So there was a bit of ugliness over on the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day. No, scratch that; there was a giant explosion of ugliness.
A couple of days ago, you see, a Redditor with a nine-day-old account posted a story to r/menrights detailing the alleged ill-treatment he’d gotten at the hands of a vengeful ex-wife and an unsympathetic family court system. The story was filled with literally unbelievable details – among other things, he claimed to have been rendered homeless by the demands of the court, forced to pay $1000 a month in spousal support to his ex though she had a $60,000 a year job. Some commenters challenged the veracity of the tale – while the OP gave a case number in his post, no one has been able to find evidence that a case with that number actually exists. (The OP has not responded to the skeptics.)
But most of the respondents assumed the story was true. And why not? It seemed to reinforce every paranoid MRA fantasy of evil women and courts out of control. Despite its fishiness, the post got more than 700 net upvotes.
And that’s where the ugliness began. Not content to merely offer the man sympathy and advice, many commenters started talking murder, and some of the most violent comments got dozens of upvotes.
While these particular comments were deleted by the mods (you can find them in the comment histories of Volcris and graffiti81, where you’ll see they each got many more upvotes than shown above before they were deleted), other violent comments remained up, many of them receiving upvotes as well. Here are some screenshots of some of them.
Here’s PacoBedejo, with nearly two dozen net upvotes for a comment seconding the burn-them-and-kill-them suggestion.
Speaking of arson and murder, here’s ErasmusMRA offering a not-quite-endorsement of the terrorist manifesto of Thomas Ball, an MRA who burned himself to death in front of a New Hampshire courthouse in hopes that his death would inspire other men to firebomb courthouses and police stations in protest of allegedly anti-male courts.
Here’s wazooasiteverwas relating the allegedly true story of a friend who solved the problem of an unfair divorce settlement with double murder:
What a shock that the alleged double murder has given the kids a “bad impression” of their dad.
This comment from Synackaon’s directly advocating murder was downvoted and deleted. (You can still find it in his comment history.)
Yet this comment of his offering an only slightly veiled advocacy of violence remains up, and has gotten dozens of upvotes:
I didn’t get to this now-deleted comment in time to get a screenshot, though one Redditor memorialized its (alleged) content in a post on the Circlebroke subreddit:
TheIrish7 tries to avoid the charge of misogyny by not-quite-justifying gender-neutral violence:
Arx0s contends that if he were in a similar situation he would stop short of actual murder:
This strange and elusive comment from Syn_Ick seems to suggest that the Men’s Rights movement can’t succeed unless and until it becomes socially acceptable for men to physically assault women.
There are many more such comments in the thread; I don’t have have the time or the patience to screencap and post them all. You can find more collected in r/againstmensrights, or by going through the thread itself.
Now, not all of those advocating (or not-quite-advocating) violence or murder in this thread are r/mensrights regulars. But some of the worst comments come from one very active r/mensrights commenter who has advocated violence against family court judges in the past: Demonspawn. (I’ve written about his threatening remarks in the past here and here.) Here are some of his contributions to the, er, debate (Each comment is from a different part of the thread; click on the images to go to each original comment in context.)
Given that advocating violence is against the rules in r/mensrights, and that Demonspawn has been advocating violence fairly regularly for some time, you might wonder why he is still allowed to post in the subreddit. I sent a note to the Men’s Rights mods, and got this response from the top mod:
This gives you some idea of how seriously the mods or r/mensrights take the issue of violence.
The phrase “digging your own hole” comes to mind.
If you want to see what happens when people turn to violence to “solve” disputes with partners or exes, see here.
(Thanks to Cloudiah for the first screenshot and for pointing me to many of the other comments linked to here.)
Wow, that was…I cant even make a joke. That was appalling.
“She took my kids so I’ll burn the house down with her inside. That way, I’ll go to jail and the kids will either die in the fire or be homeless and parentless. Boy I sure do love my kids.”
Good catch, Dave. These men are clearly saying that this fellow should go out right now and murder his wife.
“I really can’t figure out why that judge wouldn’t give me sole custody of my kids!”
This is the mindset of people who view women and children as property.
Horror of horrors: children having a bad impression of their dad! I can’t see how anything could possibly be worse than children thinking poorly of someone who would rather destroy their lives and kill their mother than live in poverty. That would, like, be ¡misandry!
They talk like people who have never, not once in their lives, experienced honest-to-god violence. If they had, I doubt they’d be so flippant and cavalier about it.
I think their tough tough talk would crumble in the face of anything more adverse than a hangnail.
Well, at least they’re honest I guess? That bit boldly stating their belief that men are hardwired by biology to be violent…even the most extreme radfems would have a hard time topping that in terms of how profoundly negative a depiction of men it is.
@blitzgal
Yes, they apparently don’t think of their kids in any other way. It’s never “I’ll take the kids and run away to Mexico/Canada/Wherever and then they’ll be safe from her” which is shitty but could be justified in some situations. It’s always “I’ll punish her for taking MY kids and then I’ll go to jail/run away somewhere”, the kids are barely an afterthought, they’re just an excuse to hurt the wife.
LOL at Erasmus’ “don’t downvote me bro!” Gosh, anything but that after some violence advocating. Mercy.
Some men love their children so much that they stab their children & their ex to death if the ex refuses to marry them.
And some men love their children so much that they murder their ex and 7 other people, leaving their kid an orphan.
Just two examples from my neck of the woods.
Shit. did i break the page?
Whew, just my own fail.
The kids really are just an excuse/way to hurt the ex with these guys. And you know what? When they grow up, those kids will know that. Murdering their mother isn’t something most kids will forgive, or even threatening to do so.
The only time these guys seem to care about their kids is when they want to hurt their ex. That makes a hell of an impression too.
^Oops, that should say “effectively an orphan” since the murdering father isn’t dead, just in jail awaiting trial.^
I think most of these guys are just “tough guys on the internet” but it worries me because they are still promoting and validating extreme violence as punishment for a woman who DARES to leave them and continue existing.
Cloudiah, I agree, and I’d be even more worried about them if I thought that most of these keyboard warriors ever had a relationship. I don’t mean that in a “neneer, these guys can’t get laid” sense, I mean it in a they write like they really don’t know any women sense. Their violent talk reads like bad fiction.
Right now most of these guys kids’ impression of them is probably “that mean person who makes Mommy cry”. Adding murder threats isn’t going to improve that impression at all.
Yes. Murder will show the courts that you are a reasonable, responisible person who only wants the best for their kids. This is a perfectly logical course of action to take.
God, I hope the original poster is a troll, and I hope no-one there actually takes their advice.
That truck-driver story is a great example of bullshit that takes only the tiniest bit of rational thought to see through, but they don’t because they want so badly for it to be true. I’m pretty sure there’s no jurisdiction in the US in which “wad of cash handed to your ex” is an acceptable method of child support payment.
Hellkell, I hope to Ceiling Cat these men are not in relationships, never have been and never will be.
True story of a friend of mine: her husband of 10 years left her for a younger woman. She had no job and no money because he was the “old fashioned” type and wanted her at home. So, the day he tells her, he packs the kids and takes them to his grandparent’s house. She flipped out, starts imagining never seeing her kids again, all sorts of shit. Understandably, tries to kill herself. Thankfully she is found by a neighbor in time and taken to a hospital. She gets out, and he says he doesn’t want custody because of his new girlfriend, so she gets the kids. Now, she’s got no money of her own and no work experience for 10 years, so finding a job is tough. Meanwhile, he’s calling to “talk to the kids” and makes a point to tell her frequently how he’s so happy with his new girlfriend, how she’s so young and hot and (shocking, I know) wants sex more than my friend. Cause, you know, taking care of kids doesn’t zap a libido or anything. Anyway, she breaks down again after almost a year of this, ends up back in a hospital. While she’s in, he pushes for a quickie divorce and uses her suicide attempts to get custody. Then, drops the kids off at his parent’s house, who live 8 hours away from him, and shacks up with his new girlfriend. My friend is literally paying him child support, that he spends on himself not the kids, and can’t see the kids because they’re so far away and she’s living on McDonald’s wages.
Moral of the story: there are shitlords in both genders. There are shitty judges everywhere. Being screwed over isn’t the sole domain of men in divorce.
Oh, and guess what? She never once through the ordeal talked about or considered killing the judge or her ex. Hell, she still thinks her ex will “come around” in a few years and magically turn into a decent human being if she just bows to his every whim.
“Violence is always an answer”
The slogan of r/mensrights.
I’m actually surprised at how much the MR mods have just given up on policing this sub, I haven’t really read much MR since I was banned like 6 months ago and it feels like it’s really gone even further downhill