Amanda Marcotte, feminist blogger and Friend of Man Boobz, has been taking a lot of shit from MRAs – and I mean a LOT of shit – for a comment she made here on the Thomas Ball suicide.
As you may already know, Ball burned himself to death outside a New Hampshire courthouse. In a lengthy manifesto he wrote shortly before killing himself, he portrayed his suicide as a protest against a corrupt family court system, and went on to argue that MRAs should quite literally assemble some Molotov cocktails and “start burning down police stations and courthouses.” (You can read the whole manifesto here.) Despite his calls for violence many MRAs have hailed him as an MRA martyr.
Marcotte, in her comment here, suggested that there might have been other, more personal reasons for his suicide – namely, the desire to hurt his ex-wife:
I’ll point out that setting yourself on fire is an extremely effective tool if your goal is to make your ex-wife’s life a living hell, and if your anger at losing control over her overwhelms all other desires. Which is common enough with abusers, who will ruin their own lives and their own shit and turn their children against them in an effort to hurt the woman they’ve fixated on.
One MR blogger declared this comment “pure feminist evil”; a conservative blogger compared Marcotte to the Beast of Babylon. Still other MRAs resorted to assorted variations on the c-word.
Marcotte has now responded to this, er, “criticism” with an excellent post on Pandagon. As she points out, correctly,
suicide and threats of suicide are common tactics used by abusers to hurt their victims. Abusers dramatically self-destruct all the time in their desperation to control and hurt the objects of their obsession. There was just recently a big story about this, in fact: Jason Valdez of Utah, who had a long criminal record that included domestic violence, held a woman hostage in a hotel room for 16 hours and kept updates about the situation on Facebook. He eventually committed suicide.
The notion that suicide can be a hostile, aggressive act designed to hurt other people is hardly a controversial one, whether the person committing suicide is male or female. Threats of suicide are often used to manipulate other people; suicide itself can be an act of revenge.
Marcotte goes on:
Apparently, I’m supposed to pretend that suicide isn’t a disruptive, selfish act in many cases (especially when the suicide victim commits it in a public and destructive way), and that people who do it, while yes victims of their own mental health problems, are also thinking that they’re going to make everyone pay for not indulging them. In fact, not only is this true in Ball’s case, but he spelled it out in his suicide note. The “make the bastards suffer” theme of his note is the reason that wingnuts are supporting him.
But you don’t have to take her word for it. Read Ball’s entire manifesto, to the end, and ask yourself if this man is an appropriate “martyr” for any political movement.
Yes, and in my deepest heart of hearts I am an anime antihero with a giant gun, a mysterious past, a chill air of aloofness (that can be overcome by a Woman Who Understands Me) and a trench coat like Neo from the Matrix. Whadda ya mean nobody else gives a damn?
you know the disturbing part …… all the focus by feminists seems to be on the idea that the ex wifes life was made hell why ?? she is his ex wife, the only life of interest is the childs, using this as a way of turning a woman into a victim is an innefective tool and somewhat offensive.
duncan macleod: No, the “feminists” have been talking about what they see as his motives/actions. It’s the MRA types who keep saying it’s about what the feminists think about it.
That what he did is going to have some affect on some other people is undeniably true. The “feminists’ are looking at one group (the people directly affected) and the MRAs are looking to another group… the people they want to be affected.
hey it’s duncan macleod! 😀 is that a coincidence or did you name yourself after the TV highlander char! 😀 Cuz if so that’s awesome :3 (if not, then it’s awesome you share a name w/ him 😀 )
Not to defend Marcotte (I know some ppl seem to think she’s like our goddess or something but I’ve mentioned alrdy that I dislike her) but I find it amusing that a comment above did the “the man is a rational being not driven by emotions but calculations” and “the woman is vain and emotional” and attributed motivations to each thru that lens xD it could just be coincidence I know, but it still amuses me xD (and b4 I get “WELL YOU DO THAT” I haven’t said nething about either person xD I have far too many biases here at play, plus I dun like psychoanalyzing suicide : )
“you know the disturbing part …… all the focus by feminists seems to be on the idea that the ex wifes life was made hell why ?? she is his ex wife, the only life of interest is the childs, using this as a way of turning a woman into a victim is an innefective tool and somewhat offensive.”
There can be only one!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Toysoldier is here! Damn, this incident has really struck a nerve…
bekabot, what you said makes a lot of sense, although I would argue that revenge against his ex-wife and his daughter could’ve still been a secondary motive. Perhaps the self-aggrandizing impulse is the thing that makes the difference between an ordinary crank and a Thomas Ball or Joseph Stack.
Who is toysoldier? :O is he famous? 😀 should I get to know him better? :3
Ami , its a coincidence, although i am 6 foot 2 long haired and scottish lol
@Snowy
HEREEEE WE AREEEEE
BORN TO BE KINGS
We’re the princes of the universe!
No it’s not; there can be only one.
How is it disturbing and offensive? Why is it ineffective? Please explain.
Ball killed himself over (among other things) a dispute he and his ex were having, in a flamboyantly violent fashion, and you don’t think it would be normal that she would be bothered by it?
also, it’s hilarious that the ex wife is relevant when Women! and The System! are oppressing Ball, and not relevant when we’re talking about who might be saddened and disturbed by Ball’s actions.
@duncan macleod that’s cool tho! 😀 unless you hate it cuz you’re tired of ppl like me telling you how cool that is xD are you good at sword fighting? 😀
classic show
I was kinda hoping for Methos, but you can never tell when he’ll show up.
I love Methos! He was me and my sister’s fav char by far 😀 he shows up on so much else Canadian filmed sci fi too and whenever he does I’m like, hay it’s Methos! 😀
In certain circles, yeah. But my surprise was because a) I didn’t think this story was up his alley (he is, or claims to be, an advocate for male survivors of abuse) and b) he’s commented here very infrequently.
lol actually i do fence and am a member of the klan ( the non racist one ) that does reenactments
That makes his handwaving around the issue of Ball hitting his daughter even nastier. So what is it, Toysoldier: is it less bad when a little girl gets hit?
this isn’t questioning you or accusing you or nething :] I’m genuinely curious (and lacking in knowledge) :] I didn’t know there were klans that start with a k that aren’t racist o:
depends on the language used
Futrelle called “bullshit” on my suggestion that Marcotte was opposed to the presumption of innocence for males accused of rape. That really surprised me that he would argue about that. Anyway, this from Wikipedia:
Statements on Duke Lacrosse CaseReason contributing editor Cathy Young has described Marcotte as a “leader of the cyber-lynch mob in the Duke University rape hoax”. In “Marcotte’s eyes, the real crime of the ‘independent feminists’ is helping preserve the idea that the presumption of innocence applies even in cases of rape and sexual assault.”[15]
Marcotte declared on her blog that people who defended the wrongly accused Duke students were “rape-loving scum”.[16] Time reported that in “late January, more ethics charges were heaped on the District Attorney in the Duke University sexual-assault case, and Marcotte attacked the news with her usual swagger and sarcasm:”[17]
As for my statement that the feminized state could not last forever, I am not calling for armed revolution. Far from it. That would just give the state an excuse to kill and imprison even more men. Instead, I simply believe as more and more men realize they have no stake in supporting the state, more and more of them will withdraw that support. Matriarchy is inherently unsustainable–women as a whole are simply too weak and incompetent to govern without male support.
Oh, by the way, I’m a misogynist: I have a very low opinion of women’s abilities compared with men’s. If that offends you, too bad.
“Oh, by the way, I’m a misogynist: I have a very low opinion of women’s abilities compared with men’s.”
Wow, really? Good thing you said something because I never would have figured that out otherwise.
As for my statement that the feminized state could not last forever, I am not calling for armed revolution. Far from it. That would just give the state an excuse to kill and imprison even more men.
I’m actually glad somebody realized this. xD
Like that guy who was saying that if MRAs started to pick off police responding to DV calls w/ a high powered rifle, the police would just never respond again… um… no, that’s not what would happen xD
I have abs no problem w/ the “we’re taking our ball and going home” guys either, I mean ideally, I would like a society where everybody participates and is happy, but I mean if you’re unhappy, that’s a good way to protest (like taking your business elsewhere) :3 I mean if they’re right, society will crumble and women will be lost… and if we’re right and the world is not a feminist dominated matriarchy, then… it won’t crumble :] but this is a good way to handle things vs rawr VIOLENCE! or etc :]
@ithiliana
“I’ve been concerned over the years with what I believe is a fairly small martyr impulse in feminism, especially in literary feminisms around Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath–an impulse toward making them martyrs of the patriarchy.”
Damn, people do that? I haven’t read so much of Plath as I have of Woolf, but I never got that impression. They always seemed more like cautionary tales about depression going untreated. : /