[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.)
Pillowinhell: “A poster named Roberta decided to play some moronic game of “what counts as rape” [with] them”. I read that as a acknowledgment that Roberta was moronic and dishonest (due to the use of the word game in this setting). Often people (at least those who have some level of empathy) you discuss with is more willing to take a step back and re-assess their stance if one reveals one’s own victimization. When TS wrote “Roberta eventually pushed Holly so much that Holly mentioned that she was a rape victim as a way of getting Roberta to stop (it did not work).” I did not read that as an disparagment of Holly. You obviously must’ve read it differently than me.
It is clear though that TS (rightly or not – I am not going to read through that monster thread) believes that he has been treated by many commenters here (including Holly according to him) in a similar way that Roberta treated LBT and Holly. That seems to be the main thrust of TS’ post. By that accord it follows that if he thinks Roberta’s behaviour were ok then your(plural) behaviour against him would also be ok. TS defending Roberta would basically shred the main premiss for that post.
Bostonian’s comment did nothing to weaken TS’ assertion that commenters here engage in the same kind of behaviour against MRA’s and him as Roberta did against LBT and Holly.
TS was lying and disingenuous in many ways on the earlier thread here. He was treated more than fairly.
I will note that you are cool with him mocking rape victims though. LBT did not engage with TS ever, either, so if TS had a grudge against Holly, he should have at least left LBT out of it.
<So we’ve got a curious situation where people are being accused of conspiring to lie and attack women by the SPLC for using an approximation of this supposedly mainstream feminist way of defining rape rather than a more questionable and narrower definition.
That’s really only a small part of the reason you guys are being accused of being misogynistic asshats. There’s also the fact that MRAs and MRM leaders are fond of using incredibly threatening language and sometimes outright endorsing violence against feminists (in the case of the nuttier ones, against all of womenkind) in a pathetic attempt to make people do what theyn want. There’s the Register-her.com website, a disturbingly stalker-ish campaign, the sole aim of which is reportedly to “cause as much pain and suffering as legally possible” to a bunch of women MRAs don’t like. MRM websites are also cesspools of rape apologia, not simply bringing attention to false allegations but publishing sickening editorials about rape victims and actively encouraging MRAs on jury duty to acquit even the guiltiest of accused rapists.
Misogyny is rampant in the Manosphere, whether it be some dudes on Reddit calling a woman a “cunt” or the head producer of Paul Elam’s radio show comparing women to overgrown children.
I messed up that blockquote. Oops. The first paragraph is quoting Tamen.
Pillowinhell: “In a society that says men cannot be hurt or raped by women, how many boys and men are going to be able to identify what happened to them, let alone report it?”
Now that is an poignant question. Another important question is “In a society that says men cannot be hurt or raped by women, how many women are going to be able to correctly identify their actions, let alone refrain from doing them in the first place?”
The solution is to talk more about how men can be hurt and raped by women. Then more boys and men can identify what happens to them and more importantly, more women who are about to hurt and rape boys and men can recognize what they are about to do for what it is and chose differently. Keeping up the mantra “women are the overwhelming majority of rape victims and men are the overwhelmingly majority of rapists” which so many (including the CDC in their choice of classification and in their preface and press-kits for their report) are in fact harmful.
katz: So you (just who do you mean by we? I am assuming you’re not using the majestic plural) found it unlikely that a boy would know that his abuser identified as a feminist? A rapist who also was his aunt – so it’s not like it was some stranger. Unlikely enough that you see it fit to re-iterate in a public space the accusation against one particular victim that he lied about how his abuser who also is a family member identified herself?
Tamen, I havbe yet to see a thread here where one of our regular posters creates a graphic rape fantasy and explicitly directs it at another person. We recently had someone vent in an innapproprite way, and that person was called out and warned not to engage in that behaviour. And it was noithing on par with Roberta’s meltdown.
Either you don’t believe rape victims should be treated that way or you do, provided they are feminists. TS seems to lead to the latter choice. You seem to be fence sitting. Now, you’ve told us plenty in defense of TS. What do you plan to say to him about his treatment of rape victims he has mocked?
Tamen’s a little weak on the concept of listing possibilities, I see.
I totally agree that we need more awareness of the rape of men and rape by women.
I disagree that harassing rape survivors online and directing detailed rape fantasies against them (or endorsing this behavior) is an effective way to accomplish these things.
Crumbelievable: You not only messed up the blockquote, you also messed up the attribution. I did not write the paragraph you attributed to me. Makomk did. I am not Makomk.
And then you did go on and conflated me (using “you guys”) with MRAs and MRM leaders whom I neither identifies with nor answer to.
If you want to accuse me of being a misogynist asshat I’d rather you point to something I actually wrote and I’ll either refute/disagree with your assessment of MY words or own it if you are correct.
…In fact, Tamen, Roberta was telling a MAN who had been raped that he wasn’t really raped. And Toysoldier was just pleased as punch with her.
These people are NOT helping male survivors with SHIT.
Well Holly, now you know that men who identify as feminists aren’t really men/ end snark.
That’s the way it seems to me. Many MRAs will only support male survivors of anything provided they aren’t feminists or feminist allies.
Roberta’s sick little rape fantasy was about a man, too.
Is this the kind of thing Tamen and TS want to defend on behalf of men?
Tamen, in order to show how men can be hurt or raped, we have to break down the barrier of what is seen as rape. And for Roberta and many others, rape is only rape if it involves extreme violence. Roberta didn’t like the fact that rape as defined on Manboobz and other feminist spaces doesn’t need extreme violence. That there are plenty of ways to force someone into assenting to sex which they really can’t or don’t wish to consent to.
So just out of curiositys sake, what’s your opinion of the feminist idea of consent. I’ll leave out the enthusiastic part, since it is problematic for certain groups of people or certain situations.
My apologies.
Omg are we talking about Toysoldier’s aunt again? I go away for months (kind of) and come back to this? 😀
Well, we are more talking about TS and his desire to mock rape victims and then pretend he is some kind of advocate for them.
Holly, I hope you DIDN’T come across that sick little tale.
I missed it and I seem to have been very, very lucky.
Also, I don’t think that feminists are entirely unwilling to look at women perpetrators of rape. The fact is that we are so busy even trying to define rape, to get it recognized and properly prosecuted. Society won’t accept rape as it applies to “the weaker” sex, how the hell are we supposed to fight for recognition for men too? The CDC is non partisan.
Now, has anyone thought to write the CDC with their concerns about how male victimology was presented? I haven’t read the discussion on their findings, so I’m not sure why they presented envelopment seperately.
I did. 🙁
I thought about telling my boyfriend but I decided it really wasn’t something he needed to hear. I’m glad it got deleted before he read this post.
I’m sorry to hear that Holly. Many here were hoping David could make it disappear before you came across it. Same with LBT
It’s okay, I might as well have seen it. I’m not really sensitive about this stuff (well, obviously I’m sensitive, but I mean it doesn’t cause pain) or I wouldn’t be as open as I am here.
Holly: “I disagree that harassing rape survivors online and directing detailed rape fantasies against them (or endorsing this behavior) is an effective way to accomplish these things.”
I that wasn’t pretty clear from before. I am not endorsing Roberta’s behaviour and I believe I expressed that when I said earlier that I thought deleting/banning her comments were an appropriate response. What you describe is reprehensible. I did not read TS post as an endorsment of Roberta’s behaviour. If my reading is mistaken and TS is in fact endorsing such behaviour then it follows from my first statement that I would be in disagreement with TS on this point.
Bostonian: I thought it was Roberta who did not leave LBT out of it.
katz: Exactly which listing of possibilities am I having trouble with? If we are talking about the list of possible ways Bostonian’s comment can be interpreted which MAKOMK listed (to which you responded) I don’t really think there is a list of possible interpretations.
“He could have been abused, but I doubt his abuser actually specifically identified as a feminist.” is not very ambiguous.
Pillowinhell: Asking that question is getting close to doing one of the things that triggers me the most. Assuming that my arguing for male victims of rape and female perpetrators is a rape-apologistic ploy to revert to older and narrower definition of rape for all (including women) is one of the things that pisses me off to no end. I am going to assume no bad faith of from you and answer your question.
I am a male survivor of a rape by a female which wasn’t violent. Women close to me have been raped in a non-violent way by men. To put it shortly “no means no” should in my view be a legal standard while “yes means yes” should be a personal standard all people should strive for. I think a “no – come-on – no – come-on – no – come-on…no – come-on …ok then” is at the very least very troublesome and that it can amount to rape. As I mentioned in an earlier comments I argued against a feminist on NSWATM whether the “seduction” scene in Almost Famous could’ve been rape. Given that there at no point were a clear reversal of his repeatedly expressed “no”s I thought that it very much could be rape. As to how I stand on the feminist idea of consent I’d have to ask you to define that closer as I can’t see there is one feminist idea of consent. I for instance had issues with Feministe’s two posts on men who won’t do cunnilingus and who won’t participate in sex when their partner is menstruating because I think someone saying “If you won’t do this sex act, then you’re a misogynist” can very easily be coercive.
In short, I do not find the definitions for instance CDC uses for rape AND “being made to penetrate someone else” in the NISVS 2010 report as too wide. I firmly do believe that the requirement to obtain consent should be applied equally to everyone regardless of gender or orientation. The importance of obtaining women’s consent has been talked about a lot compared with how much the importance of obtaining consent from men have been talked about in our society. A balance would be mutually helpful in my opinion.
Pillowinhell: “Also, I don’t think that feminists are entirely unwilling to look at women perpetrators of rape.”
Some aren’t and some are. Feminist Soraya Chemaly (with Huffington Post as a platform) submitted an article on rape culture to TGMP which among other things stated: “There is a qualitative difference between saying men rape women and women rape men and that difference gets eliminated when you tell individual stories without context.”
“Raising the specter of women raping boys implies a false equivalence and doesn’t help us understand and change a culture where rape—the power, the crime, the threat, and the jokes—is acceptable.”
“Only men can stop rape.”
Feminist admitting that if the genders in a situation were reversed they wouldn’t call it rape.
Other feminists do get it – Ozymandias42 handling of the thread where another feminist asked for visual enactments of women raping men because she just couldn’t imagine it happening was an example of a feminist getting it.
So for me feminist self-identification is not alone a reliable indicator whether they get it. First when someone states their stance can I evaluate to what extent I think they are willing to consider women perpetrators of rape as something more than a theoretical possibility, an anomaly, or perhaps even more insiduous, something they have to acknowledge out of political correctness, but which they really don’t believe in.
Tamen, I don’t disagree with anything in the above comment.
Except that TS is clearly gloating in Roberta’s trolling (because two male-rape erasures make a right???) and trying to shame me for talking about my rape, and I don’t think you need to be defending him.