- Sign: CLOSED
- Cloud: Closed?
- Dorothy Cambridge: Yep! I’ve ordered the closure of all boy’s rooms!
- Cloud: WHAT!?
- Dorothy Cambridge: I can’t believe that there are still public institutions in which boys are allowed to expose their privates just inches away from members of the better sex!
- Dorothy Cambridge: It’s high time to put an end to these repulsive activities!
- Poster: REAL MEN DON’T PEE!
|
I generally enjoy Sandra and Woo, but this is absurd and off-putting. For one thing, she would not have the authority to close the doors.
IMHO, this whole sequence is a mistake.
@ stranger7:
I know, it’s odd. I’m a Christian, but I found the last arc to be over the top and silly, even enjoyable, even if there is a possibility for someone like that to exist. I’m all for equal rights for women, and I find this over the top and silly even enjoyable already, because there is the possibility for this to exist.
But the complete change in community response did surprise me.
@ Ross:
We have tenured and respected gender studies professors here, who are known to have proposed the removal of urinals from university toilets, because men peeing while standing ‘triumph in their masculinity’ which reinforces harmful genderroles, or to have stated that male teachers for children are dangerous because the boys could imprint on traditional masculine stereotypes. From this I can understand the apprehension that Miss Cambridge’s opinions could be understood as legitimate feminist positions.
What marks this clearly as a parody are in my opinion not the expressed opinions, but the exaggerated enactment of her measures. I am confident that readers of this comic recognize that feminists aren’t authorized to shut down vital parts of the school-infrastructure for ideological reasons, or to command squads for manhandling teachers with dissenting opinions.
@ D-Rock:
Christians are not, as a rule, an underprivileged class; women are. Feminism needs more support, not more ridicule.
O_O
FIVE PAGES OF COMMENTS?!
YOU”re GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!
WHAT’s here to discus,ffs…and with such serious faces,no less. -_-
Wellp, time to hit the woods. Hope no girls are watching… that would be repulsive.
@ Publius:
I see you have absolutely no idea what second-wave feminism is if you believe it to be particularly productive, especially if you believe it’s what made feminism as a movement.
Hooray! More unfunny mockery of straw feminism, rather than actually mocking the real problems with (Radical) Feminism — because there’s no humor to be derived from making fun of issues with racism, transphobia/cissexism, classism, or any of the other problems actual (Radical) Feminism actually has. Can the strip start being funny again, and stop reading like an MRA comic? Please?
It’s funny reading all the reactions to this “horror story”. Because I know this can’t happen IRL – /b/ would be called to defense against fem-nazis with their porn, gore and dragons (what, Random just lives up to its name), dropping a few near her and watching the ensuing SJW spasms. And KYM would make an article about it for the future generations. And ship the pairing.
Either way, this feels so surreal that I’ll throw in a prediction about the ending.
Novii does not hate women. Novii does not hate feminism. Novii does not hate men.
Novii has dealt with serious issues before, and it has always ended up being funny – this isn’t going too far, this isn’t going to end badly all of a sudden unlike all the other arcs, this isn’t an attack on feminism.
This is the exact same formula as has been used multiple times before already. It is someone taking their views too far, enforcing extreme/unfair ideas, then they get their comeuppance, we all laugh, then we move on.
@ stranger7:
Because rather than mocking actual radical feminist (like members of FEMEN) he’s doing this instead. People like the mother exist in very large numbers, you’d be hard pressed to find many people in real life who believe this.
Oh yeah, there’s also the Onizuka treatment. The elephant. (warning: read at your own risk; it’s hilarious, but crazy)
I can’t help but get the impression this arc is a not-so-subtle jab at the direction Sinfest has taken in the past couple of years.
@ Switch Master:
pretty sure the direction cambridge headed wasn’t for them to use the same bathroom… *points to the REAL MEN DONT PEE” sign.*
@ Avian Mosquito:
D’awwww 🙂
Rock wrote:
Wearing underwear? That would mean she wore them to begin with instead of burning the bra against the oppression of the Man in effigy.
Avian Mosquito wrote:
Still needed. There are armies of idiots online compared to those of us with brains.
David Nuttall wrote:
What world do you live in??? I want there!! Here, teachers show their students how to follow rules and memorize facts. Not at all how to think freely and discover the truth for themselves!
Anybody else find it ironic that Ms. Crazy Woman’s henchmen are, well, MEN?
@ Avian Mosquito:
You say brainwashed. See, I was going to go in for forced labor and bondage…. *halo*
@ Geary:
Considering it was Second-wave Feminism that got the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act passed into law, yes, I view Second-wave Feminism as somewhat productive, as they were the movement that succeeded in making it illegal to discriminatorily pay women less, on basis of gender alone. And yes, as a precursor to Third-wave Feminism, they are the movement that got it where it is today, seeing as First-Wave Feminism petered off in the early 1960’s.
Perhaps you could educate us as to why you believe Second-Wave Feminism was not particularly productive?
Avian Mosquito wrote:
I upvote you for the shame. Also, because as a former pre-teen girl I have an amusing mental picture of your suffering.
@ Therapod:
At least one of them are, but by no means all. I’m pretty sure I spot some feminine curves on a couple of panels, so either those are girls, or they’re traps.
@ Soc:
I was going to point out how Socratic your rationality is, but I’m pretty sure that with the name Soc, you already know. Instead, I’ll direct you towards the Methods of Rationality, smile, and say they’re quite effective towards leading someone down the path of discovering truths for themselves when they, left to their own devices, would continue in ignorant bliss.
@ Avian Mosquito:
Bah… Everyone knows gingers have no souls. 😉
@ Publius:
Truth. People miss that these days. The original ideals behind feminism were creating -equality- where women had none. The concept of feminism, to me, is expandable these days into general equality that could include multiple overlooked human rights groups. Actually looking at differences in gender and sexual identification, or for that matter human sexuality as well, and saying hmm… We’ve come pretty far but we still have a long way to go to make sure all humans have equal rights in all regards regardless of individual beliefs.
Example, I’m a Christian who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights. Why? My individual beliefs and preferences, being dictated largely by the tenets of my faith, should never dictate another individual’s freedoms in a religiously free country.
Same general things apply here. The movement should remain true to its origins of being pro-equality, not pro-women (therefore anti-men). Society today has moved to extremities in dichotomies that push both sides further and further to the ends rather than the middle despite the fact that on a day to day basis the vast majority of people live in the center.
@ Novil:
I thought you hit on it perfectly for that belief. Over the top and hilarious. LOved it. Don’t apologize for your art form just keep being awesome. 🙂
I figured out who she reminds me of–Dolores Umbridge!
Novil wrote:
Poe’s Law in action.
Malcolm wrote:
Extremism in any form should never be ignored just because it is from an “underprivileged class”. Hell, making anything off-topic to criticism is almost universally a bad policy.
@ JadedAria:
While I largely agree with you, barring a few minor quibbles, I have to point out an issue with the reasoning. Just because someone is Pro-X (Using variables, not chromosomes) does not make them Anti-Y. The two stances are not mutually exclusive. For example, I have no problem with women who chose to have a career instead of going into home-making as a housewife. My experience with women involved with manual-labor-heavy employment has been, shall we say, less-than-stellar, but I am well aware that that is not representative of the gender-species, as a whole, and aware that there are women who perform extraordinarily well in the physical-labor industries.
In this vein, I could be considered “Pro-Woman”, since I support the right of a woman, just as I do a man, to choose their own path in life. However, I would not call this a “Feminist” POV, as the viewpoint is not based on the idea that women, specifically, should have the right to choose their own path, but humans in general. Hence why I call myself a Humanist, as my views are based on a more globally-inclusive version of Equality of Opportunity than simply “Female-Equal-To-Males”. In the same vein, despite my support for women, I would not be considered Anti-Male.
This goes back into what you were saying with being polarized. As a society, we’ve become so polarized, we often don’t realize when we make statements that sound okay on their surface, but are plainly not only false (Pro-Woman = Anti-Man dichotomy) but further faulty outlooks on the political situation we find ourselves discussing.
CDRom11_2007 wrote:
Nonsense. She didn’t actually close the boy’s bathroom.
She just opened up the flowerbeds.
I think this is over doing it, there was just so many things wrong with that one statement in the second panel.
better yet if that’s your problem couldn’t you just have a nother boys bathroom further away from the girls bathroom? But of course that ruins the joke.
OmegaB wrote:
…Do you even see the inherent hypocrisy in this statement? Are you actually reading what you are writing?
Because taking one caricature and saying “large numbers” exist, then turning right around and saying I’d “be hard pressed” to find any like the other caricature is hypocritical and quite frankly, offensive. Especially considering the number of people that have mentioned that this reminded them of someone they know.
vain wrote:
Note the author’s comment on this strip:
Novil wrote:
@ Lukador Bernstyle:
Agreed. Way over the top. What exactly IS this attacking? No one would ever be like this, even the most extreme of misandrists would never go that far. Also, I’ve seen old posts from the author of this comic dissing someone else for making their comic too political. Hypocritical if you ask me.
@ Novil:
I REALLY wish I could upvote this.
@ JadedAria:
1. Now imagine that little girl is unusually small and looks rather younger than she really is. (She really does. She looks 9-10, except for her chest.) She’s just adorable, all cuddled up like that.
2. The ginger jokes are getting old.
3. As a Christian of this sort, you are a rare gem indeed and I’m uncertain how this actually works given the crude bronze-age mandates of your religion.
4. I disagree on feminism’s original intent. it always struck me as a “black panther” type organization, where equality was just a cover for a darker, more hateful and violent supremacist side. Everything about the way it conducts itself says that, and history doesn’t usually show a group’s intent better than its current actions.
Other than that, no objections.
Novil wrote:
Clearly, you haven’t gone far enough. In the next strip, she needs to have a row of cigar cutters set up at waist height, while she stands by and says “I call it ‘The Equalizer!'”
@ Publius:
Except that the Equal Pay Act was put into law in 1963, during the time that Feminism was transitioning into Second Wave, and, thus, was passed due to pressure by First Wave Feminism, as Second Wave didn’t hold significant presence yet.
Second Wave Feminism wasn’t productive because it didn’t really benefit women. Not even going into the rampant transphobia, their method of addressing women’s gender roles was to tell women to defy them whether or not they personally enjoy something that happens to fall into them. It was bondage by another name, and the critique on this attitude is what caused Second Wave Feminism to die so quickly in favor of Third Wave Feminism, which emphasizes women’s right to *choice*. Second Wave is also where all the TERF ‘womyn’ came from, and are regarded as irrelevant to modern Feminism, in spite of anti-feminist’s attempts to attribute their blogs to Third Wave Feminism.
@ Malcolm:
In very many parts of the world, yes. The strip doesn’t make fun of women as a class though. It parodies certain types of feminists, who are to my knowledge not widely recognized as an oppressed class in most western cultures.
The men could stage a protest over toilet rights. Now, what have they got that they could wave around in public that could get their issue the attention it deserves?
@ CDRom11_2007:
Really? In times extreme as this I pee in the teachers desk. And she should be damned grateful I don’t flick her nose with my “privates”.
I know this story arc is humorous, but it is instilling a feeling of deep rage.
One major reason, I think, that criticism of feminism tends to instill visceral reaction( and very often from male feminist or feminist allies), in contrast to criticism of other ideological positions, it that it operates on shame on guilt. Feminism had and has partially easily recognizable and justified causes.
It also has and had one tremendous advantage over other ideological movements. A centuries old notion that men are strong and active, and that women are delicate and passive. This notion is still very much alive and partially responsible for example for judge’s tendency to give women in many cases lower sentences and a greater propensity to accept mitigating circumstances in criminal cases where the perpetrators are women.
And it is consciously played on. We had several decades of gender-education that focused on men as perpetrators of injustice and violence against women, several often cited studies on the matter of violence and sexual assault that require very selective interpretation to reach the result that men in over 90 percent of all cases are perpetrator , as well as several unfortunately phrased laws that allowed for the mentioned selective interpretations.
As a result , I suspect, many men have a certain amount of internalized gilt reinforced by remnants of a chivalric attitude towards women and a genuine desire for social justice that leads them to jump into the fray in defense of women,than in the defense o other causes.
Similarly many women engaged in social justice have a tendency to overestimate their own oppression by men.
Add to this a tendency to confuse the advocacy group ( feminists ) with the nominally oppressed class (women) and the reactions become understandable.
@ CDRom11_2007:
I wouldn’t blame you. The women’s bathroom at my church, for example, has a wall length mirror, a couch with pillows, carpet, is heated, and includes lotion available freely by the sinks in multiple scents. I wasn’t surprised to walk in one day and discover the pastor’s 8-year old son asleep on the couch.
Hmm, seeing the sign made me think of the whole, “Real women do not fart!”
@ JadedAria:
i was waiting for someone to bring that up. XD
also on the list of things waiting to be brought up again:
lady, aren’t you supposed to be a BIOLOGY TEACHER?? you’re supposed to know better not just on general principle, but because it’s (theoretically) part of your freaking college/university major.
*shakes head, laughs incredulously*
Dorothy will turn out to be a misandrist male in drag, I’m calling it!
From my opinion this isn’t a slant at feminism, but the sort of faux matriarchism that believes women need to be molly cuddled into success by “positive sexism” and “female supremism” rather than simply be treated equally, with all the boring normal things that entails.
@ Nezumi:
It hardly reads like an MRA comic if you have been following the series. Where were you during the christian arc? This comic is full of strong female characters. Get that through your frikin head.
And MRA movement has been about as much of a joke as femnism has been. Deal with it. All movements end up as a joke. The best way to save a movement is to purge and make fun of the extremists.
@ Geary:
I have to disagree. Do you have evidence/sources showing that it was First-wave Feminism that was, specifically, behind the push for the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act? The terms “First-wave” and “Second-wave Feminism” were first coined in 1968 by writer Marsha Lear for the New York Times magazine publication.
First-wave Feminism focused largely on things such as Women’s Suffrage and very focused personal rights for women, such as Property Rights and Voting Rights (The right to vote, and the right to make a vote unhindered by interference, while closely related, are still different rights). One of the hallmark accomplishments of First-wave Feminism was the passage of the 19th Amendment. It wasn’t until Second-wave Feminism came along that we see the message start to diversify into a multitude of issues, which brings me to my next point…
Second-wave is when we see the fight for equality branch out into a much larger number of issues, such as marriage equality, employment equality (AKA the fight for the EPfEWA), sexual inequality (This is where the lashback against the double-standard society held for the sexual behaviors of men and women came into play), and established battered women’s shelters. A noble act, but shortsighted to make them gender-specific, when openly pursuing equality, as now we have a plethora of Battered Women’s shelters that will take female victims of domestic violence, but when Men are the victims, their plight is not only taken less seriously, but they have no social support to help them, as women do with the shelters. Incidentally, this is why the founder of battered women’s shelters in Britain, Erin Pizzey, no longer works with feminist groups, and now even actively speaks against them, for reasons that shall be noted in the source linked below.
Other legal and judicial victories of Second-wave feminism include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the legal ruling of the USSC case Griswold v Connecticut, which basically ended up being Birth Control’s version of Roe v Wade, ruling that states cannot criminalize the use of contraceptives, as they infringe on the right to marital privacy. All of these victories were won, and subsequently attributed to, Second-wave Feminism, ths buttressing my point that yes, Second-Wave Feminism was particularly productive. It was arguably the most productive era of feminism, as at one point, they even supported a constitutional amendment which almost got passed, know as the Equal Rights Amendment. Phillis Schafly is arguably the reason behind the opposition that scuttled the amendment by a mere 3 ratification-votes, amongst several other special interest groups that sympathized with her.
One of her primary criticisms would be that it would mean women could be drafted (Or, in modern terms, made to register for Selective Service), which I will note SHOULD happen, in the interest of equality. If women are capable of serving in combat roles, and if women want the same rights as men, then they should be held to the same responsibilities as them when the nation issues a call to war and begins drafting military from the populace. Whether you agree with the concept of a draft or not is an entirely different debate, but the fact remains that if we have a draft (Today called the Selective Service, a legally-required database for all males to register with upon reaching the age of 18, or when registering for federal financial aid. Women, of course, are exempt.) to exempt one entire gender, on basis of that gender alone, is sexual favoritism at best, and at worst sexist. Neither shines well on the face of the fight for Equality of Opportunity.
If you disagree with this, I’d be happy to discuss this in open discussion and debate. Let’s compare sources and arguments, but as it stands, from my point of view, the facts stand against your argument. And let’s not go into this rout of “Anti-Feminists/MRA’s”, as they are not the topic of our discussion, and the injection of them into the debate we are currently having, at least from my point-of-view, comes across as ingenuous. Anyone that states a prominent political opinion is going to face opposition. That’s how politics works. But pointing to your opposition and saying “See? See them? That’s why we need to do it my way.” is both fallacious and divisory. Political stances should stand on their own merits, not on the faulty merits of others.
Sources: First-wave Feminism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-wave_feminism)
Second-wave Feminism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism)
Griswold v Connecticut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut)
Equal Rights Amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment)
Erin Pizzey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey)