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

Man's white cis-het male Halloween costume leaves people terrified and triggered

Controversy and terror reign this week, after an area man dressed up as a cis-gendered, heterosexual white male for Halloween, leaving hundreds of Twitter users and university students outraged and horrified.

Local accountant Westley Krayven says he had the idea for the costume when thinking of how to live up to the horror-inspiring legacy of this annual celebration.

"I thought to myself, what monsters are there that are still scary, that root people to the spot in deep, paralyzing fear? And I don't mean sparkly, emotionally-unstable vampires or Native Americans who turn into big dogs, thanks to the Twilight Saga," he said. "Besides, it's frowned upon to stray even an inch outside of your own culture, and so I didn't think wearing harmless feather headdresses or a samurai costume was worth being lynched on social media and losing my job over."

"In any case, our roster of truly despicable, monstrous creatures is frighteningly short these days."

Short, but not empty, as Krayven soon realised.

"I wanted to dress as the most terrifying and offensive thing I could for this spooky, dark night. I wanted to come dressed as a true monster, that is universally reviled and hated in even the most supposedly tolerant sectors of our society. That's when it hit me: who is responsible for all the problems in our society? Who actively makes the world a worse place to live in just because they are alive and around? Who - somehow - controls the entire world, the global markets, oppresses anyone who isn't them, and who literally invented slavery and murder?"

"I was looking in a mirror at the time, so it was kind of a rhetorical question."

Krayven even carved a pumpkin depicting a cis-gendered
white male to go with his costume.
Not to be confused with lesser demons or much less harmful Balrogs. 

Krayven's costume was reportedly very convincing, down to the last detail.

"It actually took very little effort. I just dressed normally. Like, a checkered shirt and some jeans. I didn't even need any prosthetics or make-up."

However, it was getting into character that made his costume all the more convincing.

"I really had to think: what would a monster like me say, and how would they act?. So I did things like ask for evidence of your assertion, defend the principles of scientific methodology over the wishy-washy subjectivity of post-modernism; said things like 'not all men…', 'all lives matter' and, my personal favourite, 'actually'," he explained. "I didn't even need to say anything racist or sexist. Past experience has taught me that you don't actually need to, because you're automatically those things."

Reactions to his grotesque getup have been mixed.

"I think it’s disgusting that someone dressed up like this," said third-year Gender Perspectives in Basket Weaving student, Constance Mohning. "I know him – he once got drunk and kissed a man, and in his early university days he questioned the conventions of masculinity. Who is he to appropriate the struggles of white cis-het men everywhere? It’s sickening."

"Besides, Halloween is derived from ancient holy Celtic celebrations and Christian's All Saint's Day. I think it's so EUGH and problematic that people belittle and degrade this holy, ancient culture by dressing up in costumes. It's cultural appropriation and it isn't right. People shouldn’t be allowed to pretend, for just one night, that they are something other than what they are: to put on a mask and make believe, for a moment, that they aren’t alone and unremarkable; that they’re a warrior, a noble sultan, or an exotic princess, and bring some humour and creative spark into this drab and ugly world. Did I say, 'Eugh'?. Like, EUGH."

Others, however, are not so miffed.

"I know it’s an unforgivable thought-crime, but I think people should be allowed to dress up however they want on Halloween without fear of losing their job because some lonely, angry person on Twitter doesn’t agree with your decision to ‘belittle Christians by mocking the image of Jesus Christ’ or 'erase the lived experience and real struggles of indigenous peoples by dressing up as Pocahontas',” said another student. “So far, I’ve seen a bunch of costumes and I haven’t been offended. That’s why I dressed up as Article 50 of the Brexit decision: because I haven’t been triggered yet.”

Whatever the outcry, Krayven is still deciding on plans for next Halloween.

"I was thinking of dressing up as the Straw Man from the Wizard of Oz next year, but I think I might have already done that costume."