#alanrickman pic.twitter.com/4WXwnoUtM7
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) January 14, 2016
Earlier today, as you no doubt have heard, legendary British actor Alan Rickman passed away, at age 69, from cancer. Actress and activist Emma Watson, who had worked with Rickman on numerous Harry Potter films over the years, paid tribute to a man she had considered a friend, writing on Facebook that she felt
lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you.
Watson followed up her tribute by posting a number of quotes from Rickman on Twitter, including the one above.
And that was all it took to rouse the vast internet antifeminist troll army, who took to Twitter to attack Watson for supposedly “exploiting” Rickman’s death to push her evil man-hating agenda. They called her a bitch, a feminazi, a whore, a tw*t, and of course an SJW; they dropped the c-word so many times I fear it might be permanently broken.
Never mind that the “agenda” she was supposedly pushing was in fact Rickman’s agenda too. She didn’t make up the quote; they were his actual words, from an interview he gave to Australian chat show One Plus One. Watson was remembering Rickman as the feminist he was proud to be.
Perhaps the most offensive Tweet of the day came from the unlovely and untalented “journalist” Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart. Several days ago, you may recall, Milo attempted to use David Bowie’s death as a way to get some cheap publicity for himself; he rather outdid himself in this department today with this insensate Tweet:
I told you feminism was cancer pic.twitter.com/syKFBkF3cG
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 14, 2016
Congratulations, Milo; you’ve won today’s Worst Person on the Internet award.
Delete your account.
No, not the “both sides do it I’m neutral” thing here, no.
One person broke the rules, then get immediately defensive.
If anything, we could re-agree to point people to the rules and call it a day.
But then again, I just showed you how Jo broke the rules and you responded nothing about that.
Also, escalating passive-aggressive into openly-aggressive is a very tired troll technique as well.
So no, being suspicious of it and calling it out is not “dog piling”.
Calling out someone who breaks the rules is not dog piling either.
Trolls: read the rules. (Ha! As if!)
Regulars: read the rules and remind offenders that they are supposed to follow the rules.
Alan: rest in peace and have a beautiful journey
Emma: hang in there and keep kickin’ ass for feminsim!
@dust bunny
You are probably right about people perceiving the status quo as neutral and being blind because of their privilege. That’s why they always think underprivileged groups are asking for “special rights” instead of just trying to be treated like everyone else. But, I think there are people who know they are a position of power and want to confuse the issue too and distract from anything that reveals this.
As for your other point that “politicizing something” makes it polarizing, it’s too bad people can’t look at something neutrally but make it like a football match: oh the group I don’t like is saying we need to do X, well, I must hate X, down with X! Just because my rival group supports it. I know I sometimes have a knee-jerk reaction too, but then I try to step back and see if there’s validity. True, sometimes there isn’t.
On this topic, I just read an article about how gamers have become the new “religious right” wanting to ban things they perceive as changing the status quo (http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/gamers-have-become-the-new-religious-right-8069235), and in there, the writer talked about how some gamers refuse to try games if Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian so much as expressed any ounce of approval for that. According to the article, these people want to play a game but “because it has a vague connection to one of the dreaded others who must be destroyed to preserve game purity he won’t drop $5”. It’s sad. See how the SJWs ruin everything! [/sarc]
@ scarlettathena
Oh no, an MRA boycott! That could cost game manufacturers whole cents!
I don’t know how the English people reading this have so far avoided mentioning Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary.
@guest: Because he’s not the culture secretary any more. He was made health secretary to prevent further embarassing Spoonerisms.
@ guest
In an appropriate thread we perhaps one day could have a discussion about the English (very mild) insult “Berk” and its origin; but for now I wish we could have just have been left to discuss what a great guy Alan was.
(Not suggesting it was inappropriate for you to bring up the
Jeremy thing of course, or for people to respond to Jo)
@ guest
Ooh, what did Jeremy Hunt do?
Re: German insults:
I’ve a certain fondness for Scheißkopf myself. (Scheisskopf if the HTML entity doesn’t embed properly.)
One of the fun things about the old Desert Peach comic was the odd bits of deliberate German in there, which often contained rather interesting insults. Or cultural references like the idea of the Rattenfängerkinder, ‘children of the ratcatcher’… i.e., the descendants of the children of Hamelin taken away by the Pied Piper.
Bernardo, you may want to save Twain’s ungodly hilarious essay for home (unless you don’t mind causing a spectacle on the train by having prolonged fits of uncontrollable laughter).
Don’t say you haven’t been warned. ?
@nparker–just a silly joke:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/06/james-naughtie-today-jeremy-hunt
And now, since I didn’t have enough self-control not to contribute to this ridiculous thing, I’ll bring up another topic–I found it interesting how Alan Rickman described his support for feminism in his quote. There’s nothing wrong with supporting something because it’s good for you personally, but a lot of people seem to think that we should be feminists/support feminism because it’s the right thing to do, rather than because it provides benefits to men. I’m sure other people will have more useful and readworthy thoughts about this.
@ guest
You raise a really interesting point and again perhaps it would be interesting to have a specific thread on this.
There is of course the point that feminISTS work for the benefit of men because they work on issues, like suicide prevention, that also benefit men.
There’s also the fact that, by challenging things like traditional gender roles, feminISM benefits men; certainly those men who are affected by things like toxic masculinity.
However as a straight white bloke I’m not sure feminism benefits me and men like me personally (other than it makes life better for my female friends) but the point is *THAT DOESNT MATTER!”. There’s no reason feminism should work to help people like me. We’ve already got all the advantages. It’s right and proper that feminism addresses the issues that affect women only. That’s why I shake my head when our MRA friends raise the “feminists don’t care about men’s issues” canard. Why should they? It’s not like feminists in any way prevent men from addressing these issues if they want; in fact as we all know many feminists encourage men to do so.
This is why I mildly disagree with the theory that men suffer from patriarchy. Obviously some men do, but perhaps the majority of men, the straight white ones anyway, only benefit from patriarchy.
I must confess that when people raise the argument that men suffer from patriarchy it seems to me that that’s like saying “You know who were the real victims of slavery? Plantation owners.”
Hope all that makes some sense.
@ Alan Robertshaw
I’d never really considered that, but I think I agree. It doesn’t really matter to me if men are affected by patriarchy or not, because it is still based on the oppression of women. Once women are seen as equals, patriarchy will cease.
MRAs are so ridiculous when they go on about feminists not caring about men’s issues. They may as well be saying that animal rights groups don’t care about humans. That would be clearly silly, so why would it be any different with feminists? Because they defend the people misogynists hate.
But yeah, why would it matter if they didn’t? We don’t have to pay attention to the entire world to be right about something in it.
Alan
You don’t think we do terrible things to boys? Don’t cry, be brave, run around and kick things, come puberty you must be gagging for it (but girls won’t be so solve that problem somehow), be a provider, spend no time with your kids, treat women with contempt but if another bloke disses your women/property, twat them, don’t admit weakness, don’t express any emotion other than rage and whatever you do don’t do or say anything that might get you compared to a girl.
There’s no need to play oppression top trumps. Boys and men are terribly damaged by patriarchy (which is rule by rich men, not men). They commit a disproportionate amount of violence but they are also frequently a target of it. Between a third and half of rapists are estimated to rape only once, as teenagers – the adults in their lives, and society, have to take a lot of responsibility for that, they’re not nonces, they’re confused.
The MRAs grew out of the Men’s Movement, which was part of the feminist movement. It is a crying shame that the dickheads who could not accept that their shitty lives might be privileged drowned out a potentially important development. I think some of them are still around, but good luck finding them buried in MRA shit.
I’m not sure feminism can ever achieve its aims without acknowledging the flip side for men, and campaigning on those issues (which are all the mirror consequence of those affecting women). We cannot achieve equality by giving permission for women to act just like men – we have achieved a lot but you only have to look at the allergic reaction to any mention of the colour pink, from both sexes, to know we have a long way to go. Pink stinks when it is one of only two colours for children’s toys, but the extreme reactions to pink say that the ‘feminine’ end of the socially constructed gender spectrum is still widely despised, and the most ‘liberated’ women are the most likely to express disgust at it.
There’s a helluva long way to go and unless men start demanding things like equal paternity leave, equal treatment in the workplace when the kids are sick or you have to take them to doctor/dentist/optician, the right to talk about their feelings without other men trying to outmacho them because they think it makes them look manly instead of like a frightened little boy who is terrified someone will work out he’s not a ‘real man’.
Equality is not women working two jobs because men don’t need to change anything, and it is not pretending that men are born robots with a bug that causes an epidemic of violence.
The most unequal societies in the world also have the most sexism, and it turns out that they are just as sexist about men as they are women – and there is very little difference in measures of sexism between the sexes. Men and women have shitty images of their own sex when sexism is ingrained: https://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/5173/pwq2009.pdf
Sexism operates like other -isms in many ways, but it is different in one very important one: we all live in families that are alienated from each other by rigidly prescribed and viciously enforced gender roles. You cannot harm one sex without harming the other. Violence is a result of fear and we constantly make men afraid that they won’t match up and they can’t afford to talk to anyone about it.
Not all men. But a lot of them. It takes generations to stamp this sort of nonsense out, but men who challenge other men on macho bullshit are often surprised to find that they have a lot of support (and more silent cheerleaders).
We haven’t dismissed the problems of men and boys, though. No one is denying they have many problems, and patriarchy ties into that. What it is though is negligible.
Then again, I don’t disagree you can’t have sexism against one without the other.
@Alan –
On one hand, I see your point.
On the other, I’d argue that (1) Not all men benefit in equal measure from the expectations put forth by the patriarchy – some seemingly adhere rather effortlessly, some with a great deal of obvious damage and (2) even if you were to argue that men were the absolute benefactors of patriarchy (as in a slave owner/slave relationship – and, no, I won’t argue thst meager food and care count as “benefit”) – and please note that I am not someone who would hold these as strict analogues – there is damage done to the fabric of one’s humanity and human relationships when allowed (even expected) to indulge in despotism.
Jefferson, a slave owner with an even further notably problematic relationship with his deceased wife’s “personal slave” (and apparent half-sister…er, to his dead wife, not him), Sally Hemmings, says it better than I could:
While men are not the explicit targets and many men benefit from the assumptions and structures inherent in patriarchy, they are not unscathed.
One does not have to be faultless for the damage done to be legitimate.
Hell, as we’re all to some extent participants in the systems in which we find ourselves, there are probably no completely innocent parties but those without their own active volition.
—
Editing to add: tl;dr: Men are damaged by the expectations inherent in patriarchy. Even if feminism doesn’t directly address “men’s problems”, they may derive tangential benefit.
Also: Sorry if my comment’s out of left field. I did a quick read through / semi-skim and may have missed some of the nuance in the conversation.
@ Jo
I’m currently trying to get to grips with a touchscreen. I haven’t quite reached the level of competence required to cut and paste quotes so I hope you’ll forgive me if I just make a few responses and you can match them to the relevant paragraphs. I’m also a bit tied up with work so I’m afraid I’ll have refrain from my usual polemics and keep my points brief.
No, I don’t think women do terrible things to boys. It’s not women saying ‘big boys don’t cry’. All my experiences with women have been universally positive.
I’ve commented before that the bulk of violence inflicted on men is essentially consensual in the sense that it arises from the “ok, let’s you an me step outside” scenarios. M-M violence is often ritualistic posturing, like rams butting horns. We can walk away from fights if we don’t let our egos get in the way. Women don’t have that choice; violence is *inflicted* on them.
The pink blue thing is very recent, it used to be the other way round. I love pink shirts (Ede & Ravenscroft detachable collar for those wondering what to get me for Christmas) and my girl friends (with or without that space) seem to like me in them too. I’ve never had a bloke make any negative comment, or any comment at all, about me wearing them.
All the workplace stuff you mention is already taken care of, in England at least. Employment law is gender neutral and in fact men can take full parental leave if they want (basically you get 40 weeks and the parents can divvy it up between themselves as they see fit)
I don’t share your pessimism about how long it will take to rectify the situation. There’s obviously a lot needs addressing but it took just two decades for our Conservative party to go from Clause 28 to enthusiastically introducing equal marriage. I don’t see any reason why attitudes about gender can’t turn around in a similar time frame.
Sorry for the brevity and I appreciate I’ve had to speak generally but I hope you get my drift.
@newbie:
I laughed, but then I’m used to people in the Tram looking at me strangely because I’m snickering at Mitchell & Webb Sound. Great text!
Also, this:
My partner is Polish. She speaks perfect German, completely accent-free. She studied in Germany (that’s how we met), and she majored in German literature. She hates reading German because of exactly this. You read a sentence that goes on forever without catching the actual meaning of this wordjumble, as you’re waiting for the verb to come along and tell you how to make sense of the damned thing.
Also, I basically saved her Masters exam because she read (in Thomas Mann’s Tristan) the expression “verschießende Augen”, which is a really old-timey expression for “schielen” – being cross-eyed, as “verschissene Augen” – “eyes which have been shat upon”, or, figuratively “damned fucking eyes” – and I, being present during her preparation, corrected her. That’s a more drastic example of Twains “vermählen”-Problem.
Anyway, thanks, that was a fun read!
@Jo
These are all valid points. Except that feminism is already very much concerned (and has been since at least the 80s) with the effect that the patriarchy has on men. The fact that I myself didn’t conform to “classic male” roles brought me into feminism. Just a year ago I took part in a campaign by Terre des Femmes which sought to question the idea that men always have to fulfill stereotypically manly roles – and how more mainstream feminist can you get than TdF? Most feminists I know work actively to change the perception of boys having to conform to these roles. I personally know feminists – male and female – working in Turkey, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, and Switzerland exclusively with men to subvert these ideas about “manliness”. And this is not a new thing in feminism.
Have you ever been to a feminist demonstration? Since at least a decade, the “black block” on antifascist rallys has been criticised as “too macho”, and people have changed their black hoodies for pink and silver ones – because this has the same effect (police or neonazi cameras can’t identify people by their clothing), but doesn’t look as menacingly macho as black. The Pink Stinks campaign has nothing against the colour pink, it only attacks the commercial connection between pink and girls. One of the greatest campaigns ever imo, the communication guerrilla people who changed the language chips of GI Joe and Barbie, didn’t do it to just give Barbie a stereotypically male voice, but also GI Joe a stereotypically female one. And when was this, like, in the 90s?
The Men’s Rights Movement in Germany today is mostly criticised by men who were part of the Mens’ Movement in the 80s, which was precisely this: feminist men realising they had to work on their own understanding on what in means to be a man to work towards the common goal of feminism.
Btw.: Mateusz Kijowski, the most well-known activist against the right-wing government in Poland right now, is a feminist who I’ve seen on the traditional 8th March demonstration “Manifa” in a skirt. Not a “man-skirt” like a kilt or sarong or something, just a skirt. He has also been active the last decade or so fighting for fathers’ rights, against violence against women, and against anti-Vaxxers. He founded the „Komitet Obrony Demokracji“ (Committe for the Defense of Democracy), which is the biggest and most important opposition to the reactionary PiS government’s authoriatarian project. This is a feminist.
I would say that all men benefit from patriarchy in some ways. Say, a male computer geek might be bullied for not living up to masculine norms as a kid. But when he grows up and pursues a career in STEM, he’s not going to have to deal with the sexism that women in STEM face. That’s just one example. I could come up with more, but I only have so much break time.
tl;dr,
Even though patriarchy can harm many men, all men still have male privilege and it’s unfair to expect women in feminism to focus their energy on men’s issues.
Sorry for the rant. Tl;dr: I am just so fed up with this shitty argument that “if only feminists would also care about teh menz, everybody would be cool with them.” They fucking do, and always have.
@ Bernardo
Have you heard the longer version of M&W’s classic ‘Are we the baddies?’ sketch?
“History will write of our story!”
“Yes, but all story arcs follow the pattern of the antagonists initially succeeding before the protagonists defeat them in the final act. Let’s just say I’m not comfortable with our position in the narrative”
@Alan
I didn’t say women did terrible things to boys. I said “we”, as in society. And that does include women to the extent that they internalise oppression and thus reproduce it, but it is patriarchal society that I am blaming for fucking up these fragile psyches.
There is a state in the US which has started to collect data on third party victims of domestic violence – men killed by a man who believes he owns a woman – and IIRC they doubled the number of victims over night. Being men does not stop them being collateral damage. I agree about the ‘consensual’ violence thing but I’m not sure it is anything like as big as we imagine when you consider gorilla fights over women, men killed for their race, sexuality or gender expression (and it is not clear how trans people get classified here in the crime stats, probably inconsistently).
I know the pink/blue thing is recent, but that does not change the fact that that which is feminine is treated with scorn, by men and less conservative women alike. That is a failure of feminism – which has largely been dominated by middle class women (rich women in the US, we use class terms very differently) demanding to have the same opportunities as men, and they have achieved it by paying poor women a pittance to look after their homes and children. I bet they don’t offer the same maternity rights as they demand for themselves. Scratch that, I know they don’t.
The legal stuff is in place, but the reality is not. Fathers know how mothers get treated in the workplace, they’re not going to risk that and the abuse they’ll get for being a bit womanly for caring.
Women only got equal pension rights because of civil partnerships — until then we were subsidising men so that their widows got paid but our widowers did not. Given that feminism started decades before gay rights activism and our remarkably slow progress – I was 6 years old when women were allowed to have their own bank accounts, 23 when they outlawed rape within marriage and 36 before my pension contributions started counting towards my partner’s security – I do not share your optimism. The thing about gay rights activists is that the loudest amongst them are men. Spot the pattern?
No insult intended, but you remind me of liberals like Monbiot who say they want greater income equality for fairness even though it will personally cost them. I don’t think that is true in the economic sphere (and it is horribly patronising – him, not you – as if he is gifting his wealth to the poor people) and I am 100% with Rickman when he says that feminism is for his sake too.
Bernardo – completely agree, feminism (or rather some feminisms) have been concerned with the impacts on men – getting rape legally redefined was partly for the sake of male victims, for example (UK and US).
I am laying out why, not suggesting a new approach. I’m quite surprised to see someone say it isn’t.
Am I the only one who thinks Jo is a MRA troll at this point? Some of these comments contain too many MRA memes for me to think it’s a coincidence. Particularly side-eyeing the “patriarchy only benefits RICH men” comment.
You know, Lemmy, Bowie and Rickman all died of aggressive cancer between the ages of 69 and 70, and I’m just wondering what the fuck has happened to my English peeps that would lead to three similar cases at similar ages in the last two months? I know it might be coincidence but, like, are there more cases like this? It’s just seems weird.
@ mockingbird
Sorry, going to be a brief response to your excellent post, I mean no disrespect, just so busy.
I see your point and I’m familiar with the quote; but to me it still seems to boil down to “it’s tough being a slave owner because being a slave owner is a shitty thing to be” and it’s the same with patriarchy; we might profess its a bad thing but we still get all the benefits.