[Content Note: Sexual assault.]
Dudes out here whining about how the inclusion of too many female characters is ruining Star Wars for them, while I can't watch fucking Parks and Recreation anymore because Chris Pratt, Louis CK, and Aziz Ansari are all goddamn sex abusers.
Cry me a fucking river.
Showing posts with label MRAs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MRAs. Show all posts
An Observation
May MRAs' Misogyny Ruin Everything for Them Always
For many years now, we've had to listen to Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) and sundry other manbabies whine that everything from casting Idris Elba as Heimdall to an all-female Ghostbusters reboot was retroactively ruining their childhoods.
Naturally, the current Star Wars sequels (and prequels) are driving MRAs to distraction with their shameless inclusion of people of color and MULTIPLE WOMEN OMGGGGGG.
So, some righteously outraged dude re-cut The Last Jedi to remove all the women:
According to Pedestrian, an anonymous user uploaded a film called "The Last Jedi: De-Feminized Fanedit" to Pirate Bay on Sunday, referring to the person as an "MRA," or "Men's Rights Activist." Just in case the video's intent was unclear, the MRA in question also titled it "The Chauvinist Cut."Some people have posited that the misogynist fan edit was created by someone doing a mighty impression of an MRA, rather than an actual MRA, to which I'd say where's the joke and what is it even, since some dipshit claimed responsibility "for tanking the Rotten Tomatoes audience score" of The Last Jedi, because girls have cooties. For real.
Where would the new Star Wars movie be without its many powerful female figures? At least this one guy wants to know, because he's so unhappy with The Last Jedi that he turned the 152-minute movie into a 46-minute episode of men doing things in space. The user describes the cut as "basically The Last Jedi minus Girlz Powah and other silly stuff."
The point is, if it's supposed to be a parody of MRAs, it's indistinguishable from actual content produced by MRAs, many of whom are no doubt enjoying this woman-free version at this very moment. It's real enough, no matter who created it.
Which doesn't mean it's still not a fucking joke, of course!
All the best folks are laughing at it, in fact. Like the director of The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson.
Priscilla hits all the major points here but I’ll just add hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha https://t.co/f0bKJ9NeUe
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 16, 2018
And Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill.
Agreed. But let me add
— @HamillHimself (@HamillHimself) January 16, 2018
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣- mh https://t.co/H3jacep5sU
And John "Finn" Boyega.
Great points. Hope it’s okay to make a final point...
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) January 16, 2018
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 https://t.co/YnXFrjW47r
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! All I can say is:
If your delicate eyes being subjected to people of color and GASP! multiple women in the Star Wars universe retroactively ruins your childhood, I can only imagine that being laughed at by LUKE SKYWALKER destroys your whole life. https://t.co/bLhLbKBoih
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 17, 2018
GOOD.
We Resist: Day 204
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Trump Thanks Putin for Expelling Diplomats; Says "It Will Save a Lot of Money" and Trump Continues to Ramp Up Rhetoric on North Korea.
Shane Savitsky at Axios: 82% of Americans Fear Nuclear War with North Korea. "Most Americans are both paying attention to the news surrounding the nuclear threat from North Korea and worried about the potential for war, according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, given exclusively to Axios. ...Sizable majorities in both parties (82% of Democrats, 68% of Republicans) favor exhausting all diplomatic options in order to avoid war, and even bigger majorities (90% of Democrats, 80% of Republicans) support direct talks with North Korea before military action." In response, Donald Trump gave the nation the finger.
Charlie Pierce at Esquire: Did You Catch Everything [Donald Trump] Said [Yesterday] Afternoon? Charlie's got all the highlights, such as they are, from Trump's press conference yesterday, where he rambled well past the alotted time, because the only time he likes being president is when there's a camera pointed at him.
Speaking of which, at the Washington Post, Philip Rucker reports on how Trump just blew past his advisors to keep talking:
Midway through [Donald] Trump's second media availability in a single afternoon here Thursday, his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, held up a sign signaling to the boss that it was time to drop the curtain on the show.Trump cannot be controlled. Trump gonna Trump. And the more anyone tries to control him, the more out of control he will get.
"One more question," it read.
The president either did not see her plea or opted to disregard it, because he kept answering questions — for 20 minutes straight, after having already fielded them for seven minutes in the earlier session.
This was Trump in his element: At his luxurious private golf club here in Bedminster, the cameras trained on him, his vice president and national security advisers looking on admiringly, he parried queries — at times even gleefully — like a tennis player.
..."It was like he was a dam that had suddenly burst free and he was able to unload a lot that was on his mind," presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said.
At both media availabilities, which had been billed as "sprays," an official term for photo opportunities, Trump's new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, was relegated to merely watching the spectacle. The retired four-star Marine Corps general has, with great fanfare, worked to instill order in the White House, including a more disciplined message from the administration and more limited access to the president.
But two things Kelly apparently could not control on Thursday: What Trump would say next or how long he would keep talking.
"This is what General Kelly will learn very quickly, which is when you put this guy in a cage and think you're controlling him, things like this happen," said one Trump confidant, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
One thing that's interesting to me is how little public expectation there is of Mike Pence to try to have some influence over Trump. Pence just keeps skating on by, with zero expectation and zero judgment. And he continually just pretends like this helpless creature who doesn't even know anything — which, as I've pointed out many times, is abject bullshit. I was glad to see Seth Meyers make this point very clearly on his show last night. Thanks, Seth!
.@sethmeyers "Bullshit Mike Pence can't believe it." 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/yuF0FL4fcv
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 11, 2017
[Meyers reads a quote from short-lived White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci in which Scaramucci says that Mike Pence "can't believe what the fuck is going on."]* * *
Speaking into camera, Meyers says: Oh he can't? Mike Pence can't believe it? Did he not hear about the Access Hollywood tape, or the Trump University fraud lawsuit, or calling Mexicans rapists, or the Russian entanglement? Mike Pence knows exactly what's going on! He agreed to play back-up quarterback to a guy with two bad knees who only throws interceptions. Bullshit Mike Pence can't believe it!
I'm sorry. It's just I haven't — I haven't slept since November.
In other news, Trump continues to use the presidency to enrich himself. Jonathan O'Connell at the Washington Post: Trump D.C. Hotel Turns $2 Million Profit in Four Months.
Donald Trump's company turned a $1.97 million profit at its opulent Trump International Hotel so far in 2017, dramatically beating its expectations and giving the first hard numbers to critics who charge that Trump is profiting from his presidency.Cool.
The Trump Organization had projected that it would lose $2.1 million during the first four months of 2017 as it established a new hotel and convention business in the nation's capital, according to newly released federal documents.
Instead the hotel, with its namesake in the White House down the street, is already turning a hefty profit and charging more for its rooms than most or all of the city's other hotels.
The $4.1 million swing from projected losses to profitability represents a 192 percent improvement over what the Trump family planned to make when the company opened the hotel in the fall.
Something something even more corruption. Dell Cameron at Gizmodo: YouTube Stars Who Met with Feds to 'Grow' Trump-Themed Business Were Paid by Trump Campaign. "A pair of familiar faces from the 2016 campaign trail randomly popped up on the US Commerce Department's Twitter account Monday afternoon. But by Tuesday morning they were gone. YouTube stars Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — better known as 'Diamond' and 'Silk,' respectively — were invited to the Commerce Department's headquarters this week, apparently to discuss ways in which they could expand their business. The pair runs a political blog aimed at promoting [Donald] Trump and denigrating his critics." Also cool.
* * *
In case you were wondering if the political press is still mostly garbage, the answer is a resounding yes.
Trump's bluster is a factor unto itself but President Hillary would have taken a similarly tough stance on NoKo miniaturization of nukes.
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) August 11, 2017
What this tweet chiefly tells me is that GT spent the entire 2016 campaign not bothering to get to know or understand Hillary Clinton at all https://t.co/YDc46MiyZw
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 11, 2017
Hillary Clinton would never, EVER, have been as reckless as Trump. (NB: "Tough" and "reckless" aren't synonyms.) That is not incidental.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 11, 2017
And eliding that distinction, in this moment, after pretending it didn't matter throughout the campaign, is utterly sickening.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 11, 2017
If that weren't enough to convince you, maybe this? [Content Note: Nazism; white supremacy; misogyny] Abby Baird at ThinkProgress: None of These Awful Moments Got Jeffrey Lord Fired from CNN, But a Two-Word Tweet Did. For example: "In a speech, flanked by cops, Trump said police should be rougher when making arrests. His comments were denounced by a number of police forces around the country — but not Lord! Lord thought we were just becoming a 'humorless' society."
And if that still weren't enough to convince you, how about the media getting this so badly, badly wrong?
Nobody Could Have Fucking Predicted https://t.co/uytqkRYueW
— Scott Madin (@ScottMadin) August 10, 2017
Unsurprisingly the fired Google memo writer gave his first big interviews to Men's Rights Activists.#JamesDamore https://t.co/2Ks4JB5YFF
— TakeDownMRAs (@TakedownMRAs) August 10, 2017
We got used, media people. We helped bring the so-called mens' rights movement into the mainstream conversation. Dumb us. https://t.co/hWwckkXOS9
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) August 10, 2017
Whooops.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
The Grossest
[Content Note: Misogyny; sexuality policing; slut-shaming.]
Marisa Kabas: "With 'no hymen, no diamond' mantra, men's rights activists hunt for the perfect virgin."
These men are the absolute fucking worst. There aren't enough hours in the day to detail everything that is wrong with these slut-shaming objectifiers.
I have but only one comment, in response to this nonsense:
"Some women admitted to me that they lie about their sexual history to avoid being judged and shamed," Leora Tanenbaum, author of I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet, told the Daily Dot. "They are right to be concerned, since many men make relationship decisions based on the number of the woman they are interested in."Listen, I don't tend to dispense unsolicited or blanket relationship advice, but if any person's "standards" require you to lie about who you are in order to meet with their approval, turn tail and run like the wind and never look back.
Beyond Dipshitdome
[Content Note: Misogyny; abuse.]
I didn't think I could be any more keen to see Mad Max: Fury Road than I already was—Tom Hardy! Dystopian Garbage Action Film! Tom Hardy! Charlize Theron playing a character named Furiosa for fuck's sake! Tom Hardy! TAKE MY GODDAMNED MONEY!—but then the most amazing thing happened: MRAs went totally apeshit about how it's a feminist film and NO MEN SHOULD SEE IT.
David Futrelle details their stupendous rage. I particularly love how they are UP IN MOTHERFUCKING ARMS about a film franchise that they seem to know absolutely nothing about. Films made by men, with a history of badass women.
Hello.
I'm also delighted by the idea that these chivalrous heroes are gallantly defending the masculine honor of Mad Max, a character who is played, in this film, by Tom Hardy, who once said (during promotions for this very film): "I'm the last person you need to ask about masculinity. I'm as masculine as an eggplant."
It was exceedingly generous for George Miller to release Mad Max: Fury Road for my birthday, and I never could have imagined that MRAs would also get me THE COOLEST GIFT of assuring me none of them will be haunting the theater when I attend. I'm the luckiest girl in the world!
[H/T to Ana Mardoll.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Content Note: Misogyny; violence; rape culture; reproductive coercion; MRA talking points.]
A friend of mine got into it with a bunch of MRA douchebags on social media today, because: 1. He is awesome; 2. He was pushing back on one of the most incredibly stupid articles asking "What about female privilege?"
I'm not going to link to the article, because fuck that, but I thought we'd all enjoy having a go at the list of alleged "female privileges" put forth by its author.
1. As a rescue worker I learned that the women and children get special treatment and men are secondary creature. Women never have to worry because in a natural disaster they get pulled out first during an evacuation.I am very tempted to write a rebuttal to each of these items, but I don't want to hoard all the fun for myself!
2. College campuses have Women Only clubs but Male only clubs tend to be prohibited.
3. If a guy runs away from a fight he is a coward but if a woman does so she is praised for her nonviolent actions.
4. If a guy starts a fight he is likely to go to jail, if a woman does she is considered sexy. Hell the woman can hit a dude in the face and expect not to be hit back.
5. If a man and a woman have a physical altercation, it is assumed the man was the aggressor.
6. If a man cracks a joke about the rape of a woman he is attacked and ostracized but if anyone cracks a joke about raping a man, everyone laughs.
7. If a woman and a man commit a crime, the woman in most cases will get less significantly less time.
8. In most states, if the mother wants to keep a child in a custody battle, she gets the child unless the father can prove she is unfit. Where is the equality in that?
9. In the cases of divorce, men are often forced to pay the living expenses of their former spouse.
10. It is socially acceptable that a woman has a social support network but if a man has one he is considered weak.
11. Lets look at Breast cancer, it is in the news, sports teams flaunt it in our face, and it gets constant national attention but you never hear about prostate cancer and prostate cancer kills more men than breast cancer kills women.
12. Male soldiers are expected go into battle but female soldiers are not. On top of that men have to fear the draft and women are exempt from it.
13. Men are assumed to be Misogynist unless they are very vocal and active in proving otherwise.
14. Men are barred from the debate of gender issues while women control and direct the debate in the direction of their choosing.
15. Men are often victims of domestic violence at about the same ratio as women. The police do nothing to stop it and the man is considered weak and spineless if he does nothing about it.
16. Men are portrayed as lazy and stupid in the media while women are portrayed as sexy and smart.
17. Men are twice as likely to be the victim of an assault but the media reports far more often if the victim was a woman.
18. Men are viewed as a potential rapist simply because they have a penis. If they look at a woman appraisingly, they are considered lewd and violent. If a woman stares at a man appraisingly or even suggests sexual acts to him, she is applauded for being a free spirit.
19. Men constantly have to live with the fear of being accused of being a sexual predator if the show any interest in interacting with children not their own. Women can freely talk to and play with other people’s kids.
20. Men get labeled a sex offender for peeing in an alley. Women get a warning from the cop.
21. Men get to watch women on talk shows laugh about a man getting his penis chopped off. If a man laughed about a woman getting her breast chopped off, his media career would be over.
22. Men in America get their penis cut and mutilated at birth and no one speaks out about it. Yet if women got their genitals mutilated at birth we would hear a loud and vocal outcry of injustice.
23. Men pay more for car insurance than women do.
24. Men who make a sexual joke at work are likely to be fired for sexual discrimination but women who say the exact same joke are not.
25. Woman decide if they will carry a child to term once pregnant. The father has no so whatsoever. And if the man doesn't want the child, the woman can take him to court and force him to pay her for 18 years so that she can care for the child.
26. Women have several organizations that provide free housing in times of need and a single woman finds it easier to get social services from the government than a man.
27. Women live longer than men. While this is not a social construct it is an awesome privilege.
28. Women never have to worry about getting their life ruined with a false accusation of rape following an evening of consensual sex. I am glad that I am married because I am afraid to have sex without proof that it was consensual.
29. Women often go on dates for free as the man pays for everything.
30. My final point, Misandry is ignored by our society and if it is called out, no one hears or pays attention. Women are allowed to show hatred of men while men cannot even ask a question that might imply a woman is hateful. When a man tries to debate the whole women rights issue, he is accused of being a Misogynist.
So instead, I'll leave it for all of us to discuss in comments, and just note that many of these are patently false; many of them elide that the reasons for these "privileges" are because women are objectified and dehumanized and viewed as "the weaker sex," which sure as fuck doesn't feel like a privilege; it is possible to believe that many of these alleged "privileges" exist only by disappearing all but the most privileged women; and all of the items that have even a shred of truth to them (e.g. routine circumcision) are issues regularly addressed by feminists.
And I'll leave it there with this final observation: MRAs are the most likely and insistent yielders of the accusation that feminists and womanists view ourselves as "victims." But there are no bigger imaginary victims on the planet than these fucking bozos.
Drinking Beers with MRAs. Again.
[Content Note: MRAs; antifeminism; misogyny; rape culture; violence.]
Earlier this month, Vox published a piece in which a male reporter has beers with MRAs, and I had a few thoughts about that, ahem.*
Today, I see that GQ is the latest publication to file a story in the "Dude Reporter Has Beers with MRAs" genre: "Are You Man Enough for the Men's Rights Movement?"
To be fair to its author, Jeff Sharlet, he clearly does not sympathize with MRAs—and, in fact, I am familiar with some of his previous work challenging MRAs and patriarchal institutions like "The Family," whose members share in common with MRAs [CN: rape] some reprehensible views on sexual violence.
But I nonetheless question, again, the value of these pieces, particularly when there is a catastrophic dearth of pieces, comparable in scope and visibility, in which the targets of these men are thoughtfully profiled.
And I wonder if a casual reader comes away understanding, even a little, the vast harm these men do from a story that ends thus:
Elam and Factory slip out onto the balcony for a smoke. I follow. We look into the darkness of St. Clair Shores and the lake beyond, three men smoking in the damp air before dawn.Just three men smoking in the damp air. Jokes about bitches making sandwiches. Dicks and balls. In the dream world of King MRA. As if that world is self-contained, and their fantasy doesn't spill all the fuck out all over women all the time.
When we return to the room, Elam and Factory are giddy, horsing around, teasing Blair. "Your last line," Elam tells me, "should be, 'Then we got the munchies, and Paul said, "Bitch, go get me a sandwich."' " He's joking, more satire, because right now his brotherly love extends to ladies with a sense of humor. He would never ask a bitch to make him a sandwich. But seriously, he says. Seriously.
And that's when Elam draws me my diagram. The Dick & Balls. He doesn't mean to draw the Dick & Balls, but he does. It is a sign. "Yes," says Elam, "I guess it is." He smiles. Everyone smiles. We are high in the manosphere now, the great phallic oversoul, the red pills are working, the rape jokes no longer land like bombshells, they're like the weather, ordinary as rain. We've made it: the dream world of Elam, where men are men, no matter how broken.
I wonder how many readers will conclude that they're basically delusional but harmless, as long as you're nowhere near them.
I wonder how many readers will realize that they sometimes come for you.
The final paragraphs of Sharlet's piece read to me as a way to give the casual reader permission to not care about these guys. And if urging people to care about the harm they do isn't the point, then what is.
I realize I'm meant to be grateful, because Sharlet essentially mocks MRAs in much of this piece, but I can't put this any more plainly: Humanizing MRAs in a way that either intentionally suggests or may unintentionally suggest they're really just creepy but ultimately hapless dodos doesn't actually help those of us targeted by them.
To the contrary: We are obliged to take seriously the threats and harassment which emanate from "Men's Rights" quarters, and, when we ask in turn for others to take seriously the harm being done to us, it's decidedly unhelpful to be met with some variation on "just ignore them; they're dingalings; what's the big deal?"
I'll grant it's pretty helpful to misogynist terrorists to be regarded that way, though.
---------------------------
* For fuller context: That same week, Buzzfeed also published a detailed profile of MRA leader Paul Elam, and the Guardian published Lindy West's account of meeting a man who viciously trolled her (and then reformed his ways). Neither of these pieces was the same in tone as the other pieces, but they are among a number of pieces lately in which people who engage in misogynist trolling are being profiled and/or humanized, for various purposes.
Parks & Rec: The Final Season
[Spoilers are delivering fresh oranges herein.]
Ladies, amirite?
So, I am still feeling all the things about Parks & Rec's last season, and last night's double set of episodes was a perfect example of why.
It was a great reminder of why I loved the show as a political nerd; there were cameos from Senators Barbara Boxer, John McCain, Corey Booker, and Orrin Hatch, as well as an amazing cameo by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright OMG.
And it was a great reminder of why I first fell in love with the characters: The scene where April thanks Leslie and hugs her; the scene in which April tells Ron that she hid his key under a strong old tree that reminds her of him; the scenes of Leslie and Ben turning the "Pie Mary" on its head and, later, Ben handing the mic over to Leslie, who uses her platform to tell "The Male Men," Pawnee's MRA group: "The Male Men? Where are you? You're ridiculous and men's rights is nothing," before launching into a speech destroying the press' treatment of women in politics:
I'm now going to give you permanent answers to all the silly questions that you're going to end up asking me and every other woman in this election in the next few months. Why did I change my hairstyle? I don't know. I just thought it would look better, or my kids got gum in it. Are you trying to have it all? That question makes no sense, it's a stupid question, stop asking it, don't ask it. Do you miss your kids while you're at work? Of course I do! Everybody does. And then, you know, sometimes I don't.And then there was the scene with Gary and Donna. Oh my heart. Gary drops his wedding band down a grate, then proceeds to lose down the same grate his keys, his watch, his phone, his belt, his back-up wedding band, and his heart medication trying to retrieve it.
If you want to bake a pie, that's great; if you want to have a career, that's great, too. Do both or neither, doesn't matter. Just don't judge what someone else has decided to do. We're all just trying to find the right path for us as individuals on this earth.
Donna watches all of this, laughing at Gary at first, as per usual. She buys him dinner. They reminisce about his doofy maneuvers of days past, and he tells her about how Gayle calls him a bozo when he loses his wedding band and sends him out for fresh oranges as penance.
Suddenly, it's like Donna sees him as fully human for the first time. She thanks him for the walk down memory lane, and, the next morning, she shows up at his house with all his lost items, care of a handyman to whom she called in a favor, and a bag of oranges. She calls him her buddy.
This is a scene that I wish had come much, much sooner. That it didn't, and that it involved only Donna, thus ensuring Gary will still be the punchline and punching bag for everyone else, was a great reminder of why my love faded.
Anyway.
"You're ridiculous and men's rights is nothing." FOREVER.
The last time I saw MRAs being mocked on a TV show was on The Kroll Show. I like to imagine that Amy Poehler and Nick Kroll just sit around their flat drinking wine and writing MRA jokes.
Possibly because Iain and I sit around drinking wine and making MRA jokes, but no one pays us for it.
Discuss!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Illness; anti-vaxxing] Yesterday, it was reported that five infants who attend a suburban Chicago day care center were diagnosed with measles, with public health officials warning that more cases are likely. As more outbreaks are reported across the country: "Lawmakers in California, Oregon, and Washington state, which have all had recent measles cases, want to remove exemptions based on personal beliefs, while farther afield, Ohio recently extended a law that covers those entering childcare."
[CN: War; terrorism] In Jordan, thousands of demonstrators rallied in the streets in support of the government's "intensified offensive against the militant group Islamic State. ...The aerial campaign began after the militant group's lightning takeover of large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, two nations that share long borders with Jordan." I can't imagine how scary it is to know that group is on your borders with the intent to take over.
[CN: Misogyny; MRAs] Yet another article, care of Vox, which humanizes MRAs. I am tired to my very goddamn bones of reading pieces that humanize the sort of men who abuse me, knowing I'd never be humanized like that—even though the routine dehumanization of women, and feminist women in particular, underwrites the abuse. I challenge Vox to publish an equivalent article humanizing a visible feminist who has to put up with MRA abuse.
[CN: Misogyny; abuse; MRAs] Speaking of MRAs: At Buzzfeed, Adam Serwer and Katie J.M. Baker take on "How Mens' Rights Leader Paul Elam Turned Being a Deadbeat Dad into a Moneymaking Movement." And, in news that surprises no one but is nonetheless appalling: "Now, exclusive interviews with Elam's ex-wives and daughter and newly uncovered court records shed light on a man who, they told BuzzFeed News, has depended on and emotionally abused the women in his own life."
[CN: Police brutality] From an article detailing the "scandalous" lack of data on police killings of citizens: "The biggest thing I've taken away from this project is something I'll never be able to prove, but I'm convinced to my core: The lack of such a database is intentional. No government—not the federal government, and not the thousands of municipalities that give their police forces license to use deadly force—wants you to know how many people it kills and why."
[CN: Rape culture; war on agency] Another Republican genius on rape and abortion: West Virginia Delegate Brian Kurcaba, "explaining why he opposed a Democratic-sponsored amendment to add an exception for rape victims" to a proposed 20-week abortion ban, said: "Obviously rape is awful. What is beautiful is the child that could come from this." Fuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuu.
Republican New Jersey Governor and presidential hopeful Chris Christie is under investigation again: "Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as members of his administration, a man at the center of the investigation told ABC News. The U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey has interviewed former Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor Bennett Barlyn, who claims he was fired because he objected to Christie officials dismissing indictments against political allies of the governor." Christie sure sounds like a neat guy!
And finally: Here is just a terrific video of a kitten seeing snow for the first time! I remember when Sophie saw snow out the window for the first time, and it looked pretty much exactly the same! Aww.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; death] In Israel and Gaza: "The Palestinian death toll in an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip rose above 500 on Monday as the army said it had killed 10 militants who tunnelled into Israel, while Gazan officials said an Israeli tank shelled a hospital, killing civilians. A day after he was caught by an open microphone saying sarcastically that the Israeli assault was 'a hell of a pinpoint operation,' U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Cairo to try to secure an end to the two-week conflict." Hamas killed 13 Israeli solders on Sunday, and the Israeli military killed, in addition to the militants, "28 members of a single family at the southern end" of the Gaza Strip, while, at Al-Aqsa hospital, "four people were killed and 70 wounded when an Israeli tank shell slammed into the third floor, housing operating theatres and an intensive care unit, the Health Ministry said. The Israeli military, which has accused Hamas militants of firing rockets from the grounds of Gaza hospitals and seeking refuge there, had no immediate comment." President Barack Obama has called for an "immediate ceasefire." Which doesn't look likely to happen.
[CN: War; downed plane; death] The war in Ukraine is hindering the investigation and recovery of Flight 17: "As Dutch forensic experts arrived at the scene of the Malaysia Airlines crash on Monday and promised that the train being loaded with the victims' bodies would be moved before the end of the day, heavy fighting broke out between the Ukrainian army and rebels on the outskirts of Donetsk, the main regional city and the hub of the insurgency." Fuck.
[CN: Disablism; death penalty] A study by researchers Robert J. Smith, Sophie Cull, and Zoë Robinson has found that a "majority of the 100 executed inmates examined" for their research "had 'a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis.' Yet, because of an oddity in the Supreme Court’s death penalty cases, it is typically constitutional under existing precedents to execute people with these illnesses." In fact, "the overwhelming majority of executed offenders had intellectual and psychological deficits that rivaled—and sometimes outpaced—those associated with intellectual disability and juvenile status."
[CN: Misogyny] Nathan Rabin, the writer who coined the phrase "manic pixie dream girl," regrets having coined it. I dunno. I feel like it was a useful description for a misogynist trope, and it's not really his fault that people took it and used it in a misogynist way to demean female characters as opposed to the people who wrote them. (And, sometimes, real women.)
[CN: War on agency; reproductive coercion] This may be one of the worst things you read today, or ever: "Men have a right and a role in the abortion issue." Basically, this dude thinks their role is reproductive coercion, and definitely not advocating for reproductive rights and protected choice. One word: "MENistry." Yikes.
RIP James Garner. His films and TV roles played such a huge part in my childhood. His death feels so weirdly personal, the way celebrity deaths sometimes do. I feel very sad.
And finally! Smudge the Cat defended his five-year-old guardian from bullies and is a HERO. Yay Smudge! WHO'S A GOOD KITTY CAT? YOU ARE!!!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today!
[Content Note: Violence; death] Fourteen-year-old freshman Philip Chism has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old math teacher Colleen Ritzer. He is currently being held without bail, and there is still no information on motive. This story is so awful. I am so sad for everyone who's been affected by this heinous crime.
[CN: Sexual violence; misogyny] MRAs don't care about female rape victims, because "when it comes to really marginalizing rape victims, to proving you don't give a shit about what happens to people, nobody has anything on feminists when it comes to the subject of rape, nobody." Okay, player. You know, even if that were true and not MRAs' typically bizzaro world version of reality, all female rape victims aren't feminists, so feminists' (allegedly monolithic) disposition toward rape still wouldn't justify not giving a shit about female rape victims.
Terrific: "Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has called the US ambassador to a personal meeting to discuss allegations that US secret services bugged Angela Merkel's mobile phone." You know, even if it turns out the US didn't actually bug the German Chancellor's mobile phone, just the fact that it's even considered to be within the realm of possibility is appalling.
[CN: Drunk driving; death] Matthew Cordle, the man who confessed on YouTube to killing someone while driving under the influence of alcohol, knowing he would be tried and punished, has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison after pleading guilty.
[CN: Racism; police malfeasance] Trayon Christian, a 19-year-old black man, was detained by police after he bought a $349 belt because they didn't believe he could afford it. "The detectives were asking me, 'How could you afford a belt like this? Where did you get this money from?'" He got the money from his job, by the way.
Nicolas Cage says smart things about the lack of visible Asian actors in mainstream US movies and demonstrates an awareness of his own white privilege.
Japanese scientists "have successfully tested a space cannon that will be used to blast a hole in an asteroid as part of an upcoming mission." That is great news, as it means my giant cannon from which I will be able to shoot stuff directly into the sun can't be far behind.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handles a heckler in her inimitable way.
Tom Hardy will play Elton John in Rocketman. Now y'all know I love Tom Hardy with eleventy million hearts, but I'm PRETTY SURE there are gay actors in Britain who might be able to play this role who would also do a very good job! I'm just saying.
"Elton John sure has a lot of sunglasses." "He sure does, puppy. He sure does."
The Global Echo of Violent Misogyny
by David Futrelle
[Trigger warning for violence, terrorism, eliminationism, misogyny, racism, Islamophobia.]
We all know that Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed dozens of people in attacks last Friday, was motivated by a toxic mélange of far-right ideology largely revolving around his intense hatred of Islam. The 1500-page "manifesto" he posted to the internet – a grab-bag of his own writing and material cut and pasted from assorted right-wing sites and even the Unabomber's manifesto – crackles with denunciations of Muslims, "Marxists" and the assorted other bogeymen that haunt right-wing dreams.
But what has yet to be fully appreciated is the degree to which he was also motivated by a deep hatred of women.
I've spent much of the past year seeking out and exposing (and often simply mocking) online misogyny for my blog Man Boobz. I find much of it in what some have taken to calling the "manosphere" – a loose collection of interlinked sites devoted to Men's Rights Activism, pickup artistry, and a strange separatist movement of sorts called Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). The overwhelming majority of these sites – the most popular of which include The Spearhead, A Voice for Men, In Mala Fide and MGTOWforums.com (to which I won't be providing direct links, but they're easy enough to find, if you're so inclined)– are steeped in misogyny (and in some cases racism). I've become very familiar with their standard misogynist "arguments" and rhetorical tropes.
After a blog reader alerted me to the misogyny in Breivik's manifesto, I read through those sections of the sprawling work that dealt specifically with feminism. I was struck again and again by how utterly familiar it all sounded. Much of it could have been taken word-for-word from the manosphere blogs I read every day. (Not to mention from some of the misogynist trolls who regularly comment on my site.) The ideology is the same, the language is the same, even the specific obsessions are the same – from no-fault divorce to the evils of "Sex and the City."
Here's one typical passage, which appears to have been written by Breivik himself:
It's the destructive and suicidal "Sex and the City" lifestyle (modern feminism, sexual revolution) which we are taught to revere as the truth. In that setting, men are not men anymore, but metro sexual and emotional beings that are there to serve the purpose as a never-criticising soul mate to the new age feminist woman goddess. The perfect matriarchy has now been fulfilled …
Breivik goes on to rant about STDs and no-fault divorce, before moving on to another favorite obsession of manosphere misogynists, the supposed sexual "capital" of manipulative women:
Isolated, "sex and the city lifestyle" is relatively harmless, but if you glorify it and ram it down the throat of mainstream society like we see today it becomes a lethal and destructive societal force as we are witnessing which eventually leads to a complete breakdown of moral/ethics, the nuclear family model and a sustainable fertility rate which again is leading us to the extinction of Europeans.
Females have a significantly higher proportion of erotic capital than males due to biological differences (men have significantly more prevalent sexual urges than females and are thus easily manipulated). The female manipulation of males has been institutionalised during the last decades and is a partial cause of the feminisation of men in Europe. This highly underestimated factor has contributed to the creation and rise of the matriarchal systems which are now dominating Western European countries.
Obsessed with the purported danger that Islam will outbreed the West, Breivik offers an assortment of creepy solutions to increase the fertility of Western whites. (It's not altogether clear to me if these are all his own views, but they certainly are consistent with what he says elsewhere in the manifesto.) After suggesting limiting contraception and banning abortion, Breivik offers this idea:
Discourage women in general to strive for full time careers. This will involve certain sexist and discriminating policies but should increase the fertility rate by up to 0,1-0,2 points.
That last "side effect" does not seem to be much of a problem for Breivik.
Women should not be encouraged by society/media to take anything above a bachelor's degree but should not be prevented from taking a master or PhD. Males on the other hand should obviously continue to be encouraged to take higher education – bachelor, master and PhD. …
Womens "new role" should be actively illustrated and glorified through series, movies and commercials. …
The end result for implementing the above reforms would be an increase in the fertility rate up from 1,5 to approximately 2,1-2,4 which would be sustainable.
However, this will also involve significant restrictions in women's rights and media rights.
Large chunks of the manifesto consist of cut-and-pasted blog posts from an anonymous far-right Norwegian blogger known as Fjordman. (See my post here for an extensive number of quotes from Fjordman that Breivik included in his manifesto.) Like Breivik's own writings, many of Fjordman's writings could be lifted virtually word for word from "manosphere" blogs.
One internet prankster conducted a little experiment that proved pretty clearly just how unexceptional this sort of rhetoric is in the manosphere, posting an assortment of misogynist quotes from Breivik's manifesto (all of them taken originally from Fjordman) to Reddit's Men's Rights forum – without identifying them as being from Breivik.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the blatant misogyny, the post initially received numerous upvotes and some positive comments ("Nice post man") from the regulars. Once it was revealed that the quotes had come from Breivik's manifesto, the downvotes and critical comments began to stack up. (I wrote about the incident here.)
But Reddit's Men's Rights subreddit is actually one of the most moderate and least misogynistic Men's Rights hangout online. Others in the manosphere have stepped up to defend Breivik's manifesto (if not his actions) plainly and explicitly, in full knowledge of just whose ideas they are endorsing.
On In Mala Fide, blogger Ferdinand Bardamu praises Breivik's "lucidity," and blames his murderous actions on the evils of a too-liberal society:
[A]nother madman with a sensible manifesto. Another completely rational, intelligent man driven to murderous insanity. And once again, society has zero introspection in regards to its profound ability to turn thoughtful men into lunatic butchers.
He's not being sarcastic here. He continues:
That makes HOW many rage killers in the past five years alone? And not just transparent headcases like Jared Loughner or George Sodini, but ordinary men like Pekka-Eric Auvinen or Joe Stack who simply weren't going to take it anymore. No one bothers to ask WHY all these men suddenly decide to pick up a gun and start shooting people – they're all written off as crazies. Or the rage killings are blamed on overly permissive gun laws …
That final reference to "ethnic self-hatred" seems to be Bardamu's euphemistic way of complaining that not enough white people are white supremacists.
Here's an idea – sick societies produce sick individuals who do sick things. Anders Breivin [sic] murdered nearly a hundred teens (not children, TEENS – they were at a summer camp for young adults) and must pay the price, but the blood of those teens is ultimately on the hands of the society that spat him forth. He is the bastard son of a masochistic, degenerate, rootless world that pisses on its traditions and heritage to elevate perversity, mindless consumerism and ethnic self-hatred to the highest of virtues.
Meanwhile, Chuck of Gucci Little Piggy offers what appears to be a somewhat more restrained, if ultimately more puzzling, defense of Breivik's manifesto – or at least that portion of the manifesto that Breivik borrowed from the writings of far-right blogger Fjordman.
After first complaining, incorrectly, that feminists are "try[ing] to blame Breivik on MRAs" (he cites me and Hugo Schwyzer as examples), Chuck goes on to endorse Breivik's (and Fjordman's) notion that feminism "grease[s]the wheels to allow Islam into his country," as Chuck summarizes the argument. The rest of Chuck's post elaborates on, and endorses, Breivik's/Fjordman's theories, arguing that feminism's "emasculation of Western men has taken the organic policing mechanism out of the hands of men in society" and thus rendered Western society helpless before the Islamic cultural invaders. (More on Bardamu and Gucci Little Piggy's arguments here.)
But the strangest response I've seen so far to the massacre in Norway comes from Sofiastry, an antifeminist blog that seems to be broadly sympathetic to the "alt" (that is, the "intellectually" racist) right. Apparently taking her cue from Bardamu, Sofia offers an appreciation of sorts for Breivik's repellant manifesto:
[A]lthough his actions were cruel beyond belief, and committed by a delusional, psychopath driven by his delusions of political grandeur, there is lucidity and sense in much of what he writes. He never seemed to explicitly advocated [sic] for a genocide of Muslims within Europe, but superficially claimed that he just wanted to sustain European culture.
So, let's weigh Breivik's pros and cons here. CON: He murdered dozens of people in cold blood, motivated by a hateful ideology. PRO: He didn't explicitly call for actual genocide?
And then it just gets, well, weird:
I feel that Breivik is being tried for more than his cruelty within the feminist community. The fact that he belongs to the privileged group of the white male makes him hate-worthy along with every other privileged white male who might sympathize with his ideology, even if they don't happen to be psychotic. Breivik exemplifies White Men, even though Osama Bin Laden to the very same liberal ideologues did not represent Every Muslim.
Yep, that's right. She thinks we hate Breivik … because he's a white dude.
It's another symptom of our culture that feels it is OK to hold white men to higher standards of political correctness, self-flagellation and martyrdom whilst simultaneously relentlessly berating and mocking them on a cultural level.
I can't speak for every feminist, but for me, it's more the murdering, and the misogyny, and the racism. But mostly the murdering. (For more on Sofia, see here.)
Despite the many undeniable similarities between Breivik's repellent misogyny and misogynist beliefs that are widespread in the "manosphere," some MRAs profess to be shocked –shocked! – that anyone would connect the dots. MRA bloviator Bernard Chapin, for example, responded to my first piece on Breivik with an angry, incoherent ten minute YouTube diatribe expressing his outrage that I would possibly suggest any connection between MRA thought and a "psychopath" like Breivik. It's a classic case of someone protesting too much. The connections are clear to anyone willing to see them.
No, Breivik is not an MRA. No, he didn't take his marching orders from The Spearhead or In Mala Fide. But he is steeped in the same kind of hatred that is prevalent on those sites, and many of his repugnant beliefs about feminism and women in general are virtually identical to beliefs widespread in the misogynistic manosphere – a fact that a few in the manosphere are already willing to acknowledge out loud, as we saw above.
No, not every misogynist is going to pick up a gun. But ideas do have consequences. Vile, hateful ideas have vile, hateful consequences.
PS: For more on Breivik's misogyny, see Michelle Goldberg's Norway Killer's Hatred of Women in TheDailyBeast.
