So earlier this month the feminist writer and serial-misogynist-annoyer Lindy West announced that she was leaving her job at Jezebel “to work on personal projects. (I am also available for freelance. Hire me!)”
I took this to mean that she was leaving her job at Jezebel to work on personal projects and do freelance work, because this is something that writers, especially talented writers with a lot of options, sometimes do.
Over in the Manosphere, though, the fellas had a rather different interpretation, which went something like this HA HA THE FAT SLUT GOT FIRED HER CAREER IS OVER WE WON YIPPEEEEEEEEE!!!
Heartiste – real name James Wiedmann – is a proudly racist, woman-hating “pickup artist” guru known for advocating manipulative and often quite abusive “game” techniques to give men the upper hand in relationships and in the dating market. These run the gamut from emotional abuse – what he calls “dread game,” an elaborate portfolio of gaslighting ploys to keep women feeling insecure and off-balance – to straightforward physical abuse – slapping women “when necessary” to assert “alpha male” dominance.
Now he’s suggesting that wannabe lotharios borrow some tips on how to “game” women from the Duluth Power and Control Wheel, a widely used violence intervention tool designed to fight abuse, not provide a blueprint for it.
The Duluth Wheel highlights some of the most prevalent kinds of abusive behavior. Heartiste mines its descriptions of abuse for dating tips, claiming to find in it “a few curious nuggets of anti-feminist truth about relationships and how to keep them going.”
In his recent post, Heartiste goes through some of the descriptions of abusive behavior on the Duluth Wheel – and recasts them as handy tools for would-be “alpha males.”
Step 1) Post an 800-word rant on the Red Pill subreddit starting with the sentence “Women are shit.”
Step 2) There is no step 2.
TRUE STORY.
I’ve seen the rant, and now you can see it too. If you’re not masochistic enough to click on that link, I’m not going to subject you to the whole thing. It contains so much pure misogyny per square inch that reading it wore me out. So I’m just going to post some giant chunks of it, make a few jokes, and then take the rest of the day off.
Feminists made me a misogynist: from Masculinist India
Congratulations, A Voice for Men. You are having an impact upon the world.
Or at least upon one organization in India, a truly reprehensible group called Masculinist India, which has adopted the histrionic rhetorical style, and even some of the specific arguments, advanced by AVFM and other North American Men’s Rights groups for a series of graphically challenged “masculinist” memes posted on Facebook and on the group’s web page. Masculinist India has even adopted AVFM’s preferred nomenclature, describing its members as “Men’s Human Rights Activists.” They are of course the complete opposite of “human rights” activists, campaigning instead against basic rights for women.
The influence of AVFM and other Western Men’s Rightsers can been seen again and again in Masculinist India’s posts and memes, which have all the sophistication and subtlety of Chick Tracts.
The “feminists made me a misogynist” logic of the meme above, for example, echoes the argument made in “Hate Bounces,” an influential MRA screed by MRA/MGTOW elder “Zed,” and by countless other MRAs including former AVFM Number Two John Hembling.
Other memes borrow not only the arguments of Western MRAs but recycle the same tired stock photos, like the angry woman in this meme, a favorite amongst Western MRAs.
So here’s a new perspective on the whole “should we allow women to take over the tech industry or any other industry” question, courtesy of the Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology blog. Yes, women, if you want to run a business or an industry you apparently have to check with the dudes at the Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology blog first.
In a post titled “Why We Don’t Want Women Taking Over Tech Or Any Other Industry,” the ironically named “Reality forever” explains that women shouldn’t be allowed to run anything because, well, women are terrible and apparently love making everyone go to meetings:
The long wait is over! #GamerGate Bingo is here! Well, here, actually. Go there for your very own randomly generated bingo card, and get playing!
Also, I can edit the list of phrases that’s being used to make the cards, so if you have ideas for new phrases, or you want to improve the wording of one that’s already there, or you think one of them should be removed for being redundant or too obscure or too obvious or whatever, let me know in the comments!
A little realization hit me while I was watching videos about #GamerGate recently. MRAs and #GamerGaters really seem to enjoy depicting themselves as cartoon villains. Above, the skull-in-a-Koolaid-pitcher mascot of MRA videoblogger Bane666au.
Below, a screencap from a video by Mundane Matt, one of the movers and shakers behind the whole #GamerGate thing.
I found this “meme” on the A Voice for Men Forums, and it was too special not to share.
The AVFM “Graphics and Art” forum is kind of a gold mine for baffling and terrible “memes,” terribly drawn comics, and “graphics” that aren’t really graphics at all — like, for example, these graphicallychallenged entries:
“Surly Amy” Roth, a Los Angeles artist and writer for Skepchick, has created an art installation that attempts to capture and convey what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the relentless abuse she and too many other outspoken women face online.
With the help of members of the Los Angeles Women’s Atheist and Agnostic Group, Roth has built a small office-within-an-office inside the The Center For Inquiry-Los Angeles – and covered every surface with printouts of actual harassing messages sent to her and an assortment of other misogynist bete noires, including Rebecca Watson, Amanda Marcotte, Soraya Chemaly and Lindy West.
There is a false notion that online spaces are not real. That what happens online does not have an effect on the regular day-to-day life of people. As we have seen recently with the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence, high profile women are seen as mere objects and targets or play-things meant to be stolen, acquired and used- that if they can not handle these made up rules- that they should leave the internet and all forms of technology behind.
My art exhibit is meant to put you, the viewer, in their shoes if only for a moment. See what it is like to be obsessively judged based on “fuck-ability”, “rape-ability”, as an object, or alternatively as what seems to be a target in a socially accepted (or otherwise ignored) game of online stalking, harassment and silencing techniques.
The opening reception for “A Woman’s Room Online” is tonight, September 13th at 7pm at the Center for Inquiry in Los Angeles; the installation will remain up through Oct. 13th.
