Have you heard? The upcoming Ghostbusters reboot will feature women in the lead roles. Men who hate women seem to be taking the news hard.
And nowhere do they seem to be taking it harder than on MGTOW HQ, a forum devoted to men who are “Going Their Own Way” from women by talking about how much they suck online all day every day.
The assembled MGTOWers have not only determined that the movie will suck but have also figured out why.
So here are the Top 3 Reasons the New All-Female Ghostbusters Will Suck According to a Bunch of Guys Who Hate Women:
1) Because women can’t invent things.
As some dude calling himself TheShaman writes:
Obviously its not gonna be a team of women who created the technology to be ghostbusters- women don’t create anything nowadays except thugspawns and epic fails.
2) Because women are a bunch of copycats.
Mongolking explains:
Your movie’s a gimmick because men did it first. …
[H]ow often do women ever take a risk and do something different that was a success?
Everything they celebrate – from getting the vote, to being elected politicians, to becoming clergy, to going to college, to getting on company boards, to winning Nobel prizes – men had not only done first, they created it out of nothing.
So now we have a group of low ambition women wanting to feminise “Ghostbusters”. That’s the very definition of “uninteresting”.
3) Because everyone knows that women are scared of ghosts. And mice.
TheShaman again:
Women are usually the ones screaming ABOUT ghosts- In an already outlandish plot, we’re now expected to suspend our sense of disbelief to the extent that the very segment of the population that is usually victimized BY ghosts is going to “protect us?” Hell, anything to do with ____BUSTING, whether it be rodent busting, bug busting, etc- its done on the whim of a women who is terrified of whatever it is she wants to eradicate!
Unless the proton packs in the new movie are activated by women pissing themselves in fear, I can’t imagine me enjoying anything out of this new movie.
PhilosopherStoned adds:
I’m not going to suspend disbelief and say that a gender that will jump on a chair when they see a mouse will all of a sudden not only fight ghosts, but have the initiative to start a company that does so. For a movie that where guys trap ghosts in machines, an all female crew just does not seem plausible.
So a 100-foot-tall Stay Puft marshmallow man that is an incarnation of a Sumerian god is the epitome of plausibility, but the idea of women actually starting a company is beyond the pale?
H/T — VforVanarchy on Reddit’s GamerGhazi subreddit, who found the meme I used to illustrate this post on Twitter
I hate to say it, but all the points by these women haters above were pretty spot on – women don’t in general invent things, particularly cutting edge technology, anything women achieve that’s important has already been done by men, who made it up ( noble prize, voting, driving, political office, etc.), and exterminators of critters, from centipedes to silverfish, to bedbugs to roaches, to mice and rats, are men.. Is anything I’m saying NOT true??
Everything you’re saying is not true, Freddy.
“all the points by these women haters above were pretty spot on”
So women jump onto chairs to avoid mice? And women are more likely to be victimised by ghosts? That sounds completely detached from reality.
Women have invented plenty of things, and would have invented more if not denied the opportunity.
Oh, I didn’t realize Ghostbusters was a documentary.
As for ALL THE IMPORTANT THINGS WERE THOUGHT UP BY MEN FIRST, a more accurate statement would be that historically, men have had far more opportunity to *implement* ideas. That doesn’t mean women haven’t produced ideas on their own. It just means they lacked access to education, resources, and influence and were barred from the public sphere until comparatively recently. It’s a circular, intellectually dishonest argument, akin to the “Negroes are inferior because they’re inferior” argument from the 19th century. Yes, let’s all marvel at the fact that slaves never invented or conquered anything, BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO BUSY BEING GODDAMN SLAVES.
Also, I’m female, and I handle all the critter removal in our household.
I find it hilarious that Freddy thinks there are no women exterminators.
Two words: Marie Curie.
More words: Plus the hundreds or thousands of women who invented/discovered/did something first but were erased from the history books in favour of men, from Mary Anning who discovered the first ichthyosaur and plesiosaur skeletons in the 1800s to Claudia Alexander who landed a spaceship on a comet just recently.
Women Increasingly Enjoy The Icky Rewards Of Pest Control
It was a woman who first figured out that HIV causes AIDS.
How does anyone know who invented voting? Modern democracy originated in patriarchal cultures but do we even know what the first tribe to self select a leader was? Let alone whether women voted or held leadership positions?
Not that it even matters what gender did something first. Freddy, you do not get to claim any credit for Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin or any other men that have accomplished things just because you share a gender. You probably haven’t done shit and their are most likely millions of women on the planet who have accomplished more than you ever will.
There, not their. No coffee yet. 🙁
I find it even more hilarious that Freddy thinks there are no women inventors. Hey, Freddy? Thank a woman for both the algorithm that let you type all your crap on a computer, PLUS the wi-fi technology that helped it get here where we can all laugh at you.
Hope you like car heaters, central heating, dishwashers, fire escapes, windshield washers…and if you’re drunk off your ass on a beer, Freddy (as you sure as hell appear to be), well…thank a woman for THAT, too.
Let me count the ways in which Freddy is wrong:
1. For most of the huge things like democracy or voting, we don’t (and probably can’t) know who came up with them first as they either predate written history or any records of who invented what have been lost. The US was not the first to have either; you could probably go back as far as you like and find elder councils of villages that tally opinions on a subject to make a decision, and more than likely a good portion of them were women.
Pretend ancient Rome was the first example of a democracy: even in a more patriarchal society, we don’t know if a woman came up with it and told her husband or if a gaggle of people all sat in a room to figure it out or what. Assuming a man must have done it is silly and irrelevant, but I jump ahead of myself.
2. Many of the things you listed (Nobel Prize, voting, political office, driving.. .actually all the things you listed) are not things that women have to “invent” again. Women didn’t “invent” “women voting” with the suffrage movement; they campaigned to be included in a system that was already in place.
Imagine a group of playground kids are sitting around thinking of what to play. One boy says “let’s play tag” and everyone agrees. But then he says “ok, so I thought of it first and I’m a boy, so no girls get to play. Go invent your own game!” Do you see how silly this is? He didn’t invent the concept of “tag,” he just decided that was what the group was going to play and people agreed. Excluding the girls from participating a group activity, or thinking their inclusion is an “extra” that needs special consideration is as bizarre as saying the boy had brown hair, so only brown-haired kids get to play by default.
Women didn’t fight to “invent” voting or political office or the like, they fought to be part of the group that had excluded them. That they had to do so at all is really sad.
3. History has been “man-washed” and “white-washed” so that it’s mainly the achievements of white men that are well known. Ada Lovelace is a common example; she basically invented programming before computers existed, and yet it (still) takes effort to make her accomplishments known, while Babbage is much more well known. Rosa Franklin is an example of a woman who’s accomplishments could easily have been lost (as most likely many women’s have been). Looking back at history class and pointing out that you only see white male innovators is foolish.
4. There are no doubt countless examples of modern inventions, invented by women, that nevertheless the public believes were the work of a man. Even if you believe this bias is well-founded, you must admit that it does happen, and that contributes the background-radiation of assumptions that men do all the inventing.
If you want to argue that those inventions probably don’t matter, that the big stuff we know has been made by men and those are what count, then you’re pretty clearly engaging in cherry-picking, selecting the things you define as “important” because you already know men were behind them.
On this topic, here’s a fun buzzfeed article.
5. To the extent that you could tally up all the inventions by men and by women and find men contributed more in the modern world, you have to then contend with what other commenters already brought up; men have simply had more educational opportunities, and more societal support for their inventions.
6. “Extermination of critters” as a thing men invented? Excuse me for one moment while I go laugh my ass off.
…
hahahahahahahahahaha! Aaaa ha ha ha ha ha haa, ha ha ha ha haaa!
Ha ha ha ha ow my ass ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa!
Anyway…
7. Here’s the big one. The really really big one. If you take away nothing else from my tl:dr, take away this. It doesn’t matter. Comparing the number of inventions one gender or another made is ridiculous, and a perfect example of the kind of gender-politics MRAs keep thinking Feminists are guilty of.
Feminists care because of the image it projects; they want more female representation among, and more recognition for the women that are already part of, the greats so that girls can grow up with role models. MRAs want only men recognized so that they can be exclusive.
Inventions, discoveries, and creations are for the benefit of everyone, no matter your gender, race, or creed. They aren’t a competition among some arbitrary dividing line. Everyone is human.
And of course bunch of my points were already made. That’s what you get for trying to create a monster comment. Go team!
“That’s what you get for trying to create a monster comment.”
Still nice to have lots of counterarguments all together, and it doesn’t hurt to repeat them. Just means misogynists have to work harder to ignore the message and keep believing their nonsense.
Also, how far would any of these lofty male inventors have gotten without women keeping them alive by feeding and clothing and cleaning (and raising them from babies)? In many cases, women kept the books and served as lab assistants. All of that crucial teamwork gets overlooked and dismissed because it doesn’t fit with the Lone Genius myth. (Look at all the idiots who gave Matt Taylor 100% of the credit for “discovering” the comet.)
One wonders how much quicker things like rockets and computers would have been invented if women had been allowed access to education. We could all have been having this internet discussion back in 1200 AD. Thanks, patriarchy.
@kirbywarp But you phrased your points very well. And anyway, we could do with a monster comment or two around here to keep the blockquote mammoth in check.
It wouldn’t surprise me if a woman was the first one to think of allowing cats in the home to control pests.
Also, Mary Shelley invented science fiction and I would call Ghostbusters partially sci-fi because they fight ghosts with technology. I guess that means that the original movie should have starred women. It also means that the genre should be for women only, according to Freddy’s logic.
Yet, despite being invented by a woman, the science fiction genre is male dominated and female writers have to struggle for recognition. And a certain segment of the community and fandom hate when anyone who isn’t a cishet white man gets any recognition.
I’m against the idea of all female cast of “Ghostbusters” reboot. Apparently female audience CAN’T identify with all male cast, or even with mixed cast – it’s understandable but… If female audience CAN’T sympathize with male cast then, why the heck would I identify and sympathize with all female cast??? I have no reason to!
Look at this – this lady CAN’T make herself like “Star Wars”, because it didn’t have strong female lead:
https://tallulahlucy.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/geek-confession-i-dont-like-star-wars/
Is this make her sexist, who don’t like man? Nope, it just mean that she want to identify with characters. Nothing wrong with that. So if I don’t like idea of all female cast, that make me sexist? Don’t be ridiculous! I’m just not interested in chick flicks, and the fact that this movie come from guy who directed “Bridesmaid” , and that it have all female cast, means that this will be chicks flick, which cynically uses “Ghostbusters” name. Sad thing, really!
:: facepalm ::
Martin, you got so close to the point and then whizzed right past it. You don’t have to like the movie. You don’t have to watch it. You don’t have to identify with the female leads.
There can exist movies that you don’t identify with.
It’s still a movie that ought to be made, and that I will go see, because female representation is severely underwhelming in movies, and it looks like it’ll be at least a decent movie, and it looks like something I might enjoy.
Basically, Martin, not every movie needs to pander to the stereotypical young male audience.
Also, women can totally relate to a lot of male leads. We’ve kind of had to. We learned how. Basically, you learn to start relating to people, who just happen to be male.
We’re just excited about maybe not having to for this one.
Martin is “against” all movies that he can not personally identify with. Not just, “not interested in watching” but “against.” Which is a totally rational position to take.
If a movie has an all-female main cast, it’s automatically a “chick flick.” Because, y’know, a movie starring members that represent roughly half the human species is a specialized genre that only appeals to a limited audience.
Because an all male cast is normal and natural, and everyone should be able to enjoy it, whereas an all female* cast is a strident, off-putting gimmick that excludes half the population. It’s so simple!
*Female here used as an adjective modifying ‘cast’. Not as a noun meaning ‘woman’.
I’m just confused as to why it’s so impossible to identify with a person of a different gender, while it’s totally no problem to identify with someone who hunts GHOSTS for a living.
How is Bridesmaids a chick flick? It follows the same formula as any comedy starring a male SNL cast member. Including some gross out humor. A loser schlub has some wacky mishaps. A fight and make up with the best friend and fins, loses, and makes up with a love interest. It’s not a movie for women only, it’s just a movie. For anyone who likes comedy.
Also, Paul Feig was the showrunner for Freaks and Geeks which had a mostly male cast and the other show runner was Judd Apatow who is the broiest filmmaker out there. Feig also directed a bunch of Arrested Development episodes. Every guy I’ve ever met, except my dad loves that show.
It’s hilarious that Martin thinks he’s a chick flick director because of two movies. One he hasn’t seen and one that isn’t out yet.
@ dhag85
“identify with someone who hunts GHOSTS for a living.”
Well that’s just it *We hunted the ghost for you!*, and now you’re ungrateful. 😉
Deconstructions are a very popular genre now; especially superhero movies; but we’ve had war films etc. before that.
I’d like to see someone do a reconstruction of the traditional Romcom. You know, the protagonist does something whacky to get the girl, and gets a restraining order/shot by airport security as would actually happen in real life.
@Alan
It’s an outrage. Traditionally, women were gatherers of ghosts.
One random lady – who represents ALL ladies!! – likes female leads. Martin – who represents ALL men!! – doesn’t like female leads. Who should prevail?
Clearly, there can be only one winner, and that person should be Martin, and therefore the rest of the world should never get to see women in strong roles in sci-fi movies.