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 see a pretty clear parallel between this and anti-abortion activists who publish the names and addresses of abortion doctors, or if you want an example on the left, animal rights extremists who post the addresses of researchers who work with animals. In both cases people have been the target of not just threats but actual violence.
I was thinking about that too. Bill O’Reilly openly called for the death of Dr. George Tiller for years, calling him “Tiller the Baby Killer” and a “Nazi” and saying that anyone in Kansas who didn’t try to stop him “has blood on their hands.” Then, when a guy followed Tiller to church and shot him to death, O’Reilly acted all outraged by the idea that he or the pro-life movement were complicit.
This is how hate groups operate. They huff and puff and play-act at anger, working each other into a lather over nothing (I mean, really, calling for the murder of Swedish college students who at some point put on a SCUM Manifesto play? Encouraging people to stalk and harass a woman who, as far as I can tell, made all of one post to the Radical Feminist Hub?). 90% of them are too cowardly or too sensible to commit violence themselves, but they happily egg the other 10% on. And if someone gets hurt, yay! I mean, oops! I mean, how dare you suggest it’s my fault?
Oh, you actually think that ONLY bitter men would be drawn to being an MRA. So by your logic, you are not being welcoming to regular average joes, but the “undesirables” who hate women and are bitter.
If that is what you think…you have already lost.
what the fuck is wrong with you? social change isnt some fucking video game where you have to fill up your convert queue before the other guy in order to power your special attack.
feminism addresses the needs of people who arent you. we get that this is anathema to you, but we also dont care. if feminism changed itself to satisfy the needs of every selfish white dude who wanted to call himself a feminist, it wouldnt be feminism anymore, it would just be the rest of recorded history.
“And I agree with Holly. While threatening certain groups of people is still shitty and not okay, it’s still very different from threatening a person/persons specifically and publish their personal information.”
I definitely agree, and like I said, I’m talking about outing harassers who make specific threats, not just statements of vague misogyny, or whatever the heck that video was supposed to be.
Seriously, Total Perspective Vortex. I can get the fairy cake if need be.
It’s not really different. In both case, you need personal information about the person. What matters is what you do with that information: it’s not an outing if you give it to the police or your lawyer.
Would you be safer, though? Why? I’m not saying you should keep the threats or the identity of the person a secret, but you should tell whoever you would tell if it wasn’t the internet (family member, friend, spouse, cop, lawyer, bodyguard,… I honestly don’t have a clue how you’re suppose to deal with this kind of issue), but I don’t see how putting these info in a public place will help with the issue.
It seems to me bullying back the bullies won’t make anything better. (which is not me saying people shouldn’t be defending themselve against bullying)
See above, Idk.
To be honest, the video didn’t even bother me that much. It’s so over the top it’s like, whatever. What really bothers me is more mainstream feminist thought because, being more reasonable but still insidiously misandric, it has the potential to actually exert an influence.
Ho. Lee. Shit.
Can anyone expand on this?
I just wanted to repeat the point that some have made that we don’t know what the play is about. I can easily imagine making a provocative trailer for a play that would be about how the SCUM manifesto is fucked up.
Thank you, shaenon.
This is one thing that really gets my goat: the selective narrowing of the meaning of one’s words for personal benefit. We do not get to heavily suggest things, without coming right out and saying it, and then go “That’s not what I SAID!” or “I didn’t directly SAY that, so you can’t blame me!”
FactFinder, a few posts ago, stupidly said that we’re responsible for ALL the implications that our words have and shouldn’t speak if we can’t be responsible for all of them.
Neither extreme actually is the truth or is how we really speak. If I say “Can you pass the salt,” the literal answer should be “yes.” But, we all know that this is an polite way to express my desire for you to pass the salt (not “you” directly shaenon, but the general one). So, no one tell me that if you don’t say it directly, you’re not responsible for it. That’s bullshit. All languages, to a greater or lesser extent, have circumlocutions or indirect phrasings. Well all know what they mean, so don’t suddenly say that none of it counts.
Words can carry a fluid, negotiable meaning. Things can be implied. What FF refused to accept, apparently, is that the person who says something can refute an implied meaning. If you haven’t been in a discussion before where you flubbed what you meant to say and had to restate yourself to get your point across, then you’ve probably taken a vow of silence. “I know I said X, but what I meant was X’.” happens all the time.
Context matters. And a bunch of guys who normally talk about how much women suck, how cruel and evil feminists are, and how oppressed men are REALLY points to a “we’d like someone to hurt/kill those women if we can get their contact information, but saying it is illegal” interpretation.
in case it is not clear, my example sentence should read “I know I said X, but what I meant was X prime.”
(another good example of the ability to clarify meaning to make sure the right point gets across.)
I’d also like to see an example of Elam saying his politics give him a hard on. I think that’s bull.
I just realized what I’m sure you’ve all known for a while: Slavey isn’t actually trying to communicate specific ideas. He calls out words and phrases for their sound, to make feminists sound vaguely mencaing and horrible, but it doesn’t actually matter what, say, “Title IX” actually is. The point of al his rambling is to make feminists evil and MRAs reasonable and fair, with “sound” being the key word here.
It’s the ultimate in marketing. Bernays would be proud.
mags:
Manboobzers have been criticizing and condemning the video for weeks. WTF?
This is a slightly different rhetorical technique than saying thinhgs that are absolutely true in a sarcastic tone of voice, but it’s not exactly strawmanning either. But I will say I can’t think of any feminists who have expressed unqualified support for offender registries, and certainly none who have expressed support for putting people on registries who haven’t done anything predatory. On the contrary, every feminst I’ve seen express an opinion on registries has been opposed to them in their current form, if not across the board.
But you didn’t come out and say otherwise, so you still get to deny strawmanning just in case there’s anyone stupid enough to believe you.
Brandon:
The attitude that … men are pretty ok, as long as they’re not hateful? Why should men “flock away from” that message?
Lauralot:
Since I only read the book, it seems to me creating it for him would defeat the purpose.
As far as I recall in the book, the only reason the Vortex didn’t work on Zaphod is because he was currently in an artificial universe created for him. The Vortex’s creator originally invented the machine to prove his wife wrong, but despite being created for her, it didn’t show her as important.
@thebionicmommy
Even though Dave continually silences me, while giving the privileged sex free reign to call me/men every name in the book. I’ll try once again to open your eyes to the true enemy. This is a quote from WHO, the world health organisation, (such a lovely name), which you’ve so nicely dubbed the mrm distortion of information.
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“Women’s Use of Violence”
“Men and women’s use of violence tend to be distinct, too. Women may use violence to show anger, to get attention or to retaliate for emotional hurt or a history of physical abuse. Women often use violence in self-defense or to escape. Moreover, women tend to use violence to control a situation.
Men tend to use violence to control a woman. Thus, this control is used on a continuous basis.
Another difference is where the injury is inflicted. When women harm men, the effects are typically visible: a bite mark, a scratch mark, etc. When men hurt women, the placement may be hidden: bruises on the ribs, strangulation, etc.
Lastly, men are more likely to minimize or deny their violence. Women more readily admit to their use of violence.”
Note how women use violence because they’re forced into it, defense and escape. Men however use violence as a means of control. What’s the difference between a man/woman hitting? They both hit to “control.” Also note the injury method, women leave marks when they hit, men clandestinely try to hide their violence, (to continue their controlling behavior?). Finally, women admit their use of violence while men deny or minimize it.
From the why, to the how, to the confession of violence, women are portrayed as good victims, even if they commit the violence. Men however, aren’t afforded such leniency, they are evil. This is WHO, The World Health Organisation reporting this.
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Next up is WHOs statistics on violence
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“The National Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey, sponsored by the CDC and the US National Institute of Justice and based on a representative sample of 8,000 men and 8,000 women in the US, estimates that 4.8 million rapes and physical assaults are committed against women in the US every year”
Where do these 16k people come from for this study? Did they take 8k men who have assaulted? Did the women initiate the assault? Are they random assaults? Did the women participate? Be that as it may, we’ll go with their estimates. If 4.8 million rapes/assaults are perpetrated every year in 30 years roughly every woman will be raped/assaulted, in 60 years, (a lifetime), every woman will be raped/assaulted twice.
Further, WHO has confirmed on many occasions that 90% of rapes/assaults of women go unreported. This 90% is seperate from the, “known” reported rapes/assaults listed above. That means every woman in the US will be raped/assaulted 20 times in her lifetime.
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WHO also gave us the “swine flu pandemic.” The report was done by WHO pharmaceutical companies who also make the vaccine. You’re 11 x more likely to die from the regular flu than the swine flu. Yet the regular flu isn’t a pandemic.
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WHO gave us global warming, of which it is out that the expert is a 20 year old beatnik and a bunch of students in the Ivory Tower. Every scientist associated with the scam has distanced themselves. You can buy the book online.
———————–
Now I realize I’m the bad man for daring to question the feminist propaganda machine. I just can’t seem to help myself after reading a report from WHO, which actually supports female violence against men, or at least excuses it, yet condemns men for the slightest affront against the privileged class.
Read the statement “Women’s Use of Violence” I listed above again, which I copied directly from the WHO site. This is the UN/WHO official stance on the matter. Only the gender in power could possibly write such hatred as an official position. The question is? What are you going to do about it?
@Naira
I think it was ithiliana who said yesterday that MRAs are basically attempting a form of gaslighting in the way they “argue”, and I think your point goes along very nicely with that. Because they really do want their words to carry implicit threats, but if you call them on it, they will insist that “they never said that” and that feminists are the crazy/non-logical/whatever ones for “reading stuff into” their language and behavior. MRAs for the most part aren’t using their arguments at the level of genuinely believing in the truth of their content. I.e. they don’t actually care about what’s best for men, and aren’t arguing against feminism because they genuinely believe it causes harm to men and/or women. Their language is all stuff that has the function of trying to back feminists into corners or wear down/intimidate women and to basically destabilize anyone who supports women rather than to shore up support for men.
It reminds me of how a lot of “pro-life” arguments end up being about punishing women for sexual behavior, or having the function of pushing public dialogue and policy in that direction, rather than actually being about whether terminating a fetus is morally wrong due to the fetus having some sort of moral claim to continued life. It’s primarily an attempt to rationalize already-present hatred of or bitterness towards women in the MRA case and an attempt to rationalize already-present conservative sexual mores in the anti-abortion case. (I think somebody also brought up a similar point a bit ago.)
“I just realized what I’m sure you’ve all known for a while: Slavey isn’t actually trying to communicate specific ideas. He calls out words and phrases for their sound, to make feminists sound vaguely mencaing and horrible, but it doesn’t actually matter what, say, “Title IX” actually is. The point of al his rambling is to make feminists evil and MRAs reasonable and fair, with “sound” being the key word here.
It’s the ultimate in marketing. Bernays would be proud.”
I think we are on the same wavelength, Hershele. 🙂
@Kladle,
I think I remember that comment you’re thinking of. I agree completely. Gaslighting itself very much relies on the interpretability of words and meanings as a means for abusing/confusing/hurting another. Cruel statements suddenly become “just a joke” and any kind of protest is “crazy talk” or “taking it too seriously” (because it was just a joke, of course). White is black. Up is down. We were always at war with Eastasia.
And the biggest problem is that so much of the fluidity of meaning is so friggin’ hard to pin down. There’s a lot of cues that do not come across on the internet that are otherwise vital to interpreting meaning. Tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and the relationship between the speakers are either not present or quite obscured. The MRAs are definitely using this to their advantage. And even in face-to-face interaction, knowing EXACTLY what someone’s intent is behind a particular comment can be very difficult to interpret. So, “you’re ascribing intentions I don’t have” can easily crop up.
@kladle
“I just realized what I’m sure you’ve all known for a while: Slavey isn’t actually trying to communicate specific ideas.”
The idea I’m trying to communicate is how gullible everyone of you are, which is why you cling so dearly to a hate movement. You simply believe the most hateful propaganda to justify your hatred, which is why everyone of you stick up for those precious Sewdish feminists. Here’s WHOs official site, to help the world. I typed in domestic violence.
http://search.who.int/search?q=domestic+violence&ie=utf8&site=default_collection&client=_en&proxystylesheet=_en&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ip=174.60.14.22&access=p&sort=date:D:L:d1&entqr=3&entsp=a&lr=lang_en&ud=1&start=0
There’s 2490 results and all are the same. Women, of course. Each, “study” is as useless, convoluted and biased as the next. The third from the bottom states…. “At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime”
Now the study given to me by thebionicmommy calculated out to every woman assaulted/raped 2x in her life in the US, and that’s just the “known” ones. So out of the known ones women in the US are 6x as likey to be beaten/raped as say the Congo, or Nigeria, or anywhere else in the world.
Every link is about women with the occasional child throw in as a victim of mens violence. Although on 100% factual numbers, women are far more likely to be child abusers. And women are also 70% of non-recipricol DV. This is a fact. Further, men will do more damage in DV, But that doesn’t mean men initiated the fight. If I, a man, initiate a fight with another man and lose, I am still the initiator and at fault. Just because you lose a fight, doesn’t mean you didn’t start it.
There is no doubt women initiate their fair share of DV. Just because you lose, doesn’t mean it isn’t your fault. Have a good look at the UN/WHO site. You’ll notice a prevailing theme. Are you really that gullible? Or is womens violence justified? Are they taking control of a “situation” where as men are controlling women?
There are NO words, no matter how genuinely hateful, that make it okay. That’s simply not how you respond to speech–ANY speech.
This is what I getting at with my “Not how grown-ups settle their differences.” comment that NWOslave so gleefully distorted. Thank you, Holly, for articulating it better than I did.
@Lauralot
I’m not wanting to rush to NWO’s defense, but I do believe this site has a policy against misrepresenting a persons arguements and stance.
‘Grossly misrepresenting another person’s argument, or simply lying about them, will get you a warning, and I may put you on moderation; persist and you will get a temporary or permanent ban’
‘normal men don’t want all women to be made into rape slaves. Normal men don’t want to rape eight year old girls, no matter how “sexualized” their swimwear is. Normal men don’t want to be associated with you, which is why your “movement” is nothing more than some loud misogynists trolling Internet comments’ You appear to be implying that the MRM want all women to be rape slaves and to rape 8 year olds, while you may not agree with the MRM or the need for the MRM I don’t think thats what the MRM stand for, however if you have evidence to the contrary please link it.
NWO, no one cares about your “THERE ARE SPIDERS IN MY TOOTHPASTE BECAUSE FEMINISM” crap in this thread. They’re putting bounties on specific women for acting in a fictional video.
And they’re using people like you, by the way. The MRM’s “leaders” are shameless about whipping up paranoid people, flattering them for repeating MRA talking points and trying to use the paranoid and evil to boost the egos and do the dirty work of the merely evil. You want to really take a red pill? Realize how much people like Paul Elam get off on manipulating people like you. You’re nothing but a flying monkey to him. He wants to have a little personal army of trolls, and to him, you’re a prime recruit.
The MRM doesn’t want to help men. They’re not spending $1000 on a men’s shelter, men’s charity, men’s legal defense fund, or even on creating good publicity for themselves. The only thing they know how to do is attack women.
If you decide to make yourself a little lapdog of the MRAs, you’ll never see any reward for it. You’re just helping Paul Elam and other MRA “leaders” feel like big, big men while they secretly laugh at what a ridiculous little follower you are.
Eoghan has now put up a couple of bullshitty posts about us all on his blog. They are based on some pretty big untruths. I would say that they are lies, but I think Eoghan’s brain is so warped that actually believes what he is saying is true.
Here he’s decided that we all “tacitly support” the SCUM video (despite the fact that we’ve all condemned it):
http://acatalogueoflies.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/manboobz-and-supporters-give-tacit-approval-of-radical-feminist-anti-male-hate-propaganda-scum-being-taught-to-high-school-children/
And here’s his completely backward, Bizarro-world misinterpretation/misrepresentation of Holly’s “slavering rapist” post:
http://acatalogueoflies.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/feminist-blogger-that-promotes-the-idea-that-women-should-be-afraid-of-men-makes-a-false-accusation/
It’s this sort of shit (repeated over and over again) that is why he’s banned on this blog.
NWO, if you want to know the specifics of the National Violence Against Women survey, you could always put the words “National Violence Against Women survey” into Google.
Here are the first two results:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/172837.pdf
The researchers explain the methodology in detail.
You could also reread my “debate” with Elam on DV, in which I discuss the survey, and correct a rather silly misinterpretation/misrepresentation of its results by Mr. Elam.
I don’t know why I bother. The chances of slavey reading any of these things is about the same as the chances that monkeys will fly out of my ass and make me lunch.
Assmonkeys who cook? Where can I sign up for this?
On a slightly more serious note, can we just get rid of NWO entirely?