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.
RE: Sir Bodsworth
Yeah, DC rebooted its canon a few years ago. Last I checked, Amanda Waller was a hot babe and Ted Kord no longer existed.
This is why I stopped reading DC. Losing Kord, I could’ve survived, but AMANDA WALLER???? *cries*
Gaaah! Just googled ‘sexy Amanda Waller’. Seriously DC?
I KNOOOOOW. Amanda Waller was my favorite female character in the DC Universe, because she had no powers, was tough as nails, and stood down Batman when he tried to spook her in the shower. Seriously, most people, on finding Batman in their bathroom after a shower, would rightly shit themselves with fear and sob in a corner, while Amanda Waller sticks to her guns and tells him to get the fuck out of her bathroom.
And now the woman, one of the few in comics who wasn’t a sex object or a mom, has become exactly what she wasn’t. I AM SO SAD.
I look forward to seeing Harvey Bullock lose weight and start working out. Maybe get his hair styled, you know?
God, I hope not. I LIKE Bullock. He makes me feel better about not having anywhere to go on Christmas. (In Batman: the Animated Series, he works through it.)
Gah! Now I’ve seen the revamped Harley Quinn, and I can’t unsee her!
Seriously, who looks at a woman in a completely skintight outfit and says “that’s just not revealing enough”?
DC COMICS, THAT’S WHO.
Seriously, one of the reason I’ve mostly stopped reading the Big Two is I’m kind of sick of the constant pandering to a very select demographic. If I want pandering, I’ll read Empowered which at least delivers awesome and depth to its pandering 85% of the time.
Oh, god, it’s worse than that…
So, they decided that what they really needed was to try to pander to another demographic, to try to rope women in, right?
So… um… http://www.themarysue.com/daniel-superman-wonder-woman/
Superman and Wonder Woman — a romance series.
This is my frowny face.
I’ve only ever liked superheroes who were loners and spent most of their time skulking in the dark. Basically, Batman and Daredevil. I’ve given up on them because Marvel and DC (their mainstream titles) are way too driven by marketing considerations. It’s as if every week on every TV show was ratings sweeps and every episode involved some world-shattering event. Endless reboots, “deaths” and so on. Anyway, I don’t get the whole “fake geek girl” thing. Every male geek dreams of meeting an attractive girl who happens to be into the things he’s into. I’m sure every ten-year-old boy thinks girls are weird because they like playing with Barbies instead of blowing stuff up in video games, because (objectively) blowing things up and killing monsters is more exciting than dressing up and going to parties. So any normal boy or man should welcome female geekery as a positive development. The whole controversy started when some comic book artist posted a rant about attractive women who supposedly went to conventions because, for some reason, they like attention from socially awkward, unattractive male geeks. Never mind that this is a completely insane idea, I’ve been to low key literary SF conventions and seen plenty of young women who do not fit the “geek” stereotype and were definitely not there to show off for anyone (although one pretty young girl sitting next to me at a performance of a play by Roger Zelazny did try to impress me with her knowledge of Gene Wolfe’s “Book of the New Sun”. I was duly impressed and it never once occurred to me that she had familiarized herself with Gene Wolfe purely in order to get attention from a paunchy, middle-aged, scruffy-looking guy at a science fiction convention).
I read “Endless robots,” which was kind of surreal and cool at the same time.
RE: Howard Bannister
Just as well I quit reading DC, looks like! If I want superheroes, I’ll go for creator-owned. I prefer my superheroes tongue-in-cheek and with real thought behind the social ramifications of costumed vigilantes who consider themselves above the law.
RE: Falconer
I read “Endless robots,” which was kind of surreal and cool at the same time.
Sounds like the inside of my brain!
A little of that goes a long way, for me. Before too long it starts reading as mockery and judgment, possibly because the first place I ever read that kind of criticism was in MAD Magazine.
‘Course, my favorite super is hardly any kind of Randian moral pole, no matter how hard Steve Ditko tried to make him one.
“They interpret the fact that things aren’t always about them all the time as bigotry or hatred.” Oh, irony. He just described MRAs and misogynists in general.
Oh, and, if you don’t want to be “cast as borderline rapists”, how about not letting so many of your number get away with sexually assaulting women at gaming conventions. That might be cool.
I just solved the problem by dating the chess team in high school the way most cheerleaders date the football team. You can thank me later for helping to prevent a few MRA’s.
It’s all in the name of feminism, I swear.
Wait a minute… The whole thing behind feminist ideology is that you want women to be thought of not as a monolith, or as less than men right? I do not know exactly what it is feminists hope to achieve, because I’ve heard so many of these damned arguments (on either side). But how are you going to fight for stereotypes being a thing of the past, or at the very least something that is not treated as fact by people, and then say that MRAs shouldn’t complain that women think of them the way they do because ONE person fit that stereotype? I just feel like if you want to get results and prevent people from bitching at you, you need to present the faults of not just people you view as misogynist, but people who are viewed as “femi-nazis”(I think that’s what people call them, those people who just rage at everything and want to oppress anyone who disagrees with them). You won’t make any difference what do ever unless you actually try to solve a problem, instead of snowballing it.
And you think we want your opinion because?
Dude, if you’re going to necro a thread for trolling purposes, could you, you know, have a point or something?
Oh noes! Someone doesn’t understand feminism! Clearly I need to drop everything and exposit for a person who can’t be bothered to type “feminism 101” into a search engine and spend an evening reading.
The hypocrisy gambit, and concern trolling in one sentence. That’s some high-grade stupidity.
This bit is more complicated. It looks like concern trolling, and it is, but there’s also this weird “you need to criticize your allies” argument in there. Is there a name for that? It’s bizarre that someone thinks I am going to slam allies just because some dipshit decided to slap a stupid label on them.
Yes, of course, I’m sure that you’re totally new to all of this and aren’t actually completely certain what “feminazi” means. That’s definitely not a disingenuous bullshit troll maneuver, and I know this because I just joined the internet yesterday.
Doesn’t look like trolly wants to play. What a pity, after he so bravely sneaked into a months-old thread.
OH, NOES!!!! We’ve been feminising rong! All this time, we should have cleared our own ranks of dissenters before we dared ask teh menz to give us basic human rights! If only Emily Pankhurst had been nicer, we might have got the vote by now! 🙁
Someone, alert the FHC!!!!! Thanks, neutral d00d!eleventy!!!
Shorter necro dude – I’m too stupid and lazy to figure out what feminism’s goals are, and this is your fault, because you’re supposed to be my mommy.
I read him more as “I know you have a stated mission about mocking misogyny and all but it hurts my fee fees that you don’t spend as much time being as mad as I am about these straw feminists that I made up in my head!”
And this?
I’m with Policy of Madness on this one. Pull the other one, ThatNeutrollGuy, it’s got bells on.
He’s so sad that he can’t make feminists have a sexy pillowfight for him to watch.
Gack!
I just made the sound my cats make when they are trying to bring up a hairball.
I’ll take one for the team and volunteer to have a pillowfight with Mr K, purely for the good of the cause of course. *cough*
But trolly’s not invited to watch.