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| How the hell did I get mixed up in all this? |
The manosphere is in an uproar about a public service TV ad from an anti-violence group that portrays a baby boy as a future rapist. Some MRAs are attempting to refute the ad’s implication that improperly socialized men are prone to violence by posting and upvoting … violent comments and veiled threats online. And apparently some non-veiled death threats as well.
A few days ago, you see, W.F. Price, head honcho at The Spearhead, wrote a critical piece about the endeavors of one Josh Jasper to draw attention to sexism in Super Bowl commercials; Price also pointed out that Jasper, CEO of the Riverview Center, a nonprofit serving domestic violence and sexual assault victims in Illinois and Iowa, had put out an earlier commercial that, in Price’s words, “impl[ied] that baby boys are all potential rapists.”
Despite the source, that’s actually a more or less accurate description of the ad, which depicts a happy little baby boy as a future rapist. I’m just not quite sure why that’s so objectionable; after all, every baby, male or female, is a bundle of possibilities, some good, some bad. (Hitler was once a happy, gurgling baby.) The point of the ad is that parents can have an effect on how their kids turn out; if you raise your son to be a violent, misogynist asshole, he may well end up a rapist.
As much as I agree with this basic sentiment, I’m not going to defend the ad. It’s terrible. Generally, I’m not a fan of using babies to make political points — it’s trite and manipulative, to begin with. And in this case, it’s worse than that: portraying a baby as a future rapist seems rather hamfisted, given that babies are often victims of abuse themselves.
Judge for yourself; here’s the ad.
All this said, the flaws of the “rapist baby” ad in no way excuse the response it’s gotten from some of the more hotheaded in the Men’s Rights Movement and the manosphere in general. On his website, Peter Nolan declares that the ad “promote[s] hatred of male babies”; on The Spearhead, Poester99 goes even further, accusing Riverview Center of “promoting violence against baby boys.” Which is, of course, completely absurd. (Even besides that, as Jasper has pointed out on his blog, the Riverview Center serves male victims as well as female ones.) It’s hard to know if the people spouting this nonsense honestly believe it, or if they are using the baby in the ad even more cynically and opportunistically than Jasper is.
Unfortunately, the MRA reaction has gone well beyond simple rhetorical overkill. A number of comments on The Spearhead, many of them with dozens of upvotes, are essentially threats — some vague, some not-so-vague — against Jasper himself. duke writes that:
Mangina creeps like Josh Jasper should suffer the same fate as Nazi sympathizers after WWII-taken out and shot after a five minute trial.
Avenger adds:
If men really were as violent as he claims they would have shut him up long ago. One good beating and this mangina would never open his mouth again.
Firepower, meanwhile, goes after Jasper’s … first name:
So long as males tolerate sissified males named “Josh” – pissing even on our SuperBowl – these gender traitors will only feel encouraged to increase their anti-male slurs.
Over on A Voice For Men, meanwhile, MRA elder Paul Elam insinuates that Jasper, far from being a sissy, is a violent “alpha puke” — and calls on his fans to dig up dirt on him:
This man deserves consequences for his actions.
Some history on Josh is known. We know he was a marine and we also know that he was a Los Angeles police officer. Two areas for sure where the capacity for violence is a plus. Add to that the fact that he was on a Domestic Violence task force and this bad apple starts to stink a little more. …
Anyone want to take any bets on whether this alpha puke ever busted heads as a cop, simply because he could? It leaves one to wonder – especially given the intellectual violence he is so obviously willing to inflict on male children – just what sort of skeletons are in this douche bag’s closet.
If they are there, I would love to get my hands on them and rattle them together for the world to hear.
And on Men-Factor, antifeminist blogger ScareCrow (who used to regularly post comments here) posts the email addresses of The Riverview Center’s mostly female board of directors, urging readers to “vent your anger” on this “bitch-hive,” adding “I aim to destroy it.”
I don’t have the patience or the stomach to sort through the comments on the YouTube page for the ad to see what other vile shit has been posted there.
I can only hope that most of this violent language is just standard internet tough guy talk, and won’t result in real violence in the real world. Even if you believe that Jasper’s ad commits a sort of rhetorical violence against male babies — which I think is a ridiculous reading of the admittedly idiotic ad — it does not justify actual violence against anybody.
EDIT: I should have let this one sit a little before putting it up. I’ve made various changes to strengthen and clarify my argument.
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>Yes, you got it, that's what the video is about.Not about hating male babies.
>I'll have to take some time and look at the study at a later date, esp with regard to how it was done.Random Brother
>Although, I would tweak what you're saying slightly and go with the constant messages to be strong, aggressive, powerful, and tough caused him to become overly so in an effort to prove his manhood, leading to violent aggression.The point is that people should be able to choose to be strong,aggressive, powerful and tough (all good things) or not. Men should not be pressured to prove they are these things.
>@ SandySandy said: "Yes, you got it, that's what the video is about.Not about hating male babies. "If someone believed this ad and belived that male babies were more prone by nature to aggression and being powerful, wouldn't the next step be to equate all males even babies with being potential rapists?Random Brother
>We just went through this, the point of the ad is the baby is NOT prone by nature to being aggressive. The point is we are teaching them to be that way.Whether you believe this or not, that is the videos point. "He wasn't always this way."
>If you believe the video, you believe all men are born innocent, that men (even though they statistically commit rapes in higher numbers) are not inherently rapists. The video would therefore make you less likely to judge a man as violent based solely on the fact that he is a man.
>You do realize that men and women are different on a fundamental level and that includes when they are babies, right?The male baby can be prone to aggression and not be a rapists is the point. Kindly stop conflating aggression with rape.Random Brother
>That is not the message of the video. We are talking about the message of the video.You are now suggesting male babies may be prone to aggression, but the video does not.
>@ Sandy,No. If you believe the video the only way for men not to be rapists is to remove the traits of toughness, aggression, power, and strength.Also Josh Jaspers was a marine and a cop. Somehow I don't see him doing his job without the aforementioned traits.This video is about telling males due to their aggresion they are defective by design and the only way to fix it is to remove the traits that were previously mentioned. Random Brother.
>And asserting that men are inherently prone to aggression smacks of sexism, if not misandry. Men, like all people, are perfectly capable of moderating themselves and behaving as they wish, be it aggressive or passive.
>Like I said above, I think the point is not the traits, the traits are all well and good by themsleves. The point is the immense pressure for men to display these traits and prove they possess them. This is what can lead to a violent mindset or behavior.
>@Richard, it is worth noting that none of those traits are associated with all police across cultures. The US has an intensely violent and authoritarian police force as compared to other developed nations. There are countries where most cops do not carry guns. In Japan, for example, police officers staff police boxes, where they give directions and help lost kids get home. Associating police with violence is part of the US's serious problem with, well, police violence. As to the military thing, if being against encouraging these traits is being against militarism, than that is a good thing.You are the one suggesting that these traits are inherant to maleness, not the makers of the video or the feminists posting here. It is worth noting, however, that your conclusion does not necessarily follow from your premises. Encouraging violence in people already pre-disposed to it would actually only be aggravating the problem of violence, rather than fixing it. If males were violent by nature, it would follow that the should be more heavily disciplined against it, more heavily policed, and kept out of important social positions. The logical conclusion for your beliefs is that men, the violent should be blamed and kept away from women, the peaceful. The only way to work a 'males are naturally just violent' system where you are not perfectly okay with them perpetrating their violence against the peaceful women would be a rad-fem seperatist system. If I actually agreed with your notion that men are born prone to violence (which I do not) then rad-fem seperatism would be the way to go.
>This idea that men are entitled to sex with women ("I did x/y/z and she didn't even put out!" "She sleeps with that guy/all those guys but not me, what gives?" "A man has needs") aren't kept far away from children's eyes and only revealed to them when they turn 18. Children are exposed to those ideas early. At what point is it too cheap to suggest children are aware of their surroundings and how women are treated in popular culture and by the people around them? Yes, I would think parents SHOULD be aware that even the tiniest children are exposed to rape culture's messages and plan accordingly.Plus, a reason the MRAs are going to screaming about this ad that I haven't seen addressed: this ad is focused on rapists not raping. May sound like an entirely alien concept, but so many of these PSAs regarding sexual assault or intimate partner violence are either directed at the victim to prevent it or at the public to step in/raise awareness… It doesn't hurt to have a few ads aimed at the fact maybe directing efforts at parents raising children not to do these things or at the rapists themselves not to do so may be helpful.And additionally, as a victim of childhood sexual assault from a female, that the tactic of "but what about women? Why isn't anyone targeting when women do this??" is not directed as raising awareness about another dynamic of violence, it is trying to minimize the vast numbers of women victims. Right after "but what about men victims??" will be the protests about false accusations – what is the end goal? To erase all women as survivors of male-directed assault/violence, not to acknowledge a different set of survivors at all.
>" . . . the point is the child is innocent. Note the video even says "but he wasn't always this way." The shock is that an innocent child with no inclination towards aggression would grow up to be a rapist, because we teach him to be aggressive."—SandyActually, Richard is right—the video is (by implication) stating all men are potential rapists in the future and even hints at guilt by association. Bigotry. Simply put."The point of the baby is to tug at your heart strings . . . "Which is manipulative, btw.
>"How about the particularly awful crime of child murder?"—DavidHow about this:http://fathersforlife.org/articles/report/resptojw.htm"StatCan's very broad definitions of "mother" and "father" deliberately mislead. A "spouse" could mean just about anyone in the presence of a woman or man, no matter the duration or quality of the presence. "Mother" is likely to be a natural mother, whereas "father" is most likely any man but a natural father. Thereby it is made to appear that we can safely ignore the far superior safety of families headed by married biological parents. However, in their care, as Patrick Fagan from the Heritage Foundation identified, children are 33 times less likely to be seriously abused and 73 times less likely to be killed than in single-mother "families."[2] American government agencies report numbers that are more objective, not as subjective as those Jeff White selected. In the US in 1999, 70.3 percent of perpetrators of child abuse were female parents acting alone or with others. Out of an estimated 826,000 victims of child maltreatment, nation-wide, 1,100 were fatalities. Their perpetrators break down as follows:PERPETRATOR RELATIONSHIP [3]31.5% Female Parent Only10.7% Male Parent Only *21.3% Both Parents *16.3% Female Parent and Other1.1% Male Parent and Other *4.5% Family Relative6.1% Substitute Care Provider(s)5.7% Other2.7% Unknown* "Male parent" in that context most likely is just about anything but a natural father.That means that, acting alone or with others, female parents were responsible in 69.1 percent, and male parents in 33.1 percent of cases of fatal child maltreatment."Also . . ."1.) "Family Violence in Canada 2000 — An Alternative Approach," by Eeva Sodhi, a letter to Statistics Canada, posted 2000 08 31, at http://fathersforlife.org/Sodhi/fvcans1.htm, a critique pointing out flaws in the method of presentation and in the statistics contained in: Statistics Canada pub. "Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 2000" Cat. No. 85-224 (Note: Interestingly, in her commentary, Eeva Sodhi identifies and analyses precisely those statistics by which StatCan misleads the uninformed in exactly the manner in which Jeff White got mislead.)2.) A compelling status report and useful suggestions for solutions are provided in the report by the Heritage Foundation "Marriage: The Safest Place for Women and Children", by Patrick F. Fagan and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Backgrounder #1535.3.) Child Maltreatment 1999, Fig. 4-3 http://www.calib.com/nccanch/chma99.pdf 4.) Studies by Archer, Fiebert and others can be accessed or are listed at http://fathersforlife.org/family_violence_main_page.htm 5.) "Why They Kill Their Newborns," by Steven Pinker, New York Times, November 2, 1997, Sunday, Section: Magazine Desk, http://www.gargaro.com/pinker.html"
>You know what I don't like about this ad? It wimps out. The voice of traditional masculinity is just some offscreen narrator over white title cards. The baby is the only image to latch onto, so naturally people who are angry about the ad will think it's about babies.Better by far to have a boy of 3 or 4 playing innocently and then have some broad cartoonish authority figure (fat coach or drunk dad) come up and start cussing him out. Put the blame where it belongs – on stereotypical men.
>Hm, I also think the ad is pretty cheesy, even though the intent is a good one. RichardAlso, men are more likely to rape because of the way feminist have defined rape as pretty much any sex a woman doens't likeNo, feminists have defined rape as an act of violence, in which one person did not give (or could not give) consent to another person/other persons, who (despite the lack of consent) still performed sexual acts on them. So, just because back then spousal rape, female on male rape, female on female rape and male on male rape, date rape etc. were not considered rape legally, doesn't mean they didn't happen. They were just absent from the legal definition of rape. So, do you REALLY think that the change of that definition is a bad thing? Seriously?People like you are exactly the reason we need such ads. Not like the ad in the post, but yeah. It's definitely needed. To be quite honest, you seem really anti-men.Feminists don't consider non-feminist or anti-feminist women to be lesser of a woman, or not a woman at all. The MRAs, however, even threaten men (like Josh Jasper) if they don't share the MRAs' views.You're not pro-men, just pro-misogyny.
>"Actually, Richard is right—the video is (by implication) stating all men are potential rapists"But all men are potentially rapists. Just like all men could potentially be soldiers, doctors, etc.That's the point. With a baby you have a tabula rasa – and you should be careful what you do with it. What's wrong with that?
>Here is an opinion on "natural" male aggression written in what the MRA's believe are the good old days when everyone supposedly agreed that being a real man involved hitting stuff and killing something. I love this passage for its simple eloquence. Enjoy:"..old Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy “whopped” … a boy (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance home for the holidays from Dr. Tickleus’s at Ealing School) in Russell Square. George’s grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that feat, and promised to reward him further for every boy above his own size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner. It is difficult to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful accomplishment for them to learn. English youth have been so educated time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among children."~ William Makepeace Thackeray, "Vanity Fair" (1848). (Richard, take note: That's "Vanity Fair" the NOVEL. The title doesn't refer to a later women's magazine, nor is the women's magazine inspired by the novel.)Thackeray was a man, not a feminist, not a hippie, not a "Berkley librul". But as that passage above demonstrates, I think he would have gotten a kick out of MRA's talking out of both sides of their collective mouth: Men are "naturally" prone to violence and aggression, and those characteristics should be cultivated and encouraged, but OMG (pearl clutch), how dare you suggest that men are "naturally" prone to violence and aggression against women! And while we are at it, let's define rape so narrowly as to legalize it in pretty much every case except maybe one where a Middle-Eastern terrorist kidnaps, beats and sodomizes a Christian virgin, you know, something like the definition of rape that Bill Napoli uses.
>"But all men are potentially rapists. Just like all men could potentially be soldiers, doctors, etc.That's the point. With a baby you have a tabula rasa – and you should be careful what you do with it. What's wrong with that?"—JoeThe ability to be damned, labeled, stigmatized, and treated as such—THAT's what is wrong with it. How you liked to be convicted of a crime you didn't commit? Or be at the hands of a vindictive person or mob despite your innocence?What is wrong with that premise? Holy shit, you are dense.
>Richard — Clearly Captain Bathrobe and you do think this baby is a menace or you'd have a problem with him being in the video. This is a perfect example of why trying to discuss anything with you. BAthrobe didn't say teh baby was a menace, neither did I. Also, I do have a problem with having the baby in the ad, and stated that very clearly in my piece:"every baby, male or female, is a bundle of possibilities, some good, some bad. (Hitler was once a happy, gurgling baby.) The point of the ad is that parents can have an effect on how their kids turn out; if you raise your son to be a violent, misogynist asshole, he may well end up a rapist."As much as I agree with this basic sentiment, I'm not going to defend the ad. It's terrible. Generally, I'm not a fan of using babies to make political points — it's trite and manipulative, to begin with. And in this case, it's worse than that: portraying a baby as a future rapist seems rather hamfisted, given that babies are often victims of abuse themselves."
>Oops. It should have been "why trying to discuss anything with you is so frustrating,
>> "That's the point. With a baby you have a tabula rasa – and you should be careful what you do with it. What's wrong with that?"—JoeI appreciate you thinking of me, wytch, but that wasn't me, it was Johnny.
>Leaving aside the issue of the baby image being manipulative (all advertising is manipulative by nature) – I'm absolutely amazed at the inability of the MRA bunch to comprehend basic English. What part of "He wasn't always this way. … What are you teaching your son?" don't you understand?????
>@ Darksidecat: Darksidecat states: "@Richard, it is worth noting that none of those traits are associated with all police across cultures. The US has an intensely violent and authoritarian police force as compared to other developed nations. There are countries where most cops do not carry guns. In Japan, for example, police officers staff police boxes, where they give directions and help lost kids get home. Associating police with violence is part of the US's serious problem with, well, police violence. As to the military thing, if being against encouraging these traits is being against militarism, than that is a good thing."I don't know all that much about Japan nor police work in other cultures, so I won't get into that too much, but I have to ask, how in these cultures do they stop violent crime, if it is not by using men who have are tough, powerful, etc?Darksidecat said: "You are the one suggesting that these traits are inherant to maleness, not the makers of the video or the feminists posting here."I believe men TEND to have these traits (specifically aggression, toughness, power, etc) more than women. Not always, but usually.Darksidecat: "It is worth noting, however, that your conclusion does not necessarily follow from your premises. Encouraging violence in people already pre-disposed to it would actually only be aggravating the problem of violence, rather than fixing it. If males were violent by nature, it would follow that the should be more heavily disciplined against it, more heavily policed, and kept out of important social positions. The logical conclusion for your beliefs is that men, the violent should be blamed and kept away from women, the peaceful. The only way to work a 'males are naturally just violent' system where you are not perfectly okay with them perpetrating their violence against the peaceful women would be a rad-fem seperatist system. If I actually agreed with your notion that men are born prone to violence (which I do not) then rad-fem seperatism would be the way to go."That whole argument was based upon your flawed premise that aggressiveness = violence. It does not. A person can aggressively pursue their goals and dreams without being violent. This video is merely a hit job on men, male traits, and the creators are so vile they used a baby and the fact that it doesn't bother feminists is extremely telling in how they truly feel about men.Random Brother