Friday, May 13, 2011

FYI: Men's Rights Activists are terrible people

I'm starting something new today. Those of you on Twitter will be familiar with "Follow Friday." For those of you not on Twitter, well, I'll defer to The Oatmeal to explain.

I'm expanding on the idea, and will try to review a blog, podcast, or website that is worthy of your attention each week

For the inaugural edition, say hello to Man Boobz.

First, a bit of background as I bet there's a fair number of you unfamiliar with Man Boobz's bread-and-butter: the special breed of über-misogynist assholes known as the Men's Rights Movement or Men's Right's Activists.

Are you familiar with "Men's Rights Activists?" If not, consider yourself lucky, because finding a more hateful, self-pitying, angry, pathetic, priviledged, tactless, and self-contradictory no-need-to-parody group of human beings on this planet (I can't speak for any other planets) is difficult indeed. A good introduction can be found here. And an even better introduction is the frothing bile from the MRAs in the comments section at the same link. (Note: you'll have to manually expand a lot of comments, as the MRA hordes have systematically down-voted almost all rebutting conversation as "not helpful")

Essentially, Men's Rights Activists believe that our society is run and dominated by women, for women.

In MRA world, poor, put-upon men are helplessly manipulated by devious feminists. (Which is to say female supremacists. Which is to say all but a few women.) Women hate men and have only staved off eliminating them entirely to make sure someone provides them with a baby, thus ensuring a lifetime of child support payments which they can use for shoes.

In MRA world, all women are frigid sluts who refuse sex with every man they see ever, and paradoxically spread their legs for every man they ever see (with the notable exception of any Men's Rights Activist making the claim).

In MRA World, women are almost never victims of rape or spousal/partner abuse, but will gleefully lie about being raped on the off chance they could fuck-over a hapless dude. And they'll slaver at any stories of men being raped or beaten, which of course happens far more often to men than women.

In MRA World, not only have women collectively been given a position of authority over all men, but this is of course the opposite of how it should be: Women should be demure and subservient to men, catering to their every desire. MRAs will rarely admit this directly, but it shouldn't be too much trouble to get them to own up to it (I know I've been able to in my rather limited online interaction with them).

Though I've been aware of the Men's Rights Movement for a few years, its only in recent months that I've come to be fascinated by the movement. And by "fascinated" I mean "entertained." And by "entertained" I mean "horrified."

I'm occasionally involved in debates about all manner of irrationality and nonsense, from creationism, Teapartyism, and climate-change-denialism to homeopathy, alien abduction, and homophobia. But I have found few people as so unhinged, hateful, irrational, and jaw-droppingly awful as members of the Men's Rights Movement.

And that's where Man Boobz comes in. Man Boobz is the handiwork of David Futrelle, who tirelessly tracks the most outrageously misogynistic assholes the world has to offer and mercilessly mocks them to hilarious and/or depressing effect. How does David has the intestinal fortitude to read this kind of bullshit, day after day, I'll never know. Easy targets? You bet your ass they are, but it is nonetheless satisfying to see the bankrupt ideas of MRAs treated with exactly the type of response they deserve: outright mockery.

Okay, so this was less a review of MB as it was a chance to vent about MRAs, but if you want that chance more often, be sure to check out Man Boobz. I'd say "enjoy," but I don't think that's quite the right word here.

1 comment:

kuri said...

I've noticed those MRA guys too. Maybe the funniest part is that even when they have a point (and they do sometimes, since there is unfairness in the world, and sometimes it happens to men), they manage to obscure it by being such awful people.