Should gaming be a “safe space” for nerdy dudes who hate women? The Men’s Rights perspective
I’m back from a brief vacation in Migraineland, and thinking about the ways in which Men’s Rights Activists love to appropriate the language of feminism and other progressive movements, usually in ways that are face-palmingly ass-backwards.
Take this recent discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit of the dire threat of “fake gamer girls” invading the “male space” of gaming. The generically named guywithaccount sets up the discussion with this post:
![I want to talk about "fake geek girls" (self.MensRights) submitted 9 days ago by guywithaccount For those of you who don't know about this, there's a bit of a controversy in what I'll call the geek community. Apparently, when women attend geek conventions (that is, those celebrating e.g. video games, comic books, sci-fi and fantasy), some men accuse them of being "fake geeks" or demanding that they prove their "geek cred" by correctly answering trivia questions made up on the spot. Here's one article (of many) that talks about it: [1] http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2013/08/08/the-fake-geek-girl-nonsense/ My concern for this issue is that, like anything else that involves gender, feminists and feminist sympathizers are attempting to dominate the discussion and frame the whole thing from a feminist and gynocentric perspective. The prevailing analysis might be summed up as "geek culture is deeply misogynistic, and the people complaining about fake geeks are just sad little losers who hate women." IMO, the geek subculture has provided a somewhat-safe space for many men who have been snubbed by the rest of society, where they are not expected to prove their value to each other by carving notches in a bedpost or exemplifying traditional masculine traits. The increase in mainstream appeal and female participation over the past decade or so threatens the safety and exclusivity of this space, and the backlash from male geeks is a somewhat-predictable response to the invasion of their space. Of course, there are few spaces just for men, and when someone tries to create or preserve one, they're accused of misogyny. I suspect that some of you don't give a crap about any of this and see the whole thing as petty, but realize that it's not happening in a vacuum. I believe it's merely a symptom of the fact that men have almost no voice in gender discussions and their needs are routinely denied or ignored.](http://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/fakegeek.png?w=604)
Now, there is a teensy bit of gold in this pile of bullshit: the notion of a “safe space,” where oppressed people can come forward and discuss their issues without fear of being talked over or shut down by those outside their group — who have more power in the world and who may not have their best interests at heart (or who may just be Blabby McBlabbypants types).
But there are a couple of giant problems with this notion when it comes to gamer dudes declaring gaming a “safe space” for men. The first is that, despite lingering resentments over being “snubbed” in high school or wherever — evident in the OP and in comments throughout the discussion — these guys are not actually an oppressed people by any measure that really matters.
Indeed, many of them — as tech dudes in a male-dominated tech world — are in fact in fairly privileged positions. For them to claim they need a “safe space” to protect themselves from the evils of “fake gamer girls” is a bit like Klan members claiming they need a “safe space” to protect themselves from blacks, Jews and Catholics. (Which is more or less what Klan members have argued over the years, albeit in less PC language.) No, I’m not claiming that all MRAs are the equivalent of hood-wearing Klan members. Only some of them are.
The second problem with the “game world as safe space for men” aregument is that YOU CAN’T JUST DECLARE BIG CHUNKS OF THE WORLD TO BELONG TO MEN. Yes, men dominate the gaming world in sheer numbers, both as game-makers and game-players. (While women make up nearly half of all game players — 47% — men tend to dominate the “serious” games that many geek dudes claim are the only ones that really count.) But gaming doesn’t “belong” to men any more than, say, novel-reading “belongs” to women — even though surveys suggest that women make up a staggering 80% of the fiction market in much of the English-speaking world.
Yep, that’s right: Women dominate “noveling” much more dramatically than men dominate gaming. Yet you don’t find women denouncing “fake noveler boys” or declaring that the male brain isn’t wired to understand the subtleties of written fiction.
No, in fact men are actively welcomed into book clubs. And my best friend, a woman, has spent much of the 18 or so years or our friendship trying to get me to read this novel or that novel, though over the years she’s only succeeded in getting me to read maybe one or two of her suggestions, which were pretty good, I have to admit. (I do plan to read some of the others, really.)
If you’re a socially awkward guy and want a safe space to discuss that, find a therapist, find a support group. Don’t pick on women gamers and pretend this is somehow your right because you’re oppressed as a socially awkward guy.
Anyway, here are some other dumb comments from the Reddit thread. YetAnotherCommenter warns feminists that they may lose some powerful allies if they continue acting so feministy.
Speaking of nerds who can’t get laid — which we weren’t but which these guys keep bringing up (and identifying themselves as) again and again — guia7ri seems to harbor some lingering resentments from high school, and who better to take that out on than attractive geeky women?
Hey MRAs, if you wonder why feminists sometimes describe MRAs as bitter men who hate women because they can’t get laid, it’s because MRAs like gui7ri so often EXPLICITLY DECLARE THEMSELVES BITTER MEN WHO HATE WOMEN BECAUSE THEY CAN’T GET LAID.
Meanwhile Byuku blames it all on evil feminists pretending to be geeks in order to make trouble. Because that’s what feminists do.
That’s how they get you!
EDIT: Added a sentence to temper and clarify my assertion that men “dominate” gaming.
Posted on August 20, 2013, in a woman is always to blame, all about the menz, antifeminism, are these guys 12 years old?, bullying, creep-shaming, dozens of upvotes, entitled babies, evil women, facepalm, female beep boop, geek girls, imaginary oppression, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, no girls allowed, oppressed men, reddit, straw feminists, video games and tagged antifeminism, fake geek girls, gaming, geek girls, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, reddit, video games. Bookmark the permalink. 1,189 Comments.
Then they’re oblivious fools. Several years ago a pic prominently made the rounds of the internet with a woman wearing a tee shirt stating “I have the pussy so I make the rules”. .
Argumentum ad T-shirt. Bang-up job there, Socrates the Modest.
False modesty is unbecoming.
And then there was a spaceship, and the aliens came out and said “Asher, you are just the man we were looking for! Can you fix our ship?”, but he said “no, because you lack intellectual honesty”. And then a unicorn offered him a blowjob and a million dollars in bitcoins.
Um, parsimonious? You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
adjective: parsimonious
1. unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal.
What I will not, ever, grant is the idea that establishing an identity, of any sort, means relying on general sentiments to establish other identities as BAD.
how you managed to infer this from my comment is bewildering. Wait, no, now I understand it. You are enmeshed in a general social environment where the term exclusionary implies inherent “badness”. What you are doing is taking a sentiment that is probably standard in your social circles (exclusion=bad) and imputing a priori status to it.
Exclusion is to leftists
what
Original sin is to christians
The source of evil.
For those of use who do not subscribe to your ideology and who do not share in the notion that “exclusionary” carries some sort of inherent “badness” the response to “that’s exclusionary” is … “so what?”
You’re such a master of argumentation.
Unlike your notion of “bad,”
What is regarded as “bad” is simply contingent on time and place; sentiment. Unlike most of you, here, seem to do I do not attribute a priori status to what I consider “bad”.
Can we just end the thread here?
So…how does gay men having all the sex prove evolutionarily beneficial?
Argenti, parsimonious in the way he’s using it comes from the word “parsimony,” which means something else entirely.
@Asher:
Good lord.
Example time: A light will turn on if two buttons are both pushed down at the same time. The buttons are placed in separate rooms, and the rooms are connected by telephone for communication. Into each room is put a person, person A and B, who each have to decide whether or not they push the respective button. They may talk to each other, but one person cannot force the other to push the button.
Who decides if the light will turn on or not? Who is the gate keeper?
Thus with sex (barring rape and only talking about two-person sex anyways).
*sigh* Nobody bothered answering because it was a silly question, nobody agreed with its premise (the idea that in every situation where one party has power over another, the other party must have some power over the first), and everyone knew you already had an answer in mind and were just JAQing off.
“And then there was a spaceship, and the aliens came out and said “Asher, you are just the man we were looking for! Can you fix our ship?”, but he said “no, because you lack intellectual honesty”. And then a unicorn offered him a blowjob and a million dollars in bitcoins.”
hahahahahahahaha.
“asher is a moron” About 18,300,000 results (0.35 seconds)
asher is a moron About 18,200,000 results (0.83 seconds)
“asher is a moron” About 8 results (0.53 seconds)
Did you intentially leave out the quotes for the exact phrase and then reintroduce them when you copied it to the comments form? Nice try.
Ah, so now we see why it’s okay for Asher to be intellectually dishonest, he exists in a different context where intellectual dishonesty is not “bad”
I take back my previous comment, he is boring.
“asher is boring” About 55 results (0.84 seconds)
Again, with the ommision and reintroduction of the quote marks. Look pretty intellectual dishonest.
And that’s why you’re bragging about it now.
Look, pretty grammar!
But then all the other students figured out it was me anyway, partly because the unicorn was still following me around. It was a male unicorn, you see, so it was really motivated to keep offering me that blowjob. And then the other students elected me Official Genius and Dictator For Life.
Hey dipshit, I pulled “asher is boring” and the results straight out of my ass for you. I ain’t got time got time to omit shit. I thought you would love assfax, as it’s your entire M.O.
Did you just do an experiment to determine if something was true or not? OH NO!
Wow, this guy really does have Spock Syndrome. LOL at the taking the Google search jokes literally.
^ apparently I’m remixing myself today. awesome.
Yeah, it’s completely impossible that that person used the quotation marks only to distinguish the search query from the rest of the phrase. If the quotation marks are there, that implies they were part of the search query as well!
All forms of exclusion are the same, right?
Formally, yes. In order to distinguish between permissible and impermissible identities/exclusion you have to have additional standards, and they have to be coherent, uniform and equally applied. Simply stating that and identity is “exclusionary” and assuming that your particular normative sentiments will carry the day with those who don’t share them is just using bullying as a tactic. (Bullying is a tactic of the bully and not the effect on the bullied).
Not all exclusion is equal but you need a standard by which to differentiate between different exclusions and why some of desirable, and others,\ not.
I’m assuming he meant “acrimonious.”
I vote for CassandraSays just continuing that story for infinity.
Oh god. Asher is seriously considering the number of google results to be important. My brain… Asher, tell me you realize that this is you arguing just for the sake of arguing.
@Kiki:
I was going to say that I thought the T-shirt was probably just one of those snarky “edgy” shirts riffing off of the old idea that the person who wears the pants or has the dick determines who’s in charge. I was also going to argue that part of the weirdness with the gatekeeper thing is that people in an oppressive situation often try to find ways to gain power so they aren’t powerless, even if that power is illusionary. Being able to say “well, I can control my husband by witholding sex” is nice when everything about your life is controlled by your husband.
Then I figured all this would go in one ear and out the other with Asher, and he’d take it as me admitting that his “equal-power” hypothesis was valid. So I decided not to.
By being able to fucking read, that’s how.
So no, you didn’t say that being a “leftist” was bad, you said that “leftists” believe non-“leftists” to be bad. Based on a reliance on “current, general sentiments”.
You directly connected the idea of identities being exclusionary and the idea that identities are assigned “badness” based on cultural norms.
Hey, when the only admissible forms of evidence are Google search results and Nietzsche quotes, you gotta take that shit seriously.
He still doesn’t know from complementary, though.
Asher: The original claim made by someone (maybe you?) is that the particular subset of male geeks want “everyspace” to be woman-free. Their words.
This was the Hyperbole to which I earlier referred, and which you conflated with Dave’s analogy (which wasn’t hyperbole).
Since I quoted it, and you, in that comment it’s really pathetic that you can’t keep the lines of argument untangled.
That such simple things give you such large problems in keeping one thing in mind (as it relates to others) makes me weep for any students you might have had.
The lesson is … avoid hyperbole.
Only when dealing with tendentious morons. For those who understand (and appreciate rhetoric), there is no reason to avoid it, as it is sometimes the best tool to show the folly of someone else.
Just see what benefit it has served here.
“Income” clearly implies an socioeconomic environment involving large-scale societies and large amounts of production of economic commodities. Yes, it’s entirely reasonable to assume that women have always contributed roughly half of all labor required to make society function. It’s just that the specifics have involved significant differences in labor roles.
goalpost shifting; also you’ve just wiped out something close to all of humann history.
But let’s look at, “income”. Weavers, prior to the industrial revolution, were home shops. They were also, almost to a man, male.
So the Cloth Halls of Europe (such a the ones in Ypres, or Leeds) were full of men, selling, “cloths” which they had woven, and fullered.
They “earned the money” through these sales.
What were the women doing? Spinning the yarn that went into the cloth.
So, who was “earning” the income?
Both of them. Who got the money? He did. Who owned the money? He did.
Who was oppressed? She was. She may not have felt downtrodden. She may have enjoyed her life, loved her husband, been happy. But the law said all her labors were as nothing; because she wasn’t allowed to own money, nor could she ever get to vote; she was excluded from guilds. There was a guild of “carders and combers” for making wool ready to spin: though if she did it, and was good at it, she couldn’t join. There was a guild of fullers, though if she did it, she couldn’t join. There was a guild of dyers, though if she did it, she couldn’t join.
If she sought to make money from it, she was excluded; lest her labors undercut the price. So all she did was counted as man’s labor.
All the money which resulted from her work, was counted as his income.
She was exploited. She was oppressed.
Asher: This is like you saying red is blue and blue is red. That’s exactly what he did. Either he needs to show how male geeks are functionally the equivalent of the Klan or retract the analogy.
Nope. You made the postive assertion he was wrong. You need to prove it, or withdraw the claim.
Since I (among others) have made counterarguments; which you have not addressed; pretending rather that no response was made) you are behind the eight ball.
BTW, I’ve actually taught a uni course on Greek philosophers
Of course you have.
Seriously do people still understand what argument Asher is actually trying to laboriously eject from his already-strained rectum?
I’ve accused trolls of moving the goalposts before, but with this goofball it’s like he made a cape out of pennants and declared himself Captain Goalpost.
My point, however was that what applies to one person does not inherently apply to everyone (a fact that stands true even for things we’d assume are innate to humanity — eg that your organs are aligned so your appendix is on the right, a very small minority have them all mirrored)
If a “norm” does not equally apply to everyone then it’s not a norm. You can’t set up a standard of judgement and then pick and choose when to apply it. If the crafting of an identity is impermissible because it is exclusionary then all identities are impermissible because all identities are exclusionary. If you want to say that some identities are impermissible, but not others, then you need to set up a different standard to distinguish between the permissible and the impermissible; simply shouting “exclusionary” doesn’t cut ti because all identities are exclusionary.
It’s important to note that the term “exclusionary” obviously does not carry the same emotional baggage for most people that it, obviously, does for the commenters at this blog.
The thing is, though, we are using additional standards to determine which forms of exclusion are morally acceptable. You seem to have an okay knowledge of philosophy – surely the fact that we are using additional standards was clear to you from the beginning? No one here has argued that the very notion of exclusion in all contexts is morally wrong somehow. You are the one making that assumption.
The aliens were so sad that he wasn’t impressed with their intellectual honesty that they offered to move the goalposts around for him, in the hopes that some day he would agree to teach them about Greek philosophy.
“For those of use who do not subscribe to your ideology and who do not share in the notion that “exclusionary” carries some sort of inherent “badness” the response to “that’s exclusionary” is … “so what?””
O RLY?! Is that why you said what I quoted above? Because you don’t related exclusionary identities to badness?
As for “my ideology” now that’s just precious, like you know a damned thing about what I believe about the state of the world, and what I would like it to be. Let’s see, you know I abhor torture, and have a non-binary gender. And think you reprehensible. And that’s fucking all you know about me. Oh, and that I have plant cuttings for pecunium, if they root.
You really think you can make such broad sweeping statements from so little? Oh wait, you attempted to lecture pecunium on military matters, never mind, you do think you can make immensely broad generalizations from a pittance of information.
Ally — thanks
To paraphrase a friend who grew up in the Deep South:
“It’s easy to be copacetic about something when you know the bastards are never going to burn a cross on *your* lawn.”
I thought that related pretty well to this thread.
It appears to be some form of ASHER ROOLZ BOOBZ DROOLZ, but I could be wrong because I’m using the scientific method of observation, which is widely acknowledged to be flawed.
Spot that fallacy: begging the question.
It’s not question begging because the original claim that “women have, generally, been historically oppressed” is false, unless you’re just going to go the whole way and say a general state of oppression has been the norm in human history.
Something that explains everything explains nothing.
“Wow, this guy really does have Spock Syndrome. LOL at the taking the Google search jokes literally.”
I can see why he’s making an argument about needing “safe spaces”. He needs to be sheltered from nuance and humor. It’s clearly terrifying to such a small mind. :D
It’s not emotional baggage that makes the difference here – it’s context. We are talking about a specific kind of exclusion. You’re supposed to be a smart guy, right? We don’t need to spell it out for you if that’s the case.
Asher is unused to being expected to prove the things that he asserts because in meatspace he sics the horny unicorn on anyone who dares to point out that he’s full of shit.
But C is predicate on A, which uses C to prove itself, ergo the question has been begged.
It’s not so much that what you’re saying is incorrect but it’s as silly as most of the reasoning involved in claiming that women are historically oppressed. Agreed, it’s facile and a throwaway line of reasoning but it’s no less baseless and facile than most of what goes on in feminist “thought”.
If it applied equally to everyone it wouldn’t be a norm, it’d be more like a universality. Norm would need to apply to a majority, or at least a plurality, of people, but not all.
In the long-run widespread slavery eventually enfeebles the enslaving population. Punishment as a means of coercing contribution always carries a long-term seed of collapse.
And those people are all identical twins! And one of the twins can commit murders and then pin it on the other twin and he’ll think he has amnesia because he doesn’t remember! #dorothysayersisawesome
CassandraSays’ story is making Asher interesting to me! It’s a miracle. Please go on, let me know what happens next!
By all the gods man, you’re the one who said that identities are exclusionary and linked that to badness being culturally relative. I’m the one who called that a crock of shit because identities cannot be inherently bad! My memory is bad but not that bad!
As for that turd about norms, you really need to use that dictionary of yours —
3: average: as
a : a set standard of development or achievement usually derived from the average or median achievement of a large group
b : a pattern or trait taken to be typical in the behavior of a social group
c : a widespread or usual practice, procedure, or custom
Typical, as in not universal, as in applies to most, but not all, people is EXACTLY WHAT A NORM IS!
But if it worked well, then it would be A-OK.
Hey, Asher’s true colors are starting to emerge! Time until meltdown?
Honestly, I’ll give him a few days. This one has stamina.
The fact that he got 55 Google results for “asher is boring” kind of puts the lie to his claims to have used the handle since “the beginning of the internet” because I just can’t believe he’s been active that long and not bored a whole lot more people to tears.
Utilizing the well-known scientific method of conjecture, which cannot be refuted, I conjecture therefore that most of his 55 hits are from this thread and therefore he is a mendacious flap-mouthed bum-bailey.
NB for the hard of thinking: That wasn’t an ad hominem fallacy, it was just an ad hominem insult. I didn’t say we shouldn’t listen to you because you’re a mendacious flap-mouthed bum-bailey, I just said you were a mendacious flap-mouthed bum-bailey. Hell, look at it a certain way, I didn’t really call you a mendacious flap-mouthed bum-bailey, I just typed a string of letters that happen to read so.
Well, morals are all contextual anyway, right?
The first, not all geeks are members of the Klannish aspect of the culture.
Assuming facts not in evidence, which the was the problem with David’s initial analogy. Now, if David’s analogy was accompanied by evidence for Klan-like elements among male geeks then this would be a valid objection. It’s been many hours now since I made the initial observation and no one has attempted to substantiate where the Klan and male geeks are functionally equivalent.
and real world consequences attendant to “Donglegate” Katherine Harris, Anita Sarkeesian, Redheaded Feminist,
Not terror and nothing even remotely resembling what the Klan did. What the women did at Donglegate was appalling and their consequences were well deserved. I seriously doubt those women are going to starve due to the consequences.
katz — so do pecunium and I. And I, for one, have nothing better to do. This is currently more interesting than dodging things a ghost throws (not my favorite part of VtM:B)
And he who questions training only trains himself in asking questions.
Where’s that popcorn? I can’t believe he just tried to lecture Pecunium on the US military.
More hyperbole. A one line observation isn’t what people usually consider a lecture.
But why are there watermelons on my feet?
HE DENIES FREE WILL!
No I didn’t. You need to re-read the comment. I noted that if you want to practically apply the notion of free will then you need a applicable demarcating principle between actions that are free and those that are not.
@Asher:
In the short run, slavery is stable. Gender stereotypes are volitile and unstable on pretty much the same time scales, as I’ve argued before. In the long run, slavery is on its way out. In the same way, stereotypes and inequality between genders are also on their way out.
I think you’re forgetting what you were originally arguing about. You’re like a markov generator for tedium.
We didn’t substantiate it because David already did, dimtwit.
Right here:
And I’m not the first one to point this out to you.
Don’t read his comments more than once! If you do that the unicorn gets jealous.
People did. I did so as well. And none of us were referring to all male geeks. We were referring to a particular subset of them.
Yeah, it’s about time for you to fuck off.
The comparison was being made between “Klan Members” and “Self-designated Gatekeepers To Geek Culture Who Demand That All Of Geekdom Be A ‘Safe Space’ For Male Geeks Specifically.”
Except that the two are not at all alike. Every single identity has gatekeepers, the Klan, male geeks and leftists are no different. What we judge those different identities on is whether or not their actions are in line with our sentiments. What the commenters on this site seem to want is for male geeks to conform to their particular notions of identity.
Fair enough, as along as we’re all clear that it’s nothing more than a naked power struggle involving who gets to impose their norms on the other party.
I’d ask him what his views on taxation are, but that’s probably leading the witness.
I don’t think I’ve read that one. Which is it? Unless it’s the Nine Tailors, I haven’t plowed through that one because change ringing is a long row to hoe.
As for that turd about norms, you really need to use that dictionary of yours –
Indeed. Apparently everyone who has ever used phrases like ‘outside of the norm’ or ‘not the norm’ is TOTES WRONG AND ILOGICAL. If one person does not adhere to the norm, the norm never existed in the first place.