Internet Lunatics - RadFems, PUA's, MRA's, MGTOW's, etc.

What's beyond deceptive and into outright lying is what you and your ilk are claiming that sentiment to be. You're treating lies as facts and claiming to be treating facts as facts.

And no it doesn't really require a ton of thought to understand why prominent feminists aren't willing to defend a man who detailed the brutal gaslighting and emotional abuse his toxic ex put him through, after all these are people whose entire worldview is caught up in denying the overwhelming truth that abuse is not a gendered phenomenon. We're talking about people who wrote a phenomenally popular article mocking the victims of beatings or who built a career on telling the story of how they raped someone. People who are literally demanding the abolition or outright reversal of the presumption of innocence. Of course they're not going to defend men like Eron Gjoni, or Paul Nungesser (Mattress Girl's victim).

If Zoe Quinn were Zane Quinn feminists would have treated him the way they treated UVA.

 

It's almost like there's someone shitting all over this thread with overwrought, hyperbolic angst.

Like, I could try to engage shadowex, but there's really no point. We occupy completely different realities. Plus, his arguments are a mile wide and an inch deep, which is why he needs to resort to such hyperbolic language and accusations. His hyperbolic accusations are part of a rhetorical strategy where he doesn't ever have to question his sources because anyone who doubts his sources must be part of some mindless feminist horde bent on denying the humanity of all men. There is no agree to disagree, there is agree our you're a zombie-femini-sheep-murder-oppressor. The best I can do is to point out obvious bullshit when I see it in the hopes that doing so might avoid the leading astray of a fence sitting lurker.

 

The complete lack of self awareness in your projection is absolutely stunning. You're not trying to engage me at all, from the very beginning you've done nothing but deny any and all criticisms of feminism and retort with near religious exhortations of feminism's holy mandate. You're a blind zealot for a hate movement whose core ideology involves the belief that half of humanity is to this day engaged in a deliberate conspiracy to subjugate and torment the other half for no reason at all, and who will ignore every shred of empirical evidence ever produced which contradicts the narrative that this group of violent criminal bigots is anything but the purest most perfect equality movement in history.

The only thing you're more blindly loyal to than feminism is your blind hatred for anything I say, as evinced by your immediate betrayal of any feminist I happen to cite. Especially if they happen to be a feminist that doesn't buy into the toxic and abusive cult branch you've hitched your wagon to.It's almost hilarious how quickly and seamlessly you can go from "it's right because a feminist said it" to "it's wrong because you said it" even when I'm citing a feminist.

The sad thing is you and the rest of TFP's feminists really do believe you're the ones convincing lurkers to do anything but walk away out of fear of being the next victim of the inquisition.

I've already given you multiple links to the real transcripts of what he said, how he said it, and how it was received. From the very beginning he presented the supposed "sexism" he's accused of as backwards, ignorant, and a thing to be mocked (as well as poking fun at he and his wife's personal story) and congratulated women on their profound contributions to science despite the existence of those which such views.

The two most common strains of feminist apologia you use. Dismissing any and all evidence of feminism's real world actions and words which belie the "it's about equality" whitewashing as either the actions of someone who isn't a "true feminist" and therefore doesn't out, or the actions of a "vocal minority" which doesn't reflect on feminism as a whole.

In other words it's the grain of sand argument: Claiming you're not standing on a beach but rather only one grain of sand, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another...

Connie St. Louis teaches journalism, preaches feminism, and her lies about Tim Hunt were taken up by feminism as one of their massive public witch-hunts.

The fact that you don't understand this is evidence itself of exactly the problem with your thought process: You truly don't understand how feminists failing to defend Tim Hunt, and feminists almost universally participating in a witch hunt against Tim Hunt, proves that feminism is not about equality but just a hate movement going from one witch hunt to the next while claiming to be an equality movement.

You seriously do not understand that all I'm doing is holding feminists to the standards you have set for what "true feminism" is. If they were "true feminists" according to you, then they must stand against this kind of bullshit because it's exactly the opposite of what you claim them to stand for and exactly what you claim them to fight against.

These are all one and the same issue. It's the overwhelming majority of mainstream feminism doing exactly the opposite of what you claim feminism to be. It's feminism acting as a hate movement which celebrates abusers, rapists, pedophiles, excuses and erases abuse and sexual violence, and perpetrates bigotry and witch hunts.

All of these are examples of feminism not only not fighting for equality, but fighting against equality to such a degree that even former feminist federal judges refer to it as "madness" and a "disgrace".

That you can't see this is just part of the problem. You can't understand how I'm doing nothing but holding feminism to its proclamations of fighting for equality, and you can't understand how all these repeated examples of feminism acting in a staggeringly massive and public way against equality are evidence of a systemic and near universal corruption of your movement.

 

I have zero problems engaging with thoughtful criticism of feminism. In fact, thoughtful criticism is one of the only ways that society improves itself. However, your comments about and notions of feminism are about 5% thoughtful criticism and 95% hyperbolic posturing [see: this whole fucking thread]. To you, feminism seems to be completely defined by how a few women behave on the internet. You can't even reconcile your claims about the internet-based feminist thought leaders you choose to talk about and the fact that these thought leaders actually reach less than 3% of all feminists. It isn't fucking rational. You present highly biased statements as facts, then treat everyone's casual disregard for your highly biased statements as evidence that you're onto something, when what's really happening is that you're the only person here who gives a shit about some random asshole on internet's half-assed, super biased, selectively informed refutations of peer reviewed research and/or fact-checked articles in reputable newspapers.

Did you see that charlatan criticized how Tim Hunt was treated and I disagreed with him and then we talked about it without accusing each other of intellectual dishonesty? Did you notice how we engaged with each other in a respectful way and neither of use pulled out the "mad chantool on the internet trying to sound epic but can't even pull off sanctimony" rhetorical flourishes? This is exactly the type of conversation you've shown yourself to be completely incapable of when the subject of feminism comes up. So many people have tried to engage you on your terms then backed the fuck away because of your blistery, foamy responses. This thread is paved with the rotting corpses of god faith attempts to engage with you. I'm like the 12th person to say this to you. Clearly, the topic irks the fuck out of you, and you've got a lot of anger built up. No one makes productive conversation about something that pisses them off while they're pissed off. So w hat *are* you trying to do here? Work through some anger? Go running instead. Are you trying to discredit feminism? It'll never work because you don't use the same definition of feminism that everyone else here uses.

 

It's interesting to note that Tim Hunt's wife is a feminist. She defended him.

I am a feminist and I defended him.

There's two.

 

No, you have zero problems engaging in cheap, substanceless, platitudes which make no meaningful criticism whatsoever. The moment someone actually makes a serious criticism of feminism you lose your shit and start screaming burn the heretic. Your definition of "thoughtful criticism" is that it isn't real criticism and feminism comes away fundamentally unchallenged and unscathed.

And again your self-unaware projection is astounding. If you want substanceless hyperbolic posturing look at basically everything feminism has done in the last year or two, from spending an entire day in poor black neighborhoods trolling for a minute of usable footage to stir up a racist panic to engaging in a hate campaign so vitriolic and vicious it caused a man to break down in tears on international television over his tshirt. Look at your own strings of slurs and profanity directed at someone who, were he a woman, would be THE poster child for a victim of emotional abuse and gaslighting.

No Bodkin what you can't do is reconcile your claims that I'm talking about nothing but a tiny harmless tiny minority tiny powerless tiny internet commentors with the realities of people like Tim Hunt having their lives ruined and dozens of our nation's most pre-eminent legal professors, including former feminist federal judges, getting steamrolled despite publicly referring to feminist demanded policies as "madness" and a "disgrace". You keep screaming "That doesn't count! 3%! 3%!!!11 RANDOM ASSHOLES ON THE INTERNET!" when these people are so powerful, with such reach, that the Harvard Law Review dedicated an entire issue to discussion the at times catastrophic consequences of their bigoted policies.

You want to talk about peer reviewed research? I once gave you hundreds of research papers proving that one of the very core claims of all feminism, the myth of "violence against women" in the western world, was a complete fabrication and women were just as abusive as men if not more so. I even included meta-research detailing exactly how those hundreds of papers across decades of research were shoved under the rug because they didn't fit feminist ideology.

All of which you dismiss with the very substanceless rhetoric you accuse me of, "mile wide and inch deep".

Charlatan made a pathetically transparent non-criticism. He tut-tutted about how Tim Hunt was totally a sexist, misogynist, backwards, ignorant pig who totally had it coming but maybe feminists could have been a little nicer when they ruined his life.

That's not criticism, criticism is "Jesus christ this was ANOTHER massive public witch-hunt that ruined someone's life and was proven to be a complete lie. How many MORE times are you going to do this before you stop?"

Exactly. I define feminism based on its actions and beliefs in the real world. You all work backwards starting with "Feminism is always right and good and pure" and then define whether or not something is feminist, or right, from whether it agrees with that first principle.

I literally just did that, and unless you're reading the transcripts I linked you to you're likely reading the fraudulent transcripts ommitting critical chunks of what he said and flate out making up things he never said (like the libel about him thanking the women for cooking)

I'm going based on your actions, not your claims. Same as with feminism.

"We're not standing on a beach, just one single grain of sand. And another one single grain of sand. And another one single grain of sand!..."

And now we're back to one of your other favorite tactics. While I explained exactly how and why your words were a problem, going step by step from your claims of what "true feminism" was to how that applied to the situation at hand, you simply declare by fiat "This is a catastrophic failure of logic".

Where I can point out exactly how and why, with tangible specifics, your position is a failure of logic you on the other hand do nothing but declare that mine is so wrong you can't, or won't, even attempt to prove it.

In a sad amusing way that's a microcosm of feminism as a whole. "You disagree with me therefore you are wrong. Until you stop disagreeing with me you can't ever NOT be wrong. The fact you want proof is proof you ARE wrong. Only by agreeing with me and never asking for proof can you NOT be wrong."

This isn't logic Baraka, it's religion.

 

If Tim Hunt's sexist joke, which he admitted to making and whose sentiments he stands by (according to many different sources, there's no conspiracy here), was racist in nature, the number or people complaining about his treatment would be substantially smaller. Compare Tim Hunt's treatment to that of noted racist James Watson (who despite having participated in the discovery of DNA, seems terribly confused about its relation to race). This is because a) overt sexism in science is apparently more acceptable than overt racism, and b) most people recognize that the willingness to make a joke that relies entirely on a particular stereotype is convincing evidence that a person finds that stereotype credible.

Shadowex, your arguments are all hand wavy. The Harvard Law Review dedicated and article to the dangers of feminism? So what? You're telling me Harvard's Law School's student newspaper doing a theme issue on the perils of online feminism is evidence of what mainstream offline feminism is? How do you figure that? I doubt anyone at the Harvard Law Review would be willing to make that kind of wild logical leap (unless they were arguing against someone they didn't respect). Your whole argument is predicated on bullshit appeals to authority about what feminism actually is, and while no one here will dispute the fact that there are feminists who operate online who espouse the views you criticize, you balk at acknowledging the most basic, obvious, indisputable fact that the people who talk about feminism online constitute a very small minority of the feminist community. You can't acknowledge this fact because if you do, then the scope of your argument becomes too narrow to justify your need to feel outraged. It's clear that you've got a lot of anger and want to do right. Feminism isn't your enemy; assholes are your enemy. There are a lot of asshole feminists, just like there are a lot of assholes in every group of people. It is a waste of time to, without justification, conflate the actions of assholes with the banner those assholes happen to be carrying.

 

And yet again we see you needing to stoop to libel to try and make your case. Again, you are re-confirming why you are an asshole.

Naturally, there can be no nuance in your black and white world. It is either you see this as an evil witch hunt perpetrated by The Feminist Conspiracy, or you are evil and wrong too. I happen to think there is quite a bit more going on here, but you don't want to discuss that... whatever.

Tolls like you are a scourge. Your stink permeates what was once a place for decent conversation.

 

I have to disagree with you @Charlatan, sad to say.
I don't think he's a troll.
His other posts, by in large are reasonable and measured.
It's this subject that seems to turn him into a the shrill character we see before us.
The total unwillingness to have a real conversation is frustrating for anybody that wants to be reasonable but sometimes you just have to step away.
There are perfectly reasonable and decent people who for some reason have a black hole in their logic that nothing can escape from.
If you want to remain friends with them your only option is to never bring it up and when it does come up, step away.
I've chosen to do that.

 

You may be correct that he isn't a troll in the truest sense of the word. That could be a bit hyperbolic on my part.

That said, I find myself unable to separate this shrill character we see before us from the one who posts elsewhere on this board. I know I shouldn't rise to his bait, but there you go.

 

Perhaps, if we ignore the shrill voice that just won't seem to go away, we could come back to why I think this article is interesting...

As per my previous instruction, ignore the click bait headline, at the heart of the article an interesting point is being made about how we relate to one another online, regardless of gender.

In other words, the scenario of aggressive behavior exists outside of the gender dynamic. I, for one, am familiar with this sort of behavior from men (in general) and would suggest it's true when you add in things such as anonymity. Adding women into the mix, can be jarring for all involved.

There is something to look at there.

More importantly, I think there is MUCH more to discuss in the how the Internet has shaped, and continues to shape the way we interact with each other. The whole Tim Hunt thing is a great example of this, there are many others that we could discuss as well. To be clear, this isn't all about alleged sexism, or alleged misandry. There are individual cases that are relevant to these labels, but I am interested in taking a broader view on this issue... Social media, has connected in ways that we have never before been connected. Individuals who in the past might have had a reach of their nearest friends, or maybe their peers, are now able to reach a Global audience in the course of a few retweets/reposts.

Amplification of our voices. Amplification without context. A man makes a joke that verbally says the opposite of what the joke intended. This verbal irony is lost or purposefully mistranslated by a person who shares it with their audience. That audience, without proper context, makes an assumption. Stripped of context, they take the meaning at face value (i.e.itis stripped of the verbal irony that makes the joke self-deprecating and gently humorous).

What happens next is not pretty in the slightest.

My point here is that this sort of thing is happening all over the Internet for any number of reasons. Internet shaming is a growing trend that sees many (many!) people fall victim to their own missteps/out of context words/ill received humor/etc. and the power of the connected mob descends (in many different forms, from humourous (sarcastic tumbler pages) to doxing and death threats (and everything in between)). Some of these people probably deserve what they are getting (note: I am not making a judgement, just playing the odds) but most are probably making a stupid off colour comment or having a bad day. They might deserve to be called on their comment, they might just need a hug... They don't deserve the weight of the Internet's scorn on their shoulders.

Again, we can pick apart specific cases and decry specific movements... I am not interested. This is happening across the spectrum.

We have many problems and issues that concern each and every one of us. Internet Shaming appears to be doing more harm than good.

Social media amplification is great. It gives people a voice. It overpowers the traditional media by granting access in a non-hierarchal way.
Social media amplification is a scourge. Its immediacy and scale takes what would have been a small story and makes it Global before context can catch up.

 

I can remember back in the very early 90s discussing the potential of the Internet in one of my University classes. We discussed the upsides and downsides of what connectivity would mean, what virtual communities would be like (a lot of discussion around The Well and the need to "police" the participants) and with our eyes shining with the optimism of youth faced with a bright future, we couldn't even begin to fathom the level to which things would change.

Never have we had better, easier access to information. Never have we had distribution of ourselves so easily to a Global audience. Never have we displayed the worst elements of our nature in such simple and trivial ways.

If nothing else, anonymity (real or supposed) has given us cold hearts.

There is more to unpack here... perhaps this should have its own thread.

 

Here is an interesting radio bit about women's voices and the vocal fry. It's an interesting topic in and of itself (how the way we speak can have an impact on how we are received) however, I post it here not so much to discuss the vocal fry (perhaps another thread idea!) but, to underscore the idea that there are differences within Feminism. The host speaks with three different women, all self-described feminists, and they don't agree with each other. In fact, they call each other out on issues.

It's a small but important point to make.


'Vocal Fry' undermines empowered young women, says Naomi Wolf - Home | The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti | CBC Radio

The Vocal Fry (just in case you didn't know what it is)