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Roderick

Feminism

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Figured out why this blew up and what #orangeroom is.  The Today Show ran a piece on Women against Feminism this morning, and their trademarked hashtag for viewers to discuss issues of the day on Twitter is orangeroom. 

 

They interviewed the honey badger that Ben linked above, which is why her blog is making the rounds now. 

 

I just spent some time looking around her blog.  She's running a series called "100 Days of advice on how to treat men right."  Parts of it read like a guide to being a good housewife in the 50s.

 

"#6 When he comes home from work, give him space for an hour to unwind.  This great advice is from a friends mother. Men working all day come home and need to unwind and have some time for themselves."

 

"#8 Stand up to misandry when you see it."

 

"#10 Make some gal pals" - This one is all about the importance of having friends to talk about the things your husband doesn't care about, but make sure that they are lady friends.  No reason given, just, because, you know.  Women's friends should be other women. 

 

"#14 Don’t bring a problem to him if you don’t want a solution.  Men are problem solvers."

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I agree with the hour for a space to unwind, but for both sexes. I don't see why that has anything to do with male or female but instead a need to settle down a little bit, especially if you just came home from a bunch of shitty traffic.

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I amused myself by taking those bits of advice to their absurd extreme (note: I obviously don't actually believe any of these)

 

#6: Your man's been working all day.  He doesn't want to hear how your day cooking and cleaning went.  Just hand him a drink and he'll call for you when he wants you.

 

#8: Don't listen to all those catty women.  They just haven't found a good man yet.

 

#10: Your man doesn't want to hear about your nonsense.  Save the gossip for your other women friends.

 

#14: If you do have a problem that needs fixing, your man can fix it for you.

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Today I learned yet another new weird term in all this MRA vs Feminist nonsense. I think a small part of me dies every time.

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#10: Your man doesn't want to hear about your nonsense.  Save the gossip for your other women friends.

 

That's actually exactly her point:

 

If you want to gab just for the sake of gabbing, that’s what gal pals are for. You know we love to shoot the breeze and we can speak for hours about nothing at all. When with the man in your life be conscious that he is also enjoying the conversation as well. Speak with him, not at him.

 

 

I agree with the hour for a space to unwind, but for both sexes. I don't see why that has anything to do with male or female but instead a need to settle down a little bit, especially if you just came home from a bunch of shitty traffic.

 

Yeah, I inherently agree with self-care and taking some time to switch gears between work and home life.  But the structure of the full post is just...very old fashioned about the man as breadwinner and woman as home keeper. 

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That's actually exactly her point:

 

Well she's obviously never listened to the Idle Thumbs podcast and heard 3 dudes talk for hours about nothing at all.

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I have worn mine to work/school, around the significant other, and most hilariously, to a Steam Dev Day event. It's a shirt that keeps on giving! Everyone should have one.

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So you know how everyone was excited for D&D 5e saying progressive things about gender?

 

Yeah, about that.

 

http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest-parts

 

Ugh, what a damning article, and all the comments for it are, "I haven't seen evidence of this harassment so it probably doesn't exist." Honestly, I have no faith in their ability to see evidence of harassment when it's obvious they didn't even read the article.

 

Really, bonus points go to the guy who tries to refute the year-old ban from another site line by line, with every single defense being some variation of "He's rude and confrontation, but he has a reason for it, so he's not a bully." You know what a guy who's rude and confrontational but always has a reason for it is? A slightly smarter-than-average bully. Never read the comments.

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I remember watching a couple of the Hit it with my Axe episodes on Escapist with Zak and the porn stars.  It was mildly entertaining for an episode, but I didn't enjoy it enough to watch more.  Other than that, I had never encountered anything by him. 

 

Holy straight jacket Batman, the other guy, that's tinfoil hat crazy land.  I feel like I'm a little crazy after have just read a few articles on his site.  Obviously he's known for that site, and WOTC brought him on as a tester/consultant anyways? 

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So you know how everyone was excited for D&D 5e saying progressive things about gender?

 

Yeah, about that.

 

http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest-parts

 

I'm not sure I agree with the thesis of the article that a company is responsible for the opinions of every employee.  When it's a CEO or other management (i.e. the whole Firefox debacle), equating a person's opinion to that of the company's makes sense.  However, if they're just regular employees, then why does their opinion matter?  I'm not saying that these people shouldn't be fired (they should), but I really don't like the idea of companies acting as thought police and then having the internet combing through online documents to be informers.  

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I'm not sure I agree with the thesis of the article that a company is responsible for the opinions of every employee.  When it's a CEO or other management (i.e. the whole Firefox debacle), equating a person's opinion to that of the company's makes sense.  However, if they're just regular employees, then why does their opinion matter?  I'm not saying that these people shouldn't be fired (they should), but I really don't like the idea of companies acting as thought police and then having the internet combing through online documents to be informers.  

 

At least in one case, it isn't someone who "has an opinion".  It's someone who has attacked and harassed other designers and gaming fans.  And written rambling, incoherent paranoid screeds about a conspiracy to destroy tabletop gaming.   You really think that it doesn't matter if someone being paid by a company has a history of harassment and abusive behavior towards people who are customers of that company?  This isn't a case of, "Oh, this employee has an opinion I disagree with."  It's a case of someone who is consistently toxic and degrading to the community at large.

 

The case against Zak is less clear to me, as the one linked example was actually on the tame side for a forum argument, but I'm not going to say that the people who are upset by his choice are wrong.  In order to get banned from RPGnet permanently, there must be more to that story somewhere.

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If the employer is unaware of that behavior, though, I don't think it's fair to hold the employer responsible.

 

I find it hard to believe anyone could not be aware of that shit, though, just from a simple Google search. And even more offensive is the willful disbelief after asking for examples of shitty behavior and then throwing them out the window as if they're meaningless.

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Switching from sociopathic man-children, but not really, I just found out about Manfeels Park, which illustrates MRA screeds as delivered by Mr. Darcy. Most of them are more "true" than "funny," but that's okay, because some of them are both:

 

enhanced-buzz-6884-1406765644-8.jpg

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The point of that article is that the employer was made aware and chose to ignore it.

Again though, how much do we want to allow employers to make work judgments based on private activities?  The answer to this is obviously different for everyone but I hate the idea of my employer constantly spying on me, even at home.  

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Again though, how much do we want to allow employers to make work judgments based on private activities?  The answer to this is obviously different for everyone but I hate the idea of my employer constantly spying on me, even at home.  

 

This isn't about generalities, and it's not about private activities.  That's treating this exceptionally disingenuously.  This is about two very specific individuals and their years long interaction with the customer base that WotC serves, through their previous professional work.  You're talking about this as though it were some vague situation about someone's private beliefs that can be extrapolated out to any person or company. 

 

Do you not believe that how you have publicly comported yourself in a professional capacity has no bearing on whether or not people should hire you in the future? 

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Thanks for that Gormongous. It's pretty close to what I was wishing for two pages ago.

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Again though, how much do we want to allow employers to make work judgments based on private activities?  The answer to this is obviously different for everyone but I hate the idea of my employer constantly spying on me, even at home.  

 

If I'm hired as a contractor for a job because I am an internet celebrity with a large following, I would expect that any bullying and harassment committed by me or my following would reflect on my celebrity and therefore my employer's reasons for keeping me employed.

 

Thanks for that Gormongous. It's pretty close to what I was wishing for two pages ago.

 

My pleasure!

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You would think hormones would make you throw caution to the wind and get rid of that attitude. Guess not.

If you are referring to the Mr. Darcy comic and the Is-feminism-keeping-me-from-getting-laid letter by association, I've been thinking about this a bit more and I'm even more confident in the idea that the obstacle of not wanting to look like a dick is appropriately overcome by actually being attracted to someone. As I think more about the letter that Argobot posted, I become convinced that the real issue wasn't that dude was being too considerate, it was that he had a fear of rejection and he was using his feminist perspective as an excuse to never try. This, of course, assumes that he actually was interested in any of the ladies he mentions in the letter.

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It's not that black and white. Speaking as someone who suffers from the "I don't want to be a creep" syndrome pretty much every time I'm around people I don't know, it has nothing to do with my fear of rejection. I do have a fear of rejection, but I'm more than conscious enough of it to know it has no bearing on my fear of coming off as a creep. And then there's also just my shyness in general, which keeps me from wanting to talk to anyone I don't know, woman or man, attracted to or not.

 

...I have trouble with people.

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