Well, I thought that I would get into the middle of the internet drama again. What can I say, I’m wired and I’m bored. Daniel Tosh was recently performing at a comedy club in LA, The Laugh Factory. He asked the audience what he should talk about. Somebody shouted “Rape!” It was then that a woman who is also a Tumblr feminist was in the club and decided to make a HUGE issue out of this.
The Tumblr feminists are a fascinating group of people. To anybody who has a chance to see them, they are awesome. Here’s a link to the Tumblr feminist who was at the club where Tosh was performing and decided to heckle him on-stage. See, in her mind, when somebody even thinks about making a joke about rape, this must immediately be attacked and Tosh must be vilified in the worst way possible. I’m not going to do this as a hit-for-hit style post, because I’m not in the mood for that, but I will give a little snippet, and you can read the rest if you like. It is very telling of the kind of person this writer is.
I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.
Yeah, I wanna have a drink with this person and get into her head. It must be a fascinating place. To have this mindset, even when she didn’t get her facts right, is very interesting. First, Tosh didn’t say that people should rape her. When she heckled him on-stage, breaking the comedy club social contract, which stipulates that you don’t have to be there if you don’t want to be, and you can leave at anytime, so you don’t heckle the person on stage performing. It’s just not done.
So, she disrupted the comedy club social contract, and when Tosh, the comedian who is kind of boring, sends it back at her, she goes on to Tumblr and reaches out to the Tumblr feminists, a group of radicals who don’t have a clue about what actual feminism is.
Let’s talk about them. These people are a gold-mine of hilarity if you are ever bored. These people have the basic belief that all men are evil. For real, if you’ve got a dick, they hate you. Or if you’ve got a dick, but you don’t feel like shit for having that dick, and feel like you are a monster who is oppressing women all the time, they hate you. These women, and sometimes men, are some of the most self-involved people that I have ever come across. They are wallowing in a deep pit of self-pity, self-martyrdom, and self-indulgent beliefs of their own superiority, with the rest of us being just a bunch of losers.
And these people are very ugly about their beliefs. Anyone who challenges them is lambasted by their entire community. But here’s the kicker – they aren’t above attacking one of their own! Laci Green, a YouTube vlogger who I had had a lot of respect for until a while back, when I found out that she is one of them, has become the target of their rage. She posted in a video and said the word “tranny.” The Tumblr feminist community latched on to this and turned on her so fast that it probably made her head spin. She had made an apology that to normal people would have sounded reasonable and acceptable. But to these people, since they view anything that isn’t in their incredibly narrow way of thinking as wrong, decided that they were going to put up pictures of her apartment, and make death threats against her. Laci Green, one of these self-pitying people, has become one of their targets. What does that say about a community when it takes almost nothing to make them turn on one of their own?
But this thing with Tosh has galvanized them into action. They are starting petitions to get his show removed from Comedy Central. They are having this huge actions against Tosh, and why? Because one of their own lied about what he said on stage, even after she was so rude as to break the comedy club social contract and not one of them fact-checked her. This apparently is news.
What is with these women, anyway? They seem to believe that they are the victims of some horrible social atrocity. What, that they were born a woman? These are women, in the Western World, between the ages of 15 and 25, bitching about how abused they are, and how awful their lives are, and how awful being a woman is. How much do you wanna bet that not a single one of these women has been to Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan? How much do you wanna bet that not one of these women has been to Haiti, or Uganda? These women fascinate me in how they can talk about how oppressed women are, yet they have never seen real oppression. No woman in America who talks about how oppressed American woman are has ever seen real oppression, because if they had, they would know better. There are real gender issues in this country, but to call it “oppression” is beyond a reasonable stretch. It’s an outright lie.
And let’s talk about rape jokes. The Tumblr feminist community seems to believe that these are the worst kind of jokes, and pure evil, and that rape is the worst thing of all time. Tell me – in what way are rape jokes somehow worse than other kinds of jokes about harsh stuff, like child molestation, or war, or murder? We make jokes to take the harsh stuff and make it digestable, so that we can look at things from another way. The point of humor is to make the difficult understandable. We mock it, and the human condition. I have been to many women’s shelters, and let me tell you, I have seen a lot of rape victims, and sometimes, the best thing that can be done for them is not to mock them, but to make a joke, because it makes the harsh easier, along with the heart-breaking. I don’t think that women are the doormats that Tumblr feminists do. Real rape is horrible and tragic, but to correlate a rape joke with supporting rape is just ridiculous! Nobody with a soul supports rape, but we can all support humor, because it is what binds us together.
Here’s the ultimate truth that one can surmise about this group – they are bullies. A woman punches a man because he says something she doesn’t like. Violence being used to stop somebody from saying things that a group doesn’t like. That is what thugs do. They will attack people for saying what they don’t like, and threaten one of their own for saying something that they don’t like. They also want to get rid of the Freedom of Speech when it offends them, trying to legislate their tastes and their ideas, to the detriment of a fundamental freedom that we all are supposed to have. These people should offend real feminists who are fighting for women’s rights, and real equality activists like myself, who want equal rights for everybody.
Being a thug is never okay, it doesn’t matter what gender you are.
Until next time, a quote,
“Look, I know that not all feminists are a part of this. This is a very specific set basically tyrannical fascist people, who want to censor everybody who says something that they don’t agree with.” -TJ Kincaid, Tumblr Feminists
Peace out,
Maverick
With this idiotic post you just lost a subscriber. Bye bye, loser, Keep jerking off in your pathetic reality where no woman would touch your stinky body with a pole.
Awww, that hurts so much. Thanks for wasting a comment.
HAHA! By posting that explosive reaction to a post about radical feminazis, you just proved his point. Good job. Also, the insults add nothing for your side. If you wanted to come across as a man-hating psycho banshee, congratulations! You succeeded! Name calling and lame insults reflects poorly on your intelligence.
A lot of what you wrote seemed like it was pulled out of the Amazing Atheist video. That’s a shame. I was hoping for a little more than a synopsis.
Unfortunately, there are only so many ways to say it, because he’s absolutely right. I just added a few of my own thoughts, like this naive belief that woman in America are actually being oppressed.
hey
i like what you have to say for the most part, but there’s one thing i gotta disagree with. just because women in other countries have it worse than Western women, this doesn’t mean we are not oppressed. the still-present gender divide is in itself a form of oppression. i agree, it’s barely anything in comparison to the atrocities women in the places you mention face. that is some fucked up shit, oppression at its worst. but oppression is oppression, no matter what the degree.
hannah
Have you ever done a Google search as to what the definition of oppression is? Do that, then give me one good example of how women in this country are being oppressed.
ok wasn’t trying to be a bitch so you didn’t have to be a bitch in reply.i mean hell i know i don’t know you but i’m just starting conversation for the hell of it.
i took a gender studies class which i think is more reliable than your google search suggestion. i am also an anthropology and sociology major at a prestigious women’s college, which i chose to attend for reasons regarding male privilege and my own feminist values. i have been studying feminism (academically of course–the Tumblr feminists are freaks i completely agree) for many years. you might not wanna “get into this” with me, so to speak. i’ll give you an example though of course:
basically women’s oppression in the modern Western world is so subtle that it seems impossible to see at all. women are oppressed by means of socialization based on stereotype. recall that the second wave movement wasn’t that long ago–only about 60 short years ago women were socially expected, norm’d and confined to the domestic sphere before being introduced into the workforce. 60 years seems like a long time, but historically it means nothing to the subordinate status of Western women. 60 years is not enough generations for a society to completely change its ideas, no matter how outdated they may seem to the younger generations like ourselves. these ideas, that women are: weak, exclusively child-bearers/caretakers due to their reproductive biology, second class/not as strong/not as capable/not as efficient as men, emotional. they remain ingrained in our society as internalized sexism. through socialization we learn the stereotypes and internalize them without control. socialization meaning the process by which you become a fully functioning adult member of society over time. during the most vulnerable periods of one’s socialization, girls go to school where internalized stereotypes cause a teacher to treat their female students as though they are not as competent as their male students. men are held at a higher standard, expected to be smart, logical, rational, competent, strong, able. women are not socially expected to be these things.
men have their own name in “woMEN,” as though women is in the words of Simone de Beauvior “the second sex.” God is considered a He in the eyes of most of this country. some people in this country still act and speak in an openly sexist manner. how about the GOP with their efforts against abortion and contraception, policies that inevitably would rob a woman of her right to choose the fate of her body and life. not to mention the fact that people still blame rape victims for wearing provocative clothing and claiming that means the victim “asked” to be raped, blaming her for what clothes she puts on her body.
do you see men dealing with these same issues? as a subordinate social identity group women are oppressed all over the world. cultures are different, histories of those cultures are different, so invariably women’s oppression manifests itself differently all over the world. that doesn’t make the less obvious, in your face systematic forms of oppression any less existent.
Wow, I knew this comment was going to be stupid the moment that I read “gender studies.” I have seen so many nice young women get totally ruined by those classes. You had something when you said that these oppression was “so subtle it’s like you can’t even see it.” That’s because it isn’t there. The people who are teaching nice young people like yourself (even though you said you are being a bitch right now) about how women are oppressed do that. It’s like a neat conspiracy theory. I have about as much respect for 9/11 truthers as I do for people who think like that. And by the way, what idiot teacher did you have? Women are expected to be stupider? Have you went to a coed college recently? There are far more women that I have seen than men, and there is a reason for this – society’s views have changed.
You know the real source of where this idea that women in America are “oppressed” comes from? It’s entitlement. You are so entitled, and want to play the victim. Sure, there are sexist guys who think that women are stupid and made to bear kids, but that’s not the broad view, and it is not even the mainstream view. It is the fringe view. But, like Rebecca Watson, you take the fringe view, inflate it with importance, and use it to play yourselves off as the victim, because honestly, who doesn’t love a victim. Thank you, you have given me another idea for a post. This is just pathetic.
Not to mention bad argument. I’m sure you are just aching to say that I’m as bad as the guys who blame rape victims. But here’s the thing – 60 years is enough time to change views. Look at society’s views on homosexuality. 60 years ago, you were terrified of coming out. The very concept of being openly gay was something you had to fear for your life. While it still is in a lot of places, there has been a massive shift in society’s views on this. Same with black rights, or women’s rights. The GOP is working to undo that, but here’s the thing – that’s all just smokescreen. To anybody even a little politically savvy, we see that this is just them trying to keep the eyes off the fact that Republicans are trying to dismantle this nation’s infrastructure to make their Wall Street owners more money. Doing what they are doing against women’s rights is simply to keep us busy. And it’s working. This is a 1960′s battle that was already lost, and will be lost again.
Americans are so entitled. We think the world revolves around us. That view needs to change.
you didn’t even logically argue my comment. all you did was deny it, tell me i’m wrong and entitled when you were the one who asked for an example of Western women’s oppression. i gave you several. take it or leave it.
i’m not saying i’m a victim of women’s oppression. you don’t even know what my gender is. haha. and yea if you think everyone at women’s college identifies as a woman then you’re mistaken (confusing i know).
i’ve studied what i wrote and it’s really clear to me that you haven’t. you’ve made this into a fight rather than a discussion because you didn’t know what to say to make you look smart or to reply or whatever your issue is. i’m guessing you are between the ages of 15-18, judging by the way you’re reacting to what i’ve been writing. i get it, you wanna be right. but you aren’t always.
nice try, but i didn’t even learn about socialization and internalized sexism in gender studies–i learned it in sociology and extra curricular dialogues regarding subordinate social identity groups. i’m explaining to you, literally, the science of how it all works. socialization is the most basic facet of the social sciences as a whole, it applies in every field of social science. i didn’t even like my gender studies class that much. but it did give me an interesting perspective on what i am actually studying, and i can say that everything i learned in that class WAS relevant and wasn’t ALWAYS bullshit. sure i get what you mean, i could’ve done without weeks of performance ethnography and emo feminist poetry. but still, the political and historical aspects we focused on were absolutely relevant to plenty of sociological ideas and foundations regarding oppression and social identity, and NOT just that of gender. do you even know what a gender studies class is like? it doesn’t seem very much like you do.
of course society’s ideas have changed, and it is wonderful PROGRESS that mostly women are receiving a higher education in the USA. but progress isn’t the same as fixed. it’s like a broken leg that has started walking again but is not completely healed, that’s all. acknowledging that doesn’t make me or you entitled.
trust me, i know how you feel, before i went to college i was always reading about rape as a war weapon in the congo, sex trafficking in southeast asia, etc. and thinking about how privileged i am as an American woman/genderqueer/it varies. but i am very happy that college has made me realize that oppression is more than what you see on the news or the specific social problems you read about. there are deep social roots that don’t just go away within 50-60 years.
You’re dead wrong. What we have is gender issues, not oppression. But, like with Christians, I can see that I am going to convince you of nothing. You went to college based on your sociological beliefs, and you are here because of them. That’s not going to change. What makes you entitled is that you take a term that should mean something horrible, and given it to your gender issues that women who are really oppressed, and the women who lived before the days where women had rights, would be, and should be, offended to hear you say. What you have now is nothing like what they had then, and it kills me that you think it does.
Riddle me this, oh wise one – what is oppression, to you? Google had a pretty good definition, but you say it means something else. What does it mean? Does it mean that when one has gender problems that do need work but are not like women have no rights at all, which is what oppression by any other dictionary would mean, they are suddenly oppressed.
Progress means that we are here because of work. But to call the issues, that truly aren’t large in any scale oppression is pathetic, and it is entitlement, and you feel this way because you are an American. I guarantee you that a Saudi woman wouldn’t feel the same way you do, being able to walk around without having her face covered or having to prove she was raped by having witnesses. I guarantee you that a Haitian woman who doesn’t have to fear roaming death squads who kidnap and rape women wouldn’t think that some sociological ideas that women are lesser held by a vast minority of people, along with the Republican Party having a faux-effort to get rid of women’s rights, purely for the purpose of keeping the eyes off their real goal of dismantling the social safety net as oppression. So my question comes back – why do you?
Jesus I am not saying that the oppressions can be compared AT ALL, you twist my words like wtf. obviously women’s oppression in these cultures are a hell of a lot worse than in the US. i never said they were the same or comparable. all i said was the word “oppression” does not JUST mean rape, lack of rights, etc. these “gender issues” you speak of, “gender problems,” whatever you like to call them, is SYSTEMATIC OPPRESSION. meaning oppression within the social system. internalized. socialization. it is a SYSTEM. OF. OPPRESSION.
stop twisting my words to make yourself seem right, the sociological term for the “gender issues” you speak of is called oppression. it’s a different kind of oppression. but it is oppression.
Apparently, you aren’t getting what I’m saying. I’m saying that what you are talking about isn’t oppression at all. There is no SYSTEM. OF. OPPRESSION. To do that, I would have to see how women are oppressed, and I don’t. I see gender issues, like the fact that women in a lot of employment areas don’t get the same pay as men. That’s a gender issue. I see the fact that women don’t pay as much in child support as men. That’s a gender issue. You call it oppression to inflate it with importance. I call it gender issues because it is just that – a societal issue that will be dealt with in due time. Calling it “oppression” is just what I said at the beginning – playing the victim card. And it gives real oppression a bad name. Drop the word, and I won’t have a problem. Call it a SYSTEM. OF. PROBLEMS., or a SYSTEM. OF. SOCIETAL ISSUES. Those are at least a little more realistic, and don’t sound like petty pandering to America’s need to play the victim.
Um… How can anyone NOT know your gender. Your name is hannahkass, you went to a women’s school, studying gender studies and whatnot. How many guys named Hannah do you know that do that?
Anyway, carry on. This is quite entertaining.
*eats popcorn*
Okay, yeah, this needs to be addressed. How CAN anyone, including you, not know your gender. And how can those who aren’t women be at a women’s school? Are you talking about transgender, because that’s cool, I’m just curious.
well you’re gonna hate me for saying this but if you take a gender studies class you will learn all about this.
gender is a social construction. it is the social expectations, ideas and expressions given to you based on your biological sex, which you are assigned at birth. sex and gender are two different things. sex is your reproductive biology, gender is the social ideas attached to your sex by society. i.e. females wear dresses, males play with cars. plus all of the stuff i said in my comments above that separate men from women.
so there are students at my school who apply identifying as a woman, but discover otherwise while they are attending. the campus is very accepting of all gender identities and expressions even though we are traditionally a women’s college. we also strive to educate one another and be educated about gender because we are a women’s college in general–it’s important for us to discuss it in a non male-privileged space. i came to the college in part to receive my education without any male privilege at all. the current protocol is you must be born female to apply and be accepted, however i think that being on a women’s college campus gives a lot of student insight about how they want to identify in terms of their gender. not to mention not having male privilege at all makes it an even safer space to do so. i’ve heard also that a lot of trans guys don’t want to go to a coed school even after they’ve discovered their non-woman identity at the college simply because the campus is so accepting of trans students despite our being a women’s college,more so than coed’s.
Ravienne, I had a guy from another college in my gender studies class, you don’t have to be a woman to take one. and like i explained you don’t have to identify as a woman to go to my school. nor do i have to go by another name other than my birth name just because i identify as a woman and genderqueer as well
and to your previous to the previous comment, Lucien: you can call it whatever you want to call it, and think whatever you want about what i learned in college. IDGAF
but just so you know. i’m right:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902049.html
byeeee
Wow! You posted a link to a newspaper article before running away! Sure showed him whats what…
This post touches upon the issue:
http://justanotherfeminist.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/why-i-should-avoid-reddit-arguing.html
Just wanted to say you’ve gained a follower
“These people should offend real feminists who are fighting for women’s rights, and real equality activists like myself, who want equal rights for everybody.”
Should do, but rarely actually does. I’ve exposed feminists to this kind of extremism before when I’ve explained why I don’t Identify as one, they tend to react roughly as follows…
Denial: They don’t exist, fox news made them up. All feminists are egalitarian angels.
Rationalisation: Ok, they exist and they’re extreme, but look at the society they lived in (/are living in)!
Apologetics: Actually I think they have a good point (etc.)
I have deep respect for the feminists who call them out and distance themselves, not so much for the ones who don’t want to admit there’s a problem.