I’m back from a brief vacation in Migraineland, and thinking about the ways in which Men’s Rights Activists love to appropriate the language of feminism and other progressive movements, usually in ways that are face-palmingly ass-backwards.
Take this recent discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit of the dire threat of “fake gamer girls” invading the “male space” of gaming. The generically named guywithaccount sets up the discussion with this post:
![I want to talk about "fake geek girls" (self.MensRights) submitted 9 days ago by guywithaccount For those of you who don't know about this, there's a bit of a controversy in what I'll call the geek community. Apparently, when women attend geek conventions (that is, those celebrating e.g. video games, comic books, sci-fi and fantasy), some men accuse them of being "fake geeks" or demanding that they prove their "geek cred" by correctly answering trivia questions made up on the spot. Here's one article (of many) that talks about it: [1] http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2013/08/08/the-fake-geek-girl-nonsense/ My concern for this issue is that, like anything else that involves gender, feminists and feminist sympathizers are attempting to dominate the discussion and frame the whole thing from a feminist and gynocentric perspective. The prevailing analysis might be summed up as "geek culture is deeply misogynistic, and the people complaining about fake geeks are just sad little losers who hate women." IMO, the geek subculture has provided a somewhat-safe space for many men who have been snubbed by the rest of society, where they are not expected to prove their value to each other by carving notches in a bedpost or exemplifying traditional masculine traits. The increase in mainstream appeal and female participation over the past decade or so threatens the safety and exclusivity of this space, and the backlash from male geeks is a somewhat-predictable response to the invasion of their space. Of course, there are few spaces just for men, and when someone tries to create or preserve one, they're accused of misogyny. I suspect that some of you don't give a crap about any of this and see the whole thing as petty, but realize that it's not happening in a vacuum. I believe it's merely a symptom of the fact that men have almost no voice in gender discussions and their needs are routinely denied or ignored.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/fakegeek.png?resize=573%2C541&ssl=1)
Now, there is a teensy bit of gold in this pile of bullshit: the notion of a “safe space,” where oppressed people can come forward and discuss their issues without fear of being talked over or shut down by those outside their group — who have more power in the world and who may not have their best interests at heart (or who may just be Blabby McBlabbypants types).
But there are a couple of giant problems with this notion when it comes to gamer dudes declaring gaming a “safe space” for men. The first is that, despite lingering resentments over being “snubbed” in high school or wherever — evident in the OP and in comments throughout the discussion — these guys are not actually an oppressed people by any measure that really matters.
Indeed, many of them — as tech dudes in a male-dominated tech world — are in fact in fairly privileged positions. For them to claim they need a “safe space” to protect themselves from the evils of “fake gamer girls” is a bit like Klan members claiming they need a “safe space” to protect themselves from blacks, Jews and Catholics. (Which is more or less what Klan members have argued over the years, albeit in less PC language.) No, I’m not claiming that all MRAs are the equivalent of hood-wearing Klan members. Only some of them are.
The second problem with the “game world as safe space for men” aregument is that YOU CAN’T JUST DECLARE BIG CHUNKS OF THE WORLD TO BELONG TO MEN. Yes, men dominate the gaming world in sheer numbers, both as game-makers and game-players. (While women make up nearly half of all game players — 47% — men tend to dominate the “serious” games that many geek dudes claim are the only ones that really count.) But gaming doesn’t “belong” to men any more than, say, novel-reading “belongs” to women — even though surveys suggest that women make up a staggering 80% of the fiction market in much of the English-speaking world.
Yep, that’s right: Women dominate “noveling” much more dramatically than men dominate gaming. Yet you don’t find women denouncing “fake noveler boys” or declaring that the male brain isn’t wired to understand the subtleties of written fiction.
No, in fact men are actively welcomed into book clubs. And my best friend, a woman, has spent much of the 18 or so years or our friendship trying to get me to read this novel or that novel, though over the years she’s only succeeded in getting me to read maybe one or two of her suggestions, which were pretty good, I have to admit. (I do plan to read some of the others, really.)
If you’re a socially awkward guy and want a safe space to discuss that, find a therapist, find a support group. Don’t pick on women gamers and pretend this is somehow your right because you’re oppressed as a socially awkward guy.
Anyway, here are some other dumb comments from the Reddit thread. YetAnotherCommenter warns feminists that they may lose some powerful allies if they continue acting so feministy.
Speaking of nerds who can’t get laid — which we weren’t but which these guys keep bringing up (and identifying themselves as) again and again — guia7ri seems to harbor some lingering resentments from high school, and who better to take that out on than attractive geeky women?
Hey MRAs, if you wonder why feminists sometimes describe MRAs as bitter men who hate women because they can’t get laid, it’s because MRAs like gui7ri so often EXPLICITLY DECLARE THEMSELVES BITTER MEN WHO HATE WOMEN BECAUSE THEY CAN’T GET LAID.
Meanwhile Byuku blames it all on evil feminists pretending to be geeks in order to make trouble. Because that’s what feminists do.
That’s how they get you!
EDIT: Added a sentence to temper and clarify my assertion that men “dominate” gaming.
My mistake, it was actually the “collapse of society.”
Let me give you an example: Dunbar’s number. Robin Dunbar measured the frontal cortext and found that the nature social group of primates, numerically, was highly correlated to the size of their frontal cortext. The best research I’ve seen indicates that Dunbar’s number for humans is around 150.
Now, we can’t go back in time, say 100k years to see what Dunbar’s number was for humans at that point. But it is absurd to think that just because we cannot observe humans back then that Dunbar’s number does not apply to humans in that era.
Gaslighting extraordinaire.
Equivocating little fuck.
RE: katz
Still bollocks by the way. Or do I just know waaaaay too many unusually genderful people?
My mistake, it was actually the “collapse of society.”
Which is not the same thing as the fall of civilization. The first is both a death of something and a hopeful new start. The latter, not so much.
Equivocating little fuck.
Just because you can’t directly observe something in the way you’d like doesn’t mean it isn’t science.
And, yes, induction is a conjecture. Not sure how that is equivocation.
Re: Asher
Oh good, that means I can totally root for the collapse of society, if it means this ‘men and women are irrevocably different’ idea will just fucking die already.
Standing by for, “why can’t society be restarted after a collapse?”
Oh good, that means I can totally root for the collapse of society, if it means this ‘men and women are irrevocably different’ idea will just fucking die already.
It won’t. You can try and chase out Nature with pitchfork but she will always come back with a vengeance.
Where would the “demise of culture” fall on that spectrum? How about the “implosion of community?” The “deterioration of polity?”
A correlation as evidence of a cause? I’m not impressed.
He never DID tell me why he cared about my sister’s mechanical or reading habits either. I feel so abandoned and left in the lurch.
RE: Asher
It won’t. You can try and chase out Nature with pitchfork but she will always come back with a vengeance.
You keep saying that like it’s true. When really, the differences of individuals dwarf differences of genders.
“Just because you can’t directly observe something in the way you’d like doesn’t mean it isn’t science.”
You would need to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship.
Oh good, that means I can totally root for the collapse of society
America isn’t one society but an empire comprised of many different societies. That, btw, is a central reason for the argument over the identity of nerdiness. The more culturally homogeneous is the less internal debate there is over identity; the political entity *is* a salient identity.
Then you will like puppies, Asher.
You would need to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship.
The problem with modern psychology is that it arbitrarily stops at one cause as an ultimate cause. In fact, every cause you find in psychology is just an effect of prior causes. That’s the central problem with most social science.
oops, my post at 1:58 should have read “the more culturally homogeneous a political entity is”
I’ll root for the downfall of whichever society one has that stupid Men/Mars Women/Venus idea then.
The problem with modern psychology is that it arbitrarily stops at one cause as an ultimate cause. In fact, every cause you find in psychology is just an effect of prior causes. That’s the central problem with most social science.
It’s
intellectual dishonestyturtles all the way down!“The problem with modern psychology is that it arbitrarily stops at one cause as an ultimate cause. In fact, every cause you find in psychology is just an effect of prior causes. That’s the central problem with most social science.”
So, the problem with modern psychology is that it doesn’t allow for a simple-minded, reductionist approach which ignores environmental, cultural, and societal factors in the manifestation of behavior?
Oh, the bliss of easy certainty. Your mind must be untroubled by doubt and curiosity.
LBT
“women are the gatekeepers to sex” is not something I originated but anyone who denies that is a complete fool. Women, not men, are the gatekeepers to sex. So, if women are the gatekeepers to sex then men must be gatekeepers to something else. What is that something else?
Arbitrarily? Do you really even understand what modern psychology is? Wow.
Cause
Effect