So a frat boy in Kappa Sigma at USC wrote this long letter to his brothers explaining how to treat women. I won’t quote much of it; if you bother to read it yourself, you’ll wonder about this guy’s sanity. But I thought this bit was interesting.
I will refer to females as “targets”. They aren’t actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.
How about mother, sister, wife, daughter? Perhaps even that is too impersonal; how about Darlene, Caryn, Tomi, Lisa, Mary, Skatje?
How about friend?
Oh, I was being facetious. People who refer to women as targets don’t have friends.
(via that guy whose name I’ve just learned is pronounced “tee-bow”)
Sounds like typical frat boy talk. I worked at a university for ten years and came to the conclusion that fraternities and sororities should be banned from campus, why should a private club have use of state property?
Oh, they can have plenty of friends. Sociopaths can be among the most charming people in the world when they want to be.
Wow.
And here I was feeling charitable and non-ragey this morning. Now my inner misanthrope is straining the integrity of his bonds. People piss me off.
KJ
i can’t wait to see Rebecca Watson rip this to shreds.
And people think there’s no more reason for anybody to be feminist, because “there’s no sexism anymore.”
Speaking as somebody who almost joined a frat, I have to say that this must be a sick joke of some kind. True, lot’s of fratboys are testosterone-poisoned douchebags, but, deep down, most (but not all) of them are decent guys.
No fraternity brother, even if he secretly does think like this (and, unfortunately, there are a few who do), would endanger his own fraternity / social status by circulating an e-mail like this. It’s too indecent and the potential consequences are just too great.
Is this the same letter from last spring?
I find the commentary and response of the fraternity and university more interesting and nearly as disturbing as the letter itself. Yes, the fraternity is condemning it. Yes, they are investigating and if they can figure out who it is they will get into trouble. But only AFTER major publicity. It was originally being passed around because it was “funny”. Only one person wrote it, but a lot of people agreed with it-or at least found it amusing rather than offensive. So no dismissals of this as “just one nut”, ok?
This man is a serial rapist.
When I am approached on campus during rush week by a frat representative, they usually are shocked when I go to town on their ass. Especially the ones from a frat that painted a swastika on a car a few years back.
That this culture is allowed to exist… boggles my fucking mind. How, in their mind, does one cross this line? Where is this line?
Are you fucking kidding me? Have you ever interacted with a frat boy? Holy shit. It is rape and race jokes constantly. And there is only punishment if it gets outside the house. This shit happens constantly.
Whenever I start feeling that there’s hope for humanity, some fuckwit comes out with a scribbling like this. “Targets” indeed (shakes head in anger). Has this creep got younger sisters? Probably not.
As long as most of the lot’s (apostrophes, how do they work?) of those few are decent deep down in their heart of hearts, there’s nothing to worry about.
Speaking as someone who has had plenty of fratboys in first-year writing classes, I’m certain this is a sick joke, but not a joke whose implications shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Also perhaps germane to the discussion, a recent study in the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02086.x/abstract"British Journal of Psychology, that looked at the normalization of highly sexist language in UK “lads’ mags”–the headline-grabbing takeaway was that “Men can’t tell the difference between statements made by rapists and made by men’s magazines.” It’s discussed quite nicely here; the full article is a pdf available at my first link.
Has this creep got younger sisters?
He probably has, actually. And he’d go beserk, probably at his sister, if she ever expressed the slightest bit of sexuality. His sister is pure and innocent and completely different.
But he’s not talking about _sisters_ in the email, only nebulous “females” who come out of nowhere and exist only to be “targets” for him and other frat boys. Sisters are a whole different thing. (In other words, he’s probably got great ability to hold two incompatible ideas in his head without realizing that they’re incompatible.)
So I am just going to jump on this further. You are making some assertion that in frat boy culture women aren’t ‘trophies’. You gain respect by fucking bitchez. Drunk bitchez with little awareness. Frats ‘market’ themselves by how great their parties are- by how they can get you, a male, laid.
The intentions to circulate this were serious- it was to make known their prowess at scoring. To say hey, ‘we’ve got a GUIDE, for your dick, motherfucker.’
No fraternity brother would endanger his frat by objectifying women? By beating up some spics and niggers? Whatever.
http://www.stophate.org/text/RevisedSTHGuide.01.03.06%201.pdf
You what really makes me angry is that this does not even make me angry anymore. How do you keep from getting numb to the constant deluge of asshatery?
caseyboucher @6:
I was in a fraternity (though it tried to distinguish itself as an “order”) in college and I can say that assuming rational behavior from fraternity members is usually going to be a mistake.
We had a Kappa Sigma chapter on campus and based on every encounter I had with that chapter, this is not a case of a few bad apples making a tasteless joke. When I read that Kappa Sigma was involved it fit perfectly the pattern of behavior I remembered from those guys. I always tried to show people that their preconceptions about fraternity members weren’t necessarily true, but the Kappa Sigs seemed to think that all those negative stereotypes were actually the best way a priveleged young white male could act. Every single member of their chapter looked and acted like the worst caricature of fraternity meatheads you could imagine.
yes.
The presses have been stopped all this time.
The news that private-school fratboys might be misogynist uberdouches is just that surprising.
whatever it takes to keep the Horde in red meat, I guess.
I’ve always said that there are two things that should be eliminated from Universities:
– University sponsored Fraternities
– University sponsored Athletic Programs.
Athletics have no business in a University, except for people whose academic field of study is athletics. Universities should focus on academics, not games, especially where those games siphon such a huge amount of money. If people want to play games, there are ample opportunities to do so without official involvement from the University.
Frats are completely pointless. Once again, if people want to live together in a house, they are entirely free to do so, but the University shouldn’t be involved.
Both are just like Government involvement in religion: it’s certainly ok for people to do these things, but the authorities shouldn’t be involved, and should take no action that might be construed as favoring one group or another.
Or older sisters, or, I dunno, maybe a mother?
Mo fraternity brother, even if he secretly does think like this (and, unfortunately, there are a few who do), would endanger his own fraternity / social status by circulating an e-mail like this. It’s too indecent and the potential consequences are just too great.
WTF?
Yes they would!
From only a few weeks ago:
From 1981:
It’s been going on a long time:
Additionally, from the same article:
Frat boys have been scum for decades now.
Ok, I’ve read the whole thing. I even managed to keep my lunch from making a comeback. Barely.
Some parts sounded familiar. Didn’t this circulate a couple of months ago? Or maybe we just got an excerpt the last time.
whatever it takes to keep the Horde in red meat, I guess.
If you don’t like it here, fuck off back to the cave of stupid you came from, asshole.
Now I see it wasn’t a couple of months ago but last spring. Time flies. (And I should refresh before posting)
Beatrice:
Jezebel covered it in March of last year:
http://jezebel.com/5779905/usc-frat-guys-email-explains-women-are-targets-not-actual-people-like-us-men
As someone who went through the English education system & university, I have no fucking idea what the whole deal with the ‘Frat’ thing is. It’s all greek to me, pun most definitely intended.
Not only is this standard college boy stuff, but let’s be honest: Denouncing it is standard male strategy used by men to attract a classier sort of woman. I thought you understood about evolution.
Furthermore, some men will take it a step farther by denouncing what I just wrote, again for exactly the same reason. It makes them look good, especially to the women who will then be more inclined to have sex with them.
So go ahead, boys, have at me. I hope it works for you.
I saw this earlier this morning, and when I read the post here I was reminded of it. The guy in the video is a disgrace to atheists everywhere, you should only watch it if you’re prepared for six minutes of misogynistic ranting. I wonder if someone better at it than I am could do a deconstruct? I only left comments on the video.
captainahags:
I had a feeling before clicking your link that it would be TheAmazingAtheist. That guy is truly awful.
@27 littlejohn:
You mean a “classier sort of woman” than the targets that
get themselves rapedhave sex they didn’t consent to? Yeah, right, screw those dirty, unclassyrape survivorssluts.Hairy Chris: Many elements of US education are mystifying to me as well. I know over here we’ve still got the ‘drunken lazy student’ stereotype – but fraternities, sororities, school rings, team jackets, sports-over-academe, professors ‘dating’ students (Pharyngula passim), are so beyond the experience of a UK graduate that sometimes it’s like watching a movie. Unfortunately, it seems that these weird things are not only real, but can be bloody dreadful.
And littlejohn: I’ve got a feeling there’s a fucking porcupine coming your way, arsehole. *popcorn*
littlejohn,
It’s apparently beyond your comprehension that men would actually find this offensive because it dehumanizes women and thus contributes to rape culture.
He does. That’s why he regularly pours scorn on the nonsense put out in the name of evolutionary psychology, of which you have given a perfect example.
littlejohn –
Not only is this standard college boy stuff, but let’s be honest: Denouncing it is standard male strategy used by men to attract a classier sort of woman
Um, no, it isn’t. It’s standard college boy stuff for a certain kind of “college boy” – the kind who should probably be avoided my most people regardless of gender. And as far as it being a “strategy” – well, I’ll agree it’s a strategy for a few guys. The so-called “Nice Guys” that are almost as big a mess of pond scum as the pick-up artist guys.
Believe it or not – there are an awful lot of college-aged men who are actually, you know, men. Real honest to Grod men who can carry on real relationships with women as equals, and not as “targets” or as objects of lust.
But you’re probably either a pick-up artist or a “nice guy” yourself and are incapable of picking up on the fact that anyone might actually think differently than you do. It happens – I’ve known plenty of guys (and women) who are unable to figure out that the world is not all about them, that not everyone thinks exactly like they do, and that when they project their biases as “everyone does it” it says more about them than it does about “everyone”. Keep on believing everyone else is just as scuzzy as you are, littlejohn, if it helps you sleep at night.
A lot of people think Canada and the US are very similar. There are frats at my university, I can’t remember anything this offensive occurring during my time. The author should be expelled from the university. The frat would probably canonize the pile of shit.
I see that Kappa Sig hasn’t changed a bit since the 70s. They were notorious for this kind of thing then.
The IFC hasn’t changed either. “What’s more shocking is that such a respected fraternity’s name is on that e-mail.” Respected? Hahahahaha.
@Emrysmyrddin
Drunk & lazy summed me up quite well, truth be told, but I’m pretty sure that I avoided the “Colossal Prick” aspect! “Animal House” was a documentary, then…
I feel like I need a shower after reading that.
I suppose I’ve seen this kind of crap before, but usually when people apologize for rape or spew misogyny they try not to be so expicit about it.
“Terms like sexual assault tend to be used in this case” because as good fratboys know, there really is no such thing, right?
At least this guy isn’t carrying his wretchedness around undisclosed, though. Thanks to his cadre of morons who found this funny (really?) we have a nice picture of the illness.
#27: I’ve already got a “classier sort of woman”, and I’m not looking for another one. I don’t see the sort of rant in that letter and think right away that “Uh-oh, this might imperil my ability to cozen up to the ladies,” although apparently that’s how your mind works. I actually think, “Uh-oh, this attitude imperils people I care about.”
#28: the “AmazingAtheist” is actually an Amazing Asshole. Although I actually agree with him on one thing: the women on that show he’s ranting about were contemptible. But no, it’s not OK when women do it.
Well jeez, if it happened all of last year, no need to notice it. I’m sure that all of the young men involved have been completely reformed, and that this and other campuses no longer have any problems with sexism at all.
I’m really glad we never had the frat thing in the UK. Sure, we have our share or arseholes and misogynists, but this organised misogyny is terrifying. It’s terrifying to realise that people actually think like that and that they could be anyone, anywhere.
So, anyone care to explain to me how this is all just a harmless joke, and any woman who is made uncomfortable by this is totally hysterical and overreacting? Maybe toss in an explanation of how we shouldn’t let the possibility that the drunk students hitting on us are potential rapists cross our minds, because that would make us worse than rapists? Oh, and how are men ever going to get laid if they can’t treat women like animatronic sperm receptacles with breasts? Because their right to get some totally trumps our desire to be treated like human fucking beings.
Hairy Chris @37:
Animal House is even nicer than this! After all, Larry manages not to rape an underage girl while she’s passed out despite his shoulder-devil calling him a “homo” for not doing so. It’s been a few years since I last watched the movie so please excuse me if the details are a bit fuzzy.
Not sure if poe.
Yes, it happened in March. I was only just made aware of it now. These fights are a long game, so I’m perfectly okay with giving a viral amplification to something seemingly long-dead (especially since my coverage of Santorum’s 1996 abortion went viral six months after I bloody blogged it).
Also, I’m sorry that my name is pronounced like Tim Tebow’s. Mine’s much more interesting to type, though.
What the shit was that?!? Why, why did I click on that link and read the WHOLE DAMN THING?!?
You’ll have to pardon me. I need to go scrub my brain out with some steel wool and curl up into a catatonic ball under a hot shower until I feel clean and have some semblance of faith in humanity again. Might be awhile.
Ye-nonexistent-gods.
Anyone else note the way the women were called “it” not even giben the benefit of a feminie pronoun (right word – too tiredness error?) as well as targets?
How utterly disgusting and at the same time just rather pitiful.
Really hope its just some worthless trolls bad idea of making a very sick joke because if its serious .. well there’s definitely a sociopathic rapist on the loose there. (Yeah, I know there’s depressingly many of those anyway and we need to take rape culture far more seriously.)
Hope the slimeball responsible for this is caught – & if he’s actually for real about it rather than just trying to create a crappy RL Poe castrated.
(Maybe I’m just too sheltered & naive but people honestly think that way? In the Western world in 2012?! Supposedly educated “elite” ones at that? WTF?!
“No True Frat-boy”? Really?
–
Jason – I suspect the reason why your and Tim Tebow’s surnames have the same pronunciation is that one of his forbears changed the spelling to match the pronunciation.
So, this is nine-month old sociopathy. Anyone from the USC vicinity care to give a followup about how this turned out?
Didaktylos: Mine’s French Canadian, from Acadian ancestry. While a branch moved to North Carolina and became the Cajuns, it’s more likely Tebow is from a shared Flemish origin.
But yeah… derailing with my own name! Whee!
Just a minute now! God my most holy savior has told me that my wife is my rib. Are you telling me that I should give my rib a name?
You know no one would have accused you of being a sexist asshat, which seemed to trigger your descent into embracing sexism and colonal haberdashery, if you didn’t say shit like that.
@StevoR #46
I think it is meant to be a “joke” and the author is so deeply misogynist he think thats a valid reason to churn out tripe so utterly offensive to the vast majority of people. This goes beyond some of the most offensive comedians such as Bernard Manning.
I have heard this sort of rant before in the British Isles, amongst petty criminals and people traumatised by sectarian violence – ie by people who are really fucked up and full of hate generally. I’m guessing “Captain Frat Boys” trauma starts and ends with people not taking him seriously just because his daddy bought him a big car. Boo hoo.
Oh shut the fuck up.
Hey ladies, check me out: I’m not a vile creep with a pathological view of everyone around me. Want to have drinks in a safe social location?
No?
As you were, then.
because no one here is female or teh gay!
I think you’re mistaking the fact that women avoid you and go for people not like as a strategy on their part rather than a failure to be a decent person on your part.
Oh Rey Fox, it’s not that he’s pathological, it’s that he’s the only guy here willing to admit that all guys are predators!
Seriously, and these misogynists accuse US of misandry.
Just a tip, littlejohn: Serving as an example to those around you might seem like a useful purpose in life, but I encourage you to reach higher anyway. There will always be others to fill that role.
It’s a wonderful defense mechanism
“Everyone is like me, and those who say they aren’t are lying because they’re trying to out compete me!”
Optional ending: “Therefore, I’m justified in being even more predatory to compete with them! Where’s my eye dropper?”
Also littlejohn? Pick a user name that makes us work for the joke*
*disclaimer: don’t really spread the idea of penis size mattering that much. Some research shows that those with smaller than average size have more satisfied partners.
littlejohn
Argument ad populum = you loose.
Allowing the assertion that this “standard college boy stuff” still leaves you with the problem that it is disgusting sentiment. The fact that rape, for instance, is relatively common does not diminish the fact that rape is harmful and thus unacceptable.
As for evolution, I understand it, and I fail to see how supports your point. Maybe you could flesh that out a little?
Seriously? You think leaving pseudonymous blog comments is a good strategy for attracting women? I bet you are the life of the party.
If the only thing that motivates you is your libido, then I feel sad for you. Try not to tar me with the same brush though, I don’t want to be covered with your shit.
I swear it has to be the bi-ness. I never get this mystification and othering of the other gender. Is it just that I’m open to the idea of romancing people in general that makes this whole idea of ‘strategy’ and targeting seem odd?
No, but eventually he’ll have inmates.
@ 62. penningtrap : Don’t you mean cellmates?
Why did I start reading the whole thing? Great, once again I find myself without hope for mankind… Ugh.
By the way I’m in college and this is not ‘standard stuff’. I’m so hoping this is just some weird, sick joke.
a) No prison rape jokes
b) Actually probably not. Jackasses above (it’s typical college stuff) are what juries are made of and few of these people ever are dealt with
Thank you! I was wondering about the same thing.
Janine @ 9;
Agreed. I alternated between feeling physically sick and experiencing a senstaion of intense, I-want-to-carve-this-idiot-up-with-a-rusty-kitchen-knife rage while I read what this nauseating misogynist cretin had spewed into the intertoobs, but when I came across;
I realised that this is no longer a case solely of misogyny, however offensive – this frat moron is outing himself as a rapist, and inciting others to rape, and it is time to contact the authorities, not listen to insincere Kappa Sigma hand-wringing.
as for;
I wont sink as low as the man who wrote this – he is an actual person, as bio-chemically human as myself. He is just an exceptionally stupid, offensive and generally poor social specimen of humanity, and it occurs to me that it might be better for the genepool if he refrained from ever reproducing.
Ah, the old “If you don’t respond you agree with me, if you argue against me, you prove it” strategy, followed by declaring victory and running away.
As a “frat boy” let me put this out there. A decent chapter will try to avoid the assholes and potential rapists and slough them off to the crappy ones who take anyone that says “bro” enough. Those are the ones that spawn this crap and show up in the news. Decent chapters like mine still do what their fraternity was founded on and help the university and surrounding community through volunteer service and raise money for multiple philanthropies. Don’t get into the whole “all frats are scum” mentality.
@JdRock
I seriously doubt your modern interpretation is any closer to the original foundation as liberal Christianity is to the old testament.
The origin of the concept is tribalism for privileged twits.
So no, not all frats are scum….some are just part of a history of exclusive sexist (possibly racist), tribalistic, sadomasochist scum.
Sweet jeebus, ing is bi.
I…I can’t mess this up.
It is extremely odd, in fact. Some guys (non trivial amount) my age (early twenties) have this notion that may stem from insecurity that they must ‘manipulate’ women into thinking they are attractive. This isn’t just douchebag frat boys, either. There is this huge perceived distinction of gender (which yeah, we’re socialized differently, but let’s not muddy the waters just yet)that makes people think some form of deception is necessary to interact with a chosen partner.
I don’t view my relationship with my partner as dyadic male/female but person-person. To fit either of us into explicit gender roles is insane.
Littlejohn,
Oh dear, how to respond. On the one hand, there are sick assholes out there who would really believe the sort of crap you are spewing–who believe that all men are sociopaths just like them. So John, if you are one of them, please pick up a dead porcupine and use it to floss your bowel. Then go die in a fire. Slowly.
On the other hand, there are trolls who come on a driveby just to see if they can get a response out of the horde. If that is the case I am sorry for impugning you as a sociopath. However, the porcupines are still located to the left of the door as you leave. Grab on. Shove it where it will do the most good (to the entire world), and then go die in a fire. Slowly.
Pathetic. Nothing is more sexy than confidence, but nothing is more unattractive than forced confidence.
I guess when you think that stacks of beer cans are cool window treatments you’re probably incapable of understanding why anybody else uses anything different.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/inmate
1. a person who is confined to an institution such as a prison or hospital
cellmate works too, even more clear then inmate. So yeah, cellmate.
awwww … but I had a one all thought out of how he can explore first hand the thin line between non-consent and rape. (cfr @9 janine)
NO PRISON RAPE JOKES!!!
Jesus Fucking Christ! DUDE. WE DON’T THINK RAPE AS PUNISHMENT FOR RAPE IS ANYWHERE NEAR MORAL AND THE JOKE ISN’T FUNNY.
Is that clear enough?
littlejohn @ 27;
And you think its ubiquity makes it A-OK, do you? Why do I think that, had you lived at the time, you might have been an anti-abolitionist for much the same reason – it is just so common, why should we work to stop it…?
It might shock you to learn that some men actually oppose misogyny because dehumanising anybody, including women, is morally offensive to us – we are not all sociopaths like you who think that women are sexual ‘game’ to be stalked by any means possible.
If you are invoking evopsych BS to try to justify rape apologia, then it is you who doesn’t understand evolutionary theory.
Still not getting the whole ‘some if us actually care about women as fellow human beings’ stuff, are you? Here’s a pro-tip – some of us are actually capable of thinking with the cognitive centres of our brains, as opposed to being ruled by baser impulses. You should try it sometime…
You do realise that there are women who post here too, and that plenty of them have already torn into your idiocy –
…Oh, what’s the point? It is not as though you are going to read for comprehension, or have any desire to improve yourself even if you could, so I’ll make this simple – have a decomposing porcupine on me, free of charge. Make sure you wedge it in there really tight now, and don’t let the door hit you on the arse on your way out.
The only way you could be arguing that evolution comes into it is if
a) you believe that tendency to rape is genetic
b) You are pro-rape
c) You are anti-choice/pro-life
Which frankly to me, if we accept A than it means we need to be extra rejecting of B and C. The stakes are the future of the specie and whether we want our descendents to be a species of rapist monsters or not.
What, the fact that he uses argumentation typical of creationists (“deep down inside, you know it’s true”) didn’t give it away?
What is apparently true is that only some of us are capable of getting laid and paying attention in biology class.
You forgot:
D) You have not fucking clue as to how evolution or social conditioning and norms work
yep. the only chance that he isn’t consists of the possibility that he’s a virgin who’s never been within touching distance of a woman.
three actually: there’s “mothers”; there’s “sisters”; and there’s “females”
bullshit; see also: “no means yes, yes means anal”
see, this denial of the ability of men to think with their brain instead of their penis is true misandry
Don’t get into the whole “all frats are scum” mentality.fine; how ’bout “so many frats are so scummy, there is no conceivable way in which the remainder could make up for it”
oops
fine; how ’bout “so many frats are so scummy, there is no conceivable way in which the remainder could make up for it”
I can honestly say I never simultaneously got laid and paid attention in Bio. Hats off to you.
Well I said argue, not that it would be done well.
See I never got this. Genuine fear and pain can’t be that arousing for many people can it? I haven’t checked but I imagine even most rape porn has to go into fantasy of having the person enjoy it once it starts in order for it to be palatable to most people, right?
Well, for me, that definitely arouses fight or flight- not oh yeah, so hot-boner-mode. Sympathetic and parasympathetic activation isn’t really a good standard to base sexual acts on, and I think many of us know that. Even had a centipede crawl on your foot during coitus?
How about “Professor?” With any luck, this idiot will end up in my girlfiriend’s chemistry class.
I’m beginning to regret reading the feminist issues blog posts. It’s promoting unhealthy misanthropy levels within me.
Brownian @ 82;
I admit it was a strong indicator, but the evopsych stuff clinched it. I am waiting for him to come back and start trying to adapt ‘sophistimicated feeology’ into sophisticated rape apologia – explaining to us that we are all, like, totally not getting the joke, and that being so angry about this frat morons ‘indiscretion’ is actually hurting the cause…
(Shh, mikeg. I was probably thinking about biology while getting laid. The less said about my short attention span and terrible performance in bed, the better:
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?”
“Of course! Absolute zero!—Huh? What? Are we done? Was it good for…er…us?”)
Honestly, what I don’t grasp is how people have lost the ability to put themselves in another’s shoes.
What if I went around to my girlfriends saying things like, “Honey, you should have seen him! I had that tool partaking in obscene gymnastic events of obedience to prove himself to me. ‘Cause ladies, you can’t let men get too cocky. You have to control, control, control them. After all, boys are just disposable toys – amirite?!”?
But I don’t. Why? Because I have minimal respect for other human beings. Plus, how insufferable.
The sorts of boys that say things like in this email already think you are.
That’s their fear. “It’s a fuck them before they fuck you” mentality.
To be fair, only about 10% of men seem to buy into rape culture this much. They’re just a really visible, powerful minority, who make lots of policy, set the cultural tone and are given the benefit of the doubt by manymany people who should really know better…
At the risk of further inflaming everyone’s misanthropy… “hard” rape porn does NOT have the victim enjoying it, though “soft” rape porn does, pretty much by definition. I’d just as soon not learn the relative popularity of the two…
@Pteryxx
Either way I’d like to see an arousal study that compares men’s reactions to what they’re told is porn versus what they’re told are real videos from police evidence.
My hypothesis is that you’ll find groups who are turned off by both, those turned on to only the porn and those who are turned on only to or to a much greater degree to the ‘real’ videos.
Ing @#62 and mikeg @#72: More anecdata, but I’m bi and as I mentioned in the recent thread on pinkness, I’ve also always seen my own self image, and my partners past and current, as persons rather than ‘X, male’ or ‘Y, female’. I have come to wonder, based on observation of the behaviours of others, if my mental tagging/processing system is different, or switched off, or not as pronounced as those of others, and whether that would explain why gender is not as high a factor for me in friend and partner selection as is intelligence, or kindness, or a hair colour preference.
I’m not sure if I want to read that fully, but my first reaction is: Come on, surely that is a poe? Surely?
Jason, (pedant alert!) the Acadians went further than North Carolina – many traveled to the gulf shore, particularly to Louisiana, where they joined other ethnic Francophones (before the Louisiana Purchase, that part of North America was territory of France, remember). This is why “Cajun” almost immediately evokes images of New Orleans (rather than North Carolina or anywhere else) for most Americans. I think it is more than likely true that Tebow’s forebears did indeed formerly spell their name Thibault but changed the spelling to Anglicize it at some point. There are numerous examples of exactly that all over North America including in Canada – although less often for French names for obvious reasons (bilingual country).
Well, that was a revolting warm blast from his brain’s vomitorium.
He manages to include misandristic notes amongst all the rampant misogyny, by dissing male students who choose to have relationships with women he doesn’t approve of. I suspect that a major part of keeping the frat “culture” alive is their denigration of men who see women as people and consent as compulsory, among other things.
But of course, that shouldn’t detract from just how vilely anti-women the whole rant is. You can throw racism and rape support into the mix, which confirms that this piece does to decency what Lake Nyos did to several surrounding villages.
Err, yes, niftyatheist@98. Brain fart subbed “North Carolina” for “New Orleans”. My bad.
We Are Ing @ 61;
As a heterosexual bloke, the idea of ‘strategy’ and ‘targeting’ in relation to intimate relations with women (or anybody for that matter) strikes me as extremely disturbing. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with them. I don’t see how it can really be about the sex in such cases, which leads me to think that what it is really about is the need some damaged people feel for power over others.
@ 87;
I would have thought that most people would have found the very idea repellant and horrifying rather than arousing.
Now we just need some idiot to come along and try to liken BDSM to genuine fear and pain, and thus show their total lack of comprehension…
I used to have some PUA aquaintances. They use language and strategy (and misogyny) just like in this email.
For them, as far as I could tell (and they would have denied it rigorously) they were not so much involved for the sex. That, too, of course, but sexual gratification can be obtained by masturbation. Only masturbation is something only “losers” do, in their estimate. They do it mostly (again, from my point of view) for peer cheers. It makes them feel important, gives them something that feels like confidence.
It’s not about the women, it’s about beating the system of women (meaning the rejections they are used to. That’s also, I think, why they focus on the vaginas, instead of the characters of the women they sleep with), a system in which they once were “losers” (for whatever reason).
Neil Strauss was right to call it a “game”.
It’s a shame, because I also know a few guys (very few compared to the masses) who became Decent Human Beings after they lost their angst and self-esteem-problems through approach-anxiety-removal-techniques that most PUA-professionals teach.
Edit: Argh, now I realize you were talking about rape, which is totally something else. Sorry.
mikeg #86:
*Snort* Damn you! I should have known better than to drink anything while reading Pharyngula!
*shakes fist*
Jason @100 I just knew you really knew! :D
Things like this really, really make me want to do something both violent and poetic. Ask one of them what they think of a lesbian, and they’ll go “ugly, violent, hulking woman in steel-toed boots.” Well, I’ll admit to at least the last three of those, in their case.
Think they’d commit suicide if they got beaten up by a woman, even one as tall as and nearly as heavy as many of them? :)
Ugh. Not a good thing to read while waking up. Utterly disgusting and vile, all of it.
I couldn’t help, while reading that, having the feeling that it was written by a virgin who’s learned everything he knows about sex from dodgy internet forums full of lonely, antisocial teenagers.
What an incredibly sad individual.
“what I don’t grasp is how people have lost the ability to put themselves in another’s shoes.”
Hell, haven’t you heard of that before? It’s called “The American Way.” (some might argue that the American Way wasn’t always that, I dunno…)
I mean, if we take it beyond just issues of sex and gender, that’s basically what the vast majority of Presidential candidates platforms consist of.
It hasn’t been that long since the media was full of news about the Occupy protests – am I the only one that noticed during that time that the words “homeless” and “jobless” and “poor” and “mentally ill” were used almost exclusively as pejoratives? By not only the media but by politicians, some of whom are now running for President?
Empathy is a dirty commie Anti-American way of thinking probably invented by French Islamists, haven’t you heard?
To the folks who are talking about how this happened back in March, and shouldn’t it be dead news by now….
Google “USC Kappa Sigma Targets” and you will, indeed, find lots of links to stories going back to mid-March, 2011, talking about this incident, many of which include the promises of the “complete and thorough investigation” conducted by the national fraternity offices, with the administration waiting for the outcome of that before proceeding.
And then… nothing. Not a single fucking word about any sort of resolution.
Which strongly suggests that they dropped this whole ball of santorum down the memory-hole.
Is there anyone out there who is in a position to do a serious follow-up with these jackasses and press them on the non-action?
Casey Boucher, #6, you are a fucking privileged moron who needs to pull your head out of your ass. Frat culture is rape culture cubed.
Dianne, #14: “His sister is pure and innocent and completely different.” Indeed. That’s why “What if it was your sister, your daughter, etc.?” reasoning doesn’t work on sexist assholes. They divide women up into “my property, which is sacrosanct” and “other men’s property, which is fair game, especially that of powerless men.”
ChasCPeterson, #18, your boredom with and disdain for people who are angry about misogyny is noted. If you don’t like these threads, I have no idea why you read them.
Aquaria, #21: I hesitate to search for it at work, but there is a website owned by a woman who describes having been gang-raped by fratholes in the late ’60s. All of the men involved went on to have high-profile careers in various fields. She describes frat culture as training the entitled GoldenSons of society to become even more entitled, particularly to women’s bodies, so that they can blossom into full entitlement as chieftains in the business world.
Littlejohn, #27, is a perfect example of assholes who project their assholery onto everybody in their gropu. Sorry, Littlejohn, it’s not “a guy thing.” It’s a douchebag thing.
JdRock, #69: Fuck you. Also, whatever “help” you provide the university doesn’t offset the benefits you obtain from them.
MikeG, #72: Yeah, the concept that women aren’t naturally attracted to men, except for protection/money/babies, is one of the ways that Patriarchy Hurts Men Too.
Penningtrap, #77: You are exacerbating the problem we are trying to fight.
Michaelbrew, #90: Must be nice to be able to walk away from all of this. Not all of us have that privilege.
http://www.thetachirape1962.blogspot.com/
‘disdain”? not at all.
‘boredom’? yes.
Reading pretty much the same comments by the same people over and over is boring to me. *shrug* Even if they were good, cogent comments the first 5 times.
To answer your question, I read these threads because sometimes I learn something interesting and occasionally somebody offers a perspective I hadn’t previously considered.
Not this time. I’ve known that lots of fratboys were misogynistic PUAssholes for more than 30 years. I’ve known about this particular asshole for like nine months. But here’s the jackass again, popping up as if news, posted solely to get a rise out of the angry horde.
Yep, boring, imo. You may feel differently.
French, Islamist surrender monkeys. Gotta get the slur just right.
Far, far Right.
–
If you’re not interested, go read something else. I don’t spend my time telling my friends that I’m not interested in their favorite television programs, much less wandering around online telling people to stop wasting their time on football, since it’s so utterly predictable: a ball will be moved around by two groups of men in coded uniforms, and one group will win.
Those “same comments” probably wouldn’t have to be repeated “over and over” so much if the same damn stupid arguments they’re meant to address didn’t keep showing up on posts like this all the fucking time either.
Viki,
Exactly.
I have a brother who does do this. And I make it a standard practice to rip him to shreds (as much as possible) when he does. If he simply said “could we watch something else?” that would be fine. And I we would negotiate something else.
But no. The mere mention of something he does not like leads him to comment on the fact that he does not find it appealing. Not to ask the person with a different opinion on something why they do find it interesting, or add that he find something else more interesting instead, but to simply state, absent anything else, that he does not like it, finds it boring, unattractive, [fill in generic nondescript insult here], etc.
It is extremely arrogant, dismissive, and yes abso-fucking-lutely disdainful.
If it helps, a door of my car got left ajar accidentally while parked in downtown San Francisco for about six hours and nothing was stolen out of it.
@27 … you can take that back into the 1960s. the local Kappa Sigs were drunk and disgusting than.
ChasCPeterson @ 113;
No one is making you read the thread or post about it. If it bores you so, go and do something else.
As noted by thepint @ 116, the same mindless misogyny apologia keeps getting regurgitated, and some of us think that it is necessary to keep addressing these toxic attitudes if misogyny is ever going to be driven from our culture. This kind of struggle is a long haul, and people who have already declared victory for gender equality are at best naive, and at worst are simply employing another silencing tactic.
If this is the case, why do you feel the need to post passive aggressive complaints such as your comments @ 18 and 113? If you find no merit in the thread, fair enough, but telling others to stop wasting their time on this issue seems to me to indicate that you have an agenda beyond mere boredom.
The fact that this issue is well known doesn’t magically make the misogynistic attitudes fratboys propagate (and indeed often seem to embody) a non-issue.
Maybe we react because we actually care about the harm that the attitudes typified by this fratboy moron cause? I for one find a system of fraternities that operate an organised programme of glorifying rape troubling to say the least.
If you want to sit this one out then go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you. If you don’t care about the issue, then that is your perogative, but don’t presume to tell us what we should or shouldn’t take a stand against when it comes to misogyny. Such behaviour carries the distinctly rancid whiff of mansplaining.
That’s just because the people in downtown SF probably wouldn’t lower themselves to actually look at another car as if it existed unless of course it was seen as an obstacle to their car, much like other obstacles like, I dunno… bicyclists, pedestrians, red lights, that kinda thing.
And if the crimes stopped happening. Trust me, we’re tired as hell of having to make the same damned comments.
Given that I’m of the gender this stuff happens to? Yeah, boring isn’t quite the word I’d use. Horrifying, maybe.
This may come as a bit of a shock, but it’s my understanding that some, perhaps even many, of the posts and comments here concerning misogyny, rape culture and other forms of fuckedupness are not written for the purpose entertaining you.
It’s a harsh, cruel, impersonal world, I know.
jack lecou #123
+1
jack lecou:
Here’s one shiny internet for you.
Chas, ever occur to you that we find your standard griping on threads like these to be boring and eyeroll inducing?
#111 Ms. Daisy Cutter, Feral Fembeast
Well, my apologies that I, with my male privilege, am not confronted by this kind of crap every day. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take that to mean that my outrage at it is somehow less important, though.
That’s probably false. There were plenty of episodes in the past few days alone that would have better served that purpose, and you know as well as anyone that PZ sometimes unwittingly posts dated stories (especially when they come from other bloggers).
Your wording is also insulting to all involved, implying that he’s interested solely (see? you said it explicitly) in stirring people up and that people responding to this are simply “angry” in general. I’d say that if anyone’s irrationally lashing out, it’s you.
***
That’s so hot. :)
(So obviously your sole purpose in writing that was to elicit that response.)
Yeah, I agree. It would be nice to discuss other aspects of the OP from time to time, but the fact is morons keep popping up and making those same comments. As someone suggested, you can sit this one out, we wouldn’t mind at all. If you get lonely or restless there’s a stack of playthings over by the door. You haven’t earned a decaying porcupine yet, but the roadkill skunks are certainly in your price range today.
Oh look everyone, it’s chas, having another one of his “you’re not entertaining me” tantrums.
Grow the fuck up, and fuck the fuck off. I know you think you’ve got some sort of meta commentary going on here, but the truth is that you’re nothing but a pretentious YouTube comment stuck on repeat. Grow a moustache, and you’re every vinyl record store douche ever.
I’m sure there are some people somewhere who think you’ve got something interesting to say. Well, go fucking find them, you fucking asshole.
I mean, Jesus Christ. How often are you going to pull this spoiled fucking brat routine? And you think I’ve got a twelve-year-old act going on?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
So anyways, you fucking asshole: you’ve got the fucking attention. Here’s your fucking spotlight.
We’re waiting to read some goddamn fucking brilliance.
If it matters any, y’all are entertaining me just fine.
Uhoh. Damn. Now I want to have sex with all of you. Every last one of you.
Even the porcupine.
The dumb fucker was right after all! That shit is like magic or something.
We get it, Chas. You’re bored by the problems of others. We know that about you, and don’t feel like we really need to know much else. But thanks for outing yourself; all sociopaths should be so open.
Jafafa Hots:
The Horde orgies are legendary…
SC (Salty Current), OM @ 127;
Curses! My cunning plan unmasked!
You have seen through my strategies to attract a classier sort of woman.
I mean, that is all that any male feminist ever does, right? Even the gay ones. Just ask littlejohn…
Funny how it’s standard operating procedure when it’s creationists or anti-vaxxers, but “red meat” when it involves sexism and feminism.
No, not “funny.” Dismaying and insulting. Fuck you, Chas.
The whole notion of “targets” and refusing to see women as people comes from the vast majority of them believing they aren’t attractive, funny or likable enough to get a girlfriend on their own merits, so they resort to rape and “strategy” to get their lusts fulfilled. It all amounts to the fact that these guys have no sense of self-worth and so have to go back to the worst, most basic of measures, those for the most part being “how many women have I fucked [read: raped],” “how much can I drink,” and “who’s the toughest dudebro I can beat in a fight.”
High school or middle school broke many of these people, socially. I know that middle school left me a quivering wreck of a person, utterly unable to approach most people without a deep-seated fear of being viewed as creepy (because I was an idiotic middle schooler and poorly hit on one girl in one class, I had been deemed creepy by a number of people [yes, it was my own fault, I don’t want pity, please do call me out]), and I see the same thing happening to many people.
It is not clear that the piece was at all serious. It’s not even clear that the fraternity being accused was actually the source.
One way young men deal with the horror of the world is by making jokes about it. This includes inappropriate thoughts which we all have had. Robert Crumb among others has made a fortune exploiting this aspect of human nature.
It is wrong to stereotype a whole on the acts of a few.
And then there’s this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKgwczruOSQ
Sharon Osbourne still has a job. Imagine if a male TV personality made a joke about cutting up a woman’s vagina. Now try to imagine him getting to keep his job. We don’t have a castration culture.
What makes you think they formerly had it?
Hm. Chas is being a yutz. But he’s not always a yutz. Sometimes he’s vocally anti-yutz.
luciferschild #136
You might have a point (maybe, perhaps, if you were lucky) if this was an isolated instance. Unfortunately it’s not. It’s extremely common. But your concern is noted and there’ll be a lovely prize waiting for you by the door. You have your choice of a putrefying porcupine or a decaying hedgehog. Someone will explain the special use these can be put to.
Cbas’s “I’m bored” is such bullshit. He doesn’t just act bored he actively snipes at people he doesn’t like and uses sleazy methods to try to shame/silence them.
You sir are scum
I know. But he’s not always like that.
@SC
Oh sorry, he’s ok then!
*eye roll*
Either way time for another few months of ignorage.
On what do we judge people?
how ’bout on the fact that “some of them” radiate contempt of things which are important to other people; and occasionally even of the people themselves? (I still find his reaction to me saying I’m going to skip the introductory bio and chem courses both representative of this and hilarious)
But what about his numerous posts during Elevatorgate? (True, a few had that stupid flavor, but the vast majority didn’t.)
What about someone going through a hard time and acting like an ass?
Hmpth.
I am reminded of a relative who wrote a Ph.D. thesis on members of non-service organization all-male Greek societies at major American universities about 5 years ago.
Conclusions: most frat boys are white and from upper-middle or upper-class families. Many are unabashedly racist and downright troglodyte in their views of women. I remember hearing this and said, “You had to study this?” I got the reply, “Well, it needed to be quantified.”
Frats and frat culture are rape culture personified. The standard argument of “think if she was your sister/mother/daughter” falls utterly flat, as these men compartmentalize women into “theirs” (i.e. pure, to be protected and controlled) and “fair game” (for sexual use). I was reminded of this awhile back when I got catcalled walking down the street. I yelled back that I was young enough to be the jerk’s daughter, how would he like it if someone was yelling shit like that at her? He replied that his daughter wouldn’t be stepping out alone after dark.
SC:
In this case, Chas’s absolute reliability in making asshole remarks in every thread dealing with sexism, feminism or any related subject. If he doesn’t want to be judged on that, he’s free to stop being an asshole at any time.
Two things strike me as strange here; certainly I have made my share of foot-in-mouth comments, but I wouldn’t wander onto the comments in a blog post about, for instance, racism, PTSD or ableism, and inform those discussing the issue that it was boring.
Even if I did feel like that, I would never, could never, take it on myself to dismiss other people’s passion and concern in such a way. So when someone is willing to do that, no matter how ‘on message’ they might be in other ways, I understand that really, as a human being they have a distressingly ugly flaw. and any desire to interact with them slips away.
Secondly, this ‘they only drug women because of low self-esteem’ meme.
No.
Just no.
People with low self esteem do not view other people as toys to be drugged and raped. You need a significant amount of self-esteem to believe that your desires trump theirs, especially in such a damaging, degrading way. It’s a ‘you do not recognise my importance, so I will show you how important I am’ attitude.
People with low self-esteem do not prioritise their needs over others – quite the opposite. Rapists may have self-image problems, but believing themselves inferior isn’t one of them.
You know what part was relevant to me? the “acting like an ass part”. Intent isn’t magic, as I believe it has been stated on occasion. I sympathize with someone going through a rough time but I don’t want, nor have to, tolerate their lashing out. I do it too and fully expect to be treated like an ass back and have to apologize and try to do better.
Chas doesn’t fucking try to do better, nor do I see any hint that it’s because he has a rough time. It seems like he looks for opportunities to piss on folk.
I’m too nauseated to respond to the actual post, just needed to say that “Thibault” is the proper way to spell the surname pronounced “Tee-bow”.
Except that this isn’t true. I’ve probably dealt with him more than anyone on these subjects and I want to kick him in the shins, but he has not been absolutely reliable in making asshole remarks by any reasonable measure. If you don’t believe me, check those threads and the slimepit from that time. To judge someone on one portion of their output doesn’t sit well with me.
This has nothing to do with intent. It’s about a full measure of someone’s history of actual words.
@SC
If he decides to be anything but nasty and jackassidly nasty to me in any interaction and stops going out of his way to try to bait me and all that bullshit I might judge him differently.
Where the fuck do you get off telling people to give someone who is consistently hostile to them a break?
I’m not judging him on ONE portion of his output. I’m judging him based on the whole of his output.
@SC
You do know that the last thing we need is someone else defending another man’s assholerly right?
Ing:
One can only hope.
@SC
Yeah I know low blow, but you’re coming in and telling me to accept that someone who is a jackass to me at every turn and if he isn’t a sexist douche (chortle) he wears the uniform of one often, that ‘oh no he’s really ok, don’t be so harsh on him!’
Unless your point is that “oh no he really cares about these issues…he just dislikes certain people enough to act like he doesn’t to use the lowest possible way to upset them!” in which case, wow what a nice guy!
*blink*
They’re financially supported by the universities?
What… the… fuck.
No. I’m one of the apparently rare people who are 0 on the Kinsey scale, and just as heteroromantic as -sexual*, and all I can think of as an explanation for the mystification and othering are 1) lack of exposure, for instance segregated education which is of course rare nowadays, 2) inability to view people as individuals resulting in constant attempts to extrapolate to arbitrary groups that are imagined as monolithic, and 3) lots of massive cultural reinforcement. You know, “men and women never understand each other”, “we gays have it so much easier than you because you need to come to terms with people you can’t understand at all”, “men are from Mars, women from Venus”, that kind of thing.
In other words, sexism and racism are pretty much the same thing as far as I can tell.
* And it’s perhaps interesting, in the light of comment 97, that I don’t seem to care about hair color at all. Some artificial ones are ugly, but that’s it.
Oh, the multitasking should be the easy part. Getting laid in biology class, however, sounds difficult to accomplish!
This possibility is probably more likely than most imagine (see comment 108)… but still not very high, especially because of the peer pressure it describes.
Of course not. But sociopaths believe everyone else is a fellow sociopath.
Sounds likely to me.
So, the soft version is a fantasy of “I’m so great in metaphorical bed that teh ladeez all want me, even if at first they’re sure they don’t”, while the hard version is just about sadism and/or power and not much about sex at all?
Some definitely would. So, perhaps, don’t overdo it :-)
*crickets chirping*
His opinions seem to depend on his mood, and his mood depends on meatspace considerations like whether – to mention the apparently most extreme example – he has exams to grade.
With a bit of bad luck, you’ll end those months right in the middle of grading season.
I didn’t do that. My comment was not directed at you personally. You have a personal hostility, as do I. My remarks weren’t aimed at any one person, but at a group hostility that I think partial and in some part ignorant.
Except that you’re ignoring a significant portion.
Who’s “we,” and what makes you think I’m doing anything other than reflecting on the fact that his history of commenting is not all assholery and has been in the recent past actively anti-asshole?
Hot and cold running asshole.
I find this question too simplistic.
I do find it deeply unsettling that anyone’s opinions could depend on their mood swings. Even though similar incomprehensible things occur in my family – one close relative is angry at everyone, and personally offended by anyone, when he’s angry, another throws & breaks things with no regard for consequences.
To some extent I try not to judge people as a whole at all, but to judge every aspect of their personalities separately.
So, you had to be punished for doing it, and/or stepping out alone after dark is an explicit sexual advance on every man when a woman does it.
*puke*
luciferschild (inserting foot firmly in mouth):
No, we don’t, and a good thing too. Do you want one? No, I didn’t think so.
But then, by the same token, you should also be disgusted by the existence of a rape culture! Which, alas, is not a a product of fiction.
I thought we were – someone’s sexism.
He’s been a right asshole in the very recent past thank you very much.
Irene Delse, you are missing the point; the fact that Sharon Osborne still has a media is equal in weight to all of the misogynistic that is found in our culture. As long as she works, there is no discussion to be had.
(As soon as she no longer has a job on TV {Though she done very well being her husband’s manager.} a different outrage can be found that can be used to counter misogyny. Very cute how this works.)
Y’know, I’m tired and weak here. Could you please try not to be so hair-trigger? I didn’t mean that he’d been perfect in the most recent past, but that his comments in the recent past (several months) have been a mix including many really good ones.
Chas is Sven, right?
Yeah, I would be more likely to chalk up his anti-ERV comments (which I have not personally witnessed) to a misplaced sense of tribalism than to any genuine understanding of feminism and women’s issues.
He has been a RIGHT asshole too many times for me to give him much benefit of the doubt. Jadehawk’s experience with him is revelatory as well.
Yes, SallyStrange, Chas is Sven.
Ah yes, I’m emotional. Going for all the highlights are you?
Seriously, the fuck. Maybe you could stop dismissing me? “well he’s a nice guy and says good comments so, get over him treating you poorly”
On this fucking thread he’s done jackassery? But no, go and explain away.
I sincerely doubt it. I don’t think he has any significant tribalistic impulse whatsoever. In fact, his comments at that time were through gritted anti-tribalistic teeth (as he saw it), as far as I could tell.
I think he has many sexist ideas, and some feminist ones that he sees as simply decent).
@SC
The important thing is that as a man who has some semblance of decency his feelings are more important than anyone elses and we should all be nicer to him!
Pardon me? I said nothing about being emotional. I’ve been sick, I’m dehydrated and in pain, and I don’t want to deal with avoidable cluelessness.
FFS SC, you’re being either absurdly callous or obtuse now. It’s OT, so it’s not fucking important, let’s move the spot light off of the brat now k?
Chas:
I don’t know what happened, but over the years here you’ve turned into an asshole. You are, if you hadn’t noticed, part of “the horde.” And you’re plenty angry about topics that interest you. You’ve become increasingly nastier, pettier, and shittier. . .I’ve noticed it for a couple of years now. What’s your damage?
How is it that you’ve moved into troll territory by imputing to PZ the stupidest, most craven motives – “he’s just posting to get a rise out of the horde by throwing them red meat.”? You sound like a goddamn JJ Ramsey sock puppet. Seriously. What the hell has gotten into you?
Yes, Ing, that’s precisely my point.
Bah. His support is too inconstant for me to be anything but wary about him.
@Josh
FFS let it go. He’s not that important to justify such a derail.
Just call ’em like I see ’em, man.
YMMV, as they say.
Of course, I could be wrong.
To be clear: I’m being callous for questioning an all-out attack on a Molly winner who’s been commenting here for longer than most of us have been aware of the blog’s existence. Someone I’ve criticized several times in the past week, including on this thread, sometimes linking to threads from months in the past in which he’s gone after me personally. Someone who’s mentioned his personal setbacks in the past several weeks.
Here: I don’t like it when people (we) gang up on a member of the community, even if they’ve been a jerk. It makes me almost physically ill, and I’m already that.
In the interest of peace, I will. Bossy tone not appreciated however.
For the record, I never intended to be part of any ganging-up. I made my comment without having read nearly all the discussion that preceded it. I was reacting to Chas based on his own posts without being aware of everything that came after.
SC:
Oh fuck that noise, loudly. Drop it already, SC. In another thread, it was you who pointed out Chas had lost all credibility in more than one subject.
As for the whole Molly business? Please. Chas, when having yet another massive snit, requested to be de-Mollied and it was done.
As an OM myself, don’t use it to excuse assholism – yours or anyone else’s.
Josh! Ing was being sarcastic.
K, I’m out. Seems to be one of those times where several of us have our danders up or are feeling poorly, and it’s too easy to be unintentionally hurtful. None of us need that. I’m sorry for contributing to it.
No.
Well, there was some specificity.
That doesn’t mean the fact that he’s been a valued – if not uncontroversial – commenter should be tossed aside. I don’t think people in the community, who’ve been recognized for their comments and who’ve made worthwhile contributions (on this subject) in the past several months, should be treated like trolls, no. There’s criticism and there’s piling on.
SC, why should anyone get a free pass to be an ass, their past notwithstanding?
I must’ve missed where I argued that they should. Why someone should maybe get a pass not to be piled on is another story.
Remember that whole Ben Radford ‘pink’ fiasco a couple days ago? The one where Brownian tore me a new one? The one in which I sorta said things along the lines of Chas/Sven is saying now? That thread which I kinda threw a crappy apology in? Yeah… I have some more to add.
I know I don’t post often- mainly because I don’t have the time. I attend school and work, as many commenters here do, I suspect. We are all busy. This is where the ‘fuck off, Chas’ part comes in. If you, in your life, are bored by the comment section of a blog, you can, by all means, go pleasure your anus with a wonderfully barbarous rodent using wacky glue as lube.
Maybe you aren’t in college, or part of a culture that this affects. Which is fine, but don’t fucking trivialize the matter and look like a complete assberet in the meantime.
So yeah, my apologies for semi-derailing Radford’s thread when I said ‘Gee, I hope this shit doesn’t blow up. It doesn’t seem to have that big of an effect of raising consciousness.’ Note that I did not have any way of quantifying that second statement and was merely speaking via my poop shoot.
I don’t know that he’s sexist more than any of us; he is however a condescending ass and especially often in feminism conversation. And if I don’t let Abby’s problems, or Ben’s problems keep me from judging them by their actions, I certainly won’t stop for chas, either. I have entirely too many problems myself to take on the burden of overlooking other people’s assholitude and assholish patterns because they also have problems.
But then, I am not and have never claimed to be a particularly magnanimous person.
Thanks for that, mikeg.
I’d just like to point out that people who TRULY don’t care about a subject don’t comment on it. Much less comment disparagingly about the subject in a predictable pattern.
Let’s see. “Mental illness,” autism-spectrum disorders, teenaged and college-aged people in general and males especially, and now people with low self-esteem.
Has someone started a bingo card with the marginalized groups that people scapegoat for destructive entitlement behaviors yet?
Esteleth, Ph.D. wrote:
I’m not American so all I know of how college works over there is from watching movies. So now I’m wondering, what percentage of college students join frats/sororities? Do most students just live in dorms? Or off campus? I mean, I know it would vary depending on University, but I’m sure there are cultural trends.
Did your relative do any research into how being in a frat/sorority changes a person, if at all? It would be interesting to do a study that looked at how sexist and racist students (male and female) are when they arrive at college, and how much that changes, comparing people in frats/sororities to other students, to non-students of the same age.
My hypothesis would be that sexist/racist people would be the most attracted to joining frats/sororities, and that the levels of such would increase more for everyone in them, regardless of starting levels. Some really dramatic results from a study like that would be good ammunition for shutting down or severely curtailing frats/sororities.
Other countries get by just fine without them.
Rest assured that some, perhaps even many, of the posts and comments here do (unintentionally) entertain.
a) no shit. But, see, since one of my reasons for spending time on the web is to be entertained, I think you’ve precisely identified one of the causes of my professed boredom with these topics.
I didn’t always feel that way, you know. Back in the day when such threads were occasional I used to join in (though usually in contrarian/SIWOTI mode). I even used to read Pandagon, Feministe, and Feministing pretty often. Because my other reason for spending time on the web is to be educated. I learned shit from reading those early threads, and from arguing about what I perceived to be the bullshit occasionally promulgated therein (although I received considerably more castigation than enlightenment). Sometimes I still learn shit from reading them. But less and less often. It’s become the same people constantly saying pretty much the same stuff. To me, that’s boring, whatever the topics.
Yes, this is a manifestation of my social privilege. Many of you see this not as ‘topics’ but rather as your life. I acknowledge that. But I yam what I yam, and I yam bored. If that makes me an ass in your eyes, so be it. And if I seem to have become more and more of an ass, it’s probably because I find Pharyngula more and more boring.
b) For what purpose are some, perhaps even many, of the posts and comments here concerning misogyny, rape culture and other forms of fuckedupness written? Why is it important for PZ to cherry-pick random examples of egregious assholes so that all the usual suspects can line up to express their rage and disgust? Oh, and with any luck chum in an MRA troll or two for repetitive and gleeful stomping?
I have an opinion on the subject. For commenters it looks to be about 90% preaching-to-the-choir ingroup-cohesion building. (You, dear reader, are no doubt part of the other 10% of course.) For PZ, yes, I believe he looks at pageview and commenting statistics and makes a conscious effort to replicate posts that get big numbers. That’s not a criticism and it’s not a denial of his sincerity.
enough being an ass for today
That’s how learning works. Once you’ve learned something, you can’t learn it again. You would expect your students to be bored if they took the same courses with you a dozen times. But guess what? To some people who haven’t been reading these blogs for months or years, the information and arguments are new and they can learn from reading them. You’re not the center of the universe.
Not the fact that you’re bored, but the fact that you insist on popping in regularly to tell everyone how bored you are. No one fucking cares.
More than enough. Why don’t you take a break and go read a book? I recommend Delusions of Gender, especially since you said you were going to read it, oh, about a year ago.
“…see, since one of my reasons for spending time on the web is to be entertained, I think you’ve precisely identified one of the causes of my professed boredom with these topics.”
So your profession is to be entertained?
“enough being an ass for today”
Wow, you have a limit?
tielserrath:
Thank you! It’s another meme which is definitely Not Helping. Managing to excuse rapists while slandering people who really have self-esteem problems, that’s just piling insult upon injury.
Not to mention that the marginalized groups DON’T get to use supposed mental illness as an excuse. (See: “You women are paranoid/traumatized and should just suck it up when innocent guys with low self-esteem harass you.”)
Done being educated? Find the repetition of knowledge with which you are already familiar boring?
Here’s an option: start educating.
Unless that’s, like, too boring.
Here’s another option: find other stuff to read and learn about.
Or would that be boring too?
You sound like an entitled teenager, Chas.
Does whining about your boredom alleviate it? More than, say, searching out and reading material that actually interests you?
Grow up already.
It could certainly be possible and even useful to try to start a constructive conversation about what purpose these posts serve and whether some modification of that approach might be more productive.
But you might also note that “I’m bored” isn’t actually any such an attempt. It’s just, as you admit, acting like a self-centered ass.
(As to actually answering your question, well, you might as easily say the same things about almost any post here. Like, say, the posts on atheism and religion. And yet, how many of the “why I’m an atheist” guest posts have identified this blog [or one like it] as a catalyst for reexamining their beliefs, coming out of the “atheist closet”, or otherwise changing their lives? Is that just pointless “ingroup cohesion building” in your view?
In fact, if you dig through a few of the ‘feminism’ threads, I think you’ll find at least a few examples of the same thing happening – these incidents bringing people to wake up and examine their own privilege, or become aware of the outrageous depths of the fuckheadedness that’s out there [as well as — perhaps even more disappointingly — the fuckheadedness within the ‘skeptical’ community itself]. Is that worthless?
Even for all those of us who may have been more or less ‘in the know’ or on the right side all along, what exactly is wrong with a little “ingroup cohesion building” when it’s for a good cause? How many people might be riled up and inspired by these kind of threads to go out somewhere else – in “real life” even – and speak up a little more boldly when they see someone act like an asshole?
How about just having a place where people can come and feel welcome – and that the entire atheist community isn’t full of people like those hilarious jokesters over on r/atheism? Valueless? Too “boring”?
Maybe you should just go find a different hobby.)
Jafafa Hots | 6 January 2012 at 2:45 pm :
Isn’t it always like that? I followed mainstream news closely from the mid 1980s to the early 2000s, and that’s how it always seemed to me.
The few articles I saw that referred to “homeless”, “jobless”, “poor”, or “mentally ill”, as something other than objects of despite were few.
ChasCPeterson | 7 January 2012 at 10:05 am :
“but MOM, when you talk about misogyny, it’s BORING.”
Not, revolting, or stomach churning, or apalling, or depressing …
Boring.
Move on? Really, if you are bored, why bother commenting about it? You could have spent that time and energy commenting on tet zoo, where you are at least capable of making intelligent comments.
tielserrath | 6 January 2012 at 7:42 pm :
Thank you. People with low self esteem do not deserve to be dumped on for having low self esteem .
Yeah, also I fail to see the downside of building group cohesion, particularly when the in-group is partially defined by a commitment to treating women as people and taking threats to women’s humanity seriously.
+1
In the past week, several of the threads themselves have led to increased awareness about the depth or nature of the problems. If no one had posted about it and received responses, I wouldn’t have known that there were people who actually believed the girl on reddit was responsible for “sexualizing” the thread, that Rosch and others actually believe no women deserved a nomination as anything other than a token, or that the CFI is not actually committed to critical inquiry as they claim and its leadership is as clueless as it is. This is useful knowledge that I wouldn’t otherwise have.
Actually, this entire kerfuffle of the last year-plus came about BECAUSE of desire to increase and strengthen the community. Specifically, by expanding representation among half the population, who have minds and voices to contribute, and at least as much at stake. Remember PZ’s “The Woman Problem” post in June of 2010? What was the question?
The atheist and skeptic community has a problem. Why does this problem exist? One very significant factor: Sexism. The atheist/skeptic movement has a sexism problem.
All the gnashing of teeth since then has come about because a large portion of the atheist and skeptic communities refuse to accept that answer.
Hence, these posts, which continue to raise awareness and amass overwhelming data.
@ Pteryxx:
Excellent point! There had been lots of “how do we expand our audience from here on” since 2010. The question of “how do we attract more women” to conferences, as members, etc., was also raised. Then a few obvious suggestions (invite more women speakers, curb down the sexism within the community) were offered – and met with uproar from too many people, mostly but not exclusively male.
but not the reasons you’re actually professing said boredom. Because you see, normal people just leave a place they’re bored with. Hipsters sometimes do, to inform everyone how mainstream something has become; assholes sometimes do to be condescending assholes. But normal people, they just leave and find a more interesting place on the internet.
so do many other people who do not need to harp on about it; they just find something else to do with their time
I wish i had the privilege to walk away from it.
++
I’m not sure when SC started hallucinating any worthwhile posts from Chas, but hallucinations they are. His says its boring to have to read the same posts over and over again – while POSTING THE SAME POSTS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Apparently, the fact that he can simply not reads what’s so boring to his four fighting brain cells is too complicated.
He’s boring and completely fucking hypocritical. At this point, it can only be assumed that he’s here merely to troll.
and for good measure:
also sub in deltoid/AGW denialism, Orac/anti-vaxxerism, anyone sane/libertarianism, etc., and it all sounds the same, and sounds equally fucking stupid.
not entirely accurate. A number of less-than-feminist posters who nonetheless aren’t complete fucking morons did make constructive comments during Elevatorgate. chas was one of them.
She is not hallucinating. But the worthwhile statements are more likely to come from his field of study.
fair enough. I should have qualified my statement with ‘any time recently’ because there it certainly seems like that was the last time there has been anything but “lets talk about how bored chas is”.
call it a break from a pattern. before that he was doing the same. Usually in TET; when the rational solution to that, too, is to simply stop posting and reading.
Seriously, it’s as if he’s never outgrown a source of information before (assuming the boredom comments are genuinely just that)
It is, however, not what you’ve claimed, which is that this was “posted solely to get a rise out of the angry horde” and that PZ “cherry-pick[s]” – whatever that could mean here – “random examples of egregious assholes so that all the usual suspects can line up to express their rage and disgust.” That ascribes a specific intent, well beyond a general wish to post on topics that people tend to read and comment about.
And yeah, I just love reading about misogyny and dealing with sexist assholes spewing their nonsense. I especially enjoy learning more about the sexism of people I’d considered friends and those in leadership positions. I look forward every day to hearing more about how many atheist men don’t regard me as an equal, and to hearing other women stupidly bash feminists. It’s great fun to be called demeaning epithets and smugly “educated” in evo psych bullshit I’ve taken apart over and over. I especially adore the people who show up on threads about misogyny or feminism to be “contrarians” for their own amusement. That’s why I do it – good times.
I don’t believe for a second that’s what they really are. As has been said, a rational person simply doesn’t read what doesn’t interest them. If he posted his “waaaaah, I’m bored” crap a only few times, it would be conceivable. Given how frequently he does it, at this point it’s clear he just wants the conversation shut down.
Its very telling that, as janine said: “But the worthwhile statements are more likely to come from his field of study.”
As that is interesting to him, he makes an effort. Bitches ain’t shit, though, so all he can manage is MRA style silencing tactics.
I’ve never bothered with killfile before, but he’s so mind numbingly boring and repetitive, I will have to reconsider.
That’s it? Those are the big fucking groundbreaking epiphanies we’ve all been waiting for?
Chas, this is sincere advice from someone who thinks you once had an interesting thought that you shared here: turn off your computer. The internet apparently doesn’t have anything for you, and you clearly don’t bring anything to it.
We’re all glad that you solved the problem of sexism. When one of us has a question about turtles, we’ll be sure to, well, google it. There’s nothing you provide that can’t be found elsewhere without the fucking “I’m so much hipper than thou” ‘tude.
“Hey, you know what they’re doing at the kindergarten I went to? Shapes. Thirty fucking years later.
*Rolls eyes*
I popped in to tell ’em how they used to engage me, but now I find them boring.”
There you go, Chas. I’ve just filled your fucking shoes here. (It’s not complicated. I basically take a “teh fake + teh gay” comment from YouTube and fix up the grammar.) As soon as I find a site combing turtles and jazz you’ll have no goddamn purpose whatsoever.
Oh, lookee here.
How’s obsolescence feel? Nevermind, I couldn’t possibly care less what you think.
Everybody piling on Rip Steakface for his pathetic, self-absorbed Nice Guy™ whine is entirely correct. Fratholes are by and large spoiled, superficially handsome assholes from privileged families; quite often they were jocks in high school. Their upbringing has schooled them in putting on the mask of the charmer when necessary, and the actual sociopaths among them excel at that naturally.
It’s not impossible that some of the followers in the rape gangs may have low self-esteem, but the leaders are absolutely overflowing with it and with contempt for their “lessers,” meaning women. Rip, if you identify with such excrescences, you have a lot of soul-searching to do.
Luciferschild, #136: I think I’ve filled up an anti-feminist bingo card just from your comment alone. Why don’t you squat over a dead porcupine and fill up that cold, dark void inside you?
Josh, #175: “What the hell has gotten into you?” Because PZ’s challenging Sven’s cherished assumptions, instead of those of fundies. How dare he change the rules like that!
Speaking of rules, isn’t there one around these parts against sockpuppeting?
Anchor, #196: “Wow, you have a limit?” AHAHAHAHAHA FTW!!
Pteryxx, #198: Indeed. I have never noticed ASD, psych diagnoses, low self-esteem, or “just being a kid” used to excuse any behavior from men of color or from women.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Chas never engaged in sockpuppetry. His anagrams were obvious and he announced his moniker change.
OK, bye. I’m sure you’ll send us a postcard from wherever you find that keeps you entertained.
Whether or not they were obvious really depended on how well you knew the asshole, and whether or not you were interested enough in his Theatre of the Meh to figure out it was all one big elaborate circle jerk on his part.
Since we’re talking about his past and how that conferred him a certain amount of latitude, I think it’s absolutely fair to say he used up any goodwill he’d generated with that fucking farce.
A newer commenter pulling that sort of childish wankery sure as hell would have been called out as a sockpuppet.
Brownian, I think you are missing the fact that I do not like him. For the most part, I ignore his cranky ass. But if you are going to slag him, at least be accurate.
What’s inaccurate?
That we wouldn’t put up with his sort of bullshit from a newbie?
Or that someone new to the site might have missed the playbill for a particular performance of his and not known that Sven DiMilo and Ed Milnisov or whatever his persona du jour was were the same person?
I mean, it took someone else (not chas) explicitly telling someone else they were all anagarams of the same person before I was certain that they were all the same person, mostly because I wasn’t particularly interested in investigating the comment history of a collection of whiny fucking dipshits. Where does that leave someone new to the community? How are they to know that it’s all okay in this particular case?
So how is Ms. Daisy Cutter’s perspective wrong? Because she’s not one of the old guard who seems hell bent on excusing him with a “hey, c’mon, it’s Sven, and he’s having a rough patch” because he used to not be a total shit like, five years ago?
How long is he gonna coast anyway?
And more importantly, where the hell is the narcissistic fuck, now that there’s a whole thread derailed to talk about what a narcissistic fuck he is?
C’mon, Sven. We’re not talking about those whiny fucking bitches anymore. The floor is yours.
I hope you choke on it.
Just because you did not care does not mean he was trying to be misleading. If he was being a sockpuppet, do you think that PZ would have warned him or banned him.
I am not here to defend Chas. He has done enough bullshit things that should be called out. Sockpupperty is not one of those.
And drop the newbie defense, that is pure bullshit.
I’m hardly new to Pharyngula but had no idea Chas and Sven were the same person until the pink thread.
Whether he intended to be misleading or not is irrelevant. Janine is right in that PZ doesn’t tolerate sockpuppetry. That said, if I’m being corrected on calling his posts useless because his useful ones came when he called himself something else, that’s a little unfair.
Isn’t is SOP to put (formerly known as) in one’s screen name to avoid accusations of sockpuppetry?
Brownian:
A lot of people didn’t know Chas/Sven in his many different anagrams, and it had to pointed out by regulars all the time. Shit, even I had to look three times at a nym half the time. It was annoying as all hell, and yeah, I agree, it would have gone down as sockpuppeting from anyone else.
Janine, I’ll give you the anagrams, sure — I’ve been lurking long enough to know about those. But “ChasCPeterson” isn’t an anagram.
If you are going to demand this of Chas, there are a lot of other regulars you also need to demand this of.
Isn’t an anagram of “Sven DiMilo,” I should have added, in case it’s unclear.
not indefinitely, no
*sighs* I didn’t demand anything. I asked a question. I don’t know how long it’s been since he last morphed, since, as I just said, I didn’t know he HAD morphed.
Sure. That he didn’t intend to doesn’t mean that he wasn’t. But, since we’re on subject, what the hell was his purpose?
Not necessarily. I get that Mollies and history engender a certain amount of freedom. At some point in time, before moving to FtB, PZ had a little experiment in who should be banned. I honestly offered up my own name, and gave a few of my own bannable crimes, for the banhammer. Not because I honestly thought that I should have been, nor did I want to be, but because I thought it was important to consider that such offences are not black and white, but also that the Old Guard shouldn’t be unassailable. If I start acting solely as a douche, I expect I’ll be called out on it. I’d hope that my history here counts for something, but it doesn’t give me immunity.
Hardly. As I’ve mentioned, regulars are given some freedom newbs aren’t. But this community isn’t my personal playground. It belongs to a bunch of people who aren’t me, and that includes people who are just finding this site, or skepticism, or atheism, and that will include people who haven’t yet found these things.
Ms. Daisy Cutter had a legitimate question about his behaviour. She apparently missed the memo that he wasn’t trying to be misleading. I think she deserves something a little more substantial than “well, it’s just not, in his case.”
Hell, I don’t want new people to be afraid to call me out, just because I’m more or less well liked (or at least tolerated). That’s why I don’t advertise my OM.
Personally, I don’t think what he was doing was sockpuppeting. As far as I can tell, he decided to take the stick out of his ass and turn it into some sort of performance art piece. So, I guess that’s that.
What others have done is change their ‘nyms. What they didn’t do, as far as I can tell, is use a shitload of ‘nyms simultaneously.
Oh, fuck this shit.
What pisses me off about Sven is not his multi-nym bullshit, though that’s primarily when I started to notice how hardcore he was taking his asshole act, but that he’s mostly a troll.
I’ve no doubt I’m exhibiting selection bias, but it seems to me that his “meh, I don’t care about this” comments have been far outweighing his substantive comments for some time now.
I don’t want him banned. I want him to figure out that a whole wide internet exists, as well as a shitload of search engines to help him navigate it, and if he’s not being sufficiently entertained, that’s his and only his and nobody else’s and his alone (and did I mention that it’s only his?) responsibility to rectify that, nobody else’s.
Read 194 again. I don’t care how lucidly someone’s written about the Congo in the past—if that’s the kind of shit they think is reasonable to write, they’re a fucking self-centred, self-indulgent, selfish, narcissistic moron.
No, that’s his name. When he stopped using a pseudonym, he announced it, and, incidentally, at the same time apologized to some people (I was not among them) for his behavior towards them. I thought he was making an effort to stop this stuff, but it seems he fell back into it for some reason.
I was gonna stay out of this, but:
Brownian:
That’s it, exactly. I don’t have a problem with ‘nym changing (obviously), but the constant changes were an asshole move at best.
I seem to recall threads on the Sb Pharyngula where Chas used a different anagram for every goddamn post he made. It was tiresome and (for some of us), difficult to figure out if it was actually Chas behind those posts.
Has ChasC ever written lucidly about the Congo?
turtles; also, criticizing the razing of turtle-habitat for solar power. that’s as close to congolucidity as I can remember
Who knows? I don’t even recall what Laden wrote about the Congo. People here use the term, and I just follow the crowd at chow time.
I suppose if I were trying to be nose-thumbingly disdainful of such humdrum bourgeoisery, I’d create my own crowd…
He announced that he would go back to using his name. It was a public transformation. *I see SC beat me to the punch, but I’ll verify the accuracy of her statement*
So operation gikem seems to be out of the question…
Really? Vaginas are to be called “pie”? That does it. Treating women like garbage makes you a douchebag; using food imagery in sex lingo makes you a piece of shit.
@Crocswsocks
And the terminology is wrong too. Clearly the accurate slang is papaya!
I don’t think it’s even being used to excuse – it’s a contemptuous “you can’t expect better from THEM” rather than a sympathetic one. The point is to other the source of the behavior.
Jadehawk, # 209/210,
Well I was bored of Pharyngula before it became cool, of course.
In fact I was, like, pre-bored. I am so hip that I exist in a perpetual state of proto-boredom, especially with feminist topics, naturally. This allows me to raise an ever so slightly supercilious eye brow and curl my delicately cared for face into a perfectly polite, derisive sneer. This grants me the ability to let you mere mortals that you could not possibly be quite as cool as me, seeing as you are not as bored as I am with all this tawdry nonsense. I’m BETTER, you see? Surely you must know that?
Louis
P.S. It’s a well known fact that women weren’t proper people until about 1970, and studies still show there is some doubt that they are. Obviously this means that my boredom is not only cool but SCIENTIFICALLY JUSTIFIED! Hurrah and gadzooks!
Do I need the winking smiley to indicate I am taking the piss?
SC, #239 and Nerd, #244: Fair enough. I happened to miss that announcement. He’s still a douche, though.
Crocswsocks, #246: Thank you for your contribution.
Azkyroth, #248: You’re quoting me, not Pteryxx. Also, it works both ways: To other people with certain diagnoses, and to provide excuses for people who shouldn’t be excused.
@ Louis:
<3
P.S. Re "It’s a well known fact that women weren’t proper people until about 1970": there is an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin entitled "Introducing myself" which begins by:
From The Wave in the Mind, 2004.
To be fair, if Jadehawk had gone to a US highschool, he would most likely have been right in declaring her a victim of a strong Dunning/Kruger effect. He was simply making an argument from ignorance.
Then get well soon. My attitude is “friends don’t let friends…”. It makes me… nowhere near physically ill, but quite sad and/or angry when friends let friends get away with being wrong on the Internet.
Possibly unlike Chas, I never enjoy annoying people, but I don’t like tribalism any more than he does.
*lightbulb moment*
Yes, again.
A few other comments on biology, and of course on the Rebeccapocalypse. And presumably about jazz, I can’t judge that. :-)
:-D
Awesome.
Daisy and Pterxx, it took a few days to figure out how to register and comment on this site. Thank you both for the “heavier than usual” traffic on my blog. I hope more women will be encouraged to share their stories
http://www.thetachirape1962.blogspot.com
I wish you did, too. It’s unfortunate that sexism is so common that many can’t. But that’s why those with the privilege to do so, if they have the fortitude, shouldn’t. Everyone needs to watch each other’s backs.