Men’s Rights Activists turn to Russian dashcam footage to determine if all women are lazy and selfish, or just most of them
Helping women sucks
So someone on YouTube decided to put together what was intended as a heartwarming and inspirational video — assembled mostly from Russian dash-cam videos — showing an assortment of ordinary fellows taking a few moments from their day to help out their fellow human beings, and even a few animals. We get to see little old ladies walked across the street, cars pushed or pulled from snowbanks, and so on.
But when Paul Elam of A Voice for Men — the alleged Men’s “Human Rights” site that posts an open call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its “activism” section — watched the video, all he saw was what wasn’t there — that is, helpful women.
For you see, as far as anyone can tell with all that heavy winter clothing, this five minute video features only helpful men, and I think one helpful boy, and no helpful people of the lady persuasion. Mr. Elam underscored this point by headlining his post “Where are the women?” and ending the post with the very same question.
I’m not exactly sure why Mr. Elam thinks this is a particularly important question to ask (twice). I don’t know the precise gender breakdown for helping little old ladies across the road either in Russia or the US, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t 100% male. I’m almost positive that there are some women in the world who actually help their fellow human beings (and animals) from time to time. I’m pretty sure I know a few myself.
Indeed, if you look at the actual statistics for volunteering from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — generally considered a better source of data than compilations of Russian dash-cam footage — you will discover not only that substantial numbers of both men and women volunteer but also that, in the US at least, women consistently volunteer at rates higher than that of men. Take it away, BLS:
The volunteer rates for both men and women (23.2 and 29.5 percent, respectively) changed little in the year ending in September 2012. Women continued to volunteer at a higher rate than did men across all age groups, educational levels, and other major demographic characteristics.
I guess that’s where the women are. Volunteering.
If you’re interested in seeing the video that got Mr. Elam’s heart feeling so warmed, here you go:
Oh, wait, that’s not it. That’s not dudes helping. That’s dudes punching each other and acting like assholes. Here it is:
Damn it! More punching and assholism. Let’s try again.
Oops again.
In my defense, the videos I’ve posted are assembled mostly from Russian dash-cam footage, and I’m pretty sure there are no women in any of them.
Here’s the actual video, for reals.
Posted on May 9, 2013, in a voice for men, a woman is always to blame, chivalry, evil women, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, paul elam and tagged a voice for men, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, russian dash-cam videos. Bookmark the permalink. 166 Comments.
Cassandra, that wasn’t my intention. I meant cooperative=enjoys doing stuff with humans rather than just doing stuff on one’s own. Should have made that definition right away to avoid confusion.
I think BC:s, together with GSD:s, aussies and some other breeds bred to work with humans are at the top there. Other breeds need even more motivation to do stuff together with us rather than just enjoy themselves by, idk, sniffing interesting spots on the ground or something, and if you do manage to get them to do some joint activity they’ll tire of it faster. In general, obviously there are large individual differences.
Still, people often have this stereotype of a dog as a creature who’ll make endless performances with no more motivation than the occassional “good dog” from the humans, and who pretty much trains itself. NO breed is like that, period.
And being cooperative as defined above is a crucial trait if a dog is gonna reach top levels in obedience, agility and similar sports. Sure, you still need to be a super trainer to reach the top. If you have a dog disinterested in joint activities however, you’re probably not gonna reach the top regardless of how great a trainer you are.
When it comes to how trainable the dog is perceived to be by someone completely disinterested in dog sports, who just wants a pet as easy-going as possible, I don’t think that has got much to do with being cooperative as defined above. I think really calm dogs with very little in the way of drives are usually perceived as being easiest in this context. Dogs who don’t chase cats because they simply have no interest in cat chasing, and don’t jump up at people because they’re by nature not the bouncy sort, etc. Sometimes fearful dogs, if they react with freeze rather than flight, are also perceived as really easy-going and trainable, because they’re too fearful to excibit what we consider undesirable behaviours. But it seems wrong to me to label these kinds of personalities “cooperative”. They’re “calm” and “fearful” respectively.
I think the terms you’re looking for in that case are social or people-oriented versus independent. An Akita would be a good example of an independent breed, whereas a Border Collie is very social. When most people say cooperative they mean the breeds that are real pushovers and very easy to train for that reason.
Also random side-track - do people consider Border Collies to be good family dogs in Sweden? I was really surprised to see a number of different sources in the US recommend against getting them if you have kids, because when I was growing up they were considered great family dogs, for a family that’s willing to give them a lot of exercise. The sticking point here seems to be the herding behavior, specifically the fact that they tend to herd kids and it’s hard to train them not to.
And yeah, I get what you meant now, and I agree that it’s kind of disgusting that people use “cooperative” to mean “easily bullied into compliance”, but unfortunately that is how people seem to use that word.
@Cassandra: I thought I used these words in fairly normal ways, but maybe that’s just in my dog circles we talk like that…
The situation with BC:s in Sweden is a bit different than in many other countries. Firstly, most dogs here are purebreds registered in the kennel club, while in other countries kennel-club-registered dogs are in minority. Therefore the kennel club and the breed clubs that are part of it have lots of power regarding how the breeds ought to be. Now, the BC breed club has decided that BC:s are to be working dogs, period. They’ve decided that you’re not allowed to show BC:s on national conformation shows (since that would push breeders to consider looks more than working capacity), and you’re not allowed to breed a BC unless it’s passed a certain breeding test (which is apparently way trickier to pass than the American Kennel Club’s basic breeding trials, according to herding people who know both tests). They’re supposed to be working dogs, period. So it’s not advised that you get one unless you a) intend to herd sheep with it, or b) wants to compete in some dog sport that provides the dog with real challenges, or c) is merely crazy about dog training despite not competing.
Mere physical exercise is good, but can’t really replace the kind of training where the dog must use its mental resources as well.
THAT being said - I’ve never heard anyone say that you can’t have BC:s with children. Obviously lots of people who fit into categories a, b or c also have kids.
In the UK they’re both working dogs and family pets, and the family pets aren’t genetically distinct from the working dogs. Part of this is that I’m Scottish and they’re unusually common there, so we just have tons of Border Collies, and other kinds of Collies, around. I found the idea that herding kids is an undesirable behavior really weird, but I guess people here consider the fact that they do sometimes nip (my granny’s dog did that - never broke skin, but she would nip at my butt or my arm if I wasn’t going where she wanted me to) totally unacceptable when directed at kids. Whereas at home nobody seems to think that’s a big deal as long as the dogs aren’t breaking skin.
People sometimes have weird ideas regarding dogs and kids - like kids are somehow SACRED, and dogs must understand that (as if a dog could even have the concept of sacred), or else it’s a bad dog.
And btw, I also get the feeling sometimes that BC people here are a little fanatical with there insistence that “it’s a working breed, not a mere family pet, no BC could possibly be happy as a mere family pet!”.
“it’s a working breed, not a mere family pet, no BC could possibly be happy as a mere family pet!”
There’s a bit of that here, too, although how much it affects people’s actions I don’t know. Certainly I see plenty of BCs around, and there’s no way they’re working dogs living in the city.
For me (not that I’ll ever own a dog, alas) I wouldn’t take on a BC because they do need the time and attention and exercise, and I can’t provide that.
I always fancy the idea of a retired greyhound. I’ve heard from people who adopt them that they turn into total couch potatoes - understandably!
Unfortunately racing greyhounds usually don’t get along with kitties, since they’ve been trained to chase small animals
The thought of a lazy greyhound makes me smile.
No, it wouldn’t be the best combination, would it?
Plus even if they did get along, the kitties would not be pleased at having yet another large oafish creature taking up their rightful couch space.
Yeah, I was thinking that. Greyhounds are really suitable mainly for households whose family room has two or more good-sized couches so that the oversized not-very-mobile living cushions don’t commandeer every possible cat and human sitting space. Cats probably wouldn’t mind if there were enough spaces and laps free of intruding greyhound.
Retired greyhounds can be OK if they’ve been cat-tested. They are the laziest dogs ever.
@Kitten: On the other hand, in Australia they probably have a “show type” of BC, right? When certain bloodlines begin to be bred primarily for conformation shows rather than their original job their mentality changes pretty quickly. There’s a Swedish etologist called Kenth Svartberg who’s done research where mentality assessments have been compared between various breeds, and working lines vs show lines, and the personality differences between working vs show lines within the same breed are actually bigger than the personality differences between, say, a working-line bird dog and a working-line herding dog. (Although people who have conformation lines always refuse to believe this.)
Plus, you CAN be engaged in dog sports even if you live in a city.
My italian greyhound (mini-version of a greyhound) would get along lovely with kittens. He likes to chase a lure coursing rag, but has no interest in chasing live animals.
You should get one of those. He’s also the cuddliest creature in existence.
@Cassandra: Sorry, btw, for mistaking you for American. I KNOW you’re from the UK, I just momentarily forgot and began babbling about the US vs Sweden.
Is it the case that greyhounds are very gaseous and have the worst farts ever? Perhaps I’ve just had bad experiences that have tarnished my perception.
One thing I have heard about border collies and intelligence is that they’re “too smart” to be seeing eye dogs since they will find shortcuts and decide on what they think are better ways of doing things, rather than following the instructions of the blind handler. I suppose this is particularly undesirable since what the dog thinks is better may not be what the human would think is better if they could see.
Oh shortcuts! Yeah, what’s dangerous to a dog is not the same as what’s dangerous to a human. There are some in Pittsburgh that I absolutely loved, and some I’d have never used — the difference being ability to see everything in them and proximity to frats (my gods frat boys can be awful sometimes!)
Physically navigable =/= safe.
Also, Pittsburgh has a serious “you can’t get there from here” problem — looks like a shortcut, turns out to be somebody’s driveway. Whoops!!
Haven’t had time to read through the whole comments thread, so sorry if this was mentioned already, but did anyone see this video about the nurse trainee in Australia who saved a man who’d fallen onto the train tracks?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/may/10/brisbane-nurse-railway-tracks-video
Predictable mra response: “Well, uh, she shouldn’t have saved him! Doesn’t she realize how emasculating it is for a man to be saved by a woman? My god! Now she’s probably ruined the guy’s life forever. And do we know for sure this man wasn’t pushed onto the tracks by feminists?”
@ Dvärghundspossen
No worries. I do live in the US, so I can see how it would get confusing, since sometimes I say “here” and mean the US.
Interestingly enough, the idea of Border Collies and other working dogs being bred as show dogs bothers me more than the idea of them being viewed mostly as working dogs. I mean, the “but they’re working dogs only!” stuff is silly, but a dog that works on a farm will usually end up being sort of a pet too and those kinds of working dogs spend a lot of time with people as part of their training, so it’s obvious how silly people are being by saying they can’t be pets and hard for anyone to take them too seriously. But the idea of taking a dog that’s generally healthy and active and breeding it to walk around being judged on whether its nose is exactly the right length and color, and refusing to breed healthy happy dogs where that isn’t the case…dog (and cat) breeding for shows often seems ethically sketchy to me, is what I’m saying, given then tendency to value appearance over health. And that’s extra obvious when they take breeds that have historically been strong and healthy and end up making them less so.
You know the average life expectancy of a Bernese in the US is apparently down to less than 7 years? Those used to be healthy working dogs too.
Re greyhounds. They were bred to chase deer, but briefly. Medieval hunting used several types of dogs for different parts of the chase. Greyhounds did a lot of waiting around.
@Dvarghundspossen - “On the other hand, in Australia they probably have a “show type” of BC, right?”
No idea, I’m afraid!
When I said working dogs I mean herding sheep or cattle, not taking part in dog shows or training. That’s definitely not city stuff.
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