The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In Which a Grumpy Lesbian Offers Her Feminist Understanding of Men

Posted on | February 3, 2015 | 49 Comments

You know, just once, it would be nice if we heard a married grandmother’s analysis of male psychology, sharing insights from her happy life with her husband, raising sons and daughters, observing their experience of dating and marriage and so forth.

Grant that men are always irritated by female criticism — it injures our pride and puts us on the defensive — but we might be willing to heed such criticism if it came from a woman who was successful in her own relationships with men. Instead we get lectured by emotionally unstable graduate students and various professional ax-grinders who have made careers of proclaiming their oppressed victimhood.

“The personal is the political,” and so feminist analysis nearly always emerges from the experiences of maladjusted misfits.

But why bring up Laurie Penny again?

No, let’s consult the amateur feminists of Tumblr.com. Here is Lost Princess of the Lizard People (“40 .. . gay, female . . . geek”) attempting to analyze Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs):

One of the funny things about MRAs is, many of their ideals seem self-contradictory — for example — not wanting to compete with women in the workforce, but at the same time, angry about female freeloading (I’ve even heard arguments that resent women for having sex work as an alternative to homelessness — totally ignoring the existence of men who do sex work — and that argue that women even take traditionally female dominated jobs away from men), They also tend to scream pretty loudly about their resentment of the traditional male role. They call women prudes on the one hand but sluts on the other.
It would seem this doesn’t make any sense. This is not what your chauvinist grandpa from Texas would’ve ever said; this is not the sexism we’re familiar with. It seems so ridiculous. Is anyone really this stupid??
Most seem like they’re espousing some kind of progressivism out of one side of their mouth and traditional chauvinism out of the other, and it seems so self contradictory …
What I am realizing is that no, these guys aren’t actually stupid. Many MRA attitudes are part of a larger, self-consistent world view. Let’s look at the things so many are into: a particularly radicalized form of atheism (rejection of traditional religions). Your chauvinist grandpa was all for organized religion. Objectivism, though strangely, from the other side of their mouth, they sound like they want a weird form of communism wherein they are just given accolades and raises and bonuses and kudos without ever earning them. Your chauvinist grandpa was too proud for that and even had a sense of fulfillment in hard work. And then there’s all the Libertarianism and anti-statism. Your chauvinist grandpa was an old school patriotic man, all for the military-industrial complex.
Instead of looking at MRAs only in terms of their misogyny facet, why not examine the entire picture?
They want to be aristocrats. They’re under the impression that this is the birthright of all white men. They don’t SAY this, but … it’s the only way their worldview makes sense, because from that point of view, the views that seemed contradictory, actually make sense. The “alpha/beta” (heirarchies), “Return of Kings” (an MRA site) brand aristocratic or even royal branding (this language pops up a lot) … it’s the only thing that makes this whole thing make sense.
This is a reason why arguments against them fail, because most people can’t figure out what their stand actually is, and get caught up in the vacillation. They listen hard to what’s being said but miss what was actually NOT said.
This is the only way that their superficially contradictory views make any sense. . If they were — they wouldn’t be competing with women, let alone other men, except very high status men. Any women they partnered with would come with their own wealth and *born* status (but low-status women of course would be sexually used and disposed of). They wouldn’t personally have to deal with the labor involved in running a household and they would be awarded kudos and pay without having to work overly hard for it.
Taken this way, their views about women become logically consistent, and fall into a consistent and logical frame work that accommodates their other views.

Thanks for your analysis, Lizard Princess.

As I’ve said before, I’m ambivalent toward the “Men’s Rights” movement. On the plus side, A Voice for Men consistently and directly opposes feminism, per se. This is very important.

For too long, the established Right has offered a neoconservative opposition to feminism that tries to win the argument by ceding the premise (i.e., that “sexual equality” is either desirable or possible) and offering women an ersatz “me too” Republican feminism. This is not the original (and successful) anti-feminism of conservative women led by Phyllis Schlafly. Nor is it even the anti-feminism of Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a real neoconservative who rejected the feminist movement because of its hostility to marriage and motherhood. While I appreciate the valuable work of Christina Hoff Sommers, her attempt to rescue the “feminist” label from the feminist movement was doomed from the start. The title of Dr. Sommers’ most famous book poses a question: Who Stole Feminism? And the answer is, “Nobody.” Marxist radicals, abortion lobbyists and lesbian man-haters did not “steal” feminism; they were in control of the Women’s Liberation Movement from its very inception in the 1960s. Trying to re-define “feminism” for conservative purposes is futile and perhaps even dishonest. Our proper goal is to oppose feminism, and MRAs are willing to do so without apology.

On the negative side, however, the phrase “Men’s Rights” implies that males and females are necessarily antagonistic in their interests, an idea I reject. The problem, as I see it, is that feminists have wrongly intruded the political language of “rights” into a private sphere. Remember that the title of Kate Millett’s 1970 book (the first book produced by the Women’s Liberation Movement) was Sexual Politics — which is the problem of feminism summarized in two words.

FEMINISM IS ABOUT SEX!

POLITICS CAN’T SOLVE YOUR SEX PROBLEMS!

Excuse me for shouting in ALL CAPS there, but after more than four decades of failing to solve the basic problem they set out to solve, I think people need to wake up to the truth. Human nature is not infinitely malleable. Attempting to re-arrange society to accommodate the permanent discontent of professional ax-grinders has not solved their problem, because their problem is an inability to adjust successfully to normal adulthood. Instead, feminism has only created new problems for women, problems that did not exist before the Women’s Liberation Movement began its futile attempt to bring about an egalitarian androgynous utopia.

Is anyone surprised to learn that our Lizard Princess (“40 . . . gay, female . . . geek”) failed in heterosexual relationships — she speaks about an ex-husband, a marriage that apparently lasted less than two years — and has since experienced failure in her lesbian relationships? Valentine’s Day was always unhappy with her most recent partner:

This is the kind of sh*t my ex pulled about nearly all “special days”.
me: “So what do you want to do?”
ex: “Anything you come up with will be great” (note that it was always up to me to do the romancing; I was basically cast into the traditional male role in a lot of ways)
The day rolls around.
me: “How do you like it?”
ex, starry eyed and smiling: “Oh it was wonderful! I love it when you do that.”
Six months later:
Ex picks fight seemingly out of nowhere.
ex: “I knew you’d forget about ___ (insert random thing), you didn’t even remember what I liked for [Valentine’s Day].”
me: “Wait, I asked you what you wanted to do.”
ex: “there you go, you never remember our conversations, because you weren’t paying attention. I TOLD you.”
-or-
ex: “You did, but if you’d actually paid attention to what I like, you would’ve known. But you didn’t, and never do.”
me: “Well, I can’t read your mind.”
ex: “You didn’t have to read my mind, you just didn’t know me.”

Lizard Princess elsewhere complains:

Basically, my associations with relationships and [Valentine’s Day] are memories of painful awkwardness. It only tended to highlight how bad the relationship actually was, it was something we had to grin and bear until we broke up a week later. Seriously, most of my relationships have broken up a week or two after [Valentine’s Day] . . .
So yes. I F–KING HATE VALENTINE’S DAY AS A COUPLE HOLIDAY.
Every single [Valentine’s Day] I have is a day I count my blessings that I am not in a f–ked up situation and it feels like *fresh air*. And dammit, I do want to be healed and whole enough to love someone again, but I have really bad associations around [Valentine’s Day].

This is the woman, you see, who presumes to provide objective analysis of the “self-contradictory” ideals of Men’s Rights activists. She couldn’t succeed in heterosexual marriage, but she can’t sustain a lesbian relationship, either. It’s almost as if . . .

UNHAPPY PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY

There’s your real bottom line. Do I claim to know why all of Lizard Princess’s relationships have been such hopeless bummers? No. As I said of Jillian Dunham, maybe it’s just bad luck or maybe it’s bad judgment.

Finding a good relationship requires either (a) an ability to recognize good character, or (b) an ability to cope with the particular character flaws of the imperfect partner you have chosen. Maybe also (c) a bit of both, because very few people are of such excellent character that their partner never has any cause for complaint. What you must avoid is situation (d) — being a flawed person who attracts other flawed people and yet is unable either to admit your own shortcomings or to accept your partner’s shortcomings.

The Lizard Princess’s complaints about her partners are not necessarily wrong, nor do I doubt that she might have identified something important about the mentality of many MRAs, in their ideal of an atheist libertarian aristocracy of Alpha males. The problem, as with most feminist analysis, is that we have unhappy misfits telling us what’s wrong with “society,” rather than having successful people telling us how to succeed and be happy in society as it exists.

Alas, the unhappy misfits are so full of envy and self-righteousness that none of them would listen to good advice if it were offered, nor can we expect them to ask happy successful people to share the secrets of our success and happiness. (Hint: People used to tell me I acted like I was God’s gift to women. I seldom bothered to explain that it’s not acting.)

And what’s with this site calling itself “A Return of Kings”? When were we ever deposed and overthrown? Our reign has been continuous, no matter what that chattering rabble may say.




 

 

Speaking of A Voice for Men, Pierce Harlan reports that a New Jersey grand jury has declined to indict five students at William Paterson University who were accused of gang rape.

The accusation was false? But . . . I thought women never lie about rape.

 

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

Comments

49 Responses to “In Which a Grumpy Lesbian Offers Her Feminist Understanding of Men”

  1. RS
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:03 pm

    The Men’s Rights Movement was a reaction to divorce jurisprudence in this country which was (and still is) largely anti-family and anti-father. It is a direct result of the Feminist movement. I agree with your underlying observations about the “equality” of males and females, but we also have to understand how these things arise.

    As for the Lizard Person, she is like many. She has no self-knowledge. Because of that, all her problems are ipso facto external. The difference is, Lesbian Feminism gives her a political platform to inflict her personal failures on the rest of us. Whether you call it “solipsistic narcissism” or “narcissistic solipsism,” it’s the same damn thing.

  2. Adobe_Walls
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:10 pm

    Inability to maintain relationships whether hetero or lesbian seems to be a common theme for these wackos. Did she try cooking a steak for Valentines day?

  3. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:15 pm

    She must be a real expert!

  4. robertstacymccain
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:15 pm

    Yes, I understand the divorce revolution gave rise to the Men’s Rights Movement. I’m just not sure that the terrain of “rights” is the proper battlefield over which to stage this counterattack. We have to get people to develop a sense of marriage as a covenant, to recognize the actual purpose of marriage, to lead people away from the psychology of self-fulfillment that tells them happiness involves a quest to find “The Real You,” your “True Self.”

    All that hippy-dippy West Coast neo-Buddhist bullshit was recognized as a tedious joke by serious people by the time Ronald Reagan was elected. It’s sad to think we must explain to young people that they are pursuing a Path to Oblivion which was recognized as such 30 years ago.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:16 pm

    Optimistic people tend to do better in life too.

  6. texlovera
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:17 pm

    Dadgum it, Stacy! That friggin’ photo at the end of the story DEMANDS a trigger warning, for chrissakes.

    Dear god, my eyeballs…..

  7. texlovera
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:18 pm

    Steak is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO heteronormative,…

  8. concern00
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:20 pm

    It is totally hilarious the way her lesbian relationship just falls into traditional sex roles. It just amplifies that which is inherently wrong in a same sex sexual relationship.

  9. RS
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:22 pm

    I don’t disagree about the “covenant” aspect of marriage. But, alas, it was protestants–and I’m one of long standing, especially since my ancestors accepted that dinner invitation on St. Bartholomew’s Day–allowed the true nature of marriage to subsumed by the whole “civil contract” aspect.

    Thus, in our secular society, battles are fought on the fields where the enemies meet. Hence, Men’s Rights. I wish it were otherwise, but unfortunately, it’s not.

  10. Jeanette Victoria
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:32 pm

    What we really need is a Christian revival But I don’t see it happening the wes has become Rome, immoral and degenerate.I suspect the next following of Christian Civilization will be in the East

  11. Jeanette Victoria
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:33 pm

    LOL Oh boy I don’t like steak

  12. robertstacymccain
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:36 pm

    “Male and female he created them.” Genesis 5:2

    People seem to have the idea that I am entirely unsympathetic to people whose unruly impulses make it difficult for them to find happiness in obedience to God’s word. In fact, my own impulses are notoriously unruly — I am quite generically heterosexual, so that adjusting to monogamy was by no means an easy task for me.

    Learning to restrain one’s unruly impulses, to suppress selfishness, is very difficult. I have no patience for people who would accuse me of “hate.” Next we’ll have the Gluttony Rights Movement to deal with …

  13. CrustyB
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:41 pm

    Lost Princess of the Lizard People (“40 .. . gay, female . . . geek”)

    When I read that I thought this was going to be an article about Charles Johnson.

  14. Quartermaster
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:44 pm

    It simply works that way even in perverted parodies of the real thing. Reading the exchange with her “wife,” you can see the leading edge of violence in the relationship, which is typical for Sapphic relationships.

    I noted that a certain prominent queer that has decided to retire from blogging talks about his “other half” as his “husband.”

    They’re a bunch of very sick puppies.

  15. Quartermaster
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:45 pm

    I’d rather have a good pot roast meself. I like Golden Corral’s version quite a bit.

  16. concern00
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:46 pm

    Well said. They seem to think that we consider ourselves perfect human beings standing on our high pedestals and casting judgement.

    The reality is that we are self acknowledged flawed and fallen individuals and that we constantly fight our demons as everybody does. It pains us to see other people giving into their demons and either blaming others or celebrating their embrace of sin.

  17. RS
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:47 pm

    Satan always tries to mimic or subvert God’s perfect creation. And, of course, the results are predictable.

  18. Quartermaster
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:48 pm

    In actuality, the entire battle is one of “rights.” Our ancestors, OTOH, would have seen it as a matter of responsibilities. Feminism really isn’t about “rights,” but ducking responsibility.

  19. RS
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:54 pm

    “Rights” are the perils of a secular society. As you correctly point out, our ancestors concerned themselves with their own obligations to their God, spouses, family and country in that order. It was only with the Baby Boom generation, where personal fulfillment became the end goal of life. “Rights” are a subset of that, as is our now veneration of anyone who claims to be a “victim” of something.

    The Good News–and I assume from reading your prior comments here, you know whereof I speak–is that this will all end, and things will be as they truly were meant to be.

  20. robertstacymccain
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 3:59 pm

    Yeah, I saw “Lizard People” and immediately thought, “Is that you, Sharmuta?”

  21. Fail Burton
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 4:01 pm

    I agree it is idiotic for conservatives to re-define this particular modern gender feminism. For some reason they continue to use words like “leftism,’ “liberalism,” “PC” or even “Marxism.” The truth is if you take Marxism out of gender feminism it remains intact. Take out gender and it disappears. It may be too obvious to point out that women who call themselves gender abolitionists rather than capital abolitionists are not being secretive but mean exactly what they say.

    And of course that doesn’t address the fact this is nothing more than sociopathy, phobia, paranoia and hatred dressed up in rhetoric to make it seem like the poor Sudetenland must be marched on like Selma. If “All the world’s a stage” then all the world’s an oppressive gender-Jim Crow to a nutty descendent of Audre Lorde and Kate Millet.

    The single great truth in play here is in how stunningly successful this neo-KKK movement has been in passing their insanity off as not only needful but noble. If one were to write a doctorate about the mechanisms why which hate speech is mainstreamed into a gullible public you couldn’t ask for a better example than gender feminism in the last 5 years in particular. Suddenly the insane theory of Susan Brownmiller from 1975 that all men are Honored Matres with their rapist Futars is echoed by the president of esteemed universities. Suddenly the insane theory that white feminists are in fact tools of the patriarchy is condoned at Holyhoke College. Suddenly a Hal 9000 computer is by an amazing coincidence gender-blind and wins best SF novel in an unprecedented awards sweep.

    For commies these folks look a lot like racist sexual supremacists.

  22. Durasim
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 4:10 pm

    “Next we’ll have the Gluttony Rights Movement to deal with …”

    That one might have already arrived, and is already throwing its weight around.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_acceptance_movement

  23. Jim R
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 4:54 pm

    many of their ideals seem self-contradictory — for example — not wanting to compete with women in the workforce, but at the same time, angry about female freeloading (I’ve even heard arguments that resent women for having sex work as an alternative to homelessness — totally ignoring the existence of men who do sex work — and that argue that women even take traditionally female dominated jobs away from men), They also tend to scream pretty loudly about their resentment of the traditional male role. They call women prudes on the one hand but sluts on the other.

    Um… Who says these things? Seriously: who says them? Where are these MRA’s who don’t want to compete with women in the workforce or resent the “traditional male role”?

    Well, the internet is a big place, and I suppose that there are some guys who might say these things, sandwiched between their beliefs the space aliens discovered America for Columbus and that Seattle’s coaching staff made the perfect call in the Superbowl.

    Honestly, if it wasn’t for feminists, I’d never have heard of MRA’s.

    As for this Lizard Princess person, I’m very sorry that things haven’t worked out well for her. Maybe it’s her fault. Maybe it’s bad luck. I don’t know. But given how screwy she sounds in the sample of her writing above, I’m guessing that she might need to look in the mirror for the root cause.

  24. Jim R
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 5:08 pm

    “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”

    “The African Queen” (1951; dir. John Huston)
    Spoken by Katherine Hepburn

    SO much easier said than done!

  25. Jim R
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 5:23 pm

    Exactly so. Replace “men” with “Jews” or “Negroes” and the rhetoric would be perfectly familiar to Schickelgruber or the klan.

    Hate is hate. These same wankers who preen about “tolerance” have no problem rationalizing why hating men (especially white men) is OK. It’s more than just sick: it’s evil.

  26. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 5:54 pm

    You know what Sharmuta means in Arabic and Hebrew?

  27. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 5:56 pm

    Sharmuta got banned by Chunky Boo Boo. He even banned Kilgore Trout. And of course he banned the ever drunk and loveable (if you love scabies) Wild Irish Rose. I am surprised anyone is left.

  28. Dianna Deeley
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 6:16 pm

    Oh, my.

    Have you seen Ace’s latest rant?

    Unhappy people are unhappy, and they want you to be, too!

  29. Adobe_Walls
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 6:23 pm

    In case of any doubt that Peak Oppression is truly a crisis.
    (Picked from ACE)

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/397832/pc-police-now-upset-about-married-privilege-and-singlism-katherine-timpf

  30. #ThisIsNotIslam Sets a Bonfire | Regular Right Guy
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 6:28 pm

    […] In Which a Grumpy Lesbian Offers Her Feminist Understanding of Men […]

  31. Matt_SE
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 6:47 pm

    Yes, hard to miss that. After a couple of sentences, I could imagine this as a conversation between a man and woman.
    These people are so far down the rabbit hole, they can’t see the parody they’ve become.

  32. Matt_SE
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 6:49 pm

    Sorry, she’s clearly the “man.” Not only wouldn’t she be doing the cooking, but she’d need flowers and chocolates instead.

  33. concern00
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 6:51 pm

    Too late. European Court of Justice (consider that a Newspeak term) has ruled that obesity is a disability.

  34. ripple947
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 7:14 pm

    Link?

  35. Dana
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 10:27 pm

    ¼master wrote:

    Feminism really isn’t about “rights,” but ducking responsibility.

    A hearty thumbs up for that one!

  36. Dana
    February 3rd, 2015 @ 10:29 pm

    So to speak? 🙂

  37. Durasim
    February 4th, 2015 @ 1:46 am

    Not surprising.

    But I wonder how long it will take for the European Court of “Justice” to catch up with Greece’s ruling that pedophilia qualifies as a disability.

    http://www.ibtimes.com/greeces-categorization-pedophilia-disability-sparks-outrage-393614

  38. Quartermaster
    February 4th, 2015 @ 9:15 am

    No. And I’m afraid to ask, but I tremble as I say I’d like to know.

  39. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 4th, 2015 @ 9:20 am

    slut

  40. Quartermaster
    February 4th, 2015 @ 9:20 am

    I mention such things to the militant queers over at Political every time I go there. They scream and whine they don’t believe in such “myths.” I warn them it isn’t a myth and tell them they hold such things in face of the massive amount of evidence that there is indeed a God, and he has already spoken to their perversion.
    Makes not a dent in their thought processes, but I don’t expect anything else. They will learn, in the harshest way possible, that it is true and that God has a right to expect them to repent and behave themselves. They will kneel, but it won’t matter as to their final disposition.

  41. NikFromNYC
    February 4th, 2015 @ 12:19 pm

    Massive evidence for which god?

  42. Rob Crawford
    February 4th, 2015 @ 12:46 pm

    Rome, the “immoral and degenerate” city that converted completely to Christianity?

  43. Rob Crawford
    February 4th, 2015 @ 12:47 pm

    Yeah, her conversation with her “partner” is familiar to any man who has been in a relationship with a woman.

  44. Jeanette Victoria
    February 4th, 2015 @ 12:51 pm

    Yes but how many centuries did that take?

  45. Quartermaster
    February 4th, 2015 @ 7:50 pm

    You just gave yourself away.

  46. Quartermaster
    February 4th, 2015 @ 8:09 pm

    My. Eyes. They. Burn.

  47. Daniel Freeman
    February 5th, 2015 @ 5:29 am

    Um… Who says these things? Seriously: who says them?

    Oh, she’s a silly goose. Confident men don’t hesitate to disagree with each other, and PUAs and MRAs are barely part of the same manosphere. (Don’t even ask about what they think of MGTOWs and vice-versa.)

    MRAs generally just advocate for radical fairness: what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. To a feminist, that may translate into being bizarrely confused that after decades of women screaming at wanting to be freed from the traditional female role of tending the home, some men might tentatively express a mild desire to be freed from their own traditional male role of uncomplaining self-sacrifice unto death.

    Sounds weird to them, but fair to me! “But.. but Selective Service was produced as Holy Writ by Hymen!” (Of course, Hymen was a male god. We do it to each other.)

  48. Rick Caird
    February 7th, 2015 @ 6:01 pm

    God provides many ways to come to him. Pick the one with which you are most comfortable

  49. Queering Valentine’s Day : The Other McCain
    February 9th, 2015 @ 9:53 am

    […] get paid to spew the kind of deranged gibberish taught in Women’s Studies classrooms, so the amateur feminist nutjobs on Tumblr are frequently disappointed that few people appreciate their volunteer craziness. Kayla Spagnoli […]