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!
Introvert is not the same as awkward and shy. Even if you meant to say the women you know are awkward and shy too, why then are some of them partnered with women? If women only like confident people without a lot of emotions, why wouldn’t that hold true for lesbian, bi, and pan women? If your hypothesis is true, shy and awkward lesbians should have as much trouble as shy and awkward straight men.
Also, there are different ways to be shy and awkward. I don’t have much trouble carrying one on one platonic or professional conversations with any gender. But I can’t flirt my way out of a paper bag. People don’t think of me shy and awkward so much as a little bit reserved and aloof at first. So just be aware that how you perceive others and how they perceive themselves isn’t always the same.
Which leads to the next couple of points. You’re conflating social adeptness with lack of emotions and I’m not sure why. It simply isn’t true that socially adept and outgoing people lack insecurities and are less emotional. They’re just better at projecting happiness and confidence. Social skills are just that. A skill. It doesn’t necessarily say much about a person’s inner life. At the same time, plenty of socially awkward people are pretty happy and content. Don’t always be judging a book by its cover. One of my oldest and best friends is very outgoing. Everyone loves her. Yet, she has nearly identical psychological issues as I do. A history of eating disorders and body image issues with moderate anxiety and depression. I’m guessing that if you met her, you would assume she never had a care in her life.
Yeah, I’m not an angry and hysterical woman. I’m annoyed that you show up to sealion and what about the menz in just about every thread. I’m annoyed that you never acknowledge this and just show up in the next thread like nobody will remember. I’m not sure what this supreme anger is. All I did was explain to you why you are wrong and why your assumptions come from a place of misogyny that you seem incapable of examining because you’re a “nice guy.” You are the one who is projecting “supreme anger” onto my posts. Which by the way is misogynistic in and of itself. Men do this all the time. Any time we object to the things you say, you decide that we’re angry and irrational. Emotional and hysterical. Once you decide that, you never have to examine your opinion and you never have to take us seriously. It’s something privileged groups always do to marginalized group in order to maintain that privilege. See also; white people always viewing black people as angry.
Or straight people viewing gay people as “Shoving our sexuality down their throats.”
Back to the OP, I also wondered if the homeless person in the meme was a man or a woman. All you can see is that long hair, leaving it pretty ambiguous.
And misquoting someone so you can then tear down the thing they didn’t say? I wonder if Judgybitch is behind this.
Right. If Bryce just backed off with his tail between his legs, he’d have no anecdote about the time the feminists were so mean to him that it led to an eventual emotional conversation full of angry, nasty feminists and leading to him being banned after this ganging up on.
Or maybe he’s just hoping that we’ll beg him to stay.
ej
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I was using grey nomads as an example of people with enough income to live on being quite willing to do hard physical work for specified periods. Grey nomads are usually in their sixties. Backpackers are willing to do the same and they’re usually under thirty.
Thinking about it further in the Australian context, with a large number of people with a reliable income to get by on there’d be a fairly large group of people — mostly those without school age dependents and no partner tied to a job — willing to do hard work on stations or controlling invasive weeds in parks (or maintaining infrastructure or whatever) for a couple of months at a time. In between that they could spend half their lives on surf beaches or volunteering as lifesavers, or the animal lover brigade would happily work on stations or touristy enterprises or riding for the disabled or volunteer for animal refuges and all those kind hearted but no-paying-jobs-available activities.
On the minimum income thing, it’s always funny to me that conservatives in the US are so upset at the thought that poor people might spend money on things that aren’t basic necessities if the government gives them money. A huge chunk of our economy and job market are in the service sector. Our economy functions on people buying things that aren’t basic necessities. The American right wants poor people to suffer and be punished for their poverty so badly that they don’t want to benefit themselves by helping the economy and reducing crime if it means that someone, somewhere (especially someone who isn’t white cishet Christian suburban or rural and conservative) will get something they didn’t earn. If you look at any article about how just giving people housing is less expensive for taxpayers than homeless, you’ll still see them whining in the comments about how “I had to work for my home, why should they get one from the government!?” Conservatives claim to care about taxes and fiscal responsibility, but they don’t. They care about maintaining privilege and they care about having lessers to look down on.
There would also be a lot of indirect benefits to a minimum guaranteed income. Crime would go way down and in the US, states spend a ton of money on prisons, courts, and police. Combine decriminalizing drugs with a lack of scarcity, we’d have much less need to spend on these things.
The other thing we’d save on is healthcare costs. Overwork and lack of sleep and stress and families not having the time to eat healthy, fresh and homecooked meals and people not having the time or energy to exercise enough; it all has a negative impact on our health. Remove the threat of scarcity and the need to overwork, we’d have save so much money on health care.
Yeah, let’s do see if we can find examples beyond fruit pickers if we’re trying to play devil’s advocate. Growing your own fruit is SO easy compared to some crops, so is picking your own from a CSA, and so is the invention of machinery to do or simplify the task (just think of how maker spaces and micro industry will flourish under UBI!). Anyone else have an Aerogarden?
Also? That industry is one of the worst for poisoning our ecosystems and killing our pollinators. I see very little downside in it’s demise.
I sort of get where people come from with the whole “I had to work for XYZ so why do they get it for free” thing. It’s just how things are, right? You work 40+ hours a week and, if you’re lucky, you get all the bills paid on time. People just don’t question when/where/why we decided that you have to work 40+ hours a week in order to earn the right to enough food and modest shelter.
And of course, that’s what conservative politicians count on: the fact that most people never question these assumptions.
True. People don’t realize that having a job wasn’t really a thing until the industrial revolution. People worked, obviously. But they didn’t have an employer, per se. People tend to not realize that an economy is a completely artificial thing invented by our culture. There is no natural order of things. We made the 40 hour work week with a steady employer the norm. We can make something else the norm, too. In fact, we have to. Because we’re leaving the industrial age and moving into a globalized and highly technological age in which the need for labor will continue to go down and we need to figure out to sustain an economy and a society without the 40 hour work week. I strongly believe the guaranteed minimum income is what we’ll need to do in the future.
Ha–I was wondering why he and that other guy specifically requested to be banned, instead of just stopping posting; thanks for the perfectly sensible explanation.
@sn0rkmaiden:
I’m on my phone on the train right now, so let me delay my search for sources until I’m home. The number I quoted comes from that voluminous source of info called “I read it somewhere and it stuck in my brain”. I’ll be happy to back it up but it won’t be right now.
Alaska certainly has an excellent and well-managed fishing fleet. I did not intend to cast any slurs upon their operations.
In theory, a low level of basic income is thought to not deter people from working (much). What it does do is allow them to choose what sort of work they choose to do, either through funding them part-timing or through making temporary unemployment less painful and so making a prolonged job search possible. This is obviously bad for employers who like their workforce to be powerless and unable to go elsewhere. It’s good for the workforce though, and it’s good for the overall economy. This is why even a small amount like in Alaska has an effect: it gives people a buffer and so means they can be a little bit choosy. This choosiness can have far-reaching effects.
However, as you point out, this effect is spoiled if you don’t give it to migrants as well. If migrant labour is not given a basic income then all we’re doing is exchanging one exploited class for another and not requiring the structures of exploitation to change. We’re both lefties so I think we agree on this.
Thinking about it, Alaska probably benefits from a lack of cheap easily-exploited migrant labour in its labour force too.
My economic views are very Keynesian so I’m of the opinion that basic income should not be linked to productivity but should instead be counter-cyclical – that is, we should give people more in bad times and less in good times. You may disagree with me and realistically there’s no clear right/wrong here so I can’t meaningfully disagree with you on it.
@mildlymagnificent:
Apologies, we were talking past one another.
Your point (as I understand it) is that some people are willing to do unpleasant work for the novelty of it or simply because they enjoy it. My point is that not enough people are, given the size of workforces, and that they are insufficiently fungible. Our economy is not yet advanced enough to run entirely off hobbyists.
That’d be a good world to write a novel in, though.
@weirwoodtreehugger:
Agreed. A lot of people don’t want to end poverty, they just want to not be poor themselves. They define “winning” by the number of people who do worse than them. It’s a disgusting lack of empathy.
I imagine that the more conservative-minded MRAs will be bawwwwwing about this:
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/fda-panel-support-female-viagra-approval
My comments aren’t showing up. :<
Hmm…
(That’s probably going to be, like, three of the same posts. I am sorry.)
The rest will be fantasizing about dosing people with it, or writing dystopian* fiction about a regime where it’s mandatory.
*not dystopian in their minds.
@sunny
Eeyup. The only other article I could find about it after Googling… Was an extremely one-sided interview with an idiot (who sounds for all the world like a feMRA homeopath – two awful tastes that taste awful together!). Sigh.
Some people really go out of their way to be easy to hate, don’t they?
I’m fascinated by the the basic income conversation – thanks for being so informative, EJ and others (Sn0rkmaiden, PoM and mildlymagnificent, and probably others, I lose track).
@ Orion – Eww, can you imagine there’d be a brief spate of women having their drinks spiked with “pink pills”, and then a load of disappointed would-be rapists discovering that increased sexual arousal doesn’t make someone totally unable to control themselves, and then having a dawning realization?
Apropos to this post is the story on Raw Story about how masculinity is killing men … http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/masculinity-is-killing-men-the-roots-of-men-and-trauma/ I’ll just leave that here for anyone interested. Nothing too new, but another entry in the lexicon about how we perceive and raise our children differently based on gender.
… And on the subject of random articles, holy shit: David, I think this deserves a post. Mike Huckabee’s outed himself as a gross transphobe and a gross paedophile – which explains why he’s been backing up the Duggars…
From SFHC’s link:
“Being politically correct” = not admitting to creepy pedophilia fantasies and gross transphobia.
Says a lot, I think.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/ayfkm.gif
I wish I could say that this would affect his electability. I really do.
@FunknJunk
I read the article and enjoyed it. It’s excellent, and I think I’ll bookmark it. I was also pleasantly surprised by the absence of MRAs in the comment section, who I expected to show up whining about women and how male misery is all our fault. I guess manospherians only appear under articles about women’s issues, because God knows we shouldn’t be talking about problems like rape and lack of abortion access when there are false accusations and sad boners in the world! I mean, what about the menz?!