[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.)
You certainly did, when you explained LBT he was so silly for believing he was raped. You know it’s written, right?
Roberta I know you think you’re being sarcastic and trying to make a point, but all you’re doing is demonstrating what a revolting piece of shit you are.
GTFO!
@ hellkell
Your word would carry some weight if you were putting your money where your mouth is and falsely accusing you BF of rape. I’ll go accuse my BF of rape so I man more properly join the sisterhood.
And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!
This.
Roberta, eat a bowl of bees.
Roberta,
I hope your ears turn into assholes and shit on your shoulders (as an Aussie friend says to people like you).
Believe you me, it’s not just the lack of false accusations that causes “the sisterhood” not to want you.
@David
Can you also please delete the post and take out the quotes in people’s replies. It just occurred to me how much more fucking horrible it would be for Holly, a fucking rape survivor, to have to read something that foul about her boyfriend and I really wish I hadn’t quoted that..
And Roberta gets a time-out.
Possibly forever. What the hell?
@Shadow
Good point. Now I wish I hadn’t quoted either…
Thanks, David.
What is UP with our trolls going for the nasty rape attacks lately?
Yeah, forget “possibly.” It’ll be forever.
And I will delete the worst of the posts, and the quotes in other people’s comments. I will, however screenshot them and save them for posterity.
WTF. That was one of the strangest flameouts I’ve seen yet.
Cloudiah: the comments people have made on that Stranger piece actually nicely demonstrate one reason out of so many why men feel screwed over by the current anti-domestic violence movement. In particular, notice this: “You will note that the 1992 legislative findings for RCW 26.050.30 explain this reasoning in grim detail – http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=26.50.030 A key point is that while about 33% of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner, just 4% of male murder victims are killed by an intimate partner. This is real. http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf”
This is a very clever way of lying through the misuse of statistics that pops up a lot when discussing domestic violence and in the information provided by advocacy groups. Based on the exact same source of statistics they used, a quarter of murder victims who were killed by an intimate partner were male, but their wording makes it sound like there are a lot less male victims than this. The trick is that men are three times more likely to be murdered in general than women, and because of all these extra murders of men the percentage of male murder victims killed by an intimate partner is a lot smaller than the percentage of female murder victims. Tada – widespread violence against men turns into evidence of violence against women instead through the clever misuse of statistics.
I think I’ve seen the same technique used to massage the murder statistics here in the UK too. As I recall, we had an even bigger gap between the number of men and women murdered, and an even smaller gap in the number murdered by intimate partners, so that was even more impressive.
Thanks, David. And yeah, sorry for quoting for posts, too. It’s just…wtf.
Also, I see I missed some really unusually unpleasant comments by Roberta when writing that…
Well poot, I wanted to post my response to her inane comments. But best gone.
However the idea that a person who has three beers is unable to be incapacitated is hilarious. Obviously this person never sat through a DUI trial which are pretty much snoozefests unless the defendant gets on the stand and throws a fit over the prosecutor asking questions zir dislikes. Or one of the bystanders did something mildly entertaining at the scene.
“And after the second passenger got out of the car what happened?”
“She threw up on my shoes.”
Wait, makomk, what are you saying, exactly? That femenists are lying about DV, or that MRAs are being disingenuious?
@makomk
It is very easy to misuse statistics; if it’s done intentionally, I agree with you that would be lying. I myself am terrible with statistics, but have never intentionally misused them. (Anyone who is interested, this is about a link that I posted about 400 pages back in this thread, in response to something Roberta-that-vile-piece-of-shit had posted about supposed bias against men in family courts.)
In any case, I think we can agree violence against men is also a significant problem, and if it is under-reported it shouldn’t be.
Just a note for anyone just now catching up with this thread: “Roberta” had something of a meltdown (or a trollish pseudo-meltdown), and posted a lot of truly vile shit, and earned a ban. I’ve removed the worst of “Roberta’s” comments.
“Roberta” tried to comment again with a new email, and gave this facebook page as “her” homepage:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003470614274
You’ll notice that the gender given there is male.
“Roberta” ended up sounding a LOT like MRAL at the end there. The IP address would suggest someone posting from the midwest, not Boston, though that can be faked.
In any case, I’m guessing: not a real lawyer.
Definitely not…or a reallllllllllllllllllly bad one. I mean I know a few who are that level of stupid but they generally spend 90% of their time in their firm’s basements.
If anyone needs the brain bleach, here is a very short video of my kitten Buster drinking my chamomile tea.
Thanks for that David.
Seeing as how people have seen “Roberta” on other sites, I don’t think she/he’s MRAL, here’s hoping he’s not sunk that low. I remember Brandon’s whole “I bet you were raped” meltdown, but didn’t realise MRAL also had a rape threat meltdown. That’ll teach me to be optimistic about trolls.
Oh, that is ADORABLE, Cloudiah.
… What the hell just happened?
And how on Earth could you confuse and conflate not wanting to have sex at the moment (in which case sex anyway would quickly become rape) with wishing you didn’t have sex that you wanted at the time? I mean, I know nobody actually said “at the time” when talking about what constituted rape, but really… nobody should have to.
@David:
Would it be possible for those who missed it to see the comment that was deleted? I’m curious what is was now…
kirbywarp : I think David just removed the prison-rape jokes.