Sunday, September 25, 2011

Why I laugh every time I hear about women's "oppression"

Man says to woman: "I just lost everything. My family, my house, my job, and now I'm headed overseas to die in war."

Woman responds: "Quit whining you little bitch. I dressed like a hooker and got wasted last night on men's dime. And as I left the bar without so much as a thank you, one of them had the nerve to call me a slut!"

Man responds: "Yeah, that's terrible. Go women's rights."

Just remember, it's not a zero-sum game guys! Even though men and boys are discriminated against in countless social and legal ways, and the only thing women have to complain about is being called a slut when they sleep around, because they face little to no real discrimination and have plenty of legal and social privileges without the same responsibilities as men, the appropriate response to a comment about men's rights is:

"What about the women? This is not a zero-sum game!"

I'm kidding, of course. Women really have just about no unique sexism to complain about. And so when I see someone respond to a men's issue with some form of "but what about the wimminz", such as "oh, but that happens to women too (I won't mention that it's extremely rare in women's case)", or "but what about this other miniscule issue women face", or even "but what about women in other countries", I can't help but laugh at the stupidity of it.

My real point is shut up about women's issues when I'm talking about men's. I won't waste time on women's issues when men have so many more serious issues that must be dealt with, anymore than I would waste time consoling the woman in the above story about being called a slut, when the man is the one who is really in need of help. Misandry is rampant in the western world, while true misogyny, true discrimination against or hatred of women, pales in comparison.

See also the following quotation at Reddit:

"Yeah, or as I mentioned in the AskFeminists circumcision thread, the response seems to be, 'Well, of course it's wrong that babies are being mutilated, but what do you expect us to do about it? We're too busy debating whether Summer's Eve's new ad campaign objectifies women.'"

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I guess America's not entirely full of morons

Sad to say I have actually been following one of the worst shows on television, America's Got Talent.

The four finalists came down to 1) PopLyfe, a young band that started out well during the competition but totally butchered two Queen songs in the finale, 2) iLuminate, group of "dancers" who run around like idiots with glowing strips on their bodies in the dark 3) Silhouette, group of youths who create silhouettes with their bodies to the most cliche music and gimmicky slideshows imaginable, and 4) Landau Murphy Jr, a male singer who mimics Frank Sinatra.

PopLyfe was a fairly entertaining performance until they totally butchered Queen in the finale, where their singer couldn't hold a note for shit, so they didn't deserve to win.

iLuminate was an idiotic gimmick from the beginning, but for some reason the judges loved them. It was like watching a bunch of potheads run around with glowy sticks playing at Kung Fu.

Silhouette actually wouldn't have been that bad if their choreographer, an old crone, hadn't made sure that every performance was as cliche as possible. During one of their performances, they formed the words, "Create" and "Imagine", and I correctly predicted the next word would be "Believe". That's how cliche the group is. Not only that, but their choreographer actually tried to manipulate the audience by going on about how some of the kids in the troupe had survived cancer, with your stereotypical "sad story" music in the background.

With all this and the stupid cheesy messages including a superficial attempt at promoting patriotism for this fucked up country, I thought for sure the American public would choose Silhouette, if the pretty colors and flashy lights of iLuminate weren't enough to grab their short attention spans.

Landau is not a great singer. But he mimics Frank Sinatra well enough, he is a kind, genuine man, he isn't a total gimmick begging on his knees for votes, he's got great stage presence, and he doesn't flake out when the pressure is on. He deserved the title.

And somehow, Landau won. I honestly can't believe America didn't vote for one of the flashy, cheap performances to win it. But it does please me that at least one genuine person in this world who's doing it for the right reasons actually got rewarded.

And although the America's Got Talent big wigs like Simon Cowell will surely rape most of Landau's proceeds, at least he won't have to work at a car wash any longer, and his family and children will surely be better off.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Jessica Valenti on the offender's registry

If you weren't already aware, Jessica Valenti has been placed on the register-her.com offender's registry under the category bigot: http://register-her.com/index.php?title=Jessica_Valenti_--_Bigot