Note: A slightly different version of this piece originally ran on Man Boobz. Trigger Warning: Some of the links in this piece contain harsh anti-woman slurs; the comments section on my blog is largely unmoderated.
So Scott Adams — the Dilbert guy — has a blog. Recently he made the mistake of asking his readers to give him a topic to write about. Well, some Men’s Rights Activists heard about this, and, being the herd animals that they are, quickly flooded his site with comments urging him to write about Men’s Rights. And so he did.
What he wrote ended up revealing a lot more about Scott Adams than it did about any issues involving men. And what it revealed wasn’t pretty; after explicitly insulting Men’s Rights Activists, Adams insulted women much more profoundly, without, it seems, even recognizing that what he wrote was, well, a load of misogynistic drivel. Evidently unhappy with the response he got from his readers, Adams decided to take his post down, saying that it had gotten “a bit too much attention from outside my normal reading circle.”
The post has not only vanished from Adams’ blog; it’s vanished from Google Cache as well, but fortunately you can still find it here (on a feminist site), as well as on an assortment of MRA blogs I won’t bother to link to.
It’s a strange beast indeed. Adams started out, depressingly enough, by more-or-less agreeing with MRAs on a wide assortment of their pet issues big and small — from men paying more for car insurance to the alleged anti-male bias of the legal system. Much of what he wrote made as little sense as many real MRA rants; even his little jokey asides fell completely flat.
We take for granted that men should hold doors for women, and women should be served first in restaurants. Can you even imagine that situation in reverse?
Generally speaking, society discourages male behavior whereas female behavior is celebrated. Exceptions are the fields of sports, humor, and war. Men are allowed to do what they want in those areas.
Add to our list of inequities the fact that women have overtaken men in college attendance. If the situation were reversed it would be considered a national emergency.
After more or less agreeing that men are getting a raw deal, Adams dismissed the complaints of women upset that women earn less than men; to Adams, this is because they are naturally timid souls who don’t know how to ask for raises.
So far, so not-so-good. But then Adams pulled the old switcheroo on his MRA readers, who up until this point were presumably giddy with excitement.
Now I would like to speak directly to my male readers who feel unjustly treated by the widespread suppression of men’s rights:
Get over it, you bunch of pussies.
Uh oh! This is what MRAs love to dismiss (and not without reason) as a “shaming tactic.” As it turns out, MRAs love directing vagina-based insults at others – they use the “c-word” constantly, and I couldn’t even begin to estimate how many times I’ve been called a “mangina” — but they hate hate hate it when anyone directs a vagina-based insult at them. To be fair to them, though, calling someone a pussy is not much of an argument.
But here’s where Adams pulled a sort of double switcheroo. After insulting Men’s Rights activists, he did them one better with a bizarre, brazenly misogynistic argument that seemed to have been cribbed from some of the more idiotic comments on MRA and “Men Going Their Own Way” message boards. It turned out that the reason Adams thinks men should “get over it” is that … well, you’d best just read it for yourself.
The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.
As Kyle’s mom would say: “what what what??” This is the sort of shit you expect from some low-grade loser on a misogynist Mecca like The Spearhead. But no, this is Scott Adams, internationally famous cartoonist and bestselling author. Instead of trying to explain just what the fuck he means by all this, Adams continued on with a very strange, and strangely sexual, chess metaphor:
How many times do we men suppress our natural instincts for sex and aggression just to get something better in the long run? It’s called a strategy. Sometimes you sacrifice a pawn to nail the queen. If you’re still crying about your pawn when you’re having your way with the queen, there’s something wrong with you and it isn’t men’s rights.
After a few more paragraphs that, frankly, don’t make any more sense than what I’ve quoted so far, Adams seemed to realize that maybe he shouldn’t have really suggested that women were a bunch of retarded children. [NOTE: My use of the phrase "retarded children" has caused some concern in the comments; here is my explanation of why I used the term, in retrospect unwisely.] But instead of going back and removing that from his post, he dug himself further in with a weird and completely unconvincing denial that he really meant what he had just explicitly said:
I realize I might take some heat for lumping women, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I’m not saying women are similar to either group. I’m saying that a man’s best strategy for dealing with each group is disturbingly similar. If he’s smart, he takes the path of least resistance most of the time, which involves considering the emotional realities of other people.
As far as I can figure out his weird and convoluted argument, it is this: The world really is unfair to men. But, fellas, you’ll never win this argument with a woman — you know how they are. So keep quiet and maybe … you’ll get to fuck the queen?
No wonder he deleted the post.
Note: Scott Adams has responded to this post in the comments below. You can find his comment here.
I’m glad I don’t like Dilbert cause if I was a fan I’d be feeling pretty fucking nauseous right about now. Well, more nauseous.
Agreeing with Helen. Glad I’m not a Dilbert fan or I might be feeling conflicted. Fortunately, I just feel amazed and disgusted.
I own a few of Scott Adams books in which he dissects corporate culture. He truly is a misogynist. In one book he addresses the pay disparity by stating that because 95% of all men don’t make the big bucks, women don’t have any business fighting the injustice that men in general make more than they do across the board.
The book this was in came out in the 90s. A friend of mine was hired for a computer sales job at the same time as three of her male classmates who just graduated in the same class at the same tech school. Guess which of them was paid $4k less than the others.
You can’t get a variable-free sample like that very often and when you do, it’s telling.
SERIOUSLY ticked off right about now, because I was blissfully unaware of his sexism til this point, and previously liked Dilbert. Safe to say I will definitely never be purchasing anything Dilbert related ever again. Really wish I would have known this four months back when I bought my Dilbert calendar for work…going in the trash now. What an ignorant douche.
lets presume that i was a dilbert fan and lets say he meant exactly what he said. why should i care? he’s a cartoonist, not a policy maker – and he pulled the post. whatever his personal views are have no bearing on how enjoyable his cartoons are. it’s like, does the fact that ted nugent is a sexist conservative gun nut make it impossible for me to enjoy his guitar solos? and more likely than not, he’s like phil anselmo when asked about pantera’s neo nazi audience – he doesn’t want to say he agrees with their views but he has to be careful about insulting the people that fill up arenas to his band. so he says something vague and tough guyish and ends up making everyone pissed. i suspect that was this guy’s predicament – he figured a substantial portion of his audience is a male’s rights sort of crowd, but he didn’t want to outright pander to that view. so he tried to say something vague but funny and flopped. the lesson: when you’re in that type of lose-lose, its best to say nothing.
Thanks for writing about this. Ignorance is not bliss: I’d rather know this stuff, and thanks for trawling the dark deep recesses of the internet for us.
Can we also at least acknowledge the ableism?
“You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first.”
Sure, it’s “chivalrous,” but it’s assuming anyone mentally disabled is basically childlike and doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Also, David, I would really have preferred it if you hadn’t introduced an ableist slur in your post. :/
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
“retarded children”?????
Clearly you were going for humor, but ableist slurs aren’t funny. Especially since it seemingly was not the ableism being mocked.
The problem with saying that we should treat women like lesser human beings, just like we do with people with disabilities, isn’t misogynistic because it compares women to pwd (who are, of course, rather largely overlapping groups!). It’s misogynistic because it says that women should be treated like lesser human beings, and it’s ALSO ABLEIST, because it says that pwd should be treated like lesser human beings.
I was really hoping to see commentary on this latter point, that the comment was ableist as well as sexist. But even barring that, I was really hoping to not see the ableism explicitly perpetuated.
z, I’m unclear why quoting an abelist comment that you are condemning is wrong.
Except “retarded children” wasn’t a quote in the OP, it was the author’s own words:
Ouch. Yeah, David, I really enjoy your work, but um. Maybe check the ableism.
He didn’t condemn that comment, though, he only condemned the nearby one about women. I don’t think it’s wrong to quote prejudiced shit, but it’s a little disappointing when it’s quoted without critique.
…or not a little. It’s my privilege in this respect that allows me to be so mildly affected, and I probably shouldn’t be minimizing what can be truly hurtful to others out of politeness to those whose words I’m critiquing. Sorry about that.
Unicorn chaser.
Great post. This was definitely something that needed to be addressed. I would say that he should be ashamed of himself, but I know that he is not. Even though the reaction towards his post was mostly negative, he’s still probably proud that it made that much of an impact. He needs to rethink his approach and treat people with more respect!
randomosity, is that the same book where he lays out how he knows that men don’t rule the world?
See, Adams says if men ruled the world, they would get sex all the time. You’d go into a bank, withdraw your money, and get offered sex instead of a lollipop. But instead, sex is more work to obtain.
I really liked that book at the time — I think I was 11 or so — but as I got older, it dawned on me that he was arguing for a consent-free world, where men could rape me as they pleased. Then the shine wore off real quick.
@Michelle: Don’t throw it away. Mail it to him with a note explaining why you won’t be buying any of his merch anymore. He’s got to have an address where you can send “fan” mail.
“We take for granted that men should hold doors for women, and women should be served first in restaurants.”
Who takes this for granted? I hold the door for EVERYBODY, unless they’re really far behind me. I find it weird when a man takes the door from me and insists I go first, as if those five seconds of holding for him must have exhausted me.
The restaurant thing has never made any sense to me, especially since I was always taught that I shouldn’t start eating until everyone has their food. In that case, the misogynist has a point. Just give everyone their sandwiches in the way that’s easiest and we can all be polite together.
I served tables at a popular chain restaurant and “serve the women first” was part of our training. I was flabbergasted and asked about it, and all the trainer could say was, “I know. It seems archaic. But that’s that policy.” Nevermind the fact that you were supposed to pour ALL of the women’s wine/serve their food before the men, regardless of the order of people at the table.
At least we never got written up for not doing it.
Cara said: “The problem with saying that we should treat women like lesser human beings, just like we do with people with disabilities, isn’t misogynistic because it compares women to pwd (who are, of course, rather largely overlapping groups!). It’s misogynistic because it says that women should be treated like lesser human beings, and it’s ALSO ABLEIST, because it says that pwd should be treated like lesser human beings.”
This is absolutely true, and a point that I should have made as well.
But I was not in any way endorsing Adams’ ableism, and I’m sorry that my phrasing made it seem like I was. When I used the phrase “retarded children” I was paraphrasing Adams using the same sort of language — though not the exact terms — he used. (I have run across other misogynists making the exact same argument as Adams and specifically using the phrase “retarded children,” which is probably why that phrase popped into my head when I was writing that.) I don’t use the word “retarded” myself and I understand why it is offensive.
I write regularly about people who say a lot of very offensive stuff, and I sometimes paraphrase what they’ve said, or expound upon the implications of what they’ve said, using the same (or similar) crude and sometimes offensive terminology. When I do this, I am trying to highlight the crudeness and bigotry of what that other person was saying; I am not in any way endorsing it, just as I am not endorsing Adams’ obnoxious terminology or his argument here.
Unfortunately, this may not have come across clearly in my post here; I will be more precise in future posts.
David, I thought later that this may have been what you were going for. It’s a device that I employ myself pretty frequently, so I can see where you’re coming from. As someone who uses it, I also have a few thoughts on it.
The way I personally see it, when I sarcastically paraphrase a misogynistic and rape apologist argument as “bitches lie because they’re such sluts,” I’m doing so within a specific context. That context would be a) that I am a woman and rape survivor, and b) that I am writing within the specific context of feminism/a feminist blog/a known anti-rape stance.
With regards to a), I find this tactic to be a lot more difficult when you’re not a member, and not openly known to be a member, of the group that is the object of the oppression in the original comment that’s being parodied. I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that it’s a lot trickier, and for that reason I tend to stay away from it myself. For example, I consider “bitch” and “slut” to be misogynistic terms; they’re ones I don’t use in a non-sarcastic sense, but ones I will use to mock and/or expose someone else’s argument. As a white woman, however, I certainly would never consider employing the same tactic using racist slurs, as I don’t think it’s my place — the potential to cause harm is much too great, and the benefit gained is miniscule compared to that, especially as the same point about how something is racist can be made in a different and far clearer way.
And with regards to b), the unfortunate fact is that most feminism is rather known for its ableism. It’s something that has especially been discussed fairly prominently in various quarters of the feminist blogosphere in the past year or so. A sarcastic comment about how women who have abortions are unfeeling slutty murderers can be reasonably expected to be read as intended — it’s well known that exceedingly few people who call themselves feminists think such a thing. Unfortunately, a large number of people who call themselves feminists, and who engage in feminist blogging, do say ableist shit on a really regular basis. Debate over the use of certain terms that many find harmful (idiot, moron, crazy, etc.) still goes on pretty regularly. In that context, it’s really difficult to say that it can be reasonably expected that one will read the term “retarded” in the context in which you intended it outside of a blog that primarily discusses issues of ableism and disability rights. As this is a feminist blog, and so many people with disabilities have been marginalized by so many feminists and strains of feminism, that’s unfortunately how a lot of people are going to read it — as yet another case of a feminist being ableist.
Again, these are my personal thoughts, but I think they’re relevant and serve to (at least partially) explain the reaction that I and several others have had.
Add to our list of inequities the fact that women have overtaken men in college attendance. If the situation were reversed it would be considered a national emergency.
Ohh that is infuriating. If the situation were reversed? Right, because there has never been a point in human history when men outnumbered women in universities, so we just have to speculate about what the reaction would be!
Clearly before women overtook men in college attendance the numbers were EXACTLY MATCHED.
I’ve been reading Scott Adams blog for a few months now and he comes off as a douche most of the time, but wow, that tops the douche cake!
The thing is, I’ve been hearing his name for longer than I’ve not been around my ex all the time, and while I could totally understand him having that perspective if she was the only woman he’d ever met….I’ve never been introduced to him. O.o
Is this an entire website dedicated to poor reading comprehension? I don’t think one of you understood the writing. You’re all hopping mad about your own misinterpretations.
That’s the reason the original blog was pulled down. All writing is designed for specific readers. This piece was designed for regular readers of The Scott Adams blog. That group has an unusually high reading comprehension level.
In this case, the content of the piece inspires so much emotion in some readers that they literally can’t understand it. The same would be true if the topic were about gun ownership or a dozen other topics. As emotion increases, reading comprehension decreases. This would be true of anyone, but regular readers of the Dilbert blog are pretty far along the bell curve toward rational thought, and relatively immune to emotional distortion.
I’ve written on the topic how you can’t mix incendiary images in the same piece without the readers’ brains treating the images as though they were connected, no matter how clearly you explain that they are not. My regular readers understand that I do that intentionally as part of the fun. When quoted out of context, the piece becomes dangerous.
You can see that the comments about the piece were little more than name-calling. When confronted with that sort of reaction, would it be wiser to treat the name-callers as you might treat respected professors with opinions worthy of consideration, or should you treat the name-callers as you would angry children, by not debating and not taking it personally?
You’re angry, but I’ll bet every one of you agrees with me.
Scott Adams
Marissa: It’s either the Dilbert Principle or The Joy of Work. I’d have to dig it out from under piles of books to know for sure which one.
Scott Adams also doesn’t believe in evolution.
Good to know that his lack of critical thinking skills go right across the board.
Also, David, I’m glad you explained about the apparent ableism (I was also rather disconcerted by that bit of the post.) Maybe it would be a good idea to edit the post or put a note on at the bottom because it still has that appearance to people who don’t click the comment link? Anyway, I’m glad you’re blogging here and look forward to reading more from you.
Opheelia, thank you for that brilliant suggestion, and I think I will do just that!
Really? I’ve never heard of that before. But I’ve never worked at a restaraunt and maybe I’ve just never noticed. Was it a part of your training to put the check in front of a man too? Because that always annoys me. Espcially when they hand my credit card to him. Though I think a lot of servers are trained to try to put it in the middle now, but some still aren’t.
My s.o. just put a petition about this up on change.org, asking Dilbert’s syndicate to make a statement saying the blog post doesn’t reflect the company’s values.
http://www.change.org/petitions/ask-dilbert-creators-syndicate-to-denounce-his-misogynistic-blog-post
Cara and David,
What about starring the phrase and explaining it below the post, or even better, linking the phrase to post you reference in your explanation, David, to give it context?
This is something that would have had relatively obvious context at Man Boobz that just doesn’t have context at Feministe. It could be managed pretty easily, IMO.
When I used the phrase “retarded children” I was paraphrasing Adams using the same sort of language — though not the exact terms — he used.
This made perfect sense to me; I understood it as being a sarcastic paraphrase immediately (the mood of the piece was clearly a little snarky.) I think sometimes people are too quick to jump on phrases like this without considering the context or the tone — expecting every bit of snark to be clearly labeled is a little unrealistic (and a little sad for the readers who get the humor already.) Just my two cents.
@The discussion about ableism
Using snark/sarcasm in writing (especially when writing shorter pieces) is always somewhat dangerous. It is very easy to be misunderstood and (in this case) sound like a bigot to at least some of your readers. It is a good rule of thumb to be very, very clear (to the point of over explaining) about what you mean in these cases.
I also somewhat disagree with Cara#28: Being ingroup can only help if your readers know this fact. For example, maybe the meaning in the OP would be absolutely obvious to anyone who knows David well, but that is probably not a majority of the readers. It is probably better to be clear enough that the piece can stand on its own without reference to the identity of the author.
One thing a lot of disability-focused bloggers do is write “r#tarded” because they’re aware of the history of abusers using the word when they beat up people with disabilities. Which, you know, happens in the real world on a frighteningly regular basis, but I wouldn’t expect Scott Adams to know that. (Yes, Mr Adams, people do punch disabled adults. They do far far worse. I’ll spare you all this week’s headlines.)
That said: I had heard this had gone down, but I had no idea how incredibly terrible it was. Oh my gosh. (also, I keep hearing this horror that there are more women than men in undergraduate education right now. Question: How do the numbers match up to percentage of population? Last I heard there was 52% of undergrad population that were women. And 51% of the population of the world is women. oh noes! There is a 1% difference between population and actual attendance! This is just like when the numbers were 40-60 in favour of the men.)
I honestly get horrified whenever I read men talking about doing things just so they can get access to sex. I remind myself all the time that this is likely untrue of the majority of men, but the ones that insist that’s why they do things for women… it just … I don’t even have words for how much it just icks me out.
Oooh, I loved this. Scott Adams, Social Crusader!
“Yeah, ladies, we know you *think* you have it harder, what with the whole health insurance costing you 22-49% more thing (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/us/30insure.html) or the tragically high levels of maternal mortality (http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/maternal_mortality/en/index.html) Or the expectation that you be the primary caregiver for your children, and are treated as a bad mother if you don’t, while you are given almost no maternal leave and must sacrifice your career as a result. Or how about the fact that your bodies are treated as public property to the point that you need to approach most interactions with men in public as a Schrodinger’s Rapist situation?
“But HEY! You gals pay less for car insurance, AND, lest we forget, YOU GET SERVED FIRST AT RESTAURANTS! So stop whining, you irrational bitches.”
As oppression-Olympics entries go, Mr. Adams, I award this a bronze medal, but not because you compared women to”children and the mentally handicapped.” You managed to imply that all men are suppressed rapists (“uppress our natural instincts for sex and aggression”), and it’s that extra bit of effort that put you on the podium.
Just a note: Scott Adams had a comment in moderation here, and it is up now (#24). It’s worth reading.
Mr. Adams: With regard to your comments on women, children and the “mentally handicapped,” how exactly are we “misinterpreting” what you wrote?
Mr. Adams:
I’m not an internationally-selling author like you, so you might say you are better at reading comprehension. But I’m pretty sure they’re angry because they don’t agree with you.
Just for reference – in grade school, when a bully would say something horribly insulting about a kid, and then say “just kidding” to avoid getting in trouble with teachers – were you one of those kids who would accept that at face value? Or were you one of those kids who recognized that there was something more than innocent joking going on?
“In this case, the content of the piece inspires so much emotion in some readers that they literally can’t understand it. The same would be true if the topic were about gun ownership or a dozen other topics. As emotion increases, reading comprehension decreases. This would be true of anyone, but regular readers of the Dilbert blog are pretty far along the bell curve toward rational thought, and relatively immune to emotional distortion.”
Ladies! So emotional!
Evolution deniers! So far along the bell curve toward rational thought.
I never realized before that “reading comprehension” meant “agreeing with Scott Adams.” Thank you for enlightening me on that point!
Ladies,
Scott Adams signs all of his blog comments just in case we get so upset we forget who mansplained us by the end of it. Incidentally, this is the most blatant celebrity mansplaining I think I’ve seen on the internets in some time.
Florence (in case you forgot)
“…regular readers of the Dilbert blog are pretty far along the bell curve toward rational thought, and relatively immune to emotional distortion.” – the funniest thing Scott Adams has ever written
Still on Google Cache: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:dilbert.com/blog/entry/mens_rights
And here’s a screenshot: http://i51.tinypic.com/i23uvk.png
Scott Adams at #24: “That’s the reason the original blog was pulled down. All writing is designed for specific readers. This piece was designed for regular readers of The Scott Adams blog. That group has an unusually high reading comprehension level”
Oh, my, my. Doesn’t somebody think highly of himself?
Scott, most of the people who read your blog read it because they have fond memories of this or that “Dilbert” strip that touched on some particularly painful aspect of their miserable cubicled existance; likely they stuck said strip up on some wall in their workplace, in a location just obvious enough that it could be pointed out to coworkers but not obvious enough that it would catch the eye of the boss. Your blog is fair-to-middling entertaining, lightly thoughtful, a decent occasional read to fill in the hours between Pharyngula posts.
The questions of inequality in college admissions and of such pettifogging courtesies as holding doors for women (I should say that no woman of my acquaintance expects this or wants this, except in such context as would lead to anyone having the door held) may appear new and fresh to you, but, really, they’ve been talked to death and back here and at any number of feminist blogs I could name.
You, as you are well aware, Scott, used fighting words, and you’re blaming the people who objected for the fact that you are now in a fight. Don’t try to hide behind the supposed unusually-high rationality (and I have read the comments on your blog. In a word: ha) of your commenters. All that comes across, when you say your words were intended for a particular audience, is that you didn’t expect to get called on those words.
“I realize I might take some heat for lumping women, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I’m not saying women are similar to either group. I’m saying that a man’s best strategy for dealing with each group is disturbingly similar. If he’s smart, he takes the path of least resistance most of the time, which involves considering the emotional realities of other people. A man only digs in for a good fight on the few issues that matter to him, and for which he has some chance of winning. This is a strategy that men are uniquely suited for because, on average, we genuinely don’t care about 90% of what is happening around us.”
Hooked on phonics worked for me!™
(Emphasis mine)
It amuses the hell out of me that where the objections really start are from his analogy. Just two weeks ago he wrote about the dangers of using an analogy:
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/analogies_are_fighting_words
Way to learn your own lesson, Scott. 8)
Personally, I believe this post is a sign that we’re very, very close to gender equality and that the boundaries of outrage really need to be pushed out a ways.
This definitely explains why Dilbert could never get a second date.
“Immune to emotional distortion?!” BWAHAHAHAHAA!
How about *fear*, douchebag? Fear of getting caught out there with your asshole self.
Fear. It’s an emotion.
You’re all taking this out of context.
How did you all miss this?
You know, I was going to mock SA’s whiny post where he doesn’t actually make any points besides “you’re all a bunch of over-emotional meanie-butts who can’t read” but fuck it. I’m tired, I could use some entertainment, and if he shows back up I’ll pop some corn and watch him further showcase his ability to epically fail.
Guy, that’s like when Glenn Beck says he’s “not saying” something. The implications are pretty clear.
And, Guy, how did you miss this: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/analogies_are_fighting_words/
One little disclaimer doesn’t outweigh several paragraphs of heavy implication.
Scott Adams was my first experience with intense celebrity disillusionment. I used to be a pretty big fan of Dilbert, but at some point in my teens I read a book of his that was so blatantly sexist and stupid that I lost all respect– and all interest in reading Dilbert.
Oh, Mr. Adams. You don’t get it, do you? Whether that was written “for regular readers of the Scott Adams blog” or not, you put it out on the web. The rule of thumb for electronic communication is, “If you don’t want it on the cover of the New York Times, don’t post it/tweet it/Facebook it/e-mail it.” Moreover, as Einstein pointed out, the act of observing changes what is observed. So don’t blame the readers for placing their interpretations on what you wrote, please. You invited that by putting it where they could see it. Indeed, that’s how you normally make your living.
I read your post as an attempt at heavy-handed post-Neanderthal-male-type humor, similar in tone to what my husband regularly offers up in an attempt to rile me up. I interpreted your removal of the post as being a result of your realization that it was a dumb-ass thing to say in a public venue where it was BOUND to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. Now, unfortunately, you’ve defended your original statements and dug yourself in deeper, proving only that you truly believe this shit. Mr. Adams, have you *ever* had a meeting of the minds with a woman? A true friendship, a genuinely respectful, equal partnership with someone of the female sex? If so, you would recognize that everything you said is hateful, stereotypical garbage and unworthy of your considerable intelligence. And slamming your critics as having poor reading skills? PLEASE. A finger pointed at others only points several more back in the direction of the person really at fault. I tell that to my SIX-YEAR-OLD, and he gets it. Think on that, for a moment.
I frankly don’t give a shit whether you really hold these opinions of my gender or not. I rarely read Dilbert anymore (though I appreciate its wit greatly) and you have no significant impact on my world as a person. But it’s sad that a person with your smarts and otherwise modern outlook should be so stubbornly stupid in continuing to espouse such antiquated, outmoded crap as what you wrote in your original post and supported in your comment.
Guy, how did you miss the fact that I quoted and commented on the stuff you think I missed?
What I found most amusing about Mr. Adams’s comment — beyond the idea that people would actually agree with him on the subject — was the idea that somehow you can post something openly on the Internet but restrict it to a specific subsection of readers. Now, there’s plenty of mechanisms by which you can post something privately on the Internet and only invite the cognoscenti in to see it, but when you post out in the open, you’re accepting the potential audience is unrestricted and potentially global.
In the case of this particular essay, I’m not sure posting it privately would have worked, mind. That’s the kind of essay that gets forwarded around very quickly. But at least doing it that way would lend credence to the claim that it wasn’t meant for general consumption.
Also, in response to ‘Guy?’–
We didn’t. The disclaimer makes it plain that Mr. Adams does not mean to say he thinks women are mentally defective or childlike. However, one shouldn’t treat their arguments as something people actually discuss or debate. Instead, go limp, agree with whatever they say so they don’t get their pretty little heads worked up. Do it right, and you might even get laid.
In other words, it’s a strategy for dealing with inferiors.
That’s not going over so well with the general public, as it turns out.
Dear CollegeBoard,
I am writing in regards to my 2009 SAT results. It has recently come to my attention that respected cartoonist and modern philosopher Scott Adams disagrees with your assessment of my reading skills, and, although it may be too late to correct the heinously irresponsible inflation of my own scores, this is exactly the sort of prompting your company needs to overhaul your testing methods for this new, rational twenty-first century.
Thanks for giving this concern the thorough consideration it deserves.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
Guys, I think Guy was being sarcastic (at least I hope so) and it simply didn’t translate well into text form.
In regards to Mr. Adams’ comments…well. I think Sheelzebub pretty much summed those up pretty well, and I’ll leave it at that.
I am still just trying to process the idea of Scott Adams as naturally sexual and aggressive, with the ability to lift heavy things.
The Dilbert guy, right?
Hey Scott,
I’m an English teacher of 18 years (math, too). My reading comprehension is fine. You, on the other hand, draw a comic where you allow the humor-impaired people in cubicles to feel like their horrible job is okay.
I appreciate that they get something out of it, but seriously, do you think any of your mouth-breathing readers see any greater window into the human condition because of your insipid strip? They don’t relate to the characters because they’re human, they relate to them because they’re in finance and human resources, and the characters are in finance and human resources. It’s like a feedback loop for idiots. great job.
I don’t think you’re qualified to gauge how smart your audience is. To the people with actual discerning taste, Dilbert is one of the most painfully unfunny strips since Fred Bassett did some useless crap for decades. Or Broom-Hilda, Or Hagar, or any of those horrible excuses to fill news pages.
The funny pages in the newspaper is a graveyard of awful fifth-rate writing, and I’m glad your tombstone is being carved every time you write another one of your oblivious screeds.
You seem like an intellectually stunted teenager. It’s as if you haven’t grown past youtube-caliber argumentation. good work on that, too.
to quote a dear friend: “This is like some new, hallowed level of prickery I was previously unaware of. Like watching a man on fire soaking himself in gasoline in an effort to douse the flames.”
I’m taking this opportunity to write you, because I know you’ll read it, and are too vain to do otherwise. I have always hated Dilbert and I have always thought you were a hack. Give yourself a pat on the back for all your success, and a long, hard look in the mirror before you punch your own lights out.
get bent.
sincerely,
Faiz Razi
kerble@hotmail.com
Though I should point out that Adams is, in a way, correct: if the number of admissions to college were the other way around–if men were enrolling at a much higher rate than women–we WOULD consider it an emergency. And we did!
I mean, only 1600 years later, obviously. So. “Emergency” in a sense, I guess.
“All writing is designed for specific readers. This piece was designed for regular readers of The Scott Adams blog. That group has an unusually high reading comprehension level.”
Somehow I’m getting the impression that that means, “This piece was for all the people who agree with me. Anyone who doesn’t agree is obviously just too stupid to get it.”
Well, well, here’s Scott to tell me that my little ladybrains can’t handle Advanced Thinking, what with me being all emotional and believing in ladybrain-hysterical things like evolution.
I don’t say things like this very much any more, but I will for this: Scott Adams, go to hell.
Agreed. Dave F, may I request that you let all of Adam’s future comments through? (Maybe with translation to Elmer Fudd-speak) I’ll be popping up a big, huge batch of popcorn… ;)
Ooh, yes. I’ll make kettle corn, and maybe brownies. Ladybrains love the chocolate.
While I agree that Adams piece was disrespectful and wrong in many ways, you go right ahead and put this out there:
“Well, some Men’s Rights Activists heard about this, and, being the herd animals that they are, quickly flooded his site with comments urging him to write about Men’s Rights.”
So while you are railing against disrespectful treatment at the hands of one blog post, you turn around and do the very same in your own? Way to stoop to his level. Frankly I’m disgusted with you BOTH.
Hi Scott,
I’m a woman who is not one of your regular blog readers, and I did not interpret your original post to be misogynist. I think your only mistake is that you broke some kind of male honor code: to not say out loud what most males are thinking.
I’m more surprised by the viciousness of the faux outrage and hateful comments I’ve seen on Twitter about you and your blog posting. It just goes to show that in progressive society’s attempt to socialize people into being more “tolerant” we have actually become more intolerant than ever before: intolerant of the diversity of ideas and thoughts, opinions, and ultimately, the death of intelligent discourse.
I’ve yet to see anybody offer an intelligent response to your post, it’s all “Scott’s a douchebag, I will never read Dilbert again!” b.s.
People nowadays simply cannot hold forth an intelligent conversation about anything important, or even have a civil debate, without being distracted by the media’s focus on celebrity gossip, or anything to get the sheeple to talk about something other than the US’s continuing wars, the utter failure and impotence of Obama’s leadership, the deepening Great Recession which has actually turned into a Silent Depression, and the ongoing class wars of the minority Haves and majority Have-Nots of which a whopping 35% are now on the dole or having to use food stamps and 15-20% of Americans are out of work.
If this is the kind of discourse we can expect from future American leaders, then this country is doomed.
Be well and carry on.
Ah I messed that up. I meant to post this quote from his essay:
“If you’re feeling unfairly treated because women outlive men, try visiting an Assisted Living facility and see how delighted the old ladies are about the extra ten years of pushing the walker around. It makes dying look like a bargain.”
You know what is annoying…when someone does something like compare women to children for example, then tries to back peddle saying WELL THEY REALLY DIDN”T MEAN THAT…well if you didn’t mean it you shouldn’t of said it!!!!
also Scott Adams, just cuz people disagreed with you, doesn’t mean they have am IQ below the Bell Curve….
How little we have managed to move beyond Aristotle. *yawn*
Pass the popcorn?
In other news, I *just* graded a paper discussing how the “female” was more emotional and the “male” was more rational. Guess how well that did. I do, however, find it depressing that such critical habits apparently persist far beyond my classroom, despite much spilling of the red ink.
I understand that Scott Adams does not think women are the same as children and the mentally handicapped. I am offended that he thinks women, children, and the mentally handicapped should just be placated because discussing their grievances is not worth the energy. Leaving aside the (problematic and offensive) comparison (that wasn’t really a comparison, you guys!)… He’s saying that women’s complaints about discrimination and oppression are not legitimate, but that it’s not worth arguing with them. I think even Adams would admit that he meant both of those things. I understood the post, and I am offended.
As a woman, I’m offended that Adams doesn’t understand male privilege, and I’m offended that he thinks men should just humor me because arguing with me is not worth the trouble. Why is it hard to understand that human beings don’t want to be treated this way? We don’t want men to humor us in order to get in our pants? We want men to take us seriously, and we’re offended at the suggestion that men should “take the path of least resistance” to us because it’s demeaning and disrespectful.
Own your words, Mr. Adams. If you are ashamed enough of the offensive implications of your post (that women are intellectually inferior to men and should be treated as such) to delete it, acknowledge that the post was a mistake and apologize. There is no shame in simply saying, “I said things that I did not mean, and these things understandably offended many readers. I’m sorry for doing it. I will be more careful with my words in the future.”
By deleting it, you pretty much acknowledged that it was indefensible. Save what’s left of your dignity.
Wow. I was actually pretty neutral and trying to keep an open mind about Adams’ intent…up until that comment. No, reading comprehension isn’t the problem. The real problem is the mindset that makes you so unable to comprehend why you were wrong in the first place, that you’d dig in deeper and try to defend yourself in this particular manner.
Deleting the post was one thing – probably unwise, since you know full well nothing is ever really “deleted” on the internet. But coming back and trying to argue “I’m not a misogynist, you’re all just too stupid to get me” is really a whole new level of wrong.
The point he was making is that if you point out that pay inequality is a myth you get raked over the coals. Easier to just agree, because you just can’t get an honest debate on the issue. He said it is easier to take the path of least resistance. Have you ever debated the wage gap myth? How did it go? That is how I read his comments, maybe I am wrong but that is what is sounds like to me.
P.S. the attacks I will likely receive over this post will prove my point. Some issues are just verboten this is one of them
@Scott Adams
Is your entire comment dedicated to displaying poor writing skills? Because seriously, dude, my last job title was “editor” and just looking at that mess is making me twitch and forcing me to suppress the urge to go at it with a red pen. And you make your living as a writer? For shame, sir.
Also you’re a misogynist, and screaming “but I am not you just don’t understand my special thinky thoughts that I intended for special people only” does not change that fact that all.
At all, dammit. Apparently Scott’s shitty writing skills are contagious.
Bahahaha. “Why can’t people have an intelligent, rational conversation about the actual facts of the matter? Also, OBAMA IS A STUPID COMMUNIST. Now, let’s discuss!”
I’ve never detected intense misogyny in the Dilbert comic but it’s obviously created for a wide audience. And having the main character’s boss an incompetent man instead of women avoided controversy too. Sadly this reminds me of when Michael Richards (Kramer from “Seinfeld”) have a racist comedy spiel a few years ago.
I expect anyone who reads my comment will dismiss it or want to argue, but I read the whole blog post at http://tinysprout.tumblr.com/post/3713649989/scott-adams-dilbert-deleted-post and I wasn’t offended. I am a woman. I don’t think Scott Adams hates women or is fighting against their rights. I think he is simply pointing out from his point of view a few of the differences of how men and women are treated. I’m also an engineer and these very much look like a practical summary of how things work in an engineering situation. This may not apply to all fields of work. It seems to me that the typical subscriber to this blog, probably comes to it with a like philosophy as the owner and is seeing the chopped up posting, and probably the whole posting, through a filter that attributes more meaning to the text than was meant. It is good that everyone has a place to express their thoughts and opinions. Just recognize that the people you are angry with are basically just doing the same thing but with different opinions. Tolerance, right?
BTW, I think many of his points are accurate. I’m served first, men open doors for me and I don’t want to spend the time it would cost to be an executive. I could also learn a thing or two about negotiation. I also believe that most heterosexual males specifically are pretty much driven by sex, food, power and wealth, possibly in that order depending on age.
Anyway, hope your ranting accomplishes an averaging out of inequalities.
Locke, you won’t get attacked.
You will get mocked, because the pay inequality is demonstrated fact and ridiculously easy to spot. This means you apparently are unable to parse simple statistics.
Which, come to think of it, seems common for most MRA fans.
By the way: A similar verboten issue is people claiming the moon is made of cheese. Obvious nonsense, of course, but there’s still people like you writing posts like:
“The moon is obviously made of cheese! The rock moon is a myth!
P.S. the attacks I will likely receive over this post will prove my point. Some issues are just verboten this is one of them”
Sadly, that’s no get-out-of-jail-free card. If you write something that is factually wrong, people will point this out. You will have to deal with it.
“You’re angry, but I’ll bet every one of you agrees with me.”
You’re right, Mr. Adams. I am angry. And I most certainly do not agree with you.
I love how the writer is trying to criticize Adams for his ignorance by using the following statement:
“he shouldn’t have really suggested that women were a bunch of retarded children.”
“Retarded?” Really? At least Adams was good enough to call them mentally handicapped. If you’re going to throw stones, at least make sure your house ain’t made of glass.
FWIW, I really can’t see anything wrong with what Adams wrote. He could have worded it better, to be sure, but people are different. That seemed to me to be the basic point – and if it even matters I’m writing as a disabled woman. The reply? Well, who isn’t going to get all defensive and riled up faced with an attack like this?
It’s late and I’ve largely skimmed over this, but I really can’t see how this has generated as much controversy as it has. Perhaps Adams just deleted the blog post because he realized that ^ was all exploding – and this really is nothing more than a storm in a teacup, yesterday’s news. Why not delete it? It’s not about ‘courage’. It’s the internet FFS, Google cached it, it’s there. Why should the shitstorm be there on a commercial website? Didn’t Adams – or his webmaster – do exactly what any capitalist would do to mitigate a shitstorm?
Either ways, it matters very little because discrimination will always exist. Some of you already got cross with the blog author for being ‘ablist’ – and I read his quite unecessary apology to that. Apologising for an ‘error’ or pulling a post, aren’t they both equally ‘cowardly’? Not for me, but you can be that someone found both actions cowardly.
To conclude, this is really just a colossal waste of everybody’s time. After all, Adams made this post after a group spammed him to make it – and do bear in mind the bloke’s a satirist and they mean to provoke and offend – and that he did well. Aren’t these OUTRAGED posts just people jumping onto a bandwagon and riding coattails?
Well, that’s my 2 cents anyway.
Yes Scott, your post was misunderstood. That’s because you used a convoluted analogy that was easy to misread.
And yes, many responses were stupid and emotional. But you’re in no position to complain. Your opinion about women’s pay is demonstrably wrong. Not getting your facts right in not that big a deal — it happens to all of us. But dismissing everybody who tries to tell you you’re wrong is arrogant, stupid and many other things. It’s comparable to — what a good analogy? oh yeah — a stubborn child.
I used to like Dilbert, back when it was actual satire. Now it’s just irritating snark. And now I know why.
Oh, and as an aside – EVERYONE takes the path of least resistance. Is that really so outrageous?
This article is just a bunch of bullshit. Not Scott Adam’s, but yours. It’s hardly Adams’ fault that you can’t understand his metaphors, and if you aren’t a fan of his it’s most not likely due to his failings.
Equal rights means people are also allowed to talk about and criticize you as well, you don’t have some magic shield that protects you from negativity.
Grow the fuck up, go about living, and get over yourselves.
Wage gap myth? Condescension is one surefire way to piss people off and then you can sit back and say, “See? All I said was…” Verbal Attack Method #6.
So you let your personal opinions and feelings on a topic affect your outlook on things and disallow you to see the paper for something that may have had academic merit and perhaps was well researched, because you already have a predisposed outlook on the topic?
Glad I’m not your student.
Yeah, I like that. “Why can’t I have a civil conversation when I just ‘point out’ that pay inequality is a ‘myth’? I don’t understand why people keeping attacking me for just announcing the basic and indisputable truth that they’re completely wrong, instead of engaging in a legitimate discussion on the topic.”
Just to put this out there:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rational-discussion-flowchart/
It’s illogical to argue with someone who has no intention whatsoever to listen, be that person female, male, or otherwise (don’t laugh, there are interesting gender choices out there), though I don’t believe that one should “go with the path of least resistance” so much as concede that the topic isn’t something you will be able to talk about with anything approaching civility.
I don’t agree with Scott Adams, but these comments come dangerously close to proving him right. The majority are emotional (not just passionate, which isn’t bad, but illogical, which obviously is) and use words like “mansplaining” which is so blatantly sexist that I find it disgusting that anyone willing to use it thinks they need to complain about the bias of others. That kind of vileness has no place in any discussion.
The one thing Scott said that was absolutely true is “As emotion increases, reading comprehension decreases”. The emotional, hateful, ridiculous comments I have seen his deleted post spark both here and elsewhere make me really worry about gender relations in America. I thought people on sites like this were the ones who wanted to make things better?
Some of you have logically pointed out why the piece was in many ways offensive, incorrect, and seriously flawed. Others ALMOST make “Don’t bother arguing with women, they’re like children” sound like good advice. If I didn’t know so many people in the first group, I might be tempted by the words of the second to change my mind and agree with Scott.
As a Criminal Justice major with more than enough CJ credits to graduate, let me assure everyone here that there is no “alleged” to men being treated more harshly by the law in America. It’s a cold, hard fact, and it can be proven in any of dozens of ways.
Past that? Yes, Adams made an ass of himself.
I agree wholeheartedly. My main problem with the internet reaction thus far has been that MOST of it unintentionally supports the nastiest sides of his argument.
My favorite part of lockstep’s comment is that he basically says, “I have this opinion about which most people don’t agree with me. And I’m going to state it now, and when people don’t agree with me, it will prove my point that…people don’t agree with me.” Umm, okay.
Cherry, I apologize for not tolerating nonsense and bullshit in the name of “diverse” thought. Some of us value truth over rehashed prejudices presented as an original opinion.
I find all these comments about the lack of “honest debate” interesting given that Scott encourages men to condescendingly humor women who disagree with them.
I should note that the comments I’m referring to:
A) were written before the “name-calling” replies he says he’s received. It seems like he was predisposed to interpret any female response to his post as unworthy of his time.
B) don’t differentiate between said “name-calling” and legitimate debate. To clarify, the “best strategy for dealing with each group” suggests that there’s only one strategy for dealing with women—again, ignoring what they have to say—and, essentially, advocates avoiding “honest debate” in any disagreement with women, no matter their response. There are two rationalizations for this, and each are equally contemptible. The first is that Scott Adams believes that women who are willing to rationally debate issues of inequality should be dismissed. The second is that Scott Adams doesn’t believe that women are capable of rational debate.
C) interestingly enough, ignore that many feminists and researchers behind income gap findings are men. Would he treat their concerns any differently?
Hey [Priest], let’s have a rational discussion about the Christianity myth.
Hey [scientist], let’s have a rational discussion about the evolution myth.
Yeah, I see that style of rational discussion really taking off, don’t you?
So, when did emotion become negative? How do you expect people to react when insulted beyond the pale of discourse?
A personal opinion based on tired stereotype is not logical, and it’s laughable that Mr. Adams and his defenders try to pass if off that way.
reading comprehension goes down, eh? i think my reading comprehension is down, because i’m missing a lot of the FACTS, and segues, and bits of evidence that writers use to um, support their writing. YOUR WRITING IS SUPERFICIAL HACK Scott Adams. There’s not even enough there to be ‘funny’. irony in calling people out on their intelligence level. classic misdirection. your words are full of fallacy, ad hominem.
I agree. I have a huge problem with “emotional” being used dismissively. “Oh, you’re just talking about your feelings, so I don’t have to listen.” Bull.
Locke step, I’m curious then, what you say about the “Women in America” report just published by the White House and the Dept of Commerce, which clearly states there is a wage gap http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/Women_in_America.pdf (page 32)?
@Scott Adams: You certainly seem to be taking it personally when you insult someone’s ability to comprehend what they read and call them “angry children”. Your behavior in this forum is embarrassing and does not help your cause.
Stephen #88 wrote “The one thing Scott said that was absolutely true is “As emotion increases, reading comprehension decreases”. The emotional, hateful, ridiculous comments I have seen his deleted post spark both here and elsewhere make me really worry about gender relations in America.”
While I actually agree with the statement from Mr. Adam’s you quoted, placed within the context of the rest of his comment, it falls completely flat. I really find this emotional/rational binary troubling. Privileging rational sounding responses misses a great deal of the picture because humans are more than just their reason faculties.
It seems to me like Mr. Adam’s is playing “gotcha” here, offering a highly charged piece of writing, and then damning the more emotionally charged responses that he should have known (and probably did know) would come from people reading it. You don’t use inflammatory language like that without hoping to spark something more than some dry, academically reasoned argument.
Oh, and one more issue I have with Scott’s original post that I haven’t seen mentioned—this bizarre, outmoded presumption that sex is a primarily male motivation, that women can’t understand and certainly never experience anything similar to its place in a man’s priorities or effect on their decisionmaking.
I come from a privileged background, and I’m still very young—I’ve had little experience with the sort of unfairness that the majority of his post dismisses. The most immediate and relevant women’s rights issue to me, and to most women, is that we still live in a society where sexual assault is a common occurrence—where some men still believe that it’s okay. Part of the reason is the same “common wisdom” Scott brought up with this stuff about “men’s natural instinct for sex”, the insidious belief that, because women don’t enjoy sex in any circumstance, there’s no significant difference between rape and consensual sex.
I followed a link to this piece from a tweet by Del Dryden above, and I’m finally de-lurking to say merely this:
Mr. Adams, your comic is as tired as your arguments. Everyone here has seen them all before. Congratulations on being significantly less well-read than the majority of folks who regularly appear on the Feministe comment threads, who have helped debunk your points repeatedly in the past and who really deserve better than the sudden influx of trollishness found above.
“I don’t agree with Scott Adams, but these comments come dangerously close to proving him right. The majority are emotional (not just passionate, which isn’t bad, but illogical, which obviously is) and use words like “mansplaining” which is so blatantly sexist that I find it disgusting that anyone willing to use it thinks they need to complain about the bias of others. That kind of vileness has no place in any discussion.”
Do we really have to go through this again? Mansplaining is a term that describes a specific kind of sexist behaviour, one that Scott Adams totally just engaged in, and is not some generic OH NO MEN ARE TALKING MUST BE SEXISM-TOWARDS-MEN THEM. It also has analogous terms in a variety of social movements, such as cissplaining, whitesplaining, ablesplaining and so on. It isn’t “blatantly sexist” unless you think that mentioning the fact that someone’s male privilege might have some kind of relationship with them being a man is sexist.
Mr. Adams, clearly you can’t say something and then UNSAY it in the same bit of prose. Why don’t you say exactly what you mean to say instead of speaking in rhetoric and metaphor? Save us the trouble and don’t say ANYTHING. That would be better.
If I had to make a comparison or metaphor about “Dilbert” it would be just like shining a turd. Yep, you end up with a shiny turd but it still smells like shit.
Wow, Amanda Marcotte is right. Anything MRA brings out the trolls.
I read Scott Adams is a former member of Mensa. There’s a belief in the gifted community that this particular organization attracts mostly mildly gifted people who wish they were smarter, and subsequently will pay for the ego-stroking. Glad to have another example of that.
A Woman Engineer @ 77: I, too, am a female engineer (BS Computer Science & Engineering, MS Computer Science), and I think you’re full of it. Even women engineers make less than our male counterparts. Even geekdom is a patriarchy.
I keep checking this thread because I’m hoping Scott Adams is going to post on it again, but the rest of his defenders are nearly as good. XD
Popcorn all round!
cherry,
I’ll indulge the bullshit.
Scott says that the way you deal with women is the way you deal with those who have a disability and children. He then goes on to say that while he is not comparing women to PWD or children, the way in which he “deals with them” is strikingly similar.
Children, women, and PWD do not need to be dealt with. Women, children and PWD are human, just like he is. That in and of itself demands respect. Scott is demeaning all three groups (which are not mutually exclusive might I remind you). Feminists who fight for the rights of all three groups (I realize not all feminists are activists for children and PWD but some are) have a right to be shocked to hear a public figure expressing such demeaning and dehumanizing remarks. We also have a right to say that we are not going to read something written by a person who demeans others.
Furthermore, I did an informal poll of the ten guys sitting around me and none of them feel that women, children, or the disabled need to be “dealt with” so the idea that all men are a monolith and all think the same way is incorrect.
I hate to tell you this, but your opinion doesn’t carry any more weight because you’re a woman. And, HIS opinion doesn’t carry any more weight because you happen to agree with him.
I read the entire post, because that’s what I do before going off on my joyous little flamewars. I also am a longtime reader of Dilbert and I happen to have just reread all my Dilbert books and been disgusted by the blatant sexism I saw. It doesn’t happen to be blatant often in Dilbert, true. But it is on occasion- Antina, anyone?
You’re missing the point, madam. This is not about engineers or rationality. It’s not about whether Scott Adams “hates” women or is “fighting” against them. It’s about the fact that he dismisses women totally as a group, and more, that he thinks of himself as being completely rational in so doing. That’s pretty fucked up. But also easy to mock, as David Futrelle has demonstrated so ably!
It’s easy to dismiss angry people as “emotional”, with all the weight of connotation that that holds as an epithet. But it is impossible to read either his original post or his defense of it without seeing the utter disregard he has for other people, and his refusal to engage with them meaningfully. I would argue that it is people who refuse to understand the full impact of their statements on others who are the irrational ones.
Geekdom is an unbelievable patriarchy. Hoo doggy that is a fact, you’re spittin’ it right woman. It’s only been in the last few years that I have been able to hang with strange male geeks and not be regarded with suspicion/lust. In high school I believe my preferred clique was concerned that I was faking geekery to get a boyfriend. Ugh!
Scott Adams watches too much SpikeTV.
I’d also like to point out that Scott Adam’s major arguments in his comment here have already been covered by Derailing for Dummies.
And, just a thought, but when your argument has been predicted and covered by a generic list, it’s probably less rational than you’d like it to appear.
(here’s hoping I don’t fail at html.)
I’ve possibly missed this in an earlier comment, but in addition to the sexism and ableism, I’d like to note the ageism of the original post. In it, Adams effectively says one is better off dead than really old, that the women (apparently all in assisted living) who linger after tne men are gone lead lives not worth living.
Since Mr. Adams mentioned reading comprehension–I thought, just for shit and giggles, I’d put his comments onto a website that measures document readability.
Here is the site:
http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp
These were the results:
Number of characters (without spaces) : 1,343.00
Number of words : 273.00
Number of sentences : 18.00
Average number of characters per word : 4.92
Average number of syllables per word : 1.63
Average number of words per sentence: 15.17
Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 10.46
Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 11.20
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 9.52
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 9.32
SMOG : 11.37
Flesch Reading Ease : 53.85
List of sentences which we suggest you should consider to rewrite to improve readability of the text :
When confronted with that sort of reaction, would it be wiser to treat the name-callers as you might treat respected professors with opinions worthy of consideration, or should you treat the name-callers as you would angry children, by not debating and not taking it personally?
Iâve written on the topic how you canât mix incendiary images in the same piece without the readersâ brains treating the images as though they were connected, no matter how clearly you explain that they are not.
This would be true of anyone, but regular readers of the Dilbert blog are pretty far along the bell curve toward rational thought, and relatively immune to emotional distortion.
In this case, the content of the piece inspires so much emotion in some readers that they literally canât understand it.
The same would be true if the topic were about gun ownership or a dozen other topics.
I really appreciate your assumption that my gender is something worth laughing about and your “interesting” condescending word choice.
GTFO.
Or…..not? Projecting much based on what (extremely) little data I gave about said paper in the comment? Yes, I am an evil feminazi who penalizes my male students unfairly. Good lord.
FWIW, the student randomly threw in that assertion, with no proof, grounding in the text, or contextualization whatsoever. I mentioned it because the argument Adams makes here–that women are form/matter/emotion and men are logic/order/rationality goes back to Aristotle, and is surprisingly deeply ingrained in our collective groupthink, despite efforts to eradicate it. Aristotle said a lot of nonsensical shit–yet we persist in upholding some of his incredibly offensive ideals re: women that passed through Christianity/Europe/Middle Ages up to this day.
But that’s enough back of the napkin history for today…
I’m going to raise my hand here and say that I’m offended, Scott.
Maybe not “offended” because you seem to have strange fixations on negative emotions. Maybe just simple disappointment. Because he throws logic out the window and lumps not one, but two genders into homogenous lumps. I know more “beta males” who are driven by the need for companionship, not love and aggression, and more women who go ovaries first into danger (like, say, a burning car). I’m aware this is anecdotal, but your post is as well.
If you were in academia, you’d be discredited by all of your peers faster than you could say “What I really meant was…”. If you knew how to write, you wouldn’t need an angry, post hoc addendum. For someone who tauts rationality, you sure seem to lack it.
One of these things is not like the other.
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.”
Lest you think that anyone can be rational and not emotional, please listen to some actual science on that topic.
Emotion and rationality go hand in hand to get us through our daily lives. One is not better than the other. They are equally crucial to our decision-making abilities. Anyone who wants to pretend otherwise is fooling him- or herself.
Adams’ post is more pathetic than anything. It saddens me that so many heterosexual men think so badly of women. It must be confusing to be sexually attracted to and simultaneously disdainful of a whole group of people. Feminists have the advantage here: by judging people’s worth irrespective of their gender, we can have meaningful romantic relationships, no matter what our gender or sexual orientation! It’s lovely — the MRA dudes should try it some time.
Yes, I’m angry. And I read the whole post. And thanks for the attempt to deride people as “having poor reading comprehension” for taking your words at face value and calling you on them, but I read just fine and you can stick your insults where they belong– in the trash with the original post.
No, I don’t agree with you.
Is that clear enough? I wouldn’t want it to be beyond YOUR reading comprehension skills.
There are many things in life that are suck about being a woman. And all those things that you say society forces men to do to appease women and treat them like little princesses? I hold the door for men, so don’t even start with that nonsense. Wait staff in very high end restaurants may follow the serve the female first rule, but most places that I go to use the “serve the person who’s plate is easiest to serve” rule. My plate is *usually* last. Most of the wait staff that I encounter also don’t recognize messages coded in silverware placement, and perhaps yours do, so your experience might be quite different than mine, based on the amount that the wait staff is paid.
Quite frankly, I’m wholly unsurprised that you can’t have a successful argument with a woman. You’re generalizing and saying that the generalization is 100% true for everyone and that 100% of everyone knows it’s true and are simply LYING when they say otherwise. You’re insulting people for not agreeing with you. You’re actually saying society requiring that a man hold the door for a woman is discrimination against the man but being passed over for promotion by a male who is less qualified and less competent is “failing to negotiate.” (Hint: they are both discrimination against the woman, the first possibly arguably against both.) If this is how you argue with the women in your life, it’s not the woman’s fault that you can’t win an argument.
Because it’s not arguing. The number of rules of argumentation that you just broke is astounding and what’s your response to being called on the article? To step up breaking the rules. It’s still not an argument and it still makes you seem like a person who is actually the person who can not be convinced by any argument.
You have probably never actually experienced the level of sexual discrimination that exists against women. YOU are told that you have to hold the door for a woman and GIRLS are told “Girls are bad at math.” “If you let people know that you are smart, you’ll never get a good Husband.” “You should get a good major for a girl like English.” “No daughter of mine is smarter than me!”
And those are all quotes from my FATHER, most of which predate age 10. Add to that the number of times that I’ve had people in my industry say loudly, while looking directly at me at a table, “women have no business in this industry.” I’m a computer programmer.
So you can discount the reality that is being female and poohpooh it because you’ve never been female and honestly don’t know what it’s like, but your argument, really, is that being told since birth that you can’t achieve anything because you’re just a girl is not a problem, but you holding a door for a girl is discrimination.
On behalf of the smart, rational women of the world, of which there are many (despite your claims to the contrary), I apologize that society requires you to open a door for me– I don’t– but even so, opening a door for me is a drop in the bucket compared to what I have to deal with BECAUSE I am a woman.
Hopefully, you have the reading comprehension skills to understand that.
Okay, so I don’t have a clue why I feel the need to comment here, but here goes anyway.
I’m a single (well, in a serious relationship but not married), straight, more or less average guy. I don’t read Dilbert, and I don’t belong to any groups or clubs or brotherhoods or other “manly” ventures. I was raised to be a gentleman, to treat women as equals or better, and to respect pretty much anyone who doesn’t give me reason otherwise, regardless of gender or other differences between us.
Now, there are two groups out there that have a real problem with guys like me. One is the Men’s Rights group that pushed for Adams to write his article in the first place. Those kind of men would call me p***y, c**t or other supposedly insulting names, just because I don’t care that my boss is a strong woman, most of my co-workers are women, and my girlfriend is a highly independent, though far from feminist, woman. I happen to enjoy the occasional romantic comedy, or epic love story. I know how to cook and clean and generally take care of myself, because I’ve been single for long stretches of my adult life. All of these things supposedly render me “whipped” or even “in the closet” in their eyes. But you know what? I don’t care what these guys think, they can continue measuring their penises against each other and I’ll go on with my life secure in my masculinity.
Surprisingly though, I’ve found that another group loathes men like me even more, and that group is feminists. I don’t understand it, unless they think I’m being demeaning by being a gentleman; I’ve heard that more than once when I’ve held the door for a lady or stood up when she left the dinner table. I certainly applaud their independence and strength, and I don’t have a harsh thought or feeling for them. I just find it strange that I somehow exemplify all the “bad” in men when there are these contemptible sexist pigs out there making asses of themselves by claiming they’ve somehow lost rights.
Like I said, I’ll never understand it. But I damn sure won’t become like those assholes because of it.
Scott Adams’s ideas are intellectual garbage. He’s has one good idea in his life- the Dilbert Principle- but we’ve paid for it dearly with all the anti-scientific, sexist crap he’s been spouting for years, and he has a large audience. He’s only one step ahead of political pundits, in that he knows how to sound smart.
Dilbert? Funny cartoon, although it’s been going on for too long now. Scott Adams? Trash. Dump him in the trash heap of history.
Also, a note about responses that express emotion without offering counterarguments: one reason for this is that the counterarguments have generally already been gone over in this and other feminist spaces many, many times. It has already been established, generally (and in this thread), that a lot of the post under discussion is offensive in multiple ways, and we don’t necessarily need to reiterate that in every comment (or to forgo expressing frustration because one doesn’t have any new points to make that haven’t been made by another commenter).
Chava,
+ 1 for the hysterical feminist. I mark that shit down too. If by the time we get to papers or exams you haven’t grasped that rationality is a kyriarchal construct, I’ve failed you and you’re probably going to fail my class.
I understand what Scott was trying to say, because I’ve heard it 1,000 times before. “Men are just unemotional beasts who want to get laid, and women an incomprehensible alien species.” Helpful hint, Scott: “Men are pigs” hasn’t been novel humor since the early 19th century.
There is a certain breed of male engineer, many examples of which I have worked with over the years, who do think themselves rational beings, which is why they spend so much time in pissing contests (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PissingContest), emotional ego-filled battles over trivial matters and talking about how the problem is never them, it is the rest of the world. Any emotion must be immediately justified away as rational, which leads to a life filled with self-denial and incomprehensible pretzels of logic. They convince themselves that what is missing from their life is sex, because to admit they are lonely would be to admit emotion, which they don’t have because they are rational. The convince themselves that women are inhuman and have nothing in common with them, because otherwise their desire to use them for sex the way they use a computer for email would be too horrendous to contemplate. They remain lonely, disconnected and convinced of their own unique specialness. For the most part they aren’t vindictive men, and they do keep quiet about their personal pain because to do otherwise would be to admit emotion, but they have logicked themselves into a corner where they can never engage with a woman as an equal. The best you can ever do as a woman in that room is have them forget you aren’t male.
They are, as the movie says, all individuals. Every one of them.
Luckily, this approach actually produces less-productive work and hard-to-maintain code, and thus has been going out of style. “Collective code ownership” is one of my requirements now for any job I take; if I can’t change something because someone else’s ego is invested in it, it means their “rationality” is making our product worse.
Besides, truly rational individuals have read the research and know that no human is a rational being. Endocrine systems guarantee it.
@Scott Adams
Honestly, I think there is a VERY simple way to explore this. Please explain, in clear terms, what you wanted to convey in your original post. In addition, please explain why you took it down.
Oh, and…”You’re just too stupid to get my point!” is generally not a respectable response in a discussion.
Who’s “pussy” is he comparing these whiny men to? My “pussy” is strong and assertive and beautiful, not weak and whiny like a cartoonist. It doesn’t take advanced reading comprehension skills to know misogynistic language when you see it.
Please tell me this is a joke.
Scott Adams made a special trip to Feministe just to tell us that we’re interrogating the text from the wrong perspective?
Apparently we should not use terms like mansplaining? Did we hurt your poor manly fee fees? Deity forbid we should hurt anyone’s feelings in our attempts to stop living in a sexist rape culture. Dude. That’s called a tone argument and means you automatically lose your right to participate further in this discussion. Now, just step two feet back and a little to the right and this lovely trap door will dump you into a pile of nice soft horseshit.
On the gender gap, I would still recommend my three part series on it, even though the data is by now a little old. The theories still apply and the numbers are unlikely to have changed much. I respond to several right-wing arguments in the third post of the series, including the whole idea that there is no gender gap in earnings. Note that its existence does not mean that all of it can be attributed to direct discrimination. It’s more complicated.
On this topic itself, I wrote about it today, from a somewhat different angle, by looking at the truth of each of the arguments.
David;
The reason your comment came across as ableist, and still does IMO, is because you do not engage with the ableism at all. I get you are just paraphrasing his argument, but because you haven’t deblt with the ableism, it looks ke you are saying “But women aren’t mentally disabled children!” instead of “people with mental disabilities are human. Children are human”.
Us PWD are very used to being mocked, trodden on, hurt in the feminist sphere, and because you haven’t engaged it looks like that’s what you’re doing too.
Scott fails to understand sexism is a flaw, arrogance is a weakness & he is severely handicapped by his own prejudice. His blog is full of statements like men have to pretend to be thoughtful, and women are basically harping nags. It’s sad he lives in such an unhappy place & unacceptable he tries to blame women for it. I’ll be damned if he’ll take his micro and attempt to make it macro. The fact is, the man is a walking advertisement for sexism. Again, read the blog. Adams blames others for his own emotions and obvious unhappiness.
What the flying pancake is with people using “handicapped” uncritically on this thread? Stop that.
It’s irrational to blame women for men’s sexism.
As a 25 year old woman, I am so sickened and distraught by these thoughts. How can I possibly look at men the same when I know that there are some in our society harboring THESE thoughts about me?
This is so nauseating, I hope his shit comic gets pulled out of national newspapers, the misogynistic chode.
I was a fan. Not anymore. Even if the humour in a strip might be funny I will not be able to enjoy it, knowing that the guy behind it is such a douche.
Scott Adams made a joke. He wasn´t implying anything about women, but about MRAs. To be sincere, as a man that isn´t feminist(I open doors to women, I carry luggage for them and If you mess with any of my female friends you mess with me) these people are annoying and whining.
André Kenji: Quick question. Do you believe women should be treated equally under the law, receive equal pay for the same work, and live in a world where the protection you are offering is available but not necessary because they aren’t in constant danger just for being female?
If you answered yes, then congratulations: you’re a feminist.
See, now I think this is a claim that MRA’s make much of the time that is important to unpack. A particular criticism that comes to mind is that of custody cases. Men often complain that the courts favor mothers in custody cases. And yet, it is patriarchy that deems women sole nurturers and puts the brunt of childcare on them. This isn’t a violation of men’s rights in accordance with a patriarchal world, but rather follows the tenets set out quite nicely. And that’s not to say that I agree with it – as a feminist I look forward to the day when both men and women can be seen as having an equal capacity to nurture – but MRAs wrongly place the blame on women for a system men have created and they, as men with privilege, are complicit in.
Okay what the hell.
First off, seconding julesy. @Lia: “Don’t laugh, there are interesting gender choices out there” – what the hell? My gender’s not a *choice* and I could do without the patronising “omg I know it’s so weird there are people out there who aren’t men or women” tone either.
Second, this thread is reading like a grab-bag of ableist slurs for people with cognitive disabilities. Handicapped? “Mentally defective”?! The bloody r-word?! It almost reads like everyone decided to prove Cara’s point in #29, that feminist spaces have a history of ableism and as a result you can’t work with that form of sarcasm (if it was intended to be sarcasm…) there.
Would like to second Cara and PharaoKatt, and also reiterate what Anna said – in the disability rights community I only very rarely see the r-word written out without being starred out or something like it because it is considered that bad of a slur. Adams was using “mentally handicapped” which is bad enough already but I really don’t understand why you decided to paraphrase using a term that’s generally considered much worse, and might leave a lot of disabled people feeling as if they’d been punched in the stomach or even triggered.
We’ve got a whole lot of non-regular folks crowding these comments. If you are new to Feministe, please take time to read the commenting policy and remember that we retain the right to remove or edit your comments for abusive language.
Hi David
I think critiquing the MRAs is an interesting project, not least because there are a lot of them and they have a voice in gender politics that is worth listening to. And criticising. But when it comes to language, believe you me, feminists are just as capable as MRAs of using ‘shaming’ language against people who challenge their dogma. On this site itself I have been accused of ‘owning an honorary penis’ of being an ‘Uncle Tom’ and a ‘colluder’ and an ‘asshole’ and a ‘troll’ etc etc.
If you want to critique gendered/racialised language you are in the right place!
Alyssa
1-) I´m strongly pro life in abortion. I don´t defend prision time to women that abort, but I find the whole idea abhorrent. I´m one of these complicated and hypocritical Catholic Liberals.
2-) I don´t think that women and men should be treated equally because these genders aren´t equal. A women that punches me shouldn´t get the same treatment that I should get If I punched a woman. I´m probably four to six times physically stronger than the average women. I also think that mothers should have the strongest safety net possible, and that being father is very different than having a baby INSIDE your body.
3-) I also think that the wage gap is fair more complicated than it looks. To take an example, at least here in Brazil, I see several marriages sinking because the spouse thinks that her husband WORKS TOO MUCH.
A female friend of mine complains with me that I do fair more things in my work that I should.
4-) I think that the problem is that several men(Including me) thinks that both MRA´s and Feminists wants men to be treated like women.
We aren´t. And that´s part of what Scott Adams is trying to say.
Ah crap, an apostrophe where it shouldn’t be. Guess my highly emotional response clouded my proofreading skills. Damn that estrogen!
Don’t mess with echidne’s facts and analysis, by the way. You MRA types will lose. Or, as so many of you write, “loose.”
One thing I hate is how often it is these misogynists who are the most successful as (so-called) “comedians”, “writers”, “philosophers”. Which is one of those thing that demonstrates the insidious power of the patriarchy.
I wonder if Adams and his friends have the mental capacity to understand that.
I think I’m starting to get this Scott Adams thing. He thinks it’s awful and unfair that he has to pretend to give a crap about anyone other than himself.
He managed to get a career that would allow him to minimise that kind of pretending, and hold on to this kind of childlike egocentrism.
But he still can’t have a successful relationship. Because relationships involve caring about other people, (setting aside the kind of “love for money” transaction that MRAs aspire to, that you can get either by being very wealthy or having an impoverished and powerless partner. )
And he’s a straight guy, so he gets to blame women for all his failures in that department. Hence, women are all irrationally emotional, because they care about their own feelings, not just Scott Adams’. Women don’t want sex, because their sex drive is not directly attuned to the sex drive of Scott Adams. Women’s opinions are irrational and invalid, because they aren’t identical to the opinions of Scott Adams.
It’s weird. I definitely have days of being a whiny egocentric douche too. It’s just that as a woman, I don’t get to avoid seeing that I’m being a whiny egocentric douche by pretending the problem is everyone else’s.
I’ve been holding back on this so far. But I’m autistic and have ADHD, so I’ve got to say this: David, I know you were trying to be ironic or wev, but your use of the r* word hurt. Really hurt.
Can we just stop it with using “handicapped” when we’re not talking about people who have actual handicaps? Scott Adams isn’t “handicapped”, nor his argument. He and his argument are undercut, invalidated (or any number of other useful terms that are not only more accurate but also don’t misappropriate language of disability) by his own prejudice.
Shut the fuck up. You got Scott Adams to troll Feministe? Do we even need a FNTT? He wins, right?
AWESOME.
That’s another example of poor reading comprehension. I’ve often stated that evolution qualifies as a scientific fact. The confusion comes from my writings on how we perceive reality.
I’m also rumored on the Internet to be a creationist, an Obama lover, and nearly dead from a debilitating disease. (All false, by the way.) And according to my Wikipedia page, I’ve won some awards that I’ve never heard of.
Believing what you read is always risky.
I’m happy pretty much all of the time. I’m even enjoying all of this attention.
How are the rest of you doing?
As luck would have it, there’s a large overlap between people who don’t get Dilbert and people who didn’t understand the post on Men’s Rights.
As far as I know, no one who understood the post was offended.
Nope. The strip didn’t state that. You’re angry about your own lack of reading comprehension.
*troll troll troll*
Wow, I come back to this thread after tweeting, and Scott Adams is still being all emotional in the comments about how we just don’t understaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand him? Someone call him a wahmbulance, stat, this guy has a serious emo problem!
It has all been said, just a ridiculous point of view. I scoff at his protestations, and call into question this particular sentence:
I genuinely adore this article and support the author wholeheartedly. Who knew the Dilbert guy was so funny?
Scott, as a FORMER fan, I find you utterly contemptible.
scott adams may be the only cartoonist less funny and/or clever than jim davis
dilbert is worse than garfield
worse
than
garfield
lol @151 where Adams reads that someone doesn’t like Dilbert and assumes that it must be because they don’t “get” it. lol throughout when he derides others for lack of reading comprehension.
Shorter Scott Adams: “I got your attention, neener neener neener, and you’re just too dumb to get my Nietzsche and Ayn Rand quotes because you aren’t boys and I hate girls don’t you see I wroted it on the wall of teh internetz?! See my butt?!”
@ cara, et al
I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that handicapped was an unacceptable word to use.
Cara, is there anyway to edit out that word or replace it with PWD? I didn’t mean to hurt someone and I’d like to be able to rectify it.
sabrina: I’ve edited.
Look, David, I know this is your thread, but there is a high bullshit quotient here and I am going to place it on full moderation.
Wow, what a trivializing way to put that. Generally speaking, people don’t choose gender and it’s not an interesting choice.
You could have left that entire sentence out. Just said “no matter who they are.” Why construct it for the jab at nonbinary gender? What’s the point of that?
“No true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge”
no, everyone is angry because you’re stubborn and unwilling to admit you were wrong. how’s that hole looking? you keep digging.
Scott, this is what happens when you leave your echo chamber. You think you are clearly on the superior logical ground but quite honestly you appear to have logic mostly based in sycophantic reassurance on your blog rather than objective reality.
Try and not think of yourself as the Master of Logic and try to remember that your hordes of followers are mostly single manchildren who apply logic only when and where it suits them, and hopefully such a reflection will lead to some kind of epiphany for you.
The King of Manchildren is quite a hollow accomplishment in my opinion, becoming a decent human being is much more rewarding.
It’s telling me you don’t know the difference between statistics and anecdotes.
And your reading comprehension might need some work. As far as I know, no one who understood the post was offended.
[...] those groups, he just thinks you should treat them the same. Then he went over to a post on it at Feministe and informed everyone… Well, I’ll let his words stand for [...]
Here’s a tip, Scott. If your post requires a level of “reading comprehension”/literary analysis equal to Augustine decoding Genesis using medieval scriptural hermenutics–IT WASN’T FUNNY. Except perhaps to three monks in 1300.
Look, even giving your post the most generous reading possible–reading it heavily for irony, reading it as a coded insult of MRAs, a secret feminist handshake, etc–it STILL wasn’t funny and used unacceptable language coming from a white dude with no context, history of commentary on the subject, or blatant markers of satirization in the text. Also–claiming “it’s just irony/satire, therefore it isn’t offensive?” SO LAST YEAR. Same for restricting your humor to a tiny group of imaginary MENSA cubicle dwellers with “superior reading comprehension” on the “bell curve.”
And your reading comprehension might need some work. As far as I know, no one who understood the post was offended.
Wow, because I see different things than misogynist wankers, *I’m* the one who needs work on reading comprehension? Listen, douchebag, we understand what you were saying, and here’s what we were saying: YOU ARE BEING REALLY OFFENSIVE AND WOMEN HATING. PLEASE TO STOP NOW.
And stop being so dense, and stop being so “I feel like I’m right all the time.” and recognize that sometimes you can be wrong. There are multiple comments about where people are called out for offensive or incorrect language, and what do they do? They apologize and welcome the chance to better their language in the future. It’s really not that hard, apologize and try to be better.
It’s kind of fun watching the logic go round in circles. Like a little toy train!
scott, I did read what you wrote and understood it perfectly. If you look at my other comment I explain why what you are saying is not okay even assuming that you do not actually believe that women are children or disabled. You are blatantly wrong and trying to justify it by saying that we don’t understand what you said. Accept that what you said was awful and move on.
[Quote from deleted troll comment redacted - Chally]
This is really cute. I love how you MRAs invoke what men have done once upon a time and act like somehow you were there. Tell me, what exactly have you personally done to make my life easier? What is your contribution to society? Because frankly, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have so much time to troll feminist websites if you had better shit to do.
Keep digging yourself deeper into misogyny, Scott. When you shoot your mouth off on the Internet, you shouldn’t be shocked that people read and react to it.
http://celebs.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979164120
Who knew that comparing women to children and the [redacted - Chally]–or arguing that you can’t talk to them about these issues or “they just get mad as women are wont to do”— would piss them off so much?
[redacted - Chally] pig.
It’s hard to agree with someone who deletes an entry simply because a bunch of people [redacted - Chally] about it. That shows me how much Adams stands behind his words.
Then there’s the laziness of his not citing a single one of the studies which clearly explain why this “80% of male pay gap” exists, and never does it have anything to do with discrimination or sexism. Scott done screwed up.
M W Lees-Grossmann: Women being pushed into lower-wage industries does have something to do with systemic sexism, and, well, maybe you’ve heard of Lilly Ledbetter.
[...] of story from Comics Alliance, and Feministe March 25, [...]
thank you chally, again I’m sorry and it won’t happen again
Matt 3.25.2011 at 5:40 pm wrote:
Where did I call Obama a STUPID COMMUNIST in my post? Can you point it out, please?
Are people who didn’t vote for Obama not allowed to post on this board? Or are we automatically tagged “racist” by the tolerant progressives here and summarily dismissed?
Feel free to stick to the subject at hand: Scott Dilbert and the lack of civility in discussion without resorting to half-truths, ad hominem attacks on me, and intellectual dishonesty.
Blame the reader, Scott? Really? You know, if the post really was so innocuous and innocent, you wouldn’t have unpublished it, now would you? Now that you’ve had your Howard Beale (or is it more Norma Desmond?) moment, I hope you’re feeling better now and things work out for you.
ROTFLMAO!
Said the woman who has been reading it for several months.
You’re in the club.
Shorter Scott Adams: “No one understands me! Don’t you people get that I intended this post to only be read by the narrow-minded worshiping fans that populate my echochamber (read: blog) who exist solely to reinforce my distorted sense of greatness? In fact, by refusing to accept my opinion as divine law, you have proved yourself to be irrational and incapable of reading comprehension (because no rational person who understands what I wrote could possibly disagree with my unfathomable intellect). Besides, if everyone is a misogynist, that makes it normal and hence morally acceptable. So what’s the big deal?
But you know what makes it even funnier? I really don’t think he understands why we’re ridiculing him. Dude needs to lurk moar :-P
And by the way, I always assumed Dilbert was intentionally portraying both men and women as caricatures of the insufferably obnoxious people you meet in the workplace. It takes so much of the punch out of it now that I know that’s actually how he sees the world, without the distancing filter of humor.
The entire piece is an anti-male-rights piece.
The regular readers of my blog understand that I routinely build arguments for whatever side of an issue is hardest to defend. Then they wrestle with it in the comments. When the piece is moved from the context of the blog, the message is changed by the new context. On the Men’s Rights blogs, it’s seen as an attack on men. On this blog it’s seen as an attack on women. The readers of my own blog email me to say, “What’s the big deal?”
Add selective quoting, which further changes the message, and layer on some poor reading comprehension and you get this zoo, which, as a student of human nature, I have been enjoying. The whole thing is fascinating.
Actually, my blog readers usually disagree with what I write. I don’t do opinion pieces. I’m about thinking of things in a new way. I’m often agnostic on the whole issue of being right or wrong. That drives people [redacted - mod] if they don’t understand it. That’s why the post changes meaning when it moves outside my blog. Your interpretation of the content depends entirely on what you presume I’m trying to accomplish.
A Dilbert book was arguing in favor of rape?
Reading comprehension: FAIL
Actually, Scott, when I emailed this thread to my father and brother (both engineers, both long-time readers and fans of Dilbert, and both members of the New Ruling Class from way back in the day) they both thought that the full context on your blog (and your comments here) made it far, far worse than the original post and my complaints had led them to believe.
They also now think you’re a huge tool.
Cheers.
Okay Scott, I’ll take that at face value. You like play devil’s advocate with your loyal readers. Fine.
In this instance, this still makes you the asshole. Because instead of clarifying the POV the post was written with, you unpublished it and egged on the people who were rightly offended since the post itself in no way hints that maybe you don’t necessarily agree, you’re just trying to find the most logical reasoning for that argument.
Telling people they have poor reading comprehension for something they could not possibly know tells me far more about you than anything else. Next time you find yourself with a wider audience than intended, don’t fan the flames of the readers who don’t have the same context as everyone else.
The “I’m a student of human nature” so let’s poke people with a sharp stick, sit back, and see what they do thing? Followed by feeling superior?
Got old in high school, when the rest of us got over our Ayn Rand and Nietzsche phase. Honestly.
@chava
Okay, who called Social Experiment in the pool, raise your hand.
Ok, I didn’t keep count if we’re through every item on Derailing for Dummies yet, but Devil’s Advocate is last. So is that it for FNTT, or is he following the advice there and mixing them up?
Shorter Scott Adams: “Reading comprehension. Reading comprehension. Reading comprehension? Reading comprehension.”
I have a feeling that for the length of david’s stay here we are going to be playing gain those FNTT comments and BINGO. Speaking of bingo I think someone should make up a scott adam style trolling card because it’s just too funny
This post would be even more convincing if it had a #stillwinning and #planbetter thrown in there.
Today’s Scott Adams lesson = Parody: Subversive or humorously reinforcing gender and ableist oppression? YOU DECIDE.
No wait… if you opt for the latter, apparently you have shit reading comprehension. You don’t get to be upset by parody (if that’s really what it is) that you find upsetting or offensive because it affects you and reminds you of the way a-holes in society treat you every. fucking. day. You just have a poor sense of humor. C’mon Wimminz! Scott Adams knows best.
Oh ladies, you’re just being hostile/over-sensitive/over-emotional and/or you clearly just enjoy being offended, which is, incidentally, good for you, and it’s too bad you don’t understand it. Clearly you’re not intellectual enough to understand the context/take the right perspective/deal with facts. I’m just saying what other people believe, I certainly wouldn’t put my own real perspective out there because I’m a coward with a knowledge base of TPS report jokes that stopped being funny circa 1997. But who’s keeping track?
Oh, I get Dilbert. I just don’t find it funny.
[...] Scott Adams Compares Women Asking for Equal Pay to Children Demanding Candy Feministe – Scott Adams’ alleged response to criticism OverthinkingIt.com – The Female Character Flowchart OverthinkingIt.com – Why Strong [...]
Coming back to this thread because I just had a wee epiphany. You know how when conservatives accuse liberals of something, you can be pretty sure they’re doing it themselves x10? Like homophobic closet cases, “fiscal conservatives” hell-bent on bankrupting the state for their friends, etc?
Scott Adams is accusing everyone who disagrees with him of poor reading comprehension. But in fact, he’s just hinting at his own problem: he as poor writing comprehension. That’s right: the poor man doesn’t understand that what he’s written makes it clear that he is a misogynist, possibly because he thinks of himself as so normal and “rational” that it is inconceivable to him that everyone doesn’t just know that women are weird irrational creatures and very different from men, and certainly not to be considered simply as equals.
He doesn’t understand that when he writes that if men ruled the world, they could get sex from women on demand, he’s defining the patriarchy and rape. That is some pretty poor writing comprehension right there. But from his perspective, it just makes sense, and he doesn’t have the capacity of critical thought to go beyond his own opinions.
He’s demonstrating quite nicely that he also doesn’t have the capacity to own his opinions and words.
as opposed to ladies, whose only motivation is the desire to have babies! and snag a man to pretend to care about them and listen to their dumb lady thoughts!
1+2: Yes! it is different! so maybe you should keep your poky little nose out of it!
3: wtf does this have to do with the wage gap! or anything else!
To clarify, I meant reinforcing gender and ableist oppression through recourse to “humor.” I wasn’t suggesting that Adams’ parody was humorous or that gender/ableist oppression is.
Scott
You are intelligent and rational so try this one out. Yes a few commenters here don’t “get” your blog. You, on the other hand, fail to get not only this blog, but feminism entirely as well as a large number of gender equality issues you tried to address in your post. It’s you, you’re the one who doesn’t understand your post.
Oh just got saw this.
If this were true and you did understand, then why didn’t you just say “sorry guys, it was meant as satire” not “heh, you dumb bitches just don’t get it” and perpetuating the issues you deride? I don’t buy it, I think you’re a misogynist and don’t know it.
Im not angry, I managed to remain perfectly calm while reading your post, the post on this site and your follow up comment. I managed his despite all those pesky hormones which should have sent me into some inconsolable rage, fancy that. What I will say though is this. Stop being a prick. (Thats an acceptable insult right? I didnt use a female body part…) Your opinions are about 50 years out of touch with the rest of society. No one cares about the men’s rights activists who bitch about how their privilege is being eroded by those naughty feminists and no one gives a shit about what some dinosaur with a superiority complex thinks about how to deal with those he deems to be below his above par level of intellegence. When you hold a position of influence over us mere morals, you should try and show some fucking respect and a bit of common decency. Youre only in that position because of us.
I understood the post. The fact that he suggests that patronizing head-patting is the best way to deal with the serious gender inequities in our society (including things like higher suicide rates for men), rather than honest engagement, is really disgusting. The comparisons he uses in the service of this suggestion are just plain gross.
If you want to tweak the nose of MRAs and enjoy playing devil’s advocate, there is a way to do it without mocking the very idea of fighting for a better world without many of the gender-based inequities that are real problems in our world today.
Oh, David. Your posts are turning into so much chum for contenders for FNTT. Awesomesauce.
Mr. Adams, thank you so much for coming back here and entertaining us with your special brand of epic fail. I have popped some corn–it’s DELICIOUS–and am enjoying the failtastic trollshow you are making. It’s like a really cheesy B movie.
Just wanted to signal-boost this. It might explain a few things.
“You’re angry, but I’ll bet every one of you agrees with me.”
How can we agree with you (or disagree with you) if we can’t understand what you say? How can we interact with you in (this is what it comes down to) any manner whatsoever if you are (like an alien or a unicorn) just basically beyond our ken? Riddle me that, my friend.
[reposted without a Bad Word]
Oh just saw this.
If this were true and you did understand, then why didn’t you just say “sorry guys, it was meant as satire” not “heh, you dummies just don’t get it” and perpetuating the issues you deride? I don’t buy it, I think you’re a misogynist and don’t know it.
If this were true and you did understand, then why didn’t you just say it was satire and maybe apologize for anyone taking offense? Instead you call people here dumb, perpetuating the issues you deride (if it is satire). I don’t buy it, I think you’re a misogynist and somehow you don’t know it.
Let me see if I can paraphrase Scott Adams’ original post in the kindest, most “understanding” way possible:
Men and women are treated unequally in different ways in our society: women get paid less, men have higher suicide rates and the military draft and (horrors!) THEY HAVE TO OPEN DOORS. Also, “society discourages male behavior whereas female behavior is celebrated.” (No definitions or examples given.) However, neither MRAs nor feminists should complain about this, because as M. Pangloss said, we live in the best of all possible worlds. Women get paid less because they’re lazier or would rather be making babies, and men get treated more harshly by the legal system because they are more violent. However, smart men will suppress their “natural instincts for sex and aggression” in order to better profit from a social system which, while it discriminates against both genders, is overall biased in favor of men. Not that there’s anything wrong with that–fairness is “an illusion”, “unobtainable in the real world”, so everyone who wants to make society more fair should just shut up. Besides, women shouldn’t be treated as equal to men because they’re weaker and stupider, like four-year-olds and the mentally handicapped–not AS stupid and weak as them, of course, but definitely not as strong or smart as men. If a feminist woman argues with you about these points, you should not waste energy debating her, but should consider her “emotional realities” and agree with her to humor her, just as you would with a four-year-old or mentally handicapped person. This strategy is more likely to get you laid, or “nail the queen”, to use a chess metaphor. (I like using chess metaphors because it shows how logical I am!)
Blecch. I never suspected Scott Adams was such a misogynist from the Dilbert cartoons–there’s a bunch of Dilbert strips I like specifically because they make fun of sexist guys, and I like the character of Alice, the kick-butt female engineer. Too bad. Well, I guess it shows you people can be smart in some ways and incredibly stupid in others. Mr. Adams, it seems that essay writing is not your strong point–not only does it reveal you to be a sexist jerk, but your post is very badly written, failing in both verbal clarity and basic research. Your subsequent posts defending yourself have also failed in these areas, instead choosing the “everyone who disagrees with me is too dumb to understand me ha ha you’re all such emotional morons” technique. I suggest that you stick to jokes about nerdy engineers and stupid bosses, as you clearly are out of your depth when trying rational argument.
Scott wasn´t writing about feminism or gender gap issues, in part because these issues are very complex( I know that because I work in place where almost all workers, including almost all bosses, are women).
He was simply making a joke with the MRA´s.
Just to drive the point home, I experimented with Scott’s blog post and took out all the reference words pertaining to women and replaced them with words pertaining to Jews.
Drum roll …
“The reality is that Jews are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone.”
Hopefully this should clear up any lingering problems any of us may have with reading comprehension.
Because it wasn’t satire. And the tired old “satire” defense of blatantly bigoted statements should have been put out of its misery by the time Sarah Palin used it to rationalize Rush Limbaugh’s use of the R word.
Scott Adams’ replies on here are truly a sight to behold. I suppose we should give him kudos for finally explaining what he was trying to say…in his ninth comment (#185). Hint: If absolutely no one understands what you were trying to say, you fail, not them.
Also, I think if you have to post defending how happy you are, you must be pretty miserable.
I guess Adams’ insight into the stupidity of corporate culture and life in general stops at the office water cooler, because Lo! here he is back in 2007 outing himself as a a pro-creationist on the pharyngula science blog. PZ Myers calls Adams “a feeble hack making tepid arguments”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/will_scott_adams_never_learn.php
http://twitpic.com/4d8yvf/full
It’s called a strategy.
To emphasise the point that Jonathan keeps trying to make – it’s not just the initial post that shows what a misogynist Adams is, what really proves it is his response to criticism from women. A man who genuinely did not intend to imply that women are dumbasses would have responded to female readers “not getting it” (a moot point anyway since female readers understood exactly what he was trying to say, they just found it offensive, but still) with an apology and an explanation of what he actually meant. The fact that his immediate response to criticism from women was anger and contempt, and the assumption that they’re just too stupid to understand the output of his special male brain since they lack the special penis-based decoding tool, are what proves beyond a doubt that he’s a misogynist asshole.
A man who doesn’t hate women and hold them in contempt would have reacted very differently.
Martini: “(including things like higher suicide rates for men)”
This is like my most hated statistic ever. Want to know why? Because in both the US and Australia, in which contexts it is always quoted, women have a substantially higher rate of attempted suicide. The difference is that men as a group choose more lethal forms of suicide, not that they are more suicidal, and that substantially changes the implications of the statistic and appropriate policy responses.
It doesn’t surprise me that MRAs and mainstream media orgs propagate a stat that relies for its effectiveness on completely ignoring women, but can we please avoid just uncritically repeating it?
Is Scott Adams implying that none of his regular readers, who have “unusually high reading comprehension level[s]“, are women?
Rest assured we are not all like him. I won’t try to claim to be the perfect man; there is no such beast. But always remember for every Scott Adams in the world, there is at least one decent guy facepalming.
I’m having fun. Indeed, I’ve eaten so much popcorn over the last 24 hours or so, that I’ve cleaned out my local supermarket. I’m especially enjoying watching a man-child act like an emotional two-year-old daycare-center bully while defending his supposed intellectual superiority.
Oh dear, apparently my MASTERS DEGREE from COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY does not confer upon me the requisite ability to comprehend Scott Adam’s blog. Horrors! I’m so emotional right now that I just CANT understand you, Mr Man! Your writing is just SO SOPHISTICATED that I cant wrap my little housewife’s mind around it.
Oh wait, no, I know exactly what you’re doing. Prick.
Derailing for Dummies, You’re Interrogating From The Wrong Perspective;
This is a very special tactic but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be freely or liberally used. If anything, it means you should use it as often and as widely as you can.
You see, in this one you get to insult their intelligence and perceptiveness but in a very subtle and underhanded way! This one is very useful in discussions about literature and other media or academia.
The gist of it is this: there’s nothing offensive in there, you just don’t get it (because you are too stupid)!
For example – you might want to impress your belief that context is irrelevant (there’s no racist parallels in a mythological planet where beautiful white elves keep horrible, animalistic orcs as slaves – it’s completely detached from earth’s history!), or that they’re just reading it wrong (well sure, you could take that attitude if you approach it from that perspective, but that’s not the perspective it was meant to be read with so your argument is just flawed!).
Once again (and truly a fundamental aspect of derailing) you demonstrate your lack of awareness of their issues but you also get to tell them that they’re wrong because you (and all the other Privileged People®) simply know better. Try it out and just wait and see what you get back.
Burn, baby, burn!
@222
How do you know there are more decent guys than Scott Adamses?
Oh, Scott, you are socially rather clueless, aren’t you? This is really the only excuse I can come up with for post number 24.
Scott, if you were indeed simply poking fun at the MRA’s, you would likely not have made a post such as this one.
First of all, while all writing is designed for a specific set of readers, you know as well as anyone that posts made on an internet blog without strict privacy controls are absolutely going to be considered public and that one needs to consider that such a post is going out to a general audience rather than simply the smaller audience about which you are speaking.
Second, you are receiving the complaints people are making about your tone (of which the best interpretation if not taken entirely as poorly written satire was that women’s concerns should be publicly humored but are not really serious concerns we should have) and repeating them. This is not a move one makes when one respects the readers or when one suspects readers are taking your post out of the context of a situation where you write other parody pieces.
So let me get this straight…you have in the past advised people not to do exactly what you did and failed to follow your own advice. You then proceeded to publish this work in a domain where you knew it would be consumed by the general public, then complain that something you are quite aware will be considered inflammatory is taken out of context? I mean, this is writing – both the original post and your posts here are situations where you have had time to consider a response worth standing by.
You decide to goad people and then are surprised when there’s a strong emotional reaction, deciding that you will therefore not debate? Isn’t that rather counterproductive if you ever intend to engage in debate? If you intend to engage in debate, then starting with something you know will be seen as inflammatory is a bad tactic. Moreover, posting something that you know will be found inflammatory and then complaining that you are misunderstood when it is found to be so points to disingenuousness, a lack of willingness to admit to poor writing skills, or both.
Really, Scott, if you had any sense and meant the whole thing as satire you would have added a line making this clear to guests at the bottom of your post rather than deleting it entirely. At the very least if you had social sense you would make your context clear well before post 185.
I’ve not been offended at all by either your original post or your replies here thus far, but am rather amazed by your lack of ability to read and respond to the situation constructively.
Yeah, maybe. But here’s what I want to know: How many “decent guys” are telling Scott Adams and his kind where to stick it? How many “decent guys” are refusing to buy his books? How many “decent guys” are writing letters to newspapers asking them to pull Dilbert? How many decent guys…
owate.
I fell for it: False teaming.
For the interest of our reading audience, here is a link (found on Amptoons) which seems to suggest that this is Scott Adam’s normal modus operandi:
1) say some offensive or patently false shit
2) reap adulation from disturbing echo chamber
3) claim “just kidding” when people who actually know what you’re talking about call bullshit
Really worth checking out. It will also cast new light on Scott Adam’s claims to totally not have ever supported Intelligent Design. It sounds like he means that in the same way he means he is totally not a misogynist.
Also of concern is his excessive repetition of the phrase “reading comprehension.” If you do a ctrl+F for the phrase, you’ll see how it’s a little… creepy. What’s the obsession with repeating this phrase, even when it is not situationally appropriate? (“You disagree? Reading comprehension fail!” uh…) Is this associated with some sort of childhood trauma, say, in which a teacher beat him publically while shouting “READING COMPREHENSION! YOU ARE SO STUPID, SCOTT”? And now he feels compelled to re-enact this scene with everyone on the internet? Either that or he’s not clear on what reading or comprehension really entail.
[...] from Adams’s blog and mysteriously from Google Cache after Adams got lot of criticism. Feministe has the details: But here’s where Adams pulled a sort of double switcheroo. After insulting Men’s Rights [...]
If I disagree, I’m either stupid and/or emotional?
In fact, what I am is disappointed. For the first century of our country’s existence, wealthy white men dominated in every field (that’s a fact). In the second century, women, minorities, and the poor fought for their rights (and they had to fight HARD to gain this equality).
Now, you are sitting here whining about reverse discrimination when it is your specific demographic that created discrimination in the first place?
And when people have the guts to tell YOU to man up and stand behind what you said, or disagree, you lash out and demean them, insulting their intelligence?
If you take offense, obviously their reactions invoked an emotional response in YOU, Mr. Adams, else you would not have felt the need to vehemently defend yourself and your own misconceptions of social inequities.
I was also quite bemused that you would think only a certain group of people could find your blog interesting enough to read on a regular basis. Your blog is public, ergo, your regular readers always were, and should always be considered, “everybody.” Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
WTF. MUST we dredge up this kind of example EVERY TIME? Playing insert [minority] doesn’t make you look smart, it makes you look like an insensitive assclown.
Days and days of popcorn. DELICIOUS.
Also, GG for the win.
First of all, I think Scott’s comments were awful, and he deserves all the criticism being put forth here.
I do take exception to posts like this:
Faiz wrote:
First of all, I think Scott’s comments were awful, and he deserves all the criticism being put forth here.
I do take exception to posts like this:
Faiz wrote:
” but seriously, do you think any of your mouth-breathing readers see any greater window into the human condition because of your insipid strip? They don’t relate to the characters because they’re human, they relate to them because they’re in finance and human resources, and the characters are in finance and human resources. It’s like a feedback loop for idiots. great job.
I don’t think you’re qualified to gauge how smart your audience is. To the people with actual discerning taste, Dilbert is one of the most painfully unfunny strips since Fred Bassett did some useless crap for decades.”
I’m a woman and an engineer who’s worked for a large company in a cubicle farm for the past 27 years. I used to read Dilbert regularly, and found many of his strips funny. Scott Adams did have a humorous take on what happens in large bureaucratic organizations, and I enjoyed reading it.
I do not appreciate people calling me a mouth-breather or an idiot. You don’t find Dilbert funny, you can’t relate to this particular comic strip, fine, I understand, not everyone likes the same things. But there’s no reason to attack people like me because of what Scott Adams said.
Scott Adams wrote a misogynistic blog post and was called out. His first reaction was to remove the post. He followed this action with a condescending, egocentric, aggressively defensive diatribe against the “poor reading comprehension” displayed by anyone expressing offense at the post he’d guiltily hidden. His accusation was met with disgust. He carped on about “reading comprehension.” At long last, he clarified his original intent as being satirical, since “poor reading comprehension” wasn’t a comprehensible explanation for why the uncomprehending failed to recognize the uber-intelligence and social responsibility at work in his masterful social commentary. Obviously, he’d denigrated women, PWDs, children and men for the purpose of highlighting social inequity, and anyone who didn’t get this was an inferior dumbass who shouldn’t be reading advanced material meant for an inner circle of privileged, entitled smart people with an actual capacity for reading comprehension. Or maybe Occam’s razor applied and the post demeaned everyone.
Well, we know one thing is for certain:
that’s the real Scott Adams posting here, because the writing is awful and unfunny.
To those that were offended by my word choice on the gender sentence: it wasn’t meant to be trivializing; for some gender is a choice though not for others, and when I said interesting I was being honest, I find the differing genders fascinating and have studied some of the psychological background behind it. The “don’t laugh” part was an (obviously failed) attempt to have people NOT trivialize what I was saying. I wasn’t trying to insult anyone, and would not want to do so in any event. I apologize if it came off wrong.
Radical lady priest here, wondering if perhaps we could not shame people for being religious to prove our points? I mean, my church (the national one, not just the parish that I serve) has mandated this:
“Resolved, That Episcopalians strongly encourage state legislatures and state and local boards of education to establish standards for science education based on the best available scientific knowledge as accepted by a consensus of the scientific community; and be it further Resolved, That Episcopal dioceses and congregation seek the assistance of scientists and science educators in understanding what constitutes reliable scientific knowledge…The teaching of evolution is a crucial contribution to the development of scientific literacy among the nation’s youth, yet state legislators and state and local school boards continue to challenge, limit, or seek to supplant the teaching of evolution. Limiting the teaching of evolution in our schools has the potential to compromise students’ ability to understand constantly changing living systems, and may undermine, for instance, the understanding and treatment of diseases of the future.”
There’s been really amazing talking on this comment thread about the unethical casual use of other people’s identities as illustrations/to make points. I’d appreciate it if we could keep that consistent.
Yikes, just posted a comment that was supposed to blockquote Holly B’s comment @95, but I html failed, and it didn’t show. Here’s the quote, not blockquoted:
“Hey [Priest], let’s have a rational discussion about the Christianity myth.
Hey [scientist], let’s have a rational discussion about the evolution myth.
Yeah, I see that style of rational discussion really taking off, don’t you?”
Ms. Rev:
I don’t think Holly was trying to imply that the priest and the scientist were talking to each other (or conflicting with each other)–I think she was just giving them both as examples of insulting, obnoxious ways to pretend you’re having a conversation when you’re obviously not interested in actually discussing anything.
Katz, I don’t want to derail this into a religious people conversation, because Christians love making everything about them/us, which I already kind of have, and I feel weird about that, because Christianity is definitely the privileged religious conversation in the U.S., though the vast majority of Christian people are not themselves extremely privileged – I just think it’s irresponsible to use the scientist/priest thing as shorthand for obnoxiousness and a refusal to listen (insulting to scientists and priests alike, no?), especially on a thread when we’re being really clear about how NOT to use shorthand and the times it doesn’t translate to summarize a horrid argument you don’t agree with – with Cara’s comments, especially @29.
I’m going to end my participation in this derail here, and just continue to register my tremendous amusement about Scott Adams himself coming to Feministe to troll and write sentences that don’t even make sense. I’m totally making popcorn with the others and ignoring my Netflix streaming today, just watching this play out.
Adams has a new post (as of yesterday) up at his blog addressing his original piece and the fall-out. (And yes, we can assume that the person commenting here is the real Scott Adams because, at the Dilbert blog, he mentions that he posted comments on feminist blogs.)
In his new post, Adams attempts to cast his original piece as a form of sophisticated performance art whereby he supposedly proves his point about people’s emotionalism by intentionally riling up MRAs and feminists, and also establishes the supposed inability of people to understand analogies. He says that he knew his post could be retrieved once deleted but he took it down anyway to make some “meta” point about the permanence of the internet. In other words, all this fall-out was part of Adams’s master plan in the first place. He’s pulling all the strings. BWAHAHAHAHA!
Of course, unlike Adams, most of us figure out by the time we’re ten that “I meant for all this to happen” is generally not very convincing.
Interestingly, Adams acknowledges that one can tell from his post that there are areas in which he is not sympathetic to feminism. Soooo apparently, parts of his post are meant to be understood as his real opinion.
Honestly, his meaning in the post and the explanations afterwards are about as clear as mud. And I don’t think it’s because I am just stoooopid and lack reading comprehension. (Or maybe I am. I have been huge Dilbert fan and religious purchaser of his calendars for YEARS.)
Any argument where the phrase “poor reading comprehension” arises has ended in favor of the person who didn’t say it. It’s the new Godwin’s Law.
Must we dredge up what kind of example? A Jewish example? Yes, we must. Especially in light of your aggressive & dismissive attitude. Earlier in the thread there were several comments questioning the legitimacy of the wage gap and the idea that Scott Adams meant what he said about women, children and the handicapped.
I wondered if the reason for this dumbfuckery might be the word “woman” itself, as Scott Adams’ apologists have demonstrated that they do tend to see it as a “lesser” noun. If Adams’ had written about Blacks or Jews in this way there would be fewer people defending him on this thread with – gee maybe he was just kidding, and, you know that Scott Adams – ever the satirist! Ho ho ho!
So, I replaced the word “women” with “Jews” in Adams’ hate-spew-blog to show clearly his Goebbels-esque mentality. It looks like my efforts to identify Scott Adams for the hateful slug he is underneath that Dilbert shell have outed another of his kind. Bonus points for me!
Oh my. I just came back to this post and I’m rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.
Someone doesn’t seem to think we don’t know the difference between statistics and anecdotes. Hahahahahahaha! Especially since no one here was claiming anything of the kind.
I lounge in my easy chair with a big-ass bowl of popcorn.
Is this really Scott Adams commenting…? I mean – REALLY? Is he really running (the remains of) his reputation/career/credibility into the ground like this (without noticing – you know, probably due to a lack of reading comprehension)? No contest: Scott for Next Top Troll. There are… no words.
I just think it’s irresponsible to use the scientist/priest thing as shorthand for obnoxiousness and a refusal to listen (insulting to scientists and priests alike, no?)
I believe the people in brackets were being addressed in the example; it was someone saying to a scientist “let’s have a rational discussion about the evolution myth.” The scientist (or priest) is not being the obnoxious one, it’s the speaker, who is deliberately making it hard for the scientist (or priest) to respond.
But, more on topic… OMG I literally laughed out loud when I saw Scott Adams was back. Comment 24 was an absolute gem but the fact that his flounce didn’t take — that he came back to tell us how happy he so totally is* — really sealed the deal. :D
I’ll shamefacedly admit I have, until now, regularly read and enjoyed Dilbert. But now that I can no longer assume a certain level of cleverness in it — I was willing to give it a lot of benefit of the doubt! — it’s lost a lot of appeal. The tasteless sexism was genuine, not ironic? Ugh. Bitter and clueless mansplainations (manchildsplainations?) ruin everything.
*I’ll bet you have like, 12 girlfriends, doncha SA. But they all…uh… live really far away so we can’t meet them…
Me:
Dear Mr. Adams, I have grown up on your comics and books. I enjoyed them and found them hilarious; they were part of our family library and something we all liked. Unfortunately, I read your recent blog post and found that you think men who complain too much (I agree on that point) are to be mocked with anti-female insults. I learned that you think men should treat women as children or the mentally retarded. I learned that you think pretty much all of the inequalities women face and have faced are just our own fault and that if we don’t “get” your writing, we’re just not as intelligent as you. Well, Mr. Adams, I am intelligent and I am a woman. I have worked with men,
women, children and some of each group who had mental retardation and I have never even thought to treat any of those people with the condescension you suggested was best. You can call it satire or whine that people just don’t get you but the problem here is really that they do. They read what you wrote and saw what you think of women – and children and the mentally retarded. I am so disappointed to have a childhood hero of mine turn out to think so little of my gender. I would like to see Alice’s response to this.
Him:
So far, no one who understood what I wrote was offended.
Me (citing his list of logical fallacies):
You are wrong because:
“3. I AM THE WORLD
Example: I don’t listen to country music. Therefore, country music is not popular.”
You don’t think you were being sexist, offensive or stupid; therefore, you weren’t.
“15. CIRCULAR REASONING
Example: I’m correct because I’m smarter than you. And I must be smarter than you because I’m correct.”
Your own example fits so well. Also: your argument that people who understand your writing agree with you based on you deciding that people who agree with you are the only ones to understand it is another perfect example of circular reasoning.
“20. FAULTY PATTERN RECOGNITION
Example: His last six wives were murdered mysteriously. I hope to be wife number seven.”
Lots and lots of people disagreed with you and found you to be incredibly condescending and just plain wrong. Therefore, they must all be idiots!
Him:
You didn’t even understand your own examples.
Me:
Do you really not see the fallacy of defining those who “understood” what your wrote as only those who agree with you? Are you that arrogant to believe no one could read what you wrote and still disagree?
Him:
I didn’t define it that way. You’re arguing with your own misinterpretations.
Me:
Misinterpreting? You said, “So far, no one who understood what I wrote was offended.” The only way you can possible say that is if you define all of us who were offended as not “understanding” it. I understood perfectly well what you were saying; I still thought it was condescending and offensive. Which is more likely: you are so terribly misunderstood that only a few people can possibly “get” you or that you said something stupid and people are calling you out on it?
This entire thread is amazing. I have nothing to add that would enhance the conversation; you’ve all done an impressive job of deconstructing not only the original post, but his subsequent derails and defensive refusal to accept accountability for a piece he chose to post on the internet. My mother used to tell me, “Don’t put into writing what you don’t want the world to read.” That was in the 80s, before this whole tubal information system made “the world” part less space-agey.
I just wanted to join in the popcorn party while we watch SA dig a hole. (Because that’s what laydeez do! We watch dudes perform manual labor! While we EAT!)
Alternatively, you COULD try checking other times people have tried your tired rhetorical tactic on Feministe and the various reasons it is a) offensive and b) doesn’t work.
I second this.
I’m with you. A professional writer claiming that an entire website full of thoughtful, intelligent people are failing at reading comprehension. Definitely troll material. Now I have to go pop some more popcorn.
Hate to break it to you, but that’s also where you are wrong. Men *are* like women: human. The idea that men aren’t dehumanizes women in the name of gendered roles, and leads to sexualization, objectification and condoning violations of women’s rights. It also leads to lonely lives spent trying to prove men aren’t like women, when “rationally” the bell curves vastly overlap on nearly every possible trait.
If you attempted to use hight, for example, to divide men and women, you’d only be correct about 56% of the time. If you are 5x stronger than most women, you are also probably 4.9x stronger than most men.
Isn’t that the standard definition of institutionalized inequality? LOL.
Scott, just so you know, I understood your original article perfectly well to be an anti-male-rights-activism piece. As a feminist, I found it offensive because the arguments against MRA it used were stupid and insulting to both men and women, and not even in an especially clever or original way.
Several people have pretty much said that. You seem to have gone into this whole argument with the starting assumption that the only possible reason anyone could disagree with you is because they didn’t understand it, and therefore you don’t need to make any attempt to figure out what their criticisms actually are. Either that or you’re suffering from a serious lack of reading comprehension yourself.
Dear Penny,
Very well put. However, it appears that most of the commenters in this forum read Scott’s original post quite differently. He can obviously be blamed for bad taste. But most statements in his text described how some people – his readership, but mostly MRAs – view the world. Yet he was attacked repeatedly for allegedly sharing these views, which he actually ridiculed. At least for these instances, the statement regarding reading comprehension rings true.
Aside from those instances, I have to say I found this thread educating. I understand better why women felt – rightfully – insulted by the second half of Scott’s post. Thank you for that. I look forward to discussing both in my circle of friends for further insights.
Regards
Benjamin
Oh goodie. Yet another libertarian man-child who believes he’s a wholly rational superman because he insists really, really hard that he is. It takes more than that, Scott, but you’ll find that this brand of rationality you’re so fond of can’t even be achieved, by anyone without a severely damaged amygdala (and really, not even then). You’re just blowing hot air and it’s hugely obvious, basically.
And herein we see the negative affects of patriarchy on men, which leads to its perpetuation and men’s treatment of women as inferior. We’re taught early by influential masculine societal forces that males having or showing emotion is bad, and as a result many can’t recognize or deal with the emotions they clearly do actually have. What results is frustrated, angry, maladjusted men like Scott Adams condescending to women (and men) who dare to disagree with him, even and especially when he is quite wrong, and otherwise being utterly, destructively inept socially.
Tote that barge! *munches popcorn* Swab that deck! *savors a bit of dark chocolate* Carve up that mammoth! I don’t care if it’s the one that just tusked you! *sips on fine wine*
I’m not so sure it’s patriarchy. Sounds more kyriarchy. In any event, I see what you mean. Men have been taught to not show emotion. They need to be able to do that. The only catch is – finding the frame. Men don’t want to be weeping lil bitches. So if they’re gonna be emotional, they need to check it with the torso of a Greek God. If I’m outta shape – I’m not resting my head and crying in your lap. I will if I have abs of steel, though.
From The Dilbert Future: “Men want sex. If men ruled the world, they could get sex anywhere, anytime. Restaurants would give you sex instead of breath mints on the way out. Gas stations would give sex with every fill-up. Banks would give sex to anyone who opened a checking account.”
Mr. Adams, who do you imagine is “giving” men that sex? How is this not a world in which women have no sexual agency?
You’ll probably say you were being ironic/flip/whatever, but your inability to actually think about the implications of your statements is what got you into this whole mess in the first place. All your accusations of poor reading skills don’t negate the simple fact that we are only following your arguments to their logical conclusions.
I’ve responded to Mr. Adams’ post “explaining” his original post here.
I quote from Laurie’s excellent comment at #243 in it.
Oh, funny, I just realized I’ve been using a Dilbert mousepad for years. It’s really dirty, too. And here I thought I didn’t have any Scott Adams in my life.
(How does one really not notice their own mousepad? I… really don’t know, other than to say that I inherited it from an old roommate and did not buy it myself.)
*returns from Manboobz* *shakes head*
Scott, oh, Scott! Your excuses have the internal consistency of a badly sprained knee.
Scott, how about you just admit that you’re out of your element?
Morgan: I really doubt that most “decent guys are facepalming.” Most guys are probably recognizing Adams’s blog post and comments as their own subconcious thoughts or as an opinion they’ve aired in the locker room or on a fishing trip. It’s part of why I don’t talk to guys much: I hate being condescended to, and I’m not going to waste words on someone who’s going to treat me like a child.
Maybe your gentlemanliness should be about respect rather than holding a door? Or, just perhaps, assuming that you’re a gentleman because you hold doors is, well, wtf?
I tell my spouse, time and again, that assuming he knows what I want is not the same as asking me what I actually want. And I learned how to open doors a long, long time ago. I actually hold them for everybody who is walking through them before or after me because it’s polite. Just plain old good manners, no gentlemanliness involved.
I think, from your post, that you think you are a Nice Guy. You may wish to explore that.
A fundamental question here that I’ve always been curious about. No one has ever given me an answer other than rolling their eyes and saying I wouldn’t understand because I’m a man. I’ve spent years giving the benefit of the doubt. Being a mathematician, soundness is a proof. So, please take my at my word when I say that I am trying to be as objective as possible.
The fundamental underlying assumption here seems to be that men are, in fact, incapable of understanding the point due to the forces of patriarchal society. EHCarr’s “What is History” essentially validates this point that the revelations of yesterday are the stone truths of today. In such a light, you are facing the dialectic between the unstoppable force and the immovable object, which essentially straw-mans both sides of any argument by removing the objective frame and replacing it with two non-intersecting subjective frames.
Now, here I am sure someone will object that I am a chauvinist pig since I seem to be belittling women by suggesting that they are illogical. This is NOT at all the case. In my observation this is a fundamental flaw with the entire human consciousness. Unlike computers, machines of pure logic, humans bring to any discussion a set of priors which are non-standard. The Liberals and the Republicans, Muslim and Christian, race against race, the list of dialectics goes on indefinitely. And EACH of these dialectics has the fundamental conflict: that the prior assumptions of the other are incorrect.
I have observed that all sides of every argument are wrong somewhere. As a mathematician, wrong is that statement that is neither common axiom nor proof. My last question is: Shouldn’t we first have this discussion at a much lower level than we are? We are all prone to rhetoric, to play our opponent and gain the approval of our followers and supporters, but as I understand the fundamental point that the author of this article makes, so do I understand the fundamental point, however misguided in the process of translation, that Adam makes. And neither point is crafted to gain the acceptance of its opponents, but rather to rally its allies.
Forgive me for taking so much of your time, but I want to understand, not be told that I cannot.
I’ve had worse. At a gas station in NY, my girlfriend and I went to get coffee. I poured myself a cup and let my girlfriend pour her own cup. Attendant, who watched me pour, and says “Careful, sweetie, it’s hot”. Then she pays for the coffee, both of us keeping our temper in check, and he hands me the change and says “you’ve got a sweet deal there, bro. If you meet any other girls like her, send them my way”. I nearly… NEARLY… decided the coffee would have been better off on his face. We lodged a complaint with the manager and he did get fired. It was my first experience with overt and unabashed sexism from someone of my age. I used to think it was just the old folk with the truly archaic and anachronistic chivalry…
Yours is wrong here:
Where has anyone said this here?
To be honest Mechko, I am not fully sure what your two questions are, but let me try to answer them.
First, cultural notions of gender affect everyone with a strong sense of gender identity (which is, I’m pretty sure, almost all of us). Privilege, however, is blinding, and as a dude, nor you nor I can expect to fully understand what it’s like to go through life as a woman, just like as a straight white guy, I can only begin to guess but never fully experience what it’s like to grow up black or gay. But we can all listen, mull, and discuss, and TRY to understand. To this point, note that cultural notions of gender affect *gasp* men as well as women. And both of us, having grown up as men, understand what that’s like better than women. Granted, since privilege is blinding, it seems like women more-so than men tend to think about cultural notions of gender, and thus some women’s notions of what it’s like to grow up male are better than most men’s notions of what it’s like to grow up female. But we both must learn from each other. And now that I think about it, Scott’s response in this thread, amounting to, I believe, “You’re too dumb for me & my readers,” totally misses that point.
Second, I can’t understand why you say we should be having “this” discussion at “lower level.” What does the pronoun refer to?
Thanks Dan. That was by far the best response I’ve ever gotten in an attempt to understand feminist theory. My view of feminists has unfortunately been colored by responses such as “As if you would ****ing care” and speeches with the opening statement that all men are rapists at heart. I’m glad that this is not the case with all feminists.
Sorry about being unclear. My second question pertains very much to the similarity between womens issues and racial issues, of which the latter I am very familiar with. “This” refers to the entire movement. I can see that a less inquisitive person than myself would altogether dismiss any and all arguments made by the side that they disagree with because of the amount vigor in the argument. I have yet to meet (or perhaps, and this I hope, have just met and am yet to appreciate) a feminist who is able to, without a distinct glossing of eyes and lack of control, hold a discussion with one not empathetic to their cause. I note here that my experience with feminists in the past has been very unfortunate indeed. I do believe it was DuBois who posited that best way to convince a bigoted oppressor of one’s worth was to approach them on a level that they understood. I suspect that the level of insight required to appreciate what is said here is not shared with the likes of Adams or his readers (while they may, perhaps, have a higher official reading level, I do believe that most of you did not in fact need to take remedial english at a high level)
“Oh my bad. In my experience, feminists are all raging bitches.”
You’ll excuse us if we don’t find you endearing and aren’t willing to entertain you.
You’ll note that walking into someone else’s space and demanding to have a conversation that you want that has nothing to do with the topic at hand is incredibly disrespectful and pretty insufferable.
Tell me how many coming-of-age books you read about girls when you were growing up? Really, think about it, how many? I’ve read so many books about boys coming-of-age that I can quote many of them from memory. Privilege is not having to know how the other half lives. If you don’t know, listen when people tell you. LISTEN.
Thank you Dan and Mimi for answering my question. I understand that I am not wanted here and shall hence leave you all alone. I meant no disrespect by asking questions. As it is your domain, PrettyAmiable, and not mine, any and all interpretation is in your hands. All the best.
Hehheh. Thanks for so quickly getting to what the real situation is. Hint: you *are* getting answers and your failure to understand isn’t because you’re a man.
Mechko — It sucks that you’ve had bad experiences with feminists in the past.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend the “Feminism 101″ series of posts over at Shakesville — it’s educational!
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/01/feminism-101.html
Please be forewarned, though: Shakesville itself, the blog, is not a 101 type of space. They have a strict commenting policy, and they expect people who comment there to have a strong grasp of basic concepts in feminism. If you comment there and ask a question like the one you did here, you can expect approximately the same response that you would find from posting “How do I implement a for loop?” on an “Advanced topics in Perl” forum.
In closing, I’ll leave you with my favorite essay about feminism: http://tomatonation.com/culture-and-criticism/yes-you-are/ Good luck in your learning!
LOL. If only I could have been nicer to men like this, feminism might have won by now!
Yeah, I’m a bitch like that. Especially when a man wades in with grossly inaccurate and insulting stereotypes of women and feminism and then expects to be catered to.
Perhaps you might begin by doing some remedial learning on the issues. I’m fairly certain there would be significant eye rolling and frustration on your part if someone came into your place of employment and asked you to justify the existence of addition.
Marissa:
>>
“From The Dilbert Future: “Men want sex. If men ruled the world, they could get sex anywhere, anytime. Restaurants would give you sex instead of breath mints on the way out. Gas stations would give sex with every fill-up. Banks would give sex to anyone who opened a checking account.”
Mr. Adams, who do you imagine is “giving” men that sex? How is this not a world in which women have no sexual agency?
>>
To be fair, actually, I *can* imagine this being a world in which women have total sexual agency.
Among bonobos — pygmy chimpanzees — females have sex, with males or females, for pretty much any reason. They seem to have sex to show affection, to say hi, to make friends, to do any number of things that we might do with friendly conversation. Imagine a world where human women were like bonobos — where we had no fear of rape, because bonobo males (unlike chimp males and orangutan males) don’t rape. Where there’s no slut shaming. Where there’s no pregnancy shaming. Where pregnancy is no impediment to living the kind of life you want to live. (Admittedly, bonobos probably do not realize sex leads to pregnancy, but humans could accomplish the same with birth control.) Imagine a world where women were allowed to experience as much sexual desire as men, and encouraged to express it as much as men.
In such a world, female employees might very well spontaneously offer sex to male (or female) customers because sex is fun and they’re being friendly. Also, male employees would offer sex to female (or male) customers, and the female customers wouldn’t be skeeved out or frightened or embarrassed; they might well take him up on it. Imagine a world where *no* one is scared of or ashamed of sex.
That’s the kind of world where what Scott Adams is talking about could occur, without rape being involved. Unfortunately for Scott Adams’ point, it is MEN who made sure that that world could not exist.
- Slut-shaming is of no advantage to women unless men are actively participating and enforcing it; the only advantage slut-shaming could possibly have for women (and the reason women engage in it) is that, if we assume women don’t freely offer sex to men, and we assume they find it threatening when a woman does, they need to decrease the perceived value of that woman to men or to decrease the likelihood that other women will engage in the behavior… but women would *already* need to be in a situation where slut-shaming exists before they would, generally, be threatened by women who freely offer sex. However, the advantage to men of slut-shaming is that it allows men to easily maintain a pool of women who are exclusively owned by individual men and will not “cheat”, and by linking “she freely has sex with men” to “she is a non-person who *is* sex, and it is impossible to rape her because she has given up her identity and volition as a person to become the embodiment of sex”, they also made sure they have a pool of “fallen” women who can be forced into sex with no consequence whatsoever to the men. Thus, evidence suggests that men invented slut-shaming.
- Men plainly invented rape. And continue to practice it.
- All cultures which murder women for being sexual have men do it. Women may betray other women to *be* murdered, but they never murder other women themselves just because the other woman freely engages in sex. (They may murder other women for engaging in sex with *their* man, or for financial gain, or any of the various reasons people kill other people, but they do not commit “honor killings” of other women.)
So, if men ruled the world, they would not make sure they could get sex, any time. Because they *do* rule the world, and they made sure of something else entirely. They made sure that when they choose a woman to run their household and bear their children, they would have exclusive control of her sexuality, and they made sure that women whose sexuality could not be kept exclusive to a single man were considered essentially fair game for rape, except they didn’t call it rape because “rape” wasn’t the violation of a woman’s body, it was the violation of a man’s property. So men could freely take sex from tavern wenches if they wanted to, and still have wives at home who they were allowed to kill for being unfaithful.
If *women* ruled the world, men would get lots more sex. But they’d have to have more basic respect for the people they were having sex with.
What the hell does that even *mean*?
“My view of feminists has unfortunately been colored by responses such as “As if you would ****ing care” and speeches with the opening statement that all men are rapists at heart. ”
In other words, you’re a complete fucking liar.
Read the full, unedited blogpost here:
http://www.dailyworst.com/2011/04/01/scott-adams-dilbert-mens-rights-deleted-blog-post/
[...] name for a woman. (I am not going to go through the original post paragraph by paragraph. Jezebel, Feministe and The Mary Sue already do [...]
“That’s another example of poor reading comprehension. I’ve often stated that evolution qualifies as a scientific fact. The confusion comes from my writings on how we perceive reality.”
–Scott Adams
How much of a liar can you be? You yourself wrote the following:
“I take the practical approach — that something is intelligent if it unambiguously performs tasks that require intelligence. Writing Moby Dick required intelligence. The Big Bang wrote Moby Dick. Therefore, the Big Bang is intelligent, and you and I are created by that same intelligence. Therefore, we are created by an intelligent entity.”
Scott Adams, you are an intellectual moron. Period. Doesn’t even have to do with the sexism issue: you’re just profoundly dumb. Obviously you have made a good life for yourself despite being profoundly dumb, and all the more power to you; I don’t begrudge you that accomplishment. But it doesn’t change the facts.
Mr. Adams, who do you imagine is “giving” men that sex? How is this not a world in which women have no sexual agency?
Marissa
Hookers or robots, obviously.
He shouldn’t be getting paid at all. No one thinks Dilbert is funny. We just dealt with it because we were done reading Garfield and Peanuts.
[...] Men’s Rights Movement. If you haven’t heard about the uproar, get filled in here and here; if you’re confused about “men’s rights” (and it’s easy to [...]
Great idea, Erin! I’m going to mail my Dilbert books to Scott Adams with a note. (- A female engineer and former Dilbert fan)
[...] Scott Adams wrote a post on his blog about men’s rights (and took it down), lots of people got angry, he wrote a response and reposted the original [...]
Hello, Mr. Adams? Any word on whether you are going to retract that lie of yours? Hello? *knocks on Adams’ empty head*
considering that feminism is about equality, it’s understandable one would have a hard time talking to someone who has no “empathy” or whatever.
Wow…definitely check out the full post.
The same goes for virtually every piece on feministe, doesn’t it?
[...] advocate. Which he is not — cf. the "pussies" comment. Among other hyperboles — cf. the feminst bloggers calling him a misogynist. I have found one sympathetic feminist blogger. Which was cool up until I read a line that said [...]
He said people are “hopping mad about [their] own misinterpretations.” I’m not sure why he doesn’t assume it has something to do with his misrepresentations.
@Scott Adamss
I heard from your sockpuppet PlannedChaos that you’re a “certified genius”, so I’m sure that your characterizations of the comments here and of your regular readers must be right, even though the evidence seems very much to the contrary, because my IQ is a mere 4 SD above the norm.
Well said. Certainly having men open doors for me has more than made up for all the inequities in society.
OMG. Scott Adams just made Troll of the Century.
He clearly has issues given the inane fuckery that he writes. How did this guy get to be a famous writer again?
[...] Office Space. That was Mike Judge’s Milton) has found himself in prohibited H2O of late, initial for comparing women to “children and a mentally handicapped,” and now, for defending Marilyn Davenport, a Republican [...]
Scott, I’d like to believe that regular readers of your blog have above-average reading comprehension because I AM a regular reader. It may or may not be the case that a correlation exists, but as you know, correlation and $4 will get you a cup of coffee.
The post was offensive. Regardless of your reading comprehension, it was extremely offensive. I’m no longer a reader of your blog, your books, or the Dilbert cartoon. You, sir, are a bigot.
It is NOT common. I managed a restaurant for a large national chain in the 1990s. We never trained servers to serve women first. In fact, they were trained both to take orders and to serve around the table in a clockwise direction, starting with the person closest to them. This makes it easiest to remember what goes to whom. I never met another manager with another chain, even at industry events and conventions who trained servers to serve women first.
It is NOT common. I managed a restaurant for a large national chain in the 1990s. We never trained servers to serve women first. In fact, they were trained both to take orders and to serve around the table in a clockwise direction, starting with the person closest to them. This makes it easiest to remember what goes to whom. I never met another manager with another chain, even at industry events and conventions who trained servers to serve women first.
[...] creator Scott Adams is writing laughably ignorant things on his blog again. A few weeks back, he made a peevish fuss about how white men just can’t catch a break. This time he’s [...]