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.
*flips back two pages*
So you won’t actually address what I said, just pretend that you meant it all along. Precious.
I kinda want to take him to task on his free will stuff, but I’m afraid I’d just bog everything down even more than it already is… Plus I’d miss more posts; this thread is moving like lightning.
Asher you are so full of shit, you’re giving off cartoon stink-lines.
Why are you here?
*Looks down and shuffles feet*
Yeah, you called it Falconer.
The term “boring” is exclusionary in that it excludes people who can talk without making their audience want to take a nap.
He literally just jumped on the word “autonomy,” ignoring any context to how the word was used, and decided to rant about free will. The original was just talking about how women aren’t going to just do whatever men tell them
And the type of male that is attracted to the identity of “male geek” isn’t going to do what women tell them and are going to find some way of creating a social space where they can do there own thing.
There. Problem solved.
Look, every single argument that you can make about women not needing to conform to some men’s desires/expectations I can reverse it and make the exact same observation in the reverse.
Also, modern liberal, moral philosophy is predicated on the notion of “autonomy” as the fundamental ruling moral premise. So, I’m operating from a heavy understanding of developments in modern moral philosophy of which you may or may not be aware/
The term “boring” is exclusionary in that it excludes people who can talk without making their audience want to take a nap.
I’m not aware that many people affirmatively identify themselves as “boring” but if they do then it’s also exclusionary.
Marie — Liar *screams* LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR!!
Asher, this is a site that mocks misogyny, not PHL 305. Maybe you don’t have a heavy understanding of that.
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
In other words, I take positions with which you disagree, therefore, I’m a “shitstain”. Nice reasoning you got there
No, it’s not because you disagree. You’d be a shitstain anyway.
@Kirbywarp: Yeah, he seems to have a total Humpty-Dumpty thing going on: A word means exactly what he means it to mean, and apparently that doesn’t have to be consistent from moment to moment.
E.g., he linked pretentious to pretend etymologically (which, yeah, they are, the former descends from a past participle of a Latin word through the French, while the latter descends from a present participle of that same Latin word through the French) and then claims that pretentious means to pretend and tries to straw-man that into poor, put-upon old Asher, all he’s doing is trying to spread salt and light from Athens to the benighted heathens of the world and he gets stoned at every turn.
Pretentious poser.
Maybe if we converted the mockery into binary it would make more sense to his robot brain?
@Argenti Aertheri
I should check it out! I haven’t heard that song before 😀
Oooh, hatred of peer review
Peer review is broken. Now, why would you feel the need to impute to me some intense emotional state ….
hellkell: You do him WAY too much credit with that “PHIL 305” line; I saw better arguments from the students in my high school’s one-semester Philosophy course–including from the Objectivist who believed in a caste system with ditch-diggers.
Android is broken, can’t do emotions.
Asher, sweetums, we aren’t ‘imputing’ an emotional state to you. We’re ‘interpreting’ it, from the content of your posts.
“Peer review is broken. Now, why would you feel the need to impute to me some intense emotional state ….”
You should probably elaborate on why you believe it to be broken.
Marie — I advise turning the sound way down and then up to a level just below where you want it, because screaming. Also, I love the ASP remix.
Ugh, don’t encourage him. This troll needs to be put on a diet.
“Ugh, don’t encourage him. This troll needs to be put on a diet.”
Awww… I want a troll meltdown. 🙁
So Asher, have you designed a bunch of open-source programs?
Freemage: HA, maybe that was an over-reach. I try to avoid internet philosophers.
They saw it, and then wondered at it, then went looking for more evidence.
Which is conjectural. What Darwin did, and he admitted this, is to take stuff we already know that then conjectural apply this to prior eras. Darwinian evolution relies heavily on conjecture and, in fact, this is a salient argument I’ve encountered from skeptics of Darwinian evolution.
The assertion that “homo ergaster is the direct ancestor to homo sapiens” is conjectural. It is also a statement that I consider scientific and if you do not consider it scientific then you have a problem in Darwinian evolution.
Oh, shit. Sorry. Did I just smack you in the face? Sorry.