Laura Bates and Euclid

It might seem a little strange to connect Laura Bates, the author of polemics such as Men Who Hate Women, with Euclid of Alexandria one of the founders of geometry. Well, it is strange, but I am going to do it anyway. Euclid formulated a series of geometric postulates from which useful mathematics can be developed. In contrast, Laura Bates has made some gross oversimplifications from which nothing useful or illuminating has emerged, or ever will.

Bates’ postulate number 1. All men’s activism such as MRAs, Incels MGTOW, pick-up artists and Jordan Peterson can be reduced to a single point (the manopoint) that has no dimension. The manopoint is defined solely by the hatred of women and all forms of men’s activism can be collapsed onto that point. Please note the term manosphere is incorrect because that would allow volume and the space for diversity of opinion and motivation; it is a point or singularity – the manopoint.

Bates’ postulate number 2. Women who choose to remain single, women who hate men, women who tweet kill all men, women who believe men are trash, the authors of the S.C.U.M manifesto and Andrea Dworkin are only motivated by love and that can not be reduced to a point. No causal lines can be drawn from that non-existent point.

Bates’ postulate number 3. A straight line can be drawn from the manopoint to any undesirable event in society.

Bates’ postulate number4. Any line drawn from the manopoint leads towards ‘rape-culture’.

Bates’ postulate number 5. Causal lines can not be drawn from the manopoint to any good outcomes. For example, if a man rushes into a burning building to save a woman from certain death, that event is unconnected with masculinity or the manopoint.

From these postulates and a generous helping of confirmation bias, Laura Bates develops her toxic little book.

Returning to postulate number one, the way Laura Bates lumps together disparate men’s groups and individual men such as James Damore or Jordan Peterson is frankly absurd. Just take the group ‘incels’ for example, that were discussed in detail in the blog post of December 2020 that you can find here. These range from the misogynist misfits who spout vile nonsense on the internet to people who for reasons of being unattractive or being lacking in resources are unlikely to ever find a partner. The latter group does deserve at least some compassion. The former group is presumably not very common because the quote Laura Bates relied upon came from a website that was taken down ten years before her period of supposed ‘research’.

Also interesting, is her take on MGTOW that she says comprises men who don’t want women in their lives at all. This is incorrect, they avoid cohabiting or marriage. She even claims that MGTOW has spread to the White House because Mike Pence will not have a meal with another woman alone. Mike Pence is married, not MGTOW and he does this out of fidelity to his wife!

An example of Bates’ postulate number 3 would be the connection she makes between the manopoint and the murder of George Floyd. There is no evidence of any connection between Derek Chauvin and men’s right activism but that is the kind of line Laura Bates likes to draw. Similarly, she draws a line from the ‘manopoint’ via ‘Gamergate’ to the election of Donald Trump. If you want to discover just how flawed Laura’s account of ‘Gamergate’ is, I recommend Femalefedupwithfeminism’s* excellent account that was featured on the YouTube channel Glass Blindspot- you can find it here. The same author has also written an open letter to Laura Bates that challenges her account of ‘Gamergate’ You can find that letter here. Laura, of course, has yet to reply.

Examples to support Bates’ postulate number 5 are simply too numerous. When you look for examples of conspicuous bravery to save the lives of others it is men who predominate. Unlike the murder of Sarah Everard the gender of the ‘perpetrator’ in these cases is not considered important and may not even be mentioned. Here are some examples from the last two weeks.

1. A ‘Railworker’ (a man) saved a child from certain death by jumping onto a railway line and throwing him out of the path of an oncoming train (link here).
2. A man dies trying to save a woman who fell from London Bridge into the River Thames (link here)
3. A man saves a girl from drowning in the sea off Redcar Beach (link here)
4. A Sheffield man pulls two women from a burning flat (link here)
5. A man engages with a knife wielding terrorist using an ornamental spear and gets stabbed in the process (link here)

You can find examples of bravery such as this almost every day. However, they seldom make it out of local news and no connection is made with gender. Women are also responsible for acts of bravery but less frequently and usually for close relations rather than strangers.

Whatever you do, don’t bother buying Laura Bates’ book ‘Men Who Hate Women’. Just read the five postulates above and you can deduce the rest.

*In my first version I attributed this to Cathy Young my apologies to all concerned. My sentiments about the excellent YouTube video and the open letter to Laura Bates remain the same.