The Culture of Bad Stuff

I'm probably going to make some enemies with this post. I say this not because I particularly care that I will, or because I'm trying to puff myself up as somehow "edgy", but because it's an easy choice for a punchy, attention-grabbing opener, and I'm not very creative.

Specifically, I'll be making enemies on both sides of the aisle, wherever this "aisle" happens to be. This is because I Have Noticed A Pattern recently of attributing the existence of things they're opposed to to some nebulously defined "culture". If you spend any time among pro-lifers, you're basically guaranteed to hear someone mention "the Culture of Death". In feminist/"social justice" circles, a popular Culture du jour is "the Rape Culture". There's been a lot of talk recently about America's "Gun Culture". Another example of this, though one that doesn't explicitly include the word "culture", is "the Patriarchy".

I don't like this pattern, as you will find is usually the case here. This isn't mainly because I dislike the idea behind it. The idea that to truly fix a problem we have to attack it at its roots is a good idea. To reduce abortion we need to offer assistance to pregnant women, and to reduce violence we need to look at reasons people commit violent acts, such as poverty or religious/political extremism or disputes over land and resources. The problem is that (crudely extending with the plant metaphor set up by "roots") people try to go a step further, blaming the soil itself. Then, they start attacking anything even remotely dirt-like, including chocolate, and anyone who dares to question why they're opening a clip magazine into a chocolate cake can be dismissed as a dirt-sympathizer.

This probably isn't that clear, so I'll include some real-world examples.

1.) "Abortion Donuts"
In early 2009, the U.S. was just about to inaugurate Barack Obama. To commemorate this occasion, Krispy Kreme decided to celebrate the American tradition of choosing the head of the executive branch of our federal government every four years by offering a free donut to everyone who came in on January 20th, 2009. As an added bonus, you even got to choose what kind of donut you wanted!

Now, a normal person would go "Sweet, free donuts!" and stop by if they had the opportunity. But the American Life League was OUTRAGED! You see, Krispy Kreme had made the mistake of using the word "choice" in their announcement not once, but twice! And of course, as ALL put it, "‘choice’ is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of ‘freedom of choice’ is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.".

Never mind that in this context, "choice" clearly refers to choosing your president and choosing what flavor of donut you want. Never mind that abortions and donuts have absolutely nothing to do with each other! Can't you see that the only way to stop abortion is to fight the "Culture of Death" in all its forms, wherever it shows up, even in donut giveaways? Anyone who dissents isn't really pro-life, because they're just feeding into the Culture of Death. Toss those fudge candies out the window!


2.) "Rape Pizza"
In 2012, Domino's Pizza came out with a line of "artisan" pizzas. These pizzas, they said, were so finely tuned that they were literally perfect, and they won't let anyone sully that perfection by requesting, say, extra pepperoni or whatever. They'd normally say yes to any (reasonable) pizza customization requests, but this time they are forced, by the sheer perfection of these "artisan" pizzas, to say no. In addition to some television ads, on of their pizza boxes touts this new policy with a short "No is the new yes" slogan, and then goes on underneath to further explain and elaborate what I just detailed above.

Now a normal person would go "Well, that's kind of silly. Not everyone will like the same thing, and I ought to be allowed to pick what toppings I want!" and then either go about their day, or maybe try one of them if they're really curious. But the Feminist™ blogosphere was OUTRAGED! You see, Domino's had made the mistake of using the word "no" on their pizza box. And of course, as Electa Blog put it, "This new campaign is clearly a mash-up of ‘_______ is the new black’ and ‘No means no’" and "‘No means no’ has a meaning tied up with men making unwanted sexual advances on women.".

Never mind that in this context, "no" clearly refers to denying a customer's request to change a pizza's toppings. Never mind that rape and pizzas have absolutely nothing to do with each other! Can't you see that the only way to stop rape is to fight the "Rape Culture" in all its forms, wherever it shows up, even in stupid pizza taglines? Anyone who dissents isn't really anti-rape, because they're just feeding into the Rape Culture. Light those Oreos on fire!


The link for 1.) is to Feministe, while the link for 2.) is to Feministing. This was not an accident. Neither was my decision to format the two sections in a nearly identical manner There were several articles on each story, but I choose these two for a reason: to demonstrate how it can be so obvious to us when they do this, but when we do the same thing, it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT, GUYS.

I used to think that this trend was one of paranoid pessimism, imagining that something you hate comes from some nebulous shadow conspiracy. However, I've recently realized it's probably the opposite: lazy optimism, or at least wishful thinking. This is especially obvious in the case of the "Culture of Death". Many pro-lifers believe that if we can end this Culture, everything will fall like a house of cards. Not just abortion, but assisted suicide, and euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research, and (for some) the death penalty and war, and… well, you get the picture.

The same can be said about "the Patriarchy", however. The wage gap? Patriarchy. Not enough women in the government? Patriarchy. People not wanting to pay for something that violates their moral beliefs, or wanting women to at least know all the facts before an abortion, or wanting to draw attention to false rape accusations? Patriarchy, Patriarchy, Patriarchy!

This also frees people from having to think too much about where they direct their attention. This saves effort on their part, yes, but I think more importantly it makes their target vague and expansive. Therefore, those people who are fueled by moral indignation can always have something to wag their fingers at. An example of this is the "Gay Agenda" that's always mentioned by conservatives. Something totally benign, like Spongebob or Tinky Winky or a boy getting his toenails painted, can be attacked with a vengeance. Sharpshooting becomes a lot easier if you can just fire wildly and then say "That's exactly what I was trying to hit!".

So please, before you fire that fudgsicle into the Sun, ask yourself: Is this really going to help kill the weed, or am I just looking for something to strap to my rocket?

A Troubling Pattern in Rape Discussions

Okay, I Have Noticed A Pattern that pisses me off, and I want to talk about it. There's some more swearing ahead (and behind, I guess. Oops.), so you've been warned.

First, take a look at this image:



In case the image is no longer on Imgur by the time you're reading this, I'll sum up it up for you: 

A men's rights group posts an image discouraging false rape accusations. The image has a lighthearted tone (telling people to use a "buddy system", asking a friend before making a false rape claim), and is clearly done in the style of PSAs that offer tips on rape prevention. However, it makes clear that this is a serious issue, stressing how being falsely accused of rape can negatively affect his reputation, and possibly ruin his life, for years to come.

The left-hand side of the image presents a series of Twitter posts reacting to this image, mostly from one woman. How, pray tell, does she react to this sensible admonition against slandering innocent men?

She FLIPS THE FUCK OUT. A sizable fraction of the tweets are literally her expressing a desire to VIOLENTLY MURDER the person(s) who put together the image. A handful of other users add their two cents, and in the massive shitstorm of blood lust we are treated to maybe two corn kernels of coherent thought, both centering around the idea that anyone who disagrees with them is a rapist. Seriously.

Firstly, the idea that the only people afraid of being accused of rape are rapists. This is clearly bullshit, and I direct them to the word "false".

Secondly, the idea that the image stressing how bad false rape accusations are is an attempt to scare women away from reporting when they're raped, so that the people behind the image can continue raping people. Again, emphasis on FALSE accusations.

Yes, there are always idiots on Twitter. Social media doesn't create idiots; it just gives them a soapbox. That's not the problem.

The problem is they're actually somewhat mainstream.

By now, everyone and their cat knows about Todd Akin and his "legitimate rape" comment. If you've been living under a rock, or are somehow reading this from 2011, Todd Akin was GOP candidate who was questioned on abortions in the case of rape. Because he's a politician and not a philosopher, he didn't respond by explaining why he thinks that an unborn child has a right to live, and how that right even applies to people conceived in rape. Instead, he dodged the question with a short soundbite, stating that pregnancies from rape are rare because "if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down".

Now, some people have been calling him stupid, but I'm not sure that's the case, because the oft-repeated audio clip omits the beginning of the sentence, which is along the lines of "What I understand from doctors is…". Overly credulous, maybe, but not stupid.

People such as Jon Stewart have been mocking this quote by making mention to "vaginas that can repel rape sperm", but what he's actually suggesting is that the woman's body will suppress ovulation. But whatever. This is still not true, and the odds of getting pregnant from rape are the same as the odds of getting pregnant from any act of sex. Why do I care, and what does this have to do with the start of this post?

People are calling Akin a misogynist. 

Is he a gullible fool? Yes.
Should he be on the Science Committee? Of course not.
Is he a misogynist? No. 

These people seem to be operating off of a very common (but incorrect) definition of the term. Misogyny is the hatred of women. That's it. There seem to be three main reasons people have for him being a misogynist.

1: He's white/male/Republican, and all whites/males/Republicans hate women.
2: He's against abortions, and therefore hates women.
3: He used the words "legitimate rape".

1 is clearly stereotyping and an ad hominem attack, so I won't discuss it further.
2 is also an ad hominem, but it's a circumstantial ad hominem (also known as Bulverism), which are often not recognized as fallacious, so I'll go into a little more detail here.

A circumstantial ad hominem is where you attack a person's motivations, rather than their arguments. It goes like this: "You make claim P. You only claim P because of X. Therefore, not P."

In this case, the argument is that Akin (and, by extension, any prp-lifer) is opposed to abortion because he hates women. Whether this is true or not has not effect on the truth of his claim, but when asking if he's a misogynist this is irrelevant; he could be correct and still be a misogynist. However, this is most likely NOT the case. I can't read minds (thank Celestia),  but most pro-lifers oppose abortion because we believe that a human embryo or fetus is just as entitled to protection under the law as any other human being. It has nothing to do with hating women, and in fact women are essentially just as likely as men to be pro-life.

But we're getting off track. Let's get back to 3, which ties in with what this post was supposed to be in the first place.

Akin said "if it was a legitimate rape", and this has a lot of people's knickers in a twist. They start screaming defensively about how "RAPE IS RAPE" and how he's "delegitimizing" some rape, or creating different classes of rape. Some say he's contributing to a "rape culture*".

But Akin never said that some rapes were more rape-y than other rapes. These people seem to think that Akin was replying that some women who are raped are raped illegitimately, and thus their experience wasn't as bad. This is simply false. Anyone actually listening to what he's saying and using common sense can tell this is false. According to Akin, EVERY WOMAN WHO WAS RAPED WAS LEGITIMATELY RAPED. Who was illegitimately raped? NO ONE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. "If it's a legitimate rape" means the same as "If she was (actually) raped". So why include "legitimate" at all?

BECAUSE NOT EVERY WOMAN WHO SAID SHE WAS RAPED WAS ACTUALLY RAPED.

This should not be a controversial statement. Not all women are prefect, flawless, sinless angels. Sometimes, some of them lie. Acknowledging this fact does not delegitimize anyone's traumatic experiences BECAUSE IT ONLY PERTAINS TO THOSE WHO HAD NO SUCH EXPERIENCES. This whole mentality seems to rest on the assumption that false rape claims never happen (which is demonstrably false), and that therefore anyone who claims they do is saying someone who was raped "wasn't really raped" in the figurative sense, meaning their rape wasn't as bad.

NOT ALL WOMEN ARE PERFECT. IT IS NOT MISOGYNIST TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS.

That sentence is more or less the take-home lesson for this blog post. It's importance has been highlighted by being in all caps. 

This sort of thing happens because people like this have a knack for interpreting things in the worst possible way, even if it means taking them completely out of context (e.g. the "some girls, they rape so easy" quote), because they're looking for things to be offended by. They want to feel like they're doing good, so if their pet cause is winning/has won/never had any opposition to start with and there's nothing for them to do to help, instead of being satisfied with this, they start looking for (or making up) bullshit to be upset about. If you dress up as a geisha for Halloween, you're a "racist". Liking sexy Halloween costumes is "objectifying women". Derpy Hooves is "offensive to disabled people". Not liking sexy Halloween costumes is "slut-shaming". But I digress; I could write a whole article on this kind of people, and I will, but it would just make this post even ramblier than it already is. 


*(I should make clear that "rape culture" is not a thing that exists, at least not in Western countries. Society as a whole farther dislikes rape, which is why it's illegal. This "rape culture", like "the patriarchy" is just a histrionic term used by tumblr SJW types to label anyone who disagrees with them as part of some massive misogynist conspiracy.)