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.
D’awww kitties!!
LBT: I like that model too, but with some pure randomness added to the mix.( I’m still split on whether the randomness is macroscopically significant)
Ok, Good’s study is neither a study, nor recent, but I have to point this out — the percentages in that quote are percentages of rapists et al who were molested/raped/etc by women. Says fuck all about how many women are rapists/molesters/etc (while fairly recent data has like 15% of make college students admitting to rape if you leave out the word rape)
Pecunium — if you see this before we speak elsewhere, hope your head feels better and check your email, I’ll send you any good bits (not Good bits, unless they’re also good)
I did it. I read all of the comments.
(Apologies for the long screed ahead.)
Something that’s struck me with some of our trolls, particularly our I-am-the-embodiment-of-all-that-is-intelligent-and-logical types, is that they form arguments in a similar way that I did in my early years of competitive debate. My arguments would be researched and well-worded, but they were formed not with the intention of actually exploring the debate topic, but with winning debate rounds. Even though I was actually pretty successful competitively, my arguments were shallow and detached from reality. It wasn’t until I had some experience under my belt that my arguments became something more meaningful than debate-winning tools.
It’s as though to these trolls, the illusion that they are intellectually superior to women or feminists or people in general is more important than the argument at hand. I can understand it in competitive debate; at least there’s a trophy at the end waiting for you, and dismissing your opponent’s arguments is necessary (it’s competitive debate for a reason). But when it comes to real-life arguments, refusing to even use credible sources to back up your points because “I am smarter than everyone so whatever I say is right” isn’t just silly, it’s almost sad.
Seriously, Asher, reading you bringing up that some of your professors wanted to use your papers as examples was one of the most pathetic things I’ve read all week. Dude, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not some uncommon thing that happens to only the specialest of intellectual snowflakes. Why is it so important to you to convince yourself that you’re not just smart, but drastically smarter than everyone else?
Also, at least in competitive debate, the judges will call you out for being pedantic or deliberately misinterpreting your opponent’s arguments to go off on some tangent. I mean, dear god, Asher.
I’ve got three new fluffballs that I need names for (two gray/white boys, one lynx point girl).
I’m like talacaris in that I don’t know if the universe is strictly deterministic or random, but for me the concept of free will is independent of that. Humans use mental constructs like countries and time and laws and so forth all the time, and certain constructs are useful for the foundations of different systems. Free will to me is simply the ascription of agency to people, which works because we don’t have the ability to predict people’s actions or thoughts perfectly, and that’s good enough to form a moral theory around. In other words, it’s simply a useful modeling tool.
But yeah… Asher just brought it up right the fuck out of nowhere, and used it as a platform to leap into a completely unrelated topic. Hence not exactly well-received.
I personally see free will as beside the point. It’s just intellectual masturbation. (Which is what Asher did all over this damn thread.)
Kittehs!!
And yeah, great, good for you Asher, I’ll be sure to remember to pull out how I set the curve in abnormal psych whenever that comes up. Oh, right, that just means I have most of DSM IV TR memorized…not so useful in the real world.
@augochlorella:
My sense is that these guys argue the way I used to write; no central thesis, no structure with supporting points, and no direction. They argue A, someone counters with B and C, they counter B with D, E and F, people counter D with G, H, and I, they counter H with J and K, and so forth until the conversation leaves A far, far behind. Occasionally they’ll tie k back to A, but like you said it seems like they just want to give an illusion of having argued the same thing all along to score points.
I dunno… Like I said, I’m guilty of the same thing all the time, but watching these things unfold makes me kinda wish that people were actually held to defending a point, an had to explicitly drop or concede it before going too far on tangents.
I completely agree. You said it way better than I ever could. =P
You mean that whether or not the Google search had quotation marks around it wasn’t central to his thesis?? 😯
@ kirbywarp
Yes, that too. Leaving the original point far, far behind isn’t exactly rare in common argument, but with these guys it’s ironic that they’re smart enough to vomit pseudo-intellectual babel but not smart enough to stay on topic.
Or in this case, bother to find out what the topic was.
@katz:
Speaking of which, I should have thought about linking to this when he was trying the google shit. Basically, google makes up the number of search results, probably because it’d be too costly to actually compute it. Google wars are officially less than useless.
In reality, “lesbian bed death” has about 393 hits (without quotes), while “asher is dumb” has about 427 (again without quotes).
Even this is probably very limited… I wouldn’t be surprised if google just stops searching once it gets to some threshold.
@katz, Pictures of the fluffballs?
I’ve been working on Latin stuff today, so for the girl I suggest Fortuna (tuna for short), and for the boys I suggest Nix (snow) and Albus (white).
But they are not white, they are gray with white socks.
If anybody wants me, I’ll be in the corner, trying to forget I ever read about pharyngeal jaws before I have to go to bed.
For the click averse: Moray eels have some Alien shit up in here.
Latin for gray isn’t as nice: Ravus.Clouds are gray: Cirrus, Cumulus. Stones are gray: Lapis, Silex, Calculus. Owls are (sometimes) gray: Noctua
I got nothing.
If you can justify silver instead of grey, it’s what Argenti means 🙂
So THAT’s why silver is Ag on the periodic table!
Yuppers. Also gold = aurum, lead = plumbum, iron = ferrum, etc.
So what’s the deal with sodium?
More Latin-based names: Felix is lucky. Dulcie from the word for sweet. Leo (the lion). Clemens/Clement for kind. Dignus for worthy. Peregrine from the word for traveller. Amadeus from the Latin word for love. Dante for enduring. If one is particularly chatty, Facundo (talkative). Fante (from infans) for baby. Renato (reborn). Umbra for shadow (gray-ish).
You could confuse them by naming one of them Catellus (puppy), Ursino (bear), or Tasso (badger).
Natrium. Had to look that one up.
By the way, I drew the dragon with knees sticking up past its back and now I can’t figure out how to put a skirt on it.