Greetings, college girls. This is your Blaming Intervention for the month of December.
Periodically I am forced by circumstance to invoke Germaine Greer’s observation that women have no idea how much men hate them. Today that circumstance is occasioned by an email from blamer Anthony, who hipped me to a letter written by a woman to her student paper at the University of New Hampshire and the resulting slew of what Anthony calls “mindblowing” responses. The responses illustrate in hideous technicolor the astonishing extent to which male students at UNH hate women.
The student, Melissa DaCosta, writes to discuss the misogyny expressed by a safe-sex flyer posted on her dorm bulletin board. Her thoughtful and measured letter, entirely free of what those who enjoy male privilege usually call “shrill feminist man-hating,” seeks to point out that the scenario represented by the flyer reinforces antediluvian attitudes about male dominance. She is careful to temper her argument by doing what we’ve all done in order to mitigate the inevitable smackdown by proponents of the status quo: she admits that her point may seem small, and then tries to explain why even small instances of sexism matter.
DaCosta describes the flyer thusly: “The advertisement from Health Services, calling for safe sex, reads, ‘Whether you’re the catcher or the pitcher, always wear a glove!’ with a picture of a smiling woman holding a catcher’s mitt and a man holding a bat next to her.” DaCosta’s objections are several, but they center chiefly around the tired old sexist trope of women as receptacles.
“To consider,” she writes, “the act of sex as a subject/object encounter, as this advertisement does, where a woman’s role is to ‘catch’ a man’s ‘pitches’ is degrading, disgusting, and completely beyond the type of behavior I expect from an institution of higher learning.”
DaCosta hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.
Veteran blamers will be unsurprised to learn that the responses (numbering beyond 200 at this writing) to DaCosta’s letter exploded like a piss balloon dropped from a frat-house window, except that instead of piss, the balloon was full of the violent misogyny and asinine wisecracks we’ve come to expect whenever a woman dares to buck the Dude Nation worldview. The vast majority of the commentary — the work of larval boy-brains, the possessors of which, despite their desperate parroting of the psychotic ideology of their pornsick daddies, uncles, and pop stars, are somehow allowed to freely roam a state university without electronic GPS ankle cuffs — opine that DaCosta is a “stupid cunt” who suffers from insufficient “deepdicking.”
Nice.
When I was a college student in the late 70’s, we didn’t have no internet to hip us to this shit. I like to think that if we had, I might not have wasted so much of my rosy youth wrapped in a thick crust of naive, trusting oblivion. It was not until many bruised and bleeding years later that I woke up, smelled the coffee, and realized that accepting that men hate women is an indispensable survival skill.
This is appalling. I have no words. If one even scratches the surface of these pristine college campuses (see the Duke U. scandal) a swarm of virulent vermin pours out like a cesspool flood.
Women must rise up. This woman should print out these replies, publish them in a widely circulated paper and expose these dick worshipping jerks.
I would guess most of the nasty comments are not coming from the original author’s college campus. As commenter “Lance” mentioned on the New Hampshire site, she was “farked.” Her letter was featured on “fark.com” under “asinine.” Posting something like that on fark is a sure way to get the haters crawling out of the woodwork.
Ah, yes, a good ol’ “deepdicking”, the male answer to all the ills of the world, the happy horseshit of college-boy badsex. It does NOT embiggen the human spirit to ponder how little things have changed in this shiny, happy, post-feminist world.
So, to prove that the author is over reacting, and/or stupid, they post a bunch of hateful crap that proves they are exactly these things? Does this actually make sense in Dude Nation?
Does the swelling in their undies require misogyny or is that just a bonus?
Years ago, I thought it was paranoid and extreme to think that boys hate women. Years later, I don’t think so anymore.
If the New Hampshire site starts asking for a password, you can use Username xxx@yyy.com Password xxx
Thank you for once again lending credence to the very real destructive power of these supposedly small things — the poster, and the vulgar and psychically violent responses to the woman’s letter to the editor.
This reminds me of when I was a student (not too long ago) in Political and Social Thought at UVA. We were having a class discussion on Morrison’s Beloved, and one of the young men in the program (Jonathan Robbins) asked how we were supposed to relate to this book given that no one in the room had ever experienced hunger, homelessness, rape… These sorts of real suffering.
I felt like I had the breath punched out of me. I will always regret not speaking up to tell him he was generally presumptive (insert statistics here) and specifically wrong (insert risky personal anecdotes here). Perhaps this was the place of the professor or the TA (both male), but I bet they don’t remember this as one of their unforgivable personal/professional failings in the way that it sticks in my mind as a moment in which I failed to declare myself as an honest, sentient moral being.
So, kudos to Ms. Melissa DaCosta for speaking up when it mattered. And kudos to Twisty here and everywhere for shining a light on those who try to make a difference, knowing full well they will be viciously ridiculed and shot down for speaking the truth.
So, I left my comment in support of Melissa. I noticed your comment Twisty, as succinct and erudite as ever. It seems to have confused and frustrated the dimwitted boys…
I taste vomit in my mouth.
UGH. The sad thing, is that I can see the point of one of the early posters, that a catcher calls which pitches will be thrown. If the poster had a catcher signalling a pitch, with a pitcher about to throw a ball (heck, the sex of each could even be unclear with all the gear a catcher wears) the poster would be far less offensive (though still with underlying patriarchal assumptions).
The hate in the comments is astounding. I hope that none of it spills over to her 3D life.
Well, if Melissa was het before she posted, I wonder what she is now?
I just read all the comments in a state of shock. Now I feel like crying. Which is just what a dumb-ass uptight feminazi beeyotch like me would do, obviously.
Fucking HELL.
That is an excellent observation, ramblin rabbit. It would be in the legal and public relations interests of the school to meet with her and request permission to put a tracer on her cell phone through Sprint NOW. That way, if and when she receives threatening calls, they are already set up to trace them. Otherwise, it can take days or weeks to get it set up, in which time a threatening call can be placed and acted on without the law enforcement capability to trace it (as happened in the case of Daisy Lundy at UVA).
I guess the letter writer can go file an incident report regarding the responses to her letter with her local police if she feels sufficiently threatened and believes that would be a productive/effective course of action.
Per the website [after leaving a comment]:
The comments are supposedly “approved” by someone. Amazing. The crap posted in the comments is just sick.
I worry that since she did have this published with her full name that she’ll now be an easy target on campus.
It’s scary! Yes, reading even one of those comments would be horrible, but her name is attached to that document, and even if one or two people online, or at her school started harassing her it would be horrible!!
It seems that the tide is turning somewhat (by post 200 ) and more comments are in support of Melissa, which makes the most recent comment, by “Austin” look even more ridiculous.
Is it possible to home school my daughter through college?!
Jeeziz.
I sure feel for Melissa. It seems all women get that slapdown at some point at least by early adulthood. Patriarchy teaches us well. I hope this experience won’t squelch her voice altogether, but alas, it’s already silenced too many of us.
You know, women who advocate for their right to rough sex and plastic surgery need to own up to the fact that it’s the fear of precisely this type of slapdown that makes them choose that way. For women in a patriarchy, compliance represents your only hope to avoid violence. It’s not personal autonomy; it’s survival.
And it’s crap.
I’m glad so many people posted in support of Melissa. At least knowing she has supporters out there may keep the embers alive for her and prevent her from giving up and buying a Wonderbra instead.
RE: comments needing approval.
I work for a magazine and will soon take on the task of managing the comment queue on articles. In general, the comment function “approval” process for magazines, newspapers, etc. is meant to encourage discussion and the free-flow of ideas between readers (like us, here). that’s a good thing, even when they say horrible things. it makes perfect sense to me that even the most abusive of these comments has currently been approved. Likely everything gets approved and then spam posts (a few like “use my HTML code”) gets removed later. The comment queue may get shut down temporarily if this kind of conversation continues. It also seems likely that the campus paper hasn’t had to deal with this kind of comment activity in the past.
That aside, these comments make me sick, sad, and furious.
Is that what the kidz are calling sex these days?
The comments are not being moderated before posting, both of mine went straight through.
I hope Melissa is still reading the comments. The contrast between the violent smackdowns and the reasoned writings in support is rather stark. It’s quite obvious which argument has any weight at all.
It’s fucking astounding how much offense was taken at such a mild mannered objection. Imagine if she’d been ’strident’, or worse, ’shrill’.
I particularly enjoyed the commenter who insisted that “men are good people!” in the middle of a bunch of men being very bad people.
I’ve never entirely understood the massive defensiveness that accompanies any perceived criticism of the male. Why are men so insecure? People who feel good about themselves don’t react the way those guys did. I’ve sometimes thought it may be because boys are taught from day one that being male automatically makes them “better than.” Better than all women at all things, and entitled to dominance in all situations. Then they grow up, and aren’t alpha males (most won’t be, of course). They encounter women who seem to be smarter than they are (how can that be?). And, worst of all, women can tell them no. They can be refused. The cognitive dissonance between what they were taught they were (lords of creation!) and what they actually are (fallible, vulnerable monkey-people who have to negotiate for things they want) seems to drive them mad.
Of course, not all guys are this nuts, but I have noticed in my personal life that the less a guy has to offer women (or anybody, really), the angrier they are about “feminists.”
And, yes, these guys really succeeded in proving Melissa’s overarching point. Brilliant.
“Johnny Mac
posted 12/05/06 @ 5:46 PM EST
Listen to this femenist whore….
First of all, shut the hell up, you womynists get offended at the stupidest shit, ever heard of picking your battles? I HOPE you were offended, because you are a dumbass. Until you grow up and learn to ignore things you don’t like, you shouldn’t write editorials, dyke.”
This is how “man hating feminists” are created.
*sigh*
“The advertisement from Health Services, calling for safe sex, reads, ‘Whether you’re the catcher or the pitcher, always wear a glove!’ with a picture of a smiling woman holding a catcher’s mitt and a man holding a bat next to her.â€
Yikes! I am a member of the patriarchy, but even I find this pretty offensive. Could they have conjured a more violent image than that of a man yielding a baseball bat?
Today’s is a day of remembrance in Canada for all women victims of male violence (the day commemorates the Montreal Massacre). That a “safe” sex ad has a man holding a bat tells me that this ad is not “a little thing” but the primer for patriarchy: heteronormative, violent, women as recepticles, etc. etc.
The response just tells me that these primers are working. Sigh.
“It’s fucking astounding how much offense was taken at such a mild mannered objection. Imagine if she’d been ’strident’, or worse, ’shrill’.”
Indeed. I am proud that we showed support and handed those guys’ asses to them. My first thought upon reading those horrendous comments was, “they doth protest too much.” Spewing hateful gendered slurs at a woman and wishing rape upon her are not good ways to argue that “feminazis just hate men!” Those men DO hate women and have a very low tolerance for being challenged. Any time rapists or other sexual offenders are taken to task, some non-rapist men react as though ALL men are being criticized / hated on, which would only be true if rape were something all men engaged in. But condemnation of rape is always followed by tortured shouts of “Why do you hate men!? Not ALL men are rapists!!” Yeah, that’s why we’re condemning RAPISTS! Some men identify with sexual oppressors / abusers and can’t separate condemnation of those acts from condemnation of everything men do. Very suspicious.
Thanks for letting me know about this brouhaha. I only read some of the shallowdickers’ comments and had to stop. Bleah; the poisonous tide of testosterone in their hate mail was sickening. This is just another version of the old “You need a good dicking” that I have heard before (as if they tuck a magic wand into their pants each morning and consider our cervixes to be magical mood-adjustment reset buttons). I wrote Ms. DaCosta an encouraging note to praise her on the contents of her original letter, her courage in speaking up and her even greater courage in putting her name to her opinion, unlike her anonymous detractors. I hope their bile doesn’t make her sorry that she spoke up. Personally, I’ve been verbally battered a few times when I’ve given an opinion but I’ve most regretted the times I stayed silent.
I doubt I would have noticed the sexist tone of the poster if she hadn’t explained her views, and I wasn’t as deeply offended as she was, but I see the point she was trying to make and respect her for it. And by the way, I also had to laugh at the ambitious comparison of the “magic wand” to a big, hard, powerful baseball bat. Um, scale it back a bit, guys. (Why do they never exaggerate to a SMALLER size when using dick metaphors?)
Keep up the great work with your blog!
Color me not surprised it only took 7 comments for the magical word “deepdicking” to be uttered.
Reading through the various violent metaphors in which the penis is the aggressor during hetero sex makes me want to counter with equally violent female terminology. A woman’s reproductive system includes powerful muscles that clamp down on objects they take in, and just as surely expel them, as the system sees fit. The vagina and uterus are strong enough to hold, and eventually push out, a fucking 8-lb baby plus fluids, ferchrissakes. Contrast this with the penis, which is a veiny, weak pouch that inflates or deflates depending on blood flow, but doesn’t really have any agency during sex. It is a pawn that’s moved around by the other muscles of the partners’ bodies.
I tried to brainstorm some funny terms to describe how a fragile subservient blood-balloon gets slapped around by the vagina during hetero sex, but I’m having a rather patriarchy-infused morning, and can’t really think of any that have the same force as “get bored out” or “I’d hit it.” But I’m sure they’re out there.
That’s it. My daughter is living with a dog when she goes to college. One that bites.
I think it’s pretty well accepted that 3% of women in college are raped a year. So, in four years that’s what?
In what would be coincidence if sexism were not omnipresent, last night my partner pointed me towards this posting over at Portland Indymedia, a supposedly progressive media forum. Read it if you’ve got the stomach as it’s more of the same from testicleheaded librul men.
“All men are responsible for stopping male violence against women”
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350245.shtml
cycles: I dunno, maybe “crushing”, then?
Mandos: yeah, something like that. “I’d chew on that … for a while” comes to mind.
Or “Those misogynists just need a good weiner-grabbing.”
The ugly comments (’twould gag a maggot! ‘twould puke a hound!) are a part of a process called testosterone poisoning, by which men are shuffled more hastily (but not hastily enough) off this mortal coil than women by their own ugly juices.
I heard once that if a human heart only pumped one time, and that one time was with the combined force of all the pumps in a normal lifetime, it would still not equal the force of the uterus during childbirth.
Here’s one university I can mark off my list.
No, the hatred espoused in the comments isn’t surprising. I can’t even say I found it depressing — for me it’s par for the course.
Educe - I’m fairly sure ALL the universities are like that. Except all-girl universities. These guys seem just like the guys as the school I attended. I don’t see why they would be different anywhere else.
As a faculty member at UNH (and IBTP lurker, mostly), the institution attended by Melissa DaCosta, I have to say that I am extremely disturbed, but not completely surprised, by the response she has received to her letter. We have struggled with these issues here (and at other higher ed institutions I have attended and worked at) for years. I am not sure there is a solution other than to expose the hatred and address it when we see it. I address these topics in my classes and deal with the reactions of my students openly and, I hope, in ways that help them to see how hurtful and hateful comments like these are. I am going to teach now. That’s what I do fight the patriarchy.
“a good weiner-grabbing”
As a nod to our blog owner in residence:
A Dick Twisting
Oh, dear, if this isn’t depressing to the mother of three teenage girls, I don’t know what is. I’m so thankful that my oldest is at a womens’ college. Deliver us all.
It’s so funny to me that men get so defensive about whether or not they hate women. I don’t think I hate women, but I do really hate men, and one of the reasons is they hate women.
Italian women will grab a man’s balls quickly and efficiently and squeeze them enough to rob you of your breath and double you over. I was astounded when it was demonstrated on me; my god! it hurt. And it happened so fast I couldn’t possibly react. I think it may have been presumption of physical superiority that kept me from anticipating it even though I knew it was coming.
It bears repeating that a man can be incapacitated quickly and easily. Men like to think they are all insensitive dicks when they are mostly highly-sensitive balls. Ha! Ha!
Let us not forget that the patriarchy is very much alive and well at women’s colleges too.
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2005/11/16/indiana-college-girls-shaving-their-way-to-happiness/
oh come now - misogyny and piss being the same: why, one is unpleasant smelly stuff that emanates from penises whereas….
hmm what was my point again?
It’s interesting how incoherent the response to Ms. DaCosta’s letter has been. The advertisement is sexist in one way: it reinforces existing stereotypes about feminine passivity, with all of the consequences she details. The responses to her are sexist in another way, obsessed as they are with fantasies of male sexual power, as well as with related, retrograde notions of DaCosta being another “hysterical” woman. Of course, these different manifestations of sexism do relate, but it’s worth noting the slippage, since sexist ideology is full of contradictions.
I’d like to separate that from the discussion of “hating.” Hate is something men feel towards women, either because of painful experiences or because of socialization. It’s also something women can potentially feel towards men. It isn’t something that can be generalized to a whole gender, and it’s never justified. That’s part of what feminism means to me: not having a bunch of increasingly cynical epiphanies, but rather working against hate — by trying to help people heal, trying to overcome hateful stereotypes, and trying to make hurtful actions harder to rationalize and ignore.
Neat thing is that if you reply to a poster you are shown under their comment when the comment list is expanded.
I think “deepdicking” may be the most offensive word I have ever heard.
I can’t stop thinking about this. Not only does it imply that a woman hasn’t had enough sex to learn her place in the world, but she hasn’t had a man grace her with a huge wang in order to teach her her only purpose as well. It’s really sickening.
The student thought she had to make clear she was making a small point, but it was clearly important enough to win her a deluge of hate mail. Good stuff.
Liza, thank you for what you do.
I could only read three comments before I felt sick and had to stop. I guess my tolerance is very low today.
So much hatred. So much anger. So much ugliness. This is what being women earns us. (I originally said “being women who object to patriarchy” but realized that part was not needed. Not needed at all.)
The first time I read something, somewhere on the internet referring to this poster and the letter written about it, it didn’t describe the image on the poster at all, just the words “pitcher” and “catcher”. Considering that in my particular sexual subculture, those are terms used to discuss sexual activities without the wierdly power-assumptive labels of “top” and “bottom” (and entirely distinct from genital configuration), I didn’t immediately ken to the problem. I thought, “Oh, well, it’s nice that someone in straightland is using non-specific terminology to encourage safe sex, and not reducing the sum of safer sex to the presence of condom on dick. That’s good.”
I was so wrong. I don’t know whether to bless my ignorance for the fact that I don’t participate in straightland enough to anticipate this kind of crap, or condemn myself for naivety. The poster is awful, the original letter well-articulated, the majority of the responses absolutely frightful. I’m sad that there are safe-sex educators in the world who just don’t get it (I’d like to see the person who designed this poster’s response to the controversy), and I’m sad but not entirely surprised that we have evidence once again of the violent response to the questioning of patriarchy.
I’m curious to know whether the Blamers here think that the terminology (”pitching” and “catching”) are specifically problematic, and why. I can see how their use in any context that reinforces the whole ‘vagina is receptacle’ nonsense would be, but are they remotely salvageable? I guess this swerves off into a whole tangent about sport-sex metaphors, which are probably all about stinky testosterone cash-sponsored sport, although the image that pops up in my mind is the local women’s softball team.
“Today’s is a day of remembrance in Canada for all women victims of male violence (the day commemorates the Montreal Massacre).”
Not at a university engineering faculty which I phoned today, and which a few years prior to the Montreal Massacre published, in a combined faculty/student newsletter, an article on how to penetrate a child. University big wigs demurred until they were forced to do something. The words “freedom of speech” were bandied about.
Three years ago a sociology professor asked her students about the Montreal Massacre. They had no idea what she was talking about. They didn’t know about the female engineering students segregated from their class (the men were let go) and then slaughtered by a gunman who screamed that “I hate feminists” when he opened fire. Today, I called public affairs, faculty chair’ admins, faculty and student newspapers at three universities trying to find a commemorative event. “Last year some women’s group held something” a woman representing the engineering faculty told me.
my daughter is even now applying to colleges. we both expect her to fly off somewhere, next year, which is mostly a good thing. except she’s not ready, and i’m not ready. i think i’m adding pepper spray and self-defense lessons to the to do and/or gift lists.
i’m 30 years out of date, but even back in the day, it is hard for me to imagine the kind of hatred on those initial replies being tolerated. guess it is good for them to be aired, so one knows they are there. but those views need to be slammed and well, in every available forum: the dorms, the paper, classrooms.
here is the extra-crappy part — the author of the letter, who was brave enough to put her own real name out there to say something worth thinking about, might be a target of secret boy-angst for the indefinite future. her school appears to be a magnet for defective persons of the male persuasion, judging by the comments.
but even back in the day, after a few rapes on campus, it was considered smart for women to travel in packs and/or use the escort service. probably good advice today, too, even though it is not right.
There’s a small segment in the video interview here, with a psychiatrist positing about strident feminists vis a vis Lepine’s murderous act, and then, following the news story, Lepine’s suicide note. With it was a list of 19 notable women whom he was also going to slaughter. They were all feminists he said.
Marc Lepine’s mother spoke to the media this week for the first time since the Montreal Massacre. She said Lepine Sr. was violent and frequently beat her and the children.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_5916.aspx
This is abhorrent. Some marketer thinking that a sports metaphor, no matter how ill advised, would be the best way to market to the college demographic. I hope they heed the letter and pull the poster.
Slashy, interesting question re â€pitching†and “catchingâ€. I think the terminology is problematic, at least for hetero sex — can’t speak for the gay male usage. The problem, for me, is the characterization of the women’s role as a reactive, passive one. I don’t find the idea of man as pitcher as offensive as that of man as batter, as per the poster, but either way, the woman is depicted as the one “done to.” Men promoting this characterization are the same ones espousing the barefoot-pregnant thing.
I was surprised at the ratio of hostile to supportive responses from men. I expected the former to predominate, but not to this degree. Maybe during college years, the frat boy contingent is the more vocal one.
Interestingly, I’ve found that sometimes the most vocally frat-boyish types are the ones hungering for a more dominant woman. I have known several men who appeared to be swaggeringly frattish (though, not abusive like the responders in the New Hampshire situation — or at least, not to my knowlege), who admitted to desires for dominant women to control them. Perhaps the virulence of these responses have something to do with these kinds of inner desires on the part of these men. Not, of course, that this absolves them in the slightest.
The sad thing is, I’ve worked up a scenario in my imagination about how the poster came to be: a low-budget advertisement was requested by the student health center, and the university’s minimum-wage inexperienced graphics department slaves (or unpaid interns) cranked out this ad along with 14 other unrelated projects that day, using royalty-free clip art and quickly composed text, without much time built in for review/edits, seeing as how they have other activities in their schedule as university students. These aren’t six-figure Madison Avenue creeps who market-research the shit out of every beer ad they stick a naked woman in. They’re college schlubs.
And then this happens. I actually feel a little sorry for the designer of the poster. Sure, the image may play into the patriarchy (I haven’t seen it, can’t make a judgment), and I’m not condoning that. But, damn. No $5/hr job is worth this kind of backlash.
… and by backlash, I mean being the catalyst for hundreds of Farkers to threaten rape to a woman, and the ensuing chaos. Clearly, the designer(s) could use a lesson in how misogyny pervades advertising images, and how to look out for it in the future. But that’s all I’d wish upon them.
I’ve always considered myself to be totally cognizant of men’s hatred for women but reading the first 15 or so comments on that site was sobering, even for me. I couldn’t post anything there because I’m not registered, but Ms. DaCosta, if you’re reading this, please know that you do not deserve any of what those men (and women) are saying to you over there. Thank you for speaking out about the poster!
I hate the way DaCosta is being treated. I hate how ultimately powerless it makes me feel.
A few years ago, a lesbian coffeehouse that belonged to an aquaintance of mine in Finland was burned down after months of threats from homophobic groups. I felt so horrible and powerless, so I decided to make a monetary donation in the owners’ names to a queer youth group in my city. It was something minor and something half a world away from where the crime occurred, but I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for the destruction, so it was kind-of a “take that” to the arsonists.
So, even if in my own mind, I was able to bring some minor good - however small. I’m going to try to do something similar here, write a letter, make a donation in honor of Ms. DaCosta to a crisis agency in New Hampshire, I don’t know, just something. I’m under no delusions that the world will change if only we whip out our pocketbooks, but I just want to do SOMETHING other than shake my head and sigh.
I’d heard that men on campus had become vicious about women. This is the confirmation.
They don’t like the competition, I guess. As the Montreal case shows, men who can’t compete feel that women get an unfair break in life. Which is crap, of course.
But there is this: almost any woman has something to recommend her. Even a woman others may scorn has taken care of someone, has given pleasure, has some skills, something. But there are too many men who have nothing whatsoever to offer. And they are precisely the men who have a huge sense of entitlement.
Alas, ’tis true.
Farkers should definitely start their own Free State Project, preferably in the remote desert, in that it would collapse in starvation and Lord of the Flies anarchy within days.
I just skimmed through the comments here, and I see in general a lack of “what a horrible school” kind of blaming, which is good. But for anyone who is inclined to place the blame on UNH, know this: it’s not just this school’s problem, and it’s not just a state school problem. It’s an every school problem. Get it? For those of you who are looking for “nice” schools for your daughters, schools that don’t harbor such misogyny, good luck with that, but let me tell you a secret: even nice, progressive, small, private schools with a nice, liberal, charming student body with be full of horrible misogynists. If your first thought when reading this was, “Gee, my college newspaper would NEVER let those comments be approved!” you are missing the point, big time. Odds are your college had dicks that believed things as sexist as these auteurs but instead of posting their thoughts online at the newspaper, they made fun of those fucking cunt feminist whores in “private.”
Anyway, kudos to this girl for even trying, is all I have to say.
This ran in my institution’s student paper last week, to disappointingly lukewarm and timid response.
http://tinyurl.com/yea46l
I don’t think that all men hate women. I have a nice male who hangs around here from time to time, who doesn’t seem to hate at all. I think that what is overestimated often is how much can be done by using solid argument and reason. I must confess that, for me, understanding how little reason is respected in the societies at large was my turning point — my enlightenment, if you will.
Ah, but I had more (many more) barriers put up against me than I suspect most do. You know, I had a lot of right wing males telling me that if only I could get the right balance to my articulation, everybody would be falling over themselves just to hear what I had been meaning to say. According to these males, my lack of power in society had everything to do with failing to translate “that hurts me” into something much more meaningful and intelligible — something they could actually ‘understand’.
And so it was, that after a long period of time, I realised the limits of communication (in itself) and reason (in itself). There is too much about our societies which has nothing to do with either.
Octogalore: I’m actually from the lesbian side of things, which is probably just as embroiled in wierdness as the heterosex camp, because hey, vaginas are involved, and ‘vagina’ seems to be useful shorthand for pretty much anything that ever goes wrong in the human species. We (or at least the small groups of lesbian-oriented women I use the term in discussion with) find the terms useful because without language to describe what’s going on, how do we discuss safer (and potentially more fun) ways to do it?
Sex-that-does-not-involve-men is not, in fact, suddenly safe as fluffy bunnies and kittens because the all-powerful penis is removed from the equation (an opinion expressed by an alarming number of health professionals I’ve encountered). Language about sex and safer sex is largely restricted to what happens when penises go into vaginas, or in very niche circumstances, mouths and/or arses. Thus, the notion of the penis-bearer as universal pitcher (and vagina-owner as ‘natural’ universal receptacle) is perpetrated in a teeth-gnashingly infuriating manner.
So I guess what I mean is, I see your point, and wonder, do you feel that lesbians, being also vagina-bearers, should shy away from pitcher-catcher terminology because even women who have sex with women can perpetrate woman-as-eternal-receptacle crap?
edith — i think you are right, that this can happen anywhere. back in the olden days, when i was in school, the boys’ brazen secret thoughts weren’t available online, though. if anyone had said OUT LOUD anything so offensive and idiotic as some of the anonymous comments melissa got, there would be big fat discussions, let me tell you — instituted by students and perpetuated by faculty, and the threats would have gone up to the administrative level. announcing a girl could be “cured” by rape is just sick — what college wants that kind of person around? no college that wants to continue functioning.
i had hoped the private thoughts of boys would have improved by now, and it is clear that they have not. at least, it appears there is still a large pool of idiotic, hating boys out there.
Not only does it imply that a woman hasn’t had enough sex to learn her place in the world, but she hasn’t had a man grace her with a huge wang in order to teach her her only purpose as well.
Zhanae, the underlying assumption here is that the entire purpose of sex is to turn a woman into a degraded piece of filth who knows her place and shuts the fuck up when commanded.
To the male mind (and I’m through qualifying that), that IS what their dicks are for. To show some cunt who’s boss. It’s part of why, after years of going to “women have sex drives, too” route, I’ve begun to back off from it. When sex consists of THAT — for the other person in bed with you — who the hell in their right mind would like it?
And please don’t play the “my huzzbin’s diffrint” game. I’ve known a lot of women who claimed their husbands were different, all — ALL — of whom learned that it was just same shit, different smell in the end.
… announcing a girl could be “cured†by rape is just sick.
They aren’t claiming she can be cured by rape. They’re claiming she can be cured by sex. There’s no distinction drawn between the two at all in their minds.
Oh, westerners are so sick — and apparently, all the same within their culture.
I got through the first page (I think that means 50 or so) comments, but I couldn’t continue.
I too think that ‘deepdicking’ is an especially offensive turn of phrase. I’ve never heard it before, thankfully. Prior to reading IBTP, I took someone to task on the phrase “tap that” on an internet posting board. Unfortunately, at that point I didn’t have the clarity of thought to allow me to articulate exactly what I found so disturbingly offensive about it. Were the same thing to come up now, I would be able to explain it in detail, and that’s thanks to Twisty.
I really feel for Melissa, at the same time as being very proud of her. Personally, I fear for her bodily integrity and I hope (probably in vain) that the school is doing something to show their support for her rather than these woman-hating bullshit-spouters.
Every day my eyes open wider. I wonder when I’ll hit the point where I am no longer surprised.
If Melissa was a het before
She’s a het now. You can realize latent tendencies in either direction, but how can you convert?
Would that make her an “ex het” if she did, resigned to a life of cruising bars for the sake of “research” into heterosexuality?
Yeah, Scratchy 888, sounds like a whole shitload of othering to me. If it is wrong for thems to do it, it ain’t right for usses to do it.
NO hope for change when nobody is ever allowed to.
Apparently, those anonymous jerks aren’t the only misogynists on the New Hampshire campus.
Check out the other letter to the editor, “Res. Life Condones Sexism.”
“A male RA and his residents set up a mini golf course where you had to hit the ball through a series of obstacles into a cardboard box. A photograph of a woman in a bikini was placed above the box and two signs completed the display, each saying, ‘Glory Hole: Made to be Violated.”‘
Fuck it.
Drop the bomb, exterminate the brutes.
Also, check out the comments for that letter as well. The ratio between misogynist and rational arguements is much better, but it’s still disheartening.
“The point is there is no department solely dedicated to Men’s Studies and there is no health center only available to men. If every other department is just for rich, white males and every other health facility were too, no dumb kuhnts like you would be allowed to study anything but Women’s Studies”
I am becoming more and more convinced that educational settings, from 6th grade on, are ground zero for the patriarchy’s assault against women. The language may change, but the arguement behind the “deep dicking” comments remain the same in middle school, high school, and college.
One can only “deepdick†if one has a long penile status. Somehow, I feel they may be lacking in the trooser snake department.
I will lash you with my earthworm sounds appropriate
Patriarchy begets violence. The hopeless sadness begets violence. Violence begets violence. Talk begets talk and prayer, prayer.
When will the first pair of nuts drop into some dwindling bucket of stem cells?
As a young male I prayed (was Catholicked back then) for my hormone producing genitals to go away and leave my mind alone. It would have been nice, I think, not to have had to go through the rape of puberty…and to have remained a soprano, perhaps. Now my base bass wastes away and shrivels in the light of scorn…and it’s no biggie!~)
The earth will lash us with its eathworm until we recuse ourselves from its (r)evolving ways, means and soil.
Damn. The things beget and steal brains, still. Excuse and/or remove my blathering.
Slashy: just wanted to say that it’s good, and an eensy bit surprising, to find another person of the slashy persuasion here.
And to veer wildly back on-topic, that outpouring of vileness–and I am truly at a loss to say which is worse, the ‘deepdicking’ fuckards or the shame-on-you-for-being-nitpicky-don’t-you-know-political-correctness-is-ruining-our-country fuckards–puts me immediately into predator mode. Which is rather frustrating since this is online and I am, alas, not possessed of the necessary hacker savvy to do anything suitably heinous. But it all goes into the account, every last bit of it, and the next hands-on opportunity I have with an abuser of women or children or animals, well, he’ll have to settle it up.
Not satisfactory, but it’s the best I can do.
Dang, it took forever to wade through the crap to see if my comment got posted, but I didn’t want to let this one pass.
Isn’t it interesting how powerful a woman’s words are when they speak the plain truth? Literally hundreds of men squealing like pigs in rage and fear, trying to drown them out.
Scratchy, the chord you strike reverberates too well:
“Ah, but I had more (many more) barriers put up against me than I suspect most do. You know, I had a lot of right wing males telling me that if only I could get the right balance to my articulation, everybody would be falling over themselves just to hear what I had been meaning to say. According to these males, my lack of power in society had everything to do with failing to translate “that hurts me†into something much more meaningful and intelligible — something they could actually ‘understand’.”
Hi Ms Kate,
Thanks for your reflections on my post.
All that I can answer to your question is “I don’t know”.
The post that I made was my first gut-feeling reaction to trying to imagine the effect that this must have had on Melissa.
I realized afterwards that (the internet being what it is) to some ears it make have sounded snarky. It wasn’t intended that way.
Rather, I posted in an intense state of compassion and empathy.
In early adolescence I felt a surge of strong physical heterosexuality that coexisted with a not quite so strong attraction to girls. This was back in the 1950’s. I had all those self-loathing and “I’ll never be able to be happy” feelings with respect to my love for girls that were engendered by that era. At the same time, I was shocked by the primal, overwhelmingly physical desires that I was feeling for adolescent boys because in that era these feelings were considered indecent.
As I grew older, and at about Melissa’s age, (remember, this was before the internet, or the availability of even “soft” porn in public), I discovered in a manner similar to the manner in which Melissa has done, how deeply and menacingly men and boys really do hate women and girls.
I had from early childhood of course always sensed a general malevolence and arrogance directed from males towards females, but in early adulthood I was terrified, enraged and grief stricken to discover the very focussed and specifically sexual hatred borne to us by so-called “heterosexual” males. This poisoned once and for all my heterosexual feelings towards males.
I hate males. All of them.
But physically, (hormonally? I am past menopoause), I am on totally unexpected, random occasions suddenly attracted to a male that I see in public. I have no interaction with him but experience a huge surge of sexual feeling. Go figure.
So … yes. I consider myself an ex-het. It’s a strange life to live, but it is in accord with my experience of this world, and an entirely natural reaction, I feel.
I’m not a Dyke. I know this. I wish I could have been, but it’s not something that one can just *be* at will. I’ve known too many real Dykes too well to be able to convince myself otherwise.
I have a lesbian separatist awareness and analysis of what’s happening on this planet, but I am not, in all honesty, a lesbian, - nor can I ever hope to be. Maybe in my next life?
M.S.
Mary Sunshine … stop reading my mind. *sigh* I’m still not so sure where I fall on the spectrum anymore, though. Ex-het? I guess that’s as close as anything. Emotionally, mentally, I put women first, without hesitation, without apology, in all circumstances. And like you, I hate males as the only sensible conclusion I could reach.
Slashy –I guess, if you feel that there’s the possibility of perpetrating “woman-as-eternal-receptacle crap†via the use of pitcher-catcher terminology among lesbians, that’s a problem too. I do feel that, within the individual bedroom, it’s up to the individual couple to decide what terminology works, and if a couple feels they can say whatever without potential for perpetrating negative imagery in their particular relationship, it’s probably OK.
It strikes me that there’s more potential for perpetrating “crap†in the hetero environment as this poster and other potential public messages, would be more likely aimed at that population. Per your point about “the notion of the penis-bearer as universal pitcher.†So, my thinking was maybe lesbian couples are more free to look at things outside of that box, so to speak. But, what do I know.
On another topic…Thelmyc said “And please don’t play the “my huzzbin’s diffrint†game. I’ve known a lot of women who claimed their husbands were different, all — ALL — of whom learned that it was just same shit, different smell in the end.â€
Misspelling something to somehow make the speaker seem ignorant is all very well, but your experience is anecdotal, just like mine. There are only two sets of relationships either of us can speak about accurately – you can talk about the men in your life, and only conjecture about others. And I can talk about the men in mine. And my husband is different. We can still blame the patriarchy without convicting each individual man.
“It was not until many bruised and bleeding years later that I woke up, smelled the coffee, and realized that accepting that men hate women is an indispensable survival skill.”
Precisely. Of course, knowing this can lead to years of celibacy off and on if the litmus test is that the male I allow into my life knows this and acts accordingly.
Haven’t come across that so far in real life so have erred and settled a time or two. But, those days are done. Like Mary Sunshine, I suffer the curse of the heterosexual woman. The loneliness is hard but not near as bad as dealing with some willfully ignorant ass.
I am able to believe that 99+% of Hom. sap. males are natural born rapists. Treating them as presumed criminals, whether they act out or not, then seems to be a sensibly fearful reaction.
Perhaps because I’m, genetically, a member of an overprivileged minority, I do still find myself feeling justifiably indignant in the presense of NYGR haters.
Hate seems so violent to one’s self. I may be dead wrong!~)
I agree with Twisty’s post, and Melissa’s letter, and with the observation that many of the comments on it reflect violent misogyny, and also with most of the comments left here so far.
That said, in reference to the discussion here, am I the only one troubled by declarations like “I really do hate men”, or the claim that although “almost any woman has something to recommend her”, “there are too many men who have nothing whatsoever to offer”? Thelmyc, for example, expressly refuses to qualify the claim that “to the male mind”, “dicks are for” turning “women into a degraded piece of filth”.
I can’t be just imagining that these convey an indescriminate hatred towards men, since scratchy888, for one, felt moved to start off with the dissenting observation that “I don’t think that all men hate women”.
Kugelmass reminds us to work against hatred in all its forms. Why is unqualified hatred acceptable here, against anybody? How do these comments strike you? Regrettable but understandable? Perfectly acceptable? Misunderstood (by me)?
Kudos to Ms Kate, for one, for calling out the hypocrisy, and to octogalore for the reminder that “we can still blame the patriarchy without convicting each individual man”.
Fire away.
My apologies to Twisty The Aesthete for misspelling “indiscriminate”.
Mary sunshine: “ex-het” - that’s golden. I can relate.
I read the whole post, all 440 comments it’s at by now, and I see that after the very articulate women started posting, men hardly put anything up anymore. The ones who did keep insisting that Fark readers are just a bunch of basement-dwellers and “even women who have been raped can laugh at sexist jokes,” so where is our sense of humour?
Saying that such a high level of caveman outpouring is a “joke” doesn’t discount the MILLIONS of websites and comments where guys clearly share the same disgusting sentiments. The proliferation of abuse-porn or fake-rape porn (and who’s to say it’s fake), sites like “Throat-Gaggers.com,” or “Ass-Rapers.com,” anime porn where women characters look like children and are screwed by male aliens with huge dicks that spout magical, glowing sperm (I’m not kidding), or even the milder forms of website where a picture of a “hawt” chick is posted and the comments from guys run along the lines of, “I’d split HER in half!” or “she could gag on MY snake!” or “she’s a piece of trash but I’d still fuck her ass until it bled”
where’s the rest of my post!
“NYGR haters.” JJE
What’s a NYGR?
bah. The rest of my post had to do with how Michael Richards gets dragged across coals for racist “jokes” but everywhere else, extreme misogyny is a collective free-for-all party. Also, that if all this “humour” is not really coming from real hatred of women, then how come we don’t see the reverse from women to men? Of course, everyone here knows the real reason. I’m just pissed off with the whole, “dismissing extreme misogyny as a joke” horseshit. I’m sick of being bombarded, everywhere I go, with negative and downright murderous “jokes” about men wanting to do horrible things to women, and being expected to just giggle about it. Twisty could do a way better satirical job of tearing that concept up. Thanks for the link, Twisty and Anthony.
Yes we must not NAME where this misogyny comes from. I wonder if they did this in post-war Germany when they spoke about the nationality of the butchers and builders of the gas-chambers, you know so as not to hurt Mengele’s feelings.
The men
The men
The men
Men men men men men men men
You know, men.
{thanks SAM}
And I’ll add, individual men. Yes, these guys are individuals, just like the men who responded to Fortunay’s Craig’s List post were; Men, individual MEN. Thinking they were anonymous.
http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2006/09/17/the-truth-about-men/
And if after reading that you still don’t get it, then try Heart’s most current posts on *crotch.* These MEN are your boyfriends, brothers, husbands, partners, teachers, grandfathers. MEN, to a one.
Here’s another collection of MEN showing how much they love women. You can google the porn site from the information in Vera’s post. If you think your guy wouldn’t watch this, you’re wrong and need to be enlightened. If you know any individual man would, you need to see it because this ups the ante like you wouldn’t believe. And this, viewed by individual MEN is FREELY available on the internet at the same time as e-mails are going out from a lefty org asking me to sign petitions to protect internet freedom of speech.
http://tinyurl.com/yekh9r
http://veravenom.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/in-which-
vera-rants-and-does-not-apologize-for-it/
For the purposes of the post. I am a NYGR.
It’s simply any individual of this species that one hates based on genetics/morphology. You may say is stands for Not Your Genetic Reflection, Not Your Gender or Race or whatever.
Maiken, I’m troubled by declarations of hatred toward boys as well. I hate patriarchy but merely pity boys. How can any group that pathetic be hated? I hate woman-hating systems, behaviors, beliefs, actions. I do not hate any living thing. Well, maybe potato bugs and ticks, but I’m working on it.
I have to say though, the reasons a woman could have for hating men are a tad more reality based than the “reasons†boys (and self-hating women) have for hating women for millennia. The thing about hatred is that it so unproductive. Hating men is useless because they don’t know they are hated and the ones who do know don’t care. Hating women for thousands of years for delusional reasons hasn’t exactly worked out too swell for anybody either. Not even for the patriarchs on top of their pyramid schemes since ecological destruction or nuclear winter won’t pass them by somehow.
maiken -
I agree with you. However, I think that comments like those you mention are born out of frustration, disgust and, in some cases, a wealth of experience. Let’s also keep in mind here that they are exceedingly mild compared to what we’ve all read in the comment section of the link. Saying “I hate men” is a far cry from suggesting that one needs to be violently penetrated by a baseball bat for voicing an opinion.
This is not my attempt at justifying it as I happen to agree with you - we should be working our way out of this.
Agree, disagree - whatever. However, I will add my voice to scratchy888, Ms Kate and octogalore’s chorus. “we can still blame the patriarchy without convicting each individual man.â€
I know Vera, and was the one who took her to the shelter to meet the counselor. I saw the same things she saw and have seen them many many times before. I’ve been volunteering at the shelter for nearly a decade.
This type of porn doesn’t appeal to all men. Part of the counselor’s experiment is having male subjects in various age groups view the porn and give their opinions. However, she has a male show it to them - in an effort to make them more comfortable and more honest. Were she to show it to them they’d most likely give the safest, though possibly not most honest, responses. I’ve seen the vids. Some get physically ill after seeing this. Some weep. Some are visably angry. Some express amusement or enjoyment. Some ask what site it is so they can visit at home.
While it could be any man, it is not all men. Not that this fact changes anything. As the sickos are not easily identifiable (until it’s too late to avoid them) women have no other choice to be cautious.
An overarching, general distrust of men is the healthiest attitude a woman can take in this world. Not trusting’em is not at all the same as hating’em, of course, but if a woman tells me she hates men, I’m not gonna stand in her way. That’s something you grow into and out of on your own.
Twisty, I’m taken aback by two things in your comment:
On the one hand, it seems only pragmatic to say that women should, as a rule, distrust men. But I can’t figure out how this is fundamentally different from saying, for example, that because African Americans commit a disproportionate share of violent crimes, it is healthy to distrust them more than Caucasians. Perhaps you think this is perfectly rational? Perhaps the only difference you see is one of degree of probability?
Also, for one so passionate about pointing out how the perception of women as Other and Intrinsically Dirty is so harmful, I’m surprised that you’re so blasé about express hatred of the opposite sex. I understand some commenters here to literally be saying “I hate men because I think it is their nature to be evil”. This is as fundamental an expression of Otherness as I can think of.
Lya has been talking about pornography that conveys the idea that women are dirty and deserving of violence and abuse. Compare this to the idea, expressed upthread, that men are poisoned by testosterone and that their death (which comes “not hastily enough”) is the just effect of their “ugly juices”.
Both the pornography, and comments like that one, convey that the opposite sex is, in its essence, repulsive and Bad. Both are ugly from where I’m sitting. Do you really disagree?
I agree with Pony that we certainly should name where the misogyny comes from. Of course, it’s individual men. But not, as I said earlier, each individual man.
“And if after reading that you still don’t get it, then try Heart’s most current posts on *crotch.* These MEN are your boyfriends, brothers, husbands, partners, teachers, grandfathers. MEN, to a one.
Well, all turquoises are blue but not all blues are turquoise. Yes, a random blue might be more likely to be turquoise than a red, but we still can’t assume that’s the case. Deciding, based on overwhelmingly bad experiences with some men, and internet postings such as on Fortuny’s site and the discussion on Heart’s site, that ALL men, including random women’s husbands or relatives you’ve never met, are worthy of hatred, is NOT “getting it.”
Not trusting men, as Twisty suggests (and I would add — before they earn it), is a more nuanced view that conveys similar principles, without the indiscriminate (to borrow Maiken’s word) idea of hatred.
Thelmyc, for example, expressly refuses to qualify the claim that “to the male mindâ€, “dicks are for†turning “women into a degraded piece of filthâ€.
You’re damned right I refuse to qualify it. I’ve already spent waaaay too much time being distracted into ass-kissing and “Oh, but I don’t mean yyyooooouuuu” for way too long. It’s like “Queers Read This” — they can damned well figure out for themselves whether they’re included in my anger or not without me rushing to reassure them that, “Oh, but I don’t mean you, Mr. Perfecto!”
When I do that, they drop their end immediately. “Oh, she doesn’t mean me, so I don’t have to listen to her stupid feminazi whining anymore,” is how that works. It gives them an out — like the old saw that 80% of drivers think they are above average.
I’m not playing that shit anymore.
thelmyc, I’m not sure now whether you think that some men are acceptable human beings (how nice of you!) but can’t be bothered to say so, or that all men are truly evil.
If the former, I don’t think much of your precision. If the latter, it seems to me you are behaving identically to those you condemn.
Maiken, I think you can water your own drink if what we serve here is too strong.
There’s such a remarkably strong false consciousness when it comes to misogyny. Men are not hating women when they give voice to misogynistic sentiments; they are hating their culturally constructed concepts of women, the projection of their own failings onto the Other.
But to say that feminist responses to such “misogyny” (which is really misandrony) are hateful… Whew. Just as all governments lie, all pitiful mortals experience self-loathing and cope with it through varying defense mechanisms, of which one of the most powerful is the Other (or we could say the process of Othering). Since the discourse of masculinity is a dominant one in contemporary American culture, of course one of the most popular Others to despise is Woman. So yes, all men hate women, because men as defined in our culture must be manly in order to be real men, and manliness is defined in terms of violent sexual domination, explicitly or implicitly. We can get out of it by redefining our terms, but this structure (patriarchy) is what it is.
The other man-woman essentialist statement maiken and octagalore are taking issue with is one individual woman (or a few individual woman blamers) stating she hates all men. But it’s the same old story, same old song and dance. Possible configurations of male domination discourse:
1.) All men hate all women.
2.) Particular man hates all women.
3.) All feminists hate all men.
4.) Particular feminists hate all men.
All women hating men do not appear as coherent possibilities in the discourse. Structurally, women as a class are not in a position to hate men as a class. Only a marginalized subset of women, feminists, are privileged to further marginalize themselves with the declaration that their subset — the constitutionally defective subset of the sex class — hates men.
The structure of the discourse thus proves Twisty’s above-made point that it is advisable to be distrustful of men as a class, and logical to entertain the sentiment of hating (i.e., transferring one’s own self-hate as a member of a structurally disadvantaged class onto) men.
This is intuitive to me. I apologize if it is nonsensical or offensive to others. I intend to be respectful of all blamers in this (metaphorically) blessed forum.
saltyC, I like your choice of imagery, but sadly I have no idea from your comment which points you are agreeing or disagreeing with.
I think I will go fix myself a drink, though…
OK, not all men are vile, little turds. However, all men benefit by the behaviors of those who are.
Maybe an acronym disclaimer should be included every time crappy male behavior is pointed out, something like ANAMALT (Although Not All Men Are Like This) and then women wouldn’t have to slosh through this crap every single time they try to have this discussion. With other women that is. With boys, thelmyc is right, they quit listening plus they’d really rather not acknowledge how they benefit from misogyny, thank you very much.
I’m not playing anymore either, thelmyc.
“This type of porn doesn’t appeal to all men”
I’ll believe that when I see a study done with their dicks wired to a monitor and their brains mri’d proving they were not aroused.
Hermit, thank you for your cogent and thoughtful comment. It gave me a lot to think about.
You seem