So some Men’s Rightsers are up in arms because the powers that be at Wikipedia just deleted a page devoted to a phony “logical fallacy” invented by a friend of Paul Elam. According to the now-deleted Wikipedia page, “the apex fallacy refers to judging groups primarily by the success or failure at those at the top rungs (the apex, such as the 1%) of society, rather than collective success of a group.”
In other words, it’s a convenient way for MRAs to hand-wave away any evidence that men, collectively, have more power than women. Mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics and business, and, I don’t know, podiatry, and MRAs will shout “apex fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
On the Wikipedia discussion page devoted to the question of deleting the apex fallacy entry, one Wikipedia editor – who voted “strong delete” – noted that
This is men’s rights activist astroturfing. The guy above [in the discussion] isn’t posting examples of its usage because they’re all on websites showcasing brutal misogyny and hateful ignorance, like A Voice for Men.
He’s got a point. When I did a Google search for the term, my top ten results (which may be different than your top ten results, because that’s how Google works) included posts on The Spearhead; The Men’s Rights subreddit; Genderratic (TyphonBlue’s blog); Emma the Emo’s Emo Musings; and a tweet from the little-followed Twitter account of someone calling himself Astrokid MHRA. In other words, five of the ten results were MRA sites, several of them with explicit links to A Voice for Men. (That “MHRA” is a dead giveaway.)
The top result, meanwhile, linked to a post on the blog of the delightful Stonerwithaboner, who doesn’t consider himself an MRA, as far as I know. But he’s still kind of a shit, and he did recently confess to being (as I suspected) the person who was going around posting comments on manosphere sites as David H. F*cktrelle, Male Feminist Extraordinaire ™.
So, in other words , I think it’s fair to say that the term “apex fallacy” has not yet achieved academic or philosophical respectability just yet.
The deleted Wikipedia page attributes the term “apex fallacy” to Helen Smith, a psychologist who is a longtime friend to A Voice for Men, and dates it to an interview Smith gave to the odious Bernard Chapin in 2008.
But the idea seems to be a simple reworking of a bad idea that’s been floating around in Men’s Rights circles for a lot longer than that.
Back in the 1990s, New Zealand Men’s Rights Activist Peter Zohrab came up with what he called the “Frontman Fallacy,” a notion he spread via the alt.mens-rights newsgroup on Usenet and elsewhere; the term has been widely adopted in Men’s Rights circles since then. As Zohrab defined the term,
the Frontman Fallacy is the mistaken belief that people (men, specifically) who are in positions of authority in democratic systems use their power mainly to benefit the categories of people (the category of “men”, in particular) that they belong to themselves.
So, in other words, if you mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics, business, and podiatry, MRAs will shout out “frontman fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
Like the extremely similar “apex fallacy,” this idea is rather too silly and facile to count as a real fallacy, but it has proven quite popular with MRAs. Looking through the google search results for “frontman fallacy,” I see links to a wide assortment of MRA sites using the term, including AVFM, Genderratic, Stand Your Ground, Backlash.com, Toysoldier, Mensactivism.org, Pro-Male Anti-Feminist Tech, Fathersmanifesto.net, Mensaid.com, and some others. Like “apex fallacy” it hasn’t made much progress outside the Men’s Rights movement.
What’s interesting about this to me is that this is not the only bad idea that Peter Zohrab has ever had.
Indeed, Zohrab had some extremely bad ideas about Marc Lepine, the woman-hating antifeminist who murdered 14 women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.
While Zohrab, to my knowledge, never explicitly justified Lepine’s killings, he described the massacre in one notorious internet posting as an “Extremist Protest Against Media Censorship.” Of Lepine himself, he wrote
I bet you don’t know he wasn’t a misogynist – because you have been conned by the media (as usual). In fact, he was a Men’s Rights activist (albeit an extremist one), and one of the things he was protesting about was media censorship.
Zohrab went on to say that it was clear from Lepine’s writings – or at least writing alleged to have been written by him — that
he [was] against Feminists — not against women — he clearly states that he is protesting against various issues which are aspects of Feminist sexism.
Indeed, Zohrab seems not only sympathetic towards Lepine’s “cause” but seems to feel that he was being unfairly misrepresented:
The write-ups on Marc Lepine concentrate on character-assassination. They take things out of context, in the same way that fathers are slandered in the divorce/family court, in order to deprive them of custody or access. …
Marc Lepine was not only not sexist, as the media stated – he was actually fighting sexism!
Lots of MRAs love talking about the “frontman fallacy” or the new and improved “apex fallacy.” They don’t seem much interested in talking about Zohrab himself.
Like it or not, MRAs, this man is one of the leading figures in the emergence of the Men’s Rights movement online, and in the intellectual history of the movement, such as it is.
If I were a bit more paranoid, I might wonder if the emergence of the “apex fallacy” was some sort of an attempt as a rebranding, an attempt to push the “frontman fallacy” and its creator, the old, odd duck Peter Zohrab, with his embarrassingly sympathetic feelings toward a mass murderer of women, down that famous memory hole.
P.S. Don’t read the comments to that MensActivism.org posting, unless you want to get really depressed.
Yeah, I mean, PoC is the new PC term, but black has been standard for ages, and still is outside social justice circles, to the degree that merely using the term says nothing racist.
Sarr doesn’t realize it was her own conspiracy theory I was using against her, I guess. Given that most of the current historians of the American South (mostly people of color) I’ve been reading use black and African American interchangeably, I doubt that “black” is a “buzzword.” But feel free to substitute African Americans if you prefer — the re-statement of Sarr’s conspiracy theory still stands.
@ titianblue
I’ll answer when you have some argument or question. Until then I won’t bother.
@ vaiyt
The example that their wives could be telling the male politicians what to do was just that – a theoretical possibility. Not what I believe to be the case. Here is the context :
@ auggziliary
You assume that power somehow transfers itself by virtue of similar genitalia. You’d have to show how this can happen and then show how it does happen in a significant way. I’d be interested in seeing that.
How is that racist?
How about answering the question?
There are many ways somebody could exercise power over a spouse that do not involve that spouse “chosing” that situation.
That’s a really bad comparison to modern democracy where women’s vote counts as much as men’s vote.
In a democracy, that “theoretical” power of the majority is real. In what way is the system “built to keep women from exercising it”?
Well one way would be that women are the majority. But it’s relatively small and doesn’t account for the far greater differences in representation. It’s valid on its own but there’s much more:
Lobbyism is also an important source of power. It’s observed time and again how democratic governments bow to lobbies even if the polls show a disagreement. A recent example is Germany concocting a legal construct to circumvent the decision to ban non-medical circumcision. The polls showed a (dissappointingly small) majority in support of that ban. Yet the politicians went through with the plan because of pressure from religious lobbies.
In the case of gender lobby support, women hands down win. Men don’t have anything that remotely approaches the power and influence of feminism.
That is also a strong sign that women as a group have more advocacy in society. In a world in which men oppress women, it would hardly be the case that women have such a strong lobby relative to men. In short, the strength of the feminist movement indicates that women have more power as a group. That particular point is not hard evidence in itself but it’s still something you’ll have to explain if you want to make the case that it’s the group without the lobby (men) that has power over the group with the lobby.
Further we can observe the advocacy of politicians in practice by comparing how often politicians advocate for each group exclusively. It’s easy to find examples of high profile politicians openly standing up for women and very hard to find similar examples for men.
@Argenti
Like I said above, that was a theoretical example of how somebody in a position of power might not actually be exercising it freely. I never claimed that this actually happens a lot or that it’s even meaningful regarding the actual distribution of power.
@ pecunium
Again, if you claim men have more power, and all you have is that “more politicians are male” then you have a sexist leap of faith. You still have to show how having male genitalia means somebody can’t or won’t represent women’s interests sufficiently. Do you believe men are unable or unwilling to advocate for women because they’re men? Yes or no?
It’s really bad form to just call “fallacy” and leave it at that. You have to demonstrate how and why the reasoning was fallacious.
Once more, it was an examle of what might be another way that power is exercised from outside of the supposed position of power. That’s all. I did not draw conclusions from it at all so there’s no way it could be fallacious unless you want to say that it’s impossible for any wive of a politician to exercise power over her spouse or even influence him.
What makes you think I’m a dude? And are you seriously claiming that all I’ve said here amounts to nothing other then “no you’re wrong”? Really? Be honest. Better still, demonstrate it.
I don’t think you’re being honest there. If you had other things you’d rather do, you’d be doing them. I didn’t even address you but the author of the blog post and nobody is making you come here to answer to what you claim to think is nothing but “you wrong”.
@auggziliary
@Karin
Note that I said this:
And by “We,” I was referring to the feminists here.
Also, nowhere did David say that men are privileged only because men hold the majority of positions of power in society. You’re misquoting him.
Okay.
Explanation: Women have less power on average when using the vague term “power” and the just as vague “average” (Statistically, we know the meaning, but using it to describe half the human race?), because women apparently need a strong lobby to argue for their interests.
It’s not really a statement that works because the presence of something (Feminism) doesn’t also mean that there is a unifying political agenda for a very disparate group of people. Heck, have you seen how much the “average” feminists argue with each other? Like, a lot. Now add in how much three billion people would argue, and your “Women as a group” doesn’t really work.
It’s not a sign women have “more advocacy” in society – it’s a sign that, in this society, women need an entire group dedicated to attaining gender-specific things (If you want to broadly paint all of Feminism with, oh, 8 words), whereas men kind of just… make do without it. They don’t need it. They have all the political power, and their “interest group” and their “lobbying” movements can work with specific things (Anti-Cigarette! Smoking! Carbon Tax! No Carbon Tax!), whereas women apparently have to band together in massive hordes, organize things, get an entire movement wherein their descriptor appear (feminism from fe-male), just to have someone go: “And rape is a crime, and if you are raped, even when married, the person doing it should probably face criminal charges, yeah and yeah, making you work harder for less pay is discriminiaton. Oh, and right, yeah, firing you because you didn’t want to sleep with the boss is certainly sue-able offense… Voting? Fine, you can vote, bleh”.
—
I might not believe the above, or I might, but what makes that interpretation any more or less valid than yours?
I don’t mean to quibble needlessly, but when talking about power differentials, things like “The power to focus on an issue without having to deal with questions about your personal biology” is kind of important q:
@ Ally S
So what exactly does “purely” mean in this context?
Am I to take it that you concede that if somebody made the claim “men hold more power as a group because there are more men who hold positions of power” then the apex fallacy would be a valid way of refuting that claim? Yes or no?
So because “the feminists here” apparently don’t or don’t PURELY make that claim, therefore the apex fallacy is irrelevant? Seriuosly?
Fibinachi nailed it. (Incidentally, what are your preferred pronouns? I’m just wondering.)
Obviously, I’d tell you at some point, but I’m choosing to exercise my power to focus on the questions rather than what my personal biology might indicate about my convictions.
Nier nier nier.
I don’t have a set preference, use what you prefer yourself 🙂
Replace “purely” with “only” and you’ll get what I’m saying. “purely” was a poor word choice on my part.
And no, I don’t concede that point because I don’t think the apex fallacy is actually a fallacy.
Even feminist theories in general don’t use what you term the apex fallacy. They don’t just focus on how men have more powerful positions; they also focus on things like the higher rate of sexual assault for women, higher rate of male-on-female domestic abuse, etc. to highlight the privilege that men have as a group.
“Do you believe men are unable or unwilling to advocate for women because they’re men? Yes or no?”
Pecunium, you’re unwilling to advocate for your beloved! (*dies laughing* somehow I don’t see her wantng you to, she can handle herself, but that’s neither here nor there)
Hey Sarr? Just because some men are willing to, and do, doesn’t mean all men do. Within is exactly why I brought up the Victorian era.
Yeah, Karin not only won’t read the comments preceding zir arrival, zie clearly isn’t even reading the comments directly responding to zir. Acceptable grounds for ignoring, in my book.
I’m ignoring Karin because ze took someone else’s picture for zir Facebook profile picture. (I think it’s fine to use an obviously famous person as your profile picture, or a cartoon or whatnot, but not a photo of an ordinary person swiped from a hairstyle blog.)
Ok there are going to be some nested quotes. Lets see if it works:
@ Fibinachi
Are you saying feminism has no unifying agenda that distinguishes it from the rest of the population? So feminists are just as much in disagreement about abortion/equality/sexual assault as everybody else? Seriously? If that were the case, then why should anybody be a feminist?
So you reckon the presence of a lobby indicates that the group it’s lobbying for, needs it. Does that work for the KKK as well?
And you’re also saying that the absence of a lobby (in this case for men) indicates that a group doesn’t need it. Does that also work for the Jews in the 3rd Reich?
Really. All of it? I must say I resent how you belittle women as helpless powerless victims. It’s perpetuating, not fighting the myth that women are less capable. You’re doing the exact opposite of empowering women.
@ Ally S
How exactly is it not a fallacy?
@ auggziliary
No I was responding to you. Here is what you wrote:
to which I responded
Look at this thread starting with the question I asked and the responses between you and me:
Sure that original question was directed at whoever made the claim that I should study the comments before commenting myself. But since you responded directly, I direct it at you: Why should I read/respond to 700 comments before commenting on the blog post?
Where? What exactly did you say?
Blackmail for example. Did that really never occurr to you as a possibility?
So it’s just a hypothetical scenario that doesn’t apply in reality. Ok.
I didn’t. I said one person was using it as a buzzword.
No. Claudiah didn’t mention any conclusions. What would they be?
I read all the comments that were directed at me. If you forget what you wrote then don’t blame me if you get confused.
@ Argenti
Ok, so I ask you: Do you believe male politicians, because they’re male, are unwilling or unable to represent women as well as female politicians? Yes or no?
Nec-, nec-, necro a thread
Frothing on the tubes,
Angrily, angrily, angrily, angrily
Yelling on manboobz
Given that you keep avoiding the points I’ve already made, I really don’t feel like explaining again.
And now zie’s Godwinning. And apparently women control men through blackmail.
This one isn’t worth the effort (in my opinion), but you guys have fun with the chew toy if you want!
And it’s terrible bad form and rude to come in arguing without reading the previous to check to see if your argument hasn’t been already thoroughly refuted.
I want to get four regulars together to sing this as a round.
The KKK is so marginalized (and rightfully so) that they do need at least a more powerful lobby in order to become influential, non-marginalized, etc. The difference here is that women deserve to be empowered and not marginalized, whereas a group that wants to perpetuate oppression, the KKK, deserves nothing but marginalization.
Your analogy about the 3rd Reich (not another Godwin V_V) is also wrong. The Jews obviously needed a lobby for their interests in order to fight off anti-Semitic oppression. It would have helped immensely. They just weren’t able to due to being especially disempowered. The situation of the Jews in WWII is not like that of women throughout history because women have never been on the verge of facing genocide.
The comparisons you’re making are extremely inappropriate as well. How about you argue without your awful appropriation of anti-black oppression, anti-Semitic oppression, etc.?
serrana’s right about Karin’s pic. I did a reverse image search and that pic has appeared on a zillion hairstyle blogs.
Karin, I’m curious what your justification for using someone else’s pic is.
So please do tell us, Karin Sarr, how feminists are like both the KKK and the Nazis? because that is certainly what you are implying here
And while your at it, why don’t you actually provide evidence that men, as a group, are oppressed and don’t hold power? And exactly what rights men lack? And provide actual evidence that women have all the power?
You know, other than, wives can make their husbands vote the way they want.
Other than suggest, to wield actual power, women must resort to blackmail:
Seriously?
Given the less-than-fully-developed nature of the FB page Karin links to, I would guess it’s an account zie has created just to be able to make comments anonymously on websites.
I did love the blackmail line. Made me chortle.
Well, response is not generally needed but reading the comments may help prevent you from looking like a complete jackass.
Well, not you specifically, you’ve found many ways to look like a jackass, but, in general, a person might want to gauge the tone of a room before spouting off bullshit.
I’ve been a daily Internet user for ~17 years now, and it has pretty much always been standard “nettiquette” to read at least SOME of the previous conversation before jumping in and saying something that may have already been said (and argued over, and refuted). This is because on the Internet, as in real life, it is rude to barge into a conversation without knowing what’s going on, and it makes you look like an idiot.
Karin’s an idiot. Too busy not reading the comments in zir rush to show zir ass.