Fools fail, f*ck their own sh*t up

You’ve probably already read Ophelia’s discussion of the latest MRA stupidity: a group of them on Reddit decided to flood Occidental College’s sexual harassment survey system with a collection of fake rape reports. The logic escapes me; people who claim that women make frequent false accusations of rape decide to inflate the statistics with false accusations of their own? Why? It was a spectacular own goal that effectively demonstrated that Men’s Rights Activists don’t actually care about ending rape, but are more interested in throwing up clouds of doubt and confusion to obscure their own repulsive activities and desires.

It was such a backfire that they’re now frantically trying to backtrack (It was so obviously stupid that even MRAs were aware of their mistake? That tells you how stupid it had to have been) and pretend that no, no one with any clout in the men’s rights movement had anything to do with inciting false reports. No, it was 4chan, yeah, that’s the ticket, it’s all the fault of those irresponsible pranksters at 4chan.

Except…here’s John the Other aka John Hembling, bigshot at AVoiceForMen:

jtoonbrothers

A word for Hembling: Yes, rape is a crime. So is falsely reporting a rape.

And gosh, but Hembling is really an awful person.

The silence of the men

A woman, alone at a bus stop, late at night. A series of men pass by, leering and sneering. One man accosts her persistently.

Over the course of five minutes, he verbally threatened me with rape, a beating, and kept trying to lurch closer to me. When I barked “BACK OFF” and raised my fists, he took a couple steps back, but unzipped his pants and started pantomiming taking his dick out while continuing to call me a bitch and a stuck-up ho. “I am going to slap you, bitch. You deserve to get raped. You deserve a dick in your ass. Stuck-up ugly slut. You’re gonna get raped because you’re a bitch and bitches deserve whatever they get.” At one point he made a motion as if he was going for something tucked into the back of his pants. I just kept yelling at him as loudly and aggressively as I could. But I was genuinely scared at that point.

Sounds familiar. I’ve seen second-hand that surly resentment from men on the internet — it takes some courage and strength to stand up against it in person. Then the bus arrives, and with it some hope of rescue.

It was the middle of the night. I was alone, without a working phone or pepper spray. But we were in a brightly lit place, so I decided to stand my ground and keep yelling at him to stay the fuck away from me and hope the bus would arrive soon, which it did. I rushed to it. The doors to the bus opened, and I called to the driver, “this man just threatened to rape and beat me and started to expose himself, please don’t let him on.” Blank stare from the bus driver. My harasser actually pushed past me, got on the bus, sat down in the front seat, told the bus driver “pay this bitch no mind, she’s a crazy-ass prostitute” and laughingly told him, “she been harassing ME”.

And the driver shook the man’s hand, and ignored the woman.

The man is calling the woman a “bitch” and a “prostitute”, and the driver seems to find it unlikely that he’s been harassing the frightened woman. He does nothing. He says nothing.

The driver eventually ordered me to sit down. So I did. And then asked him: “why aren’t you doing anything? Why did you shake his hand and laugh? That guy threatened to hurt me and rape me. Why would you do that?” He basically ignored my questions. Ignored me.

I sat there, in shock, while my harasser continued to yell threats and insults at me from the rear of the bus.

And she still manages to remain charitable towards the driver.

This morning I called the Golden Gate Transit hotline and filed a report. I genuinely do not want to get the driver fired. He seemed young and totally clueless and lacking in empathy, but not actively unkind. I just hope that some sort of protocol adjustment happens. Some kind of conversation where it’s made clear to each and every driver that when a woman begs them to call the cops or to bar an aggressive man from their bus, they should DO THAT.

That’s all she wants? I wasn’t even there, and I want more. I want men to stop being accomplices in harassment.

“Sad to see America INFECTING the rest of the world”

No, Ken Ham, it’s not. It’s sad to see a “public figure” like yourself preaching hate and homophobia, in response to this story.

It’s not just Ham. Here’s a sampling of the comments on that post:

Wow. These folks should actually be offended. They were selected not for merit, but as props. How nice for the Administration to reduce their identity to their sexuality.

Not just sexual preferences, but to their sins.

America is sending a message “we are a ungodly place” that mocks God

We are not so much a diverse place as we are a sinful place continually rejecting God’s word. Pray for repentance before it is too late for this country.

Just hope the Russians arrest these athletes. If it is illegal and they are there, then they are breaking the law – simple as that

Diversity happens in the sewer. You can’t stop it. Unity in the Truth is the high calling.

We have become a place of tolerance, tolerant to everything but the Truth. GOD is not mocked!

Sickness of soul. Pawns of Satan himself.

Seriously? What does being gay have to do with their athletic prowess? Go as athletes, not athletes with an agenda! And WHY does the FORMER DHS Secretary warrant tagging along? She does in NO WAY represent our country, in any facet, anymore. Send someone that does!

So the homosexuals are going to represent me? Even the communist’s deep in Russia reject homosex. I’d never thought that an atheist like Putin would be standing up for American values!

Obama has to be a closet homosexual. My mother has always said that she believed he was, and now I too have become convinced. I think that the wife and kids was just a cover up to get him elected in politics. Onama is a homosexual.

Now all that is sad.

I don’t think they bothered to read the article. The Obama administration is snubbing the Russian Olympics by not sending any high ranking members of the administration as part of the delegation — the most prominent politican in the group is the former head of Homeland Security — but they are including openly gay athletes, Billie Jean King, Brian Boitano, and Caitlin Cahow as representatives, not competing athletes.

Removing the cloud of discrimination from conversations about science

It’s always nice to hear the grown ups talking. Last night on Virtually Speaking Science, Tom Levenson interviewed Janet Stemwedel and Maryn McKenna on the subject of science writers and sexual harassment/gender discrimination. I listened to it while I was grading papers, and I think it may have contributed half a grade point or so on my evaluations, just by putting me in a more positive mood.

Now you can listen in too — it’s a pleasantly rational discussion of a real problem, and that’s how we take a small step towards correcting it.

Popular Science Internet Radio with Virtually Speaking Science on BlogTalkRadio

Capitalism: not just an idea, a religion

I don’t think I’ve ever met one of these face to face: an unapologetic libertarian fanatic who denies the existence of poverty, and claims that private charity would take care of it if it did exist. And at the same time, he’s stupid enough to voluntarily allow himself to be interviewed for the Daily Show! Oh, right, those two things are not contradictions.

(via Kick! )

That’s not science, it’s sympathetic magic

Ah, another refreshing dive into the mind of the MRA. Oh, wait, no — what’s the opposite of refreshing? Anyway, this guy calling himself Raywolf had this brilliant idea that the way to restore masculine dominance is to rape women anally. His justification: well, it works in prison. This kind of argument seems to sail blithely through the manosphere, but at least Dave Futrelle takes it apart.

Since Manboobz has handled a genuinely repugnant idea so well, I don’t have much to say other than to point out the biologically insane additional explanation Raywolf offered: apparently, semen is supposed to have a magical effect on the emotional part of a woman’s body, her digestive tract.

I was trying to think into why this might be and you can laugh at my theory, but the connection of the rectum to the digestive system which is in many ways the emotional brain of the human machine is clear and present. When someone says ‘he hasn’t got the stomach for it’ they mean it both literally and metaphorically. If you look at the intestines they look a lot like the curls of the brain. Being stressed or nervous can literally shut down your digestion, make you throw up or lose your appetite. It’s an emotional group of organs. The kidneys and lungs for example are a more logical organ, they just process all day long. The expression tight assed is another that springs to mind.

Thank you for the permission to laugh, but I’d do it with or without your agreement. I’m trying to picture a hierarchy of emotionality vs. logic in human organs right now, and am really wondering where the testicles of MRAs fall on the scale. Somewhere off the chart into the realm of total hysteria (word carefully chosen for its irony), no doubt.

Also, I’ve got to say that anyone who had ever seen brains and intestines would not consider them to have the slightest resemblance at all.

She must be the Queen of Science

I just finished grading the exam I gave yesterday in cell biology. Every year, in one of my biology core classes, I slip in a common bonus question. This question is free points — all the students have to do is give me any answer, and I give them credit for it. The question is:

Name a woman scientist, in any discipline. What did she do?

Easy, right? And every year, the same person tops the list.

Scientist Number Percent
Marie Curie 21 44.7%
UMM Chemistry Faculty 7 14.9%
UMM Biology Faculty 5 10.6%
Rosalind Franklin 5 10.6%
Other Scientist 8 17.0%
none 1 2.1%

Other scientists included Jane Goodall, Martha Chase, Caroline Herschel, and my favorite, Mom — Chase, Herschel, and Franklin were all mentioned in my lectures. Marie Curie is not. One person neglected to give any answer (free points! You passed up free points!). Two people named Marie Curie, but had no idea what she had done.

The one interesting change I’ve noticed over the years is that despite her absurd lead, Marie Curie has been steadily dropping, and the students are increasingly aware that there are women teaching science in their other classes — and also, I’m happy to report, the ones who mentioned my fellow faculty are actually aware of what they do for research. Chemistry probably leads biology because these students have a full year of general chemistry before they take this course and are concurrently taking organic chemistry.

Next year, I plan to take the big step and ask how many can name a minority scientist — I’m kind of afraid that most of them will be totally stumped, because I really don’t pull out a big flag when I talk about these scientists, waving it and announcing “Hey! This person is a WOMAN! (or black, or Hispanic, or whatever)” during lecture. It’ll be interesting to see if the students are even aware that the other faculty person teaching half the sections of cell biology is native American…

Is your rape insured?

The state of Michigan has just passed a measure stripping abortion coverage from insurance plans: women will have to ask for additional coverage to get it. Why excluding this particular health issue is so important that it engages the legislature to specifically write it out is a mystery. It’s not as if they are going through a long list of potential surgical procedures, like say, appendectomies, and deciding for patients and doctors that they have to plan ahead for these things and purchase separate riders for them (hey, that might actually benefit me, since I don’t have an appendix; why should I have to financially prop up all you looters who still walk around with that risk factor in your abdomens?).

Unless…oh, right. Misogyny. Women’s lady parts are weird and unusual and not part of the Standard Human’s equipment, so we shouldn’t be expected to treat them as a mundane part of human health care. At least one person, Gretchen Whitmer, sees the problem of special exceptions.

In a charged hearing Wednesday, Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer told the story of her own rape and called the legislation “one of the most misogynistic proposals I’ve ever seen in the Michigan Legislature,” according to the Detroit Free Press. The fact that women are required to plan in advance to have an abortion, Whitmer said, “tells women who are raped … that they should have thought ahead and bought special insurance for it.”

“The fact that rape insurance is even being discussed by this body is repulsive,” she added.

The people responsible for this abomination of a bill are, as you might expect, a so-called Right to Life group in Michigan. Once again, the fetus gets privileges that involving taking away rights from women.

Manly courage

Let me tell you about the first time I asked my future wife out on a date. I was 17. I was terrified. It took me about 3 weeks to screw up my courage, and every day would begin with this absolute, sinking certainty that there was no way she would ever say yes. Then, every time I worked up my nerve, I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to her alone — and even worse than being rejected would be getting rejected publicly. I was very proud of myself when I finally got bold enough to ask her out right in front of one of her friends.

Louis CK reminds me, though, that it required pretty much no courage at all. She was the brave one when she said yes.

Do not read the comments on the youtube video. Do not read the comments on the youtube video. Do not read the comments on the youtube video. Lewis’ Law is in full effect.

Charting the landmarks on the road to revolution

One law for them, another for us. A tragic and fatal accident leads to an obscenely rich child, Ethan Couch, going to trial.

ethancouch

Prosecutors said the boy was driving seven of his friends in his Ford F-350 on June 15 when the car collided with a group of people on the side of the road on the outskirts of Fort Worth. They were Breanna Mitchell of Lillian, Tex., whose car had broken down, Brian Jennings, and Hollie and Shelby Boyles, who had come to her assistance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. All four were killed, and two passengers in the truck were critically injured.

The boy pleaded guilty last week to manslaughter and assault while intoxicated. He had been speeding, and had Valium and a high level of alcohol in his blood, according to testimony.

Even with the excuse of youth — the boy was 16 — this is an egregious crime exacerbated by the irresponsible use of drugs. Prosecutors recommended a 20 year jail sentence; his wealthy parents hired a psychologist who argued that it was all the parents’ fault, and that he was spoiled rotten.

“He never learned that sometimes you don’t get your way,” Miller said. “He had the cars and he had the money. He had freedoms that no young man would be able to handle.”

He used the term “affluenza,” which describes the ennui and depravity of certain very rich people, and which was popularized by psychologist Oliver James in a 2007 book by the same title.

The end result? For killing 4 people and maiming two others, he got probation.

The boy will be sent to a private home near Newport Beach, Calif. that offers intensive therapy. His parents will pay for the therapy, which can cost $450,000 a year or more.

All hail the Ancien Régime!