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.
No worries, littlekatze–rant away, in no small part because you’re spot on!
(On a somewhat related note, I’m planning to add this to my t-shirt wardrobe at some point: http://www.lookhuman.com/design/38396-feminist-rant?gclid=CNS8lKW_scACFQwV7AodnTgAYA)
Just dropped in to say howdy and see how the collective victimhood is progressing. By the looks of things there’s lotsa victim stuff happening. Figured it’s been so long the collective must miss me horribly, so I’ll give ya’s something fret about.
The probable cause for wanting a so called safe space for men who are gamers is so they don’t have to interact with anyone calling themselves a social justice warrior, basically, any one of you. A bunch of guys playing a game, competing against each other, mocking each other, ridiculing everything under the sun, nothing serious, just having a good old time. And in walks a pixelated feminist with an eighty pound sack of eggshells to femsplain why this particular pixelated world is a totally unacceptable bastion of misogyny and every possible ism ever concocted. Play the game, join in the ribbing, be an equal, or get out.
By the way, it seems there’s a change in the title of this site since my last moderation. It’s now, “The new misogyny, tracked and mocked.” Do tell? What’s the all encompassing definition of the “new” misogyny.
Also, perhaps, Dave would like to correct a few points he has typed up. Such as, “Yep, apparently all those hundreds of thousands of comments you might have seen attacking Sarkeesian all over the internet are nothing but a mirage.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but pixels on a screen do not constitute an attack, words are not an attack. If that’s the case, this entire blog is devoted to attacking individuals as well as groups of individuals.
Another point would be where, Dave says, “Uh, no, because if one group faces systematic oppression because of prejudice”
Perhaps you could name the systematic oppression? And it has to be something based in physical reality, not a theory.
And as always the commenters always toss about the privilege nonsense, such as, “It would seem that the vast majority of the heterosexual, cisgendered, male population is too hell-bent on enjoying its privileges to acknowledge that women are as fully human as they are.”
Again, please give me an actual physical reality privilege, such as a law that actually privileges this group. VAWA is an example of women’s privilege federally financed and enshrined as a legal statute nationwide. Something along those line of this great privilege. And of course using patriarchy theory to femsplain why women get this juicy unconstitutional statute isn’t an answer.
Let the gnashing of teeth begin!
What rot. Men need safe spaces from women and feminists like white people need safe spaces from minorities and anti-racists.
Mrnick,
Why are you so invested in arguing that this guy isn’t really and truly a misogynist who is mad about having to treat women like humans, even in gaming? I really don’t understand why you had to open with “this isn’t about women.” How do you suppose he ended up on the men’s rights subreddit in the first place?
Funny thing, my phone just suggested “libertarian” as the next word I should enter after I typed the word “misogynist.”
My phone seems to know the manospere well.
What’s sad is that they *could* promote legitimate safe spaces for men, you know, groups of forums for male rape/abuse survivors, men-only forums for discussions about “masculinity,” men-only forums for parenthood/divorce issues, safe spaces to talk about prison, gangs, war, or other circumstances of the like… Men-only spaces to discuss LGBT issues… Suicide prevention….
Hell, if AVFM & other MRA groups actually cared about men, they could put their money to good use to help male survivors/veterans, challenge the ideals of masculinity, and create those places for men to talk with other men about what has affected them.
But, no. It’s all teh wimmins fault. To them, “safe spaces” are their perceived clubhouse built from the status quo.
What assholes.
Thus Spake Zaratitantransistor:
That’s a bit vague. Would you mind citing some examples?
All atheism is is not believing in the existence of a deity. How can that be a male space? Are they suggesting that women should be required to join a religion? If so, does it matter which one?
Is dude suggesting a. that if there were no women at anime conventions this wouldn’t be necessary, because he’s unable to comprehend the fact that men can be raped too, or b. that it’s OK for women to be at anime conventions as long as the men are allowed to rape them?
weirwood: I said in my first comment that there was misogyny in the gaming community. I also said that he was blaming women specifically, and I hopefully implied that it was wrong.
I’m only saying that in his case (not all MRAs), it seems to stem from deeper issues. I’ve known a few of these Real Gamer / Social Outcast types, and his comment reads a lot like their rants.
I’m not trying to imply that what he said wasn’t misogynistic or that we ought to ignore misogyny in general.
My personal vote is for a polyandrous one.
@ titantransistor:
” . . . The current state of the games industry does kind of have the whiff of a bunch of people showing up late to a house party, and then demanding the hosts change the music, decor and dress code to accommodate their tastes and comfort.”
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Here’s why:
1. You are assuming that “the party” has always been by, for, and about The Dudes. It has not. Look elsewhere in this thread for information re: the re-orientation of video gaming to boys ca. 1983 and on into the 1990s. This was not an Always and Forever thing. This is a thing that was the result of some myopic marketing folks deciding that they only wanted the Dude Dollars, because apparently, Lady Bucks are full of cooties or something.
2. Though I’ve personally been too repulsed by videogaming’s pervasive misogyny to feel like laying out $$$ for systems and games, there are PLENTY of women who have been involved in videogaming from its inception and love it enough to deal with that bullshit. Your refusal to acknowledge their persistent presence is about a divorcement from reality, not about what’s actually happening.
3. There are plenty of us lady geeks who have been geeks since kindergarten and are seriously, exceptionally, extremely tired of being told by dudebro geeks to either just deal with the “fact” that geek culture is a male culture or get out of the clubhouse. That’s not only demonstrably untrue, it’s sexist bullshit. You wanna step to me when it comes to Lovecraft? Okay: bring it, because I have read every last thing that the man ever wrote–including the collaborations, the fragments, and the Dream Cycle work–in addition to any number of scholarly commentaries, and I can sure as hell tell a shoggoth from Yog-Sothoth, which is more than a lot of the pipsqueaks who want to Fake Geek Girl me out of the club can do. Y’all need to face up to the fact that women are part of geek culture, always have been, and are not going away. Learn to deal.
3. Women who are interested in gaming are not asking for changes “to accommodate their tastes and comfort.” They are asking the game industry in general and gamers in particular to treat women like human beings and to be, you know, decent human beings who don’t see other human beings as worthy of humiliation, denigration, objectification, and harassment by virtue of having ovaries. There is a pretty significant difference there.
Titantransistor,
Except many feminists have been gaming since before the average reddit douchebro was even born. I fact, I was a gamer as a kid in the late 80s and early 90s. No one said it was for boys. I ended up not having the time and inclination to keep up with it in high school. By the time I got to college in the late 90s the community had become the misogynist shitshow it is today so I never got back into it.
What I’m saying is, the misogynists are the ones who showed up late and demanded accommodation. Gaming didn’t used to be so gendered.
Who wants to bet that some of the lady nerds on this very thread were into gaming before titantransistor was even born?
I bet if I write Roberta Williams three times, I can summon LBT
Mrnick,
Then why did you say “it’s not about women?” It gets a little tiring, as a woman being mansplained about how clear misogyny really must be about something else. Misogyny is about misogyny. Nothing else. It’s very condescending and annoying to pretend uou know better.
Are we really having that “but they feel oppressed because someone gave them a swirlie in high school, you see, it’s not that they’re misogynists, honest” conversation again?
@ CassandraKitty:
If we all decided to join a religion, then they’d argue that this just proves that women are stupid. After all, don’t we know that religion has long been a tool of women’s oppression? And how could anyone possibly contribute to something that’s been used to oppress people like them unless they were an absolute fool? Besides, the fact that lots of atheists value things like science and logic means that atheists are automatically smarter than religious people so the fact that women are more religious means that women are innately less reasonable.
Misogynist atheist dudebros are going to bash women if they think that we’re too religious. But if too many women show an interest in atheism, then we’re terrible locusts set on oppressing atheist men and invading their spaces. No matter what we do, they’ll insist that we’re in the wrong.
@MrNick
>They literally can’t afford to cater only to that demographic.
You weren’t exactly blessed with a whole lot of perceptivity, because yes, they can.
@cassandrakitty
It’s not as tired as the “Women are stealing (abstract, infinite) things from MEN” conversation that’s definitely been happening since as long as there’s been feminism.
All I see is yet more evidence that people are keenly aware of the privileges that they lack, and totally blind to the privileges that they have. It’s slightly disadvantageous, socially, to be a geeky man as opposed to a non-geeky man, and that’s all these dudes can see. They are not only unaware of the immense advantage that comes with being/being perceived as a man versus being/being perceived as not a man, they are deeply offended when someone points that out because all they can see is the slight disadvantage from the geek aspect.
Yes, it’s such an imposition to have to endure the presence of women! And to endure their constant whining about how they want to be seen as human beings and not decorative sex objects! And to have to acknowledge that women have the right to choose their sex partners! Can’t any of you see how horrible and stigmatizing it is to be a GEEK? The complaints of women are of such minor importance in comparison, how dare you imply that women have important problems? And most especially how dare you imply that male geeks are actually the source of those problems sometimes and in some contexts? You’re blowing this rape thing all out of proportion, the problems of male geeks are so much more immediate and manifest!
That’s all I find in this MRA geek. Complete preoccupation with his own tiny problems and utter disregard for the problems of anyone else.
Some con-going women should get together and show up at the next one in locust costumes just to piss these dudes off.
Oh, @cassandrakitty, you are a genius! I may actually suggest this to my local cosplaying, feminist friends. We could have “Feminist Swarm” ensignia on our steampunk uniforms and papier-mâché locust heads . . . . .
@ Policy of Madness–EXACTLY.
And then they’ll complain that your locust costumes aren’t sexy enough.