Some links for Friday night:
Jezebel’s Anna North takes up the question “What Should You Do When Someone You Love Becomes a Men’s Rights Activist?”
North quotes me and Hugo Schwyzer on the topic. Here’s the extended remix of my remarks:
Unfortunately, in most cases, I don’t think it’s possible to talk someone out of a Men’s Rights obsession. For most of them, it seems to be driven not by facts — they’re happy to simply make up facts to fit their worldview — but by feelings, most obviously by rage at women. If they were driven by actual interest in issues, they probably would have accomplished something by now; in reality, only the overlapping but more politically focused Father’s Rights movement has actually had much of an effect on the real world, for better or worse. For most MRAs, the closest they come to activism is leaving angry comments everywhere online — or harassing individual women online in a manner similar to the ways abusers stalk the objects of their obsessions.
The one argument I think you can make to MRAs who are not too far gone is this: it’s not healthy for you to spend so much time stewing in your anger online. Instead of trying to help men work through their personal issues with women, the MRM encourages men to cultivate their rages and hatreds, to remain stuck. That’s not healthy for them, or for society at large.
North’s post was inspired by a recent Dear Prudence question on Slate from a girl whose dad had recently gone all MRA on her. (It’s here, scroll down a bit to the question that starts “Dad-Related Dilemma.:)
The guys at The Spearhead also had a whack at the Dear Prudence question here. Needless to say their perspective is a little different than mine or Hugo’s.
And while I’m doing links, here’s another misogyny-related post on Jezebel: Founder of Possible Sex Tourist Website Creates Elaborate Ad Campaign Telling Men to Beware of Marriage
It’s a lot of the same old shit we’ve seen before from marriage-hating MGTOWers and Western-women-haters. But entertaining nonetheless.
And last but not least: checking my traffic today I discovered that Man Boobz is big in Brazil! By which I mean, a professor at the Federal University of Ceará is a fan, and has started making fun of obnoxious Brazilian misogynists on her blog. Olá Lola!
As far as I can tell from the badly Google-translated version of her blog, the Brazilian versions of Man Boobz (Homens Idiotas?) are pretty much identical to our Man Boobz, right on down to their obsessions with alphas and betas and all that crap.
First!
Wow, Buttman, your contribution to the discourse is stunning, as usual.
@hellkell
Well, to be fair, I never would have known if he hadn’t told me. After all, doesn’t the public have the right to know? What’s that you say? They don’t care? …. oh
What was Buttman’s post? I only read the first dozen Spearhead comments.
Notice the difference in language between these two examples.
RE: the marriage one— I’m pretty sure one of our trolls at manboobz copypasta’d that whole thing into the comments here and some of our delightful commenters tore into it beautifully. I am also pretty sure I’ve read the name Winston Wu before. If I recall correctly, he was a troll on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe forum and may also have been addressed on selfsame podcast (likely just to laugh at him). I’m not entirely sure, though, but it seems like this particular troll likes to hide under many Internet bridges.
One is called beating the shit out of your wife, the other is called having an affair then having to pay child support for YOUR KID. Yea, that’s totally like rape /sarcasm.
Why can’t these fuckwits see the difference? yes, the wife is a jerk for having an affair. But guess what? it aint physical assault like getting the teeth knocked out by an abusive husband. That is ILLEGAL. Affairs aren’t and plenty of men have affairs too. Your child is still your child whom you owe to support. Assuming the “financial raping” is about child support, why not sue for custody? prove to the courts you’re a better parent. Although if the jackass thinks that having full custody doesn’t take more money and a hell of a lot more time and responsibility, then he’s an even bigger idiot than I thought.
I’m so glad these men don’t get married. They could care less about their kids and don’t even like women. What sane women would marry these pricks? Also if someone I knew was an MRA he’d be out of my life so fast.
Also congrats on the fanbase in Brazil David! but you said the magic summoning words for MRAL- Hugo Schwyzer xD
Our friend Emma the Emo got pretty heavily down-voted on the Spearhead thread, despite her efforts to be sympathetic. So sad.
Spearheaders don’t think women should be allowed to vote. I really doubt they like women expressing opinions of any kind.
crummy: The letter doesn’t say that he got a financial raping nor does it describe what happened in the custody agreement and if it was any custody/support agreement problems over the course of the divorce. He may very well have a right to be bitter.
But are you really comparing domestic abuse to a woman leaving for another man? Really?
Yeah, their misogyny is Pavlovian.
@lj4:
I forgot to add quote marks to the first paragraph, so sorry for the confusion. I was quoting the Spearhead article
“Our friend Emma the Emo got pretty heavily down-voted on the Spearhead thread, despite her efforts to be sympathetic. So sad.”
Are we sure she’s not a sociology grad student doing research into responses to misogynist women?
Crumb was quoting W.F. Price, the Spearhead mod.
@captain bathrobe
any comment on there from a woman is going to be downvoted, even if they agree with what Spearheaders are saying. Because it’s coming from a woman thus it must be wrong. LOGIC!
At least AVfM has some women writers contributing, which makes them a teeeeny tiny bit better. Emphasis on teeeeeny tiny.
Oh man, on the Jezebel article the first comment is from Marc Angelucci extolling the virtues of the MRM and how they are for TRUE equality. This is the same douchebag who sued women’s shelters for not allowing men in. Instead of pushing for shelters to be built for men. If men have to suffer, then EVERYONE has to suffer! LOGIC!
OHHHHHH! Sorry! 🙂
also what is Pavlovian?
I fixed the quote in your comment, Crumb.
Because I am awesome like that.
Quackers: Men are allowed at women’s shelters. For some of the community service my fraternity chose to do, we helped out at a women’s shelter.
(I know you meant that they are not allowed to stay at the shelter. But I am guessing that guy Marc wouldn’t think of helping battered women. He probably thought they deserved it somehow.)
I remember reading W.F Price’s editorial for GMP in the fall. It told a sad story about how Price lost his wife and children in a messy divorce, including a bit where the wife “falsely” accused Price of threatening her, thus I suppose sparking his involvement in the MRM.
But I didn’t believe a word of it, given that Price runs a website where the average comment would make Ed Gein uneasy. It’s like listening to David Duke talk about how he was mugged by a black guy.
@Cassandra
Are we sure she’s not a sociology grad student doing research into responses to misogynist women?
No, I think she just wants to be thought One Of The Good Ones. Unfortunately, the commentators on the Spearhead don’t believe in Good Ones.
@Quackers
There’s a famous psych experiment by Pavlov showcasing behavioural conditioning where he trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by making them associate the ringing of the bell with their feeding time
quackers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
Short story, dog is fed food after ringing a bell multiple times. Ring a bell, the dog will think it is getting food and will drool.
Basically, if I am taking what crum said right, it is an unthinking response when they see anything that (for lack of a better word) triggers them.
Pavlovian: reflexive, akin to Pavlov’s dogs salivating at the sound of a bell. See woman, hit down-vote. No thought involved.