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.
Ah, atdevel is full of shit, and will now be banned. Checking his IP I realize that he tried to post numerous obnoxious trolling comments here under the name “I H Blacks.” Fuck off, asshole.
@Argenti Aertheri
That makes sense :3 I’ve just got this weird fear of knives and I don’t know why…. (I’ve never been attacked with one or anything)
Jayzus. The average troll of today is fucking humourless and pedantic. That was painful – you all have some admirable stamina.
One of the really telling things about Asher is how he constantly tries to devalue the actual work part of a field. The whole thing with lab experiments, saying they’re useless and that they’re not real science and that the hard part is coming up with hypotheses: He’s trying to make the conceptual stage the focus of everything.
If he were creatively inclined, he’d be that guy you find in fora begging for someone to write his novel or draw his webcomic or program his game, saying that he has a brilliant idea that will sell a million copies and expecting to get most of the profits because he thought of it.
Fact is, the conceptual stage is the easy part. I won’t say “anyone can do it,” because I don’t want to sound dismissive of people who aren’t strong in that area, but on average, the people who come up with (even legitimately good) ideas but can’t execute them always vastly outnumber the people who are able–and willing–to bring those ideas to fruition.
We’ve all had a great idea for an invention that someone should totally make, but we didn’t have the skills or time or patience to actually build a prototype and patent it. Every scientist has a backlog of hypotheses zie would love to test but can’t because of lack of time. And polymaths like me often find ourselves sliding towards the hard-work end of the spectrum simply because the demand is so much higher.
If all you’ve got is concepts, you don’t have jack.
…only fake nerd guys harass fake geek girls? I don’t even…nope, I got nothing.
*is not going to rant on the topic of discrimination against non-neurotypicals* cuz idk whether I really “count” but I do know I am PISSED with my psych (who will, very likely, be dealing with pecunium if she pulls a stunt like last week…wonder how long the iPad can record sound for…)
Hey pecunium, I know I said this already via email, but, well, it’s good having friends like you, and since you do have (a tiny) touch of humility, I thought I’d toot your horn for you, since you wouldn’t. Seriously, after Asher’s shit, you, yet again, restore my faith in humanity
Fuuuuuck, that takes me right back to a dipshit on FanStory. He divided his time between writing appalling fantasy rubbish in massacred English, wanting someone to “co write” (ie do the work) and screaming abuse at the reviewers who made the effort to help him. Correcting/explaining grammar, spelling, story structure and so on sent him into “You are not God!” screaming fits.
/writing horror derail
“If he were creatively inclined, he’d be that guy you find in fora begging for someone to write his novel or draw his webcomic or program his game, saying that he has a brilliant idea that will sell a million copies and expecting to get most of the profits because he thought of it.”
*shuffles feet* I sent pecunium the outline for a dystopia I started writing years ago and thought was lost to the sands of time — the important parts were on my ancient LJ. On the one in a million chance anyone ever writes the thing, and it makes money, no way would I ask for most of it. If he writes it he can pay transport for me to visit though 😛
Yeah, like that’ll happen!
atdevel can run and tell his banning at reddit. Idiot.
Classic, isn’t it. Claiming to have Asperger’s and have such a hard time because he’s also a geek/nerd/gamer/whatever … while trying to post racist fuckwittery. This from the same ISP – yeah, that’s really technerd stuff, isn’t it?
He admitted he’s not that smart, which is probably the smartest thing he’s ever said.
Most of the “real” nerds that I was talking about are too busy defending themselves to even think of harassing because we are recieving flak from the more mainstreamed nerds of both genders. Maybe the people harassing female geeks are just normal people with nerdy interests, and not detached nerds like myself. Maybe they outright pretend to be nerds. But you haven’t done research on that.
Maybe you don’t really have a leg to stand on, and are overgeneralising your impressions onto all of “nerdom”.
Because I’ve been in “geek/nerd/gamer” culture for more than 30 years, and I’ve seen lots of them harassing people, and the people they harass most are women.
In short, you are wrong.
re guns/knives:
Rush a gun, flee a knife.
It’s a problem of what range the damage can be done. A knife is a close in weapon. A gun is a ranged weapon.
and I see atdevel is a shitbird as well.
Argenti: I can’t finish that for you, I can’t write fiction.
As to Asher: he thinks people attacking feminsts aren’t engaging in terrorism, because feminists deserve to be killed. He needs to go away.
So, at the risk of setting off yet another storm of nerd boy rage…nope. In geeky environments the guys who’ve been jerks to me have been the hardcore nerds. One could argue that it’s an ingroup/outgroup dynamic, and that they’re going “you have social skills and you’re conventionally attractive, fuck you!”, but the thing is, that’s not a valid reason for being a dick to someone. As has been explained rather exhaustively during this thread.
What’s interesting is that as far as I know the hardcore nerds don’t pull that same “get out of my treehouse” behavior on conventionally attractive men with good social skills (ie men who’re geeky but not nerdy). Only on the women.
“Checking his IP I realize that he tried to post numerous obnoxious trolling comments here under the name “I H Blacks.”
Ugh. There goes my shred of sympathy.
Also, as Shaenon explained, the angry nerd boys pull obnoxious shit on all women, even women whose appearance immediately signals “nerd”. The specific shape the boundary policing takes may vary depending on the way the women look, but it’s always there.
It’s the same old, same old, isn’t it? “You are daring to exist while not wanting me to stick my dick in you! RAAAAGE!”
Yeah, from personal experience, I can second this.
“So, at the risk of setting off yet another storm of nerd boy rage…nope. In geeky environments the guys who’ve been jerks to me have been the hardcore nerds. One could argue that it’s an ingroup/outgroup dynamic, and that they’re going “you have social skills and you’re conventionally attractive, fuck you!”, but the thing is, that’s not a valid reason for being a dick to someone. As has been explained rather exhaustively during this thread.”
No True Scotsman much?
My shred of sympathy for atdevel, also destroyed. What a racist asshat.
Asher said:
“Publish or perish, anyone?”
That particular criticism is just silly.
1. Most scientists aren’t independently wealthy enough to pay for and run their own labs, nor to hire the assistants they need. That being so they have to apply to a funding body. Funding bodies like to know that they can trust the researcher with their money. In order to do that they need to be able to go through their body of work and decide if it’s sound. In order to have that body of work the researcher must publish often. The scientists aren’t necessarily the ones deciding what they’re investigating because they’re doing it on someone else’ dollar. It would be great if they could just go around being all curious and exploratory and be responsible to nobody but that’s not the way it works these days and hasn’t for decades. It might all be worth mentioning that some scientists don’t do research. There are plenty of science-based jobs that are salaried where people do little to no primary research. Not everyone gets to be Watson and Crick.
2. Publishing is essential to peer review and the more they do that the better. Better to get pulled up early if your work is unsound than waste time and money pursuing an idea that will never work.
“The concept of the role of a scientist has changed *a lot* in just the past several decades. Watson and Galton were interested in truth. Jared Diamond? Not so much.”
For the last several decades scientists have been pretty much developing ideas for other people to run with. That was so when my father was working for the Radio Chemical Centre at Amersham during the sixties, or when he was working on the Apollo lunar samples at the Australian National University during the seventies and eighties. There is a difference between the facts (or at least well verified theories) that scientists pursue and the Philosophical Truth that you seem to be talking about. Each scientist has his/her own philosophical Truth and that might effect their work but their own personal beliefs and motivations are their own and nobody else’ business until it starts to get in the way of their work.
And in case you were wondering a great many scientists don’t take Diamond seriously. He’s something of an embarrassment. I remember fondly a conversation with my dad and my friends (who were his students) taking Diamond to pieces over the refectory table during during lunch.
“I enjoy being able to browse my favorite blogs via my Samsung Galaxy but the engineerswho developed it are not interested in truth (no, that doesn’t make them bad people). Putting out new gadgets or improved methods of farming is engineering, not science.”
And engineering has no scientific underpinning? Hahaha! Are you really going to try and argue that? Who did the groundwork that made your phone possible? The plastics and metals it’s made from, the electricity that charges it, the networks it joins so you can browse your blogs? How do you do you create better means of widespread commercial farming without a knowledge of chemistry, zoology and botany? I’m not talking about subsistence farming here, I’m talking about growing enough food to feed a country and have nobody go hungry. You need a huge amount of scientific support to do that.
Maybe the people harassing women at geek events are actually aliens, and they’re jealous of the unicorn that follows Asher around! It all makes sense now.
This poser pissed me off with his bullshit.
“Most of the “real” nerds that I was talking about are too busy defending themselves to even think of harassing because we are recieving flak from the more mainstreamed nerds of both genders.”
So, a mainstream nerd is someone who likes mainstream pop culture? And if you can admit that a lot of “nerd” stuff is mainstream, then who the hell are you defending yourself against?
“Maybe the people harassing female geeks are just normal people with nerdy interests, and not detached nerds like myself. Maybe they outright pretend to be nerds. But you haven’t done research on that.”
Because it’s an absurd notion. We’re just talking about people treating a certain demo badly. Why are you so married to the idea that treating women in geek/nerd venues is so fucking necessary? Research? You’d have to base it on the notion that some people go through the trouble of pretending to be geek/nerds in the first place. Why would anyone do this now? Attending Coms, buying comics and games cost money. The notion of people attending Coms to make fun of the attendees is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard.
I love the idea that non-geeks attend geek events just to fuck with actual geeks and make them miserable. I mean really, do you think that entertainment options for the mean girls/mean boys are that limited once they’re out of high school?
Yeah, generation-Xers mainstreamed geek/nerd stuff, people. Gen-Xers all know where they were when they saw Star Wars for the first time. They know about tokens and arcades. Alien the film…crucial. Why not celebrate and be all, “We won, we won!!!” Everyone likes our stuff now!
But no. Read this: http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2013/04/01/what-is-geek-culture/
Asher said:
“Almost every stereotype ever to develop has a solid basis in reality; that’s howthey become stereotypes. About the only stereotype I’ve ever seen to have zero validity is the one that “polish people are stupid” and that came from the Nazis and their disdain of ethnic slavs.”
I disagree. Stupid prejudices based on stereotypes are all over the place. Women, people of colour, Asians, “boat people” (we’re seeing a lot of that one where I live just now. It’s a central plank in the platforms of both our political parties and it’s particularly savage because we have an election coming up.), people of particular religious convictions, trans people, gays, people with disabilities and dozens of others. What they are is a means of social control and an excuse for victim blaming and not taking the suffering of others seriously.