Vox Day, the reactionary fantasy author and pickup guru who was recently expelled from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America , has convinced himself that education for women leads to “demographic implosion” because uppity educated women don’t have enough babies.
Indeed, Vox — real name, Theodore Beale — is convinced that education for women is such a bad thing that he actually thinks that “the Taliban may not, in fact, be the stupid ones with regards to this particular matter.”
By this he means not only that they’re right to keep girls out of schools, but that they’re also probably justified in shooting teenage girls for the terrible crime of speaking up publicly in favor of education for girls like themselves.
No, really:
[I]n light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.
It’s quite telling that it is the “shooting-girls-in-the-head” issue that turns Beale — a right-wing evangelical Christian — into something of a fan of the Taliban.
“The Men’s Human Rights Movement: Fighting for to gain rights that nobody lacks and privileges that nobody needs, one human rights violation at a time.”
Dear “Men’s Rights” Movement,
You are no longer permitted to use the label, “men” to refer to yourselves, as this implies membership of the human race. False advertising will not be tolerated.
Ugh. Why do I read these people’s comments?
That’s right, kids, everyone in a relationship is in a relationship with the opposite sex. LGBT? What’s that mean?
Ugh. I can’t.
ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS
Also, Nolan is nearly gleeful at the thought he might cause a woman to kill herself.
I found it helpful just now to look at a picture of my cat.
I’m happy to see that someone called Beale on his sexist idiocy. He rarely if ever cites his “facts” which leads me to believe that he makes most of them up himself. (I read his blog regularly – I teach a course in human diversity and he is a gold mine of anti-diversity nonsense with which I can scarify my class. Too many of them believe that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. are no longer “really” problems in this world, because we’ve fixed all that, sigh.) His commenters are mostly his true-believers and are often so extreme that they make him look good. I find it horrifying that so many people with such beliefs are actually out there running around. I don’t remember which blog this passage came out of – his Vox Populi (NOT!) or Alpha Game. He often echoes similar entries in both of them.
Can we not be ableist? These people are despicable enough that we don’t have to include ableism in it…
One day, the whole manosphere will find something so misogynistic that even their shriveled little hearts will be given cause to beat. Apparently an attempted execution of a 14 yr old girl for wanting to be educated is not that thing. Dickwads.
Evidently, it’s better for a country to be overpopulated and poor than not overpopulated and prosperous. Also, I wonder if he is aware that the “rational and scientific” Taliban also oppose teaching boys anything other than religion (from what I read, this was a chief point of contention between bin Laden and Mullah Omar; bin Laden felt that it was important for Muslims to learn such things as engineering and economics, rather than just the Quran).
@ceebarks
Not if you think there’s an X-war going (race, religion, whatever). At that point it’s imperative that you breed soldiers..Of course that still makes them dickheads, it’s just that you can’t argue with that particular variety.
Considering how much of a racist fuck Beale is, it’s funny he’s acting as an apologist for the Taliban. I guess with him, misogyny wins out over racism.
the other thing is that bugs me is, people who fret about “demographic decline” invariably seem to leave out the fact that there had been a population explosion leading up to the decline. Like human history starts with the Baby Boom and we are all duty-bound to have four or twelve kids apiece til we colonize Mars or something. Japan’s case is probably going to be instructive– last I read, they were on track to have about the same population in 2100 as they had in 1940, which doesn’t sound tragic to me.
That said, I have four kids and to me, not wanting to have kids is like not liking to eat cheese– totally your business, obviously, but personally I don’t “get” how anyone can not crave cheese!
OTOH, hey, it’s better for the environment for there to be fewer cheese-eaters than more, and coercing/guilting people into eating cheese when they don’t want to serves precisely zero useful purpose, so… why would you do that?
Nothing I’ve read on this site before now has literally left me shaking in rage.
I’ve been seeing Malala on television over the past few weeks – at the White House, on Jon Stewart, meeting the Queen of England. Every time I almost couldn’t believe that a sixteen-year-old girl had such poise, charm, wisdom and gentle good humor. When I was sixteen I was barely housebroken. She is a pearl beyond price, and “Vox Day” is a swine beyond contempt.
Pah! Can’t…no…words…?!?
http://youtu.be/27QLzhC5YAE
Cheese is the perfect analogy by me — I’m lactose intolerant. I literally cannot like cheese without enduring the results, and with the exceptions of pizza and cannolis, it ain’t worth it. Passing on my DNA ain’t worth the risk, cuz my form of nuts is probably genetic (and other reasons, but that’s a biggie)
Cheese, and babies, not worth the risk.
Most people will probably like this analogy less, but I love it.
No, it’s still there.
I probably should have made clearer that he’s got two separate posts on the subject, and I’m quoting from both of them. You need to follow the link right before I quote it; it’s in the final paragraph of the post of his I link to there.
@theladyzombie | October 23, 2013 at 12:02 pm
No, he still wants to bomb the fuck out of the Taliban; it’s just that he simultaneously wants to be them. But white.
The entangled racism and misogyny of the conservative right allows it to at once opposed to the Taliban, insisting that it is better than them, and espouse almost identical policies to them.
@argenti: see, hadn’t even thought of the lactose intolerance/ allergy angle. ha!
@Shadow, yeah, that’s true. Maybe racism is likelier to breed misogyny than the other way around.
Right-wing thinking never ceases to amaze me. How much cognitive dissonance, willful obtuseness and downright evil does it take to applaud one group you dislike for terrorizing another group you dislike? Just as long as someone they don’t particularly care for gets hurt, it’s all cool?
Translation: How do I science?
I don’t like children. At all. I don’t even know why. At some point in my life, I started getting this almost physical reaction of anxiety and even disgust whenever there were small children around. It doesn’t even make any sense, since I don’t intellectually object to children, or to people having children, and I can even find babies adorable, in theory at least. Yet the idea of having children anywhere near me makes me shudder, and the mere thought of having babies of my own gives me the heebie-jeebies.
I really can’t think of a good metaphor. It’s really weird.
The only bad thing about his expulsion from the SFWA was that people actually defended him.
Personally, I wish we could expel him from humanity. I don’t mean kill him, but maybe we could make him go live in a cave with no Internet access so no one would have to see, hear or read his spew.
The whole “oh noes, the human race is going to be completely destroyed if we don’t immediately revoke women’s rights” is a two-fold desperation tactic.
The first point is obviously to try and scare women out of being full participants in society in the name of avoiding the terrible horror of living in a world slightly less dominated by whites.
And the second point is to justify any amount of violence against the lesser groups the bigot already wanted to commit violence against. They aren’t beating up on women and minorities because the bigot is a small-minded asshole who gets off on the power of punching down. They’re defending the entire human race against people who have “willfully chosen” to destroy it. And any tactic can be excused if it’s to save the entire world…
@ Hellkell
[i]Is he doing this for page hits or is he really this evil?[/i]
Evil.
http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=94293
[b]Domestic violence trigger warning[/b]
[On warrior women in fantasy]
“Has Phony ever hit a woman? Has he ever seen a woman’s head snap back, seen her knees buckle, and stood over her as she lays crumpled on the floor? Has he ever bloodied a woman’s nose or blackened a woman’s eyes? Has he ever toyed with a woman desperately trying to lay a hand on him before stepping forward and flattening her with a single jab?
I have. It wasn’t even amusing because it was so easy. I had a harder time fighting a well-trained eleven year old boy. I wasn’t even throwing any combinations or throwing my strikes at more than half-force, and that was still enough to lay them out. If you are a man who hasn’t ever hit a woman in the face, or if you are a woman who hasn’t ever been beaten up by a man, your opinion on the subject is guaranteed to be irrelevant. The cumulative difference in speed, strength, and mass simply has to be experienced to be believed.
I sincerely encourage anyone who wishes to write about women warriors to visit a full-contact dojo and ask to spar a few rounds with the opposite sex. They will accommodate you and it will be an eye-opening experience.”
I can’t imagine why the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America kicked him out.
Hyena girl – bingo. The real reason far-right extremeists shriek about Muslim extremists is envy. “Why can’t I legally shoot women and throw acid at them and cut pieces of their bodies out? It’s not faiirrrrr!”
Seven billion plus of our species and he’s complaining about not enough? Though, of course, silly me, most of those people aren’t white, ergo aren’t human.
Isn’t that DV idiocy an argument against hitting women? And, for that matter, an argument against female on male DV being any sort of problem?
Since he can hurt her but she can’t hurt him?
He doesn’t logic too good does he?