inverarity (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
inverarity) wrote2012-04-08 06:52 pm
inverarity) wrote2012-04-08 06:52 pm
Confessions of a Neckbeard
Following Christopher Priest's rant about the Arthur C. Clarke awards, there have been echoes reverberating all over the Internet, particularly as a result of Catherynne Valente's observation that a woman wouldn't get away with that shit.
This really shouldn't be that controversial. And yet, in the comments of Valente's own posts, as well as all the people talking about it, there are all these neckbeards engaging in lengthy diatribes about how it's so haaaaard to be a man and
I mean, some dude actually told Valente, after she recounted her own horrific childhood experiences of bullying and then stated that she's a rape survivor, that she had it easy! Because girls were totally mean to him in school!
Holy shit. Just STFU. STFU forever.
This strikes home for me because... I used to be That Guy. Okay, not the guy who told a rape survivor that women have it easy — I don't think I was ever that big of a douche. (If I was, I have thankfully blotted it from my memory and I'm just glad no one ever gave me the beat-down I deserved.) But I was your typical nerdy dude who was totally pro-feminism but could still pull out Mansplainin' 101 about how Women Don't Appreciate Nice Guys and Of Course No One Deserves To Be Raped But If You Walked Through Central Park At Night Flashing a Roll of Cash... and other classics in that vein.
I am pretty ashamed of my younger self, I am. (Not just for those things, but they certainly give me no small amount of painful recollection.)
I make no claim to perfection now. I try to engage viewpoints I don't agree with in a thoughtful manner, and if I still don't agree with them, I'll be measured in my disagreement unless it's just downright offensive or batshit insane. I keep a somewhat cynical eye on a lot of drama & social justice sites, agreeing with much of what is said, thinking that a lot more is rather unnuanced or self-serving or kneejerk, but unlike my younger self, I don't feel a need to jump in and say "U R RONG!" When I do get into it, I have learned to walk away from arguments that are unproductive or in which the other person is clearly a troll and sees all interactions as a win/lose binary that cannot be resolved until someone cries uncle.
The thing is, when this is an argument over Harry Potter, it's merely annoying, provoking a head shake and some eye-rolling, but when it's guys telling women that their silly lady-brains are seeing misogyny that doesn't really exist, it's contributing to the very thing they are claiming doesn't exist.
This also strikes home because of course I am a big genre fan, and I even like some of those big genre works that get neckbeards so het up when people criticize them. And yet, holy shit, the rage that spews out of the keyboard-wielding howler monkeys of the Internet when a woman criticizes the things they love!
Some (in)famous examples:
- Liz Bourke's eviscerating review of Theft of Swords.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_allecto_ pretty much calling Joss Whedon a rapist.- Sady Doyle calling George R. R. Martin creepy and misogynistic.
- Pretty much everything acrackedmoon writes at Requires Only That You Hate.
Now, I do not agree with what all of the above women say. And one can intelligently disagree with them. I mean, I think
_allecto_'s criticisms of Joss Whedon, in particular, are reeeeeeeeally reaching (it's one thing to say you don't think his work deserves all its feminist accolades, it's quite another to say that perceived misogyny in his work means the man himself is a rapist). I haven't actually read A Game of Thrones so don't have much of an opinion on it, but Doyle does seem to stretch a few of her points a bit, and I understand she was pretty nasty to some feminist bloggers who disagreed with her. I love ROTYH, but I don't always agree with acrackedmoon (man, ACM, why you gotta keep harshin' on Evil Stevie? And I still like Harry Potter and The Name of the Wind, so nyah nyah!), and I think she can at times be a little too quick to go for the jugular.
But. All of these women get a shit-ton of nerdrage and fucking rape threats dumped on them. I read a lot of bombastic bloggers, male and female, and while men get namecalled and disagreed with, even at their most vitriolic it's usually more of a schoolyard let's-beat-each-other-up-and-have-a-beer-afterwards exchange that's as much backslapping as brawling. My worst and most nasty trolls did some taunting and dickwaving, but no one threatened me, and if they did, we'd both know they were full of shit and it was hot air. Kathy Sierra and Seanan McGuire have received death threats accompanied by personally identifying information.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
ETA: Locked. Not because I'm a mean ol' lefty who can't stand to hear dissenting opinions (though I expect that's what
jordan179 is going to claim), but because I have to go to work, I cannot access LJ at work, and I really don't want to read ten more pages of this shit when I get home.
Re: Victims
Reread my post then try again. (Hint: Note the part where I say "I am not advocating reparations.")
You were unclear on this question in your original post. I ask again: "Would this welfare be distributed in part on racial criteria, or would it be distributed on the basis of individual need?"
And from where is the money to originate?
Progressive taxation. That was easy.
As long as it is distributed in a race- and gender-blind fashion, as much as possible, I have no problem with this that I would not have with any other scheme of economic redistribution.
What would "true racial and sexual equality" look like?
I have no idea and neither do you.
Sure I do. It would be a society in which your "race" or sex did not affect anyone else's opinion of you save in very narrow biological terms (he sunburns easy, she can bear children).
All I know is that we're not there yet, not by a long shot.
If you have no idea what true racial and sexual equality looks like, how do you know how far away we are from achieving it? If it's anything other than color-blind and sex-blind, which is what I advocate, then how do you know that (for instance) the modern West is more racially and sexually equal than the 18th century West, or for that matter World War II Imperial Japan?
By my criteria the reasons why we are superior in that regard are obvious. But by yours?
How convenient for you. This means you don't actually have to do anything about it. Except pontificate about how enlightened you are by "realizing" this.
Read my goddamn posts. I have not done everything I can to help the situation, and that is my personal failing.
By your definitions, I see absolutely nothing effective that anyone can do to help the situation. This allows you to confess a "personal failing" and feel superior to other Privileged White Males who fail to make this confession. Even more, since it puts you in the "privileged" position of being able to act while poor benighted Non-Whites and Women only get to re-act, it allows you to feel good old-fashioned racial and sexual superiority while pretending that you are feeling the OPPOSITE.
Nice racket.
Re: Victims
I really was not. But if you want me to be absolutely crystal-clear: individual need.
Sure I do. It would be a society in which your "race" or sex did not affect anyone else's opinion of you save in very narrow biological terms (he sunburns easy, she can bear children).
Racism and sexism are not solely about personal opinions. v_v
If you have no idea what true racial and sexual equality looks like, how do you know how far away we are from achieving it?
Ummm...because minorities and women obviously have it worse off than whites and men?
If it's anything other than color-blind and sex-blind, which is what I advocate, then how do you know that (for instance) the modern West is more racially and sexually equal than the 18th century West, or for that matter World War II Imperial Japan?
...Seriously? Um, well, there's no slavery for one. Women are allowed to work, all adults are allowed to vote (technically)...was this supposed to be a trick question?
By your definitions, I see absolutely nothing effective that anyone can do to help the situation.
You are correct. No one can do anything, as an individual. As a group, however--or a social movement, say--something most certainly can be done. Historically speaking actually, progress on these fronts has always come about because of social movements, not because individual people changed their minds about race and sex.
Blah blah blah liberals are the real racists blah blah
Thank you very much for psychoanalyzing me over the internet. I feel like I know myself so much better now after having someone I've never met explain to me exactly how I think.
EDIT: Did you read the article about colorblind racism?
Re: Victims
I read it two years ago, the last time someone pointed me to it. It's a load of crap. To begin with, it's a contradiction in terms, unless we define "racism" as "any statistical disparity between the condition of races on any matter whatsoever," which is a definition of "racism" that pretty much ensure you will find it in any culture in which two races differ in any subcultural aspects whatsoever, since culture affects average capability at specific tasks.
I direct you to the extensive writings of Thomas Sowell on the topic, specifically Race and Culture. Oh, and by the way -- he's a Person of Color, so you have to defer to him.
Re: Victims
I suppose it was only a matter of time before you started spouting the "Black people are worse off not because of their genetics, but because of their culture!" card. As if centuries of oppression by whites had no impact on black culture.
I direct you to the extensive writings of Thomas Sowell on the topic, specifically Race and Culture. Oh, and by the way -- he's a Person of Color, so you have to defer to him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell#Critical_reception
"Sowell was also criticized for an editorial in which he stated that the Democratic Party played the Race card, instigating ethnic divisions and separatism, and argued that a similar situation occurred between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda."
Yeah, I think not.
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/pos334/archive/sowell.htm
The unsucessful races have been put off by hard work and seem as beneath them to do it. The races that become sucessful "pay their dues" by hard work and saving that eventually leads to bigger and better things. The races that are not willing to work or save become stuck in their ways and remain poor.
Holy fucking shit is he suggesting black people are disadvantaged because they're lazy? Because that is straight up, 100% racism.
EDIT: Allow me to explain. "Black people are lazy" is a very old racist trope that goes back centuries. It doesn't necessarily have to do with genetics--plenty of white slaveowners thought they were taking black people out of the "barbaric culture" of Africa into the "civilized culture" of the West.
Even if I admit that this culture difference exists, and I'd like to see the data first, the fact that Powell just takes this difference as a brute fact without analyzing why there's a difference shows he's not really interested in ending racism. Again: You think maybe the whole "centuries of oppression" had an impact on this? Perhaps? Maybe?