{"id":1441,"date":"2015-01-03T16:36:18","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2015-01-03T17:10:19","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T17:10:19","slug":"feminism-and-bullying-any-difference-whatsoever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/2015\/01\/03\/feminism-and-bullying-any-difference-whatsoever\/","title":{"rendered":"Feminism and bullying: any difference whatsoever?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Alexander has a post out on Western feminism<\/a>, specifically about how it seems to be centered around hating and shaming socially disaffected white males.\u00a0 The inspiration was a previous post by Scott Aaronson<\/a> wrote an article about how, as a clueless young nerd, he internalized so much toxic shame about being attracted to women that he actually sought chemical castration so he wouldn’t hurt women.<\/p>\n

Feminists promptly decided that this meant that he was just a misogynist who believed that women were just there to provide him with sex.<\/p>\n

And Scott Alexander went to town on them about this<\/a>.\u00a0 Please read it, it is a thing of beauty.\u00a0 In short, feminists speak a lot about “slut shaming”, that women are made to feel ashamed of their sexual desires.\u00a0 Yet they invest a massive amount of time an effort into “creep shaming”, making men feel so ashamed of their sexuality to the point that some of them actually consider self-mutilating to escape from the shame.<\/p>\n

The past is over. I do not hold, and have never held, any ill will toward the women who rejected me. Some of them continue to be my close friends. Some of them I\u2019ve talked to about this Scott Aaronson thing, and even they agree with me on it<\/i>. Nor did Aaronson mention any ill will to anyone who rejected him. Talking about how nerds should let go of our past resentment to our crushes is a giant red herring.<\/p>\n

What this entire discussion is about is our very present resentment toward the (some) feminists who continue to perpetuate the stereotypes that hurt us then, continue to attack us now whenever we talk about the experience or ask them to stop, and continue to come up with rationalizations for why they don\u2019t have to stop. This isn\u2019t about little Caitlin who wouldn\u2019t return my eye contact in seventh grade, this is about Amanda Marcotte, Jezebel, Gawker, and an entire system that gets its jollies by mocking us and trying to twist the knife.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This.\u00a0 A thousand times this.\u00a0 Full disclosure: prior to massive amounts of deprogramming I was<\/em> the shame ridden one considering mutilation.\u00a0 It is not past I like to revisit.<\/p>\n

The best, the absolute very best <\/em>you can expect from feminists in responses to this is “I’m sorry that that happened to you, but you need to get over it, and, anyway, others have it worse”.<\/p>\n

Imagine this flipped around.\u00a0 Anyone here remember Richard Dawkins’ infamous “Dear Muslima…” comment?\u00a0 Dawkins suggested that a clumsy offer of coffee was nothing compared with what women under Islam have to suffer, and the offer was no cause for all this whining and people needed to get over it.\u00a0 Result: an outrage storm for a year, one that still breaks out from time to time, and Dawkins was thrown under the bus by bloggers like PZ Myers, who owe their fame largely to Dawkins’ patronage.<\/p>\n

As will surprise absolutely no one, Myers has written the following post,<\/a> arguing that it’s a pity that Aaronson suffered but he needs to get over it and get on..\u00a0 Some of his commentators try to say, at least, that this is a “Dear Muslima…”, and get flayed in the comments.\u00a0 Of course, there’s a big difference.\u00a0 Dawkins “Dear Muslima…” was saying “You need to get over a cack-handed offer of coffee”.\u00a0 Myers is saying “you need to get over a lifetime of toxic shaming that still goes on, and is so potent it can drive people to consider self-mutilation or even suicide.”<\/p>\n

Now Alexander seems an incredibly decent person.\u00a0 He actually is what American “liberals” like to claim they are.\u00a0 So\u00a0 perhaps he can answer this: Alexander says that (Western) feminism has a serious problem of bullying in it.\u00a0 What I want to know is: is there anything other<\/em> than the serious problem of bullying in Western feminism?<\/p>\n

Let’s dispense with the whole “Feminism just means you believe in equality between the sexes” thing.\u00a0 That’s about as convincing as “Communism just means you want a worker’s paradise” or “The White Man’s Burden just means you think that the nations lucky enough to develop first have a moral obligation to the rest”.\u00a0 It doesn’t convince anyone who hasn’t already drunk the kool-aid.<\/p>\n

In the piece, Alexander notes that nerds are the ones who least<\/em> fit the profiles of rapist, abusers, sexists or similar.\u00a0 Yet even a cursory experience with Western feminism finds that the group that is most attacked and vilified by feminists are nerds.\u00a0 If I think of the main cases of feminist outrage that have been in the news, here are the ones that spring to mind.\u00a0 Gamergate.\u00a0 The umpteenth complain that Dawkins is part of sexist culture in the skeptisphere.\u00a0 The shaming and humiliation of the man who landed a spacecraft on an asteroid<\/a>.\u00a0 The expulsion of MIT mathematics professor Walter Lewin.\u00a0 The hounding of president-elect of the US college of surgeons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyone notice any common denominator?<\/p>\n

Again, this isn’t to say that there aren’t sexist cultures out there.\u00a0 For example, one could talk about ‘frat’ culture in America.\u00a0 Or the problem of rape in the US armed forces.\u00a0 Or, of course, the Godfather of all rape and misogynist cultures, Islam.<\/p>\n

Funny, I don’t seem to any wave of outrage about any of these that even begins to equal Gamergate or “Dear Muslima…”<\/p>\n

The only thing I can remember about frat culture is a completely fabricated rape story<\/a>, and when I wrote about the manosphere<\/a>, the most common source of bitterness was watching women leap into bed with men who were the opposite of every feminist tenet they preached<\/a>.\u00a0 Aaronson noted the same thing:<\/p>\n

The same girls who I was terrified would pepper-spray me and call the police if I looked in their direction, often responded to the crudest advances of the most Neanderthal of men by accepting<\/i> those advances. Yet it was I, the nerd, and not<\/i> the Neanderthals, who needed to check his privilege and examine his hidden entitlement!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The issue of sexual assault in the army was covered in a heart freezing documentary The Invisible War<\/em><\/a> has sunk without a trace.\u00a0 And as regards Islam, since Scott Alexander cites Laurie Penny, let me note that the first hits that google returned for “Laurie Penny Islam” are her calling David Starkley<\/a> racist for speaking about the rape and exploitation of children, and that complaints about sex segregation in UK universities are just ‘Islamophobia<\/a>‘.\u00a0 This is even before I’ve mentioned the way that American feminists defend Bill Clinton en masse.<\/p>\n

Check again Alexander’s list of what nerds get called, routinely, by feminists, and look:<\/p>\n

I live in a world where feminists throwing weaponized shame at nerds is an obvious and inescapable part of daily life. Whether we\u2019re \u201cmouth-breathers\u201d, \u201cpimpled\u201d, \u201cscrawny\u201d, \u201cblubbery\u201d, \u201csperglord\u201d, \u201cneckbeard\u201d, \u201cvirgins\u201d, \u201cliving in our parents\u2019 basements\u201d, \u201cman-children\u201d or whatever the insult du jour is, it\u2019s always, always<\/i>, ALWAYS a self-identified feminist saying it. Sometimes they say it obliquely, referring to a subgroup like \u201cbronies\u201d or \u201catheists\u201d or \u201cfedoras\u201d while making sure everyone else in nerddom knows it\u2019s about them too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reality check: can you imagine any Western feminist – any Western feminist at all <\/em>– not throwing a gigantic outrage tantrum about anyone using any similar language about Muslims, even after Rotherham?<\/p>\n

There’s no way to have this both ways.\u00a0 Either we can be Prussian about this, say that people need to learn to suffer without complaining, and I can dismiss western feminists as weaklings and whiners, or we can say that all suffering is worthy of care and consideration, and I can call western feminists on their silence, as hypocrites as well as weaklings and whiners.<\/p>\n

At the very least this suggests a demented list of priorities.\u00a0 If your aim is the equality and emancipation of women, shouldn’t the worst problems be targeted first?\u00a0 If you want women to be treated with respect, why spend all your time attacking those who are least offensive? Does this make any sense whatsoever?<\/p>\n

But what if something else is going on here?<\/p>\n

I wrote that the complaints from US leftists about “white people”<\/a> are really complains about “working class people”.\u00a0 Complains about “white people” are a way to show that you<\/em> aren’t like any of those<\/em> people.\u00a0 Not Quite Our Class Dear.<\/p>\n

Western feminism is completely understandable and predictable if you assume that it is first and foremost a system of bullying.\u00a0 Then the list of priorities makes complete sense.\u00a0 If your interest is to wield power over others, then whom do you chose to go after?\u00a0 Obviously the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

‘Bad boys’ get a pass by feminists because they’re good lays, but nerds – well, what use are they really<\/em>?\u00a0 Are western feminists really so different from the ‘in’ crowd in high school?\u00a0 Are they really so different from the cheerleader who gets the footballer she’s fucking to beat up nerds?<\/p>\n

(I don’t want to make any connection with the fact that certain ‘skepchicks’ like to pose in the buff in their pictures, but I guess I just did)<\/p>\n

‘How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’<\/span><\/p>\n

Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The people who read this are going to say that I’m saying that western feminists are the equivalent of Orwell’s Thought Police.\u00a0 Of course I’m saying nothing of the kind.\u00a0 But this passage has always stuck with me, as it explains the nature of power and dominance so well.<\/p>\n

If it helps – and I know it won’t – the first time I used it I was giving advice to a girl on getting out<\/em> of an abusive relationship.<\/p>\n

Look again at what O’Brien defines as the essence of power.\u00a0 Pain and humiliation, and tearing other people’s minds apart so you can put them together as you wish.\u00a0 Now read Aaronson about how he was so ashamed of his own sexuality that he wanted to be castrated rather than live with it.\u00a0 Tell me there’s not a ghost of a resemblance.<\/p>\n

Now, again, western feminists are not<\/em> the thought police.\u00a0 They do not have torture chambers, telescreens, spies and snitches, or summary executions.\u00a0 What feminists have is shame.\u00a0 Shame is one of the most powerful emotions there is.\u00a0 It is the foundation of human society.\u00a0 It is so strong that it can drive people to fight and die, or kill themselves.\u00a0 Its effect, especially on the shy and the outcast and the unsure, is enormous.<\/p>\n

Here’s Aaronson again:<\/p>\n

From my perspective, [feminist nerd bullying] serves only to shift blame from the Neanderthals and ass-grabbers onto some of society\u2019s least<\/i> privileged males, the ones who were themselves victims of bullying and derision, and who acquired enough toxic shame that way for appealing to their shame to be an effective way to manipulate their behavior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Compare and contrast the shame that homosexuals were typically made to feel about being who they were.\u00a0 Interestingly, Alexander quotes a lesbian friend of his who notes that instead of being made to feel ashamed of wanting women while being a woman, she is made to feel ashamed of wanting women, period<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0 if western feminism is just plain bullying, then we should also expect cowardice.\u00a0 All bullies are cowards, and are quick to prostrate themselves before the bigger thug.\u00a0 Street punks instinctively avoid heavy hitters and mobsters.<\/p>\n

The problem with feminists relying on shame as their weapon is that you cannot shame those who are shameless (frat boys, PUAs) or those who are enthralled to a far stronger shaming code (the military way, Islam).\u00a0 Make no mistake about it: when it comes to using shame as a bludgeon, feminists are pikers – the gangbangers and petty hoodlums of shame.\u00a0 Conversely, Islam is the Cosa Nostra of shame, an empire built on shame that has endured over a millennium.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the abject, crawling cowardice western feminists show before Islam makes sense, no?<\/p>\n

There’s a common theme in what you might call “nerd mythology”.\u00a0 All the books and films about the outcast kid.\u00a0 Harry Potter is the most recent example.\u00a0 It’s when the big menace arrives, and the bullies suddenly get theirs<\/em>.\u00a0 So I confess a certain glee at feminists’ prostration before Allah.\u00a0 All of a sudden their big words and big attitudes aren’t of any use.\u00a0 It’s a certain comfort: all those who mobbed Matt Taylor, and Lazar Greenfield, and countless others who are too insignificant for us to ever know their names.\u00a0 All of those will get theirs<\/em>.\u00a0 When the real patriarchy rears its head, they will get theirs,\u00a0<\/em>well and good.<\/p>\n

Now you might say “But surely not all feminists!\u00a0 There are real issues of the oppression of women.\u00a0 Don’t we need people to tackle those?”<\/p>\n

Indeed, and I respect many people in this greatly.\u00a0 Only – feminists don’t seem to. When I think of the great figures I admire, they seem to be loathed by western feminists.\u00a0 Erin Pizzey founded the first shelter for battered women in the UK and received death threats for later saying that men were also victims of domestic abuse.\u00a0 Ayaan Hirsi Ali is either vilified or ignored by western feminists, and I could say the same thing for Nonie Darwish, Sabatina James or Wafa Sultan.\u00a0 Oriana Fallaci and Suzanne Zeller-Hirzel were both feminists of a courage that is hard to credit, beginning with openly fighting Mussolini and Hitler, respectively, and ending in struggle with Islam.\u00a0 I have yet to find a feminist who has a good thing to say about Fallaci, or one who even knows who Zeller-Hirzel was.<\/p>\n

And there’s another thing: when feminism is set up like this, when it becomes clear that the ferocity of its attacks are proportional to the inoffensiveness of its targets, when the worst offenders get a free pass and even defense, and those trying hard to do the right thing are beaten up with their own virtue – then eventually your prior becomes that any major fuss kicked up by feminists is bogus until proven otherwise.\u00a0 That certainly doesn’t do the cause of women’s emancipation any favours.<\/p>\n

This is why I always say that I am 100% in favour of women’s emancipation, perhaps the most important struggle of our time.\u00a0 It is only that I don’t see what feminism has to do with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Alexander has a post out on Western feminism, specifically about how it seems to be centered around hating and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-and-reason","category-uncategorized","category-womens-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1442,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions\/1442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/prussian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}