Open Post And Link Farm: The Greatest Of All Imaginable Home Alone Posters Edition

  1. The zombie infant mortality explanation | The Incidental Economist It’s just not true that the US has lousy infant mortality statistics because We Care More, or because those horrible people in Europe don’t love babies and just let them die, etc.. We genuinely have a higher infant mortality rate. But conservatives would rather deny than admit the problem.
  2. Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies What predicts if a state enacts anti-voting bills isn’t the preponderance of voting fraud, but rather elements like how much Black voting participation has been increasing in that state. What a coincidence!
  3. ‘More Than Accidents, Cancer, Malaria, And War Combined’ | Feminist Critics A bad feminist statistic that’s been circulating and should be avoided.
  4. Video Recording Captures Rampant Stop-And-Frisk Abuse In Miami Gardens | ThinkProgress Cops repeatedly harassing black employees for “loitering” while they were at their jobs, among other abuses.
  5. Being a Feminist means more than just agreeing that women are human.
  6. Kip discusses the Disney movie Frozen. The post, about the rules of fairy-tales and what the Disney thought they had to do to make their best song, “Let It Go,” fit into the story is very interesting. I hadn’t known about “Life’s Too Short,” an argument song between the two sisters that was cut from the story, but now I’m convinced the movie would have been much better had they left it in. (You can listen to both songs at Kip’s post.)
  7. Something Fierce | Marian Call
  8. 100 Years of Breed “Improvement” | Science of Dogs
  9. Colorado Judge: Bakery That Refused Wedding Cake To Same-Sex Couple Broke The Law | ThinkProgress
  10. American men’s hidden crisis: They need more friends! – Salon.com
  11. Ted Rall’s Cartoons Censored At Daily Kos. I think “censored” is an exaggeration – Kos has every right to set its own standards and decide not to carry Ted’s work until Ted changes how he draws Obama. But I also think that Ted’s cartoons don’t actually have the hallmarks of racist caricature, and his version of Obama doesn’t look like a monkey or ape. But on the other hand, I haven’t loved how Ted’s been defending himself – most of his comments make the issue about Ted’s good intentions, which shouldn’t be the issue.
  12. Saving Mr. Banks Is a Corporate, Borderline-Sexist Spoonful of Lies
  13. How the Decline of Unions Has Increased Racial Inequality
  14. Earth’s Quietest Place Will Drive You Crazy in 45 Minutes | Smart News I was in a soundproof recording studio last month, and just chatting in the room for five minutes made me feel squirrly.
  15. Fox News: Did 17 illegal voters in Ohio steal the 2012 election? Short answer: No.
  16. Utah Is on Track to End Homelessness by 2015 With This One Simple Idea | NationSwell And for a more in-depth discussion of the same basic idea, see Malcolm Gladwell’s article Million-Dollar Murray, and this New York Times article on Drunk Houses.
  17. is there such a thing as static teacher quality? | Fredrik deBoer Really, the question is “is there such a thing as static teacher quality which we can meaningfully measure in a quantitative fashion? And so far, the answer appears to be “no.”
  18. Justine Sacco’s aftermath: The cost of Twitter outrage. This article by Roxane Gay is by a large margin the best reaction to the Sacco kerfuffle that I read.
  19. Corporate media’s rape problem: Supporting the stars, ignoring the charges – Salon.com
  20. The N-Word, White People, and The Garden of Eden “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every word that is pleasant and unpleasant to the ear, but there was one word in the middle of the garden, and that word was the n-word.”
  21. One Weird Old Trick to Undermine the Patriarchy Or, Bilbo was a girl.
  22. On Not Holding Our Models Sacred: Some Feminist Theories And Their Flaws » Brute Reason This is quite a long article, but worth it, imo.
  23. Same-Sex Marriage, The Legal Deluge : The New Yorker Nutshelled summaries of some of the major cases currently in the system.
  24. Windsor expanded in Ohio ruling : SCOTUSblog The Ohio ruling – that Ohio has to recognize an out-of-state same-sex marriage for cases involving the death of one of the spouses – could have a lot of long-term significance. Especially if we go through a long period of some-states-recognizing-while-other-states-don’t.
  25. Gaming Gay marriage and the Supreme Court: Which cases will make it?
  26. JUF News : The real story behind the orange on the seder plate. Yeah, it’s not exactly the season for posting this, but Grace just showed me this yesterday and I thought some of the interpretation of an orange’s growing signficance was neat.
  27. Obama’s unpardonable record on issuing pardons. To issue eight pardons and then say you’re concerned about overcrowding is an obscene joke.
  28. A New Low: Vaginal Probes At The Border We are living in a police state, and most Americans seem quite willing to acquiesce to that, as long as the odds of us in particular being the ones involuntarily probed and then charged $5000 for it remain low.
  29. Obama, Democrats push for extension of unemployment benefits. This is one of those stories that just make me despair; not just for the Republicans, who are inexcusable and have lost touch with basic compassion, but for the Democrats, who have not pushed one-tenth as hard on this as they should have. Edited to add: The Democrats are finally pushing hard on this – after unemployment has lapsed – so yay for that.
  30. Final Rule on Workplace Wellness Programs: A Look at the Implications for Consumers – CCF – Center For Children and Families I think this is an area of Obamacare that is very likely to become a tool for enforcing lots of anti-fat discrimination. Sigh.
  31. How Some Men Harass Women Online and What Other Men Can Do to Stop It
  32. Outing a Rapist
  33. A Comedy Favorite: How The ‘Act Blacker’ Sketch Has Evolved : Code Switch : NPR
  34. The Extraordinary Story Of Why A ‘Cakewalk’ Wasn’t Always Easy : Code Switch : NPR
  35. Josephine County, Oregon: A paradise for libertarians, and for criminals.
  36. The Spirit Of The First Amendment | Slate Star Codex
  37. Center for Range Voting – front page. The idea of range voting is interesting, as are their arguments. Shame about the horribly ugly site design.
  38. A Notable Year of the Wrong Kind “By my reckoning, 2013 saw more new mass killings than any year since the early 1990s.”
  39. Rightbloggers Prove They’re No Sissies By Supporting Duck Dynasty, Beating Up Pajama Boy
  40. Don’t Blame Social Media if Your Teen Is Unsocial. It’s Your Fault | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
  41. Chart of the Day: Republicans Rule Sunday Morning | Mother Jones
  42. Boy Scouts Hope For Smooth Transition As They Accept Gay Youth
  43. This chart really shows how stunningly fast marriage equality is expanding | Family Inequality
  44. Back to Work – a conservative solution to unemployment. I’d welcome this approach. Alas, the majority of conservatives in Congress don’t seem willing to admit that unemployment is a problem caused by anything but worker laziness. Also, lowering the minimum wage for long-term unemployed workers but making up the lower wage by the government paying the employees enough to make up the difference, seems needlessly more complex than just giving companies that hire long-term unemployed a tax break.
  45. I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot. I’m sure all the conservatives who stood up for Phil Robertson are going to be just as angry and outspoken about this case, right?
  46. Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers
  47. Jenny McCarthy: My Bad, Turns Out My Kid Doesn’t Have Autism | The Sports Pig’s Blog
  48. New ACLU Report Finds Overwhelming Racial Bias in Marijuana Arrests | American Civil Liberties Union
  49. Blockbuster Films Featuring Actual Female Characters Made Serious Money in 2013 | Bitch Media
  50. This “Home Alone” poster by Adam Simpson is so brilliantly executed, it retroactively justifies the film being made. (Actually, I quite enjoyed the first one.)

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149 Responses to Open Post And Link Farm: The Greatest Of All Imaginable Home Alone Posters Edition

  1. 101
    Ampersand says:

    Ballgame:

    You’re right, I should have said “most feminists,” not “feminists.”

    It’s all anecdotal, but this is my honest anecdotal impression. If in day to day conversation with non-bloggy feminist friends and relatives I mention MRAs, I usually have to explain what the men’s rights movement is. Feminist bloggers all know who MRAs are, of course, but that’s because we have no choice but to know, not because we’re very interested in MRAs or follow their sites. (Feminist critics isn’t the only non-feminist or hostile-to-feminism blog I read regularly, but it is the only anti-feminist site I read regularly, other than Cathy Young’s work.)

    I just checked Pandagon, which afaik is run by Amanda Marcotte (but has multiple writers). Amanda, in my experience, is far more interested in MRAs and anti-feminists than most feminists – although it’s a minor interest of hers compared to, say, reproductive rights. It looks like there are 14 or so stories currently on the front page; of those, none mention MRAs, and only one mentions anti-feminists (an article about Lena Dunham’s troubles on Twitter which doesn’t actually mention anti-feminists anywhere but the headline; I suspect a planned paragraph on anti-feminists got edited out but they forgot to edit the title.)

    My main point – that anti-feminists and MRAs are much more interested in feminists than vice-versa – I’m very confident about.

    (True but sadly unprovable: I was the first person to coin the term “men’s rights advocate,” when anti-feminists I was arguing with on USENET objected to the term “anti-feminist” as a slur. (This was before there was effective archiving of USENET). So, attempting to find the most bland, inoffensive phrase possible, I coined “men’s rights advocate.” The person I was arguing with was all like “why are you calling me that? Is that some sort of insult?” but the term caught on in alt.feminism and then spread. Now, of course, many people who loathe me unknowingly use a term I made up to describe themselves. That amuses me greatly.)

  2. 102
    Ampersand says:

    P.S. What happened at Ryerson was appalling, if that story was accurate. However, it was the student union, not the college administration, that was trying to block the organization. According to this article in the Ryerson campus newspaper, the men’s rights student org will be opening this year.

  3. 103
    ballgame says:

    FWIW, Amp, it’s my understanding that the Pandagon site you linked to isn’t Amanda’s (and Jesse’s) any more. On the new Pandagon blog at Raw Story, Amanda wrote about having unwittingly let the domain registration lapse on the original Pandagon, and some aggregator snapped it up. (I don’t have a link to the specific story where Amanda talked about it; I think it was maybe a year ago or so?)

    I don’t see any ads on the original site, so I’m quite fuzzy as to how the aggregator makes money off of it (assuming that’s what he grabbed it for) … I imagine you might have a better idea than I about what’s going on there.

    As far as ‘MRAs more interested in what feminists are doing than vice versa’, I’d have to agree with you there.

    I hadn’t heard about the Ryerson men’s org going forward without being under the auspices of the student union; that’s interesting.

  4. 104
    Ampersand says:

    Ballgame:

    Geez, I hadn’t realize that’s what happened to the Pandagon domain – that’s awful. Now that you remind me, I did realize Amanda’s URL had changed (I remember updating my RSS reader), but I hadn’t realized why.

    Anyway, looking at the REAL Pandagon’s front page, I don’t see a single mention of anti-feminists or MRAs. There was one post, which while not mentioning MRAs by name, did make an argument about the word “creep,” so it’s implicitly addressing an MRA argument. Still, I think my point, whatever the heck it was, probably still stands.

    As far as ‘MRAs more interested in what feminists are doing than vice versa’, I’d have to agree with you there.

    Agreement on something! (Breaks out champagne.)

  5. 105
    ballgame says:

    Hey Amp, are you aware that clicking on one of the comments in the sidebar (I guess they’re not really comments … ‘comment thingies’ then) no longer takes you to the comment you click on, but just takes you to the top of the post that it’s a part of? It’s odd, because if you hover over the comment-thingie, the exact comment location does show up at the bottom (i.e. “https://amptoons.com/blog/2014/01/30/richard-shermans-play-and-the-vast-overreaction/comment-page-1/#comment-328884”). I don’t know if this is a deliberate change in functionality or not; I did like it better before where you would just pop on the exact comment after clicked on the sidebar comment-thingie. It’s a bit annoying (in a First World Problems kind of way) that you now have to scroll after you click. I’m using Firefox, BTW, if that matters.

    The new color scheme is starting to grow on me. Are you going to keep it, or is it just a temporary Seahawks thing? Actually, since you already have Broncos orange, I guess you’re covered! Go BRONCAWKS! :lol:

    (Oh yeah, that’s another thing … the emoticon thing stopped working. It was working two days ago, FWIW.)

    ETA: More on blog functionality: when you submit a comment, you’re now taken back to the top of the first page of the post, instead of to your published comment.

    More ETA: If you put the URL from a comment-thingie in a browser URL box, you ARE taken to that exact comment. So clearly there’s something idiosyncratic about the way the sidebar is handling these clicks.

  6. 106
    JutGory says:

    Ballgame:

    Hey Amp, are you aware that clicking on one of the comments in the sidebar (I guess they’re not really comments … ‘comment thingies’ then) no longer takes you to the comment you click on, but just takes you to the top of the post that it’s a part of?

    I think that is right if the comments are more than 100. Clicking your comment only got me to the top of the post, but clicking on another comment on a post with fewer than 100 comments (where a new comment page gets generated), it took me right to the comment.

    -Jut

  7. 107
    ballgame says:

    JutGory: Confirmed.

  8. 108
    Ampersand says:

    Ballgame and Jut, thanks for letting me know about that problem; I hadn’t noticed it.

    Unfortunately, I also don’t know how to fix it. I’ve asked for help on the Better WordPress Recent Comments forum, so hopefully someone there will no how to fix it.

    (I could turn off splitting the comments into multiple pages, but in the past that’s caused problems with posts with hundreds of comments.)

    The new color scheme is starting to grow on me.

    I kinda like it. I don’t know how long I’ll keep it, though – basically, I’ll keep it until I’m tired of it. (And no, not a Seahawks thing. :-p)

    (Oh yeah, that’s another thing … the emoticon thing stopped working. It was working two days ago, FWIW.)

    I deliberately turned it off (that it was turned on was an accident, I think). I don’t like the way emoticons can mess up 1) 2) 3) 4) numbered lists.

  9. 109
    Danny says:

    I have a question Amp.

    In the face of feminists saying they aren’t interested in arguing with MRAs why is it that when MRAs actually do say/report/mention something worthwhile feminists have a tendency to totally miss it?

    (Don’t treat this like I’m demanding you answer for all of feminism. Just what do you think.)

  10. 110
    Ampersand says:

    Danny: With all due respect, doesn’t the question answer itself? Or am I missing something?

    I mean, obviously I’m less likely to report news items from blogs I’m not interested in and therefore don’t follow. Surely that’s true for every blogger, regardless of ideology.

    In addition, if I hear that “blue penguins have landed on Australia,” that story may or may not be true – but I’m more likely to check it out if it comes from a source that I find credible. Time is limited and links to follow are basically infinite.

  11. 111
    Danny says:

    The reason I was asking is because even while not interested in MRAs, feminists seem to have a pretty easy time mentioning negative things that come from them.

    When posts like “Fuck You, MRAs” can be shared and tweeted all over the place and there are calls for them to say something decent or worthwhile but when something like that comes along they don’t seem to notice.

    I guess I’m trying to figure out how Feminists don’t have any interest in MRAs but feminists manage to find time to point out negative stuff and call for some positive stuff but when there is something positive those feminists are nowhere to be found.

    I mean, obviously I’m less likely to report news items from blogs I’m not interested in and therefore don’t follow. Surely that’s true for every blogger, regardless of ideology.
    But if you say you aren’t interested in those blogs and don’t follow them but at the same time you are sharing, quoting, retweeting, or even writing articles against them that would be odd to say the least.

    In addition, if I hear that “blue penguins have landed on Australia,” that story may or may not be true – but I’m more likely to check it out if it comes from a source that I find credible. Time is limited and links to follow are basically infinite.
    I understand that time is limited but if your credible sources were to cover the blue penguins landing in Australia, landing in Japan, landing in China but then when the blue penguins try to open up trade and your credible sources suddenly go silent wouldn’t that be odd?

  12. 112
    Ampersand says:

    Danny, if you look at my entire comment, it’s clear I wasn’t claiming that feminists NEVER talk about MRAs, so the contradiction you’re pointing out simply isn’t there.

    I was saying that most feminists don’t care much about MRAs, and even most feminist bloggers have a lot of interests they post about more than MRAs. I was saying that MRAs are a hell of a lot more interested in feminists than vice-versa.

    I don’t give a damn if some feminist tweets or retweets “Fuck you MRAs.” I want a modicum of civility here on “Alas,” but it’s not my job or desire to police how people talk to each other outside this blog. And many MRAs have earned being told to fuck off.

    Finally, please don’t come to “Alas” again to demand that me or anyone else here answer for feminism generally, or for what you imagine feminism is, or for what some feminist somewhere else allegedly said. (Yes, I’m aware that you claimed you weren’t trying to do that, right before you went ahead and did it.)

  13. 113
    Ampersand says:

    Ballgame:

    I notice you didn’t respond at all to my reasons for saying that describing your blog as “anti-feminist” are fair.

    Regarding the thread on your blog:

    Yes, I did engage in hyperbole. But yes, there is a misogyny problem with some of the comments on your blog. And yes, you do seem unable to see that misogyny.

    You write:

    Sarcasm aside, Amp, the problem with the original assertion that “everyone” at FC was somehow “such a complete misogynist that they can’t even see misogyny” is not that it was painting with “too wide a brush” … it’s that the claim is ludicrous. You can’t even cite specifics from your own evidence (the particular FC thread that you selected).

    *shrug* My experience with most racists is they say accusing them of racism is ludicrous. They’ve developed an ingrained habit of excusing and ignoring racism. I think you do the same thing with all but the most overt and obvious misogyny. (That doesn’t mean that I think you’re lying; I’m sure you’re sincere.)

    And of course I can cite specifics. But I don’t see the point, because – as your comments responding to me about the thread on FC have demonstrated – you’ll respond with denial, sarcasm, and a tone dripping with contempt. You’ve so far been unwilling to have a reasonable, respectful discussion. (ETA: Of this specific matter.)

    Well, fair enough. There was one comment in this thread where I lost my temper (which I’ve walked back a bit), and I certainly understand that you get angry, too. But from now on, if you can’t or won’t control your tone of sarcasm and contempt, then we can’t have this discussion here.

    Some examples – by no means all of them – from a very quick scan of the thread:

    [From a comment “on how to lower the amount of abuse on the internet”] Stop with the “Gaslighting”. I don’t know of a better word to use here, and it’s similar enough so I’ll use it. If anybody has any ideas let me know. But what I mean by this, is telling people (especially men) what they feel and why they feel it. Enough with talking about “toxic masculinity” and “male power fantasies” or “male entitlement”. It’s both deeply sexist and hurtful. And yes. People tend to react in anger to this sort of thing.

    That very lengthy comment listed five ways to address the problem, four of which – worded one way or another – said that women and/or feminists should stop saying things that make men mad, one of which said we need more sites like Feminist Critics. As I recall, I was the only person to object at all to that comment, although others praised it.

    No person should need to have it pointed out to them that, if some men send women death threats when they don’t agree with the woman’s politics, it’s very misogynistic to respond, in a nutshell, “the solution is for women to shut up.” That neither you or Daran is able to see this proves my point; even obvious misogyny goes unnoticed by you, so long as that misogyny is put in polite language.

    (ETA: The excuse that he didn’t specify that he was talking about death or rape threats won’t fly; we were unambiguously in the middle of a discussion of death and rape threats against women.)

    My sense is that Tunblrfems and netfems are going to take this is one more opportunity for grievance collecting and victim wallowing, and more mature feminists are going to come down on the side fo groing a skin.

    So feminists should just put up with death threats, and objecting to death threats is “victim wallowing” and a sign of immaturity. Do you seriously see no problem with that statement?

    Quite a bit of information and CONTEXT that most of the feminists at places such as the Daily Dot never come clean about or acknowledge. Same with Anita Sarkeesian, same with Rebecca Watson, as I detail in one of my own posts about Elevatorgate.

    And that’s why I don’t believe most of these death threats even happen.

    Talk about denial! But you think it’s ludicrous to say that there’s denial going on in that thread.

    It’s really not ludicrous to think that there’s misogyny in FC comments.

  14. 114
    Danny says:

    Amp I wasn’t trying to demand any answers from you. If you wanted to answer or not was up to you and even you did its not like it would be the one definitive answer.

    So please don’t try to tell me what my motives are when I ask a question.

    And for the record I never said there were no MRAs have earned a “fuck off” response.

  15. 115
    Tristan says:

    “No person should need to have it pointed out to them that, if some men send women death threats when they don’t agree with the woman’s politics, it’s very misogynistic to respond, in a nutshell, “the solution is for women to shut up.” ”

    ———–

    I guess I don’t see it either. The author of the post is not telling women to shut up at all. He’s citing very specific language that he feels is not helpful.

    If you are trying to make a point and keep using the “n” word, and I say that it’s probably not helpful – and I find it racist – that you are using that word, it’s not telling you to shut up in general. And if the poster feels that certain things are sexist towards him and men, that’s how he feels. I’ve been called a misogynist for the very act of NOT putting women up on a pedestal as though they are a different species. I treat men and women equally, meaning that men should not be silenced either.

  16. 116
    mythago says:

    Going back a bit – Phil @35, they’re not only grasping at straws, they are illustrating the failure mode of clever. If they were right, then it would be perfectly legal for the government to mandate marriages be interracial. It’s a legalese version of “Checkmate, liberals!”, and really, it’s not going to impress anyone other than the associate who got stuck writing it.

  17. 117
    Elusis says:

    Well, since we have some folks on this thread who seem to feel that sexism against men should be addressed, I’m inclined to offer a pointer back to this post and some of the comments.

  18. 118
    mythago says:

    On the other hand, I can’t recall ever seeing prisoner victimisation treated as something that only happens to men.

    Daran, I find that strange. I have routinely seen sexual assault of prisoners treated as exclusively a problem of victimizing men – generally along the lines of ‘if you feminists care so much about rape victims why don’t you talk about prison rape, oh right you don’t care about that because it’s happening to men’.

    Regarding censorship and ‘real debate’: the idea that all MRA sites are bastions of open, thoughtful debate where nobody is ever banned or censored seems a bit idealistic.

  19. 119
    Ampersand says:

    In addition to what Mythago said, Daran, you’re ignoring the sexism of the male default. Here are the first ten current articles about violence in prisons I found on Google News (although I only included one article about the situation in Brazil).

    Prison Violence Brings Scrutiny to State in Brazil – NYTimes.com
    Britain’s New ‘Model’ Prison Is Disturbingly Violent, And Its Design Could Be To Blame – Business Insider
    Private Idaho prison a nightmare of violence and under-equipped guards, says lawsuit | The Raw Story
    Female prison in Oklahoma has highest rape rate in U.S. | News OK
    Gang activity behind violence at Ky. prison housing Vt. inmates? – WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-
    ‘A Lorton Prison Project’ Exposes Gang Violence And Drug Warfare – BWWBooksWorld
    Scathing report on violence at Tutwiler prison has officials searching for solutions
    Serious staff assaults reach high in Ohio’s prisons | http://www.daytondailynews.com
    Report: Prison Rape Runs Rampant – Ring Of Fire Radio: Robert Kennedy Jr, Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
    Ohio prisons expected to swell past 51,000 inmates, violence feared – Break News – Ohio

    The majority of these stories are about men’s prisons – but they aren’t identified as men’s prisons. Just as prisons. In contrast, the two stories focusing on female prisons both identify the prisons as being for women. Only one story, a story which focuses on about rape in prisons, refers to both men’s prisons and women’s prisons. (That I saw – I admit I just skimmed.)

    This is male-as-default, and it is a very common form of sexism against women, in that in most stories men are treated as the default and norm, whereas women are treated as an exception. (Hence the Bechdel Test.) At the same time, in the particular example of prisoner victimization, you could argue that it’s also sexism against men, in that it’s hardly a positive thing to be thought of as the default for “violent criminal.”

    But yes, most articles do treat “prisoner victimisation treated as something that only happens to men” – in that female prisoners are typically never mentioned, or are mentioned only as the exceptional state.

  20. 120
    Daran says:

    Ampersand:

    Some examples – by no means all of them – from a very quick scan of the thread:

    [From a comment “on how to lower the amount of abuse on the internet”] Stop with the “Gaslighting”. I don’t know of a better word to use here, and it’s similar enough so I’ll use it. If anybody has any ideas let me know. But what I mean by this, is telling people (especially men) what they feel and why they feel it. Enough with talking about “toxic masculinity” and “male power fantasies” or “male entitlement”. It’s both deeply sexist and hurtful. And yes. People tend to react in anger to this sort of thing.

    Here’s a link to the comment in question.

    That very lengthy comment listed five ways to address the problem, four of which – worded one way or another – said that women and/or feminists should stop saying things that make men mad,

    It said that they should stop saying things which are, in various ways misandrist, which I define analogously to a definition of misogyny you have endorsed: “hatred or strong prejudice”.

    #2 ““Gaslighting”. … is telling people (especially men) what they feel and why they feel it.”

    Telling people what they think or feel, or just assuming that they think or feel something, based upon their sex, is prejudice against men. The intensity with which some feminists insist than men have certain thoughts or feelings, contradicting what those men have to say for themselves, is certainly strong.

    #3 “watch (but not necessarily eliminate) the use of “power words”. “Misogynist”, “Rape Apologist”, and so on. Again, deeply offensive to those, especially when they’re aimed at moderates.”

    He doesn’t say eliminate these words, but “watch” how they’re used, especially against moderates. Anyone who dissents from feminism is liable to get these words thrown at them, no matter how extreme the feminism, or how reasonable the dissent. In fact, the more extreme the feminism, the more likely it is that these words will be used. Moreover, you’re most likely to be targeted when advocating men’s interests in some way, so again, this is misandry.

    #4 Recognize that you’re not always “Punching Up”.

    The view that a man is necessarily privileged over a similarly situated women is a strongly-held prejudice against men.

    #5 “stop with the mindless bashing.”

    Which I take to be a critique of sites like Manboobz. Take this post for example. You’d think a graphic which praises men without blaming feminism might not attract feminist ire, but no. God forbid that we should ever praise men. Quick. Find something that we can blame them for!

    one of which said we need more sites like Feminist Critics.

    #1 “here’s the one that’s NOT in the FM’s court, but they certainly have a role to play. And so do we, and well. Ballgame as an example is doing it. Intellectualize the opposition. Move it away from anger and towards reason. Instead of it being about slurs and anger, make it about ideas and issues. But again, this has to come from both sides. It means the FM actually engaging with the moderate critics and not sweeping us under the rug.”

    What’s misogynist about this?

    No person should need to have it pointed out to them that, if some men send women death threats…

    Who says it’s just men sending the threats? I already linked to a case in the UK where a woman was jailed for threatening a feminist activist. It’s pretty damn sexist to assume that it’s just men who are doing this.

    …when they don’t agree with the woman’s politics, it’s very misogynistic to respond, in a nutshell, “the solution is for women to shut up.” That neither you or Daran is able to see this proves my point; even obvious misogyny goes unnoticed by you, so long as that misogyny is put in polite language.

    That is not, in a nutshell, what he said. As ballgame pointed out: Saying “end the gender war” does not mean “women shut up”. The way to end the gender war on the feminist side (who after all started it, before the men’s movement even came into existence) is to halt the misandry. It is not misogyny, to call for an end to misandry.

    (ETA: The excuse that he didn’t specify that he was talking about death or rape threats won’t fly; we were unambiguously in the middle of a discussion of death and rape threats against women.)

    To the contrary, the topic of discussion had broadened to the online harassment of women/feminists generally. You yourself defended the relevance of a study which counted among others, messages which were merely sexually explicit, without being threatening, directed at silent identities on IRC with male and female names. So when he said “Here’s my suggestions on how to lower the amount of abuse on the internet”, you are not just reading him uncharitably by assuming he just meant death and rape threats, you are rejecting his actual words, and substituting something he did not say. Classic strawmanning.

    My sense is that Tunblrfems and netfems are going to take this is one more opportunity for grievance collecting and victim wallowing, and more mature feminists are going to come down on the side fo groing a skin.

    So feminists should just put up with death threats, and objecting to death threats is “victim wallowing” and a sign of immaturity. Do you seriously see no problem with that statement?

    Again a charitable reading would be that he’s talking about online abuse generally, perhaps including hyperbolic, fanciful, and incredible “threats”, which aren’t “true threats” according to law. I can’t see a qualitative difference between feminists complaining generally about online abuse and me complaining about the things I complain about, so if they’re “victim wallowing”, so am I.

    Quite a bit of information and CONTEXT that most of the feminists at places such as the Daily Dot never come clean about or acknowledge. Same with Anita Sarkeesian, same with Rebecca Watson, as I detail in one of my own posts about Elevatorgate.

    And that’s why I don’t believe most of these death threats even happen…

    Talk about denial! But you think it’s ludicrous to say that there’s denial going on in that thread.

    Complete the quote:

    …Places like geekfeminism can’t be bothered to get facts or timelines straight and have but one narrative they want to push, meanwhile the people yelling loudest about how they have so many haters never mention their own part in the argument, and usually don’t even provide examples. Instead you have to ‘trust them’.

    Clarence had been talking specifically about the Adria Richards affair, which he likened, in the fragment you quoted to Watson and Sarkeesian. Obviously I’ve heard of all three cases, but I’m most familiar with Richards’, so lets talk about that.

    Richards famously tweeted a photograph she took of two male participants at a developer conference who apparently shared a willy joke between themselves which she overheard, as well as a remark about forking (i.e., duplicating with intent to diverge) a repo (repository, presumably of software), which she claims but they deny was innuendo. As a result of the tweet, the conference organisers contacted her, and she identified the men to then, resulting in their eviction from the conference. One of the men lost his job over the affair.

    It later emerged that she herself had tweeted a willy joke. So either she is a hypocrite who thinks willy jokes are OK for her to make, but not for anyone else, or she is a sexist who thinks that willy jokes are OK for women to make but not for men, or she doesn’t really care whether other people make willy jokes, but used the men’s as a pretext for causing them trouble. I lean toward the latter explanation myself, and I don’t think it is unreasonable for people to conclude, on the basis of her admitted and documented behaviour, that she lacks personal integrity.

    People who lack personal integrity are not entitled to a presumption of personal veracity, and it is not misogyny to doubt them when they claim things they cannot substantiate.

    It’s really not ludicrous to think that there’s misogyny in FC comments.

    This is the incredible shrinking claim. First it was “everyone there is such a complete misogynist that they can’t even see misogyny.”, then you admitted that this was “too wide a brush”. Now you’re merely arguing (and pretending that we’ve ever disputed it) that “there’s misogyny in FC comments”. With nearly 50,000 comments visible, it’s a pretty safe bet that there’s some misogyny in there somewhere, just as there is misandry in Alas comments.

    But of the three comments you cited, only one comes close to expressing misogyny. Only Ginkgo’s comment, read charitably, poo-pooed the legitimate concerns of women. Karmakin called for an end to feminist misandry, while Clarence expressed lack of trust toward feminists – trust which feminists haven’t earned.

  21. 121
    Daran says:

    Mythago (quoting me)

    On the other hand, I can’t recall ever seeing prisoner victimisation treated as something that only happens to men.

    Daran, I find that strange. I have routinely seen sexual assault of prisoners treated as exclusively a problem of victimizing men – generally along the lines of ‘if you feminists care so much about rape victims why don’t you talk about prison rape, oh right you don’t care about that because it’s happening to men’.

    To be honest, when I made that remark I was thinking of things above the level of blog comments. This for example, where male and female victims are represented equally in the “Featured Survivor Testimonies”, and the only image in the sidebar is female. Or this, where one of the three subjects of of the revolving banner references female prisoners and which has a link to a dedicated section on women prominent on the top of the page.

    Ampersand:

    In addition to what Mythago said, Daran, you’re ignoring the sexism of the male default.

    […]

    The majority of these stories are about men’s prisons. – but they aren’t identified as men’s prisons. Just as prisons. In contrast, the two stories focusing on female prisons both identify the prisons as being for women. Only one story, a story which focuses on about rape in prisons, refers to both men’s prisons and women’s prisons. (That I saw – I admit I just skimmed.)

    Actually I think all three stories focused upon women’s prisons, though one of them did refer to men’s.

    This is male-as-default, and it is a very common form of sexism against women, in that in most stories men are treated as the default and norm, whereas women are treated as an exception. (Hence the Bechdel Test.) At the same time, in the particular example of prisoner victimization, you could argue that it’s also sexism against men, in that it’s hardly a positive thing to be thought of as the default for “violent criminal.”

    You’re mixing up victimisation and perpetration. Men are certainly the default prisoner, who is generally viewed through the lens of “criminal”. I don’t agree that they are the default victim. They are certainly not the default rape victim, nor are they the default civilian victim

    But yes, most articles do treat “prisoner victimisation treated as something that only happens to men” – in that female prisoners are typically never mentioned, or are mentioned only as the exceptional state.

    I don’t agree that this is “typically” the case, Obviously in a story about the victimisation of the inmates of a specific prison, there are no victims of the sex not incarcerated there to be mentioned. Only two of the stories you cited were about more than one prison. One story about a male prison managed to find some female rape victims (the inmate’s wives) but no male victims. Do you think it likely that there were no victims of rape among the inmates in that prison?

    What we don’t see, in any of those stories, is female victims being specifically erased. Nobody equates “prison violence” with “violence against men”. Yet we can find examples where “All Forms of Sexual Violence” is characterised as “violence against women”.

    The other thing that your “default” theory doesn’t account for is the near exclusive focus of the news media upon female victims, particularly rape victims, to the near, if not outright erasure of male victims, whenever there are female victims to focus upon. Take this story about an attack on villagers by a Congolese army unit. That there was a mass stabbing of men gets a single clause, less than a sentence, in the video report, and no mention at all in the written text. Similarly in this followup, the twenty-six stabbing victims, certainly twenty-five men and one child, get less than a sentance. This Reuters report doesn’t mention the stabbings at all. Apparently looting is more newsworthy than a mass stabbing of men.

    The last sentence of that Reuters report is interesting:

    Last month a U.N. Security Council committee blacklisted a Congolese army commander for ordering massacres and rapes of women and children in the east.

    I was sufficiently intrigued to research how many of those women and children were men. It turns out that of the two major atrocities committed by units under his control, one was an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children, while the other was a gendercide against men, in which some women were caught up.

    Finally I would observe that the exceptionalisation of women tends to lead to calls for better treatment, in some cases more favourable than men (example) Moreover, those calls frequently come from those in power. The exceptionalisation of men tends to lead to them being ignored by everyone who matters. Here’s the World Health Organisation on war related sexual violence:

    In armed conflicts, the breakdown of social infrastructures, the disintegration of families and communities and the disruption of responses leave women and girls vulnerable to sexual and other forms of gender-based violence, including rape by combatants and intimate partners or acquaintances and, at times, sexual exploitation by humanitarian actors.

    If there is anyone other than women and girls vulnerable to sexual violence, the WHO doesn’t appear to be aware of then. When they commissioned a study of the health-care needs of sexual abuse survivors in Liberia, they only surveyed women and girls.

  22. 122
    mythago says:

    Daran, I was not thinking of ‘just blog comments’ either. However, you appear to have misread my comment as suggesting there are never discussions about abuse of female prisoners anywhere on the Internet and such discussions do not exist. I’m not sure where you got that interpretation, as it would be a very strange statement indeed; I would expect prisoners’ rights groups and groups focused on the abuse of incarcerated persons to talk about all kinds of abuse. Of course, prisoners’ rights was not the context in which your remarks, or Tamen or Ampersand’s remarks previously, were made.

  23. 123
    Ginkgo says:

    “is that anti-feminists’ and MRAs’ primary interest is feminists and feminism,”

    If tyou are going to coment on the MRM, you should make an effort to understand it. thMRAs wants to demolish the traditional gender system – and this is their fundamental point of dispute with PUAs – because of the way it chews men up, and it sees feminism as a faux-rebellion based on traditionalist gender assumptions that uses traditioanlist gender expectations to get support for its advocacy. In other words, the MRM sees feminism as patriarchy in drag. That is its point of dispute wiht feminism. It puts feminists and PUAs into the same bin.

    “while feminists are (with the exception of the “man boobz” dude) barely at all interested in anti-feminists.”

    Lindy West would beg to differ with you on that. An she is not alone:
    http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/patriarchy-blaming-the-twisty-way/mra/
    http://lolatmra.tumblr.com/
    http://www.shakesville.com/2007/10/explainer-whats-mra.html
    http://fembee.blogspot.com/2013/09/some-mras-really-dislike-feminist-men.html
    http://sisterhoodispowerful.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/the-dangerous-tale-of-the-mres-and-their-allies/
    and, ahem:
    https://amptoons.com/blog/2009/08/06/mens-rights-activists-anti-feminists-and-other-misogynists-comment-on-george-sodini/

  24. 124
    Ampersand says:

    Ginko, do you not understand that “barely interested” does not mean “not at all interested”? (Also, maybe you didn’t read the thread following the comment you quoted, or you might have seen me explain that I meant feminists in general, not all feminists.)

    I mean, yes, I wrote a post about MRAs five years ago. That you raise this as if it were a telling point suggests that you don’t understand the difference. (Or that you’re just being disingenuous in an attempt to score points.)

    EDITED TO ADD: Incidentally, I do think I’m much more interested in what MRAs say than most feminists are. Which doesn’t mean I’m that interested, really, but I’m aware that MRAs exist, ten years ago I paid them a lot of attention, and I don’t completely ignore them. That puts me in the top 5% of feminists as far as “degree of interest in MRAs” go, I’d guesstimate.

  25. 126
    Jake Squid says:

    If tyou are going to coment on the MRM, you should make an effort to understand it. thMRAs wants to demolish the traditional gender system…

    That’s quite a claim. I’d love to see some support for it as I haven’t, in my blog skimming experience, seen anything of the sort. In fact, I’ve seen enough that I honestly never thought I’d see this assertion.

  26. 127
    mythago says:

    Christ, Elusis. Next you’ll be asking them to talk about sexism against gay men.

  27. 128
    Danny says:

    Last line from the post Elusis linked:
    Doyin also pointedly observes that he sometimes get praised for parenting, when no one would think twice (let alone praise) a mom doing the exact same things.
    Praising dads for parenting is right in the same vein of “compliments” as telling woman who just won a shooting contest “Not bad for a woman.”.

    When you’re told from the earliest of ages that you are not supposed to do something because of your gender its no surprise that those same people will then turn around and want to pat you on the head for doing it anyway.

  28. 129
    mythago says:

    Praising dads for parenting is right in the same vein of “compliments” as telling woman who just won a shooting contest “Not bad for a woman.”.

    More like telling her “You shoot just as good as a man!”

    The praising dads thing is actually sexist to both parents; to the father, because it assumes that he’s overcome some handicap of his gender to take an interest in his own children, let alone do so competently, and that he’s going above and beyond; and to the mother, because it assumes childrearing is her job, and thus worthy of no special notice or praise.

  29. 130
    Elusis says:

    Next you’ll be asking them to talk about sexism against gay men.

    I know. I’m such a vicious, man-hating feminazi.

  30. 131
    Danny says:

    Of course it is Mythago (and its not like i said women came out unscathed by such commentary) but I thought Elusis wanted to talk about sexism against men.

    But even with the shooting. Guns are connected to violence and when it comes to gender its just assumed men are naturals at it.

  31. 132
    mythago says:

    Danny, you did introduce the issue of sexism against women in @128 there. But if you look upthread, Elusis was not saying “nobody talk about sexism except against men”, but instead was pointing out that if there was a concern that sexism against men went unaddressed here, that there was an entire thread devoted to an incident where a father had received sexist and racist harassment merely for posting a picture on his ‘daddy blog’ of him combing his daughter’s hair. It wasn’t an incident where somebody patronizingly told him what a good daddy he was; on the contrary, a number of people thought it was a great idea to suggest he must be a terrible father.

  32. 133
    Ginkgo says:

    “Ginko, do you not understand that “barely interested” does not mean “not at all interested”?”

    Amp, you clarified on that as your honest impression, and that’s reasonable. The fact is thought that MRAs are enough of a bete noir in the femmisphere that calling someone an MRA is a pretty cmmon discrediting tactic.

    Jake
    “If tyou are going to coment on the MRM, you should make an effort to understand it. thMRAs wants to demolish the traditional gender system…

    That’s quite a claim. I’d love to see some support for it as I haven’t, in my blog skimming experience, seen anything of the sort. ”

    Do you consider Typhonblue an MRA? She is quite definitely intenet on taking the traditional gender system down. Check out her youtube channel.

    And if you feel ready, go look at A Voice for Men. For keywords look at what they attack -“male disposability”, “dameseling”, “white knighting”, female victimhood – all features of the traditional gender system.

    mythago,
    “Christ, Elusis. Next you’ll be asking them to talk about sexism against gay men.”

    I can’t click on his link right now, but if it “asking them to talk about sexism against gay men” has to do with feminists talking abouit and enouncing homophobia, they do it all the time, to their great credit. Although it has to be pointed out that they generally do it in a pretty problematic way, analyzing it as just anohter form of misogyny.

  33. 134
    Jake Squid says:

    If you’re holding up AVf(s)M as a bastion of support for dismantling traditional gender roles… I just don’t see it. Sure, they don’t like certain parts of the traditional male gender role, but they really get their hackles up if they perceive their (traditional) masculinity as being questioned. They mostly appear to be gender essentialists to me.

    I haven’t checked in on Typhonblue in years and don’t expect to anytime ever, so…

  34. 135
    Elusis says:

    that there was an entire thread devoted to an incident where a father had received sexist and racist harassment merely for posting a picture on his ‘daddy blog’ of him combing his daughter’s hair.

    And yet, our latest men’s rights commenters don’t seem concerned about this. How strange. I mean, this is exactly the kind of stereotyping of males that leads to men being seen as threats to children rather than good caretakers, which undoubtedly affects custody situations and men’s ability to take paternity and family sick leave.

    I mean, apparently a lot of the sexism was coming from other men, but surely the *source* of sexism isn’t a reason to dismiss sexism, is it? We can assume it’s not because the father in question is black, because discussing racism is evidence of being racist.

  35. 136
    mythago says:

    Gingko @133: if you genuinely believe that all feminist analysis of homophobia is “it’s just another form of misogyny,” I would respectfully suggest that your information is very incomplete. Homophobia and misogyny absolutely feed on each other, but they are not the same thing.

  36. 137
    Tristan says:

    “And yet, our latest men’s rights commenters don’t seem concerned about this. How strange.”

    ——————

    Elusis, I’m not even sure what your shaming/taunting post is supposed to mean. Supposed, non-specific men’s rights commenters (who maybe haven’t self-identified as such) are supposed to be doing something on this board according to you. You realize that they may not want to be banned, or may not even want to make irrelevant comments on a different thread, so what exactly are you demanding they do and why are you demanding it? You never really come out and say anything, you just kind of quasi deniably shame/taunt.

  37. 138
    Danny says:

    Danny, you did introduce the issue of sexism against women in @128 there.
    Okay so I did introduce it. But did I introduce it in some manner that gave the impression that I don’t think that situation is sexist against moms?

    When I said, “Of course it is” that was in response to you saying, “The praising dads thing is actually sexist to both parents…”. Did I say something to give the impression that I think its not sexist against moms?

    But if you look upthread, Elusis was not saying “nobody talk about sexism except against men”, but instead was pointing out that if there was a concern that sexism against men went unaddressed here, that there was an entire thread devoted to an incident where a father had received sexist and racist harassment merely for posting a picture on his ‘daddy blog’ of him combing his daughter’s hair. It wasn’t an incident where somebody patronizingly told him what a good daddy he was; on the contrary, a number of people thought it was a great idea to suggest he must be a terrible father.
    Then simply put I read Elusis’ comment wrong. I read it as trying to say that as an attempt to change the course of the discussion.

    Elusis:
    And yet, our latest men’s rights commenters don’t seem concerned about this.
    And what are you basing this on? The fact that they didn’t go to the post you linked on the topic?

    mythago:
    if you genuinely believe that all feminist analysis of homophobia is “it’s just another form of misogyny,” I would respectfully suggest that your information is very incomplete. Homophobia and misogyny absolutely feed on each other, but they are not the same thing.
    I wouldn’t say all of it but that seems to be a common sentiment.

  38. 139
    Elusis says:

    There is frequently the accusation from men’s rights individuals/groups that feminists don’t care about men – about bad things that happen to men, about how sexism affects men, about how men’s relationships can be hurt by stereotyping of men, and so on.

    Amp posted about a man who was harassed and abused when he posted a picture of himself being a nurturing father to his two girls. The initial conversation was about the racism in the responses, but I pointed out the tremendous sexism in the responses as well, and wondered why this man wasn’t being championed by men who are concerned about how men are framed as incompetent or abusive to their children, and not given credit for how they can also be nurturing and skilled parents.

    At the time, many of the occasional commenters here (ballgame and Daran I recognize from having popped up now and then in the past, Tamen usually concerns himself mostly with male rape victims, I don’t remember seeing Danny or Gingko before) had not been visible in a while. I wondered whether any would use what seemed to me a clear incidence of sexism against men/fathers as an opportunity to decry and unpack the attacks on this father. However, it was hard to draw a very certain conclusion – perhaps our occasional men’s rights visitors were just not here at the time?

    Hence my link back. The “feminists don’t care about men” accusation is coming up again in this thread. I’m pointing directly to a conversation initiated by Amp, a self-described feminist, and commented on by people including myself, also a self-described feminist, and saying “you want feminists to talk about sexism against men? Here we are: let’s talk about it, because this is not OK!” But so far the commenters on this thread, who say they are very concerned about sexism against men, don’t seem interested in adding to the conversation, just continuing their claim that feminists don’t care much about men.

  39. 140
    Daran says:

    Elusis, my reasons for not commenting on that thread, and indeed, not commenting substantively on any other thread on Alas, were set out in Comment #59 in this thread. I never intended to engage in substantive discussions in this thread either. I came here, in the first instance, to thank Ampersand for linking to my coblogger’s post. I came back for the sole purpose of linking to one of my own. It was then that I noticed that I was being discussed by name, so I responded. All of the discussions I have taken part in, in this thread, have followed from that, though there has been some topic drift. I do not intend to comment on Alas outside this thread, or outside this discussion.

    I notice that neither you nor anyone I recognise as an Alas commenter has responded to the post I came here to link, neither on my blog nor here. Should I speculate that this is because you don’t care? Presumably it isn’t because the victims are non-white. Perhaps you just don’t care about victims who don’t live in North America.

    Do you see how silly this all gets?

    In fact, the gender one-sidedness of the non-sexual victimisation in war, the two-sidedness of sexual victimisation, and the erasure of male victims of both has been a persistent theme of my blogging over the years. In most cases, the victim population under discussion has been non-white. My coblogger has posted repeatedly in support of SSM. I’m just about to put up a post recording the step forward my own country took yesterday, and I have posted in support of trans rights in the past.

    Oh and by the way. One of the “men’s rights commenters” here is black. Another is gay. And I survive on disability benefit, so the idea that we’re all heterosexual bitter privileged white men, uninterested in the rights of men who aren’t, is, to use someone else’s word, ludicrous.

  40. 141
    Tristan says:

    Elusis writes (thread link at the bottom of Daran’s post above):
    “Men’s Rights Activists are hypocrites and frauds. They’re bitter privileged white men who don’t want to campaign for the rights of men – they want to campaign to keep their privilege unchecked and their ability to discriminate against others.”

    —-

    Kind of nasty stuff actually. Maybe the word is bigotry. I would guess that at least a few men’s rights activists are people who see some injustice in society (for instance in family court) and want to change it.

    I’m also not sure that you can blame people who don’t want to waltz into that buzz saw on that thread.

  41. 142
    Elusis says:

    My point is that it seems that as per usual, it’s more interesting to talk about how terrible women/feminists are, than to talk about actual sexism against men. Particularly when it’s other men who are partly responsible. And when the sexism against men involves attacking them for being non-traditionally masculine.

    And offering examples of feminists caring about sexism against men doesn’t seem to have any effect on the “feminists don’t care about sexism against men” trope. Which makes having a conversation with y’all really kind of boring and irritating.

    Also, if you can’t tell the difference between something I wrote and something I quoted, please read more carefully.

  42. 143
    Daran says:

    Elusis:

    My point is that it seems that as per usual, it’s more interesting to talk about how terrible women/feminists are, than to talk about actual sexism against men.

    I just looked at your comments in that thread. Every time you mentioned the sexism, it was to use it as a springboard to talk about how terrible MRAs are. Every single time. And it appears that this was your reason for linking to that thread from this one:

    And yet, our latest men’s rights commenters don’t seem concerned about this. How strange…

    Except as a pretext for bashing men’s rights commenters, there no indication that you have any interest in the subject at all.

    But let’s get back to the topic you are interested in: How terrible men’s rights people are:

    My point is that it seems that as per usual, it’s more interesting to talk about how terrible women/feminists are, than to talk about actual sexism against men. Particularly when it’s other men who are partly responsible. And when the sexism against men involves attacking them for being non-traditionally masculine.

    And offering examples of feminists caring about sexism against men doesn’t seem to have any effect on the “feminists don’t care about sexism against men” trope. Which makes having a conversation with y’all really kind of boring and irritating.

    Nobody has said anything to the effect that women are terrible, or indeed made any negative generalisation about women at all. You’re just making up shit.

    As for feminists not caring, who is arguing this? Certainly not me. I have no interest in speculating what feminists think or feel or care about, or in making judgement about their character. What interests me about feminists is what they say and do, whether it make sense and whether it accords with reality.

    Also, if you can’t tell the difference between something I wrote and something I quoted, please read more carefully.

    I knew you quoted that passage from elsewhere. Do you think that immunizes it from reply?

  43. 144
    Ampersand says:

    Except as a pretext for bashing men’s rights commenters, there no indication that you have any interest in the subject at all.

    This is unfair. Although each of her comments in that thread mentioned MRAs, there were other subjects discussed in her comments, as well.

    I agree with her general observation that it’s common for MRAs to criticize feminists without much regard to what we actually write, particularly on the “you’d never say that if it was about men instead of women” front. I’m too lazy to go through this particular thread to see if it’s happened here (plus, don’t really care that much), but it certainly happens with metronomatic regularity.

  44. 145
    Daran says:

    Ampersand (quoting me):

    Except as a pretext for bashing men’s rights commenters, there no indication that you have any interest in the subject at all.

    This is unfair. Although each of her comments in that thread mentioned MRAs, there were other subjects discussed in her comments, as well.

    I meant that there was no indication that she had any interest in the subject of sexism against men. I didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in anything else in that thread. In particular, she clearly was interested in the racial element. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

    With that clarification, I stand by my remark.

    I agree with her general observation that it’s common for MRAs to criticize feminists without much regard to what we actually write, particularly on the “you’d never say that if it was about men instead of women” front.

    I agree that MRAs and others sometimes do this. I’ve even blogged about it. But Elusis’ remarks in this thread were aimed not at MRAs in general but at “our latest men’s rights commenters”, presumably me in particular, because she’s replying to me. She’s been criticising us without much regard to what we actually write.

  45. 146
    Elusis says:

    Obviously I care about the issue – I brought UP the sexist implications of the backlash in that discussion thread, IIRC. And shared it around Facebook, as did many of my friends, most if not all of whom would identify as feminists. It got written up on a bunch of feminist blogs too. I read that father’s story and was outraged and sickened by both the racism and sexism involved.

    I’m just baffled at the fact that the men’s rights blogosphere didn’t turn the sexism against this guy into a major viral campaign against the ways sexism hurts men.

    Except that “baffled” is the wrong word: I’m utterly unsurprised that it didn’t happen. From everything I can tell, you guys are not actually that interested in individual men’s experiences of sexism, unless it plays into one of your pet narratives (e.g. “women really screw men in divorce court,” “men get trapped into paternity,” etc.) where you can position men as the real victims and women as the real perpetrators. This guy’s story doesn’t fit your narrative because a lot of the sexism was perpetrated by other men. For that matter, men’s opportunities to care for children, do little girls’ hairdos, stay at home and shoulder the majority of the child care, etc. don’t seem to rank very high in concern either as far as I can tell. “Women are taking our money and our rights” doesn’t marry well with “I’m choosing to stay home while my wife works.”

    Does his story move you at all? Are you going to take up his situation on your blog and encourage other similarly-minded bloggers to take a stand against the kind of sexist (and racist) BS he had to endure for the crime of posting a picture of himself doing his daughter’s hair?

  46. 147
    Tristan says:

    Elusis, you’re telling Daran what he should write on his own blog and how he should do it. Why? How would you react if I started telling you what you should write on your own blog? Maybe you would tell me to mind my own business?

    I realize that you strongly dislike anyone who talks about men’s rights, but my general feeling is that you don’t understand how they think and you only want to slam them without really trying to understand thinking that may be much different than yours. Maybe get a little empathy for others.

  47. 148
    Ampersand says:

    Maybe get a little empathy for others.

    Although I understand that the conversation has gotten a little heated on multiple sides, I think implying that another person has no empathy for others definitely crosses the line. Dial it back, please.

  48. 149
    Daran says:

    Thanks for this comment, Elusis. For the first time I feel you’re talking to me, instead of speechifying at me.

    Obviously I care about the issue

    If you say you care about the issue, then as far as I’m concerned, that means you care about the issue. I disagree, however, that this is obvious.

    – I brought UP the sexist implications of the backlash in that discussion thread, IIRC.

    Yes, as a springboard to attack MRAs and for no other discernible reason.

    And shared it around Facebook,

    Which I’ve not seen.

    as did many of my friends, most if not all of whom would identify as feminists. It got written up on a bunch of feminist blogs too. I read that father’s story and was outraged and sickened by both the racism and sexism involved.

    I’m just baffled at the fact that the men’s rights blogosphere didn’t turn the sexism against this guy into a major viral campaign against the ways sexism hurts men.

    I’ve not seen it covered anywhere else but here. But I haven’t been looking. I’ll take your word for it, though, that feminists have run with this story and that MRAs haven’t.

    Except that “baffled” is the wrong word: I’m utterly unsurprised that it didn’t happen. From everything I can tell, you guys are not actually that interested in individual men’s experiences of sexism, unless it plays into one of your pet narratives (e.g. “women really screw men in divorce court,” “men get trapped into paternity,” etc.) where you can position men as the real victims and women as the real perpetrators.

    There’s a couple of problems with this. Firstly you’re lumping “our latest men’s rights commenters”, whom you later listed by name: Daran, ballgame, Tamen, Danny, Ginkgo, with MRAs generally, and attributing to us (and to me in particular) the generic MRA behaviour you describe. But I’m not an MRA, and as far as I know, none of the other four identifies as an MRA, Even if any of us did, it would still be fallacious and unfair to attribute to us, or to hold us responsible for, the behaviour of other MRAs.

    Even a cursory examination of my actual blogging would have revealed that “women are the real perpetrators” isn’t one of my pet narratives. My last five substantive posts on FC have been about Dozier School, (where the villains of the piece were the abusing staff at the school and everyone who had the power to stop it, but didn’t), Legalisation of SSM in Scotland (simple news reportage, no villains here), a UN document (the villain here is the UN and the world”), a massive gendercide in Syria ignored by the news media (The villains here are the Syrian Regime and the news media), and a post critiquing the fantasy of someone who is not a low-social-status man, about the dating environment faced by such men. Here was an opportunity to villainise women, but I didn’t.

    My next post will be about Homs. The Assad regime isn’t letting the women, girls, young boys, and old men out of the city, from the goodness of its heart. It’s getting them out of the way so it can kill the older boys and young to middle-aged men. This is what happened during the Balkan conflict during the nineties in Vucovar and Srebrenica, shamefully sanctioned by the UN in the latter case, and even more shamefully now, given that the UN had the opportunity to learn from its own history. And nobody in the media is joining the dots.

    The post after than will probably be about this report and how it highlights female victims while erasing male victims.

    This guy’s story doesn’t fit your narrative because a lot of the sexism was perpetrated by other men. For that matter, men’s opportunities to care for children, do little girls’ hairdos, stay at home and shoulder the majority of the child care, etc. don’t seem to rank very high in concern either as far as I can tell. “Women are taking our money and our rights” doesn’t marry well with “I’m choosing to stay home while my wife works.”

    It’s not my narrative as I said. What you fail to notice is how perfectly this story fits the feminists’ “patriarchy hurts men too” narrative, which frames sexism against men as secondary and subordinate to sexism against women.

    Just as with the MRAs, feminists tend to ignore sexism which contradicts their own narratives. The catastrophic targetting of men in Syria contradicts the “women bear the brunt” narrative. The tendency of the mainstream media to bypass male victims when there are female victims to focus attention on, contradicts the “men are centred|” narrative, and the fact that feminists engage in functionally identical narratives as the mainstream media contradicts the “feminists are opposed to patriarchy” narrative.

    Does his story move you at all?

    Yes.

    Are you going to take up his situation on your blog …

    No.

    I hardly ever do “signal boost” posts. (This was one of the rare exceptions.) And I’m certainly not going to do one just to prove I care. Accept that I do, or don’t. I blog about things, not just because I care about them, but also because I’ve got something unique or unusual to say about the subject. That isn’t the case with Doyin. I think the sexism he was subject to was vile, but that’s already been said.