New Cartoon: The 32 Types of Anti-Feminist

types_of_antifeminist

Both the full cartoon, and a transcript of the cartoon, can be viewed at Everyday Feminism.

This entry posted in Anti-feminists and their pals, Cartooning & comics. Bookmark the permalink. 

40 Responses to New Cartoon: The 32 Types of Anti-Feminist

  1. 1
    Wissig says:

    A lot of the purported opposition in the comic seems to involve mentally ill people who have some kind of ancillary claim against feminism.

    Why did you only include those kinds of off-beat refutations of feminism? I can’t even take them seriously, but there are much better refutations of feminism that weren’t included. I don’t even understand the point of doing this.

  2. 2
    redheadedfemme says:

    @Wissig

    They’re not that offbeat. I see various iterations of most of them all the time during my cybertravels.

    Barry, isn’t “God Told Him So” virtually a direct quote from someone? I can’t remember who. Pat Robertson, maybe?

    “The FetusPhile” isn’t a direct quote, but I see that mindset from anti-choicers every effing day.

    “The Anti-Feminist Feminist”, to my mind, is based on Christina Hoff Sommers (and maybe a bit of Cathy Young).

    “The That’s Not Real Rape Lady”: Remember Whoopi Goldberg’s pontifications about ‘rape-rape’?

    I just came up with those off the top of my head. If I put some work into it, I could probably find real-life examples and quotations for every single panel.

  3. 3
    Eytan Zweig says:

    I’m think “You’re just cherry picking the silly anti-feminist arguments, the real anti-feminist arguments are irrefutable (and to make sure they’re not refuted, I’m not actually going to say what they are)” is a good candidate for the 33rd type of anti-feminist.

  4. 4
    Mandolin says:

    Wiki confirms what I remember, that the quote is from Pat Robertson as you say: The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” —

  5. 5
    Wissig says:

    “Wiki confirms what I remember, that the quote is from Pat Robertson as you say: The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” —”

    —————————————–

    That doesn’t refute what I said, that supports what I said. Pat Robertson can be a nutcase. Do any of you want to back what he says as being rational? I didn’t think so.

    Here’s an example of something that may be closer to a serious criticism of feminism: A man finds it unfair that the local chapter of NOW has put tremendous pressure on his local court and state lawmakers to not award shared physical custody to both parents if they are both fit. He also thinks that local feminists have unfairly painted men as being abusive as the norm, although he personally isn’t and that contributed to his inability to have contact with this child.

    I don’t want to argue those facts – and I know that true feminists, not unlike true Scottsmen – would never behave like that, I want to give an example of criticism that could more likely be considered valid. Whether he is right or he is wrong, his complaint could be valid – further information would have to be sought. But it’s not a nutcase statement like the one about witchcraft and the like.

    Ampersand, on the other hand, is exaggerating the nutty statements of kooks for the most part. What’s the point? I agree that nutty people and nutty statements can be found about every human endeavor.

    Edited to add (because I know what is coming): And weak arguments can also be found with regard to every human endeavor. The fact that you can cite kooks and people with weak arguments has nothing at all to do with the existence of stronger arguments.

  6. 6
    redheadedfemme says:

    The thing is, though, Amp is not exaggerating. I see similar comments and attitudes every day, both on the Internet, in my local newspaper, and in real life.

    You call Pat Robertson a nutcase. Are Christina Hoff Sommers, Cathy Young, and Whoopi Goldberg nutcases?

  7. 7
    Jake Squid says:

    That doesn’t refute what I said, that supports what I said. Pat Robertson can be a nutcase. Do any of you want to back what he says as being rational? I didn’t think so.

    Is it just me or is this similar to the no true Scotsman fallacy? “One of the most famous and influential people in the country can be a nutcase, therefore he is not representative of the movement in which he is so famous and exerts so much influence and therefore your comic shows only nutcases.”

    I’m not buying it.

    I find that the rest of your comment can easily be classified under anti-feminist #32.

  8. 8
    Vilfredo says:

    So I guess what this comic makes me wonder is: is there any criticism of feminism you’d accept from someone who didn’t identify as feminist, regardless of their substantive views?

    I have the feeling that the answer is “no” (and that by asking I’ve probably marked myself as a subhuman caricature, too), but I have to ask. Because I’ve run into a lot of people online who don’t identify as “Feminist” for a variety of reasons, some of which are very understandable, but whose positions on gender politics are pretty similar to forms of feminism. And conversely, I’ve run into different kinds of self-identified feminists whose positions are in stark opposition (TERFs, for example). So what kind of work is “feminism” the term doing here?

  9. 9
    Ampersand says:

    Vilfredo:

    When you say stuff like “I have the feeling that the answer is…,” you’re not really participating in a conversation; you’re answering the questions for us, rather than listening to our answers.

    Of course I think there are valid criticisms of feminists and feminism. As people have correctly guessed, the “anti-feminist feminist” panel is a caricature of Christina Hoff Sommers. So, as an example, here’s something I once wrote about a CHS speech:

    I partly agree with Sommers: Too many feminists — including those we rely on to get facts right (such as academics and published writers) — have been careless about fact-checking their claims.[…]

    Sommers cites [two recent textbooks] which repeat the same error. And she’s right — it is an error. (Although, as I’ll show in a future post, Sommers’ counter-claims are just as false.)

    I think this is the strongest of Sommers’ claims. Sommers is right to say that “false assertions, hyperbole and crying wolf undermine the credibility and effectiveness of feminism in general.” And many errors could easily be avoided if authors just checked primary sources — something that professional writers and academics should do routinely.

    Within feminism, there’s sometimes too little skepticism regarding statistics and news stories which emphasize harms against women. We’ve created a culture which does a rotten job of self-correction.

    I think that “subhuman” is an unfair term for what I’ve done here; I’ve made fun of the 32 anti-feminists’ positions, but nothing in the cartoon makes them out to be anything but human. But “caricature” is accurate.

    (This next bit is addressed to Wissig and Vilfredo both).

    This is a cartoon, and although every one of these panels is based on actual anti-feminists I have read or encountered – including, as Jake and Redheadedfemme pointed out, some of the most respected and influential anti-feminists in the country – in most of the panels what’s being shown is a caricature, not a nuanced full explication of the argument. If you find that objectionable, then maybe your objection is to political cartooning as a genre, rather than to this particular example of it.

    There are plenty of blog posts in which I’ve done my best to address anti-feminist arguments seriously (such as the post responding to CHS I linked earlier this comment). This is not one of those; this is a political cartoon. Are you opposed to anyone doing political cartoons that utilize caricatures of real-life positions? Do you say the same thing when you see a cartoon whose politics you agree with?

    * * *

    Oddly enough, in the Pat Robertson panel, I actually made my fictional version’s position more reasonable and less extreme than what Robertson actually said (see Mandolin’s comment). This was so that I could include the “sign me up!” gag.

  10. 10
    Ampersand says:

    A discussion of the cartoon on a pro-feminist reddit group.

  11. 11
    Ampersand says:

    Heh. And some anti-feminists are already preparing to make the inevitable relettered version of the comic strip.

  12. 12
    Ampersand says:

    And the inevitable fat jokes have begun!

    https://twitter.com/barrydeutsch/status/664533724877357056

    Being insulted by some people feels as good as a compliment.

  13. 13
    Wissig says:

    “And the inevitable fat jokes have begun!”
    —————————————————-

    I’d say that’s pretty much pre-programmed and already baked into the cake (to mix metaphors).

    They feel taunted by you (maybe in a passive-aggressive way), they feel your “cartoons” misrepresent reality and they feel that you are doing it for nasty motives (“white knighting”), and they also know that you are hyper-sensitive about being called fat.

    What other result do you expect from that combination? Unfortunately, that’s human nature.

    That’s my take on it.

  14. 14
    Sarah says:

    Funny, Wissig, but there are quite a lot of people in the world who get by feeling taunted and mischaracterized by opponents with suspicious motives without aiming retorts at their opponents’ physical appearances. I wouldn’t call it human nature so much as asshole nature – plenty of humans manage not to be assholes.

    (Also, as someone who’s been lurking here for multiple years now, I can honestly say that when you said “you are hyper-sensitive about being called fat,” I laughed out loud. At work, unfortunately. Does that impression come from any of Barry’s posts in particular, or just the fact that he is aware of, and points out, fatphobia whenever he sees it? My impression has been that it takes rather thick skin to do that as consistently as he has. I wouldn’t say “hyper-sensitive” is an accurate description.)

  15. 15
    Charles says:

    Re one of wissig’s complaints, it’s true that the “My ex is a bitch, and the court doesn’t undetrstand that I’m great!” antifeminist got left out. I guess that Alas thread has finally been dead long enough.

  16. 16
    Pete Patriot says:

    I honesty think that’s a great cartoon – and I say that as someone who’s sincerely argued somewhere around the high-20s of those positions. It genuinely puts across the breadth of anti-feminist thinking, a lot of thought and art went into it. It’s by far the one of yours I like the most. It’s absolutely great.

    And it’s always fun to click through to Everyday Feminism and see what’s going on in the batshit deep social justice version of upworthy. What’s this month’s top story from the movement that gave women the vote and ended segregation? Wow. “15 Comments Polyamorous People Are Tired of Getting”. It must be really cool for them to get someone actually attacking anti-feminists for once, rather than passively aggressively policing other progressives for being insufficiently tolerant of obscure identity subgroups.

  17. 17
    Ampersand says:

    Charles: WOW! How the heck did I forget to include that one? That’s like making a list of famous Yankees and forgetting to include Babe Ruth.

    It won’t surprise me at all if there’s a sequel.

    Sarah: Yes, exactly!

    I am sometimes thin-skinned, but in the case of those anti-fat comments I tweeted, it’s hard to feel anything but a mixture of amusement and “geez, really? That’s the best you’ve got?”

    And yes, Wissig, I agree that it’s unsurprising that some anti-feminists reacted that way – that’s why I called it “inevitable.” :-)

  18. 18
    Ampersand says:

    Pete, I don’t agree with you about Everyday Feminism, to put it very mildly – and also, I feel that an extended discussion of EF is off-topic. And I don’t see what’s wrong about writing about things that poly folks are tired of hearing; that’s self-evidently useful information for anyone who interacts with poly folks, it seems to me.

    But I’m very flattered by your praise for my cartoon. I’m glad you liked it, and thanks.

  19. 19
    Ampersand says:

    I should start listing the suggestions people have made that I want to use in a sequel someday.

    – the “My ex is a bitch, and the court doesn’t understand that I’m great!” antifeminist. Alt version: “Part of my income goes to supporting my kids WORSE INJUSTICE EVER!” antifeminist.
    – the sock puppet (using a drawing of a sock puppet that resembles Vivian James.)
    – The woman saying “I’VE never been bothered by sexism, so clearly there’s no need for feminism anymore.”
    – “I’m not a feminist, I’m a humanist,” if I can come up with a gag for it.
    – (to a male feminist): “You’re just saying that because you’re hoping to get laid!” (Okay, this one wasn’t a suggestion, per se….) Someone on Twitter suggested this wording: The “you ONLY agree with women because you want sex! Only POSSIBLE reason!” antifeminist.

    ETA: This is one an antifeminist actually told me on Twitter: “if you had been listening properly you wouldn’t have made this cartoon.” That might be a good final panel for the sequel.

  20. 20
    Jake Squid says:

    “Part of my income goes to supporting my kids WORSE INJUSTICE EVER!”

    I hate that guy. Hate, hate, hate him. I’m always surprised when I meet him and I meet him a lot.

    – (to a male feminist): “You’re just saying that because you’re hoping to get laid!” (Okay, this one wasn’t a suggestion, per se….)

    Give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Wissig.

  21. 21
    Wissig says:

    What’s with the passive-aggressive mischaracterization of my comment?

    Is “A man finds it unfair that the local chapter of NOW has put tremendous pressure on his local court and state lawmakers to not award shared physical custody to both parents if they are both fit.” … the same as “My ex is a bitch, and the court doesn’t understand that I’m great!”?

    You think that there have never been problems for men with regard to having shared custody of, or even seeing, their kids? Or you think they all deserve it?

    Actually, this is a pretty good example of how Ampersand always seems chomping at the bit to minimize men’s experiences and show his courage in saving damsels in distress. I have no idea why you behave that way, Ampersand, and you just never give the misrepresentations a rest. But no, I won’t make fat jokes about you.

    Your strong motivation to misrepresent issues like this must come from somewhere. I’m surprised people you taunt and mock haven’t started going after your “patrons” @ patreon yet, just like social justice warriors go after advertisers of shows they don’t like.

  22. 22
    Wissig says:

    These are just words on both sides. Ampersand taunts them and disparages men in general, and they call him fat back. Just like a schoolyard on both sides, and it’s also the schoolyard again when Ampersand runs back crying because they called him fat.

    Ampersand keeps poking a stick at a dog and then plays the innocent person when the dog growls and snarls. If you are going to cut down and mischaracterize an entire group of people, they probably aren’t going to like it. Try insulting blacks as a group instead of men as a group. It will get you the same pushback, probably much more pushback.

  23. 23
    Myca says:

    These are just words on both sides. Ampersand taunts them and disparages men in general, and they call him fat back.

    No, he doesn’t. I’m a man, Jake is a man, Charles is a man … oh shit, Ampersand is a man. He really hasn’t been disparaging men in general.

    Ampersand keeps poking a stick at a dog and then plays the innocent person when the dog growls and snarls.

    That’s #31. Great example.

    —Myca

  24. 24
    redheadedfemme says:

    Ampersand taunts them and disparages men in general, and they call him fat back.

    That not only doesn’t make sense, it’s a misreading of the cartoon. Amp isn’t taunting/disparaging men in general, he’s taunting/mischaracterizing anti-feminist men.

    Unless you think men in general are anti-feminist?

  25. 25
    Ampersand says:

    Give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Wissig.

    Jake, unless I missed something, this is unfair – I don’t think Wissig said that.

  26. 26
    Ampersand says:

    …And then, one comment after the comment of Jake’s I replied to, Wissig wrote “…and show his courage in saving damsels in distress.”

    So, yeah.

    Wissig, dial it back a few notches on the personal attacks, or you’ll be asked to leave. Try discussing the cartoon, instead of discussing me or what you imagine my motivations to be. Why is that so hard?

    More on substance, what redheadedfemme and Myca said: It’s ridiculous to think that this is a cartoon about “men” rather than a cartoon about antifeminists. Also, although most of the antifeminists in the cartoon are male (which I think accurately reflects real life), there are a few women in there.

  27. 27
    desipis says:

    Since Amp likes labelling me as an anti-feminist, I’m curious which one he sees me as being.

  28. 28
    Ampersand says:

    Desipis: None!

  29. 29
    Vilfredo says:

    @Amp,

    Fair enough. I am, in fact, not a fan of political cartoons in general, and especially not caricature. I can’t really see any reason for it except to reduce a person to something grotesque or pathetic. But then again I think everyone does that to whoever they perceive as their enemies, on some level, so I shouldn’t talk.

    I’m also not a fan of bingo sheets or lists, because the whole point of them is to fit a person into a box so that they can be safely disregarded. That’s what people in this thread have already started doing. It’s also why I made that passive-aggressive “I have a feeling the answer is …” comment; you made criticizing your cartoon the mark of an anti-feminist, which doesn’t suggest to me that you’d ever consider any actual criticism of it.

    And sure, maybe most of the people who you fit into these categories are worthy of being disregarded or mocked. I’d certainly agree that some of them are. And if someone who was maybe worth listening to gets mocked because they sounded wrong, that’s not really a problem, is it?

  30. 30
    Ampersand says:

    …you made criticizing your cartoon the mark of an anti-feminist, which doesn’t suggest to me that you’d ever consider any actual criticism of it.

    That’s really not how I interpret the final panel, at all.

  31. 31
    Lee1 says:

    I’m also a man, and I didn’t think for a second Amp was disparaging men in general. I’m quite comfortable with everything in and don’t feel the least bit defensive about anything in the cartoon, which I thought was great.

  32. 32
    Mandolin says:

    I see 32 as self-deprecating humor in a vein consistent with cartoon punchlines. I hope the relettered version the “opposition” is working on keeps it exactly as it is; the joke should work equally both ways.

    (Points if they manage to put in a caricature of whoever’s doing the relettering over the one Barry did of himself.)

  33. 33
    Ampersand says:

    Thanks, Lee.

    Mandolin:

    (Points if they manage to put in a caricature of whoever’s doing the relettering over the one Barry did of himself.)

    Yeah, that would be cool. But I think part of the point of the relettering exercise is to make doing the cartoon accessible to people who can’t draw?

  34. 34
    Jake Squid says:

    Amp, I was referring to Wissig’s mention of “white knighting” in comment 13. And then you caught his rephrasing of the concept at 21.

  35. 35
    Mandolin says:

    They don’t have to draw *well* to do that, surely?

  36. 36
    Ampersand says:

    That’s true!

  37. 37
    closetpuritan says:

    Just like a schoolyard on both sides, and it’s also the schoolyard again when Ampersand runs back crying because they called him fat.

    Well, since Amp mostly talks about why/how fatphobia is wrong rather than how it affects his personal feelings, if you have to guess at his emotional state the more facially obvious emotion would be anger, or maybe the kind of sadness that goes with another little piece of your faith in humanity being chipped away, rather than “crying” because he’s “hypersensitive”. (It’s funny how people just assert that someone’s crying when they couldn’t possibly know even if they were, and think they’re scoring major points.) Certainly it would also be predictable for people to target the things that they think will make him angry. But if you’re looking for ways to take passive-aggressive swipes at people, of course you’ll go with the “hypersensitive crybaby” angle.

    When people make fatphobic comments, we’re supposed to just meekly accept the “constructive criticism” in silence, or join in and make fun of ourselves, instead of challenging the status quo. Challenging the status quo upsets people–we are not acknowledging their superiority, they get angry–and they figure the worst thing they can call us is fat. Because they can’t believe that not everyone thinks that’s the worst thing ever.

  38. 38
    Ampersand says:

    Here’s some more fat-hating anti-feminist responses to my cartoon – but this time, also mixed with transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, and people wishing I were dead (or looking forward to my death).

    Barry Deutsch on Twitter: “Selected jerky anti-feminist responses to my latest political cartoon.”

    To be fair, not every comment on the thread was like that… but not a single person on that thread objected to the rampant anti-fat bigotry, transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, or death wishes.

    (Also, the antisemitism is arguably a borderline case – it depends on how the comments about my nose were intended.) (My current view is that intent is not magic, but neither is it nothing.)

    I’m really enjoying how pissed off some of these people are. One guy (whose cartoon I’m not linking to, because his drawing abilities are so poor), said that he was so pissed off he took time off from pursuing some professional opportunities to draw his comic about me.

    Here’s a caricature of me that a different anti-SJW cartoonist did. At least this one can draw!

    Oh, and someone’s posted his relettering! I actually liked this one – reworking the “not over high school” panel into an ordinary person reacting to the SCUM Manefesto made me LOL (literally). Shame he screwed it up with anti-Muslim bigotry at the end.

  39. 39
    Chris says:

    You’ll need to add a woman saying “Feminism is a male power fantasy!” Which is an actual thing a woman on Twitter (who was also arguing with you there) said to me tonight. It’s possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.

  40. 40
    Ampersand says:

    A few anti-feminists gave me crap about the “it’s science!” panel, claiming that no real person would ever make an argument like that.

    Well…

    women-dishes-dna

    EDITED TO ADD:

    Since I’m using this thread to store ones I missed, I’m inserting a link to this Pharyngula thread, which was simply stuffed with good suggestions that I missed. (CW for a transphobic argument that broke out in the comments midway through.)

    * #33: The Free Speech Fetishist. Speech bubble: If your feelings are hurt by discrimination you must lock yourself up for all eternity!!!

    * The Class Warrior: “Feminism is just a tool of the ruling class , to force dedicated revolutionaries to waste time washing up and making sammiches!”

    * The Brocialist, also known as “lie back and think of the revolution, baby!”

    * “Women love babies! The only reason a woman would get an abortion is if a MAN forced her to! So, support women’s right and BAN ABORTION!”

    * the, “get back up on your pedestal, m’lady” breed of anti-feminist.

    * How about the “Feminists aren’t really women” woman? Real world example: Canadian antifeminist group REAL Women. Capitalisation is theirs.

    * “If conventions have sexual harassment policies, then no one will be allowed to have any fun at all, not even consensual fun.”

    * I don’t have a witty title for this archetype, but it’s the kind of person who goes: “I’m never wrong, but a feminist criticized me, so feminism must be wrong.” You know, the “allies” who, when accused of friendly fire, become worse.


    Aaaand I just discovered the Everyday Feminism Facebook post with comments on the cartoon!

    * “I’m an egalitarian which trumps and delegitimises your feminism”

    How did I forget the egalitarians?

    …Someone on Facebook suggested “The Equalist.” “I just want equality but feminism is divisive!”

    ….

    “feminists are just anti men! Why don’t we have meninism?!” (Sub balloon) “Also, where’s WHITE pride month? And the STRAIGHT pride parade?”

    * * *

    The fifteen year old.