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!
Morkais: because sometimes you don’t feel like educating someone on why what they said was a problem. It puts the onus back on the marginalized, which gets old after a while. Not everything has to be strategically useful.
@MorkaisChosen
This was an argument for gun control not being incompatible with owning guns. You’re very right about both things, but I don’t see what you’re trying to get across.
I’d argue that most car-related injuries are caused by cars being used for their intended purpose, too, just poorly or in unsafe conditions or with some stroke of bad luck happening.
“Hardcore male gamers can sneer at these games and say they’re “fake” all they want, but the fact remains that these games are making just as much money as their precious Bayonetta, probably more.”
It’s funny, Bayonetta is one of my favourite games, and I’ve often had it dismissed by other people as girly and not a real game…female main character, pretty settings, butterflies everywhere. In spite of this it is a really really challenging game even for the ‘hardcore’ on the more difficult settings. At the same time if anyone criticises Bayonetta for her ridiculous sexualisation they rush to defend her.
hellkell: Yep, good point. Think I had that at the back of my mind (hence ‘strategically useful,’ rather than Is Better- sometimes you just want to go “no fuck off”.)
lowquacks: My point is… I don’t actually know. Pretty sure I was basically agreeing with you, and attempting to emphasise that it’s ridiculous that the more purely dangerous thing (the thing that has no non-injuring purpose) has less regulation on it.
Sometimes, a gun’s intended purpose is to murder watermelons.
“Furthermore, by ridiculing firearms owners as “gun-totting toothless rednecks,” feminists have created a negative association with an overtly masculine hobby and sport. Young boys are socialized to see people who engage in shooting as primitive, backwards, and uneducated. When they start to try to date women, they’ve already internalized this message, and are likely to also engage in ridiculing these activities because they mistakenly believe that this is what women want to hear.”
I’m a long-time lurker, first-time commenter,
and WHAT?
dude, I’m Canadian. earning my hunting license was PART of my high school curriculum. granted I went to a small school in rural BC. but still. we were taught firearm safety and hunting skills IN SCHOOL. it is not hard to get to be able to hunt, it’s just a process to actually get a firearm, and then to follow hunting laws. most of my friends’ dads hunt, and also wish it was legal to shoot all the bears that eat from their fruit trees in the summer. I’ve lived in BC, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and *I* have always been an outlier for not being attracted to men who own/use firearms. I’ve been dumped for not wanting to go gopher hunting. so maybe you’re just living in the wrong part of Canada, or maybe you’re just full of shit.
I find the whole “casual games = crap” thing stupid anyway, and another reason I avoid getting involved in the gaming community. If a game isn’t your thing or doesn’t have the difficulty level compatible to your skill, fine, but it’s still a game. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t say something like Tetris or Pacman aren’t “real games”, but those are hardly any more “hardcore” than today’s “casual games”.
Then again, I kind of hate the term “casual game” anyway. In my mind, there’s no “casual games”, just “casual gamers”. People who don’t have the time to do a lot of gaming, or don’t want to, are casual gamers regardless of what they play. Conversely, if you’re playing Tetris for 8 hours a day, i’d say you’re pretty hardcore. 😛
*comparable …. -_-
“It always cracks me up when MRA shows the Simpson as a prime example of misandry. Sure, Homer is not very bright, but does anyone really think that Marge is a feminist role model? Lol. All the Simpsons are deeply flawed characters, although they all have (Homer included) their shining moments.”
Yes, and Homer is the most loved character on the show. He has faults, huge ones, but he gets all the best lines and no one would watch the Simpsons without him. When I ask people who their favourite character is, I always have to preface it with “apart from Homer”.
Wait, I saw “How To Train Your Dragon.” Hiccup is the main character; Astrid is a secondary character set up as his love interest. Hiccup is the one who learns that dragons can be tamed and ridden; he shows Astrid that her way is wrong and teaches her how to do things his way. Ultimately Astrid becomes one of several dragonriders, all the rest of whom are male, with Hiccup as their leader. And Hiccup saves the day.
Hiccup is the hero of the story and succeeds in every possible sense. Astrid is strong and brave, but ultimately second best to Hiccup and in need of his instruction.
How weak would Astrid have to be before you would feel comfortable with the movie? Would it be okay for her to be a warrior as long as it was made clear that she wasn’t very good at it and all the boys could beat her? Or would it be better if she wasn’t a warrior at all?
Why does a woman have to be weak for a man to be strong?
… that should have read “most of my friends’ parents hunt”. where I’m from it’s more “families who go on hunting trips” and “families who do not”.
Wait, are you seriously arguing that it’s impossible for a man to get dates if he doesn’t have giant muscles? Do you live inside a Charles Atlas ad? Because that would be awesome.
I start comments with “wait” a lot.
It’s okay, my Shaenon-patience is endless.
>>>The Liberal Women’s Caucus, that’s Liberal Party of Canada
Hah. What choice words do you have for the NDP, one wonders?
Harper’s Conservatives. When even Paul Martin and Jean Chretien aren’t doing enough to sell all of Canada to the highest bidder.
HE’S NOT A BEEFCAKE AS WELL THOUGH.
DO YOU SEE NOW HOW OUR MISANDRIST CULTURE DEGRADES MEN?
Here’s a little-known Canadian fact: instead of men, our government is primarily made up of caribou! What a fascinating country.
By the way, I know fucking tons of Canadians with guns (some registered, many unfortunately not).
Shaenon: Actually Ruffnut (one of the twins) is female. In some ways she’s the role that makes the movie more female-positive, even though she has a much smaller part, because she isn’t a love interest and doesn’t “read” as female (not graceful, not pretty, not well-behaved, etc).
Guns are “associated with strength, power, intellect etc.”? I was not aware of this. Power, I can kind of see — guns can give a person power in some situations. But how exactly do guns make a person stronger or smarter?
Fun facts: My aunt used to hunt deer (for eating, not for sport) with a crossbow. My father was an avid hunter of pheasants. (Also for eating, though to be honest they’re not that tasty.) I grew up with a rifle in the house, and learned basic rifle/gun safety. I am a feminist.
@Viscaria Male caribou, or female caribou? It matters.
My associations with intellect are your standard shy glasses-wearing academic, a character template who, presented with a gun, goes “argh this is dangerous, I wish not to touch it.”
Funny, Morkais, my father gives shooting lessons to some of those academics, and some of their grown kids. He’s learned to do some neat stuff, and they learned to shoot.
Well this thread has gone well hasn’t it? >.<
"Well done, and THANK you for reinforcing all of my biases…"
If you've really been lurking, then you know my favorite kind of troll is the kind that just needs a dictionary, so here's your dictionary —
bi·as, noun, adjective, adverb, verb, bi·ased, bi·as·ing or ( especially British ) bi·assed, bi·as·sing.
noun
1. an oblique or diagonal line of direction, especially across a woven fabric.
2. a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
3. Statistics . a systematic as opposed to a random distortion of a statistic as a result of sampling procedure.
4. Lawn Bowling .
a. a slight bulge or greater weight on one side of the ball or bowl.
b. the curved course made by such a ball when rolled.
5. Electronics . the application of a steady voltage or current to an active device, as a diode or transistor, to produce a desired mode of operation.
6. a high-frequency alternating current applied to the recording head of a tape recorder during recording in order to reduce distortion.
adjective
7. cut, set, folded, etc., diagonally: This material requires a bias cut.
You're looking for #2 here, and that word you're using, I do not think it means what you think it means.
"Firearms here are synonymous with a “woman’s issue,” yet the overwhelming majority of the firearm owning population is male."
Well this is ironic, my statistic digging got distracted by a call for the local statute for carrying a gun into a casino (I have google-fu). Now, back to using my google-fu on Canadian statistics!
Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile (Direct PDF link)
Page 48 — “There were 4,490 solved homicides between 1994 and 2003, of which 1,695 (38%) were family-related.50 Of these family-related homicides almost half were spousal homicides (47%) while one-quarter were homicides of children and youth (Table 3.1). Overall, six out of ten family-related homicides involved female victims (60%). In contrast, among cases of non-family homicides, the majority of victims were male (79%).”
Page 49 — “Between 1994 and 2003, spouses in a common-law relationship accounted for a larger proportion of spousal homicide victims than married, separated, and divorced persons. Forty percent of all spousal homicides involved common-law persons, followed by married persons (35%), while just under one-quarter of all spousal homicides involved separated persons (23%) and the remaining 2% were divorced persons.52
…
More than half of all spousal homicides against men were committed by female common-law partners (54%), while 35% of spousal homicides against women were committed by a male common-law partner. On the other hand, a larger proportion of female victims were killed by a separated spouse compared to male victims (26% compared to 11%).54
…
The methods used to kill spouses differed for male and female victims. For example, between 1994 and 2003, twothirds of males killed by a spouse were killed by stabbing (66%), followed by shooting (18%). In contrast, the most common method used to kill female spouses was shooting (31%), followed by stabbing (29%), strangulation (20%) and physical force (16%) (Table 3.4).”
Page 52 — “Historical data consistently show that parents are responsible for the vast majority of family-related homicides against young people. Since 1994, 90% of all familial killings committed against victims aged 0-to-17 years were committed by a parent.
As indicated in Chapter 4 Family Homicide-Suicides, fathers72 are more likely than mothers73 to kill their own children. Between 1994 and 2003, fathers committed 58% of the family-related homicides of children and youth. Mothers committed about one-third (32%) and other family members were responsible for the remaining 9%. This pattern is fairly consistent across all age categories of victims, although the difference is less exaggerated when the victim is an infant (Figure 3.3). It is unusual for another family member (such as a sibling or an extended family member) to kill a child; however, the proportion of such killings increases substantially during a person’s adolescent years.”
Page 53 — “The methods used by family members to kill young victims tend to differ depending on the age of the victim.78 Younger victims (0-to-6 years) are most often killed as a result of physical force, perhaps due to their greater physical vulnerability. Between 1994 and 2003, 27% of children aged 1-to-6 years were strangled or suffocated while another 25% were beaten to death (Table 3.5). Infants under one year of age are most often killed by shaking. Since 1997,79 27 infants (or 36%) have been killed as a result of Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Older children and youth (7-to-17 years) are more often killed with a weapon, most commonly a knife or a firearm. Between 1994 and 2003, a family member used a firearm to kill 38% of all family homicide victims aged 7-to-17 years. Another 19% of victims were stabbed to death by a family member.”
So um, yeah, gun control is related to domestic violence which is really everyone’s issue, not a woman’s issue, but since the “manly man” type act like you are about it…
hellkell: I never said the stereotypes that spring to mind for me are accurate… 😉
ShadetheDruid — my tetris high score on here is 757 lines, I doubt I’ll ever top it, so I’d really love to see these “that’s not a real game” gamers try.
Also, those “manly” FPS’s like Halo? I was once on the receiving end of — “Who is wearing pink and why do they keep sniping me?!” — being a FAAB genderqueer and freshman, playing with seniors, I just raised my hand and waited to see if the second question still needed an answer — it did not, he walked back to his dorm doing the human equiv. of tail-between-legs.
But yeah, reducing the breast size to reasonable would totally kill gaming.