Every time a woman direct deposits a paycheck, the Visigoths get that much closer to sacking Europe.
Published by Kyso Kisaen May 15th, 2007 in For the ladies, Godbaggery, Shame on you for being a womanVox Day, whom I know I should just ignore, has managed to get mentioned favorably by my favorite anti-feminist’s spunky sidekick, Mrs. Alexandra.
Mrs. Alexandra doesn’t have as much time for the internets as one would think a blogger would, so it’s probable that she didn’t travel all the way to Vox’s personal blog and wallow in the comments for awhile; if she did, she’d surely be reminded of some pithy, folksy homestead saying about how the company you keep is a reflection on yourself and maybe then she wouldn’t like him as much. Since she didn’t, (and she has a bit of a history of kinda missing the big picture) she was taken in by Vox’s rather purple Mother’s Day ode.
Mother’s Day is, to be honest, somewhat of an annoyance. It’s manifestly one of those tedious Hallmark holidays wherein everyone is supposed to run out and support the revenue stream of cardboard manufacturers in the name of expressing gratitude to mothers, fathers, grandparents and anyone else to whom we might be related.
Hmm, the old “Everyone else is jaded, but I still know what’s important!” trick. A bit worn out, to be sure, but leave it to Vox (a professional writer, mind you, a good one) to give it a fresh twist:
I imagine it won’t be long until Sept. 18 is declared Anonymous Sperm Donor’s Day, which will probably be celebrated by giving matching card sets to one’s two mommies and lighting a candle for dear old anonymous sperm donor, whoever he might be.
Ooohhhh-kay, that little slice of masculine castration anxiety kinda came out of nowhere, but it might be a workable idea. Assume 150 million American women, maximum 5% lesbian, say half the lesbians pair off into child-raising couples and assume a rather ambitious 3/4 of them go with IVF and anonymous donation, and we’re looking at maybe selling about 1,500,000 or so card sets every September, plus the candle sales. Hallmark could probably afford to float that idea around some of your more liberal markets. (I think a small, quick-burning candle shaped like a sperm would be appropriate. Nothing too big, or you’ll see a big dip in sales that second year.)
My only question, why September 18?
But on to why Mrs Alex is swooning over the chivlarous Mr. Day:
Mothers are not only important, they are absolutely vital due to their position as front-line shock troops in the ongoing, centuries-long struggle for the survival of Western civilization. Despite the fact that their maternal instinct has been harassed, criticized, mocked, belittled and subjected to a 40-year effort to indoctrinate it out of existence, our mothers stubbornly continue doing the only thing we actually need women to do in order for our civilization to survive, bearing and raising children.
And one could argue that despite the fact that there is only one thing we actually need to do in order for our civilization to continue, men continue to do other things besides impregnating women and then killing things for them to eat until the child is born. Oh, that’s right, they get to decide what civilization actually is and go about doing those fun things while the women stay home making sure that nothing, nothing stands in the way of men being able to perpetuate that system for as long as humanly possible.
In return, we’ll get limited access to resources that will actually depend more on who we marry than how hard we work and an annual card-drenched brunch-orgy ass-kissing. Sweet deal.
But we all know where this is going. As long as more people on the planet know the name Anne McCaffrey than Theodore Beale, then Vox can play only one note:
We don’t need female doctors. We don’t need female scientists. We don’t need female entrepreneurs. We don’t need female producers of PowerPoint presentations. And we really don’t need female politicians.
While we can argue about whether such luxuries are beneficial or detrimental to society, there is no arguing the empirical evidence which proves that civilization has survived without them before and could easily do so again.
But without mothers, there is no civilization.
There you go, you can be a father and a doctor. Or a father and a politician, or a father and a producer of a PowerPoint presentation, but you can’t be a mother and any of these things. I can’t imagine why.
I had a mother who could have ‘opted out’ and devoted all her attention to us while we were young (young is I guess defined as < 18). Sure, there would have been some sacrifices, the terrible sacrifices of the type that people imagine when they want to emphasize the selfishness of two-income homes. We'd probably still have that second-hand shag green carpet in the family room, I wouldn't have gotten my first car at 16 when my parents decided that maybe my mom, after 10 years, should get a new car, effectively transferring ownership of a sexy 1986 Chevy Nova to me. My dad would not have been able to indulge his penchant for camping and boating. Shocking, I know. But can these things really take the place of a mother's love?
Well, when your mother was cracking under the stress of an isolated life in the suburbs and spiraling into depression and the job makes her feel good again, it turns out that new carpets and cars and boats and college educations for all the kids aren't just luxuries, they're physical symbols of Mommy's sanity and yes, love. It's easier to love someone when you don't resent their very existence for trapping you in that gilded cage. Even as a selfish child I understood that. This is why even today I suscribe to the "when Mom is happy, everyone is happy" theory of maternal employment.
But hey, what's one happy family in the Cleveland 'burbs when all of civilization is on the line!!!!
Europe is in the process of discovering what a world without mothers is like.
I read the “Europe” page on the BBC website everyday (are you impressed with my worldliness? I am.) and if all the mothers in Europe disappeared, I’d sure as hell expect it to show up on the sidebar there at least. It hasn’t, maybe because all of Europe was distracted by the suprising upset of Ukraine’s beloved transvestite entertainer* at the Eurovision song contest and are just now realizing that they face a dark future without mothers.
Or something. I’m not exactly sure what the point was, but, uhhh, Gloria Steinhem! Booo!
Without mothers, there is only barbarism and the choice between the brothel and the burqa.
Ten points to anyone who can list everything that is wrong with that statement.
Motherhood is a sacrifice. It may mean putting off a college education and a career, or even giving them up entirely. It may mean sacrificing a flawless figure.
Check, check and check for my mom. She finished community college, but never got into the occupational therapy program and hence, never became a therapist. She’s also well over the 99 pounds she was when she married. So she’s cool, right? A good mommy?
Probably not. While not a feminist, she can tell when someone is blowing smoke up her ass. I would not catch her saying, or even thinking, tripe like:
“I will not live life for today. I will create life for many tomorrows.”
Even my dad isn’t that maudlin after wedding receptions with open bars, and when he’s drunk, he can be hilariously sentimental. People have kids because they want grandkids, sure, but they don’t think “I will create life for many tomorrows!” They think, I want some grandkids. They think, babies are cute. They think, you know, like normal people who don’t write overwrought fantasy novels about the Christian war of Good vs Evil.
Cards, gifts and flowers are no adequate expressions of gratitude for this living statement of faith.
*Swoon* I’m so impressed by the heartfelt Mother’s Day love radiating from a man who thinks there’s only one way to be a good mother - and that’s by being a good Christian woman who is so absorbed in her many kids she has no thought of competing with Vox in his important man-work in the very critical public sphere.
Oh, and I love how prominently Vox mentions his Mensa membership in his bio, like anyone cares. I’ve worked in at least two buildings that were chock full o’ physicists and chemists and various smart people and I have yet to meet a single Mensa member. Just sayin’.
*Really, she’s very controversial, and highly entertaining.
This just in: Children of Men starring Clive Owen is a documentary.
Theodore is quite the curmudgeon, isn’t he?
He said, “Without mothers, there is only barbarism and the choice between the brothel and the burqa.”
You offer ten points for everything that’s wrong with that statement. I contend that listing even half of the things that are wrong with that statement could easily fill an entire gradutate thesis. I will offer this, though…
“Vox Day thinks you should shut the fuck up and go make his dinner.”
Have I mentioned that you’re like my favorite blogger on teh interneTz right now? How convenient that our virtual cubicles are right next to each other.
And it’s great, nothing but sex and drinking and loud music.. woo hoo!!!
Ah, Vox…
He really is a piece of work.
I suppose all women who cannot have children should be executed and carved up for what good spare parts they have then, even if they are contributing to society as a whole in other ways?
Because, you know, the sole root of any womans worth is her ability to spawn. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so puke inspiring….
I’ve worked in at least two buildings that were chock full o’ physicists and chemists and various smart people and I have yet to meet a single Mensa member.
That’s because most intelligent people without inferiority complexes don’t exactly need outside help to make them feel good about themselves.
I’m quite certain that Vox Day is intending to insult and shame non-complying mothers, but I’m wondering if he realises that he’s also insulting and shaming those of us who, through no fault of anyone’s, grew up without mothers? What does he think happens to children whose mothers die, or become utterly incapacitated? Do we get pushed right out of ‘civilisation’? Are we freakish, ignorable, unspeakable? What does Vox Day expect our fathers to do for us - nothing? Methinks he’s glossing over these things in his rush to blacken the names of all those foul women who dare to have a life as well as a family - the sort of mother I would’ve loved to have. Jeez, thanks.
“What does Vox Day expect our fathers to do for us - nothing?”
Yes. Men have far far more important things to do - like being a doctor, watching football and not doing any housework. Bringing up kids is wimmin’s work - thus spake Vox Day.
All the faux praise and insincere compliments to women who do that are just his way of reminding everyone that women are not men, and therefore inferior.
Best blog post title I’ve seen in ages. Bravo.
Careful, he’s got a flaming sword.
“I read the “Europe” page on the BBC website everyday (are you impressed with my worldliness? I am.)”
I certainly am! but then I am a woman so according to Vox Day what do I know?/sarcasm
Thanks for the videos, they are teh awesomness.
You got it right in the very first sentence. Vox Day is a squalid little freak, and the only response his droolings merit is to speculate over just exactly how short he is. I’m guessing 5′2″. 5′6″ tops.
This is a feminist blog, Frank. And as such, we judge men not by such metrics as height, which is beyond their control, but by the douchebagocity of their photoshopped haircut. Lucky for you, Vox’s little head-goatee means you get to lead the examined life without effort. Switch from height to hair and mock away!
Fair enough on his height being beyond his control. What I really wanted to get at, anyway, was his obvious raging inferiority complex, as evidenced by, among other things:
1. His fear and loathing of women;
2. His need to remind everyone he belongs to Mensa;
3. Boasting about his Porsche;
4. The flaming sword;
5. Etc.
The question this raises, in my mind, is why exactly he’s so desperate to prove to everyone how strong and manly and bitchin’ he is. The old Napoleon complex is one obvious possibility, and while I have no way of knowing how tall Vox actually is, there is something about the way he presents himself that reminds me of other men I’ve known who’ve felt a similar need to compensate for their non-patriarchally approved stature.
But try telling Vox Day that he too is a victim of the patriarchy!
But yes, it is a low blow, yes. Sorry.
Jesus Christ, I missed that Porche bragging. Oooh, la, la, a rich Mensa member with a Porche. How do we proles find the balls to mock such a fortune-favored man?
Delurking for the moment to link to another one of his articles I found after poking around a bit….
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54982
Speechless doesn’t begin to cover it.
i like that he seems to think “power-point-maker” is a career
I’m female scientist AND I have made powerpoint presentations!
Also, why does he have a rodent on his head? I mean, he can’t possibly think that it’s sexy…can he?
i like that he seems to think “power-point-maker” is a career
Well bellatrys found some online exerpt of one of his fantasy novels ages and ages ago.
Imagine a powerpoint presentation (without pictures) on Tolkein’s middle earth.
Add goblins and remove any attempt at characterisation until stupidity occurs on a depressingly mediocre scale.
That’s how Ol’ Mackeral Head earns a living. he makes terry goodkind look like a good (not to mention sane) writer.
I mean, he can’t possibly think that it’s sexy…can he?
The funny thing is that it’s like a really bad version of what I imagine the “Rab” hairdos from C.J. Cherryh’s (a female sci fi/fantasy novelist and ex-anthropologist) hard sci-fi novel “heavy time” to look like.
But as he’s declared previously that women can’t handle hard sci-fi, because of how our brains over heat if we go near Big Throbbing Manly Science (and are therefore forced to write nothing but fantasy, because it’s so less rigorous and easier to write) I have to assume he didn’t get it from there…
The other theory is that it’s a parasitic life form (evolved from the remains of spunky tissues and cheeto dust) that is really the one who’s writing all this bullshit.
R.Mildred, you are too kind.
I’ve been watching reruns of Malcolm in the Middle recently, and Vox Day’s hair reminds me of nothing so much as the episode where Francis is completely shaved, and redraws his hair with a black marker.
Another thing I try to avoid thinking about too much is where Theodore got his pseudonym from. If I did think about this I would be forced to confront the likelihood that it’s a play on vox dei, or “voice of God.”
Y ya popala lubov c Verki
Ogromnoye spacibo!
From Vox’s article:
I still think Kinder, Küche, Kirche sounded better in the original German. Perhaps Vox will start awarding the Cross of Honor of the German Mother as well?
Ladies, have you ever felt so empowerful?
But as he’s declared previously that women can’t handle hard sci-fi, because of how our brains over heat if we go near Big Throbbing Manly Science (and are therefore forced to write nothing but fantasy, because it’s so less rigorous and easier to write) I have to assume he didn’t get it from there…
Wait a second. Does this mean women have some brain quirk that prevents us from making shit up as well as men?
The legal ramifications are staggering.
“I’ve worked in at least two buildings that were chock full o’ physicists and chemists and various smart people and I have yet to meet a single Mensa member.”
Also because most Mensa members are profoundly boring people and really interesting people don’t want anything to do with them.
Of course Vox Day is in Mensa. He probably founded Mensa. It exists (mostly) for people like him.
For the record, that horrid haircut isn’t photoshopped. That was his real hair at one time.
But “professional writer… and a good one?” That crack you’re smoking must be good.
I’m a level 9 blackbelt in sarcasm.