It’s pretty good show. Most of the discussion involves social media researcher and Fordham professor Alice Marwick and Helen Lewis of the New Statesman. Those of us in the Google+ Hangout pop in briefly with comments and questions.
FWIW, I appear only briefly in the show proper, but I have a somewhat longer (and a bit more coherent) comment in the ten minute “online only” portion that immediately follows the show (and which is also on this video).
It was a somewhat strange, if educational, experience, my first appearance on TV. (The next time I get webcammed into a show, I won’t reflexively look down at the laptop while talking.) It all went by really, really quickly. Weirdly frantic behind the scenes as the producer tried to slot us all in.
The comments on the video on YouTube nicely illustrate the problem we were discussing; that is, they are a rancid pile of misogynistic shitlordery.
My favorite comment is this one from Urhoboman5 about Rebecca Watson:
At 5;30 that chick has a youtube channel. Just type in rebecca feminist and you’ll find it. Interesting how most of her videos are voted down. Sometimes as much as 80% negative because the stuff she says is pure nonsense.
That’s right. He actually thinks that the fact that her videos are targeted by downvote squads proves that she’s wrong to talk about harassment. She’s harassed by dudes who don’t like her talking about harassment so therefore it’s “nonsense” for her to talk about harassment. Brilliant.
lolocopter.
XD XD
I’m worried that Joe is going to teach Steele about the caps lock key, and suddenly he’ll start capitalise his repetitive words too. D:
capitalising*
@ The First Joe: calling MRA’s rape apologists is pretty accurate, examples which spring to mind include Tom Martin & his recent outpourings regarding child prostitution.
Although can people be called rape apologists if, as the MRM seem to, they deny that rape actually happens?
Does any major MRM blog right about death of gay people at the hands of bigots?
*write
man, I’m tired.
I think MRAs have a wide range of views on rape, from outright denial to calling it some sort of comeuppance (or even “equality”).
Though as I see it, whether you call it “rape denial” or “rape apologism”, the end result is basically the same.
@Ruby
Also, fun fact: Sierra Leone was the first country in the world where women were allowed to vote (well, free, propertied women), and were about 1/3 of the franchise from 1792 onwards. When Britain asserted direct control in 1890, they abolished women’s suffrage.
Britian also removed municipal voting rights and property rights for women in Southern Nigeria,
And yet, in the whole Greece Magna Carta Lincolnn Suffrage MLK history of democracy, we rarely mention that West Africa was the world’s earliest adopter. Funny how that works, huh?
Women’s suffrage was among one of the first acts of Sierra Leone’s government AFTER they became independent from the oh-so-freedom-loving West.
What a coincidence that there are feminists in every country in the world! No, wait, feminism is also a Western export.
@ugh, thumbs up, like for that little piece of history
Yeah, it’s apologism to say “Although it’d be really bad if people committed rape, everyone knows rape doesn’t happen”
And no, the MRM isn’t a human rights movement, it’s just a small group of reactionary assholes. There’s a reason we compare it to Stormfront XD
Read my above posts. Women’s suffrage was invented in West Africa, and only later adopted by the rest of the world.
Also, you know, a lot of early feminists were South American, which most people don’t consider the West, and women’s rights movements began in China and Japan unrelated to Western movements.
Some very early Western women activists praised and were inspired by the Ottoman Empire for having strong female property rights.
Freedom is not a Western invention, and it is more common in Western countries because for the last two hundred years Western countries have been denying freedom in a big chunk of the rest of the world.
Wow. Thread still derailed. Congrats Joe.
Errr, since you’re into baseless accusations based on straw….would you mind if I accused you of being the Loch Ness Monster? No? OK then, Nessie. Stay away from those caps, and have yourself a swim.
Early feminists were also impressed that Islamic law permitted unhappy women to divorce their husbands, a legal right not granted in the United States until 1973.
Says you. Cite a law, or it didn’t happen. Over here in the US, hate crime laws allow additional penalties if it can be shown that the crime was motivated or had something to do with the victim’s belonging to one or more of a group of protected categories. I’m not about to take what you say about UK law at face value.
Cite your claims, or people will call bullshit.
And I get that you’re all concerned about gay bashing. The thing is, you keep going on about Muslim gay bashers, when you admit that groups other than Muslims bash gays. That (and the Mu5lim thing, which I’ve noticed you’ve kind of dropped) makes you look bigoted.
But words can be tainted by being misused. And “thug” has been tainted by being used to refer to inner-city black men, in the context of urban crime, and also to tar black men with urban crime. I’m sorry that it means different things to different people, but the fact remains that it does, and you can’t just blithely use it and expect people to understand what you mean when they’ve got a different context for a word.
Intent. Is it fucking magic?
… And does anyone have a Kleenex? Joe’s been gumming my ankle, and it’s kind of … slimy.
@ JoJo the Dogfaced Boy: “I wasn’t “doing a victory dance” or “co-opting” anything you utter fuckwit! People kept nit-picking and I gave you PROOF,”
Of what? That some homophobes are Muslim? No one has denied that! No one! I can’t speak for everyone, but the reason I don’t single Muslims out over homophobia or misogyny is that a) it does a huge disservice to those brave people in the Muslim community who fight these things and b) it allows smug bigoted arseholes to ignore these problems by pointing to the Muslim world and saying “hey, it’s worse over there”, Like, uh, you’re doing now.
As for the “victory dance” and “co-opting”? Totally stand by both of those things, you ghastly little tick.
Ya know what? It’s pretty damn fun to watch Joe have a total meltdown.
**reaches into the bowl for some more popcorn**
Kinda feel like little Alia in the Dune series when she’s in the Palace on Arakis, being held captive by the Emperor and facing the Baron Harkkonen.
“Make him afraid some more”, she says with a wicked little grin.
From what I can see of Joe’s “argument”, it’s all about guilt by association.
1: Some Muslims attack people.
2: Some of us don’t actively condemn all Muslims
2a: Some of us say that attacking all Muslims for the actions of a few is bigotted, and the selection of dark-skinned/Middle Eastern Muslims shows signs of racism
3: We are therefore in agreement with the Muslims who attack people.
3a: We therefore also hate the people whom those, “bad” Muslims attack.
4: Since those Muslims are racist (Joe has declared it, so it must be so), we too are racists.
It’s all bunk of course, and hinges on the racist undertones of Joe’s singling out a subset of “The Muslims” as being inherently bad.
Coupled to the odd parity of his thesis, and the racist groups who share that view and his dogwhistles, I’d be willing to bet he’s a racists too.
@pecunium
Let’s be realistic here, the logic behind all of Joe’s arguments is “whatever the fuck I read on infowars today MUST BE TRUE.”
I guess it’s an ad hominem, but whenever I see this phrase, I think of the phrase “non-incest privilege.” I got the impression that Kinsey Hope/Genderbitch coined both phrases. Can it be true?
@scrapemind
Are you arguing that intent, is, in fact, magic?
Or or you just trying to scrape the barrel for anything that can’t be immediately shown to be completely wrong?
Well, I know the “Intent, it’s fucking MAGIC!” is from Genderbitch because frankly I love that phrase. …and if you had any google-fu at all you’d know that non-incest privilege is also theirs.
Google. It is your friend. Learn it, love it, take it into your heart and embrace it.
… I can’t tell if scrapemind really is trying to ad hominem the phrase, i.e., so and so coined it, so you’re wrong when you say it.
But it takes two fairly well known memes–magic, how does it fucking work? Intent, it’s not fucking magic–and mashes them together. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, in fact, coined by Kinsey Hope.
And scrapemind is pretty much the last person I would trust to be honestly saying that Kinsey Hope said something awful, so I wouldn’t trust any kind of ad hominem from the dude anyway.
…in conclusion. Words. How do they fucking work? Do they mean things? Scrapemind ain’t sure.
Whoops… the “@scrapemind” somehow didn’t make it into the magic type-y box.
Perhaps it’s from working doubles every day for the last 26 days without a single day off.
Nah, couldn’t be that.