Over on The Spearhead, W.F. Price celebrates the harassment directed at Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes Against Women video project as a sign of a powerful new backlash against the evils of feminism, a backlash he’s proud to be a part of. Dudes being obnoxious to a woman on the internet: Men’s Rights at its finest.
Oh, sure, Price acknowledges, some of the attacks on her were “juvenile” – and thus not as effective as they might otherwise have been — and the controversy did enable Sarkeesian to raise more than $130,000 for her project, but Price even sees this as a victory of sorts:
As for Sarkeesian’s success, we should be happy about it, because I can’t think of a more worthless way to spend over a hundred thousand dollars than in finger-wagging over video games. For one thing, it’s sure to piss even more guys off, and the game industry is very competitive, so her documentary (now expanded to 12 parts!) will likely have zero effect on production and consumption of this form of entertainment. The feminists are simply pissing all the money away, and that’s fine, because this time they’re paying for it themselves.
No question about it: those grapes were definitely sour.
Naturally, the Spearhead regulars were overjoyed by these new signs of, er, progress. Here are some highlights from the discussion that followed; lest I be accused once again of cherry-picking outliers, each and every one of the comments I quote below got literally dozens of net upvotes. This is what these guys really think.
Mojo offers a sort of backlash manifesto:
Feminists will never understand that it is -they- who are the oppressors. They cling to their delusion that they are the ‘underdog’ against the system, even as they control the system.
Revolution requires an enemy class to attack … this is seen as justified when the enemy class controls the system. But feminism is perpetual revolution. So what happens when they gain control over the system? They continue to attack the enemy class, i.e. men, thinking they are striking the next blow against the patriarchy, when what they are doing is more like a pogrom.
Yep, he went there.
Now -they- are the system, they are able and more than willing to intimidate, humiliate, expropriate. It will get indefinitely worse if they have their way. Liberal feminism leads -necessarily- to radical feminism.
Still, we don’t need feminists to ‘understand’ that they are the persecutors (I imagine some of them know this full well and are just misandrist sadists, little Eichmanns). It doesn’t matter what they think or know or understand. What matters is what -we- think, know and understand, and how we are going to act on it.
So … like the swivel-eyed feminist lunatics progressing from attempted assassinations to laying the foundations for institutional and legal abuse … I ask you – what are we going to DO with this knowledge and awareness beyond changing online discourse? …
Thinking like a leftist, though: why not attach ourselves to the GOP in order to subvert its gender politics and radicalize it in the MRA direction? That kind of approach has worked wonders for leftists and their infiltrations into public institutions …
Huh. Reactionary anti-feminists attaching themselves to the Republican Party? No one’s ever thought of that before.
Keyster offers some equally, er, innovative thinking:
Feminism has failed because women as a group adopted the notion of “equality” with men, while stubbornly clinging to their sexual/reproductive power over men. Had feminism truly helped women “realize their greatness”, there’d be far more great women. Instead there’s just more feminists. It’s run it’s course over 3 generations and it’s out of time to prove itself righteous.
The original “male chauvanist pigs” of the early 70′s, were right all along. Women are biologically and chemically ill-equipped to be men. If the Creator had meant women to be more like men, he wouldn’t have given them the ability to bring forth life from their bodies.
Ryu not only embraces the backlash, but seems perfectly fine with the notion that the Men’s Rights movement is a hate movement:
Good. Hatred and anger are power. Whenever you hear someone say “stop the hate”, it is a call to throw down your greatest weapons.
Young Guy purports to speak for all young guys (manginas presumably excepted):
If feminists think men, especially young men, are angry, they don’t know the half of it. As a 26 year-old male, I have seen this society bend over backwards to accommodate women all the time.
The school curriculums are geared toward female success. Schools have countless women’s programs. Female teachers can be as hateful as they want towards male students without facing consequences. People cheer when girls succeed in school, but jeer when boys succeed in school. Even though females have every advantage in the education system, they somehow still have the audacity to complain. They take fluff majors but don’t realize anyone with less than half a brain could pass classes in the humanities and social sciences.
What makes so many MRAs such proud yahoos?.
Oh, and just look at the workplace. Sexual harassment laws give women freedom to dress slutty and still have the nerve to complain when men sneak a peek. If you are a man who has a female co-worker, you have to walk on eggshells everyday or else you can get fired because the twat in the other room got her panties in a bunch over something minor you said. You can be a man who has busted his ass everyday to succeed in your chosen profession, only to see it mean nothing because some woman who was nothing more than an affirmative action hire. If this isn’t bad enough, you get these useless women who are subpar, yet they still never shut up about breaking through the mythical glass-ceiling that they didn’t break and didn’t exist in the first place.
Working men, forever cursed by subpar women.
Also, I have really had enough of women dragging this country down with their dead-weight. Female soldiers, police officers, and firefighters are liabilities. No, all you ladies in these jobs, you aren’t heroes. I am going to go insane if I hear one more female soldier, police officer, or firefighter cry about not getting the respect she thinks she deserves. She doesn’t get respect because she doesn’t deserve respect. The military, law enforcement, and firefighters would be A LOT better off if women stopped lowering the bar to astronomical proportions.
“Lowering the bar to astronomical proportions?” Young Guy here has clearly not yet mastered the fine art of metaphor.
He blabs on a bit longer before wrapping up with:
The backlash is not only real, but it is well-deserved. Apologies won’t erase the damage which has been done. Acting like what happened because of feminism either didn’t happen or was minor is a slap in the face. Saying women have suffered from feminism just as much as men is like spitting in the faces of all the men who have suffered ten lifetimes of pain because of feminism.
Not one, not two, not five, but ten lifetimes of pain? MRAs really are the world’s greatest drama kings.
Andrew S., meanwhile, seems a little confused as to what feminists would like to see happening in the video game industry:
It will be interesting to see if feminists can ruin the gaming industry like they ruin pretty much everything else. There is a lot of money being made off “gamers,” and even guys like me who play the occasional game but aren’t hardcore contribute a lot of money to the industry.
I doubt there are a lot of young guys and men out there who are going to want to play games that involve a bunch of screaming feminists, and where the object of the game is to destroy the “evil patriarchy.” The truth is guys who play games want their female characters to be either hot, large breasted, ass kicking types, or sexy non-feminist types that you save. If the gaming industry changes this dynamic to much due to Feminist/liberal pressure they will destroy a cash cow. And feminism will have yet another “victory.”
Unrestricted and uncriticized access to giant tittied video game ladies: a sacred men’s right!
Kevin evidently speaks for many when he says he wants video games to remain a boys club:
Video games are pretty much the only place that feminism can’t invade unless the principle consumers of them want it. You don’t have to play with girls, or listen to girls, or do other pansy shit. You probably can’t leave a football team and join a different one that has no women, you sure as hell can do that online. Don’t like all the teamwork talk? Play by yourself.
Feminists don’t like video games because; they can’t make them, they can’t force you to buy them or play them even if they did, they couldn’t ruin the experience for you unless you wanted them to.
You can do anything feminists don’t want you to do, and best of all you’re rewarded for it.
Anonymous Age 70 doesn’t even play video games, but he was pleased to learn that you can shoot ladies in them:
Speaking of video games, I am reminded of my son 8 or 10 years ago. I visited him, and he had some kind of shoot-em-up video game. He was partnered with a dearie, and the instant the game started, he always put a bullet in the middle of her forehead. Then, he’d laugh as if it were the funniest thing ever.
I told him he was a sick man, but I was also laughing as if it were the funniest thing ever.
Seriously, he told me he performed better with her dead than needing to be protected.
A great analogy for marriage 2.0, yes?
Women, can’t live them, can’t shoot them in the head. Except in video games!
Criticizing video games is misandry!
Nanasha — I’m all for the doctor who trick of replacing a gun with a banana myself, but that is a hilarious Monty Python skit.
The Doctor: [having secretly switched Jack’s Sonic Blaster with a banana, he now uses it to create a hole in the wall for their escape] Go, now, don’t drop the banana!
Captain Jack Harkness: Why not?
The Doctor: [as if vitally important] Good source of potassium!
@Dracula- Add me to the list. I also like tall, fat, geeky men if they’re kind of shy and do that cute thing where they hide behind their glasses and blush when I say sexy outrageous things. Add a chinstrap beard and a deepish voice and I’m THERE WITH BELLS ON. ZOMG.
Now, excuse me, I need to go fangirl on my husband for awhile.
I. GET. THAT.
It doesn’t change the fact that psychology tells us that women generally want certain physical characteristics in men.
So you get that women are different people who like different things, but it doesn’t change the fact that women are the same and like the same things.
If “all women” liked the same thing, then wouldn’t there only be one guy in the world who had “all the women” and no other (cis? is that the right term?) men would have a partner. Seriously?
And I’m sure that if I saw another women jump off a cliff, I would jump off right after her too.
What is the “psychology in entirety” that he is speaking of? Is it also a monolithic hive-mind that he just pulled out of his ass? If all women are the same, then why does biodiversity exist? If all humans are interchangeable, then why are certain people better at certain things than others? We all have base needs (shelter, food, warmth, love, support from others, etc), but this does not make us the “same”- it makes us HUMAN.
So if you find out that people generally like cake, you can’t just shout, “A-HAH! I KNEW IT! All people are the SAME!”
We’re not clones/hiveminded creatures. When we share a culture, we generally tend to gravitate towards similar things, but these are generalizations, and can backfire immensely when you try and apply them to the individual.
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but to assume that everything is a nail is foolhardy to the extreme.
@kiwi girl- “BUY NOW! It’s JUMPING OFF A CLIFF (TM)! The NEW line of products by Louis Vitton or whatever designer is hot Hot HOT right now! Give us your money and jump off the most EXCLUSIVE and EXPENSIVE cliff in the world! Be skinny, hot and eternally young! It’s JUMPING OFF A CLIFF (TM)- Available at most retail stores! See list for details.”*
*DISCLAIMER- Our company is not liable for broken bones, shattered pancreases, or death from JUMPING OFF A CLIFF (TM) or its related products- STAB YOURSELF IN THE FACE WITH BEES (TM), THE FAT GRENADE (TM), and BEAUTY BEAR TRAP SHOES (TM).
Well, I was asked to provide evidence for feminist meddling in the gun control laws. And I’ve been called stupid for not providing. If I do provide that evidence, will those who have leveled the accusation recant it? I doubt it very much. But I’ll play, because I’ve dug up those old articles.
http://diarmani.com/Articles/Birth%20of%20the%20Canadian%20Gun%20Registry.htm
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/Cana-cerous.htm
http://www.saf.org/journal/15/abilliondollarslater.pdf
http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications/Civitas.htm
http://libertypages.webs.com/Bill%20C-68.pdf
“No one missed the symbolic importance of the resolution of its sponsor: gun control was being flagged as a bona fide women’s issue for the Chrétien government.”
Feminists basically wrote Canada’s draconian gun laws.
@ACLAF- So if any non-feminists wrote the gun laws, would you include them in your hatred? Also, what about those who wrote the gun laws who were monotheistic? Shall we blame organized religion for gun control laws?
Did your citizens vote on said laws? If so, one could extrapolate that these laws were passed by majority vote (I am not familiar with Canadian law, so excuse me if I am incorrect in my assumption here).
Also, as a feminist, I am personally very vocal on the right to bear arms in a responsible manner befitting a proper citizen. I do not think that leaving loaded guns out in your house is responsible, nor do I think that shooting willy-nilly at people is a good idea. This is not to even begin talking about the amount of maintenance and cleaning that guns require in order to operate efficiently. And remember, every time you conceal carry a weapon, you have the risk of having your gun used against you, or accidentally hitting someone else who was not an intended target. There are very few situations in which a gun is actually a good idea, even when you are being attacked, and in most of those situations, only people who are thoroughly trained in combat situations can truly perform well under pressure (marksman shooting is not the same as using a gun on a home invader). Your better bet is to use your body as a weapon- learning martial arts (especially things like Aikido), can help you disable and neutralize most attackers and the added bonus is that most of these actually TEACH you how to deal with attack situations in ways that owning a gun will not.
I am looking forward to the day when all guns are fitted with fingerprint recognition triggers that keep them from working on anyone but the owner. This will lessen the number of tragic deaths of children who find loaded guns and accidentally shoot themselves or others because of it. It will also prevent criminals from breaking into houses and stealing people’s guns and then using them in criminal acts. And finally, it will keep unhinged individuals from “borrowing” guns from their friends and using them to commit murders (which is pretty much how many domestic violence murders happen- someone lent an unhinged individual a gun and the person then goes and murders their estranged spouse/kids).
I see guns as a tool, much like a car. If you can use them responsibly, more power to you. There must also be more support in teaching people to properly care, maintain and store their weapons. But if you’re going to run around acting like an idiot and putting other people’s lives in danger, you don’t deserve to have it.
Having spend a god-damned hour finding that last chapter on C-68…
Why do men wear suits with shoulder-pads? It’s because broad shoulders subtly suggest strength and dominance, and is one of the traits that most women find attractive. Women generally like broad shoulders. It’s meant to be subtly suggestive, it’s made to make a man look good. To whom? To other men? Really?
See this, PLEASE: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6696/full/394884a0.html
You know, I should have quit earlier, because your constant denial and accusations of broad-brushing prove that feminists simply cannot deal with reality. It’s not a big screaming deal that women, on average, like broad shoulders in a man! Like tall men! Like athletic men! And yeah, I know, not all do!
But somehow, you collectively MUST see misogyny – I guess. It makes no god-damned sense.
Please. Stop lying you’re BAD at it.
“Maybe people shouldn’t have guns without knowing how to use them and the government should know who has guns and which ones, and people should keep guns safely” – Draconian gun laws, as written by Canadian feminists.
ACLAF
dirtyhippiefeet:
One of you’s lying and I think I know which one.
@ACLAF- I find it funny that people like to use evo-psych for why women supposedly like this thing or that thing and to excuse what we consider masculine posturing, and yet I don’t see any MRAs arguing that pissing on stuff to own it is a great idea (common Alpha behavior in the wild) or that randomly humping stuff (including other males) to assert dominance is the height of masculinity. Picking and choosing what is “evolutionarily sexy” based off of dominant social tropes of masculinity and femininity is a prescriptive fallacy- it assumes that the “way things are” are like that because of nature or something, as opposed to seeing the way that our culture has constructed gender norms and then looking back at nature and trying to draw similarities.
In short, it’s like concluding that “everyone is a red head” and then only including red haired people in your study subjects. It’s bad science.
Also @AFUCK
I’m pretty sure you told me to try being overweight and short and geeky earlier with the implication that I’d change my mind. I’ve spent the last few hours doing so (although I’m more technically overweight and still wear size 36 jackets and size 30 pants) and I’m pretty sure I still think the same. Did my Cuban heels throw me out by making me look tall? Any other things I should try?
@VoIP
Ooh, pick me! Is it the frothing Randroid?
Sounds like ACLAF needs to move in with the Montana Freemen. He sounds like a LMOE without the zombie apocalypse.
Or you could just declare yourself a sovereign nation…
AFLAC: In case you didn’t know this, most women’s suit jackets also have shoulder pads (though they are more subtle now than they were in the 80s). Are broad strong shoulders something men look for? Or is it just that in both men and women shoulder pads add structure that keep suit jackets from hanging unevenly?
Also try reading the abstract a little more closely next time:
Note the key word there “learned”. Also, it’s evopsych which is a field full of bullshit studies like this one that make evolutionary assumptions from current cultural preferences.
Uh, dude, suits are primarily worn by businessmen, to impress other businessmen with how together and important they are.
No, I totally get that you feel oppressed when your entitlements are threatened.
I totally get that.
http://diarmani.com/Articles/Birth%20of%20the%20Canadian%20Gun%20Registry.htm = opinion piece
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/Cana-cerous.htm = opinion piece
http://www.saf.org/journal/15/abilliondollarslater.pdf = opinion piece
http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications/Civitas.htm = opinion piece
http://libertypages.webs.com/Bill%20C-68.pdf = opinion piece
So near as I can tell without reading 50+ pages, those all blame liberals in general — the last one even implies women in general supported the bill, are we doing the “all women are not feminists” thing again? The only exception to this is the longest pdf (link #3) blames radical feminists and “obsessed feminist lobbyists” — saying something over and over again doesn’t make it true.
Those are not citations, those are opinion pieces, try a legal journal or something (though, to prove that feminists, in general, actually support the bill, you’re going to need a psych study).
And who called you stupid? I implied your views on psychology are stupid, but one can have stupid views without being stupid.
Kiwi girl — “cis? is that the right term?” — for “not trans*”? yeah, cis is the right term.
I hadn’t intended to erase the existence of women in business with my last comment, by the way. I was speaking in the context of the business world being male dominated.
I think we should also note at this point that most casual jackets don’t have padded shoulders. Are men really trying to look sexually attractive to women (would this man’s head explode if he learnt about gay people?) only when going into the male-dominated sphere of business?
@Nanasha – You’ve been really decent, and patient. So I’mma try to take it easy. It’s REALLY late, and I really shouldn’t get dragged into this, but, I just happen to have a surgery tomorrow, and I will need to sleep through the aftermath, so this is helpful.
“So if any non-feminists wrote the gun laws, would you include them in your hatred? Also, what about those who wrote the gun laws who were monotheistic? Shall we blame organized religion for gun control laws?”
Organized religion had little to do with Canada’s gun-control laws. I bring it up because, after a lot of work, especially for that last chapter, it demonstrates how feminists have achieved a dominant position when it comes to the discourse on Canada’s gun-control laws. Gun control was reconstructed as a feminist issue, thanks to the Chrétein Liberals. And I’m angry, because if I step out of line, as a gun-owner, even in the slightest iota, hell, even if I don’t break the law, but do something that’s “frowned upon” the state can, and will, arbitrarily try to destroy me, and by consequence, my family. That bothers me.
“Did your citizens vote on said laws? If so, one could extrapolate that these laws were passed by majority vote (I am not familiar with Canadian law, so excuse me if I am incorrect in my assumption here).”
Enh… Sort of. The last article discusses how Allan Rock stacked the committee studying C-68, the Firearms act with hoplophobic lackeys. But yes, the law was democratically made, but it didn’t take long for a good number of people to realize that the law was a bad idea. And ever since then, feminists have fought tooth and nail to preserve a very symbolic, very useless firearms registry database. It took something like 18 years to finally get rid of it, after it cost the taxpayer more than 1 billion dollars. And it didn’t DO anything. If tangible results could have been obtained, that would be one thing… The thing is that the registry is just the tip of the iceberg. All the regulations carry with them criminal penalties. Solomon Friedman explains: http://www.edelsonlaw.ca/news/show/42/0/0000/1
“Also, as a feminist, I am personally very vocal on the right to bear arms in a responsible manner befitting a proper citizen. I do not think that leaving loaded guns out in your house is responsible, nor do I think that shooting willy-nilly at people is a good idea.”
Having small children in my home, my ammunition is kept under lock and key at all times. But. I shouldn’t have to risk jail-time if the case my guns are locked in isn’t deemed “good enough” for the government. But this HAPPENS. See Ian Thompson, where the crown actually argued that because he was able to access his guns TOO FAST, they were stored unsafely.
“And remember, every time you conceal carry a weapon, you have the risk of having your gun used against you, or accidentally hitting someone else who was not an intended target. There are very few situations in which a gun is actually a good idea, even when you are being attacked, and in most of those situations, only people who are thoroughly trained in combat situations can truly perform well under pressure (marksman shooting is not the same as using a gun on a home invader). Your better bet is to use your body as a weapon- learning martial arts (especially things like Aikido), can help you disable and neutralize most attackers and the added bonus is that most of these actually TEACH you how to deal with attack situations in ways that owning a gun will not.”
And a good conceal-carry instructor will encourage you to resolve any given bad situation WITHOUT drawing your firearm, if at all possible. But if necessary, an armed individual is always at a huge advantage over someone who is unarmed. As you may be aware, criminals don’t respect the law. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTJkUgRDGU. At 3:49, gang members, from Toronto, begin flashing their guns. ALL OF THOSE, are restricted, or prohibited in Canada, meaning that they aren’t allowed to have them, or to be carrying them. Yet they are doing it. They’re criminals. They don’t follow the law. The law is for me, the law-abiding. The law gives the criminals a huge advantage if they decide to prey on me.
“I see guns as a tool, much like a car. If you can use them responsibly, more power to you. There must also be more support in teaching people to properly care, maintain and store their weapons. But if you’re going to run around acting like an idiot and putting other people’s lives in danger, you don’t deserve to have it.”
And that’s why we have mandatory training, or at least testing for Firearms owners. Becoming licensed to own a firearm in Canada is quite intensive. Concerning licensing, I’m opposed to the degree to which the process is invasive. I’m NOT however opposed to licensing as gun-control, in general. LICENSING is effective gun control, at least, to some degree. However, it shouldn’t mean that I go to jail because say, I’m not carrying a registration certificate while I’m out hunting, which could have been the case, until very recently.
Thank you Dracula, I forgot to put that bit into my rant. Business suits are absolutely about showing power, status, and professional acumen not about sex appeal. You have to pay good money to have a well fitting business suit (because that requires having it tailored to fit not buying it off the rack) and the sort of people you are trying to impress with a business suit can tell the difference. There are places you won’t even get an interview let alone be hired if you don’t show up in a suit that meets approval and the people making those decisions are more likely to be men.
“See this, PLEASE: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6696/full/394884a0.html”
“This preference applied across UK and Japanese populations but was stronger for within-population judgements, which indicates that attractiveness cues are learned.”
You missed that part…and that they make 0 mention of anything besides face shape…
@knives comments- just so you guys know, the incidence of death in any conflict involving knives increases by at least 75%. Unless you know what the fuck you are doing with your knife and know for certain that you are not going to get it taken from you or accidentally stab/cut yourself (which is surprisingly easy, especially if it slips up the hilt and you cut open your own hand), a knife fight is not going to end well.
I suggest that if you want a weapon that works well, consider a retractable baton or a kubaton. Both are generally non-lethal, easy to use and deliver concentrated blows that are both powerful and disarming.
And I live in a city that is fairly well known for having meth-heads and drugged out weirdos roaming the streets, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that this thing is useful. My coworker (a short, overweight lady) has fought off several street attackers with her kubotan and successfully avoided any harm to her body or possessions.
You don’t need a gun or a knife to be dangerous. Knowing how to protect and defend yourself, how to stand in defensive mode, and how to run the fuck away are all better than standing around and hoping to finish a fight against some attacker Batman-style.
It is better to be safe and alive than try to be “cool” and “win” against the blow to your ego at having been attacked and die trying.