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.
@LBT
I’m an anarchist myself, and I agree; the lack of intersectionality among so many anarchists is distressing. I’ve seen anarchists shove women’s rights and disability rights to the side so swiftly and unremorsefully. And it’s all because IDENTITY POLITICS ARE AUTHORITARIAN and shit like that.
I…yeah. The anarchists I know and can still deal with have all slowly slid into some sort of collective anarchy that’s kinda socialist. A collective that cares for the members unable to care for themselves (e.g. you help with the food garden if you can, but food is free for all, whether you helped or not) — seems very idealist, but at least has given thought to making people like us not starve.
Complete anarchists strike me as very, uh, enjoy the cholera without water treatment (that one is doable on a small scale, if you use brains) and the lack of roads, and wtf do you do with murderers?
@Ally I had a problem with feminism for awhile because I thought it was too “socialist” almost by definition. I guess because a lot of people who identify as feminists seem (to me) to be on the far left politically. And while I identify with a LOT of the left, I just can’t get behind super far left politics. But then I’m too much of an idealist who just wants to do the right thing and hope others will do the right thing without coercion because that coercion can be a slippery slope IMO. But realistically most people are just out for themselves which really really sucks. I did get over my issue though and identify as feminist. I realized I don’t have to agree with every single feminist to believe women are people. 🙂 (Which, I am a woman.)
@LBT
I completely understand, I’m not against welfare or anything, some people need it and its got nothing to do with laziness or not trying enough. I especially hate how mental disability is looked at as something one can just “get over” too. My point was that those traits are important but its not as simple as libertarians make it out to be, and when people rant about welfare I have to wonder if they even consider the implications…because no welfare or any other social assistance means many homeless and starving people and its disturbing that a lot of people don’t seem to give a shit about that.
RE: Quackers
You summed up my feelings perfectly. Well done.
RE: Ally S
I’ve seen anarchists shove women’s rights and disability rights to the side so swiftly and unremorsefully. And it’s all because IDENTITY POLITICS ARE AUTHORITARIAN and shit like that.
Urgh, yes. I’m lucky, my first run-ins with the local anarchists were the ones running bike workshops and internet cafes and zine libraries They were actually DOING something, and they took not-being-assholes very seriously. (It was the first time anyone had ever asked me whether I’d rather people not use ‘crazy’ in my presence.)
Then I made the mistake of looking at folks on the Internet and I wanted to SCREAM.
RE: Argenti
I was raised on the idea of anarchism being no form of COERCIVE government. And while I believe humanity isn’t there yet, I have hope that one day, people will reach a place where we DON’T need to coerce each other or threaten each other with punishment to maintain things like roads or sanitation and stuff. I can dream!
And regarding murderers, the idea was generally that you can quietly remove them from your community, while not removing their rights to generally walk around. They’re just not allowed to be in your place if they’re going to hurt people. It’s one of those messy gray areas.
“Complete anarchists strike me as very, uh, enjoy the cholera without water treatment (that one is doable on a small scale, if you use brains) and the lack of roads, and wtf do you do with murderers?”
I’m a complete anarchist as well, but while I don’t advocate any form of Marxism, I really think there needs to be some big societal changes before complete anarchy can become even slightly feasible on a large scale. I do think anarchy itself is possible on a large scale, but not with the way things are now.
Unfortunately, quite a few anarchists are like “Hey, let’s ‘build from the ashes’ after dismantling the state AND THEN worry about the billions of people who are suffering from the lack of support they had from the state!” Anarchy, in my view, needs to be built from the bottom up, with the kind of “collective anarchy” you speak of. Only when the state is made unnecessary can anarchy be feasible. (Of course, it’s arguable whether the state can ever be unnecessary – that’s certainly a fair talking point, even though I tend towards anarchism.)
@Ally S
Agreed. There’s a lot of jumping in the parts of the radical left with which I am involved/familiar from the very reasonable “capitalism is pretty fucked up and doing away with it and the government propping it up would end a lot of trouble” to “let’s just focus on eliminating the state and that’ll fix everything” in a way that leads some so-called anarchists to do nothing more revolutionary than eating from bins (which, hey, that’s cool, but it’s not going to change anything) while actually voting for right-wing/liberal parties with the idea that getting rid of the government through democratic means by destroying the welfare state is somehow a good idea because less government automatically = better. I’ve heard the term “vulgar libertarianism” used for this tendency, but don’t know if that’s what the term originally referred to.
I think this is why I am a democratic/bottom up socialist, rather than an anarchist, even though I tend towards anarchism myself. Anyway, I certainly consider most anarchists I know to be allies, even if we have disagreements about the best way to get there.
I can get behind this sort of anarchy “…I have hope that one day, people will reach a place where we DON’T need to coerce each other or threaten each other with punishment to maintain things like roads or sanitation and stuff.” That doesn’t sound all that different from my take on socialism really, in either case, the required collective aspects of society are, well, maintained by the collective. Getting people to agree that safe tap water is good should be a two min “yep, yep, anyone disent? No, ok then, who’s got skills in this regard?”
Speaking of the welfare state, here’s a very wise quote from Noam Chomsky, also an anarchist:
That’s pretty much my view as well.
Also, while this might sound ideologically-charged, anarchism is pretty much just anti-statist socialism. Even the ones who refuse to call themselves socialists still advocate the abolition of property, among other things.
I always wonder whether to label my politics as anarchistic or democratically socialist – dual power and the use of unions and participation in the political process where necessary seem a bit more effective than “showboat a bunch for a media that isn’t keen on our politics at all and will spin it so we look like hooligans”, though I understand that there’s a need for a diversity of tactics and that a lot of that “hooliganism” either makes things safer for fellow activists/radicals/what-have-yous or serves a cathartic purpose.
Rational Selfishness does not mean that a person will kill, ignore and steal.
Bullshit. Galt did just that. He wasn’t given what he thought he deserved so he trashed the rest of the world. That is what makes him heroic in the Randian view.
selfless altruism, which requires the person getting hurt in order to help others.
For values of hurt that defy common sense. If I give someone ten bucks because they are homeless that’s selfless, and altruistic. It doesn’t “hurt” me.
Taxes aren’t even that selfless. I get things for my taxes (which is something vast swathes of Randrians won’t admit).
Ayn Rand’s works will be very useful if society collapses. I (for one) shall be very grateful for so plentiful a supply of material so well suited to the purpose of starting fires.
HR: THAT is why men nowadays are hesitant to help children in danger when those children are not their own.
Bullshit. 1: Men aren’t afraid to help people. 2: I’ll wager that’s not the reason she was hitting him.
And look, a few seconds on Googles shows you are lying.†
“And there’s this man trying to force open the car door, and the kids are locking it. The first thing you think is someone’s trying to get into your car,” Manozzi told WHDH. “I was gonna smack him. I yelled, ‘Get away from my car!’ ” said Manozzi.
So it was before he got them out of the car, and she didn’t know there was a fire yet and there wasn’t any actual physical altercation.
Your entire argument is based on a fabrication.
And don’t you dare tell me that feminists are trying to change this by “fighting the Patriarchy”.
I dare. Feminists are fighting this. Whatcha gonna do about it, call me names? You were likely to do that anyway. You spouting off that someone dare not tell you the truth will not change that truth.
† Yes, I said lying. If it took me all of one search string to find it, you could, before you made so incredible a claim have checked. You couldn’t be arsed, because you needed the story to support your bullshit position.
re “private” conversations. If she didn’t ask to have it not shared, I’ don’t care.
I look at it this way, if it had happened face to face, and he related it, no one cares. Somehow that it’s in print is thought to change it. I’d say it being in a bit of written correspondence makes it more reliable; as there are copies. It’s not his interpretation of the conversation (though he does that in the commentary he makes), it’s the conversation.
Maybe that’s the journalist in me (on the record is the default state of life, if you want to go off the record you say that first), but a conversation on a topic one is making public statements about; about a movement one is a player in, that’s a fair topic for publication.
So
are weam I, of course.re “libertarianism” It’s always been a mushy mish-mash of poltical incoherence in the US. It’s just that, in the late ’70s/early ’80s Society was so much less socially liberal than it was even in the late early ’90s that the strong streak of “absolute propertarianism” which ran through it (seriously, read J Neil Schulman’s The Rainbow Cadenza for a glimpse of how libertarian SF saw things in the middle ’80s. It put me right off the idea).
I knew Sasa Volokh (and Eugene) back then, and it was enough to make you tear your hair out. “Property” was sacred, and laws needed to be overturned/written to make it impossible for things to be “taken”, but rights… those are a sort of social contract, and there is no need to protect them. I recall a painful conversation about letting LGB people serve in the Army (trans wasn’t really on the radar yet): Sasa’s argument was, “the system is working, there is no need to make a law to change it.” This was right after he told me we needed to elimiate the Superfund [for cleaning up toxic waste sites which previous lack of understanding/legislation had allowed to happen; like dry cleaning chemicals which it used to be legal to just dump in the parking lot] because, “The Market” has better ways to clean this sort of thing,” while refusing to admit that, absent a law there wouldn’t be anyone trying to clean it; and a law needs to be funded.
Immaterial, he said. And talking about the harm to others… they could combine to create a market pressure. Doing such a thing in the form of a “market” called “government” was somehow different, and immoral.
As society got more liberal (in terms of sexual mores, acceptance of [some] types of recreational drug use) the, “keep your nose of out, “MY” bedroom, got less obvious, and Randroid (as exemplified by the Rands who presently are active in the US political system) came more to the fore, i.e. the window dressing of “social” libertarianism fell away, leaving the core of, “fiscal” libertarianism; which had always been the driving force.
What sort of complete self-reliance do you mean, Quackers, if you don’t mind me asking? I can’t imagine being completely self-reliant. I’m reliant on public transport: that’s other people. I’m reliant on hospitals and roads and the internet and computer systems and telephones and all sorts of things that are run by other people. I’m reliant on Louis for love; ditto my cats and my friends. I’m reliant on Manboobzers for fun and interesting conversations and giving me an excuse to bum around instead of working. 😉
Disclaimer: I’m not USian and didn’t grow up with the pervasive Rugged Individuality schtick or the notions of self-reliance one would find in the outback here. I’m a townie and a great believer in governments doing stuff FOR people with the taxes they collect. I may not be very sociable but I do strongly believe in society (aka Fuck You, Thatcher).
Wohoo! I’m a special snowflake!
Dvärghundspossen: Me too. I was even a possible outlier, for a while
I didn’t realize Rand’s books had fans. Even as a hardcore objectivist, I still hated her writing style. Her characters are pretty much always the chiseled, skinny, tall, and cold faced dudes. And the girls is always like the same as the dudes but skinnier and have long flowing hair or something. And they’re always like the protagonist’s trophy wife in the end(Rand’s idea of true femininity was submission to a “hero”).
I’m not kidding, even in her plays it was these same damn characters. Like, I cannot think of one story she wrote that didn’t have the same plot and characters. And like I said before, I’ve read a lot of her stuff, practically all of it.
There’s a term called “Mary Sue” that refers to characters like this in fan fiction, encyclopedia dramatica has a page on it, but I’m not going to link it here since… It’s encyclopedia dramatica.
Crap, I put “is” instead of “are” in the 4th sentence.
No no, you are an outlier, just not a troll. Check your damned email for how I did troll detection, or the survey thread, it’s there to.
And those are averages, like most averages, few people fit all of them 🙂
Mary Sues on TVTropes.
I also made a Mary Sue test once.