Blog Archives
#TellAFeministThankYou fends off a manosphere manvasion!
Kittens composing feminist tweets.
The twitter hashtag wars continue! Apparently still pissed off that feminists pooped on their #INeedMasculismBecause tag the other day, the dudes of the manosphere launched a little counterattack aimed at #TellAFeministThankYou, a hashtag originally started by Melissa McEwan of Shakesville to give an opportunity to feminists to thank other feminists for, you know, being awesome and stuff.
#INeedMasculismBecause nothing is funnier than MRAs sincerely trying to explain their dumb beliefs to the world
MRA Tweet Generating Room
So: many if not most of you have probably heard about the whole #INeedMasculismBecause thing. For those who aren’t: a bunch of Men’s Rights Redditors and other MRAs, inspired by a post on 4Chan, decided to swarm Twitter with #INeedMasculismBecause tweets in response to the #INeedFeminismBecause hashtag. Feminists responded by outswarming the MRAs, flooding their new hashtag with often quite hilarious parodies of MRAspeak, as well as some just plain ridiculousness.
What are the central tenets of Straw Feminism? (No, seriously, I’m asking.)
Ok, class project!
As regular readers of this blog know all too well, the manosphere has a rather distorted version of feminism. Indeed, MRAs, MGTOWers and other misogynists spend a lot of their timedoing battle against feminists of their own imagining, whose alleged beliefs only have a tangential relationship with anything you or I know as feminism. It’s not always clear if MRAs know they’re battling straw feminists or not, and I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to figure that out.
In the meantime, I’m trying to assemble a little guide to this straw feminism.
I’m wondering what you all think are its central tenets?
(Specific examples and links, to posts and/or discussion on this blog or elsewhere, would be great if you can provide them.)
Take a look at Kate Beaton’s amazing “Straw Feminist” cartoon if you need inspiration!
Ironically, the gang over on the Men’s Rights subreddit had a whack at the “straw feminist” question the other day. They didn’t do too well, with the OP basing his “refutation” of accusations that MRAs spend much of their time attacking straw feminists … on a list that incorporated some not-actually-real feminist quotes. (I factchecked a similar list of EVIL FEMINIST QUOTES here.)
How to Get Hundreds of Upvotes on Reddit, Part Eleventy Billion (Hint: It involves making light of domestic violence.)
Hey, do you need an instant karma boost on Reddit? Here’s how to get yourself hundreds of upvotes in four easy steps!
1) Make or find a misogynistic meme graphic that suggests women are terrible and makes light of domestic violence
2) Post it to the AdviceAnimals subreddit with the headline “I know I’m going to get downvoted into oblivion, but its true….”
3) There is no step 3
4) Enjoy your hundreds of upvotes!
Huh. I guess that’s really only two steps.
Graphic after the jump because — trigger warning — it makes light of domestic violence, as do several of the other comments I’m going to quote.
BREAKING NEWS: Men (Still) Oppressed By Women Who Dress Like Whores
Women Oppressing Men With Scanty Attire in the 1920s
I haven’t had the patience to go through the discussions that developed in the wake of the Men’s Rights Subreddit’s historic winning of the prestigious King Dick of Fart Mountain Subreddit of the Day award yesterday. But I did read enough to come across this little exchange, in which a heroic Men’s Rightser confessed how touched he was that someone outside the Men’s Rights subreddit had noticed the bold, brave activism of Reddit MRAs.
And then someone pointed out some other things he’s said a couple of days ago.
NWOslave, is that you?
Actually, I doubt it; NWOslave has an account under his own name there. But great minds do think alike.
Here’s the link to StarFscker’s original comment in context.
Reddit Shitlords Give Other Reddit Shitlords Prestigious Shitlord Award
Art borrowed from Casey Nelson of SeeBeautifulIndiana.com. (Click pic to go there.)
Today is an auspicious day. For the Men’s Rights Subreddit, which we often write about here on Man Boobz, has won the prestigious World’s Greatest Shitlord Award. Oh, sorry, I mean it won the Subreddit of the Day award on Reddit. Which is, in this case, pretty much the same thing.
Here are some highlights from the official announcement , which I am totally not making up. No, really, you can go look. Someone – that being XavierMendel, one of the mods of r/subredditoftheday — actually wrote these things. And meant them. I AM NOT BEING SARCASTIC THIS IS REAL HOLY SHIT.
Possibly fake MGTOW confesses: “I [felt] dirtied by the moral corruption of sluts.”
Men Going Their Own Way, quickly
I’ve found my new favorite Men’s Rights Redditor. Brand new, really, as gonemgtow’s account is only two days old. This comment, his very first, is so loopy — yet also so true to manosphere ideology — that I can’t help but suspect that it’s an inspired hoax — and possibly even the work of one of the old banned trolls here. (I have one in particular in mind.) If not, wow.
I’ve taken the liberty of breaking his wall o’ text into readable paragraphs. Enjoy. Oh, if you’re at work, don’t read this out loud, as it starts off with a bang, NSFW-wise.
The Men’s Rights Subreddit: A net exporter of hate
A new shipment of angry MRAs is on its way!
Oh, Reddit, not again. So about a week ago, a woman posted what seemed to be a heartfelt and sorrowful confession to r/confession with the self-explanatory title “I cheated on my sweetheart of a husband for 3 years with my violent, abusive ex. This is the one secret I am taking to my grave.”
Now, r/confession purports to be a subreddit devoted to helping out those who confess their wrongdoings, and the sidebar warns potential commenters not to be abusive: “No personal attacks, we are not here to make people feel bad.”
Abused women “demand” their abuse: How MRAs make the abusers’ arguments for them
An Orlando man, Faron Thompson, was recently charged with battery and child neglect after an altercation in which he allegedly tried to force his fiancée to swallow her engagement ring when she tried to leave him. (More details here.)
This sort of abuse is depressingly commonplace when women try to free themselves from abusive and controlling men; indeed, if I posted every news account along these lines on this blog I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
No, I mention this case because something that Thompson reportedly told police reveals a lot about the mindset of abusers. When they arrested him, police say, Thompson complained that:
Women always claim assault, but never accept responsibility for provoking someone.
That is how abusers think.
It’s also how a lot of MRAs think.
Indeed, when I read Thomson’s reported remarks, the y immediately brought to mind something written not that long ago by Karen Straughan, the YouTube videoblogger who goes by the name of Girl Writes What. Straughan describes herself in her A Voice for Men bio as “the most popular and visible MRA in North America,” and given the rapturous reception her videos get on You Tube and on Reddit, this may not be an idle boast.
In the rather revealing Reddit comment I’m thinking of (which I blogged about earlier), Straughan suggested not only that abused women regularly “demand” the abuse they receive, but that many of them also get some sort of sexual charge from it. Oh, I’m sure she’ll deny that she really meant all that, but I can’t see any other way to read the following.
Oh, and in case you were wondering what article she’s referring to in the last paragraph — the one she says isn’t “seriously ethically questionable” — it’s a post from the repugnant Ferdinand Bardamu arguing that men should “terrorize” their partners because that’s the “the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.” For more about that charming piece, titled “The Necessity of Domestic Violence,” see my post here.
I’m having less and less of a problem with calling the Men’s Rights movement “the abusers lobby.”
I’m sure there are some MRAs who are as repulsed by Straughan’s argument as I am. If you’re one of them, and want your movement, such as it is, to be remembered as something other than “the abusers lobby,” you need to call out all those MRAs who make such arguments. Might I suggest that you start by challenging the “the most popular and visible MRA in North America,” otherwise known as Girl Writes What?
Men’s Rights Redditors Weigh in on Sexbots, Railroad Monopolies, and Why Women Are Terrible
You could always make your own.
Oh dear. Our friends the Men’s Rights Redditors have discovered Mr.Ian Ironwood’s little treatise on sexbots. While some are a bit skeptical about the reality of the (non-existent) Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act — more skeptical, anyway, than Ironwood or Vox Day before him — this doesn’t stop the regulars from offering all sorts of distressing and/or hilarious opinions on the subject.
