We say: “No more rape!” And they say: “What? no more sex? Why, that’s unworkable, that’s prudish, that’s man-hating!”
( main text from Feminist Current with thanks)
Between the pulling of Grand Theft Auto V from Target Australia and the increasing number of women who want to be treated like humans, men are under attack like never before.
A widely-read article by Milo Yiannopoulos, published at Breitbart, recently decried the excruciating oppression facing men, who, with the advent of women’s right to work and vote, are no longer able to use “girls” to solve their problems. A travesty of the highest sort. The author quotes one man:
“[it] wouldn’t be so bad if we could at least dull the pain with girls. But we’re treated like paedophiles and potential rapists just for showing interest”.These men claim they are earning less money, have less retirement funds and now, have to deal with “girls” who expect to be treated with respect. It’s unthinkable, really.
These men cannot even shop safely at Target anymore, knowing their right to prostitute and murder women within their gaming world is being scrutinized. What’s next? Equal pay? This madness has to stop.
Yiannopoulos informs us that women, surely, are the driving force behind decreasing social mobility, political disillusionment, and the fragmentation of the liberal democratic system. Presumably women’s rights are also to blame for the melting of the polar ice caps and the declining number of wild bees.
Apparently if women had never started with this “right to vote” bullshit, none of this would have happened.
The author has surely confused “feminism” with rampant capitalism, advanced globalization and the dearth of state governance. Undeterred by his errors, the author presents his case for why men are the real victims of the systems they created in order to maintain their own supremacy.
I agree with him on one thing: the pale male purveyors of globalized capitalism have shat in their own nests. But it’s not because of women that the systems underpinning capitalism are crumbling from the inside out.
The global economic system and its political counterparts are in a crisis of their own making. Women rallying to end rape have very little to do with this.
Yet according to Yiannopoulos, they do. Those pesky anti-rape seminars at American colleges are ruining men’s willingness to rape and with it their entire lives and the social fabric of society. Ironic then that he accuses women of hysteria…
The idea that rape is a central feature of the broader economic system is actually an important one. Yet the author fails to engage with this in any meaningful way (obviously).
”Gamergate’s patriarchal sway has allowed charlatans like Milo Yiannopoulos to become one of its preeminent champions. Yiannopoulos, who routinely writes misogynistic, transphobic, and other bigoted rants for far-right site Breitbart, would never be exalted in any forum lacking an undercurrent of right-wing sympathies. Even the American Enterprise Institute has chimed in, arguing that the issue of sexism and misogyny in video games is a fake issue created by “feminist tech writers” and “concernocrats.” ….. other reactionaries include YouTube personality “Thunderf00t” who has published videos such as “Do hot girls have all the advantages?” and “Why feminism poisons EVERYTHING.”— Stop supporting Gamergate Don’t be fooled by “gamers” who want to enlist you for abuse..” Yiannopoulos is credited with early news coverage of the Gamergate controversy, criticizing the politicization of video game culture by “an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers” stop-supporting-gamergate
If we consider that rape in marriage was legal up until recent decades in most OECD countries, or that rape is a necessary product of the global sex trade, or that rape is a systemic tool in war, or that rape convictions are near enough to nil in most countries, then it should be clear that ending rape would require a massive shift in global relations.
Ending rape, then, requires a radical revisioning of the systems that govern society and an acknowledgement of women as co-creators.
The idea that women may no longer be passive recipients of male-centric political, legal and economic systems is likely to unsettle those men who pin their egocentric notions of self-worth on traditional power relations over women.
Men who’ve sat at the pinnacle of such power relations may be disillusioned by the growing complexity and diversity around them. Perhaps they are asking “Why are black people in my workplace?”… “How could this woman be my manager and why can’t I force her into sex?” Apparently, some men have found themselves directly confronted by the notion that men should not rape. In fact, the author goes to the extent of calling new anti-rape law “unworkable, prudish and downright misandrist.”
Unsurprisingly, Yiannopoulos fails to provide any actual data to back up his woman-hating rhetoric. First person narrative from his bros who can’t be bothered with “chicks” anymore is enough to justify his hysterical claims that the world falling to pieces because “rape law.”
” The enemy of the Gamergate supporter is the so-called “social justice warrior,” which is a pejorative commonly used to describe basically anyone who feels empathy — a trait that sickens narcissists who believe that listening to another human being and taking their feelings seriously is a form of defeat. … an insult in the form of: “look at you, caring about other people!”stop-supporting-gamergate
As luck would have it, this freshly-laid pile of anecdotal excrement is well-received by thousands of readers, none of whom seem to notice the stark lack of substantive evidence.
This stands in contrast to any article ever written on women’s rights, which is immediately torn apart by commenter-turned-statisticians who question the limitations of methodology, the lack of strength in p-values and repeat the only thing they remember from the research methods course they took in first year — “correlation is not causation.” Strangely, few seem to care for empiricism when it is women’s rights under fire.
We live in a society so accustomed to misogyny that the slightest move in favour of women’s human rights is misinterpreted as female supremacy. If precedent is anything to go by, these new misandry-laden rape laws will still see only a very small percentage of rapists ever being charged — hardly female supremacy at work. And the removal of GTA from a few retailers does not actually censor the world of depraved gaming, it merely sends a message about social responsibility.
The fact is that sex crimes against women are on the rise in many countries, self-harm, suicide and eating disorders in girls are burgeoning, and sex trafficking of the vulnerable is a booming business. Young women are under more sexual coercive pressure from men than ever before. There is no male ‘sexodus’ and in fact research suggests quite the opposite. The idea that men are now somehow suffering because rape laws make them feel rejected is surely hysteria at its peak.
Next week Breitbarf [sic] has a special follow-up feature: “Why women are the biggest victims of women’s rights.” I can hardly wait.
Laura McNally is a psychologist, consultant, author and PhD candidate. Her current research examines the political and social implications of global corporate social responsibility. Find more of her work at lauramcnally.com.
18 Comments Already on FW
The Free 
Girls arent under sexual coercive pressure as much as sexist coercive pressure. This mans article reads like the sound of nails dragging down the face of withdrawn privelege. For thousands of years men have told us we are too thick to educate, too dumb to drive, too frightened to fight for ourselves, too emotional to vote. Now that we are proving them wrong and fighting for our right to do as much as we can for ourselves, they are screaming at us that we are taking their need to protect us and dominate us away. It is they who need a disempowered, uneducated gender to make them feel adequate. Now is the time for a men’s movement that takes men aside and teaches them to like themselves, to work hard at education to get the qualifications they need in a global workplace and to take pride in treating other races and genders with respect rather than arrogance in order to achieve the sense of self worth they are seeking.
This is the same tired old argument used every time Dudebros are no longer able to treat women like objects with impunity. “Chivalry is dead thanks to feminists” is one of these old saws.
Poor Dudebros. We have to feel their pain. Why, it’s getting so a guy can no longer drive down the street catcalling every woman he sees without being told he’s a douchebag. Why, the nerve! And if you grab a chick’s ass in a bar, you might just run the risk of getting thrown out of the place or even charged with assault because the bitch can’t lighten up. Geez! What is this world coming to?
It’s as if these damn women think they’re actual human beings and not fuck toys! What’s a Dudebro to do?
‘Apparently, some men have found themselves directly confronted by the notion that men should not rape. In fact, the author goes to the extent of calling new anti-rape law “unworkable, prudish and downright misandrist.”
So, here we learn that: “downright misandrist” = anti-rape
“prudish” = anti-rape
This is great! It’s not just name-calling to intimidate, shame and silence us, and to let us know that we’re not measuring up to fuckability standards. It’s much more than that. These words have a very distinct and precise meaning: women’s natural right to be fully human conflicts with men’s “right” to keep us violently subordinated.
I just love it when men come right out and say what they think feminist’s/women’s problem really is: that we are against male violence, in all its forms–economic, sexual, physical, emotional and psychological.
I don’t understand all these panicky thinkpieces about men suffering so badly in modern society. Yes, boys are doing slightly worse in school and fewer go to university but the old pay gap is still alive and well. The economic crisis cited in the article is not a male-only phenomenon. All around me I see men doing just fine: going to school, getting jobs, having relationships, fathering children. Why are the experiences of a few sexually frustrated, entitled nerds being extrapolated to assume that all men are living such terrible lives?
Why indeed? More so, they are talking as if a portion of men deciding to not marry and raise children is the end of the world. I don’t get all these panicky pieces neither, wanting to make a supposed ‘sexodus’ pass for a social crisis. And apparently, women are the big losers with these men who are ‘going their own way’ because of women’s too high expectations (like expecting fair share of domestic chores and not being treated as sex servants?). It might look like just men whining about women not being enough subservient, but it’s that they are just worried about us.
When women decide to stay single, it’s : ‘too bad for you, you are going to die alone surrounded by cats’. When men decide to stay single, it’s again: ‘too bad for you women’. The impression being that single women fare worse than single men is merely projection. I know many women who don’t want to marry and have children while being good contributors to society. But these men, they are not only giving up on ‘chicks’, that literally leads them to give up on society entirely and retreat into their basement.
Are men so weak without a woman by their side? Are men so weak as to give up because there are girls in schools doing fairly better? There was a time women couldn’t even access schools, they fought to have access to higher education and worked hard. In too many parts of the world, girls are risking their lives to go to school while being treated less than boys in every area of their life. I mean, there are valid reasons someone would want to opt out of the system, but ‘girls doing better in schools’ is surely not one of them.
These men should stop the whining and take a serious look in the mirror. Not for our sake, for theirs!
I also see a lot of young men (here in Québec) very actively involved in bringing up those children in a way unthinkable a few decades ago. Because they were raised by FEMINISTS of my generation.
I’d never heard of that Yiannopoulos character, but his discourse is a more elaborate version of a certain Marc Lépine’s antifemist manifesto found after the Polytechnique massacre, along with his hitlist of prominent Québec feminists. (He had been rejected as a Polytechnique candidate). It also reminds me of the kind of resentful whiteguy who always complains about Black and Aboriginal people getting an easy ride through affirmative action.
Before recycling took hold, we’d speak of consigning such nonsense to the circular file.
“bros who can’t be bothered with “chicks” anymore” because of anti-rape laws and the end of male sexuality as what’s-his-name knows it.
I feel kind of sad telling him this, sort of like telling a kid Godzilla doesn’t exist, but if that’s his idea of sex then, yes, what we’re trying to achieve is the end of it. Now.
We say: “No more rape!”
And they say: “What? no more sex? Why, that’s unworkable, that’s prudish, that’s man-hating!”
And that tells us everything we need to know about these men.
They say that crazy feminists came up with the idea that sex (which is always heterosexual intercourse in these discussions) and rape are conceptually, and often in practice, almost indistinguishable. But we didn’t come up with this crazy idea–men did! We just listened to them identify themselves as rapists, again and again, and decided to believe them.
Yiannopoulos is one of those “manosphere” morons, and this is all connected to that “Gamergate” nonsense. He and a few other manosphere ideologues/dolts jumped on board the Gamergate thing to get a wider voice for their backward, conspiratorial, far right-wing views. The term “sexodus” is just another way of saying “MGTOW” (Men Going Their Own Way) without actually saying it. Spend an hour reading the blogs of the manosphere and your head will hurt with all the dumb, and you’ll walk away wanting a really strong drink to dull the pain from having wasted an hour with such garbage. Also, this quote from the Yiannopoulos article:
“Never before in history have relations between the sexes been so fraught with anxiety, animosity and misunderstanding”
What do you say about such a sentence? Fuck. So dumb.
Wow, the idea that you just cant rape women has brought men to this state of anxiety, animosity and misunderstanding? Fuck knows what they’re going to do with shared parental responsibility whilst working then!
What I’m realising is the more that women are winning (such as the Collective Shout team getting GTAV taken off the shelves in Target and K-Mart), the more that these men are shitting in their big boy pants and expecting mummy to clean up the mess.
I have been following the GTAV stuff very closely. The number of men whining about a video game is nothing short of unbelievable. A VIDEO GAME.
One guy actually wrote, “But you can CHOOOOOOOOSE to kill prostitutes! Not all men CHOOSE that! It’s an individual’s choice whether or not they want to kill prostitutes or not!”
The angrier that these men get, the more I know we’re winning. We’re actually winning for a change. And men are sooking because they want their diapers back. No deal. Time to wear your big boy pants and shit in the toilet like everyone else.
Zing! They create a wall of lamentations out of their bodily excretions over sweet nothing. Let’s hope it collapses on top of them. That would be sweet something.
“I have been following the GTAV stuff very closely. The number of men whining about a video game is nothing short of unbelievable. A VIDEO GAME.”
Just today, in a discussion about what is called liberal feminism here but what is mistaken for feminism there, a guy whined about how feminists make feminism look bad when they complained about “so called sexist video games”. Of course he didn’t want to admit that the only reason he likes to see feminists only talking about “serious issues like genital mutilation” is that he doesn’t feel threatened by that kind of activism that doesn’t force him to change so he can continue to be a privileged jerk treating women in- and outside of video games as objects.
I hate when men pretend they cared about feminism and feminist issues while they are actually only busy keeping up the status quo. Sadly, liberal feminist make it so easy for them. There is so much confusion!
Still, I hope you are right when you say you see a progress.
‘One guy actually wrote, “But you can CHOOOOOOOOSE to kill prostitutes! Not all men CHOOSE that! It’s an individual’s choice whether or not they want to kill prostitutes or not!”’
Oh, that guy. Thick as a brick, and, moreover, a danger to women everywhere. Yeah, that was his “argument”: there is nothing WRONG with giving men the option to kill rape and kill prostitutes for entertainment. Oh, no! It’s all about the choosing. The option to rape women, burn them alive and shoot them dead should never be considered an evil in itself. But, choosing to do that is naughty, and choosing not to do that is next to godliness. Men –just like women — need options. Yahoo! Equality!
This is where individualistic-choice-equality feminism has got us.
But the problem is is that you aren’t encouraged to sexually violate women and murder them for entertainment in the game. There isn’t any sexual violence. And the game has been out a year already, so why are people complaining now? Due to the first person option, that’s why. You could do the same things when the game launched in September 2013.
It’s a game where you pointlessly can hire prostitutes (I’ll admit the health refill is dumb) and you can kill people in droves. Yes, PEOPLE. Anyone on the street. The game doesn’t target women. You spend the whole game killing men. What about the fact male drug dealers and gang members are seen as disposable? You can set them on fire, stab and run over them. Just because they aren’t sexualized doesn’t mean they aren’t victims. They could be forced to drug deal to make a living.
The whole issue arose cause the new release featured first person when the game had already had it a year earlier. I think arbitrary putting prostitutes into the game is immature, but the game doesn’t discourage disposing of women. It encourages you to just have fun and kill as many people as you want, avoid the police blow stuff up, crash cars, etc. in the game world. The right wing are the ones who think games lead to behavior in real life, I thought. In the mid 2000s they griped all about the violence in games training people to kill. Just because you are offended by the idea of something doesn’t mean the games portrayal of it encourages it.
The poor poor dudes.
Their fragile little world is just crumbling at their feet. Their entitlement penis is no longer sufficient and DAMMIT! rape is being discussed as the horrific male crime that it is!
Get your male tears mugs, nay barrels, ready. These men have a lot of crying to do.
I am perfectly happy to accept that some men have lost out and continue to lose out due to feminism. No feminist should ever try to argue that ending patriarchy and all manifestations of male oppression will make all men happy! Both my grandfathers treated my grandmothers appallingly for years. Now most divorces are instigated by women. No, often this isn’t making for happiness all round, but it is a hell of a lot better than being married until death to someone who has abused you consistently.
Of course some men are unhappy that women, and particularly feminist women try to stop the various abuses that have just been taken for granted for so long. Sexist misogynist men long for the way things used to be because they got a bigger slice of the pie, had a maid in the living room, had a cook in the kitchen, a whore in the bedroom. Is it any wonder that so many of us got SO sick of it?
I remember a misogynist dude telling me feminism caused a huge increase in divorce. I said so what if it did? I said once women could get decent jobs and realized they didn’t have to accept a bad husband then it was to be expected that any man who couldn’t move with the times would end up divorced. Poor men, if they want relationships with women now, they might just have to live up to our standards and like pick up the vacuum and stop raping and stuff.
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