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| From In Mala Fide |
The reaction of the “manosphere” to Lara Logan’s reported sexual assault in Cairo has been highly revealing, to put it mildly. And what it reveals about the assorted Men’s Rightsers, Men Going Their Own Way, pickup artists, and others who make up the manosphere is pretty ugly.
Take, for example, Ferdinand Bardamu’s posts on the subject. On Tuesday, Bardamu, whose antifeminist blog In Mala Fide is widely linked to in the manosphere, spat forth a snide, sarcastic rant that attacked Logan for having the temerity to even set foot in Egypt. He started out dismissive:
Apparently, a CBS lady reporter got raped while covering the revolution in Egypt. For some reason, we’re expected to feel sorry for her.
Then turned up the sarcasm:
Oh, what a symbol of courage Miss Logan is! What a beacon of determination and grit and…no, seriously. I can’t go on.
Fuck Lara Logan. Fuck her and the shit-for-brains idiot who thought it was a good idea to send a WOMAN to report from a war zone. …
Of course, Bardamu ignores the simple fact that is is dangerous to send ANY reporter, male or female, into the midst of a revolution — indeed, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented more than 140 attacks on journalists in the Egyptian unrest so far; one journalist was shot and killed. Despite this fact, it is an undeniably good thing that some reporters (male and female both) are willing to risk their lives to cover wars and revolutions and other dramatic, dangerous, and important events. No one has suggested that the attacks on male journalists mean that men should not be covering these events. No one is mocking the male journalists who were attacked. (Well, almost no one. Bardamu refers in passing to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, also famously attacked while covering the events of Egypt, as a “twinkle-toed pansy [who] couldn’t handle the heat on the streets of Cairo.”)
For Bardamu, though, Logan’s story is one of a woman foolishly trying to make her way in a man’s world:
You send a chick into a situation like the one in Egypt, you might as well hang a sign around her neck that says “FREE FUCKTOY”. I don’t care how many disaster areas she’s reported from, how many awards she’s won, it was going to happen eventually. …
Sucks that Lara got raped, but she had it coming. [Emphasis in original]
To Bardamu, this case is evidence not only that women journalists should not be sent to cover the Egyptian revolution but that they should not be allowed to leave their home country at all:
[O]f COURSE Lara shouldn’t be sent on another foreign assignment again! She, nor any other women should be allowed to be a foreign correspondent for their own safety.
And then, after arguing that Logan “had it coming,”and that any western woman who has the temerity to leave her hotel room and step out into the streets of Cairo should expect herself to get raped sooner or later, Bardamu then suggests that Logan may be making it all up:
There’s a non-zero chance that she didn’t get raped at all, and that she made the whole thing up to garner attention and sympathy from the weepy, chivalrous masses. …
I have no evidence that she’s not telling the truth, only a tiny feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s been growing year by year, with every venal vixen who falsely accuses a man of rape because she wants fame, or she feels like a slut after sleeping with the guy, or she’s mad that he slept with her best friend the day after, or whatever else.
Naturally, in the comments, many of Bardamu’s fans agreed that women women who trespass into male spaces deserve whatever happens to them. According to “John”:
Women do not belong in men’s locker rooms, Mike Tysons apartment at 2:00 a.m., drunk in a bar bathroom with the Steelers quarterback, and they sure as hell don’t belong “reporting” in the middle of a revolution. Women should not go to Frat Parties dressed like sluts and get drunk with the expectation that “nothing will happen.” …
This woman, Laura Logan, is not just an idiot – she is an adulterous whore. She shares this unfortunate circumstance with tens of millions of others of her sex, and deserves no pity whatsoever.
For some, the case was not just another excuse for “slut shaming” but evidence that the very notion of equality between the sexes is wrong. As Brett Stevens put it:
American women are rape targets worldwide. They are known to be clueless, friendly, and most of all, sexually easy. If a woman chucks her sexual favors out the door at the drop out of a hat, why not just go the extra mile and apply pressure? … We take these girls from comfy suburbs and send them into war zones and riots and wonder why they get gang raped. Amazing cluelessness, arising from our insane idea of “equality.”
There were other comments even worse than these — e.g., this one — but I don’t have the heart to post them here.
But Bardamu’s retrograde notions were also challenged in the comments — mostly from those who saw his noxious post linked to on feminist sites and on Twitter, but also in a few cases from actual fans of his blog.
This reaction inspired Bardamu to post a second piece on the Logan story, one even more narcissistic and self-righteous than the first. After taking on some of his critics (most notably Molly of Progressive Blogic, whom he labeled a “premenstrual whiner”), and casually referring to Logan as “an unwilling cum dumpster,” Bardamu tried to pretend that it was him, and not the feminists, who had the best interests of women at heart.
Lara Logan had no business being in Cairo, or anywhere in that part of the world for that matter. All of you leftie feminist tossers screeching about “rape culture” have her blood on your hands. How many more have to suffer before your lies are discredited?
Sorry, but a guy who refers to any women, much less a woman who has been raped, as a “cum dumpster” pretty much forfeits any right to be taken seriously on the subject of what is best for women.
About a week ago, Bardamu reported that he’d taken a Psychopathy Test on OkCupid, and had scored an impressive 31 points, which put him in the ranks of the “True Psychopaths.” His posts on Logan — full of narcissistic rage and utterly lacking in basic human empathy — seem to bear out this diagnoses all too well.
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>"The necessary but absurd premise underlying chuck's argument is that woman=incompetant."No, the necessary but not-so-absurd premise underlying my argument is that under affirmative action, true ability/intelligence have become invisible. One can never be sure whether a woman has achieved on the basis of her own merits or simply been slotted in for the purpose of meeting quotas. And because true ability and intelligence have become invisible, we rely on other markers to promote and advance, like popularity and credentialism. Street smarts have become irrelevant. This situation represents the dumbing down of society.
>I don't feel sorry for MRA's when they're ridiculed for the kind of horrifying crap many of them post.Given the kind of shit they're posting, they're asking for it.
>Chuckeedee:I think you're incorrect. Your argument does not take into account the fact that women did dangerous and adventurous things before affirmative action and then reported on those things. The only thing affirmative action did, is make it easier for them to get a job doing the thing that they wanted to do anyway. A few of many examples:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wellshttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/07/19/exclusive-diaries-of-mirror-1940-s-war-reporter-barbara-broad-115875-20654404/http://www.amazon.com/Married-Adventure-Martin-Johnson-Kodansha/dp/1568361289
>by the way chuckeedee,not all feminists support affirmative action, not all women who are going to college on scholarship got their scholarship through affirmative action (for example, the scholarship which pays for the majority of my schooling is from GE who does not have to align to affirmative action, and the only thing which the panel who chose who got the scholarship saw was the actual project which we had to do in order to get the scholarship.) the rest of my funding comes from pell grant which is nongendered and the amount of money one receives is based on income, not gender. And I know that at least in biology based fields there are scholarships that are male only, and the majority of the rest and nongender based.
>"One can never be sure whether a woman has achieved on the basis of her own merits or simply been slotted in for the purpose of meeting quotas. "Oh but people like you will always assume women are worse at their job. YOU are the reason affirmative action exists in the first place, buddy. And your hate and prejudice has no limit. If we didn't have affirmative action then you'd still think women got the job unfairly. You'd have some reason saying stuff like she's hot or she's sleeping with the boss. Then you'd cite "proof" that women shouldn't be in X-industry because, I don't know, probably some evolutionary psychology bullshit about how the female brain isn't good at math. Let me tell you, I work in a male-dominated industry and no one is doing me any favors. I also didn't get some special women-only scholarship in college. Especially with the job market how it is now, it's about who you know. You have this idea that companies are clamoring to hire women and minority groups. That's just not the truth.
>Is it any surprise that so many MRAs are racist pieces of shit as well as sexist pieces of shit? They're making Egyptians out to be untamed savages, and at the same time implying that gang rapes don't happen in the US.This is why they keep harping on affirmative action. Whether or not they say it out loud, they clearly assume that a white male is going to be the best choice for any position. Chuck's bullshit about affirmative action obscuring true intelligence and ability is the same thing. Clearly Lara Logan's true intelligence and ability weren't obscured, because she was damn good at her job. It wasn't a coincidence that she got chosen for it.I mean, it's funny, but I haven't seen the rash of incompetent black and female employees that should be cropping up everywhere if affirmative action is really the kind of ability-disregarding initiative that MRAs and other racists characterize it as.
>Oh the RACISM apart from anything else. No one seems to care that Arabs (and Arabic women at that) were among her rescuers.These guys with their talk about 'shaming', it's fucking disgusting. Become a better person. Anyone who continues to produce this poison deserves all the hate they recieve.
>"American women are rape targets worldwide. They are known to be clueless, friendly, and most of all, sexually easy. If a woman chucks her sexual favors out the door at the drop out of a hat, why not just go the extra mile and apply pressure?"American men are mugging targets worldwide. They are known to be clueless, friendly, and most of all, financially easy. If a man chucks his financial favors out the door at the drop out of a hat, why not just go the extra mile and apply pressure?
>Hey man, if you didn't want to get mugged you wouldn't have been carrying a wallet. Totally asking for it.
>"The necessary but absurd premise underlying chuck's argument is that woman=incompetant.""No, the necessary but not-so-absurd premise underlying my argument is that under affirmative action, true ability/intelligence have become invisible."These two sentences are saying the same thing.The funny part is that Chuck thinks his sentence (the second one) is contradicting the first sentence.
>Under Chuck's logic, if you go to a restaurant and have to choose one item from column A and one item from column B, you are unable to select the best from each column. Apparently MRAs are easily confused!
>As a journalist, I've worked with really competent editors and really shitty ones. For what it's worth, the absolute worst top editors I've ever worked with were both men, who got their jobs at least in part through successfully schmoozing the (male) top brass; they were both so incompetent that I and numerous others (both male and female) were driven to quit our jobs.
>Even back in the "good old days", when women very rarely, if ever, occupied "traditionally male" occupations, hiring and promoting of men in these "traditionally male" occupations wasn't based solely on meritocracy. Oftentimes nepotism was involved, or preference given to married men over single men.
>"Apparently MRAs are easily confused!"I am not an MRA. I do not support any movement that has preferences for one sex implied in its name. Just because I reject feminism as a gender-supremacist movement does not mean that I must instinctively be driven to support any gender-supremacist movement nominated in favor of men. It would seem that liberals are easily confused, and obviously projecting their entrenched sexism."they were both so incompetent that I and numerous others (both male and female) were driven to quit our jobs." AND;"Oftentimes nepotism was involved, or preference given to married men over single men.These are fair comments. They resonate with some of the reasons I had originally supported feminism. Of course I eventually came to my senses with the realization that feminism not only creates new biases and multiplies them, but also officially sanctions these biases in laws and the necessary erosion of everyone's constitutional rights. These anti-democratic laws and assaults on constitutional freedoms are unprecedented, and directly attributable to feminism.Apart from which, for many women, marriage is retirement, and any notion that women have been systemically oppressed by patriarchal forces arrayed against them is patently absurd. The alternative interpretation, that patriarchal forces are arrayed specifically at the behest of matriarchal bidding is every bit as credible. The implication that we should accept the former unsubstantiated rot whilst rejecting the latter insults everyone's intelligence.
>Of course I eventually came to my senses with the realization that feminism not only creates new biases and multiplies them, but also officially sanctions these biases in laws and the necessary erosion of everyone's constitutional rights. These anti-democratic laws and assaults on constitutional freedoms are unprecedented, and directly attributable to feminism.So in other words, you're not a MRA, but you agree with their fundamental premise…Apart from which, for many women, marriage is retirement,Not for a few decades now. 47% of the US workforce is female, so women are almost as likely as men to be employed these days.Women weren't absent from the workforce prior to the mid-20th century because they wanted to be. It's because they were shut out from it.Strictly speaking, they were never absent from the workforce at all, except in white-collar positions. Women were factory workers, miners, and secretaries well before women's liberation came into town. The notion that women were all homemakers at any point in history is a result of middle- and upper-class bias. Working-class families generally needed the additional income.But now that jobs that are palatable to middle-class people are increasingly available to women, women are, as I said, almost as likely as men to be employed outside the home.and any notion that women have been systemically oppressed by patriarchal forces arrayed against them is patently absurd.You can say it all day long, but we have a century's worth (and more, if you go back before the first wave) of serious, very intelligent thinkers whose contributions can't be wished away by the words "patently absurd."The alternative interpretation, that patriarchal forces are arrayed specifically at the behest of matriarchal bidding is every bit as credible.Well… it's not, actually.The implication that we should accept the former unsubstantiated rot whilst rejecting the latter insults everyone's intelligence.See above.
>"Not for a few decades now. 47% of the US workforce is female, so women are almost as likely as men to be employed these days.You really need to reference sources when you throw figures like this around. Without going into details, consider how the 70 cents-in-the- dollar wage-gap fiasco was conveniently interpreted by ignoring crucial factors like part-time versus fulltime, etc, etc, etc. And no, I do not accept David's interpretation that he's already provided on this site.I merely suggest that the gender-supremacists have failed to prove their thesis. My perspective is the status quo (in the sense of likely, judging by observations of how all ecosystems function – the "if it looks like a duck" argument). It is much more likely that provided-for wives are not, in fact, victims of wholesale systematic abuse… that being "provided for" is exactly what it seems – being provided for is a privilege and not abuse. The feminist interpretation, that women are victims of systematic abuse, is the one that is less likely, and thus challenges the imminently logical status quo that we see in nature all around us. It is for this reason that it needs to be proven instead of simply asserted. Logic 101. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well, maybe it is a duck. Maybe being provided for is in fact everything that it seems – a privilege and not abuse. It's a variation of Occam's razor – the simplest answer is probably the more correct one. You will know abuse when you see it. If it doesn't look like abuse, then tell me why it should be so interpreted, and then prove it. The onus is on the one trying to prove the absurd, the divergence from the status quo. If they can prove it, I will listen. But feminists have failed to prove this crucial point.If this point escapes you, then let me clarify on what I mean by "patriachal forces arrayed specifically at the behest of matriarchal bidding". Wars involve women's choices and priorities as much as men's. Destruction of the environment is as much attributable to women driving cars and their shopping habits as it is to men's career priorities. Everything that happens in a society is as much the responsibility of women as it is of men. If you cannot accept this, then you are doing your bit protraying women as invisible, ineffectual imbeciles who are inferior to men. I take offense at this sexist interpretation. Women are not that stupid.Your declaring "Well… it's not, actually" is empty. You don't even bother to substantiate your assertion.
>Without going into details, consider how the 70 cents-in-the- dollar wage-gap fiasco was conveniently interpreted by ignoring crucial factors like part-time versus fulltime, etc, etc, etc.You ask for a citation (about the percentage of the workforce that is female), then make an unproven assertion? If you're going to raise this issue, let's see a citation from you.As for the % of the workforce that is female, it's close to half. Women almost became a majority in the workforce (US) in 2009, and the percentage has dropped somewhat since then. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/0211/Women-s-share-of-jobs-slipping
>"If you're going to raise this issue, let's see a citation from you."Here are a couple of the references that I've drawn on in the past that are often brought up in the wage gap debate, but you've already dismissed them, so what's the point? You've made up your mind, and I've made up my mind. It's clear that neither of us is going to change our respective povs:1. Warren Farrell, "why men earn more";2. Furchtgott-Roth, Diana and Stolba, Christine (1999) – Women’s Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America, American Enterprise Institute3. Allen, Charlotte (2003, 3 May) – Independent Women’s Forum – http://www.iwf.org/articles/article_detail.asp?ArticleID=226Is there really any point in laboring the tired old wage gap chestnut? I've proven my assertion on the wage gap long ago, to my satisfaction. If we don't get it by now, we never will.That's why I'm skeptical of yet another tired reference that purports to prove the you-go-grrrl public relations hype. "47% of the US workforce is female" my arse. I just don't buy it, not in the sense that women are equal contributors to the economy. But if someone goes to the bother of substantiating it with solid references, I'm open to revisting it.
>Uh, I just gave you a reference to the % of women in the workforce. You want more?Here:http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Are+women+now+half+the+labor+force%3F+The+truth+about+women+and+equal…-a0227196953As for the wage gap issue, I asked for specific evidence of "how the 70 cents-in-the- dollar wage-gap fiasco was conveniently interpreted by ignoring crucial factors like part-time versus fulltime, etc, etc, etc." Citing entire books is not particularly helpful.
>The topic hereunder is not about the wage gap. Why are we discussing it here?Skimming quickly through the article, I notice that it makes reference to women in the legal profession. It is well established that the legal profession does not provide real economic value. It's parasitic on the societal host. Sure we need it, but it's not directly contributing to the economy. Women are half the workforce… so? Let's take what I am getting at to the hypothetical extreme. Let's say that in a far-off planet in another part of the universe, there's a society where all the men are employed as miners and all the women are employed as tea-ladies. Exactly half the employed are women, and the other half men. But what does that prove with regards to contributing to the economy and economic growth? Saying that women are exactly half the workforce is meaningless without providing an analysis of their activities, whether it's part time or fulltime, how it relates to their career aspirations, and so on. It's the wage gap fiasco all over again.
>I was discussing the wage gap because YOU BROUGHT IT UP. The rest of your comment is so goofy I'm not going to bother to continue this discussion with you.
>"The rest of your comment is so goofy I'm not going to bother to continue this discussion with you."You're the one whose making it goofy. When I have to resort to putting the argument in such basic, simplistic terms, it's pretty obvious what I'm getting at, isn't it? No wonder you want to stop playing.
>Chuckeedee said…It is much more likely that provided-for wives are not, in fact, victims of wholesale systematic abuse… that being "provided for" is exactly what it seems – being provided for is a privilege and not abuse.Being provided for also means another has total control of your means of survival if you have no resources of your own. That means if you are abused it is harder to leave. It's not the providing that is abuse. Unless you want to say then that because children are provided for means they never get abused. Abuse is abuse. You are creating a argument that I have never heard said by feminists. Also the words,"wholesale systematic abuse" troubles me. Does there have to be "wholesale systematic abuse" to do something about abuse that exists? Does that have to be the case to advocate for those that are abused to get assistance? WOW.
>Chuckadee: "Apart from which, for many women, marriage is retirement, and any notion that women have been systemically oppressed by patriarchal forces arrayed against them is patently absurd."Most American women work.About half the American workforce is made up of women.What I'm really curious about, however, is this assertion that because some women are lawyers, and some lawyers are women, and because "It is well established that the legal profession does not provide real economic value. It's parasitic on the societal host," women don't contribute to the economy. I can think of about a hundred ways that lawyers contribute to the economy. True, they don't make widgets, but neither do most Americans these days.I don't want to take this conversation too off-track, but I'm curious: What is it about bringing claims to punish and discourage an employer's unsafe practices, or get adequate money for medical bills from an insurer who won't pay, or bringing a claim to enforce a contract or protect an artist's or inventor's intellectual property–what about any of those situations says that the legal profession adds nothing to the economy?And that's not even getting to the logic fail of the rest of what you said.
>It is well established that the legal profession does not provide real economic value. It's parasitic on the societal host. Sure we need it, but it's not directly contributing to the economy. This is nonsense. Every employed person contributes to the economy simply by having a job, because a) their income is taxed, and b) they take their income and spend it, thus providing money to retailers and service providers, which contributes to the economy. Everything that happens in a society is as much the responsibility of women as it is of men. If you cannot accept this, then you are doing your bit protraying women as invisible, ineffectual imbeciles who are inferior to men. I take offense at this sexist interpretation. Women are not that stupid.And later:I just don't buy it, not in the sense that women are equal contributors to the economy.I smell a contradiction somewhere…