If you haven’t already, go read this brilliant post by Cat Valente on the treatment of woman who dare to express their opinions.

You know what shits me about this post?  The fact that it has to be written in the first place. But you only have to read the comments to her post and Scalzi’s link to the post to see the fuckwits come out in force.  On Cat’s LJ some guy, with the handle avt_tor,  spends a good deal of his time not fucking getting it.  Even his back-peddling is a sight to behold in how he continues to dig a hole of ignorance for himself.

On Scalzi’s blog the issue gets quickly derailed by a few people who feel the need to take a good kicking at acrackedmoon’s blog Requires Only That You Hate* – thus only emphasizing the fucking point Cat was making in the first place.  The worst of it are those dick-splashes willing to condone Peter Watts’ for the following quote in reference to acrackedmoon’s brutal take- down of R. Scott Bakker’s work:**

Also, there is at least one rabid animal who hates it, someone who goes by the monicker “acrackedmoon”.

Notice what I did there: I reduced a fellow human being to the status of a mentally-diseased animal. I thought long and hard about doing that. It surprises me a little that I’m willing to sink so low, so early in the discussion (maybe I won’t; maybe I’ll have second thoughts and edit it out before I post.) (Guess not.) I’d generally show more restraint, but for the fact that acm has beaten me to that particular punch by referring to Scott Bakker as “a self-important little roach”. She calls him a number of other things, too, but I figure that particular shot justifies my own epithet (which at least accords acm the dignity of remaining a mammal).

And, of course, Bakker himself can’t help but get involved again – completely missing the fucking point of Scalzi’s link to Cat Valente’s initial post.

So, yeah, it’s a wonderful, thoughtful, smart and all together tragic post.  Because no matter the strength of the argument and the quality of the writing and the utter TRUTH of what’s been said, some people – mostly white men – are simply incapable of getting it.***

*A blog that I personally love as I’ve made clear on this blog.

** Just go look at some the sick shit leveled at acrackedmoon here.  “Rabid Animal” is tame by comparison.

*** Of course Valente foreshadowed the potential for backlash in her post.  Though she may not have predicted that most of this fuckwittery would be aimed at the female commentators she cited.