We Hunted The Mammoth
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, elegantchorus has provided the definitive mansplaination as to why the apparent sexism in the tech world isn’t really sexism.
He starts by addressing one recent controversy: the lack of any female presenters at a press event for Sony’s Playstation 4. Sexism — or just the whimsical finger of fate?
Wow. The vitriol directed at Adria Richards by the angry dudes of Reddit was so extreme it even had Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian feeling a bit embarrassed by the monster he helped to create. In a blog post earlier this week, Ohanian chided the
(otherwise reasonable-seeming) people I saw who were comfortable and self-righteous in calling a woman a bitch/cunt/etc from their Twitter, Hacker News, or, yes, reddit account. …
The comments (and support for them) I’ve seen over the past few days have really disappointed me … This isn’t “political correctness,” this is you having the courage to use your words to create an environment that promotes an open exchange of ideas — not alienate people and certainly not terrorize them.
He reminded the “not-poor straight white men” who dominate the tech world that many of them were once the victims of bullies themselves.
Growing up, we typically weren’t picked first for sports, but were first on the Quake II server. Few people really understood our peculiar hobbies or how amazing it was to see “Hello, world” for the first time. Plenty of us got used to being ignored. Many of us were bullied. But what did we learn from it — empathy or hate?
We need to know the answer, because suddenly we are the cool kids. They’re making movies about us. We’re “rock stars.” Holy shit, the rest of the world is finally realizing how awesome we are. The geek has inherited the earth. And now that we’re the powerful ones, we need to remember: with great power comes great responsibility. It’s irresponsible to continue to act as though we are victims.
Now, there are more than a few problems with Ohanian’s plea for tolerance, up to and including all that self-aggrandizing crap at the end. On Buzzfeed, John Herrman describes Ohanian’s post as a “strategic response to a real problem.” As Herrman notes, the blog post
distances Ohanian from the site he helped create. Here, he is a commentator, not a leader. It’s a baldly political move: By identifying as a geek and then criticizing geek culture, he joins an ongoing conversation about tolerance in tech; but by minimizing Reddit’s role in driving the backlash against Adria Richards (its /r/mensrights community is raising money for the “vicims” of Richards), and characterizing the site’s actions as a reflection of a larger problem rather than a possible cause, Ohanian exonerates himself.
Technically, it was the Red Pill subreddit that started that laughable Feminist Victims Fund, but it’s certainly the case that Men’s Rights Redditors have been some of the loudest Adria Richards haters on the Internet.
Despite Herrman’s criticism, which I think is generally on the mark, Ohanian’s post is still quite striking. Apparently one of the architects of Reddit is beginning not only to realize but to publicly acknowledge just how toxic the culture on Reddit can be.
The big question now is whether or not the powers-that-be at Reddit will do anything about it.
EDITED TO ADD: In other news, the Daily Dot reports that Reddit’s new meme is just a topless woman who agrees with you.
So here’s an interesting story: The creator of the popular I Fucking Love Science Facebook page recently got a Twitter account.
Oh, I know that doesn’t sound all that interesting, but here’s the thing: When she got the Twitter account, she revealed to her Facebook fans that she was, in fact, a she.
This apparently shocked and confused a large portion of her readership. A … Woman? But … but … SCIENCE?! But there she was, with a woman’s name — Elise Andrew — and a woman’s face and everything.
Over on Hello Giggles, Julia Gazdag — also rumored to be a woman — reports on the reaction to Elise Andrew’s Big Reveal. Some chick at Reuters also did a piece on it.
(Thanks, Elizabeth, for pointing me to this story.)
Some epic we-hunted-the-mammoth ranting from the Men’s Rights subreddit.
I should note — before some angry MRA does — that the thread I found this in is devoted to an outrageously hateful and over-the-top “kill all men” rant someone posted as a comment on Pharyngula. Naturally, no one there agrees with “Etienne,” nor do I. Indeed, I don’t allow those kinds of comments here, but the plain fact is that I never, as in literally not once that I can remember, get comments like that from feminists. I do get plenty of violent comments from MRAs, though; in the past week alone I’ve censored comments from people who gave themselves the usernames rapeabitch, RapeMan, and Woman Beater.
I‘m beginning to wonder if every single complaint from manosphere misogynists comes back to their rage at the fact that women get to decide who can have sex with them. Take the following comment from MGTOWforums.com. The ostensible topic of conversation? A study reporting that women tend to feel more stressed than men at work. Watch how deftly MGTOWforums “senior member” 7 Deadly Sins turns the topic from “women in the workplace” to “my sad penis.”
They wanted to work so now they’re working. Oh work is too hard and stressing you out? Too bad. You wanted to be career whores, right ? Enjoy. If you give women what they ask for, they still want more. Who cares if they’re stressed out? They can always get dicked down and take some of the edge off. Men can’t get sex whenever they “feel” like it. Nobody cares what you whores think or feel any more.
Damn. That’s some pretty intense boner rage there, dude.
So we’ve been talking a lot about the MRA response to the Adria Richards firing over the past few days, but (like a lot of the regulars here, I suspect) I’ve had one lingering question in my mind: what does eminent MRA philosopher Cooter Bee think about all of this? Well I am pleased to report that Mr. Bee has finally weighed in on the subject in a comment over on The Spearhead.
Always a model of thoughtfulness and restraint, Mr. Bee suggests that the best way to deal with the problem of women in technology – rightfully a man’s place – is for men in tech to go on a giant man strike until civilization starts to crumble:
Men! Worried that eveil feminists will destroy your life and your financial future because, apparently, they have that power and love to destroy men’s lives for fun?
Fear no more, because Reddit’s Men’s Rightsers have your back! Mods of Reddit’s RedPill subreddit have started something called the Feminist Victims Fund, which will enable brave freedom fighters to send what will inevitably be a tiny amount of money to that dude who got fired after Adria Richards complained about a sexist joke he made, even though it wasn’t Richards who fired him and indeed she’s said she hopes he gets hired back!
Make sure you donate now, because Reddit’s MRAs will soon grow bored with this bold initiative and it will be completely forgotten, much like the massive Sink Misandry protest in Washington DC last year which actually didn’t even happen, come to think of it.
Here’s the pitch:
Feminism has caused some serious changes to our culture, to our society, and to our lives. We focus on some that are affected more than others, and we give back.
Our goal is to encourage men to speak out, to be men, to not fear oppression and enjoy their freedom of speech. Unfortunately in today’s climate, being a man has become a financial liability. Say the wrong thing in the wrong place and you can find your entire life ruined. Destroyed.
Feminists have fought for equality, but now they’re out for our rights.
They’re destroying us financially. They’re trying to tear apart our families.
We’re saying that enough is enough. No longer should men fear masculinity. No longer should speaking up risk a man his job, career, or family.
It’s time to rise up against the tyranny. It’s time to tell men it’s ok to speak up. We’re here for you. This is the Feminist Victims Fund.
Did I mention that you can donate using BITCOIN? In case you were worried that this thing wasn’t Reddity enough.
As Buzzfeed notes, one of the “board members” of the new fund is pickup guru and predatory douchebag misogynist Roosh V. On his blog yesterday, Roosh happily celebrated the harassment and vilification of Adria Richards in a post with the lovely title “American Feminist Adria Richards Gets Gang Raped By The Internet.”
Speaking of rape, Roosh is also the author of a booklet titled Bang Iceland, in which he admits that, well, he’s kind of a rapist himself. Buzzfeed quotes this rather revealing passage from the book, in which Roosh recalls a “date” he had in Iceland:
While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she legally couldn’t give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated. I won’t rationalize my actions, but having sex is what I do.
What a humanitarian.
And so the Internet has found a new woman to hate. Most of you are probably already familiar with the Adria Richards debacle that’s developed over the past several days. If not, Jill at Feministe has a good summary of events:
Adria Richards, formerly of the company SendGrid, was at a tech conference this week when some dudes behind her made a series of inappropriate and sexual jokes. Annoyed by the pervasiveness of misogyny in the tech world, she snapped a photo of them and put in on Twitter with a complaint. One of the conference organizers spoke to the men and they apologized. Totally reasonable! Good response, PyCon. Later, one of the dudes got fired. Instead of getting mad at the company that made the choice to fire him, the internet hordes descended on Adria. She was on the receiving end of rape and death threats. Her address and phone number were published. Her blog and her company’s website came under DDoS attack. Oh and then her company, SendGrid, fired her.
Like Jill, I think firing someone for a “dongle” joke is an overreaction, to say the least. But Richards wasn’t responsible for that; indeed, she told the fired man she hoped his employer would reconsider and take him back.
So there’s a young woman who attends a “a small liberal arts school.” She majors in Philosophy, and minors in Women’s Studies. And she has a job as an aide for one of her feminist professors.
Her big brother disapproves of her academic choices and the fact that she’s a — wait for it — feminist. And apparently he expresses his disapproval to her at every opportunity. He’s a Men’s Rights Activist, you see, and arguing with his sister is evidently an important form of activism for him. He writes:
The regulars at PUAhate.com – we’ve met them before — are a strange and bitter bunch. Most seem to be self-loathing so-called “incels” who blame their lack of romantic and sexual success on their average or below-average looks. Rejecting the basic premise of the pickup artist crowd – that average guys can transform themselves into suave lotharios by mastering manipulative pickup formulas – the PUAhate regulars tend to be true believers in what they somewhat pretentiously call “looks theory,” the odd and obviously untrue notion that women only date men with “male model” looks.
As one PUAhater put it recently:
PUA makes you think that all your problems are because of your personality/behaviour – i.e. things you can control. So when you keep failing, it means that YOU are fucking up and doing things wrong
the reality is that many of us just lost the genetic lottery. we are ugly, the wrong race, the wrong height etc, and that fucked us up. there is NOTHING we can do about it
So, naturally, the PUAhaters spend a lot of their time jealous of tall, good-looking men for their supposed monopoly on the women of the world — whom they also hate.
But the strange thing is that the PUAhaters pretty much hate everyone else as well. They get angry when guys they consider ugly score “hot chicks.” They get angry when guys who are good-looking but not male models get attention from “really hot girls.” And so on, and so on, and so on.
Indeed, many of the regulars seem to walk around in a perpetual state of rage, angry at each and every man who’s managed to pair up with a woman, not to mention the women as well.
One regular recently described his “day from hell” to his comrades:
To start the day I saw a couple where it was an average White guy with an OBESE Asian girl. They were walking around acting like they were trying to prove shit. LMAO. I wanted to kick the guy in the fucking nuts for dating that landwhale. If you’re going to use the racial advantage, at least date a girl who is under 300lbs. Later I go to the gym and see the same tall guys I usually do. Even if I had a good face, how the fuck do you compete with guys who are fucking 6’4”?
Then at the gym there’s this good looking White guy there talking to this Asian dude about how Asian girls are easy and how they approach him. To make things worse after that these fucking frat douchebags come in with their girlfriends to show off . Then to cap off the day a girl I used to know from freshman year walks right past me without even saying anything. I used to fucking live next door to this bitch and now she doesn’t even say anything and acts like a pretentious cunt. She’s an Indian girl dating a White dude lmao. Days like today make you wonder why you even still try in the first place.
Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, most of those posting on PUAhate don’t actually seem to be ugly by anyone’s standards but their own, at least judging from the pictures of themselves they sometimes post to the site, which reveal them to be mostly average-looking guys, with some of the regulars even quite conventionally handsome.
But evidently they would rather believe that they have “lost the genetic lottery” rather than face a more obvious explanation for why the girls don’t like them: because they’re shallow, self-obsessed assholes who hate themselves and hate women and radiate their bitterness from every pore. (And some are even creepier than this, like this pedophile – sorry, ephebophile – who’s angry at me personally because unlike him I don’t chase after 15-year-olds. Link NSFW.)
The PUAhaters often talk about getting surgeries to “correct” their supposed genetic flaws. They would do far better to spend that money on therapy.