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.
bekabot – LOL!
Grunting is something I can well imagine most of his sort doing, much like the trolls here.
LBT: happy to hear that you got some great ups to counter the downs.
It has a whiff of “cool story, bro” about it. Good thing, too; I’d hate to think that any actual women were harmed in the making of that story.
I took a beginner martial arts class once (we’re talking whitest of white belts). At the end of the first class the dojo went around the room, stopped in front of each person, and invited them to punch him as hard as they could in the stomach. The point was to illustrate that a) none of us knew how to punch, and b) karate gives you abs of unobtanium.
When he got to me, there was an arrogant tone of “haha, you, a mere woman, cannot possibly harm me” in his voice. I wound up and drove my fist home. He let out an “uffff” sound, got a peculiar look in his eyes, and dismissed class early.
Later, at the next class, he told me that I’d really hurt him and he’d had to go home and lie on the couch for a couple of hours. I apologized about a hundred times, but he said no, no, it was fine, he just wasn’t prepared. I still feel guilty about it.
The moral of the story: it’s possible to have pathetic upper body strength (I have T-rex arms and can’t even do a single chinup) and still be able to pack a wallop.
@LBT, Sorry to hear about your health, and that you won’t be making it out here–and at the same time glad that you’ve had some great experiences!
I just did an image search for David Futrelle and no wonder he runs a site like this.
I meant “sensei”, not dojo, above. Obviously, I’m still a karate ignoramus (I dropped the class after the fitst semester).
What is it with people like Vox trying to justify their sewer morality with words like “empirical” and “rational” and “scientific”? That’s the language of someone who knows his opinions are shitty, and he’s tryng to layer a veneer of respectability over them.
The absolute worst thing about this is I can just hear GWW making a similar argument. This isn’t even a fringe idea, this is something people from AVfM would say.
LBT, I’m sorry y’all can’t complete the trip you spent so long planning for, but I’m glad you got your collective minds blown along the way.
Sending you all the healing power two little not-so-bald heads and twenty insatiably curious fingers can muster.
Hahaha. Just gonna drop here, irrelevant to the awesomeness of Malala Yousafzai and mindblowing horribleness of… these people… that I would love to spar these fools who think that average man being stronger than average woman = all men are stronger than all women.
My 5’6″, fat, unfit self can keep up better with the 6’2″ semi-professional muay thai fighter at our club better than a lot of the men – and he hits hard when you get him on the back foot.
Women who like to develop full power in full contact martial arts are certainly not super common (and for some reason muay thai seems to attract tiny women) in my fairly extensive experience, but if he think big dudebros are the rule he clearly has no idea. Muay thai fighters respect and fear the skinny 50kg fighter, and one of my favourite things about serious muay thai clubs is while everyone’s expected to diet down to fight, there is virtually no body judgement, because everyone knows looks don’t mean shit.
Sorry to hear about your health, LBT. Feel better and seize life as soon as you’re up for it!
BabyReiki, most powerful force in the world in space! 🙂
@LBT, just caught up, hope you feel better soon. 🙂
Not sure where you’re getting the information about abortion being strictly controlled in Japan. From wikipedia, it appears that it is true that if the pregnant woman is married, a spouse’s consent is necessary, but otherwise abortion is pretty much available on demand, and there is widespread societal approval of it. There were hundreds of thousands of legal abortions in every year over the past decade, and probably a similar number of quasi-legal ones that were not reported by doctors (e.g. to high school students). It’s simply not an issue there in the same way as NA.
The wikipedia article is confusing, especially the first paragraph. It’s true that the laws could be improved, but the actual physical access to abortion is as good as almost anywhere in the world.
Bad reading, of both that stupid, titillating Guardian article and Wikipedia need to be shot down here.
Abortion in Japan is almost entirely “on demand,” as I have heard by anecdote here in Japan but also CLEARLY STATED in the wiki article mis-attributed above:
“Maternal Health Protection Law
In 1997, the Maternal Health Protection Law was greatly revised and many restrictions from previous Eugenic Protection Law were removed.
In 2006, Article 14 of the Maternal Health Protection Law was revised. Under the revised law, approved doctors can virtually practice abortion to anyone, if consent was given by the mother.[14] If a mother is married to a spouse, consent is also required from the spouse, but there are exemptions, such as, if spouse is missing or unable to give consent.[14] Despite the fact this law requires a valid reasons to carry out abortion, virtually any mother is applicable for socioeconomic abortion, as it can be carried out unconditionally. Other valid reasons for abortion include rape and health problem. Doctors must send anonymous reports to the prefectural government after conducting abortion for health or socioeconomic reasons.”
Even earlier it was effectively exactly the same, despite the wording of the laws at the time.
“Please learn to read” is the nicest response I can manage here. And the “please” comes through gritted teeth.
@auggziliary
Mr M wanted me to do Jiu Jitsu, because it’s more about skills than weight. I’m 5’6″ but on the scrawny to underweight side.
He competed at kick boxing and karate and spent some time doing Wing Chun and Jiu Jitsu, so I suppose he’d know. 🙂
It’s similar with judo, isn’t it – using the opponent’s strength against them?
(I read Diana Prince Wonder Woman comics in the 70s, I haz knowledge!)
Out of curiosity, anyone know how many kids Vox himself has?
LBT: Hope you feel better soon!
Freemage: ugh, I experienced that on the road from Palm Springs to Phoenix. Grand total of four stations: Evangelical talk, Christian Rock, Limbaugh-clones, and Mariachi music.
Oooh, Jiujitsu. I took Brazilian-style Jiujitsu for a little while. It’s Judo + submission wrestling, with heavy accent on the wrestling. Our instructor was an affable meathead of a corrections officer. Although we had a Brazilian instructor come up for a special session. Scrawny little guy, but I swear he was made of nothing but rocks and iron cabling. I admit to a but of perverse pleasure that he was able to make the instructor squeal a couple of times in those holds.
Yes, Beale is a racist fuck but attributing his anti-choice views mainly to racism is a bit of a red herring. Anti-choice wannabe feudal lords like him imagine themselves ruling over an endless abundance of serfs, slaves, and concubines of all races.
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.
Sometimes insanity is taking logic to an extreme while ignoring common decency and sense.
Insanity doesn’t equal being a racist, misogynist piece of shit. One can be insane and be a decent human being, so can we drop the ableism?
LBT, hope you’re all somewhat better soon. :/ *hugs* if you want them.
auggziliary: re: martial arts, while BJJ and other groundwork-heavy martial arts are a good call for people with a low centre of gravity and strong legs, I say find something you enjoy. That’s not necessarily correlated with what you’re built for, or talented at.
Certainly, I’m very average height but am a natural sprinter and stand up fighter, even if long limbs would make me better at it – my partner is 6′ but has long arms and torso but groundwork comes more naturally to him. The latter is hard to know nature or nuture since he started when he was tiny, but he’s definitely not as natural at muay thai as I am (I love people’s faces when he tells them this. Heh. Which is definitely not to say he’s not good! Anyway.)
Basically, depends how much discipline/bowing and yes sir-ing you want in your martial art, plus whether you like punching/kicking/wrestling/joint locks, and how much contact you want. And that will depend by club as much as martial art.
I enjoyed karate when I was younger, but now I’m used to muay thai I find the bowing and Osu! kind of grating. And I like full contact – karate, even at the more “full contact” clubs, with no punching to the head generally results in lowered guards, stupid chest punching and ineffective knees. I enjoy groundwork but am shit scared of joint locks (so maybe BJJ for me, but it’s gonna freak me out, where being punched in the face is A-OK).
I’m gonna be honest and say I think a vast majority of western tae kwon do clubs are total bullshit, but I’m sure there are some decent ones out there. Basically it being an Olympic sport has turned it into a points system like fencing – ie: unrealistic and to me, deeply irritating. It would be OK if it wasn’t full of people who thought kicking boards made them the tuffest evar. -_- You certainly learn to kick, if not very hard (I know a few guys who went from TKD to muay thai and once they learnt to put power in it their kicks were amazing).
Kung fu for the flexible and less martial minded; krav maga’s pretty cool from what I’ve heard (groundwork and stand up), but that definitely attracts blowhards so you’ve gotta be careful of that (it’s seen as ULTRA HARD RAWR). Boxing’s very effective but obviously one-note. Gives you great movement and fantastic punches.
Basically you want to do a bit of internetting to see what appeals, then see if there are clubs in your area, then visit them and see how it feels to you. Almost everyone does a free first class – there are lots of “McDojos” out there, ie: handing out black belts for cash so long as you turn up and remotely try, so be aware that the quality of training will vary A LOT, and the atmosphere is not something anyone can force.
A good club is a good club and it’s fantastic, regardless of discipline. Hope that was at least a little helpful!
I have ineffective knees! 🙂
Stupid Chest Punching sounds like another great band name.
V8mile Beale has 3 kids according to Wikipedia, the oldest seems to be a son, who Beale calls “Ender” on the blog. He mostly talks about this kid. He has also mentioned a daughter. If there is indeed a third child I have never heard or read what the kid’s sex is. He refers to his wife as “Spacebunny”, and according to a recent blog, has never hit her. He lives somewhere in Italy.
Kittehserf, I would argue for some degree of irrationality in Beale –he is a major conspiracy theorist, for instance, arguing in a blog on Populi that the shooting at Sandy Hook was faked as part of a government plot to get guns away from Americans. He is also quite homophobic and his views on that topic seem insane to my mind. And let’s not even start on his obsession with John Scalzi. Read his two blogs for a week or so and you’ll see what I mean.
Feel better, LBT!