Patrick Smith reflects on underdogs, misandry (haw haw), and the non-End of Men.
This piece is part of a special series on the End of Gender. This series includes bloggers from Role/Reboot, Good Men Project, The Huffington Post, Salon, HyperVocal, Ms. Magazine, YourTango, Psycholog
Remember when you used to torment your little brother? You’d tell him something horrible, like “Psst. Mom doesn’t want you to know, but you were really hatched from an egg.”
Why’d you do it? For the pure sport of it. First, it was kind of hilarious to watch your brother lose his little mind. And second,
there was something comforting in the order and the predictability of it all. At some point, after the 2,000th Indian burn or another successful round of “Guess what…chicken butt,” you brushed away the salty tears of hard laughter, and you said to yourself, “Why, the day that kid doesn’t fall for my jokes is the day I’m in a lot of trouble.”
And when that day arrived, everything changed. He was still your little brother, but he earned a little respect in your book, didn’t he?
But what if your little brother didn’t grow up? What if, all these years later, he still bought everything you sold him? You’d think he was stunted. Maybe you held him under a little too long that day at the pool. Or maybe he swallowed too much gum. You always told him if he swallowed his Bubblicious, he’d lose 50 IQ points. Hell, maybe that wasn’t a joke.
Well, lucky for the people at the Atlantic, we haven’t yet grown up. We’re the little brother, still falling for the Atlantic’s wet willies and atomic noogies. And from the looks of things, they’re in for big laughs for many years to come.
Somebody at the Atlantic wrote an essay last year called “The End of Men” and a lot of the fellows around these parts just won’t stand for it. By damn, they’re mad! End of men? Why, it ain’t right!
A year after that piece was published, we’re still outraged. C’mon! Don’t you see us over here, trying our damnedest to be good? After all, we’re Good Men. (Just ask us.)
♦◊♦
The Atlantic.com treats you to a brutally cloying video of Hanna Rosin, the author of “The End of Men,” debating the topic with her husband, their son, and their daughter. “Girls rule!” “Nuh uh! Boys rule!” Nothing says “game-changing new discovery” like a family meeting on YouTube.
Rosin’s family video is silly. But her 8,500-word epic isn’t. In it, she asserts that women are better equipped to succeed in the global, post-industrial two-thousand-teens. Women, for the first time in our nation’s history, have more of the jobs. And for every two B.A. degrees men earn this year, women will earn three. They’re totally winning.
I say God bless ‘em. It’s time to admit we’re lost. Let the women drive for a while. Brothers, let’s mess with the radio, put the seat back and get some sleep. Maybe the women can get us back to the highway.
The back-and-forth of the “battle of the sexes” isn’t so much exhausting as it is enervating. It’s like watching the NBA all-star game in purgatory. It’s not really going to settle anything; it’s a meaningless exhibition. Nobody plays real defense; they just launch as many shots as they can. For eternity.
News flash: men aren’t “ending.” Sheesh. I’m pretty confident we play a fairly important role in keeping the human species afloat. I mean, who would show women how to work the remote?
So be cool, my brothers. We’re still in the game.
But that’s just it, isn’t it? We can’t be cool. And it’s not enough to be in the game. We have to be dominant. We’re furious about this “end of men” business. Someone’s even made up a word: “misandry.” Haw haw! Misandry! Whew, quit it! Yer killin’ me already.
♦◊♦
OK, OK. So it’s not a made-up word. It’s an antique word that gets dusted off when a guy thinks a feminist has stepped out of bounds. But rather than call her a ball-busting man-hater, they call her a misandrist. (“Excuse me, that’s MS. andrist.”)
Let’s face it: nobody roots for the overdog. Men are Duke. Women are Virginia Commonwealth. We’re the Yankees. They’re the Twins. We’re the BCS schools, and women are Boise State. Our fans are assholes who think their team is entitled to rout the competition every year. Their fans are patient and smart. They’re students of the game.
There’s been gender inequality for, what, 20,000 years? White men have gotten pretty much all the breaks. If you’re a white guy reading this, congratulations. You started this drive on the 20 yard-line after life kicked you a touchback. Women and minorities took over on downs somewhere back inside the ten.
I didn’t grow up rich. But I grew up white and male. I got away with stuff I shouldn’t have and certainly wouldn’t have, had I been not-white and/or not-male. Ours is a life of do-overs. And I’m damn glad to have had them.
But I’m not a hog. I don’t need to keep all the do-overs for myself. If women want to shoot their mouths of about “the end of men,” well, have at it. They’re due that much.
So that’s our burden to bear; if we’re to be “good men,” it’s on us to pay a little more attention to treating women like equals. And once in a while, admitting we don’t have all the answers.
I know, right? I mean, goddamn! When’s this misandry going to end?
Haw haw! Misandry. That gets me every time.
—Photo chimothy27/Flickr
About Patrick Smith
Patrick, watch the video again, she is psychologically abusing and bullying her family. Also, its funny when upper middle class male feminists mistake their class privilege for a male privilege that all men have.
Correct.
“Misandry” – it is part of the way we are changing the culture. We are starting to talk about the ways that men are stereotyped, and the ways in which they are unjustly treated. Women, gays, minorities etc. have legitimate problems, and we have words like “sexism”, “homophobia” and “racism” that help us label those problems. We’ve coined a new word to label the problems men face. It is part of an effort to have the culture start to take these problems seriously.
And it follows the same pattern as all social movements. First people ignore the problem. Then they make fun of it. Eventually it is taken as self-evident. Your article making fun of the word “misandry” is part of that process. Thanks!
“We’ve coined a new word to label the problems men face.”
Hey, I’m all for linguistics. I also recognize that it’s common for populations that have small problems to equate themselves with populations that have large problems.
If the word did not resonate with millions of people it would never have entered common use. Enjoy!
“OK, OK. So it’s not a made-up word. It’s an antique word that gets dusted off when a guy thinks a feminist has stepped out of bounds. But rather than call her a ball-busting man-hater, they call her a misandrist. (“Excuse me, that’s MS. andrist.”)”
I think it’s mainly in reaction to be called a misogynist when a women thinks a man has stepped out of bounds.
And why is it that people that use words like ‘mansplaining’, ‘Kyriarchy’, and ‘herstory’ giggle over misandry? Hypocrisy much
Ms. Ogyny Haw haw!
Patrick:
Have you ever bothered to research how well men are doing?
The simple fact is that in addition to race and gender there is also class. And it seems the elites who make the laws have no problem either ignoring male problems, or using males (particularly poor and minority males) as cannon fodder upon which our society is built.
When we take the metrics that show wide-spread black disenfranchisement and oppression and apply them to gender we find:
Men
live on average 7 years less
are 90% of the homeless
are 80% of all suicides
are 90% of all incarcerations
are the target of 80% of all violent crime
are 95% of on-the-job deaths
are 38% of college graduates.
$1 is spent on male specific disease research for each $7 on female specific disease research
There are 4 offices of women’s health, none for men
There is a national commission on the status of women & one in almost every state. Only Massachusetts has one for men, and it is unfunded.
I understand that your article is tongue-in-cheek, but for the millions of men who dominate the bottom of the power pyramid (at about a 9 to 1 ratio to women based on the above stats) this is no laughing matter.
In addition to the f*ckup elites who grind men’s bones to build society, we now have male feminists who (while professing to care about men’s issues) have a message that’s essentially: aren’t your balls big enough to take it?
It’s time to stop pecker-checking the elites like it has any bearing on anything. It’s time to end women-only help bureaucracies for poor and at-risk people, and instead make them gender neutral.
To say that the elites are overwhelmingly male and therefore males are doing fine is as much a broken argument to say that since we have a black male president black males are doing fine.
Case in point: Alpha Phi Alpha (the oldest nationally recognized black fraternity wrote a letter to Obama over two years ago beseeching him to create a cabinet level office on men and boys as he did for women and girls when he first took office.
It’s been over two years and he hasn’t even REPLIED. So, yes you can have white males oppressing white males just as you can have black males oppressing black males.
Maybe you should try writing about subjects you know about?
Also,
Fathers get sole custody 6% of the time to mothers 80%. Are mothers really the better parent 13 times as often?
You can laugh it off with more jokes, but kids need fathers just as much as they need mothers.
There are many studies which show kids have much better outcomes with access to loving fit fathers. Despite this, 1/3rd of children lose permanent contact NCP fathers–the overwhelming majority of it due to visitation interference from mothers.
The Urban Institute states that the #1 indicator if a family will be in poverty is lack of a father.
Define “big problems” as opposed to “small problems” in an objective, as opposed to entirely subjective, way. I’m not holding my breath.
This is the very essence of the innate deficiency in basing a case around rhetoric, it can’t stand up to reasoned enquiry. Can you provide some sort of objective standard by which you decide whose problems are small and whose are big? I strongly doubt it, you simply characterise things in terms of your indocrinated preconceptions and hey presto! Instant circular argument.
Likewise with misandry, you start with the assumption that it’s inherently insignificant and support your proposition by simply ridiculing it. Men are approximately half the world’s population, what’s small about that? I notice your responses to reasoned argument are flippant, dismissive and evasive, why not engage in a proper discussion?
Aww, you came so close to making a good point–that men don’t need to obsess about being in charge and being “dominant.”
Then you spoiled it by pretending that there’s no such thing as misandry, that all feminists think men are just swell and never lay all their troubles at the feet of Der Patriarchy, in which All Men Are Co-Conspirators. And you KNOW that isn’t true, Patrick.
Sure, there have been centuries of anti-woman abuses. So what’s your argument–that turnabout is fair play, or “just desserts”? That argument has never flown in any uprising, and it doesn’t work now. Your attempts to curry favor by mocking the concept of misandry are, like all attempts to deny real social problems, doomed to failure.
“… that all feminists think men are just swell and never lay all their troubles at the feet of Der Patriarchy, in which All Men Are Co-Conspirators. And you KNOW that isn’t true, Patrick.”
While most feminists I know don’t paint the earth’s 3.5 billion men with the broad brush of oppression, I’ve encountered a few who, I suspect, aren’t crazy about me because I’m a guy. My solution to this is to not hang out with them very often.
“Sure, there have been centuries of anti-woman abuses. So what’s your argument–that turnabout is fair play, or “just desserts”? That argument has never flown in any uprising, and it doesn’t work now.”
Turnabout isn’t fair play. Nor is it happening. If women are gaining, it’s not at the expense of men. Wish ‘em well.
“Your attempts to curry favor by mocking the concept of misandry are, like all attempts to deny real social problems, doomed to failure.”
If the uprising is quashed and women make slaves out of us, I do hope this essay gets me some extra gruel.
I wish women well (father of girls) but it’;s simply wrong to endorse feminism’s anti-male policies and arguments, which have created a scenario where the problems young black males problems have grown worse and are ignored because feminism claims they enjoy “male privilege.”
“While most feminists I know don’t paint the earth’s 3.5 billion men with the broad brush of oppression, I’ve encountered a few who, I suspect, aren’t crazy about me because I’m a guy. My solution to this is to not hang out with them very often.”
The feminists I know don’t usually turn to me and say that I, personally, am the problem. But when feminists lay women’s problems at the feet of “The Patriarchy” its inevitable that all men, myself and yourself included, are expected to foot the bill with our rights and freedom of speech. Speaking of which, I know alot of men, but none of them are patriarchs.
“Turnabout isn’t fair play. Nor is it happening. If women are gaining, it’s not at the expense of men. Wish ‘em well.”
It would be nice to live in your world, can I visit? I assume John D’s statistics are imaginary? Genuinely equal rights for women and men will never come at the expense of the opposite gender, unfortunately many of the more powerful feminists don’t see men’s rights as important.
OK, OK. So it’s not a made-up word. It’s an antique word that gets dusted off when a guy thinks a feminist has stepped out of bounds. But rather than call her a ball-busting man-hater, they call her a misandrist. (“Excuse me, that’s MS. andrist.”)
Wow I can’t believe I’m about to say this but you’re basically crying, “what about teh feminists!?!”
1. Fathers being pushed out of their children’s lives despite fighting to be there against the back drop of being constantly told they need to “step up”.
2. Being encouraged to engage in behavior that has at least some small bit to do with why women outlive men by about an average of 7 years.
3. Committing suicide about 3 times the rate of women.
4. Having our entire gender perceieved as sexual predators despite only a small portion of us actually being sexual predators.
Hey look I just managed to come up with four pieces of misandry that have nothing to do with feminists. If you’re going to criticize a word then pay more attention to how its used rather than trying to make sweeping generalizations in order to make feminists feel better about themselves.
1. Is this about child support? I’m not versed in the field, but it seems problems like these are episodic, rather than institutional.
2. Let’s stop engaging in that behavior. Please see above, “Be cool, my brothers. We’re still in the game.”
3. Are women making men do this?
4. Whoa. Good luck with that.
1. Its about custody and being there for kids.
2. I’m all for engaging in that behavior but pointing out that it exists and calling misandry is not thinking that a feminist “has stepped out of bounds”.
3. I don’t recall saying they did.
4. Well I thought it would be a combination of people getting over their prejudiced thoughts and doing something to pinpoint and stop the actual bad guys rather than being lazy and casting the whole lot as predators to save the trouble of actually thinking.
Four cultural examples of how society has a hatred/disregard for men and in response you try to cast one as episode (I guess it just a long running series then), act like the other isn’t that big of a deal, accuse me of saying women make men do another, and leave the last to wishful thinking.
Just like misogyny can exist without men misandry doesn’t need women (and it damn sure doesn’t need feminists) to exist either.
If you think Danny is exaggerating on #4, I suggest you go to a public playground where there are children, and crack open a good book and read awhile. Some woman will ask you which child is yours. Don’t have one? Enjoy your talk with the police.
I guess I’d file #4 under “kinda sucks” rather than “oppressing my entire gender.”
Tell that to the guys that risk getting cops called on them for playing with their own kids in the park and the lawsuit it took to get rid of a sexist policy British Airways had where adult male passengers were not allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children (oh and if there was nowhere else to move him to he was kicked off the flight).
Okay, I think your not going to like this comment and I can understand why.
The reason that women fear men as predators is because the predators don’t have big flashing neon signs above them saying RUN! Predators are very adept at flying under the radar, so we women end up trusting them and we pay the price. Most rapes are comitted by predators that were known and trusted by the women, and I believe that the same dynamics occur with men who are raped. The end result is that a victim of rape (male or female) faces a huge psychological hurdle of ever trusting anyone again, let alone people of the opposite gender. I can’t speak for men, but I’ve met a great many female survivors of rape and molestation. The fallout from those experiences can make it seem prudent to be very wary of men. Most women will look for red flags, but that passes very quickly in a relationship unless she has been a victim or watched the struggles of someone close to her. We don’t watch women the same way because strength levels tend to be about the same so we’re more confident about warding off an attack. However, I acknowledge that I may be wrong on this.
If you look on the net for schrodingers rapist, it explains a bit better why women have this hypervigilence about men, and gives some tips on how not to accidently set off flags.
Oh I’ve crossed paths with Schrodinger’s Rapist before.
I’m not trying to say that its wrong to be vigilant. However when hypervigilance is written into the law (or rule) and the innocent people that are caught in the mix are just told it sucks a little that’s when I have a problem. Its one thing for a person who was abused by a man to be fearful of men, even a bit distrustful and may keep them at a distance until they can get a read on them. But that is no excuse for starting off with the presumption that any given male is a predator and if he doesn’t like it then to the devil with him.
I’ll put it like this. I have no problem with, “I don’t know him. I better be careful until I can get a read on him.” I have a big problem with, “I don’t know him. If I’m not careful he’s going to attack men.”
If its wrong to make sweeping generalizations about groups, despite the bad ones being able to blend in with the good ones, then let’s be fair about it to all groups instead calling it okay to only presume the worst faith in certain groups.
Danny:
Actually I think he was removed from the flight if he refused to move (which I don’t understand, why not move the kid).
I would assume if no empty seats were available, they would ask a woman to switch with him.
Well, first of all gender inequality has only been around for about 10,000 years. Not 20,000.
Second of all, in a capitalist system when one person profits they do so at the expense of others. That’s the basis of the system: there are limited resources, we compete for resource access. Increased resource access for one group necessarily involves reduced resource access for other groups. So the claim that women’s success does not equate to men’s failure is simply false.
Finally, misandry is a perfectly legitimate term…the extent to which you mock it is somwhat bizarre. Women experience bias and hatred on the basis of their sex. That’s misogyny. Men experience bias and hatred on the basis of their sex. That’s misandry. Are you actually claiming that no anti-male bias exists anywhere?
I’d like to take you seriously. You make it very difficult.
“Well, first of all gender inequality has only been around for about 10,000 years. Not 20,000.”
Oh. In that case, never mind.
As much as I will ensure my daughters have every opportunity I can provide, it is clear that feminism opposes them, as it opposes many of the people they care most about: their male cousin, uncles, their father, and maybe even their future husbands. Feminism acquired and maintains its reputation of misandry (or ball-busting man-hating, take your pick) the old fashioned way; it earned it – and continues to do so.
Feminism’s “men are privileged from birth, so screw ‘em” outlook on the world is one way they maintain their brand (misandry, man-hating, whatever you want to call it). It can be seen in the articles and comments on every feminist website. Feminism’s defense and celebration of the gender education gap is one example. Only those who truly celebrate the further demise of black males can possibly remain undisturbed by the tragic gender education gap.
“As much as I will ensure my daughters have every opportunity I can provide, it is clear that feminism opposes them, as it opposes many of the people they care most about: their male cousin, uncles, their father, and maybe even their future husbands.”
I think it’s clear that you’re a great dad who loves his kids. But it’s not clear how feminism “opposes” them.
Feminism opposes their African American male relatives, claiming that they are privilege – opposing efforts to help them get into college. As one example. Not cool.
Another is feminism’s (and by that I mean the largest feminist organizations) fight tooth and nail against shared parenting.
Studies show that the #1 indicator to girls self-esteem growing up is having a loving fit dad in her life.
Children of both sexes from fatherless homes are much more likely to:
have low educational outcomes
get into trouble with the law
engage in sex much earlier
use drugs and alcohol earlier
and girls are more likely to become involved in relationships with abusive mates, more likely to become a pregnant teen.
90% of men in prison for violence hail from fatherless homes.
99% of men on death row hail from fatherless homes.
this makes women much less safe.
Rather than assuming men or women critiquing feminism are idiots, you should instead educate yourself about what feminists are doing in the name of equality.
That last sentence was directed to Patrick, not you Eric
hey Patrick.
I really don’t see the point of your repeatedly throwing in the term “misandry” and dragging it through the mud..it’s as if you’re just trying to discredit it. So anyone who reads this article (with a bias or a weak-mind/faculties of discernment) whenever someone uses the word “misandry” they’ll call up this article in their memory and automatically label whoever uses it as a dunce…when really, they’ll be using it accurately.
Misandry does exist.
Ironically, people (in general) would never be able to stomach the same sort of article if it was saying something along the lines of “thats my dumb girlfriend (miso)gynny” …seriously.
There aren’t even any comments. besides Ron (who I’ve noticed is a comment-er who tends to just read–and not floss his ears with words on his monitor) and I. That should be a clear sign of something. And no, its not that you’re right. If you’re as smart as you make yourself out to be you know controversial (and often needed to be considered) opinions are the most under scrutiny. Popular opinions that appeal to a majority-wide bias aren’t. Wake up! You didn’t “win”, you just allowed a really intense subject a lot of people don’t really want to discuss– but should (like race issues), go un-talked about for another day. Good Job, “brother”.
Respectfully, I’d say that, if my silly essay proved anything, it’s that you can always find someone with whom to discuss “misandry.” You needn’t worry that it’ll go untalked about.
I talk about misandry quite often Patrick. Some have termed it ‘the acceptable prejudice’. Because as your article illustrates so clearly, it is *not* acceptable in our culture to take men’s problems seriously, or gender inequality against men.
http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2011/02/09/misandry-the-acceptable-prejudice/
I am glad you feel privileged, but it may not be because you are a man. What if you were a gay man suffering homophobia (I don’t know your sexual identity)? Or a bisexual man who could not come out due to worries about how his family/friends/employer treated him?
What if you were one of many men who suffered depression and didn’t get help and then went on to commit suicide (suicide in men is much greater than women)
what if you were a father as people here have said, can be difficult in terms of full parental rights.
what if you were from a background where the only option that seemed viable workwise was to join the army, and there was a war on?
what if you had a small dick, and that caused you anxiety and shame (I don’t know how big your dick is)
what if you liked watching porn, but were made to feel that was dirty or wrong?
Misandry is real, and one element of misandry is how we laugh at the very idea it exists.
“Misandry is real, and one element of misandry is how we laugh at the very idea it exists.”
Well said.
How are any of the things in that list the fault of women’s– or anyone’s (except maybe themselves?) hatred of men? That IS the meaning of misandry.
I think Morgaine the misandry comes in when women especially feminists deny and dismiss those issues. They say men are ‘privileged’ and that justifies them slagging off men all the time.
I think I agree with you, but only insofar as the indifference on the part of certain groups to mens issues is merely a contributing factor rather than the root of those problems. A ‘men’s rights movement” that seeks to blame feminism and women in general as agents of men’s oppression will fall flat on its face if it does not acknowledge the other oppressive forces at work in men’s lives. I believe it is most profitable to conceive of gender relations not in terms of a hierarchy in which group A is above group B who is above group C, but in terms of a diffuse, web-like structure complicated by conditions in which some members of C are also members of A. This idea has existed within the galaxy of feminist though since at least Simone de Beauvoir.
Actually Sen,
I’ve read a lot of MRA web-pages, and even taken part in some of their action alerts to send letters or emails.
It’s not discussed a lot, but it is discussed occasionally that the biggest concern is consciousness raising — particularly among men (PATRICK).
Friends and family think I’m crazy when a slap-stick comedy shows the rape of a man as funny and I leave the room and tell them it’s not f*fking funny.
Those types of scenes happen A LOT MORE than anybody would like to admit.
We live in a society that thinks male pain is terribly terribly funny.
Feminists constantly pecker-checking the elites is nothing but a subterfuge to ignore valid statistics that show men have it MUCH MUCH WORSE in almost any key quality of life measure.
From suicide to health care to criminal court bias (against men) to parental rights to employment to education men are having a much worse time than women. FLAT OUT FACT
Feminists response: F*ck you, you’re on your own.
After decades of stating helping women was EVERY MAN’S obligation.
Just totally amazing. The only reason I keep posting on this sight is by bouncing off these bigoted nut-jobs I can show to some good-minded neutral observers how bad feminism is, and hopefully start taking action against it by joining the men’s rights movement.
The men’s rights movement is 50% female. How many men are part of large feminist organizations like NOW and AAUW? 2%, MAYABE 5%?
Not to mention NOW is at it’s lowest dues-paying members than at any point since it’s inception.
That should show you who is inclusive and who really stands for equal rights.
Feminism is downright destructive. All the true equal rightests were drummed out of the movement (like Erin Prizzey who got pushed out of her own shelter movement w/bomb threats because she said men were abused too, and Karen Decrow Pres of NOW from 70 to 72 who said men shouldn’t have to pay child support if women have 100% reproductive choice, i.e. she who picks the song pays the piper)
Keep talking your smack Valerie–you’re helping men everywhere.
Wowsers…
I should truly and seriously write this site off. Is this really what Tom Matlack had in mind when he drempt this place up?
Seriously?
Are you kidding me? Have you read any of Tom Matlack’s Dworkin-like articles? I have yet to read something by Matlack that isn’t about men love affair with rape.
Thank you, Patrick. It’s really good to know that some guys get this. And thanks GMP for continually posting pieces like this that challenge patriarchal apologists.
Its one thing to say that you can see a womans point of view. Its another to entirely dismiss the very real concerns men have. The transition to equality means a lot of uncertainty and difficulty for everyone involved, especially men who are being told that they must make the changes without having any say in the process, to the point of being utterly dismissed. I can’t see this as being productive to the end goal. There was a poit in time when saying fuck the men was perhaps more appropriate. This was because the inequalities were so great only the strongest measures would work. But I can’t see many women or feminists being happy with a system (feminism) that sets them in perpetual competition and a zero sum game against the men they love. Feminism is a dirty word to many women simply die to the fact that while they want better opportunities for themselves and their daughters, they aren’t willing to throw their sons and husbands under the bus to get there.
How is it so much better that your daughter has a PHD but your son is working temp jobs in a factory all his life because as a boy there could have been teaching methods that would have set him up for sucess, and they were never used? Your his mom and a feminist, how do you reconcile watching your sons misery?
Morgrain:
What is that some men are supposed to “get? That no male issues warrant any concern, or that men can’t have issues of bias or oppression?
Because that’s more or less the tone of Patricks article.
If feminists are getting sour grapes because men’s issues are being pushed to the fore-front, I have some advice.
You better learn how to deal. Because this is only the beginning.
What!? Morgaine, you can’t SERIOUSLY be thanking him for posting an article that MERELY says:
“Guys get laughed at and feel hurt but we shouldn’t take it seriously.”
You’re, of course, entitled to disagree. But you can’t put quotation marks around something no one said or wrote.
Hey, if somebody laughed at you or hurt you, you have my sympathies. No one deserves that. But that seems a different issue than large-scale oppression.
I find it difficult to feel sorry for people who are twice my size and own most of the land on this planet. Men should talk to Ted Turner or Rupert Murdock if they don’t feel they’re getting a fair shake.
This thinking explains why feminism’s positions and policies are so consistently hostile toward males, especially young black males.
Valerie:
The founding mothers of feminism stated they were going to be an EQUAL rights group.
They CLAIMED to be concerned about “all victims of bias”.
Refusing help to at risk and vulnerable poverty stricken men, and minority men because they happen to share a physical feature with some of the elites is infantile.
Anybody who is an objective researcher of history knows that the elites (male or female) have no qualms about throwing mens bodies away to build society. REsearch things like the Hoover Dam (112 dead men), the Trans-continental railroad (3000 dead men), or Panama Canal (26,000 dead men) and you will find that men’s lives are CHEAP.
The fact that feminism seeks to displace the elites means for men exactly this:
Here’s the new boss, same as the old boss.
The fact that elite men use men as cannon fodder is no longer a valid excuse for feminism to say they have NO OBLIGATION to help oppressed and disenfranchised men.
As far as I am concerned any feminist who makes the claim feminism doesn’t have an obligation to help those who are vulnerable (even if of the opposite gender) considering that is the battle cry feminists have used to body slam politicians again and again: men have an OBLIGATION!
There is another article that states Violence Against Women is A Men’s Issue. But this doesn’t cut the other way? F*ck you, you’re a bigot.
Feminists constantly pecker-checking the elites is nothing but a subterfuge to ignore valid statistics that show men have it MUCH MUCH WORSE in almost any key quality of life measure.
From suicide to health care to criminal court bias (against men) to parental rights to employment to education men are having a much worse time than women. FLAT OUT FACT
Feminists response: F*ck you, you’re on your own.
After decades of stating helping women was EVERY MAN’S obligation.
Just totally amazing. The only reason I keep posting on this sight is by bouncing off these bigoted nut-jobs I can show to some good-minded neutral observers how bad feminism is, and hopefully start taking action against it by joining the men’s rights movement.
The men’s rights movement is 50% female. How many men are part of large feminist organizations like NOW and AAUW? 2%, MAYABE 5%?
Not to mention NOW is at it’s lowest dues-paying members than at any point since it’s inception.
That should show you who is inclusive and who really stands for equal rights.
Feminism is downright destructive. All the true equal rightests were drummed out of the movement (like Erin Prizzey who got pushed out of her own shelter movement w/bomb threats because she said men were abused too, and Karen Decrow Pres of NOW from 70 to 72 who said men shouldn’t have to pay child support if women have 100% reproductive choice, i.e. she who picks the song pays the piper)
Keep talking your smack Valerie–you’re helping men everywhere.
Hey John, maybe lay off the “fuck you, you’re a bigot” business, huh? Try to stay in bounds, bro.
Actually, If you could remove that post I would appreciate it.
I realized it was monumentally stupid of me to toss out insults.
I only write for this site. I’m not the administrator.
I’ve got to stop being brutally honest like that.
Valerie
Interesting, are all men twice your size? Also, do all men own that land youre talking about? That would be like me stating “all” feminists are misandrists when it reality we know its only a portion of them.
“men” not referring to men as individuals, but men as the dominant social group, that defined and reinforces the oppression she faces every day of her life.
Instead of taking the backseat, how about we look at why boys are failing and gear it towards both genders? We did it for girls, so we can do it to boys as well. There isn’t a reason we both can’t drive. There isn’t a magical force that says that only one gender can go to work, and only one gender has to stay at home.
pillowinhell: “There was a poit in time when saying fuck the men was perhaps more appropriate.”
It is NEVER appropriate to say “Fuck the (insert group here)”. Period.
Even if inequalities were great, did that justify tarring every man with same brush? You think every man on earth benefited from these inequalities?
It is attitudes like “Fuck the men” (yes, you are also including your fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews, sons, etc in this broad brush) and such that have lead society into the mess we’re in right now.
Eagle,
I actually kind of understand the point that Pillow is making (depending on what time period she is talking about). Gender roles were very restrictive, women had much less choices in careers etc..
IN the 60′s there were a lot of true man-hating feminists who were successful in garnering attention. More reasonable feminists steered the activism in positive directions, but it was the very radical feminists who said “f*ck the men” who kept them energized.
The problem is that the reasonable women are now gone from those movements, and all we are left is the radical man-hating harpies. And they have VERY brazenly crossed the line from advocating FOR WOMEN to advocating AGAINST MEN.
This is why feminism has become a four letter word.
The overwhelming majority of women don’t hate the men in their lives–they want to see them prosper and become successful people. That is why most women will have nothing to do with feminism.
John: “I actually kind of understand the point that Pillow is making (depending on what time period she is talking about). Gender roles were very restrictive, women had much less choices in careers etc..”
And how is this the fault of every man on earth? Including the ones at the bottom of the ladder? Because last I heard, “Fuck the men” meant every single man.
John D: “IN the 60′s there were a lot of true man-hating feminists who were successful in garnering attention. More reasonable feminists steered the activism in positive directions, but it was the very radical feminists who said “f*ck the men” who kept them energized.”
Yeah, at the expense of every man who also struggled as well. Hearing phrases like those hurts me because I was bullied ferciously by girls and hurt by women including the boys and men. So sorry for calling foul on hateful bigotry like that.
So the reasonable feminists were kept energized by this? ENERGIZED by this blatant bigotry?
Well, I guess I’m even more justified now in not supporting feminism fully.
Actually, I take back what I said about not supporting feminism fully.
I still respect it…well…the more sane ones.
I think you’re confusing understanding, with agreement.
I understand the sentiment. I don’t agree with it.
On a board about false rape allegations I made a statement in which I said:
I can understand how a man might be driven to rape. I gave an example of a man who had maybe been traumatized in war (given his all for his country) and sees all these smooth talking aholes getting the girls. A feminist tried to slam me by saying if I can understand rape, then I must condone it.
To say I understand the sentiment, does not mean I necessarily agree with the statement–especially the actions AGAINST MEN and fathers and boys (rather than FOR WOMEN that feminists committed in the 70′s and 80′s and 90′s).
I hope that clarifies things.
Oh, I’d say your point is plenty clear.
Okay John D, I get it. You, yourself, would never consciously go out and willfully rape someone. But when you say you could understand how someone could be driven to an act like rape, by seeing another man talking to a woman, who seems interested in his conversation…well, REAL rapists are going to read that. And you know what? They’re going to feel comforted by your post. They’re going laugh, and feel validated in their beliefs. They’re going to see you as their friend and ally. You. The rapist’s ally. Your post has become a drop in the ocean that is rape culture. Congratulations.
I can also empathize with a woman who makes a false accusation of rape like the hofstra student. She willfully engaged in a gangbang w/5 guys. When discovered by her boyfriend (who as not part of it) why she was all disheveled she tried to maintain some semblence of modesty and claimed she was raped.
From there the lie took wings and things got out of hand. If I empathize with her, am I responsible for spreading false rape claims? If I empathize with those who commit suicide am I spreading more suicide?
Grow up.
“But I’m not a hog. I don’t need to keep all the do-overs for myself. If women want to shoot their mouths of about “the end of men,” well, have at it. They’re due that much.”
This statement of yours is essentially a summary of your article, and there is something horribly wrong with it. “They’re due that much.” Who? The generations of women past who didn’t have a chance at bat? But they are all basically dead, so they can’t be helped. You must mean some living generation–maybe my sisters? My sisters, who grew up not doing household chores because I, the male child, had to do them? My sisters, who always got first dibs on seating when it was in scarce supply, for whom I was expected to hold the door because hey, I have a penis and they have vaginas… My sisters, who were happily allowed to follow their whims while I was tormented with the burden of “get married have a kid do something serious continue the family name”?
Surely you can’t mean that THEY deserve to say bad things about ME, just because I have a penis and they have vaginas.
In my house, it was the norm to hear jokes about men from mother, sisters–all female family members, really. Any comment sexist toward women was considered insensitive. If I complained when tormented, I was a “crybaby,” or in my mother’s words, “annoying.” I hope you don’t imagine my sisters were treated the same way.
Before you start saying, “white boys, you’ve had it good for a long time, and it’s time to move over” take note of the fact that the guys living today were increasingly born in homes where it was NOT an advantage to be a boy. We were still expected to live up to the old societal norms for boys while accepting the new ones for girls and women. Before we hit puberty, we were considered perpetrators of social inequalities committed before we were born by a culture that we knew nothing about.
We watched the movie Titanic when it came out, and when it came time for the ship to sink, we furrowed our brows in early-adolescent confusion at the repeated shout, “women and children first!” We weren’t children anymore. What made us less valuable?
Before Rosa Parks made her famous stand about not moving to the back of the bus, there was a black service member who was incensed about moving to the back of the bus after serving his country.
He refused. He was killed. This is what misandry does. It washes over the victimization of men with: “boo hoo, aren’t your balls big enough to take it?”
utterly amazing legalized hatred.
There it is. You said it. “Victimization.” What’s with this need to be victims?
Also, none of these complaints should ever, ever be mentioned in any proximity to Rosa Parks. I kinda can’t believe someone did.
I don’t think he meant to use victimization that way. People misuse the word “brutalize” in the same way. What he meant was the OPPRESSION of men. And he was on target about it being washed over (still essentially what your article aims at), whether or not he should have mentioned Parks.
A need to be recognized as a victim and a need to be recognized as oppressed = the same thing.
I suppose there are just going to be men who feel put upon because of their gender. I’ll learn to live with that. But to call oneself “oppressed” is a pretty big deal. Slaves are oppressed. Black citizens in Dharfur are oppressed. Chinese dissidents are oppressed. I don’t know your circumstances, but it’s my strong hunch – and genuine hope – that you’re not oppressed.
Obviously you see the world in black and white. I guess that as long as you have the use of all your limbs, you’re not disabled. Quadriplegics–THEY’RE disabled. But don’t dare call single-limb impairments “disabilities.”
Since when is it impossible to endure unjust burden and hardship without being a Chinese dissident or Black Dharfurian?
Is it really that hard for you to see that you are only advocating ALL men to “shut up and take it,” at a time when young, and especially poor, men need to see that they are valued members of society, and that they, too, can be empowered?
I suppose I must not be talking about your particular demographic. Obviously you have gotten some free passes, or you wouldn’t complain about having gotten free passes. But guess what? You’re one guy. Maybe you should be telling the world, rather, that it’s okay to express hatred toward YOU. Don’t think you’re the voice of the many when you’re just some guy no one knows.
And before you try to tell me that _I’m_ not the voice of the many, either–let me point out that I never said I was. I’m not the one dismissing a whole group’s concerns out of hand. This denial of there being ANY possibility of ANY problem whatsoever in our society that stems from a hatred of men–that’s you. And me, I’m saying “how can you know that, being, yourself, one guy?”
Why not just admit that you were wrong to write this? If I were a different sort of person I would probably be telling you that yours is exactly the kind of behavior that our culture encourages in men–dismissing the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of themselves and others as unimportant. But I don’t like to invent excuses for people straight away.
You’re kind of unbelievable too Pat
Seriously, re-reading this…
Are you honestly just sanctioning the hatred of males?
With that kind of cavalier attitude?
… Are you secretly a man-hating woman? You are proving your own point false. “Misandry isn’t real; guys are just pussies and they deserve what they’ve got coming.” Right there, bud. Right there.
Again with the quote that nobody said or wrote.
I guess I just wonder about all this need for victimhood.
“If women want to shoot their mouths of about “the end of men,” well, have at it. They’re due that much.”
“I know, right? I mean, goddamn! When’s this misandry going to end?
Haw haw! Misandry. That gets me every time.”
It’s implicit right there.
No need for victimhood; only acknowledgment that the culture I grew up in did me a disservice by telling me I would owe all my accomplishments to my being a boy, and that I was expected to hold the door, mow the lawn, fight the fires, go to war. Ladies first.
That’s better. I did write that. Implicit is not a quote.
Full disclosure: I was also mad that I had to mow the lawn. And then I turned 13 and forgot about it.
And don’t look now, but there are plenty of women serving bravely in the armed forces. And fighting fires.
Further, just about any of the feminists you so decry would prefer you didn’t hold the door.
Wow–talk about putting words in someone’s mouth. I didn’t decry any feminists, or even imply that I have a problem with them.
I have practically no issue with feminists. The rights of women should be stood up for. Bottom line–the rights of EVERYONE should be stood up for. Including men.
Just to conclude this… I don’t care whether feminists wouldn’t want me to hold the door. Feminists are not society at large, which still DOES expect men to mow lawns, fight fires, serve in the armed forces, work construction, clean up hazmat, etc. And while there may be women DOING those things… they are (1) a small minority, and (2) not on the front line in any of the above.
They don’t have to register for the draft either.
I wonder whether this objective fact will be moderated (censored) as well.
Also it’s not a question of men needing to be victims, it’s a need to see anyone but men as victims.
Your feeble excuse for a reasoned argument illustrates this perfectly.
It’s not exactly an example of higher cognitive function and objectivity, which is what the real need is. I bet this gets moderated too, truth is quite confronting isn’t it?
And after all–after ALL that–just tell me one thing.
Why is it so bad to want NOT to be dealt with in an unfair way? When everyone else is demanding fairness–why shouldn’t we?
This article is so unbelievably atrocious I simply have to respond.
The difference is that I am actually prepared to support my contention with reasons and some degree of cognitive clarity, in other words, substance. Basically that’s the problem right there, a complete and total lack of anything resembling substance resulting in juvenile nonsense worthy of Michael Moore.
Simply mocking and ridiculing misandry is a means of argument that belongs in the playground, it simply pathetic. Anyone can make fun of something but that does not even come close to a cogent argument, it’s completely subjective and self indulgent.
Misandry is an epidemic and can be observed across the media and society, how this is not important simply because of mocking it holds no water whatsoever, the damage it is causing to male self esteem is evident. Look at the suicide statistics for example (see what I just did there, I supported the point with a fact as opposed to sarcasm), perhaps you have a few snide comments about that too, go ahead and dig your own grave if you wish. I’m looking forward to it.