It’s like an avalanche. I’ve heard women speaking out about the online abuse they receive for years, but suddenly, it’s as if it has media traction, and more and more women are coming out to denounce the anti-woman hate speech that seems to be common currency on the internet. Laurie Penny, Helen Lewis Hasteley, Kate Smurthwaite, and now a profile of multiple female online writers all tell the same story: there’s a misogyny epidemic on the net. Ophelia Benson, who gets her share of the abuse too, highlights their stories.
I’m a guy who also gets a fair number of abusive emails — I even have a hobby of posting some of them now and then on the web — but there’s a qualitative difference to what I see. I get death threats regularly, but they’re usually of the form “you should get [violent fate] for [hating god, violating crackers, being liberal]”; I don’t get threats of the form, “[Man], I need to [crude sexual assault] you”. As a man, I can get threats for speaking against some cherished dogma, which I can sort of halfway understand, but I don’t get the threats for just being of my sex and speaking out, period.
I also don’t get much in the way of sexual threats, except for one telling class of insults: the ones that accuse me of being a woman. Vox Day is one of the milder practitioners of this habit: he refers to me as “Pharyngurl”, because after all, it’s demeaning to just reference me as a woman. I’ve had other, nastier messages where I’ve been called a “bitch” and threatened with anal rape, for instance; it’s as if they are first metaphorically translating me into a female so they can then really degrade me thoroughly.
So I get a faint echo of the female experience, and it’s utterly repulsive. As we’re beginning to see as more and more women speak out, the wretchedness is being more thoroughly exposed.
What’s also dismaying is that I once would have thought that people of my ideological stripe, you know, those all-inclusive egalitarian liberals and the rational, objective atheists, wouldn’t be guilty of such anti-woman attitudes. The other guys are the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing thugs, right? But no — read about Caroline Farrow, a more conservative Catholic blogger — she gets five sexually threatening emails a day! And of course the atheist community in general has experienced some turmoil in the last few months over the revelation that there are openly misogynistic creatures in our ranks.
It’s dismaying. I don’t know what to do, other than to personally reject the attitudes of the people who treat women as lesser beings. I also hope the media doesn’t let attention to this problem flag. I’m sure it’s all going to be major topic at the Women in Secularism conference in May, and I hope journalists are paying attention — there will be some powerful stories coming out of that event. They shouldn’t miss it. As is often the case, an important first step in correcting an injustice is to first shine a light on it.
One other datum: over the years, I’ve had an actual decline in threats. Part of it is because the one event that prompted the most hateful letters, the cracker desecration, has receded into the past. But I think a contributing factor has also been my willingness to post the crazy email, so everyone can point and laugh at it (ridicule really does work), and because I’ve been open about my willingness to expose patent death threats with full source information. The unfortunate side-effect is that my inbox has gotten slightly less weird, the good side is that it’s also gotten slightly less hostile. When women publicize the fact that scum-sucking bottom feeders write the kind of crap they get, it’s going to make the scum-sucking bottom feeders more cautious.
Once again I am appalled by humans, but not surprised.
Leading by example and continuing to highlight issues that affect women is really all you can do.
I know it’s frustrating. It frustrates the hell out of me too.
But, but… if every single man isn’t allowed to constantly spam any woman he chooses with his vile notions of sexual violence and murder all the time all over that specific woman’s email and that woman’s own blog, without any negative reactions or consequences or comments directed towards him at all, then FREE SPEECH IS DEAD and we might as well pack it in and be a totalitarian state.
Or some fucking shit like that.
I was literally just listening to Rebecca Watson on Point of Inquiry when I popped Pharyngula open for my morning read. I can easily see why threats of dead from religious idiots would have little affect on you but how threats of sexual violence could create a visceral reaction in the woman reading her blog comments or email. Even as a man I have laughed off your funnier death threat emails from people that, had we not had email, would have sent such threats to you on lined paper written in various colors of ink with bolding and underlining galore. But when you make that comment about anal rape there is just something about it that makes it more than an idle threat. It’s disgusting and beyond the pale. Maybe it’s just that we all get used to making comments like, “I’m so mad I could kill so and so,” or “if you ruin that such and such I’ll kill you,” as teenagers, but no one ever substitutes rape in there, and for good reason. This is very disappointing and surprising. Skeptics are supposed to be better. If they’re not, let’s get cleaning!
I’ve been online since 1988, and there were many fewer women online in those days. It was ugly out there then, and it can still be ugly out there now.
I have a different attitude towards all this – I see an E-mail or a comment in an area that I’m an administrator for and that sounds like it’s being abusive, I just delete it. It’s not worth arguing with people who’ll make threats, call you names or even worry about the kinds of people. The vast majority of people (mostly men) who make threats online are just trolls full of hot hot air. You shouldn’t believe them, worry about them, give them an audience, et.c. Just delete them. As we used to say on USENET, “a killfile is a terrible thing to waste.”
I wish there was a way to convince teenagers of this. It’s hard to not take harassment seriously when you’re an adolescent, but you won’t always be an adolescent. Most people do grow up. But you’re under no obligation to be in a dialog with abusive people.
I suspect that anyone who reads this blog (and especially the comments) and isn’t either devoid of brain or locked into the patriarchal culture will pick up that the general plan is something like:
1) Don’t be part of the problem.
2) Educate yourself on the things you might be doing which, whilst not deliberately or overtly misogynistic, help to perpetuate the problem.
3) If others point out somehting you missed in (2), don’t get pissy and defensive, thank them and stop doing that.
4) Confront and call out others who are part of the problem.
…but you already knew that.
There was an article about this linked from a forum I go to. I tried to explain how this is being used to silence and intimidate women, but most of what I got in response was ‘men get threats too’ ‘it’s just the nature of the internet’ ‘if women want to be equal we can’t protect them from this’ and one guy claiming the sexual threats weren’t a big deal and going off about the pro-female bias in rape statistics because some sources count prison rapes differently. I had no idea how to respond to that.
This is appalling but not at all surprising to anyone who reads comment threads on the net, especially threads following stories about any woman who speaks up about sexual abuse or harassment, where all sorts of loathsome excuses for human beings infallibly appear.
Of late, I often find myself contemplating the future (and maybe not so far in the future, either) extinction of our species with great equanimity.
How curious, there was somebody around here just the other day doing exactly that … Was it GBD? Damn, I’m losing track. (It wasn’t RR, was it? ’cause I’m ashamed to admit he had me thinking he was in good faith at first)
Excellent article and particularly apt on Marie Curie’s birthday!
Whenever i read something like this, I find myself making excuses for a lot of the behavior.
I DO get it, though. I agree completely that this exists (I see it) and that it needs to end. I agree it both needs and should be talked about. Why is my initial reaction so terrible? I always feel guilty, and I want to find a way to tell the person they are wrong.
Being an atheist doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re free of the kind of hierarchical thinking that leads to oppressive behaviors, although I do think that it makes it more likely.
I have a theory…although I’m certain that it isn’t original…that there is just something about our primate brains that makes us humans, in general, more comfortable with a pecking order. Atheists, generally, seem to be more comfortable with the notion of no pecking order, or rather, have the ability to function without one. I think that the people (men mostly, but women also) who target outspoken women on the internet are so psychologically disturbed by what they perceive as a disruption of the social order, that they’ll do anything to make the disturbance go away.
Let’s put it this way: If the female gender wasn’t considered inferior to the male one, then homophobia wouldn’t exist.
In the Western world, our ideas on gender and sexuality come to us from two sources: The Judeo-Christian tradition and the Greek tradition. The former flatly forbade same-sex relations or any form of intercourse that didn’t have the potential to create babies, whereas the latter allowed it, but only at the price of severe loss of social status to anyone known to have been “penetrated” by a penis — man, woman or child. (In other words, the prison rule of “It’s not ‘gay’ if you’re the ‘guy'” — that is, the “penetrator” — applied.)
This is why some of the best feminists out there are gay men — they understand this almost instinctively.
Nothing exposes a persons true character quite like (perceived) anonymity. And nothing exposes cowardice quite like removing that same anonymity.
The more that personally reject it, the better. It’s horrible to see it in a community that /should/ know better.
It’s similar at geek conferences and such… a lot of them know what it’s like to be bullied, threatened and marginalized… You’d really think they’d know better.
I suppose that’s what’s extra disgusting about the ones in the Atheist community. One of the big indictments of the major religions is it’s treatment of women.
You’d think making skeptics and atheist conferences safe places would be a priority…
opposable thumbs
No, it was custador. GBD is the cupcake who claims that you can’t really dehumanize people by objectifying them because you anhropomorphize your favourite coffee mug.
I agree, but what’s the best way forward? The numbers of commenters and multiple identities reduces the utility of the killfiles. For sanity’s sake, most of the garbage needs to be deleted without any decent human being needing to read it, except perhaps the police. Because having to wade through dozens or hundreds of comments with abuse or threats of violence is enough in itself to chill discourage the target.
How about better spam-detection technology for abuse and threats? With better tagging software connected? Surely Google has software in hand that would apply, although it may be a challenge to filter appropriately in different threads. The identification of actual threats, and campaigning against those few deranged worst offenders, could be crowd-sourced, as was done with “David Mabus”.
I don’t see abuse as a legitimate free-speech protected activity for the sender, and readers’ rights are OK so long as bloggers and e-mail recipients can choose and tune their own automatic filters. Nobody has the right to force someone else to read their bile, especially on a channel belonging to the target.
Yup. Bullies do what they do because they think it works. Once they think (or know) it doesn’t work, they stop doing it. This is even more effective than punishment in getting them to stop.
Bullies like Swiftee like to taunt women by swearing at them or making grotesque and off-putting comments intended to send their targets off in what the bullies hope will be a torrent of tears and self-censorship. (The anti-choice Swiftee once cyberstalked a liberal pro-choice woman’s private blog, where she had posted a picture of the ultrasound from her pregnancy, and endlessly mocked her over it.) This doesn’t work with me, since I grew up in a military household and knew all the choice grunt slang before I entered kindergarten; my response is to take what they throw at me and toss it back threefold — that shuts them up right quick.
Kos has a weekly hate mail feature. The most common genre consists of calling him various terms for homosexual and then fantasizing about various ways in which he might be sexually degraded. (Markos is straight, BTW.)
I won’t try to follow the psychodynamics of this but y’all can draw your own conclusions.
One of the articles that is part of this wave (via Butterflies and Wheels) specifically mentioned that just deleting these messages may be counterproductive. It makes people think sexism isn’t an issue, because they hardly ever see it. It may also make people who are on the receiving end think that they are alone.
I think the most positive message we could send is ‘we’ve got your back.’ It’s simple, straightforward and makes it clear who’s side we’re on.
_______
Back during the mid months, a couple women who saw nothing wrong with Ms. Smith’s treatment (or anything really) of Ms. Watson remarked how you were right to treat your enemies however you please. They are, afterall, bad, and any wrong that’s done will be outweighed by the good.
The OP is good reminder why that sort of attitude will only hurt you in the end.
Just last night I called some random internet person out on the old “Don’t mind OP, he’s just menstruating” line. I told him that was equivalent to “don’t mind OP, he’s just female” and does he not see how incredibly sexist that is?
I doubt he’ll suddenly stop with the gender slander. Maybe five, six, seven times from now when other people call him on it, he’ll rethink it.
So please everybody, call people out on it =)
The anonymity of the Internet is part of the problem. One can say whatever one wants without the repercussions one would face if one made such statements in person. Also, there is the perception that men (especially white men) are a persecuted minority and are fighting against it. I’m not saying I support that idea AT ALL, but I believe that is the perception.
Education, really, is the only cure. That and, like PZ does, publishing the contact information of those who threaten violence.
There is one thing that hasn’t been brought up that should be added. When we hear about how a man has been arrested (and more often if the crime has been of a sexual nature) there are comments about enjoying his time with his new cellmate “Bubba”, as if prison rape is a funny punishment. We should stop that too on the same grounds. Rape against anyone for any reason shouldn’t be acceptable.
Honestly, my reaction just gets more “Eh.” every time I hear people spouting off about this supposed culture of rape. I get threats all the time–INCLUDING plenty that describe various acts of sexual violence, all prefaced with vigorous no-homos of course. Big whup. We have a culture of VIOLENCE. Invoking rape is just another extension of that–part of our cultural tendency toward hyperbole. It’s the ultimate act of violence–with pleasant undertones of violation and mastery due to the warped, patriarchal notion that a woman’s worth is decreased somehow by having sex, and the equally disturbing and wrong-headed idea that only women GET raped.
No, Team X didn’t just defeat Team Y. Slaughtering Team Y has become passe. No, Team Y was bent over a bench and duly made Team X’s collective bitch.
It’s not enough to break the laws of physics. Violating the laws of physics doesn’t cut it anymore. That episode of Star Trek left the laws of physics curled up in the shower, feeling worthless.
This is not, in my mind, ABOUT rape. I doubt that there’s any connection, in the mind of the speaker or in the real world, between the rhetoric of sexual mastery and the real-world impact of being raped. This is just what our discourse looks like now–we just haven’t gotten jaded and used to it the way we’ve gotten inured to regular old violence, which of course is why people use this language in the first place.
When people brag about slaughtering their enemies on the [insert sport here] field, do we get in a tizzy about how it might traumatize people whose loved ones were murdered? I’m honestly perplexed by this dichotomy, especially among people who I would expect not to let sexual taboos influence their priorities. I’m genuinely, seriously putting a question forward… why exactly do we think that sexual violence is worse than, you know, regular violence?
@Jonathan
Your indifference to the silencing tactics used against women are noted.
How about the retort “If men want to be equal they have to stop doing shit like this”? Until then, they get silenced.
(yes, I’m talking about those specific men who do that shit, not all men)
+1
Honestly, my reaction just gets more “Eh.” every time I hear people spouting off about this supposed culture of rape.
Please, just stop right there. Just stop it, and don’t bother trying to follow up and defend yourself, because you’ll just make it worse. Go to a MRA blog and talk about “supposed culture of rape”.
Really. So why then, do you think, that the women aren’t getting emails saying “I’m going to bash your head in”, or “you need to get a good punch in the gut”? Why are the comments ALWAYS about sexual violence, if there’s no connection there?
Perhaps we should be. But in any case, there are orders of magnitude fewer families of murder victims out there than there are families of rape victims, and in the case of rape, the victims themselves are there as well.
@25 Jonathan
You’re missing the elephant in the room here. This is not only about the sexual nature of the threats, which are made to men sometimes as well. The point is the attitude that lays behind such threats. Threats like that are made to women simply for the reason of having a public opinion. (Just read the articles PZ links to.) What they’re saying is: you’re a woman, shut the fuck up and let the men do the talking.
PZ, I have a lot of sympathy for what you wrote. I’m afraid however that most of you will find my reasons very improper. I do not belong to the young generation any more, and showing special attentions to women was the part of my upbringing (“Behave, the girls are here!!” – stuff like that). It’s still inside me to a large degree and my gut reaction is that someone behaving in the way you describe deserves a solid punch in his face. And so perhaps many of you would say that my reaction is as it should be, but my reasons are improper. So be it.
On the other hand, I’m a bit curious about reactions of the people more used to thinking that women do not deserve any special treatment. Do you treat comments like “fat, ugly, desperate”(a title of Ophelia Benson’s piece) on a par with sexual threats? Or do you think that sexual threats form a special category? Do you think that women should be protected from abusive language generally? Or is it just about the abusive language accenting their gender (call them whatever you want otherwise)? I’m asking without any hidden aims, really curious what you think and even more curious about your inner reactions.
Its a shame that it isnt possible to show a picture of who is making the comments. surely a pic of a spotty 12 year old virgin in a 50 cent t shirt threatenign to rape someone would make 90% of these comments so laughable that they would disappear pretty quickly and not have the intended effect? Also would it be possible to form groups on forums to simply mock people who indulge in this behaviour? If all people got in response was 20 comments calling their experience, sexuality, attractiveness etc into question maybe the tables could be turned. I know 2 wrongs dont make a right but sometimes a bit of mockery for a bully can reduce their power
I don’t think you can separate what goes on in blogs and forums from the culture in general. I know I’ll get an argument from this, but if it’s not ok to call a Black person “the N word,” why is it ok to call a girl or woman a bitch? Doesn’t anyone own a dictionary any more? That one word devalues everything the woman is, says, or does. No, it’s not “empowering;” to allow someone to call you that is capitulating.
@Laurie Mann “But you’re under no obligation to be in a dialog with abusive people.”
Seriously? Please tell me how to organize my world so that I don’t have to come in contact with people who use demeaning language when referring to women. As I go around town on my everyday errands, I hear it in causal conversation all the time.
@Craig
These aren’t acne ridden 12 year olds. A lot of these guys are adults fully capable of hurting another human being if they wanted to.
And I would be freaked to find out a kid on my block was saying those sorts of things to women and felt ‘bitches just need a good ass raping.’ How could I not fear letting him near any girl or young woman I know? More importantly, how could they feel safe?
No, I don’t think that knowing that a 12-year-old virgin is making rape threats would make me laugh. I know that children say a lot of stupid shit they later regret, but some of them grow up and keep saying the same stupid shit or even at some point act on it. Or act on it when they’re still 12, maybe not by actually raping someone, but sexually harassing girls or even adult women.
Jonathan: I imagine (and I may be wrong) that you have never been in a situation where you felt there was a genuine possibility of being raped right then and there by the person in front of you. Once you’ve been in that situation, your feelings towards it tend to enhance a bit. When I was much younger I thought it was kinda like getting punched in the face. Now I think it’s kinda like being slowly, tortuously gutted and left to bleed to death in a back alley, except instead of dying you get to live with psychological issues with trust forever. I know too many young women who’ve been through this. I *haven’t* been physically abused by anyone, but more than one psychologist has told me I exhibit a lot of the traits of a girl who was raped when she was young, for purely mental/emotional reasons. I reckon I’d be an absolute basket case if anyone had actually TOUCHED me.
As for the rape violence notes, I have seen some of the people who’ve mailed them to me, and I genuinely *DO* get the feeling that SOME of them might mean it. I’ve never gotten the feeling that someone really meant they were gonna murder me. I’m also pretty sure that real rapes happen a LOT more often than real murders and result in proportionately less convictions, since people get away with it constantly.
“I’m going to kill you” is not a credible threat from most hobbyist psychos. “I’m going to rape you” is, especially when he’s stronger than you and has already confessed to being sexually attracted to you.
And the idea that only women are raped is pretty quickly and rightly going away. Other people have already brought up the men’s prison problem in this thread. If I know any men or boys who have been abused, they haven’t told me about it (and that is certainly their choice, if so), so I can’t speak on that the same way I can speak about my many female acquaintances who have trusted others with their experiences. That actually brings up another point: there shame for a woman to admit rape, and a much stronger shame for a man. That’s terrible.
Took me a while to write this, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has already said half of these things by the time it posts.
This is why some of the best feminists out there are gay men — they understand this almost instinctively.
But, instinctively, they also have a penis, which makes them better than women. I’ve seen more than a few gays that are great feminists until someone disagrees with them while female. How dare a mere woman question their feminist credentials!!!! Or something. It’s bizarre and funny, but they don’t usually resort to threats.
And the mistake here is thinking or even promoting the idea that only those like you’ve described are making these types of comments.
Uh, #34 Craig atherton?
You’re seriously off base here.
It seems to me that you are suggesting the following statement would be a productive way to deal with the problem:
“LOL, you are 12 years old, you have not engaged in sexual intercourse, you have acne, and you are wearing a tee shirt bearing symbols and logos referring to a musician who I dislike.”
10 years later, none of those things will be true any more. But threats of rape will still be repugnant. For that matter, so will your proposed statement.
Species, you do make a good point–if there’s a disparity here between the amount of regular violence versus sexual violence in the threats directed towards women, it’s probably for exactly that reason. That said… again, I have to think that much of the rape imagery in our language is less about any predilection of the speaker and/or his culture and more about shock value. They use that imagery because it’s powerful–and because they know it gets to women. I honestly would love to see the figures here… how much of this is actual misogyny and how much is just trolls using whatever language they know will hurt most?
Craig, that might be the smartest suggestion I’ve heard in ages. Half these comments are probably just people trying to make THEMSELVES look tougher by throwing around this testosterone-soaked rhetoric.
#35 – “I know I’ll get an argument from this, but if it’s not ok to call a Black person “the N word,” why is it ok to call a girl or woman a bitch? ”
Its not.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple question.
For fuck’s sake. This is not about strong burly men protecting little wimmens from things that would give them the vapors. This is about women saying “I will not stand here and let you say that shit to me, because you are not worth the time and effort to be paid attention to, and I will not let you use MY forum to spread your shitty ideas.”
Do you not see the connection between “actual misogyny” and the fact that rapey language is what “will hurt most”????
No, they aren’t. A lot of them are genuinely trying to put women they don’t like ‘in their place.’
These aren’t 12 year olds in their mom’s basement. That idiot stereotype needs to stop.
Jonathan:
They want to hurt and women and to do so choose to make rape threats. And you wonder how much of it is actual misogyny?
In your world of your blog? You ban those people from commenting on your blog. See? Easy. That’s what’s being discussed; that they shouldn’t have to deal with that shit on their own turf, and that nobody should be screaming censorship or the like at them when they don’t.
“Kos has a weekly hate mail feature. The most common genre consists of calling him various terms for homosexual and then fantasizing about various ways in which he might be sexually degraded. (Markos is straight, BTW.)
I won’t try to follow the psychodynamics of this but y’all can draw your own conclusions.”
As much as we’d like to snicker and think it’s about closeted homosexuality, it’s really all about dominating and humiliating the other person. This is why rape fantasies are so prevalent.
For the most part, these people are insecure and angry, and anonymity allows them to lash out in ways they would never do in person. There are a few that are legitimately unbalanced and those are the ones you cannot shame into stopping.
I agree that developing a reputation for exposing them immediately is the best way to curtail their insults.
jrs @ 12:
Admittedly I’m saying this just from my own experience, but I don’t think you should feel bad. I do that all the time with a lot of things, like creationists and bigots in general. I think it’s just that I (and maybe you) leave my mental modeling of other’s minds on all the time. It’s just a reflex at this point. I want to know what they’re thinking, what motivates their position, what arguments, rationalizations and justifications they’re likely to offer. It’s a bit like a chess player thinking ahead to the next moves (not that I’m good at chess…).
Yeah, that means I’m frequently trying to think like a creep. But at least it’s often helpful in picking apart their arguments.
One way to deal with this is to provide dire real-life consequences for some of the nastier and more prolific rape threateners.
Track them down, find their addresses and (after ensuring beyond reasonable doubt that the correct culprit has been identified) publicly humiliate them. Send letters describing the threats to their neighbours. Send letters to their relatives. Take out adverts in their local paper. Send letters to their place of work (and in fact mention their place of work in the above letters, to increase the chance of them getting sacked). Take all legal means to hurt them and humiliate them.
Once a few high profile scalps have been claimed, anyone else who’s tempted to make online rape threats will think again.
@42 Jonathan
When it’s public it is of course about shock-value. When it is sent in private it is an attempt to silence a person you disagree with. Usage of such threats also reflects that the aggressor has no valid arguments to bring to the table, so it is also a defeat.
This applies to anyone debating on the internet. Male or female. How threatening people find these threats are also individual.
But then comes the additional grief women encounter. Someone will go to this step simply because the argument is made by a woman. They don’t even have to disagree. As I mentioned, the women in the articles PZ linked to talks about this. They are being put down simply for being women and having an opinion. Any opinion. That is pure misogyny. Clearly evident by the way they point out that these women are women, or when they try to put down men by liking them to women.
This is also apparent when in, a discussion, stereotypical female attributes are used as ways to try to invalidate her opinion. Like for instance: you’re just being hysterical/emotional.
The latter does not exclude the former. A misogynist troll is still both a troll and a misogynist.
I’m not sure if anyone has quantified the problem. I suspect any such attempt would depend heavily on self-reporting. However there are three reasons why I believe this is every bit as big a problem as expressed by these women in the OP.
1. Misogyny of this type is very common in our society, and it would be very strange if interactions on the internet did not reflect that.
2. Having been actively debating on the internet for 15+ years, I have seen it a lot. There is a clear difference between how men and women are treated.
3. If I do identify myself with a gender at all, I vary which one I put down as my gender identity is ambiguous in the first place, and society thinks in binary terms. There is in my experience a distinct difference in how you are treated and how your arguments are treated depending on what gender they perceive you as.
Carlie, Hertta, I never really saw it as a woman thing. More like an ‘easy target’ thing. People who make a habit of throwing around hurtful language go after whoever they think will get hurt most. These kinds of people just hate people, period–or they like to think they do from the comfort of their keyboards. If people stopped reacting to misogyny, they’d start throwing the N-word around.
Speaking of which, Julian, I think we need some statistics up in here. We both think our collective beef is with a particular type of person, and since we’re talking about a point of demography one of us is empirically wrong. I think it might be me, as usual. Do you have some evidence that these people are actual, honest-to-Zog paleo-stay-in-the-kitchen types, as opposed to morons trying to get a rise out of people? Because I think I can honestly say I’ve never knowingly met such a person IRL.
People on the internet are going to complain about something, and women are an easy target. Call into question a woman’s physical attractiveness or sexual fidelity, and lots of women fall into shambles. They hesitate before they post, they blog less, they stop writing. Done.
How to solve this problem? I’m not entirely sure. If the social worth of a female did not depend so much upon her appearance and fidelity, then of course these types of insults would not affect women so much.
@Craig
I have vivid memories from when I was 13 years old and I went out to lunch with my friend and some of the guys she hung out with who were also 13. I spent the entire meal having to fend off the guys hands because they kept trying to grab my breasts and rub my thighs. I felt trapped there because I was too young to drive and didn’t want to embarrass my friend. I made the mistake of trick or treating with the same group that year and finally ended up punching one of the guys because he refused to stop grabbing me. So no, the picture of your 12 year old making rape threats isn’t funny to me. It’s chilling.
/facepalm
Yeah, women, grow some balls!
@Jonathon I honestly would love to see the figures here… how much of this is actual misogyny and how much is just trolls using whatever language they know will hurt most?
How will you ever obtain that data? Get Gallup to do an opinion poll of people who post vile things on the internet? You are once again attempting to minimize the real problem of rape threats against women online by making the absurd distinction between a genuine, card-carrying misogynist and someone who plays one on the internet. call me cynical, but I interpret your genuine desire to see data that you know cannot be obtained as a bad faith argument.
Think about your statement for a moment. Put yourself in the position of a woman who receives threats of rape online. Do you really think she cares who is wishing rape on her?
It is how it is. I’m not saying it’s right.
Remember folks, this isn’t just on the internet. It is what these (usually) men think all the time. As a male, I pick up on it around construction sites, in bars and in most male only settings and I don’t hang around those places often. I also notice racism and other stupidities in those places. If I am in a position of power or influence I quickly put an end to it near me but it is everywhere. Call people out on it whenever possible in real life and it should help cut down on it on the internet.
What I don’t understand is why misogyny gets attention very easily, and it’s something most people take seriously. But misandry (the male equivalent of misogyny) is patently ignored. Jezebel did a column bragging how great it was that the Jezebel staff gets a kick out of beating their boy friends. Sharon Osbourn talked about how wonderful it was that a man was drugged, tied down and had his penis cut of WHILE STILL CONSCIOUS and then thrown in a garbage disposal – and for what? Because he wanted a divorce. Yeah.
I think misogyny and misandry are equally immoral when all things are equal. But since all things aren’t equal, it’s immoral how much attention misogyny gets compared to how blatantly misandry is ignored and encouraged. Perhaps there wouldn’t be so much misogyny on the internet if the marginalization of half the human species (men, in case you drew the wrong conclusion) wasn’t encouraged. Until misandry is taken more seriously, I think the people who care need to go on strike and remain neutral about misogyny and speak openly about the injustice of this double standard.
Maybe I just live in a very nice, sheltered, liberal neighborhood… sexism, at least overt sexism, is just automatically verboten anywhere I’ve ever seen the question raised. And to be fair, I don’t really hang out with men–I’m one of those guys who prefers female company, although as this debate progresses I’m wondering more and more why I can coexist while still being such an ignorant pig. I mean, over a third of the women I know have actually been raped. I always assumed that was aberrant in some way… which when I think about it, is just alarming in its own right…
When a presidential candidate can dismiss charges of sexual harassment as nothing, really, and be taken seriously. I don’t see much luck in changing this.
Because I think I can honestly say I’ve never knowingly met such a person IRL.
Bingo. “I haven’t met a misogynist who has admitted to me that they have made rape threats online, therefore this isn’t a big deal, ladies.”
sigh
BUT IT CAN BE MADE TO BE DIFFERENT.
Gays can be beaten up for being gay in public. It is how it is.
Women can’t walk out in public without a male escort. It is how it is.
Crosses get burned on people’s lawns. It is how it is.
Wow, what a fantastic defeatist attitude you have there, Markle.
I was never a knuckle-dragger of that ilk, but when I was young and full of piss and vinegar I shared my share of “What’s the deal with women, amiright guys?” sort of sexism. I don’t think I was a case for getting worse (had that sort of Dad, and his arguments—all the same ones you’ll hear from the MRAs in these threads—never sounded especially convincing, brimming with self-delusion as they were), but others can. I’ve a friend who holds those sorts of ideas and while he struggles with them, he did spend a stint as a PUA with a bitches ain’t shit attitude. And you’d never know it unless he felt comfortable to share his opinions with you.
@58 Markle
So you’re saying it is women’s fault for being so weak as to make easy targets?
Now that’s pretty nifty mansplaining!
Kai, please go away. Honestly doubt anyone has the patience to deal with ‘yeah, misogyny is bad and stuff, but what about us men who dominate culture, academia, government and the internet?’
So the fact that women are seen as “easy targets” (including by you, apparently) is not a problem in our culture? And how is that not a “woman thing”?
Oh, so now it’s the victim’s fault too?
But you know plenty of morons who use rape threats for the lolz, is that it?
O for fuck’s sake, Kai, take your MRA ass out of here.
Yes, misandry is bad, but not nearly as ubiquitous as misogyny, so shut the fuck up. As you said, “all things aren’t equal”, just not in the way you seem to think they are.
Phoenix Woman, one of the men who is unfailing on the side of the feminists (Which, as far as I am concerned, makes him a feminist.) is this blog’s official spokesgay, Josh. But just yesterday, he spoke of realizing the privilege he has even being a male on the internet and the special abuse given to people who just happen to have a female persona. He said that he did nit realize it.
I know I am just showing an anecdote to counter an opinion. But I was rather amused and touched by it.
This stuff is what helps the movement to end these harmful attitudes and behaviors. A few days ago, you linked to that great Feministe article about acquaintance rape, and the points they make for preventing acquaintance rape are largely transferable to combating the less damaging verbal forms of misogyny that ultimately enable the more harmful physical manifestations.
Eventually, if we keep up an aggressive campaign against it, we’ll immunize enough people against these harmful attitudes that “herd immunity” kicks in. Once this happens, hopefully this disease only springs up when a few idiots get together and cause localized stupidity epidemics.
Exactly! What about the menz?!?
If you can’t grok the reason why misogyny gets more attention, then perhaps you should go back and take another look.
But I’m betting you won’t.
shorter Kai: all these women had it coming for not spending their time defending precious men
I live on the internet, Deen. I was abused every day of my life until I learned to stop being a target. Nobody cares about your actual views–the fact that you care enough to react is reason enough to try and provoke you. Don’t feed the trolls.
@61 Jonathan
Maybe…
I can say the same about where I grew up and racism. There really wasn’t much. My home town was fairly religious, and for generations missionary work was widely supported. Several of my childhood friends had black fathers, and these kids were the cool kids. So yeah, sometimes the attitudes can shift in small societies. I still don’t believe these people never experienced racism though. Just because I didn’t see it. I know now that one of my classmate’s father received a lot of crap at work in the city. This was back in the 80s when immigration was rare in those parts of the country.
Point is, just because you don’t see it, and the people around you don’t seem to express sexism, racism or homophobia. doesn’t mean these people don’t experience it.
I wish I could unhear the rape threats left on the answering machines of the organizations I have been in. I wish I could unhear the stories of a couple of rape victims who got rape threats before they were raped.
Please, keep making that argument that because you are ignorant that it must be true.
ah, lovely. the pre-object-permanence, Republican approach to problem solving: if we don’t react, don’t talk about it, and pretend it’s not there, it will go away by itself.
Yes! Keep talking. When they tell you to “quit whining,” tell them to go fuck themselves and you keep talking. Please, women of the Internet, do NOT let the bastards bring you down. They are trying to silence you. The only way to fight them is to keep talking.
*headdesk*
Meh. Obvious troll is obvious
/ignore
Jonathan:
How do you know that? How do you know that they just hate people, period, and not hate women, period. They target women. They send rape threats to women. They want to silence women. And you think it’s coincidental? That if women were not such weaklings they’d just go after another group? How do you know?
And are you really saing that if people stopped pointing out misogyny, it would go away? That if women just shut up about it… oh. I guess that is your friendly advice. “Shut up.”
Another anecdote! I grew up in an almost all-white town. But we weren’t racist, because there was one black kid in class and he was so popular that he was the class president! And he never said that there were any problems with race, so I assumed there weren’t any. I didn’t ever see it, right? And he never talked about it so it wasn’t there, right?
And then I was in a summer class in a town nearby with kids from another town, and several of them were black, and it came out that none of them had ever really visited my town (only 15 minutes from theirs) because they all knew the rule not to go into my town after dark, because the black kids who did came back bloody.
But there weren’t any race relation problems because my little blond white self never saw them, right?
That isn’t what I meant, Jadehawk. I’m saying that people need to apply the same filters to discussions of, and I hate to use this phrase but I’m pressed for time, womanly matters that we do to any other discourse online. There are people who desperately believe whatever they’re saying with all their hearts, and then there are people who will say whatever the hell they think will offend others because (and here’s a shocker for all you rape experts…) it makes them feel powerful. I know misogyny exists–I’ve seen bills introduced to Congress that would literally decriminalize rape if the rapist is your husband. But I also know that trolls exist.
I’ll be back in five hours. Try to have this debate without me–I want to be demonstrably wrong by the time my volunteer work is done. That’s the usual timetable when I argue with other skeptics.
Alright Markle, what are you doing to stop the problem? The status quo needs changing. Now, what are you doing to change that.
Being silent about abusive language does not end the use. The people who use it, whither they believe what they say or not, finds that it works and will use it again.
If only you realized how patronizing that sounds.
I love that “how much of this is actual misogyny” – classic.
@Kai: Fuck off.
@Jonathan: Whether the misogynistic rape threats are intended to shock, are being used ar a synonym forr “pwn” or are genuine knuckle-dragging misogyny is immaterial. The effect is to say “you deserve to be brutally violated and humiliated for the crime of voicing an opinion without the benefit of a penis”. The mildest conceivable response this deserves is for the person making the threat to be told to go away until he learns that that shit is not appropriate in any circumstances. I’m trying hard to think of any feasible circumstances where this would be all the response that was appropriate, but I’m coming up empty.
I hate to use this phrase but I’m pressed for time, womanly matters that we do to any other discourse onlineactually, that’s not what you’re trying to say. what you’re trying to say is to treat problems of minorities* online the same way you treat the problems of dominant groups. Entirely unsurprisingly, that won’t work.
I’d love to hear your theory of how troll-ness is mutually exclusive with misogyny; or actually, I wouldn’t, but I’d love for you to think about the complete incoherence of that position.
– – – – – – –
*sociological, not numerical; if you have the urge to tell me that women aren’t a minority because there’s more of them, go look up the term and STFU.
Yeah, sure, but all things aren’t equal.
What a foolish reaction — trying to turn things into a purely theoretical discussion when the original post is about some unlovely reality.
You mean like which tampon is the most absorbent?
Or do you mean for things like economics and politics and atheism and all those things that women write about and get told they ought to be gang-raped for daring to write about?
It is not true misogyny until someone threatens to kick you in the cunt. And how dare you complain about such colorful use of language.
@Johnathan #42
There is a relationship between racist and sexist language. They often go together. They reflect to some extent the mentality and the bigotry of the person using it and the society they come from. If someone goes from spouting misogynist crap to racist crap it doesn’t mean they are neither – it means they are both. People who “Hate people” can be a fair characterisation but that hate is expressed in specific ways and against specific targets and those targets are often those of women and minorities.
Its at least partly unconcious most of the time so people aren’t usually conciosuly thinking “I hate black people so I’ll call my white friends the N word” or “I hate women so the more I use bitch and threaten rape the better I can express that and further my aims of the daily grinding down of women”
Nonetheless as we live in societies of deep racial and sexual stereotyping and oppression the impetus to use this language is bigotry and its effect is to perpetuate oppression regardless of the state of mind of the speaker at the time.
fucking blockquote fail.
actually, that’s not what you’re trying to say. what you’re trying to say is to treat problems of minorities* online the same way you treat the problems of dominant groups. Entirely unsurprisingly, that won’t work, since minorities are targeted because of their minority status: they are targets regardless of whether they react or not, simply by virtue of diverging from the “norm” (i.e. from being a white straight dude).
I’d love to hear your theory of how troll-ness is mutually exclusive with misogyny; or actually, I wouldn’t, but I’d love for you to think about the complete incoherence of that position.
– – – – – – –
*sociological, not numerical; if you have the urge to tell me that women aren’t a minority because there’s more of them, go look up the term and STFU.
Unfortunately true. I’ve been tracking this for years.
The worst instances I’ve seen have nothing to do with ideology. They’ve been attacks on women who were successful in tech-based areas. Their attackers, when they’ve been identifiable, were less successful men working in the same areas. They’re far more vindictive if the woman is young and attractive. They’ll claim it’s unfair competition, but the real logic is more like “I am going to hurt you because you’re supposed to be in the pool of people who compete for my attention, not people who compete for my job.”
When you’re dealing with irrational language, look at the way it works, not its ostensible meaning. In this case, the point is for it to hurt as much as possible. The attackers want these women (and other women like them) to feel so crushed and miserable that they cease to be part of the competition. Crude anatomical slurs and threats of rape are just an easy way to do it.
lol
Words mean what
Humpty Dumptysociologists say they mean.@Gilleil #17
Well “cupcake” I’m honoured you remember me and although your characterisation of my argument is wrong, it is an amusing way to satirise it ;)
so I guess Evolution is “just a theory” after all, huh?
stop being an ass.
Women aren’t a minority, but that doesn’t stop them from being an oppressed group. Of course, I’m a pedantic mathematician, so I’ll insist on using “minority” in its proper (i.e. mathematical) sense.
I don’t like how PZ is turning this blog into a feminist rag.
Surely there must be other topics to write about than this tiresome irrelevant garbage..?
Apparently, it’s not going to get any better anytime soon either. We’re raising a bunch more.
Survey: Sexual harassment pervasive in grades 7-12
http://news.yahoo.com/survey-sexual-harassment-pervasive-grades-7-12-050245126.html
Whaa! Whaa! Stop talking about these things that does not affect me.
Stuff it, fool.
On the plus side, it provides a useful housekeeping exercise, by driving away all the idiots.
Until women are no longer minorities in male dominated fields, it remains a useful term.
It’s always been true that women who assert themselves get abuse of a specifically misogynistic kind; that it would be compounded on the internet is spectacularly unsurprising.
The transparent cluelessness of the men who behave this way just has to be pointed to, and condemned, whenever possible.
As to cluelessness: if you’re male, and you don’t know that hitting on a woman in an elevator is creepy and unacceptable behavior, you may well think nothing of promiscuously tossing terms like “cunt” and “bitch” at those women who, for whatever reason, annoy you–or you may fantasize publicly about their being raped–without knowing that doing so says volumes more about you than about them. Only being repeatedly called on it has any chance of turning you back towards civilized behavior.
“What’s also dismaying is that I once would have thought that people of my ideological stripe, you know, those all-inclusive egalitarian liberals and the rational, objective atheists, wouldn’t be guilty of such anti-woman attitudes.”
Golly, that’s just so CUTE.
–Dude, wake the fuck up.
Carlie @ # 3: … then FREE SPEECH IS DEAD and we might as well pack it in and be a totalitarian state.
Or some fucking shit like that.
Possibly the phrase you’re looking for is, “Or the terrorists have won!!1!”
How sad that this all-purpose, all-American slogan has already been forgotten – kids these days!
“Whaa! Whaa! Stop talking about these things that does not affect me.”
You do realize that women are more likely to be religious…
type “Women & Islam: The rise and rise of the convert”
apparently 75% of new converts to Islam in western countries are western women.
Women are also a tiny tiny minority in the atheist community, and there is a reason you don’t find many women in technical fields, they are all about emotions and irrationality.
Who gives a shit what troll like you thinks? This is PZ’s blog. You don’t like what he does, either stop reading or start your own blog. Meanwhile, shut the fuck up about what he does post.
I see you missed the point.
*facepalm*
@ syggyx
Let me guess… you’re a man?
Oh, I forgot about makeup and clothes fetish…
anyone surprised that syggyx turned out to be a misogynist? no? didn’t think so.
No, we believe that men who toss around abusive language should not be protected from the perfectly legitimate revulsion that language causes.
At present, society often does so.
We’d like to see that change.
There’s the door.
Translation: Women are different so shut up.
Also, nice job of continuing the tripe that women are just not very smart.
Thank you for flying your true colors.
@ # 33, Ariel
Ariel, do you think women deserve this kind of special treatment?:
@ 54, Julian
From the swamp that breeds the above stereotype:
So long as that swamp exists, we’ll have to swat misogynistic nasties one at a time.
syggyx is just looking for attention because people are talking about things other than how big his penis is. Just ignore him.
So fucking sorry I will not be able to fix you a sandwich.
I should know better than to respond to this, but I’m going to:
Misandry does occur and is every bit as unacceptable as misogyny. But compared to misogyny, which continues to be rife in our society, misandry is rare. More importantly for this discussion, misandry is not being used as a weapon of intimidation in communication as misogyny is right now. Female bloggers are getting rape-spew from anonymous men all the time; by contrast, male bloggers are *not* getting threatening emails from anonymous women about how the man is wrong because he’s a “testosterone case” and about how the man needs to “shut up and go home to play with your Tonkas” or else the woman is “gonna come over there and break off your c**k in my p***y” or “bring a bunch of my homegirls and use your b**ls**k for a pinata.”
There’s no comparison at all.
Or, more correctly, put syggyx on the new blacklist of “people who have forfeited their privilege to talk on respectable blogs”, and put his info on said list that shall be made available to all.
syggyx:
And that’s why a reasonable person of reason like you just has to despise women. You are just fighting the good fight against irrationality.
Misandry is ubiquitous. If it wasn’t, then Sharon Osbourne wouldn’t of been able to say how fabulous it was to sexually mutilate a man just because he wanted a divorce. That isn’t just a singular example. It’s the culmination of decades of conditioning which has normalized the demonization of men.
“Yeah, sure, but all things aren’t equal.”
You’re right. By all measures of social success, women as a demographic are out performing men. If you don’t believe me, just ask Hanna Rosin. Recently there was a debate on Intelligence Squared and the ending vote was “yes, men are finished”. If superiority is what you want, then this is all good. If equality is what you want, then why all the hostility?
I have to ask. What is it about asking for equal consideration that is so threatening? What are you people so afraid of?
Cluelessness has nothing to do with it – other than yours; it is the deliberate use of fear to shore up the male privilege which such misogynists (rightly) see as threatened by any woman, anywhere, speaking out strongly and clearly against it.
I love that PZ is coming out with feminist flag flying. It makes me feel good to hang around here, and it makes me admire him more. Hooray for PZ the feminist, I say!
I especially love the discussions in the comment threads, because getting rid of internalized misogyny is a process, and the more I read the better off I am. And it is hard, yo, but it’s good to make progress and become a better human being.
I’m not going to respond to the misogynist troll douchecanoes outside of that, I just wanted to give a general “go team!” to those fighting the good fight in here. Your walls of text are not a waste!
LOL, you and your silly irrelevant unwarranted labels, everyone can see right through them, they hold no power whatsoever.
So, what the fuck is stopping you from writing on those topics? Or, if you’re too dumb and lazy to do that, point your browser to Google and search for one of the million other blogs wherein other people are spoon-feeding exactly the type of stuff that won’t challenge your weak brain and sense of self.
The world does not exist to suck your cock the way you like it sucked, you self-centred ass.
@Jonathan in #75: see the link I posted in #21.
Yes, Kai, why are you so threatened?
Gunboat Diplomat is right. Intentionally threatening racist and sexist language are related. It’s not just a matter of “looking for easy targets”; women, gays, and persons of color are generally tougher and more knowledgeable about being verbally abused than straight white men are.
Women and persons of color get targeted for abuse as a class. The intent is to oppress, not communicate. And speaking as a moderator of some years’ standing, when a commenter says yes, it’s hate speech, but they don’t believe in limiting speech of any kind because they’re a First Amendment absolutist, it’s something close to a sure bet that the speaker is a straight white male with a middle-class background.
Btw, I find it extremely interesting that every one of you ignored the fact I mentioned that 75% converts to Islam in western countries are western women.
I wonder why is that(not really)…maybe because it shows that women’ capability for rationality is severely lacking?
Sharon Osbourne said blah, blah, blah and this invalidates the argument that women have been and still are oppressed.
Poor arguing technique.
@hyperdeath #51
And what happens when you find out it was not the person you’ve harrassed but their 13 year old troubled son?
In any case don’t think a lynch mob is good for anyone, not least because who gets to decide whos worthy of this campaign of harrassment and how far it goes? You? Me? Not me. You really don’t want me at the head of anything like that.
Plus you may find they just love the attention. They get to report you to the cops. Maybe litigate against you. And what happpens when their neighbours form a new MRA support group to help them overcome teh evilz feministas… oh dear.
If only women were kept only in the house so that they may be saved from themselves.
Hey syggyx-
100% of the Catholic priesthood is male.
That definitely shows men’s capability for rationality is severely lacking, by your logic. More so than women’s!
Hey wait, aren’t 100% of Muslim Imams also men? Weren’t all of Jesus’s disciples men? The Dalai Lama is a man, too!
Men! So irrational! ALL THE TIME! I mean the pope actually thinks he has a direct line to God! What a buffoon!
Seriously you fail at logic, why don’t you go jump in the arctic ocean. There are starving polar bears out there, you could at least be useful that way.
I’d start with the stat that identifiable women online get 25 times as many harassing messages:
Physorg press release
and ask how equal and fair that is.
(That was back in 2007, and not much has changed: Guardian article)
—
First off, some of them are so-called upstanding members of society. They can harass and make rape jokes without much backlash. For example:
source
And there’s an association between misogynistic attitudes and predatory rapists:
Lisak cited in “Predator Theory” here: source
If it is a troubles thirteen year old boy, that boy can get the help that is needed. There is no reason for anyone, even a youth, to send rape threats.
@syggyx:
I really think you should consider converting yourself. Seriously, you’d be right at home there in so many ways and lots of Muslims don’t really believe in God anyway. So win-win!
I missed this earlier. whence the idea that misogyny and misogynist behavior is the domain of “honest-to-Zog paleo-stay-in-the-kitchen types”?
You are so fucking stupid it is cringe worthy.
You really can’t discern the critical difference between voluntary conversion of women to culturally external, idiotic and counter self-interest belief system to the established pre-scientific institutions and traditions??
Way to embarrass yourself dude..
syggyx said:
“The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey found a 60-40 percent breakdown among men and women who say they who have no religion.”
40% is not a tiny minority by any stretch of the imagination. Looks like I’m better at evidence based reasoning than you, and I’m a *gasp* woman.
Someone needs to air this place out. The trolls are stinking it up.
(ps: Species8472, I just have to say that I love your ‘nym and the title of your blog.)
All hail syggyn, the one rational and intelligent manly man in a sea of whiny feminists.
@ Phoenix Woman 14
That.
Exactly the mindset of my whole native culture, where “enculé” (anally penetrated) is the second most common insult, the first one being “con” (cunt).
We are doing better. Slowly. Well, maybe.
@ Jonathan
The two are not mutually exclusive. I may even be tempted to say that trollish behavior is indicative of a misplaced sense of superiority, and thus there would be unsurprisingly a big overlap between trollish behavior and one or more of misogyny/homophobia/racism/despise of [insert your favorite minority here].
And anyway, if it quacks like a duck, moves like a duck… You are right to call it a duck. If it’s just someone in a duck outfit, he is doing his pretense too well.
Oh, Jadehawk beat me to it.
It’s always the self-proclaimed ‘rational’ types that are the first to pepper their claims with emotional pleading. Next comes the shaming: “I expected better from this community” or my personal favourite, the Red Scare: “This place is (a) hivemind/echo chamber/full of groupthink.”
Is there any part of you that’s original or self-reflective, or are you just a repository for organs that someday might be useful to real people?
If you need money for a swimming pool/motorcycle and some booze, I’ll be happy to support the “Free Up Syggyx’s Corneas Fund”.
Gin and cannonballs, eh pal?
Ah. Other than wealth, earnings, senior positions in government, politics, business, science, medicine and the military, levels of school attendance in countries where this is not universal, levels of university participation in many countries, and freedom to go where they will and say what they wish, you mean?
More briefly: you’re a liar and a misogynist. Fuck off.
sure it is! you’re just using the wrong math, counting women as a whole person. considering how unimportant they are, they count at most as 1/10th of a person. that means they only add up to 6.25% see? tiny tiny minority.
Says the guy who’s certain that “there must be other topics to write about than this tiresome irrelevant garbage”, yet doesn’t seem to know how to Google them.
ChasCPeterson: And what, exactly, is wrong with allowing specialists who study social movements to define terms which describe the behavior of those social movements?
syggyx, male supremacist,
Let me guess, you see the fact that there is greater religiosity in the african american community as validating racism as well?
OK, can someone explain to me how come 75% of converts to Islam in modern western countries are modern western women?
Seriously people, get a grip already…
@ Jadehawk
Ah, I see my mistake. I’m doing the math wrong because women can’t do math. It all makes sense now. Let me just skip my next class and go back to the kitchen where I belong. Since I’m emotional and irrational, clearly I won’t understand what my professor will try to teach anyway.
I like it when the trolls beg for the derail.
Beg harder, fucker. I don’t believe you want it enough.
How about you first show me where you got that statistic. And then you can explain why you think 40% is a “tiny tiny minority” (or why you like making shit up, either is fine with me). And then maybe I’ll address your claim.
“Female bloggers are getting rape-spew from anonymous men all the time; by contrast, male bloggers are *not* getting threatening emails from anonymous women about how the man is wrong because he’s a “testosterone case” and about how the man needs to “shut up and go home to play with your Tonkas” or else the woman is ‘gonna come over there and break off your c**k in my p***y’ or ‘bring a bunch of my homegirls and use your b**ls**k for a pinata.’ ”
Friendly, I appreciate your due consideration. I think you’re one of the few who honestly does see misandry as just as bad as misogyny. But I think you’re mislead. The prevalence of attacks on male bloggers is largely unknown because: a) Men don’t generally speak up against attacks on them for being a man. b) If men did start to speak up, they would be harangued with the kind of intolerance I have received. Namely, stuff like “shut the hell up, men are the patriarchy and women are the victims, how dare you talk about ‘misandry’!” or “Women are attacked more often than men so it’s not even relevant!”. Those types of marginalization go on and on and I’ve seen them time and time again.
There is a problem. Namely, women are attacked by misogynists for talking about non-gender related topics far more than a man is. But here’s the kicker. That is only one context. In the wider context, there are certain things men can’t do without being attacked for speaking their mind. Such as, dissenting against mainstream ideas about men which a some man thinks is corrosive to society. We don’t get to a point where jokes about male sexual mutilation is fabulously hilarious on national TV, with the implicit consent by American culture, over night. It’s been a long, drawn out and systematic attack on the character of men as a class. The negative stereotypes are translated in to institutionalized discrimination that is very hard for the average person to see because it’s been so normalized. Only by people like me who are brave enough to question is will the general population ever be able to begin to see it for what it is.
[Stupid youtube video deleted, because I despise that moron. –pzm]
[Not banning you, because your inane “what about the menz?” bullshit is a nice example of the idiocy we have to fight.–pzm]
Which obviously has nothing to do with the fact that even in our enlightened Western culture, it’s the women who are expected to modify their faith to that of their partner, not the other way around. </sarcasm>
StarStuff!: No kidding. The good news is that I no longer have two huge math tests this week.
What a load off my mind! I’ve been trying to prepare an IGERT fellowship application for next year and figure out how to cram more math courses into my schedule, and now I only have to go make someone a sandwich.
I am so lucky.
Kai: So, do you have any actual facts for this? You’ve made some wild claims, and haven’t offered a damn thing to back them up except more claims and a youtube video full of wild claims.
I don’t think you can back them up.
Misandry is everywhere? Bullshit. Get real. In all my years on the internet, I have never seen men get abused like Kathy Sierra, or Mena Trott, or Xeni Jardin before she learned to shoot back. There’s a long list I could cite here, and they’re just the famous ones.
Who Knows? @102, what’s driving this isn’t primarily our childrearing; it’s our increasing economic insecurity, and the widening gap between rich and poor. A lot of men out there are afraid that they’ll get grouped with the losers, and wind up sliding backward down the economic ladder. They take out their insecurities on women, immigrants, persons of color, and anyone else they see as muscling in on “their” territory.
Men who go on about misandry and related subjects are announcing that they expect to find themselves among the losers — not in competition with women, but in competition with other men.
Ha, that made me laugh. Brave, heroic Kai! I salute you for standing up for the real oppressed group, teh menz.
You are a fucking Joke.
I suppose it is in your fevered nightmares.
Most people recognize that Sharon Osbourne is a thug. If she actually said what you claim she did — and I’d like to see a citation — it’s not like she’s “getting away with it”. Notice how she’s not guesting on major talk shows or being asked to host award shows, etc., like she used to? There are *good reasons* for that.
Yes, it is exactly one example. If you claim misandry is “ubiquitous”, you’re going to have to back that up with studies and statistics, not a series of shock quotes.
That statement would be utterly laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we’re not living on the version of the planet Venus that appears in “Queen of Outer Space”.
Even if that were true — which it isn’t –, does it give men the right to rape women or threaten to rape women? Repeatedly? Routinely?
“Equal consideration”? That’s rich. Telling a female blogger with whom you disagree that you’re going to drag her into a dark alley and sodomize her with a Coke bottle is hardly “asking for equal consideration.”
“We people” aren’t afraid of anything you have to say, but your type sure seems to be powerfully scared of women being able to speak their minds. Or do much of anything else without your approval. What a limiting and phobic way to live one’s life!
“Kai: So, do you have any actual facts for this? You’ve made some wild claims, and haven’t offered a damn thing to back them up except more claims and a youtube video full of wild claims.”
I can back them up. But facts mean nothing to a close and bigoted mind. The assumption that men can’t have social problems in our society needs to be challenged before facts have any meaning to someone who already has his (or her) mind made up. As an example that women are doing far better than men, see: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/
To see that our culture is full of corrosive, negative stereotypes: Pay attention.
@Kai – you’re not going to get very far here with the I have facts but you won’t believe them shtick. We’re fairly big on evidence here.
@ Kai
I don’t think you actually read that article, because it doesn’t say what you’re claiming it does.
what a pretty strawman; did you make it yourself?
Kai: Two words: “google scholar”. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If you like, I’ll explain the hierarchy of source material and peer review process.
Kai, you’re spewing nonsense. Male bloggers and journalists don’t get anywhere near as much gender-based abuse as women do; what they get is on average nowhere near as bad as what women get; and you never see men fall victim to the kind of gender-based abusive pile-ons that sometimes happen to prominent women.
Sorry, but no. I really do know what I’m talking about, and the level of unacknowledged abuse you’re asserting is simply not there. Your argument is one notch removed from “The lurkers support me in e-mail.”
Yes, that’s bravery alright. Sounding just like nearly every other fucking yob on the internet, on the internet.
That is quite possibly the most pathetic thing I think I’ve ever read. You’re about as fucking edgy as a stand-up comedian talking about the differences in the way white people and black people drive.
@ Kai
That article doesn’t have very many statistics either. It’s mostly anecdotes. And few sources are given for the statistics in it either.
You fail so hard at providing evidence.
“Yes, it is exactly one example. If you claim misandry is “ubiquitous”, you’re going to have to back that up with studies and statistics, not a series of shock quotes.”
See Paul Nathanson’s books, Spreading Misandry, Legalizing Misandry, and Sanctifying Misandry. Read some of the stuff written by feminist academics through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Read “Who Stole Feminism?” – which is not some right wing diatribe but a carefully researched book. Pay attention to the jokes which marginalize men on television and other forms of mass media. An effective way to really see it is to ask yourself: Would this be acceptable if the sexes were reversed?
” “Equal consideration”? That’s rich. Telling a female blogger with whom you disagree that you’re going to drag her into a dark alley and sodomize her with a Coke bottle is hardly “asking for equal consideration.”
“We people” aren’t afraid of anything you have to say, but your type sure seems to be powerfully scared of women being able to speak their minds. Or do much of anything else without your approval. What a limiting and phobic way to live one’s life! ”
Yes, equal consideration. Just because thugs are sending evil comments to women bloggers doesn’t negate the fact that misandric attacks are any less serious. Like you said, Sharon is a thug so her words aren’t important. Does that mean the words of thugs who are attacking women bloggers aren’t important?
I think you really are afraid because you’re so defensive. There is nothing for anyone to be defensive about. Not even the other people I see commenting who are being defensive against PZ Meyer’s blog post.
I see Kai is one of those fuckwits who thinks what happens in the US applied everywhere.
Kai, the US accounts for 5% of the world’s population. Since you made a universal claim, one not restricted to the US, you need to provide data that has global coverage. That you did not do so is dishonest.
But don’t you see, Jadehawk – you just assumed the strawman was a man! Why do you hate men?
I have to go to Latin now (stupid Latin! I guess this is what I get for checking Pharyngula right before class). You guys are going to have go on without me. Have fun.
Kai, could you direct us towards some scholarly articles about salaries/promotions being unequal in favor of women? I am skeptical that you can, but I would take a look if you cited to an actual academic article.
I agree with you here. PZ speaks his mind about feminism and all the MRAs come to attack him for ignoring teh menz.
Pretty ironic that you would complain about men being criticized when they speak out against the accepted culture, when you are doing exactly that.
LOL, PZ deleted a video of a known atheist which has over 900 000 views and over 90% of likes…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA
no, it most definitely is no such thing.
syggyx: LOL, you think popular people can’t be wrong.
“That article doesn’t have very many statistics either. It’s mostly anecdotes. And few sources are given for the statistics in it either.
You fail so hard at providing evidence.”
Sure, fair enough. So then why does TED have Hanna Rosin speak about her article if it’s totally baseless? The statistics of declining male enrollment in colleges, greater unemployment among men is common knowledge by now. I recommend Warren Farrel, one of the rare social scientist who researches the state of men in society.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2011/09/05/the-need-to-create-a-white-house-council-on-boys-to-men/
I mean, just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not true. The ignorance among liberal readers here is testament to the bias reporting on the true state of equality between men and women.
I’m sure the people of La Mancha will sleep peacefully tonight knowing that you are on the case.
syggyx
Did you find the citation for that 75% yet?
I take pride in the fact that you assume the people here arguing with you are liberal. I see no problem with equal rights being associated with liberalism.
In defence of my earlier suggestion-while the people doing this may not be physically 12 years old, their behavior is very much like it (lashing out at people they percieve to be easy targets to feel superior). While i admit that its scary that people are making these threats surely the best way to combat it is to collectively belittle them. this should have the dual effect of taking away whatever sick pleasure they get from it and hopefully showing their targets that they are not alone and that decent people have nothing but contempt for such tactics.
Bullshit.
I am a magnet for hate mail. I inspire legions of theists to hate, hate, hate me, and I do what I can to earn that hatred. I have made a standing joke of the goofy mail I get.
Yet I do not get anywhere near the venom and bilious, vicious scorn that any woman can get for just expressing an opinion on the internet. Compare and contrast: a man who openly expresses his contempt for Jesus, Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam and all their silly rites and rituals, against a woman who calmly says “Guys, don’t do that.”
I have worked so much harder to win the hatred of the mob, and yet a woman, in a mere moment of casual uppityness, gets inundated with hate mail and hate sites and screaming ranty youtube videos. It’s just not fair.
Misandry does exist, but it’s not ubiquitous, it’s not even close to misogyny in magnitude, and it’s extremely rare to find a male blogger singled out and detested for being male. If you want to find a man getting hated for his gender, you need to look to the guys who act feminine…which tells you it’s really all the same problem.
Jadehawk: Uh, the Superbowl myth is a myth and Sommer’s research is accurate. http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp
As for the rest of the article. Let’s assume the critique is correct. Making errors doesn’t make it a conservative diatribe. You have to actually read to book and not let some article tell you want to think.
But you don’t even need to take Sommer’s word for it. Just read some feminists texts and do a little research. Much of it is ideological. Some of the older texts are more explicit with anti-male rhetoric.
There you go dummy…
this is getting tiresome; so far, the menz-brigade has shored up either writings that were based on falsehoods, or writings that are so obviously about PHMT, anyone not invested in ignoring that fact would have noticed.
PHMT is not some revelation that needs to be brought to the ignunt librul feminazis. PHMT is what said feminazis have been trying to get rid of since before the newest crop of anti-feminists was even born.
The problem I see with rape culture (and attempts to eradicate it) is that it springs from the same well as rampant militarism, indifference to suffering, unchecked destructive greed, authoritarian abuse, etc. In the discussion on rape here last week, someone identified as a feminist asked me “why do you hate men?”, I think because of my cynical attitude about the way men are.
We won’t be rid of a culture that looks the other way on rape and rape-threats any sooner than we can be rid of war. Or cruelty, police abuse, massive inequality, and so on. Is it realistic to think we can change a man’s attitude about abuse of women but leave intact the impulse to express things like “we should just kill all the muslims”? I have heard many “normal” people express such a thing, as if it is a perfectly reasonable and moral position to take.
We’re a violent culture. Violence against women is just one part of it. But I am pessimistic about the chances of real change when the vast majority of the American population has enthusiastically cheered on what are mostly slaughter of innocent people (peppered with a few actual militants) disguised as just wars in the middle east. When police brutality is simply “cop culture”, and a day-to-day concern for average people. When rapacious greed has shipwrecked the world’s economy, and those that did it (and profited mightily from it) are both blaming and shifting the burden for it to the people who are suffering as a result, with the complicity of the government and media. Such is the power structure of our world—violent, delighting in subjugation of “inferiors”, indifferent to human suffering, seeking to exploit the weaker for gain, and seeking to blame the victim. The parallels to rape culture should be obvious to see.
I think racism offers a helpful example. People don’t generally change from being racists. Racists eventually die and less-racist people replace them. Racism is less overt and virulent because it was socially unacceptable. So it will be with rape culture. It will probably take a generation or so before we see the changes, where people will be ostracized for overt pro-rape
sentiment. But the official condoning of rape will probably not. The denials of the problem, and attempts to blame women will not. The view that women are “fair game” especially when drunk likely will not. These things come from ideas so central to how people view themselves, and a culturally American idea of its place of power and privilege in the world, that I don’t see a solution to just the “rape problem” outside of fixing the wider problem of power and violence.
I’ll give you $100 if you show me where I claimed it was. pay attention, idiot.
you’re such a clueless little twerp, it would be adorable if it weren’t so tedious.
Yes, that’s a real problem. My university biology program is about 60:40 female:male right now, and that tells us that there is a segment of the population that is falling behind.
If we were misandrists, you’d expect us to be glorying in that and praying for the day we enroll nothing but women. But that is not the case: we want to offer equal opportunities to everyone in the region, and we’d like a student body that is better representative of our community. We’d like to know what’s going on, and correct it.
But it’s not misandry. It’s an example of how sexism hurts everyone. It’s not just women who get shoe-horned into confining gender roles, but men as well, and I’ll tell you this: you talk to the good ol’ boys around here and they express a great contempt for education. Men drive trucks and have jobs that involve driving around in great manly tractors.
And always remember that you are a dummy because of your ladybrain, you are just so emotional, irrational and just loves you some clothes and make up.
The Guardian UK has a good recent article on this phenomenon:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/05/women-bloggers-hateful-trolling
See also this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/04/facebook-hate-speech-women-rape
Such women-hating attitudes can’t be blamed solely on religious stereotypes, since male superiority was widely incorporated into Social Darwinist thinking at the turn of the century. Darwin believed “man has ultimately become superior to woman” and that woman’s place in society was the result of nature.
The quote is taken from Darwin, The Descent of Man, Chapter 19. The logic behind it is quite convoluted:
“[Imagination and reason] will have been developed in man, partly through sexual selection,- that is, through the contest of rival males, and partly through natural selection, that is, from success in the general struggle for life; and as in both cases the struggle will have been during maturity, the characters gained will have been transmitted more fully to the male than to the female offspring.”
“It accords in a striking manner with this view of the modification and reinforcement of many of our mental faculties by sexual selection, that, firstly, they notoriously undergo a considerable change at puberty, and, secondly, that eunuchs remain throughout life inferior in these same qualities.”
“Thus, man has ultimately become superior to woman. It is, indeed, fortunate that the law of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes prevails with mammals; otherwise, it is probable that man would have become as superior in mental endowment to woman, as the peacock is in ornamental plumage to the peahen.”
From the modern perspective, this is pure drivel, although it may be an improvement over “God made woman out of Adam’s rib” – but really, it merely replaces a religion-based prejudice with a science-based prejudice. Nevertheless, you can still see it in Larry Summers types – probably indoctrinated with such themes at a young age.
It’s not so hard to see how men who believe this develop rage and hatred towards women who outperform them, is it? Bruised egos, wounded pride, the desire for revenge and retaliation – that’s the psychology behind it, I’d guess.
Of course, some women respond the same way when faced with competition. Alpha-dominance traits are seen in both women and men, as is true with chimpanzees – Jane Goodall observed dominant females deliberately killing the young of other females in the troop in order to maintain their dominance (Jane Goodall is awesome!).
Damn primates. God’s most beautiful creation? Oh, that makes me laugh!
Who gives a shit, syggyx. 75% of converts to Islam are women, therefore all women are emotional irrational doofuses. 25% of converts to Islam are men, but all men are NOT emotional irrational doofuses. You FAIL at logic. FAIL.
That’s even leaving aside Deen’s very good point in comment #158.
Plus I love the implication that I’m deeply stupid because I can’t see a difference between being raised in a stupid religion vs. choosing it. One, priests DO choose to center their WHOLE LIVES around religion, rather than just being a regular ol’ Catholic shmoe. Two, you’re implying that the female converts to Islam do so from, what, atheism? These women most likely already believed in God, what’s the giant difference between choosing a different version? People all have their own version of god/gods in their heads anyway, you’re just changing religious trappings. That’s just trading one set of myths for another, not going from a pristine pure-reason state to one of irrationality, so even with conversion statistics, it doesn’t imply any increase in stupidity. Or are you going to argue that mainstream western religions like Christianity are somehow more valid than Islam?
Protip: they’re all bullshit.
Also seriously, dude, think of the poor starving polar bears.
I didn’t know TED was a peer-reviewed journal?
Even if women outnumber men in some parts of society (like college), it doesn’t mean that men are now the oppressed ones. The rise in female college enrollment hasn’t even really started closing the gender wage gap either – the existence which definitely should be common knowledge by now.
Christina Hoff Summers, huh. Here you go:
http://fap.sagepub.com/content/12/4/491.short
(Her book is not mentioned in the abstract, but is one of the books studied. The critique applies.)
http://fog.its.uiowa.edu/~c07b150/riorden_article.pdf
(Critique of her characterization of the cause of problems for men and boys)
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/hdh9/e-reserves/Rosser_-_Too_many_women_in_college_PDF.pdf
(Critique of panic over sudden influx of women in college)
Ah, Paul Nathanson. The same Paul Nathanson whose testimony about the awful effects that legalizing same-sex marriage would have was ruled inadmissible in a court of law because his opinions were, and I quote the judge, “not based on observation supported by scientific methodology or […] on empirical research in any sense.” Yeah, *that’s* a reliable source.
Misandry *is* less serious than misogyny in this culture. Men are *not* being attacked and silenced with sexually brutal communication in anything like the numbers, or with anything like the severity, that women are. I’m sorry if your nanny once threatened to spank you and it messed you up for life, but you seriously need to take a reality check.
I didn’t mean to imply that the Great and Powerful Osbourne’s words weren’t important, and I didn’t mean to excuse them — again, assuming she said what you say she did, which you haven’t provided evidence for. I was trying to say that the quote you find so threatening and hideous was coming from a known source of ugly shit and does not reflect the views of, well, pretty much anybody else. Some of the people who are attacking female bloggers *might* be thugs, but we don’t know which of them is or isn’t, because they’re anonymous. What we *do* know is that there are a lot of these attackers and they use the tactic of the rape threat early, hard, and often. *They* are a problem. Sharon O. is vile, but she doesn’t represent a regiment of anonymous women out to silence men by using the language of sexual violence.
Women don’t scare me. Female communicators don’t scare me. An alleged culture of hidden and hushed-up misandry doesn’t scare me because it doesn’t exist. *You* don’t scare me; you disgust me. I feel both sad and ill for you, but at the same time I didn’t feel like being silent when you tossed your evidenceless and disingenuous hysteria out onto the forum like this.
nevermind Summers and her “one of the guys” shtick; here’s a blog that discusses that manages to discuss PHMT without sneering at the only thing likely to help: http://noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz.wordpress.com/
And more:
http://www.havenscenter.org/files/Connell2005_ChangeAmongGatekeepers.pdf
(Discussion starting on page 1806 of Summers)
http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/files/May17TruthBoysandGirls.pdf
(Study on the changes in achievement which concludes that boys are not being shortchanged, girls are just doing better)
Summers is a conservative analyst who wouldn’t know professional data gathering and analysis if it bit her.
syggyx
re: dummy
That’s what I thought.
Did you try clicking your own link?
PZ Meyers
“Misandry does exist, but it’s not ubiquitous, it’s not even close to misogyny in magnitude, and it’s extremely rare to find a male blogger singled out and detested for being male. If you want to find a man getting hated for his gender, you need to look to the guys who act feminine…which tells you it’s really all the same problem.”
Misandry is ubiquitous, but it’s just not as blatant as what you’re talking about. It takes form in our society in subtle ways, but that’s what makes it so insidious. Such as, the corroding of civil rights on college campuses as a result of the Department of Education’s recent Dear Collegue letter to Universities.
Another silent consequences is the suppression of male domestic violence victims. I don’t want to get in to a statistics debate because I do physics by training. But individuals such as Richard Gelles, Murray A. Straus and Erin Pizzey have done early, ground breaking work in showing gender symmetry in domestic violence. Said individuals have reported receiving death threats for their research (Erin Pizzey had to flee England in the 70’s for that reason).
Yes, it is unacceptable that women get attacked for daring to have opinions on the internet. But to act as if the amount of sex based hatred is disproportionate in society is irresponsible. Misogyny and misandry exist in our culture, likely in equal amount. It’s only their manifestation which is different. But that difference doesn’t make on any less important than the other.
The tricky part for someone like me is opening the minds to people who aren’t willing to take the time to understand something as invisible as misandry. The most I can ever hope for is perhaps a little bit more awareness of its possibility.
So remember dudes, when your bro cracks a rape joke, it might just be because he sincerely hates women.
If you don’t speak up to say that it’s not OK, you are doing two things:
1. Sending the message to Mr. Misogynist that you approve of his misogyny and
2. Making it impossible for women to tell you, Mr. Good Intentions, apart from Mr. Misogyny.
Do us a favor. Make it harder for the assholes to blend in with the decent men. Remember that being a man is not synonymous with being an asshole.
Kai: Here, let me summarize what I’ve read from you.
Pop culture reference, pop culture reference, huge claim, accusation, accusation, accusation.
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to do much better than this.
No, Kai.
No.
You do NOT get to derail this into trying to make people prove to you how much misogyny is a problem compared to misandry, or try to guilt-trip them that at this very moment some man is being ridiculed somewhere in the world.
The topic is the way women are treated on the internet. Full stop. Know why we’re not talking about how men are treated on the internet? BECAUSE THAT’S NOT THE FUCKING TOPIC. You want that to be the topic? Go start your own damned blog. Because right now, on this thread, the topic is not for all of us to admire your penis and sympathize over how it’s been insulted during your lifetime. There are lots of important topics we’re not discussing in this thread. Famine, water scarcity, health care, climate change, it goes on and on. Not discussing them here doesn’t make them unimportant, it simply makes them NOT THE CURRENT TOPIC. Know what else isn’t the current topic? Misandry. So no, you don’t get to derail off into it.
I’m sure Jonathan means to have a point about how rape threats are just used in emails in the same way threats of violence are. And, to a point, he’s right- it’s just that, in most cases, those threats are leveled mainly at women, and at least some conscious or unconscious thought must be assumed on whether the addressee is a woman, as rape threats tend to be a bit more frightening when addressed to women, in general. The fact that those thoughts might not be entirely conscious, and that they ARE generally directed toward women, is what makes it an actual (not SUPPOSED) rape culture. If all references to rape were consciously overt in the mind of the sexist arsehole sending them, that would probably imply it’s not so insidiously ingrained into the culture that it occurs subconsciously.
More people need to spend more time self-examining when they’re called on things. Seriously.
Perhaps Michigan will pass a law saying that you can’t prosecute rape if the man has a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction?
Don’t you people interfere with their sincerely held beliefs. You barbarians.
This always seems to me as tied into the notion that being good is a destination, not a process. People think they are done, it causes shitty thought far too often.
Them evil purple aliens is all around us, but you cain’t see ’em ‘CAUSE THEY HIDE REAL GOOD! Their influence on so-ci-et-y is SUB-TILE! That’s what makes ’em so DAYYYYYNGEROUS!!
Dude, you can repeat your “misandry is everywhere” mantra until the cows come home, but that doesn’t make it any more true or convincing. Until you can actually cite some peer-reviewed papers that contain evidence for such a situation, to paraphrase John Lennon, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone (here) anyhow.
Very true, Dhorvath. Also, sorry that comment was so very far down from the poster it was addressing- started typing it, got busy doing other stuff, finished typing it, and it’s a mile away, now.
slowpoke.jpg, that’s me!
Brave, heroic Kai! Never give up on your struggle to minimize misogyny. Your obviously ridiculous claim that misandry is ubiquitous and as bad a problem in our society as misogyny may earn you some criticism. You may be called purposefully ignorant. You may be labelled part of the problem. Don’t let that stop you though. “What about teh menz” needs to be shouted from every mountain top until people realize where the oppression truly is.
I’ll repeat myself. Kai, you are a fucking joke.
Kay. You could spell the name of the owner of this blog correctly.
(See what I did there.)
Having read manboobz for a while now, I have to say that generally the most misandric comments come from the misogynists anyway. They’re the ones always talking about how men are raving beasts who can’t control themselves in the presence of a skirt above the knee (if the topic is rape) while at the same time saying that men should run everything because they’re the rational ones.
“Ah, Paul Nathanson. The same Paul Nathanson whose testimony about the awful effects that legalizing same-sex marriage would have was ruled inadmissible in a court of law because his opinions were, and I quote the judge, “not based on observation supported by scientific methodology or […] on empirical research in any sense.” Yeah, *that’s* a reliable source.”
That’s unfortunate. SO I guess that means we can rule out Darwin’s research because he was a chauvinistic Victorian? :) I don’t agree with that aspect of his beliefs. But you can’t discount his research without actually reading it and disproving it. ;)
“Misandry *is* less serious than misogyny in this culture. Men are *not* being attacked and silenced with sexually brutal communication in anything like the numbers, or with anything like the severity, that women are.”
No, people like me are just being told we’re disgusting and immoral by arguing that misandry is just as prevalent, if only more “invisible” – for no reason than speaking my voice. Oh, and to see Osbourne saying what she said watch the Amazing Atheist video I posted above. It has the clip.
“I didn’t mean to imply that the Great and Powerful Osbourne’s words weren’t important, and I didn’t mean to excuse them — again, assuming she said what you say she did, which you haven’t provided evidence for. I was trying to say that the quote you find so threatening and hideous was coming from a known source of ugly shit and does not reflect the views of, well, pretty much anybody else.”
It isn’t just Osbourne. It’s in our culture. The sexual mutilation of men is heralded as excellent vengeance for any uppity man who displeases a woman. Hell, I’ve been threatened by a bigoted woman with sexual mutilation for displeasing her. It’s there, it’s invisible because it’s acceptable behavior.
Also, Osbourn represents the sentiments of a group of man haters in society. Much like these guys who attack female bloggers represent that minority of misogynistic men in our culture. It goes both ways. It’s kind of a symmetry. Ever hear of it?
“*You* don’t scare me; you disgust me.”
The reason why I disgust you isn’t because I said anything along the lines that women deserve those attacks. I don’t think they do. I disgust you for dissenting, for not playing along with the status quo. I mean, if people had my email address, imagine the sort of hate mail and threats of attack I’d be getting by now. People would be saying how much I need to have my dick cut off about now. Sure, my opinion is controversial. But it doesn’t deserve the amount of vitriol I’m getting. But thank you for proving my point! :)
How are you being brave? Do you write your whiny diatribes from a barrel going over the Niagra falls?
Much of this supposed misandry is actually toxic masculinity – the expectation that men must be macho, tough and competitive, constantly jockeying for rank, and can’t ever admit to being victims or having feelings lest they be compared to women.
I literally fell out of my chair laughing just now.
To those wishing to avoid my fate, don’t picture Bill O’Reilly (or your bigot of choice) saying that.
@Kai
I may be behind in the responses here, but I keep hearing you say the following:
1) You are reminded that this is a post about the masses of violence threatened at copious female bloggers.
2) You reply by saying that Sharon Osborne said something truly abhorrent.
That’s like saying you’re not richer than I am if you have a million dollars because I have one dollar.
I am genuinely sorry that you carry so much rage. Can you please offer personal examples where misandry has affected you?
Here’s a tip: just because things are hard in your life, it doesn’t follow that the reason is misandry. How many women are really in a position to make the decisions that are screwing things up for you?
er, second sentence: Which makes toxic masculinity just another manifestation of misogyny. (hit the wronb gutton)
Your asinine, un-evidenced point of view is receiving vitriolic attacks, as it should. Haven’t seen one example of someone telling you you should have your “dick” chopped off though. I guess i missed that attack on you because it was so subtle and invidious as to be invisible, eh?
“Them evil purple aliens is all around us, but you cain’t see ‘em ‘CAUSE THEY HIDE REAL GOOD! Their influence on so-ci-et-y is SUB-TILE! That’s what makes ‘em so DAYYYYYNGEROUS!!”
Would you mock the feminists who claimed that misogyny was invisible in society? It was invisible because it was so socially accepted. It’s implicit in the culture. That’s why feminist employed deconstructionism in order to flesh it out. Now that we can all see it we take it for granted.
But because of the backlash against men due to the feminists’ perceived wrongs, the pendulum has swung the other way and hatred of men is invisible in the same manner. Only with deconstruction of our society can people start to become more aware of it.
I don’t think I’m really that far off considering how sensitive of a nerve I’m hitting. I’m touching on something that is understood on a deeper level. I think that makes people feel threatened. Because if I really was speaking nonsense – such as, “The first law of Newton is Green!” – I would be ignored. I wouldn’t be called vile, disgusting and all that good stuff.
Where is all of this great entertainment that is based on women castrating men?
And it is poor defenseless men who just displeases a woman.
And I know I am going to regret this, what did you do that displeased a woman?
(I am taking part of a derail here, aren’t I?)
Since a background in physics should if anything actually help in a “statistics debate”, this needs translating from the MRAese. I suggest:
I don’t want to get in to a statistics debate because I know I’d lose.
BTW, Kai, your inability to cite any substantial evidence for your claims is not the only thing making you look an idiot here. Twice misspelling the blog-owner’s name (as “Meyer” and “Meyers”) indicates quite clearly that you are completely unable to process information that is right in front of your eyes.
How do you interpret people falling out of their chairs laughing at you a sign of feeling threatened?
Kai
If you are defining misandry as hostility to men in the sense which people think or feel it, maybe it is as prevalent.
But how much misandry results in violence? How much results in actual, behavior-changing fear? I remember in college 20 years ago walking to my lab building late at night and there was a woman walking ahead of me. As soon as she was aware of me, I could see her tense up, looking over her shoulder every few seconds, and walking as fast as she could without running. It was startling to see such palpable fear. Since that experience, through my adult life I’ve observed this scenario repeat itself many times. No matter how normal I look or how benign my intentions, women are conditioned to be afraid in that situation.
Misandry as a sentiment may be as common, but I guarantee you and I and 99% of men take no heed to it as we go about our daily business. It is virtually no real threat to me; at worst it could be annoying. Not so with misogyny. Some men act violently on their misogyny, enough in fact that in general women live with a whole set of behavioral rules to protect themselves.
Misandry and misogyny are equivalent only in the most limited, abstract way. In every way that actually counts, they are not. Most principally, the real, practical, “do I need to be concerned about this?” or “does this significantly affect society?” or “does something need to be done?” questions is answered YES for misogyny and NO for misandry.
Sorry, that crazy text string user name is me.
Dude. You’re being shouted down because you are OFF TOPIC. Didn’t you see my post with all the all-caps the first time? I even tried to use small words so you could understand. You are trying specifically to derail because you can’t stand the fact that we’re talking about women. That is your only point.
well, there IS castration porn… but half of it’s gay. >_>
I don’t know what is more stupid, Kai’s claim that misandry and misogyny are equally present and harmful in society, or his belief that his “arguments” are putting anyone here on the defensive.
No sir. The MRAssholes are the most misandroynist ones. The idea that men ARE as that bad and thus should be entitled to act that way? Disgraceful.
Chill out. It’s the internet. Anyone not strong enough to shrug off idiotic comments should stay confined to Facebook. That said, I support mods cleaning up their comments and ip banning offensive users. However, the thing I like most about the internet is that anyone can say whatever they want with virtual impunity.
See I can see the claim that misandry and misogyny are equally present in some cases, since some of the misogyny includes the premise that men are stupid permaerect rape ogres who we need to lay off because they can’t not be horrible.
That’s not the point that he’s making though.
Have any children?
And here is Tom just dismissing the entire issue.
Thank you, Tom.
@215 Pteryxx
… which means it is another form of misogyny.
@Species8472, yeah… which sentence I made later, because my fingers didn’t get enough sleep. *nodnod*
Kai, re: misandry
On the other hand becoming aware of misogyny only requires a functioning brainstem and the most basic sensory apparatus.
@230 Tom
Yes it is, and the point here is not the abuse alone, which is commonplace on the internet. It’s the form and severity of the abuse directed at women and the disproportionate distribution of it and the fact that this disproportion is rooted in misogyny.
Take it like a man right? I’d wager that these women who persist despite the abuse are stronger then many of the men. The sad bit is that you don’t have to provoke anyone at all as a woman to receive abuse. PZ has to work hard for his.
“That’s like saying you’re not richer than I am if you have a million dollars because I have one dollar.
I am genuinely sorry that you carry so much rage. Can you please offer personal examples where misandry has affected you”
Thank you for your reasoned response. I think that’s fair. If people are really unaware of something then it can come across as non-sequitor. But you’re mistaken to believe it’s personal. Sure, I’ve had hate directed at me but I’ve learned to not let it affect me.
What I see are men who are in pain due to various socio-economic reasons. But such pain is ignored because it’s not taken seriously. Earlier I recommended researchers who have found gender symmetry among IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) (ie, Richard Gelles, Murray Straus), but often research is mixed depending upon how its interpreted (http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/measuring.htm). But the fact remains, it’s not so black and white as it’s often believed.
So what’s the point? I say misandry is “invisible” but just as insidious because of the consequences. I have to dig and go to places which aren’t mainstream and dig out the wheat from the wheat from the chaff. But I hear stories of how men are left destitute by unfair family court cases, false accusations (of abuse, attacks, etc). Or, how schools are failing boys and then blaming them for “failing to adapt” to a more “traditionally feminine skilled work force”. Men who are abused have been denied access to shelters because of his sex, men are arrested after being abused by his wife after calling the police because he’s the man. A lot like how the early feminists didn’t have the statistics to prove their point because the system was rigged against them. But you wont hear it on mainstream because mainstream doesn’t want to hear it. Much like how people hear don’t want to hear it. But it exists and people like me are here to tell you to be more open minded about it. I struggle to explain because it’s hard to get through to people and the indifference of mainstream sources doesn’t help. But it’s not good and it wont get better until we do something, and who knows what the consequences will be.
I’m not going to try and convince anyone. I provide what information I can with the hopes that perhaps one person might have and inkling to be just a little bit more aware. But I know it’s out there and it will become more and more difficult to deny. So enjoy ya’ll enjoy the little comfortable bubble, null of any nuanced understanding of gender dynamics, while you can.
It’s just the status quo, which is eternal, unchangeable, and always good. Am I right, bros?
I’m going to guess that the worst harassment Tom has ever received on the internet is people calling him a moron.
And gays who don’t like being bullied should stay in the closet. At least Kai is fighting for something that he sees as unjust. He is wrong about the magnitude of the problem he is focused on, and is dismissing efforts to solve a much larger problem, but at least he is not an apathetic loser like you Tom.
@Pteryxx
Mhm. Just had to point it out :)
I’ve had first hand experience with this form of misogyny directed towards me as a boy. The “girls are inferior. You don’t wanna be like ’em”-bullshit.
???!
The patriarchy hurts men too. This is not news.
Kai: Source material has been provided to you. You should do other people the courtesy of reading theirs, since you insist we read yours.
Chill out! It’s just the Internet. That amorphous nebulous sentient entity that is like an old god with the morality of a whirlwind and a consciousness beyond our grasp or understanding. I mean it’s not like it’s PEOPLE doing this.
And men in Kansas who were released after beating their wives because legislators are morons and didn’t give a shit.
Hey, missed the point again. Why am I not surprised? I don’t reject Nathanson’s claims because he’s against same-sex marriage. I reject Nathanson’s claims because they aren’t scientific.
Not my job to disprove it. *You’re* the one making the extraordinary claims here — the burden of proof is on *you*. I’m sure you’ll cite the actual peer-reviewed research I’ve requested *any day* now…
The irony is like unto a blue flame applied to my eyeballs.
The She-Woman Man-Haters Club?
Yes, gender-based abuse goes both ways. But it is *not* a “symmetry”. The lion’s share of sexually abusive communication is aimed at women by men, not vice versa, no matter how many times you claim otherwise.
You don’t disgust me for “dissenting.” You disgust me because you’re being irrational, claiming victimhood for yourself, and trivializing the suffering of the actual victims. You’re like the guy who tells people he has a perpetual-motion machine in his garage but won’t show it to anyone, and then insists the government is oppressing him (much worse than it’s oppressing, say, Native Americans) because the Patent Office won’t even look at his application.
Um, no, they wouldn’t. Your castration complex is showing.
Your opinion isn’t controversial. It would need to have *substance* to be controversial. And you deserve every bit of vitriol you’re getting, because you’re wrong, you’re whining, you’re not honestly listening or responding to other people’s comments, you’re repeating yourself, and you’re apparently delusional, to name a few things.
I found it rather eye-opening that there are individuals on twitter doing feed-scrapes for ‘elevatorgate’ and then responding to those posts about how ‘horrible’ Rebecca is.
Fucking psychos.
It’s a shame so much energy has to be spent looking inward on the skeptical/atheist movement to expose what feels like pretty rampant misogyny (or is it just so vocal and vile it feels rampant?). On the other hand, if it can’t be burned out of existence within these ranks than I have little hope for anywhere else.
I hope the energy to continue to drag this crap out into the light doesn’t fade. I don’t want these assholes to feel comfortable or free to spew their crap ever again.
Right, because the internet is fortunately not composed of real people.
If it were, we’d have to face the fact that real people think rape is amusing, and that repeating that to rape victims is even more amusing – just so long as they can get away with it.
Sexism, like racism, isn’t something that should be censored – no, no, on the contrary, I want to know just exactly who around me hates people based on the color of their skin or the shape of their bodies. It should, however, be widely and loudly condemmed. It should be ridiculed, it should be reviled, it should be viewed as an proudly-worn badge of stupidity and ignorance.
That’s not censorship, it’s sense.
The claim that schools aren’t designed for boys is strange given that, when our education system was designed it was entirely for boys. And Kai? Remember that being murdered or raped or having broken bones is actually worse than being slapped. Also, self-defense is not abuse.
But on topic, I edit Wikipedia under a gender-neutral neutral name and thus am assumed to be a man. (‘Cause men are the default human, dontchya know.) But when I venture into feminist related articles, I’m read as female and then the claws come out.
fuck off. No one cares what stories you hear from misogynistic websites. Cite some scholarly articles about rates of false accusations for abuse and attacks compared with the rates of false accusations of other offenses. I heard a story about this magic man in the sky who watches our every actions. You know why i don’t believe it? The same reason i disbelieve your vacuous assertions, no evidence.
Lastly, I just want to say. The state of men in society is similar to the state women were in 50 years ago. That is, bias court rulings and college enrollments, etc. The causes aren’t identical and there are differences. The difference mainly being, for women it was due to a patriarchal system. For men now, it’s due to a “patriarchy theory” of maleness which enables false conceptions of men and their role in society and relationship to women (according to patriarchy theory, all mens’ relation to women is one of oppressor, but that is simply not true. The vast majority of men and women have historically been pretty equally oppressed by strict gender roles). Historically, it’s been the minority of men who have held the patriarchal power in society. For the average family farm, which used to be the majority for thousands of years, men and women have been too entrenched in their gender roles to oppress each other anywhere to the extent that feminism’s patriarchy theory claims.
So while the pendulum has swung the other way to compensate for the power a minority of men have enjoyed for centuries. The majority of men who’ve had no real social power not much has changed beyond the general liberalization of Western culture. But the male gender role has been made worse due to a simplified clumping of all men as being equivalent to the top 1% (ie, patriarchy theory). By making men out to be part of the evil class, it makes it easier to marginalize them to the point that even blatantly immoral and illiberal policies and actions are allowed to happen without the concern of general out rage from the mainstream.
If that makes no sense to you, sorry. To sum it up: The family farm wife is now liberated. The family farm husband is still encumbered by his old gender roles and such a state persists due to very strong anti-male sentiments which insist ALL men are uber powerful over all women.
It’s just not that simple. It’s not “all men” or “all women” anything.
Tom,
“Chill out”? Way to be part of the problem, jackass.
*sigh* I’m sick of dudes like you constantly trying to silence us.
Who said you could leave the kitchen? And take those pants off, it’s undignified for a man. Put on a skirt for christ’s sake!
Kai: People have been trying to tell you it’s not that simple for hours now. Your insistence that it is that simple (women advantaged, men disadvantaged) is the essentialist claim on this thread.
Only rich people are assholes?
Awesome, after reiterating the same fucking point over and over again without offering any reason to believe what he is peddling, Kai the fuckwit is finally flouncing.
Go enlighten others about the oppression of teh menz, you brave, fearless, manly man.
@Kai:
You claim that misandry and misogyny are EQUALLY PREVALENT, in the context of threats of sexual assault or battery made to people with online presences.*
You have not submitted ANY evidence of this supposed equal prevalence. Zero. Zilch. The research you cite doesn’t even address this issue. It is totally irrelevant. It therefore doesn’t matter whether it is of high or low quality, or whatever.
Now, the anecdotal evidence presented by PZ in his post is not incredibly probative or persuasive because it is, of course, anecdotal. However it is infinitely more so than the empty set of pertinent evidence that you have provided.
As you have not provided any evidence in support of your claim, the burden of proof is still on you.
* If you aren’t talking specifically about such threats, then you should probably not be in this thread. I mean, all you have to do is look at the title.
I can’t understand the oppression idea of men. Are people just that passive about their environment?
You know things are so tough if you’re not black now a days…
All these organizations fighting for gay rights…but now no one is paying attention to the abuses for the single straight people! It’s so much harder to be straight than gay now!
And the patriarchy was always just the top 1%!
It’s not like spousal abuse ever shows up in say, trailer parks!
And the media is entirely decided by the elites…it doesn’t respond to supply and demand at all!
#258 Ing:
It’s simple confirmation bias. If you wish to hold the belief that men are oppressed, then you simply have to go out into the world and watch a bunch of people getting oppressed. When a man gets oppressed, you explain it as “a man getting oppressed because of his gender.” When a woman gets oppressed, you explain it as “yeah, sure, it’s a woman being oppressed, but you know, I’m sure if a man had been in the same situation, he would have been oppressed in the same way, so it’s actually gender-neutral.”
Anecdata:
In my current job, I leaf trough tens of papers with information about various businesses every day. It’s interesting to note how businesses that have 70% or more female workers nearly always have male directors. It’s the textile industry or similar traditionally female jobs, but the bosses are nearly always male. It’s an interesting coincidence, really.
abuse of straight people is invisible until you deconstruct society, that is why it is so invidious. duh.
hatred of straight people is ubiquitous and as bad as homophobia. You would see that if you did’t have your mind closed to all the evidence… that i will not supply.
If you want to see some GLORIOUS full technicolor fireworks and vuvuzella level misogyny and misandrony read some Peirs Anthony. It’s like transcripts of D&D games run at a MRA or Nambla meeting!
I’m finding I really like ‘kyriarchy’ as a term to describe the socio-economic conditions causing these problems. Patriarchy, while undoubtedly mostly accurate as it relates specifically to issues affecting women, causes me distress as one of them man-types :P
All sarcasm aside, though, I do like the more comprehensive umbrella of causation that the term implies, and part of why we have this patriarchy issue is seeded in religion and philosophy.
All that being said, the sheer volume of BS that female bloggers and such have to put up with between comments and emails seems staggering to me. It’s… disheartening that society sees fit to lower women so much.
“It should, however, be widely and loudly condemmed. It should be ridiculed, it should be reviled, it should be viewed as an proudly-worn badge of stupidity and ignorance.”
I agree. However, people operating on the internet need to be strong and not take it too personally. To do so would be to feed the trolls. The way I see it is that in most cases there is no such thing as abuse on the internet. Someone calls me a name or threatens me I ignore it because I know it isn’t real (of course this doesn’t include examples of real abuse such as child predation or specific real life threats). Just because the threat is gender specific doesn’t make it any more real. I think ignoring the trolls would be more effective than addressing them.
I know you were being jokey here, but probably best not to do so in any of these threads that quickly are filled with exhausted angry people. You might be treated meanly.
Kai:
*choke*
Seriously? You’re going with that, huh?
“Hello, dear souls, and welcome to the birthing queue. Now, before you are born, I’d like to discuss a little thing we like to call, ‘Your role in society.’ Female souls, you have a strict duty to bear more children. That means submitting to your husband, making sure his life is as easy as possible, having sex with him when he wants, making him dinner, and so on and so forth and et cetera. Also, while you are just as intelligent as your male counterparts, please don’t expect your opinion to be taken seriously, as you are, after all, only women, prone to fits of emotion, and not fit for intellectual endeavors. Now, now, please stop your muttering. I did not make the rules. These are just the roles you play. The men have it just as bad.
“Male souls. Yes, that’s you queued up on the blue line. Your role is to choose your career, to help guide society, make it safe for frail womenfolk to walk the streets in their petticoats and corsets and frilly lacy undergarments. Oh, for… Why does that line get that particular response every time? Please stop that. You’re not 14. Yet.
“So, as I was saying, you have very strict roles to which you must adhere. Men are the leaders, the rulers, the pursuers of knowledge and intellect. Women are the serfs. Both roles are quite horrendous, so please don’t think you have it better or worse than the other sex. But seriously. Female souls, do whatever your husband says.”
@Tom
I repeat. Do you have children?
There are so many ways to interpret a situation.
1) If females are reaching parity in school, why is that seen as a negative? Why is “failure to adapt” even part of the conceptual construct? Why can’t it just be “conditions are becoming more equitable for female children and that’s a good thing?
a) Considering that it’s been well established that females with more education make less money than males with less education, doesn’t it seem more likely that striving for higher education is adaptive on the part of females, especially considering that lucrative blue collar jobs are traditionally male dominated? And that those industries are often (at the very least) perceived to be unwelcoming to females? Doesn’t it seem most likely that women are going into and succeeding in secondary education because they don’t have any other options?
b) Even if that wasn’t the case, doesn’t this so called “adaptability” stem from cultural training and expectations? That people place different expectations on male and female children, an issue which has been traditionally addressed by feminism?
2) You say you’re a physicist (or more likely a student of physics). What is the actual male/female breakdown in your class or workplace? Among your instructors/superiors?
3) Can you see why there is a difference between a movement to empower a traditionally oppressed group and a movement to preserve the power imbalance held by the traditionally dominant group? Can you see the stark difference between the civil rights movement and the White power movement?
a) My grandmother was born before women had the right to vote. THE RIGHT TO VOTE. Women were still required to get their husband’s signatures to open credit cards and bank accounts within my lifetime (I’m in my thirties). I went to a wedding a few years ago where the bride was admonished to remember that her husband was head of the household. Oppression, social and legal against women is not something fabricated. It is very specific. Feminism has arisen to fight for the notion that are equal in value to men and thus deserving of all rights and opportunities afforded to men. Rights and opportunities which we have established have been denied.
i) How does what you’re “fighting for” compare to that?
4) Why are you so invested in this notion of overwhelming misandry? It’s clearly a personal reason and I’m curious what it is.
a) Do you deny that misogyny and inequality for women exists?
i) If you do then… there’s nothing more to say. The evidence and history is out there and there is no excuse for anyone with a basic modicum of reading comprehension to disbelieve this, except for a deep psychological need that I won’t go into.
ii) If you do acknowledge the patently obvious then participate in the conversation at hand.
Do you think it is okay for people to launch avalanches of sexual threats on females bloggers because they are females?
Tom:
I’ve noticed that ignoring sexism and racism has historically made the situation better.
We might if one out of every four people were likely to have their family murdered.
Why is it a sign of strength to ignore a constant stream of abuse? Standing against it is what requires strength.
You are an idiot. Responding to silencing tactics by shutting up and being quiet is feeding the misogynist trolls.
again, you are an idiot.
Any evidence for this view? The history of progressive movements contradict this claim.
“I repeat. Do you have children?”
No, but I have a two year old niece that might as well be.
Chill out! It’s just society.
What are you, stuck in 1993?
@Tom
Want to give me a link to their facebook?
If “No” then I think I’ve made my point.
Kalliope: Current break down of male to female physics students and related articles:
http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/ford/files/11/Elena_Weinberg.pdf
(Ford Foundation presentation paper on biases in academia)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/04t1378w80027442/
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rhr12MIJ1fkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA93&dq=proportion+gender+physics+students&ots=na67cEUmal&sig=ddHvEidaiqOV9F4-b9to5_H6DbU#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080423/full/452918a.html
(Women make up 10% of the physics faculty in the US)
I mean, Tom…you can surely trust me sending e-mail to them. It’s just the internet right?
Kalliope, that’s an excellent point.
And this:
http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/crowther/ejse/potvin.pdf
http://www.aps.org/programs/women/sitevisits/summary.cfm
You’re an idiot, Kai.
Anecdotally, the stories I’ve heard from women I know in physics and engineering about the treatment they receive from their fellow students and some faculty are horrific.
Ing@268
Fair ’nuff!
So, who wants to lobby to force the Department of Education to include studies on privilege in early social studies curriculum? Not having been a commenter here for long, I don’t know how many times this has been brought up (probably a lot), but it occurs to me that it would be so damned helpful, and I never hear about the idea much of anywhere (or, perhaps I’m just reading the wrong blogs, and the media doesn’t give a shit about it, because Joe Shmoe isn’t smart enough to understand it).
Seriously, do we HAVE a feminist lobby? If so, one would hope that it would be more powerful :/
@mouthyb
It blows my mind that someone in such a male dominated field/study area would cry foul.
oh, yes, of course. men are being raped by their wifes left right and center and forced to stay married to them; men are dying because they’re being denied a basic right to bodily autonomy; men are actively banned from a long list of careers and occupations; bosses are legally allowed to fire men after they marry with the excuse that they shouldn’t be working now anyway; wifes can request that they be fired for that same reason; etc.
or, you know, men are simply lagging behind in abandoning the old patriarchal gender roles. sure, we need to help them and we need to get rid of the toxic masculinity that is actively hurting their development; but this is not the same as what women faced in the 1960’s. Not.Even.Close.
It isn’t a bad idea. I’ve found the best lessons on the race relations at least for kids are the ones that highlight that even without people realizing it, there is different baggage that comes along with racism.
Lobbiests for progressive charities have a cash flow problem…compared to the military and religious lobbying. N.O.W. though may count?
@jamesemery
There is a line of thinking that says the invention of the novel and other first person narratives helped people become more empathetic and compassionate.
Of course, girls got to read lots of first person accounts of male lives, and still get to see that in the movie. Males aren’t often asked to put themselves in the shoes of female protagonists (or protagonists of color, etc.) And the stories that are told from those points of view tend to be uplifting.
Maybe a simple exercise where boys and girls “reverse gender” for a day or two (not all at once, just a few at a time) would affecting for kids of a certain age.
Kalliope: If we’re talking about Kai, it is not uncommon for the male physics students at my university (can’t speak for others) to deal with the severe stress of a graduate science education by taking a metaphorical shit on minorities or women.
I’ve been to some of their parties and know some of them. They literally amuse themselves by telling rape and domestic violence jokes at the few female students in their department. I nearly got in a fist fight the last time I went to one of those parties. One guy followed me around telling me he had a huge cock, and others kept commenting on what women were good for.
It’s not abuse. It’s noise. It’s someone trying to get your attention by making a racket.
I never said shut up. Keep posting about whatever it is you are talking about. Just realize that responding to trolls gives the them satisfaction and incentive to keep it up.
Well, if this were real life things would be different
It’s not society. It’s the internet. If I started hearing these thing IRL I would change my tune instantly. The fact is that these people only say these things because it’s the internet.
Clearly you haven’t.
As a post-grad physics student I observe that the male/female ration here isn’t bad at all. About 1/3 are women. On the faculty level it is a bit worse, but there are a few female professors. At least a good number of researchers and post-docs are women. In my old department it was 50/50.
I should ask one of them some time how it is to be a woman who’s a professor in physics in Norway. Even if things aren’t as bad here as it seem it is elsewhere, I doubt they haven’t experienced misogyny at all in their career. Not long ago a number of sexual harassment cases were revealed in another department in my university where male professors were harassing female post-grad students.
@Tom
Then give me the links and let me e-mail them.
Misogyny is a series of tubes.
I’ve never heard of the NOM applying to memes.
I fail to see how someone sending an e-mail is different from a stranger yelling at you on the street.
Tom #290:
And they get that same incentive when no one tries to make them stop. Silence is taken for agreement.
Audley:
Oh hai, we chicks just gotta grow some balls, ya know? Really, why can’t we be all chill and casual like the menz? It’s just rape stuff, nobody takes that serious ’cause everyone knows no one ever actually gets raped. Nope. Not at all. If we just stop being uppity, we’ll be okay, oh yeah.
Christ, Tom makes me feel like I’m reading needfulcarp again.
@Tom
No seriously, if it’s not a problem send me your niece’s info and I’ll just forward any abuse by e-mail I get to them.
It’s noise TO YOU. It’s something YOU can ignore, or think you could. It’s abuse to the women hurt and silenced by it, and there’s research (not just anecdotes) backing that up. You’re discounting a real problem because it doesn’t affect YOU.
Good point, what with the recent string of female Presidents…
Oh.
Well, with the current majority of female Senators and Congressmen…
Oh.
Ok, so, the buisness community, with the majority of Fortune 500 CEO’s being women, we can see that…
Oh.
Um, well, I meant that the majority of heads of major universities are all women, so…
Oh.
Given the strong majority women hold among the members of the NAS…
Oh.
With the majority of doctors…
Most Labor Union directors…
Bank presdients…
Media outlet ownership…
Major sports figures…
Wow, now that I think about it, poor men can’t get a break, with all those women running things! I hope we return to the halcyon days of yeateryear, when men controlled almost all of these things exclusively, then we might have a little equality!
Does anyone else find it rather creepy that two posters who have stated very misogynistic opinions on previous threads are in this thread trying to sound reasonable?
Gunboat Diplomat and his women=coffee mugs is one example.
The other is Fear Uncertainty Doubt who had this to say in the Predators Among Us thread.
Neither has offered any evidence that they actually understand the issues, or apologized for perpetuating toxic myths.
One might think that they aren’t actually arguing in good faith.
Tom:
Oh great, yet another moron who thinks the internet is magically removed from society and life in general. You’re a fuckwit, Tom.
People here at Pharyngula meet up all the time. I opened up my house to someone here who was in need of a place to stay. A lot of the bloggers who are on the receiving end of the current spate of nastiness and threats know who many of these people are and some of them are local to where they live. Contrary to what you think, the internet does not exist in a vacuum, or more to the point, the people on the net don’t exist in a vacuum.
I’ve received threats via email and had very nasty things written about me on the net since Egate happened. I can assure you, I don’t take such shit lightly. You might think rape threats are a joke, but as someone who has been raped, I don’t. You might think “oh, it’s just the net”, however, it isn’t and obsession is obsession and can lead to very nasty things. You’re twice a fuckwit if you refuse to listen, think and lose the “hey, just chill” bullshit.
Ing@287
Yes, and privilege, I think, is also one of the big drivers of institutional racism, Indeed. Also, I’ll read up more on N.O.W.- They sound like good people :)
Kalliope@288
That makes me think about a time when someone asked Joss Whedon why he writes so many strong female characters- His response was something along the lines of, “Because people keep asking me that question!” :)
Also, great idea on the gender swap thing. Sad, but the religious right folks would have a cow over it. Arseholes.
The internet is part of society.
This is real life. The harassment, stalking, abuse ect are all just as real as if they’d occurred in your backyard. Ignore them is no more effective here than anywhere else. They’re going to keep doing it. They’re not going to stop just because you’re ignoring them.
Yeah you did. You’ve been telling everyone to shut the fuck about having to put up with misogyny on line.
They say it because they believe it, because they can get away with it and because they don’t care who it hurts. Much like yourself.
Pteryxx:
Tom is a fine example of just how ugly unexamined privilege can be.
The Male Privilege Checklist
Let’s don’t be too hard on Tom and Kai without offering them a solution to their problem.
*****************************************************************
–I first noticed it in college, but hey, it couldn’t be anything serious, right? The difficulty breathing. The way it was so hard to see I couldn’t get around in my own dorm room. I didn’t tell my roommates. . but I think they knew.
You’re not alone. Millions of Americans are going through it right now.
–You know what the worst part was? The smell.
Coprocranium is a serious disease. But believe it or not, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Decapitsasin™ is that light.
–When my doctor told me about Decapitsasin™ I didn’t believe him. Just one pill down there every day? Come on, doc.
Unlike traditional medications, Decapitsasin™ works with your body to gently, effectively ease your head out of your asshole. Its analase enzymes work synergistically with your natural oils to help expel your head from your backside—without the bruising and streaking of traditional extractive agents.
–I could feel it working in minutes. By the next day I could navigate with confidence all the way to the couch. My wife noticed, too — no more ‘brown-nose’ when we kiss.
-Decapitsasin™ is taken sub-taintally every morning. Do not take Decapitsasin™ if you’re allergic to ragweed, dander, laundry, women, or homosexuals. Rare but serious side effects include hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, oral diarrhea and (more than usual) anal leakage. Decapitsasin™ is not for pregnant women, nursing mothers, or real men.
–Ask your doctor if Decapitsasin™ is right for you (but not if your wife suggests it).
Oh, and this I promise is at last my final comment.
Male bloggers who criticize, and at the ideas not the individual, receives the same kind of treatment the feminist bloggers get on these links. The fact that it’s highlighted when feminist bloggers are attacked cruelly but not male bloggers, such as John the Other, is further evidence of the “silent” nature of misandry. Hell, even I was subjected to a lot of virtiol. Sure, it wasn’t as graphic as some of the comments the feminist bloggers get. But that’s more likely due to the general audience at the forum and not due to the fact that I as a man wont get just as vile attacks on my character for speaking in defense of men and their rights. Google John the Other to get a feel for what he writes, and see his youtube channel for more info: http://www.youtube.com/user/johntheother
Kai:
Uh huh. Promises, promises. Bets on flounce #1 anyone?
Even if I accept that the interwebs “isn’t real” and not a part of society (which I don’t), you do realize there are plenty of examples of misogyny “IRL” (as you like to say) as well, right?
As much as I would like to meet many of the Horde, (Josh invited me to the Vermont get together. And if I asked, I am sure that I could be a part of Rhinebeck or Mattir’s gathering.) I do not want to give away too much about myself. I know that my IP address can be tracked. Even given that, I do have concerns about my safety given some of the things said about me online.
And even that is very little compared to the treatment I have seen given to some women online.
Sorry, Tom but I will not be a chill gal and just dismiss it.
@Kai
Given you ignore everyone why the fuck should we listen to what you say?
“All I’m saying is X”
“You’re wrong because of Y”
“….All I’m saying is X”
“You’re still wrong because of Y”
“……..All I’m saying is-”
“WE HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!”
@Kai
The troll checklist I made classifies you as a parrot.
*hands a cracker*
Hi Caine. Showing up late :p
Exactly. As I said up-thread: Dese histerical wimmin gotta grow some balls!
Seems Laurie Penny is pretty strong already for someone without balls …
No, they don’t. They get criticized for being FUCKING MORONS, not for being men.
Now please go away. You’re scum, not the sort of person I want hanging around here.
False, PZ addressed this in his comment at 185.
Because you are a fucking idiot, not because you are a man. You are fucking dense.
fuck off and good riddance.
You’ve done nothing on this thread but attempt to spread disinformation. You fail at propaganda however, because you are incapable of providing any evidence for your claims.
Go pat yourself on the back some more for “bravely” fighting for male supremacy.
Hi Species8472! I’m late to the party too. Actually, I’m not sure if there’s a late on these threads anymore, given how long they get these days.
Mmmph, time for more tea if I’m to face the moronz.
@299 Anri
You got it wrong. I have empirical evidence showing that men are making more sammiches than ever before. Clearly this is the 50s all over again with the roles reversed!
Funny, women have been structurally and institutionally oppressed for thousands of years. Denied the right to control our own bodies, even down to whether or not to have sex at any given moment, denied the right to vote, own property, run for office, go to school, have a career besides child-rearing.
This has changed somewhat, for a minority of women in the world, in the past 50-100 years.
And yet there is a vocal minority of men who are dedicated to denying that the attitudes and social rules that underlie the oppression of women, which has lasted for literally thousands of years, could possibly be lingering in any way, could possibly still be affecting the lives of women in the present day. They deny that it’s possible that contemporary women are negatively impacted by the legacy of millennia of violent oppression which only ended about a generation ago.
Given the utter absurdity of this level of denial, the really interesting question is: What the fuck is going on in their minds?
@Kai
You didn’t reply to my careful and considered post. That tells me that you can’t argue out of it, which tells me that you’re not interested in “the truth” so much as maintaining your world view at all costs, even when it’s validity is challenged. Either that or the cognitive dissonance is deafening and you can’t concentrate on a good reply.
If you want to be taken seriously, be brave, be smart, be open and be willing to admit you’re wrong. This is why no one is taking you very seriously. This is why after giving you a red carpet in which to be all of those things, I can’t take you seriously.
You are presuming the presence of brain-activity without evidence.
When there are “statistical debates” about crimes of violence, like the one Kai didn’t want to get into, the first step should always be to check on homicide – not only because these are the most serious assaults, but becuase the statistics are likely to be better – someone is either dead or they’re not, although of course a homicide can be resistered as an accident or suicide, or vice versa. I found here an FBI-sourced table of “intimate homicides” in the USA from 1976 to 2004 (I hope the tabulation is preserved):
Year Male Female Total
1976 1348 1596 2944
1977 1288 1430 2718
1978 1193 1480 2673
1979 1260 1506 2766
1980 1217 1546 2763
1981 1268 1567 2835
1982 1135 1480 2615
1983 1112 1461 2573
1984 988 1439 2427
1985 956 1546 2502
1986 979 1584 2563
1987 927 1486 2413
1988 848 1578 2426
1989 895 1411 2306
1990 853 1493 2346
1991 773 1503 2276
1992 718 1448 2166
1993 698 1571 2269
1994 684 1403 2087
1995 544 1315 1859
1996 506 1310 1816
1997 445 1209 1654
1998 502 1310 1812
1999 418 1204 1622
2000 425 1238 1663
2001 392 1194 1586
2002 378 1193 1571
2003 371 1163 1534
2004 385 1159 1544
Total 23506 40823 64329
Now I admit the figures are closer than I expected (although female victims outnumber male in every year), but what really stands out is the trend: numbers of victims of both sexes decline, but this decline is much sharper for men than for women: at the start the numbers are quite close, but by 2004 more than three times as many women as men are counted. I can think of several explanations for this:
1) The figures are reasonably accurate, and the trend is explained by women now having the economic and social resources to leave men they find intolerable to live with, and are doing this rather than killing them. (But then why aren’t they leaving rather than being killed, in similar numbers?)
2) The figures are reasonably accurate, but divorce is now easier (is it?) and men are using it to get away from homicdal wives. (But then why not women to get away from homicidal husbands to anything like the same extent?)
3) What I guess will be the MRA favourite: modern misandry is causing the homicides of men by their female partners to be no-crimed. (Of course, if the number of recorded male victims had increased, or its decline had lagged that of female victims, this would also be proof of modern misandry!)
4) A gradual decline in institutional misogyny has led to a greater proportion of female deaths being counted as homicides (and the rate of female victims was always considerably higher than for men, the rate having declined about equally for both sexes).
Any others? Anyone have background or further data that would indicate a definite choice of explanation?
If I jump up and down and hold my breath until I turn blue will the damn morons try to understand the concept of the patriarchy hurts the men too? I mean really, yes, it sucks that there are things about being a man in our society that aren’t great. friends who have said in all seriousness that they allowed to be angry and to express mild amusement are fucking heartbreaking. But, that’s not misandry – it’s the fucking patriarchy. Assuming that mothers will be better parents, still the fucking patriarchy (setting aside the claim that custody in contested cases goes to the mother, which doesn’t actually seem to be true).
The patriarchy hurts men too. So now do something about it other than derail a thread and feel like a hotshot.
@306 Kai
Yeah …
I know I’m repeating myself, but so are you anyway …
1. Female bloggers get harassed for being visible online, they don’t even have to be provocative or controversial.
2. There is a distinct difference to the abuse female bloggers get.
In point (1) at #320, I should of course have said more women now having those resources. All too many women, and men, are still trapped in marriages or partnerships by direct coercion, or by financial, social and/or psychological barriers.
@KG:
Prostitution probably counts for a lot of it. It’s the most dangerous profession there is with murder rates being somewhere around ~200 per 100,000.
http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/stats-on-prostitution/
Also, it seems as though most women are murdered in the course of an argument:
http://www.vpc.org/studies/dv4one.htm
This came up waaay up-comments, and some MRA was being hard-headed about the difference the other day in another thread, and I don’t think it was addressed. The question was, what was the big difference between threats of physical violence and threats of rape. So, any MRAs who are lurking, let me try to make it simple.
Physical violence is about hurting and domination. People have fights so that one wins and one loses.
Rape is about taking an act that should be beautiful and loving and turning it into violence. That is the difference.
Generally, people don’t get together and lovingly beat the tar out of each other.
That’s the difference.
Threaten me with violence, fine. Threaten rape, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
unfortunately, admitting being wrong is one of those shameful things manly-men can’t do.
Huh, wonder if we’ve gotten any comments to the effect of “BUT IF YOU TRY TO IMPOSE CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR BEHAVIOR ON THEM YOU’LL BE NO BETTER THAN THEY ARE!!!eleventy” between this and the end of the thread?
Huh. Took nearly 80 comments.
In order:
Holy shit, parental responsibility really is dead.
“Harassment?” Justify that. If anything this is a logical extension of the whole “sex offender registry” concept. Or at least what it would be if it weren’t being misused.
Report to the cops? Litigate? On what conceivable grounds? Slander/libel? Truth is an absolute defense. Harassment? Unclean hands and self-incrimination.
PHMT is…?
Well geez, you don’t have to gloat…right Kai? ;/
BTW, Carlie,
syggyx has been on the list of MRA Trolls on the Wiki Troll Watch for some time now…
PHMT = Patriarchy Hurts Men Too
@KG (320)
Perhaps it is a combination of divorce and patterns of behavior in male vs female abusers. With divorce easier and more common, men can leave abusive partners and women can leave abusers instead of killing them. However, for a woman leaving her abuser, she is at greatest risk when she leaves. (“If I can’t have her, no one will.” and similar)
Which is why I aspire to be as girliest as possible damn it!
*smokes cigar*
Like the dragon in my garage.
If you want a sample of what women are called on the internet, go to Twitter and search for #mencallmethings
@Pteryxx
I have to confess to an intellectual fascination with the psychology of someone who insists on holding dear a notion that common sense and the preponderance of evidence eviscerate. Especially someone who seems to be of at least average intelligence.
That curiosity is probably part of my own neurotic need to be make order of an inordered world…
But seriously WHY??
rofl! One of my gaming characters is a gentle, well-built Harkness-type guy who still smokes cigars during battles. (Take that, gender roles!)
@ KG
Imagine the setting of the typical murder of a man. Now imagine the setting of a typical murder of a woman. The former does not involve an intimate partner. The latter does.
I certainly HOPE that common sense and preponderance of evidence eviscerate. The troll stuffing has to go SOMEwhere. /groucho
seriously, denial’s incredibly powerful, and it’s just one of a long list of cognitive biases we all hold.
@ Azkyroth
The exact criminal law depends on the jurisdiction but generally speaking the police have wide ranging powers to arrest and harrass somebody they don’t like whos doing something they don’t like. Or because they’re feeling like an asshole that day. In the UK the criminal justice bill back in 1994(I think) gave a ridiculous number of powers. Recent anti-terrorism legislation similarly.
As for litigation you can sue anyone you want in a common law jurisdiction for pretty much anything you want. Doesn’t mean you’ll succeed but very often its not about who would win in court but whos got the deepest pockets.
My point is hassling someone in the real world to the extent proposed in the post I quoted – whether justified or not – is a very risky endeavour even from a legal point of view and one of the reasons I think its a very bad idea.
Remember everyone, Gunboat Diplomat is quite passionate about the idea that it’s okay to treat women as inanimate object with no thoughts, feelings, or desires of their own.
Here are some sickening statistics from Kalliopes second link at 324
What proportion of the remaining 40% are murdered by either acquaintances or family members?
No, murders of sex workers are included – it’s definitely about partner-on-partner homicide.
Thanks, that hadn’t occurred to me. Here is a direct link to the DOJ page graphing the data my other link must have been based on, here’s a link to a press release summarising a DOJ report on “intimate partner violence”, here one to the report itself. A complex picture but overall there’s no real doubt women suffer more domestic violence than men, while in all other contexts combined, men are more often victims of violence and homicide – almost always at the hands of other men. PHMT indeed.
#342 Murders of sex workers are not included, of course. Unless by a “boyfriend” I guess.
@SallyStrange #340
Ah now, its a pity I’m not rich or I could sue your ass off in the UK for making libellous and untrue accusations ;)
If you remember I said I did not think “objectification” necessarily led to both dehumanisation and abuse in all situations – ie I disagree – passionately you might say – with this element of feminist theory.
Hey its not OT but if you want to resurrect the argument I’m quite happy to do so and I’m quite happy to defend my views on that thread, whcih incidentally are entirely consistent with the positions I’ve expressed on this thread.
Reading material for Tom:
You suggested “Chill out, it’s the Internet” which is a silencing technique that trivialises harassment. You should read the following paper on “Combating Cyber Gender Harassment” by Danielle Citron (which I haven’t seen cited above in the thread), since your assertion is one of the three main ways in which such harassment is trivialised or ignored.
Posters other than you have also used one or other of the three main ploys critiqued by Citron that are used both to downplay the effect of the harassment, and to diminish the culpability of the offender (Case 1: Craig atherton at comment #34 wrote it off as innocuous, juvenile pranking, which it is not; Case 2: Laurie Mann’s “engage the killfile” fits this trope; and your comment follows case 3: harassment on the Internet goes with the territory). You should read the section beginning on page 395 which debunks these notions, including the opinion you expressed.
Words! What do they mean?!!!11
What an assclam you are GB.
@KG
Sorry, I didn’t realize the contents of the stats you provides. I missed the “intimate” part.
If anything, these splits are probably under-reported.
Also here is a fun fact. Murder may be the leading cause of death among pregnant women. (Yes, I’m linking to Wikipedia, but there are several scholarly links within.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_pregnant_women
If I had the money, I’d put it on a fucking billboard and dare you to sue me, Gunboat. Of course, my “ifs” are worth just as much as yours are.
I think that if a person has a history of making anti-feminist statements, people should be aware of this if he or she is trying to comment on a feminist issue.
Cry some more about being held accountable for your own words. It’s entertaining.
@346 Tethys
Oh now you’re becoming a dictionary pedant? You know very well we were talking about “sexual objectification” as a feminist theoretical psychological mechanism and THAT is what I disagreed with.
And thank you, but my ass is not very tight at all despite all my gym work, sometimes 3 or 4 times a year I go!
GBD:
Fuck off, asspimple. We know exactly what you said, it’s all there in black and white, easy to access. Don’t go pretending to be a decent human being, there’s plenty of people happy to expose what you actually are, ya know.
@348 Sally Strange
Sueing anyones a risky business.. You never know how things can turn out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Advocate_v_Sheridan_and_Sheridan
And thank you. I do make anti-feminist statements. I do not however make misogynist ones. Just as disagreeing with black nationalism doesn’t make me a racist.
@Philip Legge
Thanks for cite. I will be sure to read it and take it to heart.
@Caine #350
Yes it is all there in black and white.
Speaking of black and white:
As for pretending to be a decent human being, err, I know some people with terrible racist and sexist views who are otherwise decent human beings. I’m sorry you don’t think I measure up to even those standards but what can I do?
If you disagree with the fact that treating black people as objects dehumanizes them, that would make you a racist.
you could stop apologizing for the objectification of humans. That would get you closer to being a decent person.
GBD
Your mansplaining, tortured logic, and straw-manning are noted.
Thanks for outing yourself pustulence.
Yep, Gunboat thinks that because he doesn’t call himself a feminist, that makes it OK to treat a woman as an object.
It’s ridiculously easy to get you to reveal your misogyny, Gunboat. We women to appreciate that. So thanks. If only more misogynists were so unsubtle about their total lack of respect for women.
Oh, fun, GBD is back. Perhaps a preemptive offer of a decaying Hystricomorph?
There, there Gunboat. It must be very difficult to have all these women fail to see the inherent genius and rightness you hold by virtue of being you! Not realizing that your patronization is really for their own benefits, since they don’t seem to recognize that by dint of being female, their own words about their experience and self-interest is just more evidence of their inherent failings.
You don’t have to explain yourself or speak clearly! And you certainly don’t have to say, “I misspoke,” or, “You’re right that was a silly thing to say.” You don’t have to make sense!
See all these chicks and chick-sympathizers have it wrong. They keep demanding that you are responsible for being clearheaded, well-spoken and generally not-wrong.
Don’t they know that the impetus lies on them to absorb all of that and reflect back on to you a funhouse image of your brilliance?
Because, seriously dude, you are really, really stupid.
@Tethys
I do not believe there is any inconsistency among any of the posts I have made. Did I recognize the reaction that my posts had in the “predators” discussion? Yes, of course. In fact, if you read #189 in this thread, I address one of the criticisms that was made. My response to this was not to change the substance of what I wrote, but to find a better way to communicate it. My post earlier in this thread was specifically about the structure and core beliefs of our society makes it resistant to the efforts toward ending rape culture. I realize that the things I said in the predator thread came off badly as being paternalistic and insulting, but they were sincerely in the interest of the goal of reducing violence against women. Yet despite having good intentions, I should apologize for a lack of sensitivity in my writing.
Given my position that our society is unlikely to shed its violent and oppressive nature (and this is not just limited to rape), I do think that if women rejected drunk men, much would change that would not change any other way. I believe that women have power in being able to define what is sexually appealing; it would make a more just world would be for women to “define out” drunkenness. I have less faith in men, not because “boys will be boys” but because violent, oppressive people never change willingly. It’s a depressing thought to me, and I firmly believe that the power that women have holds more hope than the power that men refuse to exert.
If, after this, you still put me in the “enemy” camp, so be it. It strikes me as rather odd that a lengthy, contentious debate occurs in the predator thread, yet when someone later appears to you to have changed to “sound reasonable”, your first thought is some sort of treachery or malicious intent. Why have the debate at all, if not to help educate people that they might change their opinions? Add to this the irony that the subject of the original thread was all about educating men. I will in fact say that I read most of the discussion in that thread, often re-reading lots of it, and learned things from the perspectives in it. So it is surprising to be greeted with such suspicion after a sincere attempt to better communicate and better incorporate things gained in previous discussions.
@Fear Uncertainty.
Are you a man or a woman? If the former, if you’re really concerned about lessening the violence against women, why don’t you work on what YOU can do about it instead of what WE can do about it.
So what can you do about it?
FUD:
The lesson being that once you say and do things that are similar to the things misogynists say and do, people are going to suspect you of being misogynist.
Wow! Great topic. Being a woman on the Internet. I guess being a woman on the Internet does have a few disadvantages for women:
1-Women can’t get divorced and then get ‘child support’ on the Internet, even when they are living with their new husband and kids.
2-Young (and sometimes good looking) women can’t marry ultra-rich old sacks on their deathbeds, and then inherit a couple of billion dollars a few years later after killing their old husbands, and then off to a very exotic honeymoon with their boyfriend no.1, soon to boyfriend no. 100 and so on.
3- Some women can be real bitches in the real world, but since the Internet is not a very good medium to convey feminine bitchiness,these women tend to turn to victimization, for which the Internet is the best medium in the world.
Have I missed anything?
[Yeah, the Banhammer! BOOM! –pzm]
Misogynists are often more hostile to men than feminists are. After all, they are the ones going around insisting that men are incapable of controlling themselves in the presence of sexual stimulation. Feminists have more faith in men than that. We believe our brothers, fathers, husbands, boyfriends and sons are every bit as capable of humanity as women are.
Again: if you wish to avoid being called a misogynist, make more of an effort to distinguish yourself from the genuine woman- (and man-) haters out there. That, or own up to the label and be proud of who you are.
Reality.
Also, the part where you beg to be banned because it feeds your narcissistic disorder.
Ooookay. Back now. I’ve had some time to parse the various points, check the facts, and as I suspected, Jadehawk, Deen, Dr. Myers, I owe you and everyone else an apology. What I thought was level-headedness was just ignorance of what was going on under my nose. Now that I think about it, it’s sort of disturbing how I noticed instantly that women got trolled because they were vulnerable targets… but never considered WHY this was the case.
Now, to work up my badly depleted feminist cred… Kai. Kai, Kai, Kai. I know you’re an easy target, but we all have to start small. You do make a few points that can be overlooked–since you only coherently state them in, like, the three posts where you calm down and stop acting like you just put on the They Live glasses.
It’s true that there are two or three arenas where, in some specific parts of the Western world, women have gotten favorable treatment–but these are all manifestations of what’s apparently called PHMT around here. Like PZ said, they’re parts of the very same memetic complex that lies at the root of what I earlier, unfortunately, called “womanly matters,” but they also force you into an equally silly and stereotyped masculine role, so you’re actually forced to notice them.
While women only HAVE, like, six roles they can play in the entertainment industry, it is true that two of them, the Sitcom Wife and the Lone Female Smurf, are so defined by their femininity that they basically don’t have any room for flaws. Anyone here see Space Jam as a kid? Remember how Lola Bunny wasn’t allowed to be a klutz, never took a mallet to the head, and basically just towered over all the guys? Sorta like how Morgan Freeman’s characters are all quiet, closer to God, and exist solely to impart earthy wisdom to white people? It’s the same principle–writers and execs who have no idea how to portray a minority who isn’t some kind of awful stereotype go the other direction and create boring, perfect characters. Again, it’s not a bias against whites or men that’s driving this–it’s a symptom of the slow shift from seeing negroes and chicks to seeing people. You could say we’re a little afraid to give such characters flaws, because it wasn’t too long ago that our culture considered their gender or race to BE a flaw.
Similarly, yes, men can get badly shafted in domestic violence cases and custody battles. I have an uncle who might never see his son again because of stuff he simply can’t prove he DIDN’T do. But again, PHMT–people assume the man is at fault because he so often is! People can laugh when a woman does awful, violent things to a man because the right of a man to hit a woman used to be enshrined by law! We’re just coming off a six thousand year bender of misogyny and patriarchy–excuse society for having a bit of a hangover!
Good grief, kohl. It’s like you’re not even trying anymore.
It’s sad when trolls lose their puffiness like that.
Oh, missed that. Sorry. That other guy is going to be soooo jealous that someone else got banned. Or was it the same one? They’re all running together now.
Well, the quantum spleenweasel flaming tomato troll eventually got banned like he wanted…
Good to see PZ is monitoring and moderating the discussion at least :)
@kohldamunga
Oh my god! The skies have just opened and my entire consciousness has been changed!
I’ve seen those talking points before — even seen them debunked before — but THIS time seeing them has changed my entire worldview and perception of reality.
Everything has shifted. Thank you so much for elevating my understanding of the universe. It’s a good thing you were here to say it just then. Or else I would have completely understood my existence as a female to be nothing like you described. And that would have been very sad for the men in my life.
@Gunboat Diplomat (349)
Presumably your ass is more like the inside of the clam.
@kohldamunga (363)
Here here! When I think of the great human rights abuses of today, first to my mind comes the plight of the ultra-rich (who are, naturally, all men) and their horrific experiences being force to marry and having sex with young and attractive women.
And I think that if men who think rape is something worth fighting against refused to have sex with drunk women it would be easier to single out those who use that as cover.
Heh. Thanks.
@my 372
The second thing that comes to mind is my flagrant abuse of HTML.
Can we please not allow the troll to derail another thread. I was enjoying reading this one.
Oh, and Sally @364: Very true. It’s much like Islamic sartorial hijab.
Jonathan
Thanks for your great post !
kohlrabi gets his wish.
yay‽
hello
Maybe it’s time to start treating online threats seriously and replying to every one with, “Your comment has been flagged as abusive. It is going into our ‘potential criminal’ database. Any further threats will be forwarded to your employer and your spouse.”
Nelson,
Why do you persist?
Alternatively, the whole database could be sent to the police, there to generate a polite automated message that the sender should be aware that sending threats via e-mail is illegal. And asking them to desist.
In fact, it’s assault, which is why physically hitting someone is called assault & battery in my country.
A system of tickets and fines might be the next step, similar to what people get for being tagged by a radar & camera setup.
Hey, I LOVE being a manly man. Also, the day being manly somehow means that I have to slight women to do so, they can take my weights, my weapons, and my testicles, because frankly, being a misogynistic asshat doesn’t make one manly. It only makes one worthless.
They cannot, however, EVER make me part with my love for kittens. They can kiss my ass.
Also, did Jonathan just successfully invoke the ‘magical negro’ trope? I never get to hear that one discussed, even talking about actual race issues. I hear waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much lately about the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ claptrap. Dharma Montgomery and every role Zooey Deschanel have ever played are busy, right now, providing a pie-in-the-sky role model for women everywhere. :/
Now, don’t get me wrong… I still think those little things aren’t fair. I think they need to be addressed somehow, because we’re overcompensating and people are just falling through the cracks in the system in new ways. But I also know that this stuff is a natural reaction to much, much worse wrongs done in the opposite direction, and just as casting is slowly becoming color-blind, I think the you-go-girl silliness will die down naturally as gender equality expands and we stop feeling guilty about it.
It must be difficult going through life viewing it always as a sexually frustrated 15 year old boy.
I grew out of it when I turned 16, kohldamunga seems to be clinging to it like it’s a medal.
Markita: Sounds like a tenable idea, but some relevant laws may need updating.
jamesemery – It was a nice evocation of the trope I have to say.
I looked at the Guardian article. Women are complaining about anonymous threats of sexual violence. I don’t understand. Unless all their e-mail comes from Internet cafes, five messages threatening sexual assault should equal five former customers of ISPs getting the message, “Your home e-mail account has been cancelled due to violation of terms of service.” Every specific threat should go into an abuse folder and be forwarded back to the ISP with a request to deal with the miscreant. An assistant can do that or perhaps it can be automated by ISP to go to “abuse@”.
@ jamesemery – here’s to manly, masculine men who love kittens. :)
It’s not about asking people to play nice, IMHO; it’s about enforcing the rules that we already have to deal with threatening behaviour. Like gun laws or laws against speeding or drinking and driving, all we have to do is get serious about enforcing them.
James Emery: you rock!
Awwwww, thank you, Sally! :D
Yep, that’s me. Marine veteran, weightlifter, bearded mountain-grown son of a farrier, fledgling femidude, and dammit, I love kittens, puppies, horses, and spiders.
Also, bear meat. Bear is tasty, and makes an excellent crock-pot roast.
I’ve been online since around 1996 or so (when my middle school got online) and I’ve gotten the gamut: death threats, rape threats, threats to rape and kill me, called a bitch, called a cunt, called a slut, calling me frigid and need a good fuck (sometimes those last two by the same person, try to make sense of that), being called a dyke and other homophobic slurs, being told I must actually be a man, girls don’t exist on the internet, and I could go on. The worst of this was when I was more into gaming and was a moderator on a game art forum and IRC chat but it’s continued. Even in some mostly female spaces (I sell on Etsy which is over 80% female) I’ve still run into slut shaming behavior because I’ve stood up for sellers who have items for a “mature audience”.
Different spaces definitely have different types of misogyny, for example I’ve never run into slut shaming on Fetlife (kinky social network) but I’ve run into plenty of “women are naturally submissive”, “dominant women just haven’t found the right man to tame them” and “switches don’t exist, you must really be submissive because you’re a girl”.
Janine, we met Jadehawk and she used only her ‘nym and declined to say where she lived. You can, too!
Speaking of how people are portrayed on TV, I used to daydream that they would just assign characters randomly without regard to race–and now we can do it without regard to race or sex. You want a married couple–just call up the next two actors in the appropriate age category of your database. Think how much more interesting it would be.
Sorry, I am really late to this thread.
Kai @ 306;
This ground has already been covered, but I think that you are really missing the point here. Even if the mentality of misandry was as common as that of misogyny (and I am far from convicedd that it is), this still doesn’t address the way that misogynist language and rape culture interact.
If a hypothetical misandrist was to, say, threaten to castrate a man for expressing an opinion they disliked, it is reasonable to suppose that this threat is almost certainly hollow. I am not saying that the threat is anything other than vile or offensive, but the reality is that incidences of castration administered as a punishment for outspoken opinion are rare, at least in Western society. Compare this to the use of threats of rape deployed in an effort to silence women – rape is far from rare. Indeed, it is so common that as many as 1 in 6 women will experience some form of sexual assault in their lives, and rape is commonly employed as a means to punish and control ‘uppity’ women. And where rape threats are deployed against men, it is usually a part of a bid to ‘feminize’ the man in question, since it is standing trope of misogyny that comparison to a woman (and still more so the physical treatment of a man as if he were a woman) is seen as the gravest form of insult to a man.
In such a social environment, a threat of rape cannot reasonably be assumed to be idle, and thus misogynist language seeded with threats of rape or sexual violence have a very profound ‘chilling’ effect on outspoken women, and doubly so if the woman in question is already a rape survivor. This is an effect that the user of such language is almost invariably fully aware of, and indeed is pursuing deliberately as their ultimate goal in using such language at all. Once one factors in the prevailing rape culture in society, these two hypotheticals of a threat of castration and a threat of rape take on radically different significance.
My point is that vitriol, even rather nasty vitriol, is not as problematic if it is not backled up by a broader culture that makes the actuation of such threats a very real possibility.
@ kohldamunga, nelsonfred, or whatever the hell you are calling yourself at the moment, you are contributing nothing to the thread whatsoever. Please don’t indulge your weird crush on PZ so publicly . I am sure that you could print a picture of our tentacled overlord off from somewhere on the bountiful internet, and then you can have your ‘special time’ with that image in the privacy of your own home without bothering the rest of us…
Sockpuppetry? In my Pharyngula?
Never!
nelsonfred @ 398;
Why don’t I believe you?.
I am not worried about PZ or infantalizing him – he eats trolls like you for breakfast. What you are doing is cluttering up a thread on an important topic with your annoying fixation on referencing PZ’s body morphology and pontificating on his relationship with his wife (neither of which is in any way relevant to the thread). It is not clever or humourous. You have already been banned once. Take the hint.
Now I’m tempted to set up a feminine profile somewhere online, just to see what it’s like.
Gregory,
your point on the intersection between misogyny and rape culture is very well made, but I think one problem with engaging Kai is that as Carlie articulated exceedingly well at comment #204, Kai’s entire series of posts are actually a DERAILING of the topic, and a typical silencing technique to minimise or ignore the actual point of concern being discussed by drowning it out with harping on other issues.
(And let’s not feed the trolls, people… PZ will be bringing the hammer down on morphing socks nice and soon.)
Markita Lynda:
Janine is Janine and most people here already know where Jadehawk lives. Janine also has different things to be concerned about. Non-hetro women usually do.
nelsonfred wrote:
Incoherent troll is boring.
@ Jamesemery – “manly masculine man who loves weightlifting and kittens” also describes my sweetheart. :DDD
Except he’s far away right now. *sigh*
Alas, the most effective thing a woman can do to avoid being murdered is never to get into a relationship with a man. Yet somehow that doesn’t dome up in those “crime-avoidance” courses.
Off to do some weightlifting. Like the lady I am.
Cheers everyone! Don’t forget, if you haven’t already, check out the #thingsmencallme tag on Twitter today. If you weren’t already convinced enough.
It has occurred to me that, as a corollary to my post @ 396, the very threat of castration is an expression of that same misogynist rape culture, since castration can be seen in the light of removing the prime identifyer of physiological masculinity from the man in question, thus (in the crudest of all possible senses) destroying his ‘manhood’ and, since misogynists almost always operate a simplistic binary opposition in matters of gender, that which is not ‘male’ becomes ‘female’ by default. Thus a threat of castration is a threat to ‘convert’ a man into a woman, which to the misogynist is perhaps the worst kind of threat they can imagine.
So even such a seemingly unambiguous case of misandrist language actually bears a misogynist subtext. Just another case of the patriarchy hurting men too.
*sad* I wish Janine felt safer.
Philip Legge @ 402;
This is a fair point. I will refrain from addressing any further posts to Kai.
Does anyone else hear an annoying buzzing sound @ 410?
Nah, must be nothing…
Anti-woman hate speech? Really PZ? What about all of the anti-man hate speech out there? I mean everytime I try to proposition a woman online, she hurls insults at me. They can’t all be lesbians, in fact most aren’t, so I have to conclude they are just a-holes, who ironically would really benefit from hooking up with me, as I am amazing in bed, and good sex is proven to reduce stress.
/sarcasm
/lulz
/Poe
Was that a bad Poe? It is hard for me to poke fun when the actual comments can be so absurd. Sorry for the interruption folks, continue with whatever it is you are doing, beating up silly trolls probably.
What’s more victim-y?
Receiving verbal abuse and violent threats, and shutting up about it and/or shutting down your blog as a response?
Or
Receiving verbal abuse and violent threats, refusing to shut up, and publicizing the abuse and threats and saying, “This is unacceptable”?
I have no idea what cause me to wonder that. No idea at all. It just sort of popped into my mind.
Oh Oh Oh…PZ, I have an idea!!*
I GET EMAIL
Have it be its own, separate blog site on FTB, that all the FTB bloggers can access and post on.
It would be fucking comedy gold!
Individual FTB bloggers could post emails for non-FTB bloggers on this site to serve this purpose.
*I haven’t read the thread…I just got off of work, so if this a repeat…so sorry.
Wow, am i ever ridiculously late to the party…
…because I missed the OP by 6 hours??? WTF – this thing seriously exploded.
I do wanna read comments, but for now let me raise something from the OP.
PZ, I know that this is going to seem like nit-picking to you, but it does matter: what you’re talking about is not the **female** experience – it’s the **feminine** or **woman’s** experience.
There’s a difference between being female & being a woman. There’s a diff btwn being female & being feminine. Not all women menstruate – not least because it turns out that not all women are female. But do the jerk-wad trolls check your fertility before they launch into misogyny?
No.
Of course not. Femininity, or membership in the group “women,” or both is plenty enough for them.
Colloquially, there is no difference between sex and gender. But for the topics of biology and psychology and cultural/social studies, we can only understand what is happening if we use the terms sex and gender according to their correct, distinct definitions.
Okay, now I gotta find out what this explosion splattered on the walls…
Okay, last troll feed..
@NelsonFred
Wait, are you saying that you’re interested in helping women? That that is one of your concerns?
Because if you’re not (and it’s clear that you’re not since you think women are some kind of malevolent beings), everything in your comment is moot. And intended to manipulate.
I have a theory about you. Your mommy was abusive to you, withheld the love that you deserved as a child, or you saw her abused. Most likely the former. Either way you couldn’t form the proper and loving relationship that human children require. That’s terrible. You should get help for the effects it has on you so you can live a fuller and happier life full of love and respect.
Coming here, being nasty to women and their male supporters so they’ll bash on you just like mommy did isn’t doing you any favors. You’re not going to get the result you want.
Am I right? Did I hit the nail on the head? Or was your mother a wonderful person whom you love and who demonstrates how awesome women can be?
Feel free to refrain unless Kai actually returns and gets on-topic, which would be a rare move from an arsehole of his calibre. (I can’t help feeling Josh’s description (comment #305) of helping these guys overcome their cases of coprocranium wouldn’t require such intensive medical treatment, owing to the consummate ease with which the head was inserted in the orifice in the first place.)
As for your post #396, it’s really hard to think of any aggravated crimes of violence (not just your example, castration) where the rate of offence by women exceeds that of men, which is another reason why misogynistic harassment uttered by men has a greater “chilling” effect than misandry, since it may be perceived to constitute a more credible threat – and everyone suffers from the societal costs of violence.
Crip Dyke@416
Excellent points, she has ’em!
Oh, I don’t want Callie’s (#333) post to get lost:
#mencallmethings
is directly on point in its intent, tho’ not necessarily in its execution (as always, many of the tweets are merely publicizing the hashtag to a particular twit’s followers, many others are WATMz posts, and no few have completely misunderstood the point and are using it as another #ihollaback instead of a forum only for insults received online for expressing opinions while identifiably feminine… but still, the hashtag tries to be, and to no small degree is, directly on point).
NitricAcid,
Because listening to the women who already deal with that issue isn’t enough?
Sally Strange @ 414, I don’t think it’s a case of which is more victim-y, those simply cover two possible ways to react to threats and harassment.
Personally, I think speaking up is important and necessary, I’ve always been a fighter in that sense, however, I’ve recently felt differently, which has been a bit of a shock. Last night, I talked with Mister about some of the threats I’ve received lately and some of things people I don’t know have been saying about me, and realized that I felt like withdrawing from all the shit, just declaring my online life (which is extensive) a loss and shutting down.
All this shit gets you down after a while and after decades of hearing the same old crap over and over and continuing to fight, then finding yourself a target, again…I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m tired of it. So tired.
I know allowing myself to be silenced is a win for the misogynists and I won’t withdraw, but I’m not feeling positive about much right now.
Dhorvath:
I know men who have created a female persona in gaming communities and other online fora because they didn’t believe it was really all that bad. They learned differently and it gave them a whole new perspective on things.
I was just saying that to push back against the oppressive myth that merely noticing abusive, misogynist behavior is what makes you a victim, Caine. I didn’t mean to cast any judgment on people who DO decide to withdraw from the abuse.
Abusers create victims. Whether you decide to fight against it or avoid it, you’ve still been victimized by an abuser. And there’s no shame in that.
/delurk
@Caine
If it makes a difference, I appreciate you being here, and I value your voice. I am glad that you post here and give the trolls and MRAs a good metaphorical boot to the head, I find it both entertaining and enlightening.
/relurk
Etymology Online:
@Nelson.
This is a post about the online abuse women take for speaking their minds. Specifically, we’re talking about people being cruel and threatening to women, not because they’re “bitches” but because they’re women.
We’re trying to address THAT. Do you have anything to say on that subject?
Caine, I might not have started finding a niche here if not for you. You saw that I was really trying before almost anyone else did. Partly because of you, I started talking to a coworker about feminism today, and hopefully planted a seed in her head that she’ll think about (I work in a warehouse, if that gives you an idea of the mindset). Please, above all, don’t be afraid. You’re making the change. You’re one more person breaking the mold.
Again, I’m not sure why it occurred to me to look up the etymology of “bitch.” Like before, it just kinda popped into my head.
Was it Plato who proposed a hierarchy of beings–angels, men, women, animals, in descending order? With women being somewhere in between men and animals?
@Nelson:
If women are being bitchy to you, it might be worth examining whether you did something, consciously or subconsciously, to provoke it. Sure, there are mean wimminz out there with chips on their shoulders. It’s probably NOT because of the ovaries, though.
Bitch, please ;)
/snark
Noadi – God, I know! We can be so blind to our own crap–it’s like with skeptics, we just never imagine that we could have prejudices. We can’t be prejudiced, we’re the people who get prejudiced against! And there’s plenty of this DHMT stuff in and around the fetish scene, too–it’s kind of amazing what jumps out at you when you finally get a word to quantify it.
Obviously, there’s the fear and distaste we get from people outside the scene–female subs are battered women with Stockholm Syndrome, and male subs are laughable half-men who deserve nothing but scorn. I’m not sure what sort of flak Dominant women catch, but it’s probably of the same character that gets fired off at any assertive, sexually confidant lady. As a Dom myself, I get occasional potshots from those one-in-a-million feministas who actually act like the GOP-approved bulldyke neopagan stereotype. They’re usually the same people perpetuating trans bias–trying to tell my galpals who happen to have a bum chromosome that they’re not Proper Womyn, or worse, that they’re just trying to get into “women-born-women’s” spaces for some undisclosed nefarious purpose. I apologize in advance for the imagery, but as the owner of a transgirl, hearing people tell my Katrina that everything she is is a lie makes me want to do things with the links on this page involving a printer, scissors, and a large hat.
My previous comment was directed to Gregory – I don’t know how I lost the first line of the post.
Dhorvath,
I think NitricAcid might merely be trying to see how it is to walk a mile in a woman’s shoes, to borrow an overused cliché: anecdotes tell part of the story, but the experience of appearing to be a woman on the Internet might be instructive on how pervasive such harassment as mentioned in the OP can be. I’d assume with some confidence that Nitric’s a man and therefore hasn’t been exposed to the kind of inappropriate attentions directed to anyone on the Internet suspected to be a woman by virtue of a feminine sounding name/nym.
On a personal note, I don’t fully associate myself with gender-binary masculinity, though if there were something like the Kinsey scale for transsexualism I would lean most of the way towards ‘cis’ than ‘trans’ (unlike some of our trans posters whom I admire!), and have more than once considered having an alternate, second identity for the version of me that would be leaning towards ‘trans’ rather than ‘cis’. Would it be intrinsically wrong of me to post on the Internet under a feminine nym, whether or not I was disclosing my real (bi/poly/mostly-cis/male) status elsewhere?
@Nelson,
One last thing, and this is truly heartfelt. I had of a emotional abuse at the hands of both of my father figures and literally no positive male role models in my life. Well into my twenties I literally didn’t believe that men were capable of loving women. It took me a long time to realize that was my mindset. It made me behave very strangely and defensively and rejecting toward men. I was defending myself from a threat that wasn’t there.
I have since recovered from that mindset and have been in a series of loving, fulfilling friendships and relationships with men. In short, I am happy. I like men. I think well of them. I am loved by them and I love them back. It took taking responsibility and taking risks. It paid off. I hope you get there someday. It’s worth it.
If you find that many women are being hostile to you, without a doubt it’s because you’re being hostile to them. A few women, who knows. Most women? No other explanation.
nelsonfred
Assholes can be real assholes, which is why they coined the word asshole just to describe assholes like you.
OK. But you haven’t disclosed your gender and sexual orientation. A lot depends on both.
Not at all. I am saying some women just attract more hostility from men than other women, because of their attitudes. Men are not ‘hard wired’ to be hostile to women. Women who attract hostility from men, simply do not understand men, and vice versa. Men and women are equal, but they are not the ‘same’.
@ryan (#7)
who said:
This one can be very hard. But what’s going on here isn’t evidence of “pro-woman” bias. What’s happening here is evidence of the dehumanization of people in jail/prison.
We have for ages demonized people in prison, rarely admitting that nearly all of us have committed an offense for which we could be jailed at one point or another. When I was a teen & had had a driver’s license for less than a year, I ended up depressed. My friends thought the best way to cheer me up was get me drunk. I didn’t know how to say know. …And then I drove home. Yes. I drove a mile and a half (admittedly on mostly rural roads, but the law doesn’t make a distinction) *so affected by alcohol that I was having trouble walking to it*. While sentencing doesn’t generally give you jail time for this, it can. Moreover, I could have easily crashed the car into something or someone – and then would almost certainly have gone to jail.
yet I consider myself a GoodPerson(tm). I am sure many others have their stories. Often times those convicted of assault are people who didn’t start a fight, but chose to “up the lethality” of the fight, which is negates a justification defense. But if I was a 5′ 7″ guy weighing 130 lbs in an unfamiliar area and someone took a punch at me, is it possible I might have pulled a knife? I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t.
But those people in prison – they are unredeemable. They are horrible. They deserve whatever they suffer. Prison shouldn’t be a vacation. They should have thought about their victim’s rights. Now they know how their victim feels. Etc. Etc. We have endless justifications for the horrible treatment and even rape that prisoners receive.
But not ONE of those justifications is: well, they should have been born a woman, then I’d never rape them and/or then I would care that someone else raped them.
Pro-woman bias? Not a chance. Anti-con bias. You-effing-betcha.
BTW – the anti-con bias has “special case” versions that are even more extreme for the rapist, the child abuser and the terrorist. In no case does this dehumanization actually help the victims of such people, b/c such people, despite our mythologies, are **people** and assuming that someone can’t be a rapist and look/act like a decent person a lot of the time helps juries set rapists free. Assuming that someone can’t be a terrorist and ever have had a decent thought/feeling during an entire lifetime allows us to justify abusing people merely suspected of terrorism…who are known as “decent persons” in their home towns, which allows the home towners to insist that the person can’t possibly be a terrorist, and thus the US must be a bully tyrant who should be fought with military force.
Etc. Etc.
[**Alverant @25 has another (generalized) example (and statement) on this point. **]
This isn’t pro-woman bias. It is a problem in whose solution we all have a stake.
@PhoenixWoman (#14)
Not necesarily true. yes, they are linked as currently practiced. In ancient Greece, certain kinds of homosexuality were accepted without diminishing the oppression of women. There, however, the penetrator was assumed to be the older and/or the more accomplished. I can imagine a society where ageism and heterosexism exist, but sexism as we know it is gone. The penetrated is “young” and therefore “weak” “sophomoric” etc, which might be filled with many more connotations of disgust if they were sexualized.
I am not arguing that elimination of sexism wouldn’t do us a world of good. I am not arguing that it could be eliminated without having many ancillary benefits to queer folk. I am arguing that they are nonetheless separate oppressions.
while the following is an argument that something would be *bad* not would be *untrue*, I also think it is relevant here to point out that in the civil rights movement, black feminists were devalued b/c they focused time on the treatment of women when everyone in the movement “knew” that when racism was ended, everyone would be free – thus why work against sexism? …likewise feminists of color were devalued in mainstream feminism b/c everyone in the mainstream feminist movement “knew” that when sexism was ended, everyone would be free – thus why work against racism?
This history gives me quite a bit of pause when someone suggests that elimination of one oppression would automatically eliminate the oppression others face. Especially when there isn’t good evidence argued that this is true.
Again, I agree that heterosexism would have to change to survive if sexism died. But I don’t agree that no amount of change in heterosexist thinking would be sufficient to keep it alive past the death of sexism.
Alukonis & James, thank you both so much. I’ll be okay, I think I just need a bit of a break and it’s not like I don’t have a metric fucktonne of stuff that needs to be done. :D
Sally Strange, thanks for the etymology, that’s damned interesting. I’d like to see that pasted all over the place. Well, I would if I thought it would make people think.
Yeah it’s women’s fault for getting her ass kicked. She should have understood him.
Stupid woman.
nelsonfred —> killfile for terminal insipidity and boredom.
I was unable to participate in the “Predators among us” thread (it was mostly done and dusted by the time I was able to read it at leisure), but did Custador ever return to apologise for the massive derailment of that topic which he caused by his colossal fuck-up in screwing up the statistics on prison rape, and reaching ridiculous conclusions about rape generally, as a result?
nelsonfred: Also killfiled for morphing.
Philip:
Nope.
@jonathan, 26:
The reason is both easy and difficult to understand, but it can be summed up thusly:
Women have chosen to talk about the horrific effects of domestic and sexual violence on their lives. Given the generous dispersal of this knowledge throughout society, we fully expect people to know about these horrible impacts. It is much more difficult to crack a joke that diminishes human suffering than one that doesn’t. While no one actually considers murder to be without consequence, very little attention is paid to the very real consequences. Crime blotter articles still spend more time on the perp than the relations and friends. The plot of Law & Order type shows revolves around the perp – what is the motive? how did the perp do it? – and not the survivors – what did X feel like the next morning? was it even possible to get out of bed & go to work? or did the person go to work just to get away from the empty house? and how many tears were shed anyway?
As much as we *know* that murder leaves anguished survivors, murder is rare enough that most of us experience murder-art more than murder. It thus becomes unreal. A campaign by the friends & family of murder victims might very well change how sportswriters write.
But there’s this other thing getting in the way. Victimhood is still seen as connected to womanhood, and womanhood is still seen as bad. Thus men are much less willing, in most cases/in the aggregate, than are women to talk about the consequences.
Thus the expectation of someone talking about murder is not that a comment’s audience will be aware of and thinking about real human suffering. The expectation is that the audience will be thinking about how much fake blood they use on SVU. And likewise, the audience doesn’t believe that the author of a quote is thinking about real human suffering. The audience believes that the author is talking about that scene in one of the DieHard movies (who knows which one?) where it looks like the guys were picking up a dead body by the hands at one end & the feet at the other and carrying it out of the way…but then they move & you can tell that they aren’t carrying the body together, they’re each carrying 1/2 a body! How totally dead is that! Cut in freakin’ half!
To sum up: it is not that sexual violence is “worse”. It is that when we are talking about sexual violence, we are talking about real human suffering b/c the targets of that suffering have gone on a deliberate campaign to make sure people are aware of that suffering. On the other hand, when we talk about murder, we have no similar expectation that people are aware of the real human suffering thus caused.
In other words, one is “more real” and one is “more metaphorical.”
I would like murder and other violence to end. But the truth is that the violence that women suffer tends to fit into certain categories that are already largely the subject of major informational campaigns. We can continue what we’re doing so that the next generations are at least as informed as the current, but in this environment if you don’t know about this suffering, it’s not because you haven’t had opportunity to be informed.
So the violence whose suffering isn’t illuminated is largely the violence that targets men (who, after all, suffer more than 1/2 the murders and hospitalizing assaults anyway). To get this violence taken as seriously as violence against women, we need men to speak up about how and when they have been hurt by violence.
Will you be one of those men, Jonathan?
How about you other men who are reading this? You can talk about the violence that besets you. The good news is you don’t have to be first. The bad news is that you’ll still be in a visible vanguard. You will also then encounter the dehumanizing effects of men’s harassment of other men who break the code of sexism, but if you stick with it, you can make the world take this violence as seriously as it takes domestic violence or rape. You can do it because all you have to do is connect the behavior with real human suffering. Feminists have even shown you how. But women can’t do it for you.
Has it actually been settled that he believes this? As I recall that thread left off with him insisting that “objectifying” didn’t necessarily mean that, and condesplaining people who tried to get across that this was in fact what the phrase means.
Die Hard with a Vengeance.
From a tow cable whipping by. Cuts the guy in half so that McClane and Zeus have to drag the body away to hide their presence on the ship.
/Die Hard fan
For this to be even remotely cogent you would have to show that ALL men or a critical majority of men react hostilely to these women and for the same reasons.
But it tends not to be all men. And frankly, I find your assertion amazingly disgusting. Do children whose mothers beat them deserve it because they just don’t understand mommy?
Oh I get it now. He wants to help more women be the kind of women certain men think they should be and will abuse them for not being.
And the problem is that you insist on using the term “objectification” to mean “wanting to fuck,” a trait you share with uncharitable paraphrases of a handful of bitter ideologues from the 60s through 80s and basically no one else. So you might as well be insisting that GWARPF doesn’t necessarily lead to dehumanization or abuse. It’s probably even true but has fucking nothing to do with what anyone present is talking about.
Unless you think that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich really is better than perfect happiness, of course…
Actually it left off with him joking about fucking drunks and giving us way too much insight into his life.
CD, RR FF etc. – I think I understand. Kinda. Makes you wonder if we’d care more about murder if, iunno, you somehow… survived? Don’t mind me.
@428 There is a subset of insecure straight male Dominants that can’t handle that not all women will bow before their almighty domliness. They are also some of the worst offenders when it comes to making spaces unwelcoming to submissive men, queer, and trans folk. Not that they are the only ones who do such things, plenty of submissives are big on “role policing” especially of people like me who don’t fit into how they think things should work.
It’s the same BS you get in any community and some ways it is worse and some ways it is better. If you think rape apologists in regular society are scary, those in the kink community are absolutely terrifying. When consensual non-consent is a legitimate form of play it becomes more likely that someone will use that as a defense for preying on people.
Something I’ve known for a long time:
1. Sexism and misogyny are real.
Things I have learned from this thread (and the whole conversation going back to June):
1. People who make gender-based insults and sexual threats on the internet are sorry excuses for human beings and they need to stop (or be stopped).
2. Women receive much more of this type of abuse than men.
3. Orthodox feminism is the one religion skeptics dare not challenge.
A few questions:
1. If threatening rape is telling someone to “shut up because you don’t have a penis” why do Markos and PZ get such threats? Could it be that there is something going on here besides misogyny? That might make more sense than the explanation here that it is really misogyny that makes men say such things to men.
2. Why do some of the (presumably) female commenters here feel the need to tell males off in strong sexual terms (f*** off, go f*** yourself, f***ing scumbag, etc)?
3. If the use of the word c*** is automatically misogynist, why are words that reduce men to their body parts (dick, prick, etc…) not automatically misandrist? If a man had the bad judgment to give a talk called “Don’t Be a C***” like Rebecca Watson’s “Don’t Be a Dick” no one would think it amusing…
Noada – I know who you mean. I have a friend who’s into that Gorean nonsense and I just feel like I’m ticking days off a calendar waiting for something or someone to happen to her. Some kinks are not, as practiced in their most common form, okay.
Fucking scumbag?
Please point to where that was used here, or are you just making stuff up to bolster whatever point you think you are making?
I shudder corrected.
tpaine,
I’ll address your questions individually.
(1) This is misogyny. Trolls who say shit like that to PZ or to Kos are declaring that they are like women (for espousing belief x) and therefore deserve to be treated like women, i.e. raped. You see this sort of language all over the place – if you make someone your “bitch,” for example, you dominate them. Bitch, of course, is a feminine term. By espousing beliefs that are “unmanly,” a man may be reduced to the level of women.
(2) “Go fuck yourself” is gender-neutral. If interpreted literally (i.e. “go have sex with yourself”), it is either literally impossible or an exhortation to go masturbate. Men and women are equally incapable of doing literally impossible things and masturbating.
(3) The term “cunt” has a unique status due to the overarching effects of this being a male-dominated society. To simplify things, “cunt” = “woman,” and as we know, “woman” = “lesser, bad.” Slang terms for the penis, while they can be simplified to mean “man” as “cunt” can, men are not inherently lesser.
re: “Ignore the trolls”
We have tried that. We’ve tried that for nigh on to thirty years now. Funny, trolls keep showing up and doing their damnedest to hound women out of public spaces on-line… pretty much exactly like they did thirty years ago. Ignoring the trolls has done precisely nothing to discourage the trolls.
How many more years should we keep ignoring the trolls before we can declare that a failed experiment and try a different tactic?
Because, as had been written on many threads, one of most popular insults to throw at a male, especially a male you wish to silence, is to bring them ‘down’ to the subhuman level of female. Threatening rape feminizes (and yes, I know (really know) that men do get raped so don’t even go there) and it is okay to ignore females.
It is, but many do not see it that way as male gendered insults tend to include a complementary aspect. Calling a man a prick not only implies that he is annoying, but it can also mean that he is a hard taskmaster who will get things done. See, in western culture, feminizing someone is always a thorough insult; masculinizing someone can be both an insult and a backhanded compliment.
to rebut tpaine @449:
1. Because the language of rape implies that to rape a male, you are making them more like a female, thus stealing their masculinity and degrading them via feminization (i.e. emasculation). Because women are for fucking, so if you fuck a man, it makes that man like a woman, which is THE WORST because women suck. That is how it is misogynist.
2. There is a big difference between “fuck you” and “I’m going to fuck you whether you like it or not.” If you can’t tell the difference, then you have an extremely poor grasp of English.
3. Phil Plait was the one with the “Don’t be a dick” speech, not Rebecca Watson. Even if it were, though, using male-gendered insults such as “dick” and “prick” while condemning female-gendered insults like “bitch” is hypocritical, which is why most people around here frown on it, including myself. Trying to train yourself NOT to insult someone by calling them a dick takes some effort, since it’s so common, but that effort is worthwhile – the same as removing insults like “bitch” or “cunt” from your vocabulary. As to whether it’s misandrist, the problem is that the power imbalance between male- and female-connotated things means that being called a dick is not as demeaning as being called a whore. That doesn’t make it right, but the point is, any misandry present once again pales in comparison to the misogyny in the female-gendered insults.
Hope that helps! By the way, what the fuck is orthodox feminism.
That would be feminism that inconveniences men.
You can’t burn bras on Sabbath
It’s the variety of feminism practiced by members of female religious orders within Orthodox Christianity. Duh.
SO CLEVER WITH MY BLOCKQUOTE FAIL TOO
LOLZ
/facepalm
Caine@419 & Sally Strange @411 (these are accurate at the moment, tho’ Caine’s reference to SS being @413 was accurate at one time…some deletions are messing w/ numbers and may yet mess with them again…)
Caine, you said it wasn’t important which was more victim-y: getting harassed & shutting up/down or getting harassed & posting the harassing comments while ridiculing the comments and harassers.
But when SS said that, I think the unspoken part of her post was that
when we post these comments we get criticized for perpetuating a victim culture, for acting like a victim, etc. etc.
If it is actually less in the nature of victimhood/ a victim to stand up for oneself by naming & shaming, then this criticism is **dead frickin’ wrong**.
That, I believe, was the point of SS’s post, and is also, I believe, dead on.
*warning…tealdeer ahead*
Fear Uncertainty Doubt
True, your posts consistently demonstrate that you do not believe that you are drawing false conclusions based on a faulty premise. Are you familiar with the TV character Archie Bunker?
Yes, you keep ignoring all the evidence and women who are telling you that you are wrong and then ‘splaining at length. Hmmmm, I wonder why you keep doing that?
Perhaps you should examine your false premises that:
A)Males and society are naturally violent and predatory.
B)We will never be able to eradicate violence so why bother?
Start by not being paternalistic and insulting by repeating false sexist tropes. It’s not your sensitivity that is the issue, it’s your logic. Listen harder!
Again, a faulty premise will lead to false conclusions.
Alcohol doesn’t rape women, men rape women. Please try to understand cause and effect and quit repeating the men are drunken rape monkeys bullshit.
Men are not inherently violent. People change willingly every day. Your justifications are irrational.
If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck…
A lifetime of having to be aware of the danger signals in case a man doesn’t have good intentions will do that to a person.
No stupid dudely dude, thats your male centered world view talking again. The thread was about exposing predatory behavior and what men can do to distinguish themselves from actual predators.
If your intent is to be a feminist ally, stop enabling rape culture by assuming that its natural and normal for men to be sexual predators.
@Esteleth #460 –
LOL – actually, we Jewish feminists frequently refer to Othodox feminism & Orthodox feminists to describe women fighting for certain (limited) rights within Orthodox communities.
Ironically, I find that they very often don’t accept even minimal assertions of women’s equality that are otherwise supposed to be universal among feminists. Instead, Orthodox feminists (at least the Jewish ones to which I refer) often (not always, but often) have particular religious justifications for permitting or requiring X that their particular religious community otherwise construes to be bad/forbidden. Thus they often are not arguing that women can be or should be equal in social power or liberty. They are simply arguing over correct interpretation of religious text in a way that, in certain cases, favors women’s freedom to a greater degree than their local religious community’s default position does.
But when a non-Orthodox feminist agrees that Orthodox women should have X right/freedom/equality/resource she may very well be shunned (even slut-shamed) for daring to argue from a basis of women’s equality instead of sticking with scriptural interpretation.
Again, there’s actually a significant number of Orthodox feminists who argue from women’s inherent dignity and worth and not from scriptural interpretation. And some of them are quite inspiring to me. But I encounter more who argue scripture than women’s rights per se.
Interesting! Thanks for the info, Crip Dyke!
ing – 458:
oh…ouch….sides hurting…can’t breathe….
….but remember, if you light the bra, close your eyes & THEN say the blessing, it’s all ok!
Crip Dyke:
Way back in the 1980s, when I lived in a very religious part of western Maryland, that definition of feminism was au courrant in the church that my best friend went to. The women who were active in the feminism group in the church were not looking for equality with men, they were seeking the strength to be a truly biblical wife, the feminine part of marriage. They were sort of proto-prairie muffins.
/lurk
I finally had time to catch up on this thread. Many thanks to PZ for so closely monitoring the comments, although the deleted posts made some of the responses a bit difficult to follow. :)
For those telling women to just ignore the ‘bullies’ because that’ll make them go away: you’re full of shit. People told me that repeatedly when I was a kid and it never fucking helped. It made things WORSE because the kids knew they wouldn’t get in trouble for verbally or physically hurting me. The only times that things let up were when adults ACTUALLY LISTENED TO ME and paid attention to the abusive behaviour. The jerks backed off when they knew people were watching them because they understood that they might actually be expected to take responsibility for their actions.
I think the I HAVE EMAIL website idea is pure gold. If the blog owners who receive this crap start posting it publicly and naming names, it’s a step toward making abusive jerks take responsibility for their actions. I don’t see how anyone can argue that expecting people to take responsibility for their actions is somehow biased and inherently wrong.
I was so thinking he was talking about the feminism espoused by Andrea Dworkin, Valerie Solanas, et al- Mostly, I think the MRA contingent is pretty well convinced that those particular types speak for the movement as a whole, which is patently and demonstrably false.
Unfortunately, though, speaking as a relatively recent convert, I’d have to say that those particular feminists (and I use the term only as they self-identified that way) pretty well created the ‘crazy feminazi’ stereotype that the MRAs use as strawmen, and that is portrayed more than any other in film media. I also feel that they somewhat overshadowed the more positive aspects of ‘second wave’ feminism. If ever someone calls you misandrist, feel free to point to Valerie, shake your head, and say “No, I’m a feminist. THAT is a misandrist.”
If you’re not familiar with one of both of them (I know Caine knows of them, and Sally might too), my apologies. Ugly caricatures, they are. :/
What exactly is slut-shaming? Are we taking “slut” to mean anyone who contravenes certain antiquated sexual rules?
I’m familiar with both of them but while I do not agree with them I also do not agree that they are “Ugly caricatures”
Jamesemery, Solanas had some distinct problems, which unfortunately bled into her notion of feminism. That said, I don’t really think Solanas had near the impact some people credit her with. I’ve been into feminism since the 70s, and it’s simply not as easily pigeon-holed as some people would like. Shit, I read a whole lot of Marilyn French and came out okay, ya know? ;)
There was a point to some of the extremes, in that some men were so fucking shocked they finally shut the fuck up and listened. Sometimes, ya gotta go there.
When it comes to misogynists, it really doesn’t matter what you point out, they’ll come up with one raft of crap after another. When it’s someone who is operating under mistaken beliefs or simply yet another person entrenched in societal sexism, it’s easier to get into a successful discussion without going into the history of feminism in ______.
One point I’d like to call out:
Right. It’s all about them uppity wimminz and their loud mouths. If they’d just shut up and do what the men tell them, they wouldn’t get hurt! Because the menfolk can’t be expected to act like responsible human beings and NOT HURT PEOPLE.
Idiot.
Algernon@471,
I’ll concede that that might be too strong for Dworkin. For Solanas, I stand by it. I believe I have very good reason to feel that she co-opted feminism almost purely to advance a personal agenda, and to satisfy her own greed. Dworkin, at least, was probably sincere.
Jonathan@470
Sort of… Think any instance where a woman is thought to have deserved what she got due to her dress or her BAC. THAT shit is slut-shaming, whether she bucked the norms or not. It’s nothing more than apologia for the rapists.
Jonathan @ 470, it’s a big ol’ internet out there, I figure you know how to search, right? Try it next time.
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/what-is-slut-shaming/
Jonathan at 3:16 am, a libidinous male who sleeps around is usually described as a ‘stud’ (and I’ve heard the spew-riffic phrase ‘God’s gift to women’ more times than I’d care to bring up my lunch), whereas a woman with the same sexual appetite (or merely the assumption that she has, based on some other characteristic) will be treated to a double standard of behaviour: she will not be regarded as a stud, but as a slut/bike/whore/insert misogynistic slur of choice.
Caine, your link to feminism 101 beats my blather hands down.
Jamesemery,
An important thing to keep in mind with regards to Solanas is that (1) she had been victimized many times by many men beginning at a very young age, which may explain at least in part her extreme displeasure at men qua men and (2) she was mentally ill and if she received serious treatment I’m not aware of it.
Caine’s point that some feminists – like Dworkin and possibly Solanas – made extreme statements and took extreme stands. These actions, despite being repudiated by the majority of society and the majority of feminists, did shift the center.
Philip:
After dozens upon dozens upon dozens of these threads, you get fast on the linkage. :D
This. Caine has said it better. I’ve never encountered her as anything but a deeply troubled woman, frankly.
Caine@472
Hi, Caine! :)
Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying particularly that Solanas had a huge impact on the actual movement, but just that she made herself a useful trope for anyone promoting the idea that feminism is made up of a bunch of ‘hysterical wimmyns’, ya know? If she were a big driving force behind feminism, I’d probably be running away, now :)
So far as misogynists go, I get what you mean… They do use her, though, and others in that same vein, to recruit new MRAs and reinforce their feminist strawman, which they then attack en masse anywhere sane feminists can be found, amirite?
Dworkin is problematic, but she raised some questions that I think are valid and people should not be afraid to raise questions in discourse because it might upset people. She also paid heavily for expressing her views. Since I would consider myself sex positive from a philosophical stance I obviously have different views than her, but I think she is actually somewhat unfairly maligned.
Right, but any woman who has any association with anything that can be said to be feminist and has acted in an inappropriate way can be a “problem for the cause” for those who want to reduce people to tropes.
Hell, at the end of the night at some point we’ve all been Hitler.
Esteleth, Algernon and Caine:
Thanks, guys… I am still learning a lot of the mechanics, and I see your point there. Sorry, some of the above was written slightly out of step with the comments still being posted :)
Hey, I’ve nevar been Hitler… Goebbels, sure, but not Adolf, nein, nein, NEIN!!!!
As I said before, I’m in alignment with the main issues of stopping sexism, abuse, threats, etc. By Orthodox feminism, I really meant the volume of feminist dogma that cannot be challenged (at least by a man)–and yes, it does have many points in common with religion.
For instance the notion that threatening male rape is always misogynistic, about the power structure between men and women, rather than something peculiar to relationships between men (or even something more universal). Misogyny is one way of looking at it (maybe the only way if you are a woman). Ask a gay man if he sees it the same way. I’m just suggesting there may be other perspectives.
The fact that one responder had to “rebut” my questions instead of “answer” them pretty much proved my orthodoxy point.
What I would really like to see is one group of rules that we can live by in discourse. For example, if men can’t call women c***s then women shouldn’t be able to call men dicks (and yes, I did correctly cite Watson’s talk–check out YouTube). If you want men to take sexually charged language out of their discourse, then it should be good for the goose as well. Telling someone to f*** off is about power and control, too (although obviously not a threat of violence). Having feminists make an arbitrary set of self-serving rules is no better than the patriarchy doing it.
I see that MRAsshole left a while ago. Why do those guys always feel the need to pop into a thread about sexism or misogyny and tell everyone who will listen that things are actually much worse for the menz?
James:
I don’t think they do, not much anyway. I can’t even think of any recent encounter with an MRA type who has brought up Solanas, nor do I think she’s behind the ‘feminazi’ stereotype. From what I’ve gathered, the feminazi stereotype is incredibly fuzzy and highly fluid. It seems to depend on the particular person flinging the term about. There’s a lot of “you know, don’t shave their legs or pits dykes’ to it for many; for others, they seem to go to the most corrosive concept of a Dianic separatist.
Feminism has a long and complex history. It’s not easy to pin a malicious stereotype on one person.
Algernon:
So do I.
Odd. I think a couple of commenters up thread said that we all need to work to remve gendered insults from our discussions, whether online or in meatspace. Additionally, it was explained, in multiple ways, just why female gendered insults and male gendered insults are not equal.
tpaine, did you completely ignore my reply to you @453?
You may find it useful to read it.
James, remember that those opposed to losing power and privilege will always create a stereotype or a strawman to hold up. Always. It is universal. If Valerie Solanas hadn’t existed, someone else would have been propped up in her place. It is not that some people “hurt the cause,” whatever the cause may be. It is that that accusation will always be leveled at someone in any human rights dispute. It is a rhetorical device; derailing on an epic scale. Do not be fooled by it, and do not be persuaded to blame the crazy woman/fag/extremist black dude for “not helping.” Don’t be a patsy to that old con.
tpaine has a funny nym
not so smart though
tpaine:
What exactly does it take to get through to you? Are you slow? It has already been explained that gendered insults, of any kind, are seriously frowned upon here and people who use them are called out. In case you really are slow, gendered insults means exactly that and applies to all people.
As for Dick, no, it’s not okay to call someone that, unless it happens to be their name or a nickname for, oh, say Richard.
I kept hearing it as some sort of awkward Vulcan name and then I saw its avatar. Unreflective un-self aware troll is unreflective and un-self aware.
Josh:
:Scrolls back up and looks: Oh.
Oh for some Common Sense.
One of the tactics my kids tried, many years ago, was asking a questions and then, when Boy or Girl didn’t get what they wanted, they would ask again. Sometimes they would rephrase the question, other times, they just repeated the same question almost verbatim.
Maybe tpaine just didn’t get the answer xe wanted?
tpaine I have said some pretty unkind shit about Sarah Palin’s feminism. If your views on gender are as fucked as hers then I don’t see why I shouldn’t say equally unkind shit to you. You sound like a whiner.
WTF is this shit?
Tpaine, do you realize that this sounds like you’re saying that men are biologically compelled to rape and that is a flat-out misandrist statement?
Oh, and with regards to misogyny and gay men, look at the different ways society at large views being on the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ in anal sex. A bottom has been “made a woman,” “made the bitch,” (this seems mostly used in the context of prison rape), etc. In many circles there’s the belief that a man can have anal sex with another man and still be straight, so long as he’s not penetrated. Or that being penetrated makes a man gay. WTF is that if NOT misogyny?
To be fair, they’re usually mostly familiar with uncharitable paraphrases of Dworkin et al.
Anyone who defies the orthodoxy is troll or to be belittled. Got it. I expected better from “freethinkers,” but I won’t bother your little club anymore.