What can you do when you realize that you’re losing the war of ideas? You can rethink some or all of your ideas, seriously considering the unnerving possibility that you might be, well, wrong. You can reconsider how you present your ideas.
Or you can give up on ideas entirely, and attempt to pressure or harass or even terrorize others into some form of surrender. That’s what the the uber-radical Weathermen did in the 1960s and 70s, turning first to violent direct action in the aptly named “days of rage” and then to bombs when the revolution that many in the New Left had been prophesying failed to materialize. That’s what the anti-abortion movement has been doing for decades now, with some in the movement harassing women trying to get abortions while more radical antis bomb clinics and kill doctors. .
And now we’re seeing rhetoric from Men’s Rights Activists that suggests some in that movement may also be giving up on talk. Consider A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam, who declared in a fundraising letter a couple of months back that:
Progress for men will not be gained by debate, reason or typical channels of grievance available to segments of the population that the world actually gives a damn about. The progress we need will only be realized by inflicting enough pain on the agents of hate, in public view, that it literally shocks society out of its current coma.
Elam is – presumably deliberately — vague about what exactly he means when he talks about “inflicting … pain,” and as far as I know he has never explicitly endorsed violence. But he has spoken openly about “stalking” individual feminists and otherwise “fucking their shit up” by, among other things, posting personal information about them on the AVfM-sponsored site Register-Her.com for all would be vigilantes to see. And in the “activism” section of his website he has reprinted a manifesto explicitly calling for the firebombing of courthouses and police stations.
Elam isn’t the only MRA who has officially given up on “debate and reason” in favor of “inflicting … pain” on feminists. The “counter-feminist” wannabe philosopher who calls himself Fidelbogen makes a similar argument in a recent post on his blog:
Feminism is your enemy, and the obligation to treat feminists as fellow human beings is officially waived. They are not fellow human beings, they are ALIENS.
Dehumanizing the enemy always a good start.
[L]et’s not hear any crap about so-called “hate speech”. You see, there is simply no way that you can resist evil, denounce tyranny, or call pernicious things by their right names, without crossing a fine line into “hate speech” or something very like it. Extremism against a bully is no vice, and since bullies have their own moral economy, you are entitled to pay them in their own coin.
It’s not hate speech if you really do hate them?
The important thing to understand about the feminists is, that they will not change their outward behavior unless social heat and pressure are inflicted upon them.
Fidelbogen, a sometime contributor to A Voice for Men, is also vague about what exactly he means by this “social heat and pressure.” He continues:
What, do you think they will stop what they are doing just because somebody intellectually convinces them they are mistaken? They will do no such thing, because they are people with an agenda who know they are “right”, and they lack the gift to see themselves as the rest of the world sees them.
IRONY ALERT. IRONY ALERT.
Over on Reddit, meanwhile, the charming JeremiahMRA – who used to post comments here as Things Are Bad – thinks the “inflict pain” policy should be extended to all women, any time they engage in “bad behavior.” Responding to a poster asking how to handle a disagreement with his mother, he explained his theory in (sometimes redundant) detail, receiving several dozen net upvotes for his post:
The ONLY way you change women’s bad behavior is by punishing them if they won’t start acting like adults. …
The only way you change a woman’s bad behavior is by making sure they know it hurts them. …
Reasoning with her will not work. The only answer is to use the power he has as her SON to threaten to hurt her emotionally. Women are emotional creatures. Nothing else will work. This is what it means to be a man: you do what you have to do so that things will be better in the end, even if you don’t like it. …
It isn’t about convincing her what’s right, it’s about showing her she will suffer if she doesn’t do what’s right. That is the only thing that will work.
The Men’s Rights Movement likes to pretend that is it a civil rights movement. But threats, harassment, hate speech, and emotional blackmail aren’t the tactics of a legitimate civil rights movement. These are the tactics of angry narcissists clinging to retrograde prejudices, who have given up on the war of ideas because on some level they know that history is against them, and that they will never win.
Jawnita, if he has interests outside of sitting at home staring at the wall, he should go out and attend gatherings that involve those interests. That allows him to meet new people and those people will already share his interests so it would be easier for him to find a person to date.
Going to the local club to “game” women is most likely going to fail and that will re-enforce his negative feelings about himself.
@magdelyn: let’s forget dumb feminazis for a second. What is it about the MRM that make you think “this is a movement I can get behind”. Whose ideas do you like so much? What accomplishment can they be proud of, which group are they helping or trying to help? Don’t you have any problem with the permanent misogyny? What do you think about this narrative of violence? (do you think it’s not real, that’s it’s ok,…)
I’m sorry, that’s a lot of questions. The reason I’m so curious is that most MRAs who come here are men whose reasons to be on board are quite obvious. The women on the other side… not that I can’t see plenty of reason to get there (the rationalization, the self hate, the desire not to be like these other women,…) I need to here it from yourself.
@Jawnita
I wish I could direct him to an actual site but all I know is what not to direct him to: Roissy/Heartiste and Roosh. Those guys are psychopaths who really do hate women and I’ve even heard some other PUAs call them too extreme.
The aspect of game that actually works isn’t even “game” it’s just basic confidence and social skills that work with everyone who can master them. As you mentioned any websites that give tips on how to improve self confidence will definitely help. The more confident and at ease he is the easier it will be to approach and talk to women. Now that I think about it more PUA/Game is nothing but repackaging social skills and psychology as something different while throwing in manipulation then suckering men out of their money.
Sorry I can’t be of anymore help. Good luck to your friend.
PFKE-
Yeah, I mean, I know that. I’m worried that he might not take just me seriously, though. That’s why I’d love to set him up with a just-as-glossy/professional-looking but less ideologically failful alternate resource. (Also, unfortunately, he’s a grad student in a fairly intense program — and fear of academic failure from, in my opinion, unfairly high parental expectations is another component of the depression — so he doesn’t have a lot of flex time. I really hope he’ll get to be less shy around the people in his department, as a start.)
Oh, then I would suggest that he think seriously about the time commitments a relationship would have. A relationship, regardless of how unserious, still requires effort and time. So if he is just looking for a cuddle buddy, he should seek a female friend who wants the same but does not want a relationship.
If he is just looking for sex, tell him to go to AFF and remember that 99% of the women are there are not real. (I exaggerate a bit.)
@Roberta
I don’t particularly understand where this “dont hit girls” message is so saturated in society. Domestic violence is a problem and the studies that MRAs like to site even say women get injured more, die from it more and feel fear from it more.
Aside from that what really bugs me, as usual, is how hypocritical and inconsistent MRAs are on this subject (among others) On one hand they think women should get hit back if they want equality, on the other they often claim women are physically weaker thus would fail in the military and fail at jobs like firefighting. AVfM has two articles degrading women who do both those things. So which is it? are women so weak? if they are weaker than men then it’s not a fair fight for a much bigger man to beat the shit out of a woman who slapped or shoved him. Bare in mind I’m not saying this to condone or excuse women who hit men. No one should hit anyone.
Also the “don’t hit girls” message is perpetuated by men as much as it is women. In my personal experience I was always raised with the message that violence against anyone is wrong. My experience does not mean less than an MRAs experience that they are taught not to hit women but its ok for women to hit men.
Where are you headed with this? Do you expect feminists on this board to step right up and condemn and disavow 1960’s British feminists? And if they don’t, does that prove something?
MRA’s know the power of the feminist movement. No serious MRA think feminists are dumb.
Yet they associate most if not all women with feminism, and spend all of their time online talking how women are inherently stupid, weak, shallow, incompetent, worthless, and deserve punishment for not “knowing their place”
They think they are fundamentally dishonest
Unlike MRAs who are very honest, so honest they have no interest in gaining progress for men with “debate and reason”.
So far as my experience has told me, MRAs come in many flavors, none of which rely on honesty:
There are pretentious, bad writers like ChristianJ and Roissy who try to sound like great authors and intellectual heavyweights, but really are vile, stupid nutters who use their writing to obfuscate information with purple prose rather than communicate anything meaningful.
There are angry, bitter old bigots as dumb as a pile of bricks, like Meller and Owlyslave. They literally have no ability to critically think or comprehend what they read. They can’t eve comprehend what they write.
There are the pit bulls like Antzy and MRAL, who derail topics with some screaming and call us bigots. They repeat this process a few times and then call it a day.
There are sophists like Manwomanmyth and Angry Harry, who use a mask of “reason” so transparent anyone can easily see the seething hatred and aggression beneath.
There are concern trolls and “Christian warrior” hypocrites like Erin Pizzey and MRAs who pretend to care about women and men but really don’t.
that they advocate for one demographic no matter what the equities, and that they use under handed methods such as advocacy research and indocutrination in schools…
Really. I didn’t even hear the word “feminism” once in elementary, middle, or high school. Never was a gender course offered to me either. Whatever I learned about issues dealing with gender was outside the curriculum.
but, most MRA’s are actually in awe of how a corrupt and abjectly unfair pro-women policies get past and continue despite the basic unfairness.
Name any specific examples? Because many MRA “arguments” are full of strawman tactics, poor research, superficial reasoning, and sometimes simple lying.
But really, the level of MRA bullshit Futrelle repeatedly points out is not just from a few fringe lunatics, but actually the mainstream opinion you can regularly find on The Spearhead or some other hornets’ nest. Why a woman supports a “movement” that repeatedly tells her she how hopelessly inferior she is beyond me.
Name any specific examples? Because many MRA “arguments” are full of strawman tactics, poor research, superficial reasoning, and sometimes simple lying.
And don’t forget. They also appeal to many prejudices ingrained in our society, which makes them seem truthful to the dumb masses but really aren’t.
Roberta, Quackers,
I would quite agree with the better rule of “don’t hit people” replacing “don’t hit women” – and in fact it turns out the MRM often tend to be supporters of the widespread meme of toxic masculinity that men should be able to cope with being hit, or are at least to be viewed as effeminate or wimps if they do complain about it.
(And hey, being gender queer I can be legitimately hit as a target if the rule is “don’t hit girls” and a transphobe wants to assert, contrary to appearances, that I’m not a girl. Umm, yay male privilege?!?)
Thanks David, I’ve only been reading this blog a few weeks and now it’s a daily. Unfortunately it made me go and read the original sources. There’s a lot of damaged and dangerous f’wits out there. I ran into creepy vox day thru his anti atheism (his arguments suck) but even with his constant arguments that “women shouldn’t be in the public sphere and women are the reason hitler was voted in” both recents posts of his, I was amazed he would post the call for slaughter of opponents on his vanity site.
Roberta–nice bit of False Rape Society apologism here: http://resistingthemilieu.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/the-so-called-false-rape-society-attacks-me/
@Xanthe
Yeah I do agree with that to an extent, though personally I always grew up with a “don’t hit people” message in society. I just think the physical differences between men and women shouldn’t be completely disregarded and needs to be taken into consideration.
For what it’s worth that DV ad (I think it was a DV ad) that portrayed a little boy as a future abuser is distasteful and wrong.
Roberta, every movement has fringe elements that do terrible shit, like making death threats. I think it’s appalling that even a small number of feminists resorted to that. But that doesn’t invalidate feminism as a whole.
The trouble with the MRM is that the only form of activism it seems to be interested in, or any good at, is personal harassment, aka “fucking their shit up.”
@Jawnita- I have a bunch of suggestions for your friend!
Charlie Nox’s series on creating an online dating profile is pretty stellar advice. I haven’t read a lot of her other stuff, but she seems pretty common sense and pro- treating ladies well. http://charlienox.com/
Clarisse Thorn has an article on ethical pickup artistry that is pretty good. http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/03/23/ethical-pick-up-artistry/
Captain Awkward is an advice columnist who gives funny, thoughtful advice on dating, friendship, and how to build healthy boundaries for men and women. Her posts might also help your friend meet some platonic friends who are amazing. Did I mention that she is funny? http://captainawkward.com/
Because men are totally like a marginalized group that has difficulty having a voice through other means, or who are underrepresented in institutions of power that are used against them. Only 83% of the current Congres, every president in the history of the US, 70% of state and federal judiciaries, approx. 66% of the current US Supreme court (and even higher percentages of past courts), over 480 of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, approx. 90% of all corporate officers, about 88% of police officers, around 90% of major film directors, 70% of professors, virtually all generals, 70% of doctors, etc. however will men make their voices heard if not through “fringe” resistance tactics? How? It must be so very, very hard for them to find alternative means.
Here are some men with problems who got together to help each other (hint, hint, MRAs – you could do this too!)
Well, that didn’t work. bugger!
@David
Depends. “Fathers and Families”, a ‘father’s rights’ group has actually had quite a bit of legislative success in many states. They’ve helped pass bills to reform alimony law, child support law, and have brought a lot of political focus to the discrimination father’s face in family court and under DV law.
Father’s rights is related to men’s rights, though it’s not exactly the same movement. I’m not going to defend everything that every MRA has ever said, and I agree that there’s a lot of toxic rhetoric in the movement, but there’s plenty of toxic rhetoric within feminism as well.
I think the MRM is slowly growing up, and MRA’s online activism has actually had an impact in a few cases. Verizon pulling it’s heavily gender slanted Domestic Violence PSA, for example. Hopefully, with time, we can use the energy that now exists to create a legitimate political movement to bring public and political focus to the inequities facing men in modern society.
Women still have plenty of bullshit to deal with, and feminism is still a legitimate movement, but I think there is room for a men’s movement as well.
@felix
Did you actually read the comments I left on that blogpost? If you have a specific objection, name it. Because I stand by everything I said there.
@felix
Here’s the comment I wrote:
“The problem isn’t that feminists explicitly support false accusations of rape. The problem is that feminists want to create a legal environment which would enable and facilitate false accusations of rape. Look at the maniacal assault that feminists have launched against due process on college campuses. Last year’s OCR letter has effectively enshrined a presumption of guilt for any male accused of sexual misconduct. Rape shield laws are another example. They improperly restrict a defendant’s ability to testify in his own defense, and bar defense attorneys from attacking the credibility of what is often the sole piece of evidence against the accused (the accuser’s testimony). Rape trials have the highest conviction rate of any serious crime, 67%. That’s more than double the conviction rate for murder trials. It’s not hard to see why this is so when a man can be convicted without any evidence outside of his accuser’s testimony, and when a man is statutorily forbidden to challenge said accuser’s testimony. If you know anything about criminal law, you will know that the only way to discredit witness testimony (a form of evidence) is to discredit the witness him/herself. Rape shield laws make any attempt to discredit the accuser’s testimony illegal. This effectively bars the defense from presenting any case at all, and it’s hardly surprising that such an extreme percentage of these cases result in conviction.
Many feminists also have some pretty loony views on what kind of conduct actually constitutes “rape” in the first place. For example, the idea of sexual “coercion.” Which holds that a man is a rapist if he in any way “pressures” a woman to CONSENT to sex. This pressure can be anything from threatening to end a relationship, to simple nagging (“come on, don’t you love me?” etc), to unintentional environmental pressures. This idea would effectively make any attempt to negotiate sex within a relationship a felony offense. Some feminists even believe that sex should be seen as rape even when the woman does manifest consent, if that consent was given with reservations or mixed feeling of any kind.”
What’s the problem, exactly?
The problem is this:
If you know anything about criminal law, you will know that the only way to discredit witness testimony (a form of evidence) is to discredit the witness him/herself. Rape shield laws make any attempt to discredit the accuser’s testimony illegal.
Rape shield laws are there so you can’t say, “Your honor, the witness is a slutty slut, so obviously she wanted it!”
Do you think they should be able to do this?
@katz
I’m a criminal trial attorney, and what you’re espousing is a popular misconception concerning how rape shield laws actually function. I suggest reviewing the wikipedia page on the topic. It’s a good primer for the uninitiated.
Look up the case of New York vs Javonovic as a key example of how these laws can go wrong, and send innocent people to prison. In that case there was overwhelming evidence of innocence, but it was deemed as inadmissible under New York’s rape shield law. The jury never saw the evidence, and they sent him to prison for 2 years until the appellate court finally stepped in.
It’s an extreme example, but rape shield laws routinely keep relevant exculpatory evidence out of court.
Are nagging, threats and ‘environmental pressure’ the usual way you get sex?
@Magpie
1: I’m female
2: No, but I don’t think nagging for sex should be illegal. Threatening violence to compel someone to consent is already illegal, as it should be.