[TW for the comments to this post; discussions of rape and abuse.]
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization devoted to tracking and exposing hate groups, has just published a detailed report on the misogyny and violent rhetoric so pervasive in the Men’s Rights Movement — as well as the actual violence inspired by this sort of hatred of women. It’s a piece you all should read, even though few of the details will be new to long-time readers of this blog.
Arthur Goldwag, an expert on conspiracy-mongers and the far right, argues (I think correctly) that the Men’s Rights movement is largely a backlash against the many successes of feminism over the last several decades:
It’s not much of a surprise that significant numbers of men in Western societies feel threatened by dramatic changes in their roles and that of the family in recent decades. Similar backlashes, after all, came in response to the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, and other major societal revolutions. What is something of a shock is the verbal and physical violence of that reaction.
[Thomas] Ball’s suicide brought attention to an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations.
The Men’s Rights Movement, as it exists today, is not a civil rights movement; it is a regressive, hateful reaction against a civil rights movement — that is, feminism.
Those who truly care about the rights of men, and who are not motivated by a hatred of women or feminism, need to repudiate the hate and the violent rhetoric of the Men’s Rights Movement as it exists today. Only then can there be a Men’s Rights Movement worthy of the name.
EDITED TO ADD: The SPLC has also put up a guide to some of the more hateful sites in the manosphere. Longtime readers will be familiar with most of them.
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: And a piece debunking some Men’s Rights Myths.
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN, AGAIN: The discussion of the SPLC report on the Men’s Rights Subreddit is surprisingly reasonable, so far. (I mean, compared to what I expected. Meanwhile, over in this thread, the Men’s Rightsers are behaving as they usually do.)
Just to blow your mind, I’ve had sex. Several times. None that were rape. It was with a man. And I’m a woman.
Ergo, some women outside you don’t define all sex as rape.
Nice dodge Roberta. Now what makes you so special that you won’t become the lying liar that all women are?
Slight derail here, but maybe a good example of how feminists, you know, ORGANIZE instead of just trolling on blogs:
Personhood for Women Petition on change.org
You should accuse those men of rape.
How can you know with certainty whether or not you really wanted to sleep with them. Maybe outside social pressures played a role in your decision. You can’t discount that possibility, so under Holly’s definition you are honor bound to accuse every one of those men of rape.
No. We’re saying (or at least I am) that whether or not you have physical evidence of the rape doesn’t change the fact that the rape happened. See the the difference?
Accused men already have due process. Some fucking lawyer you are.
Take your objective standard and cram it sideways with walnuts, you rape apologist gasbag.
And I’m making a different sort of supper, so I have a moment.
Roberta: I’m so sorry for you. You were actually raped. Something only a tiny fraction of self-described “victims” were subjected to. That person legitimately deserves to be in prison. It’s a shame you didn’t report zir.
Why do you believe Holly? All she said was she was, “really raped”. No evidence.
Then again, you believed LBT, until you didn’t.
My BF is so lucky to be with me. I’m one of the few women who doesn’t think all sex is rape.
Really?*
Whether or not they agreed to have sex is a matter of objective fact. If we have video of them agreeing to sex, we no that no rape occured. Due process has meaning with such a standard.
Nonsense, “Your honor, we have no way of knowing what happened prior to the start of this recording. It is completely possible the accused threatened to kill the victim’s cat, as she claims, prior to the start of filming.”
That’s just one hole in the idiocy of your, “objective facts”
I so want to see you arguing an actual case. I mean it will probably suck for your client, but it will be memorable. Probably not Orly Taitz memorable, but few people can rise to the level of sublimely ridiculous of an Orly Taitz.
*My personal experience differs. Bewteen my personal partners, my friends, and my friends partners (to say nothing of the people I know on the internet, women who don’t this sex is rape are bog-standard.
Roberta, you’re forgetting to pretend to be a woman.
Also, yes, people do need to put some trust in their partners. Because if a partner is totally untrustworthy, they can just lie. If you think a woman’s capable of anything, then she’s capable of telling the cops “he held me down, I was screaming.” You do have to trust a woman not to do that.
Your “objective” definition of rape always seems to come down to “a definition that the woman doesn’t have too much say in.” If a guy does everything right by your rules, then he can have sex with a woman who doesn’t want it! She shouldn’t get to just decide otherwise.
And it’s worth noting, for the brain-deads out there, that feminists are not trying to get rid of it.
Also, Roberta, the reason I told you about my rape was not to get your fake sympathy.
It was to demonstrate how hard it is to report an actual rape, how many discouraging factors there are. If it’s that not-even-worth-it to report something that really happened, I have trouble believing droves of women would go to that trouble just because they have some regrets to work out.
Me, reading this: pbbbbtt–HAHAHA
Seriously, what a delusional jackass.
Roberta: Ok, I’ve been trolling the last few posts,
Only the last few?
No person can ever know with certainty whether or not you genuinely want to have sex with them. The question of “want” is entirely subjective. Perhaps you gave ever sign that you wanted to have sex, but this was only to avoid hurting your BF’s feelings. A recording of some sort would also be insufficient to prove innocence. Even if said recording showed what appears to be enthusiastic consent.
You could just argue that you were putting on for one reason or another, and no amount of video evidence could disprove that claim. Your desires are subjective and unfalsifiable. Your agreements are a matter of objective, empirical fact. The difference is pretty god damn clear.
It is? Well if the standard is, “I somehow got him/her to say yes without leaving a mark on them”, then yes, it’s pretty clear.
But the rest of your argument is basically, “There is no such thing as rape, unless there is violence, and there are witnesses.”
Which is pretty fucked up, but I can see why you say you are one of the few who don’t believe sex is rape. It’s that you are one of the few who thing practically nothing is rape.
I really want to see you in court.
Then clearly these ignorant women are in need of some education.
@holly
If someone lies about objective facts, there exists the possibility of proving them wrong. You clearly have never seen witness testimony subjected to court scrutiny before. If someone lies (or even just misinterprets) their own subjective feelings, then their word is law. There exists no possibility to dispute their claims.
Whether or not they “really wanted it” is entirely in their own head. No one could ever state anything otherwise. Even seemingly enthusiastic consent is not enough to call their complaint into question.
It’s sort of a moot point anyway. The law on rape will never be “sex that you didn’t really really want way deep down inside” no matter how long you kick and scream. Even feminist criminal attorney’s would recognize such an idea as farcical.
It’s still way too dangerous to sleep with women, though. Thank god I’m attracted to men. Hetero males basically have to choose between celibacy and imprisonment.
And now that we’ve decided dinner, I’ll be gone for a bit.
Play nice while I’m gone. Try not to break your toys.
And are still doing it :’pwxunium’.
The discussion started when you told a man that crawling on the floor while crying wasn’t enough to count as a rape. So stop the bullshit about the impossible to understand consent, the signs too small to perceive and what not. This kind of rape apologism is nowhere near to original.
Pecunium once again nails it:
You ARE the Neville Longbottom of manboobz. 🙂
“You clearly have never seen witness testimony subjected to court scrutiny before. ”
Neither have you, Roberta.
This is probably true. But it’ll still be rape.
…And you, apparently.
Funny how there’d only be one trustworthy woman in the world, and we’d find her here? I mean, what are the odds.
What makes you such a special snowflake Roberta? Why aren’t you a lying liar like the rest of us?
Or hetero males could chose not to live in a fantasy world in which all women ever want to accuse them of rape (except Roberta, of course, who is Jesus) and just ask if people want to have sex before they fuck them.
But that would be too hard, I suppose.
It’s not even a question of lying. You assume humans are rational creatures. We are not.
Someone doesn’t have to lie. If you seriously regret sleeping with a person, you can convince yourself that you were manipulated into it and that you didn’t really want it. When you go to police you wont be lying. Because you believe it.
That is why subjective questions such as these have no place in felony law, and thankfully they probably never will.
Roberta, why haven’t you accused a man of rape?
Is it just because you’ve never had sex you regretted? If you ever have sex and regret it, do you plan to accuse the man of rape?
I’ve regretted plenty of sex. The difference is that I don’t view rape as a subjective experience. I view it as non-consensual sex.
Consent is a term with it’s roots in contract law. It just means free agreement. It doesn’t mean free agreement that you feel great about now and forever as you seem to think it should mean.
The point isn’t that women routinely decide they were raped because they simply regret having consensual sex. The point is that men shouldn’t have to rely on women to never misinterpret their own regret. Kind of like how women shouldn’t just have to rely on men to never be abusive. We have laws against that sort of thing.
No “she” just plans on “reminding” her boyfriend that she hasn’t accused him of rape yet so he can continue to show his grattitude.
Also Roberta, most people have a very good grip on reality and can handle things like regret, guiilt or even shame without looking for someone to torment with consequences of actions they didn’t commit. Unless you also subscribe to the theory that women can’t handle uncomfortable feelings and need a hamster to figure it out?
It isn’t? A moment ago, you were, like, the only woman in the world who doesn’t do that.
Nice strawman. No one here ever said “regret means you didn’t consent.”
What we’re saying is “lack of consent shouldn’t be brushed off as ‘regret’.” And also that lack of consent alone constitutes rape, and the man doesn’t have to do something blatantly terrorizing to make it “real” rape.