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GirlWritesWhat on “The Necessity of Domestic Violence”: “I don’t really find too much [that’s] seriously ethically questionable.”

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.

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cloudiah
11 years ago

Lesson of the day: It might be a good idea to read things before commenting on them.

Also, since most people point to the MensRights subreddit as an example of the MODERATE wing of the MRM, I hope boomerang guy will enlighten us as to who the “real” moderates are.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

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.

Yes, you are, or you wouldn’t be tap-dancing around trying to minimize it.

goodrumo
11 years ago

Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.

Boomerang guy
Boomerang guy
11 years ago

I get the feeling you’re all intent on thinking the worst of me and any MRA’s out there. The vast majority of people on the MRA subreddit don’t advocate for domestic violence, and are in fact explicitly against it. Since it is a public forum there will always be the occasional idiots who say things, but they’re not supported. Even David, very anti-MRM, said that the people on the subreddit hes talking about, who are supporting this article, are often banned in the normal one. There are idiots in every movement. If you go searching for the worst in MRAs though, chances are you’ll find it. I often find articles accusing men’s sites of supporting violence when they say that women are equally responsible for violence as men. Agree or disagree, to say they are supporting DV is unfair. They are in fact fighting against the little seen side of violence against men. Not as much of a problem as violence against women, but its still there. On any men’s rights site there will be always be things you disagree with, hell there are things I disagree with to some degree on many of them. Just like I disagree with plenty of stuff on feminism sites. Try reading this site and freethought from a MRA’s perspective. Its bloody confronting. That doesn’t mean they’re entirely wrong, or that I judge it all on the occasional thing that goes to far. I hope you can do the same with the MRM.

As for me getting ‘arse-y’, yes. Cloudiah pointed out that it wasn’t actually abuse, rather criticism, and I agreed I had used the word wrongly.
Auggziliary on the other hand has clearly decided to imply that my pure intention (which you say shouldn’t matter) was to trivialize abuse, as a way to demonize me, discredit anything I said and force a reaction out of me. Which, unfortunately, worked. Because if I’m trivializing abuse, I am clearly an asshole and therefore none of my views or opinions hold any weight. Reading my original comment again, there is zero sense that I am trivializing abuse, and a complete sense that I have referred to criticism as abuse, mistakenly though there was no way of knowing that. To make the link they have they have assumed my intentions and my meaning. You have too. If auggziliary truly wanted to help in any meaningful way, they would have done something very similar to Cloudiah. Pointed it out in a reasonable manner as opposed to attacking me. I’m suprised they’re getting support, if I was to swear at any of you for any reason there would be instant backlash.

Cloudiah, I know and I’ve taken that lesson on board. I already admitted that I should have read more, and apologized. No need to rub it in haha, my pride and my faith in a prominent MRA has already been shattered 😛

To hellkell, no, thats not my aim at all. I’m saying that I wish anti-violence propaganda and law wasn’t so gender specific. As a man I feel I’m constantly being told that my gender is violent and psychotic and purely to blame. Obviously there are more women injured from domestic violence than there are men. And this is reflected in the very large amount of funding and focus to try and prevent it. For instance, all the mainstream media spotlight on it, the current anti-violence campaigns, the VAWA, battered women’s shelters etc. I agree its a problem, I also think its getting most of the support and attention it needs, and wish we would widen the lens a bit to include that sub-set of violence against men. You may disagree. If so, I would like to hear why.

Thanks, and I look forward to your replies.

Examples of the more reasonable MRM sites:
the spearhead
drivenawayfather.blogspot.com
mensrights.com.au
http://www.menstuff.org

This is a rather interesting (not saying that it is necessarily correct) article which outlines problems of and is rather critical of both the MRM and feminism.
http://ozconservative.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/what-is-wrong-with-mens-rights-movement.html

Boomerang guy
Boomerang guy
11 years ago

Wow just realised how long that was. Sorry guys

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

The Spearhead is reasonable? Um…

Nepenthe
Nepenthe
11 years ago

Examples of the more reasonable MRM sites:
the spearhead

And now after you say that, I realize that you are non-credible to the point where if you came in the door drenched and told me it was raining outside, I would go to a window before believing you.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

“That’s not rain, it’s from the bucket that you poured over your own head while screaming about how the feminist court system runs around dumping water on people because of misandry.”

Howard Bannister
11 years ago

For reference: http://manboobz.com/category/the-spearhead/

All posts tagged The Spearhead, here on Manboobz.

A sampling: transphobia, “put single mothers in whorehouses to pay their debts to society,” more transphobia, defending rapists, claiming that astronaut Sally Ride proves women shouldn’t be astronauts, saying we shouldn’t educate women, defending Eivind Berge’s threats against policemen…

It goes on and on and on and on.

Awesome first choice!!! Totally reasonable. (the other troll on the other thread said we should stop citing them as they’re so far outside normal MRA stuff that they’re the violent fringe… would you like to have a chat with him?)

cloudiah
11 years ago

All the Manboobz stories on the Spearhead link back to the Spearhead. Go read the original source material (when it hasn’t been deleted), and get back to us on how reasonable they are.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

The Spearhead is reasonable? Oh, fuck off.

Amnesia
Amnesia
11 years ago

From the Oz Conservative Link:

This leads to the odd situation of feminists arriving at MRA websites, liking what they read, proposing a grand alliance with the MRM, before being angrily chased away by the MRAs.

LOLWUT?

Yeah, the only link that might be worth delving into a little further is the Menstuff link, and I’m not sure that really identifies as part of the MRM. The web design makes me cringe, though. Does it look that bad on anyone else’s computer?

cloudiah
11 years ago

menstuff seems to be a sort of collector page for links about men’s issues; I didn’t read everything, but it seems harmless at first glance.

drivenawayfather seems to be another divorced dad complaining about paying child support and saying that his ex is trying to alienate their kid from him. Child support is apparently actually welfare for the mother. Given the fact that as a general rule child support isn’t even close to the amount actually necessary to cover the costs of raising a child, and that even when ordered it is frequently not provided, yeah, well I think the guys credibility is shot. When given the choice, the dude’s son elected to stop seeing his dad, which might be because the ex alienated him from his father, or it might be because his dad was a bitter, angry person. We only get to see one side from the blog.

Radical Parrot
Radical Parrot
11 years ago

Here’s the thing, Boomerang guy. The MRM identifies as an anti-feminist “human rights” group. Google Men’s movement to find a movement focusing on men’s issues while being pro-feminist. You can’t really identify as a human’s rights group while being anti-feminist, since it means either you a) believe gender issues are not relevant issues in social justice issues regarding human rights today, or b) you don’t think women are people. Hint: Trick question: Both are incorrect.

Briznecko
Briznecko
11 years ago

I can’t track down many excerpts, but this is one of recommended texts on Menstuff: How to Date Young Women for Men over 35

http://www.amazon.com/How-Date-Young-Women-Over/dp/product-description/0962067156/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Some choice quotes:

I explain how to make your fantasies come true but right now that’s exactly what they are, fantasies. You are going to learn how young women think, what’s important to them and what they want from a man. You’ll know what you have to be and look like to attract her.

Physical Danger. She thinks you could be the Night Stalker’s brother or a dirty old man trying to cop a feel. Being relaxed and friendly makes it possible for her to see you’re safe. You do this with women. Young women just take longer. But it isn’t how much longer it takes her. The real problem is your lust, your excitement, your impatience, your lack of confidence, your fear of rejection. These combine, causing you to radiate bad vibrations. She picks them up and thinks you could be very dangerous, at which point she says, “Later, old man,” with or without words…The problem is not her fear, it’s you but not your emotions. You haven’t mastered the art of being casual.
One element of her motivation is the desire to be seriously bleeped, the way she’s heard it’s supposed to be done. As you now know her best experience does not begin to measure up to what she’s heard from other girls, read in Cosmopolitan or seen in the movies. And, “fer sure,” there is the stereotype of older men as knowledgeable, experienced lovers.

She knows there must be more to it. But this is one of her darkest, most closely held secrets, slightly behind masturbating and feeling terribly lonely. She fantasizes what a “real man” would do with her. If she’s a bit drunk she talks to her closest girl friend about what it should be like. Don’t get this wrong. She’s not obsessed with sex but wonders if she’s missing something important.

So far her boyfriend’s best efforts aren’t much. He wants his bleep sucked all the time. He’s reluctant to give her bleep and has no idea a bleep isn’t a miniature bleep, if he even knows where it is. He lasts two minutes after entering her. She and her contemporaries know, on some level, there’s more to it.

Uh…I think I would like to go shower now.

Also, the Menstuff web design is awful.

Amnesia
Amnesia
11 years ago

@cloudiah
Yeah, the drivenawayfather sounds like an unreliable narrator to me. I mean there’s the one post about having to pay medical bills for his son and how they’re so expensive because they’re uninsured and all that, which totally raises my “You’re not telling the whole story” eyebrow. Like, the fact that the kid’s uninsured. Probably means the ex doesn’t have a good job/s. Probably means she’s struggling to make ends meet as it is, and the whole uninsured=emergency room visits link is pretty well established.

Also, I notice he really doesn’t talk about how much he could use the money he’s spending on child support/medical bills. Like, I don’t know, “I had to chose between eating something other than ramen for a week and paying my son’s medical bill,” or “Hopefully my landlord understands why I can’t make the payment on time again,” or “I haven’t been able to see a doctor for myself in years,” or “Guess I’ll have to wait another payday to get the washer fixed,” or “So much for being able to go back and take those college classes like I’d hoped.” Not that people aren’t allowed to have leisure money/savings, it’s just when you say someone’s bleeding you dry, it helps to provide examples.

auggziliary
auggziliary
11 years ago

Boomerang guy, yes you were trivializing abuse. Comparing someone getting criticism to abuse is trivializing abuse. What part of this was not clear?
Also, I called you an asshole because you were being an asshole. Thats part of criticism. deal with it, apologize and correct yourself, or tell me why you think i wrongly called you out. Generally speaking, people know not to compare something like earned criticism to DV. I’m sorry if you didn’t know that saying that trivializes abuse, but hey, not my problem.

TL;DR: I really don’t care if you feel bad being called out. You act like an ass and I will call you on it.

katz
11 years ago

From the Menstuff site:

Visitors have called us “Easy on the eyes”, “Like reading a good book”. At Menstuff®, we keep our graphics to the minimum so you can load pages faster, get to information quicker and be saved from the constant scrolling offers and flashing banners. We figure people come here for information, not to sign up for a credit card or refinance their home. (The exception happens if you use one of the search engines where we have no control.)

But not, apparently, saved from animated gifs, inconsistent font faces and colors, ugly tables and frames (come on people, frames sucked even in the 90s), garish and poorly-placed pictures, and a pop-up malware installer.

Aaliyah
11 years ago

@Boomerang Guy

Um…the fact that some people get banned on r/mr for being bigots doesn’t change the fact that most of the subtle bigotry, at the very least, is still overlooked. Also, those websites you’re linking to are horrible.

Also, you’re missing the rampant abuse apologia among most MRAs.

dariancase
11 years ago

Reblogged this on dariancase.

Aphrodite
Aphrodite
11 years ago

Abuse can come in many forms. Shouting, nagging throwing things like what that women did is abuse. Emotional abuse is just as destructive as physical abuse. If a woman snaps, you say the man deserved it, if a man snaps due to abuse from his wife “misogyny!”.

@cloudiah “

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.

Does that mean you have a problem with that Indian lady who set her abusive husband on fire? Does that mean you have a problem with women attacking their abusers? Or does this only apply to men? A victim will lash out. Stop trying to make a the REAL abuser a protected species.

Ally S
11 years ago

Abuse can come in many forms. Shouting, nagging throwing things like what that women did is abuse. Emotional abuse is just as destructive as physical abuse. If a woman snaps, you say the man deserved it, if a man snaps due to abuse from his wife “misogyny!”.

Uh, emotional abuse can be as destructive as physical abuse, but not always. Your generalization doesn’t help any victim. Also no one here has said that it’s only okay for women to strike back at their abusers. At least read the thread before you make stupid accusations.

Nor is anyone trying to make abusers a “protected species” – it’s just that we want to be internally consistent. If it’s wrong to commit non-defensive violence against another human being, it’s always wrong – whether the victim is an abuser or not. The ethical inconsistency you espouse is dangerous and explains why many MRAs are so morally bankrupt.

cloudiah
11 years ago

Does that mean you have a problem with that Indian lady who set her abusive husband on fire? Does that mean you have a problem with women attacking their abusers? Or does this only apply to men? A victim will lash out. Stop trying to make a the REAL abuser a protected species.

Thanks for your question.

I know this is hard for you, but some of us are capable of being ethically consistent. I have no idea what “Indian lady” you’re talking about, but as a general rule I am opposed to people setting other people on fire, without regard to gender. I also think both genders have a right to self defense, fairly narrowly defined. I think psychological abuse is terrible, but it never creates a right to physically abuse someone. It seems you think the “REAL abuser” is the person who is psychologically abusing someone, and the person who then physically “lashes out” is the real victim. It seems that you are the one who is trying to make a real abuser a protected species here, not I.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

“Nagging” is abuse? Yeah, you’re credible.

Alice Sanguinaria
11 years ago

To abuse apologist: As someone who knows what emotional abuse is like, fuck off.