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.
Asher: You don’t understand the way the world works. My three year old thinks he has a “right” to ice cream before dinner. I assure you, he does not. While I am no fan of Jeremy Bentham he nailed it when he called rights “nonsense on stilts”.
No rights? Then why are you arguing for men to have the right to exclude women?
Wait, let me guess, you, “don’t care about that, it’s really about the ‘intellectual honesty’ and women have every right to be in gamerdudeland”.
Unh hunh. Which is why you chose this hill to defend. Why you insist on saying Dave’s comment “equated” geeks and the Klan.
Why this argument? (You did come here to argue, you just thought you could backdoor it with the pretense of intellectual distance and demolish the entirety of Dave’s post (with it’s attendant evidence) by attacking a part, and so discrediting the whole; with your vapid claims of “intellectual dishonesty”.
If no one has any rights, then there is no reason for any social contract. There is no basis for society. What those right are is what the field of ethics is, at root, about.
It’s what Bentham was arguing; that comment of his was (wait for it) intellectually dishonest.
Ignoring the tedious one, 1984 is an awesome book and I highly recommend it, though as previously mentioned “We” is a more convincing dystopia.
Asher: Does your sister also read a lot of stuff like science and philosophy? Does she like to tinker with cars or gadgets?
Fallacies are intellectually dishonest argument (that was one of composition).
. It doesn’t work to say “culture” or “society” because I’m just going to ask you where those came from.
Like a three year old, who just discovered “why”.
Asher: . What you attribute to MRAs is a rhetorically dishonest way of referring to how people lived in much of human history.
So you do support the Klan (what with slavery being how people lived for much of human history).
Some honesty you’ve got going there.
Hmm, let me guess. You’re one of those liberal-creationists who doesn’t believe that evolution plays any role in patterns of human behavior.
Says the guy who just defended reactionary lifestyles with an appeal to nature.
Pro-tip, the hallmark of the intellectually honest is they don’t keep one standard for themselves, and another standard for others.
There is some logic to that position. Logically, people come together for sexual relationships on the basis of wider shared interests. If nerd-dom is such a defining identity then a woman isn’t probably a nerd if her sexual activities don’t involve cavorting with nerd men.
Oh, so I wasn’t a real soldier because I didn’t have “sexual activities [which involved] cavorting with [soldiers]”. I’ll be sure to remember that.
Same for teachers too, if they don’t fuck other teachers they aren’t real teachers?
But, all ridicule aside, you glossed the argument, it’s not that atdevel said they don’t sleep with nerds, it’s that they don’t sleep with him.
Pretending his statement was about nerds in general isn’t only intellectually dishonest, it’s flat out dishonest.
Asher: WI distorted nothing. The analogy was intellectually dishonest. It uses the standard emotional disgust that normal people have for the Klan and tries to transfer that emotional disgust to male geeks via dishonest rhetoric.
Says the guy who was earlier upset that people ascribed motives to his choice of words.
Notice, that the only thing I do here is directly address what someone has said. I don’t speculate or impute things that people don’t say – that is the essence of intellectual honesty.
Really… scroll up for the refutation (from your own words).
Keep on going with those double standards: Way to carry the flag for “honesty”
Fine. Then explain the analogy and how it applies.
Objection: asked and answered.
Yes, I’m well aware that women have usually supplemented their husband’s income.
If by “aware” you mean “supplied at least as much as half the required labor to feed/clothe/sustan the family” then yes.
Your dismissive tone makes me think you aren’t, in fact aware, and are pretending to an expertise you lack (which isn’t intellectually honest).
So sorry I missed Asher. If I ever have insomnia, I’m coming back to this thread. What a maroon.
KITTENS! They are adorable.
Asher: (sorry for the lacuna, I was getting pastry and coffee. I wouldn’t want to entertain the thought of try to argue with one so rigorous as yourself when not at my peak).
Nothing in the original post was a flat-out lie.but his equating male geeks with the Klan was intellectually dishonest.
On the other hand, your claim that “those people” you guys was mocking want a woman-free world *was* a lie, not intellectual dishonesty.
I shall borrow your terms: Saying that Dave, in the OP equated male geeks isn’t intellectually dishonest. It’s a lie.
It’s a lie which as (as of this point in the conversation; i.e. the comment I am responding two) been refuted not less than twice.
The second half of your assertions is also false. It’s not a lie; it’s a rhetorical device (I recommend Aristotle for a better grasp of how to use them), specifically Hyperbole.
No one here thinks these idiots don’t want any women in the world. They just want the women there are to be required to play by their rules. Absent that, they don’t want any women about.
So, as women are agents; and so posesed of independence, they will not (by and large) conform to these slack-jawed nitwits ideas of how “women” ought to behave; which, in some regards, is them wishing a world free of women (as agents) and inhabited only by “females” (as objects).
This is called device; and it’s uses are subtle; not for the tyro.
Fuck. We conjured him.
Can’t believe he felt compelled to explain Orwell’s 1984 to us. Holy shit, yes, he just did that.
I prefer to discuss todture with people viscerally opposed to it
In other words, you want to start with a conclusion and can’t be bothered with establishing a premise. You are relying on the fact that others actually use the premise-conclusion method of reasoning to oppose torture and don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting yourself.
In ancient Persia when someone questioned the deific status of the King they would put them in a wooden box and force feed them. After awhile insects would come lay eggs in the box. Eventually, the person would die from organ failure due to the insects eating out their insides.
Compare that to the US taking an individual who masterminded the killing of tens of thousands of unarmed civilians and held his head underwater for several seconds in order to get information.
Now, you can use the term “torture” to describe both scenarios but they are so dissimilar that you render the term “torture” meaningless. The term is now so meaningless that when someone uses the term “torture” I just assume they are babbling because that term no longer has any coherent or unified meaning.
Can’t believe he felt compelled to explain Orwell’s 1984 to us. Holy shit, yes, he just did that.
Given what else I’ve had to spell out, here, inferring I would have to spell this out was not unreasonable.
Or being bloviated at by Asher.
Hey Spock, I mean Asher, go away. Fuck off, sayonara, buh-bye. GO.
Death-by-insects sounds less painful. At least they might occasionally be quiet.
re:asher
I know this is like totally OT, but I don’t really trust anything Asher says at this point, so citation needed.
No amount of spelling out will make people understand you Asher. The problem is you’re a little empathy-less shitstain of a human being.
Asher is more like the kind of torture where they look you in a room and blast “We’re Not Going To Take It Anymore” at you on constant loop for 12 hours.
You know that not all women are attracted to and have sex with men… right? So what, lesbians can’t be nerds in general,
Lesbians tend not to have much sex; it’s called “bed death”. Testosterone is *the* sex hormone and lesbian relationships tend not to have enough of it to sustain a sex life – there are, of course, exceptions.
Also, an identity isn’t reducible to one true/false proposition. Plenty of people out there don’t have much of a sex life for various reasons. I’m sure that it’s possible to be a lesbian nerd and if that lesbian happens to have a sex life it’s probably with another lesbian nerd.
Asher is more like the kind of torture where they look you in a room and blast “We’re Not Going To Take It Anymore” at you on constant loop for 12 hours.
The context of how you get there is pretty damn important, as is the purpose of the activity.
And then when the music finally stops someone reads you a car repair manual for the next 12 hours.
Now he’s an expert on lesbians. Asher, does being a pompous know-it-all get old? I truly hope so.
Asher is one giant “citation needed.”
At this point, if he told me the sky was blue, I would need a second opinion.
@Asher
Hahahahhahahaha.
Hahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahaa.
HAHAHHHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA.
Oh, you poor baby. You actually believe that shit. Well, keep telling yourself that, cupcake. It won’t make it anymore true.
I’m sure all the lesbians here are greatful to have their sexuality explained to them by troll.
“Lesbians tend not to have much sex…”
Did you read that in a book, troll?
you know the ones, where debate is not to gain knowledge or understanding but is a sport or game, like fencing or chess. Everything is theoretical, nothing is lived or felt or truly believed.
Increase in understanding is an inherently competitive undertaking. The concept of “understanding” as we comprehend it, today, began in ancient Greece where people would sit around for hours taking different positions and then arguing for them; the best position won. That is how knowledge advances, and there is no way around it.
How “acquisition of knowledge” came to be sitting around a campfire, holding hands, singing Kumbaya and sharing each other’s feelings is something I would love to understand.
Acquiring knowledge is inherently competitive.
It’s like the riddle about the tree falling in the woods! If lesbians are having sex and there isn’t a dude around to watch did the sex really happen, and does it matter?
Also, I can see why Asher is so hung up on ‘conjecture’ as the starting point of science. Much easier than actually doing research, isn’t it?
Actually, good conjecture is much harder than doing research, much of which is mere slogging and involves nothing more than large-scale capital requirements.