Eight men create an internet utopia where they discuss the most intimate details of their lives, the most righteous, and the most hilarious. Drinking, sports, work, activism, and how to be an out and proud Klansman. But when one of them disappears after being attacked everything changes. #KillAllBlacks suddenly moves from joke to reality.
OK, relax. I’m just pulling your leg. Australia’s prestigious Institute of Dramatic Arts didn’t really fund and host a production called #KillAllBlacks. That would be bigoted beyond belief. Can you imagine the uproar? Chortle, chortle. As if!
No, in fact they funded and hosted a production called #KillAllMen. It’s still bigoted of course, but the essential difference is that men are a social group that one may now denigrate without fear of repercussion. The #KillAllMen hashtag has quite a history, as discussed in this further blog post.
Oh, I can hear some of you chorus “but there is no comparison at all – men have all that privilege. Look at all those male politicians and CEO’s!“.
Ignoring all those men of colour for a moment, just what percentage of men are politicians or CEO’s? One per cent? Even that?
The writer, Nakkiah Lui, identifies as an aboriginal. One might have thought she would possess an abundance of empathy regarding bigotry. Or at least enough to avoid such a grotesque mis-step. But clearly her feminism trumps her empathy.
Hypocrisy is the short answer, but those preferring the challenge of a TL:DR version can chew on ‘cognitive dissonance‘.
Bigotry dressed up as art is still bigotry. Shame on NIDA
Addendum: Ms. Lui was aware of this post as of the day it was uploaded, and was invited to offer a rebuttal. Subsequent feedback consisted of witless ad hominem delivered in a manner reminiscent of terriers yapping behind a screen door. The one criticism that contained even an ounce of substance, was that I had not seen the play.
So on the one hand we have an individual castigated for saying bad words about a feminist production in a personal blog, but with no serious intent of having the play cancelled. On the other hand we have 2,000+ feminists and white knights deliberately setting out to deny everyone the opportunity to experience a production. The former production finished its run, the latter never got started.
Again, this patriarchy of ours sure does work in mysterious ways.
See also:
Hateful Clementine Ford (6 January 2024) Scroll to the last two paragraphs to read about her proposed publicly-funded theatre production
Female aggression is now increasingly being portrayed and seen as acceptable, and almost a hallmark of an empowered woman. Look for example at some of the speeches made by female celebrities following the election of President Trump in the USA.
The feminist logic appears to be:
Women are oppressed
Men are oppressors
Violence against the oppressors is liberation (Source: ‘Sinisus’)
Ms Garner’s comments aren’t unusual – I have simply chosen hers as but one example of a long line of articles/comments that I have read expressing similar sentiments. This is the flip-side of a culture increasingly being moulded by feminist organisations like ‘White Ribbon Campaign’, whereby female aggression is downplayed or completely ignored whilst male-perpetrated violence is exaggerated.
In July 2014 Whoopi Goldberg started a feminist firestorm with her comments on a US talk show in which she said that women should not hit their partners, and that if they did they should not be surprised if the man hit them back. Feminists have misrepresented Whoopi’s position as being one of supporting men who hit women, but in fact she just said that she supported the position of the innocent party who was hit first (whether that be a man or woman). Her position was that neither party had the right to hit the other.
Inherent in this discussion is the view amongst many feminist women that because men are bigger/stronger [which is not always the case] that men never had the right to hit women, regardless of whether the woman struck the first blow. The video clip of Whoopi’s statement is here, and here are some discussion threads and articles: Vfm article by Paul Elam, VfM discussion thread, reddit #1.
Twitter discussion thread regarding the excuse of ‘just a slap’, beginning with assertion by UK feminist organisation ‘Refuge’ that it is used to minimise violence against women (23 June 2020)
Women kicking balls, I’d like to see that (22 January 2017) New TV ad promoting women’s sport. Imagine an ad ‘Men grabbing pussy, I’d like to see that’. Appropriate or humorous? Didn’t work for Don Trump and this one will reflect poorly on the AFL.
Joe Mixon videos released (16 December 2016) Video. USA. NB: Hit someone and there’s a good chance you’ll get hit back. Women included. Welcome to equality.
Wife chops off cheating husband’s penis, twice (14 January 2015) Somehow I don’t think a story about a man cutting off his wife’s breast would be given the same whimsical treatment as per this article
International Men’s Day (IMD) is upon us again – it’s on 19 November in case you weren’t aware. Last year, as is usual, it passed with barely a blip on the media’s radar screen. At least, that was the case here in Australia.
Some government agencies, such as Australian Human Rights Commission, pointedly ignore IMD. You can read in this post how they refused to make mention of Men’s Day in their web site, whilst celebrating International Women’s Day with much vigor. I contacted the Commission a few weeks back to see if they had anything planned for this year, but received no response. I also did a search of their web site and turned up nothing.
I have yet to read any announcements regarding how Australian Federal and/or State/Territory governments plan to mark IMD2016, so I sent out a series of tweets seeking that information. I planned to include responses onto this page, but there were none. I also did google-searching but didn’t manage to identify a single IMD2016 event taking place in Australia. If you know of one then please contribute a comment.
The United Nations demonstrates its pervasive gynocentric bias in part through its failure to list International Men’s Day in its online calendar of events. If you disagree with this omission then contact your country’s UN representative and let them know how you feel. Details concerning Australia’s representative to the UN are provided here.
And I doubt you would be surprised to learn that feminists hugely enjoy mocking IMD. Yes indeed, and now repeat after me, “yeah, but every day is men’s day!”
Nothing happens on International Men’s Day because men don’t really care about men and/or won’t organise anything. Paid for by? With admin assistance provided by which government agency? etc
Glen Poole (UK) does a great job discussing the various issues commonly raised in relation to IMD in a series of articles entitled ‘Dumb reasons why we don’t need an International Men’s Day’ … refer Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5
The most recent development seems to be feminist spokespeople acknowledging International Men’s Day, but in a very back-handed way, see for example.
The following items concerning International Men’s Day may also be of interest:
In 2018 the White Ribbon organisation in Scotland and Ireland organised events regarding men’s violence to women – on International Men’s Day (see related tweet)
Whilst IMD is routinely ignored by govt’s and corporates alike, one company (Citi) uses the event to tell men that they should lift their game via the hashtag #ChallengeAllMenToDoBetter (17 November 2017) Pathetic
Women’s Network tries to hijack International Men’s Day! (22 September 2017) Video. You couldn’t make this stuff up … IMD2017 event organised by women’s group behind shield of a seemingly non-existent men’s group, with proceeds to pro-feminist group that ignores male victims of domestic violence. The organiser was asked to provide details of the ‘Australian Men’s Network’ but instead chose to lock her Twitter account (@Awn001Fran). You can watch a Paul Elam video regarding this event here, and here is another quality video from The Independant Man.
The issues that really matter on #InternationalMensDay (19 November 2016) So let me get this right, feminists insist that the sole focus of the domestic violence debate should be on female victims because they constitute the majority. Here however the author fem-splains that the “issues that really matter” on IMD are issues affecting male minority groups not all of the nasty unwashed white CIS-HET majority.
International Men’s Day: What are we celebrating? (19 November 2014) I think this fellow, Michael Kimmel, really does richly deserve the title of ‘mangina‘, and most of his readers feel likewise … based on the comments here.
The Commissioner for discrimination against men (21 July 2012) It was suggested that the Australian Human Rights Commission provide some information in their web site to mark International Men’s Day (as they do every year for International Women’s Day). The response was this was not possible due to resourcing constraints. Now, many years later, there is still no mention of International Men’s Day within the AHRC web site. A truly pathetic effort from a very gender-biased organisation.
Feminist Fathers Day 2014 (I’m including this ghastly anti-male diatribe here sarcastically. It shows just how far some feminists want to shame men and feminise boys. As usual there are some great insights and colourful retorts amongst the readers comments).
There was also the massive internet prank that was #endfathersday and which highlighted both the sociopathic nature and herd mentality of many feminists – as discussed here, here and here
August 2014 saw the publication of a number of articles discussing an unfortunate development in the gender debate that has been labelled ‘ironic misandry’.
Misandry is, of course, the irrational fear and loathing of men. These articles spawned the #MaleTears hashtag on Twitter, as well as the production and marketing of a range of products on the theme, such as coffee mugs and t-shirts.
I loathe the concept of ironic misandry and see it as yet another symptom of an ideology that has gone seriously off the rails. Here’s why:
1. Ironic misandry is entirely at odds with the credo of ‘do unto others’
According to Wikipedia, “the Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim, ethical code or morality that essentially states either of the following:
One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself
One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated
This concept describes a reciprocal, or two-way, relationship between one’s self and others that involves both sides equally, and in a mutual fashion.”
Many of us think of ‘do unto others’ as being a Christian credo, but the same or similar phrase is common to many religions and cultures across history. That’s no accident. ‘Do unto others’ is a noble and eminently sound ideal that would be understood and supported by most reasonable people.
Ironic misandry runs contrary to how I want to treat others or be treated myself. Ironic misandry does not represent how I want my friends and family to be treated, and I don’t think it’s how most women want their male friends or family members to be treated. And don’t even try to suggest that mocking men is different because … patriarchy.
And in terms of the community generally, how would most women would react were this concept to be turned back onto them in the form of ‘ironic misogyny’? But more on that later.
2. Ironic misandry isn’t ironic
The definition of ‘irony’ is:
the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.
But the indisputable fact is that real life feminists don’t believe or act in the opposite manner, i.e. treat men in a loving and respectful manner. Look at my posts on feminism, feminist anger, and feminist censorship for examples of what feminists say about men and how they treat them. Heck, just look at comments by Clementine Ford in her paper listed above, or Samantha Allen in this article.
Clementine Ford describes the “I bathe in male tears” logo and associated paraphernalia as “one glorious phrase and a handful of beautiful associated memes“. She goes on to state that “images such as the above pillory the buffoonery of the MRA movement while giving increasingly stressed out and undermined women a means of laughing at the enemy.”
So despite the fact that feminists are always telling us how they don’t hate men, Clementine has no qualms about referring to us as “the enemy“. (Oh I get it, just joking, right?)
Ironic misandry isn’t rocking the boat with regards to the status quo – it’s reinforcing it.
The proponents of ironic misandry consider it first and foremost a humorous invention. I beg to differ. As would, I would suggest, most mature adults concerned about social justice and the welfare of men and boys. In fact pretty much anyone with an ounce of empathy, a conscience, and a brain in their head. Either way, you can’t change sexist bigotry into something else just by claiming it is funny. As they say, “a monkey in silk is a monkey no less“.
Regardless of the selective blindness of feminists, many men and boys are suffering and their tears are very real. For example, we have just experienced the suicide of comic genius Robin Williams, at a time when the suicide rate for men is substantially greater than for women. Ditto for homelessness, etc.
3. Ironic misandry erodes mutual respect between the genders
Ironic misandry removes even further respect between the genders, when mutual respect is an essential ingredient in moving onwards and upwards with the gender debate. We need to be doing everything we can to build respect not eroding it further. Ironic misandry and other feminist devices like it will condemn us to many more years of lobbing grenades from trench to trench instead of working together to address a multitude of issues of shared concern.
Given that that the original ‘Slate’ article has been addressed by others, I’ll conclude this post with some comments in relation to the paper by Clementine Ford which I found to be particularly noisome:
MRAs will have you believe that misandry is: a) rampant within the feminist community and b) capable of causing equal if not greater harm to men than millennia of oppression and disadvantage could ever possibly do to women.
As I indicated earlier misandry IS rampant within the feminist community, as is feminist denial about that fact. I challenge you to assume a male identity and go online and try to post reasonable comments in debates regarding gender, and see how you are treated. How you are are routinely abused. How your posts are removed. How often you are banned, excluded, denied a voice.
Oh, and by the way Clementine, didn’t you/your editor close your article to comments so very quickly once the expected support failed to materialise? Let’s see what reader Jane was able to contribute before the shutters came down on your sideshow:
Baffled to why teenage girls don’t describe themselves as feminists? Re-read this article and imagine yourself as a teenage girl looking for relevance to her life. Instead of a reasoned argument, inspiration or anything that might be impacting her now or in the future, Clem “click-bait” Ford delivers a short rant on why it’s fun to ridicule certain people on the internet. Sure it might be a “release valve” to Ford who must have to deal with some crazy nutters on the internet but if this is the only article they read on feminism this week while asking, “Am I a feminist?” then I can understand why many, a few or even one young woman might reply, “If this is feminism, then no.”
Feminists just love to exaggerate the position of MRA with assertions like “MRA claim that men are more oppressed than women”, “MRA would have you believe that everything bad that happens to men is because of women”, and so on, and on. Can Clementine point us towards even one reference where MRA have stated that misandry can cause more harm than all the oppression and disadvantage ever experienced by women? Of course, she can’t – because no MRA ever made such a statement.
“Misogyny and misandry are treated by MRAs as interchangeable things, with the latter being widely viewed as ‘just as bad, if not worse’.”
No, MRA treat these as two distinct things. The fact that some MRA might consider ‘misandry’ to be worse, is due only to the level of denial and hypocrisy within the feminist movement (regarding their inherent misandry), and the resultant chasm between how feminists demand to be treated and how they treat others.
“Feminism seeks to dismantle the patriarchy, thus liberating both women and men from its suffocating clutches.”
“Humour is a vital tool for feminists lest we lose our marbles completely when dealing with the irrational and factually incorrect bleatings of people who, among other things, argue that sexual violence statistics have been made up by feminist run government agencies to oppress man’s sexual nature.”
Clementine, some examples please of statements made by MRA that are “factually incorrect”, or where MRA have claimed that sexual violence statistics were made up … “to oppress man’s sexual nature”. MRA have highlighted inaccuracies and distortions within statistics related to domestic violence, sexual assault, and other issues. I invite you to examine and comment upon the many examples that are provided in my blog posts on these topics. MRA raise these concerns only in the interest of enabling informed public debate based on a balanced and accurate portrayal of these important social issues.
4. Gender reversal: What happens when a man attempts ironic misogyny?
In 2010 Paul Elam published an article entitled ‘October is the 5th annual Bash a Violent Bitch Month‘ in response to an earlier article in the feminist journal ‘Jezebel’. Although Paul has always asserted his article was satirical, years later it is still cited by feminists as proof of the alleged hideous misogyny of the men’s rights movement. A well-written discussion of Paul’s article can be found here.
Did feminists extend the same patience and understanding towards Paul’s or Roosh’s ironic offerings, to which they themselves felt entitled? Absolutely not, and in Roosh’s case both he and his supporters were subjected to a global campaign of harassment and threats of violence. Yes, the very same behaviour that feminists angrily assert that men oppress women with. Anyway read both this article and this one, and you can form your own view.
Moving forward to June 2016, and Australian TV personality Eddie McGuire chose to offer up a little of his own brand of irony. Team feminism went ballistic. And on and on they went:
In this article Irish feminists reject the notion of misandry (October 2017)
“It is impossible to have an “ingrained prejudice” against men when we live in a world made by men for men. In a patriarchal society, the idea of men who are oppressed by virtue of their gender could never be anything but a joke.“
“Eight women create an internet utopia where they discuss the most intimate details of their lives, the most righteous, and the most hilarious. Dating, camming, work, love, and how to be an out and proud feminist. But when one of them disappears after being attacked everything changes. #KillAllMen suddenly moves from joke to reality.”
The last few decades have seen men increasingly portrayed in a negative light, basically it’s now a choice between lazy, inept, evil, stupid, or creepy. Concerns raised about this trend are generally dismissed along the lines of “relax, it’s just a joke!”. Funny thing though, ‘jokes’ made about women elicit a very different reaction.
“Men have always made fun of themselves,” said New York Times best-selling author and social philosopher Michael Gurian. “The kind of things that are done with men in the media would never be done with women, and that’s just sort of a given. But men don’t mind. They live by joking and putting each other down and lifting each other up. But the negative is that they can only be OK if the rest of society has a basic understanding and respect for boys and men.” (Source)
I’m tired of Hollywood trying to sell me on the concept of “loveable idiots”, and I am disheartened by the ubiquitous content that tears men down. I love filling my life with laughter, however why are my current content choices trying to get me to laugh at a reduced version of men? Why is Hollywood trying to get me to focus on the broken-down, allegorical version of who they think my husband is? Obviously they don’t know my husband. (Source)
Now take a look at this article that appeared in that dreadful magazine ‘Cosmopolitan‘. It’s all about the ways that women are said to be better than men. Stomach-turning sexist tosh. Ah, but then treat yourself to this excellent rebuttal by Janet Bloomfield.
One wonders whether this ongoing negative portrayal of men reinforces hostility towards men, which may in turn influence the rate of partner violence towards men as addressed in this other blog post.
The various sources listed below discuss this issue in depth and/or provide specific examples of negative ways in which men are presented in the media and/or are subsequently perceived in the community-at-large:
The team working for McDonalds fast-food chain (Mumbrella) seem destined to produce a Gillette-style campaign, but targeting boys (3 February 2020) “Just a bit a fun say the advertisers, while boys get demonised for slamming doors in girls’ faces” observes Bettina Arndt.
The Victorian Government (Australia) has issued a video highlighting the horror of women receiving unwanted attention on public transport, and – surprise surprise – calling on men to step in and deal with other men (9 April 2019). ‘Independent Man’ responds to this rather well with his own video.
Ten things not to say to/about your husband (9 February 2010) Video. How rarely is this type of message encountered? Women have corresponding obligations to their spouse? What?
Why I won’t let any male babysit my children, by Kasey Edwards (23 February 2017) Australia. My subsequent blog post concerning both this article, and various follow-up articles, can be found here.
Husbands Are Deadlier Than Terrorists (11 February 2017) USA. Wives are too, but saying that won’t get the author a tummy scratch from the feminist lobby. The thing is, even if the author had titled this piece ‘Spouses are deadlier that terrorists’, it would not have detracted from the main thrust of the article one iota … ie. completely superfluous sexism. (My readers comment is here)
‘Women kicking balls, I’d like to see that’ (22 January 2017) New ad campaign promoting women’s sport. How about ‘Men grabbing pussy, I’d like to see that’. Hmm, still not funny.
Son, let me tell you all about how dadsplaining works (13 January 2017) Whether this piece was a weak & inappropriate attempt at humour, or a serious bid for a tummy-scratch from feminists, it undermines the role of men/fathers at a time when we need to be doing the very opposite.
“Although the participants didn’t personally endorse those stereotypes, it’s clear that they affected the participants’ unconscious thinking. Stereotypes can be like poison in the water we all swim in, and the brain, like a sponge, absorbs them, Freeman said, even when we don’t want it to.”
Heineken’s ‘Drink Responsibly’ TV ad (January 2016) Only men drink to excess. ‘Good men’ don’t drink to excess. ‘Good men’ get to go home with a hot girl. The subliminal message here being that men’s irresponsible behaviour is best addressed through a combination of shaming and dangling the carrot of sexual gratification. This not-so-flattering portrayal of men dreamt up in the (I’m guessing) feminist-sodden environment of some ad agency or another. Sure they score a point for making an effort to reduce over-consumption of a pernicious legal drug, but they lose two for lacking the courage & conviction to produce a companion ad for the ‘I’m so drunk!’ millennial female set.
Too many young men with negative attitudes to sex and violence, survey finds (7 May 2015) And what of the attitudes of young women? We’re not told, and increasingly surveys don’t even bother to explore that side of the equation. This article is typical of the one-sided (anti-male) hit-pieces continually being fed to the public by left-leaning progressive journalists, eagerly supplied by obliging local feminist advocacy groups. Agenda? What agenda?
Wet wipes blocking Sydney sewers as more men flush them down the toilet (7 December 2014) Yeah sure, and the sample size of the survey that determined that men were flushing wet-wipes, was how small? This article would have been worth writing if it had suggested promoting the use of Asian-style ‘bum-guns’ in Australia, but they chose to waste bandwidth with another hit-piece on men instead.
Why are men on TV always such fools? (13 March 2014) Note the 433 readers comments – clearly many people are fed up with the current situation of rampant double-standards
In the days in which Dusty Springfield performed (1960’s) women were happy to express affection for men. Ah, the old days
And finally here are two representations of men, one from a country where feminists ‘call the shots’, and one from a country where they don’t. Can you guess which one is which?