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.
Ok, as interesting as all this serious discussion is, I’m stuck on something silly.
Space aliens land on earth, we’ll assume they can somehow communicate with humans, and recognize violence the same way we do (two big assumptions already) — then they find out that violence is caused by childhood something or other. And their first question is to ask who’s in charge of kids? Not, you know, something more like “your larva require supervision for how long?!” Cuz we’re an oddity even on this planet, he’s assigning his aliens a whole lot more similarity to us than is warranted by their apparent ability to land on earth.
*runs through brain* by my mental archives, most earth species that require rearing are reared by the birthing parent, or both parents in tandem, or a group of related individuals. So, assuming said aliens have any concept of how child rearing tends to go on earth, once they got that humans are one of the (rather few) species that require rearing, it’d be assumed that the birthing parent (women, generally speaking) did that.
But hey, let’s just assume that aliens can speak a human language…well, English, since this model with “vacations” is very western…and understand violence the same way we do (again, almost certainly he’s using either an North American or European definition, particularly since he seems to be assuming a nuclear, versus extended, family unit)…and understand that human offspring require rearing for quite an extended period, and understand gender in a binary manner (again, this can’t even be an assumed biological default on this planet, why in the hell should it be on all planets?)…but once all that is covered, they somehow immediately blame the rearing parent for all issues and what? Assume that it’s normal for the human male to abandon his offspring and this is something the female should predict?
That might be the most boggling part — sometimes the human male abandons his offspring, sometimes he doesn’t, and the female is responsible if he does. Actually, fuck, he’s inadvertently using a very broad biological model — among other species where the non-birth parent only sometimes sticks around, the odds of survival of the offspring increase if said parent does stick around. Hell, even if it isn’t abandonment — a widowed robin will probably lose her young for example — both parents are required for around the clock feeding.
So aliens would look at that and say that the female robin is abusive for not putting her young up for adoption? Add in the assumption that aliens would understand adoption (probably not considering penguins are the only non-primate example of it that I can think of outside species where the grown offspring leave their home to mate elsewhere — and even among other primates adopting an orphan isn’t a sure thing, some species are happy to kill young not related to them)
And this is all working off biology on this planet! Somehow I find it impossible that aliens would understand all the “facts” required to arrive at the idea that humans require rearing, this is usually by two parents (not actually a fact, extended family groups are quite common), that the male parent sometimes, but only sometimes, leaves (and this is somehow something the female parent should’ve factored in…but this only applies if he leaves, death is what exactly in his model?), AND define violence as we do…but not already understand that the female parent, the one who births human offspring, does most of the childcare?
This guy shouldn’t write scifi, this is all well outside my ability to suspend disbelief.
“It’s nine o’clock. Do you know where your larvae are?”
Maybe our esteemed philosopher is part of an X-Files style government conspiracy and that is how he can speak in such an educated manner about said aliens?
Call Mulder and Scully, y’all.
marieangela, thanks, but don’t feel bad! Apart from the money situation, it was no loss. He was so little involved in my life that it made little difference – I don’t actually remember missing him at all – and within a few weeks Mum was glad he was gone.
“It’s all right, dear, they’re pupating.”
Argenti – you’ve nailed the reason Alien Unit MolyNothingNewHere wound up on earth: he’s been exiled for too much fail.
If I’d had a child – and one of the reasons I *don’t* have one is because of my abusive upbringing – my disturbed and deeply selfish parents would have never been allowed within ten miles of them, and my in laws would have been on a short leash because the MiL (now deceased) had some very fucked up views on children and parenting.
Not all grandparents are unalloyed blessings, and referring to needing to keep the hell away from abusive/dangerous parents as ‘mommy and daddy issues” is incredibly insulting to abuse survivors. Knock it off, please. Molyneaux is a royal pimple but you don’t know what he and his wife went through, and you weren’t there, so quit the judging on that aspect of their lives.
Back to lurking.
Anne, seconded about grandparents. I wouldn’t have minded knowing my mother’s father, but as for her mother, or my male parental unit’s (adoptive) parents, no thanks, I’m glad they all passed long since. Not people I’d want anything to do with.
“you’ve nailed the reason Alien Unit MolyNothingNewHere wound up on earth: he’s been exiled for too much fail.”
Lol, so earth is alien exile? Kinda like Australia was? Makes sense I guess, we do have some nasty critters. Like, idk, all the ones you’ve got down under! (Fucking huntsmen, spiders should not be that fast and that big!)
And their pupating! *dies* love it
(FTR I only went with larva as it was the most generic form of offspring I could think of, mostly because there are a lot of insect species!)
**Sigh**
I loved “The X-Files”, WatermelonSugar.
It’s easy to imagine aliens looking at humans and thinking, yep, send this idiot there, he’ll fit right in.
Huntsmen are really the least of your worries about Oz spiders. Fast yes, scary yes, but their venom’s not dangerous. I’d probably have a heart attack from one being on me, not from any bite!
The spiders to be really careful of are Sydney funnelwebs. They’ve got fangs bigger than a snake’s and can bite through toenails. Luckily there’s been an antivenom available since 1981 and nobody’s died from their bites since then. Even the famous redback isn’t as dangerous as its reputation suggests – extremely painful bite, yes, but luckily its fangs are tiny, so it can’t always do harm to humans.
Now snakes … you really don’t want to mess with out snakes!
Snakes don’t scare me though, so I wouldn’t freak and scare the snake. Anyways, we’ve got copperheads here, so I got trained young how not to piss off poisonous snakes. You’re right about the funnelwebs though, I think I banished those fuckers from my memory!
But I freak at our jumping spiders — smaller than your fingernail, harmless, and yet I run and hide. Ask Pecunium, I made him an unhappy camper once by killing one in his garage! So yeah, a huntsman would indeed cause death by heart failure!
Y’all have blue ringed sea beasties though don’t you? I don’t think I could handle being near the Great Barrier Reef and not making a habit out of spending time underwater!
Is that a Far Side reference? I swear there was a Far Side strip that made a joke along those lines once.
Unbelievable. Molyneux pretends to be a young attractive woman and posts comment praising his review of the Disney film “Frozen” and thanking himself for it.
Stefan Molyneux via Google+
1 month ago
I love this. You totally kinda ruined frozen for me but i really enjoyed this a lot more than the actual movie. And you really got me thinking about a lot. Being an attractive young woman, I understand what is like to be seen as nothing more than a sex doll. I also know what it is like to use that to my “advantage” to “get over” the system. HELL I even know what it is to suffer mental illness, only to be told bu my parents to ignore it. HOWEVER, despite all of this I feel like I have learned more lessons from everything that has happened in my life. Thank you so much for posting this. Honestly I want to make a difference in the world, and I looked to people like you to sort of guide me in the right direction. THANKS SO MUCH.
From here;
Argenti: Add in the assumption that aliens would understand adoption (probably not considering penguins are the only non-primate example of it that I can think of outside species where the grown offspring leave their home to mate elsewhere — and even among other primates adopting an orphan isn’t a sure thing, some species are happy to kill young not related to them)
Guinea pigs will adopt any piglet.
Rats and mice aren’t fussy either.
I think elephants will care for orphaned young but I don’t know if they are able/willing to wet nurse one which isn’t weaned.
That was way more than I needed to know about Stevie’s fantasy life.
Children of the Broccoli – not a Far Side I was thinking of, it might have bubbled up from the memory, though. I loved that cartoon!
Argenti – same here, I think snakes are beautiful, they’re not scary-looking to me. Never encountered one outside a zoo, though.
Yeah, teensy jumping spiders freak me out a bit, too, or even more ridiculously, the ones we call money spiders – half the size of a jumping spider, but the only time I see ’em is running across the couch, or across me sitting on the couch, and without thinking I’ve leapt up and am bashing wildly at where I last saw the thing.
Ah yes, the blue-ringed [sea beastie whose plural shall not be discussed]. Yup, we’ve got those, and the crown of thorns starfish, and the Portuguese man o’ war. Lovely critters all.
Don’t worry about sharks, though: more people die of bee stings than get bitten by sharks (and the fucking WA government is busy trying to
exterminatecull the great whites … scum).Cool bit of eco news: crows and magpies here have figured out how to eat cane toads without getting poisoned. They flip ’em over and eat from the belly instead of from the back, where the poison glands are. Let’s hope our other predatory birds figure it out too. So far, it’s mostly invertebrates that can deal with the toads – some of the northern tarantulas manage to eat the beggars! Never thought I’d be cheering a spider. 😛
Pecunium – looks like at least some elephants cross-suckle calves as a normal thing:
Given how closely related the herd is, I’d presume this would include orphaned calves.
Source
kittehs: I figured that was the case, given the strong familial bonds among elephants. I recall reading of a case where a couple of elephants who’d not seen each other in some ridiculous amount of time (I want to say it was more than 20 years) were re-acquainted and just went mad with joy.
There was footage, it was beautiful.
I took a screenshot of the Molyneux YouTube embarassment before it comes down. http://imgur.com/tk6yyvN
Oohhhh, I’d love to see that, pecunium.
Was that the reunion of Shirely and Jenny at the Tennessee Elephant Sanctuary?
http://youtu.be/lF8em4uPdCg
I’ll have to expand that to mammals and penguins then! And I’m silly, since I know pet cats and dog will adopt — cross species even!
Kitteh — oh, I’m not worried about sharks, more like worried for them. It’s the sea beasties that concern me, particularly the ones that just drift along, completely oblivious to whether they’re about to sting you. Not that that’s their fault, obviously, but it makes it harder to avoid them.
And as for sharks, great whites aren’t the ones to fear in the first place, I blame Jaws. Bull sharks are way more likely to have a human snack.
Lol, pecunium, would Yudcultsky say that SCUBA diving is too risky for his precious brain? (Just regular old diving, not cave diving or anything particularly risky like that)
the idea of a mother having to give her children up for adoption is the farther dies is just so ridiculous. As if it wouldn’t be traumatizing enough to lose their father, then they get separated from their mother too? Really? Unless both parents are incredibly abusive, it seems very likely any kid would prefer losing both parents to losing one.
I wondered the too. My good friend’s mother died when she was 12 so her dad was a single father after that. Was it abusive of him to not give her up for adoption? Or is it OK because he’s a man?
He also leaves out the fact that people mostly want to adopt white babies or toddlers. Older kids and black kids in particular have more trouble being placed. Would kids really be better off in an orphanage than with a loving single parent. It’s just so stupid.
LOL at Moly being too stupid to learn how to sock properly.
As anyone alerted David to Paul Elam’s comments about the money he raised? It seems like a good subject for a post.
Crows adopt. Last year’s hatchlings will stick around and help raise their siblings too. The father’s are as involved as the mothers in raising the chicks.
I like crows. I sometimes see a pair of them chase off a hawk. No offence to the hawk, but I root for the crows every time.
I think lionesses will adopt their sister’s cubs too.