Yesterday, we took a look at Ferdinand Bardamu’s manosphere manifesto “The Necessity of Domestic Violence,” a thoroughly despicable piece of writing that concludes:
Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.
I decided to take a look at Bardamu’s post yesterday after running across a discussion of it in Reddit’s new FeMRA subreddit, a forum ostensibly devoted to what “women can do to advance men’s rights as women.” It’s a strange little subreddit, started by a man and dominated by some of Reddit’s most unsavory MaleMRAs, some of them banned in the regular Men’s Rights subreddit.
Recently one of the most unsavory of the bunch, calling himself JeremiahGuy this time, posted a link to Bardamu’s domestic violence manifesto, which he hosts on his website. Jeremiah naturally used the discussion as an excuse to post more apologias for domestic “discipline” along the lines of the quote from him I featured yesterday.
But I was a little surprised to see GirlWritesWhat, the blabby FeMRA video blogger who’s captured the hearts of Reddit’s Men’s Rights crowd, step into the conversation with something of a defense of Bardamu’s noxious views. After reading Bardamu’s manifesto – the one advocating that men “terrorize” their women to make them behave – GWW blithely concluded:
I don’t really find too much in the article that strikes me as seriously ethically questionable.
Have I taken that remark out of context? Yes. In context, it’s worse. Here’s the entire quote from her, and a further clarification of her position.
She wasn’t the only one in the discussion to get upvotes for suggesting that men slapping women around from time to time isn’t really such a big deal. MaunaLoona (a MaleMRA) wrote:
Lots of MRAs like to pretend that they care about male victims of domestic violence. But the Men’s Rights movement hasn’t done shit for them. And here, I think, is why: too many MRAs are less interested in helping male victims of domestic violence than they are in providing excuses and justifications for male abusers.
Abuser Lobby. /thread
You know, if someone is so terrible that beating them into submission is the only way for you to get along, may I recommend a wild new alternative called NOT DATING THEM?
I am shocked, shocked to find domestic violence apologia coming from GirlWritesWhat and other MRAs!
It’s almost as though they were an abusers’ lobby.
Do the “I’m just here for equality” guys ever feel even the slightest twinge of self-awareness when they see this shit going on?
Yeah I second the “if life with the other person is so miserable or stressful you feel a need to hurt them” its time to go.
Why stay with someone you’re miserable with only to hit them, when there are plenty of people who could be a better match and you won’t need to batter?/end looking through abuser logic
Typical feminists. Men are always wrong, women are never wrong!
/Owly
No, Cliff, no, they do not.
Pillowinhell – I think the reasoning is part “all women are evil, but you can’t live without a woman, so you must be allowed to tame a woman’s evil ways.”
And part the straight-up abuser logic of not wanting a woman who would be good to them without “needing” to be “corrected,” because where’s the power trip in that?
Grammar, they needs it!
Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.
PRONOUN reference error: the “it’s” in the second independent clause (at least the semi-colon is used correctly) by rules for written language SHOULD refer to the most recently used noun (otherwise there’s possibility for real confusion).
Parsing this sentence: WOMEN should be terrorized by THEIR MEN; IT’s (THEIR MEN) is the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps. It’s possible to read it’s as “their men terrorizing women” as the reference, but it would be clearer if the first clause was structured that way.
Stylistically, sneaky use of passive (as opposed to active voice: men should terrorize their women; it’s the only thing…
Now, granted, in spoken English, that would probably fly–there’d be some ambiguity but people can ask. In the written version, to avoid ambiguity and confusion, always check the noun immediately preceding your pronoun, dudes, so avoid this confusion.
Although on a DEEPER meaning level, I agree that men who terrorize are not better than chimps: in fact, they’re probably worse.
And this one: what “women can do to advance men’s rights as women.”
Adverbial phrase FAIL. as.
AHAHAHAHAH: “what women, as women, can do to advance men’s rights” would make sense. But of course, the whole “as woman” phrase is fucking redundant: I mean, really? But by putting the adverbial phrase which as a MODIFIER is supposed to modify “women” (unnecessary but that’s the function!) by “men” it means MEN as women.
There’s a great quote in Dorothy Sayers’ GAUDY NIGHT about how adhering to an extreme ideology or cult (I think in the novel’s case, it was sort of free love/vegetarianism sort of thing) seems to have a deleterious effect on one’s grammar.
Yes, I’m focusing on the grammar because otherwise, the fact that these people are coldbloodedly going around justifying and supporting men abusing women would make my head explode, and I need my head for a working lunch.
I promise: working lunch (linguists and me discussing our grants).
NOT A POWER LUNCH OMG NO!
What the sweet crazy fuck has happened to this person’s mind? A smack here and there is fine because it prevents massive beatings like in the movies? Ok, never mind actual figures on the escalating nature of domestic violence, but since when is a little dehuminizing abuse here and there alright? Keep the felonies small and they don’t count as felonies? Jeeezuuz
Not a bit, Cliff.
Cute that this subreddit was created by a dude for “women can do to advance men’s rights as women.” Did he never get over his mommy not doing everything for him?
MaunaLoona: sexual violence (such as refusing her sex)
Wat
Yeah, it’s funny how women don’t like to be hit or coerced into compliance and like to be treated like adults not children or property. I can’t imagine why that might be? /sarcasm
Again with this “corrective punishment” BULLSHIT.
Also, one thing that anti-feminists fail to explain is the very clear statistic that since the rise in shelters and domestic violence awareness for the past 40 years, the incidence of women killing their spouses has PLUMMETED. That’s right — there is a very clear correlation between the rise in resources for women to leave abusive relationships and the drop in spousal homicides by women. When women have the choice and the opportunity to leave, they do. That puts a bit of a hole in her theory that women in abusive relationships are simply violent people who are addicted to the abuse.
But otherwise, I can’t believe that it’s 2012 and we have mainstream people actually arguing that contraception is morally wrong and that women need to be smacked around a bit to keep them in line. Fucking regressive troglodytes.
Go your own fucking way already.
Why do these people think anybody should have to live this way, with yelling and screaming and punching and killing?
Possibly because the cult leader may not be the most strict grammarian around?
I don’t remember that quote. I think I find that Sayers gets kind of impenetrable to me, and my eyes glaze over. I’m currently not-reading The Nine Tailors, and I have discovered that I should have assumed the world of church-bell-ringing is as full of little technical details and experts upon such as anything I would care to name, and of course that’s going to be central to the plot.
I think my favorite Wimseys are the short stories.
I’m pretty sure this ain’t the kind we’re worried about.
Right?
So GirlWritesWhat thinks she’s given us an example of a functional, mutually beneficial relationship? WTF is her definition of a bad relationship?
@clairedammit: I guess the trite answer to your rhetorical question would be that GWW thinks a bad relationship is one in which the woman is not hit on a regular basis … because she doesn’t ever think that her idea of what women are like could be wrong, and abusers are not abusive because of what women do.
@Tulgey & Molly Moon
It can definitely be used abusively in LTRs, so it’s come up in discussions about abusive relationships, but “withholding sex can be used abusively” /= “withholding sex is abuse”
@Cliff
They also like to use the so-called “divorce/child support/alimony industry” to “justify” their abuse (see MaunaLoona’s post). As always, abusers lobby.
Oh for fuck’s sake…
How do they account for the number of happy long-term relationships where arguments are resolved by cooling off then discussing the problem rationally?
Also, if these people get so angry they need to hit something, there are plenty of safe options. Punching bags. Pillows. Boxing pads. Walls. If you ‘need’ to hit a person or other living creature then there is clearly more than just anger and frustration at work!
“corrective physical contact”
That gets described as violence for the excellent reason that it is violence.
For fuck’s sake, people! Women do not require percussive maintenance! Hitting people never helps! THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT.
@Shadow:
So withholding sex can be abusive; does that make it violent?
So her argument is that it’s not “ethically questionable” to beat people up if a) it gets them to shut up and do what you want, and b) you enjoy it. Lord, I wish that were an original argument I was just seeing for the first time now.
Also, women should learn martial arts…so they can toughen up and take more abuse. Okay, I admit it, that’s a new one to me. Good to know that the bruises on my shoulders from learning defensive rolls last night won’t go waste; now dudes can punch me on the shoulder extra hard!
So if my boyfriend’s wrong, and I’m right, do I get to “correct” him?
…I really don’t want to. 🙁