Category Archives: misogyny
Pickup Artistry, Victorian Style
I ran across this remarkable painting, titled “The Irritating Gentleman,” on Sheltered and Safe From Sorrow, a blog devoted to Victorian mourning rituals and other creepiness from that period. The gentleman in question seems to be a Victorian era Pickup Artist in action. He’s even peacocking, Mystery style, with that bow tie and stupid hat and even a non-ironic handlebar moustache. Probably the only thing keeping him from wearing aviator goggles is the fact that airplanes haven’t yet been invented.
What makes it all the worse is that the PUA’s target is clearly in mourning. As the blogger behind rawr I’m a tumblr notes:
She’s wearing all black in 1874. Black gloves, hat, cloak, and dress. In public. The whole nine yards. That’s not a fashion choice or a gothic thing. Back then when people wore all black like that, they were in mourning for someone who died. No one did mourning like the Victorians, that shit was an art form to them.
Someone in her family has died—she could even be a young widow. No one’s accompanying her either. With the carpet bag? She’s traveling alone while still in deep mourning. Look at the closeup. She’s got tears in her eyes. She is upset, devastated in a way that one is only when someone has died. And the guy’s still bothering her, like her problems are flippant bullshit and she needs to just smile or pay attention to him because ladies are supposed to be pleasing for men no matter what shit they’re going through. That’s not a look of “what an ass.” That’s a look of devastation that even in her pain, she’s expected to give people like him focus. She’s not mad. She’s hurt. And to add insult to injury? Everyone would be able to tell. It was a clear sign and still is in ways that someone is mourning, to dress in black crepe like that. He would know why she’s wearing all black, and he’s still demanding her attention.
What an insufferable dick.
Yep.
War Declared on Misandric Pants
One effect of living within the ideological bubble of the Men’s Rights movement is what you might call ideological inflation: MRAs start off believing, for example, that women don’t face discrimination today, in the developed world — an idea that’s wrong enough to start with. But then, surrounded by other delusional MRAs who reinforce their every wrong notion, the denizens of the Men’s Rights bubble come to believe that women haven’t ever been discriminated against anywhere and at any time in the history of the world. (You may recall those evil cavewomen who sat around eating prehistoric bon bons while the men hunted the mammoth to feed them.)
And that leads to things like the following video, in which the FeMRA video maker who calls herself The Wooly Bumblebee declares war on a pair of “Misandric Pants” she bought for her daughter by accident.
Yep, that’s right, she’s furious because one fucking percent of the proceeds made from selling these pants goes to a charity fighting against the very real discrimination and oppression that girls face all over the globe. You know, like being denied educations because they’re girls. Like being forced into child marriages with adult men. Like being forced into prostitution as children. That sort of thing.
Apparently girls don’t suffer from being repeatedly raped as children. But boys are totally oppressed because a tiny portion of the profits from a pair of pants goes to a charity that talks about, and tries to do something about, the shit girls have to endure because they are girls.
The Stuff I Ban Part 2: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Time for another peek into the Man Boobz “Trash” folder!
Regular commenters here may have come across the comments of an MRA/MGTOWer calling himself justeunperdant, who has graced the comments section here with sarcastic if often quite surreal remarks which are enhanced, I feel, by his poor command of the English language.
“Nice Guys” on parade
So, “Nice Guys” are causing a stir on the Internet again, thanks largely to a new(ish) Tumblr blog called “Nice Guys” of Ok Cupid, which posts selected highlights from the OKCupid profiles of self-proclaimed “nice guys” who make it very clear, in their profiles and in their answers to OKCupid’s “match” questions, that they are in fact anything but nice.
This Just In: Reddit MRAs don’t know shit about rape prevention, but still have strong opinions about it
So over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the top post at the moment (with more than 370 net upvotes) is a link to this image:
If I might hazard a guess: that’s because IT HAS YOU NUMBSKULLS.
Sigh. Let’s look at a little chart showing the striking decline in the incidence of rape we’ve seen in the last 30 years.
This is based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Some have criticized the survey’s methodology and say that it undercounts the incidence of rape, but even if that is true, the trend is clear: Rape has declined significantly over the past three decades, and I think it’s fairly obvious that increased awareness and understanding of rape, largely the result of feminist anti-rape campaigns, has contributed significantly to this decline.
Naturally, those who tried to point this out in r/mensrights found themselves downvoted.
Lords of their Dingalings: Men’s Rightsers outraged at Time writer for noting the lack of female characters in The Hobbit
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 — and she was added into the originally all-male story by the screenwriters. Blanchette’s 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.