Categories
actual activism anti-MRA information antifeminism MGTOW misogyny MRA terrorism threats

The Southern Poverty Law Center takes on the violent misogyny so pervasive in the Men’s Rights Movement

[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.)

760 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Moewicus
Moewicus
12 years ago

I prefer the “magic asshole” theory, which posits that all trolls on Manboobz are actually just one insanely good writer. Probably The Cigarette Smoking Man.

Polliwog
Polliwog
12 years ago

I prefer the “magic asshole” theory, which posits that all trolls on Manboobz are actually just one insanely good writer. Probably The Cigarette Smoking Man.

I like it. I am just going to decide to believe this from now on, because it’s way more fun than the alternative.

Jen
Jen
12 years ago

FWIW, a lot of abusers have other power fantasies….it’s not uncommon for them to join the military and wash out, or try to get on with a police force and fail the psych eval or background check. (Don’t misread this argument – many abusers have fantasies to be cops/soldiers, but most cops/soldiers are NOT abusers!)

So maybe that’s her thing too, IDK.

Pecunium
12 years ago

Her thing seems to be to claim expertise she doesn’t have. She used a story (which I have a hard time not thinking is false… the facts aren’t consistent with things I, as a vet; and a combat vet, know to be the case), to beat up rape survivors.

I wish I’d found that before she was banned. I’d have loved to see her try to respond to that. It might have kept her from going off on Holly that way. Holly doesn’t need me to run interference for her, but if showing up a faker, who is using veterans, and combat related PTSD to abuse rape survivors is doable, I’m glad to do that.

Because that shit annoys me. It makes me, and my fellows, look bad.

pillowinhell
12 years ago

What the hell is it with “roberta” and targeting rape victims? Pecunium, that post link you put up was from a while ago and “roberta” is still stuck on the same topic? WTF? Same arguments too (including the alcohol).

pillowinhell
12 years ago

Pecunium, I don’t think anything could have stopped “her” from going off on Holly.

CassandraSays
12 years ago

I’d guess that it was about a year ago that she was making the same arguments on Jezebel? Can’t remember exactly, but she seems to have been making the rounds of feminist blogs*, trying the same tactics at each one.

* I know Jez isn’t really a feminist blog, but anti-feminists think that it is.

Pecunium
12 years ago

The facebook page has some clues. The theory I have is that there is some connection between a consent related issue, and intoxication.

So Roberta has a hobby horse to get consent = any assent, and to remove any intoxication which isn’t stupification from being a bar to legitimate consent.

That way, whatever it was, will no longer be an issue. An ex post facto exculpation. I suspect that’s why the only response I got to the various consent related things I posted was to tell me that Calif was, “uniquely vague” and would never be interpreted as written.

pillowinhell
12 years ago

Well if “roberta” been doing this for a year…now that’s creepy. And why?

And the way she went after LBT and Holly, both of whom shared their story…I’m thinking that Roberta is sick, maybe sick enough to hurt or abuse someone.

Pecunium
12 years ago

Why? Because zie is feeling guilty.

Taking a Wild Ass Guess. Roberta was involved in a rape. There was alcohol involved. If Roberta is a she, then she doesn’t want to be a victim, so it has to be not a rape.

If Roberta is a man, then making it not a rape means he didn’t commit rape.

Denial is a hard thing. It’s harder when it has to be an active denial. LBT, and and Holly both told stories that needed to be negated, if that denial was going to work.

And neither they, nor the rest of us, were willing to either back down, or accept the strawmen (which would make it possible to dismiss our position on assent /= consent) and so the attacks stepped up, and then the meltdown happened.

CassandraSays
12 years ago

It’s bad enough that people make those arguments in general. When they go after specific victims then that sets off all sorts of alarm bells.

Shadow
Shadow
12 years ago

@Pecunium

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if “Roberta” was on the rapist side of the equation in an encounter with a woman. He/She was WAY too invested in the “women lie about rape all the time” hobby horse.

jumbofish
12 years ago

I’m a bit uncomfortable assuming things like that pecunium. (also men can be raped and women can be rapists you know)

Pecunium
12 years ago

Yes, they can. I’m making hypotheticals based on the various bit of evidence. There is a strong sense of investment, and some very specific themes to her comments in several fora. I don’t have enough evidence to make an authoritative claim. I do have enough, and a fair bit of practical experience with people who are hiding things/pursuing a driven agenda, to see some possible motives.

The ways in which Roberta shapes her narratives (in all the fora I’ve found) and the implication of that FB page, point to male on female (as opposed to the reverse) being the sort about which she cares. When presented with female on male assaults/rapes, she didn’t respond at all.

CassandraSays
12 years ago

I’d add that Roberta seems to be fixated on the idea that women lie about rape because they “regret” sex to the point where I’d put money on that being part of hir specific life story.

Kyrie
Kyrie
12 years ago

And… she DID realize I’m a gay man right? (Well, gay/ace.)

Probably not, at first. And when she did, it was too late, because apologizing would have sound weird (Oh you’re a man? Then your rape was valid all along!) but it’s likely that the conversation would have been a different one if Roberta knew, from the beginning, that it wasn’t a woman accusing a man.

Which remind me very much of the Appalling Atheist meltdown: he went after a rape survivor thinking it was a woman raped by a man, and only after realized it wasn’t. That’s just casualties for these people.

katz
12 years ago

Well, that was…predictably horrifying? Horrifyingly predictable? There’s something about trolls like that: From the second they pop up, you know it’s going to go from “You all agree with me, right?” to “You’re misrepresenting me by repeating what I said!” to “I spelled your name wrong on purpose” to “ARGLEBARGLE RAEG!” in maybe three days, max.

I think MRAL could sock that well if he really put his mind to it, but he doesn’t have the dedication. So I say it’s a new (male, non-lawyer) troll.

Holly Pervocracy
12 years ago

I don’t know if it’s necessarily Roberta’s own life story. Lots of our trolls get all up on the “women lie about rape” thing without having ever encountered it personally.

It’s a great stance for MRAs to take:
A) It does technically happen, and being falsely imprisoned for a felony is a horrible thing, so feminists are uncomfortable entirely brushing it off.

B) It attacks specifically rape survivors, so you get to go after people who are (theoretically–I wouldn’t tell the MRAs if I weren’t braced for whatever shit they say) particularly vulnerable.

C) It’s great for gaslighting–you get to say “she’s a false accuser, don’t believe anything she says” and then your opponent has literally no words that will get through to you, and sometimes you even get to say “are you really sure that’s what happened to you?” right to people’s faces. Misogynists loooove to play the game where they tell women they can’t interpret reality correctly on their own.

D) If the seeds of doubt they’ve planted get just one rapist off scot-free, they will have Made A Difference In The World.

E) Sexual violence is a really big, unambiguous form of oppression of women. If you’re going to deny that women are oppressed, you gotta deny rape.

F) A lot of MRAs seem to figure it’s impossible for men to have fully consensual sex with women (because women don’t really want sex with men, anyway, or at least not Betas), so how will they get laid at all if they don’t have some loopholes? Sure, it’s wrong to violently force a woman into sex, but there has to be some allowable way to make a woman have sex with you, because how else can a guy have sex?

False-rape-accusation paranoia-mongering is really the Misogyny Total Package. There’s so many different ways to attack women, in one!

Sharculese
12 years ago

ahahahahah

there is no situation toysoldier won’t try to make himself the victim of.

felixBC
felixBC
12 years ago

Toysoldier says Holly played the rape card. Really, *Toysoldier* says this.

red_locker
12 years ago

Oh that fuckball.

Not sure if a response would be useless, as much as it would be…well, aggrivating, given Toysoldiers past bullshit here and elsewhere.

And then after the whole thing, one would need not one but THREE CUTE ANIMAL POSTS to wash the bad aftertaste out.

hellkell
hellkell
12 years ago

Toysolider would just come here and make a 2,000 post thread saying nothing if you made a post about him.

1 21 22 23 24 25 31