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:
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:
Right?
And xNOM had a little list:
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.
RE: Kittehs
Actually, believe it or not, it seems those awful experiments were done because back then, it was common scientific belief that love wasn’t actually a thing, and that children shouldn’t be cuddled or held. It was all about just getting basic needs met and such, and Harry Knowles blasted that out of the water.
Funny, that horrible old viewpoint is similar to that of many of our local trolls!
Also oh god I’ve gotten sucked into science comics. Somebody save me from the awesome edutainment!
The FUCK?
I am so full of rage at that …
And I’m no happier with Harry Knowles for subjecting those monkey babies to that, even if it was in a good cause.
RE: Kittehs
Yup! Though it’s possible it was more of a USA thing; I think the scientific response was a little more restrained outside of it. But yeah, it was pretty fucked up. People had just figured out germ theory, so it was like, “Oh noes, hugging your baby will MAKE IT SICK,” shit like that. Harry Knowles was backlashing also against the psychological climate of the time, which pretty much came in two flavors: Freudian (which was unscientific), and behaviorist (which led to shit like Little Albert). The two combined to create… well. That.
Basically, it was this idea of cold rationality, and that love was purely a child’s way of getting food and shelter and an adult’s way of getting sex, that Knowles was backlashing against. And unfortunately, of course, you couldn’t scientifically “prove” the concept of love (or ‘attachment,’ since love was considered too unscientific to even study) without doing some really horrific things.
History is pretty gruesome.
Agh, this is making me think of that foul Milgram
torture sessionexperiment. Same sort of thinking. Makes me wonder if it was lack of empathy or actual sadism (the unethical variety) with some of these shits … I’m just like, How can you think that way? What is wrong with you? And why do YOU get to be the ones proclaiming how humans work when you’re so fucked up?This really does sound like where the morons of the MRM are at, doesn’t it? And they wonder why nobody else likes them or wants to fuck them.
Wait, the Milgram experiments? Those were just experiments, no scarring or torture involved. The person recieving the electric shocks didn’t exist, except in the minds of the person giving the shocks.
I don’t see how they relate to Little Albert, or other behaviorist (or Freudian) horror stories. Am I missing something?
RE: Fibinachi
Basically, a lot of the test subjects of the Milgram experiments were pretty horrified and scarred by what they did during the test, even though the person receiving the shocks didn’t actually exist. IIRC, those experiments changed how consent and blind studies worked, because a lot of the subjects were pissed over what happened.
Fibinachi – what LBT said. I know the electric shocks weren’t happening, the cries were coming from Milgram’s collaborators. I’m talking about what was done to the people who thought they were giving the shocks, and yes, that was fucking mental torture. I watched that damned film in Social Science (which was the less-horrible choice of elective, and that’s the only reason I took it) and listened to my godawful teacher giggle all through it.
OT, but I had to share this. There’s a sub on Reddit called FEMRA Debates that was formed to “constructively discuss issues surrounding gender justice in a safer space.” In actuality, it is completely dominated by MRAs, who compulsively pile on to any self-identified feminist who posts there, reporting all of their comments to the sub’s mods. You can find a pretty good discussion about the experience of feminists on that sub here.
Nonetheless, they see themselves as reasonable gender theorists having constructive discussions.
***TRIGGER WARNING***
For example, in this thread they constructively discuss situations in which rape would be completely understandable, and where the rape victim wouldn’t deserve any sympathy. Men are compared to angry bulls too. This is a particularly terrible thread within the comments, but the comments are full of shit.
The less-triggery discussion in r/amr is here. It includes the sub’s mod coming over to tell us we’re welcome to participate in their little shitshow. Gee, thanks.
Bear in mind that this is a heavily moderated sub, so if comments aren’t deleted that is intentional.
D: DO NOT WANT
Hey cloudiah! I just posted the story you just sponsored! Thanks muchly!
Great story!
Poor puppeh!
That’s the first Reverend Alpert story I’ve read, and I know Perfection’s a demon, but until her skin was mentioned, I could only see her as a kitty. Soft and purring and pointy teeth and climbing onto rooftops … and no, I’m not wanting to imagine a human + feline demon relationship! 😛
That Rev. Alpert story did not make me tear up or sniffle. Everything is under control. Situation normal. It did not make me want to hug all my puppies. Everything is perfectly alright now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now. How are you?
@cassandra
That sounds fairly creepy. :/
My daughter runs up to me and says, “Poopy, mommy! Poopy!” whenever there’s a number 2 in the diaper I need to take care of (we’re working on getting the poopy in the potty, but so far, no luck). I guess that might be manipulation, because whenever she says “poopy” I change her diaper. But it seems more like simple “cause and effect” to me.
LBT — not pissed, pissed implies they knew wtf was up. They didn’t, he never told them. Some of them went years living with the entirely false guilt that they’d killed someone. That is what made it unethical. Somebody redid it, with ethics board approval, not long ago, got basically the same results. The difference between the two? The new one included debriefing the participants that they hadn’t harmed anyone.
All of which reinforces my feeling that it was torture.
Actually – could it be called ethical to do that experiment at all, even if they debriefed them about not killing anyone? The volunteers aren’t volunteering for what they think they are; they’re being lied to.
In NZ, you have to show the ethics committee that:
(1) the deception is absolutely necessary to getting results, because ethics committees here aren’t that keen on the participants being deceived; and
(2) show all the precautions you’re going to take to make sure that participants aren’t harmed by being involved in the research. This can include relatively small harms like slight embarrassment as well as big harms (e.g. completely altering their view of themselves as an ethical person).
The bigger problem in NZ has not been the psych studies, but the medical studies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartwright_Inquiry
and
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1191454
spring to mind immediately.
Holy shit. 🙁
LBT: I am in awe of you!! That story was so good! Have you got any books published? I love your writing style so much. Is that Reverend an ongoing story? So fucking cool!
PS. Sorry if you have already talked about this, I get lost sometimes in the comments and I’m not very used to online stuff.
RE: Kittehs
That’s the first Reverend Alpert story I’ve read, and I know Perfection’s a demon, but until her skin was mentioned, I could only see her as a kitty.
She does act pretty feline, doesn’t she? And due to word count constraints (seriously, Alpert is getting harder and harder to write in such short chunks; everything feels skeletal) I haven’t actually really gotten to DESCRIBE her yet. I guess I can just claim I’m leaving it to folks’ imagination? :D?
RE: leatapp
That Rev. Alpert story did not make me tear up or sniffle.
Oh no!
RE: Argenti
They didn’t, he never told them.
Oh WOW. Yeah, that part I didn’t know. D: Euuuuugh.
RE: marci
LBT: I am in awe of you!! That story was so good! Have you got any books published? I love your writing style so much. Is that Reverend an ongoing story? So fucking cool!
Gosh golly! *embarrassment* I’m glad you liked it! And yes, Reverend Alpert is an ongoing serial I’ve been writing for a couple years. There are currently six stories in the series, with two more currently up for sponsorship. (Though one of them involves Doña Prudencia, a curandera who operates her own practice totally independently of him, twenty years after his time.)
If you’re interested in my other work… well, I’ve got a LOT of it posted. Alpert is my most popular series, but Infinity Smashed is the largest, currently holding over fifty posted stories. As for stuff for sale, I’ve got comics and zines for sale, in paper and PDF form, and also a few random orphaned writeathon stories, plus digital or paper copies of Bodily Reconstruction, an Infinity Smashed story involving getting trans healthcare in a town run entirely by reptiles, giant insects, and eldritch abominations. Argenti owns a copy, so ze can vouch!
…I badly need to make an etsy so as to have all my sellable goods in one easy page. <.<
Oh, bugger me. I tripped the mod filter for too many links. Let’s try this again…
RE: Kittehs
That’s the first Reverend Alpert story I’ve read, and I know Perfection’s a demon, but until her skin was mentioned, I could only see her as a kitty.
She does act pretty feline, doesn’t she? And due to word count constraints (seriously, Alpert is getting harder and harder to write in such short chunks; everything feels skeletal) I haven’t actually really gotten to DESCRIBE her yet. I guess I can just claim I’m leaving it to folks’ imagination? :D?
RE: leatapp
That Rev. Alpert story did not make me tear up or sniffle.
Oh no!
RE: Argenti
They didn’t, he never told them.
Oh WOW. Yeah, that part I didn’t know. D: Euuuuugh.
RE: marci
LBT: I am in awe of you!! That story was so good! Have you got any books published? I love your writing style so much. Is that Reverend an ongoing story? So fucking cool!
Gosh golly! *embarrassment* I’m glad you liked it! And yes, Reverend Alpert is an ongoing serial I’ve been writing for a couple years. There are currently six stories in the series, with two more currently up for sponsorship. (Though one of them involves Doña Prudencia, a curandera who operates her own practice totally independently of him, twenty years after his time.)
If you’re interested in my other work… well, I’ve got a LOT of it posted. Alpert is my most popular series, but Infinity Smashed is the largest, currently holding over fifty posted stories. As for stuff for sale… this’ll need another comment. One moment.
Okay, and here’s the saleable stuff!
I’ve got comics and zines for sale, in paper and PDF form, and also a few random orphaned writeathon stories, plus digital or paper copies of Bodily Reconstruction, an Infinity Smashed story involving getting trans healthcare in a town run entirely by reptiles, giant insects, and eldritch abominations. Argenti owns a copy, so ze can vouch!
…I badly need to make an etsy so as to have all my sellable goods in one easy page. <.<