Subtitle: Sometimes I think I must have already died and
this is hell.
Welcome back, sadly I’ve had plenty of things I’ve wanted to write about these past few months, but none of them have really justified a full on journal entry so I’ve blown it off, maybe I’ll do a garbage-bag of random topics at some point in the future. Regardless, let’s get onto the reason we’re all here.
“Manspreading” is another in a long line of social blights that has been made all the more insidious by feminists; proving once more they are champions of equality and totally don’t hate men you guys, by finding a universally bad behaviour and sticking a male prefix in front of it to make it ultra-super double-plus bad! (see also: “manslamming,” “manturrupting,” “hepeating” “mansplaining” etc…) Oh, this also clears all women of this behaviour ever by omission. If only there was some sort of political movement that supported the removal of gendered words in order to better promote equality. Oh wait- there is! But only some words, y’know those neutral words or words that may hint at any kind of positivity! Those words gotta go!
Regardless, for those of you blessed with the ignorance of this frankly embarrassing topic allow me to enlighten you. A few years back some idiots on Tumbler decided that they’d had enough of men siting with their legs apart on public transport and began a campaign to end this serious social blight! The term “manspreading” was coined and academics scrambled to legitimise this complaint by abusing my beloved psychology: The argument goes that men are prominently displaying their reproductive organs in order to pacify women in the same space and assert their dominance in a public area. Apparently this pose also raises testosterone levels which “make men feel more dominant and aggressive”… Though I am forced to ONCE AGAIN point out that testosterone is not an “Aggression hormone” it is a hormone that increased drive and focus, this can be sex drive, work drive, parenting drive, or any other focal need a man or woman has (yes, women have natural levels of testosterone too), while doing so it also increases a person’s ability to deal with those drives, granting a greater level of concentration and focus. Were testosterone truly some sort of PCP that sends men into a violent sexual frenzy then there would be a record number of assaults/sexual assaults from FtM trans folk, as it is their prominence in criminal databases hovers roughly around zero. Of course all this theorising boils down to “it’s subconscious” which is a psychology weasel word that has come to mean “I don’t have to prove this because it’s impossible to do so, ha-ha!”
Welcome back, sadly I’ve had plenty of things I’ve wanted to write about these past few months, but none of them have really justified a full on journal entry so I’ve blown it off, maybe I’ll do a garbage-bag of random topics at some point in the future. Regardless, let’s get onto the reason we’re all here.
“Manspreading” is another in a long line of social blights that has been made all the more insidious by feminists; proving once more they are champions of equality and totally don’t hate men you guys, by finding a universally bad behaviour and sticking a male prefix in front of it to make it ultra-super double-plus bad! (see also: “manslamming,” “manturrupting,” “hepeating” “mansplaining” etc…) Oh, this also clears all women of this behaviour ever by omission. If only there was some sort of political movement that supported the removal of gendered words in order to better promote equality. Oh wait- there is! But only some words, y’know those neutral words or words that may hint at any kind of positivity! Those words gotta go!
Regardless, for those of you blessed with the ignorance of this frankly embarrassing topic allow me to enlighten you. A few years back some idiots on Tumbler decided that they’d had enough of men siting with their legs apart on public transport and began a campaign to end this serious social blight! The term “manspreading” was coined and academics scrambled to legitimise this complaint by abusing my beloved psychology: The argument goes that men are prominently displaying their reproductive organs in order to pacify women in the same space and assert their dominance in a public area. Apparently this pose also raises testosterone levels which “make men feel more dominant and aggressive”… Though I am forced to ONCE AGAIN point out that testosterone is not an “Aggression hormone” it is a hormone that increased drive and focus, this can be sex drive, work drive, parenting drive, or any other focal need a man or woman has (yes, women have natural levels of testosterone too), while doing so it also increases a person’s ability to deal with those drives, granting a greater level of concentration and focus. Were testosterone truly some sort of PCP that sends men into a violent sexual frenzy then there would be a record number of assaults/sexual assaults from FtM trans folk, as it is their prominence in criminal databases hovers roughly around zero. Of course all this theorising boils down to “it’s subconscious” which is a psychology weasel word that has come to mean “I don’t have to prove this because it’s impossible to do so, ha-ha!”
The
reality is men have their reproductive organs on the outside, I know this may
come as no surprise to some people but I’m slowly coming to the conclusions
that people who come up with this garbage haven’t ever seen a penis outside
their sock draw. It’s an organ of your body, much like your heart, lungs, or
brain, and as such it requires a level of care that you’d give any other vital
organ. The testicles especially are sensitive to increased heat and pressure,
so a man can sit with his legs
pressed together but it would begin to be uncomfortable after a short time; then
painful if it is extended over a prolonged period. The closest analogy I can
think of for those with their reproductive organs on the inside is wearing a
bra that is a size too small, sure you can put up with it for a while, but the
longer it goes on the more painful it gets.
Now,
I’m not going to pretend that there are no men out there who take this to an
extreme, ideally your knees need to be about shoulder width apart to sit
comfortably, and it must be a source of frustration to want to sit down but
there is a guy taking up space on the seats either side of him by pretending he’s
practicing for volunteering at a gynaecology exam. You may be forced at that
point to do the unthinkable, and make contact with another human being and say “Excuse
me, may I sit there?”
Which
is what this whole farce boils down to, how entitled do you need to be to believe
that you shouldn’t have to open your mouth and speak to another human, they should just know that you want to sit somewhere they are? The reason I bring
this up is because I use public transport twice a day five days a week or more.
I have to ask a woman to move her bags/purse about twice a week, and it’s no
biggie, they just move it and I sit down and continue my journey, had this
whole thing not been blown out of proportion and used as a rallying cry to demonise
men, I’d barely have thought it worth mentioning. So from my lived experience if
you want a big social movement around taking up too much space, maybe educate people
that bags go on laps or in storage, not on the seat next to you…. Or…
Let’s abuse psychology some more and put it like this:
Let’s abuse psychology some more and put it like this:
Disclaimer: The following uses psychology
like a toddler might use a gun. Yes it is all “broadly” true, but specifically
and ethically it is demonstrably false. When you paint with a broad enough
brush you can cover a lot of ground, and paint over any inconvenient facts that
may block your narrative.
“Shebagging”: Due to the innately high levels narcissism that women have when compared to men, their mind has to find ways to ensure that the world is made to cater to them to prevent cognitive dissonance occurring when they have to face the reality that they are not special or in any way discernible from their fellow humans. Therefore the subconscious must encourage ways for the woman to demonstrate to people that they are the most important being in the room. Thus women will often place their belongings in spaces that should be occupied by other people to send a clear message “I have a right to this space, you do not, I am more important than you.” Of course, this is an evolved response of “resource hording” a trait common in women to acquire as much as they can (including space) at the expense of other to ensure that they, and their offspring have the greater chance of survival.
Yes it did hurt me to write
all that garbage, and part of me is actually concerned it will be quote-mined
and used by some misogynist somewhere to justify being a woman-hating prick.
Which is essentially what all this boils down to: People will believe what they
want to believe, and hate who/what they want to hate, they’ll find any “science”
that supports their narrative and dismiss anything else as lies or propaganda. This
is why we have flat-earther, anti-vaxxers and climate-change deniers, all of
them will wave scraps of “science” in your face and declare that they are right
and you’re a sucker, when in reality they’re just self-righteous and can’t bear
the thought that they are wrong. You may think “it’s about demonising men, it’s
about uplifting women” but it may amuse you to know that if you ask a member of
the KKK why they’re a member of a famously racist institution they say “it’s
not about hating blacks; it’s about standing up for the rights of whites.”
So I’ll leave you with one
thing: Go back and read the paragraph about “Shebagging” and imagine it was
written in earnest, and published by prominent academics and scientists and it
influenced society enough to make a law that targeted women. How would that
make you feel? Does it make you mad? Are you saying “well it’s not the same?”
are you looking for other information to discredit me? Do you think it’s funny
but unrealistic? Or are you believing what you want to believe?
