Here’s the entirety of a recent post by an MRA who calls himself Snark:
Uh, dude, I think you’ve confused “feminists” with “Daleks.”
Our new friend Fidelbogen thought this was such a brilliant idea he devoted a post to it himself, declaring:
Such economy, such concision. …
Really now, we wouldn’t go far wrong to make our rhetoric revolve around this above all, and very little more. The saying is deceptively simple, for it goes deep and reaches into many corners.
It puts them on the spot, and nails them there.
I knew Fidelbogen was a bit of a pompous doofus, but this is a whole new level of stupidity for him. I don’t even know what to say about something this idiotic.
Also, check out the comments to Snark’s piece. There’s something about potatoes you kind of have to see to believe.
@CassandraSays:
The word “troll” has an actual meaning, and it isn’t what you seem to be using it to mean here.
Yeah, nowhere I have met this extreme level of suspicion as here. You just write a simple post somebody disagrees with and you’re labeled a troll.
Cassandra: I really don’t know. Handling trolls is difficult; if he honestly won’t change his tune or leave no matter what you say, I suppose the only real choice is whether or not to ban him.
In fairness, I think I can see where some of ToySoldier is coming from. Not to put words in his mouth, but it seems to go something like this:
1. His aunt self-identified as a Feminist.
2. ToySoldier identifies his aunt as a Feminist.
Unless we are (1) his aunt, (2) ToySoldier, (3) a third party that knows the aunt, we have no basis to argue that the aunt is not a Feminist. To do so is very much an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
ToySoldier’s initial point seems to be that his aunt used Feminist theory to justify her abuse; ergo, the abuse may not have happened were his aunt not a Feminist. (Consequently, one might be able to argue that Feminism negatively impacted both ToySoldier and his aunt).
One could certainly argue back that this is a case of attempting to know the unknowable – did Feminist thinking drive a balanced human being to become abusive? Or was an abusive human being simply looking for a reason to act out their abusiveness? I certainly could not say; and I suspect this is probably not the forum to answer such a question.
What I do think we can do is appreciate the following: firstly, ToySoldier is a self-identified gender egalitarian and Feminist critic. (The latter is rather understandable given ToySolder’s personal history; one can argue that this stance is a result of a skewed encounter with a single Feminist, but that is a careful subject to approach). Secondly, ToySoldier is not an MRA; he has chosen not to identify as such, and his arguments seem primarily concerned with criticism of Feminism, rather than Mens’ Rights advocacy.
Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, ToySoldier is not a troll in the sense that he seems earnest in his position (one critical of Feminism). Now, that viewpoint may very well be incompatible with certain spaces; but that’s one for the owners and administrators to figure out.
If nothing else, consider this: ToySoldier may very well have a valid point. If ToySoldier was indeed abused by his aunt; and his aunt’s abusive nature was informed by Feminist thought; then perhaps some serious consideration should be given as to how such a situation could arise?
Maybe Rev’s brain went “pitbull…dog…bitch…OMG WOMEN EAT BABIES” and he’s surprised we can’t follow his logic.
Dude, I don’t have any statistics on *intentional* death by dog bite, but you can bet if only 16 Americans die per year at the paws of the family pet, only a small subset of those deaths can be caused by someone intentionally feeding their baby to the dog.
I mean, 2 or 3 Americans die each year of bubonic plague. Are you going to post a story on that now and expect us to infer that it’s all their mothers’ fault?
katz:
“Neonaticide…are you saying that someone intentionally used a pit bull to try to kill a child?”
No. I’m saying there is a potential there. I didn’t say it was a woman but it doesn’t look good for the aunt. Was it intentional? Probably not. But someone is responsible and that’s the issue. Not whether pit bulls can be cuddley puppies and great around kids. If they are trained to be around children they are actually very protective of family members. If they are tormented from birth and taught aggression they will be killers. Kind of like people. But the fact remains, some of the most sadistic cases of child torture are intentional.
Did you actually read the definition of neonaticide? That’s child murder within the first 24 hours after birth. Therein lies the secret to the trick statement,
kristenmh:
“I know the thread has moved on from the pitbull-related tangent, but Rev, death from dog attack is vanishingly rare…”
You are absolutely right. But child abuse isn’t, many more children die of abuse every day. Can you tell me how many? You seem to know all the stats about dog maulings and bubonic plague, how about children?
What’s the major cause? I’ll direct you back to the definition of neonaticide at Wikipedia.
Wait a minute, is the secret to the trick statement the fact that you’re just talking out of your ass right now and neonaticide actually has nothing to do with the pit bull story? That wasn’t much of a secret!
I know the stats on dog-mauling deaths because I looked them up, my good sir. Same with bubonic plague. It’s called Google.
I’m not going to get sucked into your alternative logic style here. Please explain what your pitbull story had to do with the alleged matriarchal epidemic of child abuse, because my explanation (that the word “dog” made you think of the word “bitch” and your brain jumped to blaming women) seems about as good an explanation as any.
CassandraSays:
Here is the curious thing: if you think I am so traumatized by my experiences that I hate feminism, why would you insult me, mock me, use my experiences to deride me, call me a liar, or accuse me of misunderstanding what happened to me? Do you honestly believe doing that would change my opinion of feminism for the better? There are three reasons why you tried this approach: 1) you are too stupid to know it would not work, 2) you wanted to humiliate me, or 3) you were upset because my criticism of feminism hit the nail on the head. The first is unlikely because few people are that stupid. That leaves the remaining two, and the third one is most probable because when I made my initial comment, the immediate response was “that’s not feminism”, despite that I made no assertion about feminism. I am not offended by the reaction or the insults. I expect feminists to respond negatively to things that does not fit their worldview. However, I do find it odd that anyone genuinely concerned about victims of abuse would think harassing, belittling, and mocking them would be helpful.
And remind me where exactly she did that again? Or for that matter where anyone here did anything even close to harassing, belittling, or mocking you for being a victim? Because really I’m not seeing it.
That definition would be: the killing of a newborn infant less than 24 hours old.
The major cause? Well, that would probably depend upon whether it was within a culture/society that practices selective neonaticide or not. In a culture/society that practices selective neonaticide, a major cause is female offspring being undesirable/unwanted. In a culture/society that does not practice selective neonaticide, studies are still being conducted to determine the cause in order to, hopefully, prevent more incidences from occurring.
Well, I think the major cause of killing newborns within the first 24 hours is that the pitbulls don’t like ’em any older. Too stringy.
…Or are we still trying to meaningfully engage with Rev on this? 😀
Hershele Ostropoler: I never said feminism abused me. I stated that feminism caused my aunt to become violent due to the ideology’s misandry. Those are two very different ideas. I do not care if you believe me, but I do care that you keep misrepresenting my comments.
CassandraSays: I do not think that you are trying to figure anything out. I think that you simply do not agree that feminism cause can bad behavior and because you do not want to address that point you resort to insults, ad hominems, and straw man arguments. I think that the misandry inherent in feminism can in the right, or I should say wrong, circumstances cause a person to harm boys and men. That is not an indictment of feminism because I think every ideology has that capacity cause violence. Yet ideologies that rely on the “us versus them” dichotomy, that vilifies the other side, like feminism does, seem to do it more. I do not think the way to address this is by falsely claiming that anyone who points out this problem thinks feminism is “teh evil”. I think the way to address it is by having an honest, open discussion about the misandry in feminism.
VoiP: Rev’s statistics are incorrect, but he is correct that women commit most child abuse. From the Child Maltreatment 2009 report, “More than 40 percent (44.4%) were men and more than one-half (53.8%) were women; 2 percent (1.8%) were of unknown sex.” From earlier in the report, “Three-quarters (75.8%) of child fatalities were caused by one or more parents. More than one-quarter (27.3%) of fatalities were perpetrated by the child’s mother acting alone and more than one-fifth (22.5%) of child fatalities were caused by both parents. Child fatalities with unknown perpetrator relationship data accounted for 8.7 percent.” Unfortunately, none of the recent reports list the abuse type by sex. However, the 2000 report does, and shows that women commit more child abuse than men, with the exception of sexual abuse (yet since female-perpetrated sexual violence is grossly underreported the actual rate is likely much higher).
Flib: We disagree on what privilege entails, how pervasive it is, and how it works. That does not mean I am “wrong” or lying. We can agree to disagree and move on. Likewise, the way “intersectionality” works is how I described. According to feminists, at no point does any male lose his “male privilege”, including situations in which he is clearly disprivileged as a male. To this point, do you believe that male nurse do not have “male privilege” at least within the confines of the medical community? Now you are claiming that “modern intersectionality” does not use universal statements and that there are different versions of the feminist privilege doctrine? Okay, link to the “correct” feminist theory we should rely on and I will explain whether I agree or disagree with the “correct” theory and why. But honestly, this no true scotsman routine is of yours is getting really pathetic.
Snowy: Where did I say that anyone harassed, belittled, or mocked me for being a victim? I believe I wrote, “However, I do find it odd that anyone genuinely concerned about victims of abuse would think harassing, belittling, and mocking them would be helpful.” If a person thinks someone is so traumatized that they are projecting their anger unfairly onto a group, what sense does it make for members of that group to harass, belittle, or mock that person? At best, you would simply prove the person’s biases correct. At worst, you will cause them to hate the group even more. If the goal is to change the person’s opinion for the better, doing that seems counterproductive, no?
All right, and where did she or anyone here do that? Show me please. I don’t see it.
Might I also point out that there’s a small bit under the History section at the wikki on neonaticide that is just a smidge innaccurate or incomplete:
“Still, mothers who killed their infants or newborns received lesser sentences under both the laws of the church and the state. The church consistently dealt more leniently with those mothers whose children died by “overlying,” an accidental death by smothering when a sleeping parent rolled over on the infant.”
That particular leniency in sentencing was only reserved for MARRIED mothers… unwed mothers who were found guilty of committing infanticide (I don’t think that, at that time, neonaticide was distinct from infanticide) received death sentences which could be rendered in various ways: decapitation, sacking, impalement, or being buried alive. The preferred penalty was “sacking” (cramming the infanticidal mother into a sack and then throwing her into a body of water.
Yep, keeping those slutty slut sluts in their place is a hallmark indicator of matriarchy.
I think… you still don’t know what you’re talking about. Nor do you know anything about feminism. “Misandry” is not “inherent in feminism”, nor does feminism rely on an “‘us versus them’ dichotomy” or vilify anyone. It is a movement that says “people are equal regardless of sex or gender” — nowhere in there is anything about an us or them, or about trying to treat one group better than another. You’d probably make a more convincing argument that feminism “caused” your aunt to abuse you if you could demonstrate even the most basic grasp of what feminism is.
I think there is an us and them in feminism. The us is people that believe women’s humanity equal to men’s. The them are those that would have women as a lower human being whose purpose is to serve men and birth babies. Toysoilder’s aunt clearly had a messed up idea of how to teach that women are not lesser beings. It is not the ideology that is the problem but her using it to justify horrible acts. People can do that with any ideology.
Toysoldier: You keep claiming I’m doing a no true scotsman. However, you still have failed to demonstrate this. You can’t claim a no true scotsman when I have actually linked you sources that disagree with your assertion. You have not provided a solid source to keep with your thesis of Feminist theory being monolithic. Your argument remains wrong because it is sourced in this fallacy where there is a lack of information on your part that backs your assertion.
A no true scotsman requires something without reference to a specific object rule and a statement that “well, not all feminists are the same”. While the latter is true, not all feminists are the same, we aren’t discussing feminists here. We are discussing theory. For it to be a no true scotsman, I need to not have a sourced claim, like you have said yourself. EXCEPT I HAVE GIVEN YOU APPLIED STUDIES AND A DIRECTION TO LOOK. You have specifically ignored them. You can not claim a no true scotsman because my statement against yours is referencing specific theory.
Additionally, you still haven’t provided a pervasive argument for feminist theory being monolithic and deceptive like you have claimed. You have given ONE feminist blog. Let me count that again, in case your bad at it. ONE. You are running on the assumption that feminism theory is exactly as you have claimed. You haven’t provided a very strong empirical example of similarities. You still need to do that, and you’ve needed to do it since you’ve opened your ignorant trap here in this discussion. I admit though, I did not bother to read the source. Do you know why? Because it is one feminist blog. It is not a theory paper, it is not applied studies. Do you know what we are arguing over? I assume it’s the theory itself. That’s why I have been telling you that you were wrong, because you don’t have a grasp on the theory.
It’s not ‘disagreeing’ on how privilege works, Toysoldier. It’s you continuing to make fake claims of theory that aren’t actually true. Hence, you are lying still.
Also, did you actually read my links? I’m going to go with no. Because your still arguing while conveniently forgetting what I have already provided.
Seriously, bro. Your ignorance routine and ability to back up your assertions of logic is what is pathetic here. It’s great that you have access to some of the language of discourse, but you do not seem to know how to use it. For instance, you failed at applying a no true scotsman because that doesn’t work in what I have said. You are still creating straw feminists. You are still not backing up your own claims. This a reason you don’t get any level of respect from me, not that it matters to you.
But here are a few more examples. Some of them may be behind a pay wall. But when discussing theory, we look at actual theory. Not you likely misreading one source with a low validity claim.
Anthropology & Education Quarterly
Volume 39. Issue 3. September 2008 (Pages 247 – 265)
Black Metropolis and Mental Life: Beyond the “Burden of ‘Acting White’ ” Toward a Third Wave of Critical Racial Studies: A. A. Akom
Choo, H. Y., & Ferree, M. M. (2010). Practicing intersectionality in sociological research: A critical analysis of inclusions, interactions, and institutions in the study of inequalities. Sociological Theory, 28(2), 129-129-149. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9558.2010.01370.x
Shields, S. A. (2008). Gender: An intersectionality perspective. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 59(5-6), 301-301-311. doi:10.1007/s11199-008-9501-8
Hankivsky, O., & Cormier, R. (2011). Intersectionality and public policy: Some lessons from existing models. Political Research Quarterly, 64(1), 217-217-229. doi:10.1177/1065912910376385
Lindsay, K. N.(Re)reading intersectionality and identity in the discourse on marginalized black men. Dissertation Abstracts International, A: The Humanities and Social Sciences
From that one “intersectionality suggests a political reality in which we inhabit identities, including racialized gender identities, that can both facilitate and impede our efforts to resist domination”. Yeah, sounds pretty universal there brosef. /sarcasm.
Kirk, J. (2009). Using intersectionality to examine the new complexities of work identities and social class. Sociology Compass, 3(2), 234-234-248. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00196.x
Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory, 9(1), 67-67-85. doi:10.1177/1464700108086364
Yuval-Davis, N. (2002). Reflecting on intersectionality — gender, ethnicity, race and class. Paper presented at the International Sociological Association
Gressgard, R. (2008). Mind the gap: Intersectionality, complexity and ‘the event’. Theory and Science, 10(1)
McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, 30(3), 1771-1771-1800.
@Toy Soldier – I’m not mocking you. I’m trying to figure out what it is that you want. However, you seem to interpret just about anything a feminist says to you as an act of cruelty and/or mockery, which seems to be part of the problem here. Maybe this is the reason you keep interpreting things that way.
“I expect feminists to respond negatively to things that does not fit their worldview.”
You expect it and so you see it everywhere. And also what Bagelsan said – my mental understanding of the concept “us” contains lots of men. It just doesn’t contain men who don’t understand that women are people and/or who wish to hurt me.
I’m as baffled as to what Rev is getting at as everyone else, just for the record. I’m really not sure how anyone gets from “dog kills child, this is tragic” to “evil mommy clearly decided to use a dog to commit infanticide, and we know this because the matriarchy does things like that”.
Pit bull attacks 3-week-old baby! (Warning: graphic violence)
I think the Rev. just can’t accept the fact that we think women commit abuse as well. If we did, what would he have to argue about?
Well that’s the thing, y’see, the Rev can’t understand how everyone is NOT jumping to the same conclusion that he has reached and publicly denouncing the evil mommy, and he’s chalking it up to “The Silence of the Matriarchy”.
Snowy: Cassandra’s PTSD comment is a good place to start.
Bagelsan: Thanks for demonstrating my point. Instead of honestly and objectively considering my criticism of feminism, you resort to talking points. Unfortunately, you cannot claim feminism does not rely on an “us versus them” dichotomy when the feminist position is that men as a collective oppress women as a collective, and that it is only by changing men’s collective dominance will women finally be equal.
Flib: At no point have any of you claimed the theory you presented was only a theory and not at all representative of the general feminist position. But that is irrelevant since you admit to not reading the link I provided. That proves that you engage in intellectual dishonesty, and ironically, lied about my position. How can you claim I made “fake” arguments if you never looked at my evidence? Thanks for proving how disingenuous you are. And by the way, I cannot read links you did not provide.
CassandraSays: How do you expect to figure someone out if you keep misrepresenting their positions, insulting them, and then questioning their mental state? That does not sound someone trying to figure a person out. It sounds like someone slandering another person. What you did goes to show why so many people dislike feminism and feminists, and why feminists have such a hard time with men’s activists. But I simply enjoy the irony of feminists doing the very things they accuse men’s rights activists of doing. The two groups are so similar that if you took their comments and flipped the genders you could never tell which was which.
Um, yeah, except for the part where some MRAs want to remove the vocal chords of little girls. Or the one where some of them advocate throwing Molotov cocktails at court officials who displease them. Or the one where some of them want to deny women the right to vote.
Other than minor details like that, it’s exactly the same!