Yesterday I wrote about a vile online game in which players were invited to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian,” the feminist cultural critic who’s faced endless harassment because she had the temerity to ask for donations to fund a video project looking at sexist tropes in video games.
The game, which (happily) has been removed from Newgrounds.com, where it was originally posted, was put together by a young Canadian gamer named Bendilin Spurr. On the game’s page, he offered this explanation as to why he created the game:
Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labelled to be sexist against her.
She claims to want gender equality in video games, but in reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.
That doesn’t really explain much, as asking people for voluntary donations to a video project is a far cry from “scamming,” especially since she’d asked for far less, and that the misogynist backlash to her project began long before she’d collected anywhere near this amount.
It also doesn’t quite explain why Bendilin felt that a Sarkessian-punching game was the best format to make this, er, critique.
Last night, after learning from the comments here that young Bendilin had a profile on Steam and a Twitter account, I decided to peruse both to see if I could find more clues that might explain his foul game.
On his Steam profile, he’s set forth his basic philosophy of life, video games, and how much women suck:
I think it’s just adorable how absolutely no girls are any good at video games, just like how no woman has ever written a good novel. They are nothing but talk and no action, probably because girls are such emotional creatures and base everything they do on their current feelings and then try to rationalize their actions later. How pathetic.
You know what’s priceless? When a gamer girl posts a pic of herself looking as slutty as possible and then throws a fake fit when people talk to her like she’s a whore. What did you think was going to happen, you dumb broad? Lose thirty pounds.
Sadly, these aren’t terribly rare or original opinions for a young male gamer.
Over on Twitter, Bendilin has offered a number of conflicting explanations for why he felt so much hostility for Sarkeesian and her video project that he felt justified in creating a video game devoted to punching her in the face.
There’s the fiscal argument:
There’s the laziness argument:
There’s the rather strange argument that Sarkeesian is not taking the proper time to research the subject, although she has not yet started the project. (Also, one of the reasons she was asking for money was so that she could take the time to research the subject properly.)
The “nuh-uh you’re wrong” argument:
The “she won’t listen to me argument.” Part one: The Lego Incident
And Part 2, in which our hero explains that making a video game about punching someone in the face is a great way to open a dialogue with them:
Naturally, Bendilin, like most misogynists, fervently denies that he’s a misogynist:
Yep, that’s right. The guy whose Steam profile claims that “absolutely no girls are any good at video games” and that “no woman has ever written a good novel,” and who decided to express his criticism for a video project that hasn’t even started by making a video game in which players punch the woman behind it in the face, is angry that anyone might conclude that he hates women.
Well, Bendilin, if you wanted to defend video games and the gaming community at large from charges of sexism, you’ve done a bang-up job of it.
UPDATE: Bendilin is also an artist! Here, Virgil Texas takes a look at Bendilin’s erotically charged Sonic the Hedgehog art.
That last paragraph and the update contained
Also, I have to say, you’ve done a nice job of derailing here, but I’d still like an explanation of why, if in theory institutional misandry was an actual thing that existed, it would be appropriate to derail this conversation about Sarkeesian to talk about it.
holy shit it’s like some sort of quantum theory for dumbasses here
isolated systematic prejudice is a condition/event
dudes…it’s a wave AND a particle
Yeah, and no one here is going to disagree with you on that point.
The thing is, that individual instance would not make hatred-of-people-named-Kyle institutionalized or systematic.
See, this is exactly what I mean when I say the people who use the word “misandry” are trying to borrow meaning from the word “misogyny.” To prove misandry exists, you point to the existence of people who have an irrational hatred of men. Once people agree that that shit happens, you then go on to say that his proves there is a systematic institutional misandry.
Steele, this is why feminists hate to use the word misandry. Because it by its very etymology is a false equivalence with a real thing. If you are so dead-set on using the word, nobody can stop you. But don’t expect people to assume you are talking about a different definition than the word implies, and don’t expect to try to pull the daft sleight-of-hand of saying that “misandry” doesn’t imply an instutional component, but “misandry” is in fact insitutional.
Words have meanings, you monumental thickie: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ISOLATED SYSTEMIC EVENT.
Also, this is also predicated on a feminist worldview that you have chosen to buy into. Most people don’t, thickie.
Words do have meanings. Here’s “prejudice”:
an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
Yeah, the Humanities lost a star player when this one was shamed off the team.
What the hell did I do to deserve this?
Thankyou to the historians for the information about the US Civil War and Vietnam War.
Talking about draftees in Vietnam War, do you know if the Vietnamese were drafted, on either side?
Not to mention the fact that repeated insistence of using the word “misandry” contributes to the erasure and minimization of actual misogyny, like… oh, I don’t know… Anita’s harassment avalanch in the OP.
Dude the feminist worldview doesn’t say something can’t be isolated and systematic simultaneously, the ENGLISH LANGUAGE does.
I’m starting to wonder if “I was shamed out of pursuing a writing career” means “my English teacher kept handing my papers back to me with corrections all over them, that misandrist bitch”.
Hear that, y’all? The fact that words have meanings, and the fact that the properties “systematic” and “isolated” are contradictory, are both predicted by a feminist world view that most people don’t hold!
That’s a take on the declining of the US education system I’ve never seen.
I wonder if he understands that when we say his writing isn’t very good we mean the content and not just grammar, spelling, etc. You know, little details like systemic and isolated being contradictory.
Oh Gawd some of you sure are patient to be able to converse with this troll in such a calm and intelligent manner. I decided hours ago that I’d have more fun cleaning my toilet. You deserve a prize!!
I’d toss them in jail too! Because they raped someone!
But you’re using “prejudice” to mean “one person anywhere hates you for it” when that definition suits you, and “there is a systemic hatred in all of society” when that definition suits you. (And doing this weird thing where if one person has a hatred, it proves everyone has that hatred?) It’s kinda bullshit, dude. Pick one.
Can the prize be food? I’m hungry but it’s too hot to cook.
@ CassandraSays – yeah, I get that vibe from a lot of MRAs, like they’re actually complaining about their mothers/female teachers/ some other female authority figure from when they were young. Not all the time, but you sometimes get these weird tangents like “feminists are always telling us to make our beds and eat our green vegetables!”
If you want to loudly commiserate over Sarkeesian, there are countless echo chamber feminist spaces where you can do just that. The post- like every post on this blog- was more concerned with attacking MRAs than Sarkeesian herself. I maintain it’s fair game for MRAs to post here- or as you put it, “derail”.
[..] expect to try to pull the daft sleight-of-hand of saying that “misandry” doesn’t imply an instutional component, but “misandry” is in fact insitutional.
It’s not a sleight-of-hand. Misandry is institutional, but the word itself doesn’t imply an institutional component. Ya got me- but it’s true. Heterophobia, for example, is not institutional, but it’s still a real word with a real meaning, and there exist heterophobes.
To prove misandry exists, you point to the existence of people who have an irrational hatred of men. Once people agree that that shit happens, you then go on to say that his proves there is a systematic institutional misandry.
You can acknowledge the reality of the former without agreeing with the latter, ya know. Unless you’re more concerned with shoring up your rhetoric position than you are with the truth.
Because it by its very etymology is a false equivalence with a real thing. […] But don’t expect people to assume you are talking about a different definition than the word implies […]
Again, the existence of “misandry” in no way implies such an equivalence.
If you are so dead-set on using the word, nobody can stop you.
I am. Not that I expect most people will have a problem with it, because in the end most people, I believe, would realize that you’re a scumbag who is unduly and bizarrely concerned with performing mental gymnastics to avoid using a single word.
You have a more generous spirit than I do, Cliff. I think he’s deliberately trying to blur the boundaries so that he can push the idea that systemic misandry is a think that is just as pervasive as misogyny.
Perhaps I’m giving him too much credit in terms of intellect, though.
No idea. Is Wikipedia good in this area? some of their articles are pretty bad.
*sigh*
So out of all this, we’ve got:
* Misandry simply means “an irrational hatred of men”
* Only feminists attach this weird “institutional” component to the word Misandry in order to say it isn’t real
* Misandry is institutional
So if we admit that there are people out there in the wide world who have an irrational hatred of men, we have thus admitted that misandry is real. Since misandry is institutional, that proves that institutional misandry exists. Despite the fact that feminists argue that institutional misandry doesn’t exist. And despite lack of evidence.
565+ comments, and this is what we’ve got.
@ Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Either that or the inspiration is an ex. Remember that guy who posted the video rant about skidmarks and how women think we’re so perfect and expect men not to make them and omg expecting grown men to know how to wipe their own asses is sexism against men and somehow feminism was to blame for this?
Steele believes that the entire American public agrees with him in secret. Not just about feminism (and yeah, we are pretty patriarchal still), but about the meaning of words. He thinks that if you just explain it to a random person off the street, they will go YUP, SYSTEMIC = EPISODIC, STRUCTURAL = ISOLATED, WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH HYUCK HYUCK.
See, THIS is why a site like Manboobz exists. Not to convert the MRAs–they will or they won’t change their minds, whatever. It’s so this can be brought out into the open so the undecided can see it for the bilge it is.
* Misandry simply means “an irrational hatred of men”
This is the layman’s definition, yes. The existence of the layman’s definition of misandry is really not arguable.
I also maintain the layman’s definition is an entirely legitimate use of the word- this seems to be where most of the disagreement stems from.
* Misandry is institutional
This is debatable. As an MRA, I think there’s ample evidence that misandry is institutional. Feminists, due to stupidity, disagree.
So yeah, you’ve basically got it.
It also kind of funny how he keeps telling us to go to a feminist blog if we want to talk about Sarkeesian. Um, dude, guess what? The killer is already inside the house.