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.
Andre: A troll is a person who hides beside a persona – a caricature. GWW is not that. Such people are a rarity. All that caricatures can see are other caricatures. They hope that everyone is the same as them, but that is not the case.
A troll is a person who writes to cause drama. As to the “doesn’t trivialise anything”. She says she doesn’t see anything ethically questionable in abusing your partners.
That’s a bit trivialising.
Nota bene; it’s hide behind, not hide beside.
p.s. Why the return to a dead thread? Is there some need to get the last word in? Do you think you can make it seem you had an argument so telling no one would be able to respond; in the theory no one would notice?
p.p.s. If you want to convince us you are fond of originality, and a bastion of original thought, stretch yourself and take the effort needed to not repeat the same; banal, attempt at cutting retort.
Andre: I think he knows he’s being dishonest. In fact, I’m certain of it.
Based on what? Your personal knowldege of him? Or your opinion that GWW is some sort of paragon; ergo anyone who disagrees with her is either stupid or dishonest?
There is a contest, but you would need to think outside your box. Everything you need to know you already know. You merely need to know it better. Lol, you and Cassandra make a good tag team.
So… this is your idea of what, “A well constructed argument?”.
I was wrong, you’d do better sticking to the cut and paste. That at least would make it seem you were (perhaps) engaging in bored disdain.
As it is, all I can conclude is you think complicated verbiage = complex thought. That, actually, might explain the reason you have such a little bundle of “intellectual” lust for GWW.
Please, oh wise Andre, explain to me how I may become more enlightened. Long hours have I spent dreaming of cock, ere I set such thoughts aside for more pressing business, and thought I had understood how cock was not all there was to life. But now I learn that even in mocking misogyny, I show myself enthralled by sex.
How may I be free? Use small words and speak plain, for I am unskilled with metaphor.
So, Andre, “neg”ing Cassandrasays , how’s that Game going for yuh?
PS What does your hat look like? So we can get the full picture?
@Nepenthe. “How can it be a mutual masturbation society if I’m alone and wearing pants? I signed up for wanking people! Let’s get this party started!”
Just for a moment I thought you were going to start something wholesome there, and then you went and spoilt it all. Sad. I would have left you to party with your friends whichever way. Be nice to each other. Bye.
Sorry* to disappoint Andre. I can’t speak for anyone else here, but the only thing “wholesome” *snort* about me is my breakfast cereal.
*Not actually sorry.
Wholesome now means giving something to Andre to wank over, does it?
Look Andre, there are plenty of places on the net featuring people wanking for your voyeuristic pleasure. This is not one of them.
And yes, we totally understand how smug and superior you feel compared to the regulars here. Can you move on to another topic please?
Andre: You are going on about wholesome? Let me refresh your memory about the OP.
“I also think it would be good for women to take boxing or karate or some other form of training… it would demonstrate that being hit isn’t going to break them into little pieces.”
That’s the woman you are crushing on saying women need to train up, so they can take the beatings men hand out with equanimity.
That’s what you call wholesome.
That was after she said, I don’t really find too much in the article that strikes me as seriously ethically questionable.
in response to
Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.
That’s what you call wholesome.
That’s what you praise; as you denigrate people having fun together as “not wholesome”.
Your value system… is fucked up.
Wait, is he Pell or not? I want to know if I should be updating the biography as I read back.
It lacks the arrogance of Pell, IMO. Also, he’s not made any stupid claims about medicine/psychology.
So I’d hold off.
Do we know GWW’s actual first name? I feel like there’s a parody of “Pictures of Lily” to be written here, but I don’t want to have to keep working “girlwriteswhat” into it.
In all the Pell sightings I’ve been here for, he couldn’t seem to resist tearing of the mask once there was serious suspicion that it was him. If it is Pell, this “who, me?” act seems like a new trick.
I think the point of her comment was:
“We shouldn’t have such kneejerk hysterical reactions to the idea that couples will get tense, frustrated and mad with each other and have slapfights from time to time, because women are in fact strong and capable people who aren’t made of chalk and who won’t break at the slightest knock”
I don’t think she’s defending male abusers, she’s not saying:
“It’s okay to beat a defenceless woman to a pulp for not cooking your dinner because women are stupid and deserve it”
But this article is about knee-jerk reaction… and also quoting some mouth-breather who thinks it is okay to slap his wife for not making dinner.
@Anon, that makes sense. She has said before on her blog that she believes women treated like children and protected too much. He didn’t batter her, the point was that he was just fed up and that slap was an effective way to shut her up.
From her account, I’m assuming the woman was the one having a tantrum, but it was the man who initiated physical contact. I don’t see why you would answer words with a slap/punch, doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man. And even if you were hit first, it doesn’t justify the ‘an eye for an eye’ mentality unless you have your back against the wall. It gets you nowhere. Walking (or running) away is always better. A reciprocally abusive relationship doesn’t adequately justify the constant exchange of blows, even you have ‘scorching’ make-up sex and reconcile again afterwards. If two people can’t sit down and translate their emotions into words, and it happens time and time again, then the make-up sex is just a bandaid and perhaps the relationship is not worth pursuing.
If only it were the often the case that people in abusive relationships are capable of leaving their partners instead of believing that they’re being hit because they’re loved. It’s hard to tell. How far should we let things go, listening in on our neighbours, before deciding it’s OK to intervene?
I realise this is a dead post but after reading it and the comments I can’t resist pointing a few things out:
1. GWW is being abused because she’s hasn’t immediately gone against this article. What she said was that she saw no ‘serious ethical issue’, not that she supported it whole-heartedly. Also the lack of serious ethical issues was from men lashing out due to heavy antagonizing, not to men beating their women to keep them in line and from behaving like chimps as manboobz implies. Obviously there is a serious ethical issue with anyone hitting anyone except in a clear-cut case of self-defence, but I feel like GWW is copping it for more than she said.
2. Have any of you, including manboobz, actually read the book? I haven’t, so I can’t know exactly what it says, yet you all seem happy to accept a paraphrase from someone who deliberately wants to paint it in as horrible light as possible and may not have even read it. For all I know it is as bad as manboobz says, but I feel the need to take his critique with a grain of salt.
3. Thinking back I’m fairly certain that I’ve been hit/slapped at least once by every female partner I’ve had, and not for anything major. And in society in general, it’s considered fine, even funny, for a women to slap a man. This book and GWW are suggesting that men should be able to as well when they feel heavily offended and harassed, and that very idea is instantly seen as barbaric and horrible? I happen to believe no one should be slapping or hitting anyone, regardless of gender, but there appears to be a double standard here, and an entrenched view that women are weak and should be protected simply because they are women.
4. In regards to GWW’s personal example, someone said that the man was the one who initiated physical contact. This is debatable as the woman was throwing things at the man. And when you’ve seen your mum put your dad in hospital by pegging a paper weight at his head, this raises some serious questions. Even getting hit with a shoe can easily hurt more than a hit or slap. I’m not advocating for retaliation, yet you all seem eager to put the responsibility on a person not to hit back, as opposed to stopping the original violence. Surely this is a problem more easily stopped at the source.
Thanks, and I look forward to your replies
What book are you referring to in #2?
This is not a universal experience. Pretty sure this is not even a common experience. I, for one, have never hit (nor been hit by) any partner during a fight.
1. GWW isn’t being abused, she’s being criticized. But if you consider criticism to be abuse or antagonization, I guess you’d be okay with GWW “lashing out” and hitting us? Look, it’s really simple: Someone who doesn’t have any ethical problem with violence as a response to emotional abuse is … ethically challenged. Note that I am not gendering this. It isn’t about not hitting women; it’s about not being a violent abuser.
2. You haven’t said what book, and you haven’t read it. In general, David links to the stuff he’s quoting so anyone can check. But if you yourself haven’t read it, you don’t really have grounds to challenge his credibility, do you?
3. I’m sorry that has happened to you. Feminists are generally opposed to people hitting people. You certainly won’t find people advocating or downplaying female violence here (except for the trolls).
4. Again, no one here is in favor of violence on either person’s part. The ethical thing to do in a situation where your partner is throwing things at you is to get out of the situation, not to hit your partner. Retaliation is not self-defense.
Translation: She didn’t say that it’s okay; she just said that there’s nothing wrong with it!
I really hope you don’t believe that you’re making a coherent point here.
Of course – that is, if you think that unwarranted violence is acceptable. The only violence acceptable is violence solely in self-defense (as in, using force to stop someone from harming you).
Please do not trivialize abuse by comparing it to criticism. I read that first line in 1 and I knew you were an asshole.
Oh I’m referring to boomerang guy, not you Aaliyah.
@auggziliary
No worries! I didn’t misinterpret your comment.
First off in #2 I was talking about the manifesto GWW was defending. I misread and thought it was a book sorry. I have since read parts of it, and am very happy to agree with what manboobz has said. When I questioned his summary it was due to the ease at which people can misrepresent things, and since he has a clear bias I was sceptical it would really be that bad. It pretty much was. She certainly shouldn’t have defended that article in any way, and I’m still suprised that she did. Most normal MRA’s wouldn’t support it (I hope), and having said that I would like to point out that David says its mostly extremists who frequent that subreddit, and hope you don’t lump all MRA’s in with people who support domestic violence. Again I was wrong in points 1 and 2, and I should probably do some more research and think it over next time haha.
As to the contention over the word ‘abuse’, I read back through this article and the comments you’re completely right once again, there is nothing here that classes as abuse. I came to this article after seeing another one similar on freethought and reading the comments on that. In that article the comments were definitely what I would define as abuse as opposed to criticism, the difference in my mind being personal attacks as opposed to attacking her view. I should have differentiated between what was said in each article, and I’m sorry.
Although to @auggziliary, seriously? Abuse has many different meanings and levels. Using it, even if I was ‘comparing it to critisicm”, is not trivialising it. By using it where I did, even wrongly, I am in no way trivialising real abuse happening in the real world, and I’m confused how you can even think I was and relate the two.
@cloudiah, in 4 I don’t mean to support retaliation and you’re completely right, in those situations its best for people to leave. I just feel we should be aiming to stop anyone who initiates violence. As opposed to currently, which is very close to saying persecute men, no matter what. What I mean by this is that ads are constantly gender specific, and that men make up 96% of the defendants in cases of domestic violence ( http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvs02.pdf on page 2 right column near bottom). And no statistics anywhere say 96% of domestic violence is initiated and done by men*. As you say, its about not being a violent abuser, regardless of gender.
@Aaliyah, I agree with you and I actually say that in my original post. By stopping it at the source I meant stopping violence from ever occurring. If it never occurred, retaliation would be a mute point
*There are still a lot of damning statistics about men and domestic violence and I’m not trying to say its not a serious problem.
Thanks
If you can find an MRA blocg or site that doesn’t explicitly or implicitly support domestic abuse, we’ll be happy to live up to your hopes. Good luck on that one.
Words have meanings, context has implications, intent isn’t magic. Re-read what you wrote and think about that a little, before getting arse-y.