Grampa Roberts Thumbs His Suspenders and Yells at the Women Folk
In this episode, Carey Roberts has found “misandry in the least likely of places.” Where, you might ask? Now I always leave mine under the doormat on the porch, or in the rolling tray under the couch, but Grampa Roberts has found misandry in plain view! In song! And at church! ZOMG!1!
Roberts: “Rack fracka-jab feminist ragga-frap…”
Dial up your local Country and Western station and you may soon find your fingers tapping out the beat of Carrie Underwood’s latest hit, Before He Cheats. Underwood suspects her boyfriend is probably cheating on her (in matters of infidelity, I guess “probably” is proof enough).
Yes, that vicious Carrie Underwood, suspecting infidelity without the Roberts-required three eyewitnesses, photographic proof, and full confession. Why don’t women understand due process?
Trashing your boyfriend’s car has little to do with sugar and spice and everything nice. But it’s the title — Before He Cheats — that turns this song into a bitter gender tirade. Just imagine a male star reaching platinum for crooning, Before She Aborts.
Awesome. But didn’t David Allen Coe already cover that tune? You know, it was on that one album, after the “Cumstains on the Pillow” song?
For years women’s libbers have reviled misogynist societies that disrespect women. And they have a point. But why haven’t we given equal consideration to the other side of the coin[.]
Amen, Carey. I mean, I’ve been in favor of nuking the land of the Amazons for years. Now if we could just find it…
The problem of misandry has reached the point of commanding scholarly attention. McGill University professors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young have published two books that reveal male-bashing has become commonplace.
Uh-oh. Grampa Carey’s been a-booklearnin’.
It’s one thing to peruse a scholarly analysis of gender contempt. It’s quite another to experience it up close and personal, like a bare-knuckled fist shoved into the gut.
Blah blah blah — wait, shoved in the what? All right, who’s been fisting Grampa Roberts?
That’s right, a couple hundred years ago we were debating whether American Indians had souls. Now, it seems the spirituality of men is being called into question.
Right, because men are just like those Native Americans — you know, being murdered and their land, stolen. It’s a depressing tale: invading women come in with their superior religion, degraded men run to the hills. Very sad. Once I saw this public service announcement where a very noble man, a stoic relic of a long vanished culture and gender, looked out on to the land that was once his. This land while in his care was pristine, but since women had taken it over, it was littered with fetus tissue and strap-on dildos and empty tampon boxes. He wept.
Over the last decade, we’ve watched as our churches have fallen captive to female bonding rituals, Aphrodite worship, and revisionist versions of the Ten Commandments that begin, “Adore me, the Mother. Know that I, the Mother, am immanent and transcendent.”
I’ve seen this with my own eyes, and worse.
Worse than your own eyes, Grampa Roberts? What other organs have you seen this with — nevermind. I don’t wanna know. But yeah, I know the phenomenon of which you speak. There’s the First Church of Aphrodite, Scientist; The Church of Josephine Christ and the Latter Day Womyn; The Kingdom Hall of Charlie’s Angels; The First United Misandrist Church; The Church of the Seventh Day Menstruationists; etc. I knew this was coming the day I received the host and discovered I had a birth-control pill on my tongue.
And no surprise, men are leaving the church in droves. And now along comes the Barna Group that pompously informs us that “Men generally lag behind the spirituality of women.” Want proof? Because in a typical week, “mothers are more likely than fathers to attend church.”
Girls, how’s that for a plan — we’ll feminize the church, send the men packing, and then proclaim our moral superiority!
Well, if women attend church more than men, it’s bound to be because women are somehow forbidding men from going. Gynofascism is real!
So Gents, switch off the mute button while I indulge in a few moments of unedited indignation. (Ladies, you’re welcome to come along for the ride.)
When you were young and a schoolyard bully insulted your courage and strength, did you turn tail and hide behind your teacher’s skirts? Presumably you confronted the tormenter and told him to lay off, in no uncertain terms — right?
All right, women. Grampa Roberts has made a stand: “You won’t have Dicks to kick around any more.” He’s tired of your emasculating ways. He’s going to take matters in his own hands by asking his readers to call and complain to an obscure New Age Californian who has for too long held America’s testicles as hostage. As way of encouragement, Grampa writes:
I guarantee you’ll recapture some of that warrior spirit [if you call]. And before long we’ll turn around this torrent of misandry.
And after services at the Reformed Churches of the Resurrected Penis, all will gather in the fellowship hall where refreshments will be served, buttocks oiled and, later, they’ll show Gladiator movies. No chicks allowed!
The only thing women is good for is makin more men! Hoo weee get r dun!!
“Adore me, the Mother. Know that I, the Mother, am immanent and transcendent.”
Who does Granpa think he’s kiddin’? Shecky Greene used to lead off his act at Grossinger’s with that line for years!
Whutwhutwhut?!? I want some of what he’s on!
Jebus H Farkin’ Christ, the guy is completely off the planet and well into orbit. Women are oppressing men?!?
And his evidence is, what: one (count ’em, one) country and western song, plus the fact that women attend church more than men? That’s the guy’s argument? Clearly he’s never heard a single C&W song in his entire life, because as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, the whole damned genre is full of ‘cheatin’ this’ and ‘lyin’ that’ and ‘my baby done left me’ the other. He’s using that to support his argument?
All right, who’s been fisting Granpa Roberts?
Awk! Probably those Evull Womynists. Or perhaps that’s what he’s hoping for?
When you were young and a schoolyard bully insulted your courage and strength, did you turn tail and hide behind your teacher’s skirts?
Whutwhutwhut? Who’s bullying him? He seems to be suggesting that going to church more than him constitutes bullying. In which case, that makes Decent, God-fearin’ Christians the enemy and Godless Atheists entirely nice.
Presumably you confronted the tormenter and told him to lay off, in no uncertain terms — right?
Yeah! Damn you, you wimmins, stop singing and going to church!
guarantee you’ll recapture some of that warrior spirit [if you call].
Hahahahahahahaha! Warrior spirit! By making a phone call! Hahahaha!
Sorry, I was compelled to laugh immoderately, to cover my intense chagrin that Our Cunning Plan Has Been Foiled. You’ll be hearing from us.
And before long we’ll turn around this torrent of misandry.
Torrent? I thought a torrent had to be big and stuff? Like, actually exist?
Jebus, is singing country songs and going to church is torment and bullying, it’s lucky that women only have to contend with spousal abuse, rape, harassment, and all that. Whew, we get off easy.
Hope Gramps never hears about that song called “Earl,” sung by >shudder
You know, I don’t think he should be casting aspersions on other churches when the choir at his own is apparently covering Carrie Underwood tunes.
(cont’d. from above): the Dixie Chicks where some uppity wimmin folks kills ol’ cheatin’ Earl & dump his body somewhere. Gramps’ll bust a vein. (I know I almost did.)
Where did you dig up this old fossil?
I’m just waiting for Derbyshire’s take.
M. Bouffant: The funny thing is, this exact same article was written about ten times about that song by the Commie Chicks. Accompanied by caterwauling about how it’s so unfair women get to sing songs about taking revenge on their abusers while men, uh, are legally forbidden to abuse women.
And a little while ago, David Brooks wrote a petulant little article on how an Avril Lavigne song is proof that women are a bunch of uppity little sluts compared to the 1950s. It was on Pandagon.
This is really an old tradition among reactionaries.
Gramps should be old enough to remember Wanda Jackson’s “Box It Came In” (…”the box he comes home in will all be satin lined”) from the freakin’ 50’s.
“Adore me, the Mother. Know that I, the Mother, am immanent and transcendent.”
Unsurprisingly, this has nothing to do with church services and everything to do with new age “pagans”.
Yes, it could never happen. For instance, just imagine a male producer writing a song called “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)” and getting an up and coming girl band to give voice to such misogyny. Oh, wait.
The “remasculinize the church (Because Jesus Was So Macho)” meme is big lately. There was a story on NBC the other night that for the most part painted a dim view of men, while managing to insult women as well — men don’t go to church as often as women because church is “boring” (women like boring things, apparently), and ultimately new church services were developed in gyms for men too lazy to dress respectfully and too lacking in attention spans to pay attention to one topic for more than ten minutes, much less talk about anything they had anything less than total interest in. The one bright spot was that they were doing community service work. And I appreciated this dickweed author saying that the reason men weren’t going to church as often was because church was appealing to “women, wimps, and weirdos.” Thanks, dude.
I was insulted and I’m practically an atheist.
As it gets more and more likely that Hilary Clinton will be the next president, expect a rise of “zomg feminists are taking over, guard your penises, men!” Just like the 90s!
That Carrie Underwood should be stoned in the town square, who dows she think she is, putting on those shoes and leaving the kitchen.
Underwood suspects her boyfriend is probably cheating on her (in matters of infidelity, I guess “probably” is proof enough). . . . Just imagine a male star reaching platinum for crooning, Before She Aborts.
Yeah. Or try to imagine, like, a rich and powerful nation warbling “We’ll Shock and Awe Your Country, Baby, Then We’ll Salt Your Earth” just because “probably” or “maybe” or “there’s an off chance” said country has perhaps been “cheating” in regards to WMDs or support of terrorists or something. Ha! Like that would ever happen.
The Church of the Seventh Day Menstruationists
Surely you mean The Church of the Twenty-Eighth Day Menstruationists…
That’s right, a couple hundred years ago we were debating whether American Indians had souls.
Hey, someone refresh my memory, how’d that debate turn out, anyway? Did the American Indians get to pick a side?
It’s one thing to peruse a scholarly analysis of gender contempt. It’s quite another to experience it up close and personal
Someone needs to tell Grampa that Carrie Underwood wasn’t talking about him.
So Gents, switch off the mute button
Ya think maybe there’s a clue there as to why guys aren’t going to church so much?
Oh, hee hee! I just clicked on the link (it’s always more fun to read the whole thing!)
Here’s Grampa:
This how she extracts her revenge:
Oh, he and Kaye Grogan ought to meet! It would be a tender, whirlwind romance, riddled with malapropism.
From Grampaw’s bio:
Previously, he served on active duty in the Army, was a professor of psychology, and was a citizen-lobbyist in the US Congress. In his spare time he admires Norman Rockwell paintings, collects antiques, and is an avid soccer fan. He now works as an independent researcher and consultant.
A “citizen-lobbyist in the US Congress?” Is that an elected position? And there is no (semi-major) sport more feminine than soccer. The rest? Retired busybody.
Why is misandry so catchy and funny?
“Momma’s in the Graveyard (Poppa’s in the Pen)”, Garth Brooks, from around 1992. A song about how his daddy ran over his cheatin’ momma with the pickup truck. And that’s just the first one that pops to mind.
In the early 90’s I had a job that caused me to listen to country music 8 hours a day. (This included the summer of “Achy Breaky Heart”, which was truly a trial). There were a heck of a lot of misogynistic songs on the radio, most notable ol Garth and a really creepy song by Reba called “Fancy”, about a mother who heroically sells her daughter into child prostitution, resulting in the daughter becoming rich and powerful (because that’s what happens to child prostitutes).
As far as the “men don’t go to church” thing, it is simple: 90% of self-identified Christians think church sucks, but they want their kids to get a religous upbringing. So the wife has to drag the kids to church, while Poppa stays home to watch football and go fishing, because, you know, he’s in charge and can do what he wants. Misandry, my ample bottom.
Don’t tread on me you paleface bitch. How.
I’m wondering why reading an article about the Barna thing was an “up close and personal” fist in the gut for ole Grampa. Is there something he’s not telling us?
Re: Roberts’ bio
The former professor of psychology part is a little worrisome.
expect a rise of “zomg feminists are taking over, guard your penises, men!” Just like the 90s!
Wow, I guess I missed that aspect of the 1990s. Lucky me.
Oh, wait, you mean that whole “Post-Feminist” bullshit?
But it’s the title — Before He Cheats — that turns this song into a bitter gender tirade.
Groan. Gramps needs to turn up the ol’ hearing aid a touch. He didn’t catch that the whole LINE in the song is (emphasis added) “maybe next time he’ll think…”
And he clearly ignores American music’s proud traditions of blatant misogyny, from the feel-good party-on chauvinistic meat-market stylings of KISS to Hot Lips Paige’s very creepy 40s version of “St James’ Infirmary” (the lyrical edits strongly suggest domestic murder), not to mention 1.4 billion blues songs, gangsta rap, much black and death metal (like Cannibal Corpse’s 1994 track, “She Was Asking For It” {!!}), and virtually all “porno-grindcore”. For starters.
Calloo callay! A day with gramps makes my (w)hole week!
First, the lyric is “before he cheats again.” Did Gramps think the action in the song was pre-emptive (I’ve heard this miserable drivel because about eight different girls performed it @ my daughter’s middle-school talent show)?
Anne @ 16:04:
Was the “dickweed author” perhaps John Eldredge? He’s big right now in certain Christian circles. He’s another example of somebody working out his own shit in public and pretending he’s giving answers.
MCH,
My post is not intended as a correction of your lyrical recall. Your post wasn’t up when I did mine and I would not want to give unintended offense.
It’s weird, but this kind of irrelevant crap is really important to men from this generation. My grandfather (80-something) is hugely offended that modern pop culture makes men out to be buffoons. He has a theory that this all started with Arsenic and Old Lace, where everyone got such a kick out of giggling at those helpless old men being victimized by women. Like Arsenic and Old Lace was some kind of proto-women’s-lib political statement or something.
As for misogynist murder songs, don’t forget “Hey Joe” (shooting a woman for cheating), “Cocaine Blues” (shooting a woman for no reason), and the Stones’ “Midnight Rambler” (stabbing a woman in the throat for no reason).
Doug Giles in fifty years.
Naw, maybe that’s not fair. Doug is much less fucked up than this guy. Although that “warrior spirit” stuff sounds like something he’d say.
“Over the last decade, we’ve watched as our churches have fallen captive to female bonding rituals, Aphrodite worship, and revisionist versions of the Ten Commandments that begin, “Adore me, the Mother. Know that I, the Mother, am immanent and transcendent.”
I’ve seen this with my own eyes, and worse.”
Oh my God that’s so um…terrifying.
My dad is one of those vaguely liberalish people that are maligned from time to time on this site (don’t get me wrong I don’t like it one bit either). He generally votes Democratic but the one thing you can get him started on is “dumb ol’ Dad”— e.g. the way he thinks white, heterosexual males are portrayed in pop culture.
Can’t believe I forgot the daddy of all songs in this vein:
I’d like to know what the old guy thinks about Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville.”
Carey Roberts’ articles are also carried by ifeminists.com. The i is for individualist.
Somebody play Johnny Cash’s version of “Delia” to Gramps.
My grandfather (80-something) is hugely offended that modern pop culture makes men out to be buffoons. He has a theory that this all started with Arsenic and Old Lace, where everyone got such a kick out of giggling at those helpless old men being victimized by women. Like Arsenic and Old Lace was some kind of proto-women’s-lib political statement or something.
well, it WAS written by a well-known rabid feminazi, wasn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_and_Old_Lace_(play)
Likewise all those TV sitcoms and commercials that make out men to be buffoons – the ranks of network television screenwriters and advertising copywriters are FILLED with radicalized women, aren’t they?
I mean, its not as if Women don’t totally RULE Hollywood, right? That would explain the lack of women being depicted a sex objects, wouldn’t it?
Do these guys who moan “oh, the poor, poor men” all the time not have any brains or eyes or self-awareness? Do they not LOOK at what goes on in the world around them? Do they have no idea how stupid and whiny they look, and how embarrassing they are to other men?
From where I sit at the copy desk, I can hear the sports desk. Now the copy desk has too much work to do to sit around and yak too much, but the sports desk generaly has a much bigger staff than us to put out one-fourth as many pages. So they have plenty of time to talk about getting drunk and yell at each other about who still owes who money and where to order pizza. And they also talk about women.
There are almost always a few very cute 20-year-old women working at the sports desk. The 20-year-old women have a VERY HIGH turnover rate. One of the things I hear is these women getting hit on all the time. Somebody is ALWAYS harassing one of the women. They put up with it for two or three months and then move on, probably because they are completely disillusioned with journalism.
No women right now. We overheard this charming little snippet of conversation; “Hire this girl, dude. She’s really stupid. She spells her name with an ‘F’!”
I haven’t seen anybody but whiny, little babies like Roberts questioning whether men have souls. But, really, would it really be so surprising considering people like Roberts, and so many others who vote Republican?
I was raised to respect my elders so I will just play nice and stay off this guy’s lawn for good.
Having said that, and not like this needs to be said, Before He Cheats sucks. If you’re boyfriend is thinking of on you, best just to break up with his ass instead of performing a crime against his car. I’d like to do an answer song. “After She Was Arrested.”
Plus, no American Idol should ever be allowed to cover Chrissie Hynde. Ever.
Should read “If you’re boyfriend is thinking of on cheating on you”
duh me.
An opportune time, perhaps, to revisit one of the classics of the genre, D-Gizzle in Dirty Harry Goes to Church, courtesy of the inestimable s.z.
Also:
Robert Johnson, recorded 1936.
Oh, and one last thing:
M. Bouffant said, And there is no (semi-major) sport more feminine than soccer.
Um, hallo? American football? A bunch of grown men too sissy to play proper rugby, lumbering about in full plate armour, needing a break everytime they’ve had to crouch, and grapping each other’s asses every few minutes?
“Plus, no American Idol should ever be allowed to cover Chrissie Hynde. Ever.”
Or if they do, they better really really mean it.
Somebody play Johnny Cash’s version of “Delia” to Gramps.
And Cab Calloway. Songs from his yout.
Hell, even the wholesome Beatles were at it:
Well I’d rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man.
You better keep your head, little girl
Or I won’t know where I am.
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl.
Catch you with another man,
That’s the end’a, little girl.
Good one, Ginger. That reminds me of how “We Can Work It Out” is annoying, because it puts all the onus for working it out on the (presumably) female half of the relationship who is apparently stubbornly refusing to see that Paul was right all along.
How’d y’all miss the tomato song?
Die, die, die my darling
Dont utter a single word
Die, die, die my darling
Just shut your pretty eyes
Ill be seeing you again
Yeah, Ill be seeing you, in hell
So dont cry to me tomato
Your futures in an oblong box
Dont cry to me tomato
You should have seen it a-coming on
Dont cry to me tomato
I dont know it was in your card
Dont cry to me tomato
Dead-end soul for a dead-end girl
Dont cry to me tomato
And now your life drains on the floor
Dont cry to me oh baby
At least I think that’s how it goes. Never made a lot of sense to me.
mikey
I’ve seen this with my own eyes, and worse, I’ve seen it with my own ears.
Bistroist,
Let’s lay off the false rugby/American football comparisons. They’re no more useful than soccer/NFL comparisons. Different sports, both violent, rough in two different ways.
Wow, feminist utopia finally arrived and no one told me about it? When did that happen?
Negative portrayals of men in art? Dudes! I’m crying a fucking river! Cuz seems like, for one thing, I can recall one or two or six trillion instances of women being portrayed in negative stereotypes on stage, screen, TV, in literature, advertising, art, and any other medium ever created since time began up until this very moment. Sux, don’t it?
I recall way back in the early 90s when I was a magazine editor, me and the gals—in between scheduling our abortions and offering to Aphrodite burnt offerings of phallic symbols (of which there never seems to be a scarcity) — used to sit around with our knees apart, plotting acts of misandry and yukking it up over, among other things, the many variations on the timeless “dead mommy” theme in novels and TV shows and movies. That was probably the most negative stereotype of all, really, when you get down to it. You know, the old “Andy Griffith”/ “Bonanza”/”My Three Sons”/”Bachelor Father”/”The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (and, if I recall correctly, “Flipper”) type of deal, where the long-suffering, saintly dad has been abandoned by his wife (or wives!) because she has quite thoughtlessly died, meaning Saintly Dad raises the (preferably male) young ‘uns on his own. This theme also enjoyed a resurgence (if indeed it ever went away) in what some like to call the “post-feminist” era (which, by the way, if we ever get to a true cultural feminism, let alone beyond it, we’ll call you and let you know that term has acquired meaning) in such totally realistic situation comedies as “Full House” and some other shitbag shows I don’t remember the names of now. Yeah, it’s always been a gas to have your cultural role disappeared by your being dead, as though the idea of you is more cherishable, and marketable, than your actual being. Just as an example of one thing we used to yuk it up about, is what I’m saying.
In conclusion, and speaking of the dead, am I the only one who remembers The Meat Puppets’ “My Biggest Mistake (Was Buryin’ You in a Shallow Grave”)? I heard it a few times on a CD a friend of mine had; don’t know much about it, but those voices sounded awful feminine-like to me. We used to then turn around and sing it to our husbands, who, being real men, didn’t run away in fright but instead laughed their asses off too.
Grandpa Roberts’s idea of “female bonding rituals” is different from mine. Or is it? The Church of Latter Day Sapphos is one I would join, if only to watch.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but found it hard to just let M. Bouffant’s slur (as I perceived it, perhaps revealing some inherent bigotry of my own) of (association) football go by.
I doubt Bouffant’s comment was meant to be taken entirely serious, mine certainly wasn’t.
(the above was, of course, meant as a reply to apocalipstick @ 18:42)
What always gets me about stuff like this is the sheer whininess of it. It makes guys like him impossible for me to really take seriously. They just sound so WATB-ish.
Bistroist,
OK. I’ve played all three sports and have heard so many tedious, serious attempts to “compare” them that my hackles are sent to permanent rise. Wow, that didn’t make much sense, did it?
Good call, Bistro. American Football is totally Teh Gey.
Good to see you around these parts, HTML.
Isn’t it kinda cruel to pick on the senile old codger?
Every time I want to tee off on some old person, I remember the South Park where Grampa shows Stan what its like to be old by going into a dark closet and playing this.
Have pity on the old, man. He can’t help his crustiness….
Or the old bluegrass and folk classic Ella Speed — not sure how you can blame the feminists for that one, or for Bessie Smith.
BiggerBill said,
August 1, 2007 at 15:56
Gramps should be old enough to remember Wanda Jackson’s “Box It Came In” (…”the box he comes home in will all be satin lined”) from the freakin’ 50’s.
Not to split hairs but, the song came out in 1966.
“I was walking from the club out to my car. Maybe I’d had too much to drink. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn that outfit. I don’t know. Suddenly, two women grabbed me from behind, dragged me into the alley and…and then they…they made me watch a sitcom about a fat jackass with a hot wife! It was *sob* horrible!“
What always gets me about stuff like this is the sheer whininess of it.
Not just whininess, but whininess combined with false-hair-on-the-chest crap like his call to “recapture some of that warrior spirit.” Sheesh… If you’re going to whine, whine with pride – don’t try to hide the fact that you’re a wuss by going all pseudo-macho.
Isn’t it kinda cruel to pick on the senile old codger?
Nah. I’m 127 and abuse doesn’t bother me in the least.
Boo hoo! Life was so great for women back in 1961!
Buck Owens (with Rose Maddox yelling “MENTAL CRUELTY!”, 1961)
Mental cruelty, that’s what I heard her say
Mental cruelty to the judge that day
I sat there in silence so she could be free
And listened to her lying words mental cruelty.
Your Honor, since our marriage
My life’s not been the same
Why, I’m missing out on all the fun
And he’s the one to blame.
There’s never any excitement now
The way there used to be
And sharing his way of life
Is mental cruelty, mental cruelty.
Divorce has been granted
For many different things
Even when there’s not a reason
And when no one can be blamed.
With only two little words
Why she’s on her merry way
Yes, all the woman has to claim
Is mental cruelty, mental cruelty…
Axl Rose has been fighting the insidious Gynofascist threat for some time now:
I used to love her, but I had to kill her.
She bitched so much; she drove me nuts.
And now she’s burried right in my back yard.
Bwahahah
Jesus take the wheel before I run over this fossil.
Citizen-lobbyist == batshit insane old man who calls his congressman twice a day ranting about the brown people, the young people, the brown young people, the invading hordes of Moors, his proposal to canonize Bill O’Reilly, and the travesty that was the cancellation of Maaaatlock (think Grampa Simpson voice here)
LOL Mencken.
Just imagine a male star reaching platinum for crooning, Before She Aborts.–
Before She Aborts, what? You’ll get an abortion first, that’ll show her!
Who was it that said that “Boys start out life hating girls. This doesn’t change, they just get horny?”
So true it’s not even funny.
While we’re on the subject of “inspirational quotebook” aphorisms, isn’t it also true that youth is when women can make you happy and unhappy, middle age when they can no longer make you unhappy, and old age when women can NEITHER make you happy or unhappy?
If so, what’s Grampa Simpson got to be complaining about?
HTML, for the sake of your mind it’s time you took a sabbatical and read some good books. That rasping sound is not Grandpa Roberts– it’s you scraping the barrel of wingnuttery.
Yeah, not to indulge in looksism or anything like that, but Roberts is the living incarnate of what bug fuck crazy looks like.
I didn’t really start out hating girls. They were just strange and different. I do remember that at the age of about 5 I started to pick up on the social signals that said boys were supposed to hate girls, or consider them stupid, and I internalized these beliefs. I remember, I went so far as to tell my Grandmother that I didn’t like her because she was a girl. I was a very logical child, and followed even stupid beliefs to their logical conclusion.
This phase passed, and within a couple of months I was apparently back to normal vis a vis girls. But the beliefs stayed within me, on a deeper level. It was not until 4th grade or so that I started really questioning why the heck I was thinking these negative things about girls. And yes, the fact that I was starting to find girls attractive caused some of that questioning.
I don’t believe that I ever applied these anti-girl beliefs to my mother. Perhaps on some level, I realized that to be that completely rigorous about it would have made my life way harder.
Qetesh – Yep, here and there – it’s a growth industry, I hear. And lucrative.
Now that generally costs extra and is out of most oppressed mens’ financial reach.
Aka “golden shower”, and that too, is not included with the basic service.
Marco@17:39
Having said that, and not like this needs to be said, Before He Cheats sucks. If you’re boyfriend is thinking of on you, best just to break up with his ass instead of performing a crime against his car. I’d like to do an answer song. “After She Was Arrested.”
Amen. Every time I hear that song I think of Carrie Underwood picking up trash along the road, watching her laughing ex drive by in his car (looking good from the restoration job that she was ordered to pay for) with another woman in the passenger seat. Nice revenge.
And Cab Calloway. Songs from his yout.
The songs of Roberts’ youth were sung by troubadours.
“Over the last decade, we’ve watched as our churches have fallen captive to female bonding rituals, Aphrodite worship, …”
Dude. What church is he going to?
“And no surprise, men are leaving the church in droves.”
I have no proof for this, but I strongly suspect that this means that two or three of his church buddies left, and this translates into a global church crisis, with millions upon millions of men simply disappearing.
“Girls, how’s that for a plan — we’ll feminize the church, send the men packing, and then proclaim our moral superiority!”
Well… men were the ones who let them feminize it in the first place, so maybe they have a point.
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=AboutBarna
Yeah, I don’t trust that shifty “George” chick.
Sounds like Roberts stumbled into a pagan celebration and thought it was his church. Mr McGoo much?
You kids got no fuckin’ respect for the Wisdom of Ages.
And if the Wisdom of Ages ever gets reg’lar and moving freely; he’s going to fist your ass!
Hehehe. On the plus side, Carey is a shoe-in for the role of “Cantankerous old superstitious penguin” in the live-action version of Happy Feet.
Poor Grampa Roberts. See, he knows this is all his fault. If he had just stood up back in the good ol’ days. The problem? Patsy Cline would have kicked his ass.
They put up with it for two or three months and then move on, probably because they are completely disillusioned with journalism.
Hoosier X: Speaking as an ex-20-year-old, I’d suggest you’re giving the jock desk too much credit. The women most likely move on disillusioned not in journalism, but in dumbass sports reporters.
I’m just so glad these children were here to hear this speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, but it displayed a courage rarely seen in this day and age.
Frontier gibberish is indeed a dying language.
FTR, “He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)” was written by a woman, Carole King. It wasn’t intended to celebrate domestic violence, more to show how women rationalize it to themselves.
lyrics
Dan Riehl in 30 – er, fuck it – 15 years.
Think about it.
My favorite country song to karaoke when drunk is “I’m Not Lisa” by Jessi Colter
I’m not Lisa, my name is Pablo
Lisa left you years ago
My eyes are not blue
But mine won’t leave you
‘Til the sunlight has touched your face
She was your morning light
Her smile told of no night
Your love for her grew
With each rising sun
And then one winter day
His hand led hers away
She left you here drowning in your tears, here
Where you’ve stayed for years
Crying Lisa, Lisa
I’m not Lisa, my name is Pablo
Lisa left you years ago
My eyes are not blue
But mine won’t leave you
‘Til the sunlight shines through your face
I’m not Lisa
Yeah it’s really horrible, but i like the gender bending aspect of it.
Are you sure this is Carey Roberts? You didn’t accidently copy some rejected Abe Simpson dialogue, did you?
I always got creeped out by the various versions of Pretty Polly in which Polly gets offed for no reason at all.
I think Carey has a point. Ancient Athens produced Medea (granted, it was by a man, but he was a swishy dramatic type) and then not so promptly lost to Sparta. I know what you’re going to say, the plague and the Sicilian Expedition did the polis in, but that’s overlooking the fact that Alcibiades was also swishy, and the causative role misandry plays in the development of new diseases.
A relatively minor problem with this kind of crap is it makes it harder to voice legit criticism of feminism. Rush and Carey and the rest make any disagreement seem like negation, which makes it possible for the likes of Ilkya to take personal criticism as manifestations of misogyny, along with adding sammiches to pics of fat guys, of course.
A differnt brad, what Rush song was about misandry? I don’t think I have that album…
I think it was “New World Man”…
mikey
A relatively minor problem with this kind of crap is it makes it harder to voice legit criticism of feminism. Rush and Carey and the rest make any disagreement seem like negation, which makes it possible for the likes of Ilkya to take personal criticism as manifestations of misogyny
a different brad: Believe it or not, many feminists have little to no difficulty in distinguishing personal criticism from generalized misogyny. Perhaps you could try not to extrapolate feminists in general in terms of Ilkya personally.
apocalipstick, here is the story on MSNBC (hopefully the video works). The author is David Morrow.
“Believe it or not, many feminists have little to no difficulty in distinguishing personal criticism from generalized misogyny.”
It’s just that none of them spend any time on the interwebnets. To read some commenters on Pandagon and the like, you’d think *everything* every man ever did was fuelled by raging misogyny. Makes me feel like posting apologetically “but I’m kind to kittens”.
Dr Zen, the thing is that site like Pandagon and I Blame the Patriarchy and the like are not set up so that people can talk about all the men who like kittens. Just like reporters ignore all the planes that didn’t crash yesterday in favor of the one that did, Pandagon will focus on the guy trying to pass a law making owning a uterus a felony whilst eliding all the other men who picked up their own dirty socks that morning. If you have a problem reading a site that doesn’t pause every thirty seconds to stroke you ego and reaffirm that “no, of course we’re not talking about you“, might I humbly suggest that you get the fuck over yourself and realize that not everything in the universe is designed exclusively to give you warm fuzzies.
If you have a problem reading a site that doesn’t pause every thirty seconds to stroke you ego and reaffirm that “no, of course we’re not talking about you“, might I humbly suggest that you get the fuck over yourself and realize that not everything in the universe is designed exclusively to give you warm fuzzies.
Damn. No. DAMN!
Can someone explain to me why it is that with all the political and economic disagreements available to anybody with an ethernet connection and an attitude, it’s this discussion of 21st century feminism, something that many of us support in every way we know how to do so, so often becomes something that sounds like the forgoing?
Jesus christs tits in a mason jar, folks, we can talk about racism and genocide and freedom and constitutional law and privacy and war and anger and hatred and animal rights. But somehow, if the topic is feminism, misogyny or women’s rights, it always deteriorates into spewage such as this. Oh, and before you go and accuse me of some kind of “pearl clutching” or “garment rending”, I don’t give a fuck. I’m gonna do the right thing as I see it the best I can, and you can get on board and row or shove it up your ass. Either way, it is, pretty simply, what it is.
I just find it, well, interesting that this is the topic that brings out the real venom. Can we learn something from that?
My guess is no, we can’t….
mikey
Everybody has their sacred cows. The milk from mine is especially tasty.
No, you can’t have any.
MzNicky, I wasn’t extrapolating anything. I meant Ilyka’s type, not all feminists, which is why I said as much.
And I’m sorry to all for starting this. Feminism is a wonderful thing, but bad people can call themselves feminists, and feminist theory can be wrong, and guys have every right to note and mention these things, just like women.
…
Presuming criticism means antagonism is a common mistake in anything, but I’m not faulting feminists or feminism for being human. You jumped to a conclusion there, MzNicky. I’m trying not to respond the wrong way, but that wasn’t a fair thing to do.
Whining about feminists in the thread with the cranky old grandpa as subject matter is fabulous.
I wasn’t even whining about feminism. I was whining that Carey and his type make it harder for…
what’s the use
*slams door against head repeatedly*
It’s just that none of them [feminists] spend any time on the interwebnets.
Untrue. I’m right here, for one.
mikey and a different brad: My impression is that you guys are in the same boat as my dear long-suffering husband, who, every time (and it’s frequently) that I get fed to the teeth with sexist asshattery and mutter something along the lines of “jeezoid christoid on a fuckin’ fork what the fuck is WRONG with you fucking men,” he gets all defensive and says, “Hey, I never [said/did/thought] that!” as if I’m talking about him personally, which I’m not, so just simmer down, alla yuz. Sheesh.
Damn matriarchy. So oppressed…
Sorry to get testy.
I think where me n mikey are coming from, to hesitantly speak for him, is a place where we’re, for different reasons, just as annoyed at those same asshats. It ain’t that they’re men, it’s that they’re asshats, The maleness just gives the asshattery a specific flavor.
That said, I will simmer down nah.
Sophist, FCD-
Way to crank it up to 11, baby!
It’s like having a mostly civil conversation in a coffee house, then someone who is not from around here comes in blaring Carrie Underwood from a boom box that takes, like, twelve D cell batteries!
Would someone tell her we were talking about the cranky old man? Jeez, context really is everything, isn’t it?
OMFG, men have relied on women to carry the religious flag for at least the last one hundred years. Women were supposed to engender belief in offspring and to enforce church attendance for minors without asking questions like “Do you have to have a penis to be a minister/priest?”
Since only women, minors and gays (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2155148.ece) were present, they managed to, ahem, improve the theology.
Re: The popular culture’s portrayal of men as buffoons.
My almost twenty-year-old son is not happy with that. He does not remember when women were told that we should not earn as much as a man for doing the same work. In fact, we were told we SHOULD NOT TRY TO DO THE SAME WORK because it was unnatural. I don’t enjoy sitcoms with stupid, stereotypically dumb males either. Let’s reject those portrayals. Will it result in the firings of thousands of women? Let’s see.
Ya know, I never assume anyone’s talking about me unless they actually mention my name. Life’s much less stressful that way, I’ve found, and there’s generally more substantial things to discuss than what I know I don’t do despite what anyone else says.
Keep talking about feminism, everyone. I’ve almost got bingo!
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/458582249_edbf713fd0.jpg?v=0
And the whole “dumb meathead fat guy with the smoking hot wife who’s smarter than him most of the time, but still acts irrational about ‘girly’ shit like equal pay or him being a dipstick about a marginally hotter female, and they’re always lying to each other about inconsequential shit and getting caught but it all works out in 25 minutes or so” is depressing, sure. It’s not depressing because it shows men in a bad light, though. It’s depressing because it’s apparently the only kind of interaction between men and women the geniuses who write network sitcoms can come up with it seems. They just change the professions of the character and, boom, the new hit comedy of the year. He’s a chicken farmer and she’s a marine biologist and they’re in luuuuve! Wacky hi-jinks ensue and Carey Roberts heads for the tub.
I mean, really, it’s like the “ugly duckling” girl who’s hideously plain until she takes off her glasses, and then she’s immediately a Hot Momma all the sudden. Or people who are romantically inclined towards one another can only express it by being total assholes to each other while everyone else just nods knowingly. If actual human beings are failing to note reality’s total lack of a laugh-track and, thus, using this nonsense as a basis for behavior, then I for one feel justified in staying home and getting stoned while watching Marx Brothers, fast-forwarding to the parts where Groucho’s screwing with Margaret Dumont.
Shit bothers me, though, and sometimes makes me wish I’d never eaten them little cactus things back in college. Maybe I’m missing something vital because of it, but what the hell.
Linden, you’ll never get laid with that attitude
we’ve watched as our churches have fallen captive to female bonding rituals, Aphrodite worship… And no surprise, men are leaving the church in droves
As Davis suggested already, that is actually a BIG surprise. I might even join a church if it took up Aphrodite worship.
The former professor of psychology part is a little worrisome.
Indeed. It takes a lot to get defrocked.
[…] various commentors over at Sadly, No!’s excellent fisking of Roberts have observed, it’s hard to see how just the title makes […]
His equation of a woman’ anger at her cheating mate with a man’s anger at his aborting mate is fascinating, probably made because his argument collapses if he just mirrors the Underwood song (that is, a man crooning about how his mate is unfaithful).
The references to feminized church practice are also very entertaining — shows the bizarre perspective of the Right. These are the same people who claim the corporate media has a leftist bias (HAR HAR!) because it does not spew Republican party talking points.
What’s most interesting, and distressing, about the Right is their need to see life as conflict between groups, leading to comment like this silly “battle of the sexes” diatribe. They seem to define and validate themselves by distinguishing “their” group as being in combat with an evil/insidious/conspiring Other.
Ah well, time to slowly and painfully punch the anti-spam validation code in my blackberry ….
I wish I could find the post, but I think it was either Lance Mannion or Kung Fu Monkey who pointed out one teensy tiny datapoint that always seems to get overlooked when fogeys moan about sitcoms about fat jackasses as examples of misandry.
The fat jackasses are the stars of the show with all the major punchlines and the huge salary package. The smart sassy wives are straight-women with just enough punchlines that they’re not boring for the audience to watch as the fat jackass gets the laughs and gets away with whatever for the ten-gazillionth time, winning over the boss, the in-laws, the neighbours and any authority figure going.
It’s fantasy about irresponsibility and never growing up, which is why they’re so popular: not because of a conspiracy to portray men as idiots, but because it’s fun to watch grownup being big kids with crazy toys and other people picking up the mess.
Hoosier X: I thought of your sports-desk jerks comment this morning when I came across this gem:
Reporter apologizes for saying Vick ‘better off raping a woman’
A newspaper reporter who said Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick would have been “better off raping a woman” than being charged with dogfighting has apologized and will no longer appear on the local sports panel TV show where he made the remark.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise made the comments Sunday night on the “Sports Showdown” show on KDKA-TV, a CBS affiliate. He was disagreeing with another panelist who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend Vick for the rest of the season because he was indicted on federal dogfighting charges July 17.
“It’s really a sad day in this country when somehow … Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman if you look at the outcry of what happened,” Zeise said. “Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for four games and he’d be back on the field.”
Zeise apologized Monday.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003619927
Seems Roberts never heard “Smack My Bitch Up,” or the Bizarro-world outrage over the musical reply, “Smack My Keith Up” (don’t remember, but I believe Chumbawumba actually made the second song above).
These are the same people who claim the corporate media has a leftist bias (HAR HAR!) because it does not spew enough Republican party talking points.
Fixed you typo.
MzNicky:
So Vick would have only been suspended for four games if he raped a woman. Huh? Zesie is an idiot. I’m not even really sure what he’s saying. I think his point is it’s almost like he’s trying to minimize the dogfighting charge by saying it’s not as bad as rape and you only get suspended for four games for rape.
I wonder how many games you get suspended for raping a man?
I used to love her
but I had to kill her,
she’s burried right in my backyard.
And we’re happier this way
My favorite in this sub-genre is by The Pretenders. I can’t recall the title, but the song starts:
“It’s five o’clock in the morning,
and you’re just coming in.”
and the refrain goes:
“It’s a thin line, between love and hate.”
Man, if Grampa Roberts wouldn’t think of them as a bunch of young whippersnapper homos (note: the youngest is, what, 60?), what he’s doing is basically the unironic answer to Devo.
Before She Aborts would have been perfect. It’s the most devo thing I’ve ever heard, and he takes it perfectly seriously. Squander my genetic material, willya?
Also, he objects in the strongest possible terms to God being in anyone’s image except his. God’s a white guy, dammit, with a penis and everything! I run into him all the time and trust me, I’ve totally checked.
pluky, the song you’re referring to is “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”. It was originally done by an all-male R&B group, The Persuaders, back in 1971.
Annie Lennox did a cover of “Thin Line Between Love and Hate.” Dunno about the Pretenders though.
The Pretenders’ version is on “Learning To Crawl”.
On, and in re the country song “Fancy”-it’s not about child prostitution: the titular character is 18 at the beginning of the story. It was written, and originaly recorded by Bobbie Gentry, whose version is a bit more subtle in tone, though her dance moves in this clip certainly aren’t.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4ZCrMESar8
Reba McEntire’s video presents it as a little mini-drama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMsckvSrOoQ
For what it’s worth, I don’t see the song as an endorsement of prostitution exactly. I think the point is that Fancy doesn’t apologize for her past, or let other people define her by it.
If you want an an example a truly creepy song, try “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”, in which a woman kills her sister-in-law (AND hides the body) for cheating with her brother’s best friend, whom she also kills. I’ve always found something quasi-incestuous about that.
Oh, and with all the songs written about men who kill their wives/girlfriends for cheating, I have a hard time thinking of any in which the reverse happened. The only one that springs to mind is Cher’s “Dark Lady”, in which a woman shoots her husband and his mistress. Can anybody think of any others?
Heh. I do a google to see whether the “Kathy Young” referred to is the Happy Feminist&trade. I find he’s spelled her name wrong and the top Google hits for “Kathy Young” are, in fact, for a C&W singer.
The Google search I did didn’t turn up a country singer, unless she’s made a career change as an adult. In the ’60’s, Kathy Young was a teen who sang lead for a doo-wop group, the Innocents. She was 15 when they scored their biggest hit, “A Thousand Stars”.
Oh and after posting a comment asking if anyone could remember any songs about vengeful women killing an unfaithful husband/boyfriend, I remembered 3: “Frankie & Johnny”, “Miss Otis Regrets” and “The Cell Block Tango” from “Chicago”.
Bill S:
Re. songs about women killing their unfaithful husbands/lovers — an old folk classic:
Frankie and Johnny were lovers, O lordy how they could love.
Swore to be true to each other, true as the stars above;
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
[…]
Frankie went down to the hotel, looked in the window so high,
There was her lovin’ Johnny a-lovin’ up Alice Bly;
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
[…]
Frankie threw back her kimono; took out the old forty-four;
Roota-toot-toot, three times she shot, right through that hotel door.
She shot her man, ’cause he done her wrong.
[…]
Thanx- if you read my comment, just before yours, you’ll see I mentioned that song. I have a recording of it by Anita O’Day.
[…] is, it reads like a real The Rant/Renew America column. (Which is why most smart people assume that Carey Roberts’ columns are actually written by Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte.) This one’s for you, Pete. Goodbye […]
So, woman screws woman over, sell him for cooking fat, woman screws man over, point for point sarcasm-as-bag-of-flaming-dogshit-on-the-porch response required. I realise that being allowed to act like a precocious six year old might be attractive from one POV, but have you seen the mirror lately?
My favorite in this sub-genre is by The Pretenders. I can’t recall the title, but the song starts:
“It’s five o’clock in the morning,
and you’re just coming in.”
and the refrain goes:
“It’s a thin line, between love and hate.”
It’s not a sub genre, it’s a song. And, oddly, it’s called “It’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate”.. And it’s a cover.
The Persuaders did it first and it was originally a cautionary tale from one man to another about his philanderer’s ways.