Well, that was … instructive. The Twitter hashtag extravaganza that is #mencallmethings is still going strong. But I think at this point it’s safe to say that it has basically served it’s purpose: to highlight the obnoxious, obscene, often threatening misogynist shit that women who express their opinions about almost anything on the internet get in their inboxes or in comments online on a regular basis. Women with feminist blogs who actually call out this kind of misogyny get this sort of abuse basically every day.
Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, who started up this hashtag campaign, explained in an eloquent and angry blog post why she did it: to point out how absolutely routine this sort of shit is. When she started her blog, she really hadn’t anticipated the sheer volume of vicious shit she’d get:
I got targeted. With threats, with insults, with smear campaigns, with attempts to threaten my employment or credibility or just general ability to get through the day with a healthy attitude and a minimal amount of insult.
The intent of all this abuse is simple: to intimidate. When someone says to a woman online “I hope you get raped with a chainsaw,” the point is to get her to shut up. The person who posts this sort of violent shit, Doyle notes,
hopes that the next time you sit down to write, you’ll remember that yikesy chainsaw-rape thing and think, “you know? Maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Maybe I don’t need to say this. Maybe I’ll piss someone off, and maybe it will be more than I can handle, and you know, maybe my thoughts on this topic just ARE NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH for me to risk the headache/fear/irritation/distress/panic attack I know I will get.”
And then, when you say that aloud, they call you a whiny little girl who can’t handle the Internet. Because, of COURSE multiple chainsaw-rape comments aren’t a big deal! They’re just words! Sticks and stones! …
To you, my friends, I say: Fuck that noise. All of this matters. A hostile work environment matters. Being afraid of your own in-box matters. Deleting your blog because that’s the only way for you to have a normal, non-hate-filled life matters. “Accepting” that continual, virulent, hateful misogynist abuse is a pre-condition for being a lady who talks about thing, or for challenging sexism in any way, no matter who you are: That matters. And if you think we’re fragile, well. LET US COUNT THE WAYS we have hacked it, under conditions your pampered manly self just cannot imagine. LET US DEMONSTRATE FOR YOU the shit we wade through, every day, in order to talk about whether or not we liked that one “Community” episode or Lady GaGa album.
Naturally, critics of the whole hashtag campaign have done their best to minimize and dismiss this sort of routine harassment in exactly the ways that Doyle predicted they would.
The charming Ferdinand Bardamu of In Mala Fide responded to #mencallmethings with a bunch of obnoxious comments that conveniently proved basically every point Sady Doyle was trying to make with the hashtag in the first place. He started off with this bit of rapier wit:
He followed this up with a clumsy fat joke:
He continued on in this vein for awhile, so proud of his insightful critiques that he made a blog post about it.
Encouraged by Bardamu’s example, blogger PMAFT (Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology) announced a #MenCallMeThings Trolling Contest. The highlight of his own contributions to this contest:
Over on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit, c0mputar offered slightly more coherent, if equally misguided, response.
The reality is that most of the “misogyny” they face is just criticism to their feminist viewpoints. I see this a lot when I confront feminists arguments, present my arguments, and get called a misogynist, amongst other things characterized by misandry. It happens on both sides …
Really now? Here are some actual examples of comments posted on #mencallmethings (taken from a comment from Shaenon in the discussion here).
here’s some to start: ‘I’ll rape your mum, faggot fuck’ “I’ll come to your house and kill you”
#mencallmethings, impersonate me on FB, & make disgusting sexual comments, post my name & # when I helped organize Slutwalk
cunt, whore, ugly, disgusting, cold, feminazi, shut the fuck up bitch, manipulative, crazy, playing the victim, sociopath
Bitch, whore, being sensitive, little girl, dumb, subject of jokes involving physical and sexual assault.
Any variation on fat and/or ugly at this point just makes me yawn.
I’ve had so many emails and messages telling me I deserve a beating, I don’t even keep track any longer.
“13? Judging by the size of your titties, I’d of thought you were 18.”
(censored version) If you keep talking the way you do, you deserved to get raped.
My #mencallmethings moment – receiving an email consisting of 1600 lines plus of the same insult over and over. My crime? Being fat.
I’ve had so many guys tell me how good I must be in bed because I’m fat and therefor will do anyone
I usually get ‘sweetheart’ just before they dismiss my argument as being ‘stupid’. No counter argument.
Will not repeat the violence that’s been directed at me but this one made me laugh “Blubbering self-important herd animal.”
apparently I’m a lesbian… I was unaware until #mencallmethings.
I’M ON ANTI-DEPRESSANTS AND I CANT EVEN JERK OFF CORRECTLY NOW & ITS BECAUSE OF WOMEN SO FUCK ALL YOU INFERIOR COWS
“You should have your tongue ripped out.”
I get sent one rape threat a month on average.
I was once told “get back in the kitchen you ugly bitch” for posting on a Linux board (can’t remember which one now)
Have you ever wanted someone to tell you that your genetalia should be stapled shut with bugs inside, start a blog
How about being choked to death during a forced blowjob? Start a feminist blog.
Not worth the effort to murder: the most recent example of what I had to delete off the blog when #mencallmethings
C0mputar, in his Reddit post, went on to offer another argument that seems to be a favorite of those trying to trivialize the abuse catalogued by the contributors to #mencallmethings:
In the end, veterans of the internet know there is no protected demographic. Everyone gets shit on, but if you make a point of belonging with a group, you get shit on even more, and more so the smaller you are. You know who gets shit on more than feminists? MRAs.
Really? Some MRA types on Twitter tried to get a rival hashtag going: #womencallmethings. Needless to say, they didn’t have much to work with.
One Man Boobz non-fan — whom I banned for his repeated comments about anal rape — tried to post a sarcastic little comment here last night dismissing #mencallmethings on similar grounds. Here’s a screenshot from my wordpress account, with his identifying data erased:
Let’s just, for contrast, take a look at the previous comment he tried to post here:
Another day, another “hope you get raped” comment.
Ironically, though I’m pretty thoroughly disliked across the manosphere, I actually get a lot less of this sort of abuse than most reasonably well-known feminist bloggers who happen to be non-dudes. Oh, sure, I get called a “traitor” and a “mangina,” and once in a while someone points out that I’m, you know, fat, but when it comes to the really nasty shit, the abusive commenters and emailers seem to much prefer going after women. This may be because they are misogynistic assholes. That’s just a theory, though.
ah, nugganu, way to add some racism on top of your misogyny and rape threats…
Don’t they realize that they are proving our point?
Hmm, why would these guys feel less inclined to threaten a man with sexual violence, even a man they don’t particularly like? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.
I sometimes wonder if they’re so secure in their own privilege that it’s literally never occurred to them that rape threats are, you know, kind of alarming. It makes me think of the theory of mind conversation in the other thread.
And this is why we say over and over again that the first principle of feminism is getting everyone to recognise that women are people.
Gosh, all of this is just so silly.
If it weren’t so frightening, you’d have to love the fact that the men complaining about this are acting in the exact manner that justifies it in the first place.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here, but I guarantee you nobody has ever actually said that to him.
Way to prove the point, guys. Bardamu is made entirely of fail.
How do these people go through life without having violence perpetrated on them on a regular basis?
Surely it’s not because… GASP!…. they only talk like this online because they are all massive wimps afraid of women and their own shadow!
They do realize that no one is calling for any kind of suppression of these opinions, yes? I haven’t seen one person say that there ought to be a law banning this kind of vile shit. Calling out and censoring are two very, very different things.
Also, really, “please kill yourselves”? Congratulations on your up to date knowledge of internet lingo, guys. Have you all been in suspended animation for the last few years? Next you’ll be telling us about this brand new thing called Bonsai Kitten.
But but I thought MRAs were against the rape of men and jokes about male rape?
More proof that the MRM is more about misogyny and less about the well-being and rights of men.
And yea, it’s hilarious how all of this just proves feminists right. By all means feel free to disagree with the politics and theory, but the insults and rape/death threats prove its more about hating women and especially hating women who dare to stand up for themselves.
Oh goody. Some of the women are calling out radfems instead of men.
Siiiigh.
Chainsaw rape threats are just a critique of feminist viewpoints, people. God, learn not to take everything so seriously.
/sarcasm
I have received horrid comments on my YouTube page from time to time, you know, the “dildo up a dry vagina”, I cannot have possibly been sexually harassed because I am ugly” you know typically misogynist shit.
The reason Manboobz doesn’t get hit by too much bile is because it’s a primarily a humor site, and that’s more difficult to attack. It’s like, people just laugh at you, like when we all made fun of Tom Cruise for getting pissy at South Park. When your targets are humorless douchebags with sticks up their asses about everything from gender pronouns to Family Guy, well, it’s easier. 4 the lulz, etc. Also, Manboobz generally has a very moderate community.
See more serious, ultra-PC male feminist bloggers like the Alas a Blog guy and Schwyzer. They both get more than their share as well.
Despite all the derails and trolling, I am incredibly grateful for #mencallmethings. As a member of the Internet Generation(TM), I started getting online rape threats since before I hit puberty, and I’ve never even had much of an online presence. Was told, every time I brought it up, to ignore it and not respond. Here’s the thing, though: bullies don’t want a response. Sure, they’ll use your anger against you, they’ll claim that what they wanted was to see you get upset, but what they really want is your silence.
And fucking finally, we’ve decided to stop giving it to them. I’ve had to retreat from the Twittersphere because of how massively triggering so much of what’s been posted lately is, but I’m glad it’s there, because I am so fucking sick of being told to shut up and take it.
Oh, and guess what, assholes? I’ve dealt with over a decade of rape and death threats, not to mention actual sexual violence. You’re upset about a Twitter hashtag. Who’s the whiner now?
Chainsaw rape threats are just a critique of feminist viewpoints, people. God, learn not to take everything so seriously.
/sarcasm
Chainsaw rape threats = critique. #mencallmethings = hate speech. Obvs.
It really is funny how whiny and unreasonable MRAs are. They’re like children. How can mencallmethings be hate speech against men when all it consists of is repeating things that men have actually said to the bloggers in question? That’s hoisting them by their own petard, not hate speech. And how can anyone complain about other people being sensitive when they think that having it pointed out that other men sometimes say horrible things is an act of aggression against them?
Bunch of whiny babies, the lot of them.
Is it wrong for me to advocate gun ownership at this point? I only ask because my wife has asked me to set us up at the local range this weekend. I don’t know if one gun would help, but I do wonder if a bunch of guns in the hands of feminists, combined with publicity, would maybe help. Could hurt, law of unintended consequences and all that… but if bullies are weak and their chosen victims present a strong and well-armed front?
It’s not wrong just useless. Knock yourself out.
@CassandraSays:
It is unfair to accurately quote men, because you’re taking it out of context. The context being whatever diseased mindset caused them to say/write/type those things in the first place. It is fine for a man to threaten ridiculous levels of violence, it is unacceptable to quote a man calling for violence, and it is then also acceptable for men to threaten even more violence in response to complaints about the initial calls for violence.
It is like how your granny talked about things “skipping a generation” but rhetorically.
Eh, Joe, that comes uncomfortably close to Meller’s “when the men rise up… I don’t condone violence, but how can you blame men who are pushed” shtick.
@Rutee Katreya: Cool!!
Gun gun gun gun guuuuuun! (sung to the South Park Mormon episode’s “dumb dumb dumb dumb duuuuumb!” theme)
@Cassandrasays But by talking about things that certain men have done to you, you’re insulting ALL MEN EVER. In fact, just by speaking you’re conducting an anti-male hate campaign, because everyone knows women are supposed to be quiet. To challenge that would be misandry. Keep up!
@hellkell:
I’d hate to come close to anything that guy says…