The wit and wisdom of the guy who created that “beat up Anita Sarkeesian” game
Yesterday I wrote about a vile online game in which players were invited to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian,” the feminist cultural critic who’s faced endless harassment because she had the temerity to ask for donations to fund a video project looking at sexist tropes in video games.
The game, which (happily) has been removed from Newgrounds.com, where it was originally posted, was put together by a young Canadian gamer named Bendilin Spurr. On the game’s page, he offered this explanation as to why he created the game:
Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labelled to be sexist against her.
She claims to want gender equality in video games, but in reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.
That doesn’t really explain much, as asking people for voluntary donations to a video project is a far cry from “scamming,” especially since she’d asked for far less, and that the misogynist backlash to her project began long before she’d collected anywhere near this amount.
It also doesn’t quite explain why Bendilin felt that a Sarkessian-punching game was the best format to make this, er, critique.
Last night, after learning from the comments here that young Bendilin had a profile on Steam and a Twitter account, I decided to peruse both to see if I could find more clues that might explain his foul game.
On his Steam profile, he’s set forth his basic philosophy of life, video games, and how much women suck:
I think it’s just adorable how absolutely no girls are any good at video games, just like how no woman has ever written a good novel. They are nothing but talk and no action, probably because girls are such emotional creatures and base everything they do on their current feelings and then try to rationalize their actions later. How pathetic.
You know what’s priceless? When a gamer girl posts a pic of herself looking as slutty as possible and then throws a fake fit when people talk to her like she’s a whore. What did you think was going to happen, you dumb broad? Lose thirty pounds.
Sadly, these aren’t terribly rare or original opinions for a young male gamer.
Over on Twitter, Bendilin has offered a number of conflicting explanations for why he felt so much hostility for Sarkeesian and her video project that he felt justified in creating a video game devoted to punching her in the face.
There’s the fiscal argument:
There’s the laziness argument:
There’s the rather strange argument that Sarkeesian is not taking the proper time to research the subject, although she has not yet started the project. (Also, one of the reasons she was asking for money was so that she could take the time to research the subject properly.)
The “nuh-uh you’re wrong” argument:
The “she won’t listen to me argument.” Part one: The Lego Incident
And Part 2, in which our hero explains that making a video game about punching someone in the face is a great way to open a dialogue with them:
Naturally, Bendilin, like most misogynists, fervently denies that he’s a misogynist:
Yep, that’s right. The guy whose Steam profile claims that “absolutely no girls are any good at video games” and that “no woman has ever written a good novel,” and who decided to express his criticism for a video project that hasn’t even started by making a video game in which players punch the woman behind it in the face, is angry that anyone might conclude that he hates women.
Well, Bendilin, if you wanted to defend video games and the gaming community at large from charges of sexism, you’ve done a bang-up job of it.
UPDATE: Bendilin is also an artist! Here, Virgil Texas takes a look at Bendilin’s erotically charged Sonic the Hedgehog art.
That last paragraph and the update contained
Posted on July 8, 2012, in antifeminism, bullying, harassment, irony alert, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, narcissism, oppressed men, pussy pass, vaginas, violence. Bookmark the permalink. 1,286 Comments.
On the other hand, you are very tired.
On the other hand, hentai is a thing that exists.
Ah ha! Found it! [NSFW]
My day is now success. I can sleep happy. G’night all!
First reaction to thread: D:
Do I need to read it all or can I assume it’s just Steele missing the point about 50 times in a row?
I also kick a lot of ass, if you’re interested in that. And I’m modest, too!
Well I read the first half of the first page before I got distracted (watching someone on YouTube play the Slenderman game, because i’m too cowardly to play it myself :P ), but arguments about the word “misandry” always make me wish the concept of using entirely separate words for institutionalised prejudice and personal prejudice would take off more than it has (making “misandry” permanently a nonsense word).
Then we wouldn’t have to deal with all the bullshit false equivalence that comes from the privileged side of things. Of course, hoping that MRAs would stop it is probably expecting a bit much.
I’m thinking backwards here. I meant the first half of the previous page. :P
I never did find out why Steele called Fecke a feminist extremist.
Farewell, Steele; on behalf of the Humanities, let me say that we do not miss you one bit.
Oh look, yet another thread taken over by a narcissistic asshole who wants to talk about himself. No point wading through 700 comments to try and find any discussion that might have happened about the actual post.
Also, DEBUNCTED. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
It was reasonably engaging when it was on-topic, but then Johnny_M80 was unmasked as a sockpuppet and banned (again), leaving Steele as thread’s main troll.
And like most tediously oblivious trolls, he then decided to make the thread all about himself, which was a bit unfortunate for the rest of us, since he turned out to be even more boring than B_____n (who at least had a possibly fictional girlfriend who was fond of giggling and the occasional light spanking).
@Indifferent sky: I think (based on a whole lot of factors including what students say and do, given that I teach women’s and multicultural studies) that these women were not feminists–but were perhaps protofeminists. They realized they were treated unfairly by the men in their lives–but they had not moved to think about the systemic issues. They were treated unfairly: and not only by the men, but by the legal system in Texas (judges are elected; it is one of the most sexist–and racist! and homophobic–cultures/systems in the country). (There’s some research out there arguing that the attempts made by Southern states to exclude African Americans from education resulted in really horrific treatment of poor white people as well–so there’s been a sort of boomerang effect, in regard to education, social services, etc.). Texas routinely rejects federal money for social services because they don’t want to conform to federal guidelines. So the male and female students in this incredibly poor part of the state while being denied access to health care (literal physical access as well as any hope of paying for it), decent education, other social services, can still see themselves as full on Republicans and support the whole horrific corporation privileging mess that is Texas.
The angriest most “man hating” (by that I mean ONLY expressing verbal hatred of men, without threatening specific men) women I know (and have known since I’ve been teaching here) are just that group of women–and they can often come out with full-blown hatred of feminism (and some personal attacks on me in both evaluations and recently a case of graffitti in the women’s bathroom) when they are assigned to read anything by women. I’m not going to go into any of the personal details of their stories–they’re not mine to tell–and there are complicating factors for me here (I’m a northerner; I’m a professor; I’m an out queer woman — there were some really nasty slurs against me that ratemyprofessor finally took down; I teach all the weird non-canonical stuff: I actually had an evaluation that said “I didn’t expect to have to read lesbians or black women in a Women’s studies class”).
So yes, totally agree on their anger (which is completely valid), but am uneasy calling them feminists (although quite a few of my women students generally are in the “I’m not a feminist, but” category), in part because they would reject the label.
What I learned from the situation was microaggressions (such a useful term) are possible in any context, and do not always follow the larger macrostructures.
@Indifferentsky: OOPS! I misread–you’re saying that you don’t think they were feminists (I misread something there). I totally agree! So um pretty much ignore the whole last comment.
In case it was missed in the trollery of the thread, Ben Spurr’s Twitter account has been suspended, thanks to @amirightfolks. See the storify here: http://bit.ly/LIWqSD
Hey quick question: do you think there are any women in the gaming community?
Bolded for emphasis. I’ll bold this for emphasis also: fuck you. But thanks for showing once again that clueless privileged folks almost never confine their bigotry to only one group of marginalized people.
Viscaria, is that a racial epithet? I don’t know what that word means and I’m too afraid to google it.
Found a story on how the news about this game has spread beyond the internet:
http://storify.com/WiTOpoli/why-is-this-conversation-necessary-ben-spurr
HA! Ninja’d by Effie!
Should refresh before posting.
@blitzgal: Nothing racial, no. To “sperg out” is to react irrationally, as a “sperg lord” (someone with Asperger’s) would do.
To be clear, I’m not saying that people with Asperger’s behave irrationally, I’m saying that’s what the use of the term assumes.
Ah, ableist speech. So sad how they keep coming up with new ones when they can’t get away with casually using the old ones anymore.
I was going to post what Viscaria said, but I check for ninjas now!
There’s also apparently a second meaning for the word (ejaculation) that would make sense in context, though considering his attitude overall i’m willing to assume he’s insulting people with Asperger’s rather than just making a disturbing sentence.
HOLY SHARK SPRAY BATMAN! This thread is absurdly long, and since most of it has been covered repeatedly, I mostly just have snark.
I think it’s caused a rip in the space time continuum by now (I’m tempted to post “2 minutes ’til Belgium” again)
That’s the theme for July it seems. That and this — “Haha, way to lie about something that anyone can scroll up this same page and read for themselves.”
KathleenB re: Portal — try the flash version, it’s a linear style game like the old Mario games.
kirbywarp —
You want & nbsp; for multiple spaces (without the space after &) — and nice job breaking bold, that was hilarious.
Now, onto Steele —
I’m going to assume everyone missed that last line as he seems to be implying the same as Ruby — prison rape is just fucking hilarious. It isn’t — we’d be all for throwing said person in jail, but next to a serial rapist (in hopes he gets raped)? Fuck no.
Note the plural there.
“What about the moonz!”
Now I’m going to go decapitate some Nazis while mocking the boob jiggle and try to forget this thread happened. (Ahhh BloodRayne, actually somewhat on topic — you can have a female lead, she can kick ass, but only if her boobs jiggle)
I thought the one for ejaculate is “spooge,” although obviously there are a lot of terms for it.
I think by this point, we’ve (as in humans generally) come up with about 50 bazillion words for it. :P I’m just going by what I found when I put “sperge” in the Urban Dictionary. I’ve never heard of it used that way either, spooge (or maybe splooge) is what i’d think of too.
I will add a clarification note to my previous comment though and say that since its primary meaning is as a slur, I can’t personally support its use to mean anything else.
“Spergin’ out” is actually a pretty ingenious way of marginalizing aspies, because, by its very nature, it minimizes any emotional reaction it evokes. “What, it makes you upset when I say ‘spergin’ out’? Of course it does, because you’re an angry aspie who spergs out all the time! It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the term, you’re just being irrational as usual.”
“You’re obviously on your period” is a very similar attack that’s directed at women.
I realize this thread is already too long, but I want to mention another man who killed only girls, Charles Carl Roberts IV (the Amish school killings). From the Wikipedia entry on him:
“He ordered the hostages to line up against the chalkboard and released the 15 male students present, along with a pregnant woman and three parents with infants. The remaining 10 female students he kept inside the schoolhouse.”
He shot all ten of the girls, ranging in ages from 6 to 13. Five of them died, the rest were injured, but recovered to varying degrees.
Another “isolated” incident of girls being targeted for murder.
“The Ransom of Red Chief” was fiction, honey.
Thing is, ‘sperging out’, or the more accepted term ‘meltdown’, does happen. Generally as a result of emotional or sensory overload. In my case, it involves violent twitching, arm flapping, and incoherent wailing speech with stuttering. (I’ve actually found that (unintentionally)going into meltdowns in public spaces when dealing with creepy or invasive people helps, because it makes the creepy/invasive people look like a horrible person for being mean to the mentally disabled.)
So it also marginalises other problems (‘they’re just “sperging out”, don’t worry about it’), even if that problem is just shiny decor, flourescent lights, and loud music. It may be an irrational response, but there is a rational problem.
The stuff that whatshisface was saying? Way too coherent for a meltdown. That’s called being a wanker.
Sorry, this is a bit of a sore point for me. Doubly so, people tend to think my meltdowns might be caused by hypoglycemia (diabetic) and try to give me orange juice. Not helping.
I think I’ve seen what Ithiliana describes: a phenomenon in Women’s Studies classes where women who are new to feminist thought begin to get in touch with their (justifiable) anger at patriarchy and specifically at men who have treated them badly and who then turn around an take that anger out (unjustifiably) on the generally simpatico male students in the class. While not a tragedy, this phenomenon is unfortunate, since it can turn off generally well-meaning men to feminism.
For what it’s worth, I’ve found Women’s Studies professors to be quite welcoming of men in their class–and quick to address gratuitous male-bashing (as opposed to critiques of patriarchy) when it crops up.
Uh-huh. This is why a overwhelming TWELVE PERCENT of tenured English lit professors in the U.S. are women. The other 88 percent? Men. Most-often-published literary critics? Men. The majority of the NYT’s 20 Under 40? Men. Seventy-five percent of the U.S. poet laureates and poet-laureate consultants? Men.
Even in the less-encouraged-for-men fields, men still dominate. Get off it.
In the 12 hours since I looked at this post there’ve been 420+ comments, and I read all of them. I culled the stale responses before posting this (except when I was particularly eloquent) but this is still pretty long.
Steele:
What’s the difference between an isolated incident and part of a larger pattern?
Other than whatever best makes your point, of course.
The system that puts men in most positions of political power — oh, sure, you can point to a head of state here, a minister there, a commission chair somewhere else, but even just counting actual secular democracies/republics there’s nothing remotely like parity — is the same system that puts men in leadership tracks in general more than women. And it feeds into itself, the more leaders who are men, the more leadership is seen as a male quality, thus primarily men are groomed for leadership, and so on. This tends to reinforce a societal belief that it is the role of The Man to lead and to have power and agency, and the role of The Woman to accept that power and do what she’s told. When women start entering traditionally male fields (such as the students at the École Polytechnique) or exercising agency (such as Thomas Ball’s ex-wife or, in Sodini’s mind, the patrons at L.A. Fitness) there is widespread anger. The anger may only erupt into violence at scattered points, but they’re not isolated incidents. It is in this system that there is misogyny.
As almost all men are not women and almost all women are not men, the existence of a system benefitting men like this means that women do not get the same benefits. Thus, there is no systematic misandry. And that is the difference I see.
Steele:
Misogyny has prevented women from excelling in many fields — not completely, as I’m sure you will leap to point out, but not at parity. What similar widespread effects has supposedly institutional misandry had?
ibid:
Storytime! Tell us about your victimization at the hands of the system run by and for women, Unca Steele!
Steele:
So even you acknowledge this as an isolated incident. Do you see why that’s not something you can logically and reasonably condemn feminism for?
Kirby:
I don’t know if I’d call him “dishonest”, actually. I’m can believe that when we said “you weren’t raped by feminism, or under orders from the Feminist Overvagina, or as a feminist act, you were raped by one disturbed woman,” what he genuinely heard was “you weren’t raped.”
I mean, you won’t find any quotes bearing that out, because no one actually did say that, but that doesn’t mean his belief that we did isn’t sincerely held. Considering his difficulties in accurately recounting his own words, it’s not surprising he had difficulty with other people’s.
But I’m not getting in another 12-page argument with someone over whether evidencelessly blaming your mistreatment on feminism is anti-feminist.
Steele:
Shit like this is why people think you lack reading comprehension.
Steele:
Ok, so you agree that there is a difference between incidents of anti-male prejudice and systemic anti-female bigotry.
Systemic, institutionalized prejudice exists against people who are or are perceived as women and does not exist against people who are or are perceived as men. This does not contradict your report of having been a victim of prejudice as a man, and it does not contradict TS’s report of having been raped, and no one here said otherwise, though again, it’s possible he believes we have and probable he claims we have.
Steele:
Present some, please. I can’t promise to believe it, but I see this evidence I’ll happily acknowledge that you believe it. Right now you seem to be doing a marginally more adult verion of “I’m rubber and you’re glue.”
Anathema:
Technically, we all are, since misandry — as a parallel to misogyny — in institutional by definition. I can’t speak for other people but I at least acknowledge the existence of episodic werhassery.
Steele:
The issue is not that a woman violently raping a man because she hates men is somehow not anti-male. It’s that it’s not institutional. I mean, if you replace the word “misandry” with a different term that you say means the same thing and that we say means the same thing without the institutional component, I think we’d all agree.
I hate the “semantic argument” dodge as much asanybody, but this is literally a semantic argument.
Steele:
I don’t, but I don’t agree that episodic misogyny exists either.
Steele:
Ok, so you’re admitting you have no evidence orarguments to bring out. Fine.
cloudiah:
Being the object of concern is feminizing, and no MRA would do that to a brother.
You can’t think there’s evidence… it doesn’t work like that…
There has to actually be evidence.
Steele’s argument totally works if you imagine it in the Timecube fonts!
Misandry is both ISOLATED and INSTITUTIONALIZED just as the Timecube is both ALWAYS ROTATING AND ALWAYS STATIONARY. The anti-Timecube educational-feministory-industrial complex has brainwashed you so you cannot accept that Misandry is CUBIC. YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH OF CUBIC MISANDRY!
Captain Bathrobe- Personally, I condemn instances of bullying, abuse, and harassment equally, wherever I see it. I don’t consider some people (and I’m expressing the implication here) as “more deserving” of bullying, abuse, and harassment. Likewise, I don’t think that bullying, abuse, and harassment is “less bad” depending on the source of the bullying, abuse and harassment.
Just so we’re clear on my position. I don’t think it’s unreasonable.
My writing skills aren’t great, obviously- because I was told by a misandrist, bullying, abusive authority figure that I couldn’t cut it, as a male. As an impressionable young kid, I bought it. My lack of writing ability is a direct result of misandry in my life.
The issue is not that a woman violently raping a man because she hates men is somehow not anti-male. It’s that it’s not institutional. I mean, if you replace the word “misandry” with a different term that you say means the same thing and that we say means the same thing without the institutional component, I think we’d all agree.
I hate the “semantic argument” dodge as much asanybody, but this is literally a semantic argument.
You know- fine. I disagree with your assertion that “misandry” inherently must carry an institutional component. That’s not borne out by the dictionary or the real world, in my opinion. But you’re right- you’re arguing semantics. It seems to be unduly important semantics to feminists, indicative of a victim complex… but whatever.
@Dani: Depressing stats — given that for some time now (when I got my doctorate in 1992) the percent of doctorates in English awarded to women was reaching 60%–but yes, women are highly over represented in the adjunct/temporary/exploited teaching areas, and competely under-represented in the promoted/full professor with tenure areas, let alone in administration.
The major reason most of our majors are women is that we have a Liberal Arts track and a Secondary English Certification track, and girls are just supposed to be English teachers (my partner’s History dept, with the same two tracks more or less is dominated by men).
*sighs*
@Hershele: The fact that Steele wants to claim EPISODIC misandry for himself (women been mean to me) and dismiss violence against women as ISOLATED INCIDENTS is proof of………………the amount of custard pudding he has between his ears?
His oh I don’t know COMPLETE AND FUCKING MISOGYNISTIC TROLL SHIT?
Misandry is both ISOLATED and INSTITUTIONALIZED
You do realize that words can actually have more than one meaning, correct? “Misandry”, in everyday jargon, would in my opinion refer to isolated cases.
If it’s understood that we are speaking in a sociological sense, “misandry” would refer to “institutionalized prejudice”.
Again- words can have more than one connotation. For example, “Wood” can refer to lumber or erections, for example. Depending on the context.
Idiot.
The everyman may think that some incidents are ISOLATED, but no, because of the Cubic nature of MISANDRY they are actually INSTITUTIONALIZED, but ordinary people CANNOT see it.
There is EVIDENCE of this, by the feminteacher-psychiactric intistutional OVERLORDS prevent me from telling it, and your lower consciousness prevents you from UNDERSTANDING THE TRUTH. YOU MUST accept the TRUTH of CUBIC MISANDRY BEFORE YOU CAN COMPREHEND THE EVIDENCE.
@Wisteria
I realize this thread is already too long, but I want to mention another man who killed only girls, Charles Carl Roberts IV (the Amish school killings). From the Wikipedia entry on him:
“He ordered the hostages to line up against the chalkboard and released the 15 male students present, along with a pregnant woman and three parents with infants. The remaining 10 female students he kept inside the schoolhouse.”
He shot all ten of the girls, ranging in ages from 6 to 13. Five of them died, the rest were injured, but recovered to varying degrees.
Another “isolated” incident of girls being targeted for murder.”
So ya’ll got 3 or 4 example over the last 20 years. Sounds pretty isolated to me. Or is it a culture now?
Why are you so insistent about using “misandry” when you have at least two other words you can use? This isn’t about context, it’s about false equivalence.
By the way, your context argument is stupid: “The lumberjacks down the road gave me wood.”
Hey guys, is psychology a humanity?
Yeah, Steele is such an awesome guy, calling out shit like harrasment( nothing to say about my daughter getting her first taste of being sexually harassed), and bullying (nothing to say about the threats Sarkesain is getting) or outright taken to the extreme misogyny ( mass murderers of women as targets are “isolated” cases)!!! Why won’t you listen when he says one teacher ruined his glorious writing career!
Dude, that only happened to you once? I’ve know plenty of women who were and are never expected to finish highschool, because a womans job is to marry and stay home. I’ve been told many times about how women aren’t cut out to be graphic artists, fine artists, aren’t suited to learning how to repair various things, aren’t loigical enough to handle philosophy, math or science and are too emotional to pursue careers that involve stress. I’ve been repeatedly threatened with beatings,rape and death while taking care of my job as superintendant because being a woman means its my place not to tell men they must pay rent, or respect their neighbors and turn down the party.
Steele, you wouldn’t last a day as a typical woman.
@creativewritingstudent:
I was definitely not trying to dismiss this. Without revealing too much about my brother’s personal life, I know that he has different stressors than I do, because (in part*) of his Asperger’s; and that he reacts to those stressors differently than I do, also because (in part) of his Asperger’s. However, I don’t think it’s at all okay to dismiss those reactions as illegitimate and not worth adjusting to or considering, like “rational” reactions that “normal” people have; and that’s what I feel was happening here.
Not to mention, a lot of when my brother gets accused of “sperging out” it’s when he reacts emotionally to people treating him like a freak. Fuck those people for treating him as less than human and then telling him it doesn’t matter if he’s hurt by it, because freaks get hurt for no reason.
*some of it’s just… people are different, y’know?
Dear Steele,
Trees and erections do not mean opposite things.
Love,
The Internet
WHAT ABOUT THE MOOOOOOOOOONZ?!?!!?!?!??!?1
(Has anyone said this on this page yet?)
Anyone here wanna take bets on how long Man O Steaale here would last as a waitress? What with all the ass pinching, groping, demanding your time despite having other people to serve, demanding that you appease their ego whilst they hit on you, guys that follow you hame from work, guys that give you graphic details about what they want from you in bed, guys that call you a cunt or a bitch when you politely and firmly tell them no, guys that try to get you fired when you won’t fuck them, and finally bosses who believe that putting up with that shit. And looking happy about it is part of your job.
You had a teacher whoi turned you off from writing. I’ve had a lifetime of being told that my vagina disqualifies me from doing anything “important” unless its putting up with the small percentage of men who think I exist to sexually appease them. Quick, someone hand me a hanky for his man pain.
http://whataboutthemoonz.wordpress.com/
You’re Welcome.
Steele, you are boring and tedious. Why don’t you make your own blog where you can write all day about “isolated yet institutional misandry”? You could also mosey on over to the manosphere and talk about that. This is supposed to be a thread about Anita Sarkeesian.
If that was true, why did you hijack this thread about the people harassing and threatening Anita Sarkeesian? If you thought that her abuse was serious, you wouldn’t have changed the subject to make it all about you.
Steele, As a person suffering from a high functioning autism spectrum disorder, I resent your use of the term “spergin out” as being a negative matter. I and most aspies I know are very rational and level headed people, who rarely if ever “sperg out” as you so eloquently put it.
Even if this description of your teacher and what she said is factually correct, had you never been in a bookshop or a library? You know, those places lined with thousands of volumes bearing names on the spine, a huge proportion of which are certain to be male?
My kids are still in single figures, and they’re well aware that men write books. If you told my nine-year-old son that a writing career was out of the question for him because he was male, he’d just laugh. Either that or wonder what happened to the punchline.
(Modification indicated by [ ]) QFFT – more than that, that just for being born with a vagina instead of a penis means I’m a dirty whore who deserved to get raped and molested from a young age because hey, dirty whore. Despite the fact that I have only ever had sex with one man – my husband.
You know the SteeleMan’s dirge reminds me of one of my favourite stories, which I’ll happily mangle here, now for your pleasure.
So there was this young guy (the story takes place back when artists were apprenticed to “masters” in order to learn trades, so for me it’s a guy. Or it can be a genderless android, if you want) who loved playing the violin. He played a mean violin and it made him happy to do so, so he though “hey, I should go pro with this violin-playing shit, I hear classical music is totally kicking Baroque’s ass!”. However, being a cautious young man (or genderless android, if you prefer!) he thought “Hold up homie, better find out if this shit is legit first” so he goes to this master violinist, the most revered violinist in all of Vienna, and tells him of his plans to Hit the Big Time.
The master, being very, very famous and very, very revered, listens to the passionate young man (or genderless android). At last, the youngster asks “So please, master, let me play for you and you can tell me if I’m good enough and worthy to attempt to fulfill this dream”.
So he plays his heart out. Seriously, he plays to make the Devil who went to Georgia weep and take lessons in violin competition asskickins: a how to. He gives it his all and when he’s done, he’s out of breath, breathlessly awaiting the master’s verdict.
The master squints at him and spits on the ground. “You don’t have the fire”, the master says and walks off.
Youngster’s world collapses. He gets depressed, he gets angry, he gets enraged, but what can he do? The master said he lacked the fire, and obviously the master knows his shit.
So he went on to become ye olden tyme’s version of the CEO of a large company – you know, something respectful and gender-stereotype fitting that mom and dad can be proud of.
One day many, many years later, the former youngster runs into the (now very old and almost expired) great master again. Delighted, he stops the master for a chat, reliving that epic day that changed his entire life. “You know,” he says. “That shit you laid out to me was downright cold, but you saved me from wasting my life on something I just wasn’t that good at and instead focus on making lots and lots of moolah. Right on righteous, thanks, dogg. I respect you coz you keep it real.”
The master squints at him and goes “I have no fucking clue who you are, whippersnapper, but get off mah lawn”.
(Former) Youngster is aghast. “You changed my life, way back in the (fifteen) fifties, man! You know, that day! I came and I played my heart out and though the truth was hard, you laid it out straight as a mofo and said I didn’t have the fire”.
The master snortles and says “Kid, I get kids coming to me all the time to judge their competence with the violin. I say that to all of them.”
“What, ALL of them?” (Former) Youngster is really shocked, you see, because this shit changed his life, yo! He could have been great! He could have dethroned Stradivarius! Fuck Mozart, he could have… well, but now he didn’t, because he gave it up! Because this old piece of shit has a form answer to discourage youngsters! What an asshat, amirite!?
So he gets ready to lay into the old (and soon to be severely hurt) grand master, but the master forestalls him before he can get his fighter mojo on.
“Son,” he says, before walking way. “If you had the fire, nothing, nothing I said could have made you quit your dream.”
SO yeah. Long story short: Dood didn’t have the fire.
Here are all kinds of goodies on our “hero”:
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Bendilin
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/bendilin
Newgrounds:
http://bendilin.newgrounds.com/
Steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Bendilin
[rest of info redacted by DF]
QFT!!
Might I also add that “the role of The Man to lead and to have power and agency, and the role of The Woman to accept that power and do what she’s told” is a societal belief not only reinforced by the secular system but is also bolstered by the major religious institutions. Thus if a woman does prove herself capable of leadership, we always have the “God says women are not to have authority over men, just because, so we have to go with God” to fall back on. Whatever it takes to keep those nasty women in their place.
Gingersnaps: A fine new addition to the Manboobz spinoff blog empire!
Thanks!
I’m hoping the mockery of trolls can move there so these threads can be used for the mockery of misogyny in the OP.
lol
Oh. I never even thought of it like that.
I thought he was saying that these people ought to be thrown in jail, just as we throw serial rapists in jail. I completely missed that Steele was condoning prison rape here. If I’d realized that this was what he was saying, I would never have responded by saying that everyone here agreed with him on this point. Ugh, I feel awful now.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Steele, you’re an even worse person than I thought.
For example, “Wood” can refer to lumber or erections, for example.
Somehow, I’m not surprised that this was the first example that came to the mind of someone named Steele.
Also, if at the end of a short sentence you can’t remember what you said at the beginning of the sentence, writing is not for you.
Gen, I like that story so much imma gonna embroider it as a wallhanging!
Oh my god, is that guy still going? Did he even sleep?
Johnny_M80: 2-D Man: Interesting. Should employe[r]s exercise the same caution with feminists found to be writing violent rhetoric against men online?
Sure.
Next.
And the Beat Up Sarkeesian video game is about targeting just one specific person. So it’s even less sexist than that. :)
No. Actually the comparison is apt, and makes your case worse. When the subject of a violent act is specific (be it a person, or a group) the issue isn’t whom, but why.
So the first group targets a predatory group (and one which has been abstracted; one could also make a group target which wasn’t abstract; e.g. The Order); because of it’s predatory aspects.
The second targets a specific person for her specific acts. Acts which harm no one. Some of which acts which haven’t actually taken place yet.
Those are fundmamentally different things.
I’m pretty sure Steele has flounced, but just in case:
Steele, as a man who works fulltime as a writer/editor, I can tell you right now that if you still can’t get over one criticism that happened 20 years ago, you are not and never were cut out to be a writer.
Writers have to do three things: be creative, edit their own work, and take criticism. I have never written a draft that didn’t come back with red on it, and I have never cleared another writer’s work without sending it back at least once. Usually, I send it back three times or more.
Editors aren’t paid to nurture your creative soul. We’re paid to squeeze the maximum possible saleable content out of you. We are brutal. It has nothing to do with your gender, your level of seniority or even your skill as a writer. If you wrote as well as Shakespeare, your editor would criticize you until you wrote as well as Proust.
If you can’t compartmentalize criticism and move on from it on a daily basis, you can’t be a writer. It’s just as much a part of the job as using big words and complying with Strunk and White. If it has taken you over 20 years to get over that one discouraging remark, you are not cut out for a career in writing.
Johnny_M80:
Game about beating up a specific woman whom many people find annoying: Misogynist, violent and threatening to all women everywhere!
Game about killing men who catcall you on the street: fine.
Everybody on the same page so far?
Nope.
I aver they are different. I’ve not said anything about the specific merits of the second; as a specific game.
I have addressed the merits of the two styles; when it comes to inferring intent.
As I was writing this, I thought of evidence that could be offered in support of the existence of systemic misandry — or, if you’re a sensible person who regards that as a pleonasm, misandry.
I’m not going to say what it is, because at this point the positive claim is as much “Steele is talking about something with substance rather than attempting to throw words back at us” as it is “misandry is a thing”. If he comes up with something at least as debatable as I did, I’ll take that as a yes on the first (if not the second), and I don’t want him to say “yeah, that’s what I meant all along”.
Steele:
I’m confused, were you told this by one person or by all of them, plus the entire culture? Because again, parallels. If you’re claiming that this is a matter of the same cultural pressures brought to bear on women in academia (particularly STEM, but really throughout), one person isn’t going to cut it however weak-willed you are.
op. cit.:
That doesn’t explain how a woman violently raping a man because she hates men is institutional man-hatred, which is your implicit claim.
If, as I suspect, you’re not going to answer this when it’s put in terms everyone agrees on, it is not we who are arguing semantics.
Gen:
Cool story, pal, but the natural misogynist response is to say that’s equally true of women, overlooking the difference in degree that becomes a difference in kind.
Pam:
Yeah, I was trying to limit it to informal (and thus invisible) systems of male supremacy. Qatari (etc.) women don’t suffer under a vague inchoate sexist culture, they suffer under a sexist code that’s written down somewhere.
Erm, “don’t only suffer”, “they also suffer”.
This is really my favorite comment of Steele’s, and a perfect example of “what about the moonz!”
It’s shitty you had an abusive teacher who undermined your confidence. But that in no way compares to a constant barrage of cultural messages about what girls and women “can’t do.” I know one woman who was told every day of her life growing up by her parents that women were no good at anything and she couldn’t really ever hope to support herself.
I had a really shitty, mean, patronizing Russian teacher in high school. I hate her to this day. (I think she may be the only teacher I’ve ever really hated.) But that’s not why I’m not a Russian translator today. Russian is a difficult language, and I’m shitty at languages.
Ah… Ion. It’s been awhile since we had someone try to do repeat business.
One wonders what they think they will get.
Just chiming in to agree with Ugh. Writing in your journal may be fine for sensitive souls who crumble at the first sign of criticism, but writing as a career is not. It’s like any other creative field – if you can’t handle your work being critiqued, you’re not going to last very long.
Also, I find it hard to imagine someone who thinks that he can ignore the definitions of words and use them to mean whatever he wants them to mean being capable of adhering to a style guide. I’m picturing him sending his boss lengthy diatribes about how The Chicago Manual of Style is wrong so he shouldn’t have to follow it.
Also, Word’s Track Changes function is misandry. Just wanted to point that out.
In high school, I had a very… let’s say moody teacher. One time, she refused to allow a student* because of his hair. (after refusing dozen of students for not bringing their books) What she didn’t like was that his hair was yellow. Not blond, he dyed his hair bright yellow.
Comparison time:
Is (was) refusing a black students for being black a serious and systemic issue?
Is refusing a female students for being female a serious and systemic issue? (and before you say “doesn’t happen, think of polliwog’s example of being denied a scholarship for being a girl)
Is refusing a yellow-haired students for being yellow-hair a serious and systemic issue?
Is refusing a male students for being male a serious and systemic issue? (has it even happened once?)
Is you want to answer YES to any other question than questions one and two, bring actual arguments. Not, “sometimes some women don’t like men”.
*In case you wonder, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have scar from the incident nor failed high-school because of this teacher. No student was harmed in the happening of this anecdota.