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Gamergate tries to invade and troll Calgary Expo. Gets booted
April 17, 2015 - 6:47pm
http://www.themarysue.com/calgary-expo-gamergate-evicted/
And guess who is right behind them: A Voice For Men.
I'm sure that's part of it. Also the fact that this hateful campaign has gotten to the point of death threats.
In any case, good on them for being on top of it.
If you look at who set up the booth and who was evicted, who the Honey Badgers are, it's easier to imagine what might have happened. This group has been spending the last four days trying to rile up the reactionary parts of the internet about social justice warriors censoring an anti-censorship group. As though "anti-censorship" is the Honey Badgers' main thing. My guess is that they were looking to get this kind of reaction and they got it. There is a connection to Paul Elam's A Voice for Men (At least two of the individuals who were removed, Sage Gerard and Alison Tieman, are on the payroll of AVfM) and also to Men's Rights Edmonton (Karen Straughan was one of the individuals), who have gotten a bit of a reputation for trolling feminists in the past. These people are, as best as I can tell, professional antifeminist trolls.
I think it's telling that these particular communities experience so much friction on these issues of inclusion, representation and identity. I'm glad some intelligent members are able to recognize this and are acting on it. But I think they're missing that it's the basis of that culture that gives rise to the attitude that creates these problems. I don't know about gaming communities, except that they have a weird symmetry with so-called skeptic communities, and in the "skeptic" world, we've seen how their m.o. aligns with, if not developed alongside, an antifeminist (shall we say "skeptical of feminism"?) trajectory, and in a much more concentrated, pronounced way than we see in larger society.
Except that there are now more women gamers than men.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/52-percent-people-p...
I think it is less a symptom of any community than of an old boys club, just like any other, that thinks they have sole ownership of something.
This is nothing but a dishonest smear campaign, while I don't agree with them on everything, the honey badgers are not trolls, but a group, including and largely lead by women who show compassion and intelligence and a love of nerd culture.
I'd provide a link to the honey badgers side of things, but I can't. PS the Honey Badgers and other Gamergaters have been victims of a bomb threat lately, where the police had to come out and investiage.
The left needs people like the honey badgers to keep us honest and evovling.
If I had the money right now I'd donate to they're legal costs myself. PS if you go to the site and get the actual real details you will see that the honey badgers are in the right. Perhaps Rabble would be wise to offer one of the honey badgers a column for rabble.
Well I'll post one of their defenses:
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/booth-gamergate-logo-expelled-calg...
Given that they showed up and tried to spin a panel discussion on women in comics into talking about men, and had symbols of an organization which has been openly harrassing women and making death threats, seems to me CalgaryExpo was within their rights to ask them to dismantle their booth and leave.
And the other fan expos are not affiliated with Calgary:
http://blogs.leaderpost.com/2015/04/24/calgary-expos-gamergate-incident-...
(read the comments)
And what does a claim of getting a bomb threat have to do with anything? It doesn't change their own actions.
http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/04/25/our-expulsion-from-calgary-comi...
http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/04/25/hbb-seeking-legal-advice/
http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/2015/04/18/go-home-gamer-girl-press-releas...
http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/radio/badgerpod-gamergate-14-they-set-us-u...
PS gamergate isn't an orginization with members, a few goofies threatening people and calling themselves gamer gaters is no more a legitimate representive of gamer gaters then ISIS representing Muslims as a wholer, or feminists who demand all men be castrated represent all feminists, or Stalin representing all communists, or ecoterrorist representing all enviromentalists ect...
People invovled come from all races, genders, and sexual orinations, and from across the political spectrum.
Sure it is.
http://gawker.com/what-is-gamergate-and-why-an-explainer-for-non-geeks-1...
And wikipedia cuts to the chase right away:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy
And this is a bit of a tangent, but this is the second article from gamergate and its supporters which has used a picture which was pulled by DC comics after complaints because it was a menacing reference to rape.
Not blaming you, Brachina. I also linked to an article (from Breitbart) with with a different cartoon reference to the same image, then pulled it. But it is weird to see the exact same image used again. Anyone familiar with comics would get that reference. Is this the sort of journalistic freedom they are fighting for? Using rape cartoons to poke a stick at people?
Here's an article on the original. The image is there:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/17/dc-comics-pull-batgirl-joke...
This is probably making me sound like quite the geek. I don't even game. I just have friends who are into it. That, and the fact this is something that should concern everyone.
Yeah, they're not out to troll feminists at all....
Oh, wait! Here's a link to the blog of one of them, Karen Straughan, aka girlwriteswhat:
http://owningyourshit.blogspot.ca/
Please note the sub-header, which reads "This is what anti-feminism looks like". I know, right? So ambiguous. We're just leaping to all kinds of conclusions here.
I saw Karen once admit that she would fit the dictionary definion of femenist, but she suggested that the dictionary definion isn't the one that is observed by most feminists advocates.
Karen Straughan, who gives talks with titles like "Feminism: Socialism in Panties"? She is an extreme right-winger with a disturbingly large following on youtube.
The left needs Honey Badgers like I need a hole in the head.
feministcritics.org/blog for a more leftwing MRA perpective. The honeybadger podcasts tend to focus on social issues, they don't really focus on economic issues, so I can't speak to that.
She isn't a feminist of any stripe, despite what she claims. Quite frankly, none of her opinions - particularly those on feminism - interest me in the slightest, being entirely full of shit and all. It's her schtick to misrepresent what feminism actually is, so *of course* she says feminists don't walk the walk.
There's a lot to dislike on that blog. *rolls up sleeves*
As for the HB podcasts I find them so unlistenable and mind-numbingly stupid, I think they are really beneath even Straughan. The mother of a friend of mine is big into all that MRA crap...loves the honey badgers..."coincidentally" she would never go to a female doctor or vote for a woman leader of a political party, and parents her daughter much more harshly than she does her sons. I have another friend with similar attitudes. They are textbook examples of modern-day female misogynists. Guess what, this friend loves HBB as well, whoda thunk it. "Coincidentally" they both suffered abuse at the hands of their mothers and admittedly believe women are inherently morally inferior to men (though, to be fair, one of them blames FEMINISM for that).
I've seen women like that, in fact my step mother is like that, but she has no interest anything political, or the honey badgers, but she tends to react poorly to female leaders, and I suspect that its linked to her being poorly treated by women, such as her boss at times in positions of authority. But none of that has anything to do with the honeybadgers.
Personally I have had a poor relationship with both parents, I don't have childern and I don't intend to, but agian that has nothing to do with the honeybadgers.
Look when I first started look at the MRA movement I was very uncomfortable, life long feminist, plus some of the men do come off as dick heads, but as I explored the topic many of things they were saying made sense and were backed up fact. Human beings are often uncomfortable when they're beliefs and world view are challenge, but I have learned that only by pushing past that instinctive discomfort, do we grow as people, only by challenging our beliefs are they refined. I encourage you to listen some more and ask yourself do they ever have a point? Start there. You don't have to agree with everything they say, I don't, but its a valueable perpective.
Lets start with what we agree upon. We all agree abuse is wrong, men don't have the right to abuse women and women don't have the right to abuse men. Its a place to start.
I'm pro smart feminist, like Peggy Nash, but I'm anti oppression and bullying and misinformation which has been pouring out of certain strains of feminism, because I believe feminism can be a force for good, but if good feminists continue to ignore the corruption within our midst it will be religated to the dust bin of history along side other idealogies that have been disguarded.
But if you prefer to remain unchallenged, if you prefer to unfairly smear others and then refuse to allow people to defend those who have been unfairly smeared, then there is absolutely no point in this forum as no meaningful debate will be going on here, just self congratulating back patting and intellectual dishonest.
I will point out that I have been very polite and respectful of other poster, abit critical.
This whole situation is embalmic of the rot poisoning the left, a rot that as a lefty breaks my heart, for only the left can save the world, but not by hiding its head in the sand, but by reaching out to those with a different perpective, those share the goals of equality, but see things from a different perpective. Why can't we reach out and listen to each others concerns with empathy and understanding, letting go of past mutual recriminations to create a reasonable dialog.
its seems the only, what you call reasonable dialogue, allowed is by you and those who see things like you. you're basiclly telling everyone else they're bad feminists and corrupt. ffs.
Brachina, the problem is that you are trying to create a false equivalency. It is as though you have showed up at a cancer conference and fundraiser but won't shut up about strokes.
Strokes are bad too, but people are there to deal with cancer not strokes and there are many more forms of cancer which doesn't mean that strokes are okay, but they are a separate issue.
Feminism frees men it doesn't not oppress them. Men face the same enemy as women do, the patriarchy.
Your "me too" approach is not about men's rights it's about backlash against and opposition to feminism. Try these links:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/07/cost-boys-tradition...
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/12/what-a-masculinity-c...
Despite this:
http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2011/12/21/why-i-resigned-from-the-good-men-...
this remains a good site:
http://goodmenproject.com/
and this:
http://www.whiteribbon.ca/news/%E2%80%8Ewhyiwalk%E2%80%AC-because-things...
But remember, this is the feminist forum, not the sexism forum.
Kind of long, but an interesting article that touches on a number of things, from this conflict defining women and eclipsing enjoyment of the games, to their not all agreeing on everything, to the fact that it has garnered some sympathy, but not a lot of real change:
http://boingboing.net/2015/05/29/all-the-women-i-know-in-video.html
And this:
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/denver-comiccons-all-male-women-in-comic...
In another article, defenders of the event said there was a great all-women panel discussion; just not the one that was actually about women.
So the court case of the century might be going forward; the only hitch is they have a lawyer who can't actually practice law:
http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/06/17/the-honey-badger-brigade-has-hi...
Wanna donate to the cause? Now is your chance/
It seems like their primary currency is alleged victimization and being discriminated against by the mainstream - what better way to keep that currency than setting yourself up to fail?
Gamergate getting twitchy over a call-out in which they aren't even mentioned:
http://jezebel.com/gamergate-shits-pants-over-john-oliver-segment-on-onl...
Now some other cute animal brigade (the sad puppies) is trying to save science fiction for the straight white boys.
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/26/the_scifi_fans_are_alright_i_saw_the_fut...
In response, Hugo voters decided to give no awards instead.