The top post on the Men’s Rights subreddit at the moment, with more than 300 600 700 net upvotes, is a link to this screenshot, posted as an example of radical feminism gone wild:
Naturally, the assembled Men’s Rights Redditors are outraged yet quiety affirmed in their beliefs by the quote. OuiCrudites responds with a slogan:
OsirisFox does a callback to that screenshotted lady we talked about the other day:
And DavidByron demonstrates a severe disconnection from reality:
There’s just one little problem with that rad-fem screenshot they’re all reacting to: it’s, uh, pretty freaking obviously not a quote from a real feminist. Not only is it ridiculously over-the-top — there’s no feminist alive who thinks women shouldn’t be responsible for any of their decisions — but there’s also that “supposed” in the final sentence, which makes it clear this isn’t a comment from a deluded feminist but a sarcastic comment from someone who is not exactly a fan of feminism.
The person who posted the screenshot to the Men’s Rights subreddit did not, alas, post a link to the source of the screenshot. But, making use of a little-known internet technology known as “Google,” I was able to trace it to its source: the comment section on Gawker. Specifically, right here.
Unlike the last screenshot from Gawker media that caused the Men’s Rights subreddit such embarrassment, this screenshot wasn’t doctored. But the screenshotter did leave out a bit of context: that is, if you look at GardeniaBlossom’s comment history, it’s clear that this pretty flower is no radical feminist.
Most of Gardenia’s comments are attacks on fat acceptance; there’s a snarky one insulting prostitutes and a followup suggesting that women dating PUAs shouldn’t be shocked when PUAs sexually harass them; and one, in the comments section to an article about feminism, setting forth the basic MRA talking points about circumcision and female genital mutilation. (You can find more analysis of Gardenia in the AgainstMensRights subreddit; there are also a few — a distinct minority — in the Men’s Rights discussion who suspect a troll.)
I’m guessing Gardinia is, at the very least, a Redditor, if not an active poster to the Men’s Rights subreddit.
MRAs love to claim that I take quotes “out of context,” but I quote liberally, and when I quote and/or post screenshots, I provide links to the quotes in their original contexts — as I have done here. I don’t generally quote comments by obvious trolls, or quotes that have been heavily criticized by others on the sites I find them on.
When I take comments from sites like Reddit or The Spearhead where readers can up- and downvote comments, I tend to quote comments that have received a substantial number of upvotes. When I quote outliers or unpopular comments, I mention this in my posts.
The Men’s Rights subreddit, by contrast, is happy to upvote completely unsourced screenshots without even doing the thirty seconds of Googling it would take to figure out where they come from in the first place. But that sort of makes sense. Given that Men’s Rights Redditors spend so much of their time fighting imaginary straw feminists — and that the entire Men’s Rights movement is in fact built upon fighting straw feminists — why does it matter if the screenshots of evil feminist quotes they like to circle-jerk over are real or forged, or, in this case, actually from a feminist at all?
Fighting imaginary enemies, all in a day’s work for the Men’s Rights Warriors of Reddit Dot Com.
EDIT: I reworked the paragraph starting “There’s just one little problem” to be a bit more blunt.
EDITED TO ADD: Some of the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit has discovered this post of mine. The regulars have recognized their folly, and have begun some serious soul-searching about their willingness to believe the literally unbelievable about feminists without even doing the most basic factchecking first.
Nah, just kidding, they still think the screenshot is real — though the subreddit’s mods (apparently having a teensy bit more sense than the subreddit regulars themselves) have finally labelled the screenshot a “fake.” Which isn’t exactly true. It wasn’t fake; it was simply some fairly obvious sarcasm that the regulars in the Men’s Rights were too obtuse to notice. Did none of them even read the comment all the way through to the end?
Also, turns out the TumblrInAction subreddit also had a giant circle-jerk over the screenshot as well, which garnered nearly 700 upvotes and more than 200 mostly outraged and not-in-the-slightest skeptical comments; they also discovered this post of mine and are also continuing to insist that the screenshot was a real feminist probably, honest.
That character looks pretty cyberpunk to me. And honestly, in my book there is no such thing as “too 80s.” =P
I wonder why Iove the 80s so much even though I was born in the 90s… o_o
@ katz – Pierre would be hawt in that outfit.
I’m making broccoli fritters tonight
Katz, the whole ripped pants thing is very 80’s, so if you’re avoiding the 80’s, you might want to eliminate the rips. I like the ski boots, though. It looks cool, but I’m no judge of fashion. I kind of bypassed the whole punk thing by being (a) poor, (b) completely lacking in fashion sense, and (c) spending as much of my formative years as possible with my nose in a book.
Sorry, Kitteh, I live here. I think you need a plane.
I’d certainly avoid any cruise ships. They don’t seem to be doing to well lately.
Pierre in a tank top!
::swoons::
ellex – for some reason I was thinking you live in Sydney or thereabouts!
Damn gummint, not getting that Pacific Continental Train Tunnel built … *grumbles*
I dunno, that flower looks distressed or confused to me. And it has cute little buckteeth!
Kitteh, I’d love to visit Sydney, but no – I’m born and bred in the ‘burgh. Where we do NOT have things like Orb Weaver spiders.
Although this is cicada year. I’m not looking forward to that.
ellex24 — gods to I miss Pittsburgh. Seven years there wasn’t nearly enough.
Anyways!
Cyberpunk character looks a bit…modern cyberpunk? Idk, Steampunk is all gears and Victorian, but I’ve encountered a similar but…techno? Variation. Maybe not the ripped pants, need more…I need an image, so one sec…purple gloves work though, and the boots.
Need more “hair” like this — https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbvDsok0dETuWQaP8ONQQB4j1qONwKcXNhUpvTnnKZqQH2fSJ6
Oh and that was a google search for cyberpunk, so apparently it’s back (Victorian all the way for me for course ^.^)
Another vote here for Smitten Kitchen…her recipes have always worked well for me, and the results are utterly delicious (especially her Jacked Up Banana Bread – made with bourbon).
ellex, come further south and visit Melbourne! We have creepy crawlies but at least we don’t have the Sydney funnel-web spider.
… I think.
I have all my cakes with Bourbon.
😉
Argenti – despite the continuing crappy air quality, which all blows in from other states anyways, it’s still my favorite place to live. It certainly has more trees than any other city I’ve been to.
But it’s the car chases I like best, I think.
Off-topic, I’m sure: I also enjoyed (not) the comment in Gardenia’s history about trans* identities. It never fails to piss me off, ever since I first saw the awful South Park episode about it, when people talk about trans* identity as a “where do we draw the line?” thing. Because why draw a line? Why police other people’s lives that way? Aside from hypotheticals about the horrors of “men” in women’s bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t really happen, what is the actual need? Because it’s too confusing to have more than two genders? “My brain hurts” seems like a shitty reason for enforcing the gender binary.
As for people being “trans” in their ethnicity or body size (which was brought up in the comment)…since ethnicity is way different than gender, that would be appropriation, which actually WOULD be harmful in a way that being transgendered is not. As for being “trans-overweight”…people choose to try to alter their body sizes all the time. As long as they understand the health risks involved (especially where weight loss is concerned), it really shouldn’t be an issue, but again, how the fuck is body size equivalent to gender?
But of course the underlying theme here is a commenter who feels entitled to a say in how other people live (unfortunately very common).
(This turned into sort of a rant. Sorry about that.)
I swear some of these clowns make the Gumbies look smart.
/Python
MKlein, you’d like my workplace. We have two single-occupant bathrooms. Each one has a sink and a toilet. The “fancy” bathroom also has some decorative crap and a vanity (cupboard and drawers under the sink). The other bathroom is very plain and handicapped accessible.
When visitors come in to our office, they ask which bathroom they should use. The answer, invariably, is “whichever one you like/whichever one is not currently in use”. We don’t designate a “men’s” or “women’s” bathroom, because there’s no need, and we don’t care.
If one of the guys leaves the seat up, nobody cares. If the women leave the seat down, nobody cares. One of my coworkers is gay, and I haven’t exactly kept it secret that I’m bisexual. I occasionally have to remind my co-workers to kindly clean up after themselves, but other than that – NOBODY CARES.
ellex24 — that was like seeing pictures of a home you doubt you’ll ever return to. Gorgeous and heart breaking all at once. Watch the sun rise over downtown for me? 31st st bridge out of Millvale has a great view.
MKlein — can you link to that? I’m curious.
Just to note that SmittenKitchen and Smitten Kitten are two entirely different things, especially as regards the eating bit…
I’ve un-torn the pants. Not sure it helps.
Katz – un-ripped pants are definitely better. But if punk is what you were aiming at, it now needs something…I don’t know what. Something colorful. Big earrings, maybe.
I feel a bit presumptuous suggesting changes to David about his own blog, but… is there any chance that you’d consider removing the scare quotes from the words fat acceptance? I am sure this was not your intention, but the quotation marks read a bit as if you are questioning or making fun of the concept itself. And fat acceptance is a real thing that many of us consider a legitimate concept and a good cause.
Unless you did intend it that way, in which case I’ll just quietly have to agree to disagree.
Ellex24; a hairband or something, maybe?
They look like they could use some kinda head accessory, if not clothing or jewelry than maybe some kinda techy thing like Google-glass-equivilants.
@katz
Perhaps a bigger and far less practical looking gun as well.
MissNormaDesmond is in that comment thread explaining to people how the Andrea Dworkin quote is usually misrepresented. I always like what she has to say over there (I’m a Gawker junkie).
Isn’t that basically how the weight loss industry works now? I constantly see advertising about and references to “the thin person inside you” and “the real you [who is thin, of course].” Seems like it gets a lot of cultural support. /sarcasm
I agree with your comment. “Trans-ethnic” people usually aren’t suffering from actual dysmorphia. What they’re doing is fetishizing and appropriating another race and culture, which as you said does cause real harm. Especially because it’s pretty much always (at least in my experience) a white person who claims to really be part of a marginalized group. I’ve never seen, say, a Native American who claims to really be white (not in the “trans-ethnic” sense anyway; obviously internalized racism happens and can cause some weird reactions, like the surprising number of neo-Nazis with Jewish heritage that exist). It’s really not the same as transgender/non-binary people at all, especially considering that the latter exist across cultures and racial groups.