The U.S. women's wrestling team before competing against Japan at Beat the Streets in LA (Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)"Nostalgia is denial, denial of the painful present." -- Midnight in Paris, 2011
Really? All the things going on this week with Mejia, Iowa recruits, and awesome Final X matches, yet half of the posts are about women's events as if anyone cares. I don't even watch the events live on Flo anymore because their matches are intolerable. They shouldn't even be allowed in the sport to begin with, let alone sports in general because it doesn't build anything moderately useful for their practical future. Ever since Title IX was passed, men have been getting screwed (especially wrestling programs). The arts suffer because there are no woman to promote them and society continues its epic descent. Art builds grace, beauty, confidence, and precision in women. Sport only turns them to brutish amazonians. Please, I am begging, respect what these men are doing. Respect their craft, their skill, their athletic prowess. Promoting women only leads to less ladies while depriving good men of the honor they deserve and the support they rightfully need.
This comment, posted by anonymous mailbag commenter "Mustang98" in response to a discussion of the Whitney Conder vs. Victoria Anthony matchup at Final X, drew immediate and sharp criticism by the wrestling community. The comment section of this column was filled with a mixture of debate and dismissal, while men and women on Twitter lambasted the poster for his more regressive thoughts on gender, including this gem by Jason Bryant.
If you're the "fan" wrote this, and you follow me on Twitter, please do me and the rest of the sport of wrestling a favor and unfollow me. #DarkAges via @trfoley's @InterMat mailbaghttps://t.co/CPY3DswsAv pic.twitter.com/Sp1Yrjuorb
�" Jason Bryant 🎙 (@jasonmbryant) June 22, 2018
While giving additional airtime to his ideas seems counterproductive, I was struck by something that wasn't mentioned. Mustang98's comments are no longer considered regressive, they stand as a representation of a re-emergent thought that women should, quite literally, stay in the home, barefoot and pregnant.
Mustang98 isn't just a faux-intellectual. He's the type of impressionable guy who strolls out of a Western walking bowlegged. He's a disciple, a blind follower of any orthodoxy that makes him feel an inch taller in the morning. With Ayn Rand's ideologies proven false, Mustang98 and millions of others have found a new sociopolitical ideologue to follow in lock-step: Jordan Peterson.
If you don't know much about Jordan Peterson, he's a professor who found internet acclaim after launching a fight against "runaway liberal thought" and "PC-culture" from his college campus in Canada. Like with all modern media, the more provocative he became the more famous he became and eventually, because everything is about money, he wrote a self-help book called "12 Rules for Life." It's now an international best seller.
Mustang98 is doing an adequate imitation of Peterson, biting off the controversial author not only in the content of his thoughts but in shared syntax and smug hand-wringing about the dangers of liberal's attempts at social engineering. If this comment section was your first run-in with this line of thought, it can be jarring. But once you hear the words and the Artful Dodger-type begging for "logic" you can't miss the jargon of victimization at the hands of women and modernity.
Commenters like Mustang98 and others are swarming to embrace the regressive culture of gender rights because they are intimidated by the fact women are given equal opportunity to succeed. Now, with women doing well in sports and on-the-job -- often where the men have tried and failed -- they feel forced to blame something, or someone.
Mustang98 (and his ilk) believe that the personal and professional failures of men are due to an unnatural and politically motivated ascension of women in roles outside the home. (And apparently their lack of access to dance halls? Have you ever been to a Zumba class?)
The complaints of the affected male athlete have been mushrooming for the past forty years. Even as women life-boated the sport in 2013, some men blamed Title IX. Why? As one female wrestler recently told me she felt that the discrimination women have felt in wrestling is largely due to men losing the gender-specificity of the pursuit. The justification for failures in the classroom, or personal life, could always be padded with a single-sex athletic experience like wrestling, rugby, or football. A barrier to entry was enough to support a weak ego.
Now, with women achieving in sports where has-beens and never-weres are losing their unearned dominion, men are acting like toddlers being told to share their toy. With balding gender-warrior Stephen Miller (who once joined a women's track meet mid-race to prove he was faster) in the White House the new masculine mantra of "No Girls Allowed" might as well be scribbled in crayon on the $1 bill beneath "In God We Trust."
Mustang98's comment is so oafish that any number of takes have, and were, jotted down in the comments, on Twitter and in text messages. So, for the sake of brevity and clarity, I wanted to take the most backward of Mustang98's comments and provide the reader transparency and texture.
The arts suffer because there are no woman to promote them and society continues its epic descent. Art builds grace, beauty, confidence, and precision in women. Sport only turns them to brutish amazonians.
That "the arts suffer because there are no woman (sic) to promote them" is an unsubstantiated claim. Was I not aware that there a fewer operas or dance recitals? What is true is that there are a historic number of female-led shows on television, female-produced films in Hollywood and the highest-grossing musician in the world is Beyoncé (whose name auto-corrects in Microsoft Word, unlike "Mustang98").
And what about the lack of promotion for the arts (by women) leading to society's "epic descent." By what metric? The president paying off a porn star is the fault of, who, Julia Roberts (?) for choosing to have an acting career? Connecting the dots here is an act of madness.
I'm guessing that the "Art builds grace, beauty, confidence, and precision in women" was meant to read "THE Arts …" which would make the sentence true! But sadly, for Mustang98, "the arts" builds those characteristics in both men and women. Too bad he didn't take enough art classes to be "precise" with his words.
No rant is over until you slip in a cultural or racial slur, and Mustang98 was mindful of his audience and added that "Sport only turns them to brutish amazonians (sic)." Imprecise racial smears notwithstanding, I'm guessing our bold and scrupulous commenter was trying to equate women who have dedicated 20-plus years to the craft of wrestling to nothing more than some type of jungle-dwelling half-humans swinging from vines. Of course, that depiction (and verbiage) has no reflection of people of the Amazon who are intelligent, diverse and creative. Also, ironically, many early humans are known for the egalitarian nature of their male-female hierarchies. Seems relevant.
But let's put that all aside and focus on the most destructive, regressive, oppressive and half-witted idea of this troglodyte manifesto.
Please, I am begging, respect what these men are doing. Respect their craft, their skill, their athletic prowess. Promoting women only leads to less ladies while depriving good men of the honor they deserve and the support they rightfully need.
This idea is known as "enforced celibacy," known colloquially as incels, who are a group or men who are unable to find romantic relationships and think enforced monogamy and the retrenchment of traditional gender roles will increase their likelihood of their having sex with women. By their logic, through their male sex society we will see a reduction in angst and hormonal, which would make men less violent and more productive members of society. By Mustang98's logic: Men = Good and Women = Bad (unless servicing males). To "deprive" men of "honor" is to deprive them of the sex and recognition they "rightfully need."
While Mustang98 is off base it's important to remain hopeful about the next generation of men. Progress is never secured on the first iteration of an idea. The march of men pining for nostalgia will go on, but soon enough it will be in silence, canceled out by the hushing sounds of fellow men who want to watch, enjoy the spectacle and love nothing more than watching these "Amazonian" women display their strength, beauty, grace and precision. A society growing and maturing together.
Helen Maroulis executes a foot sweep in the finals of the World Championships in Paris (Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)To Mustang98 and anyone else yelling at their computer screens because women are strong, intelligent and powerful: Take a breath. Go on a walk. Read a novel. Allow some seed of joy to take root in your heart. And if you don't want to do that, use your rational brain to conclude that for all the peacocking done by these repressed beta males, Adeline Gray would stuff you in a mailbox; Victoria Anthony would ankle pick you into a sewer; and Helen Maroulis would foot sweep you through the floor.
I'm not answering questions this week, but I'll be back next week to cover post-Fourth of July hangovers and what could be the best-ever women's (and men's) national teams.
Again thank you
Mustang’s comments were in poor taste and he was rightfully called out (by you) for making them.
As the father of 3 daughters, I find his comments unhinged and out of touch. You articulated your opinions about his intent. I’d say you are probably right in your beliefs about him.
However, while your intentions were noblle, you have interjected a faux slap in the face to the Christian community into your article. You specifically mention “disciple†and it’s not in a flattering manner. To many followers of Christ, myself included, we refer to ourselves as disciples. I realize context is important. You probably meant no harm but I hope you realize you may have inadvertently offended many people.
Thanks for identifying bigotry but please be more mindful of your comments
I’m not saying I agree with Mustang’s view which I think is pretty silly in my own mind. That also doesn’t mean his view isn’t allowed either. He can say and believe whatever he wants because he lives in the greatest country in the world where every person has that freedom. As long as that belief doesn’t infringe on other people’s freedom then go ahead.
He's the guy yelling at you on the corner, not self-aware enough to know what trolling is.
I like Foley and he is great for wrestling. He’s a brilliant writer and communicator. Our agenda is shared in that we want to build up the sport of wrestling in every corner of the universe. However, I and many others in the wrestling community, also are followers of Christ and therefore stand in direct conflict with many views of the current liberal ideology. Conservative Christian thoughts and values are constantly under attack, even on the pages of wrestling websites. Keep the faith and thanks for bringing this sleight to the community’s attention!
You know how I combat crap like what Mustang is saying and crap like you push? I raise two strong, independent, free thinking, college educated daughters and instill in them that the world belongs to them as much as anyone, don't expect help along the way unless you are willing to stand up for yourself and work hard for what you want. I am sure that is a very similar lesson that many of these groundbreaking women wrestlers were taught, they certainly don't need you creating a pretend villain so you can jumping in at the 11th hour trying to play internet hero and somehow claim some credit for helping them out.
I'm happy to hear you have strong daughters. Advocating for women is something I do because I have a platform and firmly believe in their 100-percent, unequivocal equality. With dangerous ideas like those propped up last week by Mustang98 it was necessary to rebut his regressive platform and address each problematic viewpoint head-on.
Thank you for writing.
Did you just spend an entire mailbag responding to a troll commenter?
#DontTakeTheBait
Until the next time... Keep on rocking brother... #LoveTheMailBox #ButNotTRAndHisPolitics
I don't doubt that you've worked hard your whole life and treated people fairly, but if we're too lazy to really listen to what someone is saying then we become the blind support structure for them or their counterparts.
.
Please read this as me calmly explaining how your writing can come across in a non confrontational way. I’d like to potentially have a thoughtful discussion of observations I’ve had over the years of reading your work.
While I find mustang98s comments unacceptable and quite frankly pathetic. Coming from a place where I have been actively campaigning for womens wrestling in my state, actively recruited female wrestlers to the HS team I coached last year, and primarily working with urban youth. It genuinely comes across like you say or write certain things to “virtue signal†how “pure and noble†you are, more so than letting your actions and words stand on their own. I am not some alt right loser with no girlfriend, in she makes more than me lol.
For example, in this article instead of simply lambasting mustang98 for his idiocy and letting the community support for you and JBryant speak for themselves, You for some reason felt the need to bring in a person like Jordan Peterson as an evil corrupter that is responsible for the idiotic commentary. You made it a chance to grandstand rather making the simple and effective point that real men are not insecure about strong women. The article literally felt like you were inserting paragraphs that would signal how virtuous you are inbetween the salient strong points. This is something I have noticed more than once over the years.
The other observation of your work from simply looking at things from a wrestling perspective and leaving politics out, is that your agenda makes you flip flop. Before UWW employed you, you did not hesitate to talk frankly about the corruption and issues, then once you are employed, never hesitate to bash the NCAA but justify or defend blatant UWW corruption. Your opinions of certain wrestler or coach behavior seems to flip flop more so on “who†the person is. Way more so than the actual behavior... Or you will advocate for the women’s wrestling but come across as being ok with the trend of wrestling becoming a rich suburban mostly white club sport because it’s producing more world medals.
And quite frankly, you always seem to pick things like foreign wrestling or womens in a way that will make you look good to Huffington post readers. You do this way more than shining a light on massive issues that need just as much attention. For example, you could spend as much time on growing wrestling in places like the inner-city and minorities, shrinking numbers, rising cost of sport. Making potential elite success available to the kid that can’t afford the “elite†clubs, encouraging people to on the local level support legislation for women’s wrestling.. but instead you spend more grandstanding... grandstanding for things that will get you published, rather than actually looking at and analyzing all of the issues.
Please note, I have gone out of my way to be civil and rational explaining my observations. So, please do not lump into “alt right†territory because I disagree with you on certain things.
A few things:
1. I think Mustang98 meant Amazons (from ancient Greece), not "Amazonians," but he didn't know the difference. That's not racism, but good old-fashioned sexism. That doesn't mean he's not also a racist, though.
2. Women's wrestling is here to stay, and growing, no matter what any alt-creep says in a silly rant.
3. Can you also do to Andrewmah what you did to Mustang98? We'd enjoy that.
Thanks!
Leaving all of the crazy political stuff aside, I think you are missing a part of the point about women's wrestling. By having your sons not wrestle a girl you were limiting your sons. I had a wrestler a few years back with real potential. He knew he was good enough to place wherever he showed up, and that was enough for him. We were wrestling in a tournament and he draws a girl in his first match. I tell him "she's tough, be ready to go." He smiles and gives me an "I got this old man" wink. Handshake, whistle and he is counting the lights in the gym. She tossed him from one end of the mat to the other. He came off shaking his head. And to his credit it wasn't because he lost to a girl, but because he lost. He knew he had to be better to be his best. He worked harder and went further than he ever would have if he hadn't stepped out on the mat that day. That is all any of us can ask for from our athletes (or children). And if I had said "you can't wrestle her because she's a girl", I would have been denying him the opportunity to be his best.
As for "treating a girl like a lady", I hope that just means with respect and decency like you would treat any other person. The idea that different means less than is one of the fundamental issues here. I hope that your boys have learned to treat women as equals (because they are), and not as something that needs to be protected or sheltered because they are incapable of doing it for themselves. I may be reading too much into your post here. If so, I apologize. But I don't think I am.
PS - The girl was Elena Pirozhkova, Olympian and World Champion. And never wanted anyone to duck her in the draw.
PPS - Ok, maybe I didn't make it all the way through without the political stuff. But hey, that's why were all here today.
Have a good day.
Women in these areas are encouraged to attend College to find a husband, not to get a degree. They are encouraged to be baby factories, not productive members of society with professions, businesses and higher education. The joke at BYU is the "MRS" Degree - attend and catch a good "returned missionary" for a husband so they can produce more kids to populate the church and be good tithe payers.
It is more than Mormons with this mindset. It is Muslims as well as many other groups.
All the talk of being progressive? A U.S. President who openly bragged about "I can grab'em by the p%##*" and you see we have problems from the top down.
TOTAL 4 YEAR VARSITY OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN: 12, 313
TOTAL 4 YEAR VARSITY OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEN: 10,724
DIFFERENCE OF 1,589
If the guy wasn't a troll then all you done is give him an extra 15 minutes of attention that he doesn't warrant because he is a neanderthal. Who cares what he thinks? It right thinking person knows that women's wrestling is just as important as men's. A troll certainly doesn't call for an entire column during this important time in the wrestling calendar, but if the famous words of Rahm Emmanuel "never let a good crisis go to waste." In this case a faux crisis.
You appear to be an opportunist for the purpose of displaying your 'moral superiority' and 'forward thinking'. And you are probably wriggling around like a worm in sh#t right now after seeing all of the others 'rush to your defense'. You come off as smug, self-important and without the ability to think independently when you parrot 'correctness' and shut off your mind. What really tipped you off is your misunderstanding of Jordan Peterson. Obviously he has been thrown in there because others with 'correct moral thinking' have done so on other occasions, but you have adopted their misunderstanding of him for your own and it shows you have not approached what he has had to say with an open and unbiased mind. Wouldn't your lack of objectivity and tendency to parrot other people's words and ideas, regardless of their superficial correctness, bring all of your other assertions into question? Unfortunately for you, anyone who questions you just proves how right you are about everything you may think. You may think Mustang is out of step with the times and his attitudes are stuck in a distant age. Well, your mind is stuck in the thinking of a more recent age. What's the difference? Being stuck is being stuck. And one sure sign of being stuck is to imagine you aren't when you are through showing how wrong other people who are 'beneath' you are.
Good luck to you and may Mustang continue pushing your buttons to expose you. It is fun to watch. Thanks for the laughs.
The a good point Foley makes is that the adjustment to women's wrestling in the UWW did help them maintain the Olympic status.
But not a fan of all the other SJW type of writing that is all too common now in this weekly feature. Foley has unique access; would be great to hear more about wrestling from him.
jajajajajaja... Funny how you can get so triggered from my irrelevant comment. Stay strong in the Men's Rights Movement snowflake!
Second, I must ask you, Foley, when did you read Peterson's book of rules – before reading the article, after, or never? And how many hours have you spent listening to his presentations? My undergraduate major was psychology and chemistry, and I have numerous credits in postgrad clinical psychology. In addition, I spent many many hours sitting and listening to Dr. Peterson's presentations, and find your representation of him to be such a gross mischaracterization, that I can only ask where you got your information. Was it the LGBT activist website blogs or one of the progressive liberal news sites? First of all, Jordan Peterson, PhD, is a psychology professor and very successful practicing clinician with over 25 years experience in educating professionals and helping real people. From my experience, he is not any of the things you suggested, but is a spokesman against loss of freedom of speech and Canadian government-mandated vocabulary (i.e. neutral pronouns) with excessive fines, in regards to addressing or referring to transgender individuals. He has repeatedly pointed out what he sees as the folly of transgender surgeries, for the "treatment" of gender identification confusion, as, according to sound medical research, those who have undergone the surgery have no better outcome than those who have not. Both groups have roughly a 50% suicide rate, and he argues quite rationally that if the surgery is not improving the mental health of the patients, it is unnecessary, unwarranted, and effectively mutilating their bodies. If someone believes they are something different than every single DNA strand in every cell of their bodies identifies them to be, he argues, they are suffering from a delusion, and it is the delusion that must be addressed and treated. He also says, in his experience, that most transgender individuals neither desire nor embrace the idea of gender neutral pronouns, and that it would do absolutely nothing to improve their self esteem. Thus, he is completely against the government politicizing's speech patterns and interfering with standards of psychiatric medicine. He is not popular on the Internet, as you suggest, because of his outrageous claims, but because he has become an intellectual, psychological and philosophical voice against the political correctness of our day, which has gone so insane as to demand that a citizen address a transgender individual as a ze, instead of a he or she, or face serious jail time and financial penalties, not to mention losing their jobs. These are entirely different issues than all the BS you laid at his feet.
Brazil, regarding your sacred cow of feminism, I suggest you listen to the testimonial of Aaron Russo, taken before he died. I hate to break it to you, but as much as I believe in equal pay and advancement for women, whenever they can perform equally in production, and higher pay when they can outperform, according to Nicholas Rockefeller's lecture to Aaron, the entire feminist movement was bought and paid for by the Rockefellers, for the sole purpose of getting the other half of the population paying taxes – period. And they have used every trick in the book to advance their agenda, getting women to embrace smoking, drinking, abortions, and careers over families, just to fill their already overflowing coffers with more money. And, echoing lesman67, I am so sick of hearing about the privileged white male, that I want to throw up. I, too, am 67 years of age, and never had anything handed to me. My grandfather was a drunk and lost the farm, drove my grandmother into the mental hospital in St. Peter's, Minnesota, and died a lonely bumb, while my father was raised in the foster home system, working on relative's farms during the depression-era summers for less than a dollar a day. After serving as a naval medic in WWII, he took the G.I. Bill, went to school, and over the course of 35 years rose to the position of a high executive, but it was a long hard road, and we grew up eating hot dogs, spam, and TV dinners, while my mom stayed home and took care of five children. From my mom anddad, I learned discipline and hard work. During the summers I cut yards for $.25 each, so I could save up to buy a baseball mitt. In junior high, I built one of the largest paper routes in Cleveland before going to Vietnam right out of high school, where I risked my life daily for omething like seven dollars per day. While in graduate school, I drove a cab at night and worked the labor pool, stacking quart bottles in the oppressive heat at $2.25 per hour, just trying to support my wife and baby. When I heard from my friends that the Ford truck company was hiring, and they were working overtime, desperately needing help, I applied. Couldn't get hired, though, despite their intense needs. Behind closed doors, it was explained to me that I was the wrong color. So, I ask, why not hire the right color until you meet your quota, and then you can hire me, too. They said they would love to, but couldn't because of politics and economics. The problem was, they had already hired several dozen title IX folks, all of whom, within the first few months of working there, claimed back injuries, went to the same doctor, came back with the same diagnosis and reports, and were now all at home pulling disability, doing nothing. Management was relatively sure the minority union rep was the one behind it all, since no one was hurting there back in the entire plant, except for his minority folks, but they couldn't prove it was a scam. Unfortunately, title IX said that they had to hire someone black to fill the spots, and they were tired of giving full paychecks to guys that wouldn't come to work, as it hurt the bottom line of the plant, which would drive the stock down. Meanwhile, all the white and Latino workers were working 70-75 hours a week. So, I busted my ass for minimum wage through eight years of college, funded practically every dime myself, other than about $1200 I took from my family, and a $9000 student loan for my last year of school (which I paid off in full within five years). Then I went into practice and establish two successful clinics, and an MRI diagnostic facility. I fought with banks for loans which they wouldn't give me, then, again, saved my money and funded everything myself. Investment mistakes never brought the government to my rescue, I suffered through the silence. Nothing came easy and I seldom ever complained. Through it all, the, one thing I can absolutely testify to is in my 67 years, I never saw anyone giving out free passes to "privileged white guys," less you’re talking about the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Fords, and other rich kids or the kids of politicians. The guys I saw get ahead, studied and worked their asses off, and those who rose the highest, stayed in school and pushed themselves through technical or professional schools. You see, for us so-called privileged white guys, life is like a wheelbarrow. It doesn't work, unless you pick it up and break a sweat. And, by the way, most Christian conservatives, have similar stories. Our parents grew up during the Great Depression. Everything we have we worked for, which is why we so deeply resent people like you, coming in and expecting everything for free, while scapegoating us as the reason why it’s just. To quote my late, great mother, raised five children, all college graduates and highly successful, if it doesn’t seem fair, whoever said life is supposed to be fair? You have to work hard and apply yourself in this world if you want to get anywhere.
Seriously? By who, you?
Words matter and they affect action. Gandhi, King, Trump….none of them took up arms to further their worldview, they just talked about it and it affected the actions of others. What motivates you to publicly pass judgment on the actions of others? I assume you’d like to see their actions adjusted to more closely align with what you believe to be normal. If so, I’d say that’s the definition of intolerance. What would you call it?
It is exponentially more important when applied to young girls in our society. With sons, I’m not sure if you’ve witnessed it first hand…maybe you have, but I have daughters. They are constantly bombarded by society telling them what they can and can’t be, what they should and shouldn’t look like, how they should or shouldn’t talk to others. It results in a tremendous amount of self-doubt and introspection. Some of it is healthy, but some is downright ridiculous. Ok…lecture over. Apologies for rambling. Have your opinions, you’ve earned them. Just understand the impact they have when you advertise them and own it. Hopefully, one day you’ll see that we’re all better off when we support each other and society is dynamic, not static. We will never again be what we were….and that’s ok.
What motivates you to make your opinion public? Why not just keep it to yourself?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have responded….Lord knows you’ve added some reasonableness to the discussion that it was lacking….I just want to know honestly why you decided to speak up.
Did you hope to change someone’s mind?
Did you feel there was a factual error that needed correcting?
Were you bored? (Not a jab….the lack of other options leads me to do all kinds of things)
Did you want to defend a point of view you felt was being attacked?
From your comments I’m confident you’re not a troll or a narcissist, so those are off the table. So then….what was it?
As for me….I commented because I wanted the girls who read this stuff to know there are folks out here who support them and they shouldn’t have to question their morality when they decide to wrestle…just like the boys don’t have to. For what it’s worth, my earlier use of the word “bigot†was not aimed at you. If it came off that way, I apologize.
I’m a wrestling fan first….then an OK St fan, then an NCAA fan, then a men’s freestyle fan, then a women’s freestyle fan, and then a Greco fan. In that order….