The incredibly entitled and totally-not-oppressed American feminists who populate Twitter launched a hashtag called #QuestionsForMen which is supposed to reveal “casual sexism” that the poor little American women are allegedly suffering terribly from.
I selected 25 of them and I’ll try to be as brutally honest as I can in answering them. Hope you enjoy it.
No. And I also don’t offer such gifts. It’s a decision I made a long time ago (in fact long before Valentine’s Day was even a thing in my neck of the woods) for one simple reason: I don’t believe in buying stupid shit as a rule. And if I want to buy stupid shit, I don’t need a special day.
Also, in my part of the world, the 14th of February is just the beginning of what I call “The deadly month of men’s wallets” because, you see, in under one month, there are exactly 4 holidays (all of them religiously celebrated by a huge chunk of women) in which men are supposed to buy shit for women. Are there any for men? Well, in reality, no – because modernity has pretty much abolished the old March 9 which used to be a day when women were supposed to buy shit for men.
So, there’s Valentine’s Day on February 14th, then there’s Dragobetele on February 24th, then there’s Mărțișor on March 1st (which is allegedly gender neutral but it’s been almost 20 years since I’ve last seen anyone even mention men) and then there’s International Women’s Day on March 8th.
And women love it when I put my views on this so bluntly. But that’s mainly because they think I’m joking. Until they find out that I am not.
Do I get angry responses for my views? Of course. If I had 1€ for every angry response, Bill Gates would be dirt poor in comparison to myself.
As for threats, I get a couple of them per week although the average is roughly 3.5 per week (and yes, I made the statistic for 2014) because for some reason my philosophical opponents seem to be more comfortable in sending me threats during the spring and summer.
However, it’s not my style to pull a Sarkeesian on everyone and just whine for the whole fricking planet to see how oppressed I am. Because in reality, threats on the internet are just words on a screen. If I don’t like them, I delete them. Those I find funny I keep for posterity.
For the most part, I don’t worry about online threats at all – and that is because they mainly come from people whose existence is totally indifferent to me.
No. What I did though was to call a friend to come to the spot where I am because there was no way I’m gonna cross that neighborhood by myself.
In other words, I actually called a friend instead of an acquaintance who could actually do something practical to alleviate my fears – who did in fact turn out to be legitimate. Thank goodness those thugs didn’t have guns, because if they had, it would’ve been illegal for me and my friend to defend ourselves.
But if calling a friend and keeping him/her on the phone makes you feel better – then more power to you. However, that’s not oppression. You are the only one responsible for your feelings.
Christine Lagarde, Fatima al-Fihri, Andrée Virot,… there’s a huge list of women who did both great and awful things and who wielded a tremendous amount of power in history yet, ironically, feminists are the least likely group to celebrate them.
But that shouldn’t be a surprise, really. Feminism is misogynistic by its very nature and the collectivist-tribalist framework of “thinking” that drives way too many feminists today commends them to frown upon women who not only succeed, but succeed whilst showing the middle finger to the Big Sister.
Lady Thatcher knew what she was talking about when she said feminism is poison.
Of course. And I would wager that most people have been in that situation at least once.
You know, men tend to be human and sometimes they get scared.
Your name is Swedish. But wherever you are – try reading the marriage laws with a focus on how they impact men. And there you’ll have at least a part of the answer.
But if my haunch is correct and you are indeed Swedish, just take a look at how men are treated culturally in Sweden. I would never marry in a country where the editor-in-chief of a big news media writes a piece called Yes, I hate men and then not only gets away with such blatant bigotry, but actually gets praise, primarily from female readers.
No matter how much I love a woman, I just wouldn’t sign a binding contract in such a nation. It’s absurd.
Also, believe it or not, cohabitation (at least in Europe) is getting increasingly profitable. And, in my experience, I get far more joy if I find my girlfriend home because she wants to be there, rather than because she’s forced to. And it goes both ways. She gets more joy from me being there because I want to and not because I’m afraid that leaving her is bound to strap me with an annuity or alimony or whatever the legal term is in various nations for what I generally call vaginamony.
Yes. In the end, the direct boss who threatened me ended up being fired herself because when the business owner used a pen and paper, he noticed that I’m far more productive than she had ever been and me having a beard was utterly irrelevant for the company’s profits and well-being.
I’ve been employed in such a place long time ago when frowning upon long-haired men was popular (the Communists really hated long-haired men). I wrote my resignation after 4 months – the long hair policy was one of the reasons for that (albeit the smallest of them).
I’m a self-employed long-haired man now.
No. But it has come to a point where it does trigger laughter in me and an unstoppable urge to mock and ridicule anyone who utters such words towards me.
And that’s mainly because exactly 100% of the people who ever told me that have no bloody clue what “privilege” and “oppression” really looks like.
Try having your house under surveillance by the State, whilst having to spend long hours (10 hours in a good day!) in queues for basic necessities like milk, gas cylinder re-fills (here’s a picture from 1985) or bread. Oh, and the bread was rationed.
And that’s only the beginning. If I start describing the period between 1982 and 1989 from my part of the world, a 3-volume book wouldn’t be enough. Suffice to say that I don’t view any feminist (or any woman, really) in Europe or North America today as being oppressed by any means.
Virtually all American feminists are wealthier than 90% of the planet – and wealthier than a significant chunk of American men. I simply can’t get myself to feel compassion for their “oppression”.
Yes, absolutely. I wouldn’t even think twice about it.
Okay, that’s two questions. First, no, I don’t worry about being seen as bossy.
Second, yes, I was called bossy a few times – and in one occasion was deserved. But, being right when being bossy tends to help because when things go right, everyone will either forgive or forget that you’ve been bossy and be grateful that they still have a job.
The boss is there for a reason. And sometimes, there are situations when the boss has to be bossy and it’s nothing wrong with that.
Oh, yes. Especially older people who think that at my age I should’ve had at least on child if not two.
And yes, it pisses me off – but I treat this sort of people the same way I treat the feminists who want to regulate how I take a leak, how I fuck, how I ride the bus and all that: I not-so-politely invite them to mind their own damn business.
In fact, we’d have a far better world if more people would just mind their own damn business and stop trying to control everybody. Oh, and more adherence to the I don’t give a flying tosh school of thought would be nice.
Not now. But when I worked front-end customer service, I used to be told that quite often. That’s one of the things that made me realize that that job wasn’t for me.
Not now, because the people I hang around with know that I’m in a long-term-relationship. But when I was single? Of course! Especially if she was hot.
It works in a similar manner as with women. In women, if the guy hitting on you is attractive, that’s great. If not, then he’s deemed a creep.
The reverse though doesn’t seem to apply to often in the Anglosphere. But it does apply here. If she’s ugly as hell, I might even have some friends help me get rid of her – but if she’s hot and I say no, well, then all hell may break loose.
Oh, and here’s a secret: Men get called far nastier names (both by women and other men) for not wanting female attention.
Depends on what you mean by reluctant. Anyway, yes, because it’s tough to find a decent psychologist (or, I believe you call that a therapist).
And I’d wager a significant chunk of men can relate to what I say. Otherwise dr. T’s Shrink4men wouldn’t be flourishing.
Not to mention than in my corner of the world, women seeking mental health services are either seen as possibly insane by older people and maybe a bit distressed by younger folks – whilst men in the same position are seen as definitely insane. Which kinda adds to the problem.
But anyway, the social attitudes on this topic don’t bother me that much – it’s the fact that there’s a chronic lack of decent therapists to address men’s issues that’s bothering me. And it’s not getting any better with more and more misandry being introduced into the classes that these professionals take.
Everytime I say that I don’t want to have children, the discussion ends with a “you’ll change your mind eventually”. Every. Single. Time.
Does it bother me? Well, yeah, a bit. But my adherence to the I don’t give a flying tosh school of thought helps me move on quite quickly (in under 5 seconds, that is) because it’s not worth my time to argue with other people on such trivial matters. So what if they think I’ll change my mind eventually?
No, seriously, so what?!
No. Never. I don’t exist to receive validation from everyone around me.
Yes, some people will think I’m too fat, or too thin, or that my long hair is too long, or not long enough – or that my dressing style is not good enough… or whatever. Idiots will always find something to pick on.
I, on the other hand, have much more important business than to worry about what some random idiots think or say about my outfit or about my looks. If you don’t like how I look, then don’t work with me and don’t talk to me. GTFO!
It’s a healthy attitude, just saying. It also helps in keeping your blood pressure stable. (not joking!)
Absolutely. Especially if I’m traveling in dubious places. You don’t want to know what dubious places I was in at 3AM in Budapest last year. You can be damn sure I let everyone who I know they care that I got back safely to the hotel.
And I also have more reasons than a woman to do so – given that men are far-far-far-far more likely to be the victims of street violence than any woman anywhere in Europe or North America (or indeed anywhere in the world, really).
Only by female feminists.
I’m serious with this one. I’ve argued with all stripes of people – from Bolsheviks, to traditional-gynocentrists, to male feminists, to genuine fascists,… you name it. The only people who have ever called me an unnatural man were female feminists.
In all honesty, though, it shouldn’t be a surprise – given that the very view that men as men are somehow unnatural is a view that comes from a particularly nasty branch of female feminists.
Yes. I was 6 (I think). I wanted a skirt for comfort because I needed to climb trees – and those nasty summer pants that were made back in Communism were a pain in the arse for that purpose. I didn’t think I wasn’t allowed to per se, as today’s understanding of allowed would be. I rather thought I wouldn’t be allowed to ask my great-grandma to waste a good piece of cloth to make me a skirt for my silly purpose.
Getting a bizarre (but comfortable) skirt was the only way to avoid going out in my underwear. I got giggles from my peers – but I also got first to the top of the tree and ate all those good cherries. I’m not joking here. Oh, and the cherries weren’t washed (you didn’t think I would just pick them all and take them down and risk losing them to my peers, wouldn’t you?) – something which I noticed it sounds horrible by today’s standards.
But I also had the luck of growing up in a culture where kids doing such things was considered to be just kids being kids as opposed to taking a crapton of pictures and claiming oppreshun and speshul snowflake status for being gender-whatever.
Thank goodness there was no social media back then. I feel for today’s kids, many of their lives being already endangered by the crap that their parents have put up on the web…
Quite a few times.
That’s because I not only look younger than I am but also because I take pride in the fact that I had my first job at the age of 12 (I was selling newspapers on the street). By the time I reached 16 I was almost entirely independent and by the age of 19 I already employed a person.
Another issue is that today, young people in most of Europe are caught in a cycle of masking unemployment by taking long, boring and ultimately useless university courses – and in the meantime, most of them (both young men and young women) live off their parents’ in some way. I think it’s horrible that the young people’s most creative years are wasted in a classroom instead of being out there and making something for themselves.
When you add the never-ending recession that’s going on in the 28 unfortunate nations of the EU – you’ll realize that being an “independent young man” is not really a given at all.
- I don’t know about women in general, but feminist women do interrupt me way more often than common sense and common decency would allow.
-
As often as it’s necessary. And I have a high bar for “necessary” and apply it across the sex divide. I argue ideas and refute ideas on their own merit, not on the merit of the sex of the utterer.
-
No, not really. I really do have more important business than to worry about what sex interrupts me or what was the sex of the last person I argued with and whether I interrupted her/him or not. This is not an issue – this is petty bullocks, really.
Oh, absolutely!
Take the issue of reproductive rights. Most women I encountered seem to think that men have all the reproductive rights (or that they have any reproductive rights in the first place) – when in fact, the exact opposite is true.
Yes. As have them watched me doing the same in other occasions.
You see, the women I hang around tend to have a mouth which they use to utter words such as “Please help me with this” if they actually need help.
Also, on most, if not all, private events I attended, it’s usually the host that starts cleaning up and usually the host (regardless of sex) uses the mouth to explicitly mention words such as “I’ll take care of this.”
As far as I’m concerned, if my assistance isn’t being required, then I’ll assume that my assistance isn’t needed until proven otherwise by circumstances. And I apply this to everything – not just trivial stuff such as these.
With an unlocked car, no.
On the other hand… with a wallet? Are you kidding me? Most men are compared with a wallet (or an ATM machine) at least once in their lifetimes, usually by women but sometimes by men as well.
Men are human doings and, at least for the time being (and by that I mean at least until the end of this century), the value of a man will be, at some point, judged by the thickness of his wallet.
My doctor also once compared my body with an overused steam locomotive in trying to tell me that I work too much. But instead of going #fullMcIntosh at him and cry oppreshun, I actually listened to the argument behind the unfortunate metaphor – and he had a point. I was in fact working too much.
In other words, I did exactly what feminists refuse to do when such metaphors are used – and that is to actually look at core of the argument, not just its shape
Anyway, I’ve mansplained enough for today. I hope I’ll come back to read your answers to these questions so that the Fembot Collective will have something to archive.
Cheers!
