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.
Making love…making love for two…making love for TWO MINUTES.
I mean seriously, the Modern Era is when war starts seriously degrading as an enterprise; by extension, it gets less common for the people with a well enough set up country that they *can* conscript. Why would I focus my discussion on the benefits of it on *now*, when those benefits are at their least necessary? Oh well, you’re not a mind reader, I suppose it’s my fault for not adding this.
@Rutee: So if being a soldier is the equivalent of burger flipping, what do you do for work?
Reading comprehension. You don’t has it XD
More like playing video games.
Which my nephews in the Air Force do quite a bit of.
@Rutee: How about a nice simple question for you then?
What…..do…..you….do….for….work?
Damn you blockquotes!
My job! 😀
In a sports arena, making sure that the goalposts stay in place and don’t get moved all over the state.
@Rutee: Ugh…putz!
Like I said, if I recall correctly if you need multiple years of training you’re not going to be at an E1 making 17k a year. I’m not clear how it compares, but again, not talking about the modern era here.
Back in the day, the average soldier got… what ever wasn’t nailed down and they couldn’t pry up.
But only if they won.
No, you just have to find civilians, you don’t have to win the war. Or even necessarily a battle.
Also the looting didn’t quite go that way, since some of that went back to the ruler, etc….
This again!?!?
I’ll be in Boston on December 7th, bored and cranky from my flight.
I’m more than willing to meet up, any where any time.
Why the FUCK do these trolls keeping getting all testosterony when at their keyboards?
Too much fucking Call of Duty?
Haven’t read the whole thread, but am on my way. And in fear I might forget, reading all about Brandon’s father’s uncles’ poolguy, I need to chime in with one single fact I read in a study (actual paper, so no link, unfortunately, but should be reproducible).
As of statistics, there seem to have been more dead civilians in every war since, and including, WWI than dead soldiers, and according to that study it only got worse on that front since then.
So, if Pecunium knows better, I’ll consider, of course, but otherwise, fuck off, on that, too, mras. I’d rather die holding a gun, than being raped and killed without any defense.
@Tahia: Civilian deaths in the 20th century to outnumber soldier’s deaths, which yes, the MRA’s never think about (of course that’s because they are all white male USIANS as far as I can tell):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties
Yeah, I always facepalm when I see people talking about the women and children “safe at home” in WWI and WWII. Safe here in North America, sure (though I don’t mean to discount the many contributions those at home made to the war effort). Safe where the fighting was actually taking place? Not so much. How deeply self-centered to only consider how war affected people from your own country.
Brandon: @Pecunium: At least we can both be offended by Rutee’s terrible misrepresentation of being a soldier.
Wrong. I am not offended. I expect most people to be less than completely aware, because the idea that soldiering is a job of last resort/composed of knuckleheads/anyone can do it is a cultural trope, and like any other trope requires education to clarify.
Rutee: If you aren’t talking modern era, you are out to lunch. Being a soldier, prior to the modern era was shit pay, shit food, and no respect. The signs that said, “no actors or soldiers” weren’t non-existant. Pay was docked for uniforms, medical care (apart from wounds/duty related injury), food, etc. Billets were often two to a bed (hence the term, “bunkie”).
I used 1972 as my reference, because that was the last year of the draft. Medical care in 1972 was much more common in the everyday workplace than it is now. Not least because there was a much sronger union presence, and employers were looking to compete with union jobs.
IIRC, also, you start going up paygrades at 18 week training courses. This I don’t remember too well though, so I may not RC.
You aren’t recalling correctly. Promotion is dependent on three things. Time in service, time in grade (i.e. how long since you obtained the rank you have) and needs of the Army. In the draft based army getting promoted past Corporal required being a career soldier, or being in a combat MOS: in a combat zone, and being really good at soldiering.
Cynickal: Good thing you didn’t have to apprentice…
I chose machinist because I’ve been one. Even in a union shop the apprenticeship isn’t that long, and decent pay comes in short order. Enrolling in formal schooling for the trade is, anymore, at most, a one year course, and at that not more than about 4 hours a day in class; usually being done by people looking to get practical skills faster than the OJT they are getting at work.
Off the absolute top of my head, the Irish coming off the boats in the USA got some of their best deals in the Union Army. No one else was hiring them, and this gave the immigrants clothes and a pay at all. Not a unique state of affairs either.
I’m not sure about WW1 and the ratio of civilian/military deaths, but Wikipedia lists it as 10 million military and 6 million civilian, which seems in keepig with the, relatively, static nature of the combat. In the African/Middle Eastern campaigns things were more fluid, and therefore civilians were more likely to be caught in the fighting.
But once the war of movement in Italy/France/Russia had played out, the combat area was pretty much clear of civilians, and the non-combat area stuff (Zeppelin raids, etc.) was a lot smaller in scale.
But that makes WW1 a bit anamolous in the history of regional/world conflicts (the 20 years War, the Wars of the Roses, the 7 Years War [which was the first war to include the Americas as an area of land-based combat; in that theatre it was called, “the French and Indian Wars”]), the Napoleonic Wars, etc.), where being a soldier was a harder life, but the risks of being a civilian (in the area where the fighting was being done) was still greater than being a soldier, when all was said and done; in terms of numbers killed/wounded.
Oh, and military service as a last resort is most of my family who either entered or just barely didn’t enter the military. It’s not just a ‘cultural trope’. It is indeed a thing that happens.
I will note one thing about civilian deaths vs. military deaths. The military is usually a minority of the population at large. Although modern war means more civilians die, as an absolute number, I don’t think the difference is *usually* so high that any given civilian is more likely to die. Reasonably certain that in Afghanistan, the difference is in fact so high that civilian is the more dangerous job, though.