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, it occurs to me that this is easy to say if you aren’t someone who the MRA ire is generally directed at. It’s all well and good to say “let’s just be NICE to the bullies” if you aren’t the one being bullied. In my experience, reasoning with bullies backfires, badly. Give an inch, they’ll take the whole fucking mile and then demand that you give them your tennis shoes because you’re making them walk so much. (see also, current American Politics)
You’re making a roundabout “tone argument”. Quite frankly, I don’t feel anyone who believes murdering their ex, the attorney representing their ex, and the judge (also, possibly their kids) is a valid response to a court decision, deserves any sort of “aw you poor baby” coddling, nor are they expressing any sort of desire for reasoned conversation. People can change, but they have to WANT to change. And they have to be willing to listen. Neither of these two things is at all controlled by an outside, magical combination of correct words and correct tone. Saying it can is borderline abuser logic. It’s a nicer version of “you made me do it!” Feminists are not responsible for the terrible behavior MRAs choose to engage in.
Gametime: You didn’t spell it “C1A”, we’re all doooooomed!
OH SHI-
I think a drone got Gametime! Gametime, if you’re okay, give us a sign!
Also, anecdotiness is my new favorite word.
Don’t worry, everyone, I’m totally fine and I definitely wasn’t abducted by CIA spooks and given my release upon the condition that I feed information about the rest of you back to the government!
On a completely unrelated note, how about all that treason we’re planning, amirite? Let’s discuss that in detail.
Luckily the drone was kind enough to hit enter.
Sigh! Tone concern trolling is the lowest form of trolling.
Drew, here’s clue: we (or I) do this (primarily) for fun. To me, the MRM is a big freak show, where we all point and laugh at the idiots with ridiculous ideas. They really deserve no better. They are not so much a movement as a continuous tantrum being thrown on the internet (which sometimes spills over into the real world with tragic results). Their idea of activism is laughable: the most significant thing they’ve ever done is trying to organize a boycott of a domestic violence services for women because of an ad that hurt their widdle fee fees. I’ve never heard of any of them actually trying to do something constructive for men; it’s all about hurting women and especially feminists. These are people who think “mangina” is a fitting (and hilarious!) description for men who don’t hate and fear women as much as they. I’ll take them seriously when they raise issues that merit being taken seriously. Until then, I will continue to point and laugh.
@Gametime,
I’m not much for treason, but I’m definitely down for sedition and insurrection.
@Gametime
I can’t be a traitor because I’m not a citizen of the USA, but I could do some foreign infiltration and propaganda. Maybe some light spying, but only on Fridays and Saturdays.
Late on the thread, but:
Just as something different from the observations about the uber-wealthy Republicans and their racism, my initial reaction to this was BULLSHIT – because my family has racists who actually want refugees to drown trying to get to Australia. And I know for a fact that poor education, lack of opportunities, personal experiences and mental illness have NOTHING to do with this grotesque bigotry. So stop making fucking excuses for it.
I’ve met plenty of wealthy, not at all marginalized or traumatized racists. Same with sexists, homophobes, etc. I know it’s nice and neat and comfy for people to think that their hatred of group X is a justifiable response to personal trauma, but it’s not true.
My family and friends, too. WTF are they thinking?! I can’t understand the hate 🙁
Me neither, Magpie. 🙁
Say, do you get the Saturday Age?
Why, what’s in the Saturday Age? Is it depressing?
More like ‘confirmation of what I thought’ – the Good Weekend had an article about Tony Abbott’s university days, and what a foul, sexist, homophobic little shit he was. He even invaded the women’s room at his university with a TV crew in order to mock the very idea of a safe or separate space, and said, “It’s a men’s room now,” when someone objected. Thing is … I don’t think he’s changed in all those decades. My mum doesn’t get angry about politicians much, but her reaction was “What a vile* human being.”
*No, my mum’s not Steelebutt! 😉
Also, whoever came up with the term “asylum seeker” is evil, and cunning. It lets the racists ignore the From and concentrate on the To. grrrr
And people wonder why I don’t like Tony bloody Abbott!
A quick look at that article says he was at St John’s – that figures!
It sure made my opinion of the Rhodes Scholarship drop – I mean, someone getting in who was described as a “second-rate footballer, third-rate academic and fourth-rate politician” getting it?
I can just see Tony pukefeatures Abbot loving the MRM, if only because their grasp of logic and facts and honesty and general arglebargleargle is just like his.
Argh. Delete “getting it” from that sentence! Grammar fail. Do not try to type and eat chicken sandwiches at the same time!
are you actually too stupid to understand the difference between data and a few random examples, or are you being dishonest because you need the attention?
@Sharc: pieces of both. I mean, I laid it out as bluntly as I could, and he still weasel-worded. When the most privileged group whines loudly that their privilege is slipping, but they still get what they want out of the court system just for asking, you have to wonder why he’s so CERTAIN that they can’t possibly be making it all up.
WHY CAN’T THEY BE MAKING IT ALL UP?
Seriously. Every time we get into the details of a MRA’s court cases, EVERY STINKING TIME, we find the courts acting quite well indeed. Cutting abusers off. Awarding custody to the parent who’s been… parenting.
Drew appears to be suffering from the belief that MRAs aren’t all abusers and rapists.
Drew, I think you misunderstand the point of this blog. No one here wants to be nice or understand the problems of MRAs or sexists because is not a blog aimed at being constructive or understanding. This is about expressing our pain by mocking our enemies.
All but the most calluous feminists understand that everyone has their own pain, struggles, and injustices and that they all need to be put in the appropriate context. It can be very emotionally/mentally draining to have that kind of conversation every time that an issue presents itself and so, humanity being what it is, this is how some people cope.
@Myoo
When I worked real estate, I was surprised to find that people just gravitated to neighborhoods where they looked like everyone else. Hispanics wanted to live in majority Hispanic communities. Jews wanted to live in majority Jewish communities. Whites wanted to live in majority white communities. Steering people is illegal, but I never bothered to. They did it themselves.
Also, IA drops some serious turds there. Pretending to be arguments.
Right. Pointing out that these guys are seriously arguing for killing judges and ex-wives… that’s us “expressing our pain.” Our lack of constructive engagement is “coping.”
Or it could be us doing our best to expose a hate movement. You know. Whichever.
@diogenes the cynic
Yes, steering is illegal, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Plus, there are other factors other than steering that affect housing selection for people of color, so I am skeptical of claims that they just choose to segregate themselves.