This is the first of many #ThisIsHowSexismEnds prompts, essays, podcasts, memes, interviews, reviews, and articles over the next month that will focus on sexism, gender bias, misogyny, and ending prejudice against women as well as ending toxic hypermasculinity against men (and the overlap attitudes against all of us).
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I was asleep before… that’s how we let it happen. They suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary.
This is Offred’s stark warning.
A narration of regret.
Her name’s not really Offred. It’s Jane. Or June. Or something that I can’t remember because her name no longer matters.
She is no longer a human with an identity, she is the property of Fred. And she is the main character in Hulu’s series The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel.
Offred is a Handmaid in Gilead, the religious fundamentalist reincarnation of the United States. After a terrorist attack and environmental disasters left the republic weakened, a strong-arm theocracy took hold. Patriarchal control was the new order. Women, no longer allowed to work, read, vote or hold property. Children, taken at will from parents who refuse to conform. Traitors, hung along the river, government spies around every corner.
In this dystopian theocracy, women no longer have choices. They are assigned roles by the almighty government. The small number of women who are still fertile become Handmaids, their job to produce children for the elite. They are human incubators. Vessels. Possessions of the privileged. Routinely subjected to state sanctioned rape every month in the name of glorious and holy conception.
Blessed be the fruit of the non-consenting womb.
The Handmaid’s Tale serves as a warning, as many great works of art do. With it’s desaturated colors and stark visuals, the horrors on the screen should shock us.
But they don’t.
Instead of shock, recognition. We see it, how it could happen. The clarity is so unnerving that many women can’t even bear to watch the show.
Exaggeration? Fear? Perhaps. But possible? Yes.
Possible, because our country has done these things before.
Our great country likes to practice the art of selective amnesia. We prefer to whitewash our hateful past and water down our history books and our conscience.
Those who never learn unadulterated history are doomed to repeat it.
In our great country, humans were bought and sold like livestock. We stripped them of their names. Their identity tied up in the men who owned them. Slave women were expected to produce more slaves to keep the fields stocked with blood and sweat. When they failed, they were beaten and sometimes sold as damaged goods. We excused every bit of this with religious text and disgusting theories on race. We denied their humanity and we denied them their names and heritage.
My name is Offred. I had a name before…
Wives in the antebellum south looked the other way while their husbands raped slaves.
Their jealous rage directed at the victims in the form of beatings. Their lack of voice or control unleashed on slave girls while their husbands continued to rape at will. An uncomfortable fact of life for the privileged women was a soul stripping act of violence for the slave girls and women.
Blessed be the ability to control through fear and domination and violence.
Lynchings were community events.
The town’s people would gather to cheer and celebrate torture and murder. Smug words of consternation. Them boys should have listened to their master. Them girls should know what’s good for them. The bodies would hang for days. Weeks. White supremacy has sadistic ways of making sure you remember. He shouldn’t have been driving with a broken tail light. She shouldn’t have questioned his authority and lit that cigarette.
You don’t read much about the lynchings and the rapes in the history books though. Nothing more than a sanitized mention before moving on to the battles and the bayonets, the blood on metal tips washes down easier than the blood dripping from a tree branch.
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It’s not possible to go back to such dark times, we say. But did you see the evening news?
Another black boy’s name is trending on Twitter and another murder is excused. We shake our heads as we sip our coffee.
It’s not possible, we say, as we press our “I Voted” sticker onto our shirt and take a selfie to show proof of our civic duty.
It’s not possible, we say, as we watch men behind closed doors decide that we are pre-existing conditions. Our rape, our pregnancy, our broken jaw from a closed fist, all pre-existing conditions. A tax on our bodies and our psyches and our wombs.
It’s not possible, we say, as we watch bills being debated on state house floors. Bills that infantilize us. Forced vaginal ultrasounds because we need a wand shoved into our cervix to grasp the idea that we’re pregnant.
It’s not possible, we say, but politicians keep saying rape is only rape if there are bruises and marks. Because men raping wives, and boyfriends raping girlfriends, and date rape, and victims freezing because that is biologically the mechanism that takes over when being assaulted in the most personal way, is not “really rape” according to these men.
And the only scars they care about are the ones that are visible and verifiable.
It’s not possible, we say. But lawmakers are trying to make us get consent from a man before getting an abortion. Because of course our bodies should be regulated by the men in our lives. Of course our husband/boyfriend/father has more say about our life changing decision.
Shall I get my rapist to sign a permission slip, dear congressman?
What about my abusive husband who keeps me pregnant to keep me imprisoned in his sick, controlling world? Shall he sign it in my blood?
It’s not possible, we say, as we scroll through social media and wonder how we got here. But it is possible. You just don’t recognize it because you didn’t live it, and your ancestors don’t bear the scars, and the color of your skin and your religion protect you from what’s happening now.
What you don’t necessarily see or feel or fear every day is happening. And eventually it will touch you and yours if you continue to sit in your comfortable apathy.
Our false sense of security and privileged ignorance will one day be our yoke. The bliss of being able to turn the page or tune out or pretend like it isn’t happening… is akin to sipping iced tea on the plantation porch, fanning ourselves and talking about the weather while we listen to the snaps of a whip hitting flesh in the fields below us. We avert our eyes and pretend like we don’t hear the cries of anguish. My, it’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?
It’s all possible. Gilead is not just a dystopian fiction. It’s a warning. A preview of what inaction and unchecked power can do. The likeliness is still a question. But by the time we’re sure, by the time we realize our rights have been stripped away, it’s usually too late.
I was asleep before—that’s how we let it happen.
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Corporations have more humanity than their female employees, so says the court.
Their religious belief or how they interpret ancient text trumps my healthcare decisions and what my doctor and I decide is best. Their profit is their humanity, their fetish for patriarchal control is their soul. And it’s worth more than the humanity that is present between my heart and my ovaries and my mind.
Personhood bills are popping up across states like a sick game of autonomy Whack-A-Mole. Bills that threaten to make my reproductive choices nonexistent. No pill. No IUD. No sex. Good girls don’t have sex for pleasure. Good girls only have sex to make babies. Good girls will produce as many babies as her body is physically capable of. Good girls don’t get roofied by Cliff Huxtable. Good girls don’t get raped. Good girls don’t make accusations and make people uncomfortable.
Good. Girls. Don’t. Question. Authority.
We have men in power who pledge allegiance to their scripture, not the country. They eschew the basic tenet of separation of church and state, the very foundation of our democracy and Constitution. The words of the founding fathers inconsequential when holy words direct you to fund torture of gay teens and deny AIDS prevention and force heartbroken women who’ve suffered loss to pay to bury their miscarried remains. Because patriarchy and purity culture is nothing if not creative in their ways to retain control of women.
We have a members of The Council for National Policy, a super secret group filled with extremists and Dominionists pulling the strings of government as we speak. Their goal is to turn our country into a theocracy, their strategy is to manipulate the government from within. Key members have funded, aided and staffed the current administration. They, along with The Heritage Foundation, have been working for decades on projects like Citizens United and school choice which is coded language for government funding of religious schools. The Prince family, the DeVos family, Conway, Bannon, Mercer, Koch. Do these names ring a bell? They are cozying up to white supremacists and other religious zealots to make sure your children get a hefty dose of fundamentalist branded God™ in the classroom.
Blessed be the righteousness of money to gain power.
They tell us those “other” people are evil. They’ve come here to rape us and to plant bombs in our malls and take our jobs, and it works because fear is the most effective means of control.
They pass “Religious Freedom Laws” which is cool kid speak for “we hate gays so we are going to hide behind our cherry picked religious text.”
They tell us it’s not a crime when unarmed black men and women are shot. They shush our horror with platitudes and lies.
Blessed be the electorate willing to believe modern day lynching is somehow justifiable.
Blessed be the gerrymandered districts that make voter suppression of black people so much easier than the good ‘ol days when we just spit on them and burned crosses in front of their house and beat them and killed them.
Blessed be the prisons where we can lock people up for minor crimes and keep people away from their jobs and their families and their lives because they can’t pay court fines . And the private prison system that feeds the cycle of poverty and gives us our modern day slave labor and serfdom and keeps rich men richer and poor men poorer.
Blessed be all the people who spread the propaganda so willfully… women are not to be believed or trusted… black people are thugs… gay people are sinful… transgender people are predators waiting in the Target bathroom to attack our women and children… authority is to be respected no matter what… we shouldn’t question a person in uniform… we shouldn’t question those in power… we should be enraged at a football player kneeling during the national anthem but stay silent while unarmed black men are shot.
Blessed be those who repeat the words of control and manipulation and authoritarianism.
Blessed be those who confuse “respect the office of the presidency” with blind loyalty, who play Candy Crush instead of reading the news, who think that apathy to racism is not as bad as being a full on racist. Who excuse “low key” racism with a shrug and feign ignorance.
Blessed be the patriots who think voting is the sum total of their civic duty, who think that our democracy is unbreakable and checks and balances will always save it, who don’t want to offend so they stay silent when they see atrocities, who not only allow it to happen, but aid and abet it.
This is the warning.
Too late happens while you sleep. The effects not fully realized until the point of no return is but a speck in the rearview mirror.
“It’s not possible,” should not be the last gasp of democracy.
Are you awake?
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This post first appeared on Gretchen’s blog, Drifting Through.
Photo: Getty Images
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Enjoy and share these other great titles in our daily and #ThisIsHowSexismEnds Series!
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The Sexist Stigma Against Depressed Men—and How to Fight It #ThisIsHowSexismEnds
What Happens When a Teenage Boy has Breast Surgery
19 Terms for Relationships that Dehumanize Women
A Lesson for Men and the Women They Don’t Own
They’re All Sex Maniacs! Purity Culture, Child Marriage, and the Insanity of ‘Man Dress Codes’
We See You, Mr. Trump—Women Won’t Be Shamed, Demeaned, or Ridiculed Any More
Why Women Aren’t Crazy
This is How Men Will End Sexism—with You
Hey, Men—This is What It’s Like to Be a Girl
Deconstructing Feminism and Sexism in the Workplace
Fire Up the Pink Rockets: 3 Times Women Kept Sexism Alive for My Daughter
What Men Can Learn from High School Kids About Sexism (the Answers are Beyond Shocking and All Too Real)
Escaping the Blinding Power of Shame
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I think I can’t really take this any further and I’ve learned all I’m going to learn.
My conclusion: MRA is just a goofy way for men to avoid dealing with life and facing their own issues. It’s not serious and they don’t have their shit together.
Good luck with wasting your lives.
Simon ….. good luck dealing with your issues. You are quite likely going to face many damaging emotional trials with that outlook of yours…… I hope that you will awaken before they destroy you.
Oh, the irony. You might want to read that back over while looking in the mirror. That right there is the voice of sanity banging and hollering at your prison door – the one that you open when you open your eyes, ears and mind, and just see.
All I can say is that you are more than your mind. The mind is just one faculty, or part of the body, among many. I know it might sound counter-intuitive to advise, “stop being rational”. But it’s clear that your [very poor] “rationality” is being used as a blinding smoke screen by your ego defense, therefore, it’s just working for the enemy.
To be effective, the mind has to be connected with reality. Yours is not, apparently.
keep trying simon……eventually you’ll realize your speak about yourself.
The implication is that what we’re not facing controls us. We repress conscious knowledge of the message of the emotion, but the emotion itself is still there, pushing us away from something, or pulling us towards something, or both. But because we are consciously unaware of its influence, it controls us without our realising.
You can’t be suggesting that every or all dissenting, countervailing, or otherwise divergent perspectives can thus all be summarily pathologized away as psychologically invalid, unsound, or disingenuous, would you?
To arbitrarily assign emotion or emotionalism (that is, malignant, unperceived, unacknowledged and/or unchecked emotion) as the singular or universal motivating factor (and so to, the delegitimizing factor) in any given discourse is presumptuous.
It’s a very good question: why do people believe in a particular ideology – which we could define as, a way of explaining the world, and a corresponding way of fixing it. The question of whether it’s “divergent” or not is irrelevant to the question of why someone believes in it. I think the answer is, you would have to consider each situation on a case by case basis. Each ideology is individual, and each person is individual. So in one sense, each reason is unique. But in another sense, many cases can fall into particular broad categories of explanation.… Read more »
“Why do people believe in a particular ideology – which we could define as, a way of explaining the world, and a corresponding way of fixing it. The question of whether it’s ‘divergent’ or not is irrelevant to the question of why someone believes in it.” Before that can be answered it first begs the crucial question: How would you presume to determine whether or not someone believes in an ideology at all? Typically, people self-identity with ideologies, and, as such, then there are no ambiguities or contradictions. But what about in the event where you’re saying a person is… Read more »
What the actual fucking fuck? You need to try and stop figuring things out. Figuring things out is the problem, since your mind has become the slave of this ego defense, where every question has the same two responses: 1) it’s not me, it’s you/them; 2) avoid the question. Your mind is just a piece of machinery for doing this fixed thing, following the fixed shape of this MRA ego defense. So it’s effectively become useless. Instead, your mind should be like a free-ranging searchlight, illuminating facts about reality. Facts are discovered through observation, and then, the mind can look… Read more »
Simon…. why are you arguing with yourself? Every single MRA rant of yours applies more concisely to your own statements than to the others here. Radical MRA’s and radical feminists are simply 2 sides of the same extremist coin. That men need a broadly based reassessment of society that is looking out for their interests is a given….. women have it in feminist thought and men need their own …… One that will cause as deep societal change as feminism has…..and likely will be despised by feminists as causes them to confront their own long standing privileges and inequities
In any given talk of any ideology, one is expected & required to explicitly define what actually constitutes them; in any discourse there has to be some measure of mutual consensus of terminology- When a person does not self-identify with a given ideology or label another person cannot just arbitrarily assign or accuse them of being this or that without articulating what the parameters are and are not, to warrant the use of such a label. I assumed you understood and accepted this basic premise. I am truly sorry if you find that rudimentary task to be distasteful or beneath… Read more »
An ideology is a set of beliefs. Someone follows an ideology if they follow those beliefs. Granted. So, to be clear, your parameters, for past & future reference, would be: “MRA is supposed to be about redressing some kind of anti-male bias in some areas of society, which is a real and legitimate concern that nobody would deny. But, of course, MRA goes 1000 miles beyond what is valid, in its use of this idea. It also misuses the reasonable-sounding norm of reciprocity: ‘women have been bad to me, so it’s fine if I’m a c*** too’ or something similar.… Read more »
No the wrong thing going on here is that you have basically turned yourself into some one trick pony of calling anyone that doesn’t agree with you an MRA as an insult because you can’t actually defend what you are (or probably so full of yourself that you think you and your narrative are beyond reproach). You’ve basically had free reign to insult, mischaracterize, and straight up lie about the MRM. At first I was pissed. Then I laughed. Now I damn near feel sorry for you. You are embracing some form of feminist willful ignorance where you think intentionally… Read more »
Stop saying things that make too much sense- it’s a malicious trick.
“You need to try and stop figuring things out. Figuring things out is the problem”
…Though I must say, that quote definitely has a certain left-handed faceplam-sort-of-charm to it…
OK, all of these are “it’s not me, it’s you/them” and “avoiding the point”. Exactly what I said. I had thought you were flickering into life, Mostly_123, unlike the other brain-dead robots, but those fingers from the grave have pulled you straight back.
So now you’re just trolling for attention. You have said very little of actual substance and are only taking advantage of the fact that the GMP moderation team seems to be okay with insulting MRAs.
You’ve got over a dozen comments here and the vast majority of them are empty.
That is why I feel sorry for you.
“The lady doth protest too much” or in this case the simon. Please confront the issues you are having as a white knight….. The amount of “projection” in your posts is astounding. I’d suggest you find a non-feminist therapist ……. Someone without an agenda to push vis a vis your relationship with women. Please get yourself some help.
Also, humiliation (real or imagined) can be replaced with power: MRA seems to have a lot to do with seeking power over women, taking back power, etc. Power seems to feature a lot.
The old emotions (fear/pain) get somehow associated with the new goals (blaming women/feminism/society), which makes your bad feelings their responsibility, and so, you don’t have to feel guilty for not doing anything about them, and you also don’t have to do anything about them, which would, at least, mean experiencing them, and things would suggest that this is not an easy prospect.
So this second package, MRA, is an ego defense, and the ego-identification of the self with this ego defense, is itself a subconscious ego defense. This second one is invisible to you, therefore you don’t know you’re locked into this strange restricted little world, and it doesn’t occur to you that you can step outside it.
The second conceptual model, MRA, is a package which says “your fear and pain is the fault of women/feminism/society”.
This looks like, job done. You have the bad emotions, and you have the solution. What could be simpler?
Except the real problem, of course, is that the real source of the emotions has not been faced – you have just taken refuge in this seductive little trap.
One simple question, Simon – see if you can answer it instead of soapboxing.
Why is it ok to blame all your problems on society if you’re a woman, but if you’re a man and do so, cue a load of psychobabble from you?
I’d say that in the ego-identification, where the self leaves reality and embraces unreality as a subconscious ego defense against some kind of fear or pain, this is what happens: the old perceptual model (of fear/pain) is repressed, and exchanged for a new one (MRA); the goal of getting away from the old one is simultaneous with the goal of going towards the new one; both goals now exist; the intellect claims to serve the new goal (proving MRA) while the emotions are still relative to the old goal (getting away from fear/pain). The old emotions are 1) powerful; 2)… Read more »
Perhaps we can make a more general model, which is going to be more powerful (if it is correct). It is going to have to come in note form, so you will have to read shorthand. Faculties of perception: Physical senses – sense perception – sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch Conscious mind – conscious perception – knowledge Emotions – opportunity or threat perception (relative to goals) – meaning Attention – selective perception of that which is relevant to our goals – focus In the brain, perceptions are put together into a perceptual model Ego: Ego processes perceptions to decide on… Read more »
And to think you told Mostly123 off for being incomprehensible.
So – the MRA people have learned precisely nothing, as usual. I’ve learned a lot.
What psychological malady have you drawn from your hat this time, child?
Yes, I like red wine too. What do you think of the quality of football at the women’s Euro 2017?
Who are the “MRA people”? Or are you just calling everyone that doesnt agree with you that as an insult?
MRAs have zero self-awareness – absolutely none. That’s what is missing from an NRA. It’s across the board, a blanket ban on looking in the mirror. An entire shape of the mind that is built for the purpose of stubbornly avoiding self-reflection. All mental activity conforms to this shape. The shape is built from *pain*.
You maybe don’t understand how horribly dangerous and risky this is.
“These guys I keep incessantly talking about while ignoring any points they make are totally the ones lacking self-reflection”
True, true. I’ve been wondering whether I should stop wearing blue jeans and just go with black jeans. Maybe give them up altogether now I’m into my 40s.
I take your very relevant point that a lot of MRA men are probably in relationships with women, long term or otherwise. On the other hand, there must be a number of common reasons why people get involved – including those tough cookie type women. One of those common reasons, everyone knows, is cos guys are chronically unsuccessful with the ladies. Another reason is old-fashioned machismo and chauvanism. Who knows, everyone’s different, but there are a number of widespread patterns. Some kind of wierd-ass military fetish, you seem to get sometimes. One thing that seems normal and routine with the… Read more »
“you will talk about anything but what I’ve said”
What points are you actually making, child, other than your repeated obsession with a group you don’t like?
Interesting… but then I’ve always preferred Swiss chocolate to Belgian. I understand both have their merits.
“One of those common reasons, everyone knows, is cos guys are chronically unsuccessful with the ladies.” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Most of those your commenting about here have been in long term relationships. We are not the “friend zone” “white knight” types, those are the guys like you, those who have failed to parse the difference between what women say they like in men and the type of guys they really date, mate and marry.
All this shows what can happen if we sleep-walk through life like a zombie. You wouldn’t drive your car down the road downfolded; and it seems like a very unhealthy way to live your life – wilfully blind. I’m telling you over and over again that your ideology is like a dreamy seductive cancer, like a heroin addiction: it might seem like a beautiful existence to you, but really it’s like the Pendulum and the Pit, a fate worse than death. But, being blind and deaf, you can’t see or hear me repeatedly yelling into your face that you’re blind… Read more »
Simon……Do you get most of us you’re preaching to are long term married guys? Or guys who’ve traded up back to a free wheeling single life? You will never lose your virginity being this kind of white knight…..this kind of behavior gets the “useful fool” class of “friend zoning” I’ve been with the same woman probably longer than you’ve been out of diapers
It’s amazing what one is permitted to say to others on this site, provided one has the “right” opinions.
So we’ve had anorexia nervosa, mall shooters, personality disorders and now heroin addiction. Classic.
Oh, you’ve been to Iceland too? Weren’t the volcanic pools invigorating?
It’s not surprising that you avoid the issue of you avoiding the issue. That’s “how deep the rabbit hole goes”.
Keep on avoiding the points we’ve made. It’s entertaining.
It goes without saying, of course, that this behaviour is self-perpetuating, and would tend to become worse and more entrenched over time, simply because the ego defense (Men’s Rights bullshit) is itself damaging to the individual; all the while, invisible; so therefore, over time, without you knowing, it creates its own bleak, gruesome need for more defense, which is a toxic negative vicious cycle that just leads somebody further and further away from being a healthy functioning individual, like anorexia nervosa. I think this could be classed as an attachment – a very unhealthy one, that is a replacement for… Read more »
Still nothing to do with what was argued, and only reveals your own issues. Get help.
I think this could be classed as an attachment – a very unhealthy one, that is a replacement for ordinary common sense lol, “physician heal thyself”. This is ironic in view of your own unhealthy attachment to an uncritical view of feminism and accusing anyone who disagrees of being MRA. I’m starting to think this guy is a Poe. If not, then let me leave you with this. Most of us are critical of feminism not because we hate women, but because we’ve been screwed over by women who felt enabled by feminism. I’m talking about men who’ve been cheated… Read more »
This is what I see going on: more or less a full compliment of “immature ego defenses”. Why not peruse this list of common basic “immature” (i.e. subconscious) ego defenses: this is you: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201110/the-essential-guide-defense-mechanisms Ego defenses includes self-deception, but the broad definition is that they are coping mechanisms – any way of coping with or accommodating some thing we find difficult to deal with. The ego has to balance, manage and work with 4 areas of the individual’s world: internal emotions and perception; internal conscience; external reality; external people. Any of these can give us pain or discomfort. When they… Read more »
Oh Simon, Maybe this bible passage will help you or mildly amuse us. ” Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. ” At minimum it is extremely fitting for your relationship to others here.
You would seem to be possessed of a rather particular sense of self-awareness Simon. I think it would be intriguing to learn: Are you suggesting then that those who might disagree with you, or would deign to challenge any arbitrary pronouncements, that they are then -by default- acting out of false-consciousness, petulance, or self-delusion? Is your impartial, objective metric for someone to qualify as logical, rational, humble, and dispassionate that they must then -to a person- agree with you, and give unqualified endorsement to all of your vaguer platitudes? If I follow, it would seem the bar you’ve set there… Read more »
I think you’ve used too many words of more than one syllable there, Mostly, and it’ll have gone over the wee lad’s head a bit.
Do you do pop-up books?
In other words, this is what you do instead of taking responsibility for your own happiness.
This is the fundamental premise of what I’m talking about: the reason why I say you’re wasting your lives pissing into the wind, and how it’s only a short step from where you’re standing to heading over to the shopping mall with a high-powered assault rifle. Your life is lived by you. Not by other people. This means you have to spend time thinking about what you’re doing and how you’re living your life, with a view to the long term. What you do is spend your entire life (apparently) lashing out at others and placing the locus of control… Read more »
The one commenting most about other people in these threads is you, Simon.
I hope you’re not projecting again, after that crack about shooting up the mall. Maybe the boys in blue need to have a chat with you?
You’re just not hearing me, it’s like there’s nothing there.
You’ve not posted anything worthwhile to give a serious reply to.
Why on earth do you think you’re capable of psychoanalysing people after seeing a handful of their internet comments?
Again, doesn’t look too flattering for you if one were to do the same to you. So instead of acting like a low-budget Freud, maybe respond to the actual points being raised.
What’s this if not a personality disorder? What have you done to yourselves?
Why does a movement that calls itself Mens Rights, say that successful men are traitors? Have a chew on that one. Let your famous logical brain examine that under the spotlight.
And exactly where does the MRM call successful men traitors?
You are making an awful lot of assertions with nothing to back them….
Why do you keep asking me about a movement I’m not actually a part of, Simon?
(I could ask the same thing about women’s groups who treat women who criticise them as traitors, of course.)
As a man with a postgraduate degree, that’s not a movement that will accept me then. Yet you’ve accused me of being MRA on more than one occasion in the last few days. Either your accusation is flawed or your beliefs about the MRAs are flawed.
This joker is hysterical. If anyone here had said about women what he’s saying about other men, he’d have been banned a long time ago.
“Either your accusation is flawed or your beliefs about the MRAs are flawed.” I think its latter but that is just me.
“This joker is hysterical. If anyone here had said about women what he’s saying about other men, he’d have been banned a long time ago.”
Might explain why there has been 0 coverage about how Cassie Jaye and Laci Green have been treated by feminists lately…..
I’m done really. It’s been an instructive experience, and a sad one – I’m sad for my fellow bro’s, let’s face it, who have chosen to throw their lives away in this mind-bruisingly stupid and juvenile way. It teaches us a few lessons about a few things, and will probably continue to do so.
All I can really say is, sucks to be you. It’s a fucking tragedy.
Take a look at yourself first. You accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being a misogynist and an MRA. When you’re ready to join the adult world and discuss instead of insulting and sulking, the site will still be here.
Simon, maybe if you stopped trying to self-aggrandise and actually responded to the points being raised, you might reach an understanding with other people.
My god this site is a joke.
This clown can accuse people he doesn’t like of wanting to go on killing sprees, I respond and the comment is premodded?
What is wrong with you people?
It’s always about someone else.
….he says, constantly criticising other people.
The irony is strong with this one.
I’ve read through your section on Handmaid’s tale and I see not one shred of empathy or pity for its male victims. They don’t even get a mention. The men who stood by women in the protests were gunned down. Male political prisoners (doing their traditional male duty in being prepared to lay down their lives for women they don’t know while receiving nothing but disdain in return) are beaten to death on false charges of rape. if you’ve read the book, you’d know the man beaten to death in episode 2 for the rape of a Handmaid did nothing… Read more »
Yawn. Man bad, woman good. Man bad, woman good.
Your onesided, gendered approach to things like this is also part of the reason Trump is where he is. But you don’t want to hear that, do you? it would mean accepting criticism of your views and getting off your high horse.
“Your onesided, gendered approach to things like this is also part of the reason Trump is where he is. But you don’t want to hear that, do you? it would mean accepting criticism of your views and getting off your high horse.” Can you see that you’re describing Mens Rights Activists? Can you see anything at all, through that rigid edifice of glib, superficial bullshit you’ve placed on your head, like some kind of diver’s helmet made of bullshit, in order to be able to feel a little bit good about life? Do you understand that you’ve been suckered into… Read more »
Well, it would seem Simon that everything and everyone that doesn’t correspond to your likings or interpretations is bound & liable to be labeled as ‘mra’ (or, among other things, a ‘nihilistic loser’… or ‘Dracula’?). I’m inclined to point out that the last refuge of any absolutist, fundamentalist, totalitarian ideology or religion is to lob accusations of false consciousness whenever someone fails to sufficiently accept or endorse them, absolutely and unconditionally. Moreover, I think everyone would want to know now what subjective criteria or benchmarks or objective metrics do you think merit labelling (or slandering) someone or something as ‘mra’?… Read more »
So wanting equality in child custody, domestic violence laws, basically equal standing before the courts is bullshit. For questioning how basic education has been modified to improve the outcomes for girls while damaging the outcomes for boys….. When Rational thought becomes “word games” to you due to your internalization of feminist dogma, the problem lies within you.
“Can you see that you’re describing…” Several groups, in fact. Including several women’s groups. This piece, like so many others on this site, only frames problems in terms of men’s responsibility for them. We rarely, if ever, see women being held to account in such broad, crude terms. What about the huge number of women who voted for Trump, for example? Where is the collective guilt for women as a whole because of that subset of women, hm? “in order to be able to feel a little bit good about life?” The more irritated you get by people merely holding… Read more »
I think there’s a big problem when religious conservatism gets into power. When someone assumes they have God on their side, the situation can turn very toxic. It’s a logical brick wall where all thinking and questioning stops. I think the real problem is where people get their primary values: ie. “this book” compared with “human beings”. If they were to stick with “Jesus”, that would be fine. Jesus’ teachings were innovative, anti-authoritarian, and culture-free: they work anywhere. So that’s room for optimism.
“ ‘I was asleep before… that’s how we let it happen. They suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary.’ This is Offred’s stark warning… Exaggeration? Fear? Perhaps. But possible? Yes.” Alright, let’s run with your premise that we’re all on the brink of a new Dark Ages- I suppose if Trump feels authorized to employ fear and exaggeration in his rhetoric, you feel entirely morally justified and entitled to utilize it as a rhetorical tool as well. More’s the pity. I will put the question simply and pragmatically to you- Do believe that in a country where the… Read more »
I did not understand a word of that
Mostly_123 can be a bit of a intellectual at times, Some people have a hard time following deep meaningful thought. Solution, Stay in the kiddie pool?
God forbid that anybody might actually want to question themselves. He needs to spit it out; get to the point; speak plain English. You wonder what’s going on under all that word-spaghetti.
Is it really that difficult to understand a well nuanced comment? Nothing there that should be unintelligible to the average high school graduate.
trey, thank-you very, very much for that compliment (and I hope that was, at least, short enough and in plain enough English for everyone to understand).
I understood it perfectly, but as Simon only understands the language of people who agree with him (and dismisses as MRA anybody who does not), it was a great comment.
It’s gibberish
Shush Simon… the adults are talking.
Might be the his parents were playing in the very shallow end of the gene pool…….that can lead to rather poor outcomes for their progeny.
“God forbid that anybody might actually want to question themselves. He needs to spit it out; get to the point; speak plain English. You wonder what’s going on under all that word-spaghetti.” I am always disappointed that my writing style isn’t universally pleasing, and I’m sorry, of course, that its efficiency or brevity doesn’t measure up to your high standards or expectations- I’ve never been accused of brevity (unless ‘brevity’ is also a synonym for ‘verbose’). And that’s not likely to change anytime soon, so, be that at may. Perhaps you would find the writing style of some other commenters… Read more »
You should follow that advice, Mostly_123, don’t just quote it
“You should follow that advice, Mostly_123, don’t just quote it” Your implication being that I have fallen short of his standards? Please articulate in detail; any examples or objective evidence to support you implications- it would be most enlightening. BTW, I thought you said my postings were all gibberish, or that you couldn’t understand? Make up your mind. Regardless, I indicated that I liked the quote, that it resonated; not that I completely agreed with everything Mr. Gladstone said- I wouldn’t presume that I am as patient or as idealistic as he. Frankly though, being open-minded is not an open-ended… Read more »
That’s a neat quote 😀
“..get to the point; speak plain English. You wonder what’s going on under all that word-spaghetti.”
While I’m waiting on my post in moderation I’d just like to quote a few words in riposte: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” — Albert Einstein
Simple, Simon? (Or, if you prefer plainer English, ‘sorry, not sorry.’)
Mostly contributes far more to the site than you do.
Not much of a thinker though, are you?
Where does this data come from? My guess is that women had no voice at all, and likely as not, often didn’t know what their husbands were doing. Even if they did, what could they – as property themselves without voting rights – do?