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Sexism in Tech Not a Problem Because of Coal Mining, Redditor Suggests
Before Facebook, Women Used Computers Only for Weaving
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, elegantchorus has provided the definitive mansplaination as to why the apparent sexism in the tech world isn’t really sexism.
He starts by addressing one recent controversy: the lack of any female presenters at a press event for Sony’s Playstation 4. Sexism — or just the whimsical finger of fate?
Even Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian is appalled by Reddit’s role in the attacks on Adria Richards
Wow. The vitriol directed at Adria Richards by the angry dudes of Reddit was so extreme it even had Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian feeling a bit embarrassed by the monster he helped to create. In a blog post earlier this week, Ohanian chided the
(otherwise reasonable-seeming) people I saw who were comfortable and self-righteous in calling a woman a bitch/cunt/etc from their Twitter, Hacker News, or, yes, reddit account. …
The comments (and support for them) I’ve seen over the past few days have really disappointed me … This isn’t “political correctness,” this is you having the courage to use your words to create an environment that promotes an open exchange of ideas — not alienate people and certainly not terrorize them.
He reminded the “not-poor straight white men” who dominate the tech world that many of them were once the victims of bullies themselves.
Growing up, we typically weren’t picked first for sports, but were first on the Quake II server. Few people really understood our peculiar hobbies or how amazing it was to see “Hello, world” for the first time. Plenty of us got used to being ignored. Many of us were bullied. But what did we learn from it — empathy or hate?
We need to know the answer, because suddenly we are the cool kids. They’re making movies about us. We’re “rock stars.” Holy shit, the rest of the world is finally realizing how awesome we are. The geek has inherited the earth. And now that we’re the powerful ones, we need to remember: with great power comes great responsibility. It’s irresponsible to continue to act as though we are victims.
Now, there are more than a few problems with Ohanian’s plea for tolerance, up to and including all that self-aggrandizing crap at the end. On Buzzfeed, John Herrman describes Ohanian’s post as a “strategic response to a real problem.” As Herrman notes, the blog post
distances Ohanian from the site he helped create. Here, he is a commentator, not a leader. It’s a baldly political move: By identifying as a geek and then criticizing geek culture, he joins an ongoing conversation about tolerance in tech; but by minimizing Reddit’s role in driving the backlash against Adria Richards (its /r/mensrights community is raising money for the “vicims” of Richards), and characterizing the site’s actions as a reflection of a larger problem rather than a possible cause, Ohanian exonerates himself.
Technically, it was the Red Pill subreddit that started that laughable Feminist Victims Fund, but it’s certainly the case that Men’s Rights Redditors have been some of the loudest Adria Richards haters on the Internet.
Despite Herrman’s criticism, which I think is generally on the mark, Ohanian’s post is still quite striking. Apparently one of the architects of Reddit is beginning not only to realize but to publicly acknowledge just how toxic the culture on Reddit can be.
The big question now is whether or not the powers-that-be at Reddit will do anything about it.
EDITED TO ADD: In other news, the Daily Dot reports that Reddit’s new meme is just a topless woman who agrees with you.
Men’s Rights Redditor: “Women are like parasites.”
Some epic we-hunted-the-mammoth ranting from the Men’s Rights subreddit.
I should note — before some angry MRA does — that the thread I found this in is devoted to an outrageously hateful and over-the-top “kill all men” rant someone posted as a comment on Pharyngula. Naturally, no one there agrees with “Etienne,” nor do I. Indeed, I don’t allow those kinds of comments here, but the plain fact is that I never, as in literally not once that I can remember, get comments like that from feminists. I do get plenty of violent comments from MRAs, though; in the past week alone I’ve censored comments from people who gave themselves the usernames rapeabitch, RapeMan, and Woman Beater.
Men’s Rights Redditors team with PUA douchebag Roosh V to raise money for alleged victims of feminism
Men! Worried that eveil feminists will destroy your life and your financial future because, apparently, they have that power and love to destroy men’s lives for fun?
Fear no more, because Reddit’s Men’s Rightsers have your back! Mods of Reddit’s RedPill subreddit have started something called the Feminist Victims Fund, which will enable brave freedom fighters to send what will inevitably be a tiny amount of money to that dude who got fired after Adria Richards complained about a sexist joke he made, even though it wasn’t Richards who fired him and indeed she’s said she hopes he gets hired back!
Make sure you donate now, because Reddit’s MRAs will soon grow bored with this bold initiative and it will be completely forgotten, much like the massive Sink Misandry protest in Washington DC last year which actually didn’t even happen, come to think of it.
Here’s the pitch:
Feminism has caused some serious changes to our culture, to our society, and to our lives. We focus on some that are affected more than others, and we give back.
Our goal is to encourage men to speak out, to be men, to not fear oppression and enjoy their freedom of speech. Unfortunately in today’s climate, being a man has become a financial liability. Say the wrong thing in the wrong place and you can find your entire life ruined. Destroyed.
Feminists have fought for equality, but now they’re out for our rights.
They’re destroying us financially. They’re trying to tear apart our families.
We’re saying that enough is enough. No longer should men fear masculinity. No longer should speaking up risk a man his job, career, or family.
It’s time to rise up against the tyranny. It’s time to tell men it’s ok to speak up. We’re here for you. This is the Feminist Victims Fund.
Did I mention that you can donate using BITCOIN? In case you were worried that this thing wasn’t Reddity enough.
As Buzzfeed notes, one of the “board members” of the new fund is pickup guru and predatory douchebag misogynist Roosh V. On his blog yesterday, Roosh happily celebrated the harassment and vilification of Adria Richards in a post with the lovely title “American Feminist Adria Richards Gets Gang Raped By The Internet.”
Speaking of rape, Roosh is also the author of a booklet titled Bang Iceland, in which he admits that, well, he’s kind of a rapist himself. Buzzfeed quotes this rather revealing passage from the book, in which Roosh recalls a “date” he had in Iceland:
While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she legally couldn’t give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated. I won’t rationalize my actions, but having sex is what I do.
What a humanitarian.
His Sister’s Keeper: Allegedly loving brother tries to mansplain his sister’s feminism away
So there’s a young woman who attends a “a small liberal arts school.” She majors in Philosophy, and minors in Women’s Studies. And she has a job as an aide for one of her feminist professors.
Her big brother disapproves of her academic choices and the fact that she’s a — wait for it — feminist. And apparently he expresses his disapproval to her at every opportunity. He’s a Men’s Rights Activist, you see, and arguing with his sister is evidently an important form of activism for him. He writes:
Raw Story on The Top 5 Rape-Apologist Reactions to the Steubenville Verdicts [UPDATED]
RawStory has a piece up highlighting The top 5 rape apologist reactions to the Steubenville rape verdict. It’s well worth reading. As the author of the piece, Emily Mullen, notes:
The Steubenville guilty verdict spawned nearly as much rape apology as the original news of the case did, highlighting the point — made by feminists like Zerlina Maxwell and Jaclyn Friedman — that America has a long way to go before it gets past blaming victims and sympathizing with rapists.
I haven’t yet run across any reactions in the Manosphere to the verdicts, but I’m sure we’ll see some in the next few days. If you run across anything especially awful, in the Manosphere or outside of it, please let me know.
Men’s Rights Redditors, currently silent about the verdicts, were up in arms the other day because Reuters was identifying the accused — now the convicted — rapists, while not identifying the victim. Or, as MRAs prefer to put it, the “alleged victim.” Now, as RawStory points out, she is getting death threats.
EDITED TO ADD: More victim blaming online, as catalogued on the Public Shaming blog: First post, second post with more.
Below, Several examples borrowed from Public Shaming. TRIGGER WARNING for rape apology.
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MRA: We shouldn’t tolerate misogyny in the Men’s Rights movement. Reddit Men’s Rights mods hit the delete button.
You must be THIS MAD to post in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Here’s a suprisingly candid comment from an MRA in the Men’s Rights subreddit, challenging the misogyny within the movement:
Men’s Rights Redditor: “If women want equal rights, they need to learn how to take a punch.”
I spend more time on YouTube than I probably should. Most of the time I’m on the site, I’m tracking down strange and awesome music videos. But I also love cat videos (big surprise), ridiculous fake alien and UFO videos, videos of people behaving in incredibly unwise ways that are somehow not lethal to them, and pretty much anything that’s got Yackety Sax as its soundtrack.
What do MRAs enjoy watching? As far as I can tell, when they’re not watching videos of other MRAs, or flooding the comments of feminist videos, they like watching videos of women getting punched.
Feminism: It’s like letting your kids stay up eating ice cream
How would you define feminism in a sentence or two?
Wait, stop thinking, for Reddit’s ImissAOL has already provided a wonderfully concise and accurate definition:
I see modern feminism as the equivalent to letting your kids stay up all night eating ice cream.
He adds, helpfully:
Just because they feel they are getting their way doesn’t mean it is actually benefiting them.
Gosh, that’s not patronizing at all!
Sometimes doing this blog makes me hungry.
Men’s Rights Redditors outraged again by imaginary injustice, alleged-stripping-at-school-assembly edition
Trapped in an imaginary matriarchy!
MRAs spend an awful lot of time getting worked up by hypothetical injustices. On the Men’s Rights subreddit, angry Men’s Rightsers regularly post links to stories of women behaving badly – or who may have been charged with or convicted of a crime – with indignant headlines suggesting that the women in question would be treated far worse if “she had been a man.”
The latest example of this outrage over imagined injustices? This post, found in r/mensrights today, with 87 net upvotes:
If you follow the link, it goes to a brief story about the alleged incident in The Huffington Post. I say “alleged” because the woman in question has not yet been convicted of anything. As the story reports, the police arrested her because
school staff told them the assembly was halted and the cafeteria cleared after Meaders began dancing onstage and took off some of her clothes.
She’s charged with seven counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of public lewdness.
An Albany City Court clerk says Meaders was arraigned Friday afternoon and ordered held on $3,000 bail. She doesn’t have a lawyer yet.
There is no mention of putting her on a sex offenders registry because, and let me be blunt here, YOU HAVE TO BE CONVICTED OF A CRIME TO GET PUT ON ONE. She’s merely been CHARGED.
There is no “pussy pass” for women that enables them to bypass the sex offenders registry ONCE THEY ARE CONVICTED of public lewdness. The relevant NY State law can be found here; as you can see, the gender of the convicted offender is not an issue. (It took all of 30 seconds on Google to dig that up.) Meaders isn’t getting special treatment because she’s a woman; she’s not on the offenders registry because an arrest is not the same as a conviction.
Enjoy your imagined oppression, fellas.
