So yesterday I had a strange conversation, of sorts, with blabby FeMRA videoblogger Karen Straughan, aka GirlWritesWhat, via private message on Reddit.
Given that, in the recent WoolyBumblebee controversy, she put herself in the position of defending Men Going Their Own Way against WBB’s mostly accurate attacks on them, I found myself wondering what she might think of my post yesterday on the MGTOWers who felt it was appropriate to let a four-year-old-girl drown because she might grow up to be the next Betty Friedan or even the next — gasp! — Amanda Marcotte.
I was especially interested in what she might have to say about MGTOW elder Zed, the friend and mentor of her A Voice for Men boss, Paul Elam; in the MGTOWforums discussion, you may recall, he was firmly in the “don’t rescue little girls” camp.
So I asked her about that, and asked why she was defending MGTOWers when so many of them don’t even think women should be part of the Men’s Rights movement at all.
Here’s some of what she wrote back:
You seem to be deliberately trying to evoke an outrage in me. First, Zed, “Paul E’s mentor and idol” would not save a child he doesn’t know. Then “MGTOWers…don’t actually think women should be part of the MR movement…”
Do you think I should be expected to die to save a boy I don’t know? Speaking as someone who almost died once to save my son and my nephew, why should I be expected to potentially leave my children orphans to save someone else’s kid? And the truth is, I wouldn’t be expected to do that. In reality, no one would have blamed me if I had chosen not to nearly drown to save my own kid and my sister’s kid. I like your quote mine: Men shouldn’t rescue 4 year old girls… Not what it actually is: Men shouldn’t sacrifice their lives or health to save 4 year old girls they don’t know or have reason to care about…
It’s an interesting way she’s chosen to, well, reframe the issue. Zed didn’t say he was only talking about situations where the rescuers life would be at risk. He said, simply and categorically:
When a female is in trouble, if I don’t know her, I don’t see her.
After demanding that I denounce a random radical feminist who said something terrible, she moved on to my second question, though not without accusing me of “needling” her by pointing out that MGTOWers hate women. Or, as she prefers to look at it, they don’t “trust” women.
Do I have to list every single psychological lever you’ve attempted to apply in this message? Do you really think I’m going to react like a typical woman? “OMG, those MGTOWs don’t trust women!!! And that means they don’t trust me! I am a herd animal! I am incapable of ignoring naysayers! I can’t stand the fact that perhaps somewhere, someone doesn’t appreciate me!!! How dare they express themselves if it will hurt a woman’s feelings???????”
Woah, there. I think that might have been a bit more revealing than you intended it to be.
So your definition of “typical woman” is “herd animal?” I’ll take “internalized misogyny” for $1000, Alex.
Instead of me asking, “Why would I need anyone’s permission to make videos and assist a movement I believe in? Why would I take it as a personal failing that a man would not risk his life to save my child when I would not potentially orphan my kids to save the kids of some random person? Why would David Futrelle think my outrage over what a handful of MGTOW say about women in the movement should outweigh my own principles?”
Uh, you don’t need anyone’s permission to make your videos. Jewish people don’t need anyone’s permission to start making videos glorifying Adolph Hitler. Black people don’t need anyone’s permission to make videos on behalf of the Klan.
The question is why do you want to? Not just: why are you willing to make videos on behalf of a Men’s Rights movement driven by misogyny. But why are you willing to defend and make excuses for MGTOWers who not only hate women in general but hate you personally?
Why are you willing to lie — apparently even to yourself — and pretend that they don’t really hate women — that, really, it’s just that they don’t “trust” women because some awful woman has hurt them, or because some mean feminist said something insulting about their favorite video game, or whatever the excuse is.
And if you have any doubt that most MGTOWers really and truly hate women — hate hate HATE them — I invite you to read through the archives here. I suggest you start with MGTOWer extraordinaire Christopher in Oregon, and then move on to the posts dealing with MGTOWers in general.
And if you doubt that MGTOWers hate you, you personally, just go down to MGTOWforums, the biggest MGTOW hangout around, and take a look at the threads devoted to AVFM. A lot of the guys there hate AVFM with a passion — and they hate it largely because Paul give a platform to you and other women.
For someone so obsessed with me, you sure don’t know a lot about me.
Huh, wouldn’t that sort of suggest that maybe I’m not actually that obsessed with you?
From what I do know about Straughan (not much) this seems to be a standard ploy she pulls whenever someone calls her on her shit — to try to throw them off-balance and put them on the defensive by declaring them “stalkers” or “obsessed,” as she did with spermjack_attack, a Redditor who’s done some amazing takedowns of GWW posts and videos in recent days, like this one.
I responded by pointing out that
I often write about MRAs. You’re a prominent MRA, so sometimes I write about you. I should probably write more, given that you’re kind of a big fish in your tiny pond, but your videos are so fucking tedious and slow I can’t bear to watch them.
Which is true. That’s why, despite all the attention she gets from her MRA fanboys, I’ve written only three posts about her — compared with seven about the comparatively less important but much more entertaining Christopher in Oregon, mentioned above. Well, this will make it four posts about her.
Anyway, I also called her out on her evasive answer about Zed, so she tried again, this time with a new evasion:
Zed said categorically, “When a female is in trouble, if I don’t know her, I don’t see her.” Let’s parse that. He would not intervene. Why should he be expected to? Do you have any idea how small the burden is on women to intervene? If a woman were being assaulted and a female witness didn’t intervene, would this be shameful? How about if a man were being assaulted?
That’s an odd way of “parsing” it, since in context it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t just talking about adult women being assaulted. He was specifically talking about little girls. The whole point of his argument, which he repeated several times, was that he didn’t want to help little girls because, as he put it, they might “grow … up to be another Amanda Marcunt, or Jessica Valenti, or Betty Friedan.”
Karen, you can pretend he was talking only about adult women, but he wasn’t.
You can pretend that MGTOWers don’t hate women, but they do.
You can pretend whatever you want about the movement you’ve attached yourself to, but guess what — everyone outside of that movement can see it for what it is.
Most of the rest of her comment was devoted to trying to prove how “obsessed” I am with her.
If you are curious about me and why I might involve myself in a movement you believe hates women, you might concede I’d be curious about you and why you involve yourself in a movement that I believe hates men (or masculinity, take your pick). And yet how many times have I initiated contact with you? How often do I devote entire blog posts or videos to you?
Perhaps I’m measuring you by my own yardstick. Because as curious as I am as to why you would ally yourself with a movement whose foundational ideology is hostile to men (no matter how mainstream or seemingly benign), as much as I might lie awake wondering what motivates you, I am simply not obsessed enough by the question to PM you and ask. Or to read your blog (even when you’re talking about me). Or to devote entire blog posts to you.
If I messaged you over anything regarding that, I would consider myself obsessed with the psychological dysfunction represented by you. So you messaging me indicates (to me) a level of obsession on par with that. If you are the type of person to initiate private contact with people you consider opponents on a regular basis, then I’ve misjudged you.
Yes, I confess, sometimes I ask questions of my ideological opponents, publicly or privately, in hopes of getting an interesting response. I certainly got some revealing answers, and even more revealing non-answers, from Straughan.
And it was definitely more interesting than watching one of her videos.
Oh, and for some reason, before she closed up the debate, she decided she wanted to talk about Mary Daly, of all people, whom she seems to think has never been criticized by any feminists ever except for one by the name of, uh … Dr. Mindbeam? No, that’s really what she thinks. Apparently, in GirlWritesWhat-land, it was one big feminist love-fest for Mary Daly up until Dr. Mindbeam came along in 2011 and wrote a blog post.
Mary Daly’s body was long cold before some random internet feminist named Dr Mindbeam finally excommunicated her on “no seriously, what about teh menz?” I haven’t seen any feminists who write under their real names do so.
Maybe you could educate me.
I mentioned Audre Lorde’s open letter to Daly calling her out for racism back in 1979. I suggested she Google “Mary Daly” and “transphobe” and read through some of the results. Might take a while, as there are 5000 of them.
But I’m not sure how one can “educate” someone like her, someone who has declared herself a “gender theorist” and who makes endless half-hour or even hour-long videos on feminism, without bothering to learn even the rudiments of feminist history first. (Lesson One: Feminists often disagree with each other.)
It would be like someone declaring themselves an astrophysics theorist, then declaring “the moon is a potato! I’ve seen no evidence indicating otherwise. If you think you know better, educate me!”
Her understanding of feminism seems stuck at the “moon is a potato” level, and I just don’t think there’s anything any of us can do about it.
@Insidious_Sid
Wrong. Women who wear makeup and focus on fashion have many reasons for doing so – sex appeal to hetero men isn’t the only possible goal. I personally wear makeup from time to time to soothe gender dysphoria – and in case you want to jump in and say that I’m subconsciously doing it for the proverbial rich man, note that I’m a lesbian.
What women decide to do with their facial appearance is none of your business. Quite a few women probably don’t give a shit about whether you think covering up freckles is a “sin”. This is an example of male entitlement on your part.
Of course I can handle it – that’s because I know it’s bullshit originating from discourses that justify the oppression of women in the first place. There is no reason to speak of a mythical “sexual market”. Markets aren’t immutable constructs rooted in social structures built on biologically hardwired group behavior.
Good for you. I just wished you applied that standard of objectivity to yourself as well.
And another man here to tell us what we should or shouldn’t put on our faces. Because literally everything revolves around what is most pleasing to his boner.
Sid, you’re a misogynist because you think women are terrible. You’re not, however, a MGHOW because you’ve forgotten to GO AWAY and that’s kind of the most important part.
I have serious plenty of fish game.
We are totes convinced of your truthiness.
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1027/330/original.jpg
See? More word twisating. Wear ten coats of makeup if you want. Wear none. It’s your face. I have a right, as a human being, to have preferences. I can PREFER what kinds of makep ON A WOMAN that I like or dislike. Just like a woman has preferences for “her man” (common vernacular, not mine) about how he *should* keep his hair, or what kind of jeans “she likes his butt in”. I prefer when a woman has natural beauty that she does not cover it up, and for whatever reason I like women with freckles. And scratchy voice. Scratchy voice is hot. My ex-wife even likes girls with scratchy voice.
People (of any gender) who are obsessed with their appearance and spend all their time and money on maintaining an appearance that adheres to our cultural standards of beauty tend to be materialistic. What a fucking shock.
Not all women are appearance obsessed. If you dated a woman who was more into books or art or astronomy than her appearance maybe you would realize that. If you only value women for their looks, you will only meet materialistic women.
I dislike materialistic people. Maybe that’s why none of the women I am friends with have a “name brand bling” obsession. I’ve had many female acquaintances and friends over the years. Not a single one was obsessed with money and name brand clothing. Many of them are even physically attractive, just not in a Paris Hilton/Kim Kardashian way. You only have yourself to blame if that’s the type of woman you’ve sought out. You are just as shallow as the women you condemn.
(Awaits the straight boy “lesbian” porn that seems to be about to happen next.)
POE. Are you even trying?
I feel like the attempted panda-napping I just linked to kind of sums up this whole conversation, really.
@insidious sid
so…. don’t enter a relationship like that? is this rocket science?
gotta love your classy comparing child support to rape tho. Not.
you know, ffs NO!
lots of times the dude* is abusive and his SO wants to get away from him and take the kids with them becuase he’s abusive. So no. FFS. taking kids away from abuse or even just GETTING CUSTODY OF KIDS and noncustodial parent can still see them, is not abuse. it is not something done by horrible wicked people. stop. there is no matriarchal evil oppression of fathers. get. over. it.
*the divorced parents with no custody over children aren’t always dudes, but in MRAland they are so….
you don’t really know how people use that word, do you? If a guy is making me uncomfortable and crossing boundaries i’m gonna call him creepy. even if he asks me out for coffee and is not in my league** he can still do creepy things.
**tho according to MRAs i’m like, in nobodies league because im a fat cripple. XD
but he’s totes not a misogynist you guys!
re: income.
maybe if every male you know makes more than the woman he’s partnered with… it might have to do with… the wage gap?
*faints*
I mean what this proves is that women are evil hypergamists.
@weirdwoodtreehugger
yup. but douchey guys are just like “we’re being harmed by paying for dates or expecting to be breadwinners” or w/e. they don’t care to analyze *why* men are expected to be breadwinners. analyzing things is misandry.
@insidious sid
“mom, today i threw up four times”
“jackson, give us a warning! This is dinnertime!”
“THOUGHT POLICE!!!!!!!!”
i’m not caught up yet but i’m gonna post cuz this is already long
The pay for feminist blogging is pretty shitty, so it’s a good thing I’m just commenting, not blogging.
Sid, you keep using words like “ad hominem” and “disingenuous” incorrectly. I expect such a “class” specimen as yourself to do better.
it’s just so cute when straight dudes think that this matters ^_^
@fade
Does that mean you’re so undesirable that nobody wants you, or that you’re above everybody else’s league. Cuz I’m going to go with the second one 😀
No one curr about what makes Sid’s boner happy.
I said I wasn’t going to go in this necro thread but I blame fade even tho I chose to come here myself, so lets all blame fade.
Oh, Ally S, you’re so intellectually attractive. You say such provocative things, but I digress. I take full responsibility for feeling provoked (and intellectually stimulated) and in no way imply that you were attempting to illicit such a response….
“f course I can handle it – that’s because I know it’s bullshit originating from discourses that justify the oppression of women in the first place. There is no reason to speak of a mythical “sexual market”. Markets aren’t immutable constructs rooted in social structures built on biologically hardwired group behavior.”
Now that right there is just fascinating stuff.
Sexual market is place is a widely accepted construct, even within soft science, admittedly moreso the psychology side of things and perhaps less so in the humanities area.
Statement (heard on the street, from gaggle of giggling girls) “She can do better…”
SNAP! I hope there were no feminists around…
C’mon. People DO IT. It exists because people give credence to the construct and play within it’s confines and rules. People make it real – and the construct was created from a model of real human behavior. THrow me a bone here.
I don’t chase women that are out of my league. 1) Pissing off women, even when it’s fun, is a bad way to find a girly friend. 2) If I were to charm my way into her life it would be a liability. Here is another crazy thing people say:
“Of course he left her, look at him….”
“Of chourse she left him, look at her…”
People do this stuff. C’mon I didn’t invent misogyny and I didn’t invent the sex market. It exists.
And it works EQUALLY well and EQUALLY sh1tty for both men and women. Just in different ways. C’mon.
Now, you may not LIKE some of the things this construct alludes to, and yes, some of them are downright misogynistic/misandrist, shallow, weak, etc. But people actually think this way. And you can “PC” the h3ll out of it and try and make it go away.
So, is it biology then? Do you buy this “genetic priority” stuff? People trying to get into the pants of the best genes, from a biological imperative perspective?
That right there? FUCKING CREEPY.
Fuck off, Sid.
@sid
Cittaatttiiioooonnn nneeeeddddeeeeddd.
Okay, I believe that you didn’t invent misogyny, and I believe you didn’t make up the sex market, but citation needed on it actually existing.
Man, I should just train my guinea pig to copy paste ‘citation needed’, since that’s all I have to say to you
And Sid is ableist – there’s a shocker!
No, nope, and assumes everyone wants children, which isn’t true.
Damn, those must be some really tiny pants. Sorry but I just don’t think there’s any room for me in there.
Feminists – you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
@titianblue
what did he say that was ableist? he’s really wordy so i think i missed it…
What’s the collective noun for a group of misogynists?
@Fade, in the nidst of his last teal deer: