Please Stop the Gender-Baiting

Has anyone else noticed that whenever certain people – and by “certain people” I mean certain feminist internet “journalists”, bloggers, and YouTube celebrities – speak, they speak as if every single issue contains a component of male vs. female and then proceed to tell you how its all part of the “war on women?”

Am I the only person who has noticed this?

Its almost as if they are in a contest with each other to see who can generate the most inter-gender division. The goal seems to find the most outrageous way you can frame a narrative in order to make it absolutely about how the world is out to get women always, every time, regardless of what the specific issue actually happens to be. This seems to be a very popular method of talking to people, and I am constantly seeing more and more supposedly “mainstream” journalists, commenters, and talking heads beginning to follow this same route. Up to – and including – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton engaging in this same tactic at one point.

Honestly, what does it take to honestly see every single issue, every single event, every single thing in the world as being a part of the so-called “war on women?” What kind of special type of stupid does it take to hold this attitude? But the attitude is held nevertheless. I've actually had one of these people tell me, with a straight face, that “everything is misogyny.”

In a world where – supposedly – everything is misogyny, is anything really misogyny? Do they really believe this horse shit? Even more important, are the various non-involved masses who hear them talking buying into it?

If a man disagrees with this sort of absolute stance on misogyny – if he believes that catcalling, just to pick one issue out of the air, is subjective and that what one person might consider offensive and/or threatening might not be seen as offensive or threatening to another person, for example – he will inevitably be met with comments like, “You're such a misogynyst! You're talking about something you know nothing about! How dare you think you should have an opinion! Stop mansplaining!” Even if he has real world examples with which to support and validate his perspective, the people pushing the “everything is misogyny” party line will paint the man's viewpoint and statements as just another part of the “war on women”. No matter how right he is, he is wrong because he's male. And how dare he disagree in the first place, because only misogynists would dare disagree.

I am proud to say that I have female friends who think objectively as opposed to blindly falling in line with “the Sisterhood” that demands all women adhere to the “everything is misogyny” party line just because they are female. They are willing to logically analyze the arguments as presented and quite honestly have often disagreed with this attitude on the basis of fact rather than adherence to dogma.

The fact that not all people – men or women – use this same logical, reasonable process in thinking when it comes to gender issues is a damned crying shame. Instead, every single day there seems to be a widening division occurring between men and women, as if we were each other's enemies.

Women are not the enemy of men. The very idea is stupid.

So why do we allow these people to continue perpetuating the constant division between the genders?

Why?

By allowing these people to get away with perpetuating such a lie, their message spreads. It begins to seep into the consciousness of our children, which is why you have so many young girls today believing that rape is an act that all men everywhere are rapists just waiting for the chance to attack and violate a woman. That women must be on guard against men 24 hours a day, seven days a week lest they become victims of violence.

There is an interesting fact that these gender-baiters fail to mention, because they know this will undermine the paranoid bullshit they are promoting, and ought to nullify their agenda of dividing men and women into armed camps opposed to one another.

Simply put, men are four to five times as likely to be victims of violence than women are.

This nonsense has to stop. It has to stop. We as a society cannot afford to allow it to continue. I genuinely believe this this sort of thing is a form of brainwashing. It does nothing to help when it comes to solving the honest problems facing men and women. All it does is get us at each other's throats, and that helps no one.

If you want to have a conversation about gender and gender-based discrimination – whether the victim of the discrimination is male or female – then by all means go for it. Such conversations need to happen. But gender-baiting puts a stop to the discussion before it begins, and does more harm than good.

Idiot Men and Wise Women

Consider your average commercial.

As the scene opens, some moronic clown of a man, usually a husband, is struggling to figure out how to do some basic task correctly and is failing miserably. It doesn't really matter what he's doing (laundry, sweeping, doing the dishes, even something as simple as eating lunch...), he's doing it wrong.

But don't worry about him, he's covered! For sure enough, an all-knowing woman (usually his wife but sometimes his co-worker) is there to pull his bacon from the fire. Rolling her eyes and shaking her head in pity, she saves the idiot of a man before he utterly ruins everything. And of course the product being peddled is usually part of the solution. And afterward, the all-wise woman gathers with some of her fellow women (all of whom are wise) and has a nice laugh about the guy, who can be seen in the background messing something else up.

And, by the way, did I mention that the man is stupid?

And of course we’re all supposed to laugh: “Ha, Ha, Ha look at that stupid guy. What an idiot! Good thing all that women were around, right? Because men can't be trusted to breathe and chew gum at the same time without messing it up!"

Now, sometimes there is a variant of this commercial in which it is a pack of children, almost always led and spoken for by a girl, who are the all-wise rescuers of the helpless idiotic father figure. They (the children) step in with the product and save the day.

You know, I have no idea who these people are trying to sell things to, but I know its not me, because commercials like this tend to make me boycott those products. I refuse to give my money to any company that, in their commercials, says to me "Buy our product, you stupid schmuck!"

Now, this is not to say I lack a sense of humor or I lack the ability to laugh at myself from time to time, but I have to tell you, after the thirtieth or fortieth time in a single day I see the "Idiot Man/Wise Woman" style of commercial, I'm tired of laughing and am getting irritated about what is clearly a problem.

You see, I think these commercials are actually hurting our society. They are helping to promote and continue the sexist (not to mention false) attitude that men are all incompetent doofuses who need someone smarter and wiser (not to mention female) to watch over/control/guide them before they hurt themselves or someone else.

Even worse, what are these commercials teaching to children? From what I can see, they're teaching children (especially male children) that adult men are idiotic, crude, foolish, lustful, and untrustworthy. A steady diet of disrespect for a single gender served up in commercials that adult men (especially their own fathers) are to be laughed at, abused, and generally disrespected.

What a healthy message to teach any child, much less a young boy. How does constantly being told that when he grows up, a boy will be a man who is lazy, unfaithful, inappropriate, rude, addicted to beer, unclean and unkept, inattentive, addicted to beer, and an utter moron help that boy become a decent human being?

The "men are idiots" message in these commercials might have a certain humor about it (it is fun to make light of the honest differences between men and women, after all) but in the end, its not the attitude we need to be cultivating. Women do owe men respect, if only as fellow human beings, in the same way that men owe women respect.

Constant ridicule of one segment of society is not helpful for anyone.

I've spoken on this subject before and people have responded with "Yeah, well, its just a joke." Yeah, well, its not funny anymore. One woman told me that "These commercials reflect our culture." Really? You mean to tell me that you think the men in your life (your fathers, your husbands, your sons, and your friends) are truly like this? That they are all idiots and morons who can't be trusted to tie their shoes correctly? What a wonderful opinion you have of them.

Try reversing the roles in these commercials and making the women the butt of the joke and see how funny you think they are after the twentieth time you see women depicted like that. See how soon you decide to boycott the product they are selling in the commercial.

Commercial advertisement, like all forms of public media, not only reflects our common culture but helps shape it. So I ask one more time, how does all this negativity toward men and boys affect the public perception of male human beings in general? I can't see it affecting them in any way but harmfully.

The truth is that its not just the commercials.  There are almost no healthy, balanced portrayals of men in our current popular culture. Its not just the morons displayed in the commercials, its the fact that men are generally portrayed as over-aggressive, overly violent, crude, dirty, and hyper-sexualized. In popular media, the "heroes" are often amoral, out of control, and bordering on criminal when they aren't seen as unintelligent, weak, and ineffectual.

None of which helps anyone become good, caring, attentive, and most importantly responsible husbands and fathers.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

So I've been watching the continual, ongoing manufactured outrage over Women Against Feminism.  If you don't know what this group is, its just what it says:  a group of women (of all ages, walks of life, backgrounds, ethnicities, and so on) who have basically said "I've had enough of the Feminist Movement's bullshit" and are making public statements to that effect.

For those who are unfamiliar, these women regularly produce selfies where they are holding up signs that declare that they don't need Feminism, followed by a variable-length list of reasons why.  (One of the most popular reasons being "Because I think both genders are worthy of respect, not just the one that has all the uteruses".)

The signs have all been polite, and have stated these women's public disagreement with the accepted dogma of modern feminism (that is, the don't believe all men are rapists, they don't believe we live in a rape culture, and they don't believe that not getting your way all the time equates to being oppressed).

The reactions from feminists has really tweaked my appreciation for irony.

Seriously.

The fury displayed at the thought that there might be some woman, somewhere, who thinks Feminism might be a bad thing has been hilarious to watch.  These women have been called whores, traitors, and brain-washed self-hating misogynists.  They've been threatened with death, and even more amusingly, threatened with rape by feminists who otherwise are busily accusing every man who even looks at a woman funny as being a rapist.

What's truly remarkable, though, is that, amid the the cat-calls and insults and rape threats and the statements that these poor deluded women who are committing the crime of not marching in lockstep with the Feminism Sisterhood just do not understand what Feminism really means and thus need to educate themselves, there has been an upswelling of support from older, more established, professional women who apparently have been harboring bad-feelings about "the movement" and how its been actively and intentionally hurting men for years, but who have never had the courage to say anything in support of men's issues before now.


I find it very, very interesting that it took a bunch of women vocally rebelling against the usual Feminist ideology to get prominent (and not so prominent) Feminists all over the world to finally start paying attention -- if only for a moment -- to the very same issues that men in the Humanist community have been talking about for decades now.  Apparently when these issues were brought up by men, they weren't actually worthy of consideration.  Men who complained about the problems with modern Feminism and how it is hurting both men and women were brushed off and ignored, or worse yet slapped with the insidious "Misogynist" label simply because they were men.  Feminism was thus able to refuse to engage in any sort of meaningful debate with men about these problems.  But now that it is women making these comments, its a bit harder to dismiss men's issues as the product of misogyny.  No one is buying the idea that the women making the comments are all brainwashed.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Modern Feminism.

Not that the Feminists aren't trying.  The utter outright bloodthirsty rage displayed at these women who have broken with the official party line by Feminists is, in a word, disgusting.  These women, whose only crime is to hold a dissenting opinion, are treated as air-headed bimbos, know-nothing uneducated, stupid, brain-washed, sluts who are only disagreeing with Feminism because they desperately seek a man who will take control of their lives and return them to the status of chattel.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Most of the women involved in #WomenAgainstFeminism are highly-educated college graduates who've simply made decisions based on the evidence provided.

If I could be excused for a moment, I'd like to "mansplain" something to all those Feminists who go into a red-eyed rage over these women, because they are clearly missing the point.  Over and over and over in the Feminist-generated critiques of these young women, I kept reading accusation after accusation of how these women apparently did not understand what Feminism was "all about".  I saw dozens of complaints that these young women simply "did not get it."  Feminism wasn't about the things these women were complaining about, whatever that happened to be, it was about EQUALITY.  These feminist critics would quote the dictionary definition of the word "Feminism".  They'd quote great feminist minds of the past.  They'd cite actions done back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s that led women to the positions and rights they now enjoy.


Except not everybody is buying what the feminist critics are selling, and apparently that's not only angering feminists, its enraging them.

I'm not going to lie to you.  Among the small community of people who give a damn about men's issues, there's quite a bit of gloating and sarcastic laughter going on about how Feminism is now being devoured from within over this.  A lot of us predicted this sort of thing, and damned if we weren't proven right.  But we're not really gloating.  We're just basking in our collective vindication.

The reason why Women Against Feminism is truly getting under the skin of Feminists about all this is because while Feminism is a political ideology, in a lot of ways its become very similar to a religious cult.  Sure, the inner circle, the great minds, have been preaching equality and tolerance and balance and all that good stuff.  But in the mean time, the more aggressive, antagonistic, utterly misandrist wing of the Feminist movement has effectively become the public face of it.  The public image of Feminism has been tarnished by women whose agenda isn't "equality" but really, truly is "hurt the men because they're men."

Not all feminists are like that?  Conceded.  So the fuck what?  When the loudest and most politically active feminists are like that, I don't care what you say, they are the ones driving the bus.  Let me be blunt for a second:  what has happened to the Feminist movement is the same thing that has happened to the Republican party at the hands of the Tea Party.  In an effort to appease the loudest voices and to maintain the appearance of unity, the Feminist movement has allowed those loudest voices, the ones belonging to the real man-haters out there, to dictate the direction in which the entire movement would move forward.

Or at least that's how it looks like, and perception is everything.

There's a reason why less than half of all adult women in America now identify themselves as Feminists.  Its because Feminism has become so associated with man-hate that even those Feminists who want no part of that particular kind of poison end up painted with it.  And even worse, three decades of systematically demonizing men and masculinity has managed to drive nearly all men away from the banner of organized Feminism.  There was a time when I would have proudly declared myself as a Feminist, because I believed (and still believe) in equality for all.  But I believe in full equality, which means that you have to take the good with the bad:  if women want to enjoy all the benefits of society that men do, then they have to allow men to enjoy all the benefits of society that women do.  That means we have to end the practice of giving women lesser criminal sentences for the same crime; we have to give men an equal footing with women in family courts; we have to give equal respect to male victims of sexual violence; we have to spend just as much time and money researching men's health issues as women's health issues, and so on


You know... all those "imaginary" men's issues that most Feminists brush off with a casual dismissal, when they acknowledge they exist at all, because the Feminists don't see them as unimportant.


Yeah, well, they're important to me, and to a lot of other people.  Which is why we don't want anything to do with Feminism.

Since the 80s, individual Feminists and organized Feminist organizations have made it quite clear that they don't want men along for their ride.  After all, we were the problem, and as the problem we could not be part of the solution.  The more men tried to not be part of the problem, the more men were demonized for merely being men.  Whether they intended to do this or not, organized Feminism, as a movement, became associated with the callous disregard of all things masculine, and with a deep disrespect for men in general.

And let me tell you, it has grown so bad that men cannot get together in a public forum and discuss issues like the epidemic of male homelessness (over 80% of all homeless people are men), or male suicide (over 75% of all suicides are men), or work place deaths (over 90% of all victims of workplace deaths are men) without having Feminists organize protests, make death threats and bomb threats, and threaten boycotts against the venue that dared let these meeting happen within their halls.


I mean, think about it.  Apparently, the very idea of men getting having the temerity, the utter gall, to get together to discuss male health issues was seen by organized Feminists as some sort of attack on women, and thus organized Feminists decided right then and there that such a meeting had to be stopped by any means necessary.


And by "any means" I mean death threats against the organizers, bomb threats against the venue, false reports to the police regarding criminal activity, physically blocking the entrances of the conference (and physically attacking anyone, male or female, who tried to run this blockade), and other criminal and border-line criminal means to disrupt the conference.

All because someone decided that a discussion regarding men's health issues, and how they are basically ignored in the United States, was necessary.  Classy behavior on the part of Feminism, don't you think?

You know, once upon a time, men were a lot more supportive of Feminism than most of us are today; but what did that support buy us?  Accusations that we're oppressors.  Taunts based on our perceived status as "privileged" that utterly ignored the disadvantages we suffer.  We were made the butt of jokes and casually hateful attitudes so often and so pervasively that these days many of these jokes have become common wisdom.  No effort was spared to heap shame and guilt on our gender merely for existing.  We supported the quest for reproductive freedom and the right of women to own their own bodies, and in return we were painted as closet rapists that needed constant supervision lest we suddenly attack someone.   Feminists savage so-called "male feminists" with particular delight because despite being supportive, they still insist on being male.

And when we realized that there was absolutely nothing we could do, when there was absolutely nothing we could say, that would show Feminists that we weren't the monsters they were accusing us of being, when we realized that there was no use in trying to make Feminists happy with us, and threw the towel in and stopped trying to appease them, we were labeled "misogynist".  So we left the table in disgust.  We're no longer interested in jumping through Feminism's hoops, because there's always one more hoop to jump through with no reward for it at the end.


It is no longer in the best interests of men to support Feminism at all.

Congratulations, ladies.  You've turned a population of willing supporters into people who are indifferent, or even hostile, to your political ideology.  Not because they hate women, but because they are tired of being your punching bags.

Like with the Republicans and the Tea Party, you played to your base and alienated the mainstream.  You have treated men like shit for decades, and some of us take it personally.  A lot of us carry scars from our treatment at the hands of Feminists.

And we're tired of it. 

I Did Check My Privilege... and You're Still Wrong!

I've spoken about this before, but I think its time to bring it up again.  The entire concept of privilege, as the word is used by the Social Justice Warriors, is bothersome, over-convenient, and, to be honest, a cop-out.


White privilege.  Male privilege.  Hetero-privilege.  The list just gets longer by the day.


These supposedly privileged groups of people are believed to have certain inherent advantages based on their ethnicity, their gender, their sexual orientation, and so on.  And because they supposedly all enjoy these bonuses in life, they have no right to hold opinions, or to express those opinions, when it comes to the issue-du-jour.


The truth is, the concept of privilege is just being used to stop meaningful discussion before it begins by shaming the so-called "privileged" person into silence.  The phrase "check your privilege" is an easy way to say, "I know more than you do, so shut the fuck up already."  Its a cheap attempt to make someone feel guilty about things they have no control over.


Not to mention, its utterly stupid.


Should women not have opinions on things that only affect men?  If I ever encounter a woman commenting on the Selective Service, or testicular cancer, or male disposability, should I tell her to "check her privilege" because, as a woman, she enjoys "female privilege" and thus isn't allowed to voice an opinion on these issues?


Seriously, guys... if we keep this sort of exclusionary bullshit up, we're never going to truly overcome racism and sexism.  The discussions about these problems have to include everyone's opinions, everyone's views.  Everyone's views.  Even the views of people we disagree with.  If they don't include everyone, then they aren't actually discussions.  They're lectures.  And lectures don't convince people who feel they are being attacked for something they do not and cannot control.  Like the fact that they are men.  Or are white.


I think the worst part of the entire idea of privilege as its used by the Social Justice Warriors is that it creates preconceived opinions about people you really do not know.  Seriously, saying that I (for example) benefit from "white male privilege" in response to something that I say assumes that I (as the white male in question) have it easier than you do; that I don't have to struggle just as hard (if not harder) than you do just to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.


Perhaps before accusing me of "white male privilege" you should check your own prejudices and acknowledge that you do not know me well enough to make those sorts of judgments.  Have you ever considered the fact that I might be unemployed and on the edge of poverty?  Have you considered that I might be blind, or deaf, or in a wheelchair, and thus suffer from some limiting disability?  Have you considered that I might have terminal cancer and am slowly dying?  Maybe I've got crushing depression and constantly battle suicidal thoughts all day.


Just because I have a penis and my skin is a pale shade of peach does not automatically mean my life is easy.  It doesn't mean that at all.


You remember that old joke about what assuming things makes out of you and me, right?


The concept of "privilege" as the Social Justice Warriors use it puts people in individual boxes that are carefully labeled, and it insists we see these people, all of whom are just as multi-faceted as you are, and all of whom have lives as complex as you do, as nothing more than the labels attached to the boxes.  Someone needs to explain to me how seeing people as labels is a desirable thing.


Sorry, guys, but life doesn't work that way.  People are not labels.  People are way too complicated for that.  Sure, I might have some shared experiences with other white men, but I'm sure that if you compared me to any other randomly selected white guy you'd find plenty about our lives that was utterly different.  Different personalities, different likes and dislikes, different incomes, different cultural background, differences in intelligence and education, different life struggles, differences in political opinion.


Different advantages.  Different disadvantages.


Some people have told me that privilege exists because "all else being equal," certain people are inherently more privileged than other people.  But this is nonsense.  When, I ask you, are any two random people exactly the same except for one specific characteristic?  When?  When the hell does that ever happen in the real world?  This argument fails spectacularly because the way someone is treated depends on the situation.  In some cases, yes, being a white male might work to my advantage, but it could just as easily be a liability in other cases.


And the same goes for any other ethnicity-gender combination.


We can and should empathize with others.  I have no idea what its like to live as a black man or a gay woman.  But here's the thing:  I have no idea what its like to live as the randomly selected white guy I used in one of my previous examples, either.  And here's something else:  they have no fucking clue how it is to live as me.


Because no one on the face of the Earth is living a life identical to mine.  No one.


So anyway... I guess what I am trying to say here is that I think the world would be a better place if we stopped making arrogant assumptions about other people based on superficial classifications like skin color or what sort of genitalia they're carrying around.  Every individual faces different problems in their life, and no one else is really able to understand what they are going through completely.


Your background differs from mine.  Hell, your background differs from that of your siblings and your parents and your children.  And because of this, you should keep an open mind and recognize that communication is a two-way street.

You're Just a Misogynist

For those of you who haven't ever heard the phrase "shaming tactics" before, let me introduce you to one of the worst and most insidious "weapons" in the debate over men's issues.

In the context of the men's rights debate, a shaming tactic is an emotional device used by people (both men and women) who refuse to argue their points with logic, but rather try to force a debate to shut down.  They are meant to elicit sympathy for those who use them, and paint the target of the shaming tactic as unacceptable, outcast, and anathema.  They are cheap tricks used not to comment on the point that someone is making, but rather on the person making the point and how they are making it.

Basically, its just another form of Ad hominem attack.  The people who use shaming tactics cannot respond intelligently to the points of an argument, so they're going to convince everyone the person they are arguing against is a bad person so no one will listen to them.

Its cheap, to be honest.

Take this shaming tactic, for instance:  "You're just a misogynist!"

Yep.  You got me.

I'm not trying to raise awareness of men's issues because I want to try and help men who have been victimized.  I don't really want to stop discrimination against men.  I don't really want to stop unfair practices that put men at a disadvantage merely because they possess a Y chromosome.

What, are you kidding?  Why would I do that?

Nope.  It has to be that I hate women.

There's no other reason for it at all.

All that stuff I've written about how male rape victims are ignored, or how male domestic violence victims are treated as jokes was just written just because I'm blind to the rampant misogyny that makes up the very fabric of everything to do with modern society, because I'm a man, and therefore am a beneficiary and promoter of that misogyny.

Oh, and all those female friends I have who happen to agree with me about the problems involved in modern gender issues?

Yeah, they've internalized the misogyny so badly that they've been brainwashed into thinking that its okay to hate women.

Since the 1980s, and perhaps longer, the accusation of misogyny has been the most reliable shaming tactic available to those people who want to make sure that absolutely no attention at all is paid to men's issues.  It's the most common way to bully both male and female activists who support men's issues into silence.

Say something a they doesn't like, get called a misogynist.

Criticize one of their theories or actions?  Misogynist.

Disagree with their analysis of a problem, or object to their proposed solution?  You're a filthy rape-promoting misogynist.  You're only saying that because you hate women.  You're only being critical because you hate women.  You're only pointing out the holes in the their argument because you hate women.

It has nothing to do with you're having a better argument, or being more logical, or being more rational.  Its all about the hating women.  And this applies even if you are a woman.  Being female doesn't get you off the hook, because you obviously suffer from internalized misogyny!  You're so oppressed by misogyny that you've been brainwashed into thinking like a misogynist!

Believe it or not, up until really recently, this worked every time it was used.  This is changing, mostly because accusations of misogyny are being made for the most petty, ridiculous reasons.

To give you an example, the other day (I write this on December 27, 2014), I saw a man being accused of misogyny for the "crime" of saying that he thinks Miley Cyrus is a "bad influence" on young girls, and thus has forbidden his nine-year-old daughter from watching Cyrus's videos.  That's apparently what floats as misogyny to modern feminism.

And its happening so often, and in response to such silly nonsense, that regular folk not engaged in the gender-issue debate are developing a resistance to it.  And of course, there are more and more of us who, when someone tries to shame us into silence by accusing of of misogyny, are refusing to shut up.

Here's something to think about:  if, as we hear every day, we are living in a culture in which misogyny is so pervasive as to be normalized, why the hell would an accusation of misogyny hold any power?  Remember, our society hates women.  Right down to the very bones, our society is set up to oppress women, and the men in our society are raised from birth to hate women.  But if so, why would it ever be considered a threat to label someone a misogynist?

If misogyny really was that ever-present in our society as, say, brown-eyed people, then why would the accusation of misogyny be any more effective than being called brown-eyed?

And no, before you start, I am not saying that there are no misogynists out there.  I'm not saying that there really aren't people out there who despise and hate women just for being women.  No one with a working brain would ever say that.

However, the problem is a relatively small handful of complete and total assholes who, for reasons that I cannot and doubt I ever will be able to comprehend, despise and denigrate women, not the entire gender, no matter what these people say.

An accusation of misogyny could only have the power to shame someone into silence in a society that is not inherently misogynystic.  As Albert Camus said, "The power of an insult is the power to bring the weight of society's disapproval upon an individual."  In order for such an accusation to have any effect, it requires the culture in general to disapprove of the behavior, attitude, or attribute in question.  The fact that an accusation of misogyny works as a shaming tactic to silence and bully people, or to damage their lives and social status, reflects a society that is not actually misogynystic.  The fact that this shaming tactic is inordinately effective when used against men also demonstrates that people who say that our society is misogynystic are, to put it bluntly, full of shit.

To put it bluntly, if hating women were normal for our culture, if all men really are raised from birth to hate women, then calling a man a misogynist would be as useless as calling a person brown-eyed. 

Let's look at the reverse for a moment:  "You're just a misandrist!"

Call someone in today's society a misandrist, and the most common reaction you're going to receive back is a puzzled look because the person will likely not have the first damned clue as to what that word means.  And the most common reaction from the small handful of people who do know what it means will be a shrug and a dismissive "whatever."  Others will be puzzled because they can't figure out how their sexist, anti-male opinions and attitudes, supported as they are by "common wisdom" and popular culture, could be considered anti-male sexism.

And then you get my favorite reaction:  those people who laugh and then make jokes about men being butthurt and "manfeelz" and "drinking male tears."

You know, the shitheads who will blithely explain that misandry just don't exist, and that the only people who bring up misandry are the misogynistic asshole rape-promoters, so shut the fuck up already you fucking woman-hater!

Some of the more polite misandry-deniers will tell you, with a straight face, that "misandry" is nothing more than secondary misogyny.

No, really.  "Misandry", the hatred of men, is just a different type of misogyny.

These people will point out that its a proven fact that misogyny is the root cause of ALL sexism, regardless of the target, and because of this fact, misandry is just an unfortunate side effect that would not exist without misogyny.  The only reason, these idiots argue, that women denigrate men is because of a long history of suffering under the bootheels of those same men.

This implies that misandry will, as if by magic, disappear once we’ve exposed and rooted out all the misogyny in society and properly cleansed our filthy sexist souls of it.

And yet, you see hashtags and memes and entire facebook groups proudly proclaiming things like Men Are Pigs (the name of a real facebook group) and #killallmen.  There's a forum website out there called ihatemen.org that has a quarter million subscribed users, some of whom are national-level politicians, scientists, and teachers at major universities.  There is a series of children's books out there, along with associated merchandise, called "Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them".

It's no wonder people aren't shamed into silence or into altering their behavior by an accusation of misandry.  Accusing someone of hating men doesn't have the power to shame them or make them stop what they are doing.  This is because society’s values are such that even if hating men is not exactly considered a good thing, its not considered a bad thing either, especially if the person who is doing the hating is a woman.

Here's another question I want you to think about:  if misogyny is supposed to be the ultimate cause of all sexism, and if misandry is just an unfortunate side effect of it, then why is misandry so much more socially acceptable than misogyny?

Just think about it for a second.

The Friend Zone, the Appliance Zone, and the Reality of Relationships

Last night I encountered it again.  A bunch of people were going on about the "friend zone."

"The friend zone is just another piece of male bullshit from guys who are nice to girls because they want to have sex, and when they don't get it are disappointed."  This continued on with the quote "A woman is not a machine you can keep putting coins into until sex drops out of it."  Another person said, "The entire concept of the friend zone is about self-centeredness.  The guy is so self-centered he thinks he's owed sex for being courteous."

Well... that's certainly one demented way to look at it, I suppose.

Of course, its also an insulting and painfully sexist way of looking at it.  These women are once again assuming that all men, especially the "nice" ones, are only out to get sex.  That nice men are only "nice" because they want to fuck someone.  That the guys who use the phrase "friend zone" are just disappointed because instead of getting some pussy, they're getting a "consolation prize" in the form of a woman's friendship.


Once again men are reduced to the status of sex-obsessed lackwits whose sole motivation for anything is the uncontrollable urge to have sex with anything possessing a vagina.  If you can't see why this is offensive and sexist, then you're part of the problem.  Just sayin'.


The point of this isn't that this view is sexist.  The point is that this view is just wrong, period.

God forbid a person, whether male or female, occasionally wants something more than friendship.  Friendships are important, but occasionally a person, again whether they be male or female, wants something more than friendship.  Sometimes they want a solid romantic long-term relationship that, I don't know, might lead to marriage, kids, and a lifetime together.  And if the people in question are "disappointed" about anything, its that a person they are interested in has let them know in the worst possible way that such prospects just aren't in the cards.

Consider for a moment the ultimate meaning of "the only reason a man is nice to a woman is that he wants to have sex with her."  I'm fairly nice to my mother.  I take her out to dinner all the time.  Occasionally buy her flowers to brighten up her day.  Take her to the movies because she doesn't get out of the house all that often.  Apparently, its all because I want to have sex with her, right?

Right?


I know this is going to come to a great surprise to those women who believe the bullshit I quoted in the first paragraph, but there are a lot of men out there who are truly nice guys.  They're interested more in being in a loving, supportive caring relationship than they are in just getting into a woman's pants.  Oh sure, if sex becomes available as a part of that relationship, that's fine.  But their first motive, the motive that drives them to be supportive, to cherish the woman he is interested in and treat her as if she was a Queen, isn't, never has been, and never will be sex.  Its all about love, folks.

And no, I'm not saying that the women in question owe the men "romance".  Or sex.  Or anything at all, for that matter.  You're all adults, and you can do whatever the heck you want to do, and if that means telling a man who is interested in you that you simply aren't that's your perogative.  You can date whomever you want, or not, as you please.  You can't help who you like, and if you don't like the guy in question you don't like him.  But keep in mind that goes both ways.  He can't help who he likes, and if he likes you, he likes you.  And it doesn't mean he isn't allowed to be disappointed that you told him he has no chance at all.  He's allowed his emotional reactions just like you're allowed yours.  He wanted more, and you rebuffed him, usually by saying something like "You're such a good friend" and "Why can't I ever find anyone who's as wonderful as you are?"  And let me be honest:  you crouching the rejection in such kind terms only twisted the knife you just stabbed him in the heart with all the more.

By the way, the "friend zone" does exist for women.  Its not just a male-only thing.  Its just that when it happens to women they call it "unrequited love."  Unrequited love is the subject of romance novels, and soap operas, and movies, and other forms of popular entertainment.  No one writes articles entitled "Unrequited Love:  A Sign of Misogyny and Rape Culture," as they do about the "friend zone".  Its the same damned thing, but as with so many other things in regard to men and women and how they interact, the double-standard is pretty fucking strong.

And yeah, it happened to me once.  I met Karen in kindergarten, when we were both six or so.  Over the ensuing decade, we were in nearly ever class together in school.  We hung out on the weekends.  We saw movies together and played board games and went swimming and basically became best friends.  I carried her books for her and helped her when she asked me to and I listened to her when she had problems and needed to talk.  By the time we were 16, I was pretty firmly in love with her.

I'm a classic romantic.  If you're in a relationship with me, you can expect flowers and poetry and dinners I cooked just for you and making sure you're happy to the best of my ability.  For me, its not about the sex, and it never has been.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sex when there is sex to be enjoyed, but I do not and have never really appreciated sex outside of the context of a committed relationship, because its always felt empty and not as emotionally satisfying.  If given the choice between some hot, heavy, intense one-time sex with a stranger tomorrow, and a long-term loving relationship that lasted for years before the subject of sex ever came up, if it ever actually came up at all, I'd choose the relationship.  Every time.

So anyway, Karen.  I was, as I said, firmly in love with her by the time we were both 16.  But she was more interested in the jocks at school.  That I remember, she dated three of them during our junior high and high school years.  Each one of them was a conceited prick, and their relationships with Karen ended the way a relationship with a conceited prick always ends.  And when she'd show up at my door, crying over having her heart broken, again, I'd console her and make her tea and tell her that she was worth more than they were and that she'd recover and life would move on.

I know this will come as a surprise to the women I quoted in paragraph one, but at no time did the thought "I'll be a nice guy to her and then I'll get to fuck her" enter my mind.  What was in my mind was that my friend, the girl I did have feelings for, was hurting, and it was my job as her friend to make her feel better by letting her know that a breakup with a schmuck was not the end of the world.  And it worked.  After a good cry and a long talk, she was feeling better.  Then she'd go out, find the next schmuck jock, and the cycle would begin all over again.

Except that third time, after the good cry and the long talk, Karen looked right at me and smiled.  She put her hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, "Why can't I ever find anyone who's as wonderful as you, Jack?"


Yeah, that hurt.


It hurt something serious.


I have no doubt she meant that question to be a compliment to me.


But it still hurt.


It hurt so bad that it made me reevaluate my relationship with Karen.  And it changed our relationship, too.  We were never as close again as we were before that.  You see, what changed was that I became aware of my purpose in Karen's life.  I wouldn't call it being in "the friend zone", I'd call it being in the "appliance zone."

I'd thought about our relationship and I came to the realization that, for a decade or so, I'd been a pillar of support for Karen.  Every time she was upset, I was there to help her deal.  When she needed something done and couldn't do it, she'd ask me to do it and I'd do it gladly.  I'd buy her snacks without ever asking for her assistance paying.  I'd bring her ice cream when she was sick, and cookies when she was unhappy.  I'd buy her birthday and Christmas presents and occasionally would surprise her with things I knew she'd like just to see her smile.

And she never once reciprocated.  In ten years, she never once showed up at my house when I was sick with an ice cream cone.  She never once helped me deal with an emotional issue I was going through.  She never once consoled me when I broke up with one of the girls I dated during High School.  She never once offered to carry my books or help paint my bedroom or any of the other services I'd given her over the decade.

My relationship with Karen, it turned out, was all take and no give, with Karen in the role of taker and I in the role of giver.  And the realization that I'd been used by this girl I thought was my friend soured me on her.

As I said, I call it the "Appliance Zone."  The "appliance zone" is when when you are used for favors, or as a source of gifts, or emotional support, or unpaid labor by others for years with little to no return on your courtesy.  Now, don't get me wrong, lending an extra set of hands occasionally when someone needs to move a couch is what friends do.  But being asked for, and having it taken for granted that you will supply, an unending series of "favors" by someone who has never had the slightest thought of reciprocating such behavior, should the situation be reversed, is when you are being used (or even abused) as an appliance.

Friendship -- real friendship -- is not a one way street.

And don't think that Karen was the only person to treat me this way.  I can't tell you how many times I've been there for people, both men and women, who will tell me all their problems.  I listen, I offer advice when they need it.  I help out in all kinds of other ways too.  And then when its my turn to need support I can't find any, especially from the people I'd previously helped.

To give you an idea of how bad it can get, I was once asked to help plan and cater a party for a couple of "friends" who, once the planning was done and the food delivered, cheerfully informed me that I wasn't actually invited to the party I just helped put together and spent nearly twelve hours cooking for.  Folks, I'm a professional chef; when people ask me for my services as a caterer, I charge $60 an hour, and I am worth every penny.  If they'd asked me to cut them a break on my prices for catering, I'd have done it because they were friends.  But the way I see it, they stole from me under the guise of me "being a friend and helping out."

It should be assumed that I am no longer friends with that couple.

I want it made clear, though, that I do not pretend that women do this to men more often than the reverse.  I will say, however, that more women have used me like this than men.  Of course, some of my female friends I've talked to (and I should point out that these female friends have never "appliance zoned" me) say that they've been treated that way more often by men.  It might just be that people of the other gender treat us like this more often, regardless to which gender we happen to belong.

I still help people out when I'm asked.  I'll even help strangers, because that's just who I am.  I don't expect anything in return except being treated decently and being treated with respect.  But it can be damned annoying when my helpfulness gets taken for granted and used.  Being taken for granted creates a resentment in you, and the resentment that builds up is utterly reasonable.  That's not being treated decently, and its not being treated with respect.

Its being treated like an appliance.  Like a toaster.

I find it significant that when you are there for other people, and are getting used by these other people, without ever receiving any form of basic courtesy in return, when you suddenly stand up for yourself and object to being treated like an appliance, all of a sudden you are a bitter villain who apparently has been keeping score and are now expecting a reward.

And that, of course, utterly misses the point.  Its not about keeping score.  Its not about receiving a reward.  Its about being treated respectfully.  And if you don't think that I, or any other human being, deserves to be respected, you can go fuck yourself.

When genuinely nice people, be they men or women, get overlooked time and time and time again for people who are less generous, it sends a really strong message that we, the truly nice people, need to either become less generous towards other people, or else need to accept that we're just not going to find anyone who is worth the effort.


I'm not saying that there aren't some true assholes out there who are just trying to get into your pants, and I'm actually sorry that you might have encountered one of these fuckheads.  But the generalizations about men need to stop.  Just because a handful of men are jackholes does not mean we are all jackholes.  A lot of us are actually decent human beings, and we try to do right by other people.  We do not pull the bullshit you are complaining about.

And the zone, whether you call it the friend zone or the appliance zone, exists.  It isn't bullshit.  Its quite real.  And it sucks major ass.  Both men and women suffer through it even though no one uses those terms when the genders are reversed.  It even happens in same-sex relationships.  It is what happens when one person wants something more with someone else, and the other person doesn't feel the same way.  It isn't a consolation prize.  It is a specific relationship state:  Person A wants more.  Person B doesn't, but wants to remain friends with Person A.

No conspiracies involved.  No ulterior motives.  That's all it is.