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Men’s Rights White Knights rush in to protect Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan from MRA criticism

Karen Straughan, in an uncharacteristic moment of silence
Karen Straughan, in an uncharacteristic moment of silence

So FeMRA videoblogger Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan flapped her gums for nearly two hours the other night and sounds came out. This time she wasn’t sitting at her kitchen table blabbing to a webcam about female “hypoagency” and regurgitating misremembered factoids about bonobos but was speaking to an audience of mostly white dudes at Ryerson University in Toronto Canada.

I haven’t watched her performance — which is of course online as well — because life is short, and frankly I’d rather endure this for ten hours than subject myself to the tedious GWW for nearly two.

But I did take a look at a thread on the Men’s Rights subreddit started by a dude who hoped he and his fellow MRAs could have “a proper discussion about the talk, pros and cons, without descending into a circlejerk or a downvote party.” That’s right: he actually wanted GWW’s biggest fanboys to discuss her ideas (such as they are) on their merits.

This did not go over very well with the regulars, who jumped up to defend their favorite damsel in distress. ManUpManDown argued against the very notion of criticizing GWW, on the grounds of 1) her being supercool and 2) giving talks is hard:

ManUpManDown 18 points 21 hours ago (30|12)  Ok, I totally understand the good intentions behind, and the theoretical utility of, this thread. But I really don't think this is helpful. Karen has come out of obscurity to being invited to panels with internationally known feminists, all in a very short period of time. Considering everything, she's been awesome, and she was awesome last night, and I am not particularly inclined to start telling her why she's not perfect. Get me? She's not our mascot.
Huh. But by NOT offering any criticism, aren’t you in fact treating her not as a writer or activist or, god forbid, a thinker, but precisely as a mascot?

Still, a few brave MRAs did bring up substantive critiques of her talk. For example, both 2095conash and memetherapy noted that she probably said “Right?” too often. Bluecharge, while proud of her performance, noted with brutal honesty that her “way of wrapping up points by saying ‘so there you go’ was a bit trite.”

So there you go.

Oh, I forgot to mention one dumb criticism some dumb guy made. GWW apparently suggested that if all the men in the world took three days off it would take three years to recover from the disaster that would ensue.

Essemd implied that this was a bit alarmist, arguing that if you gradually replaced men in the workforce with women — over the course of many years — it wouldn’t be the end of the world, because women could do these “men’s jobs” too. “[S]aying either gender is required because this and this job is mainly occupied by men or women is just false,” Essemd concluded.

Luckily there were a few real MRAs around to teach this fella a thing or two. Like Rikevo, who offered the powerful rebuttal that women can’t do shit:

Rikevo 3 points 1 day ago (4|1)  The sectors men occupy which is what keeps society afloat, would collapse if there aren't any men and the likelyhood that women will let alone could do is low given the gendered preferences in the work place.  Feminist would be the last people to even know how to change a tire.Right?

And xNOM had a little list:

xNOM 2 points 1 day ago* (11|9)  What on earth are you talking about.  Without men:      science crippled. almost all major advances done by / creative geniuses are male. yes even today.      no technology. 98% of all patents filed at the EU office in Munich are by men. almost all coders are men. almost all companies that go on to have billion dollar revenues are founded by men.      art crippled. see science, above.      construction of everything crippled      maintainance of everything crippled      firefighting crippled  Without women:      no kids. the end.
So there you go.

NOTE: I actually had that loop of “What is Love” on during most of the writing of this post. Hey, it’s a catchy song.

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weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

Wow. This thread is covered in necro trolls.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

Hit the road Jack, and don’tcha come back no more, no more, no more, no more,
Hit the road Jack, and don’tcha come back no more

🙂

You’re welcome.

Shut up Woody.

katz
10 years ago

What’d you say?

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

LOL!

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

I have decided I like this version:

http://youtu.be/rU_EweSJfGE

D. S. Clark
D. S. Clark
9 years ago

I’ve seen a lot of Karen’s stuff online and I’ve seen you David on television. You might want to leave her alone pussy boy, she is a REAL tigress, the kind that could remove your little shrunken balls.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

More evidence that most MRAs would be a lot happier if they hired a pro domme?

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

Definitely. Is that the secret to why they let feMRAs into their clubhouse, d’you think?

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them had a secret stash of fanart of their favorite feMRAs holding whips.

pallygirl
pallygirl
9 years ago

Ah, the MRAs continue to substitute threats of violence for argument.

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

Wouldn’t surprise me at all, cassandra.

weirwoodtreehugger
9 years ago

It’s an insult to all of feline kind to compare Straughn to a tiger. The furinatti are not pleased.

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

I can’t think of any non-human life form that wouldn’t be insulted by the comparison.

thebewilderness
thebewilderness
9 years ago

I don’t think trolley realizes we recognized her dog and pony show for what it is a very long time ago.

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
9 years ago

So long ago the dog and pony have since retired. 😛

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
9 years ago

Tigers are powerful, elegant, and intimidating. GWW is none of these things.

Petra Pumpkineater
Petra Pumpkineater
7 years ago

Cassandrakitty re that bit of externalized misogyny where you sexualized and commercialized Karen’s protective attitude towards men as a “pro-domme.” Which is close to calling a woman a whore because you disagree with her.

I think most male victims of sexual violence and other survivors of bad relationships and divorces would prefer an amateur domme to a professional — a strong woman who actually gives a fuck about them. And yes, I think that’s Karen’s appeal. I think she’s wrong about a number of things, but there are so precious few people, let alone strong articulate women, who speak up publicly for male victims of sexual abuse, that it’s natural for some men — and for women who think that male victims get shafted by the victims advocacy systems — to want to stick up for Karen, and to wish she had more of a platform. When you attack her, you’re essentially attacking some very vulnerable people who really don’t have anyone else to speak for them.

Ooglyboggles
7 years ago

@Petra Pumpkineater

When you attack her, you’re essentially attacking some very vulnerable people who really don’t have anyone else to speak for them.

“When you attack a Femra you’re the ones actually attacking sexual abuse victims not us.”

Ha ha, fuck off to Pluto necrotroll.

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