Fidelbogen: Men’s Rights Activists! Forget about DV shelters for men. Focus on the important issue: yelling at feminists
Men’s Rights Edmonton doing important human rights work by protesting Slut Walk
Our old nemesis Fidelbogen — the Would-Be Counter-Feminist Philosopher King — has taken on a dire, if altogether hypothetical, threat to the men’s rights movement as we know it today: the danger that actual activism that benefits men in the real world will get in the way of the feminist bashing that he thinks is job #1 for all good MRAs.
As he argues in a recent post:
Doing good things for men - opening DV shelters, men’s centers, passing male-friendly laws, and so on - is all very excellent and fine, but it does not attack the root of the problem.
This is kind of a remarkable statement for him to make, given that the Men’s Rights movement that Fidelbogen has attached himself to — or at least its very vocal online contingent — has so far succeeded in opening precisely zero DV shelters and/or men’s centers and has successfully lobbied for zero “male-friendly” laws.
Indeed, it’s only in recent months that any MRAs active online have managed to raise even a miniscule percentage of the money it will take to open much less operate a single shelter for men.
But apparently Fidey is worried that even these paltry efforts from MRAs will get in the way of the noble task of yelling about feminists. As he puts it, in LARGE BOLD TYPE so you know he’s extra serious:
Fidey, I don’t think you need to worry for a minute that MRAs are going to actually accomplish anything in the real world. And you can quote me on that,
Posted on August 29, 2013, in antifeminism, are these guys 12 years old?, domestic violence, fidelbogen, grandiosity, gross incompetence, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, slacktivism, sluts, why should we have to do anything? and tagged antifeminism, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, slacktivism. Bookmark the permalink. 125 Comments.
He’s like the MRA’s that think shutting down women’s shelters is the best way to help abused men, rather than opening men’s shelters. As long as things are equally bad for everyone, then everyone “wins”.
Shutting down women’s shelters would be the bigger win for MRAs - it’d increase the chances of abusers regaining control over their victims.
I’m also dubious about whether their professed concern for male DV victims is real. What’s the odds there’s a streak of “Why didn’t you just [violent act] her?” in their thinking? After all that’s what real manly menz do.
If MRAs set up a men’s shelter, they would have to shelve their homophobia pretty quick as I believe a number of their clients would be young gay men fleeing abusive families.
And in things that will never happen. ..
Because the most important part of the Men’s Rights Movement is scoring points against the Bitchez.
The fastest way to score points is to make the Bitchez RAEG with your Mighty Manly Might And Awesomeness.
And the best sign of Bitchez RAEG is peals of laughter and exasperated facepalming.
Therefore, ipso facto quid pro quo Fidelbogen has WON FOREVER.
@WeeBoy- that is a good point… there’s a conspicuous lack of support for male GBT homeless teens in the movement. On a related note, for any MRAs who are actually INTERESTED in helping with male homelessness, the Ali Forney Center is now accepting donations!
PS “bitching” is a gendered slur, please don’t use it.
Really hope this isn’t seen as trolling, just a genuine idle thought: what about when something is bitchin’, meaning that it’s totally rad, awesome and badass? I would guess it’s a phrase mainly (if not much any more) used by dudebros, but how did this reversal of meaning come about? And would a T-shirt that says Feminism is bitchin’ be, well, totally bitchin’, or would it just suck?
Fidelbogen says Dave has taken a “few quotemines” “wildly out of context.” Dude, you know people can actually see what you both posted? Doesn’t seem even non-wildly out of context to me.
They always whine about quote-mining and cherry picking when they’ve been caught with their idiocy in full bloom.
With an actual example of quote-mining, you can show how it went.
For example:
“Andrea Dworkin said all sex is rape!”
“Actually, her quote goes like this: Violation is a synonym for intercourse. At the same time, the penetration is taken to be a use, not an abuse; a normal use; it is appropriate to enter her, to push into (“violate”) the boundaries of her body. She is human, of course, but by a standard that does not include physical privacy.”
People who cry quote-mine without actually showing me a quote-mine? Yawn, no, sit down.
@David, if you’re looking for graphics and have free time, check out MemeGenerator. Just start typing “woman” or “feminist” into the search bar, and you can peruse such brilliant memes as “feminist cunt” and “privilege denying feminist” (which has been co-opted by MRAs).
@HowardBannister: That is interesting, as I had taken it for granted that Dworkin did equate all intercourse with rape and even thought I remembered her explicitly stating as much. From the quote above it is easy to see how such an interpretation would arise. If she did not mean that all intercourse is rape (I just looked it up, she denied it), then the only possible explanation is that she misused the term “synonym”. If violation and intercourse are synonymous, then of course all intercourse must be rape. The rest of the quote I would have to read in context. Taken by itself, even with the most charitable interpretation, it seems to be saying that violation is seen in our culture as a “normal use” of a woman’s body. That is, I can only interpret it to mean that, even if not all intercourse is rape, all rape is considered equivalent consensual intercourse. Personally, I have little more use for radfems than for MRA’s the latter being quite a bit scarier.
markb: I think the use of “violation” is that if a person has sex which is outside the normal parameters of consent, the woman has been “violated”. The synonymous aspect is that the only difference between, “violated” and “had sex with” is external to the act.
When she says it synonymous, she’s talking about how the language that we use to talk about sex is all kinds of rape-y. She’s talking about the social construction of sex.
But it’s a big idea and takes three chapters for her to explain, because, y’know, that’s just how it is, women are tasked with withholding sex, sex is something men get by pushing against women’s boundaries until they overcome them, etc. etc. etc.
She’s absolutely RIPE for quote-mining.
Fidelbogen, not so much.
Good morning manboobzers! Check out this small collection of suffrage posters. The other sets from the Schlesinger Library are pretty cool too.
Inez Milholland, the subject of one of the posters, was pretty interesting. Like many of the early suffragists, she came from a wealthy background, but in addition to working on women’s suffrage, she also was a promoter of prison reform, pacifism, and equality for African Americans.
We’ve got Inez Milholland; MRAs have got Fidelbogen.
@ Howard Bannister- I’ve found that in general, the more complicated and nuanced a thinker is, and the more difficult their ideas, the easier it is for idiots to quote mine them. Which is a real shame for those of us who want to have 501 level discussions about some of these topics only to have to smack down the 101 level trolls who completely miss the point. *sigh*
Cloudiah: Thanks for that link. The “Cat and Mouse Act” poster (first one on the site) got me to do a bit of digging. I’d known about the force-feeding of hunger-striking suffragettes, but I hadn’t heard of this particular reaction to the issue-it was truly mendacious, pretty much an authorized policy of torture.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cat_and_mouse_act.htm
This is just my own opinion, but I think the context makes that use of the word bitch okay. In that case it’s an adjective, and it’s used to describe something as being good, so I don’t see it having any misogyny in it. I personally would like a T-shirt saying “Feminism is bitchin”, because I’d see it as being funny and taking the word back. But I’d give more leeway to a woman wearing one than a man, just because I’d wonder if the man was wearing one as a way of trying to call feminists bitches, but having the ability to deny it, too.
Someday if men are called bitches for being opinionated and assertive, then I guess my views on it would change. But as it is now, bitch is almost always used against girls and women, and when it is used against men, it’s done in a way to imply they are women. So that’s why I give more leeway to women with the word.
RE: Freemage
Gah! I had never heard of the Cat and Mouse Act. That’s really horrifying and creepy.
RE: M Dubz
@ Howard Bannister- I’ve found that in general, the more complicated and nuanced a thinker is, and the more difficult their ideas,
It doesn’t help that in my experience, a lot of those people can’t seem to write a straight sentence to save their life. (Looking at YOU, Judith Butler!)
Re: Andrea Dworkin. Having found the original quote, I think if you want to put it in a clearer context, you should include the preceding sentence: “The discourse of male truth—literature, science, philosophy, pornography—calls that penetration violation.” That makes it clear that she is talking about intercourse as it is viewed in male-dominated culture. There is certainly reason to think so, as most traditional depictions of love / seduction involve a man “laying siege” to a woman’s “heart” until she “surrenders”. However, granting all that, as I read more of her writing in context, I can’t help but see her view of intercourse as being inherently and irredeemably degrading to women: “There are many explanations, of course, that try to be kind … There is nothing implicit in intercourse that mandates male dominance in society.” (one of those explanations, which she appears to dismiss). “The great advocate of the female-first model of intercourse in the nineteenth century was Victoria Woodhull. She understood that rape was slavery; not less than slavery in its insult to human integrity and human dignity … Male-dominant gender hierarchy, however, seems immune to reform by reasoned or visionary argument or by changes in sexual styles, either personal or social. This may be because intercourse itself is immune to reform.” I haven’t read the whole thing, but each time she brings up attempts to “even the playing field” by giving women more power over their own bodies, she shoots it down. The only way I can interpret her is as saying that intercourse will always be bad for women as long as women have unequal power, but intercourse itself is an expression of that unequal power and always will be (it’s immune to reform, it implicitly mandates male domincance). Then, at the end of the chapter: “If intercourse can be an expression of sexual equality, it will have to survive- on its own merits as it were, having a potential for human expression not yet recognized or realized-the destruction of male power over women.” This makes it clear that 1) she thinks intercourse can be an equal affair (at some future point, when there is no more rape or prostitution) and 2) under current conditions, it cannot be anything but an expression of men’s power over women. The first point directly contradicts what she said earlier about intercourse itself being one of the things that perpetuate male power over women. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/IntercourseII.html
@Mazel: yes, that’s exactly right. I don’t even think MRAs show that much interest in Movember. You think they’d be able to muster the energy to stop shaving for a month.
@Neurite: yes, I know about that campaign, thanks for the links. I don’t know if you’ve seen this accompanying image: http://m.imgur.com/gXdTZ1z.
I also made some suggestions about getting funding for diseases that affect men disproportionately, and ran straight into, “the government will never take away funding from breast cancer because society only cares about ladies.”
I forgot to mention in my original post about grandiose aims: another prime example is their enthusiasm for “financial abortion,” which even if you agree with it, would require a massive overhaul of current laws, and create innumerable legal headaches. MRAs respond with, “ooooh, so feminists only care about changing laws when it’s good for WIMMIN!” Well, how about the male birth control pill? They all claim to be STEM, how about some research into what’s holding up development? How about raising money, or agitating for government funding? If you’re really dedicated, why not make it a serious professional study, like the developer of female birth control?
Just think how much easier life would be for men if they didn’t have to carry hot sauce with them at all times! (To spike their used condoms)
RE: markb
Oh god, dude, no paragraph breaks? Dworkin is hard enough for me to read as it is!
@markb, I’m definitely not a feminist scholar, but from my reading I do think Dworkin had some messed up views about heterosexual intercourse. But it’s also extremely misleading and over-simplifying some very complex ideas to characterize them as, “All sex is rape.” That is simply misleading.
LBT - sorry, you should have seen it before I edited it.
AK - Well, she’s a polemicist. I don’t think it was her intent to provide a roadmap away from a patriarchal society and towards a more equal one. I kept skimming through it for some suggestion of what she thinks we should do to change things, and I think that boiled down to “get rid of prostitution and (institutionalized) rape” in the last paragraph. That is my main problem with radical feminists, they talk about smashing patriarchy but right now (and this is based on a very cursory analysis of web sites) they seem to be going about it by getting into fights with transgendered people and holding women-only concerts. Fortunately, the MRA’s are even more ineffectual.
HM:
You can’t really call it a “movement” if you ain’t movin’.
RE: markb
Keep in mind there are different types of radical feminism, which is why the term Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) exists. And the Second Wave had a LOT of issues regarding trans folks, gender performance, and so on.
@LBT re: Judith Butler. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHA. ha.
RE: M Dubz
I swear, I am the only trans person I know who has never read Judith Butler, because every time I try, I want to STAB IT AND SET IT ON FIRE. Just, oh my fucking god, could you BE more opaque and obfuscatory? It drives me crazy, as a writer who also makes educational works on mental health.
markb, that little button on your keyboard just to the right of the ” key is your friend.
Learn to carriage return, please.
Is it just me, or does Fidelbogen sound like the name of a troll? Like, an actual troll, the kinds that live under bridges and steal babies and shit?
Also, re: Dworkin, not all feminism is sex-positive, and there’s an argument to be made for that, but I’m not gonna be the one to do it, because I’m drinking margaritas right now and laughing about the name Fidelbogen.
Lili - it does. I wonder if he’s afraid of billy goats?
Speaking of the Cat and Mouse Act, it’s not long past the centenary of the death of Emily Davison, the suffragette killed at Ascot when she was kicked by the King’s horse. Some years earlier, she’d been imprisoned and force-fed. She barricaded her cell door, and the prison authorities had a hose pipe put through the door window and blasted her with cold water before breaking the door down.
markb - I’ve not read Dworkin but I’m not seeing how what you’re quoting there suggests her views are degrading to women. As I read it, the whole patriarchal structure and the physical act of PiV are so bound up in each other in people’s thinking, that not reading PiV (consciously or unconsciously) as a demonstration/reinforcment of male dominance would be pretty well impossible, at least as society was then. It’s been the way it’s been read for so long, it’s very hard not to read it that way, to shake the assumptions of centuries.
For those who don’t know: Dworkin died in 2005.
Really hope this isn’t seen as trolling, just a genuine idle thought: what about when something is bitchin’, meaning that it’s totally rad, awesome and badass?
The idea behind reclaiming a word is to use it as a positive, preferably by the people it is applied to as a slur. That being said, I have a tendency to minimize my use of slurs in general just because they are sort of like double-heavy words.
“Bitchin’” isn’t a word I hear often; I’ve no idea whether teens here use it (heard a boy call his mates “bro” yesterday and CRINGED). I don’t use bitch in any of its senses, and “bitchin’” sounds very USian to me, which is another reason I wouldn’t use it anyway.
“Bitchin’ ” as an adjective for something extreme awesome you can at least make an argument for. “Bitching” as a type of whiny complaining? Nope. Total gendered slur.
I only advocate using “bitchin’” when you are trying to sound like an 80′s guy. As in
Bro is something stoner frat boy types say. See the infamous line “Don’t taze me, bro.”
I’m feeling cranky so I vote for banning anyone who refuses to use their return key, especially if they’re going to bang on about Dworkin and radfems without appearing to have much understanding of either.
Since I must admit I use the word frequently: can’t it be argued that it’s been so heavily used for so long that it’s no longer gendered? I don’t consider “hysterical” to be gendered, and that has multiple definitions as well. I might describe either a man or a woman in the throes of severe distress “hysterical,” and I wouldn’t consider it insulting. I agree calling someone a “little bitch” is similar to mangina or pussy. OTOH, I’ve called both men and women dicks, including myself on occasion.
YoullNeverGuess: Nope, I’m afraid both “bitch” and “hysterical” are still gendered. Yes, they can be applied to men, but they are still vastly more often applied to women, based on cultural ideas about women and their unreasonable behavior, and used rather directly to shut women up by portraying their desires and opinions as worthless.
I’m not seeing how “well I use this word a lot” translates to “therefore it’s not gendered or offensive or a problem in any way”.
To clarify - my issue with that argument is that it’s a cop-out. I’m not interested in policing other people’s use of language in a general sense - if people want to use those words then they can, they just shouldn’t do it in a space where they’ve been asked not to - but I think people need to own the fact that the words they use have potentially unpleasant implications.
Go ahead and use the words if you want to, but trying to weasel out of admitting that the words are gendered so you don’t have to feel bad about using them is not the most adult or self-aware approach.
If they aren’t acceptable here, then I won’t use them. I think it’s a bit presumptuous to judge my character based on the fact that I draw the line in a different place than you, considering how much casual dialect changes from area to area. Language changes. That’s why “literally” now has two definitions, which are literally the opposite of each other. I would be very sympathetic to a boy I saw crying hysterically. Crowds can succumb to hysteria. I honestly think it’s a bit of a reach to still hear that term as gendered. But again, if that’s the overall feeling on this comment section, I’ll respect that.
To pick a more esoteric example, I believe “quaint” and “cunt” share the same root, but nobody would call quaint gendered.
Again, this comment section had its own dialect, and if I use a term people find offensive, I’d prefer they just tell me that matter of factly (which is what happened) without the accompanying assumption that I’m inferior.
Don’t think so; quaint goes back to Latin, where the other seems to derive from old German. It’s the similarity of sound in medieval pronunciation, and the variable spellings, that make them seem closer.
Also, I don’t think Cassandra’s saying or implying that you’re inferior; she made a valid point about thinking about the words one uses. I too used “hysterical” freely, mostly in saying something extremely funny was hysterical; I didn’t think of it as still gendered until AJ suggested thinking about it (and not using it here) recently. Zie’s right in both: it does still have that load, I think, and it’s another of those “if in doubt, don’t” situations. I might not think I’m adding to the problem by using it, but I’ll avoid it in case I am.
@LBT: YES a thousand times yes - I bought Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’ as I thought it would be relevant to the course I’m starting next year (which isn’t wymen’s studies btw, in case there are any MRA trolls on this thread). But I found it so impenetrable I had to stop. I just can’t seem to figure out what she’s talking about most of the time. And that habit she has of using uneccessary quotation marks around words really drives me wild (e.g. constructs, or ‘constructs’…discourse, or ‘discourse’…)
Butler belongs in the “why are you choosing to communicate in a way that makes your ideas harder to understand?” category of academic writers, along with Daly. Not that I would have agreed with the ideas anyway, but their books would be a lot more appealing if they would accept the idea that one of the main goals of writing is to communicate ideas. If most readers end up wondering WTF you’re trying to say then you’re doing something wrong.
Yeah, I used to freak out when I encountered a writer who used that obtuse, obfuscating style - like ‘oh my God, I can’t understand this really important bod’s really important works - MAYBE I’VE REACHED THE END OF MY INTELLIGENCE WAAAAH’ but now I’m further on in my academic career, less insecure, and I’ve learned to chill out a little and realise that the writer has a responsibility to meet you halfway.
Gods, yes, I hate it when writers do that, especially if it’s a book that’s not supposed to be purely academic, ie. for a particular discipline and narrow audience, whether or not it’s filled with jargon. It’s even worse than the ones that go around in circles and leave me wanting to scream WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING POINT, or the ones with the pattern of “This was so-and-so”, an example or two, then a repeat of the original assertion.
Still, at least some writers do get the idea - an historian I emailed once was amazed I’d read his first book ‘cos he said it was almost unreadable.
The best professor I ever had was able to explain Foucault to me in a way that was comprehensible. Which, if any of you have read Foucault, you understand that that is a HEROIC FEAT.
Foucault! Now that is a primo educator. I’m normally quite blase about picking up a specialist book and reading as much as I can if I’ve heard the person’s ideas are worth a look.
“As much as I can” turned into a brief horrified look at a few pages and I happily abandoned the whole enterprise. Some things are worth the effort. This wasn’t.
@M Dubz: aaah Foucault, yeah I’m reading the auld bastard right now actually. (I had to come to the internet for a break). I like what he’s saying (when I know what he’s saying), but I wish he’d give some concrete examples of those sneaky Disciplines in action. I might try getting high and then re-reading his chapter on Panopticism for added insight. Please tell me - what did your Prof say, in a nutshell?
That sounds risky.
Yeeeeaaaah, I do NOT miss academia. It seemed to APPROVE of being as confusing and “what the fuck are you trying to say” as possible.
This is why everything I know about philosophy, I learned from other people and blogs. They seemed more likely to just say it in Layman.