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Oh, those angry feminists... [View all]
http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2011/12/21/why-i-resigned-from-the-good-men-project/(snip)
What bothered so many of us about the Twitter conversation about feminism was that Tom Matlack trotted out (as so many men do) that same tactic of attempting to silence women’s anger by suggesting that it poses a threat. Tom tweeted at Jenn Pozner that some men are afraid to speak up out of fear of female reprisals. Kind of being proven right here. Now Jennifer Pozner is a well-known feminist media critic, but she’s hardly in the position to carry out “reprisals” against anyone for speaking out, not that she would if she could. Nor was Jenn (or Kate Harding, or Amanda Marcotte) engaged in throwing stones, which didn’t stop Tom from describing the “pelting” he was taking from feminists.
A short while later, Tom tweeted I really thought the MRA guys were crazy until I engaged the wrath of the feminists. Insane. Though I doubt Tom thought this through clearly, this is the textbook “gaslighting” to which Yashar refers.* No feminist had called Tom a name equivalent to the names he (and I) are regularly called by MRAs (“mangina” is the epithet of choice from the Basement Boys); it didn’t matter. Jennifer and Amanda were “insane.”
Seemingly innocuous words often have a profound charge depending on how and by whom they’re used. Tom knows, surely, how problematic it is to use the word “boy” to refer to an African-American. It’s not a curse word in most contexts, but when used by a white person to refer to an adult black male, it’s steeped in the long and painful history of racism in America. What many men fail to understand is that accusing a woman of being insane or of engaging in reprisals merely because she’s expressing forceful disagreement has an equivalent ugliness. If that seems hyperbolic, google the word “hysteria.”
(snip)
There’s a conscious purpose to this sort of behavior. Joking about getting pelted (or putting on the football helmet) sends a message to women in the classroom – and online: “Tone it down. Take care of the men and their feelings. Don’t scare them off, because too much impassioned feminism is scary for guys.” And you know, as exasperating as it is, this kind of silencing language almost always works. Time and again, I’ve seen it work to silence women in the classroom, or at least cause them to worry about how to phrase things “just right” so as to protect the guys and their feelings. It’s a key anti-feminist strategy, even if that isn’t the actual intent of the men doing it — it forces women to become conscious caretakers of their male peers by subduing their own frustration and anger. It reminds young women that they should strive to avoid being one of those “angry feminists” who (literally) scares men off and drives them away.
What bothered so many of us about the Twitter conversation about feminism was that Tom Matlack trotted out (as so many men do) that same tactic of attempting to silence women’s anger by suggesting that it poses a threat. Tom tweeted at Jenn Pozner that some men are afraid to speak up out of fear of female reprisals. Kind of being proven right here. Now Jennifer Pozner is a well-known feminist media critic, but she’s hardly in the position to carry out “reprisals” against anyone for speaking out, not that she would if she could. Nor was Jenn (or Kate Harding, or Amanda Marcotte) engaged in throwing stones, which didn’t stop Tom from describing the “pelting” he was taking from feminists.
A short while later, Tom tweeted I really thought the MRA guys were crazy until I engaged the wrath of the feminists. Insane. Though I doubt Tom thought this through clearly, this is the textbook “gaslighting” to which Yashar refers.* No feminist had called Tom a name equivalent to the names he (and I) are regularly called by MRAs (“mangina” is the epithet of choice from the Basement Boys); it didn’t matter. Jennifer and Amanda were “insane.”
Seemingly innocuous words often have a profound charge depending on how and by whom they’re used. Tom knows, surely, how problematic it is to use the word “boy” to refer to an African-American. It’s not a curse word in most contexts, but when used by a white person to refer to an adult black male, it’s steeped in the long and painful history of racism in America. What many men fail to understand is that accusing a woman of being insane or of engaging in reprisals merely because she’s expressing forceful disagreement has an equivalent ugliness. If that seems hyperbolic, google the word “hysteria.”
(snip)
There’s a conscious purpose to this sort of behavior. Joking about getting pelted (or putting on the football helmet) sends a message to women in the classroom – and online: “Tone it down. Take care of the men and their feelings. Don’t scare them off, because too much impassioned feminism is scary for guys.” And you know, as exasperating as it is, this kind of silencing language almost always works. Time and again, I’ve seen it work to silence women in the classroom, or at least cause them to worry about how to phrase things “just right” so as to protect the guys and their feelings. It’s a key anti-feminist strategy, even if that isn’t the actual intent of the men doing it — it forces women to become conscious caretakers of their male peers by subduing their own frustration and anger. It reminds young women that they should strive to avoid being one of those “angry feminists” who (literally) scares men off and drives them away.
More at link...
* The piece referred to: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/why-women-arent-crazy/
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