The most common “critique” of the #mencallmethings hashtag that blew up on Twitter last week was that the women posting examples of misogynistic shit they got called online were making a big deal out of nothing. As the always-charming Ferdinand Bardamu so memorably put it:
It’s funny, then, that when MRAs find themselves described with less-than-flattering language they have a strange tendency to act like they’ve suddenly been struck with a case of the vapors. Witness the reaction of MRAs when someone calls them the “c-word.” No, not “cunt” – “creep.” As one outraged Men’s Rights Redditor recently put it, in a comment with 30+ net upvotes:
Creep shaming is probably one of the most insidious and anti-equality things you can do. The ability to label men as “creepy” is just one privilege that women enjoy, and a constant source of fear of ostracizing that all men must fear in our society.
When MRAs feel themselves being oppressed by such clearly man-hating language, they often refer to something called the Catalogue of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics, which, well, catalogues their language grievances in detail. According to the author of the Catalogue,
Shaming tactics are emotional devices meant to play on a man’s insecurities and shut down debate. They are meant to elicit sympathy for women and to demonize men who ask hard questions. Most, if not all, shaming tactics are basically ad homimem attacks.
Such shaming tactics, the author of the Catalogue says, with no evident awareness of the irony, are often used by “histrionic … female detractors who refuse to argue their points with logic” and the male “gynocentrists” who ally with them.
Here are some of the awful “shaming” remarks that get directed at MRAs, according to the Catalogue of Shaming Tactics:
“Stop whining!”
“Suck it up like a man!”
“You need to get over your anger at women.”
“You’re afraid of a strong woman!”
“You are so immature!”
“You are just bitter because you can’t get laid.”
“Are you gay?”
“That’s a sexist stereotype!”
“You need therapy.”
“You make me feel afraid.”
“Weirdo!”
“Loser!”
“You are so materialistic.”
“No woman will marry you with that attitude.”
“You are insensitive to the plight of women.”
Is that last one even an insult? It’s a fairly accurate description of a lot of MRAs, who take a certain pride in being “insensitive to the plight of women.”
So now that we’ve seen the horrible abuse that MRAs have to put up with on a daily basis, let’s take a quick look at some of the things that women and feminists regularly get from their detractors, as posted to the #mencallmethings hashtag and sent to Sady Doyle, who originated the hashtag. (These are all taken from a great post she did in the aftermath of #mencallmethings’ big blowup.) I think you will find the comparison instructive. Let’s start with the more straightforward slurs. (TRIGGER WARNING for, well, just about everything in the quotes that follow.)
Slut, cunt, bitch, whore, ugly, dyke, lesbo, unfuckable, crazy, delusional, liar, hysterical, autistic bitch child, feminazi, ballbuster, humorless, heartless whore, man hater, misandrist, stupid little girl, shrieky hysterical moron, airhead, spoiled little princess, stupid bitch, stupid fucking cunt, stupid feminazi cunt, an ugly bitter little woman, cumm guzzling closet lesbian, a pseudo-intellectual Insane Oversensitive Humourless Female supremacist.
Now let’s move on to complete sentences:
“You’re an ugly fucking cunt.”
“That sort of smirk is why God invented anal sex.”
“you’re so ugly you look like you have downs syndrome, you’d be thankful to be raped.”
“hope you catch a sexually transmitted disease or vagina cancer, cuntwit.”
”Stick a dildo up your dry vagina.”
“the only time your mouth should be open is when i’m putting my d–k in it”
“Your just a gay cunt who deserves to be punished.”
“A firm backhand to her whore face would provide her with a much needed attitude adjustment.”
“Fuck you bitch….ya need to get beat like ur pops use to do to u.”
“I hope you never have children, your daughters would be such sluts and end up murdered in a gutter by someone like me.”
You’re “not worth the effort to murder.”
“[The] only tragedy is that a bullet didn’t rip through ur brainstem after u were used 4 ur 1 & only purpose in this world.”
“what a long winded bitch. You certainly do need to be gagged.”
“You’re an annoying bitch with no friends.I’d love to run you over with my truck.”
“you stupid bitch, I should fuck the crazy right out of you.”
”i surely hope that one day you get raped.”
“[You] can’t be a female scientist, that phrase is an oxymoron,”
“it’s painfully obvious you’re a woman, get off the internet.”
“I will fuck your ass to death you filthy fucking whore. Your only worth on this planet is as a warm hole.”
“Do you need to file a hurt feelings report?”
As I noted before, despite my general unpopularity in the MRA world, I tend to get fewer of these things than, for example, most feminist bloggers with a similar degree of internet notoriety. But I get them. Here, for example, is the latest comment I’ve gotten from the guy who calls himself Nugganu, a sort of follow-up to a previous comment I quoted earlier in which he imagined me raped by ten black men:
He certainly does have a vivid imagination.
But, yeah, somehow it’s a little hard for me to feel a ton of sympathy for MRAs who so regularly work themselves into a lather over “shaming language” like “creep” and “loser” and “you are insensitive to the plight of women.”
NC4OM, could you please stop using pet names to refer to those of us with whom you are not on intimate or even particularly friendly terms? I don’t like it any more than Pecunium does.
Also, I have a suggestion for you. If you truly want to bring about a kinder gentler Islam, and you’re very much in favor of woo, why not create your own woo-ised version of the religion? If you grew up Muslim you should know the texts well. Cherry pick the bits you like, write a book, and try to sell it to woo-loving New Age folks.
This would be a far more productive use of your time than derailing blog conversations to talk about how much you dislike Islam.
Sorry, David, posted that last one before I saw your comment. I am in favor of the no more derails about Islam plan.
And I’ll officially apologize for our atheist regulars for lumping you in with whatever-the-hell-NC4OM-is.
Moderate Cassandra!
😉
I’m already a “moderate” so no need to moderate me.
Insert LMAO face.
(how do you do that on keyboard?)
Cats – how many years running on Broadway? Or are you “off Broadway” now?
Embed kitten video and insert LMAO face.
I do agree that a lot of atheists can be assholish in the way they talk to religious people, katz. Sorry about that – those of us who’re a bit less obnoxious don’t like them any more than you do.
But, yeah, somehow it’s a little hard for me to feel a ton of sympathy for MRAs who so regularly work themselves into a lather over “shaming language” like “creep” and “loser” and “you are insensitive to the plight of women.”
What David is trying to do is say that because women suffer, men do not. I’d say that the frequency with which men are collectively nitpicked until they blows their brains out, be it because he does not have enough notches on his bedpost, is not successful enough, is too bald, too short, too fat, doesn’t clam up when women tell him to, etc. does imply that anti-male shaming language does exist and is a pretty serious problem.
It’s okay, though, I know that sort of thing is hard to see when you are an obsessive ideologue.
NWO:
I hope you’ve never actually been to a therapist and that’s just your imagination, not your experience because damn, that would be sad. But just so you know, if your therapist is an asshole, you still have the possibility to change. And chose a male one if that’s what you want. I’ve never had a clue of the political affiliation of my therapist, nor I wonder about it. Because you don’t talk about zir but about yourself, your life and how to make it less painful. (not about who’s right or wrong, that would be stupid)
And what’s up with “feelings”? Do you believe they are a feminist invention? (then why are mras feelings hurt by the shaming language?)
Factfinder mentioned earlier the fact that more men than women kill themselves. Do you not believe they should seek help rather than take their own life?
(I wonder how low an MRA can go in the man hatred in order to justify his woman/feminist hatred)
Kyrie, you are perhaps the first feminist ( I think ) here who actually tries to help people with their problems, rather than just mocking them. I may not agree with your political views or like the people you associate with, but I can respect you for holding up some standard of decency.
I like how, in NWO’s roadside-assistance scenario, the woman is wrong to matter what she does. If she’s nervous about accepting the guy’s help, she’s been brainwashed with man-hate. If she accepts the help, she’s a dumb bunny who needed a man to bail her out. And if she fixes the tire herself, she’s insulting the man with her independence. Damn those women!
NWO, you know you get to choose your own therapist, right? You don’t have to go to a woman if you don’t want to. Google therapists in your area and pick out one of the ones with a male name. Then call him. Please.
I’ve noticed this with a lot of scenarios that NWO creates. There’s usually no way in which a woman/girl can manage not to be seen as oppressing him. Woman dresses sexy? Taunting him with her animal sexuality. Woman doesn’t dress sexy? Either an evil lesbian or deliberately making herself unappealing to men out of spite. Have sex with lots of men? You’re a slut. Don’t have sex with many men? You’re witholding sex just to be manipulative.
The basic guiding principle of the NWO universe seems to be It’s Always Her Fault. And also She’s Out To Get Me. It must really suck to live that way.
oh oh the irony… it burns! IT BURNS!!!
@Improbable Joe: Some people think language is a minor issue; some of us think that it’s one of the foundational elements of the culture that teaches and perpetuates the structural oppressions. That is in fact not a minor disagreement.
And giving us a long story about your personal experiences in the context of telling us what YOU think we ought to think/do is what is known as “mansplaining.”
It’s right up there with all the normative crap you tend to give us. The privilege you are exhibiting isn’t so much in what you say as how you say it, and how you seem to feel that if you just explain yourself over and over, we’ll “get it” and be oh so tutored by you in how we do activism or whatever else we’re doing here (in fact, it’s mocking misogyny).
Protip: telling people who have spent a lot of years in anti-oppression work that we should be “nice” to people who claim to be some sort of ally but whose language and attitudes show that they are, at best, at the 101 level, is something I’ve heard many times before (I bet I’m not alone), and I reject the premise. Men don’t get to tell me how to do feminism and gender activism.
That’s not true at all. Several people were extremely supportive towards MRAL when he came clean about his various social anxieties a few months ago, because he revealed genuine vulnerability behind the hate-filled bravado that fuels the vast majority of his posts here.
I suspect that’s why, even though his posts are frequently more openly obnoxious than Brandon’s, he still gets more supportive and sympathetic responses to this day.
That’s both very nice and very untrue. The fact that many feminists react with anger and mockery to trollish comments, accusation of having an evil plot to control the world, misogyny, desire for women to be slaves to men, contempt for women or very fuzzy notion of consent does not mean they are any bit less respectful toward men than toward women.
Also, some of them are men and I have not seen anyone denying their right to speak because of their gender.
Anyway, since the main thing you know about me IS my political views and the people I associate with, I’m not sure why you like me. Especially because for any nice I might I said, hundreds more have been said by feminists-who-are-not-me.
If you are looking for decency and tolerance, I can guaranty you the odds of finding some are an infinity bigger among a group of feminists than among a group of MRAs. Given that you bring the same.
People are nice to MRAL sometimes because it’s clear that there’s some sort of genuine pain/trauma behind his rants. Brandon on the other hand is just a selfish asshole with delusions of intellectual grandeur, so there’s no reason to bother trying to reach out to him. Compassion can’t cure assholery.
If people can’t understand the difference between someone’s personal experience and context and “mansplaining”… well, that’s not my problem or my fault. Some people just look for argument where there really isn’t any, which was actually more or less my original point. Especially since I’ve gone out of my way to say that I see both sides, and I’m only speaking for me, and I value other opinions, and I don’t think my opinion carries any special weight outside of my own head. I can’t be any more explicit than that.
I’m sure many MRAs are fucked-up virgins or incels, they are like these guys that become Catholic priests and then become pedophiles after a few years. They are virgins/incels because they have serious mental and sexual issues.
“@Joanna
“God, it’s the internet! Stop whining you big babies! The internet doesn’t care about your “hurt feelings”.
Sweeeeet! Don’t bitch like an entitled, gold-digging, loud-mouthed, false accusing, child-stealing, violent, communist, slutwalking crack-ho if someone hurts your precious feelings. The internet just don’t care.”
Lol! NWO, you wouldn’t know sarcasm if it punched you in the face.
“I’m sure many MRAs are fucked-up virgins or incels, they are like these guys that become Catholic priests and then become pedophiles after a few years. They are virgins/incels because they have serious mental and sexual issues.”
Eh…something like that. They’re frustrated that the people they’re “supposed” to have sex with are obnoxious, whiny wimmin. Also, from the way they talk, they fantasize about dominating a woman with sex, which to their annoyance, doesn’t fly with modern women.
Improbable Joe and co., stop fighting! We’re in this together. Non of this “my feminism is better than your feminism” crap. It’s just silly. Can you just focus on the topic at hand?
“Like State law enacted by feminists.”
Nope. Not at all what I meant. Like things encoded in your genes.
Laws govern behaviors. “If you do X, then Y is the consequence.” If I light my apartment on fire, I have the consequences resulting from arson, or even manslaughter if someone is killed.
No one comes out of the womb being subject to consequences of laws. There are consequences for OTHER PEOPLE if they do something to the child, but the child has not acted and so therefore is not subject to suffer any consequences.
If there were laws that subject newborns to punishment or regulation because they are black or their parents are Jewish, that is oppression.
(@Improbable Joe: No, I didn’t mean to directly rip you off. I just hope that repetition might help. A fools’ hope, yes. :-D)
“They are virgins/incels because they have serious mental and sexual issues.”
Of course, there are those who developed serious mental and sexual issues because they are involuntarily virgins/involuntary celibate. Deprivation and frustration can twist and warp a man’s psyche, considering how all-powerful the male libido is in young boys.
“People are nice to MRAL sometimes because it’s clear that there’s some sort of genuine pain/trauma behind his rants.”
Ah-ha, the oldest trick in the book and it never fails. Joe Schmo pulls out an emo oh-woe-is-me sob story and some sympathetic female will always fall for it. Tch tch tch.
Wow, I’m an MRA troll who’s into bestiality and isn’t nice? What a fine how-do-you-do on a Monday morning.
I’m not an MRA troll, although if I were Id be the bestest EVAR because it’s been six months and no one had figured it out until you rolled up in here with your Super Perception Powers, Joe. You’ve foiled my dastardly machinations!
I’m sure I could have said “Please sir, carry on with the creating of that round depression in the Earth, if you would.” KFTC was a rather inelegant way to put it, but since it had the wholly unintended yet hilarious side-effect of giving you the vapors, it stands.
As to me not being nice: oh, well. A wise man once said, “That’s just like… your opinion, man.”
You come in here and say what you say, and that’s great. But you seem to honestly not expect to get called on any of it, and are shocked when you are. That’s where the charge of not recognizing your privilege and mansplaining comes into play. The irony of you picking a giant tone argument and then calling me “not nice” is not lost on me.
Bestiality you say. I must have missed something…
I know everyone else has been discussing this scenario NWO made for me, but I still want to give my 2 cents in case NWO is still reading the thread.
First, I will explain what I do in reality to deal with car problems, and then I will say how I’d handle the hypothetical situation. In reality, I do not know how to change a tire. I know it’s a good life skill, and I’m kind of ashamed of myself for not learning it. I do, however, have plans for that problem. I always have a cell phone in my car, and a phone charger that hooks up to the cigarette lighter. I don’t let the gas tank go under a quarter of a tank if I can help it. I keep up with oil changes and regular car maintenance.
I pay good money to my insurance company for 24 hour roadside assistance. I also have car window paint in my car to be able to write “Call police” on the back window in case I am stranded on the road and unable to call for help myself. I read that it is a way to alert other drivers that you need help, and hopefully make criminals nervous about targeting you, since they’ll be afraid the police might show up at any time. I also have a first aid kit, blankets, flashlights, jumper cables, and a spare tire in my trunk. I’ve learned from experience to always try to prepare for the worst to happen in life. Even with all the planning in the world, I could still end up in a pickle, so now I will say how I’d handle the stranded on the road at night scenario.
First, I’ll admit I would feel nervous to have a stranger approach me at night with nobody else around. I realize most people are good, but there really are some dangerous criminals in the world, too. I can’t tell by looking if a person approaching me is someone like Mr. Rogers or more like Jeffrey Dahmer. Since I am alone and have a physical size and strength disadvantage, I would be in a very vulnerable situation. Of course once the person acted friendly and started helping me with my tire, I would be very grateful and no longer afraid. Expecting me to start out with total trust of a complete stranger, though, is not realistic at all.
It’s also hypocritical for MRA’s to demand women have trust for all men in all situations when many of them refuse to date or marry because they don’t trust women. Some of the MGTOW are afraid of going through a checkout line with a female cashier because they never know when a woman might falsely accuse them of something. That is extreme paranoia. Feeling nervous on a deserted road at night with a stranger is a totally different ball game.
I’m not female, and I don’t think he is lying – because what would be his motive? Why would someone who claims to hate feminism and who seems convinced that all feminists are evil man-hating bitches deliberately set up a scenario that would most likely prove the exact opposite?