GamerGaters sure do love their Based Mom! Christina Hoff Sommers, as you may or may not know, is a libertarian think-tanker who’s been grinding away at feminism for two decades, while still, rather perversely, claiming to be feminist. Though not a video gamer herself, she’s jumped aboard the GamerGate train, and GamerGaters have repaid her interest in their little crusade with interest, anointing her their “Based Mom” and talking about her with weird reverence.
That is, when they’re not making creepy fan art about her. Today, five of the most disturbing examples I’ve found so far.
1) Virgin Based Mom, in which an old publicity shot of Sommers is pasted onto a picture of the Virgin Mary to very creepy effect.
2) Based Waifu, in which Sommers is reinvented as an anime character.
3) Mass Effect Mom, in which Sommers becomes a Space Marine.
4) Whatever the hell this is.
5) Perfect Mom. And last but certainly not least, this tweet. No image manipulation here, just a guy expressing his opinion about a women. His really, really creepy opinion.
https://twitter.com/ItalyGG/status/537271807326572544
BONUS: The world’s most annoying Christina Hoff Sommers animated gif. Sommers finishes her ironically titled “Factual Feminist” YouTube videos, which are neither factual nor feminist, with an annoyingly contrived tagline: “Check your facts, not your privilege.” Now you can watch her smugly repeat this phrase over and over without end. Which is, I think, the very definition of hell.
Warning: Excessive viewing of this gif may give you nightmares; its smugness is that powerful.
H/T — GamerGhazi, for pointing out the Virgin Mom
Goatse is referenced in some strange places. On the cover of TIME for example. Link is perfectly worksafe.
“Sommers finishes her ironically titled ‘Factual Feminist’ YouTube videos, which are neither factual nor feminist, with an annoyingly contrived tagline: ‘Check your facts, not your privilege.’ Now you can watch her smugly repeat this phrase over and over without end. Which is, I think, the very definition of hell.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. You are joking, right? Because – regardless of what side of an issue you’re on – an appeal to check your facts is never, ever a bad thing, unless you’re actually promoting ignorance. If the facts support your views, it validates your position. If the facts conflict with your views, you can adjust accordingly, and everyone will be better off for it.
Never take one person’s word as dogma. Take the information presented, do your own research, and then you can develop an informed opinion that either agrees or disagrees with the original argument. Sourcing information, inviting scrutiny of your arguments and the studies on which those arguments are based, and submitting to peer-review are the very foundations of academia in any respectable sense.
I’m not a diehard follower of Professor Sommers, nor do I always agree with what I have seen of her work, but she stands up to those standards at least. Sycophantic pseudo-intellectuals harping about privilege without hard data have the market cornered on smugness.
And when I picture Hell, it’s being surrounded by 22-year-olds with gender studies degrees repeating the same buzzwords over and over for eternity.
When you assume that only 22 year old gender studies majors are the only ones who recognize structural inequality, you’ve lost the argument before you even started.
Ugh. Drop one of the onlies.
It’s late and I’ve been imbibing burgundy.
Says the person taking Sommers’ word as dogma, ignoring all information and research to the contrary and copying #GamerGate’s and the MRAs’ completely-uninformed opinion to the letter.
You’re not even trying.
@Trev:
Except that it’s not the “facts” part that makes her look smug and condescending, it’s how she incorrectly makes facts seem like something that is in direct opposition to privilege, thus making it sound like privilege is anti-fact. In truth, privilege is a very real thing blocking your view and making you less objective in social matters. That you’re privileged in relation to a social phenomenon means that you’ve never had to encounter the negative effects tied to that phenomenon. A privileged person cannot, by definition, have all the facts going by their own social experiences alone. Yet many privileged people do just that.
For instance, a privileged person who has never encountered racism cannot know first-hand about how institutional racism affects the lives of non-white people. Yet we seem to be trying very hard to condesplain to black people how Ferguson was totally not about racism, yo.
Oh, FFS. “Checking your privilege” means exactly that: That you’re recognizing that you lack the data necessary to make an informed assessment about a situation, and that if you want to learn, you need to shut up and listen to people who have actual experience on the subject. Checking your privilege means that you recognize that your in many ways sheltered life may be making you blind to many things that affect other people. Don’t interrupt them and tell them how you would go about dealing with their situation: You are not informed enough to give advice.
Imagine if you knew nothing about quantum physics and then went to a professor specializing in quantum physics and started ranting about how quantum physics can’t be real since you’ve never encountered it. Imagine the frustration of the professor. Now imagine that quantum physics professors were lower on the social hierarchy ladder than students, and were socially pressured into not interrupting a student talking, no matter how misinformed and bullheaded they are. That’s kinda like how it might feel for a woman who is being mansplained to by a 22-year-old math student dude how institutionalized misogyny isn’t real since this one professor at his university is a woman.
Privilege makes you ignorant. It is the bane of an informed person. That is why checking our privilege is increasingly important the higher we are on the social hierarchy.
That narrow-minded Richard Dawkins fanboys can’t see the pervasive racism and misogyny in their everyday life doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It just means that the people in question are privileged and arrogant enough to dismiss the experiences of people not in their exclusive club and treat their own, privileged existence as the default and objective way to look at the world. It means they treat disciplines that have a focus on studying humans as “not real science”, since humanities study things that are in a constant state of change and have amazingly many layers to them. It means they’re walking around in their own, personal bubble of privilege, completely ignorant of how the world actually works and how lucky they are to be where they are.
That’s why we have groups like #GamerGate: Mostly white, well-off guys who have little to no actual struggles in their lives due to the enormous amount of privilege carrying them around, trying to make their little internet hate war seem like something epic and grand. Because their privilege shields them from seeing actual oppression going on all around them, and how they’re contributing to it. #GamerGaters are just the videogame version of any conservative movement fighting back against equality and their loss of privilege, something they have taken for granted long enough to consider the privileges “their rights” (see the so-called Men’s Rights Movement and its obsession with taking away the rights of women that feminists have fought long and hard for).
Privilege not only makes you ignorant, it can make you do downright evil things while thinking you’re acting completely reasonably. That is why privilege is a dangerous thing, and checking it is extremely important.
This is almost hilarious in all its unintentional irony. Nope, no misinformed smugness based on privilege blindless at work here, nosirree.
And if that’s your Hell, then boy, does even Satan let you off easily due to your truckload of privilege. I’m sure people who have encountered actual obstacles in life would have much more terrifying ideas for eternal punishment than “some women are talking to me, why are women talking to me instead of giving me a blowjob dem b***es be cr**y amirite”
It is difficult to follow your argument.
I am going to come straight out.
Know what Sophistry is and be aware most people know what it is.
If you take a sophist tactic, we are gonna catch you. And you are going to look foolish.
1) David Futrelle, you are a guy and she is a woman. And you are attacking her because she is a woman. That is very misogynistic right there. Looks like the feminists here are taking a blind stance to that. Yes THIS IS THE MALE PRIVILEGE! What Futrelle is doing to Sommers is MALE PRIVILEGE!
Anyways, any argument raised by a man in a pro-feminist argument is immediately crushed when it concerns a woman.
There is an old saying that only men can judge men and women can judge women. There is a reason why that is so. The inability of a person of the opposite sex to understand what the other sex is doing as corresponding to a good man/woman or feminist/MRA.
It is as Bill Maher had said, women want romance. Men will criticize romance as sexual control or tyranny. Men want wild sex. Women will criticize wild sexual acts as disgusting and uncivilized. Seeing men as monsters with inability to control themselves.
We lose ourselves, because we fail to see the sexual dimorphism like seen in the angular fish in which the male is just a reproductive attachment. Of course that is going way too far, but there are difference between men and women and the hormones we encounter. It would be unfair to outright criticize a man for not being a man if you are a woman just as it is unfair for a man like David had just done to criticize a woman in what he views a woman should be like.
Regardless of what Sommers says, she is a woman voicing her opinion and loudly. Let her. It is empowerment for all women.
2) As I recall, all women are feminists. So yes, she is more of a feminist than you are Mr. David Futrelle.
All women are feminists? Aha. Ahaha. AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH!!!!
Guys, we don’t even have to make fun of this one! He’s done it for us!
This last troll would be a good one to bookmark to show how Gamergaters and their allies coopt social justice terminology to use as beatsticks with no concern for what it actually means.
All women are feminists? Really? I would never have known that my gender identification makes me a feminist by sheer dint of gender identification.
Really, honestly, there isn’t that much brain dimorphism in humans. Really. Honestly. Yes, everyone has a slightly different brain, but it’s not like a man trying to understand a woman is equivalent to, say, an armadillo trying to understand a penguin.
Troll is silly. Troll is really silly. Really, really, really silly.
At least this necro was entertaining
Oh boy! New chewtoy!
I see no sophistry here. David is not using fallacies, nor is he intending to deceive anyone.
Who the Cracker Jack is this mysterious “we”?
AHASHAHAHAHASLAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Oh, wait, you were serious? David disagreeing with CHS is “male privilege”? What troll forum did you walk out of? Or, worse, what rad!Fem board do you frequent?
David is not attacking CHS because she’s a woman, idjit. He’s showing off how creepy GamerGoobers are when it comes to their “Based Mom”, though he does drop a few hints in this short article that he doesn’t think CHS is a feminist. No where do I see an argument against her based in her gender.
Quite frankly, I agree with him.
Okay, I’m a woman (and a feminist!) and I think CHS is full of shit. Check.
How about anyone can call out anyone and we all take it with a grain of salt? David is judging CHS’ stance on feminism, not her as a person. If a male feminist/feminist ally sees this shit, I’d encourage them to call it out too. Because, let’s face it, sometimes men won’t listen to a woman (let alone a feminist) on these sorts of topics.
What’s the point of discussing gender parity if we can’t talk amongst men and women?
Wow, you’re gross. How about we not paint “men” and “women” with the same paintbrush and assume that every woman and every man want the same thing. Okay? Okay.
Repeat after me: “Human beings, no matter their gender, are individual people, and we shouldn’t assume that because one person has a trait that everyone in their gender does. However, we should investigate and question why people are said to have those traits, and it’s not a negative thing if people fall into those traits.”
Fuck off with your BIOTROOFS and blanket statements, please and thanks.
David’s not criticizing what CHS is saying based on what he feels a woman should be, but rather what a feminist should be, something David knows more about than you do, apparently.
No, it is NOT “empowerment for all women” to let CHS shoot her mouth off every which way unchecked or unchallenged. If she’s wrong, I’m going to call her out for it. And boy is she wrong about a lot of shit.
Proclaiming herself a feminist (or being a woman, for that matter) doesn’t magically mean she’s free from criticism from other feminists. That means we’re going to crit her twice as hard because she’s claiming to represent us.
Fuck off. No, not all women are feminists. Go look on the sidebar for a link to a blog called “Judgy Bitch”. She’s not a feminist, in fact, she’s a FeMRA. GirlWritesWhat is another FeMRA. Go look at the #Meninist hashtags on Twitter, or better yet, at a “Why I don’t need feminism” blog. Plenty of women there, dude.
And there are plenty of women who don’t identify with feminism because it isn’t intersectional enough for them. Many WoC claim the title “womanist” instead because feminism does have a history of racism, and some transwomen don’t feel right about identifying as feminists, because there’s several Rad!Fems who are very transphobic, claiming that transwomen are actually just men, and thus, aren’t feminists, nor should they be considered so. And I support this decision for them to not be feminists, because feminism has failed them in some form or another. Our belief systems are similar, but they’re not feminists.
Go crawl back under your rock with your shitty necro trolling.
I did quite like “Nobody of one sex can understand the opposite sex. Now let me quote a man saying what women are like.”
Oh, great, another blockhead who can’t even get the basics right. Paradoxical Intention did a great takedown already, but because I’m bored, I’m going to have a laugh as well.
*Snicker* Oh, the irony, knowing what comes later…
What? No, he isn’t. He’s mocking the terrible things she says. It has nothing to do with her gender identity.
If there’s one thing I wish I could change about the right-wing mind, it’s the belief that people and opinions are inseparable. That reality changes depending on the perceived moral integrity of the person who talks about it, and that if you attack someone’s opinion, you’re attacking them as a person, and that is why criticising a racist douchebag’s opinions is total bigotry, you guise!
It’s like hashtag gamergaters who believe that having minorities and women on board their harassment train makes their actions and opinions immune to criticism. What a bunch of chowderbrains.
WHAT? All the other fuckjuggling aside for now, are you saying all men are MRAs? Why do you hate men so much as to lump them all in with the Abusers’ Lobby?
By the by, you really shouldn’t start an argument of fact with the words “there is an old saying…” There are a lot of old sayings that are bigoted and wrong.
Wheeeeee. I agree with katz on this one. Nothing quite compares to a man saying how men and women can never understand each other and then going on to explain what women are like.
Anyway, where is the sexual dimorphism you see? No, I mean it, on what research are you basing your argument that men and women who share the same genes, who fucking evolved together (no pun intended) are so incompatible that they can’t even understand each other’s train of thought? Unless they’re men, of course, who are so logical that they can understand how women think (when it’s convenient, that is; feigning ignorance is so much easier when women are calling out shitty behavior), but not the other way around. I must have missed that issue of Troo Biological FACTS That Just So Happen To Line Up With What Conservatives Believe About The World.
One: Nobody is trying to silence Sommers. Her opinions are being criticized, which is not the same thing. She is free to spew all the bullshit she wants, just as we’re free to criticize it and mock her for her backwards ideas. That’s how free speech works.
Two: Bull-fucking-shit. Something that’s empowering to anti-feminist women who want to keep other women from voicing their opinion and seeking equality (because the current system is working out for them) is not empowering to all women. Or are you yet another of those people who think that a woman taking on a role that just so happens to support patriarchal ideas about what women should be is what “empowerment” means? And, by your misguided extension, feminism? Do you think that a feminist is someone who dresses how men want, acts like men want, and speaks things that don’t challenge traditional social power structures because that would make their boners sad?
In all seriousness, do you have any idea what a feminist is?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
“Angular fish”.
Tee hee.
Excuse me while I go off to think of fish/geometry puns. So far I’ve got “octagonopus”, “great right angle shark”, and “sea acutecumber”, BUT THERE WILL BE MORE.
Moradius eel.
Hey, don’t forget that great classic of Western literature, Möbius Dick.
And now I’ve looked on the other page. Oh, goody! Wisdom!!!!
Truth. Men are from Mars, women are from the reptilian tunnels just beneath the earth’s crust. I’ve spent countless hours studying this fascinating creature that is my husband. He does all of these inexplicable things, like “take a shower,” “eat a ham sandwich,” or “research how to build a Stargate in Minecraft.” I understand the concepts of hygeine, nourishment, and doing cool shit in video games… but what does it all mean to a man? One day I shall crack this code. Until then, my husband will have to endure me watching him with binoculars and scribbling furious notes as he sits across the table from me at Chipotle.
Oh! A loophole in the conventional wisdom, one big enough for a talk show host/comedian to squeeze his way through. Thank goodness Bill is on the job. What a selfless individual, translating the mysteries between the genders. Just like when Christopher Hitchens selflessly explained how women aren’t funny. Without men explaining myself to me, I’d be lost.
That’s a relief. I didn’t start identifying as a feminist until I was well into my twenties, and I’ve always been slightly uncomfortable about my past life as a lady-misogynist and wannabe Cool Girl. I was worried that I really helped to hurt other women with my life of slut-shaming, rape culture denial, whatabbouttehmenz-ing, and self-righteous wallowing in my own privilege and good luck (“I’ve never seen any discrimination!”).
Turns out that I was actually a feminist all along. Whew!
Me too, Flying Mouse! I’m a bit embarrassed about some of the things I said/did in the past. I was just going along with the status quo. I wasn’t until I started taking a serious look at things that I realized how bad sexism in our society is.
All I can say is that the status is not quo.
Yay! Another troll to bat about like a shiny tinfoil ball!
Only if you’re not even willing to put in the most basic effort.
In my experience, people who say that are invariably (and unconsciously) warning that they’re about to go a long and loopy way, and not get straight to the point of…well, ANYTHING.
Oh! You’re off to a roaring start so far!
Uh, who’s “we”?
And yes, somebody here looks mighty foolish already. But it’s not the person you’re addressing.
1) What’s with the number? I wasn’t aware that this was going to be a numerical listicle. Shouldn’t you have warned us that you were about to get windy? Oh wait, you did…right when you said you were going to “come straight out”. Silly me!
And very good, you noticed that David Futrelle is male, and Christina Hoff Sommers, female! Stunning biological gender percipience on your part, old chap!
On the other hand, the “male privilege” bit is where you stumble. You see, your beloved CHS doesn’t believe in that stuff. If you’re trying to take her part in the never-ending battle between fake feminists and straw feminists, you really ought to do your homework on what she professes to believe, and hew to it lest you look like an inconsistent buffoon (instead of just a plain old buffoon). CHS has always maintained that the playing field is already level, and therefore, men don’t have any privilege to check! She even says so in her silly little videos: “Check your facts, not your privilege!”
Nope. There are plenty of men who do feminism well, and plenty of women who do it poorly, if they are not even outright antagonistic to it — or at least, aware that there is mucho dinero to be made in the cottage industry of female antifeminism. Try again.
Really? That’s funny, I never heard it. Who said it?
And whoever it was, they’re wrong. Anyone can judge anyone. For instance, I’m judging you right now, and I am already fast approaching the conclusion that you are talking out your bunghole. Care to prove me wrong?
Well, so far, you’re not doing a good job of proving anything, other than that I’m right about you talking out your ass. Men and women are, in fact, quite capable of understanding one another. We don’t speak separate languages. We’re not even all that different in overall shape and size. A person of one sex can even transition physically to become one of the other, with some medical and surgical intervention. The way you go on, though, one would think that we were separate species, and that’s not true. We’re ONE species. And thank heaven we’re not so different, or we’d never get together long enough to produce viable offspring.
Hell, even your beloved CHS claims there’s not so much difference between the sexes. The difference between her viewpoint and reality, however, is that she thinks it’s a simple matter of believing the playing field is level and perfectly even on both sides. It’s not. One side is high and smooth, the other low and bumpy. Guess which is which.
Bill Maher is a comedian, not a scientist. His (frankly outdated) observations are played for laughs. Why do you insist on taking them seriously?
Wrong again. See what I said above about transgender people.
And it’s entirely fair to criticize someone whose arguments are patently idiotic and based in bad science and outmoded social views, regardless of who is of what gender. I don’t know yours, but I’m gonna come straight out and say it: You’re an idiot. Sir or madam.
Well, this is a piss-poor argument. If she insisted that the Moon was made of green cheese, we’d let her, but we’d also laugh at her. And we wouldn’t consider it “empowerment for all women”, any more than her current stupid arguments are.
2) Again with the numbers! Yeah, that makes your argument a helluva lot more logical. And doubtless more appetizing to all those numerically-oriented manbrains. I, on the other hand, can recognize sophistry when I see it, and am not fooled by this shit.
Also, no, not all women are feminists. Phyllis Schlafly isn’t one. Neither is her niece, Suzanne Venker. Neither are millions of right-wing women around the world. And neither is CHS, though she may call herself one.
And she’s certainly NOT “more of a feminist” than anyone, of any gender.
::gives ej fist-bump of solidarity::
At least we’re living proof that people can and do change their minds. 🙂
I grew up in a conservative part of the U.S., and I was sheltered and willfully ignorant. Nothing bad had happened to me personally, I was reasonably successful, therefore sexism didn’t exist. Having kids made me really think about a lot of things for the first time. It led me to question a lot of stuff about my own upbringing, which then made me start to question the culture at large. By the time I got done, I was a feminist.
It’s weird, because a fair amount of the FeMRA’s seem to have done the same sort of soul-searching and ended up in a completely different place. I can kind of trace my steps and see how I might have ended up like JB or GWW. The ideas that playing field was level, a lot of people were dumb whiners, and that I was special and strong were awfully appealing. False and self-serving, but very appealing.
@Bina
Glorious.
http://media3.giphy.com/media/DKqH1q9gN5AKA/giphy.gif
@Flying Mouse
That sounds remarkably familiar. I grew up in Indiana and was pretty sheltered myself. I started questioning things when I didn’t get the perfect husband and happy ending promised to me by popular culture. Once I realized that message was complete and utter bullshit, I began to see all of the other sexist bullshit I had accepted because “that’s just how the world works.” Sure, it was easy to go along with the bullshit (probably because I didn’t really have to think for myself), but it’s still bullshit.
I see what you mean about how the FeMRA’s got to where they are. They’re fighting to maintain the status quo because it’s easier to go along with the established rules. It’s much, much harder to make a change.
#4 is 360noscope/MLG/etc videos.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/montage-parodies
@warsie: And we needed to necro this thread for this very important information because…?