Let's do some mansplaining about manspreading

This really annoys the crap out of me. The Guardian and other "newspapers" keep picking up how women suffer of manspreading. As if this was a thing. Well, they did make it out to be; it is in now the public consciousness. It is not, however, on the Tube. At least in my four years of commuting I've experienced it exactly once. (As a man, I have to say I was a bit taken aback; I thought it was supposed to happen to oppress women, but what do I know?) In fact it was not even manspreading: a dude was playing tug-of-war with me, and tried to push his arm over to my side of the seat. I do not mean the handrest; he had that already; he tried to push his elbow into my side. I pushed back for a while, moving his hand back and did something that immediately took care of the situation -more on that later. (Perhaps the title should be in the recent style of idiotic internet articles: "A guy pushed his elbow over the handhold in the Tube - you would not believe what happened after". "Tube commuters hate this single mom for this ONE simple trick.")

I did see a lot of people taking up a lot of space with their backpack on; women crossing their legs and sticking their shoes out to the space between the seats (I guess free shoe polish as you try to negotiate the walkway, right?), and people being dicks in general to each other for no particular reason. I was even thanked once by a lady when I took off my backpack before entering the train... thanked for not being a dick. So I have seen enough assholery, but it was not gender specific. It was just people being assholes.

Anyhow. Manspreading. It does not exist. It is used to ridicule and shame one half of the population, but it is a non-existing problem. Don't even try to argue that it only tarnishes the inconsiderate assholes who manspread; you have the word "man" in the expression, for Pete's sake! Same goes with the term mansplaining... there assholes who mansplain usually do it to people regardless of gender; and there are assholes who mansplain and have a vagina. (Interestingly the above linked study shows exactly that: men "mansplain" to each other just as much as to women -which is the exact definition of equal treatment.) It's a term about assholes who think they know everything best, regardless of what dangles between their legs. If you think that it does not tarnish all men, try to use the term "Jewccupation" for the Occupied Territories, and see how people will take your explanation that you only mean the State of Israel and the settlers, but not the entirety of the Jewish people. (By the way, I have dibs on that term; I just came up with it.) The reason certain women attribute a gender aspect is to "mansplaining"or "manspreading" is that they can't imagine this could happen to them for any other reason than their gender.* Which says a lot about them, to be honest. It's also really interesting to watch that on one hand this feminist movement wants to "ungender" language (spokeperson, using "they" instead of he/she), but on the other it keeps pumping out divisive, gendered words.

This is an excellent tactics if you are in identity politics; by stating manspreading is a fact as a fact, you establish it as one. From then on people start arguing about why it is justified or not justified, instead of asking you to justify your original assertion to begin with. So you will see furious arguments on the Guardian's comment section between men and women about how your balls need or does not need more space, instead of stopping to ask if it is a problem at all? (To pitch in: my balls are regular sized as far as I can determine; I never had issues sitting with my legs closed.)

So. What did I do in my only instance of a guy (or a gal) overspreading his/her (or their?) boundaries, you ask? Did I write a furious opinion piece in The Guardian about the Patriarchy, the Gender Pay Gap, and The Oppression of Women by All Men? Did I launch an anti-elbow campaign? #killallwhiteelbows?

No.

I told him to move his hand back.

He got red as a beetroot, and moved his fucking hand back. Case closed.

So the moral of the story: if you have someone manspreading next to you (by which I mean sticking his/her backpack into your face, not letting you exit, not moving inside the carriage to let you on), you can do two things: either you generate a fake social movement for gender equality, shaming and ridiculing one half of the human race, or, you know, you can fucking ask them to move. I wonder which is the most constructive solution.

*Are there genuinely sexist men who think women are stupid? Undoubtedly. But how many? And how many women harbour similar thoughts about men? Have you had a woman explain to you how to do the freaking washup or change nappies?

Double standards in the international press - Hungary and Romania (Hang 'em up high?)

Yes I complain a lot about hypocrisy and double standards; the whole blog is about them, after all. They infuriate me, regardless of whom they are applied against; and there's a good deal of them directed against my own country, which infuriate me even more.

Enter Romania.

The PM said something non-sensical (if you take the literal translation which Romanians insist), or he threatened with violence (which is the underlying meaning of his words) -depending on how you look at it. Regardless he said something unacceptable.

He threatened Transylvanian Hungarian politicians with hanging.

Let this sink in for a bit.

This is not an isolated thing. Hungarians have been severely mistreated in Romania since Transylvania was "reunited" with Romania a hundred years ago. Anti-Hungarian sentiments have been (and still are) quite high, as we can judge by other statements and actions.

Yet, not a peep from the Western, enlightened media.

Let's see what happens when an idiotic MP (and not the prime minister) says something stupid in the Hungarian Parliament. (You actually could make a rational argument why dual citizenship is not good in case of a lawmaker, but this statement did not do that.)

The reaction? The whole world went up in protest, while absolutely misinterpreting what he said (or rather, twisting it into some sort of a call for putting all Jews in the country on a list.) They also twist and lie about other things, too, while we're at it.

Not to mention the whole silence about Romania's corruption problem. Neither the media nor the EU leadership seems to be worried about that, but they pull the "nuclear option" on Poland.

I wonder why.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the real problem here. The term "fake news" have been overused a bit lately; I strongly suspect it's because the original practitioners feel slighted that Russia and others they don't like got better at it than they are.

Damonsplaining and the spectra of things

Well, apparently, there are no shades of sexual harassment. As Minnie Driver and all the others who piled on him say, there is no difference between different forms of sexual abuse. (She also called him "Orwellian", and then almost in the same sentence she declared men have no word in this debate. Which is somewhat amusing. Or would be if the whole freaking media did not jump behind her. Apparently hysteria is fine. As is the absolute one-sided look on this issue which would be hilarious if it did not stigmatise one half of the human race.) Anyhow.

This lead me to the following conclusion: our forefathers in the Middle Ages were right. We should absolutely punish every single crime (however small it is) with the most severe punishment. Unless you are prepared to argue that sexual crimes are somehow very special (even more special, than, let's say, serial murders), then the conclusion is that no crime is done on a scale. All crimes are equally horrible. A petty pickpocket is just as guilty as a war criminal, hence they all deserve the worst possible punishment -death.

Or, you know, we could act rationally. But I'm not holding my breath.

Franken and the progressive monster

The last year of #metoo frenzy essentially created a zero tolerance atmosphere, where single allegations are enough to kill someone’s professional career, and even the tiniest things are taken out of proportion. I mean it is not unexpected; there AREsexual predators, especially in closed, affluent communities like Hollywood and the political establishment (although not as many as you would think), but it also fits into the culture of offence that is very much the staple of the so-called progressive movement lately. I say so-called because it is –as most things directed by social media, and the outrage machine of the mainstream media designed to generate clicks- it has been taken over by the fringe, and taken to the extreme.

It’s also interesting that everyone in the media, politics makes it out as a male vs female issue…  any bouncer, bartender or even female stripper could tell you that women can be just as horrible as men when it comes to everyday acts of sexual misconduct-and in case of women they actually get away with it. I’m not drawing a false equivalencies –men do commit more of these offenses. But it’s not as black and white as The Guardian –and a lot of my friends on facebook- would like to believe. As with everything, the picture is not as simplistic as presented.

This is similar to the (related) issue of domestic violence. It's not so simple as the nasty men victimising women. Yes, women are overwhelmingly suffer from it, but, as study after study has found, women are actually quite likely to commit it as well –and male victimshave nowhere to turn to (or get blamed). The perpetrator usually don't get as much hate from the media, either. It does not mean we should somehow equate the two things; obviously a 60 kg woman needs more protection from a 80kg man than vica versa (although makeshift weapons, such as knives are readily available…), but the present narrative which depicts it as a simple gender issue of men beating women is not only wrong, it is dangerous. It denies a huge portion of the victims any sort of justice (or protection), it can easily lead to men on women violence down the line (when the man finally snaps), and it ferments a very unhealthy us-vs-them atmosphere which is not conducive to adult conversations about difficult issues. And these conversations we do need to have –but these will not bring in clicks, so the media makes sure we won’t be having them. (Dan Carlin talked about it a lot by the way.) It will lead to simmering resentment, but it’s fine; Trump’s victory had nothing to do with sneering at blue collar white people, after all. (What I’m trying to say here is that looking down and stigmatizing entire portions of the population –especially if they are a HUGE voting block- might not be a smart move even if it’s convenient. It might sound better since you don’t pick on a minority group, and hence you can do it easily because nobody will care about political correctness. On a long term you probably better off with picking on minorities to be honest.)

The other issue is that a certain type of feminists see this as a zero-sum game: they cannot allow male victims to be acknowledged because it would somehow mean the female victims will not get attention, or it would somehow invalidate their suffering. (Ironically domestic violence is the most problematic in lesbian relationships, but these victims are also ignored as they don’t fit into the agenda of “men beating women”.) Or, alternatively, these people simply are vengeful and petty, and engage in a gender war they feel they are winning. Unfortunately this is a war that will have no winners as their (future) sons will attest to that. Weirdly enough some people see the point.

So here we are at the end of 2017, with a mob of social justice warriors jumping on every allegation, happy to condemn anyone, tar and feather these filthy men (and it’s always men), suggest castration, when suddenly they find that the monster they helped to create devours one of their own, who is quite possibly one of the better people of the corrupt establishment we call the “two party system”.

What is their reaction? It’s actually quite hilarious and sad at the same time. My friends on facebook are desperately trying to white-wash Franken. (Personally, I think, ifit’s still about that stupid posed photo of him appearing to grab someone’s boobs, it’s a non-issue. But apparently not for “progressives”.) They engage in furious whataboutery ("but those pesky Republicans are worse"), they come up with theories of paid trolls accusing him of misconduct... So essentially the progressives are suddenly engaging in victim-blaming, shifting blame and doubt on the poor, violated women – which is incredibly ironic if you think about it.

Allegations of rape were enough to make people’s lives hell; but now we entered the era when a simple misguided act can have the same result; the storm is getting stronger and stronger feeding on the manufactured outrage and the more and more outrageous offshoots of identity politics. Mensplainingis quite common, too, when these social justice warriors write about men –although it’s not clear how you call it when a woman does it. Perhaps, just perhaps the term is sexist and stupid because it seems like both genders can be condescending gits.

And so it goes. Instead of self-reflecting, and realizing the mistake –what mistake, the sin- of engaging in this stupid identity politics, and seeing how this whole issue was blown out of proportion, everyone keeps the machine going. Politicians declare that domestic violence is gender based violence (although they did put in an acknowledgement that men can be victims, too), focusing on solely on one side of the issue.  Self-righteous articles are published about how men need to feel bad, and how the Democrats have themoral high ground now that Franken resigned. (Do we still remember Hillary, Bernie and the whole primaries? High ground indeed.) Fists are shaken. Wagons are circled. And the show continues. (Apparently murder, war crimes –but only if you’re not a Western politician-, and grabbing someone’s ass have no statute of limitations. And one of these things don’t need to be proven, either.) It is really sad and hilarious at the same time watching these “progressives” do the same things they accused “rape apologists” to do. Not to mention if you dare to step out of the line, they will tear at you even more than at their "enemies". Tribalism at its finest. Progressive? No. Human nature? Sure thing. But it is still hypocritical as fuck.

I think a lot of this would need a much more delicate handling and a bit more perspective. Obviously creeps like Weinstein who force themselves onto others cannot be tolerated. Casual grabbing of body parts are also something that needs to be stopped- but I do feel it should be between the two parties, and only if one can’t stop himself (or herself) should formal processes be triggered. But how do you treat a young actress (or actor) as a victim who fucks their way to success? Is she or he really a victim, even if the act was voluntary? Where is the line between coercion and seduction? Are we really want to create an atmosphere where everyone needs to be on the watch 24/7 not to do –or say-  something that might insult someone? Are we really such delicate snowflakes to create an oppressive culture to protect ourselves from it without recognizing that there is a continuum between bigotry and offhand humorous comments, and that the same can be said about relationships? Is it really about power? If we can’t let people with very different power do whatever they want in their bedrooms, where do we draw the line? Boss/subaltern… OK I can see why it is dubious. But even this is not as clear-cut as you would like to be. What else? From now on we won’t let higher earning dudes dating poor women/men? Are we going to apply the same standards to women as well? Do we need a certificate from the government about our earnings which would enable us to choose people in the same band?

More importantly: why do we solely focus on misuse of power when it sexual in nature? Power is abused if you have it, and -it will shock many feminist justice warriors out there- women abuse their power just the same as men do. They also make improper remarks when their situation allows; just ask any male nurse or primary school teacher. So why do we focus on sex only? This is not a sex issue; it’s a power issue. Is Mariah Carey so much better because she verbally abuses her white bodyguards, and makes frankly racist remarks, just because she does not force them to sleep with her? Or is it acceptable because she is female, and not white? Would a white guy get away with this? Or a white woman?

These questions are quite important and pressing.

Too bad nobody will bother.

There are several things wrong with this article.

Romania, Poland and the EU- interesting observation

Apparently democracy in Romania is in great danger. In fact it's in the gravest of dangers since 1990.

People have been demonstrating for years, prime ministers went to prison, and corruption, apparently is high.

Yet not a peek from the EU. No angry sermons, no talks about (Western) European Values, just a muted reaction essentially saying "whatever". I guess you could make the argument that the very presence of protests mean that they are less corrupt than other Eastern members of the EU, but that would be quite a torturous argument... The fact is they are probably more corrupt than their neighbours, hence the protests.

Contrast this lack of interest to Poland, for example, which is facing some serious backlash for -guess what- rolling back democracy. Same with Hungary.

If you are the tinfoil-wearing type, you might ask why this difference in reactions.

Perhaps because Romania does not act as a thorn in Brussels's side about migration? Perhaps because unlike Hungary and Poland the Romanian government is not right-wing, hence their shenanigans are acceptable? (Just like in 2006 the Hungarian police was beating up random people was perfectly fine with regards to human rights and democracy?)

One can only wonder.

The Satanic George Soros

Since I wrote a little tongue-in-cheek post about why it is not antisemitic to criticize Soros, I feel I should clarify a few things.

I don't like Orban. I don't even like Soros. To be honest I do not know either of these people personally. I do support a lot of what Soros is doing- the CEU, promoting free speech, etc., but I also dislike a lot of what he's doing. I do not agree with him on mass migration, I think there's a good argument that some of the NGOs he is founding are, in fact, taking part in human trafficking- or at least enabling it-, and I do not believe that national identity is an outdated concept. I think the Hungarian government's hysteric anti-Soros rhetoric is equally hilarious and embarrassing; especially comparing him to Satan.

However -and this is the important part. Bringing accusations of antisemitism, nazism into this argument completely invalidates the "progressive" side of the debate. There is no need to imagine some sort of hidden and vile antisemitic attacks, like how the WP and other papers do. There is enough ammunition there against Orban that would last until the end of times. This -also- hysterical flurry of accusations are only accomplishing two things: it polarizes the field into two sides with no room for subtleties, and it absolutely discredits the critics of Orban.

So stop it already. You don't have to make shit up; he has given you a lot (corruption, rolling back on checks and balances, state propaganda) you can genuinely criticise. You don't have to make him into a Nazi or a necrophiliac as well. It just makes you look stupid.

Dumbing down everyone- one article at a time

I guess everyone is familiar with the usual "You don't believe how Pamela Anderson looks like today", "What this father did after his wife confessed will shock you" and "Why the dentists hate this Single Mom" articles that are flooding every. single. fucking. news outlet.

They want clicks, and this is how they get them.

And now it seeped into popular science reporting, too.

"Why The Science World Is Freaking Out Over This 25-Year-Old's Answer to Antibiotic Resistance"

Let's look at the actual publication, shall we?

Fist of all, nobody is freaking out. Scientist usually don't freak out unless there's an asteroid on a collision course to Earth, or a super virus emerges that kills 100% of infected people turning them into zombies.

Second: that "25-year-old" is not some girl toiling over some high-school project in the garage coming up with a world-saving method.

She is a competent PhD student who is working under the supervision of her PI as part of a team. She was given a topic to research at the start of her program, and she is constantly getting feedback, support and whatnot from her supervisor and peers. Crediting her, and her only for this is just as unfair as giving the Nobel Price for the leader of a research team only.

Science is a collaborative effort. This infantilisation of reporting just makes things really, really bad for all parties included. Your dumbed down readers get a bit more dumb for one.