Race and gender goes here. Other stuff goes elsewhere. Banned commenters can comment on the open thread, but you’ll have to wait for me to dig your comment out of spam.
We have gone two (2) threads without a proposal of genocide.
EDIT: Welcome, Slate Star Codex/Instapundit commenters! First-time commenters are in moderation until I pull them out, please be patient.
I read this in the comments elsewhere and wanted to run it elsewhere to see what others think:
I hear over and over again that the rate of false rape accusation is “only” 2-8%, so any consideration of the rights of the accused or any skepticism on the part of fact-finders is both beside the point and downright offensive to the other 96-92%.
The gay population is somewhere between 3 and 5%, with trans* people (overlapping with the previous and not) is probably less than 1%. So why don’t we just write off LGBT issues? Why bother with pronoun hijinks, bathroom panic and even changing trusts and estates law on their behalf?
My guess is oppression olympics. There appears to be an unspoken assumption that falsely accused rapists are a bunch of white bros who probably raped somebody else anyway. No thought of the Scottsboro Boys, etc.
When your solution to kyararchy is to simply flip it on its head, all the jargon in the world is going to make your ideology seem serious.
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Well, 3% of the total population is much larger than 3% of accused rapists.
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I think it’s a probability vs. proportions thing. Every accused rapist has about a 92% chance of being a rapist, and an 8% chance of being innocent.The equivalent in the trans situation would be assigning a baby’s sex at birth and assuming they’re cis until evidence arises otherwise which most trans activists I’ve come across aren’t against, and the ones who are want to abolish gender altogether. On the other hand, once someone starts transitioning, you can be about 95~97% sure they’re trans, and if someone doesn’t claim to be trans, there’s about a 99.5~99.7% chance they’re cis. There’s nothing that splits the probabilities with accused rapists like that that we know of.
To be clear, I think limiting the rights of the accused in the case of rape is still a very very bad idea. But it’s not inconsistent with supporting the rights of really really small minorities.
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“equivalent” is probably not a good word to use. Pretend I said “better analogy”
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As a general comment, it is worth pointing out that the following probabilities are not equal, and distinguishing them.
(1) The probability that a person accused of rape is innocent of that rape.
(2) The probability that a person claiming to be a rape victim was not raped.
I believe people citing the 2-8% number are usually referring to the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence against Women report, which is using definition (2): ” A false report is a report of a sexual assault that did not happen.” The above comment of meaninglessmoniker refers to definition (1) “Every accused rapist has about a 92% chance of being a rapist”. In general, people seem to be confounding these points throughout this thread.
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When I started writing this comment, I thought I was going to say that (1) is lower than (2) for acquaintance rape, but higher for stranger rape. I thought I was going to say that because I knew two things.
The NCPVW report states, citing McDowell and Hibler (1987), that people making a definition (2) false report generally do not name a specific rapist and hence would not appear in (1). The stereotype I have of a false rape report is one that is meant as an attack on the accused; this suggests that more common motives might be a desire for sympathy or the creation of a story to explain an STD or pregnancy. This would lead us to believe that (1) should be lower than (2).
On the other hand, the Urban Institute obtained a collection of tissue samples (hair, semen, blood) from rape cases in the 70’s and 80’s where the accused claimed no sex had taken place and tested that DNA against that of the convicted rapist. They obtained an estimate that 8-15% of these convicted rapists were wrongly identified. So this suggests that (1) is higher than (2). Note that, in all the cases that involved semen, there definitely was sex. It seems unlikely to me to imagine that someone would go have consensual sex before reporting having been raped by a different person, so I imagine these were true rapes were the rapist was misidentified.
I had mentally reconciled these in my head with the idea that the Urban Institute study probably involved stranger rapes, where mistaken identity makes more sense, and the studies cited in NCPVW probably involved acquaintance rapes.
However, I just noticed the following baffling statement on page 56 of the Urban Institute report: whether or not the “convicted offender was a stranger” was “not significantly predictive of exculpatory DNA results”. I am confused but, in order to not introduce publication bias I am writing this anyways.
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It might be worth adding to the mix, as you think about this, that according to the UI report, 92% of the sexual assault cases examined were stranger-rape cases.
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I think the main cause of difference in the Urban Institute data is they looked at cases where the accused claimed not to have had sex with the victim, which is much more common with stranger rape.
In most cases of acquaintance rape the accused does admit to having sex with the victim but claims it was consensual. In many cases acquaintance rapists don’t even consider their actions to be rape, due to a sense of entitlement and rape culture.
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‘I hear over and over again that the rate of false rape accusation is “only” 2-8%, so any consideration of the rights of the accused or any skepticism on the part of fact-finders is both beside the point and downright offensive to the other 96-92%.’
I hear the same statistic often as well, but it’s a different context. I haven’t heard anyone say that ‘any consideration of the rights of the accused is beside the point’. Generally, it seems to me that this statistic is pulled out when people are aggressively skeptical about rape claims i.e. assuming the alleged victim is a liar and working back from there. The 3-8% is presented because that’s roughly the same as for other crimes. So why do people assume rape victims are probably liars, but they don’t assume that victims of other crimes are probably liars?
WRT ‘offensive skepticism': very few people think that the law should change. We can all agree that the accused is innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. The skepticism that people are angry about is skepticism in the face of evidence. There are a couple of good examples I can think of: in Rotherham the rape of thousands of little girls went on for years unimpeded because – although social workers, school teachers, parents, council officers and police officers all knew about it – too many powerful people thought that the girls were chavvy little sluts who probably asked for it. In Stubenville, the police initially refused to pursue the case for lack of evidence, although the perpetrators had posted footage of the crimes on social networks.
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Classism was a factor in Rotherham, but so was fear of accusations of racism. Apparently it’s unacceptable to respond to a disproportionately large number of Pakistani men raping mostly white children by noting that a disportionately large number of Pakistani men are raping mostly white children, and suggesting that this is a problem that needs addressing.
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“I hear over and over again that the rate of false rape accusation is “only” 2-8%, so any consideration of the rights of the accused or any skepticism on the part of fact-finders is both beside the point and downright offensive to the other 96-92%.”
Where, specifically, did you hear this? Since it’s what everyone says, it should be easy to point to a few examples. I suspect your claim here is wildly inflated.
I just read several examples of fairly prominent feminist journalists and writers writing about the 2-8% statistic – Amanda Marcotte (Slate XXFactor), Emily Bazielon (Slate again), Thomas at “Yes Means Yes,” my own entry at “Alas, a Blog” (not that I’m that prominent), and some others. Yet I didn’t find a single example of someone saying that it’s besides the point and offensive for fact-finders to have any consideration for the rights of the accused, or any skepticism.
The closest I found was Zerlina Maxwell’s article in the Washington Post (I’ve never heard of her before this article, but the WaPo is an important venue, so I think we should Maxwell as a prominent feminist voice). I can see why so many people have criticized Maxwell’s article, although I think that the criticisms often take her a bit out of context. But 1) Maxwell seems to be an outlier, rather than a typical example, and 2) even Maxwell didn’t suggest either that fact-finders should have no skepticism, or that accused people should have no rights.
What is common, however, is for feminists writing about this matter to fail to include a paragraph saying something like “of course, it is horrible whenever someone is falsely accused of rape. Even if only 2% of accusations are false, that’s way too many false accusations, and of course it’s necessary to have due process rights to protect that minority of falsely accused men.”
Should including a paragraph like that be more or less requisite? If a paragraph like that isn’t part of someone’s article about the 2-8% estimate, is it then fair to assume that therefore they don’t have any objection to innocent people being falsely accused?
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When I wrote “we should Maxwell as a prominent feminist voice,” of course I meant ” I think we should count Maxwell as a prominent feminist voice.” (Oy.)
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?
Comparatively, rape cases occur involving much less than 3% of the population. 3% of a given group is a lot of people. Why is disregarding their needs or desires okay? On the other hand, a failure rate of 8% in judicial proceedings is a massive problem which still produce “Right” 92% of times, so as a process it at least works semi-reliably.
Or to put it in different terms – I know someone who is allergic to nuts, eating them will kill that person. That one person is 2,71% of a group I know. At events, is hiding nuts in the food and telling no one okay because, eh it’s only 2.71%, why bother with the hijinks of informing people of the presence of nuts?
Basic common decency (and the difference between a population and a specific process, too)
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What irks me about the use of that statistic is that even if only 2-8% of all rape accusations are false, the number of false accusations within the subset of “controversial” cases (i.e. the alleged perpetrator denies it, evidence is ambiguous or nonexistent, accuser has possible motives to lie, etc.) is obviously higher than that. And yet, those are invariably the cases where the 2-8% figure gets invoked most frequently, as an attempt to silence the skeptics.
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Ozy, every picture you post in this blog’s articles appears to me as broken. Apparently, this is because you are using Internet Archive image links; I can see the images fine if I right-click on them and choose “Open image in new tab”. Is there any particular reason for this practice?
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I copypasted them over from the wayback machine and I’m too lazy to fix the links.
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A completely unrelated “appearance of this blog” issue: The <ul> and <ol> tags both appear to be broken when used in comments. Is there a way to resolve this, or a workaround?
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So, I’ve seen the idea of a court system where the defendant doesn’t appear in court, court officials only refer to them as “the defendant”, and no one reveals their race, age, or gender thrown around a few times.This would make the jury less likely to be biased in conviction and sentencing. Are there any good objections to this? Are there any serious failure modes I’m not seeing?
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This is a really interesting idea. Let me poke holes in it off the top of my head.
1) It’s unclear whether there actually is bias in conviction and sentencing (especially with regard to age.)
2) Defendants have a right to appear at their trial, and it’s generally considered strategically good for them to do so: they can help the attorney with their defense and there’s a perception that the defendant is more humanized when the jury has a human face in front of them.
3) This would be problematic when there is any doubt about the defendant’s identity. Witnesses are often asked to point out the person they saw in court, and they may be asked about specific details of the defendant’s appearance to show that their identification is (or is not) reliable. For example, if a person who was robbed tells the police the robber was 5’6″ and Mexican with no tattoos, but the defendant is 6 feet and black, with facial tattoos, that’s obviously relevant.
4) Also problematic if the defendant wants to testify. You could hypothetically have him testify on video with face and voice concealed…but it’s generally considered good for the judge or jury to be able to judge witnesses’ credibility by seeing their faces and general demeanor.
5) If (big if) the jury is savvy, context clues would give them pretty good ways to guess what you’re trying to conceal. In one court I’m familiar with, probably 80-90% of defendants were black or Hispanic men. Is it a violent crime? Almost certainly a male perpetrator, unless the victim is a husband or child. Prostitution means a woman. Is there a black victim? Then the defendant’s probably black. Immigration violation or MS-13 connection? The guy’s Hispanic.
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(1) and (5) might mitigate the positive impact, but wouldn’t really have a negative impact, relative to the current system. I’d disagree with (1) on the basis of http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ , but I haven’t done much searching of my own on this topic, so maybe there’s better evidence that there is no bias in sentencing. (2) could partly be solved by the defendant being able to view the trial and converse with their lawyer electronically, but that wouldn’t solve the humanisation aspect. If this system were implemented in some places, but not in other otherwise similar places, we might see whether this actually makes juries more lenient, and if so, whether this is worth the utility of removing bias. With regard to (4), I think the noise with regard to body with regard to body language, demeanor etc. might outweigh the signal. Like, maybe judges have enough experience to reliably guess if someone’s lying from their tone of voice, but juries? I doubt it. (3) seems to me the most serious objection. Maybe there could be a separate person outside the courtroom verifying whether or not witness testimony matches the physical appearance of the subject, and rating its accuracy on a scale from 1 to 5 or something. The witness testimony about physical appearance would have to be separate from the rest of their testimony, of course, making the system rather inelegant, but perhaps it would still be effective.
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With all due respect, I don’t think you’re paying enough attention to the Constitutional law behind lots of what we do in criminal trials. The biggest obstacle to your suggestion is #2: defendants have a *Constitutional right* to appear at trial. The Supreme Court is not going to change this anytime soon. I could imagine you could implement this blind system in, say Courtrooms 1 and 3 but not 2 and 4 and give the defendant the choice–but the defendant would then have to choose between the benefits of appearing of trial and the benefit of going before the lenient Judge #1. I’m not sure, but this might be a due process violation. (And the scientific value of a randomized controlled trial would be dissipated if defendants got to choose.)
I will concede #1 with regard to race and gender.
#4: I don’t disagree, but you’re sort of questioning the entire jury system there.
#3: Your person outside the courtroom rating accuracy of witness testimony would be replacing the jury and thus violating the defendant’s 7th Amendment rights. My example was maybe overly straightforward: whether a description is accurate (given the fallibility of human memory, passage of time, stress of the moment) is highly subjective.
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You’re right, I wasn’t giving enough consideration to the constitutional rights of the accused. So we couldn’t do this exclusively in the U.S., because of the Constitution. Giving people a choice is an intriguing possibility though. I don’t think there would have to be any additional benefits to the blind system. If there was a well-executed propaganda campaign saying something along the lines of “Smart people believe this system might be more accurate. In an accurate court system, you’d be found not guilty, right?” and then all of a sudden people signal innocence by being tried in blind court. Maybe target the propaganda at rich white people first, so that jurors who might be biased against poor black people are more lenient. This wouldn’t be unconstitutional. Everyone has a right to represent themselves in court, but very few people take advantage of that right. It might be possible to engineer a situation where that’s true of actually appearing in court.
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Deliberately encouraging jurors to take someone exercising their constitutional rights as a sign of (increased probability of) guilt would probably be found unconstitutional, under existing precedent. I can ask a constitutional law professor I know, and report back on the results.
It’s also, I think, massively unworkable in practice, but that’s largely a separate issue.
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Another “problem” is that if it works, it may eliminate bias that the people who supposedly want to eliminate bias actually want to keep around. Pro-female bias is the most obvious one but I can imagine politically charged cases where there is pressure to convict a white person accused of a politically charged crime against blacks and this pressure cannot be applied unless the jury knows the suspect is white,
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One limitation of this idea is that most of the bias in our judiciail system happens before a trial begins – indeed, most defendants reach a plea bargain and never actually stand trial. So you can’t eliminate bias without looking at when the prosecutor decides who and what to charge, and what sort of deal to offer.
So to really strike at the problem, the prosecutor would also have to be prevented from seeing the suspect in person, or knowing any details about the suspect, when they decide on what to charge the suspect with and what sort of plea bargain deal to offer (if any). But prosecutors are often involved at the investigation level, so it’s not practical to have them avoid knowledge of the cases unless we greatly reform how investigations happen.
Another area of bias is the victim‘s race – in homicide cases, some studies have show that juries are more likely to use the death penalty to punish murderers of white people than murderers of black people. Not sure if it’s viable to have the jury not know anything about the victim.
I think an education-based approach – in which juries were routinely educated about the effects of prejudice, in order to better resist them, and also about other common errors (such as exaggerating the reliability of eyewitness accounts) – might be more viable, if less dramatic, than what you’re proposing.
I’m not sure what to do about the more important problem of pre-trial bias. What’s really needed is some enormous system-wide reforms so that so much power doesn’t reside solely in the prosecutor’s hands. But any such power-shifting reform would be expensive – courts and judges are more expensive than prosecutors – and that brings up a whole new boxload of problems.
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What actually is gender?
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A feeling, I’d say. I experience the internal *feeling* of gender, although in a nonbinary way. It’s not like feeling the stereotypically gendered traits at all. E.g. at times I can feel brash and aggressive and disagreeable but still very distinctly feminine.
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See, that idea really confuses me. My internal experience is that I have a lot of feelings *about* my gender–which have developed over time and in response to various environmental stimuli, same as with any other feeling–but the idea of feeling gender itself does not even compile. If I had to define gender, I would say it’s how we “make sense” of sexual dimorphism*, but this seems to be offensive to a lot of people. I realize this may be like trying to explain vision to the congenitally blind, but can you try to elaborate on this internal feeling of gender?
*More technical definition: gender is a social and poetic construct which arises from the observation of sex and the need to navigate the consequences thereof.
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A word with many different meanings.
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http://lesswrong.com/lw/nm/disguised_queries/
Tl;Dr, ‘Actually is’, in many cases, does not have a simple answer.
This is a good analogy.
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Gender is complicated. In fact, it is almost certainly *not* a natural kind with clear borders, the way that (for example) “hydrogen” is a distinct thing. On the other hand, there is certainly a cluster of human experience we want to talk about under the heading “sex/gender.”
Also let me note, even if gender is entirely socially constructed, it remains something “in the world” that we have to deal with.
Also note that when a person uses a word (any word) they have a purpose, some way they mean to categorize things. These categories are *motivated*, which mean that meanings are often in conflict, with different factions trying to push the structure of meaning in different ways, to shift categories toward their own advantage.
Furthermore, it is clear that many different categorizations can map nicely over the natural world. It is possible to have a clearly broken map-territory structure, but humans are socially complex, and when your map includes human behavior, you will find that many quite-different maps can fit the same territory.
For example, take sex. Clearly some people can have babies. We call them “female.” Other people can fertilize eggs. We call them “male.”
Well, usually we call them these thing. This is what we think we mean. However, this is not actually how we use those words. For example, My mother was a cis woman who could not have kids. (I’m adopted.) Furthermore, when I was a very young child she had her ovum and uterus removed, to avoid complications with menstruation. So if the definition we gave above was *strict*, then my mother was not “female.” But no one actually talks that way.
This shows us something. It is revealed behavior. The definitions we *believe* we hold for “male” and “female” are not actually the definitions we use. In practice we are quite flexible with these words.
Well, we are flexible only until trans people arrive on the scene. When we have to talk about trans people, we become suddenly strict.
Which is curious, right? Why become strict about sex only then?
I say this reveals not facts of the world, but instead our own preoccupations. In other words, these definitions are not neutral “bio-truth.” Instead, they are social control mechanisms to enforce mainstream views of gender.
Okay, so what is gender?
A simple definition, which is *not correct*, says this: sexuality is who we desire; gender is how wish to be desired. It is how we want to present our sexed bodies to the world.
That ain’t quite right. But it’s sorta half right. If you start with that, then you’re on the right track.
First, to talk about gender, we have to acknowledge the degree that sexuality affects everything we do, how we are sexual beings pretty much all the way down. These effects are subtle. Furthermore, we have to see this as a social process, a matrix that surrounds each person. We grow up surrounded by this. Whatever is true as a biological baseline, we are shaped as we grow up in a sexed culture.
All cultures are sexed. (Well, so far.) But perhaps they are not all sexed in the same way. Perhaps a culture could be sexless (and thus genderless). I don’t know. Certainly our culture could be sexed in a different way.
So that is what gender is, how we negotiate a sexed culture, including all of its manifestations no matter how subtle. It is half of the “sex/gender” system, which is how your own sexuality is shaped by this, and in turn the sexuality of those around you, and in turn how they express their gender to you, and in turn how you express your gender back.
Even an asexual person is not free of this cycle. They too have to find a place within.
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I don’t know if anyone else cares (personally I’m fascinated) but someone’s doing network analysis of Gamergate.
Does anyone know of any similar projects for other hashtags or activism campaigns I could compare it with?
http://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2014/12/07/Gamergate.html
http://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2014/12/16/Gamergate-2-retweets.html
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This is fascinating. If you find any comparisons then please let us know. A quick google brought up these:
http://www.newsweek.com/gamergate-about-media-ethics-or-harassing-women-harassment-data-show-279736
View profile at Medium.com
There’s also some stats from the ggautoblocker: https://randi.io/wp/good-game-auto-blocker/ggautoblocker-statistics-for-gamergate
My understanding of network analysis is extremely poor (no maths since GCSE) so I would appreciate any discussion of these results aimed at the layman.
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The newsweek article is an horrible mess, or a perfect example of cherrypicking, depending on how charitable you feel. See here , or here .
I am amazed by the number of nerdy or geeky well-known figures who have made complete asses of themselves with this business. Quite a few outspoken feminists too, with dreadful failures modes about abuse and privacy. The emergence of open support for doxing is disquieting.
I think I should dismiss gamergate as a stupid feud over nonsense. But with a quick look at what happened in the RPG scene and in SF/F fandom, I’m not sure I’m right.
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I’m curious about your thoughts about each of those. As regards RPGs, I assume you’re referring to the kerfluffle over listing Zak Smith and RPG Pundit as consultants for Fifth Edition? Are you thinking of anything specific in SF/F, or just the general running feud between the “omigod, objectification!” brigade on the one hand, and Vox Day’s band of misogynistic fanboys on the other, with everyone else caught in the middle?
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The recent 5th edition agitation is only the last straw, albeit one of the most ridiculous to date (seriously, accusing Zak Smith of gatekeeping the hobby? and ableism?). I read the horrible hitpiece, and then the many rebuttals, some coming from people who cannot stand either Zak Smith or the RPG Pundit (let’s be honest, Zak Smith can be opinionated and aggressive, Pundit is an extremely unpleasant fellow on his best days).
We have there perfect examples of blatant (ab)use of SJ frameworks. RPG Pundit wrote violent diatribes against a school of thought among RPG designers. They were presented as diatribes against social justice, or worse against women (both in and outside of the hobby).
Accusing J. Desborough (known as the Antechrist in RPG-SJ circles because of his infamous article “In Defense of Rape as Literary Device”, also an MRA of late) of threatening to rape his critics, and then of being an actual rapist was pretty low, to say the least. Then accusing everyone doubting the accusations of protecting a rapist was the logical next step. Nice touch. Especially funny: when the accusations were shown to be baseless at best, and probably false, the person who had made the very thorough research necessary received rape threats. Attempting to get Desborough blacklisted and to boycott Mongoose was of course logical in that
Then there was the abuse directed at Monte Cook (nicknamed Cunte by the nice “non-misogynists”, that ought to ring a few alarm bells). More fun on that front: the slut-shaming of the Shanna Germain who dared to defend Cook.
(talking about slut-shaming, for added fun look at what Zak’s players had to endure over the years from the very same people cloaking themselves in social justice cloth!)
(if you dig a bit you’ll also find heaps of kink shaming where relevant)
Big players in those controversies: RPGNet (where a moderator stated that he supported spreading slander “for the lulz”) and Something Awful, of course.
There were of course lots of criticism against objectifying art (and oh so many calls for the blacklisting of “problematic” artists). Well, on that front we can all be happy. Out of 142 illustrations in the D&D 5th edition Players Handbook, there are only 3 which are not covered almost head to toes: a shirtless Conan-type, an hald-Orc in shorts and shirt and a druidess wearing strips of fur. No cheesecake, no beefcake.
All this is not new. In the 90s, White Wolf was seen as this great progressive company in the RPG business with settings thought more appealing for young girls, more social and less battles, female pronouns to describe characters whose sex was not defined in the text, etc. Now they are described as sexist in retrospect. Compared to what?
SF/F Fandom (kept at a minimum, the stuff above took me longer than I expected):
Very recently, Require Only That you Hate fiasco. When you need to make pie charts showing that the minorities are more attacked than the legitimate targets to make people denounce the abuse, something is very rotten. The amount of abuse tolerated for nearly a decade blows my mind.
Racefail. Just.. Racefail.
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I once tried to wrap my head around Racefail, before concluding that it would require way too much reading to get evaluate which of the wildly contradictory statements I was seeing were accurate, and deciding (with a wisdom that is quite unusual for me) that this was not worth doing, for a fight that was 100% between people I did not know, about a fandom I did not follow.
Isn’t* Requires Only That You Hate terrible? I feel like that’s one of those sites that I stopped reading because it was giving me much frustration and no rewards. But maybe I’m misremembering.
And oh gods, the bullshit people say about Zak S. Yes, he’s occasionally a dick, and every now and then he’s a dick to people who don’t really deserve it. But I think there’s been all of once that I’ve been linked to an example of “Zak behaving badly” (whether he actually was or not) in which his opponents weren’t behaving worse. I mean, for fucks sake, he actually tried to engage with people in the grognards.txt (and was quite reasonable in doing so IMO, even to the extent of acknowledging at one point that he and an opponent probably differed in axioms, and that his opponent’s axioms were not crazy), and he got banned. With reason “No means no, this thread is poison to you, wanderer. Do not bring your evil here.”*
Because trivializing rape is cool if we’re doing it to insult bad guys, amirite?
Anyway, yeah Zak can be a dick, but he’s mostly right, and even when he’s not, his heart is in the right place. I actually agree that he supports gatekeeping; it’s just that it’s not women or minorities that he wants to exclude, but people who are amoral or willfully stupid.
RPG Pundit, on the other hand, is fucking awful (albeit still guilty of less than he was accused of). Which raises the question: What on earth made whoever made that idiot post decide to lump them together? Honesty aside, I feel like they’d have had far more success if they’d targeted Pundit alone.
Final loosely connected thought: If I understand correctly, Something Awful spawned both 4chan and the internet Social Justice Movement. That basically makes SA responsible for well of half of the non-commercial Things That Are Wrong With The Internet, right? (Also, it makes GamerGate a sort of an SA(-offshoot) proxy civil war, which is kind of interesting.)
*Source: http://archives.somethingawful.com/banlist.php?userid=185243
For comparison, Zak’s contributions to the thread: http://archives.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&userid=185243&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
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ROTH is absolutely terrible. The SF/F community did not care that much about her abuse and harassment because, hey, it was fun and directed towards racists/sexists/ableists/add_relevant_ists_as_needed. The uproar came when ROTH published a novel under another name. People connected the dots and realized that she targeted young women of color disproportionately (there were some accusations that she was eliminating competition), and then came the uproar.
Let me clarify that: in the SF/F community, it is okay to insult and harass privileged people, it in fact buys you SJ-cred, that you can then use to remove non-privileged people (potentially) competing with you.
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@thirqual
Did an RPG.net mod really say they support slander for the lulz? I know rpg.net is heavily into social justice but I still find that hard to believe? Got a link.
As for similar things in the gaming industry. The accusations against Brad Wardell would be a clear example, but it never really blew up.[1] I consider the fact that Brad got some apologies one of the most positive outcomes of Gamergate (he also said the last few months are the closet he ever had to peace online). Penny Arcade’s dickwolves controversy is probably a much bigger example.
Anyway I don’t have much more to contribute since you and osberend clearly know much more about the scifi/fantasy and RPG fandoms than me. I’m just reading along with interest, and going to see if I can find those pi charts :)
[1] In his own words, obviously a non-neutral PoV but the courts already ruled so that shouldn’t matter: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/458579/The_long_lasting_effects_of_dishonest_reporting
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Giggles, not lulz, my bad.
That was after the original accusations were shown to be baseless and Zak Smith demanded that the people who had +1’ed them removed the +1.
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Ah, read your post too fast. Here are the pie charts .
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to anyone who may know, is there a place I can find a summary/writeup of the social war in PnP RPG space? Monster Hunter Nation seems to be a good summary for the Sci Fi Writers fight, but while I’ve heard of the PnP war, I haven’t found a good detailed account yet.
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@anonymousCoward: Sorry for the delay in replying. This post, is a pretty good summary of the 5e-specific conflict, with a decent chunk of backstory if one reads the links.
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Pretty late reply here, but I think that the reality of the situation really gets lost in the dichotomous framing between “harassment” versus “gaming journalism ethics.” I am pretty confident that Gamergate is not really about any one specific thing so much as it is a whole bunch of things believed by people with different opinions who’ve been herded together by the forces of tribal combat. “Gaming journalism ethics” doesn’t encapsulate the concerns of most of the people involved at all, but a whole bunch of people are angry about *things* and feel driven together by people who see all their various concerns as symptoms of a problematic culture, so they end up forming ranks and creating a rallying banner that, if it doesn’t encapsulate everyone’s concerns, at least doesn’t alienate anyone involved.
Some people involved were/are harassers and misogynists. It’s not hard to find clear examples of this. I don’t know what proportion, or even what proportion it would anecdotally look like if to me if I’d ever gotten involved, because I made a point not to. But there were also a lot of people for whom the discussion was not about gaming journalism ethics, and so, because they were not standing behind the alleged banner of journalism gaming ethics, I’d see them held up as examples of the only explanation which was competing for that with primacy, namely misogyny and harassment.
For example, a lot of hatred was directed at Anita Sarkeesian in a way that was clearly at a tangent to any issue of gaming journalism. If the whole thing is supposed to be a movement focused on gaming journalism ethics, and people are targeting Anita Sarkeesian, who is not a gaming journalist, as one of the primary sources of ire, then it seems like the whole gaming journalism issue must be a red herring. But the situation was a bit more complicated than that. A lot of the same people had *already* been angry with Anita Sarkeesian before the situation with Zoe Quinn unfolded, for largely the same reasons they continued to be angry with her afterwards. She had raised money for a review series called Tropes vs. Women, where she said that she was going to use the money to fund the acquisition and then time to play and review games for the series. I was present in some communities where this was a major topic of discussion as it unfolded, and watched as people’s attitudes changed from a broad mix of eagerness, respect, curiosity, dubiousness, anger and so forth, into mostly anger, as she was widely perceived to approach the whole matter with a hostile attitude towards games and the people who play them, to not have put much time or attention into actually playing the games she raised the money to acquire and review, and to present a very cherrypicked portrayal of their contents and implications. Obviously, not everyone felt this way about the series, but there was a broad backlash among gamers, including female gamers, who felt that she was coming in as an outsider to their subculture and tarring them based largely on preconceived notions. So the reaction to Anita Sarkeesian became “Outsider invading our turf and drawing up plans of attack!” and continued to be “Outsider invading our turf and drawing up plans of attack!” after she got involved with the whole Zoe Quinn debacle.
I think that more than any issue of gaming journalism ethics *or* bigotry, this was the real consistent factor which Gamergate supporters rallied to. They didn’t have agreement on what their subculture was or what it represented, but they agreed that they had one, and that it was under attack, even if they couldn’t agree on what lines encapsulated the people doing the attacking.
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@Desertopa
I agree that there’s a HUGE “my in-group is under attack!” effect, but there also seems to be some substantive disagreement. After a bit of digging:
1. It appears that many gamers sincerely believe that “political” remarks are inappropriate in game reviews, and either such evaluations must be completely excluded from reviews (point 6; sorry about the blur — Quinn posted it like this), or the reviews should be specifically labelled (point 6).
2. To some people, advocating against any choices made by game developers is akin to censorship. As argued in that post, the argument veers into thought policing (“You do not get to wish”), but perhaps it can be steelmanned if we accept that games are a vulnerable minority medium the “mainstream” society might deform or destroy at the slightest provocation.
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@Desertopa
Oh, and
3. Tropes cannot be harmful (example: same link as 2). On one hand, this may be the crucial difference of opinion in the gamers-vs-tropes-vs-women debate — after all, if anything that happens in games is OK, there’s no social justice to defend here. On the other hand, since Thunderf00t (a representative anti-Sankeesianian?) misinterprets her position as “games turn people into mass murderers”, the two sides may be talking past each other.
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@Nita: I think that there are two things in play with (3).
1. One is that there seems to me to be some really motte and bailey in play with the a lot of the tropes-vs-women (in a conceptual sense—it’s been ages since I’ve read anything by Sarkeesian or seen any of her videos, and while I think I remember this being part of what repelled me back when I did, I cannot at this point say that for certain) arguments. A particularly bad one is “rape culture” which seems to me to have a motte of “ideas and actions that encourage or condone rape” and a bailey of “saying anything at all about rape (or any of numerous things not about rape, for that matter) that I do no personally approve of.”
2. There’s also a perspective (for which I have a fair bit of sympathy) that says that if the content of openly fictional work leads someone to do or believe something harmful, the problem is with the person, not with the work. As Zak S. put it, in the thread that got him banned from RPG.net:
When something is presented to you as fiction to an adult it is saying “this is a thought experiment. If you believe this, it’s on you, adult.” [. . .]
You need to screen all your thoughts like air into a fallout shelter before taking action that will affect other people. Think what you want, you’re judged on action.
That’s the moral responsibility of being an adult. [. . .]
Filtering away bullshit is an essential life skill that requires honing. If you’re an adult and can’t even filter out fiction (which is lies labelled as lies) you already aren’t pulling your weight. You’re already a problem before the fiction even got to you. [. . .]
Now some people have triggers–these should be respected, they have a problem with an idea and it hurts them in a way they can’t control.
But the rest of us adults? Assuming a fiction has any value at all we need to recognize that this value probably outweighs the damage it will do to someone already so damaged that a game book could convince them to hate women.
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@osberend
1. I only saw (some of) Sarkeesian’s videos very recently, because my boyfriend (who actually plays games) persuaded me to take a look. And, well, I had to agree with him — her comments were far milder than I expected, and mostly sounded pretty reasonable.
So, if you want to criticize her arguments, I’m afraid you’ll have to bring some quotes.
2. a) Most people also earnestly believe that ads don’t work on them.
b) I’m not very interested in finding someone to blame. I’m interested in improving the overall outcome.
c) Tropes can have a negative impact directly on female players by showing them what people consider an awesome, playable story in our culture.
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I only just saw that there were lots of replies here; and there’s quite a bit I wish to respond to. Hopefully you’ll see this post quicker than I noticed yours :)
@Desertopa
Your last paragraph sounds about right to me – and I am supporter of gamergate. The subculture is loosely defined at best, but I’d say the key values relevant to gamergate are:
1) Strong opposition to censorship. People have tried to censor games and as a result the gamer subculture opposes censorship.
2) Strong opposition to the idea that playing a game makes you harm others. This is a direct result of people saying that playing a game makes you more violent as a justification for censorship; and has spread to also oppose the idea that playing a game makes you more sexist.
I think the stealman for why people perceive Anita as an attack on their subculture is number 2; they feel that she’s saying that playing certain games makes you a worse person, and that triggers the “Jack Tompson reflex”. And to honest, I don’t think that’s the reflex misfiring. Rather, I think that Anita’s videos are the motte; and the bailey is genuinely pro-censorship.
In accordance with Ozy’s new rules, here’s my evidence. Jonathan McIntosh (Anita’s co-writer & producer) supporting both the recent censorship attempts against GTA[1] and Hatred[2]. In addition Anita has made tweets that can be interpreted as supporting the (debunked) idea that videogames cause real life violence[3][4]. This interpretation is strengthened by Jonathan McIntosh explicitly tying toxic masculinity to video games (in a rather stupid way)[5].
Now while I can’t think of any examples of either of them outright saying “censorship is good” – they’re smart enough to avoid that – I think it’s reasonable to interpret the idea that corporations have a moral responsibility not to sell art with certain themes[3] as pro-censorship.
@Nita
On your #1 – a lot of gamers believe that the purpose of a review is to answer one simple question “should I spend my hard earned money on this game”? and that as the customer of gaming websites they’re aloud to ask for reviews that do what they want. That seems like a reasonable position to me.
That said, I suspect part of this opinion has come because political commentary in games journalism is very heavily blue tribe, and often attacking grey tribe values. If there was equal grey voices I don’t think people would be so against political commentary. That’s just a guess though.
On your #2 – You’re linking to Shingeki no Gingerbeard’s post correct? I don’t know the full context for that post, maybe I’ll brush up. I think I lean more to Shingeki’s side though. He wasn’t “advocating against any choices made by game developers”. He was advocating against “any choice made by _all_ game developers”. In other words he was arguing in favour of diversity.
That said, I will completely agree that “You do not, however, get to wish” is very bad phrasing.
On your #3, I definitely agree with you that “tropes cannot be harmful” is the key difference of opinion. This once again goes back to Jack Thompson’s argument that games caused violence. Because he wanted censorship gamers rallied around the opposite position, luckily the science has backed us up.
On your latest post; for 2c) if you expand that principle you get into very dark places. For example, a positively portrayed homosexual character can have a negative impact directly on members of religious minorities that consider homosexuality a sin.
If you implement that as a general principle either you end up limiting all art to bland uncontroversial soup that doesn’t hurt anyone’s self image, or you have some dictator decreeing who’s identities are fair game and who’s identities must be protected. Both those outcomes strike me as utterly horrific.
[1]https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/540442294483042304
[2]https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/545130387031068672
[3]https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/525781140943011841
[4]https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/525793436025118721
[5]http://imgur.com/CbeLKkV,lsGMdwy#0
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@Nita: Regarding Sarkeesian, I’ll see what I can dig up at some point. I’ll want to make sure I’m in the right place emotionally first, and also that I have the time. I’ll probably post that to whatever Open Thread is current at the time, if that’s cool with you.
2.a One of Zak’s points, which I agree with totally, is that it is your job as an adult human to exercise extreme and unusual care in letting things shape your thinking when it comes to how you treat other people. So I may think I’ve shrugged off the effect of an Audi ad, but actually be influenced to buy an Audi next time I’m car shopping, and that’s okay! Not ideal, but it’s life. But it’s my job to be far more careful about, say, how I let a political ad influence my views on gay rights. It’s not that media’s ability to influence people is weak, it’s just that in can be overcome, and it’s a profound moral failing not to do so when it’s wrong, which means that if you don’t, you’re probably profoundly immoral to begin with.
2.b You’re a consequentialist, right? If so, this is probably one of those areas where, bar one of us having a conversion experience, we’re just never going to see eye-to-eye.
2.c I feel like someone who is thin-skinned enough that this hurts them in a meaningful way (maybe bar some extreme cases, but that’s not what must of the fighting is over) is someone who needs to focus their efforts on toughening themselves up, not on softening the world to suit them. But that’s probably another thing stemming from a difference in basic moral outlook.
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I’d post this on Scott’s blog, as it directly pertains to him, but unfortunately it falls under “gender”:
There’s now one more reason to confuse Scott Alexander with Scott Aaronson.
(Warning: Later parts of the thread contain descriptions of rape.)
(Yes, this is probably rehashing old arguments to anyone here, but the fact that That Other Scott A was talking about it is really amusing.)
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Aaronson’s post was interesting, but I was also shy, nerdy, and romantically unsuccessful when I was younger (and things haven’t entirely changed), and also have always taken feminist concerns seriously. However, relatively early on I came to the conclusion that in my own case, the problem is that I just am kind of shy and insecure and deal badly with rejection, which is entirely separate from any feminist concerns. If I ever thought of the concern that some woman might feel threatened by my advances as a reason not to approach her, then that’s just the excuse that was available, not the real reason. If I weren’t familiar with feminist messages, I would have found some other excuse for avoiding the scary risk of rejection. So I don’t think the feminists ultimately have anything to do with any real problems I’ve had. Of course, even if I’m right about my own case, Aaronson’s may be completely different, but it is always important to keep in mind that people are very complicated and extremely prone to rationalization.
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Yeah, I’m not going to argue about this here, because holy crap have we done this to death. Well, for now, anyway. :P
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I think that your perspective is compatible with feminist rhetoric also being a source of real pain: Given that someone is looking for an excuse not to act, substituting a much more self-hating excuse for a less self-hating one is still massively destructive.
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I think “I’m too decent a person to be willing to make someone else feel threatened” is a less self-hating rationalization for not approaching someone than most of the other excuses I’d be likely to make for my cowardice.
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No, for me it was more “my sexuality is unwanted and scary”, like Scott Aa. describes, though I do think your point above is important and most of the problems I had were due to general interpersonal anxiety.
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I think (our) Scott generalizes too much from his experience. Which, I think hearing from him helps, but we need to place his story *among* all the other nerd dudes, many of whom turn out to be genuinely terrible people. Also we should place it among nerdy men who have few problems with women. All these experiences happen. I don’t think his should be taken as the norm, especially given the ongoing power imbalances in nerdy fields.
[ranty pants on]
One thing I note in his discourse: it centers his own sexual failures. Which, I get that hurts. And thus he claims no “privilege” cuz he had a hard time getting laid. But he seems to ignore all the not-exactly-sexed parts of his career. Like, what happens in medical school and speaking in class and going to conferences and — oh no I cannot get laid! But on the other hand, he can maybe interact with his professors and bosses and conference organizers and senior staff and etc., etc., etc. without them *trying to fuck him*! Maybe his voice can be heard, and he won’t have men barging into his private conversations and rudely interrupting while trying to chat him up to get his room number, and ignoring every possible clue to go away, and he probably doesn’t even *feel* this cuz it’s just natural to go through the world and not have your sexual submission the only coin you can spend.
And maybe something like this happens that *one time*, but not *all the fucking time* and that matters.
But god forbid you call him “privileged.”
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This sounds right. What do you think about the bolded part of Scott Aa.’s
?
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I recall one woman who worked both among Wall Street types and among SV nerds. She claimed to like working with the Wall Street types better, as both sets of men had fucked up attitudes about women, but the Wall Street guys were open about what they wanted where the SV types were super passive aggressive about everything. The Wall Street guys would say horrible things, but if you kept your chin up and worked hard, they would respect you, even if you didn’t fuck them. The SV guys were just a mess with women, and while most wouldn’t get in your face about it, cuz they were afraid of their own shadow, they clung to their bitterness and it showed up all over the place in horrible ways.
This was the opinion of *one* woman. I bet you can find a bunch who agree with her.
Myself, I work for a SV based company, although in an East Coast office. I’ve never worked with Wall Street types. That said, I really hate bro-dudes, so I think I would end up feeling the opposite from her. I think I would end up liking the nerds better than the finance guys.
That said, like her I would keep my chin up and work hard. Over time I think the finance guys would come to respect me. (I’m pretty darn smart. I’m pretty darn strong. I don’t intimidate easy. So that’s me.)
Also, I’m visibly queer and a nerd myself, as in, I’m a freaking professional LISP programmer of all things. So I have serious nerd cred. I do math for fun. So any nerd-bro who tries to pull some “fake geek girl” crap on me is going to have a bad day. Also I work among alpha-geeks. Like, I work for {that company}, so none of these guys are the wizchan style no-job-no-hope type nerds. That probably makes a difference.
All that said, nerd culture has particular problems with gender that are not exactly like the problems that other groups have with gender. Some women will be able to negotiate this space. Others will have more problems. In either case, nerd gender issues are hella fucked up and we need to talk about them. And whatever shit Scott dealt with, I’ve been hearing nerd-bros use “well she wouldn’t fuck me anyway” as an excuse to abuse from long before the first DARPA Internet circuit was laid, from long before the first Jezebel article, from long before geek girls routinely identified as feminists — keep in mind that (for example) Rebecca Watson didn’t start preaching a hard feminist line until *after* elevatorgate. In fact, it was the *unimaginably abusive response* to her post that convinced her that atheism space was sexist to the core and that geek-girls needed feminism hardcore.
And she was correct that atheism space is sexist to the core. And hell yes feminism.
I think Scott got treated badly. I think we all need to think about this and understand this. But he seems to think, “Well, I got it raw from the Jezebel types so that explains why so many nerds are terrible.”
Which, no. This goes back a long time. For example: http://the-toast.net/2014/09/30/sexual-racial-politics-nerd-culture-dialogue/
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Just for fun, let’s remember who was targeted by Watson just after/during the elevator incident:
– Steph McGraw
– Paula Kirby
– Abby Smith
(all that before Dawkins decided to weigh in)
And of course with the support of P.Z. Myers, who should be derided as an awful sexist but uses his SJ-cred aptly enough to buy immunity for his demeanor.
(see Michael Nugent’s recent blog posts for a charitable review)
—-
I also enjoyed a lot the “hey he is privileged, so anything that happened to him is not a big deal, it only happens once in a while anyway, and it was only about sex anyway”.
Thank you, as someone who was bullied horribly in middle and high school for being a gross creepy nerd, especially by girls, and who is now socially anxious, terrified of being perceived as a potential threat, or worse a potential suitor, and unable to trust authority figures, thank you, I feel really good reading this.
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Nick T – for some reason I can’t ‘reply’ on your post but ‘this thing is not the worst thing so this thing is ok’ is a classic.
I haven’t personally heard anyone say these issues in STEM are worse than in medicine or film-making.
I do think there is a sense in which dating the majority of teenage women as socialised by our culture has elements of a Hawk-Dove game, wherein Dove is the strategy suggested to a low-self-esteem youth by a general look at the body of mainstream feminism and Hawk is the Jock Stereotype.
(Hawk-Dove referring to that prisoner’s-dilemma-related game theory thing – shorthand is, we’d all be better off on average if everyone was Doves, but if there are at least some Doves, your personal optimal strategy is to go Hawk)
Here we add caring about being good or the welfare of others into the picture (Aaronsen here seems to talk about this particular moral issue mostly in the language of caring about his own image as a good person) – Dove is not, imho, the Right strategy, but it contains some efforts toward countering rape culture and so is morally better than Hawk. Aaronsen therefore had to decide whether he valued the personal success of a Hawk strategy more than the moral success of staying Dove. His revealed preference was for morality.
Later, it sounds like he found out that there are parts of the his-reading-of-mainstream-feminism-dervied Dove strategy that deviated from or were unnecessary for moral okayness, and adjusted his strategy accordingly, with success.
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“Just for fun, let’s remember who was targeted by Watson just after/during the elevator incident:”
What does that have to do with anything?
“I also enjoyed a lot the “hey he is privileged, so anything that happened to him is not a big deal, it only happens once in a while anyway, and it was only about sex anyway”.”
No one here has said this.
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1) Accusations of widespread sexism, justified or not (I’d rather not hazard a guess for the American A/S community) are used to eliminate potential competitors. If you are in a non-privileged category, you may think that there will be some tokenism, so your competitors are the ones sharing your traits.
Meanwhile, attacks on privileged and powerful people are a great signaling tool. At a certain level, you will no longer have to own up to anything. You can insult, harass, dox, threaten freely. You can openly support doxing and physical violence and no-one will blink.
See my comments above on RPG and SF/F communities, you’ll find the same dynamics. Or the second open thread on this blog, where I wrote an uncharitable account of elevatorgate, and one poster said “oh, you are talking about Requires Hate”.
2) Yeah, right. That’s not at all what veronica d’s rant (her words) was about.
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1) Or perhaps Watson sincerely meant what she said, “targeted” Kirby because Kirby had just called Watson a “feminazi,” etc.
I don’t agree with everything Watson said, but your demonization of her is over-the-top and intellectually vapid.
2) Nope, it wasn’t.
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1) It was directed at FTB/Pharyngula/Skepchicks commentariat and attitude towards dissent in general, and absolutely not at Watson herself, but who’s looking now? You can still read the tweets on skepchicks.org, though.
At the time, it was still customary to tell people to go fuck themselves with dead animals or rusty chainsaws on Pharyngula, and people where harassed for following “bad persons” (people still are in fact).
Let’s be clearer: the “horde” (not my words) at Pharyngula display totalitarian behaviors in hounding dissenters, with loud purity signaling, insults and calls for violence. When you relax the criterion for calling people names, you should expect some push-back.
2) If you say so.
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I hesitate to wade into this, but it is an open thread, so…
Between here and SSC, there are dozens if not hundreds of comments by Veronica that follow roughly the following pattern (the exact order varies):
1. Yes, the occasional male nerd suffers the occasional hardship. But they are outnumbered vastly outnumbered by the nerds who are actually sexist assholes.
2. People should not be unnecessarily cruel to each other; that includes not being unnecessarily cruel to the nerds who are not sexist assholes.
3. But having spent one or two throwaway sentences on 2, I’m going to move on to a many-paragraph rant about either a)how the real problem is how hard women’s lives are or b) how the real problem is how hard trans people’s lives are. This part, unlike 2, will generally have concrete details about what ought to change, rather than platitudes.
I’d agree that in the aggregate women have more problems (and trans people have way more problems) than men. But I’ll start taking seriously the idea that Veronica takes non-asshole nerds’ problems seriously when she starts writing the occasional comment that does more than briefly handwave about them before trying to recenter the discussion elsewhere.
(I am agnostic as to whether Veronica does not sincerely care about men’s problems, or she does care but is really bad at conveying any sense of sincerity about it. If the latter, take this comment as evidence that a change of rhetorical approach is in order.)
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@Veronica: This gets back to the “my precious fingers!” issue: If SJW types were actually willing to treat “privilege” as a neutral label for benefits that are experienced by most or all members of an unearned demographic group (and only possessed by those who actually experience those benefits), then we could note that male privilege and female privilege both exist as regards romanticosexual dynamics in modern American society, and discuss the characteristics of—and exceptions to!—each. But that’s not remotely how SJWs play.
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Interesting Scott Aaronson seems totally happy to admit he is privileged to be employed as an MIT Professor. Of course it would be hard t deny that being an MIT prof is a sweet gig. But theoretically Scott could have argued he deserved the position and such. Instead Scott Aaronson more or less totally accepts that he is super privileged in working life. And that he feels responsibility to those less fortunate.
Of course “being male” and “being an MIT prof” are hard to compare. But in the case where Scott actually feels privileged he is 100% happy to use the term privileged.
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@mathew — The truth is, my relations with nerd men are complex and I have a lot of baggage, given my past. That said, I think my critiques are sound. I can defend them on their own merits.
I’ll add, I don’t “preach to the choir” much here, by which I mean, I don’t often say, “Hey look at all this bad stuff that happens to nerds and look at all these terrible anti-nerd people.” I don’t say this cuz we’ve all seen it. Here it is background knowledge. These things are important. They should be acknowledged, but doing so frequently would add little. So instead of talking about this stuff, I talk about things people here might not have thought of.
On Twitter I’m a pretty hardcore SJW. I don’t apologize for that. On the other hand, I am unhappy with how my fellow feminists often move past *critique* of nerd culture into *abuse* of nerd culture. I often challenge this abuse. I do not challenge it *relentlessly*, cuz if I did people would stop listening to me, and then I could feel all happy about “taking a stand,” but I would be less effective. I want to be effective.
That said, I challenge these ideas frequently enough. I do so strategically. When I see someone saying “yuck fat neckbeards,” I will explain that this is body shaming. It is not okay. (In fact, this is Social Justice 101.) I point out that ragging nerd-dudes for being shy or bad with women actually works against our SJ goals. In fact, to do so uses the “master’s tools.” It deploys the tools of power and patriarchy against nerdy men. It reinforces toxic masculinity by pointing out how nerd-bros fall short. Which all might be effective in *hurting those men’s feelings*, but it does little to further the cause of social justice.
I often explain these facts. Sometimes people listen.
There is a saying in SJ spaces: “When you insult someone for being fat, you don’t insult only them.”
I’m sure the author of that quote was thinking in terms of the body positive movement. Moreover, I bet they were imagining mostly women. (BTW, I don’t know this for sure, but it seems probable.) That said, if this applies to we women, it should apply equally well to men. This is obvious SJ discourse. I often point this out.
And the same applies when you insult virgins or “neckbeards” or fedora wearers or gamers or — well, on and on. You get the idea. This stuff is obvious.
I think Eron Gjoni got a raw deal. The dude deserves a break. He has a career ahead of him, but his name has been smeared. This is not okay and we need to fix this.
I’ve spoken on his behalf on Twitter. No one listened to me. The last time I saw a thread on him on that *We Hunted the Mammoth* site, I considered speaking on his behalf. (Then I read the comments and decided it was pointless. No one would listen.) (Also, I’ve stopped reading that site. About which, look, I fucking HATE MRA types, and Redpill types, on and on, but that site is mindkilled.)
I won’t forget about Gjoni. Right now I cannot do much to help him, but maybe things will change.
(BTW, I also think Zoe got a raw deal. The abuse she has received is out of proportion to the harm she caused. Furthermore, the people who are attacking her are not principled critics of her behavior, but instead are abusers themselves, who are happy to abuse others. They do not know limits. For example, they made comments about driving her to suicide, and maybe in a sense they were joking, but only if you understand that, to them, *her doing it* would be the ultimate punchline. Fuck them.)
So you asked, do I really care about nerd men? Well, the truth is, it’s complicated. I’ll say this, I would not be a good therapist for a nerd dude with issues. It would be hard for me to be professionally detached. Likewise, I don’t know if I would make a good friend for a lonely nerd dude in pain. I got my own baggage and that would get in the way.
So do I *care*? Yeah, to some degree. But mostly what I offer is insight.
Plus I’m committed to social justice and I want to be fair.
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>And thus he claims no “privilege” cuz he had a hard time getting laid.
This comment seems screwed up in multiple different ways.
A guy says he was actively suicidal because he felt constantly shamed for his sexual preferences, and your response is … no. I’m sorry, but you simply can’t reduce this to “horny dude is pissed he can’t get laid”.
This simply cannot be reconciled with the paradigm that says by “punching up” you are somehow rendered a good person, because you’re only hurting people’s “privilege”. What was hurt was obviously not some cis guys’s privilege, it was his flipping mental health. You can’t wave your hand and render sexuality somehow unimportant to humans.
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@Mugasofa — I’m not punching up, nor down. I am stating a simple fact: having a hard time in romance, even if it is very painful, does not erase the social advantages he has being male. Those advantages accrue throughout his life, every day in school, every day at work, on and on throughout the years.
It is possible to have severe difficulties in one part of life but nevertheless to be significantly advantaged elsewhere.
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While Scott Aaronson doesn’t directly engage with the concept of privilege in that post, and instead just shares his personal experiences (which is completely fine) – I think that his post does highlight a huge flaw in the typical privilege discourse. That flaw is an inability to think about specific cases instead of the general case.
So Scott Aaronson talks about an increased likely hood of socialshaming due to being a hetrosexaul male. This is a real “dis-privilege” (is that a word? anti-privilage?). He then describes what appears to be a genuine psychological phobia.
Multiply a dis-privilege by a phobia and you get an absolutely huge dis-privilege. Enough to make him actually suicidal. And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone consider how personal circumstances can tie into someone’s privilege calculation – the closet I’ve seen is internationality, but that’s just thinking about multiple general cases simultaneously.
Does that erase his advantages elsewhere, no. But it does mean that his personal dis-privileges specifically from being male outweigh his privileges from being male. It’s hard to think of any privilege that could outweigh making someone suicidal – and the constant disadvantages that compound from spending an extended period in that frame of mind.
TL;DR – once you take into account the direct alignment of Scott Aaronson’s male dis-privilege with his social phobias, I would say that Scott has less sex/gender privilege than the hypothetical average woman.
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If a problem causes someone to be suicidal then that problem does overshadow there other advantages. Maybe the problem doesn’t “erase” their advantages but if someone is suicidal their “privileges” must not be doing them enough good.
Veronica’s comment seemed to be about Scott Alexander. But in the Scott Aaronson case:
1) His romantic and social situation caused him to be suicidal
2) He repeated wished that he was born Female or Gay or Asexual
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I think that’s probably a case of gendered oppression, which I talked about in today’s rerun– Scott Aaronson is oppressed as a neurodiverse person in ways specifically inflected by his maleness.
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@Matthew
This seems like an absurdly high standard to hold people to:
“But I’ll start taking seriously the idea that Veronica takes non-asshole nerds’ problems seriously when she starts writing the occasional comment that does more than briefly handwave about them before trying to recenter the discussion elsewhere.”
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@Matthew
If you are goign to hold veronica to that standard do you agree with things like:
Anyone who does not occasionally write long, detailed comments about the problems faced by Women/Trans individuals probably doesn’t really care. And these comments need to mention specific measures society should take.
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Actually, in my first post I was mixing up the two Scotts, but now I get who is who. In any event, yes, having suicidal thoughts is some hard shit.
Which oddly, I wonder if I’m the only person on this thread who, like him, found herself suicidal and in a doctor’s office begging for chemical castration. Cuz in fact I’ve totally done that. For realz.
Of course, there were some differences. In my case I also wanted estrogen. Furthermore, in my case the doctor gave me the pills.
But look, when I’m talking about privilege, I’m not talking to the dude *back then*. In fact, I agree that going up to a sad, lonely man and saying, “Oh, dude like, you totes have privilege” is not particularly helpful. But I’m not doing that. Instead, I’m talking about the man now. If we look at him now, the full arc of his life, we see a *highly successful* academic, married, and according to his story quite happy.
Which, the dude has privilege in tons, and some of that is cuz he’s male.
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FWIW, I have also wished for both chemical and surgical castration when I was younger, and at one particular low point wished to have a total nullification (and ended up self-inflicting some related physical wounds).
My reasons were largely the same as Scott Aaronson’s.
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@stargirlprincess
I read Matthew’s comment differently. I saw it as him saying that if you want me believe you support X
a) your posts about X should fit the trend you set on other topics you support
b) your posts about X should not derail the threads to focus on other topics you support.
That seems reasonable to me; especially b.
@veronica d
If Scott has overcome his phobia then yes, he now has more privilege than before. However by that logic Oprah Winfrey – born an impoverished black woman, now a billionaire with a media empire to promote her views and an army of lawyers to protect her from racism or sexism – is among the most privileged in the world.
Personally I do think that Oprah is incredibly privileged, so on this I agree with you. And yet I don’t think the hypothetical social justice advocate would be ok with the equally hypothetical average white man telling Oprah to check her privilege.
Which is why I also agree with Scott’s point of view. If the hypothetical average social justice advocate will say that Oprah isn’t privileged despite a change in circumstances; those hypothetical advocates also shouldn’t say Soctt is privileged because of a change in circumstances. It’s both or neither.
Personally I’d say both.
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By way of an entirely unproductive expression of barely articulate frustration:
The pattern Matthew describes is one I’ve also encountered, many, *many* times; I am not going to point my finger at Veronica like he did, because she’s not the only one doing it, and I’ve seen more of it among people I used to know in real life, anyway.
Countless variations of: “Yes, you’ve had a terribly shitty life and you are clearly in pain, but let’s not forget that people like you are awful and let’s talk about people like me instead”.
I even had a *psychologist* do that, at one point.
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@moebius — A psychologist should *not* do that to you. I’m sorry that happened.
However, I don’t think you’re being fair. I am not psychologist. Neither is this a *safe space* for lonely men to share their pain. Perhaps such places should exist — although how do you avoid becoming Wizchan? — but this ain’t it. Instead, this is an open thread on gender issues on a rationalist blog. If there is any place I should get to offer my POV, this is it. Likewise, if there is any place I should get to hear the “other side” (in quotes cuz you ain’t my “enemy”), it is here.
For those of you who say I’m not sufficiently caring about geeks, let me lay out how I got here. (I’ll try to be brief.) I’m a feminist and a geek, which puts me square in the middle of elevatorgate and donglegate and gamergate and all the gates. Plus Sarkeesian. Plus the Redpill. Plus (I hesitate to mention) the incel scene and Eliot-fucking-Rogers. This is my world. I have to deal with it.
Plus, you know, I have history. I’ve been a geek my whole life and I’ve watched this play out. I have theory about why this stuff happens, about why, on the one hand, you have the shy, awkward “nice guys” and on the other you have the sexist jerks making suicide “jokes” about Zoe Quinn. Plus I notice how sometimes these are actually kinda the same guys, by which I mean there is a lot of overlap and mixing and moving about.
I’m not the only person who has noticed this. You wanna know how this plays out in the feminist echo chamber? Simple, the message is this:
Know what! It fucking works.
Look, all this anti-SJW rage does not arise cuz this stuff does not work. It works very well.
So you know, I want geek spaces that are cool for women. I want feminism (in the broad sense) to totally win. And in fact, I don’t mind shunning the occasional terrible person. I’m not saying it’s an ideal solution, but would anyone really miss Heartiste?
That’s the echo chamber. I hear that shit all day long.
Which is why I’m here. You want to know what I learned here:
I believe this is true. In fact, I think it’s obviously true.
But this does not make me not-a-feminst. Nor does this make me not a SJ advocate. I still want women in geek spaces. I still want sexism stomped out. But if shunning people ain’t the right way to go, at least in the general case, then what?
So far I’ve been *talking to people I disagree with*. And I’ve been listening. If you think I ain’t, you’re wrong.
But in turn you’ll are gonna hear from me.
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@Forlorn Hopes — It’s actually kinda hard for me to imagine the situation where a white man would tell Oprah to check her privilege. Which, despite how the term gets used on Twitter, it’s not supposed to be a hammer against anyone who annoys you.
Regarding Oprah’s rise to fame, the thing to look at is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ idea of “Twice as Good.” The concept of white privilege does not say that no black person will ever make good. Nor does it say that no white person will ever fail. The point is this, black people have to climb a different ladder than white folks, and that ladder is steeper, and this sucks. “Check your privilege” is just to say, “Dude, you got to climb a different ladder than me. Yours was like waaaay easier.”
Which does not mean it *felt easy*. Nor does it mean that every white person climbs just the same ladder. But it’s to say that there is this big difference when race comes into play and maybe this-or-that rung is hard on the white ladder, but as a white guy, you wouldn’t want to trade!
Okay, so you’re gonna say, “But I would trade with {particular black person}.”
And yeah, I mean, I’d love to look like Janet Mock.
On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d want to live her whole life, to walk the trail she walked. (I’ve read her memoir. She carried some heavy shit.)
Or else you might say, “But I’m fat and autistic.”
Which, okay, then you’re on a hard ladder too. But would you want to be on the “black, fat, and autistic” ladder? Does that sound fun?
You might say, “But what about this super gifted black person?”
Sure, I’d love to be super gifted. I bet it’s easier to be super gifted, gorgeous, rich, amazing, and WHITE than all the same but black.
Then you’ll say, “But hey, every ladder is different. Why single out race?”
Well, we’re not singling out race. Lots of things can make a big difference. But thing is, if you’re white you probably know lots of other white folks and you talk to them and know their stories, so you probably have a pretty good sense of the kinds of ladders they have to climb, cuz society reinforces the idea you are similar so you pay attention.
Plus your friends will typically be on ladders near yours.
How many black folks do you know? How much do you know about their ladders? Among those you know, how many are kinda not-average. Like saying, “I knew a bunch of black folks in my MIT compsci class” is maybe kinda not the same as knowing a lot of bus drivers and shit. Furthermore, even if you know a bunch of black folks, enough to know a broad range of typical black lives, do you think you have deep, honest communication with them? Do wonder if maybe there is stuff they don’t say in front of you, about the real shit in their lives?
And maybe they do. Maybe you’re the sort of person who folks trust hard. If so, yay. You’re rare.
A big part of privilege discourse is to help folks see that their ladder is different, and like you’re not going to understand this without slowing down and taking a serious look.
Like, you have to listen to people. Which means stop talking. Which mean *check your privilege*.
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” It’s actually kinda hard for me to imagine the situation where a white man would tell Oprah to check her privilege.”
Well, since she’s one of the wealthiest people in the country, there’s always class-based privilege.
Like if Oprah was talking to a white male community college student in Oregon, and they were talking about their mutual interest in queer comics, and she excitedly told him “hey, there’s this great conference about that in Manhattan, you should definitely go!,” and he responded “I couldn’t take the time off work, plus I don’t think I can afford that,” and she was like “Oh, but this conference will be amazing and useful to you, so you should make it happen.” At that point he could very rightfully say “Oprah, check your privilege.”
(It’s possible that my characterization of Oprah’s personality and interests lacks 100% fidelity to the real person. :-p )
I largely agree with the comments you’ve posted here today, except that the feminists I know – and virtually all my friends are feminists – simply aren’t as mean as how you characterize the “feminist echo chamber.” That sounds like some feminists I’ve seen on Tumblr, but Tumblr isn’t 100% (or even 10%) of feminism.
If feminists rejected all shy, nerdy guys, then pretty much my entire life would be impossible, and I would have no friends.
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Veronica, that’s a very long way of saying you agree with me. Assuming I read you correctly.
My point was that Scott Aaronson was at the top of a harder ladder than the hypothetical average woman – becuase of the horrible compounding effects of his maleness and his phobia.
And my point was that when Scott denies having privialge he’s just saying he had a harder ladder. I used Oprah as another example of someone who reached the top of hard ladder – my point was that both can still legitimately say “I had a harder ladder” as a response if someone says they’re privilaged.
I think that’s us agreeing, becuase you said this: “Dude, you got to climb a different ladder than me. Yours was like waaaay easier.”
As for the the post above your post above ladders. I don’t think anyone’s saying this should be a safespace or you shouldn’t bring up your views. Just that you shouldn’t derail threads from “problems facing nerds” to “nerds are problems”.
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@ampersand — See, I don’t think Oprah would say that to the guy. Like, she was not born into wealth. As soon as the guy said, “I can’t afford it,” I’m pretty sure she would totally get that. In fact, she’d probably offer to pay. (Well, if cameras were around. It’s kinda her schtick. Have no idea what the real Oprah is like.)
On feminism, there’s a lot of bad feeling going on right now from the gamergate backlash, so yeah I really do hear that stuff. Like, my Facebook feed is full of people reposting whatever shitty photoset is going around with fat guys in fedoras saying horrible stuff.
Which the stuff is horrible. The guys are sexist as fuck. But the juxtaposition of the text and images is not accidental. It is meant to body shame. It is meant as mockery of their lack of social success.
So when I talk about the “echo chamber,” I don’t really mean feminism in general. But I think the discourse has become really toxic lately and I hope things start to deescalate.
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@veronica: What crystalizes it for me is this: Why is “donglegate” even in your list? Because here’s the core elements of that series of events as I see them:
1. Guy at a conference starts making jokes that Adria Richards apparently finds inappropriate but that do not, from anything she said*, contain any sexist ideology.
2. Richards says nothing—thus, further comments are not coming in the face of a request to stop.
3. Guys make another sexual joke about “big dongles”—still, without any apparent sexist ideology in it, but for some reason, this results in Richards’s “face getting flustered.”
4. PyCon staff show a picture of young girl who attended the event.
5. Richards decides that that girl is a delicate wilting flower who, if Richards did nothing, “would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind [Richards] would make it impossible for her to do so” . . . by making crass but non-sexist jokes.
6. Richards still says nothing, but snaps a picture and posts it online complaining about the dudes behind her, and asking for them to be dealt with. Apparently her views on the girl shown on screen were projection.
7. Richards makes a blog post in which she explicitly describes men who have done nothing hostile or sexist as needing to be stopped in order for women to be able to “learn and love programming.”
8. One of the guys behind her gets fired. For making a dongle joke.
9. Richards quite rightly catches massive blowback, some of which perhaps goes a bit too far.
There’s a villain in this story, and it’s Richards. Why is it in your description “how [you] got here?
*And given her hostility to the dude, I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have mentioned it if it was there at all.
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@forlorn
But look, he went into a STEM field, which is high status and well rewarded. In STEM, he did not encounter all the shit women encounter. He never got “Girls suck at math.” He doesn’t have to re-prove his competence every time he enters a new social space. Women have to do this ALL THE FUCKING TIME! It adds up.
Which, by now he’s reached a point where he is *a name*, so his competence is assumed ipso facto. Women can also become *a name*, and then their competence is assumed. But that happens high up the ladder and all those lower rungs are hell for gals.
(Well, for most of us. Some women of course figure out how to negotiate this space. I did. I tricked the world into thinking I was a guy.)
Anyway, *that* is his male privilege and it’s worth tons. It gave him a name and a career and a fuckton of status.
For women that ladder is hell.
Okay, so what about his romance issues? Well, he probably lacked neuro-typical privilege. Which, I’m not sure if he’s *out* as NAT, but we can guess. Even if it’s not exactly autism, I bet he’s autism-adjacent. Many of us in this space are.
Okay, so on being male and NAT. Sounds shitty. Try being a woman and NAT. Try being a woman with heavy social anxieties or autism or something. What’s her ladder like?
Honestly, I suspect at this point you cannot compare. A lonely dude begging his doctor for spiro? A sad girl with mean friends who just ratted her out for cutting?
I hope both survive. If they do, and if they both pursue a career in a high status field, it’s probably gonna be easier for him. Cuz male privilege.
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I’m not sure how that post relates to mine Veronica.
I’m saying that Scott’s phobia means that a hypothetical average woman had more privilage than Scott. I think that’s a fairly safe assertion since his issues made him suicidal in addition to whatever practical limits they imposed and whatever after effects remained.
Your post talks about male privilage in STEM. Which is sort of relevent, but only sort of because it talks about male privilage in isolation, it doesn’t attempt to argue that the positive effects of male privilage outweigh the negative effects of Scott’s mental problems. Furthermore Scott’s ladder includes more than career success, he’s also married. I don’t know if he considers family more important than career, but most people do.
Your post also talks about neurological atypical women – which is completely irrelivant because I’m comparing Scott’s pivilage to that of the hypothetical average woman. The hypothetical averge woman is neurotypical.
Am I missing something, because I’m not seeing anything that actually challanges my statement that Scott’s phobias compounded with his maleness means he had a harder ladder to climb to get to where he is today than the hypothetical average woman.
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I think that Scott Aaronson probably did have a harder “everything” ladder to climb than a hypothetical “average” woman – I’m guessing that by “average” you mean she hasn’t suffered trauma, didn’t come from severe poverty, hasn’t had to overcome racism in any large degree, has never felt suicidal, etc etc. (I suspect relatively few people are actually “average” if this is how we define “average,” but whatever.)
So if that’s all you’re saying, than I agree with you (and I guess I’m more or less a SJ type – although that’s another term that lacks any clear definition). I also agree that Oprah benefits from class privilege, which many white men do not. But I don’t understand what your point is. Why do you think this matters?
Obviously there are some individual white straight hetero cis men out there who have had tougher lives overall than some individual non-whitestraightheterocis men have. For that matter, some people have had much, much harder lives than Scott Aaronson. But I don’t see how these fairly obvious truths connect to the larger discussion.
Aaronson wrote that his difficulties mean that saying he experienced male privilege is ridiculous (as he put it, he gets off the train when someone says that). But to consider if Aaronson’s life chances were improved by male privilege or not, it doesn’t work to compare him with a hypothetical “average” neurotypical woman. We should compare him to a hypothetical woman who is similarly situated – including being neurological atypical. If we don’t hold factors other than sex constant, then we’re not comparing apples to apples.
Earlier, you wrote ” But it does mean that his personal dis-privileges specifically from being male outweigh his privileges from being male. It’s hard to think of any privilege that could outweigh making someone suicidal – and the constant disadvantages that compound from spending an extended period in that frame of mind.”
Severe social anxiety disorder (if that’s what Aaronson had, obviously I can’t claim to know) is not unique to men. Suicidal thoughts are not unique to men. Not being able to find romance is not unique to men. None of these things can reasonably be said to be specific to being male.
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Why do I think it matters? – To start with I’m not talking about any “wider discussion”. I’m exclusively talking about Scott. If you’re saying that this needs to tie into a wider discussion to matter, than I concede that nothing I said here matters. Now back to Scott.
I’m saying that Scott is correct when he says he doesn’t have male privilage becuase his social phobia directly tied into his male identity and introduced a male-disprivilages that outweighed all his positive male-privilages.
In response to that, you counter that I’m wrong to bring up a hypthetical average woman, and instead I should compare Scott to a woman with similar psychological issues.
To that I respond that no, I should not. I should compare Scott to whomever is telling him that he has male privilage. Now obviousuly that’s not just one person, and I don’t know the details of their lives. However I do feel it’s safe to say that most of them did not experience a long term battle with suicidal thoughts; because thankfully most people have never experienced a long term battle with suicidal thoughts. Some of them may well have, veronica did, but the majority of them? I doubt it. (And anyway, why would you even want to say Scott has male privilage when you know his past and that it makes him very unhappy?)
As for Oprah – the only reason I mentioned her was to make the point that it’s valid to say “a harder ladder” in privilage discussions.
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@stargirlprincess:
>If you are goign to hold veronica to that standard do you agree with things like:
>Anyone who does not occasionally write long, detailed comments about the problems faced by Women/Trans individuals probably doesn’t really care. And these comments need to mention specific measures society should take.
I actually think I endorse this statement.
Bearing in mind that “really care” is being used to predict actions, not mental states or beliefs; obviously such a person would not *endorse* their lack of empathy. Yeah, that seems like a pretty reasonable assumption.
I probably wouldn’t use loaded terms like “really care”, but yeah, if you expect to be viewed as an ally you should actually care about issues like this; and a tendency to rant on a topic is a strong indicator of this. There are confounders (some people make an effort not to rant about anything), but it’s still a useful signal.
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@veronica:
>Or else you might say, “But I’m fat and autistic.”
Which, okay, then you’re on a hard ladder too. But would you want to be on the “black, fat, and autistic” ladder? Does that sound fun?
So … what if we replace “black” with “male” and “fat and autistic” with “gay”? Seems like this same argument could be used in favour of “female privilege”.
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@mugasofa — Yes, specifically for black men and women, there seems to be this weird flip. The flip is not total. Black women still deal w shit black men do not. However, I’ve known black trans women who talk about how they felt safer as a woman, certainly among white people. The reverse happens for black trans men. They have to deal with a sudden hostility in the world they find surprising.
Note that white trans people do not experience this specific flip.
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@veronica d:
So … you see the problem, then?
What makes you think there isn’t a similar “flip” in other areas? What, in fact, makes you think “privilege” is a good model to use here?
[It’s “Sofer”, by the way. I’m not a couch, AFAIK :P]
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@veronica_d:
In the UK, the best paid people are NOT STEM professionals.
They are mostly managers in most fields.
To repeat, NOT STEM professionals.
I imagine that is the same in most other places too.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2868911/Best-paid-UK-jobs-2014-Compare-pay-national-average.html
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Reading down the thread, Scott’s comment #448 is very interesting and I’m disappointed that there wasn’t any discussion of it there:
As far as I can tell, I don’t experience this; I just experience “geeky girls are easier to relate to and easier to imagine having fun sharing a lot of my life with”, which also seems simpler and more likely as a model of other people. (It’s probably relevant that, most of the time, I compartmentalize romantic and sexual attraction a lot more than it looks like others do.) But Scott’s thing makes sense, and I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s common.
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1111111111111“As far as I can tell, I don’t experience this; I just experience “geeky girls are easier to relate to and easier to imagine having fun sharing a lot of my life with”, which also seems simpler and more likely as a model of other people.”
Seconded!
I suspect this is a case of Aaronson projecting his own sexual nature onto the world in general (or at least onto nerdy guys in general). I don’t doubt that there are other guys who can recognize themselves in what Aaronson writers; but I don’t see any reason to suppose Aaronson’s preferences are the universal, or even the norm.
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I don’t think this is specific to male sexuality. To me, smart people of all genders feel like more relatable friends and more impressive “trophies”.
Then he goes on to mention the attempts to “push you off that [intellectual] pedestal” as a type of flirting. Unfortunately, it can be hard for the target of this behavior to tell it apart from negatively-motivated aggression (“I’ll prove that you’re not good enough to be in our club, fake nerd girl!”)… and sometimes the actual motivation seems to be a mix of attraction and hostility.
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It seems to me that he’s describing a special case of a broader phenomenon. Painting intentionally with broad strokes:
Sex, done well, is both very powerful as an experience and very basic. That combination means that sex reduces people, at least temporarily.
What it reduces them to varies. Scott talks about reducing people to playthings. A common pornographic trope is the reduction of a woman to little more than a desperate, hungry need for cock given flesh. A rapist (often) aims to reduce their victim into an all-consuming state of misery and fear. And a good orgasm can reduce someone to a twitching pile of jello incapable of emitting more than vague vowel sounds. Different reductions for different purposes.
What all of these reductions have in common, though, is that they express power on the part of the one responsible for the reduction. And that expression of power is greater the further the subject is reduced. “It feels better to make a girl a plaything the less like a plaything she was to begin with” is an example of this phenomenon, but so is “it feels better to reduce a girl to inarticulate post-orgasmic whimpers the more erudite she was beforehand.”
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I’ve always assumed this was a version of the Halo Effect, because it functions the other way as well – people I’m attracted to tend to seem smarter.
I value intelligence highly, so my brain assumes anyone Really Smart is probably Really Cute as well. Heck, the same goes for other traits I admire, I think.
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Oh, so I actually started to dig deeper into that post, and like, wow that comment thread is a mess of angry redpill types. Like, yeesh.
Anyway, that said, I think I have a crush on “Amy”. Take comment 188:
Actually, I rather like Hugh Ristik most of the time. But on this I think Amy nails it. She’s for sure my kind of feminist.
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Actually, that is a seriously great thread. Read Sniffnoy’s #277 (Ozy gets a plug) and then read Amy’s response #279.
Funny thing, I totally agree with both of them.
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Well it’s worth noting what I was saying there was not exactly original; I’m pretty sure I recall Ozy saying something along the lines of “I’m not sure why feminists decided to believe abusers’ claims about their motivations” on Tumblr, which I was largely drawing from; I didn’t cite it only because finding anything on Tumblr requires swamp-trudging. (Ozy, I hope you don’t mind!)
(But yes obviously any time I am in a discussion I am going to mention Ozy along with Scott and Hugh Ristik and now Scott Aaronson as examples of “decent people who nonetheless agree there is a problem and can describe it”.)
[Not responding on other points, like hell am I arguing about this in more than one place at a time!]
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My takeaway from the abuser stats is that we probably need to separate out the issues of *dudes who assault women* from *dudes who are kinda shitty and gross toward women* from *dudes who are just super awkward and make women uncomfortable*. These are different groups. Assuming they are the same has caused no end of grief. That said, a big part of my theory is that (some members of) the third group move into the second group over time. Much of what I talk about is how that happens and why it is bad.
But the first group is a separate sack of horrible and we should stop mixing them up.
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I wish the beta-male feminist nerds like Scott Aaronson would realize that the anti-male crap from the professional “feminists” has nothing to do with hetero women at all. Every “women’s studies” department in the country is dominated by LESBIANS, who are trying to do what various male-brained groups have been trying to do from time immemorial: gain and control access to women.
In competition with other men the beta males know what they have to do. They have to get off their asses and compete, which they do in their own way: by being productive and getting paid for it and being willing to use that income to support a family. It is a successful strategy. Women like it, which is why there are so many nerdy beta males in the world.
Yet these same beta males are totally flummoxed when the male-brained competition they are faced with have female bodies. Guys, you just collapse. Are you really that clueless about female sexuality? You really think it is hetero-females who are trying to stop men from approaching women?
Maybe you are that clueless. With your competitive strategy you never learn to be the hunter and so never have to understand the female. You just make yourselves attractive to the woman by making money and eventually they track YOU down, and so you manage to get by without ever knowing what makes the woman tick.
Otherwise you would never for one second think that the war against hetero-sex is coming from women. No, you fruitcakes, it is an attack on both men and women concocted by the anti-feminine lesbian “feminists.”
Given your blindness it is annoying to see Aaronson and others denigrate alpha males as “Neanderthals.” STFU. That is an idiot ad hominem against men who you don’t begin to understand (men who understand women). Alphas are NOT the ones who are fighting dirty against you. They are kicking your asses fair and square and you have your nerdy way of competing in response. That is all fine. Nothing to complain about on either side.
It is the male brains in the female bodies that are the problem, just because they managed to get themselves into controlling positions in academia and the media where they are able to speak for women, and they are using that position to wage war on hetero-sex.
But you think the problem is heterosexual women and alpha males. You nerds are so clueless.
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How did this get past moderation?
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Open threads are unmoderated.
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This comment is a miracle of the universe.
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Mr. Rawls, your comment reminds me of this now deleted post at
solomonreborn.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/proverb-3-the-bright-side-of-feminism/
(site doesn’t exist anymore).
So I shall reproduce the text in full (what can I say, I’m a collector of debunkments)
Posted on March 11, 2011 by Dalrock
Feminism is a great way for Alpha males to control Beta males by proxy.
At work and at home, the fairer sex demands the rights of a modern man but the consideration, value and protection of a traditional woman. While this “having it both ways” scenario can be unnerving to say the least, it’s not going away so we might as well use it to our advantage.
Let’s look at a scenario featuring a mother daughter combo, an Alpha, and his Beta counterpart.
SCENARIO: At work, a 48 year old woman wants to be promoted to Regional Manager for office locations in 4 states. She’s competent and reasonably qualified, and since there’s a gender gap on the management team, the company gives her preference. Less than 1 month after taking on her new role, the woman complains about traveling all the time and not spending enough time with her 22 year old daughter who will soon be graduating from college and moving away. She also needs help getting the marketing materials that have been mailed to her hotel transferred to the convention center on every trip because she’s not able to carry such heavy boxes in a taxi. In addition, she’s offended that the other male regional managers don’t seem to value her opinion because she’s only held her position for six weeks, and of course, because she’s a woman.
Billy Beta’s Response: Why can’t women pull their own weight and do the same work men are expected to do blah, blah, blah…
Alan Alpha’s Response: It’s terrible that no one is here to support you and listen to your feedback. I for one think you’re to be commended for excelling in a toxic environment that refuses to recognize the contributions of women.
Notice he doesn’t actually do anything for her; he merely validates her position and reinforces her irrational behavior like an overprotective parent makes excuses for a spoiled child.
Now Billy Beta is viewed as a typical misogynistic pig, but Alan Alpha has earned her loyalty. Sure, the Alpha has zero respect for her and knows she’s nothing but a worthless, aging, nagging femcunt, but she doesn’t know he feels that way. She’s in his corner as long as he continues to placate her. The Alpha male has embraced the feminist system and has basically bought a Regional Manager that he can manipulate in the future.
After handling the Regional Manager, Alan Alpha and Billy Beta stop by their favorite bar on their way home for happy hour.
At the bar, Alan Alpha and Billy Beta just happen to bump in to the Regional Manager’s 22 year old daughter. She enjoys a lifestyle of serial monogamy accented with bursts of soft hedonism. She parties and fucks whoever she wants, whenever she wants, however she wants, but still expects to be valued on the marriage market like a chaste 19th Century Victorian virgin. Sure, she got her ass stuffed last week by a man she had only met two hours earlier, but hey, she’s just enjoying her youth. Besides, she’s had a few long term boyfriends along the way and guys do it all the time, so what’s the harm? She self righteously works to discredit the evil double standard one hot salty load at a time.
Billy Beta’s Response: Women today are such sluts. They have no self esteem or place any value on themselves. I’d never have a long term relationship or marry a woman like that blah, blah, blah…
Alan Alpha’s Response: I value a woman who has the strength and sense of self to explore her sexuality. It’s healthy, natural, and normal for a woman to be in tune with her wants, needs and desires. I’d far rather be with a woman who has experienced life to the fullest than some moralistic prude who is bound by the rules of men. A strong woman who isn’t afraid to be herself is sexy and desirable.
Once again, Billy Beta is viewed as a typical controlling misogynistic pig and a jealous little boy who needs to grow up while Alan Alpha is perceived as a grounded, progressive and educated man of the world. Sure, Alan Alpha has zero respect for her and regards her as merely a cum dumpster to the masses, but she doesn’t know he thinks this way. She’s in his corner (and on his cock) as long as he continues to placate her. Alan Alpha has embraced the feminist ideals of promiscuous self exploitation and can now add another notch to his bedpost. As he pulls his dick out of her mouth and squirts his load all over the lips that will one day kiss the first born son of a pathetic Beta, he looks into her eyes and knows that thanks to her espousal of feminist propaganda, he’s not taking advantage of her at all. He’s simply giving her exactly what she wants – the right to be a Sexually Liberated Urban Tart.
END
Alan Alpha has controlled Billy Beta by highlighting his insecurities and childishness for the women in his sphere to see and judge. Of course Alan Alpha knows that maintaining antipathy for Western women does not mean a man is insecure or childish, but that revealing that antipathy through Beta rage in public certainly makes it seem that way. He coaxed the Beta out into the open, poked him with a feminist stick, and let him make a fool of himself for all the women to see.
So in the end, the Alpha has neutered the Beta both at work and in the dating marketplace. Then the Alpha made his own professional life better by keeping Regional Manager Mom happy while he fucked her slutty daughter.
Following Alan Alpha’s game plan and pacifying the dumbest bitches on the planet is akin to drinking your own piss. But when trapped in the collapsed mine shaft of feminism, a man has to do what a man has to do in order to survive.
SUGGESTED READING: The Sunny Side of Civilizational Decline by Ferdinand Bardamu
Filed under Proverbs Tagged with alpha male, feminism, feminist
About Solomon II
As iron sharpeneth iron, so one man sharpeneth another. Proverbs 27:17
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But… in his scenario, the “Beta” spoke up on his own, without any prodding.
Look, making up a story to “prove” your point is a controversial tactic in itself, but if you are going to use it, why not do it well? I mean, the author didn’t even have to twist actual, real-life events to support his argument — and he still managed to fail :(
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In regards to the Slate Star nerd article, I guess part of the problem I have is most of these feminists who talk about programmers aren’t programmers. When Lisa Evans talks about the state of female programmers, I listen, because I also know she can write articles about analyzing SQLite internals via binaries (google it).
On the other hand, most of these feminists (like Laurie Penny) have educational backgrounds in English, Journalism, or Women’s Studies. Why on earth would anyone listen to an English major of any gender about anything? Why would you ask someone with no experience in IT about IT?
If you want to help women in IT, become a good programmer and people will be forced to respect you. Fortunately, that is fairly easy, as most young programers have poor fundamentals. Try this:
1) Go to Khan Academy and brush up on your algebra and geometry, if you have to.
2) Read “The C Programming Language” (K&R), which is available free online. It is about 250 pages.
Now, in about one to three months you’ve become a better programer than 90% of your male colleagues, and your opinions about programming matter. More productive and fulfilling than being a loud-mouth activist, don’t you think?
I really doubt that any of the activist feminists who’ve been writing articles about STEM really care about women in STEM. They just see it as another excuse to make enemies and create more conflict in society, which is what most activists are after. Why we keep taking those clowns seriously eludes me.
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Just to add a personal dimension to my rant, I recently worked on a Python project with a woman who knew Python internals better than Guido himself. She could glace at my code and tell me how fast it was going to run. Should could reason about my own code right down to binary. I’ve met very few people who can do something like that.
If she told me there was a problem with sexism in IT, I would have to listen. When an English major or a journalist who has never met me tells me I’m an entitled rapist creep because of my job – which is only a small part of who I am – how could I possibly take that seriously?
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Well, and some of them aren’t *because they were put off from it*.
I mean I’ve said it before (and *seriously do* check out that thread because the rest of this comment probably won’t make sense without it):
I’ve always had the attitude that it was my choice to “let myself be put off.” *I* decided I’d rather find something else to do than stay and push through it.
I don’t feel like male programmers or male nerds are evil or whatever. Shaming or blaming men isn’t the point.
The point…is that if you have two groups of people, and one of them has this headwind of “offputting culture” and the other doesn’t…the one with the headwind will as a group be discouraged. That is, a higher percentage of that group will be discouraged. A higher percentage of individuals in that group will individually decide not to put up with it, and to find something else to do instead.
Not everyone thinks that’s a problem. You could also look at it as just life. Personally, I’ve always had the attitude that since humans tend to care about fairness, then it’s kind of “our job as humans” to try to make things fairer when we can. (I remember when I first came up with that argument. It was in response to a teacher who told me “life isn’t fair.” Yeah, I was a weird little girl.)
It is in the context of caring about fairness that this becomes an issue. Because “Group A has a headwind Group B doesn’t have” is unfair. It’s not a matter of “evil individuals choosing to evilly create” this headwind. The unfairness here is…well…”structural.”
I mean it’s the same type of thing as what Aaronson was talking about: A *culture* that affects one group more than another.
That culture that harms shy nerdy guys like Aaronson wasn’t created deliberately to harm them. That culture that put me off from nerddom wasn’t created deliberately to harm me and those like me. I’ve never thought it was, and taking it as if I did is missing the point. (Which yeah, if Marcotte were trying to communicate instead of just being the sellout she is, she’d be missing the point too.)
I think right now we have a culture that focuses too strongly on “raising awareness” at the expense of anything else. Aaronson wants people aware of shy nerd guys’ problem. I want people aware of mine. Fine, we’re aware, now what do we *do* about it?
I could say, “Stop being all objectifying!” but as moebius said, he had trouble even understanding *what* about Matt Taylor’s shirt was offputting to some, never mind *why* it was. When I just say “Stop hurting me!” and nothing clearer than that, nobody will even know how to. (Unfortunately, for some people in some situations, that’s as much as they can manage to say…but I digress.)
It’s the same for Aaronson and those like him. A lot of what we intend as attempts to communicate our problem, they have taken as attempts to shame shy male nerds. That’s a huge communication problem. But if all they say is “Stop shaming us,” that’s just not enough information for us to even have any idea where to begin in changing what we say. (And obviously celandine13’s post applies here too.)
To start to address even just this–even just what feels to the respective uh complainants like the basic starting point–even that would require going into extreme detail about every tiny shade of meaning. And we can do that, and we probably should, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t exhausting to do. Will Aaronson do it? Will Scott Alexander?
And “Stop shaming us!” / “Stop objectifying us!” isn’t at all the only thing we could do to improve these unfair situations, and maybe not even the most important thing. All it is, is the *easiest to think of* thing and the one that *initially* seems easiest to do.
So OK. I now accept that it’s not remotely as easy as it initially seemed.
So I’m back to: What can we do or rather…what *else* can we do?
I don’t know. But it’s something I’d like us to think about!
(BTW, moebius, I only just saw your reply on that old thread, so if you see this: Thanks for replying and I’m working on a reply there.)
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Lizardbreath:
Thank you for the heads-up. I am looking forward to reading your reply.
Perhaps it is most appropriate to post it here, though, rather than perform necromancy on that thread? It was ostensibly about Zoe Quinn, and our interaction had nothing to do with her.
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I want to address this post too, though. Once again, I must warn you: This will probably become long and somewhat disjointed. It is a very difficult subject for me (and seeing what happened to Scott Aaronson, opening up about it has not become easier).
First of all, and to start on a distinctively light note, a bizarre case of convergence. You mention:
In fact, I came up with the exact same argument as a child, also in a discussion with a teacher! I was thinking that it ought to be considered a direct corollary of Kant’s categorical imperative — I was a weird little boy, and also raised by a philosophy major.
I completely agree.
In the other thread, I proposed a not-quite-best-of-all-worlds possible solution to your particular problem, as I understood it (the presence of loud sexists in nerd culture) — that enlightened elder nerds could act as a kind of mentors. Unfortunately, while that might work in the not-quite-best-of-all-worlds, here on Schopenhauer’s Penal Asteroid, it probably will not — it does not really map well to how people enter nerd culture. I mean, I was beaten and humiliated by others who called me a nerd, and my “nerd clique” accreted more or less spontaneously in a computer lab, consisting of all the intellectually inclined rejects who had that particular piece of shared history.
An even better way would be to somehow reduce or remove the sexual objectification in nerd spaces. Unfortunately, I am utterly stumped as to how this could be achieved. A lot of male nerds (and most nerds of the “classic” stripe were, it seems, male) seem to be terribly confused about sex and sexuality — I was, and am (although my confusion is probably entirely predictable, due to my somewhat different sense of sexuality). It seems to me that many male nerds seem to fall into extremes as regards their sexualities. On the one hand, you have people who practically never express sexuality, whether because they’re too scared, too confused, too disgusted, or just don’t experience much of it. You’d have people like both Scott A’s and me in that category. On the other extreme, you have people who express sexuality very strongly — that’d be certain 4channers, or how some German demoscene people in the 90’s would have graphic and idiosyncratic porn films running on VHS videosets at demoparties back in the day (and to be perfectly honest, some of those made me uncomfortable too, and sometimes made me feel terribly out of place). Many male nerds seem to be terribly sexually frustrated, and some of the trappings of nerd culture seem to me to be entirely understandable products of a culture full of sexually frustrated young men: It would certainly explain chainmail bikinis, Lara Croft and the entire bibliography of Larry Niven.
This frustration sometimes expresses itself as Scott Aaronson, but other times it expresses itself as 4chan. I have personally known many more nerds of the former type than of the latter, but it seems to me that a woman who is of a nerdy persuasion and sensitive to these things would probably get the impression that nerd culture, as a general rule, is extremely sexist and/or sexually objectifying: She would notice the antics of the 4channers and the German demosceners (because they are sending loud sexual signals), but she would not notice the Scotts (because they are not sending any sexual signals at all), and so she would probably never even know that there are people present who could act as a friendly base. Perhaps some kind of increased signaling from that kind of male nerd would help make nerd spaces more welcoming to that kind of female nerd-initiate — but, probably predictably for an autistic person, I have absolutely no idea how that could be done in practice.
Obviously, nerdy women who are not uncomfortable with overt displays of very confused straight male sexuality would not need this, but it seems to me that they already feel welcome in nerd spaces.
As for the “shy male nerd” problems…
I cannot speak for all shy male nerds who are sympathetic to feminism, but as for myself, “you’re shaming me!” is already stretching the limits of what I can say. As you say, that is not terribly helpful, but at the current point in time, it is unfortunately just about all I can do. I am frankly terrified. First of all, speaking about bad things feminism has played a part in for me personally feels wrong, secondly, I worry that anything I say would be co-opted and used by reactionaries against a political philosophy I broadly sympathize with, and finally, I worry that if I let out some of my pain, I would risk being subjected to an Internet mobbing or get doxxed and have my employer get harrassed until they would have to fire me (I am not a tenured professor, nor am I rich, so that would have serious consequences for me).
I think the best I can currently manage is that a lot of feminist rhetoric is extremely toxic if processed by somebody who thinks very literally – for example, when I read “Schrödinger’s Rapist”, I imposed a curfew upon myself (only allowing myself to go outside in broad daylight and when there were plenty of witnesses), reasoning that it was better for one man to be inconvenienced by a self-imposed curfew than for the dozens of women who’d encounter him on the streets to have to worry that he would rape them. And that was one of the least harmful things I did (I have literal physical scars in embarrassing places to remind me what my contempt for my gender did to me). But suffice it to say that quite a lot of Scott Aaronson’s description of his inner life rang very true with me (although, unlike him, I did not wish I was gay or female, I wished I was a sexless creature and wanted surgical castration and complete nullification — a procedure that is illegal in my home country). And the events of the last few days have taught me that having this kind of self-hatred, explicitly inspired by feminist rhetoric, apparently makes me a terrible entitled patriarchal monster who views women as walking sex dispensers (even if my experience is that I viewed myself as a subhuman abomination who should be locked up and physically mutilated so that he would not inflict himself upon women).
I will try to see if I can work up courage to go into further detail about all this, but I cannot give any guarantees. If you would like to continue this privately, you can send me mail at moebius@mail-online.dk.
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This has been my opinion on the matter for a while. Glad to know I’m not alone in it.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
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I’m a feminist, a woman, and a software engineer. I rather adore Laurie Penny and think she has much to say. The whole “she’s not one of us” is a bogus argument that gets dumped on nerd women all the time.
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I’m starting to worry that my long, link-filled reply might never get dug out of spam. Or never showed up in spam in the first place. Ozy? Is it even there?
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Let me add, women such as Cate Huston and Julie Pagano exist as well.
And on this:
You’re arguing in bad faith and have a poor grasp of what Laurie Penny is saying. Which suggests you might want to spend more effort on the skills taught in English classes and more time listening to people with language arts backgrounds.
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But Laurie Penny is not talking about programming, she is talking about female-male relationships in STEM fields, which is totally coherent with her college major.
Sure, women could just go ahead and inspire male nerds’ respect by being better programmers than them, but the problem does not lie in “being better than male nerds” but in “becoming better than male nerds”, what Laurie Penny is getting at is that it requires more work for female nerds to get to the same place where male nerds get to because the system is rigged in favor of males. It’s not about “male nerds are entitled rapist creeps” it’s about “male nerds don’t see that sometimes it’s harder for female nerds”.
However, by saying that women programmers, who want to be listened to about the state of females in programming, should first be better [than male colleagues] at programming shows that there is inequality in the field because it means that if women want to be listened to they should assess their legitimacy towards men first.
And this does not mean that nerds do it consciously because they are only rapist creeps that should be eliminated. The problem is not that your job as a programmer makes you an entitled rapist creep but it’s that your job as a programmer occurs in a field that is more sympathetic towards men than women, which does not mean that no woman can become a good programmer, it only means that woman have it harder to become a good programmer than a man does. This does not equate to “women have more merits than men because they got this far” it only equates to “women have it harder than men in some fields”.
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Or they could do the easy thing and not pick up any programming languages,
but become an “evangelist” … on track to becoming a “program manager” (that cannot program)
like dongle-gate’s “Adria Richards”.
I observe she has no skill sets in actual software development, algorithm design or testing ..
(Yes, I have that) :)
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This was a response to TealTerror’s comment that I didn’t have time to finish before Scott’s thread closed. Hopefully he will glance over here.
TealTerror, I think your account of structural oppression is vastly better than what feminists typically come up with. I agree that getting attacked by a bear in the woods is not structural oppression (unless, perhaps, bad advice or bad signage contributed to the risk, as Nancy Lebovitz suggests).
Nevertheless, I would make the case that harms towards nerds do in fact have structural components.
The social problems of nerds are not merely due to their own psychology. Nerds are not traumatized by bears in the woods; a lot of nerdy social fear is exacerbated by other humans due to bullying or shaming. These humans are often part of institutions.
1. Schools are institutions. Schools often place vulnerable people in close proximity to bullies and fail to do enough to stop the bullies. This is institutional oppression because it can result in physical violence and psychological scarring. You are right that we don’t have good research to tell us how common this is, but I think it’s reasonable to suspect that it is quite common.
You are correct that bullying can target groups other than nerds for being different. But this doesn’t mean that nerds are not targeted as nerds (we know this because some bullies enjoy picking on nerds in particular). So if a gay kid is bullied, that can be gay oppression if he targeted for being gay. Likewise, if a nerdy kid is bullied, that can be nerdy oppression if he is targeted for being nerdy.
2. Schools and universities often have sexual assault workshops. Scott Aaronson said that these workshops exacerbated his anxiety with women because he took their directives literally. The prevalence of this harm is low, but it’s still an institutionalized harm.
3. The media is an institution. Nerdy-shaming is becoming increasingly common in online media. See Amanda Marcotte’s response to Scott Aaronson as an example. Scott Alexander’s post contains some good examples of stereotyping towards nerds in the media.
It’s perfectly fair to argue that structural harms to nerds are less common than other structural harms to other groups, or that they have a lower structural component (if we take your suggestion that “structural” is a continuum), but we should at least notice that they are structural.
Correct. And I would argue that in the case of nerds, oppression (whether virgin-shaming or nerd-shaming) is causing a large component of their shyness. Structural oppression must cause a harm, but doesn’t follow that it must cause 100% of that type of harm. Even if nerds have pre-existing shyness, cultural shaming that exacerbates their shyness is still oppression. (Also, keep in mind that the pre-existing shyness might be due to mistreatment from another group of people earlier in life.)
The advantages of nerds depend on who you compare them to. If you compare male nerds to female nerds, then male nerds are probably more likely to die (because women live longer in general).
Although male nerds may face slightly less career barriers than female nerds, I think most of male nerd’s economic status comes from class background and educational background. Exactly how is a male programmer better off in life than a female marketing professional or designer from a similar socioeconomic background? Maybe he make a bit more money, but he probably has worse social and romantic prospects.
Chalking up nerd’s hardships to “some people are assholes” sounds like a copout, not like a real sociological explanation.
Saying that the harms to male nerds are not “structural” fails to recognize the pervasiveness of social structure. It’s very strange when people can see the social structure behind harms to women and minorities, but they think that harms to men occur in this weird cultural vacuum, as isolated incidents or individual psychological problems.
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Seconding most of what you have to say, and adding this:
For this to be structural, however, these bad things (I don’t deny they’re bad!) need to be caused by general societal and institutional forces, and not merely by individuals acting (mostly) independently.
I have a real problem with this framing (and, consequently, with SJ generally) because this strikes me as a false distinction. There are no societal and institutional forces, not really, because there are no societies and institutions. There’s just people, and people’s ideas. Some of those ideas contain societies and institutions, and those ideas can be as motivating as any others, but that doesn’t make the abstractions in them real.
Instead of talking about abstractions, why not talk about something relatively concrete: How common are the bad ideas that are motivating someone’s harmful actions? “Socially awkward people with weird interests are suitable for mockery, and unsuitable for romance or sex” is hardly a rare meme.
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From Scott’s Untitled: “Come back in 2065 and we can have a really interesting discussion about whether the feminists of 2015 screwed up as massively as the feminists of 1970 and 1990 did.”
I notice that I am confused: did Scott mean “the particular feminists – the ones that were sex-negative in the 1970s and trans-phobic in the 1990s – screwed up massively”, or “the mainstream feminist movement in 1970s and 1990s screwed up massively”?
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The mainstream of feminism was sex-negative and transphobic.
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Well, I ran straight into this – but this might actually help clear up some of Scott’s meaning in reference to “feminism,” so…
How do you define “the mainstream of feminism”? By writing? By policy? My impression of 1970s feminism is mostly pushing ERA and challenging abortion laws, with a small minority doing slightly strange things like separatist feminism – but I have no way to quantify this, my information is based on a couple of WGSS college classes, and you absolutely certainly know more about the topic than I do.
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In response to the SSC article on Scott Aaronson:
I think the whole discussion of what feminists mean when they talk about “entitlement” in male nerds is rather uncharitable and missing the obvious.
I believe the mindset that feminists are thinking of when criticizing male entitlement – certainly the one that I do on the stray occasions I talk about it – is the kind of mindset that Elliot Rodger had. I read his entire autobiography/manifesto, and he definitely, in a very real sense, did feel entitled to sex and female affection. Towards the end his thought process consists mostly of an incoherent frothing rage that women have sex with other men but not with him and how they’re all animals and in a perfect world women would be starved to death in concentration camps except for a few kept enslaved as broodmares because they can’t be allowed to choose their own mates. Many other men don’t go so far as to want anyone murdered, but still subscribe to the same mindset of being angry at women for not wanting to have sex with them – often even men who, like Elliot Rodger, are mostly just assuming from their own crippling insecurities that no women would ever want them without ever having really tried, and yet have decided this is women’s fault.
I can get, and sympathize with, men like Scott Aaronson who have internalized the idea that they may be creeps if they ask a woman out, and blame those who sent them that message (though I have to admit I’ve never encountered this apparently widespread feminism that says asking women out makes you a creep). But I have seen a lot of men who are clearly blaming women for choosing other men over them – men who talk reproachfully about how shallow and awful women are because they all want alpha males and nice guys like themselves just don’t stand a chance, etc. etc. – which is an entirely different position and a much less sympathetic one, and that’s one I think can very sensibly be called “entitlement”.
I don’t think this describes all, or most, or even very many nerds. I love nerds; in my personal experience as a deeply nerdy woman, nerds are delightful, smart, creative, nice people that I overwhelmingly feel more safe and at home with than non-nerdy women, or any non-nerdy group. But I’ve also read about the experiences of a lot of women who have dealt with genuinely awful nerds, and read Internet comments by an awful lot of self-described nerds who act monstrously entitled. It’s definitely a real phenomenon, and while some feminists will uncharitably attribute it to any man who expresses being sad about being dateless, I think paragraphs like this one are pretty damn uncharitable too:
I’m inclined to think these feminists are angry about a real thing and just too quick to see it everywhere, rather than making up bogeymen wholesale.
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I hesitate to find the right word, because you can’t call something strange if it happens all the time, but screw it, there is this strange thing which goes on, where people believe sexual attraction should be based in some code of moral righteousness.
So you end up with men who think women should be attracted to kindness, conscientiousness, (/s) a very high ELO in League of Legends, etc. And my god this website exists and as far as I can tell it’s not a joke:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/big-is-beautiful
But of course back in the real world (please read in Kang’s voice from the Simpsons) HU-MON MALES are attracted to youth, beauty and charm, while HU-MON FE-MALES are attracted to strong jaw lines, biceps, and social status. And really just the first two on each list dominate the evaluation.
There is a long history of folks calling these tendencies “shallow” instead of “HU-MON” which is beyond my ability to psychoanalyze but I strongly suspect holdover from 3000 years of telling stories about original sin and fall from grace.
The one bone I would throw to the lonely resentful guys out there is that I think modern American society is content with a baseline of honesty regarding male shallowness but enjoys a healthy serving of delusion about women also being HU-MON. “Wait, all that stuff about women not being shallow, about experiencing attraction comporting with the prevailing moral code, that was all bull shit?” is some pretty logical frustration. “Wow, men are just as shallow as everyone says” is easier to live with.
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Understandable. Sexual attraction is often based on thedish closeness, and when thedes are defined in moral terms, some people will confuse the thede with its doctrine, and, worse, think everyone else does the same. It’s the same error as the atheists who model all Christians as biblical literalists.
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> nerd entitlement
> I don’t think this describes all, or most, or even very many nerds.
> NERD ENTITELEMENT
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I’m a bit late for the war in Scott Alexander’s comments section, so I’ll post this here. Scott, if you ever read this, know that I truly appreciate your work and thank you for your enlightened perspectives.
However, I was quite surprise by your “Untitled” post about Scott Aaronson’s testimony. First, by omitting the context of Scott Aaronson’s comment, indeed it came in a discussion under Aaronson’s post about a MIT Professor coming under scrutiny for online sexual harassment. Seems like feminism does do some good things sometimes, like calling out somebody for sexual harassment. Quite odd that you did not mention that part.
Secondly, you brought in an argument against feminists which I’m not quite sure of why, which is your lesbian friend’s testimony that she was ashamed of her sexuality because of feminism. As a gay woman myself, I find the argument rather odd and saying that “See! It’s not just nerds, LGBT people suffer from feminist shaming too!” It’s a stretch that I still struggle to comprehend and it seems like intellectual dishonesty to me.
The difference between “nerds seen as sexual predators” and “lesbians seen as sexual predators” is that women are not supposed to look at other women! Male nerds look at women in a heterosexual way and women know it. Gay girls look at women in a homosexual way and most of the time women don’t know it. The difference is that being a gay girl makes you feel like you are abusing a woman’s trust, she thinks you are a friend but you want to kiss her.
I was ashamed of my sexuality as well, in the high school gym’s changing room, I felt like a predator lurking on my peers, seeing them in a sexualized way and afraid that they would know it. The problem was not that feminism made everyone who liked women in a sexual way equivalent to a sexual predator but it was that I was ashamed of myself. I was ashamed of my incapacity, of rejection, of sex. They did not see me as disgusting, I was seeing myself as disgusting. I also had a hard time coming to terms with my own sexuality, thinking it was bad to look at women and desire them. It wasn’t because of feminism, it was because I felt so inappropriate, I could look at them all I wanted, I could desire them all I wanted, I knew they were never going to look at me nor want me.
The problem was not feminism, it was me. Because no one else was seeing me as a predator, no one else was seeing me as disgusting, I did it all myself and projected it upon others.
What I am saying is that it seems to me that Aaronson and Unitofcaring’s problematic (which I duly respect and sympathize with) is not external but internal. Unitofcaring said it herself:
“I internalized these messages from exposure to feminist memes, norms, and communities. It was feminist messages, not homophobic ones, that made it hardest for me to come to terms with my sexuality. It wasn’t intentional. But it happened. And it has happened by now to enough people that ‘well obviously you’re misinterpreting it’ is starting to wear thin as an excuse. Lots and lots of people are misinterpreting the way I did. By and large, we’re vulnerable people. Very often we’re mentally ill or disabled people.”
The last sentence says “By and large, we’re vulnerable people. Very often we’re mentally ill or disabled people.” Maybe the true issue here is vulnerability and mental illness, rather than feminism? I mean, Aaronson went from going to a therapist to ask for being chemically castrated to:
“All that happened was that I got older, and after years of hard work, I achieved some success in science, and that success boosted my self-confidence (at least now I had something worth living for), and the newfound confidence, besides making me more attractive, also made me able to (for example) ask a woman out, despite not being totally certain that my doing so would pass muster with a committee of radfems chaired by Andrea Dworkin—a prospect that was previously unthinkable to me. ”
He got self-confidence and could do things he could not do before that were because of feminism. If the solution to terrible feminism propaganda is self-confidence, it might be that the problem was self-confidence rather than feminism itself. Once again, Aaronson and Unitofcaring’s testimony are very moving but it comes across as “if it weren’t for some aspects of feminism, I’d actually be really good with myself”.
Before I conclude, how is “women get dates easier than men” an argument against privilege and/or feminist activism?
This post feels like you are trying too hard to support nerds against feminist activism, don’t live by the sword, Scott. A dialogue can be made but it doesn’t help anyone to just point out that everyone has problems and so we should just all take a break. Suffering does not make anyone more competent than the other.
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“Before I conclude, how is “women get dates easier than men” an argument against privilege and/or feminist activism?”
It’s an argument against how the concept of privilege is usually used, where Person A has more privilege than Person B and therefore Person A’s life is easier in all respects and contains no hardships which Person B could not understand or does not experience to a greater degree. It’s far too simplistic and overlooks the fact that in some fairly important ways life can be a lot easier if you’re a woman.
There are meaningful ways in which women are privileged, but that isn’t accepted because “privilege” isn’t about social inequality and the limitations it places on out perspective, it’s a weapon to beat people over the head with. Scott did cover this, I suggest you read it again more slowly. (Not that I blame you, the tone is initially quite hostile)
As a shy black nerd the kinds of structural oppression I’m supposed to experience have barely influenced my life – an odd incident with the police that could be construed one way or the other but ultimately led to no great harm, schoolmates asking to touch my hair which seemed a little strange, and little else besides worth mentioning – while those things that are supposedly not important enough to matter have had me standing at the checkout counter of a hardware store purchasing a length of rope to hang myself with. I’ve laughed off “nigger,” and been silenced by “creep.”
Shockingly, for highly social animals, a slightly reduced chance of being accepted for a job application is not as harmful as feeling utterly unlovable and totally alone.
Now this is not to say that whatever ideal you hold up as “feminism” is to blame for this, but the people who claim the title of “feminist” have exacerbated problem to a notable degree for some people. It is galling to be told time and again that problems aren’t real, don’t count, and that your tears are delicious.
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Thanks for the explanation, it makes it clearer!
But as I feared, this is a wrong sided argument. “Women get dates easier than men” cannot simply be explained by “some men are seen as creeps by women and that’s damaging for them”. Women can get pregnant, women bodies don’t work the same way as men. Men can have sex the whole month, women have that special week when it’s not possible. Also, the risks of saying yes to random strangers are different for men and women. It is an interesting argument, but it’s not on the same scale as “men get hired easier than women for certain jobs”. It’s like saying “gay men have more privilege than straight men because they get dates easier”.
Also, I sympathize with all nerds out there feeling unlovable and indisposed for affection, but love is not a part of the game. Western society does not want us (and I’m not only talking about nerds, but everyone of us) to get dates, but it wants us to make money for it. “Women get dates easier than men” sounds nice as a little extra in life but when it comes down to it, it’s not what pays rent and groceries. If the market can get nerds to do the top jobs in tech and have them miserable in their love life, then be it, as long as they make money and are useful to society. At the same time, if I’m an unemployed woman and I can get 10 guys out there to date me, what does the system care for me? I’m useless unless I have kids that will bring water to the mill.
And this is not to say that nerd problems don’t exist and don’t matter, but I think the privilege talk and nerd problems are two different topics that are both legitimate. Nerds and feminist activists have a lot in common, it’s that they are both gamed by the system and most of them are smart but they are both blinded by their ego, and rather than work together to attain something, most of their dialogues result in something like “Why would you say that about me? I have bigger problems than you!”
Thanks again for taking the time to answer me, Somebody, wish you the best!
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@Lora: Men can have sex the whole month, women have that special week when it’s not possible.
. . . what? I mean, I know what you’re referring to*, but still, what? That . . . distinctly does not accord with either my understanding of biology or my personal experience.
It’s like saying “gay men have more privilege than straight men because they get dates easier”.
Add a “typically” before “more privilege” and an “in that respect” after “straight men,” and that looks like a perfectly reasonable statement to me, under a non-superweapony definition of “privilege.”
“Also, I sympathize with all nerds out there feeling unlovable and indisposed for affection, but love is not a part of the game. Western society does not want us [. . .]”
Even if “Western society” really existed, what relevance would its wants have? Surely what matters is how easily a given individual can get what they want, right?
*At least, I assume I do. I suppose you could mean the week around ovulation instead, if for some reason our hypothetical woman has Romanist sensibilities about contraception, but not about premarital sex. But I’d bet on “menstruation” at damn short odds.
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Assuming Gay men get sex and dates easier (this seems awfully obvious but I don’t have proof and might be wrong) the statement:
“With respect to getting sex and dates most gay men are privileged over most straight men”
seems obviously true. I am not really sure how anyone thinks this is a controversial statement given the assumptions. Maybe one could consider the lack of family acceptance a serious dis-privilege for gay men in terms of sex/dating.But I explicitly phrased it “Getting sex and dates.”
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“With respect to getting sex and dates most gay men are privileged over most straight men”
This is a true statement. Source: personal experience.
And to echo Somebody’s post upthread, I’m much more able to laugh off ‘faggot’ than ‘creep’. Of course, this is only true in the context of the blue and gray tribe enclaves I live in. I’m sure I would feel very differently in any context where homophobes weren’t ostracized.
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@Lora assuming you mean menstruation, it is in fact possible for women to have sex during our “special week.”
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Wow. This is totally off.
Thing is, successful flirting, even heteronormative flirting, is a two way street and both participants need to send signals and real the other’s signals. Women must do this as well as men, as they must help move along the process.
Flirting is part of the process. It is enjoyable. Your model of relationships seems to look like this: people are strangers, until they pass a magical pair of barriers called “asking out“ and “being accepted,” after which they are totes dating and everything runs smooth. But it ain’t like that. A clumsy “will you go out with me” and a fumbling “yes” are not the big deal. The big deal is all that is before and after.
If you cannot read her signals, if in fact you seem to resent them (which you do), then what makes you think you are boyfriend material? Who wants to date a guy like that?
(Which, okay, there is *ask culture* versus *guess culture* and we can talk about that. But this author does not seem even close to a real discussion of that topic.)
Anyway, you gotta own your own problems. Women probably want to date you. Certainly Scott Aaronson has a point about how (some) feminist discourse messed him up. But that does not make every girl somehow responsible for the relationship angst of every dude-in-pain. Step up your game.
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Was this supposed to be a response to P Ray? Because it’s showing up as a response to Lora, in which context it does not appear to make a whole lot of sense.
Thing is, successful flirting, even heteronormative flirting, is a two way street and both participants need to send signals and real the other’s signals. Women must do this as well as men, as they must help move along the process.
Flirting is part of the process. It is enjoyable.
Typical-minding like crazy here. No, sending and reading ambiguous signals in a cute little dance isn’t enjoyable, not if your brain doesn’t naturally work like that.
Suppose you had extreme difficulty grasping abstract mathematics*. Now suppose that a normal part of Western coupling behavior was collaborating to prove major results from (undergraduate level) number theory, and that not pulling your own weight (let alone daring to express bitterness over this pointless hurdle that stands between you and happiness) would make people ask “what makes you think you are [girl]friend material? Who wants to date a [girl] like that?”
Would you think that was reasonable, “part of the process,” and “enjoyable?” Or would you resent “the process,” and potential partners who approached you with a completed Lemma 3.1, but refused to explore anything further until you could figure out how to use it to derive Lemma 3.2**, along with it?
*This may or may not actually be true; I can’t remember what you’ve said about academic and professional background. If it’s wildly inaccurate, feel free to substitute corresponding practices from your least favorite field into the hypothetical.
**The closest non–signalling-based analogy I can come up with to women who send signals, but don’t say anything explicitly when those signals are missed. It’s not perfect, but hopefully you get the point.
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Yeah, this was supposed to go below P Ray. Not sure what happened.
Okay look, I’m NAT also, and I’ve had my own hills to climb. Different folks get to different places at a different rate. I did pretty well considering. Some folks have it much harder.
Fine. But this is not *the fault of women*. Which look, P Ray’s post is dripping with resentment against women for not being *literally everything to men*.
You know autistic women exist and they have a really hard time. Truth.
You know being a woman in geek space can really suck. It ain’t easier. Saying, “You can get sex anytime you want” is fine, but what if I want to be treated as an equal and not a sex-thing?
Furthermore, this was not Scott Aaronson’s problem, nor Scott Alexander’s. They had issues, issues we should listen to and learn from. But those issues were not “I can’t figure out body language.” Likewise ASD men have issues we should listen to and learn from. Likewise geek girls have issues, and women with eating disorders, and women with social anxiety, and women who are terrified of aggressive men.
On and on. You get it.
But when P Ray says women *need* to explain things more clearly, actually we do not. Don’t lay that at our feet. We do not belong to you.
You cannot compare dating to math. Sorry. BZZT! Different sort of thing. Romance is singular. It is not like other stuff.
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“P Ray’s post is dripping with resentment”
Try not to shoot the messenger here, I didn’t write that.
However, you should check your own privilenge – women choose the guy they’re with.
How many men have filed rape accusations against women?
How many women have filed rape accusations against men?
How many men have filed sexual harassment accusations against women?
How many women have filed sexual harassment accusations against men?
BONUS:
How many men have filed sexual harassment accusations against men?
How many women have filed sexual harassment accusations against women?
I expect lots of entertaining replies about how everything is my fault.
Don’t disappoint me :)
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Actually, no, we do not choose the man we are with. In fact, that is *literally an idiotic thing to say*.
Like, I know those are strong words and maybe unkind, but they are the truth.
In the heteronormative dating environment, where men make the advances and women accept/decline, women in fact have zero control over which men will make advances to them. So if woman A likes man B, and man B doesn’t make a move, women A does not get man B. Now, if man C makes a move, then woman A *might* accept and end up with man C. But she wanted man B.
And yes, woman A can ask out man B. Perhaps she will. (For the record, I favor badass women who get what they want.)
Anyway, there is an actual mathematical proof that this scheme favors men. (Google the stable marriage problem.) Of course, this models assumes equality in numbers and that no one will *choose* to be alone. Real life ain’t like that.
The biggest problem I see in geek space is this: men outnumber women. This sucks for men. But *trust me*, this also sucks for women.
Anyway, in the end, I cannot help you. Good luck.
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@veronica_d:
Never asked for your help, sorry if you feel offended that I did.
Anyway, remember, that just as women “complain about men that disappoint them”,
the person that has the opportunities to choose OR faces little to no sanction for asking, or indeed … gets support for asking, and the guy is told not to be so choosy – well, maybe, the person with the ability to choose … needs to take responsibility for their choice.
I cannot help you too (I can make assumptions too, right?) so good luck!
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Like hell they don’t. Every time I’ve made the first move, it’s because she made the zeroth.
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@nydwracu — Yes, of course. You’re making my broader point. My post was pointing out how the simplistic model of dating is bullshit. Both men and women have to do hard work.
The reality is this, under heteronormative dating, if a woman likes a man she can signal this to him by flirting. And if he gets the message he can flirt back. And if not? Maybe he’s shy. How can she tell? Now she has to do a ton of complicated emotional work to get him to the right place.
There is an expectation in these conversations that women have to be well put together while men get to be frightened, emotional wrecks. But why is this? Why must women do the emotional labor for men?
{At this point someone usually brings up hunter-gatherers or whatever, as if modern women care about someone’s caveman fetish.}
Okay, so consider this: while we’re waiting for Bobby, who we like, to make a move, and we’re signaling to him and he is — well, we’re not sure. He’s not dating anyone else. He looks at us a lot. Maybe. Anyway, while we’re waiting, Doug from our Trig class asks us out. And he’s cute. But, well, WE LIKE BOBBY.
Yes, we can just ask Bobby. Maybe we should. Perhaps we should *adopt a feminist consciousness and say to hell with the heteronormative dating narrative*.
But anyway, *under the model* we now have a game theoretic decision: accept from Doug *or* hold out for Bobby. Maybe we’re only so-so at flirting. Maybe we’re worried that Doug actually likes Mary and he just wants to date us to get to know her. People do stuff like that. Anyway, we likely settle for Doug.
Which, okay, at least Doug stepped up. Hope the dance is fun.
Oh, and for the guy who says, “But I couldn’t get dates at all!”
Yeah, well Liz has been sitting by the phone for weeks and when she told Mike she liked him he and his friends called her a fat cow so now she won’t talk to boys at all. So she stares at the phone and dreams of kisses.
####
Okay, so here is another point: for many women and men this scheme works pretty well. In fact, quite a lot of people like the basic scheme. Flirting is fun and the gender roles can be quite nice, for those who fit happily. For others, however, this scheme sucks.
I suspect most of us on this forum come from the “it sucks” camp. Which, fine. But try to see the larger view.
Anyway, my advice is this: get the skills you can. Dating is fun. Understand the gender roles and learn to move around within them. You can engage with them *playfully*. And you can reverse them on a dime.
Well, some people can. It can be a healthy place.
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@veronica: P Ray is, as is made evident by further posts, a giant douchecanoe.
That said, I still do think that the suffering of NAT (gynophilic) men who can’t readily read signals is at least partially the fault of whatever subset of (androphilic) women have been or are interested in them, but refuse to communicate explicitly when signalling is clearly not doing the job. The same holds true, of course, for NAT (androphilic) women who can’t read signals and the corresponding subset of (gynophilic) men, and likewise in same-sex and/or non-binary cases. Everyone who wants something and won’t ask for it is at least a bit responsible when their not asking causes someone else pain. (And yes, this does mean that some of those same NATs are responsible for their own failures to initiate explicitly.)
I’m also not comparing dating to math, I’m comparing flirting as a pre-requisite for dating to math as a pre-requisite for dating. That seems quite reasonable to me—after all, I would find collaborating on solving number theory problems with a potential part enjoyable and even (approached in the right way) romantic. Why can’t everyone else do the same? Apart from, you know, differences in how our brains our wired.
Flirting is fine. Math is fine. Compulsory flirting is no more fine than compulsory math.
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From Alexander’s Article:
//I live in a world where feminists throwing weaponized shame at nerds is an obvious and inescapable part of daily life. Whether we’re “mouth-breathers”, “pimpled”, “scrawny”, “blubbery”, “sperglord”, “neckbeard”, “virgins”, “living in our parents’ basements”, “man-children” or whatever the insult du jour is, it’s always, always, ALWAYS a self-identified feminist saying it. Sometimes they say it obliquely, referring to a subgroup like “bronies” or “atheists” or “fedoras” while making sure everyone else in nerddom knows it’s about them too.//
I literally recall seeing this (i.e. specifically from feminists) zero times. Can I please be educated?
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The claim that these insults “always, always, ALWAYS” come from a self-identified feminist would be trivially easy to disprove. The “lives in basements” thing, for instance, is a common trope among non-feminist liberal men (you see this come up in a lot of Aaron Sorkin scripts) and Fox news hosts. Although it’s possible that through sheer chance Scott has never once seen anyone insult a nerd in any of these ways other than feminists, that seems likely to be hyperbole.
But, unfortunately, I’d say Scott’s mostly right regarding “Fedora” and especially “neckbeard.” That’s something I see pretty often on Tumblr, and because it’s an anti-MRA slash anti-GG invective, the people saying it are almost always feminists (in the way that most SJ folks would describe themselves as feminists). If you want to see examples for yourself, search Tumblr with the term “neckbeard” and I’m sure you’ll find something.
(Once on Tumblr, I was horrified to find that one of my own anti-MRA cartoons had been tagged “neckbeard.”)
I feel defensive enough to want to mention that there are huge swaths of feminism where these sorts of things never come up; you will never see someone insulted as a “neckbeard” on my blog, for example. I’d moderate it if it happened, but it hasn’t so far..
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I must be hanging out with the wrong feminists, because calling someone a “neckbeard” would get my feminist friends’ ire up, _because_ they are feminists, not despite it. I think Alexander goes very wrong when he calls this a “feminist shaming culture,” implying that it happens _because of_ feminism.
I can see why someone might associate the use of the term with feminism since it’s used to criticize anti-feminist attitudes. Even that, though, leads to another important point: the uses I’m seeing on your suggested tumblr search, the object isn’t nerdy men but rather people who behave like jackasses towards women out of some sense of entitlement. I’m a nerdy man, suffered all the indignities described in Aaronson’s article for example, but I can see very clearly that terms like “neckbeard” aren’t aimed at me.
It’s a term that shouldn’t be used, because at the very least it’s body-shaming. But when it is used, I don’t see how it’s oppressive to “nerdy het men,” since its target isn’t nerdy het men but rather men who behave in an entitled way towards women.
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Ampersand:
Over on Scott Aaronson’s blog, you wrote the following:
I would like to explore how and why feminism rescued you, whereas it seriously harmed me. My starting point, at least insofar as being “pathetically unable to perform the ‘boy’ role adequately” was, I think, largely similar to yours. I think there are some distinct components to the feminist harm I have experienced, and I think it makes sense to not conflate them. First I think it would be useful to share some background. I warn you, this post will be long, and probably disjointed and rambling. For that, I apologize in advance. I am not going to focus particularly on the “feminists vs. nerds” angle; I have written about that elsewhere (and I can give you some more thoughts on that later, if you would like me to).
Before I go on, I should probably make it clear that I used to identify as a pro-feminist / feminist ally (in the particular activist environment where I spent my formative years, it was considered appropriative and problematic for men to call themselves feminists), and that the primary reason I no longer do so is to distance myself from these harmful influences. I still hold values that I suppose most people would consider feminist.
One thing, I think, that shielded me from some of the repercussions of being bad at being a stereotypical boy was the fact that I was brought up by a feminist single mother. She taught me, among many other things, that individual expression was more important than adhering to any cultural stereotypes, and that the fact that I was a quiet bookwormish child who avoided competitive and rough-and-tumble play did not mean that I was any less of a boy, and that it certainly did not mean that I was worth any less as a human being. Growing up with her was also a daily reminder that women could assemble furniture, paint walls, lift heavy objects, and do all the things that would stereotypically be considered “men’s work”. We would also sometimes have some very deep and philosophical conversations; I was an intellectually precocious child and she would encourage me to think and reflect about all the things that puzzled me about the world I lived in. In fact, my very egalitarian upbringing had the effect that wider cultural gender stereotypes made no sense to me, because they were in direct contradiction with my everyday experience. I never viewed any of this as “feminism”, because to me, it was really just normal life.
Outside of my home, my childhood was hell. I was mercilessly bullied by other children (because of my social awkwardness, my autism, and possibly my failed gender performance), culminating in a literal attempt by other children to kill me (the details of which are very specific and would make it very easy to identify me, so I would rather not divulge them). In my early childhood my bullies were exclusively male, but I eventually grew to be an equal-opportunity bullying victim — and even when all the bullying was carried out by boys, girls would often encourage them directly (I remember one situation in which I was beaten up, and two girls from my class would laughingly tell some of the bullies where they should kick me while I was covering my face — the testicles, mainly, in case you were wondering). I used classic nerdy escapism to cope. I would go home and lose myself in books or computer programming, and thus prepare myself for another day.
At the same time, I was taking in what was probably the first feminist messaging that I think was harmful. You see, I grew up in an environment where nearly all authority figures were feminist women (I grew up in a Scandinavian country while the gender radicalism of the 1970s was gradually dying down, and care sectors were very dominated by feminist women), and they ran the entire gamut from egalitarian humanists to anti-male radicals. I remember only relatively little of the concrete messages, although I do remember several instances of being told that I was so smart and compassionate that one should think I was a girl, and I also remember being lectured by a teacher on how the violent treatment I received was a reflection of violent male nature. I also remember many very ugly stereotypes of men (and I had very few adult men in my life), and I very distinctly remember my own thoughts: I was afraid of growing up, because that would mean that I would become a man, and men are terrible, beer-chugging, stupid and emotionally stunted Neanderthals bent on violence and oppression. I knew that rape was a terrible thing that men did to women before I even understood what sex was. This disturbed me no end. I kept these thoughts secret from my mother — mostly, I think, because I was ashamed of myself and what I was, and afraid she would end up validating these thoughts (when I did tell her about those thoughts, as an adult, she was horrified and wished she could have helped me). I fortunately grew out of those thoughts by puberty, mostly because I had managed to get some (incredibly nerdy) older male friends, who were just in that intersection of childhood and adulthood, and were not showing any signs of becoming evil and stupid brutes. However, even to this day, the word “man” feels jarring and wrong when used about myself (for whatever reason, the essentially equivalent “guy” does not have that effect), and I find myself referring to men as a group as “them”, never “us”. I also never perceived these messages as “feminist” — they were also just “normal life” to me.
I have written elsewhere here on Thing of Things about how I entered a nerd community in high school: A few kindred spirits seeking refuge in the computer lab from people who hated and bullied us. This was my big transformative moment. In this little group (two girls and four boys, including one transboy), I experienced a sense of group belonging, for the first and only time in my entire life. And more importantly, I got the experience that the way my brain worked was all right and nothing I should feel ashamed about.
Although I completely agree with you that Scott Alexander is wrong to say that it is always feminists engaging in bullying and shaming of nerds (most of the children who bullied me in childhood were certainly not feminists), there is a grim piece of foreboding from my high school years: The girl in my class who most vocally and most venomously picked on me for my preoccupation with computers, my strange clothing style, my poor social skills, my virginity and my lack of romantic success, was also its most outspoken feminist.
It was shortly after aforementioned little pack of nerds forming – and largely because of this validation I encountered among my fellow nerds (many of whom were also autistic) – that I started becoming politically active. I had read a lot of books about politics and political philosophy, and found my sympathies solidly on the left (and, most crucially to the topic at hand, pro-feminist). I joined a political party and an activist community. This, in retrospect, was a terrible idea, although I could not have known that at the time. One of the first thing I learned in the feminist activist community was that because I am a man, my perspective and my way of thinking is suspect because it comes from patriarchal privilege, and it was therefore necessary for me to disengage critical thinking while women were telling me things. In fact, criticism by a man of any statement (regarding gender politics) made by a woman in the movement was regarded as an ideological violation. We sometimes had bizarre and intensely uncomfortable sessions where the men were to confess their patriarchal tendencies and thoughts, where the group would then criticise the person. I became obsessed with my failings as a progressive man, and a lot of the sick thoughts I had as a child resurfaced. I also started drinking way too much (a problem that started in high school, but came to a head at this point), and the pressure and overload from constant self-policing for potentially “problematic” behaviour led to a number of rather spectacular public meltdowns.
It was a woman from the community who managed to convince me to stop going to those meetings. She seemed to understand the degree of psychological damage I was taking, and convinced me to stay at home and take care of myself and focus on my computer programs and my books and my pets, and perhaps see some of my “other friends” (I had none left; I had completely alienated myself from them at that point). I did, but the obsessive constant seeking fault in my gender performance did not stop, and neither did my intense loathing for men and for myself. I also kept reading feminist literature, and attempted to apply feminist analysis to nearly every facet of my life.
Before I started engaging in feminist activism, I basically treated men and women more or less the same — those were the values I had been taught at home, they made sense to me, and sexuality was not a major confounding factor for me, as I am borderline asexual (I have felt sexually attracted to a grand total of three people (two women and one man) over the course of my entire life). After I became active in this community, I developed severe problems relating to women. I also became extremely depressed and anxious, and developed a huge dose of self-hatred. And while I had little sexual desires I did feel lonely and unloved and I did have a purely physiological drive to masturbate every now and then. Both of these things I considered absolute affronts to women’s liberation and empowerment. The fact that I would masturbate (I did not generally use porn; not only did I have ideological misgivings about it, but I found out in my teenage years that watching strangers having sex is neither arousing nor pleasant for me) made me think that I still had some kind of subconscious desire to violate women. The fact that I felt lonely I would twist in exactly the same way Amanda Marcotte did with Scott Aaronson’s comment: Me feeling lonely and unloved -> me in my unconsciously demanding a woman’s affection -> I am a terrible, entitled monster who clearly despises women.
That particular activist community was clearly pathological (the anarchist community in 1990s Scandinavia was, at least in places, a singularly fucked up environment), and it was probably also more so than usual for such communities, but the kind of self-hatred I instilled into myself there does not seem to be unique. Scott Aaronson was not, to my knowledge, a Nordic anarchist hangaround. Neither was, as far as I can tell, all those readers on his blog who also report subjecting themselves to this kind of quasi-Maoist self-criticism and self-hatred. I recently met a woman from that particular time in that community again, and in the course of the conversation she remarked that it had been such a fucked up time, but also so fun, and sometimes she missed being youthful and silly and radical. Fun? I was flabbergasted. I was not exactly having fun.
I did many terrible things to myself in the years after that. I self-harmed, after a reading of the SCUM manifesto convinced me that my genitalia were a patriarchal rape weapon. I wanted to be castrated and be nullified. I imposed a curfew on myself after reading about Schrödinger’s Rapist.
My first relationship was severely abusive. My ex and I disagreed about many things (it should be mentioned here, by the way, that she was not a feminist), and sometimes if a discussion became too heated, she would punch me in the face. I never hit her back, or even defended myself. And I distinctively remember what went through my mind when her blows connected: Stupid little mantras I heard at meetings or read in feminist literature, about how the violence of the oppressed against the oppressor was justifiable, because sometimes violence is the only language the oppressor understands (and for the record, this is not something I ever consciously accepted as a belief of mine; I am a pacifist). There were also a number of other abuses of a more psychological and social nature (she demanded that I isolate myself from friends and family to spend all my time with her, among other things), but I mention this particular one for a reason.
You see, it took years before I finally dared tell anybody about this. Upon hearing this, the feminists I have told it to have without exception (will you please be the first exception?) stated with confidence that this was obviously because I subscribe to patriarchal values that claim that it is shameful for a man to be abused by a woman, because men are strong and women are weak. In actual fact, what I was afraid of was nothing of the sort: I had been told (and had read), on many occasions, that men who were subjected to domestic violence had invariably initiated the abuse themselves or would later go on to become abusers. I felt that admitting that I had been abused would be tantamount to declaring to the world that I myself was in fact an abuser. And that is specifically something I have learned from feminism, not from patriarchy.
Much like Scott Aaronson, I still have my basic beliefs in gender equality and progressivism intact, and also like him, I cannot give 100% of my sympathy to a movement that caused me so much harm and anguish. I hope you can understand. But unlike Scott Aaronson, I did not go on to be a successful and well-published professor at a large university, because unlike him, I could not seek refuge in my intellectual pursuits. I regarded my intellectual pursuits as hugely problematic, because they were nerdy, and as you seem to agree, there is a very vocal contingent of feminists who very publicly shame nerds for being nerds. Among my own feminist associates, “autistic” has been used as a putdown and “nerd” is still a slur, and some of them seem to delight in evoking an image for the “nerd enemy” that is so clearly based on a caricature of autistic people that it pretending it is not a shaming stereotype would be similar to evoking a terrorist as someone named Mohamed who eats falafel and owns a camel, and then wondering how anybody could consider that racist.
I found myself torn between intellectual curiosity and a weird internalized ideological conviction that I did not even agree with. Intellectual curiosity won out (I am, after all, a nerd), but only barely. I managed to get my master’s degree, and qualified for a Ph.D position — but the depression and self-hatred got the better of me, and I dropped out. I spent my lunch breaks locked in a toilet sobbing and reflecting on how the fact that I was studying for a Ph.D in computer science made me a horrible person, because there was only a finite number of paid Ph.D positions, and mine could have gone to a woman, and thus I personally shared the responsibility for keeping women out of tech. I felt the same way about the jobs I have held in the software industry. All in all, however, I think I have managed much better for myself than I would have expected a few years ago. I stopped drinking many years ago, I have a (low-paying, but steady) job, and I am in a healthy relationship (my girlfriend, by the way, also stopped identifying as a feminist a few years before meeting me — she tells me that, among other things, she came to start associating that term with “ableist bullying campaigns”). I have still not “recovered”, if I may call it that, entirely, and I sometimes find myself lost in self-hatred themed on my gender.
In the last few years, I think a lot of the harmful feminist messaging has increased, as has the anti-nerd vitriol. I have feminist Facebook friends who literally write about how they wished they could just kill nerds. Doxxing and bullying seem to be becoming acceptable means in the struggle. People seem to be reacting with the same fervor to a faux pas as to a serious violation, and at least I am completely unable to judge the proportionality of the punishments that will be visited upon transgressors. I am scared even writing this, because I half-expect that I will be doxxed, and my employer will be harassed by feminists, and then I will be fired and unemployable (and I am neither wealthy nor tenured, so this is something I am seriously vulnerable to). Am I paranoid? Possibly. But given my background and the current atmosphere, can you honestly blame me?
I think that we — as in the progressive community at large — really need to have a conversation about what to do with the intense self-loathing and harm that certain feminist messages instill in some men. You see, before the Scott Aaronson debacle, I would sometimes search the Web for information about that subject (for obvious reasons), and the only resources I could find were by right-wing antifeminists and MRAs. The only person I could find who identifies as a feminist who seemed to handle the problem seriously and sympathetically was Christina Hoff Sommers. I think we are harming ourselves if we leave that entire area to them. A person like Scott Aaronson should be met with compassion and an attempt at understanding (like you did – and this is why I want to have this conversation with you), not with an extremely manipulative hit piece twisting everything he said into its literal opposite (like Amanda Marcotte did) or by redefining his issues into “patriarchy” without apparently understanding the nature of them (like Laurie Penny did). I doubt Penny was malicious, but I did notice that she focused entirely on Aaronson’s being lonely and dateless (an experience she can relate to), and completely ignored his feeling like a patriarchal monster who needed to be castrated (which is an experience I strongly doubt she can relate to) — and the latter, to me, seemed like probably the most important part of his comment.
This conversation is probably going to be hugely difficult. It is an admission that we have done something wrong (or at least that there was something we could have done better), and given the adversarial nature of politics, that can be equivalent to handing a loaded weapon to your opponent. But I think we have to do it, or we concede this entire range of experience, which is rooted in progressive politics and scrupulous intentions, to reactionaries who do not have our best interests at heart.
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Dear Moebius,
Thanks very much for trusting me with that – I appreciate that. I really admire your courage in writing all that, and have given a great deal of thought to your comment since you posted it.
Unfortunately, I can’t have this “hugely difficult” conversation with you at this time. I have a book (a children’s graphic novel with no relevance to this discussion) that I have been working on literally for years, which I have told my publisher I will turn in by the end of next month. There is a huge amount of work I have to do, and I have to be stingy with what I commit to doing, both in terms of time and in terms of emotional/creative energy.
If you want to pursue this with me after February, we could talk about it then.
But even then, I have concerns. It’s my impression, from what you’ve said in some of your posts, that having your views disagreed with or criticized on these topics can at times be hugely damaging to your mental and emotional well-being.
This is an imperfect analogy, but I feel a bit like a boxer who has been asked to fight by a very nice person who I know has a serious heart condition which can be set off by boxing matches – and in particular, by people from my school of boxing. In that circumstance, is it ethical for me to box the very nice person?
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Dear Ampersand (and anyone else who would want to engage with this),
I feel less vulnerable at this particular time than I have been in years, which is why I have decided to try to open this now — part of this, I think, has to do with the fact that apart from the shitstorm, Aaronson also drew out a large number of people who seemed to have suffered in largely the same way as I (and had not become redpillers/MRAs/MGTOWs/etc), and they did not catch a shitstorm — Aaronson seem to have acted like the lightning rod (probably because he is semi-famous). I understand if you do not have the time at the moment. I think the best we can do is that when you have the time, you can ask me, and then I will try my best to judge if I will realistically be able to at that point.
The main imperfection in your analogy, as far as I can see, is that I am not challenging you to any kind of fight (even one wearing boxing gloves and in a controlled environment). We want largely the same things, I think. We both want gender equality, we both agree that we do not currently have gender equality, we both want to go from here to there (we probably disagree on some parts of that). What I want to discuss is how to deal with a certain kind of collateral damage. I want people like Scott Aaronson and myself to have something more and better than a bunch of MRAs and Christina Hoff Sommers. I want a progressive movement that I can feel safe being a part of, and that does not engage in nerd-shaming, bullying and ableism. I know that you actively fight body-shaming and similar behaviour. I do not want a boxing match against you. I want to stand side by side with you, not against you.
Perhaps a better analogy would be the very nice person with a heart condition asking you to run a marathon together? If I had a heart condition and were to run a marathon, I would certainly prefer to do so with someone I had reason to believe had my interests in mind (and emergency personnel nearby, but you can leave that part to me).
Just to clarify, it is not having my views disagreed with that is the problem. There are just two very specific rhetorical devices I respond poorly to, at least when engaging with feminists. The first is telling me that I am a sexist, as opposed to telling me that you think I said something sexist (ideally, combined with why you think it was sexist). When I am in a less-stable state, then the former will result in me automatically agreeing that I am a sexist abomination, and that I should therefore be castrated, humiliated and cast into the abyss. The second (which is related) is dictating to me what my “actual” experiences, thoughts or motivations are (eg. “I am feeling terribly lonely” -> “no, you are actually feeling entitled”, or “I was afraid of telling people of my violent ex because I was afraid they would think I was the abuser” -> “no, you were afraid of telling people of your violent ex because you have a patriarchal belief that women are weak”). This may have a similar effect.
I also respond very poorly to threats, ableist putdowns and bullying, but I have no reason to think you would engage in that, even unconsciously.
When you have time, let me know. If anybody else (who has sympathies and interests aligning with what I described) wants to discuss these things with me, then that is also fine (if I feel uncomfortable, I will tell you and withdraw).
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I don’t know what could I say that would be useful for you, so I feel announcing that I want to get into a discussion would be a bit self-aggradizing from me? what can I say exactly? but as for “Upon hearing this, the feminists I have told it to have without exception (will you please be the first exception?)” – I’m sorry, and I believe you. I was deep into activism too once, and I had to reevaluate how unhealthy the scene was after an argument gone nuclear. I am a cis woman, but also heterosexual, and I needed to clarify (oh, this seems neutral and strictly intellectual, but it was not) if they are an everybody-welcome club or a “no stupid straights” club, because the second is explainable and I won’t attack it, but pretending to be ready to be friends and then sniping is not fair? It was a bunch that mistranslated heteronormative to heterosexual, in a text that declared it inexistent before the rise of bad patriarchy and agriculture, and then wondered why am I pissed, it’s a honest mistake, they are basically the same amirite? :/ What can I say, I am very much into psychology and group dynamics and why do stuff go wrong, these days. (I did keep many friends tho, from my side of the argument, so I am not saying this to be competitive in your grade of suffering, or something.)
Good luck, and I am glad you have a (non-abusive) girlfriend now.
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qwertyne:
First of all, thank you.
Second of all, if by “sorry” you mean that you sympathize, then thank you for that too. If you mean that you apologize, then please do not; you have nothing to apologize for and I have nothing to forgive you for. I would be a hypocrite of Olympian dimensions if I encouraged anybody to engage in collective guilt.
I think I am way past where I would have any right to criticize anybody for self-aggrandizement, given that I have posted a gigantic imposing wall of text about myself (and I come from a culture where self-aggrandizement is almost universally viewed as a worse sin than travelling back in time and personally murdering Jesus).
You are probably not surprised to learn that there were similar tendencies (as regards heteronormativity vs. heterosexuality) in the activist community I was in. That might have hurt you more than it hurt me – I was generally more affected by the attitudes about males than by the attitudes about heterosexuals (although I realize that these are deeply intertwingled, for obvious reasons).
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oh, I was saying sorry to express that I am sympatizing, not that I feel guilty! :) I had been doing the best I could given the information I had at the time, so even if I unknowingly encouraged meanness, so what, that’s not a sin even by catholicism (which I use as a benchmark for personal-historical reasons).
I don’t really know where to continue this discussion, but if you fell like saying things, do it.
The dark-funny thing is that I also have problems with false feelings about men, but in my case they come from the mainstream (the worst of it) mixed with low self-esteem – if people generally don’t seem to want very strongly to be friends with me, then the guys who hang around must want to be repayed in orgasms, which is understandable, so just picking them up for making out is Exploitation and Unfair (there wasn’t much sex for the wrong reasons, but much guit and avoidance). The unwritten rule of good girls not saying yes directly, and the occasional asshole, had perpetuated this. I intellectually know that men with a kink for kissing women are not that rare, and they could even – gasp – like being around me, but I guess I miss the basic trust in my social attractiveness here. I was lucky that the feminism I grew up with said nothing about relationships (well, it left me to the Church… yay), and the theories I’ve met afterwards were of the “options above all” kind of sex-positive variety. And that feminists generally are celebrating my sexuality and needs, of course, with small exceptions like the kink-critical ones, or the anti-heterowhatevers.
this shit sounds to me different enough from your false theories that it can be enjoyed as dark fun and not be triggering, I really hope I am not miscalculating here!
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qwertyne:
You have not triggered anything at all.
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thank you, I began to worry especially as I somehow ended up representing neurotypicals in the other thread, and it would have been very ironic from the universe’s part if I have in the meantime fucked shit up here because of my model of what’s going on in your mind not working well enough. (In reality of course no model of others is perfect, regardless of the kind of brain one does the modelling with, ofc.)
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Thanks, Moebius! Maybe we can discuss things later.
And yes, marathons are a better analogy than boxing. (I’m really shit at sports analogies.)
Best of wishes to you.
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qwertyne:
Just to clarify, as regards triggers.
I used to go to a psychologist who told me that she was absolutely certain that I suffer from PTSD, but I am not diagnosed by a doctor of psychiatry. That, however, has nothing to do with feminist activism, but with violent childhood bullying and with fear for my life being an everyday occurrence. The triggers (which cause flashbacks and anxiety attacks) are very specific, typically visual and auditory rather than verbal, and are extremely unlikely to ever be a factor in a discussion on the Internet.
The things that can cause a session of intense self-hatred in me are not “triggers” in a PTSD sense. Discussions and descriptions of terrible activism, even discussion and descriptions of terrible activism very similar to what I was engaged in, do not cause this. In these kinds of discussions, I am primarily vulnerable to the two rhetorical devices I explained to Ampersand, because (if I am in a vulnerable state) I will accept and internalize them uncritically. I think this is a residual effect of how I learned in feminist spaces that as a man, it is wrong for me to regard such messages critically — which, in retrospect, should probably have raised a number of red flags when I first encountered it (and perhaps I took it more literally than I should have, but … well, this is not exactly an unknown problem for autistic people), as it seems to me to be more a feature of cults than of healthy political activist communities.
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Just wanted to add my support to Scott Alexander and Scott Aaronson with some wise words from AlekNovy as An antidote to the stupid saying (almost all) women and alpha men use:
“Incel men need to stop asking out the hot girls, as the average girl would surely want to be with him, if he would just ask!”
http://matingselfishness.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/myth-dateless-men-are-only-bitter-because-they-shot-out-of-their-league/
AlekNovy posted this response:
Let me answer the “guys only chase hot babes, and ignore the average/uggo women” point you brought up…
You are correct that many of the bitter men around the net are average guys who went around only hitting on the hottest women, ignored the average ones, and then went to complain no women like them.
It is true that when a guy complains that no women like him, it’s because he has experienced tons of rejections. However, the main reason he’s bitter is because NO WOMEN HAVE EVER SHOWN HIM INTEREST. That’s the point. EVER, in his entire life!
Your point that there’s a ton of average women who WOULD be interested if he asked them out, is irrelevant, because these lazy women are PROACTIVELY HIDING their interest. I don’t count subtle signals as hair flicks, accidental bumps and subtle hinting as “clamoring for his attention”, because that shit is only visible to women. On the actual surface-level, obvious communication level, these womeen PROACTIVELY DO HIDE their interest and act cool, uninterested and indifferent.
THEIR THEORETICAL INTEREST is IRRELEVANT when they don’t show it in CLEAR UNAMBIGIOUS ways, and when they proactively hide interest and play games. Women FORCE this SADISTIC ritual onto men where the man is forced to gather massive amounts of rejection before he gets a woman who finally admits interest back.
All of this could end TOMMOROW if women stopped playing the plausible deniability, interest-hiding game.
Basically, there is a MASSIVE thing you’re not seeing here…
You say the average guys were not hitting on the average women… BUT WHAT YOU ARE MISSING IS THAT… Those average women were ALSO not hitting on those average guys either! In other words, those average women were sitting around with an ENTITLED attitude of FEMALE PRIVILEGE, sitting around going “Guys need to approach me, kiss me first, ask me out first etc, show first clear sign of interest etc”.
See, the thing is. Being male is this massive pool of doing all the work, taking tons of rejections and seeing little gratitude for it. That changes little depending on whom you are pursuing.
– If an average guy goes out and hits on a 100 hotties, 97 will reject him.
– If an average guy goes out and hits on a 100 average women, 94 will reject him.
DO YOU SEE? While it is true that He’d have DOUBLE the success if he went for average women (3 women vs 6 women), the big picture is both involve tons of pain, tons of unreciprocicated effort etc (97 rejections vs 94 rejections).
The main issue is women’s laziness and passivity and plausible deniability. Those 6 average women will not hit on him, ask him out, etc etc. They are just as lazy as entitled as the 3 hot ones. Make sense?
If average women were less lazy, your point would hold more value, but as it stands, with women’s laziness, there’s little incentive for men to go for entitled average women.
The REASON these men are bitter is NOT because they shot out of their league. The reason they’re bitter is that they’re SICK of the system women have created and upkeep, a system that forces men to endure pain, humiliation, rejection and have to do all the work. END
I’m observing women want to be equal to men UNTIL it comes to the actual courtship of asking out the nerdy guy
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That is a valid complaint, but it’s different from Scotts’ complaint.
Both of them recounted that girls/women did show romantic interest in some reasonably detectable way (Slate Star Scott was asked out, if I recall correctly), BUT their terror at the prospect of being condemned or humiliated prevented any positive response.
Secondly, suppose I’m a woman who wants to be equal to men all the way, not just when it’s convenient. I can ask out a guy I like*. I can ask out a bunch of guys. But, even if I devote my entire life to cuddling and fucking shy guys, I won’t make a significant impact on the average guy’s life experience.
* (if I can handle the possibility of being humiliated as a “desperate ugly cow”)
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(if I can handle the possibility of being humiliated as a “desperate ugly cow”)
Are you implying that that’s worse than being humiliated as a “pathetic ugly creep,” or not? I (honestly) can’t tell.
But, even if I devote my entire life to cuddling and fucking shy guys, I won’t make a significant impact on the average guy’s life experience.
That’s true, but only to the same extent that a guy who devotes his life to [pick a feminist cause, any feminist cause] won’t make a significant impact on the average girl’s life experience.
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@osberend
1. I’m pointing out that it’s not all sunshine and ponies on the other side, either — there’s still a negative outcome to be afraid of.
2. What does “worse” even mean here? As we’ve seen, some people are completely paralyzed by the prospect of creep-shaming, others still manage to get into relationships. Some people recover after being bullied, others commit suicide. Since the amount of harm depends on the event, the person, and the circumstances, I don’t see an obvious way to “rank” such events across all people.
Yes, which is why no-one should conclude things like “Clearly, men don’t want gender equality” from their personal experience.
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@nita: 1. I’m pointing out that it’s not all sunshine and ponies on the other side, either — there’s still a negative outcome to be afraid of.
Okay, that’s perfectly reasonable. I have difficulty assessing when that sort of implication is meant, so I try to ask when feasible.
What does “worse” even mean here?
I don’t think it’s defined for all comparisons, and it might not be for this one. But in some cases it means . . . I guess, in a nutshell, that an otherwise rational person of noble character who truly believed it would suffer more as a result. So, in terms of badness, “you’re evil*” > “you have major non-evil character flaws” > “no one likes you” > (“I don’t like you”, no one likes/values your characteristic X) > “I don’t like/value your characteristic X.”
Since the amount of harm depends on the event, the person, and the circumstances, I don’t see an obvious way to “rank” such events across all people.
I agree with that by harm, but not (in all cases) by evil. Severely beating someone is clearly more instrinsically evil than merely slapping someone (assuming equal lack of justification), even though one person might be more traumatized by a slap than another is by a beating.
Yes, which is why no-one should conclude things like “Clearly, men don’t want gender equality” from their personal experience.
Amen.
*Which creepy sometimes means (specifically “you’re predatory, but also weak”), but not always.
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@osberend
That seems reasonable. The problem is, “creep” can mean literally any of those things! It’s a bit like “bitch” — some people use it for evil women, others for unusually aggressive women, and some even use it to refer to women in general.
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“But, even if I devote my entire life to cuddling and fucking shy guys, I won’t make a significant impact on the average guy’s life experience.”
Your reply reminds me of a quote by Loren Eiseley:
“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.
One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.
He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”
“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man.
To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”
Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”
At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said,
“It made a difference for that one.”
― Loren Eiseley
Maybe the idea (that you will find offensive) is that you are looking for the “perfect nerd” to ask out, before you ask out any of them.
This is the part where I say check your privilege, but I’m sure you understand.
Inaction on the idea that “it’s not the right time”, is a very good excuse, for someone who doesn’t intend to do anything at all anyway.
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…are you seriously proposing that women distribute their sex as a form of charity?
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Oh whoops, reading this thread I discovered you already have a boyfriend!
Which is a good reason for you to trot out the (sound like) line: “I’d like to help you nerds, but my hands are tied” :)
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Well, now I’m stuck with the mental image of my boyfriend as a possessive little starfish :)
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@ozymandias
“…are you seriously proposing that women distribute their sex as a form of charity?”
People do distribute their sex as charity. Not just women.
Ever heard the term “sympathy fuck”?
Here’s the link:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sympathy-fuck
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@ozymandias:
Aren’t one-night stands a form of charity too?
There’s your “distribute sex as a form of charity” … and it is not the realm of one gender alone.
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@ozymandias
“…are you seriously proposing that women distribute their sex as a form of charity?”
There are women willing to have sex for money, once you accept that prostitution exists everything else about this concept is just economics.
Imagine a prostitute calculating how much happiness they’d add to the world if they donated everything they earn from their next client to charity vs how much happiness they’d add to the world if they found and had a one night stand with a lonely dude.
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@Forlorn Hopes
^ You are going to have people say “prostitution is totally bad, women are always oppressed, men are evil rapists!!!1111″
One wonders whether the activities of Messrs. Holmes, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, Cho and Rodgers would have stopped had they had regular rumpy-pumpy (not Tamerlan Tsarnaev, though, he had a good time)
On the flip side, Dzokhar has lots of female admirers AND Manson just got married. So maybe notoriety has mating value?
For your reference, and to debunk the angry hypocritical sex-cartel operators:
http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/prostitution/feminist-arguments-against-prostitution-dismantled
Quick summary:
Feminist arguments against prostitution debunked
I have been converted by the arguments of the antifeminists, that
the feminist movement’s main goal is to reduce male choice in female partners, to force men to dedicate their lives to unattractive, high spending, ruinously expensive feminist sex partners.
I add to this my hypothesis
The balance of power between men and women tilted in favor of women because
Men mostly stopped using physical & economical power,
women maintained their superior social manipulation power and thus,
world-wide, women are biasing laws totally in their favor in clear detriment of men
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P Ray: …Um. I’m pretty sure every feminist in this conversation is a pro-sex-work feminist.
And… are you seriously planning on going with the argument “murder is a natural consequence of not getting laid”? I’m offended on behalf of my celibate male friends.
Why would one-night-stands be a form of charity? I mean, rather the opposite! I might sleep with my partner because it will make her happy although I’m not currently in the mood, but if I’m having sex with a stranger it is purely out of lust.
I believe that pity sex (= “you can’t get laid, I am totally unattracted to you, and yet I am having sex with you anyway”) is, in general, bad for both giver and recipient and should not be recommended.
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@ozymandias:
Count me as offended too, can I be one of those male friends, since I fit that criteria too?
BTW, the sluttery has an effect on stable marriages, I would imagine.
How do you think those marriages work out?
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P Ray: Huh? “The sluttery”? Whose sluttery?
And I typically make a habit of not befriending misogynists.
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@ozymandias:
“And I typically make a habit of not befriending misogynists.”
Please specifically point out where I said anything misogynistic, thanks.
Use exact quotes.
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how about where you approvingly quoted something that called a promiscuous woman a “cum dumpster to the masses” and an employed woman a “worthless, aging, nagging femcunt”?
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^ Uh, I didn’t write that statement, I QUOTED it.
So your statement is wrong.
And by the way, do you observe whether that is true or false?
That people appreciate being lied to by superficial charmers,
or they genuinely want an equal life partner if they honestly look for a stable relationship?
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P.S. Dalrock (who archived those posts and has his own website at dalrock.wordpress.com), has many readers, who happen to be antifeminist.
And women.
Are they misogynists too?
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P Ray: Yes, women can be misogynists.
Your “fifteen claims” are mostly applause lights. Would anyone seriously endorse the claims “healthy relationships come from unwise choices”, “people who have the power of choice don’t have to take responsibility for their choices”, or “a study with more crime is more just”? So if you would like people to disagree with you, it could help to make specific, empirical claims instead. For instance, I might say, “the most important factor in a healthy relationship, in my experience, is selecting a partner who is compatible with you in terms of values, goals, lifestyle, and conflict and communication strategies”, while you might say “the most important factor in a healthy relationship is the woman not being a slut.”
I’m not afraid of my boyfriend being attractive to other people. His other girlfriends are universally lovely people.
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P Ray:
Can you explain what your position is? I do not mean putting any ideological label on yourself, but just state what it is you are trying to say.
You say you want to add your support the two Scott As, but you seem to be saying some things that are very far from their position. Scott Aaronson is “on board with 97% of the feminist program” (by his own words), and Scott Alexander is in a relationship with a feminist who he seems to think is awesome and who he seems to love very much, judging from how he usually writes about zir. I strongly doubt that any of them would approve of any of the other things you have linked here.
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@moebius:
My position is,
1. healthy relationships come from wise choices.
2. those with the power of choice, have to take responsibility for their choices.
3. when women enter the workforce, (basically) they double the number of workers.
4. men did not have privileges without responsibilities. Neither did women.
5. when people can fully “make a living” (but not necessarily own a home), their behaviour becomes unrestrained unless they have grounding in the idea of reciprocation.
6. most men are told what will happen if they screw up. I am not sure what most women are told.
7. women are told they have a lifetime to choose a partner.
8. most men and women come together for the long term to build a family.
9. most families have children.
10. that leaves out many women and some men from making their own families.
11. stable families produce children less inclined to crime.
12. a society with less crime is usually more just.
13. people do not want to be “settled for” or “chosen last”.
14. people do not want their hard earned money to be stolen by someone they were previously in a relationship with, that now claims it as some bounty.
15. lack of reciprocation breaks societies.
“I doubt any of them would approve of any of the other things linked here”.
Well, they should read them carefully. Believe me, a bad argument is also annoying to me. I don’t believe that the sites I’ve linked give bad arguments, and am willing to change my point of view if a logical alternative is presented, demonstrating a societal good.
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@P Ray:
And ozy didn’t say you wrote that statement; they said you “approvingly quoted” it.
That post was frankly so blatantly misogynistic, and so devoid of any actual argument (the entire post is just stating very loudly and in very misogynistic terms that women are hypocrites and men who treat women with respect actually don’t really respect them but just pretend to do so to get laid, supported with fictional examples that the author just made up), that nobody but someone who already subscribes to his extremely misogynistic worldview could possibly think it has any value in a rational discussion.
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@antialias:
^ Are those observations true, though?
Do people who lie get further?
Is that why more people spend time with videogames and other entertainment?
Because the real world is unjust, toxic or dangerous?
That’s something to think about.
And every person walking away from a bad relationship,
some of them bring their hatred to the next one.
Can you agree on that?
Do you think that’s fair?
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P Ray,
To me, you sound pretty hostile to women. Which, I’m not going to argue over whether you are a *misogynist*, cuz people never agree on that. But I find your attitude quite off-putting.
Your “position” is pretty bog-standard Redpill stuff, which basically says that women with more choices get to have have higher standards and men now have to step up. But this is basically saying that some men are low and cannot get better and that if only women had low enough standards they might become low enough to accept such men. Which is bullshit. Asking women to lower their standards is not going to work. Stepping up your game might.
Thing is, both Scotts eventually got their lives together and got on track with women. I wish they would talk about that part of the story more.
Which is to say, “certain kinds of feminism can hurt socially awkward men” is an important message. As a feminist, I need to hear it. That said, even if we feminists get better about this stuff, you still have hella socially awkward men. And women still get to have our own standards. And we aren’t necessarily going to jump on the nearest wallflower afraid to talk to us.
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So, which of the 15 principles didn’t you like and why?
Remember, disagreement without explanation is bigotry.
And choices don’t last forever.
My position is,
1. healthy relationships come from wise choices.
2. those with the power of choice, have to take responsibility for their choices.
3. when women enter the workforce, (basically) they double the number of workers.
4. men did not have privileges without responsibilities. Neither did women.
5. when people can fully “make a living” (but not necessarily own a home), their behaviour becomes unrestrained unless they have grounding in the idea of reciprocation.
6. most men are told what will happen if they screw up. I am not sure what most women are told.
7. women are told they have a lifetime to choose a partner.
8. most men and women come together for the long term to build a family.
9. most families have children.
10. that leaves out many women and some men from making their own families.
11. stable families produce children less inclined to crime.
12. a society with less crime is usually more just.
13. people do not want to be “settled for” or “chosen last”.
14. people do not want their hard earned money to be stolen by someone they were previously in a relationship with, that now claims it as some bounty.
15. lack of reciprocation breaks societies.
“I doubt any of them would approve of any of the other things linked here”.
Well, they should read them carefully. Believe me, a bad argument is also annoying to me. I don’t believe that the sites I’ve linked give bad arguments, and am willing to change my point of view if a logical alternative is presented, demonstrating a societal good.
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That’s a lot of really vague, uncontroversial-sounding platitudes that explain nothing substantial about your views on gender relations, but I’ll attempt to respond to them anyway.
Personally, I think healthy relationships come from mutual respect and honesty, not whatever you might mean by “wise choices”. I don’t see why the idea of “reciprocation” is necessary to make people’s behaviour less “unrestrained”; this sounds like some kind of roundabout way to condemn sluttiness, but I can’t be sure because it’s so deliberately vague. Not sure what you’re even referring to with the “Most men are told what will happen if they screw up.”
“Women are told they have a lifetime to choose a partner” doesn’t make a lot of sense to me; both men and women would usually like to find a life partner reasonably early, so as to be able to spend more of their lives with them, have children, etc., but individual men or women may also decide they don’t want a life partner at any point in their lives, and that’s fine. If anything, I’d say men have a longer expected age range for finding love, since cultural narratives of love pair older men with younger women a lot more often than the reverse.
“Lack of reciprocation breaks societies” makes it sound like that whole list was supposed to be some kind of a step-by-step argument towards that conclusion, but I can’t possibly make out the supposed line of logic here. If that’s not the case, well, “reciprocation” in the sense of being nice to people who are nice to you is a good thing for society, but it does not follow that every other thing you could call “reciprocation”, such as “having sex with people who want to have sex with you even if you don’t want to have sex with them”, is also necessary for society to function.
Please properly state what you mean, instead of statements just vague enough to sound innocuous. Your previous posts in this discussion have given me the impression your actual conclusion is something along the lines of “Women have a moral duty to have sex with lonely men who desire them, even if they don’t particularly desire those men”; if that’s correct, then say that, not “Lack of reciprocation breaks societies.” (And if I’ve misunderstood you and you mean something entirely different, then say that.)
Personal anecdote: I’m a shy, nerdy woman married to a much less shy, nerdy guy. I was still the one who asked him out, because I really liked him damn it. And I really liked him because he was nice and cheerful and adorably dorky and watched ridiculous anime, not because he was tall or physically attractive (he’s not particularly, and there were many, many taller and more attractive guys where we met). I live in Iceland, and I never thought it was particularly weird or unusual that I asked him; maybe it’s considered weirder in America, in which case America really should get with the times. I don’t know what feminists you’ve been talking to, but the feminists I know would all agree that the idea men should always be the ones to ask women out is eye-roll-worthy antiquated nonsense.
My view is: anyone should be able to ask anyone out. Nobody should be shamed just for asking someone out. Being unattractive and thinking you have no hope of getting a date sucks (I’ve been there!), but the gender you’re attracted to is not a homogenous mass, and there really are people who would give you a chance and love you, if you’re a nice, pleasant, agreeable person who respects them. You’re a lot more likely to get a date from women who care less about physical attractiveness if you actually respect women as people than if you collect blog posts that call women “cum-dumpsters” and “femcunts”.
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You’re a lot more likely to get a date from women who care less about physical attractiveness if you actually respect women as people than if you collect blog posts that call women “cum-dumpsters” and “femcunts”.
Thanks, what you say was addressed here:
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2007/06/24/why-respecting-women-as-human-beings-is-not-enough/
Read Byrdeye’s comments.
Byrdeye
June 26, 2007 at 8:19 am
What counts as “respect” if you don’t have sexual or romantic success with the woman you are engaging?
A woman initiated contact with me recently and eventually revealed that she was a single mom *groan* who was not interested in flirting with anyone. But she just liked talking to me cuz my voice was soothing.
IOW, she was tooling me as an emotional tampon whenever she got stress cramps. The female version of a “booty call.”
WTF? As soon as I found all that BS out I haven’t talked to her since. You want emotional compansionship and a shoulder to lean on lady – well you shoulda picked the right guy to knock you up then.
Q Grrl
June 26, 2007 at 8:27 am
yeah, Byrdeye, it’s called friendship. Such an ugly thing when it raises it’s green and scaley head.
Byrdeye
June 26, 2007 at 8:35 am
That’s right – the LJBF friendzone. The beta provider gofers women use for everything except sex.
Honestly, I don’t mind a low-maintenance friendship like that…but she was wanting far more time and longer conversations that were worth my time. The precious time I can use far better for women who WILL give me sex or other more productive endeavors. All just to get her emotional fix. Something that I personally don’t need that much of.
Q Grrl
June 26, 2007 at 8:53 am
So, let me get this clear. She is wrong for expecting another adult to reciprocate common emotional terrain? I can see why you would balk at the idea of respect, if this lower denominator of human interaction isn’t worth your time.
Byrdeye
June 26, 2007 at 9:03 am
Well, she just has a higher emotional drive than me.
Which means I don’t enjoy long emotional talks as much as she does. Maybe I could tolerate that more if she were putting out (or doing something else) for some quid pro quo exchange…but minus that it becomes lopsided in her favor.
So sheerly on its own, no it’s not worth my time. I’m ok with very brief chats…but I’m not her dikless stress ball, sorry.
Q Grrl
June 26, 2007 at 9:16 am
Why would you tolerate it more if she were putting out [sic]? Wouldn’t that entail a greater level of intimacy? I would think that sex would complicate the situation rather than ease the co-mingling of pesky human emotions/reactions.
RenegadeEvolution
June 26, 2007 at 9:24 am
Okay, everyone mark this date in your blackberries…
I agree with Byrd on something. As a female with a lot of male friends who are not, well, so lucky in love, even though they ARE attractive in some why or another (or a combination of ways), I have to say, I get sick of listening to their life woes all the time. Granted, I am wierd for a female, well, for a human, in a lot of ways, but yep, sometimes it does get to a point where one must really resist the urge to say “that’s unfortunate. Now, are we going to fuck or not, because you know, I have shit to do.”
YES I know that sounds TERRIBLE….but it’s true.
Brandon Berg
June 26, 2007 at 9:24 am
Q Grrl:
Are you saying that she’s entitled to his time, even if he’d rather be doing other things with it?
Regarding your earlier question, sexual success is having sex with a person or people you find sexually desirable, and romantic success is having a romantic relationship with someone you find romantically desirable. As Hugh said, respect is much more important for the latter than for the former.
Byrdeye
June 26, 2007 at 9:40 am
Q Girl – I don’t crave the intimacy. I crave sexual validation as well as physical pleasure. And that’s what sex would satisfy on both counts.
Ren – Lol!!!! See, you do know exactly how I feel! What it simply comes down to is a mismatch in needs and bartering to chieve a fair deal.
Well guess what – if some lady can openly state to me that doesn’t need sex or want it from me…then I can also state that I don’t need emotional bonding and want it from her. If she can cut me off from sex, I can cut her off from long draining emotional talks. Fair is fair, right?
TS
June 26, 2007 at 9:45 am
I do not think there is any need to apologize for this. Some people want emotional intimacy while others just want to have sex. That does not mean there is no connection, only that emotional intimacy is sometimes an investment some people do not wish to make.
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A small continuation:
Q Grrl
June 26, 2007 at 9:52 am
Brandon: She’s not entitled to anything.
Byrdeye: If you’re the one who doesn’t crave intimacy, why are you angry at her? Maybe you need to be more upfront about your anti-social tendancies. I’m highly anti-social, but I wouldn’t get angry at other people for either not picking up on that or for acting as if I were a normal social butterfly type. I’ve generally taught myself to state that I need “alone” time, even if I’m in a jam packed pool hall, or what-not. People look at me like I’m odd, but they do get the point.
As for sex, that can be bought, so again I don’t understand your anger towards this woman and her honest interaction with you.
RenegadeEvolution
June 26, 2007 at 9:55 am
Q Grrl: it can indeed be bought, but in a lot of places, doing so is illegal, and in the minds of a lot of men, legality aside, not desirable, for a variety of reasons, everything from moral ones to the stigmas attached to it to fear of disease.
Byrdeye
June 26, 2007 at 9:57 am
Err, angry would be an overstatement. I simply saw what the deal was and backed out as soon as I did.
She basically wanted me to satisfy her needs, but did not want to satisfy ny of mine. In other words, take, but not give. Hey, that’s fine for her…but not for me. So, no deal.
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Because unmarried people can choose *not* to have children. This is okay.
Not all families are stable and healthy. The degree that women are jobless and thus need to marry is unlikely to be correlated with “wisdom” or good marriages. In fact, this could easily lead to more women choosing to marry terrible men because they have no choice.
Education level is also correlated with stability and good outcomes. As is income level. Work hard. Better yourself.
The recent slowdown in marriage is largely affecting working class women and men. This is because working class men are less likely to be educated and the economy is hard on uneducated people. Working class women are deciding (perhaps correctly) that their long-term life goals are better served by being single and pushing their careers.
(This does not mean they do not wish they could have families. But remaining single is a realistic response to the economic conditions they face.)
It is possible to be happy and unmarried. It is possible to be happy and not date. People can choose these things for reasons of their own.
It is hard to separate out the economic changes due to globalization from the social changes from gender roles.
Your talk of “privileges” and “responsibilities” is code for “women dependent on men.” I am a woman. I have many responsibilities, some in my job, some in my private life. To say otherwise is hogwash. This does not imply I should *need* to marry a man.
Couples who date or marry *of course* take on mutual responsibility. Under a feminist model this is consensual, shared, and equal. I know many feminists relationships that work very well. (And of course I know some that do not. Relationships are hard.)
Nothing in feminism says that people should not reciprocate to others. It says that women and men should do so from a position of equality.
#####
Now, what does this have to do with nerds begging for a pity fuck? I don’t see the connection.
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@veronica_d
“Now, what does this have to do with nerds begging for a pity fuck? I don’t see the connection.”
Try to understand women lamenting about how guys don’t find them attractive.
Does that get your sympathy?
Now,
have a guy lamenting about how girls don’t find them attractive.
Does that get your sympathy?
Try speaking to the guy you’re with. Get his input.
Angels had to do some pretty evil things on the say-so of God, I’m sure he’s been to some dark places – do you want to know your guy as a 3d human being, or just the parts you’re comfortable with?
The next few sentences are certainly going to sound nebulous, but you need to disprove them to be taken seriously, with sources.
“Societies where people do not feel valued, are violent places”.
“Men do most of the dying everywhere – they do the dirty, dangerous, difficult, deniable jobs”. (which explains why 1st world countries outsource manufacturing to more pliable 3rd world countries).
“Men occupied with thoughts of bettering themselves for their families are less likely to threaten the existing status quo”.
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P Ray: Oh, you said more things while I was typing.
Of course I’m sympathetic to a man who isn’t found attractive! Why wouldn’t I be? And of course I’m familiar with my lovers’ dark places, just as they are with mine.
I agree with Q Grrl in your excerpt, I think. Obviously, if you don’t want to give someone emotional intimacy, you don’t have to. But someone isn’t being *unfair* when they want emotional intimacy and not sex, and they certainly aren’t using you; they just have relationship desires you can’t fulfill, and the best thing to do is set boundaries or move on.
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P Ray,
Oh, and stop reading shitty Redpill forums. Like, seriously that stuff is toxic and it will hurt you. Pay more attention to people who are happy, whose lives work, who have success. (Of course you get to decide what kind of success. What kind of person do you want to be?)
Bitterness breeds bitterness which breeds more bitterness. And the Internet lets toxic people find each other and reflect their toxicity back at each other. And then it cycles and they become increasingly checked out from reality. Stop doing this to yourself.
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“Bitterness breeds bitterness which breeds more bitterness. And the Internet lets toxic people find each other and reflect their toxicity back at each other. And then it cycles and they become increasingly checked out from reality. Stop doing this to yourself.”
If you don’t want to speak to your boyfriend about what he thinks,
what kind of a relationship do you think you’ll have?
P.S. Reality will hurt you if you don’t believe in it.
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@P Ray:
Read what I said again. I did not say “respecting women will automatically make them attracted to you”, which, yes, is nonsense; I said you’re more likely to get a date if you respect women than if you obviously don’t. Combining less-than-great looks with a charming and likeable personality is obviously superior to those same less-than-great looks with a repellent personality. I assure you I wouldn’t have asked my husband out if he’d gone around quoting blog posts about cum-dumpsters and femcunts with anything less than strong disapproval.
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P Ray:
It is election year in my home country, and since I am fortunate enough to live in a democracy, that means I now face the onerous duty of digging through a small mountain of bullshit, painstakingly crafted by politicians and their hired rhetorical goons, the spindoctors. A favoured technique of mine when detecting political bullshit is to take a statement, invert it, and see if any reasonable person (who is not a comic book villain) could hold the inverted position. If not … well, then it is safe to conclude that the politician is bullshitting me, and making an empty statement to look good and avoid talking about his or her more controversial positions. For example, “we should take good care of the elderly” is a bullshit empty statement (because *everybody agrees* that we should take good care of the elderly, and only a comic book villain would run on a platform of “we should neglect the elderly”). “Taking good care of the elderly” could, depending on the politician’s general outlook on humanity and society, mean anything from increasing funding for nursing homes to introducing mandatory euthanasia or sacrificing them to Xorgaloth the Magnificent, Blood God of the Outerworld.
I bring this up because many of your principles (*especially* #1, #2, #13 and #15), are more or less of this nature. They seem so utterly uncontroversial that I worry that you are hiding something behind them. To take principle #1: “Healthy relationships come from wise choices”. I doubt you can really find anybody who would defend “healthy relationships come from stupid choices”. What you *can* find is many different definitions of “wise choices”, and I would like to know your definition of what constitutes a “wise choice” before I can judge what that principle means.
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“I assure you I wouldn’t have asked my husband out if he’d gone around quoting blog posts about cum-dumpsters and femcunts with anything less than strong disapproval.”
Newspaper reporters quote terrorists and criminals and government leaders.
They don’t approve or disapprove of that.
How did I “approve” of it?
Did I say “This is great”? No.
Did I say “This is what should be done”? No.
Here is a trigger for you, stop your accusations. Check your comprehension.
By the way, let me ask you,
do you believe a relationship is possible when both people have had plenty in the past?
Because here is a source you should read (and, you might want to keep it secret from your husband – as it states a woman is at great risk of applying for a divorce, when she has had more than 2 sex partners prior to her husband).
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/06/harmful-effects-of-early-sexual-activity-and-multiple-sexual-partners-among-women-a-book-of-charts
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@moebius:
We are in the middle of a global financial crisis.
Democracy or no, you will be fed something.
And of course, politicians will benefit.
I hope you do, but I know people promise a lot of things, that they later don’t deliver on.
Many psychopaths are in leadership.
You may know one of them.
P.S. Comic book villains aren’t real.
I generalised my comments so that there wasn’t going to be controversy about which -ist I left out.
Maybe I left out commonsensicalist, which is an oversight.
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@ozymandias
“P Ray: Oh, you said more things while I was typing.”
Yes, I help disabled students at my university keep up with their studies.
I am still working on being evil. Obviously, that is succeeding, since only an evil person would help the disabled.
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P Ray,
I cannot ask my boyfriend anything because I’m queer and I have a girlfriend.
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^ That doesn’t mean she hasn’t been to any dark places.
Try and ask her. :)
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Dude, seriously, what are you even trying to say? What would it prove either way if she’s been to dark places? What would it prove either way if I’ve been to dark places? What are you trying say?
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^ LOL, your statement makes it really obvious.
When men “go to dark places”, they are misogynists and possible terrorists or criminals.
When women “go to dark places”, it seems to me that you are merely acknowledging they are emotional.
Looks like a double standard.
Maybe with what you’ve written, that’s what I’m trying to say.
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You’re delusional.
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^ Brevity is the soul of wit, but for some people it’s lack of vocabulary.
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@P Ray:
You’re being incredibly weaselly, but fine; can you please establish exactly what your actual opinion is on all these posts you keep quoting without commentary, instead of leaving it implied that it represents your opinion until you’re challenged on it?
Yes, I think relationships are perfectly possible when both people have had plenty in the past. Why wouldn’t they be? I had one relationship before my husband, and he’d had several; we’ve both discussed them openly and frankly and used our bad experiences from them to build a healthier, stronger relationship between the two of us. (A strong enough relationship that we can, you know, actually trust each other to honestly raise any concerns that we have with each other and work them out, instead of being terrified of divorce statistics.)
Those statistics have a lot of confounding variables, by the way. A lot of people have few sex partners before marriage because they’re religious, for instance, and are likely to avoid divorce even if the relationship is bad for the same reason. Having no or little experience in other relationships can also lead to people not divorcing abusive partners because they think this is how relationships are generally supposed to work (I should not have put up with my emotionally abusive ex as long as I did, but I didn’t fully realize how fucked-up that relationship was until I actually experienced a healthier one). “Women who have had more non-marital partners get divorced more often” does not equate to “Women who have had more non-marital partners have worse relationships.”
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@antialiasis:
“I had one relationship before my husband, and he’d had several”
Congratulations, you are not in the risk group.
Carry on.
“Women who have had more non-marital partners get divorced more often” does not equate to “Women who have had more non-marital partners have worse relationships.”
Where in your world is widespread divorce a good thing?
Either those women don’t know how to pick a good guy,
which makes them stupid,
or
they like the bad boys,
which makes them insane.
That’s what I get from it. What do you think about relationships with negative lifetime outcomes THAT WERE WILLINGLY ENTERED INTO?
A divorce, as I understand it, happens AFTER people get married, which, is a pretty big step.
All those posts I make:
Relationships are a transaction. I don’t believe there is one where both parties don’t get something out of it. Correct me if I am wrong.
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P Ray:
I am still baffled as to how all your statements here are supposed to be “support” for the two Scott As. In fact, they seem most of all to be in support of the kinds of things Amanda Marcotte accused the one Scott A of supporting, and which prompted him to write a long post detailing how she was in fact misrepresenting him.
My comment about politicians was an attempt to tell you that you are making statements that appear to be absolutely uncontroversial and content-free, which makes them impossible to engage with, and makes me worry that you are trying to sneak something altogether different by me — it almost seems like the kind of situation where I would be tempted to make a medieval warfare analogy, but our gracious host has explicitly forbidden the one I want to make. But as I said, nobody will ever disagree with “healthy relationships come from wise choices”, but people *will* disagree about what constitutes a “wise choice”.
You spoke to Veronica about dark places. Are you in one at the moment, and if so, do you need any help getting out of it (that a stranger on the Internet would realistically be able to give)?
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You spoke to Veronica about dark places. Are you in one at the moment, and if so, do you need any help getting out of it (that a stranger on the Internet would realistically be able to give)?
Nope. Not ready to contribute to the crime statistics or mess up any background checks.
I like speaking the truth and not being able to be “pinned” for a criminal background.
Call it … oh, just some speakings of a righteous person.
Besides, I like to keep my brain memory free for things, hard to do that if you’re a liar with a criminal past.
If I didn’t do anything, why should I apologise?
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@moebius:
If you want some controversy, here is an easy one:
“Watch what people DO. Not what they SAY”.
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Once again, I think *everybody* agrees that it is more useful to watch what people do rather than what they say — in fact, variations of this has been part of the written tradition of several different cultures for millennia.
What, specifically, do you mean? Who are saying what and doing what?
(your preceding comment, about crime and lies, is incredibly confusing and somewhat unnerving.)
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@moebius
(your preceding comment, about crime and lies, is incredibly confusing and somewhat unnerving.)
^ You sound to me like you are trying to goad me to do something.
Is there a reason you are doing that?
Maybe you want to get me banned? Or, perhaps, you’d like me to reveal more about myself? The fact that I’m 300 years old, or have 5 heads?
No, but seriously, take that schtick elsewhere, it’s old.
What else you got for me, O seer-of-the-sinister?
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@P Ray:
“Where in your world is widespread divorce a good thing?”
People divorcing if their marriage honestly isn’t working out is a good thing in my world, yes.
“Either those women don’t know how to pick a good guy,
which makes them stupid,
or
they like the bad boys,
which makes them insane.”
Why are the women solely responsible? You yourself were arguing before that men are always the ones who ask women out; why aren’t they responsible for picking good women, by your logic?
Either way, there are a lot of other possibilities here. Maybe they’re religious and believed they must get married before having sex, so they rushed into marriage before truly getting to know how compatible they were. Maybe one of them became abusive after they got married. Maybe they were keeping secrets from each other, and revealing these secrets revealed they were actually fundamentally incompatible. Maybe they genuinely just changed as people. It’s not always obvious at a glance whether you’d be compatible with a person, and while delaying marriage helps make these situations less likely, there will always be people who, despite making choices that seemed good at the time, find themselves married to people who make them deeply unhappy. Furthermore, even if it was kind of obvious, even if they were naive to think it would ever work out, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a right to get out of the relationship if they do eventually realize they made a mistake.
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@antialiasis:
Don’t you find it alarming that it happens at such a great frequency though?
By my logic men are AS responsible as women.
Not MORE so. Because, he had to AGREE to get married.
BUT
(mostly) she had to choose to continue seeing him FIRST.
However, that also means “appeals to emotion” (and a great deal of what “excuses” women’s behaviour that would get a man smacked), should be thrown out the window.
Sorry if equality sucks, but both men and women do things that deserve a smacking.
That’s equal. I understand violence doesn’t solve anything, but apparently criminal justice systems use violence and restraint to stop crime. Hmm.
Also, if someone suggested a business proposal, with the same rates of failure as marriage, do you think they’d get funding? Just something to think about.
“The Western Divorce rate is 43%. It is higher in some parts of the world such as California, Great Britain and Australia. In Japan the recent change in pension law may have many pensioners out on the street. In India new changes to dowry law have men being threatened by their wives. Consider the number of people who are in a bad marriage, but elect to stay; Men who don’t want to lose 50%, women who know they can’t support themselves alone. Next, think of how many more couples stay together just for the sake of the kids. Of these “forced marriages”, consider how many of these marriages involve infidelity, no sex, or sleeping in separate beds or separate rooms. I estimate the percentage of happy and monogamous marriages to be under 5%. Are these odds you would take in a business venture, investment or loan? Most of the risk-averse population would not. Yet they seek this exception to the rule everyday through marriage.” – dontmarry.wordpress.com
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A divorce doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is ‘a failure.’ I have a lot of relationships that were, by any reasonable definition, successful, but at a certain point transitioned to become nonromantic. Why couldn’t there be people who have happy, successful relationships that at a certain point transition not to be life partnerships?
Also, I’m unclear whether Mr. Dontmarry is including consensual nonmonogamy in his estimate that less than 5% of marriages are happy and monogamous. Maybe the real problem is monogamy. :P
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Nita,
> Slate Star Scott was asked out, if I recall correctly
> hen a girl asked me out in middle school, I ran away terrified because I figured nobody could actually like me and it was obviously some kind of nasty trick
Now, how this “figured nobody could actually like me” happened? Surely it’s because of all these signals of interest he was reading everywhere…
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@hxka
Wow, it turns out Scott was quite a precocious heartbreaker :P I got zero signals of interest in middle school, and was similarly socially paranoid due to (some) bullying. Luckily, I hadn’t read any redpill texts at the time — that certainly wouldn’t have helped.
Also, 13-year-olds are supposed to date now? To me, that was a time of same-sex friendships and secret crushes.
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Ye gods, that is a lot of comments at the maximum nesting depth. I’m just gonna say this:
@P Ray: Several people involved in this little sub-conversation can attest that I hold a number of views that are pretty far outside the feminist mainstream (or the broader societal mainstream, for that matter), view the social justice movement as an enemy (albeit an enemy that contains a few of my friends), and am quick to attack claims of sexism or misogyny that I feel are unjustified by the facts in evidence.
And I think, based on your posts here, that you’re pretty clearly a misogynist pig*. That’s not proof, mind you. But it’s the sort of thing that ought to cause a man to reflect.
*Or a troll playing one for shits and giggles, I suppose.
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It seems to me that self declared feminists are much more likely than other women to ask guys out. So idk how this is a valid complaint against feminism.
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It’s not, directly. It is a valid complaint against feminists who argue that romantically unsuccessful men who complain about the shit hand they’ve been dealt are all just entitled whiners, and probably rapist-wannabe shitlords to boot.
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“It seems to me that self declared feminists are much more likely than other women to ask guys out. So idk how this is a valid complaint against feminism.”
You know, if I was otherwise naive, I would agree with you.
Seeing as I studied in New Zealand, I didn’t see a lot of that.
It was the standard “patriarchy” of
Popular handsome guy asks girl out, is a success.
Average Nerd asks girl out, told by other people and the girl, that his behaviour is creepy.
Girls didn’t ask the guys out (how do you know, did you interview everyone? Um, I figure a guy would brag that he was so good girls would ask him out. That is a unique feature that certainly demands respect, since it is so rare AND is therefore AN ACHIEVEMENT).
Almost like,
being popular and handsome,
makes you successful at dating,
and
it’s amazing how many of those criminals and rapists happen to be ugly and broke.
After all,
does Dan Bilzerian have to deal with harassment and being creepy? :)
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@ P ray
I guess we had different experiences. I knew a ton of women who asked out their BFs. Also this is definitely a terrible assumption “I figure a guy would brag that he was so good girls would ask him out. That is a unique feature that certainly demands respect, since it is so rare AND is therefore AN ACHIEVEMENT.” I only knew certain couples began when the girl asked the boy out since I knew at least one of the pair closely. Some people do not seem to view it as an achievement. And since girls asking guys out is considered “odd” in most cultures it is not something everyone will brag about.
Also I didn’t claim being popular and handsome weren’t also very useful in getting dates with feminists. Though at least among younger people money doesn’t seem that useful to me (this holds for non-feminists too. I am friends with a former hook up who is SUPER into that PUA stuff. He has little money but provably has sex with alot of people). But I do think being feminist is correlated with things like dating men shorter than oneself. And have pretty healthy attitudes towards body issues of one’s male partner.
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In Scandinavia, it is not really that uncommon for a woman to make the first move. I think it is still most commonly men who do so, but the woman taking the initiative is common enough that nobody (except possibly some elderly people) considers it particularly odd.
Anecdotally, I know several couples (some involving feminist and some involving non-feminist partners) who started out that way. In fact, I am in one such couple myself.
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“And since girls asking guys out is considered “odd” in most cultures it is not something everyone will brag about.”
Funny, in locker rooms you hear that.
In most cultures too.
So … not sure where you’re getting that information from where the non-specific vague idea of “most cultures” that such bragging does not happen.
Isn’t it interesting that athletes have lots of sex, as a rule?
Almost like being athletic makes them sexually desirable?
See, the thing is, male unwantedness is something a lot of society benefits from, by making men strive harder regarding an unwritten goal-post moving complex.
The good thing about this though, is that many men are saying “screw it, I won’t be taken advantage of anymore”.
Also, most homes (forget houses, a vast majority of people will be living in apartments) worldwide near capital cities are unaffordable to the single-wage-earning majority.
So like it or not, women are going to have to finally deal with those “icky nerds”.
The “Hello from the Underclass” series by Gawker was an object lesson in the truth of that statement “pride comes before a fall” :)
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P ray:
You are arguing against positions no one in this thread is holding. Maybe some people debate that athletes get more sex on campus. But I am certainly not debating this. What does this have to do with whether feminists, on average and in practice, have more or less “healthy” dating norms.
It should also be blatantly obvious that all else being equal girls with larger breasts do better in dating. There are a million traits that, on average, cause women to be considered more attractive. Many of which are “shallow.” In fact significantly more shallow than being on a sports team which at least shows skill and dedication. Though of course women also care about looks.
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(it honestly baffles me, by the way, that the fact that my girlfriend asked me out is something that, in some cultures, would be something that would confer locker-room bragging rights.
I am autistic, rather unattractive, not socially dominant and not wealthy, and have been described as an “omega” by a masculist type.)
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@stargirlprincess
“It should also be blatantly obvious that all else being equal girls with larger breasts do better in dating. There are a million traits that, on average, cause women to be considered more attractive. Many of which are “shallow.” In fact significantly more shallow than being on a sports team which at least shows skill and dedication. Though of course women also care about looks.”
Let me give you the male version:
“It should also be blatantly obvious that all else being equal men with height do better in dating. There are a million traits that, on average, cause men to be considered more attractive. Many of which are “shallow”.
Being on a sports team shows skill and dedication when it is at a national level.
Very few are at that level.
Don’t forget that people also drop out from sports AND age too.
Also, “choosing a partner JUST for attractiveness” means likely to choose someone who is … also attractive to YOUR REPLACEMENT.
http://whiskeys-place.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-women-hate-nice-guys-and.html
Also, isn’t Lolo Jones a virgin?
On the flip side, I wonder though who she considers attractive enough to seriously date for the long term. Athletes are reasonably tight-lipped about their relationships because among other things it may cost them sponsorship opportunities.
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At this point I don’t even know what you are talking about P ray. My claim was that feminists have “more healthy than average” dating habits or at least are more happy to date non-stereo-typically masculine men. I never claimed that feminists or any other women didn’t (on average) care about looks, social standing, etc.
Also being on any college team tends to be pretty impressive. And not just football/bbasketball. Most college teams are not easy to get on and not easy to stay on. I am not into sports but sports success is definitely admirable. Saying you need to be on the “national level” is like saying a college math student is only admirable if they can score 80+ on the Putnam. Or some alternate very difficult achievement if you want to test things other than what the putnam tests.
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Pray, I have bad news for you: flatmates exist! I, for one, am sharing expenses without having to fuck anyone I don’t feel like it!
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@ fjvfjfh:
Good for you, now, try adding a child to the mix.
Let me know how the screaming and emergencies work out there.
Flatting is quite different from family life, and nobody stays young forever.
Also,
if you are in employment, your job is not secure.
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@fjvfjfh
I forgot to add a link, so here is something for you to think about:
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/
Right, and also I think part of what you’re saying too is that it’s still in most ways a formal economy in that the person who lost his job at Kodak still has to pay rent with old-fashioned money he or she is no longer earning. He can’t pay his rent with cultural capital that’s replaced it.
Yeah, well, people will say you can find a place to crash. People who tour right now will find a couch to crash on. But, you know, this is the difference … I’m not saying that there aren’t ever benefits, like yeah, sometimes you can find a couch. But as I put it in the book, you have to sing for your supper for every meal. The informal way of getting by doesn’t tide you over when you’re sick and it doesn’t let you raise kids and it doesn’t let you grow old. It’s not biologically real.
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pray, I am skipping msot of your post in order to annoy you ,as I feel you deserve it, but about children: why do you think I want to raise a child with someone I don’t like? I am not crazy. Also, forcing a child to have a shitty parent who is still in their life? also kinda mean to children. Sorry, if someone wants to get into my life, they need to actually be good and interesting to me; I am not blackmailable.
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@qwertyne:
“pray, I am skipping msot of your post in order to annoy you ,as I feel you deserve it, but about children: why do you think I want to raise a child with someone I don’t like? I am not crazy. Also, forcing a child to have a shitty parent who is still in their life? also kinda mean to children. Sorry, if someone wants to get into my life, they need to actually be good and interesting to me; I am not blackmailable.”
Let me annoy you with reality: People change.
It’s amazing how some people have a great wedding and then an acrimonious divorce.
Hmm. how’d that happen?
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Beware those who say they are Feminists, but reinforce the Patriarchy, for they are not True Feminists!
This includes tabloid morons like Amanda Marcotte, who claim to be Feminist, yet delight in twisting the words of any man professing loneliness into “gimme sex”. The idea that men (unlike women) cannot desire the full range of emotion and experience that comes with a relationship, and instead only have bestial desires for sex, is just another harmful gender stereotype which upholds the patriarchy. (Ironically, one of the very stereotypes that hurt Scott in the first place.)
Amanda Marcotte is a False Feminist, and it’s only when people like her are cast out that Feminism can stand pure.
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A couple of people asked for citations to SSC’s
“A couple of studies show that average-attractiveness people who ask random opposite-gender strangers on dates are accepted 50% of the time, regardless of their gender.”
the main one is
Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers
Russell D. Clark PhD, Elaine Hatfield PhD
Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality 01/1989; 2:39-55.
DOI: 10.1300/J056v02n01_04
better here than nowhere I guess.
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