Check out this post from PZ Myers, tearing apart a sleazy JohntheOther video about Rebecca Watson. In the video, JtO, the number two man at A Voice for Men, declared Watson a sociopath for allegedly mistreating a “handler” assigned to her at a Skepticon convention.
Trouble is, Watson’s “mistreatment” never actually happened, and her public recounting of her (wholly imaginary) selfish behavior was part of a good-natured prank, with the humor directed not at her handler but at herself and the conference organizer. The handler was of course in on the joke. It would seem that JtO either misunderstood the joke, or simply decided to misrepresent what happened in order to make Watson look like a sociopath.
Are there any truly honest MRAs out there? At this point I cannot think of a single one.
JtO, evidently stung by the criticism, has made the video in question private. And he’s made another video responding to the criticism from Myers, Watson, and the handler from the convention itself.
In the video, he offers his own explanation for why he missed the obvious fact that Watson was making a joke: he claims he didn’t actually watch enough of the original Rebecca Watson video to get to the punchline of her joke before making his diagnoses of her. That might seem to reflect poorly on JtO’s research skills. But he’s not overly troubled by this, evidently. “My bad,” he says, cheerfully.
But he still thinks she’s a sociopath, and argues that the criticism he’s gotten doesn’t stem from his complete misrepresentation of Watson’s joke, but because he’s “struck a nerve.” Then he babbles on about various other crap including Jessica Valenti and weapons of mass destruction and, well, I wasn’t really paying much attention at that point. He ends by calling PZ Myers “Sunshine.”
Here’s that video. I watched the whole fucking 11 minutes and 11 seconds of it. I wouldn’t really recommend that to anyone. You only have to watch about 11 seconds of it to conclude, correctly, that JtO is an ass.
He shoulda just said, “I fucked up. I got it wrong. My apologies.”
“My point still stands!”
Hmm, all the trolls are beginning to merge into one big, trolly pudding.
magdelyn: he should have. But this kind of good and simple apology is rare.
Hahahaha….I can’t stop laughing at that screencap David…good catch!
@Crumbelievable
I dunno, I kinda agree and don’t. I’ve thought a lot about this and I don’t know if I can agree that internet popularity doesn’t count. I see tons of misogyny online, not just from MRAs, and it’s never called out. And when it is the person who calls it out is attacked, usually with more misogyny. If I may quote Seymour from Ghost World “people still hate each other but they just know how to hide it better”
Online it’s hidden through anonymity. And while it may be illegal to discriminate against women people have no problem expressing their hate or true beliefs for us online. Its depressing and honestly I’m hesitant to date because of it :/
Not to mention that people like Tucker Max and Dick Masterson can make careers out of being misogynists…
But JtO thinks feminists are like Nazis, so he’d be apologizing to a Nazi! And apologizing to Nazis is totally uncool.
@Quackers:
I understand what you mean. Obviously, the massive volume of Internet misogyny can’t be divorced entirely from reality, since those are real people saying those things. I just think it can be really easy to start thinking that those hateful people and websites are all that’s out there.
What did I just watch?
I left a pretty big rant on that channel when the video was posted, which he disarmed easily, however he never addressed the reason I was actually pissed off; he lied. This was my fault because I wasn’t concise and to the point… He lied.
This is a guy who makes a living on Youtube and Radio enticing peoples emotions, he’s basically here to direct anger at people, he lied to entice his mob against Rebecca, that makes me angry. Sure if he found out Rebecca kicked cats and spat on homeless people and called his mob out on that I’d still be disturbed but I couldn’t complain, his followers have a right to get angry at whatever they want. All I asked was that he at least tell the truth.
Oh and the White Knight/Mangina in me might have been a little annoyed because I know how “Psychopathic Bitches” are treated on his show, what I didn’t know was that the Psycho bar went from “I’ma Cut Ur Penis Off” too “Harmless Joke”
Anyway I’m looking forward to watching Red Pill tonight, Maybe I’ll get made fun of for being an idiot! Xenu knows they have nothing better to talk about.
Longer version: there was a line inserted in the draft of the re-authorization for VAWA (and VAWA will be re-authorized, no sane person thinks anything differently) that would have turned the department of education’s advice that college disciplinary hearings on sexual assault should use a ‘preponderance of the the evidence’ standard into law. a bunch of MRAs wrote angry e-mails to patrick leahy’s office and that line got struck before the draft was even presented to a committee. so, yes, MRAs may have achieved something, but what they achieved was getting a single provision struck from a pre-draft version of a re-authorization bill for a law that everyone knows is gonna be re-authorized. they’re claiming that means that VAWA is in danger, but there isn’t any actual evidence to support that.
I agree. MRAs wouldn’t last one minute in the real world.
B-But don’t you see Quackers! Max and Matterson are Politically Incorrect ironists! You can spout as many offensive and ignorant things you want (even if you think it’s all bullshit) if it’s in the name of “wit”. You would’t want to be the PC Police spoiling all the fun, would you?
Don’t you dare think there are women that could make a living being misandrists! A woman who actually did that would be smeared with enough mud by the media to make her indistinguishable from a pig for her entire lifetime. And if that lifetime “accidentally” comes to an end from any offended men or stalkers, it’s her fault. That feminazi pig should’ve shut her mouth and known her place like a proper woman. She would be proof of how bitchy women are and how it was a mistake for men to let them out of the kitchen.
/huge sarcasm reminder
But seriously, that scenario would actually happen if a woman decided to be the reverse Dick Materson. A culture that tolerates professional misogynist trolls like Dick Matterson but would stigmatize and ostracize a female counterpart is hardly a misandrist culture. People who say there is no widespread misogyny must have been lobotomized.
Good. That means all the crap is easier to spot and sterilize.
TAKE THE RED PILL AND LEARN THE PROPAGANDA!!!!!!!!!1111
OOPS!!!! I MEAN THE TRUTH!!!!! I MEAN THE TRUTH!!!!!!!
In reality, MRAs shit on the truth in general and the deep truths communicated by the Matrix Trilogy.
@Maya
Yea, I just find it entertaining, I also listen to a conspiracy radio called Coast to Coast AM, but I’m considering cancelling my subscription now that the MRA is so engrossed in tin foil hat land
Yeah this whole thing was funny. Awhile back he did a super melodramatic rant about a video came called whack your boyfriend he found on his android phone. He said now in the darkest crazy recesses of anyone’s brain do they imagine that a video game abusing a woman would be on android? (promoted by something that popular). Where the goal was just to abuse the woman? Problem is that the game involves both boyfriend and girlfriend with an arsenal of weapons to abuse each other. Also the male choices are arguably worse. The female poops on the male once, while he has a gun with a tube directly from his butt and this poop weapon continually shoots rounds of live poop coming from his crack all over her.
The whole thing is absurd. But he went on the violin playing grandstanding melodrama call to action that if anyone downloads that game (any woman), she should be shut out of the other’s life completely. And NO explanation will do. I mean come on john, not even an educational conversation? He’s so hysterical.
According to his logic, let’s list things here that “must have hit a nerve”
1. Rebecca thinking elevator dude was sexist.
2. Makers of SCUM manifesto film.
3. Woman blogger that didn’t want men helping her daughter at preschool during potty time.
4. The SPLC! WOOT!
5. Whack Your Boyfriend
That’s just off the top of my head. Also the downrating of his RW video confirms all his opinions on RW, according to him. There’s more sound logic.
Kyrie:
Which is why when Antz did it recently, I made a point of praising him for it.
Same with MRAL, in fact, but that wasn’t a real apology – but Antz’s one really did (and does) seem genuine.
Off Topic,
But has anyone seem what happened in England lately? Some MRA dudes have attacked a mom’s website for “gender hatred”. This is really weird.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/03/16/fathers4justice-launch-bizarre-attack-on-mumsnet/
Although Mumsnet is technically “a mom’s website”, it’s also massive – according to Wikipedia, they have two million unique users, get five million hits a day and 25,000 new comments are posted daily.
So I strongly doubt that “gender hatred” is being promoted at an editorial level.
In fact, I suspect F4J (which is several orders of magnitude smaller than the Mumsnet user base) have simply targeted them on Mother’s Day hoping for loads of publicity from the ensuing furore.
@Happy
yeah i saw the f4j ad and went to mumsnet to have a peek around to figure out what the fuss was. Time was, as a first time mum, i hung about mumsnet and i don’t remember anything untoward there, just a bunch of parents sharing tips and support. of course, it doesn’t mean because i can’t remember it, it wasn’t there. but…mumsnet? c’mon. i even went to various F4J websites and found nothing.
but of course, mumsnet…misandric title.
I assume this is all just followup misogyny to Elevatorgate, because Rebecca Watson shall forever be tarred with the name of Woman Who Dared To Say Something Made Her Uncomfortable.
So now JtO has qualifications to be diagnosing mental illness or “sociopathic tendencies?
Where did he get these qualifications?
The guy”s just vilifying Watson and I’m getting really fed up with this shit.
@Wetherby
@BigMomma
I guess F4J are a lot like a lotta MRAs – the need for attention is bigger than the dedication to the cause. Who knows. These groups seem to attract the wrong sort of people.
I wish John the Other was possessed by Lucrezia Mongfish. He’d be much more bearable and competent that way.
(+10 web comic reference)
It’s standard operating procedure with F4J – similar stunts have included throwing flour at Tony Blair during a session in the House of Commons, and scaling the walls of Buckingham Palace, something they’re unlikely to repeat after the police made it clear that next time they pulled a stunt like that they’d be shot down.
Just checked out the mumsnet thing. MRAs angry because they aren’t getting custody of the kids. So the relavant point is made that if mom has been the primary caregiver its more likely she’ll get custody if it comes to a dispute.
Beloved has two daughters. He’s turned down good job offers because the commute time would seriously interfere with his ability to care for his children. At his current work, his career has proceeded much more slowly because he refuses to work insane hours and he knows he’ll never get to the top positions. These are sacrifices he’s deliberately made for the well being of his children, and he has an evenly split custody with their mother. Now, why aren’t fathers rights groups fighting to have more reasonable work weeks so they can be more of a presence in their childrens lives? Oh, right, because that would require major re education of the public, a shift in cultural values and many years of fighting to make sure that laws were either changed or enforced. A few decades of work there.
Much easier to vent at parents who’ve made sacrifices in terms of pay and careers to be there for their children.
Actually, what annoys me most about this is that this game is RIGGED.
He lies; people dogpile him. Ergo, HE MUST BE RIGHT! Because he “hit a nerve.” But if he lied and nobody spoke to him, he’d STILL be right, because nobody told him otherwise!
There’s no way to win.
–Rogan
@pillowhell “Beloved has two daughters. He’s turned down good job offers because the commute time would seriously interfere with his ability to care for his children. At his current work, his career has proceeded much more slowly because he refuses to work insane hours and he knows he’ll never get to the top positions. These are sacrifices he’s deliberately made for the well being of his children, and he has an evenly split custody with their mother.”
Just some commentary… this is the life of mothers. Then mothers get taunted for not climbing ladders. So feminism has pushed for equal parenting. That’s what gave me a sick feeling when I ran into MRAs I could not understand why they were saying otherwise regarding feminism, like it was some feminist plot to… and then it sunk in… oh… these guys are abusers. The women’s issues fights become way different when there’s abuse involved. Sure enough. I had met the abuser’s lobby. I still remember that chilling feeling the more I learned. Hit me at different times.