Ross Douthat at the NYT tries to legitimize a conservative attack on women

[sawasigndc]

medium.com/ @randolphwh/ross-douthat-today-incredibly-disingenuous-clickbait-garbage-trying-to-legitimize-a-conservative-9c209a70665a

A few days ago, George Mason Koch-supported economist Robin Hanson wrote an insane misogynistic screed on his blog. Today, in the New York Times, Ross Douthat chose to take up the challenge of trying to legitimize Hanson. Hanson said that women owe sex to unattractive men, claiming that’s a natural consequence of society wanting poor people to have more opportunities to succeed. Hanson’s argument is tortured and transparently flawed, but worse than that, it is a terrible denigration of women. In Hanson’s view, women are property that can be traded to make unattractive men happier. You might wish to draw your own conclusions on how many women might be interested in getting involved with Hanson, who has a history of misogyny, typified by his 2010 post “Gentle Silent Rape”.

But what Douthat did in his article today is nearly as bad as Hanson’s denigration of women. Douthat’s article is an excellent example of how the right-wing propaganda machine normalizes Republican hate and whitewashes it for mass consumption. Douthat is sometimes interesting — he is one of the best, if one can be so positive, of the sad group of right-wing public intellectuals, a group of weak-thinking ideologues who have been selected and propped up by right-wing billionaires. But Douthat’s column today comes nowhere near any sort of quality. Beyond the hate-laundering Douthat does today, he also falls into his frequent pattern of salting his article with false right-wing talking points.

[ExciteBike66]

1. I'm curious as to whether I am the only one who reads that guy's name as

Ross Douche-hat?

[roscoeroscoe]

2. Haters gotta hate

The internet makes it too easy to slip up and let it show

[Nitram]

3. I think the exploitation and the reduction of women to lesser, child-like beings, is the crime here,

not necessarily hate per se. It is true that they hate feminists and anybody else who stands up for women's right to be in every way citizens with all the rights that men take for granted. But there is something more subversive and more horrible than hate in the agenda to reduce women to chattel or child-like wards of men. I don't think Southern plantation owners hated their slaves unless they tried to escape slavery or challenged their owner's authority over them. They benefited from the labor, and the sense of superiority they enjoyed by virtue of being a slave's master

[malthaussen]

5. "Dehumanization" might apply here.

Works for slaves and women both.

-- Mal

[Nitram]

6. Yes, dehumanization does apply.

[sawasigndc]

8. It is hate for women. Here's Talia Lavin at the Village Voice

https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/03/the-harpy-someone-please-tell-the-times-that-incels-are-terrorists/

Here are a few notable quotes from recent posts on incels.me, a primary forum for incel conversation:

“Female genocide now.”

“Just the thought of women losing their privileges is simply delight [sic].”

“Whenever a fucking whore is referred to as a ‘sex worker,’ it really puts me in the mood to commit genocide.”

“Negligible differences exist nowadays between a human female and an animal female tbh.… The only difference that exists is that human females have abortion and birth control. If we make these two ‘rights’ illegal, they will be no better than some female monkeys who get their asses redded [sic] by thousands of horny male monkeys in the wilderness and give birth each month of the year.”

“They need to be locked up in basements for rape and reproduction purposes.”


One deleted post over the weekend called for female CBC journalists to be shot; the poster used Alek Minassian’s face as his avatar, and listed the address of CBC headquarters.

In other words: It is impossible to separate inceldom from a deep and poisonous hatred of women. (Not coincidentally, Hanson and Douthat, in their unthinkably flippant engagements with the subject, both conveniently ignore that incels intentionally exclude women from their brotherhood of the sex-deprived.)

Though it seems you’re saying it is even WORSE than hate - dehumanization. Reducing women to animals. Whatever it is, it is horrifying. And it is horrifying that GOP “intellectuals” make disingenuous arguments about it and launder these ideas into more mainstream debate.

[Nitram]

10. Yes, some men, and some women, hate women. But more insidious are those who want to enslave women

and treat them as the lazy, childlike, mentally inferior people that slaves were regarded as in the 19th Century. The hate meme is very limited in its ability to understand the mindset with which we are confronted here. The Handmaid's Tale warns us of exactly this. The incel population is a very small and distinct fringe group with little power and influence. The patriarchal community of conservative evangelicals and "christians" is fare more dangerous in the long run.

[Paladin]

4. Douthat ought to lose his NYT job for this.

Let him go work at a place more worthy of his talents: Fox "News".....

[Blue_Tires]

7. But it's good that he's exposed himself and we all know where he stands

And as corny as it sounds the whole "incel" thing needs to be dragged out into the light and slain... Because believe me when I tell you the number of unhappy, ill-adjusted men with at least some incel leanings is much higher than we dare to imagine...

I'm in my 40s now, but in my 20s I probably would have sympathized with a lot of their craziness...

[sawasigndc]

9. Seriously

I never hated Douthat - I think he’s often simpleminded but if the NYT needs to have someone representing today’s conservative movement, Douthat is as good as any. Way better than the bad-faith propagandists WSJ and WaPo trot out: McArdle, Thiessen, Hewitt, Noonan - liars, ex Koch employees, radio propagandists, and all simpleminded to boot.

But Douthat has really shot out to outer space on this one. What the heck is he thinking??!

[Paladin]

11. Conservative thought is over-represented in the NYT opinion section.

There are plenty of other places for the likes of Douthat---and Maureen Dowd and David Brooks, et al--- to spew garbage. Liberal voices are what are in short supply, these days. The NYT opinion pages seem to get more right-wing my the week.

[alarimer]

12. Every person has a right to refuse sex/relationship with any other person.

This is what's missing in the "incel" philosophy. And what is missing in every single person who thinks they are entitled to another person's attention/body/affection. They are not actually entitled to any such thing and the real reason they cannot seem to find anyone to fulfill their needs is 1) that they reduce every woman (usually) to someone whose only role in life is to fulfill their needs and 2) they are total creeps and women can tell.

Look, every single one of us has been between relationships/sex partners at one time or another and if this is not a good thing (sometimes it's good not to be in a relationship - you have more YOU time, which is 100% a good thing), then we usually take the time to figure out why and fix it. Sometimes it's things beyond our control (illness, too much work, family issues occupying all available head space, etc). When it is something in our control, we can and usually do try to take steps to change it. We all have faults and flaws that negatively affect our relationships. And we all also have the power to change it.

But these "incels", in addition to feeling entitled to things they are absolutely not entitled to, are completely toxic, horrible people no one should touch with a 10-foot pole.

No one is entitled to sex. No one.

This argument that sex should be "redistributed" to people who can't get it turns women (in this case) into handmaids. It's just disgusting on the face.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. I've found "incels" who thought that they were entited to the most attractive women

If they "settled" for someone more in their league, and they were nice, intelligent men capable of supporting themselves, chances are pretty good that they could find a sexual partner. But a "10" isn't interested in the poorly groomed loser who still lives with his mom and spends his days playing violent video games. Frankly, few women are. Before they say it's all about looks, just remember Woody Allen had long term relationships with Mia Farrow and Dianne Keaton.

Come to think of it, my guess is that these "incels" don't have a lot of male friends either.