
#FeministsAreUgly is confusing a lot of people, misogynists included. The Twitter hashtag – which took off yesterday and is still going strong, if not quite so strong, today – was originally started not by misogynistic trolls but by two feminists, @LilyBolorian and @Cheuya, who intended the hashtag to be a way for feminist women to celebrate their own beauty, whether it conformed to conventional (and generally white-centric) standards or not. As Bolorian put it,
https://twitter.com/LilyBolourian/status/497453684440444928
https://twitter.com/LilyBolourian/status/497398674054725634
Women responded at once by doing just that, and the hashtag was quickly flooded by feminist selfies. This being the internet, it was also flooded with comments from misogynists and trolls. Given how many of the latter were posted, many feminists on Twitter initially assumed it was just another outburst of internet misogyny; it took a little while before the feminist origins of the hashtag became widely known.
So how did the devoted antifeminists of the manosphere and the Men’s Rights movement react to the hashtag? Some responded with unabashed glee. The regulars on Roosh V’s forum reposted the selfies of some in women posting in the #FeministsAreUgly hashtage, mocking them as fat, lazy “cunts.”
One commenter offered this helpful observation:
A lot of fat crazy feminists are also obviously on heavy psych meds. One of the tell tale signs is volatile temperment and grandiose delusions. The weight gain is often a side effect of some of the drugs. So next time you run into some fat cunt spouting feminist rhetoric just keep in mind she could literally be crazy (bipolar) too.
Another waxed conspiratorial:
Feminist women are trying to turn themselves Idols to be worshiped.
It all ties into the writings of Alice Bailey and Madame Helena Blavatsky.
But elsewhere in the misogynistic online subculture sometimes called the manosphere the responses were a tad more complicated and conflicted.
On the Red Pill subreddit, the hashtag seemed mainly to make the regulars angry. A fellow calling himself MajorStyles won himself some upvotes for a comment complaining that
these bitches have gained control of the media for the past 40 years. Enough is enough. They have desecrated the moral landscape of this country to a barely recognizable wasteland. Fat tattooed harpies who shit on men of value.
Time to call them on their shit.
Over in the Men’s Rights subreddit, the regulars were wary, many of them afraid that the hashtag was some sort of sneaky feminist trap to make them look bad … I guess by luring them into posting what they really thought?
Among the assorted antifeminists I follow or otherwise encounter on Twitter, there were two basic responses. Some flatly declared that yes, feminists are ugly:
https://twitter.com/aaron_clarey/status/497801834548199424
https://twitter.com/FemsHaveBallz/status/497601470527983616
Others, a bit more circumspect, suggested that the real problem is that feminists are ugly on the inside.
Pretty selfies will not cover up your rotten soul. #feministsareugly
— Redd Fields (@ReddFields) August 8, 2014
The truth is, if a feminist screams that they aren't physically ugly in #FeministsAreUgly, that is probably the ONLY part that is not ugly
— Nephanor (@Nephanor) August 8, 2014
I'm very disappointed in the #FeministsAreUgly hashtag, because it ignores the reality that even the attractive ones are unpleasant.
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) August 8, 2014
A Voice for Men “Honey Badger” Hanna Wallen tried to have it both ways, posting a Dworkin joke aimed at a feminist who, like Dworkin, has dark curly hair, followed by a series of earnest and often incomprehensible tweets trying to prove that feminists (including me, specifically) have ugly souls.
Hey, #FeministsAreUgly, how are those selfies Dworkin for ya? http://t.co/d4RRgGXmT7 #WomenAgainstFeminism #feminismisawful
— Hannah Wallen | Professional Smartass (@Oneiorosgrip) August 8, 2014
The way their rhetoric inflicts stupidity on women is one reason why #FeministsAreUgly https://t.co/Ruz8kh8IPK
— Hannah Wallen | Professional Smartass (@Oneiorosgrip) August 8, 2014
I can only imagine how tough it’s been for MRAs to read through this hashtag. MRAs constantly attack feminists as fat and ugly; feminist women who aren’t fat are accused of having “manjaws” or other allegedly unflattering features. But many MRAs are also vaguely aware that constantly attacking their opponents as a bunch of uggos doesn’t exactly seem very statesmanlike. And so, many MRAs bite their tongues.
It’s tough being a men’s human rights activist. Sometimes they have to pretend that their opponents are actually human too.
Throwing me under the bus will probably not get that bus fixed, even though larger vehicles are easier to work on than cars. :p
Sorry I just dropped that first comment and then peaced out! I had surprise!workshift. Hooray for closing the store 6 nights out of the week >.<
Anyways, I definitely have a few types, but those types are very disparate! And my husband and I have very different preferences when it comes to women, which I always find amusing. (He's straight, so obviously we have differences in our preferences of men, too, haha, given that his preference there is "NOPE" and mine is… variable.)
Omg I’d been trying to figure out where I remembered Madame Blavatsky from. I think Mary Roach has a piece about her in Spook.
Though armed with the knowledge of who she is I think I’m even more confused than before.
@Bina on the good old days and femine beauty
Thanks, now I’m picturing some red pill dudes getting sent back in time and arguing with all the men about how men can’t find the “fat” ideal of the day attractive because of biotruths! 😀
@Policy of Madness: I’ve got lots of alleged flaws too, by conventional standards. Funny thing, relative to your comment: my teeth were the one thing I always liked about my face, cos I have prominent canines. Fangs is good! 😀
@tesformes: Three years it took and according to Greta Christina’s article it’s buried at the end of another of his piles o’ shit? Yeah, fuck him, I don’t believe it. I like Rebecca Watson’s meh response to it, though.
@Binjabreel, yeah, knowing who she is definitely makes the reference even more ridiculous! I don’t think I’ve ever heard Blavatsky’s name mentioned in connection with feminism. ::baffled::
“Fat” being the term used by the red pill dudes, obviously. 😉
MRAs certainly don’t believe any men who say they like women who don’t fit the currently popular mode, so I doubt that they’re quite ready for the concept of beauty standards as a thing that changes over time.
It must depend on the boot.
Wearing Uggs on the head in public would definitely constitute harassment.
Make ’em look at Rubens’s The Three Graces (note: nudes) and watch their teeny little heads explode.
I’m not even going to attempt the “different cultures can have different beauty standards even within the same time period” conversation with an MRA, since I know that it will inevitably be some poor woman who has to clean up the mess from the resulting head explosion.
The grace in the middle clearly has a wedgie. She’s looking at the one on the left like “um, can we stop dancing for a sec…”
Oh, I dunno, I’d clean up that mess quite happily as long as I got to watch it happen. It wouldn’t be any worse than some of the muck I dealt with at the Museum.
Just make sure he ‘splodes on tile or lino rather than carpet.
katz, LOL!
Her facial expression is a bit “not too happy with this”, now that you mention it.
Wearing a boot on one’s head.
I think this is the first time I’ve heard a Red Pill dude ascribe weight gain to anything besides eating lots of junk food and stealing the scooter at Wal-Mart from people who “really” need it. Like there’s the tiniest glimmering of a clue that “calories in, calories out” isn’t quite how human beings work.
Too bad he smothered that clue in skeevy ableism, misogyny, and fat hatred.
When an anti-feminist calls feminists ugly/fat/hairy/lesbians/etc., my usual retort is, “Even if they were, they’d still be right.”
Kittehserf:
In Australia, it’s simply suggestive flirtation…
In Canada, it means “I’m available”.
Gah, I have seen the price of true Uggs. Bloody hell, does Aussie have a sheep shortage or something – they’re really expensive.
Only among the bogans!
You call them bogans, we call them ex-pats living in Queensland. 😛
ROFL!
I like that joke (I presume it’s an NZ one) about all the NZers coming here raising the intelligence of both countries.
Source of that quote, third paragraph here: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/kiwis-overseas/page-4
Although that type of wit is much more associated with David Lange than Robert Muldoon.
Good God, that was a Piggy Muldoon line? You’re right, if I’d thought of any PM doing quality snark like that it would have been Lange.