So Alexander Ryking is a Tumblr blogger and one of Tumblr’s community “editors” for politics. He thinks of himself as a liberal.
He is also a raging misogynist who regularly calls women “cunts” and tells feminists to “kill yourselves you feminazi twats.”
In recent days he’s turned his douchebag-o-meter up to 11. As a result, there’s now a petition up on Change.org to have him removed as a politics editor on Tumblr. It’s already gotten more than 3000 signatures, with several hundred new signatures added in the time it’s taken me to write this post.
Here’s unknowable woman, a frequent target of his cyber-wrath, with more details on his recent meltdown. (Read the post on her Tumblr blog for links to the evidence of his douchebaggery.)
Alexander Ryking, who has a history of attempting to silence women bloggers (he told Jess of STFUConservatives and the other “feminazis” to “go kill themselves” several months ago, and has also been rude to women of color but I haven’t been on Tumblr long enough to have personally witnessed that), defended The Amazing’s Atheist’s violent rape threats on Reddit by tagging his posts with “I support TAA.”
I and many, many other Tumblr users were disgusted by this, so we decided to tag our criticisms of Ryking that night with “Ryking’s banana republic”—a reference to his co-opting of [social justice] concepts, NOT a homophobic dig, and the person who coined it was a queer man anyway. Someone also wrote a few jokingly romantic lines about Ryking’s blind defense of TAA and new atheism, and Ryking interpreted this as homophobic and misandric…it wasn’t, but because I reblogged it, Ryking insists that I am now a homophobe, which is hilarious given my own sexual identity but whatever.
We also responded to some of his posts with pictures of extreme close-ups of our eyes.
Seriously. That is what this guy is calling “abuse.”
We did NOT threaten him, make personal attacks against his sexuality, tell him to go kill himself, send him rude messages, or commit any other acts that could reasonably be interpreted as the “cyberbullying” Ryking claims it is. I did temporarily change my URL to rykingsbananarepublic and I make no apologies for that. Why should I? Why shouldn’t a group of feminists and their allies be allowed to respond creatively to misogyny? The only actual cyberbullying that has taken place was TAA’s initial rape threats on Reddit; I wouldn’t even go so far as to claim Ryking’s tweets to me and other Twitter users are cyberbullying, though I leave it up to the other people who were insulted by him to label their experiences as bullying or not.
Anyway, a few nights later, I tweeted something in defense of Whitney Houston’s legacy, and suddenly there was Ryking going ballistic. He found me on Twitter, called me a cunt right off the bat, and insisted that I claimed Whitney Houston’s death was “more important than the death of 5,000 Syrians” (I didn’t! Here is what I actually said!). I had never exchanged tweets with this man before, and was confused about his sudden interest in my thoughts about Whitney Houston and Syria. Naturally, I responded, told him how wrong he was, and the next day I screencapped some of the things he said and posted them … I never expected that post to get the amount of notes it did, but I think that just goes to show how widespread the dislike for him is.
Ryking, for his part, has responded to the widespread criticism by striking the pose of a victim, and pretending that it is somehow all related to race. Apparently, the evil feminazis are impugning his white manhood, though he’s not white.
So-called feminists have subjected me to white-bashing comments (even though I’m Hispanic) and sexist attacks impugning my manhood (slash-fiction scenes featuring me and heterosexual men; being called faggot; being told to man-up; insults about my body;) by people who don’t realize I’m gay. After nearly two decades online, I learned early on that when you’re attacked, you defend yourself by attacking right back and just as viciously, if not more so. And that’s what exactly what I’ve done. …
What’s really at issue here is not my rude behavior but that you and others like you want to punish any man who refuses to conform to your rancid, misandrist orthodoxy by discounting everything he says and using his gender and race as the excuse for doing so. …
You don’t want me stripped of my editorial privilege based on my behavior but because I reject your sick, bigoted, misandrist (per)version of feminism.
Yep, apparently the dude who loves to call women “cunts” is the final arbiter of what is and what isn’t “true feminism.” Who knew?
I signed the petition. How about you?
I too suspected he was MRAL but wasn’t fully sure so I engaged….that jab at Cassandra just nailed it >.>
MRAL/Nathan why don’t you just talk about this shit with people irl and see what they say?
and people agreed that men face sexism for fucks sake, but institutionalized misandry is not a thing. There is nothing men are forbidden from doing that women can do. There are no “experts” talking about how inferior men are and there never has been. Has any president of an ivy league claimed that maybe men were just not so good at science and math?
God is a man. The president is a man. At least low status men have a fucking higher chance at reaching that position than women do. At least men are considered to have authority and control. You claim men are discriminated in childcare but how many men actually WANT to do those jobs? I’d guess not many because it’s low status pussy women’s work that pays shit.
Argh. Sleep now.
The odd segue from men who work in childcare to relationship history was another red flag.
Unless there are more of them. Maybe there’s a nest somewhere and they all crawl back at the end of the day to compare notes.
Granted that I was in snark mode from the outset because I could already tell where he was going, but still, Dracula and Kirby, I commend you both for your patience. I can’t even be bothered to engage with this crap any more.
Also, this bit was funny.
“No one agrees with you guys- seriously. If you ask someone on the street whether men faced gendered problems, the answer is of course going to be yes. Because they do.”
Someone who actually believed this wouldn’t bother to come here and argue with people. They’d just point and laugh, like we do with The Spearhead. If you think people are deluded and wrong and no one takes them seriously you don’t try to change their minds, because why bother? But if you know that in fact society is coming around more to their point of view than to yours…
No. No I’m going to try and get a guy I don’t know removed from his position because he said some stupid nasty things on Twitter (which don’t amount to harrasment). It’s Tumblr, ffs
Stick to exposing and mocking misogyny and the incoherence of the men’s rights movement, not pointless wrath.
I like and follow this blog and I like you but posts like this are the uglier side of things here.
Sorry – “I’m *not* going to try…”
Back to topic for a moment,
David wrote a while ago about AVfM “publisher” (of a blog…) Paul Elam struggling to get 1,000 signatures for an MRA petition.
The petition noted here has almost 4,000 after virtually no time at all.
But don’t worry, MRAs, your victory is imminent!!!
“I was responding to her sexism with sexism”
Because two wrongs make a right! Isn’t that how the saying goes?
I was wondering, are you going to say anything about the disgusting things that Liz Trotta said about rape in the military? I wonder if any MRAs have decided to support a woman because of the flamingly misogynistic shit she said, or if they’re ignoring the fact that a woman might ever say something they agree with….
MRAs will support women who say sexist or downright misogynistic things. That’s why AVFM supports GWW who agrees with Elam that “women aren’t self-sufficient in modern society” (except for GWW who is a special snowflake) and why The Spreadhead commentors love Ann Coulter for saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I think they believe their support gives their bullshit validation and a defense against charges of sexism if it comes from a woman (It doesn’t).
So, what you’re saying is that you, David and the rest of the crowd here spend hours a day fighting a fringe movement with hardly any followers? Good Job!
Ann Coulter…. I want to bark every time I see her face.
I don’t understand how someone can say such stupid illogical things and still be able to string words together in grammatically correct sentences. Sometimes I wonder if she knows how full of crap she is but figures that being a blonde psycho is a good way to make money
HAHA that was supposed to read barf
suppose it still works XD
Thomas: “So, what you’re saying is that you, David and the rest of the crowd here spend hours a day fighting a fringe movement with hardly any followers? Good Job!”
While the MRM itself poses no real threat and has no power (as much as MRAs want to believe), it represents a greater and more serious problem of widespread misogyny and rape apologia in our society and needs to be called out. Notice that Ryking here is in no way associated with the MRM, but is being called out as a misogynistic ass just the same.
And in case you missed it, the banner at the top of the page notes that this site is all about mocking misogyny. Any actual activism or discussion its members engage in takes place elswhere like on Ozy’s site NSWATM.
Late to this thread. Why is “banana republic” being construed as a homophobic term? It comes from the 19th century, and is tied to the Chiquita company — which at the time was known as United Fruit Company. They went into impoverished countries, used bribery and coercion to take over the local government, and then exploited the local labor force on their banana plantations.
Sigh…and people wonder why feminists get so upset. Anyone want to speculate on the degrees of separation between RYking and the MRA? My guess is that we’ll need a spectometer to find it.
Nathan, try reading the Second sex. Or any of the women who are considered the pillars of feminism. They can explain to you why men are spit on for taking on traditional female roles.
@blitzgal:
I honestly have no idea… is “banana” now a gay slur or something?
@Crumbelievable:
I like to think of it this way; here we point out misogyny to mock. The funny thing is that following misogyny tends to lead back to the MRM, like how the various crime stories in Sherlock Holmes always had Moriarty behind the scenes pulling the strings.
This is the quintessential example for just how much of a myth Misandry is. Male nurses have preference in promotion and pay raises over female ones, and are considered more competent for the same work; Unlike women in male-coded jobs, they face no selection bias in hiring. Some patients are assholes to them, but seriously, what?
You’re joking. This is all you’ve done. You haven’t posted any links to evidence, as usual, MRAL.
Concern Troll.
FTR folks, “Male Disposability” is a Warren Farrell myth, which he tries to demonstrate by forgetting that women existed for 7000 years.
I spend maybe 20 minutes a day primarily amusing myself. Sometimes an hour or more if I’m correcting misconceptions about history. So yeah, I’d say good job.
Based on Nathan’s posts, especially the “theoretical armchairs,” and the idea that feminists spend all their time analyzing pop culture and debating language, I’d say he knows shit all about any elements of “feminism” than the current crop of (yes, white, middle-class, youngish) feminist bloggers.
Shit. All.
Therefore, again, I call troll!
@Nathan: I’ll ask you what I ask every single troll who has claimed to read feminist writing.
Name five feminists whose works you’ve read; bonus points if two are in BOOK form rather than blogs (which, although interesting in terms of feminism, class, the internet, are not the end all and be all of feminist writings). EXTRA bonus points if you can name ONE feminist of color or womanist whose work you’ve read (blog or book form).
*munches popcorn while waiting*
<blockquoteCassandra, until you can engage the topic instead of making lofty sarcastic remarks, you’re just going to make yourself look like a pompous ass. If you can’t be arsed to type so much shit out, you’re free to not participate.
The fact is I’m right. That is the feminist, or “social justice” definition of misogyny, and amongst some circles sexism as well. And even under the feminist definition, misandry is a thing.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand our little troll boy shows all his cards. LOfuckingL at misandry being a thing.
It’s always so charming when they scold us.
What’s next, MRAL, another rant about how hard you have it as a middle-class healthy straight white boy?
Fucking HTML tags, how do they work?
“Frankly, I do think that gender is more give-and-take than other forms of “common” oppression- racism, homophobia, transphobia- because women are and have been half of every single society in history. Whereas gays, ethnic minorities, religious minorities etc. often had no place whatsoever, there always had to be a place for women. It might not have been as qualitatively “good” or “comprehensive” as men’s, but it was there.”
Nathan, this was hilarious. “Women are discriminated against! But gay people are discriminated against moar, so women still don’t count!”
You’ve managed to sound MORE misogynistic and promote gay, trans, and racial visibility AT THE SAME TIME. Doesn’t that hurt your brain?
Also, yes, Sady Doyle is white, but are you seriously claiming she comes from a middle class background?
The only thing that makes sense is that he assumed it meant “fruit.” But yeah, people should know where the term banana republic comes from, especially considering that we’re still dealing with the affects of corporations influencing government and abusing their workers.
*with the EFFECTS, grr.