Most women, it is fair to say, don’t want to be deprived of education; they don’t want to be considered little more than baby-making machines; and they don’t want “independent” women to be maimed or murdered.
But according to the influential manosphere blogger Vox Day, women who object to any of this just don’t know what’s good for them. In one of the most repellant manosphere rants I’ve run across yet, Vox attempts to rebut PZ Myers’ critiques of evolutionary psychology with a series of bizarre and hateful assertions about women, offering his own “scientific” rationales for keeping women down. Is this all somehow satire on his part? He certainly seems sincere.
TRIGGER WARNING for all that follows; Vox explicitly defends the maiming and murder of women.
Vox starts out by arguing that depriving women of education makes solid evolutionary sense:
[E]ducating women is strongly correlated with reducing their disposition and ability to reproduce themselves. Educating them tends to make them evolutionary dead ends. … 40% of German women with college degrees are childless. Does PZ seriously wish to claim that not reproducing is intrinsically beneficial to women?
Instead of being educated, Vox goes on to argue, girls should be married off young so they can start popping out babies:
[R]aising girls with the expectation that their purpose in life is to bear children allows them to pursue marriage at the age of their peak fertility, increase the wage rates of their prospective marital partners, and live in stable, low-crime, homogenous societies that are not demographically dying. It also grants them privileged status, as they alone are able to ensure the continued survival of the society and the species alike. Women are not needed in any profession or occupation except that of child-bearer and child-rearer, and even in the case of the latter, they are only superior, they are not absolutely required.
Next, he defends the practice of throwing acid in the face of “independent” women:
[F]emale independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills. Using the utilitarian metric favored by most atheists, a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability. If PZ has turned against utilitarianism or the concept of the collective welfare trumping the interests of the individual, I should be fascinated to hear it.
He moves on to honor killings, arguing that they too are good for women, because
female promiscuity and divorce are strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills, from low birth and marriage rates to high levels of illegitimacy.
He offers a similar rationale for female genital mutilation, before launching into this bizarre racist attack on abortion rights:
[F]ar more women are aborted than die as a result of their pregnancies going awry. The very idea that letting a few women die is worse than killing literally millions of unborn women shows that PZ not only isn’t thinking like a scientist, he’s quite clearly not thinking rationally at all. If PZ is going to be intellectually consistent here, then he should be quite willing to support the abortion of all black fetuses, since blacks disproportionately commit murder and 17x more people could be saved by aborting black fetuses than permitting the use of abortion to save the life of a mother. 466 American women die in pregnancy every year whereas 8,012 people died at the hands of black murderers in 2010.
Vox wants “girls” – presumably teenagers — to be married off young and start popping out babies. Yet in his mind female fetuses are “unborn women.”
Despite Vox Day’s repellent ideas about women – and his proud racism – he’s an influential figure in the manosphere, mentioned approvingly and regularly cited by others who present themselves as more moderate voices. It may not be a shock that the reactionary antifeminist blogger Dalrock includes Vox in his blogroll, and cites his work with approval (see here and here for examples). But, astoundingly, he’s also regularly cited approvingly by antifeminist “relationship expert” Susan Walsh of Hooking Up Smart (see here, here, and here). And she has even written at least one guest post on Vox’s “game blog” Alpha Game.
At this point I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked by any of this. But I still am.
And yes, it was satire; he was demonstrating how easy it is to defend Islam, he wasn’t advocating it. I doubt he wants a society where women have acid thrown in their faces, he was just explaining the rationalization behind it. Perhaps you could provide some examples of University educated women who A) Make a net contribution to society (if their husbands repay the loans, then they’re a net drain) who are engaged in a productive endeavour – government work doesn’t count, and B) who wind up having children at some point at a replacement rate.
Wait…you’re saying it’s satire, but it’s also true? You realize you have to pick one or the other, right?
Anyway, I have a college degree, paid off my own loans, and bring the world joy by making wonderful comics. Please list 99 useless women.
bekabot: I don’t think he means machines. He means slaves. The thing about a machine isn’t that it needs to be maintained lest it fall apart, it’s that you can’t replace it trivially.
It’s not that I think pregnancy/rearing children is trivial, it’s that VD does. It’s the mindset of the chattel-slaveowner. All you need is to have the slaves fuck, and “boom” more slaves.
So throwing acid in the face of one slave, “pour encourager les autres is just good business, the same way that beating one, even unto death, was good business.
Because one doesn’t need to go out and pay money to get a new one. If things like prenatal care and time in the maternity ward aren’t issues, then it’s not all that much outlay to get more slaves.
Dan Meyers is making an appeal to emotion, which was clearly effective judging by the slew of emotional comments here. Day is absolutely successful in demonstrating what he meant to demonstrate. If readers were a little more dispassionate they would recognize that.
False.
1: We aren’t defending Myers, we are attacking VD.
Why? Because, as so many have said, his satire fails to be satire.
2: His “demonstration” of what proves his point? When it’s so strained that a number of intelligent people completely failed to see it, then it wasn’t well made, even if we assume, arguendo that you are correct in your summation of his purpose (which assumes facts not in evidence).
What I see is that making a stupid argument gets you blasted? It’s not as if the people condemning him here are all atheists, fans of Myers (some weren’t, so it seems, aware of who he is when they addressed VD’s piece).
The idea (as that weak-tea assertion in the HuffPo Op-Ed claimed) that one needs to use, “science” to rebut religion, just because one is a scientist, is nonsense. Religion isn’t science. It’s emotion. It’s any number of emotional things, from a sense of the numinous, to a fear of one’s inner self being a monster, to a framework for the way an incomprehensible world works, to a set of ethics based on the teachings of people who believed one of those things, to a social life that one acquires from one’s parents/culture.
That some third party says PZ Myers needs to use his model of “science” (which has some question begging premises in it’s underpinnings) and thus VD gets to say Myers is therefore required to admit that he thinks tossing acid in the face of women is a net benefit to society is arrant nonsense.
And that’s a dispassionate response. Not emotionally vacant, because that’s impossible, but it’s looking at the actual facts, and using my judgement, colored by experience, to come to a logical (that is one ordered and reasoned; not one which is, “right, and pure of emotion”) conclusion.
The greatest failure in VD’s argument is that he defines women as non-people. That’s the only way depriving them of agency, and torturing them if they get out of line = net gain in happiness for humanity.
If (and it’s an impossible if) he could get around that, he would have half an argument in support of his claims against utilitarianism. But he can’t, because if he does that, the rest of that piece evaporates.
A dispassionate look at it, rather than an emotional response to the idea that we are beig mean/unfair to VD, would make that pretty plain.
‘Strue. The whole time-travel-CYOA-life bit going on at the moment’s great, and the magnitude of the D’AWWWWWWWWWWW at the end of Narbonic (and when they turn up again in Skin Horse!) is a sight to behold.
… Carry on, I’m just gonna sit here fanboying.
Deborah was a Catholic girl, she made no net contribution to society.
Carla was a differnet type, she made no net contribution to society.
Mary was a black girl and she made no net contribution to society.
Susan painted pictures sitting down and made no net contribution to society.
Reno was an aimless girl, she made no net contribution to society.
Cathy was a Jesus freak, she made no net contribution to society.
Vicky had a special way of making no net contribution to society.
Camala who couldn’t sing, kept the beat made no net contribution to society.
Zilla was an archetype, the voodoo queen who made no net contribution to society.
Joan thought men were second best to making no net contribution to society.
Sheri was a feminist, she made no net contribution to society.
Kathleen’s point of view was this, “Make no net contribution to society.”
Seattle was another girl who made no net contribution to society.
Karen liked to tie me up and she made no net contribution to society.
Jeanie had this nightclub walk that made no net contribution to society.
Mary Ellen who had a son said, “I must go,” but made no net contribution to society.
Gloria, the last taboo was shattered by making no net contribution to society.
Meme brought the taboo back and made no net contribution to society.
Marilyn who knew no shame, was never ever satifisied.
Julie came and went so fast, she made no net contribution to society.
Well, Rhonda had a house in Venice, she made no net contribution to society.
Patty had a house in Houston, she made no net contribution to society.
Linda thought her life was empty, made no net contribution to society.
Catherine was much too pretty, she made no net contribution to society.
Uh uh, not Catherine.
Pauline thought love was simple, she made no net contribution to society.
Jean-Marie was complicated, she made no net contribution to society.
Jeanna was the perfect lady, she made no net contribution to society.
Jackie was a rich punk rocker, she made no net contribution to society.
Sarah was a modern dancer, she made no net contribution to society.
Janet wrote bad poetry, she made no net contribution to society.
Tonya, Turkish, liked to fuck and made no net contribution to society.
Brenda’s strange obsession was to make no net contribution to society.
Rowena was an artist’s daughter, she made no net contribution to society.
Dee Dee’s mother left her father, she made no net contribution to society.
Debby Ray had no such problems, she made no net contribution to society.
Nina sixteen, had a baby, left her parents, made no net contribution to society.
Bobbie joined a New Wave band and made no net contribution to society.
Eloise who played guitar made no net contribution to society.
Terry didn’t give a shit, she made no net contribution to society.
Robin was much more my style, she made no net contribution to society.
Jezabel went forty days making no net contribution to society.
Dinah drove her Chevorlet into the San Francisco Bay, having made no net contribution to society.
Judy came from Ohio,she made no net contribution to society.
Amaranda, here’s a kiss, I chose you to end this list.
Even though you made no net contribution to society.
Pecunium: I think what Dan means is that, in order to be “dispassionate” in your argument, you may not consider suffering as a factor. Thus, to say that throwing acid in women’s faces is bad because it’s painful and can cause blindness and disfigurement is an invalid argument in his opinion, because it’s “emotional”. In other words he’s justifying such acts in a roundabout way by suggesting that their effect of people’s health and mental well-being is to be ignored.
Funny how I’ve never seen MRA’s — who are the biggest drama queens ever — apply that “logic” to their own perceived hurts.
@Shaenon
All those wimminz are gold digging whores! They’re either stay at home wives leeching of teh mens, or they’re working women stealing jobs from teh mens and buying scented candles! Either way, they’re whores.
Exactly, it would have been impossible for us private citizens in Joplin to do it all on our own. We could not remove several million cubic tons of debris last year. That job was led by FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers. Police officers, firefighters, and EMT workers helped dig people out and get them to hospitals or the public shelters. The Red Cross helped run the shelter, but the public university provided the space.
The National Guard defended peoples’ properties from looters, city officials gave seminars on how to find reputable contractors (very helpful, btw!), the public schools offered an extended summer school session to help stressed out parents like me have more time for dealing with insurance and construction stuff, etc. Right now I still need to contact the EPA for them to test the soil on my land to make sure it’s not contaminated with lead from the debris. I don’t have a clue how to test for lead or how to clean soil. There is a lot to recovering from a disaster, and the government is big enough and organized enough to make it possible.
I also LOL’ed at Glenn Beck bragging about using the library, but bashing government services. He is such a dumbass.
@dan
no no no no no, kid, you don’t seem to have understood the conversation. (or your parroting vd’s failure to understand the conversation). meyer’s challenged defeneders of religion to show how throwing acid in people’s faces helped society (not being a twisted little child who want to respond to people who disagree with him with terroristic violence, meyers is operating under the assumption that this is a bad thing. is this part controversial to you, snowflake?)
vox day, of course, got his hackles in a rage because someone said something he didnt like about religion, and decided to take up the gauntlet and say yes, there are benefits to terrorism against women flowing from the fact that women are stupid worthless whores (this is of course, a terribly scientific assessment and not something that should get him laughed out of the room)
now we have an army of dudes who are even dimmer than he is showing up to huff and puff about how we didnt engage seriously with his non sequitur and instead pointing out that he sounds like an angry, hateful creep.
are you caught up now, son. do you need me to go slower.
“I think what Dan means is that, in order to be “dispassionate” in your argument, you may not consider suffering as a factor.”
Except wasn’t VD’s point, if satirical, to show that utilitarianism “logically leads to” everything in that post? When in reality utilitarianism is about maximizing pleasure/happiness, which, since pleasure is the inverse of suffering, means minimizing suffering/harm?
You may well be right, but Dan’s still failing logic (and so is VD).
“It’s not as if the people condemning him here are all atheists, fans of Myers (some weren’t, so it seems, aware of who he is when they addressed VD’s piece).”
While basically an atheist, I had no fucking clue who Myers was before yesterday (I live under a rock, I know).
@katz You channeled some Chadler/Cain there. (I assume that was you.) Nicely done.
p.s. I knew VD’s minions would show up, yay!
p.p.s. Why are you all so damn funny? This is why I am addicted to this blog!
My mom’s a journalist who ran two magazines simultaneously and is currently supporting my dad. Please tell us about another 99 useless women.
Amused: Pecunium: I think what Dan means is that, in order to be “dispassionate” in your argument, you may not consider suffering as a factor.
Really? If he is that’s foolish, since the core of the argument is the suffering of those who are splashed with acid/maimed/killed is less than the benefits that accrue from inflicting such harms on them.
Which is what I said was only possible if one says women’s suffering is equal to less (say 3/5ths) than a man’s suffering; since they make up half the population (more or less) and this decreases the happiness of all of them.
my mom is a government scientist whose specialty is reproductive health, but that’s really awesome so what the fuck ever, aurini’s narrative is dumb and bullshit
also she’s got over half a decade of higher education under her belt and she paid for all of it herself
For those who want to see a positive good to he world:
Quick and dirty biryani:
Some cooked chicken, preferably from the night before.
Rice: Jasmine, or parboiled (e.g. Uncle Ben’s Converted)
Spice mix (crucial, cinnamon, Cumin, clove: I eyeballed those at a 3:2:1 ratio, and added turmeric, mace, powdered ginger. Mix those.
Some pulverised some cubeb, or black pepper; reserved.
Charnuska/Nigell/black cumin (synonyms)
Carrots, asparagus, peas, onions (I used baby leeks, whole), mushrooms, other vegetables as you see fit, cut smallish.
Some chicken stock (if you are suing thigh quarters, you can strip the meat from the bones,and add them, some mushrooms, and the skin, to enrich the stock.
Make the rice, set it to cool. Add enough charnuska to give it a pleasantly speckled appearance.
Set the stock to warm, with the spices; and any flavor enirchments.
Mix the rice, and the veggies (blanched if so desired, see below), I placed the leeks in the bottom of a casserole, and then the rice/vegetables on top.
Shred the chicken.
Strain any enriching materials from the stock, after about 20 minutes on a simmer, and heat the chicken in it. After about 40 minutes remove the meat, and place it in the rice/vegetable mixture, putting the entirety into a low (150-170) oven. Cook for 30 minutes, at a minimum (this is where blancing the larger/harder vegetables, such as leeks/asparagus stalks, is useful).
If you plan to cook the vegetables in the oven, cover, and let it rest for an hour, to an hour and a half.
Serve with naan, papadum, and drink of choice.
My former housemate is a attorney who also has a Doctor of Divinity. She got no gov’t assistance, and paid all her own loans off. She isn’t dependent of any man, being possessed of a job (she is no longer working in a ministerial capacity, though she did, for about a decade).
She does not now, nor has she ever, worked for any gov’t agency (though she is a licensed notary).
I expect my list of 99 worthless women to counterbalance her.
Kendra and Ostara–yep houses get cleaned and kids take care of themselves too!
Katz and Argenti Aertheri–yeah it’s amazing how the people that keep things running and keep things organized are pretty much invisable!
Ozy—yeah, I am really beginning to think MRAs and their ilk really need to learn being human 101 mutalating women so they become
I’d be fascinated to know how a utilitarian is supposed to disregard human suffering.
Dvar is correct about utility monster definition, I did screw up it. I’m with blackbloc on the rest though.
On another note, I am a statist, but I don’t think it’s exactly fair to ask why anarchists have to navigate state systems when we have a system that de facto mandate them. This is similar to the annoying jokes about communists/socialists and wages/money while they live in a capitalism.
Libertarians, by and far the vast majority of them, don’t actually want no government. They want a government that functions only in ways that protect and benefit them and other privileged upper class people. They are rightwing fascist douchebag liars (there are a few exceptions who use the label who aren’t, but mainstream paulite bullshit libertarians are totally).
Oh yeah, my partner, she has a degree from Columbia, which she got at the same time she was attending JTS (they have a dual program). She paid her loans off herself, while supporting her other partner’s acquisition of a PhD. in Computer science.
She is worth at least 99 women.
So cough it up, 198 women, by name a description, who are, “worthless”, to counterbalance the both of them.
To be fair to libertarians, most of them just don’t think about it very hard.
Never took out student loans for undergrad or graduate school; went to more affordable schools and worked to pay my way. But I don’t think that makes me any better than people who DID take out student loans and are struggling to pay them back. I have supported myself by working since I was 18, mostly at a large academic library. Only about 30% of the University’s funding comes from the state, the rest is revenue and grants, but I suppose that it’s still guvmint work. My job consists of making loads of information freely available to the University’s students, staff, and faculty (and anyone else who can get themselves to campus); actually, most of it is freely available to anyone who has a computer. Journals, books, photographs, posters, medieval manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, movies, oral histories, archival resources (the “evidence” for history), preserved web pages/twitter feeds — in pretty much every language the world has to offer, including Inuktitut (ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ) and Ge’ez (ግዕዝ). Libraries and archives are A W E S O M E.
Eh, Aurini’s an asshole. Not even really mock-worthy.
What Day successfully demonstrates is that Myers attacks religion from emotion and not science or logic. Since you Pecunium and Amused both essentially concede that Myers does in fact attack religion from emotion and not science or logic, I can see we all agree on the actual point in question. The illegitimacy of emotional attacks, which is what you really hate, is a secondary question in this situation. On his blog Day quotes Myers himself: “We cannot, though, say a priori that it is wrong because abusing and denigrating half the population [or throwing acid on women, my note] is unconscionable and vile, because that is not a scientific foundation for the conclusion. It’s an emotional one; it’s also a rational one, given the premise that we should treat all people equitably…but that premise can’t claim scientific justification.” So even Myers himself concedes.
I’m sure Dan is absolutely in no way, shape, or form the same person as Vox Day, Aurini, or David Marshall, right?