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A Voice for Male Students: Misquotation, Schmishquotation!

Is THIS your quotation from Marilyn French? No? Um ...
Is THIS your quotation from Marilyn French? No? Um …

Is there something about Men’s Rights Activists that renders them utterly incapable of admitting a mistake? The other day, I performed a bit of rudimentary factchecking on a collection of allegedly “misandrist” quotes assembled by  Jonathan Taylor of A Voice for Male Students.

Among other things. I pointed out that the drastically truncated version of a Marilyn French quote he posted completely misrepresented the actual meaning of what she had said, making it appear that she was charging the majority of men with killing, or beating, or raping women and/or molesting their own daughters:

“As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women…he can sexually molest his daughters…THE VAST MAJORITY OF MEN IN THE WORLD DO ONE OR MORE OF THE ABOVE.”

– Dr. Marilyn French, The War Against Women, p. 182, her emphasis.

In fact, she had said something rather different, as I pointed out by quoting the original passage straight from her book:

As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. Beyond that, it is not necessary to beat up a woman to beat her down. A man can simply refuse to hire women in well-paid jobs, extract as much or more work from women than men but pay them less, or treat women disrespectfully at work or at home. He can fail to support a child he has engendered, demand the woman he lives with wait on him like a servant. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love, he can rape women, whether mate, acquaintance, or stranger; he can rape or sexually molest his daughters, nieces, stepchildren, or the children of a woman he claims to love. The vast majority of men in the world do one or more of the above

It wasn’t clear to me if Taylor had been aware that he had drastically misrepresented French, as it appeared that he had simply cut and pasted the quote from another site without actually checking French’s book to see if it was accurate. So it appeared to be sloppiness on his part rather than deliberate deception.

Taylor has now responded to my post with a long and bizarre rant titled “Futrelle & Co. all in a tizzy as AVFMS exposes misandry in academia. AVFMS dissects their “counterarguments.”

He starts off by freely admitting that he misquoted French, but claiming that it doesn’t count as misrepresentation because it didn’t really change the meaning of the quote at all.

That’s right. Instead of acknowledging the misrepresentation, he’s doubling down — even though his explanation is in direct conflict with the evidence that I posted and that he reposts on his own site. He simply redefines reality until the misrepresentation mysteriously vanishes. Here’s his, er, argument:

I copied/pasted the quote from Antimisandry, although I had to find the source page for the book independently. I’ll admit: on this one I didn’t get the full quote and simply took Antimisandry’s reproduction of it. I am happy to amend it (which I have done in the original post).

David Futrelle, editor of the blog Manboobz, thinks this is a gamechanger, that it renders the meaning “completely different.” Not so fast.

He then pastes in my screenshot of the original quote, and my comments pointing out that the longer quote has a completely different meaning than the shorter one.

Then he tries to wave away his mistake with this ingenious bit of sleight-of-hand:

Actually Futrelle, according to Feminist ideology everything Marilyn French listed was a form of violence. Need I remind you what all constitutes “violence” according to Feminist ideology nowadays?

Pay no attention to my giant mistake behind the curtain! Look at THIS instead!

“THIS” being, in this case, a random feminist paper titled Intersecting Inequalities: A Review of Feminist Theories and Debates on Violence against Women and Poverty in Latin America, which suggests at once point that “[e]conomic violence against women occurs when they are denied access to or control over resources, or the right to work and earn income.”

Now, none of this has any relevance whatsoever to the question of whether or not Taylor has misquoted French — which he has — or indeed to what French’s statement actually means. There’s no evidence that French was in any way influenced by the paper Taylor quotes — which would have been a tad difficult, given that it was published 18 years after she wrote The War Against Women.

Apparently Taylor thinks that feminism is some sort of Borglike hive-mind that transcends time and space.

And he apparently thinks that when a famous feminist says that the vast majority of men have probably at least “treat[ed] women disrespectfully” in some way it is the same as if she had accused the vast majority of men of being murderers, rapists, woman-beaters and/or child abusers.

Taylor then takes issue with her references to men “beating down” and “subjugating” women, and indignantly insists that while

I know this may sound like heresy to Feminist and pro-Feminist ears, but the vast majority of men do not abuse women, let alone to an extent that they “subjugate” them.

Taylor has completely misunderstood the basic argument of French’s passage, which is that the majority of men do not have to physically abuse women in order to gain a certain advantage from the fact that other men do. You may disagree with that, but, again, she is not saying that the vast majority of men abuse women; quite the opposite.

Taylor then asserts that the really important thing is that what she’s saying still counts as “misandry.”

So apparently if someone is an evil misandrist, in Taylor’s eyes, you can misquote them all you want, and it doesn’t really matter, because … MISANDRY

Taylor continues on with his fulminations for some time after this, focusing mainly on “rebutting” comments from Man Boobz commenters. He posts an appalling photo of a crowd of white men posing proudly in front of several black men they have lynched, with the caption: “The powerlessness of women: point a finger and kill someone.”

I honestly don’t have the energy or the patience to deal with any more of his sophistry today. I’m not even going to read the whole thing. You can have a go at it if you want, dear readers. Let me know if there’s anything else in it that I need to address.

My plan today, after the nastiness in the post yesterday, was to post a bunch of pictures of my kitties. So, dammit, that’s what I’m going to do. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll put them up in another post.

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pecunium
11 years ago

Lynching is not a cudgel to beat feminists with. It was the brutal murder of POC because of the color of their skin. Because the privileged white class felt threatened.

Often because the underprivileged white class felt threatened.

Good
Good
11 years ago

Most women have at least treated men disrespectfully.

ignotussomnium
ignotussomnium
11 years ago

@dustedeste High five, fellow alum!

I think the most important question about a feminist uniform is: can I knit a tiny version of it to put on the cat.

Not that he would keep it on for more than two seconds, but it’s the thought that counts.

Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

So including that does change the meaning of the quote then!

Ally S
11 years ago

Most women have at least treated men disrespectfully.

thank you for your gracious words of wisdom

now go away

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

sparky
sparky
11 years ago

pecunium said:

“Often because the underprivileged white class felt threatened.”

Absolutely. I meant that the privilege was being white, and I should have been more clear. Lynching is ugly and bad. From what little I’ve read about it, there was a lot of dynamics going into it (when talking about it in the South in th US), but it seems to me the root of it was racism. The way Taylor used lynching masks the real horror of it. And that is so many kinds of wrong.

And, oh poo, I thought Good was gone for good.

Wetherby
Wetherby
11 years ago

Most women have at least treated men disrespectfully.

This is vacuous even by Good’s debased standards, and that’s saying something.

kittehserf
11 years ago

Brodt – ahaha, the female whore penguins! There’s prolly a link to it in the welcome package, but the short version is that when Tom Martin was allowed to comment here, he said that female penguins are whores. Now this doesn’t mean much from Tom “97% of women are whores” Martin, given he manages to work the word into almost every sentence, but it made for a lot of ongoing jokes and great artwork. 🙂

(That’s Tom Martin as in “Suing the LSE because men have bonier bums than women and having to sit on hard chairs is MISANDRY”. )

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

That’s nice, Good. Here, have a cookie and run along now, there’s a good Good.

Kevin
Kevin
11 years ago

AVFMS should have quoted the whole passage, especially since he’s right and it doesn’t make much difference. French compiles a laundry list of heinous crimes (rape, beating, murder) and then throws in “disrespect” as a catchall term, so she can say that “almost all men” do it… with “it” being now “murder, rape, physical abuse, and disrespect”.

It’s disingenuous Second Wave sophistry.

inurashii
inurashii
11 years ago

Most women have at least treated men disrespectfully.

I smell projection

kittehserf
11 years ago

Of course “treating men disrespectfully” in MRA-speak isn’t the same as what decent people mean by disrespect. Most people would probably be surprised to see it defined as not giving blowjobs on demand.

Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

“There’s a good Good” *dies*

Athywren
Athywren
11 years ago

There is, of course, a subtle difference between most men at least disrespecting women as a class, and most women at least disrespecting some individual men.

sparky
sparky
11 years ago

Yes, Kevin, that’s right. French wasn’t saying that the fear of physical harm by men serves as a way to oppress all women, even though most men do not physically harm women. Nope, she wasn’t making a point about how it is much easier to disrespect women, pay them less than men, deny them access to higher paying jobs, etc, etc, etc; because women are under the implied threat of male violence if they step out of line. Oh no. She just threw that “disrespect” in there so she could find a way to say “men” and “rape” in the same sentence, because that’s what feminist do, right? Feminist are jut male-bashers, so we don’t have to actually use reading comprehension when reading their words.

Fibinachi
Fibinachi
11 years ago

AVFMS should have quoted the whole passage, especially since he’s right and it doesn’t make much difference. French compiles a laundry list of heinous crimes (rape, beating, murder) and then throws in “disrespect” as a catchall term, so she can say that “almost all men” do it… with “it” being now “murder, rape, physical abuse, and disrespect”.

It’s disingenuous Second Wave sophistry.

Disingenous Sophistry is my new Metallica cover band.

But the thing is, even then, she didn’t
The catchall list with the catch all twist
is that murder, beatings, rape and disrespect
Also join such things as “paying less”,
wanting work done household chore wise all days
Or wanting more work done for the same pay, anyways
If it were just “Rape, murder, disrespect”
I’d call French a fox, twisting words to mean all and naught
But it ain’t, because she didn’t, someone else did for her.

And, come on, even with “He should’ave quoted the whole passage”, you admit he didn’t
Because that whole passage is also much more than just “Beatings, disrespect”.

Alas, I’m a dumbass anti-semite, so what do I know

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
11 years ago

When I was a kid, we weren’t allowed to open a new box of cereal until we’d finished the ones that were already open. Good has a tendency to slink away when he’s confronted with too much logic and pop up in new threads where he can pretend he never lost, and it’s basically the cereal thing, but with conversations. I vote we ignore him until he finishes the conversations he’s already opened.

There is, of course, a subtle difference between most men at least disrespecting women as a class, and most women at least disrespecting some individual men.

Yup. And there’s a subtle difference between the kind of disrespect where you are rude or dismissive or selfish, and the kind of disrespect where you fail to acknowledge someone else as fully human.

Alice Sanguinaria
11 years ago

D’aww, looks like someone failed reading comprehension 101. It’s so cute, I can cry!

girlofthegaps
girlofthegaps
11 years ago

Iunno, emilygoddess; as far as I’ve seen, Good’s never had anything that could actually be called a conversation. Not that I don’t vote for ignoring the silly chucklefuck, but I just kind of feel like vomiting links and assholery everywhere with little to no direction doesn’t really qualify as “opening a dialogue” so much as “opening oneself to relentless ridicule,” y’know? 🙂

Moma Sita
11 years ago

“and that you’d never see a white man in the days of lynching strung up for whistling or looking at a white woman.”

Not necessarily true. It depends upon the definition of ‘white.’ Back then Jews and Italians were lynched as well since they were not considered white or were not the appropriate religion of privilege. So its really the people who were considered white back then not all white people who are considered white today. Lynchings didn’t also just happen to Black people but Mexicans.

emilygoddess
emilygoddess
11 years ago

They also happened to women. Female privilege in action, right?

pecunium
11 years ago

sparky: Absolutely. I meant that the privilege was being white

I think this is a classic case of kyriarchy: Whites were the lynchers (in the aspect of lynching as social control). The well to do (i.e. “privileged”) whites may have disdained to take part, but it allowed for a release valve for social pressures on poor whites.

This is most obvious when one looks at the number of “uppity” blacks who were targeted, usually for having a successful business (esp. if that business catered to other blacks).

The hardscrabble poor couldn’t look down on those blacks, which made them feel even more vulnerable/oppressed. They couldn’t (or wouldn’t) take revenge on the whites who were actually oppressing them, and they couldn’t say, “well that sonuvabitch is a slave, and I’m a Free White Man” (though they could blame, “the North” for that no longer being the case).

So how do you keep “them” in “their place”.

Terrorism. The ubiquity of lynching, and the commonplace of it (right down to souvenier postcards being sold); the “festive” aspects of the events, and how widely advertised they had to have been to get hundreds of people to show up (some with the less than portable cameras of the age) give the lie to the idea they where sudden fits of rage at a heinous crime.

No, they were planned out, and meant to indimidate, and they let the, “planter class” get away with all manner of crimes against their fellows, because there was always a scapegoat to function in the role of, <a href =http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin-eater”sin eater/wicker man”

Q
Q
11 years ago

I’m with Kevin — the full version of the quote is just as objectionable as the truncated version. I kept reading and re-reading it, trying to understand how the added text justifies the claim that “the vast majority of men do one or more of the above”. Only by reading the comments did I realize that “disrespectfully” was tucked in there among rape, murder, beating, job discrimination, subjugation, etc.

This conflates some really different things. It’s like Andrea Dworkin’s contention that porn equals rape. No it doesn’t, and saying that serves to trivialize rape.

The tragedy of this is that there’s a valid point obscured by Marilyn French’s over-the-top indictment of men. Omit the “disrespectfully” clause, change the last sentence to read, “Of course, the vast majority of men DO NOT do these things. But some do, and those examples make it harder for women to push back against lesser offenses.”

pecunium
11 years ago

Moma SitaNot necessarily true. It depends upon the definition of ‘white.’ Back then Jews and Italians were lynched as well since they were not considered white or were not the appropriate religion of privilege. So its really the people who were considered white back then not all white people who are considered white today. Lynchings didn’t also just happen to Black people but Mexicans.

I hope I don’t muck this up, but this is a problem when talking about lynching.

There were at least two categories of lynching.

There was lynching as social control (which was much more heavily practised in the South, and lingered there much longer than the rest of the US) and lynching as “rough justice”.

The West (for values of “The West”) tended to the latter; though some areas (Texas in particular, but Texas is it’s own oddity, being the only part of the US to secede twice in pursuit of being able to continue keeping slaves [once from Mexico, once from the US]) did have are aspects of social control (esp. as it related to Native Americans).

In the West it was far more common for a lynch mob to form in reaction to a crime blamed on a non-white, but the style of lynching tended to be more spontaneous; and there were far fewer cases of official participation (there are a number of Southern lynchings which show police officers in uniform taking part in the “fun”).

So, no, lynchings weren’t limited to blacks, but there is a qualitative difference to much of the Western vs. Southern styles of lynching (the obvious one being that as more effective law enforcement came to the west lynchings became much more sporadic and were usually condemned as a lapse into uncivilised lawlessness [unless it was, “an Indian”, in which case it was regrettable, but to be understood).

The problem with trying to sort out the ways in which lynching was used is that the differences in style (and general purpose) get used by many people to intentionally muddy the waters (and I do not think you are doing that). After all, if lynchings in The West were just like lynchings in the South, then the Southerners who did it aren’t any different from anyone else, right? It’s just that people “back then” were all hopeless bigots, and it’s all better now.

That, or, “see, look at The West, that shows lynchings weren’t a social control, but a reaction to inadequate justice, it was people with a real grievance taking the law into their own hands; regrettable, but an artifact of the quaint past”.

To which I can only say, Emmit Till.