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.
@LBT: Honestly, playing old-school adventure games seems hardcore as fuck to me. Course, I’m probably wrong on that point. I haven’t much used the term “hardcore gamer” (or just “gamer,” for that matter) since I realized how meaningless and masturbatory that term is.
And I can’t agree more about keeping the hobbies but ditching the increasingly awful geek culture. My issues have always been with the thoughtless consumerism and the obsession with in-jokes/memes to the exclusion of original ideas, but this bizarrely territorial exclusionism is a lot more odious. I was actually lucky enough to go to high school with a group of guys who shared my interests but were everyday, well-adjusted (well, by comparison) people. If I’d known how rare that would be, I never would have left.
Did I bork the link? I am VERY good at link-borking (and sperm-jacking, of course, they’re related skills taught in feminazi 101).
Here is the link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1krapk/this_is_posted_by_the_union_at_work/
HTML avoided, so it can’t hurt me. 😀
I declare all music a trans* only safe space.
@ LBT
Roberta Williams was my favourite too when I was a wee one.
Plants vs. Zombies 2 forever! I have no cred, and I don’t care… thus providing me with cred. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. And no, I don’t feel the slightest shame that I m playing the same game as my colleague’s grade school kids. Perhaps some slight shame, before I drop a power cabbage load on top of a Pharoh zombie and blow him to bits.
“Have you ever met extremely hostile and angry geeks”
pfffftttHAHAHAHAHAHA
I think this guy must be a “fake geek” if he seriously hasn’t met any of the bitter, enraged assholes that tend to crop up in geeky circles.
Games I love: Soul Caliber, Final Fantasy Franchise, Pokemon, Sims 3, Harvest Moon, and Portal Runner. I kept it to the game I play regularly.
I think saying that Gaming is a “male space” is ridiculous. You can’t take a HUGE market and declare it yours.
And if a woman turns up they immediately have to start doing this?
Girls can be unpopular at school as well.
“or look like they would have been” So, he objects to pretty women being geeks.
I love how he’s all “OK, so I admit that I don’t actually know if any of these pretty geek girls were mean girls who made the lives of geeky boys hell in high school, but I’m going to act like they were anyway, because my butthurt is just that strong”.
There’s something really, mindbogglingly weird about differentiating to a large degree between casual and hardcore gamers.
“This activity that I do, for fun, in my spare time, where I play a game needs to have a minimum amount of difficulty or it isn’t real! I scoff at your lack of suffering!”.
I mean, sure. I just played through Teleglitch: Die More in one sitting from level 1 to finish because I have the twitch reflexes of a wired up , caffeinated snake (Well, I do anyway once I’ve had three energy drinks and haven’t slept in a day) so I anyone going “Hur durr casuals suck” can’t lump me in there (And never have? Probably because I’m a guy. My sister gets a lot of flak for playing, yes, Plants Vs Zombies), and I write that not to impress you but to impress upon you that it’s fucking meaningless since I also quite like plants versus zombies. You can’t tell a difference between something so inane as casual and hardcore games, because they deal in the same end-product; A different sensation of fun and amusement and time well spent.
It’s like people complaining that no one gets Art any more. Self aggrandizement and grand standing aside for a bit, it’s just a completely arbitrary distinction based on a need to feel smug and superior to someone perceived as perpetuating inferior behavior.
And it’s rather the same for the idea of fake geek girls. Fake geek anything.
“Oh, I’m sorry? This activity that I do, for fun, in my spare time, has a minimum requirement of reading. If you haven’t read the first 10 issues of the serialized Star Wars comics and know about the Fiery Fire Rings of Fornax, then I you can’t possibly be a real gamer!”
“Oh, I’m sorry? This activity that I do, for fun, in my spare time, has a minimum requirement of suffering. If you haven’t played through every Thief game with the interface turned off, you’re not a real gamer”.
And the worst fucking thing is that guywithaccount up there actually has a point, or comes close. I mean, I’m actually fairly sure that many people feel that books and games and interesting, obscure movies is their salvation from a world that occasionally snubs them. Not because everyone is a bone-deep escapist, but because fiction and games offers such a width and breadth of amazing wonders. How couldn’t you fall in love? But yeah;
Snubs them because their interests are considered weird and strange and different from the norm and not part of the in-group.
So when someone goes “Hey, that’s really neat, I like that too…” their response of choice is: “NOOOO YOU CAN’T TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME!”. Or possibly; “No, you haven’t watched it! Who was originally slated to appear in this role until Keanu Reeves replaced him?!”.
But of course he is also short of short-sighted (well, blind), so when he is snubbed from a world that demands notch counts and “Traditional masculine traits” (There’s that flirting with lucidity and a point again), and women then invade his space…
… the response is to complain that he can’t sleep with them.
What? Tell me that’s not the underlying idea there.”The increase in female participation threatens the safe space where many men go because they couldn’t live up to the goals of carving in notches on bedposts and traditional male values”.
Ie:
“Now that theres women here, someone is going to sleep with them, and I’m sort of annoyed that it’s not going to be me, and this threatens my space, because I still think that having slept with more women is an indicator of status, and now that I’m forced to realize that I won’t get that, it annoys me. So they can’t be real gamers! Because then they’re fake! And if they’re fake, they’re not really part of my subculture, they’re just advanced probe teams (Don’t get the reference? You probably never played Alpha Centauri, you’re not hardcore enough…) from the dreaded Jock League”.
… So we’re back to the idea of chattel and desires and how women are that and can’t have any, because then they’re mean.
Except now they also need to know about Superman.
Wow.
… I actually almost feel annoyed now.
Eh, I’m going to go play plants versus zombies because the delightful pea shooters cheer me up.
Toodle-pip.
I saw some cosplay outfits from this year’s comicon and there is a small percentage of the females who look like promo girls/pornstars dressing up sexy for photo opportunities/publicity.
Having said that, there are such things as geeky girls, nut in which high school ever were geeky girls considered part of the cool group?
There will be a test! but only the women have to take it.
So?
Comic Con is a huge professional media event. Why shouldn’t people promote themselves there? Why is it bad that some of the cosplayers “look like promo girls/pornstars”? In fact, let’s take a moment to dissect just how much sexism goes into labeling them in that particular way. Why do they look like “pornstars”? Because of the costumes (copied from the original, let’s remember)? Because they’re thin with big boobs while wearing those costumes?
This whole discussion depresses the shit out of me.
@starterlifesydney “females”? Really?
And let’s cut through this cos-play bullshit, right now. Cos what you are saying is that if a woman cos-player is too attractive, then she’s only there for photo ops/ publicity. What the fuck publicity/photo-ops do you think she wants? At a gaming convention?
While, of course, there’s no way that the only costumes available for cos-playing women are pretty much the uber-sexy ones? Or maybe Janeway (if we’re talking Sci-Fi as well as gaming). So either she goes as close to the character as possible & is condemned for being “publicity seeking” (again, what the fuck?) or she goes less revealing/sexy and is condemned for a lack of accuracy (or for being “too ugly” to play that character).
And so generous of you to admit that there were geek girls.
Assuming you’re here in good faith, think about what you are saying. And if you’re not, fuck off.
Damn, ninja’d by Katz and & Cassandrasays. 😉
Great post, Fibinachi!
… I’m really wanting to see a coffee-drinking snake now.
And isn’t this the strangest thing? Most people I’ve known, self included, get excited when they find someone else shares their interests/knowledge, especially if it’s something not that popular or well-known. “OMG YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT WHAT DID YOU READ/DO/SEE THAT IS SO COOL!!!”
Of course there will be a problem with that for these clowns, given the usual women =/= people mindset they’re displaying.
What depresses me is that starterlifesydney isn’t new here, and as far as I know zie is more or less a feminist. So why the snark about the sexy cosplayers? This shit is so thoroughly embedded into geek culture that people don’t even realize how sexist it is.
Seconding that; I know starterlifesydney’s commented in good faith before.
Zie has a point about the nerd/geek girls being the popular ones in high school according to this nitwit in the OP – in what world would that be? Geeks and nerds weren’t a thing when I was at school, but jayzuz, I bet the condemnation’s much the same as when choosing to read a book made you some sort of freak.
Yeah, that comment did seem out of character. I’d certainly remember if zie’d said “females” before.
The rant about popular girls does rather illustrate the fact that the geek guys in question don’t seem to consider women who aren’t conventionally attractive to be women at all, doesn’t it? Either that or they just don’t notice them, which would explain how they failed to notice the fact that there were probably geeky girls at their school.
Cassandra
I think it boils down to thinking “if a pretty girl shows up all the guys are going to start competing for her and I will be a loser again.” They are unlikely to compete for a woman they consider unattractive, so she isn’t a threat and he doesn’t see her.
If PJ’s right, and I suspect they might be: what’s so bad about not being with some particular woman you found good-looking? Seriously. Not being with people is the default state.
@kittehs
Your iffy feelings about the Sex Party were very correct.
Also, why does your angst over the possibility of not winning the girl mean that the girl should be preemptively banned from cultural spaces that she wants to participate in?
Selfish babies is what they are.
I know I’m missing the point of this post and I promise I’ll try to not to do it again, but there was a discussion once on Pandagon (Amanda Marcotte’s) where I honestly could see very little difference between the ‘feminist’ arguments of the commentators and typical nerd bashing. Lots of arguments like “if you can’t get a girlfriend maybe try coming out of your mother’s basement and take a shower”. You get the same reaction if you bring up competitive video games, those same commentators can barely contain their disdain for having to take it seriously.
I know this doesn’t excuse attempts to exclusivity for gaming and misogny by gamers.