So the Man Boobz survey results are in, and Argenti Aertheri, who ran the survey, has taken the time and effort to make an impressive set of interactive charts to display the data in all of its gory details. You can find that chart below — thanks again, Argenti! — but I thought I’d highlight a few of the results first.
Let’s start with the white elephant in the room. I know I’ve made some somewhat rude remarks in the past about the high percentage of white people in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Well, it turns out that the Man Boobz readership is even whiter than that. Yep. Using the same somewhat limited set of choices used by the dude who did the Men’s Rights subreddit survey, the MB survey found that the readership of this blog is nearly 92% white, and less than 2% each Asian, Hispanic and Black, with the remainder answering “Other.”
There is also a more complicated breakdown of ethnicities, based on a more nuanced set of questions, that I’m not even going to try to summarize; you can look through the charts yourself.
But, basically, yeah, this blog’s readership, like me, is pretty darn white. I take these results as an indication that I need to do a better job dealing with issues of race and racism. While this blog is primarily about misogyny, there is plenty of racism in the manosphere — from the white-supremacism-lite of Heartiste to the fetishization of Asian women as submissive — and it’s worth pointing this out on a more regular basis, as well as addressing some of the more subtle ways misogyny intersects with other forms of oppression. As well as the ways in which the standard (non) issues of the Men’s Rights movement can actually serve to obscure the very real issues faced by men of color. (See yesterday’s post for a perfect example of that.)
So what are some of the other notable results?
You’re all younger than me. Well, not literally ALL of you. In fact, there are a whole 4% of you older than me.
But the fact is that if you’re reading this, the chances are really, really, really good that you’re in your twenties or early thirties. Still, I feel fairly confident in saying that eventually you will be as old as I am now.
Also, it’s pretty likely that you’re a lady. Most of the readers of the blog — 59% — are cis women, with 30% cis men. The remaining 11 percent are made up of trans* women (2.2%), trans* men (0.9%), intersex (o.2%), “non-binary” (5.2%) and “other” (2.5%).
See the interactive charts below for a much more detailed breakdown of the data on gender and sexuality.
We’re a bunch of pinkos. More Man Boobzers identified themselves with Democratic Socialism than with any other political label. The second and third place winners in this category? “Other US Liberalism” and “Social Democratism.”
The sun never sets on the Man Boobz empire. Predictably, most Man Boobz readers — roughly 58% — live in the United States. And there are lots of Man Boobzers in other English-speaking countries around the world, particularly the UK, Canada, and Australia.
But Man Boobz attracts readers in a lot of places where English speakers are in a minority. I was a little surprised to find that there are twice as many Boobzers in Germany, for example, than in New Zealand, and that there are nearly as many in Iceland as in Ireland. There are readers in countries ranging from Argentina to El Salvador, from Jordan to Japan.
There are all sorts of other intriguing factoids to be found in the survey results, from a rather complicated slicing-and-dicing of religious beliefs to answers to the critical question: how many of you are actually me?
If you don’t have Flash, go here to see the charts in all their glory. See here for the footnotes and survey questions and raw data.
If you’re not a regular commenter here, this will help you to make sense of some of the silly in-jokes at the end of the survey.
One last note: The survey doesn’t tell us what percentage of Man Boobz readers consider themselves feminists or, ick, Men’s Rightsers. I’m going to do a quick followup survey on that in an upcoming post.
[gigya src=”http://cdn.tagul.com/cloud.swf” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”600″ height=”600″ flashvars=”id=173603@1&name=iFrame%20Test”]
Oh, yeah idk then. It’s all JS so it should work fine other than being FUCKING MASSIVE.
Kate — first, what’s your software spitting out for an error?
Second!
Does the flash version work? How about the test link? Try it again after the test link.
Awesomely done survey (it is making my browser go screwy, though! Dunno why). Not surprised about the whiteness of the readership — maybe guest blogging from underrepresented minorities should be encouraged? I learn best when I don’t shout into an echo chamber.
You using IE? It works in chrome, Firefox and safari on Mac, and the first two use the same rendering cross-browser. Can’t test IE and frankly? I refuse to support it. Like, when I have a blog, which is admittedly rare, I do a browser test and give IE users a splash page to go download a real browser.
Yes, I’m bigoted against IE.
I can’t abide IE either (yeah I know you’re not asking me, I’m just chiming in). It is so. fucking. slow. Give me Firefox any day. (My sister, low-tech person, has no idea what a web browser IS, so asking if she’d prefer Firefox is not much help.)
I’m gonna go do some knitting, I’ve used enough of her allowance today!
David Futrelle
I liked that cute penguin with its free hugs. Free penguin love for everyone LOL!
Brilliantly done Argenti! and thankyou for the free hug penguin 🙂
Speaking of the penguin, I figured it out. She’s a whore because she’s just giving it away!
Because remember now, women who “give it up” too easy are whores. Women who want dinner or such paid for first, whether they demand Tim just expect it, or go along when our witless MRA gets out his wallet, are also whores. Women who do sex work are whores. Women “saving themselves” for marriage are withholding the sexytimes from men and thus no better than whores…
Basically, if you’re possessed of a feminine identity, you’re a whore.
——
I have no idea if that penguin is a female or not, and picked that image because it’s just so danged adorkable. Fuzzy penguin!
Non-crested penguins aren’t terribly sexually dimorphic, so we’ll probs never know.
Well I was using Firefox on Windows 7, then when that froze up I switched to Ubuntu with Firefox… didn’t totally crash but it seemed to eat a couple of my posts…
@Argenti: Thank you! I prefer feminine pronouns. I’m always on guard when I go to a feminist site because it feels like you can never be sure if it’s trans friendly or not until they explicitly say so. I was generally leery of feminist sites or even referring to myself as a feminist until that whole Julie Burchill/Suzanne Moore situation went down and a lot of feminist sites started calling them out and explicitly stating how wrong transphobia is.
I’ve found a search engine called Delta comes up on Firefox here and what does it have as its decoration?
WHORES! PENGUIN WHORES!
Proof!
I’m now reading the “additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page” message as “additional penguins are required.”
MISANDRY!
@Celeste
I had to google “Julie Burchill/Suzanne Moore.” What a fucking hateful bigoted mess. Some people just need to keep their mouths shut.
“whether they demand Tim just expect it”
“…demand it or just…”
Celeste Deuel — we try! And feel free to yell at us if we fuck up, the vast majority of the people around here are totally willing to think it over and go “you’re right, I fucked up, and I’m sorry” We try to let the trolls do all the assholery, it’s like having shining examples of fucking up makes the rest of us want to be better.
I adore you all btw 🙂
Excellent job, Argenti!
These results are awesome to see.
And I’m one of the people who claimed to have been raised with Discordianism and the Church of the Sub Genius. My parents were into them like many of us are into Pastafarianism. I was raised with both as just part of the background of my childhood. I’m still into Discordianism, but J.R. “Bob” Dobbs has fallen to the wayside for me.
Ok, so that does make sense, I was wondering how one could be raised with a parody religion 🙂 (ok, mostly I was wondering how someone could be raised believing in Banjo the Clown, given that OoTS is “only” 10~ but I guess it makes sense)
Tangentially, oh you stupid fucking androgynous elf! D&D deal with the devil is still fucking stupid.
Also, three click beetles, a June bug, and an inch long OH MY GODS GET OFF OF ME!
This is completely amazing – you rule Argenti.
I lol’d at “they demand Tim” – spellcheck being an idiot does get funny. Who is Tim, and why are we demanding he just expect to pay for dinner? Is Tim an improved substitute for Tom (not difficult, of course). Is Tim a male penguin? Enquiring minds wish to know.
A little (a lot!) late to the party, but Argenti, amazing job. Just, wow.
I’m one of the lurkers from Germany, by the way. Relocated from the US for teh husband’s job a few months ago. I’m also one of those few stay-at-home parents. By that I of course mean I sit on the couch all day eating bonbons.
I forgot to say it, but Argenti, congrats and thanks for your work!
realhistoryww.com
i’m not sure how “wanting to be a better feminist” can be a bad thing. For me it’s akin to “being a better person” or “being better at basic human decency”. Personally, when I try to be a better feminist, it means either reflecting about my own internalized misogyny or understanding better intersectionality.
If by the “enemy” you mean the manosphere, no it’s not a competition. They fail at basic human decency (see the archives of this blog) in so many different way that the comparison is absurd. they make most assholes I know in the flesh look like nice people. The point is not to have trophy PoC, or trophy trans* people, but to make them feel welcomed, and heard, and to give them the space they deserve in the conversation.
What I read from David is “This is not a good thing, I must do better”. And your answer is “you should have done better in the first place” ?
Which is true, off course, but not really helpful unless you have a time machine…
blockquote fail. It make sense, it’s been a while since I sacrificed to the bq monster.
It’s <blockquote>QUOTE</blockquote>, right?
Test:
I smell a troll with that “albino pinkers” comment. So, someone being aware they could do better isn’t good enough, one has to be perfect, springing forth like Athena, rather than becoming aware they need to improve in an area?
Exactly, Kittehserf. Black-and-white thinking at its finest again. Either you’ve never done anything that requires introspection, or you’re no good.
I see it as something akin to hero worship (and fundamentalism, incidentally); a person (or a belief system) must be accepted fully, without question, as the ultimate source of all good and pure, or they’re not worth bothering with. This is why I have a problem with people seeing real-life persons as heroes, since heroes tend to be ridiculously overidealized. When the heroes occasionally are inconsiderate, or make a moral misstep, or take something for granted when they shouldn’t, or do anything that imperfect humans tend to do, one of two things may happen: 1) Justification. Excuses must be made. This situation is not the same as when clearly “evil” people do it. The hero had zir reasons. The thing ze did was actually not that bad, etc. 2) Dismissal. OMG! Ze is actually evil! Unfollow immediately!
The option that the hero is fallible just like the rest of us is not as often accepted, since it would force us to see the world in more than black and white terms. Maybe heroes aren’t actually perfect, or if the definition of “the hero” includes infallibility and being a shining beacon of good, then maybe heroes don’t really exist. Even though being willing to question one’s own prejudices and privilege, and to change one’s behavior accordingly, is, in my opinion, one of the most important qualities a hero should have. Being absolutely certain that what you do is just and right should realistically be one of the qualities of the villain in the narrative.
Incidentally, the MRM line of thinking seems to be that ”if mistakes are made, never own up to them, or you’ll seem weak.” As if admitting that you could make some improvements is worse than the mistakes themselves.
Oh, and great work, Argenti. Of course, I understand absolutely nothing about coding, so take it for what it’s worth. Too bad I missed the survey, not that I would’ve made that much of a difference.
Seems our little androgynous elf friend jin OOTS did the One More Day, and, well, yeah.
Wow, that’s long.
TL;DR: Expecting infallibility from a real, existing person is stupid.