Misogyny Theater takes another look at the charming philosopher-king-asshole Stefan Molyneux, who seems to be carving out quite a spot for himself in the world of the lady-haters.
In this episode, some audio excerpts from Stefan Molyneux’s frighteningly well-received talk ostensibly on circumcision at A Voice for Men’s June 2014 conference, as presented in his video “Shocking Misogynist Attacks Feminism, Defends Rape Culture.” Despite the ironic title, this is pretty much an accurate description of his talk, even a bit of an understatement.
The title of my video is a shortened version of something he says in his talk (and in my video). The full quote: “If you don’t have a husband, if you chose the wrong guy, to keep the child is abusive, almost always.”
That’s right: according to Stefan M., being a single mother is, in itself, abusive.
The audio excerpts are drawn from an hour-long talk, so naturally I did some editing. In the interests of transparency, I marked each edit with a little snipping sound.
If you just can’t get enough of this guy, see my previous Molyneux video for more exciting women-blaming.
Scissors sounds and weird background noises courtesy of FreeSFX.
Single parenthood and alternative family structures have been increasing during the last decades. Yet violence and crime of all kinds have fallen dramatically (in some places by up to 70%) and continue to plummet throughout the entire western world. How do these people fit in those facts into their narratives?
Diana, shhh…facts are misandry!
This has what to do with circumcision? Did he even talk about the subject of his talk?
As this is the Centenary of the start of the first world war, I wonder how Molyneux, reconcile the large increase in single mothers in the UK as an aftermath of the war. Were they abusive as they nurtured the greatest generation. I guess history doesn’t and its only the here and now, oh wasn’t it a patriarchal societal structure that created now…
@Diana Adams They would say the modern society has “pussified” or “feminized” modern men. They would do this without realizing it was undercutting this argument which they would also agree with.
The facts are convenient tools to be used or forgotten, as is convenient, to blame women for pretty much everything.
Also, I was eating chips while watching the video and the snips confused me. I wasn’t sure if it was the sounds of the chips or the video for the first couple of times.
Diana Adams,
Facts are misandry!
Ninja’d by Fnoicby.
I guess we should coordinate our gynocracy talking points better. If we shout them all at once the MRM might realize it’s all a conspiracy.
It’s all one begged question. He doesn’t prove his premise (violence is caused in early childhood), but all of his argument depends on it being true.
Intellectually dishonest.
pecunium, not to mention the fact that he’s assuming that a mother/other females are the ONLY influence in early childhood, if they are primary caregivers.
Lawks! I couldn’t listen to all of it.
He mentioned women choosing to have children with a man who’s not going to be around.
So does that mean that women shouldn’t marry/ have children with anyone in a fly-in-fly-out occupation or merchant sailors or in the armed forces or troubleshooters/consultants in dozens of industries? Because most people in those occupations see less of their children than a separated or divorced father who sees the kids on weekends would do. One of my best friends didn’t see her husband for several months at a time when he was working in some locations in Papua New Guinea, even some of the more inaccessible sites in Australia.
One of our friends has been working in a university in Saudi Arabia. Apart from the fact that they didn’t want to upset the older child’s year 12 studies, his wife refused to live anywhere she couldn’t drive or have a job herself. He’s away for a semester at a time. They continue to live here and he comes home for holidays a couple of times a year.
[CN: abuse]
Yeah, my mom has traumatized me so much for having more influence in my life than my dad. She spent my early years doing everything she could to comfort me whenever my dad was yelling at me and threatening to harm me. She even had the audacity to get a restraining order in order to protect me and my siblings when he threatened to murder all of us. And then she did the unthinkable: get a divorce. Such an abusive mother. /extremely bitter sarcasm
This is particularly frustrating to me as I’m currently working on my dissertation in Psychoanalysis. The whole thing falls apart if you cut out the presumption that all predisposition to evil begins in the first 2 years of life, right?
Well it’s wrong. It’s so fucking wrong. Not a single credible theory in any psychological field posits anything like this. When not even psychoanalysts – who, famously, are obsessed with early childhood – would look at your theory of ego development and be like “Dude, woah… Where the hell did you get that?” you need to seriously reconsider your position as a (science-informed) “philosopher.”
Fuck.
Facts are misandry, yeah. The facts however don’t support any of their theories. There is a staggering decline of crime and violence which even the experts cannot fully explain. But Stefan Molyneux who is an expert of nothing seems to know everything about violence and crime. And of course women are to blame. Especially single mothers.
His theory is basically a variation of Freud and his followers, who suggest early childhood is the be-all and end-all for personality development. Freud’s theories have been hammered for decades for having little legitimacy. It has little empirical basis at all (and I don’t say “none” because I’m sure there’s a study out there somewhere that suggests there’s at least teeny, tiny sliver of evidence). Hundreds of peer-influence studies have illustrated that friends have huge impacts on behavior, which can change in relatively short periods of time.. Them there’s discussions of temperament, brain chemistry, hormones, disease….
It’s almost like explanations for behavior are really complex! If an explanation sounds really simple when it comes to behavior, it’s wrong.
Why these fools paid $200-300 dollars to hear speakers wax on pseudoscience (Freud, evo psyc) is beyond me. They may as well bring back phrenology to critique women’s behavior at this point. I look forward to a lecture on the topic billed as “new science” next year.
That was phrased poorly. Sigh. Anger diminishes my typing ability. Point is, even psychoanalysts would think he’s full of shit.
@Save the Queen
Lol, bad timing. Psychoanalysis is, first of all, not a pseudoscience because it doesn’t make claims to scientific authority; in many ways it’s an anti-positivist philosophy. Secondly, no, psychoanalysts today would not agree with him. Even Freud wouldn’t. His ideas about early childhood laid the foundation for our current understanding that child abuse = bad (revolutionary for his time), much more than they did for these prescriptive dickheads.
Semi-ninjaed by Lady Rainicorn.
I only have a psyc minor so I obviously don’t have the background you do., Working on my dissertation in Colonial/Post-Colonial history. I cringe when anthropologists interpret culture through theoretical constructs inspired by Freud.
Also, a massive FUCK YOU to Stefan for implicitly telling mothers in abusive relationships that they themselves are abusive for wanting to keep their kid(s) safe from their abusive fathers. Taking the children away in order to protect them and help them heal from abuse is the exact opposite of abuse.
a b u s e r ‘ s l o b b y
@Save the Queen
Dissertation high five! I was always intrigued by post-colonial history, as the anthropology professors at my college really drove home the problems inherent to the subject, re: persistent ethnocentrism.
And yeah, in many ways Freud disappoints me. Though I think he’s held up to an unreasonable standard today, given that his views were closer to ours than his contemporaries (social context is important). But Freud is not the be-all and end-all of psychoanalysis, and no psychoanalytic theorists that I know of are as fervently attached to sexist, racist, and otherwise reductive social theories as MRAs.
Well, he refers to himself as a space alien in the beginning there. That would explain a lot of things.
So, his premise is women are “in charge of early childhood” because women tend to do most of the childcare and are the majority of elementary school teachers. And Molyneux believes that this is harming children. So, wouldn’t the solution to that be to encourage men to be involved fathers, to take a greater role in childcare and nurturing, to encourage men to always use condoms when they don’t want to make a baby, and to encourage more men to take jobs as early childhood educators and in daycare centers?
Oh yeah. I forgot the whole point is to just blame women for all the bad things while completely removing agency and responsibility from men.
She got together with a man who was going to run off, huh? Because of course he said “by the way, just so you know, I plan to abandon you as soon as you get pregnant” on the first date
Women are responsible for the actions of men. If the father leaves/is unreliable, it’s the woman’s fault for “choosing the wrong guy.”
Men have no choice or agency in deciding on a partner/whether to have kids–it’s all up to the woman.
I’m always amazed by how low MRAs’ opinion of men is.
This man always has an underlying look as if he’s about to lose it. Red-cheeked and jovial as he provides a support structure to the universe of his own mind.
@ladyrainicorn517
Could you elaborate on this? Not my area. Is there not an attempt to make statements about empirical questions (the ego develops like this…)? How does one justify such statements?
Oooh, good point mildlymagnificent. My husband does contract work, and he’s usually out of the country somewhere between three and six months every year. I probably am a terrible mother by ol’ Stefan’s calculus, since I chose this awful man who leaves us to earn a living and then gloms up as much family time as he can when he’s home.
I learn so much from Mr. Molyneux’s appearances on Misogyny Theater. Last time I found out that my husband was an ipso-facto asshole and it was all his mom’s fault for having married and divorced a neglectful jerk. Now I’ve discovered that husband and I are both unfit parents! Such profound wisdom.