Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed more than 90 people in attacks on Friday, was motivated by a toxic mélange of far-right ideology largely revolving around his intense hatred of Islam. The 1500 page “manifesto” he posted to the internet – what appears to be a grab-bag of his own writing and material cut and pasted from assorted right-wing sites and even the Unabomber’s manifesto – crackles with denunciations of Muslims, “Marxists” and the assorted other bogeymen that haunt right-wing dreams.
And it’s also filled with denunciations of feminism that could easily have come from the posts and comments of Men’s Rights and misogynist “manosphere” blogs like The Spearhead, In Mala Fide, and, well, quite a few other sites I write about regularly on this blog. (Not to mention a few of this blog’s misogynist trolls.) In passage after passage, the ideology is the same, the language is the same, even the specific obsessions are the same – from no-fault divorce to the evils of “Sex and the City.” (Download the entire thing from the links here.)
I haven’t had time to go through the manifesto in great detail yet, but I wanted to share with you some selections from it that I think will strike most readers of this blog as strangely familiar.
The following selections, denouncing, among other things, the “’Sex and the City’ lifestyle,”appear to have been written by Breivik himself:
It’s the destructive and suicidal “Sex and the City” lifestyle (modern feminism, sexual revolution) which we are taught to revere as the truth. In that setting, men are not men anymore, but metro sexual and emotional beings that are there to serve the purpose as a never-criticising soul mate to the new age feminist woman goddess. The perfect matriarchy has now been fulfilled and complete equality has finally been achieved. The fact that mankind will seize to exist within three generations with this type of regime is irrelevant. Long live cultural Marxism! …
Isolated, “sex and the city lifestyle” is relatively harmless, but if you glorify it and ram it down the throat of mainstream society like we see today it becomes a lethal and destructive societal force as we are witnessing which eventually leads to a complete breakdown of moral/ethics, the nuclear family model and a sustainable fertility rate which again is leading us to the extinction of Europeans.
Breivik goes on to rant about STDs and no-fault divorce, before moving on to another favorite obsession of manosphere misogynists, the supposed sexual “capital” of manipulative women:
Females have a significantly higher proportion of erotic capital than males due to biological differences (men have significantly more prevalent sexual urges than females and are thus easily manipulated). The female manipulation of males has been institutionalised during the last decades and is a partial cause of the feminisation of men in Europe. This highly underestimated factor has contributed to the creation and rise of the matriarchal systems which are now dominating Western European countries. …
He also blames women for the spread of what he considers evil “cultural Marxism” and multiculturalism:
Fact: 60-70% of all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists are women. This partly explains why the gradual feminist revolution is directly linked to the implementation of multiculturalist doctrines. These feminist cultural Marxists do not only want more benefits and rights for themselves. They want it all, and have more or less been awarded with everything they could ever dream of achieving. They now have complete matriarchal supremacy domestically and exercise substantial influence in politics. …
Obsessed with the purported danger that Islam will outbreed the West, Breivik offers an assortment of creepy solutions to increase the fertility of Western whites. (It’s not altogether clear to me if these are all his own views, but they certainly are consistent with what he says elsewhere in the manifesto.) After suggesting limiting contraception and banning abortion, Breivik offers this “solution”:
Discourage women in general to strive for full time careers. This will involve certain sexist and discriminating policies but should increase the fertility rate by up to 0,1-0,2 points.
Women should not be encouraged by society/media to take anything above a bachelor’s degree but should not be prevented from taking a master or PhD. Males on the other hand should obviously continue to be encouraged to take higher education – bachelor, master and PhD. …
And then he’s back on his “Sex and the City” hobbyhorse:
Discourage women in general to strive for “sex and the city/Madonna” lifestyles. The mass media are currently actively glorifying/encouraging “sex and the city/Madonna” lifestyles which involves the glorification of casual sex, multiple sex partners and generally an extremely liberal individualistic lifestyle hostile to the traditional nuclear family values. As such, the non-restrictions of the mass media is the main cause for our unsustainable fertility rate of 1,5.
The indirect media/government glorification campaigns through individual artists, various series, movies and media coverage in general should reflect this new shift (no more glorification of “sex and the city lifestyles” or equivalent portrayals. No longer should women be pressured to have equal success regarding their career as males.
Womens “new role” should be actively illustrated and glorified through series, movies and commercials. This will involve significant restrictions in media freedoms and rights. These restrictions and reforms will result in an increased fertility rate of approximately 0,2-0,3 points.
The end result for implementing the above reforms would be an increase in the fertility rate up from 1,5 to approximately 2,1-2,4 which would be sustainable.
However, this will also involve significant restrictions in women’s rights and media rights.
And, like many in the manosphere, he also holds out hope for “artificial wombs,” which would of course reduce the inconvenience of relying on women to cooperate with his plans.
Large chunks of the manifesto consist of cut-and-pasted blog posts from an anonymous far-right Norwegian blogger known as Fjordman, whose now defunct blog can be found here. (According to Andrew Brown in the Guardian article linked to above, Breivik and Fjordman are not the same person.)
Here are some selections from the Fjordman posts that Breivik includes in his manifesto. Again, much of this will seem very familiar to many of you, I am sure.
For all the talk about “girl power” and “women kicking ass” which you see on movies these days, if the men of your “tribe” are too weak or demoralised to protect you, you will be enslaved and crushed by the men from other “tribes” before you can say “Vagina Monologues”. Which means that if you break down men’s masculinity, their willingness and ability to defend themselves and their families, you destroy the country. That’s exactly what Western women have done for the last forty years. ….
The male protective instinct doesn’t take action because Scandinavian women have worked tirelessly to eradicate it, together with everything else that smacks of traditional masculinity. Because of this, feminism has greatly weakened Scandinavia, and perhaps Western civilisation as whole. …
Didn’t feminists always claim that the world would be a better place with women in the driver’s seat, because they wouldn’t sacrifice their own children? Well, isn’t that exactly what they are doing now? Smiling and voting for parties that keep the doors open to Muslim immigration, the same Muslims who will be attacking their children tomorrow? …
Misandry, the hatred of men, isn’t necessarily less prevalent than misogyny, the hatred of women. The difference is that the former is much more socially acceptable.
If all oppression comes from Western men, it becomes logical to try weakening them as much as possible. If you do, a paradise of peace and equality awaits us at the other side of the rainbow. Well congratulations to Western European women. You’ve succeeded in harassing and ridiculing your own sons into suppressing many of their masculine instincts. To your surprise, you didn’t enter a feminist Nirvana, but paved the way for an unfolding Islamic hell. ….
Feminists claim that the reason why women haven’t been as numerous in politics and science as men is due to male oppression of women. Some of this is true. But it is not the whole story. Being male means having to prove something, to achieve something, in a greater way than it does for women. In addition to this, the responsibility for child rearing will always fall more heavily on women than on men. ….
it was in fact the women who started this whole “single is best” culture that now permeates much of the West. Since women initiate most divorces and a divorce can potentially mean financial ruin for a man, it shouldn’t really be too surprising that many men hesitate to get involved at all. … At the same time, women during the past few decades have made it a lot easier to have a girlfriend without getting married. So women make it riskier to get married and easier to stay unmarried, and then they wonder why men “won’t commit?” Maybe too many women didn’t think all this feminism stuff quite through before jumping on the bandwagon? …..
The elaborate welfare state model in Western Europe is frequently labelled as “the nanny state,” but perhaps it could also be named “the husband state.” Why? Well, in a traditional society, the role of men and husbands is to physically protect and financially provide for their women. In our modern society, part of this task has simply been “outsourced” to the state, which helps explain why women in general give a disproportionate support to high taxation and pro-welfare state parties. The state has simply become a substitute husband, upheld by taxation of their ex-husbands. ….
Radical feminism has bred suspicion and hostility, not cooperation. And what’s more, it has no in any way eradicated the basic sexual attraction between feminine women and masculine men. If people do not find this in their own country, they travel to another country or culture to find it, which in our age of globalisation is easier than ever. A striking number of Scandinavian men find their wives in East Asia, Latin America or other nations with a more traditional view of femininity, and a number of women find partners from more conservative countries. …
radical feminism has been one of the most important causes of the current weakness of Western civilisation, both culturally and demographically. Feminists, often with a Marxist world view, have been a crucial component in establishing the suffocating public censorship of Political Correctness in Western nations. They have also severely weakened the Western family structure, and contributed to making the West too soft and self-loathing to deal with aggression from Muslims. …
Well, after two generations of Second Wave Feminism, Ms. Willis and Ms. Beauvoir have had their way: The West has skyrocketing divorce rates and plummeting birth rates, leading to a cultural and demographic vacuum that makes us vulnerable to a take-over by… Islam. And feminists still aren’t satisfied. ….
Feminists claim that women have been victims of men, that men have oppressed women for centuries and that the sexes are equal. Denying this will result in the smears “misogynist” and “male chauvinist pig”. But equalising the sexes has led to a crippling feminisation of Western society … portraying women as oppressed victims and the equals of males is one example of how the pursuit of equality is being used to destroy our society and undermine – and therefore be in conflict with – Mother nature. ….
I’ll continue going through the manifesto to see what else I can find. If any of you decide to do the same thing, and find other selections in it that you find telling, please post them in the comments below.
I would also like to find specific writings on manosphere blogs – posts or comments – that directly parallel these selections from Breivik’s manifesto. If any of you are willing to help, again, please post your findings in the comments below, along with URLs to the sources of the manosphere quotes.
Ideas have consequences. Vile, hateful ideas have vile, hateful consequences.
For more on Breivik’s misogyny, see this post on Red Light Politics.
PZ Myers has more on Breivik’s noxious ideology, including his hatred of atheists, here.
@YOHAMI:
You aren’t just framing reporting the framing. You are saying that we are framing it wrongly, that the violent rhetoric of the MRM (if you admit it exsits) has nothing to do with this guy’s actions, even though his manifesto contains direct copy-pastes. This isn’t just a case of “you see what you want,” we are showing word-for-word quotes from this guy’s manifesto as evidence for the link; you are dismissing this as “just seeing what you want to see.”
You aren’t a casual observer. You are making a claim. And so far you’ve danced around with accusations, putting us on the defensive, without making an ounce of effort to justify it.
I have to go to bed soon.
I will do so without ever once seeing NWO denounce murder. (I think, based on the time since last irrelevant screed, he might have logged off.)
I know he’s just a bottom-feeding, manipulatively-masochistic Internet troll, but nonetheless, I am amazed by that man.
…And tonight, a little frightened.
But David never said this dude was an MRA, just that there are some shared assumptions that are problematic and misogynist. You yourself said it would be ok to talk about this with a Christian vs. Muslim framework, but apparently talking about misogyny is not alright as a framework, despite the fact that the dude was clearly misogynist and I think we’re saying that perhaps a practice of dehumanizing people made his spree easier to contemplate and carry out?
Getting away from the MRAs for a moment – do you agree that misogyny is what’s quoted here and that this is problematic and, as it’s part of the manifesto of a mass-murderer, perhaps worthy of comment and analysis?
kirbywarp,
“You aren’t a casual observer. You are making a claim. And so far you’ve danced around with accusations, putting us on the defensive, without making an ounce of effort to justify it.”
The guy has 1500 pages and a lot of it is race and stuff not linked to the MRA, you know. Yes he hated women, yes he says stuff similar to the MRA, but also hated.. everything. The guy looks like a collection of every hate speech there is and everything that is wrong with everyone, and his solution, killing people… really? random people. Fucking asshole.
So yeah, transfer that as a crime done because of the MRA. Thats stupid. Previsible since this blog is anti MRA so you have to use whatever bullet the world gives you.
But I was reading the nonsense and at some point Holly accused NWO of not caring about the murders, and using the horror to pursue his own agenda, and, really, that was too much for me and I jumped in.
Dont blame me for putting you guys in the defensive. This blog is a troll fest and it looks like its been like this for a while. I dont blame you for shooting at everything I say, I guess you are all too used to deal with guys like NWO and its easier to fire than to dialogue
It seems that Breivik has not entirely escaped feminist influences. He seems to have sipped some of that feminist KoolAid:
All you need to do to get women back into the home is dismantle affirmative action and apply true equality-of-opportunity (as opposed to equality-of-outcome). Getting women to compete against men on equal terms with men will see them fleeing into the kitchen quicker than you can say “make me a sandwich, bitch!” 🙂
Chuckeedee – Your comment is ridiculous on its face, but there’s a major problem:
I have no kitchen to flee to. I’m unmarried, childless, and my boyfriend is not rich. He can’t afford to support me as a housewife.
Working is not a luxury or a source of entertainment for me. It’s a source of food and rent. So I kinda can’t run away from it, even if I wanted to.
Lyn,
I guess that was addressed to me?
David was wise to push it to the limit of politically correct, showing the similarities but not giving a final word about it. The commenters here, though, different story.
Talking about misogyny is fine. This guy hated women, and repeats a lot of nonsense from the MRA. However if this was a MRA crime he would have killed WOMEN ONLY or something like that. I dont think his misogyny was the driving factor. A factor? yeah. Can we dive into his misogyny? sure.
Does this mean that the MRA is so dangerous because it makes people kill people? now thats another nonsense to feed trolls like NWO.
“do you agree that misogyny is what’s quoted here and that this is problematic and, as it’s part of the manifesto of a mass-murderer, perhaps worthy of comment and analysis?”
Yep. And I have read arguments like that before. If this guy had a circle of friends, these should be investigated. He seem to be propagating some credo. One doesnt write 1500 pages of bullshit unless you have an audience / a group to preach to.
Yohami, I think your position is closer to what the other posters think than it appeared at first. You are probably right that commenters here are used to trolls, and jump right in. Take heart, they are asking you for clarification, so at least they are taking you seriously 😉
YOHAMI – yes, addressed to you.
And, I don’t speak for other commenters, but I don’t think MRA ideologies kill people. It’s impossible to argue direct causation and I don’t want to – I actually think that the MRA position is the logical extension of day-to-day misogyny and sexism…and I do think that these day-to-day sexist assumptions (i.e. women’s bodies/clothes cause rape) harm people and validate violent and unsympathetic behaviours.
I do, however, argue that MRAs perpetuate misogyny and a host of other dehumanizing and violent ideologies that we see in this manifesto and, therefore, that the misogyny and dehumanizing and violent nature of the MRA blogosphere is problematic.
David:
Your quotations from Breivik show someone emeshed in a type of blame-the-woman that goes back several hundred years.
Let’s remember the Maleus Malificarum (The Witches Hammer) which was Christendom’s Cliff Notes on the evils of witchcraft and how it sprang from female sexual desire.
I wonder what most MRAs will think when they realise that a mass murderer agrees with their words? Anti-moslem and anti-jew people might not give a damn, but I like to think ordinary MRA men would stop and think.
@YOHAMI:
*sigh* Nobody has said that this guy did what he did “because of the MRA.” At most, it was “Here is a guy who took MRA rhetoric seriously, and actually carried through with it.”
In your summary, you’ve also conveniently forgotten your accusation that Feminism is the same as the MRM, casually implying that feminists use the same violent rhetoric that MRAs do. Well, that is false, and its something that has been brought up in the past multiple times. Read MRA blogs, and you get strong indications that they are anti-woman, not pro-men. Read feminist blogs, and you get strong indications that they are pro-woman, not anti-men. Equivocating the two movements… grah… it’s just unbelievably dishonest, and would take much more than a couple comments to explain just how wrong it is.
@Magpie:
Our resident anti-feminist, AWS, has already distanced himself far away from this guy, calling him every name under the sun. Go figure.
Magpie,
I think a lot of MRAs will look at him as some kind of martyr. Some did so with Sodini, and somehow blamed his murders on feminism.
Rly AWS did? xD (I haven’t been following xD )
kirbywarp,
Thats the thing,. For you and some of the other commenters here is easier to disagree and fire bullets and call whatever Im saying dishonest and attempt to frame me (and every dissonant voice, I guess) as one of the trolls you are used to fight and defeat.
HOLLY fully transfered the horror of the murder to the MRA. And I talked to HER.
Cool?
When I talked to you and told you that it would be unfair to attribute some random female murders to feminism, I WOULD NEVER THOUGHT that you would see that as me trying to imply that feminism is violent. But, this is the thing when you talk to people who is already on the defensive. You are seeing stuff because you want. The more I talk to you, the more stuff you think you perceive. The more I talk, the more shit fest.
But its the same if I get to compare one religion to another when talking to religious people. See, I get I offended you for comparing Feminism to the MRA. Sorry for hurting you, I never expected that would happen. Lack of tact. Cool?
Still, you CAN compare the two, and the same fallacies and strawman and troll shotting and stupidity are abundant in both sectors. Sad to watch, because you guys should be solving the issues instead of creating more of this nonsense.
“Read feminist blogs, and you get strong indications that they are pro-woman, not anti-men.”
When I read feminist stuff I find it full of anti-men stuff. But it is probably invisible to you, since you are inside of it.
Do you know mysoginistic cultures dont perceive how much they “hate” women? its just normal for them. So, that. Just gender reversed.
AWS? I wasn’t thinking of him as ‘an ordinary man’.
So…YOHAMI…are you saying that Feminism is a hate movement like the MRM or not?
“I think a lot of MRAs will look at him as some kind of martyr. Some did so with Sodini, and somehow blamed his murders on feminism.”
Do you think so, Yohami? Am I being too optimistic?
I never understand the point of this kind of terrorism. No one will be converted by this man’s murderous actions. His manifesto will resonate with no one but the already converted. The groups promoting this kind of rhetoric will be closely monitored. And nothing can be done to prevent the incidents of a lone maniac anyway, so everyone loses.
This is so sad.
Oh, this is the “calm and objective outsider” thing xD I wonder if he’s still feeling ill xD
We’re just fervent religious ppl too wrapped up in our religion xD
It’s cute to me how he’s trying to back off from Kirby w/o acting like he’s backing off tho :3
I’m having trouble putting words round this idea: it’s good that most people can’t understand, because it would be bad if people could put their head in that space.
No good with words, sorry.
redlocker, morethinking, etc, again:
Im really tired of you guys.
“So…YOHAMI…are you saying that Feminism is a hate movement like the MRM or not?”
when I said
“I said it would be UNFAIR to link feminism to some random violent woman. And I say it is UNFAIR to link this guy to the MRA.”
Witch hunt is a favorite sport here, isnt it.
Somehow if I put Feminism and MRA in the same line and make a comparison, you guys perceive that Im putting them as equals and saying feminism equals hate? who knows what will happen if I start expressing my opinions, which have some positive but negative connotations, about feminism!
This is like talking to religious people, really.
Anyway, lets try?
Am I saying feminism is a hate movement? no. But do I consider MRM a hate movement? neither. oh surprise! you didnt see this coming did you.
MRM is a very dark movement from what I have seen. A lot of people there is really hurt and resentful. What I KNOW however, is that nobody pays the attention because they are men. If they were women and had the same problems, people like you, and the state, and the powers that be would be bringing them assistance. Since they get no attention, the flagellate themselves. Sad to watch. They have some valid points though. Since everyone here seems to hate them, I guess theres no point for me to bring which points I think are valid.
MRM contains a large dose of womenhating. But, most of it is about having being victimized by women. Again, if they were women whining out loud about how they have been victimized by men, Im sure all of you would be listening. Which leads to this conclusion: you dont care about they because they are men? that only fuels them even more. Sad stuff.
Then Feminism: whenever I read feminism stuff the woman is always the “real” victim of everything, the one who needs help, the precious little thing, etc. Men are overlooked, or considered as full of privileges and abusers and stuff. It doesnt feel right, for me, being a good man, that everytime I care about the pain of others, I end up being reported as the “bad one” just because I was born as a man. This is some quite large stuff, but I dont make any illusions that I will be able to really talk about them with a feminist because Im probably already triggering all of your “troll alerts”
Do I consider Feminism as hate speech as MRA? I think theres more hate in the MRA. But, since Feminism has more power in society, the hate elements in feminism are more TANGIBLE and have more repercussions than anything the MRA is doing.
And I dont think the mass killings were a repercussion of MRA, as some commenters here are saying. That is what I originally wanted to say, really.
B/c Holly isn’t here nemore… I just want to clarify for her :]
We don’t have proof, and we’re not claiming, that this guy was an MRA, or that misogyny was his only problem. Far from it. But we are pointing out that lunatic-fringe hatred on the Internet is not benign, not a joke. It has the potential to spark very real-life violence.
Is what she said. xD
Magpie,
Not long a guy a guy set himself on fire after being screwed up by the law court, and some MRAs were celebrating that as a path of action.
I think the MRAs feel hopeless. I dont know what can be done about them. Hurting them, though, doesnt make sense.