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No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
I don’t know if this is a most awesome ‘men’s rights’ activist disaster I’ve ever seen, or the most pathetic: http://skepchick.org/2012/05/19-is-the-new-14/
I’m so happy that my only drunk post on the internet has to do with how to make the most delicious babaghanoush.
OK I may also have a few drunk posts floating around out there that are about awesome songs.
@Skull Bearer: Well, the blog post has some “nice” ageism in it, and the comments are the circle-jerky Two Minute Ridicule that’s so common on the web (along with the Two Minute Hate). As for the letter itself, I only skimmed it; it seemed to contain just another rant about TEH WOMENZ. There’s only so often you can get upset about that.
Some people had very different experiences of 14 than I did. At 14 I was reading Vonnegut and couldn’t even find a bottle of booze. How about you guys?
I also find the idea that music has declined irreperably in the last five years rather amusing.
Apropos of nothing, my romantic life is so depressing I’m thinking of becoming a monk.
Monkey, I was more like you at 14. I did the whole “drinking too much”-thing in my early 20’s (ten years ago now).
I just found a caterpiller on my sock! Keep it, or release it back into the wild?
f., I have to ask: How do you make the most delicious babaghanoush?
(Totally on-topic since I’m a man who’s basically a stay-at-home cook for his girlfriend and two housemates. Stereotype smashing?)
@Skull Bearer
Is there any body of proof that this email isn’t just a fabrication from skepchick?
…really, Anon? REALLY?
ಠ_ಠ
@skullbearer: So what are all the problematic things he said? I know he doesn’t like feminists, but its reeeaaally easy to get judgmental about just about everyone if you think that genital mutilation is mutilation when it happens to males. I would argue he is wrong about the discrimination thing (note MGM rates going down). He does mention “women supporting abuses” which is problematic…
So she found a drunk/bad at writing MRA on the internet with a few problematic things to say, who has fallen victim to stereotyping another political group? Well I can find a feminist (or in fact just about any other common political group member) who is bad at writing with a few problematic things to say.
So any other problematic things other than the one generalization about woman? (And the stereotyping other political groups I suppose) I only skimmed so I may have missed it.
@Lamech
She received an email from the guy. She didn’t find it on the internet.
@ Lamech
If you can’t read the ridiculous amount of priviledge reeking from every line, here’s a nice encapsulation of it here:
“Why should my life have to be a punishment just for being born male?”
*to make a hollow laughing*
I repeat no more Mr Nice Guy, this was an email sent to the writer.
Dr. Anonymous:
About as much evidence as most of the posts here. Or indeed anywhere else on the internet. Or most of what you read about in newspapers. And of course, your very senses are only registered by electrical connections in your brain.
YOU ARE IN THE MATRIX
@Skull Bearer:
“Why should my life have to be a punishment just for being born male?” Its sort of a weird turn of phrase, but the whole getting sexually assaulted and mutilated shortly after birth that a lot of American males experience, kind of fits the bill. Mutilation is obviously life-long and I commonly see sexual assault being referred to a life changing experience so, combine that with all those people who supported circumcision to control masturbation and it at least seems like he could very well be getting a life long punishment for being male (which does in fact happen to a lot of American Men.)
Oh and he has been denied medical care for being male. Also a pretty major thing.
Also e-mail is on the internet.
@Monkey: At 14, I was playing Magic: the Gathering, making my very first costume from scratch without a lick of help from my folks (the Dented Helmet craft foam armor tut to make a Helm’s Deep elf for seeing RotK in, if anyone’s interested), studying world religions, discovering my BDSM inclinations while simultaneously being uninterested in having sex, and wishing I were a boy. Booze? What’s booze? I think it was only a a couple years ago, actually, that I overcame my abject hatred and fear of the smell of alcohol.
14? lets see, that was in 1996… IIRC, I was writing internet database applications in C++, programming in java, head coder on a MUD, and surfing for porn
@monkey:
“Apropos of nothing, my romantic life is so depressing I’m thinking of becoming a monk.”
We have a forum for that now. Maybe post about your romantic problems?
http://www.gamedruid.com/mutualseduction/viewforum.php?f=2
Since I can’t think of anything better to say, I’ll just add that I have little idea what other 14-year-olds were like when I was that age. By then I had given up on socialization because my parents could move at any time (and often moved 2 or 3 times over the course of a year) and I often skipped out on school to go to the library (usually no one at the libraries questioned that, oddly enough) or to teach myself practical skills. Because I had the philosophy of “never let school get in the way of your education”.
I’ll see if this posts without being placed on moderation:
~~~~~
Here’s a good post on prescriptive feminism: http://meloukhia.net/2009/10/i_hate_prescriptive_feminism.html
~~~~~~
Here are the issues that I have with prescriptive feminism:
1. They tend to limit other women – and, much of the time, they try to push women in the opposite direction of what the patriarchy approves of. They deny that feminism is about choice.
2. They’re femmephobic. They tend to look down on women who engage in stereotypically feminine activities, and accuse them of “holding women back”.
3. On the other hand, engaging in stereotypically masculine activities also doesn’t keep you safe from criticism – as prescriptive feminists tend to find certain stereotypically masculine activities (such as hard rock and heavy metal, for example) to be misogynistic at its core.
4. They spend as much time criticism women for “doing feminism wrong” as they do criticizing the patriarchy.
5. These are exactly the type of people that the isthisfeminist tumblr is satirizing.
6. This are a favourite trait to use for strawman feminists in fiction.
7. This is the reason why many women say “I’m not a feminist but…”
I’m sure there’s more, but that’s what I can think of off-hand.
And here’s the other post on prescriptive feminism: * http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/prescriptive-feminism-fails/
“14? lets see, that was in 1996… IIRC, I was writing internet database applications in C++, programming in java, head coder on a MUD, and surfing for porn”
In 1996 I was also 14. I didn’t have an internet-able computer. Or much interest in programming stuff (even if I had the capability). I discovered console RPGs on SNES at the time. And outside of school, consecrated much of my time to videogaming. School was an obligation, much like bringing home a paycheck. The abuse I got from there was “the price to pay” for not willfully being a sheep.
I also got a total lack of ambition to go beyond that however. I’m anti-capitalist and think that income beyond the necessary+a little to be entertained, has no meaning. Welfare provides that while working would kill me psychologically.
If I COULD work without driving myself insane or overstressed, I would. It would give me a bit more income to be entertained. But although I could hit engineer levels of pay grades, I have no interest in being rich, or even having enough income to actually invest for old age (I hope I’ll die before then, or will do on the welfare equivalent – either way the staff of old people’s houses treats you like a corpse with money).
Wow, I’m old. I was 21 when Magic came out. You do the math.
I think that game is evil because I’m bad at it.
1972 Monkey
My boyfriend was born in 1970
@Skull Bearer
Considering the things Rebecka have previously done to get attention and cause grief to her opponents I remain highly sceptical.
Whether Rebecka made it up herself or really got an email, the events described therein hardly happened for real. Okay, I’m not American, but I find it very hard to believe that there are hospitals in your country that won’t treat men simply because of their gender, or that people are denied work just because they’re white males. I mean, isn’t explicitly saying “we’re not hiring you because you’re of the wrong colour and gender” illegal in the entire western world? And then this poor and ill kid is suddenly cruising around in LA? Where did he get the car from if he’s got no money? Did his health problems just go away in the meantime? WTF?
@Dvärghundspossen
I once applied for a Ph.d position, where I was told that they only accepted women, to achieve gender parity. So yes, it happens.
@Dvärghundspossen
There are several places where heart screening ihas been offered for free to women only. Often in relation with some campaign to address the fact that heart and vascular diseases are a large underreported cause of death among women (although not greater than it is for men I believe – statistics are welcome as I am too lazy and the weather outside is too nice for me to look that up now). There are also other places here heart screening are offered for free to both genders. I have never seen a case where free heart screening has been offered to men only.
And this happens with colour too? He specifically stated that on several occasions he had been turned down for being not only male but also white.
Plus the heart story still seems weird. If he already knows he has a heart problem, wouldn’t he need treatment rather than screening? If he knows he has a problem and can’t afford a doctor, what help would a free screening be anyway? And then it seems like the heart is suddenly no problem any longer, since he could hitch a train ride across America and start a revolution despite it? If he has NO INCOME, how does he make a living in the LA? How does he find a car to cruise around in?
The whole story is just weird.
How many people here know about Clarissa’s blog?
Tobias, it’s all about the garlic. While you are roasting the eggplant, roast your garlic along with it. Take a head of garlic, chop off about the upper 4th of it (the idea here is to remove the peel from the top of each clove), and pack it up in aluminium foil. Before you close up the top of the aluminium foil, drizzle olive oil over the head of garlic, and sprinkle salt and whole cumin on top. Then, just put it in the oven next to the eggplant! Both even need exactly 1 hour in the oven. I always do the same for hummus, too.
@Tom Smekens: I only read the second link and don’t really know what to make of it: Does she think that women that stay at home while their husband is earning money are somehow lazy, stupid and don’t want to make choices? Because that would be absurd as housework, including cleaning, cooking, shopping etc. takes a lot of time and can be quite stressful, and it also involves making choices.
@Dvärghundspossen
I just stated some facts. I am not very concerned with whether what this 19 year old letter writer have written really happened to him or not. But dismissal should at least be grounded in facts.
Here is the relevant section from his email:
As you can see he didn’t claim that he was turned down because he was a white male, but he claimed to be turned down with a “females only” response from the organizers of that free heart screening. I pointed out that there are free heart screenings which are for women only and that I was unable to find anyone who were for men only.
(I see now that perhaps you were talking about being turned down for a job, not heart screening for being a white male. Well, affirmative action (both in regards of gender and of race/ethnicity) do exists for some jobs and by it’s very nature when one person is hired due to affirmative action another person may have lost that job because he was not of the gender or race covered by that affirmative action. This is a statement of fact and not a value judgement of affirmative action. Based on your username I guess you are from Sweden, here is some of the section on affirmative action on Wikipedia:
Whether one are for or against it is a fact for every student gaining entrance to the police academy due to this concessions (which wouldn’t have gotten that place if there was no concessions made) another one who otherwise would have gotten a place will not.
I don’t know much about what heart screenings entails, but I got the impression that it at the very least includes measurement of cholesterol – something which can to some extent be adjusted with lifestyle choices and which is something which can be good to monitor continuously over time (I do it yearly and have taken a genetic test dues to high mortality of heart problems among the men on both sides of my family). Going to a free screening and get updated values for one’s cholesterol levels can certainly make sense if one is not covered by insurance and without the means to pay a doctor/laboratory for the tests. It can also be that his heart problem is undiagnosed (he experiences chest pains etc.) and he wanted to go to a free screening for that reason. Or he may have made up the chest pains to make a point – that there is free heart screenings which are for women only.
But you’ll notice he didn’t say he had no income now, he had no income last year (when he was 18 and before he hitch-hiked and train-jumped to LA). As incoherent the letter is there is a sequence of the events described in it.
So what do you guys think of prescriptive feminism? Do you think it’s harmful to the entire feminist movement?
@btff4444: Whether it’s harmful or not I don’t know (if such a thing as “THE feminist movement” even exists in the first place). But I think that for women it means they got out of the frying pan into the fire: Again there are other people telling them how to live, only this time it’s those claiming to liberate them; again their lives aren’t theirs to live, but are be owned by this ideology. Therefore I reject it, just like I reject any other philosophical concept that isn’t built upon self-determination of the individual.
Prescriptive feminism got some level of internal consistency in that it want to abolish what they call patriarchy and they not only target men who uphold the patriarchy, but also women who they think either self-oppressing or otherwise collaborate with the oppressors. As opposed to some feminists who seem to squarely put the blame and responsibility of what they call patriarchy on men. A concrete example of that are the feminist who said that women who slut.shame other women are forced to do so due to men’s (perceived) failure to control themselves. Another is the feminist who said that only men can stop rape.
I don’t really care for either of those two types, but the first type get a pity point for internal consistency. As to whether it is harmful to the entire feminist movement I think I’ll leave up to self-identified feminists to answer.