A feminst hacked my blog - reader responses

By now you’ve all heard the news: Muse and Abuse was hacked, and my torrent of anti-gay, anti-women, anti-black propaganda shut down.

It’s been a hectic few days. I thought I’d lose my blog forever, but luckily I figured out her password. It wasn’t too hard either. Got it on the first time, too: “OMGdidyoujustassumemygenderSOTRIGGEREDKILLALLMENproblematicBeckiesSTFU”.

I’ve of course, pressed charges, but her father’s expensive lawyer pressured me into dropping the case. Turns out she was right about that two-tiered system of justice.

However, it’s always good to listen opposing sides of arguments – even those you would never vehemently agree with. It keeps you on your toes, keeps your blog from being a circlejerk, and confuses the fuck out of the algorithm that has to try decide what content to serve you on social media platforms.

And since the ordeal, I’ve received a lot of letters addressed to the part-time illegitimate editor of Muse and Abuse. I thought I’d leave the reply (from “Stuart” we’ll call him) below. It's illuminating.

Dear Angie Davison,

Thank you for your bravery. It was truly courageous what you did. You took a risk for a laudable goal: to tell us things. Things we need to hear. Things of dire importance. Things that I, as a straight white male – am not allowed to say because it isn’t my place to contribute to a complex, nuanced discussion of our society and laws.

So thank you. Thank you for taking the incredibly gutsy decision to hack a blog that is read by nearly 12 people.

As a white, straight, cis-male, I think about all those other white, straight, cis-males who inflict such pain on the world by merely being alive. You’re right: men are such fucking scum, especially the white ones. It makes me mad. It makes me ashamed of myself. I’ve thought about killing myself for the past two years just so that there would be one less of me for you to get triggered by at all waking moments.

Feminism isn’t as evil as people think it is. Especially not this latest version of it. It changes lives. It changed my life forever. Let me tell you a story.

When I was in highschool, I was a nerd. I didn’t play any sports. I didn’t have many friends. I was weird. I didn’t develop proper social skills. While all those other boys went out onto the rugby field and re-enacted the values of a violent patriarchy and perpetuated the dangerous norms of ultraviolent masculinity that seeks not only to own women and kill them, but also kill other men who want to own their women, I had to sit and brood.

I was just an adolescent boy, after all. I had hormones. I had insecurities. I had desires. But no girls would talk to me. They would just focus on those rugby boys (of course it was only later that I learned that this is because women are indoctrinated re-enact and re-perpetuate the disgusting patriarchy unless she is doing of her own free will in which case that is an empowering decision and I commend her bravery and FIRE YASS).

And so I sat in sadness.

But where, as we all know, most boys like me would have gone out and murdered hundreds of women in a blood-soaked, sex-driven mass killing spree, I went to a liberal college and discovered our Lordess and saviour, Third-wave Feminism.

Now girls talk to me. I wow them with how amazing they are. I croon agreement and echo their thoughts, agreeing with everything they say because as women they are always right and we need to believe everything they say without hesitation, criticism, or need for evidence. I hold their bags. I snort derisively about men - all men - loudly and aggressively whenever possible.

Sure, they still don’t sleep me, or look at me as anything more than a hand-bag holding lackey to serve as a silent ally without the ability to hold, defend or form his own opinions, but it beats whacking off to Naruto. Besides, who needs the physical touch of another human being if you know you’re an evil that would just infect other, pure, female souls, a sick piece of shit who must atone for the sins of those who share his race and sex?

I’m deeply sorry, Angie (do you have a non-hetero-normative-post-birth-name, or does your assigned identity empower you?), I didn’t mean to say “human”. I meant “humxn”. I’ll add ten dozen “Hail Anita”s and forty “Praise Be to Jessica Valenti”s to my hourly privilege checking.

Anyway, I think third-wave feminism gets a bad rep. So what if it doesn’t use the racist, oppressive so-called “scientific standard”? Who cares if it ignores compelling evidence and argues vague pseudoscience that hasn’t been peer-reviewed beyond a panel of people who share Our Own One Truth? What does it matter if we refuse to have calm, level-headed discussion using clear examples and proven statistics in favour of abject screaming?

It’s all because of unfair stereotypes, baseless generalisations and oversimplified straw-man constructions by trans-hating, racist, misogynistic white male bigots who want to see God-King Trump remove his outer layer to reveal Satan wearing a Hitler costume.

They disparage degrees in Media Studies and Gender Studies – but how else can a person learn not to be a fucking arsehole to women, other men, and people who are different to them? Common decency? Basic human empathy? Societal laws and rules for civil life?

No. Only an expensive four-year degree that saddles you with crippling debt (THANKS FOR NOTHING OBAMA) can do that. Well, that and starting a tumblr blog.

I only ask one thing, Angie. That you delete this blog. Of course, everyone is gonna shout about “MUH FREEDUM OF SPEECH”, but they forget that we have nothing against different opinions. Just as long as they are all different in the same way.

This isn’t funny. This isn’t satire. When I read him making fun of third-wave of feminism, it was triggering. We can’t allow this kind of violence and patriarchal brutality to be meted out any more. I’ve already blocked him on Twitter. Please do us a favour and block him for the rest of the world.

PS: if you’re triggered please please please reach out DM me I have cookies and hugs and blankies and puppies and I can say nice things to you.

Yours in a way that doesn’t condone ownership of other people,

Stuart

Turning topic into race, gender issue “exactly what was needed”

True progress showed itself on Facebook today, after an innocent, inoffensive status was immediately turned into a racial and gender issue.

The post, which was a harmless joke about the Springbok’s match last weekend against New Zealand, only lasted 12 minutes before being skewed and twisted out of context and proportion to become an embittered flamewar about racism and sexism in the white-supremacist-capitalist patriarchy of televised sports culture. In just one day it attracted thousands of comments and arguments from incensed online commenters.

The status’s author, Jake Hendersen, now says that he’s glad they’ve started a “conversation” around race and sexism.

“You know, when I posted my status I just wanted to poke fun at New Zealand friends about this weekend’s match and say ‘springboks r the best lol all blacks are so useless’, not knowing my awful spelling would cause a digital meltdown,” he told reporters this morning.

“But now that hundreds of people are typing out ALL-CAPS hate speech, racial slurs, ad hominem attacks and demands that the idiots on the opposing side go read a fucking book, I’m glad to see a ‘discussion’ has started. This is just the first step one a long, arduous journey to a future free of racism, gender-based hatred, and harmless humour.

The post, which now stands at 21 485 likes and 11 792 comments, has been called “just what we all needed” by Human Rights advocacy groups.

“This is how we change the world: by getting people coming together, talking, discussing, and calling each other 'total retards who haven’t even read a book in their damn lives',” said chief researcher for Rights For All, Nelson King Jr. “You know, a lot of people might say, ‘oh, Nelson, but completely misunderstanding and detracting from the simplistic comedic value of the original post and embroiling the entire internet in a foetid clusterfuck of ad hominem attacks and fallacious, shallow arguments littered with faulty logic or emotional jabs will just divide and separate us all,’ but that’s where they’re wrong,” he said.

“This is how true progress is made: by just putting everything on the table, showing our cards, and turning every internet user against each other in a horrible, embarrassing hate-thread that everyone tires of in just minutes.”

However, internet analysts now believe such a peace could be all too brief.

“People have the ability to overcome great barriers and create a better, more tolerant future of peace and prosperity devoid of casual humour,” said web expert Hilby Bloggin.

“But come on, this is the 21st century. How could there ever be lasting peace when every ten minutes we have something like Caitlyn Jenner or Cecil the Lion to hate each other over?”

Son developing nicely into entitled bigot

According to South African parents André and Jannita du Plessis, legal guardians of five-year-old Michael du Plessis, their son is “well on track” to becoming a privileged, entitled little shit with tendencies for casual racism and sexism.

“We’ve been working hard at this for a while now, and so it’s nice to see it all starting to pay off,” they said to gathered press this morning after young Michael said his first bad words about the ANC.

“He called them a bunch of corrupt thieves and liars, and then added that the blerrie country was going to hell,” they said with beaming smiles. “Usually, we have to tell him what to think and what political views to hold, but this he came up with all by himself!”

However, his parents said that they only became aware of the full extent of his progression into a fine young man who thinks the world owes him a favour and that his particular hubristic worldview is unassailable when he pulled out an empty beer can and a pair of braai tongs at breakfast yesterday and asked them, “can I tell you what’s wrong with this blerrie country?”

“Ever since his first words – ‘dada’ and ‘vok die ANC’ – we’ve known he was a natural,” they said, “but this was the cherry on the cake. Or rather, the ’blerrie’ on the hate.”

Since the announcement, his parents say they have ramped up their program to include sexism and homophobia.

“The other day we overheard him telling a friend to stop being such a faggot. When we hear him using such language, we immediately brought him an xBox, the latest Call of Duty game, a chat headset and uncapped high-speed ADSL internet. He now spends almost three hours a day belittling other kids his age and calling their sexuality into question after giving them a thorough teabagging.”

Michael is a natural, apparently, and is now taking his own initiative in his education.

“We were talking to a couple of his friends and they told us that he claims to have had sexual relations with half of their sisters and mothers, which is a nice touch that we didn’t even think about.”

And in related news, the Du Plessis’s daughter Chanté is also making her own rapid progress in becoming a lovely little sex object, with no real opinion, dreams, desires or ambition in life but to be a “nice piece of ass”.

“We make her watch at least eight hours of television a day, with enriching, empowering shows to further her growth, said her parents, “like Real Housewives of Orange Country, Geordie Shore and Mob Wives. Before you know it, we’ll be starring alongside her in our own episode of 16 and Pregnant.

Academics to sort out /10 rating system

The popular system of rating members of the opposite sex out of ten is to undergo much academic scrutiny after the announcement of plans by Rhodes University to begin a Theory of Physical Attractiveness course.

According to the first Head of the newly formed Department of I Would Tap That, Sha Louw, this is the first time that a critical eye is being turned to the much-loved base-ten system.

“A lot of the debate right now just deals with whether or not such a system is sexist or shallow,” said Louw. “But before we can even think of that stuff, we need to see if it’s actually  right. What if we’re calling chicks an 8.2 when we’re actually going about it all wrong? What if they’re really just a 6.1?”

Many professors at the University are pleased by the decision, calling it a massive step forward in rating how hot chicks are.

“We’re glad this course is being put forward," said Chair of Women’s Studies Khoze Mopolitan. "We’re all for gender equality, and so a rating system that subjects both men and women to the same equally  oppressive system of grossly exaggerated expectations is a massive step forward in transforming so many hurtful gender-biased societal practices.” 

According to Louw, rating other human beings on a scale of attractiveness from a general “I would rather cut off my own legs with a rock than go near him/her” to “I would cut off my own legs with a rock in exchange for ten minutes with him/her” is a tradition that stretches back in time to the caveman era.

“We have recently unearthed evidence in caves thought to belong to our early pre-hominid ancestors,” said an excited Louw. “Cave paintings we found have shown that even our apelike ancestors had a basic rating system for picking partners.”

Newly unearthed cave paintings have shone light on how our ancestors used to rate okes.
Pick (modified): Jeannine Fletcher, Flickr.

However, these early humans use to choose based on biggest cave or food source or other such pro-survival criteria - a rating system that does not translate to the modern age.

“A few hundred thousand years later is where is really gets technical. The Romans, for example, never had a number for zero, so we can’t really trust any Roman-based numeracy systems to accurately portray someone’s bangableness,” said Louw. “On the other hand, the Egyptians used a strange base-14 system that missed out a few middle ratings, going from 1 to 7, and then 13 to 20.”

Our base-ten system, Louw says, has too many flaws to be a trustworthy system of hotness ranking.

“The problem with our system is that it theoretically starts at zero, but in practice never goes below 5. It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that we wouldn’t bang anything below a 6, so why do we even have low numbers?” he said.

The system is also entirely unobjective, and is easily influenced or outright broken by alcohol, drugs, or long periods of not seeing truly high-ranking examples of the opposite sex.

“If I go on a sports training camp in the middle of nowhere for three weeks and come back to campus, I’m gonna think that every girl is a 18.6 out of 10,” he said. “God help me if I add a CrackBomb to the equation.”

Many guys who have never actually talked to a real girl before new theorists have been quick to offer alternative rating systems, but the business of picking one is extremely difficult. One theory that gained some momentum was the dual-rating system proposed by Sexiness lecturer at Wits University’s Department of Hotness Ray Tinchicks. Tinchicks proposed a preliminary rating out of one to determine whether or not “you would”, and then further rating out of five to allow for a nuanced ranking system.

Louw, however, remains unconvinced by all offered systems.

“Some have offered a percentage system, but that’s far too complicated,” he said. “And some choose to supplement the current system with a decimal subsystem to allow for refined ranking and nuances, but these are too hard to reliably assign accordingly.

Louw has since come up with his own rating system that accounts for smokiness of the room, distance from the person and even blood alcohol level.

Louw hopes that his rating system will do away with older, incorrect systems.

Many other theorists, however, have attacked this system, saying that it’s “imprecise and too prone to variable influence”. “I give his ranking system a 6.5723 out of 15.7,” said Associate Professor of Sexiness Studies Kreeh Pinhard. In spite of this, Louw remains unfazed.

“Other noted academics in my field, such as Vinny D, Mike The Situation and The Guys In Friars, have criticised my initial suggestions, but that’s the whole point of this course, isn’t it? We won’t just stumble on a perfect system right away. It's going to take a lot of consideration, careful thought and attention, and deep philosophising before we can all agree on how hard, exactly, we'd hit that."