Here’s a comment found today in the Reddit Men’s Rights subreddit, probably the most “moderate” MR forum I know of online.
The comment is in response to the video below, which is camera-phone footage of a woman beating the shit out of a guy (who refuses, on principle, to fight back). The physical abuse starts about half way through the video, and escalates at the end. It’s frankly horrifying.
Obviously this woman should be in jail, and presumably this video would be enough to guarantee her conviction. (If the video is pulled, I have saved a copy.) That’s not the issue. The issue is someone suggesting on the MR subreddit that a woman – a black woman at that — should be quite literally lynched, and getting upvotes rather than massive downvotes for expressing this opinion.
It’s not as if the MR regulars have trouble downvoting comments they dislike; another comment in the discussion stating that “men should not hit women” is considered so outrageous that it is assumed to be the comment of a troll (which it indeed seems to be). Last I checked, it had 8 downvotes, and was the most-downvoted comment in the thread.
Mrow! It’s weird how much this seems to be theoretical to some ppl… let’s talk about what COULD happen, what MIGHT happen, what they guess will happen in the courts… how they think feminism or men’s or women’s shelters operate..
These things actually exist, and there are actual real DV/DA/rape/SA survivors out there (incl myself) -_-;; And actual shelters and programs that serve and help them.
I work with these shelters and other social services and the difference between theory and reality is like that Yogi Berra quote: “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” -_-;; There are many supports for male abuse victims in the city where I work, but not enough. There also isn’t enough for female abuse victims either. 🙁 It’s not a COMPETITION. And the various networks of shelters aren’t hostile to each other (there are exceptions, there are places like in Vancouver, the infamous VRR, that are hostile to trans woman, and interestingly, some places are okay w/ cis ppl of the opposite gender vs trans ppl of the same gender… ) and there is a lot of working together.
But it’s what I mean by “in practice”. There isn’t this huge anti-male thing, there isn’t this big “OMG WOMEN CAN’T BE ABUSED”. One of the huge trauma therapy recovery programs here is open to both men and women. You can assume whatever you like that you THINK feminists do, but what they ACTUALLY do, is not that, which could mean that your information about feminists is incorrect. 🙂 Or that there’s more to whatever stats ppl are arguing over than you know.
It’s like BABIP and other new baseball stats. (this is me linking my sports media side w/ my anti-oppression worker side!) They give us metrics which help us better look at ballplayers and whether or not their performance is a fluke, or can be sustained, and how “real” what happened is. HOWEVER! It is not the end all and be all, it’s just MORE information. What happened STILL HAPPENED, and what happens is still happening, and sometimes you get the over sabermetric-ky person who insists to you what happened SHOULDN’T happen or what’s going on CAN’T be happening b/c stuff like BABIP says it shouldn’t be (like being able to keep up an extraordinarily high BABIP). But that doesn’t mean this player has broken reality, it means that you DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION. 🙂 And sometimes it means actually WATCHING the games b/c while numbers and boxscores and line drive rates can quantify a lot, we can’t quantify the entire game (yet), and you realize when watching stuff WHY it happens not the way you thought in theory 🙂
In the same way, I understand how w/ the narratives we have in our society, or the stuff you see in crime shows or TV shows, or media reporting, some ppl think they “know” how society is going… how men are prolly shut out of the social services network all together, or radical feminists have taken over the shelter system, or… or how the courts let female batterers go, or etc… except that’s not how it generally is (there’s always exceptions… news articles are just another form of anecdata and remember, often things are UNUSUAL to make the news 🙂 ) That’s not to say there aren’t PROBLEMS (and we could DEFINITELY use more volunteers, which would be right up the alley of all the ppl complaining about lack of men’s support here 😀 ) but support systems for abused men absolutely do exist, and they’re not tiny little underfunded places either (well I mean compared to any other shelter; you could argue eveyrbody is underfunded… there is a lot of violence out there 🙁 )
A lot of feminism and stuff related to DV/DA/etc isn’t based on ideology as much as it’s based on reality, it comes from things actually happening rather than a construction from theory… at least the feminism I’m talking about (and that the feminist posters here are, or seem to be 🙂 ), I’ve noticed some ppl like to define feminism in their own ways here xD But the ppl I work w/ and talk to are in general ppl who believe what they believe cuz it WORKS and cuz it HELPS and we need to create safe spaces for all sorts of ppl, and anti-oppression work, anti-racism, anti-sexism, intersectionality, pro queer policies etc is IMPORTANT to that. This isn’t about some ideological war.. it’s about real ppl, and a REAL PROBLEM w/ trauma and abuse and assault and all sorts of terrible things out there 🙁
So I just wanted to let the anti-feminist types here, at least know that they should be happy to know that they’re wrong (I’D be rly happy to know that I’m wrong if I thought there was no supports 🙂 ) about how male abuse survivors are treated (no differently than female ones… I know that the MSM and TV shows like to act like male survivors are this myth, but the social services out there KNOW this is not true and doubt nobody, b/c well why should they? They’re here to HELP 🙂 ) and about the justice system, and how female abusers are STILL prosecuted and convicted, and they don’t get off just by being female 🙂
And as I said, volunteer! Donate! Or just help out in any way you can. Find out where your local men’s shelters are (for those specifically concerned about men’s issues alone) and keep the number handy in case you know any men who are being abused… as I said, while they exist, the myth is still propagated by a lot of ppl, and by narratives in our lives (media, news reporting, tv shows, even jokes among friends) that men’s shelters don’t exist, or that all shelters are for women only, or etc etc… and anything ppl can do to break the myth is useful!
Enough with the friggin’ emoticons already. If you’re going to write a treatise, then bloody well write. Don’t illustrate. I’m pretty sure I agree with most of what you wrote, but it’s hard to tell because it’s hard to read.
-rubs eyes-
You completely lost me somewhere around baseball stats, and then I got distracted by all the emphasized words. XD
Sports is too manly for my ladybrain. I like bunnies. Let’s make a metaphor about bunnies instead.
Rachel
I think that mens rights reddit might be one of the best places, because you get fathers rights, misandry, feminism, abuse, education etc discussed, its also self policed for misogyny. A vo i ce for men has just made a page called “Facts” which is a quick reference. There is another good source is one called called “Misandry Review”, its a round up of the latest articles. You might try swedish mra Pelle Billing too..
darksidecat
You might want to talk to CB about the blind pig reference, I didnt make it. I always thought squirrels liked acorns but now I know hogs do too. 😉
Lol – thanks for the suggested sites.
If anyone else is interested in reading them –
Here is the Voice for Men Facts Page – http://www.avoiceformen.com/about/
Misandry review can be found here – http://www.misandryreview.com/
Pell Billing is here – http://www.pellebilling.com/
And the Mens Rights Sub-Reddit is here – http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights
I don’t know, maybe some of you have already visited these cites or have no desire to visit them, and so far I have done nothing more than look them up and post them here (I’m at work, but I hope to spend a little time checking them out this weekend), but we are always asking for representative blogs, cites, etc. of the MRM, and LOL says these are some good ones.
DSC: Yeah the blind pig reference was mine. I happily accept your correction re: the true nature of pigs, as you usually know what you are talking about. The pig is an animal that has largely gotten a bad rap, as they are quite intelligent animals.
I hereby apologize to all of pigdom for comparing them to NWOslave. Truly, no pig deserves that.
In case anyone missed it, the post which was in moderation has been released. MRAL, it was a specific response to you.