteI'm with Nobody.
I like the Y u no like one.
ReplyDeleteWatching the NSFW video with YouTube's 1911 filter on was an amazing experience.
ReplyDeleteBut, please remember, the MGTOW movement is in no way misogynistic. Anyone who thinks so is a low IQ feminist ideologue with poor reading comprehension. Or something.
ReplyDeleteDavid
ReplyDeleteThe more I read your stuff the more I realize you are like that kid down the street who would poke the angry dog with a stick. You never wondered why it was so angry you just wanted to watch it bite. I bet money many of the angry men in the MRM didnt have very good fathers or mothers. I get the sense you didnt either. The sad truth about hate is that we all have our ways of expressing it, I just figured out what yours is.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletelulz.
ReplyDelete"I don't like what you say. You must have daddy issues."
Seriously, I'm always appreciative of men who are decent enough to wear their misogyny on their shirt - it lets me spot them at a distance, rather than having to waste time talking to them first.
ReplyDeleteAnd, hey, since the MGTOW crowd hates women so much, they should be thrilled with the idea of wearing shirts which are basically Danger: Keep Away signs for women.
Never heard of a laughing mousetrap. I did patent a mousetrap that, when triggered, played an audio-cassette version of The Bell Jar. The idea was that the mice would become so depressed that they would hang themselves with the supplied noose affixed to the rear of the structure.
ReplyDeleteThe more I read your stuff the more I realize you are like that kid down the street who would poke the angry dog with a stick. You never wondered why it was so angry you just wanted to watch it bite. I bet money many of the angry men in the MRM didnt have very good fathers or mothers. I get the sense you didnt either. The sad truth about hate is that we all have our ways of expressing it, I just figured out what yours is.
ReplyDeleteTo say that MRA's are angry because they didn't have good parents is facile. There may be multiple reasons they are angry, which include but are not limited to:
1. They see the erosion of men's historic privilege as an assault on their "rights" -- the "right" to use women as incubators and, at best, valued accessories, the "right" to be treated as the default sex, the "right" to control public discourse, and the "right" to enjoy jobs and opportunities solely on the basis of their sex without anyone acknowledging the bias.
2. They've been through romantic and professional failures, and they just can't bring themselves to assume ANY responsibility for anything that ever went wrong in their lives. It's never their fault, you know.
3. They just have hateful personalities, and women represent a convenient target.
4. They's constructed an elaborate excuse for why they haven't been able to compose the world's greatest opera or colonize outer space.
5. They've been raised with a sense of entitlement, where they see every job, every educational opportunity and every social or political benefit (such as voting) as belonging to men by default, with women as trespassers.
6. They are mentally ill.
The call for tolerance is often made in support of bigotry. Well, Tit-for-Tat, some things are just indefensible. Look at the quoted statements again, reread them. Imagine if that was said about, I don't know, Jews, and someone like you called for tolerance for anti-semites and greater understanding of their (supposedly legitimate) anger. By the way: I found certain posts on your blog to be EXTREMELY dismissive of women's concerns and grievances, particularly in the area of reproduction and divorce. For example, the advocacy that women should be financially penalized for abortion with no corresponding proposal that men should be financially penalized for delaying reproduction. If you are so concerned about treating those whose ideas we despise "fairly" by not criticizing them and instead attempting some sort of understanding, perhaps you should set an example. Just sayin'.
All your bogus rape stats are belong to us.
ReplyDeleteAll your bogus DV stats are belong to us.
Amused
ReplyDeleteWould you agree that a certain percentage of the Feminist's that post in various blogs are hateful bigots also?
johnnykaje: I love you. Please bear my offspring.
ReplyDeleteMousetrap vagina? That one sounds familiar. Is it a meme by this point over there?
ReplyDeleteI must say, I "liked" the "Chivalry is treason" one, because I have been reading a queer carribean anthology that has a particularly excellent piece on "gendered call to patriotic duty", a principle demonstrated so well by that bit of silliness.
Oh, and the nose thing was a bit disappointing. If that is an experienced fetishist, I suppose someone like me whose mind immediately jumped to sounding (and automatically mentally responded to the "Ow" with "sometimes "ow" is the point")has a PhD in polymorphous perversion by this point.
I'm thinking that the hole comment may be in reference to lesbians and therefore feminists? Maybe?
ReplyDeleteAre bumper stickers a big US thing? Up here (Toronto), you might see the occasional car with one or two stickers, but I remember when I went to Kentucky for my cousin's wedding they were all over the place. And way more oertly political than the ones I'm familiar with, which are more likely to advertise what school your kid is in or that you are a proud union member.
ReplyDeleteOzy- Aw, shucks. :)
ReplyDeleteDo you mind if we just settle for some tropical fish though?
Sam- I think it's just because we think that everyone is interested in our opinions, no matter how vacuous or condensed they may be or how inappropriate the situation.
Oddly enough people studying road rage say it is because we view the space our cars take up as our territory and that one of the top signs a person will road rage is bumper stickers.
ReplyDeleteJohnnyKaje, not a noose. A tiny little oven, just big enough for a mouse to stick his/her head into it.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, thanks for that link! Somehow I'm not surprised by those findings.
ReplyDeleteJust lets you know, beware of the grannies with church stickers on their cars.
ReplyDeleteJohnnyKaje, not a noose. A tiny little oven, just big enough for a mouse to stick his/her head into it.
ReplyDeleteToo soon, David. Too soon.
Amused
ReplyDeleteYou inspired my latest post. ;)
Would you agree that a certain percentage of the Feminist's that post in various blogs are hateful bigots also?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I periodically see postings by self-professed feminists with which I do not agree, I have never encountered nearly the degree of fabrication, lies, and pure hatred that's dripping from MRA's and MGTOW's. So no, the fact that you found some feminist's comment distasteful doesn't make it okay for you to hypocritically claim that equality presumes a man's ownership of "his" woman's uterus.
Amused
You inspired my latest post. ;)
Oh, you mean, the post by which you insinuate that I am a bonbon-eating housewife who is working a man to death to pay for my luxuries? *Shrug* In that case, you inspired my latest conclusion that you are a typical rapist and abuser. Tit for tat -- right? ;)
Nonetheless, your supposedly "clever" observation that vicious woman-bashing is comfortably entrenched in mainstream culture, in songs, books and movies that aren't even considered controversial only proves my point: that MRA's are a bunch of hypocrites to get worked up over two or three sitcoms that don't sufficiently idealize men and a comment by a fictional character in a book which almost no one reads. Also, as long as you continue, in the classic MRA fashion, to present misogyny as evidence that women are evil at the same time that you present misandry as ALSO evidence that women are evil, I suspect probably none of us are going to take your thoughts about equality seriously. Start applying the same standard across the board -- then perhaps I'll listen.
"To say that MRA's are angry because they didn't have good parents is facile."
ReplyDeleteMy folks were OK.
Feminists are liars and the men who take up for them are obviously just trying to impress them.
Feminists are liars and the men who take up for them are obviously just trying to impress them.
ReplyDeleteIf that were my sole motivation, it wouldn't be worth the effort, given that a majority of women are not feminists.
Wow. One of them actually has the handle Womanhater ...
ReplyDelete...
...
...
:still stunned:
Tit for Tat
ReplyDeleteThe issue is women have started realising that the increase in the size of the middle class means that there is more to life than "lifting heavy weights".
Women are losing rights, quite regularly. The pro-life movement forces women to bear children who they don't want or cannot care for or are just plain cruel to the ensuing child. Women are routinely abused throughout the world. And despite your statements on your blog about spousal abuse. The majority of abuse is aimed at women.
One in Three women worldwide are physically abused or raped at some point in their life.
Men are not. The abuse is completely one sided. So knock it the hell off. If you really believe men are superior to women then "take it like a man".
"If that were my sole motivation, it wouldn't be worth the effort, given that a majority of women are not feminists."
ReplyDeleteThat's cuz you don't stand a chance with the majority of women.
That's cuz you don't stand a chance with the majority of women.
ReplyDeleteHas it occurred to you that I don't view dating as some kind of ritualized mating dance designed to attract any woman I can? There's a limited range of women I'm interested in. MRAs sometimes moan about how man can't afford to have high standards or some shit like that. It's not true. I have high standards. And the small percentage of women who interest me tend to appreciate the interest.
In short, I get laid.
One in Three women worldwide are physically abused or raped at some point in their life(Avi)
ReplyDeleteYoure right on this stat. For men its one in six. Were you one of the three? I will tell you this, I was one of the six.
Start applying the same standard across the board -- then perhaps I'll listen.(Amused)
ReplyDeleteI have, on some of the MRA sites. You see, I am not entrenched in either side. I actually think both sides have some words of wisdom and some nut cases. The video was tongue in cheek, my wife and I were both laughing when we heard it. Sorry for the cheap attempt at humour. ;)
If it makes you feel better, I laughed at the woman kicking the man in the balls on the Big Bang Theory on Thursday. Even my daughter thought it was really funny, though when I pointed out that not many would be laughing if it was a woman being kicked by a man in the crotch, her laugh was a little more subdued.
You see, I am not entrenched in either side.
ReplyDeleteSo what? This isn't a tribal turf war. This is a battle against bigotry, and you display the same bigotry as any given MRA. I don't care if you call yourself one or not.
If it makes you feel better, I laughed at the woman kicking the man in the balls on the Big Bang Theory on Thursday.
...Why would it make anyone feel better? Feminists aren't a bunch of man-haters who want to go around kicking men in the nuts. Certain men, perhaps.
Even my daughter thought it was really funny, though when I pointed out that not many would be laughing if it was a woman being kicked by a man in the crotch, her laugh was a little more subdued.
Oh dear, men are so oppressed.
Youre right on this stat. For men its one in six. Were you one of the three? I will tell you this, I was one of the six.
ReplyDeleteI realize that you were not specifically addressing me, but I'll respond. Yes, I was one of the three, and I was both physically abused and raped (not by the same person), so does that give bonus points?
MRAs want men to be recognized as both the majority of DV victims, at the hands of female perpetrators, AND the undisputed superiors of women who should remain forever subjugated to men, serving and servicing them, due to men's unique ability to protect women.
Hey, I'm all for men drawing attention to the need for DV shelters, etc., to protect men, creating said shelters, lobbying for funding for said shelters, etc. But don't be waving the "But men are the real but invisible victims of DV" flag in one hand and the "Men are superior to you women cuz we're stronger than you" flag in the other hand.
Oh dear, men are so oppressed.(Trip or should I say Stephen)
ReplyDeleteSome are. Oppression isnt about gender.
MRAs want men to be recognized as both the majority of DV victims,(Pam)
I would agree that the extremist's try to make this point. Not all MRA's are extremist's. I have read some stuff from some pretty level headed men. They make some very points. Unfortunately they sometimes get drowned out by the nasty, noisy ones.
Oops, I meant..."good points"
ReplyDeleteFeminists aren't a bunch of man-haters who want to go around kicking men in the nuts. Certain men, perhaps(Trip)
ReplyDeleteAh, I missed this the first time. I guess I didnt feel threatened by your subtle threat. ;)
tit for tat, I am one of those three. I was physically abused at the hands of my mother's second husband, emotionally abused by her third, and sexually abused by her fourth. The physical abuse then continued at the hands of the guy who my mother arranged my marriage to. I broke it off with him when he beat me so badly with a baseball bat that I was in the hospital for two months. After I got out of the hospital I endured four years of my mother emotionally abusing me and telling me I was too fat (at a whole whopping 110 lbs), telling me that I was going to end up an old maid angry and alone, that everything I did was not good enough because I didn't have a man by my side, and that she wanted nothing more than to kill me.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that someone abused you. I really really am. Just don't assume that none of us know what it feels like to go through that because there are quite a few of us who do
Tit for Tat: "If it makes you feel better, I laughed at the woman kicking the man in the balls on the Big Bang Theory on Thursday."
ReplyDeleteVery little could show a greater misunderstanding of feminism than the above statement. You know who finds genital violence hilarious? Todd Phillips, Judd Apatow, and the millions of (generally non-feminist) people who see their dudebro movies. Feminists are people who have actually thought about this shit, and most of us--the ones I generally run into on the internet, anyway--find genital violence about as funny as rape jokes. (And please, no humorless-feminist comments. Just because shit ain't funny doesn't mean I don't get it.)
Presumably you've been checking out the online feminist world. It's amazing that you've come away with the idea that feminists would appreciate the fact that you laugh at depictions of violence being perpetrated on men.
Oh, and to make a comment that's actually on topic. Re. MRA slogans: What's wrong with We Hunted the Mammoth to Feed You?
ReplyDeleteReclaim the mammoth!
It's amazing that you've come away with the idea that feminists would appreciate the fact that you laugh at depictions of violence being perpetrated on men.(Bee)
ReplyDeleteNot all feminists are created equal. Just like not all MRA's are. Some still laugh at that stuff. I just find it interesting that you classify all MRA's the same. Hmmm, makes you wonder why the MRA's classify all feminists the same.
I was physically abused at the hands of my mother's second husband, emotionally abused by her third, and sexually abused by her fourth. The physical abuse then continued at the hands of the guy who my mother arranged my marriage to.(Briget)
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for your pain and suffering also. I think all those men should be held accountable. I wonder though, have you forgiven your mother for continually putting you in those situations?
not that it really matters to anything we are talking about but my mom and I are trying to work things out because I want to make sure that what happened to me doesn't happen to my brother and sister who are ten and thirteen years younger than I am. My mom is in therapy to deal with her problems. I do not go to her house, but I do call and we can occasionally have an argument free conversation like normal people. Have I forgiven her for what she sat by and allowed to happen, I ask in return how am I supposed to forgive something which forgiveness has not been sought for? She won't accept that emotional abuse is real, and she refuses to come to terms with the fact that her husband raped me. I can't forgive her for things that she won't accept happened.
ReplyDeleteTit for Tat: I just find it interesting that you classify all MRA's the same.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think I do?
Briget
ReplyDeleteActually I believe that when we look at all aspects of abuse and causes we will truly get to the heart of the matter. Without a doubt(I believe) men are more physically violent. One thing I think we have to ask ourselves is, how did they get that way, and who is accountable for this. Until we look at the responsibility of both genders in this we will continue ignore the fact that it takes 2 to dance the dance.
Bee
ReplyDeleteDid I misinterpret this?
Oh, and to make a comment that's actually on topic. Re. MRA slogans: What's wrong with We Hunted the Mammoth to Feed You?
Reclaim the mammoth!(Bee)
Tit for Tat: Did I misinterpret this?
ReplyDeleteApparently you did.
Bee
ReplyDeleteOk, well, it wouldnt be the first time. :)
People still BUY dogs?
ReplyDelete"Without a doubt(I believe) men are more physically violent. One thing I think we have to ask ourselves is, how did they get that way, and who is accountable for this." Accepting your premise, that men are more physically (does sexually lump in there) violent, then men are most responsible for physical and sexual violence. Don't victim blame. It does not take "two to dance" and how dare you say that in a discussion where the previous posts were about rape and abuse of a child. Abuse is the fault of the abuser, period. No one, but especially no child, deserves abuse. Go fuck yourself, tit for tat.
ReplyDeleteOh really, and the adult woman has no accountability in exposing her child to the same abusive situation over and over. Reminds me of the person who drives drunk and then claims they have a disease and its not their fault. Oh yeah, she's a victim, right? We're not talking child accountability, but you know that. Im glad my daughter knows that difference, seems you didnt learn that lesson.
ReplyDeleteA day in the life of tit for tat...
ReplyDeleteMan does something bad.
tit for tat frantically searches for the nearest woman to the situation to blame.
Is it really that hard of a fucking concept that people who do acts of violence are responsible and accountable for their acts of violence? People who negligently sit by are blameworty as well, but let us not forget men are grown ass fucking humans capable of being responsible for their actions with or without any woman around for you to point the finger at.
Maybe this is not what is under discussion right now, but re. abusers/responsibility: I work with victims, and I also have done some work with inmates. Not to take this conversation too far astray, but when I read Tit for Tat's comment, I was thinking about the fact that almost all of the inmates I've met are themselves victims of abuse. Violence and a lack of empathy (usually) don't come from nowhere.
ReplyDeleteHowever, a lot of the time, when this idea pops up on MRM sites, it translates into the idea that all mothers are awful people who abuse and neglect their children, and all people who commit violence do so because of problems stemming from an abusive mother. It's true that not every mother is an ideal mother, but many of those inmates I'm talking about were abused by male relatives. But I kind of hate to even note that, because it comes off as finger-pointing. Frankly, my concern is not that one sex is more prone to violence, but that violence is a cycle.
In short, I think you're both right, generally. Adults are responsible for their own actions, good and bad, but violence generally starts somewhere.
Without a doubt(I believe) men are more physically violent. One thing I think we have to ask ourselves is, how did they get that way, and who is accountable for this. Until we look at the responsibility of both genders in this we will continue ignore the fact that it takes 2 to dance the dance.
ReplyDeleteI love how you used briget's personal experience with abuse as a self-serving springboard to apologize for abusive men, you disgusting maggot.
I've seen this whole "hmm well we have to look at the responsibility of both parties" bullshit used to attempt to soften the crimes of male abusers many, many times, so I'm not buying your shtick.
It's not like I think women are perfect. Briget's experience is eerily similar to an ex-girlfriend's of mine, who was raped and abused by multiple of her mother's husbands. I think her mother was an awful, awful person. I feel nothing but loathing and contempt for her mother for being too self-centered to even admit that this was happening to her own daughter.
ReplyDeleteBut that doesn't make her responsible EVEN PARTLY for any given act of rape. She's responsible for choosing terrible husbands, certainly. She's responsible for looking the other way. But those men were rapists and abusers. They'll rape and abuse whether or not that particular woman marries them. No woman pushed them to do what they did.
So women who abuse men are to be held responsible for that abuse. And women who raise men in such a way that they become abusive are also to be held responsible for that abuse. And women who are partnered with an abuser are responsible for abuse that targets other people, too.
ReplyDeleteTell me again when and where the men have to take responsibility for their abusive behavior?
I mean, if I'm an abusive asshole to my boyfriend, can I blame my father? If a man can blame his mother for turning him into an abuser, surely it works the other way round?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTrip
ReplyDeleteYou sure do like throw insults at me and others. I get this sense you have a lot of unresolved anger(you sure youre not an MRA). My wife says that is usually a sign someone is very sad. I hope you feel better soon.
Bee
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your last comment.
I mean, if I'm an abusive asshole to my boyfriend, can I blame my father? If a man can blame his mother for turning him into an abuser, surely it works the other way round?(Lady vic)
ReplyDeleteIf your father continually put you in harms way he should definately be held accountable. Afterall you were a child, wasnt it his responsibility to protect you?
However, a lot of the time, when this idea pops up on MRM sites, it translates into the idea that all mothers are awful people who abuse and neglect their children, and all people who commit violence do so because of problems stemming from an abusive mother. It's true that not every mother is an ideal mother, but many of those inmates I'm talking about were abused by male relatives.
ReplyDeleteI have also read on some MRM sites (and not to say that ALL MRAs or FRAs have said this) the blatant lie that if abuse occurs at the hands of a male relative, that relative would NEVER be the biological father. So yet again, the "finger-pointing" is directed back at the mother, specifically those mothers who are the custodial parents not partnered with the biological father.
In one of the occupations I have had during my lifetime, I have dealt with fathers who had abused (sexual and/or otherwise) their biological children, and the admittance came from their own lips, not from the mother "falsely" accusing them.
Trip said : I think her mother was an awful, awful person. I feel nothing but loathing and contempt for her mother for being too self-centered to even admit that this was happening to her own daughter.
ReplyDeleteBut that doesn't make her responsible EVEN PARTLY for any given act of rape. She's responsible for choosing terrible husbands, certainly. She's responsible for looking the other way. But those men were rapists and abusers. They'll rape and abuse whether or not that particular woman marries them. No woman pushed them to do what they did.
If she has no responsibility then why is she an awful person? I find this to be a contradiction.
Tit for Tat: I have, on some of the MRA sites. You see, I am not entrenched in either side. I actually think both sides have some words of wisdom and some nut cases. The video was tongue in cheek, my wife and I were both laughing when we heard it. Sorry for the cheap attempt at humour. ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's alright, but I hope you realize your wife doesn't necessarily speak for me. I started working before I was a teenager and carried huge responsibilities at home from an early age. I've always worked my ass off and never had a man support me. That's true also of my mother, my grandmothers and my great-grandmothers (the latter were peasants who worked back-breaking labor from sun up to sun down, with no weekends or vacations). So a "hint" directed at me in the form of a song about a woman who does nothing all day and works a man to death for her luxuries does not refer to any reality that I'm familiar with -- but it sure evokes a familiar, ugly stereotype that reminds me that misogyny is alive and well, as I previously described. One of its most blatant manifestations, found all over MRA sites and certainly in the comments of this site, is that women's labor is thankless, unvalued and unrecognized. Well, sure, you might say you value and recognize your wife's labor -- but that does not stop you from presuming that a woman who is a stranger is a useless waste of space. And that is just as unfair and bigoted as if every man was presumed to be a rapist and an abuser.
If it makes you feel better, I laughed at the woman kicking the man in the balls on the Big Bang Theory on Thursday.
It doesn't, because it's irrelevant. There is no getting around the fact that violence is often set up to be funny in movies and sitcoms, and people can't help laughing at it. But it has nothing to do with your presumption that I discussed above.
Even my daughter thought it was really funny, though when I pointed out that not many would be laughing if it was a woman being kicked by a man in the crotch, her laugh was a little more subdued.
Well, yeah, this one gets dragged out a lot by MRA's, so let's addressed it. The difference between the portrayal of a man getting kicked in the crotch versus a woman being kicked in the crotch is IRONY. In our culture, not only are men perceived as the aggressor sex, but male genitalia itself symbolizes power, success, domination and aggression. Did you know that the Medici family had an image of balls on their crest? And yes, those balls symbolized the Medicis' cannonball-sized balls. Quite simply, balls=power and penis=aggression, so when that part of the male anatomy is revealed to be, in fact, extremely vulnerable, this is ironic and that's why it's funny. By contrast, female genitalia is associated with submission, subjugation, helplessness, degradation and lack of agency. An image of a woman being hit in the crotch or raped isn't funny because it lacks irony -- it's a representation that's consistent with how women are perceived. Balls are supposed to be invincible, so when a single swift kick proves they aren't, and are shown to be in some ways a liability, people laugh. Vaginas are supposed to be there for degradation and service, so when they are degraded and exploited, people don't laugh because this is just how things are.
I wish MRA's would remember that when they describe someone as "having balls" or tell someone to "stop being such a girl".
It's alright, but I hope you realize your wife doesn't necessarily speak for me.(Amused)
ReplyDeleteNor do you speak for her, or my mother, who was widowed at 31 with 3 children and obtained a Masters in Social Work over the next 8 yrs.
I was about to attempt to discuss the rest of your post but then I realized I am the fool here. Good luck in your future.
Amused, a lot of you Feminists who always scream "bigotry! Hate! are the biggest haters of all!! "Feminist" politicians are warmongers, just like the right-wing,
ReplyDeleteThey take away our civil liberties also! You are NOT against bigotry, by putting on the Feminist label! You are for bigotry under a different ideology
Darksidecat said:
ReplyDelete"A day in the life of tit for tat...
Man does something bad.
tit for tat frantically searches for the nearest woman to the situation to blame."
As opposed to our western justice system in which when a woman does something bad, the judges look for the nearest MAN to blame! In Canada, when a mom drowned her kids, the judge in this case, blamed the dad for driving her to do it, without even any evidence! In our misandric culture, I can't think of a judge who would blame a mom for oppressing her husband into killing his kids! You got the double standard backwards.
you said: "Is it really that hard of a fucking concept that people who do acts of violence are responsible and accountable for their acts of violence?" Unless they are women. Then judges in western society will be more likely to forgive them, and give them understanding.
Suggestions for the MRA bumperstickers:
ReplyDeleteHave You Hugged A Mammoth Hunter Today?
Bitch, Buy Your Own Dinner
My Other Means Of Compensating Is A Gun
Gimme My Rib Back
Real Men Die Alone
If You Are Offended By This
You Should Be In The Kitchen
I've read this post again and again and I just can't figure out your hole count. Assuming men and woman both have nostrils (2), ears (2), mouths (1), butts (1), and urtheras (1) and only woman have vaginas then men have 7 and woman have 8.
ReplyDeleteSomeone please correct me if I'm wrong!