Feminism or death?
Here’s the entirety of a recent post by an MRA who calls himself Snark:
Uh, dude, I think you’ve confused “feminists” with “Daleks.”
Our new friend Fidelbogen thought this was such a brilliant idea he devoted a post to it himself, declaring:
Such economy, such concision. …
Really now, we wouldn’t go far wrong to make our rhetoric revolve around this above all, and very little more. The saying is deceptively simple, for it goes deep and reaches into many corners.
It puts them on the spot, and nails them there.
I knew Fidelbogen was a bit of a pompous doofus, but this is a whole new level of stupidity for him. I don’t even know what to say about something this idiotic.
Also, check out the comments to Snark’s piece. There’s something about potatoes you kind of have to see to believe.
Posted on September 22, 2011, in antifeminism, idiocy, MRA, violence against men/women. Bookmark the permalink. 1,516 Comments.
NWO, remember – If there’s any positions that you can’t defend, just say the opposite but exaggerate it and sound really angry!
That always works spectacularly.
Moewicus: No, that’s another chapter in the Big Book O’ Larnin’.
There is NO CONTEXT.
None. It just is. The past, not relevant. The present, not relevant. Only the facts presented by an NWOslave are material. Everything else, irrelevant.
There is No Context. Ever.
Unless he needs it. Then Context is Incontrovertible.
I have so much to learn! Thank you, Pecunium.
Although as I think about it Owlslave may have been referring to the correct thing. That last bit seemed like it was still talking about lynching when a re-read shows that he is probably talking about the awful abuse by ToySoldier’s aunt. In my defense I don’t see how sexually abusing a child is in any way “blaming the evil patriarchy” so I might be exonerated on the grounds that he’s vague and incoherent. The denial that patriarchy ever perpetuated abuses also threw me off the trail: Owlslave, when communicating with other people it helps to have some points of contact with reality.
Like knowing the fact that Cyrillic is a separate alphabet when you use refer to it by way of analogy.
I told my girlfriend to leave the house today, in case french rugbyplayers get their ass kicked by All Blacks.
This is what I learnt in my anger management course: whenever you expect to be in a battering mood, send your woman back to her parents.
Go France!
New idea, guys: From now on, we never contradict anything NWO says. We just say “tell me more” and write it all in the book of larnin’.
@NWO: (sigh)
I don’t see the fun in this, but let’s clear something up anyway. You say that black men were lynched in the southern US because the mob was “taking a womans word at face value and killing a man.”
Can we be clear here? Do you think that white men were lynched when black women claimed to be raped? Or that, in fact, anyone was punished at all when black women claimed to be raped? At least adjust the statement so that it says “taking a white woman’s word at face value and killing a black man.”
But then, if you did that, it would become more an issue of race then of feminism (which was not a powerful force in the deep southern US during the period that lynching was common). So you would have to be an anti-racist advocate.
Hey, great! Welcome to the team. By they way, many of us are also feminists.
That potato thing is not particularly imaginative – I reckon the guy’s just seen Cop Out and bastardised the baseball-machine torture method of the main bad guy in that.
A little creepy but the dude’s not even using original material.
@Moewicus
“African-American journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells wrote in the 1890s that black lynching victims were accused of rape or attempted rape only about one-third of the time. The most prevalent accusation was murder or attempted murder, followed by a list of infractions that included verbal and physical aggression, spirited business competition and independence of mind. White lynch mobs formed to restore the perceived social order.”
Only 1/3 of the lynchings were false accusations? How nice, and forgivable as well. Now if 66% were for other crimes, and women, the accusers of those alleged crimes made up 1/2 of those accusations. That means women make 66% of the accusations. women using men to commit violence on their behalf for the lies they’ve told. Why would you excuse these actions? The saturation of feminism in modern society simply won’t allow you to hold women accountable for their actions.
———————–
@leosalloum
“Can we be clear here? Do you think that white men were lynched when black women claimed to be raped? Or that, in fact, anyone was punished at all when black women claimed to be raped? At least adjust the statement so that it says “taking a white woman’s word at face value and killing a black man.”
But then, if you did that, it would become more an issue of race then of feminism (which was not a powerful force in the deep southern US during the period that lynching was common). So you would have to be an anti-racist advocate.”
So women are sexist and racist, shocking isn’t it? As the Duke case was brought up on this thread. Isn’t this a case of a racism as well? They were a bunch of spoiled crackers so I guess it’s OK. What’s the difference between a white women smugly watching a black man getting lynched on her behalf, or a black woman trying to get a bunch of white men lynched, and team woman stampeding to her gospel word? One used mob violence, the other used State violence. They both used their sex to have men commit violence on their behalf? Didn’t that lovely girl go on to muder some man? I’m sure, even as we speak, some feminist organization is portraying her as a victim.
Also, I recently gave you a link to women’s prisons being shut down to balance the budget. She’ll probably be spending time in a spa for women, maybe they’ll renovate a luxury resort as the new womens correctional facility. The modern day woman blames everything on the evil white male patriarchy. Am I supposed to be inspired women are racist against white men instead of black men? Let’s just say I won’t be joining the racist, sexist “team” anytime too soon.
NWOslave: We answered you about the alphabetic roots, and vowels, and syntax of Russian, care to set us straight on the subject?
Oh yeah, prisons. Did you follow the links to the hellish conditions in the Norwegian prison system?
What’s the difference between a white women smugly watching a black man getting lynched on her behalf, or a black woman trying to get a bunch of white men lynched
When you say things like this with a straight face, there’s really nothing to talk about EXCEPT your views on Cyrillic writing. The rest is a lost cause.
I keep looking at the main piece which inspired this entry, shaking my head, going away, working (busybusybusy) (28 hour days you know!), and coming back to see if it makes more sense.
It doesn’t.
I mean, what sort of mindset does it take in a world of 6 billion or so people (I may be way off, I don’t remember numbers well, and it’s Saturday, and I’m going to fly ten hours and then go to work so to lazy to google) to believe that any one individual OR group can have any effect on a larger group’s “right to exist.” I mean, unless the indivdual/group holds immense state power in some way, and is engaged in genocide (so far, pretty much done only by male leaders of a variety of political and religious and ethnic identities).
Feminists? I’m sitting in rural east Texas — while yes I am an evil commiequeerpervertprofessor indoctrinating the young in blah whatever blah, I hardly control anybody’s existence.
I mean, why even ask such a null question? As people have said who is the audience and what in the world does the speaker expect?
“no, i hate all you non-feminists, and when i clap my hands three times you will all disappear”
It’s….I don’t know if my response was what Fidelbogen expected with his “nail them to the spot” (hmmm very penetratve analogy) but, by gosh, I was hornswoggled fersure.
@Slavey
“Only 1/3 of the lynchings were false accusations? How nice, and forgivable as well. Now if 66% were for other crimes, and women, the accusers of those alleged crimes made up 1/2 of those accusations. That means women make 66% of the accusations. women using men to commit violence on their behalf for the lies they’ve told. Why would you excuse these actions? The saturation of feminism in modern society simply won’t allow you to hold women accountable for their actions.”
Reading comprehension, you do not have it. You have given no evidence that it was a women’s fault. Come on, you lying fake engineer who can’t manage basic math, let’s see your fantasy history here. I’m sure there will be hundreds of written accounts, exchanges, letters, and artifacts that will allow you to squarely place your ignorant blame on the opposite sex that you so despise.
Anyone else notice that NWO just said 2/3rds of lynchings were sort of justified?
After all, if 1/3rd were false, then the other 2/3rds were legitimate accusations, right?
Because of course not a single white man can falsely accuse blacks of anything to justify killing them. Guess NWO is not aware that black women were lynched too, sometimes after being gang raped.
For every false accusation made by a wicked woman, a vigilantee-man will exact revenge – in the name of his unjustly accused brother – through the rape of a teenage girl.
So that both parties are on a par.
At the end of the day, every one can go to bed with the insurance that justice has been served.
Paniorpa, I’m pretty sure you’re just a troll, but don’t you ever, like feel bad about trolling in the way that you do?
Even if you don’t mean that shit, does it really feel all that good having it come out of your mouth?
xtra: No, you didn’t the MATH: False accusation of rape = woman.
All other accusation = 50:50 men/women.
Ergo, 2:3 / .5 = 1:3 women accuse black men = 1:3 = 1:3 = 2/3rds of all lynchings were caused by women.
Somehow, even though the primary period of lynching was in the Good Old Days, before women were infected with International Feminism, and started lying, these were typical.
It kinda makes one think that it’s not Feminism NWO hates, but yanno, women.
Because it doesn’t matter what it is, nor when it was, it’s all the fault of women perverting the natural order of things.
paniorpa: how would raping one person be exacting revenge on another?
Oh wait, the woman hive mind or someshit, I guess?
And I second Holly. Even as a troll, you are seriously lacking empathy if you don’t feel bad about typing that shit.
Holly: No, I don’t think it bothers paniorpa in the least.
1: He is a troll. Anything to get a rise is fair, and fitting, and not beneath him. So no shame.
2: He believes it, and so he feels no shame for disseminating The Truth™.
3: He is acting as some sort of agent provocateur, and this is an elaborate ruse to get MRAs to agree with him. This might allow for some shame, but I suspect anyone who would write the things paniorpa writes, is in the radical mode of, “True Believer” and so going into the realms of the ridiculous and horrendous to make a case is seen as fair agitprop.
Of those, I tend to number 2, and hope it’s not No. 3, because that’s not the way to argue, even with the Mellers and NWOs of the world.
Herp Derp: It’s common to see punishments inflicted on a different person; when the offense isn’t seen as a crime against the person who was actually hurt, but as a property crime against a third party.
So if a man kills a slave, unjustly, he may be deprived of a slave of similar worth. The Code of Hammurabi said that if a man built a house, and it collapsed and killed the resident’s son, his son would be killed in retribution.
It was, all in all, an enlightened view for the time (similar offenses in other areas could have the builder, and his entire family killed). But it was because women/children were property, and so it wasn’t fair to punish a person directly, any more than it was for injuring a cow, or a knocking down a fence.
I tend to number 1, just because he’s so up-front; he doesn’t rationalize anything, just brags about what a terrible person he is and how much he loves hitting and raping women.
Or a 1-2 hybrid, where he isn’t really like this… but he wishes he was, because it would make him a totally badass tough guy.
I could be wrong and he could really be a sociopath, but I prefer to believe he’s just an idiot who thinks “I’ll tell feminists I like rape!” is the height of comedy.
If only there was an Olympic event for clutching at straws, these MRAs might actually benefit from their horseshit.
Isn’t it interesting that the feminists here respond to Toy Soldier’s description of the terrible crime he suffered by acknowledging how terrible abuse is, without any attempts to find any “rationale” for the abuse other than that his abuser was … a terrible abuser.
Why can’t MRAs respond the same way to women who have been abused? Abuse is EVIL.
Pan’s a Poe, no question. But a particularly obnoxious one.
@Comrade Svilova
But see, when women get raped, it’s their own fault! Thus, women do not deserve any empathy. Ever. [/sarcasm]
I don’t get it either. What happened to Toy Soldier is absolutely disgusting and inexcusable.
It still wasn’t caused by feminism, it was caused by an abusive aunt.
I’d also like to repeat Holly’s question.
To me, it often seems that, at least on anti-feminist spaces, false rape accusations (against men by women) are seen as the equivalent of male-on-female rape. But the only equivalent of rape is rape, and the only equivalent of false rape accusations are false rape accusations.
Holly: I can hold two thoughts at once. I can separate my personal experiences from my views about feminism, just as I can support rape victims while wanting those accused of rape to get a fair trial. If feminism can make people great (which feminists argue), then it can also make people terrible. But I do understand your need as a feminist to defend the ideology and my aunt. I am curious, however, as to why you would think I would care whether feminists believe me given their general denial sexual violence against males.
Pecunium: Currently the accepted rate of false accusations is around 8 percent. The conviction rate for rape cases is 56 percent. Since 56 is higher than 8, there are more convictions than cases being ruled false or unfounded. Regardless of whether racism prompted the cruel response, the fact remains that some women maliciously lied about rape. But I suppose that does not matter since going to prison for something that never happened is awesome. Regarding the last point, what my aunt did is just as much feminism as any man who rapes a woman is “patriarchy”.
Comrade Svilova: They did try to find a rationale by absolving feminism of any responsibility for my aunt’s behavior, despite that feminism prompted her actions. And of course feminists said what she did was terrible, just like men’s activists say women’s abuse is terrible. The difference is that men’s activists do that unprompted. Feminists wait until someone mentions it and then throw it back in the person’s face.
Where in The Big Feminist Handbook does it say abuse and rape are okay under any circumstances? All the feminism I’ve seen takes a pretty dim view on that stuff, no matter who does it. Feminism is about treating people equally no matter their sex or gender — child abuse doesn’t follow that ideal; in fact, abuse is basically antithetical to the whole movement. So how was feminism responsible for your aunt’s actions?
Which isn’t, itself, terrible. Do you not read your own side? It’s “The men were justified because-“, even when they shoot people up. They say violence is ‘inevitable’. Pull the other one; if you can’t get me to buy that muslim/hindu violence is inevitable, men’s rights advocates have less than zero chance.
Find for me where feminist thought says the rape of boys is a requisite action to promote equality for women. What your aunt did was fucking horrible. I don’t really see a reason for you to be on board with feminism because of it. But I simply will not allow you to slander an entire movement trying to prevent similar for hundreds of people (Not women, girls, boys, or men, people) because of one person, who can’t even get people to agree with what she did, and who nobody within has apparently defended. Trying to say we’re ‘like’ or worse, *worse* than a movement that just wants to perpetuate enslavement for a gender, because one woman who is a feminist did a horrible thing to you, is not going to fly.
If fucking only.
They don’t do it at all, unless you have confused yourself for all men’s activists, perhaps.
No, it isn’t. Men raping women is part of the system that prevents the advancement and equality of women, and in some cases men who, under the patriarchy, are ‘like women’ (Quick and dirty example, nurses). Patriarchy isn’t “Everything a man does.” Feminism is not “Everything a woman does”. A man who tries to end rape is, if not necessarily trying to help women or feminism as a movement, acting in accordance with feminist principles, not with patriarchy, because those principles, in their least ideal form, want women to be treated as well as men. A woman who rapes a man because of the assumption that all men are ready for sex at any time, is perpetuating patriarchy (to the detriment of that man, and the benefit of most men). A woman who rapes a man because she wants to control him is engaging in neither. And a woman who rapes a child to teach how evil rape is is engaging in neither as well.
…
Do you actually, sometimes, maybe, like, read this blog and the MRAs quoted here?
Just look at this post.
Or just look at the many other posts on this very blog regarding this topic. Maybe start with this tag.
Quite frankly, I fail to see the sympathy these guys allegedly have for women who were victims of violence. It’s rather telling if a mod of the men’s rights subreddit apparently enjoys posting on a subreddit called beatingwomen.
Toysoldier , no one has shown me a single, actual MRA (self declared) site that does not directly and indirectly condone violence.
I have never seen a feminist condone the rape of little boys, or little girls or even teen boys or girls nor can you link a post on any feminist site that does.
I have not seen a feminist condone physical abuse either.
Toy soldier: The rates for rape are about the same as for any other crime. That means false accusations of rape aren’t something which merits special attention; compared to other crimes.
Since most prosecutors boast of conviction rates in the 90-95 pecent rate, Rape is, compared to those other crimes (e.g. murder, assault, theft, burglary), anomalous.
Since the rates for one aspect; false accusation, is the same, but for another aspect; conviction, it’s far worse to be accused of any other crime, falsely, then it is to be falsely accused of rape.
That, of course, assumes that actual false accusation of rape all make it to trial. I’d like to see a breakdown of the results of those 2-8 percent of false accusations; even if everyone of those made it to trial, the odds are 50:50, where as for a false accusation of murder which goes to trial is 1:10.
I know which I’d rather be falsely accused of, given those numbers.
1) Would this apply for accusations of all crimes, or just rape?
2) Would a new trial be started to determine if the accuser acted with malice, or would malice be assumed if the accuser couldn’t prove that it was non-malicious?
Not all accusations of rape in lynching cases came at the behest of the victim or purported victim either. The KKK was fond of killing both sides of a consensual white woman/black man relationship-him for “rape” her for being a “race traitor”. Some women in that situation (held by the KKK on threat of death and often rape) went along with accusations in order to save their own lives knowing their lover was doomed either way. It does not too much digging to discover that KKK’s “protect white women” spiel has never been too genuine. It only ever applied to “good white women”. “Bad white”, the poor women, the butch women, the queer women, the atheists, the Jewish women, the women who associated with black people, the women who slept with black people, the women who tried to divorce their Klansmen husbands, etc. faced brutal violence as well, it just tended to be less public than the race based lynchings. This protectivism was usually nothing more than a thinly veiled threatening violent system of control.
Were there white women who occasionally used the threat of the fear of the black male rapist to abuse and control black men? Yes, but assuming that was the only dynamic that ever occurred in these situations is asinine and ignores the reality of these communities.
Bagelsan: I was unaware there was a Big Feminist Handbook. However, I was aware that people often gravitate to ideologies that support their existing views, and that ideologies often prompt people with more violent tendencies to act on the bigotries espoused by said ideologies.
Rutee Katreya: I am no more slandering feminism by acknowledging that it has hateful views about males that may prompt feminists to abuse boys anymore than I would be slandering Christianity by saying that its hateful views on homosexuality may prompt people to abuse gay people. I understand that it is difficult to accept that something you value harms others, but that does not make the harm any less true. And I find it rather ironic that after chastising me for “[slandering] an entire movement” you promptly slandered the entire men’s movement.
Bostonian: That kind of abject animosity is precisely Snarkozy asked his question, and curious thing is that several other feminists think exactly as you do.
Pecunium: The reason false accusations of rape merit special attention is because of the social impact a rape accusation carries. Conviction rates vary per crime, and the difference likely lies in the potential evidence supporting the crimes. Many rape cases have little or no evidence beyond the accuser’s testimony. After last week’s execution of Troy David, think the flaw in convicting solely on eye-witness testimony should be obvious. As for the numbers you came up with, are you factoring in the cases that end in plea agreements?
There is a difference between a coincidental relationship and a causal one. Sorry to Godwin, but Hitler was a vegetarian. That does not mean the vegetarianism promotes people becoming like Hitler. The relationship of the traits was largely coincidental, it is not a causal relationship. This is distinct from an actual causal issue. Let us use for an example, veganism and vitamin B12 deficiency. Unless one eats supplements for vitamins (or food that contains such supplements), a vegan will get a vitamin B12 deficiency after a while. So, arguing that promoting veganism risks increasing cases of vitamin B12 deficiency has some traction.
That’s the difference, toysoldier. The fact that one abuser is feminist does not prove that feminism leads to abuse anymore than one vegetarian Hitlen proves vegetarianism causes holocausts. If you want to try and claim a wider causal relationship, you are going to have to demonstrate it.
If we judged movements by actions committed by just one person professing to be a member, oh shit are the MRAs in trouble.
(To be fair, so are groups like: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, Australians, um I’m not sure if any atrocities have been committed in Antarctica but you get my point…)
I am curious, however, as to why you would think I would care whether feminists believe me given their general denial sexual violence against males.
Because that supposed general denial is a bad thing, right? A thing you would like to change if you were in control of such matters?
So why should denial of sexual violence against females be held to a different standard?
While the issue of what the courts should do is complex (although I sure as fuck know that “ignore more rape reports” is not it), in my mind what individuals should do is not–err on the side of believing everyone and just take that risk of being wrong.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to break that standard down by gender.
I am an atheist gay woman and this made me facepalm. You have a surface depth understanding of Christianity, at best, if you think you can sum it up that way. Now if you’d said catholicicsm, then you’d have a point. But you didn’t; so yeah, you’re right, it isn’t more slandering, it’s equally inaccurate. Nice job, idiot, you annoyed me enough with a stupid comparison that I’m not going to treat you any differently from the other MR Idiots we get. Well, maybe a little nicer, since I’m giving you tips for the future.
Excuse me while I throw my head back and laugh. You idiots are trying to hurt men, PoC, the gay, trans, and now you want to throw this at me?
What you said is factually inaccurate; you can not put this on feminism in a serious sense.. I had my painful moments, when I realized gradually that a lot of atheists don’t give a shit about women, when I realized a lot of feminists don’t give a shit about the gay or trans, etc. This isn’t it; this is one idiot flailing away with a stupid assertion.
Now, what you could have done is say that she is spouting rhetoric like feminists. This is the *exact claim* we made about Breivik and MRAs. And you would be correct, just as we were about Breivik. You couldn’t say that either Breivik or your Aunt were supported by their respectively similar movements based just on that though. For that you would need to find feminists on board with your aunt, and actually saying that what she did was understandable or okay. We have that for Breivik and the MR Idiots. Good luck with that.
(Protip, I suggest, although it’s lighter, that you look for any of the female teachers who raped their male students, as they have at least some media coverage)
Kollegemesserschmidt already sent you some links to some of the shit you assholes are fine with. I don’t care what you think about potential ‘irony’. I’m in an actual civil rights movement; The Men’s Right’s movement is a parody of one. Stop doing a poor imitation and maybe you’ll find allies for the men’s issues that exist.
NWO, your ideas intrigue me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
People also sometimes gravitate to ideologies that they think support their views, but which actually do not, or they say they believe that ideology because it is a useful lie to try and excuse their behavior. I believe that was the case with your aunt; if she was abusing you and calling it “feminism” then either she had no concept of what feminism is, or she was flat-out lying to try and excuse her abuse.
Feminism does not at all promote hatred of men or boys, or violence towards anyone (sexual or otherwise.) A common misconception about feminism is that it hates men and boys, but I have literally never seen a feminist support that idea — what I have seen is people pretending that feminism hates men and boys either 1) to “retaliate” against feminism by hating women and girls or 2) to hurt men and boys under the cover of false feminism in the hopes that feminists will support them or anti-feminists will blame feminism for the abuser’s bad behavior. The most violent thing I have ever seen out of any non-abusive feminists is a desire to stay away from men, and while I think that is often misguided I don’t think it could be used to justify abusing men in any way.
It really sounds like your aunt either deeply misunderstood what feminism is about, or thought feminism would be an easy scapegoat for her own abusive behavior. While I absolutely believe your account of things, and believe that you were told your abuse was “feminist”, I would not believe a word out of your abuser’s mouth because she sounds like a fucked up lying asshole. Maybe she really did think she was a feminist, but her abuse had nothing healthy or feminist about it in any definition of the word.
Again, on this very blog you find many quotes MRAs celebrating, or even actively advocating, violence against women (I even provided a few links). If the action of one person is enough to condemn a whole movement, I don’t understand how you could still defend the MRM.
Quoting the harmful things that MRAs spout does not constitute slandering.
I also think it is silly to compare Christians, a historically powerful group that actually had (and in most of the western world, still has) the power to marginalize and oppress certain groups (like non-straight and non-cis people), to feminists, who don’t have any of that power.
Please provide links to the feminists who condone the rape/physical abuse of little boys, or little girls, or teen boys or teen girls, if you think Bostonian is wrong.
Actually, additionally to rape being very underreported (especially when the victims were male), rapists are convicted only about less than 60% (check the statistics here).
Men being raped is actually more likely than being falsely accused of rape.
I don’t understand. Do you want rape survivors to be believed even less?
What about the social impact a rape carries?
Holly Pervocracy: To date, how many people have men’s activists or activism hurt? Denying that a group of people can be victims is a bad thing, and when a particular group constantly does that I see no point in valuing their opinion on that matter. No said anything about the denial of sexual violence against women, so I do not see your point. As for assuming every claim is true and taking the being wrong, that thinking is precisely why the U.S. founding fathers wrote in the Fifth Amendment.
Rutee Katreya: Thanks for dropping the feigned sympathy. Most Christian denominations regard homosexuality as sinful. I never said my aunt is like a feminist; I said that she is a feminist. Her views are feminist views. The only difference between her and other feminists is what she did. And I find it ironic that after chastising me about my aunt, you would hold a handful of random comments as proof that all men’s activists are violent misogynists. As for finding allies, I find plenty, but they are rarely feminists.
Bagelsan: I am curious: if people simply gravitate towards ideologies that match their existing views, would that not mean that all the positive things a person does comes from that person, not the ideology? In other words, should we not assume that when a feminist does something good it has nothing at all to do with feminism, but just that person? Look, you cannot have it both ways. Either ideologies affect people’s behaviors or they do not. If they do, they can lead to good and bad acts. But I do get it. Rather than acknowledge feminism’s impact on my aunt, you defend feminism to the point of claiming my aunt is not a feminist. Meanwhile, feminists on this thread argue that men’s activism makes men violent.
Kollege Messerschmitt: Stating that an ideology that expresses bigotry towards males prompted a person to behave violently does not constitute slander. According to the Stern Review, “It is clear to us that the figure of convictions for people of all ages charged with rape is 58 per cent, as the term is normally used in relation to crime.” My emphasis. My concern for victims does not trump my desire to make sure no innocent person loses his freedom. One is not more important than the other. Unfortunately feminists do not share that view.
Toysoldier: So you, with your sophistry that you aunt represents feminism because she also happens to be a feminist, you accept that Breivik therefore represents the Men’s Rights Movement, in the same way.
It’s more than any of us did.
Care to explain how a movement that expresses bigotry and violence toward women being called on it isn’t misrepresenting it, in the same way you say you aren’t slandering feminism?
Rutee. Now if you’d said catholicicsm, then you’d have a point.
No.
If you said some catholics, yes, but the Church position is, IMO, confused, but it not hateful, per se. The official position of the CHurch is that God has seen fit, in His infinite wisdom, to burden some of His Creation with the difficulty attendant to needed to refrain from any physical expression of their love.
I think this daft, and the social stigma that go with it is a real problem, but the actual practice of homosexuality isn’t, doctrinally, worse than heterosexual fornication; it’s just that there can never be any Church sanction of a homosexual relationship.
There is parallel in the way the church handles civil divorce. Someone who has been married in the church, and gets a civil divorce is living in as much sin, should they enter into any other physical relationship, as any homosexual.
MRAs lobby for abusers and rapists in the courts. They harass rape victims. They attack funding for safe houses for victims of domestic abuse.
They write apologia for pedophilia on a regular basis and pretend it is something else. They regularly deny that rape and abuse happen at all to women.
You cannot post a link that refutes me, I have links to back up all those statements. MRAs are a farce and a force for evil as they are right now.
No one has posted any link to any MRA site that lobbies for anything that is constructive.
I know that is because that link does not exist.
I think that some actions are independent of ideology, and some are not. This should be obvious: people who share an ideology can still behave in very different ways from each other, and even often behave differently in relation to that shared ideology.
Personal views can inform one’s ideology, and vice versa. For me, I’ve always believed on a gut level that men and women should be treated equally — that’s why I started calling myself a feminist. (Personal views –> ideology.) But after starting to identify as a feminist, and reading more about it, several of my personal views have changed and matured in response to feminism, particularly as it relates to other social justice movements that I hadn’t known about before and thus hadn’t formed an opinion on. (Ideology –> personal views.)
Sometimes I do good things regardless of my feminism: for example I gave my little sister some cash today to buy coffee, which isn’t really a “feminist” or “anti-feminist” action. And sometimes I do good things because of my feminism: for example I’ve stopped making rape jokes, even though I think they can be funny, because I’ve learned to view those jokes as anti-feminist.
But while personal views and ideology can often complement each other, they can also sometimes be totally at odds with each other — which is the case with your aunt. There are lots of controversial and gray-area bits of feminism (should women reclaim the word bitch? how should sex work be handled?) but rape and child abuse are not among them. Feminism is absolutely about treating people of all sexes and genders with respect, bodily autonomy and humanity — if you do not believe in these very core criteria then you are not a feminist, any more than someone who completely absorbs high-frequency visible light can claim they look purple. Words mean things, and when an abuser tries to twist those words around (a notorious tactic of abuse) that still doesn’t chance the meaning of those words, it just means that person is lying.
If I claimed to be anti-racist, and then ran around screaming racial slurs and attacking black people, everyone would be totally right to say “that is bullshit; you aren’t anti-racist” no matter what I claimed to be, because my behavior would be completely antithetical to the very meaning of anti-racism. So it is with your aunt; if she claimed that sexually abusing a child was feminist she was just flat-out wrong no matter how much she tried to claim otherwise. Maybe she did other feminist things — for all I know she donated half her income to Planned Parenthood or whatever — but child abuse and abuse of boys is still 100% anti-feminist.
If your aunt had blamed her abusive behavior on the fact that she drove a Ford or had brown hair or was allergic to pollen or anything else like that her excuses would be equally bullshit. Her abuse was no more caused by feminism than any other random thing she could have chosen to blame. And her abuse was no more representative of feminism than it would be of Ford-driving brown-haired allergic people.
Were you born this stupid? It wasn’t ‘feigned’, although I am not the first person anyone outside a very small group of people should go to for comfort. Your idiocy is so transparent, your accusations so slapdash that *I* actually became offended on behalf of Christians as well. And I’m just not going to treat you differently from the rest of your idiotic movement anymore. I have no reason to; you’re only tiny bit less stupid in that you actually are a victim.
Yup, but it’s still too diverse, and disagreement so varied (Even within denominations) that making a blanket statement for that for all Christianity is just not doable. It’s not helped in matters any by the about 400 different ways people choose to read the damn book, so the same line can be seen in entirely opposite ways.
And I didn’t disagree with you. What I said was that feminists, and feminism, do not support what she did.
Not the ones that said raping a child is fine! That’s not actually okay according to feminism. Declaring it so because a feminist said isn’t really a meaningful way to discuss the beliefs of any group, because I am *positive* that if you look hard enough that means literally every single group would then have utterly self-conflicting views.
Ah, that is not actually what I said. So not only are you stupid, but you are illiterate. What I said is that the men’s rights movement is perfectly okay with supporting violence, and does not mind it. Although I’m sure there is at least one MRA who strictly opposes violence for the sake of ‘men’s liberation’, the fact of the matter is that at this point finding such a person isn’t worth my time. The movement as a whole, at best, turns a blind eye to that violent outcry. Quite frankly, I think it more accurate to state that a strong plurality outright support violence, but lack the stomach to do so themselves (All the better, such violence would only end in tears if attempted). Look at the popularity of the Beating Women subreddit with the r/MR, for instance, and r/MR’s approval of someone who outright states he wants people who stand in the way killed (the new r/MR mod). Your movement’s foot-shuffling to condemn violent murderers is also astounding; I don’t merely mean that you say those murderers don’t represent you. That’s totally fair. I mean that when those murders happen, ther esponse is “Violence is bad BUT ITS UNDERSTANDABLE AND IF YOU STAND IN THE WAY MORE WILL HAPPEN SO REALLY ITS YOUR FAULT” That’s not really a condemnation of the violence, just an unwillingness to do it yourself.
Pull the other one.
Actually, AFAIK feminists don’t really have a unified view of what should happen to rapists in an ideal world. For instance, I don’t really want prison, at least not in its current incarnation. It’s clearly not a working system, and something a lot closer to a medical model would be better (Not exactly t here, but something much closer to it). I’d need to examine more prison systems, more models, but hte most successful ones seem to be the ones that remove only some freedoms, and notably keep the inmate integrated into society. Which, to be sure, is still worse than not losing it, but it also seems a less harsh system in general, which strongly benefits the falsely accused.
But you know, on-point, what you said is idiotic in the extreme for another reason; you’re not really trying to help all that many people. Your rhetoric works if you take a general stance on the corrections system, but if you’re really just worried about false accusations of rape, then you’re not really living up to this fancy rhetoric of wanting things to be good for the falsely accused in general. That is a much broader category, and while The Innocence Project needs more help, it doesn’t need help from assholes like you who are just trying to bludgeon women with it.
“It’s wrong to be this, and immoral, and you shouldn’t exist but we won’t legislate you out of existence” is still hateful. It’s just not as hateful as “Die, monster, you don’t belong in this world.”
Now, to be completely fair, I really should have said evangelicals *anyway*. Catholics just aren’t anywhere near that bad in comparison, outside of some Americans (In the proper sense, not USians). The Catholic Church compared to most Protestants, has been positively decent. But it is still an anti-gay organization that leverages a non-zero amount of influence against the gays. It just doesn’t try to destroy them, and compared to evangelicals, who actually want to legislate the execution of gays, it’s really not as big a deal.
Rutee: The Church (as opposed to many of it members) doesn’t say homosexuals shouldn’t exist. It doesn’t say they can’t be priests; so on that aspect they are more enlightened then they are about women).
What they say is you can’t get married, in the church, and that, as for everyone else, sex without being married in the church is a sin.
It’s not a mortal sin. Being homosexual won’t damn one to hell. So no, the Church doesn’t believe what you say it believes.
The Church (as opposed to the Fundamentalist wing of the American Catholic Church [which I am including all of both continents) is also less opposed to birth control; and to some degree, abortion, than is commonly understood (It is a mortal sin, one will end up in hell, or purgatory; for a really long time, if one fails to confess an abortion; the same is not true of birth control).
But I will grant the practice of the vocal members of the church; which includes large portions of the American Curia, is; as a practical matter, not friendly to homosexuals; and is actively working to keep them from having civic (as opposed to religious) rights.
In this regard they are being evil.
Pecunium: I never said my aunt represents feminism. I said that feminism caused her to behave the way that she did, and that her views are very much a part of feminism. The difference between my aunt and Breivik, besides the acts they committed, is that my aunt is a feminist and has been one since the late 70s, while Breivik is not part of the men’s rights movement and does not claim to be.
Bagelsan: You are not actually disagreeing with me, but you are going out of your way to claim that feminism can do no wrong. Your argument is illogical and fallacious because people engage in contradictory behavior despite their beliefs, and sometimes the ideology itself rationalizes the contradiction. Few ideologies openly endorse violence against other people, yet many present views that can easily lead to violence. That is essentially feminists’ argument against the men’s rights movement. But following your logic, since the men’s rights movement is absolutely about treating people of all sexes and genders with respect, would that not mean that anyone claiming to be a men’s rights activist who encouraged, endorsed, or committed any violence against women was not a men’s rights activist? If not, why should this not apply to feminists?
Rutee Katreya: If you want to deny available evidence, that is your business, but it only makes you look foolish. Speaking of which, I never stated anything about feminism supporting child rape. I stated that my aunt’s views and actions are informed by feminism. Those are two very different ideas. Saying that the men’s rights movement is perfectly okay with supporting violence implies that they are violent people. I am not a men’s rights activist. Feel free to insult me, but use the proper labels. Since I am concerned with anyone being falsely accused of crimes, there is no contradiction in my position. As for your anger towards me, how fortunate for you that my aunt shares your views.
And why, Pecunium, will it not marry homosexuals? You keep skating over this, and it’s growing quite irksome to see. If it actually believed something not hateful about homosexuals, it would just marry us and be done with it. There is no way to refuse to marry homosexuals and say anything but “You are, at best, lesser people, and do not deserve this rite we grant to normal people”.
It does not believe anything so virulently hateful as Protestants historically have, and the Vatican pales before the dreams of most Evangelical churches, but that does not mean that I should consider the Catholic Church not-hateful to the gay. Just less hateful than its intra-religious competitors.
Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn! It opposes birth control in a meaningful sense with demonstrated effects on large swaths of the world at large. That it does so with somewhat less vigor than is humanly possible is of little consequence to me!
1) How do you know abuse by her father did not cause her to behave the way she did, and that she also latched onto feminism as a product of that abuse? Isn’t it much more likely that she was abusive because she was abused than that a normal person discovered feminism and became sexually abusive, given everything that is now known about how abuse is perpetuated?
2) The view that young boys should be raped because patriarchy is not a feminist view.
Wait, wtf is American “in the proper sense”?
Excuse you, but if you want to talk about evidence as if you’ve provided any, you should at least have links to prominent feminists supporting child rape. Just declaring that I’m ignoring the evidence doesn’t, itself, make you correct.
You know what, you’re stupid enough that I can buy you think this is a valid rhetorical device. But no, it isn’t.
It doesn’t really produce a coherent worldview to credit every single action ever undertaken by an adherent or member of a group to the group as a whole. Nor does it make sense to impute responsibility to that group for every single individual’s actions. Again, I’m not really all that interested in Breivik just because he quacks like you MRA ducks, per se. He almost certainly has to have views that are at least roughly analagous to a group’s, and that group isn’t necessarily responsibor him (Just as it’s rather insane to blame… oh let’s take an easy one, Pacificism for all of Asoka’s killings.) What matters with Breivik (and any other extremist, especially violent ones) is how the mainstream group that’s similar to him reacts… and in this case, that is wicked glee and warnings as transparent as a mafioso’s.
No, making a big deal about rape, specifically, does in fact mean you are an asshole. Pecunium is correct in saying htat, of all the things you can possibly be falsely accused for, rape is amongst the best ones. About the only way for that to be worse, given how amazingly difficult it is to even get that to trial (At least, for white people, not nearly so difficult for hispanics and black men to at least get *that* far), is if you are accused of raping a child; then you can be sure that your incarceration will be even closer to a hell on earth than it already is. But considering successful prosecution is so low, the prison sentences so relatively easy to commute into actual jail, the parole relatively easy to get, etc, you are actually just perpetrating a narrative that is there to punish women for reporting about a crime that happens predominantly to them to focus on rape defendants as your special case.
If she thinks you’re stupid too, that I would actually agree with her on. Sometimes, even a shitty person can say something correct.
Now you’re just lying. No feminist has ever endorsed abuse of children.
If you can show any connection between feminism and abuse, then you need to bring it.
To say that feminism cause your aunt to engage in sexual abuse, you need to show that feminism is a necessary or sufficient cause of that abuse. Everything we know about child sexual abuse, however, shows that it has very little to do with ideology. Face it–your aunt is or was a sick, sick person, probably as a result of abuse by a family member. The fact that she abused you while spouting feminist doctrine does not connect the two: it fulfilled some twisted desire in her. You’ll probably never be able to hear the word “feminism” the same way I do, but it is important that you understand that this is about an abuser, not an ideology. You need therapy to see past this and I hate to make it so personal but it sounds like you need more therapy than whatever you have already gotten. You’re obviously quite intelligent but it is clear from the outside that you are looking at feminism through a warped lens. When you’re on the internet saying things like “how fortunate for you that my aunt [who sexually abused me] shares your views” you need to step back and take a look at things.
I knew I forgot to respond to something. A quick look at your blog doesn’t give me your preferred label. I don’t really care, because you are not, in practice, different from a men’s right’s idiot, but I will defer to the label you prefer. I’m going to insult you with it, but I will use the label you prefer if you actually tell me what it is, rather than whine that I have confused you for a Men’s Right’s Idiot despite you having pro MRI posts, repeating MRI talking points (Especially the inaccurate ones. Gender Bias in schools is for men, all else being equal, you grand idiot; try reading a sociology study some day), and generally being an MRI-flavored chew toy.
Toysoldier: So we are playing games of definition. Because your aunt is a feminist all her actions are the result of feminism, but because Breivik merely quoted the words and ideas of MRAs, but didn’t say, “I am a member of the MRM”, nothing he did is at all related.
No true scotsman indeed.
Okay, what is one feminist view that can “easily lead to violence”? Name just one.
Feminism is universally and explicitly opposed to violence against other people, based on its explicit regard for all people as valuable human beings deserving of dignity and safety, both physical and psychological (and spiritual, for the feminists who are into that.) And it’s not just an opposition to real world violence; the vast majority of feminist communities are also very strictly opposed even to violent rhetoric. So tell me, how does a view that says “men and women are equal” lead to violence? How does a view that says “there is no excuse for rape under any circumstances” lead to violence? How does a movement that says “no, don’t even say violent things about people” endorse violence, either openly or implicitly?
Yanno what, I’d actually be cool with that. If the MRM wants to disown the people who encourage, endorse and/or commit violence against women I think that would be a fantastic step in the right direction towards any hope of social or legal legitimacy. If prominent MRM boards and blogs wanted to state (and enforce) the kinds of rules that feminist blogs have — no sexist or otherwise -ist language, no jokes about killing or raping people, no calls for violence or celebrations of violence — then I promise I will stop calling the MRM a sexist and violent movement.
So you go get them to do that, and then meet me back here for cookies and champagne and endless highfives.
Toysoldier has written a blog post about this discussion; you can find it here:
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/can-an-ideology-teach-hate/
I think it misrepresents this discussion, not to mention feminism, but I guess you’ll probably want to see for yourself
Weapons of mash destruction… potato salad made from veterans… spud guns… this thread was making my day until Toysoldier’s slap of reality. He makes a valid point. The majority of child sexual abuse takes place within the home. Of that 30% is perpetrated by females. There is an even larger percentage of mothers who, like Oprah’s, isolate a child and allow abuse to occur. It took Oprah until her last show to mention her own mother locked her out of the house when she came to stay, after the grandmother who raised her fell ill. Sometimes the rape begins with mom. These are domestic violence issues that just don’t register to feminists. Mums the word (pun intended).I hear feminist silence as tacit approval of maternal domestic violence. It’s a big reason why, according to the Center for Disease Control, American women kill more of their own children than any other mothers in the industrialized world. A 25% increase since 1985, which coincides with the feminist politicalization of domestic violence to define “women & girls” as sole victims and the inherent evil of “the patriarchy ” as the reason why.
So let’s analyze Toysoldier’s argument here: if his aunt had been an anti-feminist instead, she would believe herself inferior to males and therefore would not abuse them. It’s the feminist idea that she is as good as a man and should be entitled to civil rights that somehow made Toysoldier’s aunt an abuser. Why? Because abuse is a male prerogative? Anyway, I confess I do not have statistics on this, but my personal impression is that it is exactly the opposite. People who believe themselves socially inferior also tend to feel less moral responsibility towards those who are socially superior.
On the other hand, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that the MRM condones, or at the very least turns a blind eye to rape, sexual abuse, and sexual exploitation of female minors by men.
Toysoldier is a liar and a coward as well. I would be shocked, but he is an MRA apologist, so it fits with the rest of his garbage philosophy.
If anyone is turning “a blind eye to rape, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of female minors” it’s the followers of Eve Ensler and the Vagina Monologues. In the monologue the “Little Coochi Snorcher that Could” a 13 yr. old girl plied with alcohol and seduced by a 26 yr. old woman. It ended with the line “if that was rape it was good rape.” After complaints the girls age was later changed to 16. Perhaps Oprah actually read the “Monologues” and is the reason she was one of 11 out of 17 headline acts not to show up at the 2008 10th Anniverary Convention in New Orleans. 11 out of 17…that’s alot.
Toysoldier:
and
and
You can’t say that your aunt’s actions (like child rape) were caused endorsed/prompted/informed by feminism, and then claim you never said feminism supports child rape.
If you say feminism made her do it, than you are, in fact, implying that feminism makes people rape children.
If you want to object and say “No, I only implied that feminism made my aunt rape a child, not that it made people in general rape childrenl!” then maybe it has less to do with feminism and more with your aunt being a sick and abusive individual.
Because feminism is against violence and abuse of any kind, no matter which genders are involved.
The problem is that, if the MRM is “absolutely about treating people of all sexes and genders with respect”, they…aren’t very good at showing it, to put it mildly.
I, once again, refer you to my reply here, were I provided you with links from this very blog.
I also recommend reading the comments on the first entry I linked there. They are…enlightening.
You know Toysoldier, I kinda get where you are coming from.
Your aunt did a horrible thing to you, and she claimed it was in the name of feminism.
So of course you would think that an antifeminist movement like the MRM must be good, right? Because she hurt you, and she used feminism as a pretence, you probably associate feminism with hurt and bad things.
If feminism is bad, the MRAs have to be the good guys, right?
Is that why you try to tell yourself that the MRM is good, and against violence of every form, and for equality, despite the contrary evidence?
Because if the MRM is bad too, you don’t know who you can turn to?
As said, I can kind of understand you. I still think that you are wrong, and that I find it very sad that you support such a hateful movement.
Especially because it’s a movement that, again and again, displayed how little they respect survivors of abuse and rape.
The cognitive dissonance of the average user here most be physically painful, and possibly growing out in a visible lump.
Check your heads.
Ugh, reading Toysoldiers entry, I think I probably cut him too much slack, especially since he links to the False Rape Society blog.
Liar and coward indeed.
I have seen Toysoldier around other sites before, he argues in bad faith and tries to derail conversations about rape and abuse into condemning feminism. He claims to not be an MRA, but defends them to everyone.
He celebrates hate and rejoices in the rape and abuse of women, because he claims he was abused by a woman.
He is nothing but a liar and a coward.
Cut no slack for the liar.
Why have my posts been “awaiting moderation” for the past three hours? Especially since the comments are themselves quite “moderate.”
People throughout the two American continents, rather than just in the United States of America. Specifically, Catholics throughout both American continents, where I said it.