Photo by Flickr user Ol.v!er, shared under a creative commons licence.

Much has been said about his words, but a lot of the online discussion focuses on “I now think he’s a douche” and not on why the post should be regarded as offensive. Well, I’m pretty clear on why I find it offensive.

In my posts for BadRep I have often expressed the sentiment that men have unique problems in society, and that those problems are just as invisible as some feminist issues. I believe it’s true. I’ve also recently written a post which stated my feelings on the constant cry of “but what about the men?” in response to feminist discussion. Short answer: if you look at the world and don’t see massive gender inequality harming women a lot more than men, and don’t think that reducing the gap (and aiming to eliminate these issues for everyone) would be a good thing, then I don’t want to know you.

Scott Adams didn’t say that feminism was no longer needed, or that men have bigger problems than women. His post can be summed up in two parts:

“Now I would like to speak directly to my male readers who feel unjustly treated by the widespread suppression of men’s rights:

Get over it, you bunch of pussies.”

Why would he say that – because he sees women’s rights as far more under attack? Er… no. He has this advice instead:

“The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.”

Scott states that he’s not comparing ‘women’ directly to ‘people with disabilities’ or children, but does advise his (male) audience to treat them all the same way – to take into account the “emotional realities of other people”.

And this is where most online discussion is only just starting to get it. It doesn’t MATTER if he’s right, or if he’s a realist. Either way this is shitty, inhumane advice.

It puts the reader in the group taking action, and puts women (and other humans with inconvenient ’emotional realities’) in a group marked “Other”. And as we all know, that’s classic 101 to dehumanising your target and making it easier to see them as objects who don’t need to be considered. It’s also bollocks. He’s giving instructions for how to manipulate others for your own success, without looking at any possibility of finding any common ground, sharing boundaries, or viewing them as real people who could be talked to. They’re just there to be made to go away with the least stress to him. Adams is dismissing the idea that his current views could be wrong and that he might learn something from women, because dialogue is not an option. He’d rather choose the path of least resistance. That’s a pretty closed mind right there.

It’s not easier for “everyone”, Scott. Just you.

It’s not easier for women, for example. Also: women, children and “the mentally handicapped”(!) are together a majority, which makes you sitting inside your privileged minority and dismissing them like this all the more craptastic. The majority of the human race are more emotional than you, Scott, and as you’ve just demonstrated probably have more empathy too.

Towards the end of the post he says:

“Fairness is an illusion. It’s unobtainable in the real world.”

For someone who has spent decades writing about the inhumanity of big business, that’s a surprising quote. And my inner Hopeless Idealist rejects it totally. Yes, men face different inequalities: in the divorce courts, in countries with a military draft, in society’s ancient ideas of what ‘masculine’ behaviour is. But even if I felt that these somehow matched the towering mountain of (frequently lethal) inequality facing women (which I don’t by several miles), I would never give up on seeking fairness. It’s an instinctive, empathic, humane response which shows that you’re a decent human being.

So yeah, I now think Scott Adams is a douche as well. Several additional words spring to mind (the lovely Miranda put in a vote for “ableist asshat” at this juncture). If you want to read his justifications (that he often takes the point of view on his blog which is most difficult to defend, that his readers know he often doesn’t even believe the argument he’s making, that we’re all devoid of “reading comprehension”) then you can wander over to where he’s currently trolling the comment thread at Feministe. Yes, seriously. At no time does he back down from the opinion he stated, or acknowledge how the act of grouping 51% of the planet and more into an ‘overly emotional’ box to be safely ignored for his own mental peace of mind is in any way douche-worthy.

We are better than his exclusionary, patronising bullshit, people. There’s an alternative where we keep talking, and learning, and looking for ways to make a society we can be proud of. Together. Because women are human beings, and the fact that this still needs saying means that all men should be jumping aboard the feminism boat for joint rock n’ roll pirate adventures. The alternative is a land run by people as ignorant, reactionary and self-absorbed as the boss in the Dilbert comics, and no-one wins when that happens.

– Steve B.
White, mid-thirties cis male who used to work for a giant American corporation and buy Dilbert calendars.

Today is World Down Syndrome Day 2011.

I don’t know how much you know about Down Syndrome as an individual reader. Don’t know much about it? Go and find out more about it. Think you know about it? Take some time to read and listen a bit more. Don’t be the person who scrolls on, eh?

I learned about Down Syndrome Day because I have a younger sister with Down Syndrome whom I lived with for sixteen years (I only moved out about two years ago) and so my family have lifetime membership of the Down Syndrome Association. I’d like everyone to know about it, though.

I’m not going to tell you a great deal about my family here because this is a short post – and because I haven’t asked what my sister thinks either about blogging on here, or being blogged about, yet, and not to do so would be at the least a bit cheeky. And also missing the point massively, in that “raising awareness” doesn’t mean I (an able-bodied person) get to trot out my non-consenting family on the internet in the name of Issues, or decide that me posting is better than actually getting they themselves on here to speak.

But here are some things to look at and read:

• Why disability is a feminist issue, from Feminists With Disabilities for a Way Forward. It’s a US-based perspective, but really, you should read it. Edit: this post too.
• A recent case of completely shitty education-based discrimination against a young woman with Down Syndrome. The words of her parents on this one struck a depressingly familiar chord with mine. They’ve had to navigate this sort of bullshit far too often, too.
• Mencap: find out more about what a learning disability is. Over 1.5 million people in the UK have a learning disability, so if you really care about activism and intersectionality of any kind, it’s worth your time. Seriously.

Will you let us in? A five minute film, covering 45 countries.

Read, think, share links around, and have a good week.

Image source: www.towntalk.co.uk

We like it when people we think are cool come out as feminists, or even just express views broadly in line with feminist ideas. It makes us feel cool. And if we can’t feel cool, we don’t wanna be part of the revolution. More seriously, it’s important to celebrate that folk come to feminism through all sorts of different routes and in their own time.

Whenever a person has a feminist revelation of the sort that we might think is obvious (such as the lack of good female role models in certain music genres), instead of going “well, duh?!” and getting cross, here at BR Towers we go “hey, yeah! Grab a drink and join the party.”

First up, Jade Puget, guitarist for chart-topping emo-punksters AFI and one half of EBM/dance project Blaqk Audio, realises there are barely any women in his beloved electronica.

I was reading one of my computer/electronic music nerd alert magazines today and I noticed that every one of these acclaimed electronic producers is male. I realized that the electronic music scene is almost completely male-dominated. …. we need a lady-led revolution in the scene, girls making ill breakbeat hardcore, wobbly dubstep basslines, 20 minute psybient epics.

Next, Hayley Williams, lead singer in chart-topping emo-pop-rockers Paramore, declares that she’s researching Riot Grrrl.

After finishing “Charlie Chaplin’s Own Story”.. I’m currently reading this book. Mostly to satisfy my thirst for knowledge on the Riot Grrrl Movement in the 90’s and bands such as Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. But I’m finding more and more that I wish my 13 year old self could’ve read it. Girls, women, ladies: check it out!

Both posts may have been up a little while, but finding them at the same time brought a smile.  I love that both of these excerpts reveal the demand for women past and present in the music business, and that rather than merely noting absences they are positive calls for action, alongside ways to get involved.

• Found Feminism: an ongoing series of images, videos, photos, comics, posters or excerpts – anything really, which shows feminist ideas at work in the everyday world. Send your finds to [email protected]!