By all rights, the furor over rocket scientist Matt Taylor’s cheesecake shirt should have died down by now. After being chided earlier this week for marring the celebration over the landing of a space probe ON A GODDAMNED COMET by doing interviews in a tacky shirt covered with half-naked ladies, Taylor offered a brief but heartfelt apology. You would have thought we’d all be able to move on.
Not so fast. Because these days apparently no controversy can ever be over as long as it serves someone’s interest to keep it going. And so a loose but very familiar coalition of reactionaries and antifeminists and angry techies have started flogging an amorphous cause they call #Shirtgate or, more popularly, #Shirtstorm, purporting to be outraged that Taylor was “humiliated” into apologizing.
So many of the angriest voices in this, er, conversation are #GamerGaters it looks a lot like a sequel. Call it GamerGate Part Two: The Straw Graspening. And it’s not just me making the connection: #GamerGaters and #Shirtstormers, often one and the same, are making the connection:
So radical #shirtstorm SJW have attacked my games my #gamergate revolt and now they are attacking #science. Am i allowed to be mad ?
— Anti-ProcrusteanBed ☀️🏴 (@antiprocrustes) November 16, 2014
I am a man. I'm sick of hearing that because of my gender, my opinions don't count and sexism towards me isn't real. #GamerGate #shirtstorm
— Lord Inquisitor Ineptus Astartes (@AstartesIneptus) November 16, 2014
https://twitter.com/Scrumpmonkey/status/533409838207078400
Heck, our old friend Milo is making the connection:
Note to those infuriated by poor Dr Matt Taylor and #shirtstorm: this is what #GamerGate has been fighting against. Are you getting it yet?
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) November 15, 2014
Oh, it’s a veritable #GamerGate Old Home Week! GG mainstays Thunderf00t and Mundane Matt have rushed out videos about The Shirt.
People are making graphics covered with hard-to-read text:
There are giant complicated conspiracy theory graphics covered with red lines and angry red text. This one notes that Chris Plante, who wrote an article criticizing Taylor’s shirt, also wrote one of the now-notorious “Gamers are Dead” pieces.
https://twitter.com/Reyeko_/status/533482641774100480
Apparently there were a few dudes who were none too pleased with Plante’s story on The Shirt:
https://twitter.com/plante/status/533244307105648640
#Shirtstormers wrote angry “letters” in too-small-type. (Click here for larger, more readable version and here for one with angry graphics, too.)
https://twitter.com/Alpha_duck1/status/533698520100777984
While others tried to draw a parallel between Taylor’s alleged “humiliation” and … rape.
#shirtgate #SupportMattTaylor #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/L8s1GrOow7
— Mark 🐸 🗑 Samenfink (@MSamenfink) November 16, 2014
#ShirtStorm #shirtgate Matthew 7:1 pic.twitter.com/bRXr7bA1Si
— Be Just & Fear Not | Let None Survive (@SuperNerdMike) November 16, 2014
Neo-reactionaries and “Dark Enlightenment” types see opportunity in the #Shirtstorm hashtag.
https://twitter.com/voxday/status/533336186535030784
Don't judge me because of what I'm wearing – unless I'm a guy. Then you can define my personality and try to ruin my life. #shirtgate #NRx
— VDARE (@vdare) November 15, 2014
https://twitter.com/antidemblog/status/533341319184531456
https://twitter.com/BernardChapin/status/533628518077186049
As do MRAs:
https://twitter.com/deanesmay/status/533758421158227969
As does this familiar name:
Women do not face a hostile climate in science. And they can handle seeing a guy in an edgy shirt. #GamerGate https://t.co/8gvTyo0bg6
— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) November 16, 2014
They’re all there, all hoping to turn a debate over a shirt into another endless internet Benghazi.
The worst thing is that every time I refresh the page it resets back to the middle of the teal novella. Why does WordPress hate us? Have we failed to offer sufficient supplications? Should we give it some beer?
Yes CHS is such a feminist ally, look here she explains how women earning less is just because our jobs are lower value than those of menz: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html
Because the invisible hand of the market, which we know is completely non-gender biased, has decreed that women’s jobs should pay less.
If those numbers were around the other way, with respect to the relative proportions of males and females in higher and lower earning jobs, CHS would be writing a book about how employment options are failing men.
No, she is not a feminist.
And can we lay off the suggestion that people who want “equity” under the law for men and women are feminists? That’s what AVfM keep calling for, because of their song and dance about:
– selective service
– women get unfair advantages in family court decisions
– women get unfair advantages when sentenced for a crime.
Wanting (legal) equity is a dog whistle phrase that should alert us that a non-feminist is spewing crap again.
Yeah, okay. Thank you for the tone policing.
I’ve said about four times now that I don’t consider Sommers a feminist. So, is it Opposite Day? According to some of you, yes, since you keep arguing that I’m calling Sommers a feminist.
We do know that Sommers has expressed feminist beliefs, and that expression is an action. That does not override her other actions or even confirm that she fully believes those beliefs. But it does present a contradiction that Grumpy was wondering about. Do you need to care about what Grumpy was wondering about? No. But it is an issue actually related to feminism and feminism efforts that he was wondering about and others actively study. And saying that he was saying Sommers was a feminist was inaccurate. In fact, he clearly stated he didn’t think she was a feminist several times too.
Sparky:
I didn’t say it was.
No, I am not. We are all, however, marked by feminist efforts that have come before and by sexism in the society, past and present. The fact that Sommers attempts to cloak herself in the title of feminism is something in the past they didn’t bother to do; it’s a reflection of shifts in society. I mean that the contradictions these people hold or appear to hold, whether it involves conflicts of beliefs, perceptions or mercenary interests such as Sommers, are an issue relevant to feminist efforts and something that can be and is looked at and discussed. If you are going to go up against somebody, looking at how they think is usually a useful strategy, especially if they are unconsciously or deliberately like Sommers expressing contradictions.
And if you think my posts are too long, you don’t have to read them.
No, we do not. We know that both you and GOM keep insisting that she has, and we also know that many people here disagree with your assessment of those beliefs as intrinsically feminist. The battles that feminism has won over the past 50 years have shifted the political landscape to the point where simply agreeing that it’s OK for women to acquire educations and have careers is no longer a specifically feminist position. That is now the mainstream position to take, with only a few extreme religious and misogynistic groups disagreeing with it. The times, they are not only a-changing, they have already a-changed.
And no, I’m not reading the rest of the latest teal herd.
Benefiting from the feminist beliefs of others, and wanting those benefits for you and only you is not the same as holding feminist beliefs.
Though I do agree that it’s something worth discussing in the sense that it’s good to come up with arguments that explain why equity ‘feminism’ isn’t actually feminism since CHS is intent on co-opting the name of feminism for her nefarious purposes.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if we could have done that instead of having to sit through multiple iterations of “she has expressed feminist beliefs, because I say they are feminist beliefs, and we know that they are feminist beliefs, because I say so”?
People like Kat Goodwin are immediately obvious as what they really are. You’ll know em by the teal dears, paragraph upon paragraph of emptytext written solely to impress by word count due to a lack of the writers content or understanding.
That’s why these fellows failed to take tumblr in storm. People can tell. Right away, in fact.
This conversation is still happening? I need some weed. Too bad I don’t have any.
It’s like an allergic reaction, the response to it. Intellectual hives.
Kat – let me say two things, me with my mod hat* on and everything:
One, I know you’re a good-faith commenter from Scalzi’s blog. But this is a feminist blog for mocking misogyny, so don’t come in telling a bunch of feminists what feminism is.
Two: don’t come in telling the regulars how to behave.
*which I have, purely by coincidence, decided is a big crimson velvet hat with gold braid and plumes.
A stopped clock is correct twice a day (assuming a 12-hour clock). But that’s coincidence.
Please stop looking for confirmation bias.
Also, the only context in which “it is known” is both amusing and appropriate is Game of Thrones. Here, it is not known, it is merely annoying.
Geez, I go away to work on my NaNo novel, and herds of teel deer appear! I… was I supposed to read all of that? I mean, I appreciate the thought and effort that goes into pushing out large blocks of text (I did mention NaNo, right?), but I’ve already stated my opinion on the subject, we’re never going to agree (obviously), so I’m not really seeing the obligation on my part to read a big wall of text.
I’d have a drink myself, but I forgot to stock up.
Seriously, it feels like a trial where some people are insisting on a beyond, wayyyyyyyy beyond, reasonable doubt burden of proof.
We’re not in a court of law with someone on trial for murder, we don’t have to prove intent.
How are your herding dog training skills? If there are going to be entire herds of teal deer around we should probably look into figuring out ways to make sure they don’t wander off and get lost, the poor things.
Forget dogs, we’ll need dire wolves to herd these Megaloceros.
I’m practicing my cat herding skills, but with ragdolls it’s just like having dogs. Except you have more of a chance of tripping over the cat on the stairs and breaking your neck.
I always wanted to ride a triceritops, like at the creation museum. We can make it a little saddle and everything, and then we don’t have to teach it herding, we just need to get on and steer.
All of my herding skills involve cats, and it always revolves around shaking a bag of catnip. Deer nip? (that sounds wrong)
And now I want to re-read the Harry Dresden novels. And dammit, not until December…
CHS is a feminist. Duh. The high priest of truthiness whose role in society it is to determine what actually is feminism and what’s just women on their periods whining, Richard Dawkins, has cited her as a feminist source. That makes her Queen of the Feminists. You can’t argue with that. A MAN said it!
It is funny though that the Dawk promotes the anti-feminist ramblings of someone who has made a living promoting education based on Judeo-Christian teachings. It would seem his concern for secular education is nothing compared to his desire to dismiss the experiences of “difficult” women.
Do not nip the deer, they may nip back.
Consistency is for religious people and peasants, clearly. Little Dickie is above these things.
@ katz
FWIW, they didn’t kiss in the final scene. I remember reading an interview where del Toro said they filmed a version of the ending where they kiss (which implied that Raleigh and Mako get together), but it felt weird so they stuck with forehead-touching which was more open to interpretation.
My friends and I interpreted it as them being really close, to the point of them treating one another as brother and sister.