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.
@Holly: But I love you sooooo much!! 😉
And every society I’m familiar with with ANY sort of conscription policy still heavily favors men.
Even the ones that conscript women, like Israel or the Soviet Union. And again, women die in *childbirth*, so it’s not as if men get a remotely sole claim to ‘blood, sacrifice, and tears’.
@Rutee: If you think being forced to go kill people “favors men”, then something much more important needs to be discussed first. And that is why do you think that forcing men to go fight and die is actually a favor.
Yeah, she totally meant that killing people is an honor, not that men who are drafted still have more policies working to their advantage than drafted women do.
@Laura: So because men “allegedly” make $1.22 to every $1 a woman makes, that makes it ok that women don’t have to go die for there country?
Hell, if men are the only ones that have the “honor and privilege” of signing up for selective service and getting drafted, then giving them 22 cents more seems like a pretty shitty way to thank them for that. But this is America…we treat our veterans like crap.
Putting aside that this is a phantom disadvantage in the developed world (Spoiler Alert: You’re not getting drafted unless you’re Israeli, and Israel drafts women too), historically this is a deal that benefits men. Let’s put aside that barring financial crises, soldiers got paid well for their status, and given free board…
Men had rights. Women did not. You win. Period. There is a historically brief period of time wherein women had rights and a draft was possible, but women still had substantially fewer rights, And this period is marked by a drastic decrease in the amount of war.overall, and by extension drafts, as global economies kind of get wrecked by it.
“@Laura: So because men “allegedly” make $1.22 to every $1 a woman makes, that makes it ok that women don’t have to go die for there country?”
That is so not what I just said. Are you illiterate or just a fucking idiot?
@Brandon: I mean holding women to exactly the same standards that men are held too. Fair is fair.
Having a flashback to the huge discussion where Pecunium kicked your ass about standards in the military, and you were all ok for different standards for differently aged men, and blah blah not girlz they can’t carry backpacks.
Please tell me you’re not going to sail in on that failboat again, pleaaaaasse!
“Equal” in the context of social justice is not the same as the mathemtical “the same.”
Google “potty parity.”
Women in big public spaces (symphony halls, movie theatres, sports stadiums) need twice as many stalls as men do to have equal access to bathrooms–otherwise they’re spending twice to three times as much time in lines when the men’s room doesn’t have any, because yes surprise there are differences in how women pee and what they have to do to pee and how often they have children etc.
The same applies to disability access: treating somebody in a wheelchair THE SAME WAY as somebody with two working legs and no other mobility impairments is UNEQUAL and UNFAIR.
Therefore, there has to be appropriate accomodation to allow equal access.
But anybody who is bleating “treat everybody the same” is probably too pigstubbornignorant to understand these subtle distinctions that are out there.
@Rutee: Soldiers paid well?! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! A teacher makes more than most soldiers.
Ya, cause we didn’t have the Vietnam war. While a draft would be a very difficult sell, I wouldn’t put it past our shitty government to implement one. Hell…they have a massive list of all men aged 18-34.
You forget that most of the time men and women didn’t have any rights…The ruling elite ruled my men and their families ruled over everyone. So a wealthy woman had far more rights than a male peasant.
Potty parity? Are you fucking kidding me?
Women need more toilets because they can’t pee as fast as men. WAH WAH WAH I am a woman and it takes me SOOOO LONG TO PEE..,
You don’t need more toilets, you need to learn to pee faster. Also out of everything that people have to go through…waiting in line to urinate is pretty much at the bottom of “how society is oppressing me”.
Ah social justice. The idea that some people in the past made life worse for others and their relatives should be held responsible for that mistreatment.
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2011/08/23/social-justice-101-noh
He is NWO Jr.
I’m all for giving these assholes their own thread, or a Thanksgiving Miracle of Bannination. I think we’d do OK arguing without them, there’s always a new tedious jerkoff to take their places.
BTW, Brandon, learn the whole they’re/there/their thing. You look even dumber than when you say “ya.” Yeah, I just schoolmarmed you, fuck off.
Ithilliana, have I told you just how much I adore you? 🙂
Brandon, you’re not just an idiot. You’re an idiot with delusions of grandeur. You honestly believe that you are so superior to everyone around you that you can never possibly learn just how little of a special snowflake you are. It’d be sad if you weren’t such an unsympathetic asshole.
A teacher also has two degrees-I would certainly hope they would be paid for the level of education they have obtained. Pecunium and the rest of us also butchered your absent logic on the draft issue a long time ago. Do we really need to point out to you why you are wrong again?
And if you cannot figure out why she was using that as an example of having equality not mean equality in numbers, then you really are stupid beyond the vast amount of evidence we have Brandon.
@Brandon: Do me a favor. Borrow a pair of Ashley’s tights or panty hose (if she doesn’t wear any, go buy some). Put them on. Put on heels, and a tight skirt, or a long flowing dress, and carry a big purse. And then have her time how long it takes you to pee (you have to sit down, no standing at urinal).
THen we’ll talk.
And you might be surprised to know that the potty parity is being used all over.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/05/lawmakers_ponder_potty_parity.html
My mother remember working on the Seattle waterfront during World War II when there were NO bathrooms for women because wow, women didn’t work outside the house.
Now, there are more public bathrooms (oh YA and family bathrooms for men with girl children, and women with boy children, rather than dragging the poor kids along with the adult, and bathrooms with equal access for people with disabilities) so more people can pee in public.
ALternately, pretend that there are no men’s rooms where you work and go a day without peeing, or having to go outside to find one, and then we’ll talk.
Because you are showing your misogyny more and more and more.
*wishing bladder infections on you in future too*
@hellkell: Back atcha! *smooches*
Right now I’m taking breaks between grading papers because after a few doses of our trollz, I am much more appreciative of my students’ rough drafts. So, see, they are serving a useful purpose!
Erm, I should note people can pee SAFELY in designated rooms in PUBLIC SPACES as opposed to just in public.
Which goodness knows enough men do actually IN PUBLIC.
@Laura: I actually don’t think I am that special. I don’t think society should cater to me. I pretty much think that I am just like most other men that are walking around the earth.
However, I do think feminists think they are special little snowflakes that think they should change society because something annoys them. They feel the need to tell people how they should live their lives.
Again, most of my animosity is towards feminists and feminism. I do not have the same animosity towards women in general. Basically, if you say you are a feminist, I treat you like the piece of shit that you are. I would do the same to a Nazi or a member of the KKK.
“For their status”. A soldier is a 0 education job, a teacher is a 4 year degree, currently. Though note, I said *historically*, as in “At periods that aren’t this very second”, you illiterate dunderhead.
We’ve been over this before, you twit. They can’t pass taxes for our current branch of imperialistic wars. They can’t have a draft. If you can’t get a tax, you can’t get a draft.
I didn’t ‘forget’. This is just bullshit you learned from your sorry ass high school education*. It’s simply inaccurate for so many human societies, even the ones you think it applies to (Hint: Village councils, chosen by the villlagers, wielded substantial political power in what you think was “Feudal” Europe).
But I don’t just mean outright political power. Let’s take (hellenistic) greece, which you oh so skillfully claimed was an example of female privilege in ‘sitting on their ass’ (Moron, btw). In Ancient Greece, even non-property holders had rights… …if they were men. Women were more or less possessions.
Yes you do Brandon-because you hate the idea of having to treat women as equals even in just the matter of bathrooms.
@Elizabeth: I would gladly treat women as equals..,feminists are just getting in my way of doing that.
… as opposed to women in general, whom you would videotape without their consent should they be foolish enough to have sex with you.
I think that issue came up during the Nuremberg trials. Freaking Nazis wanted just as many toilets for Jews as for regular Germans. Fuck those guys.
You don’t think you’re special? Could have fooled… well, all of us. Every word you write drips with how special you think you are.
You certainly wanted feminism to cater to you before. I think you wanted to be LIKE A BOSS, in fact.
Alas, in reality, you’re just another misogynist piece of shit. Guys like you are a dime a dozen, unfortunately.
Oh, snap, Feminazi!
What a stunningly original term, Brandon!
You are SOOOOOOOO clever, you big clever man you!
And you say you’re not a misogynist, ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
*bored now going back to student papers*
@hellkell: Well at least most women don’t label themselves as feminists…so too each their own.
I love it every time a woman says “I believe in equality…but I am not a feminist”. It gives me hope that maybe feminism will die soon.
It must be hard getting men to join your group when even women don’t want to be apart of it.