Category Archives: Gender Politics

MTV and Buzzfeed on being a guy.

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mtv-guy-code

You might want to disable your gag reflex for this one. This involves Buzzfeed. It also involves MTV. And MTV wants to impose their sad ideas of what it means to be a guy on the rest of us.

MTV (more specifically, MTV2) has posted “14 Rules Of (sic) Guy Code That Can Never Be Broken“. That MTV, property of global mass-media corporation Viacom, believes that they are in a position to tell the rest of us how to conduct ourselves as men is, in itself, interesting. But it gets even funnier when you get into the actual content of the article.

Let’s get started.

1. GREET APPROPRIATELY
I. No hug comes without a bro handshake first.
II. No hug comes without a pat on the back after.

The bro hug is the culturally-relevant male greeting of the current half-decade, much in the same way as the fist-bump was in the previous half-decade. And like the fist-bump, the bro hug is mere years from being cycled out, only to occasionally be brought up again by your awkward friends who are a tad behind on things.

Considering the temporary nature of these fad greetings, it’s interesting that MTV is ascribing to it the importance of a rule to never be broken. One might even get the idea that they don’t honestly think that their list will even be relevant in five years, and considers it of no more value than its ability to market a vapid television program.

III. No high fives are given to overeager bros.

Shown in the article is an animated picture of a man attempting to high five a couple people who don’t even notice him. Some rules are self-enforcing.

2. CHOOSE THE RIGHT URINAL
I. No urinal encroachment.

While there is little dispute over this rule, if any, MTV can be criticized for playing it safe for including a nearly universally-known rule. There’s very little point in bringing it up unless there are some specifics to get into, such as whether to take the urinal that is two urinals down from an occupied one, or whether to take the furthest.

II. No short urinals, unless you’re a child or a man-child.

Very short-sighted, MTV. It’s obvious that they’re not thinking to accommodate those who, by reason of substantial length, would require a lower urinal. I’m disappointed, MTV.

III. No loud dick shaking.

I wasn’t aware that this is a serious issue, but apparently, in Viacom’s offices, it is.

3. DON’T LET YOUR GIRL RUN YOUR LIFE
I. No dance classes.

If I suspect that my girlfriend wanted to control my life, The first signs I’d look for would be the ones that are likely to come up sooner. Such as telling me how to put my socks and neckties away. Once it gets to the point of dance classes, the problem is already pretty far advanced.

At this point, I suspect that the author is intentionally setting the bar low, and in so doing, inadvertently revealing something about himself.

II. No reading the same book together as a couples bonding activity.

Wrong. I can think of some books that can be read by couples. Such as the Bible. Also, The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox.

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III. No sharing her clothes even if they’re “unisex” and you like the “silky feel.”

Are you kidding? Is this really such a universal problem that it has to be included in a list of pointers on how to be a guy? It’s as though the author is seriously ignorant or thinks very little of his audience. Did it occur to him that a guy who would wear women’s clothes wouldn’t care about a guy image? Because it’s quite obvious that that wouldn’t be what he’d be going for.

4. DON’T LET YOUR FRIEND’S GIRL RUN YOUR LIFE

You know what? There are people out there that probably actually could use this list. If there is someone out there that has so little confidence that they’re being whipped by a woman that isn’t even putting out for them, they really could benefit from a list that sets the bar so low. Baby steps.

I suspect that the author of this list is projecting, by the way.

I. No dating your friend’s girl before, during, or after their relationship.

If someone else’s girlfriend is running their life, she is very likely the one that started it. What she hopes to gain from playing her game, I don’t know.

II. No telling your friend’s girl about your friend’s other girl.

Why would anyone do this? It’s obvious that he already made his choice, and should be ready for the consequences when the two inevitably find out about each other.

III. No asking your friend’s girl if she has any “biddies” to set you up with.

There are a lot of reasons why I don’t suspect that most people would actually do this, and they generally have to do with the fact that I think more highly of people than MTV does. But then again, MTV is aiming for a particular audience here.

5. PRANK RESPECTFULLY
I. No broken bones.
II. No hijacking their phones.
III. No resulting loans.

Why not level up and not prank? Most pranks involve acts that are illegal.

6. MANAGE YOUR PORN
I. No using your roommate’s laptop.

In general, it’s not a very good idea to use anyone else’s laptop for most purposes, considering that you don’t know what they’ve been doing with it. Not that I don’t let other people use mine, on the principle that it doesn’t hurt for a gun to have an additional set of prints.

II. No writing “reviews” on the message board.

The word “reviews” is in quotation marks, so I suspect it means pretending to be an art connoisseur. In some cases, this can be pretty funny.

III. No waiting up late for live shows to start.

Your mom wants you to get up early for school tomorrow.

7. EAT LIKE A MAN
I. No cutting your pizza with a fork and knife.

If someone cares whether you do this, they probably don’t make a very good friend. Seriously, who cares?

Also, on a related note, there are those who complain about Americans using chop sticks when eating oriental food, particularly Asian servers. We can make a deal: we can pretend to know how to eat with chopsticks, and in exchange, you can pretend that you’re serving real oriental food.

II. No thinking you’re cute if you get foam on your nose from a cappuccino.

It’s not about whether someone actually gets foam on their nose. No, the problem is whether someone thinks they’re cute for it. How is anyone supposed to enforce this? I have no idea, because I’ve never tried anyone for thought crimes.

III. No asking the waiter to cut your hamburger bun in half.

You don’t have to. Hamburger buns are served sliced in half. They pretty much have to be. Otherwise, it’s pretty hard to get the patty between both halves.

8. DRINK LIKE A MAN
I. No asking for a “brewski.”
II. No colored straws, mini umbrellas, or drinks named after movie characters.

It should be obvious at this point that this isn’t so much a list governing guy conduct as it is a list of a miserable person’s pet peeves.

III. No shouting “shots for everyone!” without buying shots for everyone.

Also, never throw your money on the table. People might think you have a lot of the stuff.

9. DON’T BE WEIRD AT THE GYM

So, someone who has never been to the gym is going to attempt to tell us how to behave at a gym? This is going to be a treat. Let’s see what important issues he’s going to touch upon.

I. No running with “toe shoes.”

Picard-Facepalm

II. No looking at your abs in the gym mirror.

Why would anyone want a visual indication of their progress in the very place that they work toward a goal?

III. No group stretching except for extremely tight circumstances.

If an activity makes the author feel uncomfortable, he doesn’t want you to do it, either.

10. BE A GOOD GROOMSMAN
I. No skipping out on the bachelor party because you have a work thing.

While skipping out on a close friend’s special occasion is usually not a good thing, what I find disturbing here is that the author refers to gainful employment as a “work thing”. Believe it or not, a person’s career is usually very important to them. It’s not just their source of income, it’s how they justify their existence among other people. When someone greets you, it’s not rare of them to ask what you do for a living, and assign you a value based on your answer. Men see other men based on what they do with their lives. Because of this, people usually make sacrifices to their hobbies to further their career. Even if it means playing video games for a few fewer hours a day.

II. No making a long speech about how lonely you are.

I suspect that the author identifies with the temptation to do so.

III. No catching the garter.

Understanding this peeve requires understanding the superstition that the man who catches the garter is the next man to marry. The joke is that marriage is avoided by men because if they’re not married, they can keep right on sleeping around. Being married doesn’t prevent a man from doing that. The fidelity is implied. But if a man doesn’t intend to be faithful to any woman, you probably shouldn’t trust him for advice on how to be a better man.

11. KNOW HOW TO TAKE ALL-BRO PICS

MTV wants every guy to be a photographer. Why? I don’t know. Look, some people are better than other people at certain things. It’s why the concept of “pros” exists. If there’s an expert photographer in the group, you have them take the picture, not just any guy in the group.

I. No demanding that everyone look serious and tough.

Why not? It might make a funny picture.

II. No touching if no one else is touching.

Again, if the author feels uncomfortable with something, he doesn’t want anyone else doing it.

III. No forgetting your beach shirt.

MTV wants you to include a Hawaiian shirt in your EDC.

12. REGULATE FLATULENCE

Now those left-wingers want to regulate farting. Them liberals and their regulation of everything is going too far!

I. No denying it.

Unless you didn’t actually do it, right? Fart transparency isn’t some huge issue that I’m aware of. So, who cares? Considering that it’s a natural process with very little if anything in terms of consequences, why should anyone care who does it?

II. No forcing it.

This proves it. MTV is made up of fart hippies who only want their farts to be all-natural. Next thing you know, they’ll be demanding organic farts and gluten free farts. And don’t get me started on vegetarian farts. Those are nasty.

III. No talking about it like it’s art.

For some people, farting is art. Skilled farters exist, just as we have skilled belchers.

13. NO DICK SELFIES
I. No dick selfies for your girlfriend.

The one who would primarily be interested? I thought this was a list for guys. Now you’re trying to tell our girlfriends what they should be interested in?

II. No dick selfies for yourself.

If a person takes a dick-pic for himself, his consent is implied. Just who is he going to upset?

III. No dick selfies for your political future.

As it turns out, MTV is not too left-wing for an Anthony Wiener joke. Though, to be fair, that’s one bandwagon that’s hard to stay off of. Think about the level of impairment it would take to mistake an MMS message for social media. What a world-class blunder.

14. MAINTAIN YOUR BROMANCE

I was a little concerned that someone who would write up a list telling us not to stretch with assistance would be too sexually insecure to give us a few pointers on bromance. Let’s see what wisdom he has to impart.

I. No driving separately to the game.

What game would this be? If this guy is going to give us pointers on how to fart, one would assume that he’d make more than an implication that every man is interested in sports, which isn’t really true, anyway.

II. No being too busy for Mario Kart.

Again, sometimes, people make sacrifices to their hobbies for their careers. A person’s career is important. After all, a person needs money to pay the bills, and to have hobbies like Mario Kart to begin with.

III. No reservations about personal space.

Unless you’re having your picture taken. Or stretching.

THE AFOREMENTIONED ARE OFFICIAL TERMS OF GUY CODE, TO BE UPHELD IN GUY COURT.

If you’ve never heard of Guy Court, it’s a program on MTV2. Viacom saw the potential for marketing through social media, and decided to throw a list on how to be a guy onto a social media outlet, even if it happened to be Buzzfeed, which is populated largely by teenagers who think that they have the world figured out. Even if they didn’t know how.

By the way, Guy Court was cancelled after only 12 episodes in less than 2 months. It seems people don’t want to take advice on how to be manly from MTV. Not that MTV’s audience would be ideal for marketing such a message.

All things considered, this list of guy code rules is pretty pathetic. How about it? Should I make a list of rules on how to be manly? Not that I’d expect everyone to follow it or even take it seriously, but I think I can write something up that would be far more entertaining than Viacom’s sad attempt to market their programming.

Justice served: woman who falsely reported rape jailed

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rachel soderblom

Usually, when we hear a story about a woman falsely accusing a man of rape, we hear about how the allegation tears down every aspect of the man’s life while the woman doesn’t have to face any kind of consequence. The story I’m sharing with you today has a refreshing change of pace.

I’ll preface my next statement with the following: If you’ve actually been raped, report it to the police. That’s the best shot at getting the rapist convicted so he won’t do it again. Don’t wait, just do it, and cooperate with the investigation. You’d be helping society in doing so.

As any SJW or regressive leftist can tell you, if you decide to falsely accuse someone of rape, the last thing you want to do is report it to the police. If attacking someone’s reputation with a false allegation is not beneath you, the most practical way to go about it is to take it to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, pick your social media outlet. However, actually taking it to the police could backfire.

Thirty-four year old Rachel Soderblom of Jackson, Michigan found this out the hard way after falsely reporting to the police that she had been raped. The police used DNA identification to implicate a man who did have sexual relations with her. After the man was arrested, he told his lawyer what had happened, and soon afterwards, police determined that the woman’s story didn’t line up with her friend’s claims that they set her up with him.

For those of you who don’t know the justice system very well, there is a process of questioning and collecting evidence to evaluate the veracity of an accusation. This is what is referred to as an “investigation”. As in, no, don’t count on the police to take everything you say at face value.

Rachel claimed that she was raped at random in a parking lot, when in fact her friends hooked her up with the man, and the two had arranged their sexual encounter with the man making claims that he could “make her go straight”. Rachel eventually fessed up, saying that she invented the claim that she was raped to hide the fact that she cheated on her lesbian partner, and that she did not intend for there to be an arrest.

As a result, Rachel Soderblom was convicted for falsely reporting a felony. She faces 100 days of jail time, followed by two-and-a-half years of probation. She has also been ordered to pay $1483 in fines and legal fees.

Matters like this don’t typically conclude this nicely, and it is great to see a story like this come up to discourage those who are considering the same thing. After all, the criminal justice system is intended for, you know, criminal justice, and is not intended for stupid BS.

One problem I had with this matter is that Soderblom got off way too easy. One hundred days in jail is way to short of a sentence for this kind of thing. As I see it, she should have gotten the very same sentence that she intended for her victim. At least there is a punishment for clogging up the system with BS claims instead of real cases.

To Zoe Quinn: Why does everything have to be about you?

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At E3, Nintendo showed off one of their new software titles, Paper Mario: Color Splash. There was an in-game event which depicted five mushroom men who were called the “Five Fun Guys”, and another character chimed in with the punchline, “Shufflegate: Exposed!”

Zoe Quinn took notice, and believed it to reference Five Guys Burgers and Fries and the Gamergate movement that she herself inadvertently set into motion, and she posted the following to her Twitter feed:

Zoe Quinn shufflegate

To be fair, she did eventually recognize it as a coincidence, and stated so in a Twitter post in an attempt to defuse the situation (short of apologizing to Nintendo, her Twitter followers, and of course Gamergate). However, it was her eagerness to be triggered by this “coincidence” that’s problematic.

Here’s the thing: it wasn’t a coincidence. The routine did reference a real-life event. It’s called the “Watergate” scandal. In the events surrounding the scandal, five men were implicated on suspicion of burglary. Because it was so prominent as a scandal, the “-gate” suffix appends the names of many scandals.

Zoe Quinn and many people who identify as feminists have an apparent inability to recognize an actual coincidence. They actually believe that there is some huge, concerted conspiracy to keep them down. It’s gotten to the point that some of them have criticized the Voyager 1 plaque for depicting the woman as standing behind the man, while the man’s hand is raised in a show of strength. As opposed to, say, offering a friendly greeting?

Pioneer 1 plaque man and woman.png

From here, it looks more like the woman is standing side by side with the man. If anything, the only disservice done to the woman is a refusal to draw her vulva. If aliens find the thing, they’re going to wonder how we reproduce. It’s not like drawing a vertical line on a woman’s groin is going to cause extraterrestrials to dismiss the plaque as pornographic. Notice how the woman’s left toes reach slightly lower than the mans? From the front-on perspective, that would indicate that she’s standing slightly in front of him.

Zoe Quinn, like many feminists, has a reduced ability to recognize something as a coincidence, or at least as a reference to someone or something besides her. Neo-feminists get angry over things because they want to be angry, and they like being angry, because they want to feel justifiably indignant over anything that they can. They may get indignant, but they don’t get to enjoy legitimate justification, because they seldom know what’s actually going on. When they make knee-jerk reactions over every perceived slight, they make themselves look silly. They look silly because they think everything is about them. And yet, they don’t ask why. And that’s a question that neo-feminists need to hear:

Why does everything have to be about you?

And while we’re asking questions, here’s another one: Why not use your head? If there were a random chance that you’d have been born as any organism, you’d have been far more likely to have been born as an ant, because there are approximately one million ants for every human being alive today. There are far more animals besides them. My point is, think about what a privilege it is to be a human being, which has the most capable brain out of any animal we know about. We possess the magnificent potential to do things like send plaques depicting naked people into space, and in spite of this, we have knuckle-draggers treating stupid behavior as an indulgence and delegating their thinking to advertisers. You have the potential to do better, so why don’t you?

At one point, Zoe Quinn wanted to be known as a game developer. That’s a pretty meaningful thing to do for a living. However, she gave up any respect she would have gotten for her endeavors when she turned her back on her fellow gamers and turned the already-corrupt trade of games journalism against the very people they were supposed to inform. That comes with a lot of guilt for just one person to deal with, but Zoe Quinn brought it upon herself, and she made matters worse for her refusal to confront it.

That’s really how the Gamergate movement got started to begin with. Zoe Quinn so insisted on playing the victim, that she betrayed the very people she so strongly wanted to be accepted by. Having to deal with that can drive a person crazy, and when it gets to that point, a person can easily mistake a joke in a Mario game as being directed against them.

Anita Sarkeesian abandons Kickstarter project, Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games

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If you’re an SJW, today might be a good day to crawl into your safe space, because Anita Sarkeesian has abandoned her Kickstarter project, Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games.

Of course, she’s selling it as “moving on to something else”, but the rest of us know what’s going on. Her project has been thoroughly exposed as a sham, and she’s decided to lick her wounds and try something else.

Anita has raised $158,922.00 on the project’s Kickstarter page. Whether she has any plans to refund any of the 6,968 backers of this project is unknown.

I’ve constructed the following graphic to help illustrate the progress that the project has made since it was first launched three-and-a-half years ago on May 17, 2012:

Anita's video agenda progress.png

Anita attended California State University, Northridge (which has a surprisingly high 52.9% rate of acceptance) where she majored in communications, which involved analyzing media for narrative. So when Anita takes in over a hundred thousand dollars to play thousands of dollars in video games, she’s doing what she went to school for. She’s not the only YouTube personality who comments on the content of video games, but I think she managed to do pretty well for herself in making as much money as she has.

The purpose of Anita’s series was to demonstrate that there is sexism in video games. Many video games do portray women in some pretty unrealistic and even outlandish ways, and in some cases heavily sexualizes them. Nobody really needed a social critic to point any of this out. The thing is, practically no one cares. Everyone who plays video games knows that they’re an expression of somebody’s fantasies.

Is Sarkeesian actually a gamer.png

Anita complains anyway, because as she sees it, video games normalize certain stereotypes. As Anita sees it, someone is needed to speak out against stereotypes against women because gamers are impressionable, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. Of course, Anita is wrong.

One reason I prefer to stay away from radical feminists is because they tend to be extremely negative, sometimes assuming that complete strangers are criminals, particularly men. Most people don’t need to be told that almost no men actually have a desire to rape. Most of us recognize rape for the act of violence that it is. Of the men that actually have done it, most of them regret the act instantly. Even laws written primarily by men place rape on the same level as murder in terms of seriousness. Such laws have been around for a very long time, even in times believed by feminists to be the height of patriarchy. To the rest of us, this is obvious. To radical feminists, however, each man is potential rape waiting to happen. I have a hard time stomaching that kind of negativity.

I’m in favor of freedom of expression, even if what is being expressed is something I don’t personally agree with. I’m certain that Anita has heard of the game, Grand Theft Auto. It’s a bombastic game in which the protagonist is rewarded for committing outrageous crimes. However, the popularity of the game didn’t result in a surge in automobile thefts. This is because people know better, and aren’t so easily influenced by the expression of someone else’s fantasies, even if they enjoy the gameplay mechanics and play the game for hours a day. And even if someone steals a car because they learned to do it from a video game, it’s the car thief that’s held accountable, not the video game. The people who made the video game were exercising their protected freedom of expression.

So, what’s Anita working on next? She started a new crowdfunding project concerning the role of women in history. One can hope that the project won’t be nearly as divisive, unconstructive, and misleading as the one that she just gave up on (though this is Anita Sarkeesian we’re talking about, here). The initial fundraising goal of her new project is $200,000. That’s interesting considering that her previous project had a goal of only $6000. If she asked for thousands of dollars to play a bunch of video games, why is she asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars to do research that one can do with the simple assistance of Google?

anita research project.png

Believe it or not, women didn’t get their rights because a bunch a firebrands were shrill enough. Women got equal rights with men because men decided that society would benefit from it. What this means is that the feminist movement in it’s current form isn’t just divisive and as a result counterproductive. What it means is that feminism, in it’s current form, has been unnecessary all along.

Update (4-10-2016): Anita has made a video update, but she made it available for backers only. I found out about it because I was curious as to whether the project has raised more money or gained new backers since it was announced that Anita was moving on to something else. It wouldn’t have surprised me if it did, but as it turns out, that wasn’t the case. The video that was posted was not on one of the topics in Anita’s outline for her campaign, so in that regard, the video didn’t do anything to give her backers what they paid for.

It’s obvious that the reason she posts videos for backers only is because she’s far more sensitive to criticism than she lets on. Criticism (which Anita mistakes for “harassment”) is a normal and natural part of the experience of  publishing content on the internet, and is to be expected when what is produced is of inferior quality. Anita is taking measures to hide her content from her critics because she can’t take it anywhere close to how well she dishes it out (though she’s not very good at that, either).

My opinion of Gamergate

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Vivian James by Yahlantykan on DeviantArt

Surprisingly, I’ve gone this long without issuing an opinion of Gamergate and the controversy surrounding it. Depending on who you ask, it’s either a misogynistic movement of lonely men who don’t want women playing video games, or it’s a movement standing against corruption in game journalism and fighting back against the self-appointed social justice warriors (SJWs) that are mischaracterizing their movement.

If you believe the former, you believe the media’s official narrative about Gamergaters. If you believe the latter, you believe what Gamergaters are saying about themselves.

However one views the Gamergate movement, there is no denying how it got started: A woman by the name of Zoe Quinn released a so-so text-based game about depression, and it was given a glowing review on a gaming website. Later, Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend revealed that she was cheating on him, and that the game received undue attention because she was in an affair with the game journalist that reviewed it. As one might expect, people were outraged, and the Gamergate movement was born.

Incidentally, here is a link to a WikiHow article on how to make your own text-based adventure game.

Zoe Quinn became a target of harassment and ridicule, which is to be expected, considering what she did. But rather than accept that what was happening to her was a consequence of her own poor decision-making, she instead played the victim, claiming to be attacked by misogynists. She made her appeal to both cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian and the press, and they both ate it up.

I’m going to say straight-up that I don’t believe that Gamergate is a movement of misogynists. What I’ve seen from gamers in my long history of seeing them is just the opposite; they like seeing women in video games, and they favor the image of the female protagonist in games that is strong, independent, resourceful, and intelligent (does the name Samus Aran ring a bell?). But that doesn’t mean that Gamergaters aren’t going to be mischaracterized.

Gamergaters have challenged a corrupt press, and the results have been predictable. The press has long been in a position in which they have the trust of people and control of information, enabling them to sway public opinion in favor of positions and worldviews that are in line with those of journalism at large. It’s something that conservatism has long complained of as the liberal-controlled media has long perpetuated stereotypes of those of those of conservative persuasion.

A case in point is the recent exposure of Planned Parenthood’s operation of selling baby parts in violation of federal law. In some cases, the subjects of harvesting were infants that were extracted alive. One would imagine that, if even a little bit of video evidence of this got out, there would be an outrage, and the people behind the crime would all be held accountable. However, there has been volumes of undercover video released, and it seems like the general population is largely unaware of what happened. This is because there has been a media blackout of the video releases, except for a short time when Planned Parenthood peddled its official narrative that the videos were doctored.

Now, gamers are starting to see what it’s like to be libeled by a huge, rich, privileged media machine. To add to their problem, coming against them is another, far less sophisticated group that also cares little about facts: radical feminism.

After they became involved, a surprising group came along to oppose them: liberals themselves. After so long of being the beneficiaries of a media that presented their narratives, they started to speak up against what they see as wrong with radical feminism’s tactics, possibly because it was their entertainment that was being challenged.

As tempting as it may be for conservatives to view the battle between feminists and moderate liberals as a liberal problem, it’s an opportunity that conservatives seem to be largely passing up to point out that they too have been victims of similar targeting and stereotyping, and now that liberals are on the receiving end of it at the hands of one of their own fringe groups, perhaps they’ll be in a better position to understand that there’s something wrong with it.

Similarly, non-gamers seem to view Gamergate as a gamer problem. However, it’s another symptom of the corruption of the press that has long been preying on the masses. It’s interesting that it has been gamers that have taken a position in the battle against corruption in the media, and more surprising still is their passion to continue, long after many people would have just given up.

But that’s not so surprising considering that many of them have been influenced by an art form that allows them to vicariously experience the battles of heroes, and encourages them to keep trying until they win.

Feminist slander campaign backfires, perpetrator loses job

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foot bullet

When you voice your opinion on the internet, there is a possibility that someone is going to issue disagreement with you. That’s a possibility to prepare for in just about any marketplace of ideas. However, not everyone has that kind of maturity.

Recently, a YouTuber with the handle Thunderf00t expressed criticism of Anita Sarkeesian’s methods as a radical feminist. In response, fans of Anita Sarkeesian have (issued polite disagreement? No, they) threatened him.

One in particular by the handle of Laughing Witch took things a little further. She decided that the best way to handle his criticism was to invent a lie against him, and then attempt to ruin his life by telling that lie to his local newspaper, his local police department, and even to his own employer in an attempt to get him fired.

I’ve expressed before that modern feminism has serious honesty problems. However, this case takes things to a whole other level. I’ve disagreed with people on the internet before (I might even disagree with a few things Thunderf00t has said). But to this day, I haven’t decided that the best way to handle such a thing is to try to attack their job. Yet, Laughing Witch has found someone who has disagreed with the methods of radical feminism, and made up a lie about him being a Nazi and a hater of Muslims. He has also been accused of being a member of a conservative group, but that’s not an insult. Again, the lie was propagated to his local paper, his local police department, and his own employer in an attempt to destroy his livelihood and his standing in the community.

If you’re interested in a legal reason why this is a bad idea, look up the word “libel”.

Obviously, these claims aren’t even consistent. For one thing, Nazis historically didn’t hate Muslims. In fact, even Hitler expressed admiration of them. Also, the term “Nazi” is short for “National Socialist”. Conservatives are not socialists.

Of course, things like “facts” haven’t been known to make much of a difference to radical feminists. Not only did Laughing Witch slander Thunderf00t with these claims, she actually bragged about her actions on YouTube using her real name. That’s some kind of confidence.

Afterwards, radical feminists on YouTube celebrated getting Thunderf00t fired. This is in spite of the fact that Thunderf00t was not fired. This tells us what we need to know about radical feminism, it really doesn’t matter to them what’s true.

Laughing Witch bragged that she was immune to backlash because she was the vice president of the company that employed her, which was headed by her husband. She even expressed that she was pleased with her sudden influx of subscribers, probably not realizing how many of those subscribers were just interested in watching a ship sink fast.

loose lips

As it turns out, the ship sank faster than expected. Laughing Witch was actually fired from her job as Vice President of the company that employed her. Meaning, yes, this overconfident radical feminist was actually fired by her own husband. What’s more, she also removed her own YouTube channel (possibly at the request of her husband, who likely saw her online activities as being a serious liability for his company).

There are few things that I dislike more than slander. Because of this, it brightened my day to see that someone who attempted it fell into her own snare.

socrates slander

We probably haven’t heard the last of Laughing Witch. Persons such as herself usually love attention. She might appear again later with a new handle or with a Patreon account begging for donations, claiming to be the victim for all the problems that she brought upon herself.

Still, that someone would consider doing what she tried to do is pretty alarming. I think it’s a sign that radical feminism is quickly becoming more maladjusted, especially with someone like Anita Sarkeesian for them to get behind. Her fanbase has already demonstrated itself to be one of the most dangerous fanbases among YouTube personalities.

Free bleeding: The new thing in feminist insanity (grossness warning)

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Feminists have been hard at work to appear as immature as possible, and some of them have found an irresponsible new way of doing so, and it’s called “free bleeding”.

If you’re afraid that that means that feminists are now experiencing their periods without the use of tampons and pads, I have bad news for you: that’s just what it is.

This became a thing just after Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon without using a tampon. She was going through her period, and she reasoned that it would be far more comfortable to run the marathon without a feminine hygiene product, though she also said (likely as a pretext) that she did it to raise awareness of women that don’t have access to feminine hygiene products.

So, she bled a gross black mark right into the pants she was wearing. And feminists enjoyed it, adopting free bleeding in an effort to overcome oppression and erase the stigma associated with menstruation.

What oppression would that be? If it’s oppression to use a maxi pad, would it also be oppression to shower and brush one’s own teeth?

Believe it or not, there’s no stigma associated with menstruation, and it’s not oppression when there’s an expectation that someone exercise hygienic practices associated with it. Menstruation is a natural part of a woman’s life. It’s not unfair in any way that women experience such a thing, nor is the expectation that she manages it in a safe and hygienic manner. Not managing one’s period safely creates a biological hazard, and it leaves people with an impression that the person is irresponsible. And psychotic. If menstruation is gross, it’s gross because it’s not being properly handled.

If a person doesn’t have maxi pads or tampons, does that really mean that they have no solution to managing their period? Maxi pads and tampons are relatively recent inventions. Women have been finding numerous solutions throughout history. Why have they been doing this? Probably because they want to avoid ruining their socks, shoes, and other clothing, and maybe also because there would be something unpleasant with having one’s genitals be bloody and infected.

I know that there are people out there that would prefer for men and women to be the same. They’re not getting what they want because there will always be physiological differences between men and women, and therefore differences in medical treatment and routine maintenance regarding these differences. You play the cards you’re dealt. Before someone mentions it, I’ll point out that going transgender can only take a person so far. The most science can do to change a person’s gender is butcher their body to get them to closely resemble a member of the opposite gender. If you’re a man who thinks he’s a woman or vice versa, you have a psychosis. If you don’t like what I just said, you don’t like facts.

There are times when what you’re saying is so obvious, you kind of feel like you’re being condescending. It would be a matter so self-evident, that it’s tiring just to think about arguing about it at length to someone who just doesn’t want to accept it. It’s particularly the case when it comes to arguing with liberal fringe groups such as feminists and vegetarians. If they were to come out of their immature worldviews, they’d have so much to gain, such as no longer being wrong about something and experiencing the benefits of putting something that works into practice. But they don’t want to. They’re so determined to be so wrong.

Feminists in particular strive to be offensive. It’s the reason why many of them unashamedly accuse men in general of crimes for which individual men have no guilt. Their hypocrisy is so obvious, accusing men of being sexist when they themselves practice it. But they don’t care. Feminists are out to be grating and offensive. This new thing involving free bleeding is just another step down into the pit of insanity.

A look at some of the worst advice the internet has to offer: how to tell your crush you like him/her

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wikihow crush

It’s probably no surprise that the internet is teeming with bad advice, and some of it you find on WikiHow.

Let’s look at their article, How to Tell Your Crush You Like Him Without Words. (EDIT 23 Jan 2015: The page has since been rewritten, so the advice is no longer as hilariously bad as it was before. The analysis in this post is of the old version of the article. If anyone has access to the old version of the article, a link in the comments section would be appreciated.)

My first problem with this article is in the title: the author insists on not using words. What’s wrong with using words? It becomes apparent shortly that this article is intended for some seriously shy girls. If that’s a problem, WikiHow probably has a few articles on overcoming shyness.

If one were to attempt a psychoanalysis based only on the contents of this article, one may guess that it’s author has an unusual and unrealistic expectation of people’s ability to read minds. If such a person has anger issues or allows little things to upset them, that person probably does have some relationship problems.

Let’s break these tips down one at a time:

1. From afar (about ten feet) look into his eyes (do not stare). When he catches your gaze give him a dazzling smile he won’t forget and wave or wink.

The items on this list are highly situational. The advice here is to stand from afar, about ten feet. Ten feet isn’t very far, but the author of this list seems to think so. Once the distance requirement is met, then “give a dazzling smile.” The author also reminds us to wave or wink, so apparently this expert on crushes thinks it’s a serious omission not to do so.

Notice how it says “about” ten feet. WikiHow is giving a little bit of leeway here, so there’s no need to break out the tape measure in an attempt to set up the moment you’d otherwise probably be waiting a while for.

2. Do you know where he sits in class? If so, leave a note on his desk saying “Something is waiting for you on the school steps at 3 o’clock sharp”. Leave a little gift and note at 3 o’clock sharp on the school steps saying, “Hi so-and-so. Thought you might like this : ). From your friend, so-and-so.”

If I sat down at my typical spot and found something like this, I’d probably find it seriously creepy. One may even consider it a threat. There’s too much room in this tip for something to go wrong. What if your crush decided to sit somewhere else? Or what if Chuck from the football team decided to sit in his favorite spot?

Also, the title of WikiHow’s list insists on not using words, and writing notes does qualify as using words.

3. Grab a group of friends (including your crush) and invite them to play basketball, soccer, etc. When playing, make sure you’re on your crush’s team and pass the ball to him a lot. After the game go up and give him a high five and smile. If you’re feeling daring and need to say something say, “Great job! You’re an awesome —– (fill in the blank with the sport you played) player.”

This tip makes the assumption that your crush is interested in sports. What if he, like myself, is one of the many men out there that don’t care about sports? This tip does little more than support the notion that the ideal boyfriend is a jock, while nerds would be avoided. This is a notion that is turned on it’s face once one advances beyond high school, and the nerds generally have much better careers.

4. Pass by him and then turn your head around to look at him. If he’s doing the same thing, that’s a good sign.

There’s actually such a thing as a female creep, just as there is such a thing as female stalkers. If he’s looking back at you, it might be a good sign. Or it might be a bad sign.

Looking through this article’s art, I noticed that the female is almost always the only one blushing, and in the one where the guy might be, his face doesn’t turn pink. Notice how when girls blush or have a crush, it’s considered cute, but if it’s a guy, he’s often seen as a pervert? Feminists like to complain that women are “objectified” and portrayed as being obsessed with love in media, but men seem afraid to complain that women are usually the ones that can get away with expressing their sexuality. Much of the male gender is in a pretty submissive state these days, resigned to the notion that when something in a relationship goes bad, they’re seen as the bad guys.

5. If he likes you back he will ask you out, but just be patient.

This tip doesn’t belong on the list. The idea is to tell your crush you like him, and somehow do so without words. Waiting for him to decide to initiate the relationship (and possible suffering in silence in the meantime) is not a step in this process.

6. Don’t kiss him, have him kiss you first!

As with the previous tip, the problem with this one is that it insists on waiting for the male to take initiative. Kissing him would communicate pretty well that you like him without using words, so to accomplish the objective, it would be more effective to not take the list’s advice.

7. Never force a guy to like you, just let time do that and be nice. Try to talk and if he does not want to talk then so what? Try next week and then he’ll finally ask you out.

This list asserts pretty confidently that if a guy doesn’t want to go out with you, then he’ll do it if you ask him again next week. It actually doesn’t work that way. But, again, this list breaks it’s own rule by saying “try to talk,” which, yes, does qualify as “using words.”

8. If he asks to borrow a pencil, give him one with a message on it.

First, giving someone a pencil with a message on it counts as using words. Second, this depends on the object of affection asking for a pencil, which if he does, he’s probably not very dependable. If such a thing were to happen, the exchange would probably go something like this:

Boy: Hi, I forgot my pencil. May I borrow one of yours?
Girl: Oh, yeah. Just a minute. (proceeds to etch something on the pencil)
Boy: Um, will this take very long?
Girl: No, wait just a minute. (scribbles furiously)
Boy: The pencil looked okay. It didn’t look like it needed anything done with it.
Girl: I’m almost done! (scribbles faster)
Boy: Look, I’ll just borrow a pencil from some other girl.

This situation could probably be averted by having a pencil with a message already on it, but then you’d probably end up hanging onto it until the theoretical moment occurs that he asks for a pencil (and doesn’t ask someone else). Another way to avert this situation is with the following tip:

Ask him out.

A date is a small amount of time spent with someone to attempt to determine their character as a potential suitor. A person goes on a date to determine whether they would prefer to be in a relationship with them, and it is sometimes a recreational activity between a couple already in a relationship. If a person takes the advice in the WikiHow article mentioned above, a date isn’t likely to happen, and an infatuation from afar is likely to continue for a long time, with the person continuing to have a crush based on assumptions that they’ve made about that person.

Wanted: Honest Feminists

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I recently attended a meeting about women’s services on campus, which was made interesting by the fact that there was only one female student in attendance. As the meeting went on, my BS detector went off the charts. The speaker, apparently, was what is called today a “feminist.”

What is a feminist? An advocate of women’s rights. Sounds like a noble cause, right? If that’s what it was about, then feminism today would be taken much more seriously.

But it’s not. And the reason for this is because many feminists today are actually a liability to the cause.

Above, I mentioned what’s called a “BS detector.” I think most of us knows what that means, but for those of us who don’t, to have a BS detector means to have an ability, either through intuition or conscious thought, to sense that there’s something fallacious.

For instance, you’ve probably heard the statistic that women make seven-tenths of what a man makes for doing the same job.  It has an element of truthiness to it, considering that women have historically been treated unfairly. In many cases, the statistic is accepted by the hearer without further inquiry. It’s even been stated by president Barack Obama during a State of the Union address.

There’s a problem, though. The statistic is false.

If one were to look into the matter, the ratio would actually be closer to 9:10. The truer statistic does indicate that that there’s still a problem, but it’s nowhere near as dramatic as the 7:10 figure that we’ve been hearing.

When you hear that “women make seven-tenths for doing the same job as men”, your BS detector should go off. Perhaps you’ve picked up on some weasel words. Which job, specifically, do women do that nets them seven-tenths of a man’s pay? When was this study conducted? By whom? Did the study control for factors such as maternity leave and that women’s less career-oriented nature would lend them an inclination to settle for a lower salary?

By Tkjd2007 at Wikimedia.org, public domain

By Tkjd2007 at Wikimedia.org, public domain

Perhaps your BS detector did go off, but you ignored it. As children, we are good at detecting things such as hypocrisy, but as we grow up, we train ourselves to ignore our BS detectors. While this is done with the intention of being more civil, it also enables certain people to walk all over us.

During the meeting, the speaker did mention the statistic. A brief glance around the room revealed that just about everyone present knew just what was going on. Did anyone call her on it? It would seem like no one wanted to. There was a guy next to me who raised his hand, but he was ignored.

Generally, men don’t want to fight back against the tide of radical feminism, because it would be so easy to paint such a person as the bad guy. Because of this, the speaker, even though she was surrounded by college-aged men, could say just about anything she wanted with impunity. The group mechanics were certainly awkward.

It seems to me that feminism still struggles to be taken seriously. Why? What’s so bad about the cause of making women of equal value to men?

Fast fact
Women have been of equal value to men all along. Throughout human history.

So, what’s the problem? They haven’t been treated that way. Would it be bad to advocate that they be treated fairly? Certainly not. So then, what major obstacles stand in the way of feminists being taken seriously?

The one I’m focusing on today is that feminism has honesty problems.

A lack of honesty is an issue, even if the cause is a good one. When a person tells a lie to advance a cause, that person takes the risk that that the hearer won’t look too much into it. While dishonest people have long had their way, the risk is even greater in the information age, when a person has instant access to research for verification.

One day, I came home from work and found that my roommates were talking to a door-to-door salesman, and they were sold to his alternative electrical energy supply company. The only thing preventing them from sealing the deal was that the electric bill was in my name, so they needed my approval. After talking with the salesman, I went inside to perform a web search to see what others were saying about his company. The company’s reputation was very bad, with even former employees coming out and pointing out that the company has nearly no organic growth. Armed with this new information, I went and shut the door on the salesman’s face. Problem solved, with the help of the internet.

Another point I want to focus on is that feminists generally just don’t like men, and that’s another obstacle to them being taken seriously. Feminists generally see the male-female relationship as being adversarial in nature, and because of this, it’s unusual to see them in a healthy relationship. Those who fetch coffee for those pushing a feminist agenda often end up developing the same grim outlook. As a result, relationships suffer where there otherwise wouldn’t have been a problem.

The key to a healthy relationship is compromise. Men and women get together understanding that there are differences beyond that women have breasts and a vulva, while men have something else. Men and women have brains that are 97% similar. That remaining 3% makes a big difference. For men and women to get along, they need to be accepting of one-another’s differences, otherwise, there could be problems.

Feminists have a tendency to teach women to accept no compromise. This results in some very difficult relationships. This is made even worse in an age when there are men who try to be more like women and women try to be more like men. Because so many people are trying to be something they’re not, relationships suffer.

The antidote for this is to understand one’s identity, and understand that characteristics such as one’s gender gives someone something to offer society, and knowing that personal success can be achieved by offering what you have to offer, instead of wishing that you could offer the exact same thing as someone with different attributes.

There are differences between men and women, and these enable both genders to offer things to a relationship that the other cannot. Even if the wife were the money-maker and the husband was a stay at home dad, the presence of primary sexual characteristics will still indicate mutually exclusive capacities. Because of this, there is no man that can do all the exact same things a woman can do, and there are no women that can do all the exact same things a man can do. If they could, gender distinctions wouldn’t exist.

Some would say that it’s not fair that women are generally physically weaker than men, and some would say that it’s not fair that the continuity of their genes requires the assistance of a woman. Just because something is different from what you would have personally preferred doesn’t mean that life is unfair. Besides, life is unfair. It has been for a long time.

The school I go to is a trade school, which means that the majors are highly technical in nature. Among them are architectural, HVAC, and electronic engineering majors. A vast majority of the students are male. Why would that be?

Perhaps it’s due to the popular perception that these are male jobs. Those who are particularly blunt seem to like to say that women haven’t built our buildings or paved our roads. I wouldn’t mind seeing women line up to shut them up. But it seems like that’s mostly not happening.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many men going to schools like this that make women feel uncomfortable with attending. Women that attend would be so far outnumbered that they’d feel out of place. There may also be a sexual element. Men like sex, and some get grabby about it. Those who act this way give the rest of my gender a bad rep.

But perhaps the biggest determining factor when women decide against trade schools is that they just don’t want to be architects or automotive repair women for a living. It’s not as though women don’t see such jobs as rewarding and fulfilling, because they do. However, these jobs tend to be physically demanding, and that’s where women usually being physically weaker comes in. It can make them less effective at the job that they do, which from a results-oriented standpoint, could be used to justify paying them less to do the same job.

If someone would have to try much harder to be just as effective, it would seem more practical to find a job that’s more suited to their abilities. Having said that, if someone really wants to do something, that extra bit of effort can result in a fulfilling career. And if women were to pave roads and build buildings, there would be a number of chauvinists with less to say.

If a feminist is a person who sees women as having equal value with men, then I’m a feminist. However, feminism seems instead to be some far-left movement that teaches women to resent men. That there are so many dishonest feminists also seriously hurts their movement, in ways that they don’t realize.

Because of this, there is a demand for honest feminists.