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.)
@howardbann1ster
I was referring to the broad aims of the site as a whole, you know, like the one plastered across the top of the main page. If you really think your tired internet sarcasm sprinkled with ALL CAPS WORDS is functionally anything but entertainment for you then you are almost as deluded as the anti-feminists you rant about. You aren’t fighting any kind of great cause against the kyriarchy in the comments section of a WordPress blog. There’s nothing wrong with a little fun, but don’t confuse it with real activism.
Howard: IA is suffering from confirmation bias. IA seems to think feminism is, at core, anti-mail, and the callous will mock men who are in pain, ergo we; because we mock misogyny, must be among the most callous. That we, by and large, engage in good faith with people, is ignored, because we are being mean to the menz.
QED we aren’t actually addressing real issues, just being emotional.
IA seems to think feminism is, at core, anti-mail..
Is this why important letters are always late? Feminism strikes again!
@ShadetheDruid
NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESSENGERS ABOT THIER DUTY
Comedy is a method of policing society. Shaming people out of bad behaviour by mocking them is a long-held tradition in every culture that I’m even vaguely aware of. Trotting out ass-headed behaviour and making fun of it is actually a fairly effective method of stopping or slowing people from adopting add-headed behaviour.
Possibly not in the ass-heads themselves, but in the people who observe and decide not to adopt that particular form of ass-headedness, lest they be shamed.
Men are constantly getting screwed in divorces and Family Court. That is why they turn to violence. They are not given any other alternative.
Um, I’m pretty sure paying child support is an alternative to violence. Or informing the court if you can’t pay. Or going to prison if the court is a corrupt feminist kangaroo court. (Which, yes, would be terrible and oppressive, but committing a murder or assault is going to get you sent to prison anyway, so… )
Even if you accept that men are oppressed by the court system (lololol), it doesn’t follow that violence is justified. Shit, it doesn’t even follow that violence helps.
A person has few palatable alternatives to violence in self defense when someone is violently attacking them.
Otherwise, people who use violence do it because they are just violent assholes looking for an excuse. Sorry, Another man with way too long a name, you are just an asshole. I’m sure you wanted more out of life. It may not be too late for you to re-think your priorities and become a human being.
Considering the many cases of women murdering their spouses in cold blood while they slept as they were taught to do by “The Burning Bed” movie over the past several years I can’t help but thing that turnabout is fair play.
Well, hello little alien poet. I guess they sent you from the future to explain that women use “The Burning Bed” as a training manual.
And what reality do you come from, DaPoet, where this is citable fact?
Now, now, it is well known that citable fact is MISANDRY.
That’s the theory behind why guys stopped dueling. It was already illegal for quite a while before it died out, but it was the mockery that finally ended it. So yes, mockery CAN reduce violence and murder if people think violence and murder is the cool thing to do. And the violence that the MRM advocates is that kind of violence.
““I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.””
Ice And Fire – Andrea Dworkin
““Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience.””
Vassar College. Assistant Dean of Students – Catherine Comin
““My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don’’t even need to shrug. I simply don’’t care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don’’t matter.””
The Woman’’s Room – Marilyn French
““All men are good for is fucking, and running over with a truck””
Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator, quoted by Richard Dinsmore, who brought a successful civil suit against the University in the amount of $600,000.
of course who can forger Valarie Solanas who created SCUM Society to Cut Up Men and attempted to murder Andy Warhol by shooting him.
Lorena Bobbett feminist icon and hero who sexually mutilated her husband.
And lets forget the millions of children murdered in their mothers womb through the means of abortion promoted by feminists.
This is the true legacy and face of those who espouse the ideology of feminism.
Name a living feminist leader who says those things.
Who is not a character in a novel.
Hey, DaPoet, why don’t you stick to writing bad poetry? Your trolling shtick sucks. PS) Just as a side note, suggesting that false rape accusations are more damaging than rape is uber classy and not the least bit like the kinda stuff one hears out of the mouth of a rape apologist, at all.
Oh, I got the rape bit from your blog. 🙂
That was a fast meltdown of daPoet.
@PrincessBonBon. It was an incredibly fast meltdown. I wonder if he used the microwave.
Aw DaPeot wasn’t getting any attention in the other thread he necroed, so he’s gotta trot out thoroughly debunked feminist “quotes” in this one.
Sad little man.
The only meltdown is your own hysteria I’d suggest a vibrator but that is only a temporary solution when what’s actually called for is a hysterectomy.
Wow, DaPoet, no MRA in the history of ever has come here and said we’re hysterical. Tell me, do you have ANYTHING original to say? Wanna lay some shitty poetry on us? Come on, bring some A game trolling, loser.
Actual footage of one man’s response to reading DaPoet’s blog:
Oh look, we have an 1880s doctah in the house!
Its ironic that those who promote the violence of abortion, the financial rape of men in family court and support women who murder their husbands in cold blood and laugh at the sexual mutilation of men then turn around and condemn men when they dare to defend themselves against feminine predators.