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?
@kirbywarp So you think that shit like “He has gone to a strip club.” “He frames discussions of pornography in terms of “freedom of speech.”” are just “Over-the-top” statements?
Sexism when men do it, “over-the-top” when feminists do it!
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Mikey, you don’t have to come up with a new screen name every time you think of something new to argue about with us. We’re always goIng to think you’re an idiot, no matter what your name is.
Still. Even if misogynistic comments were upvoted 2 and downvoted 1, what does it say about a subreddit that’s consistently only a little bit misogynistic? That doesn’t bode well for you, Steele.
Steele?
That’s like saying that conservative posts on r/conservative get upvoted, ergo, all redditors are conservatives. Get your shit together.
Cc said: That’s like saying that conservative posts on r/conservative get upvoted, ergo, all redditors are conservatives. Get your shit together.
So…. What you’re saying is, r/mensrights is misogynist?
CC, do you think “going to strip clubs” et. al. are an essential, unchangeable trait of being a man? Or is it behavior that some men engage in that all men have control over?
I’ll put it another way. I have a coworker who interrupts everyone, but especially me, for some reason. If I hate the fact that he interrupt everyone but especially me, am I a misandrist?
@Molly Are you saying all redditors are conservatives?
Feminism: a mostly successful movement that everyone has heard of and has improved the lives of millions of girls and women worldwide.
The MRM: a total failure that has affected 0% of policy, and one that most people haven’t heard of, and laugh at when it’s explained to them.
Case closed.
@ConservativeCrusader:
http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/04/14/tucker-carlson-strippers-shouldnt-be-treated-like-normal-women.htm
In our society, if a woman sells sex, then she is treated as if she consents to everything. It leads to them being raped because they “obviously like it” or some other bullshit. I’m not involved in the industry, so you shouldn’t take my word for it. But this is what the author of the post is referring to.
Same thing with pornography. If a woman does porn, she is open to harassment because “she must enjoy it,” and again she is treated as though she consents to everything. When I said “over-the-top,” I really should have said blunt. Because there is a very valid point here.
“Over-the-top” statements in the MRM though… that’s along the lines of “women deserve to be raped and killed.” There is no point. There’s just misogyny and violence.
@fembot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
Damn, I responded to steele?
*runs off to take a shower*
@ConservativeCrusader:
No, that’s like saying that conservative posts on r/conservative get upvoted, ergo, redditors on r/conservative are mostly conservative. Get your reading comprehension together.
@kirbywarp
In our society, if a woman sells sex, then she is treated as if she consents to everything. It leads to them being raped because they “obviously like it” or some other bullshit. I’m not involved in the industry, so you shouldn’t take my word for it. But this is what the author of the post is referring to.
(Citation needed. Also, she was referring to strippers in general.)
Same thing with pornography. If a woman does porn, she is open to harassment because “she must enjoy it,” and again she is treated as though she consents to everything. When I said “over-the-top,” I really should have said blunt. Because there is a very valid point here.
(Citation needed. Again she does not bring this up and it has nothing to do with rape. You are making her arguments for her. She is simply anti-porn)
“Over-the-top” statements in the MRM though… that’s along the lines of “women deserve to be raped and killed.” There is no point. There’s just misogyny and violence.
(Citation needed.)
(Also: http://evebitfirst.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/a-rant/ Dear Men: Die. How long will you defend a sexist, yet go apeshit over MRAs?)
Funny enough (urk), there are far too many redditors who are misogynists, pedophiles, peophile-apologists, rape-apotists, and so on. You should give r/ShitRedditSays a read some time. They’re very good at condensing all the shit on reddit together into one big dung heap.
@Conservative Crusader
So you DO know what fallacies are? Doh.
I’m not arguing that feminism is successful or justified because it’s popular. It’s not very popular, at the moment. I’m arguing that the entire world has heard of it because it is successful and justified.
Cc said:@Molly Are you saying all redditors are conservatives?
Nope. But people in the conservative subreddit are.
Feminism is a legimitate movement. Whereas the MRM is somewhere between white supremecism and AIDS denialism in terms of credibility.
@kirbywarp Stop dodging my shit. You defended a sexist feminist, and now are trying to change the subject.
You can’t hide the person you really are.
@fembot “The entire world has heard of it, ergo, it is successful and justified” Open mouth, insert foot.
Legitimate. Fuck. I kan spel.
@ConservativeCrusader:
Already told you, I’m not involved with the field. Do your own research or find someone who knows the subject.
The post itself is blunt. I’m extracting what I believe to be her point. She may disagree immensely with me, big deal. I’m not dead-set on representing her views or agreeing with everything she says.
Read some Demonspawn from r/MensRights some time. Read this blog, there are some posts on very violent things the MRM says.
See above, I’m not interested in representing this bloggers view or defending/agreeing with everything she says. She is not the sole arbiter of feminism.
@fembot Feminists focusing on issues that affect women = Glorious.
MRAs who focus on issues that affect men = Sexist, similar to the nazis
I didn’t say that, turd. Don’t put quotes around it when I didn’t even say that. Don’t you even know how to use quotation marks? But keep fucking that chicken.
Moving a little fast, there, pal. Was it a dodge to point out a piss-poor metaphor of yours?
Stop putting words in my mouth you shit troll.
ConservativeCrusader really likes to paraphrase instead of quote. Says more about him then about us, since he’s the one putting words in are mouths.
Is this that guy from way back who used to pretend to quote people and have them say stuff like ” is awesome and he makes all the girls wet?” Just got a bit of nostalgia there.