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my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …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.
Oh, great. All the MRA asswipes are oozing out of the woodwork.
MRAs: rape and death threats come standard, human decency does not come at all.
@Hellkell
This is actually the most MRAs I’ve seen in the comments here by far.
*gets a buck of water and some ammonia* I swear I had just cleaned this last week…
Probably has something to do with the fact that they’re being objectively shitty people right now, so they feel they have to get defensive. Most of the time, they could easily be dismissed as “Oh, look at those silly MRAs, living in their fantasy world again.”
Not that they SHOULD be, but they COULD be.
MRAs: Doing their damnedest to claim ALL the spots under “Victim-Blaming Asshats” on Jeopardy.
MRAS fight for freedom by harassing someone who appeared at protest one time. No actual work need apply.
RE: Mark Jones
What did she say about male suicide?
Also, one woman on a Youtube video saying something asinine != hundreds of death and rape threats. Sense of proportion, yes?
Aaand this is why I’ve been reluctant to be public online. I haven’t been trolled much, but urgh…
RE: freemage
That slug is awesome and helps me feel better. (I’ve had a VERY busy week. A good week, but exhaustingly busy, so I’m feeling blurgh. On the plus side, I made $150!)
“,.. confused. Did she say anything about male suicide?
Also, fuck you and your lack of basic human empathy.”
Yes, her response (as captured on video and shown on youtube) to the question about what’s being done to address the male suicide issue was to start singing “cry me a river” in a falsetto voice in a mocking tone.
So much for empathy.
Random rape, catcalls etc. are ways of raising the general fear level so women feel and behave like mice.
Reading this made me very sad. Thanks for the good people who support her.
http://cheezburger.com/7258263296
Well I saw this.
What are MRAs doing about male suicide? Fuckall from what I can see. What’s wrong, too busy harassing women?
RE: Mark Jones
…soooo, this totally justifies hundreds of death and rape threats. I see. Obviously you have a very good point and I shall now totally rethink all of this.
Man, hell hath no fury like a bruised ego.
Yes, and this opinion justifies the whole page full of vile shit on ever single piece of social media she has….
ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!?!??!
Doug silver spoon-fed: is seriously the non-existent draft your biggest concern in life? Get over it. There is no fucking draft anymore. Are you going to go cry about the titanic now? Other people in this world have real threats. Like the woman in the post who is getting real fuckin death threats today! A more real, and immediate concern, unlike the draft which pretty much doesn’t fucking exist anymore. And if you go and wank-cry that men at forced to in wars blah blah… At least the men were given fucking guns, unlike the women and children casualties in war-torn parts of the world, who were/are given nothing for defense. Fuck sakes you’re an ignorant asshole. STFU.
Mark: shove it. I’m not being nice today. Fuck you, you ignorant fuck who uses the misfortune of others for your own gain. You don’t give a shit about suicides, male or female. You only want to use it as a beating stick. Feminists care about all suicide victims and to claim they are not is an outright lie. Especially since many suicide victims are trans, lgbt, bullied, victims of abuse… Many of which have connections to problems with patriarchy and to deny this is just being disingenuous .
Um, does anyone who’s not an unreliable source like Mark Jones have anything to say about this?
Because I can definitely see someone being like “Well, women are privileged because Male Suicide” then I’d be like “cry me a fucking river” because they clearly don’t understand anything.
You. Do. Not. Have. Any. It’s not about whether she does. It’s about YOU not having any for the completely out-of-proportion response.
Jeez, I thought MRAs thought men were smarter than women. You’re sure not helping your cause, buddy.
So Mark Jones is bravely defending those who are threatening to rape and gut her! Because that is totally a rational response!
MRAS are totally real activists!
They just specialize in sending threats to home addresses and trying to get women raped and killed.
Because that is totally how true activism is done.
Forgive typos all. I am so many levels of pissed off at these mra shit heads right now. I have literally no sympathy f
RE: hellkell
Didn’t we just have some MRA troll a while ago saying that men just need to man up and not be depressed or suicidal anymore? Yeah, he really impressed me, that one.
The appropriate response for someone showing a marked lack of empathy is to say this “That is a terrible way to react to someone suffering. You should be ashamed that is the way you think of someone who is depressed.”
Not a death threat, rape threat or other disgusting comments.
I love purple slugs! They are my screen saver!
@Mark Jones
What I see in the video is people screaming at each other about how many subjects? Subjects that have been addressed again and again and then misused by MRA to derail because they don’t care enough to actually inform themselves? A woman trying to get one sentence without being yelled into silence? Yeah, ‘cry me a fucking river’ would be my response to that, too.
No wonder people call MRAs the abuser lobby. Like any abusive partner, they use any minor justification to pile on disproportionate punishment.
Geez, princessbonnon, you think MRAS should not be horrible people? That is misandry! How dare you suggest they actually spend one moment actually caring about men who are depressed and commit suicide! MRAS need to spend much more time threatening to rape women in order for justice to be done!
Mark Jones said so!
“…soooo, this totally justifies hundreds of death and rape threats. I see. Obviously you have a very good point and I shall now totally rethink all of this.”
This is a non sequitur. I never justified or defended any of the responses or threats, nor did I comment on whether I felt the response was out of proportion, I merely stated my indifference towards her predicament, a similar indifference she feels towards males who commit suicide.
Do all commenters here have trouble understanding the English language?
No Mark, only you have trouble understanding the English language.
** De-lurks to +1 the support for Redhead **
So, Mark, what are you doing about the male suicide rate?
Be aware that while you’re answering, I’m going to interrupt you a dozen times to ask you to address what I want to talk about instead. You’re not allowed to get mad, though, or I’ll dox you and make sure you get hundreds of threats to yourself and your family.
(I am genuinely interested in what you’re doing about the male suicide rate, though, since you seem to think the “wrong” answer is grounds for large-scale harassment)
@Leftwingfox
QFT. Also, your icon makes me giggle like a fool every time.
Oh I know, it is misandry to expect someone to act like a decent human being. I haz a shamed.
This comment is full of so much crap it could be used as part of an episode of that stupid Penn and Teller show.
Still a non sequitur, since the disproportion of the reaction and this woman’s “predicament” are the exact topics of this post.
Haha, Mark thinks WE’RE the ones who don’t understand words. The MRM has the market cornered on that.
“No Mark, only you have trouble understanding the English language.’
Haha, that makes sense.
What a rage-filled little community you have going on here, like a bunch of little Rumplestiltskins dancing around a fire about to tear themselves in half. You should all learn some breathing exercises.
No, seriously, where are those BINGO cards?
Listen Marky, you came on to here to derail about what about the menxzz to try to shut us up and now you’re being condescending with “oh, you should calm down with breathing exercises.
Do you need attention? Because I’m sure I’ve got some doggy biscuits left over I can throw on the neighbors yard to get you out of ours.
Right, Mark, the problem is us. Fuck off.
Bagryanova:
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.
If that’s your idea of feminism (i.e. blaming her for being attacked), you can leave, we don’t need you.
We sure as fuck don’t need you making apologia for people who are engaging in terrorism, and saying she should be raped and killed for telling someone to shut the fuck up.
Those are the people you want to white knight? Those are the shitbords you are throwing a woman under the bus to defend? That’s a response you think not unreasonable?
Because I think it’s fucking unreasonable, and you are telling me I’m wrong, ergo you are telling me they are right.
Go sleep on an anthill
Dave – Count me as another vote of support for the Red-Haired Feminist.
I know Mark, the only reasonable response to her is to harass her endlessly, I realize that you are going to double down on that.
Do you even understand how ravening and horrible the MRM looks right now? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you are even capable of understanding how horrible this makes the MRM look.
@Doug:
“Very funny, your honour. She knew she was being videotaped as she stated her opinion. Irregardless of what that opinion was or is, she had also stated her opinion before! In another event that was likewise videotaped, a whole year ago. Consequently, she almost surely knew or at least had to anticipate that she was going to get death threats, have her house and address located, the name of her old dog dug up and used against her, her tumblr invaded, her twitter, even vacant as it was, spammed. Surely she must have known that merely be having an opinion, others were allowed to post her pictures online with inflammatory remarks, calls for death by black penis, that some people would take great pleasure in watching her lifeless carcass strewn across the street.
Little bitch was totally asking for it, is all I’m saying, your honour. That ain’t no lie”
No.
You are wrong.
Having an opinion, no matter how reprehensible, is not sufficient grounds for others to call upon your body to be destroyed, especially in conjunction with the release of your private information.
People here often say “Step on a lego”, because it is painful but never fatal, and would do no lasting harm.
Notice how, despite oh say, the Spearhead literally calling for single mothers to serve time in whore camps or aVFM running editorials wherein they call for someone to savagely, so that the crepscules splatter, beat someone up for being snarky, no one here wants the MRA to “Fucking die”. No one calls for them to “have their insides strewn out along the street”.
Do you not find the response out of proportion? Do you not find the sheer malice involved staggering? Tell me, mate, if you don’t find this a typical example of angry thinking, when some of the first thing people jump to shout as insults is they “They let the redhead out of the kitchen again, fellas! Gotta control your bitches!”.
Doesn’t it make you wonder where there are some accidental mechanisms in place that help foster aggression towards women? Whether or whether not some language and some ideas when used to express dismay neccesarily inform a stereotype? How some backlashes bear more a mark surprise at the “Bitchiness” of the speaker, rather than any factual remark against her statements?
What people here jump to ain’t “Your opinion on male suicide is kinda out of sync with basic empathy for other people”. What people here jump to is “Bitch, go choke and die”.
And why is that?
… You tell me :)
http://cheezburger.com/7168694272
Look, our Kirby was in a basket!
See, this is the proper way to derail-with cutery instead of assholery.
Speaking of rage filled communities, take a look a the MRM! Nothing but rage, rape and death threats.
Actual activism? MISANDRY! How dare anyone suggest men do something to help other men!
Feel free to leave then, Mark. It’s not like you’re doing anything but wasting everybody’s time by being here, after all. You can even tell your nasty little friends how you left us feminazis all stumped and speechless. Since it’s what they want to believe anyway, they probably won’t check.
Uhm, Mark Jones, ignoring everything else: Her not caring about male suicide victims(assuming that is even the case), makes it okay for you to dismiss everything else?
So your own empathy is dependent on hers?
And that accomplishes…?
@Bostonian, implying that commenting on a blog isn’t activism is MISANDRY
Dougie: 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!!!!
Ah… the “cherry-picking” claim.
Ok, show us the rational/reasonable/moderate MRM.
I dare ya.
And… why, if this is such a big issue, don’t they have the readership/traction Manboobz does? Why, if this is such a big deal is the face of, “The Movement” Paul Elam, Eivind Berge, Peter-Nolan and their ilk?
Why can’t the “moderates” drown the extremists out?
I’ll tell you why, those guys are what passes for moderate.
Again, that she might get doxxed also comes as reasonable to anticipate, given the doxxing of people at the Warren Farrell protest in November.
So terrorism and intimidation are standard operating procedure. Thanks for confessing.
Your “movement” is fucked.
More seriously, the National Coalition for Men has recently sued the U. S. Selective Service System:
Ah… so they have Joined the National Organization for Women. Welcome to The Ranks of Feminism, dude.
Fade: Oy… every time something like this pops up I get a “i don’t want to live in this world” feeling.
It makes me angry. It makes me feel the way I did in Iraq, only now I don’t have license to kill people I think are threatening me, or people I work with.
“I know Mark, the only reasonable response to her is to harass her endlessly, I realize that you are going to double down on that.
Do you even understand how ravening and horrible the MRM looks right now? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you are even capable of understanding how horrible this makes the MRM look.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “double down”.I haven’t commented on what I think about the response to her, I stated that I don’t care about her predicament. Putting words in someone’s mouth (or building a strawman by attributing an opinion to someone who hasn’t stated it) is pretty weak, but then again this is manboobz, I wouldn’t have expected less.
Judging by the thousands of comments on the handful of videos I’ve seen of the event (I was also there in person), it’s not the MRM who’s coming off as looking bad.
To the MRM, everything is misandry.
VEGETABLES ARE MISANDRY
NAIL POLISH IS MISANDRY
THINKING MEN SHOULD GET OFF THEIR ASSES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO THEM IS MISANDRY
Mark, you seem to have missed my question: what are you, personally, doing about the male suicide rate?
Did we ever clarify whether or not unscented candles are misandry? What if they’re unscented but bright pink?
So out of a huge long page of hateful, violent and nasty crap someone says “right on girl!” and that is the proof the PROOF I TELLS YA that Feminists are evil.
Mark, what’s the weather like in your reality? I may take my next vacation there.
How could anything look worse than death and rape threats from the MRM, idiot?
Obviously someone who says she was correct Hellkell.
Anytime someone agrees with a woman it is Misandry!!!!Eleventy!
Marky: This is a non sequitur. I never justified or defended any of the responses or threats, nor did I comment on whether I felt the response was out of proportion, I merely stated my indifference towards her predicament, a similar indifference she feels towards males who commit suicide.
Bullshit.
Accepting, arguendo, the claim you make (i.e. that in response to a question about male suicide, she said, “cry me a river”) the two are not equivalent.
1: She was addressing a more global concern; one which is attenutated.
2: You made a direct response to a specific action.
So, that’s the first failure.
Secondly, even if she had been told of a specific suicide, and shown zero empathy for that person, or that person’s family, such an action is not equivalent to a hate campaign meant to terrorise someone.
And you, by dismissing it with a claim of equivalence are saying it acceptable. You are arguing that because of what she did the reaction is of not worthy of notice, nor disdain.
You thus are saying you agree with it.
In short, you are encouraging it, not even with the tacit assent of silence, but by actively saying you don’t care if members of the MRM engage in terrorism.
What a rage-filled little community you have going on here,
So unlike the MRM, what with the measured and reasoned response to someone who said something they disagreed with, and which you don’t have any problem with.
As to the rage here, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it (nor the big head, either).
Sure, Mark, the harassment is totally not coming from the MRM, A Voice For Men is not an MRA website, after all.
Oh wait, it is? and they are one of the groups that doxxed her?
So you think that people other than MRAs and hangers on are threatening her with rape and death? Prove it.
Also, since you think it is perfectly rational for the MRM to scream rape and death threats at someone, I doubt your rationality.
I would like to offer her my support…how can we do that?
Cassandrasays,
ALL CANDLES ARE MISANDRY
SO IS CHEESE
ALSO, CORGIS, THOSE ARE TOTALLY MISANDRY
I thought people went overboard posting clips of her over and over.
The threats, hate comments and posting personal info is really terrible behavior. It’s hard to read that stuff.
dani pettas:
I thought people went overboard posting clips of her over and over.
The threats, hate comments and posting personal info is really terrible behavior. It’s hard to read that stuff.
So what are doing about it?
I think supporters should flood her comment boards, Twitter, Facebook, etc. with words of support & encouragement. I hope she stays strong, doesn’t back down & that something is done about this.
I would also still like to see the rational, non misogynist MRM. I have been waiting for someone to actually show a site, a document, hell, even one reasonable person, who wants to work for men’s issues and is not blaming women for everything wrong in the world.
I always say, MRAs are great freedom fighters, if you’re using it in the same sense as fire fighters. They do a great job of lessening freedom for other people through hatred and threats! Gandhi would be so proud.
Oh right then, that makes the doxxing and the death threats a-okay then. At least if you have no sense of humanity…
It isn’t really “part of the picture.” This is the standard MRM modus operandi, dude. These are your people. Own it.
And hi, Mark Joes. How does it feel being a colossal asshole who thinks death threats are in any way comparable to someone saying something that hurts your feelings? What do you do if someone ahead of you in the express checkout line has 11 items? Bludgeon them? And you call us angry…
Because seriously, guys, the
lurkerspeople who make death threats support himon emailin YouTube comments!@BlackBloc, the Mujahid guy sounds… odd. Something about the way it is phrased makes me think they aren’t legit. The insistence on writing “Allah” in arabic script but not adding “subhana wa ta’ala” afterwards, even abbreviated makes me think they are a non-Muslim emulating what they think a Muslim would sound like, without having spoken to many. But who knows.
I wager that I have done more effective work against male suicide in the last 6 months than Mark Jones or Spoon-billed MRA dude have done in their entire lives, by supporting various programs that support male prison inmates (reading programs, Just Detention, etc.).
But that is because my goal in life is to make the world a better place, if only slightly. Their goal is to make women suffer.
dani pettas: I mean it, what are you doing? Because coming here to tell us how bad you think it is don’t mean shit.
Are you taking advantage of being a poster at AVfM to tell them this is unacceptable? We know it’s bad. The MRM (as exemplified by the people like Markie) is coming in here to tell us she had it coming, and deserves nothing less.
So that’s who you need to be talking to, telling how wrong you think it is. Oh wait, you didn’t actually say it was wrong, just that it was “hard to read that stuff.”
That’s a ringing condemnation there.
So, let’s say for a moment that trolly actually does want to focus on preventing suicide among men. I am genuinely confused as to how sending death threats to this random woman who attended a protest and said things that pissed him/others off is supposed to accomplish that goal.
“Mark, you seem to have missed my question: what are you, personally, doing about the male suicide rate?”
Oh sorry, I did miss it, and I’m glad you asked.
As well as being a board member for an organization that works with teenagers in areas in Toronto that are dominated by the Metro Toronto Housing Corporation (recently expanded to include the entire G.T.A.), I am working with a major NGO on a soon to be announced program that will be aimed specifically at boys and will help educators identify which boys may be more likely at risk. There are signs that are fairly obvious but people tend to ignore.
I also help run a youth centre in my little community and provide more than half of the funding for it. It gives kids in my sleepy town something to do other than drink, take drugs, and engage in harmful activities that sometimes impact their entire futures
I have appeared on television numerous times advocating for reforms in our education system that would benefit autistic children.
That’s not even the half of it, but should be enough to counter your arrogant implication that I’m not doing anything.
I’m starting to think that’s not their real goal. And by “starting to” I mean “absolutely convinced by all available evidence”.
The only way this would make sense is if they believed that men commit suicide because feminists turn up at MRA lectures and protest them. Which, um, well, in my experience when people try to commit suicide there’s usually a rather more immediate reason for their doing so.