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.
Hooray! Posting a hojillion links ACHEIVED! *touchdown arms*
Etsy are evil. They don’t ship to Australia. D:
Well, shit, then. I really want to make some kind of shop page to link folks to, just to make things easier for everyone, and I figured etsy was my best bet. Is there some kind of equivalent that DOES ship to Australia, kittehs?
Ooh, I got it wrong! It must have been the individual seller there not shipping to Oz. You can set up international shipping profiles selling through them!
http://www.etsy.com/teams/7421/international-shipping
No no, he believed that even pre-verbal infants manipulate their parents via their decisions about when to poop, or refusing to poop. And yep, creepy, but also funny.
So, babies really do learn from the Furrinati …
Kitteh — minor deception is kinda standard in US psych research, usually it’s little things though. Like, for intro to psych we had to be in a couple research studies, our choice. The one I remember doing I got sat in the little room to wait, someone else, supposedly another participant, came in and started making small talk about getting dumped, and then about losing a parent. Turned out she was one of the researchers, they were studying how people react to bad things they can relate to versus bad things they can’t relate to. Ended up talking about rape culture with the other researcher while explaining what I think is behind that difference in responses.
Obviously “oh you weren’t really making small talk, that was the study” isn’t on par with Milgram, but that sort of deception happens all the time and is, IMO, harmless. If anything, I don’t recall wtf I thought I was signing up for, but was pleased to actually be helping them research why people react to rape they way they do.
Even though it’s for something important, that example skeeves me right out. It just sets all my manipulation alarms ringing, even though it’s not for personal gain or abuse or anything.
And therapists who’ve swallowed this codswallop wholeheartedly have done inestimable damage to thousands of people over decades and decades. Long, long before I had any children of my own, I heard of friends of a friend who were taking their little preschooler boy in for twice weekly therapy. He was constantly being berated by parents and by the Freudian therapist that he was being mean to mummy by withholding this anal gift – and that he was punishing her by dirtying his pants instead of using the potty or the toilet.
The poor little mite was so constipated that he was having real physical problems. He should have been taken to hospital and sedated to be given an enema and, probably, treatment for anal fissures. I never heard what happened to him but I presume they eventually took him to a doctor or pediatrician who knew how to handle it better.
Poor kid. Also, this story yet again reinforces my dislike of Freudian-based therapy.
RE: Kittehs
Awesome! In that case, it’s still on the agenda!
RE: mildlymagnificent
WTF. Who does that? I mean, it’s a fucking PRESCHOOLER. They lack the subtlety for shit like that. Gah.
Fun fact: modern statistic presentation (and so modern science) is the result of a woman trying to explain things to a bunch of men. The woman was Florence Nightingale.
As to Mr. “I won’t be your battle guard” (or whatever over the top phrase he used), I am comfortable in my ability to take him down. The thing is, anyone can be taken out, all it requires is the person making the attack be willing to commit murder. Since I very much doubt he’s actually the sort to engage in murder (out of the blue) the odds he can take me out, are slim. That sort tend to be running on bravado and bluster. They won’t attack without a lot of posturing (in part because they’ve internalised some pretty toxic masculinity), and that’s all I need to be ready.
If I’m ready, I’m not really all that worried.
change a tire or make a scratch hollandaise? IMO, about dead even for hard.
Souffle… a bit trickier. Mille-fueille pastry? Real Danish?
Where’s the jack. Because those are hard (and I’ve never made them work properly).
CD1177: But if you don’t subject yourself to her stupidity, how can you make fun of it?
He didn’t. He was looking at the people rising to deflect any, and all, criticism of her.
You might at least try to read critically.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
Those who get binary, those who don’t and those who didn’t realise this joke is in base 3.
Oh LOL.
I was actually interested in reading this article, as I know nothing about anything, from the people to the events, and then I read:
For some reason I don’t believe you. Anyone who would take a piece of snark (e.g. Just thinking about the Beatles seems to induce mental disturbance. They have a commonplace, rather dull act that hardly seems to merit mentioning, yet people hereabouts have mentioned scarcely anything else for a couple of days. [George Dixon: Washington Post, Feb. 13, 1964]) and then go off on the tear you did… probably had an ox, or two, ox gored by the comments.
So tell us, what’s really got your knickers twisted.
So instead of discussing the issues that straughen raised in her talk, manboobz is taking a punt at MRA’s for, wait for it….. not being able to discuss the issues in her talk. Got it.
This is a site for mocking misogynists, genius. You want to discuss the talk, do so on your own blog or MRA blogs or whatever.
You have a reading comprehension problem, don’t you, Papaya?
The OP isn’t about Straughan’s talk. It’s about the reaction of Men’s Rights redditors to criticism of Straughan’s talk.
Next time, try reading the title to an article. It should clue you in about the articles content. Thus, the OP title is: “Men’s Rights White Knights rush in to protect Karen ‘GirlWritesWhat’ Straughan from MRA criticism.” Notice how the title directly states what the article is about?
Oh no! The topic is not the one you wanted! Whatever shall we do?
Laugh at the idea that Straughan actually has issues to talk about?
As was correctly pointed out, this thread is to discuss the reaction of some MRA’s to the criticism by some other MRA’s of a talk by Karen Straughan. I think it is important to point out that the vast majority of MRA’s do not criticize the presentation because there is very little to criticize. Basically the presentation is accurate and, for many, enlightening and therefore is a resounding success. This site then quotes several inept extremists as representative of MRA’s in general in order to enjoy mocking a movement not on its merits but on unrepresentative comments. As an anti-feminist I critique widely held views representative of feminism and I do not stoup to claiming feminism advocates culling 80% of men just because one feminist made such a statement. Pathetic. I now take great pleasure in telling you what you already know, that your great fear will inevitably come to pass. Feminism is doomed because the tipping point has been crossed. Enough men are awake now to wake the rest. Instead of hopeless, I now feel relief and even peaceful.
Ahahaha, so much fail, necro-troll.
Beeeep! Sorry, wrong answer. The vast majority of MRAs don’t criticize the presentation because Karen Straughan agrees with them and is a good example of how MRAs think women should behave when dealing with men: no criticism, only praise. If Straughan ever makes the mistake of criticizing a man the MRAs love (usually some violent, hateful bigot), don’t think they won’t turn against her in the blink of an eye.
See above. You can only believe that blathering is enlightening if you already subscribe to MRA bullshit. Everybody else is just going to be wondering where the hell Straughan is pulling these bullshit talking points from. I’ll take ”her ass” for 100 points, please.
I love* the bullshit argument that terrible, stupid, misogynistic and/or otherwise bigoted comments uttered by MRAs represent extremists or outliers, when the MRM’s prominent authority figures, like Paul ”fucking their shit up gives me an erection” Elam and the movement’s granddaddy, Warren ”WTF” Farrell, have both said utterly terrible and unforgivable shit about women, and gotten praise for it by the MRM. Call the comments what you like, but unrepresentative of the movement they are not.
Um… good for you? Which feminist? Also, what the hell is stouping? What widely held views? What are you even talking about?
This sentence doesn’t make any sense. Please rephrase.
Umm, no. Enough men (me included) are already laughing at your stupid ”movement”, and the more people become aware of you, the more people will laugh at you. But hey, feeling peaceful and relief [sic] is far more positive than feeling angry and bitter and resentful, so… yay?
Also, you have my permission to take a hike now.
*By love, I of course mean hate.