Reading comprehension: a bit of a problem for the angry dude crowd. So in my post earlier today I wrote about a Redditdude who got so angry reading a relatively innocuous Forbes column by a WOMAN ON TEH INTERNET that he called her a “cunt” and threatened to murder people and got more than a thousand net upvotes. All based on a complete misreading of her article, of which he obviously only skimmed the first paragraph.
Well, now the Men’s Rights subreddit has gotten hold of the Forbes column, and they too are pig-biting mad – not so much at the column itself, which it’s clear not many of them have actually read, but at a straw column they’ve written in their heads which is nothing but EEEVIL MISANDRY.
To reiterate: Kashmir Hill’s column in Forbes notes that some people have come to regard people without Facebook accounts as somehow suspect in our hyper-connected world. Hill finds this a bit silly, and writes:
The idea that a Facebook resister is a potential mass murderer, flaky employee, and/or person who struggles with fidelity is obviously flawed. There are people who choose not to be Facebookers for myriad non-psychopathic reasons: because they find it too addictive, or because they hold their privacy dear, or because they don’t actually want to know what their old high school buddies are up to. My own boyfriend isn’t on Facebook and I don’t hold it against him (too much).
Note to the painfully literal: that parenthetical “too much” in the last sentence is what’s called a “joke.”
Naturally, Reddit’s Men’s Rights squad, not having read much beyond the sarcastic title of Hill’s piece (“Beware, Tech Abandoners. People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious.’”) has concluded that she’s an evil misandrist who’s demonizing men without Facebook as creepy psychopaths. Yes, in addition to getting the argument of her piece completely backwards, they’ve also decided that it’s all about men.
MauraLoona, who submitted the link under the misleading title “Men without Facebook: You’re suspicious and potential stalkers, creeps, and psychopaths” explains in a comment:
While the article uses gender neutral pronouns in some places, the message is obvious: This suspicion is directed at men.
I suspect this might be a case of xenophobia: “I am a woman and love technology, so if you’re a man and don’t share that love for technology, you’re suspicious.”
JohnTheOther, a virtuoso in the fine art of getting things wrong, offers this take:
Forbes, apparently is now in the business of creating boogiemen. No evidence of anything equates to evidence of sinister intent. What utter fear-mongering drivel.
And our old friend Liverotto concludes that when Hill says she doesn’t hold her boyfriend’s lack of a Facebook account against him (much), she’s just lying, like women do:
Yes, of course, she doesn’t hold it against him, that’s why she wrote a full article about people without Facebook being suspicious.
Women are just liars, that’s it, that’s all it is, liars and dissimulators, if you trust what a woman says you are naive.
MRAs really do live in imaginary backwards land, don’t they?
it’s cool devil cat spent the whole night upstairs. big cat is chill as fuck, but i need him to get out from under my bed soon cuz he cant sleep in here.
So, you guys do NOT have any evidence that suggest the overall opinions of MRAs?
Huh. So much for rational thought!
Ack, borked the blockquotes.
The funniest thing about the whole cherry picking argument is that these guys always forget that they have an upvote/downvote system.
#clairedammit So do you support what she says in the post? Choose wisely.
@Shadow Most misogynistic posts are downvoted, or only get support from a few men.
Fuck off.
@clairedammit Do you support the words she typed? It is a simple question.
@ConservativeCrusader:
Golly you’re a slippery one. What I said was that we don’t have posts from the majority of MRAs, which would be the most accurate evidence of their views. What we do have are upvote and downvote totals, which (while not perfect) are an indication of what is accepted by the community and would “suggest the overall opinions of MRAs.”
David includes upvotes with every post these days, and is sure to usually highlight the ones that are upvoted more than downvoted by a fair margin.
There’s your evidence.
You’re onto us. David has only been posting about this stuff daily for about 2 years.
@ConservativeCrusader
Most of the comments that David quotes have more upvotes than downvotes. See, for example, the one quoted right here. Not exactly the best thread to make this argument.
No, it’s not a simple question. Go read some older posts here.
2 upvotes, 1 downvote doesn’t really count.
I could post vile feminist shit all day just be looking at the feminist tumblr tag. But I would fucking VOMIT.
LMAO.
obama was smuggled into the united states to use his baby powers to establish feminism, thus empowering hillary clinton to run for president but lose so she could become secretary of state, start a war with libya, and destabilize the region so that kenya could create a pan-african empire, then enslave western women on behalf of islam.
it’s pretty simple. the protocols of the elders of narnia basically spells it out.
Personally, I think the writer goes a bit over-board with reguards to porn and sex workers. Only a bit though… it’s true that both these things are heavily influenced by, and heavily influence, a culture of normalizing “taking sex” from women (ie rape). Then again, there are kinks related to dom/sub relationships with women as subs that technically should be free to be explored by consenting adults. It’s complicated, but the blog post is mostly on the right side of the issue.
Simple enough for you?
it’s funny how conservativecrusader is all up in arms about being called a misogynist, but he’s not willing to take the obvious step of proving he doesn’t actually hate women
@Sharculese
You left out the part about Saudia Arabia being a who*riarchy, where the women bully the men into doing all of the hard work, like driving and voting, so they can stay at home all day and be lazy.
So do it. This blog has spent two years highlighting misogyny within the MRM. If you can do the same then go for it. And while you’re at it, why don’t you provide evidence -with links and citations, like David- of MRAs who are not misogynistic.
Dude, on the side of the thread it says 45 upvotes and 18 downvotes. Now, I don’t know if it’s tabulating for the whole thread, in which case it’s a testament to their stupidity, or the original post, in which case it’s a testament to their misogyny.
Okay, if ConservativeCrusader is Varpole/Butthorn/antiManboobz/Steele he is in the running for the most sockpuppets ever. Though I think he is behind a certain Mr. A with a L.
@ConservativeCrusader:
Just do the fucking research, man. We don’t have all day to put the evidence right in front of you when there’s such an easy search bar. Somebody’s already pointed you to the results to look through! Not every post is “2 upvotes, 1 downvote,” the good majority of them (and the really vile ones) are heavily upvoted.
*thier misogyny and stupidity that should say