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.
They mean one half of one specific race. It’s not like they consider women to be human too…
Hera Sent Me,
I’m right there with you. (Barely housebroken, lol!)
I was listening to her speech on NPR,
and she did not express anger, resentment, or fear, and part of her speech: “Dear sisters and brothers, I am not against anyone. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorists group. I am here to speak up for the right of education of every child. I want education for the sons and the daughters of all the extremists especially the Taliban.”
Perhaps we can learn something from her.
Oh and MRA fuckwads, she also said “I speak – not for myself, but for all girls and boys.”
And boys. Brothers and sisters. Wake the fuck up.
LBT: Hope your health turns for the better soon. It could be worse–your inn could be about two hours south of there, in a location I dubbed “Radio Hell” during a solo driving trip to Kansas City. On the FM side of things, there were three channels, all playing Country & Western music, which during the Xmas season means Western-twang carols. The third of these was actually being done by the local high school band. On the AM side, the first station I found was playing… Dr. Laura. So I hit the Scan button, and watched in mute horror as the numbers scrolled up, up, and over, starting at the bottom of the band, and then back up to end up on… Dr. Laura.
I drove in absolute silence for two hours before risking the controls again.
Oddly timed, I just got linked to this article: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex
Apparently, Japan’s actually facing the same sort of demographic issues that Vox Day and other racists are looking at here. The article misses a key point, I think–it doesn’t mention Japan’s extremely strict anti-abortion laws (rape, danger to the mother’s life are the only exceptions–and the mother’s husband has to agree to the procedure fuckyouJapan).
This, of course, means that LOTS of career-minded women have simply decided that the danger of having sex and getting pregnant isn’t worth the risk, so to hell with it. (Men opting out of relationships is discussed heavily in the article, as are other reasons for women–but I think the fact abortion isn’t available has a lot to do with the refusal to even begin a relationship.)
Oh, and on that article, remember the first rule of the internet–NEVER read the comments. (They got into a discussion about suicide that went about as well as it ever does.)
Freemage
I didn’t know Abortion was illegal in Japan.
CriticalDragon: I didn’t either, at first, but when I read the article I wondered about it, and Wikipedia came through pretty quickly.
RE: grumpycatisagirl, Alice, Argenti, Myoo, and katz
Yeah, it bites. I literally have the tickets to Minnesota, a bare five hours on a bus away from meeting my oldest fan… but I really don’t think I can do it. It’s really dismaying!
On the other hand, it’s sorta like, “No SHIT, dumbass, you’re disabled. Why didn’t you PLAN for this better?” And now I won’t get to meet up with augochlorella, or katz, or cloudiah, or thebionicmommy! I’m so sad about that. 🙁
Like, I’m at a safe place here in Iowa, but STILL! There were/are so many things I had hoped to do! I guess it’s just really hitting home that I’m really Not Okay. I guess part of me hoped that this whole disability thing was just a temporary setback, lalala.
RE: Freemage
No fear for me! I have only four CDs with me, but they are Bruce Springsteen, American McGee’s Alice soundtrack, Cabaret soundtrack, and classical. I am GOOD.
Freemage
Responding to me, you wrote
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CriticalDragon: I didn’t either, at first, but when I read the article I wondered about it, and Wikipedia came through pretty quickly.
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I’ll have to look up abortion in Japan than.
LBT, sorry to hear about y’all’s health. I’m glad you’re in a safe place though!
Vox Day, ugh, I can’t even. Does this
mean he goes around beating up children?
LBT – I am so sorry, that sucks, majorly! 🙁
Freemage – gah. It sounds like you landed in a real-life Radio Nowhere. (Or … could Bruce have driven through that place before he wrote it?)
😯
On the plus side, I’ve had a FANTASTIC time, this past three weeks! I’ve been with great people, drawn wonderful stuff, gotten a new project, a new commission, and fallen in love with places I’d never been before. I really can’t complain; most people don’t have the chance to do this at all!
kittehserf: Heh. It was truly the pits, but also a classic First World Problem–I was, after all, driving cross-country to spend time with my extended family on the holidays.
Serrana: He’s claiming to have fought them in a formal class/dojo/kwoon setting, I think, but it’s still pretty horrible the way he crows about it. And as others have noted, he’s simply dead wrong on the history of women in combat.
Freemage – it got me thinking about listening to Magic again, so it had a long-term benefit, you might say. 😀
“Maybe not entirely. Since most, if not all of the women he’s worried about not having babies will be white women, in his eyes, this might be the only way to maintain the ‘white race’ Other than the fact that he’s defending an organization which is made up of mostly people that he at least probably regards as non ‘whites,’ this is just something you can imagine a racist, misogynist would say.”
Now wait a minute. If Vox wants white women to have babies, and thinks educated women don’t have babies, and thinks white women are educated, and thinks educated women should be shot, who’s going to be left to have the (white)* babies?
Somehow I suspect he hasn’t thought all of this through.
*I assume, but am not sure, because there’s a vein of confusion in VoxThought which isn’t always apparent on the surface (though it becomes evident not very far down.)
Ew, with that fighting comment, the way he phrased it (with the “well-trained” boy child and no specifics as to the woman) makes it sound like he sparred consensually with the kid but beat up a female acquaintance out of sheer rage. Was it his wife, his mother, an ex-girlfriend or someone similar, I wonder?
@freemage – from the comments, concerning abortion in Japan:
[quote]The ready availability of abortions and fairly loose social acceptance of the practice ensures that relatively few “accidents” produce any children”[/quote]
Don’t think I have ever encountered racism without misogyny. It always seems to come down to thinking of people in terms of ‘breeding’. Ugh.
bekabot –
Thought it through? You’re expecting a manly man with a manly man brain to think something through?
MISANDRY!
Monster: Given a contrast between comments on an article and a cited Wikipedia article….
bekabot, kittehserf: You know you’ve been following this blog for too long when you realize the answer to that conundrum (in their mind) is, “Pull all the white teenagers out of school and force them into baby-making duty while shooting the adult ones who got education.” It’s the only possible resolution for the thought-process.
freemage – yup.
Enslaving women is really what these misogynists are about.
To repurpose a term that Vox was probably rather fond of when it was coined, he’s a one-man Onion of Evil. Peel off one layer and there’s something even nastier underneath.
“Thought it through? You’re expecting a manly man with a manly man brain to think something through?”
Yeah well, if he wants to confine himself to pointing and grunting he ought to do it somewhere other than the Web. That little arrow is not visible to people on the other side of the screen thingie, and grunts are inaudible to people who aren’t in the same room. Just saying.
Gah, I had a pithy observation but accidentally used my wordpress name! Silly sausage.
So, with that fighting comment, the way Beale phrased it (with the “well-trained” boy child and no specifics as to the woman) makes it sound like he sparred consensually with the kid but beat up a female acquaintance out of sheer rage. Was it his wife, his mother, an ex-girlfriend or someone similar, I wonder?
An actual dojo would stop the fight before it got to the blood-spatter stage, so I’m guessing either he beat up a female acquaintance or this is a fantasy.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to argue that you/Wiki are wrong. Just one of those eyeroll moments.
Also apologies for blockquote fail. Bit late for multitasking I guess.