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Doesn't it follow that men are responsible for the majority of evolution, then?
Eat that, misandrists.
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by Anonymous User on Saturday December 22, @08:08AM EST (#2)
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
She's just being tongue-in-cheek :)
It was a great article.
Remo
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I know. I thought the spin was funny.
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So, would the flip side of this be that women don't evolve and that men do most, if not all of the evolution? I think so....
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The author of that article, Kristen Philipkoski, has written many articles in Wired that include a vicious anti-male slant (one I remember had the title "Men are pigs"). This ain't humor, folks, it's a consistent pattern from this writer.
She writes:
"Despite being defensive and paranoid, the Y chromosome still somehow manages to persevere when it comes to mutations."
Glad she has taken some notice of the many complaints that Wired must be receiving. The next step is to take those complaints seriously and confront the pervasive misandry in her writings.
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I'm wondering why Wired bothered to run this. It's not really anything new. As others have pointed out on this site before, most species which have evolved to a point where males no longer exist and are not used in reproduction ceased to evolve afterward.
Apparently, this author believes the evolution of a species to be a bad thing.
And, yes, she does have something against men. She's written quite a bit of work with a misandrist spin in the past.
Perhaps she's simply jealous.
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Hmmm. Well, if there is a history of unbalanced articles with an anti-male slant, then that's different.
I had figured that, since it was so obvious that genetic mutations were crucial for the evolution of a species, this article had some kind of backwards twist to it. Apparently not.
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by Anonymous User on Saturday December 22, @03:03PM EST (#8)
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I just did a name search on Google, and read her "Men are Pigs", article. With the sole exception of the title, it is a story about transplanting pig organs into humans. I didn't see a male-bashing spin at all. I did read an article on Brazilian males who are infecting their partners with AIDS due to the fact they are not using culture. In the article, she uses the word "macho" once or twice, and she does end up this article with an Brazilian lady who says that she wouldn't trust "macho" Brazilian men with womens reproductive safety.
I haven't seen her go over the top yet, so I'll reserve judgement. Besides, I used to get Wired, and with the exception of one or two GRRL power stories I really don't recall much male-bashing.
Remo
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When I first looked at this article I too found the opening humorous. But one of the things I do when trying to figure out if something is discriminatory or not is substituting another group in its place. For instance would it be acceptable to say:
"It figures. Blacks are responsible for the majority of human genetic mutations, according to a landmark publication in the scientific journal Nature."
I seriously doubt that this would be acceptable to society as a whole.
I feel that this article is following the feminist led social trend to blame men for all social ills. Now not only are the reason for all societies moral problems but you can blame them for genetic problems as well.
Remember the opening paragraph purpose is to gain the readers attention and direct them down a specific path. The question is what path is this article directing readers toward.
Tony H
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She has a sarcastic writing style.
I didn't go through all the pages indicated on the search results there but she appears to have written 445 articles.
I'm not condoning a bad judgement call. I just suspect that she doesn't like the use of terms men and women in research data. She is not comfortable with them. I have come across this aversion before elswhere - such terms have no relevance as, technically, gender is a non-issue in genetic research. At least it is no more relevent than race.
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I'm not condoning a bad judgement call. I just suspect that she doesn't like the use of terms men and women in research data.
I don't understand what you're saying here, Donald. She specifically mentions gender, blaming men for genetic mutation (and avoiding the issue that evolution is also genetic mutation). She doesn't avoid gender at all.
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I reread the article, and I can see where you are comming from.
Maybe, I just don't feel safe about critising women.
You know something, when ever I used the word "no" to my "X", she would go psycho on me. I'm still scared of her. Not scared of what she would do to me, scared of what she would do to the kids.
Ah hell, it so hard to explain. People just can't imagine what it is like, to be faced with someone like her.
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by Anonymous User on Saturday December 22, @09:49PM EST (#13)
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Some people are sick. and the people who agree to publish that kind of trash are sick too.
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Uh, respectfully speaking, that is. :)
-----
This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.
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Subversive,
You're right, I've seen worse too. However, there was a point made earlier that I am in complete agreement with. It relates to the "It figures" beginning of the article. Simply replace "men" with "blacks" or "women" or any other group besides men. Society, in general, would likely be infuriated.
That may have been an attempt at humor and some would propose we just take it in stride and laugh it off. In a different world, I would agree. The current state of affairs does not allow me to see and appreciate the potential humor in that statement though. Nobody wants to be the kid that is ALWAYS the butt of the joke. If it were spread around a little more evenly and I could very likely hear a crack on women or blacks later in the day, I could get over it and take it as humor. Unless the PC umbrellas stop sheltering every group EXCEPT men, I'll never be able to find that crap funny.
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When a pendulum has swung far to one side and is still moving at high velocity, it takes a mighty opposing force to change its direction.
The anti-male bigotry pendulum needs to be stopped and to get a big shove back.
So, I propose that we all become humorless and protest all ridicule with the utmost force until this problem is resolved.
When things become equal, then we can afford to relax. In the meantime, this is war.
Think of the million boys who are put on narcotics in the public schools for their inability to act like middle-aged women. Amongst other things, we are fighting for them.
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The anti-male bigotry pendulum needs to be stopped and to get a big shove back.
I agree that males are treated unfairly by the media, and that we need to stand up to this.
So, I propose that we all become humorless and protest all ridicule with the utmost force until this problem is resolved.
...however I don't think two wrongs make a right. I think we should focus on things that matter. If we go on the attack for its own sake, then we become no better than the radical feminists we oppose.
-----
This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.
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I don't see how protesting this article is a wrong. I see nothing in this article that constitutes humour, unless you are becoming immune to mild male-bashing. In fact it only constitutes humour, if you agree that mild put-downs of say women or black people also constitute humour. And don't get me wrong about humour. I have no problem with good humour about men. There's a British comedian, Jasper Carrot, who did a hilarious routine about men and remote controls. which I loved.
I think it's clear that if women had been found to have more mutations, there would be no reference to mutations, but it would be about the positive role of women in evolution and an aside about how deficient men are in this respect. It's title would be something like "Women better for the human race"
This article deliberately puts a negative spin on it, then withdraws it. It is not neutral because of the withdrawal. It is like making an accusation, then saying "Oh forget I said anything". The damage has been done. The attack has been made. I would add that a lot of people only read or remember the first paragraph. Some people may never read the article, but see only the headline.
I say this article is one that should be protested. It would not be an attack for its own sake. The only point I consider relevant is: WHow high on the hit list should this article, the author and the magazine be.
Raymond Cuttill
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I also recognize that article-writers rarely choose their own headlines.
You're correct about that, but the "It figures" male bashing wasn't in the headline. It was in the lead. I've never met a writer who call himself or herself a writer who didn't write their own leads.
So I have a question: would you have been be offended if the article had started out by saying that "female X chromosomes have been responsible for more genetic mutations than male Y chromosomes," and continued with "by the way you shouldn't think of that as a bad thing."
Uh, that's not the way she started the article. Had she started it scientifically like that, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. She started it with a jab at men, writing "It figures. Men are to BLAME..."
I sometimes even watch the Man Show.
I think The Man Show is hilarious. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't take offense to this article.
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by Anonymous User on Monday December 24, @02:49AM EST (#23)
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I'm going with subversive on this one.
At the most, I think the title was meant as a gentle jab, in a humorous way. "Men are pigs" is a saying that predates the modern feminist movement , anyway. It simply doesn't register on my radar unless its repeated again or again or tied into some other unsavory traits.
I think we have to put our efforts where they will do the most good. I know that as a human, I will never be totally inoffensive to everyone. And while trying to be polite within reason, I'm not even gonna try to be perfect. Nor do I hold others to a higher standard than I hold myself.
If we attack everyone who offends our slightest sensitivities, I really believe we will mis-use the very limited strength that our movement possesses at this time. So I'll join the fight against those repulsive stickers. But I'm gonna sit this particular battle out.
Remo
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the "It figures" male bashing wasn't in the headline.
Ok, well there seem to be at least three separate things that people here are upset about. One is "it figures," one is "to blame," and the other is "mutations." But OK, fine. If a woman got upset just because an article started with "it figures, women are to blame," I would think she was a silly, oversensitive twit (no offense). Now if the article started out "it figures, that wretched, biologically inferior stain upon humanity that is woman is to blame," that would be entirely different (because there is name calling there). I don't understand why we see things so differently....
Let me try a different approach, word definitions, in this case from dictionary.com.
figures
v. intr.
Informal. To seem reasonable or expected: It figures.
Ok, well I think the fact that men contribute more to genetic variation than women seems reasonable or expected as well. Had I not read of this study, that would have been my first guess.
Idiom:
to blame
1) Deserving censure; at fault.
2) Being the cause or source of something: A freak storm was to blame for the power outage.
To me the context makes this pretty clear that the second definition is the one that applies. Is that offensive? (I don't know--I don't know where you are coming from in the first place.)
And if I understand correctly that some people are offended by the use of the word "mutation," I think it is pretty clear that definition 3 applies:
mutation
n.
3) Genetics.
a) A change of the DNA sequence within a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not found in the parental type.
b) The process by which such a change occurs in a chromosome, either through an alteration in the nucleotide sequence of the DNA coding for a gene or through a change in the physical arrangement of a chromosome.
c) A mutant.
So what's the big deal? She does immediately reiterates that some mutations are good, and she really didn't need to (because that is going to be common knowledge to her audience).
And I'm still not clear on one other thing: do you think radical feminists are being silly twits when they overreact and get all offended about a bunch of similar nonsense? Or do you think they are dead on--that's not funny--and that's the behavior you admire and are trying to emulate? Or, do you only support this sort of behavior when men are standing up against (what I see as) imagined slights against men?
I hope I'm not being too annoying, here, as I know I can be very caustic at times. But I think people are reading into this what they want to. I think the tone of this article could just as easily be interpreted as wistful as it could be smug. And it just seems to me that if people here pick weak, muddy issues to go on the attack about, other people will not understand what they heck they are talking about, they will see them as silly twits, they will dismiss them as kooks, and they may also unfairly dismiss more serious men's issues along with them.
-----
This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.
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by Anonymous User on Monday December 24, @08:33AM EST (#25)
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Darn. As the most recent Philipkoski article I read was "Men are Pigs" and not "Men are to Blame", I accidentally switched titles. My opinion is still the same , however.
Remo
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So what's the big deal? She does immediately reiterates that some mutations are good, and she really didn't need to (because that is going to be common knowledge to her audience).
Um, no, it isn't common knowledge. The word "mutation" has a negative connotation for most people. They think "elephant man."
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I hope I'm not being too annoying, here, as I know I can be very caustic at times. But I think people are reading into this what they want to.
If you don't want to complain about the article, then don't do it. I, for one, already have. And I stand by my opinion that that the author was using the science to take a sexist, male bashing jab at men, soemthing she has done several times in the past.
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by Anonymous User on Monday December 24, @12:39PM EST (#28)
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Um, no, it isn't common knowledge. The word "mutation" has a negative connotation for most people. They think "elephant man."
So we are to hold writers responsible for their erst-while readers misunderstandings?
Actually I doubt most readers of WIRED think "Elephant Man" when they read "mutation" , or "mutant". Thought they were more intelligent then that.
Remo
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So we are to hold writers responsible for their erst-while readers misunderstandings?
Nope. We hold writers responsible for the way they use the language. If she had intended the article to be pure science, and not male bashing, she wouldn't have led it off with the lead she did. Likewise, the editors write headlines based upon the premise of the article. Therefore, the "blame men" bit was a headline written by her editors, who saw the male bashing in the story and realized it as the upshot. If her *editors* saw the piece as male bashing, then you can also bet that's the way she intended it to sound.
Honestly, it's so obvious I am amazed people are having so much trouble discerning it.
Again, if you're not offended and don't want to complain to Wired, which sucks as a publication these days anyway, in my opinion, then don't. I already have. And I encourage anyone else who sees the offense here to do the same.
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Simply replace "men" with "blacks" or "women" or any other group besides men. Society, in general, would likely be infuriated.
I don't buy it. Sure, maybe someone somewhere would be offended by that, but they would look just as ridiculous to me. In my opinion, if the story was about Blacks or women and some were similarly offended, it would be out of hypersensitivity. I see no reason to emulate the hypersenstivity of some Blacks and some women.
Nobody wants to be the kid that is ALWAYS the butt of the joke.
True. Of course, sometimes such kids attract ridicule to themselves by getting upset so very easily. I think it is possible to stand up for oneself while at the same time not getting bent all out of shape about every possibly snide phrase (which I think is unattractive behavior).
-----
This signature has been infected with Anthrax. Take your medicine.
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"If people try really, really hard, they can convince themselves to become offended by absolutely anything. But I am unimpressed when radical feminists play that game and I don't think we should be playing it either. I think gender egalitarians, men and women alike, have plenty of real issues to worry about, without getting distracted by whining about nonsense issues."
Agreed, except ... It doesn't take trying very hard, really. It's just a strategic decision, which seems to have been made by practically everyone nowadays - since, apparently, it works. Not only "radical feminists play that game" - it's been a staple of female strategy since time began.
As for "gender egalitarians," what exactly does that mean? I used to think along the same lines - until I started really thinking, rather than merely repeating to myself the various catch-phrases and buzz-words I'd been taught. While I would agree that basic laws such as those against murder, assault and theft must be essentially gender-blind, I can see very little else in human society and relations where the concept of "gender equality" has any useful meaning.
In the human species, a certain "balance of power" has been worked out over the course of a couple million years, but now it seems we're to toss the whole thing out in five minutes - without any analysis or consideration of causes and how things work - in favor of an "equality" that in practice means (and can only mean) a search-and-destroy campaign against anything and everything that distinguishes men from women. I'm sorry, but this is nuts, and the consequences should be no surprise.
The seemingly near-universal habit of being "offended" by every little thing is part of the feminization of American culture. To complain of being "offended" by something someone said seems to me a meaningless response. If what was said was true, but unknown to me, then it's my job to learn from it. If it wasn't true, then the appropriate response - if any is needed - is to so state: "What you said was a lie". To make a big fuss about my "feelings" about it is, I believe, unworthy of a man - or of an adult of either gender. After all, I believe it was my mother (I grew up in the 1950s, when - in public at least - women still respected men and male virtues like fortitude, self-restraint and not being controlled by one's "feelings") who taught me the old saw about "Sticks and stones...."
In this case, it's the slant, the flavor added to the facts by the writer, that is the problem. "Slant" is what journalists do for a living, expecially in "popular science" writing: attempting to make raw, dry information interesting to readers. What's significant here is that the added flavor is one of derision directed at men, and that just such added flavor has become near universal in our culture - while similar derision directed at any other identifiable class would be a strict no-no. This is cowshit, to be sure.
And no, I don't like it either, but I'm not going to write a whiney note complaining about how I was "offended." I'm not quite sure what to do about it - other than ignore it - but when I see large numbers of males emulating lowest-common-denominator female behavior, it looks to me like feminism has won.
Feminists insist that women have a "right" to be taken seriously by men, in the same way men take other men seriously. However, they also reserve women's eternal "right" to continue to behave in all the ways which have always led men to not take women seriously. Such as complaining that their "feelings" have been hurt, rather than responding with reason and facts. This in itself is a perfect example of female "thinking" - and of why talk of "gender equality," when women can and will get away with such behavior, is meaningless. The sexes are not, have never been and can never be "equal." A balance of power is possible, but not "equality." A balance of power is just what we do not have at present.
The problem with "feelings" is that they're entirely subjective. If you feel constrained not to "hurt" anyone's "feelings," pretty soon you'll find yourself unable to speak at all. Which is exactly the intent of anyone who complains that you've "offended" them. When a woman begins to cry (and any man who's been paying attention knows that she can turn the spigot on and off at will, depending on what she sees as her advantage), rational discourse ends. When a man starts to cry at any little thing, well ... obviously the "ideal" of "equality" has been accomplished - the only way it can be, by eradicating what makes men different from women.
It becomes more and more clear that this will, in the end, be no better for women than for men. When men and manhood have been destroyed, nobody grows up - neither "men" nor "women."
"Can't we even get away from gender politics when writing science articles?" Well, obviously, no. This is what happens when "the feminine" gets out of control. Like a horse that's got into the oats, they simply don't know where to stop.
Is it intended to be "funny"? Of course, just like that librarian in Boulder who told us not to get upset about the "art display" of a string of severed penises made of clay: "Most women find it amusing." Do they? Well, I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.
Again, using a title like "Men are Pigs" for an article about transplanting pig organs into humans displays the writer's attitude, even if there is no overt "male bashing" in the article. The double-entendre is the point, and the fact that the writer obviously considered it "cute" and cleverly done.
"Maybe, I just don't feel safe about critising women. You know something, when ever I used the word 'no' to my 'X', she would go psycho on me." You and a hundred million other American men, subjected to brutal, savage torture in infancy by our mothers, have been deeply programmed to fear women. I don't believe it an accident that feminism really took over only beginning in the 1960s, when the first universally-circumcised generation of American males came of age. As someone remarked in another thread, in a war where one of the belligerants gets to raise - i.e. create - the other the outcome cannot be in doubt.
Really, it's not about "rights" or "equality," it's about power. American women have decided that the encounter of the sexes is not a relationship to be cultivated and learned from, but a war to be won. And, of course, in that context, as the primary creator of both girls and boys, they cannot lose - but neither will there be any winner, any more than one hand gains by cutting off the other. That, outside of a few isolated individuals, they don't seem to understand this, in itself illustrates why women need men to become whole.
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I FEEL I have to respond to this and other comments about this article. I am going to offer this.
1) If it feels bad, then it is bad
2) If it would objected to if it were reversed (about women) or some other group (e.g. black people or Jews), the it is as bad as the reversed article.
3) Whether or not to protest a bad article or speech, is purely a tactical matter, not a policy matter. (i.e. there may be better targets)
4) I do not offer this because I think we should nit-pick or "whine" about articles about men in a fair and rational society. We are not in a fair and rational society, I offer this as a defence against feminism. I offer it not only as a policy for men and men's activists, but also so that men, including young men who are committing suicide in greater numbers, can have a defence against feeling bad (see item 1).
It's Christmas here. I'm not that much of a Christian but I don't think Jesus wanted anyone (men, women, Black, White, Jew, Arab) to volunteer to be a victim. I'm a little short on loving my enemy, but I'm not going to preach hate. I am going to preach standing up and being counted, at the very least I hope to give the lions indigestion.
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And no, I don't like it either, but I'm not going to write a whiney note complaining about how I was "offended." I'm not quite sure what to do about it - other than ignore it - but when I see large numbers of males emulating lowest-common-denominator female behavior, it looks to me like feminism has won.
Heh. I can guarantee the one thing my "note" to this author was *not* was "whiney." Likewise, if you do not complain, then you are not heard. If you are not heard, then you are understood to accept her statements as fact. If you are understood to accept what she writes, she will write it again. If she writes is again, then more people will come to accept her idea that men are to "blame" for genetic mutation (that, apparently, evolution is a *bad* thing).
She needs to know that there are men out here, like me, who will stand up to her. I hardly consider that "whining."
"He who is silent," as the saying goes, "is understood to consent."
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday December 26, @08:58AM EST (#33)
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"He who is silent," as the saying goes, "is understood to consent."
Change the "he" into "she", and make the context a sexual matter, and this is no longer true.
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Huh?
Where did this come from?
Sometimes even the X chromosome is faulty, even if you have two of them. Say your father is colorblind and your mom's a carrier. You, either way, either sex, would be colorblind.
And also a question: How exactly does the Y chromosome cause mutations? Is it the simple fact that not all genes on the Y correspond to genes on the X, or is it something else? I'd like to know before my brain gets washed by junk science.
Rivka
"Female men's activist" is not an oxymoron.
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