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.
Now that’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that it was caused by the lizard people!
Also: if two people were abused as children and have completely contrary opinions, who of them is right? Are they both right? Or both wrong?
Seriously, I don’t think it makes much sense to argue with Toysoldier any longer. I mean, he is apparently doing this shtick since at least 2005; repeating the same arguments over and over, not listening to the people who disagree with him and accusing them of not taking his abuse seriously.
I have no idea if he thinks femnists will just go “Oh, you mean feminism causes people to abuse children! Well, why didn’t you just say so right away? That is totally true, of course!” if he just repeats it often enough or changes the wording a little.
As has been said a few times by others;
Toysoldier, it’s not that we don’t understand you. We just disagree with you.
@ToySoldier:
You raise an excellent point. I thought I was misusing the term, and did a little research; some of the definitions I came across classified the fallacy as a form of ad hoc argument modification. However, on deeper inspection, there are definitions (including RationalWiki) that seem to confirm your interpretation of the term, and my initial interpretation; a for of ad hoc argument modification specifically concerned with the group disassociation.
I’m glad to hear that you do not hold your aunt representative of all Feminists.
No true scottsman only applies if the denial of the characteristic is not a necessary condition or a part of the definition. For example, it is perfeclty reasonable to say that no true bird is a squirrel. This is because the features which define “bird” and the features which define “squirrel” are mutually exclusive. It can also be the case that there is a physical law such that X and Y are in fact mutually exclusive due to a causal relationship or physical relationship (for example, asserting that no true carbon atom can be doing X, where X is a thign which carbon atoms in fact can’t do). The thing is, the former relies on definition and the latter relies on proof (as an argument). The no true scottsman is a type of nonsequiter, it is not necessarily a contradition.
Let’s look at an example:
“No true pacifist would commit a murder”
Is this a “no true scottsman”? It depends on whether pacifism is defined as a set of acts or a set of views, people can act contrary to their views. But, assuming it is an act-view combo definition, that statement is in no way a fallacy.
Contrast with this:
“No true member of the communist party would vote to abolish the estate tax.”
Now, this could be a no true scottsman, if presented alone. The fact that a person is a member of the communist party does not mean, by definition, that they would not vote in such a way. However, this statement may very well be true. It could be the case that the groups “member of the communist party” and “people who would vote to abolish the estate tax” contain no members in common. However, if we found a case where the person was a member of both groups, this would disprove the statement. I person reiterating the statement is making a rather poor argument in that situation. But this is because statement is demonstrably false, not because it is self contradictory. Some people refer to poorly reasserting the original statment as the “no true scottsman” fallacy, but it is not in fact a fallacy, it is just denial of the fact of the demonstrated case.
A genuine dispute about the definition to claim that the original statement is true is not generally a fallacy, unless one is committing some sort of fallacy of definition (which is common in many cases in practice). A mere dispute of definition of categories is not in and of itself a fallacy.
CassandraSays: I already addressed those questions before. Now please answer my question: if an ideology can change people’s behaviors for the better, can it also change people’s behavior for the worst?
Bagelsan: I never claimed that child abuse was a feminist act or that feminism promotes abuse, and it is not nonsensical to say feminism influences someone’s behavior when feminists themselves contend that feminism can cause a person to treat women better. If you think feminism can never influence someone’s behavior for the worst, you need to prove that. As I noted before, you have no basis to speculate from as you know nothing about the person in question.
Kollege Messerschmitt: I noted several times that people here disagree with me and that I do not expect feminists to agree with me. The reason I keep repeating myself is because you and others keep saying I hold positions I do not. I also noticed you did not answer my question. I will ask again: do you think those three examples represent the whole feminist position on misandry? If so, why does that logic not apply to examples of feminists failing to call out or engaging in misandry?
Flib: The first link was about female tokenism, which has nothing to do with “male privilege”. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and six all argue that men, regardless of their social status, still possess “male privilege”. Unfortunately, one must pay to read several of the studies, so I cannot give my opinion on them. However, all those examples support that my position that the feminist privilege doctrine argues that all men always possess privilege, “male privilege” is a universal. Coincidentally, everything from those six sources matches the definitions and views written on Feminism 101. Thank you for proving my argument for me.
VoiP: Of course you have the right to question my understanding of my experiences. The issue is whether you have any basis from which to do so. The answer is no. You know no details about my experiences or my aunt, so how could you contradict my explanation, let alone declare it false? Following your logic, if you say that “patriarchy” causes men to sexually harass you, I can just declare that social views about women in no way influenced the men who harassed you. Do you see sill that is?
darksidecat: The fallacy can occasionally be a non sequitor, but no true scotsman is not such by definition. The only case in which the no true scotsman fallacy would not apply is if a group explicitly defines the conditions for membership and condition gets broken. For example, “no true Christian would worship Zeus” is a fair statement Christians are barred from worshiping other gods. However, the statement, “no true Christian would murder” is a fallacy despite Christianity’s views on murder.
Toysoldier: Uh, no bro. You still don’t understand the difference between systemic vs. universal. Honestly, stop trying, you are pathetic.
Toysoldier: Also note that I never said that you’re a bad person. I don’t know you well enough to make that judgement. What I said was that you are no more exempt from basic human decency than anyone else, and that you’re acting like an asshole. I’m judging your actions, not your character.
Technically, the commandment only says that you’re not supposed to have any gods before him. I would tihnk that as long as he were your primary patron and got most of your worship, he shouldn’t mind if you appeal to someone else for help now and again.
“I would tihnk that as long as he were your primary patron and got most of your worship, he shouldn’t mind if you appeal to someone else for help now and again.”
Indeed, if this had not been the way things actually worked in practice, Christianity would never have spread as widely as it has. Catholicism in particular has always been very good at absorbing local deities and allowing people to continue venerating them (sometimes in slightly adjusted forms).
Or, to put it another way – I know tons of people who wear Celtic crosses who don’t identify as Christian. In the end, not only did Christianity bend to accommodate aspects of Celtic culture upon arrival in the UK, for a lot of people of Celtic ancestry the Celtic part actually swallowed up the Christian part to the point where now that particular cross has a symbolic value that’s more “I celebrate my Celtic heritage” than “I love Jesus”.
Ok I’m pretty sure you mean worse, not worst. Sorry, that was bugging me. As for your actual points, if you could even call them that, other people have already answered them like a million times and there seems to be no reason for me to answer you again.
Snowy: Are you saying an ideology can influence a person’s behavior for the better but not the best? As in “my significant other brings out the best in me.”
Flib: Do not get upset because your own evidence shows that feminists believe all males always have privilege and can never be disprivileged or disadvantaged as males.
KathleenB: Of course you have not said I am a bad person. You just implied that I am an indecent human being. In regards to worshiping other gods, Exodus 20:5 states, “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to [other gods], nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me…”
CassandraSays: Quite often Christians retained pagan elements as they transitioned from their local faiths to Christianity, and in the early centuries they masked Jesus as Roman gods in order to avoid persecution. However, that does not mean that Christians actually worship other gods.
Snowy: I meant worst, as in the most extreme. No one has actually answered my question. Telling me that feminism opposes abuse has nothing to do with whether the ideology, due the biases inherent to it, can cause fear, hatred, discrimination, or violence.
Toysoldier:
Then what are you trying to achieve here? I’m seriously puzzled. You apparently have been doing this same thing for several years, and are trotting out the same tired arguments, no matter how many people point out that they are faulty.
You seem to expect a specific answer, and you won’t rest until you get it. What is it?
Do you want feminists or feminism to take responsibility for what your aunt did to you? I’m genuinely curious.
Dude, if everyone here is misunderstanding your positions, maybe you should, I dunno, make yourself a bit clearer instead of just complaining that we are misunderstanding/misrepresenting you? Just an idea.
Also,
BUH?
Are you fucking kidding me? So, a blog run by mostly feminists that focuses on calling out misandry is not valid to bring up when arguing that there are feminists who point out misandry (of feminists and non-feminists)? Now this is a pretty good example of your dishonesty.
If there was a site that was about saving tigers, and about why and how tigers need to be saved, along with information about tigers, wouldn’t you think it would be pretty silly if there was someone who kept on complaining how the site doesn’t write enough about how otters* need to be saved, and that there are obviously anti-otter bias on the site of the site maintainers?
And then the people from the tiger saving side are all “look, we seriously don’t have anything against otters. We think they should totally be saved, too! It is just not what we are focusing on.”
and the otter person is like “Well, if you really WANTED to save otters, you would write about them! If you can’t show me a pro-tiger site that also advocates otter saving, I will stand by my belief that pro-tiger people are anti-otter! OH BTW! Linking to a site that is mostly run by pro-tiger people and is solely dedicated to otter saving doesn’t count! It has to be on a site about tiger saving”!
See why this isn’t helpful?
Again, you seem to hold feminists to a different standard than the MRM. As said, I think it’s flattering that you think feminists have more to offer more than “not ALL of them are calling for the gendercide or enslavement of 50% of the population, or are thinking they deserve to get beaten and raped”, which is apparently enough to not label the MRM as hateful.
But for fuck’s sake, don’t act like you are totally not biased, and are just pointing out that feminists are not better than MRAs.
Question: Is there a site that is run by mostly MRAs that is dedicated to call out MRAs and non-MRAs for misogyny?
(* I have nothing against otters, or pro-otter people for that matter, so no offense to any otter or pro-otter people reading this!)
I don’t want to get into a grammar derail, it’s just that I’ve never seen it put that way before and it looks strange to me. As for your
This is a lie. First of all, what are the biases inherent to feminism in your opinion? Second, let me quote Bagelsan
Oops, cross out that random “As for your” in your mind please! That’s what I get for not proofreading I guess
But I do know that one of the stated aims of feminism is anti-abuse, therefore I know that your claim that feminism MADE your aunt abuse you is false.
This game of ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own’ is getting tiresome. I said that YOU ARE ACTING LIKE AN ASSHOLE and that bad experiences do not excuse you from the rules of human interaction. Do you see anything like ‘you are a bad person’ in there? THAT’S BECAUSE IT ISN’T!
So just to be clear, my two points regarding your behavior:
1) You are acting like an asshole
2) Horrible experiences in your past are not an excuse for 1.
Nowhere in those two points are the words bad or indecent. Reading comprehension, you do not haz it.
Well of course Toy Soldier is a godbot. After all, no one lies quite like one of those.
To reiterate what KathleenB said, Toy:
1) You are acting like an asshole
2) Horrible experiences in your past are not an excuse for 1.
Also, I’m starting to suspect that you’re either genuinely stupid or deliberately dishonest and obtuse.
Conversations with Toy Soldier do rather remind me of the whole “War on Christmas” debate, now that you mention it. I think it’s the absolute conviction that a. everyone is out to get him via insults, etc and b. not agreeing with some of the things he says is a cruel and vicious personal attack.
Toysoldier: I’ll note you never engaged with criticism to begin with. You have never operationalized your terms, you continue to perpetuate an idea based on minimal misinterpreted evidence. None of my sources agreed with your assertion because your assertion is premised entirely on something that doesn’t actually exist. From the start you don’t have support. So when I say pathetic, your statements are truly that. Systemic does not mean universal, and it is you who makes the error of assuming that it does.
So, let’s do something you FAILED to do, which destroys your assertion. A basic analysis of one of my list of sources. Never mind that you never actually did any fucking research yourself to prove your assertion, and specifically misread what is being discussed to construct universals that just aren’t actually true. Hell, your pathetic attempt at taunting me again when I pointed out systemic does not equal universal continues to exemplify your stubborn stupidity.
From Gender as a Social Structure.
From the abstract: “The author also argues that while concern with intersectionality must continue to be paramount, different structures of inequality have different constructions and perhaps different influential causal mechanisms at any given historical moment”
A recognition that inequality, and thus, privilege as a sign of inequality, does vary.
Page 5: “male-dominated institutions”.
More evidence for something that is systemically true. As a current snapshot of things, the majority of institutions which determine power are male dominated. See: Congress, corporate power, etc. This is not a universal statement. Institutions could be not male dominated.
Page 9: Male and Privilege: “In a sexist and racist society, women and all persons of color are expected to have less to contribute to task performances than are white men, unless they have some other externally validated source of prestige. Status expectations create a cognitive bias toward privileging those of already high status. What produces status distinction, however, is culturally and historically variable. Thus, cognitive bias is one of the causal mechanisms that help to explain the reproduction of gender and race inequality in everyday life.”
Discussion of privilege. It is not made as a universal that white men will always have privilege. But in a society that favors them, systemically, there is strong privilege. Again, your ideas of universals do not fit.
page 11: “To ask the question, Can men mother, presuming that gender itself is a social
structure leads us to look at all the ways that gender constrains men’s mothering and
under what conditions those change.”
Discusses role identity over childcare. Notes that it is situated in a field of labor (Emotional work, childcare) that is emphasized as feminine. “Single fathers’ identities changed based on their experiences as primary parents.” It is not within most masculine identities to be associated with child care. A limitation of the construction of male identity. Tokenism is an indicator of inequalities, though the form of how these inequalities take place are different. So, your initial argument of tokenism having nothing to do with privilege is incorrect. On interactional and individual levels, men do face a form of inequality with being parents, one that necessitates a shift in identities that is considered abnormal for male identities. Again, we do not see a universal here.
Page 13: Tokenism and inequality: “early structural hypotheses presumed that
tokenism per se was an important mechanism that explained women’s and men of
color’s continued subordination in the labor force. But as research testing this
tokenism hypothesis expanded to include men in women’s jobs, it became clear that
the theory was not indeed only about numbers. Tokenism did not work the same
way for white men.”
Tokenism does deal with labor inequalities. White Men breaking their role still receive many benefits, but it’s not all advantage. The benefits are more a result of a empirical systemic truth, again, not a universal. Honestly if you are looking for where men are not advantaged within intersectionality, there are TONS of studies on male people of color (See: prisons, arrests for minor offenses, etc.) That is where you’d like to look.
Page 13: “Gender structure theory allows us to try to disentangle the “how” questions
without presuming that there is one right answer, for all places, times, and contexts.”
Herp derp, do you even fucking read? Clearly not.
Page 14: “Little cultural change has occurred around fathering. Most men are still not morally responsible for the quality of family life”
Do you disagree that there has been little cultural change for fathering? Are you aware how the discourse over childcare has changed? Jesus, TS, if you are so fucking concerned about children, you should at least be in alignment with the overall feminist mindset that all genders should be involved in a parenting process. The fact that your making arguments against your straw feminists nearly convinces me that you don’t give a flying fuck about children, but I’m not quite willing to fully believe that. I imagine you do actually care about abuse. But you are to busy bickering over 2nd wave feminist ideas rather then even raising the possibility that part of the issue (and this isn’t furthered by modern feminism) with gender and parenting is that men are often REMOVED from the process due to social constructions based on economic constructions from decades ago. Hence when you go on about women abusers, we point out that right now, mostly women are the ones doing the labor of working with children. THIS IS A PROBLEM, I AGREE. But you are focusing on the wrong things here. You should be aware that Feminism has changed and evolved since it existed as a movement, but clearly you are not aware of this. Talk about who makes universal statements, you do.
Page 15: “Other examples also illustrate the analytic usefulness of paying attention to the
distinct properties of different axes of oppression. Gendered images support racial
domination, but racial domination can hardly be attributed to gender inequality. For
example, Black men’s inferiority gets promoted through constructions of hyper-sexuality (Collins 2004), and Black women’s inferiority gets promoted through
sexualized images such as Jezebel or welfare queen (Collins 2000). Similarly,
Asian American men’s autonomy and even citizenship rights were abrogated by
constructions of effeminacy (Espiritu 1997). Yet it is implausible to argue that
racial domination is nothing but a product of gender oppression.”
Basics of intersectionality. Gender isn’t the only axis of oppression, sometimes it comes into play, including ones that specifically separate out male PoC, other cases it may not be. More evidence that it is more complicated then your universal.
I could continue on here, but I rather think it is not necessary. You should honestly rethink and reiterate just what it is you are trying to say, and actually back it up with evidence. Not misinterpret specifically to construct a false version of events. You should also consider, if your concern over children is actually true, ways to actually investigate abuse, allow for more acceptable parenting rolls, and do generally activist things. Not just go on a stint attempting to falsely blame feminism for all your ills.
Kollege Messerschmitt: Yes, I have been talking about my experiences for years, and as much as it may annoy feminists I will not stop talking about my experiences. If you go back my comments here and on Alas, in both instances I referred to my experiences in passing. Feminists chose to make an issue out of it. Excluding NSWATM is no different than asking you list restaurants that sell burgers and excluding Burger King. The idea is to get examples other than the obvious ones. Please stop dodging and answer my questions: do you think the three examples you presented represent the whole feminist position on misandry? If so, why does that logic not apply to examples of feminists failing to call out or engaging in misandry?
Snowy: Quote where someone on this thread answered whether an ideology can cause fear, hatred, discrimination, or violence. I already noted that misandry is inherent in feminist doctrine.
VoiP: I never said feminism made my aunt abuse me. Secondly, that an ideology supposedly opposes a particular act does not mean the ideology cannot lead people to commit that act. For example, Christianity opposes murder, yet plenty of Christians commit murder as result of the influence of Christian doctrines.
KathleenB: Look, I used this game. Feminists insult someone, and when called on it they try to weasel out of it and turn it back on the insulted party. As I noted before, it seems rather indecent to insult someone who did you no harm. More so, it seems rather indecent to question someone’s character and then get defensive when called on it. Feel free to insult me however you like, but do not wuss out when called on it.
Flib: Your first quote only states that inequality can vary. The second quote is just a phrase. The third does not question whether white men always possess privilege, either as Caucasians or as men. The fourth quote is a question about parenting roles (and a rather sexist one). The fifth addresses inequalities, not privilege (and I noted in a prior response that tokenism refers to inequality). The sixth quote is taken out of context. It is followed by, “It is easy to illustrate that a combination of gender wage gap and the organization of careers requiring inflexible hours and full-time commitment pushes married mothers outside the labor force and creates stressful lives for mothers who remain within it, married or not. But we must still ask why this is true for women but not men.” The author’s comment referred to the notion that there may be different explanations for why women’s experiences differ from men’s. Seventh quote is an amazing example of feminist misandry. The eighth quote is exactly what I said feminists argue in regards to “intersectionality”. The author does not acknowledge black men as disprivileged as black men. She only acknowledges them as privileged as black men. Flib, as I noted before, your evidence proved my point. I will your other comment in mind the next time I speak to a group of male survivors.
“I already noted that misandry is inherent in feminist doctrine.”
You may have “noted” this, but you have failed to prove it. I know you’re very attached to the idea that your opinions are facts, but that’s not actually how the process of debate works, and therefore every time you state one of your opinions as fact people are going to ask you to prove it.
Also feminism does not have doctrines, as it not a religion.
This is not what you asked, you asked if the ideology of feminism can cause fear, hatred, discrimination, or violence. Since I already quoted Bagelsan which you seem to have ignored, let me go ahead and quote darksidecat answering your question.
Doesn’t make it true, as others have already pointed out. I sincerely hope you will just read up instead of asking me for a quote, but I’m not holding my breath.
Toysoldier: I’m not playing this game any more. You want to think i insulted you, shiny. You want to substitute your reality whenever someone calls you on bad behavior, have at it. But you are being an asshole to people who are trying to help you. You are determined to find insult where none exists, to back up your ‘eternal victim of the feminazis’ song.
You are not a repository of universal wisdom. You do not know the answer to the ultimate question*, and no matter what yo think, you do not know why your aunt did what she did. Only she does (or did). A little acknowledgement that you are not all-knowing would be nice.
#Either one – the one where the answer is 42 or the on that must be answered when the eleventh falls.
An experiment in Toy Soldier logic.
I have noted that the moon is made of blue cheese. It is not necessary for me to prove this, as it is self evident. Thus anyone who does not accept my assertion that the moon is made of blue cheese in gravely insulting me. This will not do.