Men’s Rights Redditor: “Feminists used to chuckle about the MRM. Now they talk about how we make them afraid.”
PROTIP: If you don’t want people to think you’re hateful, you probably shouldn’t talk about how the notion of making feminists afraid gives you a misogyny-boner. Or give dudes who say shit like this any upvotes:
Actually, here at Man Boobz we still chuckle about you guys. Pretty much all the time.
Also, Demonspawn? Complaining about women having the right to vote? Probably not a great PR move either.
Like this:
Posted on March 10, 2012, in antifeminism, grandiosity, misogyny, MRA, reddit, threats, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 114 Comments.
Yeah, I’ve had people who know me offline recognize my “voice” online, and people I first met online say I’m exactly as they expected when we finally met in meatspace. But it’s possible that trolling by its very nature leads to people behaving in atypical ways.
Trolling seems like too much heavy lifting for some of these guys, so I’m thinking that a guy like NWO or DKM is every bit as unpleasant in meatspace.
It would be hilarious to interact with someone who talks like DKM in meatspace. He really needs to wear a cravat and suspenders if he’s going to speak that way.
shorter empathologicalism:
(not an exact quote)
To which I say:
1. lol
2. The thing about jellied eels.
3. That could have gotten me laid? Maybe I should have tried it.
4. The only time I’ve ever acknowledged not being like “other guys” is when someone tells me I’m not first. And that was only because I did not try to get into that person’s pants. And it was once.
5. Since when do we “slam men” here? If you’re someone who likes substantive point-by-point discussion, maybe you should check point number one of this site, which is mockery of misogyny.
6. Yeah, I’m pretty glad I’m not like other men insofar as “other men” are defined as a group of men who are misogynistic, racist, etcetera, just like I’m glad I’m not like women who are misogynistic, racist, etcetera.
@Cassandra- I think there’s an important distinction between people who troll just to get a reaction and people who are sincerely arguing heinous views (I would probably put mags in the former category and DKM and NWO in the latter). None of them are exactly wonderful people, but I think there’s a substantial difference in the way that they are awful.
Yeah, I think the ED-style trolls are completely harmless in meatspace - possibly annoying, but harmless. It’s the other ones where I wonder if their belligerence carries over into real life.
@Ithiliana, your current and proposed future research both sound fascinating.
@CassandraSays
For a while, I thought that maybe the existence of online outlets for disturbing behavior by MRAs might be a way they could “let off steam” without actually harming anyone. I know there have been studies that show that with the rise in the availability of online porn, sexual assault rates have gone down (or at least not up). After seeing more of these online MRA outlets, I think they actually work to reinforce or even increase a sense that even violent misogyny is acceptable and supported/upvoted. So yeah, I admit I have no science at all to back that up, but the end result is that those MRA forums and blogs freak me the fuck out.
@cloudiah- I want to second that last sentence of yours. Especially since online misogyny and trolling often lead to online (and offline) stalking and harassment. It’s just fucking awful.
@M Dubz, yeah, I want to go back and hang out in the kittens thread for a while. And maybe with actual kittens, since they are clearly mad that I have been on my computer all day. Goddamn thesis, it should just write itself. Sigh.
Meatspace? The new synonym for real life?
@empatwhatever
Seriously, have you met any white people? Ugh.
Anyway, although everyone’s already pointed out the “mocking misogyny” bit, there is quite a bit of detailed troll takedown here. Holly in full flight is a beautiful thing to watch, in particular.
Try reading a few threads at a site before picking your strawmen and they stay together a little more easily.
Ithiliana explains this in the other thread, but interactions on the net ARE real life. It’s interactions between two or more real people. It’s this dileneation between “real life” and the internet that makes things like cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking such an underreported and ignored problem.
@Morgan: And the term “meatspace” is way old-I associate it with the cyberpunk novels (Neuromancer, etc.), Gibson and Stirling, which relied heavily on the binary of men=mind, women=body, and all the Cool Dudez In Sunglasses slipped into the virtual world leaving their “meat” (body) behind. It’s an incredibly dismissive, ugly, term-but not at all new.
*goes to look for citations*
Meatspace; earliest citation in Oxford English Dictionary:
1995 Seattle Times (Nexis) 30 Oct. a1 In this sagebrush ranch town where the elevation is about eight times the population, John Perry Barlow is multitasking between cyberspace, meatspace and parentspace about as well as a mere mortal can do.
I associated it with earlier stuff, and I’m not the only one:
http://ask.metafilter.com/15851/Origin-of-the-term-meatspace
@Morgan: Please define “real” as in “real life.” How are interactions online any less real than interactions offline (or via telephone, or letters).
“If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.”
- WIlliam Godwin
whenever i hear the ‘meatspace’ stuff, i always think of the rakshasa demons from zelazny’s lord of light, because they used ‘meat’ as a slur for non-energy beings
This is the world, nor am I out of it.
@ithiliana
Why do you consider it an ugly term? I’ve always encountered it in a pretty neutral context so I didn’t know till now that it can be used dismissively.
Sharculese: That’s it!
I loved Zelazny’s stuff, and that was one of my favorite.
@Shadow: All the connotations.
“Meat” is food, fuel, to be consumed.
The ongoing slurs associating women with meat are one of the nastier sexist metaphors.
In the cultural imagery, “meat” has no mind, no will, no spirit. What’s positive about it? What’s even neutral.
As I said, I see it mostly in the cyberspace and virtual reality discourses — spaces historically and even recently dominated by men — and the way it connects to men=mind and women=body binary that’s completely tainted by the hierarchy makes it impossible for me to see it ever as neutral (even if users intend it as neutral, I don’t buy it).
Just an FYI: Rakshasa literally means demon, so Rakshasa demons is a redundant phrase
@ithiliana
Huh, interesting. I never thought to connect those together, but put like that, I can see how it can be offensive. Is it often used in a gendered manner, or is it more the historical association with woman and meat?
in the context of lord of light it isnt. it’s all about a planet that mimics the hindu pantheon, and the rakshasa demons are natives of the planet, energy beings who oppose the colonists.
@Sharculese
I’ll have to check that out. It’ll be interesting to see a Western adaptation of hindu concepts.
@Shadow: http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/05/14/no-comment-woman-as-meat-shirt/
PETA is notorious for its misogynstic imagery of women in its animal rights campaigns.
Food is gendered: http://www.salon.com/2010/07/02/food_gendering/
TRIGGER WARNING SOME REALLY HORRIBLE DISTURBING IMAGES
Google Results: “women are meat” image search
https://www.google.com/search?q=women+are+meat&hl=en&sa=X&pwst=1&rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=kzpcT6XjG8bs0gGC6-zSDw&ved=0CEcQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=475
Google results: “men are meat” image search
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&ix=sea&q=men+are+meat&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=2TpcT5iCAsf10gGfxpjCDw&biw=1024&bih=475&sei=3zpcT4v8HOPt0gG50_iOAw
A quick skim and I didn’t see anything needing a trigger warning.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…………….
@ithiliana
Oh don’t get me wrong, I fully agree about the historic (and present) misogynistic “women are meat” meme. I was just wondering about “meatspace” in particular. Googling lead me to this book: Working bodies: interactive service employment and workplace identities
By Linda McDowell, where she says a lot of what you do.
@shadow
if you’ve never read lord of light i certainly encourage you to. in addition to treating it’s subject without western romanticism, it’s honestly just one of the best sf novels ever written.
I need to give Lord of Light another try. I finally got through Creature of Light and Darkness this past Yom Kippur.
Wow you folks are easily riled.
That was just too fun. I do like all that random word generator bullshit, its fun
You know, it’s very telling this attitude of theirs. Their view isn’t one of “equal rights” but of a special place for men, a place where they can keep women afraid.
Wow you folks are easily riled.
That was just too fun. I do like all that random word generator bullshit, its fun
Uh huh, hur hur hur and and all that. I’m sure you feel very special and important now.
Shorter empathiclogic: I meant to do that.
Sure ya did, and the cat meant to jump on the table and land on the placemat and slide right off the other side.
Just ask her.
As I said, I see it mostly in the cyberspace and virtual reality discourses — spaces historically and even recently dominated by men — and the way it connects to men=mind and women=body binary that’s completely tainted by the hierarchy makes it impossible for me to see it ever as neutral (even if users intend it as neutral, I don’t buy it).
Maybe I missed that day in English class, but I really don’t remember any men = mind/women = meat dichotomy in Gibson and other cyberpunk. ‘Meatspace’ was a derogatory term used by hackers who didn’t like to be anywhere but mentally plugged into virtual reality - and whose non-virtual-reality lives were pretty damn pathetic and desperate. (Remember Hiro in Snow Crash, who in cyberspace has an awesome house and is a badass swordfighter and is a Person Of Importance, whereas in real life he lives in a storage cube and drives a pizza delivery van?)
Also, it’s one thing to perceive a term as non-neutral and another to insinuate that anybody who doesn’t share your analysis is clueless or lying. Seriously, we’re not talking about a historically kyriarchical term like “bitch”.
Mythago: And the hackers are mostly if not entirely men-unless you move into the women authors that nobody wants to call cyberpunk (Pat Cadigan and Melissa Scott). I’ve heard a lot of male academics on how really not-sexist Gibson and Stirling and all are (at a gazillion conferences during the 1990s when cyberpunk was the new academic hot trend), but I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now.
And i’m not accusing anybody of lying, but of not knowing all the associations that exist culturally (i.e. the men=mind, women=body is centuries if not millennia old). I was asked why I have the associations I do, and I answered.
And I don’t accept you as an authority on what I am allowed to find problematic or offensive of sexist or whatever.
I call “real life” corporeal reality. (CORPOREALITY! PHWOAR!)
Also, not so much now, but online interactions were the only way I could be out of the damned closet for fucking YEARS. I never understood how folks could think such interactions were always intrinsically shallower just because you can’t see my corporeal form. (Frankly, it’s a relief not to be trapped in that damn thing all the time!)
I call “real life” meatspace because I am tired of people calling it real life or saying it’s more important than the Internet and I figure it’s time we had some contempt the other way. Also, I have so much sympathy with Hiro’s “in cyberspace I’m important, in meatspace no one cares who I am” thing.
I call it IRL most of the time, whether I speak English or French, and rarely think about its meaning. Maybe I should, but I couldn’t use meatspace. Might be my vegetarian side.
Re: Snowcrash. one of my favorite parts of that novel is when Hiro Protagonst (Neal SO not subtle) muses about how the guys doing all the virtual programming thought that Juanita Marquez’ (woman programmer) insistence on faces and expressions was so silly and girly and NOT important, and it turned out to be some of the most important elements of the whole metaverse.
And yeah, the male hackers in all the major male dude’s cyberpunk novels are poor — but they are still the heroes, still the brilliant brains of the hackerverse and still (with the exception of Hiro, as far as I know), white Amurican dudes who are still just so brilliant despite the fact that the US doesn’t still have the dominance in the world economy. But white men still rule.
I love how you automatically make yourself a victim that way your own hate is some how just
What’s up with these trolls resuscitating old threads for aggressive non-sequiturs?