Given the enmity towards women in general, and feminists in particular, that’s omnipresent in the manosphere, it seems logical to assume that most of the dudes lingering around MRA, PUA and MGTOW sites online would take a certain secret pleasure in seeing women suffer.
As regular readers of this blog know all too well, oftentimes the desire to see women suffer is not so secret: some MRAs and others of their ilk literally laugh at women getting cancer, declare that rapists should be given medals, openly fantasize about “beat[ing] the living shit” out of women, and tell feminists who complain about this sort of shit that they’re “so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.” (Those last two examples come from Paul Elam, one of the MRM’s most influential bloggers.) Still others send rape and death threats to outspoken women online.
But good news, folks! It turns out that not all manosphere misogynists want women to suffer. Why? Because suffering is an ineffective way to put women in their place. That, at least, is the argument of a fellow calling himself Höllenhund. In a comment on Susan Walsh’s Hooking Up Smart blog, he offered this argument:
Making women suffer wouldn’t achieve anything in itself – I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority of the Manosphere would agree. Women are normally solipsistic and they fail to understand their own urges and don’t comprehend the connection between cause and effect. They’d never understand why they’re suffering in the first place.
So, basically, in his mind, women are dumber than dogs and thus harder to train. Even worse, the suffering women can sit down in the street and cry, and countless “white knights,” hoping to win their approval (and get in their pants) will rush to their aid:
Suffering only motivates them to fish for male sympathy (and thus investment) through crying and whining, to blame ‘ bad men’ for their ‘misfortune’ and thus play the game of ‘let’s you and him fight’. That’s how it has always been.
So making women suffer is largely pointless. I’d go further and say it’d actually be detrimental to men because it encourages white-knighting and intra-male competition. …
And some of the ladies even seem to sort of like it:
Not to mention the fact that many women actually seem to find some sort of twisted pleasure in suffering, that all this’d simply serve to justify more anti-male legislation and whatnot.
Poor Höllenhund doesn’t have much hope that women will ever see how totally terrible they really are
[T]he notion of making women ‘admit their faults’ is pie-in-the-sky as well. Again, I’m sure pretty much everyone in the Manosphere would agree. You have a bigger chance of seeing pigs fly.
If women are to recognize their faults in this SMP [Sexual Marketplace], they need to have a realistic picture of both their own sexuality and the SMP in the first place, plus they need to have empathy for beta males …
Er, you’re lecturing us about empathy?
Sorry, on with the rest of the sentence:
plus they need to be imbued with the sense of morality without which the very concept of ‘fault’ is meaningless.
And lecturing us about morality too?
I think we’ll sooner see Haiti become a dreaded military superpower.
I’d rather see that than live in a world in which women were so self-hating that they actually believed they were guilty of whatever unnamed sins Höllenhund attributes to them.
NOTE: I found Höllenhund’s comment because the blogger at Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology cited it as a prime example of the sort of brave “truth telling” that will get you banned “on feminist sites that supposedly support men.” And yes, it apparently did get poor Höllenhund banned from Hooking Up Smart. I’m not quite sure how Susan Walsh, a traditionalist devoted to slut shaming in a thousand different flavors, counts as feminist, but that’s not the point. The point is: I’m regularly accused of “cherry picking” comments from MRAs. In this case, Mr. PMAFT picked the comment for me.
Seriously, what is the point of coming to a feminist blog to complain that feminist s are cruel, uncaring bigots when you already believe that’s what feminists and women are? At what exact point in your imagination (which is where such ideas come from)would you think that we aren’t entirely comfortable with our hypocrisy?
I may read MRA blogs for amusement at times, I don’t bother with posting on subjects I don’t think they give a rats ass about.
@Holly:
“No, in the ideal world he’s sent to a men’s shelter.”
As a rapist.
“As a rapist.”
You’re a troll. Next, please!
Roscoe P Coltrane – I used to work for an organization that provided free legal assistance to survivors of domestic violence (at the time I was there, all the employees were women). Guess what we did when a man came to us after his wife tried to run him over with a car? Did we laugh at him? In fact we did not; we provided services to him, so that he could be protected. Guess who did laugh? A guy I told about it later (who could not in any way be described as a feminist.)
A lot of abusers will go to great lengths to track their victims down. It would be very difficult to set up a screening process that was able to weed out partners of current shelter residents. Sex-segregation in shelters is an imperfect solution to a messy problem (for one thing, it does not address the needs of people in same-sex relationships.) That agency I used to work for? Shortly before I started there, one of the clients was shot and killed by her ex. These security precautions are not driven by misandry; they’re driven by a desire to save people’s lives.
It’s very sad that male victims often have fewer options. At the same time, it’s not as though female victims have it easy; in my area, there’s often a waiting list, so women can’t just waltz into a shelter either. We need more resources across the board: to provide emergency shelter, to provide financial assistance to people who were economically dependent on abusive partners, to provide education in recognizing abusive behaviors, to provide emotional and relationship support that helps people not be abusive in the first place.
And while that is all very interesting and important, it has jack-all to do with someone claiming that women are incapable of understanding cause and effect and completely lack empathy.
@Holly: “But if men are let into a shelter for women escaping abusive men, then women have nowhere to hide from their abusers, and that’s not okay. Your feelings are not more important than that.”
I addressed that point here:
http://manboobz.com/2012/02/20/mra-making-women-suffer-is-a-highly-ineffective-way-to-put-them-in-their-place/comment-page-1/#comment-126508
Intimate partners should not be housed in the same shelter. Abuser and abused should not be housed in the same shelter. But you have likened “men” to “abusve men,” as if a female victim of a *particular* abusive man is still in danger simply by being at a shelter where she’s in proximity to men. I disagree with that premise. Just because you’re a male victim in a shelter, you shouldn’t be turned away because some of the female victims at the same shelter are trying to escape not just their abuser (who happens to be male) but all males everywhere. And you just accused me of elevating my feelings at others’ expense. You’re making my argument for me.
He just made a comment that illustrates that no matter what you say, he has a better idea of what you think. I don’t think explaining your experiences are gonna work with this one. He’s out for shits and giggles.
But such a scenario could be prevented simply by screening out applicants who are known partners of some of the residents there.
I don’t think you’ve really thought this plan through. A huge part of the point of going to a DV shelter is to be in a place where your abuser does not know where you are and cannot find you. If people are only turned away because they are known to be the abuser of someone who is already there, guess what? You’ve just told every abuser who is turned away, “Hey, just so you know, this is where your victim is! Feel free to wait outside for her to enter or leave the building!” And that’s not even getting into how you identify people as abusers in the first place – is every victim now going to be required to submit the full name and a current photograph of her abuser(s) before she is allowed entrance, or are you planning on having all potential residents paraded past the current ones so that any of them can speak up and announce “nope, not him, that’s my abuser”? Because both of those plans have some pretty freaking obvious flaws to anyone who thinks about them for more than a tenth of a second.
I’m pretty sure they don’t let them rape anybody before sending them elsewhere. Or tattoo “rapist” on their foreheads.
So… what’s the problem here? Not exactly seeing the grave injustice in a few people from time to time wondering if an individual
man might be a rapist when they send him off to a men’s DV shelter.
“Empathy for betas” means “please fuck a NIce Guy” in MRAspeak. As we all know, not getting laid on demand is the worst thing that could ever happen to a guy.
But if you do fuck a beta (whatever the hell a “beta” is this week), you’re just using your sexuality to exploit him and steal his money and precious seed, so you’re still evil.
Rants like this one make me wonder what the hell the horrible Crimes of Women That Need Punishing actually are, but I’m pretty sure it’s just “existing.”
How is being sent to a men’s shelter labeling him as a rapist? Unless there are rapist shelters I have never heard of?
I have heard of men’s shelters, both homeless shelters, and housing for abused men and their families.
Disingenuous troll is disingenuous.
“but I’m pretty sure it’s just “existing.”
This.
What I find funny is he completely smoothed past the possibility of women sexually assaulting men.
TROOOLLLLL.
Seriously, the only reason a man would respond with “we have alternative housing for you” with “but I want in the women’s shelter!” rather than “oh thank God,” is because he intends to attack one of the women there. Otherwise, what the hell’s wrong with a men’s shelter?
A lot of shelter programs that aren’t big enough to have a whole men’s shelter actually give men motel vouchers, which in terms of privacy and amenities is probably a lot nicer than sleeping in a communal shelter.
Don’t put words in my mouth. I specifically said that gender neutral shelters could make both men and women more vulnerable to sexual abuse. There is the potential for men to rape women, and women to rape men. People that are escaping domestic violence and going to shelters are homeless, and that makes them very vulnerable to sexual assault. Where can a person go once zie is abused at the very shelter that was supposed to provide hir protection? This is one of the reasons that many homeless shelters are also segregated by gender.
Abusers shift the blame for their behavior onto their victims. They pretend to be the victims when they are actually the perpetrators. What is a shelter worker supposed to do when both a husband and wife show up saying that they are being abused? Abusers also lie to get what they want, and in this case it is access to their victims. What if the abusers lie and say they don’t know anyone in the shelter? How can a shelter worker know who’s telling the truth? The safety of the victims is supposed to be the top priority.
I want to know why the MRA’s are so adamant about getting access to women’s shelters and refuse to create men’s shelters. Women’s shelters don’t have the resources to meet the unique needs of male victims. Male victims need shelters staffed by men, so they can feel safe while they rebuild their lives after escaping from IPV.
I wish MRA’s would take action to help male victims rather than try to fight any programs that help female victims.
@burgundy:
(paraphrased): “Male and female victims served together in the same setting? Impossible, and wreckless to their safety!”
Tell that to the shelters that actually do just that, without incident. They’re relatively rare, and I suspect that their rareness is due (in part) to misandry, but they do exist. If they can serve both sexes, then why can’t other shelters do it?
@Jenn93: I know. But for every imbecilic commenter, there may be many lurkers who are ignorant/undecided, and I think it’s important to make a clear argument they can read. But just once. After that, it’s on to the pointing and laughing.
Roscoe, please do not try to paraphrase me; you don’t seem to be able to do it at all well.
And while you are refraining from mis-stating my positions, you might also tell me what you have done to actually help even one male abuse survivor.
Where the hell are there co-ed DV shelters? Seriously.
And anyway why do you want them? What do they give you, besides access to vulnerable women, that a men’s shelter or motel room wouldn’t?
Fair enough, burgundy. Quite right.
Also, Paul Elam is repulsive and deplorable. Not only did he explicitly excuse the rape of women with that comment, he implicitly excused the rape of men. Great job, Elam. Glad to know the MRM is just all about fairness and equality and has such outstanding figureheads to look up to.
“And anyway why do you want them? What do they give you, besides access to vulnerable women, that a men’s shelter or motel room wouldn’t?”
Judging by his comments, to avert the terrible injustice of a man being labelled a rapist in somebody’s head. That’s just not due process! I guess Roscoe must be so world about false rape accusations zie thinks it’s a danger just going to a women’s DV shelter only to be turned away.
That’s the only way the dumb “As a rapist.” comment makes any rhetorical sense to me. But maybe I’m just too sleepy.
@Holly: “Seriously, the only reason a man would respond with ‘we have alternative housing for you’ with ‘but I want in the women’s shelter!’ rather than ‘oh thank God,’ is because he intends to attack one of the women there. Otherwise, what the hell’s wrong with a men’s shelter?”
You’re failing to recognize the status quo, which is that there are no men’s shelters. Why? Well one reason why some people wouldn’t support the construction of men’s shelters is because they consider such shelters to be havens for male abusers.
The OP was about the notion that there is not enough empathy for men who suffer, and about how this notion is mockworthy, as if the idea that misandry exists and is a problem is somehow untrue on its face. Now if David wants to impugn the motives of the person who he is criticizing, by all means do so. I don’t defend them. But I do think that the point is worth discussing that abusive women get away with doing a lot of harm whereas men get challenged on the harm that they dish out. And in my view it’s an idea not just worth discussing, but also worth accepting.
Inconsistent pronoun usage for the win. I said I was sleepy.
And this thread makes my stomach hurt.
“… as if the idea that misandry exists and is a problem is somehow untrue on its face.”
Well, you know what they say about stopped clocks.
A person who has been abused is going to have a tough time trusting anyone. The idea is not to put the needs over some random internet whiner but the person who has just escaped a really bad situation. If that means telling the men seeking entry at a woman’s shelter no, so be it. If it means telling a woman the same thing at a man’s shelter, so be it.
This is not about you Roscoe, this is about the victims and if you really truly care about men who are victims of DV, why are you bugging us over it instead of out fundraising to help those men? Or is this another case of “there is a problem, you women need to fix it because I sure as hell am too lazy to.”