Sometimes I ask myself: what is it that I really hope to accomplish with this website, aside from entertaining myself and my readers, and exposing misogynist assholes for who they are. There’s a part of me that still hopes that someday, something I write will cause some misogynist and/or Men’s Rightser out there to develop a modicum of self-awareness, look at what they’ve been saying or doing, and say to themselves, “I’m really kind of a tool, aren’t I? Maybe I should stop.”
When the Southern Poverty Law Center report on the Men’s Rights movement came out, I hoped it might have a similar sort of effect. Or that, even if it didn’t persuade any MRAs out there that they were wrong, it might at least convince a few that they were going about things the wrong way. Nope. On the Men’s Rights subreddit, at least, it seems to have sent many of the regulars into an indignant tizzy, and they have doubled down on their peculiar brand of politics-by-whining-online.
Consider this post:
Yes, that’s right. Some Men’s Rights Redditors seem to think that the best way to convince the world that they’re not part of a hate group is to continue to celebrate a self-admitted child abuser who urged men to firebomb courthouses and police stations and kill people.
Then there’s this post, currently the top post on the subreddit:
Wow, if the Men’s Rights subreddit had anything to do with that, that would indeed be a victory. As one regular put it:
Thing is, I read r/mensrights pretty regularly, and I don’t remember any campaign there to protect the rights of fishermen in New Zealand.
Turns out that’s because the campaign, such as it was, consisted of one post some months back, which got all of 11 upvotes at the time. The current post in which r/mensrights congratulates itself for its “victory” has gotten, last I checked, 120 upvotes, more than ten times that. Simplecosine’s self-congratulatory comment in the new thread has gotten 36 upvotes. The comment in the original thread asking r/mensrightsers to send an email to the US Secretary of State’s office got … one upvote. In other words, only a handful of Men’s Rights Redditors even noticed the original post, much less sent along an email.
Reading one of the linked news articles makes clear the real reason the State Department opened an investigation: a six-month long, three-continent wide investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek revealing abuses in the industry.
The Men’s Rights subreddit: Taking Credit for Shit They Didn’t Do Since 2008.
And then there’s this post:
I’ve got nothing to say about this one — it’s basically self-refuting — except that I’m sort of bemused by the notion that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a “semi-women group.” Uh, what is that exactly? A group with some women in it? A group that doesn’t think women are all a bunch of evil bitches? The horror!
Oh, Men’s Rights movement. You’ll never change, will you?
EDITED TO ADD: And speaking of never changing, here’s how one Men’s Rights redditor responded to my comments there suggesting that maybe, just maybe, MRAs should actually denounce and distance themselves from someone calling for terrorism:
Let me just highlight that bit at the end again:
[T]he cost to the establishment to maintain the status quo in regards to divorce, custody, etc. must be made so high that it’s just no longer feasible. If that means instilling abject fear into the hearts of judges, cops and legislators by making them think their careers and/or lives could be forfeit unless they change their attitudes towards men, then so be it.
Trying to instill fear for one’s life in your opponents: that is the very definition of terrorism.
The alternative explanation is that nwo get’s his opinions about women from badly written porn. Which… would explain a lot, actually.
Every time I read NWOslave, I am reminded of this dish I got on ebay.
William Steig! A great cartoonist, not to mention a follower of engagingly batty psychiatrist Wilhem Reich and his theories of orgone energy.
And the creator of Shrek. But he also owned an orgone cabinet!
Anything outside of Jesusland is Illuminati brainwashing.
All of this Illuminati smearing is the resentment of bitter old men whose ideals have long passed away.
2 + 2 = 5 in MRA land. Logic bitches!
I wouldn’t be that optimistic. NWO has vivid delusions all right, but I wouldn’t call it imagination, because no introspection, questioning, wondering, or creativity is happening.
Yeah, Boggi, those MRAs are such BITCHES. God, they’ve transgressed the boundaries of male behavior so badly that the only insult good enough for them is woman.
Sources? But this is a pretty poor argument anyway. People advocating for women’s health are not by default advocating against men’s health. Just because I want women to live longer, healthier lives doesn’t mean I want men to live miserable, unhealthy lives and die young.
Lifting one group up doesn’t necessitate knocking another group down.
@ostara321:
Yes it does so.
The idea that anyone can both be anti-birth control being covered by insurance and want less money spent on women’s healthcare, proportionally speaking, confuses me. Pregnancy and childbirth are really really expensive. If you want to cut costs, making sure that women who don’t want to have babies can avoid doing so is a really easy way to cut costs in terms of healthcare that’s specifically targeted at women.
My sister in law had a very difficult second pregnancy, and was hospitalized for much longer than is typical. When she got out she saw what the cost would have been if her insurance hadn’t picked up most of it. It was over a million dollars. Compared to that kind of money (which again her insurance was responsible for), the cost of BC pills is negligable.
Have you folks seen the response to Limbaugh’s redefinition of the word “slut”? It’s hilarious! XD
Love the video!
Because obviously, women will be taking birth control, getting pregnant, and aborting ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
@Shaenon I already had a million reasons for adoring William Steig, but I did not know he owned an orgone cabinet. I believe that makes him even awesomer. 🙂
NWO,
Did you actually bother to read the article or did you just accept this hook, line and sinker from your pals at AVfM?
Here’s a link:
http://www.walkamileinhershoes.org/
The incident you were talking about was a march to protest against violence against women, not some kind of abuse and humiliation of men. These men were supporting the women in their lives. yay for them!
You really should go and read the original article before you go running off at the mouth.
For every $1.00 spent on mens health $3.00 is spent on womens health.
Fine. Then y’all start having the babies and we can reverse that dollar amount! Hurry up. What’s keeping you. You claim the d00dz invented everything and built everything. Get busy!
someone dumber than NWO
I repeat from above – one baby, over a million dollars in medical costs if my sister in law hadn’t had really great insurance. This is the majority of the reason why there’s such a disparity in healthcare costs between men and women.
(Women also go to the doctor more when they’re sick. We need to persuade men to do so too, and all this stuff about how men are naturally tougher etc isn’t helping.)
Where are those artificial wombs geniuses!
I like how this is a horrible punishment in NWOslave’s mind. I wear jeans and hiking boots to work EVERY DAY, yo!
At least NWO managed to get a believable proportion this time for healthcare spending this time.
One of his last claims ended up with what…10 billion dollars to women’s charities for every one to men’s? I can’t remember the exact ratio, but I did the math. Just looking at the numbers of a small men’s charity in New Jersey would mean that more is spent on women’s charities every year than about 6 times the combined GLOBAL wealth.
Yeah. Fuck that.
Well, however much NWO’s mother spent on neonatal care was obviously wasted.
They V O L U N T E E R E D NWO
vol·un·teer/ˌvälənˈti(ə)r/
Noun:
A person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
Verb:
Freely offer to do something.
English, motherfucker. Do you read it?
“Well, however much NWO’s mother spent on neonatal care was obviously wasted.”
NWO was born on a bed of straw to an Amish midwife. There would have been a proper bed, but it cost too much tax money.
Shadow wins. Pulp Fiction references always win.
I still want to know how it works that women are constantly forcing men to rape them, but rape never happens.
NWO, please, enlighten the fuck out of me.
Lifting one group up doesn’t necessitate knocking another group down.
The difference between a civil rights group and a hate group in a nutshell.