![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
MRM Site: Malala Yousafzai greater threat to world peace than Osama bin Laden
A Voice for Men appears to be one of the major outlets for the so-called Men's Rights Movement (MRM), at least judging from the number of times I've had AVFM links thrown at me by activists in that movement (MRAs). While scouting around the site I noticed an article about Malala Yousafzai. I was surprised they chose to talk about her at all, given that she's just about the MRM's worst nightmare: a genuine feminist activist who was terrorized by male supremicists for her activism. How would a site like AVFM deal with her?
Someone like Yousafzai leaves MRAs with a problem of narrative--make no mistake, they hate her guts. (Follow my foray near the end to the comments section, if you dare.) Because she's such a sympathetic figure, however, saying exactly what they think of Yousafzai would strip from them even the thin pretense of respectability they've cultivated by using the rhetoric of rights and equality. So how to talk about her without acknowledging in any way the role and validity of feminism on the one hand, or showing their misogynist beliefs on the other?
Here's how the article does it:
1. Totally erase Yousafzai's human-rights activism and paint her as a passive, helpless victim.
2. Continue this narrative of victimization to paint her as a mindless dupe of International Feminism.
3. Ignore the context of the attack on Yousafzai's and put it down to the actions of a few bad apples.
4. Carry on with the usual MRM line that human rights for women and children mean hatred against men and destruction of human freedom, because that's all they ever wanted to say in the first place.
You can find the article if you are so inclined (just use the obvious keywords). Instead of linking I'll be using screencaps and quotes.
Text version, emphasis mine:
You can see that the erasure of her activism begins from the start. She's presented as this innocent, helpless victim, "terribly used and abused," with no mention of why there was an almost-successful attempt on her life or, indeed, that there was any such attempt at all. The details of the abuse are never mentioned, and with it the post ignores the fact that Yousafzai was gunned down in a very specific context, that of a political struggle with violent male-supremicist reactionaries. Talk about your inconvenient truths.
In addition to obscuring what was done and why, this opening also keeps it vague who did these unspecified horrible things to Yousafzai. All this murkiness, as we'll see shortly, is to conflate the terrorist threats and violence the Taliban used against Yousafzai with feminists' supposed misuse of her.
Instead of discussing the specifics of Yousafzai's story, author Herbert Purdy chooses to pretty much play a word association game with it. Let's see, Malala Yousafzai is from the Swat Valley region of Pakistan. Swat Valley used to be Osama bin Laden's stomping grounds after he escaped from Afghanistan. Ooh, she was in the same region as Osama bin Laden! Bin Laden scary. She's a bigger threat than bin Laden!
Wait, SwAt Valley... SwEEt Valley? OMG she's the twins' long-lost sister!
If Purdy had been at all interested in drawing a real connection between Yousafzai's biography and the presence of bin Laden in her home region, he could have pointed to a valid link between the two: That there is a sizable Taliban presence in Swat Valley and government control is spotty despite multiple battles to bring it under control. That's how Taliban ally bin Laden could move through it with impunity, and how the Talibs were able to make terrorist attacks like the attempt on Yousafzai's life.
But who cares about things like "research" and "facts" when you can appeal to the reptile brain with nonsensical associations? Don't think, damn you, be very very afraid. Bin Laden, wooooo.
Because AVFM is, remember, trying to hold onto a bare veneer of respectability, at least Purdy doesn't go off the deep end and adds the obvious clarification in the next paragraph, that Yousafzai is not a terrorist. Then he turns to his real tack and the only talking point the MRM have ever had, that Feminism Is Destroying Us All. The author darkly warns us that Yousafzai is emerging as "an international figure . . . who is being groomed by international feminism in furtherance of its angry, hate-filled creed," and that "In Yousafzai international feminism has found something far better than a martyr for its cause, it has found a 'martyr-survivor': a concept that plays perfectly into its women-as-victim narrative . . ."
Then Purdy goes on to reiterate his saccharine, condescending paean to Yousafzai's suffering to assure us, once again, that it's not her he has a problem with. No, she's just this poor innocent girl the evil feminists are using for their own ends!
Text version, emphases mine:
Is this seriously the same guy who berated feminists just two pargraphs ago for pushing the "women-as-victim narrative" through Yousafzai? Did a different author take over in the middle of the article, or does Herbert Purdy have a near-superhuman ability to withstand cognitive dissonance?
Unless Purdy had his computer hacked into or unless aliens took over his body while he wrote, I am forced to conclude that he is the one who is pushing the narrative of Yousafzai as victim. The Nobel Committee and the United Nations honored Yousafzai not as a victim, but as an activist for women and children's rights. Purdy and AVFM, on the other hand, ignore and erase Yousafzai's convictions and her activism to paint her solely as an object of the Taliban's, and soon the feminists', actions.
Since Purdy won't talk about it, let's go into what this "young woman, barely out of childhood," did. According to the Malala Yousafzai Biography on Bio, when the Taliban began attacking schools for girls in Swat Valley she gave a speech in 2008 titled, "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" She was eleven years old at the time.
The next year, in 2009, she also started blogging under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under the Taliban and their efforts to deny an education to girls, and continued her activism for women and children's education. As a result she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize in 2011 and was awarded Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize in the same year. Far less welcome, she learned in 2011 or 2012 at the age of 14 that the Taliban was making threats on her life. Then on October 9, 2012, she was gunned down on a bus and left in critical condition.
That's the part that AVFM doesn't like to talk about, that the attempt to assassinate Malala Yousafzai took place in a very specific context: That of a struggle over education for girls against violent male-supremecist reactionaries. Purdy is also understandably reluctant to talk about what the "deeply bigoted people," as he calls the Taliban, stand for: Basically the same thing that the MRM believes, namely that it is a crime to fight for the rights of women and children. You'll see that shortly in Purdy's own post.
Lest you think all this vagueness and obfuscation are only due to Purdy's incompetence as a writer, not to mention AVFM's lack of editorial ability, the way he clouds the issue has a very specific use in the context of his article. This shows up in the very next paragraph, emphasis mine:
U C WHUT HE DID THAR? Okay, so I know it's more the equivalent of watching someone swallow earthworms alive (which you should not do, by the way) than, say, something awesome like pole vaulting. But it's still fascinating in a disgusting, can't-miss-it sort of way.
See, by being deliberately vague about what the Taliban's "deeply bigoted" beliefs exactly are, Purdy has made it possible within the bounds of his writing to conflate Taliban bigotry with supposed feminist bigotry. If he were being clear and precise, on the other hand, he would have had to come out with the facts--that the Taliban want women to remain in a state of uneducated dependence, while Yousafzai was fighting from a very early age for women's education and independence--goals that feminists support in opposition to misogynist bigots like the Taliban. Purdy has to keep that niggling little detail out of sight in order to make the case that the people who believe in freedom and equality for women are just as bad as the people who would kill in opposition to those goals. And while the MRM is not a terrorist organization like the Taliban is, they do have a history of justifying violence against women, such as the AVFM's argument that men's violence for women is the fault of feminists.
Speaking of the UN, Purdy then goes on to lampoon Yousafzai's speech before the UN. Here's the part Purdy quoted and took umbrage with:
"Here we have the feminisct agenda laid bare," says Purdy. Um... yes it totally is? That women must stand up for their independence, and women and children's rights must be protected? Who could possibly have a problem with that? Oh yeah, MRAs, that's who.
According to Purdy, in this speech "Yousafzai . . . declares that men are no longer relevant to the fight of women for independence, and stands before the very embodiment of male 'patriarchy'--the United Nations--challenging it to protect women worldwide."
So, in the world Purdy and his fellow MRAs inhabit, calling for women to fight for their independence means men are no longer relevant to that fight. There may indeed be something like pole vaulting going on here, after all, as in leaps of logic. These mental vaults only make sense if your world is a perpetual zero-sum game, to the extent that any assertion of independence by a different group feels like it takes away from your own.
I believe Yousafzai herself said it best in her UN speech: "The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them."
That's the MRA mindset in a nutshell. They're frightened by the power of thought, by the power of women's voices. They are so insecure that women's independence seems a personal threat to them, as though they lose when women gain. They're so scared that they read exclusion and irrelevance of men everywhere, even when no such thing was said.
Here's just how irrelevant Malala Yousafzai thinks men are to the struggle. She has these to say elsewhere in her speech, emphases mine:
Wow. What a virulent man-hater. What a hapless dupe of organized misandry!
Okay, back to the quote I was dissecting. As a reminder, it was: "Yousafzai . . . declares that men are no longer relevant to the fight of women for independence, and stands before the very embodiment of male 'patriarchy'--the United Nations--challenging it to protect women worldwide."
Purdy seems to be saying here Yousafzai's speech doesn't make sense because she's calling on women to stand up for themselves, yet she's asking the UN, "the very embodiment of male 'patriarchy,'" to protect women.
Where do I even start? As is typical of MRA rhetoric lazyness, vagueness, bad assumptions, and bad arguments are packed together in such a reeking bunch that it's hard to know where to even begin breaking things down. But let's try it anyway.
First, assuming I'm right about what Purdy means, Yousafzai actually called on world leaders, not the UN, to protect women and children's rights. This is only proper because the UN has very little coercive power aside from its constituent states. Calling on world leaders in no way contradicts her calls for women's independence, because petitioning and pressuring leaders is in fact acting independently. It's called the political process.
Second, as for the UN being the very embodiment of male patriarchy, this assertion is not supported by argument or fact. Is it because most world leaders are men? But how does that support the idea that the UN is more patriarchal than any other institution, and why is it a reason for feminists to withdraw from the UN rather than challenge it and change it? It seems to come down to "because I said so," and well, who can argue with that?
Which makes him the Chief World Patriarch, I guess.
Purdy then goes from merely erasing Yousafzai's feminist activism to edging into outright lies about about her. Continuing with his criticism of her speech, Purdy argues the following:
Text version:
Okay, first of all, she did not ask the UN to protect women and children's rights, as discussed above. This is either a dishonest manipulation of the quote or a reading comprehension issue. Given that it's a minor issue I lean toward the second explanation. I imagine that living in constant, butt-clenching fear of international feminism is not conducive to a clearheaded understanding of what one is reading.
More seriously, Purdy is saying here that Yousafzai is making speeches about the plight of children (something Purdy puts in sneering quotation marks, also known as "dick fingers" [3:00 in] when in speech form) "[p]resumably for the purpose of finessing her nomination for the Nobel Prize."
Really. Malala Yousafzai talked about children's right to an education to for Peace Prize creds. Really? When she was publicly speaking against terrorists at the age of 11 she was just posing for the Nobel Committee? When she received death threats at 14, that was just for the cameras, right? Because her activism isn't real, her conviction isn't real, she's just a girl who suffered a terrible misfortune and is being duped by evil feminists into being a puppet for their agenda--right?
The scary part is, I think Herbert Purdy and the staff at AVFM actually believe that. I think they badly need Yousafzai to be either a mindless puppet or cynical careerist (and did you notice how Purdy can't make up his mind within the same article which she is?) in order to keep up their worldview and peace of mind. "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible," said George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language. It is also frequently a defense for the fragile psyches of small, frightened human beings.
As for the complaint that by "children" Yousafzai means "girls," yes, she specifically said she's focusing on girls. Because it was education for girls that the Taliban banned in Swat Valley. Because advocating for the education of girls is what got Malala Yousafzai fucking shot in the face on public transportation. Why is it a crime in Purdy's eyes that Yousafzai is advocating for a disenfranchised group? Is his intellect so broken and his basic human decency so frayed that he cannot comprehend the need to stand up for an oppressed group? Is his mind so eaten away by fantasies of feminist persecution that he imagines that advocating for the freedom of girls and women is to exclude or enslave boys and men?
Or does he not know? In his attempts to obscure in writing the actual situation of Yousafzai's injury and the situation in Swat Valley, has Purdy actually managed to hide it from himself as well? Orwell, again: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
Besides which, Purdy is outright lying when he's saying Yousafzai is excluding "boys" when she says "children." Here are other parts of her speech, emphases mine:
So Yousafzai's emphasis may be on girls, but by children she by no means excludes boys. When there is repression of girls and women as opposed to boys and men, dismantling that repression is a valid and worthwhile goal. To refuse to acknowledge the reality of such repression and to go "What about boys?" is a petulant derail, again a symptom of a mind that has lost all sense of proportion and compassion.
Purdy then professes bewilderment or outrage about this so-called plight of children. "What plight?" he asks. "What is this all about? What are these words implying? Are children now being portrayed as a victimized social group alongside women?"
I think I'll let a more eloquent and better person than I take that one. It's something Purdy might have found out for himself if he'd bothered to read more than a paragraph-long excerpt of Yousafzai's UN speech, in which she said:
What plight of children, indeed. Is this news to anyone with even a glancing knowledge of world affairs? Only in MRM-land, I'm guessing, where ignoring the very real inequities of the world is the only way to keep their distorted worldview going.
We are nearly done with examining the article in any depth, because this is the point where Purdy discards any remaining pretense of writing about Malala Yousafzai, or about anything real. Instead he goes on a rant about how this is proof that feminism has succeeded in dividing women and children from men, about how feminists have created a Nineteen Eighty-Four totalitarian state where men, women, and children are at odds with each other. Also misandry, the end of the traditional family, and feminist-driven rape hysteria! What, if anything, any of this has to do with Yousafzai is clear only in the author's mind and minds like his.
He concludes with the warning that "1984 is not in the past, but just around the corner." Of his seven footnotes, no less than three reference to Orwell. There is also a grave reminder in Footnote Two that "We must never lose sight of the fact that 'patriarchy' means literally 'the rule of the father.'" What does that have to do with the assertion it's attached to, that the feminists are lying about "The Patriarchy" being the cause of the historical suppression of women? How does patriarchy meaning the rule of the father give the lie to that assertion? Again, so much vagueness and bad argumentation are packed into a such a small space, the result is difficult to unpack and understand. Who cares, though, it's in a footnote and therefore it must be Deep and Relevant!
It's really unfortunate the Purdy harped so much on Orwell, though. Unfortunate for him, because otherwise I might have forgotten to bring up Politics and the English Language and how relevant it is to Purdy's own piece. According to Orwell, bad political writing has two qualities in common:
Remember my frustrations at the beginning that Purdy goes on and on about how this "innocent young woman" has been "terribly used and abused" and "suffered abominably," but he never comes out and says what exactly she suffered and why? Or why feminism is an "angry, hate-filled creed" or why they're as bad as the people who shoot feminists like Yousafzai, or why the UN is the embodiment of male patriarchy, why it's so wrong to advocate for the rights of women and children, why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings?
Mr. Orwell can enlighten us on the reason for all this confused and flailing MRM rhetoric, I think. Let's pick up from the "defense of the indefensible" quote earlier.
In other words, vague language is a thin cover for a sinkhole of immorality. If someone is going off into the realm of abstract, fact-free non-arguments, chances are he's deliberately clouding up the waters by burrowing into the sand like a fleeing eel. The vagueness is by design, because if he makes his intentions and reasoning clear others are going to see him as exactly bad as he is. Maybe worse still, he himself will have to see exactly how what he believes in. Deliberate vagueness is a form of deceit, not only of the world but of one's self.
The comments section of the article, while exactly as awful as you might imagine, at least has the advantage of being more honest than Purdy. The comments are almost a relief after watching Purdy get all smarmy about how terribly sorry he feels for Malala Yousafzai, the poor abused child, the duped little poppet, the self-aggrandizing bitch. (Yes, I believe the last of these slipped out despite his best efforts, see the "Presumably for the purpose of finessing her nomination" part.) Let's take a small sampler of the awful, shall we?
After the usual fantasies about the end of civilization due to feminism and how men aren't going to lift a finger to help women came comments more specific to Yousafzai:
Text version:
Here's ronthebuilder's comment referenced by Astrokid:
Text version:
When I looked her up, it turns out Somaly Mam is a Cambodian author and advocate who focused on sex trafficking. She fell from grace when Newsweek ran a story claiming she had fabricated stories of abuse, both her own and others'.
These commentors on AVFM, in other words, are saying that Yousafzai's story is probably a fraud. Brace yourselves for a slew of stories in the MRM-sphere alleging she fabricated the attempt on her life, arguing that nothing about the chronology, injury, and recovery add up, and more. In fact, it's already started--a "lively denial industry" has sprung up in her home region where her Peace Prize win is controversial. (Opinion is divided--others are happy about it.) At least Swat Valley residents are afraid that associating with Yousafzai will make them Taliban targets. What the MRAs' excuse?
Text version:
Yes, Shinobi Theninja, having cake sounds like a swell idea. Certainly better than posting extremely incoherent comments on the internet. Women can't have it that bad! Because Yousafzai survived a horrific injury! How dare she complain! How dare feminists choose to live! Just so they can recount their suffering! Because they're bigots! What?
Text version:
I think GeorgeOlduval is being clearer about Purdy's meaning than Purdy himself is. The bad assumptions and outright fabrications are still there, though. She called on leaders, not men, and just because most world leaders are men (but patriarchy is still a feminist lie, amirite?) doesn't mean she's calling on men to come rescue women. This isn't an appeal to a gender but an appeal to political leadership, which is part of women taking political action for themselves. How else do GeorgeOlduval and Herbert Purdy expect women to campaign for their rights if not through the political process?
This line of thinking seems to have an interesting double bind, by the way. On the one hand, most world leaders are male so by appealing to them you're a damsel waiting to be rescued by the menz. On the other hand, if you point out that some leaders are female, MRAs would no doubt crow about how the patriarchy was always a lie. If these positions seem contradictory to you, shhhh! Don't point it out because calling MRAs on their contradictions is like genocide or something!
Text version:
Ah yes, because obviously that's all she did. In fact that's what the Nobel Committee said in its press release: "We're giving her the prize because she... eh, who cares what she did. She got shot in the head, got free medical care and lots of press attention, that's enough for us. And wow, have you seen the vagina on this girl?"
Pssst, Mr. Purdy? Remember how you said that all right-minded people should be filled with disgust at the egregious treatment of Yousafzai? Don't look now, but some of your commentariat don't seem all that right-minded. Just a thought.
I clicked the Yousafzai link on AVFM wondering how a major MRM outlet would react to a feminist whose story, of all stories, would show the validity of what feminists are fighting for. It turns out the playbook doesn't change for someone like Yousafzai: Erase, condescend, deny, accuse, insinuate, ridicule, and, most of all, obfuscate.
It wasn't a surprise that the MRM is not only morally but also intellectually empty. What did surprise me was the fear behind the erasures and lies--as Yousafzai said, they are fearful of women and their voices. And that, in turn, helped me realize how much power I have. The vitriol of people who believe I'm a stain on existence is strangely assuring, even affirming. Just when I think nothing matters and nothing's going to change, along come these people assuring me that no, in fact I'm fucking destroying civilization. Thanks for the vote of confidence, brothers!
The sound of the MRM stewing in its fears and resentments, and the howl of MRAs that feminists are crushing them, make for a pretty good soundtrack to my fellow feminists going out there to make the world awesome. I believe it's the tune this guy is dancing to:
Someone like Yousafzai leaves MRAs with a problem of narrative--make no mistake, they hate her guts. (Follow my foray near the end to the comments section, if you dare.) Because she's such a sympathetic figure, however, saying exactly what they think of Yousafzai would strip from them even the thin pretense of respectability they've cultivated by using the rhetoric of rights and equality. So how to talk about her without acknowledging in any way the role and validity of feminism on the one hand, or showing their misogynist beliefs on the other?
Here's how the article does it:
1. Totally erase Yousafzai's human-rights activism and paint her as a passive, helpless victim.
2. Continue this narrative of victimization to paint her as a mindless dupe of International Feminism.
3. Ignore the context of the attack on Yousafzai's and put it down to the actions of a few bad apples.
4. Carry on with the usual MRM line that human rights for women and children mean hatred against men and destruction of human freedom, because that's all they ever wanted to say in the first place.
You can find the article if you are so inclined (just use the obvious keywords). Instead of linking I'll be using screencaps and quotes.
Text version, emphasis mine:
Malala Yousafzai: Far better than a martyr for feminism
October 21, 2014 By Herbert Purdy
When I heard that Malala Yousafzai had been named as co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, I was filled with a deep sense of unease. I sensed that this innocent young woman, terribly used and abused as she has been and coming as she does from that crucible of international terrorism, the Swat valley in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border lands, has all the potential of becoming even more dangerous to world peace than Osama Bin Laden ever was in his time operating from that troubled country's mountainous border with Pakistan.
You can see that the erasure of her activism begins from the start. She's presented as this innocent, helpless victim, "terribly used and abused," with no mention of why there was an almost-successful attempt on her life or, indeed, that there was any such attempt at all. The details of the abuse are never mentioned, and with it the post ignores the fact that Yousafzai was gunned down in a very specific context, that of a political struggle with violent male-supremicist reactionaries. Talk about your inconvenient truths.
In addition to obscuring what was done and why, this opening also keeps it vague who did these unspecified horrible things to Yousafzai. All this murkiness, as we'll see shortly, is to conflate the terrorist threats and violence the Taliban used against Yousafzai with feminists' supposed misuse of her.
Instead of discussing the specifics of Yousafzai's story, author Herbert Purdy chooses to pretty much play a word association game with it. Let's see, Malala Yousafzai is from the Swat Valley region of Pakistan. Swat Valley used to be Osama bin Laden's stomping grounds after he escaped from Afghanistan. Ooh, she was in the same region as Osama bin Laden! Bin Laden scary. She's a bigger threat than bin Laden!
Wait, SwAt Valley... SwEEt Valley? OMG she's the twins' long-lost sister!
If Purdy had been at all interested in drawing a real connection between Yousafzai's biography and the presence of bin Laden in her home region, he could have pointed to a valid link between the two: That there is a sizable Taliban presence in Swat Valley and government control is spotty despite multiple battles to bring it under control. That's how Taliban ally bin Laden could move through it with impunity, and how the Talibs were able to make terrorist attacks like the attempt on Yousafzai's life.
But who cares about things like "research" and "facts" when you can appeal to the reptile brain with nonsensical associations? Don't think, damn you, be very very afraid. Bin Laden, wooooo.
Because AVFM is, remember, trying to hold onto a bare veneer of respectability, at least Purdy doesn't go off the deep end and adds the obvious clarification in the next paragraph, that Yousafzai is not a terrorist. Then he turns to his real tack and the only talking point the MRM have ever had, that Feminism Is Destroying Us All. The author darkly warns us that Yousafzai is emerging as "an international figure . . . who is being groomed by international feminism in furtherance of its angry, hate-filled creed," and that "In Yousafzai international feminism has found something far better than a martyr for its cause, it has found a 'martyr-survivor': a concept that plays perfectly into its women-as-victim narrative . . ."
Then Purdy goes on to reiterate his saccharine, condescending paean to Yousafzai's suffering to assure us, once again, that it's not her he has a problem with. No, she's just this poor innocent girl the evil feminists are using for their own ends!
Text version, emphases mine:
Obviously, we acknowledge that this young woman, barely out of childhood, has suffered abominably at the hands of deeply bigoted people, the Taliban, who treated her with disgusting disdain for her rights and, indeed, for human rights in general. She has suffered terribly at their evil hands, of that there is no doubt, and all right-minded people should be filled with disgust at her egregious treatment, as I am.
Is this seriously the same guy who berated feminists just two pargraphs ago for pushing the "women-as-victim narrative" through Yousafzai? Did a different author take over in the middle of the article, or does Herbert Purdy have a near-superhuman ability to withstand cognitive dissonance?
Unless Purdy had his computer hacked into or unless aliens took over his body while he wrote, I am forced to conclude that he is the one who is pushing the narrative of Yousafzai as victim. The Nobel Committee and the United Nations honored Yousafzai not as a victim, but as an activist for women and children's rights. Purdy and AVFM, on the other hand, ignore and erase Yousafzai's convictions and her activism to paint her solely as an object of the Taliban's, and soon the feminists', actions.
Since Purdy won't talk about it, let's go into what this "young woman, barely out of childhood," did. According to the Malala Yousafzai Biography on Bio, when the Taliban began attacking schools for girls in Swat Valley she gave a speech in 2008 titled, "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" She was eleven years old at the time.
The next year, in 2009, she also started blogging under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under the Taliban and their efforts to deny an education to girls, and continued her activism for women and children's education. As a result she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize in 2011 and was awarded Pakistan's National Youth Peace Prize in the same year. Far less welcome, she learned in 2011 or 2012 at the age of 14 that the Taliban was making threats on her life. Then on October 9, 2012, she was gunned down on a bus and left in critical condition.
That's the part that AVFM doesn't like to talk about, that the attempt to assassinate Malala Yousafzai took place in a very specific context: That of a struggle over education for girls against violent male-supremecist reactionaries. Purdy is also understandably reluctant to talk about what the "deeply bigoted people," as he calls the Taliban, stand for: Basically the same thing that the MRM believes, namely that it is a crime to fight for the rights of women and children. You'll see that shortly in Purdy's own post.
Lest you think all this vagueness and obfuscation are only due to Purdy's incompetence as a writer, not to mention AVFM's lack of editorial ability, the way he clouds the issue has a very specific use in the context of his article. This shows up in the very next paragraph, emphasis mine:
However, I cannot but think that she is the innocent dupe of another deeply bigoted and socially dangerous ideology, feminism, that will use her elevation as a Nobel Laureate to enormous effect.
U C WHUT HE DID THAR? Okay, so I know it's more the equivalent of watching someone swallow earthworms alive (which you should not do, by the way) than, say, something awesome like pole vaulting. But it's still fascinating in a disgusting, can't-miss-it sort of way.
See, by being deliberately vague about what the Taliban's "deeply bigoted" beliefs exactly are, Purdy has made it possible within the bounds of his writing to conflate Taliban bigotry with supposed feminist bigotry. If he were being clear and precise, on the other hand, he would have had to come out with the facts--that the Taliban want women to remain in a state of uneducated dependence, while Yousafzai was fighting from a very early age for women's education and independence--goals that feminists support in opposition to misogynist bigots like the Taliban. Purdy has to keep that niggling little detail out of sight in order to make the case that the people who believe in freedom and equality for women are just as bad as the people who would kill in opposition to those goals. And while the MRM is not a terrorist organization like the Taliban is, they do have a history of justifying violence against women, such as the AVFM's argument that men's violence for women is the fault of feminists.
Speaking of the UN, Purdy then goes on to lampoon Yousafzai's speech before the UN. Here's the part Purdy quoted and took umbrage with:
Dear fellows, today I am focusing on women's rights and girls' education because they are suffering the most. There was a time when women social activists asked men to stand up for their rights. But, this time, we will do it by ourselves. I am not telling men to step away from speaking for women's rights rather I am focusing on women to be independent to fight for themselves. . . .
So today, we call upon the world leaders to change their strategic policies in favour of peace and prosperity.
We call upon the world leaders that all the peace deals must protect women and children's rights.
"Here we have the feminisct agenda laid bare," says Purdy. Um... yes it totally is? That women must stand up for their independence, and women and children's rights must be protected? Who could possibly have a problem with that? Oh yeah, MRAs, that's who.
According to Purdy, in this speech "Yousafzai . . . declares that men are no longer relevant to the fight of women for independence, and stands before the very embodiment of male 'patriarchy'--the United Nations--challenging it to protect women worldwide."
So, in the world Purdy and his fellow MRAs inhabit, calling for women to fight for their independence means men are no longer relevant to that fight. There may indeed be something like pole vaulting going on here, after all, as in leaps of logic. These mental vaults only make sense if your world is a perpetual zero-sum game, to the extent that any assertion of independence by a different group feels like it takes away from your own.
I believe Yousafzai herself said it best in her UN speech: "The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them."
That's the MRA mindset in a nutshell. They're frightened by the power of thought, by the power of women's voices. They are so insecure that women's independence seems a personal threat to them, as though they lose when women gain. They're so scared that they read exclusion and irrelevance of men everywhere, even when no such thing was said.
Here's just how irrelevant Malala Yousafzai thinks men are to the struggle. She has these to say elsewhere in her speech, emphases mine:
I speak – not for myself, but for all girls and boys.
I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me. I would not shoot him. This is the compassion that I have learnt from Muhammad-the prophet of mercy, Jesus christ and Lord Buddha. This is the legacy of change that I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This is the philosophy of non-violence that I have learnt from Gandhi Jee, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa. And this is the forgiveness that I have learnt from my mother and father.
I remember that there was a boy in our school who was asked by a journalist, “Why are the Taliban against education?” He answered very simply. By pointing to his book he said, “A Talib doesn't know what is written inside this book.”
Poverty, ignorance, injustice, racism and the deprivation of basic rights are the main problems faced by both men and women.
Wow. What a virulent man-hater. What a hapless dupe of organized misandry!
Okay, back to the quote I was dissecting. As a reminder, it was: "Yousafzai . . . declares that men are no longer relevant to the fight of women for independence, and stands before the very embodiment of male 'patriarchy'--the United Nations--challenging it to protect women worldwide."
Purdy seems to be saying here Yousafzai's speech doesn't make sense because she's calling on women to stand up for themselves, yet she's asking the UN, "the very embodiment of male 'patriarchy,'" to protect women.
Where do I even start? As is typical of MRA rhetoric lazyness, vagueness, bad assumptions, and bad arguments are packed together in such a reeking bunch that it's hard to know where to even begin breaking things down. But let's try it anyway.
First, assuming I'm right about what Purdy means, Yousafzai actually called on world leaders, not the UN, to protect women and children's rights. This is only proper because the UN has very little coercive power aside from its constituent states. Calling on world leaders in no way contradicts her calls for women's independence, because petitioning and pressuring leaders is in fact acting independently. It's called the political process.
Second, as for the UN being the very embodiment of male patriarchy, this assertion is not supported by argument or fact. Is it because most world leaders are men? But how does that support the idea that the UN is more patriarchal than any other institution, and why is it a reason for feminists to withdraw from the UN rather than challenge it and change it? It seems to come down to "because I said so," and well, who can argue with that?
Which makes him the Chief World Patriarch, I guess.
Purdy then goes from merely erasing Yousafzai's feminist activism to edging into outright lies about about her. Continuing with his criticism of her speech, Purdy argues the following:
Text version:
However, the key to seeing what is coming from this young woman lies in her last words: [The UN] "...must protect women and children's rights..." The rhetoric of Yousafzai, the female heroine, has subtly changed. Presumably for the purpose of finessing her nomination for the Nobel Prize, it has become Yousafzai the advocate for the "plight of children" (for which, of course, read: girls).
Okay, first of all, she did not ask the UN to protect women and children's rights, as discussed above. This is either a dishonest manipulation of the quote or a reading comprehension issue. Given that it's a minor issue I lean toward the second explanation. I imagine that living in constant, butt-clenching fear of international feminism is not conducive to a clearheaded understanding of what one is reading.
More seriously, Purdy is saying here that Yousafzai is making speeches about the plight of children (something Purdy puts in sneering quotation marks, also known as "dick fingers" [3:00 in] when in speech form) "[p]resumably for the purpose of finessing her nomination for the Nobel Prize."
Really. Malala Yousafzai talked about children's right to an education to for Peace Prize creds. Really? When she was publicly speaking against terrorists at the age of 11 she was just posing for the Nobel Committee? When she received death threats at 14, that was just for the cameras, right? Because her activism isn't real, her conviction isn't real, she's just a girl who suffered a terrible misfortune and is being duped by evil feminists into being a puppet for their agenda--right?
The scary part is, I think Herbert Purdy and the staff at AVFM actually believe that. I think they badly need Yousafzai to be either a mindless puppet or cynical careerist (and did you notice how Purdy can't make up his mind within the same article which she is?) in order to keep up their worldview and peace of mind. "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible," said George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language. It is also frequently a defense for the fragile psyches of small, frightened human beings.
As for the complaint that by "children" Yousafzai means "girls," yes, she specifically said she's focusing on girls. Because it was education for girls that the Taliban banned in Swat Valley. Because advocating for the education of girls is what got Malala Yousafzai fucking shot in the face on public transportation. Why is it a crime in Purdy's eyes that Yousafzai is advocating for a disenfranchised group? Is his intellect so broken and his basic human decency so frayed that he cannot comprehend the need to stand up for an oppressed group? Is his mind so eaten away by fantasies of feminist persecution that he imagines that advocating for the freedom of girls and women is to exclude or enslave boys and men?
Or does he not know? In his attempts to obscure in writing the actual situation of Yousafzai's injury and the situation in Swat Valley, has Purdy actually managed to hide it from himself as well? Orwell, again: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
Besides which, Purdy is outright lying when he's saying Yousafzai is excluding "boys" when she says "children." Here are other parts of her speech, emphases mine:
Dear brothers and sisters, do remember one thing. Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.
I speak – not for myself, but for all girls and boys.
So Yousafzai's emphasis may be on girls, but by children she by no means excludes boys. When there is repression of girls and women as opposed to boys and men, dismantling that repression is a valid and worthwhile goal. To refuse to acknowledge the reality of such repression and to go "What about boys?" is a petulant derail, again a symptom of a mind that has lost all sense of proportion and compassion.
Purdy then professes bewilderment or outrage about this so-called plight of children. "What plight?" he asks. "What is this all about? What are these words implying? Are children now being portrayed as a victimized social group alongside women?"
I think I'll let a more eloquent and better person than I take that one. It's something Purdy might have found out for himself if he'd bothered to read more than a paragraph-long excerpt of Yousafzai's UN speech, in which she said:
Women and children are suffering in many parts of the world in many ways. In India, innocent and poor children are victims of child labour. Many schools have been destroyed in Nigeria. People in Afghanistan have been affected by the hurdles of extremism for decades. Young girls have to do domestic child labour and are forced to get married at early age. Poverty, ignorance, injustice, racism and the deprivation of basic rights are the main problems faced by both men and women.
What plight of children, indeed. Is this news to anyone with even a glancing knowledge of world affairs? Only in MRM-land, I'm guessing, where ignoring the very real inequities of the world is the only way to keep their distorted worldview going.
We are nearly done with examining the article in any depth, because this is the point where Purdy discards any remaining pretense of writing about Malala Yousafzai, or about anything real. Instead he goes on a rant about how this is proof that feminism has succeeded in dividing women and children from men, about how feminists have created a Nineteen Eighty-Four totalitarian state where men, women, and children are at odds with each other. Also misandry, the end of the traditional family, and feminist-driven rape hysteria! What, if anything, any of this has to do with Yousafzai is clear only in the author's mind and minds like his.
He concludes with the warning that "1984 is not in the past, but just around the corner." Of his seven footnotes, no less than three reference to Orwell. There is also a grave reminder in Footnote Two that "We must never lose sight of the fact that 'patriarchy' means literally 'the rule of the father.'" What does that have to do with the assertion it's attached to, that the feminists are lying about "The Patriarchy" being the cause of the historical suppression of women? How does patriarchy meaning the rule of the father give the lie to that assertion? Again, so much vagueness and bad argumentation are packed into a such a small space, the result is difficult to unpack and understand. Who cares, though, it's in a footnote and therefore it must be Deep and Relevant!
It's really unfortunate the Purdy harped so much on Orwell, though. Unfortunate for him, because otherwise I might have forgotten to bring up Politics and the English Language and how relevant it is to Purdy's own piece. According to Orwell, bad political writing has two qualities in common:
The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing.
Remember my frustrations at the beginning that Purdy goes on and on about how this "innocent young woman" has been "terribly used and abused" and "suffered abominably," but he never comes out and says what exactly she suffered and why? Or why feminism is an "angry, hate-filled creed" or why they're as bad as the people who shoot feminists like Yousafzai, or why the UN is the embodiment of male patriarchy, why it's so wrong to advocate for the rights of women and children, why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings?
Mr. Orwell can enlighten us on the reason for all this confused and flailing MRM rhetoric, I think. Let's pick up from the "defense of the indefensible" quote earlier.
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
In other words, vague language is a thin cover for a sinkhole of immorality. If someone is going off into the realm of abstract, fact-free non-arguments, chances are he's deliberately clouding up the waters by burrowing into the sand like a fleeing eel. The vagueness is by design, because if he makes his intentions and reasoning clear others are going to see him as exactly bad as he is. Maybe worse still, he himself will have to see exactly how what he believes in. Deliberate vagueness is a form of deceit, not only of the world but of one's self.
The comments section of the article, while exactly as awful as you might imagine, at least has the advantage of being more honest than Purdy. The comments are almost a relief after watching Purdy get all smarmy about how terribly sorry he feels for Malala Yousafzai, the poor abused child, the duped little poppet, the self-aggrandizing bitch. (Yes, I believe the last of these slipped out despite his best efforts, see the "Presumably for the purpose of finessing her nomination" part.) Let's take a small sampler of the awful, shall we?
After the usual fantasies about the end of civilization due to feminism and how men aren't going to lift a finger to help women came comments more specific to Yousafzai:
Text version:
Astrokid: The problem goes far beyond feminism exploiting Malala.
1) ronthebuilder made a good connection with Somaly Mam. . . .
Here's ronthebuilder's comment referenced by Astrokid:
Text version:
Ronthebuilder: Why does this story remind me so much of Somaly Mam's? Who, you ask? Exactly. . . .
When I looked her up, it turns out Somaly Mam is a Cambodian author and advocate who focused on sex trafficking. She fell from grace when Newsweek ran a story claiming she had fabricated stories of abuse, both her own and others'.
These commentors on AVFM, in other words, are saying that Yousafzai's story is probably a fraud. Brace yourselves for a slew of stories in the MRM-sphere alleging she fabricated the attempt on her life, arguing that nothing about the chronology, injury, and recovery add up, and more. In fact, it's already started--a "lively denial industry" has sprung up in her home region where her Peace Prize win is controversial. (Opinion is divided--others are happy about it.) At least Swat Valley residents are afraid that associating with Yousafzai will make them Taliban targets. What the MRAs' excuse?
Text version:
Shinobi Theninja: Women have had it far worse. Says the woman who is still alive to this very day. I swear you often wonder what these bigots would choose in a 'cake or death' situation. One[sic] one hand you can suffer REALLY BADLY orrrr you could live?
I'm pretty certain they'd pick life just so they could earn brownie points with the Sister-herd while retelling their tragic tale, STILL painting the picture of their nightmarish adventure being worse than death.
Maybe I'm just out of touch. I'll have some cake.
Yes, Shinobi Theninja, having cake sounds like a swell idea. Certainly better than posting extremely incoherent comments on the internet. Women can't have it that bad! Because Yousafzai survived a horrific injury! How dare she complain! How dare feminists choose to live! Just so they can recount their suffering! Because they're bigots! What?
Text version:
GeorgeOlduval: "I am not telling men to step away from speaking for women's rights, but I am focusing on women to be independent and fight for themselves. So dear sisters and brothers,"
Right... again, "men, sit down and shut up(ish)... but help us (the poor damsels that we are!)" She begins with a declaration that women are/should be "independent and fight for themselves" and then immediately segues into a call for MEN to help. HeForShe anyone?
I think GeorgeOlduval is being clearer about Purdy's meaning than Purdy himself is. The bad assumptions and outright fabrications are still there, though. She called on leaders, not men, and just because most world leaders are men (but patriarchy is still a feminist lie, amirite?) doesn't mean she's calling on men to come rescue women. This isn't an appeal to a gender but an appeal to political leadership, which is part of women taking political action for themselves. How else do GeorgeOlduval and Herbert Purdy expect women to campaign for their rights if not through the political process?
This line of thinking seems to have an interesting double bind, by the way. On the one hand, most world leaders are male so by appealing to them you're a damsel waiting to be rescued by the menz. On the other hand, if you point out that some leaders are female, MRAs would no doubt crow about how the patriarchy was always a lie. If these positions seem contradictory to you, shhhh! Don't point it out because calling MRAs on their contradictions is like genocide or something!
Text version:
98abaile: I don't get why she even has a peace prize. Getting shot in the head and then getting flown to a rich country for free medical treatment while the press fawns over you for having a vagina, is not an achievement.
Ah yes, because obviously that's all she did. In fact that's what the Nobel Committee said in its press release: "We're giving her the prize because she... eh, who cares what she did. She got shot in the head, got free medical care and lots of press attention, that's enough for us. And wow, have you seen the vagina on this girl?"
Pssst, Mr. Purdy? Remember how you said that all right-minded people should be filled with disgust at the egregious treatment of Yousafzai? Don't look now, but some of your commentariat don't seem all that right-minded. Just a thought.
I clicked the Yousafzai link on AVFM wondering how a major MRM outlet would react to a feminist whose story, of all stories, would show the validity of what feminists are fighting for. It turns out the playbook doesn't change for someone like Yousafzai: Erase, condescend, deny, accuse, insinuate, ridicule, and, most of all, obfuscate.
It wasn't a surprise that the MRM is not only morally but also intellectually empty. What did surprise me was the fear behind the erasures and lies--as Yousafzai said, they are fearful of women and their voices. And that, in turn, helped me realize how much power I have. The vitriol of people who believe I'm a stain on existence is strangely assuring, even affirming. Just when I think nothing matters and nothing's going to change, along come these people assuring me that no, in fact I'm fucking destroying civilization. Thanks for the vote of confidence, brothers!
The sound of the MRM stewing in its fears and resentments, and the howl of MRAs that feminists are crushing them, make for a pretty good soundtrack to my fellow feminists going out there to make the world awesome. I believe it's the tune this guy is dancing to:
no subject
Is his intellect so broken and his basic human decency so frayed that he cannot comprehend the need to stand up for an oppressed group?
Ah, but see, they don't believe women are oppressed. Women are equal to men, ergo, if they speak on a women's issue, they are specifically DISENFRANCHISING men, by not speaking about that issue!
...yeah, I know. My brain hurt just writing that.
Interestingly, I've been reading a lot about malignant narcissism lately, and apparently one of the hallmarks of a narcissist is to accuse other people of doing things that they themselves are doing. It is certainly very true for a lot of MRA posts. They accuse Ms. Yousafzai of manipulating her agenda for the spotlight, of exaggerating her woes, of SURVIVING specifically to make men look bad.
You know, like they're doing regarding women.
--Rogan
no subject
I think MRAs go farther and say (or imply) that it's the MENZ who are disenfranchised, so talking about women's issues is more akin to male persecution and female supremacy.
Yeah, I noticed that too. They're going on and on about how feminism means women never have to be accountable for their actions and feminism is a hate ideology, and I'm like, dude, find a mirror.
no subject
And yes, they do. It's kind of fascinating to me, really, watching them twist social justice rhetoric to support, at best, the status quo. (And often totally reactionary positions.) And they don't even do it WELL! As you've mentioned, I'm often kinda taken aback by how VACUOUS their reasoning is. I like to sit and figure it out, just so I can try and catch that kind of shit in myself.
Projection: it's not just for overheads anymore!
--Rogan