If you’re a woman who engages publicly in that whole feminism thing, it’s almost inevitable that you will find yourself followed around the internet by a small squadron of the Internet Lady Hate Army, baiting you with disingenuous questions and bad-faith “challenges” and general abuse. If you’re a famous woman, well, that just makes it worse.
Consider the case of Emma Watson, the Harry Potter actress turned UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, who’s been a favorite target for this seething mob ever since she publicly embraced the F-word in a nervous speech before the UN in September 2014.
Only a week ago she faced a torrent of Twitter abuse for the terrible crime of reminding the world of the pro-feminist sentiments of fellow Harry Potter veteran Alan Rickman shortly after she learned of his death.
Now the troll army is targeting her again, this time with a Change.org petition demanding that the actress “[s]pend one week in a Calais migrant camp for feminism (without bodyguards).” The petition-writer, a Melbourne man by the name of Oscar Izard, declares that
In order to show how safe current migration is to Europe, particularly regarding the cause of feminism (I reject wholeheartedly the notion that North African and Middle Eastern migrants are unsafe, and rapists), Emma Watson should spend a week’s holiday in a Calais migrant camp, without guards of course, to show how safe, and how pro feminism these migrants are.
So far the petition has garnered more than 10,000 digital signatures. It’s unclear how many of them are from the likes of “Mike Hunt” and “Amanda Huginkiss.”
Even if you set aside all the ludicrous straw manning going on in the petition — who exactly is arguing that the refugees are feminists? — the petition is pure trollery, aimed at a woman who isn’t even particularly associated with the refugee issue. (Indeed, in reporting on this story, the Independent had to go back to September of last year to find a Tweet from Watson supportive of refugees.)
Watson’s big issues are education for girls and the HeForShe campaign she promoted in her UN speech. The only reason Emma Watson is the target of this petition is that, well, she’s Emma Watson.
Naturally, the increasingly trollish Breitbart has injected itself into the middle of all this, offering a rather strained justification for the petition’s weird focus on Watson.
Ever since she was invited to give a widely praised speech at the UN on the topic, she has become a poster girl of modern feminism. Her simultaneous embrace of female equality, mass migration and the misogynistic non-western cultures brought with it, is widely seen as typical of left wing activists today.
In this context, the petition can be interpreted as an expression of frustration with the contradictions of modern liberal feminism, rather than merely a personal attack on Ms. Watson.
Truly an argument that only a Breitbart reader could love.
The underlying assumption of this supremely bad-faith petition drive is to suggest that if Watson personally doesn’t rush off to embed herself in a refugee camp, this somehow proves that feminist women, and women in general, are terrified of refugees and think they’re all a bunch of dirty rapists.
But the fact is that many women are active in helping refugees already, some of them former refugees themselves, others the Western women who are the real target of the petition; we just don’t hear much about them because they are less famous than Watson.
Had petition-maker Oscar Izard spent any time in the refugee camps himself, he surely would have noticed this.
On the bright side, if farcical internet petitions are the most activism these people are willing to engage in, they’re never going to accomplish shit.
I wonder if some of these are butthurt ex-Harry Potter fans who can’t deal with Hermione being a feminist.
Sadly, it’s just another stupid byproduct of New Sincerity; most guys take their opinions (no matter how stupid and pointless they may be) to be very serious. The fact that people get into heated debates over something as stupid as super-heroes or bacon for more logical/rational people is absurd beyond belief. And to top it all of, the person who disagrees with the accepted notion (for instance, someone saying that bacon sucks when everyone else is obsessed with it) is often turned into a caricature of what they actually are.
What makes it potentially problematic is that the people who argue for their point often believe in their point so much that it’s impossible to reason with them on any other level. It’s a big reason why this whole manosphere issue is such a problem in the first place. These so called “REAL MENZ” believe that their petty little problems are so important and so much more than what the rational outsider sees them to be, thus you can never truly “win” against such people.
The only way to beat this is to just let reality and irony run its course. New Sincerity kids can’t understand what irony is, and thus will never know what hit them. For all these “men”, the fact they’ll remain lonely virgins or end up as criminals behind bars is what’s going to sink the reality in… Being a douche and wanting bad things to happen to people is not how to be a normal human being at all.
Now if you excuse me, I have some idiots in tin cans armed with pathetic looking daggers trying to rob my cave full of treasure…
They must not have read the same books I did then. Book!Hermione was just as much of a feminist (and an intersectional one at that) as Watson, if not moreso. Remember S.P.E.W.?
So was Ginny. Remember how she laid into Ron when he started to call her a slut?
Uh, that would just prove her point though, wouldn’t it? Not the disgusting rape fantasy part, but if a feminist is arguing that refugee camps are inhumane, “Well YOU wouldn’t feel safe in them would you #checkmatefeminists” isn’t a very good gotcha, now is it. And in any case, men aged 18-59 account for only 22% of Syrian refugees: http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2015/nov/20/carly-fiorina/fiorina-says-vast-majority-syrian-refugees-are-abl/.
Also, ugh, the “brown men raping white women” nastiness. Ida B. Wells found back in the freaking 19th century that, while the narrative of protecting white women was a huge factor in Southern fear mongering and justification for lynchings, rape accusations only accounted for about a third of actual *incidents*. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/wellslynchlaw.html It’s the most common accusation, but barely more common than murder, even though rape is far more common and (in theory) much easier to get away with a false accusation, since it’s a lot harder to prove a nonexistent rape took place than a nonexistent murder.
@HistoryNerd, though there are obviously exceptions, from what I’ve seen the Harry Potter fandom tends to be pretty progressive? I mean, the books are clearly all about social justice. I think it’s more likely these dudes are upset such a conventionally beautiful woman as Watson is a feminist. It angers their boners and interferes with their narrative that the only reason women could support equality is because they’re hideous hags and bitter at men for not fucking them. The latter part is especially rich because well, as much as the word “projection” is overused, feminists aren’t the one with a WGTOW movement that won’t actually shut the fuck up about men, just saying…
I’ve been on and off in the comments, but have y’all seen this? https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/179584-our-shared-shelf I couldn’t believe it, as “Hermione Granger is starting a feminist book club” sounds uncannily like something 11-year-old me would’ve written as a fan fiction. But no, IT’S REAL.
In addition, a lot of them are 4Channers and I remember back when their favourite meme was “[x] days left until Hermione is legal!” slapped over screenshots of the first movie. These impossible assholes probably think she “Betrayed” them by
hitting the wallgrowing up andturning to the Dark Sidebecoming a feminist.This would be gross enough if they meant this in the usual “WOO HOO” tone when dudes talk about girls turning “legal”, but the idea that some channers are even grosser than that and see ability to consent as a *turnoff*…
*shudders*
@ suffrajitsu
That’s obviously true. There’s not only the general anti racism message, Rowling clearly makes a point about coercion and lack of consent; Voldemort’s entire story arising from him being the product of magical date rape drugs essentially.
However Dolores Umbridge’s ‘punishment’ at the hands of the Centaurs seems a bit inconsistent with the rest of the books.
There’s not only the implication that she deserved it, but also that it’s fun (and acceptable) to tease her about it to see the reaction (“clip clop”).
Checking the schedule for my volunteer work, last week was the first week of the semester and we had 8 women and 5 men volunteering at my location. Another location had 9 women and 1 man. The final location had 7 women and 3 men.
Guys, this theory isn’t working. Women don’t seem to be scared of immigrants at all.
@alan Oh, absolutely. (Note that I read OotP when I was 10 and the centaur thing completely went over my head, so admittedly my memory might be a little fuzzy, but I’ve seen the passages and fairly clear implication after that). As hateful as Umbridge is, that’s a deeply nasty place for the books to go.
The HP books do a pretty good job as metaphors for racism, classism etc. (Lupin losing his teaching job because he’s a werewolf reminds me a bit of Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign against gay teachers), but I actually don’t think it deals with consent all that well. I seem to recall the issue with Voldemort’s conception isn’t that he was the product of rape, but that he wasn’t “born out of love”. From what I remember Tom Riddle Sr. was portrayed a lot less sympathetically than Merope Gaunt, which is a little unsettling in retrospect.
Yes, and there’s also the fact that love potions and charms are sold in shops like it’s no big deal? I don’t believe the issue was ever raised against it.
Plus when Ron ate chocolates meant for Harry Potter, it was treated as a joke rather than something serious.
Chocolates spiked with love potion, I mean. 😐
@Pandapool
He stole his chocolates?!?!?!
EDIT: Spiked with love potion! That’s even worse.
@Pandapool, yeah, there’s that too. There is a scene where Slughorn refers to a love potion as “the most dangerous potion in this room”, but for the most part it isn’t really dealt with. If it weren’t for the backstory about Merope Gaunt, I wouldn’t fault Rowling for using love potions for throwaway laughs that much more than all the other fantasy works that tend to do it, though I would notice the missed opportunity. It really sticks out as a problem with Merope, though.
On a lighter note, just because I’m surprised no one’s posted this yet given the title of this post:
http://45.media.tumblr.com/a5df9220fd2389d896dc99ebf960256d/tumblr_mst1vd3Qgf1qgi05ko1_500.gif
Our bodies, our shelves
Watsonyourbookshelf
A wasted opportunity.
As a fellow Melbournian, I cringe at this Oscar Izard guy. Australia has its own refugee panic issues – successfully stoked and exploited by countless federal governments – which has only been exacerbated by recent international events. Refugees have been routinely demonised in this country for decades, appealing to our weird siege mentality (WW2 paranoia after the Darwin bombing, the shameful White Australia policy, endless fear-mongering about Asian investment, etc) and the worst, most ignorant elements of Australian society.
All of which is bitterly comical given that Australia was invaded by white people and exterminated huge swathes of Aboriginal people in the process. We’ve also got a ludicrously overblown sense of our own global importance. Hell, our previous Prime Minister claimed ISIS was coming for us, which is utterly absurd, but strikes a powerful chord among frightened, racist Australians who’ve got no understanding of the outside world.
Melbourne’s a really progressive city – and Victoria a progressive state – overall, so I like to think that people like Oscar Izard are in the minority. I hope.
EDIT: I have no idea how that “e” got on the end of “Robot.”
So this is the (il)logical next step from the “Well, if you care so much about feminism in “…” then why aren’t you rescuing those kidnapped girls in Nigeria?” avoidance technique?
@ Alan Robertshaw
Interesting about the display aspects of M-M violence.
I was talking to a young police officer the other day and the subject of policing our nighttime economy came up. (There are some issues of safety in our local nightclub zone, with all the fun stuff that happens when the English are out for a good time).
He said the most tiresome part of policing it, for him, was the number of times a drunk dude will look the police in the eye, land a punch on someone near them, and then turn around to be arrested. It means they get to punch someone without ever risking more than a punch back.
Sometimes he sees people heading over to the police stand to be sure they’re within reach.
I have a better idea, Oscar (or whatever your real name is): How about you big machos go there, unarmed, and show those nasty-wasty furriners what’s what, what? Let’s see how long YOU last, if you think they’re all so rapey and violent and terrible.
(Delightful mental image of a bunch of menzers running scared from a crowd of bewildered refugees who didn’t even touch them, but who are still wondering why these creeps yelled insults at them and then just turned tail with wet pants.)
I posted about this ‘petition’ back on the last non-personal thread after I saw it mentioned on Facebook. It’s confusing the hell out of Facebook readers judging by the comments. Most people do not understand misogynist troll logic, thankfully.
My sister (whose career is to work with refugees) notes that refugees in general need some help adapting to their new culture.
Arab cultures tend not to have caught on to the part about how tapping women on the bum, groping, and cat-calling are not nice. According to her, Egypt is worse than Syria or Jordan about this, but all three are worse than Italy, which is itself worse than the rest of the world she’s been in.
It doesn’t take much: these men see sexual harassment as a bad thing, they just don’t see these actions as being sexual harassment. So you tell them “don’t grope” and they go “oh really? ok” and become no more dangerous than any other western man.
Oh, and I don’t recall her complaining of harassment *in a refugee camp* — it’s more an issue in town with the locals.