Canadian feminist activist receives death threats and other abuse after being targeted by Men’s Rights Activists
And so the MRAs have found yet another woman to hate.
Earlier this month, as many of you no doubt know, a Men’s Rights group sponsored a lecture at the University of Toronto. The event drew protesters, and the protesters drew MRAs with video cameras. One of the MRAs filmed a confrontation between a red-haired feminist activist and a number of MRAs who continually interrupted her as she tried to read a brief statement.
Her crime? She wasn’t exactly polite in responding to the interrupters. And so, after video of the confrontation was uploaded to YouTube, and linked to on the Men’s Rights subreddit and elsewhere, she became a virtual punching bag for the angry misogynists of the internet.
A Voice for Men, naturally, led the charge, running an article by Canadian MRA Dan Perrins labeling her “Little red frothing fornication mouth” and commenting on her breasts. The Amazing Atheist weighed in with a video I couldn’t bring myself to even watch.
Since being targeted by angry YouTube misogynists and MRAs, the red-haired activist has received death threats, rape threats and literally hundreds of other hateful and harassing messages. She’s also been “doxxed” — that is, she’s had her personal information plastered all over the internet, including on A Voice for Men’s forum. Ten days after being uploaded to YouTube, the video of her faceoff against the MRAs has garnered more than 300,000 views, and YouTubers are still leaving threats and insults and crude sexual comments.
This, apparently, is what “Men’s Human Rights Activism” consists of: the doxxing and harassment of individual women.
Several days ago, she contacted me to tell me about the harassment she’s endured. Here’s some of what she wrote:
I’m the red-head. I’m sure by now, you’re one of the 260,000 people who have seen the video of me … .
Because I had the audacity to tell a dude to stfu, an MRA no less, I have since been the target of not only just online misogyny (as if that’s a surprise) but cyber stalking, rape and death threats. They somehow found my facebook, they found my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …
I also got an anonymous message on tumblr that specifically said “[name deleted] would be disappointed”. [Name deleted] is my dog that died 1.5 years ago, I don’t talk about him on tumblr, nor fb, so they would have had to reaaaaalllly dig to find this info. …
In about 12-24hours, I got about400-500 new messages on my blog, most of them hate, which included rape and death threats, also people wishing death upon me or the typical troll “kill yourself” message. They made a meme of me.
I dunno how many haters I have, and I don’t know where they are. I can’t be sure at any given second, if I’m ever outside my house … if anyone is going to recognize me and try to hurt me.
With her permission, I am reposting screenshots she sent me documenting some of the harassment she’s endured. Even though her personal information has already been widely disseminated online, I don’t want to contribute to that, so I’ve whited out any information that might reveal her identity.
TRIGGER WARNING for what follows, for threatening language and crude sexual remarks.
Here’s a death threat she received from someone claiming to represent the “Islamic Brotherhood.”
Here are some sample comments from her Tumblr inbox. I’ve whited out comments and parts of comments that consist of her contact info, which being sent to her in an attempt to intimidate and frighten her by letting her know they “know where she lives.”
Here’s another threatening comment sent to her via Tumblr:
Here are some comments sent to her via her YouTube account. You’ll notice that the second comment comes from AVFM’s Dan Perrins, who is clearly relishing the attacks on her.
And another glimpse into her YouTube inbox:
Here’s a screenshot from a Men’s Rights forum revealing her personal information.
Meanwhile, over on YouTube, the hateful comments continue to pile up. Here are some of the nastiest ones I’ve collected. I am deliberately posting a lot of them in an attempt to convey something of the relentless nature of the attacks on teh red-haired activist — though I should note I’ve only gone through a small portion of the total comments there and this doesn’t even reflect all of the awful ones I found. These are not in any particular order. I threw in a few non-threatening ones that struck me as a tad ironic or otherwise revealing.
Again, this is only a small fraction of the abuse she’s gotten on YouTube.
This is what happens when MRAs and other misogynists target a woman online. The only thing that’s surprising here is the sheer amount of the hateful comments.
I’ve seen no serious attempts from any MRAs to rein in this sort of hatred. A Voice for Men has tried to distance itself in a superficial way from some of the harassment it has played a central role in unleashing, with an official announcement asking readers to refrain from posting the personal information of the red-haired activist in the comments. Meanwhile, in the AVFM forum, comments linking to her defunct dating profiles remain up.
This is what MRA “activism” looks like.
Coming tomorrow: A more detailed look at AVFM’s role in the harassment.
Posted on April 15, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, atheism minus, gloating, harassment, hate, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, not-quite-plausible deniability, penises, racism, rape culture, rape jokes, reddit, sexual harassment, taking pleasure in women's pain, the c-word, threats and tagged a voice for men, antifeminism, harassment, men's rights, misogyny, rape jokes, reddit, university of toronto. Bookmark the permalink. 2,101 Comments.
A “feminist” who openly mocks male issues, concept like “misandry” and is acting as priviledged b-word… do you really want to white knight her?
I am a feminist, but our movement will lose any support and credibility when people start to act as she “had a point”
We only will lose with “activists” like her… or cynics who promote her blatant hate-speech.
I assume the MRA Dan Perrins is different from this Dan Perrins?
So remember when I described these activities as terrorism in the previous thread about the jerk who called David’s home in the middle of the night? I was mocked by a troll in that thread for being “hysterical.”
Yeah, fuck you, MRAs. You use fear, intimidation, and violence to coerce women into silence. You are terrorists.
Redhead, I support you. I am so sorry and cannot imagine how frightening this invasive, horrific harassment is.
Youtube is so absurd. Every single time I look at anything there’s just hateful vitriol for absolutely no reason. I just hope that the verbal violence that internet anonymity facilitates does not translate to real danger. For this woman or anyone else.
The MRM constantly discussing suicide really disturbs me. One of their most frightening talking points (babbling points). I am hesitant to ever bring up the issue as its so tremendously sad. I imagine the typical MRA-reaction to the fact that women attempt suicide as much if not more (don’t have stats, it can be hard to differentiate between gestures and attempts) would be: men do it right, women are pathetic, whiny, histrionic, narcissistic, hysterical, etc.
Also, I’d like to personally apologize on behalf of The Dude — he would not endorse that shit.
I see they’re confusing bullying with activism again.
“The angry response is a clear indication that they’re affected by the rapid rise of the MRM”
Or… it’s because anger is the typical reaction to threats of rape and murder. But hey, that’s just me.
Oy… every time something like this pops up I get a “i don’t want to live in this world” feeling.
I skimmed most of the comments because they were too horrible, but one that popped out was “feminists deserve rape as punishment”.
These kind of guys go on about how rape is about arousal and sluts dressing slutty giving men unwanted boners, but that cuts to the crux of the matter. They view it as a tool to punish women who step out of their place.
Sometimes, I want to build an enormous bullet proof fort and invite everyone who’s not like that over so we can have a decent people party, safe from the misogynistic jerkwads of the world.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom- fighter. And feminists always claimed to seek equality after all.
FYI, I’m going by Chie now.
She was pretty rude, so maybe she deser-
NO
well that’s fucking disgusting, what’s more disgusting is/will be the canadian governments complete inaction towards protecting our citizen who has been made the target of an international (and local) terrorist group
Relay all my sympathies and comradely words of support to “Redhead”.
I see some irony in the fact here contact infos are out there for all to see and yet the only people who would send her messages are those who have no ethics to begin with (we others would like to convey support but would never use that adress without her consent!), so that the only thing she gets is a flood of hatred.
Sivi, no, that’s not him. AVFM’s Dan Perrins has a giant grey beard.
blitzgal, this sort of stuff is indeed a kind of terrorism, in that they are trying to use fear to get people to shut up.
It’s striking, and very reveaing, that they only do this on this scale to women. I write about MRAs every damn day, and have been for 3 years, and I’ve gotten some intermittent harassment. This woman gets filmed at one protest and gets literally hundreds of harassing and threatening emails, gets doxxed, and gets all this shit on youtube (and it keeps coming, every day).
Also, Islamic Brotherhood Dude: actual excitable young Muslim man or some non-Muslim excitable young man using Islam as a cover story?
The youtube comments I screenshotted are probably about a tenth of al the harassing comments she’s gotten there.
And the first comment here is more “She deserves it?”
After a full page of fury? Christ…
(Points up)
MRA, not feminist. I can tell not only by how bad he is at impersonating a feminist, but because I’ve never encountered a feminist who writes that poorly.
Bagryanova, did you even listen what she said, or tried to say? I don’t know where it originated or who wrote it, but it seems to be the same text as this one:
http://our-lady-of-misandry.tumblr.com/post/46669178483
Zero mocking of male issue. 100% of explaining why feminism isn’t the enemy, why patriarchy is.
Also, there are actual people that both call themselves feminists and think misandry is a thing? Well, I guess it’s a very big world.
She is brave, she has plenty of valid points, she has awesome hair* and even if she wasn’t any of that she would still never deserve this flow of hate, threat and invasion of her life.
Does she has any kind of legal options?
*I know, that’s completly OT, but I dyed mined recently and I wished I got that kind of color.
I think to keep your hair that color you need to dye it once every few weeks. Red fades fast.
@Bagryanova
You get that the MRM does not talk about resolving any actual male issues, and is just a hate movement based on removing the consequences faced by rapists and child abusers, right?
Bangryanova: shut the hell up.
Bagryanova, you sound like a great feminist.
By which I mean a terrible feminist and probably not actually a feminist at all.
You know, even if you disagree with her, or dislike her behavior, or whatever, you really think that the proper response when a woman gets hundreds of threatening and harassing messages is to call her a “priviledged b-word.” Did you even read the post?
I R feminist. Why U not believe me, you privileged bitches?
I know you’re a fake feminist. 1, you used “bitch” as a put-down for women. 2. Nobody believes in misandry except MRAs and men who are whiny about losing their privilege. 3. You think that white knighting is real. 4 you think that female privilege is real (that’s what i”m guessing privileged b-word means).
5. It’s not our movement. Please gtfo. Or is that me “mocking” male issues?
And I hadn’t even noticed “is acting as priviledged b-word”. I’m very gullible, when people tell they are something, my first instinct is almost to believe them.
“You’re a talking chair? That’s great! Uh, wait a minute…”
I can believe a feminist would believe in the absurd concept of misandry, but none would called a fellow feminist being doxxed a “privileged bitch”. My bad.
They’re making our point for us, yet again. They just don’t seem to see that they’re doing pretty much exactly what anyone would expect from them, a kind of hysterical malevolence.
And they claim not to be a hate group *eyeroll*.
Is there anything we can do to help her? She doesn’t deserve this sort of overwrought vilification. Heaven forbid she should actually tell a man to STFU!
I’m gullible with lots of the trolls too, in that I sort of assume good faith sometimes. Like that one racist guy who kept calling black men “boys” I actually assumed they were talking about kids until someone who read the article told me they were 22-24. So…
@Bagryanova Yeah, you’re a feminist using phrases like “white knight” and “misandry” … fuck off back to Troll Mountain.
David, please send Redhead my support and if she would like to get in touch, I’m happy for her to have my email address.
Thank you, David, for bringing all this into the light. The private militia that calls itself avfm depends on the dark for its work to be fully successful. Here, they doxxed the person, wrote inflammatory and contemptuous things about her, and played a new game on the mensrights sub. Propaganda theory must have a word for this; write something hateful, then loudly and sanctimoniously ask that readers, who as usual are about to unleash a torrent of intimidation, NOT DO SO. This piques the interest of many who would not otherwise have read the avfm link in the sub, who are then inflamed and go after the victim. avfm gets to direct its intimidation squad to the victim and pretend at the same time that it did not do so. That avfm is using this technique of false disavowal is a credit to you, David. I think they are concerned about their image as misogynous thugs and have at least reached a point where they don’t just call openly for intimidation any more. No one but you is bringing all this out; the women victims are generally hand-picked for their isolation and vulnerability and are so crushed by the threats they are completely silenced from responding. avfm’s rage tactics will inevitably lead some deranged person to kill or physically injure one of their victims at some point; the step from doing it in detailed fantasy to doing it in reality is a small one.
Bagryanova:
Go step on a Lego.
If anyone wants to send her messages of support, email them to me and I’ll send them along to her.
Bagryanova, so anyone who dares speak up against anything deserves death threats?
Seems legit. /sarcasm.
David, do you still have any contacts at Salon? I think the best way to combat this kind of thing is to expose it to mainstream media attention.
Yeah, Bagryanova, I really believe you’re a feminist and you’re just worried about The Cause. That’s why you used the term “white knight”, and why you think her behavior is a bigger feminist issue than a woman being silenced with threats of rape and violence.
To you, and to all the other assholes who are gonna come in here and whine about us “agreeing with her behavior” or “but she was so rude” or whatever, I’m only gonna say this once: THE ISSUE HERE IS NOT WHAT SHE SAID OR DID. THE ISSUE IS THE REACTION TO WHAT SHE SAID AND DID. She is being terrorized, in a specifically sexist way, and I don’t want to hear any JAQing off about what she did to “deserve” it.
Yeah, that first comment? Part of me wishes that I could believe David faked it, simply because the notion that Bags is on the level is depressing. And yet it’s true. Blech.
First round of brain-bleach–I give folks the Purple Dragon Sea-Slug, as a reminder that the universe contains infinite forms of beauty and majesty:
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sea-slug1.jpg?w=450&h=301
So, MRAs, what have you done to abolish the oppression of males everywhere. Bullied a woman you say? Did it work?
Oh, I missed “misandry”, “b-word”, and calling a woman privileged wrt sexism. Might be easier to pretend to be a feminist if you weren’t so bloody ignorant, Bagryanova.
Bagryanova: If you’re a feminist, I’m the Tooth Fairy. Shut up.
PaulE is soooooo disingenuous with his pleas for no doxxing and non-violence. Remember, this shit gives him a boner.
Reblogged this on Dead Wild Roses and commented:
Evidence of the ugly side (is there a good side?) of the MRA movement. This is prima fucking facia proof of the ugly current of misogyny that runs deep in our society. Go to Manboobz and see the despicable MRA movement terrorize someone for expressing their views on their particular shit movement.
Trying to find brain bleach and not working. Plus a friend of mine lost his second child in a still birth so not that great of a day. :(
@Abnoy
Yeah, those are some real “freedom-fighters”, centering all their attacks on a single target who’s not remotely prominent or high-ranking. Taking down the feminist stranglehold on government and the media, one college student at a time! Wait…
Also, what the fuck does gender equality have to do with anything? You think we’d be OK with this kind of terror campaign if it was happening to a man?
And if feminists were threatening men with rape for daring to tell a woman stfu, you might have a… well, no, you still wouldn’t have point.
Brave MRAs, fighting for the freedom to rape and abuse people without punishment from the law.
http://cheezburger.com/7297485568
This made me smile.
The thing that gets me is that these people have no clue how privileged they are to not have to worry that anyone will find out about their nasty statements. None. They know they can spew all they want and none of them would be fired or shamed for what they have said. No girlfriends or wives or mothers will cut them out their lives. Nope. They get clean away with it without realising that is a privilege that they have.
Abnoy: Where’s this equality that you’re seeing? Seriously, shit-spewer, define it.
And either way, doing what these people are doing is illegal. I do not know of one place on earth where it is perfectly legal to threaten a person with death. Not one.
So equality equals equal violence? The “if feminists want to be equal then I can punch them” argument is totally missing the point of equality. It’s sad that some men treat each other that bad to begin with.
@Princessbonbon
the horse made me smile, too. *is thankful for brain bleach*
Really peaceful and reasonable men are in the MRM… NOT
yeah, this is criminal inciting to violence maybe as avfm has to be fully aware from past experience what will occur after its incitements. It’s time for the FBI to read avfm’s secret backroom thread to be sure none of the plotting there rises to the level of criminality.
The worst part of this is that because this is online, a lot of it isn’t actually breaking the law in Canada. Ever since Harper made internet and phone communication exempt from the hate speech laws, this shit has become easier for people.
Wait, hate speech doesn’t count if you do it over the internet?
…
WTF
Well, the death threats are still illegal, at least I hope they are.
I’d say I’m glad I don’t live in Canada, but I bet the hate speech laws in the US are even worse because FREEEDOM OF SPEECH!!eleventy
And yeah, Stephen Harper in his authoritarian social conservative glory mandated that hate speech laws no longer apply to the internet. Our dear glorious leader everyone.
“This, apparently, is what “Men’s Human Rights Activism” consists of: the doxxing and harassment of individual women.”
Very funny Mr. Futrelle. First off, she did know that she was getting videotaped, and she did protest at a CAFE event where people have gotten doxxed before. There exists another video of her up on YouTube at another protest about a year ago. She does engage in commentary there. Consequently, she almost surely knew… or at least had to anticipate… her reading of Lindy West would end up on YouTube. Again, that she might get doxxed also comes as reasonable to anticipate, given the doxxing of people at the Warren Farrell protest in November. I don’t like the violent comments that some have directed at her, but that’s nothing new for very visible protestors, is it?
Now I will mock you Mr. Futrelle.
Apparently your commentary on Men’s Human Rights Activism consists of just looking at part of the picture so you can mock the Men’s Human Rights Movement. It must be so nice to get so many readers for doing so little work! I envy you, Mr. Futrelle, you’re my hero in commenting on the Men’s Human Rights Movement, because you’ve got such a big audience!!!!
More seriously, the National Coalition for Men has recently sued the U. S. Selective Service System: http://ncfm.org/2013/04/action/ncfm-sues-selective-service-for-requiring-only-men-to-register-for-the-draft/ Also, you can find Dan Perrins at an intactivist protest here: http://ncfm.org/2013/04/action/ncfm-sues-selective-service-for-requiring-only-men-to-register-for-the-draft/ And then there’s the issue of family courts…
I see your Stephen Harper and raise you One Arizona State Legislature (where one of the members recently told people to raise their guns and shoot them into the air.)
So she should’ve known that MRAs want to silence and intimidate any woman who doesn’t agree with them? And then let them?
Wow, you sound like a reasonable human being and not a misogynistic troll
/sorry if I’m pissing of anyone (not misogynistic) today, I’m just cranky due to being sick and this… happening so much.
I thought mocking was supposed to be funny.
I mean David sometimes is not able to be super funny because the subject matter is so nasty but generally he manages to frame things in an amusing way.
What Doug Spoonwood has not done is be funny. Mr. Spoonwood has managed to beat up his exclamation point key a lot though. I suppose that is funny if you think beating keys is funny.
First post — worst impression of a feminist, EVER.
And this, the stupid actually hurts:
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom- fighter. And feminists always claimed to seek equality after all.”
What? Threatening her is making her equal? Your’re too stupid to post here, son.
Gotta say, a society in which anyone attending a political protest should expect to receive rape and death threats is not a society that I want no matter who the targets might be.
Redhead, if you read this, I support you. Be safe please!
I’m sorry Mr. Spoonwood but how does threatening the safety of a human being got anything to do with what you fight for? We all want equality, why can’t we work together for it an not resort to doxxing and harassment of people who don’t deserve it?
Doug Spoonwood, you are being neither eloquent, or humorous. You lose, please leave.
1) Even if she knew it was a possibility, that doesn’t make the doxxing and harassment OK, asshole
2) Do you really think any given protester at an event has a reasonable expectation of becoming the target of HUNDREDS of threats, all over their social media accounts? Talk about a chilling effect.
You just don’t think they’re terribly important
Which I notice you’ve declined to address. Probably because it’s fucking weaksauce. Meanwhile, feminists have been opposed to the male-only draft for decades, and quite a few of us see the male circumcision issue as part of our overall quest for individual bodily autonomy (if maybe not a priority in the face of some other issues), so once again, your super-important human rights movement proves that its legitimate grievances don’t actually distinguish it from it hated enemy, FEMINISM.
Doug: so women should just expect rape and death threats every time they speak up? FUCK YOU.
@Shiraz
Well, yeah. It’s Abnoy.
I will respond to her concerns with the same words she used in response to the issue of male suicide; “cry me a river”.
,.. confused. Did she say anything about male suicide?
Also, fuck you and your lack of basic human empathy.
A reblogué ceci sur Au courant and commented:
Being doxxed. OK, now I know how it’s called. Zionists do it too, by the way.