By David Futrelle
Janice Fiamengo, an English professor at the University of Ottawa, is one of Canada’s most famous, or perhaps infamous, Men’s Rights Activists, getting her (terrible) message out in innumerable YouTube videos, speeches on college campuses and at conferences organized by A Voice for Men, and at one point as a guest on a white nationalist podcast called Radio 3Fourteen, on which she suggested that white men are “living under … a feminist version of sharia law.”
She also likes to tweet. And some of her tweets are pretty strange, even by Twitter standards. Lately she’s been getting positively horny on main over … male inventions:
Damn. I would tell her to take a cold shower, except she’d just start getting horny over indoor plumbing.
Fiamengo also wants the men of today to know how very grateful she is that that other men in the past built a lot of things.
She rarely misses an opportunity to bring up how totally unappreciated she thinks (cis) men really are. Even when her argument makes no damn sense at all.
She’s especially exercised over the allegedly unfair treatment of white men in particular, including the dead ones:
Ironically, given her desire to paint men as pure-hearted angels, the specific men she chooses to champion are often quite shit. She is, for example, a big fan of the violence-loving western supremacist street gang called the Proud Boys, whom she inexplicably believes are non-violent.
She has also declared herself quite “proud” of Tommy Robinson, the darling of Britain’s racist far-right.
As a man who thinks Tommy Robinson and the Proud Boys are a huge embarrassment to my gender, and who feels a bit weird about accepting “thank yous” for inventions I didn’t invent and train tracks I didn’t lay, all I can say is that I’m glad men don’t have many “defenders” quite like Janice Fiamengo.
H/T — @TakedownMRAs, who you should all follow on Twitter
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She forgot nuclear bombs in that list of male inventions. Watching millions of people die in a single flash of light must make her wetter than the amazon. Also, apparently Janice wants to thank men for slave labor, which is how the railroads were built. On behalf of men, your welcome Janice! For slavery! And also WW2. And WW1, and the Civil War, and Viet…you know what? Let’s just say, all the wars. Your welcome, Janice, for all the wars, JANICE.
I remain unconvinced of this. Earliest surviving written record of a piece of vernacular =!= invented it.
In masculine utopia, light switch turns YOU on!
Especially her love of white men illustrated by a railroad gang There was a saying in Western Canada and America (racist terminology in original): “Every sleeper (railroad tie) is a dead Chinaman”
She seems like a great professor though.
http://i64.tinypic.com/149vbdk.jpg
There does seem to be an air of ‘NOTICE ME SENPAI’ about the whole thing.
@vaiyt
What? No!
If Dorothy Parker could be Marie, the queen of Romania, then I can be Dorothy Parker.
@Chris Oakley
No.
@Alan Robertshaw
There’s a “Yanny/Laurel” joke in there somewhere.
Janice, I understand. Truly I do. Been there, done that. I’ve drooled on Shakespeare books at my local bookstore, fondled the bottles of penicillin my pharmacist dispensed to me, and visited the airport many, many times just to watch the pilots and the planes take off . . . oh my. Whew. I get lightheaded and all . . . melty . . . inside just thinking of the men who invented so many things!!!
Here’s the thing. The world is not ready for phallogosexual women. I’ve been thrown out of more bookstores, drugstores, and airports than I care to remember. Something about my perfectly reasonable behavior being creepy, strange, scary. Girlfriend, trust me on this one: Keep this shit on the down low.
@Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
If Dorothy Parker could be Marie, the queen of Romania, then I can be Dorothy Parker.
I feel like this could be blasphemy because Dorthy Parker is god.
She was the second coming, and we all missed it. We left her ashes in a cabinet for 20 years, and people just forgot.
@vaiyt:
Penis: The ultimate “participation trophy”.
@Cat Mara
I like your comment muchly. I laughed.
Of course I assumed your meaning to be: that having a vagina is like winning first prize + a new (self-replicating) TV, compared to a stupid “thanks for coming out” penis.
Then I realized, the manospherians would likely take a “participation trophy” a little too seriously….and they probably already consider vaginas to be “participation trophy holders”…
@jone (social justice cleric)
Could be blasphemy. But I can’t let that stop me. I can’t allow the alt-right to be the only ones who define alt-reality.
@jone (social justice cleric):
Given that “vagina” is Latin for “little sheath”… yeah, it kind of does already. The Romans really were the OG manospherians IMO. I mean, the Ancient Greeks were pretty misogynist, but the idea that men had to be stoic, emotionless machines or be considered “unmanly”? Romans started that. Mediterranean “macho” culture that despises women and gay men? Romans started that too. Even their language betrays what a fucked-up culture they had: Latin is the only language I know of that has two verbs for describing oral sex with men: “fellare”, and “irrumare” which basically means “mouth rape” ☹️.
Pretty sure it’s been shared here before, but for anyone wondering what “Tommy Robinson” was on trial for, here’s an excellent explanation.
https://thesecretbarrister.com/2018/08/01/the-tommy-robinson-judgment-what-does-it-all-mean/
@Cat Mara
Eh, “vagina” simply meant “scabbard” in Classical times. It’s application to anatomy was much later.
Irrumare apparently comes from ruma, “teat”. Language, and etymology, are strange beasts.
Considering that it was considered normal to threaten irrumatio to shut someone up, Ancient Rome sounds like a sausage fest.
On the other hand, English has “to blow” and “to facefuck”.
@Weatherwax
My first reaction on reading that is, it’s the kind of verdict where depending on the perspective, one either grumbles that he got off on a technicality, or one crows that justice had triumphed.
I will hopefully have a better reaction later. Sorry for going a bit OT here, but I’ve had a bad couple weeks, and most recently realized I’ve lost my best friend to his sub. So not only am I missing part of my support system, but I don’t feel like I can object or fight back because my best friend only recently came out as a Dom and says it’s been the best thing that happened to him. Being a good ally says I should be happy for him. I try to be. But he’s already blown up at me once because I’ve been a bit reluctant to befriend his sub.
(I should add, he’s far from the only BDSM-person I’ve known. I’ve had friends in that community for longer than I’ve been married to Mr. Parasol.)
I’ve had only superficial interactions with his sub. She seems nice, and I do believe she makes him happy. But he keeps insisting that she wants to be friendly and that therefore there is no awkwardness.
I feel as if our history as friends is no longer important, and it’s coming at a time when other things are stressing me out. I don’t have the spoons to cope with this the way I’d like to, and my instinct is to withdraw and center on myself for a bit … but I’m worried that will lead to me losing a friendship that’s been important to me since 2004.
@ Victorious Parasol
Sorry to hear you’re having a difficult time. Best wishes & internet hugs as necessary.
@Weatherwax
Thank you. I could use extra helpings of both.
@Mayu Kitsune
If it’s the Canadian Pacific Railway, it was built largely by Chinese immigrants who were paid pennies, immediately treated with hostility, and looked at as a necessary evil by white Canadians who limited Chinese immigration the moment their usefulness as labourers expired. Janice is probably all for it, judging by the men she’s idolizing.
https://www.mhso.ca/tiesthatbind/index.php
@Crip Dyke
This is better than my theory that she’s getting a bunch of static shocks and should probably invest in a humidifier for winters.
@jone (social justice cleric)
Um, really? I think I’m going to need to hear a bit more about this, because this sounds straight from an MRA-adjacent evopsych opinion-haver.
I’ll give her some credit for being the ultimate in low effort girlfriends.
Edit: VP – hugs if you want em. Spare spoons in the drawer, too.
Thank you, Shadowplay. Right now I’m trying to collect all the hugs and spoons I can get from people who care about me, because I surely need them.
I’m going to fumble through a few things here.
On one level, it’s just about how he has less time to talk with me about the things we used to enjoy talking about – favorite movies, TV shows, books, politics, etc. I miss that.
On another level, it’s become clear that she’s the priority, and I wonder where that leaves me: the person who cried with him when his beloved cat was dying of cancer, and he had to decide when to have her put down; the person who defended him against some internet bullies; the person who’s e-mailed him practically every day for years, a habit that started when he was feeling suicidal and continued because we were able to start talking for reasons other than checking in. For the crafters on here, this is someone for whom I’ve knitted 2 sweaters, not to mention presents for his mum and gran. Y’all know what that means.
And what happened to the friend who cried with me on the phone when I was in the ICU and could barely speak and wasn’t sure if the stroke was done with me? What happened to the friend who listened to me when my dad died, or when my mom was being ugly?
So I’m grieving all that, in part because this is also a time where I’m worried about my cat (who as of last week is officially at risk for diabetes, fatty liver disease, and cancer), I’m dealing with Mean Girls at work, and now I’m trying to cope with losing part of my support system.
Their collaring ceremony was yesterday. I was invited. I couldn’t bring myself to attend, because everybody has been celebrating them and talking about how happy they are, and there doesn’t seem to be any room for me and my messy feelings in a space like that.
David, I’m sorry to be so messy here.
@VP
May I say one thing?
You didn’t mention that you also feel guilty for grieving (the implication is there though).
Please, don’t do that. Change hurts – seems to hurt worse sometimes when its a good change for our friends. A bit of grief for what was is fine. It is no more selfish than missing the kids when they leave home.
Hope that helps some.
VP, it’s okay to be a mess every so often.
If it helps, I have also been a mess since last Tuesday. Basically, bad stuff happened to folks I knew, and there was nothing I could do to fix it or even help because I’m over 500 miles away and it sucked.
Maybe your friendship will get back on track or maybe it won’t. In the meantime, have an internet hug / shoulder-bump.