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.
Since this is a reblog, Road to Servitude may not be reading the comment section. If not, that’s a shame.
I am not suggesting that men (myself or anyone else) should dispense cards like that. On the contrary, I am merely raising the question of who gets to say what is sexist.
Even if something an individual woman says is sexist, is there a difference between a woman pointing this out, and a man pointing it out? That is not a rhetorical question, but an open one. I guess context is important, too.
Anyway, I apologise for the comment at the end of my reblog. I don’t want to be antagonistic or “less MRA-ier than thou” about this. It’s see my earlier reblog as a question of problematizing rather than making it “verboten” for men to discuss misogyny among women.
It’s probably tactful for me to leave it here. I don’t want to give the impression of dismissing the blog as a whole. Thanks.
To some extent, yes. To another extent, no. Men need to examine the origins of their perspectives before they opine on what constitutes sexism. However, women need to do this, too. Men have a longer road than women do, but they’re not incapable of learning.
Sorry, one last thing @ Scented Fucking Hard Chairs. I should also say I didn’t address your other comment. I have no strong feeling on who you criticise, and I don’t feel it is my place to comment on who you do or do not criticise. I realise that what I said was risky, and I don’t want to suggest that you are wrong. I think what I originally said is indeed potentially patronising. I’m actually not 100% sure what I think about this topic.
Policy of Madness, I agree with your framing of this. Thanks.
@Road to Servitude
Believe me, I understand your perspective. As a white person, I am obligated to call out racism in other white people whenever I see it. I am, however, very uncomfortable with the idea of pointing at black people and saying they are, themselves, exhibiting anti-black racism. There is evidence that a non-trivial number of African Americans have absorbed a non-trivial amount of anti-black racism, but it is not by any means my place to address that on individual or group levels.
Sexism is somewhat different, though, I think. Men and women live together in a way that black people and white people do not. While men do not see a lot of the sexism that women do (because other men tend not to do it when a strange man is around) they do see some of it, and I think that helps them on their road to understanding.
The danger posed by feminist men is not their calling out of sexism in women, but in their displaying sexism of their own by drowning out women’s voices.
It’s not rha gww and jb are physically ugly. They are average looking women. What makes them ugly is what comes out of their mouths.
Why don’t misogynist women kill themselves? No, seriously, I’m asking. So much self hatred is not good for the soul and is bound to lead to horrifying results. It is not possible to function that long on that level of self-hatred. How can they even look at themselves in the mirror? Or do they just not have reflections because they’re vampires?
….and I realize I’m horrible for wishing they would die….but I don’t care. They all wish I would die…I’m the worst thing in the world to people like her….a woman, for one, a woman who has the audacity to be ugly and fat, a woman who is a feminist…make no mistake. These people would kill all of us if given the opportunity, so it’s only fair I wish the same on them. I am rather Spartan about this. People like her never “get better.” There is no forgiving this shit. There is no fixing this shit. She (and everyone like her) is 100% worthless and always will be. It will be a miracle if her child doesn’t grow up to be a serial killer. She and her followers ought to be in the same class as pedophiles and serial rapists.
No, I’m not joking or exaggerating.
Okay, I know KTRantingRedhead is a regular, but I’ve not been particularly fond of her since that thread where she slipped up and used a gross racist dogwhistle, so: Fuck off, KTRantingRedhead.
Neither am I when I say that wishing suicide on someone is Not Okay. Suicide is not an appropriate punishment for literally anything. It is possible to not forgive her for her words without wishing she would kill herself, and that you can’t see a middle ground is a problem. For you. That you need very badly to work on, hard.
Yeah, wishing harm on someone is not right. Let’s not stoop to the manosphere’s level.
I wonder if it occurs to her at all that black people working toward equality would have no trouble finding other far more lucrative work kissing white people’s asses? Does it occur to her that black people do not need racism (seriously WTF?) to have successful careers because the exact opposite is true? Does it occur to her that people dedicate their lives to equality now so that their kids won’t have to, not because they love the sweet, sweet imaginary perks of racism?
She makes the same claims about feminists. We only pretend to want to stop rape so we can make money off of it…somehow.
If misandry were real, isn’t she saying she’d never want it to end because then she’d be out of a job?
Projection, racism and internalized misogyny are sure an ugly mix.
Men are more stable but they’re all one “disappointment’ away from hating all women. They’re more stable, but sight of a butt renders them helpless. They’re more stable, but boobs not hid well enough away turn them into rapists.
LOGIX!
I also remember kt’s racist crap from the other thread. Seconding the fuck off.
Men are more stable but they have a higher rate of suicide and commit more murders.
>.<
She almost gets that something other than biology is responsible for the rapey-murdery behaviors of men. Then instead of realizing that those things are symptoms of patriarchy she decides the problem is really not enough patriarchy. Then she's back to blaming biology. Only she blames women's inherent inferiority, wickedness and undeserved liberty.
LOGIX!
Racist and wishing other people would harm themselves?
NOPE.
@KTRantingRedhead,
Whoa! We don’t advocate suicide or self harm here. Karen Straughan is certainly an awful misogunist and racist (seriously, is every prominent MRA going to turn out to be racist?), but that doesn’t mean that I wish that she would kill herself. The comment about her sons, whom we know absolutely nothing about, was pretty uncalled for as well. Just becuase their mother has these views doesn’t mean that they’ll grow up to be serial killers. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that they won’t see through her bullshit once they grow up, or even before they do.
Sometimes shitty parents make great examples of who not to be.
i am astounded! The whole victim blaming psychopathy just really expands her entire outlook, doesn’t it? Lemme guess, Trayvon was in the wrong place, wearing the wrong thing at the wrong time, and didn’t do as he was told by someone in a position of authority (Zimmerman); position of authority responds with force. Michael Brown had just robbed the convenient store and physically threatened an officer (position of authority); position of authority responds with force. *Random female refuses to be dictated to by someone in a position of authority (more often than not, male); position of authority responds with force (rape, murder, assault, fired, marginalized and berated). Because as history has taught us, those in power are just never wrong.
And someone mentioned how her situation is everything that these groups stand against (purposefully unattractive according to today’s standards – i.e. short hair, no make-up, less than pin up feminine attire, no info on why her ex doesn’t have custody, and so on). I think that is an excellent point to bring up. I am certain they will dismiss it as “well SHE is different.” No one is that unique, my little MRA snowflakes.
just wow. her position makes me think of other oxymorons – Jews for Hitler, Blacks for the Ku Klux Klan, Gays for Republicans
I subscribe to the “It’s better to be a horrible warning than a shining example” school of child care.
sure, blame women for sexism, black people (and other ethnic minorities) for racism, blame immigrants for xenophobia, blame homosexuality, feminism, and atheism for the fall of the usa. wow, and from a system that demands personal accountability from everyone else.
these are reasoning skills that my five year old son uses. i would expect better from adults. anyone wanna go in and buy an island, lol?!
Yeah, yikes, there’s a big difference between a. wondering how women misogynists survive with that level of self-hatred, and b. wishing them dead.
I don’t even think they do wish us dead, either. I would guess they mostly want us to just behave “right,” meaning that we would follow their warped conception of what should be.
Yeah, I don’t know about apes (although ape behavior is so diverse and complex I’m willing to bet there’s at least one species that does it), but “wingman” behavior is common in many birds and mammals. A bunch of guys strutting their stuff together can attract a female more effectively than one guy prancing around on his lonesome. Often the males are brothers or other close relatives, so that even if only one of them gets laid they’re all helping to pass their genes along.
This Karen lady sounds fun at PTA meetings.
Actually, humans are better at a number of things than chimpanzees. Any time adult chimps of different family groups interact, there is a potential for violence. Most humans have managed to overcome this tendency, which is one of the reasons we outnumber them.
Karen Straughan is really a terrible person, isn’t she? I can’t decide which would distress me more: that she really means the things she says, or is pretending to for the attention. Both would be awful.
Regarding GGW’s shorthaired no-makeup look, is it possible that this is sort of a way to signal that she is ‘one of the guys’? That she’s not one of those other women, the tricky conniving golddigers?
I’m not exactly sure if that makes sense, because it seems the misogynists don’t like women that are too ‘manly’, but… well, maybe?