For A Voice for Men, and its Edmonton offshoot, terrifying women is a form of “human rights activism.”
Men’s Rights Edmonton activist at work
So the self-described “human rights activists” at A Voice for Men have found three more women to harass. Here’s the story, which for many of you will have a depressingly familiar ring:
Members of Men’s Rights Edmonton, a small group that is for all intents and purposes a local chapter of A Voice for Men, has been putting up pictures targeting Lise Gotell, the chair of women’s and gender studies at the University of Alberta. The pictures, which seem inspired by “Wanted” posters of yore, feature a large portrait of Gotell and the caption:
Theft isn’t black. Bank fraud isn’t Jewish. And rape isn’t male.
“Just because you’re paid to demonize men doesn’t mean rape is gendered. Don’t be that bigot.
Gotell’s crime? She was involved in what appears to have been a remarkably effective rape awareness campaign focusing on date rape and featuring the slogan “Don’t Be That Guy.”
A Voice for Men took exception to the campaign because, even thought it did deal with the male victims of rape, it didn’t devote equal time to the problem of evil, false-accusing “girls.” No, really. Men’s Rights Edmonton Activists put up “satirical” versions of the campaign’s posters with the slogan “Don’t Be that Girl.” Now, MR-E and AVFM, at least according to the “argument” advanced on their new poster, seem to be upset that the campaign didn’t devote equal time to the problem of female rapists. [Note: this paragraph has been corrected; see note at end of piece.]
Gotell spoke out against the posters, and now Men’s Rights Edmonton and AVFM are doing their best to smear her as a “bigot.” Because she doesn’t believe that women are responsible for half of all rapes.
Since this is not actually true — more on this in a later post — it’s hard to see how this makes her a bigot.
As a rule, I don’t support tearing down the posters of one’s ideological enemies. Free speech and all that. But these posters are different: they’re slanderous personal attacks designed to harass an individual. Were they posted in my neighborhood I would tear them down.
And evidently that’s what some people in Edmonton have been doing.
Indeed, one recent night, several members of Men’s Rights Edmonton claim to have caught two women doing just that. While they don’t seem to have video footage of the women tearing down the posters, the MRAs filmed themselves following the women down the street and angrily confronting them for this alleged crime.
They posted the video to YouTube, and AVFM posted it as well, under the typically overheated title “Men’s Rights Edmonton confronts fascists.” They screencapped images of both women from the video and announced their intention to uncover their personal information:
MR-E would like to know the names of these two women so that charges of destruction of property can be laid against them. Also, the world should know the identities of those who seek to silence and censor messages advocating for human rights.
Of course, this is ridiculous. Tearing down a poster that was almost certainly posted illegally in the first place isn’t “destruction of property.” No one is going to be prosecuted for this. The police have better things to do.
But of course that’s not the real intent here. The real intent here is to scare the shit out of these women and other feminists by exposing them to harassment online — like the woman labeled “Big Red” and countless other women who have been targeted by AVFM and other MRAs (sometimes completely erroneously).
AVFM’s Paul Elam gave the game away with an “editor’s note” added to the post:
[A] woman who vandalizes man’s property and then flips him off when he confronts her about it on a dark street at night only acts in this manner because she is certain she has absolutely nothing to fear. Feminists terrified of MHRAs? My ass.
Elam could not have made it any clearer: the main point of this kind of “activism” — which has become AVFM’s bread and butter — is all about intimidating women, not helping men.
AVFM, where terrifying individual women is “human rights activism.”
Here’s the appropriate response to that:
CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: I rewrote the paragraph starting with “A Voice for Men took exception,” which confused AVRM/MR-E’s current objection to Gotell’s views with its original “argument” against the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign.
Posted on September 18, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, doxing, drama kings, edmonton, entitled babies, evil women, harassment, imaginary backwards land, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, not-quite-explicit threats, not-quite-plausible deniability, oppressed white men, paul elam, playing the victim, rape, rape culture, taking pleasure in women's pain, the poster revolution has begun, things that aren't fascism and tagged antifeminism, edmonton, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, rape, rape culture. Bookmark the permalink. 937 Comments.
Alice – I’ve no idea where dudebro originated; I’ve only seen it here, but oy, it describes these jackasses.
katz is the proud creator of A Voice for Pierre, as well as of the term dudbro. I’m seeing a wonderful collaboration in the future. :)
becausescience:
THIS.
kittehs – I know “dudebro” I’ve seen in Sinfest (it’s a pretty good feminist webcomic, actually; the earlier ones were more offensive for the heck of it, but the author realized that it was wrong and has since been trying to rectify that and do better). I don’t know where the term itself comes from though, although I’m quite sure it comes from SOMEWHERE (maybe Tumblr? Who knows?).
Ah, nice. :D If katz wants to adopt the script, he’s more than free to.
*she
Afaik Katz is of the female persuasion. I think…Katz is one of those people where I can never seem to remember for sure, sorry Katz!
Argenti – OOPS! My bad! Sorry Katz!
*this is why I should have used a gender neutral pronoun until I know better* >_>
You might want to check out druidwinter, it seems she (?) only is lifting David’s content directly for her blog without contributing anything beyond a spam link back to it, and that blog is an aggregate of TERF bullshit. It may be an automated bot by the TERF brigade to try and generate traffic for their sites (just like how they hijacked Pandagon’s old URL) by pulling feminist content and associating with TERF bigotry.
Good catch, BlackBloc — I’ve emailed David to make sure he sees your comment.
WordPress.com now has a “reblog” function ala tumblr. Druidwinter is literally just using a feature linked att he top of the website if you’re logged in.
What is the point of reblogging? Honestly, it’s like stealing one’s blogpost. I mean, you’re crediting the original author, but still. What is the point if you’re going to reblog it with a one-line comment?
Trae Dorn, I don’t think our problem is with the reblog function per se. But if a TERF is using it to support a transphobic site, David may want to ban them.
Yeah, I don’t get the point of reblogging either. It’s one thing if you’re making a substantial post of your own talking about the original, but otherwise, why bother unless you’ve a sizeable readership and want to direct them to blogs worth seeing? And in this instance, I hardly think a TERF would like this place, at least if she’d bothered to read any of the comments.
Reblogging is for shit on tumblr; I don’t have any interest in it on blogs. DEFINITELY not thrilled about it being claimed by TERFs, but there’s nothing really preventing them from copy-pasting and linking… unless Dave decides to focus on transmisogyny for a while.
I didn’t look too deeply at Druidwinter’s site, so I can’t speak to its contents, I was just pointing out manboobz.com itself was what allowed the reblog. I figure WordPress.com is tryingt o ape tumblr since tumblr has skyrocketed in popularity for casual blogging
I took a look down the page; it seems to be largely reblogged TERF shit with the odd transphobic comment in support. Gross.
Gross. I have no patience for that horseshit. Sylvia Rivera forever.
“Sylvia Rivera forever.”
Seconding that!
I’m going to take a slightly different take on the CDC report. Forgive my rambling.
First, I do think there’s evidence that sexual assault against men is vastly underreported, and the rates of women abusers is generally higher than is considered. Ally Fogg had a pretty substantial collection of papers supporting that, so I’m loathe to dismiss it just because the MRAs are humping it madly.
The major area where this is different is Rape Culture, or rather the part of rape culture that uses the THREAT of rape as a means to control women, to dictate how women specifically should dress, act, or abstain to keep from being raped. Men don’t get that control message.
The other part of rape culture, the part that blurs boundaries and ignores consent, is one that affects both men and women. To that end, the consent campaign done by Lisa Gotell are good for both men and women, and the asshats at AVFM are hurting male victims of sexual assault by removing a major point of the campaign.
Worse, the attitudes they have about “villifying male sexuality” are actively contributing to rape culture against men. Men are portrayed as always willing, always on, and eager to have women actively pursue them. (rape culture)Why, what man wouldn’t like a surprise blow-job?(/rape culture)
When we talk about rape being an act of power and dominance, I think that also needs to be expanded: as an act of power, rape can be an act of entitlement, especially when it comes to acquaintance rape. I think this is a major area where campaigns like “Don’t Be That Guy” can help with, the people who believe that they are entitled to the sexual affections of their date/crush/relative.
I still think the current solutions from feminists who don’t buy into gender essentialism are the best solution: especially the Pro-Consent campaigns and focus on dismantling toxic gender stereotypes that affect everyone. I just want to try and avoid throwing victims under the bus or engaging in reflexive oppression olympics when confronting idiot MRAs looking to justify their misogyny.
What do you mean by “underreported?” Do you mean not reported to the police? If so, the percentage of police reports among a set of rapes reported in the survey has no bearing on whether the number of male rape victims has been underestimated.
If you’re talking about male rape victims not disclosing their experiences as readily as women, it really depends. I’m sure male rape victims are less likely to use the word “rape” to describe their experiences because of bullshit rape culture norms. But if the screening questions in these victimization surveys are worded properly and the results show that rape against men isn’t as common as rape against women, then the assertion that the percentage of rape against men is underestimated is untenable.
I’ll just need to insert a little Pierre into that script. (I’ve been shameless recently about posting comics that Pierre isn’t even in.)
Well, that’s one of the most nonsensical things I’ve ever read.
What the fuck is it with this false equivalency when it comes to rape? Pointing out that cases where men sexually assault women are more prevalent isn’t “misandry”. The demand that rape by women should be considered equal is utterly dumbfounding – especially since it isn’t based on any studies but pure conjecture by obviously biased individuals. So, what, they want people to make that claim like it’s true because…it hurts their feelings? I honestly don’t get it.
It’s no more different than hearing creationists bitch and moan about how “intelligent design” should be considered equally valid to the theory of evolution, despite lacking any evidence from established or even bothering to do a study themselves. Demanding that something be considered a fact doesn’t make it a fact that others “just haven’t accepted yet”, especially when you’ve just pulled it straight from your ass.
katz – Go for it. You could probably have Pierre take the child’s part in calling the dudebro a weirdo, or add a part yourself. :P
Yeah. As a male survivor of sexual violence, I can’t say I’ve EVER felt that the MRM gives a shit about me, except as a blunt object to beat women with. In fact, since a man was my rapist, I get the sense they consider me a failed representative–they need (1) a man who’s a surivor of rape from a woman, and (2) who generalizes that experience to women as a whole. I do not fit their bill.
Unfortunately that seems to be the case
Nick – agreed; but please, not “bitch”. Whine, carp, grizzle, whatever, but not the gendered ones.
Re: Pierre – I was wondering if he could be sitting next to the woman, or maybe accompanying the child (or both? Small child on his lap?). It’d make him a witness rather than the protagonist, but his reactions are always worth seeing.
This link is for anyone who wishes to debunk the MRA claim about 50% of all women are rapists. The video is the refutation from my YouTube Channel. Feel free to use it anyway you wish to.
It just felt right at the moment, since that’s what I tend to refer to creationists’ constant dismissal and assault on scientific inquiry (“whining” seems like a massive understatement for the amount of fervor involved in their efforts, as does “carp” and “grizzle” – neither which I ever use because they’re awkward-sounding). I don’t use the phrase most of the time, actually. This is just one of the cases where I do to express my particular disdain.
Otherwise, okay – I’ll keep that in mind for the future.
@seleukosnicator10: Thanks for the link.
Are we really going to have another round of “I can use gendered insults if I want to because they have a special personal significance for me”?
Jesus Christ, no – I just wanted to clarify why I used it at all.
I also said I’ll keep in mind not to use it here in the future when I post here. That’s it.
It’s not really surprising though, is it? Their explanations for everything are mixed up. What is feminism? To the right wing MRAs, it’s a cultural marxist plot to tear our society down!! To the left wing MRAs, it’s neo-nazism, a police state out to control or convict all men! To the religious it’s an atheist plot. To atheists it’s just another religion. Whatever you are, it is the opposite of you, and you must hate and fear it, lest ye be destroyed by it!
Still, the MRAs are the rational kids on the block, so this total consistency failure must be a result of feminism being Frankenstein’s ideology, rather than their scrabbling for post hoc rationalisations and being full of shit at a molecular level. (No, lurking MRA, that’s not an ad hominem attack, it’s just an insult. The difference is quite clear if you think about it.)
The logical consistency failures are what you get when you begin with the premise that X is bad and work backwards from there, instead of reaching the conclusion that X is bad after noticing all the things that make it so.
Coverage and traffic spread. It’s essentially someone going “This was cool, read it”, and spreading someone’s message far and wide. It’s a good tool for analysing your posts, as well. If lots of people reblog some thing on your blog, you struck a nerve, and should explore more in that direction.
It boils down to marketing, is what I’m saying.
Early morning. A PERSON is walking down a street, which is empty except for a VAGUE FIGURE who is currently trying to pin a piece of paper to one of the three lamppost. The other two already have pieces of paper on them, but the messy typography means the audience can’t see what they say. It is also a little misty, so some details are indistinct. Eerie music plays. Possibly this
A PERSON approaches the VAGUE FIGURE, stage right
A.P: “Top of the mornin’ old sport, excuse me, what might be you be doing?”
V.F: “ARRGHE, Millenium-hand-and-shrimp!”
A.P: “I didn’t catch that, could you repeat?”
V.F: “When the bonzai tree blooms in winter the eagle cherries will fall from the sky!”
A.P: “Uh… Are you positively all right, sir?
V.F “No, you’re supposed to say “Shark blood in the jelly pie”. That’s the call sign. We’ve practiced this all week, man. Amateurs”.
A.P “I don’t quite follow.”
V.F: “What are you, new at this? If we don’t code our language, the Feministasiwazinazi conspiracy will be able to uncover our chakra roots and block our manly essence in order to inferioriate our precious bodily fluids. Now grab a poster and shimmy the stickywax on the beeshive, right pronto”
A.P: “Someof that were words I understood, but I’m not entirely sure the rest of it was actually English”
V.F: “If you an’t grok me jive then I’m going to need to spacially relocate to a differentiating position in order to branch our mask signal because the hunter-killer HB’s will probably want to hamster-igate here at some point”
A.P, now visibly quite perplexed“HB’s?”
V.F,Turns around. Is wearing a gnome hat and a giant cut out Duke Nukem paper mask. His coat is made of posters.
V.F, “You know, hard bodies. Are you new at this? Didn’t you get your introduction course in ManSpeak, BallTalk and Grunting? How are we supposed to run a counter insurgency against the vile feminist oppressors if you don’t hit me with the swanpaddle on the left foretemple while jimmybillying? That means communicate, by the way.”
A.P: “Uh, Sir? I’m… a woman”
Fog clears slowly, and the sun comes out. Stage lights reveal that A.P is really A Woman, wearing a pretty flower bonnet.
V.F begins screaming
A Woman: “Sir! Sir! Calm down! Are you okay? Do I need to take you to a hospital? I know first aid. Are you having a stroke? Sir, please!”
V.Fstumbles away from A Woman, posters and glue flying everywhere, while he makes the Warding Gesture of the Erect Penis, the sign of a true MGTOW
V.F: “Out, Andrea! Out, SCUM! I deny you, Progressive One! I am strong in my transphobia! Your allure cannot sap my essence! I shall neither be friendzoned nor fatherjacked! My Elamium levels are too high for thee to match, verily, I shall stand strong against bothe spermbungling, scolding and scatterbrained hamster logic!”
A.W: “You are a very confusing man, but I think you are not in immediate danger, so I’m going to go away now.”
V.F: “Treeglue sap orange sky plum pillow! ORANGE SKY PLUM PILLOW!”
Suddenly, MRA’s spring from the bushes. They spring from the ground. They pop out from behind the two lampposts with a poster. One drops down from the sky
MRAs: “Plum pillow! Poster sniffle wobbleydedook!”
V.F: “Hipsnapperdash!”
A.W,surrounded by MRAs, A Woman is quite confused
A.W: “What the fuck?”
In a rush of activity, the MRA’s grab A Vague Figure and rushes him out, stage left, leaving behind posters and glue. While doing this, they can be heard chanting MGTOW. One stays behind
Remnant MRA: “So, did you know I how I can tell you two were best friends?”
A.W: “what”
rMRA: “It’s because you just looked at each other, right there. That tells me you’ve known each other for a long time. Hey, don’t worry, I won’t stay long, but I just gotta ask, do you know how to read a palm? I learned it just yesterday, and I’d love to show you”
A.W: “what”
she keeps her hands for herself
rMRA: “As you can see, your love line flows very evenly, which means you’re an intense feng shui enthusiast and enjoy skydiving while cooking pies.”
A.W: “… Fuck this.”
A woman walks away
Remnant MRA watches her go
rMRA: “She’s totally into me. I am so alpha. Well, better put up the rest of these posters.”
rMRA starts getting posters from the ground. He turns to the audience, and they can clearly see the poster for the first time. The heading reads: Don’t Be That Flark above a picture of a apple pie superimposed over a martian landscape
Scene end
I don’t get trying to distinguish between “right-wing” and “left-wing” MRAs when the whole ideology is reactionary regardless of such differences. Feels like a distraction rather than acknowledging complexity.
Kind of reminds me when debating with libertarians, who will bring up the minute differences between one sub-group or another. Nevermind that, despite all that, the ones who have the money and influence (i.e. Koch Bros. and their various institutes) are pushing a corporatist agenda. I was told by one self-proclaimed libertarian that they aren’t “true libertarians” – but I hear the same thing from Christians all the time when it comes to differing sects.
@seleukosnicator10
I was just going to post that video!
As far as the CDC study goes, I get why they didn’t call female on male rape “rape,” but don’t agree with it. I have zero problem with people pointing out that that wasn’t fair. But nobody is helping that case by lying about what the study actually shows. Sexual crimes are horrible and any amount of them is too many, you don’t have to inflate the real numbers for shock value. It seems to me that the people who started manipulating the study didn’t think there was enough rape going on to give a shit about. You don’t have to win or tie with women with rape for it to be awful, this isn’t the Rape Olympics.
And, yea… I’m starting to get really nervous about all this doxxing bullshit. I really think somebody they doxx/try to doxx is going to get hurt one day.
@saintnick88
I wasn’t trying to draw distinctions between left and right wing MRA ideology – as far as I can tell, there’s very little variation no matter where you’re coming from. There’s a guy I know, on whom I haven’t yet given up for some reason, who’s pretty outspoken about the importance of social safety nets and financial support for those in poverty… rants about welfare queens getting pregnant just so they can leech off the government. The point is that the other ways in which they identify themselves seems to determine their rationalisations.
I think it’s pretty clear that the MRM is socially conservative, at least with regard to gender relations, but the people who subscribe to it come from apparently all walks of life, and they seem to use their primary identification to build their rationalisations. Hence the left see feminism as right; the right as left; the religious as atheistic; the atheistic as religious; the libertarian as authoritarian… etc. Whatever an MRA is, feminism is the opposite, and any feminist who fails to fit their view of feminism is just “a kindly schoolteacher who calls themselves a nazi.”
You know, I don’t mind when they do that when there are free spaces around. It’s a bit obnoxious, but whatever. What bugs me is when they pick the seat next to me, and have a good ol’ spread there. I’m already as compact as is comfortable anyway, and now I have dudebro molecules attempting to share a location with my own molecules. Blargh. If your balls are really so big that you can’t close your legs for fear of that awful testicle pain… maybe sew a pocket into your pants for them? No, stop whining about girly stuff, sewing is manly. My socks are in one piece and I can pretend I’m James Bond in comfort, confident that my toe isn’t going to push through a hole, cutting off blood supply and giving me a tingly foot just as I’m about to get into a length parkour chase scene. Sewing is manly. I think I got off topic…
I suspect this is one topic where the old truism comes to the fore. When someone goes to the extreme right the person they’re most likely to meet is someone from the extreme right. Which is probably why you often see the confusion/conflation of communism with fascism.
To people younger than me – that’s most of you – that often seems a bit strange because the modern tendency is for left leaning people to be anti-racism and at least give lip service to pro-feminist views. That wasn’t always true.
“Right-wing MRA” sounds like an oxymoron. I just refer to leftist guys who spout off sexist crap as misogynists, which pretty much covers it imo.
Left-wing MRA, I mean. They’re all right wing, whether or not they’re willing to admit it.
Anyone with a spare “left” can use it to replace one of those “right”s I doubled up on above.
@ mildlymagnificent
Oh yeah. My dad used to be a union guy in the UK and he has some hair-raising stories to tell about racism within that movement back in the day. Even just a few years back some of his old union buddies were openly outraged about the fact that his boss at the time was Chinese.
I have plenty of left to spare, help yourselves!
*puts lefts in a bowl with a sign: “If you need a left, take a left. If you have a left, leave a left.”*
I try to let people label themselves and go from there. A left winger spouting misogynist crap is just a left wing misogynist, but if they self identify as an MRA, I’ll take them at their word and wonder how they hell they make the two things work together. I’ve had more trouble when skeptics identify as MRAs, but then the core recognition of skepticism is that people can be fooled, so that’s really just a failure of my own skepticism. (But damn it, guys, don’t you see the fallacies? Don’t you see them!?)
I can’t think of any response to someone who claims both to be a skeptic and to believe that women are all evil hellbeasts from the planet Misandry other than “LOL”.
That’s about right, Cassandra…though I tend to write out my reaction phonetically, so as to avoid giving the impression that I am merely chuckling and fully communicate the level of derision inherent in the laughter, which involves the loss of my bottom.
So the MHRAs in Canada have learnt something – if you goad women until they lose their cool, film those women losing their cool & then post it on You-tube, lots of unpleasant & nasty men will watch the film & then post nasty & unpleasant things about the women. Who knew? /sarcasm
Bernard Chapin is absolutely correct when he says that MRAs are libertarian by definition. If misandry was as widespread as Elam and co demand, then a framework exists for this to be redressed.
It would involve coherant activism, though, so MRAs won’t do it.
Bailierene, I read the article linked by Becausescience and it mentions two cases where women were doxxed (by an ex husband and an ex boyfriend rather than by mras) in one case fifty men came to the womans house one tried to break in and another tried to undress her daughter the second case was worse I don’t think I should go into the details. Anyway people have already been harmed by doxxing not by the mrm yet as far as I know but by misogynistic assholes just like them.
Sorry for spelling your name wrong that should be to baileyrenee
(Points up)
This is why when people say they support doxxing in certain circumstances I wonder if it’s because they haven’t thought the potential consequences through or because they just don’t care what might happen. Either way it’s a pretty damn irresponsible position to take.
Fibinachi – OMG they’ve taken Foul Ole Ron aboard!
Mind you, it’d increase their overall intellectual level, especially if he brought his Thinking Brain Dog with him.
I liked The Woman in your script. I got the distinct feeling she was Pierre’s sister – baffled, but polite.
Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.
Awwww, poor little girls got caught and confronted (oops, I mean “harassed”). It’s hilarious how you always try to play a victim card. Your pathetic, kittin boy, go fuck yourself. That would be the appropriate response for you.
It’s funny how the way you choose to frame a situation can determine whether it sounds serious or frivolous, isn’t it?
“Dude, they picked you up – for free – and took you to a camp? Even gave you free food, new clothes and helped you lose weight? Man, I would *love* that! I remember I went to camp once, it was summer, we did archery, it was totally cool. Didn’t get any new clothes though.”
(No, that’s not a false equivalence, I’m not implying a similarity between concentration camps and street harassment, just making a point about framing.)
Poor jonatma420. If David Futrelle upsets you so, maybe you shouldn’t read his blog.
@katz,
Re: Pierre on the bus, he can also be an example of a more reasonable way for men to sit. Once the guy goes off on his tear, maybe he can interject something like “If they’re that sensitive, maybe you should see a doctor,” which prompts the guy to start shrieking about “pussifying” medical care.
Taking interest in the ‘is rape of males is under-reported’ discussion.
I’d just like to point out that in my country a man can not, by legal definition, be raped, rape is such a strong word you see, so the law prefers ‘indecent assault’.
@jonatma,
You know what’s pathetic? It’s the coward who chases women on streets at night with a video camera and then gets on youtube to start a witch hunt.
@baileyrenee
oh blast! I screwed up the blockquoting. Sorry!
Underreported to the police and thus by the by the media in general. The rates that appear in the studies are probably far more accurate (depending on the study of course). To me, those studies are surprisingly high, even if they don’t show the MRA position of “Men have it as bad/worse, aren’t part of the problem”.
Again, modern feminist campaigns are focussing on the gender neutral issues of consent, which I think is exactly the right idea. A little token inclusion in these campaigns wouldn’t hurt either, even if it’s not “equal time”.
If AVFM _really_ wanted a helpful “Don’t be that girl” campaign, they would have a poster with a woman in a bar pressing against a guy who is obviously uncomfortable with the situation. Instead, they call the messenger a bigot and whine about “false accusations” which only helps the rapists.
@canuck with pluck,
Those are good questions. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know how much plausible deniability an MRA has if he doxxes a feminist and then someone else commits a crime against the that feminist. But I know that’s what their goal is. They want to harm the feminist without having any legal responsibility.
At least for the US (sorry I don’t know much about Canadian law), the person who doxxes could at least face lawsuits in civil court even if he doesn’t get charged with a crime. And a victim of doxxing would probably have a good case as a plaintiff, especially if the doxxing resulted in identify theft, stalking, or worse.
We got a live one! :D
Eh, I think “live” is overestimating his potential entertainment value.
If you mean jonatma420, not really at all. He’s been here before. His MO is to drop a single turd and run. Zero engagement.
Canuck_with_pluck in the cases from the verve article both of the men who doxxed their ex partners were prosecuted and sentenced I can’t remember or check right now because I’m on my phone but I think the shorter sentence was 65 years.
Drive-by trolls are the worst. *Sigh*
But, good morning everyone!
No, you’re pathetic, and an indictment of our education system. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but you’d probably need a pictogram instruction manual.
For serious, now, kittens are the most important thing in the world.
An inability to spell kitten is a failure of the HIGHEST order.
Hey, we don’t know for sure that he misspelled kitten! Could’ve been kit tin. You know… the tin, in which kit is kept. Or perhaps he has mistaken David for the sentient car, KITT, who runs the KITT Inn. It’s never good to assume is all I’m saying.
Think how much better jonwhatsisname’s life would be if he actually could go fuck himself. It would remove his main reason for raging at women, for a start.
(Although he could take care of things himself if he had a bit more imagination. It’s why Ceiling Cat gave you hands, dude.)
How would batting at dangly strings help his situation?
I kinda hope they do try to press charges against the random women who tore down their posters, if only because it would require them to tell the police about the libel and harassment they’re commiting.
Re: dudebro, I feel like it came from Shakesville, back when Judd Apatow’s movies were a big deal.
Or they’re hoping someone WILL take it that far, while trying to pretend they’re “just making the facts known” or whatever. I’m like 99% convinced that’s what happened with Bill O’Reilly and George Tiller.
Gaspode would never be an MRA. If not for ideology, then for self-preservation: imagine if Angua found out!
Agreed. I often see M/M couples (the “my strength is not for hurting” campaign from Men Can Stop Rape had a couple), and if it’s still true that 90% of perpetrators are men, it makes sense to focus on them. But idea that women can victimize men is usually absent, and I think that does a disservice to both men and women.
One of the spots on my mental “BINGO” card reads, “Kernel of truth, mountain of bullshit”. It’s reserved for situations like this, where, as you note, there’s a genuine, reasonable complaint that’s used as a launching-point for whatever horrible and irrational argument the person is about to make. I was rather irked, personally, at the decision that “rape = being penetrated” in the CDC report. It’s ignorant and regressive, and needs to be changed going forward.
But it was very clear that even with that change, the folks using the study were horribly abusing the mathematics involved, drawing conclusions not supported by the numbers at all, and hoping no one would check their work.
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Doxxing… It’s complicated, in my opinion.
It’s a use of force. I won’t deny that. But sometimes force is justified. The doxxing of violentcruz, or whatever that scumbag redditor’s name was, was genuinely a necessary action–it was about the only way to end his gleeful support of the exploitation of underage girls.
So I can’t comfortably issue a “Never Dox, ever” sentiment, any more than I can call for never using violence; using force in measured response to an actual threat is a real-world obligation at times.
The problem comes when the force used is disproportionate (FREX: posting home/work addresses, employer and home phone numbers, etc), or the alleged justification falls flat. Then you have an illegitimate use of force, which gets tangled up in whether you want to target the force or the fallacious justification for it.