Our old friend over at the Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology blog is angry again. This time he’s mad at a legitimate target: National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre. But not because LaPierre is the head of an organization that has stood athwart every attempt at sensible gun control, making tragedies like the one in Newtown an all-too-predictable side effect of the easy availability of semiautomatic weaponry.
No, Mr. Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech is made at LaPierre because he thinks the NRA big gun has turned into a feminist. No, really. Noting that in the wake of the Newtown shootings LaPierre launched a transparently opportunistic attack on violent video games, Mr. PMAFT accuses him of doing the work of the grand feminist conspiracy against men and manhood:
The most important reason why LaPierre is wrong is because what he is doing is feminist. Video games are an activity predominately enjoyed by men. So are guns. Both activities are under attack from feminists (just like other predominately male activities like science fiction are) because men are interested in them and women are mostly not interested in them. LaPierre is shooting himself in the foot (pun intended) by alienating allies among the video game community and helping out feminists in their war on male activities.
Never mind that nearly half – 47% — of those playing video games these days are girls and women, according to the Entertainment Software Association. (I await the inevitable comment from a troll telling us all that whatever games these women are playing just don’t count because blah and blah.)
What LaPierre should have done is form an alliance with the video game community. While the Newtown shootings are being used against gun owners right now, the next target will be video games and other mostly male interests and activities. Both the video game community and the gun community are fighting the same enemy, feminism. They should be working together to point out facts like how the Newtown shooter was raised by a single mother and how homes where the father is kicked out lead to more violence.
Never mind that the shooter — like virtually all mass shooters — was a dude; a woman is always to blame.
The NRA is in a position of weakness now because they are attacking video games and not the real causes of the Newtown tragedy, single motherhood and feminism. The NRA is in the same boat as the Republican Party where it needs to become an explicitly anti-feminist and pro-mens rights organization to survive. (Lots of conservative and right wing organizations are in this situation.) Guns aren’t the problem here, but neither are video games. The NRA needs to realize this and realize that its only way forward is by fighting feminism. Anything else leads the NRA to irrelevance.
So one of the most powerful lobbies in American politics needs to team up with a Men’s Rights “movement” that can’t organize a single event that draws a crowd bigger than 8 people, or else it will fade into irrelevance?
I dearly hope the NRA fades into obscurity, and I am hopeful that public opinion about guns is beginning finally to shift in the right direction, but I’m not sure the NRA needs any pointers from MRAs on political relevance.
Presumably we don’t read anything except Mills and Boon or Fifty Shades of Sludge.
I’m pretty sure women are allowed to read fantasy. Not manly stuff like Tolkien, but things with unicorns and fairies.
@ lowquacks – too bloody right!
Reading anything with unicorns makes you a hypergamous bitch though. Think about it – unicorns are rare, they have a huge horn, and just think of how many nice men must be friendzoned before the virgin meets one.
Add education (universities and law schools especially) to the list of things ruined by women, according to my friend’s head-in-arse neighbour.
NWO was the one who first brought fringed flags to my attention. That and CAPITAL LETTERS creating a binding contract. Man, that was a fun night.
(Speaking of cons, were you a GoH at Arisia last year? I wish I’d been on this blog back then – I’d have asked you to sign a printout of the Book Of Larnin’, or something)
I did Arisia the year before last. It was super fun. That con is the best.
I think the breadth of fantasy that female children are supposed to like has been shortened. What is with the male my little pony interest, where I have seen some images (?Etsy) where I wish I could wash my eyeballs afterwards.
@Kiwi, my son informs me they are called “Bronies” >.<
Do yourselves a favor. Go to that Search box up near the top right, enter bronies, and click Go.
Oh, yes, I remember the MRA bronies.
Wait, are there actually bronies who argue that MLP is not intended for young girls?
Follow Cloudiah’s advice. No paraphrasing could be more facepalm-eriffic than their own words.
“Presumably we don’t read anything except Mills and Boon or Fifty Shades of Sludge.”
Or that hideous thing with the sparkly emotionally abusive vampires : P
Omg, MRA bronies, I had……I had no idea….
“When the next real crisis upsets them (men), our so-called rights will vanish like — like that smoke. … And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You’ll see.”
Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree Jr. — “The Women Men Don’t See,”
Shaennon: I assume from the way you phrased it you will not be present this year either?
:<
And, before I turn in…
I'm on the lookout for
You won't see them coming.
LOL anything said in French automatically sounds better.
Back on the bronies topic, do MRA bronies fart rainbows?
And on the OT, I love video games, I have been playing them since I got a C64 in 1983, I played World of Warcraft for 5 years, and I’m currently enjoying Guild Wars 2. I like computer RPGs since Balder’s Gate. I prefer to play female characters, and the RPGs I have played have allowed one to pick one’s sex in the game. Except for the Witcher, but I believe that is based on a series of novels where the protagonist is male.
The most fun I have had playing online is where I have played with family groups. I don’t know why there is this focus on the 15-24 male demographic which I wouldn’t have thought would be where most of the game dollars are. My impression of the apps market for smartphones and tablets is that (setting aside the productivity apps) there’s a big market for things that appeal to a wide range of age groups. While you can’t really play a FPS on a phone, it isn’t a great experience playing an RPG either, so the change in media format isn’t an explanation.
Les Chats Ninjas!
::dies::
::dies again::
MLP has been aiming to appeal to their Bronie fan base.
They know who watches the show and have no problem catering to them.
However, I believe they were surprised to find their fan base had so many men.
Uhm. Did anyone see Underpants-troll say this to me on P3 (using a slightly different name so modded as first-time poster)
*tips head* So… any ideas? All I have said on this thread is “wut” when Dingus The Dim claimed to be a high-school teacher.
To quote Hamish MacBeth, bafflin’.
He’s done it on the Pierre thread too. Joy.
Peter Andrew Nolan’s latest info can be found here…
http://peternolanstalker.blogspot.com.au/?m=1
I have lately been reading 3 blogs of MRAS who have liberated themselves from the spearhead because they consider it too consertative… Scary times ahead…
Nah, it’s just another split. Pretty soon the MRM will be comprised of lots of individual angry dudes who aren’t speaking to each other.