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.
Shorter: “I am macho, hear me whine!”
http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1346291980122_8839695.png
If you think you have it rough as a man, dude, try being a woman. Also, acquire a sense of irony, because damn, dude, you are SOAKING in it.
Oh this is kind of nauseating, there’s apparently an Indiegogo to raise money for a gift for Matt Taylor and the Rosetta team.
That guy had no idea what he was getting himself into.
I hope this embeds:
Don’t forget Richard Dawkins; he too has been keeping it going. He RTd that fundraiser item today, after yesterday calling people who objected to the shirt “pompous idiots.”
It is. The sign is probably from Project Unbreakable’s Tumblr. Which happens to be all signs by people (mostly female) who actually WERE raped.
The hyperbolic idiocy just went into orbit.
Dawkins called somebody else pompous? Um, pot, kettle.
The dogs of logic and reason:
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/dd/66/cc/dd66ccf893cf0bdf6421ee93f17b7505.jpg
http://www.border-wars.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dogs_do_science2.jpg
Depressed gamerguzzler thinks SJW’s are going to “make climate change about them”.
There is no more pretense, at least on KiA.
Unbelievable.
As someone who works exclusively for scientists, I see the sexism in science first-hand and fixing it is definitely a work in progress. Matt Taylor seems like a well-intentioned guy who made a dumb mistake and apologized. He didn’t get fired, everybody agrees the comet landing was awesome, and I’m sure most people realize that was in part because of his excellent work. Making science a harassment-free environment for women by not having girly posters / shirts / whatever in the lab or in public communication is not an “attack” on science, dudebros who are probably mostly not actual scientists, so please stop “helping”. If you dudebros really want science to continue to be sexist, just enjoy the remaining sexism while it lasts, because it’ll still be around for a while.
Reblogged this on Confusing Medical Science Since 1971.
Rowan, Gaggergaters do have a blacklist! https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/wiki/index/lists It’s a bit out of date since they keep getting offended by more stuff.
Apropos of nothing:
Hoping, any moment now, to get the permission from The High Feminist Council to bathe in male tears.
On a less serious note, it is hilarious to watch conscience-free misogynists turn into approximations of those dreaded SJWs. Their withdrawal from reality and lack of moral core makes their “righteous protests” in service of their wounded egos an instant parody.
Fuck! That irony meter was new!
Unfortunately this situation happens a lot. Feminist makes mild to moderate criticism of something arguably trivial. Then the Internet blows up as if said feminist declared a genocide campaign. Then said Internet mob accuses said feminist of being oversensitive and obnoxious when they were the ones who started the shitstorm in the first place. Internet mob then doxxes and harasses feminist, inflates her to Hitler Saddam Monster Of Doom Public Enemy Number One, then says how feminists overreact.
*sighs*
“It’s really about ethics in games journalism! Let me prove it to you by raising a big stink about something that has nothing to do with journalism or ethics, and then telling you that that is what we are fighting against!”
They’re A) trying to make more cash. GamerGate is dying down on that front, so a new scandal gets them cash for the video views and the fundraising. And B) trying to keep their narrative mainstream, not seen as fringe.
The basic idea is that if you repeat stuff often enough, it becomes normalized and accepted, no longer seen as the fringe, like wearing a shirt with half-naked ladies on it to a press conference about space. That’s why every woman speaking up as a feminist, every man speaking up as an ally is considered an actual attack. (And black people, gay people, etc.) Because it pushes the narrative of equality as a normal, non-fringe, reasonable view and gets people to think about their actions and change some of their attitudes. It can improve the climate in business and elsewhere, removing some of the boulders of discrimination and improve people’s options. It can make improved economic equality also more appealing and mainstream, and far right business interests don’t like having the masses portrayed as other than dumb, lazy, greedy, divided poor people. And views in opposition to those equality views then begin to look like unreasonable, fringe views.
So every time such issues comes up, every time a female raises a critical statement in regards to gender issues on any level, it must be villified, painted as extreme, and targets must be cowed from speaking and called hysterical harpies seeking to persecute men when they still do speak. You must have a counter narrative repeated often enough, with enough force, to make it seem like a reasonable, normal counter-view that is not from the fringe. Equality improvements already managed in society can be accepted, even vaunted, as it’s normalized, but new issues, conversations of continuing discrimination, have to be marginalized as excessive, aggressive and dangerous.
And it’s worked to some extent. The backlash against second wave feminism efforts in the 1980’s and 1990’s, with the better organization of right wing media, normalized the view of feminists as a separate breed of women who were hysterical harpies out to persecute men. It’s a narrative that has made many young women reluctant to call themselves feminists or womanist even, because they don’t want to be seen as those harpies. It’s been very effective still in the area of sexual assault. But some of that is changing — they regard that as an attack. And every time a woman or a man does come out in support of feminism, and says we’re not at equality yet, it is a problem for them and so must be compared to rape, Hitler, totalitarianism, communism, etc., as well as just delicate flowers hysteria.
And that people’s criticism woke up Taylor, made him realize the message he sent with the shirt that he didn’t even think about, and provoked a genuine apology from him, creates a reasonable narrative about women in STEM. Which they seek to counter with a narrative that hysterical harpies (fringe) bullied Taylor into being a mangina (fringe,) and that this is not a reasonable, positive development for dialog, but a disaster for science of epic proportions from the lunatic fringe successfully attacking scientists.
Zennurse, section6 is basically there new operation to not talk about or to Zoe, Anita, Brianna, etc., so people won’t call them misogynists anymore. As you can imagine, it’s not working, since GG is all about them. Would be great if it did though.
@Alpha von Carousel:
Exactly. I don’t think he’s a bad person and probably just didn’t consider how bad wearing the shirt came off – a friend (the fact it’s a she is irrelevant) gave it to him and he said he’d wear it for the interview, even though you don’t wear stuff like that for such.
Or when getting a job. Or meeting the president. Or going to a funeral. Or going to just about any formal black-tie event.
Except, apparently, it is okay when it is some unholy amalgamation of an Ed Hardy and Tommy Bahama shirt for reasons just ’cause whatever…
Also: what the fuck is it with these people who think getting outraged by outrage or offended by offensive somehow makes them more level-headed and morally superior to everyone else? Maybe it’s just me – but it just seems like a waste of time and energy, not to mention downright hypocritical.
It’s even worse when people like this then do a convenient 180 turn and then claim to “not care” about such “unimportant” things…by giving it attention and talking about it (i.e. caring about it enough to discuss).
Seriously, if it is sooooo “unimportant” and you supposedly care about “important” things, then why is it even on your radar? Why is your reaction anything other than just dismissing it and doing something else? I mean, when I don’t care about something – I don’t talk about it. In fact, I actively try to avoid it.
@Kat Goodwin :*applause!*
@wetherby: I don’t think the ones sending rape threats to Jessica Ennis are trying to depict Evans as a misunderstood victim of feminism. I think they’re making sure everyone knows that they think men -they- should be able to rape with impunity, suffer no consequences and any woman who dares open her mouth will be terrorised.
So a woman verbally rolls her eyes at a tasteless, unprofessional shirt and thousands of men collectively shit themselves and scream about being victimized.
And who exactly is blowing things out of proportion?
Thanks, vbillings, appreciated. I saw Chernovich tweeted about it, they clearly treat that like its manna from heaven. The nonsense secret op conversations they were having this morning made me laugh out loud. Literally shit like “Roger that.”.
It is amazing that they can’t see how silly they are.
They all say “HE LANDED ON A COMET!”. Dime to a dollar, if not for this guy making questionable wardrobe choices they wouldn’t know a damn thing about the Rosetta mission.
weirwoodtreehugger sez:
This is the problem with normalizing objectification. If some dude decides to sexually objectify a woman, it’s interpreted as her expressing her sexuality. So a lot of dudes think women are expressing our sexuality at work just by existing in a way they find attractive. And gay people’s sexuality gets attention for similar reasons. Heterosexuality is so normalized it’s unremarkable, but the second a man refers to his upcoming wedding to his longtime boyfriend or a woman mentions that her girlfriend’s father passed away recently, that’s seen as a deliberate imposition of their sexuality.
Straight guys believe they’re being forced to think about their coworkers as sexual beings, so it’s unfair if they can’t turn things around and force their sexuality on everyone at work.
Now wait a minute…isn’t the Generic Woman’s list of stock requests supposed to include the following appeal: “Dude, dang but that’s ugly, please take it off and put something else on, you’re embarrassing me?” Isn’t that part of the Generic Woman job? Am I mistaken? Have I been misinformed?
On the positive side, if there is one (and sorry if the suggestion has already been made) if these guys really wanted to make a serious issue out of this they could institute Ugly Shirt Day on which they all wear their most hideous gear in support of Matt Taylor. In a mood of sublime collective defiance they could allow pictures to be taken of them walking around looking their worst, or, if they want to ramp their sublime defiance up to hara-kiri levels, they could take selfies. And post them. On Tumblr. (“Confused Dudes Challenge the Color Wheel.”) Of course that would accomplish absolutely nothing in real terms but it would let everybody know that guys who are willing to take on the spectrum are brave men and not easily tamed.