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.
You’d probably enjoy Literally Unbelievable.
Re cats: my Grace will follow me from room to room, purring at ever-increasing volume and occasionally trotting to catch up with me. When I sit at my computer in the morning, she digs her claws into the chair (and sometimes my legs) until I put her on my lap. Such indifference, so dark triad.
God, I can’t stand Sowell – especially that inane constrained/unconstrained vision dichotomy. Anything that relies almost entirely on “there’s two kinds of people in the world…” logic are bound to make false assumptions and disregard complexity (e.g. in this case, loving unrestrained capitalism makes you a good person – but not doing so must mean you have some kind of paternalistic, messianic egomania).
I think one reason he’s particularly popular with right-wing libertarians is the same reason Karen Straughan is popular with MRAs: being part of a social group that is regularly maligned by them, their existence is used to try and deflect criticisms of bigotry (especially tokenism). The same way Republicans use Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin to try and prove they aren’t sexist – whenever gender issues come up. It’s how he can make absurd comments about how black culture is actually redneck culture or that affirmative action doesn’t work or how racism is, like, totally overblown, man. Oh, and be absolutely dismissive of any diagnosis involving autism – ’cause he may as well shit on people with certain psychological conditions along with ethnic minorities (mostly of the one he belongs to) and anyone who even slightly cares about making the world a slightly better place (’cause, y’know, the free market somehow fixes everything…”eventually”…).
@auggz, that must be this year’s answer to last year’s “Morgan Freeman doesn’t approve of black history month!”
ARGH!!! Don’t get me started on that one either…
Emilygoddess: you are not tiresome, breakfastman is not tiresome. The “why are you writing things this way instead of this way” is tiresome.
I ascribe to Molly Ivins theory about “two kinds of people”.
People who think there are two kinds of people, and people who do not.
I wish I could find the quote. I miss Molly!
The Dark Triad only generates success based on the person’s ability to misuse the trust and empathy of others around them. It’s an eminently parasitic personality type.
= she is demonic.
But she’s a cat, so naturally. 😛
zippydoo – best dark triad EVER.
See, I didn’t read it that way. Breakfastman didn’t say “you shouldn’t have written that”; he(?) asked “am I the only one who feels this way”, which seems like a perfectly innocent way to start that kind of conversation, and allows for the possibility that one is in the wrong. I read it as “does this choice of words have the potential to be harmful”, which is a conversation we have all the time in the comments.
How the heck would art be dead?
Also, what’s wrong with cats not giving a shit? I like that my cat doesn’t need my attention 100% of the time like the dog does. When he wants attention it’s either for food or because he wants to be close to me. He’ll come up on the couch and sit on the arm, often bumping his head against mine. And we all know in cat language that means affection.
You mean that racism is pervasive to the degree that many things can be accurately described as supportive of white supremacy? Preposterous.
Also, if there’s anyone who lacks the evidence for their position, it’s the racist “liberal” douchebag who thinks that racism will go away once anti-racist discourse goes away.
Oh, speaking of cats, Tawny here makes the cutest meows ever – even though she’s not very good at making them. Right now she’s resting under my left arm as I type.
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/f9/9a/57/f99a57fc3c84d4b2d21930b26dd880df.jpg
David Futrelle,
“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 if you don’t subject yourself to her stupidity, how can you make fun of it?
@cassandra
That’s fairly creepy advice. (Imo)
@neuroticbeagle
I probably laughed way too hard at that XD
@CriticalDragon:
David doesn’t need to watch it. He probably had a pretty good idea of exactly what GWW would say. After a while all the “arguments” MRAs and FeMRAs blur together and form a reactionary mess.
We were a slave economy for like, more than 300 years. There are (many) people alive from a time when segregation was the law (and there is still TONS of de facto segregation in the US).
Why do people need “proof” that there is racism in the US? Frankly, I’m more inclined to say that the position that something ISN’T racist is the one that should have the burden of proof, given our history.
Also, David didn’t really write about GWW. He wrote about the MRAs arguing about whether they are allowed to criticize her or not.
Or, as Terry Pratchett put it:
Hi!
Deniseeliza, yep. It’s so pervasive that we don’t even register that we’re automatically dumping 5 bottles onto our scrambled eggs.
Sorry, terrible timing. Bad metaphor is bad. Ketchup is delicious, and good with almost everything. Racism is more like parasitic nematodes; everywhere, and often in populations small enough that we don’t even notice them…
… Until you get confronted with a high enough parasite load, and you look through the fixed slides of life, and go, “Oh my cat, what is this thing!”
Some of us get slapped with higher amounts of racist nematodery than others. Some of us just accidentally culture the little fiends, and release them.
I try to remember to check and deworm myself. If you ever catch a fail, please call me out on it. 🙂
Not caught up but I have a bad joke!
“Anything that relies almost entirely on “there’s two kinds of people in the world…””
Not 2 kinds! 10 kinds! (If you get it, go have a cookie)
Ack, fucking nematodes are the WORST. Pretty much invariably fatal in fish.
Ok, I can be on topic. I swear!
Fuck it, no I can’t. Unless the topic is cats in which case I can come close — puff is getting SO BIG! I mean, he’ll triple in size from now to full grown, but he’s like twice as big as he was when I got him. And, unlike most cats, will come over to greet anyone walking into my room (he gets a bit temperamental if you don’t bend down to his tank, swims back and forth along the front glass being all “hey, you! Helloooooo up there!”). Don’t tell him, but he’s getting his favorite for dinner, he’ll probably try to eat the pipette the moment he sees brine shrimp inside it!
Argenti: you are wonderful, and amazing, and YES!!!
Sorry, bad joke is good. I may also be easily amused. Going to find the spleen I laughed out… and eat my cookie.
🙂
@Argenti
::cookie plz:: :3 (and one of the few jokes that involves binary I’m able to understand XD)