So @benschoen, the putatively feminist co-founder of feminspire and the former co-host of a popular Harry Potter podcast, is having a bit of a meltdown on Twitter at the moment.
Well, more than a bit of a meltdown. He’s flying apart like the washing machine in the video above, announcing and quickly canceling online “press conferences,” lashing out at critics with bizarre “jokes” and weird threats, and generally acting like a giant ass.
For example:
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633325425272451072
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633712589265088512
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633715930883846144
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633468512250535940
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633461383309475840
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633422642805084162
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633398579042865154
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633322695397142528
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633715165054267393
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633382676746121216
In addition to joking about menstruation and comparing himself to woman-beating pro football player Ray Rice, he’s also made some super-funny jokes about committing suicide:
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633322086551953408
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633342393815842820
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633382587113820160
Oh, and for some reason he keeps mentioning Hitler.
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633716053026205696
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633397429820354560
https://twitter.com/benschoen/status/633390461143654400
The whole thing started yesterday when Buzzfeed writer Grace Spelman posted screenshots of some Tweets and messages Schoen had sent her — first hitting on her in an exceedingly creepy manner and then reacting with fury and additional creepiness when she politely told him she had a boyfriend.
After Spelman posted her screenshots, other women came forward who said they’d had their own weird experiences with Schoen, including the co-founder of feminspire and a former writer for the site, both of whom evidently left the site because they couldn’t deal with Schoen’s creepy ass any more.
You can read more of the details over on NYmag.com, or on Jezebel, or on Spelman’s Twitter timeline. Or watch the continuing horrorshow live on Twitter.
Are there any lessons to be learned from all this? Why, yes, there are. Here are 8 Ways to Not Be a Male Feminist Creep, inspired by Schoen’s meltdown.
1) If you’ve never spoken to a woman before and the only reason she knows who you are is because she was a fan of a podcast you were on eight years ago, don’t be surprised if she doesn’t respond to a completely out-of-the-blue tweet to her.
2) And for god’s sake don’t try to force her to respond by going all stalkery on her.
3) And if she doesn’t respond to your stalkerish Tweets, don’t write her an even creepier Facebook message, I mean what the fuck were you even hoping to accomplish with this, dude?
4) And if she actually responds politely to all this creepiness and gently suggests you move on (see above), don’t send her a series of angry, insulting Tweets.
5) And then don’t write her a furious 1500 word diatribe that you don’t send, then write an, er, “apology” that you do send that starts off by mentioning the furious 1500 word diatribe you didn’t send.
6) When the woman you’ve thoroughly creeped out with all of this shit posts screenshots to Twitter, don’t dig your hole deeper with an endless stream of awful Tweets (see above).
7) And when your meltdown becomes so spectacular that it actually attracts press coverage, don’t send a message to one press outlet declaring that
I have done more for the cause of advancing women’s rights than any of the people who are criticizing me.
Because, dude, you haven’t.
And even if you had, it still wouldn’t justify any of this.
But, you know what, you don’t need to remember all of these rules if you can just remember the following:
8) If you send a message to a woman you’ve never spoken to before in your life and she doesn’t respond, just move the fuck on.
How hard is that?
I also do care what they do about it, but I think that more men call themselves “feminists” for brownie points and the hope that they’ll get laid rather than them actually caring about women or their rights.
Unfortunately, that’s not just my experience.
I don’t remember anything specific, but my memory’s shit sometimes. It wouldn’t surprise me that Jezebel had one of those on staff at some point. Sometimes we’re all taken in by someone who seems willing to be an ally.
But, fool me once…
Why am I thinking of this?
RE: all comments about how ‘male feminists’ can’t be trusted –
Is anyone going to note that that author of this site himself has engaged in problematic behavior (Cats Against Feminism) and benefits from his white male privilege in writing and getting as much attention/praise for this site as he does? I like this site but this has to be brought up.
“Hitler was a feminst.”
What? No….just….no. Hitler was even opposed to women working when the majority of the men were out at war. Evan Britain and america (both even more patriarchal in the forties than they are today) had the women work.
On the question of weather men should call themselves feminists I’ve always leaned towards no, at least for myself. I feel like being a pro feminism dude is a LOT easier than being a feminist woman.
I also feel like making a big deal about the title as a man shifts attention from a lot of more important issues and towards hat dudes want.
Of all the titles, I feel like “male feminist” is the least desirable. It emphasises that the “male” is important, rather than the feminism. We already have problems with men who speak out against eg. DV being taken more seriously than women. Prefacing one’s involvement by declaring oneself of the privileged group smacks of attention grabbing.
I have no problem with men being feminists. I like the term “ally” with its connotations of action and solidarity. And a good ally will stand behind us, not crowd us out – something self-described “male feminists” seem to do a distressing amount of the time.
I’m not even that fond of ‘ally’. It has too much of a connotation of “We’re in this struggle together”. Ally seems to imply a common enemy as if men and women face the same oppression. That’s demonstrably not true.
I prefer to say that I’m happy to support feminists if and when they ask for that support.
I’m reluctant to even call myself pro-feminist for reasons I’ve rambled on about at length on previous occasions. Let’s just say whilst I think feminism strives for some minimum standards(equality etc.) there are areas where I’d be happy to see things go further.
Just ask some guy if he’ll call himself an ally instead of a feminist to see where he really stands.
Unfortunately, this sort of stuff is pretty common. Lots of guys get involved in feminism, gender studies, or female dominated fandoms because they want to get laid. I remember hearing stuff about guys hanging out in Harry Potter fandom to get access to underage girls. They use classic “nice guy” tactics to convince other people that they’re not creeps.
Mr Nice Guy here reminded Hugo Schwyzer of Hugo Schwyzer. I tuned in yesterday just as HS tweeted “dude, trust me on this, this doesn’t end well. Log off.” A few minutes later, Ben S locked his twitter.
Except Ben S took his twitter account public again (I just checked). HS is now saying: .@benschoen for your sake and everyone else’s, get offline. And get ready for a deservedly, necessarily long time in the wilderness.
When you make Schwyzer look calm and reasonable…
Yeah, what people call themselves matters far less than what they do. Whether it’s “feminist”, “ally”, or even just “a nice guy”.
I’m a cis white dude who grew up in a world where that’s considered default. I grew up cushioned from racism and sexism, and could largely ignore it. I try to be better about it, and try to be a feminist, or at least an ally. I get things wrong, but I try and do better.
That said, there was never a point in my life, even at my most “Nice Guy” phase, where I would have considered this acceptable behaviour. It’s kind of impressive to watch an Itano Circus of excuses, deflections and really shitty arguments completely fail to address the criticism.
(Enjoy some Macross missile mayhem)
Yet, women are the ones accused of being “fake geek girls.”
Matt Forney has retweeted him. Congrats, Schoen. The worst people in the world now have your back.
So odd how this “feminist” who supposedly understands women’s issues, immediately attacks back when a woman says a rather simple “no”. What is the law about “comments about femininism show why it’s still needed?” That sorta applies here.
When a feminist male doesn’t get to control the conversation, he apparently stops being a feminist. damanding an answer to “so was he ever one?”
@Pandapool: I agree, you’ve got to see if he’s more attached to the label than the cause.
I would have called myself a feminist but after this thread I’ll reconsider what term I use (never really thought about how it could be a problem).
I think it would be a good idea to still say feminist rather than adding another word so we can maximise it to the point that people are loathe to be called “anti”, the way that almost everyone these days identifies as non-racist is a strong tool in shooting down racist behaviours as people are afraid to be seen as racists.
But I’m open to being wrong about that.
@felixbc:
“When you make Schwyzer look calm and reasonable…”
Yeah, that about sums it up.
@Tanya Nguyen:
Lewis’s Law, coined by journalist Helen Lewis: “For any article on feminism, the comments on it justify the need for feminism.”
Men will fake friendship, fandom, common interest, names, jobs, and who knows what else to get in a woman’s undergarments, and will lash out when caught or rejected, but the moment it’s even thought that a woman may not be the perfect fangirl of anything, she’s attacked because men feel like she’s there to “deceive” them. Like she likes these things only for their benefit.
Not only is it egomaniacal to the highest degree, it’s also highly ironic and smacks loudly of projection.
It wasn’t even an “eeew, no” kind of no, it was a very polite (more polite than I would have been) kind of no. She gently turned him down, and he still goes rage-nuke.
http://38.media.tumblr.com/f0a0df8f5e6c0a54d37755f053310aeb/tumblr_nk9ndt0BX41swukzbo2_500.gif
The answer is “no, no he wasn’t”.
I suppose any positive label is open to being co-opted by people out for themselves. Like the way there will always be grifters calling themselves “Christian” because it helps them fleece the people who really do believe in loving their neighbor and emulating Jesus.
So if we come up with a better word for a man who supports feminism, the creeps and cookie-seekers will probably just switch to using that one.
@Paradoxical Intention:
OMG I love that gif to infinity.
This guy claims to be a feminist?
He must have been asleep during his Intro to Feminism course. And he must have skipped the How to be an Effective Ally Workshop. What an entitled douchebag!
Oh my Gods. I’m doing battle with like, 50 Had To Be Saids in this article about Jared Fogle (the Subway guy with the child porn)
http://gawker.com/good-does-this-means-that-the-pedo-apologists-who-were-1724910131
It’s very telling that my comment about the sexualization of young girls being normalized in our culture attracted more outrage than someone possessing child porn did. 🙁
I think it’s from that episode of Parks and Recreation where they talked about MRAs.
I have it bookmarked because I always want to have it handy. XD
@weirdwoodtreehugger,
Those comments were awful. Pretty telling that you had trolls claiming that no one thinks that sexualizing young girls was normal while others trolls were chiming in to spout biotruths about why it’s okay to sexualize young girls and one troll was pretty much asking you to provide him with child porn of your fifteen-year-old self.
In the meantime then, I think it’s best to out the creeps and cookie-seekers where we can, and as I mentioned upthread, the easiest way is to ask them to call themselves “feminist allies” rather than “feminists”.
It’s as Mortarius said:
Also, props to you Morarius, for you’ve passed the Real Feminist Ally Litmus Test! 😀
@WWTH and @alaisvex: It’s really revealing, isn’t it?
And gross. Very gross.
Though, I have to laugh every time someone comes out with that appeal to common sense bullshit.
“No one thinks this is good!” Yeah fuckin’ right they don’t, Mr. Mind Reader. Of course no one is going to come out and say “I want to fuck thirteen year old girls!” because that would get you arrested.
And then, as always, they get proven wrong within the very thread. Because of course they do. Not that they’ll listen though. It’s so much easier to think that the world is a good place than think that there are people who will rationalize wanting to fuck thirteen year old girls, because it’s just easier on your brain to not confront these truths head on. So, you lie to yourself, and everyone else that the world is a good place, and people aren’t all monsters.
It must be nice to live in Gumdrop Land where everything’s made of candy and child pornography doesn’t exist.