The World in the Wardrobe

wthsjw:

eudaimonistic:

anonguy11:

it-goes-both-ways:

the-mushroom-lady:

it-goes-both-ways:

So sad to hear about Earl Silverman. Hopefully though, his death won’t be in vain. This is a fairly high profile case, so hopefully enough people see it and it can inspire change. Maybe now people will see that the downsides of feminism can be pretty damn severe, and that it’s not exempt from criticism. Maybe now people will realise that all victims of domestic abuse deserve the kind of support that is sadly currently reserved for one gender, and maybe now they’ll do something about it.

 - Anonymous

I was listening to AVFM radio last night, they had a special episode for him, many of his friends and co-workers called in and told of his state of mind. Many of them have lost other friends and activists recently, all men, all suicide. They said his shelter was the last thing he had left, he was frustrated by people just doing nothing, talking but never doing and that his suicide might be enough to make people notice. They are promising that his death will not be in vain and they’ll do whatever they can to finally do something.

A friend who lived with him said that he was abused by his ex, even in public when, surprise of surprises, he was arrested and charged, bystanders were appalled and tried to say he was the victim not the abuser but thanks to the Duluth bullshit, they’re supposed to arrest only the man. Such tactics guarantee that only men will show up on the DV statistics hence people saying that 97% is committed by men when in fact it’s nearly identical everywhere. It’s a complete con.

One person said that drawing attention to it is not the problem because they already know, they deliberately only bring attention to the female side. That’s where the money is. It’s also safer, look at the reaction to even wanting to talk about it. He thinks that maybe that realisation made him give up.

There is also an article on Activist Burnout, as we seem to losing a lot of them to suicide, it could be useful to know what to look for in ourselves and others.

JtO said something I can definitely relate to, that every time they receive such a violent response, he understands their motivation and cause even less. Keeping the industry one-sided not only ignores the other but keeps them both going. And his rant said what I was thinking, Earl Silverman was murdered by the system and by neglect. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that feminism is directly responsible, that “little red frothing fornication mouth” as he calls her, is responsible.

He also mentioned about how people see men who try to do things for themselves, they are dismissed as selfish but a woman can be so ego-centric and make the entire world revolve around her, demand that everyone drop everything and cater to her every whim and she’s to be proud of that. People hear women when they so much as gasp but men will literally die to be heard, only a pile of bodies will make them notice and even then, just barely.

As for the response to his death and to violence against men being ignored, we’ll probably get a mix of the following:

• People saying we need more feminism
• “It’s just the patriarchy backfiring on men”
• “Women are just lashing out at their oppressors”
• “Cry me a river”
• “He got beaten by a girl? Pathetic”
• “But the rates of domestic violence against men is so small as to be insignificant”

They may even pretend to include some of the more major issues while simultaneously trivialising them/making it misogyny then doing nothing about it. Maybe the “I need feminism because” lot will make a backhanded attempt at appeasing us à la “patriarchy hurts men too”.

Patriarchy does hurt men, though. This situation had nothing to do with feminism.

It is patriarchy that says that women are small and weak, and couldn’t possibly hurt men.

It is patriarchy that makes a victimized man the villain, and disbelieves that a woman could have possibly abused him.

It is patriarchy that says that men can’t be abused by women (physically, emotionally, mentally, sexually. That means rape), and if one has, he isn’t a man. He’s a joke. And this is why the numbers of pretty much any kind of abuse toward men are low: men feel pressured not to make reports.

And I’m going to say this now— anyone who thinks it’s funny when a man is abused by a woman isn’t a feminist. Feminism is about making men and women equal in every way. It is as much about getting women the same rights, as it is about making sure women are tried and punished the same as men for the same crimes. Saying that it’s funny when anyone is abused is disgusting.

With proper respect given to the dead, it wasn’t feminism that killed him. It was a system that holds two sexes at very different standards.

Patriarchy kills men.

Who gets to decide what a real feminist is? There is little to no moderation, especially since the movement is so huge, the radicals are often the ones in high positions and are left to do as they please with little discouragement from their peers.

The early feminists fought to get women automatic child custody and won. Now it’s feminists saying that it’s a part of patriarchy.

Patriarchy did not invent the womb.

Why do feminists suppress data and doctor results that go against the message they want to send?

Why did feminists come up with the Duluth model, having men be automatically arrested even if they were the ones being beaten, even in public like Silverman when rates are damned near identical?

Why do feminists try to block any attempts at helping men?

Why do feminists constantly advertise women only shelters, of which there are thousands, and use false statistics and tell us it’s one directional?

Why do feminists protest men’s shelters?

Why are feminists actively trying to close women’s prisons in the UK when we already have an enforced sentencing discount as well as the pre-existing bias and fewer convictions making the idea misleading?

Why do feminists violently protest attempts to bring these issues to light?

I made it to the cop-out of hurt men before I couldn’t read the rest of their special pleading.

Yes, “hurts men”. Not “harms men”. Not “damages men”, “wounds men”, “destroys men”. Not, it’s just a transient little ache, why are you even complaining? Stubbed toes hurt, feelings hurt. But the thing about the word hurt now is that is a discomfort now. An inconvenience.

We’ve rocketing towards some singularity of intellectual dishonesty, where we can’t acknowledge the suffering of others because it means one other person might not pay attention to your own. I have to ask, when did this person become such a vicious, vindictive little vic-com that they come onto a post about a man who gave his life for victims of abuse and killed himself to pat every on the head like we’re talking about him skinning his fucking knee?

Are we becoming that sociopathic now that we can’t take five fucking seconds to actually think about something before butting in to the conversation to dismiss all concerns and condescend to the people talking about the very real suicide of a man who was ignored by this patriarchy that is supposed to HELP and AID him?

Is this what it’s come to? Really?

I was suicidal not very long ago.  I was fortunate enough to have people in my life who love me and can look out for me enough to bring me back from the brink.  Even people on Tumblr who I’ve never met have helped me.  I can’t even imagine the strain on a man who stood almost completely alone attempting to fight for services for those our society chooses not to recognize.  He had the gall to question the notions that supported where money goes in our justice system.  He had the brazen attitude that perhaps being human means you’re worthy of care.  That having a penis shouldn’t exclude you from getting help when people abuse.  The insane notion that being human precludes all other factors in how we treat each other with dignity.

I can’t tell all of you enough times that the accusation of patriarchy is not only meaningless, it pushes the goalposts.  When men talk about how we commit suicide at over 4x the rate (and more, globally) than women, that’s a worthy issue to have discourse over!  Ascribing it to a system and blaming the victims through it is only designed to serve the person making that association.  There is literally no tangible benefit to those who may kill themselves, as I’m sure their troubles are so relieved by you being there to say men in general did this;  You can’t be seen as legitimate until you actually kill yourself and even then you can expect to be mocked.

The comments before me are luminous.  Gender politics is becoming quite sociopathic on the feminism end.  It surely does not need to remain that way.  So, if you don’t think any of the things being discussed here reflect you as a feminist (if you define yourself as one), go right ahead and do something about it when you see it happen around you.  If you’re interested in seeing the video for yourself mocking the suicide victims, check out a video of this individual at the U of T CAFE meeting earlier this year.  The comments (and song she sings, not kidding) begin around the 9 minute mark, but I challenge all of you to actually make it through the entire thing.  I recommend turning down the volume on your device.

People like ‘big red’ as they call her are the individuals fighting this ideological war on the ground.  Saying “she isn’t a feminist” is exactly what I mean when we talk about moving the goalposts.  It’s not that important to feel right about things.  Perhaps, we all have more to learn yet.  Join me in denouncing her, so we can move this conversation to a point in which we can actually accomplish goals.  Men might instinctually prefer their gender roles, but I think most of us would agree we’ve reached the point in which we can begin to abandon them altogether.  I firmly believe that requires everyone to be on board.  Otherwise, men and women’s activist groups are forever two forces attempting to topple the other to no avail.  The benefits are aplenty if we can resign to open the discourse to everyone, since it affects everyone.  No worthwhile set of beliefs makes itself immune to criticism.  In fact, good models welcome it.

Earl Silverman should not be forgotten.  He died because he could not bear the burdens of so many with so much stacked against him.  The world lost a wonderful person.  I would have liked to have met him.  I wonder who, if anyone, can step up to fulfill his goals; They were worthy.

This literally brought tears to my eyes, good sir.

So…feminists saying that men have no problems, and that there is no sexism against men…feel happy now? Do you feel happy that this man committed suicide because he saw all the sexism around him, in plain sight, and no one cares or even acknowledges it exists? Do you feel happy that the man that ran the ONLY men’s DV shelter in that part of Canada, one that was way overrun and understaffed because no one thinks about the very real fact that males are OFTEN DV victims, committed killed himself? Like what…..do you feel proud or something?

Is this what humanity has come to? Being so sociopathic that you can’t even acknowledge that just because someone is different and seems to have more power, that they don’t have extremely serious problems too?

They’re literally worse than 99.9% of the men and other women I have to deal with.

Cause with a sexist man, even one of the outright bigoted ones that actually legit think women should only be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen and that they can’t amount to anything, I can just prove them wrong, show off my intelligence and say where I’m going to school/where I have a job, and move on my way, feeling confident in my abilities. They literally mean nothing to me. I don’t care what they think.

BUT I CAN’T FUCKING GET AWAY FROM THE RADFEMS. They insist that I’m somehow oppressed just cause I’m a freaking woman and that the patriarchy is out to get me and that I should hate all men and bare my breasts and have casual sex and that men have absolutely no problems and they INSIST THAT I MUST BE A FEMINIST, because if I’m not that somehow makes me a sexist pig too.

Well guess what? Maybe I don’t WANT to freaking have casual sex and dress like a slut. Maybe I WANT to be modest and wait until marriage, and maybe I LIKE the vast majority of men (who are way easier to work with than women, by the way, in a school or work setting). And guess what? THAT’S MY CHOICE. Because feminism is supposed to give me the CHOICE to do whatever the hell I want. Not drag me down and have me prescribe to a specific doctrine and that’s it.

Look. If you want to have casual sex, cool. If you don’t, awesome. If you want to wear modest clothing, good on you. If you don’t, that’s awesome too. IF YOU WANT TO WEAR FEMININE CLOTHING AND ACT GIRLY, FINE. IF YOU WANT TO ACT LIKE A TOMBOY AND WEAR JEANS AND NO MAKEUP, THAT’S AWESOME TOO.

I don’t freaking care. What I care about is people trying to thrust some prescribed thought process on me and saying, “Here. This is how you should act.” Uh…no, sorry, I DON’T have to act that way.

redrosewhore:

lioncalledparsley:

You know it really worries me that the guy who runs avoiceformen claims to be the dean of a university, because who the fuck would let that guy run any kind of an educational institute? Mr “I had consensual rough sex with a woman who liked to be dominated and that means all women love rape.”
God just

Fuck that guy

“If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.” -Mary Daly, Professor at Boston College.

“Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometime gain from the experience,” -Catherine Comins, Vassar College, Assistant Dean of Students.

“In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.” -Dr. Mary Jo Bane, assistant professor of education at Wellesley College.

“All men are good for is fucking, and running over with a truck”. 
-Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator.

“If the classroom situation is very heteropatriarchal—a large beginning class of 50 to 60 students, say, with few feminist students—I am likely to define my task as largely one of recruitment…of persuading students that women are oppressed,” -Professor Joyce Trebilcot of Washington University.

Yeah…. who the fuck would let people so full of hate and corruption run any kind of educational institute?

And I literally have to wonder where all of you live. I mean, is this a Northern thing or something?

I live in the South, and I’ve never been catcalled on the street, and neither have any of my female friends. You get it at school a couple times, but always in a joking manner in response to a joke or a couple kissing or something. It would be considered like….the epitome of rude down here (along with a whole lot of other things) to do that to a woman.

Seriously…is this a thing that happens mostly in the North and doesn’t happen half as often down here because of the whole ‘Southern hospitality/manners’ culture thing or is it a big cities thing or is it like a New York/Chicago/LA thing?

permutationofninjas:

misterjmasters:

permutationofninjas:

findingfemaleprivilege:

misterjmasters:

is that most of the stuff they label as female privilege is caused by, perpetuated by and upheld by MEN.

So far this has proven to be true.

That doesn’t change the fact that said female privilege exists, though.  After all, lots of examples of male privilege are caused by, perpetuated by, and upheld by women.

Name 3.

These are taken straight from the (in)famous male privilege checklist.  Note that this should not be taken as us agreeing that these items on the checklist are valid: item one is not demonstrably privileging due to an absence of male in-group bias, item two is very questionable due to the research methodology involved (a key point is that one reason boys “get more teacher attention” is that they work much more actively to get the teacher’s attention), and item three ignores the shaming of men who do not or cannot engage in sexual activity as well as the fact that men are indeed very often shamed for sleeping around, (primarily by women), meaning that the claim that there is no counterpart is at best misleading.  However, since most feminists consider the MPC to be relatively authoritative, it’s a convenient demonstration.  We picked three basically at random.

“14. My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.”

Evidence shows that women are equally as likely to get elected if they run. The problem is, for whatever reason, women aren’t running. In addition, women make up the majority of the electorate meaning that they’re perfectly capable of electing women if they so choose.

“18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.”

The majority of teachers are female, so if such discrimination were occurring chances are a woman was enforcing it.

“24. Even if I sleep with a lot of women, there is no chance that I will be seriously labeled a “slut,” nor is there any male counterpart to “slut-bashing.”

Most men really do not care if a woman is a “slut” or not.  While you may well disagree with us on this, I think you know as well as we that women are primarily the ones who call other women sluts.  If you don’t understand why, you probably need a crash course in sexual economy theory.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with your own stuff, shall we?

And since I made the statement without examples,I will name three in the other direction.

1. Women can wear clothing which fits both gender roles without as much judgement or risk - If a boy wants to go out in a miniskirt, a woman is more likely to be supportive.  At most, she will disdain him.  In all likelihood, if anyone does or says anything, it will be another man.  At most, he will fucking murder said dress wearing other man.

While I believe you’re downplaying the female reaction a bit, you’re right about this one.  This is one case of female privilege primarily enforced by men.

2. Men often don’t get custody in custody battles and are considered lesser parents - Considering something around 90% of judges making the laws and decisions in the courts are men, women can’t be held accountable for this issue.  According to the rules of the patriarchy, rearing children is a man’s job and if she’s not suited she better get suited because she’s not good for anything else.

This, on the other hand, is a load of bullshit.  Our current family law system grew out of what was termed the “tender years” doctrine.  This originated not in patriarchal norms, but in early (proto-)feminist activism; before that point, custody was always granted to men after divorce because the man was legally and financially responsible for the children.

Also, we think you meant “…rearing children is a woman’s job…”, but regardless the fact of the matter is you’re factually wrong about the issue.

3. Women are free to show emotions whereas men are condemned for it - By other men.  I don’t know many women who would dislike it if men began showing more emotion because it often causes communication issues within their hetero relationships.  It’s not considered “manly” to show emotion though so men prevent other men from doing it and women who perpetuate this are just going along with the patriarchy.

Considering that mothers tend to be primary drivers of emotional development in young boy’s lives, followed by (almost entirely female) grade school teachers, I think you should reconsider.  We can debate all day long about what women prefer to see in a guy, but already those are two primary enforcers, both mostly women.

Of course, the last part really just sinks you.  We could paraphrase your argument here as “well if men do it it’s men’s fault, but if women do it it’s also men’s fault.”  Any result can be interpreted to “support” what you’re saying, making your statement unfalsifiable and entirely void.  Try again.

I don’t think I can think of any other “privileges” women have beyond that???

Clearly you’re not looking very hard.  Every case of sexism against one sex is an example of privilege for the other, and we have a very long list of institutional and statistically demonstrable sexism against men.

Also, please do not pull the “you cited yourself, therefore it’s invalid” bullshit with us.  The thing we linked is a short list we made of male disadvantages so that we wouldn’t have to take up more space by writing them out again (and again, and again). If you question the validity of any of them and would like further citations, feel free to ask, but please don’t insult us by presuming we don’t have them.

MRA’s responding to your months and months old posts with utter bullshit?  It could happen.

We don’t comb through people’s blogs looking for stupidity, we see more than enough without having to look for it.  However, our queue is normally at least a couple weeks long, and we run 50-100 drafts at a time.  It’s far from unusual for a noxious but unimportant piece of bullshit to take a few months from first notice to response.

Regardless, your whole argument is really a red herring because it doesn’t actually matter who is enforcing female privilege.  Privilege is privilege, no matter who’s behind it, and your attempts to claim that female privilege enforced by men doesn’t count is nothing short of victim-blaming.

desperately-seeking-helena:

For example this girl I know was raped by her ex-boyfriend who was abusive and that is 100% true and it was not right for him to do that to her and it isn’t her fault.

She took it to the university honour court and when they heard her whole story, they said she was lying. So now my friend is starting this campaign against them…and I firmly believe that she should do that.

But here’s the thing, she’s calling them ‘sexist’ and ‘anti-women’ when that’s most likely not true.

She tried committing suicide twice last year, and this depression was caused by the guy who raped her. He was abusive and naturally that took toll on her mental state. She had at various points over the last year, been extremely emotionally unstable and not in her right mind.

Given the circumstances of that relationship, she honestly had reason to hate him and want to ruin his life. By knowing this girl, I know she wouldn’t ever do that to someone. I know she wouldn’t accuse him of rape to get revenge. She wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true.

But that honour court does not know her like I do. That honour court sees a person who has suffered physical and emotional abuse, depression, survived two suicide attempts, and has lost many friends in the process. That court saw someone who’s life was in shambles because of a guy and therefore saw that she had reason to want to hurt him back.

They didn’t believe her story. Not because she was a woman. It had nothing to do with her sexuality. It had to do with the facts they actually saw.

I know she’s telling the truth but that court doesn’t know her. They see a different story than I do. That isn’t sexist. That’s a court looking at facts.

And on this note we need to be very clear that while rape is a terrible crime and is something that no victim should ever be blamed for, there are many, many girls who do blame guys for rape to get attention or revenge. This happens all the time.

My friend worked in a courthouse last year. She took notes on small hearings and most all of the rape cases they saw were cases where a girl who was pissed off at her boyfriend for breaking up with her accused him of rape even though it was very, very obvious that she was making it up. Cases where girls thought they could get revenge on some petty breakup issue.

Not every single time someone doesn’t believe a rape story, is it sexist. Sometimes it’s just that the person doing the judging sees evidence to suggest that it’s made up.

You have to remember that rape is a very personal issue to deal with and knowing the truth really requires really good evidence or witnesses or many people who can say ‘yeah, that guy is a jerk’ or ‘she is not a liar’.

The people who make the judgements in court - they don’t know the victim personally. If they see mental instability (like my friend) they’re going to factor that in, whether it was really a factor or not. Same goes for a lot of different aspects.

The point is - a court doesn’t and can’t see the situation on the personal level that a victim does. And therefore it’s easy for them to assume the best in the accused.

And that’s not always because of sexists thinking. Sometimes it’s because of what the court actually sees, because a /lot/ of girls do falsely accuse guys of rape out of hatred or spite.

And that’s something we need to talk about. One of the worst, but untalked about thing that women do is think it’s okay to get revenge on exboyfriends (or girlfriends, I assume as well). And that is not okay.

That is a factor in the rape topic and it’s something we need to talk about. We need to make it aware that the women who pull crazy shit to get revenge on exes give the women with real problems a bad name.

That’s a thing we need to discuss.

And let me just make it /very/ /very/ clear that I’m not saying anyone is making up their rape story - I’m just saying that it’s something a lot of girls do and that it’s not okay for them to do it because it contributes to why some of the real victims don’t ever get their justice.

And yes, there are absolutely situations where sexism is the reason the victim isn’t believed. There absolutely victims who are blamed for their own rape. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen. I’m just saying that it’s not that only thing that happens and we need to work to stop both of those things from continuing to happen.