Sabotabby at The AntiSocial Socialist has one of the more active livejournal sites I’ve seen. Unfortunately, her traffic includes more than just the friendly feminist types. She also suffers the company of a classic soft troll, one of those “I’m on your side but everything you do and say is wrong” types who cloaks his wingnuttery under a veil of helpful advice.
Hey baby, I’m just here to help you ladies with your cute little uprising.
You know the kind of advice I mean — like when trolls try to help us understand why the word “Patriarchy” is so terribly damaging to the cause of feminism:
For the few times I’ve been able to stomach reading Ann Coulter (know your enemy), I’ve never seen her attack someone who wouldn’t already be opposed to her. On the other hand, compare and contrast with the word “Patriarchy” – which even gets zingarella’s boyfriend (who I assume is pretty progressive) feeling defensive because it directly dichotomises the genders (feminists good, patriarchy bad) when there is absolutely no need for there to be this dichotomy. Instead, if you called yourself egalitarians against oppression (which I believe is akin to what you are trying to express), you could say the exact same thing without making potential allies defensive and potential neutrals threatened.
The emphasis is mine, and not just because I felt like breaking up his long-winded rant.
First off, I missed the memo on our genders being switched from “male” and “female” to “patriarch” and “feminist.” Does this mean we need new bathroom signs? If so, I vote for a burning bra on the feminist sign and a big, fat, fucking crybaby on the patriarchy sign, because that’s clearly the vibe those guys are giving off these days.
Being a part of the Patriarchy is like being the good member of the Bush family. In your own mind, you don’t have to self-identify with the ugly part of your heritage, but publicly, you need to accept 3 things:
1) This thing you’re born into, even if it wasn’t your choice, has on the whole been responsible for awful, awful crimes against humanity.
2) When people say “The Bush Family sucks” you need to admit the truth of that statement even if you’ve been performing Jesus-like works of samaritanship. Your exceptions don’t cancel out the larger evils carried out over a much longer period of time by multiple generations.
3) You are part of the Bush family and have benefitted massively from their oppressive acts. People have given you breaks and cut you slack even when you didn’t ask for it.
This may seem like a contradiction on the surface — how can you both reject and accept your Bush-ness? But it all has to do with the mode of acknowledgement.
You don’t need to internalize being a Bush — you ought to rebel against it inside yourself and try to be as un-Bush you can be. But you must also accept that people who don’t like what your family’s done will impugn your family, and by extension you, even though you haven’t been as evil as others.
You’ve benefitted from your status as part of that family, meaning you’re privileged and part of the oppressor class whether you like it or not. This exempts you from pats on the back for combatting said oppression (because at best you’re working your way back to even). It also exempts you from the right to bitch and moan when people do their impugning via language you don’t like.
Again, being a well-meaning male and being The Good Bush are quite similar. We didn’t choose to be born into Patriarchy, but we have been. And even though some of us are trying to act in opposition to the Patriarchy, we’re still part of it. So when people rip on the Patriarchy, those insults also target us by default, but since well-meaning males shouldn’t be internally self-identifying with the Patriarchy, the insults should roll right off our backs. Heck, we should be hurling just as many, if not more, of them.
And we definitely shouldn’t scrunch up our buttcheeks over the word “Patriarchy.” The oppression of the Patriarchy is an entirely factual element of the status quo, and we needn’t avoid talking about it by name — any name — because some men will be offended. No revolution gets very far by kissing the ass of the oppressors.
Shorter concern trolls: Feminism would be a lot more pleasant if it pushed the idea that men deserve to dominate women.
Mmm, the smell of “ladies, ladies, ladies, haven’t you ever heard of appeasement?” in the morning. It’s like a baby – so cute, yet so boring.
So let me get this straight. I am a man. I also somehow get advantage from being a man – this is btw, convienently invisible/unevidenced/(imaginary?) benefit.
Therefore I don’t deserve to get any credit for trying to breakdown the pretend social fabric? And I don’t get to complain if I am personally insulted by those brave feminist “revolutionaries”?
Wow. And you wonder why more men don’t flock to your side.
Well, shit, I don’t see where that whole explanation said “Prince Barin is a douchebag”.
The point is, your personal nice happy awesomeness doesn’t negate the actions of the group you belong to.
I could go on, but I’d just be repeating the analogy up there that you didn’t pay attention to, so why bother?
Instead, I’ll note that you’re advocating a very radical re-imagining of the english language; essentially, by your argument, we aren’t allowed to assign qualities to groups… as long as one Nazi saw the light and deserted to fight against germany, we can never again say “Nazis are evil”.
So, something I’ve been interested in for about… the last 30 seconds, is why these complaints are always shrouded in 3rd person language. It’s never “As a man, I often feel alienated by the way you talk about the patriarchy.”, but “Your talk is offensive to men and that’s why men don’t like you.”
What’s that about?
So Oscar Shindler shouldn’t get any credit for saving the lives of a thousand people beccause he was a member of the Nazi Party?
Wow. That’s dumb,
Oskar Schindler & Prince Barin: Separated at birth or members of different species?…
To be fair, I didn’t really see it either before reading Susan Okin. Or rather, I was aware of it, but didn’t really understand how damaging it is to individuals and to society. It was always just, “sure it’s unfair, but it’s just how things are, you know? It’s the natural state.”
To see something, one must look.
His Highness refuses even to see the point of the analogy Christopher made:
So Oscar Shindler shouldn’t get any credit for saving the lives of a thousand people beccause he was a member of the Nazi Party?
Wow. That’s dumb,
So, since Schindler saw the light and helped people (AFTER getting filthy rich off of their slave labor, naturally) does His Highness think Nazism is ok? That was C’s point, after all.
The reason these guys have a problem with the word “Patriarchy” is that they fail to see that they are as much its victims as its beneficiaries. They just don’t seem to get the concept that a heirarchichal society based on gender is inherently unjust to everybody.
I have nothing really to add to the discussion (at least nothing that wasn’t brought up in the record-setting 143-comment flamewar on my LJ), but I am blushing at this—especially since I’m a big fan of this blog. However, I should mention that the post that sparked said hilarity was not mine—the concern trolling was spillover from zingerella’s attempt to explain the patriarchy to some dudes on her LJ who just weren’t getting it. (And still don’t get it.)
Anyway, credit where credit is due and all that.
AFTER getting filthy rich off of their slave labor, naturally
Be a little more fair: he spent all of that money greasing the wheels necessary to keep those slaves out of the gas chamber, and died poor.
Yes. There is no Patriarchy.
I never said it did.
Conversely, an individual simply born into a group is not responsible for that group’s alleged status or crimes i.e. Jenna Bush is not responsible for the War in Iraq or her family’s wealth.
Futhermore, if Jenna Bush feels upset about her father’s actions and takes measures to correct injustices (i.e. giving her trust fund to Iraqi victims) she is not just “working towards zero” and she should be given many “pats” on the back and excused from criticisms of her father’s misdeeds.
To think otherwise is dumb and you have only yourselves to blame for not attracting more men to your “revolution”.
yeah….. umm i only have one thing to say……. you crazy, p little girls ( being as none of you are women) need to get off your high ass horses and realize that you are what is “keeping women down” you and your ridiculousness will bash all men….. even when they are not part of the asses that are one in 15 billion that still treat woman like shit…… in fact you are causing your own downfall by not noticing that these men…… each and every guy on this post would easily be nice to you if you stopped being a little girl and take care of your man….. bring him a drink and open it….. rub his feet…. and kiss him everyday….. i have the best man in the world because i am not a Nazi and dont follow your crazy guidelines of we cant do anything for men…… sounds to me like you are all afraid of the package. get some and try again!!!
Yes. There is no Patriarchy.
If you say so. I hope you enjoy not getting raped.
Your gross generalization of all men is so stupid it makes my head hurt.
Okay… let’s apply your logical construct to other situations. Here’s what you say:
All men are evil because some of them created a system where men are treated better, even if they are for your brand of radical feminism.
This translates into the logic.
All members of a certain group of people (even if they are born into it) are part of a problem, even if they fight the very problem they are supposedly a part of.
This is the same sort of logic the KKK uses against the blacks. Perhaps you can get pink hoods instead of white ones.
Not only is this sort of logic discriminatory, it’s illogical. Let me use the same logic to paint other situations. This is what you support if you consider this bullshit logic to be true.
1. Abraham Lincoln is evil because he’s white when some white people owned slaves.
2. All black people are evil because many of them commit crimes. Even people like Martian Luther King and Bill Cosby.
3. All arabs are evil because a few of them blew up one of our buildings.
As you can see, your logic of “all men are evil, even the ones on our side”, is bullshit.
Let me introduce you to a new form of logic, one that actually makes sense.
- All people are individuals, and while you can group them, those groupings are illogical when talking about any individual person. –
I’m just tired of seeing you fucking feminists STEREOTYPE all men as oppressors when at the same time you claim to combat stereotyping. Get off you’re high horse and quit your SEXIST STEROTYPING.
All men are evil
If I didn’t know you were congenitally stupid, I’d point out that you seem to have missed the point entirely.
I think you have missed the point Junk.
I will use another analogy.
Americans consume more resources per capita than any other people on this planet. We are by far the leading contributors of global warming pollutants. We invade other countries. We created American Idol.
Americans are assholes – (for arguments sake).
If you are American are you responsible for the war in Iraq, global warming, American Idol, etc? Are you personally morally culpable of these dastardly things?
According to Kyso you are.
If you forswore your Americaness, gave up your wealth and moved to some suitably impoverished nation and dedicated your life to charity in an orphanage for blind children would you be worthy of admiration?
According to Kyso you wouldn’t. She would just claim you were “working towards zero” – or some other such nonsense.
Would you feel exempt from criticisms directed to you of Americans by foreigners?
Sorry – Kyso says you won’t have the “right to bitch and moan”.
That’s why what she said was dumb.
What? All I said was that Oskar Schindler was, in the end, a pretty good guy.
But yeah, as an American I do feel some responsibility for the bad things that we’re doing to the rest of the world. It’s the flip side of feeling proud about the good things. And when karma comes to bite us in the ass, I’ll pay along with the other 300 million of you.
But this is thread drift, so we’ll just end that I’m so pleased you think I write this blog all by myself, but I don’t. This is Marc’s post.
Junk,
Do you ever contribute anything? (Answer to rhetorical question – not really)
At least you could try to be funny or something.
Kyso,
It’s honorable that you want to rectify actions made by members of our group, but at the same time it’s not right for you to be guilty because our lovely president decides to bomb some country just because he can’t pronounce it’s name. I think a big problem with modern feminism is that it generalizes all men as oppressors and all women as victims. This mentality serves no one, especially women. I think you should fight for the rights of women without dividing society and labeling an entire class of people as oppressors. You’re never going to advance the rights of women if all you do is paint them as victims. You need see things at the individual level, and quit generalizing.
Horses are pretty.
Has junk ever said anything constructive?
Hardly at all. If I weren’t so pretty, I’d be banned by now.
I like cake.
Wow.
If you read Prince Barin, Vultan the Mighty, or princess Aurora (assuming that she’s not just pulling our virtual legs with her arrows aimed at Ms. Strawfeminist) (Also, what is it with the handles? Prince this, Princess that, and Whatsisface the Mighty? Overcompensate much?)
It’s almost as if I never explained that the Patriarchy isn’t about individual sweet, well-intentioned guys who like women and believe in equal pay for work of equal value and don’t blame rape victims being Big Bad Dudes in funny hats who sit enthroned surrounded by scantily clad concubines and chortle evilly as they oppress women. It’s almost as if nobody else ever did, either. It’s almost as if nobody ever explained the nature of male privilege in a reader-friendly format, or maybe a checklist or something.
It’s almost as if neither I nor anyone smarter than I ever explained that while the system privileges men, we’re all part of the it.
It’s almost as if people either haven’t done their reading, or live in a whole ‘nother civlilzation. (Maybe that explains the Prince and Princess—in their world, they’re royalty.)
What’s funny is the patriarchy-identifying dudes here don’t even get to claim special status for meaning well, since they don’t and are assholes. Full-on identification with the evil powers that be. They were rooting for Sauron that whole time.
Friends are cool.
Also, I apologise for mixing my metaphors, above. I’m not sure how even a princess of cloudcukooland where the Nice Guys live can pull anyone’s leg with arrows.
Is the editing of “Kinder, Küche, Kirche”‘s last post a deliberate pun?
I like them a lot better now that their comments are nice and short. Keep it up, guys.
I figure if you’re interested in preserving the male stranglehold on our society, at least be upfront about it. To lie about its (non)existence is just so cowardly.
In my years as a blogging feminist, I have learned there’s no level of cowardice too cowardly for the Real Men out there to reach.
Loving the concise Flash Gordons. They seem less like chronic droolers now.
Are there trolls we miss after they’re gone?…
Not this time.
The stench will be around for a while, anyway.
“The stench will be around for a while, anyway.”
Is that the sulfur smell I’m getting? Or is that from what I had for lunch?…
I pooped in my pants a little.
There’s a resort of editing posts? I was looking for a good place to take a vacation.
Dogs go ‘woof!’
Rainbows shine hope.
Okay, those comments were too long by about a hundred times. I don’t want to have to do any more scrolling. Short and sweet, guys.
“After all, it’s a much more impressive act to go against self interest on the basis of moral principle than to act when the two of them combine as in the case of oppressed peoples combating unjust rulers.”
This argument reminded me in all 5 comments it appeared on this page of one I heard many years ago in regards to “deadbeat dads.” I don’t care to open a debate on that topic, but the gist of the statement that I think has some relevance to this discussion was that fathers who actually pay child support and take fair responsibility for their biological offspring did not deserve special recognition or “props” since that’s what every father should be doing anyway.
In the case of humans of privilege choosing to side with the oppressed humans, the privileged were oppressing (blissfully ignorant) until they consciously stopped* and, appropriately horrified as humans of good conscience would be, fought the very system of tyrannical hierarchy that benefited them in the first place. The system is malevolently flawed, and recognizing that is the first step to smashing it, I think.
But then I’m an ignorant middle-class honky queer female who has benefited from excellent access to information and education**. I could easily be (and am probably) wrong.
*Is ending your own contribution to oppression even possible? Methinks not.
**Thanks, feminism!
All over the world, millions of women are mistreated.
Important news:
* In the United States, 1.3 women are raped every minute. That results in 78 rapes each hour, 1872 rapes each day, 56160 rapes ech month and 683,280 rapes each year.
* 1 out of every 3 American women will be sexually assulted in her lifetime.
* The United States has the world’s highest rape rate of the countries that publish such statistics. It’s 4 times higher than Germany, 13 times higher than England, and 20 times higher than Japan.
* 1 in 7 women will be raped by her husband.
* 83% of rape cases are ages 24 or under.
* 1 in 4 college women have either been raped or suffered attempted rape.
* 1 in 12 males students surveyed had commited acts that met the legal definition of rape. Furthermore, 84% of the men who had commited such acts said what they had done was definitely not rape.
* 75% of male students and 55% of female students involved in acquintance rape had been drinking or using drugs.
* Only 16% of rapes are ever reported to the police.
“I would actually say a demonstrable act of cowardice is ubertroll Adam North posting as “Prince Barin.” Seeing as how the email addy for the “Prince” is adamjnorth -at- [edited out], I’d say he has some work to do if he wants to cover his identity.”
Since when is an online handle a secret identity? If I wanted to cover my identity why would I use an email address with my name in it? Oh, and although I don’t honestly care thanks for publishing my email address on your blog. Classy.
Look, I know I offended you: simply stating that the Patriarchy doesn’t exist to feminists is akin to telling a hard-core Marxist that Communism doesn’t work or a fundamental Christian that the bible is mythology. It’s not going to earn one friends. But that wasn’t the argument I was making. And we both know that the Patriarchy is far from an “objective fact”. You defeat your claims of being open-minded when you say that.
Prince Barin:
Yes, that’s right. When there’s an obvious injustice, you don’t get called a wonderful person for opposing that obvious injustice.
Striving for justice is every person’s duty. If you think you deserve a cookie for fighting for justice, then you have no flipping idea what “justice” means.
You might deserve praise for the quantity or quality of work you do to bring about justice; you don’t deserve praise just for saying “Yeah, well, I can get behind that, if it’s not too much trouble.”
As for insults, what are you talking about?
Are you talking about “Prince Barin, you are an awful person”? Or are you talking about “men routinely exploit women sexually”? The latter is not an insult; it is a valid generalization that does not hold in all cases but still holds as a generalization.
[...] Marc’s recent post (which is all about the – dare I say it? P-word) has, predictably, generated some defensive posts. A patriarchy post is not as good as a blowjob post for fanning the flames of the blogosphere, but a patriarchy post written by a guy can generate a decent amount of heat. Unfortunately, Marc’s burn-the-village-and-salt-their-fields method of dealing with trolls has deleted the very comment by PatrickKelly (?) that inspired this post, so I can’t directly quote it. I’ll have to paraphrase: Patriarchy is bad. But matriarchy would also be bad. But I think patriarchy is the one I benefit from, plus it’s what we already got, so that’s where I’m placing my bets. I think I’ll use the term “humanarchy” as well to show you all that while feminists are dividers, I’m a uniter. [...]
simply stating that the Patriarchy doesn’t exist to feminists…
…would be like telling marxists that poor people don’t exist, like telling a hardcore christian that not only wasn’t jesus crucified, but that he currently owns a small shack in the carribbean where he fishes and spends his days in tax exile down on the nudist beach, playing volley ball and paying poor people to let him shit in their mouthes while he masturbates furiously onto their feet.
If you can’t make an accurate analogy, comparison or metaphor, please do not try.
ffs.
. . .sounds to me like you are all afraid of the package. get some and try again!!!
Wow, I’ve never heard that before. Did you sit up all night thinking that up?
That’s lovely. Now go play with your crayons and let the grownups talk.
Nah, but I’m betting he really does like cake. Who doesn’t like cake? Also, Cake.
Also, CAKE.
[...] For example, if I write a post explaining why men shouldn’t rankle at insults directed at the patriarchy, the intention of my post is to discuss precisely that. The post doesn’t focus on whether or not patriarchy exists because, as a feminist and feminist-supportive site, our discussion operates from the fundamental assumption that institutionalized male privilege is a fact of life. [...]
Is there a patriarchy?
All signs point to yes.
Thanks folks, this is perhaps the most (unintentionally?) funny thread I’ve read all day (thus far). Prince Barin? Princess Aurora? No patriarchy?
(snicker)
I’m liking this method of dealing with trolls. What else can you make them say?
Another more apt analogy- Telling feminists there is no patriarchy is like telling the NAACP there is no Klan.