Would MRAs still be into the Apex Fallacy if boards of directors looked like this?
So some Men’s Rightsers are up in arms because the powers that be at Wikipedia just deleted a page devoted to a phony “logical fallacy” invented by a friend of Paul Elam. According to the now-deleted Wikipedia page, “the apex fallacy refers to judging groups primarily by the success or failure at those at the top rungs (the apex, such as the 1%) of society, rather than collective success of a group.”
In other words, it’s a convenient way for MRAs to hand-wave away any evidence that men, collectively, have more power than women. Mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics and business, and, I don’t know, podiatry, and MRAs will shout “apex fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
On the Wikipedia discussion page devoted to the question of deleting the apex fallacy entry, one Wikipedia editor – who voted “strong delete” – noted that
This is men’s rights activist astroturfing. The guy above [in the discussion] isn’t posting examples of its usage because they’re all on websites showcasing brutal misogyny and hateful ignorance, like A Voice for Men.
He’s got a point. When I did a Google search for the term, my top ten results (which may be different than your top ten results, because that’s how Google works) included posts on The Spearhead; The Men’s Rights subreddit; Genderratic (TyphonBlue’s blog); Emma the Emo’s Emo Musings; and a tweet from the little-followed Twitter account of someone calling himself Astrokid MHRA. In other words, five of the ten results were MRA sites, several of them with explicit links to A Voice for Men. (That “MHRA” is a dead giveaway.)
The top result, meanwhile, linked to a post on the blog of the delightful Stonerwithaboner, who doesn’t consider himself an MRA, as far as I know. But he’s still kind of a shit, and he did recently confess to being (as I suspected) the person who was going around posting comments on manosphere sites as David H. F*cktrelle, Male Feminist Extraordinaire ™.
So, in other words , I think it’s fair to say that the term “apex fallacy” has not yet achieved academic or philosophical respectability just yet.
The deleted Wikipedia page attributes the term “apex fallacy” to Helen Smith, a psychologist who is a longtime friend to A Voice for Men, and dates it to an interview Smith gave to the odious Bernard Chapin in 2008.
But the idea seems to be a simple reworking of a bad idea that’s been floating around in Men’s Rights circles for a lot longer than that.
Back in the 1990s, New Zealand Men’s Rights Activist Peter Zohrab came up with what he called the “Frontman Fallacy,” a notion he spread via the alt.mens-rights newsgroup on Usenet and elsewhere; the term has been widely adopted in Men’s Rights circles since then. As Zohrab defined the term,
the Frontman Fallacy is the mistaken belief that people (men, specifically) who are in positions of authority in democratic systems use their power mainly to benefit the categories of people (the category of “men”, in particular) that they belong to themselves.
So, in other words, if you mention that men hold the overwhelming majority of powerful positions in the worlds of politics, business, and podiatry, MRAs will shout out “frontman fallacy” and do a little victory dance. Rich and powerful dudes don’t count, because of poor and powerless dudes!
Like the extremely similar “apex fallacy,” this idea is rather too silly and facile to count as a real fallacy, but it has proven quite popular with MRAs. Looking through the google search results for “frontman fallacy,” I see links to a wide assortment of MRA sites using the term, including AVFM, Genderratic, Stand Your Ground, Backlash.com, Toysoldier, Mensactivism.org, Pro-Male Anti-Feminist Tech, Fathersmanifesto.net, Mensaid.com, and some others. Like “apex fallacy” it hasn’t made much progress outside the Men’s Rights movement.
What’s interesting about this to me is that this is not the only bad idea that Peter Zohrab has ever had.
Indeed, Zohrab had some extremely bad ideas about Marc Lepine, the woman-hating antifeminist who murdered 14 women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989.
While Zohrab, to my knowledge, never explicitly justified Lepine’s killings, he described the massacre in one notorious internet posting as an “Extremist Protest Against Media Censorship.” Of Lepine himself, he wrote
I bet you don’t know he wasn’t a misogynist – because you have been conned by the media (as usual). In fact, he was a Men’s Rights activist (albeit an extremist one), and one of the things he was protesting about was media censorship.
Zohrab went on to say that it was clear from Lepine’s writings – or at least writing alleged to have been written by him — that
he [was] against Feminists — not against women — he clearly states that he is protesting against various issues which are aspects of Feminist sexism.
Indeed, Zohrab seems not only sympathetic towards Lepine’s “cause” but seems to feel that he was being unfairly misrepresented:
The write-ups on Marc Lepine concentrate on character-assassination. They take things out of context, in the same way that fathers are slandered in the divorce/family court, in order to deprive them of custody or access. …
Marc Lepine was not only not sexist, as the media stated – he was actually fighting sexism!
Lots of MRAs love talking about the “frontman fallacy” or the new and improved “apex fallacy.” They don’t seem much interested in talking about Zohrab himself.
Like it or not, MRAs, this man is one of the leading figures in the emergence of the Men’s Rights movement online, and in the intellectual history of the movement, such as it is.
If I were a bit more paranoid, I might wonder if the emergence of the “apex fallacy” was some sort of an attempt as a rebranding, an attempt to push the “frontman fallacy” and its creator, the old, odd duck Peter Zohrab, with his embarrassingly sympathetic feelings toward a mass murderer of women, down that famous memory hole.
P.S. Don’t read the comments to that MensActivism.org posting, unless you want to get really depressed.
So really it’s the apex fallacy fallacy.
Yeah, who cares that he killed 14 people?! The media should have focused on his positive traits.
I mean, if someone murders a bunch of women, obviously he might have a valid reason. Why didn’t the media search for that reason and explain it sympathetically? Misandry!
Did Marc Lépine actually identify as an MRA, or did they claim him after the massacre? I know Thomas Ball was a MRA. Do we know of any other violent criminals who were MRAs? This may be relevant for a project I want to work on this summer.
Also
?1″ rel=”nofollow”>this is what happened when I tried googling Marc Lépine. Gross.
“Murderer” is a little strong; they were only women!
“the apex fallacy refers to judging groups primarily by the success or failure at those at the top rungs (the apex, such as the 1%) of society, rather than collective success of a group.”
Yes, because the fact that a disproportional number of a particular group is found at the top rungs of society indicates nothing about that group’s privilege. And obviously feminist theories only point to how men overall are doing in the top rungs of society – they never focus on things like social privilege and institutionalized privilege across all classes.
Also, this definition is fraught with ill-defined words. What does it mean to judge a group in this context? How are success and failure defined?
Couldn’t this “apex fallacy” also be used against them? The way they always focus entirely on their “victories” but completely ignore how they almost never do shit about anything?
Let’s do a little google search for Marc Lepine:
“Marc Lépine is a feminist hero | A Voice for Men”
LOL
Perhaps, but in any case, there’s another way it can be used against them.
Many MRAs like to point out the fact that women at the top rungs of society are privileged and so aren’t oppressed by sexism. In fact, I’ve seen them constantly say that society is biased against men because many women have power. But then they completely ignore women of color, trans* women, women in poverty, etc.
Hmmm…
This appears to be the “reputable source” they are using to cite the term.
Cthulhu’s Intern and Aaliyah, there you go again, applying logic to MRA arguments.
Based entirely on this comment from here:
LOL.
They are just making up names for over generalization, applying traits to a population based on a skewed sample. The irony is that MRAs are constantly over generalizing. And as someone above pointed out the feminist movement is trying to bring awareness to women’s issues that affect a broad number of socio-economic classes.
The whole point of discussing the apex is that a low number of women at the top means that there is a lower number of women that have the basic economic opportunities and support that men often have. Its pointing out an effect of a more general trend and not pointing out a small sample and trying to draw conclusions to the population, ie over generalization.
Glass cellar? Pfffffft.
David, when you mentioned podiatry, were you aware of this?
😀
*wall of laughter*
WTF?
Oh lord, from the “Marc Lepine is a feminist hero”
When women are abused mercilessly and respond with violence/self-defense against their abusers – misandry!
A man raised in an abusive household who was “inculcated” by a violent father commits mass murder – heroism!
The term “MHRA” never fails to make me smile.
“‘Men’s Rights Activism’ just isn’t cutting it! We need something a little extra. Something with pizazz. Something with punch. Hey, I know! We’ll call it Men’s HUMAN Rights Activism!”
Regarding that ridonkulous apex fallacy, I had always assumed it was Warren Farrell’s invention. Every day’s a school day.
Apex fantasy?
Oh wow. Why did I not believe this? I was kind of buying into the conspiracy theory ideas David laid out, and then I remembered that MRAs would first have to think that it’s in poor taste to lionize a misogynistic mass shooter, when in fact this is something they’re totally comfortable with.
Hitler loved his dog!
It can also conveniently be used not only to disregard men who excel, but also women.
“If women are so bad at (something), what about (insert string of women who excel at the previous something)?”
“APEX FALLACY!”
A. If the argument is “people in positions of power are mostly men”, then “but not all men are in positions of power” is not really a response. Often the issue at hand is, in fact, the composition of the apex.
B. Men as a group are doing quite well.
Women also participate less the workforce. 64% to 83%, OECD average.
From those fucking communists at The Economist.
http://www.economist.com/node/21539928
The whole special report is worth reading.
C. Ever notice how when men are doing worse in some area it’s because of reverse sexism, but when it’s women doing worse it’s because men and women are just biologically different?
LOl at “Apex fantasy,” Bee. When will they stop trying to make shit up and realize that words mean things? Probably not in my lifetime, but I can dream.
The MRM has some lovely heroes, don’t they? Lepine, Sodini, Ball, all totally worth looking up to.*
ALL the sarcasm for the painfully literal MRAs who will come to say that they don’t hold up these dudes as heroes.
Apex phallus-y!
That was phallacious, titianblue.
hellkell, don’t forget Brevik!
Cloudiah, that foot thing was … weird. I had no idea!
Aaliyah: Whoops, I did forget Brevik. So many assholes, so little time.
Agreed partially with this post. Just saying “apex fallacy” is itself not an argument, but I also would say that if you are just looking at the CEOs, you may be mising other salient points.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1a2vhy/glass_cellar_vs_glass_ceiling_85_of_the_worst/
Like I’ve said before, I don’t think feminism is completely wrong, and we can gain from pointing out that female top brass are uncommon. But you gain a one sided picture- and this is where MRAs/MHRAs come in. We need both sides of the coin.
Do you have some kind of point, pemra? That’s not even what apex fallacy was talking about in the OP. It was that lots of MRAs deny male privilege because most men aren’t CEOs.
Don’t forget about the emerging “Reality Fallacy” which states that “any instance of reality that does NOT make women look bad is not, in fact, actual reality.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Pemra totes has a point. It’s too bad feminists have never supported an intersectional look at kyriarchy or anything, so instead we are forced to go to the MRM to gain a second one-dimensional look at society’s problems.
If Lepine is a symbol of “Men’s Rights” then Solianas is a symbol of Feminism. If you want to compare crazy, you need to compare crazy to crazy. In the SCUM manifesto Solainas advocated keeping 10% of men as sex slaves and murdering the rest.
Not when the MRA side of the coin is made of utter hateful shit, we don’t.
Why don’t you fuck off with your mealy-mouthed puling bullshit? You keep repeating this mess, and doing that will not make it true, no matter how many times you do it.
Zombie Solanas! BINGO!!!!
Uh, no dude. Solnas didn’t kill anyone, much less scores of people. FUCK OFF.
You know, it’s worth going over to the reddit page in the link and looking through the comments. Skim over all the bunched panties on the part of the MRAs there (of course) and you will find that the user “c0untered” (who took the lead in flagging the entry for deletion) has a pretty lucid (and therefore quite useful) unpacking of relative privilege in zir reasoning behind recommending that deletion.
Of course the MRAs there would rather mansplain why zie is wrong, along the “I know you are but what am I?” lines (with a dip into who is physically capable of doing more than 3 pull-ups or running 3 miles in less than 15 minutes), than engage with the idea of relative privilege and why the “apex fallacy” is little more than a sloppy strawman cover for a questionable ideological stance, but no one expected more of them, did they?
The fact that women have been trying forever to get into high-risk professions like coal mining, construction, the military, etc. and have been met mainly with resistance from the men in those fields doesn’t register with these “class cellar” folks at all, does it?
Women try to work in high-risk jobs: “OMG, this is men’s work, you won’t even be able to do it, *sexual harassment and quips about setting up a cot at the front of the mine*”
Women don’t work in high-risk jobs: “OMG glass cellar expendable males bonbons princess cupcake MISANDRY!!!”
@genderneutrallanguage there’s a big difference between the number of feminists who want to claim Solanas, and the number of MRAs who want to claim Lepine. Also, what Hellkell said.
Thank you for your ableism, please don’t troll again.
@Bee- Okay, but my issue is that feminism still has a monopoly on *gender*. Also, other equality movements are often sympathetic to feminism, and not MRAism, because feminists have controlled gender studies for about a century now.
I might even argue that it is a GOOD thing to place MRAs and feminists in somewhat antagonistic opposition. They make each other question their ideology and think about the biases inherent in any given ideological movement.
And he was a vegetarian!
Off-topic: remember that conversation we had about MRA’s hijacking left-wing concerns to advance their own decidedly right-wing agenda? Well here’s another example (towards the end): http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/04/29/a-poisonous-atmosphere/
And I wonder what ol’ Pricy would deem “unnatural” within human action…
Dude, we’ve been over this before. Feminism has a monopoly on gender* because women are oppressed based on gender. Men aren’t. Hence, there needs to be more correction in terms of equality on the women’s side.
*not that it only focuses on women’s issues, but most of it’s focus is there.
Not to mention the number of feminists who will actively disavow her, but hey we don’t get to say what ideas define our movement, do we? That’s for others to decide for us so that our girly little brains don’t get overtaxed.
This CD seems to be stuck on repeat.
I might even argue that it is a GOOD thing to place MRAs and feminists in somewhat antagonistic opposition. They make each other question their ideology and think about the biases inherent in any given ideological movement.
Except that feminism already questions its ideology and has discussions about the best way to bring about equality which you would know if you actually took a gender studies class.
Mras whine, dox and threaten anyone who questions their “ideology” (delusions) which you would know if you read this website.
If you’re trying for a gotcha, at least spell her name right.
MRAs openly embrace murderers and terrorists like Marc Lepine, George Sodini, Thomas Ball, and Scott Evans Dekraai. They praise them. They call them heroes. They discuss why their violence was justified. They call them activists.
Feminism has a “monopoly” on gender only to the degree that gender was not an area of inquiry until feminists created it by beginning to systematically explore the nature of gender categorization and its consequences. If you done actual work in gender theory (as opposed to just reading some blogs) this would not be news to you. Only women have a gender, in the same way only people of color have a race, because the history of Western culture has been one in which white, cis, hetero men were settled as the normative condition from which all else was defined as other.
Feminists “control” gender studies in roughly the same way that women have “controlled” such professions as nursing and teaching, because men were largely not interested. And who can blame them, for the most part. To paraphrase Sinclair, it’s difficult to get someone to understand something, when zir privileged position in society depends upon zir not understanding it!
@Bob Dole
Sorry for OT and Derail, but I checked out your link and had to share this gem. I was wondering how he was going to blame air pollution on feminism, but he did it.