Above, the unintentionally ironic MRA meme of the week, courtesy of A Voice for Men’s Facebook page, their main distribution center for unintentionally ironic and otherwise terrible memes. I’m not sure what specific week this is the ironic meme for, given that Emma Watson’s speech to the UN took place last September and this meme was posted on Facebook only this week, but just roll with it, people!
So what exactly makes this meme ironic? Well, for starters, Watson didn’t actually say the words in question or otherwise order men to talk to women about their feelings.
What she said was a good deal more subtle. She started by saying that one of the things that led her to embrace feminism was her realization, at age 18, that “my male friends were unable to express their feelings.” Then she went on to talk in more detail about the ways breaking down gender stereotypes helps to free, well, everyone.
We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.
If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.
Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.
If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are—we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.
The big irony here? This is exactly what a real Men’s Rights movement should be promoting, not raging against.
Adding to the irony, whoever made this meme made clear that they aren’t just unwilling to listen to women’s feelings; they’re unwilling to listen to a woman’s logical argument. Which is why they simplified her comments and distorted their meaning.
But what wins this meme the grand prize for irony this week is meme maker’s assertion that “WE DON’T NEED OR WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT OUR FEELINGS.”
Really? Because in fact MRA dudes and MGTOWs and the rest of their ilk talk about their feelings constantly, and loudly — with anyone willing to listen and some who aren’t.
Sure, it’s true that most MRA dudes and their ideological soulmates don’t like to talk about their feelings of sadness or anxiety or insecurity or doubt. You know, the sorts of feelings it would be good for most of these guys to explore and understand and, when possible, get past.
But they love, just love, to talk about how angry they are, how angry they think other men are, and how much feminists, and the women of the world generally, are going to suffer if they refuse to listen to angry men and do what they say. Hell, the so-called “father” of Men’s Rights in the UK? A guy who calls himself Angry Harry. (And he more than lives up to the name.)
The cherry on top of this Irony Sundae: the memester’s decision to use a picture of a homeless man to represent a man oppressed by demanding women.
Men don’t become homeless because some evil woman asked them to talk about their feelings. Indeed, given how many homeless people are mentally ill, most homeless men (and women) would benefit from having the opportunity to talk to a trained professional about their feelings and from better mental health services generally. (Not to mention better services for veterans suffering from PTSD and other war-related maladies.)
In the US, many homeless people who are mentally ill were dumped onto the streets by facilities that didn’t have the money to properly care for them; some of the facilities were and are so bad that their former inhabitants actually prefer the streets.
Oh, and one of the main reasons mental health services are so shitty in the US — and why, in particular, so many men are so poorly served? The old-fashioned notion that men “DON’T NEED OR WANT TO TALK … ABOUT OUR FEELINGS.”
So I award AVFM this week’s IRONY AWARD in MEMING, for once again promoting ideas that actually make the world worse for men!
@Kootie
So, they’re crying buckets of male tears over being mocked for their buckets of male tears?
Hmm.
(Note to lurking MRAs: “Male tears” refers to “Baww my boner is sad,” “Baww feminists are mean [to MRAs]” or “Baww there’s a feeemale in my video game/movie/comic book,” not legitimate emotions. Apples and Galapagos giant tortoises.)
I’ve often thought that many things would be improved by replacing most forms of social welfare with a singe system by which anyone who wants to can seek shelter in government-run block housing. No means testing; you can be Bill Gates, and if you want to live there, you can.
The block housing would come with an allowance of scrip that can be redeemed only in a store attached to the housing block. The store would have food and necessities like clothes. You don’t get any cash. If you want universal tender, you need to do some type of work outside the block. However, it would be possible to live there forever without ever working or touching cash. If you want to get a job to earn real money, you can, but there is no requirement to do so.
Security would be pretty tight. It’s not a prison, but people who aren’t authorized to be in that block cannot get in. Trying to get away from a gang? They can’t get in. Trying to get away from domestic abuse? The abuser cannot get in.
There would be drawbacks to living there. It wouldn’t be interesting. No dances or parties. There wouldn’t be any luxuries. No alcohol or drugs. No overnight visitors. There would also very likely be an unavoidable social stigma. This would be the redoubt of last resort, and people typically wouldn’t go there unless they needed it. BUT, if someone needed it, it would be there for them, at no cost, and with no pressure to ever move out.
I think this could be administered at fairly low cost. There would be folks who moved in and never budged again, but most able-bodied people would be transient population. The disabled and the mentally ill would probably need specialized versions that could meet their needs, and this wouldn’t deal with medical care. There would still need to be some kind of independent safety net for medical care, like Medicaid.
By no means would this be a perfect system, but I do think it would be an improvement over what we have now in the United States.
@weirwoodtreehugger:
It’s a generally good idea and I’m generally in favour of it; however it would result in some parts of our economy being destroyed. Fruit picking is a good example of a job which can’t exist without a source of cheap, exploitable, desperate labour. If we’re willing to live in a world where one cannot buy fruit at the supermarket, then that’s fine. Personally I am willing to live in such a world, but many people may balk at it.
@ EJ, are you suggesting that a universal basic income (or citizen’s dividend) would cause a chronic labour shortage thus destroying some industries?
I would disagree with that. For one thing, an industry that relies on paying its workers less than a living wage is not sustainable. In Britain many working people also claim government benefit because they don’t earn enough money, so in actual fact the government is already subsidizing employers.
I support some sort of universal basic income because it would do away with the current stigma that surrounds being poor. Our current system, with it’s red tape, hoops to jump through and constant scape goating harkens back to the Victorian era when the workhouses were structured to make claiming help from the government as unpleasant and humiliating as possible, so as to ‘discourage’ people from being poor.
If everyone received enough money to get by, most people would want to work on top of that, so I don’t think this would hurt the economy at large, it would just mean that no one would have to stress about where their next meal was coming from.
However I think most people have a knee jerk reaction against it because we’ve been socially conditioned for centuries to despise anyone who appears to get something for nothing.
‘Fruit picking is a good example of a job which can’t exist without a source of cheap, exploitable, desperate labour.’
First off most farmers use immigrant labour, and only citizens of the country in question would receive the income.
Secondly, who’s to say people wouldn’t still do low paid jobs if they were already receiving money from the government? Must we really have a world were people are forced to work below the bread line for fear of worse poverty?
Hi all. Popping in for a break from studying subnetting.
Fruit picking is only exploitative and horrible because it’s cost effective and corporate growers can get away with it. If employees weren’t treated like machines, exploited, and over worked, then more people may be willing to do the work even if their survival didn’t depend upon it. Since it isn’t skilled/trained work, it could be a good transition job for people. Plus, what’s stopping us from coming up with ways to further automate the process?
I, for one, wouldn’t mind being a fruit picker if it wasn’t dehumanizing and health destroying, which employers would have to accommodate, if they wanted any employees at all under universal income. I get most of my fruits and veggies from a local CSA in the summer (climate dependent, I know), which is a small farm of less than a dozen people who make very little money. They do it for the love of the work and the love of the land, and I think people like them would still exist too after a universal income.
Y’know, I like the idea of Universal Basic Income, especially since it means total financial independence and stability for everyone, provided that they can live within their budget.
If I had £30k a year without the obligation to get a job, I’d probably spend all my time volunteering. I might get a job if I wanted to put away more savings, but I’d be happier just managing small community projects and not having to worry that much about breaking even. It would be so freeing – I could try living out any of my little pipe-dreams that I gave up on because they were unlikely to make money. Like being a Womble, or a burlesque star.
I would also buy video games, but at least I’d be putting money into the local economy for them.
It’d be way better than the increasing poverty we’re seeing in the UK.
If I understand it correctly, by closing tax avoidance loopholes, the amount of income in corporation tax would be enough to cover the welfare budget as it is, and UBI would be even cheaper to run because there are fewer admin costs.
It’s hard to predict whether enough people would still work, and whether industries would be able to retain enough workforce to keep going, but I think everyone would be be willing to supplement their income with a few hours work a week. Zero hours contracts would actually work a lot better if everyone was on UBI.
Here’s a bit of an austerity-driven paradox for the Arts:
Council arts funding is being slashed all over the place and peeps have less money to pay entrance fees, etc… but desperation means that lots more people are buying lottery tickets, so National Lottery grants are easier to come by, so smaller arts groups can afford to host free community Arts events.
To bring this back on-topic, I bet MRAs would resent UBI, because they couldn’t claim the government hates them more than everyone else by “forcing” them to work, and they couldn’t financially abuse anyone into being their girlfriends, and they couldn’t feel superior to anyone for their position on the socio-economic scale.
@the other EJ
Are you familiar with the concept of free ridership? Essentially it’s when someone is able to gain the benefits of a system without paying in to the maintenance of the system. It’s typically only applied to public goods, like public parks, which anyone can enjoy even though only residents pay toward the creation and maintenance of the park.
Free ridership can be applied to other things, though. A corporation that reaps the benefits of being in a wealthy society populated by people who have sufficient income to purchase the corporation’s goods, but which does not contribute toward that society by paying its workers a high enough income to purchase goods themselves, is a form of free ridership.
Wal-Mart is the biggest damned free rider in the United States. People who work at Wal-Mart on the floor can’t afford to shop there. Many of them are on food stamps. Wal-Mart takes the wages that other companies pay to their workers and does not contribute well-paid workers of its own who can go to those other companies and buy their products. Wal-Mart is a giant parasite on the economy.
Del Monte is a profitable company that could afford to pay its workers more, if it were willing to pay its executives and shareholders less. It’s not a matter of ability, but of greed.
@Policy: Great point about freeriding. 🙂
It’s fascinating how MRAs, libertarians, and slaveowners all subscribe to the myth that the world is divided into makers (aka mammoth hunters) and parasites, or socially inferior takers who only get to have rights and basic necessities because the superior ruling class generously supplies them. And yet all of them get it completely, spectacularly, boneheadedly wrong about who the parasites really are. Wal-Mart is a great example, paying rock-bottom wages with no benefits, abusing its workers, and relying on community taxpayers to subsidize the slack. Then there’s the practitioners of Bain capitalism, the Mitt Romneys and Koch brothers of the world, who produce absolutely nothing. They make their fortunes betting with other people’s money, living large when they win, and getting rescued by hardworking taxpayers when they lose. Even when they lose, they still live large, because the risks of their gambling enterprise are fully insured by the government. They don’t create jobs. They take them away.
Similarly, MRAs discount all the things women do and produce in this world, the same way antebellum slaveowners used to pat themselves on the back for giving direction and sustenance to their “lazy” slaves (the same “lazy” slaves, btw, who were toiling away in the hot sun harvesting wealth from the fields while the plantation owners were sipping mint juleps on the verandah. Who’s the parasite, again?). MRAs must have an astonishing level of self-regard to believe that they alone are responsible for wealth creation.
Oh, and love the subtle “dear Muslima” effect in the meme. Homeless men are dying in the streets, and all feminists want to do is talk about feelings!!! Waaaaah!*
*Not a feeling
In the world of toxic masculinity, women have all the emotions; all except one that is forbidden to them – anger.
And men are permitted no emotions at all except one – anger.
From that nonsensical, destructive dichotomy, endless war, abuse, murder, and suicide have flowed for centuries.
The last half century’s shown that women are more willing to let men be fully human than men are. That’s a very strange thing.
@Policy,
yup. In Britain the tabloids and media are happily demonizing those living on the fringes of society, while ignoring the fact that the worst parasites of all are the multi billion pound corporations which thrive within an infrastructure they don’t wish to pay towards.
I’m happy to say that Walmart tried and failed to get a foothold in Europe.
I was writing out a long blockquote-response, blockquote-response answer to snorkmaiden, PoM and fromafar2013, but it went way too long. Let me know if you want me to post it, otherwise I’ll just answer in general terms to avoid thread-clogging.
The first thing to remember about the capitalism system is that it is inherently exploitative.
The second thing to remember about it is that you and I – the consumers – are the ones who are doing the exploiting. Things like fish, fruit or chocolate only exist cheaply enough for us to afford them because there are huge labour forces living in squalor in order to continue producing those goods in bulk. If this exploitation did not exist, then these goods would be provided in small quantities from hobbyists (as fromafar2013 points out); however due to the way supply and demand works whenever something desirable exists in limited quantities, it ends up being a luxury good available only to the very wealthy. Which means that you and I don’t get to have it any more.
If workers have the financial security that lets them walk away from their jobs, for example in Alaska where they have a form of basic income, bargaining power shifts into workers’ hands. This means that uncomfortable jobs will still be done but will demand a suitable salary rather than simply being staffed by society’s vulnerable. Alaskan fishermen in the arctic waters can earn six figure salaries. This means that large amounts of fish go uncaught because their sale price is too low for the captain to be able to afford to pay her crew for catching them. As a result, Alaska simply produces less cheap fish, specialising in the expensive luxury stuff. That’s great if you’re a wealthy Londoner who wants to buy imported Alaskan salmon. That’s less great if you’re a poor Alaskan whose kids want some fish once in a while.
A basic income makes the world a fairer place. However, as everyone who’s ever watched an MRA shriek knows, people who benefit from exploitation find it uncomfortable when the world gets fairer.
Personally, I am happy to give up some of my unearned luxuries in order to make a fairer world. I feel that’s part of what I signed up for when I became a feminist. You may disagree. But let us not pretend that we can eliminate exploitation without the exploiters having to get used to living less comfortable lives.
Maybe we all go back to eating meat once a week. Maybe we stop being able to afford berries. Maybe wine once again becomes a luxury. I don’t know, I’m not an agronomist. But we will lose some of the things that we get poor exploited people to make for us.
The picture looks like someone is sleeping in front of the stage, she’s speaking from. Tough audience
Is anyone here familiar with ‘Land Tax’? I ask because in addition to the other parasites being mentioned, many of my country’s current crop of billionaires are landowners, who do nothing to earn their fortunes but sit back and claim massive rents.
I have nothing against small holders and people who own their own homes, and small time landlords, but there is a real problem with speculators buying up land, driving up the prices by doing so, then doing nothing with it.
The supermarket chain Tesco, is in fact a land speculation company as they’ve been in the practise of buying up sites and then not building supermarkets on them, they just wait for the land price to rise and in the mean time block a competitor from setting up shop there.
It’s called Georgism and it’s an interesting idea which gets batted about in academia now and then. Nobody in power ever takes it seriously, sadly. The cynical part of me suspects that may be because it’s actually a good idea which will seriously inconvenience the rich. The less cynical part of me suspects it’s because academia is full of ideas which work in theory and which may well not work in practise.
@the other EJ
I don’t know if you want to use fish as your example. The world could do with eating less fish. Too many fisheries have collapsed already, and more are on the verge of collapse.
Fish is a luxury if you’re not on the coast catching it yourself, so portraying it as somehow unfair if someone’s kids don’t get it is … not helping your argument.
You’re also missing the part where the middleman (the large corporation, like Del Monte) has a host of non-productive people who feel like they need to be paid out of the wages that ought to go to the low-end workers. Executives get paid far more than is necessary to keep them in their positions. Shareholders are paid far more than is necessary to keep their money in the company.
There is a concept in economics called “rent.” Rent is anything that is charged for a means of production above and beyond what is necessary to keep that means of production in production. If I would let you lease my land for $100 a year, but because of land scarcity I am able to extract $300 a year out of you, then the extra $200 is excess income that is not necessary for me to keep my land in production. That is rent.
In an environment of perfect competition, rent does not exist, because there’s always someone willing to accept the lowest reimbursement for their means of production and pass the savings along to the consumer. That drives down all prices, because nobody can be undercut and still make sales. Perfect competition does not exist in most markets, so rent exists in most sales. If you eliminated rent, prices could simultaneously go down and reimbursement to workers could go up. Rent goes to the owner of the means of production, not to the worker, not to the consumer. Rent is parasitism.
Shareholders who would hold their shares with a 1% return might be provided a 3% return. The extra 2% is rent. That is money that is directly siphoned from you as a consumer, and from the workers.
A CEO who would work for $100,000 a year might be paid $10,000,000 a year instead. That CEO’s excess income is rent, and that is something that is extracted from both consumers and workers.
Do you see what I’m saying?
It’s not the crying per say, it’s what they cry about. There are some things men whine about that are just plain ridiculous, but women whine about stupid shit too.
As human beings, it’s important to express emotions because when you don’t, they continue to build up inside and break downs are inevitable. I think this is where a lot of that aggression stems from, especially towards women. If a man is rejected and does not deal with his emotions, that anger can turn dangerous.
Think of our emotions as stones and by trying to ignore them, they keep piling up. What’s going to happen? They’re going to come tumbling down. No different than trying to carry all those emotions inside as well. They feel heavy and they will continue to weigh you down until you feel them and move on with your life.
A lot of these men just need some decent therapy.
@fromafar: There are already robots that can pick crops. I spent a lot of time learning about the technology of smart argriculture this year. It’s all pretty fascinating.
@EJ,
meat should be a luxury item, many people are eating far too much meat and it’s having a negative impact not only upon our collective health but also the environment. Likewise there is a big problem with overfishing. Cheap =/= Good. Though with a basic income for everybody, we could all still afford these occasional luxuries.
FYI, most berries can be had for free, especially blackberries, if you’re prepared to eat them seasonally.
And yes, I’m familiar with the term Georgism, but I preferred to use the phrase land tax as it’s more descriptive.
And on the topic of the post, I think the idea behid it was that talking about the problem is a lot less helpful than eliminating the problem (whatever that problem might be). It reminds me of when family members used to give me rather useless gifts at holidays when I was struggling to make my mortgage payment. It would have been a whole lot more helpful just to have a few extra hundred dollars. So, generally, when I see someone struggling, like a homeless person, I don’t say much other than “God bless you” and just give them what I can.
Nope, they own ASDA. 🙁 If TTIP goes through, they might even be able to pressure the government into removing even more workers’ rights so they can bleed us all dry, too.
@ EJ – I don’t want to be glib about the very uncertain consequences of the fall of Capitalism, but here’s what I imagine:
I think if food production costs become more expensive, then more people on UBI will start backyard gardens and community allotments. Everyone will get into aquaponics, and will have more free time to devote to things like farmshares and homesteading. (2 adults on UBI could sustain a family allotment with a little extra to sell to those who can’t produce). It’d be back to more of a C15th market economy, perhaps, with local communities sharing and swapping produce, and maybe still shops for imported stuff. We’d have to recycle a lot more, and save a lot.
That’s a pretty idealised scenario, mind you. I guess if cost of living rises, so must UBI, and so must cost of living, etc, and maybe it would eventually stabilize, or maybe not. I’m tired and I can’t really work out the thought experiment, but if people were forced to live more self-sufficiently, I like to think we’d adapt fairly well…
… but then how do you ensure optimal community engagement with something like a food scheme after people have been used to supermarkets for decades? I know I wanna be able to live on a farm and go off-grid, and be a filthy hippie, but I realise not everyone is cut out for that lifestyle. I dunno, it’d be a lumpy transition.
What might be interesting is a requirement, as part of FAPE, to “earn” your UBI by doing community work as a teenager/college student. They can make it appropriate to each person, whatever they are capable of and interested in, but making community work for 4-6 hours a week on the same level of requirement as education between, say, 15-20 years old might help to cover some of that lack, as well as instill the ‘help your community’ sort of value system. I am just sort of spitballing, though, I haven’t thought that through at all, heh.
… And I’ve just realised that’s basically the society in The Giver, isn’t it? meep.
Regarding “rent” as an economic concept, I’ve read references to “rentier mentality”. If you derive income via rent, and do not otherwise produce any economic activity, you are more likely to resist social and economic change than you might be otherwise. My favorite examples are Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas – they lived their adult lives on incomes they did nothing to earn. At least we got a good cookbook out of it.