Our dear friend W.F. Price of The Spearhead celebrated Columbus Day yesterday with a post suggesting that “American girls” are too weak-minded to deserve college educations.
Price’s misogyny is nothing new, but what, you may wonder, is the connection to Columbus Day? Well, you see, Price ran across a column in the Daily Nebraskan by a female student named Shelby Fleig that was, well, rather critical of Mr. Columbus, pointing out, among other things, that he kidnapped and enslaved many of those he encountered in the Americas.
Fleig’s piece is a tad simplistic at times — at one point it says that when Columbus arrived in the Americas he encountered a “civilization close to 14,000 years old,” which is just plain wrong; there were people in the Americas around 14,000 years ago, but there were no civilizations anywhere on earth that far back. Still, the piece certainly reflects reality far more closely than anything you’ll find on The Spearhead on any given day.
To Price, though, the column is such an unpatriotic abomination that he considers it evidence that education is wasted on women. No, really.
Little Ms. Fleig certainly has it in for her forefathers, but is it really her fault? Probably not. She, like most other college girls, is simply parroting what’s been fed to her by her profs. Girls are good at that, which is why teachers like them so much — they’re easy.
If you’re the father of an American girl, is this really what you want your daughter to absorb over the course of four years? Does it add any value whatsoever to the family or to the nation?
I’m not sure what specifically Price is objecting to about Fleig’s account — aside from its mild profanity (the word “bullshit”) and its less-than-reverential tone towards an icon of American history. But he offers no rebuttal, perhaps because he really can’t. While Fleig may be a bit ahistorical in her judgment of Columbus, it’s a fact that he kidnapped and enslaved hundreds of natives and committed other atrocities. It’s a fact that he paved the way for conquest and genocide. History isn’t pretty.
But Price is only getting started, telling fathers of “American girls” that
Your money would be much better spent sending her to sewing or baking school. Let’s face it: Ms. Fleig isn’t going to discover the cure for cancer. Despite being an attractive young woman, she isn’t going to colonize Mars, either (at her size, she’d be too expensive to launch out of the Earth’s atmosphere).
Yep, he goes there. No manosphere screed is complete without a bit of gratuitous fat-shaming.
In all likelihood, the best she could hope for is a nonprofit or government job fully funded by her father’s and brother’s tax bills.
Because girls can’t handle real jobs. Because jobs at nonprofits or with the government aren’t real jobs. Because nonprofits are funded entirely by the government. And because only men pay taxes.
And yet she represents 60% of college students. What an enormous, unsustainable waste. It’s impolitic to point it out, but from a cost-benefit point of view, in most cases higher education is entirely wasted on women, and as in Ms. Fleig’s case is often counterproductive.
So that’s Price’s thoughtful and logical rebuttal to Fleig’s article: a post that addresses none of her arguments, posits the natural inferiority of women, and attacks her for her apparent weight.
Let’s see what the highly erudite Spearhead readers have to say about it in the comments.
Gender Foreigner suggests that women, born to obey, are simply obeying the wrong people:
Women don’t know how to think: they know how to obey. So, let’s tell them what to do. What they lack is MEN to obey instead of girls to obey. Barefoot, pregnant in the kitchen, obeying masculine will. As long as they do that they will feign civility.
Dire Badger, for his part, acknowledges that Columbus did a lot of terrible things, but argues that this doesn’t matter because reasons. He also uses profanity, though Price doesn’t step in to rebuke him for that.
[I]n the end, individual racial and cultural atrocities mean NOTHING the moment the last person that witnessed them dies…. but things like achievements in literature, art, science… the true immortality that keeps building as part of a cultural intellectual inheritance. The only meaning that such atrocities have is to teach us NOT TO DO THEM AGAIN. Anything else is beating the dead victim horse for no benefit whatsoever, and merely punishes the people that had NOTHING to do with the original atrocity.
In short, columbus opened up america for expansion. He sailed the ocean blue in a way that hadn’t been achieved for nearly 400 years since the vikings.
As for the rest? FUCK YOU. Get over it already, you pussy.
In a followup comment, he adds:
Columbus rediscovered America by a monumental navigational goofup… funny story… What he did afterwards doesn’t concern me except as an object lesson. I honor the accomplishment but have no reason to diminish it by sorrow over a bunch of people who would still be more than 400 years dead if Columbus had never existed.
Schlomo, meanwhile, is mad at Fleig for not blaming Columbus’ mom for the whole thing:
What irks me is that feminists constantly blame only men– and then mostly white men– for all evil in the world. They don’t look at women’s roles in raising boys to be exploiters; or in bedding “bad boys” (thus rewarding their brutality); or in serving as Nazi prison guards, etc.
White females helped run plantations in the Old South and ran them alone during the Civil War. Ergo, it’s a lie that gals are innately “better” than guys. After all, they became queens of men feminists now demonize… and sometimes were the evil-incarnate leaders of countries themselves.
Nowhere, of course, do feminists praise men for the creating the Magna Carta or washing machines or hi-fi systems. No kudos, either, for males who wiped out polio and provided potable water. Also, no credit for inventing penicillin or making cars safer. Always and everywhere feminists blame-blame-blame. You never hear them collectively apologize for THEIR shite, like their hysterical historical foresisters’ White Feather campaigns… or sleeping with the enemy.
Where is the condemnation of Sacagawea for helping Whitey conquer her “people”?
It’s like domestic violence: fembots never talk about the equal evil women do.
Wilson, meanwhile, decides that Fleig is the truly evil one, not Columbus, based on a bunch of TRUE FACTS about her he’s pulled from his own posterior:
Conquest through genocide is not actually immoral, since there is no “social contract” being violated, though the greed of it may be questionable. Fleig would support a genocide against whites, so she is in no position to judge anyway, and her motivations–spite, malice, nihilism, betrayal–are much more evil than Columbus’s straightforward and productive ambition
But Fleig does have one defender amongst the Spearhead regulars, a fella named Dragnet, who happily declares that “corn-fed” gals like her please his penis. No, really, that’s his argument.
Being from the Midwest myself, I find her buxom, corn-fed heft absolutely delightful. I have had more than a few liaisons with her similarly endowed Midwestern sisters–to this day my manhood rises in salute.
What I wouldn’t give for more women on the east coast to be built like Miss Fleig. There’s a well-built, fulsome hardiness to the women of the Midwest that you really don’t find out East. God bless them all.
Well, I’m glad these superior-brained, independent-minded men have put us all straight on these important historical issues.
“The idea that empathy can heal all wounds is just really misguided. There’s also the fact that FeMRAs try their best to shower those guys in empathy and kindness and warm fuzzies, and it doesn’t make the guys hate women as a whole any less, it just makes them go “there’s a nice token well-behaved female” and pat the FeMRA in question on the head. It doesn’t even mean that they won’t last out at the FeMRA who’s just been attempting to love-bomb them the moment something sets them off into rage mode again. It’s dangerous to even try the healing-via-compassion approach with people that angry, which is part of why the idea that trying is some sort of an ethical duty bothers me so much.”
Okay I understand. I was misguided. I know now. You’re probably older than me and have more experience so I’ll take your word.
I apologize for my directness and jerkishness. I realize my errors in communication and will work on improving my communication abilities. And Cassandra, I’m being sincere. I wouldn’t take this much time out of my life just to troll you guys, especially since I tend to agree with you guys anyway. I may be naive and have made a lot of mistakes, but I’m sincere. I like you guys and I will work on coming off as as tactful.
Yeah that’s what I’ve heard about English universities. Are you British?
I really can’t think of any reason to add “must take biology” unless you think that taking biology will somehow provide ideas that are in opposition to the ones you’re getting in your social sciences class. Which is a bit of an internalized misogyny red flag, and probably a sign that you have weird ideas about gender roles in general that you’re assuming a biology class will support.
Perhaps subconsciously, Cassandra. But consciously? I’m pretty pro-feminist. I’m just afraid of applying the label at this point.
Red flag indeed.
Also, going back to what others have said: why should these opposing ideas be taught?
C’mon PompousYoyo, tell us if you think white supremacist ideas should be taught. Or the Cartesian idea that animals don’t have souls, therefore can’t feel pain, therefore it’s fine dandy to enjoy torturing them (even though they can’t feel pain so why are you doing it at all)? How about teaching that slavery is a good and natural thing?
These ideas SUCK and I
fuckingwell hopepresume you don’t have to be told that. Yet you think there should be room for anti-feminist notions.Feminism is the proposition that women are human beings, just as men are, and should have the same rights and freedoms that men do, simply by being virtue of that.
Do you have a problem with the idea that women are human? Because the idea that we are NOT is what you’re pushing with your claims that anti-feminist ideas should be taught.
I wasn’t telling anyone what to do. The subject of armpit hair in the context of feminism came up, so I thought I’d throw out my reasons for believing that the shaving or not shaving armpit hair is not necessarily a political statement. I should have mentioned that in my original comment.
Another thought – for someone who’s just recently stopped being actively anti-feminist, or is on the fence about whether or not they agree with feminism, it’s true that the comments section here will probably feel hostile. Thing is, I think that’s a feature, not a bug. If someone comes in going on about how much of a bug it is…well, they shouldn’t be too surprised when that doesn’t go well.
For all that it’s primarily a snark blog it’s not really a 101 place or particularly friendly to people who’re at a 101 level, and I think that’s OK. Especially when people are kind enough to say “here is a link to a 101 space, go there first”, as someone did upthread.
MordsithJ – the wording “Personally I think everybody should shave their pits.” was unfortunate, then. Nevertheless, the assumption that shaving is possible or desirable for everyone is still unacceptable, and it’s still nobody else’s business what I do with my body.
Cassandra – the funny thing is, I find this place a hell of a lot less snarky and unfriendly than Pharyngula or Feministe, for instance. They’re Serious Blogs and for all that Pharyngula, for instance, has a sort of “three strikes before you’re assumed to be an asshat” policy for newbies, it’s much more shark-tanky than here. I was wary of posting here at first, less because of snark than because everyone here is so damn smart, and mostly with higher formal education than me, so I felt a bit out of my depth.
Even though this isn’t a 101 blog, it’s a damn good place to learn stuff; I know it’s been my introduction to heaps of things, like trans* issues. I’m bloody grateful for that, as well as enjoying the atmosphere so much.
(And the kitty videos, of course.)
The thing is, there’s a difference between snarky and mean. We are snarky around here, but for most of us that’s because we have senses of humor and tend to see the funny side of things, not because we have some innate desire to rip apart anything that’s put in front of us.
I prefer a site with a lot of snark that also has real relationships where people really care about you to a Sober, Serious Site where everyone is totally in dead earnest all the time and also just waiting for an opportunity to tear you into pieces. (Not that those are the only two options, mind.)
I understand now that the ‘everybody’ was the wrong choice of words. I did not mean that literally everybody in the world should shave their pits, I meant that everybody who wants to shave their pits, regardless of gender, ought to be able to, without being judged or having assumptions made about their political and social beliefs.
If it had been a serious discussion I would have phrased it more carefully, because I’m usually very careful about choosing my words, having been misunderstood a lot and misunderstanding other people frequently (thx, Aspergers). But these threads have a way of veering off into silly territory, and by the time we got to the armpit hair I mistakenly thought we were heading in that direction. So I made an offhand remark without thinking it through.
I’m sure this explanation isn’t really necessary, but I’m kind of obsessive when it comes to communication, so I like to make absolutely sure that I’m understood, and that I understand other people.
Well, to be fair, you didn’t charge in all “let me tell you people what you’re doing wrong, lol, btw I am so smart but not really, if I show off a lot will people think I’m clever?” Makes quite the difference, that.
(Also stop acting like the average person here is smarter than you! It’s not true.)
Feministe has always had a rather unpleasant comments section. There are a lot of reasons why but yeah, not a fun place to hang out on the whole.
Hey, it beats the hell out of the kind of acknowledgement that you communicate poorly but refusal to try to communicate better because other people should just understand that your writing is pretentious and tactless and accept you anyway that our new friend was displaying upthread.
(First comment was directed at kittehs, btw.)
Comments from yoyo are gradually coming appearing upthread btw.
One thought – directness is not a problem. Most people here are pretty direct. Overconfidence coupled with lack of relevant knowledge, however, will almost always get people to start sharpening the knives.
That place. I enjoy some of the posts, but the comments are generally a shitshow. You can always tell what comments will set off the nitpickers, and those nits are picked to death.
“It’s dangerous to even try the healing-via-compassion approach with people that angry”
Thank you, that’s what I was fumbling at with how they have to trust you. Because otherwise (and even then, but less so) you risk becoming the target of that hate.
And yeah, I prefer here to Serious Blogs. How long would my mango teasing last on one of them? 🙂
Related to both those lines — Mr. Mango // pecunium has had a few of those gentle “maybe not such a good idea which I’m saying cuz I care” moments and had it come from someone I already hated on principle, I’d have just gotten defensive.
Sorry, didn’t mean to come across like the false-modesty tell-me-I’m-smart thing! It was more the combination of smart and educated that was a tad intimidating. I know I’m smart. (Add “a” and “ass” as you prefer.)
MordsithJ – seconding Cassandra, thank you for that explanation, it is appreciated, ‘cos I didn’t know where you were coming from on that.
Especially if followed by doubling down, notpologies, or explaining why everyone else is wrong or nasty, rather than “Argh, I fucked up!”
Oh gods, this. Half the discussions (fights) there end up so circular I’ve no idea wtf they’re actually arguing about, or if they’re even disagreeing at all, and the rest just end up sounding like Oppression Olympics.
Well since all my comments now require moderation, I’m posting under my other email to get through, which will probably get me banned anyway.
Anyway, YES, I was being pompous and I made mistakes. I’M SORRY. I made mistakes! I’m pretentious, I’m an asshat, I put on an overconfident wall. So… why didn’t someone just SAY SO sooner? “Hey yoyo, you’re being naive and misguided, you’re being overconfident and pretentious, hey yoyo, you’re being an asshat knock it off. . Hey yoyo stop being pretentious. Yoyo you’re being really rude. Hey yoyo, calm down. Yoyo you’re arrogant” I can’t read minds people! Even the earlier advice of “read more write less” was confusing because I couldn’t really get why I got the advice I got, it seemed like pretty random advice in a sea of snark. Everything was pretty indirect. Does this mean I’m not too sharp? Perhaps, but beside the point. And I’m predicting the comments about my intelligence, ha. “Read more so you stop being pretentious”
Just like Argenti said that trying the compassion game without trust will probably make them defensive, well, if you get a kid with misguided ideas who believes in them, and you snark on him/her, he’s not gonna suddenly realize that he was misguided! He’t not gonna realize he was wrong! He’s gonna get defensive! Argenti and some other people, I’m glad you explained why I was in the wrong. Thank you.
I know this is a snark site in the first place, and I understand that. I felt happy to be here and felt trusting enough to tell you guys about myself, including my naivete, my unsupported beliefs, etc. I knew early on this was a snark site… about MRAs. I now know I’ve said things that based on this site’s style would warrant the same snark, but at the time it was upsetting and unexpected.
Sorry, I’m just kind of pissed. I really meant well when I came here. I had my problems that are now much clearer to me, I made a lot of mistakes, and I have my faults. I came here cause this is a cool place. I’ll think things through more carefully, okay? I’ll choose my words for carefully, I’ll think before I speak. I know this is a place where people are very sensitive towards these types of topics, and that someone must be able to back up their arguments if they’re going to make them. I know I’m wrong a lot and I accept that. I apologize.
On your earlier question Cassandra, about the internalized sexism? I think it is possible on a subconscious level, but on a conscious level, I’m pretty pro-feminist. I just don’t feel comfortable labeling myself as one at this point in time. Spending so much time in the manosphere has actually made me more feminist than before, that’s why earlier I said that I’ve become much more open minded towards it. I’ll be honest with you that reading so much manosphere and right-wing stuff has probably affected me a bit, but I still choose to stand for equality. The biology comment was because, since women’s studies study women, and women are biological organisms, then women’s studies involves studying the woman as an organic organism! LOLOLOL. The balance with ‘right wing stuff’ was a naive call for ‘balance’ which I can now see wouldnt work in the real world.
And kitteh, neo-nazis? Seriously? Talk about slippery slope.
The comment about the pretty feminist friend was intended to be a compliment, showing that my stereotypes of feminism were wrong, but I can understand why many didn’t appreciate it. But I appreciate that you’re being straight up with me. I’m sorry I overreacted at you, which I guess started this shitstorm in the first place. The identity studies comment, which was originally just me introducing my basic opinions as a new manboobzer, was hasty and lazy, and I now know why people would take it the wrong way, and I’m sorry. It was a mistake to go into arguing about it and just for me to say that it’s just a feeling, I have nothing to back it up with and this feeling is subject to change. I will keep an open mind from now on, just like I opened my mind to feminism.
Go home, Yoyo, you’re drunk.
Stop typing, you’re not helping. I can pretty much guarantee no one cares how sorry you are at this point.
I cannot believe that “read more, type less” was vague in any way.
Ugh I didn’t even read all of that.
This sounds like a good time to talk about OUR CATS, and other cuties. Would anybody like to hear about MY CATS?
Bailey has this adorable tendency to get jealous of my phone. He will lie on it and my arm when I’m holding it, try to bat it out of my hands, and jam his head in between it and me. I love him so much. He is such a comfort this time of year when the days get short and my depression takes a bit of a surge. <3 pets.
Here are some babby elephants:
I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR CATS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT MINE?
A couple weeks ago, Mr. HK got chicken and potato wedges for lunch. Biscuit–you gotta watch him around chicken and steak–thought a potato wedge looked tasty and snagged one. I’m in another room and see Mr. HK tearing by in hot pursuit, saying, “Biscuit stole a wedge.”
He never got the wedge back, and that unrepentant tiny orange cat had death farts all night long.
Oh no! Cat farts are toxic.
Cats it is! There are many local pet stores that are currently hosting adoptable kittens, it being kitten season and all, and yesterday I met one who I had a REALLY hard time not bringing home. We bent down to look at her, she woke up, looked at us, and started meowing her little head off. And then she rubbed up against the bars waiting to be petted, nibbled on our fingers, and took a nap with her chin resting on my hand.
Please remind me that I cannot get another cat or my landlord will flip his shit.
Aw. How many is too many for the landlord? I don’t think ours has any idea we have four, since two of them disappear into another dimension when strangers come over.
Let’s just put it this way, when my first cat died and I wanted to get another one he initially insisted that I couldn’t because the first cat was only allowed because he was individually named on the lease.