Longtime Friend of Man Boobz Ozy Frantz, cofounder of the No Seriously What About teh Menz blog, is writing a book with fellow NSWATMer Noah Brand about men and feminism titled, naturally, What About the Men. The first chapter, written by Ozy, is up on the Good Men Project web site, NSWATM’s (sort of) new home. It’s even got footnotes, and illustrations by Barry Deutsch!
Ozy explains the book’s central aim:
We live in a sexist society, one where gender programming starts at birth (though the advent of the sonogram has allowed parents to get a head start by painting the nursery pink or blue and stocking up in advance on gendered toys and clothes) and is so pervasive as to be inescapable. Feminism has done an excellent job analyzing and challenging the ways that these assigned and enforced gender roles damage and deform the lives of women. The same tools of analysis can be applied to the damage and deformation that men suffer. And that damage, sad to say, is severe.
Meanwhile, over on The New Statesman, Helen Lewis looks at the continuing harassment of Anita Sarkeesian, the women who dared to ask people to donate money for a video series on sexism in video games and thereby unleashed a misogynistic shitstorm.
One of the most disturbing examples of harassment: an online game in which players are invited to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian.” Lewis censors some of the images, but not others, so let me just put a TRIGGER WARNING for depictions of violence against women, including a grotesquely photoshopped “beaten up” Sarkeesian. Anyone who thinks Sarkeesian and her supporters were making too big a deal of the harassment needs to go look at these images in Lewis’ article here. (The game itself, posted on Newgrounds.com, has now been removed.)
Again, this is all because Sarkeesian asked people to donate for a video project. If they felt like it was worthwhile. That’s all she did. And this is what she got in return: someone so angry that Sarkeesian was pointing out sexism in video games that he literally sat down and made a game inviting angry internetters to “beat this bitch up.” Irony doesn’t even begin to cover it.
On Think Progress, Alyssa Rosenberg underlines why we need to take this kind of harassment seriously:
[A]nyone who thinks that feminists who push back hard against online harassment are being oversensitive needs to understand that we’re all trying to keep ourselves from becoming Anita Sarkeesians. No matter how strong you are, and no matter how much support you have, this kind of concentrated campaign of harassment affects the targets of it. And the goal of these campaigns is to terrorize people into silence. It’s not disagreement. It’s not creative trolling. It’s deployment of a weapon.
But it’s just as important to point out that Sarkeesian wasn’t silenced; in addition to helping her raise much more money than she had originally asked for, those who attacked her simply reinforced (and helped to further publicize) the argument she was making — in the case of the “beat up Anita Sarkeesian” game, quite directly indeed. The cowards and assholes who try to shut down feminists online with this sort of harassment are not only losers — they’re losing.
Hey Ozy, do you have a timeline for when we might expect to see this in paper form?
Sweet unicycling baby Jesus, why did I read the comments on the NS piece? I was actually one of the writers on the original piece Lewis mentions, I’ve never got so much shit online as I did in the couple of weeks after that. Funnily enough, my piece had said that I didn’t get too many personal attacks but I saw it happen all the time. I then got a load of abuse saying that I should have been getting personal attacks all along…
Feminist tools of analysis take into account the patriarchy and sexist oppression of women, which does not apply to the privileged class (men, here). “Severe damage” of the constraints the privileged class puts on itself to keep separated from the oppressed class, being put side by side with a discussion of the damage done by oppression of women? :
(I’m going to once again recommend bell hook’s piece about men in the feminist movement, because she discusses this issue more eloquently and thoroughly than I could here)
On the other topic, I am saddened by how little this surprises me. Threats of rape, violence, etc. are all too common against feminists and other outspoken women on the internet, sadly.
Great point, David. They are losers. And their book will be a loser too.
Ha ha, everyone’s favorite rape-fan sycophant didn’t read the post very carefully.
Yeah, Ozy, you loser!
But I’m grateful to Ruby for giving me an honest-to-God belly laugh at the end of a generally pretty depressing comments thread. And unintentional humour is often the funniest.
@darksidecat
“Feminist tools of analysis take into account the patriarchy and sexist oppression of women, which does not apply to the privileged class (men, here). “Severe damage” of the constraints the privileged class puts on itself to keep separated from the oppressed class, being put side by side with a discussion of the damage done by oppression of women? :”
“Feminist tools of analysis?” That is priceless. You’re a tool alrighty. The heralded, sacred analytical tools of feminism. How did the world muddle along for so long without this most precious analytical gift. Tell us all about this tool of analysis contained deep with the divine feminine so the world might bask in the light of feminine glory.
I wonder if Ruby thinks she’s somehow currying favor by dropping in to say “yeah David, you tell ’em!” on every thread.
@Cliff:
Wasn’t another comment of hers something along the lines of “you’re right David, everyone in your post is a pathetic basement-dweller.” I swear… I’m more sure than even that she really is making just-barely-horrible comments so that we can agree with her. Then some time down the road she can use it as fodder to show others what terrible people we are, for agreeing with her.
Either that or she’s playing the long-and-subtle game of interpreting everything David posts as slightly more extreme to try to show everyone that he’s using the same hyperbole and extremist language as othe groups.
Either that, or I’m giving her wayyy too much credit, and she’s just a fringe dweller who interprets what people say the way she wants, then is shocked — SHOCKED I say — when her comments are criticized. Shocked in a “what? I’m just saying what we’re all secretly thinking” kind of way.
@ozymandias42
“Katz: My comment-deleting finger is going to get RSI or something.”
Of that I have no doubt. The echo chamber must be kept in total agreement.
Kirby – I think she may also be under the impression that she’s a commenter in good standing on this blog, but there sure are a lot of trolls here who pick on her! So she still considers herself a friend of Manboobz, just not of certain annoying commenters here, and is totally oblivious how it comes off when she posts “Great post David!” right after defending prison rape.
There is another option: like I said in one of the other topics, she’s probably just trolling for a reaction now.
@ShadetheDruid:
Oh trolling…
“Hmm, you know what I’m gonna do? Yeah… I’m gonna say something terrible. Not just terrible though, INFURIATINGLY terrible! Yeah, that’s the ticket. And then I’m gonna put what I say online, and then I’m gonna wait. Just wait. Wait until someone reacts to my terribleness by saying it’s terrible. I’m gonna make them ANGRY, yeah, I’m gonna make them FURIOUS over my words. And when they post that furious response I’m gonna laugh. Oh yes, I’m gonna laugh at how they called my terrible words terrible, because I don’t actually think that! Ha ha, I don’t actually think terrible things, but now they think that i do think terrible things! Oh yeah, then I’ll have won!
It will be glorious!”
*high-five*
Wow. I can honestly say that up to now I didn’t think Ruby was quite this stupid.
I have to say, if your business model is dependent on the video gaming community being so horribly sexist that you will get sympathy and promotion and donations, and that this is predictable enough that you can base your business model on it… well, that’s not really a *defense* to the whole “the video gaming community is sexist” thing.
Also, I hate the whole “gamers are just like that” meme. No. No they fucking AREN’T. My boyfriend is a gamer and a feminist. My best friend is a gamer and a feminist. There are Manboobz people who are gamers and feminists. The Escapist Magazine has people writing for it that are gamers and feminists. BEING ANTI-SEXIST DOES NOT MAGICALLY TAKE AWAY YOUR ABILITY TO PLAY A VIDEO GAME. If they can do it, so can you.
Viscaria: Noooo idea. We have yet to actually sell the thing. 🙂 Why can’t publishers just beat down my door for being awesome, I ask you.
Just got a chance to read your first chapter. It sounds like the book will be great, and an interesting read. I hope a hundred publishers all compete to be the one to publish you.
kirbywarp: Nah, I don’t think the trolling started until after she worked out we were just going to call her a horrible person for her views on rape whenever she tried to be relevent.. so she just stopped being relevent entirely.
Every time she posts I feel like we’re a bear and she’s poking us with a stick just to see what happens, which doesn’t require her to make any sense.
Who knows though really. I definitely wouldn’t like to see inside her mind to find out. O.O
thank you for bringing your consistently high level of insight and wit to this comment thread
That’s exactly the feeling I get. Just like I believe Slavey does believe he’s the only non-racist here, I totally believe Ruby thinks she’s the only one who has a moral reaction to the rape of BAD people. Though I think she probably also realizes, at some level, that her position is not so solid, which is why she so rarely engage, and just repeat the same things.
Bwahahahahahahaha
Oh ruby you must have skimmed the post, or you couldn’t resist trolling. Long live commenting on random articles trying to make yourself look normal!
Well now that we know you post without reading what do you have to say for yourself? XD
Or she might actually think that Ozy is a loser, you can never know…
that’s strawmanning
well yeah, have you ever heard ozy talk about zir rich husband?