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“Red Pill” director Cassie Jaye hits a new low with her appearance on a white supremacist podcast

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Odd couple: Matt Forney and Cassie Jaye

Filmmaker Cassie Jaye seems to have developed a weird affinity for bigots.

First, she cozied up to some of the most hateful figures in the Men’s Rights movement during the filming of her documentary The Red Pill.

Then, when her funding for the film ran out, she happily accepted financial assistance not only from the actual subjects of the film but also from a motley assortment of far-right ideologues — among them a notorious quasi-journalist who was famously tossed off of Twitter after his fans barraged Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with racist abuse, and a delusional Trump superfan who literally believes he gave Hillary Clinton the flu with his mind. (After a big donation to Jaye, he got himself an associate producer credit on her film.)

Now she’s trying her best to drum up interest in her film, which has barely drawn any notice at all outside the overlapping spheres of alt-right lady haters and MRAs since it premiered at a New York theater earlier this month.

While The Red Pill got a glowing, if rambling, “review” from new pal/volunteer fundraiser Milo Yiannopoulos at Breitbart, and a somewhat less-enthusiastic thumbs-up from Cathy Young at the right-wing internet tabloid Heat Street, the two real film reviewers who’ve bothered to give it a look have panned it.

Katie Walsh at the Los Angeles Times took issue with the film’s “uncritical, lopsided” argument, complaining that Jaye “twists herself in knots to justify the movement’s misogynist rhetoric.” The Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl dismissed Jaye as an inept “propagandist” and warned potential viewers that, as the headline to his piece put it, “You Can’t Unsee ‘The Red Pill,’ the Documentary About a Filmmaker Who Learns to Love MRAs.” (His review of what he described as an “agonizing” film caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the MRA crowd.)

With little hope of attracting positive attention from film critics, and apparently desperate for any publicity she could get, Jaye agreed to appear on the podcast of an internet-famous bigot who has been described by one critic, not without reason, as “THE MOST WARPED USELESS PEICE OF SH*T THAT I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO ENCOUNTER [on the] INTERNET OR ELSEWHERE.”

I am talking, of course, about the rape-excusing, abuse-encouraginglady-hating, gay-baiting white supremacist Matt Forney — he’s the one on the left in the photo below.

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/787198238575120384

She didn’t just give Forney a couple of minutes of her time; she sat down with him for roughly three-quarters of an hour for his podcast “This Alt-Right Life.” It’s a singularly unedifying discussion. At one point she mentions that she used to get into arguments with her boyfriend every month about nothing, something she now jokingly blames not on PMS but on her (former) feminism.

Badump-tsssh!

She also expressed sympathy when Forney mentioned that he himself had been the victim of a “false” rape accusation. (Imagine that, the author of a blog post titled “Why Girls Rarely Mean No When They Say No” being accused of rape!)

Not that long ago, Jaye was by all appearances a staunch opponent of pretty much everything Forney and his alt-right pals stand for.

In 2012, she released a documentary titled “The Right to Love,” which, according to its description on IMDb, is the portrait of a “Californian married gay couple and their two adopted children,” fighting against the forces of “discrimination, ignorance and hate” who would deny them their right to marry and raise children.

Now she’s appearing on the podcast of a guy who is a virtual embodiment of this ignorance and hate.

It’s not as if evidence of Forney’s despicable views is hard to find, and not just in the WHTM archives. The name of his podcast contains the phrase “alt-right.” In the list of “popular posts” highlighted in the sidebar of his blog one finds such lovely titles as “How to Crush a Girl’s Self-Esteem” and “Why Fat Girls Don’t Deserve to Be Loved.” (Neither title is meant ironically.)

And then there is the endless stream of racist, misogynist and homophobic abuse that is his Twitter account. Some highlights from the last several days:

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790064680907792386

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790364983171354625

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790367816360857601

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790050589598162944

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/789976518596362240

https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/789633067791122432

That last tweet — a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s practice of murdering people by throwing them from helicopters — is technically a death threat, aimed at a National Review writer who has gotten many such threats from Forney’s colleagues in the alt-right, including photoshopped images of his 7-year-old daughter being gassed in a Nazi death camp.

Are these really the sorts of people Jaye wants to align herself with?

In his “review” of The Red Pill, Milo claimed, without evidence, that a virtual army of feminists was “scrambling to stop Cassie Jaye” and her film. In fact, feminists have mostly ignored The Red Pill. And the person who has done the most to damage Jaye’s credibility is, well, Jaye herself.

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weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo

And again I’ll point out that calls for “reserving judgement” are usually only done with rape. If someone says they were mugged, their was stolen, their house was broken into, they were jumped on the street and beaten up, their place of business was held up, subjected to identity theft etc. nobody acts like they are just as likely to be lying than telling the truth. Even though false rape accusations are no more common than false accusations of other crime. Until people say “are you sure you were mugged,? Maybe he thought you were handing him your wallet” I’m going to continue to be suspicious of anyone who thinks there’s a 50/50 chance that someone who said they were raped is lying or hysterical.

PeeVee the (Noice) Sarcastic
PeeVee the (Noice) Sarcastic
8 years ago

@numerobis,

It was T_S’s

I’d tell you to ask Walter Scott of Charleston South Carolina, only he was murdered by a police officer when he got out of the car he was driving and started running after being pulled over, and likely being scared that he’d be arrested again.

that rubbed me the wrong way.

She used a man unjustly murdered man to make a cheap point, and in a callous, flippant way.

@BoinkBoink,

I have no more patience with that one. She’s likely to never actually do the homework required to reach any sort of reasonable conclusion if she couldn’t be arsed to actually read this article before taking out her little list of patented JB checklist-o-talking points.

Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
8 years ago

@Scildfreja

Inclusionary zoning is the opposite of exclusionary zoning, which is the default setting for zoning. Zoning keeps things out; it keeps industry out of residential areas, and poor people out of wealthy areas. It’s typical, for instance, to have minimum lot sizes for different zoning districts. The higher the minimum lot size, the more wealthy you have to be to live there.

Inclusionary zoning takes the opposite approach. I imagine that maximum lot sizes would qualify under the term, but usually it’s implemented as requiring a certain percentage of new housing to be affordable. The objective is to draw people who are usually seen as undesirable into the new development, and produce mixed-income areas.

There is some unexamined paternalism and, not to put too fine a point on it, racism in the current push for mixed-income, with the idea being that wealthy people are good role models for the poor and that’s why the poor do better (for some definitions of “better”) in mixed-income areas. So there’s a problem in that, but there are a lot of good, not-necessarily-racist reasons to want poor people to live in better neighborhoods, so inclusionary zoning is not something I hate. I don’t expect to see it modeled in something like this, though. Just the fact that you apparently have to orient your city around cars without mods tells me that this isn’t on the cutting edge of planning theory. I still kind of want to rebuild Louisville, though!

Too. Many. Projects. Right. Now.

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

@PoM, I see! Very neat. I can understand your hesitation on being enthusiastic about it – there’s a bit of that old-school wealthy white paternalism in there, isn’t there? But it does seem overall a good thing to do.

There’s a lively modding community, and a lot of them are civic planners as well, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see that crop up. But you’re right, nothing right now. I think that Colossal Order is something like 12 people now – maybe 20 in total? So cut’em a break! 😉

I’ll stop trying to wheedle away the scraps of your free time now. There’s one other thing I’ve been stewing on in reply to Susan that needs to be said anyways!

(I will link this, though :3 )

That_Susan
That_Susan
8 years ago

@Scildfreja Unnýðnes: “Here’s what I suggest, Susan. Go back and pick one of those points that you’ve had to ‘think about’ and repeat it here – paste it in the box, highlight it, and click the ‘quote button. Then tell us what’s giving you a problem with it. If you do that, I’d be happy to point out the things you’re missing. We can highlight the issue you’re having with it, and probably dig into the truth on that issue. We can then repeat with any other topics you might want to.”

I think I didn’t word my last response to you accurately. As I recall, you said there were some very important points that others had made that I’d missed commenting on. And I think I said I’d responded to every point that I had an answer to. What I should have said was that I’d responded to every point that stood out to me as something important to discuss in this thread. This doesn’t mean that others may not have made important points; just because it didn’t jump out at me at the moment, doesn’t mean it’s not important.

But apparently you have specific things in mind that you feel I should respond to. Rather than me trying to read your mind about what you’re asking, would you mind just saying it? If you feel I’m being lazy and asking to be spoon-fed, that’s totally cool and don’t worry about it. At some point when I have more time, perhaps I’ll go back and read through the entire thread and see if maybe something got slipped in between paragraphs in the cat posts or something. 🙂

That_Susan
That_Susan
8 years ago

@Rhuu: Margaret Atwood said “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

“I know that That_Susan will say #notallmen and #notthemenIknow, but…”

But…:) So now you’re going to tell me that I’m exceedingly privileged beyond belief because I can’t ever recall fearing that a man was going to kill me?

The women laughing part seems slightly more likely — perhaps because it seems more socially acceptable than men laughing at women. I know, I know, it’s only more socially acceptable because patriarchy.

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

Right. Okay, @Susan, I’ve pinned down a problem here. Beyond those that others have pointed out. Let me hit it up one by one, because oh-ho-ho are there some doozies in there.

EDIT – apparently you’ve replied since I started writing this, so I’ll reply to your new stuff shortly.

True. The real proof of whether anyone opposes equal rights for men and women would be whether they actively support equal treatment under the law, as well as in schools and in the workplace. For example, if they support women having female-only study areas, are they supportive of men having their own spaces, too? Ditto to having organizations or events catering only to a specific group.

When you say things like “are they supportive of men having their own spaces, too?” the underwritten statement is “You feminists don’t support these things as vocally as you do safe spaces for women, therefore you are being unfair and illogical.” However, you’re missing parts. You’re missing the fact that women have a much larger problem with harassment than men in public life, and you’re missing the fact that feminism does support safe spaces for men who need them.

Also, are they equally supportive of male and female students majoring in STEM fields? Do they accept individuals going into whatever field that interests them, or if certain fields are heavily male or female-dominated, do they see something sinister at play?

I shall direct you to the talented LindsayIrene’s reply for the stats. As she said, “Sexism in STEM fields is pretty well documented, actually.”

(Note, I work in a STEM field. Surrounded by techbros.)

Would you like me to explain how the conclusion of women being disadvantaged in STEM fields due to their sex is appropriate? Would you like the facts on that? It’s a very similar problem to the proof for the wage gap, actually. I’ll keep it brief and stats-light.

We’re examining a metric: the influence of Sexism on Career Choice. The amount S influences C. There are large sets of demographics on C, so that’s easily observed. C is influenced by a lot of things, though – wages, age, ethnicity, household income, parent education level, etc, etc. These are the covariates. They exist alongside S in influencing C.

S (sexism) can’t be directly measured, though – there’s no metric unit of sexism. So, what do we do? MRA’s suggest we follow the procedure used in physics – we remove everything that isn’t S, and then whatever’s left is an upper bound to what S is. If you do that, then the wage gap is quite small, especially if you start slicing further by career or by seniority.

The problem is, you can’t do that. This isn’t physics, and the covariates aren’t clean. S influences career choice, but it also influences educational choices before careers are in the picture. It also influences grades received, and educator attention during schooling. It also influences resume selection and treatment within the career path.

Doing this sort of science isn’t clean, it’s messy – like medicine.

There’s nothing sinister or conspiratorial at play here. It’s all societal forces, unconscious and pervasive. That’s the definition of patriarchy.

While it’s great to look deeper to see what factors might be attracting more men to one field or more women to another, jumping from “More men go into nuclear physics, and more women decide to take time off from work or go part-time while their kids are small” to “Sexism” would be another example of abduction.

No, it’s not abduction. Again, go look at LindsayIrene’s legwork. The conclusion is observed through rigorous study. That’s a deduction. I have yet to encounter a feminist position that isn’t backed by strong, rigorously-examined studies. They tend to be inductive, not abductive.

Further – sexism isn’t a brand that feminists use to shame or guilt men. It’s a societal problem that affects everyone. When a feminist says “You’re being sexist” or “you’re a sexist” it’s not like labeling them a criminal, it’s saying that they’re reinforcing the sexist stereotypes of society.

(Also, sweet fancy moses, grow a thicker skin, guys. Everyone does bad things from time to time. Being told that you’re being sexist isn’t the end of the dang world.)

In response to the questions about Matt Forney, I hadn’t heard much about him. And no, I’m not white supremacist or misogynist

You may not be a white supremacist or misogynist – I’ll take your reply at face value – but you don’t seem to have a problem with being a fellow traveller with them. You seem to admire JB (who has called for the death of the Prime Minister of Canada and the repeal of women voters) and aren’t outraged by Cassie Jaye mingling with Forney, who is a white supremacist and misogynist without compare.

Why are you happy to turn a blind eye to that?

Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
8 years ago

I know, I know

No, you don’t. That’s what everyone’s been tryna tell you for days now. Scildfreja was right (if she had a nickel USD). You assume you know and that’s 1 of your long list of problems. When you’re so often decidedly, demostrably, objectively, probably wrong, stop knowing, and start listening

Viscaria
Viscaria
8 years ago

Men laugh at women all the time, are you kidding me? Have you never seen a woman try to box, or play basketball, or build a robot? Have you never heard a man chuckle and say “she’s so cute when she’s angry”? Is this your absolute very first day on this, our planet we call Earth?

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/evalana/blog%202/mlpfim_ep4040.png

Right then. Let’s sort this out.

I think I didn’t word my last response to you accurately. As I recall, you said there were some very important points that others had made that I’d missed commenting on. And I think I said I’d responded to every point that I had an answer to. What I should have said was that I’d responded to every point that stood out to me as something important to discuss in this thread. This doesn’t mean that others may not have made important points; just because it didn’t jump out at me at the moment, doesn’t mean it’s not important.

Ah, I see.

See, if there were honestly things that you weren’t able to grapple with, and you were able to perceive them as things you couldn’t grapple with, that’s a strong indication that you’re becoming aware of your proverbial “blind spots”.

There’s a number of terms for these things. You can refer to it by cognitive dissonance, or confirmation bias if you like – that’s the proper term – but blind spots works well as a description. If you start becoming aware of things that make you feel uncomfortable and unable to answer, it’s an excellent thing to pursue.

See, we all have confirmation bias – we all have blind spots that we aren’t aware of. Comes with being human. There’s nothing shameful about it. Being able to see them, even briefly, is a tremendous gift, as it’s a sure way to chase away the flaws in our beliefs and to become less wrong.

But, you don’t see them, apparently. Again, that’s okay – you’re only human, and humans have blind spots. But the fact that you don’t feel any concern over this should worry you.

(Adrenaline is the enemy in this scenario and is unfortunately also prevalent in this discussion; the drive to defend and the drive to acquire often overpower the drive to grow; activating the near ognitive system is difficult through text, etc, etc. Messy topic.)

But apparently you have specific things in mind that you feel I should respond to. Rather than me trying to read your mind about what you’re asking, would you mind just saying it? If you feel I’m being lazy and asking to be spoon-fed, that’s totally cool and don’t worry about it. At some point when I have more time, perhaps I’ll go back and read through the entire thread and see if maybe something got slipped in between paragraphs in the cat posts or something. ?

No, I don’t have specific things in mind.

I mean, I do – we obviously have a list of things we think you’re missing or desparately wrong on, but it’s worse than useless to bring them up.

So far in this thread I’ve watched you turn every point brought up into a defense of your position. This isn’t a sign of the strength of your position – it’s a sign of your ability to integrate conflicting information into it. It’s a sign of the ability to rationalize. Giving you more topics to integrate will only make you think your position stronger, when it really makes it weaker.

(Specifically, your position is made weaker upon adding each new feature by abduction, which is a logical extension of the law of combinatorial probabilities. Not perfectly applicable but it works to a rough degree.)

More generally, I can’t tell you what your blind spots are in this state – you have to want to know your blind spots, and you have to drop your defenses on them. Until I see that, there’s less than no point in telling you my thoughts on where they are.

If you want help though, I’m happy to help you start digging. Go through the thread here and find the statement that’s the strongest amongst those that have been presented to you. Find the thing we’ve said that makes the biggest threat to your opinion. You don’t have to say that it’s right and you’re wrong, you can still believe it’s wrong – but what’s the best argument against you? Find that, and we’ll look at where the argument fails, and how it measures up to your position in detail.

Good luck!

weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo

Susan,

You spectacularly missed the point of the Atwood quote. Although I can’t help but notice that you seem more upset by women laughing at men than men killing woman. So, while you missed the point you did kind of prove the point.

Paradoxical Intention - Resident Cheeseburger Slut

I am return. I showered and I’m relaxed, so, once more into the steaming piles of shit Susan keeps leaving on our nice clean message board.

I might repeat what others have said (and quite eloquently, might I add), but repetition strengthens your memory, right?

That_Susan | October 27, 2016 at 5:49 pm
I have heard that some men feel a need for places where they can relax, and speak and joke around freely without having to worry about offending any women who might be listening. For the men who feel this way, isn’t their own perspective just as valid as women’s perspectives on women’s needs?

I think I’m beginning to understand why Sigh :/ changed their username. Because that is the exact sound I made reading this.

Why do men need a specific place to specifically be sexist assholes? That place exists, it’s called “Literally Everywhere Else”.

Women need a safe place from harassment, the kind of harassment you’re advocating for by wanting to give men a little space where they can be as assholish as they want without repercussion.

What does that do to make society better? It gives men yet ANOTHER place where they can be sexist towards women (and I imagine you’d want a “safe place” for other flavors of bigot to be bigots too I assume so they don’t have to worry about “offending”), but this time, they don’t get punished for it, so they don’t learn to correct their behaviors, it’ll make them resent women more when they have to go to the Sexism box to talk about what a [slur] [female co-worker] is or whatever.

Stop trying to make men oppressed because they can’t be sexists, it’s not going to happen.

Yet again, you are putting men’s upset feelings over their awful behavior over the rights of women to exist without being afraid that they’ll be hurt.

See what I mean when I say that’s a shitty view to have? You’re trying (and failing) to equate “men’s feelings” and “women’s safety”.

On top of that, you’re trying to say that men are somehow hindered by not having the right to be a sexist without consequence.

That_Susan | October 27, 2016 at 5:59 pm
“As the quote goes:

“’A man alone in a roomful of women is delighted. A woman alone in a roomful of men is terrified.’”

I haven’t found that to be universally true. That said, women can feel totally safe with most men (as I do) and still like having a woman-only space from time to time. By the same token, a man can find women delightful in general and still enjoy a man-only space from time to time. It doesn’t have to be a sexist thing for either a woman or a man to feel that way.

The point.

Susan’s head.

Once again, your anecdata is useless here.

The point is NOT that “Only a few women experience this”, I’m quite honestly glad you don’t, but the point is ENOUGH WOMEN DO THAT IT’S A HUGE PROBLEM IN OUR SOCIETY AND WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Do you understand now, or are you going to continue to be a disingenuous asshole about it?

How loud do I have to shout it? Your experiences, such as they are, are outliers in the data. Your situation is a rarity.

This also loops back to what I said earlier about women not being believed for shit. Women say they’re harassed by men, assholes like Susan hand-wave it away because they’ve never seen it, so it can’t be happening! (Also, David just wrote a thread about this. The writer for the comic Mockingbird was chased off of twitter after she talked about how she was harassed, and people harassed her saying she was lying and she made it up. Like, how fucking timely can this be?)

Statistics don’t require your belief or your experience, Susan. The problem does not go away because you don’t believe it’s there or because you haven’t experienced it, because the numbers say otherwise.

I don’t say shit like “I don’t think [some disease] ever existed” because I haven’t experienced it. I look at the fucking numbers and studies and listen to people who worked close with it, or listen to people who had it.

Because I’m not an asshole.

That_Susan | October 27, 2016 at 9:51 pm
But…:) So now you’re going to tell me that I’m exceedingly privileged beyond belief because I can’t ever recall fearing that a man was going to kill me?

Privileged? No. Lucky? Yes.

The women laughing part seems slightly more likely — perhaps because it seems more socially acceptable than men laughing at women. I know, I know, it’s only more socially acceptable because patriarchy.

“Women are so MEAN to men. Not me though, I’m one of the cool girls! I’ll listen to your MRA screeds about how women shouldn’t vote, and I won’t look at you like you grew a second head, because I’m so entrenched in spouting MRA talking points!”

Literally what you sound like right now.

Fuck off.

Not a one person here said that laughing at men was okay. Mocking them for being silly? Absolutely. I mock myself for being silly sometimes.

Mocking men who hold repugnant beliefs and smear them all over the internet like so much feces? Absolutely.

Mocking men in general? Not okay. No one here said it was okay. You’re tilting at straw windmills again, Susan. There are literally men on this blog. Hell, a man WROTE this blog.

Why the fuck do you think we hate men so fucking much (solely on the grounds that we’re feminists and your bullshit hunches) that you’ll sit there and parrot lines of bullshit MRA straw arguments about how fucking awful we apparently are because we don’t think men should be able to be awful to women?

Seriously, can the idea that “all feminists hate men and laugh at us because they won’t let me be sexist!” fucking die already?

Handsome "Punkle Stan" Jack

I just finished watching four full-length interviews back to back from Samantha Bee’s show about Catholic hospitals and, like, fucking christ. Fucking christ with a crucifix. It was horrible.

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

I’d rather gabble on about video games than the endless concern conversation going on, so PoM, if you’re interested, these are the policies that you can implement in districts in Cities:Skylines:

http://www.skylineswiki.com/Policies

So, you can’t set a specific proportion of low-income housing in a district, but you can provide tax incentives and encouragements for multiple demographic types within a district. It’s not the inclusive measure you were hoping for, but it is tending in that direction at least! You can also do things like highrise bans, and you can limit household upgrades to keep them at a lower tier. You can also control the land quality in a region to do the same thing. So, sort of?

Rhuu
Rhuu
8 years ago

@That_Susan: …. I can’t even with you right now. How do you miss the point of that quote so spectacularly?

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

Oh my gosh, Jack, those interviews. Those interviews.

Let’s just say that my perspective of the RCC is way diff than my perspective going through the catholic school system now.

EDIT: Here’s one

That_Susan
That_Susan
8 years ago

@weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo: “It’s a men’s rights issue that men have a safe space to say misogynistic things about women?”

That wasn’t what I said, but apparently that’s what you read into my comment about men sometimes wanting to talk with each other without worrying about a woman finding something they say offensive.

What I’m getting from some of the comments here is that a woman’s desire for a space just for women should be taken at face value, but a man’s desire for a space just for men should be highly-suspect: He must be up to no good. Because women know how to make good use of their spaces, but men don’t.

“I’m fine with men having safe spaces. Places they can relax from the strain of having to maintain the facade of macho nonsense that society requires of their role, places that they can be themselves without worrying that some dude’s gonna call them a pussy, or laugh at them for having emotions.”

And, as another poster has alluded to, some women actually do laugh just an eensy-weensy bit at men. Like about “man flu” and such (my example, not the other poster’s). Some women also like all the “macho nonsense” and “playfully” tease guys about being pussies. So maybe men DO have a reason for not always feeling (emotionally) safe around women, although of course OUR extreme likelihood of being murdered by men is totes grounded in everyday reality. It happens so much more often than women laughing at men or calling them pussies.

“Places they don’t have to pretend to be sex-hungry or domineering, places they don’t have to pretend to dislike the colour pink and can listen to Barbera Streisand in peace.”

Also, guys like being able to enjoy the stuff they enjoy without having some girl roll her eyes and say it’s a waste of time ’cause it’s not what SHE’S into.

“I’m all for that. The problem is that spaces with just guys in them tend to turn into a veritable battleground of hierarchy struggles and macho preening, where they aren’t safe or comfortable or able to relax from the tension of society. Safe spaces for men need to – need to be free from that.”

Your thinking sounds eerily similar to that of some very controlling men who feel like they need to vet their wives’ friends, as well as let them know what books they can or can’t read, ’cause you know how impressionable women are — one of the “girls” gets a divorce and before you know it they’re all jumping on the bandwagon.

If it’s patronizing for men to want to control how women spend time together, it’s just as patronizing for women to feel like they need to police men.

“Another problem is that “safe spaces” for women are actual, you know, places. Rooms and closed forums. When men complain about not having a safe space, they claim genres and activities as their own. Video Games – men have complained that video games used to be a ‘safe space’ for men, and now women are invading that ‘safe space’. That’s not what a safe space is – it’s not a genre! It’s not an activity! It’s a place!”

My sister has fun playing World of Warcraft, which I think is part of the whole Gamergate controversy. I don’t know much about the gaming world, as I’ve never been able to bring myself to care all that much about the outcome of any game; I’m equally happy whether I win or lose so people who really do care about the outcome find people like me kind of annoying…

But as I understand the whole “video games as men’s spaces”-issue, with the games that started out as something that mostly just boys and men were into and then girls and women got more interested in later, it’s not that the guys are wanting to shut out ANYone who’s serious about the game and willing to accept how they’ve been playing it and the language they’ve been using.

It seems, though, that some women come in and want to clean house and get everybody talking nice to each other. This may be a case where some women genuinely do need their own separate space to play World of Warcraft in. And some are happy to keep playing with the guys.

Handsome "Punkle Stan" Jack

@Scildfreja Unnýðnes

My stomach is upset from eating all those KitKats while watching them (sugar plus milk products and all) but I’m pretty sure it would have been upset anyway after blasting through all of them.

For those who wanna get sick, here’s the other three:

Trigger warning for sickness and pregnancy stuff BTW.

That wasn’t what I said, but apparently that’s what you read into my comment about men sometimes wanting to talk with each other without worrying about a woman finding something they say offensive.

What I’m getting from some of the comments here is that a woman’s desire for a space just for women should be taken at face value, but a man’s desire for a space just for men should be highly-suspect: He must be up to no good. Because women know how to make good use of their spaces, but men don’t.

Women don’t want space to talk shit about other genders. Men can and do have their own safe spaces but it isn’t and shouldn’t be for being misogynist fuckwads.

What’s next? You gonna advocate a safe space for white people to say racist things? FFS.

Handsome "Punkle Stan" Jack

Okay, I edited my thing and the window is closed for that but

Some women also like all the “macho nonsense” and “playfully” tease guys about being pussies.

That’s fucking gross. Women shouldn’t be doing that, nor should they have a safe place to do that.

Also, guys like being able to enjoy the stuff they enjoy without having some girl roll her eyes and say it’s a waste of time ’cause it’s not what SHE’S into.

http://66.media.tumblr.com/b720af143d92a871ccdf07584ac72ca6/tumblr_mhrse2OrK61s5p5xno1_250.png

Like men don’t so the same to whatever women like all the time, too.

But as I understand the whole “video games as men’s spaces”-issue, with the games that started out as something that mostly just boys and men were into and then girls and women got more interested in later, it’s not that the guys are wanting to shut out ANYone who’s serious about the game and willing to accept how they’ve been playing it and the language they’ve been using.

No, it wasn’t. Women have always been in gaming, ya fuckhead. Literally nothing in this world has ever done exclusively by just one gender, ever. My own mother has been gaming since goddamn Pong, which is way fucking longer than any of the gamerbrodouches that are being gatekeeping fuckwads have been alive.

I believe you when you wrote that you know shit about gaming after reading that twitspittle. Fuck.

That_Susan
That_Susan
8 years ago

@LindsayIrene: “Susan, did you even read the article that you’re commenting on? There are several of Forney’s tweets embedded in it. They are terrible, and they are not at all out of the ordinary for him. A headline saying that Jaye has hit a new low by palling around with him is hardly trashing her. But most of the people reading your comment claiming that we are trashing Jaye here will not bother to check out whether what you said was accurate. It will just add to the whole ‘feminists are meeeeeeaaaaaan to Cassie’ whine.”

I saw the hateful tweets. And I realize that many feel that having an interview or conversation with someone, or allowing them to put an arm around you for a photo, means that all of their views are now your views. I’m not sure where I stand on that — but since Jaye’s work involves shining the light on controversial issues and opening them up in new ways, maybe she sees getting to know him differently than people who see it as a big commitment to be open to getting to know someone who’s been dismissed by the majority of people (if they know about him).

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

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And, as another poster has alluded to, some women actually do laugh just an eensy-weensy bit at men. Like about “man flu” and such (my example, not the other poster’s). Some women also like all the “macho nonsense” and “playfully” tease guys about being pussies. So maybe men DO have a reason for not always feeling (emotionally) safe around women, although of course OUR extreme likelihood of being murdered by men is totes grounded in everyday reality. It happens so much more often than women laughing at men or calling them pussies.

No shit. As I said in the second damn sentence, “Places they can relax from the strain of having to maintain the facade of macho nonsense that society requires of their role”

Emphasis added to point to the actual statement. Yes, women do tease men for not being macho. Correct. Women also support the patriarchy. Women aren’t perfect. Sexism is a societal problem. I’m completely happy for men to have a space away from that.

Also, guys like being able to enjoy the stuff they enjoy without having some girl roll her eyes and say it’s a waste of time ’cause it’s not what SHE’S into.

Sure. Same as above – women can be jerks too. That’s patriarchy.

Your thinking sounds eerily similar to that of some very controlling men who feel like they need to vet their wives’ friends, as well as let them know what books they can or can’t read, ’cause you know how impressionable women are — one of the “girls” gets a divorce and before you know it they’re all jumping on the bandwagon.

If it’s patronizing for men to want to control how women spend time together, it’s just as patronizing for women to feel like they need to police men.

http://img08.deviantart.net/c62e/i/2012/211/a/8/fluttershy_angry_by_tim015-d572zal.png

No, read for comprehension goddamnit. You complain about people putting words into your mouth in a previous post, and here you are doing the same.

Nowhere did I say that I or any feminist want to police men and how they spend their time. I said that a proper safe space for men must involve real safety, protecting them from the toxic effects of patriarchy. The social dynamic within groups of men is different from the social dynamics within groups of women. This implies that the safe spaces men need will need a different structure.

Public harassment between women is a very, very different beast compared to public harassment between men and women.

My sister has fun playing World of Warcraft, which I think is part of the whole Gamergate controversy. I don’t know much about the gaming world, as I’ve never been able to bring myself to care all that much about the outcome of any game; I’m equally happy whether I win or lose so people who really do care about the outcome find people like me kind of annoying…

Personal anecdote time again? Okay. Just keep in mind that they don’t mean a damn ting, and it’s painfully obvious that your lived experience doesn’t line up with many, many womes at this point. You’ve been told before to ignore your lived experiences when making general statements, and been given reasons why; but I guess we can look at this one too.

But as I understand the whole “video games as men’s spaces”-issue, with the games that started out as something that mostly just boys and men were into and then girls and women got more interested in later, it’s not that the guys are wanting to shut out ANYone who’s serious about the game and willing to accept how they’ve been playing it and the language they’ve been using.

Not true on a few levels here. First, women and girls have always played video games. Companies decided to market only to boys as a marketing decision in the 80’s. Women have always played, but were ignored and relegated to the corner.

Men and boys have also always played, but because marketing was focused on them, they considered it theirs. They still do, even though women make up more of the gaming market than men do these days. This expands out into the larger issue of sexism in the tech industries which I won’t go into here.

(Almost) no one wants to consciously shut anyone out. Again, these are unconscious societal forces here. We’re talking about social interactions and unconscious perceptive bias for the most part.

It seems, though, that some women come in and want to clean house and get everybody talking nice to each other. This may be a case where some women genuinely do need their own separate space to play World of Warcraft in. And some are happy to keep playing with the guys.

http://orig05.deviantart.net/9eb9/f/2011/226/7/8/fluttershy_is_serious_by_crunchnugget-d46kvde.png

Have you met women gamers?

Christ, have you met women?

Women aren’t squeamish and sure as hell don’t get offended by salty language.

They get offended by being considered weak and inferior, or worse yet, not being considered at all. They get offended by being considered a target for sex first and a player of the game second. They get offended by being thought of as lesser just because of their sex.

It makes them angry. So they speak up about it, and then the abuse starts piling on.

You said it yourself, you don’t know shit about gaming. What makes you think your opinion’s worth anything on this topic, compared to people who actually play games and experience it?

Ooglyboggles
Ooglyboggles
8 years ago

You know what, I might as well take a crack at it. Can’t be worse than feeling hungry when I just stuffed myself a while ago. I lack anger, rhetoric and such but I at least got stubbornness.

That_Susan
October 27, 2016 at 10:53 pm

What I’m getting from some of the comments here is that a woman’s desire for a space just for women should be taken at face value, but a man’s desire for a space just for men should be highly-suspect: He must be up to no good. Because women know how to make good use of their spaces, but men don’t.

As eloquently put by everyone else here, men’s safe space is literally everywhere. The bathrooms, the stadiums, the parks, the roads, the streets, the parties, the office space, the lab, the college setting, the commute setting, everyplace. You trying to imply misandry is trite. It’s not about finding some location to shit talk men, it’s about having a place to not feel like shit from negging, harassment and other dipshits of the world.

Also, guys like being able to enjoy the stuff they enjoy without having some girl roll her eyes and say it’s a waste of time ’cause it’s not what SHE’S into.

“Also, guys like being able to say whatever racist and bigoted shit they want and anyone who says otherwise is just being a killjoy.”

If it’s patronizing for men to want to control how women spend time together, it’s just as patronizing for women to feel like they need to police men.

Men often and do control women and their time, feminism is not, in fact trying to enforce some form of restriction on the “just having fun treating others like dirt.”

My sister has fun playing World of Warcraft, which I think is part of the whole Gamergate controversy. I don’t know much about the gaming world, as I’ve never been able to bring myself to care all that much about the outcome of any game; I’m equally happy whether I win or lose so people who really do care about the outcome find people like me kind of annoying…

Here’s a primer: Nongamers and bigots try to pin the problems of the gaming industry not on the AAA publishers but instead harass and threaten to rape and murder multiple individuals for years in an attempt to keep women and minorities out of the “good old boys” club.

But as I understand the whole “video games as men’s spaces”-issue, with the games that started out as something that mostly just boys and men were into and then girls and women got more interested in later, it’s not that the guys are wanting to shut out ANYone who’s serious about the game and willing to accept how they’ve been playing it and the language they’ve been using.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_Gamergate_claims

Read this. Read this damn page, and learn something other than your “la di da men do no wrong you women are clearly just being killjoys la di da.”

It seems, though, that some women come in and want to clean house and get everybody talking nice to each other. This may be a case where some women genuinely do need their own separate space to play World of Warcraft in. And some are happy to keep playing with the guys.

“You see some women are being uppity wanting things like not getting catcalled, groped or treated like shit for rejecting other people’s advances and wanting to play.”

“And some are happy to play with the guys.” Why do I feel like you basically pulled a “fake gaimur gurl” crap? Oh wait cause you just did by claiming that the women who put on a smile on their face and take that shit are doing their proper role in gaming, by never ever showing discomfort over how they’re treated.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3454588/Women-gamers-reveal-vile-online-abuse-receive-DAY-men-say-kitchen.html

Even the fucking dailymail got this down. Yeah, happy to play, happy, smile, keep smiling.

On another not I still didn’t get an apology, and I still am pissed that you used that article fucking TWICE to prop up how such a good parent you are.

Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
8 years ago

I’m getting serious deja-vu of Miggy from this now. Sentence structure, directions of argument. I doubt that Susan is Miggy, but they sure swim in the same sea.

Handsome "Punkle Stan" Jack

@Scildfreja Unnýðnes

Didn’t that dude also frequent JB shit or whatever?

LindsayIrene
LindsayIrene
8 years ago

We’re a bunch of meany man-haters, but, hey, maybe that Matt Forney has some good qualities we don’t know about!! I cannot even any more.

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