(no subject)
May. 10th, 2022 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikOn the self-proclaimed inferiority of men.
(a rant)
With the leaked draft aimed at overturning Roe, there's been a lot of talk about the usual suspects - by which I mean christian conservatives, especially rich white ones, and the politicos who have been using banning abortion as a carrot to keep their plebes in line. And really, here we are with a majority of justices on the court who lied to congress about their take on Roe to get their current jobs, two of whom are well documented as not having respect for the bodily autonomy of women in a deeply personal sense.
We know these folks. I learned about them in the eighties, mostly, being a bit too young before then. (And, well, the eighties.) They're pretty much the old white guy in the monster mask from all the scooby doo shows.
I want to talk about another group of people who may or may not have a problem with abortion per se, but find the idea of it not being an option for women actively pleasant. This is a mostly younger crowd, and male. They may not identify as conservative (libertarian comes up a lot, though). They likely don't identify as religious (not that there aren't young evangelicals). They are overwhelming male, and for them this is all about restricting options for women.*
Incels are, of course, the most obvious group. Pretty much their whole schtick is that if women can make choices about their own bodies, careers, etc, then they a) can't get laid and b) don't get to have control of a woman of their very own.
That second point comes up a lot, and a lot more broadly. Men, they whine, need to have their very own women. In times past, they claim, when women couldn't own property, and had far fewer educational and career options, every man could get a wife if they wanted one.** When women have control over their own destinies, many say no. The alt-right boys. The gamer gaters. The new atheists who prate about biological destiny. The libertarians who fight anything that erodes their privilege. All these men who are fixated on the fact that when women have even marginal social equality, they can't get one. Certainly, they can't get one on the terms they would like.
And one guesses, from this crowd, anyway, that a man without a woman is nothing. I mean, I'll take them at their word. (But let's take their guns away, okpls?)
Let us contemplate, for a moment, the tremendous self-own here. Is there any kind of "supremacy" that isn't deeply rooted in knowledge of their own basic inferiority? Such men love to go on about how they are stronger and smarter... but in fact, the best they can do is use our fertility against us. And they're horrified when women can get better jobs and more money than they can.*** (Though the preferences for uneducated and otherwise non financially independent women is also loudly stated. Oh, if only women were never given the vote, the right to own property, allowed into colleges...!) There is such an arsonist fireman dynamic here. Oh, women "naturally" need to be protected! Why? Because they are forced to endure pregnancy, tend to actually care about the kids they bear even when they weren't wanting kids then, and have been stripped of legal and financial rights. Oh, and who do they need to be protected from? Other men, mostly.
When I used to moderate tech boards (being an older techie woman who has indeed been there and done that) it was kind of amazing how many times snotty nosed brats, when confronted with my career and educational history would go into a riff about how when the zombie (or other) apocalypse came, I would be forced into my "natural" place of having lots of highly intelligent babies. And I would be grateful! Because having babies would be of supreme importance during a zombie apocalypse? Or just because that's what they figure it would take to disrupt my access to birth control. Never mind that this was mostly while I was already in my forties, and a pretty decent martial artist and martial arts teacher, not to mention a whole collection of other skills, but a poor candidates for being a brood mare.
This is a very selective reading of "nature" of course. I don't see men railing generally against technological and medical interventions that protect them. But if you can oppress women by forcing them into childbearing servitude - it's natural! I think this means that this is the fantasy they jack off to.
* There is a strong argument to be made, of course, that this is the core issue for many of the christian conservatives. But there frequently isn't even the veneer that this is about the morality of abortion.
** This is not historically accurate, though indeed, rates of marriage have declined.
*** While generally men outearn women, even doing the same work, these do tend to be the dregs of men.
(a rant)
With the leaked draft aimed at overturning Roe, there's been a lot of talk about the usual suspects - by which I mean christian conservatives, especially rich white ones, and the politicos who have been using banning abortion as a carrot to keep their plebes in line. And really, here we are with a majority of justices on the court who lied to congress about their take on Roe to get their current jobs, two of whom are well documented as not having respect for the bodily autonomy of women in a deeply personal sense.
We know these folks. I learned about them in the eighties, mostly, being a bit too young before then. (And, well, the eighties.) They're pretty much the old white guy in the monster mask from all the scooby doo shows.
I want to talk about another group of people who may or may not have a problem with abortion per se, but find the idea of it not being an option for women actively pleasant. This is a mostly younger crowd, and male. They may not identify as conservative (libertarian comes up a lot, though). They likely don't identify as religious (not that there aren't young evangelicals). They are overwhelming male, and for them this is all about restricting options for women.*
Incels are, of course, the most obvious group. Pretty much their whole schtick is that if women can make choices about their own bodies, careers, etc, then they a) can't get laid and b) don't get to have control of a woman of their very own.
That second point comes up a lot, and a lot more broadly. Men, they whine, need to have their very own women. In times past, they claim, when women couldn't own property, and had far fewer educational and career options, every man could get a wife if they wanted one.** When women have control over their own destinies, many say no. The alt-right boys. The gamer gaters. The new atheists who prate about biological destiny. The libertarians who fight anything that erodes their privilege. All these men who are fixated on the fact that when women have even marginal social equality, they can't get one. Certainly, they can't get one on the terms they would like.
And one guesses, from this crowd, anyway, that a man without a woman is nothing. I mean, I'll take them at their word. (But let's take their guns away, okpls?)
Let us contemplate, for a moment, the tremendous self-own here. Is there any kind of "supremacy" that isn't deeply rooted in knowledge of their own basic inferiority? Such men love to go on about how they are stronger and smarter... but in fact, the best they can do is use our fertility against us. And they're horrified when women can get better jobs and more money than they can.*** (Though the preferences for uneducated and otherwise non financially independent women is also loudly stated. Oh, if only women were never given the vote, the right to own property, allowed into colleges...!) There is such an arsonist fireman dynamic here. Oh, women "naturally" need to be protected! Why? Because they are forced to endure pregnancy, tend to actually care about the kids they bear even when they weren't wanting kids then, and have been stripped of legal and financial rights. Oh, and who do they need to be protected from? Other men, mostly.
When I used to moderate tech boards (being an older techie woman who has indeed been there and done that) it was kind of amazing how many times snotty nosed brats, when confronted with my career and educational history would go into a riff about how when the zombie (or other) apocalypse came, I would be forced into my "natural" place of having lots of highly intelligent babies. And I would be grateful! Because having babies would be of supreme importance during a zombie apocalypse? Or just because that's what they figure it would take to disrupt my access to birth control. Never mind that this was mostly while I was already in my forties, and a pretty decent martial artist and martial arts teacher, not to mention a whole collection of other skills, but a poor candidates for being a brood mare.
This is a very selective reading of "nature" of course. I don't see men railing generally against technological and medical interventions that protect them. But if you can oppress women by forcing them into childbearing servitude - it's natural! I think this means that this is the fantasy they jack off to.
* There is a strong argument to be made, of course, that this is the core issue for many of the christian conservatives. But there frequently isn't even the veneer that this is about the morality of abortion.
** This is not historically accurate, though indeed, rates of marriage have declined.
*** While generally men outearn women, even doing the same work, these do tend to be the dregs of men.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-10 07:30 pm (UTC)I am now placing that aspect of survivalist fantasy in the context of all the other ways people use bits of scifi/fantasy/historical period settings as part of their fantasies ... thank you.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-10 10:43 pm (UTC)it's hard to tease apart threads that have woven in and around each other for decades - i.e. the ascendancy of the Christian Right, backlash against the growing power of Anyone Other Than Straight White Men, deep oligarchy... but certainly a big commonality is misogyny. Or perhaps patriarchy is the better term? How long have we been in this struggle? Since, oh, the invention of the PLOW? But to pull it down a bit to the here and now, you are onto an aspect not much discussed. It's easier to frame sound bites around the religious right because they make themselves so visible, but the Incels and the gamergate/pepe-the-frog/boogaloos and the Elon-worshiping techertarians are the ones sucking in all the disaffected young men. All the guys who can't get a date. And there are a hellacious lot of them.
One podcaster I used to listen to said something to the effect of, disaffected youth precipitate wars, and today's society in which very few young men see much in the way of opportunity, either economic or romantic, is becoming a powder keg. (Aside: his suggestion was tech - specifically, sex robots. I kid you not.)
Back in my rural Appalachian hometown a few years ago, a teenager who'd become radicalized into the Incel subculture was making pipe bombs with the intent of blowing up the local mall and some other places where the teen girls hang out. He made a mistake and blew his own hands off. Now he's in prison. Not sure how you jack off without hands.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-11 03:29 am (UTC)...I'm not sure if you were asking or not. but. um.