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.
(addressed to Steele, obviously)
@Steele:
I see. I don’t count because I’m not a real man, just a feminist one. I guess I’m also not a real scotsman?
I see you’re quick and ready to speak for my classmates instead. I also see that, while I would have to personally interview each and every boy in my class, you simply need to wave your hands and reference all the stories about actual oppressed groups playing along, and infer that men must be doing the same thing.
Eh screw it. You have my story, you have Kyrie’s, and all you’ve got are assertions and insinuations. If you wanna keep believing that you can hold your beliefs without evidence, but be hyper-skeptical when it comes to other peoples beliefs, feel free.
Boring Troll is Boring. Talk about a one-note Charley
So, Steele, how do you feel about hard chairs oppressing men?
Wow, Steele just lurves him some false equivalencies.
Yeah, I would rather hear his thoughts on hard chairs.
Steele:
Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
holy shiiiiiiiit
The spam filter has been acting up today and snagged a bunch of comments, mostly in this topic and mostly from steele, for no good reason. I’ve let them all through, though you’ll have to scroll back on the last page to see them.
HOLY SHIT
@Ithiliana
“But I’ve seen great changes in the last 50 years”
And over the next 5 years all the entitlements will disappear. Entitlements for the ladettes costs mucho dinero
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
“Even the attacks on Sarkeesian”
Slight to womans feelings = attack.
“You, Steele, are not important enough to hate.”
Man is so marginalized he’s unworthy in importance to even hate.
@Not for Steele who is an asshat, but when I started teaching, I soon saw a pattern in some of my classes where the non-traditional age women students (many of whom were divorced) would on occasion group together and some out with some really passive-aggressive shit about men–and in the groups (smaller groups for discussion), sometimes younger men (a number of whom had been raised by single mothers) were singled out for bullying by several of these women. I had to act to stop the bullying. I’m in a rural area of Texas, the state with a high incidence of teen pregnancy (and a high incidence of teens having second babies, *headdesk*), and a HIGH divorce rate. Add in the fact that the majority of majors in English in my department (and nationwide) are women, and the lack of any real help for women in that situation (many of them raising children, going to school, and working fulltime), I can understand their anger–and it was, oddly enough, never directed at any one person, just an on-going barrage of “men are always trash.” And always and only at the very young men, traditional age students, who for multiple reasons did not have many tools to deal with it.
CLearly, as a feminist, I provided all the women with clubs so they could beat the young men senseless!
Steele, feminists are the ones asking that selective service requirements be extended to young women as well. They are also arguing for women to serve in more capacities in the armed forces. The people arguing against these demands are male supremacists.
Then other male supremacists (eg, you) turn around and argue that it is unfair to men that women are not subject to selective service. We are not participating because we have been forbidden to.
This is like that time (WHEN? OH, JUST THE PAST SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF YEARS) when women were prohibited from higher education and then called stupid because there were only a few female physicists.
We all see what you did there.
But why am I talking to you, you think the Vietnam war is history’s costliest example of draftees getting killed.
Hatred of men is a problem—hatred of men for being dark-skinned, muslim, hindu, poor, gay, trans, effeminate, mentally ill, and even (to a smaller and much less systematic extent than the others) atheist is all awful and pose huge problems.
What doesn’t make my list is hatred of men for being men, because that poses a tiny problem, especially in comparison to misogyny. Yes, the teachers discussed above should have, at a minimum, been confronted and made to change their behavior, but when there are congressional panels about birth control that don’t even include one woman; when more and more states are passing laws restricting access to abortion services; when “Feminazi” is a word that doesn’t refer to actual feminist nazis; when even the potential existence of a critique of sexism in the media is enough to touch off a firestorm of male privilege, drawing graphic threats of rape and assault, I’mma have to say that plain misandry is pretty low on my list of things to be worried about. It’s less worthy of consideration than misogyny, than racism, than classism, than imperialism, and a whole lot of other things because it is not a systematic problem.
PS No, it’s not okay. Duh.
(Incidentally, in history’a actual costliest example of draftees getting killed, women also served at the front lines.)
Boo-urns, here’s the link.
@Ithiliana
“Can you cite, and by that I mean give us fucking links, a man who has received the equivalent of what Sarkeesian has online, from feminists?”
Every man whose had his children kidnapped and pays to not see them. But, but, but princess had her feeling hurt.
“when in fact the main perps of violence against men are MEN?”
Don’t you mean the feminist State is the greatest perpetrator of violence against men?
“Why? Because you have this shit-headed idea that feminism=hating men”
SInce it’s been almost a hundred years since womens vote, the last roadblock to equality, everything since then has been hatred. Oh that’s right, men are commanded not to ridicule the ridiculous.
@Not for Steele who is an asshat, but when I started teaching, I soon saw a pattern in some of my classes where the non-traditional age women students (many of whom were divorced) would on occasion group together and some out with some really passive-aggressive shit about men–and in the groups (smaller groups for discussion), sometimes younger men (a number of whom had been raised by single mothers) were singled out for bullying by several of these women. I had to act to stop the bullying.
I don’t mean to sound snarky, but I’m not going to give you a cookie for doing your job. If we want to exchange anecdata, I didn’t go to college straight from high school and was one of those “non-traditional age” folks you’re talking about. I was in one class where the lecturer thought it was awfully clever to open the first session with a crack about it was nice to see the front row filled with “bored housewives and unemployable divorcees.” When I went up to him after the lecture and said I didn’t think it was really appropriate cue the usual “gee, get a sense of humour” privilege-denying dudeism. Nor was I particuarly surprised to see one of these “bored housewives” in my tutorial group consistently being marginalized from discussion and condescended to both by the tutor and other students.
Now, what does this prove beyond assholes will be assholes regardless of gender, and teachers should provide a safe and inclusive environment for all students regardless of age, gender or irrelevant assumptions about their marital status?
VOIP you have successfully made me laugh through a long and tedious spoonfeeding of an over privileged troll.
Thank you.
Also, where do you find that stuff? I play on the internet all the time and I hardly ever find the funniez…
I actually googled “fuck shit gif.”
I see you’re quick and ready to speak for my classmates instead.
Am I? I merely stated that you cannot know the feelings of your classmates. It is you who presumed to make a blanket assumption based on your own reaction to the situation. All I did was point out the inherent fallacy.
I don’t claim that all the boys were damaged by your teacher’s misandry. I merely dispute your groundless assertion that none of them were.
[..] you simply need to wave your hands and reference all the stories about actual oppressed groups playing along, and infer that men must be doing the same thing.
So do you dispute the existence of peer pressure? It’s not something that selectively applies to “oppressed groups”, as you put it.
Men are just people, and people have feelings. I don’t know why it’s hard for you to understand that some men- not men, boys- would be hurt by being singled out and attacked. I was in a similar situation, and I know I was.
@Steele:
Well, it’s not surprising that an MRA would read persecution into a situation where there is none.
Not for Steele who is an asshat, but when I started teaching, I soon saw a pattern in some of my classes where the non-traditional age women students (many of whom were divorced) would on occasion group together and some out with some really passive-aggressive shit about men–and in the groups (smaller groups for discussion), sometimes younger men (a number of whom had been raised by single mothers) were singled out for bullying by several of these women. I had to act to stop the bullying.
I am sure it was very difficult for you.
Yeah! Why are all you mean feminists talking about the pervasive, systematic attack on women and girls instead of the occasional, noteworthy attack on men and boys! WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ???!?!?!?!!!
It always seems to go back there, doesn’t it?
Steele, perhaps this isn’t the venue for you to work out your issues. There’s a whole big internet out there for you and your feelings.
Well, it’s not surprising that an MRA would read persecution into a situation where there is none.
Please, point me to where I said I was “persecuted”.
Are you saying that it’s unreasonable for an individual to be hurt or damaged as a result of bullying by an authority figure- regardless of the justification?
Would it have been unreasonable for one of your classmates to be hurt as a result of your teacher’s misandry?
That seems to be what you’re arguing.
Has Remington Steele acknowledged yet the examples of Sodini & Lepine proving that women have been attacked and murdered specifically for “being female”? That’s just in the West.
It’s well-documented that when confronted with bigoted “jokes”, a lot of people who are targeted will feel pressure to play along, so as not to ruin the “fun”.
That’s true, Steele, just not in the way you think. There’s ample evidence on line that men who dare to say the kind of crap directed at Sarkeesian (or any woman) is not OK will be told to STFU and stop being such emasculated faggot mangina she-males. (Here’s a Privilege Denying Dude Pro-Tip: If you don’t want people to think you’re a misogynist, work up some material that doesn’t include the words “whore”, “dyke/faggot”, “c**t,” “bitch” or “grow some balls.”)
Actually, that just made it funnier VOIP.
Okay, Steele, let me try to explain this to you:
A teacher picking on boys is not cool. Teachers should not tell boys that they aren’t as smart or as strong as girls. That is wrong and should be stopped.
But a teacher telling boys that they are worth less than girls is an anomaly. The idea that boys are not as good as girls is not reinforced by the culture at large, which consistently implies that the opposite is true.
Girls, on the other hand, are constantly being bombarded with the idea that they are not as valuable as boys are. If a teacher tells girls that they are not as good as boys, then this idea is reinforced by the culture at large.
So, while a teacher doing either of these things is bad, one is ultimately more harmful than the other.
Understand?
… I honestly can’t talk to you Steele. You have an honest-to-god complete lack of self-awareness.
I talk about my experience, but I’m a feminist, therefore I must have internalized all the misandry in my classroom. Isn’t it common for individuals to internalize persecution in an effort to fit in?
You talk about your experience, and I say you’re an MRA, therefore you must be reading persecution into your experience. You defend yourself by saying how isn’t it common for people to be hurt or damaged as a result of an authority figure’s bullying.
In your mind, literally the only anecdata that matters is your own, and whatever will further support your own beliefs. Despite how silly this whole thing is, you’re still trying to erase my experience at the expense of your preconcieved notions, and that’s too much frustration for such an inconsequential conversation.
Nobody here is arguing that it’s okay to inflict harm (except the MRAs, who argue that it’s just peachy-keen-fine to threaten, insult, beat, rape, or kill women for daring to start feminist projects).
1) This thread is about a man who made violent video game specifically targeting a woman starting a project about misogyny in video games.
2) It is in a blog specifically dedicated to making fun of misogyny.
3) There is a long tradition of smacking down disingenuous bullshit comments that try to turn the message from “misogyny is mock-worthy and stupid” to “what about men, huh? Men are discriminated against and treated worse than women!!!!!”
4) You are fulfilling your role of village idiot to a T.
I think one useful analogy for the discussion of misandry is gravity from the earth and the moon. Obviously the moon has a gravitational pull, and it causes things like tides, but it’s not going to life any of us off the ground. Complaning about misandry is a bit like complaining about the gravitational pull of the moon.
“Damn! I dropped some eggs and they broke. Curse you, earth gravity!”
“What about the moonz!”
So, while a teacher doing either of these things is bad, one is ultimately more harmful than the other.
And if that was the argument set forth by Kirbywarp et al, I’d have more time for it. I’d still disagree, because I don’t consider misogyny to be as pervasive as you all do, but I’d understand the concepts at work. Unfortunately, it’s not the position set forth by the majority of the community.
Secondly, I have a problem with the blanket statements being thrown around here. There are boys who would be heavily damaged by misandric rhetoric, and girls who would barely be fazed by misogyny, because not everyone is “average”. As I said earlier:
Boys aren’t a monolith. Some boys are confident, some boys are insecure. Some boys will be able to shrug off the crap that Kyrie describes; with others, it could lead to some dark places. It did for me. The same is true for girls, of course; if you want to argue that it would be, on average, more damaging for girls to hear a misogynist coach, that’s a discussion that can be had. But it’s really not all that material in a practical sense, in my opinion, because impressionable children aren’t “all average”.
There’s a sense I’m getting that Kyrie’s teacher/Kirbywarp’s teacher were just “kind of bad”, which is a sentiment I strongly disagree with. It is terrible, and those teachers should have been either stripped of their jobs or issued a severe reprimand.
Skimming the comments, it seems Steele is a boring “what about the men” derailment troll. Ho-hum. I wonder if we’ll get another weapons-grade MRA kook like Arks, Zarat, Meller or NWO. This “Bendilin” guy would be a contender.
I remember stumbling upon his comics as a bored kid on the internet, my initial impression was “this is complete crap.” It’s sad that his artistic output seems to have only devolved from there.
“What about the Moonz” made me LOL :)
Yeah that hey baby game is so terrible.
More terrible than say, being told by random dude yeasterday that hed like to lick my pussy. I was walking down the street. In a floor length dress that only revealed my arms. (Empress waistline)
Or my daughters very first. “nice tits”. She just turned TEN. And sadly, she now understands why I fuss over certain aspects of her clothing and deportment. And the guy who said this? Looked to be forty. And now, she’s frightened to go anywhere without me. Because everyone who isn’t clearly a child is an authority figure to her.
So please Steele tell me how hard it is to hear one person tell you you suck when you’re a guy.
Well shit, if I’m looking for opinions on the pervasiveness of misogyny, the one I’m going to give the most weight to is certainly that of an MRA. My own lived experience must mean essentially nothing in the face of MALE RATIONALITY.
I talk about my experience, but I’m a feminist, therefore I must have internalized all the misandry in my classroom. Isn’t it common for individuals to internalize persecution in an effort to fit in?
I didn’t say that. I just said that as a feminist, maybe you’re more inclined to let it wash off your back. I didn’t think it was all that wild of an assumption. Likewise:
You talk about your experience, and I say you’re an MRA, therefore you must be reading persecution into your experience. You defend yourself by saying how isn’t it common for people to be hurt or damaged as a result of an authority figure’s bullying.
It is possible that as someone inclined to the MRM, I am more sensitive to misandry. So? It doesn’t make the misandry okay.
Would it have been wrong for one of your classmates to be hurt by your teacher’s misandry? If the answer is no, I don’t really know what you’re disputing here.
In your mind, literally the only anecdata that matters is your own, and whatever will further support your own beliefs.
You say, “no boys were hurt because I wasn’t.”
I say, “You can’t say whether they were hurt or not unless you discussed it privately with them.”
Who’s relying on anecdata, again?
Despite how silly this whole thing is, you’re still trying to erase my experience at the expense of your preconcieved notions
Ridiculous. I do not dispute for one minute that you were not bothered by your teacher’s misandry.
@Anathema
“But a teacher telling boys that they are worth less than girls is an anomaly. The idea that boys are not as good as girls is not reinforced by the culture at large, which consistently implies that the opposite is true.”
Actually our government, education system and media are in a constant state of glorifying women and demonizing men. The only place it doesn’t happen is in comment section, blogs and games apparently. Which if you’re a woman you’re so used to the constant praise being heaped upon you as well as the demonization of boys and men it must come as a shock to go anywhere where this isn’t institutionalized.
Princess snowflake had her feelings hurt and was rewarded with 160K. If that ain’t woman worship I don’t know what is. Let’s see what happens if I cry that all the mean girls here hurt my feelings.
Hang on, hang on……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzipppppp. Just unzipped my pants and noticed I don’t have a pussy. Guess I don’t get a reward for crying the blues. It’s real easy to see who is privileged beyond all comprehension. Remember how I said a while back if a woman cries in the street she get’s whatever she wants? I guess I was wrong. Privileged little princess didn’t even have to leave her comfy daddy paid for abode. She cried online and got whatever she wanted.
Well shit, if I’m looking for opinions on the pervasiveness of misogyny, the one I’m going to give the most weight to is certainly that of an MRA. My own lived experience must mean essentially nothing in the face of MALE RATIONALITY.
The irony is thick with this one.
Fuck everything about this. This is why society needs to change, and the people fighting it with trolling tactics are enablers.
Steele, the only thing thick around here is you.
Polliwog, I’m sorry that happened to your daughter. That is fucked up.
Polliwog, that is terrible. All the internet hugs in the world to you and your daughter.
This was the day I’ve truly dreaded zardox. I prayed that it would happen later. Literally. But everyone has to remark on what a beaty she is. Which is cruel on so many levels. Mostly because they put her at risk of never seeing her intelligence, her wit, her kindness or any of her struggles to gain real achievement based on what she’s done with her life, not just the genetic lottery. Also because some children do not develophe looks their childhood seemed to promise. What will she be if she doesn’t become the knockout everyone thinks she will?
Also Steele, boys and men have been telling my daughter that girls are stupid from the moment she entered school. It would have been earlier if I had cable and she could watch Saaturday morning cartoons. Did you know there’s a barbie thtells little girls that “math is hard”? How many brave, capable female heroines are there in cartoons?
Protip: That was sarcasm. (Replacing “misogyny” with “misandry” and “MRA” with “feminist” doesn;t work, because even if you flip the tables, you are the one arguing about feminism in an explicitly feminist space.
Do you understand?
I should never have cut my nails. Damn cell keyboard keys are too fracking small!
Sorry for the rampant typos!
Punctuation fail :(
[...] even if you flip the tables, you are the one arguing about feminism in an explicitly feminist space.
Nope. I’m arguing about misandry. You are the ones- all feminists, probably mostly women- presuming to dictate to me how misandry works.
Oops, by Polliwog I mean pillowinhell.
Steele: I don’t think we’re so much presuming to dictate how misandry works as denying it exists in any significant way. David’s “what about the moonz” analogy above is both funny and apt.
Another thing I’m sort of interested in: is it worse for bad things- any sort of bad thing- to happen to an individual man, as opposed to an individual woman? After all, he’s just a man.
Thanks, GingerSnaps! I was laughing too hard to type.
@Steele – This post is about misogyny and you are trolling and derailing. Not arguing. Get it? OMG WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ?!?
You can argue about misandry until you’re blue and your fingers drop off, but you’re never going to be able to prove it’s the big deal you seem to think it is.
You can go now. You’re just another boring troll.
CL: This is a blog that is, unless I’m much mistaken, devoted to mocking MRAs. I don’t think it’s bad form for MRAs to come here and state our case. If you want an echo chamber, go to a more traditional feminist blog.
Oi… just can’t stay away. It’s a character weakness.
@Steele:
I was not a feminist in 7th and 8th grade. The reason that I can be rather confident that other boys weren’t somehow traumatized (note: I did actually say “As far as I know”), was because I interacted with them heavily. Even with groups that are silent in the face of bigotted jokes, I’ve been in situations where it was just a group of guys. No complaints.
And yet, you are still assuming there must be some reason why my evidence is not trustworthy. It couldn’t be because the “misandry” (which was obviously joking) wasn’t actually hurtful, it must be because I’m a feminist and would naturally ignore real misandry!
Note that I didn’t say you were more sensitive to misandry, I said that you see it where none exists (which I admit was bait to show you your bias). Again, you are spinning my words and yours to imply that misandry actually was there.
And again, assuming that misandry actually was there. And by the way, “Would it have been wrong to react this way” is not relevant to whether the thing actually existed, it just implies that it did.
Wrong. I said “I wasn’t hurt, and as far as I can tell neither were the other boys.”
Which first off, I don’t agree with since I’m part of the group that would have been oppressed. Second off, here again you are asking for much more evidence that something you believe didn’t occur, and barely using any evidence to assert that the thing you believe did occur.
We are sharing anecdata. You said you had an experience, I shared mine and Kyrie shared hir brother’s. We are certainly not trying to say that this anecdata proves anything, you shared your experience as evidence that misandry exist. We shared our experience to counter that.
Again. FFS you are assuming that misandry actually existed. Furthermore, you are erasing my experience not by denying it happened, but by explaining it away by saying “Well you’re a feminist, so of course you would ignore misandry.” That is a type of erasure.
You are constantly spinning your words and ours biased towards supporting your own view. If someone brings up a counter, the hyper-skepticism goes up and they must interview personally every single student in the class in order to describe that person’s impression of the group. You defend your own position, in contrast, with hand-wavey “it is well known that in certain situations this might be the case” in order to claim that such a thing is actually the case.
This is why this whole conversation is pointless. Even if I did happen to interview every single male student and none said they felt oppressed, you would probably say that that is only a small anomalous sample (like you said of Kyrie’s brother). You are fundamentally dishonest.
Cliff:
Andmore than a few of theregular kind, I imagine.
Steele:
It’s a shame, you put all that effort into moving that goalpost, and we’re still going to go right past it.
I mean, hating men is less worthy of consideration by feminists qua feminists than hating women. I don’t see anyone saying that, relative to prevalence, it’s less worthy on consideratoin by humans, or less bad.
Uh, Steele? If you think you’re going to get us in some big GOTHCA! by saying that of course we hate men and when an individual man is harmed, that’s just aces with us, YOU HAVEN’T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION. No one here, except our trolls, thinks that way. Fuck off.
Pillowinhell, I’m sorry. I got your name mixed up too.
Steele, not saying that men don’t have issues to be worked out in terms of how men are treated, but it IS NOT EQUIVALENT!!
My daughter faces, oh, about fifty more years of “hey babies” if the youthful genetics of my family were passed on to her. That’s if she’s lucky, that will be the worst that happens. But there will be men who follow her. There will be men who will try to corner her. All based on the fact that she has tits. And since most men don’t consider that at least a few men have tits, its all about her being a girl.
Those looks will hinder her. People will find her attractive, but won’t listen to what she has to say, won’t hire her as much for “serious work”, will put her in positions to make the best use of a pretty face rather than the best use of her talents and achievements. If she does get the full brunt of genetic youthfulness, she will be treated like a perpetual child until she’s thirty or she develops my personal brand of “bitchiness”.
In other words, she’ll be judged solely on her looks and for a large portion of men on the boners she’s capable of inducing. And shell spend a lifetime hearing all about that.
“Or my daughters very first. “nice tits”. She just turned TEN.”
I am *dreading* that day. I started being harassed regularly when I was just 12. I shielded my younger sister from that nonsense the best I could when I was with her once she was a tween but I know she got more than her fair share of pervy comments regardless. I am a momma bear and just the thought of my kids going through even half of what I did at that age makes me feel helpless and enraged.
Sigh.
Can I tell you a story?
When I was about eight years old, I took part in a city-wide math contest for elementary schoolers. It was a large contest, and had, as I recall, several hundred students participating and quite a lot of adults involved in organizing and running it.
I scored higher than any other kid in my age group, and that’s where the problems started – because, you see, first prize was a scholarship. To an all-boys school.
Dozens of teachers, administrators, and volunteers were involved in putting this contest together and coming up with the prizes, and, apparently, not one of them had thought, “You know, there might be a slight problem with this plan!”
I remember sitting in the gymnasium waiting for the contest results, confused because my parents had been called up to talk to one of the people running the contest. Apparently, they were being asked if it was okay if I was just awarded second place instead, because really, how could they have anticipated that a girl might actually win? I mean, it was a math contest! And it’s not like I’d mind being beaten by a boy, since that was what I would have expected! That boy would probably go on to do great things in math with their encouragement, and my winning was almost certainly a fluke, anyway! (These were, according to my father, precisely the arguments that were made, to be clear. I am not speculating on the contest-runners here. This is what they actually said.)
My parents, god bless ‘em, pretty much said, “Fuck that shit, our kid won and we don’t care what you do with that scholarship but you are damn well giving her the ribbon that says ‘1st’ on it.” A crowd started to gather; multiple people involved with the contest tried to argue them out of this because having a girl win was just silly, and why couldn’t they be reasonable and just let a boy win so everything would happen the way they’d planned for it to? In the end, I was – very grudgingly – given the ribbon, and the second-place boy was awarded the scholarship. Somewhat hilariously, he also got the intended second-place prize of a nice calculator. I just got a ribbon. It was a nice enough ribbon, I suppose.
The thing is, that’s just one story. It’s not even the only one I could tell you, by a long shot. Hell, it’s not even the only one I could tell you specifically about winning math contests in elementary school. It is an incredibly common story, and it’s not about one bad teacher. It’s about the whole damn system.
I don’t dispute that teachers who favor girls over boys are crappy. I don’t dispute that the world would be a better place if all educators were paragons of fairness, decency, and egalitarian thinking. That would be awesome. But I have a little trouble working myself into a frenzy over “one time, one teacher treated boys as lesser” when I spent my entire childhood witnessing “every time, virtually everyone I encounter treats girls as lesser.” Individual examples of bias suck, and I absolutely don’t support them, but – as people keep trying to tell you – there is a critical difference in scale between individuals being shitty and systemic shittiness.
“Nope. I’m arguing about misandry. You are the ones- all feminists, probably mostly women- presuming to dictate to me how misandry works.”
Feminist blog. Run by feminist. Feminist content. Feminist commenters. Tagline “mocking misogyny”. This blog post is about misogyny.
You are a person who has chosen to go into a space that is not yours, with a personal worldview does not align with the worldview of the person whose space it is, and the people who frequent the space, in order to argue about something that is not relevant to the nature of discussion in this space.
Do you get it yet?
@NWO: women not hating men=marginalization.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!
If it helps, little troll, I don’t hate you either.
My main feeling when seeing your moniker appear is a mixture of boredom, disgust, and nausea.
Joanna Russ wrote about how one positive outcome of feminism would be women’s indifference toward men–because the misogynstic culture works by pushing women to care about what men think of them (the genesis of the “too ugly to fuck” routine).
Some men apparently take indifference as hatred–which is sort of cure in a misogynistic way!
I don’t agree with that Anita was trying to “scam” people but she really didn’t need 6000 bucks for something she already had the resources for. And using a face punch game to get a direct response from the person getting punched is a stupid idea.
Everything else the guy said is correct, though. Just search for “tropes vs women in video games” on Youtube and you find a few videos with very sound criticism against this woman (notably this video that shows that Anita doesn’t so much analyze as have knee-jerk reactions to things: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrmRxGLn0Bk&feature=channel&list=UL). I have to wonder if you guys have any faith in what she’s saying or if you’re just going to her defense because she’s a feminist.
(I went out for drinks! It was lovely! I met a nice boy! I’m not sure if he likes me like that but I think I have a new friend at least!)
Anyway. I’m glad to see that on a blog post about a woman being massively harassed and threatened for talking about misogyny, we’re still talking about misandry. That’s the important thing here.
…Hey Steele, when you start getting violent threats and people fantasizing about beating you because you brought up “misandry,” maybe you’ll start to have a point. Until then, just the relatively civil treatment you’re getting here–and we’re about the biggest “misandry” skeptics anywhere–should tell you that this doesn’t work quite the same way as misogyny.
Hell, not only are you not getting death threats, I bet you’re not even afraid of getting death threats. I bet you know, deep down in a place you can’t admit to us, you know you don’t have to worry about death threats for talking about “misandry.”
I was not a feminist in 7th and 8th grade.
Inclined to feminist thinking, then. We will have to agree to disagree; I personally do not think you can speak for your classmates, even if you “interacted with them heavily”. John Wayne Gacy was married for decades and his wife had no idea.
Even if you’re right, it would seem to me that it’s better to avoid the possibility of emotionally damaging a male student by not engaging in disgusting examples of misandrist bullying. I say again- I was in a situation similar to yours and it damaged me as an individual- and no, it was not “grey area”, as you seem to be suggesting.
Which first off, I don’t agree with since I’m part of the group that would have been oppressed. Second off, here again you are asking for much more evidence that something you believe didn’t occur, and barely using any evidence to assert that the thing you believe did occur.
Firstly, there’s a difference between oppression and bullying. Based on what you said, your teacher was engaging in bullying behavior. Likewise, based on what you said, your teacher was making misandrist comments. Or do you deny that saying “girls are better than boys” is not misandrist?
Again, if you personally were not affected by her misandrist comments, that’s fine. But based on your own fucking words, they were objectively misandrist.
But you’ve got, me, Kirbywarp:
You are constantly spinning your words and ours biased towards supporting your own view. If someone brings up a counter, the hyper-skepticism goes up and they must interview personally every single student in the class in order to describe that person’s impression of the group. You defend your own position, in contrast, with hand-wavey “it is well known that in certain situations this might be the case” in order to claim that such a thing is actually the case.
I do think that if even one student may be damaging by misandrist rhetoric, we should be avoiding misandrist rhetoric. I do think we should err on the side of not allowing bullies and assholes free reign.
Or do you disagree?
@Cranapia: Yep it proves that.
However, as a fifty plus year old woman, I’m well aware of sexism against women, and ageism, and homophobia, in academia, and have been all my life.
What did surprise me was that behavior from some (A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE) of the women (my university has a majority of non-traditional age students, men and women, and, as I said, most are trying to work fulltime and go to college).
I’m recalling a T-shirt that featured a picture of Martin Luther King with a gun’s crosshairs superimposed and the caption “Our Dream Came True.” Obviously, since the shirt was only celebrating the death of one person, not an entire group, it should not have been considered remotely racist.
A video game about shooting Nazis or Klansmen would have been far worse, since it would be targeting white people as a group, not one individual African American. Besides, I’m sure the maker of the whimsical T-shirt found MLK to be irritating, so it’s all good.
(All right, I need a shower now).
in this conversation, you are the bully and the asshole. the fact that you dont realize that is the problem.
I hereby arbitrarily declare Sharculese the winner of the thread. Steele can go home now?
….I hate that this is a thing that exists.
UGH. WTF HUMANITY, WHY DO YOU SUCK SO MUCH.
Meanwhile NWO, in his own strange world, thinks the entire government of the world is against him, yet has absolutely no fear that his comfy little “work at decently-paid job, get reimbursed for hotel stays, post angry things on Internet” life would ever be disrupted.
They’re coming for all men everywhere, but he sure as hell doesn’t worry too hard that they’ll ever come for him.
Lotta conspiracy theorists are like this. You’d think that if they really believed half of what they said, they’d know better than to ever talk about it in public. You think the Illuminati/feminists/Jews/etc. can get anyone and control the world, and you don’t think they can get your IP?
@Polliwog:
You know what else? As a guy, what stories could I possibly tell? “Oh, in 6th grade I was given the grade I deserved.” “In a math competition, I placed second because the other person answered the question before me.” “In high school I wasn’t singled out by people around me for not being handsome enough.”
The only shitty stories I can tell are stories about shitty things that happened just because shitty stuff happens in life. This was before my time, but in 6th grade I was part of an advanced math program, and one of the 6th grade teacher before my time was fired over harassing the participants of that program because “they thought they were better than everyone else” or something.
I can’t even tell stories about how I was awarded things because I was a guy over other people, because that stuff was either invisible to me or just didn’t happen. I don’t have compelling stories with regards to gender because I simply wasn’t treated shitty for being a guy.
Steele was right; I described my teacher as not doing very bad stuff. Honestly, the “every day a joke” was a bit of an exaggeration. Sure there was plenty of joking about how girls are so much better, but I (and probably everyone else) knew she was doing this to counter girls being told that they were stupider. She was actually rather explicit about that, and everything was light hearted. I’m sure she did the girls in class a world of good, and it probably did set me on the path towards being aware of women’s issues.
But the reason the story wasn’t all that compelling was because it wasn’t! It wasn’t a heavy hitting, rage inducing story about how everything was pretty much normal. Honestly, the fact that you (Polliwog) could tell your story and your daughters, and that there are so many tragic stories about women being harrassed, and the lack of anything nearly as substantial on the other side, is good supporting evidence that only one side has a legitimate claim.