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.
LBT – you got disability? Yaaaaaaaay yayayayayayayayayyay. 8D Sorry, back to your regularly scheduled chewtoys; I hit that and hand to do a little virtual dance.
So, the problem with modern psychology is that it doesn’t allow for a simple-minded, reductionist approach which ignores environmental, cultural, and societal factors in the manifestation of behavior?
The problem with lots of modern science is that it is not interested in truth but, merely, in verifiable laboratory experiments.
“If one group has all of X, another group must have all of something else.” HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE THIS BAD AT LOGIC?
“The problem with lots of modern science is that it is not interested in truth but, merely, in verifiable laboratory experiments.”
Is that truth with a capital T? :D
Arbitrarily? Do you really even understand what modern psychology is?
I do. And probably much better than you. Many (most?) research psychologists are deluded about what it is they do and how it fits into overall human understanding.
You guys remember that other day when we were talking about those kids who would get mad when they failed science tests because they totally understood the concepts, they just couldn’t do the actual calculations?
They also all think that puppies are cute. Buncha morons.
“If one group has all of X, another group must have all of something else.” HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE THIS BAD AT LOGIC?
Because we’re not comparing two completely different things, like oranges and women. Male and female human begins have cooperated with each other for eons to produce what they see. Law of gender parity: men are no better than women, or vice versa and what one brings to the table the other brings as a compliment.
Now, I ask you, again, what is the complimentary gatekeeping function that is male to the gatekeeping of sex function that women have?
they failed science tests because they totally understood the concepts, they just couldn’t do the actual calculations?
Lab experiments are invaluable but, by themselves, they are not science.
I would also point out that the question of “what is science” is exclusionary and excludes that which is not science. Identity = exclusion.
“I do. And probably much better than you. Many (most?) research psychologists are deluded about what it is they do and how it fits into overall human understanding.”
What exactly do they think they do? I’d like to know what you believe their position to be. I think it will be quite funny as I have met plenty of researchers.
Please tell us. Please do.
Neither is sitting on your bum and bloviating about how all psychologists are wrong, duder.
I’ll bear that in mind if I ever start identifying as science.
It’s been quite a while. Why do I get the feeling we’re about to get a wall of drivel?
What exactly do they think they do?
Produce lab experiments.
Look, at the point that scientists decided that science wasn’t a branch of philosophy it began the slide to the state of being nothing more than lab experiments.
“Produce lab experiments.”
Well the answer is incomplete, but let’s do some housekeeping for clarity. When you say produce, do you mean design or conduct experiments?
That whole wait for three words. I am disappoint.
(And did a lab experiment kill your father or what?)
Well the answer is incomplete
… which should be followed by an explanation of how it is incomplete.
do you mean design or conduct experiments?
Both
Troll logic and Fox News logic have a lot in common.
Is anyone getting a whiff of sock with this one? I know there aren’t any obvious tics, but that whole fixation with “intellectual dishonesty” just has something familiar about it. The misogyny’s familiar, of course, but that’s why trolls come here anyway, so it doesn’t help. Does anyone think we’ve a MRAsherL visiting?
Notice how much of what the people who are arguing with me say involves speculation on me, personally, or predictions of what I’m about to do? I, on the other hand, strictly stick to what they are say\ing.
“Look, at the point that scientists decided that science wasn’t a branch of philosophy it began the slide to the state of being nothing more than lab experiments.”
Wrong again. They can do experiments in the field! Can you believe what these scientists do?
I use the term “lab experiments” to denote that scientists are no longery concerned with truth and have decided to that science isn’t a branch of philosophy. It’s shorthand.
“I use the term “lab experiments” to denote that scientists are no longery concerned with truth and have decided to that science isn’t a branch of philosophy. It’s shorthand.”
Is that truth with a capital T again?
I’m quite aware of field experiments and that they aren’t exactly the same thing as lab experiments. That does nothing to dispute that science is no longer interested in truth.
If by capital “T” you mean metaphysical truth then, no, it does not.
Eh, I think it’s just a case of bloviating bores tending to troll as a hobby.
Science is concerned with describing the natural world and making predictions based on those observations.
How is this problematic for you, again?
We may need to write an Asher-to-English dictionary. Pretty sure no one would have guessed that “lab experiw2qemments” meant “anything that isn’t philosophy,” particularly from the guy who uses language so precisely that he says “downfall of civilization” is totally different than “collapse of society.”
(Sorry, Ralphie decided to add something.)
Not caught up yet but…
“You don’t understand the way the world works. My three year old thinks he has a “right” to ice cream before dinner. I assure you, he does not. While I am no fan of Jeremy Bentham he nailed it when he called rights “nonsense on stilts”.
No one *deserves* anything. That’s just not the way the world works.”
Ok then, I hereby revoke your right to safety from government sponsored torture. Oh, right, I’m not caught up because I was discussing, among other things, how torture is never ever justified and thus we all have a right to be free from it. Hm, clean water, I can revoke that? No wait…that was also part of that convo, somewhere around me noting what MSF does…
Well, I could keep going, but seeing how I have morals, I wouldn’t revoke any of your rights even if you don’t see them as rights. The rest of us are entitled to the right to things like clean water, medical care, freedom from torture, etc.
That you don’t think these are universal deserved, nor even deserved by anyone, is quite fucking telling.
LBT — born of trauma to protect the body and core person, of course (which I think is bullshit, sometimes, ok, but always? No)
There’s a certain amount of irony to someone claiming scientific knowledge simultaneous with arguing that men and women are so different their roles must be complementary. I mean, that amount of ignorance that in sufficiently large groups, variations within the groups will be broader than variations between them is just impressive.
And… trying to claim science is interested in “the truth.” Science is interested in things which can be seen by many people and replicated by many people using the same basic characteristics.
Something which is hampered by people claiming quasi-experimental data (data between non-randomly assigned groups) is the same as experimental data… All of the recent research on perception really gives a lot of insight into the whole mess.
Asher’s funny, but I wish he didn’t have such a cool name. 8( He doesn’t deserve it.
How is Ralphie, katz? ::sends virtual pats::
I’d much rather read what he has to say than boring wall o’ text troll who’s sooooo wounded about MRA/geek misogynists being mocked.
Those worthless scientists. All they did was discover a living teddy bear when they could have been making themselves useful sitting in their basements with a bong and quoting Nietsche.
He’s fine. He is not the sick kitty, he’s my fat roly-poly kitten.
That you don’t think these are universal deserved, nor even deserved by anyone,
Everything that exists comes from somewhere. What caused these “rights”?
They prevent the collapse of society.
I believe that kittens prevent the collapse of society, because they are the gatekeepers of happiness. But wait! If that’s true, puppies must also be the gatekeepers of something. What is that thing?
Dunno, but soda cans are the gatekeepers of puppies.
I entirely do not have the patience tonight to walk someone step by step through the evolution of morality, ethics, both, either, neither, any variation thereupon. So, in a nutshell, you familiar with this thing called “empathy”?
Argenti: He can’t even figure out the difference between a hypothesis and a conjecture. There’s no point in trying to explain anything to him. (But feel free to try if you like.)
Maybe you do understand it more than me, and I’m okay with that, but the fact that you think it necessarily draws arbitrary lines is telling and says a lot about your understanding of modern psychology, however thorough it is.
katz – oh! Got my names confused. Well, pats for Writer Ralphie and extra pats for sick kitty.
Argenti – re: empathy, chances are he isn’t.
::snort:: I can only say I’m glad the psychologists (average psychologists of today, maybe) I’ve dealt with were human beings with a) decency b) empathy and c) more concern to help people than to bloviate about Teh Big Picture.
kitteh — fair enough
Katz — idk, maybe. My day has included reading my LJ from a decade ago which is fucked up six ways to Sunday, like, I am the pinnacle of sanity compared to what I was like then (LBT, the parts I told you are the tip of it, I figured you didn’t need to read my barely coherent and highly triggering thoughts on eating, or not doing so); aforementioned ethics discussion with pecunium, though it was actually about the Iraq war, not ethics in general; a very VERY extended analogy relating to trauma responses of degrees and causes (and another discussion about an entirely different sort of response); STD test swaps, penis v cervix, and the importance of condoms; plants, ivy and forsythia specifically; cuttlefish, the sounds of sea creatures…
Yeah, it’s been a very random day. And all of the above was either LBT or pecunium, so a random day with interesting people. And I just haven’t got it in me to explain anything as basic as “you don’t torture because you wouldn’t want to be tortured which is why we put rules into place banning torture”…I prefer to discuss todture with people viscerally opposed to it (*waves* hi pecunium, come be busy over here?)
Puppies are the gatekeepers of comfy spaces!
I only came here to say
>>>If nerd-dom is such a defining identity then a woman isn’t probably a nerd if her sexual activities don’t involve cavorting with nerd men.<<<
You know that not all women are attracted to and have sex with men… right? So what, lesbians can't be nerds in general, or do they gain nerd cred upon sleeping with a woman who has previously slept with a male nerd? I guess as an asexual woman I just need to shred my nerd card right now since clearly my years spent playing video games and collecting trading cards are meaningless since I've never had sex!
*eyeroll*
Rather glad to have missed Asher. Reading those endless posts it is clear that he loves nothing better than to hear his own voice and that he is one of those “debaters”. you know the ones, where debate is not to gain knowledge or understanding but is a sport or game, like fencing or chess. Everything is theoretical, nothing is lived or felt or truly believed.
What a sad passionless way to be.
PS have I mentioned I have kittens? Real furry purry black rescue kittens?
Observation: if anyone uses the phrase ‘the way the world works’ in an internet post, there’s about a 90% chance that they’re an evo-psych/Randian asshole.
Also, I can see why Asher is so hung up on ‘conjecture’ as the starting point of science. Much easier than actually doing research, isn’t it?
Ah yes, science was so much better about a thousand years ago, before Ibn al-Haytham, aka Alhazen, insisted that hypotheses could only be considered truth if backed by quantifiable evidence.
And then that bastard Bacon really sounded the death knell for TEH SCEINCE in the 1200s, with his writings advocating that natural philosophy should be practiced within an empirical framework.
Curse the framework of the scientific method first established a millenia ago. Before that, men could just rock up and declare that their pet ideas were true because they wanted them to be, and they could declare any random occurrence viewed through their biased viewpoint to be “science.” Now those meddling modern Muslim polymaths and Franciscan friars with all those inconvenient definitions of “truth” and “evidence” and “experiments” have really spoiled everything.
Sometimes I wish skience trolls would make more of an effort to tangle with me. I have so many cool facts and anecdotes about Alhazen! Anyway, here is his most famous quote on the development of the scientific method:
“”The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the job of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”
I’ve also enjoyed the assumption in the original posts that the whole world experiences USA High School, complete with jocks, cheerleaders,etc.
Great quotes, @Elodieunderglass.
“PS have I mentioned I have kittens? Real furry purry black rescue kittens?”
So far, this is only speculation. If you do not post pictures or video of said kittens, then you are being intell-cat-ually dishonest and are not a real cat owned person. Cause SCIENCE. ;)
I have one simple refutation. Slavery. In areas where the institution still exists/existed, it is/was a stable system formed over long periods of time. According to your logic, the enslavement of a group must necessarily be counter-balanced by some positive thing the enslaved group has.
No. The world doesn’t work that way. There is no strict law or force of karmic parity that makes sure every situation is equal. Sometimes people get shit on by others, and sometimes this happens over very long periods of time.
We humans are used to things being equal or balanced because of all the stories we tell ourselves. A woman may have rotten family and be abused for most of her life, but it’s ok because she’ll get her revenge eventually and become a princess, and she has a kind and generous personality in the mean time. Any political debate must always have an equally valid opposing view. Pretending these things are some law of the universe is not only unscientific, but masks actual inequality as “separate but equal.”
@blacksphinx:
That quote… I don’t even. “You aren’t a true rock climber until you have sex with other rock climbers.” “You aren’t a true baker unless your sexual activities involve other bakers.” What the hell does being a nerd have to do with sex? At all? And why does it seem to be a rule that only applies to women?
I’m an old schoold gamer (I used to devour S&T magazine, and try to find someone to play the included game with me. Hexes and tables and dice and little cardboard squares).
These yahoos are fake.
:)
pecunium — Atari, Adventure. That is all.
There’s a flash version and I forgot about the red dragon! http://www.simmphonic.com/programming/adventure.htm
Alex Reynard: I’m pretty sure it’s only the “bad guys” who dismiss out of hand the pain of people they don’t even know, becase they can’t be bothered to empathize.
You are confusing pain (which I am sure they feel) with oppression. They are different.
Damnit!! It’s only got the easy level! I’ve never beaten 3!
Wow, three pages of the troll declairing a war on “intellectual dishonesty,” then this: ” do. I mean I REALLY do. If I observe a conversation where someone is using dishonest rhetoric, even if I entirely agree with their conclusions, I will stop the conversation and call them on it.”
Oh my gosh, can you imagine him at a party? Holy shit.
Katz
“Soda cans are the gatekeepers of puppies”
That was such a polite puppy! Won’t have any trouble keeping him in a yard! Of course a soda can border may not look very nice in the yard.
Asher said:
“Produce lab experiments.”
You have to be kidding! Our whole society was created by and is maintained by scientists, from the food we eat, to the cars we drive, to the electricity grid that powers our homes and the treatments we use when we are sick. I had cancer recently. I hated the chemo, surgery and the drugs that controlled my pain but I was also grateful they were there. Had they not been I would certainly have died. Are you trying to tell me that’s not valuable? Bullshit!
And yes, scientists devise and run experiments in laboratories but they generally have a purpose in mind. They’re trying to figure out if an idea is or isn’t true or useful. They’re getting their colleagues to try and see if they can pick holes it. They don’t just do them for the sake if doing them *eyeroll*.
My father is elderly now but before he retired he was a nuclear chemist (his big interest was in thorium reactors). We were having coffee the other day and he told me that he was seriously worried about what would happen to society when the people he’d trained retired and there were so few people to replace them. Most people were studying the humanities, philosophy or the “soft” sciences. There weren’t enough hard scientists being trained to take over. Who would solve our ecological problems, deal with greenhouse gasses, come up with the means to produce clean energy? To many brilliant minds were being side tracked by taking “soft options”. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said that he wouldn’t live to see it but he was afraid for his grandchildren.
You use applied science every day of your life and you’ll continue to do so as long as there are scientists to expand and maintain it.
dlz: I agree, we should stop living in the past.
So when are we going to ditch the whole “women have been oppressed for 1000′s of years” trope?
When it stops informing the present. Look at this topic: A class of men is saying women don’t count because… reasons (i.e. they want to do what they want, and not give a shit about any woman who isn’t there to do what the men want).
It’s really that simple. It’s what feminism is all about, and it’s why a lot of men are against it. They want to continue oppressing women (because, as I said, it’s not in the past).
Asher: While I may not be very familiar with geek culture I am fairly certain it doesn’t involve terrorizing targeted groups.
It’s never wise to argue from a position of ignorance. It does involve terrorising target groups. Sorry to take your idyllic paradise away from you.
I’m not defending the Klan. Hell, I’m not even defending the guys who want a male-oriented geek culture; I don’t understand it and have no interest in being a part of it. What I’m pointing out is the stupidity in the original post. It’s blatantly intellectually dishonest, and I hate intellectual dishonesty.
But you seem so good at it.
Take the, “If/then” phrasing you think removes the apologia from that comment.
If there is a large group of gamers who terrorise others (there is) then it gaming, “does involve them”, but you 1: deny it, while 2: claiming to be ignorant.
Someone intellectually honest would say, “I find it hard to believe these claims. I’m not very familiar with geek culture, and the parts of it I’ve see make it hard to credit. Could you show some evidence?”
Then we would show you the evidence you had been to lazy to seek out before accusing us of dishonesty; from your asinine unwillingness to credit the possibility of something which makes some men look bad.
Asher: Well, if you are equating male tech geeks, as a group, with with Klan
More lack of intellectual honesty; esp. as the relevant analogy (not a direct comparison) was 1: qualified, and 2: requoted to you.
You really aren’t very practised at playing this game with smart/experienced people, are you?
Asher: There may, in fact, be some reason that male geeks should not be allowed a woman-free social space but equating them with the Klan is not how to honestly make that argument.
Why not? Defend your proposition; mere assertion that you think it dishonest isn’t enough. Show how the actual comparison made (in the context of the rhetorical devices used) was actually unfair:
Hint, it wasn’t, as it was limited to that subset of geeks who are being assholishly exclusionary, some of whom engage in campaigns of harassement and terrorisation. Further, just as there are actors, and ‘mere’ supporters in the Klan, it doesn’t require that all (or even a significant number) be practitioners of this sort of violence, if the larger community isn’t willing to stand against them.
That was the point of the White Sheets; to make it seem that anyone, and everyone, might be a member of the Klan; Their Eyes Are Always Watching.
The use of anonymous abuse, and fora like Reddit to make it seem that this, ‘is the way of Geek Culture” isn’t completely unparallel to the modus operandi of such kryptomeria as the Klan was designed to be.
Guys, I know why Asher hates puppies: It’s the tail chasing:
I don’t think you understand what “intellectual dishonest” means. It’s not the same thing as a lie, per se. If you’re interested in the concept I would invite you to read Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. In fact this comment of yours is intellectually dishonest in implying that I am arguing just for the sake of arguing.
Nothing in the original post was a flat-out lie.but his equating male geeks with the Klan was intellectually dishonest.
Dude… he didn’t. He compared an argument (a rhetorical device) of the Klan (“We don’t hate blacks, we just think they shouldn’t mix with whites) to a rhetorical device of *some* (you really don’t like to admit that Dave used a limiting comparator: much like the if/then device you used to wiggle out of your Klan Apologia) men, when they say, “we don’t have a problem with Geek Girls, but only if they are REAL GEEK GIRLS, and then setting the bar to pass so high that it can’t be done (moving it, as needed), while taking any dude who says they are a geek at face value.
Intellectual Honesty, you lacks it.
Ok, I have enough Greek under my belt to get it, but cryptomeria is a tree and krytomeria is Russian? Which it really can’t be, oh, it’s the Slavic word for said tree.
I approve of this potential new word, and all new words that make sense, particularly those with Latin or Greek roots.
Asher:
What’s this “women are the gatekeepers of sex” stuff coming from because it seems to me to be an incredibly bleak view of sex. Why is it a bad thing somehow that women can decide who they have sex with? I assume that’s what you mean by “gatekeeping”. Do you not want us to have the right to choose our partner or our wishes irrelevant?
To me sex is about negotiating with your partner as to what you want and both partners having the right to walk away at any time. I know MRAs think that women having sexual agency is a Bad Thing but I’ll never understand why they would want to have sex with someone who didn’t want to (it’s also called rape).