Back in its heyday in the early and mid 2010s, A Voice for Men was one of the more obnoxious sites on the internet, not just attacking women on a daily basis but doing so in the crudest language its writers could think of, regularly castigating women as “cunts” and “bitches” at the same time site founder Paul Elam claimed that AVFM was the flagship site for a so-called “Men’s Human Rights Movement.”
Well, things have changed. AVFM long ago vanished from the headlines — except perhaps on the blogs of old sentimentalists like me — but it still exists, and it still castigates women on a regular basis. It just doesn’t call them “cunts” and “bitches” any more, having replaced the slurs with pseudoscientific jargon about the evils of “gynocentrism.”
The AVFM writer most fond of this pompous gibberish is current AVFM editor Peter Wright — former head asshole editor Elam deserted his own site some time ago.
Let’s take a quick look at Mr. Wright’s latest post on AVFM with the decidedly non-clickbaity title “GAMMA BIAS IN THE MAINTENANCE OF GYNOCENTRISM.” Here’s a sample paragraph from it:
Gamma bias entails the interrelation of two concurrent biases: alpha bias (exaggerating or magnifying gender differences) and beta bias (ignoring or minimizing gender differences). Gamma bias occurs when one gender difference is minimized while simultaneously another is magnified, resulting in a doubling of the cognitive distortion.2
Thrilling stuff there.
Maybe AVFM needs to go back to calling women “bitches” again, as that sort of nastiness seems to be the only thing that ever brought visitors to the site.
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I too, have a distinct preference to use big and superficial words in long and convoluted monologues with unusual sentence structure in an effort to appear or otherwise give the impression that I possess significantly more intellectual prowess than I actually do in an objective sense of reality.
It doesn’t work for me much better than this guy, but I think I have the edge.
@.45: Yours was way more understandable. And not as stupid.
Mr. Wright, no woman is going to decide that your sorry, whining self is Mr. Wright.
So basically Mr. Wrights believes that in conversation about dimorphism women’s specificities are downplayed while those of men are exaggerated. That’s not called a Gamma bias of course and it already has a name, but when you don’t know it you have to invent something to put the concept into word. It’s basically just a selection bias. What AVFM is very famous for though is drowning in a sea of hostile attribution biases and self-serving biases.
I can’t be alone in thinking this was going to be a rant about She-Hulk, can I?
@kev
Isn’t She-Hulk some sort of male masturbatory fantasy?
@epronovost
She-Hulk is about as much a “male masturbation fantasy” as Wonder Woman.
She’s a bit of a lawyers’ fantasy.
“Lawyering is 90% conversations and 10% beating up robots.”
@runsinbackground:
She-Hulk is about as much a “male masturbation fantasy” as Wonder Woman.
What fascinates me about Wonder Woman is that she’s managed to be a feminist icon while serving as a coatrack for William Moulton Marston’s lengthy shopping list of kinks (and a crucial point is that she got out of all those fanserviceable predicaments, through her own strength, determination, and ingenuity and/or with the help of her squadron of sisters.)
I mean, the entire concept of a dominatrix should be enough to show that ‘strong woman’ and ‘masturbatory fantasy’ are far from unrelated categories for a significant chunk of the male populace, without requiring any particular debasement of the woman in question.
See also ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and later revelations about Joss Whedon for how this doesn’t necessarily mean anything particularly positive, of course.
Agreed with Alan about how she can be a bit of a lawyer’s fantasy; after all, here you have someone nearly impossible to intimidate and who, through the magic of being the protagonist of the story, generally manages to come out on top through brains at least as often as brawn.
(YouTube channel ‘LegalEagle’ had a video where he discussed the new She-Hulk show from a legal reality standpoint; haven’t actually watched that one yet myself, but am absolutely not surprised he did it given some of the other videos of his that I’ve watched.)
(Further digression: I used to play a superhero tabletop RPG called ‘Champions’ back in University; in one game my character the telepath was also the team’s lawyer. I ended up arguing with one of the other players while pointing out that, in a world where superpowers and particularly mental powers had been known about for decades, of course there was going to be case law for things like using mind control as assault or mind reading as an invasion of privacy. The Game Master sided with me on that.)
She Hulk’s origin story is that she worked at a ‘biglaw’ firm, clocked up 2600 billable hours yet still didn’t make Associate because she hadn’t brought in enough new clients at networking events.
Ask any biglaw attorney or solicitor how relatable that is.
Not that I’m a psychologist, but there is some validity in gamma bias. It’s a concept that’s been discussed since 2019. Both men and women can have gamma bias. The AVM article might have been inelegantly expressed, with highfalutin words, but a bit of research (a whole 5 minutes on Google), can clear up what the author was trying to say. That said, there is no way to wipe away the tarnish of AVM (or any organization) that uses hateful language to disparage anyone. Conversely, the “C” word need not be spelled out (by wehuntedmammoths). Seriously dude, do a global search and replace, to remove all of those hateful words — your message is diminished when they are used, even if you are using them as references from another source.
Years ago on Freethoughtblogs, there was a regular commenter named Portia who was a lawyer and volunteer firefighter.
One time she mentioned some lawsuit in a comment, and my brain briefly glitched and interpreted “lawsuit” as some kind of professional gear for lawyers. I mean not like a conventional suit, but rather something like a jumpsuit.
@jbrell
The two are not equivalent. When David quotes the entire “c” word, he does so in a context of supporting women. When A Voice for Men calls women the “c” word, I know it’s because the writer fears and hates women.
@jbrell
But does this gamma bias hypothesis hold water?
@jbrell: I hope someone can help you unclutch your pearls and help you down off that very tall equine. That’d leave you free to push up your nerd glasses and declare “Well aksually”
@Alan: Think how much quicker She-Hulk could help you win cases! Even without being a Hulk, she’s a good lawyer. Though M’lud might have to caution her not to become big and green without good cause.
I am really tickled at the thought of Miss Lilibet being both. I expect not at the same time; she’d probably have to give up one of her citizenships. Would certainly be quite the role model for girls! But dear God… TWO sets of politicians to deal with?
Large words and pseudo scientific terms doesn’t make your point valid. There is another account on twitter that spams crap like this @tellyoursonthis.