Three books I think you should read about living in a world where your thoughts are policed and the truth must never be spoken. This could be our world, sooner than we know.

7 Oct

A reader sent me this story, asking me to comment, and it immediately made me think of the latest fiction books I’ve been engrossed in.

Here’s the story: during the month of October, the NFL makes a concerted effort to promote breast cancer awareness and donates 5% of all “pink” merchandise sales directly to the cause. That amounts to a MILLION dollars donated by just one enterprise, which is nothing to sneeze at. Komen, the largest breast cancer researcher in the US, reported an income of $400 million in 2009-10, 20.9% of which goes to funding research. That amounts to just over $83 million dollars in research and ONE organization straight up handed them one million dollars of that money.

NFL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure

But naturally, that’s not enough. Jezebel calls the million dollar donation a “scam”.

http://jezebel.com/5950971/the-nfls-campaign-against-breast-cancer-is-a-total-scam

The fact that the feminist brigade would piss and moan over not getting EVERY LAST DOLLAR ON EARTH handed to them is not really what interests me. Wow – feminists are selfish and shitty. Not really breaking news, it is?

Here’s what does interest me: breast cancer kills approximately the same number of people per year as suicide. Both come in around 40 000 deaths annually. But of course, suicide affects men far more than women.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

Where is the million dollars the NFL has donated to suicide prevention? And if the NFL did donate that much money, do you really think the national suicide prevention team would be complaining that it isn’t enough?

I’m guessing the response would look more like this:

thank

And look at this story about how social media forces young women to obsessively stalk boys they like:

http://groupthink.jezebel.com/social-media-and-teens-1441754369/@laurabeck

What’s interesting here is not just the claim that young women have NO CHOICE but to turn into creepy voyeurs fanatically tracking down what boys like and don’t like and then faking their entire personalities to appeal to said boys (which is disturbing in itself), but rather the story the writer recalls about her own relationship:

This last story really hit home for me, because it sounds suspiciously similar to how my current relationship got started nearly 3 years ago. Drunken hook up, FWB period, denial of feelings, sleeping with other people out of denial, then ‘I love you’ and happily ever after (seriously, we are so incredibly happy, and it all started with black-out drunk sex. Who’d have thought?).

It all started with black out drunk sex.

rape

Uhm, isn’t that RAPE? Hasn’t Jezebel run about 2000 stories insisting that sex while black out drunk is actually RAPE RAPE RAPE? Well, it’s rape when it comes to women. Men can’t be raped while drunk. They remain liable for their own conduct.

It’s not just the contradiction that draws my attention. This act of rape resulted in a relationship, so therefore it’s not rape? Is that how it works? Are we then to assume that accusations of rape arise primarily from the fact that the sex didn’t lead to a relationship? I suspect that is more true than anyone cares to admit.

How about women whining that older ladies who lose their looks get booted out of their media jobs? Well, pardon me, cupcake, but how did you get the job in the first place? Men are hired for their talents, and women are hired as eye candy, and they have no problem taking full advantage of that, but then the caterwauling begins when the ladies hit the wall and their looks ain’t so hot anymore.

miriam

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1346089/Miriam-OReilly-wins-Countryfile-ageism-claim-discrimination-BBC.html

Try insisting that women are hired for TALENT, and maybe you have a case, but this is just another example of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. And note that Miriam had no problem chucking her younger, racially diverse sisters under the bus on this one. Being HIRED for your looks is apparently just fine. Being FIRED when you lose your looks is sexist.

Feminism began as a movement to address some very real, very harsh inequalities. Women wanted the right to choose their own political leaders, control their own finances, earn their own money should they so desire, acquire an education that expressed their own interests and have sovereignty over their own bodies.

Fair enough. Men fought long and hard for enfranchisement – a fight that was not won in the United States until 1956.

http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/voting_cal/americans_chinese.html

native

Yes, that’s right. Women won the right to vote in 1920, and it took another 36 years before Native American MEN were permitted to vote in every state in the US. Utah was the last hold-out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_suffrage_in_the_United_States

You hardly ever hear that part of the story, though, do you? The cultural narrative goes something like this:

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE ITSELF, ALL MEN COULD VOTE AND NO WOMAN COULD.

Except it’s bullshit. The Third Reform Act in the United Kingdom still only gave the vote to 60% of men. Countless thousands of men died in WWI without having the right to vote. Nancy Astor took her seat in the British House of Commons in 1919, having won it fair and square, while there were still men who weren’t allowed within a country mile of the voting booth.

The whole issue of finances gets a similar whitewash in contemporary feminism, too. Women wanted the right to earn their own money. Great. Have at it, ladies. They quickly became an exploitable pool of labor, just as men have always been. And they started to die on the job, just like men, too.

triangle_fire_20110224_lrg

What women DID not relinquish was the CHOICE. No man really had a choice. Work or starve. But women had, and continue to have, the CHOICE to earn money or not. And most women who find themselves in the labor force with small children are there because they did a piss poor job of planning their lives, based on the giant cultural story that they should “lean in” to their “careers” rather than raise their own families.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/09/12/is-opting-out-the-new-american-dream-for-working-women/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199539/75-new-mothers-stay-home-bring-child-afford-to.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/04/dirty_little_secret_more_women_want_to_stay_home_to_raise_kids.html

http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/some-women-want-to-stay-home-with-children-and-feminism-needs-to-make-peace-with-that/

http://jezebel.com/5016838/many-women-prefer-stay-at-home-motherhood-to-soulless-cubicle-dwelling

I’m having an interesting private conversation via email with a man who lives in Brooklyn, who writes to me that there is only one other man with whom he has shared the link to my blog, and these two men find themselves discussing the issues we typically discuss in hushed voices, hidden in a corner, because they are afraid of being overheard.

“It’s like we’re living in East Berlin”, he writes.

There’s a lot of truth to that sentiment.

book thief

Which brings me to the books I’ve been reading. The first one is called The Book Thief. It’s about to be released as a movie, but I highly recommend the book itself. It’s quite an accomplishment. The whole story is narrated by Death, and it concerns a young girl living in Nazi Germany, who shelters a Jewish man in her basement, and steals books to read to him.

The idea that her thoughts can be and are policed is a central part of the story. There are things she is absolutely forbidden to say, and her beloved father slaps her across the face publicly to let her know that such thoughts are verboten. Their very lives depend upon believing, or at least acting like they believe the lies they have been told.

And tragically, so many people really DID believe the lies. Death collects 40 million souls because so many chose to believe lies.

Martin Zusak presents men and women in such a refreshingly realistic light, too. He doesn’t try to invent them as “equals”, and reading a story where the threat of sexual violence is entirely absent is almost eerie. We are so accustomed to the “all men are rapists” narrative, it feels surprising and dislocating when it is absent.

Here’s a great passage:

A few days after Liesel started school, she went along with the Steiners. Rudy’s mother, Barbara, made him promise to walk with the new girl, mainly because she’d heard about the snowball. To Rudy’s credit, he was happy enough to comply. He was not the junior misogynistic type of boy at all. He liked girls a lot, and he like Liesel (hence the snowball). In fact, Rudy Steiner was one of the audacious little bastards who actually fancied himself with the ladies. Every childhood seems to have exactly such a juvenile in its midst and mists. He’s the boy who refuses to fear the opposite sex, purely because everyone else embraces that particular fear, and he’s the type who is unafraid to make a decision. In this case, Rudy had already made up his mind about Liesel Meminger.

Zusak writes the whole story from this perspective. Women and men are not to be feared. They are to be loved for both their similarities and their differences, and love is something every human is capable of feeling to great depths and heights.

It’s a wonderful story in so many ways.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Thief-Markus-Zusak/dp/0375842209

cityofthieves.final.indd

The second book is called City of Thieves, and it is also set during the Second World War, but this time in Leningrad, under siege by the Nazis. Again we have men and women portrayed as different but equal in their value and humanity. The two men, Lev and Kolya are very different from one another, but fully realized as human beings. Vika, the amazing female character is a sniper, and giant fucking kudos to Benioff, who wrote the book, for acknowledging that women are not simply interchangeable with men. Vika is capable of war, but not in the same way that men are capable of war, and she is no less valuable for being a woman.

Both of these books allow women to be women without denigration of the qualities that signify them as women. Neither of these male authors hate the feminine. On the contrary – they very much love and desire the feminine. We hear so much screaming in our own culture about how feminine qualities and femininity itself is PATRIARCHY OPPRESSION OF WOMEN GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT that it’s easy to forget the strength that belongs to women who are not pretend men, competing and jostling for status and power.

Again, a huge theme in the book is policing thoughts. Lev’s father is denounced and murdered for his revolutionary thoughts, like so many other Russians.

http://www.amazon.com/City-Thieves-Novel-David-Benioff/dp/0452295297

orphan master

And finally, The Orphan Master’s Son. An exquisitely detailed exploration of the brutality and absurdity that reigns in North Korea. It’s a virtuoso performance of the power of propaganda, when most citizens can only survive the lunacy by believing the stories. The Emperor not only has no clothes, he is completely fucking insane.

“Where we are from… [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.”

When I write “Nazis” and then cross it out and replace it with “feminists”, I feel a twinge of … discomfort. The Nazis were about as bad as you can get, which is not to say there were not or are not other regimes that are equally appalling, but it feels a lot like inappropriate hyperbole to compare the two.

And then I read books where genocide begins with policing thoughts. It begins with two men, discussing forbidden thoughts in hushed voices, surrounded by people who really, truly, deeply believe the lies.

And then it doesn’t seem like so much hyperbole after all.

And then I wonder.

Could we be next? Could it get that bad? Our stories are already built on lies.

All men are rapists except when we say they’re not

Culturally, we act like the lies are true.

All men had the vote and then kept it from women.

We don’t question the narrative.

Suicide kills as many men as breast cancer kills women, but only breast cancer is worthy

When the man and the story are in conflict, we insist the man must change.

Gender is a social construct and the masculine must be destroyed

Being of German heritage, I like to flatter myself with the conceit that I would never have been a Nazi, had I been alive during that time. I would have been Liesel, sheltering a Jew from certain death, risking my own life and the lives of everyone around me. I would have been Miep Gies, hiding Anne Frank in the attic. I would have been Oskar Schindler, shipping Jewish children to safety.

Lots of people resisted the Nazis and fought against the stories to save lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_individuals_and_groups_assisting_Jews_during_the_Holocaust

A hater dropped by this blog once and said something like “You’re on the wrong side of history, bitch. Feminists have already won.”

Am I? Have they? I don’t think so.

And even if I AM on the wrong side of history, I’m on the right side of truth.

Ultimately, nothing else really matters.

first they came

Lots of love,

JB

50 Responses to “Three books I think you should read about living in a world where your thoughts are policed and the truth must never be spoken. This could be our world, sooner than we know.”

  1. Tunga October 7, 2013 at 15:56 #

    Thank you JB, I now have some reading to do.

    I’m of the belief that thought control, is the most pernicious threat to humanity, not just to our way of life. Every time we make decisions that are not based on evidence, we not only sacrifice current and future freedom but make it that much more difficult to correct our course as a society when mounting evidence demands we redress our situation.

    Related to your opening point on cognitive dissonance within the feminist mindset, is there any evidence that the dissonance is having an effect within the feminist community echo chamber? I ask because I lack your fortitude in wading into sites like Jezebel and such.

    Like

  2. Jan October 7, 2013 at 16:18 #

    I wish I could share a link to Your blog on Facebook. I don’t dare do so. Most of my friends would be puzzled to read about any of the issues You raise. Many are the casual kind of feminist, who “support equal rights” and would most likely side with crazy nutter feminists in a discussion just because. But, it’s not worth losing clients and professional friends (whom I mostly connect to through Facebook) over a disagreement like that. :/ I still desperately want to share the blog, even if I probably never will.

    Like

  3. midnight_philsopher October 7, 2013 at 16:24 #

    I have been reading your blog for quite some time now and I find that I agree with just about everything you say. I found that I had to comment when you brought up those books. I have read the first two and absolutely loved them.

    Like

  4. feeriker October 7, 2013 at 16:25 #

    How about women whining that older ladies who lose their looks get booted out of their media jobs? Well, pardon me, cupcake, but how did you get the job in the first place? Men are hired for their talents, and women are hired as eye candy, and they have no problem taking full advantage of that, but then the caterwauling begins when the ladies hit the wall and their looks ain’t so hot anymore.

    As a “serious” sports fan (i.e., someone who watches the games because he’s interested in the intricacies and play of the games themselves), these “eye candy” teleprompter-reader(ettes) are always an annoying distraction of the worst kind. It grates on me like fingernails on a chalkboard to watch one of these bimbettes interview a winning team’s players at the end of the game and attempt to ask what they think are coherent questions about what these players did to score their win. Their attempts to sound informed are just laughable. I can assure you that NO male sports journalist would keep his job for more than an hour if he were to display the ignorance of the sport that these women exhibit.

    I am eagerly awaiting the day when one of these “eye candy anchors” who hover on the sidelines during NFL games or down in the dugouts during MLB games gets the boot once her looks hit the “past expiration date” mark and am even more eager to hear what excuses she and the network that hired her will give for her “early retirement.” One thing we can be sure of: her replacement won’t be a Helen Thomas lookalike and she won’t be any more informed on the subject of her reporting than was her predecessor.

    Like

  5. zykos October 7, 2013 at 16:33 #

    Each culture, at each generation must have a ‘sacrament’, or sacred object, idea, principle, something that everybody agrees on. It’s the cement that holds that society together. For the longest time, it used to be religion, but with enough population movement, not everyone in a community believed the same thing. In Germany during WWII, nazism was that sacred principle, and in our current western societies, it is political correctness. Having people question the sacred thoughts and principles is very dangerous, and that’s why so many will try so hard to police others’ thoughts. I’m convinced that the bubble will burst and feminism will implode, but I’m also pretty sure it will be replaced by some other sacred “truth” that it will be dangerous, at the very least unwise, to go against. I mean we already pretend that plurality of thought and opinion is one of these sacred principles, and what? Look at universities, at political formations, the diversity of ideas we like to pretend exist is nowhere to be found. The only thing we have achieved, to some degree, is that instead of executing or incarcerating dissidents, we simply shun them socially. Maybe that’s the progress?

    Like

  6. RS October 7, 2013 at 17:08 #

    I already have “The Book Thief” but I will definitely pick up the other two books you mention. It is sad that an open discourse is almost impossible these days. I have, in the past, censored what I say on Facebook out of fear of losing friendships and business contacts but there’s a point when you realize that no one else on the other side of the political spectrum is bothering to be so considerate. Those friendships aren’t worth cultivating anymore in my opinion.

    Like

  7. James Thrice October 7, 2013 at 17:29 #

    You forgot the cheerleaders. I can’t stand cheerleaders and they only exist to (briefly) entertain fans who are bored with the game.

    Also, the female reporters will often flirt openly with the (successful) male athletes and nobody says anything. If that was a male reporter flirting with a female athlete he would be out of a job, and rightfully called a gold digger.

    Like

  8. judgybitch October 7, 2013 at 17:31 #

    I wouldn’t put it on Facebook either. I have a couple posts that have +1K mentions on Facebook, and that is my number one source of haters.

    Like Liesel, hiding Max in her basement and never breathing a word to anyone, sometimes you just have to do, and forget about saying.

    And then wait for the war to end so you can once again speak freely.

    Like

  9. Pauline October 7, 2013 at 18:02 #

    I’m looking forward to The Book Thief film. I loved the book and its characters. The adoptive mother’s stoicism and even cruelty at times; but somehow Liesel knew that the woman loved her and she was safe. I particularly liked the relationship between the father and Liesel and the affection between them. And yes the absence of abuse was glaringly obvious because we have become so accustomed to it. I think we live in a crazy world where we can’t stand anyone to have a happy ending unless they have paid for it with misery.

    As to Miriam O’Callaghan. I was an admirer of hers and the other presenters on the TV programme Countryfile. She was NOT employed for her looks – she got the job when she was Forty!

    The show’s senior presenter John Craven (who is ancient and in situ) started out as a handsome young man presenting the childrens news on the BBC. Miriam, on the other hand began her career as a radio producer and presented on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today (a 6 am daily agricultural programme on a high brow station) and has a host of accolades to her credit.

    I do not like seeing an intelligent, factual programme being sacrificed so the presenters are easy on the eye. I have never watched the new version, so dismayed am I with the trend for Americanising our TV screens. British TV was always better by virtue of the fact that our characters / presenters were real – warts and all – and didn’t look like they were cast from the same mold with barbie hair and white teeth.

    Mrs Packmore in Downton Abbey with her sweaty red face and her manky hair being a case in point.

    Miriam was an excellent presenter who actually knew what she was talking about. I miss that show! It might not have been sexism (Although they didn’t boot John Craven) but it was ageism and that is very sad indeed!

    Like

  10. feeriker October 7, 2013 at 18:07 #

    If that was a male reporter flirting with a female athlete he would be out of a job, and rightfully called a gold digger.

    Now there’s something out of the realm of the surreal. Can you imagine a male sports reporter “flirting” with one of the WNBA bull dikes (most of whom earn less in salary than I do)?

    [Inserting finger down throat]

    Like

  11. ng162gz October 7, 2013 at 18:10 #

    Excellent article. I have been following your blog for a while now but have never been minded to reply.

    But for the last few months I have been trying to take a stand in my family and social circles on the issue of the cultural lies men in the UK have to endure. It came to a head this weekend with me feeling like I had been attacked by a Rottweiler by my wife.

    Not a problem but the real horror for me is that she doesn’t think of herself as a feminist just a successful, middle class , civil servant like most of my friends.

    I realised that the problem is that like the nazis and communist culture the very act of denying the big lie is the central issue and that is what they struggle with. If some one doesn’t conform to the big lie he must be either mentally ill, perverted or at best delusional. Whatever it is he must be shouted down less we become contaminated and tainted by association. It takes a lot of will to continue to believe you are right and they are wrong.

    So yesterday I had come to the same conclusion as your blog about where we are going. But for me I just want out of the UK, I don’t have the strength to take on a whole culture.

    Never has the old saying “first they came for the jews……,etc” been more appropriate.

    My 12 months of challenging, questioning and defending has been exhausting but very enlightening. I now know my family and friends much better but not sure I like what I found out especially as they all believe themselves to be enlightened liberal free thinkers (as long as you accept feminism rules)

    By the way I am a 61 year old white ex public sector director but spent my career being quite proud of being male and refusing to be heaped with guilt.

    Keep up the good work.

    Pete

    >

    Like

  12. James Thrice October 7, 2013 at 18:12 #

    That’s how you KNOW it’s gold digging. At least most male professional athletes are mildly attractive.

    Like

  13. feeriker October 7, 2013 at 18:16 #

    But what “gold” is there to dig from one of those WNBA creatures, who draw a salary only because the NBA (i.e., deh menz) subsidizes their league?

    Like I said, that vision I conjured up is straight out of a surrealistic nightmare. “Creepy” wouldn’t begin to adequately describe any male sports reporter who would actually “flirt” with the likes of a Cheryl Swoops or Chamique Holdsclaw (or whoever their current generation successors are now).

    Like

  14. James Coe October 7, 2013 at 18:48 #

    I’m very surprised you didn’t bring this up in the article itself, but….
    http://www.avoiceformen.com/suggested-reading/eu-to-ban-anti-feminist-speech/

    Also, whenever I hear some feminist complaining about how the Entertainment Industry just stops caring about women once they’re old, I just sit back and remember all of the awesome old ladies that still get parts because they can act like Masters. There’s Judi Dench, who, to be fair, still looks really damn Good. Sigourney Weaver is getting up there but still gets big roles. Helen Mirren was absurdly awesome in RED. I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty.

    And last but certainly not least, there’s everyone’s favorite Potty Mouthed Grandmama;
    Betty Fuckin’ White.

    Like

  15. judgybitch October 7, 2013 at 19:05 #

    Yes, isn’t it funny that the story about women in the media always leaves out the fact that men who are just pretty faces tend not to last long either? The women you mentioned have staying power because they are amazingly talented. They have more to offer than just their faces.

    Meryl Streep
    Maggie Smith
    Imelda Staunton
    Michelle Pfieffer
    Julianne Moore
    Emma Thompson
    Glenn Close
    Susan Sarandon
    Ellen Barkin
    Angela Bassett

    All over 50 and all with more than just their asses to appeal.

    Male actors who have lost their looks aren’t getting much work these days either, because really, ALL they had were their looks. Where are they now?

    Val Kilmer
    Keanu Reeves
    Mickey Rourke
    Brendan Fraser
    Vince Vaughn
    Nick Nolte
    James Spader
    John Travolta
    Nicholas Cage

    The knife cuts both ways. When you make your living based on talent and looks, when the looks are gone and there is no real talent, it’s good-bye career.

    For men and women both.

    Like

  16. James Thrice October 7, 2013 at 19:05 #

    I don’t know. Some of those women golfers are kind of cute. Women’s basketball I would agree with you, but there’s some potential in women’s golf and tennis (SOME potential).

    Like

  17. LostSailor October 7, 2013 at 19:21 #

    Those NFL bastards!!! How DARE actually make a profit selling merchandise and only give a portion to Breast Cancer research?? The heartless scum…

    But the entitlement train doesn’t stop there at Jezzzzzalbe: And, more perspective: while the American Cancer Society isn’t, say, Komen, they still don’t use 100% of the money they receive to “fight” breast cancer. Only 70% of donations taken in by the organization go toward cancer research.

    Now it’s the American Cancer Society that doesn’t use every last dollar to research a cure for breast cancer. Those genocidal maniacs only use 70% for cancer research (ACS employees should be forced to donate their 40 hours a week because….well, because.) And some of that research isn’t even on breast cancer! I mean, I suppose it’s okay that some money go to research cervical cancer or uterine cancer, but if even a dime goes to cancers that affect men, then you’ve been had

    And I must say, JB, I was a little disappointed that the third book didn’t have “thief” or “theft” in the title. You’re getting a little inconsistent, don’t you think?

    But to the larger issue of whether you’re on the wrong side of history (bitch!) and the feminists have already won, I’m not so sure. There are two narratives going on here that, I think, indicate that feminists are actually nervous that the feminism they got isn’t turning out like they thought it would and women and men are beginning to twig to that fact.

    The first narrative is the one the hater spouted. Feminism has won and there’s nothing you can do about it. So suck it! Unfortunately, the second narrative contradicts the first and shows it to be nothing more than the bravado of whistling past the graveyard. The second narrative proceeds in two paths.

    The first path is frequently employed by Manjaw Mandy or the Feministing blogger you tweeted about yesterday. That is to argue as if feminism has accomplished nothing, and spin stories about how men and women are socialized as if it were still the 1950s or 60s. That is to say that boys and men are socialized to be mean, dismissive of women, objectifying toward women, violent, and filled with the notion that all women are obligated to have sex with them. Manjaw Mandy employs this in every one of her periodic Nice Guy® rants so she can tee-off on them. The Feministing blogger takes the other side by claiming that girls are raised to be demure, quite, deferential toward men, giving, and sweet (which, of course make them susceptible to rape). Of course, this is simply out of line with reality.

    The second path is to create the broad cultural memes like the “pay gap” myth or the Rape Culture™ fantasy. The answer to both of these paths is that more feminism is needed. But this is merely a rear-guard action to bulwark the feminism that’s already crept into social institutions. While I’m sure that they would love to make more advances, and may yet, they’re mostly trying to maintain an increasingly fragile status quo. Of course, it will get louder and messier before the end and may only fall when the entire edifice of Western society crashes (which, with feminism, may be a feature not a bug). I think the Manosphere is a start in that direction and deep down, feminists fear it.

    As for the Nazi comparison, I think it’s wrong. Most Germans were not Nazi’s and the apparatus of the state was domestically mainly concerned with the “Jewish Question”. If you were indifferent to that, they would still largely leave you alone. And while many Germans did help in that realm, most simply looked the other way and went on with their lives.

    No, I think the better analogy are Stalinists. It was in the early days of the Soviet Union that thought-crime was prevalent. I didn’t matter if you were a member of the Communist Party, you still had to toe the party line. Which was what the purges and show trials of the 30s were all about. It’s also more appropriate because it links the analogy to the essential Marxist nature of feminism…

    Like

  18. Alex October 7, 2013 at 19:24 #

    i think the (or one of them)nmost recent rendition of Hairspray disqualifies John Travolta from this list, and i’m pretty sure Drive Angry or Season of the Witch would do the same for nick cage. not to mention Betty White is in a class of her own

    Like

  19. LostSailor October 7, 2013 at 19:25 #

    This whole “pink” October in the NFL is just another part of the pussification of the game. I get that they’re trying to market to women, but women who are or might become fans of the game aren’t doing so because the NFL is becoming “women-friendly” but because it gives them a thrill and a tingle to see large men playing a masculine game like men. You dress those guy in pink long enough and the tingles will go away…

    But they can def keep the cheerleaders. They should fill halftime with them.

    Like

  20. Teresa Dietzinger October 7, 2013 at 20:03 #

    I highly recommend reading up on the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Robespierre reportedly hired people to look around at their fellow citizens and arrest those who didn’t seem happy or enthusiastic enough about the Revolution. It wasn’t enough to control the law, they had to control people’s very thoughts.

    Can’t think it will get that bad? Can’t imagine a world where scanners are set up to make sure everyone’s facial characteristics conform to an ideal of happiness and satisfaction? God only knows what a totalitarian leftist regime would do in this day and age with our current level of technology (or perhaps we ARE seeing what happens already….*cough* NSA *cough*…)

    Like

  21. feeriker October 7, 2013 at 20:03 #

    Yeah, it has always baffled me to no end that there’s no prostate cancer awareness campaign (how about a “blue November”?) by any professional sports league (I would have thought that my Arizona Diamondbacks would’ve tried to get MLB to launch one two years ago when D’backs CEO Derrick Hall was diagnosed with it). Given that MEN are the bulk of the paying customers for pro sports franchises, one would think that it would be only good common(?) business sense to at least pay some lip service to men’s health concerns where charitable activity is concerned. But what the hell do I know?

    Then again, when I see the boneheadedness that routinely goes in in the front offices of both MLB and NFL teams where business decisions and transactions are concerned, the status quo shouldn’t surprise me. The Dilbert Principle is hard at work there too.

    Like

  22. RS October 7, 2013 at 20:07 #

    James Spader is on a new TV show here in the U.S. It’s brand new- so we’ll see if it has staying power.

    Like

  23. Ed October 7, 2013 at 20:25 #

    Also remember that much of the violence of the most oppressive regimes is directed outward, toward the exterior. This is discussed in “We thought we were free”

    Excerpt at:
    http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

    It’s interesting that Nazis accused Jews of “cheating” in a sense (In that they lived in many different countries rather than having a nation state of their own). It seems there may be a parallel between this and the way some feminists see all men as having an advantage in all of history.

    Of course, if you note how women were used to form alliances while ignoring how men were used as hostages, this may be a necessary result. (See Alfonso X’s use of his daughter Beatrice vs. Baldwin II’s use of his son Philip. Had Alfonso not redeemed Philip he was facing possibly being sold to Muslim slavers, which is to say, castration and a life of hard labour.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_X_of_Castile
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_II_of_Constantinople
    )

    Interesting article. Thank you for the reading recommendations.

    Like

  24. LostSailor October 7, 2013 at 20:46 #

    It came to a head this weekend with me feeling like I had been attacked by a Rottweiler by my wife. Not a problem but the real horror for me is that she doesn’t think of herself as a feminist

    Most women don’t think of themselves as feminists. And that’s part of the challenge. They have absorbed feminism from the ether and take it for granted and accept it as their right. They are generally horrified at the idea that someone might think they are “feminists.” To them “feminists” are hairy-legged, bra-burning radicals who hate men and they see themselves as nothing like that. It’s call delusion.

    A while back I had an email exchange with a commenter from here who was new to the Manosphere and I offered to give her the nickle-tour of the “Red Pill” world and Game. When she started objecting using the exact same arguments that feminists like Manjaw Mandy and the gals at Jezebel do, I noted that these were feminists arguments. She went off on long, multi-email rants with lots of CAPS about how she wasn’t a feminist and how dare I even think to accuse her of being a feminist. She was viscerally offended by the idea. But of course, she espoused all the feminist ideas and rhetoric just the same. But the sheer vehemence with which she denied it was a bit shocking to me, but was also a valuable insight.

    So, I’m not surprised your wife displayed the same vehemence. It’s brainwashing that will take a long time to undo. It’s possible though. I’ve seen men who first encounter Red Pill ideas for the first time go through a similar process. It’s very difficult and often painful to confront the lies that have conditioned you for a lifetime, but once seen, the truth cannot be unseen.

    Good luck, sir!

    Like

  25. Jeremy October 7, 2013 at 21:02 #

    World War 2 could never be fought under today’s developed world notions of equality.
    In WW2 we knew what each sex was good for, and we effectively exploited strengths of each.

    Women were used for:
    -Spies
    -Snipers
    -Entertainers
    (Surprise! It’s all the things women have natural advantages in)

    Men were used for:
    -Front Line Combat
    -Hazardous Logistics
    -Building and destroying infrastructure
    (Surprise! It’s all the things men have natural advantages in)

    If we fought WW2 again, we’d have governments insisting on the kind of equality where women serve on the front line, men entertain soldiers, and building new bridges after they’ve been blown up is done by the ladies, and strengths/weaknesses be damned.

    It’s like going into a gunfight convinced that a gun and sword are equal.

    Like

  26. Jeremy October 7, 2013 at 21:10 #

    Also, what Naziism demonstrated plainly, to all humanity, is that all humanity is vulnerable to being deceived to believe nonsense at the cost of other human beings lives.

    I am someone who grew up in a christian cult, and had that cult fall apart around him such that I finally realized how I was being denied critical thinking skills. I can tell you that a life path that leads down the road to Naziism starts with a simple, but desireable state of mind, the state of mind of knowing an absolute truth that other people do not understand. It is intensely pleasurable to the human mind to be “correct” on something that other people do not understand. The easier it is to acquire such a state, the more people will flock to such a state of mind.

    Egalitarianism is nearly at a tipping point where all must believe or those who do not must be expunged for being the disruptive influence they are.

    Invest in an escape hatch is all I can say.

    Like

  27. Jax October 7, 2013 at 21:15 #

    I’m not sure how Jezebel can get on the NFL’s case for only donating 5% of the profits when the frigging Komen foundation (whose entire purpose is, supposedly, raising money for breast cancer) only ends up donating about 15% of the money *they* raise

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-usa-healthcare-komen-research-idUSTRE8171KW20120208

    Oh wait, sorry I forgot… this entire article is just an excuse to dump on the NFL, because it’s something men actually like.

    Like

  28. James Thrice October 7, 2013 at 21:18 #

    Professional athletes are in the exact same boat as performing artists or even strippers in that they are selling their bodies as a commodity. By Miriam O’Reilly’s logic retired football player should be able to sue the NFL for age discrimination despite the fact he can’t run, tackle, throw, or catch anymore.

    Like

  29. Jeremy October 7, 2013 at 21:21 #

    Ah, but women convince themselves that they are not hired for their looks/feminimity. It’s like an NFL center convincing himself that he was not hired because he’s 380lbs and 6’5″ tall.

    Like

  30. James Thrice October 7, 2013 at 21:26 #

    Actually the repeal of the mandate keeping women off the front line coincided with the rise open use of drones. The repeal was a token gesture and nothing more. But don’t tell that to the feminist, they still think they won a two hundred year old battle and you wouldn’t want to make them feel bad, would you?

    Like

  31. Cadders October 7, 2013 at 21:35 #

    Pete, I’m not sure how long since you discovered the red pill – you mention 12 months and your post certainly reminds me of how I was 12 to 18 months in. The discovery of powerful truths can make you somewhat evangelical and compelled to ‘spread the word’. It seems confusing when so few people want to hear how they can make their lives so much better.

    You have to accept that is not how the red pill dynamic plays out, especially amongst the women in your life. JB and the other red pill women are outliers – they get it.

    Most women – not so much. They need to be lead – not by argument but by example. Just keep learning, absorbing everything you can find in the manosphere / red pill / game blogs. The red pill takes many forms but the destination is the same – to enable you to be the best man you can be. When you realise this through your actions and behavior it won’t matter what your wife says – she will follow your lead anyway. Because she will want to. Because when you become the best man you can be, it has the happy effect of making your women the best women she can be. Not always of course, but mostly.

    As for the rest of your family and friends – men and women alike – the same dynamic will play out. Some will be drawn into your frame and *then* you may be able have the discussions you are trying to hold now. Some will fall away – let them be.

    This is how truth wins out – it spread like a virus. Under the surface conformity, under the apparent victories of feminism and all the pretty lies the truth spreads one person at a time. And because of this it is unstoppable – there is no central organisation to defeat no figurehead to challenge. Feminism relies on the State and the State is bankrupt. financially and morally. The red pill is about individuals improving their lives. And that is ALWAYS on the right side of history.

    Like

  32. Pauline October 7, 2013 at 22:15 #

    Ahh but Miriam O’Reilly did not appear on television until she was forty. Before that she was a housewife rearing her family and before that she worked in radio specializing in agricultural programmes – Her expertise led to the role presenting on Country File.

    It would be different if her looks had got her there.

    I work in customer service and I would be furious if my boss told me tomorrow that I was being replaced for someone younger because the customers like to see young attractive people. I’m happy to say it will never happen.

    Like

  33. LostSailor October 7, 2013 at 23:00 #

    At least Major League Baseball limits this stuff to pink bats on Mother’s Day…

    Like

  34. JBfan October 7, 2013 at 23:28 #

    “It’s always baffled me to no end that there’s no prostate awareness campaign.”

    Actually feeriker, take a look at Movember, you might like what you see!,

    Like

  35. JBfan October 7, 2013 at 23:53 #

    So NFL only donate 5% to cancer? Well quelle fucking suprise! All charities do this, I’m working for a charity call centre right now and a lot of the bug charities I work for take huge chunks of money for their own use, but at the end of the day, that 5% is quite substantial.

    Like

  36. comslave October 7, 2013 at 23:59 #

    I don’t mind the NFL doing something for breast cancer. But I would like to see just one major sporting franchise do something for a male medical issue. I think we had Lance Armstrong for men’s cancer issues and that was it.

    Like

  37. Sasha October 8, 2013 at 01:46 #

    Is the author of City of Thieves the same David Benioff who produces Game of Thrones?

    That show is one of the best on television.

    TYRION: The Eyrie {castle}. They say it’s impregnable.
    BRONN: Give me ten men and some climbing equipment. I’ll impregnate the bitch.

    😉

    Like

  38. MLcookies October 8, 2013 at 01:53 #

    I just wanted to say thanks, Judgy Bitch. I try to check out all of your stuff, and reading each post feels like being slapped by the truth (in a good way). Please don’t ever stop being you. ❤

    Like

  39. Master Beta October 8, 2013 at 10:36 #

    You’re not alone in the UK! Just be glad you’re not living in Sweden.

    Like

  40. Ed October 8, 2013 at 12:15 #

    / Are we then to assume that accusations of rape arise primarily from the fact that the sex didn’t lead to a relationship? I suspect that is more true than anyone cares to admit.

    The evidence continues to mount:

    “All charges have been dropped against a former Temple football player who was accused of raping a woman in a dorm…Funt argued that she had been rejected by several other men, including football players, and did not want to get a campus reputation as a football “groupie” after Martin-Oguike “would not agree to have a romantic long-term relationship with her.””

    http://articles.philly.com/2013-10-07/news/42797796_1_temple-football-player-praise-martin-oguike-text-messages

    Like

  41. James Thrice October 8, 2013 at 12:54 #

    That poor, poor bastard. You. Don’t. Date. Crazy. EVER.

    Like

  42. Exfernal October 8, 2013 at 13:16 #

    […]the “Jewish Question”. If you were indifferent to that, they would still largely leave you alone.

    As long as you didn’t show any incurable or hereditary disease.

    In death and concentration camps there were not only Jews that became branded as “life unworthy of life“, but also Gypsies, other minorities, homosexuals, mental patients, political dissidents… even kidnapped “untermenschliche” children not “racially valuable” enough. Real anti-Reich conspirators and saboteurs were “handled” elsewhere.

    Like

  43. Jennifer Oclaray Hast October 8, 2013 at 15:34 #

    May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

    Like

  44. Goober October 8, 2013 at 16:57 #

    I think there is a big flaw in the comparison between feminists and Nazis.

    Well, more than one. The fact that feminists aren’t actively killing anyone, for one, but the flaw that I’m referring to is this:

    The Nazis were powerful. They had a war machine, a military arm, and the backing of an entire nation state.

    Feminists are not powerful. They can’t do a damn thing without the express consent and assistance of men, as I’ve said before. The fact is, as brutal as it may sound, womankind, in general, can’t do a damn thing without the consent and assistance of men. I’m referring to my previous comments about how if men were truly as horrific as feminists like to pretend that we are, then every woman on Earth would be chained to a radiator in a basement somewhere, and there isn’t a goddamned thing that the weaker sex could do about it.

    No, the only reason that this hasn’t come to pass is because men value women as partners and lovers and soul mates in life. Feminists seem to be in as big a hurry as they can to shitcan every one of those ideas in favor of a world where THEY are in charge and THEY have the final say, but the fact remains…

    …they can only be in charge, and they can only have the final say if men permit it. Feminism needs men to enforce their will, because they would be helpless to do so by themselves. Therefore, feminism will fail, as a movement, as soon as enough men see through their bullshit and stop helping them.

    That’s why I see websites like this one as being so important – we aren’t trying to convert the feminists. We’re just trying to get men to open their eyes. All it will take is for the majority of men to see the lies and destructive tendencies of the selfish feminists movement, and it will stop. Immediately.

    Like

  45. Rob McMillin October 9, 2013 at 06:40 #

    Hi, JudgyBitch. Just recently started poking around here. I like a lot of your stuff, but I fear you have gone into reflexive tribalism with this graf —

    The fact that the feminist brigade would piss and moan over not getting EVERY LAST DOLLAR ON EARTH handed to them is not really what interests me. Wow – feminists are selfish and shitty. Not really breaking news, it is?

    I confess, a lot of what materializes on Jezebel is annoying feminista cant. The air over there can be so thick with patriarchy you can’t hardly swing a used tampon! But they do, there, have a real and very legitimate point. The NFL is, as large entities frequently do, shoveling money into a putative charity while really only using it as a sort of greenwashing:

    According to the League, 100% of the proceeds from the specialty auction go to the American Cancer Society, but the total percentage of purchases of officially licensed gear that actually goes to FINDING A CURE is actually kind of pathetic — 5%. If you want to look at this cynically, in a way, the on-field wearin’ o’ the pink serves as an ad to direct consumers to purchase pink fan items.

    Look, I have spent a shit ton of time lately poking around the IRS form 990’s of a number of different charities, and learned that there are a bunch that are simply terrible. Probably the worst I can think of immediately is the Humane Society of the United States, because, by my own calculations, somewhere around 76% of their income is used for overhead salaries before a nickel gets spent on actual program activities. But that positively pales in comparison to the NFL’s retention of 95% of the purchase price of its pink-tagged merch! Seriously, is there something wrong with telling people they shouldn’t confuse buying stuff with charitable giving, especially under these circumstances? And, especially when some fraction of this goes toward the self-licking ice cream cone known as “awareness”?

    Peace out. Rock on.

    Like

  46. scareduck October 9, 2013 at 06:56 #

    It has largely happened. More than twice as many polled believe feminism is an epithet as so self-identify:

    http://huff.to/19LNTds

    There is a reason for that, and while the feminists don’t want to hear it, this is their own disingenuousness biting them.

    Like

  47. nightwing1029 October 9, 2013 at 07:04 #

    Sorry, JB. That’s where I have to disagree with you. The longer we remain silent, the harder the fight.
    I understand the point of trying to preserve a business, to an extent, but people really should be speaking out.

    Like

  48. scareduck October 10, 2013 at 01:03 #

    One more thing about the NFL and feminism, and how they are strangely connected (at least, it seems this way to me): both demand a certain tribal loyalty, and both demand their adherents surrender empathy at the door (the NFL, for the opposition team, and feminists, for men). In fact, I have thought for a while now that William Tecumseh Sherman’s words about war, if you substitute “football”, are just as sensible:

    You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.

    We must not be enemies, but friends, paraphrasing Lincoln. That means empathy, kindness, tolerance, and patience. Which is all to say, I do not wish to engage with feminists generally — recognizing there are many, with differing opinions — as if all of them believe in the slander of “patriarchy”. Yes, we must expose their errors and oppose them forcefully where justice and intellectual integrity demand it; but in our eagerness to disarm their more virulent members, we must not succumb to the same error and cruelty they employ.

    Like

  49. Cid October 10, 2013 at 07:26 #

    Actually a lot of them do stuff for “Movember” which is for prostate cancer.

    Like

  50. Ruby November 5, 2014 at 17:47 #

    History is written (or rewritten) by the victors. Judging by the ‘history’ taught at my daughter’s school, the victors are the feminists.

    Like

Leave a comment