I don’t do enough link posts. Or any, really. (I mean, I think I’ve done a few, but that was years ago.) Anyway, I’ve decided to remedy that. So here are some interesting and/or appalling recent stories I’ve run across. Add more in comments!
Fanboys, White Knights, and the Hairball of Online Misogyny, by Tauriq Moosa at The Daily Beast.
You Can’t Fight Rape With Nail Polish, by Kate Harding at Dame.
Answering questions asked of feminists by a misogynist, by Amanda Marcotte at The Raw Story.
College dudes worried that movement to take rape seriously is ruining their sex lives, by Katie McDonough at Salon.
The Chilling Effect of Misogynistic Trolls, by Victoria Turk at Motherboard.
Disney World Princess Does Reddit AMA; Receives Creepy Messages, Of Course, by Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel.
Also, while I’m plugging things, I want to mention the GiveForward campaign to raise money to help pay the medical expenses of Christy Mack, the porn actress now recovering from a savage beating (allegedly) at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, the MMA fighter/ex-porn actor/convicted felon War Machine. (Note: Link contains picture of the injured Mack.)
A little something I blogged this morning, after getting a wee bit pissed off last night about all the entitlement and presumption that I’ve observed going ’round.
I know this going to come of as apologism, but it’s intended as the opposite. I wish we could scientifically quantify and prove the harm the misogynistic types on the internet do. Because while it’s intuitive to me how harmful it is, my intuition doesn’t do a lot to convince people.
(not that I perceive misogynists as being particularly swayed by facts either)
I have rather practical concerns about the drug-detected nail polish. Namely: Norwalk. I wonder what public health officials think of encouraging millions of girls to dunk their dirty digits into their daquiris.
http://damsel-in-de-tech.blogspot.ca/2014/08/anti-rape-nail-polish-good-way-to.html
@damselindetech I agree! I don’t want to have to stick my fingers in my drink. I know how diseases spread. No to mention the fact that someone could slip something into your drink at almost any time, meaning you might as well sit at the bar with you finger in your drink all night. Sounds like a fun evening, huh?
I don’t like the idea of the nail polish because its going to give people a false sense of security. The chemical reaction that causes the color change can be circumvented by a clever chemist, and there are plenty in the drug game willing to do it for money. Just think of all the different synthetic cannabinoids being sold in head shops, each one made slightly different to avoid detection.
@tesformes Another excellent point. Also, the most common drug used in sexual assaults is alcohol. What we commonly think of as date rape drugs are only used in a small percentage of cases. Therefore, the nail polish would be useless in most cases.
@damselindetech, RIGHT!? Have these guys ever been to the average bar bathroom? The handwashing facilities are usually dubious at best.
And there’s cases of bar staff spiking women’s drinks as they are made. Which means not even holding your drink at all times is going to make you safe either.
While we’re linking things, dies anyone know of a blog that reviews horror movies from a feminist perspective? I’d be interested in reading something like that and if it doesn’t exist maybe I’ll start my own.
This thread seemed like the appropriate place to post a link to a page I’ve wanted to discuss:
The Wikipedia entry for “Man Cave”
The entry reads like it was written by a group of MRAs trying hard to appear neutral, but unable to avoid numerous gender assumptions, like so:
OH THOSE HORRIBLE WOMENZ STOP MENZ FROM HAVING FUNZZIES! NEED — SAFE — SPACE!!!!!!
The whole page is worth a look for its assumption of women crushing men’s freedom. (Also, people with more Wikipedia skills than me should help restore NPOV on it.)
I have no problem in theory with the concept of a “man-cave” – everyone benefits from having a space of their own, where their tastes and sensibilities dominate and no one can enter without their express permission. In a traditional heterosexual couple, “the home” is the woman’s domain, under her aesthetic control, and it will be the guy who is more in need of a space set aside for himself. So far, so good.
It’s the idea that he needs it because women are inherently buzzkills – rather than because all humans need privacy and a place to be themselves – that grinds my nerves.
Here’s a fun link: a Wikipedia editor comes to /r/MensRights to ask them to stop vandalizing Wikipedia and to respect the editing guidelines.
You know, at first, I thought that “College dudes worried that movement to take rape seriously is ruining their sex lives” was a headline from the Onion. Nope.
Breaking scandal: Hello Kitty is not a cat.
Thanks for linking to my Beast piece!
Well, I’ve had to tell people often that Godzilla is not, in fact, a dinosaur (or male or female), so I can see the sort of shock waves this piece of Japanese cultural revealation will send through the world. (My co-worker first brought my attention to the Hello Kitty scandal-bomb yesterday.)
You know, threatening rape and death at people just feels so impotent and feckless, but then I think about Elliott Rodger and really when death is on the line, who wants to go against that? We all aren’t Sicilian.
One article that seems to have angered the douchebags the most is Video Games, Misogyny, And Terrorism: A Guide To Assholes on Badass Digest. It is a no-holds-barred, no excuses takedown of everything wrong with video game culture that never once pretends there’s a quantum of validity in the abusers’ “worldview”. The last line in particular perfectly summarizes why this is a battle worth fighting:
“Because these cancerous fucks don’t get to claim the word ‘gamer’.”
That Badass Digest article is seriously awesome.
Badass Digest, on one of their policy pages, has this: “MRAs, considered yourselves pre-banned.”
WWTH, I don’t know about a blog like that but if you haven’t seen it before, Siskel and Ebert did a special edition of their show in 1980 where they talked about misogyny in horror movies. It’s on YouTube. I really like what they have to say, but it’s also very depressing when you think of how little progress has been made 36 years later.
As a sidenote, I also really recommend the new documentary about Roger Ebert, “Life Itself.” It’s not much to do with feminism. But his wife kicks ass.
Um, 34 years later. I love math.
Also, I find the opening sequence of the show pretty fascinating to watch. Did people really use to get their soft drinks from coin vending machines at the movie theaters? I was already born by 1980, but I don’t remember that.
@Cassie’s Major Domo
That was from The 11 Satanic Rules Of Badass Digest, which I don’t think is really intended as a “policy” but is still illuminating. Even just that one line was enough to get them in the MRA radar, which lead to this follow-up article about the men’s rights movement. I think it undersells MRA awfulness, but any site that is willing to specifically call out and denounce assholes is already on the right path.
@Alex M
I love that Badass Digests considers it a victory to have MRAs hate them:
I remember 2 years ago they ended up on Stormfront’s radar because of this post about some recent MOD DVDs. That comment thread turned nasty.
There were still a few of those when I was a young kid (late ’70s), mostly in a few theaters holding onto the old style.