It has become obvious that the Feminist Pimp Hand deserves a category of its own. It is quite obvious that it is an all too common policing tactic and that it needs to be highlighted and exposed. Here’s one we are highlighting this time.
The example we are highlighting involves a feminist wolfpack, the commentariat at Manboobz. This wolfpack tactic is typical of feminist groupuscules, which function more as social circles than as actual communities of thought and analysis. What matters is membership in the group above all else, and anything that challenges the group or any of its members provokes an attack from the wolfpack.
Commenter AC contributed this comment to this thread, linking to a thread at Manboobz:
AC on 2013-11-16 at 11:13 am said:
There’s quite a smack down taking place in their comments section on another post. Commenter Karin Sarr is thoroughly toying with those intellectual cowards. Here is where the “discussion” starts:
http://manboobz.com/2013/04/29/how-bad-ideas-get-started-the-apex-fallacy-the-frontman-fallacy-and-the-murderer-marc-lepine/comment-page-10/#comment-375849
Sans-sanity replied with some excellent points.
Sans-sanity on 2013-11-18 at 12:38 am said:
I had a look. I got about five comments (by her) in, and she’d already been accused of internalized misogyny and been called a racist.
This to a black woman (judging by her facebook avatar).
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the feminist pimp hand!
(also she got told to go read 700+ comments if she wanted to participate. I think someone around here was discussing the whole ‘go read this ridiculous pile of largely unrelated writings if you want to comment’ silencing tactic recently)
And then followed up immediately with this:
Sans-sanity on 2013-11-18 at 1:00 am said:
Ooh Ooh Ooh, she addresses this point directly.
Reproducing in full:
”Just an observation about the behaviour of the people here in general. I’m not upset or anything, just pointing out:
Are any of you aware of how much your behavior here is just plain bullying? I presume you don’t think bullying is a good thing (correct me if I’m mistaken there). So why do you so readily engage in it?Bullying is an abuse of power. In your case here, you know that almost everyone reading/commenting is heavily biased against any kind of dissenting viewpoint especially from an outsider. Knowing this, with an at least ten to one majority behind you, you are aware you can get away with bigotry like dismissing a valid argument as “trolling” or “misogyny” without being challenged by anyone other than me. You also know that such a challenge from the accused always starts from a weaker position than if it had come from a 3rd person.
I am being perfectly civil and always refraining from personal attacks of any kind. Yet I’ve been accused of being a racist, a misogynist, having internalized misogyny, being a troll, knowing nothing about the subject, saying nothing but “you’re wrong” etc. and all of those without the slightest basis in reality. It’s pure dismissal and suppression of criticism.
You know very well that a more neutral commentariat would never let you get away with so much bigotry unchallenged. Yet here you are piling it on while fully aware of that. Hence you abuse power just like bullies do.”
(Note about Karin Sarr’s racial identity – Futurelle claims that this picture used in the avatar has been used all over…..for what any claim of fact from Futurelle is worth…..)
Sans-sanity, welcome and thanks for that contribution! That was juicy.
That whole exchange is a perfect example of something that is wrong with a lot of feminist effort – it is too personal and social as opposed to being involved in actual analysis and making any kind of real contribution to the discussion of gender. By that I mean that it is more about belonging to the group and abiding by group norms – endlessly changing BTW in order to keep everyone anxious about their status – protecting group members and the group itself from criticism, and attacking outsiders to reinforce their membership and assert the dominance of the group. It has taken a lot of feminism from sisterhood to sorority. And to belong to the sorority you have to go through Rush Week and then stay on your toes at all times never to do anything, not one little thing, that could get you disinvited.
By the way, this in-group/out-group dynamic probably accounts for a lot of the gynocentrist self-absoprtion of feminism, and the disregard for the issues of any women not in the privielged social category, see also “the underlying racism of white feminism.”
Commenter AC left a summed up with a comment that describes the whole pattern:
AC on 2013-11-18 at 12:01 pm said:
I think Karin is absolutely awesome. She brings up some really interesting points. I read through the whole thing (though there’s LOADS of mutual accusations of lying and stuff like that). I left her a supporting comment but it might never make it through.I think her question about political representation really gets to the bottom of the problem. She argues that men aren’t better represented in politics than women just because more men are doing the representing. And then she asks all of those manboobz believers, if they believe that men are inherently less able or willing to represent women just because they’re men.
None of them have the guts to answer even though she repeats it over and over. They make up one stupid excuse after the there to avoid it.
And it’s a great question. Because if they say no, then there’s no reason to care about how many of politicians are male or female. And if they say yes then they admit to being sexists and have to explain why being male necessarily makes men unable to represent women (funny what that says about male feminist).There are also some really funny blunders by the manboobz believers.
Here’s a cool exchange:pecunium: “Liar. You did make it. Had no one challenged it then it would be standing as an, apparently, valid; acceptable, claim.”
Karin:
“THAT is your evidence? That HAD no one challenged it, then I (according to you) WOULD have used it as a backup for a different claim? You’re funny.
So now apparently I must own up to fallacies that would but didn’t emerge, if I made a claim that Pecunium believes I would but didn’t make. And for not doing that, I’m called a liar.
It really is time for you to concede this one. The ship isn’t only sinking, you’re practically trying to lift the titanic and say it’s unsinkable. But thanks for being so amusing.”Or this one:
“provide actual evidence that women have all the power?”
Karin: “Why should I provide evidence for something I never claimed?”
Pecunium: “You did claim that women have more representation than men.”What a mindless crowd of liars.
Indeed they are.
- 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 
Its the echo chamber effect… but doesn’t this also happen at AVFM? If I posted there, they’d eat me alive. I see no feminists posting, since we/they would get called hags, etc. (I mean, the comments are already saying that, and we aren’t even posting there!) I have often wanted a fair fight over there, but I don’t think I’d get one, any more than you can get one at Manboobz or Feministe.
Its the echo chamber I hate, regardless of who is running it. Why can’t we have blogs with lively disagreement? I hate to say it, but I miss AOL, back in the old days… great free-for-all atmosphere, and lots of it self-policed.
This past summer, I posted a series of questions on my blog about the whole Deep Green Resistance foofaraw. I linked the post on Feministe’s Sunday link thread, hoping for a real live discussion. Ha! I got whole spill-over threads of (seriously!) “fuck yous” — JUST FOR ASKING GODDAMN QUESTIONS! I did not even make assertions! I ASKED QUESTIONS that matter to me, and they were welcome to tell me my question is out of line, but the reaction was very Soviet and they seemed uniformly terrified of actually thinking about what I asked.
Here is the thread: http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-sparkle-of-your-china.html
My rather flip reply (second comment) was to the the first quickie, dumb anon comment. Apparently, this was from Donna L. from Feministe (who is practically running the joint now) — but she could not be bothered to sign it. (Therefore, I had *no clue* it was her, and took it to be just some anon shit-stirrer.) After I issued the putdown, Donna went back over to Feministe and cried about how I insulted her and what a transphobe I am. (this is AFTER she said “fuck you” on the Sunday linkage thread, BTW) They had a whole spillover thread of fuck yous, and “Donna, I am so sorry you have to experience this!” (insert pitying, pseudo-empathetic, politically-correct sobs!) and they consequently now have a big warning posted about linkage, that nothing “questionable” (like you know, asking about the First Amendment and pesky shit like that?) can be posted.
*I* did that. (bows)
But seriously… look at the comments yall. This was one of the most depressing events for me of the past year. I really wanted a grown-up conversation about the whole DGR event and they seemed PATENTLY INCAPABLE OF THAT. I tried hard, you can see for yourself. I got em from all sides. Only Marja (waves at Marja, who has posted here) seemed to know how to conduct herself during the exchange.
They want the self-righteousness of being able to oust the fascists in a forceful (even violent?) manner, but do not want the bad reputation of being censors and book-burners. Sorry gang, you can’t have it both ways.
Correction… I am conflating the follow up with this one (where Marja commented): http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2013/07/michigan-womyns-music-festival.html
The comments in both threads are… well, read em for yourself.
If I remember correctly Pecunium is a man. Im sure he is in seventh heaven surrounded by all those adoring women, lol. 🙂
I had an exchange with “pecunium” on that url once (which made me uncomfortable). Afterward, I checked the link from the avatar. There was a post that said he was an actual interrogator.
https://pecunium.wordpress.com/tag/interrogation/
This gave me perspective.
Daisy, I think you might right about AVFM, but it’s really hard to say. You’d get downvoted to oblivion for sure, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if that were followed up by some (some!) actual meaningful questions and reasonable discourse. I don’t know what the ratio of reasonable to unreasonable it would be, or how it would compare to Manboobz, though.
But hey, if I’m wrong about AVFMers and they dogpile with unreasonable assertions about your character, you can always quote some of these at them for giggles:
http://exposingfeminism.wordpress.com/shaming-tactics/
Hi Daisy, I checked out your comments section. Some “terfs” have shown up to defend you… I expect your feeling a bit ‘a pox on both your houses’ at this point.
Your question about, ‘why target radscum?’ is an interesting one, although I can’t help but immediately apply it to MRAs.
Increasingly I’ve been of the impression that their/our(ish) campaign against feminism is strategically misplaced. It seems like most of the time feminism is a smoke screen in front of the real cause of a preexisting (MRA) problem, some of the time it is enabling other to create (MRA) problems which they would have liked to create but may not have otherwise been capable (e.g. The ungodly feminist/conservative porn alliance), and only rarely are feminists wholly responsible for creating (MRA) problems from the ground up.
So really, why go after feminism?
My own answer is that it’s just too damned tempting. ‘Feminists’ ( present company excepted 😉 are intrusive, bossy and frequently have no idea about the realities of situations they opine upon. (I’ll note here that this is a comment on public perception of feminism, as opposed to an attempt at accurately describing the movement)
Although quite a few have real problems with hypocrisy, many many more are made to look hypocritical by a lack of cohesion within the movement, resulting in one feminist saying one thing and another doing another. No body likes being told what to do, especially from people who can’t even seem to reliably follow through with their own demands of others, and there are always, always more demands; most of them petty and trivial but apparently so goddamned important! Add a hefty dose of post modernism on top of that (which shits just about everybody), and feminism starts to look not so much like a social justice movement and more like a tasty tasty chew toy you can happily spend your life ripping shreds in a frenzy of cathartic bliss!
Time spent, lots.
Words written, many.
Meaningful social progress made, well we’ll see. At the end of the day I do see MRAs as attacking a lot of the right problems, even if it does seem like they often take a round about rout at doing so. And if they didn’t have has fun a toy to hate on as feminism, I expect there would be far more attrition from apathy and boredom 😉
Daisy:
After how you treat and ban people who dissent on your own blog, you are in no position to be complaining about any ‘echo chambers’. I may remind you about the disgraceful way you treated me for simply disagreeing that Trayvon Martin was the same as Emmit Till. And anyone who reads any of your other threads could see that I’m not an exception: when someone disagrees with you, you get personal, nasty, and you ban.
As for the subject of this post, yes , Futrelle’s blog is an ‘echo chamber’. It’s where feminists and other social justice warriors basically go to blow off steam at the expense of MRA’s and those affiliated with them. I was reading one of their commenters blogs (alas, I forget which one) in which she said one of the reasons she liked the site was that the commentariat was allowed free reign to get rid of trolls – trolls being defined as anyone who disagreed with the dominant ideology there.
My only complaint with THIS post on THIS blog is that this is not something that only feminists do. One can find this effect on political sites everywhere, both left and right – though in my opinion the right tends to be SLIGHTLY more open to dissent. I guess this post is still necessary though because men’s issues (MRA stuff) don’t really have countervailing mainstream voices. Though it’s grip IS starting to slip a bit, feminism still is THE mainstream voice on ‘gender’ issues and thus this behavior is more damaging because such echo chambers help to keep male voices marginalized in the wider culture in a way in which the usual political blogs(Think “right” and “left” or , in the US at least Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green) and their cozy commentariats are not able to do to their ideological opponents.
Daisy,
“Its the echo chamber effect… but doesn’t this also happen at AVFM?”
To an extent but not as much as Shakesville or certainly Manboobz. I find echo chambers boring and it serves as a handy metric for how echo-y the echo chamber is. I stopped looking in at AVfM comment sections for a while because they were in fact boring. But I have gone back because now people actually say insightful things and argue about them.
As for banning people, there are degrees. You get outright trolls who are not interested in engaging, you get believers who think they are interested in engaging, but they are really only interested in clinging to their beliefs and on up. Then you get personal shit going – dogfights between commenters, neither of whom close to trollish but for whatever simply cannot be on the same thread together. My rule is that a good bartender has to be an autocrat, if only to maintain order.
Clarence, you are right, echo chambers are NOT only in feminists spaces. This post was really not about the echo chambers, although that stuff is certainly in there and it’s a worthy discussion, so let it roll. Spearhead is an echo chamber, so are some others. But they are not as influential as the feminist spaces and there’s another big reason – the dynamic is different if only because the culture is different in an important way. Feminist spaces often are “safe places” and there is a very strong solidarity ethic. You don’t find that in MRA spaces. Those people are libertarians of one kind or another most often and mob behavior doesn’t come as naturally to them. Just doesn’t.
You don’t see mobs of MRAs descending as one on a site screaming imprecations and moralizing denunciations the way you do see internet feminists doing it. Daisy has extensive experience with this solidarity ethic, which all to often is simple cliquishness – if you aren’t one of the cool kids on a site, you are on permanent probation.
I chose the term “wolfpack” specifically to target this roving marauder behavior rather than the airless, toxic, monotonous “echo chamber” behavior.
Well, good points about the “wolfpack”, Gingko.
It would normally be called “team woman”, but then there are usually a few male feminist lapdogs tagging along – and heck (like with Sarkeesian) sometimes the majority of the pack are male, usually adding ‘white knight’ LEGIONS to the male feminist contingent.
Someone tells them to bark at someone and they do.
I was just thinking how fractured the larger culture is (in the west in general but even more so than anywhere else in the USA) and how many people totally suffer from a lack of meaning in their lives. Perhaps that’s why these ‘social justice’ games are popular. They give people a chance to fill important – never mind if they are responding to reality or not. But it is sad and frightening how many people just are content to be led and think little or not at all.
And so many of these people seem to call themselves feminist, or be closely ideologically aligned (think Democratic partisan) in some way.
I think Karin conducted herself ably. She kept calling them on their shit over and over and kept restating her comments over and over because the faithful there just kept on twisting what she said (once again) over and over.
She kept her cool, and by my impression totally prevailed.
One of the biggest surprises for me was that Heather N from goodmenproject posted there.
My jaw hit the floor. Over at tgmp she exhibits herself to be very much concerned about male victims of bullying and sex assault.
However, she’s contributing to one of the most misandrist & bullying sights I’ve ever seen.
At least fuckheads on spearhead & AVFM don’t package their bullshit in shiny wrappers.
“Over at tgmp she exhibits herself to be very much concerned about male victims of bullying and sex assault.”
The email exchanges I’ve had with the individual concerned indicate otherwise.
hahahahahaha…
this was the thread where Fraudtrelle ™ called me “kind of a shit.”
Notice how no one actually rebutted the Apex Fallacy…
and why does anyone expect anything from the Good Men Project when they have a neo-nazi like Jack Don-O-van but I can’t even get past the moderation filters…
SWAB, that is another very good point, on another nail in the coffin of that place. Can you do my research for me and ) find his posts there and 2) select two or three of his most objectionable racist posts anywhere.
http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/the-good-life-the-way-of-men-interview-with-jack-donovan/
google jack donovan mighty white, your spam filter won’t let me post…
“Pan-secessionism is for everyone — and America, and the world, and especially men, would be better off if we self-selected into smaller more culturally homogenous groups that can thwart the interests of global capitalists. ”
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/195vzr/jack_donovan_ask_me_anything/
what exactly does he mean by this? He talks about groups of men in prison in other places where they separate by race…
—
I’ve come to my own conclusions and the Alternative Right just like feminism has NOTHING positive to offer me.
make of this what you will…
http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/2013/10/he-said-she-said-they-said-2020-the-daily-caller-salon-the-kkk-and-media-shenanigans/
Our spam filter won’t let you post his shit? That’s reassuring.
Disgusting. The general community that is now coalescing into mutually hostile camps – PUA, MRM, manosphere – included a lot of crackpots from the beginning. They are quite overt about their crackpottery, as in the case of Donovan. With feminism, the crackpots are more subtle – they tend to be the truly toxic radfems who chase decent feminists like Daisy practically off the net, but they are able to take advantage of cultural norms that “privilege” their particular brand of toxicity.
Oh, and thanks. You deliver faster than a good pizza joint.
another terrible piece by Fraudtrelle ™
http://prospect.org/article/white-hot-rage
I’ve pretty much said other places that I disagree with 88% of feminism and 78% of the so called man-0-sphere…
It was extraordinarily frustrating when I (and a few others) tried to explain to P Elam that Inmalafide was a cesspool and he just insulted me back…
that and the whole Stardusk stink and I know I’ll never be a part of the M(H)RM…
http://stonerwithaboner.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/its-offical-i-will-never-be-an-mra/
“Oh, and thanks. You deliver faster than a good pizza joint.”
or a really good call girl, but unfortunately I don’t have experience with that. where’s my privilege again?
I don’t know about any other MHRA or MRA but SWAB I for one am very glad people like you, Clarence, and SYABM are around, in spite of any disagreement.
“If I posted there, they’d eat me alive”
There’s only one way to find out. Otherwise you’re just casting aspersions and plain guessing.
Feminists don’t post there, true. And they don’t call in to MRA radio shows when invited. And don’t show up at debates when a place is saved for them. It’s almost as if they’d rather talk about what they think MRAs believe than talk to them and find out.
I have to agree with this Daisy. If you aren’t going to enter there, who should? Why should any feminist criticism be taken with any seriousness?
Feminists refuse to post in these places due to fear, they can only post in controlled safe spaces. Stop pretending to be a victim sis.
To be honest, I think the majority of the issue comes from the over-casualization of this political activity. It’s the well-trod ground of why “The personal is political” becomes a really dangerous/misleading concept when it becomes internalized. It reinforces the communities in question as inherently “social” connections reliant on mutual-support, defense, affirmation and above all else: subjective feelings.
And the critical aspect has been completely stripped down. There’s so little actual exploration going on. It starts with an emotional appeal and then sustains the appeal with personal stories and subjective ideas of happiness where a whole world-framework is constructed to affirm these individual experiences. But when you throw in “The personal is political” all of these little things become grand conspiracies because the only way to sustain the momentum is by affirming the personal-as-universal over and over again.
It’s what Sarkeesian has done: crafted a narrative that is immensely dependent on emotional reaction for the purpose of sustaining a momentum that is getting her paid. I’d have zero issue with Sarkeesian’s work if it engaged in any self-reflection or sought to engage in commentary at the level of objective analysis. But it doesn’t and it’s well trodden ground.
These “communities” are often nothing more than support networks where one can be validated in their subjective feelings. That alone is almost always a good thing assuming that it remains personal and individual experience isn’t broadcast as universal experience.
There are witches abroad.
Terry Pratchett defines witchcraft as “headology”. I’ve always defined it as the manipulation and distortion of the emotions of others to benefit one’s own self. The political dynamic of our time enables this in ways not seen since the inquisitions and witch hunts. The sellers of snake oil are in paradise.
Clarence: After how you treat and ban people who dissent on your own blog, you are in no position to be complaining about any ‘echo chambers’. I may remind you about the disgraceful way you treated me for simply disagreeing that Trayvon Martin was the same as Emmit Till. And anyone who reads any of your other threads could see that I’m not an exception: when someone disagrees with you, you get personal, nasty, and you ban.
Clarence, I issued an explicit warning on my Trayvon Martin post and on that thread, making it very clear that my emotions (and everyone else’s) were running high, and that I was going to moderate harshly. And you disregarded the warning and picked a fight. I would not ban you from any other thread. (PS: I have banned ONE troll from my blog permanently; I did not ban you–I told you to depart the thread. Big difference.).
Further, the reason I got upset was your series of accusatory, racist questions/assertions implying Trayvon was somehow more suspicious than Zimmerman, i.e. “why didn’t he go home?” etc.
I corrected your erroneous comparison to Emmett Till (as well as your inability to spell his name correctly, as I see you still don’t bother to do) but that is not the comment that annoyed me.
Tamerlane: Feminists refuse to post in these places due to fear, they can only post in controlled safe spaces. Stop pretending to be a victim sis.
Actually, another major reason at this point is that I don’t like registering for sites. I can never remember passwords. My last lost-password is Patheos. 🙁 (I have lost a half dozen different DailyKos passwords) I have posted at SWAB’s, Spearhead and a few other MRA blogs. Aint skeered.
Complaining about echo chambers (both MRA and feminist) is not “pretending to be a victim”–honestly, do you know any other songs?
BTW, TB has warned me that I have to behave on this blog or get banned… so this is hardly a “safe controlled space” for me, even if you (correctly) consider it one for yourself.
If it was a safe place, I probably wouldn’t bother.
@ Daisy and Clarence
Drop it. This isn’t a “safe space” for either of you. One more comment on the issue of daisy’s moderation or clarence’s bad behaviour and I will take great pleasure in moderating you both.
Update: Clarence is now on permanent moderation.
What Typhonblue said, and really it goes for everyone. This is a space for analysis and criticism, and debate and dialog, not for vague and general sneering in the direction is this or that ism or position.
@Clarence
And the methods included deliberately ignoring and distorting their arguments to pissing them off. In other words, trolling.
My post on the matter: http://siryouarebeingmocked.tumblr.com/post/68020222644/i-commented-almost-every-day-on-a-website-called
And Toy Soldiers’, IIRC: http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/a-dose-of-stupid-v94/ , where they pointed out that Futrelle supported the list.
Not male voices. Dissenting voices. Women are subject to just as much stick when they’re MRAs or support men’s rights in a way that the party doesn’t like. The difference is that once denigrated, they’re ignored, so the ideologues can claim that women don’t really matter. Heck, even Manboobz name is an lie by implication.
@Ginkgo
Reddit prefers the term “downvote brigades”.
@Tamerlane:
Which is why David Futrelle claims he cares about men’s rights, and writes posts ostensibly directed at MRAs,/a>, yet refuses to, say, write an article for AVFM or any other major MRA site to post. In fact, most feminists who claim to care so seldom do.
@Crow
Not only that, many of the assertions she makes are nonsensical and wrong, such as her definition of “objectification”, and claim that Damsel In Distress narratives inherently portray women as possessions of men. One of the games she used as an example had the male protagonist, over and over, explicitly saying and demonstrating that he loved the woman in question, and she chose the bit where the bad guy says she’s a thing. At this point, I’m not sure if it’s incompetence, deceit, or both.
You mean like how Anita claims/imples that the harassment she got is typical for women and feminists when it’s clearly not?
Aw crap. Is there any way to fix that comment?