Category Archives: empathy deficit
A Voice for Men writer laments: “Since the advent of ‘marital rape,’ sex is no longer a loving duty, so it has become whim and weapon.”
Caution: Ring does not transform “no” into “yes.”
Has A Voice for Men just declared itself in favor of marital rape?
In the midst of a long and otherwise fairly tedious piece complaining about wives asking their husbands to do their fair share of the chores, Clint Carpentier offers some rather startling thoughts on marital rape laws, and how he thinks they help to make marriage a losing proposition for modern men.
In the good old days, he writes, “sex was a wifely duty she was obligated to provide as per the terms of marriage.” But “since the advent of ‘marital rape,’ sex [in marriage] is no longer a loving duty, so it has become whim and weapon … .”
Yep. Apparently “being raped by your husband” is really just a way to fulfill your “loving duty” as a wife.
So, Carpentier concludes, if wives demand that you do the chores around the house, and you can’t rape them at will, what’s the point of even having one in the first place? After all, he argues, in an age of washing machines and readymade meals chores are easy, and men can get “once per day of blasé sex” from “any street-hooker” or splurge on “mind-blowing sex once a week [from] a well trained call-girl.”
And so, he writes,
If women are demanding that their husbands do their “fair share” of the chores, then why do men need wives at all? In man’s attempt to make their wives lives easier, they have reduced the wifely duties to next to non-existent. Why, women? Why oh why would you drive those final coffin nails of obsolescence in? Aside from children, there’s no benefit left to having a wife.
Well, if the only “benefits” you can see in having a wife are someone who will do the cooking and cleaning and whom you can rape at will, then, no, there is no benefit to you in having a wife now that marital rape is illegal. And there is certianly no benefit to any woman in marrying or dating or possibly even being in the same room as you.
Where have all the good men gone? Well… where have all the good women gone?
That’s right: A man who considers marital rape to be a husband’s right honestly thinks that he’s one of the good ones.
AVFM’s Paul Elam loves to rail against the evils of traditionalism and chivalry. Interesting that marital rape is one element of traditionalism he apparently has no problem with.
Men’s Rights Redditor remembers the victims of Marc Lepine by complaining “we’re all supposed to cry about how hard it is to be female. “
A vigil to honor the victims of the massacre at the Ecole Polytechnique.
Today is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada, an annual event to honor the victims of mass murderer Marc Lépine, who gunned down fourteen women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. Lepine, driven by a poisonous misogynist ideology, specifically targeted women, yelling “I hate feminists” before opening fire on one classroom of female students.
Reading over his suicide-note-cum-manifesto today, I was struck again by how, well, familiar it all sounded. While only a few MRAs have explicitly celebrated Lepine as a hero, his views on women and feminism would not be out of place on most Men’s Rights forums. Here’s Lepine, in his own words. (I’ve broken the wall of text into shorter paragraphs.)
[T]he feminists always have a talent for enraging me.
They want to retain the advantages of being women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventive leave) while trying to grab those of the men. … They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. …
Thus, the other day, people were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontlines during the world wars. How does this sit with the fact that women were not authorized to go to the frontline at the time??? Will we hear of Caesar’s female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50 per cent of history’s ranks, although they never existed?
I’ve seen complaints virtually identical to these — I hesitate to call them arguments — reiterated many times over on places like A Voice for Men and the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Speaking of the Men’s Rights subreddit, here’s how the regulars there honored the victims of the massacre today: someone posted a message that today was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (this is actually a different day, in November), and, well, this is some of what ensued.
MRB2012 gave us the quote in my headline:
![MRB2012 8 points 6 hours ago (12|4) Her explanation included how it all started with how a bunch of people who were labeled feminist were shot. This is a reference to the mass shooting committed by Mark Lepine. Most murder victims are actually male, but because of this one guy who targeted women we're all supposed to cry about how hard it is to be female. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]enzikio 2 points 3 hours ago (2|0) I didn't know about Marc Lepine until your post, but it looks like his page was updated with a feminist slant with this great quote A few men's rights activists seek to rehabilitate Lépine as hero of the anti-feminist cause. A look at the sources are a joke. They all appear to reference a single person who apparently made some comments that agreed with what Marc Lepine did. No where do their sources rise to the evidence of the quote above. permalink source save parent give gold [–]muttmonster 1 point 6 hours ago (2|1) Isn't that also the guy who yelled, "I hate feminists"? permalink source save parent give gold [–]darklycan51 -3 points 4 hours ago (5|8) To be fair there's some times i've considered doing that to feminists... lol](../../../../2013/12/mrblepine_w-604.png)
7Vega worried that awareness about violence against women was taking up too much of everyone’s time.
![7Vega 11 points 6 hours ago (14|3) How many fucking days do we have for violence against women? permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]muttmonster 6 points 6 hours ago (7|1) Yeah, I swear we just had one, and that's why google had a black ribbon on it's page. And they also use a white ribbon for the same thing? permalink source save parent give gold [–]7Vega 4 points 6 hours ago (7|3) Soon all colors will be associated with violence against women.](../../../../2013/12/vega_w-604.png)
And JohnKimble suggested that violence against women is really all their fault anyway.
The greatest human rights movement of the 21st century, folks.
Roosh V, trolling for page views with deliberately offensive posts, finds some supporters in the Men’s Rights subreddit
The glamorous life of an internet king
So our old friend Roosh Valizadeh seems to have fully embraced the Matt Forney school of misogynist internet celebrity, posting over-the-top offensive posts in a transparent attempt to gin up controversy and blog traffic. And it’s working: he’s brought an avalanche of well-deserved hate down upon himself. But don’t worry: he’s still got some supporters — not only on his own blog but in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
The post that’s been keeping the servers hosting Roosh’s Return of Kings blog busy lately is a guest post by Tuthmosis with the title “5 Reasons To Date A Girl With An Eating Disorder.”
A Voice for Men’s Honey Badgers ask: Why hasn’t Anita Sarkeesian been harassed MORE?
A Voice for Men’s so-called “Honey Badgers” — its little super-team of female MRAs, led by blabby Canadian videoblogger Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan — have a new theory about Anita Sarkeesian. And it’s a doozy.
Sarkeesian, you may recall, is a feminist cultural critic who’s faced pretty much nonstop harassment from misogynistic internet assholes since she launched a project to dissect sexist tropes in video games. AVFM has contributed, in its own special way, to this wave of harassment, with articles describing Sarkeesian as, among other things, a “moneygrubbing liar” and a “queen bee … girl interloper” in the world of video games; AVFM’s Dean Esmay also held her partially responsible, along with an assortment of other internet feminists, for the suicide of one Canadian Men’s Rights Activist.
The principals at AVFM have blamed her for — either inadvertently or deliberately - bringing this harassment on herself by going to 4chan and posting about her project. (As I noted in a previous post, there’s no actual evidence she ever did this.)
The Honey Badgers, for their part, are certain that getting harassed by 4chaners was part of her devious plan all along.
In a teaser for their internet “radio” show tonight, the “Honey Badger” known as TyphonBlue writes:
Like all professional damsels in distress, Anita Sarkeesian had to choose a good dragon. Just the right looming shadow to fall over her delicate and fragile sensibilities; just the right cackling stage-villain to inspire her cries of helpless horror.
She chose 4-chan. An internet forum known for it’s underbelly of foul-tempered and hair-triggered trolls.
Then, after accusing Sarkeesian of inviting countless rape and death threats upon herself (and only a portion of it from 4channers, I should add), the Badgers take their weird conspiracy theory one step further:
But we at Honey Badger Radio have noticed something… odd. The wave of so-called hate that Anita received from her carefully chosen dragon, wasn’t really all that bad.
Yeah. A year and a half (so far) of pretty much unending harassment and baseless criticism, complete with violent threats directed not only at her but at other women who have defended her — that’s nothing.
Compared to 4-chan’s usual scorched earth strategy–raizing [sic] everything to the ground and pissing on the ashes, Anita got a little singed, like she sat too close to a campfire.
So we have to ask… Did 4-chan white knight Anita? I mean, come on. Was that the best 4 chan could do?
Yes, that’s right. The Honey Badgers are accusing those who sent rape and death threats to Anita Sarkeesian … of “white knighting” her.
I can’t even.
“Rex Patriarch” explains why women, like dogs, are incapable of love
Is it love — or do they both just like spaghetti?
The charming Man Going His Own Way who calls himself Rex Patriarch has written up a short treatise entitled “Women Are Incapable of Love.” (He’s also posted a video by another MGTOWer making the same point, but we’ll just ignore that for now, because I didn’t bother to watch it.)
Anyway, here’s Rex’s argument, such as it is:
Look guys, women are like pets.
Do pets love you?
No, of course not but they do feel the warmth which is the love you may have for them. At a minimum you are their meal ticket. That in of itself is why they stick around.
Same same with women. As long as you are their meal ticket they “love” you but the very moment you can’t provide for them. The very moment they find a better deal, find some higher status.
Watch how fast that “love” goes out the window.
The reason being is it never was there to begin with. It was just something they were telling you to keep the goodies coming. Up until they could find something better. If they can.
The thing is men can love women all they want or none at all but don’t expect them to love you back in the same measure. They simply do not have the ability.
What’s interesting about this argument, insofar as anything about it is interesting, is that he’s not just, you know, wrong about women. He’s also wrong about pets.
Now, anyone who’s bonded with a pet certainly feels that their pet loves them back. (Or at least some pets do; I’m pretty sure the turtle my brother had as a kid didn’t really love anything other than worms.) Still, some skeptics insist that we’re just anthropomorphizing when we look at our pets and see love in their eyes.
But researchers are increasingly seeing harder-to-dismiss signs that animals may have emotions remarkably like our own — and that they can indeed feel love. By scanning the brains of dogs, Emory University neuroeconomics professor Gregory Berns has found that dogs and humans are alike in some key ways:
All in all, dogs and humans show striking similarities in the activity of an important brain region called the caudate nucleus. So, do dogs love us and miss us when we’re gone? The data strongly suggest they do. And, those data can further move humanity away from simplistic, reductionist, behaviorist explanations of animal behavior and animal emotions and also be used to protect dogs and other animals from being abused.
You can read more about his research, and what he sees as its implications, here.
More on animal emotions here and here.
You can also learn a lot about how animals — including the animals called humans — think and feel by just fucking paying attention to them and having a tiny bit of empathy. This is apparently a bit too much for some people to manage.
