It’s a challenge for every serious writer of fiction: how to write convincing characters of the opposite sex.* Some writers can pull it off, some — even eminent ones — can’t. James Joyce is still getting props for the way he got into Molly Bloom’s dirty, dirty mind; Tom Wolfe was nearly laughed out of the sorority by some critics when he wrote a book from the point of view of a college student named Charlotte Simmons. (And it’s not just men who get accused of not being able to think outside their own gender: an essay in Salon not long ago suggested that Girls creator Lena Dunham “can’t write men.”)
We can add one more name to the long list of male authors who can’t write women: The fellow who calls himself fish_finger on Reddit.
The other day, Mr. Finger posted what he claimed was a true story about some women at his workplace who had been passing around a list of their male colleagues, rated “hot or not” on the customary 1-10 scale, and covered with crude sexual comments about them. The comments about the hottest guys, he wrote,
incited rape and were seriously disturbing. One female forwarded it onto HR and the rest of the department, but no action has been taken. HR have said it was just a joke and should be forgotten.
So far, it sounds unlikely, but it’s at least within the realm of the possible, allowing for a bit of the typical Men’s Rights exaggeration.
The trouble came when someone asked Mr. Finger what the comments were like, and he replied with this:
Yeah, I think it’s pretty safe to say that no woman in the history of the universe has ever uttered, or set down on paper, either the first or third comment in that list. I’m pretty sure women don’t sneak around in the alleys behind the houses of handsome dudes with turkey basters in hand, rifling through the trash in hopes of finding discarded condoms with still-viable sperm swimming around inside of them.
These aren’t comments from actual women. These are Men’s Rights myths come to life.
Naturally, the folks in r/againstmensrights are having a field day with this one. And while most of those in r/mensrights are taking Mr. Fingers completely seriously — his post got nearly 700 upvotes, and the most heavily upvoted responses to these allegedly real comments urge him to take the company to court — there are even some there who can see it’s a fake.
Still, Mr. Finger doesn’t seem like a typical troll. His account is four months old, and he seems to spend most of his time on Reddit talking with utmost sincerity about pet rats.
But he has posted previous comments in r/mensrights about his workplace that have the same air of unreality about them. In one, he claimed to have gotten in trouble “for not being courteous to a females colleagues request that only females sit next to her and men must not be within 10m [of] her desk.”
He got 86 upvotes for that one. How many offices are big enough to make this even possible?
As best as I can figure it, Mr. Finger is both a sincere rat lover and a sincere Men’s Rightser; it’s just that he apparently thinks the best way to advance Men’s Rights is to tell tall tales about men being oppressed.
That, in itself, is not all that surprising; the Men’s Rights movement is built on imaginary oppression.
But what is a little more surprising is how willing other MRAs are to accept the completely unbelievable comments he claims are from the women in his office as real. Are they really that out of tune with how women actually think?
Do they have so little empathy and understanding that they actually think the women sitting next to them at work not only look at men as little more than walking repositories of genetic material — but that they would rather steal their sperm from the garbage than have sex with them? That they think these women think of sex in terms of “engulfing” men’s penises?
Apparently for a lot of Men’s Rightsers the answer is yes.
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*Gender is obviously more complicated than the traditional gender binary; I am talking here mostly about cis men and women trying to write from the point of view of cis women and men on the opposite side of the binary.
All pets are expensive if they happen to fall ill… Just came back from the vets with my Italian greyhound who’s got an ear infection. He had to be put under narcosis and have his ears thoroughly cleaned, plus they’ve taken samples to see what kind of bacteria he has before giving him antibiotics. 4600 SKr in total, although his health insurance covered some of it, so I ended up paying 2300 SKr. *sigh*
The individual vet treatments are cheap in comparison to dogs or cats. But rats age fast and now that three out of five are rat grannies I have an appointment with the vet approximately once a month. We’ve had among other things two tumor explantations in the last few months, a wound and a pulmonary infection. and i can’t just let them suffer.
a good cage is pricey, but it’s money you only have to pay once and worth it, both in space for the rats snd cleaning comfort for the owner.
Good Food is another issue, but eh… apparently I have the biggest sloths in germany. It can’t be normal how much mine eat each day.
we are about to move onto a boat and I am seriously considering shipping my cat across the Atlantic to come live with us. Total cost of pet passport, etc + air fare + a locator tag for when she arrives? Approaching £1500/$2300.
It is incredibly difficult to picture spending this much money on a small domestic cat, and it seems selfish and incredibly ridiculous. I am incredibly privileged that our friends and family gave us the money as a wedding gift, so that I can even consider the cost. BUT THERE IS A HOLE IN MY HEART WHERE MY CAT NEEDS TO GO AND I AM NOT SORRY.
tl;dr I don’t think there is actually an adequate defense against spending ALL YOUR MONEY on your pets when they need it – even if they don’t seem like particularly valuable pets to others. I don’t think it’s something we need to feel guilty about, either. Although I do appreciate that I am lucky to be able to care for my cat financially, if I have the money to do so, there is no question that I will do so.
My cats and dog were like family members to me. I would have done everything for them. I miss them so much…
Now I’ve decided that I won’t be having any more pets because it is too hard for me when they die. I don’t know if this makes sense but it feels like I’ve lost a part of myself.
I’m sorry, I know I’m a bit dramatic.
@opium4themasses:
D:
Actually yes. “America’s Funniest
groin injuriesHome Videos” and “Jackass” come to mind.My stupid fish’s stupid filter broke yesterday. I can barely afford to eat right now but I was late for work buying/installing a new one, bought with the last of my money for the week. Stupid fish. But how can I just let him die? He’s so cute with his widdle betta face! Also he’s alive and I agreed to be responsible for him when I bought him. So it sucks I’m broke(r) now but I don’t really consider it much of a choice.
I read the “hope he put hot sauce in” as being something the fictional woman supposedly wrote, but “she” meant it in a wink-wink nudge-nudge sort of way. Like there’s an implied “for his own good, although it would ruin my plans.” Do you know what I mean?
It’s hilarious that these guys believe sperm is scarce and valuable, like a rare earth mineral or helium. Let’s say there is a cis woman who wants to get pregnant. Then she could visit a fertility doctor and they would hook her up with donor sperm and do an intrauterine insemination for $200 to $500. Or she could just ask around to some cis men and find someone who would be willing to impregnate her. The idea of her digging through garbage to find sperm is absurd.
titianblue:
Nah, she was just forwarding it to her fellow feminists in HR (naturally, HR, which actually investigates claims of sexism, MUST be full of feminists, amirite?) so they could share the LULZ.
Also, I’ve been privvy to sexualized conversations about men, by women. Yes, they can get raunchy, and even rape-y (as Dvar noted, of course, there’s far less of a threat-factor involved there, so it wasn’t anywhere near as offensive/troubling as similar comments by guys would be). But not once did they ever involve words like “engulf”. IIRC, “ride” was the verb of choice, and yeah, procreation was the last thing on their minds.
A friend of my sister’s have begun entertaining “a trip to Denmark” (=euphemism for being impregnated by donor sperm; in Sweden it’s not legal to impregnate single women, but in Denmark it is), since she’s single, past thirty and wants a baby. I should tell her that she could save a lot of money by digging through dumpsters for used condoms instead…
Okay, this is a bit off topic on this thread, but do you guys remember that MRA who claimed that hot Asian girls are the least discriminated against in society? This Swedish artist, who would probably count as “hot” as well as Asian according to most people’s standards, have made an art project where various actors read up messages she’s found on an internet dating site from guys specifically looking for Asian girls whom she got in touch with
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO113DfIRWY
The creepiness factor varies about, but check out, for instance, the guy around nine minutes in the first video… Certainly hot Asian chicks are incredibly privileged!
(Although most “incels” would probably think so even after watching these videos, since people want to have sex with her… and apparently that’s all that counts…)
Also this tumblr, where the creepiness really flourishes: http://creepywhiteguys.tumblr.com/
Oh, MRAs.
Women do not have sexual fantasies about bearing children. If you ever hear a woman say something like “I’d like to have his children”, we are not literally talking about how sexy it would be to have babies. We’re talking about actually having sex with that person, a lot, and forever. We’d like having sex with that guy so much we’d even consider having babies with him.
Not that going through the trash for his used condoms gives us the ‘gina tingles.
Did it ever even occur to you that the proper response to ignorance is education, not insults? In the first paragraph you clearly identify this as a real and consistent HUMAN problem that both men and women face. You then dedicate the rest of the post to insulting and disparaging men.
Why can’t there be both?
Seriously though, why is it our problem to educate all the time? Why is it that we can’t take a brief break from having to educate everyone all the time? Have you any idea how exhausting it is to constantly have to educate ignorant people about the same damn thing over and over again? Why isn’t it appropriate for people who are ignorant, once they have been notified they are ignorant and/or awful for them to seek out information and educate themselves. The onus is not on us to educate, it’s on others to educate themselves. This information isn’t hard to find, cursory google searches will answer most of the questions.
Molly Moon — next time you need fish stuff and it isn’t an emergency, let me know, I have LOTS of old equipment. I save everything when I upgrade, so I have, for example, a 55g hang in back filter than should work fine (idk if I still have the bio wheels though). I’d be happy to free up some space and help out a fishie!
Yes, GNL, that’s why this blog is called “The blog of tips about writing other genders convincingly.”
RE: genderneutrallanguage
genderneutrallanguage | July 2, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Did it ever even occur to you that the proper response to ignorance is education, not insults?
This is a mockery site, not an education site.
You then dedicate the rest of the post to insulting and disparaging men.
THIS IS A MOCKERY SITE, NOT AN EDUCATION SITE.
@Argenti
That’s much appreciated and I’ll keep it in mind! Although I think the 55g filter would be a little overkill for my little 10g tank 😉
Also I’m not positive that the correct response to someone obviously lying in order to make women look horrible is to explain to him how to do so more convincingly.
Plus, David doesn’t mock men as a group, he specifically mocks MRA:s stupid enough to believe women steal condoms out of trash cans to impregnate themselves with. Comparing that kind of idiocy to authors who simply have trouble writing another gender was a so-called JOKE.
Just repeating this:
I’m not here to educate misogynistic MRAs/PUAs. etc; I’m here to warn other people about them, and have a few laughs at their expense because they are terrible and deserve to be laughed at. The people I write about here are not decent confused people. They are assholes and liars and haters.
Also, what Dvärghundspossen said.
So… having pet rats, is that alpha or not?
GNL:
Do you know where the fuck you are?
Besides, I’m not sure all the education in the world could help you at this point.