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.)
You know, there have been several threads here at Manboobz that exceed 700 comments, and I’m pretty sure none of them involve any of the regulars advocating arson and murder. (Leaving aside the various MRM trolls who come here to complain about how they aren’t allowed to beat women, obviously.)
Saying “Come on, we only have a few dozen people suggesting murder is a reasonable response!” doesn’t exactly set a high bar.
Nobody bothers writing about all the thousands of laptops that don’t explode! Now where’s the fairness in that?!
GWW is a divorced single mother. How the universe has not imploded due to this contradiction is beyond me.
@fembot: She’s written about that. It turns out that the divorce was an important step on her journey towards understanding the horrors of ¡misandry!. One time, she was really nervous about making the case to a judge that she needed to move across the country with her children to her parents to save money. As it turned out, it was way easier than she thought, and the judge was very understanding. Ergo ¡misandry!, or something.
She…wishes her divorce was messier?
The projection is getting a little out of hand with these people. Has any major feminist site and/or individual ever come out in favor of doxxing? Not that I can recall. But Paul Elam * has, and he also created RegisterHer.
*Are we officially counting Roissy as an MRA? Because if so, that makes 2.
So murdering women and children is totally ok because of money?
I find it fucking hard to believe that all these men are being sucked dry of money to the point where they can never do anything when I know…hmmm….30+ single moms who HAVE child support cases against their exes and whose exes either pay little tiny amounts of no money at all (since like the day the kid was born). Don’t even get me started on alimony- I’ve never heard of any woman in actual real life that I know who receives alimony from her ex. I have met a woman who was forced to pay alimony to her ex husband, but that’s because he didn’t have a job when they divorced (he was leeching off her), and she is incredibly non-confrontational and he’s basically a huge bully. So…yeah.
Obviously my experience =/= all experiences, but you’d think that if men can easily get out of child support payments like this without going to jail for the better part of a decade (and I’m in CA, which is pretty fucking strict when it comes to child support laws), I would guess that they’re really blowing this stuff out of proportion.
Also, murder is bad, no matter how angry you are. Seriously. I don’t understand why they don’t seem to think that ranting about “killing bitches” (and their own kids!!!!!) doesn’t make them out to sound like murderous psychopaths who no one can really empathize with except for other murderous psychopaths.
Why not just cut out the middle stuff and murder a rich woman?
(This goes on my list of posts that prevent me from running for president.)
If they kill their kids’ mum, they still have to pay to support the kids anyway.
Also, the last woman who cut off her husband’s penis over here went to jail for manslaughter.
You have to keep in my mind that these MRAs feel victimized by their inability to lash out at those that have caused them pain. In their mind, not being able to beat, kill, or completely abandon a woman who has wronged them is oppression.
Katz, you got in hours before me, but I have to post this about instrument-playing ponies:
http://eyedealpostcards.com/images/FigHorseGreyBandwHarpK662C.jpg
Guys like someguy love to wail and gnash their teeth about moderation policies. Their whole schtick is trying to derail the conversation, and they can’t stand the thought that someone might deny them his divine right to do so. They’ll act like strict moderation is some kind of huge moral outrage, but these same people will crowd everyone else out of the conversation given half the chance (see: r/TwoX and r/feminism).
I don’t know, doesn’t that make him less likely to be Steele? After all, Steele ended up getting caught on his socking because he couldn’t resist tooting his own Butthorn.
>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!
now the guy I heard about who did not win custody, thought that his wife should not live off his money after their divorce and felt that the judge was very obviously trying to fuck him over in favour of his ex…
left the country for Australia and only payed for his children via his stepmother/her mother.
Saved a lot of money in a seperate account to which his children would gain access when they turn eighteen.
It’s funny how he did not kill his family and did not try to wiggle out of taking care of his children in some way even after he made a clear getaway.
>She…wishes her divorce was messier?
no, she was mostly shocked that the judge did not even bother to read her fairly detailed account of how she felt that she was going to lose custody over children if she displeased her ex in any way, shape or form. In spite of the man not even being a weekend dad.
apparently.
OK, now I’m even more confused. Unless she’s just making the whole backstory up.
So. The guy was not primary caregiver, and was probably a bully.
And she considers it wrong that he did not receive primary custody of their children?!
WHAT THE FUCK, LADY?! That has to be one of the stupidest things I have – well, actually, it’s not, but it’s still pretty stupid.
The thing is though that since most judges have dealt with situations like hers so often, they really tend to autopilot and not pay attention beyond “is there anything here that is a danger to the kids? no? Decision X will work unless she points something out that requires Decision Y. Also, when does my golf game start?”
While it may have been the MOST IMPORTANT HEARING EVER to her, the judge probably was on his or hers fiftieth case that was exactly the same that day.
I don’t really buy her backstory, actually, as far as the reason she became an MRA. It just doesn’t sound right that anyone would go, oh, the judge happily granted me custody rather than trying to give it to my ex who hasn’t displayed in particular interest in having it? This is terrible, I must rethink everything I had previously believed about gender relations. If you handed that in as a piece of fiction your editor would point out that it doesn’t seem believable.
Some Douche in every single thread:
1) Ignore the actual content of David’s post.
2) Demand that David write about a subject of his choosing, always something that has nothing to do with David’s stated focus of this blog.
3) Argue that any offered examples of hate speech or violent rhetoric on the part of fellow MRAs is a “blip” or mere “silliness” that is pointless to examine.
All in the effort to derail the thread. Some Douche has never been entertaining, and needs to go away now.
Demonspawn, wants OTHER men to become martyrs for the, “men’s rights” cause. Let them murder judges and spend the rest of their lives in jail while he enjoys freedom.
Don’t even get me started on alimony- I’ve never heard of any woman in actual real life that I know who receives alimony from her ex.
I’ve known one. She was a 3 decade+ housewife who had only sporadically worked part time jobs, and the alimony was clearly stated to be a short-term deal, and it was definitely re-negotiable for the ex when circumstances changed, say, for example, she acquired a deadbeat live-in boyfriend. And this wasn’t even a particularly acrimonious divorce with paranoid lawyers generating reams of crazy stipulations or anything like that. I think they even dawdled about the paperwork so she could stay on his insurance longer. I’d say it seemed like a standard divorce, if there is such a thing.
>I don’t really buy her backstory, actually, as far as the reason she became an MRA. It just doesn’t sound right that anyone would go, oh, the judge happily granted me custody rather than trying to give it to my ex who hasn’t displayed in particular interest in having it? This is terrible, I must rethink everything I had previously believed about gender relations. If you handed that in as a piece of fiction your editor would point out that it doesn’t seem believable.
no, not really. Instead you’ve got a pretty interesting character who, at an important junction of their life, found out that the world isn’t working like they imagine it does and is now trying to fix it. For their own peace of mind as much as in order to assure that they will be capable to successfully operate in it in the future.
She’s advocating for a conservative reformation, more or less. Though I do realize, that the “return to the old order”-trope has sort of fallen out of fashion around… 1900 or so. You’l find it in plenty of medieval and older literature though.
Oh goody, WTF Price has weighed in to say that wanting to kill judges and ex-wives and such is just men’s natural reaction to the “state violence” that is no-fault divorce. Got that? The ability to end one’s marriage = “violence.”
Even better: Through a remarkable sleight of hand, because custody can be granted, taken away, modified, etc. a man has no moral responsibility to care for his children.
Of course, most divorced men are not “deprived” of their children, but wev. Losing some bit of domination over a child is pretty much the same as losing the child altogether, RIGHT?
And then WTF says that how about David pay for divorced men’s children, since SOMETHING. Totally off the rails, at this point, skidding into nothingness.
Ah, but consider WTF’s fond review of Clint Eastwood talking to a chair onstage. There is literally nothing in this world that he isn’t utterly wrong about.
And a great comment by Rob:
These children must feel so loved.
@Bee: But they love their kids! Really, they do! They just… view them as pieces of property which they somehow bought from the mother? How does that actually work?
Seriously, what a repulsive concept. It sounds like abuser rhetoric: “You owe me love/obedience because I’m your parent and I paid for your food/clothes/housing/tuition.”
I knew they felt this way, but it’s still shocking to see it spelled out like this.
“property/custody rights” *shudder*