Fall into the Wage Gap

Before computers, workers just stared at their desks.

In their attempts to downplay or simply deny the Wage Gap between men and women, MRAs often turn to a study by the CONSAD research company that was commissioned by the Bush administration. According to CONSAD, their analysis

demonstrates that it is not possible now, and doubtless will never be possible, to determine reliably whether any portion of the observed gender wage gap is not attributable to factors that compensate women and men differently on socially acceptable bases, and hence can confidently be attributed to overt discrimination against women.

In plain English: we can't prove that any of the wage gap is the result of sexism.

But that may be because CONSAD didn't look in the right places, as Barry Deutsch, aka Ampersand, explains in a post on Alas, a blog that critiques the methology and the findings of the CONSAD study. Notably, he points out, CONSAD's analysis ignores the issue of occupational segregation, which is at the root of much of the wage gap, as properly measured. And it ignores many other, more subtle kinds of discrimination:

When discussing direct employer discrimination, it’s more realistic to discuss elements like selective hiring, training, promotion ladders, and other things that are a good deal more complex than CONSAD’s vision of the labor market allows for. Given two equally able applicants for a $40,000 job, one male, one female – which one will employers tend to prefer? Once hired, who is more likely to get mentored? Who is more likely to be given the assignments that lead to promotion? Who is more likely to be perceived as doing good work, all else held equal? And if these factors mean that women are rewarded less than men for identical labor market participation, to what degree does that reduce women’s incentive to participate equally in the labor market? All of these are ways that sex discrimination actually happens in the marketplace — and none of them are detectable by by CONSAD’s methods.

There's much more to his argument than this; I'd suggest reading the whole thing.

For more on the issue -- including excerpts from and links to other useful posts on the wage gap by Barry -- see my own Further Reading post on the subject.

Flash Mob

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Palate Cleanser!

No misogynists today. Just kittens.

Paul Elam, you're no Jonathan Swift

Paul Elam, in context.

Yesterday, I posted a set of pretty awful comments from Paul Elam's A Voice For Men blog, one of which included this lovely line:

I am so fucking tired of this shit, that I really wouldn’t mind shooting a bitch dead in the face.

While even the mildest critiques of MRA dogma tend to get downvoted into oblivion on Paul's site -- see this one, for example (you'll need to click another link there to even see it) -- the "shoot a bitch" comment got more upvotes than down. Which tells you something about Paul's audience.

Paul has now taken the offending comment down, saying that he hadn't noticed it before, because he was on vacation. I'll take his word for this. His explanation for taking it down? "[T]he bottom line," he writes, "is that I am vehemently against violence."

Given that Paul has written several posts containing similarly over-the-top fantasies of violence against women, and another recent post mocking female rape victims, this explanation rather strains credulity.

His explanation for these previous posts? Again, back to his post today:

I have satirized violence several times, and it has of course been taken out of context and even drawn criticism from MRA's and sympathizers.  ...  If people don't recognize satire or humor then let 'em stew.

So he's making three claims about his previous posts containing fantasies of violence towards women: that they're "satire," that they're "humor," and that the violent quotes have been "taken out of context."

So let's deal with all of those claims in regard to Paul's most notorious "satirical" post. I'll start with humor.

Here is an example of humor, from comedian Emo Philips:

Always remember the last words of my grandfather, who said: "A truck!"

What's funny about this -- at least the first time you hear it -- is that Philips has led us to believe one thing (that we're going to hear some words of wisdom from his grandfather), but instead flips the script, challenging our expectations by delivering instead the last thing his grandfather shouted before being hit by a truck. (Sorry, explanations of humor are almost always completely unfunny.)

Here is an example of something that is not humor:

Let's punch some bitches until blood spurts from their noses!

That second example might seem a bit strange. It's not clever. There's no twist, no challenging of our assumptions. There's no incongruity. It's really just a violent fantasy. Why would anyone claim that it's "humor," or satirical?

Well, that's essentially what Paul Elam has been doing. That quote isn't from him -- I made it up as an example -- but it's essentially a condensed version of Paul's allegedly "humorous" remarks about domestic violence:. Here's Paul, in his own words, in a post I've criticized before:

In the name of equality and fairness, I am proclaiming October to be Bash a Violent Bitch Month.

I’d like to make it the objective for the remainder of this month, and all the Octobers that follow, for men who are being attacked and physically abused by women - to beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating on someone because you know they won’t fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles.

And then make them clean up the mess.

Ba-dump TSSH! Not even an instant rimshot makes that funny. There's no clever twist; it's just a fantasy about beating and humiliating women.

Is it unfair to quote this passage "out of context?" Here's a bit more context: those words ran next to a photo of a woman with a black eye, with the caption: "Maybe she DID have it coming." (See the picture at top right, which is a screenshot from Paul's site.)

But I suspect that's not the "context" Elam is talking about. He seems to be referring instead to this, from later in his post:

Now, am I serious about this?

No.

That seems clear. And in one sense this is true: he's not literally calling for men to organize a "Bash a Violent Bitch Month."

But let's look at the comment I just quoted in context, shall we? (Emphasis added.)

Now, am I serious about this?

No. Not because it’s wrong. It’s not wrong. Every one should have the right to defend themselves. ...

In that light, every one of those women at Jezebel and millions of others across the western world are as deserving of a righteous ass kicking as any human being can be. But it isn’t worth the time behind bars or the abuse of anger management training that men must endure if they are uppity enough to defend themselves from female attackers.

In other words, he's not backing off from his advocacy of violence against "violent bitches" because he thinks that this violence is wrong; he's backing off for purely pragmatic reasons -- if you actually "bash a violent bitch" it may get you arrested.

Now, about the question of satire. Satire is defined as "the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc." When Jonathan Swift wrote his famous essay seemingly calling for the Irish to eat their own children, it was satire because he was being bitterly ironic: he didn't really think anyone should be eating babies, and his essay was in fact intended to mock British authorities and callous attitudes towards the Irish.

By contrast, there's no irony in Paul's post: he actually believes that "violent bitches" deserve "a righteous ass kicking," and he states this quite explicitly.

Since Paul wrote that post, he's written others that reveal a pretty callous view towards female victims of violence. In one post, which I discuss here, he mocks and blames women for the crime of getting raped, suggesting that women who get drunk and make out with guys are "freaking begging" to be raped, "[d]amn near demanding it":

[T]here are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I'M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH - PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.

You can find those quotes, in all their glorious context here.

And in a more recent piece, Paul announces that he doesn't really care all that much about rape:

I lack any desire to react to rape, especially as currently defined, with the same vengeful repugnance that I would other crimes generally considered heinous.

The fact is that I care about a lot of things more than I care about rape.

He goes on to suggest a curious moral equivalency between women and rapists, saying that he views "the perceived struggles of women with all the concern I have for the struggles of real rapists in the criminal justice system."

Now, again, there is context here: in the rest of the piece he argues, not very effectively, that rape has been defined in crazy ways by the "hegemonic [feminist] elite," that "so often nothing more than accusation is needed in order to secure a conviction." And so on and so forth. You can read the whole thing here. Still, none of this "context" alters the noxious attitudes he's shown towards women time and time again.

Paul, you're a terrible comedian, and an even worse satirist. But as a human being?

You're pretty fucking awful at that too.

Women Are ... Part 3: A Voice For Men edition

Britney, don't you know YOU'RE toxic?

More, uh, questionable wisdom from angry dudes on the nature of women. Today: comments from A Voice For Men. I've highlighted some of the nastiest stuff for easy reference.

Women: Deserve to be shot in the face.

Women are the natural enemies of men. No matter what anyone says and how good women claim to be, that is just the truth. This will never stop and men will continue under the tyranny of women. ... We are called rapists, abusers, bullies, and even homophobes because we don’t embrace the faggots biologically backward, queer-ass culture. ... I am so fucking tired of this shit, that I really wouldn’t mind shooting a bitch dead in the face. ... They are evil. ALL OF THEM!!! ... This is a gender war, and women, ALL WOMEN! are the enemies, there is no compromising.

(Note: This comment, even with the whole shooting-women-in-the-face bit, got more upvotes than downvotes from A Voice For Men's peanut gallery, and "redpill" was not taken to task for actually suggesting murder by the site's owner, Paul Elam. Lots of other crazy stuff in that comment thread.) 

EDITED TO ADD: Elam has now removed this comment, which he says he hadn't seen before, saying "I am vehemently against violence." Given that he has posted similarly violent fantasies several times in his own pieces, this is a little difficult to take altogether seriously. He claims those other pieces were "satire" and that the violent parts were "taken out of context." Of course, none of this changes the fact that a comment about "shooting a bitch dead in the face" got more upvotes than downvotes on his site. (Here, by contrast, is a comment that got massive downvotes on his site; you'll have to click a link there to even make the comment visible.) EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: In this post, I take apart Paul's claim that he's being satirical when he talks about violence.

Women are: Toxic, but their vaginas are useful. 

Women are toxic – stay away from them, dont be around them for too long and most importantly when pumping them with man juice wear protection so you dont get infected with child support.

Until women regress back into their maternal/house keeping roles use them for the only thing they have to offer to a straight man – their vaginas.

Women are: Malleable, gullible, stupid, bad, irrational, and ridiculous.

In my opinion women are malleable,gullible and lack vision.The statements they make are ludicrous,they are therefore stupid, driven on by one thing and one thing only-their sexual power. The day someone creates a pill that desexualizes them in our eyes, then that is it. It is over. I don’t for a single second believe that the nature of women has transformed over the ages. Go back in time and the same nonsense will be as visible then as it is now. ... women are this way by nature. The good thing is,they have demonstrated, to their everlasting detriment, just how bad, irrational, and ridiculous they really are. Time to stop pandering.

Women are: Crazy, undisciplined, irresponsible, toxic, entitled, and they'll probably get your penis infected.

[W]omen in this country my age and younger are out of their minds! They have no concept of discipline or responsibility. They can talk with the best of them but their actions paint an entirely different picture. It’s not going to an extreme to want to get away from Western women entirely. They are toxic human beings. It is dangerous physically (many of them have STD’s), economically (look at hulk hogan’s ex and her new yacht the alimoney), religiously (these girls are some of the MOST entitled I have seen), etc.. Even the best of them slip into the entitled mentality far too frequently.

Unfunny Girl

Was it all based on a lie?

You know what's always hilarious? Humorless douchebags pontificating on "why women aren't funny."

Our text today: A set of comments on the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) proboards forum. Madashell gets the ball rolling:

In my entire life I haven't met one single women who is funny especially compared to the numerous men who are able to make myself and many other people laugh. I'm sure this is true for almost all of us.

If you can't think of a single funny women you've ever met, you either 1) have no sense of humor whatsoever, or 2) you're such a flaming misogynist your brain simply can't process humor when it comes from females or 3) you live in a hole in the ground eating bugs. Or some combination of the above. In the case of Madashell, I'm guessing it's a mixture of 1) and 3). (He just seems like a bug-eater to me.) 

Now, I'm not even going to bother to provide a little list of women in history who are fucking hilarious, because every single reasonable person on planet earth should be able to come up with a little list of their own.

Instead, let's hear what the MGTOWers have to say on the subject. Here's Whytry:

Because laughter is a sign of joy and women aren't capable of emotion. They're literally creatures of lust and animal behavior.

Hanzblinx, meanwhile, offers a little list:

1. humor is related to wit which is related to intelligence
2. humor requires seeing the world outside of the 1st person perspective
3. humor is used by men as a tool to attract women by display of wit, however, women attract men with display of skin, no wits required.

Of course, when a woman laughs at your joke, it doesn't necessarily mean that she actually has a sense of humor. At least according to dontmarry, who suggests that laughter is sort of a female version of a boner:

When a woman likes you (i.e her gina tingles madly for you) she will laugh at ALL your jokes, even the not so funny ones. ...  'I want a man with a sense of humor' really means 'I want a man who pushes the right buttons and makes my pussy moist.' Women are incapable of appreciating, or possessing a sense of humor. None of the so-called female comediennes can approach the greatness of George Carlin or the brilliance of Rowan Atkinson.

Interesting theory, but I'm a little stuck on the notion that George Carlin and Rowan Atkinson represent the highest pinnacle of achievement in human humor history.

rebel has a somewhat more elaborate, if somewhat less coherent, explanation:

Because le rire est le propre de l'homme- laugh is specific to man.

MAN is the only creature on the planet that has a capacity for humour and laughter. When you really think about it, humour is a gift from God. It sets MAN apart from all other creatures: on a higher level of existence.

To me, the question is irrelevant. Does my dog have a sense of humor? The question is irrelevant because only Men have a sense of humor. By design.

Adam was the first sentient creature (so they say... I don't know). Then Eve was produced to provide some blow jobs whenever Adam felt bored. Eve was content to be Adam's receptacle (in Latin: vagina):she didn't have to be funny: only have a deep throat. But that was before feminism took the bag away...but humor has not returned...

LOL!!!

"LOL!!!" Really?

I guess I just don't understand humor after all.

EDIT: Looks like the humor-discussers have discovered this post.

Your "fertility symbol," my body

In a discussion of my "Ladies! Stop assaulting us by dressing like slutty sluts" post, regular commenter DarkSideCat left a comment that really got to the heart of what is so troubling about the CoAlpha Brotherhood and others of their ilk. I thought everyone deserved to see it, so here it is. (I've edited it down slightly, broken it into paragraphs and put especially pertinent points in bold; you can see the original comment in context here.)

To set it up: In a previous comment Eoghan had referred casually to the "aggressive flashing of fertility and mating symbols by females." DarkSideCat replied:

You mean their fucking bodies? Have you so objectified women that you can't think of their very BODIES as anything other than 'fertility and mating symbols'? You are thinking of women's skin as some sort of sexual object for you, rather than their own flesh. ... You are assuming that women's bodies are sex objects or sex acts, they aren't, they are people's fucking bodies.

Men show their skin all of the damned time. They even routinely go topless in public places. Because a man taking off his shirt in the heat, or putting on a nice pair of jeans to try and look nice is a person doing stuff, whereas a woman going topless in [the] heat or putting on a pair of jeans to look nice is a filthy slut who deserves to be raped?

Women's bodies and skin are no more public property than men's, and, if you can't manage to see someone in public and find them attractive without thinking they are evil and are asking for you to rape them, you are the problem, not them.

Shit like this is also pretty damned insulting to men. You know, I think more highly of men than this, perhaps that is the difference between me and CoAlpha. I think that men can (and some in fact do) behave like decent human beings, and see women as human beings as well. I do not see male sexuality as so innately out of control and violent that if they see someone sexy, they will feel a burning need to violently attack and rape them.

You want to know why rad fems see all men as rapists? Because they believe the same stereotypes about men as anti-feminists like CoAlpha. If you spend so much fucking time pushing the notion that men can't help being assholes or rapists, you are going to get some people to believe it, but disagree about the solution.

 The quotes here contain direct threats of rape and murder and say that people dressed in certain types of clothes are asking to be raped. Yet, somehow you can't see how fucked up that is?

Amen.

Was his name Stuntman Mike?

... and a misogynistic sociopath!

From a Jezebel post titled "Horrible Online Dating Stories to Keep You Single," here's an example of why it's not a good idea to date men who think all women are whores: 

After we ... settled in to watch the first movie, he paused it, turned to me, and started ranting about how women are whores and how hard it is to be a rich guy. I was really uncomfortable and told him so, and he apologized and resumed the movie. Five minutes later, same thing happened again. I firmly told him that I'd like to go home, so he said he'd drive me. When I get into the car, he peels away so fast that I can't get my seatbelt on.

He hits a cement pillar on his way out and the hood of his car starts to smoke, but he doesn't stop, and he's going so fast that I am slammed into the door, him, the windshield, etc. like a bean in a tin can. He starts saying crazy stuff like, "Oh, I'll get you home, but I don't know what condition you'll be in when you get there." ...

Someone suddenly pulls out in front of him and he slams the car to a stop; I hit the windshield, and in an incredible feat of awesomeness, grab the handle of the car and open it, propelling myself out of the car as he hits the gas pedal. I hit the ground and started running as fast as I could... .

I wonder if the movie they were watching was Death Proof?

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Surreal) Dolls on holiday

I really have nothing to say about this discussion on The Doll Forum: A Meeting Place for Adult Doll Owners & Admirers. So I'll let "Zara's" boyfriend/owner/creepy dude explain: 

Our first holiday away, just Zara, myself, the van and the open road. We're off to to visit some friends of Zara and I, spend some alone time and see some sights up and down the east coast. I'll add photos every week or so of what we got up to and who we met.

Packing the van for the trip invovled more issues than I had first thought. Packing for Zara meant packing for two and she needed more room for her gear than I did. 

 More creepy photos at the link.

Consent. It's so ... American.

Hey ladies!

Sex is so confusing. Take the whole notion of "consent." How are you, as a dude,  supposed to keep track of whether or not, say, a woman has actually consented to sex with you? I mean, are you supposed to ask? If she says "no," how do we know she's really saying "no?" Maybe she's saying "know," as in, why don't you "know me" in the Biblical sense? Like I said, it's very confusing. 

Apparently things are a lot simpler in France, at least according to this dude on Jezebel. In France, apparently, if you happen to espy a comely mademoiselle, you can just start groping her:

At the clubs in the 8ème, off the Champs-Élysées, and all along Rue de Rivoli, it is fairly common to watch men literally grab and touch the girls who weave through the crowd. Men often draw a finger down an unknown girl's cheek or under her chin like a doting Uncle; they can be seen pinching girls' noses, throwing arms around shoulders and even stealing kisses.

And according to this dude, whom no one's ever heard of, the French ladies love it, just love it!

Parisian women deny or accept these advances with a decisiveness many American women lack. Naturally, some girls in Paris walk away and reject these strong come-ons. But one can observe many of them reacting with knowing laughter; these women understand the game. ...

Parisian women seem to derive a feminist power from this chauvinism that makes them come across as strong, self-determining, and completely aware of themselves as permanent objects of desire. And drunk or sober, it seems Parisian women get exactly what they want while their men, if rejected, are left to hammer doggedly away at other targets.

That sounds about right. I mean, what woman doesn't want strange men hammering doggedly away at them all hours of the day every time they step outside?

It's all very sophisticated. Very Continental. Heck, it's very The Continental.

Anyway, so apparently some feminist bloggers are, you know, griping away, like the ladies do, that Jezebel, ostensibly a feminist-ish blog, would run such a thing. Ladies, come on! What are you, prudes? Americans? Men who read this dude's piece may lighten up a bit and start acting a lot more French. Who are you to deny the women of America the chance to have strange men, with questionable personal hygiene and an extensive knowledge of cheeses, running their fingers down their cheeks?

Note: This post contains sarcasm.

Ladies! Stop assaulting us by dressing like slutty sluts

Dirty whore flaunting her sexy arms.

Oh, you foul, filthy women, why must you continue to oppress men with the power of your evil sexiness? I've been spending some time recently reading a tiny internet forum with big ambitions. "The CoAlpha Brotherhood," the site's Mission Statement notes, "is an attempt to abandon feminist society and collectively create an independent sub-culture based on patriarchal values." High on the CoAlpha agenda: get women to stop dressing like such sexy, sexy sluts.

The head CoAlpha, a fellow calling himself Drealm, laments the situation he finds himself in as a man living "in a university town that's overrun with young girls," a man continually assaulted by the sight of women in clothing more revealing than a Burka:

As you can imagine, my university town, Berkeley California, is one big liberalized hypersexual runway show. I'm forced to stare at hundreds if not thousands of women a day, all of whom bring sluttiness to all new pinnacle.

He is forced -- forced, I tells ya! -- to stare at these women with lust in his heart, and presumably in his trousers as well. How unfair is that?

[T]he only time it's enjoyable looking at promiscuously dressed women, is if you can have them on the spot. So if a woman is a hooker or a stripper, then it's enjoyable to watch them. However, if a woman is completely unattainable, then it's mentally and physically unpleasant to look at promiscuous women.

So, ladies, if you're not going to put out, or at least give the poor fellow a free lap dance on the steps of Sproul Plaza, cover up.

Women, out of respect for men, should dress in a way that doesn't excite men. A woman dressing provocatively and leaving a man in an unfinished state of excitement is the equivalent of a man dressing in such a way that causes a woman to have a sudden onset period. Simply put dressing provocatively and then suppressing male urges is an assault on men's sexuality.

And if you assault a man like this, he might just have to rape you -- in self defense!

I cannot on a primal level get passed my sexual urges when looking at sluts. ... [t]he only thing I want to do to a slut is rape them. ...  If I extrapolate this observation to society, I think it's easy to see why in a slut society women will be more prey to rape. ... Simply put, dressing like sluts brings out murders, rapists and sadists in men. ... A society based on sluts, might as well be a pro-rapist society.

Ladies, really, do you want to bring out the murders and rapists in men? Forget tight t-shirts and skinny jeans. Just say no to halter tops and short skirts. Think: what would I wear if I were Amish. or Muslim, or perhaps Hindu.  

Seeing as Berkeley is also a multi-cultural haven, I sometimes have the pleasure of being startled by the sight of conservative muslim and Indian women. ... The only thing I want to do is help them. Yet the only thing I want to do to a slut is rape them. These muslim and Indian women are very beautiful, so it's not as though I'm not attracted to them. It's just that dress codes in both sluts and modest women operate as agents for activating different hardwired impulses in my psyche.

And seriously, no man can be expected to actually curb his baser impulses to rape and murder ALL the time. They're hardwired! So don't set him off by wantonly exposing your arms and legs and perhaps even some of your even sexier parts. Dress as if the ozone layer has gone poof and every little bit of exposure to the sun will burn your flesh like steak on a grill.

[T]he point of modest clothing is to cover up anything that excites men. ... to cut off all triggers that excite men. In my opinion this starts with skin coverage. The more a woman's skin is covered, the less she excites men. This is why short skirts and low cut tops are antonyms of modesty.

Tight clothing is also very dangerous.

[C]lothing should not exaggerate a female's body shapes. This is why I still think jeans can be immodest on women, because a tight pair of jeans will accentuate a woman's legs and buttocks. High heels meet the same conflict as tight jeans, while they may not show extra skin, they accentuate a woman's legs and buttocks.

And watch out with that evil, sexy hair of yours.

Uncovered hair isn't as much an immodesty crime, but I still feel raw long hair can excite men. Long hair's affect on men can be counteracted with a scarf or veil.

So what should a nice modest young gal do? Cover up. Cover everything up. Rent yourself a copy of Witness, and sew yourself some clothes that are really motherfucking Plain.

Or, I suppose, you could always crawl into a garbage bag and hop.

NOTE: This post contains sarcasm.

Shopping pissed

Woman Oppressing Men

The oppression of men by mean, evil, surly women continues apace. Today: the verbal and psychological abuse heaped upon men by -- brace yourself -- female sales clerks. We turn to The Spearhead forums for evidence of this perfidy.

Kinetic opened up the discussion with a tale of a recent shopping excursion. It started out innocently enough with a trip to a tobacconist. Expecting to see men behind the counter at such a manly business, kinetic was horrified to find a pair of women instead. I'm sorry: C*nts. (That's how they spell the word on The Spearhead.)

I ask for some good tobacco, and straight away one of the women give me attitude. So I say I want something thats not perfumed, something 'male', she says "you want what??!", I say "forget it". Im not put money in this c*nts pocket.

Im so sick of women. This tobacconist is a little shop thats meant to specialize, and this bitch first points me to the over the counter stuff which is available anywhere, then gives me attitude. It f*cking annoys me.

But this was not the end of the oppression inflicted on our poor hero by these dastardly women.

I then went to buy some new clothes from a major retailer, got to the counter, another woman there, I didnt say a word. She bags the stuff up, says "thanks". I say nothing, take the clothes and walk off.

Can you imagine! She does her job, then says "thanks." What an outrage!

As far as Im concerned they can all bollocks. Im not buying anything from a small female run business, and when I have to buy from the big department stores, Im not even going to say please or thankyou. They can simply f*ck off.

I'm sure they will dearly miss your business.

Clearly moved by Kinetic's sad tale, Nurb piped up with words of support:

I know how you feel. I came to that same conclusion a few years back. When I go to the shops I act as if women don't exist. I avoid eye contact as well, I can't even stand to look at them because I know they're just going to start me off with their cowshit. A woman who run's their mouth just pisses me off to the point where I'd want to deck the fucker right there.

A woman talking in a store? Clearly deserving a punch in the head. Also: Note that Nurb has used the correct term in this context: "cowshit." Women are, as we all know, incapable of "bullshit." They can only manage the clearly inferior "cowshit."

But are all female clerks equally evil? misterb suggested his comrades adopt a somewhat more nuanced view.

Personally I can tolerate a female attitude from a white woman and even a white male to female transsexual, never from a black woman or a latino woman. ... I am not going give her my hard earn cents. ...

If it's an Asian woman or a Muslim woman I would classify her as a supremacist and a narcissistic asshat

A few commenters raised their eyebrows at this suggestion. "Why tolerate it from any female?" asked trent13.

Is there any solution to this kind of oppression? Several commenters suggested a kind of uncivil disobedience. Zebert suggested not buying anything from female sales clerks or sales representatives of any kind. 'Women are the reason our species may exterminate itself," he added later, in response to a commenter who was insufficiently outraged by the behavior of the sales clerks in question. "All human conflict exists due to women."

But it was J. Durden who suggested an even more effective kind of incivility.

I remember when I was the assistant manager of a watch sales / repair shop, I had a policy to treat attractive women terrible. It was my way of balancing out the world (for myself), since I was sure their good looks got them tons of perks - drinks, getting out of tickets, etc.

It is from small gestures of defiance like this that revolutions begin.

J. Durden, I would call you the Rosa Parks of the Men's Rights Movement, but I suspect that wouldn't go over very well, given that Rosa Parks was, you know, a woman.

EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to Miranda for passing along a link to this lovely conversation.

Also, just so everyone knows: I'm totally being sarcastic in this post. (Except right now.) Indeed, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce everyone to the "I'm totally being sarcastic" tag (see below), which will hopefully clear up any potential confusion in the future.

Comments policy updated

Please, no monologuing.

I have added a few new comment guidelines, and clarified one of the old ones. Please read. I think these will help to curtail some of the derailing that goes on in the comments here, and will help those who want to have actual substantive discussions.

As anyone who comments here knows, I like to be as hands-off as possible with comment moderation, and I don't censor people for disagreeing with me. But I will be more aggressive in the future in dealing with those who seem more interested in disrupting or monologuing than discussing, and those who repeatedly misrepresent what others say.

No boobs, please -- we're Men's Rights Activists

Sometimes they wear tops. Via FEMEN's NSFW photostream.

A group of young, attractive Ukrainian women take off their tops and pose for pictures.

The response of Men's Rights Activists? "Distatesful."  "Stupid." A "monstrosity."

And why is this? Well, because these particular topless women are members of FEMEN, a group of women who protest against sexism and sex tourism by baring their breasts. Needless to say, when the group protests, the media shows up, cameras wildly clicking.

All this has gotten the attention of W.F. Price at The Spearhead. And he's not happy about it:

Femen represents, if anything, the devolution of feminism into its bare essence. These women have leapfrogged all the steps taken by the Western feminist movement, which first presented concern over women and children, then equality between women and men, and not until recently female supremacy and license as their goals.

I'm not quite sure how boobs = female supremacy. But Price's argument, such as it is, is a model of careful reasoning compared to what the Spearheadies said in the comments. To Papa Smurf, the protests

show how fickel some women are. That sort of Ideology is infectious and contagious like their gonorrhea infested vagina’s. If you want a society to prosper and develop then your going to have to keep your women in check and order. full stop. No negotiation because negotiating with a emotional, self deluded, attention seeking female is pointless.

That little masterpiece got 30 upvotes from the assembled masses, and one downvote.

XS, meanwhile, responded to Skadi, who'd made a few remarks actually supporting the protesters, with some remarks that demonstrated exactly the sort of misogyny the FEMEN women are up against:

Skadi, the system is not against young Ukranian women, they just spread their legs for the highest bidder because that’s all they have to offer. They’re looking for western feminist privilege, just like the skanks in Western Europe. Women contribute nothing to society except babies, and bitch and moan about it for all their lives.

Misterb aka misterbastard, meanwhile, spat forth an incoherent manifesto that ended with, uh, a call for mass murder.

It was a matter of time, when Eastern European women would become like the or worse than feminists in both of our countries.

Feminism had produce such monstrosity. The so-called Christian Right doesn’t realize the full dangers of immorality and feminism. ... The loony left want free love and murdering people, with the approval of others.

Speaking of Eastern European women, they used to be considered attractive by western men. But not any more. Who would want to sleep with a woman who has more than three partners?

the dangers of sexual transmitted diseases and HIV still hovers over the head of Eastern Europeans. And those women are pretty stupid to realize, of what they are throwing away. Their dignity, their health.

any idiot who peddles moral relativism, is nothing short of being a murder. he or she should be killed and burned.

Last I checked, this comment -- with the killing and the burning and everything -- had garnered itself two dozen upvotes, and only 4 downvotes.

It's not terribly surprising to discover that the FEMEM women are far more articulate about what they are up to than their critics. FEMEN leader Anna Gutsol explained in an interview last year what the group was about and why it relied on sex appeal to sell its message:

FEMEN is based on the idea that girls need to be active participants in society. And by “active,” I don’t just mean “active enough to land themselves husbands.” We want more women to develop a social consciousness. We’re also against the idea of sex tourism and the sex industry in general in Ukraine. And we want to package our message in a way that’s going to be appealing to young Ukrainian women. ...

People sneer at us all the time: “You’re against the sex industry, but you are all dressing like sex-workers.” But Ukrainian sex-workers by and large don’t own their own bodies. That’s not how it works with us. When one of our girls went topless on Independence Square, she was doing it as a radical act. And it gets people talking. Our sexy image causes debate. You need to have debate if you are ever to move forward. So many activists have no idea how to engage the media and the public. They’re dour, uninteresting. FEMEN is the opposite of that.

Though FEMEM fights for women's rights, Gutsol doesn't actually see the group as feminist. "We use eroticism in our approach and our dress," she told interviewer Natalia Antonova. "That’s not sanctioned by feminism." (Actually, it is, at least by the non-Dworkinite feminists who seem to make up most of the movement today.)

Now, it's certianly possible to make cogent arguments for and against this kind of activism. There's no question it's gotten the group a lot of attention. Do these protests effectively challenge sexism, or do they reinforce it? Probably a bit of both, though the reaction these protests have gotten from the Ukrainian authorities and from the guys at The Spearhead suggests to me that FEMEN must be doing something right.

Women Are ... Part Two: How to get upvoted on The Spearhead

Today in "Women Are ...": Horrible generalizations about women from The Spearhead. Spearhead readers have the option to upvote comments they like, and downvote those they don't. The comments these quotes are taken from all got a lot of upvotes and only a tiny handful of downvotes, if any.

Women are: Dumb as bricks

For all their degrees, today’s women are dumb as bricks. They have rejected ‘weak’ feminine virtues in favor of masculine vices, imagining themselves to be empowered by them. ... There has never been a more miserable generation of women, yet it seems they would rather have their misery a hundred times over than trade it for their natural, submissive role as wives and mothers under a patriarchal system.

(This comment got 68 upvotes, 2 downvotes)


Woman are: Good for Sex (Some of them.)

Some women are good for sex. That’s it. The rest deliver manipulation, financial devastation, false accusations and every form of betrayal with the government and every other lying bitch backing them up. NO THANKS!

(This comment got 38 upvotes, one downvote.)


Women are: A Parasite

Modern women are a parasite. They have no conception of the fact that to get, they should be willing to give. And woe betide the man who puts any trust in a woman. She will pull the rug out from under him simply for the power trip she gets.

(22 upvotes, one downvote.)


Women are: Spoiled beyond repair

Women are ... purely ME focused animals, and they’re neither capable of logic nor feeling empathy for a man. ... U.S. women are spoiled beyond repair.

(39 upvotes, 0 downvotes.)

Apparently, this is the sort of thing that gets you massive upvotes on The Spearhead. Duly noted.

"Women are ..." Part One

What a fucking douchebag.

Here are some of the things I have, er, "learned" about women from reading Men's Rights/Men Going Their Own Way blogs and message boards.

This is part one in what will be, I suspect, a very lengthy series.

Women are: The missing link

All in all I am thoroughly convinced that women have all contempt for human life and are the missing link between apes and humans. This is a gender war, a GENDER WAR! and small innocent babies that are murdered and children that get abused are caught in the crossfires, and these females are utterly fucking useless and a waste of fucking breathing space. They have shown their true colors and we don’t need them anymore.

Women are: Nuclear waste

I have come to the conclusion that it's not enough to avoid romantic relations with women. A man should take extra precautions to avoid even the most casual contact. Regard them as nuclear waste or a highly contagious disease. 

Women are: In violation of the Geneva Convention

Women have no idea what they want, they need to be told and controlled. If you are too nice or become apathetic, you are fucking doomed. Either way, if you get married, you are doomed. Women are cunts, and they are absolute masters of mental torture and abuse. If we simply hired bitches to interrogate and torture all captured terrorists, the war on terror would be over in less than a year.

Women are: Unlovable humans

Men are lovable humans, unlike women. Men are the greatest ever treasure of gold, whom women worthless could never compare to or ever hold a candle to. ... the male sex is ever superior to the weaker female one. Men in India are mistreated vis-à-vis females, to get the bitches feel dignified. This is against nature. ... Men are taken advantage of by bitches (the woman race). ... Woe betide women. I hate them too much, girls too.

NOTE: These comments do not reflect the opinions of all MRAs. But these sorts of things are posted constantly on MRA/MGTOW blogs and message boards, and are rarely challenged. Some, like the first comment here, may even receive multiple upvotes from other readers,

How to find women disgusting: A Do-It-Yourself guide.

He was cured, all right.

Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) are endlessly fascinating. For men who want to have nothing to do with women, they sure spend an awful lot of time thinking about women, talking about women, obsessing about women.

And oftentimes, it seems, the women they obsess about the most are naked women. Which brings us to one of the central conundrums of the MGTOW "movement," or "community," or whatever it is: How does one square one's desire to have nothing to do with women with one's desire to put one's penis in them?

Not surprisingly, this is a topic that sometimes pops up, as it were, on MGTOW forums. Recently I ran across one such discussion archived on Don't Marry.  A late-twenties guy calling himself grasser asked the assembled MGTOWers how he might go about reducing his sexual desire for those sneaky, sexy, evil women:

Here’s the problem: I despise American women, but some of them look hot anyway. I pretty much stay the hell away from them as much as possible. Still, I’m a guy with normal drives and impulses, and sometimes I just gotta have it. It’s very annoying, and distracts me from other important work. I don’t like to watch porn either. Fuckin waste of time. I’ve been going to the gym everyday to lift weights, do cardio, I eat 3 square meals a day. How do you reduce desire for the female sex – besides going gay, of course.

No one suggested he look into that last option -- MRAs and MGTOWs tend to be pretty thoroughly heterosexual. But they did have a number of specific ideas. One jokingly suggested that marriage would kill his sex drive pronto; another suggested that just talking to a woman for any length of time would do it: "After half an hour of her heroic autobiography, poor wally will be as limp as overcooked pasta." Another suggested he let time take its toll, as the sex drive declines with age. And of course there was the age-old standby, furious masturbation. And if you couldn't stand celibacy any longer: hookers.

Many of the suggestions were a little more, well, original:

I was told that eating Tofu will help cut down your sex drive. Buddhist monks in Japan are known to eat Tofu to “cool” their desire.

Train in kung fu, chi kung, yoga to control emotions and libido.

And for those with less interest in Eastern ways:

If you are white make latent racism your ally. (Not a moral solution but a practical one.) When you see a hottie imagine how many black dudes she sucked off. Try to picture them frosting her face.

But the most popular suggestion had a touch of Clockwork Orange about it: Using a sort of MGTOW version of the Ludovico Technique, train yourself to think of women and their sexy sex organs as repulsive. As one put it:

Remember that they stink. The “natural feminine scent” that they have nowadays is every bit as sexy as a skunk.

Another chimed in:

These words have gotten me through it:

“It’s just a stinky hole.”

Another quoted from a strange "Pep Talk For Brilliant Sex Restrainers" on the website celibacy.info:

Realize her body is full of the various cruds that makes up the human body (this is a favorite of the Asian sages). Excrement is sitting in her, all sorts of fatty deposits, weird impurities and drugs, gristle and bone, etc. She has bacteria in her mouth, and when she wakes up it stinks. Even if she seems pretty, there is even more putrid bacteria in her lower orifices. She farts and defecates just like any animal. Try to visualize her skeleton beneath the skin, muscle, fat and fascia. See, she’s not really a turn-on after all.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm off to wash my brain with mind-bleach.

What Women Think of Men, Apparently

She's thinking unkind things about your penis.

Yesterday we met Christopher in Oregon, a fellow who feels that other fellows might want to avoid all contact with women, who are all, as he put it, "whores ... walking cesspools of filth ... DIRTY creatures, pure and simple."

Christopher was such an articulate spokesman for his cause that I thought I'd bring him back for an encore. Today, we learn that the hatred doesn't only flow one way. In fact, he suggests in another epic comment on Marky Mark's blog, women think as poorly of men as he thinks of women. Not just some of them, but every single one of them:

ALL women hate ALL men ALL of the time! (most of them can keep it hidden for some time.)

This is a CARDINAL RULE! If you can't accept it, you've already lost the game. You're rat-fucked! You might as well just give up and go hang yourself by getting married!

In case we forgot that women aren't too be trusted, he gives us a little refresher course in the Evil That is Woman:

You can't deal with women safely because we aren't playing by the same rules. One must keep in mind that the three primary characteristics of All women are as follows:

1) Immoral (or amoral, if you prefer)

2) Dishonest

3) Selfish

Many other adjectives would apply, but these three are the main attributes of women. Since this is true, and the laws are on their side, a man can't hope to break even in any dealings with women. It's impossible.

Now we come to the crux of his argument. More sensitive men may wish to sit down at this point, and perhaps move to protect their testicles. For what Christopher has somehow figured out about what goes on inside the dirty, filthy, selfish, dishonest, immoral, whorish minds of women while they're having sex with you will shock you to your core.

Every time you are humping and grinding and snorting like a rutting pig on top of a woman thinking you are SUCH a stud (in all fairness, you probably are NOT) she is:

1) Bored

2) Faking it

3) Disgusted

4) Glad she took her valium first

5) Fantasizing about a black man

6) Fantasizing about a new car

7) Fantasizing about the butch lesbian that drilled her last week with a ten-inch strap-on for six hours

8) Laughing inside about your pitifully small penis

9) Comparing you unfavorably to any one of her previous two-hundred partners

10) Wishing you would go even faster and trigger ... a massive coronary

11) Fantasizing about the neighbor's German Shepherd

12) Thinking about how your deodorant just ain't making it

Sorry to burst your bubble. I've heard this from women. It's all a sick joke. You are NOT Don Juan, and they don't view you as such. In her mind, you are a disgusting, smelly pig, and you are invading her body with that.....thing.

Well, if that's what he thinks women think of men, no wonder he wants to have nothing to do with them.

It's kind of sad, really.

On a not-entirely-unrelated note, if you scroll up to the top of the page on Marky Mark's blog on which this comment from Christopher is posted, you will note that Mr. Mark has worked himself into a lather over a story in The Onion. I can't quite tell if he thinks it's real -- I mean, how could he? -- but he acts as though he does. He even writes up a point-by-point rebuttal and everything. It's so cute! As he puts it, unaware of the irony, "I can't make this stuff up. ... I can't! No matter how hard I tried, I could not make this up." Well, no. That's why the folks at The Onion make it up for you.

Shakespeare before hoes

A female friend of mine asked me the other day how Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) handle the question of sex -- as in, how can these guys deal with their desire to have sex with women if they swear off women? It's a good question, and one I still don't have a comprehensive answer to. Some pine for sexbots, some masturbate, some seek salvation in supposedly more pliable non-Western women.

And then there's Christopher in Oregon. He's got his own plan, which involves motorcycles, Beethoven, and Robert Frost. Here's how he spelled it out in a mini-manifesto he posted as a comment on Marky Mark's blog.

First, Christopher defines the problem, as he sees it:

Women are whores. They are far more likely to have STD's than men. Be aware of this. Handle with extreme care. Women are filthy, and they will lie about their infections. Condoms will NOT protect you.

So what can a poor boy do?

The simplest and wisest choice is to be as I am- a gender separatist. I have no social dealings with women (with the exception of my two lesbo neighbors).

LEAVE THEM ALONE, fellows!  

But some of them are kind of, like, all sexy and shit.

Women are walking cesspools of filth! Most of them have or will have a permanent STD infection. It is unavoidable. These are FACTS, and not the rantings of an unstable misogynist.

(I'm a very STABLE misogynist, thank you kindly)

Women are DIRTY creatures, pure and simple. Be dignified, and don't lower yourself to engaging in any filthy behavior with them. You WILL be infected with the diseases they are carrying. A moral, dignified man does NOT rut like an animal with one of these creatures. Sexual intercourse and oral sex are filthy, disgusting activities, and ruin a man morally. They spread disease. 

Ok, ok. But what if you still want to rut like an animal with filthy women? Sublimate, sublimate, sublimate. And pull out some of the books you picked up in that one English-for-non-majors class you took in college.

Elevate yourself above such filth of the flesh.

Listen to classical music. Read Shakespeare and Frost. Meditate. Take long walks. Ride a motorcycle or bicycle. Think good thoughts. Purify yourself from the evil in our society.

And avoid any unnecessary stimulation:

I very recently tossed what little pornography I had left. Amazing the effect on my mind and soul. Do not lust after women in your mind. Masturbate only as a last result to relieve tension. Do not lust after women sexually. It weakens you.

Remember, women aren't just filthy whores, they're Satan's representatives on earth:

God made man in His image, and women was made in the image of Satan. Squeal all you want, but history proves me right. A woman is a test; a stumbling block for man. Our life is an adventure. A journey. A pursuit of our creator, and a pursuit of excellence in our personal lives. A woman and her filth is part of the obstacle course set before us. If we are wise, and avoid them, we will grow stronger as a result. We will finish the race successfully.

Women was not put here to support us as such, and we will only grow stronger if we AVOID her snares.

Christopher, I support you in your quest. Please do not have sex with any women. The thought of you reproducing, even accidentally, is truly scary.

Men: Do not be hypontized by Kim Kardashian's boobies into getting a Kardashian Kard

Consumerist warns that "the reality show star is pimping a new prepaid debit card targeted at kids" -- and, presumably, unwary men easily hypnotized by boobies -- "that is as bursting with hidden fees as Kim's shirt, featured prominently on the plastic, is bursting with integrity." The card costs $59.95 to purchase (including 6 months of monthly fees); monthly fees (after this initial period) of $7.95; ATM withdrawals are $1.50. There's also a $9.95 (per boobie) monthly boobie maintenance fee. (Ok, one of those fees is made up.)

Straight talk on homophobia ... on the Men's Rights subreddit??

Oh Reddit. Sometimes you make me so sad. Case in point: the 5,415 upvotes Redditors gave to this old dog of a story, a blatantly misogynist, and blatantly made-up, revenge-vasectomy tale from the "Best of Craigslist." Mitigating factors: the fact that some commenters correctly labeled the story a hateful fake; the 4,582 downvotes the story got (resulting in "only" 833 net upvotes).

But sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. Even as I was contemplating the idiotic reaction to this idiotic vasectomy story, I ran across another headline: "Does homophobia affect straight males too?" Good question. Weirdly, the post was from the Men's Rights subreddit. Hoping for the best but fearing the worst, I took a look. Lo and behold, the post had actually inspired a real, honest discussion of the issues.

The OP set the stage with a few specific questions:

Have you ever hesitated to become close to another male for fear that it might be misinterpreted by someone else? Was there ever a time you resisted getting close to another male emotionally because you were afraid it might be seen as sexual? Does the fear of being called gay or a faggot ever change the way you behave in front of other males?

Among the answers there were of course a few jokes, including one that was actually sort of funny:

dontputsaltinyoureye 9 points

it has had a tremendous effect on my life. i am unable to wear my avril lavigne [shirt] in public due to the fear. WHY CAN I NOT WEAR MY AVRIL LAVIGNE SHIRT?!

And there was the requisite reference to Glee:

AGenericGoon 44 points

I am heterosexual, and watch/enjoy glee.

I will take this secret to the grave.

But there were also a number of bracingly honest comments, comments that would not be out of place on a feminist or LGBT message board. Some commenters talked about being gay-bashed -- even though they aren't gay. Others talked about how hetero-normative gender roles force men to keep quiet about their feelings:

TheBananaKing 27 points

Absolutely. all -normative behaviours box people in.

Straight guy here. ... there's an awful lot of restriction and anxiety in inter-male behaviour. You can't ever be sad or hurt - only angry. You can't extend comfort or affection towards another guy, except via humorous taunting / rivalry / aggression (eg play-fighting), unless you're very, very drunk. You have to do this kind of... reverse double-entendre the entire time, translating everything into John Wayne before you speak or act it, and back again to understand others. It's a pain in the ass.

Others offered more personal takes on what it's like to be a straight guy who's frequently taken to be gay:

ecartes 9 points

I talk with a lisp and dress really well. I'm also heterosexual.

Almost everyone I initially meet believes, nay, KNOWS, that I'm, ACTUALLY homosexual. It's weird, living with the thought that everyone I meet thinks I'm gay. Although I will never know fully the oppression that some gay people face, I feel like I've felt a lot of it just from being perceived as gay. ...

And perhaps the most unexpected of all:

soylentcoleslaw 33 points

If I acted on my normal impulses, I'd be extremely effeminate. I love cute things and cute clothes, I have subconscious feminine mannerisms, and I'd love a strong partner who makes me feel safe and who would take charge. I've never had a gay fantasy in my life. The thought of being with another man just doesn't do it for me, but given what I want and who I naturally am, I'm said on numerous occasions how much easier my love life would be if it did. As it is, if I want to attract someone new, I have to tamp all that down and put on my reasonably masculine face, and maybe if I'm lucky, I can reveal some of that side of myself gradually. But I can't be totally myself. Never. ... So I go on pretending to be manly sometimes and hopefully don't screw up.

Oh, sure, there were some answers that were bluntly homophobic -- redwood9 states plainly that "I just hate fags ... I hate all cocksuckers and those who bend over and take it in the ass" -- but they made up a tiny minority of the comments, and were generally downvoted.

So what's going on here? Has the Men's Rights Subreddit suddenly become a beacon of open-mindedness? Not exactly. Most of those commenting in the topic don't appear to be Men's Rights regulars, but Redditors who were drawn to the topic when it appeared on Reddit's main page. Here's what someone who is a MR regular had to say:

aetheralloy 0 points

"Bro's" and "bromance" is the term often used to shame men ... Women (feminists) in particular love to use it. ...

The really interesting question here isn't if it affects males, but why women are both extremely homophobic towards gay males while also willing to use them as emotional buddies.

Yeah, damn those feminist women and their hatred of gay men!

So, no group hug just yet. But it's good to see an outburst of good sense in a discussion forum that's often pretty backwards.

It's just a pity that the moderator of Men's Rights remains convinced "that there is an international, feminist, antimale conspiracy," as he puts it in the sidebar, and that the subreddit's slogan remains "Earning scorn from feminists since March 19, 2008."

Because, you know what? If you're a guy feeling boxed in by normative gender roles, some of the best people in the world to talk to about it are, you know, feminists.