Longtime antifeminist crusader Erin Pizzey recently did an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit. Here are some highlights — by which I mean lowlights — from her answers.
Ms. Pizzey wants to ban feminism as a hate movement:
Personally, I would like to see the feminist movement described as a hate movement, so that we can then ban them from the government, from university faculties, from anywhere where they can destroy the minds of young women and men.
It’s just a teensy bit ironic, I would say, that she characterizes feminism as a hate movement at the very same time that A Voice for Men, a site she has very publicly aligned herself with, is leading a hate campaign against an individual feminist activist. (More on this to come tomorrow.) Indeed, Pizzey herself adds to the vilification of the activist here.
And speaking of A Voice for Men, she apparently agrees with AVFM’s Paul Elam that feminists are only interested in the issue of rape because they have rape fantasies and are angry that they’re not getting enough attention from men:
If you’re referring to Paul’s statement that many or most women fantasize about being taken, I’m sorry but that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean they want to be raped, but it’s a fantasy I think almost all women have. And I think he went on to say that feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were and are so obsessed with rape are really projecting their own unconscious sexual frustration because men don’t give them enough attention. Andrea was a very sad lonely woman like this–I didn’t know her but I knew of her, and I knew Susan Browmiller and you can just read her stuff to see it there.
Yeah, I’m thinking that Dworkin’s “obsession” with rape might have had less to do with her wanting “attention” from men than it did with the fact that she had been raped.
In response to a question about using Title IX to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), Pizzey argues that most women’s brains aren’t equipped to handle all that sciencey stuff, and that most women would rather be raising children:
what will happen is that a few women will come out of that world in those areas that suit men’s brains better than women’s, and do well, but most of them won’t, and they’ll just leave and go on to other professions or to have children or family. That’s what’s been happening all the time when they’ve had quotas.
But what about the men who get excluded because of that? That’s the tragedy isn’t it, and the waste of money. Harriet Harman has proposed quotas for women in parliament, quotas for women in all the high-status fields, and women have flocked in but do not want the gruelling hours that men are willing to put into their professions because most of them–MOST of them–want to be spending time with their children at home, and that God for that.
Pizzey believes that most feminists are “mental patents” who deserve only condescension:
Personally, I don’t get into arguments with mental patients, which is what most feminist women are. Look at them with pity and compassion if you can, speak the truth as you know it.
But if you want a real reaction, pat her on the head and tell her not to worry her pretty little head about it. That’s what I do! I think men have to start using their sense of humor as a weapon. You must get past any sense of anger when you do such things though!
She believes most prominent second-wave feminists were feminists mainly because they hated their dads:
One of the early mantras of the feminist movement was to make the personal political. Therefore, those women who had bitter and violent experiences of the first male their lives (e.g. their father) then branded all men as violent and dangerous. They are also what I call the walking wounded. As far as I’m concerned the prominent feminists of the day virtually all had appalling relationships with their fathers. So if feminism grew out of a justified sense of grievance, and created a platform where they did not attempt to heal their own damage, but to project onto all men… so yes it’s very cultlike that way. But it’s any cult group that works that way, they all have either a figure they adore or a hate object that keeps them together. And their hate is against men, even when they deny it.
Yes, that’s right, she says all this and somehow does not notice the hatred of women amongst the MRAs she’s aligned herself with.
While she dismisses feminists with “daddy issues” she urges those who have been abused by their parents to forget the abuse they’ve endured, forgive their abusers and “move on.”
[T]each yourself that the past is truly the past, it is done and you cannot change it, all it is is a loop in your brain that needs to be closed down so that you can move forward. Because those patterns are deep within you, it takes a lot of hard work, but in the end you FORGIVE YOURSELF and you FORGIVE YOUR PARENTS and move on.
Meanwhile, she thinks that it makes sense for men who don’t like feminism to “head for the hills” and Go Their Own Way.
It was many years ago I was talking to a very eligible bachelor, who was a lawyer, and asked him about American feminists. He laughed and he said “what they never banked on was that men would get together and take to the hills.” This is where that expression comes from. He and his male friends would get together and have a wonderful time, they did not make permanent relationships with women, because they realized they would have too much to lose: their homes, their children, and their money. I always remember this. When 40 year old feminists complain that they can’t find any men to commit themselves, why is it men’s fault? I can’t blame men who feel this way in today’s legal environment. If the so-called women’s movement, the feminists, want men, they have to care equally about men’s desires and men’s need for protection.
This sort of makes sense, given that Pizzey seems to live in an imaginary world in which women, not men, are the truly privileged.
The actual irony of this situation is there is nothing more privileged than white middle class women, who are most of feminists. Very very privileged, because they know when they are born that either the state or a man will take care of them if they do not choose their own career. Men on the other hand are born underprivileged, particularly now, even as small boys they are demonized and discriminated against. …
 I cannot see how sane sensible educated intelligent woman can consider that men are privileged. It has always been rich and middle class women who have been protected, and they are the truly privileged.
Indeed, she’s managed to convince herself that “never in the history of the world have men been so unprivileged, if you think about it.”
Naturally, all of her comments were happily upvoted by the Reddit masses, and her “Ask Me Anything” post itself got more than 1200 upvotes. Evidently pandering to Reddit’s collective fantasies about the oppression of men pays off big in the upvote department.
Where’d you meet one of those anyway?
late to party, but the whole anti-vax thing makes me go cross-eyed with rage.
When it was time for my first child to be vaccinated with MMR, it was at the whole breaking news linked to the autism-you-are-poisoning-your-child hysteria. And, you know, I faltered. I questioned what I was doing. Then I spoke to my mum who said that I obviously wouldn’t remember the measles epidemics that killed and blinded people. She told me about being terrified that my brother had damaged eyesight after he recovered from measles. So, I took a long hard look at myself and wised the fuck up.
Where I live, it’s very age with a significant enough proportion of anti vaxxers. As a result, we are having outbreak after outbreak of whooping cough. We have seen, 6months ago, the worst measles epidemic in NSW in 14yrs.
My day care mum is an an anti-vaxxer. I didn’t know that until after my child had been there a while. My friend who used the same day care mum took her child out as soon as she found out because she had a newborn as well. My day care’s mum daughter has had whooping cough at least twice and has scarred lungs. She is 7. I think the day care scheme should be obliged to disclose if their carers’ children have been vaccinated.
Gah.
lowquacks — the “friendly” AI I’m more familiar with is basically a complete failure at I, Robot. Protect us from ourselves level failure, and gets all circular about how it will know what’s ethical because it knows what we’d want if ethical thus my concerns about bigotry and classism et al are unfounded.
I hate debating with people who are absolutely sure they’re right, even when they’re obviously going in circles. Think our trolls, but someone you sorta like and don’t just want to tell to fuck off.
I’ll read the basilisk link when I wake up. My ability to form sentences is lacking at present. Goodnight!
What I was talking about was addressed in it! That’s an interesting view, tho – a lot of people have said that transhumanism is a desperate want for religion to be true by the atheistic, much like a lot of new age stuff.
@BigMomma
So sorry about that : My mum was in daycare, and my sister’s training for it, and they’ve both come round to vaccination, if that’s reassuring.
hey lowquacks…I think the majority of day carers do vaccinate. and this one was a lovely carer. Kinda echoing CassandraSays in that I generally get on with the new age crowd so it’s very conflicting. Overall, I get really torn by respecting their choices but also just wanting to tell them to fuck off with their unvaccinated children to somewhere where their choices won’t put my children at risk.
@BigMomma
That’s me exactly! If this helps, you’re not alone.
And me too! I love hippies, in general. And even the new age stuff that I think is nonsense is mostly harmless. But the anti-vax stuff? OK, now your woo is actually hurting people, and that’s not acceptable. The “better dead than autistic!” part provides a lovely little cherry on the shit sundae.
thanks lowquacks!
and Erin Pizzey? I’ve whinged about her from before on another thread (memories from my days as a refuge worker). She can also just fuck off somewhere where she won’t put my children at risk.
And my dad raised me feminist and I love both my parents.
It’s precisely because my dad is so awesome that I have zero patience with these guys and their manipulative crap.
CassandraSays, totally agree. You wanna do all those new age things, cool, generally speaking I find all the ‘woo’ comes from a benign place. I hadn’t even thought of the ‘better dead than autistic’ bit until it was pointed out on this thread so I’m even more pissed off.
I think when I was wavering, it came from being worried that I was putting something into my child that would change her or disadvantage her (grovelling apologies if I am being ableist and please correct me). My mum put it into context and I realised I was worrying about the wrong thing. A living daughter, in all her glorious complexity is waaay better than not having her in my life.
I’ve got a feeling I’m saying it all wrong though.
The Anti Vaccination movement is hard for me to watch for another reason entirely – namely that I don’t understand it.
I am incapable of understanding it, as a thing, because it’s not a notion that parses with my years of study, to wit:
If vaccines were routinely capable of causing the onset of autism, that is, if there was a more than merely random correlation between the two, our entire basis for understanding a significant chunk of the human immune response would be wrong.
Vaccines causing autism wouldn’t be a problem because causing autism is bad – it would be a problem because it would uproot and over turn our entire understanding of how human bodies interact with foreign substances. Just nigh on 8 decades of research? Out the window.
If it was the case that it did, we’d be wrong about just damn near *everything*, or at the very least, we’d be under some serious misunderstandings and have some very, very huge gaps in our knowledge, which really could be seen as being worse. At least if we’re just mistaken, we can relearn. If we’re 50 % on the right track, we have just enough room to cause much, much worse problems.
—
Friendly / Unfriendly AI:
It doesn’t need to be actively unfriendly to “cause” great harm. As far as I understand it, the problem is that a lot of human concerns are directly… human. And an outsider with a different basis could construe different problems, with the overlap being tremendously difficult. To a sufficiently detached observer, there’s little difference between say, E. Clori and Homo Sapien Sapiens, except the obvious ones of genetics / measurable statistics. That’s a problem when designing any system.
Example. Breakthrough! You just developed a functioning lateral processing processor (go you) and you’re now done building The Mastermind. Congrats! It has infinite capacity to learn, and it’s hooked into the worldwide web and infrastructure.
Now explain to this computer what freedom is.
For extra credits:
Explain to it how it mustn’t harm humans, but also explain to it that not-causing-harm so much that it locks every individual up inside a harmless 5*5 cube and feed them through straws is to be avoided.
That’s the problem in a nutshell – a lot of what we value as people makes perfect sense between people, but is difficult to explain in concepts. No one wants to be harmed, but 100 % safety is bad too.
That’s a line I don’t understand. Is it possible you could explain it to me?
—
“It was many years ago I was talking to a very eligible boner, who was a boner, and asked it about American feminists (there are no other kind, y’know). It laughed and it said:”What they never banked on was that us boners wuld get together and take to the hills”. This isn’t where that expression come from. It and its boner friends would get together and have a wonderful time, and it did not make permanent relationships with women, because it realized that it was a boner, and once satisfied, it had little reason to stick around. Boners always do this, because any relationship with a woman that only results in mutual pleasure for both parties is clearly a gain for the boner – women are always looking to hook an eligible bachelor, and even when they are 40 years old and lonely, they complain if they haven’t. If 40 year old feminists can’t find any men to commit themselves, why is it anyones fault? Maybe they’re not looking in the right places, and maybe socio-ecnomic trends cannot be derived by the status of 40 year olds dating life, because it will always vary based on today’s legal environment. If the so-called logical women’s movement, the feminists, want men, they have to care about wanting men. Because if they don’t, there’d be no reason to want them.
Also:
Aye, sexism in the workplace is caused because fathers band together. The wage-gap is just an personified Elektra complex. Rape is really a manifestation of penis-envy (it subconsciously makes them draw boners into themselves and then eject them, and afterwards, their pain over the experience is really sublimated loss because they couldn’t hold on to the dick AND OH MY GOD MY BRAIN IS BLEEDING WH–WHA… Why is there so much blood…. *Pass out*)
—
What puzzles me:
“… If the so-called women’s movement” want men” and the “one of the earla mantras… personal political”. Is she hinting the personal ISN’T political? I’m pretty sure it is. If you march against prosecution, you’re being persecuted based on something personal to you. The political is always personal. Any attempt at denying that is trying to minimize personal issues and the impact of that on people lives, the farking basis of any activism. Is she hinting that you should make room in your political activities to also spruce things up for a date?
Is she hinting that 40 years olds can’t find anyone to date because they wasted their lives on the political carosouel and all those alpha bills and now some poor beta legislation won’t help them in todays environment? It’s like a cornucopia of MRA beliefs!
:
There’s only ever white, straight american middle class feminists. No one else is worthy of remark, after all.
But seriously though, maybe the reason there’s a preponderence of white, cis middle class women in feminists circles is something along the lines of extra time to read material and a higher chance of having access to education / source / information overlaps? Maybe it’s a very, very good example of how either poverty, geography , legislation or life paths can conspire to make things seem reasonable when they are not? The question she should be asking is this: “Why do the poor often not have time to organize protests?”
Then maybe we could get somewhere.
(Also, again, all women everywhere desire a man to take care of them, and if they want one, they should probably modify their political ideals and get over their father issues, forgive their abusers (HAHAHAHA), and let go – then they’ll get a nice man to take care of them, as women should.)
Strange world. Lots of respect for Erin Pizzey’s work, and her books were actually a really interesting read, but this is a strange, strange post.
Snappy comeback for, “don’t worry your pretty little head”.
Make disgusted face and say “Ewww, Is that your hands smelling like that?” And walk away.(or Might wanna wash your hands, buddy.)
or
Quite alright, I’ll spare your big empty head about it.
Or
Look across the room and say, “Excuse me, someone that’s not an asshole wants to speak to me.” (This could be varied to someone intelligent, or who’s opinion I value…ect)
The vaccine debate makes me uneasy because my mother has always done her possible to stop me and my two siblings for getting more than the 3 mandatory vaccines (I’m French, I don’t know how it works in USA) But when I heard, a few years ago, about the American anti-vaccine movement, I was really surprised. In my family it was never about autism (I might be wrong, but I thought that was a brain configuration one was born with) but more about possible side effects (especially for recently created vaccines, like HPV) overlooked by pharma companies for the sake of money (and with the recent scandals we had, that’s not exactly preposterous) . It was also about not letting the body build its own defenses. She was also against antibiotics (when not absolutely necessary) for similar reasons. Which seems to make sense to me, as the over-use of antibiotics have created more resistant bacteria. I have very little medical knowledge, so I don’t know what to make of all that.
Long story short, I’m still in the process of growing up and trying to separate what’s true and not (my mother was also very found of homeopathy for little problems, who at least tasted good, had no secondary effect and well… the placebo effect is still a real thing. Same for her friend’s father who can supposedly stop fire injury, though I never saw him ‘practice’)
Yellaine, vaccines work by triggering the bodies defenses, which means that your immune system is building its own response to a virus, which it then remembers for the next time it encounters that virus or bacterium. The reason you don’t get as sick when you encounter a live pathogen is because your body is able to produce the right immunilogocal response more quickly since it already has a template. The quick response knocks the virus out before it can replicate enough to cause major damage.
I missed the public health discussion!
@ Blitzgal
Don’t assume that parents who are anti-vax in Pakistan have the same misperceptions as those in the western world. I haven’t been following that particular incident. However, there is a very ugly history of forced sterilization in South Asia (there is a history in the U.S., as well, but we’re talking major–8 million forced sterilizations in the 1970s in India, mostly of marginalized populations, in just a 1-2 year period).
Looking into the history of how medicine has been used against certain groups. Think Tuskegee. I don’t think that most anti-vaxxers — who to my knowledge are generally very privileged — come from a background where they understand the medical establishment as a tangible threat, a tool of oppression and control.
Also, Meningitis does kill people. There’s a highly fatal strain in NYC right now that is killing people.
Of all the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments there are, homeopathy seems the most absurd. It’s literally anti-science: “like cures like” and “law of minimum dose.” Many of the homeopathic remedies are so diluted that there is no original substance in them, they are literally just sugar.
I’m from the UK and it doesn’t seem like the Anti-Vaxxers are so strong here, even though the Wakefield case started here.
I honestly think that what Andrew Wakefield did was evil, I can’t think of anything else to describe it.
We have had more measles cases since then but it only seems to be the MMR that people are wary of thank god.
I’ve got the full set, though I’m missing the TB jab (as they phased it out for most kids, only giving it to at risk groups, such as kids from Asian backgrounds the year I would have got it) and I also missed the HPV jab as it was brought in the year after I would have got it and it was nearly impossible to get it done without going through the school (and the school programme started with girls the year below me) and no surgeries anywhere seemed to have any jabs in stock and with one thing another we forgot about it.
Bless her, she is still keen for me to have it done, despite the fact that I am 20 and have been sexually active for two years!
My comeback to the pretty little head comment would be:
“Oh I wouldn’t call myself pretty but I would call you an arsehole”.
And as to beards in the army, the British army definitely lets Sikh’s wear them. After all, there have been Sikhs in the British Army for what? 150 years? Maybe more if you count the the army of the East India Company?
In terms of protective gear not accommodating beards/long hair, perhaps there’s something I’m missing here, but surely the problem is with the equipment rather than the hair and should be approached as such? It’s not like, say, helmets grow on the helmet tree and can’t have their design updated.
My women’s college immediately offered us the HPV vaccines for free. Really glad that happened. So many of my friends who weren’t given the opportunity are now stuck with constant culposcopies and heightened cancer risk. I know the vaccine doesn’t cover all strains, but I’m still really grateful (and, honestly, shocked I’ve avoided HPV even with it).
Wakefield is vile. Repulsive. But big pharma does a lot of repulsive things on a larger scale. Was just looking at data explaining how the DSM-V changes have been directly influenced by big pharma. What a nightmare. That’s a discussion that doesn’t translate well through the interweb.
Shockingly, although the DSM-V pathologizes nearly everything, I’m pretty sure INCEL has not yet made it in there. I’m sure some companies would love to peddle Real Dollz as coverable by insurance…
Does anyone else just really hate taking showers sometimes? Takes forever for my hair to dry, water is never warm enough, getting over a nasty bug…dragging my feet over here.
Clearly my sense of humor is too grim, because my first thought re “incels” and the DSM/profit making opportunities was “you know what can really help people to overcome their fear of talking to strangers? cocaine”.
But I guess big pharma isn’t allowed to sell that any more.
also, this weekend i got to run around screaming “gobama” (a phrase I use whenever something beneficial comes out of the affordable care act) after my coworkers finally realized that birth control is now free. TAKE THAT, MRAs!!! (obviously this benefits them, since their number one fear is “spermjacking”, but whatever).
@Cassandra –
Hahaha. Yeah. Cocaine used to just straight up be in everything. Before that, I think it was laudanum?
My gripe isn’t with the water never being warm enough, it’s with the fact that our apartment neighbors share the same hot water heater as us apparently, because whenever people upstairs use water, it changes the shower temperature to boiling.
And re: vaccinations. I am horribly uneducated about this topic, so I am just enjoying reading what everyone else writes. XD
Toothache? Have some cocaine! A bit tired? Some cocaine will fix you right up? Indigestion? Cocaine again!
The whole anti-vax discussion freaked me out. I haven’t been vaccinated since I was 6 or 7. Not because my dad was anti vaccination, he just didn’t care enough to go to the doctor with me. I mean, to me it was normal to do my laundry or make my own food since I was ten, but I never thought about going to the doctor.
I wanted to get shots again, but I always forget about it. I think I’m going to call my doctor right now. Ugh.
You guys were so involved in your public health discussion, you missed the pro-Pizzey visitor who showed up. Or maybe you just ignored him — he didn’t have much to say, but he used a lot of words to say it.