So Alexander Ryking is a Tumblr blogger and one of Tumblr’s community “editors” for politics. He thinks of himself as a liberal.
He is also a raging misogynist who regularly calls women “cunts” and tells feminists to “kill yourselves you feminazi twats.”
In recent days he’s turned his douchebag-o-meter up to 11. As a result, there’s now a petition up on Change.org to have him removed as a politics editor on Tumblr. It’s already gotten more than 3000 signatures, with several hundred new signatures added in the time it’s taken me to write this post.
Here’s unknowable woman, a frequent target of his cyber-wrath, with more details on his recent meltdown. (Read the post on her Tumblr blog for links to the evidence of his douchebaggery.)
Alexander Ryking, who has a history of attempting to silence women bloggers (he told Jess of STFUConservatives and the other “feminazis” to “go kill themselves” several months ago, and has also been rude to women of color but I haven’t been on Tumblr long enough to have personally witnessed that), defended The Amazing’s Atheist’s violent rape threats on Reddit by tagging his posts with “I support TAA.”
I and many, many other Tumblr users were disgusted by this, so we decided to tag our criticisms of Ryking that night with “Ryking’s banana republic”—a reference to his co-opting of [social justice] concepts, NOT a homophobic dig, and the person who coined it was a queer man anyway. Someone also wrote a few jokingly romantic lines about Ryking’s blind defense of TAA and new atheism, and Ryking interpreted this as homophobic and misandric…it wasn’t, but because I reblogged it, Ryking insists that I am now a homophobe, which is hilarious given my own sexual identity but whatever.
We also responded to some of his posts with pictures of extreme close-ups of our eyes.
Seriously. That is what this guy is calling “abuse.”
We did NOT threaten him, make personal attacks against his sexuality, tell him to go kill himself, send him rude messages, or commit any other acts that could reasonably be interpreted as the “cyberbullying” Ryking claims it is. I did temporarily change my URL to rykingsbananarepublic and I make no apologies for that. Why should I? Why shouldn’t a group of feminists and their allies be allowed to respond creatively to misogyny? The only actual cyberbullying that has taken place was TAA’s initial rape threats on Reddit; I wouldn’t even go so far as to claim Ryking’s tweets to me and other Twitter users are cyberbullying, though I leave it up to the other people who were insulted by him to label their experiences as bullying or not.
Anyway, a few nights later, I tweeted something in defense of Whitney Houston’s legacy, and suddenly there was Ryking going ballistic. He found me on Twitter, called me a cunt right off the bat, and insisted that I claimed Whitney Houston’s death was “more important than the death of 5,000 Syrians” (I didn’t! Here is what I actually said!). I had never exchanged tweets with this man before, and was confused about his sudden interest in my thoughts about Whitney Houston and Syria. Naturally, I responded, told him how wrong he was, and the next day I screencapped some of the things he said and posted them … I never expected that post to get the amount of notes it did, but I think that just goes to show how widespread the dislike for him is.
Ryking, for his part, has responded to the widespread criticism by striking the pose of a victim, and pretending that it is somehow all related to race. Apparently, the evil feminazis are impugning his white manhood, though he’s not white.
So-called feminists have subjected me to white-bashing comments (even though I’m Hispanic) and sexist attacks impugning my manhood (slash-fiction scenes featuring me and heterosexual men; being called faggot; being told to man-up; insults about my body;) by people who don’t realize I’m gay. After nearly two decades online, I learned early on that when you’re attacked, you defend yourself by attacking right back and just as viciously, if not more so. And that’s what exactly what I’ve done. …
What’s really at issue here is not my rude behavior but that you and others like you want to punish any man who refuses to conform to your rancid, misandrist orthodoxy by discounting everything he says and using his gender and race as the excuse for doing so. …
You don’t want me stripped of my editorial privilege based on my behavior but because I reject your sick, bigoted, misandrist (per)version of feminism.
Yep, apparently the dude who loves to call women “cunts” is the final arbiter of what is and what isn’t “true feminism.” Who knew?
I signed the petition. How about you?
@ M Dubz, this Dinosaur Comic now seems appropriate to the conversation
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2144
The steak I rarely get…not very good. And it’s expensive enough as it is. One has to do a lot just to make it more than the leathery crap it becomes when one is done cooking.
Man, reading Anthony Bourdain has ruined me as a (developing) foodie. Yes, it’s great to strive for quality food (no more meat treated WITH FUCKING AMONIA, for one), but I can’t even get to it. Even the Fresh & Easy stores that are popping up all over the place aren’t making things any easier.
Chuck steak is very good, especially marinated in light soy sauce and garlic and grilled.
I prefer rare, myself, but it works just as well for other cooking temperatures.
Flatiron is good too, but harder to find.
@Johnny BB- My love for Ryan North is everlasting for SO MANY REASONS. But also for that particular comic.
“Chuck steak is very good, especially marinated in light soy sauce and garlic and grilled”
Oooh, noted! 😀
My love for Ryan North is everlasting for SO MANY REASONS.
You know he’s writing the Adventure Time comics, right? 😀
Actually, another good way to have steak is to Teriyaki it.
Teriyaki
Light soy sauce
fresh ginger, chopped fine
fresh garlic chopped fine
sugar or honey
mix all of the above, pour over thin slices of chuck steak or chuck steak chunks, let sit for about an hour, take out and pat dry.
grill to desired doneness
Please note that light soy sauce is not the same as Lite soy sauce, which is generally lower in sodium and taste.
@ Dracula: WHUT. *is ded*
Yep. First issue’s already out.
I’m sure the conversation has long moved on, but I just wanted to say that Nathan is right about the huge amount of fear/paranoia men who want to be involved in child care/teaching experience. I’m not sure I’d call it “misandry”, but it is definitely a problem. A lot of men are terrified of any interaction with children for fear of being accused of being pedophiles. Look at that guy a year or so ago who saw a lost girl & left because he was scared; the little girl drowned. It is a huge problem. There are very few men willing to even teach elementary school theses days, much less get involved in day cares.
I’ve seen the discussions on parenting boards; all the negative and fear filled responses to posts about allowing male babysitters, male day care workers. It’s really sad, especially for men and boys who just genuinely like kids and would like a job that involves working with them
I think steak doneness can have a gender element, in the sense that there are “right” and “wrong” ways to have your steak (more well-done being “wrong”), and that steak-eating is a Man’s Activity so men are supposed to know how to do it. Circular, yes, but that doesn’t mean that women won’t be stereotyped as wanting their meat well done.
There’s also the women=vegetarian/animal lovers, and therefore women will be grossed out by bloody meat.
As far as I know, steak doneness doesn’t necessarily need to have a gender element to it. In Europe, steak is done much more rare than in the states; it is just considered to taste better cooked rare/medium rare. Then there’s steak tar tar which is purposefully served raw.
Sure, its common to hear that “men like their steak still bloody,” which makes it gendered, but there are good reasons to serve the steak on the rare side regardless. ^_^
Fun fact: In college I was once in the same discussion section as Ann Coulter. She looked and acted pretty much exactly the same as she does now. She would not shut up.
On another subject Nathan =/= MRAL, unless he’s figured out how to spoof IP addresses.
That makes me wonder whether any of the obnoxious ignoramuses I went to college with will become famous pundits.
@Skyal:
I was looking at yahoo answers for advice on male babysitters (yeah, I know…), and it looks like a lot of the friction in the comments came from the fear of sex offenders. Which are predominantly male… If I had to guess, most of the fear is out of common sense (avoid the gender which majority causes the problem), but it’s probably fed by gender roles (men can’t handle children the way women can), parental paranoia, and sexism.
It certainly is an instance of bias against males… unfortunately it isn’t a completely irrational bias.
To be fair, though, in the same section a large percentage of the comments were saying stuff like “its sexist to assume men can’t be babysitters,” so it looks like that idea is well out there.
Kirby, by your logic, corporations are justified in a reluctance to hire women. After all, the majority of harassment suits (tedious, time-consuming, a waste of company resources) are initiated by women.
Look, my head is clearer now. What exactly do you hope to gain by denying that men face systemic bias? They obviously do, even if only in a few places, and again, writing long rationalizations about how it’s SECRET misogyny just makes you look like you’re competing in the Oppression Olympics. There’s no Oppression Olympics here… at least, there shouldn’t be. But apparently it’s a thing.
God damn, I keep getting sucked back in. “Gender roles” ARE THE ROOT of most misogyny and misandry. It’s a perception that men and women can’t perform well in their respective “duties”; that’s not hatred at face value, but when taken to the extreme, you do get actual hate-mongering like “men are all pedophiles” or “those lawyercunts”. It’s really not that complicated.
I actually have encountered the “men can’t be around children” bias: My parents’ church doesn’t (or didn’t) allow men in the nursery to change diapers.
But as always, this plays just as strongly into stereotypes about women as men. Women as harmless, literally unable to hurt other people, even babies. Women as possessing some kind of all-overriding maternal instinct that makes them love all children. Women as being better at that sort of thing anyway. Women as naturally belonging in the domestic sphere, and thus being above suspicion, whereas men should have better, more important things to do, and are thus suspicious if they want to spend time with children.
@David- Oh man. I am so sorry about that. She is an awful excuse for a human being.
Back in the days of female secretaries and male bosses, I’m nearly positive it would have been near impossible to get hired as a male secretary. And that’s even more irrational than male babysitters. Does this mean that there was rampant misandry back then? No. You don’t get to label men not being able to be hired for stereotypical women’s work as misandry. -_-
Especially since when you get rid of the label of “women’s work” and get more women in stereotypical male environments, it will simultaneously break down the idea of “men’s work” and get more men in stereotypically women’s environments. So if that’s your definition of misandry, join the feminists! 😛
Again, Kirby, it’s not the fact that men have a hard time getting work as a babysitter, it’s the perception of men as ********FUCKING CHILD ABUSERS*********** that is misandric.
Hey, this clown is still around? Awesome! I thought I’d totally missed him!
Yeah, the whole idea is bad for both men and women, but the real losers are the kids.
Saw this blog post recently. The author thinks the problem was race, but I bet gender was as much or even more of the problem. http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2012/02/me-apd-and-babysitting-while-white-part.html