Christmas came early for the MRAs this year. Earlier this week, a generous soul calling himself AgentOrange posted a 165 MB present online for them, an assortment of super-secret internet postings from a private forum connected to the RadFem Hub, which Mr. Orange collected by bravely going behind enemy lines and, er, screencapping a bunch of shit. As the OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE declared:
[B]oth feminists and MRAs alike, have been anxiously awaiting the promised complete files of screen shots and associated materials collected by Agent Orange.
These files are apparently so vile and incendiary that Mr. Orange has deemed it necessary to reveal the personal information of some of the RadFemHub commenters. Not to encourage anyone to stalk or harass or harm them, just so that those offended by them can do whatever it is people do when personal info is leaked on the internet that doesn’t involve stalking or harassing or harming them. Send them postcards?
But in any case there is no reason whatsoever to think that a group of really really really angry people who love making threats on the internet and think their opponents are as bad as Hitler could ever do anything that would be in any way problematic.
So, you might ask, what dastardly secrets do these new files disclose? Oddly, the PRESS RELEASE doesn’t actually specify. The AgentOrange website doesn’t say either. And the 165 MB download is just a bunch of files with no explanation.
But I have spent some time going through these files myself in a completely random manner, which is evidently what AgentOrange expects everyone who downloads the files to do. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t spent that much time on this. I’ve really been quite busy with other things. But I have spent some time. More than twenty minutes, anyway.
So let me share with you some preliminary findings.
Here, straight from the AgentOrange files, are some RadFems discussing a news story about a male midwife who thinks that mothers should embrace the pain of childbirth as a “rite of passage.” (Click on the teensy image on the right to get it full-sized.)
Apparently some of those RadFems don’t think this is a good idea! One of them says:
Does he even know what uterine cramps/contractions even feel like?
Another adds:
I read that and rolled my eyes. … If only it were possible to subject mister midwife (my ass) to the joyous pain of childbirth. I guess a swift kick to the balls is as close as he’s ever going to come to it.
Clearly suggesting that a male midwife suffer pain similar to what he suggests women should suffer is nothing short of GENOCIDE!
But wait, there’s more! Another woman writes:
There is no reason why women should have to endure pain like this in this day and age.
That sounds exactly like something HITLER would have said! (If you replace “women” with “Jews” and “no reason” with “every reason.”)
Still another adds:
This is phenomenally stupid, and completely out of step with current pain management theory and procedures.
Is there no end to this feminazi depravity!?
Oh, but there’s more, much more. In this thread — click the image to the right — the evil RadFems complain about guys trying to pick them up in a creepy manner. One of the ladies suggests that a good way to get the guys to leave you alone is to tell them you’re a widow.
You see now that feminism is all about DECEPTION!
Maybe it should be called Deceptionism!
Ok, ok, just one more. In a thread called “I’m mad as hell” — right over there on the right again — one commenter complains about getting a computer virus.
She’s so mad she says she’s even considering downloading Ubuntu and forgoing all Microsoft products, which are frequently targets of viruses! What? Huh? DOES NOT COMPUTE. BZZZZZZZ. LADY USING LINUX ERROR ERROR. *$^*$()*%(*$$$$$$$$. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN.
CARRIER.
REBOOTING.
FLUSHING CACHE.
Ok. I’m back. Another commenter there says something about castrating guys who write viruses.
That does seem a little excessive. Though I don’t think she means it literally.
I will return to this topic later, after I recover.
In the meantime, if you want to see the most ridiculous comments on the matter from Reddit’s Men’s Rightsers, you can find some of them collected together here. Among the highlights:
This isn’t public shaming, its outing criminals that are planning your genocide.
A story of a plan of naziesque proportions is about to broken.
I think we can all agree that feminism inevitably heads down the road of male genocide.
MRAs, more melodramatic than emo kids.
Oh, and by the way, two of the Reddit quotes above come from a fellow known on Reddit as Sigi1, but who may be more familiar to Man Boobzers as Eoghan. Without clicking on the links, can you guess which two?
This post contains:
@MRAL
Thing is, a fella like Elam will attract a hardcore of support – disenfranchised, angry men. His particular brand of reactionary musings does have an audience, unfortunately.
He’ll never be mainstream; his views are too extreme even for very right wing Tea Party/Republicans/Libertarians. He’d be an electoral liability.
But the thing is, Elam doesn’t really have “politics”, or if he does, they’re unimportant. He has one hot-button issue and one axe to grind, and he just grinds the hell out of it.
Conservatives don’t hate women… they might want women to be traditional housewives or whatever, but they’re not going to be saying things like “women are semi-human parasites” or promoting “Bash a Violent Bitch Month”. Elam is sort of extreme even for the MRAs. I really don’t think he has all that much of a mainstream audience. Any at all, actually.
@MRAL
I think you’re right BUT within the mainstream are guys just like Elam who would be attracted to what he says. Just like racists attract malcontents, so would be.
But there’s a flipside; he’d disgust a huge number of people too.
Welcome to the party, BigMomma
It’s true that most conservatives would not support some of Elam’s most extreme writing. However, some of the most conservative evangelicals in the Christian patriarchy movement say similar things but in softer language. Some of their books on families emphasize keeping marriages together no matter the risk and blame victims for their abuse. James Dobson and John MacArthur are two high profile conservative Christians authors who have written problematic things about domestic violence. Though they wouldn’t write an article like “Bash a Violent Bitch Month”, they do sometimes claim that victims provoke their abuse and even wear bruises as a badge of honor to get sympathy from others.
I worry more about them having an influence on popular opinions because they are able to speak calmly rather than ranting and raging like Elam does. I think Elam loves getting big reactions more than influencing others. Happy Anti MRA is correct, though, that his message does appeal to malcontents and can help them become raging misogynists.
MRAL, I can see what you’re saying about wanting to see Elam trying to sell himself in the mainstream media. I imagine it would be difficult for him to adapt to that kind of environment and censor himself enough to not horrify most people. If he got negative reactions, though, he would probably enjoy that, too. It would make him feel more like a martyr and most of all, give him attention.
Me neither, although given the choice between that and French pop (*puke*), I’ll take “amurcan” music any day.
Then of course, there is “amurcan” music like jazz and blues, which I actually really like.
Ohmyblog, I was gonna leave a more relevant post, but reading Slavey’s dribble has now officially given me the Hershey Squirts (sorry to get graphic, y’all)….so whilst I goeth to lock myself in the bathroom–SLAVEY! NO picking on JEWS!! EVER!! Jesus was a Jew!! We are celebrating his birthday in TWO days, show some respect!!! Holy cats…..be ye kind to EVERYBODY of ANY faith, and stop giving me the shits!!
It’s true that most conservatives would not support some of Elam’s most extreme writing. However, some of the most conservative evangelicals in the Christian patriarchy movement say similar things but in softer language. Some of their books on families emphasize keeping marriages together no matter the risk and blame victims for their abuse. James Dobson and John MacArthur are two high profile conservative Christians authors who have written problematic things about domestic violence.
True, but I agree with MRAL that Dobson et al and Elam et al are still fundamentally different beasts, not just similar views cloaked in different language. Remember the right-wing fundamentalist view of the “family” which, however restrictive and sexist it might be, is still a concept where everyone loves each other and gets along, standing in stark contrast to the MGTOW view that men and women are fundamentally incompatible (and women subhuman monsters incapable of forming meaningful relationships with anyone).
Wow, just wow………….Look at what radfem user “Feminist Pirate” has to say in the comments section(scroll to the bottom of the page:
http://philobiblon.co.uk/?p=2511#comment-2657100
Nom, I don’t see any comments there by “feminist pirate.” I see a bunch of comments from feminists pissed off that the OP linked to a transphobic post.
I’d love to see a mainstream news agency cover MRAs simply because it would make it very clear just how far outside the mainstream they are. Even something like Fox News that leans noticeably sexist would balk at most MRA talking points.
The whole MRA enterprise is dependent on isolating themselves so that they don’t have to listen to regular, mainstream opinion, since that opinion is going to be “you guys are hateful, scary lunatics”.
Also, yeah, MRAs may superficially resemble some conservative religious folks, and there’s even some crossover, but try saying “we should remove the voice boxes of little girls” or “that dude who shot his wife and some other people in the hair salon was totally justified because she was a bitch” to more conservative Christians and just watch the disgusted, horrified looks you’ll get.
I don’t like fundies, but other than a few very extreme sects like FDLS they’re not like MRAs.
I totally agree. I think most people we think of as “sexist” in everyday life–you know, the guy who thinks “get back in the kitchen” is edgy humor or the guy who thinks “men just make better leaders”–would still be completely appalled by the MRM. It goes so far beyond regular sexist.
Yes to what Holly said a thousand times. This is a cesspit, not a gathering of ordinary “he-man womanhaters. “
As an experiment I once tried out some MRA talking points on an in-law who I do think is very sexist in the old-school sense. He’s a conservative Catholic, anti-abortion, very traditional. He was absolutely horrified, and immediately pulled his little daughter onto his lap like he was trying to protect her. I don’t think he even realized he was doing that, it was totally instinctive parental “don’t even think about trying this shit on my kid” behavior.
I don’t think he’d have realized it either. I think that’s just the human response, really. MRA has actually been shedding the decent in layers for years. I think Elam just peeled off another one, (And that one was pretty bad) and I’m morbidly curious as to how far they’ll go…
One of the things about conservative Christianity is that it’s usually very family-centric, and while this is definitely not all good (“family values”), it does mean that most of the men have at least one female relative–mother, wife, daughter, sister–that they’re pretty close to. It sure as hell doesn’t insulate them from sexism, but it does mean they can only go so far into “remove their voiceboxes at birth!” territory.
At some point they’re gonna hit the “wait, that’s my sister you’re talking about” wall.
This is why the MRM doesn’t keep me up at night.
This was what really struck me during Meller’s rants about the totally-not-brothels, how sure he was that most families would be totally down with sending their wayward non-virgin daughters into unwilling prostitution. I really hope that he personally does not have children, but in a more general sense, it’s one of the more baffling things about MRAs, the complete lack of that normal sense of loving and wanting to care for the people in your family even if those people have vaginas.
Like, I grew up partly in the Middle East, where most people have really strong feelings about virginity for girls. And some bad stuff really does happen there in relation to that. But even in, say, Saudi, if you were to start up with the stuff about cutting out voice boxes most men would be fucking horrified. And it’s really super weird for someone who values virginity to think that families would be cool with sending their non-virgin daughters into sex work.
Okay, that’s true. I do see some crossover between extremist sects of fundamentalism and the MRM, but I agree that the MRA’s are much worse. That’s probably why I’ve seen some MRA’s bash tradcons (traditional conservatives) like The Thinking Housewife and Penny Nance from Concerned Women for America. They agree on some of the misogynistic points but then Christian conservatives also expect men to have responsibilities, which is a dealbreaker for MRA’s.
They both say things like
1. Feminism is wrong.
2. Women should be submissive.
3. Women should dress modestly to prevent rape.
4. Battered wives should avoid provoking their abusers.
After that, though, the MRA’s do go further than even radicals from The Christian Coalition or Focus on the Family would ever go.
@CassandraSays, I recently showed A Voice for Men to my brother. He was horrified and said “Do people in the world hate half the population this much? Is this some kind of joke?”. I also showed him Register Her. He said, “I want to start a blog about how awful this is!” so I showed him manboobz. He said that restored his faith in humanity again.
I really would like to see them dragged into the mainstream, in a way, just as an object lesson in the fact that no, actually, most men don’t secretely agree with them. Though they’d presumably just declare that 95% of the male population are manginas.
No, they’d triumphantly declare that a silent majority supports them.
Well, Meller does keep declaring that most men would rather wank to dolls and do unseemly things to their pets than fuck modern women, despite all evidence to the contrary, so…
I wonder what it would take for them to realize that the lurkers do not in fact support them in email.
So NWO would have us believe that the time he hit his cut hand on a railing was so bad he almost passed out, but childbirth… that’s trivial.
Never mind that the only thing I’ve heard women who’ve done it say was worse/comparable was kidney stones. I’ve had kidney stones. The 8,000 dollars I was billed was worth it to alleviate the pain.
I’ve been present/assisted at three births. In all of them the women were in pain. The Bible says that women in childbirth experience pain.
You deny it. You’ve never done it, but you assert it that the women who have, and that things like the Bible, are just making shit up.
That’s why we say you are an idiot.
Holly: Regular marshmallows have gelatin (made from animal… let’s go with “parts”) so they are not vegetarian, kosher, or vegan.
There is kosher gelatin, so there are kosher marshmallows.
They can also be made from the sap of the marsh mallow, which would make them vegan.