Tedium

Source, thanks to a Metafilter commenter.

Next week on Manfeels Park... (52)

Lol. This is so dumb.

She didn’t even respond to the point he made. In fact she only strengthened his point by once again ignoring the violence that occurs to men.

Violence pervades our culture. Physical and emotional violence is everywhere. Violence against women is worth a close look for a number of reasons. It is often committed by a loved one and the victim is often shamed or bullied into silence. We look at other groups too – and should. If you think that we should not look at gender or race or age or any other specific you are not thinking very deeply about the issue. And YOU are missing the point.

He said male violence was a problem and you immediately jumped to “but what about teh wimminz?”

What’s wrong with you.

‘but what about men’ is a distractor. Yes, men can be the victim of domestic and or sexual violence just as well, but not as often, statistically speaking. Yes, this issue needs to be solved for everyone. But if 90% percent of said ‘everyone’ happens to share a common trait, say, being women for example, you have to admit that MAYBE there is some sort of link.

I’m a male rape victim, am I just a ‘distractor’? Using statistics to prove a point doesn’t really work when trying to gauge personal experience. I mean, Statistically men are murdered 3.5 times more than woman, does that make murder a men’s rights issue rather than a societal issue? Because I don’t think it does.

What you’re saying applies to men as well though. They are victims of domestic violence against themselves as often as women are, and are also shamed into not talking about it. Admitting that you’re being physically dominated erodes your identity as a man.

Regardless, the point still stands. Violence happens to everyone. Completely dismissing that to toe the line of your own ideaology, and then actually throwing back sarcastic quips when you’re called out on it, is so inane it hurts. And people then wonder why everyone associates “Feminism” with “women first”. If you’re for equality, you’re an egalitarian.

Is lynching within the context of the US and necklacing in the context of South Africa, a universal and totally racially neutral form of violence?

Within established abusive cultural dynamics there often emerge archetypal forms of violence that come to symbolise the campaign of terrorism, and stand for all other violence that occurs if the subjugated class do not do as they are told. In the case of the gendered violence of patriarchy, the archetypal forms of violence did not emerge as a particular way of expressing the violence subjugation of the oppressed class – they are simultaneously the condition of that oppression and its ultimate goal. The construction of a culture in which rape is normalised to the point of appearing natural – in spite of all the ethnographic and sociological evidence to contrary – is useful to a class which derives each increate in social power to access and control female spaces, bodies and lives through the application of sexualised and eroticised violence, from the ongoing exertion of that power.

She did address his point – boredom with the subject, and disbelief in the relevance of gender to violence that is committed against women.
a. Focusing on the possible cause of violence, such as gender, is very necessary – platitudes that ‘people commit violent acts’ does not sound in any way helpful or analytical.
a. Focusing on violence against women does not negate violence that occurs to men. Again, it simply appreciates that there can be different causes, such as gender and gender roles, involved. Understanding these causes is essential in stopping violence.
b. There is a shocking prevalence of violence against women. The focus itself is entirely justified. A similar focus on suicide and injury among young men is also necessary, but not the job of every feminist, and should not make them stop their own work, even if you tell them to.

Your outrage at the violence that occurs to men, because of their gender, is justified. Please continue to advance your cause, and seek feminists and others to help you. Do not dismiss feminists who are outraged by violence against women, do not try to silence them.

That’s not even close to what she replied in the comic and Alex was talking about what she said.

You appear to have misunderstood the comic. This is understandable. Nobody is ignoring the fact that violence occurs to men. The fact that women are (shock, horror) discussing issues which pertain to them (violence against women) does not mean that violence against men is being ignored. This comic isn’t saying violence does not happen to men. The comic addresses something that happens to far too many discussions about violence against women – someone comes in and is outraged that women are discussing something which doesn’t involve men, so they make it about them. Derailing a conversation on the grounds that it’s not about men under the guise of “egalitarianism” is damaging and hypocritical.

Jesus fucking christ. Even in your own comics you SJWs fail to have even a shred of self-awareness

“im still thinking about this. they don’t just talk and blog social justice, they get emotional about it. they think ‘social justice is the best thing that ever happened to me’. i think there was a time when this phenomenon made sense to me but now it does not.” – an intelligent person. Stop plugging your ears when the other side speaks, because it obvious you only hear your own opinion. That is all I have to say to whoever made this.

There ya go folks, she just made his point.

“Violence happens to everyone, stop making it about gender”

Then she goes on and makes it about gender.

Bravo, you really showed him.

You’ve completely missed the point. The particular annoyance this comic is addressing is the fact that discussions about violence against women are often completely disrailed by somebody pointing out, irrelevantly and unprovoked, that violence happens to men, too.

They point out that violence happens to men MOSTLY.
Except for rape.

But rape happens to men almost as much as women, and prison rape of men is even seen as a joke by most people.
The only reason its not reported more is the bullshit idea that men who are raped are weak or should have enjoyed it, especially if it’s rape by a woman

you probably shouldn’t counter your own argument in your own comic.

actually, you should, it’s pretty funny that you don’t even realize it.

I know you’ve been enjoying the negative “man feels” comments, but they can get tedious (see what I did there?). This is fantastic. I love the expressions, the slightly-off sense of humor, the deconstruction of Austen’s wit and tone… It’s all quite good. Please don’t let any negativity get you down.

Och, don’t worry – there was one on ‘Monster’ (Conrad) that I sent a private email to as I felt like maybe we could chat through his feels; the rest we can sift through at our leisure when we need inspiration! Thanks for the props, though! ~Mo

Wow, you are a cocky little diddle aren’t you? You sound like those teenagers on youtube that scream “ur all haterzzz, im better than all of u lululz”
any time they get the tiniest bit of criticism. Maybe you should actually take a good minute to think about why you are getting hate, and no, the answer is not “white cishet male patriarchy”.

Are you seriously trying to argue with a SJW? Haha.

Sooo why is she getting hate? Enlighten us!
Give us the reason why people drawing beautiful pictures and putting in text they find entertaining to go with them deserve hate. Share your opinion on why people sharing opinions on the internet are really bringing peoples hatred on themselves.
Thank you

Damn shame you’re a social justicar, really. Your artwork is quite good.

Why thank you, though it’s just hand-traced on Potatoshop from TV stills!

You are too modest. The results speak for themselves. And of course you’re just using simple technical tricks to make a convincing illusion; that, precisely, is art.

Excellent skewering of social justice warriors and lol @ all the people who don’t understand the satire.

You realize you are wrong, right? like he has an about page? and.. a history?

Just like the landover baptist church.

This blog is adorable and the drawings are quite cute. What a clever idea! You make me laugh, so job well done.

I think it’s wonderfully witty, particularly since it uses actual comments on the internet. Please need to lighten up and appreciate clever style sometimes.

Sometimes levity isn’t always the appropriate action when talking about something so serious. The author seems to be so concerned with perpetuating stereotypes, but only when they’re harming their cause.

I guess one could gloss over the fact that this isn’t a male dominated society that likes to think violence is committed towards anybody – that’s certainly true, yet it doesn’t address the subtleties of violence against women from many venues like no abortion rights, unequal pay for the same position, and greatly out pacing the male population for rape, domestic violence, harassment – violent acts aren’t just physical and to “just” say everyone is subjected to this is to miss that women are really at the top of the list – gender specific that’s funny unless your a female :/

Other than the consideration that it might not be possible to address all the issues that you mentioned in a single five-panel comic, I couldn’t agree more, particularly in the light of all the other very negative comments this comic has been getting. If people’s problem with the comic is that the woman does not address the issue of how universal violence has become and keeps insisting on “making it gender specific”, I’m sorry but I don’t think they are getting it. Isn’t there an offensive callousness to terming one’s insistence on the gendered nature of violence “tedious” and “predictable”, in the first place? And what doing attempting to make it gender-specific? Regardless of how “tedious” and “predictable” it might sound, gender-specific violence does exist and rampantly so. Violence is done on women for no reason other than the fact of their being women and hence believed subject to the whims and fancies of other men and women.

Unequal pay and political agendas are violence now? You have to be joking.

That aside, most of the issues you say women are victims of primarily in society just aren’t true. 40% of rapists in the US outside of prison are female. That’s hardly “greatly oupacing”. And the unequal pay discussion has been put to rest after even the own study it was based on, concluded that the numbers were horribly inaccurate.

Hell, according to a NY times article that addressed the study from the CDC, the biggest issue pertaining to equal pay is that men don’t value flexibility as much as women, resulting in them working longer hours (well past 60), resulting in disproportionate overtime pay.

Changing the definition of a word to suit your ideology is starting to become the norm these days. Unfortunately, the only people in the debate aren’t what you’d call “the best minds of our time”, so we’re left having to listen these sorts of policies from the bottom 25% of our high school classes.

I’m so sorry to disappoint you, but I’m a feminist who was the valedictorian of her high-school class, has a Fulbright under her belt, and is a dissertation away from a Ph.D. Nor am I an outlier: there are quite a few intelligent, well educated feminists.

In my experience of argumentation, which is frankly quite extensive, those who choose to dismissively call their opponents stupid tend to engage in other spurious techniques, as well–including deliberate misconstruals of figurative speech as literal, cherry-picking evidence, declaring topics closed for discussion on the basis of dubious authority, and decontextualizing phenomena.

Ho-…

ly…

crap!

The comments are just as entertaining as the comics. This is great! Please keep it coming, ‘Ermo’ 🙂

I’m another one of those who “don’t get the point” of this one. He says he dislikes the “gendering” that occurs in discussions about violence (which is a point you may very well disagree with), but instead of refuting or just addressing his position in any way, the woman just barfs up a sarcastic quip that makes her look like she didn’t even hear him correctly. If your point was “Social justice warriors have a tendency to respond to what they wish had been said rather than to what’s actually been said”, then maybe I did get it after all.

Well I guess it is left at that because it kind of assumes that people have some idea of facts and figures such as
“Females were most likely to be victims of domestic homicides (63.7%) and sex-related homicides (81.7%)” for example. But it’s not this comic’s duty to educate you. It’s a witty observations. Whether you want to be aware of stuff is up to you.

(http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf)

also “Among homicides with known victim/oﬀender relationships—
 Nearly 1 out of 5 murder victims (16.3%) were killed by an intimate (table 9).
 2 out of 5 female murder victims were killed by an intimate.
 The percentage of males killed by an intimate fell from 10.4% in 1980 to 4.9% in 2008, a 53% drop. For females, the percentage killed by an intimate increased 5% across the same period
 The percentage of females killed by an intimate declined from 43% in 1980 to 38% in 1995. Aft er 1995, that percentage gradually increased, reaching 45% in 2008”

Don’t worry, I understand that this is tedious for you to read and understand. It was tedious for me to find. No one is happier about it but I’ll just be annoying and predictable (hint: compare 4.9% to 45%. Now, accounting for the fact that about 4/5 homicide victims are men (and out of those ~90% of the cases are drugs related), that still means that women were ~5.5 times more likely than men to be killed by a very close person.)

How thoughtless of the female character not to reference all these statistics in the comic, and just make a joke out of it – as if this information is easily available and the only reason someone might not know it is if they don’t want to! Silly women!

True stats yo. Seems upon reading that pdf for 5 minutes that men are being murdered almost 4 times as much as women. Yet, you cherrypicked the “Killed by an intimate” statistic. Also didn’t read anything about 90% of those “other” murders being drug related. Seems to me you are attempting to imply that women are murdered by their partners more often, and other non intimate murders are just all a bunch of tweakers anyway so who cares right?

The point is that some violence is gendered and some is not.

The difference in the rate at which men and women are killed by intimate partners is statistically significant, which means there is very likely to be a persisting social/cultural a cause.

What could be that cause, that would result in women being much more likely to die at the hands of an intimate partner? Could it…. could it be a culturally enforced perception of women as property or as a possession that a man is entitled to control, and use violence/intimidation to subordinate?

The point of mentioning these statistics is not to suggest that women are more likely to be killed than men, but that they are more likely to be killed by people who have come to perceive them as inferior/property rather than men who are more likely to be killed by an equal/rival in some economic or social setting.

And these statistics, since they focus on homicide, ignore the many other violences that are used to maintain that condition of control/domination and their gendered application.

Repost of my reply, because the original was mangled due to my use of certain characters:

////How thoughtless of the female character not to reference all these statistics in the comic, and just make a joke out of it – as if this information is easily available and the only reason someone might not know it is if they don’t want to! Silly women!///
You’re reacting the exact same way the character is. Instead of addressing *my actual point*, you just babble on smugly and patronizingly in an attempt to attack a position I don’t even hold. To clarify: At no point was I questioning *any* of the facts you presented. My complaint was about the woman’s inability/unwillingness to address the guy’s actual point.
In case you genuinely fail to see the disconnect between the man’s position and the woman’s reaction, let me make it clear:

Man: “I think *the way violence is being discussed* is tedious.”
Woman: “Well, sorry that you find *violence against females* tedious.”

I hope you see that those are very different things, and that it’s both, ignorant and insulting to conflate the two. The problem I have isn’t that she makes a joke; it’s that she smugly distorts what he actually says and responds with a complete non-sequitur. Needless to say, this is something I encounter quite frequently in the SJW community. Your response to me was yet another example of it.

If only there was a Like button for this comment.

Wowzers, it seems like people are consistently misinterpreting\misrepresenting this. I didn’t create it, so I don’t know the “point” of it, but it seems like the negative posters are focused on the extent to which the perceived point disagrees with, or does not align with, what they are focused on. One poster is focused on the violence that happens to men, and so he doesn’t like that this comic doesn’t address that. I guess it is a sin of omission. There are so many types of violence that are not addressed in this comic, but that is by design; it is focusing on a subset. Would you tell a breast cancer fundraiser to stop what they are doing because there are so many other types of cancer?

Clearly, the point of this comic is not to address every facet and detail of Violence in its totality. In a purposefully, very narrowly defined way, it is a reaction to a specific comment. If you start at the top, you will see that the man in the comic is expressing a personal reaction to “These attempts to make it gender specific…”. It isn’t clear to what “these attempts” are referring, but the comment uses the language of a sweeping generalization, so he is effectively denigrating anything\anyone that focuses on violence against females. Little other context is given, so that is perhaps a bit of a leap. His is a personal reaction, not a rational one. He is not making an argument; he is expressing an emotional reaction to whatever he has been reading\hearing. Nothing wrong with expressing emotional reactions, per se, but in this case he’s taking his reaction and making it the woman’s (and\or women in general) problem: YOU are making this tedious and predictable for ME. The implication is that women should stop talking about violence to women because it is boring for men.

The woman’s response is just that: a response to the personal reaction, and implication, behind the sweeping generalization. That’s it. The author’s “point” is that the significance of violence against women is not defined by how men “feel” about it.

I don’t know what is so confusing about this comic to some people. Maybe people are starting at the first panel and ignoring the context of WHERE the type of comments that we see in the first panel tend to come from? Because it’s not about him wanting to talk about violence on males and her trying to shut him up. He is clearly reacting to her wanting to talk about violence on females (at some point before the first panel) and him trying to turn it into a conversation about men as well.

Which isn’t always bad. I mean, conversations about violence against men are important conversations. But every conversation about violence against women doesn’t have to be about violence against men as well, just like every conversation about violence against men doesn’t have to be about violence against women as well.

Here in Chicago, for instance, there are often conversations about gun violence against blacks in primarily black communities. You know what adds nothing to those conversations? Calling them racist for not talking about violence on white people too. It’s a specific thing that a specific community is facing and wants to discuss. Nothing wrong with that.

Is this really a webcomic
Badly traced non-art overlaid with snarky illogical psuedo-babble supposed to act as a social issue soapbox
Can’t wait to see this garbage on /v/ in the next year or so

Looks like having a comment section on Manfeels Park is a great way to gather more material for future comics!

It’s risky to agree with you, but I do.

This made me laugh so hard! Keep up the good work!

This is wonderful. And sifting through the comments, the pond scene becomes just crystal clear. When you get these sort of reactions, you know you are doing a good job.

And i’m glad the voices these people get are even more depressing than their satire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROHvvtUcp8I

Love your blog! Love this comic. What a brilliant way to highlight the ridiculousness of misogynistic posters, thank you!!

I checked out the source dialogue: how pathetic that the article was about violence against women, and the commenter actually called the topic, “tedious.” Wow. Classic “what about the menz” BS. THANK YOU for your work here. Keep it up!

I shall be on the lookout for comments to send your way.