Wednesday, January 26, 2011

"Mangina" Is the New Slang Term for Shaming Men


If you read any of the Men's Rights Activists (MRA) blogs, you have no doubt seen their frequent use of the term "mangina" for men who support women's rights, do not hate all feminists, believe that men have not always acted nobly toward women, or simply for people they do not like or who do not hold their socially retro-conservative perspectives.

I have been labeled a mangina many times for suggesting that many men need to mature a bit, or that women are still oppressed in some ways (while also acknowledging that men are as well) or for disagreeing the MRA crowd in their essential hatred toward most women.

Now Tom Matlock at the Good Men Project has suffered that same fate. Welcome to the brotherhood, Tom.

But Tom has had a revelation (Have You Seen My Mangina?) about this whole thing, which started when he dissed porn (even the socially approved stuff in Maxim) a while back (Cleavage or Soul?) because it objectifies women's bodies and ignores who she is as a person. So today he went looking for his mangina, eventually reaching this epiphany:

It was the long look in the mirror I had been waiting for, and it came with a revelation:

I am a mangina, I whispered to myself. I stood up from my desk and said it louder: I AM A MANGINA!

My 5-year-old came running into my study, Wii remote in hand, with a questioning look on his face. “Daddy?”

“Son, it’s all right. Daddy is very, very happy,” I reassured him, not wanting my newfound identity to frighten him.

Just to be sure, I checked with my friend Bennett, who I met my first week of college. He wore a sundress to orientation (or a kilt, I can’t remember) and we have been friends ever since. The guy has more guts than I ever will.

“If those guys come for you with a bow, just put it on your hair! I hope it’s a cute color!” he began from somewhere on the left coast, where he teaches acting. “From where I stand, you smell like chest hair and Old Spice. You are manlier than I can ever hope to achieve. I am a fag. I am a proud, wrists-arcing-through-the-air, pinky-raising, loafer-wearing, scarf-tying sissy. You, sir, are a father. You also scrog women. Right there you out-butch me.”

This self-proclaimed fag was trying to reassure me, but as I laughed, I confirmed what I had suspected all along: Being a mangina is loving guys like Bennett and all my other friends, because they show me that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to manhood. It means not entering into a misguided zero-sum battle of the sexes, or imagining that women are the enemy. If that is what my critics are talking about, they are definitely right. I am a mangina, and damn proud of it.

Just as I was embracing my inner mangina, I got an email from Peter Hunsinger, the publisher of GQ, with a confessional: “I am a mangina because I always clear my golf dates with my wife’s schedule before I book them.”

Then I recalled what a fellow writer, Micah Toub, recently wrote in the Globe and Mail:

“If that makes me a ‘mangina,’ then I’ll put that on a T-shirt and wear it,” he concluded.

Better make that three, my friend.

The thing that strikes me as a little bit stupid about the MRA guys using this word is that they often use it for men who they feel are shaming them and other men for being "knuckle draggers" or "mouth breathers" or whatever insult one wants to use. They feel that the men's studies guys (Kimmel, Pollack, Thompson, etc.) are shaming men for not being more like women (which is patently silly if you read their work) - or that by virtue of working in men's studies, a field that grew out of feminism, that they are essentially feminists in male bodies, thus the term mangina (man with a vagina).

But this word is shaming in the same way that calling a boy or man a sissy, a girlie man, a faggot, a queer, and so on, is shaming. In my experience, effeminate men, gay men, and trans men, and even some butch women are more well-rounded and whole men than some of the MRA guys who like to spew their insults and shaming language.

Here are a couple of the witty and insightful comments to Tom's first post (with which I am not in full agreement, just to be clear):
Peter-Andrew:Nolan(c) says:

Tom,
“We have an enemy—and the enemy is us”

No Tom. Men like me have an enemy all right. And the enemy is man-hating, white knighting, mangina apologists like you.

Sha says:

well said Peter !!

Pussified manginas like Tom Matlack needs to lear what its like to be a MAN…something this dude no nothing about !!!!

I'd rather be a mangina than an MRA if this is how they handle simple differences in perspective.

6 comments:

Thomas Matlack said...

Thanks brother, glad we are on the same team!

LuckyJack said...

one of the manliest looking guys I have ever seen who works in the porn industry is an FTM and calls himself the man with a pussy...Buck Angel.
Now I'm not sure if that qualifies as mangina or if that is mangina squared, but what it boils down to is that manhood is still defined (metaphorically or not) by what is in your shorts.

globalman100 said...

William,
you are welcome to being a mangina. All men must decide for themselves if they are to be MEN or manginas.

It's just that MEN have no respect for manginas. And if you want to know what you are supporting in feminism? Try reading from a real MAN. www.henrymakow.com.

Feminism is the Illuminatis plan to turn men into women and women into men as part of the depopulation program. They have been pretty successful in your case and Toms case, eh?

Anonymous said...

I think the author misunderstood the use of the term "mangina".

"Mangina" refers exclusively to men who oppress, exploit and abuse men. It refers to men who can't see that they are oppressed by women, both feminist women and traditional women.

If men were honest with themselves, they would see that both patriarchy AND feminism are oppressive hate movements, designed to keep men ignorant and subservient to women's demands.

A mangina is a man who doesn't respect himself and can't think for himself.

A mangina is a man who "sucks up" to feminist, coz he's homophobic - too homophobic to have male friends or acknowledge that men have emotional and social needs.

A mangina is a man who supports the ongoing oppression of men, women and children at the hands of the toxic matriarchal hate state.

A mangina is a man who is out of touch with male sexuality, and allows himself to be treated like a little boy, shamed in TV shows, and ridiculed for his gender.

A mangina is a man who is ashamed of being different to a woman.

A mangina is a man who doesn't love himself, and is afraid of other men. He caters to women coz he needs approval. He's infantile.

A mangina is a man who sucks up to feminists, just to get in their panties. He's a passive-aggressive "nice guy" who secretly despises women while pretending to be their friend.

A mangina is a man who is so brainwashed he can't see that women are just as capable as men of committing violence, sexism, homophobia, sex crimes, and all evil acts and evil constructs.

A mangina is a man who can't wake up and see reality - because reality is too terrifying, and he helped create that awful reality.

My heart bleeds for manginas.

I hope one day all manginas overcome their androphobia and learn to love men and boys.

Nothing is sadder than a man who can't think for himself - and that is the definition of a mangina.

Cheers,
From one who loves women deeply but has also "seen the light"

Anonymous said...

Im with the poster above a mangina is not a good thing dont just walk around trying to retake that word. A mangina hates men and is incredibly subservient to women.

Most manginas are afraid of getting disapproval from women.

Its not the same as calling someone gay because gay doesn't mean you hate men quite the opposite.

Manginas hate men.

A Man's Side of the Story said...

MRA's don't hate women, nor are MRA's advocating against human rights that both men and women deserve. The rhetoric about MRA's hating women and condemning and all the nonsense about MRA's desiring a return to the past is typical of mythic feminists anti-male narratives that routinely trivializes and dismisses men's issues they do not sanction as relevant in terms of exclusive deference to the female gender.

When men join in the gender dialogue where they adopt the feminist idea of men as often something reduced to a cartoon caricature of extreme fault and flaw, who are absent of any morality or ethical compass to appease the feminist narrative, when that man cannot bring himself to acknowledging the many accomplishments and achievements men have brought to culture and society, when some men prefer instead to speak of men only in negative terms without balance and leave an impression that being something other than gay is a sign or social retardation to such an extent that it becomes insulting, then that man is usually referred to as a MANGINA.