In an open thread over at Feminist Critics*, Commenter AndreaK quotes with disapproval a question she saw somewhere
“The #YesAllWomen thread raises an important question: Why do so many men behave so poorly?”
That question is itself a sly inversion. Quite a lot of the “poor behavior” is exactly the kind of sexual aggression young men report at the hands of women. They report women running their hands along their shoulders – absolute strangers – they report women grabbing their crotches, making lewd comments, report that they are expected t be grateful for all this, that they get all kinds of gay-shaming and accusations of misogyny if they demur – and absolutely none of this is called harassment. They report that they get no hearing at all, they get laughed at and told they should feel lucky.
So the question is, what does #Yesallwomen tell us about [white] female privilege.
Sexist Double Standards: What does it tell us about sexist double standards as to what constitutes harassment, what does it tell us about women’s sense of sexual entitlement to men’s bodies, what does it tell us about women’s claim on sympathy and protection that men do not have?
Empathy Apartheid: What does it tells us about the superior position of women in this society that women feel safe talking publicly about their victimization, where men will be shouted down, gay-shamed, privilege-silenced and have their gender identity called into question if they even try to speak up?
When you are in actual fear of someone, do you go around broadcasting that fear? No, because you know the person you fear will use that information against you, that information will tell that enemy how effective her efforts are so far, and she can ramp them up. So you hide that fear, if it is real, unless you expect help and protection from some other quarter. And if you can expect no help and protection, you hide that fear.
I wonder how much a black woman can expect in the way of sympathy when she gets harassed on the street, how likely she is to go public with that information. I wonder how recently the police and prosecutors in this country started investigating rapes of black women and actually prosecuting them, and how these women’s experiences with that differ from those of white women.
You don’t breathe a word to anybody, and everybody goes around saying that if there really is a problem, why are they not hearing anything about it? And at that point you are in the world of sexual violence statistics and research and cultural conventional wisdom about who the victims of sexual harassment and violence are and are not.
Misandry and objectification of men: The standard deflection is that this is just the workings of the Patriarchy, so it’s self-inflicted pain. So there’s the objectification of men right there, the borgification of men into a single entity inflicting patriarchal oppression on itself. The patriarchy hurts men too. And when a feminist deploys this line of rebuttal, she shows she is complicit in the patriarchy. I have yet to see it used as a rallying call for women to start defending men against women’s sexual violence.
White Lady Tears: There is another question that hashtag brings up. It would be interesting to look at the demographics of the women posting there. Are they really “all women” or are they the usual over-privileged young white women who see oppression everywhere and bewail their victimization to support their privilege? Is this just yet another effusion of “white lady tears”? It this yet another instance of white feminism’s recurring problem of racist erasure of non-white women, or of young white women presuming to speak for all women? I wonder how this trust that an appeal to the pity of society would look to anyone who is not a white women of a certain income level, or someone whose whole gender identity revolves around cherishing and defending white women’s well-being?
The privilege discourse: Does anyone really think any of these so-called privileges these women enjoy are really privileges? Aren’t they really rights? Isn’t this how members of a community are supposed to be treated when they are harmed or even just feel harmed, that they can get a sympathetic hearing and some help? What these are is male “disprivileges” if you insist on the p-word, rights that are denied males.
This is the problem with the whole SJ version of “privilege”. It conflates simple advantages, inherited advantages (Yes, I am going to care about my kids more than you and pass what I have to them, not yours – get over it. No, I am not going to treat all children equally.), basic civil rights, such as the right to what you earn, that all citizens should have but some are denied, and finally what can fairly be called privileges. i.e advantages granted by some external power. “Privilege” conflates all of these and is so sloppy a concept that the sloppiness look almost intentional.
*http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2014/04/11/an-open-thread-full-of-huskies-and-hoops-noh/
- The Woman Card - May 2, 2016
- Frat boy bachelorettes and the invasion of gay bars - April 15, 2016
- “Not my kid….” - February 22, 2016
by 
Good insights Ginkgo. I detest the concept of privilege for some of the reasons you mention. Typically what is referred to as privilege is only one side of a coin the other side of which is responsibility. In discussions of Marxist/Feminist defined class privilege the responsibility is often disregarded or denied. Only the advantage is examined and not the cost which is why these concepts are conflated. True privilege exists without cost and is/can only be granted on the basis of a demographic feature.
You ask whether one has a right to empathy or sympathy from others.
“Does anyone really think any of these so-called privileges these women enjoy are really privileges? Aren’t they really rights? Isn’t this how members of a community are supposed to be treated when they are harmed or even just feel harmed, that they can get a sympathetic hearing and some help?”
While it would be nice to think of this as a right, no person actually has a right to be treated in any particular way by someone else. Elliot Rodger thought he had a right to certain types of treatment from women and from men. This was really a sense of entitlement. He had no such right. I am not arguing morality here, only that I have no right to expect you to treat me in any particular way, regardless of my actions or circumstance.
“While it would be nice to think of this as a right, no person actually has a right to be treated in any particular way by someone else. ”
This depends on the definition of what a right is. If you take the position that rights are God-given and inhere inherent to individuals, then no, that is not a right.
I don’t hold with that definition because, for one thing, I’m a Christian, and Jesus preached the Kingdom of God. Citizens have rights but there are no citizens in a kingdom. The notion of rights and reparations is completely contrary to an ethics of unmerited grace. We are born to burn and there is no way a person can be righteous or even truly decent under his own power.
But here on earth if you care to protect human dignity, you have to have mechanisms to protect individuals and respect their boundaries, and the legal fiction of rights is the best one invented yet. It is crucial to civil society. And something else that’s crucial to civil society is the notion of society, that we are all in it together.
That’s what I was getting at.
@ Ginkgo
“But here on earth if you care to protect human dignity, you have to have mechanisms to protect individuals and respect their boundaries, and the legal fiction of rights is the best one invented yet. It is crucial to civil society. And something else that’s crucial to civil society is the notion of society, that we are all in it together.”
I understand what you are getting at. I don’t really disagree and then again I do. My own personal philosophies (if you can call them that) are based on multiple levels of existence. I am mostly a dualist who thinks in terms of idealism and realism. The realist in me believes that I have absolutely no right to expect any particular type of treatment from others; good or bad. Others have the right to act as they will. As a result societies must form laws and make determinations as to when my right to act ends and another’s begins. Laws do not grant rights, they limit them.
The idealist in me believes quite differently. As human beings we each have an inborn dignity and deserve (have a right) to be treated with respect. We also have a responsibility to treat others with respect. If you want to bring religion into the discussion, I would say that this is God-given. Rights (even when God-given) come with responsibilities as one cannot exist without the other. And yes, responsibilities limit rights.
Of course if you want to move the discussion to a third level, the utopian in me would claim that rights and responsibilities cannot coexist and that come independent of responsibilities.
I could probably discuss this on other levels as well, but right now the voices in my head are screaming at each other and I need to return to peace and quiet.
“The borgification of men into a single entity inflicting patriarchal oppression on itself”
Great line. LOL.
On some level that whole form of deflection also constitutes a form of victim blaming. All men are oppressors because all men are part of patriarchy-so if a man is a victim, as part of patriarchy he did it to himself. So the victim is to blame for whatever harm he has suffered.
> ““Privilege” conflates all of these and is so sloppy a concept that the sloppiness look almost intentional.”
That’s because it IS intentional, at least in the kind of Pop-SJ discourse we see on Tumblr and in most Grievance Studies courses.
In theory, “privilege” should be restricted to situations where people in general extend preferential treatment (or simply avoid non-preferential treatment) on the basis of demographic. For instance, “Driving While Black” (police officers pulling over black drivers, which happens quite frequently in the US, without any genuine probable cause) is a case of “white privilege” in the sense that it a difficulty which white people avoid due to being white.
But we’ve seen such an expansion of “privilege” to the point where ethnic-susceptibility towards certain diseases is now a “privilege.” I mean, you can hear people seriously arguing that African-American susceptibility towards sickle-cell anemia is “white privilege.” (Of course, the fact that cystic fibrosis (I think…) mostly affects white people doesn’t count as “non-white privilege” because “prejudice plus power”… even though prejudice CANNOT APPLY TO BIOLOGY!!!).
The rampant intellectual dishonesty we see in so much “privilege” discussion is beyond a joke.
And even IF we are talking solely about legitimate instances of genuine “privilege” (i.e. when others treat you better (relatively) on the basis of your demographic), the way the concept is used STILL makes me uncomfortable. I’m fine with the whole “don’t assume you know about the experiences of groups you aren’t a part of” thing (although SJWs typically apply it unidirectionally, whereas it should in fact apply both ways), but let us be honest about how it is usually used: it is usually used as a silencing tactic, a shaming tactic, a guilt trip.
And guilt is a fantastic tool to control and manipulate people. Make them feel like they are sinners, and they’ll do anything to redeem themselves. The Roman Catholic Church builds its entire business model on this, after all.
TDOM,
>Laws do not grant rights, they limit them.
It depends on the law in question. Certain laws do limit rights (and I, as a classical liberal, support the abolition of rights-limiting laws). However, certain laws (laws against murder and theft, for example) do not “limit” rights, they PROTECT them. A “right” has to be universal – i.e. a right which applies to all individual humans. Thus, there can be no right to violate the rights of others because this would undermine the universality of rights. There never is and never was a right to murder or steal. A right to own a gun or knife or sword has never been understood to imply the right to go around murdering innocent people with that item.
If you want to read more on this I’d refer you to the works of John Locke and Herbert Spencer. The latter, in particular, framed it very well: “the absolute liberty of all constrained only by the like liberty of each.”
“…where men will be shouted down, gay-shamed, privilege-silenced and have their gender identity called into question if they even try to speak up?”
Apologies if I’ve posted this before but in light of the above it’s a little mundane…
I’ve been fairly outspoken about female perpetration since the mid nineties. I wrote the following about two years ago summarising the sorts of responses I’ve experienced personally. It’s nowhere near exhaustive but does give one an idea. Sometimes I wonder why I persisted.
Things I’ve been told or experienced when being overheard admitting to having been repeatedly molested by a woman as a seven and eight year old child…
Liar.
You must have wanted it.
Impossible.
You’re lucky.
You’re privileged by it.
Women never do that sort of thing.
It’s harmless.
Laughter.
I’ve been assaulted.
I’ve been threatened.
I’ve been called a poofter, a fag, gay, a misogynist.
I’ve been told it’s hateful to women.
I’ve had feminists, who have also done all of the above, patiently explain how my male privilege prevented my aunt from NOT doing what she did. Some of them implied that I must have seduced her.
It was legal at the time BECAUSE it was done by a woman.
TDOM,
“I would say that this is God-given. Rights (even when God-given) come with responsibilities as one cannot exist without the other. And yes, responsibilities limit rights.”
Yep. Of those to whom much is given, much will be required. Framing this as rights and responsibilities is as close as most of us ever get to fulfilling this.
Welcome, Greg Allan! Very glad to see you hear. I saw you post that over at TS’s place and I thank you for posting it here. In fact I may very well lift it into a post of it’s own. Can you also post your website so I can include that too?
YAC,
“But we’ve seen such an expansion of “privilege” to the point where ethnic-susceptibility towards certain diseases is now a “privilege.” I mean, you can hear people seriously arguing that African-American susceptibility towards sickle-cell anemia is “white privilege.”
This is morbid anthropocentrism. Talk about privilege – these people live in such a bubble of artifice, human-made artifice, that they imagine every aspect of life is a product of human agency, so everything is due to someone or other’s choices. It’s grotesque.
@YAC
At the most basic level I believe that human rights are natural rights; rights constrained only by the laws of nature. There are two commonly cited natural rights (some philosophers cite more). One is the right to life. The other is the right to liberty. The right to life appears self-explanatory. The right to liberty is a bit more complex.
Hobbes provides perhaps the best and broadest definition of liberty: “a free man is he that… is not hindered to do what he hath the will to do.” But this definition is incomplete under the laws of nature which limit freedom (liberty) to what is possible within the realm of human nature and the surrounding environment. We cannot do the impossible even if we have the will to do it. Locke places this restriction upon the definition, but goes one step too far. Locke suggests that liberty is also restricted by the laws of government. Thus if I am to accept Locke, I must also accept that both the laws of nature and the laws of government are restrictions on liberty and therefore restrictions on rights. I’ll accept the argument that some laws (of government) may guarantee rights, but not that laws create them.
My own personal belief is that it is the role of government to guarantee rights in such way as to ensure the most liberty for the most people. Government should be concerned solely with making the determination as to where one person’s rights end and another’s begins.
@Ginkgo…
Another apology. Browser auto filled the fields and I hadn’t noticed the use of my full name. AKA gwallan.
As always you have free use on the content.
“The borgification of men into a single entity inflicting patriarchal oppression on itself”
Feminism is female projection.
What feminists have accused patriarchy of, feminists and many none feminists females have done to men.
I think the vilest thing, is single motherhood by choice, kicking fathers away like faulty consumer goods. If someone don’t respect a persons familial bonds, they basically consider them sub human.
Feminism has helped destroy and atomize men. (Not the only cause but one of the big ones.)
Men need to wake up.
I’m seeing here the same thing I see a lot of places: a failure to understand that the women who go around groping men without their consent aren’t necessarily feminists. In fact, most of my female friends (most of whom are feminists) have actively voiced disapproval of women acting that way. Those that don’t I simply haven’t seen comment on the issue, so I simply can’t speak as to what they think. I could say that MRAs are hypocritical because they want women to stop fondling men but guys still grope at women. It’d be a stupid thing for me to say, though, because just seeing a guy or girl do this kind of thing in passing doesn’t tell you anything about their stance on gender politics – or if they even have one, for that matter – nor does it reflect anything meaningful about MRM or feminism as a whole.
Claiming that all women feel safe admitting they were sexually assaulted or harassed just because some of the more outspoken feminist happen to have said they were abused is similarly irrational – many women don’t, and that’s why a handful of women speak out about the issue, and they don’t do so without consequence. And just because you don’t see people supporting male victims of sexual harassment they way they support women doesn’t mean there aren’t people in the feminist movement ready to support men.
Here’s a tip: if you talk to someone about feminism in hostile tones, and they happen to identify as a feminist, the reason they don’t give you the time of day isn’t necessarily because they don’t think your problems are a valid concern – it’s because you’re being a prick about it and stepping all over other people’s attempts to deal with other problems and trying to invalidate their concerns (this article basically boils down to “women have no fear about saying this so their fear must just be rich-white girl paranoia and men are the only ones really being oppressed,” which sounds a lot like trying to invalidate other people’s problems to me). Thing is, I know if I were ever sexually abused by a woman, I’d have friends that’d be there for me.
A common criticism of the men’s rights movement, which I see evident here, is that they can’t bring up their own issues without complaining about how terrible feminism is for not sufficiently addressing men’s issues, or even blaming feminism for their problems in some cases. Here’s an idea; try to have a conversation about men’s issues without making it into a pissing contest with feminists – you both have problems, it doesn’t matter whose is worse. They might actually listen to and support you if you show them that you can reciprocate that compassion.
@WowFallacies
Certainly making broad generalizations is a problem because those generalizations don’t apply to everyone in any particular group. But generalizations get used in order to make a point much more concisely so the speak isn’t constantly qualifying what he/she is saying. It is done for clarity.
Second, the women who grope men may not all be feminists. But feminism opened the door. The liberated woman is one who feels free to express her own sexuality in any manner she chooses. The double standard you mention comes into play when feminists consider it liberating for a woman to grope a man, but controlling and assaultive when a man gropes a woman. Not all of them will apply that double standard, but it is applied often enough to make the generalization stand up.
Third, I agree, not all women are going to feel comfortable discussing being assaulted, sexually or otherwise. The point is that there are far more support systems in place to support those who decide to speak up. Yes, there are some in the feminist movement who will support male victims, but the movement itself is not supportive. In general, the movement will acknowledge that men can be victims of sexual assault by women. In the next breath it will minimize the problem and even discount it. Mary Koss (considered a leader in this field) is a prime example. In her definition of rape, only a woman can be raped because rape involves being penetrated. Being forced to penetrate is not rape. This results in skewed statistics where 90+% of rape victims are women. Then, when feminists quote the stats, male victims are erased. She justifies this by stating that men experience the problem differently (i.e. it is not as bad for men to be sexually assaulted as it is for women to be raped), which again minimizes the problem. This is a commonly used feminist tactic to deflect attention and discussion of men’s problems and issues. It is also a reason why men can’t have a conversation with feminists about their problems and issues.
Finally, just read this article:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/men-we-do-want-your-help-in-the-feminist-movement-shesaid/comment-page-1/#comment-1512705
In it Jonanna Schroeder tells men to “shut up and listen” when the discussion centers around feminist issues. Women, she says have a right to define their own issues and to lead their own movement. Men should merely be supportive allies. Yet she, a woman, by virtue of her position as editor on a men’s issues website, is defining men’s issues for them and instructing men on what they may and may not say about those issues. Men are permitted to discuss their issues, but only in the context of feminist discourse. Just further evidence of why the “conversation” you want is impossible. What feminists want from men is a monologue, not a dialogue. Monologue is not conversation.
Welcome, WowFallacies,
“I’m seeing here the same thing I see a lot of places: a failure to understand that the women who go around groping men without their consent aren’t necessarily feminists. ”
You’ll notice that no one is claiming they are feminists. The claim was about female privilege. Feminists =/= women and women=/= feminists. MRAs point this out all the time, usually in response to claims that anti-feminism is somehow misogynist.
“Claiming that all women feel safe admitting they were sexually assaulted or harassed just because some of the more outspoken feminist happen to have said they were abused is similarly irrational “– many women don’t, ”
Yes, and the point of the post was that NO men do. Men cannot ask for help the same way women can. Women will sometimes help men but men rarely will whereas they are quite willing and are expected to the point of policing to help women.
“and that’s why a handful of women speak out about the issue, and they don’t do so without consequence.”
of course there are consequences to anything. But it’s quite rare for a woman complaining of sexual assault to be told to just man up, that she must be some kind of man-hater because she didn’t enjoy it, or that she is less of a woman for complaining. That’s the difference. She is not risking her gender identity by speaking up. And she is not risking being arrested for rape if she reports a rape, or of being accused by her rapist of rape if she resists. That is documented to have happened to means well as even to boys.
“Here’s a tip: if you talk to someone about feminism in hostile tones, and they happen to identify as a feminist, the reason they don’t give you the time of day isn’t necessarily because they don’t think your problems are a valid concern – it’s because you’re being a prick”
Here’s a tip – if you are going to claim to be all about dismantling traditional gender roles, don’t go around insisting on lady privilege and getting all huffy and clamhurt when a man happens to use a tone that hurts your feelings and then expect them to crumple and fall back into line when you try to police them on that. Being expected to walk on eggshells around women’s feelings is a big part of the traditional male role, it’s basically an expectation
“it’s because you’re being a prick”
Because the problem could never be a that the feminist is being a cunt.
“A common criticism of the men’s rights movement, which I see evident here, is that they can’t bring up their own issues without complaining about how terrible feminism is for not sufficiently addressing men’s issues, ”
And this is where you veer right of into misrepresentation. MRAs do not complain that feminists don’t address men’s issues, it’s that they try to dictate on men’s issues. You get Amanda Marcotte saying that the answer to men’s problems is more feminism, and then Joanna Schroeder saying men should have a subordinate status in feminism (I happen to agree. I think men should have nothing to do with feminism, since historically men have been the silent enablers of feminism).
In other words you have feminists trying to silence men on men’s issues. There is even a whole vocabulary of set expressions to silence men – “What about the menz?”, “PMHT, “your privilege blinds you.” and the whole male privilege dogma etc.
MRAs don’t want feminists to address men’s issues, they don’t whine that feminists don’t address men’s issues – they want feminists to back of and shut up about men’s issues and lying that feminism is a gender egalitarian movement when it in fact it is a woman-centered movement. They are just asking for simple honesty.
They want feminists and everyone else to stop saying the vast majority of rapists are male when the subject of F<M rape comes up. They want feminists to stop saying that most domestic abuse is committed by men. They are out of patience with the fact that when the subject of MGM comes up there always someone, usually a gynophile man, which hastens to remind everyone that FGM is so much worse and it's an abomination to try to equate the two issues, which are one issue anyway. MRAs would just like feminists to start showing a basic regard for facts and to dump their tradcon, patriarchal gender assumptions that women matter most and have to be protected more than anyone else.
By the way, I love your screen name. It fits you to a T.
TDOM, I must admit that your response is much better than my planned one; I was still trying to figure out how to electronically send WowFallacies a Dick Pavlova.
Also,WowFallacies, if a problem were ever directly caused by feminism, is it allowable to call attention to it? How about when and where?
Also also, the most common criticism I hear about MRAs is that there isn’t one who isn’t also a raving misogynist. So being accused of blaming feminism and their shiftless pseudo intellectual enablers like yourself is a step away from the pure cultish delusion towards a desperate attempt to woo people back to the ideology. Do you think no-one here has ever heard a long, tut-tutting NAFALT before?
Also *3: “there are women in the feminist movement ready to help men”. Unconditionally? Just because they are men and need help? You and men like you not only help feminists unconditionally, you seem to believe everything about them unconditionally.
Also*4: “I know there would be friends there for me”. This is a group that categorically denies women can rape. When forced into a corner, the next steps are minimisation and deflection (it’s a vanishingly small number, stop derailing the issue). If you are, good luck with that. Have you ever gone to a “friend” to say you were raped by a woman and get that “friend” to scream death threats at you? Your anecdote of predicting the future is weaksauce, coffee has more potency.
Also*5 “It doesn’t matter which one is worse” You are part of a pack of incurable slime who capitalised on the attention finally afforded to black people in America because the idea of not having the most attention for your issues, no matter how peurile. This sonic whine only comes up when someone is talking about something you think you own without your permission.
@ Robert Crayle
“TDOM, I must admit that your response is much better than my planned one”
Thanks, I was trying my damnedest to remain civil and factual since this was the first time I’d seen this person post. It wasn’t easy. I could have easily gone Paul Elam and perhaps even better than Paul could. 😉
“I know there would be friends there for me”.
We have the feminists to thank for the term for this kind of thing – “special snowflake” – for someone who is immune to the restraints usually imposed by hizzer gender
Jim, it’s been forever, I can’t seem to get ahold of you. : )
WowFallicies, I’m going to give you a list of facts about feminism as a movement just so you’ll understand where the hostility comes from and hopefully should clear up your misconceptions and assumptions.
1) When Male and Female rape victims were being tallied, Mary Koss (biased feminist researcher) went over the results of the former and decided that classifying what happened as rape wouldn’t be “Appropriate”. So with one stroke of the pen, she erased an entire population of people looking for validation of their existence from official records. And for decades, all research statistics have followed her methods to the letter: Classifying rape as only something requiring penetration while leaving out forced envelopment and other methods to be consigned to a paltry “Sexual Assault” label that grants nowhere near an equal level of compensation for the victims compared to a charge of “Rape”. No feminist stood to oppose her or rally to stop the research from being tampered with in such a way.
2) Sometime in the 80s, Feminists lobbied for The Duluth Model of Domestic Violence where Domestic Violence was deemed something men do to women alone, begetting Primary Agressor Laws. If any man reported domestic violence from his spouse, the police were required to arrest him on the spot regardless of whether he was innocent or not. Granted, every state varies, but overall the climate is skewed towards assuming every man as the primary aggressor in domestic violence. Meaning that male victims of domestic violence were put in a rock and a hard place: Man up and take the abuse or call the police and risk spending time in a jail cell. Again, no feminist stood in opposition to this.
3) In the 90s, research showed boys and girls struggling in the school system. Feminist special interest groups lobbied for change in the teaching methods and curriculum tailored towards how girls learned so they could be given a leg up even though the research was right in front of their FUCKING two eyes proving the contrary. No one thought to say “Hold on, we’re going about this pretty narrowly! Boys are struggling too. Let’s have some perspective here.”. It’s gotten to the point that decades later, any attempt to address the struggles of boys is met with hostility and disbelief in the issue. I’ll give you a guess as to who we can thank for that.
4) When it was reported that Boko Haram were going off on a killing spree in the name of their beliefs, innocent school boys were caught in their sights. It was also reported that another village had been massacred. They signaled out the male babies, the boys and men as special targets and gunned them down on sight, the death toll 300-400 plus. Yet, when they kidnapped school girls, the media and feminist groups joined together in unity to decry the terrorist group and declared their motives a part of the “War on Women”. They forgot the innocent boys and men dead and didn’t so much as utter a peep of concern back then. How do you explain that?
5) Finally, the major example of blantant hijacking of issues that cut across both genders and spectrums: Elliot Rodgers. When all was said and done, the media and feminist groups went on a verbal rampage, lambasting the Mens Rights Movements through unverified and spurious claims of a connection with the PUA forums Elliot frequented prior to his spree. Never one to resist running their mouths further, they declared that his spree was motivated PRIMARILY by misogynistic attitudes towards women. The true facts were thus:
A: Misogyny was ONE motivation, not the primary one. Reading his manifesto, he had deep-seated hatred towards Alpha males, his parents, brother, Asians, mankind, and himself.
B: Of the victims he killed, Three were men along with two women. Now you’re going to say “But he intended also to target a sorority house so it was motivated by hatred of women”. Wrong. He was targeting a SPECIFIC woman. Mainly, blonde women, because that was one of his preferences. You will also note he SPARED the life of a woman at gunpoint while injuring countless others, men and women, on a drive-by, including law enforcement officials.
Of course, the media and these groups never let a few harmless facts get in the way of their agenda. I’ve been on Mens Rights forums. You know how many users were scared to identify themselves as such in public thanks to this targeted smear? That if they so much as identified even support towards Mens Issues? Did you also know, conveniently, that a petition was set up for the White House to label Mens Rights Advocates as terrorists? TERRORISTS, WowFallicies. Let that sink for a minute.
I’ve given the feminist movement more than my fair share of patience and benefit of the doubt. Now. I’ve run out of patience. These last two obvious examples of hijacking an issue where both genders suffered as a consequence broke the back of this camel. It didn’t help that when I shared my story of being hurt by both genders, THREE feminists minimized my experiences by telling me I was still a privileged white guy and women had it worse.
So please spare me any talk about how feminism is there to help men even when your friends say otherwise. Sure, there are individual feminists that may hold egalitarian views. But you know what, don’t pretend that you have a smidgen of power the ones running the movement hold or think they will listen to your overall point without tearing you the pieces.
Warren Farrell was an egalitarian feminist. So was Erin Prizzy. Look what it got them. Erin’s contributions as the first female to open a women’s shelter were written out of feminist history as if they never happened. Warren continues to receive grief over a 20 something year old bit of research on incest that NEVER GOT PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST PLACE! And is still parsed as unconditional support! This is the thanks they get for bringing up the other side of the gender debate in a movement supposedly for equality.
Thank you.
Feminist special interest groups lobbied for change in the teaching methods and curriculum tailored towards how girls learned so they could be given a leg up even though the research was right in front of their FUCKING two eyes proving the contrary. No one thought to say “Hold on, we’re going about this pretty narrowly!
I was running funding and grants systems for schools in Australia through this time and had full access to all demographic data within our schools including outcomes. The catchcry was that the entire system wasn’t “girl friendly” even though overall outcomes for girls were already better than those of boys. By the mid nineties there were programs for girls in every school in my state but nothing for boys anywhere.
Some of us DID say “hold on” in fact. Myself and quite a few others in my state’s school system warned of a bleak future for boys but were roundly denounced as misogynists. The potential impact WAS known but they forged ahead with changes to both the curriculum and the methods of delivery nonetheless. It was quite deliberate and we have reaped exactly what we sowed.
“Some of us DID say “hold on” in fact. Myself and quite a few others in my state’s school system warned of a bleak future for boys but were roundly denounced as misogynists.”
That also should’ve been my point as well. Sorry about that, Greg. Thanks for pointing out there were people that didn’t buy the narrative being pushed.
Unfortunately, what happened to people like you was typical: Being reasonable and neutral means you’re misogynistic in their eyes.
Eagle and GA, thanks for writing the next post. Concise and comprehensive, though far from complete.
To be honest, Ginko, whenever another issue is reported in affects both genders equally (be it either a crime or debate), I hope these feminist interest groups and the general media hijack it again as a women’s issue alone.
Because not only will that be number six on a list of my grievances, it will also put another blight on their Public Relations and drive people further away.
Strike One – Boko Harem
Strike Two – Elliot Rodgers
Strike Three – Insert hot button issue or crime here
Three strikes in a row. Let’s see the movement excuse their way out of this one.
Eagle, I think you will turn out to be right. I think the public is taking away the same impression as you are.
I’d be terrified to post on A Voice for Men unless I was in agreement. I recently posted my agreement there that Rick Perry is an asshole, for instance, while letting readers know he wants to teach creationism in Texas Public schools, something we can all agree is messed up.
But I would never post anything pro-feminist; I have seen what happens to the women (and men) who try. Let’s not prettify “fucking your shit up gives me an erection” (Paul Elam’s notorious comment) okay Eagle? There are very unpleasant attacks conducted by MRAs on feminists, too. Like the one I described here: http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-problem-with-mens-rights-movement.html (comments are good, some from Genderratic readers)
So that’s your defense, Daisy? State that because Paul Elam said some nasty things it invalidates every action that feminism as a movement has taken?
Let me tell you something about Paul. I don’t agree with his confrontational tone and have made my feelings about it known.
But you know what? It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the actions the feminist movement took. Unlike Paul, these were prominent, powerful, influential organizations (Mary Koss is a researcher. You can’t get anymore powerful than that).
Paul? A writer that runs a website through donations.
I’m tired of hearing about “Well MRAs think and say this so there.”
It’s frustrating for me, as a survivor and as someone who cares about both men and women.
Maybe we should start taking feminism the movement to task for what it had done in combination with screwed up gender stereotypes that got us into this mess.
No offense, Daisy, you’re one of the few feminists that care.
But I’m sick and tired of it. Years and years later and I still find myself trying to stave off the reality that my story, my experience, will ever have an equal place in this fucked up society.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a breath or else I’m going to shatter again.
Edit: Will “Never” have a place in society.
Daisy, you know there are plenty of doxxing feminist idiots too, right? I’ve been scared to get more engaged with criticising feminists, so HATE MOVEMENT, BETTER BAN IT.
As ever – if these standards were applied consistently, feminism would be long gone.