I will be appearing on Al Jazeera English tomorrow afternoon. (And you can be a part of it too.)

also from what i understand there’s a push to add men’s syncro?

Yes, and according to journalist Cathal Kelly’s screed against women’s boxing now being included, London 2012: Some sports — like women’s boxing — don’t belong in the Olympics, men’s synchro is pretty much just a slippery slope away, except that nobody would want to watch it:

“If this is about inclusiveness, the International Olympic Committee will cave to the British male synchro swimming team that is lobbying for a spot in Rio. Since no one will watch guys in nose plugs doing pas de deux, the IOC is not going to cave. Some sports just don’t translate across the sexes, however long we hold our breath and wish for a perfect, genderless world.”

I don’t want to see men’s synchro.

I want to see MIXED-GENDER synchronized swimming. That sounds pretty awesome.

But then I’ve been leaning towards radical ideas like weight-classing the Olympics and doing away with gender segregation.

Also, I’m totally going to have to catch up on the youtube update tomorrow.

“Most misogynists are aware that misogyny is unacceptable in public life and can have negative consequences, so most of them temper their hatred sufficiently to fly under the radar. Online, where there’s much less likelihood of one’s behavior impacting one’s personal life or career, they feel free to be much more honest about just how much they hate women.”

I agree, being anonymous can bring out the worse in many people.

I do think misogyny is much worse online because of the anonymity of it, much like any other type of hostile comments (racism, homophopia, etc), people let loose some primitive rage when there’s no accountability. What I find interesting and it may be something you’re interested in noting, is the bizarre use of terms normally associated with equality and activism being hijacked by hate groups. Feminists are referred to as “Nazis” or “intolerant,” “bigots” by the very people who are bigoted and intolerant, and frankly whose views are so much aligned with those of Nazis. It’s as if they think by taking these terms and adopting them as their own, they can use it as ammo and it will fool the world into thinking they are some sort of human rights group – despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is truly bizarre. Almost like that tricky language used to make some feminists look anti sex, just because they are anti-porn due to the rampant misogyny and degradation in porn, thus making Hugh Hefner and Larry Flint look like pioneers for sexual freedom, contrary to what they are actually doing; perpetuating tired, old, sexist and rather conservative views of women and human sexuality in general.

Sara, I see the same thing in gay marriage debates. I have given it a lot of thought, but I still can’t see how someone is repressed by gay people marrying. However, the language used by anti-gay marriage people, and their arguments always go along these lines. I try to understand where this argument comes from, and I think it depends whether you define an important right as the right to take rights from others. If you do, then it is impossible for everyone to have rights. MRAs arguments make a lot of sense if you start from the premise that men are society and women some other.

We are lucky to have an unprecedented level of free speech. However, I wouldn’t put my name to public comments about how rape is wrong etc. Possibly, given I wouldn’t express my opinion in my name, I shouldn’t express it anonymously. I think anonymity has advantages and disadvantages online. However, without anonymity then I think in the online world, the person most happy to threaten and act on violence will win.

*their agenda.

Also, David, feel free to throw out a line about some lady folks not participating because of safety concerns.

I think what’s happened with social justice language is that various people have realized that you can use it as a shield against criticism and tool to shut down debates. Obviously in the case of genuine activism (let’s say gay activism here as an example) most of the people who will have criticisms of the movement or who will be against the movement will be out and out homophobes. It’s correct to label them intolerant, a bigot, etc., correct to refocus discussions on gay concerns, correct to push homophobes out of gay spaces, and so forth. However various individuals and political groups glommed on to the fact that if you use SJ language and present yourself as the oppressed group it means you can take control of the conversation. You can label anyone who disagrees with you “intolerant”, you have free reign to push dissenters out of your movement, you can demand extra representation without looking like a whiner, etc. and people who do not think critically will just think “poor x, getting beat up unfairly by everyone” rather than saying “HEY YOU ARE NOT OPPRESSED”. It’s an easy way for people to trigger fairness concerns whether or not they are legitimate to bring up.

The worst part about this is that the privileged people/groups who claim oppression are frequently able to get more time and sympathy than genuinely oppressed groups because they hold power, they appear more likable and relatable to other privileged people, and it’s safe to ally with them. This is why when for example a black expert in race-related studies goes on TV to talk about racism all the whiteys will come out of the woodwork to complain that the expert is whining, that nobody cares, that racism doesn’t even exist anymore, and on and on, but when Mr. Conservaman from the Totally Not White Supremacist Institute comes on to talk about reverse racism and the terrors of affirmative action a good percentage of white people would never even consider labeling him a big whiney whiner that needs to shut up and just deal. The horrible irony is that claiming oppression seems more legitimate to a lot of people when the claimer is not actually oppressed; privileged people who lose the tiniest ounce of privilege somehow deserve more attention than people who have had a boot on their head for the last 300+ years. Oppression claims let the privileged people focus on how “unfair” it is that they are losing ground while concealing the greater playing field and how everyone else is at a disadvantage (’cause why aren’t you focusing on meeeee)

Ami discussed a good analogy about sports somewhere and how w/r/t sexism feminists are asking for a few people to be added to the women’s team (because they are short a few players) and then men complain that it’s “unfair” that they get extra players added OMG OMG OMG. Here is her post on her blog about it.

I became aware of the MRM when they went after my husband who is the president of a rape crisis center, over a year ago. There was an ad that was featured on the center’s website that was bringing attention to the idea that violence against women is a learned behavior (ya know, that it’s not something men are born to do) and how we can raise our boys to become men who respect women, etc. Well, some MRA saw it and it went viral to all those crazy MRA sites. My husband’s blog blew up with all kinds of attacks, threats, etc. David Futrelle even wrote about the whole crazy thing on Manboobz. What struck me the most was how the MRAs spewed venom on ME, the wife! No one even knew who I was – just that he had a wife. One sicko wrote that he hopes I “die of cunt cancer, because she is a cunt.” I was not involved in any of this, and suddenly I was scared and felt targeted. The MRAs did their usual “let’s build a smear campaign!” and started raising money for the cause of “exposing” my hubby, blah blah. I started feeling paranoid – like maybe we were being stalked by some MRA funded gumshoe. This is how I came to realize that misogyny is a much bigger problem than I thought. It was definitely apparent when the object of their rage got transferred to me, the wife, the woman, when it really should’ve had nothing to do with me. And this all happened online, all of it. The internet is a cesspool of misogyny. This is not to diminish what hubby went through – it was a lot worse for him. But he even marveled “wow. There are a lot people out there that just hate women.”

My family complains about “those people” and how they’re always “whining” about stuff, but they honestly have no idea why calling a group of black men (an Olympic basketball team) “thugs” is not an okay thing to do. But reverse racism!!!11!!1!

My family = facehoof.

/)_- /)_- /)_- /)_- /)_- /)_- /)_- /)_- /)_-

There was a debate in feminist literature around the internet when it was new, some people theorized that the ‘faceless’ nature would force people to stop treating people differently. But that didn’t happen, what happened is that privileged groups are the default and oppressed group are treated as intruders by them.

Also known as “there are no women on the Internet”. The original Hacker Manifesto was very naive about what it meant to just consider each other human, without regard to race or gender or whathaveyou. What really happens is that ‘human’ subconsciously becomes ‘white hetero cis abled neurotypical etc etc male’ because that’s what people regard as being human in our society. People will play City of Heroes for months with my ex but if she claims she’s a woman, suddenly she’s treated as ‘woman’ rather than ‘human’ (which means ‘man’, remember?). And of course the only reason you would break the spell and id as ‘woman’ is that you want attention, you’re a whore who wants human (men) players to give you stuff, etc etc. There’s no winning position for the oppressed in this catch 22.

At least when you’re IRL, you may only see a few women in whatever field you’re in, but most people don’t automatically erase them as easily from the space and assume they don’t exist.

Internet/gender/gaming sucks. I play MMOs, and I have stories out the wazoo.