isn’t that sweet?
July 7, 2007 by thinking girl
A comment from vimi, whoever the fuck he is, on this post.
vimi | IP: 71.120.52.199
You are not oppressed. You don’t know what oppression is. You think that some lone deviant raping a woman is oppression? You think that some sleazy guy staring at you is oppression? You think some magazine that portrays an image of women you don’t like is oppression? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you are full of shit.
Oppression is what happened to blacks during slavery. Oppression is what happened to Serbs under Turkish rule. Oppression is what the Jews lived under in eastern Europe even before the Holocaust. You are not oppressed.
Oh, there are places in the world where women, as a group, are truly oppressed. Look no further than the Muslim world for a real life example of women living under oppression. That, unlike your paranoid fantasies, is real oppression.
It’s easy for you living in the comfort of the modern Western world, where woman have enjoyed a level of equality with men unparalleled in history, to preach about oppression. It’s easy for you to hold forth like some kind of expert on a subject about which you know nothing and have no first hand experience. It’s easy for you to deny that woman are equal before the law in every Western nation and have been for decades. It’s easy for you to scream and bitch about even the most minor of problems you face and to blame the ‘patriarchy’ for them. It’s easy for you to do these things because you are not oppressed.
Since you are not oppressed, you cannot use that as an excuse to justify your antipathy toward men. Men have never done anything to you. Even if an individual man or individual men have done you wrong that is still not the fault of all men. There is no organized mens movement plotting to oppress you - thus any talk of men, as a group, wronging you is ludicrous. No, your hostility toward men cannot be based on what men, as a group, have done to you. It must instead be based in bias and, quite possibly, simple hate.
Why are you so hateful? I have an easy answer for that one. Here it is: I don’t care. That’s right, I don’t give a damn. You are the very type of bigoted, hateful monster you claim to despise. All men are guilty until they prove themselves innocent in your eyes? That’s hilarious. You’re not worth the effort. No one who thinks like you is. Your line of thinking is absolutely disgusting and makes you completely irrelevant as a human being. Why should anyone take someone who thinks in such a prejudicial and discriminatory way seriously? They shouldn’t. Instead, they should just ignore self-righteous, self-important fools such as yourself and move on.
I don’t care if you rot away in some dark, hateful corner of the Internet whilst venting your impotent rage toward everyone and everything born with a penis. I only hope that you share your malevolent philosophy honestly and up front with any men you take an interest in so that they have a fair chance to avoid you. It’s unfortunate that you are a heterosexual. I really don’t believe it’s possible for someone as hateful toward men as you to ever be in a loving relationship with a man.
There are some lesbian feminists who would be more than happy to help you ‘unlearn your heterosexualization’. I suggest you seek them out and take them up on their offer. You’ll be happier if you can just leave men out of your life completely - and so will the men whose lives you would have otherwise ruined with your presence.
Dear vimi,
how nice to know that the mass rape, objectification, and pornification of half the human population isn’t oppression. boy, I’ve been seriously mistaken all these years! I guess all those instances of women being denied substantive equality is an individual thing, probably just something they are doing wrong all on their own. Thank you ever so much for clearing that up for me.
I also guess I should start seeing this work that I do, in speaking out against women’s human rights violations and offering a counterhegemonic critique of my culture, as easy. I’ve been taking the wrong attitude altogether! I’ve thought it was kind of hard, getting my message across to people who don’t think that feminism is useful. But I guess you’re right - speaking up about all this stuff is kind of easy, considering how widespread and commonplace it all is, and how women’s rights violations are so clearly unjust! Feminism is a piece of cake!
actually though, you’re right, it is a lot easier for me to speak out and actually be heard than it is for a lot of other women, because I’m white, and hetero, and able-bodied, and middle-class, and educated, and mentally stable, and unaddicted, and unaffiliated with religion, and I live in a wealthy western nation. doesn’t mean that I’m not oppressed as a woman, or that gender oppression doesn’t exist in the west. it sure as fuck isn’t fair that I have a better likelihood of getting heard. but that kind of means I should use my privileged position to advocate for those who can’t get heard so easily, don’t you think? try to work towards creating spaces so that they can speak and be heard, and get responses? that’s what I think too.
Thanks for pointing out that those psycho anti-choice activists, MRA groups, and PUAs are not collectively organizing to limit women’s opportunities and continue women’s oppression. Phew! What a relief!
It was also good of you to point out how I am so full of hate against men, that I am ridiculous and disgusting and irrelevant as a human being, that it’s impossible for me to have loving relationships with men, and that I’m really not worth the effort to… try to convince me that men are really all very good people? try to show me the error of my ways? something like that?
I guess I was worth the effort it took to write that comment… hmmm…. and I guess my corner of the internet isn’t so dark and remote after all, since you found me just fine…
You’re right, I probably should tell the guys I meet that I’m a feminist. That would really help me weed out the asshole misogynists like you.
but, it’s good to know I can always fall back on the lesbians out there to unlearn me my hetero ways. I didn’t realize that was the sole goal of lesbians, or that they were actively offering to do so! Cool! Must be my lucky day - lesbians rock! I love lesbians!
thanks again for such an informative and helpful comment. it’s great to know I can always count on the sexist motherfuckers to crawl out of the woodwork and point out the error of my ways.
Oh my god. Well responded TG. Amazing that so many men (and women) still fail to realise that there are no mens’ groups plotting against women because patriarchy is so damned institutionalised. So nice that we’re *enjoying* “a level of equality with men…” now, as opposed to what, when we had it before? So there are degrees to oppression, and we’re not oppressed enough, so we’re hateful, demanding bitches?
I love your brain TG, I love what you write here and I support you 100%. The world needs intelligent, educated, courageous women like you to indeed help our terribly oppressed sisters, so hats off to you, your wisdom, your fire, and your spirit. One can only imagine where this poor man’s heart is at, to be so full of hatred towards someone fighting for other peoples’ rights. I’m a woman, I’ve never even met you and yet you stand up and fight for me. Thank you.
the amount of trolls running around the cybersphere is quite incredible. what i do not understand about people like vimi is why why why come on a pro-feminist site if you clearly understand nothing about feminism or women’s issues?
it actually knocks me for six to see a comment like this on your website, TG because you are someone who really looks @ both sides of the coin + your analysis on current events affecting women is on the whole fair + you always encourage discussion.
Is Vimi a representative for the Oxford English Dictionary, ie, does he set the definitions of who is oppressed and who is not? Oppression is multi-dimensional.
Everyone is allowed to have an opinion, Vimi. Developing world and Developed world struggles are different but you have no right to preach to anyone as TG does not preach to anyone.
Vimi said “Oppression is what happened to blacks during slavery. Oppression is what happened to Serbs under Turkish rule. Oppression is what the Jews lived under in eastern Europe even before the Holocaust. You are not oppressed”
–This whole quotation is fucking disturbing and infuriating because each of these occurences was horrific but why are you using them to make someone else’s experience seem less important? It is almost as if you are implying that women’s issues should come secondary and are not as important. You have to look at the big picture. No one is comparing any of these situations to each other. You are the one who is doing it yourself.
TG, this person is a bloody prick.
TG: THANK YOU for publishing the IP address of this “man.”
Thank you for giving the rest of us the heads up so that if he comes over to OUR blogs, he won’t be able to do so in anonymity anymore; he won’t be able to wage anonymous psychological warfare on us feminists, **who are only fighting for the rights of women**–who happen to be HUMAN BEINGS.
Aulelia, I really like what you say here: it is **so** true:
“–This whole quotation is fucking disturbing and infuriating because each of these occurences was horrific but why are you using them to make someone else’s experience seem less important? It is almost as if you are implying that women’s issues should come secondary and are not as important. You have to look at the big picture. No one is comparing any of these situations to each other. You are the one who is doing it yourself.
TG, this person is a bloody prick.”
Amen, amen. Aulelia is RIGHT. Vimi’s sole object here was to be a bloody prick and to try to demoralize TG.
Well, “vimi,” welcome to the wonderful world of feminist blogging–WHERE WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE “DRIVE-BY POSTING” ANYMORE!!
TG, should anyone be dumb enough to try to crap on me at my own blog, I’ll be sure to take up the policy of publishing their IP addresses. This is just the antidote for bullying!
women’s issues should come secondary and are not as important
I think that is pretty accurate. As usual, women should suffer, and be happy about it. We should tend to others’ pain while ignoring our own. We should keep our mouths shut. Cuz there’s not enough room for all oppressed people to speak out (which is of course the fault of feminists) so women must hang back and self-sacrifice. Or become lesbians.
haha he’s pretty funny
Shorter Vimi: I know you’re not oppressed enough, because I have my ideas about what I’d like to do to you.
Love the way he’s so angry that women have tacit equality before the law. So unfair, they are after all less human and should be treated as such.
I would bet money he’s involved in some organized anti-feminist movement, no less. So, he’s a liar on top of being a deluded asshole.
Amanda, you’ve read him **spot on.**
Aulelia, I agree with you too.
“Why are you so hateful? I have an easy answer for that one. Here it is: I don’t care. That’s right, I don’t give a damn. All men are guilty until they prove themselves innocent in your eyes? That’s hilarious. You’re not worth the effort.”
Me thinks he doth protest too much.
I second Amanda. I wouldn’t only bet money that he’s an MRA, I’d bet money that he’s likely guilty of some sort of blatant violence against women.
“why come on a pro-feminist site if you clearly understand nothing about feminism or women’s issues?” My guess: because he’s so blinded by his prejudice (sorry, I mean, his true understanding of the world) to even notice that he doesn’t understand.
To me, he doesn’t sound like he’s part of any organized movement; he sounds more like a frighten little (although educated) man.
Please read this, this is written by a guy:
http://wussyderder.wordpress.com/2007/07/07/is-feminism-wrong/
I think that the words of men like Vimi can be both useful and if we take them the wrong way a serious distraction which isn’t helpful at all.
Over 20 years ago I went to an MRA group meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, USA to try to get a sense of what the “other side” was about. The group’s primary focus related to divorced fathers.
The anger directed at “first wives” (mothers) and naive assumptions about the costs of childrearing (ignoring the non-financial responsibilities) was scary.
What surprised me though was the loudest anger often coming from the second wives and girlfriends of these men who evidently felt cheated monetarily by the financial obligations for the children.
We Men often feel like we are getting the shaft. Whether we call it “oppression” or not doesn’t really matter. Within the “male world” our value is often determined by how high on the scale we are related to other men. We rarely are “high” and feel like failures evaluating ourselves in this type of way.
Women often “have it better” than individual men socioeconomically or in other similar ways. (This of course ignores the depths of gender oppression that women face.)
People facing “oppressions” or simply deep-seated fears can take things in two distinctly opposite ways. When the fear predominates others don’t matter and are seemingly irrelevant. At that point our immediate issue or feeling “is the only important thing”.
Others take the issues and see an inter-connectedness. A number of the Black intellectuals in this country who focus a lot on racism have shown remarkable empathy in other areas related to gender, sexual orientation etc.
Helping each other see both the inter-connectedness of issues as well as the depths of hurt and feelings related to our issues is hard to do - but very important.
It’s easier though to ridicule others like Vimi and at times be a part of the polarization that can divide some well-meaning people.
Those of us who are “radical” in various ways face the task of confronting major oppressions and oppressors. How we do it and how we help reach others to build our causes is important.
Gloating (and feeling superior) or feeling hurt (and discempowered) by the Vimi’s of this world doesn’t help us. Using our anger towards positive change can be most helpful.
Thanks for your useful words!
I thought I understood the point he was trying to make in the beginning (not that I agreed with it, but it seemed sensible enough), but then the comment got a little bit TOO nutty.
Just because the things he listed don’t sound horrible when paired with slavery or the Holocaust doesn’t mean they should be A-OK with us. Oppression simply comes in many different degrees. Some forms of oppression are obviously worse than others, but it is important to fight the oppression we encounter anywhere and everywhere, no matter how great and seemingly unbeatable, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant.
What also bothers me is that a lot of people, not just extremists/idiots like him, believe that feminism is about eradicating the male species and completely empowering women. We are fighting for EQUALITY. We are fighting to change the oppression and sexism that women have faced since the beginning of time, not teaching people to hate men and blame them for all of the world’s problems.
And as a lesbian, I guess I can help you ‘unlearn your heterosexualization,’ because clearly, no man will ever be happy with such a feminazi like you. You don’t like oppression? You want gender equality? Blah! You bigot! -rolls eyes-
All in all, nice response to the idiot.
thanks everyone for your comments.
guy pissed me off.
Geo - what you say is true:
I haven’t discovered a way to do this as of yet. I don’t know how to make the point that yes, indeed, women are oppressed in a multitude of ways and that male power structures need to be collapsed in order to change that, in a way that is not threatening to those who simply don’t think it’s true and instead hold tight to their privilege and feelings of been-done-wrong. I just don’t know how to reach the people like vimi who just don’t give a shit about women’s oppression and don’t think it exists. And so, will feminism just collapse into a movement by which we preach to the converted? how can we reach these kinds of people, who have so much invested in NOT believing that gender oppression exists?
Life’s Elsewhere - thanks for the link, I’ll check it out when I’ve had a bit more sleep. insomnia has struck my tete again. thanks for drawing our attention to it, and welcome.
Interestingly, my friendly neighbourhood troll has an IP address, which is the same Cblock as yours (my stats don’t tell me the exact IP): 71.120.52.#
what is it with the trolls around here lately? daaaamn. Meh, Vimi just sounds like another bent out of shape MRA who is tired of women who actually, oh, think about things other than being what men want them to be 24/7…
I just want to know where these roving bands of converto-lesbians are. Why do I never seem to run into them? Does my pre-existing interest in women turn them off or something?
What a truly impressive collection of MRA fuckwittery.
Ah, if only it were lone deviants who rape. Lone deviants do much weirder shit than that — but your average Joe-boyfriend can — and does –rape.
Vimi would never believe that, however. And that’s sad. I wonder how many women he’s victimized
without knowing itwithout giving a shit?vimi sed:
Yep. So apathetic he wrote 614 words (1-1/2 pages, single spaced, Lucida Grande 13pt) to tell us all how wrong-headed we were, and that he didn’t deign to tell us why we have this problem.
I would like to be more coherent, but it’s 1:30 a.m., and my brain doesn’t transmit well after about 10. *sigh* Maybe I’ll get something decent in the morning.
Thanks for sharing this, TG. I learn a great deal from reading bullshite like vimi’s spewing-forth.
[...] Saturdays, when I am a rock or sleeping like a log (without any hope of her), but actually read this post an hour ago and got disturbed (already with a hangover, though I didn’t drink, and a headache [...]
hi,
great read, nice to read that I’m not alone in my opinions, which is always why I click back to this blog.
slow loud evenly metered applause @ you (and your commenting peeps).
d
This comment is not to lead you to my blog. I just want to draw your attention to a brilliant writer, a friend of mine, who shies away from attentions. But she has written a very touching piece on certain things which has happened to her friends. I think it is topical and she deserves to be read.
http://cassandrababbles.wordpress.com/2007/07/08/you-curved-the-chocolate-bitter/
The really weird thing is that - to pursue vimi’s own logic to its logical conclusion - he believes that you are suffering from delusions of persecution. And, on this basis, he persecutes you.
Having once been on a psychiatric hospital ward, I have met female paranoid schizophrenics who believe that there IS an explicit, organized male conspiracy against women. And I wonder if vimi met one of them, would he splutter out the same hatred?
These feminists are either deluded mad people or a group with a legitimate complaint of some sort. Can’t have it both ways, pal.
TG: I’m glad to see that other bloggers have come out to support you in full force. This is really comforting.
Just a thought: I’m thinking that *perhaps* trolling may be hitting increased levels right now because rightwingers are getting more and more nervous about the upcoming 2008 elections and are starting to *crap* bricks.
Just a thought.
Scarred, you are so right about the reason for trolling! maybe it is a twisted way for those fools to try and change opinion?
Hi Thinking Girl
Vimi is an idiot. Doesn’t seem to get human social realtivity. Compared to some you are realtivly unoppressed. Compared to the advantages of Western proffesional white men you are highly oppressed.
He is right if you close your eyes to the closest and most obvious day to day oppression. It is like statistics. Massage the numbers the right way and anything can be statiscally supported. But in the end Bullshit is Bullshit. The most dangerously menatlly ill are those that are mostly sane and logical but miss fine areas of relevance in moral philosophy.
Steve
I just thought of something. If we all publish IP addresses, maybe we’ll find out there aren’t a whole bunch of trolls just one very prolific one!
“Scarred, you are so right about the reason for trolling! maybe it is a twisted way for those fools to try and change opinion?”
Absolutely, Aulelia! It’s intimidation, mostly, but there’s some element of desperate flailing about in order to **try** to get people to change their minds…or at least **try** to back them down. Vimi did a piss-poor job of it, however; first off, TG doesn’t intimidate for love or money:)), and secondly, NO ONE is going to change their minds or back down using flaming tactics–although I’m sure vimi in his sick, twisted little mind thinks he can actually do so.
You know, it’s that bullying thing–the last refuge of the **ineffectual** and the **impotent.**
:))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Red Jenny: I agree with you.:)) My gut hunch is that the number of trollers out there attacking feminist websites isn’t **all that many.** But, even if they’re **LEGION,** it still doesn’t matter…because the little chickenshits probably would get scared **spitless** to have their IP addresses published.
“But in the end Bullshit is Bullshit. The most dangerously menatlly ill are those that are mostly sane and logical but miss fine areas of relevance in moral philosophy.”
Steve, this was savvy. Thank you!
You are most welcome.
What made Hannibal Lechtor a most dangerous adversary was his only paper thin step from normal sanity coupled with logic, drive and amorality. Everything he did would make sense with just a little tweak from normal morality.
Our education is all screwed up. The first and then continuing subject in school should be moral philosophy. Maybe then these dopes won’t be dopes who can hide behind stats and the relativity of atrocities.
Steve
“Our education is all screwed up. The first and then continuing subject in school should be moral philosophy. Maybe then these dopes won’t be dopes who can hide behind stats and the relativity of atrocities.”
Amen, amen!
I know that the separation of church and state makes teaching *religion* verboten in public schools, but I can’t help **but think** that the teaching of a secular moral philosophy would be of immense value **for all,** secular and religious alike. I’m wondering if the study of ancient Stoicism minus the Roman and Greek religious aspects might be of value. Any thoughts on that? These people could sure use a good dose of Marcus Aurelius…
[...] An Irigarayian take is required on a recent troll on Thinking Girl’s site, who essentially accuses TG of being a misandrist (though one doubts [...]
“You’re right, I probably should tell the guys I meet that I’m a feminist. That would really help me weed out the asshole misogynists like you.” - TG
^^ I like this alot. ^^ Your entire reply was excellent and necessary. Well done.
I think uber-right wingers have a vested interest in making it seem like there’s still a debate going on when it’s been very precisely won, and they’re actually just Wrong (re: holes in the ozone and paid op eds debating global warming for oil companies, or in this case, that a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy oppresses).
As a note on his comparative oppression study: It’s interesting to take these things and pick them apart a little. Particularly the past tense.
“Oppression is what happened to blacks during slavery…. et cetera.”
Implying that racism was abolished with Jim Crow? And for his other examples: that genocide in the world is not ongoing. Last, his example of Muslim women as the only oppressed group of women he can think of. Wasn’t that the main excuse for invading Iraq the first time? It was brought up again for the second invasion as well. Sure. ‘Oppressing women is what Other countries do. Women in the over-developed world have it sooo good.’ ad nauseum.
Uber-Right-winger reading from a script. They rely on a mythology that places them in the oh-so-put-upon category: This guy could be living in a castle with millions of bucks and he’d still be feeling up his victimhood three times a day.
Again, I really like reading your blog TG.
~quin
You have to hand it to him, it takes a certain dedication to go on for a page and a half about how little you care. I’m usually content to just… you know… not care about the things I don’t care about. I don’t know that I’ve ever taken the time to carefully craft a page and a half missive to the object of my apathy.
Wow, this PUA post really does generate its fair share of nastiness eh? Kinda like a venus fly-trap for sexist pigs…
Absolutely right, talkingthe beat. UNQUESTIONABLY.
hmm, while vimi is profoundly wrong, I think it is extremely interesting to hear that point of view. Instead of simply saying ‘wow what an ignorant asshole’ and continuing on, maybe it would be better to analyze this way of thinking. Sadly, there are millions of men accross the globe who share this way of thinking and I think that the severity of the problems we are facing is mainly because of that. Men don’t see women as being oppressed. In our day-to-day lives the oppression of women is not obvious to most people, and that makes it highly unlikely that it will be fixed. I am almost certain that vimi is NOT a member of a mens organization or even trying to change anyones mind. I’m pretty sure that those are truely his opinions and he was simply posting them on a blog. I think working towards awareness and trying to change the minds of men like vimi would be a better approach than saying wow, another asshole trying to stop our movement. this is relevant to comments on the ‘for the menz’ post. IMO feminism should be focused on raising awareness in men and women. Female oppression will NOT STOP until men realize that it is truely a real problem and start working to fix it..