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.
I am honestly wondering if Explore Nature is an experimental MRA auto-trolling algorithm.
No, the coherency’s starting to slip – must have been a fluke.
Two EN comments?! Inconceivable!
@David:
I don’t consider myself part of the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM), and I don’t consider myself to be one of their footsoldiers. I think for myself and I stand alone, and reject most leaders from the MRM as allies.
@Roscoe:
“Yes, I have been doing tangible real-world work on behalf of male DV abuse victims. Not just arguing in good faith as I have done here in this thread.”
What exactly do you do?
Do not accept non feminine women who are following feminism. And do not adore feminists in any way. Accept only women who are following a perfect feminine way of life.
Yo asshole, quit telling me what to do. I’ll accept whoever I want.
Explore Nature sounds like that PoMo generation site’s output.
So, Roscoe…you say that you stand alone and help abused men…
Why are you yelling at US? Somes of us do that, too.
Yeah, I can’t really read Roscoe saying things like “arguing in good faith” without mentally adding “As a rapist.” after it.
I like how our trolls generate fun little catchphrases for us. Except this one isn’t that fun.
Fact.
Not lies.
@kirbywarp: “What exactly do you do?”
I started a support group for abused men, volunteered as an intake worker for a hotline for abuse victims, and am also part of a mentoring program. It’s not a full time job but it’s tangible and I’m working with real people whose faces I see and whose voices I hear.
@Roscoe:
Good on you. 🙂
Sandra you came back again despite hating this place!
but…but
didn’t you say awhile back arguing with them without violent threats gives them credibility? O_o
@red_locker: “Why are you yelling at US? Some of us do that, too.”
I haven’t criticized anyone for doing that, have I? I have a specific critique, which is that only one infrastructure now exists to serve DV abuse victims, and it tends to turn men away. I want to build legitimacy behind the idea that the turning away should stop. To do that I plan to identify which shelters do not turn men away, and praise them for it.
@roscoe…do you mean specifically DV shelters or general needs homelessness shelters?
DV shelters turn away men because they were established to be women only spaces and are strictly funded as such. Hence their exemption from the Sex Discrimination Act (UK). it’s not like they can’t be bothered to accept men, it’s not their remit to do so. if there is a need to expand DV shelter provision, then i still think it makes more sense to source appropriate spaces for additional shelters, to fund them adequately and establish clear mission statements to guide this new provision. LIke i said earlier, the current DV provision is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the women currently trying to access it.
@Roscoe: But David’s point still stands…good on you for doing actual work, but the way you argued with people in this thread is counterproductive, not to mention arrogant.
Plus, shelters were build before the internet, regardless of the infrastructure. It was hard, but people did it. Think about that.
I’m not sure why you’d come to a blog that mocks misogyny to critique DV shelters
built*, I mean.
@BigMomma: “do you mean specifically DV shelters or general needs homelessness shelters?”
I mean DV shelters specifically, not homelessness shelters.
Roscoe’s very first post was an exercise in non sequitor. Somehow David responding to a comment saying that “causing women to suffer won’t make them do what we want” was translated into David being against holding female abusers accountable.
And here we are.
Actually, it was DKM who brought us back on topic briefly. ^_^ That’s not something you see every day.
@Roscoe:
“I mean DV shelters specifically, not homelessness shelters.”
Did you know the laws regarding DV shelters before now, considering that you’ve probably done your research and do diligence while starting your support group and so forth?
@hellkell: “I’m not sure why you’d come to a blog that mocks misogyny to critique DV shelters”
What I’ve been saying all along is that the post which David criticized recognizes that abusive women don’t suffer the consequences of their harmful acts — i.e. are not held accountable — to the same degree as men are when they commit similar acts. The inverse of holding perpetrators accountable is assisting their victims. It’s germane in my view. Hence the discussion about gender-based disparities in shelter-based services for DV victims.
@Roscoe:
So Roscoe, where in this post do you see anything related to recognizing “that abusive women don’t suffer the consequences of their harmful acts — i.e. are not held accountable — to the same degree as men are when they commit similar acts?”
Ten bucks says Roscoe will come up with a “paraphrase.”
Yeah, not exactly seeing how that derail is germane to the OP. You have to do pilates for that reach.
I would have had my money on “[T]he notion of making women ‘admit their faults’ is pie-in-the-sky as well,” since its really the only sentence that mentions women doing wrong at all. But that would be the most selective reading I’ve read since creationists calling Einstein religious.