A Voice for Men, one of the most influential and popular Men’s Rights websites, is now offering a $1000 “bounty” for anyone able to track down the personal information of several Swedish women involved in a tasteless video advertising a theater production based on Valarie Solanas’ SCUM manifesto. As the anonymous poster calling himself John the Other – the second-in-command at AVfM – put it in a posting yesterday (emphasis in original):
We are asking for the full legal names, home addresses, places of employment, email addresses and contact phone numbers of the women and man who produced and starred in the video described above. We will pay 1000 dollars to any individual who provides and confirms this information, to be paid either directly to themselves or to a charity of their choice.
John explains that this information will be posted on the AVfM-affiliated site Register-Her.com, an “offenders database” that is being used to vilify individual feminists and “Fuck Their Shit Up,” as AVfM head honcho Paul Elam likes to put it. John notes that Regsiter-Her.com also intends to post the “government identification numbers [and] drivers licences” of the women they are able to identify.
John admits plainly that posting such information may put the physical safety of these women at risk from vigilante violence. As he puts it (emphasis mine):
Some individuals may criticize the intent to publish not only names, but also addresses, phone numbers, employers and other personal information – on the grounds that such exposure create a risk of retributive violence against individuals who openly advocate murder based on sex. It is the considered position of the editorial board of AVfM that any such risks are out-weighed by the ongoing hazard to the public of these individuals continuing to operate in anonymity.
The comments posted on the article at AVfM suggest that such “retributive” violence is a real possibility. Indeed, here’s the very first comment (which currently has 17 upvotes from readers of the site):
A commenter called Xnomolos, in another upvoted comment, adds:
i would love to hunt down these women myself.
JinnBottle responds to this comment by advising “all men to start carrying guns.”
The commenters on AVfM have already uncovered the identities of all of the women involved in the video. The blogger Fidelbogen has been the most active internet detective so far.
There is no question that the video itself is offensive, and designed to provoke. You can see it here; I’m not going to embed it on this site. If you don’t want to watch it: it depicts a young woman shooting a man in the head for no reason. Afterwards the woman and her gleeful, giggling accomplices do a victory dance, then lick the blood from the dead man’s head. A message at the end urges viewers to “Do Your Part.”
Every feminist I know who has seen the video has been appalled by it. I’m appalled by it. It’s hateful, and it’s wrong.
But John the Other, and the other commenters on AVfM, claim that it is more than this: that that the video of the staged murder, intended to provide publicity for a theater production based on Solanas’ notorious SCUM manifesto, is quite literally an open call for the murder of men. As John the Other puts it:
Open advocation of murder cannot be allowed in a civil society, without that society devolving into a culture of brutal violence.
Evidently he has no problem with, or has somehow not noticed, the comments on AVfM fantasizing about shooting and killing the women involved in the video.
Is the video a literal call to murder? Is it, as one AVfM commenter puts it, evidence of a “conspiracy to commit mass murder?” No. Violence and murder have been dramatized in the theater since its beginnings. No one accuses Sophocles of advocating fratricide and incest, though both are dealt with in his play Oedipus Rex. No one accuses Shakespeare of advocating mass murder, though many of his most famous plays have body counts that put many horror films to shame.
Does the tag line at the end of the video – “do your part” – transform the video from a depiction of murder into an open call for it? No. The “threat,” such as it is, is vague; it’s not aimed at any specific individuals. It might be seen as akin to someone wearing a t-shirt that says “kill ‘em all, let God sort them out” – tasteless and offensive, but not a literal threat. “Kill ‘Em All” is actually the name of Metallica’s first album. While a lot of people see James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich et al as pompous idiots, they have not been jailed for conspiracy to commit mass murder. That would be ridiculous.
Someone claiming to have been involved in the SCUM-inspired theatrical production in question has posted several detailed comments on AVfM, explaining that those involved in the production are “not out to get you” and that the video itself was “meant as a viral “wtf?!” to give attention to both the questions that it raises and the play itself.”
By contrast, AVfM is targeting specific individuals, and intends to offer information that would allow anyone intent on doing them harm to quite literally track them to their homes and workplaces. Those fantasizing about killing these woman are not simply making a joke along the lines of “women, can’t live with ‘em; can’t kill ‘em.” They are fantasizing about killing real people, and providing would-be evil-doers maps to their doors.
AVfM is an American site, in English; these specific women live in Sweden. While it is a real possibility, it seems unlikely that anyone reading the site will literally find and murder any of those involved in the SCUM production. At least I hope that this does not come to pass.
I don’t believe that either Paul Elam or John the Other literally wants any feminist to be killed. The real intent behind AVfM’s publishing people’s personal information, it seems clear, is to intimidate feminist writers and activists into shutting up, to make clear that if they post something that offends the internet vigilantes at AVfM they will face the possibility of some deranged individual quite literally showing up at their door intent on doing them harm.
Paul Elam and John the Other claim that they’re not advocating violence. But they are playing a dangerous game here. If some deranged individual, inspired by the hyperbolic anti-feminist rhetoric on AVfM, and armed with information provided by “Register-Her.com,” murders or otherwise harms a feminist blogger or activist or video maker, Elam and his enablers will have blood on their hands. As will those MRAs who continue to publicly support and/or link to AVfM and/or Register-Her.com.
This is not the way a legitimate rights group deals with those who disagree with them. This is what hate groups do.
“I am attacking these girls for the content of it. I just think it means that man-hatred is perfectly acceptable in Sweden”
Or maybe, just maybe, the video and play are a goddamn satire pointing out how terrible SCUM is, you idiot.
@Kirby: You are the one that brought up district 9, not me. I was only saying it was a poor analogy. That’s it. You are moving your own goalposts.
@Brandon:
I take it you aren’t a Minecraft fan then.
If you think that video perfectly illustrates Sweden’s illustrious man-hating, then I’m sure you’d find this video quite illuminating.
Man, America must hate democracy and want to institute a Catholic dictatorship. And this guy is serious! That must be… like… much better evidence than an ad for a controversial play.
@Brandon:
Erm… yeah. You said it was a poor analogy because it isn’t believable, what with all the aliens and such. So if believability isn’t the issue, then you haven’t shown that it is a bad analogy.
We really need to condense these two conversations into one, it’s kinda annoying have to read every other post to figure out what you’re talking about.
@Laura: Ya, ok satire…what next? Is it going to be a romantic comedy. She loved him so much, she put a 9mm through his head…twice!
The point is that I am free to take this video as I see it, not how they wanted it to be perceived. And I perceive this video to be vile, tasteless, disgusting and full of misandry
It’s funny, I remember a Swede telling me he thought he was a modern man who’d never managed to fuck up on gender relations til I’d pointed out his privilege. And this is the man-hating state. Lulz.
Oh, and one other point I left out to one of the new idiots.
We don’t accuse AVFM of genocide, as they’re not trying to genocide. We are saying that they are clearly trying to provoke violence and an attack on the women who’s identities they seek. Because they are. Because we can look at the comments nad see for ourselves.
@Brandon:
“@Laura: Ya, ok satire…what next? Is it going to be a romantic comedy. She loved him so much, she put a 9mm through his head…twice!”
I take it you haven’t seen the movie Fatal Attraction. Not quite a bullet, but it’s been done. Comedy it ain’t, though.
“@Laura: Ya, ok satire…what next? Is it going to be a romantic comedy. She loved him so much, she put a 9mm through his head…twice!”
I don’t think you understand the purpose of satire.
You’re free to find it tasteless and offensive. Often, art is trying to be tasteless and offensive to make a point.
For what it’s worth, I’m OK with that, Brandon. I draw the line at impliedly threatening the lives of people who make tasteless though ultimately harmless art.
@Kirby: It isn’t just this one video that shapes my viewpoint on sweden. It is every little stupid thing they do to try and “reform” gender. They hand little boys dolls and give girls GI Joes in the stupid attempt that 1) the child is even aware of whats going on and 2) that it will actually do anything.
What do I say? Put a toy box out and let them pick what they want to play with. But hey, that is just me I guess.
This was also disgusting to watch (subtitled on youtube):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gender_War
I find their vision of a just and loving world to be something that should be fought against tooth and nail. In a way I felt bad for these women for having such a warped view of men and absolute disgust that their voice is even being validated in anyway. They should be knocked back to the fringe of society the same way the Westboro Baptist Church is. They should be seen for what they are, scared, weak and demanding the world change to make them feel better.
@ Polliwog yes I quite clearly stated ‘without real evidence or facts, and doing so by slandering boys.’
I don’t really like reapplying concepts to other social groups, but if it was a website trying to address the preference of parents to have children of their own race by say slandering white/black/hispanic people would the website be ok? It is definitely a real thing, most parents do raise children of their own race. What kid of impact does hopeitsagirl and the #tags the website advertises have on prospective adopters of boys? I accept the website isn’t real, I even said ”without real evidence or facts’ The issue isn’t really an issue, if parents prefer one gender to another then let them, women account for 51% of the worlds population so I cannot imagine that parental preference of gender has lead to a huge imbalance.
I would applaud your ‘you people’ commment, I did glance at the website and I wouldn’t say I’m particularly worked up, certainly I’ll stop short of offering a bounty for the websites creators if you stop short of calling me ‘you people’.
@Brandon:
Soooo… A “controversial documentary” that was “found to be biased by the Swedish Broadcasting Commission in a 2006 ruling” is a good way of figuring out what mainstream thought in Sweden is? You have a pretty poor standard of evidence…
This is awesome. I haven’t been this amused by an MRA since MarkyMark typed “Folks, you can’t make this us” about an Onion article.
Crap. That should have been “Folks, you can’t make this up.”
@Kirby: It’s nice that you can read and report back the one thing to defend this documentary.
First of all, who is the SBC? Why should I accept their authority, recommendations or verdicts? How do I know they don’t have an agenda?
@Brandon:
“It’s nice that you can read and report back the one thing to defend this documentary.”
Alright, now I’m confused… You’re complaining because I found a hole in your argument? Really?!?
I’m not “defending” the documentary. I don’t really give a damn about it. You brought it up as evidence that Sweden was some terribly misandrist nation. I argue that it is probably bad evidence, given that it was found to be biased and controversial. It’s pretty simple.
@Kirby: No. but why don’t you actually watch the video…then have an opinion about it as opposed to regurgitating a one line rebuttal from Wikipedia.
Again, it isn’t just the SCUM video or the documentary. It is EVERYTHING that comes out of sweden that pertains to gender and men and women.
@Brandon:
Yeah, you really don’t get how this works. It doesn’t matter whether the video is terrible or wonderful. You are trying to say it is evidence for some main-stream view of Sweden. I’m pointing out that Swedes don’t think it is mainstream.
“It is EVERYTHING that comes out of sweden that pertains to gender and men and women.”
Ahh, so now EVERYTHING out of sweden is awful… Oy. Is this supposed to be more convincing then an actual representative example?
“First of all, who is the SBC? Why should I accept their authority, recommendations or verdicts? How do I know they don’t have an agenda?”
OK, I know you’re American and not really well versed in how your own society works, much less a totally different society, but really? Let me Google that for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Broadcasting_Commission
Most countries that have TV have an organization like this. Its job is to make sure that companies with broadcasting licenses adhere to government standards in terms of content, financial organization, etc. In this case they agreed with you that the video in question was not OK. Are you going to argue that we shouldn’t trust IKEA when they tell us how to put a cabinet together because those evil Swedes might be putting unfair ideas of gender equality in the assembly instructions next?
@Rutee Katreya I don’t want to weigh in on the rape stats but the fbi website you linked to doesn’t really work with your numbers.
‘According to the UCR, there were more than 10 times as many forcible rapes than there were murders in 2k9.’
‘In 2009, the number of forcible rapes was estimated at 88,097’ – fbi, note this is an estimate as the FBI devated from standard procedure and instead of recording every rape conviction, or indeed every rape charge, or even every rape allegation, they instead took these stats and multiplied them out accross the census data using an unknown multiplier to represent the unreported rapes, so the actual amount of rapes could be much higher, or indeed significantly lower.
regardless rapes – 88,097
‘an estimated 15,241 persons were murdered nationwide in 2009’
15k * 10 = 150k not 88k so it’s not ‘more than 10 times as many’ also note that while the murders say estimated the estimation is not based on a multiplier worked into the census data to represent unknown murders.
@Seraph Yes I read the article I linked to you, did you read the part where despite being found illegal the hotel continued to hold a floor open only to women? Also while it was stated to be discrimination it was a ‘Equality Board’ and not a court that rendered the decision so the hotel cannot be charged unless a court also aggrees and even then the man would have to take the case to another court to sue for damages.
@Rutee Katreya hi again, yes the hotel did lose and was named discriminatory, but the hotel still discriminates. I didn’t realise I should only cite incidents where the bad guy won, that would be rather ironic if noone mentioned hitler as an example of discrimination against jews because he lost (Oh yeah godwins law)
I wasn’t intending to talk to you in particular, or the socialists in particular, this was more of a public forum for my examples. Your communal tax system sounds very similar to the UK system prior to the CSA and would help to solve issues such as the supporting parent dying/neither parent being in employment to avoid child poverty.
The postcard on the pill is from a weekly picture website names weekly confession or some such nonsense, it could well be fake or indeed true however i was merely using it to allude to the real problem of lying to men about using brith control and forcing fatherhood upon them. This was also discussed here…
http://www.cafemom.com/group/761/forums/read/15372942/It_Is_Never_OK_to_Trick_a_Man_Into_Fatherhood
But hey maybe it’s just an ‘illiterate buffoon’ using photoshop and not a real issue.
‘AVFM is the biggest thing you idiots have.’
Us idiots biggest assets are our members(illiterate buffoon idiots), the truth(photoshop) and justice.(comparing a genocidal woman as a instance of men being the victims for a change, of course it doesn’t matter unless I can pin her down as being a feminist)
@lauralot ‘Or maybe, just maybe, the video and play are a goddamn satire pointing out how terrible SCUM is, you idiot.’
It’s hard for everyone to keep saying this video is disgusting and that all the feminists/most the feminist/every feminist man boobz knows is disgusted by it when you keep calling it satire, there was no indication on the video that it was infact satire. Also the director, producer and indeed cast are members of a swedish facebook group named exterminate men, which the director assures the public is an inside joke, from a video, they released 6 months ago… etc.
@Rutee Katreya again… assuming I’m the ‘new idiot’ I didn’t mean to allude that you were accusing the avfm site of genocide, I hope you didn’t interpret my comments that way. Posting people public information is not a provocation of violence, there is nothing that the site can post that wasn’t in the public domain. If an unhinged individual attacks a woman because he or indeed she is so inspired by avfm then that individual was a loose cannon and likely to harm someone sooner or later.
@Kirby: No one thing (video, article, news piece, etc…) can properly label a trend or accurately shape a belief. But from all the years of seeing articles pertaining to gender from Sweden, more often that not they are taking a very pro-feminine, anti-masculine approach to gender equality. They are working off the “woman are good, men are bad” trope.
I am usually in awe when I am reading an article about what “new” tactic swedish officials are going to use to promote gender equality. It seems like a totalitarian nightmare. The state forcing children to behave a certain way because that is the “acceptable” way to behave.
@Brandon:
More accurately, from all the years of articles that you have seen and you can remember, you’ve come to your conclusion. Could it be that you only remember it if it strikes you as anti-masculine? Confirmation bias, my friend, it’s a right bitch to ensure it ain’t happening.
@ Polliwog yes I quite clearly stated ‘without real evidence or facts, and doing so by slandering boys.’
“There’s no real evidence for their assertions” is not the same thing as “they’re not even making any real assertions in the first place, because they aren’t a real thing.” The “Hope It’s a Girl” site itself is not real, and says so quite obviously. There is no organization funding it, no movement promoting it. There aren’t even real people using those twitter hashtags to say horrible, “slanderous” things about boys. (Examples of the “slander” in question: suggesting that little boys sometimes do things like “have water balloon fights,” “play with their parents’ stuff,” “pretend to be Batman” and “pee on you when they are infants and you are changing their diapers.” THE HORROR.) Holding it up as an example of anything other than “a random webpage which appears to have been entirely the product of one or two people and which they openly state is total nonsense,” let alone a serious example of “injustice,” just makes you look stupid.
I don’t really like reapplying concepts to other social groups, but if it was a website trying to address the preference of parents to have children of their own race by say slandering white/black/hispanic people would the website be ok?
If the vicious “slander” was “white babies sometimes pee on you” and “white kids sometimes pretend to be superheroes,” yeah, I’m going to say I’d be fine with it. And if the site itself freely admitted right up front that it was a joke designed solely to raise awareness of the fact that minority kids deserve good homes, too, then I’d happily state that anyone holding it up as an example of “injustice” is making themselves look stupid, too.
It is definitely a real thing, most parents do raise children of their own race. What kid of impact does hopeitsagirl and the #tags the website advertises have on prospective adopters of boys?
Almost certainly none whatsoever, because (a) I have no idea how they’d even find it in the first place, since it’s not a real organization, (b) it says right up front it’s not real, and (c) if you are seriously going to reevaluate your decision to adopt a child based on shocking revelations like sometimes, babies pee at inconvenient times, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be adopting a kid in the first place.
I accept the website isn’t real, I even said ”without real evidence or facts’ The issue isn’t really an issue, if parents prefer one gender to another then let them, women account for 51% of the worlds population so I cannot imagine that parental preference of gender has lead to a huge imbalance.
Um. Really?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8451289.stm
The gender imbalance among newborns is the most serious demographic problem for the country’s population of 1.3 billion, says the academy.
It cites sex-specific abortions as a major factor, due to China’s traditional bias towards male children.
The academy says gender selection abortions are “extremely common”. […]
The latest figures show that for every 100 girls born in China, 119 boys are born, the academy says in a new book. […]
The growing imbalance means that forced prostitution and human trafficking has become “rampant” in some parts of the country, according to the researchers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15414796
Statistics show a continuing preference for boys in India. The gender imbalance has widened every decade since independence in 1947.
According to the 2011 census, there were 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six, compared with 927 for every 1,000 boys in the 2001 census.
(Please note that this is a story about parents literally naming their daughters “Unwanted.”)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio#Gender_imbalance
As a contributing measure to gender imbalance in developing countries, Kristof and WuDunn’s[36] best estimate is that a girl in India, from 1 to 5 years of age, dies from discrimination every four minutes (132,000 deaths per year); that 39,000 girls in China die annually, within the first year of life, because parents didn’t give girls the same medical care and attention that boys received. The authors describe similar gender discrimination and gendercide in Congo, Kenya, Pakistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Thailand and many other developing countries.
I would applaud your ‘you people’ commment, I did glance at the website and I wouldn’t say I’m particularly worked up, certainly I’ll stop short of offering a bounty for the websites creators if you stop short of calling me ‘you people’.
Aw, really? Well, then, I’m happy to rewrite that for you, since you’ve so generously offered not to put a bounty on someone’s head solely for the offense of making a fake website suggesting that boys sometimes get into mischief if I do so:
“How did you, personally, manage to say something as moronic as calling this site an example of “injustice” without even taking a cursory glance at it first? Also, how did you, personally, manage to be so ignorant as to be completely unaware that sex-based selection of male over female babies is a major issue worldwide?”
@Brandon:
Anyway, if there are so many pro-feminine, anti-masculine things out there, it should be simple to find at least one that doesn’t have something obviously faulty to count as evidence. Saying “well, this evidence isn’t good, but I have YEARS of other good evidence” just doesn’t cut it.
@Cassandra: I know what the SBC is. The point I was making is what makes them special that I should yield to their authority.
Hell, I even think the FCC is useless. So why the hell would I accept the “film critique” of a broadcasting committee.
How about I go see it and make up my own mind as opposed to accepting another person/group/committees opinion (and it is an opinion) of a movie.