We Hunted the Mammoth: The FAQ-ening
Q) A mammoth, huh? What’s this blog about?
A) Misogyny, not mammoths.
Specifically, this blog focuses on what I call the “New Misogyny,” an angry antifeminist backlash that has emerged like a boil on the ass of the internet over the last decade or so. These aren’t your traditional misogynists – the social conservatives and religious fundamentalists who make up much of the far right.
These are guys, mostly, who range in age from their teens to their fifties, who have embraced misogyny as an ideology, as a sort of symbolic solution to the frustrations in their lives – whether financial, social, or sexual.
Some of them identify as Men’s Rights Activists, trying to cast their peculiar struggle against what they see as the excess of feminism and the advantages of women as a civil rights issue of sorts. Alongside those who explicitly label themselves MRAs we find a great number of antifeminist and antiwomen activists we might call Men’s Rights-adjacent – like those in the Skeptic and Atheist subcultures who still haven’t gotten over an offhand remark Skepchick founder Rebecca Watson made about a dude in an elevator a couple of years ago.
Others proclaim themselves Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), declaring a sort of independence from women – while spending much of their time on message boards talking endlessly about them.
Still others see themselves as Pickup Artists (PUA), or masters of “Game,” espousing elaborate “scientific” theories of male superiority while trading tips on how best to pressure or manipulate drunk women into bed. This misogynistic wing of the PUA subculture has a considerable overlap with a subset of traditionalist and far-right blogs. Many of those in what has come to be called “the manosphere” — hey, don’t blame me, I didn’t come up with that name — don’t simply embrace misogyny; they also proudly embrace “scientific” racism and other bigotries.
Still, while some of the New Misogynists see themselves as conservatives, even “neo-reactionaries,” many identify themselves as libertarians or even as liberals. Theirs is a backlash that frames itself as a step forward.
That said, there are numerous posts here that don’t have anything to do with MRAs or MGTOWers or PUAs or any of their ilk. Sometimes I like to post cat pics.
Q) Ok, but you still haven’t explained the mammoth thing.
A) This is a reference to a quote I once posted from a dude who felt women weren’t sufficiently appreciative of what men had supposedly done for them over the ages. Here’s the quote, in all of its weird glory:
We men built a nice safe world for you all the the coal-mines of death, roads, railroads, bridges and tall office buildings. Its $1,000,000 spent per death of a man on a large dangerous project on average now you can just 9-5 it and call it a day in air-conditioned and heated safety. Forget about the wars we died in and the sacrifices made just ignore history or is it now hersorty? You are accruing the benefits without ever having to pay the price you still don’t have to sign up for the draft and who will protect you? The Sex and the City girls will fight off the North Koreans with their Manolo Blahniks?
Men gave you this modern world now you take it for granted we hunted the mammoth to feed you we died in burning buildings and were gassed in the trenches but that was just for fun right?
How quick and conveniently you forget who made this possible.
We gave you Leonardo da Vinci, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy not to mention countless others, Jonas Salk saved half the world from death and you just piss on it all.
This quote is such an amazing clusterfuck of misogyny, entitlement and unwarranted self-importance – not to mention historical ignorance – that the bit about mammoths became a catchphrase around here, neatly conveying pretty much everything this blog is against. And so I decided to make it the name of the blog.
Q) And who exactly are you?
A) David Futrelle. I’m a freelance writer and blogger living in Evanston, IL, and the guy behind the Confused Cats Against Feminism blog. For more on my illustrious career, see the David Futrelle FAQ.
Q) You’re against the Men’s Rights movement. Are you against men having rights?
A) Of course not. As hundreds of posts on this site show pretty clearly, the so-called Men’s Rights Movement is a hateful, reactionary movement driven largely by misogyny and hatred of feminism. It doesn’t help men. It encourages them to scapegoat women and stew in their own bitterness.
Q) Are you secretly funded by the international feminist conspiracy?
A) No. I’m not funded by any organization. Some readers have very kindly given me donations. You can too, if you wish.
Q) What’s with all the cat pictures?
A) I like cats.
Three classes? That’s all you have to take to be an expert?
Woah. I totally got duped by undergrad studies. I totally should have graduated my first semester! On the bright side, since I’m a level 100 expert in all the things, I suppose I can just stop stressing about the grad school apps I’ve been procrastinating on by playing around at EMS/firefighting…
… Super fun, but this temp job is still so the procrastination.
Thanks, dude! I’ll just go work on publishing all my expert thoughts on economics, and try and add in some physics for flavor since I totally rock those subjects by the three class bar!
(Warning, above may have contained trace amounts of sarcasm)
I’m not gonna even bother with catching up more fully, because work in the morning, but if I have motivation tomorrow after shift change we might get busy with some bio and stats nerdery.
Or not. I still kinda want to hibernate, because it’s been a super long week.
Where’s marinerachel at these days, by the way? She’s also pretty good with the bio nerdery, even though neither of us are anthro-folks. Chronic lurker’s got anthro, if I recall.
Me no anthro. I’m not even going to claim a smidge. All I got was enough from multidisciplinary papers and one class was enough to know I know zilch.
http://media.giphy.com/media/imJROsRKwBdeg/giphy.gif
I saw what you did there, PoM.
Wow. That troll was… argh. He made me feel guilty for being a wordsalading tealdearing overintellectual white guy.
Hey, troll? That’s my schtick. Come back when you have your own.
@kirbywarp
Since this hasn’t been brought up yet
1. If people are clam at first and then grow irritated, it’s likely to produce pearls of wisdom. (rimshot)
2. I really want to meet some of the clam at first people.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
@maistrechat:
If you see people that are clam at first, but soon grow irritted and then begin shouting, you might be a seagull at lunch time. What are you doing on the internet, seagull?
You are completely delusional. Why do you think women deserve exalted status? Do you know what ‘equality’ actually means?
Kevin – You’ll probably discover the mob soon enough. This is a good place to observe crowd psychology in action.
In short, part of their belief system comes down to the idea that equality of outcomes must be the result of equality of opportunity. This is the part which is, at least, is somewhat factual and goes with the idea that if a popular is 52% female, then in a “fair world”, all careers should be 52% female. There are a variety of reasons why the concept is odd, but its at least within some objective thought.
And then there are the ideas that ’empathy’ saves the world. Can’t speak to that. Random rainbows also are needed.
Oh, Seven Hells. Arkenstone is back? Still trying to mansplain the social sciences to people who are more knowledgeable about the subject.
As a bonus he’s trying out right wing talking points about the horrors of justice and equality, and from the snide comment about rainbows, is likely pissy about the marriage equality ruling.
Yawn and yawn.
The trolling is getting more banal than ever.
Only proof so far I’ve seen is that you’re better at making up words. Good marks for creativity there.
Proof of what?
Yup, we have such a hive mind! We always agree with what we all say, because it was all what we were thinking! We don’t ever fight about anything ever!
[/sarcasm]
Here to regurgitate old feminist stereotypes again? Silly thing. Katie says you’re full of snot.
Yeah, because everyone deserves a chance to try out. Everyone deserves a shot to do what they want with their life as long as it harms none and doesn’t actively keep anyone down.
There are systems in place to keep women, PoC, queer people, and other folks who fall outside of “Straight, white, cisgendered, Christian Male” don’t get a lot of the same chances, and a lot of that is due to stereotyping based on bigotry that’s really ingrained in our culture.
…and it didn’t take you long to willfully twist what we said.
Please point out where we said that every job should have 52% women. I’ll bet you five bucks you can’t.
We’re not saying that every company/job/career needs to have some sort of “woman quota”, because that goes from being fair to being tokenism really fucking quickly. What we’re saying is that women should have the same chances of applying for jobs and being seriously considered as men do.
And the same goes for any other oppressed group.
I really have no idea where you get the idea that because we want equal opportunities, you think that we feel like we should be in over half the jobs in the world. I don’t see any correlation to what we said we want, and what you interpreted it as.
Unless it stems from the highly misguided notion that “the best people for the job get the job”, which is bullshit.
Empathy won’t save the world, but it’ll make it a less shitty place to live. Maybe you should try it sometime. Perhaps it’ll make you into less of a smug bastard.
And rainbows are fucking cool. What do you have against rainbows? What did rainbows ever do to you?
Are you a group of psychology students?
@Paradoxical
RAINBOWS KILLED HIS FATHER, OKAY? RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM.
THEN IT LOOKED AT HIM, SMILING, AND WHISPERED, “All careers should be 52% women to become a,” THE RAINBOW AIRQUOTED, THE BLOOD FROM THE KNIFE DRIPPING ALL OVER THE PLACE BECAUSE THAT RAINBOW WAS A RUDE MOTHERFUCKER, “‘fair world’.”
IT THEN FARTED OFF INTO THE SKY, SMELLING OF CAT URINE AND SPINSTERS.
“Feminists,” ARKENSTONE HISSED, GROOMING HIS WORM-LIKE TAIL BEFORE THEY STARTED TO CHEW ON A NEARBY TREE TO FILE DOWN HIS TEETH.
THAT’S WHEN ARKENSTONE VOWED VENGEANCE, VENGEANCE THROUGH TROLLING FORUMS, BECAUSE ANNOYING FEMINISTS IS THE ULTIMATE REVENGE.
REVENGE!
REEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEENGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAHHAAAAAAAGAGAGAGAGAHAHAHAHAHAHAGHAGSHSGDASGFJHASDFKGASDJKFGSDF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You guise! Stop mocking Arkenstone! Don’t you realise? It’s been a few whole days since he was last here. We know that Arkenstone can become the master of a subject just by taking a few classes in it. If he worked hard over the last few days, he could potentially know everything.
Teach us, O Master. What subjects have you become an expert in whilst we were wasting our time celebrating Pride?
He spent a lot of time on Wikipedia. That’s like having a doctorate in everything, right?
Please point out where we said that every job should have 52% women. I’ll bet you five bucks you can’t.
Oh, its pretty commonly used as a notion. For example:
“At Clark College, only 15 percent of the 267 students taking an engineering class spring quarter are women. Of the 117 students enrolled in at least one computer science course, only 14 percent are women, according to Clark College research analyst Susan Maxwe”
Not hard to find, btw.
I like that, though – those are hard numbers, and numbers can be worked with, argued, debated and are ultimately objective. Metrics are great; and that is what I had originally meant by what is scientific. Whether I agree or disagree, numbers allow something actually meaningful to be expressed.
Who may or may not think I am full of “snot”, on the other hand, is an example of something meaningless. An alien by the name of E. Baum may think that we are full of worms, but it really doesn’t matter.
Empathy won’t save the world, but it’ll make it a less shitty place to live. Maybe you should try it sometime. Perhaps it’ll make you into less of a smug bastard.
And where it is useful and applicable, it is great. Understanding what other people are thinking or how they react to things can be very useful sometimes; and at other times, hilariously pointless.
I’m smug? Cool. It matters in some aspects, but not in others. You may, for example, feel that guns are useless and horses are awesome, and the confirmation bias will reinforce that. But when you send your guys to charge those pesky machine gun nests, they’ll die. Empathy has nothing to do with that. Physics, and the rapid loss of blood pressure do.
Unless it stems from the highly misguided notion that “the best people for the job get the job”, which is bullshit.
And that is a fundamental, amusing cultural difference.
While I do not believe the “best people for the job get the job” universally, conflict in particular shows how certain things are more effective than others. The losers get destroyed – so if their way worked better, it would have not failed. Its not as much about “empathy” as it is about efficiency; this repeatedly happens in history and it is a great example of how meritocracy, while hardly perfectly consistent, does relatively work.
My culture is so vastly different that I do observe this with smug amusement.
I’m not American, or white, despite the prevailing assumption – although I do live in America. I come from a culture where people kill themselves for not making a specific test score; and whatever China may be said to be oppressive toward “human rights”, “women” or the “environment”, its quite successful on an objective level. We were /destroyed/ by the world, and now we’re one of the major players – and all it took was the willingness to kill millions of our own people.
So in summation, all of this can be answered in the same way as I was taught when someone asked a friend of mine about human rights:
“Is there some idea in the west that people are born and that gives them certain expectations to life and fairness? Cool. Must be nice to have those ideas, and that imaginary sky father to. We have to work.”
Holy shit, is Trollenstone still obsessing, and still waving his WikiDick around?
Oh, no, wait, now he’s quoting sources without giving citations. That’s what all the Real Scientists do, and it’s certainly not something he learned at the University of Wikipedia because that would have a big [citation needed] tag on it there. Nope, he must have developed that habit at his Big Name Business School, where they apparently teach students to plagiarize when they aren’t teaching them that Wikipedia is tots legit and a completely credible source.
What I don’t understand is how those stats prove that we think 52% of women should have the jobs. It’s pointing out how less than 15% of women are in engineering and 14% is in computer engineering.
If anything, it’s part of some data that’s proving the disparity between “men” subjects and “women” subjects. Math, computers, engineering will have more men while arts, social studies, whatever will have more women.
That data proves nothing on what they’re trying to prove.
Not to Godwin, but at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nazi apologia. Something like “sure, they were genocidal, but they had the superior engineers and scientists, so they’re all good!”
Also, how is that people keep claiming that meritocracy works when there’s never, at least to my knowledge been a meritocracy? What culture has ever been completely free of biases? Who defines what merit is, anyway? Is it intelligence? Work ethic? Social skills? Altruism? Looks? Able bodiedness? People who claim to love meritocracy always seem to have a circular logic. If someone is successful they must have merit. If someone has merit they will be successful. Arkenstone is really wearing his just world fallacy on his sleeve here.
Areknstone, I had no idea it was possible to be aggressively boring. That’s the only thing I’ve learned from you so far.
So you don’t think those numbers need some analysis as to the reason why? You’re absolutely comfortable with the current explanation? Fine. Feminists aren’t completely comfortable with the current explanation and wonder if there might be some other reason. Why do you find that so threatening?
I mean,
http://dlisted.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/flowercatgif2.gif
On the subject of meritocracy:
http://wondermark.com/c1135/
So you don’t think those numbers need some analysis as to the reason why?
Nope.
Numbers are entirely worth analysis. Outcomes are entirely worth study; there’s absolutely nothing wrong in wondering why things are the way they are, and accepting the current status quo as fact doesn’t serve any good.
There’s nothing at all threatening about researching into how things can be; should be, or why it is it.
The notion of randomly setting policy based on limited hypothesis is where it becomes increasingly weird and reactionary. When belief turns into passion which self-drives further belief and things become increasingly distanced from evidence, that’s when it is genuinely dangerous. Its effectively the same as religious fervor then.
But in and of itself, I think its incredibly valuable to question why things are the way they are.
If someone is successful they must have merit. If someone has merit they will be successful
Therein is the fundamental truth of an adversarial system, though. If something has less merit than another, it loses. Thus why in nature when two animal populations come into contact and one rapidly loses population and territory, I don’t believe the argument is ever to look into, ethically, why one is less successful than the other. Its just to see why, and if a desire is expressed to preserve a population, then how.
Everything must be Godwinned, evidently, so: if the Nazis had won WW2, they would have been right, of course. Victors write history and all those platitudes. Mao Zedong once wrote “all law comes from the barrel of a gun.”
This is fundamentally true. Legitimacy is a function of how accepted it is, not of anything else(although getting accepted requires some interesting consequences). The Silician Mafia, for example, is perceived as very legitimate in certain parts of Italy and there are easily worse examples of oppression out there.
Legitimacy is a function of winning. Winning is a function of “merit.” The Nazis didn’t lose because they were evil; they lost because they had 55 million people and lacked internal sources of oil.
A lot of “evil” policies are inefficient and weaken the society they are in. Consequentially this impacts their ability to both project, and protect themselves.
Victory justifies itself. Its an essential truth.
TIL that our troll doesn’t comprehend “circular reasoning.” Not sure why I needed to know that, but here we are.
TI also L that the Nazis lost because they didn’t have enough oil reserves. The massive clusterfuck that was the invasion of the USSR was completely irrelevant, you guys! If only Hitler had been sitting on a sufficiently-big pool of oil, that totally would have worked! Truly, our troll is a finely-honed political mind, and we should all kneel at his WikiFeet.
You need to remove yourself from society, today. Go into the mountains and do the hermit thing, for the rest of your life. Society doesn’t need you. You are social cancer.