Vox Day’s hilarious(ly absurd) misogynistic rant

Holy Haleakala. I knew that Vox had some serious misogynistic and anti-feminist leanings (as is rather apparent to any rational individual who reads any amount of his writings), but even I was amused, and somewhat dazed, to see the depths to which his delusions of male persecution run in his new column at – where else? – the WorldNutDaily. The whole piece is nothing more than a pathetic woman-denigrating rant about how all those uppity females are so dumb and mean and bitchy and all that; of course, nowhere does he present a lick of evidence for his ridiculous claims (save for a single citation, which in itself only further showcases his stellar knack for unsubstantiated confirmation bias). Just the fact that his piece is titled “Winning the war against men, Part 1” (egads, there’s more to come?) ought to clue you in to the fact that you’re about to suffer through a series of headaches, as can be evidenced by the very first lines:

There is a relentless war being waged against American men that literally spans the entire extent of their lives. From the womb, in which a woman's "right" to abort a male baby for being male is defended but a similar right to abort a female baby for being female is vehemently opposed, to the grave, wherein the disparate impact of old age is ignored despite women living 5.2 years longer than men on the average, men are systematically, structurally and unstintingly under assault.

Talk about starting off with a bang. (Though, that might’ve been part of my brain.) His first claim is that women often choose to terminate male fetuses whilst arguing rabidly against abortion if the fetus is female. This is, of course, completely unfounded; if anything, sex-selective abortion is much more common that the exact reverse is true, at least in many parts of the world such as some Asian countries, where males are often valued more than females for their potential productivity. And his second point is even more ludicrous; is he really attacking women for having a longer average lifespan than men? What does he want, an apology for having a different biological make-up? Vox’s attacks may carry a bit more weight if he didn’t cut his legs out from under himself with such laughable arguments.

Most men understand this on some level, but like the nice dependable man who can't figure out why attractive women repeatedly reject him in favor of unemployed losers with criminal records, they are incapable of doing anything about it because they simply can't believe that women truly do not think or behave like men. Because they want to believe that women are "the civilizing force," their "better halves" or "the fair sex," they are constitutionally incapable of seeing what is, from a rational male perspective, the seething cauldron of amoral solipsism behind the collective pretty face.

Um – first of all, hardly any real men actually believe that women are generally superior to them. We are a gradually equalitarian, society, not a matriarchal one, despite what the voices in Vox’s head keep telling him. Our society does have its leanings, its biases and its cultural artifacts from older times, of course, but I challenge anyone to find me a rational man who actually believes that women are inherently more “civil”, “better” and “fairer”. If anything, saying that to a woman is more likely to irritate her than otherwise as it just plays into the silly old stereotypes of women being all nice and humble and honorable. It’s just silly and false.

And as for that last bit, about womankind in general being a collection of angry, hateful, heartless and self-centered prissies – knowing that this is how he genuinely views women, I do wonder whether the fact that he’s married speaks more of him, or of her (the self-avowedly anti-feminist “Spacebunny”, as she’s known on his blog). Either way, it’s somewhat disturbing.

Indeed, they have demonstrated quite the opposite in illustrating how the male concepts of logic, honor, justice and self-sacrifice are almost entirely alien to the female mind.

Of course, this does not mean that an individual woman cannot grasp those fundamentally male concepts or even dedicate herself to them to such an extent as to put most men to shame.

So women in general are rarely, if ever, logical, honorable, fair and self-sacrificing? Just how badly has this guy’s nut been stomped on in the past for him to see women as nothing but the Devil incarnate like that? Most of the women I’ve known (or know of) – including several bloggers (Jen, PersonalFailure, Uzza, Greta Christina, and others), and also, if I may be so bold, my own mother (who better?) – are some of the sanest, most respectable and most honorable individuals I’ve yet met. (Granted, I’ve only been around 18 years, but I think the point has been made.) To claim that few women ever have a shred of decency and integrity is … well, as offensive and dumbass as most of what his misogynistic attacks, really.

And, really, how the hell are any values, much less those enumerated by Vox, “fundamentally male”? No ideals, beliefs, values or concepts are male or female; they just are, and can either be adopted by males, females, or both (or neither). And, of course, any man who actually knows and speaks to more than one woman every few weeks can certainly that there are no more – or less – women who are stupid, irrational and vile than there are stupid, irrational and vile men in the world. And vice-versa. The ability to be mindless, hateful and dumb has nothing to do with one’s gender and everything to do with one’s disposition and upbringing.

And now, we arrive at the one, single, fleeting hint of evidence that Vox presents to try and bolster his argument:

Consider one 11-year-old boy's report direct from the bowels of what is the closest approach to a complete matriarchy to be found outside of the mythological accounts of Hippolyta's amazonian queendom, the American school system.

[O]n the playground girls basically had more rights than boys. They had greater equipment privileges and if a girl asked to join a game, the boys had to say yes and go easy on her, but if a boy asked to join a game, the girls had the right to say no. … At Beverly Vista, my first teacher was a full-time misandrist and global warming wacko. She definitely hated boys and men and constantly spoke of male inferiority. If a boy ever mentioned an accomplishment that happened to be by a man, she would bring up an accomplishment by a female (but always tied to the feminist movement) even though we weren't debating whether men or women were superior.

– Sam Besserman, American Thinker

Young Sam understands that he is under attack on the basis of his sex, even if he has no idea why. Moreover, he even recognizes the direct link between the ideology of female superiority and political left-liberalism that escapes so many adult political analysts. He does not need to read this column because he already knows that he is in a war that was neither of his making nor of his choosing.

Because in Vox Day’s realm of logic, a single unverified account from an 11-year-old boy’s singular perspective = TEH PROOFS that women are mindless pinko tyrants. QED.

Color me unconvinced, unimpressed and downright unamused at Vox once again revealing how his primary (if not often sole) choice of argument is through confirmation bias as supported by unsubstantiated viewpoints and inherently unreliable first-person accounts.

Vox also goes on about how liberalism is supposedly an ideology that promotes the idea of female superiority over men. Yes, obviously, because whenever I think of a Leftist, progressive world, I don’t see equality for all and men and women on an equal socio-legal standing – I see women conducting wagons pulled by men and forcing them into subservience. I guess we liberals have it all wrong, then! Okay, Vox wins, I’m convinced of his brilliance and correctness.

Or not.

Finally, Vox ends his column with his usual nonsense about how liberalism and feminism are bringing on the end of Western civilization as we know it:

The first step in winning any war is recognizing that whereas it takes two to tango, it only takes one side to start a war. Men have been in unthinking and instinctive retreat before the implacable onslaught of female ideologues for 80 years, which has now reached the point that the very foundations of Western civilization have crumbled and are approaching collapse. And unless men realize that they are engaged in a war that they did not choose, the civilization they constructed so painstakingly over many centuries will devolve into the primitive grass hut matriarchy from whence it came.

Again with his “men lead to skyscrapers, women lead to shantytowns” bullshit. I suppose it wouldn’t be much use to point out to Vox such little details as, say, how Western society originates from old European civilizations, which have always and only been deeply patriarchal, save for the rare (and usually equally successful) exception (Queen Cleopatra of ancient Egypt, to name a particularly well-known instance); or how the matriarchal (or matrilineal) societies that we know of, notably several indigenous peoples of the African, Eurasian and American continents, were generally quite successful, surviving and prospering for thousands of years until more advanced human civilizations began to take over.

So, that’s it? Vox’s great attempt at showing how men are under attack from the species’ female half, and all he gets in are empty vitriol, baseless arguments, irrational fear-mongering and general anti-feminist hysteria. I suppose we may have to look forwards to Part deux of his little cavalcade of faux-persecution before we get anything substantive.

Though, knowing Vox, allow me to doubt it.