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.”
Ohes noes hideous double post I apologize :-$
darksidecat, I’m not sure what your point was there, or at least why it was directed towards me. Plus, I’d even say that “Suck it up like a man!” when directed at an MRA would actually be sort of an ironic redirection of MRA-style tactics, versus being an serious directive in a gendered way.
And as far as being abrasive, I’m probably high on the list and besides a death threat from a Muslim fundamentalist and a couple of guys wanting to punch me, I’ve never experienced remotely what the average woman gets on a daily basis. What’s more jarring to me is the lack of any link between the strength of what women say and the force of the backlash against them. At least when I get threatened it is because I went on a long diatribe about the personality flaws of the specific person who got pissed off at me. Women just have to exist to get shit flung at them. So the abrasiveness isn’t even an issue.
These guys are cowards, they mainly attack women. If a guy post on their blog, they will dismiss what he says, accuse him of being a woman (I was called Amanda Marcotte by the Hookinpsmart crowd), and finally will ban him – I was banned last year from Hookingupsmart. If it’s a woman, they will allow her to post and constantly harass her and call her a feminist – and they will harass her on her blog as well. They need to think that most men are like them and that all women are feminists. That’s one of the reason they tend to avoid confrontation with guys and only attack women.
I was completely unaware that “creepy” was a gendered insult.
Amazing, isn’t it, that the nastiest counterpart they can come up with is an insult that isn’t even gendered?
What a bunch of creeps.
I don’t know if women are labeled creeps as often or in the same way as men. So it’s not an inherently gendered term, but to the extent that it’s come to mean “someone who doesn’t avoid giving off rapist signals,” it’s used in a gendered way.
That’s separate from the question of whether it’s an insult. If creepiness is reasonably well defined, and the word “creep” is applied only to people who clearly display creepiness, calling someone a creep is just pointing that out.
An interesting thing is that most insults I often hear them from men as well. I mean real insults (“Loser”, etc) of course, “That’s a sexist stereotype!” “You need therapy.” “You make me feel afraid.”, etc can really (and often are) true statement. Heck, I need therapy myself and that nothing to be ashamed of, and I do think many of these angered people should seek counsel. (which they are unlikely to do, because, guess what, Real Men(tm) are told they don’t need it)
On the other side, I never heard (but maybe it happens) a women wishing someone else to be raped, especially with such details.
And for the word creep, I believe they think it is the equivalent of slut because they both are more used for one gender and both have the goal of stopping, by use of shame, the behavior it describes. Except on one side, we have: a person have sex often/with many people/enjoy sex/dress sexy, and on the other side, a person who behave in a way that is threatening, intrusive, repulsive, etc.
These men are highly disturbed. I’m tempting to theorize that they are so disturbed that they are a species something below human because their brain and nervous symptoms do not contain certain elements of humanity. They hate women so much because women won’t have sex with them and that’s why I think there is so much cheerleading for CP in their circles. Women shun them so they turn to vulnerable children who are open-hearted, easy to manipulate and cannot fight them off.
They probably want to take Chris Hansen to court.
“They probably want to take Chris Hansen to court.”
Oppression according to MRA’s: Not being allowed to cause physical or verbal abuse on another person.
It’s kind of impressive that MRAs can go so long in denial of some basic common sense things. For all they tout logic, they’re remarkably unwilling to apply it to themselves.
It’s been said before, but if a large number of people have the same opinion of you, saying that it is all because everyone else is flawed is pretty illogical. If you do the same thing over and over and get the same result, you almost have to make up a conspiracy or oppression in order to explain it.
The difference is that real oppression generally happens to people for things they have no control over. Skin color, gender, and national origin aren’t things we can control. If you’re being called a creep, that’s a personality assessment. Attitude and personality can, with time and effort, be changed. No amount of self-reflection will give me a penis and change my genetic make-up.
In order to continue believing that they don’t have a problem, they have to believe that they’re oppressed and that the world is set against them. If that isn’t the case, the harsh reality that they’ve got a problem comes crashing in. Then they have the responsibility to do something about it.
@Naira: Do MRAs really tout logic? Seems to me that they just spew bullshit, and then declare it “logical” by fiat.
@Improbable Joe: Good point. It might be interesting to see how much they actually know about logical or reasoned-out argumentation. Picking the reasoned arguments out of a list, to see if they can at least recognize it.
“I was completely unaware that ‘creepy’ was a gendered insult.”
It is in these guys’ world. This is the way their reasoning operates: these guys are men and they get called creeps; therefore, “creep” is an insult aimed at men. Because, after all, they’re men and people tell them to stop acting like creeps all the time. That makes these guys feel like they’ve got proof; they’ve been targeted as creeps and they’ve got the battle scars to prove it. QED.
If you’re outside the system you can see what’s wrong with such logic, but if you’re inside the system, which these guys are, the faultiness inherent in this brand of thinking can escape you. Which is why guys of this stripe think that the insults aimed at them are insults aimed only at them. Useful to know, but, as is usually the case, the people most in need of the lesson are also the ones who are most incapable of profiting by it.
BTW, I used to like “Oblivious Miser” as the inscription for my tombstone. (“Oblivious misers” is the INTJ spoiler alert from the Myers-Briggs dating guide.) But now I think “Autistic Bitch Child” sounds even cooler. I do so hate uncertainty; drat you, internet!!
Decisions, decisions…
I’m tempting to theorize that they are so disturbed that they are a species something below human because their brain and nervous symptoms do not contain certain elements of humanity.
Okay, I have plenty of contempt for MRA bullshit, but this is way over the line, even as a joke.
@Dracula: why is that over the line?
Because denying the basic humanity of those who disagree with you is never okay, no matter how stupid their ideas are.
And why is that true? I mean, I sort of agree with the sentiment, but I’m not 100% sure of the logical reasoning. Is it just that it sounds like the way the bad guys dehumanize the good guys?
I can’t speak to Dracula’s motivations in saying it was over the line, but I can say that I agree, for the following reasons:
(1) Just because someone is behaving in a way that is truly vile doesn’t mean we have the right to deny their humanity.
(2) When we classify people we find unpleasant as less than human it allows us to distance ourselves from their behaviour, which in turn allows us to believe that we, as actual humans, could never do anything like that. That makes it harder to acknowledge our own mistakes.
That’s part of it. It makes little sense to say you believe in equality, then turn around and call your opponents subhuman. The other part is that it’s factually incorrect and emotionally offensive.
Would anyone deny that they are disturbed? Or lacking in certain vital components of what we consider to be decent human beings? Maybe the phrasing could use some work, but I’m not sure I can disagree with the underlying sentiment, the same way I’d agree about avoiding calling people subhuman.
Also what Viscaria said.
@ Improbable Joe, you don’t see what’s wrong about dehumanising people in the way NC4OM did?
What does “emotionally offensive” mean?
What does “emotionally offensive” mean?
It means it offends me on an emotional level. I think dehumanizing anyone degrades us all, as a species.
Improbable Joe: Would anyone deny that they are disturbed? Or lacking in certain vital components of what we consider to be decent human beings? Maybe the phrasing could use some work, but I’m not sure I can disagree with the underlying sentiment, the same way I’d agree about avoiding calling people subhuman.
Saying someone isn’t of the same species is othering. That’s not on. It’s what Meller does when he says Feminists aren’t really women.
Are they disturbed? Probably. But so am I. There are any number of topics (torture, esp. torture in the course of interrogation) which get me hot under the collar. One could, correctly, say I was disturbed. That doesn’t mean I am deranged, nor even wrong.
And a person who isn’t a decent human being (say Brievik) is still a human being. To move him to the other is to deny my humanity. It’s to pretend I could never do something like that.
I know, all too well, that such a thing is possible.
So I’m with Dracula. The MRM may be disturbed, and far from being decent human beings but they are human beings, just (painful as the thought may be) like me.