You’re not playful, you’re an asshole

You probably heard about this awful interview with the cast of the upcoming Fantastic Four. Within a short space of time, it got incredible horrible.

As The Mary Sue reports:

If you don’t want to sully your day by watching the clip, it features the interviewers being intentionally ignorant about Sue and Johnny Storm’s familial relationship (“you’re black; how does that happen?”); berating the actors for not watching the movie, and criticizing [Kate] Mara’s short hair cut (apparently she was “way, way hot” before). The clip ends with Mara being asked if the hair comment made her uncomfortable, and Rickman assuring her, “I’m a toe guy, and your toes are fine.”

The cast were, to say the least, unimpressed. The boring “shock jocks” are shrugging at people’s responses, naming the film “hipster” and displaying all other manner of fratjock bullshit a lot of us are used to.

But one of the station’s hosts issued this statement to Buzzfeed in response (at bottom of article). In particular this part made me tilt my head. (My emphasis because goddamn.)

My partner’s (Southside Steve) [Rickman] conversation about Kate’s hair is something that came up while Michael B Jordan took a phone call so I think they were kind of just going back forth in a playful way. As for him complimenting her toes and why people are upset about that…sorry…no idea. Steve likes girl’s toes. People should be appreciative when they get complimented. Those that are upset on Twitter I guess don’t get enough of them. Who knows?

Oooooh boy.

First, notice assertions of it being “playful”, that it was just “complimenting” – downplaying the impact it had on both Mara and anyone else. Their feelings and interpretations are dismissed or awfully labelled as some kind of weird grudging response to not getting “compliments”. Because, yes, we all want creepy men telling us how toes makes their boners happy.

Dear cis dudes: Detailing what makes Captain Boner stand at attention is pretty much the least interesting thing in the world to strangers; it’s especially not interesting, at best, or horribly invasive, at worst, to the people you’re attracted to. “X attracts me” is like an unsolicited dick pic. Stop doing that. No one asked.

This is made worse when the person you’re telling this to can’t really leave the room and can offer no response, other than be a sexy* blank canvas on which you feel entitled to smear your boring boner details all over.  No one is saying you’re not allowed to find different aspects of people attractive; but, holy fuck, maybe consider the context in which you discuss that? I know a lot of men feel the world is their playground and waiting with bated breath to hear about their latest boner escapades, but I assure it is not.

Please, cis dudes. Stop.

But now we come to the real killer sentence: “People should be appreciative when they get complimented.”

Yes.

People should be appreciative when they get complimented

Yes, he said that.

People should be appreciative when they get complimented

He really said that.

By “people”, he means “women”, more than likely. Notice again that by merely asserting it is a compliment, it just is one. Fuck your views or how you took it; Mr Man intended it as compliment and, regardless of time, delivery, context, words used, it is damn well a compliment. And if you don’t like it, you’re being uppity!

Please note: This is the exact same mindset that goes into catcalling and street harassment. “But she’s hot!” comes the excuse, as if it’s a woman’s fault you’re attracted to her and you have no willpower that you just have to become a jackass. It’s as if being attractive (to you) is a natural law that dictates men must dismiss decency and reduce women to fuckability. Notice agency is removed when men treat women this way: “She’s no longer a full being, she’s an entity that I want to fuck.” (Sometimes we do want that from our partners or certain people; but it’s contextual and still premised on respect for the other person. Even when we are “reduced” to fuckability, we can, and should, do so with respect.)

This removal of women’s agency, of personhood, is clearly on display in this entire response, as any thought to what other people were experiencing  – notably what a woman was experiencing – is shrugged off as irrelevant or mistaken because a man says so. Because a man intended otherwise.

This is nothing new. Women experience this every day. Women and those of us who are tired of our loved ones experiencing this aren’t shocked by it, we’re bored of it. And we want it to end. “Shock jocks” aren’t shocking; they’re so, so boring. I’m tired of people using “edgy” or “shocking” as an excuse to perpetuate bullshit so many of us are trying to erase as acceptable; the irony is we know this is status quo, even if these boring shock jock types and their audience think otherwise – after all, we’re not the ones with the big radio show interviewing Hollywood stars.

Nobody’s impressed cis dudes. Nobody cares about your boner.

* I use “sexy” as a shorthand for what you, personally, find attractive.

“Geekdom is the only place where socially shunned males can be save [sic] and be themselves”

This popped up among several friends, from an anonymous geek person . [Sic] all around.

Geekdom is the only place where socially shunned males can be save and be themselves. So when women, who exclude them outside geek culture, invade those save spaces and force the scene to conform to their wants and rules they leave the men with nowhere to go. Where can they flee? They’re backed into a corner. Attacking invading women is not harrassment – it is defense. Women hate socially inept males. Why should they not hate them back when they try to destoy their only sanctuary.

First, it’s blatant nonsense that women – or rather not cis dudes – were never part of “geekdom”, it’s bullshit to say women “invade” geek spaces. The first games I bought were by Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen; I was reading Ursula le Guin before I knew I was apparently supposed to hate all girls (i.e. teens); and the most popular character among me and my friends for Halloween was Frankenstein’s monster, created by – *gasp* – a woman.

But, I don’t need to list women who revolutionised the various mediums they were part of or elaborate on the quality and beauty they brought to their various genres. The works speak for themselves. [Read more…]

Men shouldn’t require the law to make them better people

It shouldn’t take a woman going to the police to make us better men. It shouldn’t have to be a matter of legality to have us undo creepy behaviour. Relying on the law to govern our morals doesn’t make us moral beings, it makes us slaves to legality. We shouldn’t require a threat of jail or fine to reflect on our behaviour as men. As moral entities we can engage with others, rethink our actions, consider their impact on those perhaps more vulnerable, more targeted, less privileged than us.

A failure to do so probably won’t result in jail time – and that, apparently, is sufficient reason for so many men to never rethink their actions, their beliefs, their words. That must change if we want to make a better world, but it has to start with us men realising we will fuck up and, maybe, we don’t know everything.

Consider the men in a recent case. A woman decided she wouldn’t tolerate strange men street harassing her, every day, while getting to work. After trying various responses, Poppy Smart took the matter to the police.

She told the BBC:

“Every day I’d walk past and they’d wolf whistle. They’d even come out of the building site to wolf whistle as I’d continue down the road.

“One of the guys got up in my face and all he said was ‘morning love’, but it was in a very aggressive way and the other one sneered.

“They blocked the pavement and I had to walk around them.”

She discusses her own attempts to try, literally and figuratively, get around harassment.

“I started wearing sunglasses so I didn’t have to look at them. I started putting headphones on so I didn’t have to hear them.”

“Eventually it got to the day where I had enough.”

Poppy called the police and reported it.

So what do the men who did this have to say? Well…

A builder questioned by police for wolf-whistling at a young woman has hit back – claiming he was paying her a “compliment”.

Ian Merrett, 28, said wolf-whistling was “part and parcel” of working on a building site and even bragged about using cat-calls to seduce a string of other women.

Oh, well, I guess that’s OK then: this man – who, like me, is a 28 year old straight dude – says it’s a compliment to yell lecherous things at woman; to physically block a woman half his size, while she’s made it clear she’s not interested. I’d like to see where, in his work contract, it says “you will wolf-whistle at strange women” since it’s “part and parcel” of working on a building site.

But, you see, he’s had success seducing women! Because there’s no other, non-creepy, way to meet women!

He said:

“I’ve seen the news coverage and it’s not right. I’m a builder and my mates are builders. We are all hard working people and our reputation has been damaged.”

Your hard work doesn’t negate that you are a creep, it just means you’re capable of multitasking.

Or maybe not.

If you really are hard at work, why are you wolf-whistling at strange women? If I was your employer, I’d be concerned I’d hired people who weren’t doing what I was paying them for.

Your “reputation” matters less than women’s safety here: You can go somewhere else, but women have to try commute knowing, daily, there are men who feel entitled to harass them under the guise of compliments. Grow up, apologise, be better men.

“Wolf-whistling is part and parcel of working on a site, it’s complimenting a girl.”

Again, I’d like to see your work contract stating this. All you’re really saying is “boys will be boys”, that’s “just how it is”. The problem isn’t that we don’t know that: The problem is precisely this mindset. The problem is that harassment currently is part of working in a public area and targeting strangers. We’re saying change that: It’s creepy, gross and bad. We know it exists, we know why: We’re saying stop, please.

And just because you intend it to be compliments doesn’t mean that’s how they’ll be interpreted. Intention isn’t magic. Women are literally telling us all the time they do not like this; it doesn’t matter what you think you’re giving when recipients keep saying “Stop”.

“I didn’t even see her face, and I wouldn’t recognise her if I fell over her in the street, so I don’t know how that could possibly be sexual harassment.”

I keep forgetting that because you don’t see someone’s face, it’s impossible to make that person feel uncomfortable, unsafe, harassed and targeted.

“It’s not worth getting into trouble over some silly little girl. I don’t know why she complained, she must be thinking things above her station.”

She’s a woman. So it’s not worth you getting into trouble, but it is worth her sense of security? And you still don’t know why she complained? If you don’t know why a person would take something to the police, maybe… try figure out why they did? Maybe consider the impact your actions have on others?

It’s not like it could’ve been an easy decision for Smart to go the police, knowing people would hate and harass her further (which is, of course, happening).

If “above her station” means the ability to walk down the street not harassed then I guess she was. But that’s not “above” her station, it is her station as a person; that’s a privilege many of us, as straight cis dudes have and it shouldn’t be only us. When people ask for this same privilege of non-harassment , and we berate them for thinking they’re “better” than they are, that only highlights how toxic our culture is.

Men who defend harassment as “boys will be boys” have a very low opinion of men; men who state this aren’t affirming they can’t change how things are, but that they don’t want to. We created this toxic culture, we can be part of changing it. But it won’t happen while men double-down and refuse to listen to women and claim street harassment is compliments. Men: We can do better and we must do better.

Dear straight white men: Don’t be that guy

When trying to tackle the various systems that belittle, undermine, oppress, and abuse marginalised people, we often encounter cages made of white dudes‘ folded arms. A refusal to listen; a refusal to acknowledge there’s a problem. There’s often a rumbling before, as their eyes roll when they see any mention pertaining to inclusion of women or people of colour in domains predominantly composed of those who look like them.

Whether it’s gaming, atheism, genre fiction (seriously), science, whatever. The idea that these areas are still problematic – despite the existence of prominent people of colour, women, etc. – frustrates many of these guys. They feel as though simply not being a sexist or racist is sufficient to make these environments inclusive; as if by them not harassing, abusing or targeting marginalised folk, they’ve done enough and can’t understand why oppression continues. Or rather, why we’re still complaining. “Look! Barack Obama is president, there’s no racism! Look, a woman CEO, there’s no sexism!” [Read more…]

Recent victories don’t erase online toxicity

My latest for The Daily Beast examines the recent sentencing of “revenge porn” king and the “most hated man on the Internet”, Hunter Moore, in light of ongoing toxicity so many face. I don’t think his sentencing carries the weight some think it does and I highlight some contours of why combatting bigotry online is so difficult – and maybe some small ways we can help.

(Basically: if you understand why I find overt racism less troubling than constant dismissal from people who should be allies, then you understand what combating bigotry is so hard.)

A Voice For Men doesn’t speak for me

So GQ published a profile piece by the excellent Jeff Sharlet on the Men’s Rights Movement – specifically the colourful cast at the awful A Voice For Men at a conference. Given that it’s examining men’s rights activists, there would be some disturbing reading. I Tweeted some.

Here on fatherhood and rape…

There is a horrible description of how they treated Sharlet’s (woman) friend, Blair.  She was taken aside by the collegiate-activism director of A Voice for Men, Sage Gerard.

[Sage says] “You could put down your book right now and yell ‘Rape!’ and I would be led away in handcuffs.” They think about this. Sage says, “I hope it’s okay if I hug you.”

Before she can respond, he pulls her in, pulls her up out of her chair, pulls her against his chest, and holds her there. He rubs her back. An embrace Blair will later describe as “the most unconsensual hug I have ever known.”

Blair: “I still don’t know what to do about the poem.”

Sage loosens his grip. “I apologize for dragging you away,” he says. “I wasn’t going to feel okay until I talked to you.” He warns her not to send mixed messages. For instance, she shouldn’t put her hand on a man’s knee if she doesn’t want to have sex with him. Sage puts his hand on Blair’s knee. This is not a mixed message, he wants her to understand. She’s here, in the VFW. She’s taken the red pill. She needs another hug. He needs to give it to her.

Later, they joke about raping her.

“I’m curious,” [Paul] Elam says. “What did your friends think when you told them you were coming here?”

“To be honest?” Blair asks. Elam nods. She says, “I had friends who said I’d get raped.”

Blink. You can almost see the struggle in Elam’s bones: Play the nice guy? Or the perv? No question. “All right!” he booms, swinging his arms together. “Let’s get started!”

Jazz winces.

“Get the video camera!” Factory yells at his girlfriend, who giggles weakly.

I should be very clear here: At no point does it seem like Elam or Factory is actually going to rape Blair. We know they’re joking. Just a couple of middle-aged guys joking around about rape with a young woman they’ve never met before in a hotel room at one in the morning.

Sharlet’s piece is hard to read. And Voice for Men were certain to respond. They did in a way only A Voice For Men would: by targeting Blair as being “pimped” out by Sharlet. It’s literally in the title.

Elam doesn’t say what Sharlet got wrong, only that he takes offence at the idea that a writer needs to highlight Elam wasn’t actually threatening rape. Why would anyone think that of someone who claims women beg to be raped, likes inflicting pain, gets aroused by targeting his opponents, and makes website to put feminists alongside murderers?

It’s also unlikely that Blair consented to the pictures the site has of her, which link to her Facebook page. That’s some serious unethical media. Elam also refers to her as “pretty young Blair”, while trying to wave off worries about an attempted rape. That doesn’t exactly help, dude.

UPDATE:

My brilliant friend David Futrelle has a better write up about AVFM’s response.

 —

This site doesn’t speak to me or for me. It’s the voice of misguided men, filled with toxic masculinity that leads to fathers dismissing and mocking their own daughter’s claims of rape; to entitlement to women’s bodies because of their wardrobe; to rewards for being decent. It’s ideas that come to someone who’s identified a sickness but looks outward, instead of inward.

Men face numerous troubles and MRAs blame feminism, not the targets of feminism – which should be the targets of men, too: a sick society, a broken world, one still struggling under the heavy load of homophobia, transphobia, poverty, inequality, racism. A world that seems designed for only a select few to benefit, while the rest of us struggle just to stay afloat.

Men who use their platforms to berate women for problems are acting unethically: they are using finite time, finite resources and a powerful tool on the wrong target. Instead of trying to make better men, we’re making bitter ones. So many are straight, able-bodied, cis men who’ve never faced serious pain until a woman rejected them to some degree; and they use that poison to paint all of women in a single, ugly colour, smearing their humanity across the canvas of their worldview.

Women want to help men; women with platform and voices have spoken out in defence of male rape survivors. I know where Lindy West was, during the Shia Labeouf rape allegations – where was A Voice For Men?

It’s a voice for men – just not alleged rape survivors. So some men, who have non-problems and blame feminists. Oh, they’ll mention prison and suicide and work-deaths, but they won’t do anything about it. They never have. Indeed, they make it worse by making it seem like they’re a voice or men who have these issues – they make it worse by using these as touch points to launch nonsense diatribes about the evils of feminism.

This is not a voice for men, it’s a voice for poison. It’s a voice for toxicity that makes any efforts we want to make toward helping men who have mental health problems, who are rape survivors, who are abused by their wives much, much harder. Our gender requires serious self-reflection, we need to be helping men, creating better men, with better views, to learn how to listen, how to apologise, how to be… just better.

Don’t let A Voice for Men be the voice for men. Let’s show that men can be and are better than Paul Elam and his band of unethical content creators.

UPDATE:

My friend David Futrelle has a better wrpte

Why it matters that the internet’s made by men

The amazing Soraya Chemaly has a piece up about the internet being made of bros and why that matters.

Tech’s institutionalised male dominance, and the sex segregation and hierarchies of its workforce, have serious and harmful effects globally on women’s safety and free expression.

This is what Soraya documents throughout the piece. From revenge porn to the kinds of abuse women face, that segregates it from the kind men receive.

[Read more…]

I am made dead by Gamergate verbosity

I wrote an article about Gamerbro-types owning up to their own politics and social agendas – instead of making boring, obviously false assertions like “We just wanna play games”, “Keep politics out of games”, etc. Why am I comfortable enough to play and review games, and also talk about my own view of politics and social issues, but my “critics” are not?

Why is it OK to mention the number of pixels but not the low number of people of colour? It’s never been explained but we can all start having proper discussions when such folks own up to their views; just admit “I find race issues boring”, “It makes me uncomfortable to confront sexism”.

That’s so much more honest, so much more fruitful than trying to silence us with “make it about games” – when, for me, so much of diversity issues is seen in games. It is about games, for me: Telling me to keep quiet about race in games is telling me not to experience games. And if you don’t want to read about my experience of games, don’t read my reviews. These people are not babies, but for some reason this needs to be explained.

Regardless, a very boring commenter went on a verbose rampage, trying to drown us all in words – because, I guess, mortality isn’t an issue when you have an endless spawn option. I mean just look at this Niagra fall of words!

I’m working some things out, so here’s a fisk.

[Read more…]

Bros are not happy with Men’s Magazines getting rid of pick-up artist bullshit

As surely as night follows day, men angered by having creepy behaviour questioned and criticised will stand proudly to defend such behaviour. I, for one, am glad to know who to avoid and inform my friends of. I feel compelled to send them Meninist hoodies, the poor things.

One such fellow is Christian McQueen who writes a blog for men dreaming of “living the playboy lifestyle”. His Twitter bio reads “I didn’t invent the playboy lifestyle. I just perfected it”, which is great and I am super happy for him. However, he doesn’t appear to be happy with my country’s Men’s Health’s recent decision to purge itself of pick-up artist bullshit.

There could be a good discussion on ethics policy: Is MH going too far? Are they not unecessarily removing content that’s proven to help and not harm? We can have those discussions, but I’m not certain Mr McQueen is interested in that, so much as yelling at “weak-kneed beta bitch boy editors”.

Let’s see what’s upset him. [Read more…]