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.”
Maybe this is a pattern for me, but I’m more inclined to say “Your vampires are shit.” than “Your vampires aren’t vampires.”
a bit off topic, but you know that guy who is suing the London School of Economics gender studies course for discrimination? do you think he will win? if he does society will have reached a new low. I mean, never mind that history, literature and so many other courses are dominated by books, theories and studies written by men, and no one complains. Its just natural to learn things from men. And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it either. But a course that talks about women’s experiences or has books written by a woman’s POV for once…that’s discrimination! Do women not deserve to have a voice? Do MRAs not realize that throughout history many women did not have a voice until women’s liberation started to make it more common? I hope the courts will realize this, sadly dumber cases have been won before.
I notice MRAs are all about silencing. Silencing by suing. Silencing by threats. Silencing by intimidation. It is very creepy and not at all about finding common ground.
Dracula: And your strategy can be extended to terrible people, too!
Quackers: Don’t forget one of their favorites, “Silence by Shaming”
Why on earth would someone use shaming language like “You make me feel afraid” when conversing with a person who had just threatened to “fuck your ass to death you filthy fucking whore”? Why would a woman ever be afraid of such a clearly rational and peaceful man? It’s one of life’s great mysteries, like magnets.Being afraid of people who threaten to rape and kill you – how does it work?
It is odd to me how consistent the tendency towards lurid and violent sexual fantasies is with MRAs. It’s not a sex thing in any sort of normal kink way, because they still do it with men even if they’re straight (though not nearly as often). I can’t help wondering if at some point something went very wrong with the sexual development of MRAs, and that’s the source of all their rage in some way.
Cassandra: something to do with punishing someone with their penis. I mean, what else would you use your penis for?
Yep Pecunium. Because trying to silence feminists by calling them hairy ugly dyke misandrists isn’t shaming at all!
By that guy’s logic I can spend 6 weeks in a history course then sue for discrimination because there are no books written by women, they don’t talk about women, they don’t include women’s movements (I’d have to take a special course to learn about that unimportant part of history!)
MRAs want an equal playing field, but it’s kinda hard to get to that when the playing field wasn’t equal to begin with. Also how come there was no MRA movement the same time the feminist movement became big? that suggests to me that maybe men were, I dunno, happy or at least indifferent to their roles as men? Just a thought. It suggests that maybe they had it better, being able to go to work and participate in public life more than women did. Or wouldn’t they have demanded liberation from that too?
By the way, internet points for CassandraSays for referencing magnets
On the derail about the term “less than human” – I don’t think that’s OK. If you fling insults of that specific kind you’re opening the door to having those kinds of insults flung around at more vulnerable people too. Let’s not go there.
On the question of being too nice for our own good, though – there’s no need for that. Maybe it’s just because I’m British, but I tend to think that the nastiest, cruelest, most cutting criticisms are best delivered in a calm tone of voice and with an icily polite smile. If what you want to convey is that you consider someone beneath contempt and not even worthy to clean the shit off the shoes of decent people, there’s no need to scream and yell at them. Contempt is one of those dishes best served very, very cold. It cuts deeper that way.
The fact that a lot of feminists are quite good at this is, I suspect, why MRAs are so obsessed with “shaming language”. It does hurt them, and it’s meant to. And no, we’re not going to stop.
Most of these online fools who call themselves MRA’s are extremely bitter and frustrated virgins who can’t get a date off the calendar.
Uhh… okay? What’s with the anti-virgin stuff?
Sweet Satan…
yea…being a virgin isn’t bad :/ I get what you’re trying to say, I’m sure lots of them are bitter which is a problem, but whether they are virgins or not is irrelevant.
I’m still in the decision making process on NC4OM. Trolling or just stupid – votes?
I also suspect that part of the issue may be that she’s very young. The “OMG you’re a virgin you loser” thing tends to be most often used by young people, ime.
I’m voting for both. She’s been here under a few names before.
Is the fact that NC4OM called some hypothetical person a “virgin” in a semi-negative way really an important point that needs to be analyzed in great detail for the rest of the night?
Yes, Joe, it does. What’s your point?
Well, we could talk about her Islamophobia too, if you like, but that’s just frustrating.
@hellkell: if your goal is to drive off all the people who 99.99% percent agree with you, because of relatively minor language issues that really count for about 0.01% of what’s going on in the real world, then this looks like a really successful strategy.
@Cassandra: if I’m stepping into a situation with a longer and deeper history with this particular person, I apologize and will back away.
Or you could drive off all the people who happen to be virgins and don’t appreciate being compared to MRAs. That’s not something I want to do. Do you?
Are we talking about NC4OM, or you? Frankly, she’s adding nothing but Islamophobia, and the jury’s still out on you. All you seem to be doing is whining that this isn’t one big pistol-packin’ language free-for-all.
I may be a bitter and frustrated virgin, but I ain’t no MRA.
@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.
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@Daphne B.
“It’s like, does nugganu *want* people to associate sex with punishment, and go “sex, ewww!” or what?”
This from feminists? The worlds foremost proponents of sadistic, whipping, caning, torture sex? Feminist sex seems to be intertwined with punishment. I guess when you’re dead on the inside, ya need something to remind yourself you’re actually alive.
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@darksidecat
“This is primarily a homophobic insult”
The word, “homophobic,” doesn’t work as a shaming tool, how many times do we have to go over this? Gay sex is simply a repulsive act and deserves to be shamed. And anyone who supports it equally repulsive and deserves to be shamed as well.
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@no more mr nice guy
“These guys are cowards, they mainly attack women.”
We’re all equals so why would you make a distinction that attacking a woman is somehow worse than attacking a man?
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“They need to think that most men are like them and that all women are feminists.”
Most men are like us. And most women are feminists to an extent, a lifetime of indoctrination has ensured that.
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@Hershele Ostropoler
“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.”
“Creepiness” is just one of many insults in a womans arsenol. Any man who doesn’t meet a womans approval at any particular moment in time is a creep. Note, “elevator creep,” and the 100% support from team woman.
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@Kyrie
“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)”
Therapy is simply the validation any womans, “feelings.” If a woman goes to a therapist and talks about a man problem, she will be in the right, and have her feelings validated. If a man does the same, he’ll be wrong, and in need of change. The vast majority of therapists are women. And out of all therapists, for every 1 conservative therapist, there are 15 leftist therapists. The last thing any man needs is a therapist. It’s like going to a feminist.
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@Naira
“The difference is that real oppression generally happens to people for things they have no control over.”
Like State law enacted by feminists.
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@bekabot
“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.”
Feminism has been around for well over a century. It started out as a hate movement. Believe me, we know all about the inherent flaws.
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@Improbable Joe
” Is it just that it sounds like the way the bad guys dehumanize the good guys?”
Who told ya feminism was good? Feminists?
@hellkell: Really? Then I guess you and I won’t be friends. Doesn’t break my heart, but I’ll not be run off by you because you can’t tolerate a 0.01% difference in people.
“Or you could drive off all the people who happen to be virgins and don’t appreciate being compared to MRAs. That’s not something I want to do. Do you?”
Isn’t Spearhoc, much loved regular commenter, in that position? I certainly don’t think that driving people like him away would be an acceptable outcome.
And yeah, there’s a history with this person. It can be seen in several threads right now, actually. There’s no point digging back for older comment threads since she’s essentially saying the same things, though the last thread about religion was particularly lulzy.