A Voice for Men’s so-called “Honey Badgers” — its little super-team of female MRAs, led by blabby Canadian videoblogger Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan — have a new theory about Anita Sarkeesian. And it’s a doozy.
Sarkeesian, you may recall, is a feminist cultural critic who’s faced pretty much nonstop harassment from misogynistic internet assholes since she launched a project to dissect sexist tropes in video games. AVFM has contributed, in its own special way, to this wave of harassment, with articles describing Sarkeesian as, among other things, a “moneygrubbing liar” and a “queen bee … girl interloper” in the world of video games; AVFM’s Dean Esmay also held her partially responsible, along with an assortment of other internet feminists, for the suicide of one Canadian Men’s Rights Activist.
The principals at AVFM have blamed her for — either inadvertently or deliberately — bringing this harassment on herself by going to 4chan and posting about her project. (As I noted in a previous post, there’s no actual evidence she ever did this.)
The Honey Badgers, for their part, are certain that getting harassed by 4chaners was part of her devious plan all along.
In a teaser for their internet “radio” show tonight, the “Honey Badger” known as TyphonBlue writes:
Like all professional damsels in distress, Anita Sarkeesian had to choose a good dragon. Just the right looming shadow to fall over her delicate and fragile sensibilities; just the right cackling stage-villain to inspire her cries of helpless horror.
She chose 4-chan. An internet forum known for it’s underbelly of foul-tempered and hair-triggered trolls.
Then, after accusing Sarkeesian of inviting countless rape and death threats upon herself (and only a portion of it from 4channers, I should add), the Badgers take their weird conspiracy theory one step further:
But we at Honey Badger Radio have noticed something… odd. The wave of so-called hate that Anita received from her carefully chosen dragon, wasn’t really all that bad.
Yeah. A year and a half (so far) of pretty much unending harassment and baseless criticism, complete with violent threats directed not only at her but at other women who have defended her — that’s nothing.
Compared to 4-chan’s usual scorched earth strategy–raizing [sic] everything to the ground and pissing on the ashes, Anita got a little singed, like she sat too close to a campfire.
So we have to ask… Did 4-chan white knight Anita? I mean, come on. Was that the best 4 chan could do?
Yes, that’s right. The Honey Badgers are accusing those who sent rape and death threats to Anita Sarkeesian … of “white knighting” her.
I can’t even.
Having spent the last hour wading through the comments, I’m going to give up and just post. Sorry if it’s been posted before, but it’s relevant to the topic and IMO funny enough in this context to post 10000 times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg-The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger. (Yes, I don’t know how to embed video.)
Watch out MRA’s the honeybadgers are coming to eat your snakes!!!! :/ Honey Badger don’t care!
Also, what is this it that we’re keeping covered? Third nipple? Unicorn horn? The mysterious 666 on our back that we always thought was a birthmark?
Sorry if this has already been addressed (600 comments in one night, holy crap u guise!), but David, what’s with calling GWW “blabby”? It’s not clear what you mean by that (she talks a lot? She makes a lot of videos? She can’t keep a secret?) and has shades of “women talk too much, amirite?” IDK, it made me uncomfortable, but I’m sure it can be clarified.
Re: phony suicide attempts as cry for attention…even if this happens, why is it cause to treat the person with contempt rather than compassion? There seems to be this idea in our culture that if someone wants attention, be they child or adult, the appropriate thing to do is not give it to them. But humans are social animals and connecting with other people isn’t just a selfish whim, it’s a real psychological need. If someone feels so starved of that connection that they will endanger their life as a last-ditch effort to get noticed and cared for, then something has gone wrong. Either they really are that isolated and neglected, in which case their social support network needs an overhaul, or the attention they do get doesn’t fulfill the need, in which case they probably need therapy at the very least. Either way, they need help, which is a form of–guess what?–attention!
Teal deer version: Those who demand attention do so because they require it. Compassion, not contempt, is the proper response.
You’d have sex. And that’s terrible.
Re “keeping it covered up” from this ‘quiz’, perhaps it means, wearing a niqab? Or at least a veil? This will totally add to the essential sense of mystery, because if you have played your cards right, your date has neither heard your voice, nor knows what you look like! Of course they will return for more (if only to find out for certain that you aren’t really their arch-nemesis/ blood relative/ the FBI)
Anyway, I found this on cracked and thought point 2 might be relevant
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-responses-to-sexism-that-just-make-everything-worse/
Argenti: I don’t think I’ve been added yet?
Damn, I missed a troll. Admittedly, he was a boring, repetitive ass, but… Ah, well.
One small point I’d like to fact-check myself on. The alleged smoking gun for Sarkesian was a video where she said she didn’t like first-person shooters, specifically, because of the violent nature of the genre, and this gets twisted into evidence that she hated all video games, forever–is this correct?
I don’t play first person shooter either. But I have 3 different gaming systems besides my computer.
There are games like Jungle Tokyo that are awesome and not first person shooters.
For those wondering about the femborg project (did anyone answer this? I’m a little behind), you can find the origins of the discussion towards the end of this comment thread and you can find the project itself here.
According to the state of California, if the caretaker of a minor child is NOT on welfare, the father of the child can get his child support obligation reduced from a measly $500 per month to zero.
I just wanted to thank all the tireless men’s right’s advocates for putting yet another individual on welfare instead of owning up to your already small obligations and responsibilities towards your children.
Looking at all the terrible stuff in the comments, I’m just going to stick with the ‘feminine’ stuff.
Re: long hair that tangles horribly
My youngest has hair like this, so here’s what we’ve found that works.
1. Using a shampoo/conditioner combo (a two-in-one) and only shampoo the scalp.
2. Then using a protein conditioner (or a damaged hair conditioner). Some days, we do this twice.
3. Never, ever rubbing head with a towel, just gently wrap the towel around her head.
4. Spray on detangler or leave-in conditioner.
5. Combing with a detangling brush (we use the Tangle Teaser we bought at Sally’s Beauty Supply).
One thing we never use on her hair? Argan/morrocan oil. It’s heavy, and better on thick, coarse hair (I have thick coarse hair, it’s awesome for me, but it makes her hair look instantly dirty again).
katz — shit, I was afraid that email was a short term forwarding addy. Email me, this nym at gmail.
Everyone going “what Feminist Borg?” — click my nym.
Oh, ninja’ed!
It’s not on google because I haven’t done the SEO yet because I want a consensus on the copyright question first. (Well, that and it’s a week old and google isn’t quite that impressive)
It showed up on the first page when I googled it this morning. Argenti, do you still need help with the disemvowler?
No, I got it sorted. I stumbled onto a simple way to do it in php wih str_replace. (Was looking for something else, but the example was replacing vowels and I went AHA!)
Otoh, if anyone wants to do the favicon, I’d be very grateful. (And fuck, if we are showing up I need to find non-copyright clipart for the header, that loach was meant as a placeholder and thus I didn’t check that)
Does it have to be clipart? flickr’s advanced search lets you search for photos licensed under CreativeCommons, including people who just want credit. Here’s a search for loaches: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=loach*&l=deriv&ss=0&ct=0&mt=all&w=all&adv=1
Wikimedia’s also a good place as all its art is CC.
I think I stumbled on a treasure trove, but thanks, I’ll grab some more! (clipart is easier to work with as I want transparent backgrounds, but no, it doesn’t have to be)
cloudiah — thank you. They’re talking about putting my grandfather in hospice and this — http://www.flickr.com/photos/9897249@N04/4643882358/ — made me go all squee. I needed squee.
Do you still need a favicon? I can do one. What should it be?
Argenti, I’m sorry about your grandfather.
All the makeup discussion reminds me – wwaaaayyy back around the turn of the century, before we become parents, my husband would occasionally do drag. He got a book by the (now late) Kevyn Aucoin, “Making Faces”. Despite not doing makeup or drag myself, I found it utterly fascinating. Thanks for bringing that buried memory to life.
On the gaming front – I used to play Civilization with the ‘no war’ option. I tried to play Skyrim and Morrowind without combat, but the game mechanics make that almost impossible. FPS games are, to me, like raspberries or hazelnuts; I realize that many people enjoy them, but the appeal is lost on me.
“Making Faces” is a great book.
Serrana — yes but “What should it be?” I have no fucking clue and that’s the problem!
Oh and thanks…my father doesn’t think he’ll make it more than a few days. And I am so not ready for this.