Karen Straughan, the soporific, pseudoscientific YouTube antifeminist, doesn’t seem on the surface much like a “Red Pill Woman.” She’s a single mother with short hair, well past “the wall,” who makes a point of not wearing makeup in her videos.
But she’s got one quality that apparently makes up for all of her other defects as a Red Pill gal: she tells the Red Pill guys exactly what they want to hear, defending their noxious views, feeding their sense of victimhood, and hand-waving away their blatant misogyny.
So it’s hardly a surprise that she got a warm welcome when she showed up yesterday in the Red Pill subreddit to do an “ask me anything.” Today, I girded my loins and popped a caffeine pill and read through her answers. Well, skimmed them, anyway; I’m no masochist.
I learned a lot. Unfortunately, most of what I learned was not true.
So let me present the Top Ten Completely Untrue Things I Learned from GirlWritesWhat’s Red Pill AMA, and One Thing That Might Possibly Be True.
All quotes are straight from Straughan’s AMA. I’ve bolded some of the most-untrue bits.
1) Roosh V isn’t a bad person for wanting to legalize rape
“One commenter expressed a wish that I’d learn to speak more wisely and circumspectly on topics like RooshV’s suggestion to make rape legal on private property (all I said was that however stupid or unfeasible or offensive his idea was, his stated intention was to prevent rape, so I wasn’t going to call him a bad person for it).”
2) Red Pill dudes only say terrible things about women because they love them so much
“It’s not misogynistic. Some of the rhetoric here is very angry, and very generalized. A lot of that is from a sense of betrayal–I was taught women are wonderful and believed it, and then the shit hit the fan. There’s a point, though, if the journey isn’t suppressed through punishment and shaming, where these men tend to realize it’s the false paradigm they’re angry with, not women. … If these men didn’t love women in the first place, they wouldn’t be able to be hurt by their failure to live up to the unrealistic expectations society has encouraged them to have.”
3) When men rape women, it’s probably some woman’s fault, if you think about it
“A rapist is a very damaged man (usually damaged by women) or a man who really really really wants sex but can’t convince a woman to willingly lie down with him.”
4) Women might look cute, but GWW can see the total-not-cuteness of their souls
“Neoteny. It’s important. The cuter someone is, the nicer we assume they are. For women, that cuteness is also associated with attractiveness to the opposite sex. So everyone thinks cute women are automatically nice, and men also find them sexually appealing.”
5) I’m a fatty who might possibly be wearing a fedora. No, really, for some reason my weight and possible hat choices came up
“Have you guys seen David Futrelle? Or “Angry Aussie”? Or any number of other hipster douchebag male feminists who are fat, have neckbeards, wear fedoras, have difficulty getting laid, etc?
A lot of the men I’ve met in my travels through the MRM are awkward or otherwise don’t remind women of Matthew McConaughey. But a lot of them are quite presentable. Confident, attractive, fit, and definitely not virgins.”
NOTE: I have doublechecked and I am definitely not wearing a fedora.
6) “Most feminists” probably have Borderline Personality Disorder or something similar
7) Red Pillers are the Malcolm X to the Men’s Rights Movement’s Martin Luther King
“If you rebelled without disseminating a message, you’d be a hindrance. But doing what you’re doing, you’re helping, even if you’re just presenting a Malcolm X for MRAs to juxtapose against MLK.“
8) Black activists only protested the shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown in order to get white people mad and make money for themselves, probably
“When you try to cast blame over all whites for perpetuating a racist culture in a Martin or Brown case, whites don’t like that. They get pissed. It gets the animosity stirred up on both sides of the racial divide much more effectively than if the shooting was 100% unjustifiable. And it stirs up white resentment of blacks.
It’s like these particular people (activist leaders) are invested in racism, and they (maybe subconsciously) go out of their way to perpetuate the conditions that keep them in paychecks and justify their existence.
If racism ended, they’d be out of a job. The last three generations are the least racist, sexist, homophobic in history. Where’s the money and status in that, for your average Sharpton?”
9) There’s no epidemic of rape in India because half of all rape cases there are total bullshit
“[T]here’s significant evidence that about half of rape reports in India derive from consensual sex between unmarried persons, but which fall under statutory definitions of rape that are being questioned within the system as to their moral basis in a changing social landscape.”
10) Women are less stable than men because science?
“A woman has to be more emotionally stable than 85% of women to be as emotionally stable as the average man. A man has to be more sensitive than 85% of men to be as sensitive as the average woman.”
11) Chimp dudes don’t have wingmen. (Wing-chimps?)
“Human males are more cooperative with each other than males of almost any other species, really. The phenomenon of guys trying to get other guys laid just isn’t a thing in chimpanzee society.“
That last one might be true, I guess. What the hell do I know about chimps?
EDIT: I have been informed that chimp dudes sort of do have wingmen, but in a horrible way.
One of the reasons I’ve despised evo-psych as much as I have is that, more often than not, it involved projecting modern attitudes back onto earlier period of human society or development – completely ignoring the fact that, just like now, they too were effected by their culture at the time. More importantly, that culture bears little resemblance to one we have now. It’d be completely alien to us – and the only reason it doesn’t is due to researchers, who analyze and do their best to explain it in contemporary terms.
Fiction only makes past periods look familiar, in order to make a story accessible and relatable to people now, but you cannot seriously claim that common attitudes and beliefs from (say) 10,000 B.C. are anything like those held in 2015 AD.
God, she is such a tool.
There’s nothing under point 6 on the list, then again, there are eleven points in this top “ten” list.
Anyhow, one thing i find “funny” is that whenever some redpiller or MRA call out you David, they always resort to some weight insult.
“You know Futrelle? He’s fat lol!”
“anything else?”
“uuhh”
Brilliant.
“But a lot of them are quite presentable. Confident, attractive, fit, and definitely not virgins.”
That last part is really important.
You can’t separate humans from their cultures.
Let’s say you have 100 human cultures. There is a trait that is exhibited by 75 of those cultures, and the other 25 do not have it. It is also exhibited by at least some bonobos.
Here are some possibilities:
1. Humans and bonobos inherited this trait from their common ancestor. The 25 human cultures that don’t show it have culturally eradicated a natural trait.
2. Bonobos inherited this trait from their common ancestor with humans, but humans lost it. Those 75 cultures have imposed it artificially, even though it is not natural to humans.
3. The common ancestor didn’t have this trait. Bonobos and humans independently evolved it, and it is natural. The 25 cultures that don’t have it have culturally eradicated it.
4. The common ancestor didn’t have this trait. Bonobos evolved it after the separation, and it is not natural for humans. The 75 cultures have imposed it artificially.
5. This trait doesn’t even exist in bonobos, but since 75 human cultures have it, and researchers are from one of those 75, they are interpreting bonobo behavior as if bonobos exhibit this trait.
Those are 5 I can pull off the top of my head. There are other possibilities. Do explain to me how we can choose amongst these possibilities and determine the correct one.
Oh, Karen, those boys are only pretending to like you.
http://youtu.be/ztA0AJxHqQ8#t=30
A woman who hates women… What? She thinks that makes her special?!
Just another charlatan, e-begging and contributing nothing but verbal slop to the world.
Policy of Madness: Yeah, I’m not gonna do that, because that’s not what I said. “The evidence suggests a natural basis for this trait that might also be influenced by culture” is not remotely the same thing as “we know exactly where this trait comes from and can draw an absolute nature/nurture distinction.” I’m not defending evopsych here, I’m saying that the inherent difficulties and muddiness of looking into the basic question of human nature will not, and should not, prevent people from doing what observation and analysis is possible. Behavioral science is always difficult and muddy, but throwing our hands up and declaring the question unknowable is no less anti-science an act than declaring that we already know it all.
Except that if you can’t know where it came from (that is to say, whether or not it is completely culturally-based) then any statement like yours is completely pointless and adds nothing whatsoever to any discussion.
What you’re defending is the argument from nature:
I mean, you said as much. But the argument from nature is without merit because we can never know which human traits are natural and which are cultural. If you can’t choose between the 5 options I gave, or the many other possible permutations thereof, making an argument from nature only muddies the waters and accomplishes nothing constructive.
I don’t post here, but I just had to respond to the ape thing, so…
Baboons are normally highly patriarchal, and violent – they’ll gang-attack other non-threatening animals just for fun – and the males rarely cooperate for anything other than violence. And yet there are a few known baboon troops which are pacifistic, more egalitarian, and have more cooperative males. Any outsider male who attempts to join learns quickly that the “normal” baboon behaviors will get them shunned and they change their ways to match or get kicked out. The best known example of this happened in Kenya, where an entire troop became extremely ill. The ones who took care of each other mostly survived and the less cooperative ones all died. A dramatic cultural shift happened afterward. This is probably what @Spindrift was talking about.
Female chimps appear to be more creative than males, though that might be confirmation bias on the part of some zoologists, or because the males tend to keep their inventions to themselves, or something. But anyway, when a female chimp comes up with something useful, a new variant on a basic tool, a better technique for catching certain bugs, or whatever, the usual reaction by the males is to shun both her and whatever she came up with. Though if it’s useful enough, the group will eventually learn it anyway, because the children pay attention to things that work.
Apes in general also learn things from watching humans. This goes far beyond obvious things like people raising them and teaching them sign language. For example, in parts of SE Asia where people still engage in spearfishing… so do the local Orangutans. Not because people train them, but because the Orangs learn to make crude spears and use them to pin fish just by watching how humans do it.
Aside from those specific examples, Apes in general have somewhat different cultures and technologies that vary by region, even among the same species. While easier than with humans, it’s still really really hard to make objective generalizations about their “instinctive” behaviors.
Interesting point about male feminist allies. Now, I’m not saying appearance matters at all, but solely within the boundaries of her argument – does she realize that she’s a flabby 3/10 femdora and a female MRA ally, or is hoping for her emotional ladybrain to have any self awareness too much? Given her poor looks, could it be that her actions are motivated by needing to pander to males extra hard to get sexual attention, which constitutes attention seeking, which in turn indicates a possible cluster B personality disorder? Does she know what projection is? :3c
Just food for thought.
… says the person who goes on to make an argument that GWW’s appearance matters.
Given this entire sentence, could it be that you are an ableist and misogynist twit trying to masquerade as an ally, which indicates a possible cluster B jerk disorder?
Do you?
Junk food for thought.
I don’t think she thinks of herself as a sexual partner for them. She’s doing it for the son(s). It makes me think of the kept down woman taking it out on her precious son’s wife. Now YOU get to do the housecleaning, slaving, etc.
What? Appeals to nature work in some instances, and offering them as explanations of behaviour is no less wrong than offering up a cultural component. It’s one among many sets of possible explanations for a specific behaviour. Also – “Every primate thus far discovered breathes oxygen” is fairly easily testable, and stating “humans naturally breathe oxygen” isn’t exactly going out there in terms of thesis. Same goes for a few other things. Some things in humans very clearly are not culturally influenced in the slightest, one of which is our general reliance on oxygen and shared proclivity towards birth involving a mammalian placenta. If you’re careful and specific, appeals to nature work fine for humans as well. They’re hardly going to be your best option 99 % of the time, but as explainers of behaviour they can work okay in some instances.
Now jumping from that to “Chimpanzee wing-men don’t exist, and the existence of the concept of wing-men in human society proves that humans are pro-social” is, err, uhm…
it’s a unique interpretation of available data, that’s for sure. I’m not even quite sure what it’s trying to say. Also is that the only difference between men and chimpanzees? What? What does it even mean?
I sort of have to agree with her point that looks aren’t an indication of personality – that goes for men as well as women.
@Policy of Madness
Why get mad? It doesn’t mean anything to me, but it certainly does mean a lot to her since she brought it up as something that supposedly affects one’s credibility. She’s ready to denounce male feminists as unattractive and socially inept, but does she realize that she’s exactly that as a female MRA?.. If it makes male feminists look bad and desperate, then what does it make her? That’s aside from other traits of hers that she projected onto her political opponents.
Chill. It might have been crudely worded, but it’s a fair observation.
@ytsuken
No, it’s a slightly dickish indictment of her words by saying: “Oh yeah? You think I’m ugly? Well! You’re ugly! And probably projecting because of an undiagnosed mental disorder!”
It’s a fair observation that it seems as if a good part of it is, indeed, attention seeking of the “Those stupid XXX, I’m certainly not an XXX” variety. That’s fine. That’s what a lot of GWW’s words boil down to. Saying her arguments are worthless because she’s somehow mentally defecient and also ugly is going a bit too far, and also unrelated to the vapid inanity of her core arguments.
So, wait, does the fedora bunny get eaten?
I was thinking, are there male feminists with similar schticks? Obviously, yes (I have one in mind), but I think most (female) feminists can recognize this as the patronizing bullshit it is. Perhaps because women are more used to men using patronizing bullshit to get something from them.
It reminds me of this song by Lush, “ladykillers,” about (pre-PUA) dudes trying to pick up women in clubs with ridiculous lines, including one going on about “how women are superior to men.”
You’d think that the trained PUAs of the Red Pill subreddit, supposedly such masters of manipulation, could see through this sort of bullshit when someone uses it on them. But of course not.
Then again it seems pretty clear that Straughan is not only bamboozling them, but she’s bamboozled herself, at least to some degree.
But when she lays it on as thick as she did in this AMA, it’s clear she knows what she’s doing.
No, it isn’t. And telling me to “chill” when you’ve engaged in misogyny by connecting a woman’s looks to her (completely invented by you) sexual deficiencies, and connecting that to the nonsense she spews (as if she’d been fine if someone would just fuck her already) is not going to convince me that you’re suddenly not misogynist after all.
Rape is a beta male mating strategy, explains thefisherman1961.
http://prntscr.com/7bccm1
@Fibinachi
I never said her arguments were worthless because she’s ugly, wtf. I said she’s accusing her opponents of traits that she herself displays in abundance, which SHE thinks are bad. The joke is that by HER OWN logic, she’s… bad. But okay, w/e,
Fedoras are so maligned now that feminists and MRAs accuse each other of wearing them.
@ytsuken
I understand what you meant. I was actually thinking about that myself, if Karen was a feminist, the first thing Red Pillers would pick on is her looks. I mean, she does have short hair after all, which is an unforgivable sin in the PUA comunity.
@Hypatia
She actually does look like a MRA strawfem “lesbian baby eating buzzcut feminazi” caricature, yeah. If she were a feminist she’d get a lot of comments on that.
Policy of Madness and reverendtap1:
Also, even using Chimps and Bonobos for a culture vs nature study isn’t all that reliable because primates also are affected by culture. Look at the forest troop baboons:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/no-time-for-bullies-baboons-retool-their-culture.html
After the aggressive males in the troop all died, they had a massive culture shift among the troop that lasted long after all the surviving males left or died off and all the existing male baboons were from outside troops (males leave their homes to join other troops, and only the females remain home, meaning the cultural shift wasn’t genetic).