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.
@Tabby I actually wrote this last night:
http://ami-rants.blogspot.com/2011/06/wtf-headline-is-literal-oo.html
Again, you are an idiot. If “defensiveness” is asking you to back up claims you make, then sure, I’ll be “defensive”. (I can’t wait to see how you take this out of context, considering the rest of what you wrote…)
You asked where the outcry was. I asked you what kind of outcry you were looking for. You’re saying that feminists support the criminal act this woman committed. Asking for proof of this isn’t “defensive”, it’s asking you to back up a moronic assertion.
I could, if there were sites set up to condemn every criminal act that makes it into the news. However, you are the one that brought up the story while make claims and asking questions. It’s up to you to provide links showing feminists cheering her on.
No, what’s telling is that you either lack reading comprehension or deliberately quote words out of context. Let’s see what I actually wrote, shall we?
See where I used the word “random”? It wasn’t in reference to her actions, it was in reference to your use of the article. You found a news article about a woman committing a crime against a child. You could have failed to make a salient point with any article about a woman committing a crime against a child.
If you want to make a point, what you need is to find an article where feminists exclaim that the woman committing the crime against a child should be allowed to keep that child. Only then would you have a point.
As opposed to what? Vigilante justice? Or are you saying that outcries from feminists are the only punishments people who commit crimes against child get?
I’m frankly so bewildered that your reaction to “the police should arrest the criminal and throw her into prison” is “I also find it telling that your response was not to condemn her but to say that it is okay because your precious state will handle it” that I don’t know if you’re a complete imbecile or just so committed to argue with feminists that you will take any stance, no matter how bizarre. Even the most committed libertarians and objectivists I’ve come across don’t have a problem with the state throwing people who commit assault into prison.
Ami – well, there we are. Outcry from a feminist. I’m sure aMiRA will find some way to discount it though.
@Tubby Lovelamp
So your counter is to point to a site by a brain-dead valley girl who wandered off the set of Jersey Shore and is obviously mocking the seriousness of this situation? This is the same girl who makes those silly hate-filled cards and calls them activism. With friends like those…
Your reading comprehension abilities are farcical. I didn’t say that people who commit crimes should not go to jail, but that you feminists use “well the police will get her!” as a convenient way to dodge the issue I brought up: the double standard that feminists apply to male “abusers” and female abusers. As was brought up above, you care about a little split lip, but not about years of psychological abuse, frustration and desperation that led to a poor man taking his life.
What kind of shit slaps a four-year old?? Ever? That is FUCKED.
Yeah, abuse leaves lifetime damage… verbal/emotional abuse, physical abuse… I wonder how long before that little girl stops flinching when people make sudden movements near her? That poor little girl. Hypervigilance is what happens to kids like this. Nightmares, flashbacks, abusing others… breaking the chain of abuse is hard. Especially when you have permanent physical reminders of it (scars, skull fractures, headaches, etc.). For me, the choice to never have children is one way I have ended it. There is no chance I will ever hit or abuse my child- I’m not having any.
Typical. My comment is in moderation. Are you so afraid of the truth?
Oh, yeah- when someone writes a ‘manifesto’ and makes it public, the public gets to make judgment upon it. Simple, no?
I LOVE the truth! Fuck fear! TELL ME NOW!!!! It burns so good!
.
He wasn’t Sticking It To The Matrix, he was hitting a four-year-old several times about the face until she bled.
Why am I arguing with a man who has no interest in real discussion?
Nice try, but if you try to write insults instead of making actual points, don’t blame the reader. I really don’t know what you want to see from feminists here. I want to see her in prison. I want to see male abusers in prison. I want to see abusers period in prison. I know you’re looking for a double standard, but posting an article about a crime committed isn’t proving a double standard. Posting a link to feminists arguing that she should only get councelling while still keeping her child? That would be a double standard. But you can’t find that link, can you?
You didn’t bring up any issue. You just posted a link to a story about a crime.
The two stories have nothing to do with each other. However, let me ask you this – would you care if there were years of psychological abuse, frustration and desperation leading to a women using a child as a weapon? If not, you might want to look at the double standard in you.
@Tabby Lavalamp (apparently spelling your name incorrectly gets me into moderation by your boyfriend)
Given your pathetic attempts at debate, I have a new nickname for you:
Inane
Argumentative
Motormouth
Atrociously
Mad
Idiot
Thankyou Pecunium, that means a lot coming from you as your comments are so awesome!
@VoIP
Way to miss the point
I’m saying, I’m past getting any kind of reaction to stuff happening, besides intellectually thinking about it on a detached level, because we will always be too stupid to change society for the better, that it is not worth it, to even try bothering to change things.
I don’t know why he did what he did, but I know what desperation at the humanity of humans is.
aMiRA, I can’t decide if I love you or hate you right now. 😀
Tabby: aMiRA is a bit infuriating until you learn to see him for what he really is.
I do not desire your love. But I will gladly take your hate.
I however will take your love! *HUGS* also your hate, if you’re mad 🙁 I hope I did not upset you too much : I thought you alrdy knew but I never know who saw it the first few times and who didn’t 😐
“Sometimes it’s someone losing their temper, not a willful act meant to hurt. Apparently intent doesn’t matter in those cases.”
No, intent doesn’t matter when you’re repeatedly slapping a 4-year-old in the face. Just like if I lost my temper and hurt someone else, particularly a child, I would face repercussions. Your emotions don’t make it ok to hurt someone.
This is the correct thread for this. 😉
Here’s a bit on patents. Under the British common law rules that states applied until the federal law in 1790, women could not hold patents. After that, women were not barred by the federal law, but women in states without property rights were legally barred from owning the patent and often from having the patent in their own name. When married women’s property rights increased, the number of women’s patents exploded. http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/ilives/womeninventors.html
On abuse and intent, intent does matter, but “intent to injure” is usually only an element in a higher charge. Ball intended to hit the child, he did not hit her by mistake while randomly flailing his limbs. Of course, those are assault charges, parents can also be liable for reckless or negligent injury to a child under their care, but intent to hit and intent to injure are not quite the same thing. Though, honestly, anyone who does not understand that hitting someone in the face several times does them injury is probably comatose.
Ami, I’m usually pretty good at spotting satire/parody, but damn it, after dealing with some of the MRAs who have posted here, it was too hard to see it with aMiRa. I’m not mad at all. 🙂
“I do not desire your love. But I will gladly take your hate.”
words to live by!
@Bee:
And I already quoted Marcotte’s words to you twice. In the comments I quoted she did not state “suggested” or “might”. In her post she only used “suggest” three times, and only once in reference to Ball regarding her “suggestion that Ball may have been abusive to his family”. She only used “might” to suggest that “there might be a more personal reason for this guy’s suicide” vis a vis abusers using suicide threats to hurt their victims. So not only did you misrepresent Ball’s statements, you misrepresented Marcotte’s. Perhaps if you quoted the comments you are referring it would clarify the problem.
I did not state that. I stated that we do not know that Ball’s brother spoke on behalf of Ball’s ex-wife. We do not know the state of Ball’s relationship with his ex or his children, so for all we know they had nothing to do with him. Secondly, when a family member related to a person speaks for that person’s family, they typically mean their immediate family, which usually does not include exes.
I did not state that either. I stated that it cannot be read as placing blame on his ex-wife or daughter. He clearly places all the blame on the judicial and family court systems. If you read more into it, that is you reading more into it. You are more than welcome to do that, but Ball does not directly state that his ex-wife or daughter are to blame. I honestly do not know why anyone wants him to have done that.
I stated that it is not exactly child abuse, and it is not. One incident resulting in a cut lip does not mean Ball routinely abused his daughter or that his intent was to abuse or even hurt her. And considering that I also stated that I find striking children a cowardly act, it is rather tactless of you to imply I support child abuse.
I understand the need to engage in insults and ad hominems. I presented a counter opinion, and by virtue of not being a feminist some people immediately discredit the validity of my arguments. I also realize it can be frustrating when someone actually presents a defensible argument for which you have no counter. However, poor argumentative skills is not a good reason to engage in such juvenile behavior.
toysoldier: Not routinely /= no abuse.
I don’t know what you think hitting someone several times is… I see that you think it’s not, “exactly” abuse, but I also see that you think it can be done without the intent to hurt. So you aren’t “exactly” defending child abuse, just defining this abusive behavior as, “not exactly” abusive, because it wasn’t “regular.
But I understand you’re being frustrated from dealing with arguments for which you have no counter.