As “activists,” Men’s Rights Activists seem to be good at only two things: harassing people, and flooding comment sections of websites with their endlessly repeated half-dozen talking points. On Reddit, for example, the local MRAs have been quite the little imperialists, invading a number of gender-related subreddits (like r/equality and r/egalitarian) and turning them essentially into r/mensrights-lite, which has effectively meant killing them. (The recently started r/masculism – an attempt to do Men’s Rights on Reddit without all the misogyny – doesn’t have a chance.)
Well, now the MRA invaders on Reddit seem to have set their sights on a much bigger target: the TwoXChromosomes subreddit. Yep, they’re trying to turn Reddit’s central hangout for the ladies into a boys club.
2XC– an explicitly female-oriented forum on a site (Reddit) heavily dominated by dudes — has always been a strange place. Though I am myself, obviously, a dude, I used to read it fairly regularly, finding it a welcome respite from all the “sammich” jokes and other idiot misogyny so pervasive elsewhere on Reddit. At the time, 2XC had a (completely unwarranted) reputation amongst the Reddit crowd as an evil place full of feminazi man-haters.
Then something started happening to 2XC. That thing was dudes. And not just any dudes – MRA dudes. Regulars on r/mensrights started linking to threads in 2XC and invading en masse, downvoting anything vaguely feminist and spewing forth their standard litanies of complaint. Some of these invaders decided to stay. And so, these sporadic raiding parties turned into a sort of occupation.
No, 2XC – despite the growing number of MRA residents, including a few female MRAs – has not turned into another r/mensrights. But at times, especially when the discussion turns to some MRA pet issue, the place looks a lot like dude central.
Case in point: this 2XC thread, expertly dissected by NauticalLittleNet in ShitRedditSays. The story: a woman posts a picture of her Halloween costume on Reddit and is bugged by a rude, creepy comment referring to her breasts (something that happens approximately ten zillion times a day on Reddit). So she posts the pic again to 2XC, hoping for sympathy. Instead, she’s treated to a barrage of comments mocking her for her alleged “persecution complex.” As NauticalLittleNet shows, the overwhelming majority of the obnoxious comments (all of which garnered numerous upvotes) were from dudes, many of them MRAs.
Naturally, this sort of thing – which happens pretty regularly on 2XC – has totally changed the dynamic of the subreddit from something that was sort of a haven for Reddit women to just another subreddit overflowing with obnoxious dudery.
As a Redditor called emmster noted recently in r/feminist, some women in 2XC have basically stopped posting anything vaguely feminist for fear of being jumped on by argumentative dudes:
I’ll be getting downvoted to Hell in the comments, but get PMs that are supportive from women who feel too afraid of the judgment and vitriol to jump in. I don’t love knowing there are women afraid to voice their opinions in a space that’s for women.
Honestly, I think the sustained r/MensRights invasion is what’s taking the largest toll. It’s like they can’t stand the idea that women have a space that’s active and popular, and they have to come ruin it.
And it doesn’t help that, as Donna_Juanita noted in the same discussion, some of the 2XC mods have essentially bent over backwards to accommodate the MRA invaders and to clamp down on feminists allegedly causing “drama.”
In ShitRedditSays, emmster offers a broader take on what’s happened to 2XC
Since young men are a majority on the site as a whole, and a pretty hefty number of them haven’t had the “There Are Places I Am Not Necessarily Welcome to Pontificate on My Opinion” realization, the space becomes less of a place for women, and more of a place to talk about women. Which is a pretty big distinction. And a tricky thing to keep from happening without raising the ire of the entitled, ignorant young dude contingent.
As a reddit friend of mine put it, it all started with the “Hey Ladies, What Do You Think of My Dick?” posts. When a bunch of guys started posting questions, trying to “understand women,” which of course is a flawed goal, because women, being people, have a variety of opinions and preferences, and cannot actually be understood as a group. Some of them were actually questioning preferences on penis size, hence the name of the phenomenon.
My hypothesis is that eventually, it will be nothing but men talking to men about what they think about women.
Not that there is a shortage of such spaces on Reddit, or in the world in general.
By the way, that picture above is not actually a picture of 2XC regulars. It’s a picture of the Huutajat Men’s Shouting Choir. Which is a real thing in the world. Here they are in action:
what’s the long version?
I think that’s a law of the internet (or at least the internet when guys are included) because I have seen that happen to every FGM thread ever, everywhere from The Escapist (expected) to explicitly feminist sites like you mention.
Why the fuck is NWOslave always allowed to completely derail every thread on here?
What’s wrong MRAL? Jealous that the Alpha trolls are hogging all the attention? You just gotta step up your Game, bro! Oh wait, that’s why you’re on moderation in the first place, isn’t it?
@ Sharculese
“what’s the long version?”
No I don’t get all of my ideas about masculinity from Ward Cleaver.
@ Snowy
“You know, there’s an entire internet out there young man.”
Very true. (BTW “young man” only really works if you are considerably older than me (say 60+) otherwise it comes over just as patronisingly as “dude”). To be honest I’m a bit bored of this conversation now. I have other, more productive, things to do.
Farewell dudettes, chicks and dudes!
That would be Richard (AKA Random Brother) who hasn’t graced us with his presence in quite some time.
Qwert I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you told us that you were new to this whole “thinking” thing and just trying to figure shit out, but now I think that you are (1) a legit misogynist (2) lying to us (3) not really that bright. That speech I made about improving your life by reading a whole lot and thinking deeply? Redacted.
Farewell young man!
That’s a pretty awesome flounce.
+1 for leveling with us, “to be honest.”
+1 for being bored.
+2 for having better things to do.
+3 for the witty, topical closing salutation.
@ VoiP
For the sake of clarity what do you mean by “misogynist”? I recall Pecunium and others calling me this at one time or another and I took exception to being called such. When I look for the dictionary definition I end up with “a hatred of women (or rather someone who hates women)” It’s rather infuriating for me to be constantly accused of being a misogynist when I most definitely do not hate women.
For the record the “other, more productive, thing” I have to do is in fact to read. I took on board what you said to me with regards to reading and I’ve been making a concerted effort to do much more reading and much less loitering about on websites such as this one.
In the end I’m not out to impress you. By the way, although I’m not familiar with the word “redacted” I’ve just looked this up as well and it appears that you have misused it in this instance, you’d have been better to use the word “retracted”. But what do I know as I’m also clearly “not really that bright”?
I’ve seen what passes for vigorous debate in MRA circles. I’d get a more rousing and intellectually rigorous set of arguments out of The Barrens chat in World of Warcraft, and that is a very low bar.
And both are more entertaining than this place, which from what I’ve seen so far is a bunch of pretentious nerds ganging up on newcomers with “witty” insults while simultaneously high-fiving each other.
I run tabletop games, you crouton. But I like how you’re trying to scaremonger me with what appears to be a run of the mill zombie shooter where the zombies additionally make the lives of women miserable.
It’s a game where the female protagonist gets to kill men who catcall and proposition her. Somehow I just thought you’d be involved somehow.
MD520N is Eoghan, right? Or is he one of the even earlier trolls? Which one goes on about lapdogs in the purses of hairy-legged feminists?
MD52ON is either Eoghan, Hengist, or JohnnyB/Ion.
Funny, I was about to say you people are carbon copies of every other feminist community I’ve seen so far. I swear, you’re so much alike every comment here could have been written by the same, like, 3 people.
qwert666: You’re right, anyone would have picked up Futrelle’s dismissive/patronizing language aka “dudes” versus “women”. Just don’t expect any of the muppets here to acknowledge it.
I wish feminists would start an alliance in EvE, then an MRA fleet could really ‘take over their space’, heh heh.
More productive than trolling? Say it ain’t so! :p
Look, don’t get bitter just ’cause no one want to touch your hands after you’ve been trolling feminist websites. They’re… sticky.
wd-40 you are very angry about very silly things and i think this is a problem you should work on.
@ MD52ON
“You’re right, anyone would have picked up Futrelle’s dismissive/patronizing language aka “dudes” versus “women”.”
I thought so.
Wait, I thought you had more important things to do? Also, you might want to look up the word redact again.
@ Snowy
To “redact” involves editing a document before publication or release. VoiP has already publicised her statement, a long time ago. She can’t “redact” it now but she can “retract” it.
And yes, I do have more important things to do. It is a bad habit of mine that I can’t leave a discussion very easily. I have an annoying tendency to want to have “the last word”. Something that I’m sure many people here can identify with.
Right, second attempt. Farewell.
Byeeee
Yeah, I’m throwing my hat in for this one being Hengist.
Oh no, I was called a pretentious nerd on the comments of a blog, by an EVE player who knows what barrens chat is . That’s not really going to work as an insult, and it takes a serious lack of self awareness to throw it around as one if you play EVE to begin with. You should just be proud of being a nerd, instead of trying to use it as an insult on someone else… is what I want to say, but I’m growing partial to only counting people who care
More to the point, entertaining or not, they lack in intellectual rigor, and the participants of either couldn’t argue their way out of a paper bag. Even a feminist site primarily devoted to mockery of misogyny produces better debates, and this isn’t really a discussion forum intended for such. We’re just here to make fun of you 😀
And yet, you claim you can narrow us down to carbon copies of each other. I wouldn’t want to be involved with such a project, first and foremost because it’s a shooter XD
There are unbanned trolls to compare you to if that was all that was meant. Those 3 are banned, and have attempted to sneak past bans before. But I suspect you know this. And you’ve already demonstrated your ability to tell people apart, so I don’t think anyone’s concerned that you think they’re copies…
You’re not really understanding the difference between a feminist using the word dude as an insult, and the word ‘dude’ being an insult in the wider culture.
Frankly, MRA is an insult around here, you guys are fucking idiots.
This is how not to look like an activist who legitimately cares about an issue as opposed to an anti-feminist misogynist; look at it all as some idiotic guild fight. Bugger off. Feminism and feminists are not only better equipped to help with men’s issues, but more inclined to actually do so.
Whoops, forgot to finish that thought. “I’m growing partial to only counting people who care about learning, and intelligence, and actually using those attributes, as nerds.”
There’s apparently a troll named johnnyb, which is too close to my monicker for comfort.
Disappointing, since I’ve been lurking and occasionally posting on manboobz practically since manboobz was invented.
-10 For failing to stick the landing.
Dude is another WATB. /High-five
“Pretentious nerd’–why thanky, MD52! And why do you come back here time and again if you find this place so bereft of intellectual exchange?
Oh yeah, and you still didn’t answer one of my previous questions: MGTOW–why don’t y’all GO already??? Go out and CREATE and do wonderful things, and show us females up for the ethically challenged harpies we are! Take the high road! Or really…..just GO.
You know what group you might wanna check into, MD? The Pagans. No, I don’t mean the tree-huggers, I’m talking the homicidal BIKERS…..you know, the “brothers” (not a racist title, that’s their own self-proclaimed moniker), the 1%-ers, the one’s who like to be left ALONE and only give a shit primarily about WHITE MEN and their bikes (although I think the bikes are debatable, considering they ride rat bikes)?? The one’s who pass around their “bitches” who don’t get rise to the level of “Momma” before they’ve BEEN passed around a bit (and IF they survive)? Yeah! And you know what the requirement is to get in with those blokes, right? Except I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be impressed with some “bitch” as a target–you’d need to go after one of those big, badass young mofo’s. Look up your local chapter if you’re so inclined online, or just haul your bad mofo self into any backwoods bar with a bunch of rat bikes (i.e. beat to shit Harleys) in front of it, and you’ll be good to go! Lemme know if I can solve any other problems for ya! 😉
Oh and Qwert, redact works fine unless you’re a smarmy know it all who just wants to have the last word rather than actually address an argument.
Oh, and I didn’t hi-five nobody….did I? Wait a minute……hmmmmm…….
@Rutee
Hen got banned? I haz a sad. No more internetz staklez for me.