Ask A Genius 176 – Political Movements (Part 2)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/05/23
[Beginning of recorded material]
Jacobsen: This is the game that is played. It seems like a very conscious setup.
Rosner: You call it a game. I would say it is partly a game. But I would also say that most of the feminist anger I see on Twitter is legitimate and justified. It comes out of a recent history of guys continuing or beginning to be dicks.
The fourchan guys, GamerGate guys, those are baby dicks. Those are guys who found their dickishness. Young guys who found their dickishness in creepy reactions to women wanting a place in the video gaming world or just online.
So a lot of pissed off feminism is a legit thing.
Jacobsen: That’s minor. At the same time, there are areas of the world where 200 million women have had a female genital mutilation done. That’s a real concern.
Rosner: That argument is the white person problem argument.
Jacobsen: I don’t mean to dismiss the concerns. I see the concerns and agree with them, in terms of trying to integrate into another aspect of society – the video gaming world, but it is a little bit self-indulgent in a Western country.
Rosner: I don’t know. My wife and I have been going to couples’ counselling for most of our marriage. Not because we’re always battling with each other. We only go once every three or four weeks, but it’s nice to work through things. It is nice to learn how to work through things and to address things before they become super big things.
And a lot of concerns that I see on social media from feminists are social justice concerns and legitimate ones. I see them on Twitter. It is not the comedy Twitter that I follow. I follow 1,400 people. And most of those people are funny.
When people bring up concerns, they are usually brought up in a way that has some humor attached to the scorn or the anger. So it is not just a world of complainy misery. It is like pointing out—a lot of the concerns are reflective of issues that are less sad making than female genital mutilation.
Or women being burned to death or stoned to death, by their own family, for trying to attempt some form of independence. At the same time, letting go of those less horrific concerns is kind of the same as excusing them.
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