I am still blocking Susan Walsh from commenting here. However, she still acts like she can write comments normally despite her comments ending up right in my moderation queue. Here is what she wrote in response to my last post:
Two clarifications:
1. When I read comments at the Spearhead I often feel uncomfortable, even violated. This is why the mugging analogy works. There is a sense that many men there actively wish women harm. I am not the first to make this observation, nor am I the only woman. Several male commenters on my own blog have complained about the general tenor of conversation there. From what I have read, it sounds like Welmer himself has concerns around this issue.
FWIW, I agreed with the comment Tweell made – Obsidian’s post was really about peacocking, which is a key feature of MM.
2. I laughingly agreed (on my own blog) that white folks are pretty neurotic, though I did not single out men. I was actually speaking for myself – as you undoubtedly saw just above that comment, I described myself as a mildly neurotic white woman and took offense at a remark by Obsidian. Therapy is totally SWPL, and I recommend it highly, having gone for a while myself a few years back.
We all know Susan Walsh in neurotic. There is no need to tell us that but that’s beside the point. Let’s ask a simple question. If The Spearhead really is filled with men who want to do women harm then why is it anyone who speaks out on the issue either has no credibility on the subject or destroys their credibility in the process like Obsidian did? Telling us that multiple women feel this way is meaningless since we have seen this exact method used over and over again to shut men up. Saying that there are men who agree is meaningless since there are plenty of white knights and manginas out there.
Take note of what Susan Walsh said, “I often feel uncomfortable, even violated. This is why the mugging analogy works. There is a sense that many men there actively wish women harm.” Notice the words, “feel”, and “there is a sense”. This is the hallmark of code orange shaming language, that the target is accused of being a menace in some undefined manner. Where is the hard evidence? Instead the men of The Spearhead are some sort of threat based on women’s “feelings”. In fact the idea that the men of The Spearhead are some sort of dangerous menace is a steaming pile of turds and there are three reasons why:
- Has anyone seen any man from The Spearhead actually acted on these supposed “wishes for women to be harmed”? Obviously not. There is not a single example. Speaking more in general you would have to go back 21 years ago to find an actual act of violence that was even had a motivation that was slightly relevant to the views of the men of The Spearhead, Marc Lepine. Marc Lepine has no real similarity to the men of The Spearhead or MRAs in general. His real name was Gamil Gharbi and his actions were based on views derived from his Arab-Muslim background. If you take a look at them they have no real relation to anything any MRA has ever said. Even if you disagree the fact that you have to go back 21 years for an example is pretty telling.
- There is no real MRM. If more men were acting in a violent and harm inducing manner towards women we would see more action from men about men’s issues in general beyond that. Men aren’t doing anything about men’s issues so far but they are supposed to be an unspecified dangerous threat. There is a lack of action of all kinds.
- Anyone who claims that the men of The Spearhead or MRAs in general are some sort of threat wishing to do women harm does not really believe this because they don’t act like these men are a threat. Take the case of criticism of Islam. Many people are afraid to criticize Islam because of threats of violence. Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, refuses to mock Islam because he fears for his life. Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller refuses to do an episode of their Bullshit! show on Islam because “they have families”. These are the actions that people take when there is an actual threat. Too many people are willing to claim that the men of The Spearhead or MRAs in general are violent threats to women for it to be true because if it was true, most of them would be too scared to speak about it.
Anyone who claims that the men of The Spearhead or MRAs in general is a threat to women has no credibility. In addition strawmen get created that destroy credibility. During this we saw Obsidian create strawmen like claiming that all these men had an “irrational hatred” of Michelle Obama and needed therapy. The only person who was talking about Michelle Obama in all this was Obsidian, and calls for therapy are code white shaming language. He has also created strawmen about how the men of The Spearhead “can’t get laid”, with some vague connection to being virgins with the HBDers being “evidence” despite the fact that the overlap between MRAs/The Spearhead and HBD is minimal to nonexistent. (Since Susan Walsh’s comment is what inspired this post, it’s also worth pointing out that she fed this strawman by seeming to claim that the HBD virgins were typical male virgins.) This is code tan shaming language. As we know MRAs come from all different places. Some are celibate. Some are married. Some are PUAs. Some of us have girlfriends. This means that many of those criticizing Obsidian are married, have girlfriends, or are otherwise getting laid.
The strawman that I’m really surprised that gets repeated over and over again is that the men of The Spearhead were against basic hygiene. Obsidian claims that we refuse to “wash our asses and wear some halfway presentable clothes”. This is really gone beyond a strawman to outright fabrication. No one has claimed men should not take showers or wear crappy clothes. I can’t even see how Obsidian or anyone else making that claim really believes this. The mancession isn’t total yet. Most of us still have jobs and those jobs have a de-facto requirement of daily “washing of our asses”. I’m sure Obsidian would respond with his tired refrain of how we’re all “whitebreads who got the world handed to them on a platter”.
In addition to the strawmen, another part of the credibility problem is the holes this argument has. On The Spearhead someone asked, “What about Roosh?” since he has the attitude that Obsidian claims the men of The Spearhead have yet is obviously not a MRA virgin bitter about not getting laid. Someone else asked, “What about Globalman?” since he may be one of the few cases where Obsidian is correct yet he is ignored and “What about Hestia?” since if The Spearhead was filled with angry MRAs bitter about not getting laid then we should have lynched her already.
The last claim we have here is that Welmer has some concerns about this. The problem is that Welmer has not spoken directly about this issue so we really don’t know what he thinks. I did find this which might be close:
One of the things about comments is that a lot of them are as much about blowing off steam as anything else. These are frustrating times, so I’m pretty liberal about letting people do that (I also find policing people distasteful), even though I tend to get a lot of grief for it. Seems to me that Vitamin is blowing off a bit of steam as well, so I’m not going to hold that against him. Also, until I see proof otherwise, I’m going to assume Vitamin is a man.
Whatever the case, I suppose I should just say cool it here. Vitamin, if you think most guys here are out to ravish women without taking responsibility for it, you’ve got an inaccurate view of the readership — in fact, many of us are more upset over losing our children or the prospect for a normal life than we are over whether or not we’re getting laid. Does that sound like a bunch of “skanks” who simply want to screw around without any repercussions?
As for guys who are slamming Vitamin, take a moment to think about the fact that there are a lot of men out there who are close to the women in their lives, and they will not react well to blanket statements about women, because they will imagine their daughters, wives or whoever. For them, it’s quite personal.
This is a lot different than “the readership of The Spearhead is all angry and bitter (and can’t get laid)”. Welmer is free to clarify this if he so chooses but I question just how much that will happen with people claiming the same thing about Welmer like this guy who says that Welmer has “anger issues” over his divorce/custody of his children/child support as if you are not supposed to be angry at an injustice because a woman was responsible for it.
If The Spearhead is filled with angry and bitter men why is it so hard to find someone with credibility on the subject to speak about it and not destroy their credibility in the process? Where is the sound and reasonable argument for that point of view? Why can’t an argument be made that doesn’t involve shaming language, strawmen about Michelle Obama, strawmen about virgins and/or “not getting laid”, strawmen about hygiene, racially based attacks claiming that we’re all “whitebreads who have the world handed to them on a platter”, and claims that because a woman “feels” afraid it must be true? This should not be difficult yet it is.
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