Learn to spot the facetious
So there are people who actually think it’s a serious mark against Julie Bindel that she said in an interview last month:
I mean, I would actually put [men] all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans.
Oh come on. Really? That’s obviously not a serious statement.
Let’s look at it in context. The interview is with radfem collective, so she’s talking to fellow radical feminists – not “radical feminists”as in the hostile stereotype, but radical feminists as in feminists who think we need to get to the root of things. They asked her:
will heterosexuality survive women’s liberation?
And she replied:
It won’t, not unless men get their act together, have their power taken from them and behave themselves. I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.
Does anyone really need to be told she’s not talking literally there?
Yes, anyone does, because people are including that in the list of Reasons Bindel Must Be Shunned From Everything Forever. A commenter here took it seriously.
And far-right hate-mongers take it seriously. Google came up with an all-far-right list for me. Eagle Rising for instance:
Julie Bindel is an English writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice for Women, Her primary areas of interest are lesbian rights, opposition to the sex industry, modern anti-trafficking campaigns and defending female victims of domestic violence. . . . As a lesbian, she has shared her views and been quoted regarding sexual identity and sexual orientation issues and refers to herself as a political lesbian feminist.
Bindel is anti-men and anti-heterosexuality. While the war on women is a myth concocted by liberals to get women to vote for Democrats, there is a real ideological war against men, and Bindel is a perfect example of one of its militant soldiers.
In an interview with the website radfem collective, “Bindel says that she would ‘put … all [men] in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans’…
It’s appropriate, in a way, that the No Platformers are aligned with the far right. They think they’re progressive as fuck, but alas, they’re not.
When do I get my white van? – sounds like fun!
I wanna trike!
It’s appropriate, in a way, that the No Platformers are aligned with the far right. They think they’re progressive as fuck, but alas, they’re not.
Oh, no, not Catherine MacKinnon flashbacks again…
OK, but when Tim Hunt facetiously suggested that male and female scientists be segregated at work, there were many who did not spot that facetiousness.
I do think his segregation suggestion was facetious. Not humorous, as he claimed, but facetious.
@ 3 Mark Hadfield
True, in principle. But you cannot ignore context. Hunt’s remarks were reinforcing actual stereotypes about women that have had a significant deleterious effect in the real world (women are creatures of emotion, not logic). The same is not true of Bindel’s remarks.
The problem with Hunt’s joke wasn’t that it was not understood to be facetious. It was that the joke was predicated on precisely the attitudes that have been a major barrier to female participation in science.
Oh my. A separate blog post provoked by my yesterday’s late-night comment looks like a great way to start a day.
Ophelia’s remark from the previous thread:
At the moment I do indeed think that she was trying to be facetious. As to your last sentence, you’ve always employed irony like no one else on FtB and (at least for me) it’s been one of the main attractions.
So, what happened?
I guess I’ve just discovered a sore spot – that’s what happened.
I’ve always considered myself very open about jokes/facetious remarks – more open, I’m afraid, than many people I meet on progressive sites. In general, a “just a joke” defense usually gives me a pause. Jokes about men and women? Risky ethnic humor? Try Polish jokes with me and I will probably laugh (yes, it’s quite plausible that this particular Pole will find them funny). A ‘special snowflake’ without a sense of humor? Certainly not me!
But now it looks like I know a bit more about my limits. “A leftist activist + remarks about re-education camps = dangerous and not funny” – something like that. Hopefully it’s not as strong as not to admit exceptions. Hopefully. Still, this is indeed my immediate reaction, making me insensitive and blind to humor. Looks like I am a special snowflake, after all.
At the moment I prefer not to engage in any comparisons with Tim Hunt. Being a special snowflake is bitter enough.
But, Silentbob @ 4, Tim Hunt has been in the position to make that joke and possibly act on that stereotype for, what, maybe 50 years. No-one checked him and a good many who should know better rushed to his support. Compare Professor Whatsisname who the other day got the lightest possible tap on the wrist after another long and prestigious career of abusing his power.
Julie Bindel, for all her prominence in the Demonology of the Shouty People, has only the power of her pen. At moments of extreme exasperation I’ve been having that fantasy on and off for decades. Thing is, neither of us is in a position to make it happen.
Anyway, how did we manage to bring up whole generations who do not understand the meaning of the world radical?
Maureen,
Perhaps because mainstream media reporting tends to use the terms ‘extremist’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘militant’ and ‘radical’ pretty much interchangeably to denote non-centrist ideological activists.
I think that post is hilarious, and I know several men who would sign up for that camp, as long as the food was junky enough!
This is NOT an example of “just a joke.” That only applies when there is a serious, unfunny power differential. Tim Hunt’s comments, in that context, with his career history, do not compare. DO NOT COMPARE.
It’s also a Very English Joke. Seriously, I very much doubt that anyone outside the British Isles (and, perhaps NZ and Australia) understand the wealth of masculine stereotypes referred to by those three forms of transport.
Indeed, a whole book could be written about White Van Man and the connotations.
Back in the nineties, when I was running my rural taxi firm, one of my customers was wrestling with a form which said something like “Job description (do not just put job title):………” and we laughed, wondering how anyone would need a description for some jobs. My own, I used as an example:
“So, instead of ‘Taxi owner-operator’ I should put ‘Picks up strange men from stations and airports, and delivers them safely to their wives’.”
My (male) customer paused, and said “Surely there is more to it than that?”
I agreed, and amended it to ‘Picks up strange, drunk men from stations and airports, and delivers them safely to their wives’. Whereupon we both laughed, because although he was right – there is a lot more to driving a taxi than that one demographic – it is by far the largest discreet grouping.
And, you know what? The vast majority of men are decent human beings. Yes, even when inebriated. The vast majority, although definitely benefitting from systemic privilege by virtue of their perceived sex, would be (and usually are) horrified if they found out that others don’t get the same breaks that they do.
Unfortunately, it seems that the communication media are set up to magnify the voices of the few loudmouths that are wilfully refusing to understand their privilege, the voices of those who are most likely (again, probably wilfully) likely to misinterpret facetiousness, irony, sarcasm and satire. And those have a following amongst men who haven’t benefitted much from systemic privilege, who may have, indeed, been royally screwed-over by women in their lives, and who therefore believe (based on personal experience) that the lies these charlatans are spreading are the truth.
Julie Bindel’s comments suggest a deeply unhinged mind, regardless of what she meant by “actually” or whether or not she is a real threat to anyone. But only a hypocrite would “no platform” her.
And as for context, SilentBob @4, how likely is it that anyone anywhere in the Western world would actually open up a “segregated lab”? Is this something that we should be concerned about actually happening?
Jib Halyard @10 – that isn’t actually difficult to believe. While it seems unlikely, there are many people, on the left, who think we should go back to gender segregated schools, because they could teach people in the way that the minds of their gender operate. Yes. I have heard friends and commentators ON THE LEFT actually propose this. So why would gender segregated labs be much different?
Right now, women are struggling to hold onto the rights they struggled to win. Men are still pretty much in control, and still pretty complacent. We have a long way to go. Such a “joke” makes the place more hostile for women who realize that there are men still retreating to stereotypes that have kept them down for so long. Even if they don’t actively open “segregated labs”, the very knowledge of the attitude of the men they work with becomes exhausting and in some cases terrifying (maybe not terrifying with Hunt, but definitely exhausting. I can attest to that, having worked with similar situations).
@Jib Halyard
Jib, go read SilentBob’s comment again. He wrote precisely what he finds concerning about Hunt’s remarks.
A man jokes about how women “in the lab” cry and fall in love–reinforcing still-widespread stereotypes: c’mon it was just a harmless joke!
A woman jokes about confining men to keep them from harming anyone: that’s suggestive of a “deeply unhinged mind.”
Uh huh.
Jib Halyard @ 10,
Marthe Gautier, Rosalind Franklin, Jocelyn Bell Burnell – none treated as an equal by her colleagues, all three made major scientific discoveries for which the men around them took the credit, two at least shoved off into side rooms away from the main labs.
It is still happening, even though two of those are dead. Just ask a reasonable sample of women scientists.
I beg her pardon. Dr Gautier is still alive, though in retirement.
Dame Jocelyn may be heard here – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016812j
In my little corner of America, Bindel’s little joke is an ingrained element of our culture. Women regularly describe their significant other (if he is a man) in infantilizing terms, such as, “thanks to the long weekend, I have an extra kid to take care of.” This is closely linked to chestnuts about men not picking up after themselves and having trouble finding the peanut butter.
“Let’s round them up and put them in a camp, with all the toys they want, and of course some women to babysit them” is a classic example of this trope. It’s not just obviously facetious: in fact it barely rates notice.
Ironically, she is propagating a trope defined to strengthen the patriarchy, so congratulations to Bindel: she’s a useful idiot. Depiction of men as childlike and helpless, easily pacified with toys and needing supervision by women, is just another way of saying that men aren’t responsible for their actions and shouldn’t be held accountable for them. When I was five I set the TV set on fire. I wasn’t even spanked: my mom blamed herself for leaving the extra-long fireplace matches on the hearth instead of the mantelpiece, where I could easily reach them and insert them into the slots on the back of the TV. You can try to teach a five-year-old not to kill himself, but ultimately all you can do is childproof the house and shake your head at the innocent stupidity of toddlers. And men. Because men are like toddlers. Give them toys and a playpen, so they can’t endanger themselves or others. And if one gets loose and sets your TV (or your bed) on fire, well, you should have supervised him better. Because what do you expect?
With all due respect to Bindel. I’m not offended. It makes me giggle to see someone wearing their ass for a hat. Maybe she’ll give me a snackie and read me a story, too.
So we have:
1) Tim Hunt “facetiously” suggesting that men and women should not work together.
In other statements he has clarified that the facetious part is his suggested solution, but he really still does think that it causes problems to have opposite sex labmates (yay for both sexism and heterocentricism – so by Hunt’s logic, I guess lesbians could work with gay men, but bisexuals can’t work anywhere – talk about no-platforming!)
2) Julie Bindel making a joke about re-education camps for men.
I don’t much like the idea that some feminists have (and is, paradoxically, shared with a lot of conservatives, both male and female) that men are somehow childish and stupid.
3) Young feminists (of whatever wave we are up to these days) drinking their coffee (or is it herbal tea) out of mugs labelled “Men’s Tears”.
They claim that it is all in good fun*, and besides it’s justified because it’s “punching up”.
I think that all of these reflect a harmful attitude of “othering” entire groups of people, many if not most of whom do not deserve it. But #1 does stand on its own as advice regarding a situation that comes up in real life – if a researcher has n-1 men in their lab, and is looking for an nth person, they are going to have to take into account the impact of n’s gender. If their experience working with women is limited, they might decide to play it safe and just hire a man rather than take the risk of rocking the boat.
* I’ll note that this attitude is really not particularly new – I remember even nastier tasteless feminist “jokes” from 30+ years ago as being one of the factors that contributed to my reluctance to call myself a feminist for a few years.
Disclaimer: my wife comes from the same part of America as me. When I indulge my weakness for purchasing gadgets, she shakes her head and talks about “boys and their toys.” I try not to be a jerkass, but I definitely have rolled with that trope precisely because it lets me blow the budget on some self-indulgence, without my wife getting anywhere near as mad at me as she really, by rights, ought to.
So my previous comment (#15) is part confession when I say this trope is designed to help men get away with stuff.
Now THIS, on the other hand, is totally legit humor. It’s a very specific reaction to anti-feminist bullshit. It may be misunderstood by men who don’t know anything about feminism (and anti-feminism), but the mere potential for misunderstanding doesn’t disqualify a joke from being funny. It just means you have to take your audience into account.
Tim Hunt lost his job over his remarks. What “power” was he wielding, exactly?
No, Jib Halyard, Tim Hunt did not lose his job. He was and is retired from his job. He lost an honorary professorship which is not a job, is not paid, does not come with tenure, and which the university stipulates clearly can be terminated at any time for any reason.
Ariel @ 5 – sorry!
I think we all have those moments.
@Masked Avenger #17:
I think I do know a fair bit about both feminism and anti-feminism, and I *still* don’t find “Men’s Tears” funny. If it’s satire, perhaps I am simply unfamiliar with what it is satirizing. Perhaps a mug of “anti-feminists’ tears” is too in-your-face obvious (or too long to conveniently fit in the available space). But to me it just seems gratuitously nasty (and I am usually a fan of satire). Perhaps it should be obvious to men who aren’t anti-feminists that the nastiness is not targeted at them. But I do know that, back when I was managing techies, if a member of my team were to display that coffee mug I would have asked them not to, advising them that it could be considered harassment.
Theo: anti-feminists are convinced that feminists hate men, and wish to oppress (as well as castrate) them. They cry big man tears at oppressive behaviors like not wanting them to hold the door for women, or failing to appreciate their manly manly chivalry. They are really mourning the loss of primacy in the comfy patriarchy they always knew. Those are the tears that feminists savor.
If the meme existed in the 1860’s, freed slaves might say that they drink the tears of slaveowners distraught over how they’re going to get their cotton crop in.
Avenger: You’ve explained antifeminsm vs feminism – something I am already quite familiar with. The analogy of drinking slaveowners’ tears would work just fine if the mug said antifeminists’ tears. My problem with the mug is that it’s about feminism vs men. Though I do agree with the assertion that men in general have benefited from discrimination against women (as one can similarly assert that white people in general have benefited from the enslavement and discrimination against people of colour), I hope there is a way to address this without the collateral damage of wholesale excoriation of groups of people by gender (or skin colour, or any number of other factors)
Ophelia, we do indeed. Thanks.
In that case I wonder if you regularly post #NotAllMen, because you assume every statement about “men” is intended to apply universally? It sounds like you may be excessively literal, or humor challenged, or just plain dense.
I suppose “men’s tears” could work as a specific response to a specific MRA sob-fest. But as a generic label? Nah.
AMA @ 26 – hey! Theo is none of those things. Don’t be rude.
Apologies. I’m generally mystified by people who hear genericly-worded statements and actually assume that the universal quantifier is truly implied. It pretty much NEVER is. Even when it’s explicitly stated, it’s almost always a rhetorical exaggeration. So anyone who feels the need to stop and issue the caveat that exceptions exist, or #NotAllMen and #NotAllCops and #NotAllNazis (ever hear of Oskar Schindler? Huh? Didja? Huh? So: #NotAllNazis!), is pretty much failing at basic communication skills.
My previous comment was a shitty little notpology, though.
Theo, I apologize for getting personal in my previous comments. I’ll try to behave better.
Thank you.
Thanks Ophelia for coming to my defense, and thanks Masked Avenger for your apology.
Avenger: The possibility that I would be accused of “notallmen”-ing was certainly in my mind. (I have myself complained about people using that response. )
However: If a woman complains about being wolf-whistled at by men when she walks down the street, it is ridiculously unhelpful for someone to say “not all men do that”. Similarly, if someone says “We need to do something about men sexually harassing women on the subway”, the response “Not all men are sexually harassing women on the subway” is neither appropriate nor helpful. On the other hand, if someone were to say “As a result of sexual harassment of women on the subway, we need to ban men from using the subway between the hours of 11pm and 7am” it would be reasonable to ask if this action taken against all men is the most appropriate way to address the bad behaviour of some men. Sometimes it may in fact turn out to be most effective to address an issue with *some men* with a response that involves *all men*, but the question still needs to be asked.
Theo @32 – your point is very much on target, though I don’t know how to respond to the “humor” that has been cited, none of which I find funny. (I could just lack a sense of humor, or it isn’t funny, or it isn’t to my taste. For the record, I DO not post at NotAllMen, I am a radical feminist, and I find many things very funny, so I would say it is probably either #2 or #3 in my list of explanations).
As for the banning of all men, this is becoming problematic already. One reason I don’t find this joke funny is that our local swimming pool has basically banned men from being at the pool by themselves, because the assumption is that they are all there to leer at (and possibly rape) little girls. My husband remained unmarried for 47 years (he was waiting for me, he says. Gotta love him for that), and was regarded as highly dangerous. The minute he appeared with a wife on his arm, the danger level went away. This is a problem our society has, and yes, stereotyping men has led to some really negative consequences. There are other ways to keep little kids safe at the swimming pool, and sometimes men should get custody of the children.
Still, I do understand the arguments of the rest of the folks here, because I have spent my life being the butt of nasty sexist jokes, sexual harassment, and other types of mistreatment at the hands of a substantial minority of the men I have worked with (it is probably close to 40-45%).
I guess my short post would have been, hey, this is so complicated. Humor is complicated. Sexism is complicated. Who gets to decide what is not funny is complicated. Because humans are complicated. But I think that would have been an inadequate answer, so I refuse to apologize for the long post (not even a notpology)
Ariel
I’ve been reading Butterflies and Wheels for 15 years and I have to say I find Ophelia’s heavy use of irony gets in the way of me understanding what she actually thinks. Maybe that’s intentional.
Mark Hadfield – Really? I don’t find it difficult at all to figure out what Ophelia actually thinks. Of course, I’m a heavy user of irony myself, so maybe that’s why. She tends to approach topics in a similar way to how I approach them – irony-laden and willing to be sarcastic when the situation calls for it.
The point is, if men aren’t responsible, they shouldn’t be indulged–they should be locked up.
I very strongly suspect that Bindel, like most feminists, in fact thinks better of men than that.
Re “men’s tears”:
I think the image is meant to evoke the evil queens and witches of fairy tales and gothic literature. Who else drinks tears? A coffee cup won’t do, though. Tears should be served in a chalice of silver, or perhaps a cup carved from a human skull.
It’s obviously directed at anti-feminist men–nobody else invests women with such superhuman malevolence.
I find it funny, but then I enjoy fairy tale and gothic lit. If someone perceives women as either livestock or Maleficent, I’ll play Maleficent, and shout “boo!”, and laugh at his absurdity.
Mark Hadfield #34, normally I’m like iknklast – I also use irony myself and usually I don’t have problems with spotting and interpreting it. I think of this as of an aesthetic preference. Distortions (due to emotional factors) are rare enough not to trouble me too much; hopefully in the future they will remain as rare.
In my own case, the main temptation to control is a lazy use of irony – situations where lots and lots of words would be needed to explain my position, but I’m just too lazy, so I write instead something quick, ironic and vaguely provocative. Typically, it doesn’t end well.
As I see it, the intended irony of proposals like Bindel’s is that IF we took rationales for men’s bad behavior seriously, THIS is what we would do. We don’t do it – therefore we don’t believe our own rationales. It’s bitterly funny because the ironically proposed actions are so far from anything thinkable, and rightly so.
You can either believe that she really believes men should be put in camps, or that she really believes that stereotypes of women’s behavior shouldn’t limit how women are treated. I’m going for the latter interpretation, myself.
I don’t think for one minute that she means it literally. However, the sentiment is pretty unpleasant. The tone of the article suggests that she thinks that all men are personally responsible for the subjugation of women regardless of what they do. She’s also annoyed with women who point out that some men, usually their own partners are OK. I’m familiar with the term for this, “not my Nigel!” Never mind that feminists are likely to choose partners who are not domineering louts.
I don’t agree with no-platforming her but there was so much in that article alone that was problematic. We don’t condone the “just a joke” defence with men if the underlying sentiments are hostile to women and I don’t see anything great about feminists declaring their absolute right to be flaming hypocrites!
@20.
“No, Jib Halyard, Tim Hunt did not lose his job. He was and is retired from his job. He lost an honorary professorship which is not a job, is not paid, does not come with tenure, and which the university stipulates clearly can be terminated at any time for any reason”
Do you really believe for one minute that Hunt’s “resignation” from that position was completely voluntary?
Wtf? I said he lost an honorary professorship. My point was not at all that he left voluntarily, it was that what he left was not his job. It wasn’t a job at all. It was an honorary position, governed by none of the rules that govern employment.
Maybe it’s what I said about his retirement that misled you. I’ll try to make it even clearer.
He’s retired from what was his job, with a salary and tenure. He was retired from that before he went to South Korea.
The thing that UCL pushed him out of was not a job.
Ok? Now do you get it?