So somebody, and I honestly don’t know who, tried a little experiment last night on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit: claiming to be a “long time lurker and closet-convert to the MRM [with] some thoughts to share that I’ve been working on for a long time,” the (ostensibly male) prankster cut-and-pasted the excerpts of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik’s manifesto that I highlighted in my last post and presented them to the Men’s Rightsers as if they were his own writings. The prankster also pretended to be posting on a throwaway account because his “GF has a reddit account and I’m not ready to open that bag of worms yet.” (All of the excerpts in question were from posts from far-right blogger Fjordman that Breivik had incorporated into his “manifesto.”)
So how did Breivik/Fjordman’s views (not identified as such) go over on r/MensRights? Pretty well, it turns out, with the post receiving (when last I checked) about twice as many upvotes as downvotes from the locals. “Nice post man.,” wrote darkamir in a comment. To FascistOrigami, meanwhile,
The beautiful thing about this post (beyond the fact that it hits all the major issues): every feminist on reddit whose bf is also on reddit will be wondering if the OP is her guy.
The biggest bone of contention? That the (fictional) OP felt he had to hide his views from his (fictional) girlfriend. “If you have a girlfriend who you have to hide things from, she should not be your girlfriend,” wrote one commenter. Others worried that the OP might be in an abusive relationship if “he” felt he couldn’t speak his mind. Tomek77, in perhaps the most ironic comment of the bunch, warned the OP that he might get a violent reaction if he revealed his views to his “GF.”
Just a piece of advice: I would be very careful about sharing your thoughts with your gf (if you care about your relationship).
For some reason that still escapes my understanding, many women go absolutely bat-shit crazy when they are faced with the reality of gender relations in the west.
To this day, I remember one of my ex-gf literally entering crazy-mode, screaming, yelling and physically shaking after I mentioned that it doesn’t make sense for men to get married under the current law. I swear, I was expecting to see foam coming from her mouth at any moment – and we have only been dating for a week!!
Even in more casual social settings, I have seen many women react very violently and irrationally when men’s issues were mentioned in the conversation. So proceed with caution..
Several hours after the original post, one of the regulars figured out what was going on. And posted a link to my post here on Breivik. Needless to say, my ideas got a much harsher reception than Breivik/Fjordman’s did, though judging from the comments very few of the regulars actually bothered to read my post before arriving at their conclusions about it.
You could find Valerie Solanas quotes that all feminists would agree with. Hell, some feminists endorse her whole book, even when they know she tried to kill a man.
For example:
http://www.cassyfiano.com/2009/11/feminists-praise-man-hater-valerie-solanas
There’s even a feminist convention in her honor. Wake me up when MRA’s hold a convention in Breivik’s honor.
http://allecto.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/scum-radical-feminist-conference/
@Aaron:
No, its true, you could find bits and pieces of even psychotics that you could agree with. The thing about linking anyone to a killer is as follows: is there a reasonable line of argument to go from the source to killing people.
I don’t know much about Valerie Solanas, but I’d bet that most feminists would not endorse any ideologies she had concerning, hinting at, or resulting in the murder or wiping out of men.
On the other hand, MRAs talk about shooting people, terrorism, violence towards women, and so on. It isn’t hard to draw a line of argument from talking about violence to actually doing it. That is why the connection is troublesome.
@Aaron:
Also, your first link involves a self described radical feminist praising radical ideas. Shocker. Wake me up when feminists praise the SCUM manifesto or Valerie Solanas.
The first link discussed a post on Feministing, probably the largest feminist blog of them all. Are you saying Feministing is outside the feminist mainstream?
I have read the S.C.U.M. manifesto. I was curious after the independent film, I Shot Andy Warhol, was released. Solanas’ screed does, in fact, touch on some of the ideas that inform mainstream and radical feminism. I don’t think that equals an endorsement of her, her written work, or her attempts to murder.
I am a feminist and I soundly reject Solanas’ beliefs that men are genetically inferior, incapable of love, and her call for gendercide.
As for MRAs holding a convention in Breivak’s honor:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=celebrating+marc+lepine&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Time will tell.
@Aaron:
Here is the full quoted text:
So yeah, it isn’t all of feministing that is supporting the quote, and the one quoted self-describes as a radical. I’m saying that radicals do not define the entire movement.
I’ve recently wondered how much overlap there is between the wingnut world and the MRA world. I would think…significant.
Kirby, I’d also like to point out that within the comments posted on this, and one other thread I found that touches on Radical Feminism, there is no consensus. There are active debates between feminists self-identifying as “Radical” and “Mainstream”. Hardly a complete endorsement of the S.C.U.M. manifesto, Solanas, or murder.
On the contrary, I’d say that like most liberal ideologies, the kooks are pushed to the fringes and roundly denounced by the main of the believers. Unlike right-wing ideologies, wherein the kookiest elements are often embraced.
Tried to kill a man?
Okay, seriously? When you find a feminist who’s an anti-Islamic neo-Nazi racist white supremacist going on a family killing spree we’ll have a comparison.
@vacuumslayer:
I don’t know if I’d make the leap to right-wing and liberal, but some ideologies do actually have a written manifesto (religious ones, usually), and even the fringes have to stick to it’s confines. With the SCUM manifesto, we have a document that most feminists simply don’t accept, and yet to MRAs it is the bible of our movement.
The MRM does not have a similar manifesto either. But so many of its followers, MRAs, seem to be stuck in the anti-woman and violence promoting camp that one can draw a pretty stable line of argument from that to murder. Feminism, by contrast, is mostly pro-woman or pro-equity, neither of which can really lead to gendercide.
Good prank! Bravo, anonymous prankster.
Dude, these guys are basically the Stormfront. There is nothing too hateful or evil for them to endorse.
Valerie Solarna
Just a long time lurker here, but I remember reading a webcomic from one of her friend’s daughters (can’t remember who it was, I want to think it was the same person who did the huge Harry Potter storyline on one page but I think it was someone very similar) discussing why she wrote that and the fallout from it. Wish I could remember the link. 🙁
Anyway, back to discussing semi-Nazi, misogynist, fundie xenophobic mass murdering fuck heads. And none of that surprises me about MRA reddit, I give it a few years before there’s a bad incident involving them.
Yeah, it was kind of awesome to see them hurry to distance themselves from the guy… I liked this little exchange.
And the reply.
So if he wasn’t just against feminism, great! If not, well, he probably had some legitimate excuse to mow down over 90 people.. Yeah. The “in the clear” statement echos a little strangely in that regard.
Also, I like how this person thinks that MRAs mainly address feminism, not, you know, Men’s Rights… Little things, further reinforcing the idea that MRAs are not pro-men, they are anti-woman.
So, I’ve been a feminist since I was a teenager. And I think it’s telling that I never heard of Valerie Solanas until my first Women’s Studies class in college. And the way I heard about her? My professor went “And then there was Solanas. She was an attempted murderer, psychotic, and very unbalanced. Her radical views on gender relations horrifically skewed the opinions of many on feminism, and while we can try all we want to denounce her, she will be trotted out every time feminism is discussed.”
I also think it’s telling that in a community like reddit, where people vote on the most popular opinions with up and down votes, that this sort of violent, hateful rhetoric is ok until 1. They connect the dots and realize this was the terrorist from Norway, and even then it would probably kind of be hush-hushed but not denounced until 2. they found out they were being pranked. I’m betting that’s what did it. Not the fact that this guys was actually acting on their opinions.
Also, reading their comments: They assume Bobbit and Kieu were feminists, when we haven’t actually heard them air their opinions, and all they did were two similar, heinous acts of violence. But- we can’t call this guy an MRA even though he DID air his opinions, they sounded like what we read on many MRA blogs every day, and he *acted* on the violence present in those sentiments? Color me unsurprised.
@Bostonian:
So these guys are basically MRA radicals? Do you know a good forum of more moderate MRAs, so we can see their reactions to this mess?
Oh no! I meant that all MRAs are like that! Their whole “movement” is that way, as far as I can tell from what they write online.
BTW, David, the headline of this post should have the words “Surprising no one,…” at the beginning.
@Bostonian:
Sorry, a little tired. 🙂 Well, if anything, their more vocal members are indeed pretty extreme. But they seem to have started as a reaction to feminism, not a response to men’s issues… It’s little wonder then that all of their products seem to be reactionary crap.
No worries kirbywarp, my phrasing was off, I think.
I think what this experiment demonstrates isn’t MRAs’ agreement with the manifestos of spree killers–although there’s overlap, certainly–but MRAs’ vulnerability to groupthink. The manifesto posted to craigslist was disjointed and frankly barely readable, and I think most of the people reading it actually noticed that. But they couldn’t argue with it, because it was sort of MRA-shaped, and to give anything other than approval would make put them on the side of the white knight mangina feminazis.
I don’t think this experiment necessarily shows that MRAs have everything in common with spree killers–but it does show that their movement is extremely hostile to internal criticism and values “on our side” more than “makes any goddamn sense.”
reddit, not craigslist. cripes.