On behalf of MRA’s worldwide, I’m writing today to apologize to Amanda Marcotte. I’ve said unkind things in the past about her, and have ignored her writing based on my own mistaken understanding. You see, I foolishly believed that Marcotte was a zealous ideologue, wedded to a solipsistic, Dworkinesque view that women are superior humans, and men are inferior, base, grunting troglodytes. Earlier this year, I compounded my offence against Amanda by throwing her into the bigot category on the site Register-her.com.
For all of that, I apologize, and not only must I admit my error, I am here today to correct it. I now understand that Amanda Marcotte is not a bigot or a female supremacist, or a vile hatemonger as I have previously believed. No, she is none of those things. She is actually a simpleton. I have just read her article published Monday 19 Dec, called “The Good Men Project I Used To Know” in which she excoriates the insufficiently self-abasing male feminist Tom Matlack[1].
In the article, Marcotte makes clear what I have been too lazy to previously notice; that in her conception of reality, “good” and “bad” are code words, and once you have Amanda’s secret decoder ring it’s obvious that agreement with Amanda is good, while disagreement with Amanda is bad. Marcotte is guilty of none of the failures of character previously attributed to her, because she’s incapable of such complicated malice. Her ethic is charmingly uncomplicated and pure. If you agree with her, you are good. Disagree or question, well then you’re bad.
However, although now correctly identified as a self absorbed stooge, Amanda’s article condemning Matlack to the coal-bin does get a few things wrong, and asks a few questions which, being a civic minded fellow, I’ll assist by answering.
I’m here to help, Amanda.
According to Marcotte, “The whole mission behind the Good Men Project is presumably to advocate for good men..” That’s cute, I always thought the GMP mission was to pretend to a male friendly point of view, masquerading as a site in favour of male human rights, while feeding the unwary a steady diet of anti-male feminist agitprop. Of course, I previously would have mis-attributed Marcotte’s characterization of the GMP as deliberate obfuscation, now it’s obvious she’s just a blameless dunce.
However, circular as Marcotte’s reasoning tends to be, she demands of Mr Matlack answers to questions no man in a feminist-moderated forum has ever been allowed to answer.
1) I wanted examples of these “differences” between men and women that Tom alluded to, but didn’t describe.
2) I wanted evidence of how women are not accepting men, and what acceptance would look like.”
The answers to these questions are easy to come by, in fact they’re present in a substantial fraction of men’s rights writing. Unfortunately for Amanda, answers from that camp are not to be considered.
Marcotte’s opening paragraph includes the statement : “Personally, I’m a big fan of just banning MRAs. They have nothing of value to add to a conversation…”
Nothing of value, according to Marcotte, which; with my new understanding of her as a conformist dullard, means that answers she doesn’t already agree with are “bad” answers.
However, to Amanda’s first question on differences between men and women, the fields of biology, cognitive psychology and neurology have, in the past decade supplied a mountain of peer reviewed research establishing sexual differences, and most professionals in those fields don’t cross-post their research to MRA blogs. Google is your friend Amanda – except, of course when the answers you find don’t conform to your “women good, man bad” ideology. In those cases, then Google is of course, bad.
To Marcotte’s second question “ I wanted evidence of how women are not accepting men, and what acceptance would look like.”
This is two questions, but friendly and helpful fellow that I am, I’ll answer both. To the first part, I’ll give a couple of examples, starting with Penny Nance of the Concerned Women of America. Nance, along with a large fraction of the feminist mainstream – has noticed that men are increasingly opting out of the traditionally allowed roles for men of protector, provider and disposable utility. This is mischaracterized of course – using language like “man boy” and “peter pan syndrome” in an attempt to shame and manipulate men back onto the zero sum treadmill of service and disposability.
Kay Hymowitz provides another example with “Manning Up How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys”.
To Hymowitz and her ideological contemporaries, male self actualization in any path other than self sacrificing service to women is intolerable and must be punished, shamed and scorned.
Of course, I’m an MRA – which “by definition” rules my opinion out of consideration, along with any evidence I might provide, so I wont waste Amanda’s precious time with any more examples. Getting back to Amanda’s world of simple good and bad : “They [MRAs] have nothing of value to add to a conversation, and exist online solely to disrupt any conversation they fear might lead others towards reaching the conclusion that women are people.”
This always puzzled me. Since when have women not been people? In what dusty corner of whose demented mind is a woman not a person? In fact – getting general society to treat women as fully enfranchised adults with adult powers and accountability is a major goal of the men’s rights movement.
It is your camp, Miss Marcotte, which continues to argue, wheedle and lobby for feminine exemption from anything resembling personal responsibility. Of course, Amanda won’t find agreement with this opposing view, making me, by definition, a bad man.
Obviously, this definitional stance betrays the simplistic and dogmatic character of Marcotte’s position. That which agrees with Amanda is good, and that which disagrees is bad, and we can tell the difference because Amanda is definitionally right. It’s like fundamentalist religious logic, except Marcotte has substituted herself in place of almighty Yahweh. Sadly for her, feminist ideological supremacy has not yet endowed her the legal power to smite questioners or individuals with an objecting conscience.
Marcotte’s definition of AVFM founder Paul Elam as an individual who hates women reveals the common feminist failure of conflating the biological female demographic with the ideological camp of feminism. Feminists and women are two separate group identities Amanda. Is that news to you? In her definitional declaration of Elam as a bad man, Marcotte outs herself as an adherent to circular, self referential dogma rejecting all data which doesn’t support her ideology. The Amada-Marcotte-Decoder-Ring™ clearly identifies disagreement with Amanda as bad, and agreement with Amanda as good.
When Marcotte, in her condemnation of Good Men Project founder Tom Matlack, demands “you really need to prove it, or even just provide a single piece of supporting evidence.”
She’s demanding the data she’s already declared verbotten. As always Amanda, the men’s rights blogging community has provided that data in abundance for years – you’re simply unwilling to consider that which your magic decoder ring translates to bad.
Whether Mr. Matlack has the answers Marcotte refuses to consider is of academic concern. He is, after all, a long-term male feminist only just now beginning to assert himself a human apart from his utility to feminist interests. It’s going to be a bumpy road for Tom, and the MRA community will likely not offer much help for the distrust he’s earned. For Marcotte however, I’ll offer my own contribution to her repeated demand for evidence. Citing Marcotte’s defenstration of Matlack: “nor does he have evidence that women categorically refuse to accept men who are behaving like decent human beings.”
This is anecdotal, rather than peer reviewed research, but I’m not much motivated to provide Marcotte what she could easily uncover herself with three minutes and a search engine. Male utility is what most women (including avowed feminists) value in men.
The following link is to a video in which three overheard conversations are related from a zeta-male point of view.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viwI3YUiU4U
If, by the way, Amanda, you don’t know what zeta-masculinity is or why it is necessary – The following reading list should cure that area of your ignorance. I am, of course assuming you are capable of learning, an assumption which runs contrary to my recent understanding of you as not a bigot, but merely a simpleminded dunce. I remain an optimist.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/the-plague-of-modern-masculinity/
http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/the-male-hierarchy-at-closer-inspection/
http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/standing-at-the-zeta-crossroads/
http://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/evo-psych/a-resounding-silence/
http://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/chivalry/silence-of-the-the-man/
It’s likely Marcotte won’t read any of the content provided, as her decoder ring of good and bad blanks anything except flattery. A rewrite of the listed articles with a liberal peppering of her name throughout might overcome this filter, but I doubt the utility of such spoon-feeding.
From Marcotte:
As a general rule, I ignore anti-feminists who spew bile about women all day on the internet.
Once more, our bright light of feminist thought conflates “women” and “feminists” into one group. As an MRA, I’m able to tell these two groups apart by a number of methods, including that the two words are spelled differently.
Finally, It’s worth a passing mention of the absurdity of the definition of good or bad man by anybody except a man. As expected from a mind possessed purely by self interested solipsism – “good” in men is defined by utility.
Marcotte condemns the GMP for Tom’s abortive attempts at self determination apart from his use to feminists :
It seems that we’re still going to have to wait for a space truly dedicated to giving voice to “good men.”
After the providing the public with a Rosetta Stone to translate feminist valuation of good and bad by utility to self-interested women, I’m left with only two questions. Do other adherents of female supremacist ideology recognize how nakedly and thoroughly Marcotte has outed them?
And, is Amanda the next candidate to be thrown under the bus?
[1] http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/the_good_men_project_i_used_to_know
