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.
And also, there are even less females in the Halo and CoD tourneys that I participate in once every few months. It’s rare that there’s even one. Personally, in my extensive experience, females have a hard time handling the pressure cooker of FPS games.
katz, make a note for the Pell biography: there is affirmative action in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This is to make sure that patrician doctor-lawyers don’t monopolize all the top spots.
So, where did you finish? Surely you could link us to it…
Thats classified information, plebe.
I know that as a troll he’s pretty weak, but he’s showing a bit of staying power.
Yes, AJ. You’re the specialist snowflake gamer of all time. How very impressive.
Not.
Come on AJ, you keep talking about these tourneys, but offer no proof. Pics or it didnt happen.
Here’s a Pelly
There’s a Pelly
and another little Pelly
Doctor Pelly
Lawyer Pelly
Pelly Pelly troll
(To be sung to the tune of the Llama song.)
“Plebe”!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
C’mon, Pell, how’s Uncle Monty doing? Have you tricked him into making his house over to you and moving into a crappy nursing home yet? He must be getting on a bit by now.
Thats classified information, plebe.
Video game tournament leaderboards are matters of national security???
You fucking idiots. ANECDOTES do not make FACTS. There are some female gamers, but your personal stories don’t substitute for larger patterns. I have a graduate degree in statistics. I look at these things logically.
Blockquote fail…
Trollin’
trollin’
Trollin’
Keep that bullshit rollin’
Keep that bullshit rollin’
AJ!
(to be sung to the tune of Rawhide
LMAO was the tourney run by the NSA?
Have you heard of the N-distribution? It allows for outliers, which you or your friends might be. But the majority of women are Facebook casuals.
It’s official: We have a Pell.
Meltdown procedure initialising …
So, he’s a lawyer, a doctor, and has spent at least 4-5 years doing statistics… he must be a master wizard for his time manipulation abilities!
Oh hey, some idjit is being an ass about my industry.
I like how he says that someone else’s anecdotes are invalid, and then cites personal experience to ‘prove’ his ‘point’.
Will it sway you if I cite my personal experience as someone in the games industry too? Should I bother?
(no.)
Dammit freitag, I’m gonna be hearing that song all day now!
AJ, did you get your graduate degree in stats before or after becoming a doctor?
1. Even fewer !
2. Not females. Women.
3. The only way that there could be fewer than 1 is if there were none.
Impressive that you could get so much fail into 1 sentence.
/pedant
Sorry Kitteh. Please don’t put a horrible lego curse on me, pretty please?
AJ, son, have you ever been to PAX? Or GDC? Or is pro gaming the only real gaming?
(feeeeeeeemales)
To de-rail on a positive note, I listened to “Fight like a girl” on the last page and now I am in love.
Why have I never discovered Emilie Autumn before?
logically
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.