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.
MRAL, you’re a man of science; why do you think that the 25% of ladies who respond to your carefully-thoughtful emails are the same type of women who respond to your spam? I’m not saying I’m your type, but personally I only respond to things with a little effort put in — you would select against women with my approach by spamming, and possibly select for women who don’t give a shit what kind of person you are. This seems counterproductive, unless girls-who-don’t-give-a-shit are your type? :p And out of curiosity, how do you proceed with the 25% who do respond?
@hellkell:
Have we? Dang… And I thought I was being clever. Ah well.
@Dracula:
“You know, I still utterly fail to understand why MRAL insists that women wanting to have sex with people that they actually find sexually arousing and not wanting to sex with those they don’t is somehow unreasonable.”
It’s unreasonable because they aren’t having sex with him. That’s literally all there is to it. If only women’s standards were lower, or they were willing to fuck people that weren’t perfect (I know they do… shush), then MRAL would get his long overdue, much needed, for some reason required, and well deserved sex.
If he isn’t being fucked, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the way women go about their business.
@MRAL:
Do you accept or reject the proposition that “it is possible for a man interested in sex with women to be a virgin his whole life without it being fault of any woman or women in general?”
I am not a fan of the term “gina tingles” for sexual attraction XP
But I’d just like to point out, how attractive you find someone has a lot to do with what you think of them as a person. I mean, obviously some people are better-looking than others, and you do hear people talking about someone being “so hot but a total asshole” or “unfortunate-looking but with such a great personality”.
But most of us are neither freakshow-hideous nor supermodel-hot. Ask anyone who’s currently in love, and they’ll tell you that the object of their affections is the hottest person in the whole wide world evar. Then try actually meeting that person, and see if they live up to the hype. Likewise, ever noticed how all the people you hate are hideous? Or how they miraculously became hideous as soon as you realized you hated them?
I’m sure this varies from person to person, but for most of the people I’ve talked to this is at least slightly true. Not one person I know (except his current girlfriend, I suppose) thinks that my ex-boyfriend is good-looking, but I still think that, on top of being the nicest, smartest and funniest person I’ve ever met, he’s also the hottest. (Cue deep sigh).
Anyway, I guess my point is that it’s not just a genetic lottery. If you’re trying to inspire “gina tingles”, being a decent person helps.
On the subject of love:
Sonnet CXXX
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Do you looove Ashley, Brandon? XD
Pecunium – But Shakes wasn’t tappin no FATTY. OF course he though she was still hot! Any woman can still be hot if she’s not a FATTY! They don’t even have to brush their damn teeth! And this is recorded in the canon of western literature. Also, was shakespeare short?
MRAL:
How do you know? It’s not like you’re in different cities.
And while we’re on the subject, how do you think Holly’s offer differs from the “offers” women get on the street, and on what evidence that you think that?
I’m leaning towards Shaenon’s hypothesis, to be honest, and I suspect if you deign to answer me, your answer will further support it.
Cassandra:
I don’t think he thinks he does. He only notices attractive women, he puts unattractive women in an entirely separate category from “women,” but so automatically that he doesn’t recognize that he’s doing it. So from that perspective he doesn’t filter women at all
MRAL, I am skinny and young. I have never been asked out. I have been often rejected.
That’s not a dude thing; that’s a PEOPLE thing.
Women he doesn’t want to fuck – it’s like they don’t even exist!
It’s sort of a sexist dudebro version of the old riddle about what happens if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around.
Fergawdsake MRAL, take Holly up on her offer. Then you can knock “I’m a virgin” off your list of grievances and add something new. Make it something non-sexual, just for variety.
To echo Bagelsan, I haven’t indulged with dating websites (being socially well-connected to a large pool of smart, sexy people in real life seems to have made up for having to work at meeting interesting people) but I have to say… recievng a msg writn in mispeled txt spk & no puncuation or ne cpital lettrs… would be a strike-out before I even looked at the content: if someone can’t be bothered to use the shift key or a dictionary when they write to me, why would I be compelled to give them a careful reply? But whatever, I’m an old hag and a stickler for language.
I’m amazed that a 19-y.o. like MRAL (if that’s how old MRA Leutnant is) wants to be so picky – isn’t he supposed to be shagging everything that moves at his age? I presume he wants to save his precious bodily fluids for that special One who scores a 10/10 on the MRAdar, rather than being less picky and possibly acquiring some experience if he relaxed both his attitude and his demands for what is essential in a partner.
Re: not responding to txt speak. I take it there is an exemption for Ami? In her case content and wit trump form. XD
Ami works in textspeak as other artists work in oils, or clay.
I’ll be honest, and I’m completely unapologetic about this too, I wont date anyone I’m not physically attracted to. Now what I’m attracted to in men is not your buff, cookie cutter Brad Pitt look alike. None-the-less a physical attraction has to be there. “Nice guys” like MRAL would like it if women dated men they find completely repulsive, because our wants and needs are not as important. To that I say tough titties and go fuck yourself. Those “nice guys” and most men that I’ve come across irl are pretty adamant about what they are looking for looks-wise and what they find ugly in a woman. I’m the same. I’m just not an ass about it and keep those preferences to myself. But if I find a guy unattractive, nothing in the world will convince me to date him.
Good point magpie: if I had to read Ami’s fluffy kinds of posts all day, I think I would find it tiring. She’s the exception to break the unwritten rule that “txt spk” is also “dum spk”; I really enjoy her wit and mockery. (And she certainly can write well when she wants to, but it’s not really to the point here: mocking the misogynists works in many forms.)
Ami surprised me when she first turned up here. I was wondering who this young teenager was. Yet even in her first, most texty comments, she showed her wisdom and generosity. She is truly a goddess.
I only date guys I find attractive! I think there is a difference, however, between “I find Guy X to be unattractive” and “Guy X is ugly.” The first is okay; the second is not. Attractiveness is a fact about your feelings about a person, not an objective fact about the person hirself.
Magpie – To be totally honest, I’d have to think kinda hard about whether I would go through with it. (Although I’m sure I never will have to, because MRAL is stuck-up and picky even though a woman is offering to sleep with him! He didn’t even tell me “no” politely!)
It’s not that I’m concerned about sullying myself–I’ve got plenty of bad people on my sexual record already and I don’t think I take their sins onto myself any more than I would if I got a massage from an immoral person. But:
A) I worry about my physical safety. I don’t really want to be alone with someone who’s prone to fits of rage and has reasons to have a grudge against me. Then I think things like “what if we had a hotel room, and I had a friend there for protection, and we frisked him on entry,” and then I realize that’s completely ridiculous and not worth it.
B) It would not be good for him. Losing his virginity to someone who doesn’t like him and is basically just fucking with him is not going to improve his outlook on women or his mental health in general. I’m cruel enough to show him what it’s like to talk to someone who only wants your genitals and is annoyed there’s a person attached; I’m not cruel enough to actually have sex with him under those circumstances. That’s a bastard thing to do and ultimately I’m not that much of a bastard.
All this is a moot point. Because MRAL is learning–even as he denies it–what it feels like to be completely uninterested in a proposition.
Once again, MRAL does have standards. In the now-deleted “hot women” thread on the forum, he spent most of his time criticizing everyone else’s choices. And, MRAL, very few of the women posted were anything close to fat, so don’t give me that crap.
The closest thing I’ve ever had to a relationship (it was pretty far from a relationship, but still) was with someone I wasn’t attracted to and who I couldn’t actually picture ever sleeping with. I still feel terrible about stringing her along (if that’s what I was doing – I still don’t understand social interaction too well). I’m glad it fizzled out the way it did instead of turning into something worse. I would firmly suggest not dating someone who you’re not remotely physically attracted to.
I’m on OKCupid. My success-rate for getting replies is pretty low. I’m okay with that. I don’t get many out-of-the-blue messages, but I try to respond politely to ones I do get, even when I’m not interested, but I don’t always bother.
I remember one message in particular from a woman who I thought was really hot (I mean, really my type), but spoke in netspeak (to the point where I didn’t understand what the Hell she was talking about) and seemed to believe in astrology. I didn’t reply at all.
You mean…you were able to exercise discretion in who you dated Spear?! How could that happen!
“I’m on OKCupid. My success-rate for getting replies is pretty low. I’m okay with that. I don’t get many out-of-the-blue messages, but I try to respond politely to ones I do get, even when I’m not interested, but I don’t always bother.”
This…is pretty much my situation, too.
OH! But I did get some nice friendships out of it. So, yay! 🙂
I wonder if MRAL is capable of looking at his own emotional response to Holly’s offer, noting that if he agreed it would probably be an unpleasant and potentially emotionally traumatizing experience for him, and then applying that knowledge to his usual argument that women should stop being so picky about who they sleep with, and stop having an issue with the idea of sleeping with men who don’t actually like them very much.
Ozy:
Yea it’s very, very rare for me to think anyone is actually “ugly”. Many times I will see someone, or a friend will point a guy out to me and I’ll say “he’s not bad looking or even unattractive, I’m just not attracted to him” I tend to be attracted to very specific facial features, that’s why. Maybe I’m picky, in all honesty I don’t care anymore. I know money, status, “alphaness” is not important to me, but guys like MRAL would still complain because I, and other women, still have some standards or preferences. That’s what really ticks me off. Its ok for men to have preferences, but not for women. When women do, they’re shallow bitches, when men do it’s just normal or *insert some watered down evo psych BS here*
I don’t date or have sex with people I don’t find physically attractive. But someone could give me all the “gina tingles” in the world and I would not want them to touch me or speak to me if they had the sort of attitudes that MRAL displays.
I know Brandon has Left The Building, but if we’re debating whether he’s stupid or evil, I vote both. Stupid/Evil. Stevil.
I now return you to the program in progress, the Mr. Al Show. You might think it’s a new episode, but it really, really is not.