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Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds
PvtVoid writes: "Jeopardy champion Arthur Chu pens a heartfelt takedown of misogyny in nerd culture: 'I’ve heard and seen the stories that those of you who followed the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter have seen—women getting groped at cons, women getting vicious insults flung at them online, women getting stalked by creeps in college and told they should be "flattered." I’ve heard Elliot Rodger’s voice before. I was expecting his manifesto to be incomprehensible madness—hoping for it to be—but it wasn’t. It’s a standard frustrated angry geeky guy manifesto, except for the part about mass murder. I've heard it from acquaintances, I've heard it from friends. I've heard it come out of my own mouth, in moments of anger and weakness.
What the f*$# is wrong with us? How much longer are we going to be in denial that there's a thing called "rape culture" and we ought to do something about it? ... To paraphrase the great John Oliver, listen up, fellow self-pitying nerd boys — we are not the victims here. We are not the underdogs. We are not the ones who have our ownership over our bodies and our emotions stepped on constantly by other people's entitlement. We're not the ones where one out of six of us will have someone violently attempt to take control of our bodies in our lifetimes.'"
What the f*$# is wrong with us? How much longer are we going to be in denial that there's a thing called "rape culture" and we ought to do something about it? ... To paraphrase the great John Oliver, listen up, fellow self-pitying nerd boys — we are not the victims here. We are not the underdogs. We are not the ones who have our ownership over our bodies and our emotions stepped on constantly by other people's entitlement. We're not the ones where one out of six of us will have someone violently attempt to take control of our bodies in our lifetimes.'"
Now you're getting somewhere. I've never seen inappropriate or aggressive behavior towards women in any of the geek/nerd groups I've been in. In fact, I'd say most of them would get strong marks for showing full respect for women. That said, I am certain that reports of specific incidents and groups having a pattern of behavior are real. I recall one of the security conventions had a problem, which somehow didn't surprise me, knowing that's a sub-group of geekdom with its own dynamic.
Generally speaking, I have found the bigger problems tend to go with the more macho types though. Yes, occasionally you hear of a problem with a school group other than a sports team, but in the vast majority of cases, groups of men who are aggressive towards women are groups of men who are GENERALLY aggressive. Drug gangs, low grade thugs, etc., are all far worse, unquestionably, than "geeks".
It really sounds to me like there is a concerted effort to apply labels and groupings to what is really just an age old problem.
Now, on the other hand, can we address the reality that men are FAR more likely than women to be victims of violence, physical intimidation, violent crime, and other physical threats such as military hazards and other job-related physical danger?
The problem here is not that anyone is against ending violence against women. It's that we have blown what is effectively a rare occurrence (dude going nuts) being confused with a non-existent pattern of nerd rage, all being whipped into a social media shitstorm to make PC points in the press.
No one likes hanging around "gross creepy dudes," not even other gross creepy dudes. This guy who Chu is talking about certainly wasn't being "allowed to thrive" by anyone. His own roommates didn't even like him.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Boy, that escalated quickly.
Because this whole discussion is silly. Plenty of nerds are misogynistic jerks. But plenty of non-nerds are as well, and I have seen NO evidence that it is any more common among nerds than among the population in general. In the absence of evidence, associating "nerd culture" with misogynism is just stupid.
Throughout my career, I have worked with many engineers, programmers, and other nerds. My experience is that they are the least misogynistic people I have ever met, and they have mostly been polite, professional, and welcoming to their female co-workers. Have you ever worked with salesmen? Or construction workers? Nerds are saints by comparison.
Most men are rapists if you believe all straight sex is rape. Some people believe that.
Most men could be a rapists if you believe that waking up next to a man who is far uglier than he seemed when you were completely drunk is rape. Some people believe that.
Most men are rapists if you believe that failure to support the radical feminist agenda is tantamount to rape (the reasonable feminist agenda having been achieved a while back - look at pay for women under 35 who've never had a kid - it's higher than similar men now). There are sincere arguments being made at some colleges that formal accusations of rape should not be questionable, that "conviction" (expulsion for the college etc) should follow accusation without any sort of hearing. Because rape culture.
There simple is no "rape culture" in Western civilization by the "physical assault" definition of rape - marrying off girls against their will has been passe for some time now, as has blaming a rape victim for the crime. But there's an entire cultural leadership based on convincing people that they are victims, and so a new definition of "rape' and "rape culture" was needed.
"Rape culture" predominates if you say it includes every man who desires to have sex with a woman who doesn't desire him. So what? How many more thought crimes do we need to invent? It also predominates in some other cultures around the globe still stuck in a medieval mindset, but that's never what the "rape culture" complaint seems to be about.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And those comments show why the "for the children" crowd is full of brain dead thugs. If the topic of pedophiles even comes up, they react with violence and mindless persecution. Look at how it's suggested that pedophiles--even those who have raped no one--should be murdered. They don't even know what a pedophile is.
There are few groups more terrifying than the "for the children" crowd, who will sacrifice everyone's fundamental liberties, demonize mere thoughts, and murder innocents if they think it will protect some children.
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That's the astonishing thing about this. I read some of Elliot Rodger's book, and he was obviously an extremely disturbed man, who had a severe case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and also had other psychiatric disorders besides. At various points, he considered lashing out violently against society for the "injustice" he suffered when he did not win the powerball $400m lottery, which he felt he had been certain to win, and was entitled to.
He was crazy. He had a whole team of shrinks working on him, since he was age 8, to no avail. For much of his life he went to psychologists every single day, to no avail. He was crazy.
Yet so many people on the internet will find the moral or political lesson in it. For example: this massacre just goes to show how depraved Hollywood culture is (the editorial at the Washington Post said this). Or, it just demonstrates what's really wrong in American culture (approximately a third of the comments on scribd said this). Or, it just shows how the country has become too conservative, or too liberal. Or, it's a classic example of postmodern leftism run amok ('"ELLIOT RODGERS: PSYCHO SPEWING POSTMODERNIST CRAP"). Or, this is just another example of geek culture, even though Elliot Rodger obviously was not a geek, and spent much of his free time shopping for expensive Armani clothing.
The very silliest of these claims, was the contention that it shows what's wrong with geek culture. Elliot Rodgers was obviously not a geek. Quite the opposite, he had utter contempt for geeks. He considered them as not "alpha" males, and therefore beneath contempt, and he says so repeatedly in his "manifesto". The very first people he killed were his geeky roommates, whom he stabbed to death for precisely that reason. Claiming that Rodgers was inspired by geek culture is the most absurd of the moral lessons being drawn, and is even less serious than claiming he was inspired by postmodern leftism.
But it doesn't matter Elliot Rodgers was obviously not a geek. Even so, his massacre will still serve for Arthur Chu's moral indictment. The massacre can still be used as an indictment of geek culture, despite the obvious lack of any real connection between geek culture and Rodger's acts.
Most women probably do, though there are handful of misandrist dingbats out there. It would be useful for women who are not misandrist dingbats to disassociate themselves from that group. You don't get points for making prejudiced statements about Group X and then saying "Oh, I know not all members of Group X are like that."
And men know that rape is wrong, except for a vile handful of predators who are not going to change because of some internet discussion. It would be useful for men who are not vile predators to disassociate themselves from that group.
(I am assuming all present are familiar with and will not fall into the fallacy of the extended analogy, and will not think I am saying that misandrist statements are comparable to rape.)
Women, if you want to end the phenomenon of men saying "Not all men are misogynist," don't make statements that imply all men are misogynist.
Men, if you want to end the phenomenon of women saying "All men are misogynist," don't make statements that imply you are misogynist.
All, if you don't want people to respond defensively, don't makes statements that imply you are attacking them.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood