A Bafflingly Offensive View of Women, From a Feminist.

Poe's Law in full effect on the internet right now.

I spend a large portion of my time on the internet watching and reading facts and opinions from people on lots of different issues which are the subject of heated debates.

One thing I've been following closely is the debate on gender issues within the atheist community over the last few years. Now, I can feel you all already either moving onto other blogs or deciding to send me hate mail for bringing up such a contentious issue. And I understand completely, everyone is either already sick to death of this discussion, or they're fiercely defensive of their particular positions on it.

This post will not touch on my stance on any of these gender issues, since I'm saving that for a later date. What I'll be talking about instead, is what the whole debate is becoming, and what that says about our community of "rational, evidence based" thinkers.

First, some background, Nathan Poe once wrote that it is impossible, in the semi-anonymous environment of the internet, to accurately distinguish between an extremist position, and a parody of that extremist position. This is due to the fact that parody usually requires exaggeration, and every movement or debate has members so crazy, their positions and statements are almost impossible to exaggerate.

Recently, some people have been playing a text-based adventure game online. Named: "Female Experience Simulator" I saw the title and decided to dive straight in, "This is going to be stupid." I thought. I watch videos from creationists, I watch videos from racists, and I watch videos from sexists. I love the feelings of rage I get when watching someone be wrong and stupid and hateful and bigoted and foolish, and considered this sexist looking game would be a great source of bigotry and something to take pleasure in ridiculing.

I was, of course, completely and utterly right. But was still confused. I did not look at the author of the game, and therefore knew nothing about their intentions or what they were likely to feel about gender issues, so I started playing, expecting to gain some clues as to these questions.

Here's what the game is: You are told that you are a strong and independent woman, waking to a world full of possibilities which you can grab whole heartedly with the power of your feminine ambition. But first, as you are wearing pyjamas, you must choose you attire for that day.


                             


I selected the jeans and t-shirt because that's how I dress in real life, and I like to be immersed in these games. Then I was instructed to decide which activity to partake of during the day.


                             


I decided to go to the coffee shop, and was rewarded with this message:


                            


Wow. That guy is a huge, inside-out vagina face. And this happens no matter which clothing or activity you choose. You are sexually harassed, and must re-start your day.

And here is where my confusion sets in, because there are multiple possibilities for the purpose of this game:

1. It is made by a misogynist, parodying the supposed fragility of women. (Hence the Game-Over if you are hit on. Such messages include: "You are now so depressed you must go home and cry to your cat.")

2. It is made by a misogynist, parodying the stereotype radical feminist seeing threats everywhere and the "over reaction" perceived in said feminists.

3. It's made by a feminist attempting to show how hard it is for a woman to get through a day without being harassed, but the feminist got too close to the parody stereotypes.

4. It's made by a feminist, parodying the absurdly sexist stereotypical misogynist.

And here's my problem, with no information about the author, I genuinely cannot tell which it is. I was largely in favour of either interpretation 1 or 2 at first, because of the ridiculous level of weakness shown in the consequences of the harassment, (See: "Cry to your cat" above.) but if you select the "give up" option, you are treated to this:


                            


Which seems pretty decisively to have been written by an irked woman arguing against sexual harassment. And if that is the reason this game was made, then she's going about it in entirely the wrong way.

I can reveal to you now, that the game attributes its authorship to Alyson MacDonald. Which heavily suggests a female author. I looked up Alyson, and found that she is a contributing member of brightgreenscotland.org, where she is in fact, a real feminist.

She's written some fairly nuanced pieces about sexual abuse and British politics. But she also shows her tendency to fall prey to the slightly over-zealous nature of discussions like this.

In this piece from February 2012, she gets rightfully mad at a PETA advert on youtube. Now, I'm all for being furious at PETA, because they're detestable, evil monsters who destroy innocent, healthy, adorable puppies. 

The advert in question showed a woman wearing only her underwear, her coat, and a neckbrace. The concept is that a man switched his diet to veganism, and as such, is now so strong, that while having sex, his thrust accidentally knocked his girlfriend's head into the wall. Injuring her.

Now, the guy is clearly a shit, because he then makes her go shopping for food while he lounges about the house in his underwear, waiting her return. But Alyson turns this poorly judged advertisement into a multi-page rant about sexual violence and abuse.

This happens when people get as riled up in a debate as they do with gender issues. They misinterpret bad ideas and stupidity as harmful intent. 

By telling us repeatedly that they have had really good sex, and that the sex has caused Jessica pain, the narrator is creating an association between the two things, essentially telling us that enjoyable sex involves a man injuring a woman.

This is from the article she wrote. And it's pure nonsense. But I don't believe she's actually this crazy. She's just so far down the rabbit hole of these issues, that she is losing the ability to navigate the nuance of each issue properly. She can't give any ground in these discussions. And that's the problem with internet arguments.

Both sides in this debate have good points, but neither can concede that, because any sign of weakness will be pounced on immediately. And that means that everyone becomes more and more extreme, and Poe's Law comes barreling into the discussion, adding an extra layer of difficulty to all criticisms and debate, as evidenced by "Ken" commenting on Alyson's journal post about her game:

Was it your intention to make women look really weak and fragile with this “game?” I was linked to this from reddit, and there’s a big argument going whether you’re for real or just making fun of feminists.
I mean, the “run home and cry to your cat” stuff is…it’s really misogynistic. You’re really painting a portrait of women as pathetic, spineless and as fragile as spun sugar.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that if the goal of this was to make women look weak, silly and incapable of dealing with life’s littlest hardships, then bang up job. If the goal was to get people to sympathize with the plight of women and change their attitudes, then this is a huge failure.
All this does is insult women. And if you think women are really like this, then you have a far worse opinion of women than the most raging misogynists I know.

Couldn't have said it better myself, Ken.

This has been an Empirical Opinions Journal, allow me to play you out: