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.
Okay Boring Guy, I’m a super for eighty units. I have had tenants with DV going on. This is what I’ve seen…
3 am..the Loving Couple fighting it out again. They routinely have loud, obnoxious and public fights in front of the building. Everyone hears them. They then take it indoors, where crashing banging cursing and pleas for help (on both sides) are heard. A bylaw officer and I are standing in front of their apartment, where’s its clearly seen that he’s on top of her and beating the crap outta her. Bylaw officer and I are terrified she’s about to die. Police called to assist. Bylaw officer can do nothing in this situation except observe, because he does not have authority to enter the home.
Police arrive some time later (it felt like forever). Couple had stopped fighting a short while back. Both claim it was just a loud argument. No visible bruises can be seen on either of them so police make no arrests. They get a ticket for making noise liable to disturb the reasonable enjoyment of other tenants. And the police are at the unit multiple times a week for this.
Another couple, another fight. Their screeching at each other out front. He does a judo throw and tosses her head first into the ground. She doesn’t so much as twitch while he walks off down the street. Police are called. Tey are there within seconds of her reviving to chase her boyfriend down the street throwing curses at him. At first, they go to arrest him based on what I and another tenant witness, and then she takes a swing at a cop. She goes to jail and they are both wailing how much they love each other as the cops pull away.
Third instance, tenant lives next door to me. She has a husband who she split with, but he’s there practically every day. One night they have a really nasty argument I can hear wherever I go in my apartment. I can hear every word. Neither of them has pretty things to say. Then, because the daughter came home with a friend, hubby decides to beat his wife because she reminds him that its her house, she pays the rent and if he doesn’t want company he can go to his own place.
Enter two girls, more than accustomed to this shit going on sitting in my apartment at three am while I try to find them somewhere safe to stay. Cops arrived (I have a duty to report) but hubby stays because the girls and the wife say its just a misunderstanding. The cops know what’s going on, and they know why the girls and wife aren’t talking, but there are no visible bruises and so no ability to charge the abuser.
In all of these instances, the couples involved were evicted because other tenants complained. In the end, it was the far slower process of getting them tossed out rather than police locking them up that got there first.
To be fair, I think one could get a sense of who was doing the stamping, door slamming, and throwing by getting a sense of their location from their voice. If you hear someone screaming and stomping their feet directly above you, and another more distant voice, and something breaking in another direction, I think one could get a sense of what was going on. I don’t know for sure, but it seems intuitively possible to me.
Who the initiator was, however, one could not necessarily tell. Maybe the woman in the story was screaming and throwing objects because he hit her in the first place.
Well, sure you do, Confirmation Bias Man. When you only see what you want, that will happen. Sorry we didn’t all fall out telling you how right you are.
Lawgirl, I can’t even with you.
@ Some Guy- I took gww’s quotes as they were, and as they were they were deplorable enough. I suspect you have found yourself in contradiction and are regrouping at some old standby complaints- David has cherry picked quotes and there is DV against men, too!! The quote is in a pretty clear and easy to interpret block of text, Guy, and if her point was simply DV against men is bad, you would have gotten a resounding ‘hear hear’ and ‘no shit’. But no, her point is this DV against this woman was justified. And you seem to be slipping into that territory in your attempt to defend her completely indefensible position. Free pro-tip- you want to fight dv against men, don’t do it by defending dv against women.
Bored guy, no one here is excusing abuse but you. If one partner, male or female, is yelling and throwing things (in general, not at the other person), it is not “self defense” to hit them. The original partner IS being abusive, arguably, but you don’t get to physically abuse a verbally abusive partner. I know you really really want him to be able to hit her, and you’d love to pretend there’s a feminist justification for it, but you’re just wrong.
That was a cute skunk, thanks Falconer.
Ah, Noadi said what I said earlier and more concisely. Sorry for missing that, Noadi.
Is Some Guy… only reading the first part of the GWW excerpt and ignoring the follow up? You know, the part where she explicitly agrees that “…a slap here and there…” is okay?
Ugh, that thread. Here’s the comment GWW was replying to:
http://www.reddit.com/r/FeMRA/comments/y0nod/jto_brought_up_the_point_so_here_it_is_ferdinand/c5rd9r1
The line that looks worse in context looks even even worse in further context.
@cloudiah, @vitamin d
I believe from my very first descriptions of his actions I’ve described them as domestic violence and wrong.
I think if you go back through the thread you’ll find several commenters refusing to acknowledge her behavior is described as physical domestic violence, or that she initiated the domestic violence.
David’s description of “men slapping women around from time to time isn’t really such a big deal” elides all of this context, that the woman in GWW’s example was the initiator and perpetrator of physical domestic violence.
Now if you want to tell me that throwing things and slamming doors is not physical domestic violence all I can say is that much research and domestic violence specialists disagree with you, easily documented starting with the well known domestic violence wheel.
I wish MRAs had more causes that didn’t come down to “we want to spend lots of time outlining the exact circumstances under which it’s acceptable for us to commit violence against women.
I wish they’d talk more about, like, prostate cancer or something. I mean, I’m sure they’d say problematic shit about prostate cancer, but it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the “men’s rights means narrowing the definition of rape and abuse so we can get away with more” shit.
This is a guinea pig in a field of butterflies.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m89inpsGWl1qzis54o1_1280.jpg
David wrote (yesterday): “There’s a lot wrong with bashing anyone’s face in, except in self-defense.”
When men are the victims of female-perpetrated violence, under the prevailing paradigm it’s probably not in their better interest to be doing any self-defensive face bashing. This is because (A) the man’s self-defensive violence could easily cause more damage to the woman than he intended or than she was posing to him, (B) self-defensive violence by a man against a female perpetrator is unlikely to be perceived as justified by independent observers (including police), even if they are aware that the woman was the initiator, and (C) may lead to repeated similar encounters.
How can a man bring harmony to a relationship in which his female partner is verbally and/or physically abusing him, and preserve that relationship without descending into committing tit-for-tat abuse himself? It bothers me that too few people want to explore this question. Instead it’s always, “If she’s so bad, then why don’t you leave?” Men suffering in such relationships should be taught skills to diffuse female-initiated conflict, without terrorizing their abusive partners but also without being unfairly accused of controlling them. Preserving, healing and bringing order to a chaotic relationship is too seldom the goal of independent observers; they just want the conflict to stop even if it means separating the parties. Their interest is social harmony, whereas the couple’s interest is for their personal relationship needs to be met. Our public response to DV is drenched in blame and stigmatization, and it uses police enforcement as a panacea. We should instead start emphasizing healing the relationship more, and ending it less. Why? Because once separated, even troubled couples reuinite, only to play out the prior patterns over again. They’re seeking for their needs to be met. Fostering and emphasizing better relationship skills would put a huge dent in domestic violence, IMHO.
Suffice it to say, I find Ferdinand Bardamu’s article to be seriously ethically questionable, and emphatically so. But more to the point, I find it utterly useless to produce genuine order or harmony in relationships.
A man slapped a woman around. GWW used it as an example of ‘acceptable DV’
But he did not “slap her around” which implies some sorrt of extended beating. He slapped her once.
http://static.tumblr.com/l1veemr/4h8lys4es/im-a-kitty-cat.gif
Dancing cat!
Oh, joy, Roscoe’s here.
You know these two things don’t mesh, right? So which is it?
Seriously, so much of their discussion is based on the premise that they just really want to hit a woman, so lets figure out how to make that an acceptable outcome. (Or they want more women to drown in shipwrecks, same deal.)
That is an adorable guinea pig.
@Nobinayamu
I would say that the situation she posits, in which a woman repeatedly is initiating physical domestic violence and is then responded to by a man that slaps her at which point some reconciliation takes place until next time is substantially different from David Futrelle’s characterization of GWW as saying “men slapping women around from time to time” is okay.
Lawgirl, I thought it was amazing that GWW knew the exact circumstances of DV from merely hearing it.
But you seem to have everything down solid by hearing about hearing it.
Truly amazing powers of perception.
(She says “he hit her.” Not “he hit her once.” Also none of this ever happened and it’s a misogynist wank fantasy, but c’mon, let’s at least adhere to the constraints of the fantasy.)
fembot-yes that’s true.But it may have been the woman stomping around and slapping the man as well until he was forced to have sex with her to stop the hysterics.
Ugg doesn’t any part of you domestic abuse excusers and supporters have a freaking heart, you disgust me. You are awful people.
“There’s a lot wrong with violence except in self-defence” does not imply self-defensive violence is the right choice, just that it’s morally justifiable.
Roscoe’s point seems to be “the only ways to solve DV are to hit a woman or leave, and you can’t possibly leave so SCORE WE FOUND ANOTHER EXCUSE TO HIT A WOMAN SCOOOORE *touchdown dance*.”
So yeah.
WTF. It is totally clear from GWW’s words that this was something that happened all the time. Is it okay for him to slap her if he only does it once a day? What IS the acceptable level of violence to use against women? If this is the question you are starting from, yeah, I don’t even want to engage.
Lawgirl you were not there you don’t even know what happened so shut the fuck up. Its pretty telling you don’t even know what happened but you immediately assume it was some ploy of the woman.
Are you fucking kidding, lawgirl? Please crawl back in whatever hole you slithered out of.
You seriously have the best second-hand psychic perception of anyone I’ve ever met. Can you give me some Lotto numbers?
HEY MAYBE THE REAL TRUTH IS SHE WAS BEATING HIM CONTINOUSLY WHILE HE PAINTED HER TOES I MEAN THAT’S WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE TO ME