Oy. A year and a half after I dissected Greg Miller’s, frankly, embarrassing review of Dead Space 2, and to this day I still get comments and emails from people telling me I’m wrong without really elaborating on why that might be. Which is fine, because much like talking about feminism brings out people people who describe themselves as “Men’s Rights Activists” thus making it easier to identify them as morons, anyone who comes to the defense of Greggy’s Dead Space 2 review is, basically, yeah.

Today’s activity takes the biscuit, though, earning it a much-coveted spot in the “hate mail” tag.

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I received this anonymous Ask today on the subject of feminism - I guess the Asker didn’t feel strongly enough about the subject to slap his or her name at the end of it - and I thought that rather than slap it up as an Ask I’d post it as an inset quote so I could tackle each paragraph individually:

It saddens me that you swallow hook, line and sinker the whole feminism shtick because even though, at a superficial level, feminism seems to be about equality, in reality it’s about positive discrimination for women. And positive discrimination is, as its name clearly states, discrimination - the antithesis of equality.

Have you ever stopped to think about why we need “positive discrimination”? It’s because we live in a society that favours a particular type of person - the white-skinned male. People who don’t fit into this particular pigeon hole tend to be marginalized. Women are no exception to this. Women earn less than their male counterparts. Women are expected by society to be caretakers, mothers, maids, housewives. They don’t have full autonomy over their own bodies, with numerous states and countries imposing legal restrictions on what a woman can or can’t do with her uterus.

So if there is a call for “positive discrimination” it is in the hopes that some day, one day, we won’t need it anymore. It’d be great to live in a society where everybody is treated equal, where a black person or a woman doesn’t need a special scholarship in order to go to college, where companies don’t need to make special allowances in the name of “diversity” because it just happens. As it stands at the moment we live in a culture that treats women as second-class citizens, and we should be doing everything we can to elevate them to first-class. 

All fervent feminists always bang on about how they want to be treated like men, but if a man treats one like he would treat a man, it all falls to pieces. Men call each other names and insult each other in jest, men burp, fart and are generally quite rude in the company of their friends and the list could go on and on. Do that with even the most fervent feminist woman and she’ll still think and flat out tell you that you’re a pig and fall back to her “fragile flower” instinct. What that shows is not a desire to really be treated like an equal. It does show, nevertheless, a desire to be treated like an equal when it’s convenient and as a woman when that’s convenient. There is a word for all of this: hypocrisy, and in my opinion it’s, by far, the worst character flaw a human being could have.

Y’know another character flaw? Generalizing. In this paragraph you’re generalizing two groups of people - men and women. Not all men “insult each other in jest”, not all men communicate in bodily emissions. Similarly, not all women react the way you’ve outlined. This entire paragraph is based on sexist notions of what men and women are, or what they’re supposed to be. Do you not see the problem with that?

If someone can call a man a “prick” then one should be able to call a woman a “cunt” and expect a comparable level of response from someone who truly is all about equality, not the disproportionate response you get from feminists.

As I’ve mentioned before, there have been entire essays written about the word “cunt” and why it’s an unacceptable word to use. Feel free to educate yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for equality. I’m actually disgusted by the whole “gentle flower” type of woman in particular and by all women that try to use the fact that they are women to their advantage in general. Unfortunately for me, I’m neither gay and nor have I met many women that don’t do that.

I’d like to see how feminists can defend this kind of crass hypocrisy with a straight face.

You’re all for equality, so long as women fit neatly into nice pre-configured categories so you know whether to respect or revile them. Gotcha. I’ll keep that in mind. Again, nice generalizations.

Look, here’s the deal, Anonymous - there is no such thing as “all men” and “all women”. That shit doesn’t fly. People are unique individuals, and there will be men who fly against the image you painted two paragraphs ago just as there are women who fly against virtually everything you’ve said here. Everything you said in this little essay you’ve written me is based on gender stereotypes and your expectations of what men and women should be in society. Which is, frankly, bollocks.

I’m sure there are dozens of people - feminists or otherwise - who’ll read this and do a much better job of dissecting your little ramble. Reading shit like this just reminds me how far women have to go, and the sort of people who stand in the way of actual equality.

Honestly, the only way you could’ve missed the mark any more was if you’d said “Feminism is over! They’ve got the vote! A woman was nearly Vice-President! Get over yourselves!”

I’m not avoiding the question. In fact I’m already registered on a number of the sites you’ve mentioned including one or two you haven’t, and have long since already syatyed started doing freelance work. The problem is it doesn’t pay regularly enough or greatly enough for me to amass the remaining $320-or-so I need to pull together in the next seven days. December is, haha, a Slow Month.

I’ve already been paid for a fair bit of freelance work - enough to bring in enough money to cover more than half of my rent - and I have more payment on the way. Unfortunately most of that payment will come after my rent deadline.

I’m not “asking for handouts” because I don’t want to work. I’m asking for help because I am desperate, in every sense of the word. I am looking losing sleep over this. I’ve stopped eating. I’ve a knot in my stomach the size of Papa Papua New Guinea. I hope you never have to experience this kind of depression and despair.

I appreciate that you’ve taken it upon yourself to become my own personal Careers Adviser although, honestly, I wish you’d apply your name to your submissions. At least then I’d know who to thank. It’s nice that there’s someone out there so concerned for my wellbeing.

Edit: Well now we know why the freelance work isn’t paying enough - my writing is full of typos.