When you think they can’t get any creepier, they do. Here’s a disturbing new Men’s Rights meme-in-formation I’ve recently run across.
In a late-December rant about anti-porn feminist Gale Dines, the self-proclaimed “Male Renaissance Agitator” who calls himself Fidelbogen wrote:
In olden days of rough village justice she’d have gotten the scold’s bridle, or the the ducking stool, or the stocks. And quite right.
A couple of days later, regular A Voice for Men commenter DruidV, perhaps inspired by Fidebogen’s post, made a strikingly similar suggestion on that site:
I urge all Men here to have a look at wiki’s description of what was commonly known as a scold’s bridle, or the Branks. For whatever foolish reason, this item was done away with some time ago. This invention to end Men’s suffering, needs to be brought back into public acceptance and application, post haste, imo.
So let’s take a look at the Wikipedia page he linked to and see just what exactly this “Scold’s Bridle” was:
A scold’s bridle, sometimes called “the branks”, as well as “brank’s bridle” was a punishment device used primarily on women, as a form of torture and public humiliation.[1] It was an iron muzzle in an iron framework that enclosed the head. The bridle-bit (or curb-plate) was about 2 inches long and 1 inch broad, projected into the mouth and pressed down on top of the tongue[2]. The “curb-plate” was frequently studded with spikes, so that if the tongue moved, it inflicted pain and made speaking impossible.[3] Wives that were seen as witches, shrews and scolds, were forced to wear a brank’s bridle, which had been locked on the head of the woman and sometimes had a ring and chain attached to it so her husband could parade her around town and the town’s people could scold her and treat her with contempt; at times smearing excrement on her and beating her, sometimes to death.
Emphasis mine.
I will be charitable and assume that both Fidelbogen and DruidV were joking. That is, they don’t literally want to strap women’s heads into ghastly torture devices, smear them with shit and beat them to death. They just think that the very notion is hilarious.
Whether the suggestions were made seriously or not, they’re still pretty hateful. Given that Fidelbogen was recently taken aboard as a regular writer for A Voice for Men, and that DruidV’s comment on that site got mostly upvotes (and no criticism) from the regulars there, would it be fair to call A Voice for Men the “underbelly of a hate movement?”
I’m not sure why that particular phrase popped into my head, but somehow it seems all too appropriate.
I’m pretty sure I’d go more good talking to a rock here, but hey – I went to law school, we’re used to it. 🙂
So, Meller, some notes, from a real live “lawyeress”:
1.) Despite being a female person and also practicing law, I have NEVER handled a family law case. Ever. And the family law firm I refer clients to most often – male or female – consists entirely of men. Yes, women who practice family law do exist, but so do lots and lots of men practicing family law.
2.) Despite being a female person and also practicing law, I have also defended people accused of domestic violence. In criminal courts. Most of my personal docket were men accused of beating a wife/girlfriend/babymomma, but I defended more than one woman accused of beating on her husband/boyfriend/babydaddy, as well.
(Shocking news! I also defended a couple different men, and one woman, accused of beating a same-sex partner. Because domestic violence doesn’t depend on a difference between the sex of the partners to exist. OMG TRUE FACT!)
3.) I also worked as a prosecutor, where I prosecuted both men and women on domestic violence charges. Also in criminal courts. Contrary to popular belief, prosecutors don’t represent the victim in any case (which often frustrates victims) – they represent “the people” or “the state.”
Criminal courts have nothing to do with custody, just so we’re clear. For example, if I had a domestic violence defendant accused of beating up on his or her partner, and they had kids, and the defendant was convicted, the beaten-up-on partner could freely agree to go home with the convicted partner-beater and the kids, and there was NOTHING, as a prosecutor, that I could do about it (except refer the case to CPS to check up on the kids).
Which leads me to ask:
1.) When you say “a jury of their peers,” Meller, do you mean it in the way we currently mean it (6-12 yahoos picked mostly-at-random off the local voter rolls), or do you mean it in some more narrow sense (6-12 male yahoos unjustly accused of beating some female yahoo at some time because she wanted custody, or whatever)? Because the second one would render functionally useless every objective legal measure we have – including the one in many DV laws that requires the assault to be one that would put a “reasonable person” in fear of his/her safety. I’m just sayin.
2.) When you say that you want the penalties for DV to be equal to the penalties for simple assault, you do understand that the penalties for DV are often much more stringent, and that’s because DV makes the victim (man or woman, doesn’t matter) face danger IN THAT PERSON’S OWN HOME (and/or by someone that person is supposed to be able to trust), right?
I mean, you can probably avoid being punched by some drunk asshole in a bar simply by avoiding going to a bar, but if that drunk asshole is IN YOUR HOME (probably also his/her home, because this is domestic violence we’re talking about), the game changes. You’re LESS SAFE in the face of a DV than you are in the face of simple assault, because THAT IS HOW DV WORKS.
So: are you really advocating that we eliminate domestic violence as a separate offense, and how do you think that would benefit men who are beaten by their wives?
3.) You seem to be conflating criminal law (which handles criminal domestic violence violations) and family law (which handles divorce and custody). Is that intentional? In other words, do you really think criminal courts should be making custody decisions, or vice versa? If so, why?
I’m ever so curious to hear your answers. 😀
Also, this study may be relevant to this thread’s interests: http://ehe.osu.edu/news/2011/victims-sympathy-abusers.php
@Dani: Thank you for the lovely clear layout of these points.
And yeah, I’m fairly sure some of my pet rocks would be more receptive to listening to what you say than DKM (often affectionately (NOT) called Dunning-Kroeger Man by some of us).
But I really hope he tries to answer you.
(NWO will probably blow through and perform amusingly as well since he’s convinced that all it takes to put a man in jail is for a woman to cry at the police.)
“And yeah, I’m fairly sure some of my pet rocks would be more receptive to listening to what you say than DKM (often affectionately (NOT) called Dunning-Kroeger Man by some of us).”
I know you meant Dunning-Kruger, but that is such an awesome typo that I had to point it out. Now I’m imagining our friend Meller wandering through the aisles of a Kroeger’s, baffled by the sight of a modern grocery store. What are all these strange products in colorful packaging? Why are there so many differents kinds of cereal? They did not have this on his home planet. And then to add insult to injury he notices that there are WOMEN working there, the horrors.
CassandraSays: *ahahahaha* ROFLMFAO!
There can be amazing typos at times.
Isn’t there some specific game or something that involves trying to pick women at at grocery stores?
“Isn’t there some specific game or something that involves trying to pick women at at grocery stores?”
Do the PUA dudes hang out in the produce aisle fondling the melons suggestively? Because that would be hilarious.
But kinda gross. I wouldn’t want to buy those melons afterwards.
I would love to hear the melon-related negs. Something about relative size and firmness, I’d imagine.
They certainly wouldn’t be standing near the zucchini. Wouldn’t want to make themselves look worse.
I present Supermarket Game
Or in DKM’s case, toy store game.
That’s how he’ll end up in the news, mark my words. If you hear of an elderly man being arrested for fondling the Madame Alexander dolls in a children’s toy store while horrified kids look on, and he’s shrieking about the evil feminist mothers reporting him to the manager while being taken away, it’s Meller.
I did nominate him Most Likely to Get Arrested in a Doll Museum in our year end wrap-up!
@Need To Know
So many creepy images for such a short sentence
Futrelle, I know you do not consider your posts or Marcotte’s in any way mocking, and I have no interest in trying to change your mind. However, you do support Marcotte’s comments about Ball. You did so in your post and in your comments, as did several of your commenters. I consider those comments mockery, and so do you, or you would if they were directed at women or feminists.
I am only pointing out your contradictory position. You chastise others for doing the very things you do on a regular basis. Trying to change the subject does not change that. As for moderating my comments, it is your blog.
Kyrie, you said that a feminist saying, “wow, the fact that you’re hurting is so offensive to me! what about my feelings?!” would never happen on this blog. It did, just about an hour after your post.
Toysoldier, please link to the specific comment you are referring to, not the entire thread.
That’s not exactly what I said, but never mind.
So… just about an hour about my post, I guess you mean this one?
And more specifically that:
If so, you’re terrible at reading since it say pretty much the opposite of what you think. I can only see compassion for your pain and anger for your behavior.
Kyrie: It’s that TS has an agenda, and an incredibly blinkered view of what counts as, “support”.
That, or he is dishonest as all fuck and knows precisely what he’s doing.
I’m of the opinion it’s the latter, because when he comes to a place like this; gets his ass handed to him; with direct quotations and links and evidence, he retires to other fora (or his blog) and repeats the same shit; as if no one had ever responded to him.
He does this repeatedly. So I stopped talking to him; because he is either incapable of understanding, or lies.
I know this is the least of Meller’s ravings but… lawyeresses? LAWYERESSES?
Yes, isn’t it just precious how he feels the need to add the diminutive suffix whenever he’s referring to females.
“Man Boobz” seems to give him particular trouble. “Manboobzettes” is just clunky. 😛
I find “Manboobzettes” very cute. I don’t mind being called that.
I did have a long response typed out to TS but I lost it. What I most want to say is this.
The one thing that I have been lead to believe abuse victims face is the fear of accusations of being a liar, an attention seeker, making things up, etc. It’s definitely something I suffered from and still do, hence why it’s only in the last couple of years, since the age of 28, I’ve started to talk about what happened to me to my close friends and I still find myself slightly bracing for impact if I tell anyone about it, waiting for the accusations.
To have another abuse victim, someone who I naively thought would understand such feelings, use that against me and essentially accuse me of being all “What about my feelings?” and selfish despite the fact I had explicitly expressed sympathy for him, is really upsetting beyond words and I will now probably think twice before disclosing what happened to me to anyone else in future.
I also note you didn’t address me directly, TS, but whined to David about my post as if you expect me to be banned or silenced or something. I think that’s pretty cowardly.
Ponkz: You were just another took in the, ongoing, attempt by TS to try and portray ManBoobz (and feminism in general) as hating men. Any little thing he thinks shows some inconsistency between any two elements (even if they are completely different people, talking about completely different things) he will pretend is the intentional effort of one person to cover up another’s hypocrisy/hatred.
That anyone can say anything TS disagrees with, and not be shot down by every person who might have heard/seen it = oppression and scorn unmeasurable.
That’s his schtick.
Me, myself, personally, I prefer “litigatrix”.