So, I came across this article by Anna Tippett, a woman who is supposed to be a Human rights activist, feminist, LGBT advocate and writer. The article was title "When Did Female Empowerment become so Disempowering?" and centers around a video that the singer Fergie made. The thing that struck me curious about the article however isn't the subject matter, it's the (most likely false) claim that Tippett is unable to understand exactly why some celebrities such as Kelly Clarkson or Lady Gaga refuse to call themselves Feminists.
As I have done before I am going to use excerpts from the post to illustrate her alleged confusion, and then attempt to explain it for her. Let's begin with this:
"Debates over feminism - whether we need it, want it, or like it - continue to provoke a variety of responses in popular culture. The contentious ‘f word’ has supporters and opponents in both obvious and unlikely forms."
"From self-proclaimed feminists like Emma Watson (convincing) and Beyoncé (not so convincing), to surprising adversaries like Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga who state that the word feminist is “too strong” because they “love men”, it is clear that the definition of feminism is highly contested amongst the celebrity folk."
"The misinterpretation of feminism by Clarkson and Gaga as an anti-male, exclusively female movement is particularly infuriating and shows how the construction of female empowerment by celebrities can be detrimental to future generations."
Here we see the first of and primary reasons Tippett is unable to understand how Feminism is a contentious word. She assumes Clarkson and Gaga are simply "misinterpreting" what Feminism means. Then Tippett goes on to claim:
"Feminism is for everyone: women, men, girls, boys, those who don’t identify with the female or male binary, straight, gay, bisexual and beyond."
Doing so in the guise of claiming an attempt to "clear things up" before going into her Fergie bashing article. But all anyone has to do is look at the comments made by Feminist activists and the merchandise target towards the Feminist consumer. Which is exactly what I am going to illustrate now. So let me say now to Anna Tippett, I am going to show you exactly WHY Feminism is such a contentious word, and why people like Clarkson and Gaga refuse to be branded by the term.
First let's examine the claim that Feminism is for Men and Boys. Let us start with Robin Morgan, former editor of Ms. Magazine.
"I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them."
Here is one example of why people like Clarkson and Gaga might have the impression that Feminism is about hatred of men. How about this quote from Linda Gordon, a woman who is said to be a Feminist and a Historian.
"The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process."
As a supposed historian you would think Linda Gordon would realize just how important raising a child in a two parent how really is, especially given the fact that historically speaking children raised in single parent families are more prone to living in poverty, and becoming criminals. Anyone who claims to have the goal of "the nuclear family being destroyed" is not only someone who has no knowledge of human sociological needs but should never be called a historian. This idea of destroying the "nuclear family" also means, by necessity, depriving men of their parental rights. Unless of course you think this Feminist idle actually thinks women should be the ones to get the short end of the parental stick, which only an idiot would think. Because the destruction of the nuclear family means that at least one parent by default must be excluded from the raising of their children, and I seriously doubt she would consider that default position to be applied to women. She is a feminist after all, and as anyone with a knowledge of history knows Feminism is first and foremost about the rights of women before anyone else.
How about Sheila Cronin and her comparison of marriage, the act of two people willingly engaging in a social behavior.
"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women’s movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage." - Sheila Cronin
Given that marriage is not a state enforced institution based on a given trait that demands one party be subservient to another, it makes you wonder if Cronin even knows what slavery actually is. Judging by her characterization of marriage as slavery, I have my doubts.
"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist." - Ti-Grace Atkinson
Yet another example of an anti-male sentiments by another Feminist, and one I am actually wondering now if she believes only virgins can be Feminists. Let's have one more example of a quote that might give the impression Feminists hate men, shall we?
"Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." - Susan Brownmiller
As abhorrent and vile as rape is, is it really any wonder why people think a group of people who consider all men to be rapists might be considered a group that hates males? Now, let's move on to merchandise targeted towards Feminist consumers. Let us begin here: Feminist Sweatshirt The obvious connotation being that if you don't have the proper body part you should be seen and not heard. Kind f sounds familiar to me, sounds a lot like chauvinists who felt that because women didn't have a penis their opinion doesn't matter. Then there's this: Feminist Shirt in which Identities.Mic is quoted as saying 'C'mon. Buy this shirt and "Treat Yo Self."' and is a clear indicator that Feminism is not about males at all. And then of course there is this Gem: Male Tears which is also provided with the comment "We shower in them too." and not the mention the plethora of Male Tears Cups that can be found at Lookhuman.com.
Given these facts, and the fact that Feminism opposed the the Voting rights act and the 14th Amendment simply because they weren't included when it was first proposed is all the proof you need to show Feminism isn't for everyone. Not the mention the protests and demonstrations held by Feminist groups every time there is a discussion planned to address the academic decline of males, the abnormally high suicide rates of males, and other male related issues.
If anyone needs further proof of the lie that Feminism is for everyone, all anyone has to do is try to talk about issues anyone other than women face in a discussion with a Feminist. 90% of the time you are told to "wait your turn" or told "this isn't the place to discuss that" as if they are trying to put you in your place.
The next time you wanna live dangerously try to bring into a discussion about the rape of women the very real effect false rape claims has on the believability of a rape victims claims and see how far you can make it before being assaulted. Or if you are feeling truly bold, try bringing up the recent study that showed rapes of males by females is almost as bad as female by males and see how far you get.
Feminism is thought to be a male hatred movement more and more as the years pass because the comments, writings, and consumer goods targeted towards Feminist ideologues is rife with anti-male sentiments. And that Anna Tippett is why Feminism is such a contentious word.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
GTA 5 - pt 2, Introducing a female lead
With the potential for introducing multiple leads the way GTA 5 did, it seems reasonable to conclude that GTA could finally have a female protagonist and still reach its primary target audience, namely males. There is no doubt that GTA as a series, and GTA 5 specifically, are targeted towards a male oriented audience. And I see absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. The GTA games have always seemed to center around themes of masculinity, and even Dan Houser stated that the concept of GTA 5 was "The concept of being masculine" and that it was "key to this story" being told in GTA 5.
So what does this mean for female protagonists? Well, with the introduction of multiple main characters we could see a female protagonist quite easily. And frankly I would actually like to see it happen, but unlike some people I have seen I am not going to call the game bad or claim it "miss a great opportunity" by not doing so. The game obviously had a story to tell; with Michael it was about how his family and a life of retirement was affecting him, with Franklin it was about the connection between his old life as a banger with his aspirations to be something more, and with Trevor it was a display of how a weak psyche could be crashed and produce a rather fucked up individual. But there have been some great female character from the GTA series that could be templates or inspiration for a female protagonist that would produce a great story. Let's discuss a few, starting with a very Trevor like female character.
Catalina, the villain of GTA 3 and brief love interest of CJ in GTA: San Andreas. She's as violent as any of the male characters in the series, an accomplished criminal, and would make a good starting point for creating a strong female character within the GTA settings. Then we have Maria Mendoza, the daughter of the general from Vice City that was a potential love interest for Tommy Vercetti that never got much exploring for whatever reason. There's Kendl, CJ's sister from San Andrea. She'd make a good "from the hood" style character in the vein of CJ and Franklin. Then there is Asuka Kasen, the female Yakuza or Triad character in GTA 3 that would add an entirely new aspect to the GTA series, namely by introducing another criminal organization into the world of the GTA series. Opening the door for entirely new stories and plots, which I think they tried to explore in GTA: Chinatown stories but I haven't played it so I don't know.
There does seem to be room to expand the GTA universe to include female protagonists, especially with the ability to switch between characters. It could even open the door for a brother and sister team, or a husband and wife, Bonnie and Clyde kind of team. The only issue I really see are the changes in the core game play that would be required, especially since the GTA audience is primarily male. Can't see too many male players wanting to find dates like CJ did in San Andreas, or trying to pick up male hookers(gigolos?) and having sex with them in a car the way you can in GTA 5, or going to the strip club and getting lap dances from male strippers. But then again, you never know what GTA fans are open to playing.
The question then becomes, should they introduce a female protagonist to the series? The answer is simple, yet complex. At its simplest the answer is yes, but where the complexity comes in is with introducing the character properly. Creating a unique character that is as well developed as a Tommy Vercettie, Carl Johnson, or Michael De Santa/Townley. It should also be avoided if it is simply to appeal to the political correctness crowd, because like most things force on people it will get a half-assed attempt at best and it will ruin an otherwise excellent franchise of games.
So the debate over whether the GTA needs a female protagonist is likely never going to end, especially with people wanting to impose their wills onto others and get what they want whether it would serve the in the series best interests or not. Then there is the fact that a female character added to the GTA world would need to be just as vile and violent as the men, and I'm not sure of people here in America are ready to see that sort of female character who is the victimizer of others and not the victim herself.
So what does this mean for female protagonists? Well, with the introduction of multiple main characters we could see a female protagonist quite easily. And frankly I would actually like to see it happen, but unlike some people I have seen I am not going to call the game bad or claim it "miss a great opportunity" by not doing so. The game obviously had a story to tell; with Michael it was about how his family and a life of retirement was affecting him, with Franklin it was about the connection between his old life as a banger with his aspirations to be something more, and with Trevor it was a display of how a weak psyche could be crashed and produce a rather fucked up individual. But there have been some great female character from the GTA series that could be templates or inspiration for a female protagonist that would produce a great story. Let's discuss a few, starting with a very Trevor like female character.
Catalina, the villain of GTA 3 and brief love interest of CJ in GTA: San Andreas. She's as violent as any of the male characters in the series, an accomplished criminal, and would make a good starting point for creating a strong female character within the GTA settings. Then we have Maria Mendoza, the daughter of the general from Vice City that was a potential love interest for Tommy Vercetti that never got much exploring for whatever reason. There's Kendl, CJ's sister from San Andrea. She'd make a good "from the hood" style character in the vein of CJ and Franklin. Then there is Asuka Kasen, the female Yakuza or Triad character in GTA 3 that would add an entirely new aspect to the GTA series, namely by introducing another criminal organization into the world of the GTA series. Opening the door for entirely new stories and plots, which I think they tried to explore in GTA: Chinatown stories but I haven't played it so I don't know.
There does seem to be room to expand the GTA universe to include female protagonists, especially with the ability to switch between characters. It could even open the door for a brother and sister team, or a husband and wife, Bonnie and Clyde kind of team. The only issue I really see are the changes in the core game play that would be required, especially since the GTA audience is primarily male. Can't see too many male players wanting to find dates like CJ did in San Andreas, or trying to pick up male hookers(gigolos?) and having sex with them in a car the way you can in GTA 5, or going to the strip club and getting lap dances from male strippers. But then again, you never know what GTA fans are open to playing.
The question then becomes, should they introduce a female protagonist to the series? The answer is simple, yet complex. At its simplest the answer is yes, but where the complexity comes in is with introducing the character properly. Creating a unique character that is as well developed as a Tommy Vercettie, Carl Johnson, or Michael De Santa/Townley. It should also be avoided if it is simply to appeal to the political correctness crowd, because like most things force on people it will get a half-assed attempt at best and it will ruin an otherwise excellent franchise of games.
So the debate over whether the GTA needs a female protagonist is likely never going to end, especially with people wanting to impose their wills onto others and get what they want whether it would serve the in the series best interests or not. Then there is the fact that a female character added to the GTA world would need to be just as vile and violent as the men, and I'm not sure of people here in America are ready to see that sort of female character who is the victimizer of others and not the victim herself.
GTA 5 - Pt 1: Misanthropy VS Misogyny - How Feminists get it wrong
(WARING: THIS GAME CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GAME GTA 5 AND OTHER GAMES IN THE SERIES. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.)
Ok, for those who actually read past the title and actually read this, let me just say that this is not an anti-feminist post. It is simply a post about how I think the idea of GTA, and GTA 5 in particular, are being Misogynistic - or shows a dislike of, contempt for, or a string prejudice towards women - is wrong. Admittedly this idea is most often pushed by Feminists, especially the Feminists of a certain ilk who seem to use gaming in general and feminism in particular as a money making scheme.
This topic came to my attention when I was reading various articles about the cast of actors and voice talents used in the GTA 5, was trying to identify a female radio personality in the game that sounded a lot like Trish Suhr from Clean house. Come find out Pam Grier also did a female DJ's voice in the game as well, or at least was used in the game. Which took me by surprise considering that GTA 5 wasn't supposed to be using any famous or well known people. But I digress, sorry.
As I looked through link after link of various sorts that discussed the game in general, and its portrayal of women in particular, I came to realize something that most if not all of these people never seemed to realize. GTA 5 is not Misogynistic, if it has to be classified as anything other than a form of entertainment it would be misanthropic - the dislike of, contempt for, or hatred of humanity - is anything at all. I came to this conclusion based on the three protagonists and the people they are closest to in the game. So i guess the best place to begin this is with the three main characters or protagonists of the game; Michael De Santa a.k.a. Michael Townley, Franklin Clinton, and Trevor Philips.
Each of the protagonists for Grand Theft Auto 5 each brings something unique to the table, and as far as I know with my experiences with the GTA series entirely the first time you could play as one of three different characters at various times. With the ability to change between characters when they are in missions together and interacting with one another. Each one displays characteristics most people would find reprehensible in people we associate with everyday, but as characters in an interactive form they are excellent characters to play. And besides that, given the behaviors of those they interact with in the game as friends and as enemies they aren't quite that bad by comparison... except maybe Trevor Philips.
The game itself does not portray these three men, or the characters they interact with for that matter, to be good people at all, except for maybe Wade's cousin Floyd who actually is a good man. But then he doesn't really last that long either before falling victim to a more depraved character - Trevor ends up killing poor Floyd and his nasty girlfriend/fiance in a fit of rage. Let's start with Michael De Santa.
Michael is a retired bank robber who sold out his friend in order to start a new life with his wife and kids in Los Santos. Judging from the game and the things in it that describes Michael as a person he appears to be not only a violent psychopath who murders people but also prone to having sex with strippers and other ... let's say sexual proclivities that they never go into detail on... thankfully. Michael is not a nice guy, and given his reactions to events that happen to him in the game it seems reasonable to assume he is not a good man, not a role model and definitely a poor representation of what it means to be masculine or a male. So already we see just from the male protagonists that the portrayal of males in the game isn't so flattering. And I'm not even gonna gets started on the portrayal of his wife, who is by all accounts a massive slut who has slept with everyone from the gardener and her tennis coach to her sons third grade teach and some homeless dude.
Franklin is probably the least violent and least mentally disturbed of the three, which is saying something considering he's a drug dealing, murdering, car stealing criminal himself. Franklin is kind of like the character Carl Johnson(CJ) from GTA: San Andreas. He's a young man from "the hood" who is involved in gangs and gang violence and other criminal activities such a thing entails, the stereotype of the classic "gangsta" or "hood" from the "ghetto" as it were. Again, not a flattering portrayal of a male character, but certainly the most stable of the three protagonists of the game.
Trevor is probably the most disturbed of the three protagonists, and if you play the game and pay attention you will learn some very interesting things about Trevor Philips. Where to begin with this guy... how about we start with his rage issues. Trevor is a violent, psychotic, sociopath who has murder people numerous times, tricked the character Wade into thinking his friends abandoned him after Trevor actually murdered them, talked a man named Ron into becoming a crazy conspiracy theorist who left his wife... Trevor has strange sexual appetites, some of which bordering on the violently homosexual such as screwing a stuffed bear in the eye and forcing Floyd to sleep in the same bed as him so he can "spoon" with him. Though from Floyd's cries and mumbling "Why God!? Why!?" during a small cut scene when switching to Trevor there is an implied forced sex scene. Then there is the kidnapping of Matin Madrozo's wife Patricia and the subsequent "falling in love" between Trevor and Patricia. Let's see, anything else.... Oh... did I mention Trevor's a cannibal?
As we can see just from the main character, men are not portrayed in a positive light either. However, when we look at the rest of the games characters we find most if not all of them are just plain vile people. Lester wants you to assassinate people, one of his targets promote child labor and outsourcing of jobs to sweat shops, another of his targets is producing a Viagra like drug in the game that gives the user heart attacks. You have so-called "police" and the FIB(the FBI of the game) shooting people for the littlest offenses and murdering and torturing people for cash and drugs and other things.
Even the political atmosphere in the game is filled with vile people, with a right wing candidate running for office who is a so anti-immigration he actually is racist towards foreigners and a left wing candidate so screwed up she promotes group think and hive mind mentalities among other things.
The game doesn't leave anyone out with the denigration, ridicule, and insult to humanity. He targets everyone one, portraying male and female character alike who are violent, vindictive, weak minded and willed, and possessed of poor moral character. Not to mention the sluttiness of both male and female characters as alike.
So the claims of GTA 5 being Misogynistic are wrong, especially when you take the entirety of the game into consideration and look beyond self-concerns. The only people who would think GTA 5 is misogynistic or misandristic or targets a specific group of people are individuals who have a very self-concerned or self- centered view of the world where they concentrate solely on what they see that offends only them based on aspects similar to them.
If a man or woman sees a representation that targets females or males specifically with GTA 5, they seriously need to reconsider their own political views and sensitivities to portrayals of people who share characteristics with them, because GTA 5 lampoons everyone.
Ok, for those who actually read past the title and actually read this, let me just say that this is not an anti-feminist post. It is simply a post about how I think the idea of GTA, and GTA 5 in particular, are being Misogynistic - or shows a dislike of, contempt for, or a string prejudice towards women - is wrong. Admittedly this idea is most often pushed by Feminists, especially the Feminists of a certain ilk who seem to use gaming in general and feminism in particular as a money making scheme.
This topic came to my attention when I was reading various articles about the cast of actors and voice talents used in the GTA 5, was trying to identify a female radio personality in the game that sounded a lot like Trish Suhr from Clean house. Come find out Pam Grier also did a female DJ's voice in the game as well, or at least was used in the game. Which took me by surprise considering that GTA 5 wasn't supposed to be using any famous or well known people. But I digress, sorry.
As I looked through link after link of various sorts that discussed the game in general, and its portrayal of women in particular, I came to realize something that most if not all of these people never seemed to realize. GTA 5 is not Misogynistic, if it has to be classified as anything other than a form of entertainment it would be misanthropic - the dislike of, contempt for, or hatred of humanity - is anything at all. I came to this conclusion based on the three protagonists and the people they are closest to in the game. So i guess the best place to begin this is with the three main characters or protagonists of the game; Michael De Santa a.k.a. Michael Townley, Franklin Clinton, and Trevor Philips.
Each of the protagonists for Grand Theft Auto 5 each brings something unique to the table, and as far as I know with my experiences with the GTA series entirely the first time you could play as one of three different characters at various times. With the ability to change between characters when they are in missions together and interacting with one another. Each one displays characteristics most people would find reprehensible in people we associate with everyday, but as characters in an interactive form they are excellent characters to play. And besides that, given the behaviors of those they interact with in the game as friends and as enemies they aren't quite that bad by comparison... except maybe Trevor Philips.
The game itself does not portray these three men, or the characters they interact with for that matter, to be good people at all, except for maybe Wade's cousin Floyd who actually is a good man. But then he doesn't really last that long either before falling victim to a more depraved character - Trevor ends up killing poor Floyd and his nasty girlfriend/fiance in a fit of rage. Let's start with Michael De Santa.
Michael is a retired bank robber who sold out his friend in order to start a new life with his wife and kids in Los Santos. Judging from the game and the things in it that describes Michael as a person he appears to be not only a violent psychopath who murders people but also prone to having sex with strippers and other ... let's say sexual proclivities that they never go into detail on... thankfully. Michael is not a nice guy, and given his reactions to events that happen to him in the game it seems reasonable to assume he is not a good man, not a role model and definitely a poor representation of what it means to be masculine or a male. So already we see just from the male protagonists that the portrayal of males in the game isn't so flattering. And I'm not even gonna gets started on the portrayal of his wife, who is by all accounts a massive slut who has slept with everyone from the gardener and her tennis coach to her sons third grade teach and some homeless dude.
Franklin is probably the least violent and least mentally disturbed of the three, which is saying something considering he's a drug dealing, murdering, car stealing criminal himself. Franklin is kind of like the character Carl Johnson(CJ) from GTA: San Andreas. He's a young man from "the hood" who is involved in gangs and gang violence and other criminal activities such a thing entails, the stereotype of the classic "gangsta" or "hood" from the "ghetto" as it were. Again, not a flattering portrayal of a male character, but certainly the most stable of the three protagonists of the game.
Trevor is probably the most disturbed of the three protagonists, and if you play the game and pay attention you will learn some very interesting things about Trevor Philips. Where to begin with this guy... how about we start with his rage issues. Trevor is a violent, psychotic, sociopath who has murder people numerous times, tricked the character Wade into thinking his friends abandoned him after Trevor actually murdered them, talked a man named Ron into becoming a crazy conspiracy theorist who left his wife... Trevor has strange sexual appetites, some of which bordering on the violently homosexual such as screwing a stuffed bear in the eye and forcing Floyd to sleep in the same bed as him so he can "spoon" with him. Though from Floyd's cries and mumbling "Why God!? Why!?" during a small cut scene when switching to Trevor there is an implied forced sex scene. Then there is the kidnapping of Matin Madrozo's wife Patricia and the subsequent "falling in love" between Trevor and Patricia. Let's see, anything else.... Oh... did I mention Trevor's a cannibal?
As we can see just from the main character, men are not portrayed in a positive light either. However, when we look at the rest of the games characters we find most if not all of them are just plain vile people. Lester wants you to assassinate people, one of his targets promote child labor and outsourcing of jobs to sweat shops, another of his targets is producing a Viagra like drug in the game that gives the user heart attacks. You have so-called "police" and the FIB(the FBI of the game) shooting people for the littlest offenses and murdering and torturing people for cash and drugs and other things.
Even the political atmosphere in the game is filled with vile people, with a right wing candidate running for office who is a so anti-immigration he actually is racist towards foreigners and a left wing candidate so screwed up she promotes group think and hive mind mentalities among other things.
The game doesn't leave anyone out with the denigration, ridicule, and insult to humanity. He targets everyone one, portraying male and female character alike who are violent, vindictive, weak minded and willed, and possessed of poor moral character. Not to mention the sluttiness of both male and female characters as alike.
So the claims of GTA 5 being Misogynistic are wrong, especially when you take the entirety of the game into consideration and look beyond self-concerns. The only people who would think GTA 5 is misogynistic or misandristic or targets a specific group of people are individuals who have a very self-concerned or self- centered view of the world where they concentrate solely on what they see that offends only them based on aspects similar to them.
If a man or woman sees a representation that targets females or males specifically with GTA 5, they seriously need to reconsider their own political views and sensitivities to portrayals of people who share characteristics with them, because GTA 5 lampoons everyone.
GTA 5, Introduction
Ok, so, I have recently acquired a Playstation 4 and bought Grand Theft Auto 5. Ever since I played the game I have started looking online at various articles and other sources just to see what others thought of it, a very stupid Idea it turns out given the era of political correctness and sociopolitical engineering going on in America. Very stupid indeed. Because the more I looked into this stuff the more I realized that there are few people out there with the views of GTA, and GTA 5 specifically, that I do.
I also want to make this clear, my thoughts and considerations on this are based solely on GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, and GTA 5, since these are the primary GTA games I have played. The following series of post, primarily to help keep the size of the posts down and to help organize my thoughts better, will each cover a single topic and my opinions on those topics. Those Topics will be as follows:
1) Misanthropy vs Misogyny
2)Female Protagaonists
3)Target Audience
4)Controversy and Reactions
After these 4 topics, which wil center primarily around the aforementioned games and GTA 5 specifically, I will be doing a post about my experiences as a "gamer" and what my gaming background actually is. I'm also going to post about the issues with the gaming industry and the perceptions of it being "anti-female" and what my thoughts on this are, as well as why the perception of video games all being viewed a certain way happens. This too will cover two topics:
1) Gamers in General and Me as a Gamer
2) Games in general
3) Don't like what's available?
Not sure anyone even reads these, since I don't post as often as I'd like to, but I have to write this down just to get this stuff my chest and to add a perspective I don't think very many people actually consider.war of political correctness and political grand standing.
I also want to make this clear, my thoughts and considerations on this are based solely on GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, and GTA 5, since these are the primary GTA games I have played. The following series of post, primarily to help keep the size of the posts down and to help organize my thoughts better, will each cover a single topic and my opinions on those topics. Those Topics will be as follows:
1) Misanthropy vs Misogyny
2)Female Protagaonists
3)Target Audience
4)Controversy and Reactions
After these 4 topics, which wil center primarily around the aforementioned games and GTA 5 specifically, I will be doing a post about my experiences as a "gamer" and what my gaming background actually is. I'm also going to post about the issues with the gaming industry and the perceptions of it being "anti-female" and what my thoughts on this are, as well as why the perception of video games all being viewed a certain way happens. This too will cover two topics:
1) Gamers in General and Me as a Gamer
2) Games in general
3) Don't like what's available?
Not sure anyone even reads these, since I don't post as often as I'd like to, but I have to write this down just to get this stuff my chest and to add a perspective I don't think very many people actually consider.war of political correctness and political grand standing.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Feminism vs Self-Defense
So, I'm reading an article today that was written by Lauren R. Taylor and Lynne Marie Wanamaker in July of 2014 about self-defense and "victim blaming" disguised as advice in self-defense. After reading this article I realized it gave me a deeper view into the feminist mindset, and what I found in there was disturbing as hell.
They begin their post with:
"As we know all too well, women and girls get tons of useless advice about how to “protect” ourselves. And then whether we follow the advice or not, we’re blamed for our own assaults."
"Thankfully, more people are pushing back against these victim-blaming messages and standing up to those who believe we caused our own attacks because of something we did or failed to do."
The reality, of course, is that this is not actually something "we all know" and is not people "blaming victims" for the violence they experience because of "something they did" or "failed to do." It is simply what Feminists like Taylor and Wanamaker assert without any real evidence aside from anecdotes, all in order to brand Feminist approved "self-defense" as the only self-defense. This is a common tactic for Feminists, branding anything not provided by feminism as useless and "victim blaming" just to push their victimization narratives. As we read this article we see these two feminists go on to describe the difference(as they see it) between "useless victim-blaming advice" and Feminist approved "empowerment self-defense." The irony of course is that they dismiss actual good advice as "useless" and "dictatorial" while dictating what is "useful" to their views.
Of course they go on to claim that for "many people" saying women actually can defend themselves "sounds like victim-blaming" yet provides no examples of anyone else actually making these remarks besides themselves asserting this as fact. Even if they did managed to do it though, it still would not prove that this is what "many people" say to women who are victims of assault. It would simply be an example of stupid people saying such idiotic remarks and is in no way an indication of a socially acceptable view, which is what Feminists want people to believe is a common view of society as a whole. And certainly is not proof of a "rape culture" that blames the victims of rape for their attacks. Of course they do give remarks they claim are common, remarks like:
"If you just had fought back harder, you would have escaped”
or
“You should have taken a self-defense class and then you wouldn’t have been raped."
But of course they have to make these claims, it's almost mandatory for Feminists to make these claims because without them Feminists couldn't justify their innate hatreds. Because the people Feminists often accuse of making these claims are men or to a lesser degree women they deem possessed of "internal misogyny" in order to try and make their often times irrational claims seem more rational to them. They hold these views while actually acknowledging society as a whole doesn't do this.
"Increasingly, society is rightfully putting the responsibility for the crime on the person who committed it and not on the person targeted. There is nothing any survivor could do or not do that could “cause” a sexual assault, harassment, intimate partner violence, or stalking to happen."
As you can see, they admit society in general does see the perpetrator as guilty, regardless of what the person did or didn't do. But then these delusional people go on to claim it's not enough. And this is where their innate hatreds and bigotry comes in, because it postulates that men are guilty even if they haven't done anything. This very convoluted logic allows these bigots to express their hatred openly, but why so much of American society is so willing to deem this bigotry and hatred as acceptable is beyond me. Because the only reason I can see such discriminatory and bigoted views as being justified is you believe male lives have little to no value. Often times fostering this view with guilt by association, case in point:
"Though very few men rape, all men benefit from the power and privilege it enforces."
This is directly from their blog post, in which they are saying not all men rape but all of them benefit so are responsible for it happening. It's the same moronic logic that racists use to brand all Black Americans as violent criminals. Can you imagine some racist jackass stating "Though very few black men rape, all black men benefit from the power and privilege it enforces."
In the end the article is primarily about the ideology that "only Feminism can protect women" and they try to demonize common sense recommendations that would actually protect women. Things like "Don’t leave your drink unsupervised" which would seem like common sense advice for insuring your drink isn't drugged and thus decreasing your chances of being taken advantage of. Things like "don’t park next to a van" which insures that you are not surprised by someone hiding in a van and get kidnapped. They even use the "don't wear a short skirt" argument and claim this is advice people actually give rape victims. The last "victim-blaming" advice they condemn is "be aware of everything around you all the time." which is actually good advice for everyone, male or female. Situational awareness is a good skill to have, as it allows you to be more aware of the environment around you and spot potential threats before they become a threat. There was even an incident a few years back where some male college students came up with an idea that would allow women to carry a substance disguised as nail polish that would let them know if commonly used drugs were put in their drinks. Yet Feminists called this too "victim-blaming" and did everything they could to derail it's production.
According to feminists these common sense tactics to reduce your risk of being a victim is just "victim-blaming" and thus should be discouraged. The question is: why? Why do Feminists try to derail any possible non-feminist ideas they could help protect women and reduce their risks of becoming victims? Well, this is only speculation on my part, but I believe the reason is two fold.
The first reason? It allows Feminists to deem women as little more than victims which helps them justify their bigotry and hatred, after all they argue that "women sexist towards men, since sexism requires power and women have little" The idiocy of such a belief aside; in a society that provides tremendous benefit to women in the form of "protected class" laws such as hate crimes and female gender-centric legislation, mandatory quotas enforced by Affirmative Action legislation that benefits women by focusing on gender before skill and experience, a society that teaches women male lives and well being is secondary to their own and that violence against women by men is wrong even in self-defense but violence by women against men is perfectly fine because women aren't a "real threat" to men. It seems disingenuous to make the claim of oppression when these things are all true of American society.
The second reason? It allows Feminists to claim that only Feminism is concerned for the well being of women, and that anyone else is just blaming the victim. This gives Feminism the grounds to deem anyone who does not identify as Feminist as a villain, even Egalitarians who have arguably done more to foster a truly equal society than Feminism ever has. With the "Only Feminism cares" mantra Feminists are able to claim the moral high ground, even when what they are espousing is immoral or even downright vile. Things like male genocide, male imprisonment in what basically equals concentration camps, and calling for men who legitimately earned their positions and livelihood through hard work and sacrifice to be fired to place a woman there whether she's earned it or not or even is qualified.
For Feminism the movement is always about power, that is often their most common rhetoric. They often times make comments like "I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender." that was made by Bahar Mustafa. A woman who is allowed to teach college students this same philosophy in the name of "diversity" as the Student Union Welfare Diversity Officer for Goldsmiths University. And this was after Mustafa was found to have posted a Facebook post with regards to a event being held to discuss "Diversifying the curriculum" in which she told white students and male students they should attend the event.
Here's her Facebook post:
Not only is this woman displaying the typical bigoted views that feminists have, but she also clearly proves that Feminism is about power. Look at her last sentence in that comment: "Don't worry lads we will give you and allies things to do." If this doesn't help display the arrogance of Feminists, perhaps knowing this isn't an uncommon view of the average feminist would help. There are a number of blogs and videos where feminists tell white people and men to just shut up and let others talk, doing so by demeaning the views and comments that these people have based solely on gender and skin color.
Modern day feminism is not about equality, it's about power and control and everything you learn about Feminism from their own publishing's and articles is proof of this.
They begin their post with:
"As we know all too well, women and girls get tons of useless advice about how to “protect” ourselves. And then whether we follow the advice or not, we’re blamed for our own assaults."
"Thankfully, more people are pushing back against these victim-blaming messages and standing up to those who believe we caused our own attacks because of something we did or failed to do."
The reality, of course, is that this is not actually something "we all know" and is not people "blaming victims" for the violence they experience because of "something they did" or "failed to do." It is simply what Feminists like Taylor and Wanamaker assert without any real evidence aside from anecdotes, all in order to brand Feminist approved "self-defense" as the only self-defense. This is a common tactic for Feminists, branding anything not provided by feminism as useless and "victim blaming" just to push their victimization narratives. As we read this article we see these two feminists go on to describe the difference(as they see it) between "useless victim-blaming advice" and Feminist approved "empowerment self-defense." The irony of course is that they dismiss actual good advice as "useless" and "dictatorial" while dictating what is "useful" to their views.
Of course they go on to claim that for "many people" saying women actually can defend themselves "sounds like victim-blaming" yet provides no examples of anyone else actually making these remarks besides themselves asserting this as fact. Even if they did managed to do it though, it still would not prove that this is what "many people" say to women who are victims of assault. It would simply be an example of stupid people saying such idiotic remarks and is in no way an indication of a socially acceptable view, which is what Feminists want people to believe is a common view of society as a whole. And certainly is not proof of a "rape culture" that blames the victims of rape for their attacks. Of course they do give remarks they claim are common, remarks like:
"If you just had fought back harder, you would have escaped”
or
“You should have taken a self-defense class and then you wouldn’t have been raped."
But of course they have to make these claims, it's almost mandatory for Feminists to make these claims because without them Feminists couldn't justify their innate hatreds. Because the people Feminists often accuse of making these claims are men or to a lesser degree women they deem possessed of "internal misogyny" in order to try and make their often times irrational claims seem more rational to them. They hold these views while actually acknowledging society as a whole doesn't do this.
"Increasingly, society is rightfully putting the responsibility for the crime on the person who committed it and not on the person targeted. There is nothing any survivor could do or not do that could “cause” a sexual assault, harassment, intimate partner violence, or stalking to happen."
As you can see, they admit society in general does see the perpetrator as guilty, regardless of what the person did or didn't do. But then these delusional people go on to claim it's not enough. And this is where their innate hatreds and bigotry comes in, because it postulates that men are guilty even if they haven't done anything. This very convoluted logic allows these bigots to express their hatred openly, but why so much of American society is so willing to deem this bigotry and hatred as acceptable is beyond me. Because the only reason I can see such discriminatory and bigoted views as being justified is you believe male lives have little to no value. Often times fostering this view with guilt by association, case in point:
"Though very few men rape, all men benefit from the power and privilege it enforces."
This is directly from their blog post, in which they are saying not all men rape but all of them benefit so are responsible for it happening. It's the same moronic logic that racists use to brand all Black Americans as violent criminals. Can you imagine some racist jackass stating "Though very few black men rape, all black men benefit from the power and privilege it enforces."
In the end the article is primarily about the ideology that "only Feminism can protect women" and they try to demonize common sense recommendations that would actually protect women. Things like "Don’t leave your drink unsupervised" which would seem like common sense advice for insuring your drink isn't drugged and thus decreasing your chances of being taken advantage of. Things like "don’t park next to a van" which insures that you are not surprised by someone hiding in a van and get kidnapped. They even use the "don't wear a short skirt" argument and claim this is advice people actually give rape victims. The last "victim-blaming" advice they condemn is "be aware of everything around you all the time." which is actually good advice for everyone, male or female. Situational awareness is a good skill to have, as it allows you to be more aware of the environment around you and spot potential threats before they become a threat. There was even an incident a few years back where some male college students came up with an idea that would allow women to carry a substance disguised as nail polish that would let them know if commonly used drugs were put in their drinks. Yet Feminists called this too "victim-blaming" and did everything they could to derail it's production.
According to feminists these common sense tactics to reduce your risk of being a victim is just "victim-blaming" and thus should be discouraged. The question is: why? Why do Feminists try to derail any possible non-feminist ideas they could help protect women and reduce their risks of becoming victims? Well, this is only speculation on my part, but I believe the reason is two fold.
The first reason? It allows Feminists to deem women as little more than victims which helps them justify their bigotry and hatred, after all they argue that "women sexist towards men, since sexism requires power and women have little" The idiocy of such a belief aside; in a society that provides tremendous benefit to women in the form of "protected class" laws such as hate crimes and female gender-centric legislation, mandatory quotas enforced by Affirmative Action legislation that benefits women by focusing on gender before skill and experience, a society that teaches women male lives and well being is secondary to their own and that violence against women by men is wrong even in self-defense but violence by women against men is perfectly fine because women aren't a "real threat" to men. It seems disingenuous to make the claim of oppression when these things are all true of American society.
The second reason? It allows Feminists to claim that only Feminism is concerned for the well being of women, and that anyone else is just blaming the victim. This gives Feminism the grounds to deem anyone who does not identify as Feminist as a villain, even Egalitarians who have arguably done more to foster a truly equal society than Feminism ever has. With the "Only Feminism cares" mantra Feminists are able to claim the moral high ground, even when what they are espousing is immoral or even downright vile. Things like male genocide, male imprisonment in what basically equals concentration camps, and calling for men who legitimately earned their positions and livelihood through hard work and sacrifice to be fired to place a woman there whether she's earned it or not or even is qualified.
For Feminism the movement is always about power, that is often their most common rhetoric. They often times make comments like "I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender." that was made by Bahar Mustafa. A woman who is allowed to teach college students this same philosophy in the name of "diversity" as the Student Union Welfare Diversity Officer for Goldsmiths University. And this was after Mustafa was found to have posted a Facebook post with regards to a event being held to discuss "Diversifying the curriculum" in which she told white students and male students they should attend the event.
Here's her Facebook post:
Modern day feminism is not about equality, it's about power and control and everything you learn about Feminism from their own publishing's and articles is proof of this.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Equity Feminism vs Gender Feminism - Again
Modern Feminists Don't Understand Equity
I recently came across another Gender Feminist attempt to define the differences between Equity Feminism and Gender Feminism. And as one would expect, they have little to no understanding of Equity Feminism or what makes Gender Feminism... well Gender Feminism.
In an article written by "Ampersand" back in 2005 for a blog called "ALAS! A Blog" we find truly astounding feats of either intentianal misrepresentation, mental gymnastics to not violate their own views, or a complete lack of understanding to such a degree it makes one question the authors mental faculties. Allow me explain further.
Defining the two types of Feminism
In this blog "Ampersand" does a 3 part post about Gender and Equity feminism, and getting most of it wrong of course. They even use quotes from the woman believed to have actually originated the two terms, Christina Hoff-Sommers. Whom she terms a Conservative Feminist. The following are some of the quotes they use.
Sommers on Gender Feminism:
The gender feminists (as I shall call them) believe that all our institutions, from the state to the family to the grade schools, perpetuate male dominance. … Gender feminists are constantly on the lookout for the smoking gun, the telling fact that will drive home to the public how profoundly the system is rigged against women. To rally women to their cause, it is not enough to remind us that many brutal and selfish men harm women. They must persuade us that the system itself sanctions male brutality. They must convince us that the oppression of women, sustained from generation to generation, is a structural feature of our society.
First, you'll notice that they use a ... in there to block out some of her comment, but the gist of this is still true with regards to modern day Feminism. At least as far the third wave Gender Feminists are concerned anyway, and how they view the societal structure.
Clearly Sommers is showing how Gender Feminism is to be defined in quite clear terms. Gender Feminism is a pervasive belief that women as a whole within society are being physically and sexually abused, actively oppressed, and treated unfairly economically, politically and socially by men. And further that our society as a whole condones, promotes, and actively allows such abuses to be perpetrated. Of course Gender feminism has a name for this system of oppression and abuse. They call these systemic and cultural societal practices they claim exist, The Patriarchy.
This is clear and easily understandable to anyone who's not a complete moron, or who is completely blinded by an ideology victimization. An Ideology that deprives women of authenticity and their Agency, meaning that the ideology of Patriarchy theory that Gender Feminists espouse proclaims women not having the capacity as individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. Make no mistake, this is the sole meaning behind Patriarchy Theory, to remove agency from women so that they are not seen as individuals with full control over their own choices.
Sommers on Equity Feminists:
The traditional, classically liberal, humanistic feminism that was initiated more than 150 years ago was very different. It has a specific agenda, demanding for women the same rights before the law that men enjoyed. The suffrage had to be won, and the laws regarding property, marriage, divorce, and child custody had to be made equitable. More recently, abortion rights had to be protected. The old mainstream feminism concentrated on legal reforms. …
Most American women subscribe philosophically to that older "First Wave" kind of feminism whose main goal is equity, especially in politics and education. A First Wave, "mainstream," or "equity" feminist wants for women what she wants for everyone: fair treatment, without discrimination.
You'll notice they again use ... to block out some of her comment, as would be expected. However, this is still an accurate depiction of Equity Feminism. As you can see, Equity Feminism is concerned with insuring that everyone is treated equally under the law regardless of gender. It is not centered on a gender centrist, ideological view like Gender Feminism is, but an ideological view centered on equality itself.
You'll also notice that Sommers doesn't claim that Equity Feminists push for governmental control over social behavior, the way Gender Feminists do. Equity feminists are concerned with equality of men and women, not just women at the expense of males the way modern, mainstream Gender Feminism does.
The blogger, "Ampersand," then goes on to try and explain how they see Sommers remarks as "incoherent" and how her definition "over laps" with gender Feminists. The following is from that blog post, and I am going to address them individually.
Note that the definitions are already a bit incoherent; although Hoff Sommers is trying to create two opposed categories, her definitions leave a lot of room for overlap. There is no contradiction, for example, between believing that "system is profoundly rigged against women" (gender feminists) and wanting "fair treatment, without discrimination, for everyone" (equity feminists).
First off, Sommers definition is not incoherent, they seem pretty detailed and easily understood to me. Whether you agree with her definitions or differentiation between the two matters little. Simply disagreeing with what someone says doesn't make their arguments incoherent, and it especially doesn't make them incoherent just because you don't understand them. Which sadly, most people who call themselves Feminists do not understand the differences. Thanks in large part to Gender Feminists like this one misinforming and distorting them.
Except for the fact that Gender Feminism makes the claim to want the things Equity Feminists do, the actions of Gender Feminists belie this claim. The belief that the "system is profoundly rigged against women" is not the view of Equity Feminists. Aside from the fact that such a view is completely female-centrist, implying that males cannot be adversely affected by the system as well, it is also an inaccurate account of the Equity Feminist view. And the view of first wave Feminism as well.
This claim is complete bullshit designed to mislead people, the intent of which is to hide the gender-centrist and bigoted views that most people would find reprehensible if Gender Feminists admitted to them. Anyone with an IQ greater than their shoe size will realize this the intent by the more active members.
To be clear, Equity Feminists do believe that in the past there were some societal expectations of women that were reinforced by laws that were wrong. These inequities however have for the most part been addressed, and Equity Feminists acknowledge this where Gender Feminists still claim to be fighting for voter rights, pay equity, and other such claims that have already been dealt with. Yet most of what Gender Feminists are always trying to address centers around either antiquated inequities that that no longer exist or individual instances of criminal behavior, physical and sexual abuse, and discrimination against women. All while trying to claim it is an acceptable and/or even condoned behavior and attitudes towards women in society at large.
The Ampersand goes on to state:
Ignoring the incoherence for a while, the two key differences in Hoff Sommers formulation seem to be that “gender feminists” believe that sexism against women is a widespread problem, found in virtually all our society’s institutions. In contrast, “equity feminists” apparently think that feminism’s only proper concern is legal equality – a goal that has been, to a significant extent, achieved in the USA – and there is absolutely no cultural or systemic bias against women.
Now in this one they finally have it right. Equity Feminists do not believe there is a cultural or systemic bigotry towards women. They do believe there are cases of individual bias and bigotry against women, because we have evidence of those, but a systemic and cultural bigotry toward women? No. To any logical or analytical mind it seems a bit far-fetched to claim a society that promotes "women and children first" for women, promotes a guilty until proven innocent narrative for crimes against women(especially sexual assault) while denying that these things happen to men is somehow biased against women either culturally or systemically. Let's look at some cultural and systemic examples of bias against women in America, let's see if this bias in favor of women or in opposition to women as Gender Feminists claim.
Domestic Violence and Abuse
First, let's examine violence against women claim. Now before we start let's make something clear. There is no doubt that there are individual cases of violence against women in the US. We know they exist, it does happen. That being said, the claim it is a culturally or systemically accepted or condoned behavior seems highly illogical to believe it is part of the governing system or societal views of acceptable behavior. There are an estimated 1500 women's shelters in the United States alone, with another over 1900 domestic violence programs identified by NNEDV(National Network to End Domestic Violence), most of which cater mostly to women. Some of which, if not a majority of which, are likely to be connected with these shelters.
If you'd like a first hand view of how society handles examples of violence against women by men as opposed to violence against men by women, watch this video by ABC's "What Would You Do": Violence In Public
You'll notice a real interesting behavior in the people walking by in that video, and it actually shows where the actual cultural acceptance of violence against which gender really is. For the majority of the people walking by, especially the women, you'll notice their indifference and even the logic behind not stepping in to help. Aside from the woman who actually takes active pleasure in seeing a man beaten by a woman(which you can tell by her smiling and celebratory behavior, not mention her "you go girl" when asked about her behavior), tends to be varied but all seem to center on one premise, the inherent guilt of the guy and the innocence of the female. Things like "he must have deserved it" or "I thought maybe he cheated on her" are common responses. And the reason for the ease people have with seeing a woman abuse a male can be found in not only the comment from the male off duty officer, "I was raised to not hit women" he says, yet he had no problem with the woman being obviously and violently abusive. Also from the other people like the woman who was walking her dog, who stated to the WWYD team "I didn't think she posed any real physical threat."
There is something else in that video that is surprising, at least for me. At the 1:20 second mark in the video you'll see them speaking to a Psychology professor named Carrie Keating. To quote Keating "It is a big problem in this country. Men create more damage, but women hit more than men do." After her statement you'll also see the host of "What Would You Do," John Quiñones, go on to say "Every year there are 800,000 serious cases of women abusing men." That's right, a yearly number of hundreds of thousands of cases of males being abused, not by other males but by females. And let us not forget, we live in a society where males reporting abuse at the hands of a female is more often than not met with ridicule, derision, and out right denial, so this number could conceivably be even higher if those males who didn't speak up actually did.
Yet how often do we see a domestic violence against men PSA? Have you ever seen a domestic violence advertisement that depicts a male victim being abused by a female abuser? Have you ever seen a movie about a male abuse victim standing up to his female abuser? Maybe Misery, but that's more obsession than domestic abuse? Movies about women standing up to or escaping from abusive males are plentiful. Movies like Enough starring Jennifer Lopez, Provoked starring Aishwarya Rai, Sleeping with the Enemy staring Julia Roberts, and many many others exist. I saw one movie in a list of domestic violence movies, which includes documentaries, that even addresses males being abused by women titled Men don't tell.
Documentaries like Sin of Silence, which portray females who murdered their spouses as victims instead of the murderers that they are, are an example of people trying to brand even female murderers as victims of men. Trying to give these women a pass for choosing murder by branding their spouses as abusers, instead of seeking the plethora of helpful services out there for women who are victims of domestic violence. It's just another example of American society's views of the acceptance of violence towards males in a cultural sense.
No one disputes that men who abuse women are despicable dogs, not in American society at any rate. But ask yourself this, how many documentaries have you seen that try to free male murderers who killed their spouses and blamed it on being abused? None, that's how many. Because as a culture we do not believe such a thing could happen.
To illustrate the double standard in society I have two video clips for anyone to watch. The are both from "The Talk" on an episode about 2 years ago, on a story about a woman who mutilated her husbands genitals.
Here's the first video: Male Genital Mutilation is "fabulous" - The Talk
This next video is their attempted apology: We're sorry we laughed, but not really - The Talk
The story itself is about a woman who drugged and bound her husband before cutting his penis off and putting it in the garbage disposal. And why did she do this? Because he dared to file for divorce. And the audience of "The Talk" was no better, with one woman in the audience saying "That'll teach him." when they were informed of why she actually did it. You can hear the audience hooting and cheering and laughing at all the jokes being told and celebratory behavior. Even Sharon Osborne who claims she didn't mean to offend anyone in her half-assed apology can be seen in the original video imitating a penis whirling around a garbage disposal and them mouthing "I love it" while others and the audience laugh.
There were no protests from Gender Feminists to have the show canceled nor were there calls for the females laughing so hysterically and celebrating male genital mutilation to be fired. Despite all the rhetoric and bullshit claims about how "Feminism helps men too" and how "Feminism is concerned with men's issues too" there was not so much as a peep from the Gender Feminist camp. Neither of these women were ever fired, and the show itself was not canceled. But we know that had this been a show of all men laughing and celebrating female genital mutilation they would be fired or the show would have been canceled. Especially after the half-assed and insincere apology they would offer later.
So when it comes to cultural or systemic acceptance of violence against women being an accepted behavior, we see the story is far different than the Gender Feminist arguments would have you believe. Gender Feminists will have you believe that female on male violence is either non-existent or is in such small numbers that it doesn't matter. So you have to wonder about a mentality or ideology that finds 800,000 serious cases of males being abused by women as non-existent or in too small of a number to matter. And wonder about the validity of a movement that claims to be equality, when their very actions show a female gender oriented focus alone.
Equity Feminists on the other hand realize that you cannot control the actions of individuals in cases of violence, whether it's against men or women. They also realize that trying to brand violence as systemically or culturally acceptable for men to abuse women(basically casting half of the worlds population as villains) and claiming men can't be victims of violence from females, helps no one. In fact it does more harm to society than it does good, because it makes the half of society you are branding as vile less likely to want to work with you. This is why Equity Feminists push for legislative equality ans not the Social Marxism espoused by Gender Feminists, because being treated equally under the law and advocating for social change that fosters less abuse by both sexes makes far more logical sense than trying to brand all males(including little boys) as abusers and rapists and all females(including little girls) as victims the way Gender Feminists have been doing.
Child Custody and Divorce Laws
The standard for child custody issues is generally "In the best interest of the child" when the courts try to decide on custody. While there is a shift towards joint custody there are still major issues, including the fact that this new view on joint custody still bases the custody on the gender role of females being the better caretakers of children. The majority of courts still believe that the majority of children are better off with the mother(biological connections) and not the father, even if the mother has no job and cannot support the children without monitary compensation through child support and/or alimony.
Then there is the issue of Alimony itself, which is often times a lifetime appointment. Because it's not enough that a woman can and most likely will retain the home and any automobiles because she's the primary custodial holder of the children, the now homeless ex-husband is forced to pay for a woman he is no longer with and will more than likely become near destitute himself because he no longer has a control over his own money to be able to provide for himself.
According to census records from 2010 for example, of the roughly 400,000 people receiving spousal support(alimony), only 3 percent were men. That's roughly 12,000 of males collecting alimony out of 400,000.
Given that priority for child custody is placed in the mother "in the best interest of the child," and given that property such as a house and/or car is more likely to be granted to the mother "in the best interest of the child," and given that roughly 12 out of every 400 alimony recipients who receive alimony in a divorce are male compared to roughly 388 out of every 400 alimony recipients who receive alimony are female it's hard to accept the view that the family courts biased towards women.
Gender Feminists believe there is nothing wrong with family courts and how they function, despite all of the evidence otherwise. All the while insisting that there is systemic and cultural prejudice and oppression with regards to women.
Equity Feminists on the hand acknowledge the inequalities with the family court system that is unfairly in favor of women and want to see this changed for true equity. And oppose gender role based bias in the courts.
Criminal Courts and Jail time
With regards to criminal courts, we also see an unfair bias towards men as opposed to women. If you commit a crime in American society, your best defense might just be your gender. If you're a female that is. According to studies men receive on average a much higher sentence than females. And one study that looks at conditional factors on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observable. Men receive over 60% higher or longer sentencing than women in fact, and for the exact same crime as men.(Source) This means that women, simply for being women, are given more favorable treatment than men in a systemic sense for criminal behavior. It also found that women were significantly likely to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if they were convicted. That must be really oppressive to women.
In a 2009 study it was suggested the reason for this disparity in sentencing stems from judges treating "judges treat women more leniently for practical reasons, such as their greater care-taking responsibility." Meaning that because the system naturally favors the gender stereotypes that gender Feminists claim to fight against, the system is further rigged against men because this flaw in the system causes women to receive over 60% less of a sentence than a man would receive.
Gender Feminists see nothing wrong with this system either, unless pressed. At which point they'll either shrug it off as inconsequential and bring up abuse of women or simply deny it is true.
Equity Feminists on the other hand find this inequality to be deplorable.
Criminality and "Rape Culture"
This was just the first post of this idiotic and misleading blog. Now we're going to step into the second post. In this second posting we find that "Ampersand" has not only made false statements but applied faulty logic as well. They begin their second posting with the following:
How far do “equity feminists” go in denying that there’s any widespread problem of sexism for feminism to address in the US? Here’s Hoff Sommers describing the “equity feminist” view of rape. First, she points out that in prison – which is to say, in an environment where men have absolutely no access to women – male rape is common. The[n] she says:
Quoting Sommers actual words with:
"Equity feminists find it reasonable to approach the problem of violence against women by addressing the root causes of the general rise in violence and the decline in civility. To view rape as a crime of gender bias… is perversely to miss its true nature. Rape is perpetrated by criminals, which is to say, it is perpetrated by people who are wont to gratify themselves in criminal ways and who care very little about the suffering they inflict on others."
Before continuing with:
Hoff-Sommers acknowledges that most violent criminals are male, but dismisses this as uninteresting: “That most violence is male isn’t news. But very little of it appears to be misogynist.”
And that is the “equity feminist” view on rape, according to the woman who invented the term.
Here you see the blogger trying to bring the "rape culture" myth into the mix and using the fact that women get raped as proof of a systemic or cultural acceptance of females being raped being an acceptable part of the culture. Their intention here is to paint Equity Feminists, and Sommers in particular, as "rape apologists" or supporters of "rape culture" by trying to make it sound as though Sommers dismisses rape entirely.
The first thing you'll notice though is that this blogger tries to paint Sommers as a denier of sexism, which is not the case at all. Equity Feminists just do not push the dishonest and delusional belief that it is a systemically and culturally acceptable behavior, but instead admit that the sexism that does exist is more of an individual basis than a systemic one.
Then Ampersand goes claims to point out that Sommers "points out that in prison – which is to say, in an environment where men have absolutely no access to women – male rape is common." Well, wouldn't that make sense? In an environment with all males wouldn't it seem like male rape would be common? Something else you'll notice as well is that the blogger never addresses female rape and sexual assaults in female prisons. So pointing out males are the most common victims of rape where there are no females is not only stupid, but extremely dishonest.
You'll also notice that Sommers doesn't even address prison rape in the comment they do use. Only the criminal desire for self gratification, regardless of the damage done. The blogger actually does try to paint Sommers as if she's supporting the Gender Feminist narrative of "males are nothing but rapists" while trying to make her look like a rape apologist.
The blogger goes on to state:
What’s interesting to me is how, in bending over backwards to deny that rape has anything to do with gender bias, Hoff Sommers winds up not talking about rape at all, whinging on about “criminal violence” instead.
In this one sentence we see a number of fallacies taking place. First, we see her claiming Equity Feminists believe rape doesn't have a gender bias. They do. They just don't think that bias is based on one gender like Gender Feminists do. Equity Feminists believe the bias is more towards a power and weakness dynamic than a gender one. Male victims of sexual assault are far more common than Gender Feminists will have you believe, not to mention males who are raped never have what happens to them called rape. It's always called the more general sexual assault regardless of whether it was forced penetration or not. Rape is a gender-centrist classification of a crime.
Second, we see the blogger trying to deny that a majority of rapes are actually violent crimes. Even the ones that are by people they know are considered violent crimes, even if the woman was drugged or in some other manner incapacitated. The blogger is actually making the case that rape is not "criminal violence" because they explicitly state Sommers is no longer talking about rape when she calls it "criminal violence." So if Gender Feminists have a problem with rape being classified as criminal violence, one has to wonder what they want it classified as? A non-violent crime?
After this brief mental gymnastics to try and put Equity Feminists, and Sommers specifically yet again, in a rape apologist light they go on to talk about rape in prisons.
Yes, male-on-male rape is a serious problem (and a statistically huge problem in prison); but it’s not possible to seriously discuss causes and prevention of rape if we’re not willing to admit that – outside of environments where men are locked away from all access to women – rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women. And although all rapists are, by definition, criminals, the typical rapist isn’t a career criminal, but an acquaintance, boyfriend or husband of the victim. That’s the reality.
Now, this paragraph has a few flaws in it that need to be pointed out. First, is the fact that they disregard female prisons entirely again, as most of society does. But rapes of female prisoners actually do happen by other females in prison. The numbers are not as large as the male-on-male rape numbers for obvious reasons, such as women getting over 60% less jail time than men which results in fewer female prisoners.
Second we see them go on to claim that "outside of environments where men are locked away from all access to women – rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women." This claim has been disputed and even rebutted for decades. There are an estimated 40% of sexual assaults being male victims, which includes rape being perpetrated by females against males. It's very easy, and even dishonest, to try and claim "rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women." when sexual assaults of men, even forced to penetrate cases, aren't classified as rape.
Lara Stemple with the Health and Human Rights Law Project, and Ilan H. Meyer with the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, did a study that examined a 12-month prevalence and incidence data on sexual victimization in 5 federal surveys that the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted independently from 2010 through 2012. Their conclusion?
We concluded that federal surveys detect a high prevalence of sexual victimization among men—in many circumstances similar to the prevalence found among women.
That's right, sexual victimization among men is prevalent to those found among women. But it goes futher than this. They even stated that they identified the problematic reasons that factor into the disregard our society has for male victims of violence at the hands of females. In a 2010 study that was one of the ones Stemple and Meyer used found that when "forced to penetrate" were taken into account, the rates of non-consensual sexual contact(rape) basically equalized, with 1.270 million women and 1.267 million men claiming to be victims of sexual violence. Stemple and Meyer recommended "changes that move beyond regressive gender assumptions, which can harm both women and men." Meaning that the factors that gender Feminists ignore that prove the rhetoric of "rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women." to be false need to be changed. Factors such as reliance on traditional gender stereotypes or outdated and inconsistent definitions, among other things.
Eventually the "Ampersand" would go on to declare Equity Feminists and Sommers as delusional people who don't live in reality. Even going so far as to state:
But since dealing with reality would conflict with “equity feminist” ideology, Hoff Sommers chooses not to deal in reality. Instead, according to “equity feminism,” rape has to be understood as a subcategory of gender-neutral “violence” and a “decline in civility,” and therefore has nothing to do with women being attacked at all.
Of course Sommers, nor Equity Feminists in general, have ever implied rape has nothing to do with women being attacked at all. Their claim, contrary to the dishonest bloggers assertions, is that rape is not soley a female only crime and that to treat it as if it is the way Gender Feminists do is wrong. You can see the disdain the blogger has for rape not being a gender biased, female gender-centrist crime, meaning that treating it as the gender-neutral crime that it is makes you delusional or perhaps even a "rape culture" supporter.
So one has to wonder, given the actual data available that shows that if you include forced to penetrate sexual assaults in the equation of rape calculations the victim numbers are only .003 million apart.
Continuing First wave Feminism
The blogger calling themselves Ampersand would continue their misleading information about Equity Feminists and Gender Feminists in a third blog post. This one far larger than the two previously. "Ampersand" continues:
"Ironically, although self-dubbed “equity feminists” often say they’re continuing the traditions of first-wave feminism, it’s doubtful any first wave feminists would have signed on to an ideology so extreme in its pretense that feminism has nothing to say beyond formal legal equality that it believes that rape has nothing to do with misogyny or gender bias."
There's just one problem with the bloggers claims, and I have addressed this before. And regardless of how many times "Ampersand" tries to say it, doesn't make it true. Equity Feminists do not believe "that rape has nothing to do with misogyny or gender bias." They simply believe that the misogyny and gender bias isn't culturally or systemically acceptable in American, or in general western, society.
As for the claim "it’s doubtful any first wave feminists would have signed on to an ideology so extreme..." it would appear Ampersand has never studied history. First wave Feminists did not demand governmental enforcement of social standards the way Gender Feminists do. And of the two, Gender Feminism or Equity Feminism, I seriously doubt first wave Feminists would have willingly joined with a movement that is so female gender-centrist. In fact, as far back as the late 1700's you can find documents and writings by people who were "first wave" feminists, and all of their works centered on legislative equality between men and women. But none of their works advocated for government control over social behavior, or Political Correctness as we know it today, and in fact most of them abhorred such a practice.
Maybe Ampersand should look into first wave Feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft, considered one of the first Feminist philosophers, who believed that both genders contributed to inequality. There is also a lot of literature before the 1920s that shows how first wave feminists felt about social behavior of both men AND women, and the treatment of both in society. Equity Feminists bear the standard of first wave feminism, and unlike the Gender Feminist claims, have the backing to prove it through historical records.
Eventually the blogger will go on to claim that Equity Feminism is an astonishingly narrow classification, doing so while once again claiming Equity feminists "do not perceive any social problem of anti-woman beliefs (a position very at odds with first-wave feminist thought, by the way), and who additionally think feminism’s only legitimate goal is formal equality under the law" Not only is this not the Equity feminist view, it's a complete lie to try and brand Sommers as unreasonable or stupid. Equity feminists acknowledge that in the era of First wave feminists there was a bias view towards women, as intellectually inferior to men, etc. But Equity Feminists also do not deny the part women themselves played in this social structure, and further than women's suffrage not only gave women the legal rights they deserved but showed that socially women and men were equals as well. Equity Feminists acknowledge these past "anti-women" views, but also acknowledge that these view has changed. In large part due to first wave feminism, as well as males in society realizing women are not the weak minded creatures they were believed to be who need a night in shining armor to save the day, which was also something women taught their children as well prior to first wave feminism.
Unlike their gender-centrist counterparts who have become the mainstream movement of modern feminism, Equity Feminists do not deny the hand women had in the creation of societies perceived roles for men and women. Gender Feminists on the other wish to erase this view from history, to portray women as the weak minded and helpless victims of male dominance. Gender Feminists, like this blogger, are a regression to an age before first wave feminism when women in general were thought to be too weak and too fragile to have agency. This despite their claims otherwise.
We see this with the creation of "safe spaces" in college campuses that have coloring books and other childish ideas of expression. The idea of safe spaces is a good one in theory, but when put into practice we see a gender-centric ideology pushed. An ideology that brands any criticism as harassment and any discussions that might make someone "uncomfortable" as harmful. This new ideology of weak mindedness is part of the reason American society is slowly regressing to a more bigoted and harmful form of society. A place where speaking freely and openly can be punishable by fines, imprisonment, or even death. Western society hasn't reached this place yet, thankfully. But it's working on it, in large part due to Gender Feminists. All anyone has to do is look at the new call for what I term "cyber book burning" where Gender Feminists have gone before governmental agencies, including the UN, and called for mass censorship.
Ampersand ends with this idiotic comment:
"I can see why this approach is ideologically attractive to conservatives and anti-feminists; what I can’t see is how such an approach can be anything but intellectually vapid."
The fact that "Ampersand" and others can't see how their own bias has blinded them to reality and causes them to push antiquated and outdated ideological thought is just one issue with Gender Feminism. The fact that these lunatics can actually think that including Kim Gandy, Andrea Dworkin, and Mary Daly means there something wrong with the designation of Gender Feminism only goes to prove they have no clue what it means. Anyone, regardless of how extreme, that espouses a gender-centrist, female focused ideology and calls themselves a Feminist is a Gender Feminist. Anyone who tries to claim men are not subject to rape by being forced to penetrate against their will, who denies the inequalities in the legal system as well as the societal acceptance of abuse towards men, is a Gender Feminist.
Equity Feminists are rational thinkers who look at data, statistics, and facts. Equity Feminists realize you can't legislate social behavior through mandated social engineering. Equity Feminists realize you cannot claim to be for equality between men and women, and then make female empowerment your sole focus. Because when you do these things, you ignore the damage you do to the people you consider the "other" or the "enemy" or women. And Equity Feminists know this, Gender Feminists on the other hand either can't see this or just don't care.
I recently came across another Gender Feminist attempt to define the differences between Equity Feminism and Gender Feminism. And as one would expect, they have little to no understanding of Equity Feminism or what makes Gender Feminism... well Gender Feminism.
In an article written by "Ampersand" back in 2005 for a blog called "ALAS! A Blog" we find truly astounding feats of either intentianal misrepresentation, mental gymnastics to not violate their own views, or a complete lack of understanding to such a degree it makes one question the authors mental faculties. Allow me explain further.
Defining the two types of Feminism
In this blog "Ampersand" does a 3 part post about Gender and Equity feminism, and getting most of it wrong of course. They even use quotes from the woman believed to have actually originated the two terms, Christina Hoff-Sommers. Whom she terms a Conservative Feminist. The following are some of the quotes they use.
Sommers on Gender Feminism:
The gender feminists (as I shall call them) believe that all our institutions, from the state to the family to the grade schools, perpetuate male dominance. … Gender feminists are constantly on the lookout for the smoking gun, the telling fact that will drive home to the public how profoundly the system is rigged against women. To rally women to their cause, it is not enough to remind us that many brutal and selfish men harm women. They must persuade us that the system itself sanctions male brutality. They must convince us that the oppression of women, sustained from generation to generation, is a structural feature of our society.
First, you'll notice that they use a ... in there to block out some of her comment, but the gist of this is still true with regards to modern day Feminism. At least as far the third wave Gender Feminists are concerned anyway, and how they view the societal structure.
Clearly Sommers is showing how Gender Feminism is to be defined in quite clear terms. Gender Feminism is a pervasive belief that women as a whole within society are being physically and sexually abused, actively oppressed, and treated unfairly economically, politically and socially by men. And further that our society as a whole condones, promotes, and actively allows such abuses to be perpetrated. Of course Gender feminism has a name for this system of oppression and abuse. They call these systemic and cultural societal practices they claim exist, The Patriarchy.
This is clear and easily understandable to anyone who's not a complete moron, or who is completely blinded by an ideology victimization. An Ideology that deprives women of authenticity and their Agency, meaning that the ideology of Patriarchy theory that Gender Feminists espouse proclaims women not having the capacity as individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. Make no mistake, this is the sole meaning behind Patriarchy Theory, to remove agency from women so that they are not seen as individuals with full control over their own choices.
Sommers on Equity Feminists:
The traditional, classically liberal, humanistic feminism that was initiated more than 150 years ago was very different. It has a specific agenda, demanding for women the same rights before the law that men enjoyed. The suffrage had to be won, and the laws regarding property, marriage, divorce, and child custody had to be made equitable. More recently, abortion rights had to be protected. The old mainstream feminism concentrated on legal reforms. …
Most American women subscribe philosophically to that older "First Wave" kind of feminism whose main goal is equity, especially in politics and education. A First Wave, "mainstream," or "equity" feminist wants for women what she wants for everyone: fair treatment, without discrimination.
You'll notice they again use ... to block out some of her comment, as would be expected. However, this is still an accurate depiction of Equity Feminism. As you can see, Equity Feminism is concerned with insuring that everyone is treated equally under the law regardless of gender. It is not centered on a gender centrist, ideological view like Gender Feminism is, but an ideological view centered on equality itself.
You'll also notice that Sommers doesn't claim that Equity Feminists push for governmental control over social behavior, the way Gender Feminists do. Equity feminists are concerned with equality of men and women, not just women at the expense of males the way modern, mainstream Gender Feminism does.
The blogger, "Ampersand," then goes on to try and explain how they see Sommers remarks as "incoherent" and how her definition "over laps" with gender Feminists. The following is from that blog post, and I am going to address them individually.
Note that the definitions are already a bit incoherent; although Hoff Sommers is trying to create two opposed categories, her definitions leave a lot of room for overlap. There is no contradiction, for example, between believing that "system is profoundly rigged against women" (gender feminists) and wanting "fair treatment, without discrimination, for everyone" (equity feminists).
First off, Sommers definition is not incoherent, they seem pretty detailed and easily understood to me. Whether you agree with her definitions or differentiation between the two matters little. Simply disagreeing with what someone says doesn't make their arguments incoherent, and it especially doesn't make them incoherent just because you don't understand them. Which sadly, most people who call themselves Feminists do not understand the differences. Thanks in large part to Gender Feminists like this one misinforming and distorting them.
Except for the fact that Gender Feminism makes the claim to want the things Equity Feminists do, the actions of Gender Feminists belie this claim. The belief that the "system is profoundly rigged against women" is not the view of Equity Feminists. Aside from the fact that such a view is completely female-centrist, implying that males cannot be adversely affected by the system as well, it is also an inaccurate account of the Equity Feminist view. And the view of first wave Feminism as well.
This claim is complete bullshit designed to mislead people, the intent of which is to hide the gender-centrist and bigoted views that most people would find reprehensible if Gender Feminists admitted to them. Anyone with an IQ greater than their shoe size will realize this the intent by the more active members.
To be clear, Equity Feminists do believe that in the past there were some societal expectations of women that were reinforced by laws that were wrong. These inequities however have for the most part been addressed, and Equity Feminists acknowledge this where Gender Feminists still claim to be fighting for voter rights, pay equity, and other such claims that have already been dealt with. Yet most of what Gender Feminists are always trying to address centers around either antiquated inequities that that no longer exist or individual instances of criminal behavior, physical and sexual abuse, and discrimination against women. All while trying to claim it is an acceptable and/or even condoned behavior and attitudes towards women in society at large.
The Ampersand goes on to state:
Ignoring the incoherence for a while, the two key differences in Hoff Sommers formulation seem to be that “gender feminists” believe that sexism against women is a widespread problem, found in virtually all our society’s institutions. In contrast, “equity feminists” apparently think that feminism’s only proper concern is legal equality – a goal that has been, to a significant extent, achieved in the USA – and there is absolutely no cultural or systemic bias against women.
Now in this one they finally have it right. Equity Feminists do not believe there is a cultural or systemic bigotry towards women. They do believe there are cases of individual bias and bigotry against women, because we have evidence of those, but a systemic and cultural bigotry toward women? No. To any logical or analytical mind it seems a bit far-fetched to claim a society that promotes "women and children first" for women, promotes a guilty until proven innocent narrative for crimes against women(especially sexual assault) while denying that these things happen to men is somehow biased against women either culturally or systemically. Let's look at some cultural and systemic examples of bias against women in America, let's see if this bias in favor of women or in opposition to women as Gender Feminists claim.
Domestic Violence and Abuse
First, let's examine violence against women claim. Now before we start let's make something clear. There is no doubt that there are individual cases of violence against women in the US. We know they exist, it does happen. That being said, the claim it is a culturally or systemically accepted or condoned behavior seems highly illogical to believe it is part of the governing system or societal views of acceptable behavior. There are an estimated 1500 women's shelters in the United States alone, with another over 1900 domestic violence programs identified by NNEDV(National Network to End Domestic Violence), most of which cater mostly to women. Some of which, if not a majority of which, are likely to be connected with these shelters.
If you'd like a first hand view of how society handles examples of violence against women by men as opposed to violence against men by women, watch this video by ABC's "What Would You Do": Violence In Public
You'll notice a real interesting behavior in the people walking by in that video, and it actually shows where the actual cultural acceptance of violence against which gender really is. For the majority of the people walking by, especially the women, you'll notice their indifference and even the logic behind not stepping in to help. Aside from the woman who actually takes active pleasure in seeing a man beaten by a woman(which you can tell by her smiling and celebratory behavior, not mention her "you go girl" when asked about her behavior), tends to be varied but all seem to center on one premise, the inherent guilt of the guy and the innocence of the female. Things like "he must have deserved it" or "I thought maybe he cheated on her" are common responses. And the reason for the ease people have with seeing a woman abuse a male can be found in not only the comment from the male off duty officer, "I was raised to not hit women" he says, yet he had no problem with the woman being obviously and violently abusive. Also from the other people like the woman who was walking her dog, who stated to the WWYD team "I didn't think she posed any real physical threat."
There is something else in that video that is surprising, at least for me. At the 1:20 second mark in the video you'll see them speaking to a Psychology professor named Carrie Keating. To quote Keating "It is a big problem in this country. Men create more damage, but women hit more than men do." After her statement you'll also see the host of "What Would You Do," John Quiñones, go on to say "Every year there are 800,000 serious cases of women abusing men." That's right, a yearly number of hundreds of thousands of cases of males being abused, not by other males but by females. And let us not forget, we live in a society where males reporting abuse at the hands of a female is more often than not met with ridicule, derision, and out right denial, so this number could conceivably be even higher if those males who didn't speak up actually did.
Yet how often do we see a domestic violence against men PSA? Have you ever seen a domestic violence advertisement that depicts a male victim being abused by a female abuser? Have you ever seen a movie about a male abuse victim standing up to his female abuser? Maybe Misery, but that's more obsession than domestic abuse? Movies about women standing up to or escaping from abusive males are plentiful. Movies like Enough starring Jennifer Lopez, Provoked starring Aishwarya Rai, Sleeping with the Enemy staring Julia Roberts, and many many others exist. I saw one movie in a list of domestic violence movies, which includes documentaries, that even addresses males being abused by women titled Men don't tell.
Documentaries like Sin of Silence, which portray females who murdered their spouses as victims instead of the murderers that they are, are an example of people trying to brand even female murderers as victims of men. Trying to give these women a pass for choosing murder by branding their spouses as abusers, instead of seeking the plethora of helpful services out there for women who are victims of domestic violence. It's just another example of American society's views of the acceptance of violence towards males in a cultural sense.
No one disputes that men who abuse women are despicable dogs, not in American society at any rate. But ask yourself this, how many documentaries have you seen that try to free male murderers who killed their spouses and blamed it on being abused? None, that's how many. Because as a culture we do not believe such a thing could happen.
To illustrate the double standard in society I have two video clips for anyone to watch. The are both from "The Talk" on an episode about 2 years ago, on a story about a woman who mutilated her husbands genitals.
Here's the first video: Male Genital Mutilation is "fabulous" - The Talk
This next video is their attempted apology: We're sorry we laughed, but not really - The Talk
The story itself is about a woman who drugged and bound her husband before cutting his penis off and putting it in the garbage disposal. And why did she do this? Because he dared to file for divorce. And the audience of "The Talk" was no better, with one woman in the audience saying "That'll teach him." when they were informed of why she actually did it. You can hear the audience hooting and cheering and laughing at all the jokes being told and celebratory behavior. Even Sharon Osborne who claims she didn't mean to offend anyone in her half-assed apology can be seen in the original video imitating a penis whirling around a garbage disposal and them mouthing "I love it" while others and the audience laugh.
There were no protests from Gender Feminists to have the show canceled nor were there calls for the females laughing so hysterically and celebrating male genital mutilation to be fired. Despite all the rhetoric and bullshit claims about how "Feminism helps men too" and how "Feminism is concerned with men's issues too" there was not so much as a peep from the Gender Feminist camp. Neither of these women were ever fired, and the show itself was not canceled. But we know that had this been a show of all men laughing and celebrating female genital mutilation they would be fired or the show would have been canceled. Especially after the half-assed and insincere apology they would offer later.
So when it comes to cultural or systemic acceptance of violence against women being an accepted behavior, we see the story is far different than the Gender Feminist arguments would have you believe. Gender Feminists will have you believe that female on male violence is either non-existent or is in such small numbers that it doesn't matter. So you have to wonder about a mentality or ideology that finds 800,000 serious cases of males being abused by women as non-existent or in too small of a number to matter. And wonder about the validity of a movement that claims to be equality, when their very actions show a female gender oriented focus alone.
Equity Feminists on the other hand realize that you cannot control the actions of individuals in cases of violence, whether it's against men or women. They also realize that trying to brand violence as systemically or culturally acceptable for men to abuse women(basically casting half of the worlds population as villains) and claiming men can't be victims of violence from females, helps no one. In fact it does more harm to society than it does good, because it makes the half of society you are branding as vile less likely to want to work with you. This is why Equity Feminists push for legislative equality ans not the Social Marxism espoused by Gender Feminists, because being treated equally under the law and advocating for social change that fosters less abuse by both sexes makes far more logical sense than trying to brand all males(including little boys) as abusers and rapists and all females(including little girls) as victims the way Gender Feminists have been doing.
Child Custody and Divorce Laws
The standard for child custody issues is generally "In the best interest of the child" when the courts try to decide on custody. While there is a shift towards joint custody there are still major issues, including the fact that this new view on joint custody still bases the custody on the gender role of females being the better caretakers of children. The majority of courts still believe that the majority of children are better off with the mother(biological connections) and not the father, even if the mother has no job and cannot support the children without monitary compensation through child support and/or alimony.
Then there is the issue of Alimony itself, which is often times a lifetime appointment. Because it's not enough that a woman can and most likely will retain the home and any automobiles because she's the primary custodial holder of the children, the now homeless ex-husband is forced to pay for a woman he is no longer with and will more than likely become near destitute himself because he no longer has a control over his own money to be able to provide for himself.
According to census records from 2010 for example, of the roughly 400,000 people receiving spousal support(alimony), only 3 percent were men. That's roughly 12,000 of males collecting alimony out of 400,000.
Given that priority for child custody is placed in the mother "in the best interest of the child," and given that property such as a house and/or car is more likely to be granted to the mother "in the best interest of the child," and given that roughly 12 out of every 400 alimony recipients who receive alimony in a divorce are male compared to roughly 388 out of every 400 alimony recipients who receive alimony are female it's hard to accept the view that the family courts biased towards women.
Gender Feminists believe there is nothing wrong with family courts and how they function, despite all of the evidence otherwise. All the while insisting that there is systemic and cultural prejudice and oppression with regards to women.
Equity Feminists on the hand acknowledge the inequalities with the family court system that is unfairly in favor of women and want to see this changed for true equity. And oppose gender role based bias in the courts.
Criminal Courts and Jail time
With regards to criminal courts, we also see an unfair bias towards men as opposed to women. If you commit a crime in American society, your best defense might just be your gender. If you're a female that is. According to studies men receive on average a much higher sentence than females. And one study that looks at conditional factors on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observable. Men receive over 60% higher or longer sentencing than women in fact, and for the exact same crime as men.(Source) This means that women, simply for being women, are given more favorable treatment than men in a systemic sense for criminal behavior. It also found that women were significantly likely to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if they were convicted. That must be really oppressive to women.
In a 2009 study it was suggested the reason for this disparity in sentencing stems from judges treating "judges treat women more leniently for practical reasons, such as their greater care-taking responsibility." Meaning that because the system naturally favors the gender stereotypes that gender Feminists claim to fight against, the system is further rigged against men because this flaw in the system causes women to receive over 60% less of a sentence than a man would receive.
Gender Feminists see nothing wrong with this system either, unless pressed. At which point they'll either shrug it off as inconsequential and bring up abuse of women or simply deny it is true.
Equity Feminists on the other hand find this inequality to be deplorable.
Criminality and "Rape Culture"
This was just the first post of this idiotic and misleading blog. Now we're going to step into the second post. In this second posting we find that "Ampersand" has not only made false statements but applied faulty logic as well. They begin their second posting with the following:
How far do “equity feminists” go in denying that there’s any widespread problem of sexism for feminism to address in the US? Here’s Hoff Sommers describing the “equity feminist” view of rape. First, she points out that in prison – which is to say, in an environment where men have absolutely no access to women – male rape is common. The[n] she says:
Quoting Sommers actual words with:
"Equity feminists find it reasonable to approach the problem of violence against women by addressing the root causes of the general rise in violence and the decline in civility. To view rape as a crime of gender bias… is perversely to miss its true nature. Rape is perpetrated by criminals, which is to say, it is perpetrated by people who are wont to gratify themselves in criminal ways and who care very little about the suffering they inflict on others."
Before continuing with:
Hoff-Sommers acknowledges that most violent criminals are male, but dismisses this as uninteresting: “That most violence is male isn’t news. But very little of it appears to be misogynist.”
And that is the “equity feminist” view on rape, according to the woman who invented the term.
Here you see the blogger trying to bring the "rape culture" myth into the mix and using the fact that women get raped as proof of a systemic or cultural acceptance of females being raped being an acceptable part of the culture. Their intention here is to paint Equity Feminists, and Sommers in particular, as "rape apologists" or supporters of "rape culture" by trying to make it sound as though Sommers dismisses rape entirely.
The first thing you'll notice though is that this blogger tries to paint Sommers as a denier of sexism, which is not the case at all. Equity Feminists just do not push the dishonest and delusional belief that it is a systemically and culturally acceptable behavior, but instead admit that the sexism that does exist is more of an individual basis than a systemic one.
Then Ampersand goes claims to point out that Sommers "points out that in prison – which is to say, in an environment where men have absolutely no access to women – male rape is common." Well, wouldn't that make sense? In an environment with all males wouldn't it seem like male rape would be common? Something else you'll notice as well is that the blogger never addresses female rape and sexual assaults in female prisons. So pointing out males are the most common victims of rape where there are no females is not only stupid, but extremely dishonest.
You'll also notice that Sommers doesn't even address prison rape in the comment they do use. Only the criminal desire for self gratification, regardless of the damage done. The blogger actually does try to paint Sommers as if she's supporting the Gender Feminist narrative of "males are nothing but rapists" while trying to make her look like a rape apologist.
The blogger goes on to state:
What’s interesting to me is how, in bending over backwards to deny that rape has anything to do with gender bias, Hoff Sommers winds up not talking about rape at all, whinging on about “criminal violence” instead.
In this one sentence we see a number of fallacies taking place. First, we see her claiming Equity Feminists believe rape doesn't have a gender bias. They do. They just don't think that bias is based on one gender like Gender Feminists do. Equity Feminists believe the bias is more towards a power and weakness dynamic than a gender one. Male victims of sexual assault are far more common than Gender Feminists will have you believe, not to mention males who are raped never have what happens to them called rape. It's always called the more general sexual assault regardless of whether it was forced penetration or not. Rape is a gender-centrist classification of a crime.
Second, we see the blogger trying to deny that a majority of rapes are actually violent crimes. Even the ones that are by people they know are considered violent crimes, even if the woman was drugged or in some other manner incapacitated. The blogger is actually making the case that rape is not "criminal violence" because they explicitly state Sommers is no longer talking about rape when she calls it "criminal violence." So if Gender Feminists have a problem with rape being classified as criminal violence, one has to wonder what they want it classified as? A non-violent crime?
After this brief mental gymnastics to try and put Equity Feminists, and Sommers specifically yet again, in a rape apologist light they go on to talk about rape in prisons.
Yes, male-on-male rape is a serious problem (and a statistically huge problem in prison); but it’s not possible to seriously discuss causes and prevention of rape if we’re not willing to admit that – outside of environments where men are locked away from all access to women – rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women. And although all rapists are, by definition, criminals, the typical rapist isn’t a career criminal, but an acquaintance, boyfriend or husband of the victim. That’s the reality.
Now, this paragraph has a few flaws in it that need to be pointed out. First, is the fact that they disregard female prisons entirely again, as most of society does. But rapes of female prisoners actually do happen by other females in prison. The numbers are not as large as the male-on-male rape numbers for obvious reasons, such as women getting over 60% less jail time than men which results in fewer female prisoners.
Second we see them go on to claim that "outside of environments where men are locked away from all access to women – rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women." This claim has been disputed and even rebutted for decades. There are an estimated 40% of sexual assaults being male victims, which includes rape being perpetrated by females against males. It's very easy, and even dishonest, to try and claim "rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women." when sexual assaults of men, even forced to penetrate cases, aren't classified as rape.
Lara Stemple with the Health and Human Rights Law Project, and Ilan H. Meyer with the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, did a study that examined a 12-month prevalence and incidence data on sexual victimization in 5 federal surveys that the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted independently from 2010 through 2012. Their conclusion?
We concluded that federal surveys detect a high prevalence of sexual victimization among men—in many circumstances similar to the prevalence found among women.
That's right, sexual victimization among men is prevalent to those found among women. But it goes futher than this. They even stated that they identified the problematic reasons that factor into the disregard our society has for male victims of violence at the hands of females. In a 2010 study that was one of the ones Stemple and Meyer used found that when "forced to penetrate" were taken into account, the rates of non-consensual sexual contact(rape) basically equalized, with 1.270 million women and 1.267 million men claiming to be victims of sexual violence. Stemple and Meyer recommended "changes that move beyond regressive gender assumptions, which can harm both women and men." Meaning that the factors that gender Feminists ignore that prove the rhetoric of "rape is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women." to be false need to be changed. Factors such as reliance on traditional gender stereotypes or outdated and inconsistent definitions, among other things.
Eventually the "Ampersand" would go on to declare Equity Feminists and Sommers as delusional people who don't live in reality. Even going so far as to state:
But since dealing with reality would conflict with “equity feminist” ideology, Hoff Sommers chooses not to deal in reality. Instead, according to “equity feminism,” rape has to be understood as a subcategory of gender-neutral “violence” and a “decline in civility,” and therefore has nothing to do with women being attacked at all.
Of course Sommers, nor Equity Feminists in general, have ever implied rape has nothing to do with women being attacked at all. Their claim, contrary to the dishonest bloggers assertions, is that rape is not soley a female only crime and that to treat it as if it is the way Gender Feminists do is wrong. You can see the disdain the blogger has for rape not being a gender biased, female gender-centrist crime, meaning that treating it as the gender-neutral crime that it is makes you delusional or perhaps even a "rape culture" supporter.
So one has to wonder, given the actual data available that shows that if you include forced to penetrate sexual assaults in the equation of rape calculations the victim numbers are only .003 million apart.
Continuing First wave Feminism
The blogger calling themselves Ampersand would continue their misleading information about Equity Feminists and Gender Feminists in a third blog post. This one far larger than the two previously. "Ampersand" continues:
"Ironically, although self-dubbed “equity feminists” often say they’re continuing the traditions of first-wave feminism, it’s doubtful any first wave feminists would have signed on to an ideology so extreme in its pretense that feminism has nothing to say beyond formal legal equality that it believes that rape has nothing to do with misogyny or gender bias."
There's just one problem with the bloggers claims, and I have addressed this before. And regardless of how many times "Ampersand" tries to say it, doesn't make it true. Equity Feminists do not believe "that rape has nothing to do with misogyny or gender bias." They simply believe that the misogyny and gender bias isn't culturally or systemically acceptable in American, or in general western, society.
As for the claim "it’s doubtful any first wave feminists would have signed on to an ideology so extreme..." it would appear Ampersand has never studied history. First wave Feminists did not demand governmental enforcement of social standards the way Gender Feminists do. And of the two, Gender Feminism or Equity Feminism, I seriously doubt first wave Feminists would have willingly joined with a movement that is so female gender-centrist. In fact, as far back as the late 1700's you can find documents and writings by people who were "first wave" feminists, and all of their works centered on legislative equality between men and women. But none of their works advocated for government control over social behavior, or Political Correctness as we know it today, and in fact most of them abhorred such a practice.
Maybe Ampersand should look into first wave Feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft, considered one of the first Feminist philosophers, who believed that both genders contributed to inequality. There is also a lot of literature before the 1920s that shows how first wave feminists felt about social behavior of both men AND women, and the treatment of both in society. Equity Feminists bear the standard of first wave feminism, and unlike the Gender Feminist claims, have the backing to prove it through historical records.
Eventually the blogger will go on to claim that Equity Feminism is an astonishingly narrow classification, doing so while once again claiming Equity feminists "do not perceive any social problem of anti-woman beliefs (a position very at odds with first-wave feminist thought, by the way), and who additionally think feminism’s only legitimate goal is formal equality under the law" Not only is this not the Equity feminist view, it's a complete lie to try and brand Sommers as unreasonable or stupid. Equity feminists acknowledge that in the era of First wave feminists there was a bias view towards women, as intellectually inferior to men, etc. But Equity Feminists also do not deny the part women themselves played in this social structure, and further than women's suffrage not only gave women the legal rights they deserved but showed that socially women and men were equals as well. Equity Feminists acknowledge these past "anti-women" views, but also acknowledge that these view has changed. In large part due to first wave feminism, as well as males in society realizing women are not the weak minded creatures they were believed to be who need a night in shining armor to save the day, which was also something women taught their children as well prior to first wave feminism.
Unlike their gender-centrist counterparts who have become the mainstream movement of modern feminism, Equity Feminists do not deny the hand women had in the creation of societies perceived roles for men and women. Gender Feminists on the other wish to erase this view from history, to portray women as the weak minded and helpless victims of male dominance. Gender Feminists, like this blogger, are a regression to an age before first wave feminism when women in general were thought to be too weak and too fragile to have agency. This despite their claims otherwise.
We see this with the creation of "safe spaces" in college campuses that have coloring books and other childish ideas of expression. The idea of safe spaces is a good one in theory, but when put into practice we see a gender-centric ideology pushed. An ideology that brands any criticism as harassment and any discussions that might make someone "uncomfortable" as harmful. This new ideology of weak mindedness is part of the reason American society is slowly regressing to a more bigoted and harmful form of society. A place where speaking freely and openly can be punishable by fines, imprisonment, or even death. Western society hasn't reached this place yet, thankfully. But it's working on it, in large part due to Gender Feminists. All anyone has to do is look at the new call for what I term "cyber book burning" where Gender Feminists have gone before governmental agencies, including the UN, and called for mass censorship.
Ampersand ends with this idiotic comment:
"I can see why this approach is ideologically attractive to conservatives and anti-feminists; what I can’t see is how such an approach can be anything but intellectually vapid."
The fact that "Ampersand" and others can't see how their own bias has blinded them to reality and causes them to push antiquated and outdated ideological thought is just one issue with Gender Feminism. The fact that these lunatics can actually think that including Kim Gandy, Andrea Dworkin, and Mary Daly means there something wrong with the designation of Gender Feminism only goes to prove they have no clue what it means. Anyone, regardless of how extreme, that espouses a gender-centrist, female focused ideology and calls themselves a Feminist is a Gender Feminist. Anyone who tries to claim men are not subject to rape by being forced to penetrate against their will, who denies the inequalities in the legal system as well as the societal acceptance of abuse towards men, is a Gender Feminist.
Equity Feminists are rational thinkers who look at data, statistics, and facts. Equity Feminists realize you can't legislate social behavior through mandated social engineering. Equity Feminists realize you cannot claim to be for equality between men and women, and then make female empowerment your sole focus. Because when you do these things, you ignore the damage you do to the people you consider the "other" or the "enemy" or women. And Equity Feminists know this, Gender Feminists on the other hand either can't see this or just don't care.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Wal-Mart falls prey to Feminist propaganda.
Well, here's a little gender feminist propaganda disguised as a Starwars toy commercial.
You would think Feminists would realize that "gender roles" is not inherently a bad thing, it's forced gender role acceptance that is a bad thing for a society. But then again so is forced gender role abandonment as well. What about choice? What if a female actually makes the choice to take a role that is traditionally considered a female gender role? Why is this wrong? Well, to the gender feminist of course this will just be a female subconsciously conforming to her role based in her "internalize misogyny" brought about by the omnipotent "patriarchy" and not her choice at all.
The irony though, with this very gender feminist argument about internalized misogyny, is that it deprives women of their agency and makes the argument women are not smart enough to make a decision for themselves. Unless that decision fits gender feminist dogma it of course means it's inherently wrong a misogynistic. Which is ... well ... tin foil hat worthy in my opinion.
I've said this before and I will say it again. Gender Feminism is the most sexist and discriminatory movement in existence. It demeans males as vile monsters and base creatures, while at the same time depriving females of agency and trying to control their lives as their better see git to allow. And it looks like Wal-mart, or at least their marketing department, has fallen to the gender feminist propaganda machine.
You would think Feminists would realize that "gender roles" is not inherently a bad thing, it's forced gender role acceptance that is a bad thing for a society. But then again so is forced gender role abandonment as well. What about choice? What if a female actually makes the choice to take a role that is traditionally considered a female gender role? Why is this wrong? Well, to the gender feminist of course this will just be a female subconsciously conforming to her role based in her "internalize misogyny" brought about by the omnipotent "patriarchy" and not her choice at all.
The irony though, with this very gender feminist argument about internalized misogyny, is that it deprives women of their agency and makes the argument women are not smart enough to make a decision for themselves. Unless that decision fits gender feminist dogma it of course means it's inherently wrong a misogynistic. Which is ... well ... tin foil hat worthy in my opinion.
I've said this before and I will say it again. Gender Feminism is the most sexist and discriminatory movement in existence. It demeans males as vile monsters and base creatures, while at the same time depriving females of agency and trying to control their lives as their better see git to allow. And it looks like Wal-mart, or at least their marketing department, has fallen to the gender feminist propaganda machine.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Nicole Arbour and lousy comedy
OK, so I was watching a video on Youtube today by a woman named Nicole Arbour that was titled "Dear Fat People" in which she went on a rant filled insult spree towards fat people. For those of you who don't know who she is, Nicole is a self-proclaimed comedienne who does Youtube videos, among other things. She tried to claim that her video was actually meant to be taken as satire or meant to be taken as comedy, same thing really. The only problem she had was that most of the people who watched her video were actually pretty pissed by it. Now from what I could tell after watching various videos with criticism of her video it seems the reason so many people got so angry was because her video, that she claimed was supposed to be comedy remember, just really wasn't all that funny.
Now, I have seen a lot of videos that were made to counter her arguments that she made in the video. Most of those who made counter arguments to her video seemed more concerned with how she was trying to say she was trying to "help" fat people not be so fat by ridiculing them. And honestly I found their counter arguments to be pretty accurate, even though Arbour does try and pull a CYA moment and make brief 5 second disclaimer about people with actual health issues that cause the obesity they experience. Because what she was doing is something that people on the Internet called concern trolling. For those of you who don't know what concern trolling is, it is the practice of insulting or demeaning someone else by pretending to actually be concerned for them. This tactic is not only insulting to the one being shown "concern" but it is also dishonest of the person who is using it, because they're trying to hide their prejudice behind a wall of faux concern for the people they're trying to ridicule or demean. And she actually compounded this idiotic idea by claiming she just being funny, saying it was meant to be satire or comedy.
I am not going to spend a whole bunch of time on this and I'm not even going to share her video because quite frankly I don't think the video deserves to be shown any more than it already has been. But if you wanna see it, it is on Youtube under "Dear Fat People" and you can watch it if you like. What I am going to do however, is give my opinion on her video and her performance as a comedienne. Now what you are about to hear is probably going to surprise a lot of people, primarily because I am a 350 pound person who was not offended by what she said about fat people. I was however extremely offended by the fact that this woman just was not funny in the least. Now the reason I told you how much I weigh is because I want you to understand that this is coming from an actual fat ass. I am hoping the fact that I'm sharing just how much I weigh will be an illustration of just how much I don't care what people like Arbour think about how much I weigh.
There have been a number of comedians and comediennes who have made a decent living or even become famous by basing their career off of being an insult comic. People like George Carlin, Lisa Lampenelli, and Don Rickles, come to mind and have made an entire career of simply insulting people, the difference between Carlin and the like and Nicole Arbour is that Carlin the others was actually pretty funny. Not only was Nicole not funny but her entire routine was predicated on the insulting and dehumanizing of fat people as if they have no feelings or as if their feelings do not matter at all. It would seem that Nicole doesn't seem to realize that if you insult people, demean them, dehumanize them, and ridicule them simply for being fat it will not make them eat less but it will likely to cause them to eat more. Which is only adding to the problem.
Another thing that doesn't seem to be taken into consideration is the fact that there are such things as food addictions. I've actually seen people who are commenting on her videos make the comparison to alcoholism and drug addiction, basically saying if a person was addicted to alcohol or drugs would you be nice to them or would you show "tough love" and try to help them quit their addiction to alcohol or drugs even if it meant insulting them? Now, for people with common sense it would seem almost self evident that a food addiction would be a slight bit harder to over come, especially since neither alcohol or drugs are required in order to stay alive. Food however, is required in order to stay alive. And given the amount of chemicals and other preservatives that are in our foods and drinks and given how addictive they can be, is it really surprising that a food addiction would be hard for people to get over? Especially considering how easily someone is able to get their hands on cheap fast food?
Now, I have seen a lot of videos that were made to counter her arguments that she made in the video. Most of those who made counter arguments to her video seemed more concerned with how she was trying to say she was trying to "help" fat people not be so fat by ridiculing them. And honestly I found their counter arguments to be pretty accurate, even though Arbour does try and pull a CYA moment and make brief 5 second disclaimer about people with actual health issues that cause the obesity they experience. Because what she was doing is something that people on the Internet called concern trolling. For those of you who don't know what concern trolling is, it is the practice of insulting or demeaning someone else by pretending to actually be concerned for them. This tactic is not only insulting to the one being shown "concern" but it is also dishonest of the person who is using it, because they're trying to hide their prejudice behind a wall of faux concern for the people they're trying to ridicule or demean. And she actually compounded this idiotic idea by claiming she just being funny, saying it was meant to be satire or comedy.
I am not going to spend a whole bunch of time on this and I'm not even going to share her video because quite frankly I don't think the video deserves to be shown any more than it already has been. But if you wanna see it, it is on Youtube under "Dear Fat People" and you can watch it if you like. What I am going to do however, is give my opinion on her video and her performance as a comedienne. Now what you are about to hear is probably going to surprise a lot of people, primarily because I am a 350 pound person who was not offended by what she said about fat people. I was however extremely offended by the fact that this woman just was not funny in the least. Now the reason I told you how much I weigh is because I want you to understand that this is coming from an actual fat ass. I am hoping the fact that I'm sharing just how much I weigh will be an illustration of just how much I don't care what people like Arbour think about how much I weigh.
There have been a number of comedians and comediennes who have made a decent living or even become famous by basing their career off of being an insult comic. People like George Carlin, Lisa Lampenelli, and Don Rickles, come to mind and have made an entire career of simply insulting people, the difference between Carlin and the like and Nicole Arbour is that Carlin the others was actually pretty funny. Not only was Nicole not funny but her entire routine was predicated on the insulting and dehumanizing of fat people as if they have no feelings or as if their feelings do not matter at all. It would seem that Nicole doesn't seem to realize that if you insult people, demean them, dehumanize them, and ridicule them simply for being fat it will not make them eat less but it will likely to cause them to eat more. Which is only adding to the problem.
Another thing that doesn't seem to be taken into consideration is the fact that there are such things as food addictions. I've actually seen people who are commenting on her videos make the comparison to alcoholism and drug addiction, basically saying if a person was addicted to alcohol or drugs would you be nice to them or would you show "tough love" and try to help them quit their addiction to alcohol or drugs even if it meant insulting them? Now, for people with common sense it would seem almost self evident that a food addiction would be a slight bit harder to over come, especially since neither alcohol or drugs are required in order to stay alive. Food however, is required in order to stay alive. And given the amount of chemicals and other preservatives that are in our foods and drinks and given how addictive they can be, is it really surprising that a food addiction would be hard for people to get over? Especially considering how easily someone is able to get their hands on cheap fast food?
Monday, September 7, 2015
Kermit the Frog's new lady friend
OK, ok, this is going to be part hysterical and part pathetic, but this blog post is about Kermit the Frog and the reactions(primarily from Gender Feminists) that I have been seeing. I was watching a youtube video called "this week in stupid" by Sargon of Akkad and at the end of the video there was a brief story about Kermit the frog and his "new lady" as it were. So, naturally I decided to look into this thing out of curiosity, since I grew up watching the muppets, and what I found was quite surprising to say the least.
First, before I begin, let me state that much of what you are going to read is probably some of the funniest shit to come out of the feminisphere in a long time. At least, it was to me. It seems the Gender Feminists have taken issue with Kermit's new gal pal, named Denise, being "skinnier" and "younger" than Miss Piggy. Teir reactions were... let's just say I found their comments hilarious at the seriousness of them. here are a few:
The way these seemingly feminist minded people are reacting, even if they are attempting to make a "joke" about it is kind of interesting. At least to me it is anyway. Because it shows where their ideals are, and what their belief system exposes about the movement itself. I did a video recently on my Youtube channel called See a feminist organization prove Feminism isn't about equality. In which I discuss briefly how fuckh8.com proves feminism isn't about equality. And as one might expect, these feminist supporters are also proving there is a double standard yet again. Given the history of the two characters and their relationship, it should come as no surprise that people would point out that Kermit is a victim of domestic abuse. And while these are certainly fictional characters, their story is a disturbing one to behold. Especially when you take into account the beliefs of those supporting the abusive character, Miss Piggy. Who by the way, is considered a feminist or a redfem as some would put it.
Let's take a look at one woman, a Starina Johnson, and her views on the Pig and Frog relationship dynamic. Now, to be fair Johnson has been seeing a lot of twitter comments sent her way because other web sites have used her tweets as examples, but what I find truly amusing is how she reacts to having things pointed out to her. The following is a brief example of her discussion with another twitter user:
First, before I begin, let me state that much of what you are going to read is probably some of the funniest shit to come out of the feminisphere in a long time. At least, it was to me. It seems the Gender Feminists have taken issue with Kermit's new gal pal, named Denise, being "skinnier" and "younger" than Miss Piggy. Teir reactions were... let's just say I found their comments hilarious at the seriousness of them. here are a few:
We thought realistic Barbie was a victory, but now we have skinny Pam on Archer & Denise the younger hotter pig on the Muppets.
— Scamille (@scamille_crosby) September 1, 2015
What kind of message are the Muppets sending now that Kermit dating a skinny pig? Jim Henson must be doing somersaults.
— Patrick Costello (@Dobro33H) September 2, 2015
Kermit getting a skinny pig broad totally defeats the "love your body the way you are" idea. Also over/under Kermey was on Ashely Madison?
— Sonia Z. (@thatchicksonia) September 2, 2015
The way these seemingly feminist minded people are reacting, even if they are attempting to make a "joke" about it is kind of interesting. At least to me it is anyway. Because it shows where their ideals are, and what their belief system exposes about the movement itself. I did a video recently on my Youtube channel called See a feminist organization prove Feminism isn't about equality. In which I discuss briefly how fuckh8.com proves feminism isn't about equality. And as one might expect, these feminist supporters are also proving there is a double standard yet again. Given the history of the two characters and their relationship, it should come as no surprise that people would point out that Kermit is a victim of domestic abuse. And while these are certainly fictional characters, their story is a disturbing one to behold. Especially when you take into account the beliefs of those supporting the abusive character, Miss Piggy. Who by the way, is considered a feminist or a redfem as some would put it.
Let's take a look at one woman, a Starina Johnson, and her views on the Pig and Frog relationship dynamic. Now, to be fair Johnson has been seeing a lot of twitter comments sent her way because other web sites have used her tweets as examples, but what I find truly amusing is how she reacts to having things pointed out to her. The following is a brief example of her discussion with another twitter user:
@StarinaJohnson And not being battered anymore by a domestic abuser.
— socal_cpa (@Socal_CPA) September 3, 2015
@StarinaJohnson How was he mentally abusive?
— socal_cpa (@Socal_CPA) September 3, 2015
@StarinaJohnson You claimed he was mentally abusive, just wondering how. If you can't back up your claims don't make them.
— socal_cpa (@Socal_CPA) September 3, 2015
@StarinaJohnson Seems like a good reason to be walloped...I think we're done here.
— socal_cpa (@Socal_CPA) September 3, 2015
Now, as we can see from the tweets above Starina Johnson does in fact engage in some victim blaming, as well as rationalization of physically abusive behavior as acceptable, or at least excusable, because as she puts Kermit was "mentally abusive" for not being sure if he wanted to continue to live in a relationship with a woman(though a pig) who was physically abusing him. Johnson seems to think that Kermit was simply "stringing" Piggy along and that this was "mental abuse" and him just "using her." Now, to be fair to Johnson she does try to say that mental abuse doesn't justify physical abuse, but then goes on to ignore the fact she is in fact blaming the victim. Which, as well know, is wrong.
Here's the thing: Miss Piggy's and Kermit the Frog's relationship, while fictional, is a problematic and dysfunctional one. There are example after example of Miss Piggy hitting Kermit for comments he makes, like the one seen in this video clip: Miss Piggy hits Kermit And then there is the fact that in their earlier relationships Kermit made it quite clear he didn't want a relationship with the violent Miss Piggy.
Now, in order to add some validity to Miss Piggy's abusive behavior being more easily accepted they did give those she was abusing some behavior that "justified" her abuse, except for Kermit it seems. With Kermit, her assaults were usually based around his disagreeing with her, or his taking offense at her behavior or reactions. Such as can be seen in this clip: Miss Piggy Appears Angry.
In the end though, it's fictional characters and they are telling a story. Does it really matter that Kermit has a "thinner and younger" piggy to date, or that Miss Piggy is a violent and abusive woman? No really. Because they are trying to tell a story. But what does matter are the reactions to that story, and the fact that a violent psychopath that abuses people and yells like a nutter is a feminist icon. Very telling of the movement really, it would kind of be like anti-feminists touting Al Bundy as an anti-feminist icon.
Now, in order to add some validity to Miss Piggy's abusive behavior being more easily accepted they did give those she was abusing some behavior that "justified" her abuse, except for Kermit it seems. With Kermit, her assaults were usually based around his disagreeing with her, or his taking offense at her behavior or reactions. Such as can be seen in this clip: Miss Piggy Appears Angry.
In the end though, it's fictional characters and they are telling a story. Does it really matter that Kermit has a "thinner and younger" piggy to date, or that Miss Piggy is a violent and abusive woman? No really. Because they are trying to tell a story. But what does matter are the reactions to that story, and the fact that a violent psychopath that abuses people and yells like a nutter is a feminist icon. Very telling of the movement really, it would kind of be like anti-feminists touting Al Bundy as an anti-feminist icon.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Harry Potter and "Racism"
OK, before I get into this I realize a lot of this is old news and was mostly back in 2013 but I had to share my views on this because most of what I recently came by was by "pro-black" or "black pride" people who spend all their time on Youtube, Tmblr, Facebook, etc. and keep screaming "racism" about the fact that from Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince on the role of Lavender Brown was changed from a black actresses to a white actress. There is no discussion among these types of people about whether this is due to other reasons besides racism, it has to be due to racism. So what I decided to do was pose an actually reasoned view of why this role change possibly happened, especially considering other scenes from Harry Potter.
The Role of Lavender Brown
Let's start off by examining the role of Lavender Brown before Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince and look at what kind of role it was. Prior to the 6th movie, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, the role of Lavender Brown was a non-speaking, nondescript role that was little more than a background character that happened to have a name. This means that the role at best, prior to the 6th movie, was not seen as an important role to the story being told.
With this being the case, and given the fact that Lavender Brown's race in the books is never really specified, the decided to use black actresses for the role. And even this role was given to two separate "actors" because the role of Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was played by a different female character than the one in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the actress was Kathleen Cauley and in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the actress was Jennifer Smith. However, neither role was a speaking role though Smith did have more screen time than Cauley in her role.
It should also be noted that Lavender Brown makes no appearance in the next two films Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
The Actresses
Now, let's have a look at the actresses themselves. Kathleen Cauley was the first Lavender brown, and this seems to be the only acting role that she has ever done. She has no IDMB profile, I cannot find anything about her with regards to what she's doing now and she doesn't seem to have any other acting roles. As for Jennifer Smith, she actually does have an IMDB profile but the only credit she has it the 2004 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban role in her filmography. So it is likely neither of these "actresses" appeared in more than these roles, and have not gone on to do more roles in other movies. It also seems unlikely that either of them would have re-auditioned for the role of Lavender Brown since they both had the role before there would have been no need.
The Directors
Another issue with the Harry Potter films is the fact that the directors of the film were so many, of the eight films there were 4 directors. The first two films(Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets) were directed by Christ Columbus who was slated to direct all of the movies, but decided after the second that he didn't want to direct the rest and became a producer instead. Alfonso Cauron would be tapped to direct the 3rd film(Prisoner of Azkaban) with Mike Newell signing on to direct the 4th one(Goblet of Fire) but refusing to direct any further films. David Yates would become the final director of the last 4 Films(Order of the Phoenix, Hal-blood Prince, Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, Deathly Hallows Pt. 2), becoming the only director besides Columbus to direct more than one film.
Now, it is entirely possible that given the fact that the directors who hired Kathleen Cauley(Chris Columbus) and Jennifer Smith(Alfonso Cauron) didn't go on to direct the subsequent films and given the fact that Lavender brown made no appearances in the 4th(Goblet of Fire) or 5th(Order of the Phoenix) movies and that by the time of the Half-blood Prince there was a fourth and final director it is entirely possible that the previous actresses were not really considered since their roles were so small and they were now on their 4th director and not sure he would stay for all of the films to come. It's entirely possible that by the time the last director was hired the role of Lavender Brown wasn't even thought to have existed in the previous films, the roles being so small.
Other Mixed Race Relationships
Here's something that rarely even gets discussed. The cry of "Hollywood is racist" completely ignores the other relationships in the movies that were interracial. There's the relationship between Fred or George Weasley(I forget which twin) and Angelina Johnson in the Goblet of Fire, Weasley was "white" and Johnson black. There are also the relationships between Ron and Harry and the Patil twins(the Indian girls) from that same film. There's Harry and Cho Chang as well as the possible relationship between Harry and the black woman that works at the cafe he was at in the beginning of the Half-blood Prince. There is also Ginny Weasley and Dean Thomas who have a relationship in the beginning of the Half-blood Prince. These are but a few of the ones I actually remember myself, and there are likely to be others I haven't even noticed.
Conclusion
When you consider all aspects of the films being made and the content of the films, one could come to a very different conclusion. Given the fact that the movie series had so many different directors, the fact that for the first 5 films the role of Lavender Brown was either non-speaking or non-existant, the fact that the franchise actually had other interracial relationships of which some were "white" and black couples, it seems rather dishonest to claim the movies were "racist" because of the actress role changing race. It's more likely, when all factors are considered, that the role change was simply a by product of later directors not realizing that Lavender Brown was originally cast as a black character and just choosing who they thought was best for the role.
Claiming the Harry Potter movies are racist because of this change in casting, despite all of the other evidence that the movies had no issues with mixed race couples, seems a bit far fetched to me. And contrary to what so many PC promoters will tell you, there is no such thing as "unintentional racism" because for racism to exist it must revolve around a belief in racial supremacy or superiority. And branding a simple over site as "racism" seems to me to be rather dishonest at best.
(Expect more blog posts on the Harry Potter Movies, including the politics of Harry Potter.)
The Role of Lavender Brown
Let's start off by examining the role of Lavender Brown before Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince and look at what kind of role it was. Prior to the 6th movie, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, the role of Lavender Brown was a non-speaking, nondescript role that was little more than a background character that happened to have a name. This means that the role at best, prior to the 6th movie, was not seen as an important role to the story being told.
With this being the case, and given the fact that Lavender Brown's race in the books is never really specified, the decided to use black actresses for the role. And even this role was given to two separate "actors" because the role of Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was played by a different female character than the one in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the actress was Kathleen Cauley and in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the actress was Jennifer Smith. However, neither role was a speaking role though Smith did have more screen time than Cauley in her role.
It should also be noted that Lavender Brown makes no appearance in the next two films Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
The Actresses
Now, let's have a look at the actresses themselves. Kathleen Cauley was the first Lavender brown, and this seems to be the only acting role that she has ever done. She has no IDMB profile, I cannot find anything about her with regards to what she's doing now and she doesn't seem to have any other acting roles. As for Jennifer Smith, she actually does have an IMDB profile but the only credit she has it the 2004 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban role in her filmography. So it is likely neither of these "actresses" appeared in more than these roles, and have not gone on to do more roles in other movies. It also seems unlikely that either of them would have re-auditioned for the role of Lavender Brown since they both had the role before there would have been no need.
The Directors
Another issue with the Harry Potter films is the fact that the directors of the film were so many, of the eight films there were 4 directors. The first two films(Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets) were directed by Christ Columbus who was slated to direct all of the movies, but decided after the second that he didn't want to direct the rest and became a producer instead. Alfonso Cauron would be tapped to direct the 3rd film(Prisoner of Azkaban) with Mike Newell signing on to direct the 4th one(Goblet of Fire) but refusing to direct any further films. David Yates would become the final director of the last 4 Films(Order of the Phoenix, Hal-blood Prince, Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, Deathly Hallows Pt. 2), becoming the only director besides Columbus to direct more than one film.
Now, it is entirely possible that given the fact that the directors who hired Kathleen Cauley(Chris Columbus) and Jennifer Smith(Alfonso Cauron) didn't go on to direct the subsequent films and given the fact that Lavender brown made no appearances in the 4th(Goblet of Fire) or 5th(Order of the Phoenix) movies and that by the time of the Half-blood Prince there was a fourth and final director it is entirely possible that the previous actresses were not really considered since their roles were so small and they were now on their 4th director and not sure he would stay for all of the films to come. It's entirely possible that by the time the last director was hired the role of Lavender Brown wasn't even thought to have existed in the previous films, the roles being so small.
Other Mixed Race Relationships
Here's something that rarely even gets discussed. The cry of "Hollywood is racist" completely ignores the other relationships in the movies that were interracial. There's the relationship between Fred or George Weasley(I forget which twin) and Angelina Johnson in the Goblet of Fire, Weasley was "white" and Johnson black. There are also the relationships between Ron and Harry and the Patil twins(the Indian girls) from that same film. There's Harry and Cho Chang as well as the possible relationship between Harry and the black woman that works at the cafe he was at in the beginning of the Half-blood Prince. There is also Ginny Weasley and Dean Thomas who have a relationship in the beginning of the Half-blood Prince. These are but a few of the ones I actually remember myself, and there are likely to be others I haven't even noticed.
Conclusion
When you consider all aspects of the films being made and the content of the films, one could come to a very different conclusion. Given the fact that the movie series had so many different directors, the fact that for the first 5 films the role of Lavender Brown was either non-speaking or non-existant, the fact that the franchise actually had other interracial relationships of which some were "white" and black couples, it seems rather dishonest to claim the movies were "racist" because of the actress role changing race. It's more likely, when all factors are considered, that the role change was simply a by product of later directors not realizing that Lavender Brown was originally cast as a black character and just choosing who they thought was best for the role.
Claiming the Harry Potter movies are racist because of this change in casting, despite all of the other evidence that the movies had no issues with mixed race couples, seems a bit far fetched to me. And contrary to what so many PC promoters will tell you, there is no such thing as "unintentional racism" because for racism to exist it must revolve around a belief in racial supremacy or superiority. And branding a simple over site as "racism" seems to me to be rather dishonest at best.
(Expect more blog posts on the Harry Potter Movies, including the politics of Harry Potter.)
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