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
Steele: And while you’re at it, asshole, you can go tell Toysoldier that his aunt raping him with a strap-on to “teach him a lesson” is “not misandry”. I read his post. I know how you minimized and mocked him. Disgusting.
Yanno, you could try reading the post(s) here, and seeing what was actually said. Because what he describes, and what happened aren’t quite the same (shades of Rashamon).
But, even if you did I can say that you aren’t likely to see any real difference, and that the level of intellectual impervium against nuance that you’ve displayed here would pretty much make it a wasted effort AND we’d have to rehash all that again, so perhaps it’s best that you won’t.
And of course- my writing skills perhaps aren’t great. This is unsurprising, considering I was forced away from the field because it was assumed I couldn’t cut it. The posters remarking over my writing ability are unwittingly making my case for me.
Nonsense. Any number of the posters here are self-taught in the craft of writing. Some others are university taught because they didn’t let the system refuse them. Saying that you were denied the chance to read, and to practice, that you needed some outside help to polish your craft… Ain’t gonna cut it. Some of the best writers I know are auto-didacts. They were pushed out of school, and they pushed on. I know men to whom that very thing happened.
Men who have been successful in writing, and editing. So it’s not “the system” bucko, it’s you.
Regardless of Toysoldier’s honesty- I do believe he is telling the truth about his rape, due to details he has provided that I won’t go into because it’s not my place.
That first sentence there… that’s your problem with argument. Toysoldier’s honsety can’t be disregarded. It’s central to the question. Again, no one here denied his rape. The whole thing about trying to persuade us that it’s true (with secret evidence no less) is a reading comprehension issue. No one here denies his rape. We deny it’s cause feminism.
No matter whether you believe there is systematic bigotry against men- you won’t even grant that this is an example of isolated misandrist actions?
Is it an action of an irrational hatred of men? Maybe. But misandry isn’t a systemic problem. What you (and Toysoldier, and every other person I’ve seen use the word) are trying to do is wedge isolated events, and make them a widespread problem. That’s what making Misandry and Misogyny equivalent terms does. It borrows the status of one (a pervasive problem in the larger culture) and imbues that into the other.
Since that isn’t the case with misandry we (or at least I) am not going to lend my imprimatur to the linguistic zeitgeist. And we (or at least I) will keep doing that, So will other sane people. Not my problem if you have a weird bugbear about it.
Magpie: Talking about draftees in Vietnam War, do you know if the Vietnamese were drafted, on either side?
Yes, on both sides. The N. had two drafts. one of locals in the South (to the Viet Cong) and in the N. into the NVA. Both were drafts, “for the duration.” N. Vietnam then decided the use of VC was problematic (they weren’t having quite the effect they wanted, and they were likely to be destabilising in the event of victory, as they would have demanded a larger say in the unification than the North wanted to give them) so they were used to launch the Tet Offensive, which wasn’t the style of fighting for which the VC were suited, as a result they were pretty much eliminated as an effective combat force, and reduced in numbers so that they weren’t going to be able to insist on a seat at the table when the war was won.
Steele: This is debatable. As an MRA, I think there’s ample evidence that misandry is institutional.
Ok, provide this ample evidence. Now we are looking outside of anectdata. Show me the men who were denied promotions; because they were men. Show me the men who were told they couldn’t compete in professional sports because they were men. Show me the colleges where the presidents said men can’t cut it in various disciplines because their little man-brains can’t hack the work.
Show me the ample evidence of institutional misandry.
Or shut the fuck up.
“So will other sane people.”
And at least this insane person.
I’m tempted to play Spot That Fallacy on Steele, but the shotgun argumentation is annoying long, and thus quite tedious — he’s definitely got that one (shotgun argumentation); goalpost shifting (oh the goalpost shifting!); shifting the burden of proof and proof the negative, both with the death threat thing; an argument from ignorance (and perhaps an actual ad hominem) with the attacks on kirbywarp; many cases of irrelevant conclusions and missing the point; argumentum ad populum with the appeal to the layman’s definition of misandry; an arrgument from fallacy with the claims of ad hominems.
That’s the list from memory, so I’m sure I’m missing some. I think his claim that kirbywarp’s teacher hated men, because she joked about girls not being inferior, is begging the question in the proper sense, but his argument is too flimsy for me to be sure.
Oh and Steele? I more or less taught myself logic, I’ve got a good friend with an English lit degree (male btw) but I’m fairly sure you wouldn’t count informal discussions as learning — if you do, please try to learn something from the critiques on your writing style.
pecunium — “We deny it’s cause feminism.” — ARGH! — It is because of feminism, or its cause is feminism? Either works, and thus that sentence is driving me slightly more nuts than is usual. (Claim you intentionally meant both and it was a play on words?)
arrgument from fallacy = argument from fallacy, I can type, I swear! >.<
Steele: – Personally, I condemn instances of bullying, abuse, and harassment equally, wherever I see it.
Unless it’s whimiscal. Don’t forget the whimsy.
My writing skills aren’t great, obviously- because I was told by a misandrist, bullying, abusive authority figure that I couldn’t cut it, as a male.
Nope, because you can’t be arsed to learn to write. No teachers needed, there are lots of good books out there, all of which you might read and learn from, e.g. Frankenstien, War for the Oaks, Feed, Gone with the Wind, Mary Poppins, Northanger Abbey, The Speckled Monster, Blood and Roses, A Perfect Red, The Fate of the Mammoth (that’s a roughly fifty-fifty mix of Fic/Non-Fic).
But you’ve not bothered. Easier to blame a woman for your failings. That’s misogyny bro.
<i.Again- words can have more than one connotation. For example, “Wood” can refer to lumber or erections, for example. Depending on the context.
Words can have more than one connotation, but your example is denotation.
When my Drill Sergeant called us Motherfuckers, sometimes it was endearing, sometimes it was critique. That’s connotation. The word didn’t change, but the intent behind it made it mean something else.
“Are you done?”
“Are You Done!??”
Same words, different connotation.
Wood = erection.
Wood = lumber
Same sounds, different objects. That’s denotation.
Blitzgal: Viscaria, is that a racial epithet? I don’t know what that word means and I’m too afraid to google it.
Nope, what viscaria beat me to the punch on is that someone (more than one, I’d guess) has verbed “Asperger’s” into a way of minimising responsibility for spoken/written actions.
They’ve used it to replace, “lashed out in a fit of irrational anger”, thus minimising the actual act, and slighting those who have any form of Asperger’s.
Never mind that making the game had to have taken some time, effort, thought, etc. It wasn’t the same as someone saying, “fucking asshole” on a chat.
And it’s got nothing to do with the Asperger’s spectrum.
Argenti: I’m going to assume everyone missed that last line as he seems to be implying the same as Ruby — prison rape is just fucking hilarious. It isn’t — we’d be all for throwing said person in jail, but next to a serial rapist (in hopes he gets raped)? Fuck no.
I missed it. I read it as the act being right up there with serial rape, and so deserving the same punishment. Shit, what an asswipe.
VoIP, One more on the draft in the 20th Century US. A large part of the undercurrent of resistanc to Korea in the US was the draft. The total fatalities were about 36,000, in three years, vs. the 58,000 for Vietnam over about 10.
When comparing the “Costliest”
Steele: (Personally, as a feminist, I suspect you run with people who are inclined to agree with you. Even if I’m wrong, anecdata is a waste of everyone’s time).
Which is pretty rich since it comes right behind this stunning refutation.
My experience has been different.
Now… how many of the conversations in which your differing experience was in fora frequented by MRAs? I have my suspicions.
@Kirbywarp: I suppose, in the end, I really only have one thing to say. You don’t get to speak for other men.
Neither, boyo, do you. What I’ve noticed, in several hours of slogging through 12 pages, is that you have a decided double standard.
You get to use anecdata; and then extrapolate norms.
We don’t even get to use our own stories to define our own lives.
You get to define words for everyone else. Everyone else’s understanding of the words is discounted.
You get to talk about how isolated incidents are great harms to everyone, but when things like the Amish School Killings, or Sodoni, or Ball, or Lépine, or Brievik come up… those are so isolated they affect no one. Can’t be attached to a systemic problem.
You equivocate (it’s an isolated thing, episodic, and it’s not fair of us to say that it can’t be a real thing of import, just because that word parallels a word which is about a sytemic problem of import: but you also want to say that those isolated incidents are systemic, and why are we denying it).
In short, you are dishonest. The worst part is, I am pretty sure you are being dishonest with yourself. It’s not that the teacher who told you writing wasn’t your forted hated you; is that she saw this inability to keep things in the same plane of relevance was going to cripple your chances of success.
The problem is you.
pecunium — that was an impressive troll take down. I can’t wait to see how much of it he just flat out ignores, versus how much he twists it, he seems a master of illogic, what with this and all —
So yeah, dishonest is one word for it, and far more polite than my thoughts on the matter.
pecunium:
And he didn’t even say that. He said one teacher told him boys can’t write, and this somehow influenced him more than the entire fucking culture telling him the opposite (and did he not have other teachers? Did he never have de facto parents?) He doesn’t claim to be illiterate, he doesn’t calim to have been unable to access reading material, he doesn’t claim to have lacked a room of his own (metaphorically speaking, at least).
I wouldn’t be surprised if he does now that I’ve pointed this out*, but people have already expressed dubiousness about the one teacher’s influence, and he’s stuck to that part of the story.
*Which is pretty much why I’m not describing my marvelous proof of misandry this margin can amply contain; I figure he’ll just say “that’s what I meant all along”
Nope. It would be a waste of time to dialogue about that with you extremist feminists, eager to dismiss bullying, abuse and harassment unless it’s the “right kind” of bullying, abuse and harassment. You are terrible individuals.
In plain English, “Since I can’t argue my way out of a paper sack with a firehose, I’ll avoid embarrassing myself (in that way) any more.”
I simply acknowledge the possibility that some are hurt, and based on that possibility, it seems we should condemn instances of Misandry.
No, based on your idea of that possibility you pretend that an institional problem exists, which feminists need to jump right to fixing, or be called terrible people by the likes of you.
I have no idea what your teacher was like. But you do know that Kirby’s description of her as joking is wrong.
Ugh, what you say is very interesting.
I know the Taipings conscripted people, but I was under the impression that the ethnic Manchu part of the Qing army was hereditary and the ethnic Chinese part was voluntary.. Are you saying the Green Banners conscripted? Do you have a source on this? Because Chinese history is not my field at all and I would love more info.
Steele: The rest of your post is ad hominem
Nope. It’s insult. She didn’t say that your points were invalid because of it (though there is actual merit to people pointing out your logical inanity as probative of your merit in argument, but I digress)
Since you were the one to bring up the US, I switched to that frequency. And if we limit our scope to America, I am correct.
Horseshit.
WW2, a war with draft, after women got the vote. SHITLOADS more expensive than Vietnam.
Korea, after women got the vote; far more lethal to the conscripts than Vietnam.
You. Are. Wrong.
In Spades.
I’m sure you’re rushing to copypasta the Wiki link to that Larry Summers dude from the ’90s or whatever, who postulated that perhaps men were as a group better suited to the higher echelons of mathematics, and was promptly eviscerated for it.
The Larry Summers (in the 2000s) who was named one of President Obama’s economic advisors? Yeah, that Larry Summers. Some fucking evisceration he got.
Vietnam had the largest number of conscripted soldiers in US history, as well as a higher death toll proportional to the number of soldiers engaged. There’s a thing called Google.
And you might want to use it and apply it to the Korean War; and look at casualties per annum, as well as to the definition of the word, “costly”, which is what you said.
Well, we’ve sort of hit a wall here, because I don’t believe misogyny is all that pervasive, and I believe misandry is institutional. But I don’t want to discuss any of that. So, we cannot proceed.
Then what the fuck are you doing here? We talk about misogyny. That’s the driving force of the blog. There is a lot of side chatter, but if you don’t want to talk about misogyny (I am going to ignore, as piss-poor writing that you are also saying you don’t want to talk about misandry… 1: because you plainly do, and 2: you are a piss-poor writer), what the fuck are you doing here?
Dracula: Right, it couldn’t possibly be that you were discouraged because you were a shit writer to begin with.
Dude uses “dialogue” as a verb, case closed.
But you do know that Kirby’s description of her as joking is wrong.
Read for comprehension, please. I did not question that Kirby’s teacher was joking; I merely noted that bigoted jokes can be hurtful.
Unless it’s whimiscal. Don’t forget the whimsy.
Read for comprehension, please. That post wasn’t mine.
Any number of the posters here are self-taught in the craft of writing. Some others are university taught because they didn’t let the system refuse them. Saying that you were denied the chance to read, and to practice, that you needed some outside help to polish your craft… Ain’t gonna cut it. Some of the best writers I know are auto-didacts. They were pushed out of school, and they pushed on. I know men to whom that very thing happened.Men who have been successful in writing, and editing. So it’s not “the system” bucko, it’s you.
Oh, my fucking Lord. Can this be nominated for the most ironic quote in the history of the universe?
That’s what making Misandry and Misogyny equivalent terms does. It borrows the status of one (a pervasive problem in the larger culture) and imbues that into the other.
Again, this is nothing but projection and paranoia. The existence of the term “misandry” in no way implies equivocation with misogyny. Unless, of course, you personally project that understanding onto the concept. But that’s on you, “bucko”.
He said one teacher told him boys can’t write, and this somehow influenced him more than the entire fucking culture telling him the opposite
Hmmm. Yeah, basically. Maybe evidence that the culture isn’t so stacked in men’s favor as you’d think. But no, that’d go against feminist dogma.
You get to define words for everyone else.
Read for comprehension, please. I have not denied the validity of the critical theory approach; I am defending your attempts to tell me that “misandry” cannot refer to isolated incidents. It is you who are attempting to exert control, not myself. Which relates to this:
So yeah, dishonest is one word for it, and far more polite than my thoughts on the matter.
Read for comprehension, please. While I do believe misandry is institutional, all I am saying is that “misandry” does not necessarily imply institutionality; that is, even if it weren’t, it would still be a legitimate word- just as, for example, “heterophobia” is, even though it’s not institutional.
I do not deny the usefulness of the sociological or “critical theory” approach; I only contend that that is the only valid context in which “misandry” and other such terminology can be used. In other words, you feminists are on a dogmatic quest to limit the meaning of language.. It’s positively Orwellian.
Idiot.
WW2, a war with draft, after women got the vote. SHITLOADS more expensive than Vietnam.
More expensive? Yes, of course. Is this somehow relevant?
Korea, after women got the vote; far more lethal to the conscripts than Vietnam.
You are incorrect.
Between the Korean War’s outbreak in June 1950 and 1953, Selective Service inducted 1,529,539 men.
Between the Vietnam War’s outbreak in 1964 and 1975, the United States enlisted 8,744,000 servicemembers. Of those, 3,403,000 were deployed to Southeast Asia. Admittedly, the exact numbers become a bit fuzzy here, but we can safely argue that conscription was certainly more heavily practiced during Vietnam.
http://www.sss.gov/induct.htm
Argenti: O HAI pecunium, I was typing that bit about thinking you weave while you were posting apparently. (This thread is beyond ridiculous, let’s derail it with art!)
I don’t weave. I spin. I can do some pretty simple knitting. I can do repair sewing. I’ve played at free-hand embroidery.
“So will other sane people.”
And at least this insane person
Those two sentences were direct quotations of Steele.
“We deny it’s cause feminism.” — ARGH! — It is because of feminism, or its cause is feminism? Either works, and thus that sentence is driving me slightly more nuts than is usual. (Claim you intentionally meant both and it was a play on words?)
I was probably thinking both. I was trying to catch up before I left for work, so I wasn’t at my best.
Steele’s catch-phrases — “…this is nothing but projection and paranoia.” and “Read for comprehension, please.” — you don’t happen to be Scott Adams?
Why does everyone get pecunium and I mixed up? Steele’s at least the third person to do this (I repeat, pecunium’s a mushroom, I’m an androgynous ninja; avatars, we both have them). Which of us did you intend to call an idiot? And do you have any idea what the word means, or is it pick-random-insult day?
Steele, dude, scroll the fuck up. You said, and I quote “I made no claim regarding institutional misandry.” — it is, at absolute best, a case of forgetting what you’d already said; in context, it reads a lot more like a dishonest misrepresentation of things you’d previous said (and have gone on to repeat).
And “heterophobia” is not a thing. I mean, I am fucking sure that some queer people fear straight people, except y’all might want to try not having a history of proving that fear founded.
As for Spot That Fallacy!! — “Reification (hypostatization) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a “real thing” something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea.” — this whole “heterophobia is a thing” bullshit.
Oh, my fucking Lord. Can this be nominated for the most ironic quote in the history of the universe?
I suppose I’ll throw in a hint: It’s not about me. You’re right, maybe I could have made myself a better writer- but that’s not the point. The point is the event in and of itself. There are successful women who overcame obstacles- would you feminists tell other women that “It’s not the system, bucko, it’s you”? Would you then say that the obstacles aren’t problematic, because they can be overcome?
Idiot.
Hey Steele, did you read my story yet? Shall we compare, word for word who said what in our lives to see who had it worst?
Or is it misandric to expect a response from you?
You’ve harped on ONE PERSON who made it a little more difficult to pursue your dream. I’ve had many, and I still pursue drawing and painting and especially embroidery.
Why does everyone get pecunium and I mixed up?
I didn’t- I was responding to you both. Don’t know why you’d think otherwise.
Perhaps- oh shit!- a little projection and paranoia?
And “heterophobia” is not a thing. I mean, I am fucking sure that some queer people fear straight people, except y’all might want to try not having a history of proving that fear founded.
Doesn’t matter if it’s justified or not- it’s still heterophobia. That is, fear of or hatred of straight people. I’m also sure that there’s been someone in the history of the world who has hated straight people unjustifiably. That person was a heterophobe. Of course, I agree that heterophobia in a sociological sense is nonexistent (or negligible); this in no way invalidates the word as an apt descriptor of an isolated instance.
You’re guilty of a very strange pseudo-Orwellian reductionism- the word CAN ONLY EVER BE USED!!!! if the concept is systematic. Bizarre.
“…but we can safely argue that conscription was certainly more heavily practiced during Vietnam.”
Not. The. Point. You made a claim about “costliness”, not about total number of draftees — proving more people were drafted, and survived, actually disproves your point.
Pecunium — re: weaving — whoops, my mistake. Re: “sane people” — I missed that that was Steele, must’ve been before I decided to take him seriously. Re: apostrophes — not like I’m exactly a master of it’s versus its >.<
Re: words have meaning is “positively Orwellian” — I LOL’ed. I have an Emilie Autumn quote for this — “[he] was the sort who say they’ve read a book if they’ve seen its cover.” (EA is a master of it’s vs its 🙂 )
Steele, you should have been able to overcome that obstacle, which was one whole teacher, not an entire culture. Misandry only exists in your pointy little head.
Also, you’ve made a big pity party and repeatedly blamed your inability to write on ONE woman. Its not just one instance to you, its you’re whole fucking life. You want to write? What’s stopping you now?