Via PZ Myers, I learned that ABC TV is going to show a special program about the ‘Manosphere’ on Friday at 10:00 pm Eastern Time.
My first reaction was “Wait, really? They named a whole sphere after me?” It is not as big a deal as having a comet or minor planet named after me, but surely it must be an honor, right? At first I was gratified by the recognition but on reading the article, things got dark very quickly.
Deep in the underbelly of the Internet is a hidden corner known as the “Manosphere”— a collection of websites, Facebook pages and chat rooms where men vent their rage and spew anti-women rhetoric.
Protected by the anonymity of the Internet, men feel free to post hateful and violent comments. Posts such as “I really wouldn’t mind shooting a [expletive] dead in the face, they are evil, all of them,” and “Women are the natural enemies of men” are commonplace on sites like “A Voice for Men,” a Manosphere blog run by Paul Elam.
What is it with these men? I get it that many men feel beleaguered and are having a tough time these days. We are at a particular stage of capitalism in the US where people are being squeezed ruthlessly by the oligarchy in the quest for greater and greater profits for the wealthy. But women are also at the receiving end of this treatment. The idea that women are riding a gravy train at the expense of men is ludicrous on its face. Or at least it should be. But it is clearly not since the Manosphere seems to contain a not insignificant number of people.
What these men don’t seem to realize is that the oligarchy is a tiny minority. The way that such people keep their hold on power is by pitting the 99% against each other on the base of race, ethnicity, and yes, gender. So apart from being the wrong thing to do, it is also stupid because when you go to war against women, you are hurting yourself too.
Shhh. Their ratings will go down if anyone finds out the story isn’t actually about you.
The first and likely last time the word “Manosphere” made me smile without also cringing 🙂
So you’re not going to change your last name to Sphere?
An alternative to ‘Manosphere’ is the ‘Mangrysphere’, which sums up the frequent testerical rages from the likes of Paul Elam and John Hembling. One of the inventive commenters on the 20/20 thread also came up with a new term, the ‘Scrotoverse’, which seems likely to become a well-used description for this collection of pathetic, angry men.
I would totally watch your Manosphere show.
when i first ran across Sheri Tepper’s feminist scifi 10 years ago, i thought it a bit shrill and over the top in her characterizations of the the Evil Male antagonists….no subtlety there, they make Darth Vader and Shelton Adelson look like nice guys by comparison. i recently re-read one of her books (Gibbons’ Decline and Fall) and was struck by how much less i get that feeling after seeing so many living examples of her male characters….unfortunately also among the supposedly intelligent and enlightened, not just the Baggers.
Meh, spheres are boring. If I were you, I wouldn’t settle for anything less than a Manohyperboloid.
And they’ve had thousands of years of practice!
Mano can have the Manosphere, and the lackwits can have the Man-o-sphere maybe?
And there I was thinking you were the inventor of the Manometer, a delicate instrument for the measuring the blood pressure of Elam’s outrage.
If not the Manosphere, perhaps you can have the Manoicosahedron? Or perhaps the Manobuckyball? Both are sphere-ish, while being much more edgy (ha!).
How’s about the “Shining Manozohedron”?
But you still play both lead roles in “Manos: The Hands of Fate”, right? I just ordered the Blu-Ray….
My mind boggles, my consciousness is transformed!
hey, all those times when I thought sexist jerks were telling someone nearby to “man up”?
I just realized that many of them were simply inviting someone on a “ManOp” -- usually involving bashing a couple particles together, chilling some rubidium to less than a miliKelvin, or smashing the white racist, homophobic, patriarchal, bullshit paradigm .
“Man oh manochevitz” or something similar was at one time an advertising catch phrase for something like a beverage. Unless my memory is making shit up.
Mano, you have nothing to worry about and neither do we. What’s in a phoneme, anyhow?
@4 Xanthe:
The Scrotoverse is a better word for it. Much better. I’m going to use that from now on.
Another derived neologism: inhabitants of the Scrotoverse = scrotoplasm. (That one’s my concoction. You’re welcome.)
Re Crudely Wrott @ #13
Manischewitz is a company that produces Kosher products, including wines, for consumption mainly by Orthodox Jews (although I was once informed that some Christian churches use Manischewitz wine in their communion services).
I suggest we call it the Bollocsphere. Or the Testeroverse.
… it is also stupid because when you go to war against women, you are hurting yourself too.
That’s okay, they don’t feel pain.
Manischewitz is a company that produces Kosher products, including wines…
The worst wines EVER.
On a more serious note, if y’all want to get a good look at how certain men are talking about “men’s issues,” I suggest you check out Ally Fogg’s FTB, Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men. Ally’s posts show the “men’s movement at its most sensible — and a lot of the comments he gets show the movement at its most deranged. The whole enterprise is both sad and creepy.
You have made my day.
Does that mean that people who explore the Scrotoverse, such as David Futrelle or Amanda Marcotte, should be known as Scrotonauts?
Nicely done, Sir. I saw the post title and was wondering why you thought you had to put out such an announcement. Apparently I suck at putting two and two together.
Scrotineers.
If some guy can’t be happy and emotionally stable and secure without a woman in his life, how is he going to be happy with one? Every one of the woman-hating types is not just a potential rapist, he’s a potential George Sodini.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Collier_Township_shooting
The primary reason those types are failures with women is because they don’t see women as equals in a relationship. Some probably don’t even see women as human. What well-adjusted woman would want anything to do with someone like that? And because mentally healthy women avoid them, their paranoia and hatred of women only worsens.
I met a guy on the Jersey Shore years ago who told me he was writing a book, to be called “Women and Other Primates”. This from a man who has probably never even read a book. Oh manomanoman.
I’d go with the Manocube. It’s edgier. *rimshot*
Why do men like this even want a woman in their life?? They are so inferior…