This was posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day, with the headline: “Saw this today and I suppose that’s where we’re headed.” It’s gotten 556 upvotes, last I checked. (Those are net upvotes: it got 848 upvotes, 292 downvotes.) This is the world that a lot of MRAs, and Redditors in general, think they live in.
A handful of Redditors, like this one, objected to the hysteria:
Notice the downvotes.
Amazingly, one of the few voices of reason to emerge in the whole discussion (besides that downvoted commenter and serveral others) turned out to be none other than Pierce Harlan of the False Rape Society (now called Community of the Wrongly Accused). While not averse to spreading misinformation about rape and false rape accusations himself, he argued in a comment (and in a similarly worded blog post) that this kind of raving hysteria wasn’t helpful, concluding:
The delicate balance that commands us to punish rapists while not punishing the innocent is extremely serious business. We need more sober, more adult, more serious voices to be part of the public discourse. The last thing we need is more Chicken Little hysteria, no matter which side it’s coming from.
I’m guessing the upvotes he got for his comment must have come from visitors from his blog, because up until he posted that comment the few dissenters were mostly being dismissed.
The Men’s Rights subreddit: Waxing hysterical about imaginary oppressions since March 2008.
Traumatic amnesia is incredibly common and happens to lots of people, not just women. My brother was hit by a car when he was a teenager and he can remember up until the car was a few feet away and the next thing he remembers is being in the ambulance even though everyone on the scene says he never lost consciousness and was talking to the the whole time (though not very coherently, he couldn’t remember our phone number).
Her stuff isn’t just concentrated, most of it is obviously delusional and it’s presented in a disjointed jumble. She’s completely incoherent. It’s not about discounting hatred, it’s about realizing what’s going on in this particular case. If that woman is actively psychotic (and I think that appears to be the case) then she isn’t culpable for her words and actions. She’s literally not in her right mind. That’s why the insanity defense exists in criminal law.
I’m also enraged at the rampant and overt homophobia in the United States, but it’s lawmakers and sane people who should know better who are culpable for it. I’m not saying all homophobic ranting comes from people who are psychotic so we should just let them off the hook. Just that I feel bad about how this particular woman has been put on blast because she clearly doesn’t have a handle on her own thoughts and actions.
Manjaw, my daughter has the same sort of disjointed writing. She has central auditory processing disorder. She used to speak the same way as well. Speech therapists sometimes call it a word salad. That’s not insanity, its simply neural wiring that doesn’t work the way most peoples does. This woman clearly intended to spew vile shit in a public forum, but doesn’t have the means to do so in a polished or educated sounding manner.
@Cassandra — to be fair, Ruby on Rails is kind of terrifying, but I’d assume most people think that. Much prefer PHP myself. (Then again, anything JS/C like makes my head spin, and I *like* PHP, which is apparently weird.)
@NWO —
We’re waiting, and I for one am truly curious wtf you’ve got, given I already tried being pedantic about it and came up empty handed. So please, do share these laws.
Maybe that’s the case. I could be wrong. But word salad is also a symptom of schizophrenia. Most of the content of the woman’s rant is clearly delusional, so I still tentatively assume she’s psychotic.
The Mens’ Rights subreddit has been around since 2008?! Oh wowww….
Word salads are also indicative of stroke victims. But the gods aweful truth is that I’ve heard what she’s saying coming from the mouths of real live sane people who honestly believe the shit they say. The same people also post blogs about it.
Ugh, that shirt is awful.
And good for you, FelixBC!
Hugs for you!
Oh, I know sane people say shit like that too. 🙁
I found this story about the woman in question:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/324763
@felixBC, you should have asked him ‘why’? but not to start a dialogue. It’s because having to explain the asshole humor makes him look like an asshole.
“I don’t get your T-shirt?”
“Uh, it means dead women can’t say no.”
“Okay, but why is that funny?”
“*mumble*”
CassandraSays once briliantly suggested all Slavey posts should just be replied to with nyancat. Can I suggest they be replied to with this as well?
This is certainly how I like to picture the delivery of most NWO posts anyway, tracksuit, jaunty soundtrack and all. It takes the edge off the sheer nastiness of his posts. 🙂
Also, I watched that video, and I think Pillowinhell might be right about that woman having some sort of literacy/speech disorder.
Mythago, that is an excellent 3rd path. Now if I can only learn to keep my anger/red flag!redflag! reactions in check enough to approach with that level of humour instead. Devious and effective, if done right. Next time! Real life trolls beware.
As much as that video hurt my brain, it doesn’t sound incoherent enough to be word salad — they’re all real words, they even make some sense — she could have a literacy/reading disorder, or be mentally ill, but it’s not sounding like word salad to me. (Admittedly I only have an undergrad psych degree though.)
And Wipeout is one of my guilty pleasures, the worst injury I’ve seen was a sprain. Certainly nothing that could be mistaken for death or serious injury. Lol, I just switched back to watching the video long enough to see the guy behind her mouth “I know right” across the aisle, I wish the camera had caught wtf he was responding to.
It the news story I linked to, it states that the woman has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
*In
Yes, she is under protection, they interview her brother. I hope people mock her ideas relentlessly, but for their content, not her mental health status. (yeah I know, unlikely.) But maybe this video is going viral because it shows so well how ridiculous, and paranoid, homophobia sounds. Mitt Romney in front of 30,000 cheering fans at Liberty “university”, who raised the roof applauding “marriage should be only between a man and a woman”, that’s only a degree or two less awful than what she was saying.
That amendment to “protect” marriage in NC? It also bans all domestic partnerships and the benefits that might apply to such unions, like healthcare and visitation rights, including for adopted children. Really, healthcare for kids. If her rant makes a few more people realize that homophobia is a poison, then hurrah for going viral.
I have this same thought pretty much every time I browse that subreddit.
An MRA discovers Charlie’s Angels:
http://leasthelpful.com/post/22903178750/basically-triumph-of-the-will-but-for-girls
(Mostly I’m just jumping at the chance to plug the site it comes from, which is pretty hilarious.)
Having now read the other article, I kind of feel bad for her. America’s mental health system really is terribly broken.
“I hope people mock her ideas relentlessly, but for their content, not her mental health status. (yeah I know, unlikely.)” — considering it’s standard to mock “crazy conservatives” I seriously doubt that’ll happen.
Here’s a cooler version of NWO:
http://nyanwaits.com/
@hellkell
The resemblance is downright uncanny. Are we sure that ISN’T him?
When I saw the title I thought you’d found the first MRA chain letter
And now when an MRA hears about a women being raped, or about a man accused of rape, they’ll think “Oh, well men can be convicted of rape just for being alone with a women, so it’s probably false. I know this because Reddit says so”
MRAs: Working to discredit rape victims since 2008.
If you can read this, and we’re alone
we could play scrabble! or
you could be legally convicted of rape. or
you could be legally convicted of breaking and entering. or
you could be legally convicted of pandering.
you could get drool on you from the dood wearing this shirt.