Though Men’s Rights activists devote an enormous amount of their time denouncing feminism – or at least the imaginary version of feminism that exists only in their own heads – they’re happy to appropriate feminist concepts when it suits them. One that many MRAs seem especially eager to claim for themselves is the idea of the “safe space.”
Of course, their version of the “safe space” bears only a slight resemblance to the feminist original. Feminists seek to create spaces for discussion in which say, rape survivors can discuss their experiences without being triggered by insensitive arguers and trolls and mansplainers in general.
When MRAs talk about “safe spaces,” by contrast, their goal is often to exclude women not just from discussion spaces but from full participation in society, essentially declaring giant arenas of work and play, from STEM fields to video games, to be places where feminists, and women in general, should fear to tread.
And so it’s hardly surprising that more than a few MRAs are arguing that the Zoe Quinn “scandal” proves that women and gaming don’t mix – or, at least, that they shouldn’t.
Consider the little manifesto recently “pinned” as the top post on the Men’s Rights subreddit, in which a fellow calling himself mradiscus lamented what he called “a pattern of female feminists migrating to formerly male spaces, demanding to be accommodated and eventually causing conflict and alienation.”
The “male spaces” he has in mind – the “hacking scene,” atheism, and the video game industry – won’t come as a shock to anyone familiar with the current state of nerdboy rage, but might trouble anyone who thinks that women are, you know, equal to men and have the same rights to choose their own careers and have their own interests and beliefs.
Not only that, but there is just a teensy bit of irony in that the way that MRAs and others are trying to drive off the feminist, er, invaders is by harassing them. That is, MRAs are appropriating the concept of “safe spaces” — designed to protect those in them from harassment and abuse — and using it as an excuse for … harassment and abuse.
But let’s step back a bit, because we still don’t have an answer as to why any of these “spaces” should be defined as male in the first place. How is atheism – the lack of a belief in god or gods – only a dude thing? When did guys get the right to call dibs on the gaming business?
Well, as mradiscus sees it, these “spaces” have traditionally been essentially nerdboy preserves, and should be protected from the pernicious influence of “female feminists” who, presumably, have no real interest in hacking or gaming or skepticism and whose real goal is just to make life hard for already beleaguered nerd dudes:
A scene predominantly populated by rather introverted young males becomes popular and attracts, among others, young women with a feminist mindset. Some of these women then go on and demand to be accommodated. Their demands are mostly met, and so we see the emergence of “gender awareness teams” at hacking conferences, no-means-no campaigns at anime conventions and a whole lot of conference panel slots devoted to “feminist this” and “gender that”.
Mradiscus then offers what I can only call a “revisionist” history of the harassment of feminist women from Rebecca Watson to Zoe Quinn:
What we also see is a whole lot of scandals. What seems to spark them most of the time is a overreaction to a minor offense, blown way out of proportion by a semi-popular feminist and her fan base who then proceed to launch an attack on the whole “misogynistic” scene. The young men feel cornered and unfairly attacked and retaliate with inappropriate and infelicitous measures which only leads to the feminists seeing their prejudices confirmed. Rape threat allegations are launched, there’s doxxing and name-calling all-around and new-found fame for a brave and courageous young feminist who may or may not proceed to make a career out of her struggle.
I should point out that none of the women who have allegedly “made … career[s] out of [their] struggles” actually asked to be harassed and demonized. If the harassers are angry that their harassment allowed Anita Sarkeesian to raise a lot more money than she asked for, they really have only themselves to blame.
Mradiscus ends with an ominous prediction-slash-threat that young men aren’t going to remain “patient” for much longer – and that things could get much worse for feminists venturing into these “male spaces.”
I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if the patience of these young nerdy men turns out to be a shallow well that’s drawing to a close. I sense quite a bit of alienation in the hacking and gaming sub-cultures when it comes to feminist topics. What do you think?
I think that you have a very strange notion of “patience.”
Naturally, MRAs being MRAs, mradiscus’ little manifesto – dripping with unexamined misogynistic assumptions and a quiet, curiously passive-aggressive rage – won praise and more than one hundred upvotes from the subreddit regulars.
The most extraordinary response to mradiscus’ rant was also the top-ranked comment, a long screed from a fellow calling himself a0i that argued, with complete seriousness (and occasional very confused references to the theories of Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci), that
The logic of how feminists target predominantly male spaces is very similar to the pattern of locust swarms.
Yep. Feminists are LOCUSTS.
Wherever there are men, there are targets for false accusations, male scapegoats, and fake victims. False accusations can’t happen without men, and neither can feminism. When there are too many women somewhere, you can’t claim that the environment is dominated by men, and feminists have nothing left to justify their presence. Feminists can’t thrive because they lack a scapegoat. They seek out a place where men are, and fabricate outrage at finding too many men in once place, at one time.
They have to find fresh environments with concentrations of male majorities, for “structures of misogyny” to pretend-struggle against. Thus, nerd culture being targeted, video games being targeted, Anita Sarkeesian making up being attacked, etc.
Yep, apparently all those hundreds of thousands of comments you might have seen attacking Sarkeesian all over the internet are nothing but a mirage. That Flash game in which you could cover her face in bruises? You must have dreamed it.
It’s telling that a major feminist concern is for “women’s exclusive space”, while another feminist concern is for “women’s inclusion in male-dominated spaces”. They fight to get in, just to kick the men out. …
Feminists demand unlimited access for women, as proof of men’s commitment to equality, but demand limited access for men, to prove men’s concern for safety.
Wat? I’m pretty sure no feminists are talking about excluding men from video gaming.
This works, despite the irony that — if you believed in their equality, you wouldn’t make special accommodations for their safety.
Uh, no, because if one group faces systematic oppression because of prejudice, the only way to ensure an egalitarian society is by making “special accommodations for their safety.” That’s why we have hate crime laws.
In the case of gaming, and atheism and tech in general, the only “special accommodations” feminists have asked for have been, you know, protection from sexual harassment and assault. Protections that also apply to men.
If there is one principle to understand about the tactics used to engineer women’s privilege over men in society, it is this:
- “what you intend to do to an opponent, you must accuse them of doing to you” …
Frame your victim as your victimizer, put them in a position to want to prove themselves innocent. Frame your attacks as self-defense, frame your transgressions as righteous. Frame the enemy as using propaganda, make this part of your propaganda. Frame the enemy as a threat, before you launch your attack. Pretend to be a victim, while attacking the accused.
Apparently MRAs are utterly oblivious to irony.
@pallygirl–I definitely agree that she is making fallacious, easily disproven statements and arguing in bad faith. I’m not endorsing her behavior, but I don’t think making bad arguments poorly or disingenuously is quite the same thing as actually being stupid. I suppose I brought this up at all because it troubles me when we boil the arguments of MRAs, PUAs, and their apologists down to stupidity. Some of the people making these arguments may not terribly intelligent, but I think these arguments spring from a desire to cling to and reinforce sexist social norms rather than from a deficit in IQ–and I think we do ourselves a disservice when we underestimate the abilities of our opponents.
Anyway, I don’t want to die on this particular hill: just needed to note that I’m not terribly comfortable with the terminology.
This has certainly set the cause of “feminism” back decades. No wonder there are so many temper tantrums lately 🙂
I’m not talking about stupid or idiot == IQ measure (which is a crap measure of “intelligence” anyways).
I thought stupid and idiot were the two acceptable terms on this blog.
Which is just a bad attempt to silence her. After all, if she DID develop a videogame, do you think for one moment the asshole brigade would not be offended by its existence?
Seen on reddit: Playboy is officially better than the M(H)RM on catcalling/street harassment.
The whole thing though, with Anita, is that she’s not critiquing the game engine, or the voice acting, or the quality and variety of the game environment, or the game bugs, or anything that is specifically related to how to render a videogame. She’s critiquing the narrative, which includes how female bodies and characters are rendered visually and with respect to plot.
She doesn’t need to understand programming to do that.
@pallygirl–I’m not declaring what is or isn’t acceptable on this blog, as I have absolutely no authority with which to do so, even if I were so inclined. Just noting that I’m not, personally, very comfortable with such terminology and explaining why.
Boy am I REALLY late to the party this time. But I was kind of excited to see the return of Owly! It’s been so long! (Again, I have been lurking for many years. Creepy, huh?) Also, I see Inanity is back as well. So much material to work with, so little time.
That’s why I called it an “impossible goal-post.” Even if the person actually accomplishes the task demanded, the other person will then claim they need to do something else in order to prove themselves. The demand was already ridiculous and it’ll only become more ridiculous with any attempt made to fulfill it.
Neither are many of her “critics”, most likely. That was my point: not only are they demanding that she do something they cannot do themselves, but they can’t even bother to understand the subject she is talking about or the point behind it. To them, she’s simply insulting them by criticizing, even constructively, something they happen to like. Nevermind that she might like them too (God knows how many things I like that still have problematic elements to them…) – the fact she is saying less than congratulatory about it is enough for them to take offense.
A long time ago before my partner had really seen with his own eyeballs and actually tried to grasp the misogyny in gaming we talked about men&women in games. I remember him saying that a lot of guys play as women because people will give you free stuff and help you if they think you’re a woman, and he said this as if it was some universal benefit to women gaming. First, I had to break it to him that getting gifts or tips from random dudes does in no way make up for the mountain of bullshit women have to deal with in games. Secondly, I had to ask him to really think about why men were doing this for female characters? Was it out of the kindness of their hearts? Would they give you some help and then say “good luck! see ya!”? Fuck no. They might help you out because they think a. you’re too stupid to play the game normally by virtue of being a women and b. they almost always expect something out of it. If you don’t respond in the exact correct way to this random dude’s niceness you go from omg hot-sexy-gamer-girl to evil-bitch-from-hell-i-bet-you-are-fat-anyways. Wow! What a prize!
Honestly, my partner has come a long way but I’m still not entirely sure he gets it. I have a feeling he would sound a little like Mr. Nick if we got into an in-depth discussion about this stuff again.
saintnick, the vast majority of things we enjoy have problematic elements. But it certainly doesn’t mean one cannot derive value from it. I think it’s probably very difficult to make something *not* problematic on some level since it’s impossible to know every lived experience. Still, taking a critical eye to media is always a good idea. We can always improve. It’s a state of constant progress. A lot of these idiots don’t seem to like innovation or analysis very much. Do you think part of it is that they haven’t really experienced much discomfort in their lives? Living the lives that they do, just about everything is catered to them. Wouldn’t want to upset the apple cart, now would we?
I was probably video gaming before these losers were even born.
Our first console was an Atari with Pong on it, amongst other monochrome block based games. And we had a Commodore 64 with a tape deck for loading the games.
The first game that I was obsessed with was an AD&D game called Curse of the Azure Bonds. I loved it so much. This is a screenshot of the amazing graphics.
I’m late on this because I was busy working but count me as one of those who was uncomfortable with the comment comparing models to boys in drag. It’s homophobic for mocking drag and body shaming to model’s body type. Yes, thin privilege is a thing and body shaming happens to fat women moe often but that doesn’t make mocking skinny women ok. That doesn’t fix anything.
Wow I’m hella late to this thread, but I just wanted to jump in and say that I was also really not-okay with Inanity’s drag comment – that’s not kosher. Fuck off, Inanity.
And shut up, Woody. (Mmmmm, but that feels gooooood, such community, much included, wow.)
Also, as to my thoughts on the actual topic…
If MRAs are against women participating in cultures and spaces perceived as neither for nor by them, that means that, conversely, MRAs are against bronies, since My Little Pony is clearly a show meant for little girls, and bronies, by their very nature, are thus trespassing unwanted in little girls’ territory, which should, by rights, be left to them for their own enjoyment and not sullied by 20-something men regardless of the affection said men have for cartoon horses? Yes? Right? Crickets?
“I have a feeling he would sound a little like Mr. Nick if we got into an in-depth discussion about this stuff again.”
Okay, okay… I think it’s been made clear enough already that I’m not exactly welcome.
I’ll just go.
@Mr Nick
You don’t have to go. If you’ve lurked here at all, you’ll know that sometimes people get off on the wrong foot, but it’s not difficult to get into the groove. You don’t strike me as a troll. I feel like you’re approaching this in good faith – just the argument you’re using needs a closer look. As in, it seems reasonable on the surface, but it has a lot of cultural baggage that needs unpacking.
If you want to do some unpacking, this is a good place for it.
Mr. Nick, I’m sorry you’ve kind of gotten off on the wrong foot here. I’m not a community expert by a long stretch, but from what I understand it often helps to just comment in a different thread on a different day and start fresh. Just try to be sensitive about the issues, because we come here to rage against prejudice and not to take it upon ourselves to educate everyone who doesn’t quite understand. That said, there is a lot of educational stuff to be found in the comments sections, but the mammotheers aren’t going to drop what they are discussing to dredge up concepts that have already been hashed numerous times elsewhere.
Hopefully I didn’t just step on everyone’s toes, but if I did, it’s certainly all right to tell me!
I’m mostly swinging by to point out that, in my experience, women have definitely been involved with gaming from the start. I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, but I know it was my mother who had a thing for video games. She would bring my sister and I to arcades (one of the bars in the small town I lived in still had all the old games) and introduce us to her favorites. She had a particular fondness for Mrs. Pacman. She brought us to other small town arcades as well (all of which I think are gone by now), and for all my haunted memories I at least have those days to remember fondly. My mother graduated in 1986, so she was a young adult before most of the people trying to exclude women from gaming were born.
Then she bought us a Super Nintendo when it had been out for quite some time and the prices had dropped. She even took us to Toys R Us to buy us a new game every now and then even though we were poor. I stress this because it was my mother who was into games and got my sister and I into games, Between my sister and my six cousins who where closes to my age, it was I and my cousin Marc who were the biggest gamers. One boy and one girl. We frequently had sleepovers that would center around those Super Nintendo games that we loved. I really cherish those memories. Then, when I was thirteen, my mother was very excited to finally be able to afford a Playstation 2 for us. So basically, I lived in a house with only women/girls (my mother, sister, and I) and we were gamers because the matriarch made it happen.
So anyone who thinks gaming is only for men (I am aiming that pretty transparently at IB22) can just GTFO.
They are.
Count me as another girl who grew up with video games. My parents gave me an NES for my sixth birthday (despite the fact I have a little brother, who did not get his own, and just shared mine). The rest of my childhood, we had a gaming console in the house almost constantly. As soon as we had a PC, we had games on it, both edu-tainment (Math Blaster, anyone?) and just for fun. My dad taught me how to play Warcraft II and sparked my fondness for RTS games.
Growing up, it never once occurred to me that these were boy things. Not only that, it never once occurred to me that these were nerdy boy things. I had no idea how geeky my family was until I I started seeing more and more people talking about their own “geeky” habits — things which, until that point, I just kind of assumed everyone did for fun. I was beyond surprised to find out that, not only did not everyone play these games, some people were actively trying to keep me out of them.
——-
On a slightly different note, I saw this mentioned a page or two back in the comments, but I think it’s worth reiterating: If MRA’s want safe spaces on the internet or in gaming — places where they can spew MRA Logic(TM) without fear of being refuted or criticized by the people they routinely insult — they are welcome to create them. Nobody’s stopping them from making websites and blogs where they get to set their own comment rules. Nobody’s stopping them from creating male-only clans in CoD. Nobody said they can’t host a “Get Rid Of Slimy girlS” guild in WoW. They can say awful things on their own Team Speak and in their own guild chat all they like. They can include and exclude anyone in their own, self-maintaned “safe space” they want, for any reason they want (within the hosts’ ToS of course).
Whatever kind of guild/clan/community they form, however, they don’t own the entire friggin’ game, and as such, they don’t get to decide who else plays. They don’t get to act like poopheads to people who haven’t signed up for their guild. They certainly don’t get to declare ALL GAMES EVER to be their private clubhouse, which means they cannot set the rules for ALL GAMES EVER.
They are within their rights to speak up about how “Video Games” — as if it were a monolith — should go in the future. They just don’t get to silence and harass people who have a different perspective, even if those other people are making progress and getting Kickstarter money and getting greenlit on Steam and stuff.
tl;dr – This is really not that hard, and MRA’s really, really don’t understand “safe space”.
Well said Kootiepatra
I just realized there’s an element missing to the discussion here.
MRA “Irony”
They don’t really post this kinda stuff with the intention of being exclusionary(well many do, stupid misogynists gonna stupid). They think they’re cleverly satirizing “safe spaces” by declaring outright separate-but-not-at-all-equal segregation as if it were “safe space”.
They act like protecting small, specific events that have a specific need for privacy and/or calmness is the same as running men out of entire places in culture.
And, if there’s one kind of argument MRAs can’t resist, it’s false equivalency.
I thought it was acceptable to politely note one’s discomfort with elements of a conversation, too. Apparently not. I see I failed the test of agreeing with every single thing every single mammotheer says, ever, however much general support and agreement I offered elsewhere. I guess it’s that kind of club. Gotcha.
Is this some type of passive aggressiveness against my question on acceptable terms and the answer that was given? I’m not seeing where you were told that anything you said was unacceptable. I’m also not seeing where you’ve been told off – or whatevers – because you disagreed with every single thing every single mammotheer says, ever.
I’ve been called out. Others posting here, and more regularly and a lot longer than me, have been called out. You weren’t called out.
Oh noes, have I turned another male(?) away from feminism because of my nastiness?
Nope. Not male, so you don’t get points for chasing another guy away. Female and feminist and a fan of the work being done on this blog, actually, but tired of the four responses, all of them dismissive, not all of them yours, that I’ve gotten in reply to politely registering discomfort with one particular aspect of the conversation here. Nothing passive-aggressive at all about what I’ve said here. I registered a concern; got accused of policing the conversation,;noted that I was not, in fact policing the conversation, but rather registering discomfort; and then received rather passive-aggressive notices in which folks were talking over my head as If I weren’t here about my concern being a non-concern. I’m calling that out, which is kind of the opposite of passive-aggression, actually, but okay. Y’all do your thing. Enjoy the echo chamber.