Professional troll Jessica Valenti argues that "feminists don't hate men. But it wouldn't matter if [they] did"

walkonthebeach · 2015-03-13T18:18:06+00:00

"women don't hate jews. But it wouldn't matter if they did"

"women don't hate gays. But it wouldn't matter if they did"

"women don't hate blacks. But it wouldn't matter if they did"

"women don't hate the disabled. But it wouldn't matter if they did"

…do any of those sound acceptable?

Jasperkr672 · 2015-03-13T18:28:18+00:00

Straight white men still hold the majority of political, economic and social power in the world, and everyone else struggles to make their lives work with less.

Yes, because all white men are rich, have successful lives and are never treated unfairly.

Besides, when women hate men, we hurt their feelings. When men hate women, they kill us: mass shootings have been attributed to misogyny, and sexual and domestic violence against women is often fuelled by a hatred for women.

What the hell does this have to do with anything? These kind of comments are clearly intended to manufacture outrage.

Btw, we should really archive any The Guardian links before posting them here, we don't need to give them more ad or click revenue.

2015-03-14T03:09:05+00:00

From a different thread of the same article:

So if the worst thing that happens to a man is that a woman doesn’t like him ...well, he has it pretty damn good.

Agreed, but the antecedent is obviously false so I'm not sure what the relevance is here.

Straight white men still hold the majority of political, economic and social power in the world, and everyone else struggles to make their lives work with less.

I never understood this argument. All it means is that there's a very small 1% of men who have a shit load of wealth. The rest of us are suffering. Why is it that the people who write this shit never include how exactly I benefit from Bill Gates' wealth or Obama's feminist presidency?

Besides, when women hate men, we hurt their feelings. When men hate women, they kill us: mass shootings have been attributed to misogyny, and sexual and domestic violence against women is often fuelled by a hatred for women.

No, they actually band together as feminists and along with their white knight allies strip us of our rights. Moreover, we're subject to quite a bit of domestic abuse (for which we get no rights) and biased divorce courts.

That’s why it’s so hard to take seriously any claims that “misandry” is a tremendous problem – they’re based on the idea that merely insulting men is similar to the life-threatening misogyny women face worldwide.

As a rule, I refrain from speaking about the third world since I know nothing about it but in the US, males face a lot more premature death---especially when caused by violence.

But a younger generation of feminists has embraced what Slate writer Amanda Hess calls “ironic misandry”. Hess wrote last year that the rise in popularity of “male tears” mugs and man-hating inspired shirts and crafts serves as a sort of fuck-you to the constant barrage of harassment that feminists often face: “On its most basic level, ironic misandry functions like a stuck-out tongue pointed at a playground bully.”

Actually it serves as our best recruitment.

And honestly, if feminists really hated men we’d probably come up with a better way to hurt them than funny t-shirts that insist that their tears are delicious.

Yes, we've been over this. Feminists do it by stripping away our rights.

(Men may have some very sensitive parts, but even the manhating-est among us doesn’t go around kicking them willy-nilly.)

Actually that's wrong. Most hetero DV is propagated by women, though I can't speak specifically for attacking the man's penis.

Many of us might hate bad men: the sexists, misogynists and all-around jerks.

Isn't this a common defense used by racists?

But our hatred is just a feeling, and not something that can impact men in any meaningful or oppressive way.

Obviously this is false but on a side note, isn't it giving incentives for men to oppose feminism? Why buy into it if they'll just use their power to do things in meaningful and oppressive ways?

Men who claim to be genuinely worried about man-hating or “misandry” are grasping at straws, and searching for a victim status that simply doesn’t exist. Guys are still doing pretty well, so let us have our “man-hating” fun while you go on ruling the world.

Ahem.

ThePigmanAgain · 2015-03-13T22:59:56+00:00

Can't even be bothered any more. I wonder if anyone at the Guardian has enough brains to realize just how badly having this piece of shit on their site hurts their credibility? Why would i take seriously the opinions of anyone at a rag that hires the likes of Sean Hannity? I wouldn't, so why would i take seriously a rag that hires Jessica Valenti?

NUMBERS2357 · 2015-03-13T23:14:52+00:00

This reminds me of the West Wing, where someone asks a Republican why he's a Republican and he says, jokingly, "I just hate poor people."

Fair enough as a joke...but there's a difference between that and putting something like that on T shirts and coffee mugs and broadcasting it over and over. At some point it means more than just a joke - it's a statement that you think has some redeeming value. Especially something that actually attacks men on the same lines society does, by making fun of men crying. And then the contempt that's just constantly there throughout articles by people like Valenti.

DavidByron2 · 2015-03-13T21:01:30+00:00

I'm just trying to imagine how this would sound if you said it about any other birth group of people and I can't think of an example of it that I could post here that wouldn't be so fucking racist or offensive that even I don't want to post it.

2015-03-13T23:23:26+00:00

"Guardian contributor Jess Zimmerman – and self-proclaimed “misandrist witch” – told Hess: “It’s inhabiting the most exaggerated, implausible distortion of your position, in order to show that it’s ridiculous.”

We call this a 'strawman' in the real world.

genocide_n_stuff · 2015-03-13T18:06:10+00:00

She's a professional troll, whom we can all agree is an idiot. She says shit just to inflame animus and get attention.

Just to be clear, posting and spreading her shit is EXACTLY what she wants. And the only discussion it fosters is that we all agree that she's an idiot.

paracog · 2015-03-13T19:16:02+00:00

Everyone deserves admiration and respect, but for who they are, not because of their gender. When it is about gender, then it's impossible to get to the real things we respect each other for. Feminists propose a world in which men don't count...it's the context they operate from--even as they use the world that men have given them to assert that vision.

MusicManSamwise · 2015-03-13T20:45:08+00:00

I'm mostly a lurker here and don't have much say in matters here, but I honestly think it should be unofficial policy to NOT link to any more of Valenti's pieces. Just like a schoolyard bully, she's trying to provoke a reaction in people, and if people don't give her attention she'll simply go away.

Title	Professional troll Jessica Valenti argues that "feminists don't hate men. But it wouldn't matter if [they] did"
Author	Jasperkr672
Upvotes	27
Comments	21
Date	March 13, 2015 5:52 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2yxker/professional_troll_jessica_valenti_argues_that/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/professional-troll-jessica-valenti-argues-that.985881 https://theredarchive.com/post/985881

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