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!
Let’s see… I’m a feminist, and I play all kinds of video games. But I’m a guy, does that count?
I enjoy the Elder Scrolls games, although sometimes it feels like I’m trying hard to like them, especially when I build up a huge backlog of quests.
Right now I’m having fun playing Fable III, and I’m having a lot of fun.
Before that I was playing Mass Effect 3, and enjoying the inclusiveness and getting disappointed when they got something wrong. Although right now I can’t remember specifics except that there’s at least one gay marriage mentioned in dialogue and no one freaks out.
I really tried to get into Dorf Fortress, at least as far as the Happy Fun Stuff, but I have to hold everybody’s hand to such an extent that it got annoying. An interface more like a RTS game would be more to my enjoyment. Have they toned down the carp recently?
Minecraft was fun for a few minutes. Unfortunately, I always conceive of a project that involves me mining out a huge cubic space for an underground swimming pool or something, so I can fish without hostile mobs. I tried illuminating a paddock with torches once, with the idea that it wouldn’t spawn hostiles, just cows and sheep, etc. I don’t recall that it worked, particularly. The underground forest was more successful, but with the way objects are written in the game world, if a tree expanded into a sapling’s square the sapling would just vanish.
And sometimes I wish I had never heard of Good Old Games (gog.com). They’ll sell you older games for $5 or $10, plus a few newer ones. A lot of the games have to run on DOSBox, but man are they fun.
I keep wishing they’d get a contract with LucasArts, because I miss the days when LucasArts was the adventure game giant (The Dig, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones, etc.) and not just OH HAY HERE’S ANOTHER JEDI GAME.
Oh, and I also play D&D and other tabletop RPGs.
Meller cannot conceive of feminist criticizing something they like, in an effort to make that thing better, because Meller is ignorant as shit, and thinks feminists only hate things.
I was the model (cover, and in game) for the hero of a quest game for the Amiga. A friend of mine wrote it (he works for google now, doing I don’t know what). Brilliant guy. So he tells me he’d used me as the model, and asked if I wanted to be on the cover.
So I said yes, and we (he, I,and Bill Rotsler) went to Bronson Cavern and shot some stuff, and then we went to a castle in the Hollywood Hills and shot the rest. it’s still sort of surreal.
Ah… here it is. The Faery Tale Adventure
Cover Art
I was about 20 when we shot the art.
Hah, that’s awesome. 😀
Shade: Most of the clothes (I owned them at the time) have worn out. (the belt I gave to GF, who may still have it, the moccasins I still own). The sword is a Civil War Officer’s Sword, and I still own it. It’s actually ready to hand at the entrance of my room.
One of those non-firearms weapons I was talking about earlier in the thread.
Maybe I ought to write a post on my blog about weapons in the home/defense of same.
Sigh… that shit gets old.
Taking a breaking from laughing at cancer patients and trying to get kittens euthanized, Meller? Here’s a thought: Maybe you should TRY some of these video games before pontificating upon them! (yeah, I know, difficult concept) Maybe some of the point and click Sierra adventure games of old? Gabriel Knight is both fun and scary (and has a nice ‘blame the woman’ moral), but you might need DOSBox to run it. Freddy Pharkas? Fun and hilarious! I’d say Diablo or Torchlight, but both games offer female main characters- or, at least, main characters with female attributes, your class doesn’t really affect your interaction with the rest of the game.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude. 😀
@David Futrelle
“Note to new MRA would-be-commenters: If, in your very first comment, you refer to a specific commenter here as a “bitch,” I will not let that comment through. Also I will ban you.”
But, but, but, Daaaaave. According to, CassandraSays, not allowing someone to call someone names is disempowering. Here is what the prevailing consensus is on manboobz.
“Also, the fuss over the word creepy is such a perfect encapsulation of the broader point about how male privilege works, and it’s too important to back down on. The reason some guys lose their shit whenever a woman calls a man creepy is that by calling a man creepy a woman is asserting her boundaries and stating that she finds the man’s crossing of them unacceptable. Backing off on that point is basically saying that it’s OK for men to ignore women’s boundaries, and that women have no right to ever object to any way that men behave towards them. There’s a reason this became such a flashpoint, and it’s much too big a deal to back down on, because if women aren’t allowed to assert even the most basic boundaries, or object when men cross them, then what has feminism actually achieved? The pushback against “creepy” is a pushback against the idea that women are people with rights.”
These are the unaltered words of, CassandraSays. Everyone here, both male and female feminists of great diversity rushed to her defense when I presented a regendered version. This brilliant epiphany, supported 100% by every male and female feminist here must be extended to all men as well. Either everyone get’s to call anyone names if they feel a personal boundary was breeched or no one can. Otherwise what you’re really saying is, since you’re running this particular show you demand women have carte blanche to insult any man while retaining immunity from retaliation. We’ve already had a coupla generations of the MSM doing just that. Isn’t it time for a little equality?
Insults =/= slurs. That is all.
(Not that I expect Owlypants to get this, but hey).
Creepy has a specific fairly well-defined meaning. Bitch, as far as I’m aware, does not carry specifics beyond “cruel woman I do not like.”
1. Regendering that paragraph of CassandraSays makes no sense because it references historical developments such as feminism, which is simply not the same as the MRM.
2. Yes, men should be able to call women creepy.
3. “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Relevant.
ACTUALLY REGENDERED COMMENT
“Also, the fuss over the word creepy is such a perfect encapsulation of the broader point about how female privilege works, and it’s too important to back down on. The reason some chicks lose their shit whenever a man calls a woman creepy is that by calling a woman creepy a man is asserting his boundaries and stating that he finds the woman’s crossing of them unacceptable. Backing off on that point is basically saying that it’s OK for women to ignore men’s boundaries, and that men have no right to ever object to any way that women behave towards them. There’s a reason this became such a flashpoint, and it’s much too big a deal to back down on, because if men aren’t allowed to assert even the most basic boundaries, or object when women cross them, then what has masculism actually achieved? The pushback against “creepy” is a pushback against the idea that men are people with rights.”
…I dunno, I’d agree with this comment in the alternate universe where women were objecting to men calling them creepy.
NWO — I repeat what I said when CassandraSays said that — wtf boundary are you asserting with the word bitch? (Hint, the regendered version of that would still say creep, but have female pronouns)
And let’s just ignore that anyone who’s first comment contains insults clearly didn’t read the comment policy?
MorkaisChosen — more like “woman I find questionable // do not like” — my mother called Emilie Autumn a “psycho bitch” about 5 min into the concert, she revised that to “talented psycho bitch” by the end of the night.
“…I dunno, I’d agree with this comment in the alternate universe where women were objecting to men calling them creepy.”
Ditto.
Also — in before NWO claims men aren’t allowed to assert boundaries or they’ll be arrested for abuse (because the Owlyverse is even stranger than the Whoniverse).
NWO:
Calling someone a creep is not the same as bitch. MRAs should stop trying to make up a word to be offended by so they can justify calling women cunts and bitches. There is NO male equivalent to those slurs, FACT, just as there is no white equivalent to n*****. You just want to whine about being persecuted, and justify your own abusive behaviors at the same time. Go get a life.
I’d like to move the conversation from dumbass MRA blather back to adventure gaming! I saw ScummVM mentioned, and I’d like to point out that if an 80’s/early-to-mid-90’s game isn’t supported by ScummVM, you can probably get it running through DOSBox. In fact, you can buy older games from Good Old Games with DOSBox already packaged – I recommend The Last Express, which is excellent, along with the Tex Murphy series (Under a Killing Moon, The Pandora Directive, Overseer).
For DS games, I’m a little surprised the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton series were never mentioned, I’ve had a lot of fun with those.
And if we’re talking about non-adventure games, I really enjoyed Bioshock and the Uncharted series!
NWO: These are the unaltered words of, CassandraSays. Everyone here, both male and female feminists of great diversity rushed to her defense when I presented a regendered version.
Bullshit. You are (as per norm) bearing false witness. I, for one, did no such thing. So your claim that, “everyone… rushed to her defense,” is a lie, baldfaced and patent.
Go to hell.
I just put ScummVM on my computer, but I have no idea how to acquire games and make them work on the emulator. Any help?
The freeware games that run on ScummVM are available on the download page (scroll down to “Extras, game downloads”). So if you want to play Beneath a Steel Sky, download the freeware CD version (the floppy version is smaller and doesn’t have voice acting) and unzip it. You’ll have to overwrite the sky.cpt file with the one on the download page.
Then start ScummVM and click “Add Game”. Navigate to the folder with the files you just unzipped and click “Choose”. Then click “Start” and you should be good to go!
@pecunium
“Bullshit. You are (as per norm) bearing false witness. I, for one, did no such thing. So your claim that, “everyone… rushed to her defense,” is a lie, baldfaced and patent.”
Really? I bore false witness? Everyone who commented on the subject was in universal agreement. That’d be, everyone here, at that time who commented on the subject. I really can’t be held accountable for anyone who wasn’t present at that time. Since you’re here now, let’s here your take on the subject and make it universal.
Wandering by (SHOULD BE WRITING LECTURE) to say that I really loved the picture David chose for this one: it’s lovely, and affirming, and nifty–and I like the association with Kali (the arms), and the young women are clearly having SO.MUCH.FUN.
ANyway–loved the picture!
And I’m not even a gamer…….
“I really tried to get into Dorf Fortress, at least as far as the Happy Fun Stuff, but I have to hold everybody’s hand to such an extent that it got annoying. An interface more like a RTS game would be more to my enjoyment. Have they toned down the carp recently?”
The carp have been nerfed, reducing them from the terror they once were. The “new” carp appears to be badgers, although personally I have had more trouble with troglodytes and giant wolverines. Worry about the Necromancers for real, though, not the wildlife.
As a person who mostly doesn’t play games at all, I am absurdly pleased to find out that badgers are the new carp, and will try to work that into random conversations over the next week or so. 🙂
Haha, let me know if you sniff out any Dwarf Fortress players by doing that, cloudiah.