I had no idea, OK. I didn’t know Scott Adams, a person I admired for his Dilbert comic, was… well, like this. I wrote an article for The Daily Beast on street harassment and male entitlement in general; let’s just say Mr Adams and I disagree somewhat.
He wrote this blogpost last month, but yeah. OK. So… let’s have a look.
—–
This blog is written for a rational audience
Well, thanks. I guess?
in 2014, sexism is not so much the “can’t vote” type of problem it once was. It’s more of the “Someone is making me uncomfortable” or “I think my gender played a role in a decision” or “I can’t tell if this is a business meeting or a date” sort of thing.
I’d like to point to a small American paper called the New York Times, though I realise I’m quoting from all the way back to three days ago. This is what’s happening in his own country. Right now.
Anti-abortion measures pose a risk to all pregnant women, including those who want to be pregnant.
Such laws are increasingly being used as the basis for arresting women who have no intention of ending a pregnancy and for preventing women from making their own decisions about how they will give birth.
How does this play out? Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.
In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide.”
In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins; one was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman’s decision to delay having a cesarean. She was arrested on charges of fetal homicide.
In Louisiana, a woman who went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding was locked up for over a year on charges of second-degree murder before medical records revealed she had suffered a miscarriage at 11 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.
You can nail this next to the other numerous incidents of women – still in America, today – being arrested for not stopping abuse while themselves being abused. Oh, but yeah, it’s probably just feminists overreacting – not shitty laws worth opposing, like voting law restrictions which Adams deems proper feminist issue. Nope: voting is far more important than women being locked up and arrested for trying to protect their own bodies and selves and lives and making autonomous decisions. (Note: voting of course matters, but why is this more worthy of feminist sledgehammers than fucking bodily autonomy that still is an issue today?)
Again, I’ve not even mentioned what happens to Muslim women in conservative Muslim countries or elsewhere. Even America sucks when it comes to women, dude.
Then we get this bit of patronizing nonsense (aside from the whole thing).
I pause here to make a clarification for any folks who might have wandered over here from Jezebel.com, HuffingtonPost.com, or Slate.com. I will try to type slowly so you understand this next part: Scott…is…saying…there…is… still …plenty… of …spousal abuse…job discrimination …sex crimes… and …other …horrors…perpetrated against…women. But in 2014 that stuff looks more like crime than sexism. All women and 98% of men are on the same side when it comes to the criminal stuff.
(I like how he thinks ellipses indicates typing slowly, whereas I could’ve taken an hour to write this sentence.)
“But in 2014 that stuff looks more like crime than sexism”
Why not both, Mr Adams? Apartheid looked like human rights violation and it looked kinda like racism. If you don’t get what motivates people to commit and defend such crimes, I wonder how much you really know about these topics. A crime isn’t some neutral bad thing that emerges to do bad things.
“All women and 98% of men are on the same side when it comes to the criminal stuff.”
Which is why women aren’t being arrested and charged for wanting to make personal choices on their bodies; why women are totally not stalked and followed and groped in the street? Come on, we all oppose it! 99% of the world could support women’s autonomy and that doesn’t diminish the one fucker who abuses a woman because he thinks she doesn’t know her place.
Okay, back to the smart readers.
Um.
So today we have pockets of sexism as opposed to universal sexism, at least in the United States.
I don’t even know what that means. But to me, your laws targeting women for having wombs and autonomy doesn’t seem like a fucking pocket to me.
That is still bad, obviously, but
No… no, stop!
the point is that in 2014 feminists need to use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. And to use a scalpel you need some feedback on how the cutting is going. I am here to help.
Oh thank god.
One of the huge obstacles to successful feminism today is that there is no useful feedback on how their message is doing with men.
Sticking to the digital: May I direct you to A Voice For Men, Return of Kings, Men’s Rights subreddit, comment sections on feminist articles… Those men are conveying feedback.
Second, this isn’t about men’s feelings: it’s about women showing us what we need to do. Feminism isn’t supposed to make us comfortable in our privileged positions as men.
I don’t know what feedback is needed when women tell us men to stop being dicks except for “I’ll try”.
Men have been trained to keep their heads down when this topic comes up.
Dude, do you even read comment sections or the Internet? Men must get some very bad “training” then, because the problem isn’t men’s silence, but their loud entitlement. I see you had little trouble blogging this, for example.
And that is a great disservice to women who need to know whether they are being heard on this topic, and whether the message is effective.
Yeah: the only way feminists know if they’re succeeding is asking men their thoughts on women’s cute little goal of wanting to be persons.
My emotional reaction to the [street harassment] video is a reaction to a woman being harassed every five seconds, and that is not what happened.
Next time, we need to make a video where a woman is harassed in real time every 24 seconds. That is the only way to convince Mr Adams it’s actually real, you guys.
If they manipulated me in one way, can I trust anything else?
How about because women say this is an accurate depiction of what occurs daily? The women you yourself noted say this happens?
I assume the makers of the video intend me to watch it and conclude “Sexism is out of control! Women can’t even walk the streets unmolested! Something must be done!”
Here’s my actual reaction: “MOVE SOMEWHERE BETTER, YOU IDIOT!”
Oh god.
Do you want to know why my life is good today?
I really, really do not.
I once lived in a place with no opportunity and many disadvantages but I cleverly fixed that problem by moving somewhere else.
What does that have to do with the ubiquitous problem of men street harassing women? When did this become about your genius?
MOVE!!! JUST FUCKING MOVE!!!
Okay, I know, your family lives in New York City and your job is there and….JUST FUCKING MOVE!!! MOVE!!! STOP MAKING IT MY PROBLEM!!!
Whoa, there. Um. How is a video pointing out men are being dicks and need to stop “making it [your] problem”? You can say you don’t care; you can say you don’t want to do anything. But it’s not like someone shoved all catcalling men into your house and told you to make them stop.
Why swear and namecall the women being harassed, as opposed to the assholes who harass her?
Also, what the hell, dude?
I’m sure the women in my polite suburban town also get bothered too often on the sidewalk. But I don’t think it is anything like the neighborhoods in which the video is filmed.
OK, so degrees of harassment are… OK? I like that “polite suburban towns” are bastions of security for some reason.
[The video] makes women look like idiots for living in such a place voluntarily.
By such a place, you know you mean “anywhere”, right? And why the hell should women be the ones to move because of abusers? So abusers should be able to live where they want, but their targets must be the ones to move dictated to by levels of harassment? What kind of world are you advocating for: one where awful people dictate our lives?
Also, I like how Adams assumes people aren’t paying off debts, trying to earn a living, from where they live; that we’re all rich, straight white dudes who can pack up and leave. Who the hell thinks like this?
Every man featured in the video is a creep. Isn’t that sexist?
No, it’s fact.
The harassment was mostly in the form of powerless men hurling compliments at a woman that probably has a better job and more education than nearly all of the men in the video. Remind me again who the victims are?
What.
The harassment was mostly in the form of powerless men hurling compliments at a woman that probably has a better job and more education than nearly all of the men in the video. Remind me again who the victims are?
I…
The harassment was mostly in the form of powerless men hurling compliments at a woman that probably has a better job and more education than nearly all of the men in the video. Remind me again who the victims are?
Women. Women are the targets.
The harassment was mostly in the form of powerless men hurling compliments at a woman that probably has a better job and more education than nearly all of the men in the video. Remind me again who the victims are?
I can’t…
The harassment was mostly in the form of powerless men hurling compliments at a woman that probably has a better job and more education than nearly all of the men in the video. Remind me again who the victims are?
So dudes who are larger and stronger, who breach personal space, demand a woman’s time and attention, are the victims in that interaction? That makes no sense. You do realise men don’t need guns to be powerful? May I introduce you to the Ray Rice incident?
The creepy stalker guys were just scary. MOVE!!! MOVE!!! MOVE!!!
Again: people aren’t privileged with money like you to be able to just snap their fingers and move. I can’t even do that. I worry every day about my current job, let alone being able to get another in any city. What the fuck.
Did the video move society in the right direction? I’m not sure.
If it means that it allows people like Adams to comment so I know who to avoid, then yes.
But I don’t know how that gets the guys in the video to act differently
Ah, yes: I’m seeing this comment a lot. You’ll notice that the same person saying guys who need to change won’t watch the video is the same one who questioned who the “victims” are; who says women should move and calls them idiots, not the harassers. Time and again, creepy men tell me creepy men don’t read articles like mine, watch videos like Hollaback!’s and then prove our point.
I’m curious about your reaction to the video. Was it anything like mine?
No.
On the ‘move to polite suburban neighborhood’.
Yeah, if there is anything distinctive about those places is that they appear to be more or less ghost towns. It’s built around the idea of people living in isolated, insular nuclear families, where you only go out to buy things. No community, no diversity, no public spaces or culture or events. Yes, if I move to a place where a bunch of well to do snots sit on a couch inside all day I will not be harassed. That would still suck
Also, cities exist for a reason. If you’re going to work in many industries, you’ll need to live in or near a center of population and industry. The other thing is, you may need to cross many areas of varying character as you travel the city. When I used to work in Chicago, on my trip from home to work the languages signs would be in would change every few stops.
With the ‘less powerful men’ how would Scott Adams feel about say, some tough looking Black guys getting in his space in a rough neighborhood? After all, they have less privilege and job opportunities and money than him, they’re the real victims.
Maybe there is some value in asking ‘how will men react to this,’ but that seems to get busted out as if it’s a license for any or all men not to give a shit until the material is presented to them in the most favorable way. It’s derailing.
The video does have a certain “I can’t believe I have to interact with these poor people of color” vibe to it.
Your comment does have a certain “I’m projecting my own emotions onto it” vibe to it.
Is there a problem with that?
If the vibe you’re getting from the video reflects how you feel, then YES, there’s a problem with that.
Well I do live in the burbs
Yeah, Scott Adams is a fuckwit. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/17/the-saga-of-scott-adams-scrotum/
I’m not so surprised at this. Scott Adams is already notorious for a 2011 blog post in which he basically stated that men should treat women in the same way they treat children or the mentally disabled. David Futrelle commented on it here: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2011/03/15/scott-adams-to-mens-rights-activists-youll-never-win-an-argument-with-a-woman/
He also doubts evolution because he doesn’t trust the fossil record. Yeesh.
As someone who grew up in a small, polite southern town, let me assure you that catcalling is not restricted to large cities. Actually, most of you probably know that. I should post it in the comments at his blog, but I’d have to get close to the comments on his blog. ew.
If you try it, I recommend holding your breath. I signed up to leave a few comments in response to his post and I don’t think I’ll read any of the responses.
My wife is from the south. She actually said it was worse in rural areas, mostly since the custom is ‘greet everybody because it’s POLITE’ meaning that a man can harass a woman and unless he says something the subculture labels rude, she’s rude for ignoring him.
The other – if you’re in NYC or Chicago there are people all over. In a sparsely populated area, you may be being harassed by the only 3 other people around. You can’t hide in the non-existent crowd.
Shorter Scott Adams: I’m going to pull some rhetoric about sexism being licked from my rear end, then tell women being harassed on the street that it’s their own fault for using public spaces in cities where the jobs are. I’m certainly not going to admit that the men harass women because of sexism in the first place, because if it’s not something I can lump into the general “Crime” category, it doesn’t matter. Agree with me or admit you’re an idiot.
You had me at “sexism being licked from my rear end.”
Adams has always been a pretentious puffball with a bag full of bad ideas that he rationalizes because he, as a well-known super-genius, would never hold a bad idea.
Scott Adams aka Wil. E. Coyote?
Hooooly shit. Adams’ response to commenters is even stupider.
-and Scot, honestly, you know that not everyone has the option to move. Surely you have a better answer than that?
[Everyone has the option to move. Some just believe they do not. — Scott]
-Sorry, Scott, as much as I often enjoy your thought experiments and crossing the borders, just saying “because I know what you will say, I try to invalidate it by saying it first and ridiculing it” is not a very good way to argue.
[Ridicule only works when it is valid. — Scott]
[I wonder what the ratio is of women that like unsolicited compliments compared to those that do not. As a man, with my limited window of perception on this topic, I have heard dozens of my female friends speak fondly of street compliments they received. And I can’t think of one example in which someone had a problem with it. But I remind myself that my anecdotal impressions are not terribly useful. — Scott]
The privilege is just fucking dripping off him. Just fucking move. And if that’s not an option, you’re basically just too stupid to realize it. Someone points out that his ridicule is bad messaging, and his response is “well my ridicule is good messaging because it’s clearly so fucking true” – does he not realize how circular that is?
And finally, the “my female friends never complain about this problem” – just like how men chronically react with shock and skepticism at the 1-in-4 sexual assault/abuse statistic – well, yeah, big surprise with shitty attitudes like yours, women in your life that have experienced harassment have chosen to not mention it to you. Their asshole detectors don’t even have to be all that fine tuned to avoid that subject – or to avoid you altogether. And while women are free to feel complimented by the ceaseless stream of comments on their attractiveness – it’s never occurred to him that maybe they’ve internalized the constant messaging that a woman’s only worth is her fuckability, and therefore, they are responding to being validated as to the only value they believe themselves to have?
I’m so sick of rich white dudes telling the rest of us – who, for example, are trying to pay rent – how we could so easily overcome these rampant problems by initiating something only rich white dudes could do.
Because we are already living in this post-everything society where neither correlation nor causation exists between “being a member of a certain group” and “behaving in a certain way”. Unless it’s black people, women, muslims and LGBTQ people, of course.
That’s why daring to actually adress issues that actively harm men will get you some more harassment, because pointing out that young men are overproportionately responisible for and dying in heavy car crashes and that we should do something against this is misandry.
For someone who named the “I am the world” fallacy (i.e. projection as complete worldview), one might expect Adams would have more awareness of the degree to which he indulges in it. At least, one might if one had never read anything Adams wrote that wasn’t Dilbert. :-/
Not surprised. For many years Scott Adams has been drawing cartoons that belittle feminism and make light of sexism and misogyny, as if they are not real problems. He seems blinded by his own unchecked privilege.
http://www.bfmartin.ca/finder/search.html?q=Sexist
And that, my friends, perfectly sums up Libertarianism. What an asswipe.
Ah, is Adams a libertwit? That explains a lot.
Ah, the old “they should jus move!!! solution. Right. Great idea. What a genius thinker Adams is.
The woman in the video is an actress meaning that she can only make a viable living in a handful of cities. And even if she could afford to pack up and move to the suburbs of Wichita, is there any reason to think she won’t be cat-called and harrassed there?
The “just move” argument should so easily be dismantled the minute someone points out that a fuckton of people are poor. And even those who are better off can’t just up n move. There are a lot of things to consider if you want to move. Those things become a lot more things when you have a job, a relationships, children, family that depends on your support, etc. Is Adams a rich d00d with no responsibilities and a job he can take anywhere?
(all of that is aside from the fact that the proverbial Paradise Island is a myth. A place without sexual harassment doesn’t exist.)
Worse, you’ll be harassed by a car of guys trailing you on an unlit country road as you walk home alone through a depopulated area.
I live in a “polite suburban town”. I grew up in a “polite suburban town”. Midwestern Values, and all that, you know. One of those values appear to be that men have some charmed magic that makes them superior to women. I am a highly educated professional, working with highly trained professionals in a polite suburban town (in fact, so polite it’s dangerous to drive here, because the drivers think it’s impolite to take their right of way – don’t ask). In spite of that, I deal with sexism. I walk down the street of my polite suburban neighborhood, and young men drive by and shout obscenities at me. Or tell me I need to go home to my husband (who is usually walking the dog on the next street over, but that’s irrelevant). I get ‘splained things to, things about my field, in which I have a Ph.D. and 20 years of experience, by people who’s only knowledge of my field is that they have a penis.
I haven’t been impressed with Scott Adams for several years – but I did realize he is very impressed with himself. This just proves it. A woman gets harassed on the street, it’s somehow about him.
Yeah, because no-one would ever harass a young girl walking home from a job interview in a shopping mall in the middle of the afternoon…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/10729692/Girl-fights-off-attacker-with-jiu-jitsu-skills
So, in the space of a few minutes, mid afternoon in a small regional town centre she is wolf whistled at by guys in a car, given unwanted attention by guys in a car park before being explicitly propositioned and then assaulted by a guy biking past. Worth noting Scott, that only the assault was actually illegal, although the lurid comments and invitation to come back to his house were certainly grey area legally.
A good post. I only have one critical comment; I keep hearing feminists tell me that they aren’t interested in what the male response is to their message.
When you’re trying to get a message out it is customary to ask the audience what their reaction is unless you don’t care about their reaction. If feminists don’t want to listen to the reaction of the males in their audience that’s totally fine but that means they have to accept the result of loss of support from that demographic due to an absolute unwillingness to even consider anything they have to say.
If feminists ever do tailor their message due to the response of men, realize that it isn’t about the sensitivities of men. You’d be doing it for the survival of all the poor, often minority women who are presently suffering under a serious loss of rights and services right now that they feel much more acutely then their often whiter, financially more secure sisters.
If men stop supporting feminism because they feel they aren’t given enough input in the movement: 1) they were never really allies to begin with, and b) feminism is probably better off without them.
But this is largely academic, since your main premise (that feminists don’t care how men react to feminism) is kinda silly. Feminists obviously want the support and understanding all who are willing. But caring about whether someone is listening to and understanding your message is not the same as being willing to let them redefine the movement on their own terms, setting priorities based on an ignorant and over-privileged life experience.
This is very obviously false, as you dropped hints in your previous sentence about men abandoning feminism because they feel they’re not being listened to enough. What else could it possibly be about? I mean, you can claim that letting men have more of a voice in feminism would help low-income women and women of color, but in the absence of some sort of argument or reasoning explaining why this makes any sense whatsoever, it’s just absurd.
//”But this is largely academic, since your main premise (that feminists don’t care how men react to feminism) is kinda silly. “//
That’s a strawman. I said;
“I keep hearing feminists tell me that they aren’t interested in what the male response is to their message.”
So you telling me it’s silly and it doesn’t exist when I do have these conversations with feminists doesn’t change he fact the conversations happen. In fact I’ve had the conversation quite a few times with my wife. She’s a staunch feminist, has been for years and with good cause but we don’t agree on every point. this is one of them.
//”But caring about whether someone is listening to and understanding your message is not the same as being willing to let them redefine the movement on their own terms, setting priorities based on an ignorant and over-privileged life experience.”//
When did I say otherwise?
//”This is very obviously false, as you dropped hints in your previous sentence about men abandoning feminism because they feel they’re not being listened to enough. What else could it possibly be about?”//
You just invalidated the suffering of all the poor women/ minority women out there by making this all about what you think and feel by turning your response into an appeal to motive fallacy.
Here’s a thought. If you are so concerned about the plight of poor and/or minority women, how about you listen to them rather than presuming that men speak for their needs
//Here’s a thought. If you are so concerned about the plight of poor and/or minority women, how about you listen to them rather than presuming that men speak for their needs//
I have listened to them quite a bit. When we were for example, all waiting in line at the soup kitchens or sharing information on where you can get the best coats from the coat drives we frequently talked about what our needs are.
How about you? Where were your favorite places for discussing such things when you were hanging out with your poor, homeless brethren?
What is it you think takes place across the spectrum of income equality and race which necessitates feminism tailoring itself, not to the concerns of poor and/or minority women, but to the whims of men? How would feminism better serve poor and/or minority women through disregarding their voices and their concerns in favor of men’s perspectives?
Perhaps they mean that they’re not interested in what the typical, privileged, unthinking d00d has to say about this. Bc what they’d say is pretty much what other privileged, unthinking d00ds (like Scott Adams) would say. Feminists have heard that. So yeah, I can see them saying ‘don’t want to hear that’. Is that what you’re talking about?
Incidentally, from reading some of your other comments, I have to recommend that you use the ‘blockquote’ function. It will make your comments quite a bit easier to read. If you do this:
<blockquote> quoted text here</blockquote>
it will result in this:
; I keep hearing feminists tell me that they aren’t interested in what the male response is to their message
Is it possible you’re hearing wrong?
“I am not interested in your response to my message” is not the same thing as “would you please stop mansplaining my message to me?”
One good way to check and see if you’re hearing correctly is to put your foot back in your mouth for a while, and listen. It took me years to learn that trick but suddenly things began clearing up.
//”Is it possible you’re hearing wrong?
“I am not interested in your response to my message” is not the same thing as “would you please stop mansplaining my message to me?””//
So your response is to double down on the already presented strawman by introducing additional strawmen and then going on to make an ass of yourself by trying to take the conversation to trolling levels with use of trigger language.
Well my days of taking your seriously are certainly coming to a middle.
I’m not seeing why it’s a strawman. Perhaps if you explained why you think this is so I could better understand.
Aaaaah, the commenters to that article are so damned oblivious and uncaring!
I doubt I’ll be back, but I registered and left a comment over there:
The distinction between these two statements is lost on me. Perhaps, if you don’t want to be misunderstood, you should make more of an effort to communicate a coherent point.
Bullshit. Until you’ve offered some sort of reasoned explanation for why the plight of poor or minority women has anything to do with your vague dissatisfaction with the way feminism treats men, it is undeserving of serious discussion.
{{”But this is largely academic, since your main premise (that feminists don’t care how men react to feminism) is kinda silly. “//
That’s a strawman. I said;
“I keep hearing feminists tell me that they aren’t interested in what the male response is to their message.”
The distinction between these two statements is lost on me. Perhaps, if you don’t want to be misunderstood, you should make more of an effort to communicate a coherent point.}}
It’s quite clear. The fault seems to lie with your reading comprehension skills. If you can’t understand the difference between someone reporting what others are telling them during personal interactions and your claim that I’ve created a premise then that’s on you and your failed education, not me.
Especially when you’ve been given this as additional context;
“So you telling me it’s silly and it doesn’t exist when I do have these conversations with feminists doesn’t change he fact the conversations happen. In fact I’ve had the conversation quite a few times with my wife. She’s a staunch feminist, has been for years and with good cause but we don’t agree on every point. this is one of them.”
Which you conveniently ignored in your response. Which puts you into the category of those who cherry pick.
//Bullshit.//
I take it this is what you consider a; “reasoned, well thought out rebuttal”.
//Until you’ve offered some sort of reasoned explanation for why the plight of poor or minority women has anything to do with your vague dissatisfaction with the way feminism treats men, it is undeserving of serious discussion.//
Another strawman.
We’re dealing with three things here;
1: Marketing/ message branding and audience impact (both advertising and politics).
2: Feminism’s failure to have adequate representation from the poor and minority communities.
3: Feminism’s failure to motivate voters in America to stop the loss of rights of women that are especially impacting negatively on the poor and minorities.
What I said about audience response? It doesn’t just apply to men. It applies to all of the above.
All one has to do is look at how the demographics break down from the last election to see just how bad a job feminists are doing at getting their message out and appreciated. All one has to do is look at the many, many WoC who have a real problem with how WHITE feminists are representing them (or rather, failing to represent them).
I tell you what sunshine, I’ve said my peace. You and everyone else are absolutely welcome to not listen to me or any one else and continue to do the bang up job you’re doing. But if you want to run your movement based on the principle of not giving a shit what approximately 50% of the male voting population and 12 percent of the minority women voting population in America thinks, that’s entirely on you.
This statement:
reads to me exactly the same as this one:
And you’ve offered no explanation for why they are not the same thing. All you’ve said is “strawman”, without explaining *why* it’s a strawman. I’m at least the third person to read both statements as meaning the same thing (just using different words).
Philip,
Unless your ‘male’ response is ‘wow, that sucks, how can we improve the situation’, you are right. I don’t give a shit about your response.
And neither do the 12% of female minorities.
Philip Rose @22,
Speaking of strawmen, this is a nice one you’ve created.
Let us not forget that this point is as yet unevidenced; so far all you’ve done is explain what some other people (who claim to be feminists) have said on the matter. Proof by hearsay, let’s call it.
Aside from what some other feminists (how many? 3, 5, 10, more?) have told you, do you have any evidence or facts to back up this claim? The idea that political results can be used as a gauge of how well feminists are getting the message across seems unconvincing at best. We would argue that there are all sorts of confounding variables in play, and so the one is not a direct measure of the other. You’ll need to actually do the work and make the case if you expect anyone else to agree with you.
//”Speaking of strawmen, this is a nice one you’ve created.”//
Nope! I said; ‘if you want to…’ which is a qualifier that means =/= a strawman.
//Let us not forget that this point is as yet unevidenced; so far all you’ve done is explain what some other people (who claim to be feminists) have said on the matter. Proof by hearsay, let’s call it.//
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence does not apply to ordinary claims.
If I actually condescended to give you what you wanted I suppose I could have my wife come into this comments section to confirm what I’ve already stated.
Otherwise, your line of logic is exactly the same as the MRAs line of reasoning I dealt with in comments on my video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5FpqegMiM8
//The idea that political results can be used as a gauge of how well feminists are getting the message across seems unconvincing at best. //
You’re saying that you see political results to be a not convincing gauge of how people re reacting to a political group?
Okay. You’re just trolling now. Have a nice day.
Philip Rose @24,
That excuse is weak tea. The fact that you added a qualifier [“if you want to”] does not negate the obvious fact that you wouldn’t have bothered to write that statement if you had not intended to imply that it had some kind of direct relevance and truth behind it. It wasn’t just some random if-then statement you threw out there, rather it was you attempting to sneak in an assertion without bothering to admit it or back it up in any way. Not unlike us saying something like “well, if you want to keep beating your wife go right ahead, but we’ll have to report you to the authorities then.” To be absolutely clear, we are not making any kind of truth-claim or threat here, just throwing out a random if-then statement of course. 😉
We didn’t ask for “extraordinary evidence” so that again is a strawman. Neither the word extraordinary nor any synonyms to that word were used in our comment. Plain old evidence will suffice. Surely you have something more than “well my wife told me so…” right? Right?
As for our reasoning being similar to someone else’s (MRA’s) – well guess what? We know of a holocaust denial group that uses the same reasoning as you. Since holocaust deniers are arguably worse than MRAs, we win this point. Are you convinced by that line of reasoning, and if not, then why did you try to foist it upon us?
As to your point about political results and movements… Did you not bother to read all of the words that we wrote (e.g., conflating variables, etc.), or did you read them but perhaps just not understand what they meant? Just declaring that it is so, and accusing us of trolling when we suggest that you need to actually offer evidence or make a case to support your declarations – well that’s not very convincing either. Is this the best you can offer?
I stopped at “no useful feedback on how their message is doing with men”
If I were drinking I would have done a spit take at that. THAT is the big problem with feminism now days, women are not concerned enough with HOW MEN FEEL.
For such tough guys who make fun of women and their feelings, men are awfully sensitive.
(I can see women’s groups being concerned with how their message is received but only as an indicator for use in fundraising and success in getting laws changed, not because men’s feelings are important or even mysteriously absent from the public discourse. They are the defacto opinion you can find everywhere).
Fuck Scott Adams. He’s full of shit and has been so for a long time. If he was ever unfortunate enough to have a run-in with reality, I don’t know if he’d survive the shock. I mean, “pockets of sexism”. If he had been paying any amount of attention, he’d know that women’s rights are under a concentrated and widespread assault at this very moment and has been for decades.
I suspect the real problem is that he just doesn’t give a shit: “Don’t make it my problem. I don’t want to have to concern myself with the systematic undermining of the rights of half the population. Stop distracting me with such irrelevant nonsense. It doesn’t directly affect me, so why should I care?”
Just coming in with a quick note: this feels to me as one of the most precise expressions of priviliege blindness / male opression:
Yes, as men people sometimes make use feel uncomfortable because we are men (not macho/strong/stoic/whatever enough), we sometimes feel that being men played a role in a decision and we sometimes have problems distinguishing between casual and professional settings (because we tend to sexualise women). It’s so precise! That’s exactly how I’ve experienced sexism my whole life as a man!
But then I shut up and listened. And I heard women saying:
“Someone is sexually harassing, assaulting or denigrating me” or “It’s painfully obvious that my gender was the primary factor in a decision” or “why can’t he stop that creepy behaviour. This is a business meeting, not a date!”
Scott Adams: although you’ve felt similar things on rare occasions it’s not the same. Shut the fuck up and listen.
Yours,
=8)-DX
Shutting the fuck up and listening now.
Wow, a Dear Muslima within the exact same culture. Women are denied abortions in America so street harrassment in America is no big deal? Really?