Man Boobz Contest: Find the Whiniest, Most Entitled Response to Anita Sarkeesian
From “Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games.”
So Anita Sarkeesian, who apparently didn’t run off with all her Kickstarter money to found a Misandist Gynarchy in the wilds of Canada, has released the first video in her Tropes vs Women in Video Games project. (I’ve embedded it below.)
Naturally, this is causing great consternation in certain corners of the Internet (*cough* Reddit *cough cough* everywhere else that misogynistic nerds congregate *cough*). In the Man Boobz forum, Katz has started a contest to see who can find “the whiniest, brattiest, most entitled response” to Sarkeesian’s video on the Internet. So far Katz and Myoo have found a couple classic comments from irate Sarkeeianaphobes:
[H]ow does one go about stating that genders and gender roles are social constructs? I mean is evolution nothing to her? Does the patriarchy make male peacocks dress provocatively?
Yes. Yes it does.
And:
I’m gradually losing respect for the opposite sex. I’ve unfollowed people on tumblr who talk about how great she is, because it actually causes bile to rise in to my throat.
Yeah, that’s a totally reasonable response to a woman making a video about video games.
So anyway, I’m thinking we should bring the contest over here.
See what you can find! Consider it a sort of scavenger hunt.
Here’s my contribution, from the Men’s Rights subreddit, complaining that Damsels in Distress are the truly privileged ones:
Amazingly, this acutally got called out on r/mr as being pretty damn stupid.
Also, I have another question, to add to the stack of other questions I’ve been asking lately: Just why do you think so many guys get so angry when girls and women invade what they consider a male sphere, like gaming? (Also, why do they consider gaming to belong to boys and men?)
Oh, and here’s the video that’s causing all this hubbub:
Posted on March 9, 2013, in all about the menz, antifeminism, are these guys 12 years old?, david has questions, drama kings, entitled babies, evil women, evo psych fairy tales, harassment, I'm totally being sarcastic, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, oppressed men, reddit, ShitRedditSays and tagged anita sarkeesian, tropes vs women. Bookmark the permalink. 1,073 Comments.
I say we just lie about the quota. Comrades, rejoice! Your quota has been reduced by 95%. Also the international quota for pedantic assholes was reached some time ago. All the workers can go on holiday for the next decade.
@hellkell
Erotica has always been popular with women. Women spend over a billion dollars a year on romance novels. And look at the fan fiction that is filling the interwebs.
@some gal
I’m trying to decide if I should call in sick for tonights shift.
I think I may need to see a doctor. Though my fever has leveled out.
Melody: I know that, but our little troll baby seems to have missed that memo.
@melody
I think that if you are in the position to take a sick day (and considering seeing a doctor!), then it is kinder to yourself and your coworkers to call in.
Gross story time. My sister’s coworker brings in a treat she made to share. She passes it out, everybody eats, and then she starts complaining about her sore throat… Now everyone is waiting to see if they will get strep. :(
@some gal
I work nights this week (no contact with co-workers and little contact with clients).
I can take the time off I just worry I’ll regret it when it comes time to pay the bills.
My hours this week already got cut from 40 to 30. Which is 100 dollars less than I want to make. Losing another 80 dollars isn’t really something that makes me happy.
I always worry that I’ll get other folks sick. I rarely get sick and therefore I freak out a little when I am sick.
Conflict….I think I can manage, but I suppose if I’m not feeling better by 8pm then I should call in sick. I could make it worse by forcing myself to work.
Some male characters in games are sexualized. The more recent Final Fantasy games for instance have several men that look like Gackt, a Japanese musician known for his sex appeal, and they also have impractical costumes that show off his bod.
And guess what, a lot of male gamers have conniptions over those characters because they “look weak”, or they look “gay” (because games are supposed to be made for men and if there’s an attractive man in it it has to be gay). But if women complain, all of a sudden they’re just making up drama? Yeah, they’re not fooling anyone.
@melody
I didn’t mean to come if lecturey. I normally only have this conversation with my mom and she never takes sick days. Of course, she also hates her coworkers so maybe she secretly wants to get them sick.
*ofoff
That correction was super helpful. :(
@some gal
No big deal.
I’m just frustrated because money is a constant problem for me. And my job has fluid hours. Over the holidays: Nov-Jan I was working over 60 hours a week. And the sudden drop off this week of only 30 hours is grating.
My replacement just called and he asked if he could be late to get coffee. He is going to get me a latte too!
@melody
Best of luck. I know how much worrying about money sucks. Ideally, no one should ever have to face a decision like yours. I hope you’ll be feeling better by tonight.
Michael Søndberg Olsen — you new around here? ABNOY is logic proof, don’t bother trying, you’ll just give yourself a headache. I mean, you can try if you want, but he’s really not worth the headache.
Second, if you are new, here are your complimentary SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING CANDLES, matching towel set, and a misandrist hard chair — *delivers the, via female penguin courier* — watch out for those female penguins, they’re whores! (We really need citations for the respective rants, it makes little sense without them)
Third, can we call you Michael? And what are your pronouns of choice? Figure I might as well ask these things while already addressing you! (Argenti is fine for me, and ze/zir)
Enjoy your stay with us, we have baked goods and cute animals!
Marie — you aren’t spamming when you reply! We don’t bite :)
Melody — yuck, good luck deciding whether to call in sick, and with being sick. Healing thoughts sent your way, along with internet (and thus germ free) hugs, if wanted.
I’ve heard people discuss this in comics fandom and one of the rationales is that these dudes are largely geeks who were judged for being geeks when they were younger, both by other guys and also by girls. Comics/games/whatever become not only something they love but also a space where they could escape other people looking down on them for being a geek. So whenever anything they love becomes mainstream, or becomes popular with women, they hyperreact like an autoimmune disorder at the prospect of their safe space being invaded and taken from them.
This is, obviously, not nearly a universal answer. There are also issues of both comics and games enforcing extremely rigid gender stereotypes in their content in many ways. Does that draw guys who are already tilting toward misogyny to them in the first place? Are those roles absorbed through reading/playing? Who knows. I doubt there’s a single answer for the hysteria that always erupts from male fans of anything as soon anyone voices a critical opinion.
I’d feel sympathy for the hypermasculine depictions of men in games and how that could potentially impact young boys and their body image if these guys didn’t try to make it equivalent to depictions of women, which it’s not. No guy walks through the world feeling like every person who sees him is unfavorably comparing him to those guys, or worse vocally telling him he’s failing to live up to that image at random. It just doesn’t happen, whereas women live with that every day.
@drst:
Not to mention two of the most iconic male video game characters ever, Mario and Sonic, aren’t exactly the musclebound meatheads oft cited as examples of how video games also portray men with unrealistic standards of attractiveness (I mean, one’s short and chubby and the other’s an anthropomorphic hedgehog with noodle arms, for cryin’ out loud). While, on the flip side, iconic female characters, even heroic ones, tend to be conventionally attractive.
(Hi everyone, been lurking for a little while now. Of course it’d take talk about video games to get me to come out in public. >.>; )
I’m just here to hand the “Whiniest, Most Entitled Responder” crown to CiaoBaby. While my entries were worthy contenders, they just don’t hold a candle to his raging KEYBOARD SMASH tantrum of whininess.
And hope you feel better Melody!
One of the best responses when the Kickstarter was announced was from Charlie Brooker m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/17/sometimes-hard-woman-made-pixels who essentially said Sarkeesian was right.
His article got a lot of dismissive what about the men comments. In repines, on Twitter he pointed out that he’d written an article ages ago about the negative portrayals of men in video games and got not one what about the women comment.
Thanks all.
I agree I wish folks didn’t have to make that choice.
I check this site constantly lol. Get to work and check manboobz on phone and get home check manboobz on computer.
I love the takedowns on this site!
@ Augochlorella
Sorry about your friends being jerks.
@anboy
I’m glad all of our media will be divided into boy and girl categories. How I will watch videos with my family, or play video games with my brother (something we do together) I don’t know.
@xiaobaobao
If sex sells, why aren’t men being more sexed up? Women have money (and so do gay men and other people attracted to men). Why is it only in one direction?
@weeboy
Clearly you’re a magina, or something *rolls eyes* Though in serious, I would not be opposed to sharing a clubhouse with you :D
I should tell my brother he’s playing video games wrong. I mean, minecraft hardly has any boobies (that I’ve seen. He’s the only one who plays it.)
…and if there were boobies they’d be really pixelated square boobies. Sexy!
@khantron
*giggles*
ohmygod, a real life checkmate feminists person! My life is complete, I can now die.
trolls confuse me.
but…but…but…cooties! (I’m not making any sense today :/)
why did my brain miss the eating cats part! I am so disappointed.
*giggles* Also, I bet it’s really hard to have sex in zero G. Why am I thinking about this?
he could be that really boring bond villian in the movie that michelle yao was in. (why was she in a bond movie! she’s too awesome for that. Anyway, because of misandry I can only remember bond movies by the bond girls, not the titles. But I’m thinking of the bond villian who had that whole media shtick going on.
And I’m going to post this comment before it gets too long, but bad marie was commenting before finishing again. Sorry if the comment is a little all over the place, I just woke up.
Now I know that’s a lie. ;p
@melody
Sorry to hear that you’re sick :(
Hard to have sex at zero G’s? Yeah, someone’s working on that already — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2suit
Leave it to humans to figure out how to build a space station while in orbit, and nearly immediately start work on how to have sex aboard it. Priorities, we’ve clearly got ‘em! (Note the lack of “because straight men want this” and the image of a pregnant woman in one of the suits)
@Marie
xiaobaobao was a particularly bouncy troll who crashed around a bunch of dead (or nearly dead) threads before landing here. The threat to eat our cats was made here.
He has certainly been reading here a lot without commenting for a new troll. I vote sock.
hmmmmm. Seems like one would really need good birth control for that, at least if it’s between sperm and egg people*
*idk if that made sense? because not all girls have eggs and not all boys have sperm, but I really didn’t know what to say. So feel free to call me out if I said that offensively
@some gal
well…i have now seen the ‘I’ll eat your cats bit.’. How strange.
Strange how xiaobaobao keeps going on about white liberals, when whites are the biggest problem liberals have. I mean, if it were up to whites Romney would have won a ridiculous landslide victory.
@WeeBoy:
Your words. I like them.
When entitled little manchildren come by to tell us that we need to stop whining because video games are for boys, okay, and we should just make our own stupid girl games for girls if we have a problem with it, we tend to address how women actually do make up a fair portion of gamers and we could comprise more of it if the industry listened to us a little more. What we don’t tend to do is question why games that disempower women and turn them into consumable objects should appeal to so many men in the first place.
My perfect fantasy LadyGame for Ladies doesn’t turn men into sexual objects. It’s not in a world where literally everyone except the love interest is female. It’s just a place where people like me (and other marginalized people) get to have a little taste of being the hero! It doesn’t require setting women up as better and more fully human than men.
If some dudes can’t enjoy their fantasy worlds unless women don’t get to have any power or agency in them then, um… those dudes are massively sexist? And we get to call them out on that even if we create our own games?
This is long and rambly on account of all the phlegm invading my brainspaces, sorry.
Marie — I’d go with sperm and egg people there, since those are the conditions needed to make a baby without medical interventions.
As for our likely sock, idk, he’s got randomness down in a way Pell could never manage, isn’t pulling a Br____n, and idk on the rest of the set of return trolls. Looks to me like what would happen if ABNOY and Owly had a love child — then again, incoherent insistence he’s from a specific place while not really sounding like it? You sure you aren’t French xiaobaobao?
If the male sex drive is an unstoppable force and the hierarchy is inevitably here to stay, why does he care so much about crushing feminism?
I’m imagining him like this.
@argenti aertheri
Alrighty. I just thought I’d see if it was fine :)
@viscara
My perfect game world also wouldn’t have men sexualized, for a couple reasons.
-It’s icky and dehumanizing
-I’m not attracted to men
-and the sexualized stuff for girls I don’t really like, it’s much less ‘how sexy’ and more ‘how creepy’. even if I did think it was attractive, it’s got way to much creep factor.
-oh, and one more I almost forgot, it distracts you from the game.
/preaching to the choir.
I’m way to rambly today….
Oh, you so win the thread with that nickname.
“Also, I have another question, to add to the stack of other questions I’ve been asking lately: Just why do you think so many guys get so angry when girls and women invade what they consider a male sphere, like gaming? (Also, why do they consider gaming to belong to boys and men?)”
I’m not sure they do. I think they just hate women and hate feminism, and can easily find other people who do under those banners, and they can screech to one another and it spirals. Same thing happens with other things that aren’t as clearly “male spheres,” like atheists/skeptics… it’s just easy to find other people who agree with you, which means you can easily make an echo chamber. Then, post-hoc, you can make up some reason why women don’t belong, but I don’t think that was the start of it.
Another issue is that this is all happening on the internet, and a lot of it is the horrible South-Park-inspired notion that anyone who cares about changing society must be a smug, self-righteous jerk who deserves to get taken down a peg. This attitude festers hugely online, because you can so easily not actually think about the motivations of the people you’re talking to. So now people who “don’t really” hate women can join the choir, because they’re going Good by sticking it to them Uptight Feminists.
And finally, I think a huge thing is illusory immunity. A lot of these guys grew up geeks and are still forever stuck in high school. They CAN’T be misogynist, because it’s those JOCKS who are the real bad guys!
It appeared as as if he was trying to get the last word on the six or so dead threads.
My take on his “answers” was that he was replying to David’s thread titles, but not actually reading the threads.
The “cat” remark was almost insightful. I don’t think he realizes he is just a chew toy for the all the kittehs here.
“Just why do you think so many guys get so angry when girls and women invade what they consider a male sphere, like gaming?”
I think one thing is that guys who have a bit of a hard time socially (in meatspace) sort of assume that the reason they seem to do better socially in virtual spaces is that there are few women there. This isn’t really true but that’s their assumption. So when women show up they become very frightened.
Anger is usually either a tool of aggression (you get angry in the process of acting aggressively and the stimulus is just a useful way of getting there) or a response to fear and insecurity, or some mix of the two. There are lots of straight-up jerks in virtual spaces who get angry and scream at women because getting angry and screaming are what they do all the time, and doing it to women is even better because there are fewer social consequences (“Can’t you take a joke?!?!”). But there are also guys who treat women badly because it’s a socially acceptable (alas) way of dealing with fear and insecurity surrounding their ability to behave appropriately in social situations.
Was this submitted already?!?
http://popsych.org/tropes-against-video-games/
Some male characters in games are sexualized. The more recent Final Fantasy games for instance have several men that look like Gackt, a Japanese musician known for his sex appeal, and they also have impractical costumes that show off his bod.
Now, see, that can’t be true, because we were just informed that Asia is a bastion of anti-feminism where female video gamers would never be tolerated, let alone catered to. Only wimpy white countries would try to make video games for girls.
I’ve heard people discuss this in comics fandom and one of the rationales is that these dudes are largely geeks who were judged for being geeks when they were younger, both by other guys and also by girls. Comics/games/whatever become not only something they love but also a space where they could escape other people looking down on them for being a geek. So whenever anything they love becomes mainstream, or becomes popular with women, they hyperreact like an autoimmune disorder at the prospect of their safe space being invaded and taken from them.
Ugh, this attitude came up so much in the “Fake Geek Girl” teapot-tempests. I saw some dudes declare flat-out that women can’t be nerds, because being unpopular, unattractive, and unable to get a date is essential to being a nerd, and of course there are no unpopular, unattractive, or dateless women.
Self-loathing nerds are not fun nerds to hang out with.
“(I’d also like to note, as a bit of off-topic point, the apparent contrast between Anita’s proposed videos #4 and #9. It looks like she’s exploring the trope of women being sexy and evil in 4, and the trope of being unattractive and evil in 9, both of which are apparently unacceptable. Damned if the villainess is attractive; damned if she isn’t. But hey, only an approximate $260 per minute for this knowledge, right?)”
“This means that, currently, she has successfully netted a little over $13,000 per video she intends to eventually release; an impressive feat. Her first video was released a few days ago (a few months late, relative to her stated delivery, but here nonetheless) and, hot-button topic that her project was, I felt inclined to watch it and see what $13,000 a video buys in terms of research quality, methodology, and explanatory power. From my impression of Anita’s first video, were I to work under the assumption that she was making a reasonable amount of money for her time, effort, and conclusions in this project, I think I could be so bold as to suggest that I’m wildly underpaid for what I do in terms of research and writing.”
I don’t have permission to post in the forum.
Shaun: Is that guy serious or is he joking? I can’t tell. It’s almost like he’s self-aware enough to realize that what he’s saying is complete bullshit but not self-aware enough not to say it.
So troll babies…wuz up? (I’m old…shaddup)
What is your problem with girls? If you are boys and you are straight why on earth would you turn down opportunities to hang out with girls?
When I was eight I played street football (tackle on asphalt) with boys and dolls with girls. The nice thing about having a broad definition of fun, is you get to have more fun with more people. It’s also handy when you hit puberty (I know you are not there yet…you might want to ask your parents about that) since there will be girls that already like you.
I love how dude can’t see the common thread between #4 and #9 is women’s looks being centrally important to their value as characters.
I’m glad I managed to pull myself out from the indoctrination of the MRA. I just hope I can remove the poison still ravaging my mind. I still feel involuntary revulsion when I see a woman depicted in a powerful position in films and literature and I’m trying to fight it. But at least I’m not spouting the rhetoric anymore.
“Yesss, the world will be made a better place by destroying one if the last few joys left in the life of the average straight male who isn’t lucky enough to be born as an alpha with the capability to have his own personal harem. Yeah right…not! It’s not enough that you have your own toys, oh no, you have to deprive us of ours. Western Feminists want to be able to get sexual satisfaction free of actual human males if they so choose but are threatened by the thought of straight men doing the same, why else are they so obsessed with banning straight male porn, including and especially the “2D” variety best represented by Japanese hentai/eroge (ex. the infamous Rapelay, which was actually rather quite vanilla to anyone intimately familiar with Otaku subculture and which was
specifically marketed to the hardcore shut-in agoraphobes who never even leave their homes, much less interact with actual human females aside from their own moms). Indeed, Western Feminism is not about genuine equality (except maybe misery-loves-company compromise where nobody is happy and everybody is sexually frustrated) matriarchy, a reverse of the Taliban/Wahhabi system if you will, where the male libido is enslaved bdsm-style with the proverbial phallus of heterosexual mankind imprisoned in the cock-cage of feminazi sadism. Thankfully though,
aside from your own castrated mangina lapdoggies, nobody else is really buying it.”
Look at that. It’s a marvel of modern idiocy.
Why revulsion, Do Re? I’m not snarking, I’m genuinely curious.
semi-OT
Lindsay Ellis aka The Nostalga Chick http://blip.tv/nostalgia-chick has a new video “Disney Needs More Gay” and while the discussion is regarding LGBT and Disney, it covers many of the same topics such as market forces will push LGBTism and feminism into games and film and there really isn’t much the antis can do about it.
I just call it my vagina. Potato, potahto.
I have a new favorite MRA web page, created by an AVfM commenter named Ray. Please go here. Just … everything about it is special. Come for the boxing donkey and elephant, stay for the prancing squirrel with the cricket soundtrack. And the wood metaphors. And the gyrating images. And so much more!
You can find more examples of Ray’s artistry on his photobucket page. My current favorite is his poster illustrating The Triune God of Gender Feminism. Although he also makes fine use of Microsoft Word Art here.
It’s just like a feeling of disgust hellkell that I have no control over, like it’s an unnatural depiction of women or something. Before I would just turn the film off but now I force myself to continue. I don’t want to feel like this but I don’t know how much I can change, it’s subconscious for me now.
And Hellkell wins the internetz!
Do Re – I think you can change, you’re already aware of it and wanting to. Would seeing a therapist be a possibility? Getting guidance and support in changing thought patterns can be a huge help (I’m speaking from experience here).
@shaenon
ugh, people say that? (I should probably stop wondering that). Also, whoever thinks that probably never knew me in high school.
@Do Re
It’s good that you’ve noticed what you’re doing, for me that really helps when trying to change my biases. Good luck :)
@ Cloudiah Oh my god, that website. I’m laughing so hard right now.
Good grief, now that website has to win a Lousy Design prize if nothing else. I’m just sad he didn’t use Comic Sans anywhere in it.
And all the tree stuff? LOL wut?
Cloudiah, did you read this part?
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” reads the headline of the pamphlet in English slang. Apparently, if your already using males (overwhelmingly) for canon fodder, there’s no need to show them the common courtesy of proper grammar.
That website! So does anyone else understand why pork is feminist? Or is only some pork feminist? And how do you tell? (on the boxing elephant & donkey gif)
Pork is feminist because we want to turn all the menz into herbivores so we’re withholding it from them.
@ titianblue I think he means pork feminist spending, as in wasted government money. I think the term has faded out now, but I remember “pork spending” being said by a lot of conservative relatives. Forgive me if you knew that and were just making a joke. I can be kind of dense about that sort of thing.
In other news, real leaders don’t follow feminist lifs.
Pork in this instance means government spending. Ray-Ray clearly thinks we get money for existing while female.
Also, I would never use males for canon fodder. Only tri-x pan for me!
Did you watch the “movie” of the guy sitting on the park bench with the bald eagle on his knee and the squirrel dashing by? I could watch that for hours. The guy is a genius.
Do Re, a bunch of people here recommend something called cognitive behavior therapy for changing destructive/self-destructive patterns. It seems like this is something that is making you unhappy, so I hope you can find help for it.
Let’s try that link again.
Ah, thanks for the enlightenment – makes sense now. It’s ‘cos I’m a Brit so didn’t know the term.
What is with his use of “gender feminist?” I think I’ve only ever heard NWO use that, so that’s not exactly a plus.
There’s an extra l that found its way into augochlorella’s link; try this one: http://s61.beta.photobucket.com/user/MRA_06/media/P2110003a.jpg.html
And more Word Art: http://s61.beta.photobucket.com/user/MRA_06/media/1beedf04.jpg.html
Canon fodder? Does he mean there are cannibal clergy out there, or are men being sacrificed on the altar of Sherlock Holmes?
As for “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” – it’s idiom, idiot. Seems to have come from the film Rains of Ranchipur, and at the end of 1955 was called the stupidest phrase ever used in a movie. (Source: wiki. answers.
Navigation tip: Don’t think that “Youth” (in the banner) is the same as “Saplings” (in the sidebar), or that “Old Age” is the same as “Old Oaks.” These are FOUR SEPARATE PAGES of brilliance, and Old Oaks is where you can see the squirrel video.
Out here we call it pork barrelling, and it’s a standard feature of election years. But I’ve yet to hear of feminist groups or women’s groups of any sort getting cash or benefits.
I bet “a man’s gotta do …” isn’t in the original novel “The Rains Came”. I must read that book again. Loved it when I read it when I was younger – it’ll be interesting to see whether it has aged well. “Rains of Ranchipur” should probably get a prize for most cringe-making adaptation.
OH that squirrel “video”! Priceless! I shall never feel amateurish again.
This guy’s worthy of a whole Manboobz post.
I can’t stop watching that squirrel
videoFlash animation. Tears of laughter.Hate target? I had no idea LA courts hated pokemon.