Blog Archives
Lords of their Dingalings: Men’s Rightsers outraged at Time writer for noting the lack of female characters in The Hobbit
Can you find the woman in this picture?
Uh oh! It seems that some woman is offering some opinions about Tolkien!
Over on Time.com, Ruth Davis Konigsberg has a brief personal essay reflecting on the almost complete lack of female characters in the new Hobbit film, and in Tolkien’s ouvre generally. As she notes, it’s not until about two hours in to the nearly three-hour movie that “we finally meet someone without a Y chromosome,” namely Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel. Indeed, hers is the only female name out of 37 named in the cast list – though there are a couple of unnamed female characters who make brief appearances.
2012: Year of Triumphs for the Men’s Rights Movement
Come early to get a good seat!
What a year!
The Men’s Rights movement, the most important human rights movement of the 21st century, got 2012 off to a flying start in February with an event in Bozeman, Montana that was quite literally attended by no one. After that, the year was a whirlwind of activity. Let’s go to the timeline:
Battle of the Banned (Man Boobz trolls)
Miniskirted cyclists prepare to oppress men with their legs.
Feeling nostalgic for some of the Man Boobz trolls of yore? Well, head over to the Men’s Rights subreddit, where two of the greats most terrible are having a battle of wits. It all started when Man Boobz Troll of the Year 2011 NWOslave offered his opinions in a thread discussing Swaziland’s recent banning of “rape-provoking” miniskirts.
Men’s Rights Redditor warns men: “Be careful with your sperm. Your very freedom is at stake.”
Men: Protect your Purity of Essence
It’s official: Men’s Rights Activists are more obsessed with their “precious bodily fluids” than Dr. Strangelove’s General Jack D. Ripper. Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, many of the regulars are celebrating Boxing Day by sitting around on their computers worrying about evil predatory succubi burgling their sperm. Check out this little post, which has gotten 90 upvotes so far:
Not-Misogyny, Explained at Last
But THIS man clearly LOVES women.
There’s one kind of person you meet again and again in the manosphere: the man who hates women, but insists that he’s not a misogynist. Some of them will even tell you that you calling them a misogynist is equivalent to a white person calling a black person the n-word. And they seem to even believe this.
Men’s Rights Redditors teach “darkbros, homobros and transbros” a few things about inclusiveness.
Inclusive as hell!
So the other day someone went to the Men’s Rights subreddit with some concerns about the movement’s inclusiveness – or, rather, its lack thereof. “I’d be a lot more inclined to follow this movement,” this person wrote,
if it was more inclusive of the issues of other men, such as those of colour, homosexuality and those who identify as males. But as it stands even when you quote prison statistics as a form of sexism, you flat out ignore the ethnic make up of those statistics and the last time I saw y’all chatting about queer rights? I can’t actually remember, it’s been even longer since something along those lines came on the front page.
Naturally, the fine folks of the subreddit responded with a big “nuh-uh!”
What?! Men’s Rights Redditor blames Newtown school shootings on Title IX
Over on Reddit, Men’s Rights subreddit regular 0bvious_Atheist has offered the most, well, inventive explanation for the Newtown school shootings I’ve seen thus far. Apparently channeling the old Man Boobz troll NWOslave, he argues that they were the result of … Title IX.
The only good news here is that this theory was too weird and opportunistic for even the Men’s Rights subreddit, and 0bvious_Atheist’s post got many more downvotes than upvotes.
Also, the 4Chan thing hasn’t been confirmed by any reputable media source. Here’s something from the not-exactly-100%-credible Daily Mail on it is definitely a fake.
Thanks to r/againstmensrights for pointing me to 0bvious_Atheist’s post.
Men’s Rights Redditor Advocates Violence Against Cops — Again
Advocating violence is allegedly against the rules in the Men’s Rights subreddit. Just don’t tell it to these guys! (Or the people upvoting them.)
As I’ve noted before, Demonspawn is fairly regular violator of this particular rule — as evidenced here, here, and, oh yeah, here. (And check the archives for even more Demonspawn terribleness that stops short of advocacy of murder.)
When I asked the r/mensrights mods some months back why they didn’t just ban him for his repeated violations, you may recall, this happened:
Hey, Mens Rightsers, if you don’t want to be associated with violence, perhaps you should, you know, disassociate yourself from those who advocate violence — seriously, repeatedly, and definitely not as a joke.
Man Boobz Ex-Troll Anthony Zarat Has Some Good News and Some Bad News
Dudes! Watch out! This pretty lady is falsely accusing you of something-or-other.
Feeling nostalgic for any of Man Boobz’ classic trolls? Here’s our old friend Anthony Zarat, now a regular Reddit Men’s Rightser, explaining some things about the ladies of today. Note: In order to understand what he’s saying, you need to know that when MRAs talk about “proxy violence,” they mean women calling the police on a dude, which women of course only do when men are completely innocent, because men are always innocent. (Also, in MRAland all police are men, and White Knights to boot.)
I like that he complains about women being “narcissistic,” then invents his own definition of “character” that applies to his own little obsession.
MRAbot2000: The future of the Men’s Rights movement?
Reddit novelty accounts are usually bad, bad news, an excuse for horrendous racist or misogynist or otherwise appallingly Redditish “humor.” But a reader has pointed me to one new novelty account that’s actually pretty hilarious: the 3-day old account of MRAbot2000, which posts perfect distillations of MRA-think at every opportunity. (These are all from different discussions; the different widths of the various images are due to my laziness and incompetence.)
Despite Reddit being something of a cesspool of misogyny, MRAbot2000 mostly gets upvotes. (The comment above with the negative votes is in ShitRedditSays, where the mods have rigged it so downvotes equal upvotes.) Then again, MRAbot2000 hasn’t yet posted in the Men’s Rights subreddit, where somehow I suspect the reception would be a bit more chilly.
You can find many more nuggets of MRA “wisdom” in MRAbot2000’s comment history.
