Oh yeah?
I think the Florida Capitol building is. It got the most votes for “Most Phallic Building” on this website.
The only interesting bit was the way we treat female public figures and that’s a pretty dense issue to unpack.
As to the rest, I have way too much respect for men to give it much credence. Which isn’t to say that I like or respect all the men around me, I don’t, but I still don’t think they’re as douchey as Wong’s article suggests.
Everyone has inappropriate thoughts and impulses that we’d be heartily ashamed of if they were suddenly revealed to the world. Acting as though men feel things more acutely does everyone a disservice and it normalizes misogyny.
I think Wong specifically says he’s not speaking for all men, even so, if I were a dude, I’d feel pretty insulted.
This one is way better.
And, were any of the architects women? I think probably not.
I believe we’ve made our point here. 
If the article is true… it’s horrrifying. I can only hope the few males I associate with don’t feel that way.
The whole article made perfect sense to me, the only semi-questionable thing was the “stolen masculinity” bit.
First, the article was published in Cracked, so please keep in mind, it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek satire.
Secondly, the reason I think Cracked is so dang hilarious is because what makes satire funny is the grain of truth found within.
I’m not so sure what I think of that article. I saw a lot of truth in it, when applied to a certain subset of men. What I may be deluding myself about, is exactly how small that subset really is.
I read this book recently, where this woman became a stripper and then wrote about her experiences. She was talking to another stripper who told her this story about how she was giving a table dance for this guy on his bachelor party. The guy kept asking the stripper for her number, wanting to take her on a date. She asked him, “Aren’t you getting married, like, tomorrow?” His answer was chilling. He told her something like, “Yeah, well, she’s 28 and I’m 30 and we’ve been dating for a couple years, so this is what you’re supposed to do next. I don’t really love her, give me your number.”
The chilling part, to me, is this poor bride may have thought she was marrying the love of her life and best friend. He was just going along with the plan because he thought he had no choice. I assumed he’d be cheating on the wife within a year and they’d probably be divorced before their fifth anniversary. The stripper’s comment on that was sobering, to me. She said, “I’d rather be the bad girl who knows what men are like, than be the good girl who has no clue.”
Now, surely, that bachelor was drunk and we could try to justify his actions by saying all strippers are lying sacks of shit, she made it up, that’s not what he said, that’s not what he meant, whatever.
But I think little moments like that are windows into the souls of men that they wouldn’t otherwise let us see. I think there’s a small part of most guys who read this article and nodded at a couple points in there at least. They might not admit to their partners or companions that they feel that way sometimes, and most guys would never act on thoughts like that, or express them out loud to other humans. But I think there is a small percentage who do think this way and who are really fucked up. And most of us women have no idea who those guys are. And. That percentage might be a hell of a lot higher than we want to think about.
Another book that gave me a really interesting perspective on how men think was Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. The author lived in drag as a man for a year and a half and managed to infiltrate some man-only social groups. There was one section in there where she writes about her horror at learning how much seething resentment and anger there is, just under the surface, in a lot of men, and how little we women realize we are actually in danger just by hanging out with what appears to be normal, decent, good men. Some of them want to kill us in our sleep, but would never admit that out loud to a woman. But they’ll hint at it to each other. Some of that, surely, is just male posturing. I think each of us can think of at least one or two men in our past who could surely have turned homicidal with the right constellation of circumstances eroding away at his self control.
So articles like this unsettle me, even if they’re meant to be humorous. Because I know that out there, somewhere, is some sweaty guy who is pretending to be nice to women to get laid, but secretly hates us and when he does get laid, he probably lays there trying not to tempt himself into just jamming the pillow over her face until she stops breathing.
DISCLAIMER: I am, in no way whatsoever, trying to suggest that this undercurrent of violent misogyny is common or even the majority. I am suggesting it exists and there’s more of it than we’d like to think.
Aptly put.
I thought it was a hilarious read. I don’t know how true all of it was, but it was entertaining and that’s what Cracked aims to be. I’m sure that more guys are motivated by sex than admit it publicly, but the hard numbers are unknowable.
I am glad they tackled the double standard of attractiveness between men and women. But that isn’t all men’s fault. A lot of women attack successful, unattractive/fat females, too.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so subtle. I did read it, and I happen to think there’s some validity to it. My point is that articles that describe these things are constantly being put out, and there isn’t anything particularly new in this one–most of it is just obvious, and this kind of article is actually insulting, because they act like they’re revealing some big secret–as though we were all stupid, and can’t see these things on our own.
I think the article started off well, when he was talking about what the headline says ‘ways men are trained to hate women.’ Ways in which role models, the media and what have you all conspire to lead men to think in a certain way. The first two examples - that all men deserve a beautiful woman and that women are merely decorative - are definitely ideas that are fostered by the media.
And the author is not saying that all men really think that way - I mean, training doesn’t always take. It’s like the way the media ‘trains’ women to think that only thin is good, but some (many?) women are quite happy being a bit overweight.
But then he starts writing as if nearly all men actually do think that women have taken away men’s manhood. If he’d rephrased it as certain aspects of the media giving that impression (adverts and sitcoms in particular), then he’d have had a much better point.
This was my take too. It seemed to go from ‘‘these are influences of your environment’’ to ‘‘these are indisputable facts about how women affect you.’’ And that’s where it went off the rails for me.
I work in a blue collar environment and recognized a lot of my coworkers in that article.
I’m not sure you should be using Diablo Cody as a guide for what men are like. I’m not sure you should be using Diablo Cody as a guide for what human beings are like.
What a load of horseshit. Things like this are why guys reacted the way they did in the earlier thread.
Eveybody knows Jonas Salk only developed the polio vaccine because he couldn’t play guitar, so it was the next best way to get laid. Hell, Jesus climbed up the cross on his own to get away from all the pussy being thrown at him.
To up the outrage meter- have you guys seen Maxim’s How to Cure a Feminist feature?
I think on of the things that gets women is when we hear one misogynist remark, we wonder about all the stuff we aren’t hearing. I know that I say things around my girlfriends that I would never ever say around a guy. So when I hear a guy I know and respect say something a little bit misogynist, I assume that when he’s among his buddies, he bumps it up big time. And that makes me wonder about the guys who I don’t really respect.
I’ve known some exceptionally scummy guys in my life (sex tourist high school teachers in China) and the stuff I’d hear out of them was jaw dropping. It made it really hard, for a while to have an open mind, because these guys were otherwise normal guys. It really makes you wonder if the only thing holding our ideas of mutual respect between genders and love is held together mostly by lack of opportunity. I know it’s not that way, but it’s hard to convince myself sometimes. When I meet ordinary guys here, I start wondering “Is this guy just a plane ticket away from trolling high schools for girls they can’t talk to so they can boost their virgin count?”
Anyway, I think that a lot of mystification between sexes is manufactured, and I think that is what fuels a lot of the fear, mistrust and insecurity that turns into anger and hate. Men and women are just people. We are different, but the differences between any given two men and any given two women is probably not all that much small than the difference between a random man and a random woman. We are all trying to do the same things- earn some money, have a social life, take care of families, enjoy our hobbies, maintain any spirtual life we might have, etc.
But our magazines and culture create all these myths that keep us separate. I do think a lot of guys who are afraid to approach women fall into misogyny to explain it- and I think it’s all pretty unnecessary.
I think part of one of the sentences in the Cure a Feminist article sums it all up fairly neatly:
“…trolling…”
I’m not even following the architecture links, because this tower wins in the phallacy competition. There can be nothing more phallic.
I didn’t disagree with that article, precisely, but it said more about the author than it does about “men”. I thought this was the truest thing that he wrote:
because, yeah, that is pretty much what he’s saying.
I think there is a subtle difference here. When men are criticized for being fat, it’s usually because they’re being judged as lacking in self-control, sloppy, weak, etc. When female politicians’ or celebrities’ appearances are commented on by men, it’s almost always couched in a “would I or wouldn’t I fuck her?” kind of way. To me, that feels far more aggressive and domineering.