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.
All forms of exclusion are the same, right?
Formally, yes. In order to distinguish between permissible and impermissible identities/exclusion you have to have additional standards, and they have to be coherent, uniform and equally applied. Simply stating that and identity is “exclusionary” and assuming that your particular normative sentiments will carry the day with those who don’t share them is just using bullying as a tactic. (Bullying is a tactic of the bully and not the effect on the bullied).
Not all exclusion is equal but you need a standard by which to differentiate between different exclusions and why some of desirable, and others, not.
I’m assuming he meant “acrimonious.”
I vote for CassandraSays just continuing that story for infinity.
Oh god. Asher is seriously considering the number of google results to be important. My brain… Asher, tell me you realize that this is you arguing just for the sake of arguing.
@Kiki:
I was going to say that I thought the T-shirt was probably just one of those snarky “edgy” shirts riffing off of the old idea that the person who wears the pants or has the dick determines who’s in charge. I was also going to argue that part of the weirdness with the gatekeeper thing is that people in an oppressive situation often try to find ways to gain power so they aren’t powerless, even if that power is illusionary. Being able to say “well, I can control my husband by witholding sex” is nice when everything about your life is controlled by your husband.
Then I figured all this would go in one ear and out the other with Asher, and he’d take it as me admitting that his “equal-power” hypothesis was valid. So I decided not to.
By being able to fucking read, that’s how.
So no, you didn’t say that being a “leftist” was bad, you said that “leftists” believe non-“leftists” to be bad. Based on a reliance on “current, general sentiments”.
You directly connected the idea of identities being exclusionary and the idea that identities are assigned “badness” based on cultural norms.
Hey, when the only admissible forms of evidence are Google search results and Nietzsche quotes, you gotta take that shit seriously.
He still doesn’t know from complementary, though.
Asher: The original claim made by someone (maybe you?) is that the particular subset of male geeks want “everyspace” to be woman-free. Their words.
This was the Hyperbole to which I earlier referred, and which you conflated with Dave’s analogy (which wasn’t hyperbole).
Since I quoted it, and you, in that comment it’s really pathetic that you can’t keep the lines of argument untangled.
That such simple things give you such large problems in keeping one thing in mind (as it relates to others) makes me weep for any students you might have had.
The lesson is … avoid hyperbole.
Only when dealing with tendentious morons. For those who understand (and appreciate rhetoric), there is no reason to avoid it, as it is sometimes the best tool to show the folly of someone else.
Just see what benefit it has served here.
“Income” clearly implies an socioeconomic environment involving large-scale societies and large amounts of production of economic commodities. Yes, it’s entirely reasonable to assume that women have always contributed roughly half of all labor required to make society function. It’s just that the specifics have involved significant differences in labor roles.
goalpost shifting; also you’ve just wiped out something close to all of humann history.
But let’s look at, “income”. Weavers, prior to the industrial revolution, were home shops. They were also, almost to a man, male.
So the Cloth Halls of Europe (such a the ones in Ypres, or Leeds) were full of men, selling, “cloths” which they had woven, and fullered.
They “earned the money” through these sales.
What were the women doing? Spinning the yarn that went into the cloth.
So, who was “earning” the income?
Both of them. Who got the money? He did. Who owned the money? He did.
Who was oppressed? She was. She may not have felt downtrodden. She may have enjoyed her life, loved her husband, been happy. But the law said all her labors were as nothing; because she wasn’t allowed to own money, nor could she ever get to vote; she was excluded from guilds. There was a guild of “carders and combers” for making wool ready to spin: though if she did it, and was good at it, she couldn’t join. There was a guild of fullers, though if she did it, she couldn’t join. There was a guild of dyers, though if she did it, she couldn’t join.
If she sought to make money from it, she was excluded; lest her labors undercut the price. So all she did was counted as man’s labor.
All the money which resulted from her work, was counted as his income.
She was exploited. She was oppressed.
Asher: This is like you saying red is blue and blue is red. That’s exactly what he did. Either he needs to show how male geeks are functionally the equivalent of the Klan or retract the analogy.
Nope. You made the postive assertion he was wrong. You need to prove it, or withdraw the claim.
Since I (among others) have made counterarguments; which you have not addressed; pretending rather that no response was made) you are behind the eight ball.
BTW, I’ve actually taught a uni course on Greek philosophers
Of course you have.
Seriously do people still understand what argument Asher is actually trying to laboriously eject from his already-strained rectum?
I’ve accused trolls of moving the goalposts before, but with this goofball it’s like he made a cape out of pennants and declared himself Captain Goalpost.
My point, however was that what applies to one person does not inherently apply to everyone (a fact that stands true even for things we’d assume are innate to humanity — eg that your organs are aligned so your appendix is on the right, a very small minority have them all mirrored)
If a “norm” does not equally apply to everyone then it’s not a norm. You can’t set up a standard of judgement and then pick and choose when to apply it. If the crafting of an identity is impermissible because it is exclusionary then all identities are impermissible because all identities are exclusionary. If you want to say that some identities are impermissible, but not others, then you need to set up a different standard to distinguish between the permissible and the impermissible; simply shouting “exclusionary” doesn’t cut ti because all identities are exclusionary.
It’s important to note that the term “exclusionary” obviously does not carry the same emotional baggage for most people that it, obviously, does for the commenters at this blog.
The thing is, though, we are using additional standards to determine which forms of exclusion are morally acceptable. You seem to have an okay knowledge of philosophy – surely the fact that we are using additional standards was clear to you from the beginning? No one here has argued that the very notion of exclusion in all contexts is morally wrong somehow. You are the one making that assumption.
The aliens were so sad that he wasn’t impressed with their intellectual honesty that they offered to move the goalposts around for him, in the hopes that some day he would agree to teach them about Greek philosophy.
“For those of use who do not subscribe to your ideology and who do not share in the notion that “exclusionary” carries some sort of inherent “badness” the response to “that’s exclusionary” is … “so what?””
O RLY?! Is that why you said what I quoted above? Because you don’t related exclusionary identities to badness?
As for “my ideology” now that’s just precious, like you know a damned thing about what I believe about the state of the world, and what I would like it to be. Let’s see, you know I abhor torture, and have a non-binary gender. And think you reprehensible. And that’s fucking all you know about me. Oh, and that I have plant cuttings for pecunium, if they root.
You really think you can make such broad sweeping statements from so little? Oh wait, you attempted to lecture pecunium on military matters, never mind, you do think you can make immensely broad generalizations from a pittance of information.
Ally — thanks
To paraphrase a friend who grew up in the Deep South:
“It’s easy to be copacetic about something when you know the bastards are never going to burn a cross on *your* lawn.”
I thought that related pretty well to this thread.
It appears to be some form of ASHER ROOLZ BOOBZ DROOLZ, but I could be wrong because I’m using the scientific method of observation, which is widely acknowledged to be flawed.
Spot that fallacy: begging the question.
It’s not question begging because the original claim that “women have, generally, been historically oppressed” is false, unless you’re just going to go the whole way and say a general state of oppression has been the norm in human history.
Something that explains everything explains nothing.
“Wow, this guy really does have Spock Syndrome. LOL at the taking the Google search jokes literally.”
I can see why he’s making an argument about needing “safe spaces”. He needs to be sheltered from nuance and humor. It’s clearly terrifying to such a small mind. 😀
It’s not emotional baggage that makes the difference here – it’s context. We are talking about a specific kind of exclusion. You’re supposed to be a smart guy, right? We don’t need to spell it out for you if that’s the case.
Asher is unused to being expected to prove the things that he asserts because in meatspace he sics the horny unicorn on anyone who dares to point out that he’s full of shit.
But C is predicate on A, which uses C to prove itself, ergo the question has been begged.
It’s not so much that what you’re saying is incorrect but it’s as silly as most of the reasoning involved in claiming that women are historically oppressed. Agreed, it’s facile and a throwaway line of reasoning but it’s no less baseless and facile than most of what goes on in feminist “thought”.
If it applied equally to everyone it wouldn’t be a norm, it’d be more like a universality. Norm would need to apply to a majority, or at least a plurality, of people, but not all.
In the long-run widespread slavery eventually enfeebles the enslaving population. Punishment as a means of coercing contribution always carries a long-term seed of collapse.
And those people are all identical twins! And one of the twins can commit murders and then pin it on the other twin and he’ll think he has amnesia because he doesn’t remember! #dorothysayersisawesome