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GamerGate’s Pathology in Less Than 140 Characters

By Chris Hall
November 5, 2014
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This is essentially what you’re saying if you’re a GamerGate supporter:

Tweet by @Hello_Tailor: "Should women be allowed to create and play video games without fear of being murdered in real life? Let's hear both sides of the story."Hello Tailor nails it beautifully. Even if we steelman1  Gamergate up the wazoo and accept that it’s really about ethics in journalism, the reality is that in the end, they’ve accomplished nothing more than inflict terrorism and fear.

There’s also a meta-statement to this tweet: A lot of people took it for the real thing. That’s not an indication that people are stupid, but it is a perfect demonstration of how severely out of control Gamergate has gotten. If you’ve been keeping track, it’s not that hard to believe that the ‘gaters would say something like this.

Sometime, there just aren’t two sides. We’re taught to believe otherwise, but sometimes staying neutral and acting like both sides are worthy of equal consideration is the same as teaming up with the bad guys.


  1. Steelmanning is the opposite of strawmanning an argument; instead of addressing the weakest form of your opponent’s argument, you argue against the best possible form of their argument. To my knowledge, the term was coined by Chana Messinger. In Gamergate’s case, of course, in order to steelman you have to dive straight into the realm of fantasy. ↩

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Filed Under: Featured, Feminism, Gaming Tagged With: feminism, gamergate, gender

Feministe Can’t Just Make Their Sex Work Problems Disappear [Updated]

By Chris Hall
September 26, 2013
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[Update: Thanks to Donna L for calling to my attention the fact that Feministe‘s editors have said that they removed the post at the request of the author. However, that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, such as: why they made the whole thing disappear without a trace, along with the comments; why didn’t they address the removal in a more public manner, instead of burying it in a “spillover thread”; and what positive steps they’ll take to center the voices of sex workers in the future.]

Sometime late last week, the editors of Feministe made a very embarrassing and controversial post about sex work disappear from their site, along with several hundred comments. As of this writing, they have not posted any explanation, apology, or retraction for the post, apparently hoping that they can just make it vanish down the memory hole.

Jill Filipovic, Editor of Feministe (Image from Wikicommons)

Jill Filipovic, Editor of Feministe
(Image from Wikicommons)

I wrote about the problems with “Dear Feminists” by Sarah Elizabeth Pahman last week, just before the Feministe staff decided to make it disappear. To summarize: it was not only whorephobic, but racist and classist. Although it pretended to be about poverty in America, and specifically about impoverished sex workers, it was all about Pahman, and how seeing them for the first time made her feel.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Feminism, Sex Work Tagged With: feminism, Feministe, Jill Filiipovic, Sex Work, social justice

Sign Adam Lee’s Petition, Expand Atheism

By Chris Hall
January 14, 2013
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Ayn Rand picture with signature

Ayn Rand: The woman who made it hip to be a selfish asshole.

Here’s words you won’t see me write (or hear me say) very often: sign this online petition. Generally, I think that online petitions and surveys are naught but meaningless wankery, but this one I think can do some good. One of the problems I have with online petitions is that they seem to take on Grand, Important Problems by allowing you to do nothing more than click a link. Adam Lee’s petition, on the other hand, is very specific about who it’s talking to, and what it’s talking about:

We support making the atheist movement more diverse and inclusive. It’s long been clear that the skeptical movement has a preponderance of white men. While we don’t disdain their participation, we believe skepticism is valuable and important to people in all walks of life, and in accordance with that principle, we consider it vital to have a movement that reflects the demographics of the society we live in. If our community continues to be dominated by white men, it will become increasingly out-of-touch and irrelevant as Western society becomes increasingly multiracial and multicultural and as non-Western countries gain economic and cultural power.

To that end, we urge the atheist and skeptical organizations to make a conscious commitment to diversity: to intentionally reach out to people of all ages, genders and ethnic backgrounds to speak at our conventions, to serve on our boards of directors, and to be the public faces and representatives of skepticism. We believe that there are talented, dedicated and eminently qualified people of every gender and every race, and that seeking them out will strengthen our movement and broaden its appeal.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Feminism, Politics Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, godlessness, justice, misogyny, racism

Natalie Reed Interview: Transphobia in the Hawkeye Initiative

By Chris Hall
January 11, 2013
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For my most recent piece at the SF Weekly, I wrote about the controversy that’s been boiling up around a new Tumblr Blog, The Hawkeye Initiative. In a way, it’s a blog that I’d like to applaud. It’s based on a very real and serious criticism of superhero comics for depicting female bodies in really weird, oversexualized, and distorted ways. The most famous example is the “boobs and butt” pose, which has become ubiquitous in superhero comics. A few examples of female characters contorting their spines in order to give the viewer tits and ass are seen below:

Wonder Woman strikes a classic "boobs and butt" pose.
Wonder Woman strikes a classic “boobs and butt” pose.
Red Sonja, swiped from Escher Girls
Red Sonja, swiped from Escher Girls
Fei Rin from Anarchy Reigns Videogame; another one from Escher Girls.
Fei Rin from Anarchy Reigns Videogame; another one from Escher Girls.

The Hawkeye Initiative has tried to critique this over-the-top aesthetic by having fans submit redrawn versions of comic book art that substitutes the Marvel character Hawkeye for female characters, in the hopes that it would make the absurdity of the poses more visible to people who take the boobs and butt approach for granted. And at first, there was a lot of positive response. The Hawkeye Initiative became the meme of the month for December of 2012, with media coverage from Wired, Geeks Are Sexy, Bleeding Cool, and i09, among others. But there’s also been an increasing amount of criticism on grounds that Hawkeye Initiative is using the very old trope of mocking effeminate men to make its point.

Transfeminist blogger Natalie Reed has been a very vocal critic of the Hawkeye Initiative. She was one of the first people I interviewed for the SF Weekly piece, and in fact, her thoughts make up the bulk of the quoted material in there, along with the ever-fabulous Kitty Stryker. One of the most painful parts about writing the article was figuring out just what I could cut and what to leave. She has a lot to say, and says it very well, and with her permission, I’m posting the full text of the interview here. There’s a lot to think on here; not only about gender and how we perceive it, but also about how to build and maintain truly intersectional analyses, instead of fighting one evil by building up another.

#

Chris Hall: First of all, could you summarize for me your criticisms of the Hawkeye Initiative?

Natalie Reed: So, my main concern with the Hawkeye Initiative, and related strategies of critiquing the representation of women in comics by placing men as substitutions in the poses, costumes or anatomy of female characters, boils down to how much of this strategy is based in the basic idea of “But it would be ridiculous if Hawkeye / Batman / Iron Man / Captain America were placed in this pose”, which is the suggestion that a male character being placed in the same pose/costume/anatomic-style will be perceived as more ridiculous than the female character, or make the ridiculousness more obvious while obviously the basic “point” here is to expose the ridiculous, impractical or anatomically impossible nature of the way female characters are represented, that point ends up falling over pretty heavily into transphobia and femmephobia by imagining these representations become more ridiculous by placing men in them. Frequently, in the Hawkeye Initiative or similar strategies, you see things like word balloons saying “I’m so pretty!”, or caption jokes about “look at Tony Stark’s seductive face!”, wherein the humor and “ridiculousness” of the drawing comes not from the basic preposterousness of the female representation itself, but from the way our culture perceives it as innately or intrinsically ridiculous, funny, disgusting, absurd or frivolous for a man (or person whose body we perceive as male) to dress, behave, or perform in “feminine ways.” This idea that it’s somehow inherently comical, or ridiculous, for a man, (or someone so designated), to do “feminine” things is one of the cornerstones of both trans-misogyny and femmephobia (the idea that femininity is inherently more superficial, silly, ridiculous, weak, or impractical than masculinity). [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Comics (and Comix), Gender, Pop Culture, Queer Politics Tagged With: comics, feminism, lgbt, queer, sexuality

Faith No More, Pt. 2: Genocide is Not Justice

By Chris Hall
December 31, 2012
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If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy. With faith, you don’t have to put any work into proving your case. You can “just believe.” —Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

Blind Faith

Read Faith No More Part 1

The extent to which faith compels progressive believers to blind themselves injustice so they can pretend their own ethics are backed up by divine authority is illustrated beautifully by Nahida herself, in the article that originally started my Twitter war:

[Nahida] interprets the condemnation of Sodom through a pro-queer, feminist lens as well: “My interpretation is that it was because they were rapists, not because the people they raped where of the same sex.” The book’s message, to her, is that “even when you don’t agree with someone’s decisions, you have no right to suppress the free will that was given to them by God.” Therefore, she says, Muslim law is inherently pro-choice, and inherently against imposing one’s religious beliefs on other people.

Whether the crime of Sodom was homosexuality, rape, or mere blasphemy, there is no way to tell that story without showing up god as a malignant, unjust thug. Nahida’s supposedly pro-queer and feminist interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah conveniently glides past the fact that according to the story, two entire cities were massacred by her god because of an attempted rape.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, Politics, Religion, social justice

Faith No More, Part 1: Why Religion is a Poor Tool for Justice

By Chris Hall
December 30, 2012
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As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.—Bertrand Russell

I believe, without reservation, that secularism is a far superior way to build a fair and just society than religious or spiritual thinking, no matter how well-intentioned.

Faith No More: We Care A Lot (Album Cover)That catches some people by surprise. When you’re out and open about being an atheist, they naturally think that the religious people you’re against are the cartoonish fundamentalist preachers on TV, the middle eastern theocrats that spray women in the face with acid for some crime or another against “modesty,” or child raping priests. And it’s true; I am against all of those people with a feverish passion. What catches people by surprise though, is that I’m also critical of the nice, liberal theists, the ones that I mostly agree with on issues of queer rights, feminism, poverty, racism, the environment, and so on.

And it’s true that I’m not against progressive theists in the same way that I am the fundamentalists. They are largely tolerant and decent people, and we can work together, at least in the short term. But in the long term, I think that using faith as a foundation for social justice is rot at the heart of the apple. What someone believes is important in determining what kind of person they are, but why they believe it is just as important, if not more so.

This has been sitting in my brain for a long time; it’s something that I wrestle with a lot, because criticizing religious progressives in some ways feels like kicking puppies. They are, after all, the good guys, as far as I’m concerned. I want more people in our society who support the rights of queers and women, who want people to have free medical care and free speech, and who are willing to stand up against poverty and racism.

But ultimately, I think that we’re a lot more likely to get those things if we stop trying to justify through the will of spirits and deities and prophets, and talk instead about the needs of ourselves and our communities, right here in the real world. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, Politics, Religion, social justice

Lolita, Darth Vader, and Hugo Schwyzer

By Chris Hall
April 13, 2011
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Darth Vader and Glenn Beck: It's their job to be villains.

When you watch Darth Vader blow up the planet of Alderaan in Star Wars, or telepathically strangle an incompetent flunkie in one of the sequels, it may be brutal, but it’s not really upsetting. That’s what Vader is there for; it’s his job to be a professional villain and spread bloodshed, pain, and misery throughout the galaxy. In a strange way, it’s comforting to see him relish his latest act of torture, murder, or genocide; it reassures you that the world is exactly the way you expect it to be.

The Darth Vaders of gender politics are people like Maggie Gallagher, Glenn Beck, Andrew Schlafly, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and their various hanger-ons . While I think that the world would be a better place without their hidebound misogyny and homophobia, I understand it. It’s their job to be assholes, and so when Beck spouts off his latest conspiracy theory about how the gays are going to shove their homo thing down his throat, I nod and take it in stride. The world is normal.

It’s when feminists, or anyone else that I think should be on the side of the angels, start weaving reactionary assumptions about gender that I wig out. The world is not as it should be. It’s as though I walked into a theater that’s showing another version of Star Wars, the one that Lucas keeps stored in his basement along with the last existing print of the Star Wars Holiday Special. In this version, Vader is still blowing up planets, but Luke and Leia spend their spare time downing beers with Imperial Stormtroopers and torturing kittens.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Feminism, Sex and Gender Tagged With: feminism, gender, lolita, sexuality

A Day of Choices

By Chris Hall
January 22, 2008
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Blog for Choice Day - January 22, 2007

Today is Blog for Choice Day. It’s today not as some arbitrary decision, but because January 22 is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Today it’s 34 35 years since the Supreme Court first handed down one of their most momentous decisions, and stirred up a whole fucking hornet’s nest that’s lasted ever since then. It’s one of the most polarizing issues in American politics, and although it’s not generally acknowledged, abortion is one of the nexus points for America; it speaks not only to our attitudes about sex, but about class and race. The battles over public funding of abortion have little, if anything, to do with upper-class women. It is a battle that takes place very explicitly over the bodies of poor women. This is a simple equation: the more money you have, the more likely you are to be able to go to a private physician and quietly get an abortion without having to march past protesters in front of a free clinic. This isn’t a truth that’s only arisen in the last 35 years. The significance of Roe v. Wade isn’t that it made abortion legal; it’s that it gave poorer women the option that had always been available to wealthy women. It equalized the choice. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Activism, Feminism, Politics Tagged With: abortion, Blog for Choice Day, choice, feminism

Boot-Wearing Resistance Hotties on the Loose!

By Chris Hall
January 10, 2008
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The Feminists, by Parley J. CooperWithout reservation, one of my great loves is the pulp fiction that was produced from about 1930 through the sixties. Actually, what I love is the art and cover designs, with their uninhibited exploitation of vice and guilt in gaudy colors and loud language. There’s just no more honest portrayal of the fears and desires of America at the time, either in the museums or the pulpits of the time, than those covers.  I’m in love with this one, The Feminists, put up on the new Sci-Fi blog io9 by Lynn Peril.  According to Lynn:

It’s the story of cubicle drone Keith Montalvo, who has been caught consensually slipping the pink torpedo to a female co-worker. Unfortunately, it’s 1992 and the Big-Sisterish “Committee” has outlawed all unauthorized heterosex, and his crime is punishable by death.

Keith flees underground, literally and figuratively, where he meets Angela, a boot-wearing resistance fighter hottie. Luckily for Keith, while women on the outside reject all males, Angela and other female members of the Subterraneans resistance movement are “attached to the men with arm-clinging closeness.” Soon he and Angela are working (arm-in-arm, of course) to assassinate the President, and reclaim gender supremacy for men.

Really, though, who needs a story when the cover is this glorious? I am enticed, however, by the comment by one Ginaromantica:

I own this book, and once performed an excerpt from it as a puppet show at a party. Pieces of toast on popsicle sticks played all the roles.

I’m in lust. Toast puppets.

—————-

Now playing: Tom Waits – Way Down In The Hole [Live]

via FoxyTunes

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Filed Under: Pop Culture Tagged With: feminism, Nerdy Goodness, Pop Culture, science fiction

Audacia Ray on Brian Lehrer

By Chris Hall
June 16, 2007
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I was at Viviane’s tea party for the NYC pervert community last Sunday when Audacia Ray mentioned that she was going to be on the Brian Lehrer show the next morning, debating with a member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) about sex work.

“Oh, really,” I said, eager to show off my naïveté, “I kinda thought that NOW had gotten smarter about that stuff.”

Apparently not. Although NOW officially takes the stance that sex work should be legalized, the New York State chapter has recently sponsored legislation that increases penalties for patronizing a prostitute, and is engaged in a campaign to get newspapers and magazines to refuse advertising from escort agencies and massage parlors. This all happens under the guise of fighting “trafficking.”

I am, in general, a supporter of feminism. Our gender roles are a complete mess, and we need to keep questioning them. My problems with feminists usually arise when they stop asking questions about gender and instead become gatekeepers against inquiry into gender. NOW and the Ms. Foundation have, despite much good work, traditionally acted as guardians of middle-class morality in certain areas, such as pornography and sex work.

Dacia does a great job, as usual, of putting forth an alternative, radical perspective on sex work. Although trafficking is an atrocity and needs to be dealt with seriously, it’s often used as cover for a barely-suppressed horror of sexuality and a paternalistic attitude towards poor people of color. I find that there’s a very visible difference between the philosophies of those who see sex workers as pitiful things to be rescued (e.g., Nicholas Kristof) and those with a more layered view of sex work. For the former, the emphasis is on the word “sex”; for the latter, the key word is “work.” To talk about the realities of prostitution or stripping, whether as an individual choice or as forced exploitation, we have to approach it as a labor issue, not a failure of sexual morals. Work is something that we all understand. We don’t like it, but we do it every day, and a lot of us wind up getting screwed. That part is happening more and more as corporate power becomes more hegemonic and the protections that we gained through so much hard work and organizing turn into ash. The story of most Americans in the workplace is this: no union, no health care, no vacation, and little, if any, right to sue when our employers’ abuses get to be too much to bear.

But no matter how much shit we take in the straight workplace, we can always think of ourselves as better off than a whore or a stripper, both morally and materially, because even the legal kinds of sex work are only barely so, and just doing it makes you disposable in the eyes of a lot of people.

If there’s ever going to be a humane solution to the problems that come with sex work, we have to legitimize the work itself and see those as labor issues, not moral ones. The fact that the woman on my favorite porn video is working in shitty conditions is a problem in the same way that it’s a problem that my shirt was made in a sweatshop by underpaid, abused workers. Both are realities of the society that we live in. Both need to be taken seriously, but the reality invalidates neither the use of porn nor of shirts. In a way, the average American worker is in a situation much closer to that of sex workers than they like to admit; too many Americans have accepted that their bosses can do whatever they want with their lives and livelihoods, and passively allow themselves to be trafficked by the corporate hierarchy.

The major point that Audacia made in her discussion with Brian Lehrer is that the NOW plan is a very, very bad one because it doesn’t do anything to address trafficking as such; it targets both voluntary and involuntary sex workers, and drives the ones who need help further underground. What NOW is proposing is much more effective as a strategy to protect mainstream moral sensibilities: out of sight, out of mind. She also points out that Amsterdam, rather than increasing punishments against johns, has had great success with using them as a resource to identify women who don’t want to be there. The American model of vengeful law ‘n’ order plays well in headlines and serves the reputation of politicians, but in the end does bupkiss for any of the people who matter.

You can listen to Audacia on the Brian Lehrer show in the player below, or download it at WNYC.

Resources for sex workers’ rights:

  • Sex Workers’ Outreach Project
  • $pread Magazine
  • Network of Sex Work Projects
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Filed Under: Politics, Sex Work Tagged With: Audacia-Ray, feminism, sex-workers, trafficking

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