A Sociological Eye

At the end of every summer, as the new school year approaches, I go out on a tour of manosphere spaces to collect terrible memes and videos relating to gender and sexuality, to use in my course lectures. It's a strange activity, and inevitably leaves me torn between eyerolling chortles and genuine horror. It also leaves me scratching my head at the internal contradictions. Let's consider two different image posts I encountered this week. We'll start with this one: This image was paired with the following text: "'A lock that is opened by many keys is a broken lock. A key that opens many locks is a Master Key' ladies you are that lock preserve your value. Men you are that key gain experience to acquire your value." Yes, it's the classic misogynist double standard. But let's consider the math! If an ideal man has sex with 800 women, while an ideal woman has sex with just one man, or at least a very small number of men, then in this universe there exis...

  Ah, nature. Everyone loves it!   Here on the left, we want to protect nature from human-caused climate change and pollution. The right counters, "Our scientists say there is no climate change!" Well, ok, but 99.5% of scientists agree that climate change due to our production of greenhouse gasses is indeed happening. Those are some really. . . unusual scientists you're citing.    The redhat right has its own claim about needing to protect nature. They cry that people on the left are violating the laws of the nature of sex! Nature dictates and the nation requires a sex binary of men and women who are eager to marry and produce children, they say. But instead, the left is full of gender transitions and queer people and crazy cat ladies, leaving the real men of America bereft of the loving, attractive wives they deserve!    Here's the thing. You can cause harm to natural beings and settings. You can kill off the vast herds of buffalo that once roamed the plai...