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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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>If it is so bad Cold, it should be super easy for you to refute what Amused said. Who I must compliment as putting what I was thinking is such better terms.Now back to my reading on Rule 609(a).
>Disclaimer: I am not claiming that I live in Nazi Germany, and I, unlike Cold, don’t have fantasies of a violent gender war.If this vicious libel isn't a gratuitous personal attack against me, then I don't know what is.
>Cold, either you are a liar or you are the world's worst fact checker, or both. I'm thinking "both."I actually did check the Dworkin quotes. Several are unsourced, and when I put the text of the quotes into google I found only other iterations of the list in question (you can't fact check something with itself) or from unreliable quote sites. One quote from her was simply imaginary, actually taken from a character in a satirical novel that contained a Dworkin-ish character, one was a example of her summarizing the views of other people she violently disagrees with, and many of the rest were sloppily transcribed, full of errors. I realize that you didn't write the list. But you chose to post it, you chose to defend it, and you chose to say that you fact checked it. Again, if you did check the Dworkin quotes, please provide links to the sources for the quotes from her that don't list where they're from. Or just one link for any one of her quotes.
>I'm not interested in devoting hours to a point-by-point refutation of a blinkered screed with no citations whatsoever from someone who thinks it's ok to libel me and other MRAs. I will, however, briefly summarize by saying that in order to frame women as having more in common with Jews and MRAs as having more in common with Nazis, Amusing had to lie and exaggerate about MRAs while ignoring the fact that men today, just like Jews during that era, are described in feminazi propaganda as being the ones with the power and privilege when in fact the reverse is true.
>Also, Cold, that "quote" from Comins is not a quote at all; it's someone else's summary of what she said. You really are a terrible fact checker.
>Really? Here at work, 21 of the 25 judges are males. Pretty sure that means they have power.I look at the number of men in the state lege: 59 are males, 31 are females. Pretty sure that means that the men have power.I look at the top leadership in the state-out of the five, one is held by a woman. Pretty sure that means men have power.I look at the number of female CEOs of top companies…15.7% out of the 500. 75 or so are women. Hmmm…guess that means men have power.So to claim that men are shut out of the halls and byways of power is inaccurate to put it politely. Instead it seems that men are firmly, as ever, entrenched on the top of the power structure.So please, show us where women have shoved men out the door to take over everything. Because outside of some issues with family courts-your vaunted claims of lack of power are as paper thin as your credibility on fact-checking.Oh wait! *smacks forehead* I forgot-since those men are not you obviously it means men have no power. I totally forgot.
>Oops. Responded to a comment not directed at me.
>I checked some of the Dworkin quotes in the actual, printed books from which they were taken. I didn't mean to imply that I checked every single one, but I can see how the way I worded it suggests that. I looked up most of the quotes from Letters from a Warzone in the actual book a little over a year ago and the ones I looked up checked out. Obviously the book is copyrighted and not linkable, but you know that. Actually, I think you know perfectly well that they check out but want to use the fact that I can't link into a copyrighted work that isn't (legally) available online to make me look bad as per your modus operandi. After all, you have made a big point of harping on this list while simply ignoring many of my other points.
>Also, Cold, that "quote" from Comins is not a quote at all; it's someone else's summary of what she said.You really are a terrible fact checker.You are either a terrible reader or incredibly dishonest or both because I clearly said "The quote attributed to Comins is actually an extrapolation of her words". Scroll back up and see for yourself.
>Elizabeth,I'm not about to spend hours of time rehashing the case for why women have the power and privilege for your personal benefit, but since you committed the frontman fallacy in your last comment you might as well begin your research into the MRA position by learning about it from the source I linked, assuming that you're actually willing to research MRA arguments in detail.
>Incidentally the entire book from which that bit on the frontman fallacy is excerpted is a good place to start for one who is actually willing to hear the real MRA arguments instead of David's hit pieces.
>So, Cold, I guess by citing that book you are saying that Zohrab is a good source of "real MRA arguments." Interesting.
>Just because I link to a book doesn't mean I endorse every single word printed in it. I think it's a good place for an intellectually honest newcomer to being learning about our movement, that's all.
>Cold,Fair enough. On the Comins "quote" I just meant that if the quote is not actually a quote, and it isn't, that you shouldn't consider it "accurate." It should be corrected or removed from the list. Elizabeth –Not sure about the comment count. There's nothing from this thread in the spam folder. I deleted one of my own comments, but that's it.
>Cold, I'll take your word that you checked the Letters from a War Zone quotes. But you clearly didn't check them very carefully, or you would have noted lots of little errors. And I guess you didn't check the quote that is not an assertion of her POV but a summary of the views of people she violently disagreed with. What I'm more interested in is trying to track down the Dworkin quotes that are unsourced.
>You assume that since men are in power, they are under the control of women. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.Let us look at the first link:"mainly male governments have enacted legislation giving women the vote, according women equal pay with men, liberalising abortion laws, increasing penalties for rape, and so forth, all without protecting men's interests in family, mating rituals, work-place behaviours or educational institutions."Here is something funny about these whole assumptions you guys make about the legislative process…that women or anti-male men are the only ones allowed to testify about anything or to have any views expressed and accepted.How to Testify Before CongressSo the idea that all of these women forcing the male legislatures to do their bidding flies in the face of the reality of what actually happens. Men had input right from the get go and can do what women did.By the way, one of the most dramatic things I ever saw in congressional testimony was women breaking into a hearing on the birth control pill because the all male congressional panel had asked only male doctors to come testify and the women were angry and upset that their experiences were not allowed to be heard despite their repeated requests. If women have so much power, why were they forced to resort to such tactics?
>Reading the rest of his blog post-apparently his evidence comprises of women having more jobs in fields like teacher or social worker (ignoring the fact that women were generally shoved into those careers by men.) Or more hits on a websearch…Oh and some guy makes a rude remark about men being stupid. He should have been called on it but the rest of the post is just as generalized and not very well reasoned as the two complaints about women's jobs and search hits. *rolls eyes*
>“I don't know, Kratch, MRA's have been talking out of both sides of their mouths on that one. On the one hand, men supposedly "can't stop" from penetrating a woman once they see a bit of cleavage, “this seems awfully close to accusing MRA’s of actually advocating rape. Are you prepared to back that up?“on the other hand, how dare anyone suggest that men are dumb animals with poor impulse control.”So you acknowledge that suggestion exists within the advertisement… and yet, you still don’t seem to see anything wrong with it. That’s called misandry. And it’s as hateful to men as you claim the MRA is to women.“On the one hand, sex for men is a "need" that must be fulfilled at all costs,”It is no more a need for men then for women. Men just don’t feel the need to deny they have that need. And since the sexual revolution, many women don’t ether. “on the other, men have intellect and willpower (unlike women, presumably). “where did that come from? Nether I, nor the commercial, have even mentioned women, let alone their intellect or lack thereof, up until now. I have no idea why you are assuming such a thing, and I certainly hope you’re not accusing me of suggesting such a thing. But the fact you even mentioned it makes me believe you have no intention of reading anything but what you want to read, IE, a hateful man attacking women, even when there is absolutely nothing to even insinuate such a claim.“On the one hand, rape is a "natural" response to seeing an attractive woman, “If that were true, rape would be far more common. Most men abhor rape. I’m curious David, how do you feel about this comment? After all, you’re a man too, meaning, according to amused, you have this “natural” response to want to rape an attractive woman too. Do you regularly need to suppress this natural urge to rape? Or are you prepared to speak up against a stupid comment made by one of your posters?“on the other, don't you dare presume that men are natural rapists.”Oh, but David, if you speak up against Amused, and claim you aren’t a natural rapist, you will be falling into her trap, becoming indignant for challenging the accusation. This is typical feminist tactics, if you dare t speak up for yourself, you are being indignant and unreasonable, but if you don’t stand up for yourself, well, then the accusation stands unchallenged, and becomes accepted, like it has been for amuzed/“On the one hand, rape is about sex (and violence is just a tool, not the purpose),”Sometimes it is. It is not always about domination. That said, that does not mean men in general, including MRA’s, find it acceptable. If you can’t see the difference, that’s your problem.“and on the other, how dare you presume that most men are rapists, even though most men are very much into sex.”Sodomy is also a form of sex. Are you suggesting all men want that too? Just because a man wants sex, doesn’t mean he wants that type of sex (sodomy or rape).And all this is irrelevant. Your personal bias against the MRA doesn’t change the fact that this PSA suggests that the very definition of manhood is responsible for rape. That this instinct need to be “trained out of our sons, right from the cradle. And that it is messages like this that make people like you, who think all men have an innate, natural instinct to rape women that needs to be constantly suppressed.
>I think Amused is in part referring to this post, quoting from one MGTOW type who suggests: I cannot on a primal level get passed my sexual urges when looking at sluts. … [t]he only thing I want to do to a slut is rape them. … If I extrapolate this observation to society, I think it's easy to see why in a slut society women will be more prey to rape. … Simply put, dressing like sluts brings out murders, rapists and sadists in menhttp://www.manboobz.com/2010/11/ladies-stop-assaulting-us-by-dressing.htmlShe's not asserting that men are natural rapists. She's summing up various contradictory claims made by various MRA/MGTOW people. I've already said that I think everyone has a certain amount of natural aggression, but that how they are raised makes a big difference; it's a mix of nature and nurture.
>"She's not asserting that men are natural rapists."—DavidGood job of being dishonest there.
>You assume that since men are in power, they are under the control of women. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.You're *gasp* correct that the above argument, stated as such, makes no sense whatsoever. It's also a strawman, and if that's what you got from reading the excerpt then you are either too stupid to read or you are completely intellectually dishonest. No wonder you work in the judicial system.
>Based on the fact you cannot even admit that a list you recommended and has been proven thoroughly to be absolute crap was a mea culpa moment, I do not think I am the one being intellectually dishonest here.I read it and it makes this argument: men have power and those men who have power have occasionally passed legislation or policies that benefit women (and men but cannot admit that now can we?), therefore men are powerless and helpless and women are evil overladies forcing these men into doing their evil bidding. As I said-makes no sense whatsoever.
>Cold, that frontman fallacy article is completely incoherent. Women really run the world because, to cite some of his evidence:they live longerthere are more search results for "women's rights" than for men'sBill Clinton didn't get tossed out of office for getting a blowjobthere's an Women's Health Officer in the New Zealand government???
>Apparently people in office are supposed to only serve men. If they figure out the obvious (women having less access to health care for instance) and help women, this hurts men because it does not devote 100% attention to men. It also shows that men who are in power are at the mercy of their evil women overladies since they do not focus 100% on men, sometimes even giving women rights! Obviously women control things.*rolls eyes*
>“I think Amused is in part referring to this post, quoting from one MGTOW type who suggests: “And because one MGTOW said something, the rest of us aren’t allowed to take offence? I never said that, never suggested anything even close. I never will say that. Yet my argument was dismissed, my offence, and the reason for it, utterly ignored, simply by claiming something one person said is contradictory to my opinion and therefore my daring to speak up for myself is offensive to her. I notice you choose not to respond to my reasoning, but rather, you choose to defend, rather then condemn, a hatful poster. ”She's not asserting that men are natural rapists. “Wake up David. That is precisely what she said. Almost verbatim; “rape is a "natural" response to seeing an attractive woman”. She said rape, not sex (in this line) and she said it was a natural response. When you see an attractive woman, is you natural response a desire to rape her? It is also what this Ad was implying by saying a redefinition of manhood is required to stop rape.“She's summing up various contradictory claims made by various MRA/MGTOW people. “And none of those contradictions makes my point wrong. The reason this advertisement is offensive to men is because it demands a redefinition of manhood in order to stop rape, which is an open attack claiming it is the current definition of manhood is the cause. But given you couldn’t even see the accusation in amased’s sentence…The fact that someone else said something contradictory to what I said does not make me the one that is wrong. Furthermore, the person you quoted was speaking specifically of themselves, not of men in general. This ad is speaking to the need to redefine manhood, because something about the current definition of manhood leads to raping people. While the person you quoted wasn’t speaking for all men, this ad was. ”I've already said that I think everyone has a certain amount of natural aggression, but that how they are raised makes a big difference; it's a mix of nature and nurture.”Aggression is not rape, nor is it a desire to rape. It can be present in a rapist, and a rapist does not need it, but it does not make a rapist. Just because people all have a little aggression, does not mean everyone (including women) have a desire to rape someone. There is nothing inherently wrong with having aggression, and it can in fact be an asset if harnessed correctly. You said this in the original post: “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.”Yet, when I give a reason why it is objectionable, the fact I objected seems to be more the issue then my explanation for why I object. Should I take this as you not really wanting to know, a choice by you to not be open to discussion?