By David Futrelle
Check out my piece at the Globe and Mail today about shutting incel forums the hell down. Here’s a snippet:
[I]f appeals to shared humanity are out, is there anything else we can do? We may not be able to win back those who have plunged too deeply into the incel rabbit hole, but we can take steps to limit their ability to recruit new members. Incels aren’t born; they’re made. Sure, most new incel recruits start out embittered and lonely. But they are radicalized by their incel peers on a relatively small number of message boards devoted to the incel ideology.
So we should take a page from the anti-fascist activists who’ve done so much to kick back against the so-called “alt-right” over the last year – not only by confronting the fascists in the streets but also working diligently behind the scenes to take away their platforms online.
You can find the piece here.
This thread. Everywhere else. Wherever.
No matter times men state their motive for their crimes is misogyny, we will always be told to look elsewhere for the cause.
What I want to know is why? Why is it so hard to accept that misogynist violence is a thing? A thing in and of itself and not a symptom of some other problem?
My guess is that male entitlement and the dehumanization of women are so deeply entrenched in our culture that changing it would require just about everyone to look harshly at themselves and a lot of their attitudes. It would require most major religions to change. It would require people to listen to women. It would require companies to stop using commodified female bodies to sell their products. It would require parents to actively teach their sons to view women as equals. It would require companies to hire and promote women beyond the bare minimum required to not break the law. It would require men and boys to self police in the way he seems to wrongly believe they ever did. Etc, etc. It’s all just too hard. So we might as well close our eyes to the problem.
Bakunin, I never said there was a perfect solution. people are people – we’re analog and life is messy.
I will say, though, that allowing/encouraging kids to hit their bullies back (and not go spastic when that happens), to engage in more creative expressions outside of electronic means and encouraging them to involve themselves in both athletic and outdoor activities (not necessarily competitive ones) foster a more cooperative, more empathetic social environment overall.
You can gripe all you want about this not “teaching boys to leave toxic masculinity” (with whatever the pluperfect hell that entails), or you can engage in a little creative anthropology and engage in something that may have some effectiveness; it would seem to be in tune with our primate ancestry, and doesn’t involve spewing haranguing lectures at resentful adolescents.
Does anyone have a misogyny apologia bingo card. Because putting toxic masculinity in scare quotes, evo psych and nostalgia for a kind and gentle past that never existed have all got to be squares on it. Oh and calling the things women have to say “haranguing.” That’s a good one too.
OK, kupo. This gets me back to the point of the utility of The Great Firewall in Chinese society right now.
I kind of like that idea. You’ve got commercial websites and hook up websites in China – social media isn’t a thing like we do. Everything is monitored and the moment you try to organize stupidity, the government steps in. I kind of like that – the people seem pretty damned happy and content to engage in the normal activities of daily living, and don’t spend a lot of time online unless they’re looking for intimate partners.
No Putinist manipulation, no Trump, no incels. No random bits of mass violence.
No representation of opinion masquerading as fact, either.
OK soooo…. I googled “incel arranged marriage” and…
https://www.reddit.com/r/IncelTears/comments/7agpp5/incel_is_getting_an_arranged_marriage/
Then grant me a workable solution, weirwood. Give me something to work with besides “men should just be better” or “speeches about peacemaking and misogyny will solve all of this” that can actually have the potential of implementation.
I watched the second episode of the newest season of Handmaid’s Tale. That thing shook me to the core, because to my imperfectly left, old labor, neoliberal corporatist shill self, we are dangerously close to that precipice, and you guys are busy counting and shelving the cutlery on the Titanic as the ship is starting to list.
Hey, guess what! A lot of kids are using electronic devices to be creative! You can write on an electronic device, did you know that? You can also art with one. Or RP. Or blog. Or make and edit videos. Or take and share photos.
And, um, is there any proof that there was less sexism violence toward women back in the days when bullying was more accepted? Ya know, I’m pretty sure there’s not.
Well, thank goodness Aging Chad is here to explain the direness of the situation to us silly ladies.
“These are guys who depended on their mother’s arranging their marriages for the past few thousand years.”
Well South Asians have relied on that, and still do to a large extent, so that’s why I asked. Arranged marriages haven’t been a thing in western cultures for a long time so “for the past few thousand years” gives impression that it was going on up until recently, like within those guys’ lifetimes.
I do think that arranged marriages *could* possibly be a route to consider for some incels, but who would arrange them and what women would go for that are some pertinent questions that come up. Not feasible in the west (outside of some immigrant communities who do it within their own socio-cultural networks).
Read the link above. A guy contemplating arranged marriage AND “escortcel” simultaneously. Like, marrying and cheating.
I’ll just repost it here since it’s relevant and delete the above one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IncelTears/comments/7agpp5/incel_is_getting_an_arranged_marriage/
I remember personally correcting people – even friends – when they were acting like jerks to women around them. I also remember seeing my acquaintances do it as well.
Were there places where it was worse? Absolutely, but it wasn’t universal.
And I’m sorry, but I’m really, at my core, an analog guy and am not impressed with much electronic “art”. There’s something to be said to selecting your photo carefully because film is expensive and you only have so many shot. Visual arts have to be done slowly, deliberately.
She did exactly that. Holy fucking shit, listen to women.
Lindsay, as I said, all I’m looking for here is a solution as opposed to complaints. I personally think it is dire, and I hope you do to.
Dire requires action. Dire requires more than just words. Dire requires that the solutions be something reasonable with a high degree of likely societal acceptance.
That’s not a solution, kupo – that’s a bumpersticker.
I’m talking about something that can be implemented in schools, organized activities and workspaces.
@Chad
To add (again) to what everyone else is saying re: bullying. Boys policing boys is how the young ones are trained to conform to patriarchy – they go along with it, or they are made miserable. It’s a simple carrot and stick thing, you get in-group privileges for being a sexist prick and nonstop harassment otherwise.
Growing up as a “boy” meant I didn’t quite get the pure horror of the girlhood bullying experience, but it was really bad – and it came in homophobic/transphobic, antisemitic, and ableist flavors too! With beatings, constant insults, gossip, and sexual harassment! And what wasn’t about me being autistic or looking Jewish, was always about me being small, femme, dorky, and having weird opinions about gender.
TBH, my high school experience was how I learned that most male humans are shits.
“Young people are doing it all wrong!!!!!” Bleahrg. Same old same old.
Anyway… in the US, sexual assault and domestic violence have been on a general downward trend since the 90s. Not sure how this fits with your idea that current sexism the fault of the internet/videogames/computers.
Even if soccer is a great sport, playing for a team means often more presure.
If a kid is only playing videogames somethink can be wrong and parents should perhaps try fo find out, why. The idea to destroy aka punish the kid for beeing different is one of the worst ideas I can imagine. With 14 kids should be exspected to become their own person.
Help kids, don’t be their enemy!!!
I think the discusion if bullying is worse by boys or girls is rubish.
Yeah, can we get back to Aging Chad insinuating that only bullying by girls is scarring? There’s some unexamined sexism right there.
Goddess. I leave for four days and now there’s an aging hipster using the latest social issue to complain about how this generation lives differently than he did and apologize for bullies and recommend being cruel to your kids?
So I guess fixing toxic masculinity is out then…
@LindsayIrene
He’s shooting out anti-feminist talking points so fast it’s hard to keep up.
@kupo
And mansplainin’! Don’t forget the mansplainin’!
@ Aging Chad
No random violence in China ? Really ? I’ll raise you yesterday’s high school stabbing in Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province, China that has so far left nine dead. It’s not the only mass stabbing of which news has come out of China in recent years either. A bit more openness on the ‘net in China might have raised enough red flags to reduce the risk of such things.
“The government can shut down any attempt to organize stupidity”
Oh yeah, god forbid anyone in China be able to affect social change…
@Chad
The PRC is a totalitarian regime. The government openly kills people for political dissent. It keeps political prisoners on retainer to kill, so that their organs can be harvested to save the lives of the rich and privileged. We are talking about some Larry Niven level dystopian shit there. There are “secret” prisons in the middle of public parks.
They didn’t get a Trump because Xi Janping is already Trump. On amphetamines. With more intelligence, more ruthlessness, more direct power, and worse people around him.
There are scholars who consider modern China to be the gonzo capitalist end-stage that the United States is heading towards. Yeah, I’m gonna say you don’t know what you’re talking about.