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blogging, culture, Dalrock, faith, insanitybytes, opinion, spiritual abuse
In yet another post about the horrors of womanhood and feminism, Dalrock posts “Check your male privilege.” I would respond directly to him at his blog, but in a rather amusing catch 22 of male privilege, Dalrock does not let me comment. Women are always supposed to be silent, donja know.
Anyway, as the designated patron saint of lost causes, me, Dalrock’s inability to recognize the severity of emotional and psychological abuse is a good jumping off point. First of all I totally agree with him, feminism has now designated everything as abuse. Husband won’t buy you new furniture? Abuse? Hubby doesn’t do dishes? Abuse! Hubby has not lifted you up and empowered your eternal happiness? Abuse! I have seriously encountered each one of those statements on the internet, so the meme that “everything is abuse” is a real thing.
However, the fact that there is a false cultural narrative permeating our society, does not indicate an all or nothing proposition. Abuse has not ceased to exist simply because some fems have perverted the concept. Nor does this indicate that psychological and emotional abuse is not harmful. Indeed, many people who have survived the head games, wish someone had just slugged them instead. Psychological and emotional abuse is an insidious thing indeed because it makes you doubt your own perceptions and judgments. At least with physical abuse you have something visible and concrete to complain about.
So what is psychological and emotional abuse? Power and control that manifests itself in name calling, put downs, rewards and punishments, with holding affection, contempt, shame, gas lighting. Anyone who has been on the internet , indeed, anyone who has dealt with people at all has probably experienced emotional and psychological abuse at some point. What makes it different in a marital context however, is the sustained and repeated nature of that attack, as well as the fact that it is coming from the one you are supposed to love and trust. That’s crazy making, it messes with your head, hence the psychological nature of such abuse.
This is not a gender issue, studies show that men and women engage in psychological abuse about 50/50. It is also not a one time event, not a few ugly words said in the heat of the moment, but rather an on-going, systematic, repeated abuse of power and need for control, based on creating fear in your spouse, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection.
To do such things to someone is a form of soul murder. It is designed to crush their spirit and make them small and less powerful so you can dominate and get your way in all things, especially your need to hold onto an emotional hostage and control every aspect of their being because you fear being abandoned yourself.
People who have experienced this kind of abuse, whether it be from a spouse, or the world at large or a combination of the two, often report feeling as if they are dying inside. This is no joke, they really are dying inside and it often ends in suicide, for both men and women. People break, their psyches will fracture. When someone reports they are “dying inside,” they are not simply a sad puppy, they genuinely feel as if their soul is being murdered and quite often it is.
Men actually commit suicide in the greatest numbers often due to emotional and psychological abuse, so once again this is not a gender issue. The loss of a business, a marriage, alienation from children, or a spouse that engages in jealousy, isolation, with holding of sex and affection, or assorted other unpleasant means of control can be a crushing experience.
To misappropriate scriptures and to state that women must always be in submission and silence and to never speak, is another way of crushing someone’s spirit, of isolating them and cutting them off from their voice. It is a fear based response that is built entirely around control and abuse. It is also a grave perversion of scripture. This does happen to some men too, they become so afraid of their wife’s response that they shut down and stop communicating and they too begin to die inside…
A few years back I encountered a woman on the internet who was a bit depressed, she was struggling with faith, not wanting to live, but also not wanting to believe in Christ anymore. She felt abandoned by her church and unloved by the body of Christ. Within a few moments several people descended upon her with lectures about how she was to remain silent at all times, about how her only worth and value was in her role as helpmate to her husband. What those who pounced upon her did not understand was that she was a 57 yr old widow who had just spent the last four years nursing her husband with cancer. He had passed away only a few months ago and she was grieving. The internet abuse continued until we eventually got to SMV, Sexual Market Values, and how she didn’t have any value to humankind since she was now 57. It was the most horrific kind of psychological abuse I’ve ever seen and the fact that some wankers on the internet would misappropriate scripture simply to abuse a woman who was already down, absolutely devastated me. I stayed up all night with her while she contemplated taking her husbands pills and offing herself. I don’t know how the story ended, she stopped commenting.
What I do know however, is that those who poured such ugly words over her will someday beheld accountable. God doesn’t give a crap about the avatars we hide behind on the internet, He sees all.
It was a rude awakening for me. I rather happily enjoy scripture, Christ’s love for women, marriage, submission. The idea that anyone would ever try to abuse someone by perverting those beautiful teachings, did not occur to me. Naive, I know. Also, apparently much blessed.
That particular kind of emotional abuse is called spiritual abuse and it is what some people do when they pervert scripture and use it as a weapon to abuse others, in this particular case, a woman. That is an ugly thing.
I wish to give Dalrock the benefit of the doubt, I wish to believe he just does not understand, that he does not have the eyes to see. I have tried so hard to empathize, but darn it all, if it smells like bovine poo, and it looks like bovine poo, you don’t have to step in it to know it probably is.
He goes on to say, “This isn’t about abuse, this is about changing the power dynamic between men and women. This is about obliterating headship.” No my fine friend, what you are doing is obliterating headship because you’ve got it all confused with abuse.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I have some thoughts on this, as you can imagine, IB, but first I’d like to ask for concrete examples of feminists doing these things (“feminism has now designated everything as abuse. Husband won’t buy you new furniture? Abuse? Hubby doesn’t do dishes? Abuse! Hubby has not lifted you up and empowered your eternal happiness? Abuse!”).
It would help put this subject in a clearer context, I think.
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Hmm, that is based in anecdotes and cultural perceptions, Mildly, so it’s difficult to give you a concrete example with links. Kids now days will call the cops on the parents because they have been grounded. That is an example of the cultural narrative that now suggests everything we dislike is abuse.
Not long ago a fem made a video about street harassment where it took her many hours to finally get someone to make a lewd sexual comment to her and this was held up as evidence of the abuse women face on the street everyday. Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte frequently write pieces that make a complete mockery of the entire concept of abuse, one week lamenting how men stare at them inappropriately, the next week lamenting how abused they are because men don’t. We have some multi million dollar actresses right now, fems, complaining about the pay gap in Hollywood and the abuse they suffer from such discrimination, the kind of financial “discrimination” we’d all like to suffer from.
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I ask for specific examples, IB, because I’ve come to see that most of the manosphere’s complaints about the society / women in general and feminists in particular are not grounded in reality.
While there are many instances in our lives of what appears to be PC ran amok, or cultural “oversensitivity,” for lack of a better term at the moment, I have yet to see charges of abuse leveled frivolously and without merit. That’s why I ask for concrete examples, so I / we don’t rely on the manospherian misrepresentations of this issue.
Can you show specifically where Marcotte or Valenti or some other prominent mainstream feminist uses the charge of abuse without merit? I’m somewhat familiar with Marcotte’s column, and not at all with Valenti’s writings, and I have not seen her do that. Did she really say women were abused when men did not stare at them?
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“I have yet to see charges of abuse leveled frivolously and without merit.”
Ahh, I really have Mildly, on the ground in real life. I can’t really violate those confidences, but I can tell you that our society seems all confused about what abuse really is.
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“Mildly concerned” wants examples because she has “yet to see”. Here you go.
#1 — My wife once stayed with a female friend when she was working as a domestic in a doctor’s home. This friend, call her Alexa, had a live-in boyfriend. THREE TIMES she called the cops on him for beating her. She told my wife that he never laid a pinky on her, she would just get tired of him, get him away for awhile. When he got out she’d take him back in. Wife asked him why he took it like that, he said he was just “used to it”.
#2 — I knew another friend that worked in a cleaning company owned by this couple. She was the “boss” of the crews and she’d yell at them on occasion but whenever the husband showed up she’d repeatedly physically beat on him. He’d just say, “yes, dear, I’m sorry dear”.
#3 — Sure those guys are hen pecked. But there is they guy who made a private joke about a dongle (that’s a small computer device similar in size to a thumb drive). A female sitting in front of them took their picture, with angry militant captions, blasted it out on-line, it went viral. Within minutes the two guys were escorted out of the auditorium, and by the next day they were fired. And she was the poor female victim?!!!
—Many men –AND WOMEN– joined in the blowback and the shaming returned ten-fold on the female bully.
NOTE: There’s enough truth about some men abusing women –stranger rapes for example– without blowing nothings out of proportion.
#4 — At another campus, there is a male student who has restrictions on his movement, and the campus equivalent of a restraining order, but NOT because he is even ACCUSED of anything. It’s because another girl he had never ever known in life claimed that he *resembled* the man who had raped her years before. WHO IS THE VICTIM IN THAT ONE?
#5 — Then there’s the famous MATTRESS GIRL who put a guy through the ringer that she even had admitted having multiple sexual encounters with. She accused him of rape, he denied it, the university investigated and decided there was not enough convincing evidence to pursue the matter further. The girl got a FACULTY member to give her extra credit for the mattress drama.
#6 — In generations past, the woman ruled in matters of child custody in divorce. I had a boss once who was the FIRST MAN in Tennessee HISTORY to get custody of the kids. He had to fought and it cost him but he won. And the wife in that mess was a drug addict and abusive to mate and children!
I’ve known women who were messed up and blamed the guy. That’s where the blame belongs when real violence happens.
#7 — Many women would be shocked out of their boots if they were to even check into how many false accusations of rape women have made against guys. One woman last decade in Chicago who “got saved”, became a Christian later in life, had to fight the system to get the guy released that she had accused when she was 13, only because she was afraid she was pregnant from her boyfriend.
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I hear you. Female bullies are a real thing in the world and I’ve seen it, I’ve witnessed it. Women can and do lie about abuse and rape, for a whole myriad of reasons.
There’s a sweet and painful story not far from where I live where a daughter spent many years trying to get her father released from prison, because when she was 13, she was pressured by cops, her mom, and social workers to say he had abused her. She was actually abused by the system itself until she finally cracked and told them what they wanted to hear. She recanted immediately but to no avail and spent the last 7 years trying to free her father. They were just re-united.
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Within a few moments several people descended upon her with lectures about how she was to remain silent at all times, about how her only worth and value was in her role as helpmate to her husband.
IB, terrible as they are, those responses are internally consistent with the belief system positing that women are inherently inferior to men, exist only as men’s helpmeets / servants / objects of their need and wish fulfillment (mostly sexual), and require male control at nearly all times.
IOW, you rightly object to the obvious inhumanity and stupidity of such behavior, but do not (want to) see that it is a feature and not a bug of this particular belief system.
It is a conundrum, alright. (Satanically-inspired, no doubt. 😉 )
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“IB, terrible as they are, those responses are internally consistent with the belief system positing that women are inherently inferior to men, exist only as men’s helpmeets / servants / objects of their need and wish fulfillment (mostly sexual), and require male control at nearly all times.”
I know! But that is not Christ, that is not scripture. Even Satan could quote a few passages from the bible to try to justify evil.
Helpmeets for example, it’s a lovely thing! Are you a helpmeet? I know I am when it comes to encouraging and lifting up hubby, bringing him coffee, cooking, whatever I can. Now contrast that with being a souless sexual receptacle who has no worth and value to God and whoah, we’ve now gone somewhere scripture has not led us. I don’t know who’s leading us there, but that isn’t Christ. The whole idea of one flesh, do we demean our own flesh, declare war on it? No, because that would be self destructive and foolish, and yet that is what some of these guys seem to believe.
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Helpmeets for example, it’s a lovely thing! Are you a helpmeet?
LOL! You are disarming, IB.
I don’t know if I’m a helpmeet (notice I said “only a helpmeet,” above). I am my husband’s wife: we go through life together, taking care of and helping each other in it, so I suppose the “helpmeet” role is implied. But he is as much my “helpmeet,” if not more, as I am his. He would be the first one to laugh (amusedly) at the general principle of male headship, and particularly as it may apply to us and life as we know it, even though we actually live a traditional, by most standards, life.
I am, however, more than my husband’s wife. Our marriage is the center of our lives, but we are separate people as well, with different interests and pursuits outside of it. We help each other realize those pursuits, and rejoice in each other’s successes (and help each other through failures). I am not subsumed under his authority or personality, and neither is he under mine. This is the model of marriage and family we grew up with, seeing it in the generations before us, in our parents and grandparents. Cooperation and compromise, rather than authority and submission, have been the guiding principles in their marriages too. I suppose we are lucky (?) in that we do not have “control issues” on either side; there were some, mild ones, in the past, when we were relatively new at it, but we’ve worked them out.
As I said on another thread, coming from a very different culture, we have no point of reference for the ideas of submission and headship; but seeing them in action (or in word rather, as on manospherian blogs) surely does not make us / me positively inclined toward them in any way.
I should add, though, that if this lifestyle works for good people — and works well, without causing harm to anyone involved — I am glad for them. I’m a fan of decent people from all walks of life.
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MC:
Though they all deny this, the Gamers have bought into the Feminist world-view completely. Both systems rely on mutual antagonism and gender superiority. The type of authoritarian male-dominated family structures have never existed anywhere in Western culture from Ancient Egypt forward as socially normative.
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Eric, these blokes have marriage confused with slavery, and themselves with slave masters. It is no wonder that they are either divorced, some multiple times; or in miserable marriages fraught with constant power struggles (which are always the women’s fault, of course), a hair away from divorce.
They are dismally low on self-awareness, and even lower on responsibility, but remarkably high on egotism.
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Well, IB, I’ve only gone to Dalrock’s site once before and as near as I could determine, he simply ignored my comment. So I guess that’s the way to exert power and control: either ban an insubordinate woman or ignore her.
But I am so unsettled by the fact that Dalrock and his followers seem to think headship is equivalent to power and control. How could they come by such an idea from Scripture? Peter says a husband is to show his wife honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. That both are to be kind-hearted, sympathetic, humble. There is nothing about power and control. The very idea!
And for the record, I think “emotional abuse” is just another word for bullying someone. Yes, bullies may also use physical force, but before they do, there’s often the name calling and intimidation and shaming which can tear a person down on the inside, if they don’t know who they are in Christ.
Becky
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Thanks Becky. I think headship is a lovely idea and it works so beautifully in many marriages.
I suppose there’s nothing new under the sun, but watching someone pervert scripture and receive all this praise from other “Christians” for what amounts to justifying abuse is just appalling.
I suppose it is a good motivator for the rest of us to get busy sharing the love of Christ however.
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Bullies are also the first ones to deny, dismiss, and deride the pain of their victims; and shun their responsibility for creating it.
So Dal&Co’s stance speaks volumes, in more than one way.
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Well, that didn’t last long. I wrote two comments to Dalrock’s post and both have now been removed. This, I believe, is an example of his power and control! Poor guy! I feel sorry for him that he can’t even bear to listen to a dissenting view, even one relying on Scripture.
Becky
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Becky, before reading IB’s post, I read Dalrock’s and many but not all of the comments. Someone has quoted one of your comments in his own. He didn’t analyze or dismantle yours but simply stated that he believed you were serious. I believe he actually meant that you should be taken seriously.
I’ll go back and find it if need be.
:0)
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Hi, Maria. I guess that comment has been taken down, too. I did see a few comments discussing the fact that I had commented, and concluding that I must have trampled upon the new comment policy (I didn’t know there’d been the institution of a new policy, which essentially says, women aren’t to comment unless they can do so in a way that “reduces their footprint.”)
Largely I said the example of Jesus contradicts the idea that headship is all about power and control. One commenter who apparently did read what I wrote said that I’ll find God’s authority abusive then. I answered him by saying, that on the contrary God’s authority is anything but abusive since He withholds His judgment and exercises patience and kindness, mercy and love to reconcile us to Himself.
Apparently women discussing Jesus and God are leaving too big a set of footprints. Well, actually, I think it’s God’s word they’re running from. They want to ignore what God said and spin it to fit their own paradigm.
Becky
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women aren’t to comment unless they can do so in a way that “reduces their footprint.”
Hilarious.
As if the echo chamber already in existence there needed perfecting.
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I’ve only been to that blog once in response to I-B’s blog post here. But he’s just discussing scripture and he’s right about the feminist attitudes infiltrating into the church. It’s more in balance than in the wide culture.
Let’s be honest. The shrill cries from the cultural Marxist corners will not rest, they will try to give us an Orwellian dictionary for all these discussions, and lead the gullible into a maze of confusing discussions, debates, self-introspective agonizing, until the masses are sufficiently trained that they can be told something today that totally contradicts what they were told to believe yesterday, and the victimized subjects don’t miss a beat, just like in that perceptive and warning novel, “1984” by George Orwell.
Having failed to get the proletariat to sacrifice themselves whole to the super-billionaires that are running the Marxist show, they have turned to other cultural Marxist causes to agitate the gullible. They got the currency when they snuck thru the Federal Reserve. At their hush-hush Iron Mountain meeting they decided to push the environmental cause –with that one they can get into your electricity use, your light bulbs, your garbage, your toilet, your daily life. Then they got a lot of the women divided up against the men. Then they finally pushed the deviance normalization into the mainstream to get a “righteous” cause they could use to beat up on Christian and divide them all until everybody is worn down into submission.
Oh yeah, and push for women in combat. Yeah, because the women that joined the Army for an eduction are just begging their commanders for a place at the front lines with ISIS. And to be sent off to the multitude of American military adventures everywhere. Oh right.
They used to moralize about accepting what you are instead of trying to be somebody else, because you can excel so much better at everything that way. Now the liars tell the gullible they can be something they are not.
Some of us have double-XX chromosomes. Some of us have XY chromosomes.
My wife tells anybody who listens that nobody could treat her better than me. But thank God, she is much better than a helpmeet. My ex-wife used to complain, gripe, whine, yell. She was a [creature that oinks].
My second and last lifetime wife is much more than a helpmeet. She works too, but she is very much woman, woman. Thank God.
If a spouse can emotionally abuse the other, then my ex-wife was the queen of emotional abuse.
PEOPLE ARE INDIVIDUALS. GROUPTHINK IS SUICIDAL.
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“PEOPLE ARE INDIVIDUALS. GROUPTHINK IS SUICIDAL.”
I think I rather like that. Amen. 😉
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In physical and sexual abuse, there are usually visible scars (lacerations, bruises, broken bones) that other people can see and so some people are able to empathize with the victim. In emotional or mental abuse, there are no visible scars, so it is difficult for other people to empathize with the victim. Emotional abuse is a subtle and cruel form of torture that only the devil could think up. Thank God for Jesus Christ and the power of forgiveness.
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Amen to that, Tim Shey! “Thank God for Jesus Christ and the power of forgiveness.” Also thank God for
His healing, mercy, grace, and steadfast patience 😉
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the abuse i went through didn’t happen every day and it wasn’t intentional on the part of the abuser but it was still very much abuse and has been verified as such by people who know about such things, Yet on paper, some people might (and some did) accuse me of exaggerating or lying because it didn’t sound like a big deal. I was a child when it started happening and went on for years until i escaped as an adult. The scars and PTSD from it are still real. I have had people tell me because my abuser had mental health issues and anger problems and didn’t know what he was doing that it wasn’t abuse. Of course it was! I forgive him but it was abuse. And years he later admitted that although his anger was an issue, he said he liked to torment me with his words and enjoyed it. he is a christian and he is sorry now. I forgive but i feel unsafe being around him much. and i;m left withy scarring. in my brain and mind. It is complex because abusers can be Christian too (mine was born again) and not always sane. I conside rmy experiences to be those of an abus esurvivor though and i feel no guilt over calling myself that. i used to for years feel guilty about that. but now i don’t.
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The worst part of mental abuse is that no one knows about it except the person on the receiving end. My ex had a favorite scream “if you were any kind of a woman you would–” and then he would start in on all of my shortcomings as perceived by him. My MS was never taken into consideration, because illness was a sign of weakness, and he allowed nothing and no one to be weak. I’ve realized, since my personal declaration of independence, that he was screaming out his own inadequacies and placing them on me, and for many years I accepted them The end came when I turned the statement around, and told him if he was any kind of a man, he would ——-. I’m happy now, him, I don’t know. He may not posses the happiness gene, but I hope he had found peace, at least..
Great post, as usual.
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I’m sorry for your experiences, but I’m so glad you’ve survived and come back kicking! I love how you said “he was screaming out his own inadequacies and placing them on me.” That’s it precisely, like being trapped in a hall of mirrors and at some point we realize it really isn’t about us at all. I pray for those who mistreat others because I think they’re often very miserable people themselves and also I believe that someday they’re going to have to explain themselves.
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Sounds like my ex-wife.
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Is there any grounds for her to say that?
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To say what, exactly?
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Hum, it’s been a while, but I think it was to say you were mentally abusive? Not all that sure this long after. I have MS and have problems with memory, so don’t remember things that happened yesterday, but I do vaguely remember that.
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I rather doubt you “remember” such a thing, not vaguely either. Your comment, however, is “consistent with trolling” (look that up), and not so vaguely. As in, Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
I have a real good friend that has Multiple Sclerosis, so I know the ins and outs of it..
Anyway, make your comments IN CONTEXT and you can check the lead-up.
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Kentucky Angel, i’m sorry that happened to you. As someone who is physically disabled (since my teens) that was the church’s (and my abuser’s ) weapon to hurt me- “if you were right with God you wouldn’t have ME.CFS, and Dystonia.” It has taken me years to stop believing God didn’t see my illness as my fault or something i deserved punishment for. i still struggle with that,
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The Churchian Gamers flourish of this zero-sum mindset (like most cults). Either everything is abuse or nothing is abuse; and since the first is obviously false, the second must be true according to their logic. It’s like abusive parents who justify their neglect and abuse by saying the kids aren’t being spoiled.
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Reading churchian gamers makes it clear that it is abuse when their wives, or women in general, do it to them. It being whatever may inconvenience them / hurt their egos and/or whatever they dislike.
It is not abuse when they do it, or worse, to their wives, or women in general.
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I spent many years among Christians who took that attitude. Whenever there were any problems in a marriage, it was always the woman’s fault. Typical example: One elder in the church was aggrieved because his wife, who had almost died in childbirth and had been warned by her doctor never to attempt another pregnancy, underwent tubal ligation. The husband found that once his wife was sterile, he was no longer sexually attracted to her. He began a clandestine affair with a much younger unmarried girl, impregnated her, and then lied to all of us about her situation (told us she’d backslidden and gotten herself pregnant, the little slut!). Eventually the truth came out, and by some miracle the jerk’s wife didn’t leave him; I guess she accepted her culpability in the matter. After all, if she hadn’t had her tubes tied, the marriage would have been fine. Of course, if she’d gotten pregnant, it might have been a death sentence for her, but at least her husband would not have been forced to seek gratification elsewhere. And if she’d died, he could always have married someone else, so everything would have been fine. I mean, as long as men get what they want, who cares what happens to the women?
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Who said that abuse does not exist? Who specifically, and give us the quote.
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IB, though he is scary I believe Dalrock is sincerely angry about the destruction of marriage through feminism and the selfish interests of “Christian” para-church ministries that play to and benefit from cultural problems and pain. I wouldn’t comment there even positively unless really needed because, as my husband pointed out, it is a boys’ club. Unless really necessary, don’t have anything to do with him. If excluded by him, know that you are protected and privileged. While he may be sincerely angry with reason, he evokes some worthy but a lot of troubling comments. I felt shame there.
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Good point, Maria. I’ve sensed a lot of shame in some of these places, that shame/pride dichotomy I sometimes speak about. It sure looks like arrogance and pride, but it covers up shame. I wish people knew that in Christ there is no condemnation, that all that anger is toxic, that He brings peace and healing. Trying to communicate that to well, angry people, isn’t so easy however.
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IB, I think we can’t reason with certain people, even in love. This is a time for faith and shaking off the dust. When we’re speaking to people that are so hardened, perhaps it is for the sake of someone else standing by.
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Words of wisdom there, Maria. I suppose I will have to keep addressing those parts of scripture that get so misappropriated and misused, so some people will know that they are not harsh and hateful, but rather lovely words designed to bring us peace and joy. As I often say, “just read the book, it explains everything. 😉
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Amen.
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I
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Agreed. 😉
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I agree IB – any kind of systemic repression is abuse.
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Becky, I agree. Christ’s headship is servanthood.
The comment about your finding God’s power abusive could have put an end to the discussion for many women because of the shock.
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I have followed this guy’s blog for a year. I am not a christian but I agree with everything he wrote. I haven’t married yet well because I’m still young. But I have seen many reasons why I don’t want to deal with any woman in the future and this guy proves it.
Most men who are bitter toward women are not actually abusive at all like what feminists claim. In fact, they are much nicer. I believe they are bitter not without reason, but something drives them to be that way. I mean, we all hear how ‘some women’ keep blaming ALL men about the mess they face and when they do this, all great men who do the best in society even much better than these ‘women’ are also blamed by them because they are men. These ‘good men’ do something good and society pay them with insult.
Let’s see another example about injustice in law where women can be punished less harsh than men for the same crime. Yes, I agree that law is created by MEN to protect women. In fact, these women still blame men how unfair men treated women.
Another example, we all have heard about #YesAllWomen campaign. The main purpose of the campaign is when a woman is abused, all women will feel the pain, or in short word all women will be victims. But, what about when a woman who abuses? can we also say when a woman abuses, then all women are abusers? In fact, they still blame men.
I think that’s the reason why most men who are bitter towards women become bitter. They are blamed for something they never did. Yes, some men abused women in the past, but then women blamed ALL men that they are abusive. Some innocent men are feeded by these speech and started to think and ask themselves “Why do we need to treat them good if only insult that we will receive in the end?”
You are so busy criticizing the manosphere but you dont know the reason why they exist and so focused how messed up they are but you never go to feminists blog and criticized how actually those women are the reason why these ‘manosphere’ exist in the first place
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I’m a girl, and I absolutely hate it when I see another girl treat a guy badly or act like every man is evil just because some guys are abusive. It is understandable when people get angry about guys getting blamed for something they didn’t do, but there are destructive ways to react to that, and IB is basically commenting on some destructive ways Dalrock is reacting to women. IB does criticize the shortcomings of the feminist movement.
I’d say the people like Dalrock are set up to make some of the mistakes feminists have: treating potential allies badly and thus making enemies. By blaming all men for the actions of a few, feminists might make people act like Dalrock. But the more people that act like Dalrock, the more there will be wounded women who decide that all men are pigs.
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Hi Autumn, have you ever heard a quote such as “A daughter needs a good dad to be a standard how she will judge all men” if you see the quotation, it’s okay for a woman to judge all men bad because of their bad relationship with their father. However, I never see any quotation about how boys really need a respectful mother toward their fathers how to be standard how they will judge marriage in future because we live in society where it’s not ok to tell women to do anything including respect men.
I have a friend, he has a sad story. His parents divorced when he was 7. His mother took care of him and told him how his father abandonned him until he found out the truth. During his 11th birthday, he found that his father actually didn’t abandon him, he always sent a birthday present and a letter that his mother hid about how his father loved him. He finally knew that her mother prevented his father to see him for long time. He grew up hating his mother and wish his mother to be punished in hell by God if God really exist (he is not a religious). He is 23 years old now and view marriage as a tool for women to trap men and think that his wife will treat him the way his mother treats his father
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Growing up, I heard things of a similar sentiment to your quote, but I was always taught that both parents needed to be good examples to both their sons and daughters. It wasn’t only about fathers treating their daughters good, but showing all children what a good marriage is supposed to look like. And I think when a lot of people use that quote, they don’t mean that it’s fine for a girl to hate all men just because they had a bad father, I think they are just trying to describe what often happens.
That story is sad, but it’s not the story of all humanity. I have seen enough people hurt each other to realize we can’t only blame one religion, gender, social issue, etc for the agony human kind goes through. So if my father does something that upsets me, I don’t decide that he did that upsetting thing simply because he is a male. Nor do I decide that the women around me say oppressive things because all women are evil harpies. I inherited a lot of my personality from my Dad, so I can look at the actions he and I take and see a great example of how a lot of negative traits are not caused by gender but instead choice and personality.
I’ve found many people and things involved in the feminist movement to be harmful to everyone. Many of them would say that the fact that I’m pro life and think that businesses should be able to decide what health benefits they provide makes me a brainwashed man slave. Of course, that makes me furious, so I’ll be the first to tell you there are plenty of feminists who are deserving of ire. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that all women are the same.
In a romantic relationship, people should have mutual love and respect for each other. I’m only dating right now, but I can tell you from that experience that girls don’t have to be evil harpies and guys don’t have to act like pigs. My boyfriend and I have been best friends for about three years. We’ve been dating about six months, but we’ve liked each other a lot longer than that. I think some people wonder how we don’t get tired of each other, because we hang out every chance we get. We hardly ever fight because even if we don’t agree on everything, we agree on the most important things. We have mutual respect for one another. When one of us is sad we each do our best to be there for each other. This summer I was going through some pretty hard stuff, and my boyfriend would hug me and let me talk through what was upsetting me. Recently, he was feeling down because of some things that happened, and I spent a lot of time figuring out how to cheer him up. Nothing worked, until I finally recorded an encouraging video and texted it to him(he’s at college and I’m working, so sadly our relationship is long distance right now). He promptly texted back a thank you and a smiley face and it was easy to tell he was a lot happier. Consequently I felt a lot happier because in a lot of ways I thrive off his happiness. And I tend to think it’s weird when I hear a woman freaking out because her husband forgot her birthday or something. I don’t care if the guy forgets that sort of thing now and then. I don’t need to be given flowers on a special day to prove he loves me. I would only care that he loves me and shows it through everyday actions that actually matter. Like working hard, making an effort to hang out with me, staying faithful, etc. I think a lot of marriage problems would be solved if people wouldn’t just date for a little bit, fall in love and get married. Getting to know each other as best friends for a year or two before dating is probably better for a host of reasons. Partially because that helps reveal if the lady is a jerk or not, perhaps even before the dating starts.
Another thing we shouldn’t do is expect other people to be perfect. If a woman is usually kind and good, she shouldn’t be labeled an evil harpy just because she has a bad day now and then. If a guy is mostly good, he shouldn’t be labeled as a pig just because he unintentionally hurts a girl’s feelings one day.
If a man should be bitter toward all women because of stories like the one you shared, isn’t it reasonable to say that women can hate all men because of some bad things men have done? I can tell some far more horrific stories than what you described. One of my older cousins and her siblings were raped by their father, and so many things that that man did influenced their entry into the drug life, etc. But then it wouldn’t be right to judge all men by such stories, would it? I know this because my dad was instrumental in helping my cousin get out of the drug life she lived, though it endangered him sometimes. There are cases of women doing good things, too. Single mothers that put a lot of time and energy into raising their sons even though their husbands are absent or abusive. Women that try everything to fix a marriage that is failing through no fault of their own, but then sadly their husbands don’t always care enough to try and help. Rather than put all the blame on one gender, shouldn’t we accept that all groups have their flaws, but those flawed parts don’t necessarily make the whole group evil?
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I still believe that the majority of women are good. I don’t hate them and in fact, i always help them when they need help and act humble toward them. But when it comes to romantic relationship, especially in marriage, I don’t want to fall to that thing. Someone had ever commented in one post in this blog that marriage for men is like playing a russian roulette, the probability you will shoot yourself is smaller, but nobody wants to play it, same like marriage. Yes, it also applies to women, but mostly in marriage, it’s the men who are likely to lose everything.
Some women could say that they wouldn’t ruin their husbands life if something won’t work when they are married, and yes some women choose not to. However, it doesn’t mean they don’t have the opportunity to do that and most men who give up on marriage actually don’t give up on women. They are affraid that of the opportunity women have, and their wives will ruin their life once they get married. Same like the story of my friend’s father that I told above.
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Reading you has been like therapy for me, IB. When I started really paying attention a few weeks ago I’d just finally accepted that something I’d believed in had been dead a long time. I was in a very bad place at the time and I knew that decisions I made then regarding women and love and marriage would be very far-reaching. I needed something like your blog but I didn’t know it then. It was just me walking in an open door in the hopes that I’d find something good for all the pain. And I found lots here. Every time I read you, it’s like I can peel away another layer and make some clearer sense of what happened.
One reason this post resonates so deeply with me is that I’ve been on both the giving and receiving ends of psychological abuse. We live in probably the most irresponsible period of human history so excuses come deceptively fast when we confess a failing. I pray for a watch on my lips so that I don’t sin against God with my words.
Every time I think about ‘her’, a maelstrom of emotions whirl through me. Do I hate her? Am I grateful for her? How can I come to a place where I’m not so mad at her? And then there is the guilt because I know I hurt her too. Maybe in the same degree? I don’t know. If I were to take her at her word I stopped affecting her emotionally long before she stopped affecting me.
The emotional confusion comes from the fact that we both abused each other. That’s my conclusion. I suppose it could be wrong but I doubt that it is. The first time I told her what I hoped for in our relationship she said things that wounded me. Things that left me doubting practically everything about myself. The rightness of all the choices I’d made to become who I was. It didn’t get better. And I got defensive and said things too that wounded her. It became a cycle where somehow putting each other down was how we could somehow validate our worth to our own selves.
Things got so twisted and messed up. A beautiful friendship died a horrible death. I could blame her and I would be right. I could also blame me and be perfectly right as well. I have wondered what on earth could ever fix that mess and frankly I can’t think of one thing that can. The hurt goes deep and it vies vigorously with the great stuff that came out of being friends so that half the time I’m wishing I never ever met her and the other half I don’t want to imagine what never meeting her would have been like.
The day it effectively ended I was actually watching “Fatal Attraction”, I think – a series about real life situations where a seemingly beautiful romance turned impossibly ugly. I was very scared that I was becoming or may even have already become an emotionally abusive man who might lose it one day and badly hurt the person I loved. It was partly why I was relieved to finally let go. I was really terrified and very very worried that I was really the type of man that could cause her that kind of harm.
I think I’m saying that abuse might beget abuse. I think the greatest fear any human has is not being wanted back by other people. And that makes us manipulative as well as vulnerable to emotional manipulation. And that can mess up good people and good relationships we could have. It may make us maintain an emotional distance while manipulating others into a state of emotional dependency on us and then they may instinctively attempt to prove that we need them just as much and the war is on. A right ugly war.
I’m glad you wrote this, IB. Thank you.
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Thank you for your kind words, Odii, and for taking the time to read. We need to talk about these things because they are pretty common to the human experience and people need to know that they are not alone. Also, it is not always our fault, sometimes stuff just happens.
There’s a guy I know who often tells me “stuff just happens,” which always makes me laugh, but it is a call to forgive one self and to realize we are not in control of all things at all times.
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Odii,
Yours is a very human story, told with real eloquence. I think you got to the heart of how two people who love each other deeply but who lack the skills for dealing with conflict will end up ripping each other apart viciously–simply because they do not know any other way. This dynamic often stems much more from lack of knowledge of the opposite gender than it does from ill will. I have seen it happen over and over and over, and not just to young people. I see people in their 50s and 60s making these mistakes, destroying not just relationships but long-term marriages.
What strikes me profoundly here is your willingness to take moral responsibility for your own actions instead of just blaming her. This is one of the hallmarks of true freedom (as opposed to false freedom, which is slavery to sin). I believe you will not go down such a road again, and that the future will look entirely different for you, and in a beautiful way.
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You are very kind, Autumn. Thank you for your comment. I am trusting God to keep working on me to bring me to the place where I am not a threat to the peace of people I love.
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Odii,
Have a look at April Cassidy’s site “Peaceful Wife.” It’s a beautiful ministry. You will find a lot of company of Christians (almost all female, but a few men) who are working hard on themselves to be more loving in their relationships. You will find there fellowship even just as a lurker (I lurk there but never post), and knowledge that you are NOT alone in your struggles. In fact, I recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether or not they believe in God.
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@Autumn, thanks. I’ll check it out now.
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Hi Dave. I know how you feel. I have felt the same way too. But take a deep breath, let it out slowly and give IB a chance. You’ll see that she is not so much criticizing the “manosphere” as she is correcting a fellow Christian. As men, we should be taking responsibility to fix the false perceptions in the society. It does us no good to play the victim and abdicate our position as leader and protector for our women.
Women are hurting. That is a fact. Men are hurting. That too is a fact. How can we fix it all? By hurling blames and quitting our natural imperatives? What good does that do? Perhaps the onus is really on us men to start changing the narrative. I think IB is, in her own way, helping us do that.
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Hello Odii, manosphere such as Dalrock for example is to create male space to vent and express their feeling. I believe you know that men are not verbally creatures when they face a problem. Instead, they prefer hide the problem inside them. But, we also know if we always hide our feeling and don’t express it, it will kill us slowly and that’s why men outnumber women in suicide stats. These manosphere are created so men can express their feeling freely without intervention and I believe the men who comment there are unable to express their feeling in real life.
Feminists say that men are unable to express their feeling because of patriarchy, but when men express their feeling, men must make sure they don’t make feminists angry when they express their feeling. If you ask most men what their feelings are, actually most of their feeling will make women offended.
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Dave, consider the possibility that these ventings may neither solve the problem men have (which is, how to communicate effectively with women today) nor really help a man become a better person, father, husband, boyfriend, brother, son etc. If such a possibility exists then maybe we should look at other options.
I think that what men need to deal with is the lack of strong communication skills. We need to learn again how to talk to women so that we don’t need to vent and negatively charge our emotional environment. Whether we do this online or in private with other men, women will be affected by these ventings because they change us a little at a time, generally making us harder and harder and less and less sympathetic to women, impatient with them, unnecessarily abrasive and unreliable. Don’t you agree?
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I think part of the problem–not the whole problem, but a contributing factor–is the human tendency to feel as though one must choose between two extremes. In some issues the only possible answers are “yes” or “no,” but in many issues the best answer is the middle way. (It takes wisdom to know the difference.) So many debates about gender issues, politics, and even science continue to run on long after they are useful because the debaters are defending one extreme or the other, and even more because the debaters are attacking the opposite extreme without allowing the possibility of a middle ground.
That said, abuse is clearly a yes/no option with no middle way, and the only right answer is “no.” Whether the victim is male or female, elderly or of an average age or a child, even human or animal, abuse is always wrong. As you say, abuse kills souls. Bullying and abuse are against the Commandment not to murder as surely as taking a human life violates the same Commandment.
And with that also said, just one more thought: we have a divine Savior who chose to be the victim of abuse so he could rescue victims as well as abusers. The almighty God sometimes allows his beloved people to suffer for a time so we are in tune with Christ’s ultimate suffering. This does not justify abusers–they are still wrong and need to repent–but it does explain why God tolerates such evil in his creation. J.
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Culturally, one of the challenges we have in sustaining these dialogues is that the terminology is stunted through centuries of denial. In my apologetic, I observe that Peter’s use of “brotherly love” in his letter reflects lack of a term for “compassion,” and that in part the confusion of the Gospels reflects the lack of an understanding in the disciples regarding the psychology of the transformations that Jesus was working in them.
Fortunately, Christianity is incredibly syncretic. I go to church and hear pastors speaking about neurophysiology and psychology. Over time, I think that the terminology will permeate and we’ll become more discerning in our applications. Until discourse becomes sufficiently subtle, there will continue to be misappropriation and confusion.
So my counsel is to work to delineate differences, and to seek and bring into play more accurate terminology from psychology. If it doesn’t exist, complain about that.
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Brian, I’m confused. Matthew 14:14 says that Jesus had compassion on the crowds–esplagchnisthe, a wrenching of the gut–so why didn’t Peter know this word? Moreover, rather than complaining about a lack of appropriate vocabulary, why not create an appropriate vocabulary? Scientists and philosophers do this all the time–if no term exists for what they want to describe, they create a term and carefully define it so it will do what they want it to do. J.
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Salvageable – I’m thinking more along the lines of the opening of the heart described in Matt. 11:29. 🙂 Have we punctuated my point?
And your exhortation to create new terminology is reasonable. The reference to sociology and psychology was merely to guide away from the Babel phenomenon. Eventually, we want there to be some consensus from community to community. One of the adjuncts to professional association is methods for disseminating terminology, so drawing upon that reference might be beneficial to the larger program.
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Good point, I have never seen Femnuists make up examples of abuse and I’ve hung around them for years! But good on you for calling out people for denying abuse when it does happen. takes overies to do that!
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Thank you for your comment and for your kind words.
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I know this is an old post, but I have tried the primary male bloggers and found them wanting. Dalrock and Vox Day I have written off as CINO. Anyone who buys into Rollo Tomassi or the vile RED PILL PHILOSOPHY are not Christians. Deep Strength and Donal Graeme are at least striving, but they also adhere to this alphas will inherit the world theology that is akin to Social Darwinism. They believe that physical attractiveness is relevant in the Christian world, so pretty much SMV. Biblical Gender Roles is bad, bad, bad. The only one so far I’ve found to make sense is Wintery Knight, but I need to read more of his stuff. Wolfies in sheeps clothing for the most part.
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