Twitter hashtag of the day: #mencallmethings, in which Women With Opinions on the Internet report some of the creepy, violent, threatening, misogynist things said to them in comments and emails by dudes on the Internet. GIANT TRIGGER WARNING for: “whore,” “slut,” “cunt,” “fat cunt,” “ugly cunt,” “cunt bucket,” “cum dumpster,” “lesbian hambeast” (huh?), assorted threats of rape and murder — the list goes on, and on, and on. I would post the, er, “highlights,” but, really, just go and look at it. This shit is relentless.
We Hunted The MammothMisogyny, tracked and mocked
Oooh yeah. Let’s take a little look in Holly’s Moderation Queue Of Horrors!
(This one isn’t insulting, I guess, but it’s completely icky and inappropriate.)
I can’t find the quotes right now but I’ve also been called a “mangina” a hilarious number of times.
It reminds me of a blog post by a sci-fi author, imagining what his career would be like if everything were the same, except that he was a woman.
He commented that on his blog he’d only ever been called names a few times over the years, countable on his fingers. However, he imagined his female counterpart to have “bitch counter” on her blog that would be in the triple digits and get daily threats from creeps who promise to do to her “what a real man should have done a long time ago.”
By the way, the one about OkCupid was on a post where I made fun of guys who harassed me on OkCupid and wouldn’t take “I don’t want to talk to you” for an answer. So the gist was that I should count myself super lucky to have guys willing to violate my boundaries.
…yay.
Drowning in dicks = nightmarish mental images. Thank you, Internet!
@BlackBloc,
Thanks for making that explicit. I’ll file it away for future nightmares.
*shiver*
Aw, Holly, I think MRAL graced your blog with a visit!
Feyline – You think so, you FUCK alpha womyn FUCK?
He’s far from my only troll, though.
Holly, the first two sound like our favorite pipsqueak MRAL.
Related: last week, one Nancy Miller started, and a few feministy bloggers picked up on, #threatoftheday, a hashtag for cataloging the daily threats that women who blog receive. Ideally with the poster’s real name attached. Also a great idea, though it lacks the popular appeal of #mencallmethings (as being called things by men does not require having your own blog).
Nope, no proof of any female oppression or discrimination here. It’s just normal day to day stuff women have to deal with, so stop complaining and make me a sammich.
Yea that’s pretty much how an MRA or run of the mill asshole would respond to this. It’s also related to the classic “ignore it and it will just magically stop” advice you’re given in gradeschool when being bullied.
You have to love how most sexist insults boil down to “you have a vagina” or “I want to fuck you”. The first is just sort of “yes, indeed you are correct – and?”. And the second is more like “why should I care if you don’t want to fuck me? I don’t want to fuck you either”.
I once hung out in forums where the female-to-male ratio was about 300:1. (My wife was a regular, and invited me in).
Like any other discussion forum, I took part in conversations, expressed my opinion, and got sucked into (and probably started) a few flamewars here and there. I certainly pissed off a small number of people at one point or another.
But not once did I get subjected to the kind of gendered personal abuse that’s being highlighted here. Even when I was pointing out things like blatant (albeit often unthinking) sexism on their part, which is blatantly lighting the blue touch paper.
This might have been because the average IQ/education level was reasonably high;
It might have been because my wife was one of the most popular posters there, so they pulled their punches for fear of riling her;
It might have been because the group policed itself well;
Or it might have been because men, as a rule, simply don’t get subjected to this kind of thing – certainly not routinely, and in many cases not ever.
Incidentally, I love being called a “mangina”, which has to be one of the great non-insults of our time. It has no effect on me whatsoever, while instantly labeling the person behind it as a misogynist buffoon.
I’m fascinated by the reactions I’m seeing. Look at pretty much any of the tweets with the hashtag that aren’t examples of misogyny or metatweets promoting it. Mostly they’re either “well, people say mean shit on the Internet, deal with it” (which has two problems) or “this is trans-erasing.”
Ugly. Slut. Auschwitz pussy. Hairy beast. Wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s dick. Crazy feminist. Nineteen-year-old pretending to care about men’s rights. Ugly, rationalizing, unhitched and unhitchable. Spilt every ounce of your dignity on the floor. You have no tits and you’re ugly.
And, of course, the classic from NWO:
“Ozzy dearest, you wallow in shit and piss which you consider sex. Your blog consists of you talking about your pussy. You’re a millionaires daughter whose toughest choice is wether to wallow in piss or shit or both for this evenings festivities. You have no ethical beliefs. Your art is promoting menstrual finger painting. Your “truth” is whatever you “feel” at any given point in time. The “business” you run is talking about your pussy on your blog. You’re going to spend your entire life in college living off of daddies money. And you’re lecturing me?”
Maybe the internet is really men’s territory after all, and women (and the men who obey them) should find and populate separate havens such s “feminet” “girlynet”, “ladynet”, “girlkvetchnet” or something else along those lines that will ban posts from men, and let the girls–and wimmenz–play to their heart’s content.
Consider it a kind of cybernetic ‘wildlife preserve” for endangered women!
That way, both men and women could get along fine, right?
“Auschwitz pussy.”
The insults like this puzzle me. It’s like insult mad libs – I literally do not understand what this person was attempting to say, and I’m not sure he does either.
Ozy42–
NWO went a bit over the top there, but was it all any worse than the routine flaying that you—and your feminist friends–attack him with every time he comes on manboobz? The overt sexual content of his posts to you, is, I admit, disgusting, but the intent is understandable, even if his method there is wrong.
Well, when a person is skinny to the point where you’d just feel silly calling them fat, you have to insult their body somehow.
The full sentence was “Your boyfriend is lying to you that you’re attractive because even Auschwitz pussy is better than no pussy at all.”
What’s odd is that since I started using gender-neutral pronouns online, suddenly my rate of being insulted for my appearance and sexuality went way down…
I’m just trying to parse the intended meaning. Your vagina is like a historical monument to atrocity? Tourists show up at your vagina and cry?
It’s not even insulting so much as just baffling.
My “favorite” misogynistic I’ve ever received was from a well-meaning friend asking “why I would dress like that if I didn’t want attention.” The clothing he was referring to was a long sleeved shirt that went up to my neck and wasn’t sheer at all. It did fit my form though, so I suppose having breasts and not hiding that they exist is asking for attention.
Urgh, that should be “misogynistic comment.”
Actually, I quite like calling it “a misogynistic”. It reminds me a bit of “a domestic” as shorthand for any kind of domestic argument from mildly raised voices to full-on DV.
“Of course #mencallmethings is triggering. That’s the point of saying this stuff to women: if we’re crying & scared, we’re not talking back.”
I still remember the first time I discovered the concept of triggering. It made me laugh then, it makes me laugh now. Only feminists in their funny little, overly-sensistive, self-important world think that being called a mean name or reading an article will give them crazy Vietnam flashbacks of harassment.
Well no dear, it doesn’t, and you have some serious perspective issues if it does. You don’t see vets trying to bubblewrap everything or throwing fits every time they come across violence in the media, even though they’ve experienced hardship you will never imagine. That’s actual hardship, not just having their feewings hurt. The world doesn’t exist specifically to cater to your ridiculous demands, and whining for it to do so is just idiotic.
I love the “why are you out of the kitchen?” remark. It’s just not an insult. You might as well try and insult the guy with “Why aren’t you bringing home the bacon / opening a jar of pickles / wrestling a bear?” etc.
“The world doesn’t exist specifically to cater to your ridiculous demands, and whining for it to do so is just idiotic.”
Not wanting to be insulted is a ridiculous demand?
That’s funny, Lauralot; I got a comment from a friend back in high school that was almost the complete opposite of that. Right in the middle of a conversation about something entirely different, he says “Why do you never wear tanktops? Show a little skin. Guys like it.” “I’m sorry, come again?” “Other girls do it all the time, I just don’t understand why you don’t.”
But it’s not unusual to be in trouble for being both too sexy or not sexy enough, is it? Sometimes within the same sentence. Frigid whores!
Indeed, it’s so unreasonable when women ask men to observe the laws of basic civility. Society would be so much better if everyone just accepted the notion that it’s OK to randomly scream obscenities at each other all the time.
From what I understand, vets do get triggered though.
“Not wanting to be insulted is a ridiculous demand?”
Yes. You’re not an infant anymore. People will say and do things and they won’t match your individual sensibilities and that’s something most people grow up and learn to deal with.
It’s a very special skill when you can start out trying to insult feminists and end up insulting veterans with PTSD.
(As if there isn’t overlap!)
“Well no dear, it doesn’t, and you have some serious perspective issues if it does. You don’t see vets trying to bubblewrap everything or throwing fits every time they come across violence in the media, even though they’ve experienced hardship you will never imagine. That’s actual hardship, not just having their feewings hurt. The world doesn’t exist specifically to cater to your ridiculous demands, and whining for it to do so is just idiotic.”
first of all *puke*. second, cause vets never have trouble when they get back and they all just suck it up and deal with it and have a great life? what are you trying to say? Maybe vets should be encouraged to talk about their trauma more to perhaps help avoid lives of mental illness/addiction that unfortunately so many of them have to face. Misogyny and berating emotions wounds veterans immensely.
[comment redacted by DF]
The psychotic vet was a staple of 1970s exploitation cinema, from Taxi Driver down to The Exterminator. Obviously, poetic license plays a role here, but I doubt it would be such a common trope if it was entirely fictional.
And I love the way Ark so casually uses the patronising “dear”, as though he’s addressing a bunch of six-year-olds. Is he even aware that he’s doing it?
“It’s a very special skill when you can start out trying to insult feminists and end up insulting veterans with PTSD.
(As if there isn’t overlap!)”
right? you said it better than me
Hey Arks, thanks for being a part of the reason a hashtag like that exists in the first place.
Let’s be honest – Ark’s underlying assumption is that women do not deserve civility and it’s childish and unreasonable of them to expect it.
Arks, do you know any vets or anyone at all with PTSD? I think if you did, you’d shut your piehole, cupcake.
Some vets with PTSD can be triggered by something as innocuous as a car backfiring, or a trash can lid falling off. Some of them are so affected by their condition that they can’t find work, or drive to the store without experiencing an episode. Post-traumatic episodes are described by sufferers as feeling like directly reliving their trauma. Maybe if you care so much about the suffering of vets during wars, you shouldn’t dismiss the ongoing suffering that many of them are still experiencing today.
“The psychotic vet was a staple of 1970s exploitation cinema, from Taxi Driver down to The Exterminator. Obviously, poetic license plays a role here, but I doubt it would be such a common trope if it was entirely fictional.”
True. Maybe it’s time for a feminist take on the genre. Imagine a girl Rambo, on a rampage, because someone called her a fatty or used the wrong gender pronoun. A relevant movie for an oversensitive age.
[comment redacted by DF]
Is this Hengist again? The tone is similar.
Then again all sexist dudes sound the same after a while.
Or maybe he’s on his man period.
It’s his tiny penis. It causes him such mental anguish that he can’t help lashing out.
When I was 14 or so, my friend’s dad, who had been in Vietnam, thought he would be okay playing laser tag with us. He was not okay. As soon as we started “shooting” at him, he froze up with his hands over his chest and didn’t move or speak. Even as teenagers, we realized something was wrong and stopped the game.
According to Arks, we should have called him a pussy and scored a million points on him.
…feel real good about yourself, Arks?
[quoted comment redacted by DF]
Take your gay-shaming heteronormative bullshit elsewhere. This is a feminist community, we care about people’s feelings here.
Arks–
Don’t give ’em any ideas, Please!
Cinema is, andhas been since the ’80s, loaded up enough with feminist girlykvetch and whining, often given an extremely unpleasant antimale slant, while they are at it! PSTD afflicted soldierettes running amok are the last things that we need!
That would have more impact coming from someone who had just not belittled the nation’s veterans.
“Take your gay-shaming heteronormative bullshit elsewhere. This is a feminist community, we care about people’s feelings here.”
Pfft! Arks, you’re not an infant! People say shit on the internet all the time. Get over yourself!