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a woman is always to blame all about the menz antifeminism crackpottery entitled babies evil fat fatties homophobia men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men patriarchy playing the victim reddit

#GamerGate Showdown! The Lavender Menace vs. the Somewhat Socially Awkward Young Men

In the future, young men will be forced to play all video games as Fat Lara Croft.
In the future, young men will be forced to play all video games as Fat Lara Croft.

The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!

Of all the loopy manifestos that this whole #GamerGate fiasco has inspired, I think this loopy manifesto, posted several days ago to the Men’s Rights subreddit to a smattering of upvotes, is probably my favorite.

Take it away, trudatness:

Think about what really went down in gaming journalism – not on the micro level, but on the macro level.

The most left-wing journalism companies happily filled the gaming journalism void. Think about it…

The most virulent lavender menace feminist laced industry on the planet began covering an industry whose target audience was comprised of somewhat socially awkward young men.

Hey what could go wrong?

Answer: Everything.

Woah, hate to be a stickler for stuff that actually makes sense, but if you’re going to use a homophobic slur to describe your opponents, make sure you pick the correct homophobic slur. The phrase “lavender menace” originated as an insult aimed at lesbians in the feminist movement; the term was later reclaimed by lesbian feminists. Whether as as a slur or as an honorific, I’m pretty sure the term is not a terribly apt description of the dude-dominated world of video game journalism, as dudes cannot actually be lesbians.

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a new woman to hate a woman is always to blame antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? bullying douchebaggery doxing entitled babies evil women gamebros geek girls irony alert mantrum men who should not ever be with imaginary women ever men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny no games for girls no girls allowed no trolls allowed oppressed men revenge of the nerds sexual harassment

You'll never guess what misogynistic gamebros did to these two women in gaming! (HINT: Drove them out.)

Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.
Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

Congratulations, assholes! You did it! Your threats and harassment have driven game journalist/designer Jenn Frank and game designer/media critic Mattie Brice to leave the gaming world.

Frank, an award-winning writer and sometime game designer, came to the attention of the misogynist mob after writing a brief opinion piece for The Guardian decrying the widespread and vicious harassment of women in gaming. In addition to writing about the harassment she’s gotten — including someone trying to hack into her email account — she (as you might expect) also highlighted the misogynistic rage directed at feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and indie game designer Zoe Quinn.

The new rule seems to be that any woman who writes about online harassment will herself be harassed, and in this case it didn’t take long.

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antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? boner rage creepy entitled babies evil messy ladies evil sexy ladies female beep boop gamebros homophobia imaginary oppression incoherent rage men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA no games for girls no girls allowed oppressed men penises playing the victim post contains jokes reddit SJWs

Gamebro Redditor laments: "I'm not going to get the job … Cause I'm a penis, and that's all I am."

How women get ahead in the workplace, according to men who hate women
How women get ahead in the workplace, according to men who hate women and don’t know shit about anything

A bitter gamebro wandered into the Men’s Rights subreddit last night to deposit an angry little manifesto on the evils of women and Social Justice Warriors. He didn’t get a terribly friendly reception from the regulars — last I checked he’d been voted down to zero — but his manifesto is such a classic example of self-pitying gamebro misogyny that I sort of felt obliged to bring it to you all here.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let’s begin.

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Men's Rights Redditor: Let's convince the world that we aren't violent by sending feminists bloody feathers

Hat of choice for the discerning Men's Rights Activist
Hat of choice for the discerning Men’s Rights Activist

Men’s Rights Activists have become known, not without reason, as belligerent assholes whose main forms of “activism” consist of harassment and threats.

One bold Men’s Rights Redditor known as El Rellok thinks he’s come up with a way to counteract this perception and deliver a powerful men’s-rightsty message at the same time.

He wants MRAs to send feminists … pictures of bloody feathers. No, really.

Now, to most people, getting a bloody feather in your email inbox would seem to be the digital equivalent of having a bloody horse’s head left in your bed. But in El Rellok’s world it is a rational and reasonable way to express “outrage” at feminist evil, and anyone who might possibly think otherwise is by definition unreasonable.

Let’s let him explain, because I certainly can’t explain how sending pictures of bloody feathers to someone you hate could be construed as anything but threatening:

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a woman is always to blame antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? bullying drama kings grandiosity harassment lying liars men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny oppressed men

4Chan gamebros raise a sockpuppet army: "For extra class, present yourselves as normal people."

4Chan rallies the troops
4Chan rallies the troops

Over on 4chan, angry gamebros are organizing a vast wave of Twitter, er, ” activism” to SAVE VIDYA GAMES from the evil fake gamer girls and their Social Justice Warrior allies.

According to one anon, who’s been posting this message into numerous threads, the best way to fight “journalistic corruption” in the gaming world is to … set up fraudulent sockpuppet accounts on Twitter to make it look like there’s a groundswell of opposition to the evil game ladies.

We campaigned against journalistic corruption; we were told that gamers are dead. Both lawfag and marketingfag told you to flood the pax hashtags as it would get the attention of their advertisers. You now have the opportunity to save vidya and get the average person on your side.  Why are you not doing shit /v/? GET OUT THERE AND FLOOD THE HASHTAGS. Here is a quick guide: >1) Make a gmail throwaway if you don't want it linked to your main email. >2) Make a testing tweet and choose an appealing description of your account. >3) Make a few tweets proclaiming your newness. >4) Make a few tweets about #GamerGate. >5) Increase your visibility by following people -- search the #GamerGate tag and follow people you like. Remember, you're legit new, so at least some should follow you back. >6) FOLLOW THE PEOPLE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THESE PEOPLE. Chances are some of these are your fellow anons, so with luck we can increase our follow counts. >7) Continue tweeting about the cause with the pax hashtags (#PAX #PAXPrime) with the #GamerGate tag. >8) Seach the hashtag, favorite and retweet supporting tweets. That's the star icon. Get your anons to the top. >9) If you get stuck with zero followers. Reply to someone, chime in that you agree with them. But don't argue on this step. Let them do that if they want to do that. >If you are confronted, remain calm, don't lose your spaghetti, and be the better person. Explain that this is not about girls being victimized, it is about the vilification of gamers and jounalistic integrity in the media. >For extra class, present yourselves as normal people who sjws by their own standards should sympathize with, like an indian cab driver who can't read traffic signs. (this requires extensive shitposting experience.)

If that’s a bit hard to read, here’s the text, with some bolding for emphasis added by me. The bits at the end are my favorite.

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a woman is always to blame all about the menz antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? atheism minus entitled babies evil women excusing abuse geek girls girl germs harassment hypocrisy imaginary oppression irony alert men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA no games for girls no girls allowed one hundred upvotes oppressed men reddit women in tech

Men's Rights Activists: Video gaming should be a "safe space" for male nerds.

No girls allowed!
Safe space! No girls allowed!

Though Men’s Rights activists devote an enormous amount of their time denouncing feminism – or at least the imaginary version of feminism that exists only in their own heads – they’re happy to appropriate feminist concepts when it suits them. One that many MRAs seem especially eager to claim for themselves is the idea of the “safe space.”

Of course, their version of the “safe space” bears only a slight resemblance to the feminist original. Feminists seek to create spaces for discussion in which say, rape survivors can discuss their experiences without being triggered by insensitive arguers and trolls and mansplainers in general.

When MRAs talk about “safe spaces,” by contrast, their goal is often to exclude women not just from discussion spaces but from full participation in society, essentially declaring giant arenas of work and play, from STEM fields to video games, to be places where feminists, and women in general, should fear to tread.

And so it’s hardly surprising that more than a few MRAs are arguing that the Zoe Quinn “scandal” proves that women and gaming don’t mix – or, at least, that they shouldn’t.

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a new woman to hate a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism antifeminist women entitled babies evil moms evil women harassment hypocrisy irony alert kitties men who should not ever be with women ever misandry misogyny MRA oppressed men paul elam playing the victim straw feminists the c-word whores why can't men punch women?

Are Men's Rights Activists incapable of understanding irony — or are they just pretending?

You can buy your own Misogyny Bunch pillow for only $19.19 at the A Voice for Men store.
Goodnight, Paul! You can buy your own Misogyny Bunch pillow for only $19.19 at A Voice for Men’s Red Pill store.

Let me take a moment to ignore my regular readers and speak directly to the Men’s Rights Activists who might be reading this blog. I suspect there are a few.

What I would like to talk to you about it ironic humor. Because, here’s the thing, sometimes people say things they don’t actually believe in order to make a little fun at the way other people see them.

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antifeminism empathy deficit hundreds of upvotes imaginary backwards land mansplaining men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men reddit that's completely wrong

Men's Rights Redditors agree: "It was empathy not misogyny that kept women from having careers."

Girl totally protected from the harsh world of work by nice men.
Girl totally protected from the harsh world of work by nice men.

Once upon a time, you may recall, women were denied the right to vote, couldn’t own property, were prevented from having careers of their own. Well, it turns out that all of these pesky “restrictions” weren’t really restrictions at all! They were protections that men provided women out of the goodness of their hearts. Men protected women from the terrible burdens of voting and property-owning and so forth, because they just cared about women so much.

Or at least that’s what a lot of Men’s Rights Activists seem to think, judging from this highly edifying discussion in the Men’s Rights subreddit.

rogersmith25 325 points 1 day ago  As I read /r/mensrights[1] more and more, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the primary female privilege is empathy.  If a woman or girl is hurt, people care. If women are kidnapped, there is international media attention. If women are killed, their deaths are highlighted. If there is a conflict between a man and a woman, then people will jump in to defend the woman. If women are under-represented in an area, people want to take action to make things "equal".  If a man is hurt, it's funny. If men are kidnapped, we hear silence. If men are killed, their deaths are glossed over. If there is a conflict between a man and a woman, people will attack the man. If men are under-represented in an area, the president will call it a "victory" (as he did regarding the female majority in colleges).  Basically, people are programmed to have more empathy for women than men. 200 years ago, that empathy manifested itself in keeping women safe from harm by having them stay home to raise the family rather than die on battlefields or toil in mines. It was empathy not misogyny that kept women from having careers. Present-day, work is safe in offices, so today we have campaigns for women to earn more money and yet have more "balanced" lives where they can both raise a family and earn an "equal" career and, in other words, "have it all".      permalink     save     report     give gold     reply  [–]sierranevadamike 82 points 23 hours ago  wow... as a history major, I never looked at the "repression" of women throughout history as empathy rather than misogyny. I NEVER considered this option..  blew my mind..  thank youDroppaMaPants 45 points 22 hours ago  Restricting women to vote, hold property, etc. etc. would be a downside to the bad old days - but women always had empathy as a benefit.  Now that the bad old days are behind us, women maintained their old privilege and now hold disproportionate sway over men because of it.

 

It wasn’t just sierranevadamike who was “blown away” by rogersmith25’s comment: the Men’s Rights mods were so impressed that they reposted it and pinned it as the top post in their subreddit.

Apparently every day is “Opposite Day” on the Men’s Rights subreddit.

EDIT: Here, courtesy of Cloudiah, some more pictures of girls and women protected from that big nasty world out there.

 

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Harassing feminists for expressing their condolences for Robin Williams: Men’s Rights Activism at its finest

Another victory for Men’s Rights activism!

The guy who posted this was so proud of his work here that he pinned this Tweet to the top of his Twitter home page.

Naturally, he went after Jessica Valenti for the same, er, crime.

MRAs are so convinced that feminists hate men that when feminists express their genuine sorrow about a man’s suicide it doesn’t occur to MRAs to perhaps reconsider some of their beliefs about feminism. No, they’d rather use it as an excuse to attack individual feminist women.

Speaking of which, here’s how the  folks at A Voice for Men are mourning the death of Robin Williams — with a supremely nasty and opportunistic attack on Valenti.

More on Valenti in a bit.

 

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The Book of Laughter and Castration

Some gals are afraid that people are going to laugh at them.
Actually, some gals are afraid that people are going to laugh at them.

Listening in on conversations amongst Men’s Rights Activists is often like taking a brief journey into an alternate universe, where cats are dogs and water is dry and men are the most oppressed creatures on planet earth.

Over in the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day, some of the regulars seem to have just discovered a famous feminist quotation, a paraphrase of something Margaret Atwood once wrote:

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

A number of the Men’s Rights Redditors were indignant that anyone could possibly suggest that women have more to fear from men than the other way around. And so, collectively, they came up with a rebuttal of sorts.

OneBigCosmicHorror began by suggesting that the real fear men have of women is much more primal:

OneBigCosmicHorror 17 points 6 days ago  I don't know who first said this, but that person is obviously an idiot. The biggest male fear is not a fear that women will laugh at us. Fear of castration will always be the most primal male-specific fear.

Ah, but isn’t being laughed at basically the same as castration?

indigoanasazi 2 points 6 days ago  Being laughed at is -social- castration.

Indigoanasazi explained:

indigoanasazi 3 points 6 days ago  Well, it's more like...the psychological fear of castration is a fear of loss of social status.  After all, women are afforded social status by default due to their value to society as childbearers.  Men have to compete to gain any status, so when approaching a woman, there is a risk of status loss.  The fear of castration is a metaphor for male status. Men have to fight to be considered men. And it can be lost and taken away by something as trivial as a woman spreading rumors or humiliating you.

Oh, you silly ladies with your fears of being killed by men. We men face an even greater peril — the ever-present threat of laugh-castration!