Jack Donovan wrote a while back about how feminists infiltrated and ultimately shut down a strongman class he created at a local gym in his piece The Soft Shutdown. All started off well, until a group of feminist women showed up and not only demanded inclusion, but insisted on radically changing the tone of the class:
The women were shouting each other in caricatured jock-talk all the way around the block.
“Push it, push it push it!”
“C’mon, don’t be a sissy!”
“We got this, we got this!”
“Bring it, girl!”
I don’t coach like that, and the men I coach never behave like that. Usually, we just shut up and do the work, offering encouragement and congratulations only when it is really necessary or earned.
About mid-block, the girls started letting out blood-curdling shrieks—which was embarrassing, because we were out on the street with people passing by.
Given the differences between men and women, simply adding women to a group of men will often radically change the tone of the activity. However, when the women are feminists the changes are not by accident:
As I got back inside and started pounding on the tire with Ms. Pink—who had at that point known me for approximately 7 minutes—she proceeded to make suggestions about improving the class.
She recommended that the name should be changed to “Strongman AND StrongWOMAN Sundays,” instead of just “Strongman Sundays.” She said she thought it would be “more inclusive.”
It is worth noting that from the first day of the class a woman had attended. This no doubt changed the culture of the class, but it wasn’t disruptive:
The tall blond woman was always polite and she just wanted to work out. I had no problems with coaching her along with the guys. In fact, she brought along a guy friend who then brought his son to the next class. Coaching a father and son together was definitely my most rewarding class. I could tell that it was a good day for them, and that made it a good day for me.
But with a group of feminists intent on ensuring that there is no such thing as a male space, any effort at inclusion will be taken as an opportunity to take over:
“How do you like that, Jack?!”
“The only ones who can hang with you for your strong MAN class are strong WOMEN!”
“How about THAT?!”
Then she turned back to the PPP and said something inane, like “How about THAT, girls! It’s all about the WOMEN!”
His story isn’t anything I’m guessing my readers haven’t witnessed multiple times in their lives. And as Jack described, feminists’ compulsion to invade all male spaces is typically as ridiculous as it is pathological. As I wrote before:
Feminists lay awake at night consumed with the knowledge that somewhere out there there are men who are proud to be men, and there is no woman there to tell them she is just as good as they are.
My wife and I recently saw this phenomenon while watching the sequel to the Long Way Round series. In the original series the two friends travel around the world by motorcycle. They started in the UK and rode east until they hit the Bering Sea, and after flying across to Alaska continued their journey across Canada and the US until they ultimately reached New York.
I’m not a motorcyclist, but I really loved watching the two friends enjoying the ride and each other’s company across incredible scenery. While they had some inevitable friction, for the most part the two embraced their adventure with a feeling of effortless camaraderie. The tougher the slog, the better they worked with each other and their support crew, not to mention the local men who helped them out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPep-KUMAYA
While their bikes were designed for both on road and off road use, many of the roads were pushing the limits of both the riders and the bikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_Qkz_5ti8
Recently I learned that they made a sequel titled Long Way Down, where they do a similar trip from the northern tip of the UK to the southern tip of Africa. Since we enjoyed the first series so much we added it to our Netflix queue. Much of the show was still enjoyable, but this second series was not nearly as good as the first in my opinion. The tone of the program changed a great deal when Ewan’s wife Eve made an impressive display of girl-power (much attitude with little to no skill); despite never having ridden a motorcycle she decided she had to join the men for part of the trip:
I should point out that the first series took place in 2004, and the second trip occurred in 2007. While Boorman is clearly the more talented and accomplished rider of the two, both men started the second trip with a great deal of experience handling motorcycles in extremely difficult terrain. Eve decided she would join them without ever having ridden a motorcycle, or even a scooter. As she states in the video above, she did it out of jealousy that the two men were going to have an adventure that she wasn’t participating in. Throughout her meager efforts at training Ewan coddled her like a child; at the same time he was always seeking her approval. While much of the second series is still quite good, the parts with Eve were painful to watch. Charlie Boorman makes a valiant effort to appear supportive of Eve, but it is clear that he wanted a different kind of experience than the one they had when Eve was in the mix. Commenters on Amazon and Netflix had the same reaction my wife and I did. While reviewer Charlie at Amazon.com gave the sequel 5 stars and (unlike me) thought it was better than the first series, he too felt Eve was a distraction:
Eva, Ewan’s wife, is shown learning to ride a bike, and tagged along for a portion of the journey towards the end. Although it must have been an exciting adventure for her, I felt she was just a third wheel in the whole scheme of things.
Third wheel indeed. The review voted most helpful on Netflix made a similar observation:
The first parts of the series is too rushed to enjoy (a large complaint from the two stars) but they slow down and the series becomes as wonderful as the first. McGregor’s wife joined the duo for a section of the journey which took away from the feeling of comradeship between McGregor and Boorman.
Still, I highly recommend both series. Just have the fast forward button handy for when Eve shows up and starts spouting feminist platitudes like (paraphrase) “Strong women will solve Africa’s problems, so long as the men will follow”. If only all ridiculous girl-power feminists were so easy to ignore.
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