I Really Don’t Want To Be A MRA. Please Help Me.

Reblogged from glittertitties-deactivated20130

glittertitties:

MRAs find one angry, rightfully hateful woman who identifies as a feminist and conclude all of feminism is worthless and hateful.

Feminists find countless misogynistic, bitter, rape-apologizing, harassing and stalking men who identify as Men’s Rights Activists and MRAs cry “we aren’t ALL like that, stop GENERALIZING us!”

“rightfully hateful”

*sigh*

You know, I don’t get the whole MRA thing. I have been dismissing it as complete bullshit, or at least an unreasonable response to the more militant sort of man-hating feminism. I’m a guy and I’ve never felt oppressed in any way, despite numerous negative encounters with feminists on the tumblr machine. I have never identified as a MRA and I have never used the word “misandry” because I think it’s a stupid made-up unnecessary word. In real life, all the feminists I know are perfectly wonderful and reasonable and happy with their lives and so on. 

But then, every so often, I see something so absolutely hateful, a piece so shockingly unwilling to acknowledge that there might be two sides to the story, so begrudging about the fact that there are obviously lots of feminists who do hate men, so infected with “rape culture” bullshit, so passive-aggressive in the denial of the obvious, so hostile towards reasonable suggestions and debate, so dismissive of the real-life experience of men who try to share their stories with you, that I think, you know, maybe it’s not all about me and my experience, maybe I’ve just been really lucky with the women I choose to hang around with, and maybe these MRAs are on to something. 

This is an official plea for someone to talk me down off the ledge. Please do something to stop me from becoming a MRA. Thank you. 

Related: A crash course on passive-aggressive writing

A Crash Course on Passive-Aggressive Writing

Intro

Here is an article on Jezebel entitled If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? Read it all the way through. It’s a bit “radfem”, as they say, but basically it seems to be OK, right? 

Wrong. The whole thing is filled with qualifications, the assumption that men are lesser human beings, that they need to be talked down to, etc. She never says this in the article, of course. That would be just plain aggressive writing, and this is a crash course on passive-aggressive writing. 

You’ll probably want to start slowly, but when you’re at the top of your game, like many Jezebel contributors are, you should be able to crowbar some top-shelf passive aggressive stuff into the title of your piece and the first sentence. 

The title thesis is: “If I admit that hating men is a thing, will you stop turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy?”

In one small title sentence, you manage to

• make men sound like whiny bitches for being hated (by certain feminists),
• assume that men who notice they are hated will necessarily want to leverage it in arguments against you (when most of the time they just want it to stop),
• imply that the only reason men are hated is because they are aware of the fact that they are hated.  

So what sounds like a concession is, in fact, a three-pronged attack on any claim that some feminists hate men. That is some expert-level manipulative propaganda bullshit. It’s so skilful that you might not even notice the horrible ideas sliding into your brain unless it’s been switched on beforehand. 

First Sentence

Okay, so maybe you are a man.

I have no idea why a simple statement that 50% of the world is men and so one of them might bump into your article some time should be treated as though it were a major concession. Unless … your mind has now been prepared for the circus of shit that is to follow. “Maybe” you are a man, but only under sufferance, only so long as it suits this article to make some sort of attack on you. Then you’ll be back to whatever you were before the generous concession.

Random Paragraph

There are radical feminists and deeply wounded women and women who just don’t have the patience for diplomacy anymore who absolutely hate you because of your gender. (However, for whatever it’s worth, I do not personally know a single woman like that.)

Normally when I try to convince feminists that a lot of them hate men, they deny it, they say it’s not possible etc. Then I link them to many, many pages which demonstrate their mistake. Now, a normal person might think, “Wow, I was really wrong about that. I guess that bit of incorrect information can no longer contribute to any of my opinions on feminism,” but that’s not what happens. Not at all. They either manage to re-word the thing so it’s not really hating on men, or they try to justify it some other way, or - and this is the worst - they claim the new information, something they had energetically denied five minutes before - has no effect on any of their opinions. I have never - never - come across a feminist who, when faced with this irrefutable evidence, just said “Wow I was wrong”, like a grown-up. 

This writer is performing the same old shit-trick in this paragraph. It looks like she’s admitting that some feminists hate men, but look at possibly the most passive-aggressive wording in the history of ever. Only three groups of women are conceded as hating on men:

1. radical feminists
2. deeply wounded women
3. women who just don’t have the patience for diplomacy anymore

Look at how much passive-aggressive bullshit you can cram into a single sentence! Look at what you can do when you really apply yourself to completely abandoning all attempts at honest, objective communication.

1. Radical feminists, a phrase which means different things to almost everyone you ask. To a crazy man-hating feminist (which we now accept actually do exist) it’s a badge of pride. To slightly crazy feminists who really wish they were super-crazy but don’t have the balls, it’s something to aspire to. To regular feminists, it’s something to distance themselves from. To most men, it means nothing at all. And so on.

If we assume that the site is aimed at normal feminists, we can also assume that this phrase was specifically designed to produce a negative response - if you’re a regular feminist, you’re immune from hating men because you’re not crazy, so if anyone says you’re man-hating, they must be mistaken. Good for you! 

2. Deeply wounded women. Of course, these women have been wounded by men. Not just men! But they have been wounded by men whose masculinity was an integral part of the injury. This must be the intention, otherwise it makes no sense to include it. And yet, none of that is stated. Who would deny a deeply wounded woman the right to hate all men if one man had hurt her at some point? I don’t know.

I have a dog who hates black people. It’s possible that a black person hurt him at some point. I don’t know; I got him as a rescue. But he’s a dog. He doesn’t understand anything. Are you really telling me that women have the emotional and logical capacity of my dog?

I can promise you if a Mexican shoots me in the head I am not going to publish reams and reams of articles critical of Mexico. 

3. This is the best one: Women who don’t have the patience for diplomacy anymore. Unstated assumptions: ‘hate’ has now been reduced to ‘undiplomatic’. Did you notice that? Doesn’t that sound a lot better? No one’s hating men! There are just some posts with undiplomatic language. Glad that’s cleared up. No one flagged it, no one said what was going on, it just happened in a tight subclause of a single sentence and you didn’t even notice. You fool! Learn to read more critically.

Also, these women are being given the benefit of the doubt, a backstory has been created for them all within this once sentence. You see, once they were diplomatic. Once they might even have been nice. But then men happened, and now they’re screaming bitches and it’s all men’s fault. You see how that works? 

And the last bit, in brackets, the purpose of which is the gainsay the earlier admission. Although she says there are “absolutely” man-hating feminists, she’s never met any. In other words, there might be man-hating feminists, but there aren’t really. Think about it. What possible reason could the writer have for including that parenthesis  It only has one purpose, and now you know what that purpose is.

Assignment

Your homework: Go and read the whole thing again with your brain switched on and make a little noise every time you come across some passive-aggressive language, or any time the writer tries to slip some gibberish into your mind without your consent (this is called psychological manipulation). 

To all you anti porn nay-sayers out there!

Reblogged from heroinfriday

heroinfriday:

To all you people who see porn as unatural, evil, amoral and disgusting in it’s sexual objectification of the men and women it represents

A quote on pornography from the book How The Mind Works by Professor of psychology, Steven Pinker, so kindly quoted by the Amazing Atheist then re-quoted by me, Morgan.

“Another part of the male sexual mind is the ability to be easily aroused by a potential sex partner. Indeed by the faintest hint of a possible sex partner. Zoologists have found that males of many species will court an enormous range of objects having a vague resemblance to the female; other males, females of the wrong species, females of the right species that have been stuffed and nailed to a board, parts of a stuffed female such as a head suspended in mid-air, even parts of a stuffed female that have important features missing like eyes and a mouth. The male of the human species is aroused by the sight of a nude woman, not only in the flesh but in movies, photographs, drawings, postcards and dolls. He takes pleasure in this mistaken identity supporting a worldwide pornography industry which In the united states alone grosses ten billion dollars a year, almost as much as spectator sports and the movies combined. In foraging cultures, young men make charcoal drawings of breasts and vulvas on rock overhangs, carve them on tree trunks and scratch them in the sand. Pornography is similar the world over and much the same a century ago as it is today. It depicts in graphic physical detail a succession of anonymous nude females eager for casual impersonal sex.”

Quite simply the urge to look at porn is not amoral, unatural or sexist in any way. It is a natural psychological and sexual compulsion that is common place across the whole of human history in every culture the world over. To judge people for indulging in pornography is to judge them for being born as sexual beings who, for the good of their mental health, need to relieve sexual frustation in a private, safe environment. Porn is never EVER going away, If you make it illegal, an illegal market for it will rise regardless of your laws, just as an illegal alcohol market arose during prohibition and that would be an even greater detriment to society than having the legal transparent, regulated porn industry that we enjoy in the first world today. Stop trying to do away with pornography, YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED and frankly I personally hope you never do.
-Morgan

I am fully pro-equality and I’m in favour of pornography too. So I guess that’s possible.

Man-Hating Lesbians: Fact or Fiction?

Reblogged from wretchedoftheearth

wretchedoftheearth:

I do find it funny that lesbians are perceived as man-hating but gay men are not perceived as woman-hating, and in fact are often illogically shielded from accusations of misogyny simply by being gay

Any of the lesbians I know seem perfectly fine with men. Either that or they wait until I’m gone to “hate” on them. 

Maybe the man-hating lesbian thing comes from the strident man-hating feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were also lesbians?

I have noticed, however, that lesbians are a lot less tolerant of bisexual women than gays are of bisexual men. I have a small sample population though, so this is not a statement of policy, just something I’ve noticed from my own acquaintances. I’m not sure why that should be, but I get the impression that bisexual females are seen by lesbians more as tourists. 

“Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.”

Reblogged from rnamitomoe

rnamitomoe:

if you literally go on websites like 4chan and go on the subreddits on reddit for “”“information”“” on feminists and feminism then you are the dumbest creature alive and you should feel terrible 

The headline on /b/ has been “The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.” for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure why anyone would take reddit any more seriously. If you don’t know, reddit is like 4chan, but without the sense of spontaneity, and better spelling.

I’ve seen people posting and reblogging screenshots of “bitch get in the kitchen” posts on reddit, thinking that it means something. What are you supposed to do with that attitude? Where does one even start to explain that it doesn’t? 

The Straw Man about talking about Feminist issues

Reblogged from sheiswolf

sheiswolf:

we have to make sure that every little thing we say can be backed up with statistics and facts.

Isn’t that a good thing?

We have no room for fuck ups or mistakes. We can’t mess up on citations or percentages. 

Why would you want to? 

Because otherwise the hordes of anti-Feminist/anti-women trolls will jump down our throats telling us we don’t know what we’re talking about.

But that’s what not using facts means: you don’t know what you’re talking about. 

& our own personal stories are never enough, 

I have a bunch of personal stories about how you’re wrong about everything. Is that enough for you? 

we have to be prepared to cite whatever the trolls deem as “reputable/acceptable” articles and surveys. 

Someone who makes the mistake of showing enough of an interest in your post to ask for further information is not a “troll”.

Even if we do bring out the statistics, we are still bombarded with deniers.

No you’re not. 

& if we piss them off enough, they’ll tell us we should get raped or beaten and that we should be back in the kitchen.

You can’t piss me off, and I’ve never suggested that anyone “should” get raped or beaten. I’ve never even made any “back in the kitchen” jokes. You have uncovered my shame. I should really get on that.